The Fall - By Claire McGowan

Charlotte

After her mother had arrived to stay – and on Holby City night – Charlotte fell into her bed, and slept for two solid days. She woke in the darkened room from time to time but, hearing a murmur of voices about buying the Mail and calling to check the cat was OK, let herself slip back into oblivion. It was easier than having to think what she would do next. When she had to pee she went through the room trying not to look at them, ignoring them when they said, You really ought to get up now, darling. Don’t you think you should have a nice wash? Invariably there’d be a paper lying about, and they would try to whisk it away but not before she saw Dan’s face staring out at her. The arrest had triggered an avalanche of anti-City stories. banker butchers, she saw on the cover of the Mail, before they could hide it.

She woke to a memory. When had it been? A month before That Night, maybe. Saturday morning, and Dan awake before her. That was no surprise, he often got up early on weekends, unable to stop his brain whirring with work. This time he was sitting on the bed fully dressed, staring at her.

She’d yawned. ‘You OK?’

Still he stared. ‘How much does it matter to you?’

‘What?’

‘The money. Big wedding, big house.’

‘What are you asking?’ She’d rubbed her eyes.

‘Hypothetically, I suppose, if you’d stand by me without the money. If I did something. If we lost it all somehow.’

She’d laughed. She thought it was a joke. ‘It’s not the money I care about. I suppose it’s just hard to go back, once you’re used to a certain . . . lifestyle. And I thought you wanted to get a bigger place soon?’

‘Yeah. Never mind.’

Now she wondered what he’d really been asking.

Outside she heard her mother’s voice. A thin pale light was coming in through the curtains. ‘Phil, there’s more of those people outside.’

‘Shall I chuck the water again?’

‘They started shouting about the police last time. The nerve! She’s in no fit state to give interviews, for goodness sake. It’s all over my Telegraph as well, this racism malarkey. Apparently there was some coloured girl in his work, and she had to leave because they called her a Paki b-i-t-c-h. I’d just never have thought it.’

‘Bad business, love.’

‘Well, between you and me, this is Charlotte all over. She’s never had the best judgement. I always thought there was something odd about him, something held back.’

Charlotte put her head under the pillow. She wasn’t going to think about any of it. She had no strength to do anything but fall back into the dark.


Hegarty

‘Bad business, Matthew.’ Hegarty’s boss, Detective Inspector Bill Barton, shook his head as he put down the paper. ‘Banker Butchers, indeed. You’d think they’d never heard of contempt of court.’ A career policeman who was widely rumoured to wear some kind of holding-in corset under his shirt, DI Bill Barton was pretty dull. He didn’t listen to opera or do crosswords, he didn’t have colourful nicknames for his staff or a maverick way of getting things done. He’d got where he was through playing by the rules, absorbing pressure from ‘up above’, and being nice to everyone. Everyone apart from wrongdoers that is, and there was no one he hated so much as a journalist. ‘These bally reporters, they don’t seem to realise people can walk free if they plaster this all over the headlines.’

‘Will it affect the case, sir?’

‘Never worry, lad, you did sterling work, bringing him in. Very good for our PR, they tell me. White man kills a black fellow, it’s a powder-keg. Your actions put a lid on that sharpish. Now we just have to build the case and he’ll be in the slammer where he belongs. Excellent job.’

Hegarty nodded, but somehow this wasn’t as rewarding as it should have been. What was the matter with him? He’d been hungry for this: success, promotion. ‘Sir – you know Stockbridge’s fiancée was attacked at the hearing?’

The DI sighed. ‘Another bad business. Goes to show how high feelings can run.’

‘Yeah. Thing is . . .’ He didn’t know how to explain what was on his mind. He wasn’t even sure himself what it was. Like something you’d seen in the corner of your vision and then it was gone. ‘We haven’t found that other witness yet. The other white guy. Got his picture off a phone, though.’

Bill Barton winced. ‘Phone pictures – it’s dodgy, Matthew. Be careful with that. It was easier in the old days, I’m telling you. Now where’ve you got with the investigation?’

