The New Girl

by Ingrid Alexandra

  Darting a look at the others, who are eyeing each other guiltily, I stand and head inside. The rum is on the living room floor and limes have spilled from the bag and are spiralling over the carpet. I step around them and approach Rachel’s bedroom door, which is shut. My fingers touch the handle and that’s when I hear it.

  Sobbing, raw and guttural, echoes from behind the door. I freeze. Rachel is crying, really crying.

  Wincing against a stab of guilt, I push open the door a crack and whisper, ‘Rach? You okay?’

  The sobbing grows louder.

  ‘Rachel, I’m so sorry. Can I come in?’ I push the door further open; Rachel is on her knees on the floor at the foot of the bed in near-darkness. Her face is in her hands, her back to me. The only light is a streak of sunset-orange that crosses the length of the room and casts a stripe across Rachel’s back. I step forward, crouch behind her and talk over her sobs. ‘Please, Rach. We’re sorry. I need to know if you’re all right.’

  Rachel’s head snaps around and her eyes, gleaming with tears in the orange light, are like fire.

  I stumble back on the balls of my feet and land on my bum.

  ‘I’m not all right,’ she hisses, eyes narrowed, body twisted at an angle to face me. ‘You want to know why, huh? You want to know why I wear baggy clothes and hide my body? This is why!’

  She yanks up her jumper and pulls it over her head. The tank top beneath it is ripped off too until she’s sitting before me in her bra and leggings.

  My eyes travel over her and a gasp constricts my throat. I can’t see much in the fading light, but I can see enough.

  Dark bruises stain most of Rachel’s torso, from the underwire of her bra, across her stomach and down to the tops of her hips. Some have turned purple and some are tinged with green and yellow around the edges. It looks like she’s been beaten with a two-by-four. Or a lead pipe.

  I can’t help the soft moan that escapes, or the tears that spring to my eyes. And then something unexpected; a hot, pulsing thing in my chest. Anger.

  ‘Fuck. Who did this to you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Rachel laughs bitterly, still shuddering with the aftershocks of her tears.

  ‘It matters to me,’ I say, hesitating before placing a hand on her shoulder, the one place that isn’t bruised. ‘I mean, I … maybe I can help.’

  ‘It’s fine now,’ Rachel flinches away from me, but when she looks at me there’s almost an apology in her eyes. ‘It’s just my ex. I’ve left now. The bruises will heal.’

  As I watch her, a strange feeling creeps over me. It’s like I’m seeing myself from the outside. ‘But the emotional ones take longer,’ I say softly.

  Rachel nods, her head down, her hair hanging limp around her tiny face, and I’m overcome with such empathy that I want to wrap my arms around her, cradle her against me and tell her it’s all going to be okay. But I don’t know her very well and I’m afraid to touch her bruises, so I hold back.

  ‘Look,’ I whisper. ‘I … have some idea … what you’re going through. So, um … I’m here if you need me.’ It’s all I can think of to say. It feels so inadequate.

  ‘Thanks.’ Rachel sniffs and looks up at me with those killer eyes, made luminous with tears and amber light. ‘Please don’t tell the others.’

  I pull a strand of hair into my mouth. I’ve never kept anything from Cat before. But I also know what it’s like to have a secret like this, and I know I have to make Rachel feel safe. If that means making her this promise, I’ll do it.

  ‘Mary, please.’ Rachel’s small, cold hand slips into mine. ‘Gia’s not the nicest person if she’s about to just judge me like that. And I know you’re friends with Cat and everything, but I just don’t feel … I don’t trust her. The way she looks at me sometimes … and the way she looks at you. It’s like you’re her property. I think you should be careful. I’ve met people like her before.’

  My mouth opens and closes and I have to look away. Cat’s my best friend; I trust her implicitly. I’m not sure how Rachel got the wrong idea, but I’m sensing now’s not the time to discuss it.

