Something Might Happen (4 page)

One of the men dials 999 on his mobile.

There’s normally a very small, half-hearted police presence in the town, but it doesn’t wait around for murders to happen.
Several more cars and an ambulance are summoned at once from Wrentham and Halesworth. Within twenty minutes there are sirens,
winking lights, crackling radios, as police park diagonally to block the road and then proceed to tape off the car park and
the adjoining areas. The electric milk van is stopped and told to go back round the other way, along North Road. The tide
turns. A series of black groynes point up like fingers at the sky.

After perhaps half an hour, a small yellow and white tent is erected. It flaps about in the early morning wind that comes
off the sea. Yellow tape is strung between the posts of the car park. No one is allowed to cross it—only one or two police
are let through and even they have to be cleared by the grey-haired man in a white jacket who arrived ten minutes earlier,
looking tired-out and carrying a small nylon bag.

Paramedics stand around. Grim faces. Confusion. What are they waiting for? Is someone just injured or are they dead? At last
a police officer walks briskly forward, head down, talking into his radio. They immediately let him through the tape. His
breath is a cold cloud and he looks at no one.

He pulls a coat on over his neon jacket, which glints oddly in the bright sea light. He is followed by two policewomen, one
of them frowning hard and carrying something small and heavy. The wind blows the clouds apart and everything is lit up and
sparkly-yellow in that split second. Far out to sea is a perfect little boat with a brown sail. You can tell the wind is strong
because of how the boat scuds along. Eager and fast. It looks like it’s going to be a lovely day. That’s what it’s like the
morning they find Lennie—everyone says that, everyone remembers it. An especially lovely day for the time of year.

Someone has died. The whisper goes around. A woman’s body has been found—attacked and left for—yes, a female, someone from
here—no one knows who. No, they haven’t said. Yes, dead.

No one says murdered, not yet, not then.

A good soul from one of the B. & B.s on North Parade appears with several mugs of tea—by which time a crowd of dog walkers
and delivery people and shopworkers has gathered. A couple of chambermaids from The Angel, shivering in their black. People
speak quietly to one another. Someone’s mobile phone starting up and the culprit walking away, guilty, to answer it.

Meanwhile, three or four hefty gulls alight on the concrete wall by the bins—in case such an improbably sudden crowd means
food.

Oh Tess, he says.

Have they found her? Even as I speak the words, something in my throat settles and hardens and the answer bubbles up.

Yes, he says, they have.

I wait and then whisper, And—?

I’m afraid they have, he says again.

It’s—bad?

He takes a breath. There’s sweat on his face, and on mine.

I think she’s dead, he says. He takes a breath, corrects himself, No. I mean—she is—oh Tess—she is dead.

Dead. Lennie is dead. The air around my head blooms into a massive, soft silence. Everything stops and my ears are velvety
with it.

Tess?

I am about to answer him but instead the floor comes zooming up to meet my face.

It’s OK, I can hear him saying, it’s OK.

With my head between my knees and him holding me, I breathe. Big, hurting breaths, in and out. Down there in that other world,
I notice things—the bare patches on Lennie’s blue carpet, the crumbs and dust bunnies beneath the edge of the sofa. Two rubber
bands. A piece of Lego and next to it something sticky, dulled with fluff, a spat-out fruit gum perhaps.

Deep breaths, Mick says and him saying it reminds me of us in labour, having our babies. The most together we have ever been.
Except that right now this moment I have no memory whatever of having Liv.

How? I ask him, and he tells me. He tells me what has been done to Lennie. After a few moments, he asks me if I am OK. He
asks even though he knows the answer. It’s not his fault. It’s only because he loves me.

And outside the wind has dropped and the kids are all standing just as we left them. Such good children—so quiet, all of them,
no one touching or nudging anyone else, not a cry or complaint or a yowl of anger from anyone. You would not know there were
five children huddled out there on the damp porch step.

MICK DROPS OUR KIDS AT SCHOOL AND THEN DRIVES
Max and Con on to Alex’s mother Patsy in Halesworth. Alex has already told Patsy. She knows. She says she’ll have the boys
as long as necessary. No one knows how long Alex’ll have to spend with the police.

