My proper phone is still dead, along with any photos I took. Although the old one is slower than an arthritic tortoise, I get onto the Internet and start browsing.
I begin by looking at pictures in which I’ve been tagged. There are selfies that I’ve taken and uploaded long ago, plus photos taken by other people. Every time I click a new one, a memory springs forward of who it was taken with and where we were. There’s Naomi and me in our old school uniform, our white shirts signed by all our classmates on the final day of term. Because she was in my year, I even asked Rebecca the Raven to sign it. She wrote ‘from one bitch to another’ on mine, while I simply wrote my name on hers. In the photo, Naomi and I have our arms around each other. We’re grinning, each holding onto the other tightly as if we’re inseparable conjoined twins.
Knowing what I’ve done, it hurts to look at it.
The next picture has us in fancy dress last Halloween. She’s Harley Quinn from Batman and I’m a female Robin. It was her idea and Robbie went dressed as cool all-in-black low-talking Batman, while Ben’s there as cheesy 1960s Adam West Batman. There are photos of us by ourselves, in couples, and then all together as a foursome. Everyone seems so happy, which only makes me want to cry again because it’s a time to which we can’t return.
I keep clicking until I reach last New Year’s Eve. There was a large college party that had miraculously been given the go-ahead to happen on campus. In various pictures, I’m sticking my tongue out at the camera, grinning, giving a thumbs up, frowning, pretending I’m not looking even though I know my photo’s being taken, hiding behind a glass – which doesn’t work because it’s transparent. I’m surrounded by faces I recognise. Friends and acquaintances – people in my year and the one above. I zoom in as far as I can, trying to look at people’s wrists, wondering if anyone will be wearing the bracelet. There’s either nothing to see, or the photos are too blurry to tell.
Once I’m done looking at pictures with me, I move onto Robbie. I can’t get past the way he looked at me from the car park of Tape Deck – the confusion and surprise that I was there. He said he wasn’t feeling well, which was perhaps true, but what’s going to make a person feel worse than drowning someone one night and then finding them at lunch to following day?
Could it really be him?
Did he snap after I told him about what happened between Ben and me?
There are so many photos of us together that it starts to become overwhelming. In almost every one, our arms are around each other, or we’re holding hands.
In one, we’re feeding each other a forkful of cake that we bought at a little bakery on the seafront last summer. It was snapped a fraction of a second after he lifted his fork deliberately too high and smeared cream across my nose. He’s laughing and so am I. I’m entranced by it because it seems surreal, like something that happened to somebody else. A dream.
Another has us sitting underneath a tree staring at one another and talking. Naomi took it when neither of us knew she was there. There’s no posing, no playing it up. It’s as natural a picture as could have been taken and – even though I know I’m biased – it’s a beautiful photo. Two people holding hands under a tree, staring into each other’s eyes and simply talking. That’s love, isn’t it? I love him and he loves me.
I have to click past it because it’s starting to upset me. Soon I’m bashing the screen of my phone, trying to move as quickly as I can from picture to picture. There are hundreds of Robbie to get through, but he’s wearing a leather bracelet in none of them. Before long, I’m ashamed for even suspecting he could have done something to hurt me.
When I’m finished with his pictures, I search specifically for albums from last night. There are hundreds of pictures, uploaded and tagged by names and faces I recognise. It seems like a typical night: sixteen-, seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds taking over a house and garden: eating, drinking and having fun. People are pulling faces, grinning, laughing, flicking Vs, giving the piss, downing bottles of beer, huddling around the barbecue and arguing over who’s cooking what. At one point, someone set up a game of Twister on the back lawn and half a dozen people from my year are busy winding themselves around one another.
Every now and then, there’s a photo containing me. In one, I’m sitting on Robbie’s lap in the corner of the garden, my arms wrapped round his neck. He’s saying something to me and I’m smiling. We have eyes only for each other.
