Greenwich Park(76)

‘Helen, do you want to get out of here? Come over for some tea or something? It’d be good to catch up. Properly.’

‘Now? What about your party? Won’t people be surprised –’

‘Oh, no, it doesn’t matter about all that,’ she says, dismissing the gallery guests with a wave of her hand. ‘Renata will get people’s details if they’re interested and everyone knows I’m pregnant. Come on.’ She takes my arm. ‘It’s so boring anyway. It’s all just bankers and hedgies. None of them have a clue.’



‘Well, all right, but I’d better tell Daniel –’

‘He won’t mind,’ she says quickly. I can’t see where he has gone. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Outside, it is so cold it makes me gasp, my breath escaping in tiny clouds. I struggle to keep up with Serena as she strides up Maze Hill, the wind stinging my cheeks. It is a relief to step into the familiar glow of her home, the warmth of their front room. I perch at the seat in the bay window while Serena makes tea in the kitchen.

The photograph of Serena and her bridesmaids is in its usual place on the mantelpiece. It’s an image I have looked at so many times that I could probably paint its likeness from memory, but still, I can’t resist hauling myself up and picking it up for a closer look, feeling the heavy silver weight of it, the familiar moss-like softness of the fabric mounted on the back. I know from experience that my thumbs will leave marks on the edges of the frame that I will have to wipe carefully before Serena is back in the room.

When the photographs of Serena’s wedding came back from their photographer, there was not a single one like this of her and me. There were lots of the bridesmaids. I suppose they were a photogenic bunch. And there was no reason for the photographer to know I was Rory’s sister, and such a close friend of Serena. I didn’t have a corsage, or a special dress in duck-egg blue. The photographer had also taken several of Serena in the morning, getting ready. The bridesmaids were all there, and Serena had given them all special pale pink dressing gowns. The pictures showed them clutching flutes of Buck’s Fizz with elegantly manicured nails, helping Serena tie the line of pearl buttons at the back of her dress.



The thing about Serena is that she somehow seems to collect female friendships, effortlessly, like the bangles she wears on both wrists. I think of that awful hen weekend in Cornwall again. There were friends from Serena’s primary school, secondary school, university, work, ‘hockey’ – I had lost count. How is it that some women amass such huge collections of people who love them, yet I can’t even go to an antenatal class and make one nice, normal friend?

As I place the photograph back, I notice something on the mantelpiece that wasn’t there before. A card, the same one that sits on our mantelpiece at home. DCI Betsky. Homicide.

I sink down into one of Serena’s sofas just as she returns. Serena places the tray onto the mango-wood coffee table. She pours fresh mint tea into the mugs and hands one to me. Then she drops two cubes of brown sugar into her own, wraps her slender fingers around it and then curls back into the sofa, looking as if she’s taking her place in a painting.

She has changed from her silk dress into jeans and a white jumper that drapes off one shoulder. Her eyes are still painted the same shimmery silver as the dress she was wearing. She leans back into the sheepskin throw around the back of the sofa. It seems to enclose her in its soft fingertips. Her sleeves are rolled up and I can see her forearms are brown from her holiday. I feel pale and self-conscious in comparison. I pull my own cuffs over my knuckles, my cardigan around my middle. It won’t go round the bump any more.

‘You’re so lovely and tanned.’

‘Italy was heavenly,’ she says. She leans forward, places the mug down. ‘But then we got home to find two detectives on our doorstep.’ She shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Which was somewhat surreal.’

Serena puts her hands on her knees as she stands. It’s the first time I’ve really noticed her seeming to feel heavier. ‘I’ll show you the card –’

‘I saw it – the same woman came to see us, too. DCI Betsky. I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.’

She turns to look at me, puzzled.

‘It’s not your fault, darling. Why are you sorry?’

My jaw tightens, my mouth feels dry. She is being kind. She knows exactly. I am responsible for all this, I think. Rachel was my doing. I brought her here.

Serena plucks the card from the mantelpiece, turns it over. ‘Rory said something about Charlie,’ she says. ‘Did you and him have some sort of row?’

‘He’s not speaking to me,’ I confess. ‘Or at least, he’s not returning my calls.’ I realise I’ve been fiddling with one of her Mongolian hair cushions, the strands knotted around my fingers.

‘Why not?’

I sigh. I’m sure she’ll find out sooner or later. ‘You won’t believe this. But Charlie knew Rachel from before I met her.’

Serena’s eyes widen. ‘Charlie knew her?’

I bite my lip and nod. I tell her about the photo of Charlie and Rachel that Katie found at the club.

‘Christ. Did you ask Charlie why he never told any of us that he knew her?’

‘I did more than that. I made him go to the police.’