  ‘Girls like us have to stick together,’ she says softly. ‘Not everyone gets it. Not everyone knows. Men are scum, they’re motherfucking scum, and …’ Rachel stops, seems to battle with something internally. She buries her face in her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Mary. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

  She’s crying again, and I ignore my misgivings and pull her gently by the shoulders and into my arms. She smells sweet, her face is pressed to my neck and I can feel her tears on my skin, her body shuddering with broken, silent sobs.

  ‘I promise I won’t tell anyone,’ I say, stroking her hair. ‘This is just between us.’

  ‘I knew I could trust you.’ Rachel raises her head, gives a quivery smile. Something flickers in my chest. ‘I can, can’t I?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say with a conviction I vow to myself to keep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  29th November 2016

  Anger is good. It’s the heat spreading from my chest, prickling up my spine, giving me strength. I won’t let fear win, and I won’t let him win. Seeing what happened to Rachel has fuelled the fire … If I don’t stop him, there will be more of us. More Rachels, more Marys. And I’m sure as hell not going to end up another fucking statistic.

  Just now I was about to call the Victoria police, ask to be connected to someone involved in the Forrester case, but I stopped myself. There’s no point talking to them without any proof. They’ll just dismiss me like Sergeant Moore did. They’re not going to reopen a case because some girl calls and says she might have seen her ex-boyfriend holding a brick in the dark. And according to their records, Mark and I were never even there. As far as they know, I could be some crazy girl with a grudge, desperate for attention. Or revenge.

  I could lie. I could say I saw Mark do it, and then they’d have to investigate him. Wouldn’t they?

  Maybe that’s too risky. I need evidence. I need to be prepared this time. There has to be something that can prove what happened. Something the police missed that only someone who was there – who saw – would know.

  If only I knew what happened during that blackout. If only I could remember.

  I’ve been poring over my memory files, but it’s the same old data. Darkness. Mark leering over me, shouting. Mark holding the brick. Waking up covered in blood. Blackness, stretching for hours. I don’t know the order of events, but I’ve done my best to make a list of the facts. When I speak to the police again – and I will – I’ll be ready.

  Things I know about the night of the murder:

  1.Mark was missing for a few hours. It would have been some time between midnight and 3.30 a.m., as Mark and I returned home at 4 a.m. and I went looking for him at around 1.30 a.m. after he’d already been missing for over an hour.

  2.According to the papers, Tom Forrester was bludgeoned to death with a brick at around 2 a.m. He was found the next morning by a jogger at 6.20 a.m.

  3.I saw Mark holding a bloodied brick. Unsure of exact time, but must have been around 3–3.30 a.m.?

  *Can’t prove this and the weapon was never found – no DNA evidence.

  *Also, I didn’t actually see Mark do it. Or I did (would explain the blood) and can’t remember?

  4.The victim was a drug user/dealer.

  5.Mark was a drug user/dealer, suspect he was dealing at the time. Mark told me he was scoring drugs and was missing within the time Forrester was killed.

  *Evidence of this?

  6.I woke up with blood on my torso. Mark was shouting at me, but can’t remember what he said. Sometimes I think I can remember someone else’s voice shouting too, but it’s unclear, and that might have happened earlier. Mark had blood on his clothes.

  *We did not have any major injuries, no more than bumps and scratches. Therefore, the blood was someone else’s.

  7.There is a gap in my memory, the time lost between leaving the party and waking up to Mark shou
ting. No accounting for what happened between the hours of 1.30 and 3.30 a.m. Pretty sure I was passed out for some of it.

  8.Somehow I ended up with bruises and a sore bump on the back of my head, suggesting I did pass out.

  9.Mark has a history of violence and drug addiction. He physically and psychologically abused me. He is capable of anything.

  *Never reported him

  *He has other convictions – could be used against him?

  10.Mark behaved strangely, out of character, after the night of the murder.

  *Just my opinion, no proof.

  It’s a lot easier seeing it written down. It’s also painfully clear how little I have to go on. Mark kept me separate from his friends, so I don’t have any contact details, but I’m friends with some of them on Facebook. I could get in touch and try to find out if he was affiliated with the victim in terms of drug dealing or whatever. Although that’s risky, because they might tell Mark I’m trying to get evidence on him. I don’t want to give him a heads-up.

