The Fall (18 page)

Or, she assumed she was fired. Simon would never say anything so direct, not when there were words to lard around it like plastering a wall. Clear she wasn’t ready to be back, he said. Not ready for client-facing opportunities. Needed to trim some fat. Take some time for herself.

She thought it meant she was fired. Certainly it meant she wasn’t going back tomorrow, and she wasn’t getting paid.

Try to keep working
, Dan’s letter said, crumpled in her hand.
You’ll need the money
. Already she was failing him. Charlotte hugged herself, balled up against the door. She’d thought it was rock bottom before, when Dan was taken away and her tooth was lying bloody in her hand, but she hadn’t realised then just how many things she had to lose. And now they were all gone. This was worse. This was worse than the worst. What the hell was she going to do?

It was easy in the end to locate an address for one Mercy Collins in Gospel Oak, and just as easy to find out she’d died the week before. The neighbour seemed delighted to see Hegarty and wanted to tell him all about the youths in the area. ‘Eggs, they are throwing at my door! What kind of children do this?’

‘Yes, I’m very sorry, Mrs – Suntharalingam, is it? Listen, I’m trying to locate Mrs Collins. Her house appears to be shut up.’

‘She has gone, God bless her, my poor friend.’

‘Gone?’

‘Passed away.’

So the mysterious Keisha Collins wasn’t to be found in her mum’s house, either. He was sure she knew something, that stroppy girl. But where was she?

When he’d assured the neighbour he would look into the incidence of egg-related crime in the area, and she’d re-latched her door, Hegarty stood on the street tapping his pen on his notebook. So, Chris Dean would have scarpered by now, warned off by his mate Jonny. Keisha Collins wasn’t at her mum’s, she wasn’t at her old flat, and there was no record of her in any hostel in the area. He didn’t blame her if she was trying to hide.

The kid, he’d found out, was in foster care in Kilburn, and hadn’t seen either of her parents for weeks. The social worker, Sandra something, had said rather sniffily, ‘We encourage them to keep up contact, of course, but we do think it’s best for the little one if she’s removed from parental influence right now. Unless they radically change their lifestyles, it’s unlikely the parents will gain custody again.’

‘Even the mother?’

Sandra had sighed. ‘Keisha has tried, Officer. But Christopher’s influence is too strong. I’m afraid she’s quite likely to tell him where the child is, and in the circumstances, we can’t allow it. We have to protect Ruby. Unless Keisha stays in touch with us, arranges visits, there’s a good chance we’ll move the child to permanent adoption.’

So where had she gone, Keisha Collins? Her mother was dead, her child gone, her boyfriend who knew where. As Hegarty stood on the street, turning it all over in his head, his phone began to ring. When he heard that sound, it was usually something bad, someone else dead or beaten or raped. He’d have no time to follow up this case. Well, it seemed he’d come to the end of the trail anyway.

The phone rang; once, twice, three times. He answered. ‘Hegarty.’

It was getting fucking ridiculous now. She’d been outside the blonde girl’s house for at least twenty minutes, sitting on the low wall. She couldn’t ring the bell for flat three – what would she even say?
Yeah, it’s me, the girl who nicked your wallet
. She’d thought somehow Charlotte would come out of the house and she could warn the girl that Chris was after her – though she’d no idea why. Had she seen something, that dappy-looking blonde girl? What did she know?

That was the plan, anyway. But she’d been here for ages now, and people kept walking past her on the pavement with little ratty dogs on leads, or old couples in matching brown coats. Keisha ducked her head and scuffed her trainers on the cracks in the paving stones. But she could see them looking. Who’s that pikey girl, they were thinking. Maybe I’ll put in a little call to the friendly local cop-shop. A woman with a toddler on a scooter nearly swivelled her neck right round to look at Keisha, and that was it, she was getting up to go, when the big front door of the house opened and a man came out. He was like someone in a catalogue with his stripy scarf, glasses, baby strapped to his chest.

‘Can I help you?’ He was polite, but she heard it in his voice:
You don’t belong here
.

‘Eh, does Charlotte live here? Charlotte Miller?’

‘Are you a friend of hers?’

Keisha thrust up the wallet with the dog on it. ‘Her purse – she lost it. I found her name in it.’

He smiled uncertainly. ‘That’s kind of you. I’ll get her.’ He buzzed the little button she’d been staring at for hours. ‘Charlotte?’

