The Roommates
The Roommates
Rachel Sargeant
Do you really know the people you live with? ‘Gripping, original and unpredictable, The Roommates is a must-read’ Alex Lake From the top ten Kindle bestseller. Perfect for fans of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR. THEY LIVE IN YOUR HOUSEUniversity is supposed to be the best time of your life. But Imo’s first week is quickly going from bad to worse. YOU SHARE EVERYTHINGA stalker is watching her flat, following her every move, and Imo suspects that her new roommates are hiding dark secrets… BUT DO YOU TRUST THEM?When one of them suddenly disappears, the trauma of Imo’s recent past comes hurtling back to haunt her. And she begins to realise just how little she knows about the people she lives with… ‘Gripping, original and unpredictable’ Alex Lake “Twisty and unnerving, Rachel is back with a thriller that will keep you up all night. Her best novel yet!’ Phoebe Morgan ‘From the very first page, the intrigue of this page-turning mystery builds until the gripping climax’ Caroline England
Copyright (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Rachel Sargeant 2019
Rachel Sargeant asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design by Sim Greenaway © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photographs © Neil Holden/Arcangel Images (tenement block);
Shutterstock.com (https://www.shutterstock.com) (figures)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2019 ISBN: 9780008331900
Source ISBN: 9780008331894
Version: 2019-07-16
Dedication (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
For E and H – not possible without you.
Contents
Cover (#uc1ace7ff-9f9e-55d6-8e2a-5a82a89a3577)
Title Page (#uc1a70676-7a8b-5fcf-a6f9-cdaf48a7514d)
Copyright
Dedication
Three Years Ago
A car horn … (#uc1a754bd-af9d-5264-a28a-12aa44841e90)
Present Day (#ua200a1e3-29ab-573f-91c7-f00c7522251b)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Rachel Sargeant
About the Publisher
THREE YEARS AGO (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
A car horn blares and instinct makes her jump back. Male driver, early thirties. Mouth open in an oath as he speeds past, skidding on the bridge’s frosty tarmac. She can’t be bothered to gesture after him. Defiance gone.
Clutching her elbows for warmth, she makes it to the opposite side. Her jacket’s not much of a coat these days. Zip bust from straining. The barrier along the side of the bridge is tall – nearly her height – but she peers between its vertical railings. The river below looks benign. No boats are out in mid-winter to ruffle its grey-green surface. A few dog walkers and cyclists brave the promenade. The café’s open but the air’s too bitter even for smokers to sit outside.
Wind picks up, making her stumble. For a moment she longs for the warmth of the bonfire under the bridge where the others will be. A few cans and a bit of weed. Where’s the harm? But she can’t go there because of Danno. Can’t bear to see her betrayal reflected in his eyes. To see how her lies have destroyed him.
With her back against the barrier, sheltering from the worst of the weather, she squats and watches the traffic. When a passing lorry causes the bridge to judder, a change of plan flits through her mind. It might be quicker, more certain. But she can’t do that to a driver. She’s damaged enough people. People she loves. Her eyes smart. She stands up.
Searching for places to climb, she walks close to the barrier and spots possible toeholds – welded joints on some of the metal posts that are fixed into the ground at regular intervals. There’s a lull in the traffic and she hears her heartbeat. Loud. A shiver passes through her. Can she do this? What else is there? No one wants her, can’t blame Mum and Jade.
In one swift movement, she grips two railings, wedges the side of her foot on a bolt and hauls herself up. An icy blast hits her head and neck. When she looks down, the river looms in and out of focus. Her head spins so much, she’s sure she’ll overbalance. Determination deserts her and the dizziness makes her afraid. Her hands clench the top rail and she ignores how much the cold metal burns.
As she stares down at the water, Leo’s face flashes across her mind. This isn’t because of Danno – or Mum or Jade. Most of all she’s failed Leo. Her breathing slows and the unsteadiness fades. Her doubts begin to disappear. She levers herself higher.
No more pain, no more loss, no more hurting those who care – used to care. The burden lifts. Limbs and belly light for the first time in months. All over. She smiles. Places a knee on the top of the barrier. One final breath.
“Amber!” A voice shrieks along the bridge before the wind swallows it whole.
PRESENT DAY (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Chapter 1 (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Sunday 25 September
Imogen
“You should have gone to a Russell Group university.” Imo’s mother makes her pronouncement after ten minutes of stop-start traffic inside the campus. She’s got her brave face on, pretending to be forthright and normal.
Imo shrinks into the back seat and casts an anxious glance outside, but there’s no change in the faces of the students walking past. They haven’t heard the insult despite the open car windows. Wide-eyed and chatting, they stream on, like Glasto, but without the mud and wellies. It’s been warm all month. Imo was sunbathing in the garden yesterday, trying to suppress her gut-wrenching nervousness about today. So much is riding on it. Her chance to escape the life of grief and guilt that she and her family haunt.
What does her mother mean anyway? What difference does a university league table make to the traffic jam? Has she forgotten the free-for-all to get into Freddie’s uni four years ago? But Imo remembers her mother wasn’t there. Dad and Imo took Freddie. That same day Mum drove Sophia to Nottingham. Imo holds back a sigh; they were ordinary then.
A girl in a bright pink T-shirt steps up to her father’s window. “Welcome to the Abbey.” She hands him a hessian bag with Abbey Student Union printed on the side in the same pink as the T-shirt.
Imo’s belly flutters. It’s happening. She’s become part of the exclusive club of students who call it the Abbey despite it saying University of Abbeythorpe on the website. She leans forward, snatches the bag from her dad and looks inside. Leaflets on the Abbi Bar and Takeaway, the Student Welfare Service, and Avoiding STDs; a freshers’ wristband and a packet of condoms. She quickly clutches the bag on her lap. If her dad had seen inside, he’d have turned the car around, despite being in one-way traffic. And Imo would have understood. Risk weighs differently in this family.
The car park is behind a line of bushes on the right side of the road. They park and debate whether to take the luggage with them. Freddie advises leaving it until they know where Imo’s room is. Imo backs his suggestion; anything to avoid her old Groovy Chick duvet being paraded through reception. Her mum made her bring it, saying that uni tumble driers might damage her new one of the New York skyline. Imo didn’t want that one either. It was a birthday present and she intends to leave everything about that day behind. She’ll never be able to look back on turning eighteen with anything but ache and horror.
A large vehicle chugs into the car park. A boy in a high-vis jacket walks ahead and marshals it lengthways across four parking spaces. It’s an ancient ice-cream van painted sky blue, Cloud’s Coffee in bold purple lettering above the serving hatch. A thickset woman, with hair the same shade of blue as the van, climbs out the driver’s side. She pulls her seat forward and a girl jumps down. Taller and slimmer than the mother, and tidier too; her hair is short and blonde.
“Take this, Phoenix.” A man in the passenger seat passes her a holdall. Imo can see where she gets her looks from. Father and daughter are blessed with cheekbones. Not many people could carry off a name like Phoenix, but this girl can. She exudes athletic star quality.
Imo’s family follows the stream of people towards the main accommodation reception. Sweat seeps into her hoodie but she can’t take it off despite the late summer heat. Even though she got it at the British Heart Foundation shop, it’s a Jack Wills. And first impressions count. She spent two hours on Thursday planning her arrival outfit. Like her mother, she can play at normal.
They pass other students and their parents coming out of the building, clutching white envelopes, presumably containing the keys to their home for the next ten months. On the open day last year, Imo walked into this wood-panelled foyer, giggling with other Year Twelves on a trip from her school. Was that the last time she laughed and meant it? Not the fake chuckle she gives these days when her family play real-life charades. She swallows hard.
The hall echoes with the chatter of dozens of families. More students in pink T-shirts usher them into three lines. Imo’s family stand in the left-hand queue. Imo shifts from foot to foot, unable to stop her legs from wobbling. Wishing her parents weren’t with her. Hoping nobody will recognize them.
She swivels her head to look at the white-washed pillars behind the long reception counter. They’re adorned with posters advertising the Freshers’ Welcome Party. The line moves swiftly and soon Imo is in possession of her envelope, with instructions to turn right out of the building, enter the annexe at the back and take the stairs to the first floor. Scared of heights since Inspector Hare’s visit shook her family rigid – since she saw the broken body and imagined the fall – she’d asked for a ground-floor room when she filled in the accommodation form. At least they haven’t put her at the top of a tower block. It’s been months since she climbed higher than the second storey in any building, even though it’s an irrational fear. Inspector Hare had got it wrong again.
On the steps outside, right in the way of other families coming in and out, her parents stop for another debate about fetching the luggage. A Mini Convertible sweeps into the crisscross box of the no-parking zone in front of them. A high-heeled black sandal steps out of the driver’s side. The sandal strap coils along a slender ankle. When the driver stands up, the strap disappears under the hem of black palazzo trousers. The young woman shakes her head and thick, dark curls cascade over her bare shoulders. She’s wearing a white broderie anglaise blouse. A gypsy top, Imo’s grandma would call it, but there’s nothing rustic about its wearer.
“Mid-blue,” Imo’s dad says. “That’s the colour I’d go for too if I ever got one.”
Imo and her mother share a smile. Only her dad could see a beautiful woman and show more interest in her car.
A sudden prickling feeling tells Imo that she is being watched. It’s a familiar sense, one she has struggled with regularly over the past few months. Freddie has too – even worse for him. She swallows down a knot of fear and forces herself to look at the crowd. Students and parents rush past in the heat, not looking her way. She tells herself that it’s just her imagination. That nobody’s recognized her.
Then she freezes. A tall, hooded man is standing in shadow under a tree on the opposite side of the street and smoking a cigarette. Dressed all in black, too old to be a student but clearly not a parent. But it’s not Imo he’s staring at; he’s watching the beautiful woman’s every move. His eyes follow her as she turns to lock her car. A shiver runs down Imo’s spine.
When the man sees Imo looking, she drops her gaze to her envelope, hands trembling. Wariness of strangers is another product of the last few months, and this one looks like a stalker.
The young woman puts her keys in her handbag and walks past Imo into the reception, leaving a waft of expensive perfume in the air. When Imo looks back across the street, the man isn’t there.
Chapter 2 (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Imogen
“Smile,” her dad says, as he sticks out his backside to bring Imo into his viewfinder. “Let’s have one for the album.” His turn to play-act normal. But Imo’s face is pale. Her mind still fixed on the man outside, on the way his gaze followed the woman through the crowd. Is that how it happened before?
“Imogen, are you all right?” her mum says, concern in her eyes.
“Fine, still a bit car sick.” Imo smiles weakly and sits down on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. At least her family didn’t see him. She lets the sound of her parents bickering stop her mind from racing.
“Mind where you put your feet, Rob,” Mum squawks, pointing at a pile of clothes on the floor.
“I didn’t touch them.”
“You were about to.”
Imo bares her teeth. It’s like Christmas. Everyone’s got up early and they’re all in one room. Arguing. A tremor passes through her. They won’t next Christmas. Some things are worse than arguing.
The room is small: single bed, desk, slim wardrobe, grey carpet tiles, door to an en suite. Surprisingly modern after the imposing reception hall. When they unlocked the flat, Imo noticed other doors in the long hallway. She shudders at the thought of her flatmates appearing now and recognizing her family.
“Mum, are you nearly ready to go?” she says hopefully.
But her mother is still unpacking and doesn’t reply. With an armful of shampoos and conditioners, Imo goes into the tiny bathroom. The sink – half the size of their basins at home – is fitted close to the loo and there’s no bathroom cabinet.
“I wish we’d had room in the car for a toiletries stand.” Imo calls. “I bet that girl in the big van brought one.”
“And a cornetto maker,” Freddie pipes up.
Dad laughs and Imo walks back into the room. But a shadow falls over her mum’s face and she turns towards the window, arms wrapped around her body.
Pretending not to notice, Dad empties the last cardboard box. “Where do you want your German vocab book?”
“Underneath my pillow.” Imo tries to smile but her heart’s not in it. Her backchat is coming out on autopilot, her hand shaking with nerves. She saw other students on the stairs, making the trek to her floor and beyond. Confident, sharing a joke with each other. Why is it only her that doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing?
Dad joins Mum by the window. “She’s got a gorgeous view of the hills,” he says.
“It’s grass,” Mum says, her normal mood a memory.
“And south facing. This will be a sunny room.”
Imo’s belly flutters again, unnerved for a reason she can’t define.
“Right.” Dad sighs and turns from the window, wearing his bravest face. “I suppose we’d better leave you to it.” He gives her a hug. “Keep in touch. Have a brilliant first term.” He hugs her tighter. “And stay safe.”
Freddie pats her back. “Good luck with the audition, Sis.”
Oh God, she hoped he’d forgotten. He found out from the website that the uni will be putting on Jesus Christ Superstar in December. The auditions are this week.
“You will go, won’t you?”
“I haven’t been to a dance class for a while.” It’s been seven months, as he knows – as they all know. She feels the heat of her family’s attention on her. “I might not have time.”
“Course you will, love,” Dad says. “University isn’t all about work.”
“It’s hardly about work at all.” Freddie grins, but then grows serious. “Promise you’ll audition.”
Dad strokes her arm. “It would do you good.”
Mum stays at the window, rubbing her elbow like she always does when she wants to bail out of a conversation but still listen in. Like she does when Inspector Hare visits. Freddie and Dad keep their well-meaning eyes on Imo and she feels the room closing in.
“Okay, I promise.” It’s worth lying to see the relief on their faces.
She sits back on the bed and watches them line up in the small space by the door. Any second now her world of eighteen and a half years will quit with them. Her throat is hard.
Dad and Freddie give her a goodbye peck and head out into the stairwell. When they’ve gone, Mum sits beside her. “I notice you didn’t bring the lamp Grandma gave you.”
“I forgot.” Another birthday gift she needs to shed. Everything from that day is toxic.
Mum places her hands on Imo’s shoulders and looks her in the eye. “You don’t have to do this. I’m not making you.” Most decisions are impossible for Mum these days, but she was quick to agree that Imo should take up her uni place.
Imo tries to wriggle free, but her grip is firm. “I want to be here.” Would it have been different if she hadn’t already accepted the offer before the world tilted?
Mum lets go. “If there’s anything …” She turns away to rub her eye. “Ring me, day or night. Just ring.”
“Of course.” Imo forces a bright smile.
“And you’ve got your personal alarm?”
“Always.”
“Show me.”
Imo hesitates, but only for a moment, knowing her mother won’t leave until she’s seen the tiny, red-topped canister. Imo retrieves it from her coat pocket and holds it out.
“Keep it with your phone,” her mother says. “You need both at all times.”
She watches until Imo has shoehorned it into a front pocket of her jeans. They hug, her mother holding her tighter than feels comfortable. Then she grasps her wrist.
“And never come home on your own on the train. We’ll come and get you.”
Chapter 3 (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Phoenix
Three of them are in the kitchen drinking Phoenix’s instant coffee. Her mug has Elexo EngineeringSolutions in turquoise lettering on the side – a freebie she picked up from a science and technology careers fair. The peroxide blonde – Amber? – waves her Amnesty International mug in the air. Phoenix isn’t sure whether she means to brandish it, but she moves her hands a lot when she speaks.
The third girl – Phoenix has forgotten her name – sips out of Polish pottery. Expensive. Like the Mini Convertible she swept up in. Phoenix has kicked off her trainers to pad around the kitchen in woolly socks; this girl is in classy sandals.
When are they going to sit down instead of acting like it’s a cocktail party? Phoenix has the urge to move from the cooking area to the easy chairs in the dining end of the kitchen. She shifts her weight and listens to Amber.
“I’m doing Theatre Studies. I’ll probably go into directing and writing.” Amber’s bangles and friendship bracelets cascade down her wrist as she drags a hand through her bleached crop. “We need more women in pivotal roles. Smash through the glass ceiling of the existing patriarchy.”
The rich girl suppresses a yawn. Ignoring Amber, she looks at Phoenix. “Where are you from?”
Phoenix hesitates. She’s worked out her backstory but toys with the truth. These girls are her flatmates. Why pretend? Why: because the rich girl might judge and find her wanting. But before she can decide how much to say, Amber’s off and running with her own answer.
“I’m from Chadcombe in Surrey. My dad works for a top accountancy firm in Town. That’s London Town. We call it Town.”
The rich girl’s face doesn’t move, but Phoenix smiles. Amber must be a Home Counties kid, away from home for the first time. Wholesome, but naïve. Doe eyes in kohl and sweetheart mouth behind purple lipstick. Perhaps she’ll work hard and do her parents proud. Yet Phoenix wonders about her; something desperate in the rapid way she speaks.
Another girl steps into the kitchen.
“Hi, welcome.” Amber turns to greet her. “What’s your name?” She steps forward and hugs her, holding her half-drunk coffee behind the girl’s back.
“Imogen … Imo.” The girl swallows. Despite hunching her shoulders inside her Jack Wills sweatshirt and looking down, she’s striking. Her blonde hair looks natural like Phoenix’s own, but this girl can grow it long. It’s well on the way to her waist and she wears it loose.
Amber steers her in front of the others as if she’s the hostess. “This is Imogen, but we can say Imo. I’m Amber and this is Phoenix, named after the actor.”
Phoenix winces. Why do people always assume that about her name? Phoenix is the mythical bird that rises from the ashes. Fire – that’s why her parents chose it. Almost an obsession. She winces again as she remembers watching one of their obsessions turn deadly.
Imogen holds out her arms for a light hug and Phoenix understands why she wears her hair over her face: her cheeks are raging with acne. She looks anxious and there are dark shadows under her eyes.
“I think I saw you in the car park, getting out of a blue ice-cream van,” Imo says.
Phoenix smiles nervously, wondering how many others noticed it.
“I saw a big van as I drove in,” the rich girl says. “Are your parents caterers?”
Phoenix hesitates. “That’s right,” she lies.
Amber completes the introductions for Imo. “And this is Tegan. Have I got that right? A Welsh name?”
Tegan – so that’s the rich girl’s name and explains her mellifluous accent – doesn’t step forward but waits for Imo to reach her. Even in her designer sandals, Tegan’s the shortest of the four of them, but there’s something ten-feet-tall about her. Phoenix doesn’t expect to be having many kitchen chats with her after today. Their social circles won’t intersect.
“What are you studying?” Amber asks Imo.
“German and Business.”
“I can’t do languages. Except BSL – British Sign Language – which I learnt in a day.” Amber leans in close to the newcomer. “But I know Epic Theatre. You must have heard about that if you’re doing German.”
“A little …” Imo pauses and gives a weak smile.
Phoenix feels for her. It must be daunting that someone knows more about her subject than she does.
“In Year Twelve, I acted in a Swiss play.” Imo’s hands are clenched by her sides and she sounds nervous. “About an old woman seeking revenge on the man who got her in trouble when they were teenagers. Is that the sort of thing?”
For a moment Amber hesitates, a flicker of something behind her eyes. Then she shrieks, “That’s it. What was the set like?” In her eagerness to talk drama with Imo, she steps in front of Tegan.
“What are you studying, Phoenix?” Tegan asks in a voice loud enough to make Amber move aside.
“Mechanical Engineering.”
“Interesting,” replies Tegan, sounding like she thinks it’s anything but.
Amber runs with the conversation again. “We’ll try to keep the drama talk to a minimum, won’t we, Imo?” She links arms with the girl she’s known for all of five minutes.
Tegan puts her Polish mug on the kitchen top. “I’m into the arts if they make money. Business is my thing.”
“So are you studying Business like me?” Imo asks.
“For the moment,” Tegan replies. “I left school a year ago and I’ve been building my product range since then.” She bends down to the handbag at her feet and takes out a pouch. In a deft movement, she reconfigures it as a bomber jacket and puts it over her shoulders. Her dark hair is stunning against the ice pink. “Ideal to keep the rain off on a night out and it fits in your bag or …” she lays it on the kitchen top, folds in the sleeves and draws the sides together in previously unseen zips “… have it as the handbag itself.”
“You’re selling these?” Amber takes hold of the newly formed holdall.
“Fourteen ninety-nine, because of the craftsmanship. But I’m offering them on campus for ten pounds, two for eighteen.”
Amber pauses for a moment, turns the bag over in her hands. “I’ll get my purse.”
Imo follows her out. Tegan looks at Phoenix expectantly.
Phoenix makes her best poker face. What craftsmanship? These plastic macs are most likely churned out in a Third-World sweatshop. She weighs up her options. Choose your battles. She’s going to be sharing a flat with this girl. Why make it awkward? She pulls a tenner from her jeans pocket.
“Thank you so much,” Tegan says. But the brightness is false. Phoenix knows conceit when she hears it. Tegan’s used to getting what she wants. Phoenix’s dad, Sonny, thinks university is a holding pen between bouts of real life. Tegan the businesswoman might be the kind of student he’d admire.
“What made you choose the Abbey?” Phoenix asks.
“This was as far away from home as possible on a tank of petrol.” Tegan snorts. “What about you?”
The truth? Her head’s full of designs for show equipment innovations, some worth patenting. Mech Eng is the way she’s going to stay in the world she knows, doing what she’s good at but without the risks. She shrugs. “Same as you, I suppose.”
The other girls come back with their money. Amber’s still holding Imo’s arm. Firm friends already.
“What do you all think of this flat?” Amber asks. “I could do with more wardrobe space.”
Imo and Tegan agree. Again Phoenix stays silent. Until she moved in with Carla and Antonio, her desk converted to her bed.
“So do you think it’s just the four of us in this flat?” Amber points at each of them. “Let’s see if I can remember: Imo doing German and Business, Tegan Business, Phoenix Engineering. And me Theatre Studies.”
“There are five rooms.” Tegan unfolds her demonstration holdall and restores it as a pouch to her handbag. “There must be one more person.”
“I wonder if they’ll get here in time for pre-s,” Amber says.
Phoenix gives her a puzzled frown. If Preez is part of the university registration process, she’s never heard of it.
“Preez?” Imo asks, beating her to the question.
“Don’t you know? Everyone knows that.” Amber laughs, clutching her chest theatrically as if it’s the funniest thing she’s heard. She straightens up when she sees their blank expressions. “Pre-s means pre-drinks. You go to someone’s flat to get tanked before you go out. There are some amazing clubs around here, but drinks in clubs are so expensive. Pre-s are at Ivor’s tonight, downstairs in Flat 7.”
“Which clubs?” Tegan jumps in. She pauses to admire the confusion on Amber’s face. “If it’s pre-drinks in Flat 7, where are you going afterwards?”
“Umm … Not tonight,” Amber bites her lip. “I’m staying here.”
“Well aren’t you the raver. Off the rails already,” Tegan jokes.
But Amber looks away, a flash of anxiety crossing her face.
Amber
As the others continue to chat about themselves, Amber moves to the kitchen window to conceal the heat in her face. She gnaws her thumbnail. Despite putting on what she thought was a full-on performance, one of her new flatmates has found her out, seen through her. Why did posh-girl Tegan embarrass her, even after she bought one of her stupid jackets?
What about the others? Phoenix is a bit of an unknown – could go either way. Hopefully she won’t throw her lot in with Tegan. Two mean girls. It’d be a long year and she might not be able to keep up the pretence. Imo seems nice. Reminds Amber of Verity, kind but dopey. In Vee’s case, it was the weed, in Imo’s it looks natural. She’s not that dumb, though. Amber nearly lost it when she talked about the play, but thinks she hid it well.
