by Jane Casey
What I should have done was leave the sheltering tarpaulin and head back down the hill, away from Danny. But as I stood there, I started to think. He owed me an explanation. He had done all of these things, supposedly for me. This was my one chance to hear his reasons. If I was going to get him to talk to me, he’d have to believe that I didn’t hate him.
‘Thank you for telling them where to look. For Charlie, I mean.’ I tried to keep my voice level, smiling a little. It felt totally fake to me, but he responded with a smile of his own.
‘That’s OK. It was the least I could do.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Um – how did you remember where he was buried?’
‘It’s not the sort of thing you forget.’ Then he leaned towards me, half whispering, ‘I’d have thought you’d be frightened of me.’
‘Because of what you’ve done? Or because you attacked me?’ I could hear the quiver in my voice, but perhaps he couldn’t.
‘I never.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve got that all wrong.’
‘You attacked me,’ I insisted. ‘You had all of those things of mine in your house, and you got a big thrill out of terrifying me.’
‘I didn’t. I didn’t mean to scare you. That wasn’t what I was trying to do.’ His face softened. ‘That night, when I held you – I could feel your heart beating, like a little bird’s.’ His voice was gentle. ‘Where were you anyway? I waited for hours.’
I ignored the question. I was coldly furious, trembling, but still outwardly composed. ‘If you weren’t trying to frighten me, what exactly were you trying to do?’
He turned away from me and rolled his head from one shoulder to the other before answering, affecting to be relaxed, but I knew he was playing for time. Eventually he said, ‘Look, I just needed a way to get close to you, OK? I thought I could give you your stuff back and that would give us a chance to start talking. With Jenny gone, I didn’t know how I was going to keep in touch with you.’
Keep in touch? He had no idea that spying on someone – stealing from them – wasn’t a proper relationship. I could almost have felt sorry for him. Almost.
‘We weren’t in touch. You don’t know me. You don’t have any idea what I’m like.’
‘I’ve known you my whole life,’ he said simply. ‘And – and I’ve loved you that long too. Whatever you’ve done, I’ve loved you. I just wanted to be there for you. Protect you.’
‘Is that why you attacked Geoff?’
‘That wanker,’ he said, and laughed. ‘He got what was coming to him.’
‘And Jenny? What did she deserve?’
Before he could answer, a shout went up from down the hill. The dog skittered towards the white tent, tail whirling with excitement as his handler ran alongside, and Danny turned to stare after it. I saw the side of his face properly for the first time and drew breath sharply. The dull light of a wet morning couldn’t hide that the bruise on his cheek was a proper pearler, swollen and bluish, darkening to beetroot in the centre. They hadn’t handled him gently, that was quite obvious.
Even though I knew what the sounds from down the hill signified, I found that I didn’t care. I was focused on Danny, waiting for him to reply.
‘Jenny?’ His eyes were vacant. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you think she deserved to die?’ My voice was shaking and I swallowed hard.
‘Course not.’ He looked at me as if I was mad. ‘She was only a kid.’
‘So you’re upset. That she’s dead, I mean.’
‘Yeah. I’m going to miss her. Well –’ He stopped for a second, then smiled. ‘I wouldn’t miss her as much if you and me could be friends. Or whatever.’
My skin crawled. ‘If you miss her so much, why did you kill her?’
He looked stung. ‘How can you ask me that? You of all people. I didn’t. You have to believe me, I really didn’t.’
‘So who did? One of those men who you brought to your home to abuse her?’
‘No way,’ Danny said confidently, turning to flick his cigarette away. It hit a tree some way down the slope with a shower of sparks. ‘No way. They never knew who she was. I looked after her, you know. I was watching over her all the time, in case they did harm to her.’
Harm … he had no concept of what that word meant. Sickened, I turned away, almost crashing into Blake who was breathing hard, as if he’d just run up the slope. He grabbed my arm and I stumbled as he pulled me behind him, away from Danny.
‘What do you think you’re playing at, Milesy?’ He glared at the young policeman who had been charge of Danny, who came stumbling forward, looking worried. ‘I thought I told you to keep him well out of the way.’
Danny’s eyes flicked from Blake to me and back again, and a slight frown creased his forehead. I wondered what he had seen in Blake’s face. Before he could say anything – before I could hear Milesy’s stammered explanation that they had had to take shelter because of the weather and there was nowhere else to go – I took Blake’s hand off my arm and slipped down the slope, heading away from the little group without caring where I was going. I concentrated on picking my path through the trees, stepping with precision between roots. I didn’t bother to put my hood up. The raindrops fell onto my head and slid down through my hair. The ground was glistening, the tree trunks glazed with moisture, and fat drops fell off leaves all around me. One plopped down between my collar and my neck. I could feel it trickling down my back, soaking into my T-shirt.
Sounds came from behind me: rustling leaves and cracking twigs. Someone was in a hurry, and I wasn’t surprised when Blake swung me round to face him, his face taut with anger.
‘Are you happy now? Have you got what you wanted?’
‘I didn’t plan that. How could I? You told me he wouldn’t be anywhere near me.’
