Good Girl, Bad Girl(64)
Evie looks at me hopefully. She doesn’t want to spend another day on her own. Loneliness is not something I associate with Evie because she lives so completely in her head and makes no attempt to befriend people or socialize. Even so, I don’t want her spending another day in a creepy old house, going through my things. She should be outside, reintroducing herself to the world, broadening her horizons.
“Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?” I ask.
“I can be ready in five.”
*
Evie comes downstairs dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a skivvy, and a denim shirt that she’s wearing like a jacket. I have a shirt like that, I think, although I don’t wear it often.
I have to sweep fallen leaves off the windscreen of my red Fiat, which has faded to a mottled pink. Pigeons have crapped all over the bonnet and someone has stuck a flyer beneath the wiper blades, advertising a clearance sale at a carpet showroom. Twice I’ve had towing notices from the local council because neighbors mistook my car for an abandoned vehicle.
“Nice,” says Evie, being facetious.
The engine doesn’t start the first time. I encourage it under my breath. It splutters and coughs like a consumptive smoker before idling so roughly we sway from side to side. I give it a moment to warm up.
“Can you teach me to drive?” asks Evie.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The bus stop is two minutes from the house.”
“It will make me more independent.”
“You don’t have a car.”
“I could borrow this one.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
She folds her arms and looks out the window as we head along Derby Road past Wollaton Park. It’s early on a Sunday morning and the traffic is light.
“How did Jodie Sheehan die?” asks Evie.
“I can’t talk about the case.”
“Is it a state secret?”
“No.”
“Well then?”
I don’t respond.
“I’ve watched the interviews,” she says. “I know she was hit from behind.”
“You have to stop going through my stuff.”
Evie doesn’t reply. Instead she props her cowboy boots on the dashboard, above the glove compartment. We’re heading along Abbey Street, past the Priory Church, and onto Castle Boulevard, passing south of the city center.
“Does the CD player work?”
“No.”
“What about the radio?”
“I have to hit the right pothole.”
She sighs in disgust.
“The postmortem wasn’t definitive,” I say, answering her first question. “The pathologist couldn’t decide if she drowned or died of exposure.”
“Farley said he didn’t rape her,” says Evie, “but even if he whacked off into her hair it was a pretty sick act. A guy like that deserves to be locked up, you know, but I guess that doesn’t prove he killed her.”
“An innocent man would have tried to help her.”
“Sometimes we don’t have a choice.”
The statement rattles something inside me and I picture Terry Boland strapped to a chair having acid poured into his ears, while Evie listened to his screams.
I find a metered parking spot in the entertainment quarter of Nottingham and tell Evie to wait in the car.
“It’s cold. Can’t I come with you?”
“OK. But stay out of trouble.”
She joins me on the footpath, pulling up her collar and pocketing her hands. As we reach the corner, two young backpackers cross our path—a girl and a boy in their early twenties, who are talking excitedly in a different language. The girl laughs and calls the boy something. Evie stops and turns. For a moment I think she’s going to respond, but instead she watches the couple walk away.
“What made you turn around?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“Was it something she said?”
“No.”
“She sounded Russian or Polish. Did you understand her?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“She looked familiar,” says Evie, and I don’t know whether to believe her or not. That’s the trouble with Evie. I risk reading clues into everything she does. Actions. Inactions. Silences. Shrugs.
We’re crossing Bolero Square to the National Ice Centre, a twin stadium building made of metal and glass. Pushing through the revolving doors, we step into a cavernous foyer dominated by a forty-foot-high poster montage celebrating British skating champions past and present.
A woman at the front desk looks up at Evie.
“Are you here for the academy trials?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer.
“Fill out this form. The changing rooms are through there. Don’t put your skates on until you’re on the ice.”
“She’s not a skater,” I explain. “I’m here to see Bryan Whitaker.”
“He’s coaching.”
“I can wait.”
Evie and I follow signs to an amphitheater the size of a concert hall with tiered seating on all sides, rising into darkness at the higher levels. The rink itself seems to glow from within, taking on a bluish tinge. A dozen skaters are warming up, gliding across the ice in graceful movements that look so effortless that a mere flick of their fingers sends them pirouetting or skating backwards. One of them accelerates, leaps, and spins, landing on a single blade, arms outstretched and back arched.