Maybe, just maybe, I’ve seen this happen before.
Thirty-Eight
I wish I could stop thinking of the property as Dad’s house – but it’s burned into me. There are many reasons to sell, but this might be the most important of all. It’s mine – but it will never be mine.
When I’m on the corner next to the house, I spot Chris’s car parked on Helena’s drive next door. I head along the path to Dad’s house but can’t stop myself from staring across to the car and the replaced bumper. If finding out the truth about Owen has taught me anything, it’s that assumptions are dangerous. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the previous bumper was scuffed – and why Chris had it changed. Perhaps his wife, Kirsty, really did hit a post?
I only realise I’ve been staring too long when Helena’s front door opens. It’s not her who emerges, it’s Chris. He’s in three-quarter shorts and a T-shirt that’s a size too small. He heads straight for me, hands in pockets, more resigned than angry.
‘You’re not gonna let it go, are you?’ he says.
‘What?’ I reply.
‘You think I did it, don’t you? You think I hit that kid and drove off.’
I look from Chris to the car and back again. I can’t get over how some things in this town feel so familiar that it’s as if I never left.
‘Did you?’ I ask.
He boggles at me, probably amazed I’ve asked the question outright.
‘Kirsty hit a post,’ he replies. ‘I told you.’
‘You’ve got a new bumper.’
‘I realised how bad it looked when you were checking out the car by the bookies. I had to do something in case someone else noticed.’
‘If it was only Kirsty hitting a post, then what would it matter if someone else noticed?’
He huffs loudly and glances back towards his mum’s house. ‘Did you see the graffiti on that guy’s house when they pulled his car out of the quarry? He had his car nicked and that’s what they did to him. What do you think they’d do to me?’
My eyes drift back to the car again.
‘I know you’ve been away,’ he adds. ‘But what kind of person do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘But you knew me once. I’m not that different.’
It’s hard not to sigh. I look towards Dad’s house, then Helena’s, then the car. Anywhere except Chris. If I had any thoughts of staying, I’d shut my mouth. That’s what people do when they’re invested in a community. The power lies in saying nothing.
‘You’re a drug dealer,’ I say.
It sounds worse out loud than it did in my head – and it sounded bad enough in there. It’s such an emotive pair of words. ‘Drug dealer’ can be anything from someone passing a joint onto a teenager, to someone lacing a wrap of heroin with fentanyl. It’s not all the same, and yet, with those two words, it is.
Chris cranes his neck backwards, his eyes narrowing. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I’m not an idiot. I know what you’re up to with Petey and the pills—’
‘Shush!’
Chris spins to check his mother’s house and only turns back when he’s certain there’s nobody to overhear.
‘How’d you know that?’ he asks.
‘I told you: I’m not stupid. It’s hardly a complex web of companies based in the Caymans, is it?’
He stares at me, not knowing what I’m on about.
‘Petey’s eight years old,’ I add. ‘You’re getting him to make drug deliveries for you – so, yes, you have changed a lot since I knew you.’
Chris checks over his shoulder once more and then waits for a car to pass. It’s barely louder than a whisper when he replies.
‘You wouldn’t understand. It’s not like some big city here.’
‘I know what it’s like here.’
‘You don’t though. You’ve never worked at Hendo’s. You’ve never been laid off. Do you know how many people are worried they’re going to lose their house? Or not be able to pay rent? Or have to move?’
I want to answer, except that he’s right. I don’t know what any of that’s like.
‘Exactly,’ he adds, seeing the uncertainty in me. ‘There aren’t loads of jobs here, or ways to make money. You’ve got to look after your own, haven’t you? I’ve got a family to feed.’
The cycle seems obvious to me. There’s Chris who, however misguided, has a point. He wants to look after his family and Elwood feels like a town that’s dying. I have no idea where his pills come from – but they get sold on to people like Jo, who’s stuck with an addiction she either can’t, or doesn’t want to, control. She even knows it’s happening – Do you sometimes wonder if we are who we are because of our parents? The only person who’s winning is whoever’s at the top, sending those tablets downwards. Like Holly and her pyramid.
‘What if you get caught?’ I say. ‘How’s that for looking after your family?’
‘That’s ifs. What’s definite is that, if I don’t do this, there’s no food for my girls. No school uniform. No one to pay the mortgage.’
He checks over his shoulder again and then steps close enough that I can see the patch underneath his chin that he missed shaving. He gulps and his voice is barely a whisper.
‘Do you think I’m a bad person?’ he asks.
I take a breath and look to the floor, not knowing how to answer. Drug dealers are bad, aren’t they? It’s an easy yes-no, black-white issue. He was using an eight-year-old as a mule. But here, whether it’s Chris or whether it’s me, I simply don’t know.
‘I think about it sometimes,’ Chris adds. ‘When I see Kirsty and the girls. I wonder if I’m the bad guy. Have you ever thought that? Like when you watch a movie and there’s a villain and you wonder if they ever stop to think about whether they’re the bad guy. Is that me?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
‘I don’t either.’
