The Secrets You Hide

by Kate Helm

  ‘What did I ever do to you, Robert?’

  ‘Nothing. But it’s what you’ve started. Winding up Daniel and that police bitch. Digging around about those loser girls at Copse View.’

  ‘You’ve left Ashdean. How did you know?

  ‘I’ve an old mate on the cabs, keeps me up to date on my boy. He told me you’d been hanging round Jim. I checked you out and unfortunately . . . here we are. I don’t get a kick out of hurting women.’

  The way Robert says it makes me certain he does.

  ‘It wasn’t just Jim hurting those girls, was it? You joined in.’

  He’s completely shredded the branch with his fingers now, and pieces of cream-coloured wood litter the dark earth like confetti.

  ‘They weren’t hurt. Bit of attention. They were all craving that.’

  I feel even more sickened. ‘But you made sure Jim was the only one in the photograph. That’s how you blackmailed him into going to jail for you?’

  He scoffs. ‘Jim never got past third base. Not even the night I took that picture. They’d been kissing, that’s all, though I told him the girl had reported him for that. Jim was a virgin when he went to prison. Silly fucker. None of the girls at my parties were. OK, so Rosanna pretended she was, but she’d obviously been the town bike.’

  All this time, I’d been focusing on Jim.

  The real predator was behind the camera.

  ‘Where is Rosanna now?’

  He laughs. ‘Not a million miles from here. Though I can’t be sure exactly where. This part of the woods has changed a lot over the years.’

  Oh lord. I think he means he killed her. Buried her. Here.

  ‘But I heard her voice. The answerphone message.’

  ‘Like I said, that £600 you kindly sent the investigator went a long way. I found a woman in the pub more than happy to record that in exchange for a bottle of cheap and nasty white wine.’

  I close my eyes. I must not let fear win. Must keep him talking, till I work out how I can get out of here. ‘Did Jim know you were having sex with the girls?’

  Robert shrugs. ‘Yeah, I was his role model. Even did him a favour and broke in Sharon for him, ready for when he got out of the nick. Silly little cunt. If she’d kept her gob shut, I’d still be in Ashdean. I’d have been a real father to Charlie.’

  ‘You slept with Sharon too?’

  ‘Now, she was a virgin. A really lazy fuck. Not worth the bother back then, and certainly not worth all that’s happened since.’

  It clicks, like a key in a lock.

  ‘You raped Sharon before she met Jim?’

  ‘It wasn’t rape—’

  I ignore him. ‘Why did you come back to Ashdean after you were married?’

  ‘Jim got rich. Why wouldn’t I have wanted to be friends again? He didn’t bear a grudge for the jail thing. Not then, anyway.’

  ‘But it was too much for Sharon, wasn’t it? You there, all the time, with her kids, her husband . . .’ I remember the witness statement at her inquest, about her and Jim talking before she jumped to her death. ‘But she told Jim what you did. Didn’t she?’

  ‘Such a shit-stirrer, that woman. But even when he got me into the woods, Jim couldn’t stop being the hero. Another couple of dings with the wheel brace and I’d have been worm food. But I begged – no, don’t kill me, I have kids, don’t make them suffer for my mistake.’

  I look up at him, hearing the fake wheedling tone, imagining how Jim must have felt.

  ‘He let you go.’

  ‘Told me he would finish it if I ever came back. I was pretty bashed about, but I managed to hitch to Gloucester, slept rough for a bit. But I started over, with the help of some accommodating lady friends.’

  I replay the conversations from my sittings with Jim: the hopes he had for his marriage and kids with Sharon. The way that ended. And then the second tragedy: losing his son, his new wife, their new baby, in a single night.

  His sadness was real.

  And one person was behind all of it.

  ‘Are you going to help yourself, Suzanne?’

  I look at the vodka and the pills. The walls of the dark pit seem to grow taller with each breath. But it can’t end here.

  ‘What if I don’t take them?’

  Robert tuts. ‘I’ll have to get my hands dirty. Rather avoid that, if you don’t mind, brings back a few bad memories. Rosanna was skinnier than you but she clung on to life for far longer than you’d have expected. Mind you, I wasn’t fully grown back then. And at least your body won’t need moving.’

  I look up: his face is calm, despite his confession. Rosanna is dead. Robert is a murderer as well as a rapist.

  ‘Your choice, Suzanne.’

  73

  My choice.

  The choices you agonise over aren’t the ones that change everything. It’s the split-second ones that alter the course of your life.

  *

  ‘Pip, is my nose really that enormous in real life?’

  My brother is lying on his tummy on my carpet, painting my portrait on a page from my sketchbook. I’ve found my old poster paints – he’s a messy worker, but at least if he spills some of those, there’s no harm done.

  ‘You are my ugly sister!’ Pip giggles. ‘Like in Cinderella. Ugly sister, ugly sister! Now I’ll put big green bogey spots on your chin!’

  I laugh along. Teaching him to paint never quite goes the way I planned, but when I’m feeling serious, his silliness cheers me up. The door is closed so the giggling won’t disturb my father.

