by Jackson Lear
“Oh yeah, like that’s even an option,” said Josh. “Come on, you can sleep at the end of my bed like old times’, if you like. Or take the sofa until Hannah leaves, then the spare room is all yours. Your call.”
“That one.”
“I thought as much. If you can give me a minute, I need to shower away the day.”
“Of course.”
“Make yourself at home.”
“Thank you.”
Josh slipped upstairs. When he turned off the water he swore he could hear talking downstairs. With the most supreme of care, he crept downstairs amid the acutely-controlled tone of Hannah and the apologetic look of Amanda.
“Hey, you’re back,” said Josh.
“Well, I still live here,” said Hannah. She looked back to Amanda with an equal mix of distrust and sympathy. “I’m sorry for the state of things.”
“No, don’t be, I’m sorry for the intrusion,” said Amanda.
Hannah glanced over to the silent Josh. “You got in late last night.”
“Yeah. I hope I didn’t disturb you.”
She shot him with a, ‘that’s all you’re giving me?’ Whether it was a lie or the truth she didn’t know, but a flippant answer screamed at her as though Josh had responded with a ‘fuck you.’ She blew out a quick jet of air through her nostrils and turned away. “And now she’s moving in. While I still live here.”
“Hey, come on,” said Josh.
“I’ve always been honest with you,” said Hannah. “And you still can’t tell me the truth.”
“You’re the only person I’ve slept with since meeting you.”
“Sure. Because I’ve never seen a guilty conscience before. Or that I’ve recognised in the last four months you’ll only say, ‘I love you too.’” The lines around her eyes cracked as she grabbed her dinner and headed for the stairs. “Maybe it wasn’t Amanda. But it was someone.” She crept upstairs and disappeared from sight.
Amanda, frozen to the spot and trying to re-think seeing her mother that night, stared back at Josh. “I should leave.”
“No, stay. The damage is done. I need a distraction.”
“Then I’ve got one for you.” Amanda grabbed the plastic shopping bag she had brought downstairs while the shower was running. She handed it over to Josh. “I don’t suppose you remember this?”
Josh peered inside. He pulled out a fluffy golden brown teddy bear, only now it was battered and suffering from decades of rain damage, dirt, and neglect. He glanced back to Amanda and shook his head.
Amanda reached inside the plastic bag for the second item; three pages worth of A4 paper, folded up into the size of a business card. She nodded towards the kitchen and dropped into a whisper. “Be careful with that.”
Josh took the pages, unfolded them, and read over the first couple of lines written in shaky handwriting courtesy of a cheap fountain pen.
‘I finally understand all those songs now. The ones where you can’t stop thinking about someone and you’re sure you’ll go insane if you can’t be with them. I love you, Amanda.’
Josh kept his eyes locked onto the floor as he folded the paper over. He handed the note and bear back to Amanda.
“This was sitting against the sliding door in the back of my place,” said Amanda. “It wasn’t there when I left the house to go for a run, it was there when I got back. That fucker knows where I live.”
“You can stay here as long as you need to,” said Josh.
“Thanks, but right now I’m thinking that New York is safer. At least there no one is specifically targeting me. And look!” She dangled the bear out in front of her. “Look at this shit! That asshole steals this thing from my fucking bedroom and keeps it for twenty years?” She shivered as though she was doused with a bucket of near-freezing water. “And now he knows where I live? What the fuck?! I had this bear when I was sixteen. I tore my bedroom apart looking for him when he disappeared. I thought my mum found him and threw him away when I was at school. Only, today he came back. That psycho who lives by the creek with all those dead people was in my backyard today looking through my windows. Christ, he might have even been watching me all this morning, whacking off or doing God knows what as I was having breakfast. I came back from a run and this guy,” she dangled the bear again, “was sitting against my back door. He kept it for all these years! Who the fuck does that? Who breaks into my house and steals something from my bedroom, keeps it for twenty years, and then returns it?!”
“You should probably put that back in the bag, the police will want to look at it,” said Josh.
“This asshole has been stealing from me and knows where I live! Has he been in my house over the last month? Who the fuck knows? God, we have two sociopaths on a rampage in the same town at the same time and they both know me!”
“You know James McIntyre?” asked Josh.
Amanda fell back into a fuck-you stare. “He knows me.”
A door slammed upstairs as Hannah huffed from one room to another.
“Let’s do this outside,” said Josh. “You want a drink?”
“Yeah. A beer would be nice.”
Josh grabbed two from the fridge, slid the door open, and showed Amanda to the small wooden table on the patio.
“I’m sorry about you and Hannah.”
“That might have been a long time coming.”
“I seem to turn up when everyone’s lives are going to hell,” said Amanda. “I’m starting to think I’m a bad luck charm.”
Josh checked the windows upstairs. The lights were off but Hannah could still be pressed against the window pane, trying to listen in to whatever her ex-boyfriend was about to confess. “After I dropped you two off last night I went back to James’ house.”
“I was there this morning.”
“You were?”
“I was out for a run.”
“Bad idea,” said Josh.
“Tell me about it. Some idiot nearly ran me over.”