We stand silently for a moment until he takes half a step backwards.
‘Were you at the back of the house?’ I ask.
The change of subject catches him by surprise and he blinks rapidly. ‘Huh?’
‘A couple of nights ago, there was someone at the back window in the house. Was it you?’
‘Of course not. Why would it be?’
‘I don’t know. I thought I saw someone out there.’
He turns to look at Dad’s house, then his mum’s, then he looks across the road towards the other properties.
‘Someone was burgled on this street about a year ago,’ he says. ‘I can’t remember which house, but Mum was really worried. Your dad used to go over and sit with her some evenings because she was scared about it happening to her. She’s lived here all her life – and now this.’
There’s anger in his voice, but it sounds forced and I wonder if, deep down, he’s scared, too. If it wasn’t for that, I might point out the irony that a decent amount of burglaries are carried out by people trying to fund drug habits. The precise type of habit he himself is helping to create. A day ago and I probably would’ve done.
I don’t get a chance anyway because Helena’s front door opens and Kirsty appears. She walks towards us slowly as Chris steps away from me.
‘What’s going on?’ she asks, the anger brimming in her tone.
‘We’re just talking,’ Chris replies, although the edge to his voice probably won’t help.
‘What about?’ she demands, looking to me.
‘Things,’ Chris says.
If she was a dragon, Kirsty would be breathing fire at this moment. I don’t necessarily blame her. Chris hasn’t helped.
‘Stay away from him,’ she says, wagging a finger in my direction.
‘Do you really think I’m chasing him?’
‘You keep running into him, don’t you? If you’re so happy wherever it is you’ve been living, then where’s your man?’
She pushes forward, angling around Chris’s outstretched arm with her chest o
ut. There would have been a time, long ago, where I’d have taken the challenge. I’d have had Jo and Holly cheering me on as I threw myself into battle. I suppose that’s another thing I left behind.
‘Do you think I need someone to be happy?’ I reply. ‘Do you think I need a man?’
She sneers and then it turns into a laugh. ‘You don’t look very happy.’
There’s a terrible feeling when somebody makes a point so perfectly sincere and correct that there’s no answer. Like trying to argue a square is a circle until someone points out that it’s unquestionably round. There’s nowhere to go. I feel sick.
‘Thought so,’ Kirsty says, as she brims of satisfaction. ‘Leave him alone. Leave us alone.’ She turns to Chris, on a roll: ‘Let’s go.’
Chris looks to me for a moment, but he can hardly tell his wife that we were having a cosy chat about his drug dealing. He mooches towards the car and gets into the driver’s seat as Kirsty crouches into the passenger side. It feels as if she never stops watching me as the car shoots off the drive with a spray of small stones.
I feel fixed to the spot for a moment, but then, with them gone, I let myself into the house. It’s cool in the shadows of the hallway, though the sun spills down the stairs, casting a spotlight onto the ground in front of me.
I drift across to Dad’s dusty trophies, knowing that, unless the house clearer decides to keep them for some reason, they will be landfill within a day. I wonder if he took any pleasure from these at the end; whether they gave happy memories of better times, or if they were simply decoration. Something that had become part of the fittings to the point that they might as well have been a cupboard handle, or a curtain.
I’m tired and wonder if I could sleep, or if I want to, and then there’s a solid thump from upstairs. It stops me still at the bottom of the stairs, haloed by the light coming through the upstairs window. It has always been a noisy house of creaks and squeaks – but the noise was too solid to be something like the plumbing.
I wait, listening, and then a few seconds later, there’s another bump. It’s louder this time, like someone stamping on the floor, or dropping something solid. The tightness in my chest makes me realise I’ve been holding my breath and, as I breathe out, there’s a third bang. I rest a foot on the bottom step, looking upwards, knowing with certainty that’s there’s someone in the house.
Thirty-Nine
I’ve seen horror movies. I’ve been that eye-rolling viewer cursing the lead character for opening doors or going upstairs when the only thing they should be doing is getting the hell out of wherever they are. I’ve shouted at screens as each lazy character looks to a phone that’s conveniently out of battery. I get all that. I should leave and probably call the police. The reason I do none of that is something that’s harder to define. Curiosity is part of it – there’s someone in the house and I’d like to know who it is. It’s also outrage at the bare-faced cheek that someone’s in this house in the middle of the day when they have no right to be.
That’s the stuff that feels reasonable in the moment – but there’s irrationality, too. A single, dangerous thought that tickles the back of my mind.
It’s Dad.
He’s dead, I know that. There was a funeral that he paid for and planned. But I never saw the body. The only proof of any sort is the solicitor’s letter and the death certificate. They can be faked, can’t they? Perhaps this was all some big plot to get me back to Elwood?
If not him, then Mum. She got in somehow and…?
I creep towards the kitchen and open the door as quietly as I can. The window hasn’t been broken, the back door is closed, and the dirty dishes are still in the sink. There’s no sign anyone but me has been here – although an obvious thought occurs that a potential burglar is unlikely to stop and do the washing-up.
