The Guilty Party: A new gripping thriller from the 2018 bestselling author Mel McGrath

4

Cassie

6.05 p.m., Thursday 29 September, Dorset

Within minutes of my arrival at the cottage, we have settled back into our habitual routines. Dex, the entertainer, is telling one of his bad jokes; Anna, the doer, is rifling through cupboards looking for box games and, even though there’s no signal, Bo, the bystander, is scrolling idly through his phone. And I am sitting at the kitchen table observing all this, beside me a bottle of wine, more than half empty now, and the discarded copy of the Standard, reminding me of all those years, before I gave up on myself, when I would grab a copy at the tube on my way home from teaching and look forward to sitting down with a glass of wine and unwinding with the crossword. And now? Why not?

‘Anyone got a pen?’

‘There’s one in that pot there, by the sink,’ Anna says, as if it’s something she has always known. Of the four of us, Anna has always been the most observant and the tidiest, the pickiest eater, the most careful driver, the girl in control, the subject of male admiration and female envy. It was Anna who introduced me to Dex. She was in my seminar group but it was months before I plucked up the courage so much as to smile at her. Anna was both posh and cool, which was rare at Oxford, where the cool set and the posh set didn’t often intersect. She had a smartphone then, in 2006, which was the hippest thing I’d ever seen. I would overhear her talking about people she knew who had parts in Harry Potter films, people who went snowboarding in Aspen and went to Glastonbury on ‘access all area’ passes. She wore tiny shorts and minis with Uggs and she had all this hair which she wore long with a fringe half obscuring her eyes. In Oxford, where it rains all the time, I never once saw her look anything but perfectly groomed. And of course she lived out of college, in a house in Jericho, which was where all the cool students had rooms and her housemates were all DJs and part-time games designers.

To a girl like me, who’d grown up on an estate in a dreary commuter belt town at the end of the Metropolitan Line, with a mother who drank and served family sized packs of Wotsits for tea and a father who pretended to go to his job at the council every day for six months after he’d been sacked, Anna seemed to have come from another planet. From the moment I first saw her in my seminar group I was half in love with her. I still am.

As for what Anna saw in me? A certain kind of naïve intelligence perhaps. A willingness to please. Early on I had given up on understanding people, who were beyond me. Instead I had made myself a quick study of the material business of the world. By the time I was ten I knew the names of thirty-seven species of migratory birds and could name all the capitals of the world. Facts were the barricades behind which I retreated from Mum’s alcoholism and Dad’s weirdness. People-pleasing was the Technicolor coat I wore to disguise the drabness of my surroundings. Soon I became good at being able to absorb, even to take on, the self-serving lies of others, and pretend they were true. I knew my dad wasn’t really going to work every morning and I knew my mother was keeping vodka miniatures buried in the cat’s kibble long after she swore she’d given up. I never confronted them because I knew it wouldn’t change anything and would probably make all of us even unhappier. Perhaps it’s this that Anna sensed in me. She knew I would never challenge her. So long as she and I were friends, Anna would always be the Group’s number one girl.

‘You’re not going to do crosswords all weekend, are you, darling?’ she asks me now, one eyebrow raised.

‘Nope.’ I flip the paper over to the front page to find the relevant page number on the printed ticker and I’m flicking through when my eye is drawn to a headline in the Metro pages.

The body has its own visceral intelligence. It reacts before the mind has time to catch up. Daffy Duck has run off a cliff and is paddling in the air. His mind can’t compute, which explains the expression of stupid bewilderment on his face, but his body knows exactly what’s about to happen.

It happened to me when two policewomen appeared at my door with news that my mum had been found dead beside an empty two-litre vodka bottle. It happened when I watched the man in the alley grab the woman’s hair. It’s happening now.

Police appeal for witnesses in festival woman’s death

As I read on it’s as if tiny particles of dark matter begin to collect in the air like soot rising from a coal fire. How could we have missed this? How could we not have known?

