‘It’s a long story. He’s no one, really. He’s harmless.’
‘You seem scared of him,’ Tim said softly, as though he were trying to coax information from her, or maybe she just wanted to tell him.
‘My parents didn’t tell you the story? They told everyone else.’
‘They haven’t told me anything.’
‘He was a teacher at my school. He lost his job because of some stuff he did.’
Tim shifted his gaze to the path. ‘What’s up there?’
‘Houses. He lives in one of them. I think so, anyway.’
‘What do you mean by “stuff”?’
‘It was nothing, he just got confused about me and then kissed me. He didn’t know there was a camera in the library and when the school found out he got into loads of trouble and lost his job,’ Jasmine blurted out, unsure why she sounded apologetic.
‘Did you kiss him back?’
‘What? No.’
‘Is that all he did?’
‘I was on library duty at school and we were talking. I can’t even remember exactly what we were talking about; he talked to me a lot. I thought it was just because he knew I loved reading and books. Anyway, he pushed me up against the shelves and kissed me. Apparently he grabbed me as well but I don’t remember that part. The cameras got everything, he got caught, lost his job, case closed.’
‘Grabbed you?’
‘Just … you know …’ She gestured towards her chest, not wanting to say the words, not sure which words to use. She saw a flicker of anger in his face just before he turned his head towards the clifftop path and looked intently for a few moments.
‘I should get back to the fair. My friend Felicity is waiting for me,’ she said. She was starting to feel uneasy again.
She was alone in the dark with Tim. She saw a shift in him, too, also uncomfortable at the situation. He paused for a moment.
‘Why don’t I take you home instead? You should tell your parents.’
‘Please don’t tell them, they’ll just ask me a million questions and put me in counselling again.’
‘Let’s just get you home safe. He might come back.’
‘Fine. I’ll just text Felicity and let her know I’m leaving.’
She pulled out her phone and told Felicity that she didn’t feel well and her dad had picked her up. She didn’t know why she was lying to her friend, but she just couldn’t face the teasing or questions. Mr Morrell did scare her a little. He hadn’t before, but this incident was different. She had misunderstood the extent of his feelings; it didn’t seem like he was going to let it go. He was absolutely convinced that she felt the same way about him and that other people were keeping them apart. She didn’t know what would have happened if Tim hadn’t been there tonight. Mr Morrell could have dragged her into any of those dark little corners of the beach; she got chills just thinking about it. Everyone was so focused on the fair that she doubted they would have noticed; with so many screams coming from the rides, any screaming she might have done wouldn’t even register.
‘Are you OK? You’re shivering,’ Tim said.
‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here. Thank you.’
‘It’s OK. I’m glad I was here, too.’ He smiled softly. ‘He’s not going to come near you again, OK?’
She followed Tim to his car, occasionally looking behind her to check that Mr Morrell was really gone. As they pulled away, Jasmine saw that her hands were shaking, her fingers cold despite the never-ending heatwave.
She hoped that was the last she ever saw of Mr Morrell.
Chapter Sixteen
Now
I have printed off several articles at the library. Anything mentioning the girl’s name, anything mentioning any suspects at the time, wondering whose name I might see there. I didn’t read the papers back then, I just saw them lying around in waiting rooms, or walked past them in the shops. Rumours are more exciting at that age. It occurs to me how much everything has changed. I pay the librarian for the prints and she looks at me suspiciously as she wrestles the thick stack from the printer tray and hands them over, glancing at the first page.
‘I remember this case. Why are you looking at that?’
‘I used to know her. I was the same age as her when she went missing. It was a dreadful shock at the time. This other girl going missing has brought everything back and I just wanted to read about her again,’ I say, overcome with guilt over the past, feeling bad for opening the cupboards and pulling out the skeletons.
‘Terrible business. You just don’t expect that kind of thing around here. I just can’t believe it’s happened again. Why anyone would copy that monster.’
‘What makes you think it was a copy?’ I ask.
‘Well, it’s just so similar, isn’t it? The girl was last seen at the bus stop – funny, I never thought about that before. But they got the guy who did it last time, didn’t they? So someone must have copied him …’
She rambled on but I had stopped listening. Did they get the right man last time? We were all so sure when it happened, but I’m not so sure now. I don’t think any of us really knew what was happening right under our noses. That’s what happens in a place like this. People buy into the image of perfection and everyone is willing to look the other way to maintain it. Once someone is persona non grata then they become an easy person to scapegoat. Now that I think about it, maybe that’s what happened back then.
‘Yes, I guess it is very similar,’ I say, as though I hadn’t noticed the similarities of the actual case.
‘What was her name again? The one that went missing back then?’
‘Hannah Torrence.’
‘That’s the one. Awful thing that was.’
There were only two people in the frame for the disappearance of Hannah Torrence: a teacher at the school, James Morrell, and one of my classmates, Jason Evans. I remember both of them; I suspected both of them. When something like that happens in your town it makes you question everything you know, everyone you know. You wonder if you can ever really know people at all. So many secrets, so many lies.
