The Fall - By Claire McGowan

Part Three



Charlotte

Afterwards, Charlotte was never really sure what had happened to mean Keisha was suddenly staying at her flat. It seemed as if a sort of fog filled those first days, and during that time she did things and said things she would later have no real memory of, as if the coke she had taken was still silting up her brain. All she could recall was Keisha coming to the door, and her thinking for a split second something she would always be ashamed of: Is she selling something, is she begging? And then Keisha’s mad story about being at the club – she was the black girl who didn’t look black, of course, the angry one – and how she’d been with her boyfriend, and how he’d gone home without her, and his clothes were in a bag, and she was sure – she could swear to God – there’d been blood on the rug. Then Keisha would burst out with, ‘The bastard! I’ll f*cking kill him!’ and bang on the table, and it turned out her daughter had been taken away and it was something to do with this Chris, who was after Charlotte too.

‘I mean, what would he want with you?’ Keisha kept saying. ‘You must of seen something. Why’d he care about you otherwise?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve no idea. Are you saying – you’re saying you think Dan didn’t do it?’ Charlotte tried to swallow all this information in a dull cold lump, like ice cream sliding down her throat.

‘You said it yourself, yeah? There was no blood on your fella. He’d blood all over himself, I’d swear on the Bible – Chris, I mean.’ She seemed reluctant to say her boyfriend’s name.

Charlotte stood up. Her head swam. ‘He didn’t do it. I knew he didn’t do it – oh, Christ.’ And she’d fainted on the Axminster rug that had been a present from Dan’s parents, hitting her head on the table as she fell.

Keisha had woken her by throwing a glass of water in her face. ‘Sorry. You gave me a scare.’

Charlotte woke up hearing music. Not music she would ever play, but something loud and tinny with radio fuzz. She padded into the kitchen in her T-shirt, the carpet warm under her bare feet. Morning light came in the window with the sound of traffic.

The girl was sitting with her bare feet up on the coffee-table. She had Friends on as well as the radio, and Charlotte went over and turned the music off.

‘All right?’ said the girl warily. ‘Still alive, then?’

‘Yeah – oh.’ Charlotte remembered hitting her head and put up her hand; there was dried blood on her forehead.

‘Went down like a ton of bricks, you did. Thought you might have that, what’s the name, concussion. Someone had to stay with you.’ She was defensive. Her things were strewn round the room, huge clumpy shoes by the door, sleeping bag unrolled, catching the light on its silky surface. On the kitchen table was a cereal bowl swimming in milk, a few Bran Flakes floating in it. Charlotte started tidying it away automatically, and the girl rose to her feet.

Charlotte said, ‘Look – Keisha, right? Sorry, I’m a bit hazy. You said last night you knew something, that you could help Dan?’

Keisha nodded, keeping her eyes on Charlotte. ‘Yep. Then you went down, arse over tits. Hit your head off that there.’ She gestured to the table.

No wonder she felt woozy. Charlotte pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘You said that your boyfriend – ex-boyfriend – was there that night, at the club? He was the other man?’

She didn’t want to say it, but then Keisha said, ‘Yeah, the other white guy.’ Then Charlotte felt stupid because what was wrong with saying it? It was the most obvious thing.

‘I saw him, I think. In the club that night . . . I can’t remember. He ran off?’ She’d seen Keisha too, but didn’t mention their run-in in the toilets.

‘That’s right, buggered off. Bastard. Then I get home and he’s in bed, and I’m thinking, This is well off. And he takes his clothes down the laundrette next day – as if he ever washed his clothes in his f*cking life!’

‘Right . . .’ Jesus, they went to laundrettes. ‘And the shoes, what were you saying about them?’

‘Stains on ’em, all over. All red, the soles was. Said he stepped on a kebab! Ha!’ Keisha made a cynical noise and Charlotte winced.

She looked over by the phone, where that policeman had left his sticky footprint. ‘I suppose it doesn’t prove he did it, even if he was there.’

‘Get this though. Why’s he after you? Why’d he set those girls on you?’

‘The ones who hit me?’ Charlotte put her fingers to her mouth. ‘It was planned?’

Keisha seemed to think she was thick. ‘Course it was. That was Anthony Johnson’s sister, one of ’em – she’s a right stroppy cow. He wanted your purse, so’s he could find out where you lived.’

