Simon Beckett - Stone Bruises

It’s Mathilde’s.

I almost go straight to the house there and then. Better if she hears it from me than Georges or Arnaud. Or Gretchen, God forbid: I dread to think what sort of spin she’ll put on this.

But by the time I’ve reached the barn I’ve talked myself out of it. If I tell Mathilde it’ll look as if I’m trying to cause trouble. Besides, Georges is such an enigma I’ve no idea what he’ll do. Maybe he’s so uninterested in anything except his pigs he won’t even say anything.

So instead I mix up a batch of mortar, angrily churning sand and cement together with a bucket of water. The beginning of a tension headache probes the back of my neck as I climb up the scaffold. I’ve no enthusiasm, and even the bucket seems heavier than usual. But I don’t know what else to do, and I might as well finish more of the wall while I wait for the fallout.

Something else falls instead. As I mechanically smooth mortar into the gaps between the stones I feel a wet splash on my cheek. I look up and see that the sky has darkened to a muddy grey. With a sound of dropping pennies, raindrops begin to spatter down onto the scaffold.

The weather has finally broken.

I’M SPRAWLED ON the sofa in my flat watching a DVD of Les Diaboliques one afternoon when my mobile rings. I’ve seen the film numerous times already but I was bored and there’s nothing else to do before I’m due at the Zed. I’ve been telling myself I should do something more constructive with my free time, get my life moving again. But like most things these days it seems like too much effort.

I pause the film and pick up the phone. It’s Callum.

‘Sean, I’ve just read about it in the newspaper. I’m really sorry, man, I’d no idea.’

I haven’t seen Callum for a while. Not since the double date, in fact. There was talk about doing it again, but it never happened. The truth is I’ve been trying to cut myself off from links to my old life, although ‘cutting’ is altogether too active a description for what I’ve been doing. It’s more like letting them die away of their own accord.

I’m still looking at the frozen black and white image on the TV screen: Simone Signoret leaning over the suited body of Paul Meurisse in a bathtub. It’s a great scene. ‘No idea about what? What are you talking about?’

There’s a pause. ‘You mean you didn’t know about Chloe?’

It’s in the London Evening Standard . I don’t have a copy but the report is on the website. It’s brief, and there’s no accompanying photograph. Presumably they didn’t think the story merited it, or maybe they just didn’t have time to locate one after Chloe’s body was pulled from the Thames.

A former drug addict, is how the report describes her. Suicide or accident, no one seems sure, although she matches the description of a young woman seen falling off the guard rail of Waterloo Bridge two nights earlier. She’d been so stoned or drunk that none of the witnesses could say whether she stumbled or jumped. The story has only made the news because her body was found bumping against the pilings of a jetty by a group of schoolchildren on a boat trip. The report reserves most of its sympathy for them rather than Chloe.

She was just another addict.

Jez answers the phone when I call Yasmin. I haven’t spoken to him since I left the language school. I’ve nothing against him but the fact he lives with Chloe’s best friend made it awkward for both of us.

I don’t care about that now, though. ‘It’s Sean,’ I say.

‘Sean.’ His voice is even heavier than usual. ‘You’ve heard?’

‘Just now. Callum called.’

‘You OK?’

I don’t bother to answer that. ‘Is Yasmin there?’

‘Yeah, but… I don’t think you should speak to her right now.’

I stare out of my window at a pigeon that’s landed on the ledge. It cocks its head to look at me through the glass. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know much. She’d been using again, though. Yasmin tried to get her to clean up, but you know how it is. She’d started doing some serious stuff.’ There’s a hesitation. ‘You know Jules dumped her?’

I put my head against the wall. ‘When?’

‘A couple of weeks ago. Chloe told Yasmin that Jules was in trouble. I told you he had a gym in Docklands? Well, by the sound of it he thought the old quay it was in was going to be redeveloped, so he bought the entire building. Hocked himself up to the hilt expecting to make a killing, and then the plug got pulled on the redevelopment. So now he owes Lenny, the big guy who’s been supplying him with shit at the gym, as well as some people Lenny does business with. People you really don’t want to owe money to. I don’t know all the details, but Chloe… Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

‘Go on.’

There’s a sigh. ‘Well, Chloe said that Jules was starting to deal more seriously, trying to pay off his debts. He’d got something set up and wanted her to courier for him. As in an all-expenses-paid trip to Thailand.’

‘Jesus.’ I close my eyes.

‘She didn’t, she said no,’ Jez goes on hurriedly. ‘But Jules lost it. Threw her out of his apartment, told her she was a parasite, stufflike that, and then cut her dead. Wouldn’t have anything more to do with her. I think some of it was probably payback for her walking out on him last time, and it must have pushed Chloe over the edge. Yasmin did what she could, but—’

There’s a sudden commotion on the other end of the line. I can hear muffled voices, one of them angry, and then Yasmin comes on.

‘Are you happy now?’ she shouts. She’s crying. ‘You fucking shit, why’d you let her go back to that bastard?’

I rub my temples. ‘It was her choice, Yas.’

‘You left her when she needed you! What did you think she was going to do?’

‘I didn’t ask her to sleep with him and get pregnant!’ I shoot back.

‘You should have given her some fucking support! It could have been yours, but you just walked out and abandoned her!’

‘What?’ My mind’s racing. ‘No, Chloe told me it was his—’

‘And you believed her? Jesus, are you really that fucking stupid? She wanted to make it easy for you, and you let her, didn’t you? You might as well have pushed her yourself, you selfish—’

There’s the sound of a struggle as Jez tries to take the phone. I listen, numbly, as he comes back on, sounding flustered.

‘Sorry, Sean. Yasmin’s… well, you know.’

‘What she said, is it…?’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he says quickly. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. It’s probably better if you don’t call again. Just for a while. I’m sorry.’

The line goes dead. Yasmin’s words feel like they’re burrowing into me. It could have been yours. Christ, was that true? Coming on top of Chloe’s death, it’s too much to take in. But Yasmin wouldn’t make up something like that. And the two of them were best friends; Chloe would confide things to her she’d never tell anyone else.

Including me.

Knowing I’m only tormenting myself, I scroll through my phone’s logged calls. From what Jez said, Jules must have finished with Chloe around the same time she made that last call to me. And I’d ignored it because I was about to go into a film I didn’t want to see, with people I didn’t know. Her name is still there, close to the end. Seeing it on the glowing screen makes me insanely tempted to call it. Instead I check my voicemail in case I missed a message. But of course there’s nothing.

I feel like I’m suffocating. I hurry out of my flat, pretending to myself that I’m walking aimlessly until, inevitably, I come to Waterloo Bridge. It’s a utilitarian concrete span, streaming with traffic beside the pedestrian walkway. I go to the middle and lean over the parapet, looking down at the slow-moving river. I wonder what it must have felt like, stepping off into nothing. If she was still conscious after she hit the dark water. If she was frightened.