Keisha heard a wavering voice on the intercom. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Mike from downstairs. There’s a lady here says she has your purse. Did you lose it or something?’

‘Yeah, I did. Thank God.’ The door buzzed and the man stood back to let Keisha into the solid old building, pizza flyers scattered in the hallway. It was that easy. Keisha hoisted up her bags and touched the baby’s covered foot just for a second – he kicked his legs just like Ruby had when she was little. ‘Thanks,’ she said quietly.

Charlotte was on the second floor up the carpeted staircase, and she had the door open. ‘Oh you found it, how amazing.’

She was so bloody trusting, this girl. Even after her lip had been bust and her eye blacked, for fuck’s sake, her tooth had been knocked out falling on a sink, she was still opening the door to any old stranger. Keisha mounted the stairs and the daylight fell on her and she saw Charlotte frown, recognising her from somewhere.

In a second she would slam the door shut. Keisha held the purse out. Her voice had gone. She coughed. ‘I can help. Please. I can help you. I can help him – your fella. I can help Dan.’

Afterwards, Charlotte was never really sure what had happened to mean Keisha was suddenly staying at her flat. It seemed as if a sort of fog filled those first days, and during that time she did things and said things she would later have no real memory of, as if the coke she had taken was still silting up her brain. All she could recall was Keisha coming to the door, and her thinking for a split second something she would always be ashamed of:
Is she selling something, is she begging?
And then Keisha’s mad story about being at the club – she was the black girl who didn’t look black, of course, the angry one – and how she’d been with her boyfriend, and how he’d gone home without her, and his clothes were in a bag, and she was sure – she could swear to God – there’d been blood on the rug. Then Keisha would burst out with, ‘The bastard! I’ll fucking kill him!’ and bang on the table, and it turned out her daughter had been taken away and it was something to do with this Chris, who was after Charlotte too.

‘I mean, what would he want with you?’ Keisha kept saying. ‘You must of seen something. Why’d he care about you otherwise?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve no idea. Are you saying – you’re saying you think Dan didn’t do it?’ Charlotte tried to swallow all this information in a dull cold lump, like ice cream sliding down her throat.

‘You said it yourself, yeah? There was no blood on your fella. He’d blood all over himself, I’d swear on the Bible – Chris, I mean.’ She seemed reluctant to say her boyfriend’s name.

Charlotte stood up. Her head swam. ‘He didn’t do it. I knew he didn’t do it – oh, Christ.’ And she’d fainted on the Axminster rug that had been a present from Dan’s parents, hitting her head on the table as she fell.

Keisha had woken her by throwing a glass of water in her face. ‘Sorry. You gave me a scare.’

Charlotte woke up hearing music. Not music she would ever play, but something loud and tinny with radio fuzz. She padded into the kitchen in her T-shirt, the carpet warm under her bare feet. Morning light came in the window with the sound of traffic.

The girl was sitting with her bare feet up on the coffee-table. She had
Friends
on as well as the radio, and Charlotte went over and turned the music off.

‘All right?’ said the girl warily. ‘Still alive, then?’

‘Yeah – oh.’ Charlotte remembered hitting her head and put up her hand; there was dried blood on her forehead.

‘Went down like a ton of bricks, you did. Thought you might have that, what’s the name, concussion. Someone had to stay with you.’ She was defensive. Her things were strewn round the room, huge clumpy shoes by the door, sleeping bag unrolled, catching the light on its silky surface. On the kitchen table was a cereal bowl swimming in milk, a few Bran Flakes floating in it. Charlotte started tidying it away automatically, and the girl rose to her feet.

Charlotte said, ‘Look – Keisha, right? Sorry, I’m a bit hazy. You said last night you knew something, that you could help Dan?’

Keisha nodded, keeping her eyes on Charlotte. ‘Yep. Then you went down, arse over tits. Hit your head off that there.’ She gestured to the table.

No wonder she felt woozy. Charlotte pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘You said that your boyfriend – ex-boyfriend – was there that night, at the club? He was the other man?’

She didn’t want to say it, but then Keisha said, ‘Yeah, the other white guy.’ Then Charlotte felt stupid because what was wrong with saying it? It was the most obvious thing.

‘I saw him, I think. In the club that night . . . I can’t remember. He ran off?’ She’d seen Keisha too, but didn’t mention their run-in in the toilets.

‘That’s right, buggered off. Bastard. Then I get home and he’s in bed, and I’m thinking,
This is well off. And
he takes his clothes down the laundrette next day – as if he ever washed his clothes in his fucking life!’

