Persons Unknown: A Richard and Judy Book Club Pick 2018. Susie Steiner

kind of worried nod – and Davy wonders if his display of anxiety will make her fearful she’s put the wrong man on the job. He needs inspiration – the kind of moment when the memory of a phrase in interview, an unconscious connection made, an imaginative idea of an avenue to try, all these coalesce into investigative brilliance. Combined with luck, you can sometimes crack them that way.

      But not when you’re desperate, overloaded and vaguely panicking.

Kilburn, north London

       Bernadette

      —sting testing one two three.

      Stop. Rewind. Record.

      Right, my memo of evidence. Most people would record this on their phones but I can’t work mine. It’s an android and I’ve only just worked out how to find a number and dial it. Anyway, Sanjeev had one of these knock-off dictaphones on the market, so here we go. I am Birdie Fielding and this is a true and accurate account of everything that’s happened. I apologise now if I go off the point a bit.

      I came out like anyone would – to see what all the tooting and commotion was about. I heaved out through the door of the Payless Food & Wine, could see them all gathering on the corner where Iceland is. I turned over the ‘Closed’ sign and locked up.

      And out into the crowd – the rubberneckers eager for a glimpse of misfortune. Wheelie shoppers, niqabs, prams, hoop earrings. A whole mass on the pavement, spilling into the road. The air was soft outside Shoe Zone and Palace Amusements – this was back in November, ever so mild. I remember thinking, this is nice, should’ve got out sooner.

      I pushed through to the centre. I’m not one to loiter at the back. I spotted Nasreen from the cash and carry, who smiled at me. Never liked Nasreen. Competitive. Always asking me how busy I am at Payless. I smiled back as if we were friends.

      Now I saw what they were all staring at – a body on the ground, thrown there by a car I shouldn’t wonder, but she was coming round, squeezing her eyes as if she was in pain. Not dead then. And people were beginning to shuffle away with their disappointment at her being alive. She lay there, a mass of skirts like an upended toilet doll. Everything black: lace, broderie anglaise, in layers – and DM boots poking out. Her eyes were fluttering, black kohl pencil against porcelain skin, and she must’ve spotted the few remaining stragglers getting their mobiles out to call 999 because she shook her head saying, ‘No, no. I’m OK. I’ll get up in a minute.’ Then she opened her eyes fully – I could see it was a struggle – and her gaze fell upon me. I was bending right over her by this point. She signalled to me so I put my face next to hers. She didn’t smell how you expect Goths to smell – no cheapo joss sticks or Body Shop musk. She smelled expensive. Citrussy.

      ‘No cops,’ she whispered to me, ‘no ambulance. Can you get me into your shop?’

      Why was she asking me? Well, it wasn’t the first time we’d met, was it?

      It’s not at all like me to help somebody. My gut instinct is to keep out of the way of other people’s needs and wants. I live by a policy of non-intervention: I don’t want to send in ground troops and never be able to get them out. So I was already out of my comfort zone when Nasreen’s dad, Sathnam, helped me carry the Goth into Payless, depositing her at the foot of the stairs to my flat.

      She was slumped and I wondered if she was losing consciousness. I put my arms around her neck and tried to hoist her up the stairs like a body in a life jacket – me being the life jacket.

      She grimaced, pushed her head to one side. ‘I can’t breathe …’

      ‘You think you’ve got problems,’ I said, panting.

      I was forced to change position. I tried the bridal lift and let me tell you, it required Herculean strength to get all 20 stone of me and all of her up those stairs. Each step was a heaving stomp, the kind Frankenstein’s monster would take. At the top, once the front door was flung open (and that was a world of pain, her propped against the wall while I fumbled for my keys), I pitched towards the sofa and deposited her down on it with some force.

      I collapsed to my knees, panting, then looked up at Tony, there on the wall, and crossed myself – I don’t know why, I figured it’s what he would have wanted – and said, ‘Sweet Jesus, Tony, I hope she doesn’t die on me. Not in my flat.’

      She didn’t die.

      She slept. For a couple of hours, as it goes. Then she seemed to come round, though her eyes were still closed, and she shook her head from side to side, saying ‘They’re coming to get me. They’re going to get me.’

      I gave Tony a look, which said, ‘We’ve got a right one here.’ Because there’s only one thing worse than a Goth, and that’s a paranoid Goth. A Goth with conspiracy theories.

      Why did she pick me? Well, she’d been coming into my shop for a few months, since the heatwave last summer. I recognised a kindred spirit because despite it being 30 degrees, she wore a long-sleeve black T-shirt, black trousers with all manner of rips and rivets, and DM boots. I, too, was clad from my wrists to my ankles and nearly dying in the heat. Anyone who is fat will recognise the reluctance to bare flesh, even in tropical temperatures. Perhaps it wasn’t flab she was covering up – impossible to know the state of her physique under all that garb – and anyway, who knows why Goths keep it under wraps? But I nodded at her capacious sleevage and said, ‘Sweltering, isn’t it? Still, nice day for Lambrini, that’ll be £2.50 please,’ and handed her bottle of sweet pear wine back to her across the counter. It was to be a couple more weeks before she said a word to me.

      At first it was just a faint, ‘Hiya,’ from under a canopy of kohl black eye pencil. Then, come September, she shivered, and said, ‘Season’s turning.’ Quite the poet.

      She always bought Lambrini – the drunkard’s tipple of choice. Even the millionaire bloke who invented Lambrini drank himself to death, cheap and swift. I assumed she was taking it to a bench in Kilburn Grange, to join the other winos congregating there. They sit slumped, talking shite, seeping piss, and watching the ladies in hijabs on the outdoor gym equipment.

      Then, about a month before the incident that flattened her in front of the Payless Food & Wine (so this would’ve been October), she came into the shop swaying, approached the counter with her bottle as usual, and promptly sank to the floor. I leaned over it, said, ‘Are you all right?’ but there was no response.

      She was out cold.

      I dragged her to the back of the shop, where there’s a frayed old armchair (which I’ll be honest, doesn’t smell too good) and allowed her to sober up out there. So by the time the accident happened in November, we were quite close really.

      So, back to her being out cold on my sofa: she was sleeping and sleeping, perhaps working off months of the Lambrini in her system, perhaps recovering from whatever damage the car had done when it hit her. For a time, I moved around her laid-out body in the lounge, sort of wafting in and out, clattering a bit, washing things up, hanging some laundry in the box room – generalised fussing which got louder the more I wanted her to wake up. I began wondering if it would be all right to leave her on her own or if it was all a ruse and she’d leap up and steal all my stuff the minute my back was turned. The more time went on, the more unlikely this seemed – perhaps I got used to her and so feared the stranger in her less. I went downstairs and opened up the shop, thinking that she couldn’t leave the flat without passing me at the till. Things were pretty quiet. I popped up a few times to check on her, but nothing.

      It was kind of boring waiting for her to wake up, so I had this idea that I should go and buy her a towelling robe for when she came round. She’d be wanting a bath, I reasoned, and you can’t step out of a nice hot bath and immediately Goth yourself up, can you? It’s quite mad