24
WHEN THE KNOCK comes again I nearly don’t answer. I’m lying with my eyes shut listening to Radio 4 on the hospital headphones trying to block out the noise and bustle of the ward next door, imagine myself back home.
The nurses don’t knock – at least they do, but with a perfunctory tap and then they come in anyway. Only Lamarr knocks and waits for an answer. And I cannot face Lamarr, with her kind, calm, curiously dogged questions. I don’t remember. I don’t remember, all right? I’m not hiding anything, I just Don’t. Fucking. Remember.
I screw my eyes shut, listening over the sound of The Archers to see if she’s going away, and then I hear the door shush cautiously open, as if someone is putting a head round.
‘Lee?’ I hear, very quietly. ‘I mean, sorry, Nora?’
I sit bolt upright. It’s Nina.
‘Nina!’ I rip off the headphones and try to swing my legs out of bed, but whether it’s my head, or just low blood pressure, the room goes suddenly hollow and distant and I am overcome with a wave of vertigo.
‘Hey!’ Her voice is distant, through the hissing in my ears. ‘Hey, take it easy. They’ve only just sewn your brains back in, by all accounts.’
‘I’m all right,’ I say, though I’m not sure if I’m trying to reassure myself, or her. ‘I’m all right. I’m OK.’
And then I am OK. The wave of faintness has passed and I can hug Nina, breathing in her particular scent: Jean Paul Gaultier, and cigarettes.
‘Oh Jesus, I’m so glad to see you.’
‘I’m glad to see you.’ She pulls back, looking at me with critical, worried eyes. ‘I have to say, when they told us you’d been in a car accident I … well. Seeing one school friend bleed out was enough.’
I flinch and she drops her eyes.
‘Shit, sorry. I— it’s not that I—’
‘I know.’ It’s not that Nina doesn’t feel stuff. She just deals with it differently to most people. Sarcasm is her defence against life.
‘Let’s just say, I’m glad you’re here.’ She takes my hand and kisses the back of it, and I’m astonished and kind of touched to see her face is crumpled and soft. ‘Although, not looking your best, I have to say.’ She gives a shaky laugh. ‘Sheesh, I need a fag. Think they’d notice if I had one out the window?’
‘Nina, what the hell happened?’ I ask, still holding onto her hand. ‘The police are here – they’re asking all these questions. James is dead, did you know?’
‘Yes, I knew,’ Nina says quietly. ‘They came to the house early on Sunday. They didn’t tell us straight away but … Well, let’s just say you don’t expend that kind of man-power on a non-fatal shooting. It was pretty obvious after they started printing us and taking gunshot residue tests.’
‘What happened? How could that gun possibly be loaded?’
‘As I see it,’ her voice is grimly steady, ‘there’s two possibilities. One,’ she holds up her forefinger, ‘Flo’s aunt did not in fact keep that gun loaded with blanks. But from their line of questioning, I don’t think they think that’s likely.’
‘And two?’
‘Someone loaded it.’
It’s only what I’ve been thinking. But it’s still a shock, hearing it out loud in the small hermit cell of the hospital room. We both sit there in silence, contemplating this for a long while, thinking about Tom larking around with it the night before, thinking about all the hows and whys and what-ifs.
‘How’s Jess taking it all?’ I ask at last, more to change the subject than anything else. Nina makes a wry face.
‘As you can imagine, she was her usual measured self. Only forty-five minutes of hysteria down the phone. First she was furious they were keeping me up here to make a statement, and then she wanted to come up, but I told her not to.’
‘Why not?’
Nina gives me a look that’s simultaneously sympathetic and disbelieving. ‘Dude, are you kidding me? For whatever fucked-up reason, they think James was murdered. Would you want your nearest and dearest mixed up in that? No. Jess is not part of this, thank Christ, and it’s staying that way. I want her far, far away.’
‘Fair point.’ I scoot back onto the bed and sit, hugging my knees. Nina takes the chair and picks up my chart, flicking through it with bald-faced curiosity.
‘Do you mind?’ I say. ‘I’m not sure I want you knowing details of my last bowel movement and all that.’
‘Sorry, professional nosiness. How’s the head now? Sounds like you had quite a whack.’
‘Yeah, it felt like it. I’m OK though. Just … I’ve been having memory trouble.’ I rub where the dressing sits, as if I can rub the jumbled images back into a semblance of order. ‘It’s just the bit after I left the house.’
‘Hmm. Post-traumatic amnesia. It’s usually only a matter of a few moments though. Yours sounds like … I don’t know. How long do you think?’
‘It’s kind of difficult to be sure since, oh, did I mention, I can’t remember,’ I say. I can hear my voice going snappish and my own peevishness annoys me, but Nina ignores it.
‘It can’t be long though, right?’
‘Look, I know you mean well,’ I massage my temples, ‘but can we not talk about this? I spent all morning with a police sergeant trying to remember and honestly, I’ve had enough. It’s not coming. I worry if I try and force it I’ll just end up making something up and convincing myself it’s the truth.’
‘OK.’ She’s quiet for a moment and then says, ‘Look, I told them about you and James. I said you used to go out. I thought you should know. I didn’t know what you would have said but …’
‘It’s fine. I don’t want anyone to lie. I told Lamarr we were together. She’s the police officer assigned—’
‘I know,’ Nina breaks in. ‘She’s been speaking to us too. Does she know how you broke up?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, the big secret. The STD. Or whatever you want to call it.’
‘For the last time, no one gave me an STD.’
‘So you keep saying. Did you tell her?’
‘No, I didn’t say anything. Did you?’
‘No. I had nothing to tell. I just said you were together. And then you broke up.’
