Can You See Her?: An absolutely compelling psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  ‘I wonder why that was.’ I raised an eyebrow and we shared another grin. ‘Had you been drinking before I let you into the pub?’

  He bowed his head. From his jacket pocket he pulled out a quart of brandy, half empty. ‘Soz,’ he muttered to his tatty trainers.

  ‘You don’t need to say sorry to me.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s for the warmth, really.’

  He looked so damn sad it was all I could do not to cry.

  ‘I tell you what,’ I said. ‘I could do with some fresh air. Trouble with the no-smoking rule, you can smell the actual pub, can’t you?’

  ‘It’s stuffy. I’m not used to being indoors anymore.’ He swayed, leaned one tentative hand on the wall.

  I helped him on with Dave’s fleece jacket and picked up my bag and the cloth bag with Ian’s dirty clothes inside. He seemed to have gone ever so quickly from tipsy to plastered.

  ‘My nephew needs a bit of fresh air,’ I said, winking at the bouncer on the door – again, advantage of age: no one thinks you’re coming on to them. People assume you’re winking the way their favourite auntie might when agreeing to a cheeky extra slice of Viennetta. Either that or you’ve got a lash on your eyeball. ‘Don’t mind if I bring my glass out, do you? Promise I won’t drop it.’ Twenty years ago, that would have been a saucy come-on. As it was, it barely registered.

  ‘Sorry, love, no glasses outside.’ He smiled at me, all indulgence and respect-your-elders. Cheeky get, he was no spring chicken himself. He couldn’t have been more than five years younger than me – receding hairline, belly straining the buttons on his shirt. And his front teeth were capped. But he was a man. And as in most things, when it comes to signs of wear and tear, men are forgiven.

  I turned to apologise to Ian, but he was downing the rest of his pint.

  ‘There,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Let’s get some air.’

  I sat him down on the little wall outside. The tables there were still packed, and that worried me slightly, although no one was taking any notice of us.

  A bus rumbled up Boston Avenue. Beyond, the calling darkness of the town-hall park. The shape of the knife pressed against my ribs. I had to get him over that road.

  Ian said nothing. Sadness came off him in waves, as if he was wondering what the hell his life had come to, hanging out with a middle-aged woman on a Saturday night. It was lower than sleeping rough.

  ‘I really liked Darren,’ he slurred. ‘Didn’t love me, though, unfortch… unforshh…’

  ‘Unfortunately.’ I sat down next to him on the wall. ‘Not easy, is it? Loving someone who doesn’t know you love them. Especially if they’re the same sex.’

  He shook his head. ‘S’hard.’

  ‘You want to tell them, don’t you? You want to tell them so badly but at the same time you’re afraid to. Then you’re scared they might be able to tell just by looking at you, that everyone can see it written all over you and there’s nothing you can do to hide it.’

  Basically, I was just reeling off what Kieron had told me the night he came out. He was fourteen, in tears. I hugged him to me while he told me what I’d known since he was three. When he’d finished, I told him I loved him exactly the same and always would; why on earth would that make any difference? It had felt good to hear his sobbing stop, to feel him go still in my arms. We sat in silence for ages afterwards, and when I asked him if he was all right, I realised he’d fallen asleep against me. He had his ups and downs after that, but he always had me and his dad on his side, and I think that counted a lot for him growing up.

  ‘S’fine,’ Ian slurred.

  ‘Ah. The F word. Yes, we’re all fine, aren’t we? Spend your life pretending it’s all fine, but it’s not really. It hurts. Love hurts – that’s why there are so many books and poems and songs about it. Oh sweetheart, I don’t envy you, I really don’t.’

  ‘You’re so nice.’ A weight fell against me. It was him, his head. This young boy, this lonely, vulnerable young boy. I knew he was fighting back tears because I was too.