There are at least a dozen with Naomi and me lounging in the garden, then more when the skies are dimmer of us dancing while people cheer us on in the background. In the last one, she has a bottle of Bud and I’m drinking a can of Diet Coke. I’m in the red skirt and strappy top I was wearing when I woke up in the river.
Some of the memories are clear – like being with Robbie in the garden – others feel alien, such as dancing with Naomi, as if someone has stolen my body and inserted me into these situations.
Perhaps my biggest surprise about last night is that the Ravens are there. Rebecca and her crew usually only attend parties and events organised by them, or where they don’t have to slip down the social scale and end up associating with people like me. They are a fixture at the end-of-season sporting formals, plus things like the Christmas Ball. Anything that allows them to dress up and thrust their youthful femininity – sometimes literally – into grown-ups’ faces. Rebecca, Rachel and Rochelle are in only a handful of photos, all taken inside Helen’s house. They’re in the living room, leaning close and whispering about whomever it is they have it in for at that particular time. With their designer gear and expensive tastes, I can’t imagine any of them wearing something as simple as a cheap leather bracelet.
I continue through the hundreds of photos but there’s little to see other than standard pictures of people enjoying themselves.
Click-click-click.
It is only when I reach a photo of someone about to jump into Helen’s pool when I spot something. In the foreground is one of the college’s rugby team, belly bared, gorilla-esque chest hair on show. I swipe past it at first, before returning because, in the background, largely out of focus, is me in my red skirt. I’m standing next to the back door, leaning in slightly, single finger pointing angrily. The other person is largely hidden behind the rugby player but it looks like it’s a man in a blue top with jeans. I have no memory of the event but it’s clear I’m angry. It might even be that, instead of pointing, I’m snatching my hand away. There is a clock clearly visible through the open door and it reads 21:31 – so this happened before I ended up in a bedroom with Ben.
I flick back through the photos, looking for someone wearing a blue top with jeans. It’s easy to discount people, including both Ben and Robbie, because they’re in shorts. Almost everyone has bare arms and legs exposed to the point that after flicking through at least a couple of hundred photos, I’ve not found the person with whom I was arguing. I move faster and faster until, finally, there’s an image of a couple sitting on the living room sofa, entwined in one another. It’s a mass of arms and legs but, off to the side, almost out of shot, is the young man in the blue top and jeans.
I recognise him instantly. I’ve seen him today, spoken to him, and yet he never hinted at the fact we’d argued the previous night.
I download both photos and then swipe between them, the first showing him next to the couple, the second showing me angrily pulling away from him. It’s unquestionably the same person: the weird-looking server from Tape Deck.
Ash.
Chapter Twelve
I’ve always been something of a list person. I don’t think it’s even the making of the list that’s so satisfying, it’s the ticking off that comes when something’s done. When I was younger, I’d write down all the homework I had to do and then cross everything off bit by bit as I did it.
Needless to say, that got old pretty quickly.
I still made lists, though – like which clothes to wear on certain days. It feels a bit weird now. Insignificant.
De
spite that, no matter what’s happened to me, there’s always time for a good list. I have a purple Moleskine journal hidden under my mattress that Naomi gave me a couple of Christmases ago. At first, I wanted to use it as a diary but then I started to forget and, before long, it was hopelessly outdated. Ever since, I’ve used it for writing my lists and the odd doodle. On the cover, I’ve written my name with a Sharpie in balloon-like letters, with a large exclamation mark at the end.
The first list I write pieces together where I was on Saturday.
3.30pm: Langham Fete with Naomi
?: Westby. Helen’s party
9.30: Argue(?) with Ash
10.42: Helen’s parents’ bedroom
11:30(ish): Police sirens
?: Robbie giving a lift home
4.30(ish): River
5:12am: Home
I can’t bring myself to write ‘with Ben’ after the 10.42 entry. The second list is more brutal – a list of people who might have held me under the water. Some have bigger reasons than others.
