Something You Are (22 page)

If it was anyone but Clare, I asked myself while I was sitting in the car, would I tell her? Yes. The answer was obvious. I would have told any other employer without hesitation that their daughter had been pregnant without their knowledge. It was my job, after all.

None of this made it easier. I wished I didn't know either of them well enough to predict the effects this information would have.

It took almost half an hour, but eventually I got out of the car, walked up to the house and rang the doorbell.

Nothing.

I crouched and looked through the letterbox.

Lights out.

Nothing.

At least this had made the hardest decision for me. Instead of telling Clare first, I'd tell Pat. I backed away, in case I could see any lights in the upstairs windows, but she wasn't there.

Relieved, I went back to the car, and heard heavy footfalls against the pavement. Clare was jogging past the houses across the road, looking even thinner in tracksuit bottoms, and I watched her until she spotted me.

I crossed the road again and waited by the house.

It was the first time I had ever seen her without make-up, I realized. That was why she looked so different.

‘Hi,' she said as she stopped beside me and took out her keys. ‘What's up?'

‘Is this a good time?'

‘Um… yeah, I guess. Has something happened?'

‘Well, I'm making progress, but… You're probably going to want to sit down.'

Her fringe was stuck to her forehead and the back of her shirt was damp and painted against her shoulder blades. When she finally managed to unlock the door I noticed that she was shaking.

‘Five miles,' she said when she followed my eyeline. ‘Stupid, I didn't take any water with me. So… you want me to sit down?'

‘Well—'

‘I'm fine standing, thanks.' She took off her trainers and socks in the hallway, and walked into the kitchen to run herself a glass of water. ‘Go for it. Shoot. Really, there's pretty much nothing you can say that's going to surprise me now.'

I raised my eyebrows as I came forward, replaying the list of ways in which I thought it would be easier to tell her. But clever phraseology wasn't going to help.

She downed the first glass of water and poured another, pulling her hair out of its ponytail. ‘Go on. I mean it.'

‘Emma was pregnant.'

I felt as if I hadn't said it right, as if one of the other phrases I had chosen would have been better, but I repeated it anyway.

‘Emma was pregnant.'

She put the glass of water down and wiped a drop from the rim. ‘Oh.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘No, right… I asked for it. Um, how long?'

‘What?'

‘How… far along was she?'

‘Oh.' I swallowed. ‘No, she
was
pregnant. She had a termination a few weeks before she died. I don't know how far along she was, I assume less than twenty weeks.'

Her lower lip trembled and her hand was still clasped around the glass of water. ‘How did you find out? I mean, how many people knew?'

I put my bag down, glad that I could still talk about it in a formal way. ‘I found the number of the Royal Free's Maternity Ward in her diary. A few of her friends knew.'

‘A few?'

‘About three.'

‘A few, and she didn't tell us?'

I spread my hands. ‘She was just scared. She was only—'

‘
Don't
tell me what she was!' she snapped.

Her hands were still shaking as she pinched the bridge of her nose. If I hadn't been so close, if I hadn't wanted to cross the room and hold her, I would have found it a perversely fascinating experiment. I was watching how many emotional blows one person could withstand before the wheels of their mind fell off completely.

‘Whose was it? Was it… Danny's?'

‘It wasn't Danny's. I don't actually know.'

‘You're lying.'

‘Honestly, I don't—'

‘Stop protecting me! She's not
yours
to protect me from!'

‘Clare—'

‘Whose was it?'

‘Just calm down…'

‘Oh, please!' She laughed at me hysterically. ‘Stop talking like you think you know me! You think that spending half a damn night here makes you
special
?'

‘I'm saying calm down.'

‘Whose was it?'

‘I don't—'

‘You think you have the right to decide what's for
my own good
? You think you know me that well?'

‘No, I—'

‘You want to know more about me? Fine.
Fine!
' She took off the white shirt, threw it down and started taking down the tracksuit bottoms. ‘Take a good look! This is me, right here!'

She turned, so I could see the cuts forming rough train tracks down her biceps and the scars along her hipbones and ribs. She raised her arms, showing her wrists, and screwed her hair up into a ball at the back of her head to display the bruises along her hairline usually hidden by her fringe.

‘These, that's me! These ones here, that's me too!'

I stood speechless while she rattled off the list with a trembling voice.

‘So fuck you! Fuck you and everything you
think
you know! It's rubbish! You have no
idea
!'

I took a step back, captivated, a frantic erection pressing against the inside of my jeans, unable to even think about trying to stop her.

‘Look,
look!
' Locking on to me with her gaze, she took a knife out of the holder and casually slid the blade across her forearm, with the attitude of someone ripping a plaster off a scab. ‘
This
is what I like.
This
is what you don't
fucking
understand! This is all me.'

