by Mark Edwards
‘Hang on. You told us you hadn’t got it down for her. I texted your dad when you were away on the Isle of Wight and you denied it.’
‘That’s right. I hadn’t done it then. This was the day before yesterday.’
After Jessica had taken the necklace back and returned it to the box.
Felix opened the fridge door and groaned with disgust. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to eat.’
‘Why don’t you have an apple? Or a banana?’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, like the world’s biggest martyr. ‘I’ll wait till dinner.’
He went to leave the kitchen, then stopped.
‘The thing with that bat necklace . . . I didn’t know which one to give her. They both looked the same. And then, by the time I made a decision, she’d got bored and gone back to her room. She’s so annoying. I’d had to drag a chair all the way out of my room to reach it.’
And then he was gone, running off to his bedroom to play a video game or Skype one of his friends.
They both looked the same? What was he talking about? She went upstairs. Standing on tiptoe, she stretched and took down the box containing Isabel’s costume jewellery. She sat with it on the bed and rifled through, chucking old bracelets and trinkets behind her, not caring where they fell. All she cared about was finding the bat necklace.
It was near the bottom of the box. She took it out, let it hang between her fingers, picturing it around Izzy’s neck, nestling in that space between her clavicles. She thought about how Izzy had lied to her about Larry; had lied to her for years. If Izzy was still alive, no doubt Jessica would confront her about it, demand to know why she had kept quiet all these years. But it was hard to get angry with the dead.
She continued to search through the box, emptying the rest of its contents on to the bed, and there it was. Another bat necklace.
Felix had been right. There were two. She laid them side by side on the duvet, looking from one to the other, left to right and back again. They were identical, though one was slightly shinier than the other, newer-looking.
Holding both necklaces, she went down the hallway to Olivia’s room. She found her daughter sitting on the floor, playing with her Sylvanian Family house. As Jessica entered the room one of the little creatures, a cat, dropped from a window of the house on to the floor. Olivia looked up, startled.
Jessica sat beside her on the carpet.
‘Hi, Olivia,’ she said, keeping her voice as bright and ‘normal’ as possible. She held out the shinier bat necklace. ‘Would you like this back?’
‘Yes please.’ She grabbed it.
‘Do you want me to put it on you?’
Olivia narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious. ‘No thanks.’
Jessica affected a smile. ‘It’s a lovely necklace, isn’t it?’ She held out the other one, which she was convinced was the original, the one that had belonged to Izzy. ‘But it’s not the one that used to be Auntie Izzy’s. Where did you get it?’ she asked.
Olivia picked up the Sylvanian Family cat and walked it up the side of the house, ignoring the question.
Jessica counted to five then said, ‘I promise nothing is going to happen to Caspar, Olivia. Cross my heart and hope to die.’
Olivia gave her a sharp look. ‘You mustn’t say that.’
‘You’re right. But I do cross my heart.’
Olivia stared at her toy house, then at the necklace in her palm. ‘If I tell you who gived it to me, can I keep it?’
‘Of course. You can have them both if you like.’
A long pause, Olivia’s young brain ticking away in the silence. Her desire for the necklace competing with her lingering fear that something would happen to Caspar.
‘Do I have to spell it out with the Scabble things?’ she asked.
‘No, sweetheart. Just tell me. You can whisper if you like.’
‘Okay.’
Olivia leaned close. Her breath was warm and smelled sweet.
She whispered a name in Jessica’s ear.
Chapter 36
September 1993
Isabel ran through the doors of the school, the taunts of the other girls ringing in her ears. I must not cry, I will not cry, she told herself. And another voice: It’s all your fault. You brought it on yourself.
Maybe it was time to tell the truth, to confess that the ghost did not exist, that it was all her. But it was too late now. Mum would be furious and it would be so embarrassing. If she’d confessed months ago, before Simon Parker and Madam Grimm got involved, before the whole stupid story was in the newspaper, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But now . . . She knew exactly what Mum would say. ‘You’ve made me a laughing stock.’
