Freya (62 page)

‘I remember that amazing orange minidress you wore that night –'

‘She gave me that! I couldn't afford it.'

Freya smiled. ‘I don't know if she told you, but at the cafe she didn't have any money, so I paid – which was fine. But to make up for it she sent me a television set.'

‘That's what she was like,' Ava said again more quietly.

Freya reached for her handbag, and took out a paper napkin. She opened it to show a telephone number, written in biro:

‘I never called – I wrote a postcard to her instead. It's odd, but I find I look at this thing more often than I do the TV.'

Touching the edge of the napkin, Ava dipped her head. When she looked up again tears were standing in her eyes.

Freya reached over and gently put her hand on hers. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –'

Ava used her other hand to shield her brow. ‘It's just … seeing her handwriting. Like she's still alive somewhere.'

Freya nodded, pained and simultaneously struck by how beautiful the girl looked. She waited a few moments for her to regain her composure. The waitress had just arrived with their tea, and she asked her for one of the glazed pastries that had been imploring her from the stand on the counter.

When she had gone, Freya leaned forward and began, carefully, ‘You said, when you telephoned, there was something I might want to know – about Chrissie, I think.'

Ava made a little movement of her neck before she began. ‘What they said about her in the paper, at the inquest, well – it wasn't true.'

‘What wasn't?'

‘They said the caretaker found her at about four o'clock. That's not right. It was me who found her.'

She had just finished a shift, she said, about half past midnight. Chrissie had asked her to telephone, because she thought there might be a ‘late one' at the flat. This meant that Bruce Haddon was bringing over some of his cronies from the Corsair, business types who didn't much interest her. She would usually ask Ava to come round, since she was the only one of her friends who would be up that late and still in town. But when Ava rang that night to confirm, Chrissie didn't answer. It was a woman, Frances – they all knew her from the Corsair – who picked up the phone. There was something odd about this.

‘She said Chrissie was really upset cos Bruce had been “at her” about something. Said it was all a bit tense there, and that it might be best not to come round. I could hear Bruce shouting in the background, that was how he got sometimes, and I thought, well, what's the point?'

‘So you didn't go?'

‘I was done in anyway, being on me feet all day, so I got a night bus going south. We'd got to Victoria when I changed my mind – I thought, if Chrissie really is upset she'd want a friend with her, so I hopped off and caught another bus going to Park Lane. I must have arrived at Curzon Street about half past one, maybe a bit later. I could hear Alfie, her dog, whining and pawing at the door inside, but nobody answered my knock. I went down to the porter and asked him if he could let me in. The flat seemed empty, which didn't feel right. I went into the bedroom, and there she was, lying on the bed. At first –' she took a deep breath, composing herself – ‘I thought she was asleep. I called her name. Nothing. I sat on the bed and tried to wake her. She didn't move. I asked the porter to come in. He looked at her, then got a mirror to hold near her mouth. He just said, “She's dead.”'

Freya let the silence lengthen a beat before she spoke. ‘What about Bruce and the others? Where were they?'

Ava lifted her thin shoulders. ‘That's just it. When I phoned it sounded like a party was going on – I could hear music. Now it was like they'd never been there. Someone must have cleared up pretty quickly, cos all the ashtrays had been emptied, bottles and glasses had gone.'

‘When you found her, on the bed, was she clothed?'

Ava nodded.

‘What did you do then?'

‘The porter went to phone the police. But before they came Bruce arrived, looking like a ghost. It was like … like he already knew. He said to me – “You don't wanna get involved in this, there'll be all sorts of publicity, the papers will be after your family.”'

She fell silent then, seeming troubled by what she had to say. Freya, with a tiny movement of her brow, encouraged her to go on.

‘I asked him about the police, and he said he'd deal with them. I knew there were drugs, which would make things … To be honest, I was so upset at that point I wanted to go anyway, and he could tell. He gave me twenty pounds, I think just to make sure I didn't … say anything.'

‘Twenty quid's a lot. I wonder what he thought he was paying you not to say.'

