Can You See Her?: An absolutely compelling psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  Days became weeks. Joanna Weatherall faded like a memory. The man in the cemetery? Well, in the eyes of the public, he’d been little more than nothing to begin with. He was like me: invisible.

  I scanned the Weekly News each day as usual.

  Knife attack in Warrington nightspot, two teen boys in critical condition.

  Armed robbery in Toxteth bank.

  Fatal shooting in Manchester – three dead.

  A spate of house burglaries. The knife attack in Warrington turned out to be gang-related, no surprise there. I wondered if any of them would be able to say why, where it had all started, the hate.

  Tragedy of scholarship boy in drugs-row death.

  I pored over that one: two Liverpool schoolboys, high as kites, a drugged-up altercation in a kebab shop that proved final. Why? Because earlier that evening they’d thought it a great idea to arm themselves with knives like proper gangsters. Not even for protection; just for the thrill. Fifteen years old, both from good homes, starring in their own bad-lad fantasy – one dead, one facing murder charges. The waste. Very few kids carry knives with the intention of using them, I genuinely believe that. But when you throw drugs and alcohol into the mix, the extreme passions of the young, their rage and their hormones, their insecurities and their prejudices, their violent films, violent computer games, the prejudices of the parents, the news, those who are in power who should know better spouting the rhetoric of hate willy-nilly, you name it – you throw all that into the mix and what should only ever have been kids having a scrap leaves the ground flooded with too much blood to ever clean up, no going back, families left with nothing to do but wring their hands over holiday snaps, Facebook pages become memorials, bedrooms become shrines.

  I checked the nationals too, of course, every day. Some days it seemed to me that we’d become a country, a world hooked on hate, the origins of which had been lost in a fog of pre-World War Two-style propaganda, anger-mongering that was OK or not OK depending on what colour you were, which school you went to: the enemy is anything other than yourself, beware the other, hate the other, kill the other. Anger is a leak in the bathroom. Hate is its outlet in the kitchen wall. Anger. Hate. Rage. Ramped up, misdirected, always misdirected.

  Liverpool boy charged with manslaughter. An outrage, victim’s parents say.

  Those two Liverpool lads. The follow-up report. The deceased’s family baying for blood. Blood and more blood. Anger and more anger. Hate on a loop, round and round. Eye for an eye. You did this to me, so I’ll do that to you or someone else, anyone else, who looks at me wrong, who wears clothes I don’t like, worships a god I don’t know about, has sex with people I don’t think they should, whatever, repeat ad infinitum. Terrorists, gangs, religious maniacs, racists, ageists, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, anyphobes… people just wanted somewhere to put the fury they were carrying inside themselves. They just wanted someone, anyone to pay the price to help them make sense of it. Ramped up, misdirected: a leak in the kitchen wall that has nothing to do with the kitchen.

  The sadness and rage of the world took up lodging in my chest. It camped on my back. It lived in my heart.

  And so I carried on with my walkabouts – waged my one-woman campaign, as I saw it, against hate. Love and understanding, that was what I thought I was promoting, honestly I did – you have to believe me on that. One chap’s stress over the J62 bus making him late for his hospital appointment? A warm smile from me, a friendly ear and suddenly his day isn’t so bad. Some other dog-walker’s daughter a dreadful worry with her recent withdrawn behaviour? Feels better for having got it off her chest, if only to a stranger with a stolen bag of sweets to share and a little black dog called Archie. An old man fretting about the state of the world – Where are we all headed? Hell in a handcart! Laughing because I say I’ll be driving it, shake my head and tell him: You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?

  I walked out and I walked out and I walked out.

  I listened and I listened and I listened.

  Sometimes I learned their names, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes we walked together a little way, sometimes a longer way, parting with a cheery goodbye then, nice to meet you, you too, ta-ta. Sometimes I bumped into the same people, talked some more – goodbye turned to see you later, love, take care, mind how you go.

  Mark didn’t bother asking me where I was going anymore, never bothered saying goodbye. Katie? Who knows, you tell me.

