One For Sorrow

by Sarah A. Denzil

  I know he’s right, but for some reason I can’t shift the guilt. Maybe I’m not ready to yet.

  “Tell me about your day-to-day life. Are you happy?”

  The temptation to tell him everything is fine is overwhelming, but my desire to get better means I have to force myself to talk, even if it’s painful. “I’m afraid. I still don’t remember what happened in the room with Isabel. I don’t know if I let her out voluntarily, or if I was somehow coerced. I don’t know where Isabel is, and I don’t know if she’s guilty of killing that little girl or if she’s innocent. I’m frightened. What if she’s obsessed with me and she comes to find me? What if the rest of her family are obsessed with me and want to kill me? They might think I know too much and it’s best I’m dead. Or they might want to hurt someone close to me like Tom. I just don’t know.”

  “That must be very stressful. Have you thought about moving away?”

  “Yes,” I reply. “Of course I have. But I don’t have the money. Seb lets me live in the cottage basically rent-free and employs me in his farm shop. It’s a nice job that I enjoy, and it keeps my mind off everything else that’s happening, like Tom’s bullying website.” I think about the image that I’m sure Isabel posted and shiver. “The nights are hard. I check the locks and I check the windows, but sometimes I still feel like someone has been inside the house.”

  “That’s a common feeling. When we’re afraid, we often feel as though we’re being watched.” He leans back in his chair, frowning for the first time.

  “But not everyone has worked closely with a prisoner from a high-security hospital who has now escaped and is out there in the world somewhere,” I reply. “She could be anywhere. And she could be watching me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Dr Ibbotson’s words are on my mind as I work in the farm shop the next day. It’s another quiet shift, but I’ve brought my laptop to make the most of the free wifi. The fact that James hasn’t emailed me back is still concerning. He’s not a man who tends to be away from the internet for long stretches of time, and he isn’t picking up his phone either. The blog hasn’t been updated for a while, which is strange because it picked up traffic after Isabel’s escape. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

  I decide to call DCI Murphy and mention James’s disappearance. Other than the Fieldings, I don’t talk to James about much else. We don’t chat about our lives or gossip about celebrities. There isn’t a lot I do know about James, beside his obsession with Maisie Earnshaw’s death. Before I call DCI Murphy I decide to do a bit of poking around on his private Facebook page to see if I can work out what might be going on. Perhaps he’s gone home, or he’s moved in with his parents, or he’s gone on holiday. Somehow those options seem unlikely given how obsessed James was with Isabel’s escape, but it’s still possible, and I don’t want to waste police time.

  James Gorden’s personal page turns out to be mostly private, but he has posted the odd public update about the blog. We aren’t friends on Facebook, but I can view his friends, of which he has many from all over the world. One post jumps out at me on the page, from a woman in a cowboy hat. It says: “Hey James, when’s the next blog post out? Have you seen any child killers wandering around? Lol!”

  The casual nature of the post makes my blood run cold, as does the implication. His audience are waiting for another blog post, which means it must be taking him longer than usual to update his page. And the reference to the child killer fits in with his last blog post, which said he was hoping to find Isabel in London.

  What if he did find her?

  What if he found any of the Fieldings?

  What if he’s been hurt?

  I call DCI Murphy immediately and tell him everything I know. Part of me expects to be treated like a crazy woman, but he takes all the information and sounds serious when he says he’ll look into it. When I hang up the phone I feel both better and worse. Better because I’ve unloaded some of the responsibility I feel I owe to James, and worse because now my suspicions are being treated seriously.

  Neither James nor I should have got ourselves messed up in this dangerous, chaotic situation, and perhaps now we’re paying the price for allowing ourselves to be involved. Leaning back in the chair behind the counter, I wish I could turn the clock back and never move to Hutton. But then I would never have met Seb, and perhaps I’d still be thinking that my father was dead and hallucinating ants crawling up the walls.

