by Naomi Joy
A solitary window opposite me.
A bed.
A note lay next to my body.
Betrayal, Disloyalty, Lies. Revenge, Retaliation, Demise.
I closed my eyes again, the scratchy, dry pain alleviated slightly as tears pooled in each.
I had to get out of here.
I refocused, channelling my fear into a plan. I took in the dimensions, assessed the movements I’d need to make to escape, observed the chains and ties that held me.
My heart was skipping now, faster, faster, faster, beatbeatbeatbeatbeat, as I saw that my clothes were ripped.
In one quick movement, I tried to propel myself to seated, but a chain I hadn’t seen pulled taut round my neck, the strength of the metal beating my willpower and my body fell back, like a ragdoll, onto the mattress.
I blinked, it was all I could do.
46
Jade
I waited in the cramped and claustrophobic surroundings of the police station, my hands still cuffed and crossed behind my back, employing my right to remain silent. I sat on a thin, plastic chair and considered that the basic decor surrounding me depicted the harsh reality of the police funding cuts I’d read about earlier that day. I thought about what my colleagues had said about me. The way they’d plotted together to stitch me up. I was surprised the police hadn’t seen through the hatred and bitterness that flowed through their empty accusations.
Next to me sat my assigned lawyer, he’d spoken to me earlier but I’d found the movement of his chubby moustache, off-white and fluffy, hypnotic and I hadn’t listened to a word.
‘Are we ready?’ A different officer to those who had brought me here spoke to the lawyer from across the other side of the table. His physique looked sculpted by a finely balanced diet of beer and pie and I decided immediately that I didn’t trust him. Us vs. Them.
The lawyer, in his faded grey suit and spotty blue tie, mumbled at me again, ‘Remember, you’re allowed to give a no comment interview.’
I looked down at the table and my reflection confronted me for the second time that day, this time in metal. The old me, the one I’d left behind, had tried so hard to move on from, sneered back.
‘I’m DI Crow.’ He was a crow all right, with his hooked nose and too-long fingernails. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
I didn’t move, focusing instead on a dark mass that had gathered in one of the corners of the room, firing tendrils out over the unpainted breeze blocks across the ceiling. I heard him depress a button on the tape recorder that sat on the table between us. I looked at it and thought how sinister the red light that shone on its surface was. The eye of the devil.
‘This interview is being tape recorded in an interview room in Shepherdess Walk, London. I am Frederick Crow, Detective Inspector at the Metropolitan Police Force. Miss Fernleigh, please state your full name and date of birth for the record.’
I froze. Tentacles of darkness were making steady progress out from the corner of the room now and slithered quickly across the ceiling, down the back wall, and over the floor. Snap. Something locked round my right heel. I leant back in the plastic chair slightly to watch as the black, snake-like creature licked at my leg. Wind whistled in my ears.
‘In your own time,’ the officer said sarcastically.
I heard his voice and forced myself to look up at the people surrounding me. Their pupils blinked back: the beer-bellied crow had his fingers locked together and rested his elbows on the table, a black worm slithering down his neck. The lawyer rubbed one side of his moustache repetitively, teasing the slime off it left by the slug crawling over his face. The spare officer sat back, neutral, untouched by the tendrils, like a dove in the darkness. I looked down again and noticed the floor beneath me had turned into a swirling pool of thick, black, tar. Shiny eels with razor teeth hissed as they swam in it, ready to pull us down into the sticky, suffocating trap below.
‘It’s OK, you can answer,’ the lawyer encouraged, a bead of sweat appearing like a tiny magnifying glass on his forehead. ‘Can we get the young lady a drink of water, please?’
That small display of kindness sent the darkness away and, as quickly as it had gone, the room lit up again, the black mass retreating, confined to the corner once more. The dove flew out of the room. I shook my head, trying to forget what I’d just seen.
‘My full name is, um, Jade Iris Fernleigh. My date of birth is the 3rd of December, 1984.’