Police are launching an appeal for witnesses in the death of 27-year-old Marika Lapska, a Lithuanian national, resident in London. Lapska worked as a food delivery bicycle courier. Her body was discovered in the Thames hours after a music festival in Wapping. She was wearing a festival band around her wrist. Police are anxious to speak to anyone who may have known Lapska or seen her on the night of Saturday 13 August.

There’s the usual Crimestoppers number and below it, almost impossible to look at, is a grainy, heart-stopping CCTV still of a round-faced woman with sharp features and bold, enquiring eyes. Is this her, the woman we all saw in the alley? I scan the cheekbones, the eyes, the full, soft lips, check the shape of the hairline, the placement of the ears, but nothing rings any bells – and there is no particular arrangement of human features, after all, which says, I have been raped. Is this the face? So difficult to tell. There’s no clear picture in my mind, hardly surprising since whoever was attacking her was pushing her face against the wall. But what if I did see her face and have somehow blanked it from my memory? Aren’t eye witnesses supposed to be notoriously unreliable? What if the figure in the alley wasn’t her? What if the woman we saw walked away from that obscene event and brushed herself down and is living her life somewhere in the capital?

Stealing another glance at the picture now, focusing on the woman’s clothes, is there anything there I remember? I take my time and do a bit of peering. It’s then it happens. A sudden illumination, like a camera going off in a dark room. A mind flash in canary yellow and sky blue, the colours of the scarf the woman in the picture is wearing.

I remember that scarf. Every detail remains as clear to me as it was on the night itself, illuminated briefly in Dex’s camera phone. A jaunty canary yellow with sky blue pom-poms. I remember the incongruity of it. The holiday colours, those perky pom-poms which seemed somehow innocent. There’s no question that this was the same woman. How desperately I’d like to shut the pages of the paper and pretend not to have seen her. But it’s too late. Marika Lapska has spoken to me. She’s calling out and it would be inhuman to ignore her now.

‘Guys . . .’ The tremble in my voice startles them. Three pairs of eyes shoot up and settle on me. Dex stops whatever he’s in the midst of saying, his mouth still open. Bo frowns. Anna spins on her toes to face me. There’s a moment’s silence during which an army of thoughts marches through my mind. How did she end up in the river? Did her attacker take her there? Did he push her – or did she launch herself into the water? Did she try to swim or give herself up to death? Aside from the man who raped her were we the last people to see her alive? Isn’t it a crime to leave the scene of a crime? That makes us criminals, doesn’t it?

Is this why Dex is in trouble?

‘Let’s see that picture.’ Dex lurches over and sweeps up the paper.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I got a good look at her face when I switched on my phone light. That definitely wasn’t her.’

‘I promise you, the woman in the alley was wearing that scarf, I mean, the exact same one.’

Dex takes another look. ‘It’s a scarf, Cass. There’s probably a zillion of them in, like, Accessorize.’

‘Don’t you think we should go to the police, anyway, just in case?’

‘I didn’t see a damn thing,’ Bo says. Dex, who still has the paper, drops it on the table and takes a seat.

‘Mate, were you even there?’ asks Dex.

‘Of course he was,’ Anna says, pulling out a chair and sitting beside Dex. ‘He was standing right behind you.’

‘Oh,’ Dex says, sounding mildly surprised.

‘I might as well not have been, though, because I didn’t see shit,’ Bo says from his perch on the sofa.

‘Dex, Anna and I did see, though, and we really should tell the cops,’ I say.

‘But, darling, what did we see exactly? Because what I saw could easily just have been a pissed knee-trembler. And she was definitely alive last time I saw.’ Anna’s face is a smooth white mask.

‘I really don’t think this was the same woman, Cassie,’ repeats Dex.

Could I really be the only one who saw Marika Lapska raped in that alley on the night of 13 August? What if no one is lying? What if I didn’t see what I think I saw? What if my eyes are deceiving me? But no. I remember so clearly the scarf illuminated in the light of Dex’s phone. The colour of the pattern, as yellow as the moon that night. The bright, sunny blueness of the pom-poms. And what if Dex is right and there are a zillion of those scarves, what are the chances that the woman in the alley and the drowned woman are one and the same? Very high, I’d say. A virtual certainty.

