by Tim O'Rourke
‘Pissed?’ I shot back. ‘She would’ve had to have been absolutely legless to decide to walk home. Marsh Lane has got to be at least five miles from town, four with the short cut.’
‘That’s what I’m telling you, numb-nuts. She was so drunk she collapsed onto the tracks. She was so drunk she didn’t even hear the driver blowing the horn. I just don’t get the point you’re trying to make.’ Jackson looked at me as if I were something he had just scraped from his boot.
‘My point is if she was so pissed that she decided to walk five miles home in the pouring rain, how did she get this far?’ I asked him. ‘To be that pissed she would have been all over the place, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Also, the driver said she was lying on her back with her arms folded neatly across her chest. That doesn’t sound like someone who has collapsed. If that’s what had happened wouldn’t she have been sprawled across the tracks?’
‘Oh, this is such a load of old bollocks,’ Jackson said, looking at Harker.
Harker stood silently for a moment, his eyes never moving from mine. Then, turning to the uniformed officer, he said, ‘Okay, get the circus rolling. I want Scenes of Crime and a search team.’
‘SOCO?’ Jackson said. ‘A search team?’
Ignoring him, Harker looked at Taylor. ‘You and Jackson speak with the coroner’s office and tell them I want the toxicology reports ASAP. I want to see how pissed this Kerry Underwood really was. Then, start knocking on a few doors. Get the CCTV from the pubs in town. And look for her phone.’
‘Phone?’ Jackson asked, glaring at me.
‘She was eighteen, for crying out loud, not eight,’ Harker said. ‘She’d have a phone. If you find it get the tech guys to go over it. She might have made a call or sent a text to someone.’ He pointed his finger in my direction. ‘You’re coming with me.’
‘Where?’ I asked, following him up the tracks towards the dirt road.
‘To tell the Underwoods that their little girl is dead,’ he shouted over his shoulder.
‘Good luck,’ Jackson sniped.
‘I wish I’d taken that bet now,’ I said with a smile.
Jackson waved his middle finger at me. ‘You’re wrong. This is just one big waste of time.’
As I turned away, I wished in a strange way that he was right. Because to me it sounded very much like Kerry Underwood had been deliberately placed onto those tracks.
CHAPTER 6
Tom – Monday: 03:34 Hrs.
The house was in darkness and situated in a nice part of town. I could see by the hanging baskets at the front door and the neatly cut privet hedge that the house was lovingly looked after. The Underwoods were obviously the kind of people who took pride in their home.
‘Whatever you do, for God’s sake don’t tell them their daughter has been involved in an accident,’ Harker whispered at me as we waited on the doorstep.
‘Why?’ I whispered back.
‘An accident means that there is someone to blame,’ he said, looking at me through the driving rain. ‘It means that it was someone’s fault.’
The hall light came on, and I saw a vague outline of someone approaching the front door. The lock was turned and the bleary-eyed face of a middle-aged woman peered around the edge of the door.
‘Maybe you’ll remember your key one of these days—’ When she saw Harker and I sheltering on the step, she made a small gasping sound in the back of her throat.
‘Mrs Underwood?’ Harker said, cocking his eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ she said, pushing the door shut an inch. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Detective Inspector Harker and this is Constable Henson from Marsh Road Police Station.’ He held up his warrant card.
‘Yes?’ she asked, her face turning pale. It was like she somehow knew. It’s never going to be good news if you’re woken in the early hours of the morning by the police.
‘Can we come in please?’
Slowly, and without taking her eyes off us, she opened the front door and ushered us into the hallway.
‘Who else is at home with you?’ Harker said.
‘My husband,’ she said. ‘Why? What is this all about?’
‘It might be best if you woke your husband,’ I said softly.
With her hand on the banister for support, and a tremor in her voice, she shouted up the stairs. ‘David! David! It’s the police.’
There was a noise from above, then the sound of footsteps.
‘What?’ a man’s voice called. ‘What did you say, love?’