  Meanwhile, the visions still came, less often but still troubling. I’d be in the Co-op picking up a few bits for tea and I’d see the back of Jo’s shoulders in that old man’s coat, her face frozen in shock and disbelief as she fell away onto the pavement. Or I’d be slicing up chicken breasts for a curry and just the resistance of flesh against blade would have me shaking and crying in horror. It was almost as bad for Henry Parker. My knuckles had healed but I couldn’t rid my mind of the image of him turning to peer at me from the dark doorway of the church, the screwing-up of his eyes, the eventual looking beyond.

  Lisa texted me regularly: How’s things?

  I would text back: Same old! Keeping on keeping on.

  She’d write something like: Fancy getting together for a drink/that new quiz night/the Prosecco offer at Bank Chambers?

  I could see, or thought I could see, that she was trying to get me out of myself.

  Definitely! I would thumb.

  She’d come back with heartbreaking speed: How about next week?

  And I’d think, bless her, she’s trying her best, and reply with a version of: Sounds good, I’ll let you know.

  I wouldn’t get back to her, hoping the trail would go cold. Which it did. Until, on one of my days off in lieu, she texted: Have you emigrated? Haven’t seen you in months!

  I can remember staring at the words on my phone, thinking, Months? Surely it’s only been weeks? I couldn’t hold her off any longer.

  Undercover operations, I texted. Secret government business. You in later? Will pop in 4ish.

  Once again the speediness of her reply tore me up: Great! Will have kettle on!

  I set about the rest of the chores. Katie’s room was a bombsite of mouldy mugs and crumby plates; the hoover actually made a stripe when I pushed it over her carpet. When Kieron had gone to uni, I’d just closed the door to his room and hadn’t opened it since, and our room was nothing that fresh sheets, an open window and a squirt of Febreze wouldn’t sort.

  When I’d finished, I sat down on the sofa for a quick cuppa.

  I woke up to cold tea and a headache. My watch told me I’d been out of it for two hours. Two hours! I had no memory of falling asleep, only of how heavy my limbs had felt when I’d sat down, then lain down, telling myself it was just for a minute, how my bones had felt like they were being sucked deep into the cushions as if being pulled into the underworld by Hades himself. If you’re shocked by the Greek reference, don’t be. I know I haven’t had a classical education, but I did watch the Hercules cartoon with Kieron and Katie when they were little.

  I digress, as per. Sorry.

  It was late afternoon by then. If I didn’t get a shift on, I’d be late for Lisa. I popped up to the bathroom and put a comb through my hair. In the mirror, fine wrinkles magnified under the hard, white daylight. It was the first time I’d looked at myself close up for ages, and it was a bit of a shock, to be honest. There were four thick whiskers on my upper lip, which I plucked with Katie’s tweezers. On either side of my chin, pouches had started to develop, as if the apple-blossom cheeks of my youth had slid down from the tree and were now hanging onto the lower branches for dear life.

  I groaned but tried to keep in mind George Burns or whoever it was who, when asked how he felt on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, apparently said something like: compared to the alternative, pretty good.

  ‘You’re alive,’ I said to my reflection, though I can’t say the fact made me particularly happy.

  A swipe of Katie’s mascara, a quick brush of my hair and a hasty scrunchy,
and I decided I didn’t look too bad, for me. That small attention to myself had made me feel better than I had in months.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I practised. ‘Honestly, yeah, I’m great, actually. How’s things with you?’ I smiled to see if I could get my eyes to go with it.

  Almost.

  29

  Rachel

  ‘I was wondering about calling Missing Persons.’ With a flourish, Lisa stood back to let me in. She looked at me; her brow furrowed and her head fell to one side. ‘Have you had your hair cut?’

  ‘Just brushed it and put it in a scrunchy, that’s all.’

  ‘It looks nice off your face. You’ve got make-up on as well.’ Her smile was one of encouragement, for God’s sake.

