The Fall (30 page)

Christ. Still with the daft smile, he drank one of the warm beers he’d bought in the shop next door. He tried to control his hair with wax, and he put on jeans and a clean, if crumpled, white shirt. He slapped on some of the Acqua Di Giò he’d got in duty free. Then, just as he was about to head out, already imagining he might try to hold her hand as they walked along, his mobile rang.

Charlotte was already there when he finally got out of a taxi at the pier. She had her phone out as if she’d been waiting, and God she looked amazing, her hair piled up and sparkly earrings brushing her neck.

Shit
, Hegarty thought, waving over as he paid.
Shitting hell. Why me?
‘Sorry,’ he called as he jogged over. ‘Got a phone call.’

‘OK.’ She was nervous, he could tell. She looked up and away, fiddling with a silver bangle on her arm. ‘Anything serious?’

‘Yeah.’ Crap, why now? ‘Listen – they’ve arrested Chris Dean.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘There was a bar stabbing a while back, and the victim just made an ID. I think I should try to get an earlier flight. Sorry.’

‘No, it’s . . . Does this mean they’ll interview him about Dan’s case?’

‘Maybe. I’ll try to make them, if I get back in time.’

‘Right. Thank you.’

‘Charlotte? Can I ask you something?’

She paused before she said, ‘OK.’

‘Do you really think he didn’t do it? Dan, I mean. You believe that?’

Again a pause. ‘I have to.’

Hegarty couldn’t stop himself. He reached out and pushed back a strand of the hair that fell over her face. He looked hard at her. ‘Well, then. Make sure you get a lawyer who believes it too, yeah?’

‘Wait.’ She put up a hand to stop him, it rested on his arm. He was tense as a bow and arrow. ‘You’re just leaving me?’

‘You’ll thank me for it, if I can get them to question him.’

She took her hand away, nodding as if she understood what he was doing for her. ‘Thank you.’ She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, a quick kiss, sticky with lipgloss. For a second he breathed in the perfume of her hair.

‘Safe journey,’ she said, stepping away.

‘What’s that, then?’

‘I dunno, I told you.’

‘Come on, woman. Try and guess.’

‘I dunno, ginger?’

‘Ginger!’ He burst out laughing.

‘I told you, I don’t know.’

‘But still, you mix up ginger and cumin, your curry’ll taste like cake, innit.’

‘Shut it.’ Keisha elbowed Ronald, sending up a cloud of the spice.

‘Watch it. Come on, mix it in. Oi, not that much.’

Ronald was teaching her to make curry – slowly, messily, with lots of making fun of her. The empty club kitchen, scrubbed bright and silver, was full of hot frying spices.

‘Right, you watching? This is curry paste.’

The last time it was jerk chicken. Before that, fried plantain – starting her off easy. Ronald’s first jobs had been cooking in bars and restaurants and now that he owned them he hadn’t forgotten how.

She shoved him again. ‘You don’t need curry, mate. WeightWatchers, that’s what you need.’

‘Aw, what’re you chatting about? At least I got an arse.’

Her stupid pale skin turned red. ‘I’ve an arse. Fuck off.’

‘Come on, chop up that beef.’

Yuck, meat was horrible raw, all pink and wobbly like what came out of her when she had Ruby. Ronald scooped the beef up and added it to the pan, then when it had cooked a bit he threw in a tin of coconut milk. ‘Smell that, eh?’

Keisha breathed in. ‘Not bad. Maybe I’ll make it for Char when she gets back. She’ll drop down dead if it’s not Pot Noodle.’

‘That’s your mate you live with?’

‘Yeah.’ She didn’t normally say much about herself to people she worked with, especially not now when she had so much to hide. But he was easy to talk to.

‘She’s away?’ Ronald stirred the good-smelling mixture.

‘She went to Singapore. Her dad lives out there, see.’ Ronald wasn’t really listening, he was just being kind, but she carried on. ‘Yeah, her dad moved there when she was like eight or something.’

There was no reason for her to tell him all this stuff. But she had to say something about Charlotte’s dad, or else she would say what was really on her mind – that she’d been looking for hers, too.

When Charlotte went away Keisha had started to feel weird in the flat. Like she had no right to be there. She waited for ages before going out in case the old woman or the couple from downstairs would be there and give her a look. She hadn’t forgotten it was the man who let her in the day she first came, clutching onto the purse as though it was a magic bloody key or something.

