The Date: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist (17 page)

Silently, I lead the way into the lounge and sit, gesturing for the police officers to do the same. The part of me that remembers my manners wonders if I should offer them a drink, but I don’t think my trembling legs can carry me into the kitchen. Sweat is already prickling under
my arms and I don’t yet know what it is they want.

‘You’ve had some trouble?’ I am asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘Your door? Graffiti?’

‘Oh that. A hazard of living on the same street as a pub, I’m afraid.’ I try, and fail, to keep my voice bright and breezy. ‘Is that what you’re here for?’ I allow myself one indulgent moment of hope.

‘No.’ I think how apt PC Hunter’s name
is, as he stares unflinching at me as though I am his prey. Again, I am transfixed by his pointed canines. Uncomfortable, my eyes shift to the female officer. She smiles as she bends to stroke Branwell, her ponytail falling over her shoulder. I angle my body towards hers, as though she can soften the news they have come to tell me.

‘Oh God. Is Ben okay?’ The thought something might have
happened to him strikes me with such force I cross my arms over my contracting stomach.

‘We’re here about Christine Young.’

‘Chrissy?’ The pause is filled by the tick-tick-tick of the radiator behind the sofa and I wished I’d turned the heating down. It’s stifling in here.

‘She’s been reported missing.’

‘She’s not missing, she’s…’
Not here
, I finished the sentence in
my head but even to me it sounds ridiculous. I start again. ‘She had a week off work last week and went away for a few days. She texted Ben to let him know.’

‘And Ben is?’

‘My brother. Who’s reported her missing?’ My tone is more defensive than I intend. I should have been more concerned when she said she needed space.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’ Again, a beat. My
eyes dart wildly around the room, as if willing Chrissy to appear might be enough.

‘We’d like to ask you a few questions and then we’ll conduct a search of the house.’

‘My house?’

‘This is Christine’s property, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ I take in the angels on the bookcase, wings spread ‘they bring good luck’ Chrissy had said. ‘Of course, it’s fine for you to search.’ It’s
not like I have anything to hide. Not here anyway. ‘Do you think?…’ I try to stop the question before it tumbles from my lips. ‘Do you think she’s okay?’

‘Christine is classed as a vulnerable person.’ PC Willis’s tone is soft as she tells me this, as though I, too, need special care.

‘
Vulnerable
?’ I can’t help repeating but the Chrissy in the kitchen singing along to the 80s music
she loves, zombie dancing to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, seems anything but vulnerable.

‘Are you aware Christine is on medication?’ PC Hunter’s pen scratches against his notebook. ‘Antidepressants.’

‘No.’ Two high spots burn on my cheeks. Depression. How can I not have known that about her?
In case you can’t live with what you’ve done.
Could it have been Chrissy who had sent the
box of pills to me?

‘So you’ve no idea if she has taken her medication with her?’

‘I’ve never seen any antidepressants. Sorry.’ It’s not a conscious decision to lie but self-preservation has taken over, emptying my mind of everything except the desire to rewrite the past few days. Inside, I’m spinning, looping round and round the helter-skelter. Reality blurring and shifting with
every spiral. How can I admit now about the notes, the gloves, the blood on my car? I need time to think.

‘Can you tell me when you last saw Chrissy?’ The questions machine gun at me. I stretch the neck of my jumper; it feels as though it’s choking me.

‘We went out. The Saturday before last. To a bar. Prism.’ I eye the mugs of cold coffee resting on the table. My mouth is sawdust-dry.
I’m still reeling from the fact Chrissy has depression. I wish she’d talked to me. I’ve felt that blackness. That sense of feeling lost and alone. The struggle to get out of bed. To put one grief-heavy foot in front of the other. If I hadn’t had Ben to take care of, I don’t know what I’d have done.

‘Can you confirm the address of the bar?’

I tell him, the images from the CCTV flashing
through my mind. Me pushing Chrissy.

‘Did anything happen that night I should know about?’ I sense his eyes burning into me as I try to stifle the nervous laugh bubbling inside. There’s plenty that happened that night that I should know about, but I can’t tell him that. I need to get it straight in my head. I relay what I remember, the getting ready, the laughing, the dancing.

‘I
didn’t come home with her,’ I say.

‘Did you have a falling out?’

‘No!’ I almost shout my answer. There is something about being questioned by someone in authority that makes guilt crawl through my hair, burrow into my scalp like mites, even if I haven’t done anything wrong. Mrs Turner, my old headmistress: ‘you can’t go around thumping people’. Rage, hot and angry, in my balled-up
fists. Chanting kids. ‘Your dad’s a murderer.’

