Deviant

by Helen FitzGerald

  The Information section was just a list of facts: her weight and height (annual measurements), hair color, eye color, where she had lived, when.

  Correspondence was similarly dull: letters about referrals, meetings, and financial considerations; there were also some loose telephone transcripts, stuffed in a folder in back.

  She turned to the Reports section and began reading the first.

  1. BACKGROUND

  NAME: Abigail Thom

  D.O.B.: 25-09-96

  PARENTS: Sophie Thom (07-09-66)/NA

  ADDRESS AT TIME OF BIRTH:

  27 Frederick Street, Peterhead,

  Aberdeenshire.

  REPORT WRITER:

  JEAN MASON, GORBALS

  SOCIAL WORK OFFICE, OLD

  RUTHERGLEN ROAD, GLASGOW

  1. BACKGROUND:

  The sole existing report from Health Services indicates a home birth at the Frederick Street Address, without medical assistance. All other reports are missing or have been destroyed.

  Health Services received an anonymous call at 23:11 on 25-09-96, complaining of loud noises from an anonymously rented flat. Authorities arrived to find both mother and infant physically healthy and determined the mother’s identity to be Ms. Sophie Thom. Ms. Thom, however, appeared to be paranoid and confused, in addition to the birth trauma. The Emergency Technician recorded some of her statements, transcribed here:

  “If he finds us, he’ll take her like he took my first.”

  “The Navy is a front.”

  “This is about a drug.”

  “If we don’t stop them, our children will not be our children.”

  Ms. Thom was unable to explain herself further, though it seems likely she was referencing her former husband and his job (Section 2). When Health Services attempted to visit a second time, as arranged, Ms. Thom had abandoned the Peterhead flat without leaving a forwarding address. She has not been seen since.

  2. OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS

  Health Services has since determined twenty-two months prior to the birth of Abigail, Ms. Thom gave birth to Rebecca Johnstone (04-07-94) at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. The father was Ms. Thom’s husband, Grahame Johnstone (19-04-65), a former officer in the United States Navy. His various ranks remain classified according to US Authorities.

  Ms. Thom’s erratic behavior appears to have surfaced shortly after Rebecca’s birth. Psychiatric reports released upon court order (completed 12-11-95 when the family resided at 18 Henderson Street, Hunter’s Quay, Dunoon) state that Ms. Thom was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She believed in a conspiracy: “a pilot project in its initial phases that is out to destroy our children.” She insisted that her “husband and his friends be destroyed before everyone loses their minds.” More significantly, she insisted that her concerns be recorded on paper. She repeatedly refused to take any medication for her illness, though she agreed to spend three months under observation at the Dunoon Psychiatric Clinic.

  Law enforcement records indicate that she had attacked her husband on several occasions prior to her voluntary commitment. Grahame Johnstone never pressed charges. Testimony from the officers present indicates that he was cooperative and eager to help his wife manage her illness better.

  On 29-03-96, Grahame Johnstone and Rebecca Johnstone departed Glasgow, Scotland, on Air France flight #405, bound for Paris, France.

  According to the United States Internal Revenue Service, father and daughter have been living in Los Angeles, California, United States, since 15-04-96.

  As far as mental health professionals were able to determine, Sophie Thom never told her husband that she was pregnant with their second child. She disappeared from Dunoon Psychiatric on 30-03-96. All attempts made to contact Mr. Johnstone were unsuccessful. Addresses and phone numbers are unlisted.

  3. CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES

  According to witnesses, Ms. Thom left Abigail in the care of Nieve Robson when Abigail was approximately three weeks old. Ms. Robson lived in a caravan at the anti-nuclear commune in Holy Loch, Argyll.

  Nieve Robson died of cancer on 20-10-05, leaving Abigail without a guardian.

  The guardian’s death marks the first time Abigail Thom has come to the attention of the authorities since her birth. Yesterday, she was taken from the commune and placed in the care of the local authority. She is currently in Newar Park Children’s Home, Argyll.

  ABIGAIL TOOK A DEEP breath. Newar Park. She hadn’t even remembered the name of that one. It was too much to take in. God, all this information; and she’d been told none of it. And Becky was in this file. That was the most horrifying part. Abigail should have known about Becky all along. Her sister had literally been hiding in plain sight ever since Nieve had died.

