Cross Her Heart: A Novel

by Sarah Pinborough

  She drinks more vodka, and Katie produces another half bottle, and a couple of her own mother’s pills, some antianxiety or antidepression shit. “Been carrying them around for a special occasion,” she says, smiling. “Let’s get high together!”

  “Play with me, Charrot,” Daniel says, carefully balancing one brick on top of another. “Building a fire station.”

  “I’m talking to Katie,” she says, taking a pill and swallowing it with booze. “Play by yourself. Here, have some of this.” She holds the bottle out to him and he takes a small sip before she swipes it away. He’s coughing and for a moment looks as if he’s about to cry and then stops himself. Maybe he’s learned already that being a crier in this family doesn’t get you very far. Maybe he knows Charlotte well enough to know she won’t cuddle him better. “Don’t like it,” he says.

  Somehow his reaction gives her some satisfaction. “Then shut up and play quietly.” It’s a growl and she doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t want to feel sorry for him. She only wants to feel sorry for herself.

  Katie’s mood is electric as the world starts to spin a little too disconcertingly for Charlotte. They drink more and Katie plays their tape on her pink double-cassette player, the music tinny in the damp, cold house. A breeze comes in through the broken window, and it makes Charlotte shiver pleasantly.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing it,” she says.

  “Doing what?” Charlotte is having difficulty focusing. It feels good though, this chemical warmth inside her. She can’t feel the soreness down there from last night anymore. Just a little throb inside, like her heartbeat. Even her anger feels good. Katie leans against her, and takes another sip of vodka before passing it over.

  “Our pact!” Katie huddles in close. “That’s why you brought him here, isn’t it? We’re going to do it today!”

  Charlotte frowns. Is that why she brought him here? Does she want that? “He just followed me,” she says. “I haven’t stolen anything. Got no money.”

  “I’ve got all we need. And we’ll go to my granddad’s house and hide there for a couple of days. I know the perfect place.” Katie squeezes her arm. “Let’s get drunk and do it. Then we’ll go and do my mother when she’s home this afternoon. After that, we’ll be free! Bonnie and Clyde!”

  Charlotte thinks about it for a moment. There’s nothing she wants more than to be away from here with Katie. No more Tony. No more Ma. She looks at Daniel, muttering away to Peter Rabbit as he plays. She hates him. She knows she does.

  “Maybe we should just run away,” she slurs. “Forget the other shite. Fuck them.”

  “They’ll never let me go,” Katie is slurring too. “My mother will keep me forever if she can.” She rests her sweet-smelling head on Charlotte’s shoulder. “And we had a pact. Cross my heart and hope to die. Remember.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” Charlotte murmurs. “Let’s get drunk first.” She doesn’t want to think about their plan. It was a game that now feels too real. “I want to get out of my face.”

  When the pills hit, they hit hard and for a moment she has a blind panic she’s taken too much. She fades in and out of darkness, a haze enveloping her, almost lifting her out of her body.

  “What is this?” she tries to say, and for a moment it looks like Katie is smiling and glowing at her, and then she’s slumped asleep against the wall. She has no concept of time, drifting in and out of confusion. Everything is a blur.

  “Charrot?” Daniel’s face suddenly looms large in front of her. His eyes, Tony’s eyes, fill her distorted vision. “Feel sick, Charrot.”

  Is he feeling sick or is he asking her? Whichever, she doesn’t want to see him. Doesn’t want to think about him. “Shut up, Daniel,” she mutters, although her words are thick on her tongue. Too much. She’s drunk too much with these pills. She closes her eyes, even as she’s aware of Daniel tugging at her.

  It’s all his fault, a voice in her head says. Everything. The chip shop. Your ma not loving you anymore. Tony and his belt. None of it was there before he was. They didn’t realize how little they loved you until they loved him and that’s the truth of it. It’s all his fault.

  She drags her eyes open, the voice confusing her. It’s in her head, it must be her voice. Daniel is still in front of her. He looks hazy too. Has she given him more to drink? She can’t remember. Maybe. She can’t remember how much she’s drunk herself. Is it all his fault? Yes, she thinks. Yes, it is. She knows it is, like the voice in her head is saying, but he’s only a baby and it can’t really be his fault. He looks scared, sucking the corner of Peter Rabbit’s ear. She doesn’t want him to look scared. It jars something inside her.

