When I Was Invisible Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Disclaimer

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Nika

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 2

  Roni

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 3

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 4

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 5

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 6

  Roni

  Part 7

  Nika

  Nika

  Part 8

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 9

  Roni

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 10

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 11

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 12

  Nika

  Roni

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 13

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 14

  Roni

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 15

  Roni

  Part 16

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 17

  Roni

  Nika

  Part 18

  Nika

  Part 19

  Roni

  Nika

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 20

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 21

  Nika

  Roni

  Part 22

  Roni

  Six Months Later

  Nika

  Copyright

  About the Book

  ‘Do you ever wonder if you’ve lived the life you were meant to?’ I ask her.

  She sighs, and dips her head. ‘Even if I do, what difference will it make?’

  In 1988, two girls with identical names and the same love of ballet meet for the first time. They seem destined to be best friends forever and to become professional dancers. Years later, however, they have both been dealt so many cruel and unexpected blows that they walk away from each other into very different futures – one enters a convent, the other becomes a minor celebrity. Will these new, ‘invisible’ lives be the ones they were meant to live, or will they only find that kind of salvation when they are reunited twenty years later?

  About the Author

  Sounds like Dorothy Koomson …

  Dorothy Koomson is the author of eleven novels including That Girl From Nowhere, The Chocolate Run, The Woman He Loved Before and The Flavours of Love. She’s been making up stories since she was thirteen when she used to share her stories with her convent school friends.

  Dorothy’s first novel, The Cupid Effect, was published in 2003 (when she was quite a bit older than thirteen). Her third book, My Best Friend’s Girl, was selected for the Richard & Judy Summer Reads of 2006, and her novels The Ice Cream Girls and The Rose Petal Beach were both shortlisted for the popular-fiction category of the British Book Awards in 2010 and 2013, respectively.

  Dorothy’s novels have been translated into over 30 languages, and a TV adaptation loosely based on The Ice Cream Girls was first shown on ITV1 in 2013. After briefly living in Australia, Dorothy now lives in Brighton. Well, Hove, actually.

  While writing When I Was Invisible, Dorothy rediscovered her love for music – especially 80s tunes – and has been asking everyone she sees nowadays, ‘What’s the one song you’re embarrassed about loving?’ So, what’s yours?

  For more information on Dorothy Koomson and her novels, including When I Was Invisible (and to answer that burning question), visit www.dorothykoomson.co.uk

  For

  everyone who has helped me to create a place called ‘home’.

  Thank you

  to my gorgeous family and friends;

  to Ant and James, my amazing agents;

  to all the brilliant people at my publishers, Cornerstone (especially Susan, Jenny G, Jen D, Emma, Kate, Charlotte, Rose, Rebecca & Aslan);

  to Emma D, Hayley and Sophie, my fabulous publicists.

  A special thank you goes to those who were kind enough to help me with my research for this book.

  And to M, E & G thank you for always being who you are. I love you.

  As always, I would also like to say thank you to you, the reader, for buying this book.

  Please note: This book contains a storyline

  that some may find triggering.

  Prologue

  London, 1988

  ‘Class, we have a new girl joining us today.’ Everyone was sitting in rows, at their wooden desks, in their blue school uniforms. They were probably looking at me, but I was looking at my teacher. She had one ear bigger than the other (I wondered if she knew that) and her hair was so long it reached her chest. ‘Class, meet Veronica Harper.’

  Lots of the children gasped, others said ‘Wow’ really loudly. I looked at the other children then. Why was my name so strange to them that they were behaving like that? Some of them were turning round in their seats to look at a girl who was staring right at me with her eyes really wide.

  ‘That’s right,’ my new teacher said, ‘this is the second Veronica Harper we have in this class. Except they are spelt differently. Our Veronika Harper has a k instead of a c, new Veronica Harper has a c instead of a k. Isn’t that fascinating? Two names that sound exactly the same but are spelt differently and two girls who are both eight years old, called the same thing but who look very different.’

  I grinned at Veronika Harper with a k. I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.

  ‘Fascinating as this is, though, it’s going to become very confusing very quickly,’ my new teacher said. ‘Do they call you anything else, Veronica with a c?’

  I nodded. ‘They call me Roni,’ I said very quietly.

  ‘Brilliant. They call Veronika with a k Nika, so that’s settled. Now, if you’d like to take your seat next to Nika, we can begin the class.’ My legs were wobbly as I walked towards the other Veronica Harper and everyone stared at me. ‘Nika, I take it you won’t mind showing our new pupil around?’ the teacher said. Nika didn’t even have a chance to say anything or nod and the teacher said: ‘Good, good.’ She stood up and went to the blackboard.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Veronica Harper,’ Nika whispered when I sat down at the free desk next to her.