Like father like daughter.

‘And you haven’t spoken to her since that night?’

‘No, but she’s been in contact with Ben and with Jules.’

‘But not with you?’

‘I lost my phone.’ I dive on the truth as though it is a life raft keeping me afloat.
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea.
That scratching of the pen. Itching
of my skin. The mat for the helter-skelter prickly and abrasive against my bare legs. The questions are endless. I keep my answers sketchy and vague. All the time trying to piece together snippets of memories that hover just beyond reach. I’m worried, and it shames me to admit I’m not only worried about Chrissy, I’m worried about myself.
Perhaps the police will be coming for you, Ali.

‘Is it out of character for her to go away without leaving an address?’

‘She’s gone off before, usually with some boyfriend or other.’

‘Did she have a lot of boyfriends?’ There’s judgement in his tone.

‘No. I didn’t mean that.’ Everything I am saying is coming out wrong.

‘It’s okay.’ PC Willis’s voice is gentle. ‘We’re just worried. You must be too.’

‘I didn’t
think. I didn’t realise… She posted on Facebook. She must be okay.’ I press the heels of my hands hard against my eyes to stem the tears that threaten. I’d been so wrapped up in myself.

‘Tell me a little about… Chrissy, she prefers being called? Have you known her long?’

PC Hunter falls silent as I answer PC Willis’s softer questions. No; I haven’t known Chrissy long. Yes; she’d
offered me her spare room when I separated from Matt. No; I hadn’t met her family. Her parents were both dead. I don’t share with PC Willis that I think that is part of the reason we grew so close, so quickly. We’ve both experienced loss. Loneliness.

‘Does Chrissy have a boyfriend at the moment?’

‘She dates but there’s nobody serious. She’s been out a lot lately, so I think there’s
someone new, but I don’t know who. She told Ben she’s with a guy. She’s been quite commitment phobic since her divorce. Says she’ll only bring someone home if they’re “the one”.’

‘How about her other friends?’

‘There’s Jules next door.’ I think of her pained expression whenever I include Chrissy in our plans. ‘They work together and the three of us socialise. I’ve known Jules for
years. There’s other girls that work in the shop. The gym. She takes two Zumba classes a week.’ I rack my brains but most of the time we stay in, sharing pizza, watching movies and when she goes out I don’t always ask her where she’s been, and she doesn’t always tell me.

It’s shameful, when you strip it back, how little I know about her although I call her one of my best friends. But then
I’m finding out I don’t know myself as well as I thought either. Tasting my answers on my tongue before I release them. Gauging whether they sound honest and plausible. Gauging whether
I
sound honest and plausible. PC Hunter asks me whether there’s anything else I should tell him before they start the search and, again, I wish I could read faces. I’m silent as I weigh up my options. I could tell
them everything: my blind date, my head injury, the doctors would verify my staying in hospital. They’d question why I hadn’t reported it before, and I’d have to explain about my dad, my last experience with the police and the whole sorry tale would come tumbling out. It would be a relief, almost, to share the notes, the veiled threats. The fact I think I’m being followed. But I can’t share some
parts without the other. The blood on my car, the accusations.
Dark things happen on dark nights
. It crosses my mind that I’ve hurt Chrissy, but I dismiss that thought before it is properly formed. Besides, she texted Ben and Jules. Posted on Facebook. She’s fine. She is. She has to be.

‘Ali?’ PC Willis prompts and I see her exchange a look with PC Hunter.

‘Sorry, I can’t be of more
help. What happens now?’

‘We’ll conduct a search in a minute. Depending on what we do or don’t find, other officers will be checking the places she normally frequents. Talking to anyone who knows her. Looking into her background and the people who know her.’

‘But you can check her phone records? Her bank? She must have been spending money?’

‘That’s not one of the first lines
we look into,’ PC Hunter says. ‘Only on the TV do we snap our fingers and have unlimited budgets to turn over every stone. It’s early days and although we’re concerned about Chrissy’s mental health we’ll take this one step at a time.’

They stand simultaneously, marionettes threaded to an operating cross, Branwell dancing around their ankles.

‘Could you shut the dog in the garden
so he doesn’t get in the way.’ PC Hunter doesn’t look at me. It isn’t a question.

‘I’ll pop him next door,’ I mutter.

