Ask Me No Questions Page 4

  ‘How is she?’ Thea asked tentatively as they approached.

  ‘I’ll ask the doctor to come and see you,’ the nurse sniffed and walked off, leaving them at the bedside.

  Gabriella’s body was closely tucked into the bed, her arms by her sides. She had a white bandage round her head and two of her fingers were strapped together. A tube protruded out of her mouth, a smaller one in her nose. An army of machines surrounded the bed.

  Thea reached down to touch her, then pulled away quickly, putting her hands behind her back.

  ‘It’s odd seeing her so quiet,’ Harry whispered. He stayed at a distance, unsure what to do. Seeing the twins together was always surreal, their indistinguishable features blurring the two women into one. Even given the different ways Harry felt about them, he was still hard pressed to tell them apart.

  ‘Miss Patterson?’ A voice came from behind and Harry turned, coming face to face with a slim, grey-haired man in a white coat. ‘I’m Doctor Riley – I believe you would like an update on Gabriella’s condition?’

  Thea nodded and the doctor continued. ‘As you know, she was found suffering from severe hypothermia and a traumatic injury to the back of her head. Plus a few knocks and bruises to her hands and arms. Our first priority was to assess the damage to her brain, then get her warm again.’ He paused and looked up from the chart. He glanced at Gabriella in the bed, then back to Thea. ‘You do look very alike.’

  ‘And her head?’ Thea asked, keen to get the doctor moving again.

  ‘She received a heavy blow to the back of her skull, about here,’ he said, pointing to his own head, equidistant between his large ears. ‘Her CT scan shows a traumatic subdural haemorrhage – bleeding on the brain – in a part called the cerebellum, controlling coordination and balance.’

  ‘And what does this mean for her?’ Harry asked.

  ‘We currently have her under sedation while her brain stabilises. And,’ he said quickly, anticipating the question, ‘we won’t know what impact the injury has until we start trying to wake her up. We don’t know if she will be the Gabriella you knew before. Hypothermia is neuro-protective, so we are hoping it worked in our favour and limited the secondary damage to her brain. It’s not getting any worse,’ he added.

  The room was silent apart from the repetitive beeping of her heart rate. The doctor glanced at his watch, then hung Gabriella’s chart back at the end of the bed.

  ‘We’ll keep you informed if things change,’ he said. ‘From this point, we have to keep an eye on her. It’s good you’re here now.’ He smiled at Thea with a fatherly air as he was called away, leaving them alone.

  Harry looked around the room. It was a lonely and featureless place to be. The overheating made Harry feel suffocated; he pulled his coat off and fidgeted from foot to foot.

  ‘Why has no one been in to see her?’ Thea asked, staring at her sister. ‘I thought …’ She hesitated. ‘I thought Gabriella had friends.’ Thea moved closer to her sister, and looked at the bandage wrapped round her head. ‘When did you see her last?’

  ‘Fifteen years ago, after the funeral,’ Harry lied, then glanced at Thea, feeling instantly guilty. She was looking at Gabi, paying him little attention. She seemed uncomfortable and on edge, desperate to get away from the hospital ward. ‘Who do you think did it?’ he asked and she shrugged in response, putting a finger in her mouth and chewing on the edge of a nail.

  Harry looked at the woman in the bed. They had grown up together; he’d lived next door and spent practically every waking moment of his life in their house, but early on it had mostly been Thea he’d hung around with. The absence of Gabriella from their childhood games hadn’t even registered until one day he’d noticed her, almost for the first time.

  He’d been eleven and the summer had been relentless. Panting and hot, Harry and Thea had balanced on the last branch of the massive oak at the end of the garden, both of them knowing the way to the top like any well-trodden staircase.

  On the uppermost point of the trunk was an old bird box, wooden and worn, discarded by the occupants and the aim of their climbs. Thea had reached in and pulled out a plastic Ziploc bag. She’d opened it and tapped his arm, offering him a strip of strawberry licorice. Red and gaudy, it had a few bits of grass stuck to the end. She’d smiled and put the other piece in her mouth, chewing contentedly. He’d done the same and enjoyed the sudden sweetness, temporarily quenching his thirst.

