Good Girl, Bad Girl(105)
We’re still on the doorstep. Every fiber of her seems ready to flee or fight or have the ground swallow her up. She slaps me hard across the face.
“What was that for?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry. You can hit me back.” She braces herself.
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
57
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
Foolish girl!
Stupid girl!
My hand is stinging from the slap and Cyrus has finger marks on his cheek, outlined in white, as if my hand had been covered in chalk dust when I hit him.
I rock from foot to foot, unable to look in his eyes, frightened of what I might see. He turned cold the moment I kissed him. He didn’t want to touch me, not my face, not my mouth, not my body. Of course not. Other men have touched me and kissed me and done things that didn’t feel right. I thought that if I did it with someone like Cyrus it would feel different. It wouldn’t be wicked. It wouldn’t be wrong.
“I’ll get you some ice,” I say.
“No. I’m fine.”
“I keep messing things up.”
“We won’t mention it again.”
Why doesn’t he get angry? Why won’t he hit me?
He hasn’t shut the door.
“Are you leaving?” I ask.
“Just for a while.”
“Because of me?”
“No. The police have tracked Jodie Sheehan’s last movements. I thought I might retrace her steps.”
“Can I come?”
“It’s a tram ride—nothing exciting.”
“I want to.”
Cyrus hesitates.
Please let me come! Please let me come!
He nods. I breathe again and say, “I’m sorry about before.”
“Before?”
“The kiss.”
“What kiss?”
An Uber drops us in central Nottingham, opposite a grand Victorian house that looks like it’s made from white marzipan. Mist has turned the streetlights into fuzzy yellow balls that seem to hang from invisible strings.
I’ve been quiet on the journey, still angry at myself. What was I thinking! He’s not handsome. He’s one of them—the white coats. A shrink. Ugh!
We’re standing on the side of the road, wrapped up against the cold.
“What was Jodie doing here?” I ask.
Cyrus nods into the darkness. “She went to a party up the road.”
I recognize a half-truth.
“Was she delivering for Felix?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
We’re walking down Regent Street, retracing Jodie’s steps. Occasionally I have to skip or add an extra step to keep up with him.
As we near the center of the city there are more people, spilling out of pubs, bars, restaurants, and fast food places that smell of piri piri chicken, hamburgers, pizzas, and kebabs. We pass the city library and cross Old Market Square to the tram stop in the shadow of the council house. A dozen people are waiting, some of them drunk, others kissing, a few studying their phones.
“She caught the next one,” says Cyrus, checking the time. He buys tickets from a machine.
Five minutes pass and a modern-looking tram ghosts into view, pulling up at the platform. We sit near the front, side by side. I’m not sure if I should talk or if Cyrus needs quiet to concentrate. When he’s thinking his brow furrows and his eyes take on the color of green sea glass as though he’s searching for an idea or listening to a distant, unseen object that is broadcasting information to him.
The tram heads east along Cheapside and turns south when it reaches Weekday Cross. I know some of these places from day trips away from Langford Hall.
“They have cameras,” I say, pointing above the driver’s head. “Do you think someone followed her?”
“Maybe.”
I pull my feet up and wrap my arms around my shins.
“Did you know your brother was sick?” I ask. “When he killed your family, I mean.”
“He’d been on medication since he was sixteen.”
“Do you blame him for what happened?”
“No.”
“Mmmmmm,” I say, making it clear I don’t believe him. “Where is Elias now?”
“A place called Rampton. It’s a secure psychiatric hospital about an hour north of here.”
“Do you ever visit him?”
“Yes.”
He’s lying, but not completely.
“The last time I visited, Elias caused a scene because I didn’t bring him any jelly babies.”
“Jelly babies?”
“They’re his favorite, but visitors aren’t allowed to bring in food.”
“What happened to him after the murders?”
“He pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.”
“Does that mean he can get out one day?”
“I suppose it does.”
“Is that why you became a psychologist?”
“People assume that.”
“What do you say?”