by Glass, Lisa
‘Waiting for you to go inside.’
‘You’re not my boyfriend anymore.’
‘Course I am,’ he said. ‘And I got to know you’re safe. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you too.’ He shut his eyes for a second as he said this, like he was thinking bad thoughts.
‘Nothing’s going to happen to me,’ I said. ‘My dad’s been teaching me how to punch since I was four.’
Han rolled his eyes and said ‘You’re not as tough as you think you are, Jenny Grand,’ but before I could set him right, he legged it off towards the dunes, dodging rabbit holes as he went.
So that’s what it’s like to love two girls, I thought, and then I spat on my mum’s mint plant.
I was thinking about Mormons who have two or three wives, and swingers like Han’s parents who had no conception of monogamy, and fumbling with the key to my front door all at the same time, when Nathan came jogging up behind me with little Sammy trailing behind him.
‘Jen, wait up!’
‘I already know about the camp.’
‘You gotta promise me you’ll stay away from Luke Gilbert,’ he said.
‘Whoa, that’s a bit out of nowhere.’
He turned to Sammy. ‘Go and sit on Jen’s rock at the bottom of the garden, mate. I’ll only be two minutes.’
‘Why do I have to?’ I was relieved to hear Sammy talking again.
‘Because I said so!’ Sammy skulked off the bottom of the garden, kicking shells as he went.
‘What’s Luke Gilbert ever done to you?’ I said.
‘Just listen to me, alright. You can’t trust him. You don’t know what I know.’
I panicked a bit as an image flashed in my head of Luke in a cellar surrounded by red necklaces, Black & Decker power tools and cut up models.
‘And what’s that?’
‘Perverted. Molesting. Sicko.’
‘Says you.’
‘Says my mum. She went to school with Luke Gilbert and she was one of the girls that his dad . . . interfered with.’
‘NO WAY.’
‘Way.’
‘I thought there was only one girl?’
‘There ain’t ever just one, is there? Just cos people don’t come forward, it don’t mean bad stuff never happened to them. My mum’s okay now but she was shook up for like years.’
‘But that was Luke’s dad, not him.’
‘Apples makes little apples, just like oranges makes little oranges.’
‘Is that some cryptic crossword clue?
‘It ain’t funny, Jenny.’
‘I know. Sorry. Why didn’t you tell me about your mum before?’
‘What happened to my mum wasn’t my thing to tell, was it? And it wasn’t even about Luke anyway. Only his pedo dad. But turns out now that it’s like father like son. And I know you been talking to that weirdo loser, so I had to warn you. Especially now all this has happened up the camp. ’
He bit his lip so hard it went white.
‘If he’s hurt them girls I’m gonna kill him,’ he said.
‘Really think it was him?’
‘You know what he did down the quay. Who else could it be?’ he said. And then added grimly, ‘He better pray the police get to him before I do. I’ve got a fishing knife and if he comes anywhere near me I’ll cut his throat and pull out his tongue through the gash, Colombian necktie style.’
‘Bloody hell, Nathan. And you say he’s the sicko.’
Chapter 23My mum and dad were sitting eating toast across the kitchen table. Both of them beetroot from too much sun, but somehow looking pale.
I went to tell them what I knew, but my dad put up his hand.
‘I’ve been calling you nonstop on that bloody phone of yours. Why didn’t you answer and where were you?’
‘Up at the camp.’
‘So you know then.’
‘Yes.
‘Sit down, Jen. You’re not leaving this house again today. Okay?’
‘Great.’
‘Which girls is it? They’re not saying on the radio.’
‘I don’t know. Copper I spoke to wouldn’t tell me. Why am I grounded?’
‘Just stay in this house until we say otherwise.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me. Double hard, ain’t I.’
‘We don’t know who’s out there. We don’t know anything anymore. This town is going to hell in a handbasket.’
‘Do you think someone’s killed them? And that other one that disappeared too? Edith?’
‘I hope to God they haven’t.’
