The Flower Girls

by Alice Clark-Platts

  ‘And the main point you haven’t answered is why Georgie didn’t say anything. Why wouldn’t she say it was Archer? Eh?’ Gordon steeples his fingers and draws breath. ‘It’s all conjecture, Lorna. All of it. Listen to me. Take my advice. Go back to Brixham. Get back to your not inconsiderable paperwork. Please – for the sake of your career – please, just forget this now.’

  ‘Georgie never said anything because she was never given the chance! We barely spoke to her. Her mother shut us down and we couldn’t even interview the girl properly, never mind putting her in a position to identify anyone.’ Hillier grips the arms of her chair, her face filled with conviction. ‘Hazel Archer is a danger to children. She needs to be locked up. I’m not obsessed, whatever you think. I just want what’s right. She’s outside, preying on kids while her sister’s in prison. It’s the wrong way round. It’s not right.’

  Gordon glances at his door, wondering how long he’ll have to listen to this. ‘OK then. Where’s your evidence?’

  Hillier swallows hard.

  ‘Where is it?’

  Her shoulders droop. ‘I’ve had fifteen years on the force. If that doesn’t give you an instinct for what’s true, I don’t know what does.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Lorna, and you know it. We need more. You got to the scene first, sure. But things move on from that. It’s not always about first impressions.’

  ‘I disagree, sir. First impressions are everything in this job,’ she says, persisting, trying to make him understand. ‘That’s where life is. It doesn’t just happen when you come in with your reports and forecasts and projections. It’s there!’ She jabs her finger. ‘It’s in the pub, it’s in the school playground, it’s in the hotel. And I get there first. I see it when it’s raw and I’ve been doing it for a long time. And I know that Hazel Archer is guilty. I know that she is dangerous. I’ve looked her in the eye. I’ve seen where she lives. The woman isn’t right. I know it.’ She stops talking, breathing heavily, her lips pressed tightly together as if to stop more tumbling out.

  Gordon sighs again and angles his chair to look out of the window. His voice turns persuasive, as if honey coats his tongue. ‘Look, I can see you’re very passionate, Hillier. And that’s something I’m grateful for. Your work, when you arrive at a scene, is crucial to the rest of us who come along afterwards. We rely on you, we really do.’ He spins back to face her, his eyes kind. ‘You’re a good copper. I know you are. But . . .’

  ‘But?’ she says bitterly.

  ‘But you have no evidence. What’s the CPS going to do with what you’ve told me today? They’d have nothing to show in court apart from your instinct.’

  ‘I know it, sir.’

  He shakes his head, thinking. ‘She hasn’t said anything more? The little girl.’

  ‘Because Jane Greenstreet told her not to say anything. Once Georgie was found, Jane got scared. She thought Declan would lose his job and then they wouldn’t be able to meet their mortgage payments. They’d been drinking. Fighting. She thought Children’s Services would get involved. I’ve said this . . .’

  Hillier gets up and stands with her hands behind her back, her feet apart. She brings one alongside the other one in a manoeuvre reminiscent of a salute. ‘Never mind, Sarge. I see I’m wasting my time here.’

  She turns to leave and has her hand on the door when Gordon says, ‘I’m sorry, Hillier. I really am.’

  She looks back at him, sitting behind his desk in shirt-sleeves. Outside rain continues to lash against the windows and she will be back in it soon.

  ‘I get there first,’ she says quietly as she shuts the door behind her.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  They are opposite each other again, in the small room with the low ceiling and wrap-around window. This time, there is no weather to interrupt them. The prison seems doused in silence, a loud drone of nothing that pushes in on them through the walls and up through the floors. Laurel takes in the sight of her sister on the other side of the table and, whatever she said previously to Fritz, has to force herself to quell the anxiety she feels scratching at the back of her throat.

  It seems to her deliberately provocative that Hazel is so composed. She wears a blue-and-white striped top, and jeans Laurel can tell are expensive from the way they make her sister walk, as if she is proud of them, is showing them off. Her face is bare of make-up and her dark hair is neat as always, brushed to one side, her brown eyes fixed on Laurel.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ she says, and at the sound of her voice, Laurel feels rage surge up like bile and has to cough, her hand over her mouth, reaching for the glass of stale water in front of her that she has never once drunk from, in all the visits she’s had from Toby over the years.

