by Frances Vick
What’s happening????
She didn’t reply.
His imagination, sluggish with fatigue, slid further into fear. Jenny and Ryan, speeding towards the city, white with terror, bristling with evidence, David in hot pursuit. And all Freddie could do was wait. Shrugging on his coat, he left the flat, and started to walk to the pub on the other side of town.
The mist that had receded during the day was rolling back in from the hills to the city, and even though he dawdled as much as he could, he still arrived at the virtually empty pub half an hour early. The same cute little barman was serving, and he did the same cute little thing with drinks – a double gin for the price of a single, which Freddie took before thinking that he probably shouldn’t be drinking when he was ill and taking those pills Jenny had given him.
He texted the number Jenny had called from.
I’m here now.
There was no reply.
Are you OK Jen? What happened?
No answer.
Knowing he shouldn’t, he called her, but the phone was turned off. Don’t panic, Fred, don’t panic. Doesn’t mean anything. Could have run out of battery… she could be in a tunnel or something. Who knows. He drank another gin – too quickly – feeling the effects almost immediately.
Then Ryan messaged him:
Is Jenny with you?
No! She was with you, wasn’t she? What’s happened?
We got separated she said she was coming to see you, look around for her.
She’s not here I would’ve seen her what’s happened?
Find her!
What’s happening?
Then the whole conversation deleted itself.
CALL ME!
He texted Jenny, and almost immediately his phone buzzed with her message back:
Come and get me something bad’s happened I’m under the canal bridge behind the pub please come now!
And Freddie put his phone away and dashed to the back door. The cold hit him with an almost physical force and the gin and pills made him more unsteady. The steps to the towpath were slippery. The canal was black and still as tar.
Freddie’s heart sped up. His face glittered with heat. Sickness and fear combined.
‘Jen?’ he called and his voice sounded young, so young to his own ears. ‘Jenny?’
QUIET!
Ryan messaged:
I’ve found her. Please hurry!
The side of the bridge showed abruptly through the fog.
Ryan told him:
I can see you, stay there.
And Freddie did. The gentle lap of the water was close, in the distance, music, and then, behind him, was Ryan.
Freddie didn’t feel the knife in his back and, spinning around clumsily, he didn’t feel it in his chest either – four stab wounds in total the police counted later. He was too busy looking at the face of his attacker. His eyes widened, his mouth opened as if to speak, and then folded in on itself, primly, like an old maid, and, quickly, he slipped into cold blankness. Cold water. And then he felt nothing at all.
AFTER
35
You Can’t Go Home Again
Hi.
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write.
Today I found out that my good friend – my closest friend – is dead.
I’m writing it down so I can understand it. If I fix it to a screen and pin it down with punctuation, then this horrible fact will stay still long enough for me to comprehend it.
Is it strange to want to write? Should I… what should I be doing? What can I do?
His father called me this morning. I’ve known him since I was sixteen, and yet I didn’t recognise his voice, he sounded so old, lost. Dazedly polite. So sorry to wake me… I heard the pause, and the whistle of approaching tears – the same sound my own lips made when I made my own calls after Mum died. I knew then. I knew. And my mind filled with a mosquito-like whine, and the world dipped dizzily, like there’d been an altitude shift, a drop in normal pressure.
I went to their house, and sat stiffly on the sofa between them. Catatonic Mother and emptied-out Father and I didn’t have a thing to offer them. No way of making them feel better, only ways of making it worse. But I sat and I held their hands and hoped to God I could – I don’t know – stop everything that had happened. Go back a few months… Hell, go back a few years. Start over.
I went to the mortuary with them. My friend was in the same room as my mum had been. The same greasy glass. But not a purple robe, just an off-white sheet. I think his mother had a tiny hope that, with me there, three would be the charm, that the combined force of our grief would reverse this terrible wrong and it wouldn’t be our loved one there, on the slab, marbled white and pink. No. It would be someone else’s darling, someone else’s tragedy – nothing that we would have to own. I would have to own.
On the way out I ran to the toilet to be sick, rested my head on the toilet seat and, for a tiny moment I felt like I was back at Mum’s, on that morning, the policeman hovering outside asking if I was OK.
When I opened the door, my friend’s parents were standing waiting for me, looking like lost children. Do they think I know the ropes, that I can do this Death thing for them? For a second my body tensed. Then I took their hands, and we wandered to the automatic doors, the blind leading the blind.
Theehedgewitch: sorry for your loss
HollybFootitt: *hugs*
SExyStace: Don’t blame yourself hun? Why you think your too blame? Can’t turn back time.
Laundryloony2: stop everything that’s happened?
36
Notes for Cheryl
The blind leading the blind.
That was disingenuous.
I’m not blind. I haven’t been for a long time. I just didn’t want to see, that’s all. But now, after what’s happened to Freddie, I don’t have a choice. I’ve been forced to see just how little control I have.
