Chapter 5
Ana panicked. A million thoughts landed in her head at once. Mr Arif? Police? Drug-crazed rapist with chainsaw? Can’t open door. Tiara. Lipstick. Silly hair. Pink dress. Drunk. Very drunk. Shit. Fuck. What to do? What to do?
She ripped off the tiara and threw down the stole and tucked her bouffant hair behind her ears in an attempt to tame it, then tip-toed across the hall and towards the front door in her socked feet, barely allowing herself to breathe.
She put her eye to the spy-hole and peered out into the corridor, thinking immediately of that weird Oasis video as the fish-eyed view came into focus.
And there was a surreal image if Ana had ever seen one: a tiny, over-rouged old lady with strangely curled white hair under a hairnet, wearing a pink, fluffy dressing-gown with matching slippers and clutching a small sausage dog wearing a pink knitted vest to her bosom.
She was looking extremely concerned, in that way that only vulnerable and lonely old people can.
Ana picked up her cardi from where it lay on the sofa, threw it on over her dress and made her way back to the front door.
‘Just coming,’ she called, flattening her hair down again and wiping off her lipstick with the back of her hand, ‘just coming.’
‘Oh,’ said the old lady, recoiling slightly as the door opened and putting one tiny, crêpey hand to her chest.
‘Hello,’ said Ana, attempting to smile normally but failing quite miserably judging by the worried look on the old lady’s face.
‘I was just, er, locking up, about to go to bed and I heard all sorts of noise coming from in here. Is everything all right?’
‘Oh yes. Fine. I’m sorry if I disturbed you, I was just – er – listening to some music, you know.’
‘I’m Amy Tilly-Loubelle. I live next door. And you are?’
‘I’m Ana,’ she extended a hand and offered it to the neighbour, who flinched slightly.
‘Moving in, are we?’ she asked, her pale blue eyes fluttering nervously around the hallway behind her.
‘No. Moving out. My sister used to live here and I’ve come up to …’
Suddenly Mrs Tilly-Loubelle’s face lit up, and her demeanour changed entirely.
‘Oh, so you’re the famous Ana,’ she said, clapping her hands together with delight and making her little dog start.
‘Bee used to talk about you all the time.’ Her face dropped again and she rested a hand on Ana’s arm.
‘I’m so terribly, terribly, unspeakably sorry about the dreadful thing that happened to your sister.
I feel so completely responsible – you see, I live next door and I didn’t notice and … ’
But Ana wasn’t listening. She was still reeling from the ‘Bee used to talk about you all the time’ comment.
‘Erm, I was just about to open another bottle of champagne,’ Ana found herself saying, much to her own surprise. ‘Would you like to have a glass with me?’
Mrs Tilly-Loubelle’s face lit up and she grinned naughtily. ‘How delightful. I’d love to, dear.’
Ana was incredibly grateful to the old lady for not mentioning her bizarre appearance, but then she wasn’t really in a position to say anything, Ana supposed, given the matching pink dressing-gown, slippers and dog-vest ensemble.
She let Amy in and locked the door behind her.
‘Oh, she was a lovely girl,’ said Amy, sipping enthusiastically at her second glass of champagne.
‘From the minute I set eyes on her I thought – there’s a girl after my own heart.
She reminded me so much of myself at the same age, so stylish and well turned-out.
Always had her nails done, her hair was always just so. And so unconventional.’
‘Did you see her often?’
‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘not as often as I’d have liked.
We shared a pot of tea from time to time.
She always took a very kind interest in my well-being.
But young people, they have their own lives to live, don’t they?
We’ve had our turn.’ She chuckled and then became sad again.
‘It’s just so, so tragic that her turn was cut short.
It never occurs to you, when you get to my age.
I’d left her all sorts of things in my will, you know, bits and pieces she’d admired in my apartment – and I was going to ask her to look after dear Freddie, here.
’ She pointed at the long dog slumbering beside her on the sofa.
‘Just presumed I’d pop off first. You don’t think of young people going first.’
‘Have you – do you have any idea what happened here on that last night?’ Ana asked. ‘Did she have anyone … here? With her?’
Amy shook her head. ‘I heard her going out at about nine o’clock, just as I was getting ready for bed.
I recognize the click of her door, you see.
And then I went to bed, put in my earplugs and that was the last I knew until the next morning.
I’m a very heavy sleeper, you see. Once I’ve conked out, nothing can wake me. ’
‘And what happened the next day? Did anything seem strange?’