I want to go back to the hotel and hide, but the day has only just started and I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t face the past. I left not long after Hannah disappeared. I had nothing left to keep me here when that summer ended. I lost everything and everyone I cared about.
Instead of going back to the hotel, I decide to go to a pub and read through the articles there. Not that I want to get drunk, but I definitely need something to take the edge off my nerves. At home I might go for a run alongside the thickets by the lake, but here I don’t much feel like it; I don’t want anyone to notice me and so I would rather hide in a corner with some liquid courage. I don’t drink this much at home; I think it’s being here, in this place. I’m going back in time, becoming the person I used to be, a teenage girl who drank too much and managed to get herself into trouble without even trying. It’s strange how being around certain people or being in certain places can change who you are. When I’m with Chris I am weaker somehow, as though I allow him to be the driven one, the brave one, the one who knows things. I bake cakes and make jewellery, I’m on the Parents, Teachers and Friends Association and my children go to every after-school club going. They do gymnastics, ballet, drama club, chess club, horseback riding and a plethora of other things I can’t even remember. I do yoga, I run and I’m in a book club. I have become a housewife by numbers. I focus on making life comfortable for everyone else. It’s not as though it feels like a sacrifice, but now I am here it seems strange that this is the woman I became. I remember what I used to want for myself when I am here. I did none of it though. I ran away and almost straight into Chris’s arms. It’s not his fault either; he never asked me to be this person. I just tried to be normal. I saw how other mothers behaved and copied them. It’s all just another disguise, another way of pretending the past didn’t happen.
In the pub I read through the stories about Hannah Torrence. See the sensa
tionalist headlines ebb and fade until some other local scandal took its place. It was a long time before they really let it go, though. Memorials and vigils were held, the same faces at every one, the same people interviewed in every article until it was eventually all repeated and regurgitated information.
I am on my fifth vodka and soda when I finally finish reading through all of the papers. There is nothing new there, except at one point they mention the fact that Jason Evans’ parents owned a bike shop. Knowing how many people make it out of here, I feel confident that his parents still have the shop, and that Jason is probably still around. I make my next drink a Coke and order myself a lasagne from the lunch menu to try and soak up some of the drink I have had already. Maybe Jason can tell me something the papers didn’t know. He’s one of the few people connected to the old case that might know something he’d never shared. Might have seen something. Maybe he would open up to me.
As soon as I’m finished with my lunch I leave the pub and walk towards the bike shop. Until now I have been avoiding speaking to anyone I knew, for fear of what they might remember about me, what they might remember about that summer. Maybe the world didn’t fall apart for them in the same way it did for me, but that summer was different. We could all feel it in the air at the time. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was something else.
Chapter Seventeen
As I suspected, the bike shop is still there, even though the last mention of it in the newspaper was seven years ago, as far as I could see. The place isn’t how I remember it. It was always a dingy, slightly creepy-looking shop. Jason’s parents were much older than most other people’s and he had an older brother who sold pot who I read in the papers had died in a drink-driving accident up on the back road into town. People used to steer clear of the bike shop for those reasons, and a few more. They were a strange family and if there’s one thing people don’t like around here, it’s anything that ruins the image. The bike shop looked good now, fresh paint on the outside, very slick on the inside with expensive gear mounted on the walls. I take a deep breath before pushing the door open and going inside, a little bell over the entrance announcing my presence.
A man appears from the back of the shop. I can see instantly that it’s Jason and I catch my breath.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Are you Jason Evans?’ I ask as I get closer. I can see that he is stoned and I can smell the faintest aroma of marijuana coming off his clothes. He was obviously out back smoking when I came into the shop.
‘Who’s asking?’ he asks cautiously.
‘I wanted to ask you some questions about the disappearance of Hannah Torrence.’
‘Are you police?’ he accuses, anger streaking across his face as soon as I mention Hannah’s name.
‘No, nothing like that. I just wanted to talk to someone who knew her.’
‘Are you from the paper? Because I don’t know anything about that new girl that went missing.’
‘No, honestly, it’s not like that. I knew Hannah a bit, too.’
‘What was her favourite band?’
‘Green Day,’ I say, remembering the most recent photo from the newspaper, where she was wearing the band’s hoodie.
‘Did you know me? Because me and Hannah were pretty tight back then,’ he said, somewhat satisfied with my answer.
‘I did, a little. She used to talk about you a lot. My name’s Felicity.’ I lie, I’d never had a conversation with Hannah about Jason but I thought this might encourage him to speak to me.
‘Felicity? You were in my year, right? Your hair is still exactly the same. Wow. How are you? Where have you been?’ he says, sizing me up, the faintest look of recognition on his face, but not really; I can see him struggling to place me completely, trying to remember any interactions we may have had. I realise this won’t be as difficult as I thought it would although I do feel bad for lying to him about my friendship with Hannah.
‘Moved up north, to The Lake District, got married, had a couple of kids. I’m great really.’ I smile nervously, depressed that I can boil my entire life down into one short sentence.