‘And I told you to keep your distance from him too. What happened to that?’
‘I was going to get away from him—’
‘But you thought you’d have a quick crack at asking him questions first.’
‘I thought he might tell me what he wouldn’t tell you,’ I said flatly. ‘I thought he might want to tell me the truth, given that he apparently has feelings for me.’
‘Well, if we’d wanted you to do that, I think we would have asked. And I think we would have found a better place to have that conversation than a railway embankment where any confession wouldn’t be recorded and wouldn’t necessarily be verifiable.’ Blake walked away a couple of paces and stopped, shaking his head. Then he turned back to me. ‘There are ways of doing this sort of thing, Sarah. Just asking questions at random won’t make a case.’
‘You’re right,’ I said, anger surging inside me. ‘So why aren’t you making a case, if you’re such an expert? Why haven’t you got him to confess to Jenny’s murder? There must be some evidence. Forensics. DNA. You’ve got to have some way of making it impossible for him to get away with it. The Shepherds won’t give a shit about Geoff’s murder. They want justice for their daughter.’
‘Well, they’re going to have to wait. The CPS don’t want to charge him yet. They say it’s too circumstantial. Any decent defence barrister would have a field day in court with what we’ve got. We need more, and believe me, we’re looking. We have him for Geoff, for raping Jenny, and for the making and distribution of child pornography. He’ll be dealt with by the courts. It may take a while – they aren’t quick – but they won’t make any mistake about him. He’s not going to get away with this, Sarah.’
I turned away, frustrated. ‘It’s not enough.’
‘At the moment, it’s all we’ve got.’ Blake paused for a second, and when he spoke again, his voice was more gentle. ‘Anyway, that’s not why we’re here. You might have worked it out already, but I came up to tell you that they’ve found some human remains.’
So there it was. I’d known it as soon as I heard the commotion, but the shock was still physical.
‘Are they sure it’s Charlie?’ I managed, swaying slightly.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said, meaning it, but my voice was flat.
‘Do you want to have a look?’
‘No. I don’t – I don’t want to see the bones. Can you take me home?’
‘Of course.’ There was a slight hesitation before he spoke – a certain reluctance – but his tone was courteous. He dug in his pocket for his keys and held them out to me. ‘Look, I have to let Vickers know where we’re going. Can you make your own way back to the car?’
I took them wordlessly and began to trudge back, keeping the railway line on my right. I didn’t think much about what I was doing, just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, occasionally looking up to see if the gate was in sight. I found it without too much difficulty, guided in part by the crackling static from the radio of the PC who was guarding it. I went past him without speaking and dragged myself up the steps like an old, old woman. When I got to the car, I realised that my hand had been clenched tightly around the keys, leaving a livid red mark on my palm. I sat in the passenger seat and waited, not thinking about anything, running my fingertips over the indentation again and again and again.
The journey seemed much shorter on the way back. Blake was driving fast, braking hard at traffic lights and swearing under his breath at other road-users. The Monday morning traffic was heavy now. He was keen to get back to the dig, in case they found anything else. They were searching, he told me, for other people who had disappeared over the preceding twenty-five years, during the period they knew Derek Keane was engaged in criminal activity. It was too good a body dump to use just once, Blake said. They thought there would be more to find. I couldn’t share in his excitement. I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, as if something was muffling my mouth and nose. The evil of Derek Keane seemed to have no end. He had polluted our lives with his perversion, and his legacy lived on with his damaged, dangerous son.
At the house, I said a quick goodbye to Blake. He was all business, his mind on his job. As I walked up the drive, he opened down his window and called after me, ‘I’ll let you know what the pathologist says in a couple of days.’
I waved in acknowledgement, but I knew what the outcome would be. Danny had no reason to lie. What had happened to Charlie was clear enough. His last moments would have been terrifying; he would have been frightened, hurt and angry. So much sentiment had been varnished over the picture I had of my brother that I couldn’t now imagine what he might have done. The paper hero in my mind, the effortlessly clever and resourceful big brother, would have fought back. But the child in a desperately frightening situation might have cried for his mother instead. And that, I reckoned, closing the front door behind me softly and setting my muddy boots down on the mat, was what had affected Mum the most over the years. No matter how much she’d loved him – and she’d loved him more than anything – she hadn’t been able to save him.
The house was quiet. I scooped up the post from the mat, separating out a padded envelope with Aunt Lucy’s writing on it. My spare car keys, at long last. I would go and get my car, or at least call the AA, as soon as I was finished at home. The post was spotted with raindrops and damp to the touch and I left the lot on the hall table, unable to face opening the envelopes yet. Instead, I went to the kitchen. The kitchen clock was tapping out the seconds like a deathwatch beetle, the sound mingling with the rain pattering on the windows. I stared at the clock uncomprehendingly. It was only nine o’clock. I had expected it to be at least lunchtime.
At the thought of lunch, my stomach turned over. I was hungry, I told myself, peeling off my soaked anorak and hanging it on the back of a kitchen chair. The manufacturer’s definition of waterproof did not accord with mine. The shoulders of my T-shirt were dark with rainwater and cold on my skin.