I take a knife from the rack and, even though it’s blunt and couldn’t cut a sausage in half, I figure it’ll do for show.
As I return to the hall, there’s another bump from above, although it’s more muffled this time.
I creep up the stairs, moving from light to shadow and back again until I reach the landing with a steady, low creak. I stop still and wait. There’s no bumping now, but there’s definitely some sort of rustling coming from the spare bedroom.
Since getting back to the house, I’ve ignored the two bedrooms that aren’t mine. I’ve avoided Dad’s largely because I don’t want to know what’s inside. It’s morbid enough having to see the way he was living through the contents of the living room and the kitchen. The idea of having to sort through his clothes, his underwear, makes me feel slightly sick.
There was no particular reason to avoid the spare room, other than that I’ve never spent any time in there. When I lived here two decades ago, it was full of junk that Dad didn’t want to throw away. I think it might have been a generational thing of not wanting things to go to waste, or believing things can always be fixed. The large fake Christmas tree would always be jammed in here, back when we celebrated things like that as a family. There’s no reason to assume the contents of the room has changed in any way since I left. It’s not like the rest of the house has.
I wonder if I should call out and perhaps give whoever it is a chance to leave the house. The knife feels heavy in my hand and I know I couldn’t use it in any meaningful way. It’s a prop. Tina from the police gave me her number and I could call her, instead of 999 – except it would still take time for someone to arrive.
There’s a scratching, scrabbling coming from the room that doesn’t feel like it’s dangerous. Chris mentioned there had been a burglary a while back and, if it is a burglar, then what could they possibly be ransacking from this room?
I step across the landing, to where the door to the spare room is open a sliver. I know it was closed this morning, the same way that the door to Dad’s room is still clamped in its frame.
If there was any doubt before, then it’s gone now. Someone is here.
I hold the knife to my side with one hand and nudge the door open with the other. It’s impossible to miss the whining, screech of the rusting hinges as the door swings inwards. I take a breath and step inside.
I don’t know what I expect – Dad, Mum, some big, overpowering burglar – but it’s none of those things. Instead, there’s a girl sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room. She’s maybe fifteen or sixteen and wearing jeans with a bright T-shirt that has a duck on the front. She peers up to me over thick-rimmed glasses, flicking her dark ponytail back over her shoulder.
We stare at one another, though her gaze slips to the knife in my hand. I suddenly feel embarrassed to be carrying it, even though she’s an intruder.
‘You were at the funeral,’ I say, recognising the girl in the black dress.
She twitches, as if about to speak, but nothing comes out.
‘Who are you?’ I ask.
‘Um…’
‘How did you get in?’
Words seem caught in her throat, like she’s forgotten how to talk. Instead, she reaches into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out a key, which she holds up in the air.
I squint towards it, then lean forward and take it from her. I can’t be certain, but it looks identical to the one I received in the mail from the solicitor.
‘Where’d you get this?’ I ask.
‘Mum.’
The word comes out as a croak and only leaves me more confused.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I got it from Mum.’
‘Who’s your mum?’
She shuffles a little and there’s something about the way the light catches the angles of her cheeks that makes me know the answer before it comes.
‘Our mum,’ she says.
There’s a pause in which I can’t speak – but the girl fills it anyway.
‘I’m Megan – and we’re sisters.’
Forty
‘Well, half-sisters,’ Megan adds. ‘Same mother, different dads.’
‘How old ar
e you?’
‘Nearly seventeen.’
She smiles slimly and I know she’s telling the truth from the way the crinkles form around her mouth. She has Mum’s smile. She has my smile. She would’ve been born four years after Mum walked out. Four years after I left.
‘Megan…’ I say, apparently unable to come up with a cohesive statement other than repeating her name.
‘You’re Abi,’ she replies – and it’s not a question. She already knows.
‘I, well… yes.’ I tie myself into a knot with the words. It’s all too much and a few seconds pass before I realise she’s still let herself into the house.
‘Why are you here?’ I ask.
Megan points down to a dusty album that’s flat on the floor. The pages have browned over time and a few are hanging loose. A couple of grainy, washed-out photographs are stuck to the top page, though I can’t make out what they’re supposed to be showing.
‘I did knock,’ Megan says when she looks back up.
I’ve still got her key in my hand and slip it into my own pocket.
‘I tried the bell, too. And I went round the back.’
There’s a familiarity in what she’s saying.
‘Were you around the back the other night?’ I ask. ‘After dark.’
She looks away, which is answer enough. ‘I didn’t know if I should knock. It was late and I wasn’t sure why I was here. I thought I’d go around to see if I could spot you through a window. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just wanted to say hello to you.’
‘That doesn’t explain why you let yourself in today.’
‘I suppose I, um, got a bit bored of waiting. It’s really hot outside. I had the key, so thought it would maybe be okay…’
The Child Across the Street: An unputdownable and absolutely gripping psychological thriller Page 21
