‘Your mum’s been frantic,’ Brynn said, closing the door behind her. He was red in the face, more agitated than she expected and Lily guessed he’d been forced to listen to some rambling speech from Nina about what an ungrateful little bitch she was. He was wearing his smart work clothes today, cords and a jumper, so he’d been with clients rather than on-site and Nina had dragged him home, wanting an audience for her maternal concern.
He’d bought it. He always did.
‘She called the police. Why didn’t you stop her?’
‘She was worried about you. What else was she going to do?’
Lily didn’t believe that for a second.
She shrugged off her coat and threw it over the banister. Brynn immediately retrieved it and took it to the hidden space under the stairs, slid the door shut, the wall appearing seamless again. That was this house all over, everything secreted behind flawless facades.
‘She should have known where I was,’ Lily said, kicking off her boots. ‘Why didn’t she phone Sam?’
‘Come on now, you know that wasn’t going to happen.’ Brynn frowned at the muddy footprints she’d brought in with her. ‘All you had to do was text her so she knew you were okay.’
She started off towards the stairs and Brynn caught hold of her arm.
‘Your mum’s in a state, Lil. Just cut her some slack, will you?’
‘She doesn’t fucking care.’
He gave her a warning look. Brynn didn’t like her swearing and usually she minimised it in front of him but right now it didn’t seem important.
‘She might not show it around you but she’s really not coping with this.’ He was speaking almost in a whisper, knowing how voices carried through the house. ‘Whatever happened between her and Colin in the last few years, they were together a long time and she still cared about him. She might not have liked Corinne much, but she loved your dad. Try to remember that.’
Lily wanted to snap at him. Remind him Colin had been gone for years and Nina was the one who drove him away. But he looked totally deflated, so tired and sad that she couldn’t bring herself to correct him.
‘Did you miss him?’ she asked. ‘Dad. You were friends for so long. How could you just give up on him?’
‘I didn’t give up on him, Lil.’
‘You let Nina get between you. He always said you were like family. He said he loved you like a brother.’
Brynn sat down on the staircase, covered his mouth with his hand as he began to cry, almost as if he was ashamed of the tears. Lily squeezed onto the step next to him and put her arm around his shoulder, whispered that she was sorry, she didn’t mean to upset him. But secretly she was glad because now it meant she wasn’t alone in her grief any more.
They’d been best friends since they were five years old. Dad had told the story often enough, the first day of school and Brynn peed his pants in the playground, stood crying while a crowd of kids laughed around him. Dad elbowed through them, stood at his side while the taunts flew. The biggest kid there stepped forward, whipping the rest up. Dad rushed the older boy and slammed him to the ground, punched him in the face until a teacher came and pulled him away, still kicking out. But nobody was laughing any more. And nobody bullied Brynn again, knowing what they’d get if they tried it.
Lily could see that nervous little boy in him now, as he wiped his eyes on the cuff of his jumper and tried to be a man again, and she felt his pain in her own chest.
‘Sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It keeps sneaking up on me.’
‘Me too.’ Lily tried to smile, but couldn’t. There was no softening this feeling. ‘I keep thinking about all the time I didn’t see her in the last couple of years. All that time we should have had together.’
‘You never know when people are going to leave you,’ Brynn said, his chin dimpling again. ‘That’s why you have to be kind to them. Your mum too. Even her.’
Lily drew away from him and stood up. Why did he have to bring her into this?
‘I’m going for a nap.’
She trudged upstairs, hearing the hiss of the steam cleaner from the kitchen as Nina tried to purge more non-existent dirt from all her shiny surfaces.
In her room she flopped down on the bed, turned her mobile phone on. There were messages stacked up on the screen, one from Brynn, six from Nina. Jack texting yesterday, asking if she was alright, saying people were worried about her. The battery was almost dead and she decided to let it bleed dry. Didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not even him.
She shouldn’t have insisted on going to where it happened. That was in her head now and it was worse than she ever could have imagined.
Mum dragged off the path, through the mud. She would have been so scared. Did she shout for help that never came? Did she see someone run past without stopping?
Shit. Did she see them see her and still keep running?
Lily wanted to believe she fought back. Punched and kicked and scratched at the man who killed her. But the way Sergeant Ferreira described it, the things she didn’t say, Lily knew it hadn’t been like that.
Mum had died face down in the dirt, breathed her last breath into it.
Her beautiful new face …
Lily curled up under the duvet, blocking out the last of the afternoon light, remembering how wet the earth was, the rotten smell of it, the mulch of black leaves and dead things all gone to sludge.
Every time she walked through fallen leaves, saw a cracked and mottled tree trunk, caught a hint of wet grass on the air – every time – she was going to think of Mum’s last moments. She would be back there, squatting within sight of a deserted pathway, knowing how easily she could have been saved.
