When the Dead Speak

by Sheila Bugler

  Louise had been envious that afternoon, she remembered. Jealous of their wealth and beauty and the easy way they seemed to accept their privileged lifestyle. At the time, it had seemed to contrast sharply with her own life. All the effort and hard work it took to keep everything going – the private-school fees, the mortgage repayments and two parents working full-time. She’d been an idiot, of course. No one’s life was that perfect; it only seemed that way to people stupid enough not to look beyond the surface.

  She dipped beneath the shelter, out of the rain, and sat on the bench beside Nigel. His lit cigarette dangled from his hand, thin trails of smoke disappearing into the rain.

  ‘You’re late.’

  He took a drag from the cigarette, and started coughing. When the coughing stopped, he sucked on the cigarette again before flicking it to the ground. The burning end sizzled once before it was extinguished by the water all around it.

  ‘I got here as quickly as I could,’ she said.

  There used to be a disco on the pier. In the pavilion at the end. Louise and her friends used to come here all the time when they were teenagers. She’d had a crush on Ed in those days, although he’d never given any indication he knew she even existed. Some of her friends liked Ed, too. The rest of them liked Nigel. Quite simply, Ed Mitchell and Nigel Shaw were the two boys everyone wanted to date.

  Ed switched between girls like he was running out of time, but Nigel was different. All through their school years, he’d only ever had eyes for one girl: Maxine Pearson, as she was then. Except, Louise remembered now, they hadn’t gone out with each other back then. The summer after they all left school, Maxine became Ed’s first serious girlfriend. Louise had been gutted. Although that, too, had passed. When Ed and Maxine split up two years later, Louise barely gave them a second thought.

  ‘You said you had something to tell me,’ Nigel said. ‘Is it about the letter? Have you found it?’

  ‘I haven’t tried to find it,’ Louise said. ‘And I’m not going to either.’

  ‘I wasn’t kidding around yesterday, Louise. I swear to God I will call Martin right now and tell him what you’ve been playing at. Maybe I should call him, anyway. Poor fucker deserves to know.’

  ‘I’ve already told him,’ Louise said. A lie, but Nigel didn’t need to know that. She had tried to tell Martin this morning, but she couldn’t do it. Which meant she’d have to tell him tonight. Or tomorrow. As soon as she found the courage to look him in the eye and rip his world apart.

  ‘No.’ Nigel shook his head. ‘No, no, no, no, no. You don’t understand. I need you to do this for me. I don’t care if you’ve told Martin. I’ll tell everyone else. I’ll make sure the whole town knows the sort of person you really are. How do you think that would work with the paper? You think people will want to read your stupid fucking opinion pieces if they know what a two-faced, devious person you really are? And what about your kids? What’s it going to do to them when they learn their mother’s nothing but a common or garden slag?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Louise stood up, her whole body shaking. ‘How dare you?’ She had to shout to make herself heard above the roaring of the waves beneath her and the pounding of the rain as it hit the pier and bounced off the surface.

  ‘You think it’s acceptable to blackmail me?’ She reached into her bag and took out her phone. ‘I’m not some little woman you can push around and manipulate. I’m calling the police. I should have done it already but I didn’t because, stupidly, I felt sorry for you.’

  She scrolled through her list of contacts, searching for Rachel’s number. But before she could find it, Nigel leapt up and knocked the phone out of her hand. Louise bent down to pick it up, but he grabbed both her arms and shoved her back, away from her phone and towards the edge of the pier.

  She screamed, but the sound was lost in the whirling wind and pounding waves. She tried to fight him off, but he was too strong. He held her tight, his fingers digging into her arms, as he leaned his face close to hers. She could see the tiny black pores on his nose and when he spoke again, drops of his spit splashed onto her face, mixing with the rain but feeling different because the rain was cold and his spit was warm.

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ he shouted. ‘None of this is my fault. All I’m trying to do is what’s right. But you don’t care. No one cares.’

  He stopped speaking. For one terrible moment, she thought he was going to lift her up and push her over the iron railing that ran along the sides of the pier, protecting people from falling off it into the swirling grey sea. She screamed again, and this time she kept screaming, louder and louder until her throat was raw.

  He pushed her away from him. She crashed down, landing hard on the wet, wooden boards. Her elbow struck the ground first, and it was only as the pain shot up her arm that she realised she was okay. He hadn’t thrown her over. She wasn’t drowning in the icy sea.

  As she scrambled to her feet, she saw her phone lying face down in a puddle of water. She picked it up. Her heart was beating too fast, and she was struggling to breathe. Shock or fear or some combination of both. She had to get away. Holding her sore elbow, she scanned the length of the pier. She couldn’t see Nigel, but there was no one else here either. The rain had driven people indoors. Waves roared beneath her as she hurried back towards the exit, rain splashing against her face, dripping down the back of her neck and soaking through the soles of her shoes.

  On the pavement outside the pier, she stopped. She couldn’t remember where she’d parked her car. She’d driven here earlier, but the memory of parking, getting out of her car and walking to the pier was gone. She looked up and down the road, helplessly. There were lots of parked cars, but none of them looked like hers. The rain made it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of her.

