The Fall (9 page)

She’d woken up on the floor when the door slammed. At first Keisha felt like she was on a roller coaster, going so fast her feelings were a few seconds behind. For a moment it was like floating, weightless. Then it was coming, it was coming – oh, the fucking pain. The head. The ankle. He’d fucking stomped on her leg – she could see the imprint of his shoe on the unshaven skin. Her nose was pressed to the floor, beside a spaghetti hoop. It was fucking filthy, this kitchen. You would think it’d have been dirtier when Ruby was there, but Keisha had scrubbed it every day with that Dettol stuff, like her mum said. Now though – bits of fag ash, breadcrumbs, a frozen chip under the fridge. The floor felt gritty under her cheek.

She tried to see if she could get up. Pulled up one arm, one leg. Well fucking done, Keisha Collins. Have a GNVQ in sitting up. The blonde girl’s wallet was still on the table, the cards spilled out. For a minute she imagined they could go back: they’d never seen this girl or her bloody boyfriend, Chris had never knocked her out. Imagine.

Something splashed onto the soft leather of the purse – red, warm. Her nose was bleeding.

Keisha had no idea when Chris might be back. It took her five minutes to stuff things in a bag. Pants. The bit of money she’d hidden inside a pair of socks. Jumper. Picture of Ruby – no time to pull down all the ones she’d tacked up to the cupboards, so she just took one. She couldn’t find her keys, had he taken them? The last thing she did was feel in her jeans pocket for Charlotte Miller’s driving licence, the address printed bright and clear on the pink background. It was still there where Keisha had hidden it, as soon as she left the court. Why? She’d no idea. Was it worth getting knocked out for? No idea.

Keisha stood in her hallway with her pathetic little bag of stuff. Shit. Was she really going? Where to?

She heard a noise from downstairs and, heart going like a train, reached out to turn the handle. Nothing. He’d locked her in. And someone was coming up the stairs.

After her mother had arrived to stay – and on
Holby City
night – Charlotte fell into her bed, and slept for two solid days. She woke in the darkened room from time to time but, hearing a murmur of voices about buying the
Mail
and calling to check the cat was OK, let herself slip back into oblivion. It was easier than having to think what she would do next. When she had to pee she went through the room trying not to look at them, ignoring them when they said, You really ought to get up now, darling. Don’t you think you should have a nice wash? Invariably there’d be a paper lying about, and they would try to whisk it away but not before she saw Dan’s face staring out at her. The arrest had triggered an avalanche of anti-City stories.
banker butchers
, she saw on the cover of the
Mail
, before they could hide it.

She woke to a memory. When had it been? A month before That Night, maybe. Saturday morning, and Dan awake before her. That was no surprise, he often got up early on weekends, unable to stop his brain whirring with work. This time he was sitting on the bed fully dressed, staring at her.

She’d yawned. ‘You OK?’

Still he stared. ‘How much does it matter to you?’

‘What?’

‘The money. Big wedding, big house.’

‘What are you asking?’ She’d rubbed her eyes.

‘Hypothetically, I suppose, if you’d stand by me without the money. If I did something. If we lost it all somehow.’

She’d laughed. She thought it was a joke. ‘It’s not the money I care about. I suppose it’s just hard to go back, once you’re used to a certain . . . lifestyle. And I thought you wanted to get a bigger place soon?’

‘Yeah. Never mind.’

Now she wondered what he’d really been asking.

Outside she heard her mother’s voice. A thin pale light was coming in through the curtains. ‘Phil, there’s more of those people outside.’

‘Shall I chuck the water again?’

‘They started shouting about the police last time. The nerve! She’s in no fit state to give interviews, for goodness sake. It’s all over my
Telegraph
as well, this racism malarkey. Apparently there was some coloured girl in his work, and she had to leave because they called her a Paki b-i-t-c-h. I’d just never have thought it.’

‘Bad business, love.’

‘Well, between you and me, this is Charlotte all over. She’s never had the best judgement. I always thought there was something odd about him, something held back.’

Charlotte put her head under the pillow. She wasn’t going to think about any of it. She had no strength to do anything but fall back into the dark.

