Susie had seen this too. Oh, Dad, don’t bother, seriously, she muttered. He’s not gonna change. This hasn’t changed him, and nothing will.
Apparently Fin was incensed by their dad’s insistence to have the service in a church because their mum wasn’t religious, and it went downhill from there.
‘You must be Mr Hart, Junior,’ said some nice old boy, pumping his hand and energetically and fearlessly greeting him, in our hearing.
‘Hart, an ironic name for someone born without one,’ Susie said.
12
‘Hi, you left me a message? It’s Fin.’
I jumped as if stung when ‘FINLAY HART’ sprang up on my phone screen.
I don’t know why this has caught me on the hop. After a half an hour’s reverie, he’d started to feel like a myth, not a real man with a mobile.
‘Hi! Thanks for calling me back,’ I say, in the tone of panicked jollity you automatically slip into with a total stranger whose attention you’ve summoned. Then it dawns on me it’s a wholly inappropriate tone to use before I announce the death of a close family member. We’ve been plunged into extreme circumstances where slight misjudgements equal horrendous gaffes.
Blood pounds in my ears as I say, with excessive formality: ‘Thanks for ringing back so quickly. I am so very, very sorry to be the one to break this news, Fin …’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘Are you calling to tell me Susie’s been killed? I know.’
I’m stunned, twice over: first that he knows, and second that he sounds so matter of fact.
‘Oh. How?’
‘The police contacted me this morning.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I was told the hospital didn’t have details for you.’
‘You were her best friend?’
‘Yes. I’m her best friend,’ I say. Incorrectly correcting Fin Hart on the tense of my relationship to his deceased sister is both ridiculous, and feels necessary.
I don’t think Fin is feigning not to remember me, I guess the odds of him recalling the names of small girls his sister hung around with a lifetime ago are minimal.
‘How did you have my number, if you don’t mind me asking?’
This could sound as if he’s being polite but the delivery isn’t, at all.
‘I have Susie’s phone.’
‘You can get into it?’
This strikes me as such an outlandish line of inquiry I say: ‘Yes?’ in an affronted way.
‘I wondered. I’m glad you called me because I want to talk to you. My father’s no longer capable of managing something like a funeral …’
It crosses my mind that this might be a point to say his father’s not capable of managing this development whatsoever, but I don’t feel on sure footing.
‘… And I’m over here. I can’t be in the UK for long. Would you be alright to start the funeral plans and I will get over there as soon as I can to help? Contact undertakers and so on.’
‘Yes. Sure,’ I say.
‘You’d have a better idea of what she’d want than myself or my father anyway.’
‘OK,’ I say, trying to hide my general amazement. Fin sounds like we’re planning her a baby shower.
‘The need for an inquest will delay things slightly but they should have the findings of the postmortem soon, and then they’ll open an inquest, and release the body.’
The body.
I gulp. I don’t want to extend this interaction but Fin obviously has information that I don’t.
‘Do you know any more about why the driver hit her?’
‘The guy had a stroke at the wheel, he went to hospital afterwards. The breathalyser was completely clear. The police say there won’t be any charges.’
‘Oh.’
I’d not prepared for this and don’t know how I feel. I was sure anyone driving on a pavement and killing best friends had a case to answer.
Once again, I ask myself – is it better or worse not to have an enemy, other than Fate?
‘Having to live knowing he killed someone, is no doubt worse than anything a court could impose anyway,’ Fin says, evenly, and while I see the logic, I can’t believe his attitude. He’s so detached.
‘I’ll be back in touch with a date that would work for the funeral. You’re in Nottingham, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Bye then.’
Ed calls not long after and I relay the news about the driver, and the distinctly unsettling manner of Finlay Hart.
‘He’ll be in shock. You can’t expect everyone to respond the same way.’
‘No but … it’s absolutely consistent with the person Susie described. Not the smallest sign he was upset, none.’
My blood heats. If I need a nemesis, he’ll do.
‘It does sound nuts. Rich and strange families, huh?’
‘I guess better than fairly skint and strange, like mine.’
‘Hey now! Don’t misspeak Connie, please.’
Did I mention Ed has completely charmed my mum? Sigh.
‘Do you want to go round to Susie’s house tomorrow morning and help me do some sorting out?’ Ed adds. ‘I know it sounds weird but it needs doing and I can’t bear the thought of sitting doing nothing. Justin’s on a morning shift. I already know I won’t be able to lie in.’
‘Sorting out?’
‘I don’t know what the status of her dad’s mental state is, but he’s still next of kin.’
‘Along with her brother,’ I say. I should visit her dad.
‘Yes, when he’s over here. They’ll have rights to do the house clearance.’ That her house needs clearing, makes me wince. So soon? So fast? Her property not belonging to her. ‘I’m thinking, as her best mates, she might want us to do some preparatory tidying up for her? Take away anything she might find … compromising, not want her family or other authorities to see?’
‘Oh. Yes.’
My brain plays a clip of me looking quizzically at a giant dildo.
‘Thing is, E … you are OK to see the corner? Where it happened?’
‘Oh!’ I’d not thought of this. I’d not considered the scene, by daylight, still existing. ‘Yes. I think so. She’s not there.’
‘Yeah. But thought I’d flag. Pick you up at eleven?’
‘Yes, sure.’
Given where Ed lives, picking me up involves driving miles past Susie’s and back south across the city again. He is being solicitous and caring in a taking charge kind of way, and I’m hugely grateful for it. He’s not making me jump through the hoops or agonise about whether to say I want looking after, he’s just looking after me. Which is Ed.
13
I don’t recommend the sensation of emerging from fitful rest, face so sodden with tears that you have wet collarbones, momentarily wildly elated that your best friend dying violently was only a disturbing creation of your subconscious. Before the murky world of 4.14 a.m. on your digital alarm clock swims into focus, and you remember that she has.
Ed looks as knackered as I feel when he knocks on the door.