Girl Seven Page 3

  3

  Nausea hit me on the tube the following morning, and I held my forehead in my hands for most of the journey.

  In my mind there were images of bumping into my parents or sister. I couldn’t imagine what an alien environment my old estate would seem without them, but at the same time I was scared of walking towards my old flat and feeling too much as if I was going home.

  Would I have the guts to go inside? Was I going to start crying? Maybe I’d just go crazy and start screaming and hitting things. What if I ran into someone I’d known?

  It’s OK, I thought. No one had really known me there anyway.

  I stared at the shoes of the person sitting opposite me until my stop.

  My old block of flats wasn’t far from the tube station. In fact you could see it straight away, looming into the sky. They should have knocked it down, or burnt the fucking thing.

  The houses, the roads and the pavements surrounding it were drenched in familiarity, but felt too quiet for my memory of the place. It was like walking on to a battlefield in the years after the fight, when there were no traces of blood any more and the grass had grown back, where the calm would always feel at odds with the knowledge of the violence that had taken place.

  I stopped walking, midway between my block of the flats and Jensen McNamara’s. There had been a broken skateboard in the bushes next to the pavement the last time I’d walked the same route, but it was now gone.

  It had been humid then. At least it had the grace to be cold now.

  I walked up to the nearest building and buzzed Jensen’s old flat, wondering what the hell I was doing here. I knew I was kidding myself that this was a pointless exercise. I knew what I was really doing. I was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to call Mark Chester. I was looking for something to help me overcome my paralysis.

  ‘Hello?’

  It sounded like him.

  I swallowed. ‘Jensen?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Um, this is Kiyomi. Kiyomi Ishida. I don’t know if you remember—’

  ‘Kiyomi? Fuck, er... Fuck. Hi?’

  ‘Can I come in for a moment?’

  He paused for a little too long to sound polite.

  ‘Oh yeah, yeah, OK, sure.’

  I was buzzed up and he met me in his doorway looking exactly the same as I remembered him. Not that Jensen’s was a face that had particularly lodged itself in my memory, but there was nothing new or exciting about his features.

  ‘Man, you look different,’ he said with a nervous smile.

  For a second, he hesitated, as if wondering whether to hug me or shake my hand, but then he just backed away from the doorway and let me come inside.

  ‘You look nice with shorter hair though. It’s cool. Do you want a drink or something?’

  ‘You know I don’t drink.’

  ‘Well, tea. It’s like midday, babes.’

  He was just as unkempt as I remembered. His flat smelt the same, so much so that I found it hard to speak.

  ‘Tea, yeah. Anything herbal.’

  I followed him to the other end of his flat, where a tiny stove and washing machine were wedged behind a sofa.

  ‘I’m sorry I never got to see you after...’ He shook his head as he moved about his space, keeping his back to me. ‘I’m sorry anyway. It was fucking horrible. I never expected to see you again, to be honest. Didn’t think you’d ever come back. Thought you’d just... go back to Japan or something.’

  ‘Too expensive for me.’ I sat on the back of the sofa. ‘I couldn’t even afford the flight.’

  ‘Did they ever find out... anything?’

  ‘No, nothing. It’s not like anyone saw anything so...’

  Jensen put the kettle on, pushed up the sleeves of his oversized shirt and turned to face me. ‘Ah, that’s a fucking shame, I’m sorry. I mean, you’d think they’d have found something. They spoke to everyone round here: me, the Williams kids—’

  ‘They spoke to you? Who spoke to you?’

  ‘Well, most people had uniforms come round to ask them questions. A couple of us had the guy in charge, a guy in plain clothes.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  An apologetic expression. ‘Uh... nothing. He did ask if I’d seen you that day and stuff so he must have known I was lying, but I just didn’t want to have to write up a statement or anything and... Sorry, I don’t think it would have affected their case. I just didn’t fancy telling this guy I’d seen you, that’s all. Sorry, I know you shouldn’t lie to the police and stuff, especially when it’s about important—’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  I knew straight away whom Jensen was referring to, and my stomach turned with unease.

  He frowned. ‘Black hair, really greasy, like. Old. I didn’t like him, but then who likes police, I suppose? All miserable bastards. All corrupt too, you know.’

  ‘A comb-over? Did he have a comb-over?’

  ‘Yeah, a really shit one.’

  Now I was on edge, as though someone might be listening to us.

  ‘I’m sorry I lied. It wasn’t cool,’ he said, raising his voice over the roar of boiling water.

  ‘No, I don’t mind.’ I indicated my head across the flat in the direction of my old home. ‘What about the Williams kids?’

  ‘Oh, they all wrote statements. Even the younger ones were asked questions. They’re still living there if you wanna go speak to them, except... Oh, shit, this is sad. You know Nate? The oldest? He died not long after.’

  ‘What?’ I wanted to drag Jensen away from pouring fucking tea. ‘How?’

  ‘Drive-by. Reckon he was mistaken for someone else. They got the kid that did it though; he’s in juvie. Fuck, it’s like your place is cursed!’

  Without saying a word, without saying goodbye, I turned away and walked out of the flat.