Jess would be pissed off too. There had been several times when Izzy had almost told her little sister, late at night when they’d been giggling in their bedrooms, taking the mickey out of Madam Grimm. But the words always got stuck in Isabel’s throat. Jess would want to know why Isabel hadn’t included her in it from the start. She’d probably cry. Worst of all, Isabel didn’t think Jess would ever trust her again.
She passed her locker and headed towards the stairwell. There were no teachers around; she guessed they were all in the staff room. Luckily, the bullies hadn’t followed her inside. Sharon and Julie and Parminder. She hated them. They called her Velma, after the girl from Scooby-Doo, and had been spreading rumours that she liked to sleep naked and invite the ghost into her bed. ‘Touch me with your phantom fingers,’ Sharon screeched, and the other girls would make stupid woooooh noises, dancing around Isabel in a circle. There was an even worse rumour: that Isabel’s mum had murdered Isabel’s dad and it was his ghost haunting them.
But even the taunting couldn’t make her tell the truth, because then she would be a liar. It would be even worse.
There was a space under the stairs where Isabel liked to sit. It was quiet and hidden and she could be alone there, away from the other kids. She wished Dad was here, to give her a cuddle and make it all better. She missed him so much. When she was little she’d thought he was a hero. Big and strong and brave. He would sweep her up in his arms and hold her above his head. ‘Can you see the whole world from there?’ he’d ask. He smelled of cigarettes and sawdust and he had a bald spot on his head that looked like a full moon.
When he went away he took her heart with him.
It was shortly after he’d left that she got the idea. Her friend Sam lived round the corner from a video shop that would rent out any movie to anybody. Sam always had the latest video nasties and her parents didn’t care. One afternoon they’d rented an old film called Poltergeist. It was terrifying but brilliant. On the way home from seeing Poltergeist Isabel had thought, What if our house was haunted? Surely Dad would have to come back and rescue us then. She thought about that story she and Jess used to read too.
But despite everything she’d done, Dad hadn’t come back. That’s when the awful truth had hit her. He didn’t love them any more. He’d moved away to be with that tart and Sam said he was probably too busy having it off with her to think about his kids any more.
From that point, it wasn’t about trying to get Dad to come back. It was anger that drove her. Anger with Mum. Dad wouldn’t have needed to run off with a tart if he and Mum were happy, and Dad had said Mum was always nagging him about going to the pub and football and all the things he liked doing. So it was her fault, and Isabel had liked seeing how scared she was, convinced that Uncle Larry had come back to haunt her.
Now she was thirteen, she felt ashamed. It wasn’t Mum’s fault that Dad had run off. It was his. And Izzy had only made things worse.
But it was too late to admit it now. All she could do was stop and hope everyone forgot about it.
She sat with her back pressed against the wall, refusing to let the tears come. She would stay here for ten minutes and then she would go back, with her head held high, and she would ignore the bullies. Sticks and stones, that’s what she needed to remind herself. Sticks and . . .
‘Are
you all right?’
She jumped. ‘Jesus, you scared me half to death.’
‘Sorry.’
The boy ducked beneath the stairwell, casting a shadow over her. It was that kid, the spotty one with the bowl haircut who had found her crying that time by her locker. God, he had a talent for creeping up on her when she was upset.
He crouched beside her.
‘Are you following me?’ she asked.
He seemed horrified. ‘No! I was . . . heading here myself. I like to come here sometimes to get away from the other kids. It looks like you found my hiding place.’
He spoke haltingly. She was getting used to boys looking at her chest when they spoke to her but this one looked over her left shoulder, unable to meet her eye.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she said.
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll go . . .’
‘Sit. Please.’
So he sat. And they chatted. She told him all about the girls who had bullied her, and he made sympathetic noises. He didn’t tell her anything about himself, just that he didn’t have any brothers or sisters and that he hated bullies too. Later, she realised she hadn’t asked him about himself because she had been too busy talking about Mum and Jess and even Dad, and the boy seemed happy to listen. He was sweet, and though she didn’t find him that fanciable she liked the way he looked at her, kind of like a puppy. He told her how much he hated school dinners, and that one of the dinner ladies had been horrible to him, telling him he needed to eat his greens if he didn’t always want to be ‘a skinny wimp’.