She tiptoed round the flat, listening to the noise of far traffic. Sometimes the phone rang again, on and on, but if she ever picked it up to stop it, no one was there. There were gaps in the furniture now Charlotte had sold the best things, some chair that was worth loads apparently, a painting that Ruby could’ve done better, bits of jewellery. It had helped keep the flat for those months, but Keisha had always known it wouldn’t last. Sometimes she heard Charlotte on the phone to the bank, pleading in that sad voice of hers. So, the place would be sold, and she’d be moving on. Where to?

To get away from all the quiet, the feeling that maybe someone was watching, she’d started spending lots of time at the club, where Ronald also seemed to practically live. It was easy, just hanging out with him, not having to go out on the street and worry she’d be followed. After the news that Chris had turned up at the club, she’d considered quitting the job. Making a run for it. But where to? And besides, Ronald somehow made her feel safe. You couldn’t imagine anything bad happening with him around. And anyway, there’d been no sign of Chris since. Maybe it wasn’t even him. Rachel could have been wrong.

Every day she left the flat and the first job was to check her bank balance, which was coming along nicely from her club wages. Enough to think that maybe, one day, a flat . . . Ruby . . . They could move away, and Chris wouldn’t get them, and there’d be no need to find out what Charlotte knew or tell the police about the door and – everything else. Maybe.

Sometimes she walked about as she had when Chris had first hit her. Always looking over her shoulder in case he was about. Around Camden, as far as Russell Square, sometimes. She didn’t ask herself why she went to that particular place so much. She’d sit on the benches under the trees in that little square near the fountain, wondering if anyone would think she was a student. If someone looked at her and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ she’d tell them anyone was allowed to sit on a bench, for fuck’s sake. Then when it was time for work, she’d go to the club, and Ronald would be there waiting for her. She sort of knew he’d always be there, even if they hadn’t arranged it.

As the summer ended the people changed and the square got busier, new people hanging about, students still at school by the looks of some of them, wet behind the ears. Down for ‘open day’, she overheard, whatever that was. One day Keisha was sat watching a little kid on the other side of the grass. It seemed like a million years before Ruby would be back to school and she could watch her coming out again. During the summer it was like she’d gone to the moon or something.

The student sitting next to her – a boy in clothes his mum must’ve bought – went over to the group calling his name (‘Hey, Jasper!’). He left behind a sort of booklet, colourful, nice shiny paper. Keisha picked it up, turning it over in her hands. It was a brochure of all the things going on at the university, talks, seminars, all kinds of stuff. Imagine being a student, nothing to do all day but sit and listen to people talk! She was flipping through and there it was – the name. Ian Stone.

She sat up and looked at it again.
Ian Stone
, it said.
Professor of Legal Studies. Emeritus Fellow of Civil Liberties
. There was a small picture of a man with a ponytail. An earring, for Christ’s sake. Ian Stone – her dad, probably – was someone who had long hair and wore an earring. And he was speaking on a public panel in just a few weeks. Keisha got up, stuffed the flyer away in her bag, then set off to work.

On the bus she started thinking about the brochure. There was a quote on top of the bit that said what the lecture was about. A quote from Ian Stone:
Even if you’re not a law student, we can all fight for justice. Every one of us has to stand up for it
. Then at the bottom another quote from someone famous:
For evil to triumph, all it takes is for good people to do nothing
. Keisha looked at that for a long time, as the bus pushed towards Camden through the summer streets, people outside bars, laughing, drinking. Kids on bikes. The canal all shiny in the late afternoon sun. No one trapped like her, running away from everything but still stuck. Looking over her shoulder before every step she took.

Write it down, Charlotte had said. For Ruby. To try to explain. How could she, how could she show them she’d been staying away for the kid’s own good, to keep the bad people away from her? Would Ruby understand, if she told her one day?

She thought about everything she knew. The blood. The shoes. Sometimes she thought it was all going to crush her.

When Keisha got into work, and saw the office empty, and the computer sitting unused, it seemed like everything was just coming together perfectly. She sat down and started to type as quickly as she could, making lots of mistakes. She just wrote the words straight onto the screen, what had happened, what she remembered. Everything she’d never said. And it was good, it was good for once to spill it all out, let out everything she’d been carrying round in her head like a too-full suitcase.

