Three hours later, Francis woke to hear a quiet sobbing coming from the double bed.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked into the darkness.
‘It’s nothing,’ came Priya’s voice. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘That’s OK.’ He yawned, pulled himself up from the sofa and went over. Priya’s hair was a black tangle against the white pillows; her big brown eyes shone in the light that filtered through the curtains from the street.
‘I can’t stop thinking about poor Grace,’ she said. ‘It’s just so awful. She was so young.’
‘She was. It’s hard to believe that it’s happened.’
He sat with her in silence. From somewhere nearby came the squeals of cats fighting.
‘You know,’ Priya said quietly. ‘I didn’t just lose my sister.’
‘No,’ said Francis; he imagined she was about to elaborate about the unborn baby.
‘My father and brother too.’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘In a car crash.’
‘My God …’
‘It was barely a year after the fire that killed Chinni. They were out together on the M42 on a foggy November night. The visibility was even worse because of smoke that drifted across from some fireworks display at a site next to the road. Bilal – that’s my brother – always drove like a lunatic anyway. They smashed into a lorry and another piled in behind them and the Nissan was crushed like it had been in one of those machines they use for cars without insurance. Loads of others were involved. It made the national news.’
There was silence. Francis didn’t know what to say. ‘How terrible for you,’ he managed. Then, feebly: ‘You must miss them … dreadfully.’
‘I do. Particularly my dad. He was always so great to us girls when we were little. He could be strict at times, but then again, he was always spoiling us too, laughing and joking with us. We were his little angels, Chinni and I. He used to call us that, his little English angels.’
‘His little English angels.’
‘Yes. That was his kind of sense of humour. He was joking, in a way, but in another he wasn’t. He’d come over from India, you see, as a young man. He had an arranged marriage with my mother, who was from over here, and he missed … all that. Being at home, the extended family, friends, the weather …’ She smiled. ‘Even though that life was grindingly poor. Not that he hadn’t wanted to come. He had. But I always got the feeling that the UK – or “UK” as he called it – wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He used to say that as a boy he’d been told the streets of England were paved with gold.’ Priya chuckled. ‘That was his exact expression. “Paved with gold.” Like something from a fairy story. I don’t think working in his father-in-law’s garage ever quite lived up to it.’
‘And your brother?’ Francis asked.
Priya sighed. ‘If you want to know the truth, we were never that close. Mum always spoilt Bilal terribly. You know, he could go out, but Chinni and I couldn’t. He could have his music on loud, but we couldn’t. When we were growing up, he was like the little prince in the house, and we had to scurry around after him. He didn’t have Dad’s gentleness either. He fancied himself as this kind of Asian hard man. He had a bhangra ringtone, loads of bling, all that. He was never going to be a mere mechanic like Dad, either. He’d decided that at about the age of eight. I actually used to like messing about in the workshop with Dad. It was fun. But Bilal was always above that. He was going to be a bhangra star, even if the silly tosser had no talent. When that didn’t work out he became this, like, club promoter, organising gigs around Derby. Then across to Nottingham and Leicester too. He always had some pretty blonde on his arm, even while the fat hypocrite thought his sisters should settle for the Punjabi farmer option. But that was typical, because he was also incredibly proud of our caste – jat – which is like the farmer, landowning class. Even though he’d only been to India once. I just thought it was silly. But there are loads like him. They get drunk at weddings and sing all these songs about how great they are to be jats. I always thought they were dickheads.’
‘What about your mother?’
Priya made a face. ‘She’s basically never got over it. She talks about going back to her family in India, but I don’t think she ever will.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Francis. Then: ‘Is she a burden to you?’
‘She could be, I suppose. But I’m afraid I don’t let her be. I’m not that much in touch with her now. We fell out badly after Dad died, because she wanted me to marry the guy who was meant for Chinni and I refused.’
‘Where was he from? India too?’
‘Yeah. He was the son of this, like, great old boyhood friend of Dad’s. But basically, as far as I was concerned, he was just another Punjabi jat looking for a UK passport. If Dad and Bilal had been alive I’d probably have had to go along with it, but with them gone I didn’t feel obliged any more. My uncles and cousins may tut-tut, and say this and that about me, but there’s not a lot they can do.’
‘No …’
‘I suppose it’s one of the things that’s made me so ambitious. I want to do well for Chinni as much as anything else. It was always her dream to be a successful journalist. And I suppose, in a weird kind of way, I want to prove to Dad and Bilal that I can do it, even though they’re not around to see it. D’you get that?’
