That’s my daughter, always thinking the best of people.
‘So,’ Ella licks her lips then pops another cigarette into her mouth, ‘once we’d finished the cocktails I gave Charlotte a look like “let’s get out of here” but she ignored me and kept on talking to Mike. He bought us some more drinks and they kept talking – about his niece and his job as a photographer – which Charlotte thought was way cool – for ages. I thought we were going to spend the rest of the night chatting to his Royal Gayness,’ she shoots me a look. ‘Sorry, but he wasn’t bothered about talking to me, just her. Anyway, I only managed to drag her away when ‘Love it When You Lie’ came on and we went for a dance.’
‘Did you see him again?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not that night, no. But he was there the next time we went. Keisha wasn’t there that time and he just strolled up and said hello.’
‘So Charlotte and Mike became friends?’
‘Yeah.’ She shrugs. ‘That’s part of the reason why we fell out, the fact that she was getting all these new friends and hanging around premiership footballers in Greys and I felt like I wasn’t good enough for her anymore, like she was really up herself. I called her on it but she said she was just living her life and that it was cool to have a gay friend and that Mike was funny and gave her good advice on clothes and stuff.’
‘Clothes?’ A sick feeling rises from my stomach as I imagine my daughter in a changing room, parading around half naked in front of a man she barely knows. ‘What do you mean he gave her advice on clothes?’
‘He took her shopping.’ Ella pulls a face. ‘I know, I was totally jealous, I’m not even going to lie. He must have spent hundreds of pounds on her and got her all designer stuff – the proper labels and everything, not reject stuff from TK Maxx. It wasn’t just clothes either – he got her sunglasses, CDs, DVDs, loads of shit. Said it made him happy, like he was still buying stuff for Martha.’
Ella’s face is animated as she continues to describe, in minute detail, everything ‘Mike’ bought for my daughter. I recognize some of the descriptions – I saw them in Charlotte’s room and bought her explanation that they were fakes from a market stall at a car boot or love tokens from Liam – others I’ve never seen. The story is plausible enough, a recently bereaved single gay man in a city where he knows no one spots the doppelganger of his dead niece and showers her with presents in return for her company and yet, why do I feel like the temperature just dropped twenty degrees?
‘What does Mike look like, Ella?’
She shrugs. ‘Old.’
‘How old? As old as me?’
Ella screws up her eyes and scrutinizes me. ‘Probably, yeah.’
‘What else?’
‘He was just a bloke, an old bloke with grey in his hair, like any old bloke you see in the street.’
‘Think … please, it’s important. How tall was he? Was he fat or thin? What kind of clothes did he wear? He did wear any jewellery? What were his shoes like? Did he have a moustache, beard, glasses?’
‘Like I said,’ she twists in her seat and gazes across the park at a bunch of teenagers swinging back and forward on the children’s swings, ‘he just looked normal, apart from being really tall.’ She looks back at me. ‘He was probably about the same height as my dad.’
So he was about six foot four. ‘What else?’
‘He always looked smart – dark trousers and a shirt, that sort of thing. I never saw him in jeans. I don’t remember what shoes he wore.’ She glances back at the teenagers. ‘He had a watch, I think.’
‘And his build?’
She sighs. ‘Medium. He wasn’t fat and he wasn’t thin. And he didn’t wear glasses or have a moustache or beard,’ she adds before I can ask. ‘Oh yeah …’ she puts her feet up on the bench and hugs her knees. ‘His eyes were a really odd colour, kind of grey-ish and he had quite a big nose and a strange accent. Birmingham? Liverpool? I’m rubbish with accents but he definitely wasn’t from round here. That okay?’ She looks back at me but I can’t meet her gaze. I can’t tear my eyes away from the teenagers at the other end of the park. She’s just described James, twenty years after I last set eyes on him.
‘Sue?’ Out of my peripheral vision I can see Ella unclasping her legs. ‘You okay? You look weird.’
I was wrong about the school teacher Jamie Evans, but I’m not wrong about this. I can feel it in my bones, the marrow-deep certainty that, somewhere in Brighton and Hove, my ex-boyfriend is watching and laughing, proud of his newest role – bereaved gay man – delighted that he managed to wheedle his way into my daughter’s life right under my nose.
‘Did he ever touch her?’ I snap round to look at Ella. ‘Did he hurt Charlotte in any way?’
‘Why would he? I just told you, he bought her loads of stuff. He treated her like a princess.’
‘What was he blackmailing her about?’
‘Blackmailing her?’ She shakes her head. ‘Charlotte never said anything about that. Mike acted like he worshipped the ground she walked on – little miss “My dead niece”.’
‘Have you got his number? Or his address?’
‘No. Liam will though.’
‘Liam?’
‘Yeah,’ she looks at the surprised expression on my face and laughs, ‘Charlotte wasn’t going to have sex on her own in Mike’s flat, was she?’
Chapter 28
‘Sue?’ I can hear the concern in Brian’s voice. ‘Where on earth are you? You’ve been gone for hours.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I turn off the engine. All the curtains are open in Liam’s house but there’s no movement beyond any of the windows. ‘I got caught up at the funeral home.’
‘Really?’ The change in the tone of his voice is immediate. ‘Is that why they rang up to offer their condolences and ask when we’d like to come in?’
‘I …’ My brain scrabbles for a way out. ‘I haven’t been there yet.’
‘Obviously.’