Ignoring her words, I step onto the road, trying to hail a passing cab, but the driver swerves and honks his horn. He has a passenger already on board. Then I remember that I drove the VW and parked near the computer shop.
I’m walking. Tempe yells after me, saying she’ll call me tomorrow and suggesting that I get a good night’s sleep. When will she get the message? She is not my friend. She is a parasite and a manipulator who is not welcome in my life.
52
My phone vibrates beneath my pillow. Henry and I promised long ago that we would never take technology to bed with us, but things have changed. I turn sideways and listen to his soft steady breathing. Sometimes when he’s sleeping, he looks like he’s quietly solving puzzles in his mind. Henry wants certainty in his life, but I keep arguing that life makes a mockery of planning. When it’s steep, we have to climb. When it’s downhill we can coast. And when it’s messy, we pick up a broom.
I have apologised for the other night, but he doesn’t seem ready to forgive and forget. Each attempt at making amends is greeted with one-word answers and soundless shrugs. I think he enjoys playing the martyr, even though I’m the one who was drugged and can’t remember what happened.
Fairbairn has been talking to my friends. Each of them has called me afterwards. All except for Tempe, who has gone quiet. I don’t regret what I said to her outside the bridal shop. I have come to loathe her smugness, her cloying neediness. The worst type of stalker is a stalker who doesn’t realise that she’s a stalker.
My phone vibrates again. It’s a text message from Nish.
Are you watching the TV? BBC News.
I slip out of bed and go to the sitting room. Calling him. He answers.
‘What am I looking for?
‘They’ve released footage from the night of Goodall’s murder.’
I turn up the volume. A stony-faced reporter is standing outside the house in Kempe Road. Why do they always sound so earnest, as if delivering news of a global catastrophe rather than a lone death? ‘Tragedy’ is an overused word. It should be reserved for terrible events that involve no malice, or wickedness. A tsunami is a tragedy. So is an earthquake. But we’ve come to use the word for every moral failure, or flaw in character, or everyday misfortune.
‘Scotland Yard has released CCTV images of a suspect wanted for questioning over the murder of Sergeant Darren Goodall, who died in a house fire early on Saturday morning.’
The shot changes to poor quality footage, bleached of colour by the brightness of a home security light, triggered by a motion sensor.
‘The camera began recording at 2.49 a.m. and the suspect is only in frame for a few seconds, but we can see dark clothing, a hooded jacket and white trainers,’ says the reporter. ‘The police believe this person either came from the house or walked past it, as the fire was taking hold, and could have important information.’
‘Does it look like a woman?’ I ask.
‘Maybe,’ says Nish. ‘They only released part of the footage. According to my mate there’s more. A few moments after the suspect disappeared, a second figure is visible on the far side of the road. It could be unrelated or it could be an accomplice.’
‘What else did your mate say?’
‘Not much.’
‘Did he mention me?’
‘No.’
I feel my throat begin to close. ‘I’m frightened they’re going to stitch me up. You saw what happened at the Brandon Estate.’
‘I’ve heard good reports about Fairbairn,’ says Nish, trying to reassure me, but he doesn’t realise how deeply I’m involved in this. Right now, I can’t see any bright side, or silver lining. I have no memory of that night and my only alibi is someone who has lied about everything else.
Mrs Harriet Pearl has been the admissions clerk at St Ursula’s Convent for thirty years and has always been called Pearlie by the students. I don’t know if she’s married, but all of our female teachers were called ‘Mrs’ and the men were ‘Sir’。
Pearlie hasn’t aged at all and still wears her trademark floral dresses and sensible shoes; and her tightly permed hair looks like a motorcycle helmet has been squeezed onto her head. Her face lights up when she sees me waiting outside her office.
‘If it isn’t Philomena McCarthy!’
‘Do you remember every student?’ I ask.
‘Only the naughty ones,’ she jokes.
‘I was never naughty.’
‘You were cheeky. I remember that prank with the business cards.’
In my final year, on our last day before our exams, we printed our names on thousands of business cards and hid them throughout the school, under desks, in cupboards, behind panels, ceiling tiles, in pipes and musical instruments. Those cards are still turning up ten years later.
Pearlie opens her office door and invites me into a cluttered room full of filing cabinets and shelves stacked with box files. Admissions and applications. There is a desk and enough chairs for the prospective parents and a student to be interviewed.
‘What have you been doing with yourself?’ she asks. ‘No, don’t tell me. You became a police officer.’
‘I did.’
‘Mr Shem told me.’ My old drama teacher.
‘Is he still here?’
‘Of course. He’s planning to donate his skull to the drama department for when they do Hamlet.’
‘Alas poor Yorick.’
‘Exactly.’
She has a laugh like a dolphin.
‘You’re too young to have a school-age daughter – what brings you here?’ she asks, cleaning up her desk, moving aside a misshapen pottery coffee cup that was clearly a gift from a student.
‘I wanted to ask you about an old girl, Margaret Brown. She was a few years ahead of me. A vice-captain.’
The change in Pearlie is immediate as her face hardens and her lips tighten into thin lines.
‘Is this a police request?’
‘A personal one.’
‘I can’t talk about former students.’
‘Can you confirm that she was expelled?’
‘She was asked to leave.’
‘Why?’
‘My job is to protect the reputation of St Ursula’s, not to spread scuttlebutt. That was years ago. It was handled correctly and there is nothing more to be said.’
‘What was handled correctly?’
She gives me a watery glare. ‘Philomena, please don’t ask me again.’
‘I’ve heard so many different stories,’ I say. ‘One is that Maggie was caught making out with Caitlin Penney in the changing rooms.’
‘No comment.’
‘Another is that she was having an affair with a male teacher, and that she fell pregnant. There was talk of drugs.’
Pearlie is about to interrupt, but I keep going.
‘This is important,’ I say. ‘Over the past few months, I’ve become friends with Maggie – she calls herself Tempe now – but I’m now concerned about her. She put a tracking app on my phone and has been following me.’
‘Which is nothing to do with the school.’
‘Two days ago, I woke up in Tempe’s bed with no memory of getting there. I think she drugged me and …’