The Tall Man Read online

  Then, on their first morning back at home in their flat, she had said it. Sadie, propped up against a pillow to feed while a half-asleep Miles bumbled his way to the toilet, had looked down at her daughter and said I’m sorry.

  He hadn’t paid any attention then, but when he returned, Amber was lying on his side of the bed, whimpers working their way into a cry, while Sadie sat and stared at the corner of the room. He glanced over though everything was as they had left it – an old chair pushed aside to make room for the changing table, a stack of folded clothes abandoned on it. He looked at Sadie again, her gaze locked on the chair, her bra and vest top still peeled down on one side. Amber’s crying got louder.

  He’d said Sadie’s name then, his heart thumping in his chest. The relief when her eyes flicked to him was overwhelming but short-lived.

  ‘They’ll come for her,’ she’d said, though her voice was calm. ‘She’s cursed like me.’

  And then she had looked down at their week-old daughter and back up at Miles. ‘I’m sorry,’ she’d said, and then she’d gotten up from the bed, Amber wailing now, and left the room. Miles had soothed the baby, listening to Sadie clanking pans around in the sink. When she’d shouted that she was going to buy milk, the front door closing behind her before he had time to reply, he had gone to the telephone and called his mother.

  ‘It’s a difficult time,’ Frances had told (dismissed) him. ‘You have no idea. She’ll be fine.’

  But she was not fine. Or rather, she could not be. For though she had not repeated the claim, he kept finding her studying the baby. He kept finding her checking the windows, deadbolting the door in the middle of the day.

  Worst, though, was the whispering. It had happened only once (that you know of, a voice added unkindly in his head) but he found he could not stop thinking about it. Late home from his lecture, delirious with lack of sleep, he had let himself in to the sound of Amber crying again. Finding her in the milky-stained bouncer, also bought from a charity shop, he had picked her up, the crying driving him half-mad within minutes. He’d thundered past the open bathroom door and burst into the bedroom. He’d expected Sadie to be asleep, was already annoyed with himself for being angry; already deflating as Amber abruptly fell silent, her small wet mouth nuzzling at his shoulder.

  Sadie had not been in bed. Sadie had been standing with her back to him, a hand braced against the wall. Sadie had been stooped slightly, leaning over that same chair – and she had been whispering.

  ‘Not her,’ he thought he made out, although afterwards he would think that he had imagined this. He would think that he had imagined, for a second, the sight of not one but two shadows on their grubby, damp-speckled wall.

  He had not imagined, he knew, the fury in Sadie’s eyes as she turned and saw him there, and he certainly had not imagined the way she had slammed the bedroom door in his face – though five minutes later, when he was in the kitchen settling Amber with a clumsily assembled bottle of formula, it was as if it had not happened. Sadie had come into the room and begun chopping an onion and a carrot, ready for the shepherd’s pie they’d agreed on that morning.

  And so, yes, he had begun to wake in the night with a sense of dread. It felt familiar and almost comforting, an old friend, and so on that particular morning, he almost closed his eyes again and let it wash over him.

  Instead he turned over, his hand flopping on to the cool sheet on Sadie’s side of the bed. The light in the room was feeble and grey and he could hear Amber beginning to stir in her Moses basket – but Sadie was not in her place, the corner of the duvet turned neatly back.

  He got up, the dread beginning to swell into something more urgent. Amber began to whimper in her sleep but he left her in the basket, blinking hard to reject the last traces of sleep as he went out on to the landing.

  He knew straight away, he’d tell them all later. He knew, he felt it. He went through with it anyway; he walked through the flat, listening to their baby’s cries begin to spiral from disgruntled to distress. It didn’t take long to see that everything else was still and silent, any trace of her already evaporating. The front door unlocked, her key left on the table.

  It didn’t take long to realise that she really was gone.