  The voice in her head is still talking, reminding her of all the love and care her ma has given him and all the pain she’s had to suffer. How if something bad happened to Daniel it would punish Ma as she deserves. How this is what she wants. It is what she wants but also not what she wants. She doesn’t know what she wants. She wants to pass out. To sleep. To forget about everything. But the voice won’t shut up, needling her from inside her own mind. He’s a little shite and you know it. He’s spoiled. He’s a brat. He’s the reason they hurt you.

  Everything fades to black, hazing out—Do it, try it, squeeze his throat and make everything better. She sees her hands on his neck, feels his soft skin under them, the voice in her head is raging, and his little eyes are wide, and she’s not quite sure what’s happening. Blackness again. She’s here and yet not here. She’s doing it and yet not doing it. Her brain won’t work properly and her body feels all wrong. At some point there’s the thump of a brick. And then nothing but swimming in the darkness.

  When she opens her eyes next, her vision is clear but her head feels like it’s going to explode and her stomach roils with puke waiting to happen. What the shite kind of pills does Katie’s ma take? She doesn’t want any more of those, never again. Katie is passed out beside her, slumped up against the wall, her legs splayed out at a very non-Katie angle. “Katie?” she says, and the world spins slightly again with a wave of nausea. “Katie, you awake?”

  Peter Rabbit catches her eye, abandoned on the floor by her feet. A flash of something comes to her: hands, neck, Daniel. A dream? The nausea fades with a wave of something cold. Dread. A small shoe in the corner of her vision. A leg very still. She doesn’t want to look, oh she desperately doesn’t want to look, but she can’t help herself.

  Oh shite, Daniel. His face is turned away, but there’s blood on the ground and he’s not moving at all, and he’s dead, she knows he’s dead, and she thinks she might scream or—

  “Oh my God, Charlotte.” Katie is dragging herself upright, eyes blearily widening. “You did it. You actually did it.”

  Charlotte’s shaking, her whole body trembling like she’s standing next to one of those stupid pneumatic drills they’ve been using up on the high street, and it’s so surreal, it’s all so surreal, and he can’t be dead, not really dead, not like we talked about, hands around his throat, oh God Daniel you little shite I’m so sorry, Katie takes her cold hands and holds them up to her face.

  “Look at me, Charlotte.”

  She does. She wants to look anywhere but at little Daniel and oh God what will Ma say, and so she stares straight into Katie’s perfect eyes. “It’s done,” Katie whispers, hot breath on her cold face, Daniel will never breathe again, oh shite oh shite. Katie kisses her gently on her open mouth. “You’ve done it. It’s the beginning, Charlotte. We can be free! I can’t believe you did it, but you did. Oh, Charlotte, you’re my hero. There’s no going back now. Next, my mother. Then we run. We fly like the wind. Just us. You and me, forever. No going back.”

  Charlotte’s teeth are starting to chatter. It can’t be real, how can it be real, it was only a fantasy, a crazy game. Everything is too bright, too real, and yet at the same time too surreal. No going back.

  “I need to go home first,” she hears herself saying. “Make things look normal. If Ma’s home I’ll sa
y I’m going to look for Daniel. Then come to you. They don’t know about you. They won’t look for me with you.” How does she sound so normal? So calm. “We’ll do your ma and go, right?” She kisses Katie back, although her own mouth tastes sharp and bitter. Rotten.

  “Half an hour? At mine?”

  Charlotte nods. She needs to get out of here. She needs to get away. Where is her anger now? Where did it all go? Into your hands and around little Daniel’s neck, that’s where it went and oh shite, no going back.

  “I love you,” Katie says with a smile as they clamber back out into the cold October air.

  “I love you too,” Charlotte answers, her own smile a sickly grimace. And maybe she does. She does. But everything is broken now. She’s broken now. Daniel’s broken can’t be fixed never be fixed oh God oh God. “See you in half an hour.”

  They go their separate ways and Charlotte knows she’ll never see Katie again. Not like this. She throws up around the corner, vodka and bile spilling out onto the dirt and leaving her empty. Hollow.

