I eventually manage to get my jeans on, and a jumper and some shoes. What’s he doing? Is he planning his escape? Is he packing a bag right this minute?
Suddenly, my door handle rattles. I swear my heart stops. ‘Violet. Violet. It’s me. Let me in.’
My throat fills with terror and the bitter taste of aspirin. I can’t speak.
‘Please, Violet. Let me in. Let me explain. Let me talk to you. Please. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not a monster. I’m really not a monster.’ He rattles the handle again.
‘Go away,’ I manage to say. ‘I don’t want to speak to you.’
‘Violet.’ His voice has gone all high-pitched and pleading. ‘You can’t just come and say those things to me and then tell me to go away.’
I don’t answer him. I can’t. I’m trying too hard not to scream.
‘Violet! Please!’
I slump to the floor with my back against the chair and my fingers in my ears. Go away. Go away. Go away, I whisper to myself.
I’m not sure how long I sit there for, but when I eventually take my fingers out of my ears, there’s silence. I stand up slowly and carefully pull the chair away from the door. Still nothing. He’s gone. I’m sure of it. I grab my leather jacket from the wardrobe and pull it on, making sure my purse is zipped into the pocket.
It’s now or never.
A sudden bang forces a small scream from my throat. But then there’s another and another and I let out a breath as I realise it’s only the water pipes. Someone’s in the bathroom. I inch the door handle down. Slowly, slowly, then I pull the door open a crack.
He’s not there.
I open the door wider. The landing’s empty. The water pipes are still groaning and I can hear water splashing from the taps. If he’s in the bathroom, I’ll have to be quick. I tiptoe along the landing and dart down the stairs. Please don’t let him be in the kitchen, please don’t let him be in the kitchen, I chant. I push the door open, and there’s Mum and Dad still sitting in silence at the table. Mum’s staring into space with her chin resting in her hands and Dad’s blowing cigarette smoke over her head. As I walk in Mum straightens up.
‘Is that Joseph up and about?’ she asks. ‘Shall I put some breakfast on now?’
‘Not for me,’ I say. ‘I’m … I’m going out.’
‘Out?’ Mum explodes. ‘You’re not going anywhere. How could you even think it?’
I don’t answer. I look at her face with her eyebrows creased in a terrible frown and at Dad with his cigarette paused halfway to his mouth, and my heart aches for them; for what I’m about to do. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry, Dad,’ I manage to choke out, and then I’m out of the back door and running, with Dad yelling at my back, ‘Violet! Violet! Get back here!’
I run and I run, until my chest feels like it’s about to burst. The pavements, the houses, the trees, the shops, the sky – everything’s a blur. I race across roads and down back alleys, past boarded-up buildings and old bombsites and pubs that aren’t yet open. I run past the west side of the park and I see across the road there’s dozens of police milling around outside the entrance. I imagine them all in there, dragging the boating lake and searching every corner, every building, every overgrown piece of waste ground. I don’t stop. I run and I run until my feet are burning.
I turn onto Battersea Bridge Road and by the time I reach the police station every breath tears my lungs into shreds. I slow my pace and take deep gulps of air. My heart’s rattling along at a hundred miles per hour. I stand on the corner opposite the station. A group of officers are gathered at the bottom of the steps and there are three police cars parked on the pavement. They’ll all be in there, working overtime. No Sundays off until they’ve caught the killer.
I will myself to walk past them all. To walk up the steps and inside and straight up to the desk sergeant. I think about what I’ll say. How I’ll say it. I’ll be calm and matter-of-fact. I’ll look directly into his eyes and say, ‘I think you should speak to my brother, Mr Joseph White. I think he might be the Battersea Park Killer.’ I imagine how his bored expression will turn into one of surprise and panic and excitement. I won’t be just some annoying kid. I’ll be someone important, I’ll be the star witness. They’ll usher me into an interview room and offer me tea and biscuits and Detective Inspector Gordon will be called for. They’ll send a car or two with flashing lights and wailing sirens straight to the chippie and it’ll take at least three officers to get the handcuffs on Joseph.