  The report concluded with a bunch of typical legal shite: the Thom girl (her, a.k.a. The Unloved Nobody) should be taken into care on a permanent basis; contact with anyone on the commune should be prohibited … everything she already knew. Abigail bit her lip. Some social worker, this Jean Mason. Abigail couldn’t even remember having met the woman.

  Quashing the anger again, she reminded herself why she was doing this. She read the report once more. Her mother was a total bampot, as suspected. No wonder Dad had escaped with little Becky. No wonder he’d kept his address and phone number secret. He probably feared for their lives. Abigail felt another surge of warmth for Grahame, for the hard time he’d had of it back then. Her mum had attacked him. She’d set his car on fire. Jesus. Who could blame him for scarpering? Especially when he had no idea she was pregnant with their second baby.

  On the second page of the Book of Remembrance, Abigail pasted in the OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS page of the report, highlighting Becky’s address to the age of twenty-two months: 18 Henderson Street, Hunter’s Quay, Dunoon, Scotland. There was nothing else to add.

  Flipping through the photo album Grahame had loaned to her, she chose a few photographs to document the next nine years of Becky’s life … what photographs she could find.

  The album was so sparse. Her sister must have been around four years old in the photograph taken at Niagara Falls, on a boat with her father; both were dripping and laughing in oversized red NIAGARA TOURS raincoats. The next featured her in a yellow-checked school dress, standing in front of a city street. First day of school perhaps? But no, it didn’t look like LA. From the movies and television shows Abigail had seen, it looked like New York.

  Then nothing. Not a single shot for about six years. Grahame was clearly not the most sentimental guy in the world. But maybe guys who could “pull strings” and had to flee insanity weren’t sentimental. Maybe that’s the price Becky paid for a new life. Or maybe that’s just what being raised by a single father meant. How the hell would Abigail know?

  The next photo was taken at Edinburgh Castle when Becky must have been around eleven. God, they’d come to Scotland. So close. Becky wasn’t smiling in this one. Hormones were probably kicking in. Nieve had died at around this time. Abigail’s life was about to spiral into hell. And Becky was on holiday, just a couple of hours away. Abigail wondered if either of them had ever felt anything, dreamt anything, that didn’t make sense. Maybe they were communicating with each other in a Shining kind of way, and neither of them realized it. She looked closely at the sullen eleven-year-old Becky. She had those same buzzing eyes. Were they reaching out? Where are you? Are you there? Are you in trouble?

  But Abigail couldn’t remember any possibly-telepathic thoughts or dreams. She was only nine. She was otherwise occupied with grief.

  She slammed the photo album shut. She wasn’t nine anymore. Now she could do something about it.

  BECKY’S BEDROOM DOOR WASN’T locked. Abigail opened it quietly, careful to make sure no one heard her. As far as she knew, it wasn’t out of bounds to enter her sister’s room, not like the shelf of seventy-eights. Grahame and Melanie hadn’t discussed it. Not even when the official verdict came in and the police tape was torn down—less than twenty-four hours after Becky’s death. But sti
ll Abigail felt as if she were trespassing.

  What was she was even hoping to find? Diaries, letters, toys, and trinkets? Left as they were? Isn’t that what parents do when a daughter dies? Don’t they leave her room preserved for all eternity? Like as a rule? Moving things, throwing things out … that would be too difficult. An impossibility, an insult. The room stays frozen in time: a solemn, sacred monument. Perhaps even a prayer that the child will somehow miraculously return.

  So when Abigail flipped on the lights, her knees buckled.

  Becky’s room was stripped bare.

  No trace of her sister’s memory or anything else. The furniture, the clothes in her walk-in cupboard, the toiletries in her bathroom: all of it, gone. It had even been scrubbed. Disinfected. It smelled like her mother’s hospital room in Glasgow.

  Abigail’s eyes burned from the stink and the glare of the lights against the barren white walls. Who’d done this? Why? And when? Had Becky’s room been wiped out in the three days before the funeral, when Abigail had been unable to get out of bed? Not likely; there would have been noise, commotion. Besides, the police wouldn’t have taken everything. No need when it was a cut-and-dry case of suicide. If there had been any suspicions about Becky’s death, the yellow police tape would still be up and the cops would still be here night and day.

