by Tom Becker
“Come out, Black Maggie!”
“Witch!” came the cry from the hooded figure beside him – a girl’s voice this time. “Grave robber!”
The curtains stayed firmly drawn inside Keeley’s house, the taunts falling on deaf ears. The lack of response only seemed to make the crowd angrier. Egged on by his friends, the boy in the tracksuit dug a stone from the snow and hurled it at the front window of the house. A cheer went up around him as the stone smacked into the glass.
Jamie glanced nervously at his brother. “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for Sarge?” he asked.
“I left a message for him in the Oak,” Liam told him. “He won’t be long. I can handle this lot anyway. Just stand behind me and try not to look like you’re crapping yourself like usual, eh?”
Jamie swallowed nervously. Easier said than done. A slow, murderous chant had gone up among the crowd: part nursery rhyme, part murderous threat.
“Kill the witch … Kill the witch … Kill the witch…”
A curtain twitched in the upstairs window and was greeted with hooting catcalls and a shower of stones. Breaking into a jog, Liam forced himself through the crowd. As the teenager in the red tracksuit picked up another stone, Liam caught his arm and knocked it from his hand.
“Careful with that, lad,” he said pleasantly. “You might hurt someone.”
Abruptly, the chanting died. The teenagers broke away from the gate, forming a jostling ring around Liam. Jamie stayed close to his brother and tried to look confident, praying that no one could see that his legs were trembling.
He shouldn’t have worried. It was Liam everyone was looking at, and he couldn’t have looked calmer.
“Evening, all,” he said, with a nod.
Richie Metcalfe stepped angrily forward. It made sense that he was the ringleader, thought Jamie.
“Who the hell are you?” Richie demanded.
“You know who we are,” said Liam. “We’re Sarge’s lads.”
“Outsiders,” spat Richie. “You’ve no business being round here.”
“Free country, isn’t it?” Liam retorted nonchalantly. “I was just out stretching my legs and wondered what all the fuss was about.”
“Nothing that concerns you. Just taking care of some Alderston business.”
“What, getting all your mates to pick on a teenage girl and her mum?” Liam laughed. “Nice one, tough guy.”
Unfriendly eyes narrowed. The circle tightened around them.
“I warned your brother,” said Richie, pointing at Jamie. “I told him to stay away from that girl if he knew what was good for him.”
“News to me,” Liam replied coolly. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from Jamie.”
“You know what happened to my brother!” Richie said angrily. “You know what she did to his body!”
“Are you really telling me it was Keeley who broke out the shovels and dug Greg up?” asked Liam incredulously. “Or is she just the easiest target you can find?”
“She’s a freak who spends all her time in that churchyard,” hissed Richie, through gritted teeth. “No one else round here would be weird enough to do something like that. Everyone else loved Greg.”
“Oh, well that settles it,” said Liam. “The prosecution rests.”
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s hilarious, mate. You’re hilarious.”
Jamie wished Liam would go easy. Trying to protect Keeley was one thing – insulting an angry mob another. His brother’s mocking contempt had only succeeded in drawing all the crowd’s venom in their direction. A hand pushed Jamie in the back, shoving him into his brother. Was this how it had started for Lucas Forshaw, Jamie wondered – the exchange of insults, the ratcheting up of tension before the first blow landed?
“Maybe you’re right,” Richie told Liam slowly. “Maybe it wasn’t her. All this started happening when your family came to town. Maybe it was you who dug up my little brother.”
Jamie didn’t doubt for a second that Liam could take Richie in a fight, but if the whole mob jumped on them they were in serious trouble. Looking up, he saw Liam’s jaw tighten: his brother knew it too. Then Richie hesitated, and took a sudden pace back. He was looking over Liam’s shoulder.