‘Bad business, Matthew.’ Hegarty’s boss, Detective Inspector Bill Barton, shook his head as he put down the paper. ‘Banker Butchers, indeed. You’d think they’d never heard of contempt of court.’ A career policeman who was widely rumoured to wear some kind of holding-in corset under his shirt, DI Bill Barton was pretty dull. He didn’t listen to opera or do crosswords, he didn’t have colourful nicknames for his staff or a maverick way of getting things done. He’d got where he was through playing by the rules, absorbing pressure from ‘up above’, and being nice to everyone. Everyone apart from wrongdoers that is, and there was no one he hated so much as a journalist. ‘These bally reporters, they don’t seem to realise people can walk free if they plaster this all over the headlines.’

‘Will it affect the case, sir?’

‘Never worry, lad, you did sterling work, bringing him in. Very good for our PR, they tell me. White man kills a black fellow, it’s a powder-keg. Your actions put a lid on that sharpish. Now we just have to build the case and he’ll be in the slammer where he belongs. Excellent job.’

Hegarty nodded, but somehow this wasn’t as rewarding as it should have been. What was the matter with him? He’d been hungry for this: success, promotion. ‘Sir – you know Stockbridge’s fiancée was attacked at the hearing?’

The DI sighed. ‘Another bad business. Goes to show how high feelings can run.’

‘Yeah. Thing is . . .’ He didn’t know how to explain what was on his mind. He wasn’t even sure himself what it was. Like something you’d seen in the corner of your vision and then it was gone. ‘We haven’t found that other witness yet. The other white guy. Got his picture off a phone, though.’

Bill Barton winced. ‘Phone pictures – it’s dodgy, Matthew. Be careful with that. It was easier in the old days, I’m telling you. Now where’ve you got with the investigation?’

‘Spoke to Stockbridge’s bank – they were very helpful, I must say. Didn’t even ask for a court order. Just handed it all over, his HR records, the lot.’ In fact, he’d been wondering about how helpful they’d been. A woman called Kerry Hall had sent over a packet of documents on Dan Stockbridge, his medicals, disciplinary record, appraisal notes, the lot. Interesting reading.

The boss prodded the paper again. ‘Is it true then, this story about bullying black staff?’

‘Looks like it. They’ve had to pay a few people off over the years. All that City boy stuff, sir. You know how it is.’

‘I do. But I wonder how the papers got hold of it.’

Same place Hegarty had, he shouldn’t wonder – from Haussmann’s themselves. And that was a strange thing to do to your own employee. ‘Sir, I’d like to keep looking for this other witness, if I can. I might have a lead.’

‘Hmm. Be mindful of resources, lad. We’re all watching the pennies now.’ DI Barton jabbed a finger at the paper. ‘Main thing is to get that fellow behind bars, safe and sound.’

So, odd choice. The last place she’d thought she’d end up that Monday, in fact. When she’d realised that Chris had locked her in, and obviously didn’t want her out of his sight, Keisha had panicked. Could you rattle a brain? If so, hers was going round like a coin in a washing-machine. Oh fuck. She had to get out. Thank God all the ex-council flats had to have fire escapes. It was a tight squeeze, but she’d made it out of the window in the bedroom and down the iron stairs. Then she was down on the road and running as fast as she could, trainers pounding, her little bag bouncing on her back. But where to? She couldn’t go to her mum’s; she’d never get Ruby back if they knew what Chris had done. Again. He hadn’t changed a bit, the fucker.

Desperate to go somewhere he wouldn’t know, she’d ended up in Swiss Cottage library. Her mother used to take her there sometimes for story groups, Keisha as a kid already ashamed of how her mum nodded and um-hummed her way through the lady’s stories. She wished Mercy understood you didn’t join in with things in this country.

It was hushed in the library, and she liked how it smelled of clean, of books. You could go in without ID or some twat of a bouncer up in your face. Best of all she liked how she could be about ninety-five per cent sure Chris would never find her here. Still, she crept in with her hood up, paranoid.

The lady behind the desk was really quite glam, not like a librarian. She had on glasses, but they were kind of funky, and purple knee-boots. ‘All right there?’

Keisha flushed. ‘Er – is it OK to come in? D’you have to pay?’

The woman laughed a bit – nicely. ‘Nope. You pay for it in your taxes.’

No need to say she didn’t think she paid taxes out of the brown envelopes she got at the nursing home.

