The Heatwave

by Katerina Diamond

  ‘I made a deal with Tim. He told me his suspicions about your father, showed me the photographs. I told him if he came to the woods with me and dug a grave, I would kill your father and Tim would have his revenge. I told him that you had confided in me. I told him I was scared of what Frank was going to do. I wasn’t wrong to be scared. You have no idea what your father was capable of.’

  ‘But Tim ended up in a grave not far from Hannah Torrence. There is only one person who could have put him there.’

  My words throw her a little; she isn’t understanding my logic. I realise in that moment that she thought maybe I hadn’t run away alone on that day, that maybe my father had taken me and we had gone together, leaving her alone in this house.

  ‘Jasmine, what did you do? What happened to your father?’ she says, her hand moving to her mouth as she catches her breath. Was this ever about seeing me again, or was it about seeing him?

  ‘I had no choice. He killed my friend.’

  ‘He told me to deal with Tim and then he would come and get me when you had calmed down, that he needed to make sure you weren’t going to do anything stupid. You would go away for a couple of weeks until you had come to terms with everything. I thought you were both coming back for me, but you didn’t. He never came back for me,’ she said, sinking to the ground, sobbing.

  ‘If Hannah Torrence was there, that means you killed her, too.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand. Your father had certain … needs. It was my duty as his wife to make sure they were fulfilled. I was driving back from my book group and I saw Hannah walking up the road. I could see she was around your age and so I pulled over and asked her if she wanted a lift. Told her I was your mum.’

  ‘Christ, you used my name?’ I say, wondering how I never noticed what kind of people they were. Wondering if that kind of behaviour was hereditary.

  ‘I didn’t plan it, the opportunity just arose. And your father had been so down. I just did it on the spur of the moment. It was such a gift when you later told us about that creep of a teacher accosting you at the fair. There was a way to give the police a suspect.’

  ‘You killed Morrell too, I suppose?’ I say, looking down on her sitting on the floor. So pathetic, but I have no sympathy at all.

  ‘He caught your father hiding the girl’s wallet in his car, so your father had no choice but to get rid of him.’

  ‘But you buried Hannah in the woods?’

  ‘I got her body from the shed, where it was hidden. I wrapped her up in blankets weighted with stones from the garden and plastic sheeting around her, so Tim wouldn’t notice she was a bit smaller than Frank. I told Tim it was your father, that I had killed him as promised. Tim put her in the boot of his car himself. I followed him up to the woods. When he threw her into the grave I waited for him to cover her up and then as he was walking back to the car I hit him over the head with the spade. I buried him nearby.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘After you and Frank didn’t come home that night. Tim kept asking where Frank was, why you weren’t back yet. He was a mess. He sat me down and told me what he had told you, told me to call the police, said he was scared that Frank had hurt you. As if your father was capable of that,’ she scoffed.

  ‘I played the role of worried mother perfectly. I told him you were staying with your friend to be safe and that he should lie low until I had spoken to Frank. He believed every word of it, because it was what he wanted to believe.’

  ‘Why? What could possibly make you and Dad do those awful things? Did you know about the girls he killed from the start?’

  ‘First, tell me what happened the night you left,’ she insists, holding onto the console table to pull herself to her feet. She’s struggling but I make no effort to help her.

  ‘I told Felicity, as you know. Dad worked out that we knew and he killed Carol, Flick’s mother. Then he took me and Flick to one of the clifftops. He threw her over the side and wanted me to just let it all go so we could carry on the way we had been. But how could I? I had no choice but to stop him.’

  ‘You killed him?’ Lisa spat. ‘How could you? He was your father. He loved you so much. You meant the world to him.’

  ‘How could I? How could you? How could you let him kill all of those young women? They didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘When you’re in love with someone, you love every part of them. When I met your father he changed my life. You don’t understand what it was like for us, growing up the way we did. Your father’s childhood was chaotic. My family life was horrible. When we met it was like everything made sense suddenly,’ my mother explains.

  I wonder if she even knows what love is.

  ‘You never told me how you both met.’

  ‘Your father worked at one of those travelling fairs. He came by my hometown a couple of years in a row and we fell for each other. When he moved on from Harlow, I decided to follow him. Then one night I caught him with one of the girls and I flew into a rage. He belonged to me. So, I hit her, hard, so many times. I choked her, almost killed her. Poor girl had to go into hospital. Your father said it was the first time in his life that he had ever felt special, or important. His dad was a really bad man,’ she says, as if Frank wasn’t, ‘and he had always felt completely isolated.’

  ‘So watching you beat a woman half to death turned him on, is that what you’re saying?’ You read about people like this but it never quite makes sense, how they can find each other, how the violence starts, how they first realise that this is the life they want.

  ‘It was like we understood each other,’ she said, as if reminiscing about happier times. ‘We tried a few times to recreate that moment, but it’s difficult here. Even when you pay the girls there’s always a risk that they won’t like the violence that comes with it.’

  ‘All these years I thought you didn’t know. But then they found Tim’s body and I worked out that you were the only person who could have done it. So all that time you were a part of it, too? Dad admitted that was why he wanted to travel every summer, but he said you had no part in it. Was he lying?’