  Grahame and Melanie did this. They did this and hid it from me. On purpose.

  The realization stabbed at her, springing a leak. The warmth she’d felt for her father began to dissipate, faster and faster. Icy numbness filled the empty space. She could think of no reason why Grahame would want to erase Becky’s entire life, so totally, so clinically. It wasn’t overwhelming stress or an inability to cope. He’d sobbed in front of Abigail; he’d bared his soul with his vulnerability.

  This didn’t fit. It was off, creepy. The longer she stood in the hollow shell that had been Becky’s oasis—for getting a “swerve on,” for plotting with Stick and Joe, for growing up—the more certain she became that Grahame wanted to hide something about Becky’s death. But what? Had he acted out of shame that his daughter was such a mess, or was it something deeper?

  She raced downstairs and through the door that linked the house to the garage. Becky’s van wasn’t there. She ran into the front garden. It wasn’t in the driveway either. In fact, she hadn’t seen it since she’d last seen Becky alive.

  “Grahame! Melanie!” Abigail yelled, darting from room to room in the house. She was furious. “Where are you?”

  Melanie burst out from the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen, nearly slamming into Abigail in front of the vast stove. “Honey, please, there’s no need to shout. What is it?”

  “Where’s all her stuff?” Abigail demanded. “Her room, her van … where’s it all gone?”

  “Shh.” Melanie gripped Abigail’s wrists, her gaze never wavering. “Calm down. Your father’s working in the den.”

  “What? Who cares? Where’s all Becky’s things?”

  Melanie blinked. “Come here.” She pulled Abigail into the laundry room, shutting the door behind them. “It’s just how he deals with things. You’ll make him upset.”

  “So he did it?” Abigail asked, raising her voice. “He cleared out her room?”

  Melanie blinked again. Her eyes darkened. She straightened her neck. “We all have our ways of coping.” The tone of her voice had changed: thin, serious, intimidating. Beneath the veneer of that pricey canary-yellow top and perfect blonde hair, a different character lurked.

  Abigail took a small step back. “Okay. But what about how I cope with things?”

  “Oh come on,” Melanie hissed. “You didn’t even know her.”

  What the fuck? The woman in yellow had peeled her face back, revealing a lizard alien. “You aren’t being serious—”

  “If you’d known her, you wouldn’t be so upset,” Melanie interrupted.

  Abigail wanted to slap her. On the other hand, she was now genuinely afraid. If Grahame had been telling the truth, if Melanie was a trailer-park runaway, then Melanie was like Abigail. She came from nothing, which meant she was capable of anything. A tough cookie. Someone somewhere once had probably described Billy with similarly glowing words.

  “How can you say that?” Abigail asked. “She was your husband’s daughter.”

  “I’m sorry, that came out wrong,” Melanie backtracked. She blinked again, and the lizard was gone. She crooked her neck, fake-smiley human back in place. “That was … I shouldn’t have said that. Calm yourself down, pull yourself together. Your dad knows best, okay? Believe me. You don’t know him very well. But I can tell you from someone who does know him, inside out, your dad knows what’s best for him and for the people he loves. That includes you.”

  “Melanie?” Grahame’s muffled voice called.

  She leaned close to meet Abigail’s gaze. “Don’t say a word about this. Not a word, do you promise?” she whispered. She smoothed the wrinkles in the silky yellow fabric. Then she opened the door and yelled in her sweetest Stepford Stepmom voice, “Coming, honey!”

  Back in her private bathroom, Abigail splashed cold water on her face. She looked in the mirror, casually at first, and then stopped to stare at the grim reflection. The water had darkened a few strands of hair. As always, anger heightened the glittering texture of her eyes. She did look like Becky. A bit, anyway.

  If Grahame wouldn’t help beyond a pathetic near-empty photo album, then she was on her own. But that was all for the best. Solitude was her friend; imagination was her enemy. She sat on the bed and logged on to the laptop Melanie had bought her.