Keisha stayed in the library until it was getting dark and the lights from cars on the ring road started to sweep in the long narrow windows. It was so nice there, all the books on their shelves, all the people working so quiet you knew someone would say
shhh
if a phone rang or you rustled the page. In the toilets she washed the blood off her face, carefully, like a bruised piece of fruit.

There was even a café, and she bought the cheapest thing off the grumpy girl there so she didn’t have to go outside. She wondered what her mum would say if she knew they charged four pounds fifty for a bowl of broccoli and Stilton soup.
You make it from gold, this soup?
Mercy would say, misting the glass cover with her hot breath, wanting to poke and prod the ciabattas and haggle them down.
Two pound fifty, OK?

There was a dish by the counter that said
TIPS
, with a little heart over the ‘i’. A tip for passing you a bowl of soup! Some bits of London were mad.

The day passed in a bubble. So long as she stayed there, she’d be safe. Keisha got a whole pile of books, so she looked busy. You could even go on the internet, so she put her name down for it – not her real one, she gave the name of a girl she’d been at school with, Shondra Potts, right bitch. When it was her turn she didn’t know what to look for but her fingers twitched, taking her to news websites. There were a few bits about the Johnson case. Everyone was saying about how the banker’s office was racist and they all bullied people and got stressed, so no wonder he’d done it. It was over, as far as everyone was concerned. So why did she care, what did she owe them, this white couple, when they had everything, and she had nothing, less than nothing, nowhere to live now, not even – not even her own kid.

Thinking the words
nothing, less than nothing
in her head made her want to cry, but she snuffled the tears back inside, pulling her hood up so no one could see. Eventually it was ten to six, and she realised she’d have to do something. Could she risk going back, would he have calmed down? No. This Chris was someone she didn’t know any more. He might do anything. Had done.

She sat hunched at her desk for as long as she could, pretending she didn’t see them pulling the blinds and turning off the lights. But eventually someone was standing over her. It was the librarian – Julie, her badge said. ‘You know we’re closing now.’

‘Are you?’ She pretended to be surprised. ‘I was – studying.’ The book in front of her was Jordan’s autobiography.

Julie laughed again. ‘It’s Shondra, is it? You put down Shondra for the computer.’

She hesitated. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well, whatever your name is, here’s what I think. I think you’ve nowhere to go, because whoever did that to your face is there.’

Keisha’s hand went up to her eye before she could stop it. ‘I’m all right.’

‘That’s good. How about a cup of tea, at least? Save you paying two pounds, or whatever they charge in that café.’ That was better. They were talking the same language.

Julie unlocked a little door beside the toilets and they went into the tiniest kitchen, with a smell of going-off food. ‘See the glamour behind the scenes here, Shondra. You wouldn’t believe it, would you?’

Keisha smiled nervously. She had to put her hood down to drink the weak tea, but she knew Julie had already seen her face so it didn’t really matter. ‘Ta.’ She hadn’t drunk anything since she’d managed to beg a glass of water off the café bitch.

Julie crossed her legs, sipping on the tea like she was the Queen. ‘Foul,’ she said. ‘So, Shondra, do you know what the thing is about being a librarian?’

‘Er – nah.’

‘Well, it means you’re a public servant. Like a doctor. Or the police.’

Keisha stiffened.

‘So you see,
Shondra
, we have a bit of a duty to help people when they come here. Not just to find the new Jackie Collins – but sometimes with other things.’ She sipped the horrible tea. ‘You’d be surprised who we get in. Drug addicts, battered women, homeless people . . .’

‘I’m not homeless.’ Keisha set the cup down angrily. ‘I got a home.’

‘But you can’t go there, is that right? Because of – can I?’ Gently, she touched Keisha’s forehead. Her nails were painted candy-pink. ‘That needs cleaning, you know. I can do it, I’m the first-aider. It was a good way to get a week off work.’

Keisha hated to be touched by strangers, but what could she say? She’d barely opened her mouth before Julie had whipped out the white box with the cross on it and was dabbing at the cuts with something that stung like fuck. ‘Ow!’

‘Come on, I bet you’ve had worse. Try giving birth!’

‘I have,’ she said, surprising herself. ‘I got a kid.’

Julie’s copper eyebrows went up. ‘And where’s he or she?’

‘Away,’ she said quickly. She didn’t want this woman to think she’d left her kid with someone violent. Although she had of, course, in the past, hadn’t she? Never mind that.