Saturday 9th December 2023
Georgie
‘Who says Leo’s dead?’
‘It can’t … it doesn’t … Are you sure?’
‘Was it the fire?’
‘Was it deliberate?’
‘Where’s he been all this time?’
Speculation pinballs around the pub, as the villagers try to understand the escalating rumours. The mood begins to tip from one of frenzied information-seeking to something much graver. And there is guilt, too, Georgie can see. Guilt for every bad thought any of them ever had about Leo. Poppy starts crying and Janice won’t stop talking, as if to detract from the names she was calling him only a few minutes before.
Georgie is still hovering near the fire extinguishers. Leo. Dead? The idea sits like a heavy mass in her chest but she can’t tell what shape it is, what colour. She never knew Leo. But he was Ethan’s son. Part of Ethan’s other life, the one he always described in such unhappy terms. He loved Leo, though. All parents love their children; all children love their parents – isn’t that a given?
She wonders if that’s true of her own parents, for whom aloofness and disapproval seem to be natural states. Her thoughts move to Lola and she feels an unbalancing tug of longing and loneliness.
‘Nobody wanted this,’ she hears someone say in the crowd, and the noise level dips in acknowledgement.
‘No.’ It’s Ellen who replies. ‘Of course not. Of course not.’
Georgie feels her breath getting shallower. She pictures the empty flat above their heads, Leo’s room with the flecks of Blu-Tack on the walls, the photo of Chrissy and Ethan with Leo between them. The initials behind these fire extinguishers, taking on new meaning, now the marks of two ghosts, not just one. She thinks of Ethan’s grave and the often powerful sense of him standing right beside her. Then, with a small gasp, she pushes through the pub, to the front door, out onto the square.
It is silent and crisp and still. The late afternoon light has a bleached quality to it, giving the outside world an air of surreal abandonment. Georgie takes deep breaths, the cold sharp in her lungs. She tries to calm herself with mantras from the yoga class she used to go to with Lo, but the question threads its way through them: Leo, dead? In the life she was supposed to have, she would’ve become his stepmum – in name at least. Stepmum to a boy who would end up in prison. Or perhaps he wouldn’t have killed Robbie if his dad had never died. Perhaps everybody’s lives would’ve been sent along a different course.
All the more reason to find out who was to blame. To hold them accountable at last.
She looks up at the raven sign, right into the bird’s eyes, and opens her mouth to scream. But she doesn’t. She stops herself. And in that moment, she senses she is not alone. She turns and scans the square, spotting Marianne sitting on a low wall down the side of the chip shop, sucking on a vape that doesn’t seem to fit Georgie’s idea of her, though she couldn’t say why.
Drawing herself up tall, Georgie walks over.
‘Marianne,’ she says. ‘Are you okay?’
Marianne looks up, seeming startled. ‘I’m fine,’ she half-snaps, then turns irritably away.
The wind picks up in the pause that follows. A chip wrapper blows across the square, cartwheeling like something alive, and the Christmas tree quivers, unlit today out of respect.
‘Apparently the police have been trying to get in touch with you,’ Georgie says.
Marianne turns back to her, but says nothing. Her phone is in her hand, Georgie sees. There’s no way she’s been oblivious to any calls. She sucks on her vape and blows out a stream of fruity fumes.
‘And … did you hear about Leo …?’ Georgie is unwilling to give up on Marianne this time. She knows something – she’s sure of it. She’s not as outside of all this as she first appeared.
‘Hear what?’
‘That he might be … I mean, there’s speculation that he’s … dead.’
Marianne drops her vape with a clatter. She stares at Georgie, blanching. ‘What?’
‘There was a fire and people are saying—’
‘What people? How sure are they?’
‘It’s unconfirmed …’ Georgie didn’t expect the raw panic in Marianne’s eyes. What does this news mean to her, exactly?
Marianne stabs at her phone and then holds it to her ear. Georgie can hear it ringing, wonders who she’s calling. Nobody answers and Marianne hangs up and shakes her head, then jumps up from the wall.
‘Are you okay?’ Georgie asks again. ‘I didn’t mean to shock you—’ But she is distracted as she sees, out of the corner of her eye, the gleam of a fluorescent police uniform. Two constables stride across the square, determination in their step. Marianne bends to pick up her vape, twirling it between her fingers as the PCs spot them and swerve in their direction.
‘We’re conducting some inquiries into the disappearance of Leo Dean,’ the female officer says, looking at each of them in turn.
Georgie notes the word ‘disappearance’, not ‘murder’, not ‘death’. But she restrains herself from asking the question.
‘Could you confirm your names, please?’
‘Georgie Fallows,’ Georgie supplies after a moment’s hesitation.
‘Marianne Lowe,’ Marianne says, and Georgie is surprised to hear she’s still using her married name.
Never trust a Lowe.
The female PC taps her pen against her notebook. ‘Marianne,’ she says. ‘Could we start with you?’
‘Okay …’
‘Is there somewhere in the pub we could use, perhaps? Somewhere private?’
Georgie steps in, recovering her hostess role with a shake of her hair. ‘I’ll show you to the office.’ She starts walking briskly back towards the pub. ‘And I’ll make sure you aren’t disturbed.’
Heads turn as she leads the police and Marianne through the pub. Conversations drop away and she keeps herself tall, shoulders pulled back, boots clicking on the uncarpeted floors.
‘Will you be okay in here?’ she says when they get to the office. ‘I can put the electric heater on …’ She flits around the chilly room, half wanting to stay, half desperate to get out.
‘This is adequate, thank you,’ the policewoman says.
Georgie knows when she’s being dismissed. She shoots a glance at Marianne as she leaves. Marianne checks her phone one last time before tucking it away and perching on the very edge of a chair.