  ‘I’m sorry about your mum,’ Thea had said, looking at him from the corner of her eye.

  Harry remembered that summer, when his mum died. He remembered life tilting; not because she had gone – the truth was she hadn’t been around for years, not as a mother as such – but because it was the start of his brain feeling slightly off. It buzzed constantly, conjuring up thoughts from nowhere, images he didn’t want to see, feelings that made him jittery.

  But as they’d sat up in the branches of that tall oak, fingers sticky and arms burning in the sun, Harry spotted Gabriella in the garden. She’d been wearing a light blue dress, her long hair braided into a complex French plait.

  Thea had waved and Gabriella had looked up at them, smiling. Harry had taken a deep breath in. Somehow, even with everything that was going on, a smile from Gabriella was the only thing he needed. And it had been the only thing ever since.

  ‘Come on,’ Thea said, decisively. ‘Let’s go home. We know where she is, and neither of us will help her by sitting here.’

  Harry nodded, following Thea. He felt an ache in the back of his throat, emotions threatening to spill into tears. Despite the distance, despite their problems, he’d always believed he’d be with Gabriella again. But now, Harry wondered, had he screwed up his last chance?

  As he walked quickly away, Harry looked back to Gabi’s bedside. In that moment, he would have given anything for Gabi to wake up. For him to see that smile again.

  7

  Kate looked up from the grainy CCTV footage and rubbed her eyes. She glanced around the office – she was the only one there, having told Yates and Briggs to go home hours earlier. Kate had wanted to stay to finish going through the extra CCTV Briggs had found, but there were hours and hours of it. Hours and hours of cheerful partygoers, drinking, smoking, a bit of illegal drug activity, some borderline pornography in darkened alleyways, but as yet no Gabriella Patterson, apart from the brief shots they had found before. Kate was beginning to wonder whether she was there at all.

  They hadn’t made much headway. The picture this investigation was painting of Gabriella Patterson wasn’t flattering, and there was no shortage of potential suspects who criss-crossed her life, but no motives, no evidence. Along with a number of eligible bachelors Gabriella had been hanging off the arm of, there was Thea Patterson, the estranged sister, an oddball at best, but no suggestion of why she would attack her. She had received the usual call from the hospital to confirm visitors and Thea Patterson and ‘brother’ had made an appearance. She had done a quick search on births and deaths – they had no brother, and Kate wondered who was accompanying Thea to the hospital. She assumed he was the mysterious man who had waited for her outside the police station.

  Suddenly a small figure on the tape grabbed her attention. Kate stared at the screen, then sat back in disappointment. This girl was wearing a long dark coat and boots, not the same outfit as Gabriella Patterson, not her at all.

  She paused the video and rubbed her eyes. She was so tired; she couldn’t concentrate any more. It was time to go. Not that there was anything to go home to.

  Kate drove through the darkened streets of her neighbourhood, paying little attention to the cars around her. Once inside the house, she hung her coat on the rack and flicked her shoes towards the pile in the hallway. The automatic light had already come on in the living room; she hated coming home to a dark unwelcoming house. Dark houses shouted out ‘scary person lurks here’ or, more depressing and accurate, ‘no one lurks here’.

  Kate reached into the fridge, pulled out the
bottle of white in the door and opened it, pouring a large glass. Apart from wine, there wasn’t much else on offer except for the crusts of a loaf of bread and a small piece of slightly green cheddar. She cut the ends off the cheese and made a fairly respectable toastie, served with a large dab of tomato ketchup. Dinner of champions, she thought to herself grimly, and carried it through to the living room along with the glass and the bottle.

  She’d lived here for nearly a year now, but in that time she’d put no effort into making the small rented house her own; it still carried the marks on the paintwork and grooves in the carpet from the last occupant. Kate told herself it didn’t matter, she was hardly ever here; but the truth was she hadn’t thought she would be here for long. The separation was temporary; she’d be back home soon, her proper home. Ignoring the lack of contact from him, the blocked Facebook and the short, resentful texts. Ignoring the fact she’d made no effort to change.

