by Dan Scottow
He frowned. ‘Are you sure? I don’t like you being on your own. You seem upset.’
‘I’m a big girl, Mikey, but thanks.’
As Beth walked away, he called after her.
‘Text me and let me know you get home okay?’
She held up her hand to acknowledge she had heard but didn’t turn around.
35
Walking along the promenade towards the pier, Beth hugged her arms around her body. The sea breeze hit her face, her hair blowing behind her.
She looked out to the black mass of sea, a couple of tiny white dots of light; some fishing boats, the only thing visible for miles.
She regretted her jacket choice, as she picked up the pace, and hoped she wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the train station to find a taxi.
She stumbled a little, drunker than she had realised.
The sound of her high heels on the pavement rang in her ears, as laughter and distant shouts echoed all around.
Youngsters out on a Saturday night as the summer drifted away.
She cursed under her breath as she remembered the kiss; screwing her eyes shut, she shook her head.
She’d never cheated on Charlie.
It was only a kiss, but it was enough.
A betrayal.
She pictured Charlie in a small flat in the town centre, with their children.
For a split second she thought about walking there and ringing the buzzer. Demanding that he speak to her.
Then she realised she was drunk, probably reeking of whisky, and dressed up to the nines.
Not a good idea. Especially if Peter and Daisy saw her. It wasn’t late, they would still be up.
Beth couldn’t believe she had allowed herself to be so stupid. A lifetime of being cool, calm and considered was now escaping her.
She had been reckless. That hadn’t happened for a long time.
As Beth marched past the arches, she noticed a dark figure leaning against a wall in the shadows, smoking a cigarette. The orange glow illuminating a wisp of white as it rose into the evening air.
She smelled the smoke, and screwed her face up, picking up the pace a little.
She heard footsteps.
Turning her head, she saw the figure walking behind her.
Glancing around, she noticed some teenagers kicking a glass bottle. They saw Beth watching them and scurried away up the steps towards the clifftops, giggling, leaving her alone.
The steady sound of the man’s shoes was getting louder.
He was gaining on her.
She turned; he was closer.
She sped up.
He did the same.
Beth panicked as visions of her recent car chase flashed through her mind.
Feeling sick, she fished around in her bag for a weapon. Her hand came to rest on a can of deodorant.
Better than nothing, she thought.
She slipped it out, holding it by her side.
The lights of the pier twinkled in her peripheral vision, the noises of people having fun drifted across the water.
But it all seemed so far away.
She spun around, the cannister in her outstretched arm, finger on the top, poised and ready.
The man looked confused, swerving to avoid her. He carried on walking straight past. He glanced briefly back over his shoulder, before pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket, pressing it up to his ear.
‘Hello? Yeah, weirdest thing just happened…’ Beth heard him say as he hurried away. She dropped back, embarrassed by her paranoia. She cringed as she imagined the conversation he was now having. Relaying how a strange woman had threatened him with an aerosol for no reason.
‘Get a grip!’ Beth whispered in the dark, shaking her head again.
She saw headlights coming towards her down the road, dazzling her. She held a hand up, fingers splayed over her eyes.
As the car drew nearer, she clocked a taxi sign on its roof. She waved and it pulled over.
‘Can you take me to Falmer, please? Cranbrooke Farmhouse, if you know it?’
‘Sure, hop in,’ the cabbie replied cheerfully. Beth felt instantly safer.
As she climbed into the back seat, she noticed the cabbie’s eyes on her in the rear-view mirror. They lingered a second too long, and she drew her jacket across her chest.
‘Been out on the razz?’
‘Just a gig.’
‘Oh right, anyone good?’
‘Not really.’
‘My daughter was at a gig tonight up this way.’
Beth felt embarrassed, as she tried to guess how young the cabbie’s daughter would be.
‘Surely it ain’t finished yet?’ the driver asked. ‘I’m supposed to pick her up. She said midnight.’
‘Wasn’t my cup of tea. Decided to go home early.’
The conversation trailed off, and they drove the rest of the way in silence.
Beth paid the cabbie. He thanked her and retreated down the drive to the main road. As his lights faded, so did Beth’s sense of safety.
She looked at her house, large, dark, and looming. The trees behind it swaying in the wind.
As she stepped forwards, the security light clicked on, flooding the driveway with a harsh white synthetic beam.
She cursed herself for not leaving a lamp on inside. She wasn’t used to returning to an empty home. Pulling her key from her handbag, she pushed it into the lock, but the door swung inwards before she turned it.
* * *
Beth stood frozen on the doorstep, a chasm of black stretching out ahead of her. A shaft of moonlight fell through from the kitchen, casting swirling shadows from the towering firs outside, across the floor. She waited for her eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, then stepped into the hallway, holding her breath. She crept silently along the corridor to the bottom of the stairs.
She stood, afraid to breathe, and waited.
A loud creak, then the sound of footsteps above her head from the bedroom.
