The sound of my steps on the fire escape reverberate in the way they always used to and the door opens before I get a chance to look for the bell. But it isn’t Dad standing there, it’s the cut-price version. The man whose bitter failure to be Dad left him skulking off to Spain to pull pints in a strip-club. Or at least so I thought.
My brother Noel stands in the doorway, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with thick, scabby fingers. We’ve got the same cupid’s bow and the same allergy to shellfish but apart from that we could be strangers. We certainly try to be. He’s chunkier than the last time I saw him, with ridiculous pumped up arms that haven’t quite got the right ratio of muscle to fat. He leans his bulk against the doorframe and the squashed fat of his biceps turns from pink to puce as we stare each other out.
I break the silence first. ‘Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son returned. What are you doing here?’ The question’s entirely rhetorical as I know it’ll be about money. ‘Is Dad here?’
‘’Fraid not,’ he says, heavy on the ‘t’. He doesn’t so much invite me in as walk away from the door and the sight of him retreating tempts me to do the same.
Curiosity wins out though and I step inside.
The hall smells of frying. Pork on the cusp of charcoal. I follow Noel into the kitchen and wait while he prods sausages around a pan, swearing at a space-age hob that has more functions than a cockpit. I look around but there’s nothing to recognise. Not one single memory evoked. There’s no hand-sketched growth-chart on the back wall by the bin. No sandwich toaster shaped like a cow. No stain from where I split my chin and dripped blood on the welcome mat. Nothing to say I ever lived here at all. It’s all clean lines and brushed steel.
It reminds me of the morgue.
I talk to Noel’s sun-damaged back. ‘So when did you arrive?’
There’s a black hold-all on the floor with its contents spilling out. There isn’t enough to suggest a long stay but with Noel you’d never know. You travel light when you’re doing a midnight flit.
‘A while ago.’ Ever cagey.
‘You’re obviously not big news, Noel, I hadn’t heard.’
He smirks and spears a sausage, brandishing it across the floor like a weapon. The fat drips onto the tiles, pooling like petrol.
‘Still doing that veggie bollocks? Or was that Jacqui?’
Jacqui. For about four months in 2001. And it was only veal.
I push the fork away. ‘So why’d you come here then, not Radlett? Hertfordshire not gangster enough for you?’
‘Radlett?’ He looks confused, which confuses me. ‘God, you really aren’t a regular visitor, are you? I mean, Dad said it’d been six months since he’d last seen you but I thought he was exaggerating, getting his months mixed up. I should be calling you the prodigal daughter, really. At least I’ve got the excuse I’m in a different country. Where are you living these days?’
‘Why do you want to know? Planning to burgle me again while you’re back?’ I pull a mock-contrite face. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, that wasn’t you, was it? It was pure coincidence that a mate of yours found out my address and knew exactly where to find Mum’s jewellery without disturbing anything else.’
He barely flinches. Doesn’t deny or defend himself. Just rummages in a cupboard, tutting at the lack of brown sauce.
Eventually he sits down at the table. ‘Dad seemed pretty upset, you know – about not seeing you in ages. Bit slack of you, really .?.?.’
Shit-stirring is Noel’s favourite pastime. His undisputed key skill.
‘Yeah well, I was pretty upset about him bringing that bimbo to Finn’s sixth birthday party. How long had he known her? A fortnight?’
He nods. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot, Dad’s supposed to live like a monk. From what I heard, Jacqui wasn’t the least bit bothered so what it had to do with you .?.?.’
‘’Course Jacqui wasn’t bothered, Dad was paying for the party. A private room at the Rainforest Café. Very nice.’
‘I know. I saw the photos.’ He trickles ketchup over his blackened breakfast in thin, jagged lines. Slashes across a throat – shallow but nasty. ‘Didn’t see many of you, mind. Sulking in the toilets, were you?’
I really don’t know why I’m getting into this with him.
‘A body’s been found on Leamington Square,’ I say, cranking a major gearshift. ‘A woman. A young-ish woman.’
Clearly I don’t know she’s young-ish, except on some wispy, intuitive level.
Noel shrugs, he couldn’t be less interested.
I shake my head, ask again, ‘So what are you doing here then? Are you broke? In the shit with someone bigger than you?’
He doesn’t look up, just keeps working away at his breakfast. ‘You know, given you haven’t seen Dad in six months, it rather precipitates the more pertinent question of what you’re doing here, little sister, not what I’m doing here.’
Precipitates. Pertinent. A barbed reminder of an intelligence gone to waste. Noel’s convinced that if he’d had the same private education as me, he’d have found a cure for cancer by now, or at least bought a Porsche, and the very fact he hasn’t is always somehow laid at my door. For coming along seven years later. For my schooling falling in line with Dad’s money.
Money that was never really explained, or questioned.
‘I told you why I’m here, were you even listening? A woman’s body’s been found up the road from here.’
He pauses, a piece of white toast hangs in mid-air. ‘And that’s what you came to tell Dad?’
My mouth’s dry. I need a glass of water. I spot tumblers through a frosted glass cabinet but there’s no way I’m helping myself. This is a stranger’s home.
I should go.
‘Look, do you know whether he’ll be here soon or not?’
‘Haven’t a fucking clue. I’m not his keeper.’ Noel pushes his plate away – two thousand calories in two minutes flat. ‘I think he’s shagging that sweet-ass with the lip-stud though, the one who comes in here, so as soon as he’s bored doing that he’ll surface, no doubt. Can’t give you an exact time though, sorry.’
My insides scream. Lip-stud suggests young, and young suggests nothing ever fucking changes with my father.
I head towards the door. ‘Just tell him I called, OK?’
‘Sure.’ Noel opens the dishwasher, tosses the pan in. ‘Any message I can pass on?’
I almost laugh at this. Truth is, I’ve no idea what I came to say.
Yeah, tell him I know he lied about Maryanne Doyle.
Tell him it’s OK though, I was too scared to ever squeal.
But tell him I’ve been punishing him for it for the past eighteen years.
Instead, I say, ‘Yeah, tell him not to put non-stick pans in the dishwasher. It strips away the coating.’
Noel laughs and trails me down the hallway. The morning’s changed in the short time I’ve been inside and a low wintry sun dazzles my face as I walk back down the fire escape.
‘Don’t be a stranger, sis,’ he calls after me. ‘We’ll have a drink sometime, yeah? Bring a colleague. Preferably one in uniform.’
I stick my middle finger up then instantly wish I hadn’t. It seems too flippant a gesture to be aimed at Noel, too matey; the kind of thing I reserve for Parnell when he’s whingeing about my driving or the weakness of my tea.
The door slams shut and I take out my phone. Ten fifteen a.m. Hardly worth going home now. However, in the interests of not getting bollocked, I wander down to Exmouth Market to buy toothpaste, a hair bobble, a lemony-stripe top from one of the many cutesy-kitsch boutiques and some cod liver oil, and then I head straight to the public loos to transform myself into someone who looks like they’ve had a quick power-nap and a change of clothes. Afterwards, to kill more time, I amble slowly towards Spa Fields, drawn to the sounds of shrieking children hurling themselves around the adventure playground – part of the regeneration of Exmouth Market, or the gentrification, if you’re being snide. When I was a child, Spa Fields had been known for much darker adventures and I’d never been allowed to play here. Noel used to frequent it though.