The Fall - By Claire McGowan

Part Two



Hegarty

Hegarty had been seated near the back of the courtroom when Daniel Stockbridge was remanded into custody, and saw the girl slip out past him, hands over her mouth like she was going to throw up. He was just checking his watch to see if he could make it back to the station for the weekly meeting, when he heard all the shouting and, like everyone else, spilled out to see what was happening. In the crowd he saw a face he thought he recognised. A white man, with a shaved head. But there was no time to stop, and in that second the face was gone.

From the door of the ladies’ toilets came a sound like an animal wailing, and then two black girls burst out, one tall and one shorter, sprinting past the security guards and into the street. ‘Leave off, Grandpa,’ one shouted back. They’d pulled scarves over their faces and by the time he’d followed outside they were long gone, slipped into one of the side streets and vanished. The only witness left was a third girl, the skinny mixed-race one who’d run out of the toilets shouting for someone to call an ambulance. A female security guard went in and led out Charlotte Miller, her mouth and eye streaming with blood. Her hand was clutched in front of her and when it leaked blood all over the guard’s white shirt it was found to be her own tooth she held, knocked out when the girls had attacked her.

Hegarty took control of the situation – it was his job. He gave Charlotte Miller some basic first aid, and through the gushing blood his clean hankie failed to stem, she recognised him. ‘Offisher.’

‘Don’t try to talk, miss.’

When the victim was carted off to hospital – yet more blood leaking all over Hegarty – it was left to him to interview the witness. ‘Your name?’

The skinny girl folded her arms. ‘I didn’t do nothing. I just went in and they was hitting her.’

‘Who were the girls?’

‘How’m I meant to know?’

‘Do you know the victim at all?’

‘Who, the blondie? Nah.’

‘Well, what are you doing at court, then?’ He tapped his pen off the notebook cover and she narrowed her eyes.

‘Anyone can come in court, can’t they? S’a free country.’

He sighed. ‘So, you’re just an innocent bystander.’ They always were.

‘Eh? I just went in, s’all. Them two girls was hitting her, and I must of scared them off, so they scarpered.’

He unpeeled the printout of Rachel Johnson’s phone picture from his pocket. ‘You know who this is? The white guy?’

She looked at it just a bit too long. ‘Course not.’

‘Was he here today?’

‘Dunno, OK? I got nothing to do with it. I don’t even know what the case is.’

‘I’ll still need your name, miss. And your address too.’

‘How come?’

He was losing patience. ‘You want me to arrest you?’

‘Fine.’ She scowled. ‘Keisha Collins. Live up in Swiss Cottage – here, I’ll write it. There. Can I go now?’

As she stormed out he followed her to the door and saw her walk off to the bus stop. Hegarty had very good eyesight. He saw a white man emerge from behind the sign and leave with the girl, both of them waving their arms like they were having a fight. What were the chances this was the white guy from Rachel Johnson’s phone, and that the fleeing girls were Rachel herself and her mate Mel, taking out their grief on the girlfriend of the accused? He sighed and put his notebook away. What were the chances he’d ever be able to prove it?


Keisha

By the time Keisha and Chris left the court it was past lunchtime and she was starving. She was also raging mad.

Chris got into the flat and switched on the TV, which was showing reels of Daniel Stockbridge being led away to a police van. He fiddled with the remote and turned on Sky Sports. He didn’t look at her. He’d barely spoken all the way home. Now, still without looking at her, he said, ‘Get us some lunch, will you.’

She was still furious as she went into the kitchen. Weird enough to be woken and made to go down there, but that had been nothing compared with seeing Chris nod to Rachel and Mel as they went into the court coffee bar. What were they doing there, the girls from the club? For a moment she’d seen white with anger – was that slut Rachel out to get her claws into Chris?

Chris had spoken to them. ‘After,’ he’d said. ‘In the bogs, if she goes, or outside. Get the purse, remember?’

