by Melody John
Maybe the question wasn’t why had Laura left the van, but why hadn’t she come back to the van.
I hated to think of all the reasons why she wouldn’t have come back. For a second, the horrid thought struck me that maybe she was angry with me about the thing with the dresses, and last night hadn’t actually sorted anything out between us, and she was still mad at me. Mad enough to leave the van and go off by herself because she just couldn’t bear to spend any more time with me.
No. No, that was stupid. Laura wasn’t like that. And even if she was like that, and even if she was still angry (she wasn’t, though, I insisted to myself, she wasn’t), she wouldn’t have gone off without telling someone. She knew that we weren’t here to stay long, and no matter how mad she might be at me, she wasn’t mad at David, and she knew that he had his ticket booked. We were students, so none of us were rolling in wealth, and I shuddered to think how much money a new ticket would cost.
No, the reason why Laura hadn’t come back to the van must be because she wasn’t able to. Which meant… I didn’t want to think about it. Abducted. Knocked down. Mugged. Beaten up. Killed.
God, no, stop being so dramatic! Jamie was right when he’d said this town was the back end of nowhere. It looked almost ridiculously safe and cute, and I didn’t think it was the sort of place where gangs of thugs went around and beat up random students.
But you can never be sure, can you…
‘God, I’m starving,’ Ted announced. ‘Who wants to go get breakfast?’
‘We already had chips,’ Dmitri said.
‘Oh, and where’s ours?’ Ted demanded.
‘Chips for breakfast, oh my,’ Jamie said sardonically. ‘Isn’t that going to wreak havoc on your thighs, Dmitri?’
‘Shut up,’ David and I said simultaneously.
Jamie glared at us from over the edge of the seat. Dmitri half-smiled.
‘Well, alrighty then,’ Ted said. ‘I’m going to get breakfast, because I’m driving, and it’d be kind of crap if I keeled over halfway up the motorway, wouldn’t it?’ He looked over at Jamie. ‘Jamie. You coming?’
‘Yeah,’ Jamie said. ‘Yeah.’ He hauled himself upright, and stretched so long that I actually heard the joints in his shoulders crack.
They got out of the van, and Ted said, ‘So where’s that chip place?’
‘Down there,’ David said, pointing.
‘Cool. Well. See you, then. And don’t expect me to bring you back a saveloy.’
Ted marched off, and Jamie trailed behind.
There was a little silence in the van.
I said, ‘We probably should have brought them back something. Ted is driving.’
‘Yeah,’ David said. He sighed. ‘I’m finding Ted rather difficult to like at the moment.’
‘I guess it’s not his fault,’ I said, trying to be charitable. I was actually feeling a little guilty over Ted’s obviously hurt feelings that we hadn’t thought of him. ‘He doesn’t really know Laura.’
‘I thought they were in the same class?’
‘Yeah, creative writing.’
‘Well, then.’
‘Laura said he was too Kerouac for her tastes.’ I smiled, remembering.
‘She told me that she did quite like him, though,’ Dmitri said. ‘But she thought he was too easily influenced by other people. Like Jamie.’
I glanced back at him. It was stupid, but I never really thought of Dmitri and Laura having very many conversations. I liked Dmitri, and I was even able to make eye contact with him sometimes, but there was still that kind of reserve that I had towards him that I just couldn’t shake. And I guess I still viewed him a little bit as an outsider. Me, David, and Laura made a nice little group, and sometimes it did feel a bit as though Dmitri was tacked on. Not so much now, though, because he and David were together.
I bit my lip. Don’t think about that now. Seriously, if there was ever a situation where you should not be yearning after your unavailable friend, it was this one.
‘We probably shouldn’t talk crap about Jamie behind his back,’ David said. ‘It’s different if you do it to his face, because I’m sure he knows what a tool he is IRL. But it’s different if you do it when he’s not here.’
‘He is a tool, though,’ I said.
‘Well, yeah…’
There was a silence. Then I said, ‘I think it’s very weird how Jamie just happened to go for a walk at the same time that Laura left the van.’
‘You don’t know it was the same time,’ David pointed out.
‘No,’ I conceded grudgingly, ‘but it can’t have been that far from it. I woke up about three o’clock, and they were both still in the van then.’
Another silence.
David said, ‘This feels like the beginning of a new series of Broadchurch. We’ve got the cliffs and the charming seaside setting…’
‘And the missing person,’ Dmitri said.
‘Don’t,’ I said.
‘If this were Broadchurch, though,’ David said, ‘that would probably mean that Jamie has some tragic backstory that we’re not aware of. So he wouldn’t be a tool, he’d just be misunderstood.’
‘I thought you said we weren’t going to talk crap about Jamie behind his back,’ I said.
‘Two seconds ago, you were basically making him a suspect.’
‘Yeah, well, he’s a pig.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘Wow, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you liked him so much.’ There was an awkward silence. My nasty words hung in the air, and I felt my face go red. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.
