Final Cut : A Novel (2020)

by Watson, S J

  My body is under water from the chest down. My limbs begin to sing with pain. I reach out, upwards first, and map the contours of the chamber. The roof of the cave is just a few inches above my head, hard and covered with slime. The walls to the left and right are a bit further, but not much. It feels like a coffin, stood on end. I have visions of the air running out, the cave filling with water as the tide comes in. I see myself drowning. My body trapped here, for who knows how long. And I know what Bryan will say, if they even ask him.

  I’ve no idea where she went. I haven’t seen her.

  Daisy, I think. Is that what happened to you?

  A woman’s voice echoes in the dark.

  ‘Are you going to stand there for ever?’

  It hits me hard as a punch. I recognise it. I’d recognise it anywhere. It’s her.

  ‘Daisy?’

  Relief thunders through me as the truth snaps into focus. I was right all along. I didn’t kill her. Bryan was lying. She must’ve jumped from the cliff and into the water, then swum to the cave. She escaped. I didn’t kill her. She’s here, not buried on the moor.

  But has she been here all along? In this cavern under the rocks, waiting for me?

  ‘You came,’ she says. ‘I knew you would. Only you’re not there yet.’

  I draw breath. My teeth clash painfully together, stammering with the cold.

  ‘Help me.’

  ‘Turn around.’

  I do as she’s suggested. I swivel towards her voice.

  ‘Put your hand out. To the left. Feel the gap?’

  I stumble blindly but find the narrow opening in the rock.

  ‘Go through.’

  The entrance to a tunnel, perhaps? The gap is little more than a slit.

  ‘Daisy?’ I say hesitantly. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can,’ she says. ‘You have to. I did.’

  I turn side on. The air is stale; there’s the sharp taste of salt. If it weren’t for her voice, I’d be certain it was a dead end.

  ‘Daisy?’

  ‘You’re fine,’ she says. ‘Just try harder.’

  I stretch out my hand. She’s near, but how did she get here? There must be a tunnel, a way in from above. It’s the only explanation.

  I think back to the legends, the smugglers who could land their contraband and get it up to the clifftop without it ever seeing the light of day. This must be one of their routes.

  Suddenly, I feel it. It’s like I knew about this place, have known it all along.

  ‘Daisy, please?’

  She says nothing, and I realise she’d no way of knowing I’d find my way to the cave this morning. Unless …

  I see what I’ve missed. Bryan must’ve told her he’d deliver me here; they must be working together. Even though just a few minutes ago he’d been trying his hardest to kill me, it must’ve been just to get me to jump into the water, to swim to the cave, to end up stuck here in this gap.

  ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘You can get through. You did it before, after all.’

  ‘Before?’

  Even as I argue, I know she’s right. I have been here before, trapped in this narrow gap. Wondering whether I’ll make it through. I breathe in; I wriggle. The jagged rock scrapes against my face and the back of my legs, I taste blood, but then it gives and I almost fall through into a larger chamber beyond.

  ‘There we are,’ says Daisy, louder now I’m in the same part of the cave. It’s as if she can see me in the blackness. ‘A bit further.’

  I step up towards her voice. My hands find a ledge and I lift myself up and out of the water.

  ‘I’m right here.’

  She’s near now. I can hear her breathing, mingled with my own. After all this time, she’s close enough to touch, yet I keep my hands still.

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘I’ve been here all along. Watching you.’

  ‘The postcard. You sent it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The videos. They were from you.’

  ‘Some of them, yes.’

  I listen to the hypnotic drip, drip, drip of water from the roof of the cave. I was right.

  ‘Why? Why did you do it?’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? You still don’t know.’

  ‘To get revenge?’ I say. ‘But you’re alive. I didn’t do anything.’

  She sighs. ‘I thought we were friends.’

  ‘We were. We are. You’re here, aren’t you?’

  ‘And you filmed it. You filmed it.’

  ‘I had no choice.’