  ‘Nice to meet you, too, Veronika Harper,’ I whispered back.

  ‘Veronika and Veronica!’ the teacher snapped without turning away from the blackboard. It was like she had super-hearing or something. ‘I hope you’re not talking. I don’t want to have to separate you both on Roni’s first day.’

  ‘No, Miss,’ Nika said.

  ‘No, Miss,’ I said.

  It wasn’t possible, anyway. It wasn’t possible to separate us now because we were going to be the very best of friends.

  1

  Nika

  Birmingham, 2016

  I’ve been here for hours.

  It’s probably not been that long, but it feels like it. It seems like I’ve been sitting on this uncomfortable plastic bench with my head on my knees, my arms curled around myself, the sounds of this police station going on around me for long enough for me to feel like my life
is draining away. People come and go, the officers behind the bulletproof glass of the reception desk have conversations that are a touch too far out of range for me to understand or hook myself into. Every time the door opens I am treated to a blast of the noise of the outside world, and it, like everything else, is a reminder that I probably shouldn’t do this.

  If I have to wait to speak to someone, then maybe it’s a sign that this is not meant to be. Maybe I need to unfurl myself, stand up, walk out of here. Slip back into the world outside and disappear again – become as faceless and invisible as everyone else out there.

  Maybe, because I have to wait – and the second thoughts I didn’t have before I walked in here are now arriving, settling in my mind like roosting pigeons on a roof – I should admit to the absolute stupidity of this. Maybe I should be more brutally realistic with myself about what the repercussions will be, how doing this will touch the lives of everyone I know. Maybe I should stop thinking of justice and start thinking of real life and what honestly happens to people like me.

  A voice calls out my name.

  Too late to run now, too late to change your mind, I think. Slowly, I raise my head, lower my legs, place my feet on the floor, my gaze seeking out the person who called my name.

  I stumble a little when I am upright, but catch myself before I fall, curl my fingers into the palms of my hands, trying to hide the trembling. No escape, no retreat. I have to go through with this now.

  ‘How can I help you?’ the police officer asks. Plain clothes, some kind of detective, as I requested. He comes closer to me, but not too close. He doesn’t want to get too close to someone like me. Despite his slightly bored, uninterested expression, when he continues to speak, he sounds neutral and polite: ‘The desk officer said you wanted to talk to a detective, but you were reluctant to say exactly what it was about?’

  I take a step closer, try to narrow the distance between us, so I can speak without being overheard. There is no one here now except the person behind the desk, but I still want to be careful. Quiet. I can’t do this, I realise. I need to, but I can’t. I can’t open my mouth and say another word.

  The detective’s face quickly slides from ‘slightly bored’ and ‘uninterested’ into ‘perturbed’, teetering on the edge of ‘annoyed’. I am wasting his time and he does not like that.

  I take a deep breath, inhale to see if I can shake off the second thoughts and recapture the certainty that brought me here. ‘I … I …’ My voice fails. I really can’t do this.

  Unbidden, the sound, the one I first heard less than a week ago, streaks through my head, as sudden and loud and clear as the first time I heard it. It ignites every memory cell in my body with horror and I almost slam my hands over my ears again, try to shut it out.

  Determined now, I firm up my fists, I strengthen the way I stand and I look the detective straight in the eye as I say: ‘I … I need to report an attempted murder.’

  Nika

  Birmingham, 2016

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ the police officer, DS Brennan, says.

  I lift my head from the table. I must have dozed off. Everything was so quiet and still, almost peaceful, while I sat in the interview room and waited for him to come back, that I had closed my eyes for just a few seconds, determined simply to rest my tired, red eyes. The eye rest must have segued into a nap. Or – I stretch my back, feel the taste at the back of my throat, the heaviness of my eyes and limbs – into a sleep.

  I blink heavily a few times, moisten my lips and stare at him, concentrate on what he’s about to say to me.

  Before he left the room, I’d talked and talked at him, answered his very few questions, and then spoke some more. With every word I felt lighter, freer. I was reliving it all, sure, but it was liberating, too. When he left to ‘go and check on a few things’, I’d been able to unclench then. My body had almost melted into my seat.

  When the police officer sits down opposite me, I notice that he’s different. He left here almost sympathetic, slightly buoyed that I was willing to talk about someone they’ve obviously had their eyes on for many, many years. Now, it is as if he has gone out of the room and changed his attitude. He is holding himself a little more reservedly, his cerulean eyes are a little colder, his expression a little more stern. He hadn’t exactly been overfriendly before – why would he be? I’m not your average witness – but I could see him softening as I spoke to him. As I explained what had happened, what I had seen, why I’d made the decision to come here, who I was actually grassing up, he’d seemed slightly warmer. Now that’s all gone, replaced by the cold barrier of someone who doesn’t like to be lied to. ‘Who are you?’ he asks. Direct, to the point. ‘I mean, who are you really? Because you are not Grace Carter.’