Mick asks Patsy if she’s sure she’ll be OK? She tells him she’s fine. She’s taken 4 mg of valium on her GP’s advice and a
neighbour has come in to be with her.

Have a drink, Mick says to me, have a stiff drink.

I stare at him.

I’m OK.

Go on, he says. I mean it—you’ll feel better.

Have you? I ask him.

I’m driving.

I’m OK, I tell him again.

What are you going to do?

I don’t know. Tidy up here then come home.

You’ll walk?

Yes.

I watch the children pile into the car, oblivious and ordinary, hands and feet scuffing, shoving their rucksacks in the back,
getting Fletcher to jump in afterwards.

We’ve told them nothing, Alex will do it, he should be the one. For a moment or two all I see is their small white faces in
the back window. And Connor especially—smiling, tilting his head back in a naughty-happy way, looking just like Lennie.

The air around Liv’s head smells of milk. Her mouth is open, one small fist pushed up hard against her cheek. I know that
if I were to pry it open I’d find sweat, fluff and grit from where she lay on the blanket on the floor. I stay for a moment,
just looking. Checking. I always do that with my kids. Check them. I even still do it to Nat, yes even now, even though I
can tell from the strange, large, folded-up shape of him that these days it’s a pretty redundant thing to do.

After I’ve looked at her, I put away the cereal packets and rinse the bowls in the sink—then put on Lennie’s rubber gloves
and rinse the sink as well, swishing it around with my fingers. Next to the sink is Lennie’s hand cream, the pump-head clogged
with greasy pinkness where she’s used it. A sparkly hair clip that she wore recently—when? why don’t I remember?—with two
of the sparkly bits come off.

The phone rings. I jump. It’s only Mick.

Tess, he says, you’re to get out of there. They’re going to seal it off. You’re not to put your fingerprints on anything else—a
forensics guy is coming over any minute now.

Tears come to the back of my throat.

But—if I’m not here—how’ll he get in?

He has a key. Tess, I mean it—just leave. Now. That’s what they said. They don’t want fingerprints everywhere. Just get out.
Just pull the door behind you and come home.

You’ve already dropped the kids?

Yes. I thought you’d be back. Shall I come over and get you?

I try to understand how much time has gone since Mick left. More than I think. Shock pulls everything tight around you.

No, I tell him, I’m coming. I’m coming now.

We live about a four-minute walk from Lennie and Al. Down Spinner’s Lane, across the Green and up Victoria Street to the row
of little cobble-fronted cottages by the church. To get there you pass the doctor’s surgery, Pratt’s newsagent’s and an Antiques
& Curios shop that belongs to Margie Pinnerman but is hardly ever open. The rest is residential—silent, pebble-dashed semis
and then the older, more desirable cottages with names like Sailor’s Stash and Ebb Tide. More like a bunch of racehorses,
Mick remarked when he first saw the names painted on their proud little plinky-planky china plaques.

Our street is quite different from Lennie and Al’s. The cottages in Spinner’s Lane have larger gardens and uglier
fronts and look out over the marshes. But ours have white-painted walls with ragged hollyhocks bursting out over the tops
and through the cracks. Our gardens are more like yards—just enough room for a bike perhaps and a row of washing—but inside
our houses are bigger than they look, and from our tiny bathroom windows you can see the sea.

It ought to be easy. To go and get my coat, my little, sleeping baby, creep out, close the door behind me. But the cats—Lennie’s
two angry tabbies—circle me, mewing loudly. I don’t like cats, something Lennie will never understand. She can’t understand
that a person could be afraid of a small furry thing.

But I know where she keeps the food so I get it from the shelf by the back door and pour some onto a plate, make a kissing
noise with my lips like she does.

And they come, slowly, tails stuck up in the air. The one with the white patch on its face looks at the food, then back at
me, disgust on his dreamy cat face. Then they both sit back and start washing.

The moments fall away and whole seconds go by before I notice that a man is in the room. A stranger, a man, about thirty years
old with lots of darkish hair and an odd, quiet face. Standing there and looking at me.

My heart clenches and then dips.

Oh!

