‘Mr Perry, have you anything to add?’ she said, wasting her breath but it was important for the record to extend the invitation.
He shook his head.
‘Please wait a moment.’ She got to her feet.
‘You married?’ he said, grinning.
Rachel glared at him. Tosser.
‘You got a ring on. That’s just for show, innit? You’re a muff muncher, i’nt you?’
She wanted to slap his fat, smug face. As she reached the door, he said, ‘All right then, I did it, I shot him. And I set him on fire. I confess.’ The grin widened, showing his gums, and a bead of blood burst on the sore by his mouth.
Fuck me! Perry’s lawyer looked as shocked as Rachel was but the turnaround accounted for why Perry had been smiling like a loon.
‘We would like to get a new statement from Mr Perry in the light of this admission of guilt,’ Rachel said to the solicitor.
‘Go for it,’ Neil Perry said.
Rachel announced that they would begin again in half an hour. Which would just give her time for a fag, a very large coffee and a chance to talk to Godzilla and find out what the other twin was doing.
Elise suggested taking flowers too but flowers didn’t seem right to Janet. They could send some for the funeral if that’s what Vivien and Ken wanted, the card would be enough for now. She said this to Elise, who answered, ‘Just a card?’
‘You could include a note, something personal about Olivia, your memories, what a good friend she was.’
Elise’s face compressed and she turned away. They were in a café. Janet couldn’t get Elise to have anything to eat but she had drunk a milkshake and Janet had a coffee. She’d had far too much coffee in the last forty-eight hours, could feel her nerves singing with false energy. Hard to resist though. There was a television on in the corner, the sound muted, thank God, as the news began with Olivia as the top story. Pictures of Olivia were everywhere. Time and again Janet’s stomach turned over, still not desensitized to the image of the girl who’d been part of their lives in such a shocking context, still not ready to accept the reality of her death.
‘You don’t have to do it all today,’ Janet said. ‘We could drop a card round now and then you can send something more when you’ve had time to think about it.’
‘OK,’ Elise said quietly.
She chose a card without a message, rejecting all the condolence cards with pictures of doves and crosses and phrases that she said were tacky. The card had a white background, embossed with shells, almost abstract. Janet had a pen in her bag.
‘What shall I put?’
‘Keep it simple,’ Janet said, ‘maybe that you’re thinking of them?’
Elise wrote nothing for long enough and Janet was beginning to get impatient. ‘How about we send it from all of us?’ Janet said.
Elise shook her head. She finally put pen to paper. ‘It’s not right.’ She showed Janet.
I am so very sorry. Olivia was the best, most brilliant, loving and caring friend I ever had. I will miss her so much. And I am thinking of you all.
‘It’s fine, it’s lovely. Come on.’
There were several cars on the road outside the house. More family, Janet assumed, come together in support. Janet pulled in across the driveway entrance.
‘Don’t knock, just post it,’ Janet said. ‘They’ll have all sorts going on right now.’
Elise nodded. She got out of the car, leaving the door ajar, and ran up to the porch. At that moment the front door opened, Ken appeared, showing some visitors out. A couple, the man looked like Ken. His brother perhaps?
Elise stood to one side. The pair left.
‘Elise,’ Ken said. He was white, drained.
‘I just brought this.’ Janet could hear Elise. Then she heard Vivien call from inside. ‘Ken?’ Then louder, ‘Ken? Is that Elise?’
Vivien came to the door. Janet got out of the car, ready to explain they were passing, when Vivien said to Elise, ‘How dare you!’
Elise recoiled as if she’d been slapped. ‘How dare you come to my house when you gave her… you. After what you’ve done.’
Ken was talking, trying to restrain his wife. ‘Vivien, don’t. Just leave her, let’s go in.’ But Vivien was frantic with distress. ‘She wouldn’t have been there if-’
‘Elise.’ Janet reached her, took her arm.
‘I’m sorry,’ Elise, her face bright red, said to Vivien.
‘You stupid little fool,’ Vivien cried.
‘That’s enough,’ Janet said, ‘it wasn’t Elise’s fault. It was nobody’s fault.’
‘Rubbish! If it hadn’t been for your bloody daughter, Olivia would still be here!’
Other people, alerted by the noise, appeared behind Vivien and Ken in the hall. Ken took Vivien’s shoulder, she thrust his hand away angrily.
Janet was trembling with adrenaline, anger bubbling inside but, determined to defuse rather than inflate the situation, she spoke slowly, emphatically. ‘What happened was an awful, awful tragedy. It was an accident. It could’ve been Elise who died, or anyone else at the party. The girls were there together, they thought the world of each other. You know that.’
Vivien shook her head violently, not wanting to hear what Janet was saying. ‘I’ve lost my child. You have no idea what I’m going through.’
The tiny body, unnaturally still, blue lips, their first baby, Joshua. That raw terror, the endless black grief. Janet said nothing. This wasn’t a competition. She just needed Vivien to stop persecuting Elise. To see how wrong she was. ‘No one forced Olivia to go there, to take what she did. That’s the awful thing about an accidental death, there is no one to blame.’
Ken said, ‘I’m sorry,’ but Vivien did not relent. ‘Go away,’ she said, looking from Janet to Elise. ‘Get in your car and piss off and don’t come here again. You’re not welcome.’
Elise burst into tears and ran back to the car.
‘Vivien,’ Ken remonstrated.
Janet, stung, turned and walked away.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ said Janet, ‘she’s mad with grief. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s just lashing out. Come on, I’ll take you home.’
‘Can we go to Gran’s?’
‘Gran’s?’
‘Please. I want to go there. You could go back to work.’
‘I’m going nowhere,’ Janet said.
‘I want you to.’ She turned her tear-stained face to her mother. ‘I want things to be normal again. There’s nothing you can do now anyway, is there?’
‘I can be around.’
‘I know but you don’t have to be around all the time. You’ll be home tonight.’
‘I don’t know,’ Janet said.
But Elise seemed set on it and Janet felt like a spare part after half an hour sitting with her mother and daughter. Finally she stood up, said maybe she would call into work, just for an hour or so, if Elise still felt OK about it.
‘I do,’ Elise said, ‘I want you to.’
Dorothy arranged to take Elise home once Ade and Taisie were back.
‘I am sorry,’ Janet said as she was going. She kissed Elise’s head. ‘For all of it. Listen, it will get better. It might not seem like it now but it won’t always feel like this.’
Janet rang and left a message for Ade, telling him that Vivien had lost it, that Elise had sent her back to work and that she’d be home later. ‘Be gentle with her,’ she added, still aching for her daughter.
19
Gill said two words when she saw Janet in the office: ‘Go home.’
‘I’m fine,’ Janet said.
‘You’re on leave, go on.’ Gill tipped her hand towards the door. ‘You should be with Elise.’
‘It was Elise who sent me here, and I’ll be back there like a shot if she so much as whistles, but there’s no point in me sitting there twiddling my thumbs when she’s happier with her gran.’