  She can’t speak. She can’t say anything without betraying her anger, or collapsing in grief. So, as usual, she stays silent, watching her sister and waiting.

  Hazel puts her head on one side. ‘You’re very angry, aren’t you?’ she says. ‘Oh, Laurel. I can see. I can see how angry you are. You’re my sister, after all.’

  Laurel feels her hands shake and she stills them by joining them together in her lap. She focuses on Hazel’s neck, on the little silver cross that sits in her clavicle, on the paleness of her skin, the thin veins threading like waterways beneath.

  She breathes. She waits.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Hazel says. ‘You who sent me the anonymous emails, the dead flowers, the cards. Back before anything happened in Devon. You sorted it from in here, didn’t you? Got one of your cronies to send it via addresses I wouldn’t recognise. To frighten me. Punish me.’

  Laurel is motionless, her chin dipped low.

  ‘You even sent that writer, Max, one of our tapes, didn’t you? He mentioned he’d heard it, right before he died, poor bloke. One of those tapes we made together, playing the game.’ Hazel jerks her head forward. ‘I always wondered why the police never used them in your trial. Never took them away with all the rest of your stuff.’ She shrugs. ‘Guess they weren’t too bothered about an old bunch of cassettes with Spice Girls labels. You must have brought them with you when you went to Oakingham. Clever Laurel. Very clever. All the while, sitting in here, plotting your revenge. Working out ways to get your own back.’

  Hazel raises one eyebrow at her sister.

  ‘And do you know how I know? That that’s what you did, that you’re the one who sent all those vile things to me? Kept the tapes deliberately? Hmm? I know, because I would feel exactly the same way if I were you. I would want to hurt you very badly. It’s funny, isn’t it, how Mummy played us off against each other? With the game.’

  Laurel’s eyes flick briefly to Hazel’s before resting back again on the silver cross.

  ‘She did, didn’t she? Scissors, paper, stone. Whoever loses has to do the job. I always lost, didn’t I? It was always me who had to do it. Whatever she wanted. You were older – you knew. You just had an instinct for it. You knew what I would choose and you would always, always win.’ Hazel gives a short laugh. ‘But I grew up. Maybe that’s why I see it clearly now. Because my instincts got better as I got older. Didn’t they?’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Laurel can see Hazel put her hand on her chest as if she is in pain. She wants to slap it away. Dig her fingernails into that skin like Hazel had told her Jane Greenstreet had done. Laurel has seen the faint scars from that attack on Hazel’s cheeks. She wants to open them up again for her sister.

  She wants to watch her bleed.

  ‘But now it’s over,’ Hazel says softly, her fingertips lightly resting on the table in front of her. In her eyeline, Laurel catches sight of a diamond ring on her sister’s left hand and stiffens involuntarily.

  ‘Oh, did you notice?’ Hazel asks. ‘Jonny proposed.’ She holds her hand up to the fluorescent light. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ she says casually, moving her gaze to Laurel’s hand where tattoos flower up two of her fingers like emerald snakes. ‘Really pretty.’

  S
he stops talking. Laurel has to swallow down the scream she feels clawing its way up inside of her. The desire to turn and run into the concrete wall, pound her head against the bricks until her skull is smashed to smithereens, is so strong, she can hardly focus. A tiny noise escapes from her, the smallest of moans, a gasp.

  Hazel’s head twitches at it, like a cat watching a mouse emerge from under a skirting board. A smile flares from her.

  Laurel brings her mind back to her breathing. She thinks of Fritz sitting upstairs in her room. Of the gym where she will go after this, to pound the treadmill, lift weights, and sweat out all the poison that is back inside her once again. A vision of Toby’s face swims into her head. Soon the cancer will claim him and he will have left her like everyone else in her life has always done. A painful sob bucks in her chest and she swallows roughly, packing it down.