  ‘Yes, that’s why we travelled. There are some places where it’s much easier to get away with hurting people than others. We weren’t the only ones doing it, I’m sure.’

  ‘But you didn’t just hurt them, did you?’

  ‘At first, yes – but then it went a bit further. The first time the girl died was honestly an accident. We just got caught up in the moment. I didn’t mean to kill anyone.’ My mother says this as though she is looking for sympathy, as though there is even the slightest chance that I can forgive her.

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘After I fell pregnant we had to think of a way to keep doing what we were doing, but keep you safe as well. So we joined the charity; it was a perfect cover. We had everything we could possibly want. Opportunity everywhere and no real scrutiny of what we were doing. A lot of the times these charity projects are largely invisible to the authorities.’

  ‘You have to go to the police. You have to give yourself up,’ I say, knowing she won’t.

  ‘I’m not going to do that.’ She dismisses the idea as if it’s of no importance. ‘I just wanted to see you one last time. I don’t have long left and I thought it was important to say goodbye,’ she tells me, the look on her face warm and loving. I know it’s a lie though. It’s no wonder I don’t trust people.

  ‘Why Mandy Green? Did you know she was Mr Morrell’s daughter?’

  ‘I felt it had some kind of poetic nostalgia to it. I was trying to get you to come here but I didn’t know where you were. I assumed the news reports would mention her father, but I guess I gave them too much credit. I didn’t think things would unfold the way they have; I didn’t think they would unravel completely. I wanted to talk to you and this seemed like the best way to do it. Doesn’t it feel like we have unfinished business?’

  I can tell that she is itching to embrace me, she wants me to tell her I forgive her and that it will all be
all right, that I will stay if she wants me to. She wants me to tell her that I still love her, and I can’t.

  ‘I didn’t even know if it would work when I took her. I was driving past the bus stop and saw her standing there. It was raining and she looked miserable. You can always tell when someone is ready to give up; it’s a gift your father and I both had, I think. She had that look on her face. I offered her a lift and she took it. I gave her a drink with a little something in it and she passed out before she had any time to process what was going on. It was almost too easy.’

  ‘Where is she? Is she dead?’ I ask.

  I remember the photographs of the girls that I saw all those years ago; they had been subjected to all manner of unspeakable things over a period of time. There was a chance she had kept Mandy alive, especially if she thought my father was coming back with me; some kind of twisted welcome-home present.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Only family matters now, darling.’

  ‘I’m not your family and I’m not your darling. You’re a stranger to me. I didn’t come here for you, I came here for me. Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me? Knowing that I came from this … evil? It was bad enough when I thought it was just him. Was my whole life a complete lie? I felt so guilty for what happened to Dad, for taking him away from you, despite what he was. But now I realise I should have killed you too.’

  ‘Do you relive that moment over and over again? Do you savour it?’ she asks, a glint in her eye. She misses it.

  ‘No! I’m not like you,’ I say. As my mother’s words hit me I realise I did the right thing and the guilt I have felt over killing my father all those years ago disappears. If anything, I wish I had seen what kind of person my mother was and dealt with her too. Maybe then Mandy Green wouldn’t be missing. I wonder how many more girls would have died if my father and mother had been allowed to continue. I wonder if I ever would have found out, if it wasn’t for Tim coming into our lives and exposing them. I feel bad for the things they are saying about him in the papers; he wasn’t who they said he was.

  ‘Then we must have done something right. Look at you. You’re more beautiful than I imagined you would grow up to be.’

  ‘Where is Mandy?’ I ask again. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘You call yourself Felicity now?’ she asks, ignoring me. ‘She was a good friend to you, it’s a shame what happened to her. I know it’s hard losing someone you care about.’ There’s an edge to her voice. I know she is thinking about my father again.

  ‘I didn’t lose her, I watched Dad kill her.’

  ‘You changed your hair to look like hers,’ she observes. ‘You always did look a lot alike.’

  ‘I couldn’t be me anymore. I didn’t want you to find me. I didn’t want anyone to know where I came from. I thought when Dad’s body turned up that he would get found out and I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone knowing I was associated with him in any way. But it never did turn up, did it? I sometimes wondered if maybe he survived and managed to get away. Start again with someone else,’ I say, and for the first time my mother’s mask slips, her face distorted with anger, not an expression I have ever associated with her. I have hit a nerve.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. If your father were alive he would have come back to me.’

  ‘You can’t know that. Maybe he had it planned that way all along; after all, he’s the one who took me up to the clifftop. Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.’ I don’t believe he survived but I’m taunting her, to punish her for what she never paid for. Her entitlement is staggering; the belief that they could do whatever they wanted and that was OK because they were in love makes me seethe. I’ve also realised that every time I mention the girl who went missing, she tries to change the subject. Mandy must be alive still. She may even be here.