Blood ran off her arm and on to the floor.

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. My stomach clenched with horror.

‘Clare—'

‘So, Nic. How do you like me now?' She laughed, and did it again.

‘Clare, stop it!'

‘No!'

As I started towards her she pointed the knife at me with a playful glint in her eye. The cuts in her arm looked deep and they were bleeding quite heavily, but she hadn't acknowledged any pain. As with the mirror, she had learnt to hurt herself without tarnishing her outward beauty.

‘Clare…' I said, trying to stay calm but knowing this had gone too far. ‘Clare,
think
about it. I'm warning you, don't do this.'

‘I said, so how do you like me now,
Nic
?'

I hesitated, eyes on the knife. Talking to her was useless. She didn't want someone to talk to her, but I tried one more time anyway, just so that I could tell myself that I had, that I wasn't just looking for an excuse.

‘Clare, put the knife down.'

‘Make me.'

I stepped forwards and I saw her start a little. When I made to go left she followed me and I grabbed her wrist. She pushed back, shocking me again with how strong she was, but I took hold of her other wrist and felt my hand slide against blood.

‘Yes!' She was laughing. ‘Like that!'

We whirled around and I tried to keep the knife away from us. She cracked her head into mine and I threw her backwards into the table, gritting my teeth through the pain. Everything went white for a moment. I slammed her wrist against the wood until she dropped the knife.

It fell with a clatter and she was still laughing.

Her blood was all over my shirt, all over my hands. Her body was heaving, sweat from her jog running down the curve between her breasts.

‘Go on,' she was saying, ‘you want to help, then
go on
!'

She slapped me and I slapped her back. The cry that came out of her was like nothing I had ever heard. Incensed, I picked her up and forced her back on to the tabletop. She slapped me again, harder. When she resisted I grabbed a fistful of her hair and then we were kissing. I tasted blood on my tongue as I undid my jeans and when we parted her lips were swollen red.

My coat hit the floor and one of the straps of her bra snapped as she ripped it off her shoulders. She tried to pull away across the table but I dragged her back towards me by her hips and the back of her head hit the table.

I pulled the crotch of her knickers roughly to one side and then I was inside her, and she was so fucking hot, and for a moment she stopped fighting me. She lay there, eyes closed, her chest bouncing with each thrust, gasping, lost…

Suddenly she had opened her eyes and wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling herself up, biting my lip, raking her nails across my back and making me leave bruises on her arms with my grip.

‘Oh fuck, yes, like that… like
that
…'

She started pulling me closer with her heels, groaning into my neck, and I could feel her body becoming tense in my arms.

My breathing was ragged. I stopped and she slipped off the table.

‘What! No…'

I turned her around, ripped her underwear down and held her bloodied arms behind her. She started crying out, shuddering against my grasp, her face turned sideways against the hard surface as her features tightened and then released.

Her moans were still echoing around the kitchen by the time I came. My legs felt weak and the room blurred in and out of focus in front of my eyes as relief, the likes of which I
hadn't felt for years, flooded my veins. My heartbeat was knocking around my skull.

I let go of her, stepped back and was only vaguely aware of the semen running down the insides of her legs.

The silence seemed wrong now.

It was only when I started to feel everything more keenly, like the scratches across my back, that I realized how much blood there was. It was on my clothes, my hands, imprinted around her wrists, her arms, along her hips…

I did up my jeans and leant against the work surface, finding it hard to stand for myself.

Clare had sat down on the floor with her knees pulled into her chest and her head resting against the table leg. The knife was lying not far behind her, under the table where she had dropped it.

I couldn't analyse the expression on her face. She was watching something far away.

My first instinct was to apologize, but it would sound ludicrous.

‘You know… people don't seem to understand it,' she said.

Thank God she had spoken first.

‘It would actually be more acceptable if I… drank too much or smoked or did, you know, something more fashionable.' She smiled at me. ‘People don't seem to get that it's only another way of making yourself feel something else, just for a bit. So why is everyone else considered normal and I'm the one that's screwed up?'

‘I think you're right,' I said.

‘I thought you would get it. If I just explained it right.'

‘How long have you… you know?'

‘I've always done it, it's just…' She shrugged. ‘It's just what I do.'

‘Why did you start?'

‘When they told me I'd never go professional. I carried on for a bit, and then I got pregnant with Emma and got married, and that was it.' When I didn't reply she looked up at me and laughed. ‘No, really. That's the whole story.'

‘So Pat… never…?'

‘No.' For a moment she looked sad. ‘No, he wouldn't even hurt me if I asked him to. But he's just always let people think what they want. I suppose it's easier than trying to explain. She… Emma always hated that people thought that. It was my fault, I guess.'

