‘I don’t think it was the course,’ Katie said gently. ‘I think she wanted to get close to you. I think that was her plan all along.’
I felt sick. ‘What? But why?’
‘I don’t know.’ Katie reached inside her bag and took out the photograph. ‘But I think this might have been something to do with it.’ She slid it across the table.
Charlie and Rachel together, at the club. Charlie’s hair long, the way it was last summer. Rachel’s much shorter. Rachel’s arms around Charlie’s waist. A little slice of her midriff just visible between her belted black jeans and her tight top.
‘But Charlie would have said something, if he’d known her from before,’ I stammered.
‘That’s what I thought.’ Katie stared at me. ‘What do you think we should do?’
I resented it, then. Her putting this in my lap. ‘I can’t deal with this now, Katie, I just can’t.’ I felt close to tears. ‘This whole thing with Rachel – it’s doing my head in.’
‘I know.’ Katie looked agonised. ‘I don’t want to cause you any more stress. But … the police are asking me questions. And now I’ve found this. Charlie’s your brother. I had to tell you, Helen. I don’t know what to do.’ She paused. ‘You know, the night of your party, I saw Rachel going down into the cellar with someone. I don’t know who – I just saw the back of her dress and another hand, so I know she was following someone.’ She bit her lip. ‘I think it might have been Charlie. I saw him afterwards, all covered in dust.’
‘Did you ask him?’
‘Yeah. He says it wasn’t him. But when I told him I was going to tell the police about it, he told me not to.’
I became very aware of my breathing. The baby stirred inside me, my stomach pushed aside by his elbow.
‘Katie, I have to go. I really … I just can’t think about this now.’
‘But … Helen, wait. What should I say to the police? Are you going to talk to your brother?’
I was already pushing the door of the pub open, letting the icy air bite at my face. I saw Katie pull her coat on to follow me, but I shook her off.
‘Please, Katie,’ I said. ‘Leave me alone.’
But it was no good. Even as I got home, turned the key in the lock, I knew I would have to go to Hackney. I needed to know the truth. I needed to know who Rachel really was. And what it was she wanted from me.
HELEN
When I reach Charlie’s place – a crumbling Victorian terraced house, broken up into flats – I realise I don’t remember which buzzer to press. I get the wrong one, but his neighbour buzzes me in anyway. There are wet footprints all the way up the communal staircase, a smell of frying onions. When I reach his door and knock on it, I’m breathless, irritable. I’m desperate for the loo, the baby weighing on my bladder. He might not even be in. I should have called, I think. This could all be a waste of time.
But then I see a pair of small purple wellies by the door. I hear Ruby’s muffled voice, and the door opens. She is barefoot, in a T-shirt and leggings, a half-unravelled hair braid hanging down the centre of her face.
‘Auntie Helen!’ Her face lights up into a gap-toothed grin, and she wraps herself around me. ‘Is the baby coming now?’
I laugh nervously. ‘Not yet. Where’s your daddy?’
Ruby brings me in and starts jumping up and down on the sofa, giddy and excited. The ceilings are low and sloping – I’m worried she’ll hit her head on the skylight. ‘Careful, Ruby,’ I say. I don’t expect she’ll do much damage to the sofa – it is already squashed and battered, covered in the same orange throw Charlie had in his teenage bedroom.
When I go through to the kitchen to find Charlie, he is nowhere to be seen. He must be in the bathroom. On the side are a chopping board and pans, two bowls of half-eaten spaghetti Bolognese on the side. There are onion skins and carrot peelings, an empty tin of tomatoes. I’m incredibly thirsty all of a sudden.
‘Charlie, it’s me, Helen,’ I call. ‘I’m just grabbing a glass of water.’ When I open cupboards, looking for a tall glass, all I can find is children’s cereals, cocoa, brown rice, peanut butter, pasta sauces.
Charlie emerges from the bathroom. He looks at me, puzzled. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Fine,’ I say, glancing back through at Ruby.
He pauses.
‘Want a drink?’