Pretty Little Things

by T. M. E. Walsh

  Paul Selby was arrested for dangerous driving, using a mobile at the wheel and causing injury by dangerous driving. He got bail, but the court date is coming up and I can’t deny the stress has been getting to me of late.

  I have to keep it all in perspective, though – or so I keep being told.

  It’s a crash no one should have survived.

  But somehow I did.

  Six months on and I had used the time to reassess my life. Life is precious. Life can be taken as quickly as it can be given.

  My daughter, Elle, is currently telling me she wants a car for her seventeenth birthday, which is in almost two weeks’ time.

  I keep seeing that HGV and my insides do a somersault.

  ‘I’ll need driving lessons too. I can’t have a car just sitting there on the drive,’ she’s telling me.

  I want to scream at her not to drive.

  Ever.

  It’s too dangerous and I just want to protect her. She’s my only child and what if it had been her in that crash? What if something like what happened to me, happens to her?

  I grip hold of the tea towel I have been using to dry the dishes, and try to pull myself together. I’m being irrational. That’s what my Iain would say if he could hear what’s going on inside my head right now.

  Because I’ve gone pale, quiet, she is now peering over her iPad, staring at me. I need to stall.

  ‘I don’t know, Elle, cars are expensive and—’

  ‘Dad said I could have lessons,’ she interrupts, anticipating my predictable response.

  So much for a united unit, sharing the roller-coaster ride that is living with a teenager.

  ‘Well, Dad hasn’t discussed anything with me.’

  ‘Mum, I’m nearly seventeen.’

  ‘I never had a car at seventeen,’ I say, turning my back to her, busying myself with the drying up.

  ‘I need my independence.’

  I turn to look at her. I know I’m biased, but my daughter is a beauty. She’s got long brown hair that brings out the colour of her bright-blue eyes. Her features are almost perfect and I know her classmates are envious because Elle’s blossomed early.

  She’s looking at me now, eyebrow cocked, while playing with her necklace.

  I stare at the pendant. It’s a green-enamel four-leaf clover. Iain and I got it for her sixteenth birthday. I remember thinking it was expensive at the time, but compared to a car . . .

  Elle lets go of the pendant and gets up from her chair. Standing there in her skinny jeans and slouchy Nirvana top – which she’s only wearing because she thinks it’s fashionable, not because she thinks Kurt Cobain was a lyrical genius – she looks like she could pass for an adult already.

  When did my daughter become so grown up?

  She looks at me, hope in her eyes.

  I’m about to speak but I hear Iain coming down the stairs. He comes into the room dressed in his usual work uniform.

  ‘How are my favourite girls?’ He comes over to me and, as he shoves dirty clothes into the washing machine, gives me a squeeze and plants a kiss on my cheek.

  I immediately look to our daughter.

  Iain frowns. ‘Have I just interrupted something?’

  ‘Mum says I can’t have a car for my birthday.’

  I raise my eyebrows at him and he winces as he heads towards the coffee machine. ‘Elle, I didn’t promise anything,’ he says as he grabs a mug.

  Elle’s face scrunches up. ‘Yeah, you did.’

  He looks at me. ‘I really didn’t.’

  ‘Don’t lie,’ Elle says.

  ‘I said we would consider it.’

  He says this to me, because apparently I need convincing. I hold my hands up. ‘You shouldn’t say anything without discussing it with me first.’

  He looks sheepish.

  ‘Typical,’ Elle says under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear it. She busies herself with her iPad.

  Iain watches my face and mouths a sorry. I face the sink. He is beside me again.

  ‘I didn’t think,’ he says in my ear and slips his arms around my waist.

  ‘You don’t think,’ I say. ‘That’s the problem.’

  He frowns, eases his grip around me. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He stares at me until I look at him. He gives a shake of his head. ‘Not in front of her . . .’ he says and goes to the television on the other worktop and flicks it on.