‘The police are here.’ This time her voice nearly broke altogether. With a trembling hand held against her face, she looked back at us. ‘It’s Kerry, isn’t it? What’s happened to her? Please tell me.’
Mr Underwood appeared in the gloom at the top of the stairs, raking his hands through wiry hair. A loose fitting dressing gown flapped around his legs.
‘What’s this all about?’ he asked, coming down the stairs. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Perhaps we should go and sit down?’ I said.
‘No,’ Mrs Underwood croaked, both hands held to her face now. She peeked at me through her fingers, as though if she couldn’t see me, then what I was about to tell her wouldn’t be true. ‘Tell me what’s happened to my baby! It is Kerry, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here?’
‘Kerry?’ Mr Underwood muttered, still looking half asleep, his hair sticking out in clumps from the side of his head. ‘What’s going on?’
Knowing that I couldn’t keep the truth from them any longer, and feeling sick with nerves, I said, ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you that your daughter Kerry has been involved in an incident tonight …’
‘No!’ Mrs Underwood almost seemed to screech, coming forward and gripping my rain-soaked coat. She pushed me back along the hallway towards the front door. ‘Get out,’ she screeched. ‘Whatever you’re going to say, isn’t true. I don’t want to hear it. Get out!’
‘Please, Mrs Underwood …’ I knew breaking the news was never going to be easy, but this was horrendous. To see the look of fear in Mrs Underwood’s eyes was unbearable.
‘Carol,’ Mr Underwood whispered, coming forward and prising his wife’s hands from me.
‘No!’ she wailed, slapping her husband over and over again. ‘No, David! No! Tell them to get out!’
Mr Underwood gripped his wife’s wrist and folded his arms around her. ‘Shhh,’ he whispered in her ear. After she had calmed down a bit, he looked at us over her shoulder. ‘What’s happened to my daughter, officer?’
‘She was struck by a train and I’m afraid she’s …’ I found it nearly impossible to look him in the eyes. I didn’t want to see his pain too.
‘No!’ Mrs Underwood sobbed, and then seemed to crumple even further.
‘A train?’ Mr Underwood asked, shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘How was she struck by a train?’
I took a deep breath. ‘She was lying on the tracks and the train …’
‘Suicide?’ Mr Underwood asked, his face screwing up in disbelief. ‘Impossible! Kerry wouldn’t have killed herself. She was a happy girl. She wouldn’t have done this to us, not just before Christmas. No way.’
‘We believe that she was taking a shortcut home across the tracks,’ Harker said.
‘A shortcut?’ Mr Underwood asked, drawing his wife tighter against him. ‘She wouldn’t have walked home on a night like this. She would have got a cab or called me out to pick her up.’
‘We don’t have all the facts at this time,’ Harker said.
I was glad that Mr Underwood wasn’t the only one who believed that the chances of his daughter taking a five-mile hike in the middle of the night in the pouring rain was something close to zero.
‘Do you have anyone you would like us to contact?’ I asked. ‘Family or friends you would like to be with you …’
‘I want to see her,’ Mrs Underwood said, pulling herself from her husband’s arms. ‘I won’t believe it until I see her.’
‘I want to see my baby!’ Mrs Underwood hissed, her eyes so red and sore, it looked as if she had rubbed mustard into them. ‘I won’t believe it until I see my baby’s beautiful face.’
‘That might not be possible,’ Harker said.
‘Oh dear God, no,’ Mrs Underwood said. ‘Please God, no. Not my baby’s beautiful face. No. Please God, no!’
Harker reached into his pocket and pulled out the see-through evidence bag containing Kerry’s gold necklace. He offered it to Mr Underwood. ‘Do you recognise this?’ he asked.
Kerry’s father took it and he held it as if it were the most precious and delicate treasure in the world. Without looking up, he nodded his head. ‘Yes, that’s our Kerry’s. We got it for her for her eighteenth birthday – October just gone, it was.’
Harker held out his hand to take back the bag but Mr Underwood pulled it away. ‘Please, Mr Underwood. I know this is very difficult, but we need to keep hold of the necklace for the time being. You will get it back, I promise.’
