by Lara Dearman
Sarah had raised the alarm. She’d sobered up when they’d got back to Jamie’s house, asked the others where Jenny was. Called everyone who had been out with them. Nobody knew. Not even Jamie. Not until Charlie had driven over there, to ask him exactly where they’d been, which roads they’d walked to the fields and back, and Jamie had mentioned, casually, that he’d last seen her looking for a bunker.
There’d been talk about prosecuting him afterwards, assault, or reckless endangerment. But he’d denied everything, even told the others that she’d thrown herself at him and then gone off in a huff when he’d turned her down, that he didn’t know how she’d ended up down there. Some of her friends had believed him, or at least questioned her to the point that she’d felt they did. The police had believed her, but his dad was an advocate, a senior solicitor in the Guernsey courts, and he’d fixed it all somehow. They’d sent him away for a while. Nobody was sure if it was a school or a hospital. She’d heard he’d come back. Like the rest of them. They’d all come back in the end.
As for what happened in the bunker, it was the concussion they’d told her. She’d hallucinated because of the concussion. And the noise was probably rats. Rats, burrowing and scratching and shrieking. But she’d never been able to shake off the feeling there had been something else down there, something trapped and desperately trying to get out; a malevolent presence, a sleeping evil woken by her stupidity. From that day on she could not bear to be alone in the dark.
* * *
‘Fuck, are you OK?’
Sarah’s voice cut through the fog in her brain.
‘I’m fine. I just … I’m fine. I got a bit dizzy, I had to lie down.’ She pulled herself off of the floor, brushed damp grit off of her jeans and the sleeves of her jacket.
‘On the concrete? Are you sick? Should I call your mum?’
‘No!’ She shook her head and tried to stay focused. ‘It was so hot in there.’ She paused. ‘I saw someone.’
Sarah looked confused. ‘Who?’
She sat on a wooden bench, dropped her head into her hands, rubbed her forehead. She looked up at Sarah. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
The beer garden was less of a garden and more of a small car park, walled off, the remains of a few half-dead clematis hanging limply from a wooden trellis. There were picnic tables, each with an ashtray and a couple of beer mats scattered over them. Jenny picked one up, played with the edges where the smooth, printed top layer was peeling away from the foamy white interior.
‘Shit, Jen, I should get you home. You can talk to Tom another time.’
It was only then that Jenny noticed there was someone else with them, a figure in shadow, leaning against the wall. He stepped forward and extended a muscular arm. He was heavily tattooed, blue-black ink covering his skin from where his T-shirt ended and finishing neatly at his wrist, accentuating the paleness of his slender hand.
‘Tom.’ He nodded towards Sarah. ‘I think Sarah might be right. Maybe we should do this another time?’
‘I’m fine.’ Jenny insisted. ‘We can talk now.’
‘Sure thing.’ He sat down, seemingly unfazed by the evening’s events. ‘I’ve got twenty minutes before we’re back on.’
Sarah looked unhappy. ‘I’m going to get you a hot drink.’ She went back into the pub.
Jenny was shivering. She was wet from lying on the floor and a freezing drizzle enveloped her. Tom sat in his T-shirt and cut-off cargo trousers like it was the middle of summer, studying her intently.
‘Sarah said you knew Hayley Bougourd?’ Her teeth chattered as she spoke and his face fell.
‘Hang on a minute.’ He disappeared back inside. She wondered if she might have to call it a night after all. She trembled, and for a moment thought she might cry. She rubbed her face and her arms. Pull yourself together, Jennifer. The sound of the door swinging to and fro and then a heavy, quilted coat was draped over her shoulders from behind.
‘Thank you.’ She pulled the coat tightly around herself.
‘Don’t want you dying on me.’ Smiling but there was concern there too. ‘Sarah’s trying to sort out a cuppa. Not sure she’ll have much luck, but she’s got that determined look on her face so you never know.’
Jenny smiled. ‘She’s a force to be reckoned with. So, you knew Hayley?’
Yes, he said. She’d been in the same year as him at the grammar school. All the guys fancied her. She was gorgeous and had a reputation as being a bit wild. He was hazy on the details. She had a boyfriend, couldn’t remember his name.
‘I spent a lot of my time back then stoned, so I’m probably not the most reliable witness.’ He grinned. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’
‘Maybe we should talk about this somewhere warmer. Over a drink.’ His tone was offhand but his eyes were interested. She hesitated, lost for words. She wondered whether this reticence, the barriers she constructed around herself, were all part of the anxiety that plagued her, or if it was learnt behaviour, a reaction to the fact that she had, over the last few years, had a tendency to run into complete bastards who seemed more interested in trying to kill her than buying her a drink. The door opened and Sarah appeared with a steaming cup of tea
‘They must have twenty different types of vodka in that bar, but do you think anyone can find a teabag in less than fifteen minutes? It’s a bloody shambles. You drink that and I’ll bring the car round.’ She left them alone again.
‘So?’
‘There’s nothing else you can tell me about Hayley?’
‘If I give you all the info now there’ll be no reason for you to come out with me.’ He grinned.