They’d nodded, all grim, and when Keisha said, ‘What’s going on?’ they’d just looked at each other like they were Charlie’s f*cking Angels, and no one was telling her a thing. They’d waited in the lobby while the hearing went on, and when the blonde girl from the club came rushing out all crying and choking, Rachel and Mel followed her to the loos.

Chris had nudged Keisha. ‘You. Go in the court, see what they said.’

‘What? What’re you on about?’ She couldn’t understand why they were all here, the posh blonde girl from the club, Rachel and Mel, her and Chris . . .

He shoved her, quite hard. ‘Just f*cking go. I wanna know did he get sent down.’

Keisha started walking to the door of the court. She had a wobbly lurching feeling in her stomach. There was a noise from the toilet, a squealing frightened sound. She looked back at Chris but then she was veering away from the court, into the toilets. By the time she’d got in there, the blonde girl was on the floor, and the noise – it was pathetic. They were kicking her and she couldn’t fight back to a fly, anyone could see it. And the blood . . .

She snapped back to their kitchen. Chris was saying, ‘Oi, did you hear? What’s up with you?’

‘Why did we go there?’ She was standing in the kitchen holding the sleeve of the macaroni cheese meal, ninety-nine pee from Sainsbury’s. The returned microwave whirred round. It had been cleaned of its spaghetti hoop stains and she hardly recognised it. ‘I don’t get it – is he dead, that club guy? The guy we saw?’

Chris came in and looked in the fridge, took out a beer. ‘You need to do some shopping, there’s only one left.’

‘What? No, listen. Why did we go there, to that court?’

He cracked the bottle open on the table. ‘Friend of the family, aren’t I? Pay my respects, see the fella get done for it.’

‘Since when? I thought you went to get money out of that Anthony. Is that not why you went down to the club?’

‘He was a business colleague, right.’

Keisha felt a slow volcano of rage erupt in her stomach. ‘Your f*cking business – what’s that? Beating up some clueless blonde girl? I know you told them to do it, that Rachel and her mate.’

He shrugged. ‘Fella tapped her brother, stands to reason they’d be upset with his missus.’

‘That girl – f*ck, I mean – her tooth got knocked out.’ Keisha’d seen fights, of course, been in plenty too, but not where one person was crying and groping on the floor like that, blood rushing out of their mouth like a f*cking tap. She didn’t think anyone had ever hit the white girl in her life before. Why else would she look so damn surprised? Like she was actually shocked anyone would hurt her. Did she not see it coming? And then there was the tooth in the pool of blood, and those two girls had scarpered and guess who was left to face the music with that nosy-parker policeman. And he’d showed her a picture of Chris (with that slut Rachel)! Why did he have a picture of Chris?

She thought about the shoes, and the stain on the bathroom rug. ‘What’s going on, Chris? You said you didn’t trust me – why’d you make me go?’

Chris opened the last beer on the side of the table, where the veneer was all chipped away. They’d lose that off their deposit but he never gave a shit. The microwave pinged. ‘You getting that?’

‘Why’d you want her purse?’

Suddenly his calm was thrown off like a coat. ‘Did you get it? Give it to me.’

‘No, I—’

‘You got it. Don’t f*cking lie to me.’

She couldn’t. ‘Well, she dropped it when I went in – Johnson’s sister, f*cking idiot she is – but it’s just library cards and shit like that—’

He snatched Keisha’s bag off the counter and emptied it all on the table, bus tickets, bits of old crisps, tissues falling out everywhere.

‘Hey!’

‘Where is it? I mean it, f*cking give it to me.’

‘For f*ck’s sake.’ She had tears in her eyes. ‘Your food’s done.’

He grabbed her arm.

‘Oh, all right. F*cking hell. I’ll get it.’

‘Tell me where.’ His grip tightened.

‘Ow! In my jacket, OK?’

He went and was back in seconds, emptying the purse over the table. The blonde girl’s Oyster card fell out, twenty pounds cash, video and gym cards. Coins bounced tinnily across the small kitchen; one hit the door of the microwave. Keisha felt weak. ‘See? Nothing there.’