‘Spoke to Stockbridge’s bank – they were very helpful, I must say. Didn’t even ask for a court order. Just handed it all over, his HR records, the lot.’ In fact, he’d been wondering about how helpful they’d been. A woman called Kerry Hall had sent over a packet of documents on Dan Stockbridge, his medicals, disciplinary record, appraisal notes, the lot. Interesting reading.

The boss prodded the paper again. ‘Is it true then, this story about bullying black staff?’

‘Looks like it. They’ve had to pay a few people off over the years. All that City boy stuff, sir. You know how it is.’

‘I do. But I wonder how the papers got hold of it.’

Same place Hegarty had, he shouldn’t wonder – from Haussmann’s themselves. And that was a strange thing to do to your own employee. ‘Sir, I’d like to keep looking for this other witness, if I can. I might have a lead.’

‘Hmm. Be mindful of resources, lad. We’re all watching the pennies now.’ DI Barton jabbed a finger at the paper. ‘Main thing is to get that fellow behind bars, safe and sound.’


Keisha

So, odd choice. The last place she’d thought she’d end up that Monday, in fact. When she’d realised that Chris had locked her in, and obviously didn’t want her out of his sight, Keisha had panicked. Could you rattle a brain? If so, hers was going round like a coin in a washing-machine. Oh f*ck. She had to get out. Thank God all the ex-council flats had to have fire escapes. It was a tight squeeze, but she’d made it out of the window in the bedroom and down the iron stairs. Then she was down on the road and running as fast as she could, trainers pounding, her little bag bouncing on her back. But where to? She couldn’t go to her mum’s; she’d never get Ruby back if they knew what Chris had done. Again. He hadn’t changed a bit, the f*cker.

Desperate to go somewhere he wouldn’t know, she’d ended up in Swiss Cottage library. Her mother used to take her there sometimes for story groups, Keisha as a kid already ashamed of how her mum nodded and um-hummed her way through the lady’s stories. She wished Mercy understood you didn’t join in with things in this country.

It was hushed in the library, and she liked how it smelled of clean, of books. You could go in without ID or some twat of a bouncer up in your face. Best of all she liked how she could be about ninety-five per cent sure Chris would never find her here. Still, she crept in with her hood up, paranoid.

The lady behind the desk was really quite glam, not like a librarian. She had on glasses, but they were kind of funky, and purple knee-boots. ‘All right there?’

Keisha flushed. ‘Er – is it OK to come in? D’you have to pay?’

The woman laughed a bit – nicely. ‘Nope. You pay for it in your taxes.’

No need to say she didn’t think she paid taxes out of the brown envelopes she got at the nursing home.

Keisha stayed in the library until it was getting dark and the lights from cars on the ring road started to sweep in the long narrow windows. It was so nice there, all the books on their shelves, all the people working so quiet you knew someone would say shhh if a phone rang or you rustled the page. In the toilets she washed the blood off her face, carefully, like a bruised piece of fruit.

There was even a café, and she bought the cheapest thing off the grumpy girl there so she didn’t have to go outside. She wondered what her mum would say if she knew they charged four pounds fifty for a bowl of broccoli and Stilton soup. You make it from gold, this soup? Mercy would say, misting the glass cover with her hot breath, wanting to poke and prod the ciabattas and haggle them down. Two pound fifty, OK?

There was a dish by the counter that said TIPS, with a little heart over the ‘i’. A tip for passing you a bowl of soup! Some bits of London were mad.

The day passed in a bubble. So long as she stayed there, she’d be safe. Keisha got a whole pile of books, so she looked busy. You could even go on the internet, so she put her name down for it – not her real one, she gave the name of a girl she’d been at school with, Shondra Potts, right bitch. When it was her turn she didn’t know what to look for but her fingers twitched, taking her to news websites. There were a few bits about the Johnson case. Everyone was saying about how the banker’s office was racist and they all bullied people and got stressed, so no wonder he’d done it. It was over, as far as everyone was concerned. So why did she care, what did she owe them, this white couple, when they had everything, and she had nothing, less than nothing, nowhere to live now, not even – not even her own kid.