The lawyer spoke. ‘I’m Nick Jones, solicitor.’ His voice was meek and I debated whether he was up to the job of defending me.
The door swung open and the female officer placed a plastic glass half-full with water in front of me. Bubbles formed at the top. Water shouldn’t look like that.
‘I’m Police Constable Katherine Rice.’
The fat crow bustled through some more police admin: times, dates, ranks.
‘At ten past seven in the evening, Miss Ava Wells left her home voluntarily and drove west out of London. She was reported missing by her partner Mr Joshua Stein the next morning. Miss Fernleigh, members of the public have made specific allegations against you in relation to Miss Wells’ disappearance. First, we’d like to know where you were that night.’
The lawyer looked at me.
‘I was at home.’
The lawyer interrupted, ‘I can’t tell you what to do in this interview, Jade, but you have the right to enter a no comment answer.’ The whites of his eyes shone.
‘Were you alone?’ the podgy policeman asked.
‘Olivia was—’ I changed my mind. ‘I was alone.’
‘Who’s Olivia?’ The crow had found a worm and was plucking it from its hole.
‘No one.’
The questions were quick-fire and it didn’t take him long to settle into a pattern of rattling off the next one before I had time to process the previous. In my peripheral vision I was aware of the dark matter building in the corner of the room again, metamorphosing from the snakey creatures with dark, glistening trails to something all the more sinister: tall, thin and tree-like, with long, probing branches for fingers and broken-off bark for teeth.
‘So, you were alone that night. Did you call anyone, text anyone, can anyone corroborate your story?’ His questions were all delivered in the same matter-of-fact monotone.
I kept my eye on the figure. ‘No.’
‘Did you have anything to do with Miss Wells’ disappearance?’ he probed.
It grew to its full height. ‘No.’
‘Do you know anyone who does?’ It stretched out a hand towards the neutral officer.
‘No.’
‘Tell me about Olivia, who is she?’
I answered without thinking, my concentration on the tree-man. ‘I killed her.’
The officers exchanged a glance. I heard my words too late and tried to pull my attention back to the room. I was saying all the wrong things, my head so thick with webs I couldn’t remember the truth, let alone weave a narrative round the lie.
‘We contacted your counsellor, she told us you haven’t been to a session for several weeks now, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
My throat was dry, I wished I could drink the water.
‘Could you tell us when you last attended a session?’
‘I can’t remember, exactly,’ I rasped.
‘Could you confirm for the recording which medications you’re currently taking?’
‘No comment.’
A huff of mock-surprise escaped from the lawyer as I croaked out my answer. What they didn’t know was that I’d been taking my pills regularly, more often than I should probably, but they weren’t keeping the old me at bay, they weren’t working, and now there was nothing I could do to stop the voices and the creatures from coming. The tree-woman moved quickly from the corner to behind me, casting a dark shadow round my seat.
You remember killing me, don’t you? Snatching the air from my body, taking my life, covering it up.
It speaks with Olivia’s voice
, her acidic tongue lashing against my back.
The dove lady, with round, alabaster cheeks, spoke to me in a warm Scottish accent.
‘Do you need to take a break, Jade?’
I could hear someone muttering.
‘It was your own fault, Olivia’.
I watched as the officer’s full-moon face turned thick with alarm and listened as the muttering grew louder and louder – it was speaking with my voice. The blackness began again, seeping out from the walls and churning, faster, towards me. I had to get to higher ground, that way it would take the others before it took me. I bolted, scrambling up onto the table accompanied by a cacophony of noise as my plastic chair hit the floor, voices cried out and limbs intertwined as they tried to bring me back down. There was a chill in the room and I curled up into a ball, evading capture, making it as hard as possible to be taken into the blackness by the figure.
‘Why did you do it? Why didn’t you help me?’
The fat officer and my useless lawyer fled the room, leaving the Scottish woman standing in the tar, refusing to give in to its menace.
