by Leona Deakin
At the house she checked her watch again: 2.42pm. She’d made good time. Her feet hurt from running in her court shoes and it took a moment for her breathing to steady. She kicked her shoes off, not caring if they scratched the parquet floor, and ran barefoot to the landing and the loft hatch. Her mother kept the pole to open the hatch in the corner of the master bedroom and Bloom knew exactly where her old boxes were. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. There was only one document she needed to see.
But the pole wasn’t there.
‘Dammit!’ Her mother’s final few months before moving to the home had been clouded by dementia. It had turned a once-capable and routine-orientated woman into a paranoid shell of herself. A person who hid her jewellery in the freezer because she thought her daughter might steal it. Bloom scanned the rest of the room and then checked her own room, the spare room, the box room and the bathroom. Then she checked her watch: 2.48pm.
No time.
She dragged the linen basket from the bathroom and placed it under the hatch. It was about half her height. She might be able to reach. She lifted one knee up and then the other, found her balance and then shifted her weight, making sure the basket could hold her. It wobbled and she steadied herself. She reached up and hooked her middle finger through the loop, then leaned away from the hatch and pulled as hard as she could. It opened just a sliver. She leaned further back and pulled harder. This time it opened enough for her to fold her hand around the edge and pull the hatch fully open.
Then it swung back, pushing her off the linen basket. She landed heavily on her left arm outside the spare room. The hatch had split her skin on three fingers. Little droplets of blood began to bubble. She climbed back on to the basket, reached up with both hands and pulled herself into the loft.
The boxes were exactly where she’d left them. 2.56pm. Less than four minutes to respond to the challenge. She opened the first of six square storage boxes and quickly set it aside. The second and third weren’t it either. But there in the fourth was the blue file she needed.
She rested it on her knee. The name on the front was written in very neat handwriting. It was the first file she had ever produced. She’d prepared it with the care of a new mother. Seraphine Walker.
Bloom riffled through the pages for the pathologist’s report. She skimmed the page. How had they identified Seraphine’s teenage body? Bloom had assumed they’d looked at her dental records. Trains at speed do unspeakable things to the human body. But they hadn’t checked. Seraphine had left a note for her mother telling her what she was planning to do and where. The body had been wearing Seraphine’s clothes, a watch engraved with her name and a necklace borrowed that very day from her mother. This had been deemed sufficient evidence.
Bloom stared into the dark recesses of her parents’ loft. This was crazy. How could a fourteen-year-old girl find another girl of similar height, weight and hair colour, convince her to swap clothes and jewellery, take a bus to a random town, walk a mile and a half to a farm road and then …? But this was Seraphine. She had the ability to fool people, to lure them into her web.
I can’t be normal. And I don’t want to be a monster.
Her challenge was more than just the Trolley Problem. It was very specific. She was being asked to choose between the life of one normal person, Sarah, or the lives of three psychopaths, Grayson, Stuart and Lana. Jane was a red herring. She came with Lana.
When working with Seraphine, Bloom had stressed that the young girl could choose who she wanted to be. That she didn’t need to be defined by a label. That a psychopath’s life was just as valuable as any other. This challenge was predicated on that very principle.
The alarm on her phone began to jingle. It was 2.59pm.
55
Jameson stood at the doorway to Sarah’s room, one hand on the frame. He’d been here just a few hours ago. He remembered purple velvet curtains, a damask chaise longue at the end of the bed, a neatly organized wooden desk and bedside tables, the smart king-sized bed. The room he saw now bore no resemblance to this memory.
‘Was this how you left the room?’ said PC Hussain from behind him.
Jameson looked around. The desk chair lay halfway across the floor on its side. The contents of the desk – the information pack, the tea and coffee sachets, the phone and the kettle – were strewn across the floor. The bed sheets were crumpled and hanging from the bed.
‘No,’ said Jameson. ‘No. It wasn’t like this. Everything was … where it should be.’ He stepped into the room. The bed sheets covered the chaise longue. Sarah’s bag had been there.
‘This might be a crime scene,’ said PC Hussain, before she radioed for assistance.
Jameson’s head pounded and his vision narrowed as a migraine took hold. He lifted his chin and forced himself to take deep breaths. He’d been in many dangerous, disturbing situations in the past and he’d coped with them with the calm disposition of a well-trained professional. But this was different. This was Sarah. His Sarah. Everything about their short relationship had been astonishing. He finally understood the connection he saw between his sister and brother-in-law. He got it. He saw with total clarity that he would never quite get over living his life without Sarah. He should have listened to Bloom.
His phone rang. Sarah?
Claire’s voice sounded loud and urgent in his ear. ‘Marcus, where are you and why the hell are you not in Manchester?’
‘It’s Sarah. They’ve taken Sarah.’
‘Who is Sarah? Oh, for fuck’s sake, are you kidding me? You’re fretting over your latest bit of skirt? We have a chance to get Jane back. I’m telling you now, Marcus, I’ll never forgive you if anything happens to her.’
‘Sarah is not my latest bit of skirt.’ A look passed between PC Hussain and the Head of Security.
‘I don’t care if she’s your frickin’ soul mate, Marcus. Jane is a child.’
