As she climbed the stairs and passed the first-floor flat, she heard the noise of a TV, of the scraping of cutlery and a toilet flushing from within: comforting, ordinary sounds that made her nervousness ease a little. When she reached the second set of stairs, she hit the light switch on the wall, but the hall and stairwell remained in darkness and she swore under her breath. Holding her key in her hand, she ran up the next flight and felt around for her floor’s switch, but it, too, gave no response when she pushed it. She shivered, mentally cursing her landlord, and glanced quickly up the stairs to Alison’s flat, but all was quiet. Perhaps she was still away, she thought. When Clara reached her own door, she pulled out her mobile and used its light to guide her to the keyhole.
Once inside her flat, she hurried around hitting every switch until the rooms were bathed in light, then stood looking about herself. It was still in disarray since the break-in, and the place had a sad, abandoned air. Something that had been niggling her ever since she’d received the first message from Emily returned to her now. She got up and went to the living room, taking down a small wooden box tucked away out of sight on one of the bookshelves. Opening it, she breathed a sigh of relief. Inside, untouched still, was the T. S. Eliot book Luke had shown her all those years before. Ever since they’d moved into this flat, he’d kept it with a few other precious bits and pieces in the same place. It had not been touched, she was sure of it—the box was still covered in a thin layer of dust from where it’d sat untampered with for half a year. She put the box back on the shelf.
As she wandered into the bedroom, her hip knocked against the chest of drawers and something fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, she saw that it was the Valentine’s card Luke had given her a few months before, a line drawing of one of Picasso’s doves on the front. Inside was written, simply, Love you Clara, always will.
She went to the wardrobe and pulled out his favorite T-shirt, a faded Stone Roses one he used to wear in bed. Holding it to her face, she breathed in his scent. A rush of memories hit her: his face, his kiss, the way he said her name, the smell of his body first thing in the morning. An image of the van’s bloodstained seat flashed into her mind and she sank onto the bed, tears choking her. At this moment, more than ever before, she felt sure that he was dead, that she would never see him again.
Suddenly she was desperate to get out of there. It had been a mistake to come—his absence far more brutal here between these silent walls than it was at Mac’s. She realized it didn’t even feel like home, not anymore; whoever had broken in had destroyed that sense of safety and sanctuary now. Hurriedly she wiped her eyes and, snatching up an empty carrier bag, began to fill it with clothes. Leaving the flat, she closed the door behind her, using the light from her phone to make sure she’d double-locked it.
But as she stood standing in the hall’s blackness grappling with her keys, she thought she heard a sound from the floor above. She stood stock-still. What was that? “Hello?” she called. Nothing. And then, the name unfamiliar on her lips, “Alison, is that you?” Again, silence. “This isn’t funny,” she shouted. “If that’s you, say something.” Still nothing, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling there was someone there. Suddenly the air was ripped in two by a deafening roar of music. Her heart lurched and involuntarily she screamed, before hurtling down the stairs, but the music stopped as abruptly as it had begun the moment she reached the main door. Finally she bolted out of the building, gasping for air in the cool, orange-tinged darkness of the street. Across the square, voices drifted over to her from the string of bars and restaurants. She turned, and, her heart still pounding, set off at a run toward the station.
SEVENTEEN
CAMBRIDGESHIRE, 1994
Those few brief years of peace ended not long after Hannah turned thirteen. She seemed, physically, to change overnight— or perhaps I hadn’t really been looking; maybe I had grown used to letting my gaze flicker over my daughter, it being too painful to linger on her for too long. Whatever the case, I remember vividly the morning I looked up from my breakfast and noticed something I’d failed to see before.
“What?” she said, as she sullenly emptied some cereal into a bowl.
“Nothing.” But though I lowered my gaze, I couldn’t help but watch her from the corner of my eye as she began to eat. Toby, seven by then, was halfway through his Cheerios, engrossed in a comic. Doug had already left for work, and Hannah was eating her breakfast as she stood by the window, having long ago refused to join us at the table.
Perhaps it was the too-small T-shirt she was wearing, or the angle in which she was standing, but for the first time I noticed the small breasts that had begun to bud on her chest, the waist that had become more defined, the thickening of her hips. My eyes traveled to her face. It was, as usual, half hidden behind a wild tangle of hair, but I saw now that it had begun to lose
