69236538256563

JIM
It was Emma who I thought of all the way home. I thought of telling her about the CCTV, that grainy
image of Lucas Grantham driving across the bridge in a blue Peugeot 305, his bike on a rack on the
back. I thought of driving to her flat and holding her, trying to find a way forward. I felt my exhaustion
drug me, dull my senses and my reactions, addle my brain. I felt like part of me was missing.
I went to bed after midnight. I’d treated myself to a packet of cigarettes, a consolation prize for the
demise of the best relationship I’d ever had, and I sucked on one after the other, the smoke hitting my
lungs like a wallop, making them ache. I drank most of a pot of coffee far too late. I felt like I should
keep working, scouring Lucas Grantham’s background, but my concentration was shot to pieces and
so I got under my covers and tasted the bitter residue of the fags mixed with toothpaste on my tongue
and thought about the CCTV and what it meant, and thought about what Emma might be doing.
It wasn’t her that got into my head for rest of that night, though.
When I finally shut my eyes and tried to sleep, my brain had a different plan.
It pulled me back to my past, and it did it swiftly, like an ocean current that’s merciless and strong.
It took me back to my childhood, where it had a memory to replay for me, a videotape of my past that
it had dug out of the back of a drawer where I’d shoved it, long ago, hoping to forget.
When the memory starts I’m on the landing at my parents’ house, looking through the banisters. I’m
eight years old, exactly the same age as Benedict Finch. I’m at home, and it’s well past my bedtime.
Down below, the hallway is dark because it’s night and it’s hard to see, but when the front door
opens I know it’s my sister Becky because of the way she closes it ever so softly, trying not to make a
sound. She’s wearing a party dress, which looked pretty when she went out earlier, but now it’s a
mess and her tights have got a big rip on one leg. Her eyes look horrible, like she’s been crying black
tears.
She yelps when she realises my dad’s standing in the hall opposite her. He’s wearing his day
clothes and holding a cigarette that glows red. Becky doesn’t move.
‘What did you see?’ Dad asks her. His face is in shadows.
She shakes her head in a tight way, says, ‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t muck me about, Rebecca.’
A sob comes from her; it makes her body buckle. ‘I saw the girl,’ she says. ‘And I saw you.’
‘You shouldn’t have been there,’ he says.
‘She was hurt, but you didn’t care,’ Becky chokes out her words. ‘You gave her to that man, I saw
you do it, she was begging, she was crying and you did nothing, you let it happen. They shoved her in
the car. I wasn’t born yesterday, Dad!’
She tries to lift her head and look at him all proud, like she usually is, but instead her back slides
down the wall so she’s on the floor. Dad crouches in front of her.
‘Keep your voice down,’ he says to her, ‘or you’ll wake your mum.’ He takes her chin between his
fingers and wrenches her head up so she’s looking at him.
I don’t know what to do. I want to look away but I can’t stop watching. I want to stop them both
from arguing. I don’t want him to hurt her.
I see a big china dog on a shelf beside me. It belongs to my mum. She loves that dog. She likes the
smooth, nubbly texture of its ears. I pick it up. I don’t want to smash my mum’s china dog and I don’t
want to hurt anybody, but I’m desperate to distract Dad and Becky, to stop the thing that’s happening. I
throw it, as hard as I can, but it hits the top of the banisters and so it smashes right by me and rains