‘F*ck.’ Suddenly his arm was on her throat and she was backed up against the fridge. It was such a f*cking small kitchen, she always said that. ‘You take something out?’

‘No. For Christ’s – sake!’ She choked in air.

‘Nothing with her address?’

‘You’re hurting me!’

‘F*ck.’ He let her go.

‘She’s just a dumb white girl, she didn’t even see them coming. Why do you want her address? Why did you really go? I know you didn’t want to pay your respects, whatever shit you said to that Rachel.’

‘Shut up.’ He turned round in a circle, rubbing his chin.

‘You want to find out where she lives, is that it? But why? Why, Chris? It’s not ’cos you liked him, Anthony – you said he was a jumped-up tosser. He wouldn’t pay you, would he, was that it?’ The words were tumbling out of her like a train in that bit of a film where you can’t stop it and it goes falling over the cliff. ‘You went back to the club? Is that where you went? I know it wasn’t ketchup on your shoes, I’m not f*cking stupid.’ She couldn’t stop talking.

Chris was pacing in the small kitchen. One two three, one two three. ‘I said f*cking shut it, Keisha. I’m warning you.’

But she never could control her mouth. ‘Did you see him dead, is that it? You didn’t want the police to know you went back? But you wouldn’t get in trouble if you just tried to help—’ She felt an odd surge of something, like her stomach was doing somersaults. ‘Were you afraid? F*ck, Chris, f*cking hell – is that why you went today? Why won’t you tell me? What did you do?’

There was a crash – Chris had snatched the bottle off the table and smashed it. The air smelled of beer and he turned, screaming. ‘I told you to shut it! You never learn!’

‘Stop f*cking shouting at me, I’m trying to help! We could just tell someone—’

And there was her, smart-arse Keisha Collins, who sneered at the poor white girl for not seeing her beating coming, who really should have known better. She was still surprised somehow when his hand came up and his ring connected with her cheekbone, and his foot with her knee.

‘You stupid cow,’ he swore, as his fist came down. ‘You’re going nowhere.’ The jagged edge of the table came up and flew at her face with shocking speed. ‘You’re talking to no one.’

Really, you could never see it coming, however much you should know.


Charlotte

By the time Charlotte had been taken away to have her face stitched up, a young reporter from the local paper, twenty-four years old and fresh from City Journalism School, had finished typing up his routine court reports and, with an eye out for a good story, the one that would lift his career out of the court circulars and car boot sales and into the big time, decided to place a call to the newsdesk of Metro. Doing a search for other bankers sent into meltdown by the recession – suicides, shoot-outs, murders – he started to draft a story on the Banker Butchers, playing with alliteration in the margins of his notebook.

Calls were made, names Googled. While Charlotte was queuing to have her lip stitched, it was all over the news – London banker charged with murder. Soon Charlotte’s phone had started to ring, and ring, and ring. But it was still on silent in her bag, and she was sitting in the Royal Free waiting to have her face sewn back together.

It was after eight when Charlotte finally left the hospital, having waited for hours with an ice pack held to her face that smelled strongly of dirty old freezers. A locum doctor from India jabbed her mouth with a local anaesthetic and then pulled the thread through her lip, for Christ’s sake, her actual mouth. One of her bottom teeth had been knocked out by the fall on to the sink, and Charlotte had carried it to the hospital in a gummy pool of blood. It was too late to reattach, they said. She could have an implant when her mouth healed.

It was the idea of being toothless that made her cry most, more than the bruises to her ribs that left her struggling for breath, more than the split lip or black eye she was squinting out of. She was missing a tooth, like an old bag lady on the street! She’d always been a baby about injections, but she was so dazed she sat silently, tears welling up until the doctor had to wipe them away with a piece of gauze. It would never heal if she kept crying on it, he said.