Amber thinks about the other girl she met when they were queuing for keys at reception – Lauren – and wishes she was sharing with her. That could be a real friendship. Amber swallows, blinks away a dangerous thought and concentrates on safer ground. They’re both doing Theatre Studies – even though Lauren is joint honours with another subject – and, like Amber, she has a unique sense of style. She hopes they’ll be put in the same drama workshop group.
Behind her, Tegan’s voice is strident as she recounts her five-year business plan. What to do about her? Try harder to fit in? After everything that happened at home – the way Mum and Jade ended up despising her – Amber must become a different version of herself. A better one. Still a liar, but lies are her only currency. They’ll just be better lies.
Her belly clamps as her thoughts stray again. She grips the side of the sink and feels the heat drain from her face. Whenever she thinks of that time too much, her belly relives it. People might call it her mind playing tricks, but if they’d done what she had, they’d feel it too. Guilt and punishment, all in her gut.
Using her hand as a scoop, she takes a drink from the cold tap. When the ache subsides, she gazes out of the window, giving herself time to look calm before turning to her flatmates. By craning her neck she can see the end of the main campus road and watches a few vehicles cruise by. A black car turns into their avenue and crawls past, the driver peering up at the hall of residence. Something about him makes her pause. He must turn around out of eyeshot, because he reappears and parks on the opposite kerb.
At this distance, it’s hard to make out his features, but she sees him lift binoculars to his eyes and focus on her window. Amber bends over the sink, her heart thumping. By the time she looks up again, his car is moving off. She shudders. A pervert? Stalker, after an eyeful of teenage flesh? But if she alerts the others, they might think she’s imagined it. Not as bad as Mum and Jade not believing her, but not the start she wants. Without saying anything, she watches the car drive away.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_909f8a29-b2c1-5eaf-80a5-484ed55af5ed)
Phoenix
Phoenix rinses the mugs the others have left in the sink, sensing it’s a sign of things to come. If they’d have lived like she did, they’d wash up as they go. But she can’t imagine posh-girl Tegan clearing up after herself. And Amber? She belted out of the kitchen like she’d seen a ghost. Maybe she can work on Imo. Get her on cleaning duty by Reading Week.
Back in her room she finishes her unpacking, only her posters still to do. The magnolia-painted breeze block walls are speckled with Blu Tack from previous occupants. Pinching together a decent clump, she affixes her favourite poster, smoothing the edges. The intensity of the orange and black image almost heats her fingertips. Magnificent. A long time ago.
She forgot to ask what time the flat party gets going, but it becomes apparent when the floor begins to pulsate. Ivor, below in Flat 7, must be letting rip with his speakers because his mummy isn’t there to tell him to turn it down. Pathetic. She changes her T-shirt and combs her hair.
There’s a knock on her door. It’s Amber, apparently over whatever spooked her in the kitchen. She’s gone for full greasepaint. Industrial quantities of eyeliner, attempting an edgy Amy Winehouse. She’s clutching Malibu purchased from the Costcutter near the student union.
“Is there time for me to get something?” Phoenix asks as they go into the hallway.
“No need.” Tegan comes out of her room, empty-handed. “There’ll be plenty of booze.”
After calling on Imo, they follow the throbbing bass downstairs to the open front door of Flat 7 and squeeze into the crowded hallway. The layout is the same as their flat, so they head to the kitchen. The music is a couple of decibels lower here, and they can hear each other if they shout. Bottles of various alcoholic potions occupy the work surfaces. Amber finds a stack of paper cups and sloshes out four measures of Malibu. After adding a dash of cola, she and Imo knock theirs back. Never a fan of rum, Phoenix pretends to sip hers.
Tegan leaves hers untouched. “Business first.” She heads into the hall.
From the kitchen doorway, Phoenix watches a sandy-haired boy lunge in for a hug. Tegan endures it stiffly and pats his back. It must be Ivor and she’s keeping him sweet. Phoenix’s assessment seems to be confirmed when he nods and lets her move through the guests in the hallway, parting them from their student loans in exchange for her folding jackets. Against the din, she perfects her sales pitch in mime. Still wearing the same clothes as earlier – palazzo pants and white top – she’s the best-dressed student here, even with the additional accessory of a money pouch strapped round her hips.
A few lads drift past Phoenix into the kitchen. She follows and swaps her drink for a can of beer. Amber and Imo still hover over the Malibu. The boys swarm round Imogen like flies on an elephant turd. Hers is tart with a tan look: leopard print mini-skirt, long-sleeved, lacy crop top. Acne hidden under layers of foundation.
Amber moves in, eyeing the boys. She’s more covered up than Imo but not in a good way. Baggy black linen pants, white cotton top, working men’s boots. If Phoenix screws up her eyes it’s rich-girl Tegan’s wardrobe. Screws them up tight.
“Genuine Romany.” Amber knocks back her drink and holds out the seam of her trousers. “Belonged to my grandmother. I’m from an old gypsy family.”
Phoenix chokes on her beer. If Amber’s a Romany, then Tegan’s jackets are handmade in Chelsea.
A box of pizza makes its way between hands. Amber takes a slice, turns it over and sucks it. “I like the sauce, but I’m gluten free.” She passes the rest of the box to Imo and sways in time to a new tune that drills pneumatically out of the speakers in the hall.
A boy that Phoenix recognizes from the Engineering open day takes a couple of four-packs of Strongbow Dark Fruit out of the fridge. He smiles when he sees her. “Come and sit with us. We’ve found somewhere quiet,” he shouts.
She follows him down the hall to the furthest-away bedroom. Two boys and a girl sit on the bed. They hand her a cider and she shuts the door. The walls vibrate but at least they can talk. She and the boy from the open day sit on the floor. The other boys are doing Engineering too and the girl is a chemist.
When the cider runs out, Phoenix says she’ll get more and goes back to the kitchen. The music’s still full blast, banging its rhythm into her throat. There’s no sign of Tegan – probably moved on to another flat party to flog her jackets – but Imo and Amber are there. Imo’s at the sink, no boys buzzing near her now. Phoenix smells the sick as she approaches. Imo’s holding back her hair in one hand and leaning against the basin with the other. There’s a ketchup-coloured streak on her sleeve.
Amber is dancing on the tiny floor with a couple of other girls and Ivor. The host grips his drink while swaying and twisting not quite on the beat. A tall man stands against the fridge, hood up, his eyes glinting under the fluorescent lights. He’s older than the others and a gap has formed between him and the dancers. A postgrad loser, Phoenix thinks. When Ivor overbalances towards him, the man barges past.
“Sorry, mate,” Ivor slurs, and gawps at his beer puddling on the floor.
But the man has gone.
Chapter 5 (#ulink_2c80c947-ef87-5a44-a57c-2d70c1cd4882)
Monday 26 September
Imogen
An explosion in her sleep illuminates one of her what-if nightmares: mouldy walls, a shrivelled body hunched over bent knees, cold floor. Imo thrashes against her sheets, curls foetal, trying not to hear the tortured whimpers in her dream. Fighting for breath. Pressure on her chest, crushing, crushing …
She sits upright in bed, skin clammy, pillow damp. Blood pounding in her trembling limbs. It takes several moments to register she’s awake. Unsteady on her feet, she reaches the bathroom and vomits into the toilet.
She returns to bed, still feeling dreadful, only vaguely aware that someone is walking beside her, holding her arm. Their grip firm.
***
Light burns through her eyelids and her head throbs. The pain gets worse when she flicks open her eyes. Sun streams in through the gap in the curtain where it’s hanging off the rail. Her mother tried to fix it and told Imo to report the fault. She won’t, though; the idea of maintenance people coming into her room ties her in knots.
When she turns over, she sees her arm, still in the lacy top she wore the previous evening. There’s a white, bobbly mark smeared on the sleeve. A flash of recollection: Amber dabbing it with wet loo paper. Imo sniffs the tissue residue and retches. It still stinks of puke.
She recalls handing her room key to Phoenix when she couldn’t get it in the lock. Phoenix led her in and laid her on the bed. A plastic bowl appeared from somewhere.
Imo checks the floor. The bowl’s still there, mercifully empty. But the motion of leaning over makes her guts squirm and she coughs bile into it. A long slither of creamy saliva hangs from her mouth and she rubs her face on the pillow.
Never again.
But it was a good night. Normal. The Imo from before. She pads her hand over her bedside locker and finds her phone. Yep, five friend requests, all from boys. As she deletes them, there’s a flutter of panic in her chest. What if she bumps into them on campus? It’s not like Tinder where she can flirt and forget – thirty-two Super Likes and no intention of meeting any of them. These requests are from boys nearby. They mustn’t find out her Facebook profile is empty. She unfriended everyone except her sister, Sophia.
Still she did all right last night, didn’t she? Talked, cracked jokes, faked the odd laugh? Another wave of nausea rolls through her gullet and she spits more bile into the bowl. A flashback: she puked in the night. After a nightmare. She can’t remember the dream now but it was probably the recurring one about the cellar. The slime-covered walls, the shape on the floor with its bone-thin limbs. She shivers despite the sweaty cocoon of her duvet.
Amber must have cleaned the bowl. No, Phoenix took her to the loo. That’s right, isn’t it? Both have short blonde hair, but Amber’s has a temporary look that doesn’t quite work with her skin tone, and Phoenix stands a good few inches taller. Yes, Phoenix sorted out her puking. Then sometime later Amber told Phoenix she’d take over.
Amber: “Imo and I are good friends.”
Phoenix: “You’ve just met.”
Amber: “In this life, maybe.”
Imo can’t remember Phoenix’s reply. After she’d gone, Amber kept talking.
“I never sleep well … It’s not just Dad; I can’t see Leo.” Sitting on the end of Imo’s bed. “What if …?” Pacing the room. “I should be there …” Tugging the curtain that won’t shut. “Why can’t I put things right …?”
Imo sits up. Everything rocks. She’s never had a head fug like this before. So bad her memories of Amber’s words must be hallucinations. Her own disturbing dreams have got bound up with the drunken ramblings of her new flatmate. It must be the booze. If she stays sober, it won’t happen again. A price worth paying. University is supposed to be a new start, without the nightmares.
She peels off her top and supposes it will have to go in the bin as she doesn’t know how to work the washing machines. A mild panic hits her: when did she take her skirt off? Hopes to hell she wasn’t so drunk she did a striptease.
The phone pings with another text from her mum. How many is that? Since February, she’s averaged ten a day, but now that Imo’s away from home, her mother has upped her anxious bombardment. She doesn’t read it. If she thinks of home, she’ll buckle.
Mercifully, the skirt is a dead leopard on the floor in front of the loo. Her throat craves water. Head swimming, she turns on the taps, but the cold water runs tepid. She can’t drink it like that.
She sends a new text: Loving it here. I’ll call later.In some ways it would be easier if Mum phoned her, but, by some unmentioned pact, they agreed months ago that Mum would only ring if there was a sighting. Or worse.
Phoenix
Phoenix is in the kitchen, making a coffee.
“Want one?” she asks when Imo creeps in looking like death in a dressing gown.
Imo shakes her head, takes a mug off the draining board and fills it with tap water. When she leans against the sink, Phoenix is pretty sure it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Not surprising after the skinful she sank and brought up again. Does Imo remember her bad dream? Phoenix hopes not. She remembers listening to Imo’s moans. How Imo thrashed under the covers, twisting and yelling. She’d wanted to stay with her, but Amber insisted on doing her shift. Hopefully Imo’s also forgotten Amber’s creepy words of comfort. Phoenix shivers as she remembers the desperate look in Amber’s eyes. God knows what else she said after Phoenix left.
She moves a hot-water bottle off an easy chair in the dining area and suggests Imo sits down. The vinyl upholstery makes a fut sound when Imo lands.
“What’s that?” She points to the drink on the coffee table, flinching at the smell.
“Hangover remedy,” Phoenix explains. “Amber left it there for me. Tastes like candle wax.” She’s never tasted candle wax, but she knows it would be like this.
“Where is Amber?” Imo yawns.
“Must have gone back to bed, said her leg was hurting.”
When Phoenix got up, she’d been surprised to find Amber stretched across a chair and the coffee table, hugging a hot-water bottle. When she saw Phoenix, she pressed it against her knee. Phoenix offered to make an ice pack for her leg, but Amber declined.
Imo leans over to the table and sniffs the waxy drink. “Have you even got a hangover? I didn’t see you drinking.”
“Cider. My mouth’s like a Portaloo.”
Imo holds her head. “I’m going to lie down.”
“Haven’t you got a library induction session?” Phoenix asks. She passed Tegan on her way out, looking fine in designer jeans and another broderie anglaise top. “Tegan mentioned a library talk for Business students.”
“I’m totally dead.” Imo puts down her cup and lurches out of the kitchen.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_283138c9-d165-5db5-8626-df684e45ebea)
Tegan
Tegan’s app directs her from her parking space in front of the geography tower to the university library. It looks like a giant greenhouse, several storeys of tinted glass. She makes small talk with other Business students who are waiting for the doors to open. It’s an investment; no time to pitch to them now, but her saleswoman’s instinct tells her to schmooze.
Amber, one of her three blonde flatmates, walks past with a group of weird-looking students – duffle coats, combats, tie-dyed scarves that look as if they’ve been in an autopsy. Tegan waves. It might pay to be neighbourly. But Amber looks away, ignoring her. Bloody cheek. Tegan catches the tail end of a story she’s telling the gaggle around her.
“… Cumberbatch is great to work with.”
Tegan looks at the ground and shakes her head.
After a few minutes, a man in an un-ironed shirt, with a beard to match, appears inside the library entrance and releases the glass doors. He holds up his hands. “If you’re expecting an induction, it’s in Lecture Room 2.”
“Are you sure, mate – library induction?” one of the boys asks.
But the man goes back indoors. No one knows where the lecture room is and they drift off in different directions. Tegan and a few others search but find only Lecture Room 1 in the Business Studies block, with no sign of another lecture theatre.
“Stuff it,” Tegan mutters and returns to her car. She’s not that bothered anyway about using the library. When her business takes off, she’ll pay someone to do her research. She opens the roof of the car and gazes up at the geography tower. All the parking spaces are designated disabled but hers is the only car here. Where to now? The first Business Studies lecture isn’t until tomorrow. There’s time for a drive around the town centre to see if any of the independent shops will stock her jackets.
Her fists clench as a thought makes her shiver. She’ll show him. People make it big in business all the time through hard graft and a good idea. She’ll be a success without her father’s tainted help.
Something glints at a third-floor window. The glare from the sun is too bright for her to see what it is. Maybe someone’s looking out, and so what if they are? They’re hardly going to slap her with a parking fine from up there.
Light glimmers again. It’s bloody binoculars. Some doddery old perv of a geography professor is spying on the campus, gawping at fresher totty from his ivory tower. Her fingers form a V. She points them at the window, making clear she’s eyeballed him. The figure steps out of sight but is too fleet of foot for an ancient academic. Tegan grows cold and notices that her hands are shaking on the steering wheel.
Suddenly her passenger door opens and Amber gets in, disturbing the air with cheap, fruity scent. “Take me to the flat.”
“Try asking nicely before you scare the crap out of me.” Tegan’s heart races, thoughts of the watcher still rattling.
Tears streak Amber’s face and clumps of mascara look set to dive off her lashes. “Social anxiety,” she gasps. “Sometimes crowds get too much for me and my leg’s hurting.” She pants, rhythmically, as if she’s going to hyperventilate.
“That must make it hard during a show.” Tegan’s heartbeat has calmed, and settled on sarcasm.
The panting stops and Amber stares at her. “Show?”
“On stage, with you being a drama student. Acting all the time.” Acting right now, if Tegan’s any judge.
Amber breathes out. “I’m more of a director, behind the scenes. I have to keep my anxieties under control.”
Tegan starts the engine. Cumberbatch my eye.
As she pulls away she glances up at the tower once more. And catches a glimpse of a tall shadow at the window. A face stares down at her. And her hands shake again.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_71a138b1-23b3-5c55-b08b-bc68c6444f09)
Amber
The fragrance in the car is subtle but expensive. Half like its wearer – Tegan’s definitely on the pricey side but there’s nothing subtle about her silent disapproval. The more Amber sees of her, the more she resembles her sister, Jade. Not only her dark hair and freckles, but also her stance. Straight back, manicured nails on the steering wheel, hard eyes.
No doubt the last thing Tegan wants is Amber occupying her passenger seat, but Amber had no choice. Couldn’t walk another step after the shock she’s just had. It was only the trick of the light, but she had turned and fled, barged people out of her way, panic rising in her throat, stomach crippling in pain.
Why doesn’t she just tell Tegan a version of the truth instead of faking the stuff with her knee? She told Imo when they were drunk – sort of told her – so why not Tegan? Or Phoenix? She seems okay so far, better than expected. Not a deep thinker, into engineering and … Amber leans on the window as she scrolls her memory. What else does Phoenix do? Something sporty if her physique is anything to go by.
Amber bites the inside of her cheek. Maybe she should ask her flatmates questions and listen to the answers, instead of masking her secrets with babble. Instead of play-acting the part of an intellectual liberal so others will feel too intimidated to enquire about her background. A stupid role to pick as she only scraped into this university with a plea of extenuating circumstances. All lies. There were reasons for her poor A level results, but not the ones she gave.
Taking a deep breath, she continues with the disguise she’s been perfecting since she arrived. “Shall we go to the canteen?” she asks enthusiastically. “We can have a proper chat.”
“What, now?” Tegan glances at the clock on her dashboard.
“Early lunch. Please, I’d like to.”
Silence and Amber thinks she sounded too pleading. That’s always been her downfall. Begging gets you nowhere. On her knees, clinging, sobbing, screeching …
“If you’re paying,” Tegan says. She pulls into the kerb and reverses up a side road. They turn around and park in the loading bay behind the kitchens.
“Shouldn’t you …?” Amber starts, but changes her mind. She hates it when people run her life; she won’t tell Tegan where to park.
The canteen queue moves slowly. Students everywhere. Remembering who she thought she saw, her belly tugs, as if she’s being pummelled from the inside, and she keeps glancing over her shoulder. Suddenly she’s back there, in the moment. In the hours. Hurting. As a substitute for doubling over, she rubs her knee. Channels her ache into her leg. No one must see the truth. She straightens up, ignoring the funny look Tegan gives her.
As they wait, most people gaze at the TV monitors around the walls with Lady Gaga videos on repeat. Tegan uses the time to check her sales figures on her phone.
“It’s like Hogwarts.” Amber scans the busy dining hall. Tables the length of railway lines. “Where are we going to sit?”
“With Slytherin,” Tegan sneers.
After they’ve loaded their plates and poured a couple of coffees, Tegan leads the way to the clean end of a table beyond a group of older students gathered round a tablet. Postgrads probably.
Amber makes another attempt at conversation. “Are you going to the Freshers’ Fair? I’d like to join the drama club, if they have one, and maybe take up a new hobby of some kind. University is a chance for new beginnings.”
Tegan rolls her eyes. “Next you’ll be saying we’re on a journey.”
“Sorry.” Amber blushes into her salad and chips.
Tegan sighs. “I suppose I could look for a business enterprise group.”
Amber can’t think how to reply and feels uncomfortable again. Nothing in common with this girl. She shivers. Nothing in common with anyone. Her gullet heaves at the memory of what she did.
She puts down her fork and tells another lie. “I can’t eat this. I’m allergic to tomatoes. It’s the alpha solanine.”
Tegan rolls her eyes again. “Is alpha whatsit not present in upside-down pizza then?” She waits for Amber to look at her. “Remember the party in Flat 7? You tucked in good and proper.”
Amber hunches her shoulders and returns to picking tomato slices out of her salad. Found out again.
“By the way,” she says eventually, in another try at faking it. “I forgot to mention they’ve moved into the last room in our flat.”
“They?” Tegan asks. “Is it a couple?”
Amber shakes her head, puts on her persona. “One individual. I designate all humans as they; gender is a social construct.”
“Okay,” Tegan says slowly. “For those of us who are less enlightened, can you give me a clue which bits of they’s anatomy dangle?”
Amber struggles to keep a straight face. “The less enlightened would call them male.”
“A guy?” Tegan says, laughing.
“I think he, they, is from Thailand,” Amber says between chuckles.
Tegan’s laughter freezes. “Thailand?” Her knuckles whiten as she grips the edge of the table.
“They don’t speak English so I couldn’t find out their name. Don’t suppose you speak any Thai?”
“No.”
The force of the word silences Amber. The good-humoured conversation has evaporated as inexplicably as it materialized. She burns her mouth as she hurries to finish her drink.
“Thanks for the lift.” She stands up and heads out of the hall. Trying to befriend Tegan was a mistake. Imo is a better friend – and Lauren, the girl she bumped into on arrivals day. That’s a friendship Amber hopes to cultivate.
Chapter 8 (#ulink_033204db-763b-573c-8e66-ab310d4d37c4)
Tuesday 27 September
Imogen
Moonlight finds the gap in Imo’s curtain, but the room passes for dark. No thudding bass invading through the floor from another flat, no doors slamming, no traffic outside. But it’s the quiet of dread not peace. When she lies awake at home, every car she hears is the police with news, or Sophia coming home without her keys. In this silent space, her brain won’t switch off, spooling through the what-if scenarios of what might have happened and the white-hot anger of why it happened to them.
Still feeling rough from the Sunday night’s drinking, her throat’s killing her. The soreness in her mouth will be a cough by morning. Getting sick can be added to her other failure: so hungover she turned up late to the library and couldn’t find the induction talk. She walked past rolling stacks of journals, bays of textbooks, miles of computer screens. No one to ask. Sweat beading on her brow, she forced herself to take the lift to the upper library floors. Tried not to think about the broken body, how it must have fallen through the air, how it must have landed. No sign of a talk when she peered in, although she didn’t complete a full sweep; too scared of seeing the drop out of a window.
Pulling the duvet up, she turns over. Tomorrow will be no better. The Business Studies introduction clashes with the German welcome talk. Two lectures will be missed in as many days. She’s unravelling, not good enough for uni, can’t manage like the others. Maybe it’s too soon. But would another year make her stop seeing kidnappers behind every parked car? Stalkers under the trees outside her window? Will the familiar face she seeks have become so much less familiar that she’ll no longer search? And will that what-if nightmare of the dark and the cellar have faded?
She looks at the red-canister alarm on her bedside table and imagines the disappointment vying with relief on her mother’s face when she drops out. On the days when her mother still functions, she works as a nurse. The first thing she does when she gets home, after she’s checked for messages from Inspector Hare, is read the obituaries in the evening paper, to see which former patients have died. “That didn’t take long,” she says. She’ll say the same when Imo quits.
An idea about the timetable clash tomorrow comes to her, something her mum – the old version of Mum – might suggest. She fires off a text to Tegan, asking her to collect the handouts from the Business Studies talk. Lies back on her pillow, feeling lighter in her chest. Things will work out. Her first problem solved on her own. She’s a student now, not a school kid.
Ten minutes later she’s still awake. Her throat hurts and coughing threatens no matter how she turns her body.
There’s a knock at the door. She freezes. Tegan come to tell her off for texting her at this hour?
“Imo, it’s me.” Amber’s voice. “I need painkillers.”
Imo unlocks the door and Amber stumbles in, doubled over. She falls on Imo’s bed and clutches the pillow to her stomach. Her short, bleached hair has crinkled, no doubt suffering the dual effects of bed head and natural wave. She wears fluffy grey slippers and a tartan dressing gown. Without the make-up and weird quilt coat she wore yesterday, she looks younger, vulnerable. Imo lets out a gasp; she reminds her of Sophia.
