First Born(11)

I wash my face and clean my teeth and feel more human. The face in the mirror is a ghost of a woman. I return to my room and change into my pyjamas and climb into bed. Bat on my left, knife on my right, hornet spray tucked underneath.

But my eyes will not close. I check my phone one last time: the Instagram photos on KT’s grid, photos of her with her boyfriend Scott, and her with Violet, her best friend. KT looked happy. She looked well last week and now she is gone.

I place my phone on the window sill and charge it. The extinguisher’s right there next to it.

I turn off the light.

Voices from the next-door room.

I hear my dad’s voice but I can’t make out his words. His voice is too deep. It’s muffled.

And then Mum says, ‘We have to tell her the truth, Paul.’





Chapter 7


I wake to a knocking on my door.

My hand reaches down for the bat but it’s sunk between my body and the side of the bed.

I scramble to pull it loose.

Heavy breathing from out in the hallway.

Someone trying the handle.

I drag out my bat.

‘Just me, Moll,’ says Dad. ‘It’s only me.’

I breathe again.

‘Wait a sec.’ I pull on my sweater and check the peephole. ‘What time is it?’ I ask, opening the door.

‘Nine-thirty, sweetheart. Your mother wanted you to sleep.’

I clear the corners of my eyes and recall the words I overheard last night. Must have taken me hours to get to sleep after hearing that.

We have to tell her the truth, Paul.

‘Mum managed to find you a Pret a Manger. Turns out there are lots of them here.’ He hands me a paper bag turning transparent from grease. ‘Chocolate croissant.’ He hands me a cardboard cup. ‘And a latte with one sugar.’

I smile and thank him and take them. He follows me into my room but there is no space in here. Not enough air. I retreat to the window and try to open it but it’ll only budge an inch or so.

‘We already ate breakfast,’ he says. ‘Your mum’s not sleeping much. We thought we’d get off at ten sharp. That OK?’

‘Of course,’ I say, sipping the coffee. ‘Thanks again for this, Dad.’

He smiles a flat, empty smile, and goes back to his room.

I’m starving, so I devour the croissant and the coffee and then I take a hot shower. The communal bathroom is already wet, steamy, soaked, but at least I don’t have to queue. I fix my make-up in my room with a small mirror and then I check the contents of my handbag. We leave the hostel.

‘Your father likes to take the subway, makes him feel like a New Yorker instead of a tourist, but we’ll get a cab today, Molly. You don’t want to try the subway, do you?’

‘No, Mum. I don’t.’

‘We’ll just hail a cab, then.’

Dad heads off across Sixth Avenue towards the overwhelming giant neon screens advertising Broadway shows and sneaker brands. Mum and I wait outside the hostel.

‘Did you get some sleep, Mum?’

‘A little. On and off, really. You?’

‘Took me a while but then I did.’

‘Good. You need it,’ she says, taking a deep breath, then coughing. ‘We all need to keep our strength up so we can help the police. Get justice for your sister.’

‘The hostel walls are paper-thin, though,’ I say.

‘They really are.’

‘I heard you and Dad talking late last night.’

She looks at me.

‘What do you need to tell me, Mum? What’s the truth you need to share with me?’

She looks down at the pavement and then fixes her hair and looks back up at me with a pained expression. ‘It’s not the right time, sweetie.’ She rubs my shoulder reassuringly. ‘Your father can talk to you about it.’

Dad yells from across the street and we join him and jump in the yellow cab.

‘26th Police Precinct,’ says Dad to the driver. We’re all squeezed into the back seat.

‘Where?’ says the driver.

‘Near Columbia University. Morningside Heights.’

‘Wrong way,’ says the driver, pulling out into traffic. We drive south and then he makes a turn and we start heading north. ‘Street?’ asks the driver. He’s an Eastern European guy with thin fair hair.

Dad checks his phone and says, ‘Amsterdam and 126th Street.’

The driver nods.

‘Dad, what do you need to tell me?’

He looks over at me, then at Mum. He’s wearing a tie today; he almost never wears a tie. He gestures to Mum and she nods.

‘Not now, Molly. We can talk about it later after we’ve spoken to the police. We need to focus.’

He turns to look out of the window and Mum stares straight ahead. We’re cramped together and awkward as hell. This is where KT would have told us one of her travelling stories or cracked a lame joke to cut the tension. I know everyone found me hard work as a kid. It took extra effort to ensure nothing upset me too much. Whereas KT was easy. If someone wronged her she’d address the problem swiftly and move on. Right now, in the back of a cab, this is where she would have saved us from ourselves.

According to my phone GPS we pass close to the Ed Sullivan Theater and Carnegie Hall, and head on up the west side of Central Park. I Google ‘Katie Raven’ again, and check Twitter for news or hashtags. She’s everywhere. The Mail Online have a collage of her Instagram selfies, and they have some soundbite from Violet, her best friend. Strong New York accent. Mum watches the clip with me. Violet says how stunned she is. How KT was a brilliant scholar and their whole class are devastated by the news.