‘And you’d just leave Dan to the whim of some twisted psycho, would you?’
‘Dan would never expect me to pick him over his child.’
‘Jane is not my child.’
‘Oh, I can’t believe … What sort of a man are you? I thought my brother had principles; he fought to protect people.’
‘Claire …’
‘No. Forget it. I’ll go to Manchester myself.’
Claire hung up. Jameson looked at his phone. Bloom had one minute to make her choice.
PC Hussain moved past him and into the room. ‘I’m going to make a brief assessment of the scene and check the bathroom. Could you both step into the corridor, please?’
The bathroom. Jameson looked at the closed door to the en-suite and felt his heart quicken. He knew there was a bath, shower, toilet and basin inside that black and white room, but what else would Hussain find? He knew from bitter experience that there were some things you could never unsee.
As he stood in the hallway, his phone buzzed. He checked the message. Bloom had made her choice. She’d have thought through every angle – he knew that – so why did he feel so sick?
Because whatever Hussain found behind the bathroom door was irrelevant. Sarah’s fate was sealed. He looked down at his phone and squeezed his eyes shut to hold in the tears.
Bloom
I choose Stuart, Grayson, Lana and Jane.
3:00pm
56
Bloom let her phone slide on to the floor of the loft. She hoped this gamble would pay off.
She removed a familiar white envelope from the file and took the note from inside. The paper felt thick and when Bloom held it up to the bare light bulb it shimmered. She read it for the first time in fifteen years.
I can’t be normal. And I don’t want to be a monster.
You told me to choose. I’ve chosen.
What did you choose, Seraphine? If Seraphine really had orchestrated her own fake suicide, it would not have been in a fit of teenage pique. It would have been logical, a rational decision, carefully planned for a specific purpose.
&nb
sp; Bloom reached back into the expandable blue file and pulled out an A5 black notebook. It had arrived in the post the day after Seraphine’s mother had visited. There had been nothing with it, no explanation, but Bloom had always assumed it held some significance. Seraphine rarely acted without motive. And so she had studied it for hours and hours, looking for the message, trying to learn where she’d gone wrong, what she’d said to cause such drastic action.
Bloom opened it now and flicked through until she reached the final entry. It was longer than the others. Most of the entries were short paragraphs expressing anger at someone’s actions or smugly recording vengeance. But this one was more like a letter, and even though it began, as all the entries did, with Dear Diary, Bloom felt sure Seraphine had meant this one for her.
Dear Diary
I did it on purpose.
I made sure Dreary Darren would come to the sports hall. I looked for the carotid artery in my biology textbook. I found out which was the toughest pencil – H6 – and I got Mr Richards to sharpen it for me on his fancy sharpener.
You want to know why?
It’s not what you think. It wasn’t to get some kick. And I didn’t enjoy it. But neither did I feel bad about it. But you probably guessed that. I did it because I knew that creep had raped Claudia. On the day of the summer fair, I heard him bragging about it and telling her that if she told anyone he’d hurt her mum. They were behind the cricket pavilion. I’d gone there to get some peace and quiet from all the stupids. It’s exhausting hanging around with normals all the time. Claudia and Dreary didn’t see me and she never said anything to any of us. But I figured someone needed to teach him a lesson.
He was a typical stupid too. He never suspected I was flirting with him for any particular reason. I wore my shortest skirt and my tightest top and I’d walk past his shed slowly until I caught his eye and then I’d smile. He started making comments and asking me to come inside. But I always kept walking without saying a word. So he was gagging for it by the time I walked by that morning and said, ‘Sports hall after registration.’ I knew he’d come. And Claudia was supposed to be my alibi. I was doing this for her and she was supposed to say he’d attacked me, like he had attacked her. But I’d forgotten what a needy bitch she can be. As soon as she saw the chance to push me out of the group, she took it. She hated how popular I was. It was the only bit I got wrong – misjudging her. If I’d waited a few seconds longer, let him grope me a bit, she probably wouldn’t have had any reason to suspect me, but you live and learn.
No one at school looks at me the same way now. My blabbermouth mother couldn’t keep quiet about sending me to speak to a psychologist so the whole school got to hear about that too. So even though the police have dropped charges, I’m still the school weirdo. Parents move their kids away from me and the teachers watch me with this look of fear and disgust. Dr Bloom told me to avoid labelling myself as a psychopath because I’m just Seraphine with as much right as anyone else to choose how to live and what to do. But everyone else is labelling me: my parents, my teachers, my so-called friends. And it makes me want to get back at them. I want to hurt them all. I want them to know exactly who I am and to teach them that there are some people you really shouldn’t mess with.
But mostly I just don’t want to feel so alone.
Bloom read the last line again. Was that the orchestrator’s motive? To find more of their own kind. Could that be the reason for this game? Not a crime or a menacing plot, but simply the basic human need – as true for a psychopath as for anyone else – to avoid loneliness?
