Girl Seven Read Online Free PDF

when you returned,’ he said.
    ‘I know. I forgot my money.’
    I picked at the yellow foam instead of my lips, eyes down, tapping the leg of my chair seven times, seven times...
    ‘You were apparently shouting at some children in the stair­well of your building. A few eyewitnesses have mentioned them. Can you give me their names so I can take their statements?’
    ‘I don’t remember.’
    ‘You don’t remember.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Do they live nearby?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Kiyomi.’ He leant forwards, linking his fingers on his lap. ‘Anything you can remember, anything at all, could be crucial in finding out who did this. If anyone saw anything, we need to be able to speak to them. Do you understand?’
    I wanted to ask him if I could see his ID, but it seemed too aggressive. I felt as though, if I asked him that, he’d have licence to confront me with the lies I was telling.
    ‘I don’t remember who they were,’ I said, ripping out some of the yellow foam and dropping it on the floor. ‘I didn’t know them. They were just hanging around.’
    They could put it down to shock, maybe. If I faked a lack of memory...
    ‘They could give us a lead, Kiyomi.’
    ‘I... didn’t know them.’
    ‘Could you identify them in a line-up?’
    In my mind I could only see their hands, showing the lengths of the blades.
    I wouldn’t identify them, not to this guy, but I nodded anyway.
    ‘And you didn’t see anyone?’
    I looked at him. If something happened, if he moved too suddenly, I had an idea that I could maybe reach the kettle and throw the boiled water in his face.
    ‘No.’
    He put his hand over mine and I nearly vomited again.
    ‘I’m truly sorry for your loss, Kiyomi,’ he said.
    Then he left.
    That was it. My loss. That was what had just happened to me, condensed conveniently down into a fucking four-letter and one syllable word. My loss.
    I sat there, aware only of my own breathing.
    The officers didn’t return.
    For a second, I considered cutting my wrists with one of the blunt unpolished knives in the cutlery drawer. Then this, my loss, could all be over. Just like that...
    But no.
    I hadn’t seen anyone, I thought.
    I hadn’t seen anyone.
    I left the chair and ran out of the Relatives’ Room into the hospital corridor.
    But there was no sign of him.
    There was no sign of him but I never forgot his face.

4
    I called the number from the business card with no name and arranged to meet Mark Chester the following evening, as I’d always been intending to. He didn’t sound surprised to hear from me; the fluency of his speech was unnerving.
    I found him sitting in the window of the café he’d suggested in Covent Garden, on an artfully tacky leopard-print stool just out of the sun. On the counter next to him was a brown leather satchel, like the ones public schoolboys carried.
    Something by Roy Orbison was playing. It was the sort of tearoom designed to attract hipsters with iPads.
    ‘I was pretty rude the last time I saw you,’ I said, sitting down next to him. ‘Sorry.’
    ‘No, you were hilarious. I wasn’t offended; I expected that sort of reaction.’
    The stool was so high that my feet didn’t touch the floor, so I sat there swinging them back and forth in the air like a toddler.
    When Mark spoke to me next he had his business face on.
    ‘So, did you think seriously about what we talked about?’
    I snorted. ‘That’s a bit of an understatement, but yeah, I thought about it.’
    ‘Would you like a smoothie?’
    ‘Er, no, I’m good.’
    ‘So what do you think?’
    It took concentration to become used to his rapid-fire ques­tion­ing, especially when I was still unsure of my intentions. ‘Look, I’m going to be straight with you. This isn’t the sort of offer where you say you’ll do something for free and then suddenly a few months down the line some hidden charge appears, is it?’
    ‘Why would I do that?’
    ‘Well...’ I couldn’t find a reply that didn’t sound