Kiss Her Goodbye: The most addictive thriller you'll read this year Page 16

  ‘You need to back off from the Kirsten Green case,’ Dave tells me.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’ve had complaints from the college and from Sandra Reynolds.’

  ‘Complaints about what?’

  ‘You can’t keep going back.’

  I pause. ‘I don’t see it as a suicide. Sandra Reynolds’s partner hasn’t got back to me with his whereabouts yet.’

  ‘They didn’t even know Kirsten Green. I want you to focus on the Raymond’s garage incident. Give it your full attention. The mayor’s daughter’s car was involved.’

  ‘The Reynolds family are hiding something.’

  ‘You don’t have any proof of that and the coroner’s report was inconclusive.’

  I look up at the strip light on the ceiling in an attempt to stay calm. I want to scream at him that I don’t give a shit about the mayor’s daughter or her car, but I know he won’t listen.

  ‘Michael Lancaster was uncomfortable when I went round.’

  He shakes his head. ‘You’ve made the whole family uncomfortable. Give them a wide birth.’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘This isn’t like you. Is something bothering you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘If you need any time to get your head together or…’

  ‘There’s something about the Reynolds’s that isn’t right. I just want to make sure we’ve covered everything.’

  He frowns before he speaks and I know he isn’t going to change his mind.

  I continue, ‘I’ll get on with Raymond’s garage this morning. I’ve been through most of the paperwork already.’

  He purses his lips together. ‘Good.’

  As I speak, the words sound angry. ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘You know where I am if you need to talk.’

  I wait for him to mention Moira Timperley and the words hang over us, unspoken. We’ve been over it before. I don’t need to talk – talking won’t make any difference. I’m embarrassed that he knows what it did to me.

  ‘Thanks.’

  I go back to my desk and put away the case files for Kirsten Green. If Michael Lancaster doesn’t come in, then I can’t do anything about it. I hate not being in control. If this falls apart too then I can’t help thinking that Mum will have been right about everything. Nick puts a Flake on the edge of the desk in a gesture that is meant to make me feel better. I attempt a smile.

  ‘What did he want?’ he asks, as though he doesn’t know.

  ‘He’s worried about the mayor’s daughter’s car. It’s a fucking joke. Where are we up to on this garage, then?’

  ‘Still ringing around the old customers.’

  ‘Give me a list and I’ll help you.’

  ‘You missed a good night last night,’ he says.

  I try to sound interested. ‘Yeah?’

  He presses his lips together. ‘Debbie phoned in sick today. She could hardly walk when she left.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You’ll come next time?’

  ‘I might.’

  He points a finger. ‘You’re coming.’

  We don’t mention the Kirsten Green case. As the phone rings behind us Nick smiles, because he doesn’t understand. He has no idea what it’s like to have the face of a dead girl on your conscience.

  ‘What you thinking?’ Nick asks, quietly.

  ‘That the garage have more write-offs than they should,’ I lie.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He’s cooking the books.’

  I turn the pages of the report as though I have an interest. It’s obvious that the garage owner has got something going on the side. We’ll have this sorted by the end of the week.

  ‘What do you think?’

  I think it’s all bullshit. Some spoilt rich kid gets her car taken off her and we have to drop everything.’

  ‘Let’s go through the records and see.’

  Rain starts to hit the windows as Dave glances over from his desk. I will look into Michael Lancaster’s past this afternoon. I know there will be trouble if anyone finds out, but it’s worth the risk.

  22

  Hayley Reynolds

  On Saturday, we go on a day out to Wales. It’s cold, but the sun shines through the trees and lights up the pavements, making Stockport look beautiful. The terraced houses with their terracotta slate roofs shine a deep autumn red and in the distance the town is edged by the gentle curves of the huge viaduct. I look out of the window as we pass old ladies at bus stops with pull-along trolleys and tired-looking men taking their dogs for a walk. High-rise flats and church steeples break up the skyline as we drive down the hill towards the motorway. Despite there being three of us in the car, Mum acts as if there are only two.