Minutes later, when I return, after thrusting Branwell towards a bewildered James, the search has begun upstairs and it is like something out of a film, or out of a nightmare. The blue rubber gloves have been snapped on and it seems to be far more formal than the
cursory look around I’d envisaged. They are looking under beds, in cupboards, the places where monsters hide, although I know monsters don’t always lurk in the shadows. I perch on the sofa, feeling awkward and uncomfortable in my own home. My stomach’s on a spin cycle. Where is Chrissy? I cover my face with my hands and try really hard to revisit that night. To remember the last time I saw her. Instead
of the laughing and the dancing I see my hands on her shoulders pushing her away. Hear my own voice rising in pitch. Feel distress slide through my veins. Dark holes nestle where my memories should be. The space where the truth should sit gaping wide and empty. I text Ben.

Ben is right. Dad has nothing to do with Chrissy, and I know if I tell the police I’m from a criminal family, they’ll look at me differently. Treat
me differently. It’s happened so many times before. Smiles tighten, spines stiffen and I’ll be instantly condemned.

Like father, like daughter.

But he wasn’t all bad; he had just made one single, awful, choice. Have I done the same?

‘Mrs Taylor?’

My name jerks me back to the present, and as I rise and head towards the voice I speculate whether or not it’s a good thing
I am no longer being addressed as Ali.

I know.

As soon as I step into the kitchen, I know.

Before I have seen the box on the worktop. Before I have caught sight of the cream gloves stained scarlet with blood, inside.

‘Can you explain these?’

I can’t. I can’t explain. The click of Dad’s camera as I thudded to the bottom of the helter-skelter. The click of the
handcuffs around his wrists.

‘They’re mine,’ I say slowly. I can hardly pretend they aren’t.

You’ve got blood on your hands
.

PC Willis lifts the gloves.

I am floating, floating, floating high up to the ceiling.

PC Hunter’s eyes drill into me as PC Willis drops the gloves into a clear plastic bag, and I know they are taking them away.

Are they taking me
as well?

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Jules still has her coat and shoes on. She’d arrived home from work just as PCs Hunter and Willis were leaving. They had promised to be in touch shortly which sounded more like a threat than a reassurance, though I can’t blame them. My harried explanation
about the bloody gloves being part of a Halloween costume sounded heavy and awkward as it hung in the air, as I was desperately trying to convince myself it was true. Perhaps the blood is fake. If it’s not, though, I know it won’t take them long to find out and they’ll be back.

Tick, Tock, Ali
.

Jules had hovered on her step, under the pretence of rummaging around for her keys. When
they’d left our eyeline she’d asked if I was okay. I’d burst into tears and, even now, half an hour later, sitting on her sofa, I can’t seem to pull myself together as I hiccup out everything that has been happening. Branwell lies at my feet, head between his paws, ears down, gazing up at me with such pure love it sets me off again.

‘What if I go to prison? Who would look after Branwell?’
I’m gabbling now. Mind depicting the worst possible scenarios it can conjure. ‘She’s catastrophising’ the school support officer would say, after Mum reported another incident where I’d found my homework stuffed down the toilet, my ham sandwich covered in mud, ‘murderer’ etched into my desk, as though I was imagining it all. As though the school didn’t have a responsibility to keep me safe. It
was a relief to move away. Start again. But however far I run I can’t escape myself.

‘I would look after him.’ James tries to pass me my coffee but takes one look at my shaking hands and sets it down on the table instead. ‘You know I think the world of him. And you.’

‘James!’ Jules snaps. ‘Don’t be a dick. It won’t come to that. Ali hasn’t done anything wrong.’

‘I know that
but…’

I let their voices fade as I tap away on my phone, before a thundering fills my ears and I rock back and forth wanting it all to stop.

‘Breathe.’ Two hands on my shoulders forcing me still. Eyes meeting mine. ‘In and out. Slowly.’ Gradually my lungs stop fighting for air and I’m aware of the whimpering I had been making. ‘It says,’ my heart is hammering painfully in my chest,
‘you can be convicted of murder without a body. If there’s enough circumstantial evidence.’

‘Who says?’

‘Wikipedia.’ I’m scrolling again.

Jules gently slips my phone out of my clammy hands. ‘
Wikipedia
is bollocks, and what’s all this talk of murder? No one is accusing you of anything, although someone clearly has it in for you. We just need to figure out who.’

‘It’s
my date. It has to be. The gloves. The blood on my car. The antidepressants. The Facebook post. I’m being set up. He must have done something to Chrissy and he’s framing me.’ It seems glaringly obvious, now, that everything that has happened this past week has all been building to this. I just couldn’t see it before.

‘It might not be. There’s no evidence,’ James says.