‘If you tell me something interesting, I’ll think about it.’ She smiled, relieved she’d got out of it without having to say an outright no.
He sighed. ‘Well, now I really wish there was, but there’s nothing interesting to tell. We were all shaken up by it, obviously. The police spoke to us after she died, all the crew that hung out together, asked us if she’d ever talked about killing herself and stuff like that. I think we were all too worried about them finding our little stashes of pot to really focus on what happened. We were just stupid kids.’
‘And had she talked about killing herself?’
‘Not as far as I know – and certainly not to me. She’d stopped coming to Le Guet anyway, that was where we all hung out, in the watchtower up there. Maybe she was depressed or whatever. Definitely nobody had seen her for a few weeks before she died. The last time I remember seeing her was when we found the scarecrow.’
‘The what?’
He laughed. ‘It was so stupid. One night, we found this scarecrow. It was dressed as a woman, standing at the edge of the woods. I know Hayley was there that night because I remember her screaming, shit-scared, before we figured out what it was. She was even more freaked out than the rest of us because she’d thought it was wearing one of her dresses. Wasn’t actually hers, obviously, but it was the same as one she had, black with moons and stars on it. I know because we took it off the scarecrow and told Hayley she should take it if she liked it so much, but that just set her off again. We all laughed at her but, honestly, I shat myself too. Not what you want to see when you’re off your face, a fucking creepy straw woman grimacing at us all. A bunch of us grabbed it and chucked it into the sea.’ He stopped smiling. ‘From the look on your face I’m starting to think we might be going out for that drink after all.’
* * *
‘You have to tell me what’s wrong.’ Sarah stopped the car outside Jenny’s house and turned off the engine. ‘Seriously, I’m locking the doors and not letting you out until you tell me.’
Jenny raised her eyebrows at her and turned to stare out of the window.
‘I mean it, Jenny.’
So Jenny told her. About the emails and the fact that someone was following her – maybe. Or maybe she was imagining it, but not the emails; they were real, she had them all saved, no one could say she was imagining those.
<
br /> ‘But who’s sending them? And why are they following you?’
Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I thought I did. I was sure it was to do with the woman I told you about, the story I was working on in London. When the people she worked for found out I was helping her, they warned me off. Told me they’d be watching me. But now I’m not so sure.’ She paused. ‘I just saw Jamie Collenette.’
Sarah closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I should have warned you. He’s often at band night. I didn’t think. I see him around a lot. I suppose I forget. That sounds callous. I don’t mean I forget what happened to you, but I forget it was him. He seems so innocuous now, works for his dad, hangs out at the pub with his mates.’
‘What does he do for his dad? He’s not a lawyer, is he?’
‘God, no. He didn’t even make it to uni. After what happened his parents sent him to finish his A levels at some boarding school, to get him out of the way I suppose. He went completely off the rails, came back without any qualifications. He does admin stuff, I think, answers the phones.’
‘Might explain why he’d be pissed off with me.’
‘That was all his doing, Jenny, you know it and so does he. Do you really think he’d be threatening you? After all these years?’ Her tone suggested she was doubtful.
‘Probably not. I’m just paranoid. Because of everything else that’s going on.’ She told Sarah about the dead girls and the fact that a DCI thought that Amanda’s death might be suspicious and had encouraged her to look into the others. She told her about what Tom had said about the scarecrow appearing before Hayley died, about how she was convinced, now, that they were dealing with a serial killer. She said those words out loud for the first time. Serial killer.
Sarah listened. When Jenny had finished, Sarah put a hand on her shoulder.
‘This is too much, Jenny.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean it’s too much for one person to deal with. I don’t know if someone is following you or not, but someone is threatening you, that’s for sure. And as for the serial killer stuff? Jesus, Jenny.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s that it shouldn’t be on you to prove or disprove something that the police should be working on. What the fuck are they doing while you’re obsessing over dead girls?’
‘I get the impression it’s complicated.’
‘You’re damned right it is.’ Sarah sighed. ‘First thing tomorrow you need to go and see my mum. Don’t look at me like that. You know you do. I’ll tell her you’re coming in – she’ll make time for you. And, after that, you need to sort things out with this DCI Gilbert. He should be worrying about all of this. Not you.’
Jenny nodded. ‘Can I get out now?’ Sarah opened the doors. Jenny didn’t hear the car start up again until she was inside the house.
* * *
Margaret knew something was wrong as soon as she saw her.
‘You’re so pale, what’s happened?’
‘I’m just tired, Mum. And I need a shower.’
‘Well, of course you’re tired,’ Margaret said. ‘You’re hardly ever here and have you just finished work? It’s nearly eleven o’clock, don’t let…’ Jenny shut the bathroom door and turned the shower on. She stripped off her clothes and stood under the water, letting it run over her face and her hair, turning the temperature up hotter and hotter until she could barely stand it.
She emerged, skin red and steaming, and wrapped herself in a towel. She peered through the condensation on the mirror. The circles under her eyes were almost purple, her lips were dry, her skin pale. She felt the small bump in her nose from where she’d broken it all those years ago.