Robbie, Naomi, Ben, Ollie, Ash.
It’s my boyfriend, best friend, best friend’s boyfriend, brother – everyone I’m close to – then some weird guy from the diner.
What a list.
Even though I’m not sure he exists, I write ‘Hitcher’ as the final entry. I really want to start crossing off names but don’t feel as if I can rule anyone out yet.
As I’m trying to think if there’s anyone else who could be added – Rebecca the Raven? – there is a knock on my door. I push the journal back under my mattress and then sit on my bed cross-legged and grab a random book from the shelf. It’s some nonsense about a girl trying to escape a castle.
‘Who is it?’ I call.
‘It’s Jim. Can I come in?’
‘Free country.’
The door clicks open and Jim ducks under the frame before turning to me. His glasses are on top of his head and his shorts too high. His legs are peppered with spindly grey hairs, knees knobbly and jutting at odd angles. When he folds his arms across his chest, his elbows stick out too. He’s like a grasshopper whose limbs elongate back on themselves. I know it sounds harsh because he’s always been there for Ollie and me, especially since Dad died. There for Mum, too, of course.
I do like him, I just find him odd.
Before he can say anything, I get in first. ‘I’m not saying sorry.’
Jim waits at the end of my bed. ‘Is that why you think I’m here?’
‘Isn’t it?’
For a moment, I think he’s going to perch on the edge of my bed but he’s simply stretching his legs. ‘I’m not your father, Ellie. I never will be and I’m not trying to be. But I was his friend and I knew him since we were nippers. After your father… passed, well… I know Zoe… your mother and I have been, um, hanging out for a while now and—’
I can’t hold back any longer and snort in laughter. He stops talking, forehead creasing as he peers down at me. ‘Sorry,’ I say, stifling myself. ‘It’s the way you said “hanging out”. It sounds like you’ve been hanging out by the swings, with a sneaky bottle of cider.’
He smiles a little, unfolding his arms. ‘I suppose I didn’t know how to put it. Much of this is new to me. I’ve never had children myself.’
I shrug. ‘I’m seventeen, not seven. You don’t need to treat me like a kid.’
He nods. ‘A fair point. Can we forget I said it?’
I give a non-committal nod of my own. In truth, I spent years believing Jim was gay. He was my dad’s friend but never had a girlfriend or wife. I suppose he never had a boyfriend, either. I’d made assumptions. When Mum told Ollie and me that she and Jim had starting ‘seeing each other’, we were both surprised.
Jim motions to sit again but still doesn’t. He rests on the bedpost at the bottom of my bed, re-folding his arms. ‘I guess the reason I’m here is that I want to make sure everything is all right with you. I know what happened downstairs was out of character. Yes, your mother and I, er, “hang out”’ – he makes bunny ears – ‘but I’m also the village’s sole police officer. If anything’s going on, whatever you tell me is confidential. I don’t have to share anything with your mother if that’s what you want.’
Before I realise I’m doing it, I’m biting my bottom lip. What am I supposed to say? I’m pretty sure I died last night and I think someone close to me is responsible? I could tell him that I woke up in the river, but, by itself, that doesn’t mean a crime has been committed – it just makes me look careless.
‘Why do you think something’s going on?’ I ask.
He stares at me and it feels like he’s a police officer, not a family friend. His eyes are grey and unflinching. It only takes a moment and I have to look away, knowing that, if he stared at me much longer, I’d blurt it out.
‘You tell me,’ he replies. ‘Your mother says you were ill this morning, yet you’ve been out all day and come back looking like you slept in a ditch. It’s all a bit—’
‘Do I look that bad?’
He stops and finally looks away. ‘Those aren’t my words.’
I tug at my hair self-consciously. When I got into the house, Mum was probably as much worried by the state of me as she was annoyed that I’d been out all day.