‘But – he must have got it! I don’t understand. What happened to the purse?’ Her head was spinning.

‘I got it, didn’t I? Hid it off him. He got in a right mood, that’s why he did this.’ Keisha showed off her own black eye, less obvious than on Charlotte’s milky skin but still brutal. ‘And then I see Jonny yesterday, down near me mum’s, and he says Chris is looking for you, knows you live round here.’

‘Christ. I had some graffiti on my step the other day, these kids – and I could have sworn someone followed me yesterday.’ Charlotte felt cold and sweaty down her back.

Keisha nodded grimly. ‘That’s how it is. Word gets round, for a racial thing.’

‘And you came to tell me. But you don’t even know me. Why?’

The girl shrugged. ‘Not fair on you, is it, even if your fella did knock off that dude. Bet no one ever lifted a hand to you in your life, eh? And if he thinks he’s going after Ruby – well, he can go f*ck himself. I’ve had enough.’

‘So, you just left like that? You left him?’ Charlotte didn’t know if she could trust this girl who came so out of the blue, and stood across the living room in the morning sun.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘I’m sorry, no, no – Keisha, it’s not that. It’s just – it’s such a shock, you turning up. And I think, well, you don’t know me at all. Why would you help me?’

Keisha seemed to think about it for a long time, then she bit her lip and looked at her feet. ‘Me mum – she had a heart attack, after he went round her house.’

‘God, and is she—’

‘No. I f*cking buried her the other day, OK?’ She stared even harder at the ground.

‘I’m so sorry. Christ. And the little girl?’

‘She’s OK. Never mind that,’ Keisha said hurriedly. ‘Look, I can go. Just thought you should know. Keep your eyes peeled for him. Never know what he might do, and that psycho Jonny. Bastards.’

‘No! You don’t have to go. I’m sorry, it’s just been a difficult time.’

‘You’re f*cking telling me,’ said Keisha grimly. ‘Seriously, I won’t hang about if you want me outta your hair.’ She started picking things up, her phone, one large shoe.

Charlotte sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve messed it all up. And you came all the way here. Listen, would you like some tea?’

Keisha stared her out, holding one shoe in her hand. ‘Three sugars, then. Please.’

Later, after many, many cups of tea, and many, many retellings of the story of That Night and the week after, purple shadows were creeping in the windows. Keisha stirred. ‘Gettin’ late.’

For a moment neither of them spoke.

‘So I best . . .’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be bloody sorry,’ said Keisha. ‘I was gonna say, I’ll go now.’

Charlotte turned her face away, tidying up the crumbs from her last packet of Jaffa Cakes, now destroyed. ‘Where will you go? Didn’t you say you had to leave your mum’s house?’

‘Yeah. S’OK.’

‘Ah, look. You’re not going back to that hostel.’ Did she even have the money? Charlotte thought not. She wondered how to say it, how to talk to this girl who was so different to her, so proud, so defensive. ‘Dan said I should get someone to move in,’ she said, opening the swingbin. ‘And to be honest, I’m getting bloody scared at night now, since the paint, and . . . all that.’

‘Yeah?’ Keisha was fiddling with her bag.

Charlotte came out and said it. ‘You should stay a while. Please. I’m not good by myself – I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, hardly.’

‘Yeah, well, you can afford it, skinny thing like you.’ Keisha made motions to get up.

‘Oh, I can’t say it right. Listen, I know it must have been hard to come here, when he’s your boyfriend and all, and I’m just some – random girl from a club. But you did it, because it was the right thing to do – yes?’ She tried to think how to say it. ‘If you would stay for a few days, maybe we could write all this down. Go back to the police.’

‘Dunno about that.’ Keisha looked alarmed.

‘That’s why you told me, isn’t it? So we can do something about it?’

Keisha smiled a bit, maybe at the we. ‘Mostly so you could know that maybe he wasn’t bad. Your fella.’

Charlotte felt this for the gift it was, how much it took for Keisha to say it. ‘I’ll never be able to thank you enough.’

‘Aw, come off it.’

Charlotte was nearly tearful again, she so much didn’t want this girl to walk out the door, even though she was a stranger and she wiped smeary handprints all over the glass table. ‘Just for a few days. Till you get settled, maybe?’

Keisha sighed deeply, and set her bag down. ‘Put the kettle on, then.’

