Summer Lies Bleeding (4 page)

‘Kerstin, where you going?' shouts Cal, holding out a ten-pound note towards her. ‘I've got your money.'

But Kerstin doesn't hear him. She is running down the stairs, counting as she goes. She must not let herself stop counting until she has replaced the purse. As soon as she has the new one, the perfect new purse, then she can stop; then everything will be all right.

There is a slight jolt as the train slows down. Mark opens his eyes and looks out of the window blearily, trying to focus on the new vista that has opened up since he fell asleep at Doncaster.

The train trundles through deserted little stations, the names of which all appear to begin with ‘H', then it slowly moves out into open countryside, picking up its pace for the final leg of the journey.

It's grim this place, Mark thinks, as he looks out at field after field; so tidy and neat and groomed; so claustrophobic. The landscape makes him think of those boxy gardens at the back of suburban semi-detached houses; the ones that are lined with shrubs and plants in faux-stone pots from B&Q, the ones whose owners spend their weekends mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges into uniform slabs of neat fuzz.

The fields rise into hilly mounds and Mark sees, amid the curves of the land, little dots of primary colours, like pinheads
on a noticeboard. As the train gets closer he sees that the little dots are groups of sixty-something men and women dressed in red and blue sweaters, long shorts and sun-visors. They stand brandishing their golf clubs like medieval spears.

It's softer than the north, thinks Mark, as the train leaves the golfers behind and heads back into flatter territory. It's lighter: the earth, the grass, the sky. There is something intangible about it, something diluted and fragile, like it could all just dissolve in your hands. The north is different, it's as hard as metal. The north wears its industry like armour, like a soldier always ready to defend himself. His dad used to say that the north-east of England was like the shoulder of the country, carrying its burdens like Atlas carried the world.

It is seven years now since he and his mother travelled to London to identify the body of his sister. On the way down, they had made polite conversation, eaten sandwiches, taken phone calls from the police, from his aunts, from Zoe's friends; the journey had gone quickly. At King's Cross they had been met by Detective Inspector Christine Worsley, the woman in charge of the investigation. She had spoken kindly to them, offered her sincerest condolences, promised them that whoever had done this would be brought to justice. Zoe had been found with no belongings; no wallet, no phone, nothing to identify her by. If it hadn't been for her mother phoning the police after a week of no contact then Zoe would have probably ended up as yet another anonymous dead girl,
another secret swallowed up by the dark, labyrinthine streets of Soho.

Mark and his mother were taken to Charing Cross Police Station where they were led deep into the bowels of the building to the morgue. It was freezing down there; he will never forget the cold. It was like the icy breath of the dead blowing down his neck, like every one of the poor, unfortunate souls who had ended up in that bleak, netherworld was suddenly released, swirling about the room like will-o'-the-wisps as he and his mother stood there waiting by a blanket-covered mound. When the detective pulled back the covers, his mother had screamed; it was a raw, gut-wrenching sound that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. ‘Oh, my beautiful girl, my beautiful girl, what have they done to you?'

Mark had watched as his mother took his dead sister's face in her hands and stroked it, the way she had when they were both young, when they were poorly or upset. She rubbed and rubbed it as though she could somehow bring her back to life. Then she had started talking to her as though they were sitting round the table having a chat: ‘Your hair looks nice, pet,' she had whispered. ‘It suits you short. You always had lovely hair even when you were a little girl …' Then she had crumbled, the tears came and she sobbed and wailed, tore at her own hair as the detective covered the body. But Mark had remained silent. He had noticed other things that his mother hadn't or perhaps she had and was blocking them out. He had seen the
red lines around her neck; the purple marks on her shoulders. His father had looked at peace when he died; serene and still, but Zoe was different. The expression on her face was horrific, an anguished, restless grimace.

The journey home had been unbearable. The train crew, noticing the state his mother was in, had upgraded them to a first-class carriage and the two of them had sat there like ghosts, sipping complimentary tea, his mother breaking down into staccato fits of tears which no amount of reassuring words could ever stem.