  A sudden influx of tourists makes the afternoon speed along a little faster, and at the end of the day, I decide to buy a pair of reduced price Wellington boots from the country clothes section of the shop. With winter around the corner, the boots will come in handy, and the fact that they’re a distasteful neon pink colour that no one wants to buy, and therefore a fraction of their usual price, means I can just about afford them. I put the money in the till, pack them up, and then start locking up the shop. Before long, the money is in the safe and the doors are locked.

  Seb had warned me he’d be busy for a few days, settling in new pullets in the chicken coop and pigs in the pig pen. The Braithwaites are beginning to prepare themselves for Christmas. Turkey, chicken, and bacon are all popular around the festive time, pulling in quite a bit of profit. Though Seb still calls round at the cottage and goes on the occasional walk with me, he doesn’t stop by the shop as often, which means I usually have to walk through the fields alone. Winter weather pulls the nights in, so I make that journey through the twilight hours as the darkness descends.

  This is the part of the day I hate. It’s a good ten-minute walk from the farm to the cottage, through sodden grass and dirty tracks. I hurry along at a brisk pace, my nerves on edge, jumping at every slight sound coming from the fields. If a pig squeals in the distance I let out a gasp. If the birds overhead flap their wings my stomach flips over in terror. It’s during these long ten minutes that I imagine my own death over and over again.

  By the time I reach the door my hands are trembling and the keys rattle loudly when I fish for them out of my bag. A low growl sounds behind me, causing me to flinch so violently that I drop the keys on the doorstep and spin around on my heel, the box of boots hitting the overgrown weeds next to the doorframe.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Pye.”

  The fat ginger cat hisses at me before lifting his nose in annoyance. Now I know why the scruffy tom is so mad—I’ve forgotten to throw him a few scraps from the shop on my way home. Every day I put out a little bowl of free samples, usually homemade pork scratchings or small portions of cooked meat. At the end of the day, I give what’s left to the cat, but I’d forgotten to pick up the leftovers today.

  “You’ll just have to wait,” I say, retrieving my keys from the step.

  Feeling frazzled and a little sweaty as I finally get the door open, I fight my way into the small space and dump the boot box on the table as I look around for something to feed to the cat. Snatching open cupboard doors, I try to remember whether there was a tin of tuna left, but there wasn’t.

  “Sorry, Pye, the cupboards are bare because Mummy’s poor. You’ll have to make do with a saucer of milk.”

  The cat grumbles loudly as I take the milk out and place it down on the garden path, even batting at my hand as I move away.

  “You ungrateful little sod.”

  But I can’t help but watch the cat melt into a kitty as he laps up the milk. For a fraction of a second I think about trying to stroke the little bugger, but I like my fingers intact, and I’ve lingered outside on my own in the dark for too long as it is.

  I hurry back into the kitchen, shut the door, lock it, check it twice, remove my shoes, and gasp. What have I done? Without thinking about it, I snatch the shoe box from the table and throw it onto the floor.

  “Fuck it, Leah!” I yell at myself in frustration.

  I hit myself on the forehead with the heel of my hand. I can’t believe I’m such an idiot. All this time and my father’s superstitions are still ingrained in me. Even now I berate
myself for an act as trivial as putting a pair of new shoes on the table. Perhaps I should put the box back on the table and tell my father to go to hell.

  The last time I put a pair of new shoes on the table I was fifteen years old and proud of the fancy platforms I’d bought from New Look for twenty quid in the sale. They were gorgeous—purple with stripes along the heel. Mum was in the kitchen and I wanted to show her, so I put the box on the table and lifted out the shoes as she gasped at how pretty they were.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

  Dad had been red-faced and drunk, staggering through the doorway at a speed that alarmed us both. He swept the shoe box from the table with his arm before staring me down with wide, bloodshot eyes. Spittle had collected in the corner of his mouth, and his breath was as stale as sour cider.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, not sure what I was supposed to be sorry about.