And so Keisha was installed in the box room, a girl with the rangy build of an East African runner, hostile eyes, hair straightened and treated into a substance as far from natural as Teflon. She ate bags of Wotsits, the lurid dust gritting itself into the cream wool of the sofa. She left her size nine trainers, cheesy as the crisps, always in places where Charlotte would trip over them. She seemed to have access to no money but the few pound coins in her market-stall purse, saying there was an envelope waiting for her at the nursing home where she did nights – apparently this was how she got paid and thought it was normal. But she couldn’t go to collect this envelope yet because he might find her there. She was absolutely insistent on this point. He would know if she went anywhere she normally went. Look what had happened to her mum, after all.

Sometimes she would burst out laughing. On the second night, after another day of rehashing their mashed-up stories and eating biscuits, Charlotte was standing outside the bathroom waiting to brush her teeth, as Keisha gurgled and hocked up minty spit everywhere. Both their faces were reflected in the cabinet mirror.

‘What’s so funny?’ Charlotte was getting irritated having someone so strange in her house, even though she’d begged her to stay.

‘Look at the f*cking state of us, Char. Black eyes, busted teeth. It’s like f*cking Women’s Aid round here.’

Charlotte surprised herself by letting out a huge belly-laugh. She covered her mouth. How could she laugh when everything was so unbelievably f*cked up?

‘S’OK,’ said Keisha, rinsing her toothbrush. ‘You gotta laugh, don’t you.’

That night Charlotte woke up again, tense as a board in her bed, heart thudding. Voices, again, outside. They were back.

She opened the door to the living room and nearly jumped out of her skin, before realising the long pale shadow by the window was Keisha.

‘They’re back.’

‘Mm. You got a torch, like a big one?’

‘A torch? Er, I think so.’ Trying to breathe and slow her heart, Charlotte rummaged in the kitchen drawers till she found Dan’s big camping torch. Remembered in a flash cold nights, wrapping him round her like a blanket, seeing the dawn through sweaty canvas. He’d been happy, camping. But not for a long time. ‘Here.’

Keisha flicked it on, nodding as if she approved. Then she flung open the window and shone it down. ‘F*ck off, you little f*ckers. Who’s that? Michael Rutonwe, that you? Don’t think I won’t tell your mum what you’re up to.’

‘And who the f*ck’re you?’ one called up.

A stone hit the wall but Keisha didn’t flinch. ‘Can’t see me, can ya? But I see you little shits and I know you all. So you better f*ck off sharpish.’

There was a moment when they squared up to her. Then the black shadows peeled off from the dark and, miraculously, they started to leave. ‘Stupid cunt,’ one shouted back.

Charlotte was shaking. ‘Oh, God. You did it. Did you really know them all?’

‘Nah, just that one kid. Everyone knows him round my way, little f*cker.’ Keisha switched off the torch and looked at Charlotte, pale in Dan’s rugby shirt. ‘You look like you need a cuppa.’

How was she to talk to this girl, so different to her, so full of angry energy that she hummed with it? They’d gone over their stories until holes were worn in them.

Charlotte would say – ‘And then they just bust in and they took him away, and I was so upset, I couldn’t believe it when they said no bail, I was about to be sick, and then they whacked my head into the sink . . .’

Keisha – ‘Then I see his shoes all red, and I say, What’s going on? and next thing I know there’s his fist coming up, and when I wake up he’s locked me in . . .’

Charlotte – ‘So my mum just up and arrived and all she could talk about was cancelling the florist, like I don’t feel bad enough, and there were reporters on my doorstep, and it was meant to be my wedding but my dad thinks I need a lecture on the banking system . . .’

Keisha – ‘My mum, she always hated Chris, since day one. Drove me mad. Couldn’t believe it, I just went in the ward and she’s not there, and I’m like, where the f*ck is she . . .’

It was as if they both had a suitcase full of troubles that had to be upended. There were things Charlotte was afraid to ask, too. ‘But what I don’t get, right,’ she was saying later over microwaved supernoodles from the corner shop, full of salt and soy sauce and strange, powdery residue that rang with flavour. ‘Why was Ruby in care in the first place? I mean, it’s always on the news that Social Services won’t take kids away, then they end up dead and . . . Oh, sorry.’