When they arrested a forty-seven-year-old crack addict, Martin Harris, for Zoe's murder, Mark and his mother had attended the trial. They had sat through hours of evidence, listened to witness accounts including the poor man who found her body, a street cleaner who had been left so traumatised he had become a virtual recluse, unable to leave his house. Then Sebastian Bailey had taken the stand. He had been the last person to see Zoe alive. He told the court how he had sat with Zoe on a bench in Soho Square for several hours before she was murdered. He said he had met her when she came in to the modelling agency he worked for. She had put together a portfolio of photographs and was looking to be taken on by Becky Woods, the chief model booker. Bailey told how Zoe had organised an appointment with Becky that morning but Becky had forgotten and Zoe had been left in the waiting room all day.

Bit by bit, Bailey had pieced together not just the last day but the last few months of Zoe's life. He told them about the landlady who had tricked her into going to a party that night, telling her it was a fancy celebrity event when really it was a crackhead wanting a prostitute. Zoe had been in the house of the man who would go on to murder her, she had drunk his wine and when she guessed his intentions, she had fled, taking a wad of money from her landlady's hands as she went. As each detail was recounted, his mother had put her head in her hands unable to imagine such a sordid series of events for her lovely, sensible daughter who had left for London so excited and hopeful.

When the guilty verdict was returned, his mother had bowed her head and made the sign of the cross. For her, it was closure, she could get on with the grieving process, slowly rebuild her shattered life. But Mark had been unsettled by Sebastian Bailey. There was smugness in his eyes as he gave his evidence; a chilling composure that didn't seem right.

As the years have gone by Mark has watched his marriage break down, has heard his six-year-old daughter tell him she doesn't want anything to do with him and suffered the indignity of losing his job and having to move back in with his nervous wreck of a mother. And through it all, he has followed Bailey; he has Googled his name, Googled his wife's name too, once he found out what it was. He has seen this man grow
more and more successful while he himself has gone further and further into the abyss. All the anger he felt in that morgue; all the rage and confusion sitting in the court listening to the harrowing details of his sister's murder has directed itself into this man. If, for one moment, Bailey can feel the heartache that Mark has felt these last few years, the fear and sorrow that has reduced his family to dust and left his mother a hollow shell, then he can draw a line under it all. Only when Bailey has been punished will Mark find peace.

The train slows down as they enter a more urban patch. Mark reads the name ‘Welwyn Garden City' as they pass through another deserted station. There's nothing garden-like about this place, he thinks, as they pass row upon row of grey, decaying buildings, and where are all the people? Even from inside the train, he can feel it; that familiar tightening in his throat. He has convinced himself that the air gets thinner on the approach into London. He starts to cough. Jesus, he hates this place. He always gets like this when he travels south, the breath seems to drain out of him and as they pass the Emirates stadium, home of Arsenal FC, the giant collage of hyper-real footballers bears down upon him like a cage and he starts to wheeze. It's like being sucked into a deep river's current, spinning and whirling into its vortex with no oxygen, no hope of release. He takes his asthma inhaler out of his pocket, shakes it and takes a deep breath of salbutamol. He knew he would need it. He feels his lungs gently expand, feels the muscles in
his airways relaxing. He breathes slowly, in and out, in and out and the wheezing subsides.

*

They slow down and come to a standstill just outside the station, waiting for the train in front to make a move. Every passenger seems to take an expectant breath as they prepare to enter the city, the dark, dirty city where people disappear, shrink themselves into nothing until all that remains are their voices, disembodied voices like the train announcer telling them to keep their belongings with them, voices that cling to the bricks and mortar, that echo in the tunnels and hidden places, that hide in the shadows waiting for someone to come and listen; to hear their stories; their secrets.

Mark stands up and takes his ticket out of his back pocket as the train starts to crawl towards the station. Outside spindly trees line the track, poisoned black by the belching grime of the trains. They curl towards the window, holding out their emaciated branches like beggars calling for alms.