  ‘Um...’

  I heard him, dumb with confusion, as I slammed the door.

  ‘Um... nice to see... you.’

  There was one relative in the Relatives’ Room. One relative sitting in silence, picking my nails and chewing my lips. The other two people were police officers. Both had given up trying to speak to me a long time ago.

  The Relatives’ Room appeared more like a haphazard staffroom, with a cupboard and sink full of mugs, a small plastic kettle and boxes of tea left out on the side. A used teaspoon was hanging over the sink, dripping.

  I looked down at my hands again, now clean of blood, and observed the yellow foam showing though the frayed royal-blue fabric of my chair.

  Drip.

  I’d stopped panicking by then. My breathing had slowed and I held my hands still. My face was stiff and my emotions had stopped, rigid. I tore off a piece of nail from the side of my thumb and gnawed at it, obsessing over the tag of loose bleeding skin.

  My sister had called something to me as I’d left the flat.

  ‘Kiki, look!’

  I hadn’t stopped or looked, just said I’d be back soon and left to go to Jensen’s because I’d been so bored. All the time. So fucking bored. Crawling with boredom. Boredom that made me want to claw off my own face just for the entertainment.

  Kiki, look!

  One of the officers kept glancing sideways down my top.

  I hadn’t been allowed to see my family. Not again. I was already finding it hard to remember walking into my flat and seeing them.

  Drip.

  A nurse came in, smiled at us, and efficiently made some tea with the plastic kettle and used teaspoon by the sink. She stirred a West Bromwich Albion mug and returned the spoon to where it had come from.

  I kept forgetting in the midst of these micro-episodes, things existing and people going about their jobs and their lives, why I was here. Even my memories, erratic and infused with static like shit TV reception, didn’t seem like my own.

  Thinking back, I could see myself only as an observer. In my memories, I was watching myself enter the flat from behind.

  I saw myself stare, throw up, fal
l, and I followed myself out...

  I could see the broken bottle of Asahi, not far from my dad’s hand.

  The hand was split down the centre, fingers parting from each other in their attempted defence against the blades like this. His hands were in pieces around what was left of his wrists...

  I rocked forwards and I saw the officers recoil a little.

  ‘There’s a sink,’ one of them said.

  I remembered throwing up on one of them on the way here and the other one had started laughing and apologizing.

  Drip.

  The nurse left.

  The officers left.

  A man walked in.

  At first, I didn’t see anything strange in both the officers leaving.

  The man introduced himself by his intention rather than by his name, badge or rank. He introduced himself by his vile black comb-over and deep-set eyes that looked as though at any moment they could be swallowed up by his face.

  He pulled one of the bright blue chairs away from the wall and rotated it until he was sitting adjacent to me.

  ‘Miss Ishida? Kiyomi.’

  I hadn’t fucking said that he could call me Kiyomi.

  ‘I’m here to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right with you?’

  It was just the two of us. I wished that the other officers hadn’t left.

  At the time, I nodded.

  ‘You didn’t directly witness anything, I understand? You were out?’

  Yes.

  I said it first in my head, before I managed to take the breath needed to speak.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  There was still boiling water in the kettle. The teaspoon was still dripping.

  I saw the top of Jensen McNamara’s head, felt the flutter of words against my cunt...

  ‘The shops.’

  ‘Really?’

  He wasn’t asking. His tone was oiled with cynicism. He knew I was lying. I knew that he knew I was lying. What’s more, I could tell he’d expected me to lie.

  ‘You didn’t have anything with you when you returned,’ he said.

  ‘I know. I forgot my money.’

  I picked at the yellow foam instead of my lips, eyes down, tapping the leg of my chair seven times, seven times...

  ‘You were apparently shouting at some children in the stairwell of your building. A few eyewitnesses have mentioned them. Can you give me their names so I can take their statements?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You don’t remember.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do they live nearby?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Kiyomi.’ He leant forwards, linking his fingers on his lap. ‘Anything you can remember, anything at all, could be crucial in finding out who did this. If anyone saw anything, we need to be able to speak to them. Do you understand?’

  I wanted to ask him if I could see his ID, but it seemed too aggressive. I felt as though, if I asked him that, he’d have licence to confront me with the lies I was telling.

  ‘I don’t remember who they were,’ I said, ripping out some of the yellow foam and dropping it on the floor. ‘I didn’t know them. They were just hanging around.’

  They could put it down to shock, maybe. If I faked a lack of memory...

  ‘They could give us a lead, Kiyomi.’

  ‘I... didn’t know them.’

  ‘Could you identify them in a line-up?’

  In my mind I could only see their hands, showing the lengths of the blades.

  I wouldn’t identify them, not to this guy, but I nodded anyway.

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone?’

  I looked at him. If something happened, if he moved too suddenly, I had an idea that I could maybe reach the kettle and throw the boiled water in his face.

  ‘No.’

  He put his hand over mine and I nearly vomited again.

  ‘I’m truly sorry for your loss, Kiyomi,’ he said.

  Then he left.

  That was it. My loss. That was what had just happened to me, condensed conveniently down into a fucking four-letter and one syllable word. My loss.