  4

  2018

  At lunch, Amber presses her fingers into the teetering burger; the bread compliant, the blood torrential. She sinks her teeth in, her eyes meeting Greta’s, gherkins crunching. She replaces it as she chews and both of them watch the cratered bun rise slowly back, a string of cheese stranded on the edge of the plate oozing on to the glossy wooden table. She seems unbothered by the camera – it could almost be that she’s forgotten it’s there until she turns to offer a chip to Tom.

  ‘How do you think that went?’ Greta asks her, pushing her own salad aside.

  Amber shrugs, taking a long slurp of her soda. ‘Everyone was really nice,’ she says when she’s done.

  ‘Do you find it hard to talk about what happened like that? To keep raking it over?’

  She picks up her burger again and considers it. Another string of cheese slowly unfolds and begins its inevitable journey towards the table. The blood hits the plate with a slow ticking sound. ‘No,’ Amber says eventually, glancing at Greta. ‘No, it feels good that I can talk about it now.’ She shrugs again and takes another nip at the burger. ‘This is amazing.’

  Greta glances around the restaurant. Half-empty; the lunchtime rush an hour or so away. No paparazzi here, something she’s grateful for at least. She knows Tom wants that footage. She can already picture it in the edit; probably in black and white, probably with Federica’s voice-over. Maybe even slow motion; the camera flashes exploding against the tinted car window, the photographers’ mouths stretching and closing as they call out to Amber, as she turns away. It might even be used on the opening credits.

  Amber is watching her, a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. She can tell, Greta thinks. She knows Greta has no idea what she’s doing. Both of them have been abandoned here, but only one of them is floundering. Amber leans back in the booth and yawns. Greta clears her throat.

  ‘It doesn’t ever bother you?’ she asks. ‘Being known? People stopping you in the street? Doesn’t it ever feel weird that people know more about your early childhood than you do? People have written dissertations on it.’ She’s exaggerating – it’s one person. One person who comments religiously on any online article about the Banners, who has their own website about the family and their story. One website of several, true – but the only one that has a full-length thesis available for download. A recent research day also led Greta into the more unnerving world of Amber and Sadie Banner fan-fiction; forums and stories and whole novels posted online about the doomed mother, the cursed daughter and the Tall Man.

  Amber laughs, and Greta’s heart begins to quicken. Federica will like that laugh, short and bitter. She’ll probably use that clip immediately after something from one of the talk-show interviews filmed this morning; one where Amber is sweet and extra British, one where the tears fall softly and snot-free. Probably the one where the presenter had to reach for a Kleenex herself, the make-up artist rushed on to stage as Amber left it during the commercial break. Yep, Federica will enjoy that, especially with the silence that follows now, Amber staring out of the window. The public and the private. The thoughts twitching beneath the surface of Britain’s newest infamous face.

  Britain’s most in-demand murderer.

  They drop Amber at her hotel, where she has booked herself back-to-back appointments at the spa. In the car, she grasps Greta’s hand in the back seat.

  ‘Shall I go blond? Like, proper blond. I was thinking, you know the kind that’s almost silver? Kind of purpley white?’

  Greta, her own highlights long neglected and sliding past her ears, makes a noncommittal sound. ‘It’s a cool look – a lot of upkeep, I guess.’

  Amber’s face wrinkles and she looks away, Greta’s hand left to flop back down. When they pull
up outside the hotel, she clambers out and cracks a bubble in her gum. ‘See you guys in the morning?’

  ‘See you in the morning,’ Greta agrees, resisting the urge to tell Amber that new hair will make inconsistencies in the film, that it’ll piss Federica off. Why not have new hair? she thinks. Why not piss Federica off? Amber is the only thing about the production that can’t be planned or controlled and this, Greta knows, is beginning to frustrate the famous Federica Sosa. She saw it in the last days back in London, after Amber ducked a phone call or five from Federica, after a planned meeting was rescheduled twice and then cancelled. A celebratory dinner between director and subject quickly disintegrated after Amber drank four cocktails and announced she wanted to go dancing instead of to the fancy members’ club Federica had planned. So it’s no surprise to Greta that Federica’s ‘personal issue’, of which there are many, has proven important enough to pass responsibility for this stage of the project to Greta. Greta, who needs this film to succeed and who, as far as Federica is concerned, has an excellent track record in managing (manipulating, a small voice suggests) difficult subjects like Amber (they were not like Amber, the voice insists, and she is forced to dismiss it).