  “You never put new shoes on the table!” He grabbed me by the ponytail and yanked me back until my neck felt like it was going to break.

  “Alf!” Mum screamed in terror.

  “She needs to learn. She should know! She’s old enough to know what you don’t do. That’s bad luck you’ve brought on the family now. Do you understand that? It’s bad luck.”

  “Yes, Daddy. Yes, I understand. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  And now I am here, and Mum is dead, and he is locked away. He was right. It had brought bad luck on the family, but not in the way he’d thought.

  Well, what did he know? Why should I live that way? I glance at the shoebox, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I grab the kettle and fill it with water from the kitchen sink.

  In the cottage kitchen, the sink is beneath the window that looks out over the garden. One of the more pleasant aspects of living in the middle of nowhere is standing in this very spot doing the breakfast washing-up, looking out over the fields beyond the house. A golden glow of morning sun brightens the dewy fields in the morning, picking out highlights in the rolling hills. My own private art gallery. But in the dark, the hairs on the back of my neck begin to stand on end. Perhaps the memory of my father has spooked me, or perhaps the cat scared me with his growl, or perhaps my subconscious senses someone out there watching me.

  No, it isn’t only the memory of my parents; there’s another reason why goosebumps are spreading over my arms. The superstition may have started it, but now I realise that there’s something different about the darkened view outside the window, and it’s on the windowsill.

  It’s difficult to make out in the dark, so I have to lean over the sink to get a closer look. My abdomen presses painfully against the kitchen counter as I push myself towards the glass, lifting up on tiptoes.

  Three dead birds are lined up on the outside windowsill, their lifeless bodies on their sides as though they’ve been placed there with care.

  I trip over my feet, staggering away from the glass, almost knocking the kettle of boiling water onto the kitchen floor. With my arms flailing madly, I do manage to grasp hold of the hot kettle for a moment, burning my hand in the process. Luckily, it doesn’t tip over onto the floor, or I would be covered in burns from head to toe. But as I flail back, I hit my head on the kitchen table and land on my backside, twisting my ankle underneath my body. Pain blooms from three separate areas, the worst of which is my head. When I reach behind to check on myself, my fingers come back bloody.

  Dr Ibbotson’s advice is to take deep breaths and count to fifty when I’m feeling overwhelmed and anxious. I do this now, but I’m too afraid to close my eyes at the same time, so I struggle to concentrate on the counting without blocking everything else out.

  After three more long breaths, I check on the cut at the back of my head. It’s painful, but it isn’t too deep, I don’t think. I won’t need stitches. After wiggling my toes and gently moving my foot I conclude that my ankle isn’t broken, and the burn on my hand is sore but won’t kill me. I use the kitchen counter to help me back on my feet before drawing the curtains and retrieving my phone.

  Seb answers after one ring, and is at the cottage in under fifteen minutes. During that time I limp back and forth along the kitchen, worrying he’ll think I’m as crazy as I feel.

  “What’s happened? Are you hurt?” he asks. As always, his voice is low and barely above a whisper, but there’s an urgency to his tone that I’m unaccustomed to.

  “I fell and hit my head, but I’m fine.”

  “You’re bleeding,” he says, moving closer to examine the wound. “I’ll get the first aid box.”

  “No, don’t. There’s something I want you to do first,” I say. “Can you open the curtains and look out on the windowsill? There are three dead birds there. Will you look at them, and tell me they’re there?”

  Seb doesn’t answer, merely walks slowly over to the kitchen window. He opens the curtains with both arms, drawing them back dramatically. I hold my breath as he peers through the glass with his chin angled down towards the windowsill.

  “There’s nothing there.”

  I hurry to his side. “Are you sure? I don’t understand. They were there a moment ago. I… I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe you should sit down for a moment. I’ll pour you some tea.”

  “This can’t be happening again. I don’t understand why this is happening.” I can’t stop saying it. “I don’t understand.”

  Seb puts the kettle back on the stove and takes two mugs from the cupboard. “It’s all right, Leah.”