When Jamie turned round his heart gave a little stutter of relief. Sarge was marching briskly up the road towards them. Jamie’s dad wasn’t a large man, but there was something about the way he moved – straight-backed, purposeful, blue eyes unblinking – that gave him an air of instant authority. The ring around Jamie and Liam reluctantly parted to let him through.
“Richie, right?” said Sarge, addressing the ringleader.
“What’s it to you?”
“I’ve been with your old man in the Oak. He wants a word with you.”
Richie’s face fell.
“I wouldn’t keep him waiting if I were you,” Sarge told him. “He’s had enough to deal with losing one son without the other pulling a stunt like this. Your old man told you he didn’t want any trouble, didn’t he?”
Richie muttered something under his breath.
“It’s a hard thing, losing someone you care about,” Sarge continued. “You don’t have to tell me that, son – my wife died ten years ago and I still have to live with it every day. But this doesn’t help anyone. That girl you’ve got trapped in her house had nothing to do with what happened to your brother. She was with my youngest the night Greg’s body was dug up. Isn’t that right, Jamie?”
Jamie nodded.
“So stand down, Richie, take a breath, and go see your old man.”
It was as though a sudden gale had whipped down the street, blowing away the storm clouds. The jostling ring around Jamie slackened and began to move off. As Richie’s shoulders sagged, defeated, Sarge grabbed him by the neck and pulled him close, whispering into his ear just loud enough for Jamie to hear: “You ever threaten my sons again and I will snap every single bone in your body. Do you understand me?”
Richie nodded. The other adults were retreating to their houses on the other side of the road, whilst the teenagers had already melted away into the evening shadows. Within the space of a couple of minutes the street was empty except for Jamie, his brother and his dad.
“Cowards are like dogs,” Sarge remarked. “Slap the biggest one on the nose and the rest will back down.”
“I know,” said Liam. “I was handling it.”
Sarge stared at his son, his eyes cold sapphires. Liam hastily held up his hands. “Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the back-up,” he said.
“Good,” said Sarge. “’Cause from where I was standing, you were about to get your backside handed to you on a plate.”
He opened the gate and marched up the path to Keeley’s house, rapping smartly on the front door. The curtain twitched again, and after a few seconds the front door swung cautiously open and Keeley’s mum appeared. She was a small woman with dark hair; pretty, but with dark circles under her eyes and a pensive expression on her face.
“You must be Keeley’s mum,” said Sarge, offering his hand. “I’m Sarge, Jamie’s dad.”
“Nice to meet you,” she replied warily. “Jennifer Marshall.”
“Don’t worry about the mob. They’ve put down their pitchforks and won’t be coming back.”
Keeley’s mum looked up and down the street for herself before opening the door. “Would you like to come in?” she said.
The Marshalls’ house was small and neat, the walls dotted with smiling photographs of Keeley and her mum. After years of constant travelling in the removal van, and then the cold, musty atmosphere of the Lodge, Jamie had almost forgotten what a real house – a home – felt like. The busy smell of housework: freshly hoovered carpet and damp clothing on the dryer, delicious wafts of food from the oven. Jamie took a deep breath, trying to take it all
in. As they walked through the hall he saw Keeley sitting at the top of stairs, warily watching them through the banisters like a cat.
“Hi,” said Jamie.
“Hi.”
“You OK?”
Keeley nodded.
“Drama’s over,” Jennifer Marshall told her daughter. “I want that bedroom of yours cleaned before tea, understand? It’s like a pigsty up there.”
“Mum!” Keeley protested.
“A pigsty,” Jennifer repeated firmly. “Go on.”
Keeley flounced away to her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her. Jennifer shook her head and led them into the front room. She went immediately to the window, biting her lip as she peered around the net curtains at the empty street.