Thinking the words nothing, less than nothing in her head made her want to cry, but she snuffled the tears back inside, pulling her hood up so no one could see. Eventually it was ten to six, and she realised she’d have to do something. Could she risk going back, would he have calmed down? No. This Chris was someone she didn’t know any more. He might do anything. Had done.

She sat hunched at her desk for as long as she could, pretending she didn’t see them pulling the blinds and turning off the lights. But eventually someone was standing over her. It was the librarian – Julie, her badge said. ‘You know we’re closing now.’

‘Are you?’ She pretended to be surprised. ‘I was – studying.’ The book in front of her was Jordan’s autobiography.

Julie laughed again. ‘It’s Shondra, is it? You put down Shondra for the computer.’

She hesitated. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well, whatever your name is, here’s what I think. I think you’ve nowhere to go, because whoever did that to your face is there.’

Keisha’s hand went up to her eye before she could stop it. ‘I’m all right.’

‘That’s good. How about a cup of tea, at least? Save you paying two pounds, or whatever they charge in that café.’ That was better. They were talking the same language.

Julie unlocked a little door beside the toilets and they went into the tiniest kitchen, with a smell of going-off food. ‘See the glamour behind the scenes here, Shondra. You wouldn’t believe it, would you?’

Keisha smiled nervously. She had to put her hood down to drink the weak tea, but she knew Julie had already seen her face so it didn’t really matter. ‘Ta.’ She hadn’t drunk anything since she’d managed to beg a glass of water off the café bitch.

Julie crossed her legs, sipping on the tea like she was the Queen. ‘Foul,’ she said. ‘So, Shondra, do you know what the thing is about being a librarian?’

‘Er – nah.’

‘Well, it means you’re a public servant. Like a doctor. Or the police.’

Keisha stiffened.

‘So you see, Shondra, we have a bit of a duty to help people when they come here. Not just to find the new Jackie Collins – but sometimes with other things.’ She sipped the horrible tea. ‘You’d be surprised who we get in. Drug addicts, battered women, homeless people . . .’

‘I’m not homeless.’ Keisha set the cup down angrily. ‘I got a home.’

‘But you can’t go there, is that right? Because of – can I?’ Gently, she touched Keisha’s forehead. Her nails were painted candy-pink. ‘That needs cleaning, you know. I can do it, I’m the first-aider. It was a good way to get a week off work.’

Keisha hated to be touched by strangers, but what could she say? She’d barely opened her mouth before Julie had whipped out the white box with the cross on it and was dabbing at the cuts with something that stung like f*ck. ‘Ow!’

‘Come on, I bet you’ve had worse. Try giving birth!’

‘I have,’ she said, surprising herself. ‘I got a kid.’

Julie’s copper eyebrows went up. ‘And where’s he or she?’

‘Away,’ she said quickly. She didn’t want this woman to think she’d left her kid with someone violent. Although she had of, course, in the past, hadn’t she? Never mind that.

Julie snipped the gauze. ‘You don’t have to tell me. Listen, there’s a hostel I sometimes send people to. It’s not free, though.’

‘I got money.’ She was so pleased she had those five tenners from her wages. A getaway. Dignity. It was everything.

Julie took out an A-Z and made a little ring on the page where the hostel was. ‘You’ll go there, promise?’

‘S’pose.’ Keisha made it sound like she had millions of other options. That was called keeping your head held high. She stood up. She was crap at saying thanks. ‘Er, I know you didn’t have to do all this, so . . .’

Julie laughed. ‘All part of the job. Sometimes I pretend I’m in Grey’s Anatomy, you know? Then I remember I’m a librarian. Take care, now.’

Keisha paused. ‘Your boots are cool,’ she said. ‘Are they, like, designer?’

‘These? Forty quid from New Look. I work in a library, mate.’