‘Or someone could be holding them hostage somewhere. Sex slaves. Torture practice. Might find them in bits.’ I shuddered.
A loud knocking started up on our front door. I followed my dad who jumped up to answer. Mr Hitchcock was standing there with his big eyebrows wild and no hat.
‘Luke Gilbert has been arrested.’
My mum came into the hallway still eating her toast.
‘Never. Luke? After everything, he’s turned out to be just like his father? No, I don’t believe it. I remember him as a lad. So quiet, he was. Wouldn’t even pull the wings off a moth.’
‘I’m afraid all I know is that they’ve arrested him in connection with the disappearance of those models. Who’s to know what’s happened to them poor girlies. What with that terrible sea fog, nobody seems to have seen a thing. No witnesses have come forward. Not one.’
My dad said, ‘I’ve never seen a sea fog like that in all the years I lived here. A bad omen it has turned out to be and no mistake. A terrible chill I had last night. Who knows what came out of that fog? Doesn’t bear thinking about. Now Luke Gilbert arrested and all.’
‘It gets worse. They say when the police officers entered his home that Luke was standing in the garden with his arms around that bad luck cherry tree, the one that hanged Luke’s father. Luke was just standing there, cuddling it. Most disturbing.’
‘Like a dirt-worshipping, tree-hugging hippie?’ my mum said.
‘Like an eco-warrior,’ my dad corrected her.
‘And then of course there was the other matter: the items that they found lined up on Luke’s mantelpiece. Said to be . . . ladies’ things. Jewellery, handbags, lipsticks, negligees, items of that nature. Articles that would not commonly appear in a bachelor’s home.’
My mum seemed shocked but my dad only said, ‘Circumstantial.’
‘Maybe he collects things like that,’ I said. ‘People can collect whatever they want.’
‘Do you know, within one hour of Luke’s arrest some lost soul painted the word ‘Pedo Jnr,’ on his front door in red gloss paint?’
‘No.’
‘Yes. I know this because your neighbour Nathan saw it and told young Sammy who passed on the news to me.’
‘It’ll be Rick Sylvester who done that,’ I said, kicking an empty Coke can lying on the floor. ‘He was the one that wrote “Kiddy Fiddler” back along.’
I didn’t want to believe that Luke had hurt those girls, but it was no wonder the police arrested him. Carrying around snakes and jewellery? Having all kinds of girlie stuff in his house. It wasn’t normal. Who in our town was weirder than Luke? Perhaps it was all in your DNA. Perversion flowing through your blood like the sickle-cell anaemia my Science teacher had been banging on about. Poisoned by your parents’ personal defects; cursed, more like.
‘Which ones is gone?’ my mum said, putting some more bread in the toaster.
‘Unconfirmed. Word on the street is that the filthy-mouthed red-haired lass is gone, two of the bottle blondes and the one that people call Cleopatra. At first they thought that the young ladies had snuck out to go clubbing but it seems that their pyjamas were missing which they were presumably wearing at the time of their disappearance, while their purses and mobile telephone
s were still in their lockers.’
I burned up with guilt. I had wished all kinds of misery on Vega but I didn’t want her dead. Could it have been Luke? He was spying on them for his book on beauty, and he’d definitely been in the camp, close enough to find that necklace. But then . . . people didn’t have to be their parents . . . did they?
I thought about Han and the fact that he knew Vega, had gone behind my back to spend time with her, but had pretended that it was nothing. I didn’t know what was going on between them, but Vega disappearing after everything Han had said and done would look really bad for him. For all I knew, the last person to see her alive was Han, when they’d gone surfing. Would the police come to my door to ask me questions? I’d tell them nothing if they did.
‘I bet you any money you like that it wasn’t Luke. He’s an easy target,’ I said. ‘Because he’s not all there in the head and because of Old Mr Gilbert having been a perv, but there’s no way Luke’s involved. Them girls wouldn’t let him get near. Not after what happened down the quay.’