  ‘Not sure a paint job is enough these days.’ Already flustered, I stared at the floor, heat climbing up my neck. I’d thought I could face her, but now I wasn’t sure. ‘Not when the brickwork is crumbling.’

  ‘Don’t be like that.’ She laughed. ‘Come in.’

  Lisa didn’t pick up her feet as she usually did, and her shoulders were rounder. On the kitchen table there was a dead cigarette butt in a saucer.

  ‘Don’t tell the girls,’ she said, sliding it into the bin and running the saucer under the tap.

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not a crack pipe.’ Her girls were both away. They’d been on holiday with their dad and now they were off on their own travels. ‘You missing them then?’

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ She flicked the kettle on, busied about the kitchen, fetching mugs and milk and the tin off the high shelf where she hid her decent biscuits. ‘They’re never off FaceTime, and if it’s not FaceTime it’s WhatsApp. Jodi was WhatsApping her entire friendship crisis last night. Ping, ping, ping every five minutes, honest to God. Long-distance counselling service, really, I should start charging.’

  ‘Fifty pounds an hour, apparently. Money for old rope.’ I envied her having a close bond like that with her daughters. I’d had that not so long ago with both my kids. I’d been proud of it, proud of the hours it had taken, the baking, the picnics, the days out, the conversations lying on their beds in the late evening if they had a problem they needed to share. When they were little, there was never anything I couldn’t fix. I used to love my ability to shrink their worries to nothing, feel their fraught little bodies loosen with relief. But now I couldn’t figure out what the heck Katie was cross about all the time, what she was going to do with her life, unless you counted YouTube and getting hammered with her mates. I looked up to find Lisa poised to seize the kettle the moment it boiled.

  ‘It’s still empty nest syndrome,’ I said.

  ‘Nest shouldn’t be empty, though, should it?’ She poured on the hot water. ‘Knob-end should still be here. We should be looking forward to long walks and drinking at lunchtime and whatever else you’re supposed to do when you get your freedom back. Anyway, sod him, what’ve you been up to? I’ve not seen you for ages.’

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’

  She stopped stirring the tea and looked at me. I was not invisible to Lisa, never had been. She loved me, or so I thought then, and her gaze was like a bloody tractor beam. ‘Are you OK, Rach?’

  ‘Been a bit under the weather, I suppose. One thing and another, like, you know.’ My eyes filled. Traitors.

  Lisa’s expression was full of sympathy and her eyes weren’t dry either. But how could I tell her what I’d been up to? Not like I could say, actually, remember you said I could get away with murder? Funny that, because I’m terrified I might have stabbed a young girl to death in the midst of a menopausal fugue and throttled a man while he was having a you-know-what in the church doorway, although I can think of no reason why I would do something like that. PS, I found a knife in my handbag that I may or may not have put there, bloody tissues in the bathroom that I have no memory of either and on top of that I spend every single night on the street talking to people who aren’t my friends. How about you?

  ‘The girls down the Prospect have been asking about you,’ Lisa said. ‘Have you not seen anyone at all?’

  ‘Not apart from sexy Dave at work,’ I said. ‘And the punters, obviously. I’m turning into a hermit. Borderline narcoleptic as well, I think.’

  ‘Is that something to do with drugs?’

  ‘I wish. No, it’s the one where you fall asleep all the time.’

  ‘Bloody hell, me too. I can’t even read a magazine anymore without finding myself half an hour later flat out on the couch, dribbling into the cushions.’

  ‘Thank God it’s not just me!’ I seized the comic turn in the conversation like it was a life raft. ‘I think I might go on a Buddhist retreat. Find myself. Although I’m probably better off looking down the back of the sofa. At least that way I might find a pound coin.’