‘So why are you here, if you live in The Lake District?’
‘I heard about the girl going missing on the news and I just had to come down. I wondered if it might be connected in some way. I don’t know. I just felt like I had to be here,’ I say in a rare moment of honesty.
‘I know. It’s crazy, isn’t it. This week has been a bit triggering to say the least. Can’t help thinking back to that night, to what I could have done differently.’
‘Did you know her? The girl who just went missing?’
‘No, thank God, or they might try to pin that one on me as well. Her name was a bit familiar but then all names are a bit familiar round here aren’t they?’
I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or what, but his comment makes me blurt out a laugh. He smiles and he really is adorable. I should have done this sober; I’m terrified I’ll say the wrong thing.
‘Why didn’t we ever really speak at school?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know. You were one of them girls I just didn’t speak to at school, all cool and confident, a bit too good for the rest of us, you know? I mostly mixed with people who scored weed off my brother at the time. You weren’t the weed-smoking type. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Had big plans for myself, I did. I wanted to go to art college, become a famous artist and set the world on fire.’
I blush at his description of who he thought I was at the time. So strange to think I was in any way perceived as having an image of confidence and fearlessness when inside I didn’t even know who I was yet. If only we could have all seen inside each other, we would have seen we weren’t that different after all. He’s a good-looking man but he’s tarnished with the whispers of the past. Being here kept him as that stoner teenager, stopped him from moving on. He stares at the wall, whether from all the talk of the past or thoughts of a future he never quite reached.
‘What happened?’
‘My dad had a stroke and they needed me in the shop. Plus, art college was bullshit.’
‘And here you are.’
‘And here you are. Do you remember that party at Cameron Davies’ house?’ he asks.
‘Not really. I don’t remember that much to be honest.’ I really don’t.
‘We played spin the bottle and we had to kiss. That’s still on my highlight reel from year eleven. You were pretty wasted though. I’d probably get in trouble for that too, these days.’
I wonder if he can tell I have been drinking now. I really need to sober up. This was a bad idea.
‘I guess I must have been. I’m sorry.’
‘Isn’t it weird how something that can mean so much to one person can mean nothing to someone else? The exact same incident. When you kissed me during spin the bottle I didn’t even want to wash for a month afterwards.’
‘Grim.’ I laugh.
‘You know what I mean though. With all the popular boys sniffing around you all the time I’m surprised I was lucky enough to even be considered. I remember you didn’t even flinch, you just did it. It was sweet, made me feel like a bit less of a loser.’ He smiles, blushing.
‘It was just a silly game.’
‘Not for some of us. It meant something to some of us.’ He shrugs.
I feel bad for being so dismissive.
‘If it’s any consolation, I wish I could remember it.’ I realise too late that it sounds like I am flirting and change the subject promptly ‘So – Hannah. What happened that night? We saw you together and then she was gone.’ I feel like a bitch for not being able to share the moment with him. What I do remember from that night at the Davies house was me hunched over a toilet after drinking a weird spirit from his dad’s cabinet that had flecks of gold in it.
‘We went to sit on a bench by that little hut, you know, the stone one next to the park by the fair with water filters or something inside it. We went there for a puff on some weed. I tried to
kiss Hannah and she got angry. She stormed off and I never saw her again.’ He says it robotically, rehearsed and practised as though he has said it a hundred times before – no doubt during all the conversations he had with the police at the time.
‘Where did she go?’
‘She told me she was going to get the bus home.’
‘That was it?’
‘I told the police as much. Her parents said it was definitely me. Luckily that other girl came forward about that teacher. What was her name?’
‘Jasmine, Jasmine Burgess,’ I say, the name sticking to the roof of my mouth, I haven’t said it in over fifteen years. It’s been buried with all the other things I dare not utter.
‘You used to hang around with her, didn’t you? Are you still friends?’
‘We lost touch. You know how it is.’
‘Well, if it hadn’t been for all that weird shit that happened between her and that teacher, I don’t know what would have happened to me. Hannah’s parents were gunning for me pretty hard. They never liked me because I used to wear black nail polish and listen to Green Day; I think they thought I was a Satan worshipper who had sacrificed their daughter in some kind of pagan ritual. Everyone thought I was this weird little loner at school so people were more than happy to think the worst at the first opportunity. Then the police found her wallet in that teacher’s car and that was that. Didn’t get so much as an apology.’
I have decided that despite not really knowing Jason back then, I like him. I wish I had known him better. I wish maybe something had happened between us, then maybe we could have both been normal. I feel like maybe it was my job to protect him in some way, like I am the only one that could have. If only I hadn’t been so blind. He’s another casualty of this invisible war that no one even knows is going on.
‘Well, I’m sorry to have brought back bad memories. I won’t take up any more of your time. Don’t want to get you in trouble.’
‘Oh God no, I am now in fact actually a weird little loner. Both my parents passed away a few years ago.’
The Heatwave Page 7
