Paul was carrying on, childishly candid. ‘He was gutted – crying, a bit, whenever her picture came up. I thought he was going to go mental when he watched the first report. He kicked the leg right off that chair – you know, the one I showed you.’
I remembered the chair. I could imagine Danny sitting at the table, jumping up in anger and fear: anger that she had been found, fear that he would be caught. It hadn’t gone to plan and he had lashed out.
I don’t know what showed on my face, but Paul looked at me worriedly. ‘You believe me, don’t you? He was really upset. It was the end of everything. Everything he’d worked for.’
‘Everything he’d worked for was illegal. Everything he’d worked for, he got as a result of the suffering of your friend.’
‘She was OK,’ Paul said sulkily. ‘She wanted to help. It was her choice to be there.’
‘I find that very hard to believe,’ I countered, not caring that I sounded angry. ‘Anyway, if it was such a good job, I’m sure you wouldn’t have had any trouble in finding a new girl to take over from her. Danny could have recruited someone, I’m sure.’
‘Yeah, but she was perfect, Jenny – she looked right and she knew you. He’d never have got that lucky again.’
I started. ‘What do you mean? Why would it matter that she knew me?’
‘Danny is, like, obsessed with you.’ Paul laughed. ‘He made Jenny leave her hair down because that’s how you used to have yours when you were her age. He made her dress like you too. Things he remembered you wearing – tops and stuff. He’d go shopping for clothes for Jenny, surprise her with presents to wear at our house. She couldn’t take them home in case her parents saw them. She never knew it was because of you. But he was always on at Jenny to tell him stuff about you – what you’d said in school, what sort of mood you’d been in. He couldn’t get enough of it. It used to piss her off.’
‘Why,’ I said, with some difficulty, ‘did your brother care about me? We haven’t even spoken to one another in years. He doesn’t even know me.’
‘He knows loads,’ Paul said confidently. ‘He used to keep an eye on you – you know, watch you coming and going, make sure you were OK. He wanted to know anything to do with you. Basically –’ and he started to blush ‘– he says he’s in love with you.’ The last sentence was delivered in a low, gruff voice, and I thought for a second I had misheard. I looked over to the two policemen. Vickers nodded at me,
encouraging
me to go on. Blake raised his eyebrows. They’d heard it too, then.
‘He can’t be,’ I said flatly, returning to Paul. ‘You can’t love someone you don’t know.’
‘He does.’ Paul sounded certain. ‘He just does. He’s been in love with you for years.’
An image flashed into my mind. ‘In the front room, there are shelves, aren’t there. And they’ve got all sorts of stuff on them – random things, like keys, a pen, old postcards – bits and pieces of junk, really. Things you wouldn’t usually put on a shelf.’
Paul was nodding. ‘Danny calls it his trophy cabinet. It’s all the things that are really important to him. He keeps them in there because I’m not allowed to go in and he thinks I’d break them or something. But I look at them when he’s out at work, and I’ve never broken anything.’
‘Paul, quite a few things on the shelves belong to me. Do you know how they got there?’
‘Jenny got them for him.’ He sounded totally matterof-fact. ‘She got whatever she could off your desk or out of your bag while she was in school. She used to try to get to class before everyone else, and while she was in there on her own, she’d look for things for Danny.’
I remembered walking into my classroom at lunchtime and finding Jenny in there, half an hour early for her English class. I’d made a joke out of it, I recalled, a bitter taste filling my mouth. I’d thought she was so keen on English, so willing to learn. I’d thought she liked my classes. Another thing I’d got wrong.
When I didn’t say anything, Paul sighed. ‘It’s all fucked up, isn’t it? We were all trying to do things for other people. Jenny made the videos and nicked stuff because she wanted to impress Danny. I went along with it because it meant I got to see her all the time.’ He looked at me pleadingly. ‘She might not have come round if it was just me. I didn’t think she’d bother if it wasn’t for Danny. Even if she wasn’t there to see me, it sort of didn’t matter.’
‘So she was there for Danny, and you helped because of her.’
‘She’d do anything for him. And I’d do anything for her. And I know you don’t get it, but Danny – Danny would do whatever he had to, just to get closer to you. All the money we made – he was saving it up so he could buy a house. Get himself a decent car. He was going to ask you out. You were all he talked about.’