“What is it?” Amber asks.
“I might have a paracetamol in my purse.” Imo recovers and reaches for her bag, feeling light-headed at the comparison she’s made.
“I’m allergic to those. There’s an all-night petrol garage outside campus.” Amber sits up, wrapping the edges of the Groovy Chick duvet over her legs. “They’ll sell ibuprofen. Our taxi will be here in three minutes.”
Imo suppresses a sigh, no desire to go out in the night and irked that Amber has given her no choice. But Amber’s anguished face makes her feel guilty, especially as Amber stayed with her when she was throwing up the night before.
“Let’s wait here for the driver’s text.” Amber curls up. “I can’t stand for long.”
After the taxi arrives, it takes them an age to get outside. Amber stops several times on the stairs to hug her belly. Imo pictures the meter ticking.
The driver, a young guy with thick, black curls, pulls a face when she tells him their destination, no doubt disappointed at the meagre fare. They travel in silence, Imo shivering in her jacket and jeans. She should have put on a sweatshirt. The faint smell of alcohol in the back of the taxi makes her nauseous and she looks out of the window to settle her stomach. The campus is deserted. A few lights on in the other halls, but no one out walking – or staggering – and no other cars. Eerily quiet. Imo imagines someone watching them drive past, someone lurking outside the flats waiting for their chance. She thinks of Sophia running for her life through dark streets.
Even out on the main road, they are alone. When they reach the floodlit forecourt of the filling station she notices Amber’s grey face, screwed up in a wince of pain. She tells her to wait in the taxi while she gets the tablets.
“Three packets, please,” Amber says softly. “I’ll pay you back.”
But when Imo gets to the counter, the woman won’t sell her three boxes of ibuprofen. “Maximum of two per customer. It’s the law.”
Back in the taxi, Amber takes the tablets and swallows four down without water. “People should be allowed to buy as much medication as they need, for whatever reason. If I want to commit suicide, it’s my business.”
Imo stares at her and feels colour draw from her cheeks.
Amber doesn’t seem to notice. She folds her arms, a cold gleam in her eyes, not doubled over any more. “I won’t, though. Not today. Suicides are determined people. You would be surprised. When it comes to it, most of us find we don’t have the guts.”
Imo’s chest palpitates against the seatbelt.
But Amber’s mood switches and the cloud passes. She seems restored within seconds of taking the medication. Leans forward to ask the driver his name. “Do you give a discount for frequent travellers? We’re interested in finding a reliable firm.”
The driver warms to the theme. “You call me, Hamid Cars. I’ll look after you. Better than Uber, better than College, or A Cabs.” He rubs his hand through his thick hair. “The thing with College Cars is they’re a rip-off. Five pounds for this, five pounds for that.”
He pulls up at their hall of residence. “That’s eight pounds fifty, please,” he says.
Still shaking from what Amber said, Imo struggles to get the money out of her purse. Amber goes back to her room, promising to refund her for the tablets. She doesn’t mention the taxi fare.
Back in bed, Imo doesn’t sleep. Suicide has always been one of the what-if explanations her family considered. For the rest of the night, it’s firmly lodged as a certainty.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_dfa640d3-1e99-57e1-b6a6-33630044cfe0)
Imogen
The academic block is modern, built in red brick in the last twenty years. Most of the buildings are at least five storeys high. Imo gives silent thanks that she knows the languages department lecture theatre is on the ground floor.
Dozens of students saunter towards the buildings, chatting noisily in small groups, not an anxious face among them. In the distance she thinks she sees Amber, arms linked with a girl who looks like a Goth. Imo’s thoughts rush at the sight of her loose black clothing, reminiscent of the graduation gown in the photo that flooded social media. Something positive her family could do in the first few days, but now Imo hates the image.
Sunshine has brushed aside the gloomy start that greeted her when she left the flat. The beech trees beside the path cast big shadows over the beds of marigolds. Autumn now. How soon will the leaves shrivel and spin unanchored through the air, heading downwards? Falling. Bile rises to Imo’s throat at an unwelcome memory of the mortuary, but she forces it down.
Hood up, earphones in, she walks on, pretending to listen to music. Missed one lecture already and missing another now. Tegan hasn’t replied to her text, so probably won’t take notes in Business Studies.
A few girls dot around the middle of the lecture theatre and a line of lads sprawls at the back. There’s a brief pause in their conversation as Imo enters. She goes to the far end of the front row next to the wall. If the lecturer stands where the computer is, she’ll be out of his eyeshot. As she switches off her phone, a text from Tegan flashes up: Yeah no probs. Imo smiles to herself; Business lecture notes sorted.
The trace of the smile lingers when the Goth girl she thought she saw with Amber sits on the other end of her row. The girl doesn’t smile back. Imo puts in her silent earphones again. To think she’s wasted her best face on a crow.
Confident, laughing voices fill up the seats behind her. The crow shuffles towards Imo to let more girls into their row. Imo’s relieved when she takes a place three seats away. But peeved too: why doesn’t she want to sit with her?
Eventually a woman appears at the computer. Slim and wrinkled. Long, lank hair but no hint of grey. Red kilt, orange tights, flat brown ankle boots. She launches into German.Imo loses the thread after: My name is Dr Wyatt.
The lecturer switches to English. “I want you to come up here one at a time and introduce yourselves. Two minutes max and don’t tell us what you got in your A levels. No one cares. Who’s going first?”
One of the lads from the back row strides to the front. His German is fluent. Two minutes, three minutes, four. Imo thinks his grammar is dodgy, but he’s using vocabulary she doesn’t know.
By the end of the lesson, Imo’s decided she loves this boy, David. Because he talked so long and also insists on asking the subsequent speakers questions, there isn’t time for Imo’s row to present.
Dr Wyatt puts a reading list on the screen. “These are the links to the articles you need to study for next time.”
Imo’s copying them down when the crow girl leans across. “They’re on the intranet. You don’t need to do that.” Imo puts down her pen, feeling stupid.
“Right,” Dr Wyatt says. “You’re free to get to all those freshers’ parties that my lecture has inconvenienced. Can I have the register back?”
The students look at each other. Some edge up the central aisle towards the door.
“No one leaves until I get the register.”
They look back at the rows, searching, until crow girl points at Imo. The register is lying next to her pencil case. Only six names on it. It was passed to her and she didn’t notice. Red-faced, hand trembling, she signs her name and gives it to the row behind. Crow girl gives a sympathetic smile but can’t hide the sneer in her eyes.
Chapter 10 (#ulink_df37a888-1aa4-5577-9b38-3d04f58f36a2)
Phoenix
He’s wearing lilac. The trousers are denim and the tunic is heavy-duty cotton. Not as tall as her, but solid, box-shaped. Bull-necked. He fills the doorway and doesn’t invite her in.
“I thought I’d better come and say hello as we’re flatmates.” Phoenix wishes she’d asked Amber to do the introductions. “I’m Phoenix.” It comes out as an apology. “What’s your name?” She tries putting a won’t-take-no-for-an-answer tone into her question.
It sort of works. He mutters something, growls it really. Riku?
She smiles and tries out the basic Thai she picked up when her family did a season in Bangkok years ago, but he tilts his head to the side in apparent bafflement. She tries hello in Mandarin and Japanese. Nothing. He must be from somewhere she’s never heard of. Depressing, as she thought she knew the world pretty well. From the doorway she sees a small rucksack and a sketchpad. Something familiar hanging on the wall gives her hope for common ground, and she nearly breaks her cover story, but his unsmiling face stops her in time.
“Well, nice to meet you, Riku,” she says backing away. She intended to invite him to the Freshers’ Fair. But even with her best linguistic gymnastics, she doubts she’d make him understand and he’d probably decline anyway.
On the way to her room, she scoops up the post from the doormat. Pizza delivery leaflets, taxi fliers and electoral registration letters for previous occupants. She cleared one heap of junk mail yesterday. No one else bothered and the pile was already spreading along the hallway. Another domestic duty that’s going to fall to her.
In need of a friendly face, she knocks on Imo’s door. Hears movement inside but has to knock again before Imo appears, red-eyed.
“I can’t get onto the intranet and I’ve got a German assignment to do by tomorrow. Why is it always me?” Imo blinks hard, suppressing tears.
“They can’t have set you work in Freshers’ Week. It’s bound to be optional.”
“There’s nothing optional about Dr Wyatt.” She goes back to the bed and picks up her laptop. “I’m going to get kicked off the course in the first week.”
“Do you want me to try?” Phoenix takes the laptop, but no matter which icon she presses, a no server message appears on the screen. “I don’t think it’s your fault. The uni’s system is down.”
“Great,” Imo says, swallowing a sob. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks and chin are a plague of acne.
“Have you eaten?” Phoenix offers her mother’s preferred salve to tearful children. “Come with us to the Freshers’ Fair. You can get free snacks there. The intranet might be up by the time you get back.”
Imo makes a big sigh and wipes her eyes on her sweatshirt cuff. “I’ll come along, but I’m not joining anything.”
They get a shock when they call on Amber. Turquoise kimono and red bobbed wig. Her make-up is a tone lighter than usual and her lipstick matches her hair. Perhaps she’s hoping for a Geisha Girl Society.
Imo whips out her phone. “Let me take a photo.”
“The car’s in the main car park,” Tegan says, coming out of her room and checking her handbag for her keys. She sees Amber’s wig. “You look like an Edam cheese.”
Amber scowls and suggests they walk as the fair is in the other direction and it’s a beautiful afternoon.
“Is your ankle better?” Phoenix asks.
“Fine thanks.” She flexes her foot.
Phoenix smiles. Wasn’t it supposed to be her knee that was hurting?
The walk turns out to be a good idea. Crowds of freshers head the same way. The mood suits the sunny weather.
“Where are you from, Tegan?” Amber asks. She looks at her flatmate while they walk, as if she’s making a supreme effort to listen to the answer. The uncharitable part of Phoenix can’t help thinking it’s an act.
“Cardiff.”
Phoenix has been to Cardiff but doesn’t say. She was christened at Mermaid Quay in the tent by a local vicar. The baptism is supposed to bring the whole family health and happiness. She stiffens as she walks. Tell that to Cloud.
“Where’s your home town?” Amber asks, turning her intense expression on Phoenix.
She shrugs. “Born in Shrewsbury.” The planned two-week stopover stretched to six when Cloud went into labour early en route from Carlisle to Gloucester. “My parents work all over.”
“Cloud’s Coffee. I remember your parents’ amazing van,” Imo says. She looks at Tegan. “What do your parents do?”
“My mother shops.”
Amber and Imo laugh, but Phoenix isn’t sure Tegan meant it as a joke. Her face doesn’t move.
“And your dad?” Imo asks.
“We’re here.” Tegan ignores the question and jogs up the steps to take the Great Hall door from a boy who’s holding it open.
Last time Phoenix was here, it was kitted out with display boards and smiling lecturers on an open day, eager to hook potential students. They mostly spoke to her parents. Today there’s no one over thirty years old in the room and it’s laid out with brightly decorated stalls and tables. Freshers throng inside the entrance, not knowing where to start.
Taking charge of their group, Amber leads them to the row of stalls on the far left. “It looks like these are political societies,” she says. “We can walk down and back up the other side. No loitering by the Tories.” She glances at Tegan, who narrows her eyes.
Amber strikes up a conversation with a punk girl from a campaigning charity. They look set to put the world to rights for several minutes so the others move on. Imo seems to be hunching her shoulders, looking around surreptitiously.
Amber meets them at the Conservation Volunteers stand and sees Tegan browsing the literature. “You’re not going to join, are you? I can’t imagine you in wellies.”
“Why not,” Tegan says. “Someone’s got to protect nature from land-grabbing scumbags. And I like the idea of hacking down deadwood and pulling up unwanted growth.”
The other girls exchange a glance, wondering what deadwood Tegan has in mind.
As they pass the languages aisle, Phoenix stops to say: “Hello, how are you?” in Bulgarian to a pretty woman in national costume. It’s the limit to what she learnt after their season in Plovdiv, but it earns her a biscuit that tastes like a pretzel. She follows the others to the performing arts area. Imo declares that she’ll have enough on with her coursework and doesn’t sign up for any groups. Phoenix and Tegan leave their names with the Bhangra society and help themselves to onion bhajis.
They can’t drag Amber away from the Drama Society stall even though other people are waiting to speak to the stallholder.
Something prickles along Phoenix’s spine, the sensation that someone’s watching her. She scans the room. A tall figure in a black hoodie stands with a group of students, waiting to sign up for the Film Society. His brooding body language is oddly familiar. It’s the man from Ivor’s kitchen in Flat 7. He’s probably harmless – a mature student, uncomfortable among the kids – but she feels sweat begin to seep through her T-shirt. He glances over at them again and she realizes it must be Imo that’s caught his attention. He’s a man after all.
Imo and Tegan wander on and she catches them up. When she looks back over her shoulder, she can’t see the man. She breathes with relief.
When she inadvertently makes eye contact with the boy on the chess stall, she feels obliged to go over. “I used to play a bit with my uncle,” she tells him. “Quite enjoyed it.”
The boy gives a tight smile. “We have three levels of membership: beginners, recreational and tournament. But to be on the tournament team, you must, must practise.”
“How many hours a week do you play?” Tegan asks, taking his leaflet from Phoenix.
“A minimum of fifteen hours a week.”
“Babe magnet,” Tegan mutters sarcastically as they walk away. When Tegan sees the Society for Deaf Students, she points at Amber who’s finally left the Drama stall. “Get her to practise the sign language she says she learnt in a day.” There’s a smirk on her face as she carries on down the aisle.
But, when Amber reaches Phoenix and Imo, she stops dead. The little colour visible under her pale make-up fades. For a moment her features are frozen and she stares ahead of her, as if she has seen a ghost. Phoenix moves closer, ready to catch her if she faints. Is it a melodrama brought on by being caught out in a lie?
Amber’s shiny eyes dart the length of the stalls and she tugs the fringe of her wig, her chest rising and falling. “I’ll wait outside,” she gasps.
Before Phoenix can reassure her that they don’t really expect her to know British Sign Language, she’s started weaving through the crowds towards the exit.
“Do you think we should go after her?” Imo asks.
Phoenix has had enough of Amber’s crises and wants to see the rest of the fair. “If she chooses to flounce out, that’s up to her.”
“I know but …” Imo tails off.
Tegan comes back to them. “What’s he looking at?” she says through gritted teeth. Phoenix follows her gaze. Across the room by a staircase, Riku, their new flatmate, is staring at the exit.
“He must have the hots for Amber. She went out that way,” Imo suggests.
They watch as Riku, still looking at a group of girls by the main door, goes up the stairs to the balcony.
“Creep,” Tegan mutters. Then she plumps her hair, making it look even thicker. “I’m off to find the sports societies.”
Before Phoenix can follow, she once again realizes someone is watching. Turning around quickly, she sees a girl with striking blue eyes looking at them. She feels herself blush.
“She’s got sweets. Come on,” Imo says, noticing the girl and apparently forgetting her concern for Amber.
When the girl presses wristbands and lollies into their hands, Phoenix’s wristband slips to the floor. She sees the inscription as she bends down to pick it up: Abbey LGBTQ. Her face on fire, she stands up and finds that Imo has moved on.
“I’ve got to … my friend’s over there,” Phoenix tells the girl, not catching her headlamp eyes. She hurries away.
Imo is near the Parents’ Group stall, the last one in the aisle. A dark-haired woman – at early thirties, probably the oldest person in the room bar the creepy man in the hoodie – is talking to a young couple in front of her desk. A little girl with a curly mop of auburn hair sits under it, engrossed in a sticker book.
“We can advise on antenatal classes and, thinking ahead, there’s a crèche for when the little one is six months old,” one woman says.
The man nods and puts an arm across his pregnant partner’s shoulder.
“Do come along to our barbecue on Saturday. Let me get you a leaflet.” As the older woman reaches behind her, the little girl clamps her arms round her legs. The woman scoops her up and presses a leaflet into the pregnant woman’s hands. “You’re about to take the most magical and precious journey of your life.”
Phoenix smirks at Imo. The woman sounds like one of those middle-class earth mothers they interview on Radio 4 when someone’s been banned from breastfeeding in a Jacuzzi.
“Don’t think this stall’s for me,” Imo whispers, turning away. “I have enough trouble looking after myself. I’d never cope with a kid as well.”
The final aisle is given over to sports societies. Two guys, muscling through their T-shirts, home in on Imo’s pert backside. Tegan’s at the far end, sauntering towards them. She flicks her hair, obviously loving her own slice of attention.
After Phoenix has signed up for archery and Tegan’s taken a leaflet for tennis, they work their way to the exit through the crowds of freshers still arriving. Phoenix wonders which ailment Amber will greet them with when they find her outside.
The steps and forecourt in front of the Great Hall are busy with students, but Amber isn’t one of them.
“She could have waited,” Tegan says, setting off for the flat.
“Hang on,” Imo calls. “Let’s check round the back. There might be benches.”
Tegan follows Imo and Phoenix. “Doubt Amber will be on one. Bound to be allergic to wood.”
There’s only a small car park on the far side of the Great Hall. With her phone to her ear, Imo spends ages walking back and forth and peering in car windows. When she seems satisfied Amber hasn’t taken refuge there, she strides back to the forecourt. Phoenix and Tegan rush to keep up.
Shaking her head, Imo puts her phone away. “She’s switched off her mobile.”
“Don’t sound so worried,” Tegan says. “We don’t need sniffer dogs just yet.”
Imo wheels round, eyes narrow. “Don’t joke about something like that,” she snarls.
Tegan backs away.
“They have search dogs for a reason.” Imo’s voice is tight and preachy. “Some families rely on them …”
“Okay, I get it,” Tegan says, still moving backwards. “Lighten up.” Her sandal catches something on the tarmac that makes a metallic jingle.
“What’s that?” Imo asks, squatting by Tegan’s feet, her sudden anger apparently forgotten. “A bangle.” She holds up a silver bracelet. “Amber’s, for sure. I remember her wearing it.”
“Come on, Imogen. How can you tell?” Tegan says.
Imo shrugs and pockets the bangle. “I’ll keep it until we see her.” Her voice tails off and she looks nervously around the crowd. Her hands clench into fists.
Chapter 11 (#ulink_f5875183-7d31-5a42-894e-48e3fcdc5d2e)
Imogen
Why did Amber run off like that? Did something trigger a panic attack? Imo swallows. That was one of the what-if scenarios Inspector Hare suggested for Sophia: panic leading to amnesia.
Her phone rings. Freddie. She snatches it off her bedside locker, heart thumping. He never rings. Never. It must be news.
But that’s not why he’s called.
“Don’t forget the audition is on Thursday.”
“I’m not going,” she says as her pulse returns to normal.
“You promised.”
“I’m already behind and it’s only the first week.” She tries to keep her unhappiness out of her voice. “The computers don’t work so I can’t do my German. How can I keep up with everyone else if I’m in a show?”
“Do what you do best.”
A stone settles in her stomach. What is her best? The same as his. Trying to hold everything together. Their parents don’t need more distress.
“Are you still there?” There’s an intake of breath down the phone. Is he thinking the same thing? “I meant flirting and dancing. You’re good at them.” He chuckles. Imo can tell it’s forced; he’s trying to laugh away other thoughts.
“How’s flirting going to help me with German post-war politics?” She plays along with a forced chuckle of her own.
“You’ll find a way.”
After he rings off she scans the notes she made in the lecture. All she copied down was the first link and one article title before the crow girl told her to stop writing. She won’t make that mistake again, she’ll write the bloody lot down. But that won’t help her with tomorrow’s seminar.
Do what you do best. There is something she could try. It’s crazy, but maybe. She opens her Tinder app.
***
Finally climbing into bed at 3 a.m., she hopes she’s done enough to keep Dr Wyatt happy. The responses have been coming in dribs and drabs. She’s spent the evening and half the night learning them. They might be garbage – useless for Wyatt’s seminar – but what choice does she have?
It’s darker in the room tonight despite the broken curtain. But images of the day flood her mind. After the German lecture from hell in the morning, the fair was fun. Until Amber stormed off.
It was nice of Phoenix to call for her but she can’t help feeling she was just being polite. Phoenix and Tegan are both out of her league. There’s something old soul about Phoenix, and Tegan acts more like thirty than twenty. Is that down to having a gap year? Imo thought rich kids got wrapped in cotton wool and knew nothing of the real world. Where does Tegan get her streetwise cynicism?
Amber’s more on her wavelength. She forgot to ask if she’ll be auditioning on Thursday. Maybe if she can get Amber to go, she’ll go too.
It could be her usual fatigue, but for some reason she feels calm. A difficult day is over and she’s made a friend in Amber. Now she welcomes rest.
Sometime later, in her dream, she registers Amber sitting on her bed.
“You will come to get me, won’t you?” Amber whispers.
Imo stumbles through her slumbering mind. Get her for what? She says she will, then the dream fades.
Chapter 12 (#ulink_c14786ce-994c-5eee-bc10-7001f3275de4)
Wednesday 28 September
Imogen
When the alarm doesn’t go off, it’s a miracle Imo manages to wake at all. Half an hour late and touch and go whether she’ll make the German seminar. Her hoodie and jeans are by the bed. Yesterday’s knickers will do, save on the handwashing.
She goes to the bathroom. After she pees, she washes her hands, pushes a flannel under her armpits and makes a monumental effort to brush her teeth. She doesn’t plan on talking to anyone today; it’s almost pointless caring about fresh breath.
Suddenly, remembering her dream about Amber, a prickle of doubt crosses her shoulders and she shivers. But there’s no time to call on her flatmate, even though she hasn’t seen her since the Freshers’ Fair. She tells herself the dream meant nothing. Thinks again about her usual cellar nightmare. A what-if that even Inspector Hare doesn’t like to mention.
After swigging from the cup by her bed, she leaves the flat and heads to the modern languages block. It’s a sunny day – seaside bright and warm, maybe twenty degrees. More people are about than she’d hoped. In pairs and groups, confident, smiling, fitting in. Dr Wyatt’s not the only evil academic who calls lectures in Freshers’ Week. She sinks further into her hoodie and remembers she hasn’t combed her hair. Who cares?
She tries to run but has to stop, coughing harshly. Out of her eye corner, she sees a man standing across the road at the end of the pathway. The memory of the tall man smoking under the tree on arrivals day makes her sprint-walk past a group of boys. Her eyes fix on the ground – dark tarmac, bare earth at the side. A gardener must have dug up the beds overnight. They were full of marigolds yesterday. University policy? Root out those about to fade? How long until they come for her?
The seminar room on the first floor has seating for twenty and she takes a seat round the horseshoe of desks. The chairs soon fill up and the crow girl from yesterday’s lecture is forced to sit next to her. Is that a smile? No, she’s sniffing. She can beggar off if she thinks Imo smells. Should have got here earlier and selected another seat.
Dr Wyatt comes in and launches into her bullet-fast German. Imo surprises herself by getting the gist.
“Let’s have someone we didn’t hear from yesterday.” Dr Wyatt’s eyes settle on Imo.
Her acne glows inside her hoodie and she desperately scrolls on her phone screen, looking for her notes, such as they are.
“Stand up,” Wyatt says in German. “You don’t need your phone.”
From every angle of the room, eyes are on Imo. The lump in her throat is concrete. David gives her a thumbs-up. She takes a breath and launches into German.
