Sister

have killed you. Was Annette with her copper bright hair and slender arms strong enough and vicious enough to kill? When Benjamin’s beautiful almond eyes shed tears, were they real or was he just aware of the attractive picture he made?

“Tess’s friends all described her in different ways,” I tell Mr. Wright. “But there was one phrase that everyone used. Every single person spoke of her joie de vivre.”

Joy and life together. It’s such an ironically perfect description of you.

“She had a great many friends?” asks Mr. Wright, and I am touched by the question because he doesn’t need to ask it. “Yes. She valued friendships very highly.”

It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve always made friends easily, but you don’t discard them easily. At your twenty-first birthday party you had friends from primary school. You move people from your past along with you into your present. Can you be eco about friendships? They are too valuable to be junked when they stop being immediately convenient.

“Did you ask them about the drugs?” asks Mr. Wright, bringing my thoughts back into focus.

“Yes. Like Simon, they were adamant that she never touched them. I asked them about Emilio Codi, but didn’t find out anything useful. Just that he was an ‘arrogant shit,’ and too preoccupied with his own art to be a decent tutor. They all knew about the affair and the pregnancy. Then I asked them about Simon and his relationship with Tess.”

The feeling in the cafe changed, the atmosphere heavier, loaded with something I didn’t understand. “You all knew Simon wanted a relationship with her?” I asked. People nodded, but no information was volunteered.

“Emilio Codi said he was jealous?” I asked, trying to provoke a conversation.

A girl with jet-black hair and ruby-red lips, like a storybook witch, spoke up. “Simon was jealous of anyone Tess loved.”

I wondered briefly if that included me.

“But she didn’t love Emilio Codi?” I said.

“No. With Emilio Codi it was more like a competitive thing for Simon,” replied the Pretty Witch. “It was Tess’s baby he was jealous of. He couldn’t bear it that she was going to love someone who hadn’t even been born yet, when she didn’t love him.”

I remembered his montage picture of a prison, made of babies’ faces.

“Was he at their funeral?” I asked.

I saw hesitation on the Pretty Witch’s face before she spoke. “We waited for him at the station, but he never showed. I phoned him, asked him what the fuck he was playing at. He said he’d changed his mind and wasn’t coming. Because he wouldn’t have a ‘special place’ and his feelings for Tess would be—let me get this right —‘ignored’ and he ‘couldn’t tolerate that.’ ”

Was that why I’d sensed the heavier atmosphere when I’d asked about Simon?

“Emilio Codi said he was obsessed by her …?” I said.

“Yeah, he was,” said the Pretty Witch. “When he had that project going, The Female of the Species or some such crap, he used to follow her around like her fucking shadow.”

I saw Benjamin give the Pretty Witch a warning look, but she took no notice. “For fuck’s sake, he was practically stalking her.”

“With his camera as an excuse?” I asked, remembering the photos of you on his bedroom wall.

“Yeah,” said the Pretty Witch. “He wasn’t man enough to look at her directly, had to do it through a lens. Some of them were really long, like he was a fucking paparazzi.”

“Do you know why she tolerated him?” I asked.

A shy-faced boy who’d been quiet up to now spoke up. “She was kind and I think she felt sorry for him. He didn’t have other friends.”

I turned to the Pretty Witch. “Did the project stop, you seemed to imply …?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Barden, his tutor, told him he had to stop. She knew it was just an excuse to follow Tess around. Told him he’d be expelled if he carried on.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“The beginning of the course year,” said Annette. “So it must have been last September, the first week. Tess was relieved about it.”

But his photographs documented you through all of autumn and winter.

“He was still doing it,” I said. “Did none of you know that?”

“He must have got more subtle about it,” said Benjamin.

“That wouldn’t have been hard,” said the Pretty Witch. “But we didn’t see so much of Tess after she went on that ‘sabbatical.’ ”

I remembered Emilio saying “It’s that boy you should be questioning, always following her around with that bloody camera of his.”

“Emilio Codi knew it hadn’t stopped,” I said. “And he’s a tutor at the college. So why didn’t he get Simon expelled?”