  I push past my mother. She moves aside surprisingly easily; I can feel her frailty as she stumbles out of my way.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the guest house in the garden,’ I say. I walk through the kitchen, grabbing the key from the drawer on my way – nothing has changed, only become worn and more broken as time has passed. Everything is dark and dirty, as though she stopped living the night I ran away. I try the handle and look back to my mother. She is struggling to regain her composure. I can see she is weighing up what to do, whether or not she could take me down before I got the door open. I see her decide she can’t and so she resumes a weaker stance, as if she is some frail old lady, though she isn’t that old. I don’t know if her act is for my benefit or if she is preparing herself for when the police arrive.

  I walk through the garden and place my hand on the handle of the guest house door. The last time I did this my whole world turned upside down. Was it about to happen again? Nothing could be worse than the things I had already seen, the things I had done. I steel myself and unlock the door to the guest house, taking the key with me so she can’t lock the door behind me. I know she is capable of great evil; I don’t want to assume that just because I am her daughter I would be spared.

  The dust catches in the back of my throat as I enter. It’s pitch-black as the windows are all covered, so I run my hand along the wall until I find the light switch. I hear my mother’s tentative steps behind me and it crosses my mind that she could swing for me. I’m not convinced about the level of her fragility. On the floor in the bedroom is a mattress and a bundle of what appears to be blankets and an old sleeping bag. It’s the same sleeping bag I had seen resting on the chair all those years ago.

  ‘Mandy? Is that you?’

  I hear a groan and a pale white arm emerges from under the grey woolly heap on the ground. I crouch and pull the blanket back. It’s her; she looks like her mother, like her father, too. Her lips are cracked and she blinks several times to adjust to the light.

  ‘Who are you?’ she whispers.

  ‘I’ve come to help you,’ I say, holding my hand out. A wave of emotion sweeps over me as I think about Rosa, and Felicity, and all those other girls I couldn’t help.

  Her fingers are cold. I untie her wrists; she is unsteady but she hasn’t been hurt physically, from what I can see. I have no idea what my mother planned to do with her, or what she was thinking at all. I wonder how involved my mother was in all the awful things that happened to the girls before they died. I help her stand and we move towards the exit together. When we get to the front door my mother is standing there. I help Mandy rest against the wall and stand in front of her, my arm around her in case my mother tries to do anything stupid. I have no idea who she is, I never did. She is clearly capable of anything.

  ‘What are you going to do now? Call the police?’

  ‘I am.’

  She lunges forward, quicker than I imagined she could move. She has a knife in her hand and she swipes it towards Mandy and me. As off-guard as she has caught me, I still manage to rush forward and knock her to the ground, where she lies, her initial burst of energy short-lived.

  ‘They will find out what you did,’ she says with a hint of venom in her voice.

  ‘Fine. Tell them what you have to tell them. I’m sick of running.’

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial the police. I can’t live the rest of my life inside this awful lie. I know it will be terrible for Chris and the children if the truth comes out, but the alternative is to be this person for the rest of my days. I can’t do that.

  ‘Jasmine, please, don’t do this. I don’t have long left. I promise I won’t tell them anything about you, just let me go,’ she pleads, but her eyes are still dead. Her selfishness is even deeper than I thought it was.

  ‘Not my problem,’ I say as I hear the ring on the other end of the line. I’m really doing it. I wasn’t sure if I would.

  My mother clutches at my ankle but I feel no sympathy for her at all; my sympathy goes to her victims.

  I hear the voice prompt on the phone ‘Police please … yes … the missing girl from Sidmouth … Mandy Green, yes �
�� I found her.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  When I get out of the interview room, I see Chris sitting on the cold plastic seat in the hallway. He stands up and rushes towards me with his arms outstretched and before I know it they are wrapped around me. I start to cry because I didn’t think I would have this again; I didn’t think I could. I thought by accepting my past and confronting it I would be destroying everything I have.

  ‘I missed you,’ Chris says. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I found the girl who went missing. I was the only one who could. I have a lot to tell you, if you want to hear it,’ I say, knowing that once I tell him the truth he may leave me.

  A police officer steps out of a doorway and walks over to us.

  ‘Thank you very much for speaking to us today. Miss Green’s family are over the moon to get her back. Her mother wants to give you a reward.’

  ‘Oh no, that won’t be necessary,’ I say. If anything, I should be giving Liz Green financial restitution. If I can, when all this is over, I will try to make amends for all the pain my family caused her.

  ‘We’ll be needing to speak to you again about everything that happened and go over your statement. We’re interviewing the lady who owns the house you found her in. She doesn’t seem quite with it. Did she say anything much to you?’

  ‘Not much, no,’ I say. Knowing my mother has kept quiet about our connection makes me feel a little better. It may not stay hidden for ever, but for now I am just glad to get the chance to tell Chris on my own terms. Whatever happens after that is out of my hands.

  ‘We’ll be in touch,’ he tells me, handing me a card. I have already told them how to reach me – that is, if Chris lets me come back home with him. The police officer leaves and we are alone.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ I ask my husband.

  ‘Back at the hotel. I booked us a suite; you can move your stuff over later if you want. They’re watching movies on the laptop, so we can go for a drink if you want?’