Charlotte

On the third day after Dan went to prison, she woke up at her normal time – eight – and shuffled into the kitchen in her pyjamas. Her mother and step-father were up, bright-eyed, sitting at the table eating Bran Flakes. Gail had on her usual weekday outfit of jeans, padded gilet, immaculate hair and make-up, while Charlotte had creases across her face from the pillow.

‘There you are. I thought you were coming down with the flu!’ Her mother’s tone suggested she’d have woken Charlotte at dawn; of all the things Gail and Phil didn’t believe in, sleeping late was high up the list. ‘You missed the news coverage. It showed this house!’

‘Front wall needs painting,’ Phil grunted. ‘You want to have someone look at that.’

She shuffled in. ‘You’re still here, then.’

‘Someone has to look after you, darling. Have some Bran Flakes.’ Gail waggled the bright blue box, the descending milk like a stream, frozen mid-splash. Was it real, Charlotte had always wondered. Was it just an illusion?

‘I don’t like them.’ Feeling like a petulant child, she rummaged for Nutella and made toast.

Her mother tutted but said nothing. ‘I called your work for you. Explained you were in shock. Quite a nice man I spoke to. Simon, was it? Educated, you could tell. Is he your boss?’

Oh God. ‘Did they – had they heard?’

‘Everyone’s heard.’ Gail sniffed. ‘It’ll be all round the village like wildfire, you can be sure of that.’

There was nothing to say to that but sorry, and why should she? It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Dan’s fault either.

‘You really must speak to them. His parents. They even rang up – sounded as if they’d never used a phone before in their life.’

She winced. ‘Er, Mum, what’s happened about – you know? Will we tell everyone it’s postponed? What about the suppliers?’

Gail’s face dissolved into little flurries of frowns and tears. ‘It’s been so hard. Most of them won’t give the deposits back.’

‘But weddings must get moved, surely? I mean, lots could go wrong.’

Phil crunched his cereal. ‘Wedding insurance. We did say.’

‘But you wouldn’t be told, would you, darling?’ They were a double act. ‘I’m afraid you’ll be rather out of pocket on this.’

Charlotte took a brave breath. ‘Look, we just have to try to forget the wedding for now. It’ll happen. I just need to sort all this out first. It can’t be that long till a trial, surely?’

‘Can be years,’ said Phil helpfully, from behind the Daily Mail.

‘And all the invitations went out. Such a shame. You’ll need to call your friends, darling. Your phone was going and going, such a racket.’

Why had she been sleeping when there was so much to do? She mustered herself. ‘Mum, it was really good of you to come, but I’m OK now. I can manage.’

‘You haven’t eaten a square meal in days!’

‘No, but I’m better now. Wouldn’t you like to get home to your own nice house?’

They glanced at each other; they loved nothing better than being at home in their own nice house. ‘But Charlotte, you’ve been such a wreck. It’s such a terrible, terrible thing. We can’t just leave you on your own. You need to get a lawyer, cancel things. What about money? You can’t afford to live here on your own, can you?’

She blocked her ears. No time to deal with that now. ‘Sarah could come over, if you think I need someone.’

‘Hmm, I suppose. Where is she now?’ Her mother turned to Phil, who although he was Sarah’s father was nothing like her, except in a certain inflexibility of spirit.

‘Some foreign place – Bangladesh? Meant to be back for the wedding, isn’t she?’

‘Oh yes, and she wouldn’t be told to come back sooner, would she? Well, if you think she can help . . .’ Gail’s tone expressed severe doubts that Sarah would help anyone.

Charlotte said, ‘You’ll beat the traffic if you set off soon. I wouldn’t want you stuck on the M6.’ It was the right thing to say – beating the traffic was practically part of Phil’s religion, and within an hour they were gone, leaving her in the dubious peace of the empty flat. As soon as the door shut she was in the recycling box, pulling out dirty crumpled paper until she found the article she wanted. She sat back on her heels and read about Dan, and his work, and the things they had done. Institutional racism. Psychological torture. City-boy bullies. And for hours the sound of the ticking clock was all she could hear.


