The Stepmother(96)

 

So I surrender.

 

 

 

 

 

Sixty-Two

 

 

 

 

 

Marlena

 

 

 

 

 

She can’t be dead.

 

I am in the bath when the call comes.

 

She can’t f*cking well be dead.

 

I rarely get in the bath. Showers suit me: quicker, harsher; God knows I am not lily white and I need that blast, that sting, to be washed cleaner – but a bath allows me time to think.

 

True it’s time I don’t normally want, that I normally avoid, but right now I have to think – debating what to do about Nasreen.

 

Turkey brought no answers about her, though it did have interesting leads on other stories.

 

Back here, frustrated by the useless f*cking police, I met Nasreen’s boyfriend, Lenny, last night in the grotty pub on the corner of his road. I bought him a pint or two of Stella and chatted about how they met and how much he missed her. At one point I watched his dull eyes fill with tears.

 

‘Nas’s parents hate me,’ he said, his top lip pulled back over his teeth in a snarl, and I thought, I don’t blame them really. ‘They wanted a nice Muslim boy.’

 

‘Ah dear,’ I said sympathetically, but what I was really thinking was, Why did she want you? Were you simply an act of rebellion? An ill-chosen symbol? Handsome – a catch, perhaps, in looks at least, for a na?ve teenage girl – but sullen and tense beneath the surface. Not a good catch in reality.

 

I bought him a shot of tequila to go with his pint, and we played a game of pool. I’m really f*cking good at pool actually; I can thank my misspent youth for that. I relish the look on men’s faces when I smack the black in – but this time I let Lenny win.

 

Him having the upper hand seemed vital at that moment.

 

It meant I had to put up with all those pissed blokes grafted to their bar stools exuding pity, scorn and superiority – but it was worth it, if it got Lenny on side.

 

Halfway through the second pint, Lenny was sweating profusely, but it wasn’t that hot. Not that hot at all in the air-conditioned pub.

 

There’s still no evidence. They’ve questioned him; they’ve taken away his computer – there’s nothing. It was him that told the family she’d been talking to someone in Syria online, that he’d caught her, and they’d been talking about jihad and Islamic State.

 

But if he thought that, if he was worried, why the f*ck didn’t he act whilst she was still around? I asked him that last night – but he couldn’t really answer. ‘I thought she loved me,’ he whined. ‘Me not Allah.’

 

I am just waiting for him to trip up.

 

So now I lie in the bath with eyes closed and ponder why they can’t find the dirt on this bloke – and then my mobile rings in the other room. I ignore it. It never stops ringing.

 

Then the bloody landline rings. Now that never rings. Only Jeanie has this number – her and Frank.

 

The answerphone picks up.

 

‘This is a message for Marlena Randall,’ a northern female voice says: tentative, clipped. ‘This is WPC Evans at Derby Central. We’d like to talk to you about your sister, Jeanie King. Please call me back urgently.’

 

I’m frozen in the steaming bath as she reads a number out, and I find I can’t move my limbs; they are so heavy they are like wax. They won’t move…

 

Then I manage to scramble out, slipping, dripping across the tiles and the floorboards in the main room, and I snatch up the receiver. ‘I’m here,’ I croak. ‘I’m here…’

 

The voice speaks.

 

‘She can’t have done,’ I hear myself say, and the echo is in the room, bouncing off the walls. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid.’

 

When I put the phone down again minutes later, someone is yelling – and then I realise.

 

I realise it’s me.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

So.

 

I know what you’re thinking; I do, really.

 

You think I really f*cked up, don’t you? That I should have been there, that I wasn’t – that it’s my fault.

 

Don’t look at me like that please.

 

And you know this is what I’d say to anyone who asked. I’d say: Fuck! I really thought I’d seen it all – but I hadn’t.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next day