I wasn’t honest. I wasn’t truthful. I kept a lot from Freddie: my phone going missing, then breaking – messages deleted, suddenly out of battery. My possessions disappearing, and showing up later, just slightly out of place. Everything I’d allowed to be blamed on Matt could have been (was?) David all along: all a ruse to make me feel unsafe where I was safe, to prod me into moving voluntarily into the least safe place possible. If I’d told Freddie about how bad things are in the house, how bad they’ve been for weeks, he’d have MADE me leave, I know he would have. I would have moved in with him, and he’d still be alive. I didn’t tell him that David locks the doors from the outside. How sometimes, when I drink the special ‘energy’ smoothies he makes for me, I pass out and wake hours later. Sometimes still fully clothed and stiff because I haven’t moved, sometimes I’m naked and bruised. How Catherine – scared, lonely Catherine – pleads with him to be kinder. To let her see more of That Nice Girl. That’s what she calls me now: That Nice Girl who helps with pills. ‘Can’t I watch TV with That Nice Girl?’ but David keeps her locked in her room more and more. I hear her crying sometimes, but I don’t dare go to her.
The poor woman’s mind is perilously adrift, and her only mooring point is David. David the loving son. David the perfect boyfriend. David who, I’m only just beginning to understand, has done some terrible things.
I used all sorts of excuses: David’s just protective of me; David is socially anxious; David is in recovery; David is tired/stressed/traumatised…
David’s made a coward out of me.
Time to stop that. Time to face facts.
David isn’t well. David is ill. David is…
Dangerous.
Freddie deserves to be honoured with the truth. What I’m writing now is the real truth. My hope is that I’ll somehow be able to leave, get out of the house with all these notes intact, go to the police and tell them everything. But, in the meantime, I have to keep David happy and calm. That way, I have a chance. If I don’t, then what happened yesterday will happen again.
Freddie wasn’t the
first person David has killed.
When Freddie showed me the hat, I knew it was Marc Doyle’s. I recognised it straight away. Freddie thought that David has been stalking me for years. Could that be true? How else would he have any of these things? But even then, I believed and didn’t believe. I thought I could… fix things.
So I came back. I left Freddie sleeping, hopped on a train and thought that, somehow… when I saw David, I’d be able to fix everything. Stupid.
He was waiting for me at the station. He didn’t ask about Andreena’s children, but I volunteered a lot of information anyway. Perhaps I overdid it? Perhaps that’s what made him suspicious? He was quiet in the car, distracted, and when we got back to the house, he took me by the elbow, steered me into the kitchen. That’s when he told me that he knew I hadn’t been at Andreena’s.
I paused. ‘Yes I have,’ I managed, unconvincingly.
He shook his head. He started to cry. He told me how much he loved me; how much he had trusted me. He’d opened his house, his heart, to me, and look how I repaid him? What did I have to say for myself?
‘Freddie was sick,’ I managed. ‘I had to look after him, and I knew that if I told you, you wouldn’t let me go …’
‘Wouldn’t let you?’ He opened his eyes in wide, exaggerated pain. ‘How can I stop you from doing anything?’ He sat back in his chair. His tears had all dried up. ‘You know what hurts? You know what he thinks of me, and you go there anyway. What lies did he tell you about me this time?’
‘It’s not lies, David. I’ve seen—’ I stopped.
‘Seen what?’
I should have stopped there. Stupid. But I was angry, tired of being bullied, wrong-footed. I wanted to knock him off balance with the truth. ‘Freddie found some things,’ I blurted. ‘I had to stay to talk to him about it.’
‘What things?’
I wised up then. I didn’t mention the hat or the knife. I told him that Freddie was still worried about David’s stay in Hazlewood, that it had taken me all night to finally make Freddie understand that David only suffered from an anxiety disorder, that he didn’t have to worry about me.
‘So, does that mean he’ll stop snooping on me?’ David asked.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘That’s why I stayed over with him, to make absolutely sure that he understood about Hazlewood, and he wouldn’t ever bring it up or upset you.’
David seemed satisfied with that. ‘And he didn’t say anything else? Only about Hazlewood?’
I managed to look puzzled. ‘No. Why? What else would there be to find?’
That made him back off a little. My plan was to call Freddie once I was safely alone, like I’d promised, so I told David that I was going to take a shower and have a nap. When David left the room though, I couldn’t find my phone. He walked in on me downstairs, hunting for it.
‘Your phone? Is it not here? Maybe it dropped out in the car. No, you have your shower and I’ll find it for you.’
What could I do? If I insisted on looking for the phone myself he’d get suspicious. So I said, thanks. Yes. I’ll have a shower. Thanks.
I stood under the spray until the water went cold and, when I came out, David was there. He handed me my phone – it was on the drive – it must have fallen out of my pocket. The battery was completely dead. He’d put it on to charge while I had my nap. He told me I looked pale, that he was worried about me.
‘I made you one of my smoothies,’ he said. ‘Superfoods. Spinach, banana, pomegranate…’ He sat me down and watched me drink every last drop of it. Whatever it was he put in the smoothie hit me hard. I felt dizzy, sick. He told me to lie down, rest, and tucked me into bed like a child. As I lapsed into unconsciousness, I understood how much I’d underestimated him. I thought he’d believe me. I thought I still had some kind of power over him, but no. David had, efficiently, ruthlessly, proved me wrong.