  She held her phone up, thinking she would call a taxi, but the screen was cracked and when she tried to dial the number for her local taxi firm, nothing happened. Tears pricked her eyes. She wiped them away, angry at herself for being so weak. But it was no good. Shock and cold and an aching elbow got the better of her and the tears started falling.

  She might have stayed there for ever, crying in the rain, except right then a car pulled up alongside her. The driver’s window rolled down and Derek was there, asking if she was okay and telling her to get in beside him, quickly, before she got any wetter than she already was. She didn’t want to see him again. She was going to end it. But he was here and maybe it would be okay if she said yes and got into his car and let him take her somewhere warm and safe and far away from here.

  Thirty-three

  Using the hands-free unit in her hire car, Dee called Ed.

  ‘Dee. I’m in the middle of something now. Can I call you back in a few minutes?’

  ‘This can’t wait. I know you’re annoyed with me about something, but can we put that to one side for a moment? I really need your help.’

  As quickly as she could, she recounted everything Charlie had just told her.

  ‘And you’re sure it was the same night?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Positive. Charlie checked the dates on his work calendar.’

  ‘Okay. Let me speak with Brian.’

  ‘Brian?’

  ‘Brian Douglas. The detective who first looked into Joana’s disappearance. I told you about him before.’

  ‘You’ll tell him Derek lied?’ Dee said. ‘He knew her, Ed. Yet he looked me in the eye and told me he’d never seen her before.’

  ‘I’ll make sure. Brian’s a good detective. He’ll do the right thing. But remember, just because Derek lied about knowing her doesn’t mean he had anything to do with her disappearance.’

  ‘Like hell it doesn’t.’

  ‘I’ll call Brian now,’ Ed said. ‘Promise you won’t do anything stupid in the meantime?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like try to speak to Derek yourself?’

  Dee was approaching the Martello roundabout. She indicated right so she could take the third exit into the
Harbour.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Ed, there’s something else too.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The thing that Lauren found – it was a letter.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I spoke to a friend of your grandmother’s.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ Dee said. ‘The thing is, I think the letter Lauren found might have been written by your grandmother.’

  ‘Of course. Maxine said something about a letter. But she didn’t say anything about it being written by my grandmother. Are you sure about that?’

  ‘I didn’t realise you’d spoken to Maxine. When did that happen?’

  ‘A few days ago,’ Ed said. ‘Sorry, I thought I’d told you.’

  ‘How could you have told me when you haven’t spoken to me since Friday?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ed said, after a moment. ‘Listen, we need to talk. Could I see you after work this evening?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She’d been planning to suggest the same thing. Until he’d let slip that he’d been to visit his ex-girlfriend and hadn’t bothered telling her.

  ‘Please? The longer we go without talking, the harder it’s going to be to sort this out.’

  He was right. But he was also the one who’d ignored her all weekend.

  ‘Let me think about it,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you later.’

  She hung up before he could say anything else. She’d told him what she’d found out. Now, it was up to him to do whatever the hell he wanted with the information.

  A few minutes later, she was parking outside Derek and Karen’s monstrous house on the waterfront. She probably should have told Ed where she was going. But if she’d done that, he’d have told her not to, and the next thing you knew they’d be having another row. And right now, that was the last thing she wanted.

  After her chat with Charlie, Dee had gone straight to the Aldrington looking for Derek, but she was told he hadn’t come into work yet. So she’d driven across to his house. Part of her knew she should leave this up to the police. But the anger at being lied to, repeatedly, and knowing he’d done everything he could to prevent her from finding Joana, meant she couldn’t simply sit back and do nothing.

  But Derek wasn’t at home, either.

  ‘He’s in Brighton today,’ Karen told Dee. ‘Although I’m surprised you don’t know that. You’ve been spending almost as much time with him as I have these days.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’re always at the hotel, harassing him with your questions and insinuations. And now you’ve turned up here, at his house. Don’t you think you’re taking things too far?’

  ‘It’s called doing my job,’ Dee said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Karen folded her arms across her ample chest. ‘What’s so important you need to come here to speak to Derek about?’

  ‘He lied to me,’ Dee said. ‘And I want to know why.’

  A woman appeared in the hallway before Karen had a chance to respond.

  ‘All finished, Mrs French.’ The woman tried to leave but Karen put a hand out, stopping her.

  ‘Not so fast,’ she said. ‘I need to check you’ve cleaned the bathroom properly. You didn’t do a very good job last week.’

  The woman pulled a face but stepped back inside as she was told.

  Karen turned her attention back to Dee.

  ‘I want you to leave my property. If you come back here, or turn up at the hotel, I’ll call the police and report you for harassment.’

  ‘Why do you stay with a man like that?’ Dee asked.

  But Karen had already slammed the door shut and Dee doubted she’d heard her. She contemplated banging on the door until Karen opened it. But then she had a better idea. She walked back to her car, got inside and waited.

  Ten minutes later, she saw the cleaner coming out of the house. As she approached the road, Dee jumped out of her car and waved her over.

  ‘Can I speak to you for a few minutes?’ she said.