David sighed. ‘S’okay.’
‘I’m going for a walk,’ Dmitri said abruptly. ‘Lizzie. Come on.’
‘It’s cold,’ I said.
‘You need the air,’ he said, so authoritatively that I followed him meekly, still embarrassed about the snapping.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We hopped out of the van, and the harsh wind immediately clawed at my face, and dragged my hair into my eyes. I shoved it back, and hunched my shoulders. Dmitri set off at brisk pace along the seafront, running his hand along the railings. They echoed faintly under his touch, a thin metallic chime that was almost lost in the howling grey wind. The sky was pale, almost white, very clear and light in a way that almost hurt my eyes. A few gulls wheeled and wailed above us, floating and soaring through the pearly sky like stray scraps of white paper.
I stepped closer to the railings, and looked down at the beach. The tide was coming in, the snowy white froth curling at the edges of the slimy black fronds of seaweed draped over the sands. I saw someone walk out from under the cliff edge onto the beach, and my heart leapt—but it was only a dog walker. They were wrapped up in a green anorak and pale blue scarf, and a small white and brown terrier scampered after them, barking shrilly.
‘You think Jamie knows something about where Laura might be.’ Dmitri had spun around on his heels, his hands in his pockets. The wind ruffled his hair, the feeble sunlight making dull ginger highlights at the ends.
I was startled by the question. ‘Maybe. And I definitely think that if he did know something, he probably wouldn’t tell us about it. He really doesn’t like Laura.’
Dmitri looked out over the sea. ‘I could make him tell us.’
I stared at him. ‘The mesmer.’
Dmitri said nothing.
My stomach constricted at the thought, at the memories that the word conjured up. I hadn’t thought of Liam in ages; I’d thought I might have managed to forget him, but now his face was suddenly there in my mind’s eye, and I could hear his voice in my ear, feel his hands on my skin. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that I physically shuddered. Don’t think about, don’t think about it, don’t think about it—
‘You would use the mesmer on Jamie,’ I said, trying desperately to shake the memories away. ‘Dmitri?’
‘Yes,’ he said. His voice was calm. For one moment, I was furiously angry with him for being so casual, for not realisi
ng what he was saying, the kind of abuse of power that he was so fine with. Then he said, ‘It’s not ideal. Obviously. Which is why I’m talking to you about it.’
My anger faded a little. ‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘You’re the only one who can give another opinion on this. I can’t tell David. Even if I did tell him, it would take him too long to process it and get comfortable enough with the idea to make a proper judgement. But you know about it. You have an opinion about it.’ He gave a little smile. It wasn’t very convincing, and its very half-heartedness made the rest of my anger die away. It wasn’t that he was arrogant. He knew exactly what he was suggesting.
‘So, what do you think?’ he asked.
I was silent. My immediate reaction would be to scream, no, never. The mesmer had been part of my nightmares for over two years. I knew what a terrible weapon it was, what violation and betrayal it caused. Yesterday, if someone had asked me if I would ever consider condoning its use, I would have said—probably screamed, actually—that I would never condone it, it was an evil thing to do, and no decent creature would ever use it against someone else.
But I could see Jamie’s face, his glaring eyes looking past me to the stain on the wall that might just be dirt, but might also be something else. ‘Mouthy bint’s probably off on her soapbox somewhere…’
But just because I didn’t like Jamie wasn’t enough reason to agree to this. In fact, it was probably even more of a reason not to agree to this—I wouldn’t be able to make a properly unbiased decision about what to do.
But we did have to do something. Laura might be anywhere, lost, hurt, frightened… And if Jamie knew anything about it, he certainly wasn’t going to tell us of his own free will. And that of course implied that he had something to do with the reason why she hadn’t come back to the van, and in that case, I didn’t really care that much about violation or betrayal. I cared about Laura. And if Jamie knew where she was, or if she needed help—surely it was more important to find her than to spare Jamie a few moment’s loss of free will?
No. No, it wasn’t more important. This wasn’t a good thing. I mustn’t think that this was okay. Justified, maybe, but it wasn’t a good thing. It was a bad thing—we were talking about invading Jamie’s mind and robbing him of his free will, and forcing him to do something that he didn’t want to do. It wasn’t a good thing to do, but it was the only thing to do.
‘We shouldn’t do it,’ I said.
Dmitri waited.
I screwed up my resolve. ‘We shouldn’t do it. But we’ve got to.’
Dmitri just nodded, but his shoulders relaxed; he smiled quickly at me, then looked away. ‘Good. Yes. Thank you.’
‘Thank you?’
‘Yeah. You know.’ He shrugged, and shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. Come on, then.’
‘What are we going to tell David? And Ted?’ I asked as we began walking back to the van.
‘Can you distract them? It won’t be very obvious what I’m doing—if I just get close enough to touch his hand or something, then I can—well, make him tell us what he knows, and make it seem like he’s doing it of his own free will.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Okay.’