Then a horrible thought strikes me. They’ll bring him here, won’t they? And Mum and Dad’ll probably come too. I might have to see them. I might have to say what I know in front of them all. My feet are shuffling, my hands are sweating, and suddenly I know I can’t do it like this. I can’t do it face to face. I need to tell the police what I know. But I need to do it the coward’s way.
I set off back towards the High Street, my feet pounding the pavements again. In the distance, the four chimneys of the power station are pouring mauve plumes of smoke high in the sky to join the clouds. I keep checking over my shoulder expecting to see Joseph chasing after me, his arms pumping and his face contorted with rage. I see the telephone box up ahead, sitting outside the bank, its red roof gleaming like a beacon. I run the last few yards, my hand already in my pocket pulling out my purse. I reach for the door, and then groan in frustration. There’s someone in there already. A blonde woman, leaning against the window, with a cigarette in one hand and with the phone clamped to her ear with the other.
I walk slowly around the box, making it clear to her that I’m waiting to make a call. She grinds her cigarette out on the floor and scowls at me. Then she turns her back on me and lights another cigarette. There’s a pile of pennies next to her on the shelf by the phone. I groan again. She could be in there for ever. Joseph could have packed a bag by now. He could have left the house and be God knows where.
I jiggle around impatiently. Come on, come on … She puts another coin in the slot. I start counting under my breath. One … two … three … four. By the time I’ve reached sixty, I can’t bear it any more. I walk to the side of the box and tap on one of the panes of glass. The woman whips her head around and frowns at me.
‘Are you going to be much longer?’ I ask loudly.
She flicks two fingers at me and turns away.
I bang on the glass again. ‘Please!’ I shout. ‘It’s an emergency. I need to ring the police.’
She takes the phone away from her ear and pushes the door open. ‘Are you messing me about?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Please. There really is an emergency. I just need two minutes.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say before,’ she says. ‘Hang on a minute.’ She turns back to the phone. ‘I’ll ring you back in a sec, love,’ she says. Then she hangs up and holds the door open for me.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Thanks ever so much.’ I step inside the phone box and close the door. The air inside is still thick with the blonde woman’s cigarette smoke and the stink of old ashtrays. I dig a penny out of my purse, pick up the phone and dial 100 for operator. The phone rings once and then clicks.
‘Hello, operator. How can I help you?’
The woman outside has got her arms folded across her chest. She’s tapping her foot and watching me through the windows. ‘Can you put me through to Battersea Police Station, please,’ I say into the phone.
‘One moment, please.’ There’s a brrr and a click, then I hear the phone ringing at the other end.
‘Hello,’ says a voice. As the pips start bleeping, I quickly push a penny into the slot. ‘Battersea Park Police Station,’ says the voice.
I imagine the desk sergeant with the nervous tick; a cup of tea by his side and a half-eaten biscuit. I turn my back to the woman outside and cup my hand over the phone’s mouthpiece.
‘Hello. Can I help you?’ says the voice at the other end.
My mouth’s gone dry and my tongue feels three times bigger. I clear my throat. ‘
It’s about the Battersea Park Killer,’ I manage to say.
‘Yes?’
I imagine the desk sergeant sitting up straight now, grabbing a notebook and pen. ‘I think I know who it is,’ I whisper.
‘Beg your pardon?’ says the desk sergeant.
‘I said, I think I know who the Battersea Park Killer is.’
‘Right. Okay. Can I have your name please, miss. It is miss, isn’t it?’
‘No! I … I don’t want to do that. I don’t want anyone to know I’ve called. Just, please listen.’ I take a deep breath. ‘His name is Joseph White. He lives at Frank’s Fish Bar, on Battersea Park Road. I know he’s got something to do with it all. He … he lied to the police about where he was on the night Jackie Lawrence was killed. He … he goes to Battersea Park, to the places where the girls were found. And he was in Soho last night. He has some letters too … from a missing French girl called Arabella.’
‘Slow down, miss, please. I can’t write that quickly. Just repeat what you’ve just said. But slowly and calmly.’