‘You’re OK, love, you’re doing fine,’ she said repetitively, holding my arm.
‘I knew I’d be blamed for it,’ I sobbed through the pain of the memory.
‘Where have you taken her?’
She gripped my arm tighter, the prolific reach of the viscous darkness now binding us together. Her face started to change, shifting into someone else altogether.
I reacted instinctively, thrashing my arms out before firing myself towards her, palms first. Her skin collected under my fingernails as I scratched back the mask she was wearing. Who was really under there? She screamed as I knocked us both off-balance, falling into the pit, drowning together in the bubbling, boiling blackness.
An alarm rang out, but I barely heard it. Moments later, I felt a colossal blow to my forehead, then nothing.
47
You haven’t fed her properly yet, you’ve barely given her anything to drink. I guess they’d call you a monster. A cold-hearted, dead-all-the-way-through, psychopath. But you hadn’t always been this way, had you? They’d probably write a film about you, about this, that is, they would if they ever found out what you’d done, what you’d pulled off. But they never would, so your story would never be told. What a shame.
You watch her through the screen via the camera, as she tries to get up. She’s chained to the bed; you want her to know how much she hurt you. The ties are a show of force, really. She can’t escape and no one would hear her if she tried to scream. You might feed her today, take off her ties – you want her to suffer, to think there’s a chance of survival, then take it away. She betrayed you: now it’s your turn to show her how much it hurts.
48
Jade
Olivia smiled at me from down the corridor as a cross-eyed guard dragged me towards a cell. The prison reminded me of a museum, an ancient relic of a bygone time where they might have once held sailors and drunks, centuries ago, for misdemeanour crimes, but not a maximum-security prison in this day and age. The paintwork was haphazard, mismatched, much of the finish an untreated concrete, the walls so wet I could smell them. I looked at the water dribbling down, furry pockets of moss growing opportunistically along the walls. I listened to the consistent pendulum swing of each of my steps and started counting them as we walked. It helped to block out the sound of Olivia talking animatedly alongside me.
‘You got away with what you did to me, but how will you get yourself out of this? You’re going down. Down, down, down!’
She screamed the last three words twisting and turning, somersaulting and cartwheeling. She was dressed as a circus ringleader in bright coloured clothes that didn’t fit her, dramatic make-up round her eyes and mouth, handing out tickets to imaginary people.
‘Roll up, roll up to say your goodbyes – this witch will hang!’
The door slammed shut behind me and I was alone. Distant cries bounced off the cream-coloured breezeblock walls. A stainless-steel sink and toilet lurked in the corner, rusting round the edges, tired from years of use. A bed ran the length of the back wall. I couldn’t focus on anything except how utterly wretched and sick I felt. My whole body hurt and I watched as my hands took on a life of their own, involuntary movements forcing them to shake uncontrollably. I tried sitting on them, then lying on them, sweat poured from my body and I felt as though my blood would boil, I was so hot. I urgently peeled my sweat-stained clothes from my skin, shivering and steaming simultaneously and threw them on the floor. I sat cross-legged on the bed, shifting to find a spot without a spring protruding through the cardboard mattress, and willed myself to survive.
I let the night engulf me, my mind diving to dangerous depths, in free-fall now and completely out of control. My dreams were violent and suicidal and I woke with a shock trying to peel a run of thick rope from round my neck.
Olivia was bending over me.
‘Jade, darling, wake up, we have to act fast, there isn’t long.’ The bright whites of her eyes were full of fear.
‘What’s happening, where am I?’ I stammered.
‘You’re in jail. But, don’t worry, I have a plan.’
‘Why are you helping me?’ I lifted my body to seated, rubbing my eyes with my hands, willing away my slumber.
‘Because I know you didn’t mean to kill me.’ Her words were firm.
I nodded an agreement and listened to the plan.
