The Fall (20 page)

‘You think I should do that?’ And did that mean Keisha thought Dan was a twat too?

‘S’an idea. Or ask his folks – they’re loaded, right?’

Charlotte squirmed. ‘I can’t.’ Keisha gave her a look. She tried to explain. ‘They’re kind of scary, his parents. They didn’t give us anything towards the wedding – they don’t believe in making a fuss – and they won’t come to see him. They just sent my letters back, said we should get a lawyer but they couldn’t help.’

She could see the other girl wasn’t convinced. ‘I’d still hit them up if they’re good for it, tight-arses. Chris’s ones were the same, never gave us a penny for Ruby. Rather spend it on Special Brew, they would.’

It wasn’t unlike her own dad, Charlotte thought – if you replaced the Special Brew with Courvoisier.

‘There’s another thing, too.’ Keisha started fiddling with the pen. ‘If you got anything to sell, that could tide you over.’

‘You mean like furniture?’

‘Could be, but did you think about, well . . .’ Charlotte saw Keisha was staring down at her hand, and the flawless diamond that glittered there.

‘You think I should sell my
ring?
Jesus Christ, no.’

‘What? S’only jewellery, isn’t it?’

Only jewellery!
Charlotte just stared at her hand, the ring Dan had put there, the happiness of that night when he asked. She heard herself say, ‘It’s all I have left from him. What would he think if I just sold it, like some crappy old watch or something?’

Keisha got up, but Charlotte was sure she’d heard her snort in contempt.

The next day was Sunday again, and Charlotte got up early, blinking in the strange quiet light. Outside her window the street was empty, the odd car swishing past in the silence, and she had that same sad feeling remembering croissants, papers, talking in lazy half-sentences. No. None of that. She was going to prison again. She blocked out the thought of what he’d said. Of course he needed her to visit. It was ridiculous. Of course she had to go. This time she chose her most downmarket clothes, jeans cut below the knee, worn with trainers and a hoody – not the Oxford one, God no. Still she knew she wouldn’t fit in, didn’t have the right fuck-you attitude, the right shiny cheap fabrics, the hoop earrings. She stopped a quick thought that she should borrow some of Keisha’s things if she wanted to look right.

Keisha. The girl was asleep, her snores reverberating out from the spare room. Charlotte knocked on the door, thinking it was strange to do that in her own flat. Small as it was, every crevice of that place was as known to her as Dan’s body had been. Before. ‘Keisha?’

A long pause, then a snorting groan. ‘It’s early, man.’

‘Yeah, I have to go. You know, Pentonville.’ She hesitated. But one of the good things about Keisha was she didn’t get freaked out at all by the prison stuff.

Keisha opened the door, her hair sticking up like she’d touched one of those generators in science class. The room behind her was already a mess of clothes and dirty dishes. ‘You want me out for the day?’

Charlotte was ashamed; was that what she wanted? ‘Where would you go?’

‘Cinema, shops . . . wherever.’

‘No, no, don’t be daft. I’ll be back later.’

‘OK. I’ll stop round here, then.’ They stared away from each other, embarrassed.

The trip up to the prison wasn’t quite so bad this time. She knew her way, and didn’t feel so nervous wondering what the place would be like. How it would look and smell, if people would eye her over. She started watching people in the carriage – the woman in the pink tracksuit seemed to be going the same way. Charlotte stole glances at her all the way, but when they got off the woman walked in the other direction, and Charlotte set off alone to the prison, lugging with her the bag of clothes for Dan. She’d put in his nicest things, good wool jumpers, jeans faded to softness. As if she could wrap him round in love.

Queuing up, she was thinking whether it was, in fact, a good idea for Keisha to be there on her own. After all, she barely knew the girl. Was it wise to leave her there with all their good things, just because she might know something that could help Dan? Charlotte wasn’t even thinking about where she was. That was how quickly you got used to things.

The woman behind the desk, a sullen-faced prison officer in slacks, looked up into Charlotte’s face and then got out her radio, static crackling.

‘Something wrong?’ It was just like when you went to a restaurant and they couldn’t find your booking, and they looked at you like it was your fault.

The woman’s eyes shifted away. ‘Sarge’ll be with you now.’

As the queue behind her grew impatient in the heat of the close little room, the guard from last time came lumbering over, walking as if his shoes hurt him. Again she had that icecream feeling in her chest. ‘Is something wrong? Is he OK?’