No one said anything. It became clear, suddenly, why Paul had been so desperate to help me, why he had trusted me enough to talk about what he and his brother had done. Danny would have wanted to protect me –
again
, I thought with a shiver, forcing an unwanted memory back into the darkest recesses of my mind. Paul was just doing his best for his brother, as ever. I wondered why hospitals always had to be so hot. The air in the room was thick and soupy, and suddenly intolerable.
Just then, there was a quiet knock at the door. Blake hurried over and opened it, leaning through the gap to have a whispered conversation. I caught a glimpse of a bullish head; my old friend from outside Geoff’s room. I felt slightly guilty at the thought of Geoff. I had pretty
much
forgotten him all day. Of course, I’d had troubles of my own to deal with.
Paul was leaning back against the pillows, looking out the window. Vickers had stood up and was easing the waistband of his trousers slowly, mindlessly. I knew his complete attention was focused on the conversation that was taking place at the door, that he had probably forgotten that I was there at all. The social worker continued to sit, the same benign expression on her face. It was as if she’d heard none of Paul’s confession. How, I wondered, could you sit and listen to that easy recitation of the bleak and sordid details of the brothers’ crimes without feeling something? In fairness, outrage wasn’t an ideal reaction in a social worker. Some sort of glimmer of awareness would have been nice, though.
Blake let the door swing closed and spoke to Vickers as if no one else was in the room. ‘We’re on.’
Vickers made a low sound in his throat: satisfaction, a big cat’s purr at having brought down its prey. He turned to Paul. ‘We’ll leave you in peace, young man. You concentrate on getting better, and don’t worry about all of this.’
The words were meant and said kindly, but Paul looked totally unimpressed. He closed his eyes, shutting the rest of us out. I couldn’t help but feel that Vickers was wrong – Paul had every reason to be worried. I wondered how they were going to handle his case – if he was going to be prosecuted, or if they would take into consideration his age and his cooperation and just take him into care. There was no one else to look after him. For good or bad, he was on his own.
Seeing that I was about to be left behind, I jumped up and followed Vickers as he headed out of the room, hard on Blake’s heels.
The three policemen had gone into a little huddle outside in the corridor by the time I got there. I let the heavy door close gently behind me and waited for them to finish. Bull-neck was receiving instructions, nodding intently as Vickers spoke in a voice too soft for me to overhear. After a couple of minutes, the stocky policeman detached himself from the group, muttering ‘excuse me’ as he edged past me into Paul’s room. The changing of the guard, I guessed, which meant that Vickers and Blake had somewhere better to be.
‘Did you find him?’
They turned, looking startled, and Blake glanced at Vickers for permission to tell me what was going on. The older man nodded.
‘They picked up Daniel Keane an hour ago at Victoria Coach Station. He was boarding a coach to Amsterdam when they spotted him. He’s being transferred back here as we speak, so we’re heading back to the station.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ I said, meaning it. ‘Give him my best if you get the chance, won’t you.’
‘Oh, we’ll be asking him about you, don’t worry. He has a lot of explaining to do.’
Vickers was looking restless. ‘We should get going, Andy. Sorry, Sarah, but I think we need to head off.’
‘Fine. I understand.’
‘Are you OK to get home from here?’ Blake asked. ‘Reception will give you the number for a taxi company.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll probably check in on Geoff again before I go.’
The two men went very still. I looked from one to the other, seeing the same expression on their faces. ‘What?’
‘Sarah—’ Blake began, but Vickers spoke over him.
‘I’m sorry, but he’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ I repeated stupidly, hoping I had misunderstood.
‘He died just after two o’clock this afternoon.’ The inspector’s voice was gentle. ‘He never regained consciousness, I’m afraid.’
‘But – but they weren’t even really worried about him earlier.’ I was struggling to take it in.
‘He had a massive bleed in his brain, caused by the head injuries he sustained in the attack.’ Blake, lapsing into note-book-speak. ‘There was nothing they could do. I’m sorry.’
‘That makes two,’ I whispered.
‘Two?’