  The silence is punctuated with the sound of a commercial and Iain sips his coffee as he flicks through the channels.

  ‘What’s happened now?’

  I don’t bother to turn my head to see what he’s talking about

  It’s then that I hear the sound of the twenty-four-hour news programme.

  ‘I think they’ve found them.’

  I hear the concern in his voice and now I do turn to pay attention to the TV screen, feeling as if my blood has turned to ice in my veins at what I see.

  Live footage of an isolated wasteland fills the screen.

  It’s early May.

  Usually you’d see signs that spring is arriving, but not here. What little grass there is dotted around has grown in straggly brown tufts.

  The old crumbling brickwork of an outbuilding lies off in the distance where there is a white incident tent erected. Figures – I can’t tell if they are male or female – are walking into the tent in identical white suits.

  A reporter can be heard describing the scene before we see her, standing behind a police cordon, the tape vibrating against the wind sweeping in over the fields.

  I hear the reporter’s words, but only snippets linger on in my head after she has spoken them.

  Crude grave . . . pit . . . four bodies . . . female . . . decomposing . . . exposed to the elements . . .

  My gaze drops to yesterday’s newspaper on the countertop, its edges curled. I stare at the headline.

  Still Missing.

  I touch the paper, turn it to face me. I look at their photographs, now filled with a deep sorrow.

  I scan the headline again and the faces of each teen staring back at me, all smiles. So young.

  My gaze lingers on the first girl who had gone missing, Caroline, aged just seventeen. She has been missing four weeks . . . and now, inside, my heart is aching. I know her mother, Ruth. I’d worked with her for years and we’d grown to be friends. When Caroline had first gone missing, we’d assumed she was fighting to be independent. Ruth and I had had many talks about how giving her space would lead her back to her mother when she was ready.

  I think of all the words of comfort I’ve given her and feel like a fraud.

  ‘It’s going to take a while to ID them,’ Iain says. I look at him and his eyes meet mine. He shrugs. ‘Well, they say the soft parts are always the first to go.’

  ‘Eww,’ Elle says.

  He must know what I’m thinking and immediately looks regretful.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Poor Ruth and Mike.’

  I struggle to find any words. In this moment, all I can do is helplessly stare at the TV just as the reporter says unconfirmed reports suggest the police have every reason to believe these are the bodies of the missing girls.

  Like we needed to hear that. I already knew. Things like this just don’t happen around here.

  I think of Elle as a sharp twinge pulls at my insides. I feel the pain as if it were a personal loss to me. ‘God help their poor families,’ I say, snapping back into life.

  Elle reaches for her drink. ‘This is yesterday’s news,’ she says between sips.

  We both look at her. She shrugs.

  ‘Was on the internet late last night. It was a rumour going around Facebook.’

  ‘Elle,’ I say, ‘why didn’t you mention this?’

  She shrugs again. ‘It was just a rumour then. And what’s that you’re always telling me? Don’t believe everything you see on social media?’

  I look at her and remind myself that she’s
soon to be seventeen, like Caroline. Three other girls will never see that birthday. I fight back tears as my mind takes me back to the day of the crash.

  ‘I should call Ruth.’

  ‘Is that such a good idea right now?’ Iain says.

  ‘She’s a friend and we know Caroline.’

  Knew. Knew Caroline, I say to myself, and immediately feel wrong for thinking it.

  ‘Ruth and Mike are probably being inundated with calls and visits from the police and immediate family, Charlotte. They’ll be overwhelmed.’

  ‘All the more reason I should be there for her. For them both, her and Mike.’

  Iain shakes his head. ‘I feel just as sad for them, as much as you do, but you’re not in their immediate circle of friends, Char.’ He looks at me with a degree of sympathy, but there’s something else there as well and I know he doesn’t want me to get too involved.

  He’s right, I guess, but it feels wrong not to do anything.