By nine Charlotte had walked the few streets from the hospital to her house, and just wanted to sleep and sleep for ever and not wake up.

There was, in her head, a list of things she would have to deal with soon. Knocking on her skull. Like that Dan was in prison, right now, this second. That he wasn’t getting out. And the worst – the absolute worst . . . But she couldn’t think about the wedding. It was too big to think about, like looking at the sun. Getting a lawyer, a decent one this time. Explaining to Simon why she hadn’t turned up today. Somehow, she’d thought that when Dan was released, they’d both go merrily off to work.

But she’d barely got home when there was an almighty buzzing from the door and her name was being yelled up from the street loud enough to rouse the whole building. ‘Charlotte! Charlotte! Are you there? Right, that’s it, Phil, call the police.’

Oh, crap. It was her mother.

Charlotte’s mother was short, like her daughter, and had greying fair hair in a sensible feather cut. She burst out crying as soon as she saw Charlotte. ‘Why didn’t you answer your phone? I thought you were dead!’

Phil, Charlotte’s step-father, was trying to get his wife inside. ‘Come on, Gail, let’s not make a scene.’

‘Why shouldn’t I make a scene? To see it on the news like that! I just don’t know what to tell everyone. They were looking forward to the wedding so much!’

Charlotte’s stomach flipped; she wasn’t ready to think about that. ‘How did you get here?’

Phil was settling her mum on the sofa, coaxing her out of her M&S suede jacket. ‘Came down the M6. Easy run, at this time. Stopped at the services for a bite.’

Charlotte felt slightly hysterical; in a minute he’d be telling her what route the SatNav had taken them on. ‘I mean, what are you doing here? It’s a Monday evening.’ In normal circumstances her mother wouldn’t make the drive south without a six-month detailed planning period.

‘Well, what else could we do?’ Gail started up noisy sobs. ‘It’s just not fair, Charlotte. I’ve been working so hard on this wedding, and now who knows what’s happening!’

Charlotte shut her eyes. ‘Mum, will you just – I don’t know, OK? I don’t know what’ll happen now.’

‘But why didn’t you call us?’

She snapped. ‘Because I got beaten up, OK? I’ve been in hospital all day.’

‘Where are my glasses, Phil?’ Gail peered at her daughter and pressed a hand to her own chest. ‘Oh my goodness, your face!’

Charlotte sank down at the kitchen table. ‘I was in the toilets, after the – at the hearing. Some girls hit me.’

Gail’s face said that everything she’d always believed about London had come true.

Phil cleared his throat. ‘Shall I make us a brew?’

‘What? If you want. Mum, I didn’t tell you because it was all so fast. I just never thought it’d go like this. I honestly thought it would all be fine after this morning.’ As she said it, Charlotte realised it hadn’t been fine – so now what? How was she going to think about what was next?

‘But they said he – he killed a man!’

‘I know, I was there, all right? But he didn’t. I know he didn’t.’ Her voice wavered.

‘But we saw it, didn’t we, Phil – right there on the lunchtime news! And a picture of him! Where in the world did they get it from? Did you give them that?’

‘For God’s sake, Mum, I didn’t even see it. I’ve been waiting in Casualty all day.’

‘It’s the cuts, isn’t it,’ said Phil, rummaging in her cupboards.

Gail fretted at the hankie she was holding. ‘I just didn’t know what to do. We’ll have to get in the car, I said, didn’t I, Phil? I didn’t even put the video on for Holby City.’

‘Any milk, love?’ Phil was still pottering.

‘Oh – no. I didn’t exactly get time to go shopping.’ She bit her lip, wincing at the pain.

‘There’s no milk, Gail. Would you take it without milk? Have you a shop nearby?’

Charlotte nearly screamed at him. What good was tea at a time like this? But Phil was already getting back into his beige jacket. ‘Think I saw a foreign shop round the corner. Always open, aren’t they?’