Keisha got a look on her face between shame and fury. ‘Mum took her, didn’t she. After – what happened – she called the Social on him. Chris.’ She said the name in a tiny voice. ‘And they asked Ruby – kid said she always went to Nana’s at nights anyway.’ She fiddled with her fork. ‘See, I been doing nights at the nursing home, and he couldn’t stay home with her, could he. He had business and . . . stuff.’

Charlotte couldn’t look at her. She’d never known anyone as proud as Keisha, and here she was explaining how she’d lost her child, loving a bad man. It could happen to anyone.

Everything Charlotte bought in the corner shop had to have a receipt to be added to the IOU pile for when Keisha got her envelope, and if she forgot, Keisha would badger her for the price of everything. How much were Pot Noodles? Doritos? When Charlotte admitted she had no idea, she could see herself slide down even further in Keisha’s estimation. You had to know the price of things. How else could you know the value of anything? How else would you know what you’d gained, and what you’d lost?

The third day slid round, sleeping and eating, talking themselves hoarse, the coffee table littered with crisp dust, slimy spilled noodles, stained mugs.

‘We were supposed to be in Jamaica now,’ Charlotte half-laughed, rattling the dregs of a bag of Doritos. ‘I keep thinking about it. I had this image, you know, all candlelit dinners on the sand, and the sun going down, cocktails . . .’ She tailed off, seeing Keisha’s expression. ‘You know how it is with holidays. I always have, like, this picture in my head of what it’ll be like, all blue water, white sand. Then in real life it’s too hot or I get mosquito bites or something.’

‘Never been on holiday.’ Keisha shrugged, digging at a knot in her hair.

Charlotte was so shocked she blurted out, ‘What? I mean, really never?’

‘No.’ Keisha eyeballed her. ‘My mum was from Jamaica, you know. Came on the boat, but after that she wouldn’t travel, not even on the tube. The school were gonna take us down Southend one time but I got kicked out, didn’t I?’

‘Oh.’ Once again Charlotte felt she was in at the deep end, scrabbling to get a hold on some common ground between her and the other girl.

‘Guess we’re in the same boat now,’ Keisha said, hoisting her large feet onto the sofa, toenails poking out. ‘No boat at all, ha ha.’

It was true, Charlotte thought. It wasn’t what she had expected, but for the moment there was nothing else on offer.

Eventually, all the adding up of receipts and dividing by two was getting right on Charlotte’s nerves. ‘Why don’t you just go to the nursing home, get your pay?’

Keisha stiffened. ‘Dunno.’

‘Come on, he won’t be there. What, you think he can be everywhere at once?’ When she said it she worried she’d gone too far. Even though she barely knew Keisha, the other girl’s cynical bantering style had set her off talking like that too.

Keisha muttered, ‘I know that. Not thick, am I?’

‘I know, I know. I’m sorry. But – don’t you think we should go? You said he’d been evicted, didn’t you?’

‘That’s what Jonny said. Can’t trust him s’far as you can throw him.’

‘Look, I’ll come with you. Won’t you be pleased to get the money?’ She knew by then how proud Keisha was.

‘All right, leave it out.’

So now they were on a clanking, puffing bus – Christ, before all this Charlotte hadn’t been on a bus since she was at school – and lurching slowly up Finchley Road. Charlotte fidgeted with her Ugg boots; too hot. An awkward silence had settled between them. ‘Far, isn’t it?’

Keisha was snapping her chewing gum. ‘Normally walk this every night. And back, four in the morning.’

Once again Charlotte was silenced.

As they got near they both became nervous. Charlotte was getting a bit freaked about going into the Home, and she noticed that Keisha was fidgety, looking about her as if Chris might be hiding in the bushes. Inside, Charlotte was hit in the face by the smell of bleach and what it was covering – human crap. She must have gagged because Keisha gave her that look that was fast becoming annoying.

Keisha barged her way in through swing doors, her trainers squeaking off the floor. ‘Wait here a sec, will ya.’

Charlotte waited awkwardly in the hall. Through an open door she could see old people in chairs, vacant faces, and a whole room full of beige, beige cardigans, beige slacks, beige skin. She saw a woman loose a long stream of drool onto her chest, and shuddered. What was she doing here? She barely even knew places like this existed, just up the road from where she and Dan had been buying the Guardian and eating fresh croissants. The floor, she noticed, was exactly that same speckled blue plastic as the toilets she’d passed out in at the courthouse. She shuddered, remembering.

The door slammed back again and Keisha came out. She looked pissed off but Charlotte knew by now that didn’t mean much. ‘Well?’