  Oh, Toby, she thinks. She should never have agreed to this visit. To any of them. But she had to know whether her sister had changed. Whether she had been redeemed in any way because of her life, her beautiful, lucky, wonderful life. The life that had been taken away from Laurel, that she had never, ever had. Not one day of it.

  She can see though that Rosie is exactly the same as she was. That she is identical in spirit and breath to the little girl who marched alongside her sister, who always did their mother’s bidding. Little Rose-Red. Always chasing after her sister. Always wanting more.

  She has been silent all this time. But now Laurel raises her head – now she must speak.

  ‘What you said. In court,’ she says. ‘Do you really remember what happened, Rosie?’

  Hazel says nothing at first, her mouth pinched tight. But then she can’t resist. ‘I’ve always wondered why it was that you never talked about it. Why you never defended yourself … Why was that?’ Her voice is like cream. ‘Why have you never told the truth? About what happened to Kirstie.’

  ‘You were immune from prosecution,’ Laurel says. ‘What was the point?’

  Hazel frowns. ‘Maybe. But what about you? What about getting yourself off?’

  Laurel looks up at the ceiling and Toby’s face pops into her mind. ‘You know the reason,’ she says.

  ‘No. I. Don’t.’ Hazel’s voice is suddenly shrill.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? You never have.’

  ‘What?’ Hazel stiffens and her voice is sharp as a needle. ‘What is it I don’t get?’

  ‘What about Mummy?’ Laurel says. ‘Did you ever think about Mummy?’

  A brief smile crosses Hazel’s face and she moves her tongue around inside her cheek.

  ‘I looked after you,’ Laurel continues. ‘Both of you. And when this thing happened, I knew. I knew what I had to do. What I had to sacrifice. For her. For Mummy.’

  ‘You never looked after me!’ Hazel snaps. ‘Don’t make me laugh! Making me lose the game all those times?’

  ‘I did,’ Laurel insists, leaning forward. ‘I did everything Mummy wanted. All the jobs she gave us. All the things she made us do. Don’t you remember? You must, Rosie. She would sit in the house in a daze, in a kind of coma. And we would tiptoe around, not wanting to make any noise. And when she got angry, I would send you away, outside, anywhere. I was the one who got the beatings, I was the one she used to lock in our room . . .’ She breaks off, breathing hard. ‘But then . . .’

  ‘What?’ Hazel asks. ‘Then, what?’

  Laurel rubs at her eyes angrily and her hand is wet when she pulls it away. ‘I saw you change, Rosie. I saw you watching her, studying her. It was like . . . you were . . .’

  Hazel’s lips are white. She says nothing.

  ‘Learning how to . . . copy her or something.’ Laurel breathes in sharply. ‘I didn’t know what it was. But suddenly you were different. Harder somehow. Like with the cat . . .’

  ‘That was the game,’ Hazel cuts in, her voice low and harsh.

  ‘Yes.’ Laurel nods. ‘But Mummy didn’t tell us to do it that time. That was your idea. Remember?’

  Hazel’s chest moves up and down rapidly as she rubs the diamond on her finger. Her eyes roll upwards as if she is seeing something above her, her head cocked to one side as if she is listening for instructions, some kind of sign.

  ‘Rosie – remember?’

  Hazel lowers her eyes to meet Laurel’s. The joint rhythm of their breathing pulses through the room.

  ‘You killed that baby,’ Laurel says carefully. ‘You did it. You took it too far. You hit her and she went down on the ground. Her head was bleeding and she stopped crying. I was frightened by the quiet and the blood and I ran and waited for you by our garden gate. A bit later, you came back with bloodstains on your fingers and skin underneath your nails.

  ‘That is what happened, Rosie. That is exactly what happened. Just like Toby told me you said in court last week. Except you switched around who did what. And fate, or the law, or whatever fucked-up system we live by, meant you got away with it. And I took it. I said nothing. I said nothing because I loved Mummy. I knew she couldn’t lose you. Not her Rose-Red.’ Her laugh is like ice and she doesn’t bother hiding the tears any more. ‘And the most fucked-up thing is that I loved you too. I loved our world, our games and the things we would imagine, conjure up from nothing. It was so special. All of it. Rosie? Look at me,’ Laurel whispers. ‘It was the best time of my life.’