  Her voice is mocking. ‘No choice? They made me do it? You and your boyfriend? Bryan.’ She laughs. ‘You thought he loved you. All those presents; you thought you’d got it made. Until he gave you that first little white line. Until he started selling you to his friends.’

  ‘No. That came later. That was after I’d gone to London.’

  She laughs once more. A brutal snort of derision. I’m so cold. I feel my body closing down. I want to close my eyes, to sleep.

  ‘Really? You can’t still believe that, surely? Not even you can be that stupid.’

  ‘It’s true,’ I say, but even as I do I see it, shockingly real. Me and Bryan, we’re in bed; he’s told me he loves me so I’m happy, but at the same time my stomach is cramping. Tiny insects crawl through my veins; I want to be sick, but then he offers me something. ‘It’ll make you feel better, baby,’ he says. ‘It’ll be like the first time.’

  Daisy’s voice cuts into my memory. ‘You remember now?’

  Opposing forces rupture through me, nausea spilling up from my guts, vertigo spinning me down. It can’t be true. It can’t.

  But she’s right. He began sharing me. It started with his dealer, or the guy he said was his dealer anyway. He said he couldn’t pay, he didn’t have enough money.

  ‘But there’s another way,’ he said. ‘You owe me, after all.’ And even though I said no, my resistance didn’t last long. By then I was desperate. By then I was squirming on the hook and would’ve done anything.

  ‘Anything?’ says Daisy, and it’s as if she can hear my thoughts. ‘Even get your best friend involved? Deliver her to them? Get her hooked, too? First on love, then on drugs.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’ But even as I do, I can see it: it’s true.

  ‘Then, when she threatened to talk, they had you kill her.’

  ‘But I didn’t,’ I sob. ‘You’re not dead. Daisy, you’re not dead.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘That’s right. I’m not. But she is.’

  ‘Who? Who’s dead?’

  ‘You know who.’ She pauses, and part of me knows what’s coming.

  The truth cleaves me in two. No, I say. No. It’s not possible, I can’t work it out. I see us both, in the cellar. I have the camera; my friend is tied up, she’s on her knees. I brought her here, told her there was someone who wanted to meet her. I promised her fun, said we could try something, told her my boyfriend had sorted us out and it’d be the best yet, even better than last time, all we had to do was let it take us away.

  ‘I didn’t know what they had planned. I swear it.’

  ‘But you still went through with it.’

  I remember putting the camera down. She looked up at me; there was snot running from her nose. Don’t, she said. Don’t hurt me.

  She was kneeling on the floor, begging for help. Help I couldn’t give her, because I was part of this now.

  I have to, I replied, sobbing.

  Bryan’s voice cut in, then. Do it, he said. If you don’t do it, we will, and blame you anyway. So you might as well.

  And so I did. I stepped towards her, the belt limp in my hand. I wondered what he wanted the film for, whether it was just to keep me in line, or if he’d found someone willing to pay for it. I didn’t know. But still I did it. I wrapped the belt around my best friend’s neck. And then—

  No!

  ‘You get it now?’ says Daisy, but as she does some kind of door opens further up the t
unnel and the cave is lit with a flash. I react without thinking, shutting my dark-adapted eyes against the searing light, but it’s no good. I force them open and look around for my friend, but there’s no one there. There never was. It’s as if someone has pulled the plug and whatever remained of me has run through the sluice.

  I see everything in minute detail, high resolution. I stare at the walls of the cave – the damp, dripping walls that curve upwards towards the source of the dazzling light, the chisel marks where it’s been widened to make the tunnel more passable.

  I feel weightless, more alive than I’ve felt in years. But the momentary, blissful vacuum implodes. It was me speaking; her voice was in my head. Daisy is alive, here with me now, like she was at Hope Cottage, like she was down in London, like she was when I ran away. Like she has been all along.

  Because Daisy isn’t dead. She’s me.