‘Come on.’ Still looking round themselves, they headed back to the bus stop. Keisha sighed and fiddled with the pocket of her denim jacket.

‘Did you – you got it?’

Keisha inclined her shoulders; yes. ‘He gave it me, but he said don’t come back, ’cos I never showed up this week. Bastard.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t care. S’a shit job anyway. I’ll see about something else, agency work, waitressin’. Whatever.’

Charlotte sighed. ‘I’d better look for something too. We spent so much on the wedding.’ It still hurt so much she could hardly think about it. ‘I had a look round the PR firms but there’s nothing about, with the recession. Christ, I was lucky to have that job. What a dumbass. I really, really am in no fit state to job-hunt. I’m still crying at least ten times a day.’

As the bus drew in, they pulled out their Oyster cards and Keisha squinted at her. ‘You want this job here?’

‘Huh? Me?’

She shrugged. ‘S’easy work, just make the tea and that. He can’t be arsed advertising, tight-arse that he is.’

Charlotte almost laughed. To go from PR in Soho, all shiny hair and statement shoes, to a nursing home full of blank-faced old people! ‘Do you have to like . . . wipe them, or anything?’

‘Their arses? Sometimes, if they’re short-staffed. But everyone shits, Char.’

‘Oh.’

Keisha swung herself up into the bus by the pole. ‘Things are different now, yeah? You gotta do what you can. Sign up to my agency too. Bunch of bastards, but they pay OK. Not cash in hand like that bloody home.’

When they got home, Charlotte had to have a shower to wash away the smell of poo and bleach, and when she came out Keisha was watching TV. There was a pile of money on the table, notes and coins. Beside it was a sheet of printer paper with a long column of figures scrawled onto it. ‘You added the receipts up?’

‘Yeah, I can do sums.’

Again she was embarrassed. ‘I didn’t mean . . . Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.’

Keisha got up and came over to the kitchen table. ‘Listen, Char, we need to talk money. How much is the mortgage on this here place?’

Charlotte wasn’t used to being so upfront about money. Vulgar, her mother always said. ‘I’m not sure.’ Keisha gave her that look again. ‘Oh wait, it was in Dan’s letter.’ She fished it out from the fruit bowl. ‘Here. Two thousand a month.’

‘Two grand, f*cking hell.’

‘Well, it’s classed as a two-bed, and, you know, the area . . . And then there’s the bills, and the gym, and the cleaning lady usually comes – she thinks we’re in Jamaica now.’ And now that Charlotte looked around her, the place was already a tip in just two weeks without Maria’s expert touch, cooking spatter up the wall, the bin overflowing. Charlotte didn’t dare look at Keisha when she said about the cleaner.

‘Listen, I do a week of nights in that place, and I get two hundred and fifty quid. So, if you want me to share this place for a bit, I can’t pay half. See?’

‘Neither can I, not even on my old salary. Dan paid it.’ Dan earned over two hundred pounds for just an hour at his work.

‘And now you’ve nothing coming in. Plus, you’ve all that wedding shit to pay off.’

Charlotte bristled: what was so shit about her wedding? ‘So you’re saying I need to take the nursing-home job?’ Or something else crap.

‘That won’t be enough, even. You could move.’

As if she hadn’t thought of that. ‘Well, I can’t, actually. It’d never sell, not in this market. And Dan loves this flat; I have to keep it for him. Imagine, he gets out, and I’ve lost our home as well as everything else. He will get out – I know he will.’

Keisha paused. ‘OK. But then you need more cash. His work – they sacked him already, yeah?’

‘Yes.’ Charlotte slumped forward on her elbows. ‘It’s probably their fault anyway, making him so stressed. I mean, Christ, did they have to stop his card? I know he lost his temper, but they really screwed him over.’

Keisha was scribbling on the piece of paper. ‘In the news all the time, innit, these City twats get fired, sue for stress or whatever. Get millions, sometimes.’

‘You think I should do that?’ And did that mean Keisha thought Dan was a twat too?

‘S’an idea. Or ask his folks – they’re loaded, right?’

Charlotte squirmed. ‘I can’t.’ Keisha gave her a look. She tried to explain. ‘They’re kind of scary, his parents. They didn’t give us anything towards the wedding – they don’t believe in making a fuss – and they won’t come to see him. They just sent my letters back, said we should get a lawyer but they couldn’t help.’