Ava was tracing her finger around a pattern on the table. ‘I shouldn't have taken it – should I? I should have stayed and talked to the police. Then they wouldn't have just claimed it was an overdose.'

‘What do you think it was?' said Freya, scrutinising her. ‘Why was he so eager to get you out of there?'

‘I don't know. The idea she'd been drinking was crazy – she just
didn't
. I have this awful feeling, you know, if I'd been able to talk to her on the phone, or if I'd gone to her flat straight away I could have – done something. Saved her, maybe.'

‘You can't know that. She may already have been dead.'

Ava looked away, her eyes closed. It seemed she was in a struggle with delayed feelings of remorse. Freya wasn't sure what she had got hold of. There was something fishy about that night, not least the abrupt dispersal of the gathering at Chrissie's flat. Bruce Haddon's fortuitous reappearance just after Ava discovered the body looked even more suspect, as did the hush money he handed to her.
It was like he already knew
, she said.

‘These late-night parties at Chrissie's place – how many people would turn up?'

‘Twenty, twenty-five, I suppose. You'd see the same faces.'

‘The woman who answered the phone – Frances? – do you know anything about her – where she lives?'

Ava shook her head. ‘She was a good-time girl, you know – wore a lot of fur, always nicely made up.'

‘And she was friends with Chrissie?'

‘Well … I'm not sure how well Chrissie knew her. She was a bit older than us. We used to see her around the Corsair.'

They drank more tea, and for a while talked of other things. Now and then Ava would favour someone in the grey serge of London Transport with a smile, or just a lift of her chin. The fellowship of the route.

Ava, aware of herself being studied, said, ‘What's the matter?'

‘Nothing. When I was writing Chrissie's obituary it occurred to me that I hardly knew this girl, and yet I felt such a strong connection to her. I couldn't understand it.'

Ava looked off into the distance. After a pause she said, ‘I sometimes find myself talking to her out loud. I keep thinking I'll hear her voice, she feels that close. But I never do.'

The summer was stretching out, and day by day the uproar over the death of Chrissie Effingham dwindled, became fainter. With no fresh gossip to feed on the papers lost interest and, quietly, like a bad conscience, they dropped her. The
Vogue
cover by necessity hung around, but then gave way to a new issue, and a new face. Freya continued her search for the elusive Frances, looking through photographs of Haddon and his cronies in the paper's picture library, hunting for the woman Ava had described: mid-twenties, dark-haired, petite, a bit ‘brassy'. She found one or two likely candidates, but when she checked the names no ‘Frances' came up.

Her friend Fosh, who had done stints as a smudger outside the Corsair, had promised to look through his recent photographs for possible sightings, but so far he too had drawn a blank. Nor did she get much change out of Ivan Brock, who considered the story done with once the coroner's report was published. She had told him about the new information relating to the discovery of the corpse, and the oddity of the flat so suddenly emptied in the hours before. Someone, probably Bruce Haddon, had been quick to eliminate any traces of the party going on that night. What did he think of that? Brock, in fact, didn't think much of it at all. She had the unsubstantiated story of an unnamed ‘friend' of Chrissie's, who may have had her own reasons to ‘kick up a fuss'. She had no evidence of Haddon's involvement in a cover-up, no evidence of wrongdoing, and no evidence that contradicted the coroner's findings. The girl – even her name was a reach for him now – had died of an overdose. Sad, but there it was.

Freya had half expected this lack of enthusiasm on the editor's part. When Brock had spiked her obituary of Chrissie that morning he had admitted to knowing Haddon, and dismissed her characterisation of him as ‘a creep'. Now she recalled them talking to one another at the Cosways' party that evening, perhaps they'd been introduced by their mutual friend Robert. She supposed vested interests were at work, editor and agent trading favours in private to maintain the smooth running of their own offices. She would have to be a bit craftier in her dealings with Brock, she realised, given his reluctance to challenge the official line or cause Bruce Haddon any discomfort.