‘They think you’re guilty. They’re probably getting the evidence now to say you took Ava. Sooner or later they’re going to realise what you did to me, too.’
I nodded again, mechanically. I heard her words and accepted their truth.
‘But they haven’t proven anything yet, have they?’
No, they hadn’t, there was still time.
‘What do I need to do?’ I was ready for anything.
‘You need to get rid of your hair, of course. It contains too much DNA, it knows all of your secrets. They can match your hair to any crime, Jade.’
‘There’s nothing here, no scissors, no razor, there’s no way.’
‘Oh, Jade, there’s always a way… pluck it, pull it, rip it, tear it. Do what you have to do, you want to survive don’t you? You want to go home, don’t you?’ The wicked twist of her head made me feel uneasy but I did, I did want to go home.
I pulled myself together, closed my eyes, ran my hands through my hair, built up to the moment.
I feverishly plucked away at my scalp, beginning with the baby hair round my temples, pulling singles strands at first then upgrading to clumps, then fistfuls, as I got used to the burning and the ripping. The concrete in front of me filled with thick tangles of my knotted mane, flecks of blood, chunks of skin. I started to feel better. I was gaining back control. One, two, pull. One, two, pull. I was in a rhythm when I heard a voice outside the cell. A movement. A scratch.
‘Hello?’ My voice was tiny.
No one answered and the noises stopped.
I sat still. Eyes ablaze, mouth ajar, one hand ready to pull the next fistful from my crown, listening out, smelling blood.
I must have imagined them, the noises, because there was nothing, no one was coming to help me.
I looked at the floor again, covered in parts of me, and felt the weight of regret. I raised my hand to my head, my fingers unused to feeling vast bald patches interspersed with tufts of hair and pockets of blood. Olivia was in the corner, playing with her long blonde locks, twisting them round her finger.
‘Now you have to get rid of it.’
‘What do you mean?’
She jumped from the corner of the room to within an inch of my face, our foreheads touching, her spit on my eyelashes.
‘Eat it.’
‘What?’
‘That’s the only way to get rid of it! They’ll find it anywhere else!’
I frantically grabbed at the hair on the floor and tried to ram fistfuls down my throat, not bothering to chew, just doggedly
swallowing the dried, dead, evidence. The strands were thick and knotted and covered in skin, I felt a ball forming in my throat as I wretchedly shoved more of it down. It was useless. I vomited. Strands and strands emerged from my mouth, the smell of blood and bile mixed and hit the floor. I dipped my fingers in the mixture, disgusting and dense, and watched Olivia out of the corner of my eye as she honed in on me once more. She took a puke-laced strand, tipped her head back, and swallowed. She stared at me. I had to do the same. She knew what was best for me, she was here to help, she was my friend.
As the clump built up once more in my throat, my stomach churned and swirled. I knew something wasn’t right and I began to choke as sick rose from my gut, searching for the light like a fast-growing plant. A second wave surged, much stronger than the first, as it too sought an exit. But its progress was swiftly halted, repressed by the mound of hair in the way.
I blacked out as my lungs screamed for air.
‘Sir! I need some assistance in here!’
‘Jesus Christ. What did she do—’
49
Ava
I was aware of someone moving nearby, heard their footsteps across the carpet, felt the way the air moved out of the way as they walked.
He approached me and I cowered, bringing my knees up into my chest. I could hear myself whimpering.
‘Stop,’ he said.
Why was he doing this?
A hand wrapped round my ankle, then he cut the rope that bound them together. Next, he cut the ties round my wrists, and removed the guard from my mouth.
The feeling was incomparable. The freedom my body experienced, the way my skin came back to life. I wanted to hug him.
‘I’ll come back later.’
He’d left the run of chain round my neck.
With him gone, I tried again to get up. This time I was more successful as I used my newly independent limbs to bring myself to seated. I swayed as the blood rushed from my head and emptiness gnawed at my stomach.