The guard scratched behind his ear. ‘Sorry, miss, he don’t want a visit today.’

She stared at him. Couldn’t speak.

‘Says he won’t see you. Told him, it’s a crying shame, lovely young lady like that waiting, but no, he won’t see you.’

Charlotte was standing there in her ‘prison visit’ outfit, clutching her Mulberry bag. Behind her she heard one of the women in the queue mutter to get a bleeding move on.

The guard was embarrassed. ‘I’m ever so sorry, miss. Don’t even want a lawyer, he says.’

‘But – he won’t even see
me?
’

He shrugged. So it was really true. The stale smell of the room was all about her, sickening. She looked down at the glimmer of the ring on her finger, worth more than all the clothes on all the women waiting to get in and see their men. What did this mean, if he wouldn’t see her when she went to him?

When she got back, Keisha was up and watching TV again. Her shoes were lying in the hallway; Charlotte tidied them aside. She tried not to get annoyed about them, or the large glass of Coke Keisha had sitting un-coastered on the coffee table.

‘All right?’ Keisha didn’t look up; she was picking at her hair again.

‘Not really, no.’ Charlotte went into the kitchen and tidied some more. ‘He wouldn’t see me.’

‘Shit.’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Well, sit down, have a cuppa. I’ll make it.’

She collapsed onto the chair. ‘I mean, have you ever heard of it? Someone in prison, turning away visitors? I brought him his own clothes and all. He must be wearing the prison stuff, even though he doesn’t have to.’

Keisha was spooning sugar into a mug. ‘Happens. They don’t wanna be seen inside. You know, the shame.’

‘But he’s only on remand! By the way, I don’t take sugar.’

‘Course you don’t, skinny minnie like you. Had a bad morning though, yeah?’

Charlotte put her hands over her face and then she was crying, her nose burning with it. Keisha put the dark sweet tea in front of her, slopping a bit out. ‘Aw, it’ll be OK. Just a big shock for him, innit?’

‘Yes.’ She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘He thinks – he told me last time that he thinks he did it. I wanted to tell him what you said, so maybe he’d fight, he’d see it wasn’t him. Or, there’s a chance at least that it wasn’t.’ She mopped at the spilled tea with the piece of paper Keisha’s addition was on.

Keisha shrugged. ‘Might not believe you. Thinks he’s all guilty and stuff, don’t he? He wants to be in prison, sounds like.’

Keisha could be so astute. Charlotte just stared. ‘That’s exactly right. He does.’ She slumped even more. ‘I need to get him out. He’s going under. Do you know what I mean? He doesn’t belong there.’

‘You think other fellas do?’ Keisha bristled.

‘No – I don’t know. Christ, please, Keisha. Help us. You said you would help, when you came. So can we go to the police?’

Keisha froze with her own cup of tea in her hand.

‘Oh for God’s sake, what? Why did you come here if you won’t help me?’ After Charlotte had said it, the silence in the kitchen seemed huge, the traffic outside, a bird in the tree by the window.

Keisha stared at her feet. ‘I will help ya.’

‘I know, I’m sorry, you have helped, really you have. But you see – I’m afraid I’ll never get him back again. Not the way he was.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘But what? You’re scared about Chris, is that it?’

‘No!’ Keisha flared up. ‘You don’t get it, do you? Round my way, you don’t go to the police. They’re the ones you run away from, see? Why would they even believe me? I was there too, yeah? And I got no proof, not one fucking thing.’

Charlotte sighed, wiping her hands over her face. It was true, she had to admit. She didn’t think the police had listened to anything she said once they’d decided Dan was their suspect.

‘There must be something,’ she said. ‘You know, it’s a public place, the club. There must be something, if they would just go back and look.’

‘You mean like CCTV or what have you?’

‘Yes, but they had that already, the police. It showed Dan going out the back.’ She winced; she hated remembering all the things they’d amassed to make him look guilty.

‘Unless there’s another one,’ said Keisha absently, gulping her tea.

Charlotte furrowed her brow. ‘You know, I never thought of that.’ She was trying so hard to remember, grasping at it, like a slippery fish darting out of her hands. ‘That night,’ she said, struggling, ‘I think there was something – I can see this yellow sign in my head – you know, for when there’s CCTV. Can’t remember properly. The problem is that no one else went out the back. That’s why they sent him down, I’m sure.’ She felt hopeless. ‘But there must be something they’ve missed. Maybe we should go back there, to the club.’