At one point, he spotted the button badge that was pinned to her coat. ‘You’re a Kurt Cobain fan.’
‘Yeah. I love him.’
‘Me too. I mean, I really like Nirvana. What’s your favourite song on the new album?’ he asked.
‘I like all of them. At the moment it’s “Dumb”.’ She sang a couple of lines and he smiled.
‘Yeah, I love that one too.’
The bell rang.
She groaned. ‘Better go. I’ve got double science. How about you?’
‘Home economics.’
They got up and Isabel brushed the dust off the back of her skirt, noticing how the boy’s eyes followed her hand. He caught her looking and his face went red.
‘Hey, I didn’t ask your name,’ she said.
His face faded from red to pink. ‘It’s Ryan,’ he said.
She put out her hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Ryan.’
Chapter 37
Jessica could hardly catch her breath. She got off the floor and sat on Olivia’s bed, wishing she had a paper bag to breathe into.
‘Olivia,’ Jessica said, reminding herself to stay calm, ‘are you absolutely sure, sweetheart? Mr Cameron gave you the necklace?’
A nod. Olivia was on the verge of tears again, like she was regretting telling the truth, putting Caspar at risk.
She kept her voice soft. ‘Why did he give it to you?’
‘Because . . . Because I told him you tooked the other one.’
‘And did he know it belonged to Auntie Izzy?’
Another nod.
Jessica pressed her palm against her chest. Where had he found a copy of the necklace? Surely Claire’s Accessories didn’t still sell them? She guessed he must have found it on eBay.
‘Has Mr Cameron been talking to you a lot about Izzy?’ she asked.
Olivia squirmed, concentrating on her toys and not meeting her mum’s eye. ‘We played a game. Like when me and you played with the Scabble.’
Jessica shook her head. ‘You played with Scrabble letters with him too?’
‘No, Mummy. A different game.’
Jessica leaned forward off the edge of the bed. ‘What kind of game?’
‘I don’t know.’
Jessica’s entire body had gone cold. A game. The very worst images raced through her head. But surely that was impossible. Classroom assistants and teachers weren’t allowed to take children off behind closed doors. They had to remain visible at all times. But that didn’t mean they had to remain audible. Once again Jessica wished Olivia was a little older, that getting her to impart information wasn’t so bloody difficult.
‘Can you show me? You be Mr Cameron and I’ll be you.’
‘Okay.’ Olivia smiled, like this was great fun. ‘But we need to sit like this.’ She got up and sat on the bed, gesturing for Jessica to sit opposite her, with their knees almost touching. ‘And we need to hold a book.’
‘What book?’
‘Any. I have a reading book when we play the game. And so does Mr Cameron.’
‘Okay.’
Now Jessica understood when this had happened. She grabbed a couple of storybooks and handed one to Olivia, who opened it in her lap.
Olivia bent her neck. She put on a deep voice, her impression of an adult male. ‘We’re going to talk to Izzy. Can you hear us, Izzy? Can you say hello to Olivia?’
Jessica stared in horror at her daughter. The anger was swirling inside her again. Red ribbons of fury, like drops of blood falling into a glass of water.
‘Mummy!’
She snapped her attention to Olivia.
‘You’re not playing properly.’
‘Sorry . . .’
‘You have to close your eyes and say, “Hello, Izzy.” You’re me, remember!’
‘Of course. “Hello, Izzy.”’
‘That’s good. Now I’m going to be Mr Cameron again.’
This time she put on a strange voice, which Jessica figured was her way of impersonating an adult male putting on a woman’s voice. ‘You’re a very good girl, Olivia. I wish I was there so I could meet you in the flesh. But I’m watching over you, Livvy. I’m there with you, always, looking down from heaven.’
