Cross Her Heart: A Novel

by Sarah Pinborough

  The basement is quite cluttered and dusty. Old furniture stacked up against a wall. A dresser, probably worth a fair bit, covered with a sheet. Boxes of knickknacks. Scraps of a life with no one left to remember it. If there’s a clue in here it will take me a while to find it.

  Still, something feels odd. I sweep the flashlight around, looking into the corners and nooks and crannies. The plaster of one wall is damp and cracked. That’ll need looking at, I can hear Richard saying. I look at the wall on the other side, farthest from the stairs. The plaster matches. I move closer and shove some of the boxes that are up against it out of the way, not caring as their contents spill. It almost matches. There are no cracks though and the surface is slightly smoother. I spin around and look at the space again, fresh eyes this time. It’s not big enough. It should be far bigger than this. An illusionist’s house.

  I run up the stairs and back to the scullery. As soon as my phone shows service, I’m dialing Simon.

  “You need to get the police here. Now.” I cut short his protests and questions. “There’s another room. A secret room. Underground somewhere.” I’m breathless with the realization. They’re here. So close to me. “That’s where they are. I need to find it. Get the police now. I don’t care how, say I’m with Lisa or whatever. Just get them here!”

  I hang up and my face burns as I look around me. A house of tricks. There’s a doorway here somewhere. And I can’t wait for the police to arrive to find it.

  76

  Lisa

  I’m drunk and there’s some shite drug in my system slowing everything down, but I’m not as wasted as Katie thinks I am. I’ve been on a lot of pills over the years. Antianxiety meds, antidepressants, Valium, sleeping pills—you name it, I’ve had it. And it’s paying off now. In all her planning, Katie thinks I need the same dosage as I did when I was eleven. Not so perfect Katie. I slump slightly in the chair and let my eyes drift in and out of focus. Here but not here.

  “You think you betrayed me by calling the police?” She looks at me wide-eyed. “Oh yes, that was part of it. But you’d done the damage before then. I tried to make it better, but you wrecked it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “You changed your mind.” She spits the words out, disgusted. Her tone constantly changes on a whim, light and entertained becoming hard and bitter between breaths.

  “I know. I’m sorry. But that’s not Ava’s—”

  “No, you don’t know! You don’t know at all!” I flinch as she barks the words out, and her face draws close to mine and she whispers, “All the things they did to you and you still couldn’t do it.” She sees my confusion. “You didn’t change your mind after. You changed your mind before. You didn’t kill Daniel.” She smiles but her eyes are cold. “I did. I did it for you.”

  For a moment, everything is frozen. What is she talking about?

  “No,” I say, my heart racing. She can’t be right. I murdered my little brother. It’s a fact. It’s the bedrock truth of my whole sorry life. “No,” I say again. “I remember my hands round his throat. All my angry thoughts.” I pause. “And Mrs. Jackson from the shop. She saw me. She saw what I did while you were asleep.”

  She snorts. “Oh come on. Mrs. Jackson hated you. And there was no way my parents were going to let there be even the slightest chance that I could get dragged down with you. Not their little angel. Mummy made Daddy talk to her. They came to an arrangement. Mrs. Jackson was more than happy to make sure you went to prison.”

  “No.” My head is spinning. “No, that can’t be. It can’t . . .” Nothing is making sense. The Battens paid the shopkeeper to lie in court? “But I remember . . . I . . .”

  “‘He’s only a bairn, Katie. We didn’t mean it, Katie, did we? We can’t really kill anyone.’” Her voice is a mocking whine. “Ring any bells?”

  The words echo somewhere deep in my subconscious. There’s a weight of real about them. “But,” I say, as my whole existence, everyone I’ve been, shimmers and cracks. “I was so angry with him. I remember my hands on his throat.”

  “You remember what I made you remember. Gullible Charlotte. Always a victim. You were so out of it. You think I was too, but I wasn’t. I’ve never liked being out of control. Anyone can do anything to you when you’re out of control, Charlotte.”