  I sat there, aware only of my own breathing.

  The officers didn’t return.

  For a second, I considered cutting my wrists with one of the blunt unpolished knives in the cutlery drawer. Then this, my loss, could all be over. Just like that...

  But no.

  I hadn’t seen anyone, I thought.

  I hadn’t seen anyone.

  I left the chair and ran out of the Relatives’ Room into the hospital corridor.

  But there was no sign of him.

  There was no sign of him but I never forgot his face.

  4

  I called the number from the business card with no name and arranged to meet Mark Chester the following evening, as I’d always been intending to. He didn’t sound surprised to hear from me; the fluency of his speech was unnerving.

  I found him sitting in the window of the café he’d suggested in Covent Garden, on an artfully tacky leopard-print stool just out of the sun. On the counter next to him was a brown leather satchel, like the ones public schoolboys carried.

  Something by Roy Orbison was playing. It was the sort of tearoom designed to attract hipsters with iPads.

  ‘I was pretty rude the last time I saw you,’ I said, sitting down next to him. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, you were hilarious. I wasn’t offended; I expected that sort of reaction.’

  The stool was so high that my feet didn’t touch the floor, so I sat there swinging them back and forth in the air like a toddler.

  When Mark spoke to me next he had his business face on.

  ‘So, did you think seriously about what we talked about?’

  I snorted. ‘That’s a bit of an understatement, but yeah, I thought about it.’

  ‘Would you like a smoothie?’

  ‘Er, no, I’m good.’

  ‘So what do you think?’

  It took concentration to become used to his rapid-fire questioning, especially when I was still unsure of my intentions. ‘Look, I’m going to be straight with you. This isn’t the sort of offer where you say you’ll do something for free and then suddenly a few months down the line some hidden charge appears, is it?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Well...’ I couldn’t find a reply that didn’t sound like childish cynicism.

  Out through the window I could see a guy in a flat cap was setting up for some sort of show. He was staring at the bare legs of every woman that walked by.

  ‘I totally understand why you wouldn’t trust me,’ Mark said. ‘My flatmate says that I make people uncomfortable.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. You seem pretty trustworthy. According to Noel you’re up there with the most trustworthy people I’ve met in months. I think he fancies you, to be honest; he got way too excited when we were talking about you. I could smell the man-love.’

  ‘Well, naturally.’ A wistful smile.

  ‘I just haven’t really thought about all this since it happened,’ I continued. ‘I haven’t thought about any of them. It’s weird even entertaining the idea that you could do something about it now.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind me writing stuff down like a hack...’ he said, going through his bag for a notebook and pen. ‘Can you just tell me what happened? No, wait, tell me about your parents first. Their names, what they did, where you lived, any personal stuff you think is relevant.’

  I noticed he was wearing eyeliner.

  ‘OK, that’s easy. My mother was called Helena and my dad was Sohei.’

  It was easy to talk about my parents like this, as if I was reciting their resumés.

  He nodded.

  ‘He worked for a company called Importas. He was manager or something, but he kept moving us between London and Tokyo every few years. We lived in Hampstead in London and Toshima-ku in Tokyo, and then when he lost his job we lived in Toot
ing. Shit-hole.’

  ‘And Tooting...’

  ‘That’s where it happened, yeah.’

  I paused. For a moment the single high-definition image came back to me. Always my sister. The five-year-old skull cleaved in two. I didn’t remember much of Mum or Dad. If I concentrated really hard I could sometimes see the broken bottle, stained red, that my dad must have raised to try and defend them. The glass was embedded in his hands. I’d seen it as I’d fallen to the floor in shock.

  Mark was watching the street performer outside. He didn’t persist in his questioning, so I answered the silence and the vast expanse of blank space on his notepad.

  ‘I was at this guy’s house, Jensen McNamara. He lived just across the road from us. But I got bored. I went home and bumped into these kids in the stairwell. I can’t remember any of their first names, apart from the oldest one, Nate. They were just kids in the building. Little scabby boys. All Williamses.’

  Blades like this...

  ‘They stopped me and said there had been a fight or something upstairs. The oldest one had seen these guys go up. I don’t think he said how many... Two. A couple, he said. With blades like this.’

  I lifted my hands in the air in front of me, demonstrating.

  The bottom of Mark’s glass made a gurgling sound as he sucked the last of his drink up his straw, cutting me off.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, pushing the glass away. ‘But you didn’t see these guys though? You didn’t see the men the kid saw?’

  ‘No. If I did...’ I swallowed. ‘If I’d been there they would have killed me too. I know that. But by now it’s been so long they probably don’t care enough to... to want to track me down or anything. Sometimes I think about it, you know, if I’m scaring myself at night. I wake up and I wonder if they’re still out there looking for me, or whether their job was just done and finished then, regardless of whether I was there or not. I just... I don’t get why they wouldn’t come back for me. Why would they let me go just because I was lucky and wasn’t there?’

  ‘They won’t still be looking,’ Mark stated with some confidence.

  I worried he was about to make some sort of inane gesture of comfort or support, like touching my arm or something. But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He wasn’t an idiot.