Untouchable Things Read online

  “Friend?”

  “She claims another girl was here too. Never mind, there’s always my secret stash.”

  He returned from the bedroom with a wad of notes. “I reckon this should cover it. Good thinking, Anna.” He winked at her. “Come.”

  “What? You’re just going to pay her off?” Michael made to bar the door.

  Catherine spoke for the first time. “It may not be a bad outcome for her. It’s probably not the first time she’s been hurt. At least we can give her some money to help sort herself out.”

  Charles noticed the we, the fact that they were suddenly very much part of this. But still he did nothing, waited for the others to make a decision. Seth inclined his head and Anna, Catherine and José left the room with him. Michael and Charles looked at each other and followed on.

  They hung back in the doorway while Seth went into the drawing room. The woman, now clothed in fishnet tights and a short skirt, was sitting on the edge of a chair dabbing her face. The white negligee lay bloodstained at her feet like a bandage.

  Seth coughed. “Look, I’m terribly sorry this has happened.”

  She looked up and there was hatred in her disfigured face. “You won’t get away with this. I’ll call the pigs.”

  Seth raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that very much.”

  She scowled. Seth moved towards her. “How about this, to help you forget?” She looked at the money in his hand. Charles held his breath. One elephant, two elephants, three… She lunged for it. Counted it, quick, like a bank clerk. Then looked up at all of them, face by face.

  “Scum.”

  She stood up in tottering heels and they jostled each other trying to clear her exit. On her way past Seth she grabbed at her head and a cascade of tangled red hair hit him in the eye. She was blonde, black roots to match the black chequers across her cheeks.

  Seth’s eyes opened wide. “Lord, it’s one surprise after another today.”

  She spat in his face. A shimmering glob of saliva landed near the corner of his mouth.

  For the first time he lost his cool. “You stupid bitch.”

  Charles saw a flash of fear in her good eye as she flinched like a startled rabbit. Then she smirked slowly and extended a hand. “Want your hanky back?”

  Charles watched Seth’s eyes harden into bottle green glass, the saliva starting to dribble towards his chin, and instinctively reached out to hold his arm. He felt the muscles flexing under his fingers. Then Seth snorted, threw off his hand and reached for a tissue from the coffee table. The woman pushed past them and the door banged shut in the hall.

  So you just let her go? How hurt was she?

  Well, that was the other thing. She passed right by me as she left and I saw some marks on her neck.

  Marks?

  Like a band of bruising.

  Like she’d been throttled?

  I think so. Yes.

  And did you mention it to anyone else?

  Er, no. I don’t know if they noticed. I was in shock, I suppose. We all were.

  They spent the next two hours cleaning up, light-headed and white-faced. The party aftermath wasn’t too bad once the furniture had been righted, just a few empty bottles and full ashtrays, beer cans and softening peanuts. Seth said he’d done some clearing up before going to bed. Catherine got down on her hands and knees in a burgundy ball gown tied with a sash at the back and scrubbed at the bloodstained carpet for an hour. Charles felt bad seeing her like that, as though she was Seth’s scullery maid. He stationed himself by her side, changing the water in her bucket when it turned dark and cloudy, mostly feeling useless. None of them really spoke to each other. They worked in silence like a team of cleaners with a mission to accomplish. All of them did their bit, even Michael. Only Seth breezed from room to room, offering coffee and light refreshments.

  “Imagine waking up to find that in your house. Christ, it was like Jane Eyre with Bertha Mason on the loose.” Catherine jolted and stared up at him.

  “What is it, my little honeypot?”

  “Nothing. I just know that book very well.”

  He closed his eyes and put his hands out. “Jane, come back to me, Jane.”

  “Stop it.”

  But he must have heard the smile in her voice because he carried on, moving towards her and stubbing his toe on the bucket, which sloshed a warning. “Ouch.” He opened his eyes and stared down at the carpet and its new coat of murky brown splodges. “Not much good as a blind man, I’m afraid. I’ll leave you to it.”