  Mike glances at me in the mirror. ‘I’m glad you decided to come. It’s going to be a nice day,’ he says.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Let’s just enjoy it,’ Mum says.

  I slide down into my seat and listen to the hum of the motorway getting louder as we go round the roundabout. When ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ comes on the radio, Mum sings along and Mike brushes his fingers against hers every time he changes gear as though I’m not even in the car.

  ‘I love this one!’ She grins.

  She can’t sing, but it doesn’t stop her.

  I try to block them out, but the words make me think about everything that’s happened with Kirsten. I should have let Mike put on his Neil Young cassette as he wanted to, but everything reminds me of her at the moment. I try to imagine that he’s Dad and we’re going to the beach as we did years before, me in the back and them in the front. I close my eyes as the car bumps over the cat’s eyes and find myself in another place: a place before Mike. It’s not something that I can remember properly, but it gives me an idea. As red sandstone and bricks change to the lush green fields of other towns, I decide to ask Dad if he’ll take me to France with him. I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing it before. I’m going to have a new start and a new family. Once I’m in France no one will be able to find me, not that policewoman and not even Kirsten Green.

  We stop at the service station and park up in front of the picnic tables to eat our packed lunch. A yogurt has burst in Mum’s bag, making everything smell like fake vanilla.

  ‘Lovely spot,’ Mum says as she wipes her hands with tissue.

  I look at the overflowing bin in front of us as Mike pats her on the thigh.

  ‘How’s Leila?’ asks Mike, turning around to look at me.

  I have no idea and I don’t care. It has got me thinking though. If I tried to be more like everyone else, then maybe the things that keep me up in the night would drift away forever. They say that people can change and maybe I can too.

  ‘We could go to Paris next!’ Mum smiles.

  ‘Mais oui,’ replies Mike.

  ‘Tangerine? There’s not much yogurt on this one.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I reply.

  She looks at Mike as she rubs the fruit with tissue. I stare at the bright orange skin as she talks. ‘Did you hear about that bloke that died? It’s awful. Just lying there by the road.’

  I put my headphones in and close my eyes, but I can smell tangerines and I imagine them feeding each other the segments. There’s no escape from how disgusting they are, but the mention of the man on the road makes me feel calmer. I shut my eyes and pretend to be as still and silent as he was. I wonder if I could make a fresh start and wipe all of this clean as Mr Phillips does with the old lesson plans on the blackboard.

  *

  Mike takes us to a pebbled beach next to the dual carriageway. We walk over rocks draped in black seaweed and covered in flies.

  ‘Lovely beach.’ He smiles.

  Mum sits down on the edge of the concrete wall as he walks over to the sea and I imagine that he’s a stranger: just a man on the beach that I have never met. I pretend that Kirsten fell in the water and that I’m just like every other girl at college. In those
few seconds I’m free.

  ‘I’m not moving from this spot,’ Mum says as she stretches her arms back over her head. ‘Not in these heels.’

  Mike kicks a stone and it bounces over to the wet sand by the sea.

  ‘I don’t know why you wore those things,’ he says. ‘It’s a shame not to stretch our legs.’

  The wind blows his hair and reveals a patch of pink scalp on the side of his head as he looks out to sea.

  ‘She likes to look her best,’ I reply.

  ‘Fancy an ice cream?’ he asks, gesturing at the van in the distance. Mum frowns at her feet.

  ‘I’ll break my neck,’ she replies.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mike says, ‘we’ll go. You wait here.’

  She pulls her woollen scarf further around her and looks across the sand. The beach goes on forever. There are miles and miles of shore stretching towards the distant cliffs as we walk away from her. The waves wash over the edge of Mike’s shoes, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘It’s nice here,’ I say.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, as though the sea and sand are all down to him.

  ‘How come you’re not working today? I thought you worked most Saturdays now?’

  By working, I mean seeing his other girlfriend.

