Beside the bed a pine desk was heaving with junk: an old stereo, unplugged and dusty; three cardboard boxes bulging with CDs; a pair of hiking boots with their laces missing; a mound of paperbacks, well thumbed, beside two pots of pens. The bedroom walls were bare of the photos and paintings that had adorned Mia’s previous rooms and she’d made no attempt to decorate; in fact, it was as if she had never intended the move to be permanent.
Katie was the one who’d persuaded her sister to move to London, using words like ‘opportunity’ and ‘career’, when those words had never belonged to Mia. Mia spent her days wandering the parks, or drifting in one of the rent-a-rowing-boats in Battersea Park, as if dreaming she were somewhere else. She’d had five jobs in as many months because she would suddenly decide to get out of the city to go hiking or camping, and take off, just leaving a note pushed under Katie’s door and a message on her employer’s answerphone. Katie tried searching out job opportunities using her recruitment contacts, but fixing Mia to something was like pinning a ribbon to the wind.
Noticing a pair of mud-flecked running shoes, she remembered the evening Mia announced she was going travelling. Katie had been in the kitchen preparing a risotto, slicing onions with deft, clean strokes. She tossed them into a pan as Mia wandered in, a pair of white earphones dangling over the neckline of her T-shirt, to fill her water bottle at the tap.
‘Going running?’ Katie had asked, blotting her streaming eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan.
‘Yeah.’
‘How’s the hangover?’ When she’d gone to shower before work, Katie had found Mia asleep on the bathroom floor wearing a dress of hers borrowed without asking.
‘Fine,’ she replied, keeping her back to Katie. She turned off the tap and wiped her wet hands on her T-shirt, leaving silver beads of moisture.
‘What happened to your ankle?’
Mia glanced down at the angry red cut that stretched an inch above her sock line. ‘Smashed a glass at work.’
‘Does it need a plaster? I’ve got some in my room.’
‘It’s fine.’
Katie nodded, tossing the onions with a wooden spoon, watching their sharp whiteness soften and become translucent. She turned up the heat.
Mia lingered by the sink for a moment. Eventually she said, ‘I spoke to Finn earlier.’
Katie glanced up; his name was so rarely spoken between them.
‘We’ve decided to go travelling.’
The onions started to sizzle, but Katie was no longer stirring. ‘You’re going travelling?’
‘Yeah.’
‘For how long?’
Mia shrugged. ‘A while. A year, maybe.’
‘A year!’
‘Our tickets are open.’
‘You’ve already booked?’
Mia nodded.
‘When did you decide this?’
‘Today.’
‘Today?’ Katie repeated, incredulous. ‘You haven’t thought it through!’
Mia raised an eyebrow: ‘Haven’t I?’
‘I didn’t think you had any money.’
‘I’ll manage.’
The oil began to crackle and spit. ‘And what, Finn’s just taking a sabbatical? I’m sure the radio station will be thrilled.’
‘He’s handed in his notice.’
‘But he loved that job…’
‘Is that right?’ Mia said, looking directly at her. The air in the kitchen seemed to contract.
Then Mia picked up her water bottle, pushed her earphones in, and left. The pan started to smoke so Katie snapped off the hob. She felt a hot flash of anger and took three strides across the kitchen to follow but then, as she heard the tread of Mia’s trainers along the hallway, the turning of the latch, and finally the slam of the door, Katie realized that what she felt most acutely was not anger or even hurt, it was relief. Mia was no longer her responsibility: she was Finn’s.
*
It was mid-afternoon when the phone rang. Ed glanced up from his laptop; Katie shook her head. She had refused to speak to anyone, allowing the answerphone to record friends’ messages of condolence that were punctuated with awkward apologies and strained pauses.
The machine clicked on. ‘Hello. It’s Mr Spire here from the Foreign Office in London.’
A nerve in her eyelid flickered. It was Ed who reached for the phone just before the message ended. ‘This is Katie’s fiancé.’ He looked across to her and said, ‘Yes, she’s with me now.’ He nodded at her to take the phone.
She held it at arm’s length, as if it were a gun she was being asked to put to her head. Mr Spire had called twice since Mia’s death, first to request permission for an autopsy to go ahead, and later to discuss the repatriation of Mia’s body. After a moment, Katie pressed her lips together and cleared her throat. Bringing the phone towards her mouth, she said slowly, ‘This is Katie.’
‘I hope this is a convenient time to talk?’
‘Yes, fine.’ The dry, musty warmth of the central heating caught at the back of her throat.
‘The British Consulate in Bali have been in touch. They have some further news concerning Mia’s death.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Go on.’
‘In cases such as Mia’s, a toxicology report is sometimes requested as part of the autopsy procedure. I have a copy of it in front of me, which I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Right.’
‘The results indicate that at the time of death, Mia was intoxicated. Her blood alcohol content was 0.13, which means she may have had impaired reflexes and reaction times.’ He paused. ‘And there’s something else.’
She moved into the lounge doorway and gripped the wooden frame, anchoring herself.
‘The Balinese police have interviewed two witnesses who claim to have seen Mia on the evening of her death.’ He hesitated and she sensed he was struggling with something. ‘Katie, I’m very sorry, but in their statement, they have said that Mia jumped.’
The ground pitched, her stomach dropped away. She hinged forward from the waist. Footsteps crossed the lounge and she felt Ed’s hand on her back. She pushed him away, straightening. ‘You think she …’ Her voice was strained like elastic set to snap. ‘You think it was suicide?’
‘I am afraid that based on witness statements and the autopsy, the cause of death has been established as suicide.’
Katie reached a hand to her forehead.
‘I understand this must be incredibly hard—’
‘The witnesses, who are they?’
‘I have copies of their statements.’ She heard the creak of a chair and pictured him leaning across a wide desk to reach them. ‘Yes, here. The witnesses are a 30-year-old couple who were honeymooning in Bali. In their statement, they say that they had taken an evening walk