  But he was back minutes later with a handful of garish takeaway menus. “Sorry about the roast, chaps. I know it’s not quite the same, but would pizza do you? On me, of course. Order as many toppings as you like.”

  Anna was holding up the white, frilly negligee at arm’s length as a pizza menu landed at her feet. She kicked it aside. “What shall I do with this? It’s covered in blood.”

  They all stared. It looked as though someone had been shot in it.

  “Um. I suppose we’d better get rid of it. I’ll fetch you a bin bag.”

  Anna bagged it up and stuck it in another bin bag full of rubbish. Charles felt his stomach turn. But still he found himself an hour later eating pizza on the sofa. He started by nibbling tiny mouthfuls, revolted by the idea of food, but halfway through the second piece realised how hungry he was, how easily the salty, slippery triangles slithered down his gullet. All eight pizzas disappeared, plus most of Catherine’s crumble. The dark blotches on the carpet watched them like bloodied eyes.

  Next time he went round the carpet was gone and the floorboards sanded and varnished. Seth slung an arm over his shoulder. “Just fancied a change, Charlie boy. Knew you’d approve.”

  Thank you, Mr Maslowe. I will try to look at the incident records from that time to see if any complaint was made, or similar incidents recorded, but it seems unlikely.

  I know. I don’t really expect you to do anything but I wanted you to know.

  Will that be all?

  Yes. Well, there is one other small thing. When I was tidying up that day I opened Seth’s fridge.

  What did you find?

  Well, it’s more what I didn’t find. There was no sign of a bird for roasting, no vegetables, it was in its usual half-bare state. It’s as if…

  Yes?

  Well, as if Seth never planned to make that roast. Of course, he could have just decided he didn’t want to bother. But he made such a big thing of it. So I wondered if there was a reason why Seth wanted us there that day. If he wanted to drag us into something so that… so that we couldn’t speak out against him later on. Or perhaps to test our loyalty.

  Mr Maslowe, if I understand you correctly, you are proposing that Mr Gardner deliberately beat up a prostitute, brought you over to implicate you all, and then murdered his father knowing you wouldn’t refer any suspicions to the police.

  I know, it sounds mad. Forget I said that. And of course he didn’t murder his father. Sorry, I just want to be completely open with you now.

  One small observation, Mr Maslowe.

  Yes?

  To a dispassionate onlooker it might appear that you almost want to indict your friend. Has something happened to prompt this?

  No, no, that’s not it. Nothing’s happened. Of course I don’t want to indict him. I’m just trying to do the right thing.

  Scene 18

  Despite the early mornings and late finishes, the boulder-like black files she lugs home, the sherbet-coloured romance novels she keeps for the Tube or bath, something is forcing Catherine to think about that night. It’s not the gasping memories that wake her at four a.m, nor the throb in the pit of her body that starts from nowhere, nor even the taste of shame when it hiccoughs onto her tongue. It’s much more prosaic. It’s the fact that her period, never late, is now ten days overdue.

  Good sense has been drilled into her from head to toe like writing in a stick of rock (swot! teacher’s pet! goody two shoes!) and is not easy to evade. She buys a ludicrously pri
ced do-it-yourself test with a hazy mother-and-baby picture in blue. Hazy, presumably, so as not to parade a positive result in case that’s not what you’re looking for. What is she looking for?

  Not this, not this absurd reaching between her legs on the toilet seat. Not this wait where she should put the stick down and do something else but instead clutches and stares at it like a tarot card. What will it be? The Lovers? Death?

  The Abandoned, she thinks. The Limping Boy, the one left behind by the Pied Piper. The one who survived. Survived in a clinical sense with all his friends, his joy, the magical music, gone.

  Gone. Such a short, innocuous word. Gone with the wind. Gone to the shops. Gone swimming. Gone mad.

  All gone.

  The second blue line creeps along its window like a caterpillar. She hears the drawing of a blind, the soft closing of shutters. The line completes its journey and stands straight, a bookmark in a discarded book that she will never finish now.

  She stays on the cold toilet seat to gaze at the card fate has dealt her. The Fool.