  I put my arm around him. ‘Come on, love. Everything will be all right, I promise. I know you don’t think it will be now, but it will, trust me. And one day you’ll be old like me and someone will say, oh, don’t you wish you were young, and you’ll think, no, no I bloody don’t. Because it’s hard, being young. You can’t get forward for tripping over your own stupid mistakes. You don’t know who you are, and even if you do, you don’t know that it’s OK to be who you are and that people love you for all the things you’re busy trying to change. Happiness takes practice, but I’m here to tell you it’s OK to be who you are – do you understand what I’m saying, love? That’s where happiness starts. And it’s OK to love someone even if they don’t or can’t love you back, though it’s the hardest thing in the world. But I tell you what, one day you’ll love someone and I promise they will love you right back. They’ll love you like you deserve to be loved and you’ll feel taller than a bloody skyscraper.’

  The weight left my side. He wiped his eyes. ‘Need to get back on my feet.’

  ‘I know you do, love. And you will, I promise.’

  It was time for a walk.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, jumping down from the wall. ‘I want to show you something.’

  His eyes opened, closed, opened. He took my hands, stood, staggered to one side. I knew then that he’d had more to drink than what he’d shown me. ‘Where we goin’?’

  ‘A place. A special place where I go when things are looking bleak. Come on.’ I held out my hand. He took it.

  43

  Rachel

  We followed the hedge up to where it ends and walked across the grassland. We were coming at the pond a different way.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked again.

  ‘To my special thinking spot.’ I had a horrible sense of déjà vu: my hand on Jo’s shoulder in the dark. Did I know what I was doing? Now, looking back, I think I was putting my own guilt to the test. Seeing if I could catch myself in the act. Which means I probably did know exactly what I was doing.

  ‘In the park?’ he said, knocking into me. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK. It’s the little pond – have you ever been?’ I turned to look at him, saw a smile brighten his face.

  ‘My nan used to take us there when we were little. We used to feed the ducks.’

  ‘That’s the place. I used to take my kids, Kieron and Katie, when they were little. I got married in the town hall.’

  We stopped at the pathway that leads to the pond. I followed his skinny frame into the black recess.

  ‘Is this the place?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep. This bench. I just sit on it from time to time when I need to organise my mind. This last year I’ve come here a lot.’

  We sat down. It was almost silent. Almost; the road was no more than an occasional dull rush. The water lay flat, the reeds sunk into its black mirror surface as if into pre-made holes.

  I felt the living heat of him next to me. ‘Peaceful as anything, isn’t it?’

  He nodded. A silence fell.

  ‘My mum doesn’t even know I’m gay,’ he said.

  God love him, I thought. Poor sweet boy.

  ‘You’ll find your way back to her one day,’ I said. ‘Everything will come right.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  I shrugged and sighed. ‘I know things. Age. Experience. This fella she’s got on the go will move on and you’ll get your ducks in a row and make something of yourself. This is a bad time but you’ll pull yourself up because you’re a good person, Ian. You’re polite and kind and you want to work. And one day you’ll knock on her door and you’ll be a man of substance and she’ll see you and she’ll be proud. I’m going to help you get back on track. I don’t know how yet, but I will, I promise. And one day you’ll be with your mum again and you’ll tell her who you really are and she’ll understand.’ I could tell he was listening by the twitch of his head.
‘And trust me, she’ll love you just the same.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I do. Because when our Kieron told me he was gay, I couldn’t have loved him more.’ I put my arm around the boy and pulled him to me, rocked him gently, slowly. ‘And in my darkest moments, the fact that I was there and that I was what he needed me to be that day is the only thing that keeps me tethered to this earth.’

  His head had fallen onto my shoulder. I kissed his hair, felt the full weight of him in my arms. I felt his jacket fall open, the pressure of his borrowed T-shirt against the tip of the knife. I felt the skin yield, felt the blade slice through. The sickening shock when it sank between his ribs. The warm slick of his lifeblood on my hand. He didn’t move. His brain had not yet caught on to what his body knew. I pulled the knife out and pressed it in again – it was easier this time, holding him to me, holding him tight.

  ‘Shh,’ I whispered. ‘You’re all right, my love. I’ve got you.’