‘I know I saw this woman being attacked. It could have been the same guy who killed her. People, she died.’

‘Casspot, do we even need to do this now? It’s my birthday weekend,’ says Bo.

‘Why don’t you just call the cops yourself if you’re that convinced?’ Dex says. ‘No one’s stopping you.’

‘Cassie, I forbid you to do that. We’d inevitably get dragged in,’ Anna says, giving Dex an urgent, accusatory look.

‘God, no. I’ve got enough on my plate,’ says Bo. Anna is staring intently at Dex.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘Casspot, you’re being tiresome,’ Bo adds more harshly than he probably intends. ‘And I can tell you now, I have absolutely no intention of going to the police. Because I didn’t see shit. As I keep saying.’

‘And I didn’t see anything that could be remotely helpful either,’ says Anna, settling herself into the sofa. ‘We were all rather pissed. Including you, Cassie.’

Dex has moved over to the French windows leading out to the garden now and he’s holding up the wine glasses. ‘Come into the garden with me, Cass, while Anna works her miracles with the veg.’

It’s cold outside. A blanket of midnight blue from which the odd star shines.

‘Isn’t this amazing? We should make the most of it.’ He stands and surveys the scene with the lights of Fortuneswell below us and beyond them, Chesil Beach and the wide midnight blue selvedge of the sea. ‘There was a doc on the TV the other day about kids with alcoholic parents. It was just on, you know? It was talking about, you know, how the kids often . . . about how they develop these saviour complexes because they couldn’t save their parents. The doc said they often grow up unsure about what’s real.’

‘Fuck’s sake, Dex. I know it was her . . . and it’s sort of low to bring my mum into it, don’t you think?’

‘You really don’t know it was her. I had the best view and I hardly saw anything.’

‘You saw a woman being raped. We all did.’ Dex removes a rollie from his pocket, lights it and takes a deep inhale. The thick scent of grass drifts over and out towards the sea.

‘You know it’s an offence to leave the scene of a crime, right?’

‘I could just go to the police on my own?’

‘C’mon, Cass, you know as well as I do that Anna’s right. They’d want to know who you were with. Or there’d be CCTV or something. One way or another we’d get dragged into it. That woman’s just some rando. We live in a city of eight million randos. We can’t fix everyone.’

‘She probably came to London looking for a better life. Don’t we owe her at least a bit of concern?’

‘Look, either she made a really bad choice or she just got really unlucky. It could have happened to anyone.’

‘I could call Crimestoppers and leave an anonymous tip-off.’

This is where you tell me that you’re already dragged into it, Dex. Into something, anyway. This is where you come clean.

Dex sucks on his rollie. ‘Cass, I love you but you’re missing the point. I’m begging you, stay under the radar. Think about that promotion you’re after. What if they decide to prosecute you for leaving the scene of a crime? You think you’re going to get promoted if you end up with a criminal record? You’re not going to be able to work in a school at all. That’s it. End of career. Finito.’

He smiles and, reaching out, grasps my chin between the index finger of his right hand and the thumb, a gesture from the old days, whenever I got tearful or scared.

‘There’s nothing to be gained here, except some misplaced conscience salving. You want to do something virtuous give fifty quid to your favourite charity. You won’t get arrested and you’ll probably be doing more good.’

‘I’m not trying to be a do-gooder. I’m trying to do the right thing.’

‘Well, don’t.’

It’s cold now though the rain has stopped at least. A moth flaps around Dex’s head and, as he bats it away, flutters against the light.

‘Why did the police come and see you?’

He turns, the light now illuminating his left cheek, leaving half his face in the shadows. ‘Did Gav tell you that?’

‘He seemed to think you were in a lot of trouble.’

Dex shakes his head. ‘Gav’s all over the place at the moment. He’s got the wrong end of the stick. You remember that scrap I got into with the numpty at the festival about whether or not I was looking at his girlfriend? The cops were just trying to find out what started the rioting, you know, covering all bases. It was nothing.’