‘Goodness,’ Mrs Tilly-Loubelle chuckled, ‘have you ever thought of joining the police force?’
‘Sorry. It’s just that we – me and my mother – we don’t really know very much. Only what they told us on the phone, and …’
‘Where is your mother, by the way? Is she not here with you?’
Ana shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘my mother’s agoraphobic. She can’t leave the house, so she sent me.’
Amy clutched her heart with her hand. ‘Oh, how simply awful,’ she gasped.
‘Imagine – not being able to leave your own home. It would be like being a prisoner. I’m so sorry, Ana – that’s simply dreadful.
But to answer your question, no. Nothing seemed strange the next day.
Bee wasn’t around, but then she was away most weekends.
There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about that. ’
‘Where did she go? At the weekends?’
Amy looked surprised and smiled quizzically at her. ‘Why – to see you, of course!’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. To stay with you. In Devon.’
‘In Devon?’
‘That’s right, dear.’
‘And Bee told you that? Bee told you she spent weekends with me in Devon?’
‘Absolutely. She told me about your lovely little flat overlooking the sea and the two of you playing your guitars and going for walks together. She needed to escape, that’s what she used to say, get away from all the hustle and bustle.
She said that the air in Devon was like medicine for her soul. ’
Ana tried to smile through her confusion. ‘And how often did she, er, come and see me?’
‘Well, nearly every weekend, wouldn’t you say?
That’s why nothing seemed out of the ordinary when I didn’t see her or hear her on that terrible, terrible weekend.
’ Her pale-blue eyes filled with tears then, and she quickly fished a handkerchief out of her sleeve, burying her pretty, rouged old face into the cotton, her tiny shoulders trembling.
‘Oh, Ana – I feel so terrible. To think. All weekend I was there, next door. All weekend, just pottering around, getting on with things. In and out to the shops. Making phone calls. Watching the television. And all that time your beautiful sister, that angelic, unique woman who had everything ahead of her, was lying there’ – she indicated the bedroom with her now-pink eyes – ‘dead. All alone. All alone. I think it’s the most tragic thing that’s ever happened to me and I’ve lost a lot of people in my time.
But I will never, ever get over losing your sister.
Do you understand? Some people die – but others are taken. And that girl was taken.’
‘You don’t think it was suicide?’
Amy shook her head vehemently. ‘No. Absolutely not. There is no way that girl would take her own life.’
‘So what d’you think happened?’
‘An accident. A terrible, tragic accident. That’s what I think. She would never have killed herself. She had too much to live for.’
‘Like what?’ Ana was still reeling from Bee’s inexplicable lies about how she spent her weekends. She was half-expecting the old lady to tell her that Bee had had six children or something.
‘Well,’ Mrs Tilly-Loubelle began, looking affronted by the question, ‘you, for a start. She adored you. I hope you realize that.’
Ana opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again. The words to express her confusion didn’t seem to exist.
‘And John,’ Amy continued.
‘John. Who was John?’
‘Her cat. A beautiful cat.’
A cat. Called John? ‘And where is he now, this – er – John?’
Amy shrugged. ‘Someone must have taken him away, I suppose. The RSPCA. A friend. I have no idea. I was hoping he’d gone to you. Gone to Devon.’
Ana shook her head. ‘No. He’s not in Devon.’
It fell silent for a while as Ana and Amy sipped champagne and stared at the carpet. ‘Did Bee have any special friends, any boyfriends, or anything that you knew about?’
Amy screwed up her face and then nodded. ‘She had a couple of friends who used to visit occasionally. I haven’t seen them in a while, though. In fact, I’d say she had no visitors at all in the last couple of months.’
What did they look like?’
‘A black girl – very pretty. And a large man. A handsome man.’
‘Bee’s boyfriend?’
‘No. More’s the pity. No, he was just a friend, that’s what Bee told me. A very old friend. And she never mentioned any other men. I often wondered if she was perhaps a lesbian.’
Ana choked as her champagne went down the wrong pipe. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she spluttered.
‘Your sister. I often wondered if she was gay. She had that Radclyffe Hall look about her, like one of those old-fashioned lesbians. Very glamorous but with quite a masculine edge, if you see what I mean.’
‘And did you – did you think she was?’
She shrugged. ‘Never saw men coming up here, never saw women either. Maybe she was asexual. Anyway – what other people get up to is their business. I try not to pay too much attention. What about you?’
Ana started, thinking surely she couldn’t be asking her if she was a lesbian.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’