***
“That was enlightening, wouldn’t you say?” Dr Wyatt paces inside the horseshoe of desks at the end of the seminar, the flat soles of her boots slapping the floor. “Some of you did the reading I set, most of you didn’t. But, I have to say, one or two of you went the extra mile.” She looks at Imo. “Keep it up.”
Imo is ten feet tall. As good as anyone. She’s got her brother Freddie to thank for his throwaway comment. Do what you do best. Maybe he’s right about the audition too.
“Fancy a coffee?” the crow girl asks as they leave. “There’s a Starbucks downstairs.”
Imo’s cough starts hacking again, but she’s too surprised to decline. She follows the girl’s black cape to the ground-floor café.
They buy refreshments and perch on bar stools in the window. It’s not Imo’s preferred location – people walking past outside can see her – but it’s doable; none of them know her family, know their story. As a kid she hated her common surname, now she’s grateful for being Smith. At least she can remain anonymous despite everything that’s been on TV.
The girl’s name is Lauren. She tears apart her chocolate cookie. “Where did you get that stuff from? When the intranet came on last night, I read all the articles in the links Dr Wyatt gave us. Took me hours on Google Translate, but I don’t remember half of what you said. Are you German?”
The tiny flame that’s flickered inside Imo since the seminar glows brighter. “Do you really want to know?” She leans forward, the compliment having made her talkative. “I messaged all the German guys I’ve matched with on Tinder and asked their opinion. Then I learnt what they said by heart.”
Lauren chokes on her biscuit. “How many guys was that?”
“I changed my Tinder Bio to: ‘I’m looking for a guy who loves post-war German politics’. To be honest, not many knew what I was on about. Viktor and Markus were useful, though. They were strongly opinionated in different ways.” She coughs again. It wrecks her chest.
The drink warms her. She can do normal things after all. Coffee with another student. Like everyone else. Even draw on the flirty Imogen from before to help her out with coursework. Sometimes. It’s not like she’s trying to be that person again.
Lauren puts down her cup. “What have you tried on your skin? I’ve gone through the over-the-counter potions. I wanted to go hard core but I couldn’t while I was …” She pauses and goes red. Imo notices her hand has started to shake. “I mean … when my mum wouldn’t let me. She can’t stop me now I’m here. Have you tried it?”
Imo wonders what Lauren almost let slip. She shakes her head. So it’s got round to her acne. It’s all anyone sees when they look at her. She glances at Lauren’s face. Spots round her nose and chin. No big deal. Imo’s had months of inflamed pustules on her cheeks, a face she hates and getting worse.
Lauren stares at her, waiting for an answer. Imo has no wish to prolong the conversation. What’s the point? She’s not going to be friends with this girl. Too much effort. Amber’s the only person she’s met at Abbeythorpe with whom she feels remotely comfortable. Amber does all the talking and has even more neuroses than she does. She thinks of the bangle lying abandoned on the tarmac, of the look of terror in Amber’s eyes as she left the fair, and wants to check she’s okay. She decides to call in at the canteen in case she’s gone there.
“I said I’d meet a friend for lunch,” she says and finishes her coffee.
Lauren looks at her phone. “A bit late, isn’t it?”
Imo stands up and sends Amber a text.
“Enjoy your research,” Lauren calls out as Imo leaves. She must think she’s looking at Tinder.
***
Amber doesn’t reply to Imo’s text and she’s not in the canteen or her room. When Imo follows the sound of Radio 1 to the kitchen, she finds Phoenix and Tegan tucking into beans on toast.
“Have you seen Amber?”
Phoenix looks up. “She might’ve gone back to the Freshers’ Fair. It’s on all week.” She returns her attention to her plate. “Probably bending that drama rep’s ear.”
“But you haven’t actually seen her?”
Tegan waves her fork. “You know you’re not her mummy.”
Imo wants to ignore the insult but feels her face reddening. “I had this weird dream about her,” she blurts out.
Tegan opens her mouth but Phoenix knocks her wrist to silence her.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” she says kindly.
Tegan puts her finished plate in the sink. “Is it just me or are you finding Amber a bit odd?”
Phoenix joins her at the sink. “She’s all right most of the time, but I can’t keep up with everything that’s wrong with her.”
A Nicki Minaj song comes on the radio and Tegan turns it up high. She sways in time to the beat, watching Phoenix wash up.
Their new flatmate suddenly appears in the doorway and makes them all jump.
“Hi, Riku,” Imo says, when she’s caught her breath. “Have you seen Amber?”
Face dark and thunderous, he heads past her to the radio. A moment later the music volume drops. Tegan’s eyes carve daggers into his head, but he doesn’t notice. Returns to his room, without uttering a word.
“You only had to ask if you wanted it turned down,” she calls out.
Phoenix dries her hands on a tea towel. “Let it go, Tegan. It was a bit loud.”
“Maybe you should have offered him some food,” Imo says. “Make more of an effort to be friendly.”
“I tried offering him coffee,” Phoenix says, “but he didn’t answer the door.”
Imo heads into the hallway. “Maybe that’s what Amber’s doing: not answering. I need to knock louder.”
Phoenix follows and grabs her shoulders, steers her back into the kitchen. “Relax, Imo, I knocked on her door and listened at it for ages. She’s not there. Let me make the three of us a coffee.”
“Not there?” Imo feels a tickle of unease, a familiar feeling of loss. A sense that someone is missing. “But she has to be.”
Chapter 13 (#ulink_12b6c2dd-b25f-597b-b5e2-15b167b4f4fd)
Tegan
Tegan lays out her stock samples on the kitchen table. She knows they won’t survive a night’s clubbing – theft or beer spillage will get them – but she might get some advance sales before that happens. A cough seizes her throat and she covers her mouth. They’ve all got coughs. When Amber reappears, she’s bound to claim she’s dying of consumption.
She watches Phoenix dry the mugs on the draining board and put them in a cupboard. Tegan can’t work her out. The girl has the looks and briskness of a tomboy so where does the regimented domesticity come from? Not boarding school – she lacks the polish of any of Tegan’s school friends; it’s more like she grew up in the army.
They hear a knock somewhere down the hall and find Imo trying Amber’s door again.
“This can’t be right.” Imo’s words sound slurred, and it’s not just because of her cold; she’s already holding a WKD. “Where is she? Why hasn’t she answered my texts?” She knocks again and wobbles on her heels. After another minute, she totters back to her room.
Phoenix says she’ll get a fresh tea towel from hers. Alone in the kitchen, Tegan hears a sound behind her.
“Christ!” She jumps. Riku’s in the doorway. “You shouldn’t creep up on people. What do you want?” she snaps.
He stares, cocking his head.
“Well, say something,” she demands and immediately knows she’s conceded the high ground. If someone threatens by not speaking, you have to give them silent menace back. Shout and you’ve lost. Her dad’s dictum. She tries to recover her position with a face-off, her brown eyes into his.
Eyes still locked on hers, Riku backs out of the kitchen. For a moment Tegan’s insides quake. She curses herself for feeling rattled.
Imo comes back a few minutes later, holding out her mobile. “I’ve called Hamid. He’ll be here in a tick to take us into town.” Her mouth seems to struggle to work as she explains Hamid is the taxi driver Amber got to know when he took them to the all-night garage. “She got us a good rate.”
Tegan can’t believe Imo is doing the same Business course as she is. Hasn’t she heard of market forces? Students are calling taxis every five minutes. Hamid and his mates can charge what they like.
But it turns out Imo has another motive for booking Hamid. On the short journey into town she quizzes him about Amber.
“She’s got shortish hair – dyed blonde, wears unusual clothes.”
“Sounds like most students.”
“You picked us up on Monday night and drove to the petrol station. She had stomach ache.”
There’s a flicker of recognition on his face. “Eight pound fifty? I remember.”
“Have you seen her since?” Sitting forward in the back seat between Tegan and Phoenix, she holds out photos of Amber on her phone, including the one she took before the fair.
“Sorry, love, can’t look. I’m driving.”
“Just a quick glance.”
Tegan’s impressed; with a drink inside her, Imo doesn’t take no for an answer. But the driver says he hasn’t seen Amber since that night – with or without her red wig.
“Are you sure? If she went anywhere by taxi this week, she’d have gone with you because of the discount,” Imo says, leaning on Tegan.
Tegan shrugs her off and studies Hamid’s expression in the rear-view mirror. He looks perplexed by the mention of a discount. As for knowing about Amber, it’s doubtful he can distinguish one pissed student from another.
Imo gives up, shifts onto Phoenix’s shoulder and closes her eyes.
Hamid, realizing the cross-examination is over, slips into driver-patter. “So anything you girls want to know about Abbeythorpe, you ask me. Anything.”
“Okay, thanks,” Phoenix says, adjusting the weight of Imo’s head. “So where’s the best nightlife?”
“Exactly,” Hamid says. “Anything like that you wanna know, just ask me.”
He pulls up on a taxi rank behind a black Mercedes. Tegan’s chest tightens.
“Bloody amateurs,” Hamid says, gesticulating. “Where’s a traffic warden when you need one?”
Through the windscreen of the cab, Tegan makes out a shape in the driver’s seat of the Merc. Skin tingling, she hangs back while Phoenix and Imo get out. Only after they’ve paid Hamid and headed towards the bouncer on the club door, does she scoot after them.
Chapter 14 (#ulink_e6a8d4e5-14e3-5c8e-91eb-9e1271479b2c)
Thursday 29 September
Imogen
She climbs in the shower, headache threatening. As she stands under the rushing water, her dreams flicker through her mind. Get me, won’t you? Amber, again, her face merging with her sister Sophia’s.
A memory from the club itches and she scrubs her body harder, feeling dirty. Buoyed by Jägerbombs, there had been a moment – maybe even ten minutes, as much as three tracks on the dance floor – when she’d forgotten her grief and enjoyed herself. Became the old Imogen – the one that went underage drinking with her mates, the higher her heels, the tighter her skirt. Then she saw him. At first she had thought it was just a trick of the light, her mind imagining things after a few too many drinks. But when she turned back for a second look, she had known for sure. It was him. The tall man standing across the dance floor. Hood up, watching her as he had done Tegan on arrivals day. Imo sensed his eyes rake over her body. He gave her a chilling smile.
Running to the ladies, she bumped her way through the crowd apologizing, spilling drinks. She made it to the loo in time to throw up. When she came out, Phoenix had an orange juice ready for her. Tegan – grim-faced – suggested they call it a night. Imo agreed. What must they have thought of her erratic behaviour?
Her phone rings as she’s towelling dry. She lets it buzz, knowing it’ll be Freddie without checking the screen. After he’s rung off, she texts him: I’m going, okay. The audition is today. She can’t remember changing her mind, but she must have done. Why else has she got up for a shower and left out leggings and a long-sleeved T-shirt? Is she ready to live again?
Among the pizza delivery ads on the doormat lies a note for her from Royal Mail, telling her to collect a parcel from the student union building. How’s she supposed to know where the post room is? It’s probably spare hankies or a pillowcase from her mother.
There’s a package addressed to Riku outside the flat. How come his parcels get delivered and she has to collect hers? She props it outside his door and doesn’t knock. There’s still no reply from Amber’s room and she heads to the audition alone.
***
The auditions are in the theatre on the first floor of the student union. Three tiny backsides greet her when she rounds the corridor. Skinny girls in sports shorts and legwarmers using the bottom two steps of the staircase as a barre. Imo feels fat and unsupple. She has a coughing fit.
A chubby girl with purple hair and wearing the name tag Doris ushers her into a side room. “A word of advice,” she says as she fixes a sticker with a number thirty-one onto Imo’s chest. “Even if you’re not sure of your words, keep singing.”
It’s a small room clearly used as a costume store. Rails of Elizabethan doublets hang alongside sparkly mini-dresses. Three girls, all wearing black Musical Theatre Society T-shirts, stare at her as she picks her way through the busy room looking for a seat.
“Over here,” Lauren calls out and pats an empty plastic chair. She’s wearing her black cape over her dance clothes. Imo joins her but the intimacy of their coffee together has gone and neither can think what to say. They sit in silence while others chat.
Lauren keeps looking anxiously at her watch.
“Could be ages yet,” Imo suggests eventually.
“Hope not. I’ve got to get … go somewhere at twelve thirty.” She goes slightly red and changes the subject. “A lot seem to have been in uni shows before. They must have come back early for the audition. Have you done any musicals?”
Imo shrugs. In a different life. “Once or twice. You?”
Lauren lists a few shows she did at school and says she’s studying Theatre Studies as well as German.
Imo sits up. “My flatmate, Amber, does Theatre Studies. I thought she’d be here. Actually, I think you know her. I saw you with her before our first German lecture on Tuesday.”
Lauren looks away. “Not me,” she says quickly. “I don’t know her.”
Imo frowns, recalling when she walked across campus and spotted Amber linking arms with a girl in a black cape. It must have been Lauren.
“I could have sworn it was you. Are you sure?”
“Yep,” she snaps, then adds: “There was a girl called Amber who didn’t turn up to the Theatre Studies Meet and Greet last night. They read out all the names and she was the only one missing.”
Unease seeps across Imo’s shoulders, but before she has time to ask anything else, Doris appears and tells her the panel is ready.
“Don’t be nervous,” she says as she shows her the way onto the stage. “Break a leg.”
There is an audition panel of six at the front of an auditorium. All name-badged: Theo, Alice, Rusty …
Theo speaks before she can read the other names and asks her to sing. With heat rushing through her face, Imo waits for the introduction. Her voice is hoarse from coughing and she inwardly winces at how off-key she sounds, but she makes it to the end of the song. Theo thanks her with a blank expression and says they’ll see her later at the dance audition.
She doesn’t have to wait long. Doris calls twenty girls, including Imo, onto the stage. Imo hasn’t danced properly for months and isn’t sure her limbs still can. Not since Sophia disappeared. Tears prick her eyes but she blinks them away as Alice from the selection panel takes them through a warm-up. Surprised to find that jogging on the spot lightens her mood, Imo leaps into star jumps and shifts easily into stretches.
By the time they start the corner exercises, it’s the old version of herself that launches into spot turns and split leaps.
“Give it more,” Alice calls out from the wings.
Imo dances on, unencumbered by the baggage of the last seven months. Her steps are light, her body toned. She soaks up the panel’s attention. They can look and judge as much as they like. They don’t know her story.
The panel applauds when the routine finishes.
“Good job, ladies,” Alice says. “We’ll let you know.”
Imo leaves the stage glowing with energy. She gets her things but on her way downstairs she glimpses a man on the landing. An eerie coldness settles and she fears it’s him again. The tall man. She hurries outside. Is this what Sophia felt when she disappeared, that a man was following her? Did she see him everywhere she went until one day he came for her?
The early autumn sun warms her and she banishes her stupid thoughts. Today is a good day, normal. Her walk is brisk and new, as if she’s using her legs for the first time after a long hibernation. She can do this. Learn to compartmentalize. Sorrow in one box, a new life of university and dance and friends in others. The world can still turn with Imo enjoying the ride.
When her phone goes she’s sure it’s Amber, responding to her latest message. She will be able to stop worrying. But it’s a cold call. Student Life Insurance. I’m Jordan. How you doing? How much do you love your family? Do you want them to have something after you’ve gone? The call blasts open the lid Imo thought she’d gently closed. What made her think she’d be able to forget her loss? She tries to force the phone back into her jeans, but it slides from her trembling fingers and lands against the kerb.
The lights are still working and the screen appears undamaged. She picks it up and walks on. The phone has survived but her happy pace is a thing of the past. Pulling her hoodie over her hair, she trudges along the path that leads to the student halls. She detects someone approaching behind her. The footsteps are slow and lolloping, long casual strides. Imo keeps walking but moves to the side of the pavement to let them pass.
But no one hurries by. She senses that the figure has slowed their pace to match hers. Feeling uncomfortable, she dawdles so they’ll have no choice but to overtake.
A shadow passes her right shoulder. A tall, rangy figure in a black hoodie saunters past. Heart thundering, Imo stands stock still. The man must sense she’s stopped moving because he turns his head. Imo drops her gaze to the ground to avoid eye contact. Her neck feels damp with sweat and she wonders what the hell to do. Turn and run? With those long legs of his, he’d catch her in no time. Was this what it was like for Sophia? Did she brazen it out and walk on? This path’s deserted and hidden from the road. No witnesses. Even if she’d brought her personal alarm like she promised her mother, who would hear? Her hand is shaking as she grips her phone. Call Tegan and ask her to meet her in the car? Even if she could persuade her stroppy flatmate to do the favour, it could take her ages to arrive.
A giggle rings out on the path ahead. The sweetest sound Imo has ever heard. Coming towards her, fifty yards in front, is a couple, holding hands.
Imo waves, runs towards them without looking back. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting ages,” she shouts. When she reaches them she whispers: “Can I walk with you, please?”
The boy gets it, eyeing the hooded figure on the path. “Are you okay?”
“He’s creeping me out, that’s all.” Imo tries to sound casual, even though her pulse is racing.
“Stick with us,” the girl says and moves aside to let Imo walk between the two of them.
They set off, breathing heavily. When they look up, the tall man is no longer on the path.
“I’ll be okay now,” Imo says. “Thanks.” She leaves the couple at a run and hares towards the hall of residence, jumping at every noise in the bushes. When a bird flies off a branch, she almost cries out. Thankfully more students appear on the path and her heartbeat calms.
Finally she sees the no parking zone and the steps of the hall’s main reception and decides to enter that way. It’s more visible than going around the back and through to her block. Breathless from her run, she summons one last burst of energy up the steps. Panting, at the top, she pauses and looks behind her. Across the road, exactly where he stood on arrivals day, the tall man leans against the horse chestnut tree, smoking.
Chapter 15 (#ulink_62dc40ba-8d7c-5c67-ac81-92f2fc8f04a7)
Phoenix
Phoenix surveys the dead baked bean cans, squished teabags and crushed cheesy Wotsits on the draining board. She gets a whiff of old tomatoes and loads a box of pizza crusts into a bin bag.
Living in a caravan when she was younger meant she was used to keeping the tiny kitchenette spotless, but she’s also done her fair share of industrial-strength cleaning. “This is a new dimension of mess,” she says aloud.
Imo helps her with the bin bag. Phoenix can’t work out whether she’s in a massive sulk about tidying up, or something else is bothering her. Bad audition? She hasn’t said a word since she got back.
Tegan walks in, wearing a pair of Marigold gloves.
“Finally,” Phoenix says, not hiding her sarcasm.
Tegan holds an empty crisp packet at arm’s length. “The uni should employ cleaners.”
“I’d rather be in my mess than someone else’s clean,” Phoenix says.
“What the devil does that mean?”
“Nothing,” Phoenix mutters. Pointless explaining; a girl like Tegan could never understand the concept of housework.
As if to prove her wrong, Tegan collects glasses and bottles and pours the contents down the sink. “No sign of Amber, though, is there? When’s she going to do her share?”
“What if she can’t help?” Imo says suddenly, letting go of the bin bag. “Have either of you seen her?”
Tegan shrugs and Phoenix shakes her head. She got no reply when she knocked on Amber’s door earlier after she’d delivered another parcel to Riku, the third one since he moved in.
“What if someone’s got her?” Imo’s voice wavers.
“Got her? Where did that come from all of a sudden?” Tegan leans her back against the sink.
“I think there’s a stalker on campus.” Imo speaks in a rush, clenching her fists and pumping them in and out of her sweatshirt sleeves. “A man followed me after my audition. I shook him off, but when I got here he was across the road. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen him.”
Phoenix’s thoughts go straight to the figure at Ivor’s party. “In his thirties, dark hoodie?”
“That’s him,” Imo exclaims. “Has he followed you, too?” She looks at Tegan. “I saw him watching you on arrivals day. Have you seen him?”
The colour drains from Tegan’s face and she turns back to the glasses in the sink. “Must be a friend of Ivor’s,” she mutters weakly.
“I doubt it. Probably a gatecrasher.” Phoenix remembers how he spilled Ivor’s drink and didn’t apologize. “I think he’s a student, though. He was at the Freshers’ Fair.”
“My God.” Imo sinks onto a chair. “That’s the last time we saw Amber. What are we going to do?”
“Nothing.” Tegan whips round, a flash of annoyance in her eye. “Phoenix has just told you he’s a student, not a stalker.”
“But he was down there, under a tree, smoking.” Imo points out of the window.
“Where else is he supposed to bloody smoke? Why shouldn’t he be outside? He probably lives here.”
“But …”
“Enough, Imogen. You can’t go around accusing people of stalking. You’re being paranoid.” Tegan waves a rubber-gloved finger. “This stops now.” She turns back to the sink.
Not wanting to take sides, Phoenix picks up the bin bag and continues to fill it. Imo sits on a chair, looking as if she’s trying not to cry. No one speaks. Eventually the silence is broken by the ripple of a text message on Imo’s phone.
Chapter 16 (#ulink_0c921518-3fad-5f15-b51f-d93209de1fcf)
Friday 30 September
Imogen
Thank you for auditioning for JC Superstar. Unfortunately, we cannot offer you a part. Show tickets available mid-November. Please get in touch if you can help with sales.
The same message was sent to her on email as well as text, but with the added bonus of a list of the successful actors. It’s gone around Imo’s mind so many times that she’s learnt the cast list off by heart. The first name was Doris Evans as Mary Magdalene. The audition usher got the star part.
She had left the kitchen to read the text in her room. It’s what she deserves. How could she have pranced around that stage like the Imogen from before? How could she forget, even for a second? Her head thumps and she needs caffeine. She heard Tegan and Phoenix return to their rooms a while ago so heads as quietly as she can to the kitchen.
The bloody kettle won’t boil. She realizes the flex isn’t switched on at the wall. Tegan’s harsh words fill her head. Imo gets everything wrong. How could she mistake a mature student, standing outside his hall, for a stalker? She’d never have dreamed up something so outlandish a year ago. She was normal back then.
She pours her tea and some of the hot water misses the mug. She finds a stinky dishcloth on the draining board and mops the wet patch. Chucks the cloth in the bin and wishes she could climb in after it. When she’s slopped enough water over her coffee granules, she heads out with her mug.
Amber’s door is open and Imo stands stock still in the hallway. She has a moment of fury. She’s been worried sick, left countless messages, made a fool of herself in front of her flatmates and now Amber’s back without a word of apology. Intending to tell Amber exactly what she thinks of her, Imo marches up the hall.
But it’s a male voice she hears coming from Amber’s room. “We can let you have some cardboard boxes.” The accent is local. “It doesn’t all have to be out today. We can give you another week.”
“That’s kind of you.” A female voice, older, strained. “I’ll take what I can and pack the rest. My other daughter will collect it next week.”
“Right you are, love. Let me just deliver these and I’ll get you the boxes.” The man steps into the hallway. He’s in an Abbeythorpe maintenance team shirt and carrying three parcels. “Morning, love,” he says cautiously to Imo.
