Secret Smile Page 17

  'And then your friend.'

  'Kerry,' I said. 'He's not a good man. He's not. There's something wrong with him. You're better off without him and I know you'll find…'

  'Don't you dare say I'll find someone better,' she whispered, her eyes burning.

  'All right.'

  'Everything's ruined,' she said softly. 'It was ruined already, when Troy killed himself. Brendan's just knocked over the last few stones. There's nothing left.'

  I thought of Brendan trampling over my family, grinding his boots over all our hopes. I put my arm around my elder sister, her bony body that smelt of sweat and powder and flowers. Her red velvet dress hung in the corner of the room. I hugged her to me and kissed the top of her head. I felt her eyelashes prickling against my skin, and I felt tears on my cheek but couldn't work out if they were mine or hers.

  Some things, when you look back on them, seem like a dream. But this wasn't a dream, although later I remembered it like a moment snatched out of time and haunting my memory for ever.

  I woke and, although it was still dawn, a soft light filled the room. Climbing out of bed, I opened the curtains on to a world of snow. Large flakes were still falling, floating and spinning down on the other side of the glass. I hastily pulled on warm clothes and opened the front door on to the unmarked street. Snow lay thickly on the cars, dustbin lids, low garden walls, its pristine thickness occasionally blemished by cats' paw prints, the claw marks of small birds. It weighed down the trees and as I walked small flurries fell at my feet with a muted thump; flakes caught in my lashes and melted on my cheek. The world was monochrome, like an old photograph, and foreshortened. There was no horizon, just the steady flicker of falling flakes. There was no sound, save for the slight creak of my shoes against the snow. Everything was muffled, mysterious, beautiful. I felt entirely alone.

  It was still not fully light, and there was nobody on the Heath. No footprints, and as I walked mine were swiftly covered too. The ponds were frozen and covered in snow; the paths were discernible only because they were a smoother white than their surroundings.

  I walked up the hill and stood there for a while. What was I thinking? I don't know. I just wrapped myself in my coat, turning up the collar and watching the snow fall all about me. Soon enough, there would be crowds here – walking, throwing snowballs, building snowmen, tobogganing down the hill with squeals of pleasure. But for now it was just me. I put out my tongue and let a flake catch on it. I tipped back my head and was blinded by the falling snow.

  As I made my way back down the hill, I saw there were people now, like vertical smudges on a white canvas. And then I saw a figure, walking slowly along the path that crossed mine. As I drew closer I could make out that it was a woman. She had on a thick coat, a large hat pulled down over her eyes, a scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face. Nevertheless something about her remained familiar to me. I stopped where I was, with a tightness about my heart. Perhaps she felt my eyes on her, for she stopped too, and looked up. She turned her head towards me and then she took off her hat and put a hand to her eyes, to see better. Flakes fell on to her dark hair. For a few moments, she didn't move, and neither did I.

  I wanted to call out her name: 'Laura! Laura!' I wanted to cover the distance between us so I could see her face properly. And she too seemed to be drawn towards me. She took an uncertain half step, her hat still dangling from her mittened hand. But she halted and still I didn't move.

  Then Laura put on her hat and once more started walking along the path, away from me. I watched her as she became a shadowy figure. I watched until, like a lonely ghost, she faded into white.

  Somehow, days passed. Weeks passed. Whatever you do, time always goes by. Then something happened.

  I was dreaming that I was falling, falling through the air, and then I woke with a start that made my heart pound. The phone was ringing. I stretched out my hand instinctively, though I was still stupid with sleep. I half noticed, as I fumbled with the receiver, that it was dark outside.

  I mumbled into the receiver and someone started singing into my ear. For a moment, I thought if this was part of my dream, a dream within a dream, then the words resolved. 'Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you

  1 sat up in bed and clutched the phone. Behind the relentlessly cheery tune there was another noise: a rabble of voices; music and loud laughter.

  'Happy birthday, dearest Miranda…'

  'Don't,' I mumbled.

  'Happy birthday to you!'

  I twisted my head round to see the green glow of the numbers on the clock. 12.01 clicked into 12.02.