  Then

  53

  The bed is cold, the sheets heavy. David has central heating, but he doesn’t turn it on. He’s left a fan-heater in the corner of the room, but it blows feebly and smells of burning hair.

  So I lie here and shiver. I’m worthless, anyway.

  He knocks on the door. ‘Daisy?’

  Don’t call me that, I think. Anything else. But not that.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Tonight is the night. It’s nearly time. The tide is right. It was my plan all along, but now we’re here I’m not so sure.

  ‘Daisy? Are you okay? I’ve made you some soup.’

  I sit up. It’s true that I’m hungry. And I’ll need all the strength I can get.

  I know I have to escape; I can’t stay here. My plan started forming as soon as they returned from burying Sadie on the moors. Bryan has told me that he owns me now, that unless I do as I’m told he’ll send the film of me killing Sadie to the police. And I know he would, too. Then it’ll all be over. The fact that I hate myself already will make no difference, and neither will the fact that they made me do it, that I had no choice. Not felt I had no choice, actually had no choice. Sadie had started fighting back, had threatened to tell, so Bryan decided. He had to teach her a lesson, and if I refused to help, then he’d have to teach me one, too.

  Maybe it would’ve been better that way, I think now. Then at least I wouldn’t have to live with myself, with what I’ve done.

  The plan is my idea, then, but now it comes to it, I’m terrified. It’s not just the jump I’m dreading, the plunge into icy water, the swim back to the cave and into the tunnel. Even if it works, even if I get away and no one comes after me because everyone in this place thinks I’m dead, I still won’t have escaped. I’ll have the drugs to kick. I’ll need help, and I don’t know how to get it. Things will get worse before they get better; the only question is by how much.

  Maybe I should stay here and die. Maybe it’s what I deserve.

  David puts the soup gently down on the bedside table. ‘Eat up.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  My voice is weak. I sound like the little girl I am deep down, and I hate myself for it.

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘But you’ll be fine. There’s help out there. You’re a strong person.’

  He’s always believed in me. It’s his voice I heard when I felt like jumping for real. His voice telling me I’m a good person, underneath it all. That he’s always known it.

  ‘You think I’ll make it?’

  He puts his hand on my arm. ‘I know you will.’ He’s gentle, kind. The kindest any man has ever been to me. Kinder than I merit. ‘You’ve written your note?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll make sure it’s found.’

  ‘You’ll show Mum?’

  ‘We have to. She’ll have to tell them it’s definitely your writing.’

  ‘But you’ll tell her? Later? You’ll tell her I’m all right.’

  He nods, softly. ‘I’ll try. But it might be too dangerous.’

  I thank him. I wish I could tell him why I really need to get away, why convincing them I’m dead is the only way to stop them coming after me. I wish I could tell him how Bryan lied at first, told me I’d just have to pretend, it wasn’t going to be real. ‘We just need to scare her,’ he’d said, and by the time I realised he was lying, it was too late. He made me pull the belt tighter, even once she’d stopped crying and her whole body went limp. He made me.

  Yet it was me who did it. Me who wasn’t strong enough to refuse, to fight back, to tell him how evil he was. I wish more than anything I could go back and change everything. I wish I could undo the moment I introduced her to Bryan, the moment I met him myself. Then Sadie and I would still be friends, rather than one of us buried in the cold ground and the other about to either fake her suicide or die in the process.

  ‘So, when you jump …’ says David, ‘you know what you have to do.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I know the tunnel leads back into the rock, and up into David’s cellar. ‘And you’ll film it? Just in case.’

  He says he will. We’ve discussed this. My body won’t be found; I’m going to take off my trainers and my jacket in the water, but it may not be enough to convince them. If it ever comes to it, he needs to be able to prove I really went over the edge.

  ‘And we’ll wait? We’ll wait until there’s someone to see?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’ll look through the telescope until I spot someone coming. You’ll have plenty of time. Then we can be sure there’ll be a witness. All you have to do is jump and then swim back into the cave.’

