by Carla Kovach
As Clare’s gasps and sobs turned more into nose-blowing, Mary placed a box of tissues in her lap. The clues were there all the time. Clare was heading for a breakdown. Her clothes were scruffy, she had no interest in life or going out and Mary was sure she hadn’t been looking for a job. Clare too had lost everything, including her home.
‘I keep thinking about Susan, that she knew the man who was killed. Why would she vanish and his body turn up? It doesn’t make sense.’ Mary couldn’t deny that that had been on her mind all day.
‘What if she’s done something, Mum? She’s always acted a bit strange.’
Mary stood, putting that distance back between her and Clare. ‘Don’t talk such nonsense. Had you and Susan been arguing? You’re having a hard time at the moment. I know you haven’t had it easy.’
‘Easy! You blamed me when she ran away back then. It was all my fault that she disappeared, that I didn’t look after her well enough. She was your child and I was always looking after her. I did everything I could. I’m not taking the blame for this one. It’s true that we argued a lot but it wasn’t my fault she ran away before and it’s not my fault she ran away now. I’m sick of carrying the blame. I never did anything bad when I was a kid and I’ve always been made out to be naughty.’
‘When have I ever said you were naughty?’
‘You wouldn’t speak to me when Susan ran away back then. All you gave me was a sour look, it’s the same look you’ve given me the past few days. I can see the blame. It’s written all over your face. We were never the same after the first time. Secretive Susan. You always thought she left because of something I did or said. Poor frail little Susan, with the cute curls and the big eyes. You never believed a word I said.’
‘Do you not think for a moment, this isn’t all about you? And, you dare ever say that Susan could have been involved in this man’s murder and there will be trouble.’
Clare sobbed again. ‘See, you’re doing it again. It’s my fault as it always is.’
Mary grabbed the cushion and squeezed it. Clare was right. She easily looked for blame in other people. She had to turn some of that blame back onto herself. Clare and Susie’s father had died and she’d instantly made Clare the second parent in their family, always leaving her to do everything while she went to work all those long shifts. Clare had no freedom and took her father’s death badly. Susan simply went off the rails and became the teen from hell. Did it all start with Mary not spending enough time with them while they grieved? She didn’t want to grieve for their father; she’d dismissed the impact it had on them a little too quickly and to her shame, thoughtlessly. ‘Come here. I love you and we’re going to sort this out, okay? I’m here for you and Harrison, you know that.’
As Mary held Clare she wondered if she knew her at all. All she’d known was this hard exterior. A shell of a person who gave nothing away. A person with deeply buried secrets.
Clare’s phone beeped. She pulled it from her pocket and stared at the message as the display lit her face up.
‘Was that Ryan again?’
‘No.’ She wedged her phone into her pocket, scooped Harrison up and scurried up to her room.
Thirty-Eight
I stand across the street where the path cuts through to the shops, just outside the ring of orange light casting down on me from the streetlamp, just close enough to observe you without anyone seeing me. I’ve missed you, Stephanie. I tried to dismantle your front door lock and that set off your alarm – dammit. I should’ve hurried away when your lamp flickered on but I need to see you. I need to work out how to get to you. You’re not like the others.
You open your bedroom window and gaze out, your hair falling over your shoulders, just like it always has done. You haven’t changed one bit. I remember the smell of roses from your shampoo, the smell of vodka on your breath – I smile as I reminisce back to that summer, twenty years ago. Your alarm wails louder and snaps me out of it.
‘Shut that bloody thing up!’ The miserable man across the road slams his window before you have the chance to reply. He doesn’t think for one minute you might actually have an intruder, no one ever does. Alarms are seen as a nuisance which is why I’m not worried. You run from the window and seconds later, the alarm stops.
A grin spreads across my face as I hear you jiggling your keys at the front door. You open it, knees shaking as you step out barefooted onto the doormat, with only your satin night slip to keep you warm. I can sense the goosebumps rising on your arms and legs and a pleasant shiver runs along the nape of my neck.
