Chapter 6
It’s still dark when Nadeeka wakes. She’s disorientated, groggy from fitful sleep, and her eyes are swollen and sore. Something feels different. It takes a second, and then . . .
Her eyes snap open. This isn’t her bed.
Where is she? And why does she ache all over, as though she’s been hit by a car?
She isn’t in hospital, she can smell lavender washing powder on the sheets tangled around her, which means she must have stayed at Kath’s last night.
And then it hits her. An avalanche of scenes that crush her so hard she has to fight for breath.
Driving home from work; the police car outside her house; Jamie’s outstretched arm.
DI Burton leading her outside. Blood. So much blood.
It plays like a movie, fast-forwarded to the point at which Kath pressed pause last night, telling the girls that Mummy wasn’t feeling well and needed to go to bed.
‘It’s not even our bedtime yet!’ Maya had crowed, and the pair of them had fallen about in hysterics.
Nish had insisted on tucking Nadeeka into bed, playing Mummy and telling her to sleep tight, mind the bed bugs don’t bite, and Nadeeka had held it together until Kath took away her granddaughters and gently closed the door, leaving Nadeeka alone with a grief that made her feel as though she was dying too.
She lies on her back now in Kath’s spare room, her eyes wide open.
Tears trace the contours of her ears and dampen her neck.
She feels paralysed by everything that happened yesterday and everything that needs doing today, all the people she needs to speak to.
Thoughts appear in the darkness, and she grabs at them and sticks them to her to-do list, only for them to float away a second later.
She needs to register Jamie’s death and speak to the undertaker; cancel his mobile phone contract and notify the DVLA.
Jamie’s boss needs to know, and is it enough that DI Burton has notified Jamie’s family, or should Nadeeka call them?
She doesn’t know if she’s capable of talking, but it feels wrong to text.
And she needs to register his death. And tell the DVLA.
And cancel Jamie’s phone contract and . .
. she’s dizzy with the weight of it all.
She throws off the covers. It must be before seven; the heating hasn’t kicked in, and there’s a bite to the air. She reaches for the dressing gown Kath gave her last night and pushes her feet into fluffy slippers that swim on her narrow feet as she quietly makes her way downstairs.
Five-thirty.
Nadeeka feels better with the light on. More in control.
She finds her phone and pins down her to-do list properly so it can’t escape again.
Notify DVLA, cancel phone contract, funeral director, work, bank, credit card.
It feels less overwhelming now, less urgent.
What does it matter when Vodafone find out that Jamie has died?
And as she thinks it she finds herself tapping the call button, staring at the smiling photo on the screen as the call goes to voicemail.
Hi, this is Jamie Golding. I can’t get to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Nadeeka ends the call, bent double over the kitchen table, her chest heaving with silent sobs. She calls again.
Hi, this is Jamie . . .
She will never hear his voice again. Never again hear him whisper Goodnight, my love as she drifts off to sleep. Never again hear him talk about their plans for the future, about places they’ll visit with Maya and Nish, and the weekend breaks they’ll book for when the girls are with Scott.
Hi, this is Jamie . . .
Nadeeka brings up her to-do list and deletes cancel phone contract.
When Kath comes downstairs, she tells Nadeeka to go back to bed, that she’ll sort the girls out.
Nadeeka thanks her, but the school run is an island of normality in an ocean of unknowns, and she feels almost fiercely territorial over it.
Over her daughters, too, because among the midnight whisperings that had kept her tossing and turning had been the repeated fear: what if I lose them too?
Kath looks a little put out, but she doesn’t push the issue. ‘Whatever you think, love. I’ll make you all a nice breakfast before you go.’
While Kath grills bacon, Nadeeka phones work, informing her line manager in a taut, clipped voice that her partner has died unexpectedly, and she won’t be in for a few days.
‘Oh, my God, Nadeeka.’ There’s a moment’s silence on the line, as though Helen doesn’t know what to say. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Now it’s Nadeeka who doesn’t know what to say. Thanks? Yes, me too?
‘That was the guy we met a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it? He seemed so lovely.’
‘He was,’ Nadeeka says tightly. Jamie had surprised her as she left work, standing in reception with a small but beautiful bouquet of her favourite flowers.
‘He was so nice to ask about how the prep was going for the fair.’ The recruitment fair at Echelon Warehousing, where Nadeeka works, is this month; her inbox is overflowing with emails from college tutors asking about start times and minibus parking, and foreign-born workers wanting information about visas.