“Shit, really?”
“Yeah. So far the day has ranked among the worst I’ve ever had. What were you doing on your own?”
“Being something of an idiot,” said Josh. “I went through the rubble looking for a camera and laptop. I found both. The laptop was upstairs and melted beyond use. I took it. Tried to turn it on but it was no use, so I disassembled it and pulled out the hard drive. It didn’t work. But I found this.” He stuffed his hand into his pocket and removed the memory card from Zofia’s camera. “I had a look at it today. It may be the worst thing I’ve ever seen and I don’t know whether to tell Anthony about it or not.”
Amanda leaned forward, causing the chair to creak under her weight. “What’s on it?”
“Ian, Daniel, Warrick, and Zofia. James McIntyre took pictures of them all having sex with her.”
Amanda slowly nodded as the worst story Anthony’s ever told her seemed to be coming true. “What about killing her?”
Josh shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “I’m going to destroy it. Run it through with an electric drill and put the rest to a blow torch.”
“You’re not going to tell Anthony what you found?”
“Absolutely not. Seeing that shit is enough for just one person. No need to bring anyone else into it.”
She studied Josh carefully as he put the memory card back into his pocket. She watched him divert his eyes away from her. She took a sip of beer as she considered the significance of Josh’s silence. “What else did you find?”
“Nothing.”
Amanda held her concentration on Josh.
“Seriously, nothing.”
“Turn out the rest of your pockets.”
Josh rolled his eyes at her as he shook his head. “I swear I didn’t find anything else.”
“You’re going for the trifecta tonight, aren’t you? Keeping the truth from Hannah, Anthony, and me. How bad is it?”
Josh held himself steady in his seat, refusing to squirm.
“How bad is it?” Amanda asked agai
n.
At last, and with a reluctant breath, he caved. “I found a USB drive. You’re on it.”
She nodded gently, try to process just what he might have seen. “Compared to what’s in your pocket …”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Is it from Daniel’s phone?”
“Probably.”
“In Claire’s bathroom?”
Josh nodded.
“Were you going to have a conversation with Anthony like the one we just had about him? ‘We can’t possibly tell Claire about this.’”
“I’m not going to tell anyone. Claire, Gemma, and Hannah are on it. Other people as well, from some other time. Even a young woman who probably isn’t eighteen yet, so I have that and everything else I saw twelve hours ago to deal with for the rest of my life. I had planned on destroying both as soon as I got home from work but Hannah came home early.”
“Really, how bad is it?”
“What’s on the memory stick isn’t the worst thing ever. Just some stupid kid hiding his phone in the bathroom. The camera card, though, that one is … horrific.” Josh drifted off into silence. He reached out for his beer, took a swig, and placed it back on the table, making sure that it sat perfectly on the cold ring from before. “So, I’m now agreeing with Anthony. We can’t let James be caught by the police. What happened to Zofia is truly awful and if she was someone I knew then I would want that sense of closure when the police catch her rapist and murderer. I’m also sorry for what happened to Warrick. But I can’t tell the police about this. I met Ian on the day he was born. I came over the day his dad fucked off to help Claire deal with having to take care of Ian on her own and to stop her from going insane. There have been plenty of times when I’ve not wanted kids and yet Ian seemed halfway decent. He wasn’t a little shit, he was well behaved, and I started to reconsider having a son or daughter. Now all of this. If I didn’t know him, no problem, let him answer for what he’s done because he should’ve known better. But I do know him. And I know Claire. She is going to make him suffer so much worse. I can only imagine how terrified they both are of the truth coming out.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Yeah, why?”
“So if you knew the victim you would throw the book at the perpetrators and let them rot in prison. But if you only knew the perpetrators you’d let them off without even a warning?”
Josh squinted back. “It’s not like that.”
“You just said -”
“They were coerced,” said Josh.
“Do you know that for a fact? No. They had a choice. You want to go after James because of what he did? Fine. God speed to you, I truly hope you get him. But you can’t wring his neck and then give a free pass to Ian and his friends. This isn’t youngsters making a simple mistake. They knew what they were doing. And the kid you watched grow up, the one you thought was halfway decent and got you thinking that maybe if they all turned out like this then you could actually have one of your own? He became a rapist.”
“It was because of James,” said Josh, with a heavy growl building up within him. “He had a gun.”
“They had a choice!”
“So did Zofia,” snapped Josh.
“Ohhhhhhh, fuck you. Don’t ever think that a rape victim has a choice.”
Josh raised his hands to shield himself from her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It is horrific. Things got worse for her the moment she met James. From then on she was forced to make the best choice that was available to her. I’d love it if she managed to overpower James and get away before she was ever dragged into that house. I’d love it more if James suffered a fatal heart attack that morning and none of this shit ever happened. He had complete domination over four people and he made them do what he wanted. You and I can believe that we would react differently if we were in Zofia and Ian’s positions and hopefully we would. But James didn’t target us. He went for four teenagers he could control.”
Amanda strained herself to try and follow exactly why the repercussions should change depending on whether Josh knew the victim or the perpetrator. “If I find out after all this time that you’ve thought of yourself as Ian’s pseudo father …”
“I’m not and I don’t,” said Josh.