‘Yes,’ Francis said quietly. ‘I do.’ Then: ‘Did Bryce know … about all this?’
‘No. I never told him much about my family. Conal neither. Now I’m wondering why I’ve told you.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Francis. ‘It’s hardly a story I’m going to share.’
‘You do understand, though. Why I just want to be Priya Kaur. My own person, getting on in the world, leaving all that shit behind.’
‘Completely,’ said Francis. ‘For what it’s worth, I never talk about Kate, either.’
‘Why should you?’ There was silence. Outside, the cats seemed to have resolved their differences. ‘Have you ever got over it?’ she asked.
‘What happened in Egypt was a terrible, unbelievable thing. But after about a year of being in pieces, I realised I had to stop saying “what if?” and get on with my life. Without her. So I did. There comes a point when it’s no use dwelling on a tragedy like that. You can take time out to remember it, when you want to, but otherwise you have to move forwards …’
‘Exactly,’ said Priya. ‘You do.’
Another silence. ‘You never found anyone else, did you?’ she added.
‘No,’ said Francis, and with that, it was he who was in tears.
‘It’s OK,’ she said, taking his hand.
‘It’s not OK,’ he muttered. Gradually he got control of himself. He took several deep breaths and wiped his face on the corner of the sheet. ‘I’ve tried,’ he said. ‘God help me, I’ve tried. This woman, that woman, but it’s never right. And then I think: maybe I was just very very lucky to meet someone I fitted so perfectly with when I was so young. Maybe that’s not meant to happen twice in a lifetime …’
He stopped abruptly. He hated self-pity, in any manifestation.
‘Maybe, Francis, deep down,’ said Priya, ‘you don’t want it to happen. Maybe that’s why these relationships never work out.’
‘Don’t think I haven’t thought that too.’
They were alone together in a dark hotel bedroom in the middle of the night. Warm hands entwined. Now Priya was gently squeezing his palm, her thumb stroking the back of his forefinger.
‘Come here,’ she said quietly.
‘No, Priya. Let’s finish what we have to do first. OK?’
He withdrew his hand from hers and got to his feet, then leant over her and kissed her softly on the forehead. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her. Just the smell of her was doing powerful things to him. But the poor girl had only lost her boyfriend two nights ago. She was clearly still in shock. If there was going to be a time for this to develop in any constructive way, it shouldn’t be now.
‘OK,’ she replied.
‘It’s important. This isn’t some cosy little murder mystery, the sort I might write for my clever-clogs detective George Braithwaite, for the amusement of a bunch of readers who would freak out if they saw a road accident, let alone a murder. Actual people are dying here.’
‘I know they are.’
‘You didn’t see Grace, flat out on the gravel, but believe me, it was a chilling sight.’
‘That taped outline was enough for me …’
‘Something horrible and evil is going on and I – we, Priya – might be in a position to do something about it.’
‘Yes,’ she said, quietly.
Francis returned to his sofa and let his head sink back onto the pillow he’d taken from the bed. He lay there for awhile thinking about Priya’s story, which certainly explained why Conal had never met her family. The only question was: was it true? Or was it possible that this apparently lovely, switched-on young woman was some kind of fantasist? God knows, Francis had met that type before. Dated them, even. He remembered one highly strung – and very beautiful – ex of his who had specialised in making up convincing tall tales: about her past, her present, the works. Quite often, for no apparent reason at all. Francis had finally given up on her when she’d told him she’d gone to spend a weekend with an aunt in Paris and a friend had run into her at a fancy dress party in Balham.
But if Priya’s story were true, why had she told him? Especially if it really were the case that neither Bryce nor Conal had ever known. In his journalistic days, when he’d specialised in long interviews for magazines, Francis had always been marked down as the guy who could pull the extra confession out of this or that actor or celebrity. So should he chalk it up to that? His famous empathy? Or was Priya, so bright and collected on the surface, much, much more traumatised by Bryce’s death than she’d been letting on?
As for him, he was already regretting that he’d revealed as much as he had. But there it was; somehow she had pulled it from him. The truth was, he felt better for it. Now, despite himself, he wanted to tell her more. He was feeling something he hadn’t in a long while: an almost visceral desire to trust and be trusted; to get, as people always said so blandly, close to someone again.
He could get up and go over there now. He wanted to; god, did he want to.
Across the room the numbers on the digital clock glowed red. 3.12.
A surprisingly loud click. And it was 3.13. He put his hands together in a gesture of prayer and rolled over onto his side.