Marianne is in there for over half an hour. Georgie spends most of that time repeating the words ‘I don’t know’ as the other villagers ask why Marianne is being questioned, who else will be called in, whether Leo really is dead. Her head gets fuller and fuller, close to bursting, and she resists the urge to drink straight from the open bottle of red wine on the bar top.
She is about to escape outside for another dose of fresh air when the two officers and Marianne emerge. Marianne holds her handbag against her chest, her face drawn, her eyes tired. She walks out of the pub without a backward glance.
Georgie stares after her. Until she hears: ‘Ms Fallows? Could you join us next, please?’
She whips her head back with a forced smile. ‘Of course.’
The office is still freezing and she thinks about suggesting the electric heater again. But maybe it’s better to be cold and clear-headed than flustered and over-warm. She finds herself in Peter’s usual seat this time, because the police officers are sitting in hers and Alice’s. She thinks of how preoccupied he always seemed at committee meetings, silent and disengaged until he would suddenly choose not to be. Georgie’s attention was usually trained on Alice. Ethan hadn’t trusted her and she’d assumed the stranger outside the pub had been talking about her, too. But it’s all of them, she now thinks. It takes a village to keep a secret.
‘We’re PCs Lochland and Marley,’ the female officer says, pointing from her colleague to herself. ‘But most people round here know us as Kiri and Ben.’ She leaves a beat. ‘You’re not from Cromley, is that right?’
Georgie uncrosses her legs. ‘I’m from London.’
‘So what brought you here?’
It’s an answer she’s trotted out many times. ‘I got tired of city living. And I love Derbyshire; I used to come here as a child.’ Both of these things are, in fact, true. They were the reasons a potential life here with Ethan had seemed like a call of fate.
‘No other connection to this place?’
Georgie pauses, then shakes her head.
‘And yet you bought into this pub? A substantial share, from what we’ve been told.’
Georgie tries not to react, though she wonders who’s been divulging. ‘Well, that was what clinched it, in the end. I’ve always wanted to be involved in something like this. Something … community-focused. I worked in marketing and brand management in London, so when I saw what they were trying to do here, I thought I could help.’
‘And how have you got on?’
‘Well …’ Georgie lets her smile fade. ‘I didn’t exactly expect … all of this …’ She gestures at the two of them, and at the door that leads back out towards the bar.
‘Did you know about the death that happened in this pub, before you bought into it?’
Georgie pauses again. Then, in a moment of boldness, she says: ‘Deaths.’ Her voice is calm. Her hands are clasped in her lap.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Ben says.
‘There have been two deaths in this pub.’
They exchange glances. ‘You’re referring to … Ethan Dean?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you …’ They seem thrown off course. ‘Well, we’re not currently …’
‘You don’t think there’s any connection?’ Georgie asks, still calmly, though her skin now has a sheen of sweat.
‘Between a suicide and a bar fight?’
‘In the same pub. Involving a lot of the same people.’
They look at her strangely. Maybe this is her moment. Maybe she should’ve kept it this simple all along: herself and two police officers, in a room, with the right questions being asked.
But then Ben picks up his phone, taps a few times, and thrusts it at her. Grainy black and white footage is playing on the screen and she frowns, confused by the diversion, until she realises what she’s seeing and she’s back to ice-cold.
‘Is this you?’ Ben asks.
‘What …?’ She still can’t quite understand it. She can see it’s her, all wrapped up in a hat and scarf, but it takes her a few more moments to place where she is, what she’s doing. That night she walked up the lane to Chrissy’s cottage. A moment of weakness, of wanting just to look at where she lived. She’d been out wandering anyway, unable to sleep as usual, and her feet had propelled her there. But where was the camera? One thing she’d always assumed about Cromley was a lack of CCTV. Not like in London, where you were forever being watched, whether you remembered it or not as you were going about your day. Being filmed in the village, unaware, feels even more unnerving. Where else might hidden eyes be spying?
‘Chrissy Dean installed a privately owned camera outside her cottage,’ Kiri explains. ‘She’s been receiving threats, so she—’
‘I was just out walking,’ Georgie says. ‘I have trouble sleeping.’
‘Why did you go to Chrissy’s house?’
‘I just … wandered up that lane. Then realised where I was and turned back again.’
‘You linger there for …’ Ben checks. ‘Almost three minutes.’
‘It isn’t a crime.’ She immediately regrets saying it. Nothing she has done has been a crime. She’s been very careful about that.
‘Do you know who replaced the pub sign?’ Kiri ploughs on. ‘Or who might have defaced the pub wall?’
Georgie’s heart hammers. Deflect, every nerve ending in her body urges her. Play your card.
She presses down through her long legs, into her heels, into the slight springiness of the lino floor. ‘I have something I need to tell you, actually, officers …’
‘Could you answer the question first?’ Kiri’s expression reminds her of the mock-strict schoolteacher look that Ethan would sometimes put on. It used to make her laugh, and there is something faintly ridiculous about Kiri’s demeanour, like she’s just play-acting at being a police officer. But the atmosphere in the room is charged. If this is a game, it’s a serious one.
‘Was it you?’ Ben joins in.
‘Me? Why would I?’
‘Why would anyone?’
‘There is a lot of bad feeling in this village,’ Georgie says. ‘A lot of hatred. A lot of guilt.’
‘Guilt?’
Georgie nods slowly, glad Kiri has leapt on this word. ‘Guilty consciences all round, is my observation. No wonder they’re manifesting in strange ways.’
They look at each other again, scepticism passing between them. In the silence, Georgie leans forward. ‘I saw Peter hiding something in the skip in the pub garden.’
Now they swing back towards her, eyes wide. Kiri looks curious; Ben more concerned. But she has their attention, she has a bargaining chip, and she has the evidence, at home in her wardrobe, to back it up.