The Second Life of Amy Archer

by R. S. Pateman

  Esme got into the school all right. Passed the exam, got the money, no problem.

  ‘What did I tell you!’ Libby said to her. ‘Little Miss Pessimist. Saying it would all come to nothing.’

  But Esme said it didn’t mean anything . . . it would still all go wrong. That made Libby wonder if she didn’t really wanna go there. Esme said she was upset about leaving all her mates behind.

  I knew that feeling . . . At the end of junior school, I knew I’d be going off to a pit of a comprehensive on the Old Kent Road with the other no-hopers. I didn’t have to wait to be told that by the council. And Mrs Archer didn’t have to wait to be told that Amy wouldn’t be going there neither. That weren’t where girls like Amy went. She was a double-A girl with minted parents. She’d be going to a school that looked more like a big posh house with hockey fields, where the girls had to wear kilts.

  The uniform at Esme’s new school weren’t poncy like Amy’s was, but it weren’t cheap, so Libby had to save up for it and buy it one bit at a time, way in advance, with plenty of room for growth. She got the lot . . . black coat, black skirt, black jumper, black shoes, black socks . . .

  It freaked me out big time the first time Esme put it all on . . . All I could see was Amy, ready for the funeral she never had and ready . . . waiting for mine.

  ‘Don’t you look smart?’ Libby said.

  ‘No. It looks like somebody died,’ Esme said. ‘Doesn’t it, Henry?’

  T is for time. Time to die.

  U is for . . . unicorn.

  ‘The writing’s on the wall.’ That’s how the saying goes, don’t it, when something can’t be stopped? Well, they’re wrong . . .

  It weren’t writing that did it for me, which is no biggie where I’m concerned, I suppose. The message had to be kept simple so even a thick-as-pig-shit waster like me got it, which meant words wouldn’t hack it, no matter where they were written or how big.

  I needed a picture, and it turned up on me bedroom wall, in the shadows I saw there every night. It was a long, sharp unicorn horn, ramming into the limbs of the puppets and filing down their teeth.

  Miss Clapton had told us the unicorn was a symbol of purity and grace, and that its horn had magic so powerful it could heal sickness and cure poison.

  This time I just knew magic would work for me . . . it was what natural law wanted so I . . . so I could put things right.

  U is for unicorn. The writing on the wall.

  V is for . . . vamos.

  Shit, I’d forgotten I even knew that word. Before, the only bit of Spanish I remembered from school was nada – nothing – but it ain’t no accident it’s come back to me now.

  Vamos. That’s what I should have said to Amy in the playground, only I didn’t.

  Vamos, Dana. Let’s go. There’s nada for you here.

  W is for . . . wave.

  Not like a wave in the sea . . . I mean a wave goodbye. To Manchester . . . Amy . . . To me.

  A wave of the white flag. I surrender . . .

  I surrender.

  X . . .

  X marks the spot. Somewhere I won’t make a mess for someone else to clean up for a change.

  The sea . . . I never was much good at swimming . . . I never was much good at anything.

  Y is for . . .

  Y is . . . because it’s the law . . . because I ain’t allowed to beat Amy . . . because I can’t take no more . . . because this will make us quits.

  Z is for . . . zip.

  The zip on the body bag they put me in – if they ever find me. They never found Amy after all . . . She found me.

  12

  Now I know.

  My daughter was raped.

  Repeatedly.

  Right under my nose.

  And I never had a clue.

  Poor Dana is dead.

  Libby and Esme are exploiting her as much as they are exploiting me.

  I know who killed my daughter.

  Snapping the truth into bits doesn’t make it easier to swallow. It sticks in my throat. The rip of it. The scorching guilt. The choke of hatred. For Dana’s grandfather. For Libby and Esme. For myself.

  Questions flood my head, fight for answers I may not ever get.

  How long did Amy and Dana’s abuse go on for? Weeks? Months? Years?

  Who else was part of the Grey Wolf’s pack?

  How did Amy die? Did she fight? Did she suffer?

  Where is her body?

