This Is How It Ends Read online

  Not unless they were prepared to accept a significant rent rise.

  Prices were going up here just like everywhere and Ella was sure the landlord would love to get them out, turn the building back into a single house he could sell for seven figures to a family who would appreciate the high ceilings and sash windows.

  She dried off in her room and dressed in jeans and a chunky jumper, ate a slice of toast smeared with butter that was starting to go rancid, the news playing on her laptop until she closed it and slipped it in her bag.

  The British Library Reading Room was waiting for her, but before that she was supposed to meet Dylan. Her PhD pulled her in one direction and him in the other, the work she was doing at Castle Rise pushing everything else to the sidelines, leaving no room to breathe.

  In her quieter moments she could admit to herself that she wasn’t up to this. The nights she was too tired to sleep were becoming more frequent, plans and actions chasing each other around as she lost a grip on which conversations she’d actually had and which she’d only imagined. When she finally dropped off she would dream of empty flats and endless corridors lined with doors that opened impossibly on to rooms in other buildings: her parents’ kitchen, where the range would be ticking away, welcoming her back, reminding her she didn’t have to live this life; classrooms she had sat in, always at the front, always the first to put her hand up; hotel bedrooms in disarray and half-remembered offices and the police interview room she kept returning to, her arm in a cast, her mouth sealed shut, staring at her reflection in the two-way mirror and seeing a face she didn’t recognise.

  Maybe Dylan was right, maybe all this was becoming too much for her.

  He’d told her not to get involved. Right from the start he pegged Castle Rise as a lost cause and she’d agreed with him privately, but his attitude rankled, how fiercely he’d told her not to waste her time on ‘those people’, as if they were worthless.

  And when she tried to explain that she was doing it for Molly, because she’d been good to her and she didn’t want Molly to lose her home and have to leave London and all her friends, he said,

  ‘You don’t need Molly.’

  If he’d never said that, Ella might have walked away. But now she would stick with it until the last resident was forcibly removed, just to make him understand that he couldn’t dictate to her.

  Not always.

  Not on this.

  She did need Molly and if he couldn’t understand that, or at least pretend to respect it, then maybe he wasn’t the right man for her.

  Outside it was one of those crisp winter mornings that felt almost like spring: cloudless, chilly and so bright that she regretted leaving her sunglasses inside. Mornings like this made Ella long for the countryside. She found she was thinking of home more often lately and wasn’t sure why. Was it just that she’d been away for so long? Did the place where you were born really tug at you? She’d never believed that, but she felt something, an impulse to escape she immediately stamped on.

  Ella rearranged her bag, setting it straighter across her body, and started towards the canal, passing the chaotic roar of morning break time at Our Lady’s, which was swiftly drowned out by the sound of brickwork being cut through inside a house caged by scaffolding and shrouded in opaque plastic from roof to basement. At the pub on the corner she saw just how dusty the house must have been inside, three men powdered white sitting outside on a wooden bench with pints of lager, just their mouths wet.

  She wondered if her landlord owned the house they were working on. He was an old Greek guy, started buying around here in the early sixties when everywhere was cheap but here even more so, liking the proximity to the Orthodox church and his own house at the top of the street. He kept a close eye on his properties, she’d been told by an elderly neighbour who had known him for decades and who seemed to believe he was a real gentleman. He kept the area ‘nice’. He didn’t allow ‘undesirables’.

  The woman complained that her own children couldn’t afford to rent, let alone buy here, but she didn’t seem to understand how her hero was creating the problem.

  All the wealth, trickling up into the hands of the old, Ella thought. Not even trickling any more. Rushing. Her parents had given her brother and his wife a deposit to buy their first home – she wasn’t supposed to know about that, but he’d let it slip after too many beers, suggesting she try to get them to do the same for her. ‘Best getting it now, Ella. We’ll be clobbered on the inheritance tax otherwise.’

  Maybe he was right but it was a sick and ghoulish thing to say all the same, she thought.

  Then again, he had his own home now and she had nothing.

  She crossed Regent’s Canal at St Pancras Way and cut down on to the towpath.

  Dylan had said half past ten, but she wasn’t going to jump because he clicked his fingers. Almost eleven now and she knew he’d be getting impatient, already thinking about whatever he would be busy with this afternoon once she left again.

  It was coming to an end.

  They both knew that, but neither was quite ready to make the break.

  A shrill bell sounded behind her and Ella glanced over her shoulder as a woman on a Brompton bike approached, riding perilously close to the water’s edge as she passed, putting her hand up in thanks, although Ella didn’t know what for. Maybe just because she hadn’t got in her way. There were a couple of joggers running two abreast ahead of her and they parted reluctantly at the third sound of the woman’s bell, shouted after her in voices too hard for the sunny morning and calm water.

  Her mobile rang as she was going under a bridge, the screen pulsing with an unknown number she almost rejected out of habit but didn’t, because she gave her own out so freely now it might be important.

  ‘Ella?’

  The reception was crackling.

  ‘Hold on, give me a second.’ She hurried through the tunnel and out into the sunshine again. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘That Ella?’