She could see the other girl wasn’t convinced. ‘I’d still hit them up if they’re good for it, tight-arses. Chris’s ones were the same, never gave us a penny for Ruby. Rather spend it on Special Brew, they would.’

It wasn’t unlike her own dad, Charlotte thought – if you replaced the Special Brew with Courvoisier.

‘There’s another thing, too.’ Keisha started fiddling with the pen. ‘If you got anything to sell, that could tide you over.’

‘You mean like furniture?’

‘Could be, but did you think about, well . . .’ Charlotte saw Keisha was staring down at her hand, and the flawless diamond that glittered there.

‘You think I should sell my ring? Jesus Christ, no.’

‘What? S’only jewellery, isn’t it?’

Only jewellery! Charlotte just stared at her hand, the ring Dan had put there, the happiness of that night when he asked. She heard herself say, ‘It’s all I have left from him. What would he think if I just sold it, like some crappy old watch or something?’

Keisha got up, but Charlotte was sure she’d heard her snort in contempt.

The next day was Sunday again, and Charlotte got up early, blinking in the strange quiet light. Outside her window the street was empty, the odd car swishing past in the silence, and she had that same sad feeling remembering croissants, papers, talking in lazy half-sentences. No. None of that. She was going to prison again. She blocked out the thought of what he’d said. Of course he needed her to visit. It was ridiculous. Of course she had to go. This time she chose her most downmarket clothes, jeans cut below the knee, worn with trainers and a hoody – not the Oxford one, God no. Still she knew she wouldn’t fit in, didn’t have the right f*ck-you attitude, the right shiny cheap fabrics, the hoop earrings. She stopped a quick thought that she should borrow some of Keisha’s things if she wanted to look right.

Keisha. The girl was asleep, her snores reverberating out from the spare room. Charlotte knocked on the door, thinking it was strange to do that in her own flat. Small as it was, every crevice of that place was as known to her as Dan’s body had been. Before. ‘Keisha?’

A long pause, then a snorting groan. ‘It’s early, man.’

‘Yeah, I have to go. You know, Pentonville.’ She hesitated. But one of the good things about Keisha was she didn’t get freaked out at all by the prison stuff.

Keisha opened the door, her hair sticking up like she’d touched one of those generators in science class. The room behind her was already a mess of clothes and dirty dishes. ‘You want me out for the day?’

Charlotte was ashamed; was that what she wanted? ‘Where would you go?’

‘Cinema, shops . . . wherever.’

‘No, no, don’t be daft. I’ll be back later.’

‘OK. I’ll stop round here, then.’ They stared away from each other, embarrassed.

The trip up to the prison wasn’t quite so bad this time. She knew her way, and didn’t feel so nervous wondering what the place would be like. How it would look and smell, if people would eye her over. She started watching people in the carriage – the woman in the pink tracksuit seemed to be going the same way. Charlotte stole glances at her all the way, but when they got off the woman walked in the other direction, and Charlotte set off alone to the prison, lugging with her the bag of clothes for Dan. She’d put in his nicest things, good wool jumpers, jeans faded to softness. As if she could wrap him round in love.

Queuing up, she was thinking whether it was, in fact, a good idea for Keisha to be there on her own. After all, she barely knew the girl. Was it wise to leave her there with all their good things, just because she might know something that could help Dan? Charlotte wasn’t even thinking about where she was. That was how quickly you got used to things.

The woman behind the desk, a sullen-faced prison officer in slacks, looked up into Charlotte’s face and then got out her radio, static crackling.

‘Something wrong?’ It was just like when you went to a restaurant and they couldn’t find your booking, and they looked at you like it was your fault.

The woman’s eyes shifted away. ‘Sarge’ll be with you now.’

As the queue behind her grew impatient in the heat of the close little room, the guard from last time came lumbering over, walking as if his shoes hurt him. Again she had that icecream feeling in her chest. ‘Is something wrong? Is he OK?’

The guard scratched behind his ear. ‘Sorry, miss, he don’t want a visit today.’

She stared at him. Couldn’t speak.

‘Says he won’t see you. Told him, it’s a crying shame, lovely young lady like that waiting, but no, he won’t see you.’

Charlotte was standing there in her ‘prison visit’ outfit, clutching her Mulberry bag. Behind her she heard one of the women in the queue mutter to get a bleeding move on.