  How did this happen? Where was I? Where was Brian?

  What does this make us?

  I could have prevented it. I was her mother, for God’s sake. Her mother. What kind of woman am I? What kind of mother? Not soft and supportive, caring and kind. The sort kisses are given to as freely as secrets are shared. Who wants only the best for her child and does all she can to make sure it happens. The sort I thought I was.

  With me for a mother, Amy was lost long before she vanished.

  The darkness of that truth spreads slowly at first, bit by bit, like insinuating rings of ink in a jar of water. Then shadowy fingers curl, snatch away the light. Snuff out any hope of redemption.

  I’d feel a twisted sort of absolution if it had just been a lone paedophile who’d taken Amy. I couldn’t be blamed for something random. Couldn’t guard against it. No way could it be my fault, despite what the press might say.

  Just a lone paedophile? Just? Only a monster could think that. No proper mother ever would. But I have. I’m as bad as the perverts who killed her. Shame scalds.

  Amy, forgive me. For everything. For letting you think I was loving and trustworthy. That I knew what was best for you. For not being the mother you thought you had. Not being the mother you needed – not even now.

  I close my eyes.

  I feel their rough hands touching me. Their fetid, panting breath. I twist beneath them, shudder with the pain. I hear their grunts of satisfaction, their exhortations to be good. To be quiet. To make sure it stays that way.

  I scramble through my memories, looking for telltale signs and listening for hints. But I don’t hear Amy crying wolf. There are no sentences left half finished by an awkward shrug or a blush. No anxiety or recognition when I took her through the birds and the bees. No clues upon her body.

  Those cuts and abrasions on her limbs were just badges from the rough-and-tumble games of an active child. I’d have been more suspicious if she hadn’t had them. She didn’t try and hide her body and would have worn her leotard all day, every day if I’d let her. The skin exposed by her bikini on Zante showed only the touch of the sun.

  I thought she loved taking baths because of the nostrilstinging fizz of her bubble-gum-scented bath bombs, the fluffy comfort of her bathrobe. When all the while she was scrubbing at the filth she felt but couldn’t reach. It stayed inside her, indelible, for ever.

  There were no black marks on her school report, no mention of moodiness, tantrums or bullying. Her grades gave nothing away. Dana’s grades actually got better.

  I remember her mother beaming as Dana pulled away from the bottom of the class. I put it down to Amy letting Dana copy her and told her not to do it as she wasn’t helping her, not really. Not in the long run. She’d do better to learn it for herself.

  But they were helping each other. Matching equations. Their two times table quick on their tongues. Best friends eager to give teacher the answer – but not as quick to tell tales.

  Best friends.

  Their names appeared together on the bottom of a picture of a snail made out of bits of gravel and pebbles and glossy with varnish. They won the three-legged race at sports day, Dana’s free elbow spinning like a blade on the wheels of a Roman chariot. They whispered and giggled, swapped sweets and lunchboxes, went down with chickenpox and colds in tandem.

  Dana was always there. Except the moment Amy needed her the most. When a friend by her side would have ruled Amy out as a target and an extra pair of eyes would have been alert to any danger, Dana was nowhere to be found.

  Logic m
akes me want to blame her, but instinct kicks in and won’t let me. It would be easy – understandable even – to damn her for leading my daughter to a pervert’s lair. For leaving Amy to her fate in the playground. Buying her own safety with silence. Granting her grandfather the freedom to harm who knows how many other children.

  But Dana was a child, just a child. Just like my little girl. Two innocents, too scared to stand up and speak out. I understand why.

  Dana and her parents were beholden to him at home. Amy and Dana were in his kingdom at school. The teachers ruled the classrooms but the school itself was his. It couldn’t open without the keys in his pocket. He kept it warm and light. He magicked away splats of vomit, mopped up pools of pee. He was a hero. A one-man A-team. Trusted and respected. Beyond reach. Above suspicion. Safe.

  And I can’t shake the thought that Dana endured the abuse longer than Amy did. However long Amy was his victim – and the fact that I will never know is both a comfort and a torment – Dana suffered longer.