  Doctor Sarah. Maybe talking to her could help. She knows what Mark’s capable of, knows the history. But I haven’t told her about the blood. She’ll wonder why I didn’t mention it before. Another mistake.

  Now I know what Mark did, I suspect the blood on me came from him. It’s a relief to have that explained. But if it did in fact come from him, that means I must have been nearby when it happened – that he held or touched me and the blood transferred to me. Which means it’s possible I saw more than I’m remembering.

  Of course, the blood also implicates me. And yet I wish I’d held on to those clothes, because that’s evidence – the police would have to listen to me if I had bloodstained clothes to show them. And they could suspect me if they wanted, and of course they would. But it wouldn’t matter. Because that would be enough to get them to listen to me, to investigate Mark, and then they’d find out the truth.

  I found some photos from That Night on my phone – I thought I’d taken some but had never had the urge or the need to look at them before. I’ve been over and over them for the last few hours, seeing if there’s anything I’ve missed. There’s one of me and the girlfriend of one of Mark’s friends, posed with standard toothy smiles, our eyes red from the flash. You can just make out Tom Forrester in the background – I recognise him from the news articles, but the photo gives nothing away. He’s standing by himself, drinking from a bottle, not even in focus. He’s probably unrecognisable to most people. But I know it’s him – I’ve studied it for long enough. And this proves that Sergeant Moore was wrong – Mark and I were there.

  Facebook was no help. Most of the pictures from That Night have been deleted out of respect and those that remain are fairly innocuous.

  I want to scream with the frustration of it all. To think I didn’t do anything before, that I continued to turn a blind eye. If only I’d said something, done something, maybe none of this would have happened.

  I hate him, for the first time. Even at his worst, my anger always gave way to pity. I could never hate him. But I can now. It zings through me and I feel more alive than I have in years. I’d be able to pin him for this, I’m certain, if I could just remember the details. It’s my fault for being so weak, getting so messed up. For letting him sway my thoughts and emotions, convincing me he’d done nothing wrong. But part of me always knew. He won’t get away with it.

  Yes, the anger is good. It’s a ball of fire in my stomach. When I close my eyes, I can see his. Glazed, hatred glinting. I can feel the fear, taste the blood. I simmer with the certainty of it. Mark is a cold-blooded murderer.

  It’s later and I’m shivering now. The haze of booze and rage has faded, so I’m drinking from a whisky bottle I keep hidden in my closet. And I’m glad I looked there, because I found something. My red dress, the one I wore on one of our first nights out as a couple. It hung like the shadow of a memory between my grey blazer and the woollen beige cardigan that my grandmother knitted before she died. I could see my pale arms in those crimson sleeves, see me painting my lips the same bright colour, smiling at my flushed reflection in that white, bright bathroom. Seventeen-year-old me, thinking how grown-up I was.

  Transported back, I can sense him behind me, watching. Even then, in those early days, his presence was like a weight over my body; I felt encompassed by him. Looking down, I’m wearing my red suede shoes with the ankle strap. I feel constricted in these shoes, with their tight straps like shackles.

  I wasn’t wearing that red dress the night of Dealer Dan’s party. I was in some flimsy silk thing – short, with a plunging neckline. Before he went missing, Mark was yelling about something, calling me a whore. I’d forgotten that until I remembered the dress; one that Mark specifically asked me to wear. He was strange like that. He wanted me to show off my body, but then he would blame me when men looked at me or tried to talk to me. Fucking hypocrite.

  No, I wasn’t in my red dress that night. And the silk number is long gone; shoved down the garbage chute along with Mark’s shirt after the bloodstains refused to be washed out. But I was wearing the shoes. The red shoes that very easily could have absorbed and concealed drops of blood.

  And I know exactly where they are.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I knock lightly on Rachel’s door and a few seconds later it opens. Her face appears through the crack, sleep-mussed hair in a halo around her pale face, and she breaks into a smile.

