I’M SPRAWLED ON the sofa in my flat watching a DVD of
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
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