  “No,” I mutter. “I killed him. I know I did. There were all those thoughts in my head . . .”

  “I was the voice in your head, Charlotte. Those words were mine. You put your hands on his throat for barely a second before laughing it off as a joke, even though we’d sworn to do it, and you’d brought him along. You were all, ‘We didn’t mean it, did we, Katie? He’s only a bairn. We can’t really kill anyone.’ Can you imagine how you made me feel? You were weak. But it wasn’t what was best for you. It wasn’t what was best for us. I forgave you, Charlotte, but I had to put it right. We had a plan. We’d made a deal.”

  She’s pacing now, the memory or whatever this is either irritating or enlivening her, I can’t decide which. I don’t care much either. I can barely think straight with what she’s saying. My whole life is unraveling and somehow it terrifies me.

  “You changed your mind and I played along until you were out of it,” she continues. “I pretended to pass out while you were still aware of what was around you, and then as you slumped into your stupor, when I knew you couldn’t tell real from false, I was the voice in your head. Prompting, cajoling. But still, you wouldn’t do it. You chose him over me. Do you know how much that hurt? How much pride I had to swallow to overlook it? After everything you’d said, everything we’d planned, and suddenly you didn’t want to go through with it?”

  She stares at me. Mad. Quite, quite mad. “I knew you couldn’t mean it.” She shrugs. “So I did it for you. He was sleepy and scared. He didn’t like the drink. He was worried about you. It was easy to get him to come to me. And that was that. Afterward, I squeezed your hands around his throat again, and then I picked up the brick and made sure it was done. I whispered some more into your ear, planted all those seeds of what you’d done, made sure you’d gripped the brick hard enough to leave marks, and then faked being asleep until you woke up.”

  All the threads of who I am, unraveling. I didn’t kill Daniel. Can it be true? Can I dare to think it? Is this just some drunken, drugged-up hallucination? Am I more out of it than I realize?

  “And after all that,” she snarls through gritted teeth, “you still let me down.”

  I didn’t kill Daniel. I didn’t. I don’t know how to process this. I don’t know if I can.

  “Let Ava go,” I say. “You don’t need her.”

  “Ah, but I do!” Her face lights up again and my stomach sinks. What game now, Katie, you crazy cunt? What have you planned now?

  “You’re going to do it again, Charlotte.” She smiles at me as she grabs my hair and tips another slug of vodka into me. “Just like before. Poor Charlotte Nevill, cracked and killed her ex, then killed her daughter exactly as she did her little brother all those years ago. It’ll be Broadmoor for you, forever. You can say whatever you like about me, no one will believe you. Katie Batten is dead. You’re the crazed child killer. I think it’s the justice you deserve for what you did to me, don’t you? Left me with my mother. All those fucking years.”

  My eyes are blurring now and the world spins and it panics me. I may be used to the pills, but my alcohol tolerance is nonexistent. I can’t pass out. I can’t.

  “And you know the best bit?” she whispers. “Ava’s pregnant. And you do, after all, owe me a mother. I get to kill two birds with one stone.”

  My eyes close and my mouth drops open slightly. “Are you still with me, Charlotte?” she asks. “You go to sleep if you need to. I can take it from here. It’s time to get started. We’re going to need your fingerprints on her neck, of course. The devil is in the details.” She digs a key out of her pocket and starts to unlock one of my cuffs.

  I didn’t kill Daniel. I didn’t
kill Daniel. Slowly, slowly the truth of it is sinking in. My whole sorry life has been wrapped around a lie. Oh yes, Katie, I think, as my anger tightens into a ball of fire in my gut, but I force myself to go limp. It’s time to get started.

  77

  Marilyn

  Think, think, think. I’m running from room to room, looking for anything I may have missed. I find what looks like a trapdoor in the hallway floor, but there’s no leverage for opening it and it feels solid under my feet. Does it lead to the secret room? Is it part of another trick? How the fuck am I supposed to open it? I try every light switch to see if one of those is a hidden lever, but nothing happens. No electricity. No lights, no opening door.