Hugging yourself, you take two steps forward as you gaze up and down, flinching as you step on a stone. As you turn back, you begin rubbing the lock. You think it’s bulbous nose, your colleague, but when the morning comes, you will know it’s me. After that, I will see your fear – the fear that your past will be revealed for the world to know. I grip the precious photo in my pocket, the one that will ensure you’ll never say a word.
I laugh as you trip over your coconut doormat before slamming the door. The road is silent without a soul around. Curtains all closed and the wind howls away. No one is listening as I step onto the road. No one is watching as I stand, back against the wall, under your open window while you hurry to lean out for one last look. No one else will smell the scent of my vape as I blow the sickly smell upwards while I creep under the passageway that runs alongside your house. Revenge is sweet but I don’t want to achieve it too quickly, I want to savour every moment.
I button up my mac, ready to leave the passageway and work on phase three. The alarm on your house was a mere setback, but that’s all it was. Pulling the red stringy sweet from my pocket, I silently feed it through your letterbox, smiling as it drops onto the carpet.
Time to get on with the job. My surprise for Susie, that’s what I need to work on. I always thought that what she’d taken from me could never be replaced, but now I know better. ‘I’m coming for you,’ I whisper as I crack my knuckles.
Thirty-Nine
Snuggled up in bed, a thick quilt covering her and the television muted, Gina flicked through the items in the box that Mary had passed to her. The dark sketches laid all over the bed were sure to give her nightmares.
She scooped them up, dropping them back in the box. As a girl, Susan had been obsessed with doors, some of the sketches showing doors to everywhere, through long corridors heading in all directions, a bit like Relativity, Dutch artist Escher’s painting; that’s what the sketches reminded her of. A door above a door, some open, some closed. Another sketch of an open door, then a set of stairs leading to three other open doors, ending with a closed door. She stared for a little too long at the last drawing, Susan’s most accomplished. In that, the final door was open and the gap was filled with the darkest of pencil marks.
She wiped her hands together, hoping to wipe off the smudges of graphite that had transferred from the sketches onto her fingers, almost cursing under her breath when she saw the mess on her pale cream-coloured quilt. Great! More washing. The ever-growing pile of laundry lying in a heap would probably reach the window ledge once she added the quilt cover to it.
Spotting Briggs on the local news programme, she grabbed the remote and unmuted the television, listening to his every word. ‘This is a brief statement and we won’t be answering questions at this stage. At Cleevesford Police, we can confirm that the body found alongside the River Arrow this morning was that of thirty-five-year-old plasterer, Dale Blair.’ He continued appealing for any witnesses before offering sympathies to his friends and family. She muted the television again as he gathered his notes from the lectern, Annie from Corporate Communications disconnecting his microphone. He loosened his tie then the news quickly cut to something involving a Keep Warwickshire Tidy campaign.
She felt a heaviness wash through her as she finished her wine in the hope that it would help her sleep. It had been a long day. A murder, two house searches, back and forth to Mary’s house and now this box, expressions of a trou
bled teen mind. Gina wondered if the doors Susan had drawn were a metaphor for something.
The doors didn’t seem to open to anything inviting and the drawings show the final door opening and there being nothing but darkness. What was that darkness? Maybe Susan wishes she never opened the last door. Are the doors real? Maybe she’d drawn a real place, somewhere she stayed when she ran away.
As Gina rifled through the last of the folded up poems, a small piece of red liquorice fell from a fold. She shivered as she thought back to the sweet they found in Dale’s bin. She dropped it back into the tin and snuggled a little deeper into her bed before throwing the last sketch into the box. She stared as it sat on the top of the pile, inviting her to pick it up again and join it in all its misery. Grabbing the drawing, she turned it over. It was beyond creepy, pulling her eyes through those doors into the infinite dark void. It was like it wasn’t giving her a choice but to make the journey through the dark corridor, to the final door. She grabbed Susan’s poem, The Secret Door and the final line made her stomach flutter.