  His warmth infused me. Our skin dissolved. He was of me and I was of him. Drops into water. One body, one whole. His pulse beat like a timepiece, counting down seconds. Seconds, minutes, hours that chime. All the hours, all the never-ending hours. I felt myself go as he went. My vision clouded, blackened. Tiredness rolled in, unfathomable, unstoppable. We were sinking. We were part of the same. We were one, one body of water.

  ‘Shh now, my darling boy.’ I cradled his soft head in my hand. ‘My darling, darling boy. I’m here with you. Be still now, my love. Everything will be all right. I’m here; I’ll always be here with you. Let go now, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, my love, my darling boy.’

  He was silent. He was still. He was heavy. The white moon flashed in the black pond. I held him to me. I felt him go.

  I lowered my lips to his ear and whispered, ‘Sleep now, my angel.’

  44

  Rachel

  Blue Eyes is looking at me, and it seems to me she’s been looking at me for months.

  ‘He died in your arms?’ she says. ‘You’re saying you killed Ian Brown and he died in your arms?’

  I nod. ‘I comforted him in his last moments.’

  ‘And you didn’t remember any of that when you got home?’

  ‘None of it. I’ve no memory of walking home. I know that when I got there, Anne-Marie had already returned to the forefront of my mind because I didn’t know about Ian yet, do you see? I was thinking of Kieron too, maybe because of Ian. Kieron was with me very strongly, not that he ever leaves me. But no, everything I’ve just told you came to me the next day, when I read the news.’

  ‘So what did you do when you got home?’

  ‘I put Ian’s clothes in the washing machine ready to put on to wash the next morning. I made myself a hot drink. Just hot water, actually – it was all I could face. The cider and lager had made me feel queasy; I couldn’t handle it like I used to. I… checked Kieron’s Facebook page, had a trawl through some of his photos. It was too late to message him, so I went upstairs, and that’s when I checked my rucksack.’

  ‘And found the bloodstained tissues.’

  ‘It’s a loop, don’t you see? Bloody tissues found and found again. A knife in a bag. Memory and life. Life and memory. Loneliness to love, anger to hate to death, to anger to hate and so on. Round and round, never stopping, the world was filling up with it.’

  ‘That’s what you were thinking?’

  ‘I was thinking… I was thinking that no matter how much love I had to give, it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.’ I wipe at my eyes. The box says extra-soft but the tissue doesn’t feel soft; it scratches. ‘I was thinking that hate is turned on people who don’t deserve it, who aren’t responsible for the anger, who have nothing to do with the hate, not really, do you see?’

  ‘Yes. I see. And the next morning?’

  ‘The next morning, I stared at the second hand on the kitchen clock and tried to put myself under, like, to dive down, down, down and remember something.’

  ‘You tried to hypnotise yourself?’

  I nod. ‘But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t feel Anne-Marie’s car door handle in my grip, couldn’t get any sense of my leggings sliding over the leather seat of her posh sports car. I couldn’t smell the sweat of our sports kits in the small tinny space, couldn’t hear the car radio burst into life as she switched on the ignition. Maybe she never did. Maybe the seats weren’t leather – that could be my imagination trying to get my memory to take a dictation so that I’ll have a script to read from. I couldn’t see our breath as condensation on the windows, the curve of my own arm as I held her fast with one hand. I couldn’t feel the controlled jab of the knife in her ribs. I listened and I listened but I couldn’t… I couldn’t hear her scream.

  ‘So you called the police?’

  ‘No. I read about Ian on the iPad. And that’s when it all came back: the whole of Saturday, day and night, the day I’d been dreading, the second worst day of my life.

  ‘And then I called them. Because I remembered, you see? I remembered all of it. And I knew I’d killed Anne-Marie too. And tried to strangle that chap. And Jo, lovely Jo. I knew that any violent flashbacks I’d had weren’t my mind playing tricks at all. They were memories.’

  ‘So you called.’

  ‘I dialled the crime number and a lady answered and I told her. I told her I’d been killing people.’