  Back in her own cheap motel room, ignoring the thumping of the headrest next door and the wailing of sirens collecting a couple of blocks away, she checks her email. Nothing new – which is, in itself, a new thing – but then it’s evening in London, Federica probably pouring the first or possibly second vodka and tonic for herself. She rereads an email from Hetty, her housemate, sent yesterday and opened in the middle of the night when Greta couldn’t sleep. As with all of Hetty’s emails, it’s straight to the point – a birthday dinner next week for their other housemate, Lisette. She types a quick reply agreeing; she’ll be back in London by then, though she already knows she’ll be pulling nineteen-hour days researching, reviewing footage, trying to help Federica find the mysterious thing that will make this film the seminal take on the Banner case, as well as being at all the shoots with Amber. She’ll make time for the dinner, she tells herself. She’s only lived in the houseshare for six months, while Hetty and Lisette have been there for three years together – it’s nice to be involved in things. And it’s important, she reminds herself. Important to have something else, something other than this. She’s made that mistake before.

  Email sent, she clicks into a new tab and opens the team’s shared drive. Tom’s icon is in the corner; he’ll be working through the footage from the day. Meanwhile, Federica has added her own revised notes to the folder, her uniquely inconsistent version of shorthand finally – worryingly – comprehensible to Greta.

  She can’t quite bring herself to read them yet, so while she waits for Tom to upload their new material, she clicks through some of the earlier prep work done back in London. Folders and folders of notes and case studies, gathered by both her and Federica. Early interviews and recordings, police photographs. She flops on to her stomach on the creaky bed and loads one of the interviews Federica conducted, labelled correctly for once: Garrett 23/02/18 FS.

  David Garrett looks as oily as his voice sounded when Greta called to schedule the interview. He fidgets in the coffee shop’s plastic chair, the harsh white spotlight picking up greasy patches on his nose and forehead, dark patches spreading under the arms of his shirt.

  ‘Tell me what your position was at the time of Sadie Banner’s disappearance,’ Federica says from somewhere beside the camera, no doubt two coffees in and fidgeting too.

  Garrett clears his throat. ‘I was detective constable and I was assigned the case after the officers responding to the call deemed the disappearance suspicious.’

  ‘Can you tell me a bit more about your initial findings?’

  ‘It wasn’t especially unusual. No sign of a struggle or anything like that. Husband goes to sleep and wakes up to find his wife gone – not exactly something we’ve never seen before.’

  ‘You thought she’d left him?’

  ‘Initially, that was the general opinion, yes. She had taken a bag, some clothes.’

  ‘And what made you decide that this might be something more sinister?’

  Garrett shifts in his chair again, just as an email notification pops up in the corner of Greta’s screen. She jumps, eyes skimming over the previewed text. Re: Your Recent Order with JustEat. She crosses it away, returns her attention to the video.

  ‘Well, there was the fact that the baby was only ten days old. Initially, we were worried that Sadie might have been suffering from postnatal depression or postnatal psychosis, and that her personal safety might have been at risk.’

  ‘That theory didn’t last long?’

  Another nervous cough – that will work well. They’ll probably narrow the shot, let the frame close in on him. ‘Well, we never abandoned it entirely,’ he says, fiddling with a sugar sachet. ‘But initial talks with the health visitor, the midwife and her GP didn’t mark her as a risk in that respect. No warning signs, at least. And meanwhile, we . . . found other areas of potential concern.’

  ‘Could you tell me about those?’ Federica asks. Greta gets up and goes into the en suite to wash her face, letting the tinny voices drift through to her.

  ‘Well, the husband became . . . a person of interest.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It seemed obvious very early on that he was holding something back. There was a certain . . . reluctance to his interactions with us.’