With tears running down his face, Kerry’s father handed Harker the bag.
‘Did Kerry have any brothers or sisters?’ Harker asked, placing the bag back into his coat pocket.
‘No, Kerry was our only child,’ he said.
‘Friends?’ I asked.
‘Lots,’ he replied, without looking at me. ‘She was a very popular girl.’
‘Boyfriends?’ I took a pen and notebook from my coat.
‘Just the one,’ he replied. ‘They broke up recently.’
‘How did she take it?’ Harker said.
‘My daughter didn’t kill herself because her boyfriend broke it off with her, if that’s what you’re trying to imply,’ Mr Underwood snapped.
‘I’m not trying to imply anything,’ Harker said flatly. ‘If we’re going to find out what happened to your daughter tonight, we need to get some idea of what her life was like.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he replied, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand.
‘What was her boyfriend’s name?’ I asked him, pen poised.
‘Jason Lane,’ he replied and I scribbled it down along with the address that he supplied.
‘If that is everything, officer, my wife and I would like to be left alone now.’
‘Of course, I understand,’ I said.
‘Do you have a number that we can call you on?’ Harker asked, heading for the front door.
Mr Underwood nodded and recited it.
I looked at him as I wrote it down. ‘Did Kerry have a mobile phone? It’s just that we haven’t been able to find it. It might help with our enquiries. Like, did she ring anyone or receive any texts before she … ?’
‘Yes, Kerry had a mobile phone,’ Mr Underwood replied.
‘Do you know the number?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and I wrote it down.
I knew I would never forget that look in Mrs Underwood’s eyes as she realised what we were going to tell her. But, I also knew that she would never forget. She would always remember the night that I came knocking on her door to tell her that her baby was dead. I mean, how would anyone ever be able to forget that?
Harker drove me back to the police station. I was glad my first nightshift was at an end. I climbed into my car and drove out of the small car park at the rear of the station. I couldn’t rid my mind of Mrs Underwood’s distraught face.
I knew that sleep wouldn’t come easily, even though I had another nightshift ahead of me and I would need some rest. And if I were to be honest, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to my next shift. I knew DC Jackson was still going to be pissed at me for suggesting my theory to the DI. I mean, how dare I? I was just the proby, after all. I knew diddly-shit!
But I did know Jackson was wrong about how Kerry Underwood had come to be on those tracks. Sure, he had made the facts fit, but that was because he was arrogant and lazy and desperate to prove the new guy wrong. But none of that mattered. What mattered was discovering the truth.
I stopped at a set of traffic lights. With my hands strumming against the steering wheel, I looked left and then right. Left took me home to my flat and a nice warm bed. Right took me back in the direction of the railway tracks where Kerry Underwood had died.
The lights turned to amber, then green. I accelerated, hit the indicator and turned right.
CHAPTER 7
Charley – Monday: 05:56 Hrs.
I woke up, my phone still gripped in my hand. I looked at the screen: 05:56 am. Groaning, I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes again, hoping for another hour or two of sleep. There was no reason to get up. College had broken up for the Christmas holidays and I had yet to find myself a part-time job, despite my father’s constant reminders. I had been too upset by Natalie’s death to look for work. With thoughts of my best friend already creeping into my mind, memories of the previous night’s flashes and the conversation I’d had with my father followed.
Was he still going to be pissed at me because of what I’d said about his lady friends? It was his private life after all. I didn’t enjoy arguing with my father at every opportunity, but that’s all we ever seemed to do lately. If only I could prove to him that what I saw in those flashes was true. It wasn’t as if I got some kind of kick out of having them. Did he really think I enjoyed seeing the disbelief in his face? Or being ridiculed by my friends?
I had once made the mistake of confiding in a girl I went to school with about my flashes. Lucy had discovered me in the toilet in our last year at secondary school, leaning over the basin with my head in my hands, recovering from flashes about a small boy drowning.