  The woman shrugged. ‘I guess.’ She was small and very thin, with pale skin and light brown hair tied back in a scraggly ponytail. She didn’t look strong enough to have a job cleaning houses.

  ‘How long have you worked for Karen?’ Dee asked.

  ‘Mrs French?’ The woman smirked. ‘She doesn’t let me call her by her first name. Thinks she needs to keep the staff in their place.’

  ‘That can’t be very pleasant for you.’ Dee held a hand out. ‘I’m Dee, by the way.’

  ‘Paula.’ The woman briefly touched Dee’s hand before letting it go again. ‘Why are you asking about Mrs F?’

  ‘I’m a journalist and I’m writing a piece about how people are being exploited by employers who pay cash in hand to get around paying national insurance or any other benefits.’

  It was the right thing to say. She spent the next fifteen minutes listening to Paula tell her how difficult it was to keep her head above water, the number of hours she had to work to make ends meet, the nastiness of some of her employers and the all-round crappiness of trying to earn a decent wage in the gig economy. Unsurprisingly, Paula blamed the influx of cheap migrant labour on her circumstances and Dee didn’t think this was the time to point out that Brexit had made this problem worse, not better.

  ‘I couldn’t believe my luck when Mrs F got in touch,’ Paula said. ‘She doesn’t want foreigners working for her. The last cleaner was an Eastern European and she left one day without any warning. Mrs F said she wasn’t going to risk something like that happening again.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’ Dee asked.

  ‘Maybe a month, month and a half?’ Paula said.

  ‘Do you happen to know which part of Eastern Europe she was from?’ Dee said.

  ‘Sorry,’ Paula said. ‘I don’t think Mrs F ever mentioned the country.’

  Dee asked about Derek and Kyle, but Paula claimed she’d never met Derek and only ever saw Kyle in passing.

  ‘The husband’s always at work as far as I can tell,’ she said. ‘All my dealings have been with Mrs F.’

  Dee thanked Paula for her time, and said goodbye. She was getting into her car when the cleaner called her back.

  ‘There’s one thing,’ Paula said. ‘Don’t know if it will help or not. Mrs F was always bitching about her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The other cleaner,’ Paula said. ‘Her name was Joana. Would that help you work out what country she came from?’

  ‘Joana,’ Dee repeated. ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘A hundred and ten per cent,’ Paula said. ‘Her name is branded onto my brain, the number of times I’ve heard Mrs F going on about her.’

  From the diary of Emma Reed

  10 October 1978

  It’s like unpeeling an onion. The truth is hidden beneath layers of lies. I have spent the last eighteen years trying to unpeel each and every lie so I can find out what really happened. Around me, people continue to get on with their lives. There are days I think I’m the only person who still remembers Graham, or cares about discovering the truth. James has become an utter golf bore since his retirement. It’s all he talks about, and I suspect all he thinks about too. Materially, we want for nothing. But spiritually and emotionally, our lives are empty and barren.

  I called to see Nicola and the children this afternoon, but she made it clear she didn’t want me there. She said she had work to do, but it was a lie. The truth is, I wasn’t the best mother when she was growing up and she’s punishing me for it now. Recently, she’s stopped asking me to babysit too. She says I was drunk the last time. Which is a lie, but there’s no point trying to tell her that. She won’t listen. Edward, at least, still loves his gran and comes to see me whenever he can. He’ll be eleven on his next birthday, and Nessa turned eight last month. They are growing up too fast. I want to hold them and keep them safe for ever.

  I wanted to ask Edward today if there’d been any more trou
ble between him and little Nigel Shaw, but I didn’t get a chance. Nicola didn’t give us any time alone together, and I know from experience she won’t tolerate any criticism of Annabelle or her family. It sickens me to think of that woman ingratiating herself in my daughter’s life, but that’s exactly what she’s done. Nicola is too lonely to see Annabelle for what she really is. I’ll invite Edward over for his tea next week, and I’ll speak to him then.

  None of us speak of Graham any longer. I’ve told my grandchildren all about him, but everyone else seems to think it’s easier to pretend he never existed. The single photograph I have of him still stands in pride of place above our fireplace, but the conversations we have within our family are never about the son and brother we had and lost.

  James thinks I’ve finally let it go, but he’s wrong. You can never speak of something and still think about it all the time. Over the years, I’ve spoken with so many people and recorded every conversation here, in my diaries. Eighteen years of trying to discover the truth.

  Until today, I was starting to despair. I am getting older and my determination to clear my son’s name is the only thing that keeps me going. But determination alone isn’t enough, as I’ve learned the hard way.

  The envelope was tucked among the other envelopes when I gathered the post from the floor this morning. My name and address on the front, written in a hand I didn’t recognise. I’ve read the contents so many times that I know them by heart. Each word branded onto my brain.

  Dear Mrs Reed,

  I apologise for writing to you out of the blue after all this time. I’ve thought many times of the day you came to visit me in London. There is so much I should have told you, information I’ve kept to myself for far too long.

  Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I am dying. Before I go, I would like very much to see you and tell you what I should have told you a long time ago. If you would like to meet me, please call me on the number at the top of this page, and we can arrange a date and a meeting place that’s convenient for you.