‘I said to the others afterwards: he seemed genuinely interested, which is more than my husband is!’ Helen stops abruptly. ‘God, Nadeeka, I’m so sorry.’
‘I have to go.’
‘I can’t imagine how you must be—’
Nadeeka ends the call before the kindness can undo her. This is how she will survive this, she decides: by pushing the pain deep down beneath her to-do list. DVLA, credit card, funeral director. It has already become a mantra.
‘Quick sticks!’ she says, as the girls tumble out of the car. ‘We don’t want to be late.’
‘Will Jamie still be in hospital when we get back from school?’ Maya’s book bag bangs against her legs as she twirls her way along the pavement.
‘I’m not sure.’ Nadeeka’s throat is tight. DVLA, credit card, funeral director, she thinks. She says hello to a throng of -mothers by the school gate, but the smile they return is sad, and accompanied by tilted heads that tell Nadeeka she can’t pretend everything is fine.
‘We’re so sorry,’ one of the women says. Sara, is it? Or Charlotte? Nadeeka definitely knows her name, but, when she reaches for it, it doesn’t come. She hugs the girls and shoos them into class.
‘ . . . Maeve in year three,’ Sara or Charlotte is saying. ‘Her grandpa lives opposite you. Such a terrible thing to happen.’
Nadeeka thinks of the man wrapping Christmas lights around the tree in his front garden. Watching the drama unfold. Reporting back. She thinks of the whisper network that masquerades as the PTA. ‘Thank you,’ she says automatically. ‘Excuse me, I have to . . .’
The woman calls after her. ‘If there’s anything we can do!’
Bring him back, Nadeeka wants to say, and by the time she gets to her car she’s crying again.
When she turns into Cedar Walk, she feels a rush of blood to her head and has to slow the car.
There’s no police car now, no blue and white tape, just DI Burton standing by her front door, his breath misting the air.
He’s wearing a thick black overcoat and brown leather gloves like the driving pair Nadeeka’s father used to keep in his car.
‘Ms Prasanna,’ DI Burton says, as she gets out of the car.
‘Nadeeka is fine.’ Her feet feel heavy, as reluctant to step into the house as she is.
‘Nadeeka. And please, call me Colin. How are you?’ The DI’s face is so full of concern that Nadeeka has to look away. ‘Did you manage to get any sleep?’
‘A little.’ Nadeeka hesitates. ‘This is going to sound weird, but could you not . . .’ She lets out an awkward laugh that doesn’t sound like hers.
‘Would you mind not being nice to me? I mean, I don’t want you to be horrible, but I’m just about holding it together, and if .
. .’ She tails off. She sounds unhinged.
‘If people are too kind, it brings your emotions to the surface,’ Colin says.
‘Yes, exactly that.’ And then Nadeeka has to blink fast and swallow hard, because empathy is a close cousin to kindness.
‘We’ll stick to the facts, then.’ Colin takes out the key Nadeeka left with him yesterday, opens the front door, then hands it to her. ‘You can have this back; we’ve got everything we need for now.’ His gaze is level. ‘Ready?’
Nadeeka gives a tight nod. There’s a strong smell in the hallway. Not yesterday’s metallic tang – so familiar and yet so terrifying – but a lemony scent so sharp it pricks at Nadeeka’s eyes.
‘The cleaners have only just finished,’ Colin says. ‘The forensic team uses some potent chemicals, and it wouldn’t be safe to leave them lingering on surfaces, so the crime scene clean-up firm came in early this morning. We use them a lot; they’ll have done a good job.’
They have. Nadeeka’s house has a spring-clean feel that, if she’s honest, it hasn’t had for years. The skirting boards have been wiped clean, and the chrome door handles shine as the light catches them. And in the living room . . .
Nadeeka’s breath catches. She steadies herself on the doorframe.
The silver-grey carpet is spotless, with neat lines like a freshly mown lawn.
The furniture isn’t quite as it should be – the sofa has been pushed back against the wall, and the coffee table isn’t straight – but otherwise it looks exactly the way it was when Nadeeka left for work yesterday morning.
As though nothing had happened. The only legacy of Jamie’s murder is the pain in her chest and the detective inspector standing beside her.
‘Would you prefer it if we talked in the kitchen?’ Colin says, after a moment’s silence.
Nadeeka nods and leads the way. Maybe she’ll move the furniture around later, make it look different. The spot where Jamie died is where Maya and Nish practise headstands against the wall, Nadeeka and Jamie on the sofa holding up imaginary scorecards.