by Daniel Hurst
Why is she finding it so difficult to understand why I am now capable of doing the same thing?
As my guardian and role model, I have become just like her, just like any other child who becomes like theirs. Some people pick up on their parents’ sense of humour or knack for numbers. Some see their parents do a good deed for a stranger, and it makes them want to do the same thing when they are old enough.
And some people witness their mother kill a man and decide that they want to experience it for themselves too one day.
The problem I have now, and I’m not sure if my mum knows this yet, is that I’m not satisfied now I have killed. Rupert was one thing. I was a novice. It was a little scary. But Jimmy was different. I had great fun with him.
And now I want to do it all again.
Looking around at all the people streaming by me on this busy campus, I can see that I’m not exactly short of potential targets. But I must be patient, and I must be careful.
I need to settle in. Find my way around.
Find out where the best places to hide a body here are.
Setting off in the direction of my new accommodation, I feel like this is the fresh start that not only I need, but Mum needs too. With me out of the house, she will surely have an easier time getting on with things and pushing away the pain that comes with knowing her only child is damaged goods. My plan is to give her as much time as she needs to get used to this new reality, meaning I won’t be calling home for a while, nor do I have any plans to visit before the first term is out. I can only hope that my absence helps seal the bond that has been broken between us and that one day, we are able to be as close as we used to be.
It’s not entirely Mum’s fault that I have turned out the way I am. I take some responsibility for that too. After all, I could have just told a policeman what I saw my mummy do to Tim that night, which would have technically been the right thing to do, just like she could have told the police that I killed Rupert, solving the mystery that continues to plague my hometown to this day. But neither of us spoke to the police, which means that not only do we still need each other, but we still love each other.
I know I still love her.
And I do miss her.
But I’m excited for what the future will bring.
I’m excited to meet some new people.
And I’m excited to wield a deadly weapon again.
41
HEATHER
It was precisely two months, six days and seven hours since Chloe left home and moved to university when I heard about the missing student in Newcastle.
I knew immediately that she was involved because the missing person’s case had similarities to Rupert’s. The young man had gone missing after a house party. No sign of him had been seen or found since then. Nobody had any clue what happened.
Except one person.
I was sure that Chloe knew.
It’s now a week since that student went missing on Tyneside, and not only is there still no news, but the first university term has come to an end.
That means Chloe is coming home today.
She has told me that her train gets into Manchester at two o’clock and that she would like me to pick her up from the station and bring her back home. This will be the first time I have seen her since she left for uni, and we have barely spoken in all that time. She has sent me a couple of messages to let me know that she has settled in and is enjoying her studies, as well as having made some new friends and got to know her way around a new city. It has been a relief to know that she is doing well, although any good feeling has been tempered slightly by the knowledge that this mother and daughter relationship is far from healthy.
I’m still just as conflicted about things as I was on the night when Jimmy died. I’m torn between doing what is right as a person and doing what is right as a mother. Chloe is a danger to society, there is no doubt about it, but does that mean I would be able to give the information required to the police to lock her away for the rest of her life? Not only that, but to do so would be to give up my own right to freedom too, as I would be implicated alongside her, and then both of us would lose everything.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t see any way of making this situation better. But if Chloe is responsible for the missing person in Newcastle, I am going to find out today. Depending on her answer, I will decide what I am going to do then. One thing is for sure; I can’t let any more innocent people die as a result of her actions, even if she is only like this because of me.
I lock the front door and head to my car, ready to make the twenty-minute journey into Manchester to collect Chloe from the station. My nerves are jangling, and I know it’s not because I’m nervous about seeing her after so long.
I’m nervous about being around her, full stop.
As I turn on the engine and start to reverse off the drive, the radio automatically turns on, and I hear the voice of the news reporter giving the lunchtime bulletin. It’s the top story that causes me to slam on the brakes before I am even off the drive.
I hear Rupert’s name mentioned.
Then I hear that the police have discovered human remains in the woods near the park.
The woods where I buried him.
My hands grip the steering wheel tightly as I try to keep calm and tell myself that things aren’t as bad as they sound. First of all, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is Rupert that they have found. But then again, how many bodies are realistically buried there?
It must be him.
The news reporter says it is too early to get an ID on the body, but now I feel like the clock is ticking. If they have found him, then they will know that he was murdered. That means a missing person investigation becomes a murder investigation.
It also means there may be evidence on the body linking him back to either me or my daughter.
I wonder if Chloe has heard the news. It’s doubtful if she has been on the train. I need to get to her before she hears about it from somebody else.