  For an hour or so she searched, but couldn’t find Becky on Facebook or Twitter or anywhere else. She Googled her sister’s name, but only found the same article she’d read in the airport: Ex-naval officer Grahame Johnstone—married to actress Melanie Gallagher … daughter, Rebecca Johnstone … managing director of GJ Prebiotics in Los Angeles. The last time she’d read this article she felt excited, nervous, full of anticipation.

  She knew these people now. One of them was dead. Two were mysteries.

  Then she remembered the iPhone.

  Snatching it from her bag, she keyed in the pin number and scrolled through the list of contacts until she found Stick’s name. He was supposed to be her closest friend. Maybe he had some of her things. Or at least she could try talking to him about what had happened here.

  “Is that Matthew?” she asked in as good an American accent as she could pull off. She didn’t want to be recognized.

  “No. It’s his father.”

  “Oh, is he there please?”

  “No. I haven’t seen him in three days.”

  “Really?”

  “Nothing unusual.” Mr. Howard’s voice was surprisingly calm. “If you do see him, tell him I’ve washed my hands of him. I understand he’s going through a hard time. We all are. But until he seeks my help and takes responsibility, I won’t be bothered. Will you tell him that?”

  Abigail opened her mouth to try to respond.

  The line went dead.

  ABIGAIL NEEDED MONEY FOR the taxi. She hadn’t changed her remaining pounds into dollars yet. She felt bad doing this, but helped herself to $50 from the stash in a jar on top of the fridge. She’d repay it later.

  She didn’t have the address of the house, and it was getting dark, so it was difficult to remember how to get there. The taxi driver’s patience wore thin as she squinted for landmarks and gave instructions: “This exit, here, quick … This way, no, no, turn left. Right at the lights!” She asked him to wait, but he drove off as soon as she handed over the money.

  Night had now fallen completely. The street light had been smashed out in front of the ramshackle house, or Headquarters as they called it—by Stick and Becky in all probability. In the shadows, Abigail crept over the gate, along the side of the house, and into the back garden. The back door was locked. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn. Feeling around the gravelly ground with her hands, Abigail found a s
tone that was large enough. Holding her breath, she smashed the kitchen window.

  A dog barked in the yard next door. No alarm sounded. She crouched, waited. The barking stopped. Thank God; no one had heard. Reaching inside, she felt for the snub on the kitchen door, opened it, and crept inside.

  It was nearly pitch black. She wished she’d thought ahead and brought an electric torch. Not wanting to turn on the lights, she shambled around the kitchen, hands out before her, and swept surfaces until she found the cooker. The flame on the gas hob came on after three clicks, enough light for her to find a candle in the cupboard underneath the filthy sink. She lit it, and turned off the gas.

  The hall was empty except for a few leaflets scattered on the grotty carpet. The bedrooms were bare, too. The living room, once a mess of papers and paint supplies, had been stripped and cleared of its furniture, just like Becky’s bedroom.

  Wait. A noise. What was that? Did someone cough? Was it the dog?

  Abigail stopped still in the hall, shielding the light of her candle flame with her hand. She held her breath. Had she imagined it? She counted to twenty, slowly. Imagination was the enemy. She tiptoed, candle flickering before her, to the cupboard under the stairs. The lock was broken now. The door creaked as Abigail pushed it fully ajar. She moved a shaky hand inside the dark cupboard and watched as the weak candle lit the space. The box where Becky had stashed the money and her mother’s photocopied letter was gone.

  But the rectangular box they’d carried in from the van together wasn’t. It was still covered in the blanket, untouched. Lifting the blanket slowly, she gasped.

  The box was made of oak. It looked like a small trunk, or …

  The lid was engraved with an image: two large birds, flying.

  The chest.

  Abigail stopped breathing. The house went silent. There was only her heart, thumping under her ribs.

  Nieve’s chest of special things. Here. Now. In this place.

  She covered her hand with her mouth. Her fingertips were trembling. In her other hand the candle flickered. Was she seeing things? How could that chest be in this cupboard? No, no, no … Abigail’s breath came fast, terrified, as she felt for the chain around her neck. Nieve had given her the key. Seven years ago. Her father must have hidden the chest from Becky. Or not even hidden; as far as Becky was concerned, the chest was just another piece of junk in the attic. She’d probably never given a second thought to its significance. Why would she, if Grahame had lied? She’d only thought to grab an empty trunk, only when she needed storage space.