He takes my wine glass and puts it down on the concrete and with one arm around my shoulder he presses me to him. ‘I’m sorry, Cass, but think about what me and Gav have got ahead of us. We really, really don’t need this. For the next four days I just want to pretend I’m young and free again. Is that so much to ask? Tell you what, if you’re still upset about that woman at the end of our trip, we’ll revisit it, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘Good.’ He plants an unexpected kiss on my lips.

And so it’s done. The decision made. There will be no more mention of Marika Lapska or the events at the Wapping Festival. For the next four days the official Group version will be that nothing ever happened.

5

Bo

A little after 3 a.m., Sunday 14 August, Wapping

The arm around his neck pulling him back smells familiar. He twists his head round and meets Dex’s face.

‘Mate, drop it.’

‘What?’ His body is peeling. He feels weird and wired. He spins back to look at the bloke who, just a few seconds ago, was about to slug him. He hears Dex say, ‘Sorry, mate. My friend’s a bit, you know . . . he’s not trying to disrespect you.’

What the fuck? thinks Bo. He bloody does mean disrespect, he means a fistful of it. He watches the bloke’s body language soften. Stupid bastard wants out of the scrap, looking for any excuse. He’s so tight now, though, everything he’s seen tonight, the adrenalin. Bloody great neither of them has a knife or a gun. He could easily have slipped a blade between that guy’s ribs, thought no more about it, the way he is now. How wired his body feels. His legs slacken, cease their forward momentum, the muscles melting into one another. He’s rooted to the spot. He’ll be fucked if he’s going to give way but it looks like he might not have to come forward. It’s all those hours in the gym, Bo’s thinking. Not the job title or the river view apartment or the strings of women. That fucker knows nothing about any of that.

‘Get out of here, mate, just go,’ he says.

The bloke hesitates. Bo knows exactly what the fucker’s thinking. He’s totting up the square meterage of muscle. Bo plus Dex equals . . . what? The stupid, stupid shit. The bloke’s eyes sweep the small gathered crowd. Ha! Ask the audience, phone a friend, thinks Bo. I fucking dare you.

For an instant it could go either way, then Shitface fills his lungs and blinks and it’s all over. Bo watches him turn and walk away with a bit of a swagger, wait till he’s out of the fist zone, then spit onto the paving. Yeah, whatever.

‘What the fuck?’ Dex’s voice is in his ear. He’s let go of Bo now. Funny, Bo thinks, first time I’ve knowingly been hugged by a gay. He doesn’t mind it. Doesn’t care who or what or how people want to fuck. He laughs to himself. Ha, he’s hardly got a leg to stand on in the sex department, given what . . . given everything, but he’s not a fucking hypocrite. Not like Dex was for all those years.

The small crowd has dissipated now. Nothing to see here. Bo and Dex are alone in the little turning. Dex loves all this, Bo thinks, the rookeries, the remains of cobbled mews that neither the Luftwaffe nor the town planners managed to destroy, all those tiny pathways stinking of urine that snake between the thoroughfares of the old East End and the City. He’s always been drawn to old stuff, whereas old stuff doesn’t interest Bo at all. Ancient stuff, like fossils, fine, otherwise new. Why he loves his apartment so much. A brand-new tower standing between what were once crumbling warehouses and are now bits of retro-fakery. Like someone punched through the river bank straight into the twenty-first century.

‘We should go to A&E, get you looked at,’ Dex says.

‘I’m all right.’ The bits and pieces of his torso are beginning to fuse back together. He feels suddenly tired, exhausted in fact. ‘Think I’ll just go home.’

‘Mate, you’re coming with me.’ Dex is at his side now and sounding insistent. He wonders if Dex knows his secret. Thinks not. Dex is the sort to have said something. It’s actually rather wonderful to be looked after, especially by a man. So long as Dex doesn’t try to interlink arms or pat him or anything gay. He feels protected. Loved, even.