  It opens from the inside is the only conclusion I can draw. This isn’t the way down. I try the cellar again, but that’s too obvious. Time is ticking away. Lisa and Ava’s time. Maybe they’re dead already. I don’t entertain the thought. I don’t think it’s true, just my panicking mind leading me to the darkest of places. If they were dead, Katie would be out of here, cleaning the place up and gone. And if they were dead, she’d want their bodies found. Displayed. She’s set a stage and this is the big performance. She’s an illusionist of a different, deadlier kind than her grandfather, but this is a set piece all the same. She wouldn’t want them somewhere hard to find. She wants the world to see whatever fucked-up shit she has planned.

  I still have time. I take a breath. Think, think, think. Use your brain. The flashlight streaming light ahead of me, I go back to the pantry and stare down at the tiny cellar. It’s a wide staircase though, which implies to me a big basement. Space. I’ve always been good with spaces. Look at the space. What ground-floor rooms should the basement run under? Not going to be the kitchen. When the house was occupied, it would have been too cluttered and busy for secret doorways. Especially if there was a cook or housekeeper or whatever those old posh families had. Somewhere else.

  “I’m coming, Lisa, I’m coming,” I mutter as I follow the walls and corridors, tracing my fingers on them and tapping, listening for anything that might not be right. Nothing. I go into a sitting room, and there it strikes me. I almost smile.

  The bookshelf. Those old books haven’t been left there for no reason. If you were going to design a house with trickery at its core, a secret doorway would have to be behind a bookshelf.

  Heart racing, I pull the various books free, throwing them to the ground, clearing the ledges. One refuses to budge, as if it’s glued in place. Part of the shelf. I pause, breathing heavily, and shine the flashlight on it. Very carefully, I push it forward. Something clicks and the whole shelf swings inward. My mouth drops open as the cool rush of air hits me.

  I’ve found it.

  I think I hear a distant wail of sirens. The sound is barely more than the hum of a mosquito. If it’s the police, they’re still some distance away. My feet are hot in my shoes. My whole body itches with impatience. All I have as a weapon is my flashlight. I should wait for the police. I know I should wait for the police. To go down there unarmed is fucking madness.

  But as a shriek from below carries up the stairs, I find myself doing it anyway.

  78

  Lisa

  She wanted me to be Charlotte again. But I’m not. I was Charlotte. Now I’m Lisa. I have my own rage but I have Charlotte’s too, and as the second cuff comes off I channel all of it, shaking my faux sluggishness off in an instant and shrieking as I lunge at her.

  “You fucking bitch!” My words spray in her face as I shove her backward. “You fucking shite bitch!” There’s so much I want to say, to scream at her, all that grief, all those years of guilt, what she did to me, what she did to Daniel, but these are the only words I can find.

  She thuds heavily into the table, and I reel sideways, more unsteady on my feet than I was expecting. I stop moving but the world doesn’t. Shit. Katie’s surprise and shock turn to a sneer, and as nausea threatens to drop me, I see why. The knife. My knife. She grabs for it and I lunge to stop her but she’s not drunk and drugged and she lithely turns and then it’s in her hand. She smiles, triumphant, as I sway, trying to focus.

  “Never could keep up,” she says.

  “Fuck you.” Behind her, I can see movement under the blanket. Not panicked wriggling but more focused. I need to keep Katie distracted. I need to stay alive long enough for my baby to get away. “So you’re going to stab me? That screws your perfect plan, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ll improvise something,” she says, but I see the irritation. More movement under the blanket. Does Ava have one wrist free? “I’d rather you went to prison, but if you’re both dead I can live with that.”

  She lunges toward me and I manage to stumble out of the way. She laughs and I realize with a sudden despair that she’s playing with me. I can barely stay on my feet.

  “Lisa?”

  The voice is so unexpected, I turn automatically. She’s standing in a doorway behind us, her eyes wide, shocked, a flashlight limp in her hand by her side. Marilyn. Marilyn found us. I let out a small sob at the sight of my best friend, my true best friend, but she’s suddenly leaping toward me, the flashlight dropping useless to the ground as she shoves me sideways, hard.