  'I wanted to be the first to say it. You didn't think I'd forget, did you? I could never forget.'

  'I don't want…'

  'March the eighth. Did you know that was International Women's Day?'

  'I'm going to put the phone down now, Brendan.'

  'You're always in my thoughts. Not an hour goes by. And I'm always in your thoughts, aren't I?'

  'You're drunk.'

  'Just merry. And on my own now.'

  'But Laura…?'

  'On my own and thinking of you. Just thinking of you.'

  'Fuck off,' I said.

  I put the phone down, but not in time to miss him saying. 'Sleep well, Miranda. Sweet dreams.'

  CHAPTER 27

  Inconceivably, unforgivably, I arrived late at the church. I had a fistful of excuses. I'd been thinking what on earth I should wear, and whether it mattered, and suddenly I realized I'd been sitting on the edge of my bed staring at the wall for forty-five minutes and I didn't know what I'd been thinking about. The church was down in New Maiden, where Laura's parents lived, and it turned out to be much further than I thought, involving changes of train. And then I was in such a panic that I ran out of the station and took a wrong turning and found myself running along the edge of a golf course, unbelievably, with men in bright sweaters pulling their long leather bags on this bright spring morning.

  There were two different doors to the church, both closed. I could hear people singing a familiar hymn inside, one I'd sung in school assemblies. I didn't know which door to take. I took the smaller entrance, down the side. I was worried I'd come out in some prominent place where I'd be stared at. I pushed at the door, but there was some resistance. As it opened, I realized that the small church was full and people were standing in front of the door. A bearded man in a dark trench coat moved along to allow me inside. I thought of the crowded underground train I'd come on. Move along inside, please.

  I was halfway down the nave, stuck by the wall behind a pillar with a severely restricted view of proceedings. The hymn finished and someone I couldn't see started to speak. I looked around for familiar faces. It was a collection of strangers and I wondered for a horrible second if I had blundered into the wrong church, but then I saw someone who used to be at college with Laura and me. She caught my eye and I realized I couldn't remember her name. Someone to avoid afterwards. At the back I saw Tony, gaunt, harrowed, but weirdly embarrassed as well, as if he had sneaked in without paying. I hadn't been concentrating on the speech and now I made myself listen. It was like a radio slowly coming on. I found it hard to follow the sense at first. I just picked out phrases: 'happy young woman', 'first flush of youth', 'spring morning'. They seemed nonsensical to me. From the artificial tone, I assumed this must be a vicar who didn't really know Laura, who had only heard about her. 'Sometimes we want to ask God questions,' said the voice. 'We want to ask why bad things happen to good people. Why innocent children suffer. And now, why this beautiful, sunny young woman should die, so cruelly, so unfortunately, so unnecessarily. An accident of this kind would be horrible at any time, but for a woman like Laura, newly married, it is almost too much to bear.'

  Through the fog of confusion and misery, I felt a steely jab. 'Newly married.' I hadn't known that. So they had got married. Laura had got married.

  'And so,' the vicar continued. 'Our thoughts and our prayers must be with, not just Laura's paren
ts, Jim and Betty, but with Brendan, her new husband.'

  I could see him now. I leaned across and saw the front row of pews. I could only see them from the back. A grey-haired woman leaning forwards, a grey-haired man with his arm around her, and on her other side, sitting upright, facing forwards, Brendan. I could only see the back of his head, but I could exactly picture his expression. He would be the best mourner in the church. The world champion mourner. He would look sad but thoughtful. When the vicar mentioned his name, Brendan would have given him a glance, pursed his lips and given a modest nod of acknowledgement. I saw him turn slightly to Laura's mother. Exactly. In the midst of his suffering he would be helping others. What a star.

