Then She Was Gone(40)

The mood of the evening has become sombre and slightly uncomfortable.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Laurel. ‘I didn’t mean to make you feel sad. I just … it’s an odd little connection, that’s all. Between you and me. And Ellie. I just wanted to understand it a bit more.’

He nods. ‘I get that,’ he says. ‘I totally get it. And of course it’s Poppy I feel bad for, being abandoned like that. No child wants to feel that they weren’t wanted, even if they don’t care much for the abandoner. But’ – he brightens slightly – ‘now Poppy has you. And you are quite a tonic. For us all. Cheers.’ He tilts his glass towards hers and their glasses meet and so do their gazes.

She returns her focus to the meat on her plate, to the pink-grey flesh of the slayed baby calf. She cuts into it and a rivulet of wine-coloured juices run across the plate.

She finds she has lost her appetite, but she doesn’t know why.





Twenty-six


The following day, Laurel parks her car in a multi-storey car park in Kings Cross and heads to St Martin’s School of Art in Granary Square. Floyd had told her that SJ was working there today when she’d asked nonchalantly over breakfast.

It’s a bland day, newspaper grey, lifted by the Christmas lights and decorations in every window. Granary Square is wide and quiet as she approaches it, a scattering of pigeons across its surface, a few people braving the cold outside to smoke a cigarette with their morning coffee.

At reception she asks for Sara-Jade Virtue. She’s told that Sara is working until lunchtime so she sits in the restaurant next door and she eats a second breakfast and drinks two coffees and a peppermint tea before returning at twelve thirty and waiting for her outside.

Sara-Jade finally appears at ten past one. She’s wearing a huge pink fake-fur coat and boots that look far too big for her. She starts when she sees Laurel.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi! Sorry for, you know, turning up unannounced. I was just … Are you hungry? Can I take you for lunch?’

SJ looks at her wrist and then up at the sky. ‘I was supposed to …’ but she trails off. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Fine. Thank you.’

They go to the pub across the way. It’s brand new with plate-glass windows on every side giving views all across the square and the canal. It’s buzzing with business suits and students. They both order fishcakes and fizzy water and pick at the bread basket half-heartedly.

‘How are you?’ says Laurel.

‘I’m OK.’

‘How was work?’

‘Yeah, it was OK. Bit cold.’

‘Yes, I don’t suppose this is a great time of year for nude modelling.’

‘Life modelling.’

‘Yes. Sorry. How many students are there? Drawing you?’

‘About twelve today. But sometimes it can be thirty or forty.’

‘And what do you think about? All those hours, in one position?’

SJ shrugs. ‘Nothing, really. Just what I need to do when I get home. Things I’ve done, places I’ve been. I do this thing sometimes where I let my head just sort of bounce around from place to place; I find myself in places I haven’t thought about in years, like a bar near my old college, or a restaurant in Prague I went to when I was eighteen, or a railway track I used to walk down when I visited my grandparents and the smell of cow parsley there …’ She tugs off a small piece of bread and puts it in her mouth. ‘Those birds, what are they called? Wood pigeons. That noise they make.’ She smiles. ‘It’s kind of fun.’

‘And then you suddenly remember that you’re naked in front of a group of strangers?’

SJ throws her a look of incomprehension. Her mouth opens as though trying to form a response but then closes again. Laurel remembers what Poppy said about her being humourless.

‘So, did you see him today? Simon?’

SJ looks nervously from left to right and raises a hand warningly.

‘Sorry,’ says Laurel, ‘indiscreet. And, to be honest, not why I came here to see you. I just …’ She recrosses her legs. ‘What we were talking about the other night. About Ellie …’

‘Yeah. I’m really sorry about that. It was a bit insensitive of me. I can be a bit like that.’

‘No. Really. I didn’t mind. I don’t mind. It’s not anything I haven’t thought about before. There’s not one aspect of the whole thing I haven’t thought about a million times already, I promise you. Including the rucksack. But you were about to say something, the other night, something about Poppy’s mum. About Noelle.’

SJ looks up at her through her thick eyelashes and then down again. ‘Oh yeah,’ she says.

‘So?’ Laurel encourages her. ‘What was it? What were you going to say?’

‘Oh, nothing much. Just that she was a bit strange. A bit freaky.’

‘You know,’ Laurel says, ‘I read Ellie’s old diaries last night. And she wrote about Poppy’s mum. She called her a “bunny boiler”. And she also wrote that Noelle used to bring her gifts and call her her best student. And it all just struck me as a bit …’ She struggles for the next thread of her commentary. ‘Did you have much to do with her?’