Our House(106)

‘Fi!’ The door opens and heat rushes towards her. Merle is there, sleepy and rumpled in sky-blue pyjamas, feet bare. ‘I thought you were at the flat. Are you okay?’

Say it now or you’ll never say it.

‘I think I’ve killed him,’ she says.

Merle’s eyes flare with fear. Her hand goes to her abdomen. ‘What? Bram?’

‘Toby. But he’s really called Mike.’

There is a sickening moment when she thinks it’s going to go the other way, when she feels sure Merle will decide against her. And she will accept it; she will not run.

‘Quick, come in.’ Merle pulls her over the threshold, closes the door. They face each other in the hallway. The stricken innocence of her friend’s face is something Fi herself will never again convey, not without acting. ‘You mean that guy from last night? You said he was your boyfriend . . . I don’t understand.’

‘He stole the house, Merle. With Bram. He made Bram do it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘He told me in the car. He blackmailed him.’ Now she’s saying it, she’s understanding the hideousness again, feeling the wrongness swell inside her, ready to split her open. ‘He threw me out of the car. He said I was dumb and useless. He only took me to Winchester because— Oh God! I’ve left my bag in the flat!’

Merle touches the strap of Fi’s handbag in the crook of her elbow. ‘No, you’ve got it, look.’

‘I mean my overnight bag. I need to go back, I need to get it!’

‘Breathe,’ Merle says, gently. ‘Come and sit here.’

They sit on the stair side by side. Merle is a radiator, her face flushed, breath hot. ‘Go back a bit. What happened after you got out of the car?’

‘I went to the flat and I sent him a text.’

‘From your phone?’

‘No, from Bram’s. There was one at the flat, an old one, he must have forgotten it. That’s all he was interested in, getting to Bram. Bram must have the money.’

‘Where is he now? Toby? Mike?’

‘Still there. At the flat.’

‘What did you do, Fi?’

She sucks in warm air. ‘I gave him the sleeping pills.’

‘The ones I gave you last night? All of them?’

‘Yes. And other pills as well. Bram’s medication. He must have OD’d. He didn’t wake up when he was sick and he choked.’

Merle’s throat convulses. ‘You saw this?’

‘No, I was in the bathroom. I was scared, I locked myself in. I sat in the dark just shaking and then things went quiet and I must have passed out. It was hours before I came out and found him.’

‘And he’s definitely not breathing now?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Merle remains very still. ‘Did you mean to kill him, Fi?’

‘No. I don’t know. I think I did but then this morning I don’t recognize that person as me.’

‘You must have flipped. You were in shock yesterday, I can vouch for that. You acted in a fugue state, that’s what they call it, don’t they? It’s diminished responsibility, Fi.’

Fi begins to cry. ‘Merle, I can’t. I can’t go to the police.’

Merle is silent then, consciously choosing her path at the crossroads before rising from the stair. She hurries upstairs, re-emerges in jeans and a jumper and then adds boots and a long black coat, a knitted grey hat low to the brow. She pulls Fi’s hat low too, almost to her eyes, and uses her fingers to brush aside the tears.

‘We have to go there, Fi,’ she says. ‘I need to see him for myself.’





53


Saturday, 14 January 2017

London, 4 a.m.

Out on Trinity Avenue, it’s still dark, still misty; the same haze that conceals the windows they pass must also be concealing them. Merle has said not to talk, that Fi shouldn’t think about anything now, just empty her mind and concentrate on moving and breathing.

Only as they approach Baby Deco does Merle speak again: ‘Are there CCTV cameras here?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Good. I’ve been checking along the way and I don’t think there’s been anything, it’s all residential. Plus the fog. Don’t use the lights, though, just in case.’

Climbing the stairs, Fi can’t feel her legs, as if she’s gliding. There is no sound as her feet move along the carpeted hallway, no sense of breath entering and leaving her body. As they step into the flat, there is a smell of vomit and wine and he is right there in front of them, still sitting with his neck stretched backwards as if broken. Her overriding feeling is of shame, shame that he was her boyfriend, shame that he duped and humiliated her. He makes the place squalid.

‘Oh God,’ Merle says. ‘I thought you might have been, I don’t know . . .’

Deluded or confused, she means. Still in that fugue state. Not herself, but some ghostly other Fi. But no, this is death and she has caused it. She must now face the consequences, consequences that make the loss of her home negligible.

The boys. What will happen to them? One parent missing, the other in prison.

‘What am I going to do, Merle?’ Her voice is a thin, pathetic wail.