  A man’s voice, thick with cold.

  ‘Yes, hi. Who’s this?’

  ‘You can’t tell?’ He sniffed hard and she heard the mucus roll into the back of his throat. ‘Be this cold I’ve got. Bad living conditions, you know?’

  She knew.

  Knew exactly who it was now. Instinctively she turned, feeling like he was watching her even though she knew it was impossible. Dozens of blank windows looked down on her, but he wasn’t behind any of them.

  The only windows Quinn looked out of lately were high up, reinforced and barred.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked, starting up the brick steps.

  ‘I just wanted you to know I’ve not forgotten about you.’

  Ella stopped midway up the stairs, gripped the handrail tighter, feeling the corroded metal against her skin and the paint flakes sticking to her palm. She told herself to tough this out. Don’t show weakness or guilt because it would only encourage him.

  ‘Are you seriously going to do this?’ she asked, making her voice hard and contemptuous. ‘You’re pathetic, you know that, right?’

  He laughed, half-grunt half-snort. ‘Me? You’re the one who ran off like a little bitch.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that’s what happened,’ Ella said, feeling her pulse thudding where she held on to the rail, blood rushing into her ears so loud she was sure he must be able to hear it too. ‘You’re a fantasist.’

  ‘Oh, no, Ella. If anyone here’s a fraud, it’s you.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Nobody can see what you are—’

  ‘And what am I?’

  ‘You’re a careerist. You don’t believe in anything, you just get off on the adulation.’

  Ella laughed, tipped her head back to the sky. ‘Wow, you are the first person ever to say that to me. How very original of you. I’m not told that like fifty times a day online at all.’

  ‘I’m going to expose you,’ he snarled.

  The laughter caught in her throat
. It was as if he was there in front of her, face contorted with rage, body blown up and pumped for the fight.

  ‘I know what you did, Ella.’

  A man ran up the stairs, clipping her shoulder as he passed but she hardly noticed.

  ‘And I know how you did it,’ Quinn said.

  Molly

  Now – 11th March

  It’s a grim morning, cold and blustery, the city cowering under a sky like end times, tumbling boulders of granite-grey cloud sitting so low it feels like they might crush us all. For once it’s a relief to ride the escalator underground into the tail end of the morning rush with all the wet raincoats and dripping umbrellas, the contorted skeletons of folding bikes, which make me think of the broken body I’ve left behind in the lift shaft of Castle Rise.

  He’s never far from my mind.

  I managed a few hours of mercifully dreamless sleep last night, brought on by beer and whisky and the exhaustive efforts of screwing a younger man. I might have slept longer if Callum hadn’t woken up shouting around three a.m. He left then, even though I stroked his shoulders and kissed his hair and told him everything was fine. Maybe if I’d told him I didn’t want to be alone he would have stayed, but we both carry our shame close to the surface and take our time in exposing our wounds to one another for salving.

  Suddenly the weight of all that earth above me begins to feel like a hammer poised to fall on my skull and I realise I need to get above ground.

  At Warren Street I’m spat back out on to Euston’s dank topside, the traffic at a standstill, pumping exhaust fumes into the heavy air, and I see my bus turning the corner away from me as the driving rain fills my eyes. I shelter briefly in an alleyway near the stop until the next 29 arrives.

  There’s a seat halfway down and I’m grateful to have it, even if the big guy in the window smells like he’s carrying rotting meat inside his distressed-leather jacket. Not an artfully distressed one, but the kind that has been slept in and on and under, which might have put out fires and soaked up puddles of indeterminate fluids.

  At Mornington Crescent a frail elderly woman with chestnut-brown hair beautifully curled under a plastic headscarf gets on and I see the panic on her face when she sees she will have to stand, how tightly she grips the handrail. I get up and help her into my seat and it’s only once I’m close to her that I realise we are probably the same age.

  I’m going to keep fighting. Even if I feel like shit right now, tired and scared and besieged, I won’t allow myself to fold.

  I get off the bus at Camden High Street, go straight into Poundland and buy an umbrella, which probably won’t last all the way home, but I only need it to keep me dry the half-mile to Ella’s place. Thinking of her holed up there for days, knowing she won’t be eating, I make a quick circuit of the nearest supermarket: basic supplies, tea and sugary things.

  By the time I reach the front step of the chopped-up Edwardian townhouse she lives in, the umbrella has buckled against the wind, two spokes broken and its skin flapping with each new gust. I hold down the buzzer until the door is answered. The boy doesn’t ask who I’m visiting, barely looks up from his phone and immediately heads back into his own room.

  The house is full of muffled noises as I go up to the second floor, the sound of music playing and feet moving over creaking, clacking floorboards. Silence from inside Ella’s room. I knock and wait and when she doesn’t answer, knock harder, pushing away images of her overdosed in bed, choked on vomit, already long gone.

  I’m readying to bang harder when she finally opens up. She isn’t surprised to see me. She isn’t anything, standing there in crumpled joggers and a jumper with frayed cuffs pulled down over her hands. Her eyes are puffy, lips cracked dry, her hair lying flat and greasy.