  45

  Lisa

  Transcript of recorded interview with Lisa Baxter (excerpt)

  Also present: DI Heather Scott, PC Marilyn Button

  HS: Ms Baxter, how would you describe your relationship with Mr Edwards?

  LB: Mark? What do you mean? As in friends? We were friends, good friends; – I’d have thought that was obvious.

  HS: Do you often meet Mark without Rachel being present?

  LB: No. Well, not like regularly, for coffee or a drink or whatever, no. That would’ve been, well, it would’ve been all wrong. But recently I’d been round to their house a few times when I knew she was on shift or out but that was only because I was worried. He was worried too. All the walking at night and the way she’d go sort of absent sometimes. And the file, of course. We were scared she was going… you know, down, like she did before. I’ve said all this.

  HS: And last Friday afternoon, when you told her you were in the supermarket, you were with Mark?

  LB: Yes. I’d gone round to see him when I knew she’d be out because she seemed more fragile than ever. She wasn’t taking me on at all. She was going under. I knew she was seeing her dad that day and I thought I should have a word with Mark, as in a stronger word, and I did – I said to Mark, ‘You need to call someone. She’s not right. She’s not well.’ I did say that.

  HS: And did Mr Edwards call anyone?

  LB: He was going to talk to her about it first. He didn’t want an ambulance just turning up like the first time, but they just weren’t communicating. He’d tried to tell her not to do the file, but they’d lost their way to each other and it was so sad to see. They wouldn’t come out for a drink or a meal or anything. And with Patrick gone, that’s my ex, it wasn’t the same without us being two couples. I think they were both trapped. They couldn’t talk. And Katie had dropped out and I suppose she’d disappeared into YouTube, all that make-up, literally plastering on a brave face for the world. She was looking for followers, looking for a party, looking for anything… well, like Rachel was, wasn’t she? Looking for love in the wrong places, I suppose, or at least someone to talk to. We all need it, don’t we? To have someone who cares and who’ll listen? And I suppose if you can’t find it at home… It was heartbreaking to see them unable to talk to each other like they used to, but they just couldn’t get on with each other anymore. Everything Rachel said was wrong, everything Katie did was wrong. And Mark was just standing on the sidelines bleeding.

  HS: Ms Baxter—

  LB: Sorry, can I just say something? I… I mean… none of us knew what Rach was getting herself into. I just want to s
ay that. How could we have known? It was bad enough to think of her wandering the streets and obsessing over her press cuttings, but we didn’t know she was talking to strangers let alone attacking them. She must have been so bloody lonely, poor thing. So miserable. Not that it makes it right. I’m not making excuses. I just wish she’d talked to me. It doesn’t excuse what she’s done, but she must’ve been in such a bad place. I just wish I’d tried harder to reach her, you know? She deserved better.

  46

  Rachel

  Amanda has the clip file in front of her. She lifts it from the coffee table as if it’s an ancient bible, precious, fragile, liable to disintegrate.

  ‘I want us to revisit your folder. Is that all right?’

  This is a different day. I’m wearing new jogging bottoms and a clean white T-shirt. I can remember having a shower this morning. There was a woman standing outside the cubicle, big bunch of keys on her belt. They gave me some breakfast: cereal and some rehydrated prunes, toast, tea. They brought me along the corridor and Blue Eyes was here. Her name is Amanda. Amanda Frost, which is a good name for someone with bleached hair and blue eyes. Ice Queen. Except she’s not icy, she’s kind. I don’t know why she’s so kind to me.

  I don’t want to talk about the file.

  ‘I’m not going to go through every single clipping,’ she says, obviously not picking up on my reluctance. ‘But now that you’ve told me your story, I think it might be useful to look at some of the things you’ve mentioned. You see, the mind can be a cloudy place and sometimes we have to try and bring it back from abstract feelings of anxiety or fear or guilt and make sense of those feelings. My job is to listen to the way people talk about themselves and their experience, what matters to them, and try and somehow get underneath that. And a very good way to do this is to get them to tell me their story, because the interesting thing about stories is that they help us to process what has happened to us. Most often if that something is bad.