  I run my fingers through my hair. “I’m hallucinating again. I can’t trust my own eyes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “You must think I’m a lunatic,” I say, staring down at the clay-coloured tea in my Snoopy mug.

  “I don’t think you’re a lunatic,” Seb says. “But let’s think about all the options. Let’s go through them all and then make a decision. Okay?”

  I nod.

  “You saw three dead birds,” he prompts.

  “Yes. On the windowsill. They were all lined up and laying on their sides. It frightened me because of Isabel and the birds she used to draw for me. When I got scared, I staggered back and hit my head on the table. The fall caused me to twist my ankle, and when I reached out to try and break my fall, I burned my hand. Then I called you, shut the curtains, and the birds disappeared.”

  “They were gone by the time I got here,” Seb says.

  “Or they never existed.”

  “That’s possible too.”

  “I’m a lunatic.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re not. Let’s say the birds did exist. I went out and checked to see if they’d fallen off the ledge, and there was nothing there. I checked all around the garden and found nothing. That just means they didn’t fall off.”

  “Or that they never existed.”

  “One possibility is that they died on the ledge, but in the time between you shutting the curtains and me arriving, a different animal took them away, like that stray tom out in the garden,” he suggests.

  “What are the odds of three birds dying in the same spot?” I ask. “Seems quite unlikely.”

  “That’s true,” Seb replies. “Another possibility is that someone put them there and then removed them while the curtains were closed.”

  I don’t like that possibility; I think I prefer it to all be a hallucination. My fingers wrap around the mug for warmth.

  “The other possibility is that the stress you’re under caused you to hallucinate them. Or that the medication you’re taking isn’t working anymore.”

  “I’m not sure I like any of those options,” I say. “Either I’m crazy, or I’m being stalked, or that cat is terrorising me.”

  Silence lingers in the kitchen as Seb hangs his head. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking with that neutral expression on his face.

  “I wish I knew what was real and what wasn’t.”

  “It’s real to you,” he says. “And that’s what matters, isn’t it?”
>
  *

  Seb stays on the sofa for the night. I offer him Tom’s room, but am secretly relieved when he insists on taking the sofa so we don’t mess up any of Tom’s things. It’s hard enough as it is to check that no one has been in Tom’s room since he left, but if someone else had stayed there too, it would be impossible. Perhaps Seb is aware of that, or senses that I’d prefer Tom’s room to stay exactly the way it is. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to sleep in a teenage boy’s bed. Teenagers aren’t generally known for their cleanliness.

  Seb is out as the sun rises—farmers don’t get a lie-in—leaving me alone in the cottage. With one eye on my watch, waiting for nine o’clock, I drink tea until the regular working day begins. I don’t particularly want to, but I force myself to call DCI Murphy. There’s no update on James, except that the detective has asked for help from the police in East London to look into James’s disappearance. It seems none of my business to report James as missing, seeing as I’m neither a family member or a friend, but I can’t ignore what he set out to do and the fact that he has gone silent.

  “Anything else?” Murphy asks.

  “There is one thing,” I say cautiously.

  “Go on.”

  “It’s silly, really.”

  “Anything that can help the case is important. Finding Isabel is important. Tell me.”

  “All right.” I take a deep breath. “There were three dead birds on my kitchen windowsill last night. Three regular garden birds. Small ones. I didn’t have time to note what kind they were, but they were the size and shape of birds like a chaffinch or a robin.”

  “Isabel had an obsession with birds, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. She used to draw me a bird every day. She told me they had different omens, mostly good ones. Isabel always focused on the positive.” I hesitate. “But…”

  “What is it?”

  “The birds disappeared. I fell down after I saw them because I immediately thought of her and it frightened me. When I got back up they were gone. I called Seb Braithwaite and he came to check I was all right. He looked around for the birds in the garden, but there wasn’t a trace of them. I… I could have hallucinated them. I’m still taking antipsychotic medicine.”