‘Well, the police wouldn’t have arrested him for no reason, would they?’ my mum said, reaching up to stroke my hair and looking at me like I was a toddler. I brushed her hand away.
‘I wouldn’t pay too much heed to the ideas of coppers,’ my dad said.
‘To think you’ve talked to that man on your own. He could have done anything to you. You could be dead now too.’
‘Mum, they might still be alive . . . And you don’t know for sure that it’s Luke.’
‘And you don’t know it wasn’t. Promise you’ll listen to us this time, Jenny, and stay in Sunny Daze.’
‘I’ll go demented if I’m cooped up in here the rest of the day. Giving me cabin fever just thinking about it. I need to get some fresh air.’
‘You can go out when your father’s ready to go with you. But he’s got a job interview in a plastics factory in Redruth now and he absolutely cannot miss it, so your fresh air’ll just have to wait until this afternoon.’
‘What’s your excuse? Why can’t you come out with me?’ I said to my mum.
‘You know why. I have Mrs Stephenson’s house to clean in a minute and following my daughter’s example, I managed to get myself a little bit of work for The Show. They’ve got a pile of clothes bigger than this chalet waiting for me to steam over at the barracks. Lord knows whether they’ll still want me to do it, what with the disappearance of half the contestants and all that, but I’ve decided to go over anyway. You know, we already agreed a price upfront so they might throw a few pound my way. Plus, I’d quite like to be on hand in case there’s any developments. In the thick of it, so to speak.’
‘Great. So it’s just me that gets left here?’
‘If you’re bored, I can give you a long list of things that need doing.’
‘Not that bored.’
Mr Hitchcock cleared his throat.
‘I would be happy to keep an eye on Jenny today.’
My mum and dad looked at each other.
‘No, no, it’s fine. Don’t want to take up your time.’
‘It’s no bother. As it happens, I have to go for a walk to the dunes myself. On an errand. Jenny might as well come with me, if she’s so inclined.’
‘Done,’ I said.
‘Well, okay.’
I grabbed some snacks and we set off together. The sky was what my dad would call cloven; one half blue, one half black.
‘A squall’s coming in from the sea.’
‘Look at the height of that cloud,’ Mr Hitchcock said. ‘That’s not a squall, it’s a thunderstorm. We’d better be quick.’
Great, I thought, first a fog and now a storm. Mother Nature seemed to be throwing a right old hissy fit in our direction.
‘How’s Lizzie doing?’
‘Right as rain. The open sore on her leg has healed up nicely. Mrs Schwab is looking after her and the pups.’
‘Han’s granny? Wouldn’t have thought puppy-sitting was her thing. Grinding ‘em up for face cream, maybe, but not looking after them.’
‘She’s a very lovely woman, Jenny. Once you get to know her.’
‘Fat chance of that. Han reckons she hates me.’
‘I can’t believe that.’
The blackness was coming quick, and lightning flickered around the edges of it, like a giant Science experiment. The sky started to spit with rain, then pour like a glass of water. I had never seen the weather change that quick before. I put up my hood and we picked up the pace. It was mental; it was like I could feel electricity crackling in the air. Then with an almighty bang, a lightning bolt split the sky in front of us. The flash was so bright that I couldn’t see for a few seconds. I rubbed my eyes and when I looked again, I saw something burning on the caravan park’s crazy golf course. The little Dutch windmill had been blown to pieces and all of them pieces were burning. It was not even a hundred metres from where we stood.
Mr Hitchcock said, ‘It’s not safe out here. We’d better run.’ He looked worried. I was pretty shook up too, but I didn’t want him to know that, so as we ran I shouted over the rain, ‘Serve it right for being so bloody hardcore. Them windmill blades was always pinging my golf ball out the way of the tunnel. I might actually win a game now.’
‘We need to get to the Haven launderette,’ Mr Hitchcock shouted back. ‘We’ll wait in there until it passes.’