When I woke up it was dark, and my limbs and head were heavy, drugged. I managed to get to the door; it was locked, but David hadn’t taken the key. I beat on the door with my feeble fists until I heard Catherine stirring.
‘Catherine, can you unlock the door?’ I shouted. ‘Just follow the sound of my voice.’
She looked scared when she opened the door. She said that David was upset. Why was he upset?
‘Is he in the house?’ I asked.
She shook her head, then nodded, then smiled.
‘Catherine? Please? Is he in or out?’
But she just stood there until I led her back downstairs and into her room. Every step I took exhausted me more. I was wavering at the bottom of the stairs when David came in through the back door. His skin was cold, and he smelled of earth. I panicked. I didn’t want to get Catherine into trouble. I stammered out that I’d made her unlock the door, that it wasn’t her fault, that—
‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘The door wasn’t locked. Why would I lock the door?’ I looked in his eyes, and there was nothing there but sincerity. Did he believe what he was saying? ‘I think you’re ill. You’re not thinking straight. I think you caught Freddie’s cold. Go back to bed.’ He took me by my elbow, led me back to the stairs.
‘Freddie – I said I’d call him,’ I said.
He shook his head then. ‘It’s far too late for that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s 1 a.m. What do you think I meant?’ He frowned gently at me. ‘You’re ill. You’re feverish. Go back to bed and I’ll bring you some aspirin.’
He gave me some more pills. I tried not to take them; I said that I felt a lot better, but he smiled, shook his head, and had me swallow them, and sat with me until they began to take effect. As I was falling back to sleep, I heard the key in the door turn again. Then it was morning. My phone was on the bedside table, fully charged. That’s what woke me up. Graham, calling with the news.
David let me post on the blog, but he watched me do it, and then took the computer away, along with my phone. He didn’t want me to be upset or disturbed, he told me. For a while we sat on the sofa, watching/not watching the news, and I could feel him glancing at me, squeezing my cold hand. He wanted to know, what could he do to help?
‘You’re right. I’m ill,’ I told him. ‘I’ll go to bed.’
He liked me telling him he was right. He liked it so much he didn’t give me any more of those pills, and that’s how I managed to stay conscious, write all of this down on scraps of paper. If I write it all down, I have some kind of… testimony. If anything happens to me, these notes will signal the truth. I have to find a good hiding place. And if I manage to get out of here, I’ll give it all to Cheryl. He doesn’t know where she lives. Plus, I made sure to tell him we weren’t friends any more. I even used his insult about her: I called her a snake-oil merchant, and he liked that.
I hid each paper in a different place all around the room – stuffed into the toes of shoes, rolled up inside the curtain pole, between the mattress and the bed. If he finds one page, that would be bad, but he can’t find them all. This is my insurance policy.
I told him that I felt much better, that it would be best if I kept busy. No point moping. He approved of that. If I seem matter of fact, stoic, there’s a chance he’ll let me out of the house. He needs me awake and active anyway because Catherine isn’t well, and she won’t let him tend to her. She’s skittish and fearful – probably because she’s heard me crying over Freddie. She knows something is wrong. I’m the only person she trusts at the moment. – David always told me that’s one of the reasons he loves me so much; I’m so patient with his mother. He’s jealous of that, I can tell. He’s jealous of our bond, hurt that she fears him, angry that when she does speak, she only speaks to me. The angrier he gets, the more frightened she becomes until I gently ask him to leave her with me: I’ll calm her down. And when we’re alone, in her own way, she tells me a lot. On the night Freddie was killed, the night David drugged me and locked me in the room, she heard him leave in the car, returning ‘a while later’.
‘How much
later?’ I asked, but in her poor, fogged mind, it wasn’t later at all. It was eight. They watched University Challenge together. Tony was there. He’d borrowed Tony’s old Beetle, and, since I was a guest, did I need a lift to the seaside?
I got her into bed, and held her hand. Just before she fell asleep, she looked straight at me. Her eyes were more lucid than I’d ever seen them. A stuttering, frustrated determination seemed to energise her.
‘You must take care of yourself, Jenny,’ she said.
She’s never used my name before, and it seemed to take the last of her strength, and she fell asleep while I was still holding her hand.
I’m still in her room now, writing at her desk, using her old lavender-coloured notepaper.
I have to take care of myself, but I also have to keep Catherine safe. She’s my responsibility. She’s my family now.
It was blustery, cold the next morning. All night long the wind had bothered Catherine; the rhythmic scrape of branches against the panes, the sudden clatter of rain on the windowpanes woke her and kept her awake. By 9 a.m. she was quiveringly nervous, refusing tea, toast, countering each offer with the querulous demand. ‘How could you do that to Tinker?’
I managed to give her her pills and, by midday, she was a little calmer. She even agreed to wash her face and clean her teeth, and I walked with her to the bathroom, keeping up a comforting murmur.
Then, somehow, she must have tripped.
I can’t write about this now, I don’t have the time. They’re waiting for me downstairs. David’s shouting for me.
37