‘I’m okay,’ I say softly.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, if you ever want to have a chat, we can do that. There’s a lot going on at the moment with this so-called Hitcher around the village, plus the post office break-in. You know how things get in a place like this. The locals lose their minds when kids play music a bit too loudly.’
He’s watching me again and I think of the fact the police were called to Helen’s house on Saturday evening. She lives on the edge of the village with only a handful of houses in the surrounding area. Jim likely knows I was there, because why wouldn’t I have been?
‘The reports this week,’ he adds. ‘Strange men hanging around is like Armageddon to some people, especially after what happened last year to young Sarah.’
There’s a slight croak as he speaks her name and I feel a twinge of sorrow for him. He’s a one-man band policing a small village and surrounding area that doesn’t really need policing. He works by himself in a tiny ‘station’ in the village centre. When Sarah’s body turned up, CID cops piled in from the wider area. They spent weeks poking around and interviewing everyone – especially my brother – yet arrested nobody. When they departed, Jim was left by himself trying to answer unanswerable questions about who killed Sarah. He’s spent a year walking around with ‘failure’ written all over him.
‘Do you think there’s some dangerous bloke hanging around?’ I ask.
Jim puffs out a large breath. ‘I don’t know. The village is surrounded by woods and remote farms. With the decent weather, someone could be living in the open – and popping into the village to get up to whatever – but it’s just as likely our friend at the pharmacy saw someone she didn’t know and got the wrong end of the stick. Once one person speaks out about this sort of thing, there’s always someone else who might or might not have spotted someone similar. Then it’s on the front page of the paper, so more people start racking their brains, wondering if they’ve seen anything untoward. It’s certainly bad timing seeing as all this coincides with someone breaking into the post office. You know the way people think around here – when something bad happens, they’d rather blame it on an outsider than believe trouble can come from within.’
He takes a small step back towards the door. ‘I don’t mean to impose, I just wanted to say that I’m around if you need to talk. You should be able to find me.’
‘Okay.’
Jim hovers awkwardly, stepping between the bed and the door, not quite sure what to do next. When I don’t add anything, he almost trips over himself, then heads for the door. Once he’s closed it behind him, I wait until his footsteps have retreated down the stairs and then put my book to one side and retrieve the journa
l.
I reread the list of where I was yesterday. From the moment I left Helen’s party with Robbie to the time I woke up in the river, there are five hours in which I have no idea what happened. I need to ask Robbie what went on – but the niggling feeling persists that, if he did have anything to do with me ending up in the river, he’d have no reason to tell the truth.
II
Monday
Chapter Thirteen
I don’t leave my room for the rest of the evening and spend much of it reading my pair of lists over and over, hoping something will trigger a memory of Saturday night.
Nothing does.
As it gets past eleven o’clock, there is shuffling on the landing as Mum heads to bed. I can only hear one set of footsteps and it doesn’t sound as if Jim is staying the night. Sometimes I’ve heard him whispering a goodbye in the early hours of the morning before slipping away – but it’s not the sort of thing I’d ask Mum about, nor something she’d likely want to talk over. I’m not even sure I want to know. She’s never gone off on one about Robbie being my boyfriend, so no particular double standards. There was the one time when she wanted to have a sit-down conversation about ‘protection’ and the like but, well… let’s just say that in a list of people with whom I’d want to have that talk, she wouldn’t make the top five.
Actually, perhaps I should write that list.
Or not.
By half eleven, I’m expecting to feel tired. The last time I know I slept was on Friday evening… or Saturday morning to be precise. I stayed up WhatsApping Naomi until two in the morning, then dozed off, before getting up to meet her. That’s a full day and a half or so since I was asleep. I should be shattered and, in some ways, I am. My mind feels sluggish and the bedroom light stings my eyes. It’s more weariness than something that’d send me to sleep – like hitting snooze for the fourth time.
The Death and Life of Eleanor Parker_An absolutely gripping mystery novel Page 7