We reached the van, and pulled the door open. David was staring out of the window, pulling on his lower lip. He looked up as we climbed back in. ‘You didn’t see her, did you?’
‘No,’ Dmitri said.
David sighed, and went back to worrying his lower lip.
Dmitri sat in the middle seat, and I went to sit in the back with David. We sat in silence. I felt awkward with David, still conscious of how I’d snapped at him. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think what. David was still staring out of the window, and my words were choking my tongue until I couldn’t have said anything even I had an idea of what to say.
‘They’re coming back,’ Dmitri said.
I squinted, and saw Ted and Jamie coming back up the street from the town.
‘Great,’ David said.
I chewed on my thumbnail, and glanced at him anxiously, but he didn’t meet my eyes.
Ted heaved open the driver door, and got in. Jamie got in the passenger side. ‘Right,’ Ted said. ‘Now that none of us are going to die from starvation, have we decided what we’re going to do?’
Dmitri glanced back at me. I said, ‘We should wait here for a bit longer. In case she comes back.’
‘Alrighty then,’ Ted said in an actually rather good attempt at a Jim Carrey voice. He slid down in his seat, propped his feet up on the dashboard, and reached for the novel he’d been reading. I caught a glimpse of it; I couldn’t see the title, but the cover art was a black and white minimalist picture of a smoking cigarette, a fedora hat, and a pair of woman’s lips. It looked terribly hipster and symbolic.
Jamie scowled. ‘So what, we’re just going to sit here?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You can digest.’
He snorted. ‘Yeah, right.’ He made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat.
Dmitri leaned forward in his seat, directly behind Jamie. He raised his hand, hesitated a moment, then placed his hand on the back of the seat in front of him. I saw his finger brush Jamie’s neck.
Jamie turned around and began, ‘Oi, what are you…’ Then his voice trailed away.
I didn’t want to look at either of them, but I couldn’t look away. Dmitri’s eyes were wide, the green in his eyes shining through, and so intense that it was dizzying and blinding, like trying to stare at the sun. Jamie stared back at him, his own blue eyes growing vacant and hazy.
‘Jamie,’ Dmitri said. His voice vibrated, and I could hear the power in it, could hear the mesmer working its power, and thought that for sure the others would realise that something was happening. But neither David nor Ted reacted at all. ‘Jamie. Are you sure you didn’t see Laura earlier?’
‘Oh come on,’ Ted began, ‘he already told you, he didn’t see anything and—’
‘Yes,’ Jamie said slowly. ‘Yes, I did see her.’
David started to attention beside me.
Ted said, ‘What? Jamie, what are you saying?’
‘I saw her,’ Jamie said. His voice was slow and sluggish, as though he were thinking about every word very carefully. ‘I did. We. I woke up because she got out of the van.’
‘Why?’ Dmitri asked. ‘Why did she get out of the van?’
‘I asked her. She said. She said, it’s so stuffy in here. Thanks to your stupid weed. I said. Something about her being so moral. Stick up her arse. Uptight about everything.’ Jamie’s voice lost a little of its sleepwalker tone, and he sounded angry. ‘Stupid cow. Thinks she’s all that.’
I felt very cold. I realised that my heart was beating very fast.
‘Then what did you do?’ Dmitri said.
‘Followed her. She was walking. Walking along. Said she was going to the town. Walking to clear her head. My stupid weed. Stupid smelly dirty habit. I followed her. She told me to stop. Go away. I don’t want you, okay. I will never want you. And she was saying. So angry. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid little bitch.’
‘Who was angry?’ I whispered.
‘I was angry,’ Jamie said. ‘Stupid little bitch. Told her. Said, stick up your arse. Repressed. You’re very prudent, aren’t you. And she was saying. God. So stupid. Saying no, I don’t want to have sex with you. Don’t want to see you. Get out of my way. So. I didn’t mean to.’
‘Didn’t mean to do what?’ Dmitri asked sharply, his voice quickening in alarm.
‘Hit her,’ Jamie said. ‘But she fell back. Her head. Hit it. Hit her head on the wall. Fell down. I didn’t. I didn’t do that. No. No, I didn’t.’
‘Jamie,’ Ted said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I didn’t.’ Jamie’s voice was getting louder, less dreamy. ‘I didn’t. Didn’t hit her. She just fell. Hit her head. Accident. It was an accident, I didn’t do it. No. No. She said no. I didn’t. Stupid. Stupid cow. Her fault. Made me do it, made me. Th
e wall.’
‘Where is Laura now?’ Dmitri asked. His voice was so calm. I couldn’t think how he managed to stay so calm.
‘I didn’t do it!’ Jamie said. His head was jerking from side to side, like he was trying to toss his hair out of his eyes. ‘No. No. I told you. Said to her. No. She said. We. I didn’t do it!’