“Nasty business, that,” said Sarge, sympathetically. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m doing all a mother can do,” Jennifer said bitterly. “Pretending everything’s all right when it’s going to hell in a handcart. For years the people in this wretched town have picked on my Keeley, and for what? Because of her clothes? Because of the music she listens to? I wasn’t like her – I kept my head down and my mouth shut and did everything I could to try and make people forget who I was. And all because some poor old woman scowled at the wrong person five hundred years ago and was drowned for her troubles. Tell me, please – what terrible crime have my daughter and I committed to deserve a mob at our door, and stones hurled at our windows?”
Keeley’s mum sat down on a chair, wiping angry tears from her eyes.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. “You come over here to help us and all you get is me shouting at you.”
“No need to apologize,” Sarge told her. “Need to let it out somehow.”
“We don’t mind a bit of shouting,” Liam added. “We’re always shouting at each other.”
Keeley’s mum smiled gratefully. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything. Ordinarily we’d take care of ourselves but this terrible business with Greg has got the whole town acting crazy. Did you see they’ve brought out the mortsafes in the churchyard? The sooner this snow melts the better. I was telling Roxanne the other day, at this rate someone’s going to get hurt.”
Sarge looked up sharply. “Roxanne’s in Alderston?”
Jennifer nodded. “She only came back to town to change her clothes and now she’s trapped here, and with Donna still in the hospital. The poor thing’s going out of her mind. She’s been saying a lot of things … strange things.” Jennifer gave Jamie a curious look. “Have you said anything to her recently?”
Inquisitive eyes turned in Jamie’s direction. He flushed.
“Roxanne? No! I mean … at the church during Greg’s funeral, but I didn’t really say much. She seemed pretty out of it. Why?”
“She’s mentioned your name several times. She wants to talk to you. Says there’s something important she’s got to tell you.”
“You sure this is a good idea?”
Liam glanced around the car park behind Roxanne’s Cabs. Someone had built a grimy snowman next to one of the snowbound cabs, a brainless grin spelled out in stones across its face. The blinds were drawn over the window of Roxanne’s office, but the lights were on. Someone, at least, was home.
“What if it’s Don in there?” Liam asked Jamie. “We know he was mixed up with Mathers. God knows who else could be in there with him. Maybe Sarge was right – maybe we should come back another time.”
Back in the Marshalls’ front room, Sarge had greeted the news that Jamie wanted to talk to Roxanne with a grimace and a scratch of his stubbled cheek.
“It’s not the time to go gallivanting across town, son,” he said briskly. “Another time, perhaps.”
“She’s not across town,” said Jennifer Marshall, faltering slightly. “I mean, just so you know. She was at home but Donna’s empty room upset her too much, so she went to stay at the cab company.”
“Roxanne’s been through a lot,” Sarge said pointedly to Jamie. “Not sure she wants bothering, son.”
“I won’t stay long, Sarge,” pressed Jamie. “If she doesn’t want to talk to me I’ll go right away.”
He found it hard to explain why he was so keen to talk to a woman he had barely spoken to. It was their exchange in the church during Greg’s funeral – something about Roxanne’s dreamy speech and the way she had looked at Jamie, like she understood him completely. If there was something important she wanted to tell him, he wanted to hear it.
“How about if I go with Jamie?” suggested Liam. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything daft.”
Sarge scratched his cheek even more fiercely. He looked like he could have happily throttled both of his sons, but the presence of Keeley’s mum was forcing him to keep his temper on a tight rein.
“I want you back at the Lodge by eight sharp, you hear me?” he told Jamie, pointing a finger straight at him.
“No problem,” Jamie had said quickly. “Thanks, Sarge.”
They had said goodbye to Jennifer and Keeley and left the house, parting at the end of the street and crunching off through the snow in different directions. Jamie knew that Sarge was angry with him but for once he didn’t care. As long as his brother was by his side, grinning and teasing him, everything would be OK.
Not that Liam was grinning now.
“I have to see if Roxanne’s in,” Jamie told his brother. “Trust me, I think it’s important.”
Liam shook his head. “Sometimes I think you and this town are a perfect match,” he muttered. “You’re both as crazy as each other.”