Beth’s survival instincts kicked in. She turned, kicking off her heels into the hallway, running out of the front door onto the gravel. Her bare feet crunched on jagged edges, but she felt no pain, adrenaline coursing through her.
The security light sprung to life once more, as Beth sprinted across the driveway.
She afforded herself a glance over her shoulder and saw in horror a dark figure illuminated by the moonlight in an upstairs window.
She turned down the side of the house and headed towards the old barn. She heard the front door clatter against the inside wall, and the loud crunch of boots on gravel. He was coming.
Running fast.
Beth reached the stable doors and quickly lifted the latch as quietly as she could. She slipped through the gap, closing the heavy wooden door behind her. She knew she didn’t have long. Whoever was chasing was close. She dropped to her knees, running her hands over the floorboards, searching for the trapdoor down to the crawlspace below.
If you didn’t know it was there, you would never see it.
She slipped her fingers into a gap at the edge, lifting up the hatch. She eased herself below the stable building, lowering the panel down above her head.
A crunch of stones outside the door.
There wasn’t much room to move. A roll of thick plastic filled most of the area. Charlie had used it to repair the shed roof last summer. Holding her breath, she peered up through cracks in the floorboards, her face almost pressed against the underside of the planks.
She watched and waited.
The metal latch clicked, and the door creaked open. There was a series of thuds on the wooden floor as someone stepped into the barn.
Footsteps above her, as the person moved slowly around.
Beth heard a click.
Slithers of light fell through the cracks as a torch was shone around the building. She winced., sucking in a little air. Too afraid to breathe properly.
He was directly above her now.
Dust fell down from
the boards into Beth’s eyes as the figure shifted weight from one foot to the other. She blinked through the pain.
She heard slow and steady breathing. The torch beam swooped over the ground again.
Beth remained as still as she could.
Silent.
The light shone directly downwards now, through the cracks, as the stranger stood with the torch down to one side. Thin splinters of light caught the edges of the plastic to Beth’s side. She turned her head to avoid more dust.
As her vision adjusted, she gasped silently in horror.
Two bulging, dead eyes peered at her, frozen in a look of pure terror. A tongue protruded from pale lips.
Tangled red curls tumbled from behind the plastic.
Beth stifled a scream, placing her fist over her open mouth. The person above her strode to the barn door, opening it, and stepped outside.
Beth remained hidden.
After a few minutes she heard the distant roar of a motorcycle engine starting and then grow quieter as it rode away. She turned on the light from her phone, shining it through the plastic, illuminating the body. An emerald-green scarf knotted tightly around the neck.
Beth pushed the hatch up above her, escaping her hiding place. She ran. As fast as she could. She sprinted to the house, grabbing her car key from the hall table. With the front door wide open behind her, she rushed to her Range Rover, climbing into the driver’s seat, phone still in hand. She tossed it into the passenger side. She didn’t care that she was drunk. She needed to get away.
Away from the house. Away from the stables, and the body wrapped in plastic.
Starting the engine, she screeched away from the house, tyres spinning on gravel as she escaped. She drove until she reached the safety of warm amber street lights, far away from her home. Grabbing her phone, she punched a number into it and held it to her ear. It took a few rings, but eventually he answered.
‘Charlie!’ Beth screamed through sobs. ‘Please, you’ve got to come now. It’s Zoe. She… she’s dead!’
36
Charlie stood scratching his head, while Beth lingered in the doorway, afraid to step inside the stable building.
‘Whereabouts?’ Charlie shouted over his shoulder, making little effort to hide the scepticism in his voice.
‘Under the hatch in the crawl space. Wrapped in plastic.’
Charlie stepped forward, lifting the panel. He shone his phone down below him. He crouched, and Beth heard him rummaging.
‘Careful, fingerprints!’ Beth hissed.
He stood up.
‘I think I’ll be all right.’ A grim expression on his face, somewhere between sorrow and anger.
‘Come on in.’
‘I don’t want to, Charlie, I’ve seen enough.’
‘Beth, come here.’ His voice was firm, commanding.
Beth crossed the dusty floor, joining Charlie by his side. She looked down.
‘I… I don’t understand. She was there, I swear…’
‘I’m honestly shocked that you stooped this low to get me over here. Meanwhile, the kids are alone in the flat, so you’d better hope that nothing bad happens to them while I’m here with you.’
Beth crouched, lifting the plastic. But that’s all that was there.
The body was gone.
‘I’m not making this up! I promise you, it was Zoe, wrapped up in that sheeting, right there!’ Beth pointed down towards the ground. ‘I think she’d been strangled. It was… horrible!’
‘So where is she now?’
Beth stood, scanning the barn.
‘I don’t know. He must have… moved her.’
Charlie exhaled loudly.
‘Beth, stop, please. This is… pathetic, quite frankly. I don’t recognise you.’
‘Charlie… I–’
Charlie grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers dug into her flesh painfully.
‘ENOUGH!’ he shouted, shaking her violently. ‘Do you hear me? I’ve had enough.’
He let go, his shoulders slumped.