Reversing quickly off the drive, I set off in the direction of the station, struggling to adhere to the speed limit with all the adrenaline pumping through my body. All I can think about is Rupert’s family. They are surely on their way to the site now if indeed it is their son. If so, then it will most likely hit the national news bulletins this evening. It had only been over the last month or so when everything had started to quieten down surrounding his disappearance. With no evidence, the media had started to grow disinterested in reporting on it. As harsh as it sounds, people had moved on, barring the poor man’s family and friends, of course. But now it will be huge news again. His photos will be back in all the papers and on the TV channels, and I won’t be able to go anywhere or do anything without being bombarded by it.
It’s alright for Chloe. She has been away from all of this.
But now she is heading right back into the eye of the storm.
As I continue on towards the station, I try to figure out how the police could possibly have been so lucky as to find the body. It’s been there for months. It can’t just have suddenly popped up to the surface.
What the hell has happened?
As I turn the radio off and try to keep myself calm, I can’t help but feel that my ‘luck’ is finally starting to run out. It seems like the past is going to catch up with me, and when it does, it won’t be Rupert’s name all over the news headlines.
It will be mine.
42
CHLOE
I see Mum standing on the other side of the ticket barriers as I step off the train onto the platform, and I give her a quick wave as I drag my heavy bag behind me.
But she doesn’t wave back.
I’d already been preparing myself for a potentially frosty reception, and it seems it’s going to be just as bad as I thought. She looks even moodier than the last time I saw her, which is saying a lot. At least I won’t be home for long. A couple of weeks and I’ll be back on this train to Newcastle for my second term.
> I can’t wait.
Slotting my ticket into the machine, the barriers fling open, and I step through to the other side. Mum walks towards me, her face still a picture of unhappiness, and I prepare myself for an awkward hello.
In the end, that’s what I get, but it’s even worse than I imagined.
‘Have you heard the news?’ Mum asks me, keeping her voice low even though I doubt any of the other passengers around us in this busy station would be able to hear us over the blaring platform announcements and squealing brakes from the arriving trains.
‘What news?’
‘They’ve found Rupert’s body.’
Now I understand why Mum looks so glum.
‘What? How?’
‘I don’t know. I just heard it on the radio on the way here. He hasn’t been identified yet, but the body was found in the same woods, so it has to be him, doesn’t it?’
I nod my head while trying to think of some way this doesn’t have to be bad news. But I’ve got nothing.
‘Come on,’ Mum says, heading for the station exit, and I follow quickly behind her, lugging my bag and wishing she would give me a hand with it. But I daren’t ask her.
Once outside in the fresh air, Mum doesn’t slow down and I’m practically jogging to keep up with her as we make it back to the car. It’s a relief to get my bag into the boot before I take my seat beside her in the front and prepare for an awkward drive home. But Mum doesn’t start the engine. Instead, she stares ahead through the windscreen and looks like she wants to ask me something.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask. ‘Let’s go.’
But Mum doesn’t move again.
‘Mum?’
‘The student that has gone missing in Newcastle. Was that you?’
Her question is a bold one, but she doesn’t turn to look at me after asking it. She keeps her eyes on the windscreen, almost as if she is too afraid to turn and face me.
‘What do you think?’ I reply, deliberately testing her.
‘I don’t know what to think anymore.’
Then it happens. Just like it did in my bedroom that night after we had returned home after burying Jimmy. Mum breaks down again. But this time, her sobs are even more forceful and pitiful, and it’s clear that her demonstration of emotion is something that has been building up inside her for a while. She doesn’t stop crying even when I put my hand on her shoulder and pull her into me.
As I feel her sobbing on my shoulder, I’m now fully aware of what it must have been like for Mum while I have been gone. I have been able to move on with my life in a new place surrounded by new people, but I guess for her, it has been much of the same. Now the news of Rupert’s body being found must have tipped her over the edge. Or maybe it’s my return. Whatever it is, she is clearly distraught, and I’m not sure what I can do to make things better.
‘Mum, it’s going to be alright,’ I say, though even I’m not convinced of that.
She continues to cry into my shoulder for a good few minutes before eventually composing herself enough to sit back up and wipe her red eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.
‘I’m going to hand myself in,’ she says after getting her breathing back under control.
‘Mum...’
‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live with this guilt.’
‘But I’m responsible for Rupert’s death, not you. You were just trying to protect me.’
‘It’s not just that.’
‘Then what?’
‘It’s you,’ she says, looking at me properly for the first time since we got in the car together. ‘It’s the guilt of you being my daughter.’
I imagine there aren’t many more devastating things to hear from your parent than that, and it takes me a few seconds to absorb the blow that her words have dealt me.