“There’s no reason for you to hunt down and try to kill someone and maybe get killed yourself because of something that happened to Claire’s son.”
“This isn’t about her.”
“Then worse still, you’re provoking a fight because of your friend’s nephew.”
“If I don’t do something then Anthony will. He has a lot more to lose than I do, so if I can spare him from this by doing it myself … Believe me, I’m going to do everything I can to talk him out of it. But if I can’t then this might be the last time you and I see each other.”
“Call the police the moment you find him.”
“Of course I might. What happens at the actual moment could go either way. But you know, I’ve only had two friends in my life. One kept me dreaming of the future with her travels around the world, the other kept me sane with a beer every Friday.”
“Never ruin yourself for a friend,” said Amanda.
Josh grumbled as he shook his head. “I hate the idea of going through the whole ‘woe is me’ bullshit like I’m a chicken shit teenager, but if things work out for you and Anthony then you two might end up in Newcastle, or New York, or wherever that isn’t Luxford. You hate it here, Gemma can’t wait to leave, and in one foul swoop I’m going to lose the two of you. I’m not saying, ‘please don’t go because I’ll be lonely,’ no. I understand that people move on and that the world is too big a place to stay rooted to the one spot for the rest of your life, and that of course we will always be in contact in some way or another … but I’m never going to meet anyone that can compare to either of you two.”
Hannah tapped on the sliding door and pulled it open. She caught Josh’s attention and with a very matter-of-factly tone, stated: “I’m off.”
Josh rose from the chair and came over. “Will you be back tonight?”
Her voice cracked over the words. “No, this me going.”
He wasn’t expecting it, but he was hit with a heavy thump within his chest. Years of being with Hannah ended with a simple, ‘this is me going.’ He looked over to the front door and saw a set of suitcases ready to go. “Let me help you.”
“I can manage.”
“I know, but, still.” Josh edged past his ex-girlfriend to the front door.
Hannah took one last look at Amanda, waved an awkward goodbye, and left.
Outside, Amanda sat quietly, trying her best to look distracted and desperate to not listen in on any arguing that might come from the front door. She was caught off guard by the kitchen sink running as Josh was clearly pouring himself a drink. Another minute went by before he emerged, his hands empty except for a small silver house key. He sat back down, turned the key over in his hand, and laid it on the outdoor table.
“I didn’t handle that well,” he said.
A dozen things bombarded Amanda in a split second, causing her to say nothing at all.
“I didn’t realise how unhappy I was until Brooke came along,” murmured Josh. “Five years down. There we were, coasting along. We didn’t fight all that often, we agreed on just about everything, there weren’t any problems to speak of …”
Amanda offered Josh a weak smile of sympathy. “I’m sorry you were unhappy.”
“And I’m sorry your love life has brought you back to Luxford. You always had your heart set on New York.”
“Yeah. God knows what kind of state I’ll be in if I end up back there and single.”
“You’ll be in your prime. Your dirty thirties.”
“I don’t really want to go out and get laid as much as possible.”
Josh studied her for a moment, vying up an age old question. “I apologise if this comes out wrong, but I’ve kinda thrown my life into the toilet in the last couple of weeks
and there’s a good chance that more can fit into that S-bend …”
“As spectacular as I’m sure we’d be, we’re not having sex tonight,” said Amanda.
“That’s a relief, because I’m pretty sure I’d need reconstructive surgery if Anthony ever found out. I was going to ask – and this is totally crass – what’s your number of partners?”
She leaned back in her chair to create a safer distance between them. “I heard somewhere that as soon as you hit the age of twenty, divide your age by two and you would have a socially acceptable answer.”
“Huh. Here I was thinking that twelve was respectable.”
“You’ve been in a few long term relationships.”
“True. Now stop avoiding the question. I’m not going to pass any judgement here.”
“You will.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t remember,” said Amanda.
“You can’t even work it out?”
“I never really bothered to keep track. It’s more than five, less than fifty.” She sighed and stared up at the stars. “So, it feels like we’re getting drunk tonight.”
“I have four beers left in the fridge,” said Josh.
“I have a bottle of Cristal in my bag.”
“That’s … wait.”
“It’s for a specific occasion, yes.”
“Then good luck to both of you.”
“Thanks, but at this point I don’t even know if it’ll ever be opened,” mumbled Amanda.
Josh dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Well, we’re certainly not getting drunk on two beers a piece.” He started typing away on his phone.
“That’s going to be dangerous.”
“You two together is always dangerous. And come on, Hannah’s just left, you’ve been chased out of your house, I might have to kill someone to protect some kid’s life, and I know for a fact that Anthony has a bottle of thirty five year old scotch in his cupboard.”
“We can’t get drunk on that!”
“I can prove you wrong.” Josh clicked ‘send’ and laid his phone on the table. “Oh, I forgot to add, my job is going to shit because I fell in love with someone I shouldn’t have, so I am definitely going in tomorrow with a hangover. And then Monday morning I’ll change my life around and be the perfect gentleman, perfect employee, and life will be grand.”