  ‘It’s you. Hey.’

  ‘Good morning,’ I reply. A funny feeling flutters in my chest as she opens the door wider. I step into the room, handing her the cup of coffee I’ve brought.

  ‘You’re so kind.’ Rachel’s voice wavers, and the smile she gives me makes me feel like I just handed her a life jacket rather than a cup of coffee.

  ‘No problem. I thought you might need it.’

  It’s warm in her room with the morning sunshine streaming through the open window. There’s the faint odour of perfume in the air. Piles of clothes and shoes are strewn about, a pair of hot-pink knickers hang from a floor fan. Most of the drawers in her dresser are half open and her vanity is cluttered with make-up and jewellery, coffee mugs and an empty wine bottle.

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says, gesturing towards the bed.

  I sit, clasping my hands in my lap. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Rachel shrugs. She’s in a pale blue nightie with thin straps, a slip of material that barely reaches her thighs. I can see the edge of a yellow bruise above the neckline, and her breasts are visible through the thin material. I quickly look away.

  ‘Better,’ she says as she perches next to me on the bed, takes a sip of coffee. Her eyes avoid mine.

  I’m unsure what to say. This is a different girl to the one I first met, the person I saw as beautiful, confident, carefree. I’ve been told that’s how others see me, too. Or at least, that’s how they used to see me. Perhaps Rachel and I are more similar than I first thought.

  ‘I meant what I said. You can talk to me any time.’

  She looks up at me through her lashes and her eyes are red-rimmed, luminous. ‘Thanks, Mary.’

  Doctor Sarah’s voice pops into my head, as it sometimes does, and I wonder if it might be a good time to ‘share’. I’ve kept everything hidden for so long. But Rachel, with that ex of hers, may understand what I’m going through. And telling her might make her feel less alone.

  But as I open my mouth, the words stick in my throat. I don’t know Rachel well enough. There’s too much at stake right now. I can’t.

  Rachel seems expectant, as though she’s aware I’m on the brink of something. Is it my imagination, or does she seem disappointed? Her posture is stiff, her shoulders hunched.

  ‘You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?’ she asks.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘What about Cat?’ There’s an edge to Rachel’s voice.

  ‘I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.’

  Rachel stares at the faded che
quered bedspread, her expression unreadable. ‘It’s just that I don’t trust her. I know you guys are close. But there’s just something about her …’

  I don’t know what to say. How has she got Cat so wrong?

  ‘You won’t tell her, will you?’

  ‘I promised I wouldn’t.’

  ‘People judge you for that kind of thing. They … it’s too raw. It’s just not worth it. Besides, Cat said …’

  ‘Cat said something to you?’ I say, surprised.

  Rachel’s eyes widen. ‘Uh, no. Not exactly. Just don’t say anything, okay?’

  ‘I won’t. I always keep my promises.’ As I speak the words, I wonder whether they’re strictly true.

  Rachel’s shoulders relax. Her eyes find mine. ‘I know. I trust you.’

  It’s the second time she’s said this, and I wonder how she can be so sure. She barely knows me. And, while I can understand she might be desperate to latch on to someone, to feel secure after everything she’s been through, there’s something intoxicating about being needed. I want to help her. I want to make her feel safe.

  Her free hand slides along the bed towards me. I watch as she lifts it and places it over both of mine, which are still in my lap. ‘You can talk to me any time too, you know.’

  Our eyes lock and hold, and there it is again, that feeling of exposure, as if she knows something. Knows me.

  ‘Do you want to go somewhere and talk properly some time?’ she asks, tracing my fingers with hers.

  I clear my throat. ‘I’m going away tomorrow. To visit my aunty.’

  ‘Oh,’ she looks down. ‘For how long?’

  ‘Only a couple of days.’

  ‘How about tonight, then?’

  I answer before I can think. ‘Okay.’

  She breaks into this bright, goofy smile, and she looks so pretty. It’s a bit unsettling. ‘I know a place. I found it when I went walking the other night. We can bring a rug and some wine and stuff … It’ll be fun!’