  ‘You didn’t think it was the strain of being left holding the baby?’

  ‘Maybe at first.’ Greta comes back into the room, rubbing her face with the gritty towel. David Garrett pronounces certain words strangely; she noticed it the first time she saw this clip. Mebbe. ‘I’ll be honest,’ he says, finally abandoning the sugar packet. ‘I was a hundred per cent sure that he was guilty. We just couldn’t pin it on him.’

  ‘You thought Miles Banner had murdered his wife?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I would’ve bet my house on it.’

  Federica lets the silence sit a little longer than probably felt comfortable, at the time, and Greta knows she’ll leave it like that in the final edit, too. Let the audience in on the joke, let the moment swell. Finally, she releases him:

  ‘It must have come as quite a surprise then?’

  And Garrett is a good sport, he laughs. ‘Well, yeah,’ he says. ‘I spend fifteen years of my career regretting that one murder I couldn’t prove, and then the victim strolls back through her front door one day.’

  5

  2016

  On the morning of her daughter’s sixteenth birthday, Sadie Banner dressed carefully. Not too formal, but something nice, she had decided. Something to mark the occasion. She tried not to think of all the birthdays she had missed, all the times she had not written or even remembered (though this, she knew, was not true. She had always remembered). She tried not to think of all of the birthdays she’d spent mourning, afraid, alone (though this, she knew, was also not true. She had never been alone). She tried not to think of anything at all, as she often did, and she showered and dressed. Just as she was supposed to.

  She made her way downstairs, bringing with her the glossy carrier bag of Amber’s birthday gifts as Miles had asked her. The stairs creaked under her unfamiliar weight, alarmed. The house was often clear in its hostility. With every sticking door, every shrieking floorboard, she heard it: Intruder. She couldn’t disagree.

  She could hear Miles in the kitchen, the sizzle of batter hitting the pan. Pancakes, of course; Amber’s favourite, she reminded herself, because over the last six months, knowing her daughter – her likes and dislikes, her habits, her catchphrases; it reminded Sadie of poring over Smash Hits to learn every possible fact about a favourite popstar – had become like an exam for which she was constantly cramming. She was finding that even the things that she did know were protean, could not be relied upon from one day to the next. For a while, when Sadie had first come home, Amber loved crepes – but now the pancakes had to be
small and fat, American style. Everything she liked was American now: the labels she wore, the music she listened to, the shows she watched incessantly on TV and on her laptop. She’d even started to talk with a slight accent, just a twang, and Sadie couldn’t tell if it was on purpose or if it had happened by osmosis from all the hours of Gossip Girl, 90210 (a remake of 90210! How old that made her feel!) and Pretty Little Liars her daughter watched.

  Her daughter. It felt strange to claim such a phrase, even in her own head.

  The hallway floorboards creaked too as she made her way towards the kitchen, where Miles sang along to Frankie Valli on the radio. Sadie rounded the corner and saw him, his back to her as he flipped a pancake and gave the remaining batter a little whisk, his hips wiggling. It was the first sunny day of spring and the light coming through the kitchen window was buttery and bright. He turned to slide the cooked pancakes on to the stack beside him and saw her standing there. He was dressed in his pyjama bottoms, his grey T-shirt spattered with batter, his hair sticking up one side. He was the only thing that had not, that never, changed. It had unnerved her when she first arrived, and still she found it difficult. For a second she could imagine that it was the first morning when she’d woken up in his room in halls and wandered out to find him in the kitchen, although that time he had been frying – burning – bacon, and his T-shirt had been spattered with Snakebite from the night before. She could imagine that none of what had gone between had happened at all.

  But only for a second.

  He smiled at her; he was getting better at that. Quicker, at least – the fear and the assessment that passed across his face each time he looked at hers more and more fleeting. She tried to smile back as he came towards her, spatula in hand, and kissed her – beside the eye, as if he’d dithered between her forehead and her cheek and left it too late to choose. ‘Good morning,’ he said.