  ‘The project has come to an end.’

  That must mean that he’s been dumped. The pebbles click together as a wave washes back over them. It’s nothing like home and if I lived here I might even be happy. It feels so far away from the dirty hole of a town and its roaring black river. Nobody here even knows the name Kirsten and there’s a college somewhere down the road where no one knows me either. If I lived here it wouldn’t matter what I’d done and the thought gives me hope that things can get better. As we get closer, I can smell fried onions and I see that the van is parked on a concrete ramp that leads down to the sea. The van roof is the same yellow as the beaks of the seagulls on the wall behind it and in red lettering over the top it says: ‘Giant Hot Dogs! Cigarettes and sweets!’ A fat woman frowns through the hatch. The arcade is open behind it. A couple of kids are standing around the Pac-Man machine and an old man is dropping money into the two-penny falls.

  ‘Three ice creams, please,’ says Mike, and the woman points a fat finger upwards at the sign above her head.

  ‘No ice cream.’

  ‘Three hot dogs, then. Suppose you don’t get many customers wanting ice cream in November.’ He laughs.

  I don’t laugh with him and neither does the woman. Her skin is dimpled, like raw sausage meat, and her arms wobble as she reaches for the buns.

  ‘Can I get some shortbread?’ I ask, pointing at the tartan boxes on the shelf. I want to get it for Dad when he comes home.

  ‘You won’t eat all that.’

  ‘It’s for a present.’

  I look down at the pebbles under my feet and wish I’d brought some money; I hate to ask Mike for it. The five pounds that I took from the man is in my box of special things and I’m annoyed that I didn’t bring it now.

  ‘I can pay you back when we get home,’ I tell him, and he looks at me for a moment and then back at the woman.

  ‘And a packet of shortbread, please.’ He nods at me. ‘My treat.’

  The woman passes me my hot dog and I see the sharp black prickles of her armpit hair under her blue tabard.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, meaning it.

  As we walk back I listen to the waves and Mike doesn’t try to fill the silence. The beach is all over me. The salt is on my lips, the sand is in my socks and I can feel the pebbles through the soles of my trainers. It’s like walking on another planet. It’s hard not to slip and I could link arms with him, but I don’t want to play games today. I wonder if this is a place where I could finally be free and things could change.

  ‘You know, you can always talk to me if you’re bothered about anything. Even the things you don’t want to tell your mum. I might not be good at it, but you can,’ he says. I look at him, but he’s looking forwards and not at me. ‘You’re a special person, don’t forget that.’

  I know that he’s lying, because I’m not special. The first time I noticed Kirsten she was sitting in front of me on the bus. She blinked through her electric-blue eyeliner and stared at the world going past the window as though she were on the outside just like me. I recognised the beat of a New Order song through her frayed orange headphones as the bus moved through the traffic towards home. She was special. I knew it then, even if no one else did. Mike looks pleased with himself as we keep walking with the sound of seagull’s laughter behind us, but he’s no idea.

  ‘Now that I won’t be working on Saturdays things will improve. I think you know what I’m talking about.’ He stops to look at me. ‘You’re protective of your mum and you’re a clever girl. I haven’t been doing anything that I shouldn’t, but I want you to know that you can trust me. You can come to me if you need to. If you’re upset about something, I mean.’

  ‘You can talk to me too,’ I reply, and he smiles back.

  ‘So?’

  If he thinks it’s that easy then he’s wrong, but things do feel better today. He isn’t the worst person she’s ever brought home.

  ‘Are you going to see that policewoman like she asked?’

  ‘Your mum’s spoken to them.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘About them coming round to the house all the time, so don’t worry. It’s all sorted.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I wonder if that means she’ll leave me alone too.

  ‘What do you think about starting over?’ he asks.

  ‘Can we?’

  He pauses for a moment to clear his throat. ‘Of course,’ he says, walking on. ‘It’s never too late to put things right.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  He nods. ‘That’s good. Now let’s get these back to your mum before they go cold.’