‘Well quite. There’s nothing to tell.’ I press my lips shut.
‘Really? Hmm, let’s see.’ She begins to tick the points off on her fingers. ‘Breaking up, leaving school, dropping contact with half your friends, not speaking to him for ten years. Nothing to tell?’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I repeat doggedly, staring at my fingers laced together over my knee. The cuts are starting to darken and scab over. Soon they’ll be healed.
‘Because the fact is,’ Nina continues, ‘James is dead and they’re looking for a motive.’
At that I look up. I look her right in the eye. She meets my gaze without flinching.
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying, I’m worried about you.’
‘You’re implying I killed James!’
‘Fuck off!’ At that she stands and begins to pace around the room. ‘I am not. I’m saying— I’m trying—’
‘You know n-nothing about it,’ I say. Fuck. Stop stammering! But it is true, Nina does know nothing about it. No one knows about that part of my life – not even my mum. The only person who knows anything is Clare, and even she doesn’t know the full story. And Clare …
Clare is in hospital.
Clare is … what? Too ill to be interviewed? In a coma, even? But she will wake up.
‘Have you seen Clare?’ I say, my voice very low. Nina shakes her head.
‘No. I think she’s pretty bad. Whatever happened in that crash …’ She shakes her head again, this time in frustration rather than denial. ‘You know the worst thing; James would probably have lived. He was very badly hurt, but I reckon there was at least a fifty per cent chance he’d have survived.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It was the crash that killed him. Or else the delay caused by the crash – which comes to the same thing.’
Suddenly Lamarr’s insistence on those missing minutes crystallises.
What happened in the house was only the first half of the story.
The real killing came later, on the road.
I have to remember what happened.
I should never have come. I knew that. I knew it from the moment the email pinged into my inbox.
You should never go back.
And yet. I think of James, lying on the floor, his dark eyes looking up into mine as his blood pooled around us both. I think of his hand, slippery with blood, gripping mine as if he were drowning and only I could save him. I think of his voice saying, Leo …
If I had known then what I know now, would I have deleted the email?
Nina’s hand reaches out for mine, and I feel her warm, dry grip, and her strong fingers tracing the lattice of scratches and cuts. ‘It’ll be OK,’ she says. But her voice is husky and we both know she is lying – lying because whatever happens with me and Lamarr and the rest of the investigation, this has gone far beyond the point where things could ever be OK again. Whether Clare recovers or not, whether they suspect me or not, James is dead.
‘H-how’s Flo?’ I say at last.
Nina chews her lip as if considering what to say, and then lets out a gust of breath. ‘Not … great. To tell the truth, I think she’s having a breakdown.’
‘Does she know about Clare?’
‘Yes. She wanted to see her, but we were told no visitors.’
‘Has anyone seen her? Clare, I mean.’
‘Her parents, I think.’
‘And …’ I swallow. I won’t stammer. I won’t. ‘And James’s parents? Have they been?’
‘I think so, yes. I believe they came yesterday and—’ She looks down at my hands, runs her finger gently across the longest scratch, ‘—and saw his body. They’ve gone home, as far as I know. We didn’t see them.’
I get a sudden, piercing memory of James’s mum as she was ten years ago, her long, curly hair caught up in a clip, her bangles chiming as she gesticulated and laughed to someone on the end of the phone, her scarves fluttering in the breeze from an open window. I remember her putting the phone to her shoulder as James introduced me: This is Leo. She’ll be coming round a lot. Get used to her face, and James’s mum laughing and saying, I know what that means. Let me show you where the fridge is, Leo. No one cooks in this house so if you want something to eat, forage.
It was so different from my house. No one was ever still. The door was always open, and they always had friends round, or students staying, and everyone was always arguing – laughing – kissing – drinking. There were no meal-times. No curfews. James and I lay on his bed in the flooding sunlight and no one came and knocked on the door and told us to stop whatever we were doing.
I remember James’s dad, with his full beard and his accordion. He lectured on Marxist theory at the local uni and was always on the brink of resigning or being fired. He used to run me home after dark in his battered car, swearing at the temperamental choke and regaling me with his awful puns.
James was their only child.
The thought of them both stricken down by grief – it’s almost unbearable.
‘Look,’ Nina gives my hand a final squeeze, ‘I’d better go. I only paid for an hour’s parking and it’s nearly gone.’
‘Thanks. Thanks for coming.’ I give her an awkward hug. ‘Listen, you didn’t happen to grab any of my clothes when you left the house, did you?’
Nina shakes her head. ‘No, I’m sorry. They were really strict about what we could take. I’ve only got one change for myself. I could buy you some sweats, if you want?’
‘Thanks, that’d be great. I can pay you back.’
Nina makes a kind of derisory snort, and does a batting-away motion with her hand. ‘Psssh, shut up already. You’re a small, right? Any preferences?’
‘No, anything’s fine. Just … nothing too bright. You know me.’
‘OK. Tell you what, I’ll leave you this in the meantime.’ She peels off her cardigan, a navy blue knitted thing with small buttons in the shape of dark blue flowers. I’m shaking my head, but she drapes it around my shoulders. ‘There you go. At least you can open the window without freezing.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, huddling it around myself. I can’t believe how good it feels to be wearing something that’s not hospital-issue. Like I’ve got my personality back. Nina shrugs, kisses me, briskly this time, and then heads for the door.
‘Stay sane, Shaw. We can’t have two people going off the tracks on top of everything else.’
‘Flo? Is she really bad then?’
Nina just shrugs, but her face is sad. Then she turns to go. I watch her stalking off down the corridor, and something suddenly occurs to me. The police guard outside my door is gone.