  She laughed, as did I. But I felt like we were performing a double-act like we used to do when we were out with our other friends. Only there was no one watching. It was because of all that I couldn’t say, couldn’t expect her to understand, I knew that. If you can’t talk to someone about what hurts, all that’s left is what you watched on telly, what you had for your tea, the weather. The close friendship we’d always had, the friendship that had seen both of us through the toughest times, was fading, I could feel it. But with Mark and Katie lost to me, she was all I had left.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Rach?’ she said. ‘Really, like? You’ve not… I’ve not seen you.’ Her eyes were wary. That’s the trouble with the people who love us most, isn’t it? They know we’re not right without us having to say. Those eyes were asking me to let her in. They were wondering why she was even standing outside in the first place.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Rach? Tell me.’

  ‘I’ve been going on these walks,’ I spluttered. ‘At night, like, you know.’

  ‘With the dog.’

  ‘With Archie, yes. But it’s not about the dog. It’s this… this invisible thing. I know you said it’s normal, but I think it’s getting me down. No one looks at me at home, no one sees me except when I shout or mess up. When there’s no food in or the clothes have been left to rot in the washing machine because I’ve forgotten to take them out again. As if no one else could possibly do that. As if no one else wears the clothes, walks on the floor, eats off the plates.’

  ‘So you’ve been roaming the streets?’

  ‘Only to get some conversation,’ I said. ‘To engage with other human beings.’

  ‘I’m a human being,’ she said softly.

  ‘I know, love. I know, I do, but I can’t be coming round here every five minutes, can I? You’ve got your own life.’

  ‘But I’ve always got time for you, Rach – you know that. I’m your friend, remember? That’s what the word means. I just don’t want to badger you every five minutes asking if you’re OK because I can see that might be a bit wearing.’

  I nodded, a gasp of a laugh that might have been a sob.

  ‘I’ve only been talking to people,’ I said once I’d got it together enough to speak. ‘That’s all I’ve done.’

  ‘What d’you mean? What else would you have done?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I took a moment, steadied my breathing. ‘Only there was that girl the other month, stabbed near the Red Admiral. Killed, like, you know. And then that homeless man strangled outside St Michael’s church just a few days later. And I was near both places both times.’

  She frowned. ‘I didn’t hear about the homeless man. But what’s any of that got to do with you anyway?’ I heard her shift. Next thing, she was at my side, her arm around my shoulders. ‘Hey, hey. Come on, Rach. Don’t cry. Or do cry, actually. Cry all you want – a few tears never bothered me. But you can’t be worrying about those things. You can’t be taking on the weight of the entire world. You’ve got enough on your plate, love. It’s a tough time, the toughest. Even without the hormones and the bits going south quicker than a swallow on a world cruise.’ She rubbed my back. ‘You have to stop
reading the news the way you do. Keeping those stories… it’s only going to make you feel worse, isn’t it? You’re hurting yourself, love.’

  ‘I know. I know I am, but I can’t help it. It’s something I need to do. I can’t explain it.’ I could; I could explain it perfectly. ‘It’s just… that man, I saw him… on the way to the chippy, and the girl… Joanna, Jo, I spoke to her. I spoke to her that night, Lis. And then later she was stabbed and left for… she… she died. And I have these memory losses. I’ll be on my way home and I’ll get home and I’ll have literally no idea how I got there.’

  ‘But that’s normal, Rach. Autopilot, that’s all that is. Remember I went to see that hypnotist for stress when Patrick left? That’s the state they put you in. That’s how he explained it – they get you to that disconnected place like when you’re driving your car home, or to somewhere you’ve been a thousand times. You do the gears and all that and you get home but you can’t really remember the actual journey unless you saw something unusual or something happened. Like a road accident. Or a streaker that’s the dead spit of Ryan Gosling.’ She held me tighter to her. ‘That’s all it is, Rach. It happens to everyone.’

  ‘But what if I’ve done something terrible and I can’t remember? I mean, the blanks… and then there’s these nightmares that wake me up at all hours, and the thinking… imagining I can read people I don’t know.’

  ‘You can read people. I told you that. You’ve always known what’s going on with me – before I know it myself sometimes. That’s just listening to the world, Rach. Seeing people.’ She leaned her head into mine. I could smell her soap, her perfume, her. ‘There is no way you’ll have assaulted some homeless man—’

  ‘Henry Parker.’