Manon made some excuse as to why she couldn’t attend. There was a smattering of students and members of the faculty; Dr Young, looking ashen (Davy recognised him from his police interview). Will Carter attended in an impeccable suit, which flashed through the open flaps of his black raincoat. Davy had come to admire Will Carter. He carried himself with utmost decorum; didn’t over-emote at the front of the church but sat with elegant sympathy, paying his respects. He looked even more handsome in mourning clothes, especially the waistcoat element, which Davy never would have thought of himself. And his socks – even his socks, visible when he crossed his legs – were a perfect shade of blue, matching his shirt and tie.
Ian and Miriam Hind attended, which surprised Davy because press innuendo surrounding Helena was still swirling, as if her suicide were part confession.
Edith Hind lover found dead.
Why did Edith’s girl end it all?
Lady Hind wore a wide-brimmed hat, which forced her neighbours to duck and swerve while she remained serene. Her neckline sparkled with a collar of black stones. The Hinds cried more than was fitting for a friend of their daughter’s, and Davy could see they were in some way enacting a dress rehearsal for their own worst fears. Besides, there was no way of stopping your mind from wandering at a funeral, travelling into all sorts of dark imaginings about your nearest and dearest and how they might die and how you might feel. They were riveting like that.
Helena’s own parents were not present, her father having suffered a stroke during the press furore over his daughter’s sexuality; her mother was described by the priest as ‘incapacitated’. ‘Our thoughts are with them,’ he said, ‘and it falls to us to mourn on their behalf a beloved daughter, friend, and student.’
As the congregation filed out, Davy remained seated in his pew, looking forwards at the large photograph of Helena on an easel next to her coffin. He was staring at his guilt and at his failure to prevent something so wantonly destructive. And as he stared, he felt a body heave down next to him. Stanton’s breathing was strained, as if the fat was squeezing the very breath out of him like a fist. They sat together, staring at Helena’s image – her expression smiling and innocent of what lay ahead – and there was intimacy in that pew. The constable and the chief superintendent. Then, Stanton said, ‘Pint?’ and Davy accepted the invitation, in part because, without Chloe, he had nowhere to be on a Friday night. He thought it would be one long arse ache, that pint with the boss, but as they sat at the small round table, he found he was too tired for toadying, so he looked Stanton in the eye and told him how rotten he felt about Helena Reed, and how responsible. Stanton licked the foam off his upper lip and said, ‘If you can keep those feelings, Davy lad, – and let me tell you, every minute in the police will chip away at them – but if you can hold onto those human feelings, you might just make a good copper.’
Wednesday
Miriam
‘Mum?’
It is Rollo’s voice calling and she follows it into the lounge, where the curtains are perpetually drawn.
‘Look at this,’ he says. He stands in front of the television, which is blaring the excessively jaunty theme tune to This Morning. The remote in his hand is still lolling at the screen. The television is never on during the day, except the odd black and white afternoon film when Miriam is particularly exhausted.
‘Why am I watching this?’ she asks.
‘Just wait and see.’
The set is a cacophony of exposed brick, floral wallpaper, and primary-coloured soft furnishings, all yelling ‘CHEERFUL!’ at a bruising volume.
‘Here we go,’ says Rollo.
The presenters – a blonde woman who resembles Bambi and a white-haired, curiously ageless man – have lowered their voices to denote ‘tragedy item’.
‘A month ago, twenty-four-year-old Edith Hind went missing from her home in Huntingdon. The police still don’t know what’s happened to her, but since then a series of lurid revelations have appeared in the press relating to her private life. Indeed, last week, the exposure led to her best friend, Helena Reed, tragically taking her own life. Today, exclusively on This Morning, we have Edith’s boyfriend here to talk about the girl he loves and to separate the facts from the fiction.’
‘That’s Holly Willoughbooby,’ says Rollo.
‘That can’t be her real name,’ says Miriam.
‘Shhhhh,’ says Rollo.
Holly’s huge doe eyes are looking up from beneath a voluminous sweep of yellow hair. Her voice is laden with condolence, while along the bottom of the screen, Miriam notices, the next item is on flattering trousers, followed by a discussion on toddlers who bite. Something about the lighting on the show makes its world seem thin and breakable.
‘You were with Edith for two happy years and presumably you had no inkling of what lay ahead. You must be worried sick about her,’ says the ageless man, whose bronzed skin and white hair make him seem like a photographic negative.
Will Carter smiles. He is resplendent in a slate blue open-neck shirt, an exact match for his eyes which, studio lit and in high definition, sparkle on screen.
Ah yes, thinks Miriam, of course.
‘I’m worried and I miss her like crazy,’ he says, ‘but it’s also been devastating to see so many lies and innuendoes in the tabloids. It’s just compounded all our distress.’
‘You mean yours and her parents – Sir Ian and Lady Hind,’ says the ageless man.
‘That’s Phil,’ Rollo says to Miriam.