‘Right . . .’ Jesus, they went to
laundrettes
. ‘And the shoes, what were you saying about them?’

‘Stains on ’em, all over. All red, the soles was. Said he stepped on a kebab! Ha!’ Keisha made a cynical noise and Charlotte winced.

She looked over by the phone, where that policeman had left his sticky footprint. ‘I suppose it doesn’t prove he did it, even if he was there.’

‘Get this though. Why’s he after you? Why’d he set those girls on you?’

‘The ones who hit me?’ Charlotte put her fingers to her mouth. ‘It was planned?’

Keisha seemed to think she was thick. ‘Course it was. That was Anthony Johnson’s sister, one of ’em – she’s a right stroppy cow. He wanted your purse, so’s he could find out where you lived.’

‘But – he must have got it! I don’t understand. What happened to the purse?’ Her head was spinning.

‘I got it, didn’t I? Hid it off him. He got in a right mood, that’s why he did this.’ Keisha showed off her own black eye, less obvious than on Charlotte’s milky skin but still brutal. ‘And then I see Jonny yesterday, down near me mum’s, and he says Chris is looking for you, knows you live round here.’

‘Christ. I had some graffiti on my step the other day, these kids – and I could have sworn someone followed me yesterday.’ Charlotte felt cold and sweaty down her back.

Keisha nodded grimly. ‘That’s how it is. Word gets round, for a racial thing.’

‘And you came to tell me. But you don’t even know me. Why?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Not fair on you, is it, even if your fella did knock off that dude. Bet no one ever lifted a hand to you in your life, eh? And if he thinks he’s going after Ruby – well, he can go fuck himself. I’ve had enough.’

‘So, you just left like that? You left him?’ Charlotte didn’t know if she could trust this girl who came so out of the blue, and stood across the living room in the morning sun.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘I’m sorry, no, no – Keisha, it’s not that. It’s just – it’s such a shock, you turning up. And I think, well, you don’t know me at all. Why would you help me?’

Keisha seemed to think about it for a long time, then she bit her lip and looked at her feet. ‘Me mum – she had a heart attack, after he went round her house.’

‘God, and is she—’

‘No. I fucking buried her the other day, OK?’ She stared even harder at the ground.

‘I’m so sorry. Christ. And the little girl?’

‘She’s OK. Never mind that,’ Keisha said hurriedly. ‘Look, I can go. Just thought you should know. Keep your eyes peeled for him. Never know what he might do, and that psycho Jonny. Bastards.’

‘No! You don’t have to go. I’m sorry, it’s just been a difficult time.’

‘You’re fucking telling me,’ said Keisha grimly. ‘Seriously, I won’t hang about if you want me outta your hair.’ She started picking things up, her phone, one large shoe.

Charlotte sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve messed it all up. And you came all the way here. Listen, would you like some tea?’

Keisha stared her out, holding one shoe in her hand. ‘Three sugars, then. Please.’

Later, after many, many cups of tea, and many, many retellings of the story of That Night and the week after, purple shadows were creeping in the windows. Keisha stirred. ‘Gettin’ late.’

For a moment neither of them spoke.

‘So I best . . .’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be bloody sorry,’ said Keisha. ‘I was gonna say, I’ll go now.’

Charlotte turned her face away, tidying up the crumbs from her last packet of Jaffa Cakes, now destroyed. ‘Where will you go? Didn’t you say you had to leave your mum’s house?’

‘Yeah. S’OK.’

‘Ah, look. You’re not going back to that hostel.’ Did she even have the money? Charlotte thought not. She wondered how to say it, how to talk to this girl who was so different to her, so proud, so defensive. ‘Dan said I should get someone to move in,’ she said, opening the swingbin. ‘And to be honest, I’m getting bloody scared at night now, since the paint, and . . . all that.’

‘Yeah?’ Keisha was fiddling with her bag.

Charlotte came out and said it. ‘You should stay a while. Please. I’m not good by myself – I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, hardly.’

‘Yeah, well, you can afford it, skinny thing like you.’ Keisha made motions to get up.

‘Oh, I can’t say it right. Listen, I know it must have been hard to come here, when he’s your boyfriend and all, and I’m just some – random girl from a club. But you did it, because it was the right thing to do – yes?’ She tried to think how to say it. ‘If you would stay for a few days, maybe we could write all this down. Go back to the police.’