  I’ve helped Ruth on and off, just going out and driving around, searching. In the beginning, I helped stick up missing posters and went out walking with a group of Ruth and Mike’s friends, just to do something, to feel like there was still a chance Caroline would come back at any moment.

  Then the second girl had gone missing. We didn’t know her or her family personally but we had seen them around the area.

  It feels wrong not to try and salvage something positive out of this. Ruth couldn’t protect her daughter but I know I’ll do anything to protect mine.

  I glance at Elle. Her eyes are glued to her iPad screen.

  ‘You’re not going to that party Friday,’ I say as I turn back to the sink.

  Elle is naturally cross. ‘What?’ She looks at Iain. ‘Why?’ she bleats.

  I turn, nod at the TV. ‘There’s someone out there killing girls your age, Elle.’ She rolls her eyes but I don’t care. ‘I need to know you’re safe and under my roof.’

  ‘Mum!’ Her brow is furrowed. ‘I’ll be, like, the only one not going.’

  ‘Kenzie isn’t going,’ I say.

  Kenzie is Elle’s best friend and a bad influence on her – not that Iain agrees with me on that front.

  Elle makes a face to silently ask me how I know that.

  ‘I saw her mother yesterday. She feels the same as me about these house parties.’

  ‘Her brother will be there.’

  I scoff. ‘Oh, that’s a real comfort.’

  Elle turns to her father then. ‘He’s eighteen, Dad, an adult.’

  ‘Barely,’ I say as Iain looks at me. If he doesn’t back me on this, I’ll bloody lose it. I’m tired of looking like the bad guy all the time. Lately I feel like this every day. It doesn’t help that Elle is now making puppy-dog eyes at me. She unfolds her arms and is now putting them around me.

  ‘I know you worry, Mum.’

  Little bleeder. I love her to death, but she sure knows how to play me.

  ‘If I get a ride home with Jade’s mum, can I go?’

  I frown, avoid her eyes. Still nothing from Iain.

  ‘Pleeeease, Mum?’

  I look to Iain for help. I want him to say no and save me the moody silent treatment I’ll get for the rest of the weekend from Elle if I stand firm.

  ‘No,’ I say as I flick the television off. I can’t bear to see or hear any more right now. I feel Elle’s eyes on me just before she storms out of the room.

  Iain sighs as he comes towards me. I let him hug me from behind as I stare out of the window. I can’t bring myself to look at him in case I break down.

  ‘Arguing with Elle isn’t going to help you,’ he says, resting his chin on my shoulder. ‘I know it’s hard with what’s going on around the villages, but we have to try and carry on.’

  I suck in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t move out to the village to feel afraid,’ I say.

  ‘You’re saying you don’t feel safe here?’

  ‘It’s not about me feeling safe, Iain,’ I say, my hand now resting on his arm around my middle. ‘It’s always been about what’s best for Elle.’

  I think back to the faces in the newspaper. The pixilated smiles of those teens. My heart could break for their parents.

  I think of my own mother. I think of how my family was broken apart by a loss that I have never fully understood. All I know is how I will never take my eyes away from Elle, not like I used to.

  This is something I fear Iain will never fully understand.

  I know more than anyone the grief and fallout that comes from losing a child, no matter the circumstances.

  We can hear Elle thundering around above us, the floorboards overhead creaking in protest.

  Iain’s arm pulls away from me. He’s torn between staying with me and going to check on Elle.

  ‘I could drive Elle to this party and pick her up,’ he says. He moves away but watches me carefully. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  I shrug. ‘How can you possibly know that? How can any of us?’

  He looks at me, exasperated, but does his best to try and hide it. I know he’s trying to be supportive, but I also know I’m not the easiest person to placate right now.

  He’s treating me like I’m glass, though, and that’s one thing I can’t stand. Being made to feel like everyone needs to tread carefully around me.

  ‘Elle is not Miles,’ he says. ‘She’s not any of these girls either.’

  I shudder as he speaks Miles’s name.

  ‘This place is safe.’