  She looks back at the house, a wreck, unloved and unlovable. She doesn’t want to leave Daniel there alone with only Peter Rabbit for company. He’ll be afraid. He won’t understand. He’s dead, you stupid shite cunt, he will never understand anything again because of you and your pills and your stupid voice in your head and your stupid hands and your stupid anger and he never hurt you, not really, Daniel never took you to the chippy or beat you or did the thing Tony did last night. Why is everything so clear now? Why is she always one step behind?

  She knows what she has to do. The only thing she can do. No going back. She runs, faster than she ever has before, all the way to the train station. There’s a pay phone there. Her breath is raw in her chest. Her head is still spinning with the booze, the pills, and the numbing shock, but her trembling fingers punch in 999. I’m sorry, Katie, she thinks, when the call is done. I’m so sorry, Katie.

  Daniel. I’m so sorry, Daniel.

  She wishes she could cry. She wishes she could die. Instead, she goes home on numb legs with a numb heart and waits until she hears the sirens. It’s not long before Ma is wailing too, pushing Tony away.

  When they take her to the police car, she doesn’t look back.

  There’ll never be any going back.

  73

  Marilyn

  Now

  I park up on the secluded road, away from the house, a black shape in the darkness up ahead, and get the flashlight from the trunk of the car. I keep it turned off for now, walking carefully on the uneven track. My feet are invisible, no streetlights to cut through the heavy darkness of the night. It’s not raining but the air is damp and heavy with pressure, the clouds hanging low under their own weight. As I turn into the drive I can’t see any other cars, certainly nothing resembling a police car, and for once I praise all the recent government cuts. No lights on. No sign of life. If they’re here, Katie’s dumped whatever car she’s been using out of sight. Without hesitating, without giving myself time to chicken out and turn around, I climb the steps. No police tape, no boards nailed across the door. No sign the police have taken this lead seriously at all.

  When I push the door open, I understand why. The house is empty. In its soul it’s empty. I turn the flashlight on, a pool of yellow in blackness. There’s not much to see: wooden floors and pale walls and then a wide modern staircase that turns on a landing, before heading up to the next floor. I can hear nothing but the hum of my own body in my ears.

  There’s no furniture to speak of, most rooms empty, but as I methodically search from top to bottom, there are some items that have been left behind. A mirror with no reflection in one room gives me a start. Illusionist, I remember. Was this part of a trick or was it put here to frighten guests? Some books still in the built-in bookshelves in one of the sitting rooms. Some crockery in the cupboards in the kitchen. If this was going to be a museum, where is everything else? In a lockup somewhere? And surely it is all too bland and modern to attract any visitors? It could be a banker’s house, or a businessman’s. Not a magician’s.

  I make my way back to the hallway and let the flashlight methodically search. A rug on the floor. An old projector of some sort high on the wall above the door, boxed in wood painted white to match the walls, an illusion to hide it. Sneaky. Like grandfather, like granddaughter. So far, though, no clues.

  I find the door to the basement past what might have once been a utility room, and I open it carefully, listening out for any sign of life. Nothing. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. I shiver involuntarily. I’m a grown woman. It’s only a cellar. I’m about to head down into its depths when the phone in my pocket starts buzzing. Shit. Simon.

  “Where the hell are you?” he asks. “I thought you were going to bed. You took my car?”

  For a moment it could be Richard, demanding and annoyed, and my first instinct is to apologize, but I don’t.

  “I’m in Skegness.” I’m speaking quietly but the sound is almost too loud in this mausoleum of a house. “At the house.”

  “You’re where? Jesus, Marilyn, if the police—”

  “The police aren’t here. No sign of them. But I can’t sit around and do nothing. And this house is part of it, I’m sure. A clue. It has to be. But if I can’t find anything, then I’ll drive straight back. No one will know I was even here.”

  “I don’t like you being down there on your own. I wish you’d told me. I’d have come with you.”

  Not like Richard at all, I realize. This isn’t irritation, it’s concern. Same coin, different sides. Richard used to hide his paranoia as concern. Don’t wear that dress today, you know what men are like.