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Rachel Sargeant
Do you really know the people you live with? ‘Gripping, original and unpredictable, The Roommates is a must-read’ Alex Lake From the top ten Kindle bestseller. Perfect for fans of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR. THEY LIVE IN YOUR HOUSEUniversity is supposed to be the best time of your life. But Imo’s first week is quickly going from bad to worse. YOU SHARE EVERYTHINGA stalker is watching her flat, following her every move, and Imo suspects that her new roommates are hiding dark secrets… BUT DO YOU TRUST THEM?When one of them suddenly disappears, the trauma of Imo’s recent past comes hurtling back to haunt her. And she begins to realise just how little she knows about the people she lives with… ‘Gripping, original and unpredictable’ Alex Lake “Twisty and unnerving, Rachel is back with a thriller that will keep you up all night. Her best novel yet!’ Phoebe Morgan ‘From the very first page, the intrigue of this page-turning mystery builds until the gripping climax’ Caroline England
Copyright (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Rachel Sargeant 2019
Rachel Sargeant asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design by Sim Greenaway © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photographs © Neil Holden/Arcangel Images (tenement block);
Shutterstock.com (https://www.shutterstock.com) (figures)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2019 ISBN: 9780008331900
Source ISBN: 9780008331894
Version: 2019-07-16
Dedication (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
For E and H – not possible without you.
Contents
Cover (#uc1ace7ff-9f9e-55d6-8e2a-5a82a89a3577)
Title Page (#uc1a70676-7a8b-5fcf-a6f9-cdaf48a7514d)
Copyright
Dedication
Three Years Ago
A car horn … (#uc1a754bd-af9d-5264-a28a-12aa44841e90)
Present Day (#ua200a1e3-29ab-573f-91c7-f00c7522251b)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Rachel Sargeant
About the Publisher
THREE YEARS AGO (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
A car horn blares and instinct makes her jump back. Male driver, early thirties. Mouth open in an oath as he speeds past, skidding on the bridge’s frosty tarmac. She can’t be bothered to gesture after him. Defiance gone.
Clutching her elbows for warmth, she makes it to the opposite side. Her jacket’s not much of a coat these days. Zip bust from straining. The barrier along the side of the bridge is tall – nearly her height – but she peers between its vertical railings. The river below looks benign. No boats are out in mid-winter to ruffle its grey-green surface. A few dog walkers and cyclists brave the promenade. The café’s open but the air’s too bitter even for smokers to sit outside.
Wind picks up, making her stumble. For a moment she longs for the warmth of the bonfire under the bridge where the others will be. A few cans and a bit of weed. Where’s the harm? But she can’t go there because of Danno. Can’t bear to see her betrayal reflected in his eyes. To see how her lies have destroyed him.
With her back against the barrier, sheltering from the worst of the weather, she squats and watches the traffic. When a passing lorry causes the bridge to judder, a change of plan flits through her mind. It might be quicker, more certain. But she can’t do that to a driver. She’s damaged enough people. People she loves. Her eyes smart. She stands up.
Searching for places to climb, she walks close to the barrier and spots possible toeholds – welded joints on some of the metal posts that are fixed into the ground at regular intervals. There’s a lull in the traffic and she hears her heartbeat. Loud. A shiver passes through her. Can she do this? What else is there? No one wants her, can’t blame Mum and Jade.
In one swift movement, she grips two railings, wedges the side of her foot on a bolt and hauls herself up. An icy blast hits her head and neck. When she looks down, the river looms in and out of focus. Her head spins so much, she’s sure she’ll overbalance. Determination deserts her and the dizziness makes her afraid. Her hands clench the top rail and she ignores how much the cold metal burns.
As she stares down at the water, Leo’s face flashes across her mind. This isn’t because of Danno – or Mum or Jade. Most of all she’s failed Leo. Her breathing slows and the unsteadiness fades. Her doubts begin to disappear. She levers herself higher.
No more pain, no more loss, no more hurting those who care – used to care. The burden lifts. Limbs and belly light for the first time in months. All over. She smiles. Places a knee on the top of the barrier. One final breath.
“Amber!” A voice shrieks along the bridge before the wind swallows it whole.
PRESENT DAY (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Chapter 1 (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Sunday 25 September
Imogen
“You should have gone to a Russell Group university.” Imo’s mother makes her pronouncement after ten minutes of stop-start traffic inside the campus. She’s got her brave face on, pretending to be forthright and normal.
Imo shrinks into the back seat and casts an anxious glance outside, but there’s no change in the faces of the students walking past. They haven’t heard the insult despite the open car windows. Wide-eyed and chatting, they stream on, like Glasto, but without the mud and wellies. It’s been warm all month. Imo was sunbathing in the garden yesterday, trying to suppress her gut-wrenching nervousness about today. So much is riding on it. Her chance to escape the life of grief and guilt that she and her family haunt.
What does her mother mean anyway? What difference does a university league table make to the traffic jam? Has she forgotten the free-for-all to get into Freddie’s uni four years ago? But Imo remembers her mother wasn’t there. Dad and Imo took Freddie. That same day Mum drove Sophia to Nottingham. Imo holds back a sigh; they were ordinary then.
A girl in a bright pink T-shirt steps up to her father’s window. “Welcome to the Abbey.” She hands him a hessian bag with Abbey Student Union printed on the side in the same pink as the T-shirt.
Imo’s belly flutters. It’s happening. She’s become part of the exclusive club of students who call it the Abbey despite it saying University of Abbeythorpe on the website. She leans forward, snatches the bag from her dad and looks inside. Leaflets on the Abbi Bar and Takeaway, the Student Welfare Service, and Avoiding STDs; a freshers’ wristband and a packet of condoms. She quickly clutches the bag on her lap. If her dad had seen inside, he’d have turned the car around, despite being in one-way traffic. And Imo would have understood. Risk weighs differently in this family.
The car park is behind a line of bushes on the right side of the road. They park and debate whether to take the luggage with them. Freddie advises leaving it until they know where Imo’s room is. Imo backs his suggestion; anything to avoid her old Groovy Chick duvet being paraded through reception. Her mum made her bring it, saying that uni tumble driers might damage her new one of the New York skyline. Imo didn’t want that one either. It was a birthday present and she intends to leave everything about that day behind. She’ll never be able to look back on turning eighteen with anything but ache and horror.
A large vehicle chugs into the car park. A boy in a high-vis jacket walks ahead and marshals it lengthways across four parking spaces. It’s an ancient ice-cream van painted sky blue, Cloud’s Coffee in bold purple lettering above the serving hatch. A thickset woman, with hair the same shade of blue as the van, climbs out the driver’s side. She pulls her seat forward and a girl jumps down. Taller and slimmer than the mother, and tidier too; her hair is short and blonde.
“Take this, Phoenix.” A man in the passenger seat passes her a holdall. Imo can see where she gets her looks from. Father and daughter are blessed with cheekbones. Not many people could carry off a name like Phoenix, but this girl can. She exudes athletic star quality.
Imo’s family follows the stream of people towards the main accommodation reception. Sweat seeps into her hoodie but she can’t take it off despite the late summer heat. Even though she got it at the British Heart Foundation shop, it’s a Jack Wills. And first impressions count. She spent two hours on Thursday planning her arrival outfit. Like her mother, she can play at normal.
They pass other students and their parents coming out of the building, clutching white envelopes, presumably containing the keys to their home for the next ten months. On the open day last year, Imo walked into this wood-panelled foyer, giggling with other Year Twelves on a trip from her school. Was that the last time she laughed and meant it? Not the fake chuckle she gives these days when her family play real-life charades. She swallows hard.
The hall echoes with the chatter of dozens of families. More students in pink T-shirts usher them into three lines. Imo’s family stand in the left-hand queue. Imo shifts from foot to foot, unable to stop her legs from wobbling. Wishing her parents weren’t with her. Hoping nobody will recognize them.
She swivels her head to look at the white-washed pillars behind the long reception counter. They’re adorned with posters advertising the Freshers’ Welcome Party. The line moves swiftly and soon Imo is in possession of her envelope, with instructions to turn right out of the building, enter the annexe at the back and take the stairs to the first floor. Scared of heights since Inspector Hare’s visit shook her family rigid – since she saw the broken body and imagined the fall – she’d asked for a ground-floor room when she filled in the accommodation form. At least they haven’t put her at the top of a tower block. It’s been months since she climbed higher than the second storey in any building, even though it’s an irrational fear. Inspector Hare had got it wrong again.
On the steps outside, right in the way of other families coming in and out, her parents stop for another debate about fetching the luggage. A Mini Convertible sweeps into the crisscross box of the no-parking zone in front of them. A high-heeled black sandal steps out of the driver’s side. The sandal strap coils along a slender ankle. When the driver stands up, the strap disappears under the hem of black palazzo trousers. The young woman shakes her head and thick, dark curls cascade over her bare shoulders. She’s wearing a white broderie anglaise blouse. A gypsy top, Imo’s grandma would call it, but there’s nothing rustic about its wearer.
“Mid-blue,” Imo’s dad says. “That’s the colour I’d go for too if I ever got one.”
Imo and her mother share a smile. Only her dad could see a beautiful woman and show more interest in her car.
A sudden prickling feeling tells Imo that she is being watched. It’s a familiar sense, one she has struggled with regularly over the past few months. Freddie has too – even worse for him. She swallows down a knot of fear and forces herself to look at the crowd. Students and parents rush past in the heat, not looking her way. She tells herself that it’s just her imagination. That nobody’s recognized her.
Then she freezes. A tall, hooded man is standing in shadow under a tree on the opposite side of the street and smoking a cigarette. Dressed all in black, too old to be a student but clearly not a parent. But it’s not Imo he’s staring at; he’s watching the beautiful woman’s every move. His eyes follow her as she turns to lock her car. A shiver runs down Imo’s spine.
When the man sees Imo looking, she drops her gaze to her envelope, hands trembling. Wariness of strangers is another product of the last few months, and this one looks like a stalker.
The young woman puts her keys in her handbag and walks past Imo into the reception, leaving a waft of expensive perfume in the air. When Imo looks back across the street, the man isn’t there.
Chapter 2 (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Imogen
“Smile,” her dad says, as he sticks out his backside to bring Imo into his viewfinder. “Let’s have one for the album.” His turn to play-act normal. But Imo’s face is pale. Her mind still fixed on the man outside, on the way his gaze followed the woman through the crowd. Is that how it happened before?
“Imogen, are you all right?” her mum says, concern in her eyes.
“Fine, still a bit car sick.” Imo smiles weakly and sits down on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. At least her family didn’t see him. She lets the sound of her parents bickering stop her mind from racing.
“Mind where you put your feet, Rob,” Mum squawks, pointing at a pile of clothes on the floor.
“I didn’t touch them.”
“You were about to.”
Imo bares her teeth. It’s like Christmas. Everyone’s got up early and they’re all in one room. Arguing. A tremor passes through her. They won’t next Christmas. Some things are worse than arguing.
The room is small: single bed, desk, slim wardrobe, grey carpet tiles, door to an en suite. Surprisingly modern after the imposing reception hall. When they unlocked the flat, Imo noticed other doors in the long hallway. She shudders at the thought of her flatmates appearing now and recognizing her family.
“Mum, are you nearly ready to go?” she says hopefully.
But her mother is still unpacking and doesn’t reply. With an armful of shampoos and conditioners, Imo goes into the tiny bathroom. The sink – half the size of their basins at home – is fitted close to the loo and there’s no bathroom cabinet.
“I wish we’d had room in the car for a toiletries stand.” Imo calls. “I bet that girl in the big van brought one.”
“And a cornetto maker,” Freddie pipes up.
Dad laughs and Imo walks back into the room. But a shadow falls over her mum’s face and she turns towards the window, arms wrapped around her body.
Pretending not to notice, Dad empties the last cardboard box. “Where do you want your German vocab book?”
“Underneath my pillow.” Imo tries to smile but her heart’s not in it. Her backchat is coming out on autopilot, her hand shaking with nerves. She saw other students on the stairs, making the trek to her floor and beyond. Confident, sharing a joke with each other. Why is it only her that doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing?
Dad joins Mum by the window. “She’s got a gorgeous view of the hills,” he says.
“It’s grass,” Mum says, her normal mood a memory.
“And south facing. This will be a sunny room.”
Imo’s belly flutters again, unnerved for a reason she can’t define.
“Right.” Dad sighs and turns from the window, wearing his bravest face. “I suppose we’d better leave you to it.” He gives her a hug. “Keep in touch. Have a brilliant first term.” He hugs her tighter. “And stay safe.”
Freddie pats her back. “Good luck with the audition, Sis.”
Oh God, she hoped he’d forgotten. He found out from the website that the uni will be putting on Jesus Christ Superstar in December. The auditions are this week.
“You will go, won’t you?”
“I haven’t been to a dance class for a while.” It’s been seven months, as he knows – as they all know. She feels the heat of her family’s attention on her. “I might not have time.”
“Course you will, love,” Dad says. “University isn’t all about work.”
“It’s hardly about work at all.” Freddie grins, but then grows serious. “Promise you’ll audition.”
Dad strokes her arm. “It would do you good.”
Mum stays at the window, rubbing her elbow like she always does when she wants to bail out of a conversation but still listen in. Like she does when Inspector Hare visits. Freddie and Dad keep their well-meaning eyes on Imo and she feels the room closing in.
“Okay, I promise.” It’s worth lying to see the relief on their faces.
She sits back on the bed and watches them line up in the small space by the door. Any second now her world of eighteen and a half years will quit with them. Her throat is hard.
Dad and Freddie give her a goodbye peck and head out into the stairwell. When they’ve gone, Mum sits beside her. “I notice you didn’t bring the lamp Grandma gave you.”
“I forgot.” Another birthday gift she needs to shed. Everything from that day is toxic.
Mum places her hands on Imo’s shoulders and looks her in the eye. “You don’t have to do this. I’m not making you.” Most decisions are impossible for Mum these days, but she was quick to agree that Imo should take up her uni place.
Imo tries to wriggle free, but her grip is firm. “I want to be here.” Would it have been different if she hadn’t already accepted the offer before the world tilted?
Mum lets go. “If there’s anything …” She turns away to rub her eye. “Ring me, day or night. Just ring.”
“Of course.” Imo forces a bright smile.
“And you’ve got your personal alarm?”
“Always.”
“Show me.”
Imo hesitates, but only for a moment, knowing her mother won’t leave until she’s seen the tiny, red-topped canister. Imo retrieves it from her coat pocket and holds it out.
“Keep it with your phone,” her mother says. “You need both at all times.”
She watches until Imo has shoehorned it into a front pocket of her jeans. They hug, her mother holding her tighter than feels comfortable. Then she grasps her wrist.
“And never come home on your own on the train. We’ll come and get you.”
Chapter 3 (#ub854e5b1-2d71-5582-83a4-861f3c7c8c6a)
Phoenix
Three of them are in the kitchen drinking Phoenix’s instant coffee. Her mug has Elexo EngineeringSolutions in turquoise lettering on the side – a freebie she picked up from a science and technology careers fair. The peroxide blonde – Amber? – waves her Amnesty International mug in the air. Phoenix isn’t sure whether she means to brandish it, but she moves her hands a lot when she speaks.
The third girl – Phoenix has forgotten her name – sips out of Polish pottery. Expensive. Like the Mini Convertible she swept up in. Phoenix has kicked off her trainers to pad around the kitchen in woolly socks; this girl is in classy sandals.
When are they going to sit down instead of acting like it’s a cocktail party? Phoenix has the urge to move from the cooking area to the easy chairs in the dining end of the kitchen. She shifts her weight and listens to Amber.
“I’m doing Theatre Studies. I’ll probably go into directing and writing.” Amber’s bangles and friendship bracelets cascade down her wrist as she drags a hand through her bleached crop. “We need more women in pivotal roles. Smash through the glass ceiling of the existing patriarchy.”
The rich girl suppresses a yawn. Ignoring Amber, she looks at Phoenix. “Where are you from?”
Phoenix hesitates. She’s worked out her backstory but toys with the truth. These girls are her flatmates. Why pretend? Why: because the rich girl might judge and find her wanting. But before she can decide how much to say, Amber’s off and running with her own answer.
“I’m from Chadcombe in Surrey. My dad works for a top accountancy firm in Town. That’s London Town. We call it Town.”
The rich girl’s face doesn’t move, but Phoenix smiles. Amber must be a Home Counties kid, away from home for the first time. Wholesome, but naïve. Doe eyes in kohl and sweetheart mouth behind purple lipstick. Perhaps she’ll work hard and do her parents proud. Yet Phoenix wonders about her; something desperate in the rapid way she speaks.
Another girl steps into the kitchen.
“Hi, welcome.” Amber turns to greet her. “What’s your name?” She steps forward and hugs her, holding her half-drunk coffee behind the girl’s back.
“Imogen … Imo.” The girl swallows. Despite hunching her shoulders inside her Jack Wills sweatshirt and looking down, she’s striking. Her blonde hair looks natural like Phoenix’s own, but this girl can grow it long. It’s well on the way to her waist and she wears it loose.
Amber steers her in front of the others as if she’s the hostess. “This is Imogen, but we can say Imo. I’m Amber and this is Phoenix, named after the actor.”
Phoenix winces. Why do people always assume that about her name? Phoenix is the mythical bird that rises from the ashes. Fire – that’s why her parents chose it. Almost an obsession. She winces again as she remembers watching one of their obsessions turn deadly.
Imogen holds out her arms for a light hug and Phoenix understands why she wears her hair over her face: her cheeks are raging with acne. She looks anxious and there are dark shadows under her eyes.
“I think I saw you in the car park, getting out of a blue ice-cream van,” Imo says.
Phoenix smiles nervously, wondering how many others noticed it.
“I saw a big van as I drove in,” the rich girl says. “Are your parents caterers?”
Phoenix hesitates. “That’s right,” she lies.
Amber completes the introductions for Imo. “And this is Tegan. Have I got that right? A Welsh name?”
Tegan – so that’s the rich girl’s name and explains her mellifluous accent – doesn’t step forward but waits for Imo to reach her. Even in her designer sandals, Tegan’s the shortest of the four of them, but there’s something ten-feet-tall about her. Phoenix doesn’t expect to be having many kitchen chats with her after today. Their social circles won’t intersect.
“What are you studying?” Amber asks Imo.
“German and Business.”
“I can’t do languages. Except BSL – British Sign Language – which I learnt in a day.” Amber leans in close to the newcomer. “But I know Epic Theatre. You must have heard about that if you’re doing German.”
“A little …” Imo pauses and gives a weak smile.
Phoenix feels for her. It must be daunting that someone knows more about her subject than she does.
“In Year Twelve, I acted in a Swiss play.” Imo’s hands are clenched by her sides and she sounds nervous. “About an old woman seeking revenge on the man who got her in trouble when they were teenagers. Is that the sort of thing?”
For a moment Amber hesitates, a flicker of something behind her eyes. Then she shrieks, “That’s it. What was the set like?” In her eagerness to talk drama with Imo, she steps in front of Tegan.
“What are you studying, Phoenix?” Tegan asks in a voice loud enough to make Amber move aside.
“Mechanical Engineering.”
“Interesting,” replies Tegan, sounding like she thinks it’s anything but.
Amber runs with the conversation again. “We’ll try to keep the drama talk to a minimum, won’t we, Imo?” She links arms with the girl she’s known for all of five minutes.
Tegan puts her Polish mug on the kitchen top. “I’m into the arts if they make money. Business is my thing.”
“So are you studying Business like me?” Imo asks.
“For the moment,” Tegan replies. “I left school a year ago and I’ve been building my product range since then.” She bends down to the handbag at her feet and takes out a pouch. In a deft movement, she reconfigures it as a bomber jacket and puts it over her shoulders. Her dark hair is stunning against the ice pink. “Ideal to keep the rain off on a night out and it fits in your bag or …” she lays it on the kitchen top, folds in the sleeves and draws the sides together in previously unseen zips “… have it as the handbag itself.”
“You’re selling these?” Amber takes hold of the newly formed holdall.
“Fourteen ninety-nine, because of the craftsmanship. But I’m offering them on campus for ten pounds, two for eighteen.”
Amber pauses for a moment, turns the bag over in her hands. “I’ll get my purse.”
Imo follows her out. Tegan looks at Phoenix expectantly.
Phoenix makes her best poker face. What craftsmanship? These plastic macs are most likely churned out in a Third-World sweatshop. She weighs up her options. Choose your battles. She’s going to be sharing a flat with this girl. Why make it awkward? She pulls a tenner from her jeans pocket.
“Thank you so much,” Tegan says. But the brightness is false. Phoenix knows conceit when she hears it. Tegan’s used to getting what she wants. Phoenix’s dad, Sonny, thinks university is a holding pen between bouts of real life. Tegan the businesswoman might be the kind of student he’d admire.
“What made you choose the Abbey?” Phoenix asks.
“This was as far away from home as possible on a tank of petrol.” Tegan snorts. “What about you?”
The truth? Her head’s full of designs for show equipment innovations, some worth patenting. Mech Eng is the way she’s going to stay in the world she knows, doing what she’s good at but without the risks. She shrugs. “Same as you, I suppose.”
The other girls come back with their money. Amber’s still holding Imo’s arm. Firm friends already.
“What do you all think of this flat?” Amber asks. “I could do with more wardrobe space.”
Imo and Tegan agree. Again Phoenix stays silent. Until she moved in with Carla and Antonio, her desk converted to her bed.
“So do you think it’s just the four of us in this flat?” Amber points at each of them. “Let’s see if I can remember: Imo doing German and Business, Tegan Business, Phoenix Engineering. And me Theatre Studies.”
“There are five rooms.” Tegan unfolds her demonstration holdall and restores it as a pouch to her handbag. “There must be one more person.”
“I wonder if they’ll get here in time for pre-s,” Amber says.
Phoenix gives her a puzzled frown. If Preez is part of the university registration process, she’s never heard of it.
“Preez?” Imo asks, beating her to the question.
“Don’t you know? Everyone knows that.” Amber laughs, clutching her chest theatrically as if it’s the funniest thing she’s heard. She straightens up when she sees their blank expressions. “Pre-s means pre-drinks. You go to someone’s flat to get tanked before you go out. There are some amazing clubs around here, but drinks in clubs are so expensive. Pre-s are at Ivor’s tonight, downstairs in Flat 7.”
“Which clubs?” Tegan jumps in. She pauses to admire the confusion on Amber’s face. “If it’s pre-drinks in Flat 7, where are you going afterwards?”
“Umm … Not tonight,” Amber bites her lip. “I’m staying here.”
“Well aren’t you the raver. Off the rails already,” Tegan jokes.
But Amber looks away, a flash of anxiety crossing her face.
Amber
As the others continue to chat about themselves, Amber moves to the kitchen window to conceal the heat in her face. She gnaws her thumbnail. Despite putting on what she thought was a full-on performance, one of her new flatmates has found her out, seen through her. Why did posh-girl Tegan embarrass her, even after she bought one of her stupid jackets?
What about the others? Phoenix is a bit of an unknown – could go either way. Hopefully she won’t throw her lot in with Tegan. Two mean girls. It’d be a long year and she might not be able to keep up the pretence. Imo seems nice. Reminds Amber of Verity, kind but dopey. In Vee’s case, it was the weed, in Imo’s it looks natural. She’s not that dumb, though. Amber nearly lost it when she talked about the play, but thinks she hid it well.
Amber thinks about the other girl she met when they were queuing for keys at reception – Lauren – and wishes she was sharing with her. That could be a real friendship. Amber swallows, blinks away a dangerous thought and concentrates on safer ground. They’re both doing Theatre Studies – even though Lauren is joint honours with another subject – and, like Amber, she has a unique sense of style. She hopes they’ll be put in the same drama workshop group.
Behind her, Tegan’s voice is strident as she recounts her five-year business plan. What to do about her? Try harder to fit in? After everything that happened at home – the way Mum and Jade ended up despising her – Amber must become a different version of herself. A better one. Still a liar, but lies are her only currency. They’ll just be better lies.
