42

BEX

I don’t trust Penelope. In fact, I’ve never trusted her, ever since before I first set eyes on her. All that crap she spouted about journalism being the first draft of history. She’s nothing but a parasite, feeding off the misery of others.

I’m pleased that Jen has fallen out with her, but I’m still worried that the old bitch may have some hold over my friend. I can’t be too careful. That’s why I’m standing outside her house in Hampstead, waiting for her to go out. The joy of it is I don’t need to break in. I’m holding the key that Jen took with her when she moved out, which I found inside her bag.

I’ve been waiting just over half an hour, but I don’t mind standing here, on the same side of the deserted street as her house so she can’t see me from her windows. And to anyone else, the occasional passer-by, I’m just a normal-looking woman in her early forties. What could be threatening about that?

Finally, just after noon, a car pulls up outside. I step behind a tall yew hedge and watch as the driver makes a call, presumably to tell her that he is outside. A few minutes later, Penelope appears at her door, carrying a laptop bag. Today, she is dressed in a black suit and high heels. She locks the door and totters down the pathway to the car. There is a brief interchange about where she is going – yes, that’s right, she says, to the RAC on Pall Mall. She’s the guest of honour at a lunch. The driver says she must be famous and she laughs in a sickeningly affected manner. Then the door is closed, she puts on her seat belt, and they drive away.

I give it a few minutes before I take the key out of my pocket and walk up to the house. I don’t check to see whether anyone is looking because this will only make me appear suspicious. So I open the door in a slightly bored manner, as if I’ve done this a thousand times before. And I step inside.

The air carries a trace of Penelope’s perfume – I can smell rose, jasmine, vanilla, and sandalwood. Is it Chanel No. 5? I walk through to the kitchen. There is a pile of newspapers on the table and a dirty coffee cup, its rim stained with Penelope’s pink lipstick.

Even though I’ve been to the house a few times I’m still astounded by how much space there is – and all for one person. I think about some of the men and women I’ve met at the food bank and how little room they have, not only for themselves but for their children too. Penelope is a symbol of everything that is wrong in Britain today: rich, privileged, entitled, blinkered, narrow-minded, and self-serving. A bubble of anger and hatred for her seeps up from deep within me. Instead of swallowing it down I give vent to my feelings. ‘Fuck you, Penelope,’ I say. ‘Fuck you and everything you stand for.’

I climb the flight of stone stairs to the first storey and go into what was Jen’s room. I sit on the bed and touch her pillow. There’s a long, blonde hair, one of hers. She’s at her therapy session now, no doubt talking of the trauma of witnessing the murder–suicide on Kite Hill. When she gets back she’ll probably be feeling a bit low. I’ll make sure to try to cheer her up somehow. But I won’t tell her about my little visit to Penelope’s.

I make my way up the stairs again to the very top of the house and into Penelope’s large study, carpeted in jute matting. There’s an enormous mahogany desk that sits by a window overlooking the garden. The room is full of shelves of books. In the corner of the room there’s a filing cabinet. I pull it open and search through files: bank statements, insurance certificates, old papers relating to mortgage payments. There are letters from readers, fans, former colleagues, postcards from friends sent from various destinations around the world. Yet, no matter how hard I look, I can’t find anything relating to either the murder–suicide or to Jen herself. Perhaps Penelope was carrying the material in her laptop bag.

I walk back over to the desk. It’s free of papers, apart from a letter asking her to renew her membership of the Conservative Party. There’s nothing here of use to me, but then I spot something that is in plain sight: a large rectangular pad of blotting paper, an antique affair edged in a brass frame. There’s something written in ink in one corner, but it’s in reverse. I look around the room for a mirror, but there isn’t one. I take the blotting pad into Penelope’s bedroom. It’s a vision – or rather, a nightmare – in pink, as if she’s taken interior design inspiration from the colour of her lipstick. I move over to her dressing table and see myself reflected in the triptych of mirrors.

I lift the blotting paper up to the mirror. The reverse image, a quick squiggle of ink written using a fountain pen, comes to life. Bex, full name: Rebecca Shaw.

And next to this there’s a question mark.