  Amy’s life was taken; Dana’s was blighted by a wound that could never heal. She lived under the crippling weight of what she saw as her betrayal, haunted by Amy every moment of every day. Memories of Amy warped her thinking and clouded her sight. When Esme turned up, remorse, paranoia and guilt pushed Dana over the edge. I understand all that too.

  I see now that Ian, instead of being an accomplice, might really be psychic after all. It must have been Dana who came through to him and tried to warn me off. A big man, he said, with short dark hair whose lips were moving without saying anything out loud. It was Dana showing him the traffic signal for caution, think, beware. Dana alerting me to danger, not from Amy, but from Libby and Esme. Maybe the Jesus picture was a clue to her as well. Dana Bishop. It might even have been a hint about Bishop himself.

  The guilt I have lived with for the last ten years is suddenly heavier, laden with a new nuance. The added weight of another lost girl.

  If I’d had my eyes open, been there, doing what I should have been doing instead of God knows what, then, then I could have saved Dana too.

  How many times did I moan about her to Brian? Countless. I went on about how she was holding Amy back, pushed Brian to let me put her in another school. A better school. Only he wouldn’t. He said he wanted Amy to be a real kid with friends from all walks of life, not a conveyorbelt boffin with a limited view.

  I said he was more concerned that having a daughter in private school would jeopardise his agency’s grip on the Labour Party account. He had no right to risk his daughter’s future. He claimed I was doing the same thing by wanting to choose her friends. I was a fool to even try, he said; interfering would only force them closer together.

  I know now that he was right. And I understand why none of the other girls in Amy’s class ever made the grade. Dana would have been left on her own. Their secret bound them tight.

  And Brian and I forced them together. Our rows were there right from the start. Even before Amy was born, our happiest times had an undercurrent. Nothing obvious or definable. Nothing we could point at and try to put right.

  But there was a hint of trouble, a thin, unbroken line of gunpowder, just waiting for a spark. The big bang never came. Just cluster bombs detonating in muffled slow motion. Instead of a home that invited communication and confidences, Amy endured smouldering silences and spiteful, snarky quarrels that made her prefer being at Dana’s to being at home. The blast has only just hit.

  Our mouths may have said that love was a wonderful, invisible force for good, that Mummy and Daddy loved each other really, but our hearts – our example – showed her that love was hard and painful. Something to be got through and put up with.

  Amy’s concept of love had landed somewhere in the middle, a murky no-man’s-land where right was so confused with wrong that she could tolerate abuse because she believed it was for the best.

  So much for nurturing and instilling positive values and doing everything we could for our daughter. My rounded, engaged and happy child – fortified by all those lessons, activities, trips and experiences – was left defenceless by our legacy of love. I was a poor role model – misshapen, mutant. Warped.

  Our daughter couldn’t have wished for a better friend. Only better parents. That’s a slap that won’t ever stop stinging.

  And what of Dana’s parents?

  I used to envy them. For still being together – all of them – like a family should be. For keeping their daughter safe. I can’t say I never wished my anguish on any other parent, because I did. If I’d been able to change places I’d have done it in an instant.

  I wouldn’t do it now, though. Both our girls are dead. The grief and heartache I’ve endured for the last ten years hasn’t even begun for them. And at least my family is blameless. Up to a point, anyway; we never harboured any perverts.

  I try to picture Dana’s grandfather but can only just make him out against the school’s drab brickwork and colourless playground. He’s camouflaged by a smear of khaki-brown overalls and a smudge of ashy grey hair, lank as a washed-out mop.

  Away from the school he’s just a cheery wave with the Sun in the queue at the post office, a smoky hello as I skirt by William Hill. A shape. A movement. A wolf in the woods.

  Amy never mentioned him unless he’d bought her some sweets on the way back from the playground or praised their new dance routine. The ordinary things grandparents are expected to do. Things Brian and I did too.