  She ate on the sofa, the television playing out the ten o’clock news in the background, wine glass not far from her hand. She thought about Gabriella, about the club, thinking back to the last time she had been out for an evening. To a nightclub, or pub, or restaurant, or anywhere. She remembered a pretty dire hen night about two years ago – that involved some cheesy nightclub, didn’t it? It certainly involved deeley-boppers and a large amount of alcohol to get through the forced fun. Dinner with friends a while back, and a Sunday lunch in a pub garden. That was a few months ago, too – Kate remembered sitting outside in the sunshine, rosé in hand, swatting away wasps. Was her life this depressing? What the hell had she been doing? She knew the answer – working. Just working.

  But she loved her job. She’d always wanted to be in the police force, but for less prosaic reasons than to help people. And it wasn’t about putting something back into the community – in her experience most of the community weren’t fans of the police.

  Above all else, it was because she hated injustice and bullying. From an early age she had wanted the world to be fair, for people to be accountable for their actions. It pissed her off when people did bad things to each other, especially in cases like Gabriella’s, where it niggled in her mind until she found the solution. She didn’t like the lack of headway they’d made since Sunday. There was nothing worse than an unsolved crime.

  Kate made a mental note to text a few friends, but deep down she knew this case was going to take over, like they always did, and render any arrangements void. Kate put her empty plate to the side and reached for her laptop, muting the television. She poured another glass of wine and loaded up a new CCTV file, watching a few minutes of footage: random people walking down London Road, mostly in groups, a couple of lone men. She squinted at the screen – was that her? Sure enough, the tiny figure of Gabriella Patterson was wobbling across the pavement and Kate sat up in her seat, clapping her hands together at the little bit of success. Arms wrapped around her chest, head down against the wind, Gabriella made Kate feel cold just looking at her. She was clearly the worse for wear, her legs unsteady as she made her way across the screen. Kate looked at the people around Gabi. A few gave her a long stare, a couple of men clearly flung a few remarks across the road, but nobody came close.

  Kate hated to admit it, but she’d drawn parallels between her life and Gabriella’s. Sure, she had a career and would rather do anything than accept a handout from a man, but she had sensed the loneliness in Gabriella’s life. No one, except Thea and this ‘brother’, had visited her at the hospital. She had arrived at the club alone; she had left alone. Kate had often wondered: if anything happened to me, how long would it be until anyone noticed?

  Depressed, Kate looked back at the CCTV and watched Gabriella totter off screen before pausing it with a sigh. She swallowed the last glug of wine, resisting the urge to open another bottle, and hauled herself up the stairs to bed; she would pick up where she left off in the morning. She shut the lights off as she went, completely unaware that on the laptop someone else had just sneaked into shot. Someone clearly interested in following Gabi, staring as she walked down the road.

  Gabriella Patterson was no longer alone.

  8

  Rain merged with sweat as he ran. Harry’s feet hit the concrete hard, step after step, his arms pumping, his breathing heavy. He ran through puddles, his feet wet and his clothes soaked, but he didn’t care. The cold air bit at the back of his throat.

  He’d woken on the sofa early, his mouth parched, jerked from sleep by a nightmare. He lay in the dark, his back aching from the uncomfortable position, remembering the faces, the open eyes, the explosion. The same thing, always. As he stuck his head under the kitchen tap, he saw the empty beer bottles lined up on the table, and couldn’t remember falling asleep. But now he was awake again, his brain hummed with the same thoughts that had stopped him from going to bed in the first place. The best way, the only way, to get rid of them was to outrun them, pushing the physical to the limit so the mental conceded the battle.

  So he ran. He threw his shorts and trainers on, and pulled open the door. He ignored the pouring rain and ran in the darkness, a few streetlights showing him the way across pavements and roads, barely any cars at this time of night. He pushed his body faster, exceeding eight-then seven-minute miles.