I grit my teeth. This is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. ‘Joseph White,’ I say again. ‘He practically admitted it to me. Just ask him where he really was on the night Jackie Lawrence was murdered. Ask him about Arabella.’ Then I slam the phone down. My hands are shaking. The woman outside bangs on the window. ‘You finished, then?’ she shouts.
I push the door open and she shoulders past me back into the phone box. The fresh air outside hits me in the face like a slap. But it tastes sweet, and the pure shock of it clears my head, so I feel more like me than I have for days. I shiver and zip up my jacket. The only problem now, is I don’t know what to do next. I didn’t think this far.
I can’t go home, that’s obvious. I can’t be there when the police come for Joseph. I don’t want to see the suffering on Mum and Dad’s faces for starters. I wander aimlessly down the High Street, past old Miss Suttie’s sweet shop where me and Jackie had our first taste of liquorice and past Ruby’s Café where Jackie had her first taste of new friends. It’s closed now, the blinds pulled down like sleepy eyelids. I think about Pauline and Mary and Sharon and wonder if the hole that Jackie has left in their lives is anywhere near as big as the hole she’s left in mine. But I doubt it. There’s nothing that will ever, ever fill the huge Jackie space in my heart.
I walk to the very end of the High Street and around the corner to where Fine Fare is set back from the road in its pale concrete frame. It’s got that sad, deserted Sunday look to it. I read the advertisements in the window for green shield stamps and Kelloggs cornflakes. I press my nose against the glass and peer into the darkened interior and wonder which till Norma sat at when she was last working. I stare into the window for so long that I forget where I am and why I’m here.
Then spots of rain start to patter down on to my shoulders, and I know there’s only one place I can go now.
An old woman answers the door. She’s wearing a flowery housecoat and a woolly hat pulled down over her ears. Wisps of white hair are curling out from around the sides of the hat. ‘Yes?’ she says. She squints at me. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘But I just wondered if Mr Smith was at home. I’ve got a message for him, you see.’
‘A message, eh?’ She looks me up and down. ‘Well, I’ll just go and see if he’s available. Hang on a minute.’ She totters back down the hall and starts to heave herself up the stairs. I feel guilty. I know there are two flights to get up before she’ll reach Beau’s room.
‘Excuse me!’ I shout into the hall. ‘Would you like me to go up? Save you climbing all those stairs.’
She pauses and shuffles around to face me with her lips pursed. ‘Oh no,’ she says. ‘Kind of you to say, but I don’t allow my lodgers to have female visitors in their rooms. It’s not decent.’ She carries on up the stairs, grunting out loud with each step and I watch her until she disappears from view.
I lean back against the doorframe and look into the street to where a bunch of kids are kicking a ball against the wall of the house opposite. Thud, thud, thud, like the beat of my heart. I think about what I’ll say to Beau. He won’t mind that I’m here, will he? He said himself, When you’ve made up your mind, I’ll help you, Violet. You know that I will. But before I can decide anything, there’s footsteps bounding down the stairs inside, and there’s Beau walking towards me with a grin on his face and with his quiff all glossy and bouncing.
‘Hey!’ he says. ‘It’s you!’ He winks. ‘Just a minute,’ he says. ‘I’ve just got to help Mrs B back down the stairs.’
When he brings her back down into the hall, she’s hanging on to his arm and laughing softly at something he’s said.
‘You’re a good boy,’ she says, patting his arm. And then she shoots me a warning look. ‘He’s a good boy, you know.’
‘Oh, Mrs B. Don’t. You’ll make me blush,’ he says with a laugh.
‘So, are you going to introduce me?’ asks Mrs B.
‘Course,’ says Beau. ‘Mrs B, this is Violet. And Violet, this is Mrs B.’ We nod cautiously at each other. She looks me up and down, sizing me up, and obviously decides I’m no threat, because she wanders back into her front room and closes the door, leaving Beau alone with me.
Beau joins me on the front step. ‘All right, then?’ he says. He takes a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it. ‘Want one?’
I shake my head. ‘No, thanks.’
He nods his head back towards the hallway. ‘Can’t sneak you up to my room right now,’ he says. ‘Mrs B will have her ear glued to the door, now she’s seen you.’