  “But listen,” he says. “We’ve got something. I’m about to call the police with it. Amelia Cousins . . .”

  “You can track her back to Katie?” My breath catches in my throat with the sudden speed of my heartbeat.

  “No, not quite, but her history doesn’t add up. Not if you go back a few years. It’s paper-thin—and trust me, there’s a lot of paper. But it’s not that.”

  “What then?”

  He pauses. “I think Katie was pretending to be two other people.”

  74

  Ava

  Jodie. The fucking bitch. A small sob escapes my gag. Jodie. I trusted her. She was my friend. She was my best friend. My head hurts and I’m horribly drunk and it’s making it hard to think. No, she was never my friend. She was Mum’s best friend. Katie. Child B. Whatever.

  I’m going to die here, I know it. Me and Mum together. Jodie’s going to kill us, because Jodie isn’t Jodie and she’s batshit crazy and I’m so ashamed and I feel sick and I’m so sorry Mum is going to die here with me and I keep thinking about the baby inside me and that’s going to die too and this is not its fault. Maybe it’s dead already. Fresh tears threaten and I fight them back. I can’t breathe when I cry. I’m scared to cry. I’m scared to die. I’m so scared and I just want my mum to make it all okay, but I don’t think she can. I’m not even ashamed anymore. The stupid Facebook messages feel like a lifetime ago. I was different then. I was stupid then.

  My face is sore from snot and tears and my jaw aches from this gag and I hate myself for being so helpless. I should have fought back. I should have known something was wrong when I saw her at the car, but it was so fast, and I was so confused. Before I knew it, there was the cloth on my face and the darkness and then I woke up here, bruised and sore.

  I don’t hate Mum. I love her. I want to tell her. She’s going to die thinking I hate her. I can’t let her die thinking I hate her. She thinks everyone hates her. I want to be sick. I can’t be sick. I’ll choke. The blanket is heavy on my face and I try to shake it away but I can’t. I want to see my mum. She’s being so tough. Not like my mum at all. She came here to die for me. She loves me that much. I’ve had long days of hearing about her life as Charlotte. My mum before she was anyone’s mum. She wanted it all to be better for me and whatever she’d done, the awful thing
she’d done, I was selfish and thoughtless and awful and now I feel five years old again. Pathetic. I’m pathetic.

  I can hear Crazy Katie talking to her. She’s talking about the day Daniel died. She doesn’t care about me now Mum’s here. It was all about Mum. I’m nothing to her. Worse than nothing. I was a pawn and now she’s going to knock me off the board. All that time at swim club, MyBitches, the Fabulous Four, all the shit she gave me about weird mums club, how I looked up to her, how we all kind of looked up to her—none of it was real. A bubble of anger bursts through my self-pity. How fucking dare she do that to us?

  She doesn’t care about me now Mum’s here. The thought repeats itself in my hazy brain. She can’t even see me. I’m under a blanket. When did she last retie my hands? A day ago? More? Less? Time has lost all meaning. It wasn’t recently anyway. I wriggle my fingers to see if there’s any give. It’s hot under here and I’m sweating. Sweat is good. Sweat is a lubricant.

  75

  Marilyn

  My mind is too distracted with what Simon’s told me to have any fear of the cellar. I shine the flashlight on the stairs and creep down. Jodie Cousins never attended Allerton University. She registered, went through the process to get all her documents and her student card, et cetera, but never showed up to any courses. By the time Ava went missing it was the summer holidays, and so the police never went there to ask her any questions. They probably just got her number from one of Ava’s school friends or the swim club. Jodie would have given them her mother’s number—always away working or with her boyfriend—and that was that. After all, the girls weren’t suspects.

  Katie was both Jodie and Amelia Cousins. Mother for buying the house and setting up the bills and then vanishing off to an imaginary life in Paris and becoming the daughter for insinuating herself into Lisa’s life via Ava. No one ever met Amelia, only Jodie. I think about Jodie. Slight, never in any makeup, a hard, trim, boyish body. Short. Quiet. In the background. You see what you want to see. You believe what’s in front of you. Another thought strikes me. Katie supposedly died by drowning. A strong swimmer. She must have thought her luck was in when she found out Ava was a swimmer too. Fate.