‘I know it’s not your fault how you turned out,’ she says. ‘You saw something as a child that you should never have seen. That’s on me, and I can’t change that. But I can change what happens going forward.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘No more innocent people have to get hurt.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about Rupert. I’m talking about the guy at your university. I’m talking about the next guy, whoever he may be. I can’t walk around free while you’re out there being the way you are. But I can’t bear to see you punished, so it will have to be me.’
‘Mum, I don’t know what-’
‘Save the lies,’ she says, cutting me off. ‘I can’t listen to them anymore. I don’t even want to see you anymore. I just want it all to be over.’
I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing. Instead, I watch as Mum turns on the engine and drives us out of the station car park, her hands gripping the wheel tightly and her foot a little too eager on the accelerator pedal for the speed limits on these roads.
I stare at her all the way home, devastated at what I have done to her. All my life, all she has ever done is try to protect me, and this is how I have repaid her.
It takes around twenty minutes for us to get back to our street, but the second we turn onto it, we both know something is wrong. The first warning is the row of police cars we see parked along the kerb. The second warning is the fact that their drivers are all standing outside our house.
‘They must have found something on Rupert’s body,’ Mum says, hitting the brakes.
But it’s too late. They have already seen us.
Several officers turn and run towards the car, and before we know it, the doors are open and they are shouting at us to get out.
I look at Mum, terrified that this might be the last time I see her. She looks across at me too, and I can see the fear in her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, reaching out for her hand before they can drag her away from me. ‘This wasn’t your fault. I’ll get you out of this.’
I expect to see the handcuffs go around Mum’s wrists any second now, but then I feel the cold hard steel on mine instead. A police officer pulls me from the car and pushes me against the bonnet.
‘Chloe Maguire. We are arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Rupert Hall. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘Mum!’ I call out as I’m dragged away to one of the waiting police cars, but she is unable to get to me, held back by several officers who she no doubt knows from work. I think about how mortifying this must be for her to have her daughter arrested by the very people that she works with, but that thought soon leaves me when I’m put into the back of the car and the door slams shut.
Now, I’m more worried about myself.
Where are they taking me? What are they going to ask me? How am I ever going to get out of this?
I stare through the window at my house on the other side of the glass and wish I was free to be able to go in there and relax in my bedroom. I wonder how long it will be until I am back here again, if ever. But how has this happened? How did the police know it was me who killed Rupert? They only just found his body, and if there was any evidence there, I would have thought that it would have linked the corpse to Mum, not me.
I don’t understand this, but I know better than to say anything until I have a lawyer with me. Instead, I stay silent as the police car pulls away from the kerb, and I keep my head down as I see several of the neighbours standing in their doorways looking out and no doubt wondering what the hell is happening on their quiet little street. But just before the car turns the corner, I glance back and see Mum still standing outside our house.
She has her head in her hands.
Her worst nightmare has just come true.
She has tried to protect me, and now I’m doomed.
Maybe this is what I deserve.
But I still don’t understand how it has happened.
43
HEATHER
/> I had meant what I had said to Chloe in the car shortly before she was arrested outside our house. I was willing to give myself up and take the fall for Rupert’s death, if only to absolve myself of my guilt and hopefully shock her into not committing any more crimes against innocent members of the public. But I never got the chance. My daughter was arrested before I’d even parked up on our drive, pulled from the seat beside me and hauled off into the back of a police car by one of the guys I used to chat to in the canteen at the station.
Now she is in custody, kept under lock and key and facing serious prison time, which means I have failed in my duty to protect her. I cannot do anything to help her now, even if I wanted to. That’s because the evidence that the police have on her is damning, impossible for any lawyer to get her out of, so I can’t even hope to try and take the blame for what happened on the off chance that it might get her out of her own charges.
How did she get caught?
It turns out that Jimmy has got his revenge from the grave.
At the time that Chloe was arrested, it was 100 days since the night she killed Jimmy in her bedroom. That might have seemed like an insignificant milestone to her, even if she had been aware of it but not to Jimmy. That’s because Jimmy had arranged for a special something to be delivered to the local police at midnight on the anniversary of the date.
It seems that when Jimmy had agreed to my demand that he visit our home if he wished to sleep with Chloe as he requested, he was rightly aware that he was taking a risk in doing so. As an insurance policy against that risk in case anything was to happen to him, he set up an automated email to go to the police in 100 days’ time, which only he knew about and only he would be able to stop. Of course, the fact that he had ended up being killed in our house that night had meant that he hadn’t been able to stop it, and his death had started a ticking clock that neither of us had been aware of.