As they walk down the street together, Bo is remembering that time when a stranger decked him outside the house. It must have been when they were living in Chelsea. Had he taken the dog out for a walk around the square? Anyway, the stranger – looking back he thinks maybe a wino or a guy with some mental health issue who had maybe climbed the railings – he recalls running into the house and his father being there, so it must have been a weekend, and his father bundling him back out of the front door ranting about no son of his and saying, ‘Get out there and don’t come back till you’ve showed him a fucking lesson,’ and Bo going back into the square and seeing the guy who’d punched him, collapsed on the bench with piss running down his trousers and his father clapping him on the back when he returned to the house, saying, ‘A man who comes running home without seeing to his business is a bloody coward.’

The adrenaline is beginning to wear off and be replaced by a horrible throbbing on his right side. Is that where the punch landed? Must be.

They are walking north now away from the river and towards the Mile End Road. Dex is saying something about losing each other earlier in the churchyard and seeing some random woman getting beaten up, but to be honest, Bo can’t really focus on anything except the pain in his right side and the reoccurrence of the much deeper emotional pain of his childhood. The first he doesn’t really care about. The second he wants done with.

‘Hey,’ he says, ‘you look like all kinds of shit yourself, mate. What’s with the eye?’ Dex has clearly been in some minor war himself and he’s hoping to deflect the discussion back to safer ground.

‘That massive a-hole wanting to know why I was looking at his girlfriend. Remember, at the festival? I told you.’

They’re walking past a bakery now and the waft of scorching dough reaches Bo’s nostrils and makes him think, briefly, of the pizza delivery girl from earlier.

‘Some women are just trouble,’ he says.

‘Whoa. Where did that come from?’ There’s a pause, which is what Bo has been dreading. He imagines the cops, going to court, all that shit, but to his surprise, Dex says, ‘I’m going to text the girls and let them know where we’re going, though if they’ve got any sense they will have gone home.’

‘Good man,’ Bo says, holding up his right palm for a high five, forgetting the state of Dex’s hand.

They’ve passed Watney Market and are heading up the side of the Holiday Inn now. It’s quiet here. The mess down in Wapping hasn’t reached this far north.

Dex’s phone pings. ‘Cass is home. She and Anna got separated but she says Anna’s phone was running out of battery and she hasn’t heard from her.’

‘Oh?’ Bo says, not liking the sound of that.

Another ping. ‘Hang on,’ Dex says, manoeuvring the phone into his unbruised left hand. ‘That’s Anna now. Says she’ll meet us at the hospital.’

‘Tell her not to bother if she’s already on her way home.’ On balance, Bo would rather just sort this out with Dex. He doesn’t want it to become a whole performance and he absolutely does not wish to be questioned about what happened in the churchyard. It’s a massive relief that Dex hasn’t yet mentioned it and he hopes he won’t. They’ve all been through enough this evening. They are at the entrance to the Royal London’s A&E department when Dex’s phone next pings.

‘Anna says she’s in Ali’s getting a fry-up.’

‘Really? Anna? A fry-up?’

Bo doesn’t remember Anna having any food issues when they were first dating all those years ago, though he probably wouldn’t have noticed in any case. On the contrary, she was curvy back then. All that borderline anorexia stuff must have started after they split up. He recalls that she managed to conquer it for a while, just before her accident, then it came back with a vengeance. Bo presumed she’d got to grips with it again when that thing happened between them – she wasn’t looking particularly skinny that night – and during her pregnancy with Ralphie, but in the last year or so even Bo had noticed that she’d lost weight again. He didn’t really get women. He figured, being gay, Dex probably understood them better. Anything too deep about the female psyche pretty much freaked him out. He just wasn’t all that interested in what was going on in their minds. He was fundamentally an algorithm bloke. Code, formulae, all that stuff. There is an honesty to numbers. They’re clean. An internal laugh bubbles up, despite the pain, which he does his best to suppress and he realises he’s been thinking how ironic that is, for a guy who’d made his money reinventing the dating app. The laugh, though silent, causes the pain in his ribs to surge.

‘She’ll be along in a bit. She says don’t leave A&E without her.’