Joanna wants to utilise every moment before she catches the train home. Still playing detective, she picks out the 24-Seven store across the road from the description given by the police. A brief lapse in concentration and a Lambretta buzzes past as she steps out in front of a double-decker bus. Dumbstruck, she stares after it. Then, adjusting herself, she aims for the pelican crossing a little further along. Passing racks of souvenirs set out to tempt the tourist, she grimaces at the tacky black-cab key rings, the Queen Elizabeth fridge magnets. On a superficial level, the district of Bayswater has barely changed in all the years she’s known it, but scratch the surface and it becomes clear this London postcode has evolved into one of the city’s most bustling and cosmopolitan. Of course, nowadays everything is subdivided into flats and boarding houses, and if not, then converted into hotels. How else are people supposed to afford to live here? Had Dora not left Caroline a cushion of money and a mortgage-free flat, there’s no way she could have done.
Picking up speed, she smells the aroma of food spilling on to the street and slides a sidelong glance at the condensation-streaked window of a Cantonese takeaway. It makes her smile. The tawny-lit interior, garnished with glistening roast ducks as leathery-looking – or so her sister used to say – as their father’s old slippers. Mrs Hooper was right – even if it was only something Joanna glimpsed occasionally, Caroline did have a sense of humour. It was the darker side of her personality, her mood swings and debilitating negativity, that made their relationship so hard to navigate. Well, that and the stupid lie Joanna told, that for some reason Caroline never forgave her for.
Sudden tears as she steps inside the mini-market. They make the captions on the rows of trashy magazines wobble: 15 Mins from Death, Knifed to Death by Own Son, Raped and Killed by Dad . ‘Real Life Stories’, the blur of blackened taglines claim. Aren’t they just, she thinks miserably, imagining herself to be standing only yards from where her sister bled to death.
The young Asian man at the till gives Joanna a shy smile. Watching him assemble her purchases into a neat pile, she works out ways to ask if he knew her sister. Was the night Caroline died the first time she shopped here? Did the two of them ever exchange more than a please and thank-you? Coins from her purse tumble over the counter and bounce to the floor. As fluid as water, he bends to scoop them up with his slender fingers, returning them to her one by one.
‘I don’t know if you were here that night, but I’m–I’m Caroline Jameson’s sister,’ she falters, unsure where to start. The change in his expression is enough to tell her he knows exactly who Caroline was.
‘I told the police everything what happened,’ he says, snapping shut the till.
‘It’s okay,’ she reassures, pressing a hand to his fine-boned wrist. ‘I’m not here to cause trouble, I just wanted to talk to someone who was there. I need to find out what happened. I’m struggling to piece things together, you see. And the police … ’ Tears sprout again, and she fishes a tissue from her pocket.
‘I was here.’ His voice trembles against the piped music that fills the otherwise empty store. ‘It was terrible. Terrible.’ He leans his back against the shelves of cigarettes and alcohol as if needing the support. ‘It happened so quick. I saw her come in—’
‘Oh, so you recognised her then? Carrie.’ Joanna, immediately encouraged, interrupts his narrative like a rock thrown into a stream.
The young man nods. ‘Yeah, she used to shop here a lot. We never said nuffin much to each other, but she was definitely one of me regulars. Late-night shopper mostly; always on her own. She looked kinda sad. I s’ppose I felt sorry for her.’ Joanna sees his knuckles whiten as he grips the edge of the counter. ‘I could tell she liked sweet things.’ He throws out a tight ball of a laugh that bounces against the horror of what went on here a month or so ago. ‘It was like she was always shopping for some kid’s birthday party or summit. Chocolates, ice cream, cakes, jellies, sweets, crisps … them cooked chipolata things. Dead weird for a grown woman. Not that she was old, was she? Yeah, she looked old,’ he adds, ‘the way she dressed, her hair, but that was because she didn’t bother with herself much, innit? But up close, I was surprised, she was much younger-looking.’ Realising his observation may be inappropriate, he pulls himself up, and shoots a look at Joanna. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude or nuffin—’
‘No, I know.’ She helps him out, feeling his awkwardness. ‘It’s good to build a picture, it’s what I wanted. Me and Carrie, we’d lost touch, it’s why I’m here – I’m trying to … I don’t know, make sense of it all?’ She stares at the floor, her gaze travelling with a split in the linoleum as it disappears under the cooler cabinet. ‘Did she look stressed or troubled to you that night? Can you remember?’