When he left, the silence settled round Charlotte and her mother like a heavy cloak. The clock ticked. Gail sniffed and looked about her, bewildered. ‘I was supposed to be seeing the florist tomorrow. What’ll I do? Will we have to postpone it? Charlotte?’

Charlotte gazed at her immaculate nails, buffed and shaped to perfection, ready for what she had thought would be the best day of her life. ‘They said there won’t be a trial for months.’

Her mother stared at her. ‘We’ll have to postpone it then. Good God, and I just put down the deposit on the cake. And what about that band he insisted on?’

Charlotte flared up. ‘You can say his name, you know. Dan. Remember? He’s the one who fixes your computer for you. Walks your bloody dog. Do you really think he would just kill someone? Wise up.’

‘I don’t like your tone, Charlotte. They’ve charged him, haven’t they? You never know, do you?’

‘You do sometimes.’ No one was going to convince her that she was engaged to a killer. It just wasn’t possible.

The door opened and they both jumped. Phil came rustling in with a bulging carrier bag. ‘Did you see that scrum outside?’

Gail was peering out of the window. ‘Darling, he’s right. There are press out there.’

‘What? Don’t be silly.’ But Charlotte looked out and saw three people gathered at her gate, a man with a camera and one with a sound mike, and a woman with a microphone. Sky News, it said. She turned back, thinking, This isn’t happening. It was as if her life had turned into a film.

‘Very rude of them,’ said Gail crossly. ‘What if someone’s having renovations done and the house doesn’t look its best?’

Phil was opening cupboards as if he owned the place. ‘Got a few bits,’ he said placidly. ‘Your mam and I like Bran Flakes in the morning. Keeps us regular.’

From this charming piece of information, Charlotte gathered that they were planning to stay with her for some time.


Keisha

This was it, then. When it all cracked off in your hands, like some crappy old saucepan you thought you’d get one more use out of, but really you knew it was just a matter of time before it all fell to bits. And now it had. In one day she’d gone from patching things up with Chris, maybe getting Ruby back soon, to not knowing who he was at all. A man who’d do what he did to his own baby. A man who’d knock his girlfriend out in her own poky kitchen.

She’d woken up on the floor when the door slammed. At first Keisha felt like she was on a roller coaster, going so fast her feelings were a few seconds behind. For a moment it was like floating, weightless. Then it was coming, it was coming – oh, the f*cking pain. The head. The ankle. He’d f*cking stomped on her leg – she could see the imprint of his shoe on the unshaven skin. Her nose was pressed to the floor, beside a spaghetti hoop. It was f*cking filthy, this kitchen. You would think it’d have been dirtier when Ruby was there, but Keisha had scrubbed it every day with that Dettol stuff, like her mum said. Now though – bits of fag ash, breadcrumbs, a frozen chip under the fridge. The floor felt gritty under her cheek.

She tried to see if she could get up. Pulled up one arm, one leg. Well f*cking done, Keisha Collins. Have a GNVQ in sitting up. The blonde girl’s wallet was still on the table, the cards spilled out. For a minute she imagined they could go back: they’d never seen this girl or her bloody boyfriend, Chris had never knocked her out. Imagine.

Something splashed onto the soft leather of the purse – red, warm. Her nose was bleeding.

Keisha had no idea when Chris might be back. It took her five minutes to stuff things in a bag. Pants. The bit of money she’d hidden inside a pair of socks. Jumper. Picture of Ruby – no time to pull down all the ones she’d tacked up to the cupboards, so she just took one. She couldn’t find her keys, had he taken them? The last thing she did was feel in her jeans pocket for Charlotte Miller’s driving licence, the address printed bright and clear on the pink background. It was still there where Keisha had hidden it, as soon as she left the court. Why? She’d no idea. Was it worth getting knocked out for? No idea.

Keisha stood in her hallway with her pathetic little bag of stuff. Shit. Was she really going? Where to?

She heard a noise from downstairs and, heart going like a train, reached out to turn the handle. Nothing. He’d locked her in. And someone was coming up the stairs.