After she’s finished she leaves me, saying she’ll be back in twenty minutes to take the foils off. I watch her in the mirror as she wheels the trolley away. There is something sorrowful about her under the haughty exterior, like she’s putting on a front. It’s like she’s being weighed down by invisible armour. She stares into the distance as she blow-dries a woman’s hair at the other end of the salon. She’s just going through the motions. She’s tall and very striking, with her long copper hair and porcelain skin. I watch her for a bit longer, trying to fathom her out. I do this a lot. Arlo says I’m nosy, but I sometimes wonder if I should go into psychology. I love to know what makes people tick.
I return to my magazine, glad of the peace. My jaw hurts from yabbering away. My tea has gone cold but nobody asks me if I’d like another cup.
After a while the copper-haired stylist is back. She checks one of the foils and seems satisfied, then sends me off with the fifteen-year-old to have my hair washed.
When I’m back in the chair the stylist combs out my hair. The colour is lovely, a soft ash blonde. I look more normal and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Maybe I’ll be taken more seriously but, even so, I refuse to lose the nose ring.
She’s drying my hair with a large brush, and it’s not until she’s finished that she looks at me properly. I’m busy assessing myself in the mirror and don’t really notice the horror on her face until she speaks. I glance up and our eyes meet in the mirror. She’s deathly white and I know it’s a cliché but there’s no other way to describe it. She’s staring at me like she’s seen a ghost.
27
Courtney
Courtney stares at this woman, this imposter, in shock. She’s wholly aware she’s being unprofessional but she can’t seem to find her voice. She can’t stop looking at her. She should have seen it straight away. She looks like Una: same hair and bone structure. She doesn’t dress like Una, or sound like her, but she certainly resembles her physically. What was it Una had told her before? That the other companions had looked like her too. Bile rises in her throat when she remembers the conversations with her best friend and she has to swallow it. It burns in her chest.
‘Are you okay?’ the girl, Willow, asks, touching her newly coloured hair self-consciously. ‘Is there something wrong with my hair?’
Courtney swallows the golf-ball-sized lump in her throat. ‘No, sorry, it’s all … It looks good. W-where did you say you worked again?’ She had been half listening when Willow first sat down and started talking about her job. But now … now that she’s been transformed in front of her very eyes, she remembers snatches of the conversation. Elderly lady. Uptight daughter. Companion. She can’t be … can she?
Willow frowns and stands up, her black gown billowing around her like a cape. Courtney knows she should take it from her but instead she places her hands on Willow’s shoulders and forces her back into the seat. She leans forwards so that Tamsin, on her right, can’t hear her. ‘Is your employer Elspeth McKenzie by any chance?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ She looks annoyed, unsurprisingly, thinks Courtney, considering she’s just manhandled her client and is keeping her prisoner in the chair.
Courtney’s heart is racing. She hadn’t noticed it when the girl first came in. But now … the resemblance to Una is breathtaking.
‘Have you ever heard of a Una Richardson?’
She can tell Willow is swallowing her impatience. ‘No. No, I haven’t. Should I have?’
‘She worked for Elspeth before you. She was …’ She gulps. ‘She was my best friend.’
Now she’s got Willow’s attention. She sits up straighter in the chair, her eyes locking with Courtney’s in the mirror. ‘Was?’
‘She died.’ It still feels wrong to say it. She’ll never get used to it.
‘Died?’
She takes a deep breath, aware she’s going to sound crazy. But Willow deserves to know what she’s letting herself in for. ‘She died last month while she was still employed by the McKenzies.’
Willow fidgets in her chair. ‘But … nobody’s mentioned this at all.’
‘And she’s not the first. The first companion was a girl called Matilde. She lasted two years. She died in an apparent hit-and-run last summer. The second girl, Jemima, arrived in October. By Christmas she was dead. Suicide. And now Una …’ Her best friend’s name catches in Courtney’s throat on the end of a sob. She composes herself. She can’t cry. She needs to take action. ‘She texted me, just before it happened, to tell me she was meeting Peter – Jemima’s brother – on the bridge. Peter, apparently, didn’t believe his sister would have taken her own life. It wasn’t until the next morning that Una was found. The police think she’d bashed her head on the ground after falling because it was foggy … It was foggy that night, you see. And cold. She died of hypothermia while unconscious.’