Lightning strobed all around us, flashing over the dunes and the sea and the farmers’ fields, and I was sure one of us was going to get hit. I was about the same height as Mr Hitchcock so I figured the odds of it being him or me was split fifty-fifty, although if bulk and not just height was a factor then his fatness would go against him. Then Han came into my head: the way his face looked when he laughed; watching him paddle out to catch a wave; the feeling of waking up under the same duvet as him. I thought of my parents hugging and crying in the kitchen the night we got the phone call to say my granddad had died on his fishing boat. I thought of how much Lizzie would miss our beach walks, and how Nathan and Sammy would be sad living next door to Sunny Daze knowing I was in a coffin underneath a burnt-out graveyard. But then I remembered that if old Timothy lost the site then Nathan and Sammy would be homeless and Sunny Daze would probably be bulldozed.
I was stressing about how my parents would have to get money off a loan shark to pay for my funeral, when I noticed that Mr Hitchcock and me had made it to the entrance of the launderette without either of us exploding in flames.
It was empty in the launderette and I opened all of the doors to the washing machines and tumble dryers, to see if there was any coins left behind from people’s pockets. I found a twenty pence. The rain got harder and harder against the windows.
‘Near miss we had there, Jenny,’ he said, still out of breath. You’d have thought he’d just done a triathlon the way he was wheezing.
‘Good job Luke’s in the clink. You know, since he’s built like a lightning rod.’
Mr Hitchcock nodded and stared at the rain. I wondered if he was thinking about the missing models, and what people thought Luke had done to them. I changed the subject.
‘So why are we going to the dunes?’
‘I want to make Mrs Schwab a present of that meteorite she saw. I’m going to find it for her.’
I threw my wet hoodie into one of the empty tumble dryers and put my twenty pence piece in the slot, which would buy me ten minutes of drying time. Mr Hitchcock seemed to be calming down a bit, which was good as the last thing I needed was him going all cardiac arrest on me.
‘I looked for it, remember, and it ain’t there.’
‘Well, I’m going to look for it anyway. You know, meteorites – especially ones that land in England – are very rare treasures that sell on the open market for a great deal of money.’
‘How much money?’
‘Depends on the size
and the composition. Could fetch several thousand pounds at auction for even a very tiny one. Not so long ago a chap from Yorkshire found a rare pallasite meteorite lying in plain sight on some moorland and it sold for thirty-six thousand pounds. It was no bigger than your fist.’
‘So what, we’re just going to pick up every dark stone and hope for the best?’
‘I dismantled the stereo system that my son bought me last Christmas. You wouldn’t know this but there are strong magnets in the speakers. Now if any stone we find attracts the magnet, it’s more than likely a space rock. Meteorites are mainly iron, you see.’
The sun came out again and lit up a patch of blue sky, although there were still dark clouds on the horizon.
‘Let’s go then,’ I said, opening the tumble dryer and throwing on my warm but still-damp hoodie.
After three hours of bending and stooping to pick up every dark rock, I’d had enough. I finally sat down next to a badger’s sett and scoffed a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch, but they made me feel queasy and I regretted eating them.
To distract me from the horrible metallic taste in my mouth, I thought I would give the meteorite one last shot. After all, if I could find it and sell it, my dad wouldn’t have to take that grotty factory job. On my hands and knees, I leaned forwards into the entrance of the sett and splayed my fingers to feel for rocks.
I couldn’t explain it, but from the hole, very faintly I thought I could hear music. I shook my head, thinking there must still have been water in my ears, and when I went to listen again there was nothing, not even the scrabble of animals.
‘I am losing it,’ I said to Mr Hitchcock when he came to find me. ‘I’ll be carrying around a bag of snakes next.’
‘Something wrong?’ he said. ‘Didn’t see any strangers lurking around, did you?’
‘Nah, just me having a funny five minutes. So, what did you find?’
Mr Hitchcock had a few fragments of rock that seemed to very slightly attract his weird kidney-shaped magnet but he wasn’t convinced that the meteorite was amongst them.
‘Slag, more than likely,’ he said.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Made from man’s nefarious activities in this area.’