  There was another hymn and then an uncle read a poem and the vicar said that the family would go out with the coffin and the other mourners should gather at the family house. It was a short walk. There was a map on the Order of Service. I didn't have one. I would have to follow the crowd. It was all rather like a school assembly, what with the hymns and the announcements and having to leave in a particular order. When the coffin was carried past me, I hardly connected it with Laura at all. I just thought about how heavy it must be and how they chose the men to carry it. I wondered if they were all relatives and friends or employees of the undertakers. Laura had been my best friend, but I had never met her parents. She had fallen out with them very badly about something to do with a boyfriend when she was in her last year at school. So when they followed the coffin out, it was the first time I had ever seen their faces. The funny thing was that Laura's mother, round-faced and fleshy, didn't look like her daughter. Laura had been the image of her father. She had been a beautiful woman and he was handsome. His face was gaunt, with prominent cheekbones. He looked ill at ease in his dark suit. Maybe he had borrowed it from someone.

  Behind them was Brendan. He almost made me gasp, he looked so handsome. Everything about him was right. He was holding his hands together in front of him, slightly clenched, as if he were in pain but trying not to show it. His black suit was beautifully brushed, without even a hair or a speck of dust on it. He had on a white shirt and a rather gorgeous crimson tie with a large knot. His hair was tousled, which clashed slightly with the care and precision of his dress, but that was appropriate too, as a signal of his grief and his passion, a note of elegant disarray. His face was very pale, his dark eyes were fixed in front of him, so he didn't see me.

  The parade passed by and out through the door. There was some awkward shuffling and murmuring while we waited to be sure that the family members were gone and safely away. Last in, I was one of the first out, blinking in the sunshine. My eyes were dazzled and I realized that I was crying. In the church it had all been too intense, but outside I saw the acres of graves. For some reason the obvious thought that they had all been people once and that they were gone and that my friend Laura had now gone with them – it just made me cry. Crying again. My eyes were getting used to this. I felt a touch on my shoulder.

  'Miranda?'

  I turned to discover that it was the woman whose name I'd forgotten. Laura had shared a house with her in her first year at college. Lucy. Sally. Paula.

  'Hello,' I said.

  She came forwards and gave me the warmest of hugs. Kate. Susan. It was something quite common. Tina. Jackie. Jane.

  'It's so good to see a friendly face,' she said. 'It's so long since I've seen Laura. I thought I wouldn't know anybody.'

  Lizzie. Frances. Cathy. Jean. Alice. No.

  I couldn't manage much more than a shrug.

  'Isn't it unbelievably sad?' she said. 'I just can't believe it.'

  'I know,' I said. I should have asked her name straight away and apologized. It was too late now. Julia. Sarah. Jan. Maybe someone else would come up and address her by name. As long as I didn't have to introduce her to anyone.

  'Are you coming along to the house?' she said.

  'I don't know,' I said.

  'You must come,' she said. 'Just for a bit, at least. I want to talk to you.'

  'All right,' I said, and we set off. She had a card with the instructions written on it. I had a moment of inspiration. I asked her if I could have a look at the instructions and she handed me the card. I turned it over. Written in pen in the corner was the name ' Sian '. Of course. How could I possibly have forgotten that? What a relief. Finally something in my life had gone right.

  'It's funny,' she said. 'This is the first time I've ever been to the funeral of anyone my own age.'

  'Yes, Sian,' I said, just to show her that I knew her name. 'It's strange.'

  I didn't say anything about Troy. His death seemed something too precious to be brought out and bandied around in conversation as something interesting to talk about with someone I hardly knew and would probably never meet again. Sian talked about Laura and how they hadn't met for over a year and how she had heard about her marriage from mutual friends. They had just got married at the register office without telling anyone.

  'She married someone I've never heard of,' Sian said. 'It must have been so sudden.'

  I didn't want to say anything, but I knew that if I didn't it was an absolute certainty that someone would come up to us and start talking about Brendan and me and it would make me look ridiculous again.

  'I knew him,' I said. 'It was pretty sudden.'

  'He must have been the one walking behind the coffin.'

  'That's right.'

  'He was very good-looking,' said Sian. 'I can see why she might have fallen for him.'

  'I'll introduce you,' I said.

  Sian looked embarrassed.

  'I didn't mean…' she started and then stopped. She seemed unable to say what it was she didn't mean.