  She didn’t mention his mutilated finger either. If I’d noticed it myself I might have thought her silence strange. Grisly details like that are the stuff of childish tales. How he’d lost it in the mouth of a shark or had it cut off in a fight. How the mutilated stump was kept in the caretaker’s shed to wag at naughty children.

  And if Amy had said something, my political correctness would have kicked in. It’s rude to stare, I would have told her; people come in all shapes and sizes. Bodies and minds aren’t always whole. Just because people look different doesn’t mean there’s anything to be scared of. Despair stabs at my ribs.

  That man killed my daughter. I don’t know his name. I can’t recall his face. After all these years, I still have nothing to claw and scream at. No target for my spit or kicks. But I will.

  I want my pound of flesh and nothing will stand in my way – unless God has already snatched him to safety in heaven so He can punish me once more.

  My eyes drift from the laptop to the picture of Dana on my phone. My finger strokes her bloated face.

  ‘I’ll get him for you. I promise. I won’t rest until I do. I’ll get him for you both.’

  A need for vengeance and justice rips through me, forcing me out of the bed and into my clothes. I just want to get out of the flat as quickly as I can, before Libby and Esme find out I’m wise to their scam.

  I shut the laptop down, put it back in my suitcase and slip the USB stick into my coat pocket. The door clicks behind me as I let myself out.

  I don’t wait for the cab driver to give me my change. I’m not even aware if I’m due any. I thought about calling Dave once I got out of the flat and down to the street, but he’s done enough already and might not even be working. Besides, he’d have too many questions, too much chat, and my head’s full to bursting as it is.

  I didn’t know which way to go and there was no one around to ask except a group of rowdy clubbers, too incoherent to give me accurate directions. I found my way to the main road and started to walk. Maybe I should have called 999; the police would probably have been at the flat by now. But I didn’t think I’d be able to tell the operator the story over the phone. This wasn’t murder, rape or deception – it was a cocktail of all three, with reincarnation and psychic intervention thrown in for extra kick. They’d have dismissed me as a crank caller. I had to report it in person.

  The road was busy for three twenty in the morning, but none of the vehicles were taxis. Not until I’d walked for fifteen minutes, when a black cab finally went by; it seemed appropri
ate that I’d been walking in the wrong direction.

  The driver’s thanks and good night barely register with me; I slam the cab door and stand on the pavement. The sign outside the police station transfixes me. Police. It looks so solid, so reliable, but I know that’s not the case. Yet I have no choice but to put my trust in them once more.

  I open the door and am hit by a blast of hot air. The lights inside are too bright, the walls teem with garish posters and the air reeks of old sweat, stale cigarette smoke, boozy breath and despair. Perhaps all police stations smell the same way; the warm, rancid air reminds me of every police room I sat in ten years ago.

  I can’t believe they want to make me wait. With a ticket in my hand. Like it’s a raffle. The only prize I want is justice, and I’ve waited too long for that. This is my time and nothing will stand in my way. Not the acne-pocked hoodie or the two drunken drivers. Not even the little lost boy. My girl has been missing longer. The head of the queue starts with me; the rest can get in line.

  But the woman behind the desk tries to fob me off with a ticket and a promise that they won’t be long. I screw the ticket up and turn it in my hand.

  ‘You’ve been too long already,’ I say. ‘Ten years too long.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You should be. We all should. Especially me.’

  She sighs and twiddles with her pen.

  ‘Like I say, madam, if you’ll just take a seat. We’ll come to you as soon as we can.’

  ‘No. Now. I want to report a murder.’

  Instead of waiting outside in the lobby with the winos and tarts, they make me wait inside, all on my own, except for the bobby on the door. It’s not a cell. I’m not under arrest. I’m not even sure they believe me yet – but they will. They have to.

  The clock on the wall has chewed off another quarter since I last looked. Voices and hurried footsteps slip by to next door or beyond. Tending to somebody else’s troubles. A case the police consider more of a priority than a murder. Missing what’s right under their noses. Again. They’ve been as useless at detecting crime as I was at being a mother. We cannot fail once more.