  ‘I was going to call you today,’ she says in a hoarse voice, and walks away. ‘I think I’ve got a virus or something. I don’t feel good.’

  Her room smells sickly: stale breaths and her unwashed body, the bin, which needs emptying, and takeaway cartons mouldering on the counter. This isn’t like her. She’s usually fastidious about her little flat, insists she needs to be because it’s the only way to live healthily in one cramped room where your bed is only ten feet away from your kitchen sink.

  She’s crawled back under the duvet. There are books on the floor to her side, her laptop half covered with papers. It looks like she’s tried to do some work but I guess the distraction wasn’t good enough.

  There’s no hiding from what we’ve done. I could have told her that if she’d answered the phone when I’ve called her.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I ask, trying to sound upbeat.

  ‘I can’t eat anything.’

  ‘You need to try. I’ve brought pastries and some sandwiches and stuff.’

  Ella rolls over in bed, turns her back to me.

  I start to clean up. This doesn’t come naturally but it needs to be done. I clear all the debris into a bin liner, knot it and leave it out in the hallway for later, fill the sink and put her dirty cutlery and bowls into it, wipe down the small square of counter while the kettle boils, then make a pot of coffee.

  There’s a dinky cafe table and two folding chairs set up in front of the only window and I spread out the food there, pour our coffees, feeling absurd as I do it, acting like everything is normal when inside my head I’m raging at her, wanting to drag her out of bed by her arms, shout at her to pull it together.

  ‘Come on, Ella. Just eat a croissant or something, then you can go back to bed.’

  She hauls herself up, drags a knitted blanket off the bed and wraps it around her shoulders before she sits down opposite me. She picks up a Danish pastry and takes a single bite out of it, her eyes drifting away towards the window. The long garden out there is untended, wildly tangled with glossy creepers and the barbed whips of last year’s blackberry crawlers laid like tripwires across the weed-choked grass. At the bottom is a rickety black shed with a bush growing through its collapsed roof. Not a view worth looking at.

  ‘Have they found him?’ Ella asks finally.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘They’re going to.’ She takes another mean bite of her Danish. ‘I keep thinking about the sound he made. . .’

  That dull crunch, the clang of bone hitting metal.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I tell her. ‘All that matters is what we do next.’

  She snorts. ‘Wait to get caught – that’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?’

  Whatever I expected, this is worse. I knew she’d be guilt-stricken but I didn’t think she’d be so defeatist. She’s spent the last eighteen months fighting battles for other people, often thankless and unwinnable ones, but now, when it matters most, when her liberty and mine is hanging in the balance, she gives up?

  This isn’t the Ella I know.

  She’s been alone too long. Four days here, talking herself into this state. I should have come sooner. I should have known her conscience would get the better of her. She’s still her father’s daughter.

  ‘Ella, lovey, I know you’re scared. I’ve been going crazy with this too.’ She gives me a sceptical look. ‘But we need to hold steady, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ she says, too easily, and throws her chin up. ‘We’re both calm and collected now, having coffee, eating pastries. What do we do next?’

  This is why I never wanted children. They dig themselves into holes and when you pull them out they blame you for making them muddy.

  ‘We need to keep acting like normal,’ I say firmly. ‘You have to get back to your life. We can pass off a few days in bed as a bug, but much longer and it’s going to start to look like you’ve got something to hide.’

  Her fingers are shredding the rest of the Danish pastry on to a plate, slowly, violently tearing it into tiny pieces, her face flushing.

  I keep talking.

  ‘When he does get found – and he will, you’re right, probably soon – it’s really important nobody can point back to now and say, “Ella was actin
g weird.” You understand that, right? You need to look innocent.’

  ‘But I’m not,’ she snaps.

  Here’s the anger she kept buried right after it happened, bubbling up hot and directionless. I try not to take it personally; stay calm, because one of us has to. Just like that night, it’s on me to be the cool head and a small part of me resents it even as I feel for her.

  Ella buries her face in her hands. ‘I killed him.’

  ‘In self-defence.’ I unpeel her fingers from her face, making her look at me. ‘Ella, you can’t get consumed by guilt. You have nothing to feel guilty about. He attacked you. He made the decision to put himself in danger the second he did that. You were entirely within your rights to fight back.’

  ‘Then why did we dump his body?’ she asks. ‘If I was within my rights, why didn’t we call the police?’

  I wonder how clear her recollection of that night is. Between the fear and the drink and the shock at what she’d done, how aware was she of the conversation we had and the agreement we came to?

  ‘We went through this already,’ I say wearily. ‘Where do you think you’d be right now if we called the police? You’d be on remand somewhere. Or out on bail, at best, waiting to go to trial. Ella, for God’s sake, is that what you want? Do you want to go to prison? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be locked up?’

  She looks away from me. ‘Maybe it’s what I deserve.’

  The quietness and the low pitch of her voice set my nerves jangling.

  ‘Please tell me you’re not thinking about confessing.’

  Ella starts to bite her thumbnail; the skin there is already red and cracked from being incessantly worried at.