  Scene 19

  In the end it was Green & Oldthorpe who hammered the final nail into the coffin. Or rather into one of their For Sale boards. Advertising an elegant two-bedroom first floor apartment that had once been home to a Steinway grand piano, restored Italianate sideboard and weekly gatherings of would-be artists.

  Anna was so upset when she called that Rebecca went over to her flat straight away, unable to hear past the gulps and panted stutters. When she arrived, Charles was there too, a strange light in his eye. Anna’s face was patchy but dry.

  “What is it?” She didn’t want to be here. She’d just heard she’d got the part of Abigail in The Crucible for a new production that was going to be touring. She wanted congratulating, wanted to talk through her mixed feelings of leaving London, of moving on. Something told her she wouldn’t be moving on just yet.

  Charles patted the sofa next to him. Why did people always make you sit down when they had something bad to tell you? She preferred to stay on her feet, poised, ready to react. She didn’t move.

  Anna nodded, seemed to understand. “He’s put his flat up for sale.” Her voice shook slightly.

  Charles was right, she should sit down. Sink into black leather as the words sank deep into her heart. She looked at Charles for clarification. He spoke gently, like a doctor delivering news of a terminal illness.

  “Anna saw the For Sale sign and phoned the estate agent. It’s his flat. He’s selling up.”

  There had to be another explanation. “What if it’s not him who’s put it up for sale? What if he’s being defrauded by someone – Jake, maybe – or his mother is selling, or something awful has happened to him…”

  The first stage, denial. Even she could hear it.

  Charles shook his head. “I phoned the estate agent to find out more, asked if I could be shown around by the owner so I could ask specific questions. They said it was all being handled by a third party.”

  “There you go then.”

  Now Anna was shaking her head. “I don’t think so, Becs. Only Seth could sanction the sale of his flat. His father’s dead and his mother’s awaiting trial for murder.” She breathed. “I think we have to accept that, for whatever reasons, Seth wants to make a fresh start.”

  Her voice was as harsh as the white glare on the walls around them. Rebecca thought of the embers glowing in Seth’s drawing room, the dark wood furnishings, the cosiness that wrapped you up like a fleece blanket despite its size. It belonged to them, all of them. Now she would never see it again, never see Seth blowing smoke from the armchair or Jake emerging from the kitchen with plates of food. The door buzzed.

  “That’ll be José.”

  She said nothing as they told him, didn’t even watch his reaction. It’s over. The words filled her head like a mantra. It’s over. That was all anyone could say.

  But it wasn’t. She tuned into Charles talking to Anna, his eyes still lit from behind like a computer screen. “He’s been pulling our strings all along. Michael was right. And we’ve been covering for him, making excuses for him. He’s got us right where he wanted us.” He paused and there was a new hardness in his voice. “That woman – it was him all the time. And we covered for him.”

  Three sets of eyes turned to her and she knew that they were ready to answer her question. If she was ready to ask it.

  * * * * *

  “Becs. Talk to me.”

  She feels a hand on her arm and faces looming towards her.

  “I’m sorry, Becs, we promised him we’d never breathe a word. We wanted some new blood in the group so that we could put it behind us, move on.”

  “New blood?” She pushes the hand away, struggles to her feet.

  Anna looks away. “Sorry, that was a bad choice of words.”

  “New fucking blood? That’s all I was? Your next plaything? To distract you all from… God, you make me sick.” And she thinks she might be for a minute, has to grab the back of the chair and bend her head.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” Anna sounds as if she might cry again. She stands too, tries to make eye contact. “After it happened there was this huge shadow, this blight over the group. Nothing was the same. Seth said we needed to bring someone else in to re-energise us.”

  A curdling noise from the back of her throat, like someone has slit it. Tears start to tumble down Anna’s cheeks. “We all loved you straight away, Becs. You shook things up, brought us together again. Seth said you’d be a breath of fresh air and you were.”

  Rebecca feels her mouth hanging open. She looks at them, each in turn. One by one they drop their eyes. She waits for words to come to her, the right words, the last word. But in the end she just runs for the door.