She was so taken up with what she was doing she forgot about cooking with Ronald. The door of the office clicked, and she looked up. Froze.

Ronald was standing in the door. ‘What you doing?’

She looked down at her fingers on the keyboard, the computer no one was supposed to use. ‘I was just—’

‘You can’t be on there. No one’s meant to be . . . Fuck.’ He was striding across the room at her, and she was fumbling with the mouse trying to save what she’d done and click out of the screen.

‘Wait, hang on! I was just—’

‘You can’t be in here, Jesus Christ, what are you . . .’ He yanked the keyboard from her hands and she was suddenly afraid, because it was just like before, in the kitchen with Chris, and then he’d—

Keisha didn’t know she’d screamed until she saw Ronald’s face. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Keesh. I wasn’t gonna – I just can’t let you see stuff.’ He looked so ashamed. ‘I swear, I’d never hurt you.’

She was breathing again. ‘I know you wouldn’t.’ And she did, she realised. He’d never knock someone out, never break a bottle, never . . . He was standing over her. Light was glinting off his dark skin. ‘I’m sorry, Ron. I was just – eh, doing a course application, s’all. I never looked at nothing, honest.’

She saw him try to calm down. ‘S’OK, s’OK. It’s just got private stuff on there. But that’s good, applying for a course, good to study.’

He was so bloody nice all the time. That was the trouble. She went to get up. ‘I’m in your seat.’

‘Wait. Keesh.’ He put out his hand and stopped her by the desk. He was half a foot taller than her. ‘You didn’t show for cooking today. I waited. I was worried, I guess.’

‘Sorry. Just busy.’

‘I missed you, you know.’ He was bending down. ‘You don’t trust me, is that it?’

‘Course I do.’ It was herself she didn’t trust.

‘Well, what’s wrong? I never meant to shout at you. I’m sorry, yeah?’

‘It’s not that.’ She opened her mouth to tell him what a liar she was, but before she could speak, his face was coming at her and his rock-hard arms were round her, and he was kissing her.

She pulled away eventually, breathless.

Ronald looked a bit shocked at what he’d done. ‘I . . . er . . . Sorry.’

She stared at her shoes, trying to stop a smile breaking out over her face. She couldn’t help it. ‘That was a surprise.’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Me too.’

She pulled herself together. ‘Better go . . . my shift’s starting.’

‘Yeah. OK.’ Still looking shell-shocked, Ronald stood back to let her go out.

When she came home after her shift, Keisha was so much on a cloud she didn’t realise for a moment that Charlotte was back. She was so taken up with remembering every second of the kiss, every breath, every move. Then she saw the passport on the table and the trail of clothes leading to Charlotte’s bedroom. New things, tags on them. Charlotte was in the room unpacking. Her face looked burned and raw.

‘You’re back?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Have a good time?’

‘Yeah.’ Charlotte didn’t look round from her suitcase.

Hmm, and fuck you very much too
. Something had happened. ‘Listen, I been doing my statement like you said. Started it anyway. I was thinking, you know, I’d give it a go.’ Keisha was walking out to the kitchen again and Charlotte followed behind. She came into the room and leaned rigidly against the doorway, shoulders hunched.

Keisha met her eyes. ‘What?’

‘I have to tell you something.’ Charlotte looked miserable.

‘Fuck. What’ve you done?’

‘Nothing – well. It’s Chris. They’re arrested him. While I was away. And I think . . . I think I saw him, before I went. At the shelter, when I was working. And I think maybe . . . he knows you’re here.’

Keisha thought for a minute she might faint.

‘I’m sorry! I didn’t know for sure, and I didn’t know if – if you’d change your mind about helping. Look!’ Charlotte grabbed the prison letter from where it was shoved in the fruit bowl. ‘Look – Dan’s ill. It’s killing him in there! I need to get him out.’

Keisha felt it in her blood, roaring through her veins, the anger back again. She had to smash something or break something or hit someone. The never-used wooden fruit bowl was right in front of her. She knocked it off the table, and it bounced off the kitchen cupboard, and rattled to a slow stop, like one of those kids’ toys, those tops that go round and round.

‘I can’t believe you did this. You saw him, and you never told me? Fuck, all this time I been here on my own, and . . . You don’t even trust me one fucking bit, after all this.’