Читать книгу Perfect Death - Helen Fields - Страница 11

‘I can’t stay indoors any longer, Christian,’ Lily’s sister, Mina, whispered into her mobile. ‘I’m getting out of this house once my parents are both asleep. Can you meet me?’

‘Mina, your parents need you. If they wake up and find you gone, they’ll be terrified,’ he said. ‘You know I’ll come if you need me, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing for you to be going out in the middle of the night.’

‘It’s suffocating me. Lily’s room’s right next to mine. Mum insists we keep the door wide open, as if shutting it pushes her further away. But I walk past it and see something of Lily’s – a scarf, a pen, a bloody hair band for God’s sake – and it starts again. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never stop crying.’

‘All right, I’ll be there. Wait in the bus stop up the road from your house. Just do me a favour and leave your parents a note explaining that you needed a break. It’s not fair to risk them finding an empty bedroom,’ Christian said.

‘You’re right. I will. Just please come.’ She rang off.

Christian went to shower and change his clothes. He’d spent the earlier part of the evening in a dive bar that held open mic evenings with a covert smoking room at the back and now his clothes reeked of cigarettes. Mina would hate it and he wanted to be able to comfort her the way she needed. Pulling on a denim shirt and black jeans, he wrapped a scarf around his neck and grabbed a thick duffle coat. He grabbed a book on the way out, throwing it casually onto the back seat. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was one of next term’s texts for Edinburgh University’s Masters in US Literature course. Mina was always fascinated with what he was reading.

His car was the typical student vehicle. It had scraped through its most recent vehicle check, had the lowest insurance policy available and inside you could pretty much see the springs coming through the seats but it was functional and avoided breaking down, most days. Before he left his flat, he made two hot chocolates, put them in reusable takeout mugs (Mina was ever conscious of the environment), and picked up a bag of marshmallows he’d been saving. He couldn’t do much to put a smile on Mina’s face right now, but he could do that.

She was waiting for him in the rain, just her head poking out from the bus stop as Mina looked for his car. Christian pulled over and flashed his lights, wiping condensation off the inside of the passenger window so she could see it was him.

‘Hey you,’ he said, as she threw herself into the passenger seat. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘Could we just drive for a while?’ Mina asked. ‘I need to feel as if I’m moving. Everything else has stopped.’

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘we don’t even have to talk. Where are we going?’

‘Take me as close as we can get to Arthur’s Seat,’ Mina said. ‘I have to see. I want to figure out why the hell Lily did what she did.’

Christian put a cup of hot chocolate in her hands before setting off.

‘Mina, are you sure about going to Arthur’s Seat? I’m sure Lily would have hated the thought of you hurting yourself like this.’

‘Yeah, well you never met her, so please don’t tell me what she would or wouldn’t have liked. Oh God, Christian, I’m so sorry. I don’t know where that came from.’ Mina looked away, out of the passenger window. ‘I’m not sure I even know myself any more. Shit, listen, you can drop me off if you like. I’ll understand if you just want to go home. And thank you for the hot chocolate. I don’t deserve it. Or you.’ Mina dashed an already rain-wet sleeve across her eyes.

Christian looked at her hunched shoulders, her hair that hadn’t seen a shower or a brush in the two and a half days since her sister’s body had been found, at her feet twisted in towards one another as if her body was literally trying to make itself disappear. He reached into the driver’s door compartment and retrieved the marshmallows.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘But I am going to insist that you eat at least a dozen of these. You need sugar and you need a friend. You’ll have to do more than snap at me for a second to make me desert you.’ Mina turned her face back towards his and did her best to force a smile. ‘If going up to Arthur’s Seat is what you need, then that’s what we’ll do. There are no rights or wrongs when you lose someone you love. There’s only getting through each day. Perhaps you will feel something. Let’s find out.’

They drove for fifteen minutes, the traffic less of a problem than the driving rain, until Christian parked up on Queen’s Drive as close as he could get by road to the area of Arthur’s Seat that Mina had wanted to visit. It was utterly dark, even the light pollution from the city not daring to creep up the hillside. He killed the engine and sat in silence waiting for Mina to talk.

‘What was Lily doing up there?’ Mina whispered. ‘She’d never talked about going there before. We climbed it as children, and I think she visited as part of a school trip once. But at night, in December?’

‘Did you hear any more from the police?’ Christian asked.

‘They said we’d get the preliminary autopsy findings tomorrow. No other progress, though. No one’s come forward to say they were with her. None of Lily’s friends were aware who she was with.’ She dunked a marshmallow in the hot chocolate, waited until it was half melted, then put it in her mouth. ‘This is good,’ she said. ‘Thanks for coming to get me.’

‘That’s okay,’ Christian said. ‘I wanted to help. I just didn’t know if you needed space or to be alone with your family.’

‘I need to understand how she could leave me!’ Mina blurted, pieces of marshmallow flying from her lips. She choked, leaning forward, spluttering hot chocolate across her jeans, giving up and dropping the cup into the footwell.

‘Mina,’ Christian said gently.

‘I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up,’ she sobbed, both arms clutched across her stomach, hair hanging down over her face.

‘Don’t apologise. Just come here,’ he said, sliding his left arm over her shoulders, the other hand pulling her right arm out from her body and towards him. He wrapped her in his arms, stroking her hair. ‘It’s okay to cry,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

Mina surrendered to the comfort, leaning her head against his chest, letting herself crumple. Christian rocked her gently as she cried, holding her safe, pressing his face into the top of her head, fighting the rushing tide of his own emotion. She was so fragile, and trying to absorb such an unbearably heavy blow. Minutes went by. Mina’s sobbing abated, replaced with the involuntary hitching of her lungs. The more she tried to hold it in, the more wracked her body became.

‘I can’t do this,’ she whispered, her breath raw in her throat. ‘I’m never going to be able to let her go. It’s like Mum has died, too. She aged right in front of me. It was like gravity distorted her face into some sort of grey mask. I can’t even describe it.’ Christian let her talk. He knew better than to tell her it was going to get better. He’d lost someone he loved and there was no comfort to give when it was all so new. Mina moved back to look him full in the face, pulling her knees up to her chest. ‘I keep thinking, if she’d been ill would that have been better or worse. I could have said goodbye, held her hand. But I don’t even know if … if she was scared. I mean, God, what if she wanted to die up there? Do you think it’s possible that’s why she went up there? How do people cope with this? It’s like we’ve turned into a story about ourselves.’ She sobbed again, her face a tortured version of the carefree girl Christian usually saw. ‘They’re fucking cutting her open. That’s where she’ll be now. Lily’s lying on some metal tray somewhere, in pieces. I can’t do anything to help her. I can’t tell her I love her, I can’t tell her not to be so stupid and selfish. I think I hate her. I hate her for leaving me. How can I hate her when she’s dead? It’s like everything inside me is rotting.’

Mina threw open the door and bolted, reaching a ditch before stopping to vomit. Christian ran behind, catching her in time to stop her falling forward with the spasms of her stomach. She retched twice more before her body relaxed and allowed her to stand upright.

‘I should get you home,’ he said. ‘This isn’t helping. You’ve got to take it a day – an hour – at a time. It’ll help when the police have some answers. Come on,’ he said, one arm around her shoulders as he guided her back to the car. ‘I’ll be here, night or day, whenever you need to talk.’

‘Thank you,’ Mina rasped. ‘I’m so grateful to have you. Promise you won’t leave me. I can’t make it through this without you.’