  Scene 20

  Some time later, when the soothing emptiness of her flat has shrivelled to a bone-aching loneliness, when she is staring out of dead eyes at the blank television screen, her doorbell rings. Even now she thinks it might be him, come to explain, to claim her. Hope heaves, propels her to the front door. She can see at once by the shape behind the glass that it isn’t him, but her neighbour has come out of the flat opposite and she can’t run back now. Two swipes under her eyes must suffice.

  “Hey.”

  It’s José. He’s never been to her place before. Why not? Why has she never invited him? He looks strange in north London, stranded at the wrong side of the river. Once she would have teased him about it.

  “Why are you here?” She can sense her neighbour behind her trying to catch the conversation. “Did they send you?” She sounds crazy, paranoid. She wants to scratch at his face, leave marks on his perfect olive cheekbones.

  “Please let me in.”

  “Why the fuck should I?” Her voice rises and she can’t keep the tears down. But she can’t make a scene here. She sighs and lets him past.

  He looks around him as he goes into her flat. He finds the kitchen and pulls out a couple of streaky tumblers. “Let’s go and sit down.”

  She follows him through, watches him move things from the sofa and pat the seat next to him. He still has his coat on. He pulls out a bottle from his man bag and pours caramel liquid into each glass. This is so unlike José that she wants to laugh. She also wants to throw the liquid in his face but the urge to drink it is too strong. She sits beside him as he shrugs off his coat.

  “Nice place.”

  This time she does laugh, a quick nasal scoff. “I’d say you’re a hopeless liar. But clearly you’re not.”

  She can’t help being pleased with this line, and the effect it has on him. She inhales the fumes rising from her glass and takes a quick, burning sip.

  He fingers his glass. “I’m sorry we lied to you. We should have told you. We’d all tried so hard to forget about it.”

  She takes another drink, a gulp. “I knew there was something.” Her mouth twists. “I told myself I was being paranoid.”

  José shakes his head. “He had such a hold ov
er us.” His voice is thick and phlegmy. “And me particularly. All that stuff in my past. I always felt I owed him something.”

  Is he looking for sympathy? She hardens herself.

  “And we didn’t believe he’d done anything to that woman, we really didn’t. But now… if he did… then we owe you much more of an apology. Much more.”

  His voice quivers and she looks at him, not sure what he means. His eyes, when they meet hers, are tormented. “We found a red wig, Charles and I, when we broke into his Shepherd’s Bush place. He obviously likes red-haired women. But maybe he likes to hurt them too.”

  She breaks eye contact and stares at the wall ahead of her. She thinks of dressing up for him, the blindfold, his fixation with her hair. José puts a hand over hers and she feels the tremors as his shoulders shake.

  “We put you at risk, Becs.” Her brain starts to make the same links as his. She thinks of the footsteps tracking her at night.

  She gets to her feet. “We don’t know any of this is true. We don’t know he deliberately hurt that prostitute.”

  You don’t understand the connection we had. You’re sullying everything I have left of him.

  She turns to him as he wipes his eyes. “I hate you. All of you.”

  Her words spin around them, echoing over and over. There’s a long silence, which she will not break. But her brain is busy and questions are forming.

  “What was she wearing?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The prostitute.”

  “Oh.” He blinks. “When she left, the usual, I suppose. Short skirt, high heels. But, when we arrived she was in some sort of nightie thing, short. And… bloodstained.”

  The brandy has dried the roof of Rebecca’s mouth. “What colour was… the nightie?” She knows what he’ll say before he answers.

  “White.”

  She clamps two hands over her mouth, runs to the bathroom and heaves over the sink. Nothing comes up. Even her eyes are dry, staring at her like assassins in the mirror as she raises her head.

  She goes back to tell José to leave, but he doesn’t even look up when she enters the room and she finds herself slumping back onto the sofa again as her legs buckle. Still he stares at his shoes, hands clasping the glass between his knees. When he speaks it’s not what she expects.