Her belly clamps as her thoughts stray again. She grips the side of the sink and feels the heat drain from her face. Whenever she thinks of that time too much, her belly relives it. People might call it her mind playing tricks, but if they’d done what she had, they’d feel it too. Guilt and punishment, all in her gut.
Using her hand as a scoop, she takes a drink from the cold tap. When the ache subsides, she gazes out of the window, giving herself time to look calm before turning to her flatmates. By craning her neck she can see the end of the main campus road and watches a few vehicles cruise by. A black car turns into their avenue and crawls past, the driver peering up at the hall of residence. Something about him makes her pause. He must turn around out of eyeshot, because he reappears and parks on the opposite kerb.
At this distance, it’s hard to make out his features, but she sees him lift binoculars to his eyes and focus on her window. Amber bends over the sink, her heart thumping. By the time she looks up again, his car is moving off. She shudders. A pervert? Stalker, after an eyeful of teenage flesh? But if she alerts the others, they might think she’s imagined it. Not as bad as Mum and Jade not believing her, but not the start she wants. Without saying anything, she watches the car drive away.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_909f8a29-b2c1-5eaf-80a5-484ed55af5ed)
Phoenix
Phoenix rinses the mugs the others have left in the sink, sensing it’s a sign of things to come. If they’d have lived like she did, they’d wash up as they go. But she can’t imagine posh-girl Tegan clearing up after herself. And Amber? She belted out of the kitchen like she’d seen a ghost. Maybe she can work on Imo. Get her on cleaning duty by Reading Week.
Back in her room she finishes her unpacking, only her posters still to do. The magnolia-painted breeze block walls are speckled with Blu Tack from previous occupants. Pinching together a decent clump, she affixes her favourite poster, smoothing the edges. The intensity of the orange and black image almost heats her fingertips. Magnificent. A long time ago.
She forgot to ask what time the flat party gets going, but it becomes apparent when the floor begins to pulsate. Ivor, below in Flat 7, must be letting rip with his speakers because his mummy isn’t there to tell him to turn it down. Pathetic. She changes her T-shirt and combs her hair.
There’s a knock on her door. It’s Amber, apparently over whatever spooked her in the kitchen. She’s gone for full greasepaint. Industrial quantities of eyeliner, attempting an edgy Amy Winehouse. She’s clutching Malibu purchased from the Costcutter near the student union.
“Is there time for me to get something?” Phoenix asks as they go into the hallway.
“No need.” Tegan comes out of her room, empty-handed. “There’ll be plenty of booze.”
After calling on Imo, they follow the throbbing bass downstairs to the open front door of Flat 7 and squeeze into the crowded hallway. The layout is the same as their flat, so they head to the kitchen. The music is a couple of decibels lower here, and they can hear each other if they shout. Bottles of various alcoholic potions occupy the work surfaces. Amber finds a stack of paper cups and sloshes out four measures of Malibu. After adding a dash of cola, she and Imo knock theirs back. Never a fan of rum, Phoenix pretends to sip hers.
Tegan leaves hers untouched. “Business first.” She heads into the hall.
From the kitchen doorway, Phoenix watches a sandy-haired boy lunge in for a hug. Tegan endures it stiffly and pats his back. It must be Ivor and she’s keeping him sweet. Phoenix’s assessment seems to be confirmed when he nods and lets her move through the guests in the hallway, parting them from their student loans in exchange for her folding jackets. Against the din, she perfects her sales pitch in mime. Still wearing the same clothes as earlier – palazzo pants and white top – she’s the best-dressed student here, even with the additional accessory of a money pouch strapped round her hips.
A few lads drift past Phoenix into the kitchen. She follows and swaps her drink for a can of beer. Amber and Imo still hover over the Malibu. The boys swarm round Imogen like flies on an elephant turd. Hers is tart with a tan look: leopard print mini-skirt, long-sleeved, lacy crop top. Acne hidden under layers of foundation.
Amber moves in, eyeing the boys. She’s more covered up than Imo but not in a good way. Baggy black linen pants, white cotton top, working men’s boots. If Phoenix screws up her eyes it’s rich-girl Tegan’s wardrobe. Screws them up tight.
“Genuine Romany.” Amber knocks back her drink and holds out the seam of her trousers. “Belonged to my grandmother. I’m from an old gypsy family.”
Phoenix chokes on her beer. If Amber’s a Romany, then Tegan’s jackets are handmade in Chelsea.
A box of pizza makes its way between hands. Amber takes a slice, turns it over and sucks it. “I like the sauce, but I’m gluten free.” She passes the rest of the box to Imo and sways in time to a new tune that drills pneumatically out of the speakers in the hall.
A boy that Phoenix recognizes from the Engineering open day takes a couple of four-packs of Strongbow Dark Fruit out of the fridge. He smiles when he sees her. “Come and sit with us. We’ve found somewhere quiet,” he shouts.
She follows him down the hall to the furthest-away bedroom. Two boys and a girl sit on the bed. They hand her a cider and she shuts the door. The walls vibrate but at least they can talk. She and the boy from the open day sit on the floor. The other boys are doing Engineering too and the girl is a chemist.
When the cider runs out, Phoenix says she’ll get more and goes back to the kitchen. The music’s still full blast, banging its rhythm into her throat. There’s no sign of Tegan – probably moved on to another flat party to flog her jackets – but Imo and Amber are there. Imo’s at the sink, no boys buzzing near her now. Phoenix smells the sick as she approaches. Imo’s holding back her hair in one hand and leaning against the basin with the other. There’s a ketchup-coloured streak on her sleeve.
Amber is dancing on the tiny floor with a couple of other girls and Ivor. The host grips his drink while swaying and twisting not quite on the beat. A tall man stands against the fridge, hood up, his eyes glinting under the fluorescent lights. He’s older than the others and a gap has formed between him and the dancers. A postgrad loser, Phoenix thinks. When Ivor overbalances towards him, the man barges past.
“Sorry, mate,” Ivor slurs, and gawps at his beer puddling on the floor.
But the man has gone.
Chapter 5 (#ulink_2c80c947-ef87-5a44-a57c-2d70c1cd4882)
Monday 26 September
Imogen
An explosion in her sleep illuminates one of her what-if nightmares: mouldy walls, a shrivelled body hunched over bent knees, cold floor. Imo thrashes against her sheets, curls foetal, trying not to hear the tortured whimpers in her dream. Fighting for breath. Pressure on her chest, crushing, crushing …
She sits upright in bed, skin clammy, pillow damp. Blood pounding in her trembling limbs. It takes several moments to register she’s awake. Unsteady on her feet, she reaches the bathroom and vomits into the toilet.
She returns to bed, still feeling dreadful, only vaguely aware that someone is walking beside her, holding her arm. Their grip firm.
***
Light burns through her eyelids and her head throbs. The pain gets worse when she flicks open her eyes. Sun streams in through the gap in the curtain where it’s hanging off the rail. Her mother tried to fix it and told Imo to report the fault. She won’t, though; the idea of maintenance people coming into her room ties her in knots.
When she turns over, she sees her arm, still in the lacy top she wore the previous evening. There’s a white, bobbly mark smeared on the sleeve. A flash of recollection: Amber dabbing it with wet loo paper. Imo sniffs the tissue residue and retches. It still stinks of puke.
She recalls handing her room key to Phoenix when she couldn’t get it in the lock. Phoenix led her in and laid her on the bed. A plastic bowl appeared from somewhere.
Imo checks the floor. The bowl’s still there, mercifully empty. But the motion of leaning over makes her guts squirm and she coughs bile into it. A long slither of creamy saliva hangs from her mouth and she rubs her face on the pillow.
Never again.
But it was a good night. Normal. The Imo from before. She pads her hand over her bedside locker and finds her phone. Yep, five friend requests, all from boys. As she deletes them, there’s a flutter of panic in her chest. What if she bumps into them on campus? It’s not like Tinder where she can flirt and forget – thirty-two Super Likes and no intention of meeting any of them. These requests are from boys nearby. They mustn’t find out her Facebook profile is empty. She unfriended everyone except her sister, Sophia.
Still she did all right last night, didn’t she? Talked, cracked jokes, faked the odd laugh? Another wave of nausea rolls through her gullet and she spits more bile into the bowl. A flashback: she puked in the night. After a nightmare. She can’t remember the dream now but it was probably the recurring one about the cellar. The slime-covered walls, the shape on the floor with its bone-thin limbs. She shivers despite the sweaty cocoon of her duvet.
Amber must have cleaned the bowl. No, Phoenix took her to the loo. That’s right, isn’t it? Both have short blonde hair, but Amber’s has a temporary look that doesn’t quite work with her skin tone, and Phoenix stands a good few inches taller. Yes, Phoenix sorted out her puking. Then sometime later Amber told Phoenix she’d take over.
Amber: “Imo and I are good friends.”
Phoenix: “You’ve just met.”
Amber: “In this life, maybe.”
Imo can’t remember Phoenix’s reply. After she’d gone, Amber kept talking.
“I never sleep well … It’s not just Dad; I can’t see Leo.” Sitting on the end of Imo’s bed. “What if …?” Pacing the room. “I should be there …” Tugging the curtain that won’t shut. “Why can’t I put things right …?”
Imo sits up. Everything rocks. She’s never had a head fug like this before. So bad her memories of Amber’s words must be hallucinations. Her own disturbing dreams have got bound up with the drunken ramblings of her new flatmate. It must be the booze. If she stays sober, it won’t happen again. A price worth paying. University is supposed to be a new start, without the nightmares.
She peels off her top and supposes it will have to go in the bin as she doesn’t know how to work the washing machines. A mild panic hits her: when did she take her skirt off? Hopes to hell she wasn’t so drunk she did a striptease.
The phone pings with another text from her mum. How many is that? Since February, she’s averaged ten a day, but now that Imo’s away from home, her mother has upped her anxious bombardment. She doesn’t read it. If she thinks of home, she’ll buckle.
Mercifully, the skirt is a dead leopard on the floor in front of the loo. Her throat craves water. Head swimming, she turns on the taps, but the cold water runs tepid. She can’t drink it like that.
She sends a new text: Loving it here. I’ll call later.In some ways it would be easier if Mum phoned her, but, by some unmentioned pact, they agreed months ago that Mum would only ring if there was a sighting. Or worse.
Phoenix
Phoenix is in the kitchen, making a coffee.
“Want one?” she asks when Imo creeps in looking like death in a dressing gown.
Imo shakes her head, takes a mug off the draining board and fills it with tap water. When she leans against the sink, Phoenix is pretty sure it’s the only thing keeping her upright. Not surprising after the skinful she sank and brought up again. Does Imo remember her bad dream? Phoenix hopes not. She remembers listening to Imo’s moans. How Imo thrashed under the covers, twisting and yelling. She’d wanted to stay with her, but Amber insisted on doing her shift. Hopefully Imo’s also forgotten Amber’s creepy words of comfort. Phoenix shivers as she remembers the desperate look in Amber’s eyes. God knows what else she said after Phoenix left.
She moves a hot-water bottle off an easy chair in the dining area and suggests Imo sits down. The vinyl upholstery makes a fut sound when Imo lands.
“What’s that?” She points to the drink on the coffee table, flinching at the smell.
“Hangover remedy,” Phoenix explains. “Amber left it there for me. Tastes like candle wax.” She’s never tasted candle wax, but she knows it would be like this.
“Where is Amber?” Imo yawns.
“Must have gone back to bed, said her leg was hurting.”
When Phoenix got up, she’d been surprised to find Amber stretched across a chair and the coffee table, hugging a hot-water bottle. When she saw Phoenix, she pressed it against her knee. Phoenix offered to make an ice pack for her leg, but Amber declined.
Imo leans over to the table and sniffs the waxy drink. “Have you even got a hangover? I didn’t see you drinking.”
“Cider. My mouth’s like a Portaloo.”
Imo holds her head. “I’m going to lie down.”
“Haven’t you got a library induction session?” Phoenix asks. She passed Tegan on her way out, looking fine in designer jeans and another broderie anglaise top. “Tegan mentioned a library talk for Business students.”
“I’m totally dead.” Imo puts down her cup and lurches out of the kitchen.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_283138c9-d165-5db5-8626-df684e45ebea)
Tegan
Tegan’s app directs her from her parking space in front of the geography tower to the university library. It looks like a giant greenhouse, several storeys of tinted glass. She makes small talk with other Business students who are waiting for the doors to open. It’s an investment; no time to pitch to them now, but her saleswoman’s instinct tells her to schmooze.
Amber, one of her three blonde flatmates, walks past with a group of weird-looking students – duffle coats, combats, tie-dyed scarves that look as if they’ve been in an autopsy. Tegan waves. It might pay to be neighbourly. But Amber looks away, ignoring her. Bloody cheek. Tegan catches the tail end of a story she’s telling the gaggle around her.
“… Cumberbatch is great to work with.”
Tegan looks at the ground and shakes her head.
After a few minutes, a man in an un-ironed shirt, with a beard to match, appears inside the library entrance and releases the glass doors. He holds up his hands. “If you’re expecting an induction, it’s in Lecture Room 2.”
“Are you sure, mate – library induction?” one of the boys asks.
But the man goes back indoors. No one knows where the lecture room is and they drift off in different directions. Tegan and a few others search but find only Lecture Room 1 in the Business Studies block, with no sign of another lecture theatre.
“Stuff it,” Tegan mutters and returns to her car. She’s not that bothered anyway about using the library. When her business takes off, she’ll pay someone to do her research. She opens the roof of the car and gazes up at the geography tower. All the parking spaces are designated disabled but hers is the only car here. Where to now? The first Business Studies lecture isn’t until tomorrow. There’s time for a drive around the town centre to see if any of the independent shops will stock her jackets.
Her fists clench as a thought makes her shiver. She’ll show him. People make it big in business all the time through hard graft and a good idea. She’ll be a success without her father’s tainted help.
Something glints at a third-floor window. The glare from the sun is too bright for her to see what it is. Maybe someone’s looking out, and so what if they are? They’re hardly going to slap her with a parking fine from up there.
Light glimmers again. It’s bloody binoculars. Some doddery old perv of a geography professor is spying on the campus, gawping at fresher totty from his ivory tower. Her fingers form a V. She points them at the window, making clear she’s eyeballed him. The figure steps out of sight but is too fleet of foot for an ancient academic. Tegan grows cold and notices that her hands are shaking on the steering wheel.
Suddenly her passenger door opens and Amber gets in, disturbing the air with cheap, fruity scent. “Take me to the flat.”
“Try asking nicely before you scare the crap out of me.” Tegan’s heart races, thoughts of the watcher still rattling.
Tears streak Amber’s face and clumps of mascara look set to dive off her lashes. “Social anxiety,” she gasps. “Sometimes crowds get too much for me and my leg’s hurting.” She pants, rhythmically, as if she’s going to hyperventilate.
“That must make it hard during a show.” Tegan’s heartbeat has calmed, and settled on sarcasm.
The panting stops and Amber stares at her. “Show?”
“On stage, with you being a drama student. Acting all the time.” Acting right now, if Tegan’s any judge.
Amber breathes out. “I’m more of a director, behind the scenes. I have to keep my anxieties under control.”
Tegan starts the engine. Cumberbatch my eye.
As she pulls away she glances up at the tower once more. And catches a glimpse of a tall shadow at the window. A face stares down at her. And her hands shake again.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_71a138b1-23b3-5c55-b08b-bc68c6444f09)
Amber
The fragrance in the car is subtle but expensive. Half like its wearer – Tegan’s definitely on the pricey side but there’s nothing subtle about her silent disapproval. The more Amber sees of her, the more she resembles her sister, Jade. Not only her dark hair and freckles, but also her stance. Straight back, manicured nails on the steering wheel, hard eyes.
No doubt the last thing Tegan wants is Amber occupying her passenger seat, but Amber had no choice. Couldn’t walk another step after the shock she’s just had. It was only the trick of the light, but she had turned and fled, barged people out of her way, panic rising in her throat, stomach crippling in pain.
Why doesn’t she just tell Tegan a version of the truth instead of faking the stuff with her knee? She told Imo when they were drunk – sort of told her – so why not Tegan? Or Phoenix? She seems okay so far, better than expected. Not a deep thinker, into engineering and … Amber leans on the window as she scrolls her memory. What else does Phoenix do? Something sporty if her physique is anything to go by.
Amber bites the inside of her cheek. Maybe she should ask her flatmates questions and listen to the answers, instead of masking her secrets with babble. Instead of play-acting the part of an intellectual liberal so others will feel too intimidated to enquire about her background. A stupid role to pick as she only scraped into this university with a plea of extenuating circumstances. All lies. There were reasons for her poor A level results, but not the ones she gave.
Taking a deep breath, she continues with the disguise she’s been perfecting since she arrived. “Shall we go to the canteen?” she asks enthusiastically. “We can have a proper chat.”
“What, now?” Tegan glances at the clock on her dashboard.
“Early lunch. Please, I’d like to.”
Silence and Amber thinks she sounded too pleading. That’s always been her downfall. Begging gets you nowhere. On her knees, clinging, sobbing, screeching …
“If you’re paying,” Tegan says. She pulls into the kerb and reverses up a side road. They turn around and park in the loading bay behind the kitchens.
“Shouldn’t you …?” Amber starts, but changes her mind. She hates it when people run her life; she won’t tell Tegan where to park.
The canteen queue moves slowly. Students everywhere. Remembering who she thought she saw, her belly tugs, as if she’s being pummelled from the inside, and she keeps glancing over her shoulder. Suddenly she’s back there, in the moment. In the hours. Hurting. As a substitute for doubling over, she rubs her knee. Channels her ache into her leg. No one must see the truth. She straightens up, ignoring the funny look Tegan gives her.
As they wait, most people gaze at the TV monitors around the walls with Lady Gaga videos on repeat. Tegan uses the time to check her sales figures on her phone.
“It’s like Hogwarts.” Amber scans the busy dining hall. Tables the length of railway lines. “Where are we going to sit?”
“With Slytherin,” Tegan sneers.
After they’ve loaded their plates and poured a couple of coffees, Tegan leads the way to the clean end of a table beyond a group of older students gathered round a tablet. Postgrads probably.
Amber makes another attempt at conversation. “Are you going to the Freshers’ Fair? I’d like to join the drama club, if they have one, and maybe take up a new hobby of some kind. University is a chance for new beginnings.”
Tegan rolls her eyes. “Next you’ll be saying we’re on a journey.”
“Sorry.” Amber blushes into her salad and chips.
Tegan sighs. “I suppose I could look for a business enterprise group.”
Amber can’t think how to reply and feels uncomfortable again. Nothing in common with this girl. She shivers. Nothing in common with anyone. Her gullet heaves at the memory of what she did.
She puts down her fork and tells another lie. “I can’t eat this. I’m allergic to tomatoes. It’s the alpha solanine.”
Tegan rolls her eyes again. “Is alpha whatsit not present in upside-down pizza then?” She waits for Amber to look at her. “Remember the party in Flat 7? You tucked in good and proper.”
Amber hunches her shoulders and returns to picking tomato slices out of her salad. Found out again.
“By the way,” she says eventually, in another try at faking it. “I forgot to mention they’ve moved into the last room in our flat.”
“They?” Tegan asks. “Is it a couple?”
Amber shakes her head, puts on her persona. “One individual. I designate all humans as they; gender is a social construct.”
“Okay,” Tegan says slowly. “For those of us who are less enlightened, can you give me a clue which bits of they’s anatomy dangle?”
Amber struggles to keep a straight face. “The less enlightened would call them male.”
“A guy?” Tegan says, laughing.
“I think he, they, is from Thailand,” Amber says between chuckles.
Tegan’s laughter freezes. “Thailand?” Her knuckles whiten as she grips the edge of the table.
“They don’t speak English so I couldn’t find out their name. Don’t suppose you speak any Thai?”
“No.”
The force of the word silences Amber. The good-humoured conversation has evaporated as inexplicably as it materialized. She burns her mouth as she hurries to finish her drink.
“Thanks for the lift.” She stands up and heads out of the hall. Trying to befriend Tegan was a mistake. Imo is a better friend – and Lauren, the girl she bumped into on arrivals day. That’s a friendship Amber hopes to cultivate.
Chapter 8 (#ulink_033204db-763b-573c-8e66-ab310d4d37c4)
Tuesday 27 September
Imogen
Moonlight finds the gap in Imo’s curtain, but the room passes for dark. No thudding bass invading through the floor from another flat, no doors slamming, no traffic outside. But it’s the quiet of dread not peace. When she lies awake at home, every car she hears is the police with news, or Sophia coming home without her keys. In this silent space, her brain won’t switch off, spooling through the what-if scenarios of what might have happened and the white-hot anger of why it happened to them.
Still feeling rough from the Sunday night’s drinking, her throat’s killing her. The soreness in her mouth will be a cough by morning. Getting sick can be added to her other failure: so hungover she turned up late to the library and couldn’t find the induction talk. She walked past rolling stacks of journals, bays of textbooks, miles of computer screens. No one to ask. Sweat beading on her brow, she forced herself to take the lift to the upper library floors. Tried not to think about the broken body, how it must have fallen through the air, how it must have landed. No sign of a talk when she peered in, although she didn’t complete a full sweep; too scared of seeing the drop out of a window.
Pulling the duvet up, she turns over. Tomorrow will be no better. The Business Studies introduction clashes with the German welcome talk. Two lectures will be missed in as many days. She’s unravelling, not good enough for uni, can’t manage like the others. Maybe it’s too soon. But would another year make her stop seeing kidnappers behind every parked car? Stalkers under the trees outside her window? Will the familiar face she seeks have become so much less familiar that she’ll no longer search? And will that what-if nightmare of the dark and the cellar have faded?
She looks at the red-canister alarm on her bedside table and imagines the disappointment vying with relief on her mother’s face when she drops out. On the days when her mother still functions, she works as a nurse. The first thing she does when she gets home, after she’s checked for messages from Inspector Hare, is read the obituaries in the evening paper, to see which former patients have died. “That didn’t take long,” she says. She’ll say the same when Imo quits.
An idea about the timetable clash tomorrow comes to her, something her mum – the old version of Mum – might suggest. She fires off a text to Tegan, asking her to collect the handouts from the Business Studies talk. Lies back on her pillow, feeling lighter in her chest. Things will work out. Her first problem solved on her own. She’s a student now, not a school kid.
Ten minutes later she’s still awake. Her throat hurts and coughing threatens no matter how she turns her body.
There’s a knock at the door. She freezes. Tegan come to tell her off for texting her at this hour?
“Imo, it’s me.” Amber’s voice. “I need painkillers.”
Imo unlocks the door and Amber stumbles in, doubled over. She falls on Imo’s bed and clutches the pillow to her stomach. Her short, bleached hair has crinkled, no doubt suffering the dual effects of bed head and natural wave. She wears fluffy grey slippers and a tartan dressing gown. Without the make-up and weird quilt coat she wore yesterday, she looks younger, vulnerable. Imo lets out a gasp; she reminds her of Sophia.
“What is it?” Amber asks.
“I might have a paracetamol in my purse.” Imo recovers and reaches for her bag, feeling light-headed at the comparison she’s made.
“I’m allergic to those. There’s an all-night petrol garage outside campus.” Amber sits up, wrapping the edges of the Groovy Chick duvet over her legs. “They’ll sell ibuprofen. Our taxi will be here in three minutes.”