  As we walk back I think about what he’s said and how great it would be if it were true. If everything that’s happened could be washed away like footprints on wet sand. I walk over to the sea and let the waves creep up to my feet. When I look up, Mike has got his camera out and I turn away to face the sea.

  ‘You’ve inspired me to get this out again,’ he shouts, and I wave my hand in the air to say stop, but I hear the clicks as he takes picture after picture.

  When we get back, Mum hasn’t moved from where we left her and her nose is red from the cold.

  She frowns. ‘You’ve been gone ages.’

  ‘Hot dogs!’ Mike says. ‘Extra long. Just how you like them.’

  Mike holds it out to her. The end is brown and tight like a belly button, but before she takes it, a blast of wind moves past my face as a seagull swoops down and grabs it. Mum slips backwards and ends up sitting on a mound of seaweed. The seagull flies away and drops the hot dog on the wet sand before four more dive onto it, squawking and fighting.

  ‘You all right?’ Mike asks.

  ‘Twat,’ she says as she gets up, holding her backside.

  I bite my lip so that I don’t laugh and when I look at Mike he’s doing the same. He puts his hand over his mouth and I feel a smirk forming. I wonder if it’s that easy for everything to change. If we could even all be happy before I go away to live with Dad. In that moment it feels as if we can.

  I point at the seagulls down the beach. ‘Look at them fighting over it.’

  Mike holds his hot dog out to her. ‘We can share mine.’

  Mum screws up her nose. ‘Good Morning Britain said they’re made of eyeballs.’

  ‘Eyeballs?’ Mike says, and throws his into the air. The seagulls fly up again and I throw mine as well. Mum starts to laugh and I laugh with her.

  ‘Fools,’ she says.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Mike says. ‘I’m getting mine back.’

  He slips over the rocks as he runs towards the seagulls and it sets us off again. It’s been a long time since we really laughed and it feels good. Mum glances over at me and I wonder i
f she’d like to erase the past too. I think about how nice it would be if a giant wave came and took all of it away.

  *

  Things felt better at the beach, but it’s night now, we’re back home and I can’t sleep. The smell of weeds from the river gets in through the bedroom window and the deep hum of Mike’s voice from their bedroom. Mum giggles, before the bed starts its gentle squeak. I remember his hands brushing against her in the car and imagine his hands all over her now. I put my fingers in my ears, but it doesn’t make any difference, because I can still hear the sound of the bed and the slow thud of the headboard against the wall.

  It reminds me of all the men before Mike and the sounds I used to hear when I was trying to sleep after Dad left. The more I push my fingers into my ears, the louder it gets, and I pull the covers over me as I picture his long fingers moving over her white silken nightdress. When it’s over, I come out of the covers sweating and hot. Someone goes into the bathroom and there’s the sound of water from the tap.

  I wait until I hear Mike’s snores before I get out of bed and take out my rucksack to pack some clothes ready for when Dad comes back. The smell of the river creeps through the window like a slow poison. It’s here that’s wrong, not me, but I won’t let it win. I look at the wall that stands between my room and the baby’s and wish I could be anywhere else. I try not to remember the song Mum used to sing to him or imagine what his face would look like if he’d had a chance to grow up. It hurts too much. The first time I saw him, I told Mum to take him back, but when I picked him up I couldn’t help liking him. He was my little baby as much as theirs. I tell myself that it will be all right when Dad comes back. I can start again then, just as he did.

  As the river smells get stronger, I go into their bedroom and sit on the carpet next to Mike. A line of spit has dripped from his open mouth onto the pillow, but the sound of his breathing is nice. It’s what I used to do when Mum was ill and I’m not sure why it still makes me feel better, but it does. Mum and Dad always looked so happy when I’d sneak in while they were asleep together. There are no river smells here and I have to stop myself from curling up on the floor. When the clock says 4.42 a.m., I go back into my room and hide under the covers with the hope that sleep will come before the smell of the pondweed does.