57
Jameson sat in the hallway outside Sarah’s hotel room with his back to the wall and his eyes closed. The migraine battered his brain with splinters of pain and the only way he could handle it was to remain very still. He should be on a train to Manchester. He should be trying to find Jane. If they released her, he should be there to meet her. Who knew what kind of trauma she’d experienced over the past week? She’d want a familiar face and he could be there in half the time it would take Claire. But he couldn’t move. He felt physically and emotionally incapable.
It took him a few seconds to distinguish the vibrating of his phone in his pocket from the pulsating throb in his head.
‘Jameson,’ he answered, keeping his head still and his eyes firmly shut.
‘It’s me.’ Bloom sounded anxious.
‘I’m banking on you knowing what you’re doing, Augusta.’
She said nothing for a second and then muttered, ‘Me too.’
‘There’s been no reply,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Great.’ He squeezed his eyes tighter, but somehow the daylight still seeped in.
‘I think Seraphine’s behind this.’
Jameson opened his eyes. ‘What?’
‘I had to select between a normal person and the psychopaths. I think Seraphine wants to know if I still believe a psychopath’s life is worth as much as anyone else’s.’
‘That makes no sense. Jane’s not a psychopath and she’s in the group, and Seraphine Walker is dead.’
‘No. Jane comes with Lana; she’s part of the package.’
‘Part of the package? Are you kidding me? And Seraphine Walker? You’re gambling Sarah’s life on the idea of a resurrected teen psychopath?’ Jameson took a deep breath. This was making his migraine worse.
‘I don’t think she’s dead, that’s the thing.’
‘I got that.’ Jameson closed his eyes again. ‘Shit, Augusta, that’s one hell of a leap. I thought you said this was an organized group.’
‘I know.’
‘So you’ve just forgotten that because it doesn’t fit your latest theory? I’m sorry. I can’t talk about this any more.’
He hung up.
58
Jane walked along clutching the piece of paper with the address. She reached a large semi-detached house with a red-brick porch over its front door and a fancy car in the driveway. Why would her mum be here?
She had not seen her mum since Saturday afternoon, when she’d forced her into the back of a car driven by a woman called Denise. Denise had taken Jane to an impressive barn conversion for two nights and she had been allowed her own room with a real bed and a TV.
But a few hours ago, Denise had driven Jane to Leeds station and given her this piece of paper. She’d said, ‘Go here and nowhere else. Don’t speak to anyone. Don’t call anyone. Because we’ll be watching you, and if you do you’ll never see your mother again.’
Jane had taken the paper and bought a ticket to Manchester. In Piccadilly station she’d spent too long studying the map of the city and a security guard had approached her. She had no idea who Denise meant by ‘we’, but she gave Jane the creeps. Something about the way she looked at you, sort of cold and distant.
Jane checked the number of the next house. Forty-one. There was a large vase of white lilies in the front window. Jane knocked on the door and waited, scrunching the piece of paper in her hand. A red-haired lady in a knee-length denim dress and Converse trainers answered.
‘Can I help you?’ she said.
‘I’m Jane. I was told to come here to meet my mum.’
‘Oh, my.’ Jane couldn’t read her expression. ‘Come in. Come in.’
Jane stepped into the hallway.
‘Thomas?’ called the woman. ‘Can you come here, please?’
‘Is my mum here?’ Jane said, as a tall man walked out of a room at the back of the house. ‘Her name’s Lana.’
The man stopped, the polite smile frozen on his face.
‘Jane?’ he whispered. He didn’t look like the other men her mum usually spent time with. He had kind eyes. A phone started ringing and he reached into his pocket for his mobile.
‘Lake,’ he said, the polite smile still in place.
‘Darling, is this the right time to …’ The woman held her thumb and little finger out, mimicking answer
ing a phone.
‘Yes, she’s here,’ the man said.
‘Is that Mum? Can I speak to her?’ Jane stepped towards him.
He shook his head. ‘I see … OK … And why?’ He listened for a moment.
His eyes met Jane’s and she was sure she saw tears.
‘Has something happened to my mum?’ she asked. ‘I want to speak to her. Let me speak to her.’ Jane lunged for the phone, grabbing it from his hand and holding it to her ear.
‘Mum? I’m here. I came straight here, just like you said. I didn’t go anywhere else or speak to anyone. I did just what you said. Hello? Hello?’ They’d hung up. ‘Was that my mum?’
Lake shook his head. ‘A friend of hers.’
‘Is she coming?’
Lake shook his head and then looked at the woman.
She placed an arm around Jane’s shoulders. ‘Come on into the kitchen. Let’s get you a warm drink.’
Jane shrugged her away. ‘No. Not until you tell me where she is.’
Jane had lost her temper on Saturday morning and Lana had lashed out and hit her. After that, things changed quickly. Jane knew that her mother could turn her anger on and off, but when she returned to Jane’s attic room that evening, something was different. Jane expected her mum to lose it again when she discovered she’d left her phone behind, but she just put it in her pocket without a word. And then on Sunday, her mum told her the same story three times. Something about a bridge and a motorbike. It didn’t make sense. And then she’d gone on and on about how much she hated Marcus. Jane worried that her mum was having some sort of breakdown.
‘Jane, do you know who I am?’ said the man. ‘My name is Thomas Lake. I was married to Lana … to your mum … sixteen years ago.’