‘So… when he put you in hospital…?'

‘Did my mum tell you that?' she said with a trace of a smile. ‘No, I… I fell down the stairs. Well, I didn't
fall
down the stairs, I… kinda meant to. It's OK, you can think it's weird. It is probably weird… I think.'

I felt profoundly stupid, for everything I had believed, all the scenarios I had made up in my head.

She looked smaller than she was, sitting down there by the table.

I crossed the kitchen and sat on the floor beside her, sighing.

‘I'm sorry,' I said.

‘Are you kidding?' She snorted, rubbing her eyes. ‘All I wanted was to not think about it for a while. It feels
so good
to not think about it… I'm fine, just… please, don't talk to me for a moment.'

A couple of minutes went by, and she shifted closer, buried her face in the crook of my neck. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to wash the blood off.

Brinks's house looked even more tragic than usual. I wasn't sure why, maybe it was the weather, or the hilarity of the message he had left me. I still laughed thinking about it. Mark had sent me a text as I was leaving Clare's house that said nothing but
I NEEEEEEEEEEEEED YOU! HAHA M XXX
.

My skin felt raw. I knew I should have been thinking about Felix Hudson, but all I could think about was when I could go back to Clare's house again. In a way, I had almost believed that having sex with her would put an end to it, make it easier to stop obsessing over every aspect of her life, over knowing her better, knowing her completely. But it had made things worse. Now the moments in between touching her were nothing but interludes to me; time to be endured until I could invent another reason.

I went to the side gate out of habit, through the garden and in through the back door. Brinks was in his kitchen, sitting at his table, and didn't look up at me as I came in.

‘There's no need,' he said, blowing across the top of a bottle of beer. ‘She's gone.'

I shut the door, taking in how much thinner he looked. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘No, you're not.'

Annoyed that I couldn't immediately drag the discussion to business, I put my bag down. ‘What happened?'

‘She called work… They said I wasn't there.'

‘Jesus, Geoff, why didn't you just tell her?'

‘Well, how the fuck do you tell her? Oh, hey, sweetheart, I've been fired and the only way I might escape jail is to carry on selling people out who are even more fucking dangerous than my colleagues… Oh,
merry Christmas
!'

‘Surely she would have preferred the truth, though? She might have stayed?'

‘Well, that's easy for you to say, isn't it? Monsieur fucking Hindsight.' He gestured at the fridge. ‘Get me another beer while you're up, will you?'

‘You haven't had enough?'

‘Do you
live
to fucking torment me?'

‘Fine, Jesus… Fine.'

I crossed the room, took another bottle out of the fridge and handed it to him. There wasn't much food in there, I noticed; a few eggs and some fruit that had gone bad.

‘So what happened?' I asked again, guessing that he would have that interminable urge to talk about it.

‘I thought it would be louder,' he said, never looking at me when he spoke. ‘When people leave, end things… I thought it would be louder, but she didn't shout at all, didn't make a scene. That's one of the reasons I loved… love her so much. She never was one to cause a scene, for drama or throwing wine in your face in fancy restaurants, you know, that kind of shit. She just asked me to explain myself… so I did. She took her ring off, put it on the side' – he indicated across the room with his bottle, to where I presumed it still was – ‘and then she just left, took the kids to her parents' place.'

Brinks's wife sounded dignified, I thought. But when I began to consider what sort of woman would allow herself to marry someone like him, the glimmer of respect dissipated.

You couldn't tell that anyone had vacated the house from
the state of the kitchen. There were still no photos. No defining features at all. Much like Brinks, who even the most astute of individuals would struggle to distinguish in a line-up.

‘You think she'll come back?' I asked, bored with asking him questions.

He shook his head. ‘I've blown it, Nic. I fucked up. Big time.'

‘What about your kids?'

‘She's a decent person, she didn't tell them. I imagine I'll still be able to see them… at… weekends, or something.' He sniffed and wiped his hand over his face.

Don't cry, I prayed. Don't you dare fucking cry, you bastard.

‘Women aren't everything,' I said, with a poor attempt at a smile.

‘Yeah? Never heard you mention one. No offence, but I assumed you were bent, mate.'

I shrugged, ignoring the slight.

‘I wish… I actually wish I was like you sometimes, ain't that fucking funny?' he said, smiling, drunk.

‘Oh yeah?'

‘Young, single, no responsibilities… maybe just the no responsibilities. Don't get me wrong, I liked having a proper profession and being married and I love my kids more than anything, you have no idea how much I love my kids, but… Well, you always want what you don't have.'

‘I don't want kids.'

‘No one in their right mind would,' he agreed. ‘But if you do, you wouldn't change it for anything.'