‘You don’t
need evidence. People have been convicted for less. Weren’t you listening?’ Hysteria has crept into my voice. ‘Oh God. Chrissy. What’s happened to her?’

‘Nothing that we know of.’ Jules is slipping off her coat off, settling next to me and stroking my arm as though I am a frightened animal that needs soothing, and, I suppose, in a way, I am.

‘But she didn’t show up at work?’ I already
know the answer.

‘No. Nobody called the police though. That’s a bit extreme for one day off. We all take the odd duvet day. Who do you think reported her missing?’

I open my mouth, but clamp it shut again when Jules says: ‘Please don’t blame that on your date too.’

‘I’ve got to tell the police everything. Let them look at the CCTV from Prism and put out a photofit for Ewan.’

‘Won’t that look more suspicious? You should think about this properly. They’ll wonder why you haven’t reported it before and you’ve just said you haven’t got the note from the gloves, or the flowers, and you left your shoes in the park. What if they think you’re making everything up? It doesn’t make you sound very credible, does it?’

And I have to admit it doesn’t.

‘I don’t think I can wait until next Friday.’ I pace the lounge as I talk. My ankle still twinges but it’s healing.

Eight strides from the sofa to the TV.

‘It’s only three days since we first tried hypnosis, Ali,’ Mr Henderson says. ‘Do you feel ready? You were quite distressed after Friday’s session?’

A hiss of vanilla from the air freshener.

‘I have to—’ A lump in
my throat traps the rest of my words.

Twelve paces from the window to the far wall.

‘Has something happened, Ali? You know you can talk to me. I’m here for you.’

‘The friend I went out with that night is missing. The police are looking for her. I
have
to remember anything that might help them. I’m worried sick about her.’ And about myself, although I don’t say this; it sounds
horribly self-indulgent to be thinking of myself when Chrissy is God knows where.

The doorbell chimes, and I edge out into the hallway, phone clasped to my chest.

Six steps to reach the front door.

‘It’s me.’ Matt’s voice floats through the letterbox.

‘I’ve got to go, Mr Henderson. Matt’s here.’ I cradle the handset between my chin and cheek as I open the door.

‘Are you getting back together?’ It’s an innocuous question but there’s hope in every word. ‘I feel I’ve lost a friend without you next door.’

‘He’s here to walk Branwell.’ I mouth ‘Mr Henderson’ to Matt. ‘Bye.’ I end the call.

Without small talk, I pass Matt Branwell’s lead.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Why is everyone asking me that today?’ I snap.

‘Whoa.’ He holds
up his hands. ‘You look pale is all. I care.’

‘Do you?’ But without waiting for an answer I tell him to enjoy his walk and stalk into the lounge. I slam the door behind me, and the photos of Mum I have propped on the bookcase flutter to the ground, and as I pick them up I think I see something in her eyes.

Worry? Accusation?

When Matt comes back I don’t invite him in.

Somehow, I have gone through the motions of cooking a meal, then moving food I cannot taste around my plate, and now I am getting ready for bed as though this is just another ordinary day. I hang my shirt on a hanger and think of all the small things we take for granted. Being able to choose what we wear each day, what we eat, who we spend our time with and I think how impossibly hard
it must have been for Dad to have his identity stripped away, along with his freedom and his family.

I perch on my dressing table stool, my navy scarf with swallows dipping and diving drapes the mirror. I unscrew the lid from my face cream and hover the pot under my nose, breathing in deeply. Roses. In a split second I am transported. Cross-legged on the bed in my parents’ room, watching
Mum tug cotton wool from a roll and ball it between her palms.

‘Always make time to look after your skin.’ She’d blobbed cream onto the tip of my nose and I had squealed at its coldness.

I’d rubbed it into my cheeks, sniffing my fingertips when I’d finished. ‘It smells of flowers.’

‘Roses,’ Mum had said. ‘My mum used the same brand and promised me if I used it twice a day
my skin would be petal soft. Yours too.’

‘Will this make me as beautiful as you, Mum?’

‘You already are, sweet girl. Inside and out; although I’ll let you into a secret – it’s the inside that really counts.’ She’d picked up her brush that was oyster white and shimmered in the light and ran it through my hair, slowly, methodically, while I counted to one hundred.

Towards the
end, Mum was almost unrecognisable from the woman she once was; stress and illness had aged her terribly. Her body weak, muscles wasted, but she was still beautiful to me as I would be to her now, even if I can no longer see it myself. But what if the inside is dirty and tarnished? What if a person has done something so terrible, so unforgivable, only ugliness remains. What then?

Tick,
tock, Ali
.

Time is running out.