She’d come back here for the quiet life. She accepted that now for the first time. It wasn’t because her dad had died, or because her mum was cracking up. It was because, despite what had happened to her as a teenager, she had always felt safe here. You could walk home alone at night, knowing that the worst thing that could befall you was an unlit country lane and a ditch. At least, that’s what she’d always thought.
Now, it seemed, there was something to be afraid of. Something far worse than the fear and anxiety she had brought home with her from London. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced. The danger she faced now was real and imminent and home-grown.
28
September 2002
He was hidden by the trees. Thick pines, their needles a soft carpet, swallowing his footsteps. It wouldn’t take much for them to find him, but nobody was looking. Besides, he was doing nothing wrong. Unlike them. He could smell the marijuana, sharp and sickly sweet, could hear them coughing and laughing as the smoke hit the back of their throats. It was not dark yet, so he could not move close enough to see. Another half hour or so and they would turn on their camping lights and he would sit, right at the edge of the woods, and he would watch them. He would watch her.
Le Guet. The Watch. The tower itself was Napoleonic, but there had been a lookout point here for centuries, on this wooded hill, overlooking miles of flat, sheltered bay. This was an ancient place. A sacred place. The Black Witch of Cobo had held court here for many years, casting spells on those who angered or offended her, transforming their clean clothes to vermin-infested rags, souring the milk of their cattle, paralysing their horses so the vraic could not be gathered from the beaches and their crops went unfertilised. He smiled at the thought. No doubt this witch was no more than a disciple, like he was, using her wits and ingenuity to trick the peasants who invoked her wrath.
He heard her laugh. He wished he could see her. He had found her dress, the one she wore more than anything else, in a little shop on Mill Street, right next to where the bookshop used to be. It sold candles and lava lamps and rings with skulls and spiders on them. It had only been luck he’d gone in there. He’d seen a book about black magic and thought it looked interesting, but it was not. Written for teenagers and full of rubbish about the phases of the moon and love potions. As he’d turned to leave though, he’d noticed the rack of clothes on the back wall, and right at the front, her dress. Black, with stars printed on it, each one with a tiny mirror sewn into the middle, so that it glinted in the sunlight. It was beautiful. So he bought it. Said it was for a niece, although the shop assistant didn’t ask, barely looked up from her magazine as she served him.
Nightfall. A twinkling through the trees as they lit their lamps. They were listening to music and did not hear the snapping of a twig as he moved towards them, too quickly. He was eager to see her. He stood, one arm wrapped around a slim tree trunk to anchor him there, at the edge of the woods. He raised his free hand to his face, and as she came into view he whispered into his open palm, whispered the words he would say to her, imagined the pain and the fear and, in that final moment, the ecstasy as he unleashed her soul, for truth and beauty, for blood and soil. He wept and his tears soaked into the earth, and he would put the figure there, he decided, right where his tears fell. And she would see it and she would know that he had chosen her.
29
Jenny
Thursday, 20 November
Jenny had known Sarah’s mum, Rosemary, or Dr Bradfield as she was known professionally, for longer than she had known Sarah. She’d been Jenny’s doctor for years, had guided her through all of her medical milestones; vaccinations, check-ups, an embarrassing request for the morning-after pill. When the panic attacks had started, she had helped her with those too. In her calm, no-nonsense way, she had saved Jenny from otherwise inevitable madness. At least, that’s how Jenny felt. So she was prepared to listen. To take on board what Rosemary told her.
‘You’re re-traumatised.’ Rosemary relaxed back into her leather chair. She had the same colouring as Sarah, olive skin and dark hair, cut short and combed to the side, and she had the same dancing eyes, although now they were narrowed and serious, studying her patient. Across the desk Jenny sat in the same stiff, wooden chair she had sat in as
a child, only back then her feet had swung inches from the floor and her mum had been there to hold her hand.
‘What does that mean?’
‘You suffered a traumatic event as a teenager. A few months later, you had your first panic attack.’ She glanced down at her notes. ‘You told me then that you weren’t sleeping, that you had developed a fear of the dark and a sense of paranoia, that you were being watched or followed.’
‘But that was years ago.’ Jenny interrupted. ‘I went through the treatment, I got better. Last night was the first time I’ve had a panic attack in eleven years. And until recently I was OK in the dark. Not comfortable, but not terrified either.’
‘You look tired, Jenny. Are you sleeping? Any paranoia?’
Jenny bit her lip and looked at the floor.
‘Jenny.’ Rosemary’s voice was gentle but firm. ‘Two years ago you were the victim of a violent assault. I don’t know the details, only what your mum told me when it happened, which wasn’t much. But from what I can gather it was enough for you to come home for a while. Six months later your father passed away suddenly and now you’re living here, back in the place where you suffered the trauma that caused your original issues. I know it was years ago, but you’re seeing the same people, visiting the same places. You’re being forced to remember. And your brain is reacting to those memories. As crazy as it sounds, even the memory of the way you felt back then could have triggered this panic attack.’