Exhaustion overcame her and she dozed for awhile, a mercifully dreamless sleep broken by the sound of a tentative fist tapping at her bedroom door.
Harry came in without waiting for an invitation. ‘Lil, are you awake?’
She threw her duvet off. ‘What do you want?’
‘Brynn said you were upset.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Not to you.’
Harry came over and sat on the foot of her bed. He smelled of grass and leaves, and for a moment she was back there, fingers in the dirt where Mum died.
She pushed the thought aside, tried to remember the last time Harry had been in her bedroom, couldn’t. She was ten years old when he moved into his own place, still young enough to idolise him. It was a long time since she’d felt that way.
‘Carly and the boys are here. Aren’t you going to come down and say hello?’ he asked.
‘I don’t feel well. I’m staying up here.’
He sighed, rubbed his palms on the knees of his jeans. He seemed nervous but she wasn’t sure why. Was it because the police had spoken to him? Had they already started to act on what she’d told them?
No, he wouldn’t be here if they had.
She looked at his hands, the size of them, and knew there was enough strength there to have choked the life out of Mum. But she couldn’t believe he’d done it.
‘We’re all upset, you know,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only person who’s lost their … parent. Do you think I don’t feel like crap right now? I loved Dad.’
‘This isn’t about Dad.’
‘Yes, it is. Because he’s never coming back now,’ Harry said, his voice thickening, and Lily realised he actually believed there was a chance Mum would have changed her mind, decided being a woman was a phase or a mistake and gone back to how Harry wanted her to be. ‘We’ll never see him again.’
‘Her,’ Lily said firmly. ‘He was gone years ago.’
‘You don’t get it.’ A pain looked crossed Harry’s face and for a moment Lily saw Mum there, remembered the pictures of them together, how everyone said Harry was the image of Dad. Mum’s cosmetic procedures had wiped the likeness away but seeing that glimpse of her when he frowned made her heart ache.
‘How you feel now,’ he said. ‘That’s how the rest of us felt when he decided to transition. We’ve been bereaved for months, Lil. Don’t you understand that?’
The sympathy she was beginning to feel drained away.
‘It’s not the same thing.’ She kicked out at the bunched-up duvet. ‘You didn’t lose Dad, you just wouldn’t accept what he wanted to do. If you loved him you’d have loved Mum, too.’
‘It’s not that simple.’ He twisted on the bed, facing her properly. He was heavy-eyed, skin slack under his beard. ‘He changed so much. You didn’t know him before Corinne. You don’t realise how bad he got when he was her.’
‘That’s rubbish.’ Lily shifted onto her knees, propelled into defence. ‘They were the same person inside. If anything Mum was nicer.’
‘To you maybe.’
‘You started it,’ Lily told him. ‘You hated her because Nina wanted you to.’
‘I hated how she was treating Mum, that’s all. You were too young to realise what was going on most of the time. Corinne made Mum’s life totally unbearable.’
‘And Nina didn’t do anything wrong, I suppose?’
‘You think all that wasn’t hard on her as well?’ he said, anger bubbling up in his voice. ‘It wasn’t just Dad putting a dress on now and again, you know. Why don’t you try looking at this from Mum’s point of view for once? How do you think she felt about it?’
‘I don’t care.’
Harry stood up, moved away to her desk.
Nina had sent him up here, using him like she always did, wanting someone else to do her dirty work. As if he could talk her round. After how he’d behaved at Christmas and all of the times before that, ridiculing Mum, belittling her. Even when he was trying to play the good guy he was just as bad, saying she was suffering from a mental disorder, a form of body dysmorphia. God knows where he’d picked up that term but it was the same old insult dressed up in scientific language: she was a freak.
‘Why did Mum hit you?’ Lily asked.
He turned round slowly, but didn’t answer her, his eyes flicking towards the door.
‘At Christmas. I saw it, Harry. What did you say to her?’
‘She was unhinged, I didn’t need to say anything to her.’ He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. ‘It was probably the hormones scrambling her brain.’
Lily smiled scornfully at him. ‘Is that the best you can come up with? I think the police are going to want a better explanation.’
‘You told the fucking plod?’ He stormed towards her and Lily scrambled off the bed away from him. ‘Why the hell did you do that? They’re going to think I killed Corinne!’
‘Did you?’
Harry winced, gripped the back of his neck, an expression of absolute horror on his face. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lil. No, I didn’t. I can’t believe you asked me that.’
Lily almost apologised but he walked out of the room before she could speak.
She swore to herself.
Of course he wasn’t responsible.
You couldn’t murder your own blood and hide it.
But a small voice in the back of her mind piped up – people did it all of the time. Murdered their husbands, or more often their wives, killed their children and hid the bodies and made tearful displays of grief, played innocent until the police could prove otherwise. Kept lying long past the point of doubt.