Imo suppresses a sigh, no desire to go out in the night and irked that Amber has given her no choice. But Amber’s anguished face makes her feel guilty, especially as Amber stayed with her when she was throwing up the night before.
“Let’s wait here for the driver’s text.” Amber curls up. “I can’t stand for long.”
After the taxi arrives, it takes them an age to get outside. Amber stops several times on the stairs to hug her belly. Imo pictures the meter ticking.
The driver, a young guy with thick, black curls, pulls a face when she tells him their destination, no doubt disappointed at the meagre fare. They travel in silence, Imo shivering in her jacket and jeans. She should have put on a sweatshirt. The faint smell of alcohol in the back of the taxi makes her nauseous and she looks out of the window to settle her stomach. The campus is deserted. A few lights on in the other halls, but no one out walking – or staggering – and no other cars. Eerily quiet. Imo imagines someone watching them drive past, someone lurking outside the flats waiting for their chance. She thinks of Sophia running for her life through dark streets.
Even out on the main road, they are alone. When they reach the floodlit forecourt of the filling station she notices Amber’s grey face, screwed up in a wince of pain. She tells her to wait in the taxi while she gets the tablets.
“Three packets, please,” Amber says softly. “I’ll pay you back.”
But when Imo gets to the counter, the woman won’t sell her three boxes of ibuprofen. “Maximum of two per customer. It’s the law.”
Back in the taxi, Amber takes the tablets and swallows four down without water. “People should be allowed to buy as much medication as they need, for whatever reason. If I want to commit suicide, it’s my business.”
Imo stares at her and feels colour draw from her cheeks.
Amber doesn’t seem to notice. She folds her arms, a cold gleam in her eyes, not doubled over any more. “I won’t, though. Not today. Suicides are determined people. You would be surprised. When it comes to it, most of us find we don’t have the guts.”
Imo’s chest palpitates against the seatbelt.
But Amber’s mood switches and the cloud passes. She seems restored within seconds of taking the medication. Leans forward to ask the driver his name. “Do you give a discount for frequent travellers? We’re interested in finding a reliable firm.”
The driver warms to the theme. “You call me, Hamid Cars. I’ll look after you. Better than Uber, better than College, or A Cabs.” He rubs his hand through his thick hair. “The thing with College Cars is they’re a rip-off. Five pounds for this, five pounds for that.”
He pulls up at their hall of residence. “That’s eight pounds fifty, please,” he says.
Still shaking from what Amber said, Imo struggles to get the money out of her purse. Amber goes back to her room, promising to refund her for the tablets. She doesn’t mention the taxi fare.
Back in bed, Imo doesn’t sleep. Suicide has always been one of the what-if explanations her family considered. For the rest of the night, it’s firmly lodged as a certainty.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_dfa640d3-1e99-57e1-b6a6-33630044cfe0)
Imogen
The academic block is modern, built in red brick in the last twenty years. Most of the buildings are at least five storeys high. Imo gives silent thanks that she knows the languages department lecture theatre is on the ground floor.
Dozens of students saunter towards the buildings, chatting noisily in small groups, not an anxious face among them. In the distance she thinks she sees Amber, arms linked with a girl who looks like a Goth. Imo’s thoughts rush at the sight of her loose black clothing, reminiscent of the graduation gown in the photo that flooded social media. Something positive her family could do in the first few days, but now Imo hates the image.
Sunshine has brushed aside the gloomy start that greeted her when she left the flat. The beech trees beside the path cast big shadows over the beds of marigolds. Autumn now. How soon will the leaves shrivel and spin unanchored through the air, heading downwards? Falling. Bile rises to Imo’s throat at an unwelcome memory of the mortuary, but she forces it down.
Hood up, earphones in, she walks on, pretending to listen to music. Missed one lecture already and missing another now. Tegan hasn’t replied to her text, so probably won’t take notes in Business Studies.
A few girls dot around the middle of the lecture theatre and a line of lads sprawls at the back. There’s a brief pause in their conversation as Imo enters. She goes to the far end of the front row next to the wall. If the lecturer stands where the computer is, she’ll be out of his eyeshot. As she switches off her phone, a text from Tegan flashes up: Yeah no probs. Imo smiles to herself; Business lecture notes sorted.
The trace of the smile lingers when the Goth girl she thought she saw with Amber sits on the other end of her row. The girl doesn’t smile back. Imo puts in her silent earphones again. To think she’s wasted her best face on a crow.
Confident, laughing voices fill up the seats behind her. The crow shuffles towards Imo to let more girls into their row. Imo’s relieved when she takes a place three seats away. But peeved too: why doesn’t she want to sit with her?
Eventually a woman appears at the computer. Slim and wrinkled. Long, lank hair but no hint of grey. Red kilt, orange tights, flat brown ankle boots. She launches into German.Imo loses the thread after: My name is Dr Wyatt.
The lecturer switches to English. “I want you to come up here one at a time and introduce yourselves. Two minutes max and don’t tell us what you got in your A levels. No one cares. Who’s going first?”
One of the lads from the back row strides to the front. His German is fluent. Two minutes, three minutes, four. Imo thinks his grammar is dodgy, but he’s using vocabulary she doesn’t know.
By the end of the lesson, Imo’s decided she loves this boy, David. Because he talked so long and also insists on asking the subsequent speakers questions, there isn’t time for Imo’s row to present.
Dr Wyatt puts a reading list on the screen. “These are the links to the articles you need to study for next time.”
Imo’s copying them down when the crow girl leans across. “They’re on the intranet. You don’t need to do that.” Imo puts down her pen, feeling stupid.
“Right,” Dr Wyatt says. “You’re free to get to all those freshers’ parties that my lecture has inconvenienced. Can I have the register back?”
The students look at each other. Some edge up the central aisle towards the door.
“No one leaves until I get the register.”
They look back at the rows, searching, until crow girl points at Imo. The register is lying next to her pencil case. Only six names on it. It was passed to her and she didn’t notice. Red-faced, hand trembling, she signs her name and gives it to the row behind. Crow girl gives a sympathetic smile but can’t hide the sneer in her eyes.
Chapter 10 (#ulink_df37a888-1aa4-5577-9b38-3d04f58f36a2)
Phoenix
He’s wearing lilac. The trousers are denim and the tunic is heavy-duty cotton. Not as tall as her, but solid, box-shaped. Bull-necked. He fills the doorway and doesn’t invite her in.
“I thought I’d better come and say hello as we’re flatmates.” Phoenix wishes she’d asked Amber to do the introductions. “I’m Phoenix.” It comes out as an apology. “What’s your name?” She tries putting a won’t-take-no-for-an-answer tone into her question.
It sort of works. He mutters something, growls it really. Riku?
She smiles and tries out the basic Thai she picked up when her family did a season in Bangkok years ago, but he tilts his head to the side in apparent bafflement. She tries hello in Mandarin and Japanese. Nothing. He must be from somewhere she’s never heard of. Depressing, as she thought she knew the world pretty well. From the doorway she sees a small rucksack and a sketchpad. Something familiar hanging on the wall gives her hope for common ground, and she nearly breaks her cover story, but his unsmiling face stops her in time.
“Well, nice to meet you, Riku,” she says backing away. She intended to invite him to the Freshers’ Fair. But even with her best linguistic gymnastics, she doubts she’d make him understand and he’d probably decline anyway.
On the way to her room, she scoops up the post from the doormat. Pizza delivery leaflets, taxi fliers and electoral registration letters for previous occupants. She cleared one heap of junk mail yesterday. No one else bothered and the pile was already spreading along the hallway. Another domestic duty that’s going to fall to her.
In need of a friendly face, she knocks on Imo’s door. Hears movement inside but has to knock again before Imo appears, red-eyed.
“I can’t get onto the intranet and I’ve got a German assignment to do by tomorrow. Why is it always me?” Imo blinks hard, suppressing tears.
“They can’t have set you work in Freshers’ Week. It’s bound to be optional.”
“There’s nothing optional about Dr Wyatt.” She goes back to the bed and picks up her laptop. “I’m going to get kicked off the course in the first week.”
“Do you want me to try?” Phoenix takes the laptop, but no matter which icon she presses, a no server message appears on the screen. “I don’t think it’s your fault. The uni’s system is down.”
“Great,” Imo says, swallowing a sob. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks and chin are a plague of acne.
“Have you eaten?” Phoenix offers her mother’s preferred salve to tearful children. “Come with us to the Freshers’ Fair. You can get free snacks there. The intranet might be up by the time you get back.”
Imo makes a big sigh and wipes her eyes on her sweatshirt cuff. “I’ll come along, but I’m not joining anything.”
They get a shock when they call on Amber. Turquoise kimono and red bobbed wig. Her make-up is a tone lighter than usual and her lipstick matches her hair. Perhaps she’s hoping for a Geisha Girl Society.
Imo whips out her phone. “Let me take a photo.”
“The car’s in the main car park,” Tegan says, coming out of her room and checking her handbag for her keys. She sees Amber’s wig. “You look like an Edam cheese.”
Amber scowls and suggests they walk as the fair is in the other direction and it’s a beautiful afternoon.
“Is your ankle better?” Phoenix asks.
“Fine thanks.” She flexes her foot.
Phoenix smiles. Wasn’t it supposed to be her knee that was hurting?
The walk turns out to be a good idea. Crowds of freshers head the same way. The mood suits the sunny weather.
“Where are you from, Tegan?” Amber asks. She looks at her flatmate while they walk, as if she’s making a supreme effort to listen to the answer. The uncharitable part of Phoenix can’t help thinking it’s an act.
“Cardiff.”
Phoenix has been to Cardiff but doesn’t say. She was christened at Mermaid Quay in the tent by a local vicar. The baptism is supposed to bring the whole family health and happiness. She stiffens as she walks. Tell that to Cloud.
“Where’s your home town?” Amber asks, turning her intense expression on Phoenix.
She shrugs. “Born in Shrewsbury.” The planned two-week stopover stretched to six when Cloud went into labour early en route from Carlisle to Gloucester. “My parents work all over.”
“Cloud’s Coffee. I remember your parents’ amazing van,” Imo says. She looks at Tegan. “What do your parents do?”
“My mother shops.”
Amber and Imo laugh, but Phoenix isn’t sure Tegan meant it as a joke. Her face doesn’t move.
“And your dad?” Imo asks.
“We’re here.” Tegan ignores the question and jogs up the steps to take the Great Hall door from a boy who’s holding it open.
Last time Phoenix was here, it was kitted out with display boards and smiling lecturers on an open day, eager to hook potential students. They mostly spoke to her parents. Today there’s no one over thirty years old in the room and it’s laid out with brightly decorated stalls and tables. Freshers throng inside the entrance, not knowing where to start.
Taking charge of their group, Amber leads them to the row of stalls on the far left. “It looks like these are political societies,” she says. “We can walk down and back up the other side. No loitering by the Tories.” She glances at Tegan, who narrows her eyes.
Amber strikes up a conversation with a punk girl from a campaigning charity. They look set to put the world to rights for several minutes so the others move on. Imo seems to be hunching her shoulders, looking around surreptitiously.
Amber meets them at the Conservation Volunteers stand and sees Tegan browsing the literature. “You’re not going to join, are you? I can’t imagine you in wellies.”
“Why not,” Tegan says. “Someone’s got to protect nature from land-grabbing scumbags. And I like the idea of hacking down deadwood and pulling up unwanted growth.”
The other girls exchange a glance, wondering what deadwood Tegan has in mind.
As they pass the languages aisle, Phoenix stops to say: “Hello, how are you?” in Bulgarian to a pretty woman in national costume. It’s the limit to what she learnt after their season in Plovdiv, but it earns her a biscuit that tastes like a pretzel. She follows the others to the performing arts area. Imo declares that she’ll have enough on with her coursework and doesn’t sign up for any groups. Phoenix and Tegan leave their names with the Bhangra society and help themselves to onion bhajis.
They can’t drag Amber away from the Drama Society stall even though other people are waiting to speak to the stallholder.
Something prickles along Phoenix’s spine, the sensation that someone’s watching her. She scans the room. A tall figure in a black hoodie stands with a group of students, waiting to sign up for the Film Society. His brooding body language is oddly familiar. It’s the man from Ivor’s kitchen in Flat 7. He’s probably harmless – a mature student, uncomfortable among the kids – but she feels sweat begin to seep through her T-shirt. He glances over at them again and she realizes it must be Imo that’s caught his attention. He’s a man after all.
Imo and Tegan wander on and she catches them up. When she looks back over her shoulder, she can’t see the man. She breathes with relief.
When she inadvertently makes eye contact with the boy on the chess stall, she feels obliged to go over. “I used to play a bit with my uncle,” she tells him. “Quite enjoyed it.”
The boy gives a tight smile. “We have three levels of membership: beginners, recreational and tournament. But to be on the tournament team, you must, must practise.”
“How many hours a week do you play?” Tegan asks, taking his leaflet from Phoenix.
“A minimum of fifteen hours a week.”
“Babe magnet,” Tegan mutters sarcastically as they walk away. When Tegan sees the Society for Deaf Students, she points at Amber who’s finally left the Drama stall. “Get her to practise the sign language she says she learnt in a day.” There’s a smirk on her face as she carries on down the aisle.
But, when Amber reaches Phoenix and Imo, she stops dead. The little colour visible under her pale make-up fades. For a moment her features are frozen and she stares ahead of her, as if she has seen a ghost. Phoenix moves closer, ready to catch her if she faints. Is it a melodrama brought on by being caught out in a lie?
Amber’s shiny eyes dart the length of the stalls and she tugs the fringe of her wig, her chest rising and falling. “I’ll wait outside,” she gasps.
Before Phoenix can reassure her that they don’t really expect her to know British Sign Language, she’s started weaving through the crowds towards the exit.
“Do you think we should go after her?” Imo asks.
Phoenix has had enough of Amber’s crises and wants to see the rest of the fair. “If she chooses to flounce out, that’s up to her.”
“I know but …” Imo tails off.
Tegan comes back to them. “What’s he looking at?” she says through gritted teeth. Phoenix follows her gaze. Across the room by a staircase, Riku, their new flatmate, is staring at the exit.
“He must have the hots for Amber. She went out that way,” Imo suggests.
They watch as Riku, still looking at a group of girls by the main door, goes up the stairs to the balcony.
“Creep,” Tegan mutters. Then she plumps her hair, making it look even thicker. “I’m off to find the sports societies.”
Before Phoenix can follow, she once again realizes someone is watching. Turning around quickly, she sees a girl with striking blue eyes looking at them. She feels herself blush.
“She’s got sweets. Come on,” Imo says, noticing the girl and apparently forgetting her concern for Amber.
When the girl presses wristbands and lollies into their hands, Phoenix’s wristband slips to the floor. She sees the inscription as she bends down to pick it up: Abbey LGBTQ. Her face on fire, she stands up and finds that Imo has moved on.
“I’ve got to … my friend’s over there,” Phoenix tells the girl, not catching her headlamp eyes. She hurries away.
Imo is near the Parents’ Group stall, the last one in the aisle. A dark-haired woman – at early thirties, probably the oldest person in the room bar the creepy man in the hoodie – is talking to a young couple in front of her desk. A little girl with a curly mop of auburn hair sits under it, engrossed in a sticker book.
“We can advise on antenatal classes and, thinking ahead, there’s a crèche for when the little one is six months old,” one woman says.
The man nods and puts an arm across his pregnant partner’s shoulder.
“Do come along to our barbecue on Saturday. Let me get you a leaflet.” As the older woman reaches behind her, the little girl clamps her arms round her legs. The woman scoops her up and presses a leaflet into the pregnant woman’s hands. “You’re about to take the most magical and precious journey of your life.”
Phoenix smirks at Imo. The woman sounds like one of those middle-class earth mothers they interview on Radio 4 when someone’s been banned from breastfeeding in a Jacuzzi.
“Don’t think this stall’s for me,” Imo whispers, turning away. “I have enough trouble looking after myself. I’d never cope with a kid as well.”
The final aisle is given over to sports societies. Two guys, muscling through their T-shirts, home in on Imo’s pert backside. Tegan’s at the far end, sauntering towards them. She flicks her hair, obviously loving her own slice of attention.
After Phoenix has signed up for archery and Tegan’s taken a leaflet for tennis, they work their way to the exit through the crowds of freshers still arriving. Phoenix wonders which ailment Amber will greet them with when they find her outside.
The steps and forecourt in front of the Great Hall are busy with students, but Amber isn’t one of them.
“She could have waited,” Tegan says, setting off for the flat.
“Hang on,” Imo calls. “Let’s check round the back. There might be benches.”
Tegan follows Imo and Phoenix. “Doubt Amber will be on one. Bound to be allergic to wood.”
There’s only a small car park on the far side of the Great Hall. With her phone to her ear, Imo spends ages walking back and forth and peering in car windows. When she seems satisfied Amber hasn’t taken refuge there, she strides back to the forecourt. Phoenix and Tegan rush to keep up.
Shaking her head, Imo puts her phone away. “She’s switched off her mobile.”
“Don’t sound so worried,” Tegan says. “We don’t need sniffer dogs just yet.”
Imo wheels round, eyes narrow. “Don’t joke about something like that,” she snarls.
Tegan backs away.
“They have search dogs for a reason.” Imo’s voice is tight and preachy. “Some families rely on them …”
“Okay, I get it,” Tegan says, still moving backwards. “Lighten up.” Her sandal catches something on the tarmac that makes a metallic jingle.
“What’s that?” Imo asks, squatting by Tegan’s feet, her sudden anger apparently forgotten. “A bangle.” She holds up a silver bracelet. “Amber’s, for sure. I remember her wearing it.”
“Come on, Imogen. How can you tell?” Tegan says.
Imo shrugs and pockets the bangle. “I’ll keep it until we see her.” Her voice tails off and she looks nervously around the crowd. Her hands clench into fists.
Chapter 11 (#ulink_f5875183-7d31-5a42-894e-48e3fcdc5d2e)
Imogen
Why did Amber run off like that? Did something trigger a panic attack? Imo swallows. That was one of the what-if scenarios Inspector Hare suggested for Sophia: panic leading to amnesia.
Her phone rings. Freddie. She snatches it off her bedside locker, heart thumping. He never rings. Never. It must be news.
But that’s not why he’s called.
“Don’t forget the audition is on Thursday.”
“I’m not going,” she says as her pulse returns to normal.
“You promised.”
“I’m already behind and it’s only the first week.” She tries to keep her unhappiness out of her voice. “The computers don’t work so I can’t do my German. How can I keep up with everyone else if I’m in a show?”
“Do what you do best.”
A stone settles in her stomach. What is her best? The same as his. Trying to hold everything together. Their parents don’t need more distress.
“Are you still there?” There’s an intake of breath down the phone. Is he thinking the same thing? “I meant flirting and dancing. You’re good at them.” He chuckles. Imo can tell it’s forced; he’s trying to laugh away other thoughts.
“How’s flirting going to help me with German post-war politics?” She plays along with a forced chuckle of her own.
“You’ll find a way.”
After he rings off she scans the notes she made in the lecture. All she copied down was the first link and one article title before the crow girl told her to stop writing. She won’t make that mistake again, she’ll write the bloody lot down. But that won’t help her with tomorrow’s seminar.
Do what you do best. There is something she could try. It’s crazy, but maybe. She opens her Tinder app.
***
Finally climbing into bed at 3 a.m., she hopes she’s done enough to keep Dr Wyatt happy. The responses have been coming in dribs and drabs. She’s spent the evening and half the night learning them. They might be garbage – useless for Wyatt’s seminar – but what choice does she have?
It’s darker in the room tonight despite the broken curtain. But images of the day flood her mind. After the German lecture from hell in the morning, the fair was fun. Until Amber stormed off.
It was nice of Phoenix to call for her but she can’t help feeling she was just being polite. Phoenix and Tegan are both out of her league. There’s something old soul about Phoenix, and Tegan acts more like thirty than twenty. Is that down to having a gap year? Imo thought rich kids got wrapped in cotton wool and knew nothing of the real world. Where does Tegan get her streetwise cynicism?
Amber’s more on her wavelength. She forgot to ask if she’ll be auditioning on Thursday. Maybe if she can get Amber to go, she’ll go too.
It could be her usual fatigue, but for some reason she feels calm. A difficult day is over and she’s made a friend in Amber. Now she welcomes rest.
Sometime later, in her dream, she registers Amber sitting on her bed.
“You will come to get me, won’t you?” Amber whispers.
Imo stumbles through her slumbering mind. Get her for what? She says she will, then the dream fades.
Chapter 12 (#ulink_c14786ce-994c-5eee-bc10-7001f3275de4)
Wednesday 28 September
Imogen
When the alarm doesn’t go off, it’s a miracle Imo manages to wake at all. Half an hour late and touch and go whether she’ll make the German seminar. Her hoodie and jeans are by the bed. Yesterday’s knickers will do, save on the handwashing.
She goes to the bathroom. After she pees, she washes her hands, pushes a flannel under her armpits and makes a monumental effort to brush her teeth. She doesn’t plan on talking to anyone today; it’s almost pointless caring about fresh breath.
Suddenly, remembering her dream about Amber, a prickle of doubt crosses her shoulders and she shivers. But there’s no time to call on her flatmate, even though she hasn’t seen her since the Freshers’ Fair. She tells herself the dream meant nothing. Thinks again about her usual cellar nightmare. A what-if that even Inspector Hare doesn’t like to mention.
After swigging from the cup by her bed, she leaves the flat and heads to the modern languages block. It’s a sunny day – seaside bright and warm, maybe twenty degrees. More people are about than she’d hoped. In pairs and groups, confident, smiling, fitting in. Dr Wyatt’s not the only evil academic who calls lectures in Freshers’ Week. She sinks further into her hoodie and remembers she hasn’t combed her hair. Who cares?
She tries to run but has to stop, coughing harshly. Out of her eye corner, she sees a man standing across the road at the end of the pathway. The memory of the tall man smoking under the tree on arrivals day makes her sprint-walk past a group of boys. Her eyes fix on the ground – dark tarmac, bare earth at the side. A gardener must have dug up the beds overnight. They were full of marigolds yesterday. University policy? Root out those about to fade? How long until they come for her?
The seminar room on the first floor has seating for twenty and she takes a seat round the horseshoe of desks. The chairs soon fill up and the crow girl from yesterday’s lecture is forced to sit next to her. Is that a smile? No, she’s sniffing. She can beggar off if she thinks Imo smells. Should have got here earlier and selected another seat.
Dr Wyatt comes in and launches into her bullet-fast German. Imo surprises herself by getting the gist.
“Let’s have someone we didn’t hear from yesterday.” Dr Wyatt’s eyes settle on Imo.
Her acne glows inside her hoodie and she desperately scrolls on her phone screen, looking for her notes, such as they are.
“Stand up,” Wyatt says in German. “You don’t need your phone.”
From every angle of the room, eyes are on Imo. The lump in her throat is concrete. David gives her a thumbs-up. She takes a breath and launches into German.
***
“That was enlightening, wouldn’t you say?” Dr Wyatt paces inside the horseshoe of desks at the end of the seminar, the flat soles of her boots slapping the floor. “Some of you did the reading I set, most of you didn’t. But, I have to say, one or two of you went the extra mile.” She looks at Imo. “Keep it up.”
Imo is ten feet tall. As good as anyone. She’s got her brother Freddie to thank for his throwaway comment. Do what you do best. Maybe he’s right about the audition too.