  I spin, falling backward to the ground, in time to see Katie, her face ugly with all her crazed bitterness, slice the knife down into the space where a second ago I had been standing. The space Marilyn now occupies.

  I hear Marilyn gasp. It’s not pain but utter surprise. She looks down. The handle is embedded in her chest. For a moment, there’s a perfect stillness, and then her head turns to face me. She’s trying to smile. Her mouth moves, attempting to form a word, and from where I am on the floor I can hear the liquid rattle of her breath.

  “Run,” she finally says, before, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, she crumples to the floor.

  I don’t run. I can’t run. I am done with running. I drag my eyes from my beautiful friend’s broken body and then I’m screaming. I hear the noise and I know it’s me, but it’s like it’s coming from somewhere else, someone else, somewhere far outside of me. I have no rational thought. I am a weapon of pure pain and I leap up, no unsteadiness in my legs now, and launch myself at Katie, my body weight taking both of us to the ground, the weight knocking the wind out of her under me. My hands grasp at her throat and I start to squeeze.

  Marilyn. Daniel. Me. Ava. All those years. My whole life. She’s struggling but my grip is a tightening vice on her slim neck. I see the fear in her eyes and I revel in it. “Fuck you, Katie Batten,” I say through gritted teeth and as tears spring up at the back of my eyes. “Fuck you, you crazy bitch.”

  She’s choking, awful sounds coming from her crushed windpipe as she desperately struggles to breathe, but still my grip tightens, the muscles in my hands starting to scream with the effort. I’m going to kill her. I know it. And it feels good.

  “Mum, no!” Hands on my arms, scrabbling at me, trying to pull me off her. “Don’t. Mum, don’t!”

  Ava. My Ava. She’s dirty, snot- and tearstained, and her hair is lank and knotted, but her eyes are clear as she grabs my face.

  “You’re not a killer. Don’t let her make you a killer. I love you, Mum. Don’t do it.”

  I stare into her eyes, so much like Jon’s but also, behind the facade of color, in the depths of who she is, so much like mine. My baby.

  “Please, Mum,” she says. “Please.”

  I feel my grip loosen. Underneath me, Katie starts to cough as I let go, my arms unable to be so close to Ava and not hold her. I pull her to me and we cling to each other, crying into each other’s hair as I murmur, It’s okay, it’s okay, baby, Mummy’s here now, it’s over, it’s over, and from upstairs come voices, feet on stairs and I know we’re safe.

  Katie tenses beneath me and attempts to push herself upright. I break free from Ava, and in one swift movement, punch her hard in the face. She doesn’t try to move again.

  Epilogue

  There are still nightmares. The
re will probably be nightmares for a long time, for all of them, but they are different now, and she reminds herself they are only dreams. Katie is locked away. Katie won’t escape and find them. They say Katie writes her letters, but she doesn’t read them. She’s told the prison staff to burn any correspondence. She has no interest in any of Katie’s words.

  She is Charlotte again now and she finds she’s okay with that. This time the therapy has been good, although she finds it hard to let go of a lifetime of guilt and shame. They talk about her childhood a lot. They talk about Daniel. She cries.

  When she’s not having nightmares about Katie looking for her, she still dreams of holding Daniel’s hand. She thinks the dreams are here to stay. But that’s okay too. He’s inside her and always will be but she’s made her peace with him. He’s gone and nothing can change that. It’s time to look forward. To live. To embrace new life. She has to try to be happy. She can be happy now. She has every right to be. Today, she is happy. Today she is filled with hope.

  Ava, pale and beautiful and awestruck, is holding the baby, so tiny and fragile and new, and Charlotte thinks they are the two most beautiful creatures in the whole world, this young daughter of hers and her new child. They are her strength. They will always be her strength. Courtney has gone home from the hospital, somewhat shell-shocked and bewildered, but Charlotte thinks he’ll be okay. He’s a good boy and she has a feeling that, with enough help, he’ll be a good father. This baby will not be short of people to love him.