The Wreckage

1

Holly opens the curtains, dividing the room with angled light. The overnight storm has passed and the sky is the color of tarnished silverware. The bruise on her cheek has faded but if she presses it hard enough she can still feel it beneath her skin. Zac’s bruise: the last one he inflicted upon her. A souvenir. No, that’s not the word she wants. A reminder.

She should call his parents. Help make arrangements for the funeral. She only met them once. Zac told them that she was a legal secretary and was helping him sue the army for compensation. Can you sue the army for war injuries, she wondered. Maybe the government doesn’t allow it.

There is a knock on the door. Her heart leaps. She checks the window. The fire escape is her escape route.

“Who is it?”

“I’m looking for Florence.”

“Just a minute.”

Holly pulls on a pair of jeans and picks up a lamp from a table between the beds. Unlocking the door, she steps behind it, holding the lamp above her head.

The door opens. Nobody enters.

“You don’t need that,” says the voice.

Holly looks across the room and sees her reflection in the mirror. The man in the hallway can see her.

“I’m a friend of Vincent’s. You can call me Joe.”

She studies him for a moment, looking for the lie, then lowers the lamp on to the table. Joe steps into the room.

“I brought you something to eat,” he says, handing her a paper bag with handles. “I didn’t know if you were a vegetarian so I brought you both.”

Holly rips open the wrapping and bends into a sandwich greedily, forcing the corner of the bread into her mouth.

“How do you know Vincent?” she asks between mouthfuls.

“We’ve worked together.”

“Are you a copper?”

“A psychologist.”

Holly searches his face. He’s telling the truth. She starts on the second sandwich.

“Can I sit down?” he asks.

“Do what you like.”

The hotel room is just big enough for two single beds, a wardrobe and an armchair worn smooth by many buttocks. It smells of ancient lacquer and cheap perfume and, somehow faintly, of wet tobacco trodden into the carpets.

“So?”

“So what?”

“How did you sleep?”

She laughs. “This conversation sounds like a real winner.”

Joe is studying her. “Do I make you nervous?”

“No.”

She opens the soft drink and gulps it noisily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, barefoot, shoulders hunched. Pausing for a moment, she looks at Joe again, examining him like a strange animal that has crossed her path. Mid-forties, slightly stooped, he has a tangle of hair and baggy clothes. He has kind eyes and a bumbling sort of air, like a man who’s forgotten something.

“Where are you from, Holly?”

“Why?”

“I’m interested.”

“Why are you interested?”

“I’ve read your Social Services file.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“I called in a favor.”

“What about my privacy?”

“Have you talked to someone like me before?”

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“You want dates?”

Joe gives her a pained smile. “Vincent thinks you can tell when someone is lying.”

“He’s wrong. I tricked him.”

“How did you do that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Holly tilts the soft-drink can, draining the remainder. She toys with the can, running her finger around the rim.

“What’s the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?”

“Psychiatrists can medicate.”

“Just my luck.”

“Why wouldn’t you talk to the police?”

“Same reason I don’t want to talk to you.”

“But you are talking to me. You don’t trust them, do you? You’ve spent time in custody. Did something happen to you?”

She’s not looking at him now. Her lips are thin lines.

“Can you really tell when someone is lying?” he asks.

“You don’t believe it.”

“I keep an open mind.”

“Things get polluted if you leave them open. They collect rainwater. Litter. Leaves.”

Joe has had people like Holly in his consulting room. Patients unwilling to trust or frightened of what their thoughts and words might reveal about them. Sometimes Holly acts as though she has all the self-awareness of a hairdryer, but she’s picking up on every detail of their conversation, his unspoken signals, mannerisms and micro-expressions.

Holly asks him what time it is.

“Does it matter?” he asks.

“Is everything with you a question?” She bounces off the bed and walks to the window, her bare feet making the floor creak. “I need to get out of here.”

“Vincent said you should stay put.”

“Nobody knows I’m here. Just for half an hour. A walk.”

He agrees. They stop at a cafe on Edgware Road with metal tables and chairs on the pavement. Holly is hungry again. She orders a muffin and a cappuccino. Joe pays. He’s still trying to fathom this girl, whose piercings seem to multiply in her ears, three in her left ear, four in her right; another in her navel, which he glimpses when she yawns and stretches her arms above her head.

“Get a good look?” she says. She flips up her T-shirt, showing her bra. Her breasts. He looks away. Wrongly accused. Within moments, Holly acts as though the entire incident never happened. She flicks through magazines on a wooden rack. A newspaper lies open on a table. The headline: ROGUE BANKER FLIGHT RISK. Holly turns to the full story and reads about Richard North, her lips forming the words.

“How does somebody spend that much money?” she asks. “He could buy an island or his own plane. If I had fifty-four million quid I’d go to Jamaica and spend the rest of my life on a beach.”

“Do you remember him?”

“I guess.”

“What do you remember?”

“He was married. His wife was away for the weekend. They had a small boy.” Holly breaks her muffin into pieces, picking at the crumbs with her fingertips. “He asked me if I had ever done something wrong. He meant illegal. I thought maybe he knew we were going to rob him.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“He picked me up.”

“Just like that?”

Holly fixes him with a pitying look. “That’s what married men do-they look at someone like me and they want to know what I’m like in bed, what I look like naked, what I’ll do with my pretty little mouth. You’re doing it now.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are. All men are the same. They either hit me or hit on me or do both.”

“That’s a very sad view of life.”

“It’s the truth.”

Joe doesn’t want to argue with her. He sticks to his questions, asking what she stole.

“The usual stuff-phones, laptops, cameras, jewelry-things we could carry in the saddle bags of Zac’s bike.”

“What did you do then?”

“We fenced it.”

“Where?”

Holly rolls her eyes. “There’s a guy I know in the East End. Bernie Levinson. He owns a pawnshop. Bernie bought the stuff from me. He’s tighter than a duck’s arse but sometimes he lends me money when I’m short of the rent.”

Holly brushes the crumbs from her lap and looks around for something else to do. She’s sick of answering questions. “Now it’s my turn,” she says. “Are you married?”

“Technically.”

What does that mean?”

“I’m not divorced.”

“Separated?”

“Presently.”

“Why is your hand shaking?”

“I have Parkinson’s.”

She remains silent.

“Is that it?”

Holly shrugs. “It’s no fun unless you lie to me.”