  Seeing Thea in the gold dress today. That dress. The last time he had seen it, it had been Gabi wearing it. That night. Smiling and beautiful after the prom … He’d been lying in bed in the early hours, listening, when he’d heard the car draw up outside the house next door. He hadn’t wanted to go to the prom if he couldn’t go with Thea, and of Gabi he’d not dared ask. He climbed out, his father asleep, and padded to the window in bare feet, watching Gabi return. Her hair was messy, her dress crumpled, her shoes in her hand. He’d watched as she’d stumbled up to her front door.

  He’d walked down the stairs quietly, pushed trainers on his feet and gone out the back door, shoving through the hedge into the twins’ garden, as he’d done a million times before. He saw her sat on the concrete steps outside her kitchen, rummaging in the bag on her lap.

  ‘Did you have a good night?’ he’d whispered from the garden, and she’d jumped.

  ‘You surprised me!’ Gabi had slurred, patting a space next to her on the step. ‘Come join me, my Harry.’

  He’d sat next to her, wrapping his arms round his legs, dressed only in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, suddenly aware of his lack of clothing. Gabi found what she was looking for in her bag, and put the cigarette in her mouth, lighting it with practised ease.

  She had a drag, then offered it to him. He took the cigarette and drew a breath in, letting out a long plume of smoke. In the garden an owl hooted, and the wind rustled the leaves around them. He handed it back to her.

  ‘They’re all such children,’ Gabi said.

  ‘Who?’ Harry asked.

  ‘The boys in my year, such kids,’ she gestured wildly with the cigarette. ‘They try it on with me, all fucking bravado and swagger. They don’t have a clue.’

  Harry fought back the jealousy building in his chest. ‘Did you … Did they …?’

  She looked at him, and for a moment he felt lost in her stare, her eyes dark in the glow from the moon. Then she laughed. ‘Fuck, no. Not with them. I want more than them.’

  He hesitated. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want this … and this …’ She prodded Harry in the chest, and ran her finger down the stubble on his jawline. He’d only been eighteen, but he knew he was bigger than he used to be; he had muscles where before he’d been scrawny and thin. She paused, her finger resting on his arm, the cigarette burning down to the filter in her other hand.

  In that moment, Harry stopped wondering why he was always thinking about her. He stopped trying to analyse whether he should or shouldn’t, and leaned forward and kissed her.

  She responded at first, kissing him back, and he’d been lost in the feel of her lips, her tongue, the taste of the cigarette and sweetness of the last alcopop she’d drunk. Then
she pulled away. She looked at him, her eyes wide, her two fingers touching her mouth, as if reflecting on what had just happened, then she stood up and ran into the house. He heard her feet on the stairs, and the slam of her bedroom door.

  He stayed outside for a moment longer, looking out into the darkness of the garden. He knew even then she would always be a constant in his life. But, of course, the next day all hell broke loose. Everything happened, their family was blown apart and their simple lives changed forever.

  Harry ran, pushing the memory down. His legs burned, his lungs struggling to take in enough oxygen. He didn’t want this, not now. He’d been doing fine without her, thank you very much.

  Harry stopped at the corner of the road, outside his flat, his chest heaving. He rested his hands on his knees and took in great gulps of air, regretting all the cigarettes he’d smoked since that day. The rain continued to fall, freezing on his hair, running down his neck. His hands and feet were numb, his muscles screaming.

  He stood up and walked back up to his flat. He opened his front door and stood in the hallway, dripping onto the carpet. On the wall, next to the pile of his shoes was a large pinboard, scattered with bills to pay, notes to remember, but also bright postcards from far-flung locations. She’d sent him them from Thailand, from Australia, from all over the United States. She’d call, too – sometimes late at night, forgetting the time difference, sometimes drunk, sometimes sleepy and sober. Always from random, differing numbers. She’d tell him what she was up to. She would always say the same thing: that she missed him, but she wasn’t coming back. No matter how many times he apologised.

  He’d watched Gabi slowly move closer to home – from Egypt, to Greece, to Paris. And then, there she’d been, in Bournemouth, while he was away on a work trip. The last time he’d seen her, until now.