‘Seems too much hassle.'

‘It is, when it hasn't happened yet.'

Getting tired of standing up, I joined him at the table.

‘You know anyone in there I can work with?' I asked.

‘A few. I can give you one or two names.' He smirked at me. ‘Or you could just do what you did with me, eh? Get them young, reel them in.'

When he spoke his cheeks disappeared between his teeth, sucked into his jaws. His buttoned shirt had stains down it. Without thinking, I checked the zip of my coat in case he could see any of the blood on my clothes.

‘You getting anywhere with that Emma Dyer girl?' he asked.

‘A little bit. You?'

‘Not really. Following legalities can hold you back somewhat. We let the taxi driver go, if that's what you're getting at?'

‘It wasn't the taxi driver,' I said.

‘Yeah, thanks, we worked that one out for ourselves.'

I frowned. ‘You mentioned before there was no drug use?'

‘Yeah, nothing. No alcohol either.'

Another reason why Matt's story didn't check out.
Coked out of our minds
, he had said…

I was sorry about Meds, and had thought about him more than I'd expected to since finding out about his death. I had started to hate Matt Masters, with a deep visceral hate that I could feel in my veins. It could only be a good thing.

‘So why did you need to see me?' I asked. ‘You sounded… in a bad way on the phone.'

‘Yeah…' He was still speaking to his beer and it was starting to irritate me. ‘I needed to talk to you, you know, about all this.'

‘Yeah?'

‘They were tipped off, my department. Someone told them about me, told them where to look, sent them
photos
. I was
so… fucking scared of going to prison that I never even thought about it.'

Any mention of photos brought me back to Hudson, even though the idea was ridiculous.

‘I got a call to my house the other night,' he continued. ‘They never said who they were, but it was funny… They said it was you who'd shopped me.'

His eyes were still on his beer.

I searched for something to say, rendered speechless.

‘That was why I wanted to speak to you.'

I wished I could have thought of something more interesting to say, or more convincing, but all that came out was, ‘What?'

The bottle cracked in half against my forehead.

I landed on my hands and knees, unable to see, coughing, hacking up nothing. My head had become nothing more than white pain. Brinks was shouting at me, but I couldn't hear him properly.

There was a gun in my bag, but I didn't know where my bag was.

I tried to stand, and Brinks punched me in the face.

I was on my back, blinking, still reeling from the impact of the bottle.

Brinks was ranting, pacing back and forth, alternate words leaping out at me but nothing making sense.

‘
Fucking… life… mug… fucking
…'

I kicked him in the shin and crawled backwards into his hallway until I found some strength in my arms.

My bag…

As I managed to get on to my knees, Brinks caught up with me and kicked me square in the back. I turned and grappled with him, his hands around my throat and his teeth bared, grey and peppered with black fillings.

His fingers dug into my jugular, my heartbeat thudding against his hands.

I let go of his wrists and grabbed his head, jamming my thumbs into his eyes. He clutched them, howling, and I was free. Pushing back on my hands, I made it to my knees again, tried to stand but fell sideways against the stairs.

My head throbbed, draining all the life from my legs.

You're in trouble. It wasn't a voice, so much as an awareness going round and around my mind. You're in trouble.

I made a grab for the front door but it was locked, and Brinks cracked my forehead into it. Blood ran down the bridge of my nose. He grabbed the back of my coat and threw me on to my back on the stairs. I could fight him… I could if it wasn't for that fucking bottle.

‘Ruin my life and
why
? WHY?' he was screaming at me.

My arms were shaking as I pushed myself up the stairs, away from him, six stairs up before he caught up with me and I kicked him again. I didn't know where I was going, just up.

I made it as far as the first landing. There was another flight of stairs and a corner. I couldn't do it. My arms gave way. If I passed out I was dead.

I was dead. The last blow against the door had done it.

How fucking sad, that I had never seen this coming.

Brinks was choking me.

My eyes clenched shut, trying to breathe, trying not to let his hideous face be the last thing I saw.

Would he do with me what I had done with so many other bodies? Would Mark be able to track him down? Probably not. Who knew?

His hands left my throat, like a tonne of weight being lifted off my chest. I was aware of breathing, air rushing in and out
of my lungs, but when I opened my eyes I saw only the bottom of a picture hanging on the wall of the landing.

It was the first picture I'd seen in his house.

Feeling that I had been given a chance, I dragged myself up on to my elbows.

Brinks was at the bottom of the stairs, his legs at strange angles, like a crushed spider.

There was someone standing over me, I could see them in my peripheral vision.

I wasn't conscious enough to feel proper shock. I inclined my head, struggling to focus my vision. As I turned I smelt chloroform, saw glasses, and thankfully, with a wave of relief, everything went dark.