Page 52 of A Face in the Crowd
‘He asked if I wanted to pop upstairs.’
‘You’re a filthy liar.’
‘I’m not. Why would I lie? He’d only been out of prison for a few weeks after whacking that bloke with a bat.’
It’s true. All of it.
Melanie doesn’t move, but her voice is a slithering snake’s: ‘He was provoked.’
‘Because smashing someone with a batfrom behindis always the way to deal with a problem…’
We stand apart, in more ways than one. I’ve never told her this before, never told anyone about Alex trying it on with me. Ben had an important week with work and I didn’t want to interrupt that with tales about his brother groping me. I was also worried that he might not believe it.
After the crash, when it was revealed that Alex was among the dead, there seemed no reason to mention it, plus who was I going to tell? Things feel different now. I’ve never had that much animosity towards Melanie before, but I can’t escape the sense that I’ve missed something. Her jacket was in the flat opposite mine. The one from which music has been taunting me. I don’t believe her that it was stolen.
‘Go,’ Melanie says. Her voice is a low growl. ‘Go, or I’ll call the police.’
I move towards the front door but turn back to where Melanie hasn’t moved from the dimness of the kitchen. This is what I’ve been waiting five years to say.
‘You can’t keep blaming me for what happened,’ I say, ‘I wanted to marry Ben. I wanted the house and all that – but I had a job, too. I thought we both wanted the same thing. I never forced him to go on trips and, even if I had, I didn’t know he was spending our savings to fund it all. He stole everything I had. He lied to me and he lied to you. We both have that in common.’
I can barely see Melanie among the shadow, but her outline slumps to the side as she rests on the counter behind. She says nothing. I know she’ll never concede this point, even though she knows it is true. She tells herself I killed Ben because I pushed him to buy me nice things. She told me I killed Alex because Ben roped him into whatever get-rich-quick scheme they had going on.
‘Just go,’ she says.
‘If you didn’t leave your coat in my building, then who did?’
I’m not expecting an answer and Melanie sighs wearily. ‘Go.’
So I do.
It’s only as I’m out the door, down the path, and halfway back to the bus stop that I remember what she said in the kitchen.You already killed my son.
In the days and weeks after the crash, she would rage at me regularly at how I was responsible for killing her boys.
Boys. Plural. Suddenly, now, only ‘son’.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Billy’s ears prick as a firework booms into the night sky. There are still two days until Bonfire Night but nobody seems to care. Bluey-green sprinkles of light seep through my blinds, even though they’re closed. It truly is the time of year when all the knobheads come out. All sorts of weapons are rightfully banned in the UK – but tubes filled with gunpowder? Go for it, mate.
The fact Billy is reacting to the fireworks is something, though. He’s alert, awake and wanting assurance. He’s eaten a little more food and didn’t mind his second dose of medicine. He was awake when I got home from Melanie’s and the turnaround is incredible.
I’m comforting him as much as he’s comforting me. There was something about the photo of Ben and Alex that stuck with me in a way I cannot explain. The completeness of Ben’s arm tattoo means it would have had to be taken close to the crash – and the brothers looked so similar. Perhaps they always had and I’d somehow missed it? It’s hard to know.
For some reason, I picture the wolf that Tyler pointed out when we were trick or treating. There was a moment, in the murk, when the costumed head was down, in which I saw Ben. It was the light, I’m sure, and yet Alex was five years younger than his brother. Five years have passed.
And then poor Harry was bashed in the back of the head by someone in the exact kind of attack for which Alex went to prison.
You’ve already killed my son.
Singular.
I blink away the thoughts and keep Billy close as I fill in yet more information for the job agency. While I’m doing that, I refresh my email over and over, waiting to see if the person who put up the posters has contacted me. There’s nothing but marketing. There never is. Dare to buy something small from a company once and they email three times a week for the rest of eternity.
The agency’s questionnaire asks about, essentially, everything I’ve ever done since being conceived. I’m busy trying to remember what job I was doing eleven years ago when a new email alert pings.
Can we meet?