  Hazel takes in her sister, battered and tear-streaked. She says nothing.

  ‘I’ve sat here for years thinking about you. Waiting for you to contact me. For us to talk about it. For you to say you’re sorry. But nothing happened. Nobody came. All of you left me here to rot. I thought, well, whatever you did, you couldn’t have meant it. It was a mistake. Mummy was a mess and she fucked us up. But we loved her, didn’t we? She played us off against each other. I see that now. But, when they took me away, I saw the look on her face at the police station. I saw how her heart was breaking. I couldn’t take you away from her too. She would have died. And I didn’t want her to die. Because I did love her. And I know she loved me too. I know she did. I have that at least.’

  Laurel rubs at her nose and scrapes at her wet cheeks as if she wants to bleach them clean. ‘But then you all left me and went away. She had to leave me, didn’t she? Because she knew I understood what you were. Both of you. So I had to be dropped. Abandoned. God knows what Daddy knows or believes. Sometimes, I think I hate him more than anyone else in the world . . .’ Laurel’s voice trails off, her face cold. ‘You knew exactly what you were doing. And you still do.’ Hazel’s blank stare is remorseless. ‘But you were my sister. And you still are.’

  ‘Then why,’ Hazel says bitterly, ‘did you just up and leave me last time I visited? You walked out. Do you know how much that hurt me?’

  Laurel gives a contorted smile. ‘Ah, yes, dear sister. You hate to be left alone, don’t you? You need to be begged. That was a mistake on my part, I realise now. But I got my punishment, didn’t I, later on in court?’

  ‘You walked out on me. Just left me sitting here by myself like some kind of pariah.’ Hazel’s eyes blaze and she closes them briefly, breathing in through her nose. ‘Anyway,’ she says, folding her hands in her lap, eyes flicking up towards the corner where a camera stealthily patrols the room, ‘everything you’ve said, everything you are saying, is all lies. And everyone knows it. That’s why you’re still in this place. Not because you’re protecting me. But because this is rightful punishment for what you did.’

  Hazel slowly gets to her feet.

  ‘I have nothing, Rosie,’ Laurel pleads. ‘Nothing. All of you left me here. My family. You let me go and you never even tried to get me out. Almost twenty years, Rosie. Inside these walls with no one. I kept loyal to you.’ She passes a hand across her face. ‘Please, God, now. Give me my truth if nothing else. Here in this room between us. I won’t tell anyone, I swear. But admit it to me!’ She bangs her chest. ‘Give me that. Please, God, please.’ Her fists are clenched, her face contorted with despair.

  Hazel
glances at her watch. ‘It’s probably time for me to go,’ she says. ‘I’ll bet you have something on now anyway. Toby says you’re doing a GCSE. That’s really good, Laurel. Maybe you’ve got a class now? You certainly look like you work out. Do you go to the gym in here?’

  Laurel stares at her. She bites at the inside of her mouth, tasting blood, causing the pain to stop more tears from falling. She swallows a hard, rough swallow and stares unaccountably at Hazel’s ear where a little diamond earring sits in the lobe next to the freckle Laurel remembers stroking one night to get her sister to sleep in a storm.

  She opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out and, after a moment, Hazel turns and leaves the room.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  Hazel is lying on the brass king-sized bed she shares with Jonny in his flat.

  Their flat now.

  She can hear him frying onions down the hall in the kitchen. The clatter of saucepans and the smell of roast meat, caramelised vegetables and garlic, floats around the flat. Now it is a comforting aroma. She lies on the bed and drinks in the warmth of their space, the feeling of her partner just feet away from her, the anticipation of a meal together, a glass of wine, everything ahead of them. Their future together.

  ‘It’s ready,’ Jonny calls as he passes the doorway carrying a large serving dish. ‘Are you coming through?’

  Hazel gets off the bed and follows him to the dining table, which has been laid with silver cutlery, table mats, and a single white candle. Hazel turns on some music before she sits down, glancing out of the windows at the wet streets below, the shimmer of car bonnets, the cold night mixing with the convivial light of the flat in the window’s reflection.