The guard was embarrassed. ‘I’m ever so sorry, miss. Don’t even want a lawyer, he says.’

‘But – he won’t even see me?’

He shrugged. So it was really true. The stale smell of the room was all about her, sickening. She looked down at the glimmer of the ring on her finger, worth more than all the clothes on all the women waiting to get in and see their men. What did this mean, if he wouldn’t see her when she went to him?

When she got back, Keisha was up and watching TV again. Her shoes were lying in the hallway; Charlotte tidied them aside. She tried not to get annoyed about them, or the large glass of Coke Keisha had sitting un-coastered on the coffee table.

‘All right?’ Keisha didn’t look up; she was picking at her hair again.

‘Not really, no.’ Charlotte went into the kitchen and tidied some more. ‘He wouldn’t see me.’

‘Shit.’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Well, sit down, have a cuppa. I’ll make it.’

She collapsed onto the chair. ‘I mean, have you ever heard of it? Someone in prison, turning away visitors? I brought him his own clothes and all. He must be wearing the prison stuff, even though he doesn’t have to.’

Keisha was spooning sugar into a mug. ‘Happens. They don’t wanna be seen inside. You know, the shame.’

‘But he’s only on remand! By the way, I don’t take sugar.’

‘Course you don’t, skinny minnie like you. Had a bad morning though, yeah?’

Charlotte put her hands over her face and then she was crying, her nose burning with it. Keisha put the dark sweet tea in front of her, slopping a bit out. ‘Aw, it’ll be OK. Just a big shock for him, innit?’

‘Yes.’ She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘He thinks – he told me last time that he thinks he did it. I wanted to tell him what you said, so maybe he’d fight, he’d see it wasn’t him. Or, there’s a chance at least that it wasn’t.’ She mopped at the spilled tea with the piece of paper Keisha’s addition was on.

Keisha shrugged. ‘Might not believe you. Thinks he’s all guilty and stuff, don’t he? He wants to be in prison, sounds like.’

Keisha could be so astute. Charlotte just stared. ‘That’s exactly right. He does.’ She slumped even more. ‘I need to get him out. He’s going under. Do you know what I mean? He doesn’t belong there.’

‘You think other fellas do?’ Keisha bristled.

‘No – I don’t know. Christ, please, Keisha. Help us. You said you would help, when you came. So can we go to the police?’

Keisha froze with her own cup of tea in her hand.

‘Oh for God’s sake, what? Why did you come here if you won’t help me?’ After Charlotte had said it, the silence in the kitchen seemed huge, the traffic outside, a bird in the tree by the window.

Keisha stared at her feet. ‘I will help ya.’

‘I know, I’m sorry, you have helped, really you have. But you see – I’m afraid I’ll never get him back again. Not the way he was.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘But what? You’re scared about Chris, is that it?’

‘No!’ Keisha flared up. ‘You don’t get it, do you? Round my way, you don’t go to the police. They’re the ones you run away from, see? Why would they even believe me? I was there too, yeah? And I got no proof, not one f*cking thing.’

Charlotte sighed, wiping her hands over her face. It was true, she had to admit. She didn’t think the police had listened to anything she said once they’d decided Dan was their suspect.

‘There must be something,’ she said. ‘You know, it’s a public place, the club. There must be something, if they would just go back and look.’

‘You mean like CCTV or what have you?’

‘Yes, but they had that already, the police. It showed Dan going out the back.’ She winced; she hated remembering all the things they’d amassed to make him look guilty.

‘Unless there’s another one,’ said Keisha absently, gulping her tea.

Charlotte furrowed her brow. ‘You know, I never thought of that.’ She was trying so hard to remember, grasping at it, like a slippery fish darting out of her hands. ‘That night,’ she said, struggling, ‘I think there was something – I can see this yellow sign in my head – you know, for when there’s CCTV. Can’t remember properly. The problem is that no one else went out the back. That’s why they sent him down, I’m sure.’ She felt hopeless. ‘But there must be something they’ve missed. Maybe we should go back there, to the club.’

Keisha was looking at her curiously. ‘You really not got any idea why Chris’d be after you? Sure you didn’t see something?’

A memory came up from the depths of her fuddled brain, bobbing to the surface as if suddenly inflated. The man pushing past her. The white man shoving her, his smell of sweat and cologne. His annoyed breath as she got in his way, and he ran – where? ‘I can’t think. I can’t remember.’