Keisha was looking at her curiously. ‘You really not got any idea why Chris’d be after you? Sure you didn’t see something?’

A memory came up from the depths of her fuddled brain, bobbing to the surface as if suddenly inflated. The man pushing past her. The white man shoving her, his smell of sweat and cologne. His annoyed breath as she got in his way, and he ran – where? ‘I can’t think. I can’t remember.’

Keisha was fiddling with the bag in her tea; Charlotte had given up asking her to take them out first and put them straight in the bin. Keisha said, ‘Me mum knew the family, you know. The Johnsons – they own the place now, I guess. You know that bitch with the afro, the one who . . . yeah?’

‘Yes.’ Charlotte’s tongue crept to the hole where her tooth used to be, before the girl had knocked it out.

‘Well, she’s Anthony’s sister. And the other girl that time, she was his bit of stuff. But he was married too, got two little kids about Ruby’s age . . . What? What’d I say?’

Charlotte’s face was numb, but now it was wet again too as tears spilled out of her eyes. ‘Sorry. It’s just I somehow keep forgetting he was a person, and those poor kids.’ She wiped her face with shaky hands. ‘You really think Dan didn’t do it? Because, you know, it’s the only thing keeping me going.’

There was silence for a while. ‘I told you. I’ve no proof.’

‘I need it not to be true. And you need Chris to be gone, don’t you?’

Keisha squirmed. ‘Yeah, but—’

‘You’ll never get Ruby back if he’s about.’ The words rang out in the kitchen. Had she really said them? Charlotte’s hands shook.

The other girl’s head went up. ‘What the fuck do
you
know?’

Charlotte snapped, ‘Because, duh, he’s the reason you lost her! Remember what he did to her? Your little girl. Bloody hell, wake up!’

Keisha blinked. ‘I know that, don’t I? It’s just hard.’

‘I know it’s hard. God, I’m sorry for snapping. I’m so sorry. We just can’t go on like this. Maybe you could talk to them, the family, see if they know anything. And I can talk to the police guy again. Don’t worry, I won’t say your name. And I’ll write to Dan’s parents like I said, promise. Maybe they’ll come round. What do you say? Can we try, at least?’

Keisha gave a big burdened sigh. ‘Whatever. If you say so.’

The jeweller had a poky, dusty shop behind the flashier stores on Hatton Garden. It hurt her like a needle to come to this street, where they’d chosen wedding rings not two months before, but she needed in a way to feel that pain, to hold her head up and walk into the shop and offer her diamond for sale.

He kept a professional cool as he looked in his little eyepiece, but she saw his bushy eyebrows go up. He had the black hat and curls of a Hasidic Jew. ‘Four thousand.’

She didn’t have any idea what it was worth. She’d never before had to haggle and had no strength to start. As he made out a cheque she imagined writing a letter to Dan, that he would probably never read – how she’d sold the ring he’d given her.

Charlotte had put on her running shoes, with the vague thought she might jog back. She’d eaten so much rubbish over the past week that her wedding diet was all gone to pot. But was there any point now in foregoing Jaffa Cakes to try and be a size eight? No. Life was bad enough, she may as well eat the bloody biscuits. After the jewellery shop she tucked the cheque into her bag and tried jogging up towards Camden past Euston station. Although weeks before she’d been running 5k with ease, she had a stitch already by the time she reached the station. She stopped, feeling the weakness in her legs and chest. It must be the shock. Instead she slowed to a plodding walk for the rest of the way down Eversholt Street, towards home.

She was just walking, with a vague sense of sadness about how she used to breeze in and out of these shops, when like a blow to the stomach, there it was. The restaurant tucked away on the side street, discreetly shuttered. Inside she remembered exactly the dark Oriental interior, the elaborate cocktails they had drunk, steeped in rich booze and excitement, eyeballing Dan over the huge menus, knowing somewhere in the pit of her stomach that it was going to happen, imagining already the celebratory phone calls; her nails painted, her ring finger bare.

Now Charlotte blinked as if she saw herself dancing from the restaurant on that frosty December night, her hand glittering with the ice-hearted stone. She’d worn a red dress, a tight Hervé Léger copy from Reiss that meant she could barely eat her chocolate pudding. But in the darkened windows she saw who she was now, a pale girl with scraped-back hair, roots showing, a sloppy jumper. Because what was the point now? Of any of it?