‘S’all right,’ I say.
He blows two curls of smoke from his nostrils. ‘So, fancy doing something?’ he asks. ‘Take a ride out somewhere?’
I nod. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’d be great.’ I love that it’s all so simple with Beau. It’s all about the here and now. No questions asked.
‘Wait a sec, then,’ he says. ‘I’ll just go and grab my stuff.’ He dashes back inside and I wander down to the pavement where his bike’s parked up on the kerb. Maybe I won’t have to say anything to him, after all. Maybe I’ll just take the day as it comes, and not worry about what comes later.
‘See you later, Mrs B,’ he calls, slamming the front door behind him. He’s zipped up into his leather jacket now, with a scarf wound tightly around his neck. He’s got another scarf clutched to his chest and there’s a couple of motorcycle helmets hanging from his arm. He tosses me one and then wraps the spare scarf around my neck. It smells of his room. It smells of him. ‘Thought we might need these today,’ he says, as he helps me fasten the helmet under my chin. ‘Got an idea where we might go. You up for an adventure?’
It’s like he’s read my mind. I’ll go anywhere with you, I think. You can take me as far away as you like and never bring me back for all I care.
‘An adventure would be cool,’ I say.
He puts on a posh voice and waves his hand towards his motorcycle. ‘Well, please do climb aboard then, madam. The road is waiting for us.’
‘Thanks, Beau,’ I say. ‘You’ve saved my life.’
I haven’t got a clue where we’re going, but it doesn’t matter. Beau is my prince. He’s come to my rescue. He sweeps me up onto the back of his trusty steed and I close my eyes as we gallop off into the golden, hazy, happy ever after.
The wind whips past my ears as we speed out of London. I push my face into the scarf around my neck and warm my nose with my own hot breath. The sky is a clear, cold blue, sparkling with white winter sunshine. We’re soon on the outskirts of London and the streets and houses and bridges and factories gradually turn into fields and woods and pretty little villages. The air loses its London tang of coal fires and eggy gases and begins to smell of damp grass and cow pats. I press myself into Beau’s back and feel the heat of him beneath the leather.
After about an hour, the scenery changes again. It’s like someone’s rolled out a green velvet carpet over the land. It
rolls out in gentle slopes on either side of us and there are hills made of chalk and hundreds of sheep nibbling at the ground. The road winds through the hills, then suddenly the sky opens up ahead of us and there’s a steep chalk cliff and the smell of salt in the air.
We drive around another bend in the road and I gasp out loud. I’ve seen the sea before, of course I have. I went on the bus one summer with Jackie and her nan, to Southend. We’d hoped for a sunny day, but we woke up to grey clouds and spitting rain. When we got to Southend, the sea, which in my imagination would be all greens and blues and sparkles, was black and grey and choppy. Part of the famous pier had burned down the previous autumn and the black skeleton of the pavilion looked like some great sea monster crawling towards the shore and it scared me half to death.
But we walked along the seafront and ate cups of cockles and shrimps and Brenda bought us a tin bucket each which we filled with damp sand and emptied back onto the beach, pretending to have fun as we shivered in our thin summer coats.
But this sea! This sea is just how I imagined it to be. It’s huge and blue and polished. And it might not be the middle of summer, but at least the sun’s shining today and there’s sparkles on the tops of the waves that are breaking into a foamy mess on the beach. There’s a pier here too, reaching far out to sea to touch the horizon. And there’s not a sea monster in sight. This pier has towers and pavilions, a theatre and ice-cream stalls. There’s striped deckchairs running down its length, and it’s buzzing with people. Beau drives us along the seafront. The whole place is buzzing with people. There’s couples strolling along, arm in arm or pushing prams. There’s groups of fellas and girls sitting along the sea wall and gathered under blankets on the beach. And there’s children paddling in the sea.
Beau pulls over by some railings, where a gang of bikers are already parked up. We take off our helmets and shake out our hair. ‘Welcome to Brighton,’ Beau says. The other bikers nod at us in recognition.
V for Violet Page 20
