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‘Are they?’ I could barely keep my voice steady. My head felt thick, creaking, like it was full of lagging.
‘Here, I’ll read it to you.’
‘You don’t need to—’
‘It says the police are keen to speak to a woman believed to be in her fifties with a small black dog.’
‘Mark, I heard you the first time. You don’t need to read it to me – I’m not deaf. It’s not… it won’t be me, will it?’
‘But…’ I could hear him searching for words. ‘But you were out, weren’t you? With the dog? Near the town hall, they found her. And our dog is small and black. I mean, you walk down that way… you might’ve seen something.’
I hadn’t said where I’d been. I never did. He didn’t care, wouldn’t have heard and certainly wouldn’t have remembered even if I had told him. ‘But I’m always out with the dog. And there’s loads of small black dogs – they’re ten a penny. I mean, I spoke to a girl briefly. But I didn’t know it was the same girl, did I? How could I have known that?’
‘So youdidspeak to her?’
Bugger.
‘Only in passing, like.’
‘But… don’t you think you should speak to the police?’
I tried to pick up whether or not he was thinking of the knife in my bag, about my distress at finding it there, but it was difficult over the phone. It occurred to me then that while he didn’t look at me often, when he did look at me lately it was like Katie did sometimes: eyes screwed up, the way you look at someone who’s behaving weirdly. Maybe they both thought I was mad. Maybe he actually thought I had something to do with this Jo but couldn’t come out and say it. But surely he didn’t think I was capable of—
‘Rachel? Are you still there?’
‘I’m not going to speak to the police. That’s like turning yourself in for going into a shop in the morning that gets robbed in the afternoon. It’s got nothing to do with me. What would I say? Well, Officer, she definitely didn’t have any stab wounds when I spoke to her? She’s not saying the woman with the dog attacked her, is she?’
‘Well, she can’t, can she? She’s dead.’
‘You know what I mean. I didn’t see anything, or anyone for that matter. I just spoke to her for five minutes and gave her directions, that’s literally it.’ My breath caught in my throat, sending the last few words up an octave. I grasped the edge of the bar and lowered myself, shaking, onto a stool, thanking God that Dave was upstairs doing whatever it was managers did, or vaping thick clouds of vanilla through the back window into the alley. ‘I didn’t even realise it was the same girl. Why would I? Did they give a description of the woman?’
No, they didn’t.
‘Just says in her fifties. Black dog. I think you should give them a ring, Rach. It says they’re keen to speak to you.’
Rach. He hadn’t called me that for a long time. Hadn’t called me anything at all, if I’m honest.
‘Well I’m not keen to speak to them. I’m not going to waste their time – they’ve got enough to do. I’ve got to go anyway; I’ve got punters.’ I looked up at theMary Celestethat was the lounge bar. ‘See you at home.’ I put the phone down before he could say anything else and ran upstairs and into the staff toilet. I sat with my head between my knees. Heat flared up in my stomach, my chest, boiling through me, prickling in sweaty beads on my forehead. My cheeks blazed; more sweat ran from my armpits down my sides, from the back of my neck down my spine, trickled between my buttocks, for crying out loud, the indignity of it all.
I made myself breathe, and one, and two. And one, and two.
Breathe, Rachel. Breathe.
I did not hurt that girl. I did not. I did not hurt that girl. I did not hurt that man. I did not hurt anyone. I did not kill that girl I did not I did not.
26
Rachel
I didn’t call the crime line. Mark dropped it. But at least he was looking at me now. Looking at me funny, I mean. Me? I was scared stiff. Of what had happened, of who might have done it, of myself.
I kept up my daily newspaper cuttings. I needed to do it more than I needed to stop. The police urged people to be vigilant, to come forward with any information, no matter how insignificant. That meant they were stuck, I thought, pushing Lisa’s words from my mind but unable to stop asking myself if there was a deeper truth to them now. Had I got away with murder? Had I?
The following week, I saw Ingrid three times in as many days. Three times! Once for a coffee when I was trying to get on, one evening when I didn’t go walking and ended up feeding her, and one afternoon when I chatted to her in the close.
Over coffee, Ingrid told me that the week before, she’d been to see Pamela Bain, the HR manager Mark had put her onto.
‘She said I can do a week’s paid work experience and they’ll take it from there.’ She sighed, pulled out her second Marlboro. ‘Starting next week.’