She drove them over Magdalen Bridge just as a party of students were hurrying across, their black gowns flapping like ravens' wings. Oxford basked in a heat haze, its high windows glinting gold from the low flat sunlight. The spires and towers yearned against the sharp blue sky, and the college stone seemed to glow with secretive delight. Freya glanced at Nancy in the passenger seat.

‘I don't remember it looking this pretty when
we
were here, do you?'

Nancy looked about her, smiling, as the shops on the high street slid by. ‘It's looking more prosperous than it used to. You saw the place at its lowest ebb, really.'

Freya hadn't been back in more than a decade. They were making a stop here on the way to the Chilterns, where they would stay at a cottage for the weekend courtesy of a friend of Stephen's. Nancy had suggested the detour, and to her evident surprise Freya had agreed. The fires of her resentment towards the place had burnt out, and she felt only curiosity as to how it would look in the long perspective. Along the high, students lately out of schools were making merry, tearing off their subfusc and swigging from wine bottles. Freya, never having taken an exam here, laughed bemusedly at their abandon.

They scooted over the cobbles of Radcliffe Square and onto the Broad – her favourite street in Oxford – where they parked. They both wore sunglasses against the glare of the day. Freya, in drawstring slacks and T-shirt, almost had to lift herself out of the car, such was the unwieldiness of her bump.

Nancy, smoothing down her navy summer dress, said, ‘You look amazing – like you're glowing from within.'

‘Really? Feels more like sweating than glowing. Have you noticed how I've started to
waddle
? Talking of which –' She walked a halting circle around the Morgan.

Nancy looked at her. ‘What did you do that for?'

‘Oh, just a little superstition I picked up from my dad. You walk a witch's circle around the car to make sure you don't get a parking ticket.'

‘But … why not just park in a place where you know you won't get a ticket?'

‘I suppose that would be the sensible thing.'

They walked up St Giles and called in at the Eagle and Child, where they took a table by the window. Motes of dust danced in the slanting light. They clinked their gin and tonics, and Nancy said, ‘To the old place.' Freya had thought there might be a significance in her wanting to come back: they had met in London, but they had become friends in Oxford. Even then they had been through some precarious times. But when Nancy next spoke it turned out she wasn't thinking along nostalgic lines after all.

‘How far ahead have you thought about –' she nodded at the bump – ‘I mean, once it's older?'

‘Well, I'm not going to give up
work
,' said Freya, with a touch more defiance than was necessary.

Nancy raised her hands in defence. ‘I never for a moment thought you would. It's just – how will they deal with you at the
Journal
?'

‘Badly, knowing them.'

‘Won't they hold the job over for you?'

She shook her head. ‘Not a hope. I don't think the editor likes me much anyway – this will just give him the chance to get rid of me.'

Nancy looked puzzled, so she recounted her set-to with Brock over the obituary of Chrissie Effingham, and his reneging on the promise to let her pursue the story. She rolled herself a cigarette as she talked, while Nancy responded with clucks of sympathetic protest.

‘Brock was at your party, of course. I wasn't aware he knew Robert that well.'

‘They met when they were at the
Envoy
. They like to keep in with one another – especially now that Robert's getting a name for himself.'

‘Pity he can't put a good word in for me,' she said with a rueful laugh. ‘At your party Barry Rusk was kind enough to remind me of my “reputation” on the Street – “a volatile commodity”. It's held me back. That – and being a woman.'

‘Soon to be a mother …'

‘Christ, it's hard to believe, isn't it? I always vowed I'd never be one of those women who'd get in pod at the drop of a –'

‘Cap?' supplied Nancy, and they both laughed.

Freya, sensing the moment, ventured: ‘Have you ever …?'

‘We wanted to, but we can't. Perhaps it's for the best. Robert's hardly at home in any case, with his work, and I've got my writing to keep me occupied. A child would be …' Her shrug was brave, and Freya supposed she was going to say “an encumbrance”; but she discerned something wistful in her face, and was moved. Before she could say anything Nancy continued. ‘Have you thought of names yet?'