‘Charlie, please…’
‘You’re drunk. I could smell it off you a mile away. And you’re slurring your speech. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you’re not totally crazy, and that you didn’t make this all up just to get me over here. You’ve had too much to drink and thought you saw something… clearly, you were mistaken.’
‘I’m not mad, Charlie, I know what I saw. It was a body. Zoe’s body! I swear it, I swear on–’
Charlie didn’t let her finish.
‘Like you swore to me that you’re not Kitty Briscoe?’
Silence.
‘Beth, don’t you see what you’ve done? I’ll never be able to believe anything you say anymore. There will always be a niggling doubt. Everything you’ve ever told me is bullshit.’
Beth looked down at the floor. The truth in Charlie’s words stung.
‘Where were you tonight?’
The question caught Beth off guard.
‘What?’
‘You’re pissed as a fart. Dressed up like you’ve been to a club. Where have you been?’
Beth hesitated.
‘I… I went for a drink in town… with Margot.’
‘So you weren’t at a gig down on the seafront?’
Beth’s eyes widened.
‘No. I was with Margot at the Hilton.’
‘More lies, Beth. You see? You seem incapable of telling me the truth. James from work saw you. He was there with his girlfriend, and he texted me to say he’d seen you in the queue and was I there.’
Beth’s face flushed as pictures of Mikey with his hands on her hips, his tongue in her mouth, flashed into her mind.
‘I–’
‘Don’t even bother, Beth. You need help… I’m not sure who you are anymore. You’re not the woman I fell in love with.’
Charlie turned and walked towards the barn door. Beth rushed after him, grabbing his arm.
‘Wait, I’m not making this up and I’m not mistaken. Ask Peter. Ask him if Zoe’s parents have heard from her. She’s supposed to be on a school trip.’
Charlie spun around to face Beth.
‘No, Beth, I won’t. I’m not going to mention this to Peter, and you won’t either. He’s stressed out enough as it is, without putting ideas into his head about his girlfriend.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’
‘He thinks we’re getting divorced. He’s totally freaking out.’
‘And are we?’
Charlie looked at Beth, the sadness in his eyes broke her heart. He didn’t reply. As he walked away, he glanced over his shoulder.
‘Talk to someone, Beth. You need help. I don’t think you’re well. I think your secrets have finally caught up with you.’
Beth watched him go. She heard him walk across the gravel and slam his car door as he climbed in. The engine started, and he drove away. Leaving her alone, afraid.
She collapsed to her knees. The rush of anger and sorrow that filled her was unbearable. For the first time in years, she let go. She screamed. Cried until her throat was hoarse.
For Zoe, who despite what Charlie said, was definitely dead. Beth knew what she had seen.
She mourned the loss of her perfect family, her perfect life.
But most of all, she cried for herself. For choices she made when she was seven. And the consequences of that upon her life. No matter how hard she tried to escape from that night. No matter how far she ran, or how much she buried those events deep inside her, she would never, ever be free.
It would follow her until the day she died. Hanging over her, throwing shade on any joy she might allow herself to feel, reminding her that she didn’t deserve it. She didn’t have the right.
When her energy waned, she curled up into a tight little ball on the stable floor and sobbed until she had nothing else inside.
She knew she had to find out who was doing this to her. Whatever the cost.
After all, what di
d she have left to lose?
37
The warm sunlight streamed through the office window but brought Charlie no joy. He stared at his monitor; he had done no work today. His mind had been drifting.
He kept thinking about Beth’s face on Saturday night. The fear in her eyes.
He hoped he was doing the right thing.
She was understandably scared being in the house alone, but she was an adult, and at least she could look after herself.
Daisy, on the other hand, needed protecting.
Charlie felt guilty. He loved Beth, of course he did. She was his world.
But he couldn’t help feeling betrayed.
He was also trying to get his head around the fact of who his wife actually was.
Kitty Briscoe. The girl who got away with murder.
Allegedly.
He had no doubt that he’d go back to her, but not until the current situation was sorted.
They had received a clear threat to their children. He couldn’t allow anything to happen to them.
Beth had been drunk. Charlie was sure she had not really seen what she claimed. The more he thought about the events of Saturday night, the more he convinced himself it was a desperate attempt to get him back. He had tentatively checked with Peter, and Zoe was away on a field trip. Her friends at school had been giving regular updates.
But why claim to have found Zoe’s body? Why not just say someone was in the house? That would have been enough to convince Charlie to go over. Something niggled at the back of his mind. Despite what he may have said to Beth in anger on Saturday, he didn’t believe she was crazy.
He knew that she was a calm and measured person. She rarely freaked out. She’d been spooked, but he wasn’t sure what by. She’d seen something. But it can’t have been Zoe.
Some mail landed with a loud thud on top of an already large pile on Charlie’s desk. He had about a week’s worth to open. The admin guy smirked and walked away.
Charlie began flicking through the letters.
Nothing of any interest. Until he found a bulky brown padded envelope towards the bottom. It had been there a few days, he couldn’t remember when it arrived.