There is no nature here, thinks Mark, nothing can grow, nothing can live. He coughs again, this time bringing up a thick substance that he tries to swallow but it lodges in his throat and fills his mouth with a sharp, metallic taste. Growing up, he had always preferred the countryside to the town. Zoe had been an urban girl and she would wince when their granddad suggested a nice walk in the hills. But Mark had lived for those outings as a kid and when they reached the
summit of Roseberry Topping, that peculiar curved peak that the locals referred to as the ‘Teesside Matterhorn' he could feel his lungs open up. He could think, he could breathe and for days afterwards he wouldn't need his inhaler. They used to joke about it, his mates, they used to say he was like those ramblers with the red socks and kagouls trekking out to the hills every weekend. He brushed aside their comments though because he knew it was more important than just having a stroll among pretty scenery; the hills were his oxygen supply, they were the tap he could drink from to clear his head and open his airways. He needed them to live.

When the train finally stops, he lifts the large, long canvas bag from the luggage rack; feels its weight in his hands, the reassuring bulk of what lies hidden in there then he shuffles with the rest of the passengers towards the exit doors. Darkness descends on the narrow corridor as the train passes through its final tunnel, then with a whoosh, shards of bright white artificial light swim in front of his eyes, making him blink. The little button on the door turns from yellow to green; someone in front of him presses it, the door slides open and they step out into the noise and glare of King's Cross Station.

He looks at his watch. Half past four. And so it begins …

*

Stella sits on a plastic chair cradling a polystyrene cup of tepid, watery coffee. Taking a sip, she looks out of the floor-length
window of the motorway services café that hovers precariously above the fast lane of the M4.

Thick wedges of inky-blue sky tussle with the last of the light-tinged clouds as, down below, little red lights on the motorway race sheep in a nearby field.

*

It is 4.30 p.m. In an hour or so she will be in London where Paula is waiting in their hotel room. She has already received four texts from her, updating each stage of her train journey and enquiring in a not too tactless way if ‘the plants are okay'. Stella has not replied to any of the texts. Why does Paula insist on doing that; on filling their time apart with constant updates and reminders and messages?

She takes another sip of coffee. It tastes disgusting but it feels good to be alone; truly alone. Away from the house, away from the street with the chatty neighbours and their unnaturally happy smiles, away from Paula's endless stream of herb-talk; the phone calls to and from suppliers; the Skype calls to her brother and his children who only live a mile away; the opaque verbal mush that drowns out Stella's thoughts, stifles her concentration so that she has to take refuge in her attic room like some Victorian hysteric.

She likes the stillness of her own company; likes those moments when hers is the only voice she can hear in her head. She never thought of herself as a solitary person before. In her twenties she had lived in a noisy studio flat
in the middle of Soho where every second was filled with noise: the saxophone playing of her jazz musician boyfriend; the banging and crashing of bottles being delivered to the neighbouring restaurants and bars; the shouts and yells of partygoers outside the window. Yet because the noise was so constant, so extreme, it became a sort of white noise, so loud that she stopped hearing it. She had managed to place herself at the heart of the storm where she found her silence; her equilibrium. Still, back then there wasn't much about herself that she wanted to listen to anyway. She had spent those years in the grip of an eating disorder and Soho was the perfect place to hide it.

Sometimes, she dreams she is lost inside Soho; the streets melting into each other like molten lava, enveloping her; sucking her deep down into their depths. Other times, she dreams of Ade, the man whose heart she broke; she sees the flat they shared, the mess, the CDs scattered across the floor. And then she wakes up in her sumptuous brass bed in her pretty bedroom with its oak floorboards, embroidered rugs and tasteful sage green walls; Georgian elegance, not a hint of anything tacky or vulgar, but the ghosts of Soho, the musty smell of the flat, the warmth of Ade's body in the bed, stay with her throughout the day, lodged inside her head like an unspoken word.

She reaches down beside the seat and takes out a book from her handbag: Virginia Woolf's
The Years
, the subject of
her PhD thesis. It is filled with tiny post-it notes with scribbles of ideas written in Stella's scrawly handwriting. This is part of the reason why she asked Paula to travel down separately. She needs time to prepare, away from Paula's chatter. Yet still the feeling of guilt won't leave her; the weight of this deceit hangs heavily as she opens the book.