Sorry, he says quickly, I really am so sorry.

He says it but he’s almost smiling. I am grabbing at the edge of the counter, hot and trembling.

I didn’t mean to make you jump. I should have knocked. It’s just—

I say nothing.

The door was open, he says, looking more helpless now. And I was told the house was empty.

I’m—it is. I’m going, I tell him.

Oh look, don’t feel you have to—he says, but he’s looking all around him at the room. Which already isn’t Lennie’s room.

Are you police? I ask him, because he doesn’t look like it.

That’s right. Sorry.

He nods.

You’re the forensics guy?

I’m Ted Lacey, he says, I’m—I’m called family liaison. I’m here to—

I fold my arms tight against me in case he tries to shake my hand.

I’m with the police, he begins again, but I deal with—

The family.

Right, he says quietly, keeping his eyes on me. Yes.

Tess, I say, I’m Tess. A friend of—

He blinks.

Yes, he says. Yes. I know that.

And he just stands there.

Are you OK? he says at last.

I’m fine, thanks.

He looks at me.

Is that your job? I ask him. To ask if I’m OK?

No, he says and shrugs, looks away.

I smile. I don’t know why.

Look—he begins, then stops.

I daren’t look at him. He’s so young. Something about him makes the room tilt.

Maybe I look dizzy.

Why don’t you sit down? he says.

No, I tell him, I’m fine. I just need a cigarette.

He watches as I pull open Lennie’s kitchen drawer.

She has a secret supply, I tell him without knowing why, of cigarettes.

He says nothing.

I find them quickly, hidden between the clingfilm and the roll of sandwich bags. Also, a pink plastic lighter with the Virgin
Mary on. A present from Barcelona, it says.

We did give up, I tell him. At New Year.

Oh, he says.

But we keep them here. Just in case.

He looks at me and the way he does it makes me feel funny.

I’m going home, I tell him. Now. In a minute.

OK.

It’s just, I tell him, my husband wouldn’t want me smoking.

He looks down at the floor. I see how shiny his shoes are. Definitely not from around here. I offer him the pack. He shakes
his head. He hasn’t moved.

I flick the lighter and the flame whooshes up too high over the Virgin’s head and then goes off.

Shit.

I drop it. The cigarette too.

Fuck.

He reaches forward, bends down, picks them up for me. I look into his hair, which is black as anything and dense and shiny.

He watches me fumble all over again with the lighter. Shall I do it? he says at last.

OK then.

I put the cigarette between my lips and pull back my hair which is falling everywhere and he lights it for me. I suck it quickly
in and let it hit me hard all over before I weep.

And at home, there’s Mick, standing lost in the middle of something in the room where he can’t settle or do anything, which
is how I feel too. And he’s been crying.

I ask if he’s heard anything from Alex and he says no, he hasn’t. He’s still with the police as far as anyone knows.

My head feels hot.

I can’t believe it, I say.

Tess, he says.

Who? Who would do it? Who would do such a thing to someone here in this place?

This is a safe place—that’s what I want to say.

Mick sits down heavily on the sofa, putting his hands in his eyes, trying to stamp out the tears with his fists.

I don’t know, he says.

Poor Al, I say. Poor kids.

Go and lie down, he tells me. I mean it. Take Liv and just go and sleep.

I can’t.

But you’ve been up half the night.

So have you.

Not as long as you.

I’m afraid, I tell him. I’m afraid of lying there and not being able to sleep and then I’m afraid of going to sleep and having
to wake up and—go through it all again.

I begin to sob. He comes over and puts his arms around me, rests his chin on my hair.

We’ve got to tell the children, I say.

Of course.

Well how, for fuck’s sake?

We’ll just tell them.

What, tonight?

It’ll have to be tonight. Otherwise they’ll hear it from someone else.

He takes his arms off me and away and steps back. The front of his shirt is now wet from my face.

I love you, I tell him.

He says nothing. I ask him if he thinks Patsy will have told the boys by now.

I don’t know, he says.

He stands there, arms hanging down by his sides. He has on a very creased shirt with a huge greasy mark on the front. It must
be the first thing he picked up off the floor in the other world that was this morning.