  ‘What’s going on now—’

  ‘Stop obsessing about it,’ he snaps. ‘You’re going to lose Elle, if you’re not careful. Keep pushing and she’ll clam up completely. You have to let her live a little.’

  I hold his stare now.

  ‘We did that once.’ I watch his face fall, now less assured of his own words. ‘You remember how that turned out?’

  He nods. ‘Yeah, but I also remember the reasons behind it.’

  He sees the hurt on my face.

  ‘I know it wasn’t your fault,’ he says, now coming towards me. ‘Besides, this is different.’ He looks deep into my eyes. ‘It’s just a party. Give her that little bit of freedom.’

  I risk a glance at the newspaper again. Iain sees and shoves it in the bin. He avoids my eyes as he comes over and kisses me on the cheek.

  ‘The worst didn’t happen to you, Charlotte.’ He pats my arm, then leaves me standing there alone.

  The worst didn’t happen . . .

  I could have died in that crash. I didn’t. I could have been left with life-changing injuries. I wasn’t. I could have left my daughter without her mother. I didn’t. I’m here and all I can do is try to carry on as usual.

  Easier said than done.

  How do you completely come back from being so close to death? How can you just act like nothing’s happened? Iain suggested six months ago that I might need counselling.

  I declined.

  I don’t need a therapist to tell me what I already know.

  I could have died – would have done, had I not been dragged from the wreckage. It’s freak events like that that make you question your own mortality, and that of the ones you love.

  Is it any wonder I obsess about our daughter’s safety when there’s someone out there hurting girls our daughter’s age? Is it any wonder I put all my energy into protecting her, when I’ve seen this kind of pain before? Iain knows what happened to my brother when I was small. He knows what I saw with my own mother, and yet . . .

  Carry on as usual, he says . . .

  Easier said than done.

  CHAPTER 2

  Detective Inspector Madeleine Wood’s Tyvek paper suit rustled with each tentative step she took towards the incident tent.

  She’d been warned what to expect by officers who had already been on the scene for several hours, since the initial call had come through.

  A group of teens had taken a haul of alcohol and drugs up to the wasteland in the middle of the night, planning on making their mark on
the world. In their heads, they’d thought they were making a stand against society, or some such rubbish.

  Stumbling across a makeshift shallow grave in the dark had scared them shitless, and reduced them to crying wrecks, begging for their mummies.

  Twisted limbs, flesh riddled with insects, and a smell that would stay with you no matter how many times you washed would do that to anybody, even if these teens were usually as hard as nails.

  Madeleine tucked a few strands of long auburn hair that had worked loose from her ponytail back inside the suit’s hood.

  ‘Guv,’ said DC Braithwaite as she approached.

  Madeleine nodded. ‘Charis.’

  DC Charis Brathwaite looked as solemn as ever. Devoid of much emotion, she resembled Madeleine’s own mother – strong and silent, with an air about her that always gave the impression of being permanently pissed off with something or somebody.

  Madeleine stopped beside Charis at the entrance to the incident tent, watching her pale face carefully, but she wasn’t giving much away.

  ‘What’s your gut telling you?’ she said.

  She looked grim and pulled her face mask back over her chin. ‘It’s got to be them. Has to be.’

  Madeleine swallowed hard.

  She knew it to be true also, but part of her had still silently prayed she was wrong; that she wouldn’t be giving the news to heartbroken parents, their world now devoid of any hope of finding their child alive.

  She took a deep breath and went inside.

  There were four bodies in the grave in front of her. Four bodies in different stages of decomposition. Four bodies that were partially clothed; some feet missing shoes, socks . . . simple things that would have made them look more human.

  One thing was for certain, though.

  The four bodies were definitely female.

  The missing girls had been found.

  A formal ID would follow, but Madeleine knew it was them. Their names had been whittled down to just their first names in her head. That was all she needed to know. Names and ages. That was enough to make her determined to see justice done.