He waits before answering. Seemingly feeling the importance of Joanna’s question, his mouth moves as if to assemble the right words before he dispenses them. ‘It was bizarre,’ he starts, then moistens his lips. ‘I hadn’t seen her for weeks, honestly.’ He looks her in the eye. ‘She’d not been in here for ages, and I noticed ’cos like I said, she was in dead regular, like. Anyway, it weren’t like she was ever chilled or nuffin when she come in before: always chewin’ her nails and shit, but she was definitely different that night. Really edgy and wired, like. Checking over her shoulder all the time, like she was frightened someone was followin’ her.’ He throws his head to the ceiling tiles, takes a breath. ‘But it was her who pulled the knife on him. Had it in her bag ready, she did. Went for him like some mad woman. I told the police … I told them she really meant business, innit?’ Joanna shows she does know. ‘And that was some piece of kit, man. Where do a woman like her get a knife like that? Well dangerous.’ He shakes his head in sorrowful bemusement.
‘You saw it all then? You saw what happened?’ Joanna tips out the question she isn’t sure she wants the answer to.
‘Yeah.’ He purses his lips, tussling with the memory. ‘Over in a flash, it was. Weren’t time to do nuffin. But people tried to help, giving her mouth-to-mouth and stuff. There was so much blood. So much blood,’ he says, his eyes landing on Joanna again. ‘Someone called an ambulance, but there weren’t nuffin no one could do. That bloke she tried to stab, he was lucky, y’know – she nearly had him. Dead determined, she was. All fierce, like. I’d never seen nuffin like it.’ He shoves his hands deep into his trouser pockets. ‘I’ll never forget it. Never. Police had the shop shut for over a week … all that scene of crime tape … like CSI stuff, innit.’ His look is wretched. ‘I weren’t even sure if I wanted to work here again after that.’
‘I don’t think I’d have done either. I’m so sorry you had to witness it,’ Joanna says, feeling strangely numb.
‘Yeah, gotta earn a livin’ though, and this is me uncle’s place, yeah? So ain’t really got no choice in the matter, like.’
‘Look.’ She moves aside to allow a woman to pay for a box of Maltesers and a puzzle book. ‘You’ve been so helpful, thank you. I’m sorry I made you rake though it all again.’
She steps backwards, out through the automatic doors; a befuddled daze beneath the streetlights quivering against the encroachment of night. Then it hits her. And images of what went on in there fire at her like missiles she can’t avoid. Blood, he said, so much blood … and they tried to help her, but no one could do anything. She slumps against the trunk of a plane tree, stares up through the jigsaw-patterned boughs. Rigid amid the abuse of car horns and the burn of diesel, her mouth full of the questions she still wants answering.
Then a voice. Shouting through the crowd. She swings around to pinpoint it but is blocked by a photograph of her own face. Captured on one of her publicity fliers, it flaps in the wind and shows off her clear complexion, her Pre-Raphaelite twist of hair. The spit of your mother . Joanna filters the lopsided compliment she is frequently given and wonders what it must have been like for Caroline to see her younger sister adorning lampposts and billboards from here to the Wigmore Hall. Joanna, ‘the favoured one’, with hair their mother loved to brush at bedtime. She chews the inside of her mouth and pushes the unwanted images of her only sibling deep into the folds of her heart. The regularity with which Caroline was rejected as a child is why Joanna works so hard to be impartial with her sons; observing her own mother’s contempt – something that was in direct contrast to the barefaced favouritism she exhibited towards Joanna – must have broken her sister’s spirit.
‘Miss ?’
That voice again. Closer this time. Startling her out of her retrospection.
‘Yes?’ she replies, looking into the face of the young man from the mini-mart again.
‘I forgot something … it might be important,’ he gushes, a little out of breath. ‘Your sister … she shouted something when she pulled the knife on that bloke. I’m not sure, but it sounded like … oh, I dunno, I might’ve got it wrong.’
‘What?’ Joanna, mouth open, ready to catch it when it comes. ‘What did she shout?’
‘Dean … I’m pretty sure she said Dean.’