Keisha was fiddling with the bag in her tea; Charlotte had given up asking her to take them out first and put them straight in the bin. Keisha said, ‘Me mum knew the family, you know. The Johnsons – they own the place now, I guess. You know that bitch with the afro, the one who . . . yeah?’

‘Yes.’ Charlotte’s tongue crept to the hole where her tooth used to be, before the girl had knocked it out.

‘Well, she’s Anthony’s sister. And the other girl that time, she was his bit of stuff. But he was married too, got two little kids about Ruby’s age . . . What? What’d I say?’

Charlotte’s face was numb, but now it was wet again too as tears spilled out of her eyes. ‘Sorry. It’s just I somehow keep forgetting he was a person, and those poor kids.’ She wiped her face with shaky hands. ‘You really think Dan didn’t do it? Because, you know, it’s the only thing keeping me going.’

There was silence for a while. ‘I told you. I’ve no proof.’

‘I need it not to be true. And you need Chris to be gone, don’t you?’

Keisha squirmed. ‘Yeah, but—’

‘You’ll never get Ruby back if he’s about.’ The words rang out in the kitchen. Had she really said them? Charlotte’s hands shook.

The other girl’s head went up. ‘What the f*ck do you know?’

Charlotte snapped, ‘Because, duh, he’s the reason you lost her! Remember what he did to her? Your little girl. Bloody hell, wake up!’

Keisha blinked. ‘I know that, don’t I? It’s just hard.’

‘I know it’s hard. God, I’m sorry for snapping. I’m so sorry. We just can’t go on like this. Maybe you could talk to them, the family, see if they know anything. And I can talk to the police guy again. Don’t worry, I won’t say your name. And I’ll write to Dan’s parents like I said, promise. Maybe they’ll come round. What do you say? Can we try, at least?’

Keisha gave a big burdened sigh. ‘Whatever. If you say so.’

The jeweller had a poky, dusty shop behind the flashier stores on Hatton Garden. It hurt her like a needle to come to this street, where they’d chosen wedding rings not two months before, but she needed in a way to feel that pain, to hold her head up and walk into the shop and offer her diamond for sale.

He kept a professional cool as he looked in his little eyepiece, but she saw his bushy eyebrows go up. He had the black hat and curls of a Hasidic Jew. ‘Four thousand.’

She didn’t have any idea what it was worth. She’d never before had to haggle and had no strength to start. As he made out a cheque she imagined writing a letter to Dan, that he would probably never read – how she’d sold the ring he’d given her.

Charlotte had put on her running shoes, with the vague thought she might jog back. She’d eaten so much rubbish over the past week that her wedding diet was all gone to pot. But was there any point now in foregoing Jaffa Cakes to try and be a size eight? No. Life was bad enough, she may as well eat the bloody biscuits. After the jewellery shop she tucked the cheque into her bag and tried jogging up towards Camden past Euston station. Although weeks before she’d been running 5k with ease, she had a stitch already by the time she reached the station. She stopped, feeling the weakness in her legs and chest. It must be the shock. Instead she slowed to a plodding walk for the rest of the way down Eversholt Street, towards home.

She was just walking, with a vague sense of sadness about how she used to breeze in and out of these shops, when like a blow to the stomach, there it was. The restaurant tucked away on the side street, discreetly shuttered. Inside she remembered exactly the dark Oriental interior, the elaborate cocktails they had drunk, steeped in rich booze and excitement, eyeballing Dan over the huge menus, knowing somewhere in the pit of her stomach that it was going to happen, imagining already the celebratory phone calls; her nails painted, her ring finger bare.

Now Charlotte blinked as if she saw herself dancing from the restaurant on that frosty December night, her hand glittering with the ice-hearted stone. She’d worn a red dress, a tight Hervé Léger copy from Reiss that meant she could barely eat her chocolate pudding. But in the darkened windows she saw who she was now, a pale girl with scraped-back hair, roots showing, a sloppy jumper. Because what was the point now? Of any of it?

Charlotte shook her head to chase away the ghost of the laughing polished girl, encircled with love. That girl was gone now, and she wasn’t coming back.

As she went home she remembered the kids outside her house, and tensed up with fear. But Keisha was there. She’d see them off. Walking on, she felt a deep relief in the knotted ball of her stomach that this strange girl had come to help her.