Jessica stared at her daughter. There was no way Olivia was making this up. In the flesh. Olivia would never say that unless she was parroting a grown-up. And she was astonished by Olivia’s powers of recall.
‘What should I say now?’ Jessica asked.
But Olivia seemed to be in a trance; a kind of hypnotic state. She went on in the Izzy voice. ‘I’m sad, Olivia. Do you want to know why I’m sad?’
‘Yes,’ Jessica said.
‘Because a man did something bad to me. He made me die. Do you know the balcony at my house? The black balcony?’
Jessica could hardly breathe. ‘Yes. I know it.’ She tried to imagine what Olivia would have said. ‘It’s very dangerous.’
‘Oh no, it’s safe. It’s only dangerous if someone pushes you.’
Jessica felt dizzy, the room spinning around her, sucking her into the game. Again she said what she thought Olivia might have said. ‘Did someone push you, Auntie Izzy?’
‘Yes. A bad man pushed me and made me die.’
‘Who?’
‘Your daddy.’
Jessica opened her eyes, staring at Olivia, whose voice had dropped to a whisper.
‘Your daddy pushed me.’
Suddenly Olivia’s eyes snapped open and she threw herself into Jessica’s arms. Hot tears soaked through the front of Jessica’s top as Olivia sobbed in her embrace. She had worked herself up into such a state that she was almost hyperventilating. Jessica stroked her hair, told her it was all okay, feeling sick and overwhelmed herself. Ryan Cameron. A teaching assistant. A person in a position of trust, looking after children, had done this.
Finally Olivia calmed down enough to speak. ‘I wanted to tell you, Mummy, but he said it was a secret. He said that Caspar would die if I told you about the game.’
‘I promise you, nothing is going to happen to Caspar.’
But now Olivia had told her mum the secret, she couldn’t be comforted until she had seen with her own eyes that Caspar was okay. Jessica lifted her and carried her downstairs to the kitchen. Olivia threw herself on the dog, arms around his neck, burying her face in his fur. He looked up, tongue lolling, clearly enjoying the attention.
‘Did he say anyone else would . . . get hurt? Like Mrs Shelton, t
he dinner lady?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Jessica sat at the kitchen table, feeling like she’d just stepped off a fairground ride. She needed a minute to recover, to make sense of it.
Olivia hadn’t just spelled out Daddy because it was one of the few words she knew. She had done it because – and this was at the root of everything that had happened – Ryan Cameron had made Olivia believe that her dad had killed her auntie. He must have wanted Olivia to pass that on to Jessica – but without telling anyone about the game, so his involvement wouldn’t be revealed. She remembered how keen he had been for Jessica to talk to Will, probably hoping she would see guilt in his eyes. She could imagine how excited he must have felt when it seemed like his plan was working, when Olivia had gone into school and he’d got her to tell him about the ‘Scrabble seance’.
To achieve all this, he had made Olivia believe that her Auntie Izzy was with her, watching her. He must have sung her that Nirvana song, told her facts about Izzy that she wouldn’t otherwise know, all because he wanted Jessica to believe Izzy really was communicating with Olivia.
And he must have thought she would be susceptible because, as far as he knew, Jessica believed in ghosts. He knew about Larry because he had grown up around here. Maybe he had first-hand knowledge. Had he known them when they were kids? Jessica didn’t remember him but maybe Izzy had known him.
Her mind leapt forward. Was he the owner of the grey car? She had seen Ryan get into a red Volkswagen in the school car park, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have access to another car too.
Was it him in the photo, watching Izzy’s house?
Did he see someone push her off the balcony?
Did he see Will?
To set all this up, Ryan must be convinced Will had killed Izzy. But why? And why, if he had seen something, had he not come forward five years ago?
Nausea swirled in Jessica’s gut. Had Will fooled her with all his talk about how special she was compared to Izzy? Had he been sleeping with her sister?
Was Will guilty after all?
Olivia was still cuddling Caspar, stroking his ears and whispering to him. Jessica stood up.
There were other questions too, like: wasn’t it a coincidence that he happened to be the teaching assistant in Olivia’s class?