You opened the door. It’s your fault and no one must ever know.
She picked up the photo of the three teenagers and looked deeply into the unidentified girl’s eyes. Words that came to mind were frail, underdeveloped, childlike; as if pleading for someone to take her away from something. Gina shook her head and put the box on the floor along with the photo. Reading too much into it all at such a late hour was going to do her no good, she needed to sleep.
Ebony crept in through her open bedroom door and jumped onto the bed, stretching for a moment and digging her claws into the bedding as she made her own little bed before curling up by Gina’s feet.
Turning everything off, she lay on her side, allowing the wine to work its hypnotic magic.
Forty
Saturday, 16 November 2019
The door slammed behind Gina. She turned and grappled with the handle – locked. Barefooted, running along the sterile white corridor, she searched for a way out but she had come through the only door. Shivering, she tried to pull the short sleeves of the white nightdress further down her arms. Chilly, it was so chilly. Teeth chattering, she knew death would come knocking if the temperature continued to drop. Would that be the final door she’d ever open?
Her mother’s sobs emanated through the wall, drawing her closer to the end of the corridor. The strip lights flickered and the far one perished, just like she would if the temperature dropped any further. A frost formed on her face, she felt it hardening, making it impossible to shout or scream, slowly turning her into a statue. As she slid down the wall, another light flickered off. She closed her eyes. If the end was coming, she wasn’t going to watch. Her mother’s agonising sobs continued. After a loud click, she fell backwards into another corridor with another door at the end. She hobbled through the stiffness and banged on the door.
‘Gina,’ the voice behind it called. ‘Knock three times and it will open.’
Stiff, gnarly fingers, frozen to a curl tapped on the door as it was sucked into the air, vanishing into darkness.
‘Follow the light,’ the frail voice of her mother said.
A bed filled the centre of a dark room of which she could see no walls, only a darkness that never ended. White vapour filled the air, coming from the patient, hooked up to machines that beeped. Cold, so cold. Heart in mouth, gasping for breath, she approached the bed. ‘You never came to see me,’ shouted the patient as the woman turned, eyes missing, nothing but black holes.
Gasping for breath, Gina grappled for her lamp switch, knocking the glass on the floor, followed by the lamp. The cat meowed and scarpered across the bedroom, darting down the stairs. She stumbled out of bed, shivering as she turned the light on. Sweat drizzled down her forehead, dripping off her nose. She was safe and she was at home, alone and in her bedroom. She’d just lost her quilt to the floor, that’s why she was so cold. Her dream – it was her mother.
She ran to her wardrobe and with trembling fingers pulled out the little tin of photos and letters from her past. Photos of her and her mum together. Little things her mum collected, bits of ribbon and postcards from her travels before Gina had been born. Silly things like buttons and badges from her mother’s youth. Her mother had once kept this tin in a chest, one with a distinct woody smell. She lifted the box to her nose as she opened it and Gina could smell her childhood home along with her mother. One of the ribbons still had her mother’s perfume trapped in the fibres. In her mind she could smell her mother getting ready for a night out, wearing her favourite short blue dress. So pretty, so loving, she’d wrap Gina in her arms and tell her to be a good girl while she was out. She loved spending this time with her father, they’d play games and he’d let her stay up late while they ate chocolate and cake. She inhaled the unique blend, the blend of her family, the family she had abandoned for Terry. She slammed the lid and placed the box back in the wardrobe. She should have trusted her mother and ran back home, taking baby Hannah with her instead of being lulled into Terry’s world of abuse.
Choking up, she held her tears back. She didn’t deserve to shed any tears and grieve. That privilege was saved for people who hadn’t let their families down. She gulped in a few deep breaths, suppressing the urge to sob and smash up her bedroom.