“Fancy a coffee?” the crow girl asks as they leave. “There’s a Starbucks downstairs.”
Imo’s cough starts hacking again, but she’s too surprised to decline. She follows the girl’s black cape to the ground-floor café.
They buy refreshments and perch on bar stools in the window. It’s not Imo’s preferred location – people walking past outside can see her – but it’s doable; none of them know her family, know their story. As a kid she hated her common surname, now she’s grateful for being Smith. At least she can remain anonymous despite everything that’s been on TV.
The girl’s name is Lauren. She tears apart her chocolate cookie. “Where did you get that stuff from? When the intranet came on last night, I read all the articles in the links Dr Wyatt gave us. Took me hours on Google Translate, but I don’t remember half of what you said. Are you German?”
The tiny flame that’s flickered inside Imo since the seminar glows brighter. “Do you really want to know?” She leans forward, the compliment having made her talkative. “I messaged all the German guys I’ve matched with on Tinder and asked their opinion. Then I learnt what they said by heart.”
Lauren chokes on her biscuit. “How many guys was that?”
“I changed my Tinder Bio to: ‘I’m looking for a guy who loves post-war German politics’. To be honest, not many knew what I was on about. Viktor and Markus were useful, though. They were strongly opinionated in different ways.” She coughs again. It wrecks her chest.
The drink warms her. She can do normal things after all. Coffee with another student. Like everyone else. Even draw on the flirty Imogen from before to help her out with coursework. Sometimes. It’s not like she’s trying to be that person again.
Lauren puts down her cup. “What have you tried on your skin? I’ve gone through the over-the-counter potions. I wanted to go hard core but I couldn’t while I was …” She pauses and goes red. Imo notices her hand has started to shake. “I mean … when my mum wouldn’t let me. She can’t stop me now I’m here. Have you tried it?”
Imo wonders what Lauren almost let slip. She shakes her head. So it’s got round to her acne. It’s all anyone sees when they look at her. She glances at Lauren’s face. Spots round her nose and chin. No big deal. Imo’s had months of inflamed pustules on her cheeks, a face she hates and getting worse.
Lauren stares at her, waiting for an answer. Imo has no wish to prolong the conversation. What’s the point? She’s not going to be friends with this girl. Too much effort. Amber’s the only person she’s met at Abbeythorpe with whom she feels remotely comfortable. Amber does all the talking and has even more neuroses than she does. She thinks of the bangle lying abandoned on the tarmac, of the look of terror in Amber’s eyes as she left the fair, and wants to check she’s okay. She decides to call in at the canteen in case she’s gone there.
“I said I’d meet a friend for lunch,” she says and finishes her coffee.
Lauren looks at her phone. “A bit late, isn’t it?”
Imo stands up and sends Amber a text.
“Enjoy your research,” Lauren calls out as Imo leaves. She must think she’s looking at Tinder.
***
Amber doesn’t reply to Imo’s text and she’s not in the canteen or her room. When Imo follows the sound of Radio 1 to the kitchen, she finds Phoenix and Tegan tucking into beans on toast.
“Have you seen Amber?”
Phoenix looks up. “She might’ve gone back to the Freshers’ Fair. It’s on all week.” She returns her attention to her plate. “Probably bending that drama rep’s ear.”
“But you haven’t actually seen her?”
Tegan waves her fork. “You know you’re not her mummy.”
Imo wants to ignore the insult but feels her face reddening. “I had this weird dream about her,” she blurts out.
Tegan opens her mouth but Phoenix knocks her wrist to silence her.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” she says kindly.
Tegan puts her finished plate in the sink. “Is it just me or are you finding Amber a bit odd?”
Phoenix joins her at the sink. “She’s all right most of the time, but I can’t keep up with everything that’s wrong with her.”
A Nicki Minaj song comes on the radio and Tegan turns it up high. She sways in time to the beat, watching Phoenix wash up.
Their new flatmate suddenly appears in the doorway and makes them all jump.
“Hi, Riku,” Imo says, when she’s caught her breath. “Have you seen Amber?”
Face dark and thunderous, he heads past her to the radio. A moment later the music volume drops. Tegan’s eyes carve daggers into his head, but he doesn’t notice. Returns to his room, without uttering a word.
“You only had to ask if you wanted it turned down,” she calls out.
Phoenix dries her hands on a tea towel. “Let it go, Tegan. It was a bit loud.”
“Maybe you should have offered him some food,” Imo says. “Make more of an effort to be friendly.”
“I tried offering him coffee,” Phoenix says, “but he didn’t answer the door.”
Imo heads into the hallway. “Maybe that’s what Amber’s doing: not answering. I need to knock louder.”
Phoenix follows and grabs her shoulders, steers her back into the kitchen. “Relax, Imo, I knocked on her door and listened at it for ages. She’s not there. Let me make the three of us a coffee.”
“Not there?” Imo feels a tickle of unease, a familiar feeling of loss. A sense that someone is missing. “But she has to be.”
Chapter 13 (#ulink_12b6c2dd-b25f-597b-b5e2-15b167b4f4fd)
Tegan
Tegan lays out her stock samples on the kitchen table. She knows they won’t survive a night’s clubbing – theft or beer spillage will get them – but she might get some advance sales before that happens. A cough seizes her throat and she covers her mouth. They’ve all got coughs. When Amber reappears, she’s bound to claim she’s dying of consumption.
She watches Phoenix dry the mugs on the draining board and put them in a cupboard. Tegan can’t work her out. The girl has the looks and briskness of a tomboy so where does the regimented domesticity come from? Not boarding school – she lacks the polish of any of Tegan’s school friends; it’s more like she grew up in the army.
They hear a knock somewhere down the hall and find Imo trying Amber’s door again.
“This can’t be right.” Imo’s words sound slurred, and it’s not just because of her cold; she’s already holding a WKD. “Where is she? Why hasn’t she answered my texts?” She knocks again and wobbles on her heels. After another minute, she totters back to her room.
Phoenix says she’ll get a fresh tea towel from hers. Alone in the kitchen, Tegan hears a sound behind her.
“Christ!” She jumps. Riku’s in the doorway. “You shouldn’t creep up on people. What do you want?” she snaps.
He stares, cocking his head.
“Well, say something,” she demands and immediately knows she’s conceded the high ground. If someone threatens by not speaking, you have to give them silent menace back. Shout and you’ve lost. Her dad’s dictum. She tries to recover her position with a face-off, her brown eyes into his.
Eyes still locked on hers, Riku backs out of the kitchen. For a moment Tegan’s insides quake. She curses herself for feeling rattled.
Imo comes back a few minutes later, holding out her mobile. “I’ve called Hamid. He’ll be here in a tick to take us into town.” Her mouth seems to struggle to work as she explains Hamid is the taxi driver Amber got to know when he took them to the all-night garage. “She got us a good rate.”
Tegan can’t believe Imo is doing the same Business course as she is. Hasn’t she heard of market forces? Students are calling taxis every five minutes. Hamid and his mates can charge what they like.
But it turns out Imo has another motive for booking Hamid. On the short journey into town she quizzes him about Amber.
“She’s got shortish hair – dyed blonde, wears unusual clothes.”
“Sounds like most students.”
“You picked us up on Monday night and drove to the petrol station. She had stomach ache.”
There’s a flicker of recognition on his face. “Eight pound fifty? I remember.”
“Have you seen her since?” Sitting forward in the back seat between Tegan and Phoenix, she holds out photos of Amber on her phone, including the one she took before the fair.
“Sorry, love, can’t look. I’m driving.”
“Just a quick glance.”
Tegan’s impressed; with a drink inside her, Imo doesn’t take no for an answer. But the driver says he hasn’t seen Amber since that night – with or without her red wig.
“Are you sure? If she went anywhere by taxi this week, she’d have gone with you because of the discount,” Imo says, leaning on Tegan.
Tegan shrugs her off and studies Hamid’s expression in the rear-view mirror. He looks perplexed by the mention of a discount. As for knowing about Amber, it’s doubtful he can distinguish one pissed student from another.
Imo gives up, shifts onto Phoenix’s shoulder and closes her eyes.
Hamid, realizing the cross-examination is over, slips into driver-patter. “So anything you girls want to know about Abbeythorpe, you ask me. Anything.”
“Okay, thanks,” Phoenix says, adjusting the weight of Imo’s head. “So where’s the best nightlife?”
“Exactly,” Hamid says. “Anything like that you wanna know, just ask me.”
He pulls up on a taxi rank behind a black Mercedes. Tegan’s chest tightens.
“Bloody amateurs,” Hamid says, gesticulating. “Where’s a traffic warden when you need one?”
Through the windscreen of the cab, Tegan makes out a shape in the driver’s seat of the Merc. Skin tingling, she hangs back while Phoenix and Imo get out. Only after they’ve paid Hamid and headed towards the bouncer on the club door, does she scoot after them.
Chapter 14 (#ulink_e6a8d4e5-14e3-5c8e-91eb-9e1271479b2c)
Thursday 29 September
Imogen
She climbs in the shower, headache threatening. As she stands under the rushing water, her dreams flicker through her mind. Get me, won’t you? Amber, again, her face merging with her sister Sophia’s.
A memory from the club itches and she scrubs her body harder, feeling dirty. Buoyed by Jägerbombs, there had been a moment – maybe even ten minutes, as much as three tracks on the dance floor – when she’d forgotten her grief and enjoyed herself. Became the old Imogen – the one that went underage drinking with her mates, the higher her heels, the tighter her skirt. Then she saw him. At first she had thought it was just a trick of the light, her mind imagining things after a few too many drinks. But when she turned back for a second look, she had known for sure. It was him. The tall man standing across the dance floor. Hood up, watching her as he had done Tegan on arrivals day. Imo sensed his eyes rake over her body. He gave her a chilling smile.
Running to the ladies, she bumped her way through the crowd apologizing, spilling drinks. She made it to the loo in time to throw up. When she came out, Phoenix had an orange juice ready for her. Tegan – grim-faced – suggested they call it a night. Imo agreed. What must they have thought of her erratic behaviour?
Her phone rings as she’s towelling dry. She lets it buzz, knowing it’ll be Freddie without checking the screen. After he’s rung off, she texts him: I’m going, okay. The audition is today. She can’t remember changing her mind, but she must have done. Why else has she got up for a shower and left out leggings and a long-sleeved T-shirt? Is she ready to live again?
Among the pizza delivery ads on the doormat lies a note for her from Royal Mail, telling her to collect a parcel from the student union building. How’s she supposed to know where the post room is? It’s probably spare hankies or a pillowcase from her mother.
There’s a package addressed to Riku outside the flat. How come his parcels get delivered and she has to collect hers? She props it outside his door and doesn’t knock. There’s still no reply from Amber’s room and she heads to the audition alone.
***
The auditions are in the theatre on the first floor of the student union. Three tiny backsides greet her when she rounds the corridor. Skinny girls in sports shorts and legwarmers using the bottom two steps of the staircase as a barre. Imo feels fat and unsupple. She has a coughing fit.
A chubby girl with purple hair and wearing the name tag Doris ushers her into a side room. “A word of advice,” she says as she fixes a sticker with a number thirty-one onto Imo’s chest. “Even if you’re not sure of your words, keep singing.”
It’s a small room clearly used as a costume store. Rails of Elizabethan doublets hang alongside sparkly mini-dresses. Three girls, all wearing black Musical Theatre Society T-shirts, stare at her as she picks her way through the busy room looking for a seat.
“Over here,” Lauren calls out and pats an empty plastic chair. She’s wearing her black cape over her dance clothes. Imo joins her but the intimacy of their coffee together has gone and neither can think what to say. They sit in silence while others chat.
Lauren keeps looking anxiously at her watch.
“Could be ages yet,” Imo suggests eventually.
“Hope not. I’ve got to get … go somewhere at twelve thirty.” She goes slightly red and changes the subject. “A lot seem to have been in uni shows before. They must have come back early for the audition. Have you done any musicals?”
Imo shrugs. In a different life. “Once or twice. You?”
Lauren lists a few shows she did at school and says she’s studying Theatre Studies as well as German.
Imo sits up. “My flatmate, Amber, does Theatre Studies. I thought she’d be here. Actually, I think you know her. I saw you with her before our first German lecture on Tuesday.”
Lauren looks away. “Not me,” she says quickly. “I don’t know her.”
Imo frowns, recalling when she walked across campus and spotted Amber linking arms with a girl in a black cape. It must have been Lauren.
“I could have sworn it was you. Are you sure?”
“Yep,” she snaps, then adds: “There was a girl called Amber who didn’t turn up to the Theatre Studies Meet and Greet last night. They read out all the names and she was the only one missing.”
Unease seeps across Imo’s shoulders, but before she has time to ask anything else, Doris appears and tells her the panel is ready.
“Don’t be nervous,” she says as she shows her the way onto the stage. “Break a leg.”
There is an audition panel of six at the front of an auditorium. All name-badged: Theo, Alice, Rusty …
Theo speaks before she can read the other names and asks her to sing. With heat rushing through her face, Imo waits for the introduction. Her voice is hoarse from coughing and she inwardly winces at how off-key she sounds, but she makes it to the end of the song. Theo thanks her with a blank expression and says they’ll see her later at the dance audition.
She doesn’t have to wait long. Doris calls twenty girls, including Imo, onto the stage. Imo hasn’t danced properly for months and isn’t sure her limbs still can. Not since Sophia disappeared. Tears prick her eyes but she blinks them away as Alice from the selection panel takes them through a warm-up. Surprised to find that jogging on the spot lightens her mood, Imo leaps into star jumps and shifts easily into stretches.
By the time they start the corner exercises, it’s the old version of herself that launches into spot turns and split leaps.
“Give it more,” Alice calls out from the wings.
Imo dances on, unencumbered by the baggage of the last seven months. Her steps are light, her body toned. She soaks up the panel’s attention. They can look and judge as much as they like. They don’t know her story.
The panel applauds when the routine finishes.
“Good job, ladies,” Alice says. “We’ll let you know.”
Imo leaves the stage glowing with energy. She gets her things but on her way downstairs she glimpses a man on the landing. An eerie coldness settles and she fears it’s him again. The tall man. She hurries outside. Is this what Sophia felt when she disappeared, that a man was following her? Did she see him everywhere she went until one day he came for her?
The early autumn sun warms her and she banishes her stupid thoughts. Today is a good day, normal. Her walk is brisk and new, as if she’s using her legs for the first time after a long hibernation. She can do this. Learn to compartmentalize. Sorrow in one box, a new life of university and dance and friends in others. The world can still turn with Imo enjoying the ride.
When her phone goes she’s sure it’s Amber, responding to her latest message. She will be able to stop worrying. But it’s a cold call. Student Life Insurance. I’m Jordan. How you doing? How much do you love your family? Do you want them to have something after you’ve gone? The call blasts open the lid Imo thought she’d gently closed. What made her think she’d be able to forget her loss? She tries to force the phone back into her jeans, but it slides from her trembling fingers and lands against the kerb.
The lights are still working and the screen appears undamaged. She picks it up and walks on. The phone has survived but her happy pace is a thing of the past. Pulling her hoodie over her hair, she trudges along the path that leads to the student halls. She detects someone approaching behind her. The footsteps are slow and lolloping, long casual strides. Imo keeps walking but moves to the side of the pavement to let them pass.
But no one hurries by. She senses that the figure has slowed their pace to match hers. Feeling uncomfortable, she dawdles so they’ll have no choice but to overtake.
A shadow passes her right shoulder. A tall, rangy figure in a black hoodie saunters past. Heart thundering, Imo stands stock still. The man must sense she’s stopped moving because he turns his head. Imo drops her gaze to the ground to avoid eye contact. Her neck feels damp with sweat and she wonders what the hell to do. Turn and run? With those long legs of his, he’d catch her in no time. Was this what it was like for Sophia? Did she brazen it out and walk on? This path’s deserted and hidden from the road. No witnesses. Even if she’d brought her personal alarm like she promised her mother, who would hear? Her hand is shaking as she grips her phone. Call Tegan and ask her to meet her in the car? Even if she could persuade her stroppy flatmate to do the favour, it could take her ages to arrive.
A giggle rings out on the path ahead. The sweetest sound Imo has ever heard. Coming towards her, fifty yards in front, is a couple, holding hands.
Imo waves, runs towards them without looking back. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting ages,” she shouts. When she reaches them she whispers: “Can I walk with you, please?”
The boy gets it, eyeing the hooded figure on the path. “Are you okay?”
“He’s creeping me out, that’s all.” Imo tries to sound casual, even though her pulse is racing.
“Stick with us,” the girl says and moves aside to let Imo walk between the two of them.
They set off, breathing heavily. When they look up, the tall man is no longer on the path.
“I’ll be okay now,” Imo says. “Thanks.” She leaves the couple at a run and hares towards the hall of residence, jumping at every noise in the bushes. When a bird flies off a branch, she almost cries out. Thankfully more students appear on the path and her heartbeat calms.
Finally she sees the no parking zone and the steps of the hall’s main reception and decides to enter that way. It’s more visible than going around the back and through to her block. Breathless from her run, she summons one last burst of energy up the steps. Panting, at the top, she pauses and looks behind her. Across the road, exactly where he stood on arrivals day, the tall man leans against the horse chestnut tree, smoking.
Chapter 15 (#ulink_62dc40ba-8d7c-5c67-ac81-92f2fc8f04a7)
Phoenix
Phoenix surveys the dead baked bean cans, squished teabags and crushed cheesy Wotsits on the draining board. She gets a whiff of old tomatoes and loads a box of pizza crusts into a bin bag.
Living in a caravan when she was younger meant she was used to keeping the tiny kitchenette spotless, but she’s also done her fair share of industrial-strength cleaning. “This is a new dimension of mess,” she says aloud.
Imo helps her with the bin bag. Phoenix can’t work out whether she’s in a massive sulk about tidying up, or something else is bothering her. Bad audition? She hasn’t said a word since she got back.
Tegan walks in, wearing a pair of Marigold gloves.
“Finally,” Phoenix says, not hiding her sarcasm.
Tegan holds an empty crisp packet at arm’s length. “The uni should employ cleaners.”
“I’d rather be in my mess than someone else’s clean,” Phoenix says.
“What the devil does that mean?”
“Nothing,” Phoenix mutters. Pointless explaining; a girl like Tegan could never understand the concept of housework.
As if to prove her wrong, Tegan collects glasses and bottles and pours the contents down the sink. “No sign of Amber, though, is there? When’s she going to do her share?”
“What if she can’t help?” Imo says suddenly, letting go of the bin bag. “Have either of you seen her?”
Tegan shrugs and Phoenix shakes her head. She got no reply when she knocked on Amber’s door earlier after she’d delivered another parcel to Riku, the third one since he moved in.
“What if someone’s got her?” Imo’s voice wavers.
“Got her? Where did that come from all of a sudden?” Tegan leans her back against the sink.
“I think there’s a stalker on campus.” Imo speaks in a rush, clenching her fists and pumping them in and out of her sweatshirt sleeves. “A man followed me after my audition. I shook him off, but when I got here he was across the road. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen him.”
Phoenix’s thoughts go straight to the figure at Ivor’s party. “In his thirties, dark hoodie?”
“That’s him,” Imo exclaims. “Has he followed you, too?” She looks at Tegan. “I saw him watching you on arrivals day. Have you seen him?”
The colour drains from Tegan’s face and she turns back to the glasses in the sink. “Must be a friend of Ivor’s,” she mutters weakly.
“I doubt it. Probably a gatecrasher.” Phoenix remembers how he spilled Ivor’s drink and didn’t apologize. “I think he’s a student, though. He was at the Freshers’ Fair.”
“My God.” Imo sinks onto a chair. “That’s the last time we saw Amber. What are we going to do?”
“Nothing.” Tegan whips round, a flash of annoyance in her eye. “Phoenix has just told you he’s a student, not a stalker.”
“But he was down there, under a tree, smoking.” Imo points out of the window.
“Where else is he supposed to bloody smoke? Why shouldn’t he be outside? He probably lives here.”
“But …”
“Enough, Imogen. You can’t go around accusing people of stalking. You’re being paranoid.” Tegan waves a rubber-gloved finger. “This stops now.” She turns back to the sink.
Not wanting to take sides, Phoenix picks up the bin bag and continues to fill it. Imo sits on a chair, looking as if she’s trying not to cry. No one speaks. Eventually the silence is broken by the ripple of a text message on Imo’s phone.
Chapter 16 (#ulink_0c921518-3fad-5f15-b51f-d93209de1fcf)
Friday 30 September
Imogen
Thank you for auditioning for JC Superstar. Unfortunately, we cannot offer you a part. Show tickets available mid-November. Please get in touch if you can help with sales.
The same message was sent to her on email as well as text, but with the added bonus of a list of the successful actors. It’s gone around Imo’s mind so many times that she’s learnt the cast list off by heart. The first name was Doris Evans as Mary Magdalene. The audition usher got the star part.
She had left the kitchen to read the text in her room. It’s what she deserves. How could she have pranced around that stage like the Imogen from before? How could she forget, even for a second? Her head thumps and she needs caffeine. She heard Tegan and Phoenix return to their rooms a while ago so heads as quietly as she can to the kitchen.
The bloody kettle won’t boil. She realizes the flex isn’t switched on at the wall. Tegan’s harsh words fill her head. Imo gets everything wrong. How could she mistake a mature student, standing outside his hall, for a stalker? She’d never have dreamed up something so outlandish a year ago. She was normal back then.
She pours her tea and some of the hot water misses the mug. She finds a stinky dishcloth on the draining board and mops the wet patch. Chucks the cloth in the bin and wishes she could climb in after it. When she’s slopped enough water over her coffee granules, she heads out with her mug.
Amber’s door is open and Imo stands stock still in the hallway. She has a moment of fury. She’s been worried sick, left countless messages, made a fool of herself in front of her flatmates and now Amber’s back without a word of apology. Intending to tell Amber exactly what she thinks of her, Imo marches up the hall.
But it’s a male voice she hears coming from Amber’s room. “We can let you have some cardboard boxes.” The accent is local. “It doesn’t all have to be out today. We can give you another week.”
“That’s kind of you.” A female voice, older, strained. “I’ll take what I can and pack the rest. My other daughter will collect it next week.”
“Right you are, love. Let me just deliver these and I’ll get you the boxes.” The man steps into the hallway. He’s in an Abbeythorpe maintenance team shirt and carrying three parcels. “Morning, love,” he says cautiously to Imo.
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Rachel Sargeant
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Do you really know the people you live with? ‘Gripping, original and unpredictable, The Roommates is a must-read’ Alex Lake From the top ten Kindle bestseller. Perfect for fans of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR. THEY LIVE IN YOUR HOUSEUniversity is supposed to be the best time of your life. But Imo’s first week is quickly going from bad to worse. YOU SHARE EVERYTHINGA stalker is watching her flat, following her every move, and Imo suspects that her new roommates are hiding dark secrets… BUT DO YOU TRUST THEM?When one of them suddenly disappears, the trauma of Imo’s recent past comes hurtling back to haunt her. And she begins to realise just how little she knows about the people she lives with… ‘Gripping, original and unpredictable’ Alex Lake “Twisty and unnerving, Rachel is back with a thriller that will keep you up all night. Her best novel yet!’ Phoebe Morgan ‘From the very first page, the intrigue of this page-turning mystery builds until the gripping climax’ Caroline England