  I tell him I’m ready. The plan is I’ll wait in the tunnels. We’ve put towels and a change of clothes down there, a torch, blankets and some food. It’s too risky for me to go up to David’s straight away, in case they search the area, but when the time is right he’ll come for me. He’ll get me out.

  ‘Where will you go?’ he says.

  I answer straight away. I’ve been thinking about it for days.

  ‘London.’

  ‘You can’t use your real name.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ve decided what name you will use?’

  Sadie, I think. For a long time I used to wish I was her, imagine it was me who lived over in that big house with her mum, rather than in that shitty caravan with mine. I used to pretend I was clever like she was, and good at school, and had prospects. It became a habit, so that, even when her life started to fall apart, I couldn’t stop. Every time one of those men forced themselves on me, every time I had to lie there at one of their parties while one after another after another came through to have their turn, I would detach. I would convince myself I was her. At home, watching TV or with a boyfriend who really loved her rather than just saying he did until she was sufficiently in his debt. Even just doing her homework, or helping her mother bake. Living a normal life. It’s become a habit, this pretending to be Sadie whenever things get bad, so that the real me, Daisy, doesn’t have to feel anything.

  I was jealous, I realise now. Otherwise, why, when Bryan said it was my turn to bring in someone new, did I choose her? Now I know I can’t bring her back, but I can try to live the life she’d have lived. To honour her, if nothing else.

  I open my mouth to tell David what name I’ll use, but he interrupts me.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s better I don’t know.’

  ‘But—’

  He shakes his head sadly. ‘We can’t stay in touch, Daisy.’

  I stare at my hands.

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  He passes me the spoon. ‘Eat.’

  I try a mouthful, but it scalds my tongue.

  ‘Will you find Sadie?’ he says, and I realise people are believing the story that Bryan has put out, that she ran away, that she was seen hitching a lift, heading down south.

  I can’t do it after all, I can’t lie to him. I lower the spoon.

  ‘She’s dead.’

  He falls quiet. I expect him to be angry, shocked at least, but he doesn’t say anything. Perhaps he suspected it all
along. For a second I think he’ll tell me I can’t go through with it, I need to go to the police.

  ‘But she sent a note to her mum.’

  ‘They made me write it.’

  ‘And the people who saw her hitching a lift?’

  ‘Making it up,’ I say. ‘Or maybe they were bribed to say it. Either way, it wasn’t her.’

  I wish it was, more than anything. But no. They took her body and buried her on the moor.

  I feel my heart collapse.

  ‘I can’t tell you anything else.’

  He touches my arm. ‘You don’t have to.’

  I’d do anything to bring her back, I think. Anything to change what happened, anything at all. I think I hear her voice then, way out in the distance. Do what? she says. Scrub your arm with bleach? Burn the tattoo away, the one that marks you as Daisy, the murderer? Cut it out?

  Maybe. Even scars are preferable to that mark on my forearm, that perfect circle, that unbroken O. I was such a fool, having it tattooed there, where I could see it, where it was a constant reminder. He gave me the choice, after all. Anywhere you like, he said. But I thought I was doing it for love, I wanted people to see it, so I picked there.

  I look at the bowl of soup. Steam rises from it like smoke. Burn it away? If that’s what it takes, then yes.

  Now

  54

  And now I’m back here. Lured by a postcard I must’ve kept for ten years before I sent it to Dan and then forgot doing it. I’m here, shivering in the damp tunnel that leads to David’s cellar. He must’ve recognised me that first time I saw him. And recognised me for real, as Daisy, not as Sadie, as I’d thought, as I’d feared. He must’ve been certain enough to have broken into my room, to go looking through my stuff for proof. No wonder he asked me why I came back. No wonder he tried to get me to leave, before it was too late. No wonder he tried to show me the tape of myself jumping.

  Except Bryan got to him first. Silenced him before he could tell me what he knew. Before he could give me the film of my own suicide. But he made a mistake. He’d left it there for me to find.