Jamie smiled.
“Well, go on, then!” Liam said, jerking his head towards the office door. “Yell if you need me.” He drew back into the shadows. “Don’t hang about though, eh?” he added, rubbing his hands together. “It’s bloody freezing out here.”
Nodding, Jamie stepped up to tap on the back door of the cab company. There was no reply. He tapped again, and this time he heard a chair creak and slow footsteps shuffle towards the door. The door opened, and Roxanne’s silhouette filled the doorway.
“Hi,” said Jamie, suddenly nervous. “My name’s Jamie. I don’t know if you remember me but—”
“I remember you,” said Roxanne, in a flat voice. “Come in.”
She trudged back to her desk, settling down in a seat and wrapping herself up in a thick blanket. Jamie had no idea how she could have been cold because the radiators were on full blast, flooding the room with heat. The first time Jamie had met Roxanne he had been surprised how she had switched from mild-mannered parent to no-nonsense criminal – a candyfloss bubble wrapped around a steel core. But now her face was drawn and her make-up smudged. She looked exhausted, hollowed out inside. The television near the wall was on mute, a chat-show audience laughing silently. Roxanne’s mobile phones lay dormant on the desk in front of her.
There was a long silence as Roxanne gazed into space. Jamie unzipped his coat and took it off.
“Um, how’s Donna?” he asked finally.
“The doctors tell me she’s ‘out of the woods’.” Roxanne laughed, a harsh noise utterly devoid of humour. “Can you believe that’s the phrase they used?”
“But that’s a good thing, right?” Jamie said uncertainly. “It means she’s going to be OK.”
“It means she’ll recover from the crash, yes. But my girl isn’t out of the woods yet. The woods are still all around her.”
“I know you must be really upset,” Jamie said cautiously. “It must be horrible, having your daughter suffer a horrible accident—”
“It wasn’t an accident! Don’t call it that!” Anger flashed in Roxanne’s eyes. “I need to go to the hospital,” she said, drumming her fingers on the desk. “I need to get out of this bloody office and out of this bloody town and be with my daughter.”
“At least she’s not on her own,” said Jam
ie, trying to sound positive. “There are doctors and nurses if she needs anything.”
“They don’t know about him, though. I can’t tell them about him.” Roxanne’s voice became softer and more fragile. She sounded frightened. “Every night I’d be standing in Donna’s room and I knew that all I had to do was look out of the window and I’d see him, standing in the darkness. Watching. Waiting.”
“Waiting? Who?”
“Who d’you think?” snapped Roxanne. “Greg, of course!”
The office was plunged into silence. Jamie swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He waited for Roxanne to burst out laughing but there was no smile hiding in the corners of her mouth. Instead she opened her desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of vodka and poured a large measure into a glass.
“Greg died,” Jamie told her hesitantly. “I saw him … you know, afterwards. In the car.”
“I know he died!” Roxanne took an unsteady gulp of vodka. “His heart stopped and they put him in a coffin and buried him in the ground. And then he came back up again.”
“That’s crazy!” said Jamie. “It was grave robbers!”
Roxanne gave him a withering look. “Don’t give me all that Resurrection Man nonsense. I’ve been hearing those tales since I were younger than you. It’s just a cover story, something to tell outsiders. There aren’t any grave robbers in Alderston. The dead disturb themselves.”
It couldn’t be true. Of course it couldn’t be true. Roxanne was grief-stricken and drunk, and she didn’t know what she was saying. Yet as Jamie stared at her, he realized that part of him believed her. If this one incredible, impossible thing could somehow be true, could it not explain the strange atmosphere that hung over Alderston like a fog?
“That’s why there were mortsafes in the watch house,” said Jamie. “It’s not to protect the dead from the living. It’s the other way around.”
“Alderston’s little secret,” said Roxanne, her voice thick with contempt. “No one talks about it, but everyone knows, all right.”
