When You Are Mine(20)

‘I cut myself.’

‘You trashed the place.’

‘He trashed my face.’ She spits the words, but after a moment of defiance, she lowers her eyes. ‘I was angry. I wanted to punish him.’

‘Why leave your phone?’

‘To stop him finding me.’

‘Is he looking?’

She shrugs. ‘I won’t risk it.’

Unlocking the door of the academy, I grab a business card. ‘You can enrol online. I don’t normally teach private lessons because I’m working shifts, but you can join one of my classes and we’ll take it from there.’

Tempe looks at the card and asks, ‘Where are you going now?’

‘Home.’

‘Do you fancy a drink? There’s a pub on the corner.’

I’m about to say no, but change my mind. Henry is working tonight and there’s nothing at home except leftovers and a wicker basket of ironing. As we’re leaving, Tempe retrieves a small pull-along suitcase from a hiding place beneath the stairs. Extending the handle of the case, she drags it along the footpath, where it bounces over the cracks with a clackety-clack sound.

The pub is mock-old with fake timber beams, dotted with horseshoes and hung with riding paraphernalia. My class have taken a large table in the corner. They wave for me to join them, but I signal that I’m with someone. Ricardo squeezes out from behind the table and approaches, but I hold up crossed fingers as if warding off a vampire. He smiles sadly and retreats.

Tempe puts her suitcase against the bar, and takes a high stool, crossing her legs and displaying a glossy knee beneath her black suede skirt.

‘I’m having a gin and tonic. You?’

‘The same.’ I glance at her suitcase. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘I had an Airbnb in Brixton for a while, but it was too expensive.’

‘And now?’

‘I’m looking for somewhere.’

‘You’re living out of a suitcase.’

‘I’m between places.’ She sips her drink.

‘Darren Goodall claimed you were a sex worker and one of his informants.’

‘That’s a lie.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘I’m not … I don’t sell my body.’

‘When I went back to your apartment, I found a broken camera on the floor.’

Tempe screws up her face. ‘He liked to film us having sex. I didn’t know at first.’

‘It’s illegal to record sex acts without a person’s consent.’

She shrugs ambivalently. ‘He filmed other things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Sometimes he put the camera in the sitting room, sometimes in the bedroom. I thought he was spying on me, but he mostly wanted to film his meetings with people.’

‘What sort of meetings?’

Tempe’s shoulders rise and fall. ‘I was never allowed to stay.’ She reaches into the side pocket of her suitcase. ‘Look what I found.’

It’s a school yearbook from St Ursula’s. Pages have been marked with torn pieces of paper. One of them has a photograph from a swimming carnival. All of the girls are in house colours, with banners and flags, cheering from the grandstand behind the pool. Tempe points to herself in the crowd. She’s with a group on the higher seats, older girls, who have painted their faces and tied streamers in their hair.

‘And this is you,’ she says, pointing to the junior girls, who are seated lower in the stand.

She turns a page to the year photographs and picks me out from my peers.

‘I look so young,’ I say.

‘You were only fourteen,’ she replies.

Tempe was seventeen, but looked completely grown up even then. She was tall and athletic and graceful. In her group photograph she is standing in the back row, next to her year eleven coordinator. If not for her school uniform, she could have been the teacher.

‘I remember when you left. It was quite sudden.’

‘We moved to Belfast.’

‘But there was some story that—’

‘It was only gossip.’ She closes the yearbook and puts it away. ‘Another drink?’

‘Not for me.’

‘Please. Just one more.’

Tempe signals the barman. I notice her counting out change from her purse and coming up short.

‘Let me get these,’ I say.

‘No, I can—’

‘I insist.’

I tap my debit card on the machine.

Tempe sips her gin and tonic.

‘Are you working?’ I ask.

‘I have jobs coming up.’

‘What do you do?’

‘Event planning. Festivals. Product launches. Premieres.’

She has to shout because three women sitting nearby are hooting with laughter. They are dressed for a night out, with big hair and trowelled-on make-up; and they’ve grown louder as the evening has gone on.

Tempe gets up and walks to their table. For a moment, I expect an argument, but she returns a few minutes later and takes her seat. Meanwhile, the women get up and quietly leave.

‘What did you say?’ I ask.

‘I told them you were an off-duty police officer who was concerned that they were intoxicated and might try to drive home.’