  I sit back in my seat, stare at the table that separates us as he continues to talk.

  ‘I went to verify your story and everything is as you say, every single detail, apart from your name and who you are. In fact, none of that checks out. I made some other calls and yes, people do know you as Grace Carter, or simply “Ace”, but I can’t find a birth certificate that matches your age, your fingerprints aren’t in the system and there’s nothing on any of our computer systems with a person of your description linked to the name Grace Carter. You are, what, thirty-five, thirty-six? And yet there isn’t a single credit card, bank account or financial record in your name. I’ll bet if I asked you to empty your pockets I would maybe find cash, but not one thing with your name on. I’d go as far as to say that you don’t actually exist. Except you obviously do and you’re a witness to a very serious crime committed by a very dangerous man.’ He leans his elbows on the table, closes his hands together as if in desperate prayer and then leans his chin on his clasped hands. After a few seconds of silence, he says: ‘So, who are you? Really?’

  My name is Grace Carter. It has been for more than ten years. I do not have a bank account; I do not have a credit card, a library card or passport in my name. I avoid anything that means I have to use identification and when I can get work, it is often cash in hand. Or it’s paid into a friend’s bank account and they draw it out to give to me. My name is Grace Carter. I used to be called something else, I used to share my name with another girl who was once my best friend at school and in ballet class, but not any more. She’s not my friend any more, and that name is no longer mine.

  I am Grace Carter.

  And I should not have come into this place and told the truth. Telling the truth, doing the right thing, has never worked for me. Not ever. And now it is going to go wrong again. But that sound, that inhuman sound made by someone I desperately love … I couldn’t let that go.

  Time crawls by and I accept that the detective is going to wait it out. He, after all, has all the time in the world. I don’t. I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone sit here and wait for him to speak again. ‘Does my name and who I may or may not be have any bearing on what I told you?’ I eventually ask. I need to open a dialogue and see where it leads us.

  ‘Not to me, no,’ he says. ‘Like I said, everything you say you witnessed has checked out so far, and because of who this is we’re talking about, I have to hand all of this over to my colleagues in organised crime. After this, you probably won’t see me again.’

  I sit up straighter in my seat, force my eyes not to widen and reflect the momentary panic him telling me that has sent spiralling through me. He is easy to talk to – not nice or anything silly like that, but easy to communicate with.

  What do I do next? Do I get up and run for it? Do I just get up and walk out of here? He hasn’t arrested me or suggested he’s going to arrest me. I haven’t done anything he knows about, so I am a free woman who can come and go as she pleases.

  Or do I tell him everything? Explain about my name, about who I am, who I was, why I had to leave my former name, Veronika Harper, behind and become Grace Carter instead? I swallow a laugh at that idea. Tell the truth? All of it? Where would I even start? Where would I stop?r />
  Leaving without another word is probably my safest option here. He suddenly speaks again, when I thought he was going to leave me spinning in silence. ‘My colleagues, to speak out of turn for a moment or two, will be very pleased that you are not who you say you are. To them, it will probably mean that you know far, far more than you originally meant to tell them. If that’s the case, when they find out who you are – and they will find out who you really are – they will use that knowledge to compel you to appear as a witness.’

  ‘Are you trying to scare me?’ I ask him. This is how I ended up here, after all: someone using fear to make sure I always do what they want.

  DS Brennan unclenches his hands from the tight, giant fist they have formed under his chin and sits back. A modicum of shame plays in his eyes. ‘No, no,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Honest is what I’m being with you.’ Now I want honesty from you, he adds without actually saying the words.

  I nod, my gaze fixed on the table.

  ‘You must have been very frightened once upon a time to have changed your name, to have so completely removed yourself from society,’ he states. ‘What happened? And can we help you with it?’

  I continue to stare at the table and at my music player that I took out of my pocket before I went to sleep. I had meant to put some music on while I waited but I didn’t get any further than taking it out of my pocket. I stare at it, its thin black noodle-like earphone wires wrapped around its body, its earbuds like full stops that begin and end the existence of the player. When I was eleven I had a fantasy. When I was twelve I had the same fantasy. When I was thirteen the fantasy continued. When I was fourteen and fifteen the fantasy became more desperate, necessary. When I was sixteen and a half it wasn’t necessary any more but I still had it. The fantasy. My fantasy. It pirouettes now through my head: ‘rescue’. That is the word I have always used to describe those fantasies. My Rescue Fantasies. Someone would swoop in, rescue me. Everything bad from all of before would be swept away by those big powerful wings and I would be lifted up, cradled, loved better. In every fantasy I am rescued and I am safe. Slowly I raise my line of sight to the policeman opposite me.