In the fridge, I found a packet of bacon and some slightly out-of-date eggs that I was prepared to risk. I got a frying pan and set about making the greasiest and most unhealthy breakfast that I could imagine, the fried eggs melding with the curling strips of bacon in a puddle of hissing oil. It was exactly what I needed. I made tea and toast, too, and set the table, laying a place for Mum in case she smelled the food and felt hungry. The cooking bacon filled the air with a heavenly smell; it might have tempted her to eat. I moved the frying pan off the heat and left it on the cooker, ready to use if she made an appearance.
Breakfast turned out to be pretty good. The eggs oozed rich yellow goo all over the toast, while the bacon had twisted into salty ribbons dotted here and there with white flecks of pure fat. I ate methodically, warmed by the hot food and strong tea. I would have to tell Mum that Charlie had been found, but I didn’t allow myself to think about it while I was eating. I wasn’t ready yet. She loved Charlie so intensely, so fiercely, and she had often told me that I wouldn’t understand it until I had children of my own. The thought made me shiver. If that was what love was, I didn’t want any part in it.
There was still no sound from upstairs as I scraped the last vestiges of yolk off the plate and went to stack my dishes in the sink. I would have to go up and wake her. I poured the last of the tea into a clean mug. It was as dark as gravy after standing in the pot for so long, but I didn’t think she would mind. I took a detour to collect the envelopes from the hall table, sorting through them quickly. Bills and junk mail, the usual. Nothing exciting. I stuck them under my arm and went carefully up the stairs, carrying the mug with two hands. The door to her room was firmly shut, as it had been when I left. Everything looked completely normal. There was no reason why I should have hesitated, no reason why my voice should have quavered as I called, ‘Mum?’
Silence from within. I tapped again, eyes fixed on the tea that threatened to slop over the edge of the mug every time I moved. ‘Can I come in?’
I knew it was wrong as soon as I opened the door. I knew what had happened without taking a step into the room. Mum was more organised than Paul; she hadn’t made any mistake. A neat row of medicine bottles stood on the bedside table, caps off, empty. On the floor, a bottle of whisky with a glass or two left in it; beside it, an empty bottle on its side. In the bed, covered neatly with bedclothes, the small shape that was my mother. She lay on her back, arms by her sides, her face waxy in the half-light from curtains that were slightly ajar. There was a sour smell in the room that I traced to the stain down her neck and shoulder and on the mattress; she had been sick at some stage, but not sick enough to save her. Without thinking, I had moved forward to stand beside her. I reached down and touched the back of her hand very gently. Cold. There was no need to check for a pulse. She was gone. She had heard enough to know that Charlie wasn’t coming back, then slipped away while I wasn’t watching.
I looked, calmly at first, for the note that I had assumed would be there. Nothing on the bedside table. Nothing on the floor. Nothing in her hands, nor in the bedclothes. Nothing on the chest of drawers. Nothing in the pockets of the clothes she had been wearing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. She’d left me, and she hadn’t cared to say goodbye.
The truth of it – she was gone, like all of them – hit me then and I cannoned out of the room into the bathroom, all that good food churning inside me. I made it to the lavatory before it came rushing up my throat. I threw up everything that I had eaten that day, threw up until there was only the burning taste of bile in my mouth as my stomach did its best to turn itself inside out. Once it was over, I fell back against the bathroom wall and drew my knees up, balancing my elbows on top of them. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets a
s bright lights whirled and swung behind my eyelids.
After a time, I got to my feet and bent over the sink, rinsing my mouth out with cold water. My hands were trembling, I noticed with detachment. In the bathroom mirror, I looked strained, my cheeks hollow, my skin pale. Suddenly I saw how I would look when I was old.
From the hall, I looked through the open door of Mum’s bedroom. I could see the lump her feet made under the bedclothes. She would never move again. Never. Never. I couldn’t take it in. It was as if my brain was refusing to deal with what had happened. Maybe it was the shock, but I could only think two steps ahead.
There were people I should tell, I knew. There were things that needed to be done. But instead of doing them, I went to where I had dropped the pile of envelopes in the doorway and fished out the small fat one that contained my keys. I needed someone to put their arms around me and tell me everything was going to be all right. I needed someone to talk for me, someone to explain reasonably and rationally what had happened to my family. The only person I could think of who might be able to do that – the only person I could face telling, because he would know what to do – was Blake.
I would get my car, like I’d planned to, and I would go to him, and he would make everything OK.
People die in fires because they refuse to change their plans. People will walk into danger with their eyes wide open because they’re afraid of the unknown.
My life was burning down around me, and all I could do was wonder if my car would still be where I’d left it.
2005
Thirteen years missing
I’m going home to get the last few things I want, and that will be an end to it. Everything else is sorted. Ben’s found a house for us in Manchester, sharing with four other friends from university. I’ve got a job with a travel agency. The pay isn’t great, but the perks are fantastic – cheap flights and accommodation way above what we could afford otherwise. Ben and I have already planned where we’re going to go next year: Morocco, Italy, Phuket for Christmas. Everything’s coming together.