She grabbed her laptop and stumbled back into bed. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep now. Her phone flashed. She had missed a call. Briggs. He’d tried to call half an hour ago. She would have been mid-nightmare. Maybe he’d hoped to talk about his television appearance. She pressed his number and held the phone to her ear. He would be just the distraction she needed.
‘Gina,’ he whispered in a gruff voice.
‘I woke you.’
‘It’s okay. I did call you first. You okay?’
‘Yes,’ she replied as she lay back and booted her laptop up. ‘I just saw the missed call. Is everything alright?’
‘Something I thought you’d want to know before you conduct any interviews tomorrow. It’s about Susan Wheeler’s car.’
Gina’s heart began to race. A break in the case would be well worth the late call, not that Briggs ever needed an excuse. She liked him calling her even though their relationship was going nowhere. She liked to hear his voice. She liked to picture sleepy Chris Briggs, lying in his bed, in the bed they’d both rolled in a few times.
‘It was fitted with a tracker. Without investigating further, we have to consider that someone wanted to know where she was at all times.’
‘I’m glad you called.’
‘You called me,’ he replied.
‘Only because you called me first.’
Her laptop whirred into action. ‘Are you working?’
‘You can tell?’
He went silent. ‘You sound a little worried. Is something bothering you?’
A tear began to fill her eye. ‘No, nothing’s wrong. I was just half asleep, that’s all.’
‘I’ll catch you tomorrow, then. Sleep well.’
‘You too.’ She ended the call and placed her laptop to the side, the side where Briggs used to lie and she stared at the ceiling, hoping for morning to hurry while she allowed her mind to wander, running scenarios about how the tracking device ended up in Susan’s car, and what the red liquorice meant.
Forty-One
Phoebe walked along the path in her thick coat. Her dad had popped out. After leaving them alone for who knows what the previous night, Phoebe thought he came home looking worn and tired, holding his head like her mother would do during times of stress. While he’d been gone, she’d put some music on for Jasmine as she mulled over her mother’s message. Her dad had been angry with the noise when he eventually returned home. She’d kept them safe, kept the curtains closed and the door locked. And all he could do was shout at her, just like he always shouted at her mother.
She kicked a can along the pavement and it slipped over the edge, into a puddle that had pooled over a blocked drain. It floated gently away without a care i
n the world.
A dog barked in the distance. She missed home and could think of nothing more than going back and being with her mother.
Leaning against a lamppost at the next turning, she pulled out her phone and smiled. Another Snapchat message must have arrived while she’d been walking. A gust of wind blew her curly hair into the sky and a drop of rain splashed onto her cheek. She shivered as she opened the message.
Phoebe, honey. Please meet me at the park, you know, your park. Where you were the other night. I need to tell you something but don’t bring anyone else. I’m in danger and you have to help me. I know I can rely on you and trust you. I love you my big munchkin. Be there in one hour. I love you loads. Mum. Xxx.
Her heart began to thud about in her chest. She began typing a reply but her mother had already left the chat group. She needed to get away from Jasmine without arousing suspicion. It had been her mother watching her that night, after school. Her mother knew of the park, they’d talked about it. She checked the time. It would take her fifteen minutes to get to there. She’d have to hurry. She almost slipped in a puddle as she ran back to the apartment and burst through the door.
‘Jasmine, I’m going to hang out at Ava’s for a bit.’
Jasmine turned the volume down on Ariana Grande’s music as she shoved the last bit of chocolate into her mouth. ‘Who’s Ava?’ Mouth open, she churned the chocolate around as she waited for an answer.
Who was Ava? Phoebe hadn’t really thought that far ahead. ‘A girl, my age. She lives just over there. Past the houses at the end. I’ll only be an hour. She’s had a…’ she paused ‘… a dog, a puppy and I want to see it.’
‘Can I come? I want to see the puppy.’ She jumped up and wiped her hands together.