  The house was crowded. It was a big party, though I couldn't see Tony anywhere, the one person I wanted to see and to hug. There was a table with sandwiches, boiled eggs, dips, chopped vegetables, crisps. There was tea, coffee, juice. I thought of Laura's mother superintending the preparations. She wasn't invited to the wedding, but here she was, just a few weeks later, organizing the funeral. I looked around for someone I knew. I still saw no sign of Tony. I assumed he must have slipped away after the ceremony. Laura's parents were leading a very old woman across the living room into a corner and helping her into an armchair. I considered offering my condolences and then thought how could I possibly without getting myself lost in horrendous explanations, and then told myself I ought to talk to them anyway. This argument with myself was still going on when I became aware of someone's presence beside me. I looked around. The face I saw was so unexpected that for a moment I had trouble placing him. It was the detective, Rob Pryor.

  'What on earth are you doing here?' I asked.

  He didn't answer, just handed me a cup of tea.

  'I'd sort of hoped for something stronger,' I said.

  'There isn't anything stronger.'

  'All right.'

  'I know what you're going to say,' he said.

  I took a gulp of tea. It was scaldingly hot and it burned my mouth and almost everything else as I swallowed it.

  'What am I going to say?'

  'I thought you'd be here,' he said. 'I thought it was important that I head you off.'

  'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  'I've looked into this,' Rob said. 'Laura's death is terribly sad. But that's all.'

  'Oh, for fuck's sake, Rob,' I said. 'Do you mind if I call you Rob?'

  'Go ahead,' he said.

  'Come off it,' I said. 'Don't insult my intelligence.'

  'I know what you mean,' he said. 'I thought of you as soon as I heard. I made calls. I talked to the investigating officer.'

  'Forget all that,' I said. 'Just think about it. I come to you with my suspicions about Troy. You pooh-pooh them. Fine. Then Brendan dumps my sister for my best friend and runs off with her. A few months later she's dead. Do you see a pattern here?'

  Rob sighed.

  'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm not very interested in patterns. F
acts are stubborn things. Laura died by accident.'

  'How many twenty-five-year-olds drown in the bath?' I asked.

  'She'd been at a party,' Rob said. 'She was clearly intoxicated. She had some sort of altercation with Mr Block. She left early. She returned to their flat alone. She ran herself a bath. She slipped and struck her head while the bath was running. She drowned. The bath overflowed and, at just before twenty past midnight, Thomas Croft, who lived in the flat beneath, became aware of water coming through the ceiling, ran up, found the front door of the flat unlocked and discovered Mrs Block dead in the bath.'

  I hated to hear him call Laura 'Mrs Block'. It was another way that Brendan had got his clammy hands into somebody's life. I looked around to make sure nobody could overhear us.

  'That's exactly what he did when he and Kerry were living in my flat.'

  'What?'

  'He deliberately let the bath overflow. It's a message.'

  'A message?'

  'To me.'

  Rob Pryor looked at me almost with an expression of pity.

  'Mrs Block's death was a message to you'?' he said. 'Are you insane?'

  'It's easy to bang someone over the head,' I said. 'Hold them under the water.'

  'That's true,' said Rob.

  'And it wasn't a dinner party, was it?' I said. 'There must have been lots of people around. In the house. In the garden. Were people keeping track of Brendan every minute?'

  Rob gave an impatient frown.

  'It's a twenty-minute walk from the party at Seldon Avenue back to their flat. Maybe twenty-five. Anybody who left the party to kill her would have been away for about an hour.'

  'They could have caught a cab,' I said, a bit feebly.

  'I thought your theory depended on nobody noticing,' said Rob. 'Your murderer calls a cab, it arrives at the party with nobody noticing. And what? Did he ask the cabbie to wait while he went inside and committed the murder?'

  'He could have followed her back. Nobody noticed she was gone.'

  'Oh, I forgot,' said Rob, and at that very moment I felt hands on my shoulders. I looked round and a face leaned into mine, kissing me on both cheeks, hugging me too close. It was Brendan.