It hadn’t been a severe episode – I hadn’t collapsed at least. But the flashes had been strong enough to make me feel sick from the blinding bolts of pain that I’d felt inside my head.
‘What’s wrong?’ Lucy had asked, dropping her bag to the floor and rushing to my aid.
‘Aw, it’s nothing,’ I told her.
‘That’s crap, Charley, and you know it,’ she said. ‘I’ve known you since primary school and you’ve always suffered from headaches. My mum reckons you’ve got a tumour.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, rubbing my temples. ‘Cheer me up, why don’t you?’
‘She doesn’t mean anything by it,’ Lucy said. ‘You know she’s just kinda concerned, that’s all.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I don’t have a brain tumour, Lucy. I’ve had more tests than a lab rat.’
‘So what is it then?’ she asked, tossing a piece of gum around the inside of her mouth with her tongue.
‘You wouldn’t believe me, even if I told you,’ I said, taking my bag and phone and heading for the door.
‘Ooooh!’ Lucy said, snatching up her own bag. ‘That sounds kinda spooky!’
‘It’s not spooky,’ I said as we walked together through the maze of corridors zigzagging across the school. ‘Well, at least I don’t think it’s spooky. I’ve kind of got used to it.’
‘Used to what?’ Lucy asked, her eyes almost bulging from their sockets.
I knew that now I had grabbed her curiosity, I would never hear the end of it until I told her. I could see it all now, a constant stream of texts and Facebook messages, until I told her my secret.
We left the school building, found a nice shaded spot beneath a tree and sat down on the grass. With my legs crossed, I looked her straight in the eyes.
‘If I tell you something, you will keep it a secret, won’t you?’
‘Oh my God, Charley, you’re pregnant,’ she gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Your dad is going to go ape when he finds out.’
‘Pregnant?’ I cried. ‘I’m not pregnant.’
‘I thought that’s why you’d been having all those headaches and feeling sick,’ she said.
‘What, since I was six years old?’ I groaned.
‘Oh yeah,’ she said, and I caught sight of the gum again. ‘It’s just that I’m sure I rea
d somewhere on the internet that pregnant women feel sick sometimes.’
‘I’m not pregnant,’ I sighed.
‘So why all the headaches?’
‘You promise you won’t tell anyone?’
‘Cross my heart,’ Lucy said, and drew the sign of a cross over her chest.
I took a deep breath. ‘I see things.’
‘You see things?’ she asked, her brow creasing. ‘Like what?’
‘Dead people, I think,’ I whispered. ‘Or people who are dying. I’m not sure if I see them as they’re dying, or if they’re showing me how they died once they are dead, if that makes sense?’
‘You’ve lost me,’ Lucy said. ‘What, so you’re like physic or summin’?’
‘You mean psychic,’ I corrected her and smiled.
‘Whatever,’ she said, swishing the gum around again.
‘No, I’m not psychic,’ I said. ‘Or at least I don’t think I am.’
‘What then?’ she asked.
‘I see these pictures inside my head. Flashes of them. They, like, come really fast – hundreds, sometimes thousands of them all at once. Like snapshots, I guess. They never really make any sense.’
‘But you said you see people in them,’ Lucy said, her interest growing. ‘People who are dying?’
‘That’s right,’ I said, looking back at the school, anywhere except that agog look on her face; I already knew she didn’t believe me. Would I believe me, if I were her?
‘So, what, like murders, you mean?’
‘Sometimes,’ I told her, now feeling dumb.
‘Cool,’ she said, and I just caught the faintest of smirks on her lips.
‘It isn’t cool,’ I said. ‘It’s a pain in the arse.’
‘You could be, like, in your own movie or summin’,’ she said. ‘Like Paranormal Activity. You could set up a camera in your bedroom and we could see what happens in the night while you’re sleepin’.’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ I said, wishing that I’d kept my mouth shut. Why had I said anything? But I knew why. I needed to talk to someone about it and I’d hoped that because I’d known Lucy since junior school, she might have believed me.
‘You could make a fortune,’ she smiled. ‘Remember me when you’re rich and famous.’
