White Bodies(77)

? ? ?

At Curzon Street, Wilf and I are eating our supper in front of the TV. We’re supposed to be watching Antiques Roadshow, guessing the value of trinkets and paintings and old bits of furniture. But I’m not really concentrating on the contents of other people’s attics, my mind is elsewhere; and bracing myself for Wilf’s reaction, I say:

“I’m going to Manchester tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“I saw on the internet that a group of Luke Stone’s friends are meeting in a pub, to remember him, and raise a glass. It’s an open invitation.”

I put my plate down and lie with my head on Wilf’s lap, but he pushes me upright, grabbing my shoulders with his gnarly gardener’s hands, making a grrrrrr sound like the bear that he is.

“Really? Do you really want to stir things up? It’s better to allow him to rest in peace, surely . . .”

“I don’t think he is resting in peace—you know that.”

“But you’re supposed to be letting go . . . Getting some perspective.” Even as I hear the anger in his voice, I register my love for its honest tone, the absence of vindictiveness.

“I know . . . I know. But Wilf, just this one trip? It might help me get closure, for all we know.”

“Get closure!”

He picks up our dirty plates and takes them to the kitchen area, scraping leftovers into the bin, standing at the sink, washing up in a horrible way.

“Please,” I say. “Support me. . . .”

“I can’t. You know what I think—I think you were dragged into a dark world by poisonous people. You need to stay away from all that.”

“Belle wasn’t poisonous . . . far from it.” This morning I read on the BBC website that Joe Mayhew had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, citing diminished responsibility, and had been sentenced to nineteen years in prison. Beside the report was a photo of Belle, her lopsided grin, her head slightly to one side, looking so pretty, so cheerful.

“Go if you have to. I can’t stop you,” Wilf says coldly.

? ? ?

The train to Manchester is overcrowded and late, and I’m stressed as I rush from the station, hoping I haven’t missed the event, and in my haste I take a wrong turn, getting lost, wasting another ten minutes. When eventually I find The Green Man I’m fearing the worst, sure they’ll all be gone. But then I see, in the corner on small stools by a flickering fire, Luke’s work colleagues, Lulu and Sanjeev, along with three other young people, who are introduced as Alistair, Poppy and Jill. Two bottles of wine are open on a table, alongside used glasses, signs of a bigger crowd that was here earlier, and I wonder whether Scarlet was amongst them.

I say that I saw the notice online and have come up from London.

“That’s nice of you. We’re still in shock,” says Lulu, looking me up and down, checking me out. “I guess you are too. . . .” She crosses her legs, which are in scruffy but sexy fishnet tights, and holds her wineglass with a hand encased in a fingerless glove; her nails are varnished and chipped in black.

“I had no idea he was an addict,” I say. “Did you? Was it obvious at work?”

“He used to look bloody awful sometimes. He got so thin, and sometimes his skin looked almost gray, and his eyes so tired . . . I’d say to him, ‘Another rough one?’ and he’d laugh it off and say, ‘You know Charlotte—she keeps me up all night.’?”

“Did she come this evening? Charlotte, I mean.”

“No . . .” She sounds disapproving. Takes a large gulp of wine. Flashes a scornful look with her kohl-rimmed eyes.

“That’s a pity—I’d like to offer her my sympathy. Do you know if she’s at the flat?”

“Actually, I don’t think she’s even in Manchester. She’s acting weirdly. She’s a fucking deviant.”

Lulu exchanges a glance with Sanjeev and says, “We found out about Luke’s death from Charlotte; she turned up at the office to tell us. I guess it was the shock—but she was manic, describing everything in minute detail—how she found him lying across the bed on his back, his arm hanging down to the side, a needle hanging out of his skin . . . It was grotesque. She was getting off on the drama of it.”

So Luke’s position on the bed was identical to Felix’s. It made a sick sort of sense.

“What makes you think she’s not in Manchester?”

Lulu crosses her legs the other way. “Well, she didn’t come to the funeral, and the flat has gone back on the rental market. So, we reckon she’s gone. . . . How well do you know her?”

“Not well.”

“The thing is, Callie, she’s not popular around here. We can’t help thinking that she was a bad influence on Luke. Before he met her, he was fine.”

“How long were they together?”

“Three years. And in that time, he changed so much. You must have noticed? He became moody and depressed, and physically wasted, kind of crack-brained . . .”

She leans forward, jutted jaw, pushing untidy dreads of red hair out of her face—her manner suggesting that it’s dawned on her, only now, to question who I am.

“How long had you known Luke?”

“Oh not long.” That’s truthful at least. Then I add, “We met at Narcotics Anonymous,” realizing at once that I’m making a mistake.