The Other People: A Novel(40)

When people talk about dying, they often talk about peace and acceptance. That wasn’t what she had seen in her dad’s eyes. It was terror, shock and disbelief that life, this thing that we take for granted, that we kid ourselves is constant and fixed, could be snatched away, just like that.

We try not to think about death. And if we do, we view it as something distant and abstract. We never expect it to ambush us in our own garage one late-spring night. Just like we convince ourselves tragedy will never befall us because we are somehow special and immune. The worst that can happen only ever happens to other people.

She swiped viciously at a sticky mark on a table then gave up and stuck a menu on top of it. She kept wondering how the thin man was. Gabe. He had told her his name while they waited for the ambulance. She supposed she could call the hospital. Just check he was okay. She glanced at the clock. Only another hour left on her shift. The afternoon rush had subsided. Ethan (she was pretty sure this one was Ethan) was occupied at the counter, talking to a pretty female customer.

She stuffed her cleaning cloth in her pocket and hurried out to the staff room. She let herself in and grabbed her mobile from her locker. Hospitals, she thought. She supposed the nearest would be Newton General. She googled the number and hit call.

“Hello, Newton General Hospital.”

“Oh, hello. I’m just calling to check on a patient who was brought in this afternoon. He was stabbed.”

“Name?”

“Gabe.”

“Surname?”

“Oh.” She didn’t know his last name. “Sorry, I don’t know.”

“I’m afraid we’re not able to give out patient details without more information.”

“I just wanted to check he was okay.”

A pause. “I don’t believe we’ve received any fatalities.”

“Right. Good. Thanks.”

She ended the call and chewed her lip. She didn’t have any other way of contacting him. No surname. No phone number. No—wait. She did have his number. On the “missing” flyer he had handed her ages ago. The one with the picture of his daughter on. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? She was sure she still had it at home somewhere; she had felt bad about throwing it away. She just had to find it again. Well, she didn’t have to. She could just leave it. He wasn’t dead. That was all she needed to know, really.

But she couldn’t dispel a nagging feeling of disquiet. Worry gnawed away at the lining of her stomach. She didn’t believe in premonition, or any of that nonsense. The morning she had arrived at her parents’ house to find her dad crushed to death she hadn’t experienced one iota of foresight, not a shiver, not a cloud skimming the blue sky. Nothing. And yet, right now, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen or was already happening. A seed of unease had been planted and she could feel it growing, stretching out its roots.

She called her sister.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Lou. Just wanted to check everything was okay?”

“Why?”

“Just. I don’t know.”

A heavy sigh. “The kids are fine. They’re watching Scooby Doo. I’m making fish fingers and chips for tea, like you instructed.”

“Right. Good. Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

She ended the call and then gave in to the paranoia and called her mum. It rang for so long she thought it would go to voicemail. Maybe she was still in bed, or already drunk. Then there was a click and she heard her mum’s voice snap: “Where are you? I called hours ago.”

She frowned. “Mum? It’s Katie.”

“Katie?”

“Who did you think it would be?”

A pause. “Is she there? Is that why you’re calling?”

“Is who here? I’m at work. Are you all right?”

“No, of course I’m not. She thinks she can just turn up here after all these years—” Her mum broke off. “Wait. The police are here. About time.”

“The police? Why?”

“I called them when she didn’t come back.”

“Who, Mum?”

“Your sister. Fran. I have to go.”

An abrupt click as her mum ended the call. Katie stared at the phone.

Fran? Fran had come back? No. Not possible. And surely, the last person she would go to would be their mum. The pair had always had a spiky relationship, even before Dad died. Afterward, neither felt the need to keep up the appearance of civility. It was no wonder, really, that Fran had wanted to get away, to cut ties completely. She had left for good on the day of Dad’s funeral.

But not before she had told Katie. About what she had done.

Katie tried to be rational. You couldn’t always trust what her mum said when she was drunk. She became paranoid, abusive. She had called the police before, convinced that her neighbors were spying on her, or someone was trying to break into the house, or there was a man watching her. It always amounted to nothing. But she hadn’t sounded that drunk today. She had sounded nervous, on edge. And why would she make up a story about Fran?

Katie slipped her phone in her bag. She couldn’t wait until the end of her shift. She had to know what was going on. Now. She shrugged on her hoodie, grabbed her bag and hurried out of the staff room.

The queue was growing. The pretty girl had been joined by a good-looking young man.