Keisha

The hostel was a bizarro place. Weirder than weirdsville. Half the people were like her – between homes might be the nice way to say it. Ex-prisoners, single mums with nowhere to go. Most had skin so ruined from smoking it was stretched back over their faces like a mask. Keisha wasn’t the only one with a battered face, either.

The other half of the guests were normal, people who thought it was just a hostel that didn’t allow men. There were Asian girls taking pictures of everything on their camera phones, and once a bunch of middle-aged ladies from Bradford who just wanted to see Billy Elliot. She could hear them long before they came down the corridor, muttering over and over things they weren’t happy about. ‘And there’s never any pastries left at breakfast. The ad said pastries – and the noise, Margaret!’

‘I know, Sue, we should complain.’

‘We should. We absolutely should complain.’

There weren’t any pastries because the other half, the in-between women, got up at six and grabbed them – it was free food, after all. One morning Keisha was in the canteen, killing time reading Metro, when a wrinkle-faced woman nodded to her.

‘You want that?’ There was a small sticky Danish on Keisha’s plate, and she’d been going to save it in a napkin for lunch, but she said, ‘Nah.’ In a nanosecond the woman’s middle kid, a boy, had scoffed it. There were two other kids, a boy fiddling miserably with a mobile phone, and a girl about Ruby’s age, squirming to get off her mum’s lap. ‘Lemme go, Mam!’

Ruby’d never have been so loud or so cheeky. The woman had ratty dyed blonde hair and glared at Keisha, who quickly snapped her eyes away from the kid. ‘I got a girl,’ she explained. ‘Five, she is.’

The woman narrowed her heavily mascaraed eyes. ‘How old’re you then?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘Same. Ta for the bun. Tyler, Kian, Jade, get a f*cking move on!’

Twenty-five, and the oldest kid was ten at least, maybe eleven. Christ, there was always someone worse off.

At twelve she went out before the Irish cleaning lady, Brenda, came with her fug of floral air freshener, gassing them out like wasps. Then it was the library all day, reading book after book and all the papers and magazines in the place. She’d never known so much about the news. The name of that bank kept coming up again and again. Haussmann’s, a German-sounding name. That was where the blonde girl’s fella worked, or did before. Maybe not now. And it hadn’t collapsed in the end, the government had bought it after the owners lost ten billion pounds.

Keisha had to squint down at that figure, then lay the paper on the table to look at it properly, and an old biddy gave her evils because it rustled the teeniest f*cking amount. Was that right? If you were rich already, and you lost billions – from dodgy stuff, this paper seemed to be saying, although she couldn’t work out what – then the government would just say, oh, no worries, we’ll cover it? While if she lost a tenner, say ’cos she was stupid and dropped it out of her purse paying a bus fare, and it was all she had to spend in Tesco’s for a week, that was just tough shit?

She saw Julie a few times at the library, but ducked her head down into her hood. She was grateful and all, but sometimes it just hurt more when people were being nice. She didn’t know why, it just did.

At night Keisha lay awake to the constant comings and goings, Asian girls drying their hair at 5 a.m., babies screeching, women shouting all night in the corridor. Her mind raced with worries. She should call the nursing home, explain why she’d not been in. She should ring Sandra, tell her she’d left Chris. She should tell her mum, check on the kid. But she didn’t do any of it.

She thought about Ruby and her face the last time she saw her. Sometimes, however she tried, she thought about what he’d done to the kid, and how she’d just stood there and watched and couldn’t move to stop him until it was too late. Her hands clenched up in her sleep, dreaming about it. She kept thinking about that blonde girl – what did she know? It must be something, or Chris wouldn’t have gone after her at the court. If she could find out what the blonde girl knew, would it keep him away? But, stricken with fear, that was as far as she got.

After three days she was down to her last tenner, and her corner-shop Polish noodles had all run out. It was time to go crawling back.