‘Jenny and Geoff. Two people who should be here. Two people who didn’t deserve what happened to them.’ My voice sounded strange in my ears – lifeless, hard. ‘Don’t let him get away with it.’
‘We won’t,’ Blake said with conviction.
‘Why don’t you go and have a little sit down,’ Vickers suggested. ‘Take a few minutes, then go home and get some rest. Is there anyone you’d like us to call for you?’
I shook my head.
He took out a fat brown leather wallet, shiny as a conker from years of use, and extracted a business card. ‘If you need anything, my number is on there.’ He pointed. ‘You call me if you need to.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I mean it.’ He reached out and patted my shoulder.
‘Right.’ I occupied myself with putting the card in my handbag. ‘Please, don’t worry about me. I’ll be OK.’
‘That’s the girl,’ Vickers said. ‘We’ll be in touch, anyway. We’ll let you know what he says.’
I nodded and managed a half-smile that seemed enough to reassure them. They headed off in the direction of the lifts, walking fast. I stood in the centre of the corridor, threading the handle of my bag through my fingers over and over again, until a small pyjama-clad girl asked me to get out of her way. I jumped to one side and watched as she forged past, dragging a drip on a stand that was much taller than she was. She had such a sense of purpose, wherever she was going. I leaned against the wall, drained of energy, and wondered what that would be like. I had never felt so useless in my entire life.
The corridor was not an ideal place to stand, and after moving for a third time to get out of someone’s way, I drifted towards a door marked ‘exit’. Pushing it open, I discovered a flight of stairs, and trudged down as far as the ground floor, forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other, holding on to the banister. There I found a door that someone had propped open, and wandered out onto a paved area with a few garden benches scattered around it. It seemed to be the smoking area for those patients who were mobile enough to get outside for a cigarette now and then. Metal containers were nailed to the ends of the benches, each one piled with cigarette butts, and the acrid smell of scorched tobacco hung in the air.
The
area was deserted now, the night air being a degree or two below what was comfortable. I sat down on the bench furthest from the door and folded my arms, shivering deep within myself in a way that had nothing to do with the air temperature.
It was all too much. That was the phrase that kept repeating in my mind. Too much. Too much suffering. Too many secrets. I couldn’t begin to make sense of what I felt about the news that Geoff had died. Just because he wouldn’t take no for an answer, Geoff had put himself in the path of a whirlwind. Geoff’s ego had led him into a collision with a man who harboured a true obsession, who wouldn’t let anything stand between him and what he wanted. And what Danny Keane wanted, it was apparent, was me.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, squeezing tightly, leaning my forehead on my kneecaps. None of this was my fault. None of this was because of anything I had done. I wasn’t special, or remarkable. Danny had projected something on to me that I wasn’t, had assumed that I was exceptional in a way that I wouldn’t dream of claiming for myself. I was just ordinary. The only thing that was different about me was the guilt that had trapped me in my tedious life like a moth on a collector’s pinboard. But because of me, Danny Keane had left bloody fingerprints all over people’s lives – the Shepherds, Geoff’s family, poor fat Paul. I dug my nails into my upper arms. I was a victim, like the others whose little trophies appeared on Danny Keane’s shelves. This wasn’t something I had wanted.
‘I hope they beat you black and blue,’ I said aloud, picturing Danny’s face, his brilliant eyes, the high cheekbones that few teenage girls could resist. But even as I said the words, I was distracted. Something had snagged below the surface of my mind. I concentrated, groping for whatever it was, running back over the thoughts that had been jostling for attention. What was it? Something that was important … something I had seen and not understood.
Trophies.
The realisation came in a rush and I gripped the edge of the bench, mouth open, heart pounding in my chest. With shaking hands I pawed through my bag, fumbling for the phone, shuffling scraps of paper in the search for Vickers’ bloody card – where was it? Not that … why did I carry so much shit around? Receipts … shopping list … Maybe I had left it upstairs on the paediatric ward … Or not.
Holding the card as if it was a precious, fragile thing, I dialled the mobile number, double-checking the digits, forcing myself to slow down. Inevitably, it was switched to voicemail. I didn’t bother to leave a message, dialling the station number instead.
The receptionist sounded as if she was at the end of a very long shift.