  Pip picks up the big brush and dips it in brown paint, then spreads it over the blank part of his page to make a snake shape.

  ‘Look, Suzanne, you’ve done a poo! A great big, brown, smelly poo! Stinky!’

  He’s hysterical now, thumping his fists against the purple carpet so hard that I worry Dad will hear. He made breakfast for us all this morning, but it was so bad no one wanted to eat it. And that made Dad furious.

  ‘Shh, Pip.’

  My scolding makes him naughtier and now my brother’s legs are kicking the floor. I grab for his ankles to calm him down but he shimmies out of the way like a baby commando, still giggling, and . . .

  It happens in slow motion. His bare foot kicks out and it just catches the leg of the easel, which gives way. I think my painting is going to fall face first onto the carpet, though thank goodness it falls the other way. But the turps . . . The lid isn’t on the bottle and clear liquid spreads over the new carpet. The smell of turps fills the room. Already Pip is on his haunches, patting at the stain with his messy little hands. He looks up at me, trying to smile his way out of it.

  ‘I’ll make it better, Suzie. I’m tidying already, see!’

  The turps has splashed onto the new canvas I got yesterday at the art shop in Bath. I saved up for a month to buy that.

  And the carpet cost so much more.

  ‘Get out of my room, Pip! You ruin everything.’

  Soft footsteps on the stairs, my mother racing into the room, drying her hands on her apron, shushing me, even before she’s seen what Pip’s done.

  ‘Look, Mum, he’s ruined my canvas and my paints and spilled my turps on the carpet. The carpet I chose.’

  ‘Shh. You should have locked him out, then, shouldn’t you, Suzanne? That’s why we gave you the key.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have to!’

  ‘Be quiet while I think, Suzanne. Pip, don’t touch anything else.’

  My brother freezes, paint-stained palms in the air.

  ‘It’s ruined,’ I say.

  ‘Suzanne,’ my mother says quietly, ‘I’ll buy you a new canvas and new turpentine.’

  ‘When? It cost all my pocket money and we won’t be going to Bath again for ages and—’

  ‘Shut up, Suzanne! If your dad hears, we’ll all have a miserable day. I’ll find a way to work it out if only you can be quiet for—’

  Downstairs, the back door slams.

  ‘Deborah! What is that rack
et? They can hear you halfway to Bristol.’

  My father thunders up the stairs towards us and I smile at Pip, because I know I’ll get a fresh canvas from my dad straightaway, maybe even two, and if Pip has to stay at home while we go to the cinema, well, it serves him right.

  He needs to learn to leave my things alone.

  *

  A little later, when Dad’s sent him to bed and I’ve set my easel up again, I’m working on the Cornish picture when there’s the gentlest knock on my door.

  ‘Suzie-sue, I’m sorry.’

  It’s Pip.

  I don’t answer. Shall I let him in? He sounds sorry. But I want to get the painting finished. I want it to be right to take to school on Monday.

  ‘Please let me come in. Dad is cross and I know I’ve been naughty, but I’ll pay you back from my pocket money. Just let me come and give you a cuddle.’

  Later, I think.

  I push the door closed, and ignore his pleas, until he stops and I hear the creak on the landing that tells me he’s given up and gone back to his room.

  I had a choice, I could have let him in. Instead, I chose to turn him away.

  74

  I made the wrong choice then.

  And now?

  When I close my eyes, trying to block my fear, it’s not Pip or Mum I see, but Oli and Neena. They pushed past the barriers I put around me. They cared. They still care.

  If I surrender now, they’ll never even know where I died. They’ll replay the last conversations we had, blame themselves. They don’t deserve that.

  I take stock of what I have in my backpack: a handful of old photographs.

  And a kitchen knife.

  My brain is finally up to speed.

  Robert is holding the branch above my head, ready to strike.

  ‘Are you going to do the right thing?’

  Before I can answer, I see the branch coming towards me. I duck, but it catches my left ear.

  The blow makes me cringe like an animal. It’s like fire ripping through my skin.

  I feel blood trickling down my neck.

  The branch is coming towards me again.

  I find my voice.

  ‘They’ll find me,’ I pant. ‘And you.’

  Robert scoffs. ‘You’re bluffing.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  I reach into my bag, pull the knife as close to the opening as possible, but hold up the Copse View photos so he sees those instead. I need him to be down here, with me. Face to face.

  Robert stares at the pictures. He’ll want to get them from me. Then I’ll get my chance.

  But he just laughs. ‘You know, I’d ruled this out for being too . . . gratuitous. But let’s go back to Plan A. The good thing about burning someone alive is it burns paper at the same time.’

  He disappears from view, and returns with a red plastic canister.

  ‘No!’

  He’s opening the top of the petrol can. I can smell the vapour from here.

  ‘The forest is too dry,’ I call out. ‘You’ll end up with half the fire brigade here. If you want these, Robert, you’ll have to come and get them.’

  He drags something across the top of the pit – a rope ladder. Another blow smashes against my forehead, then he begins to climb down.

  There is another smell now. Aftershave. Cloying and spicy, with a hint of clove that makes me think of the dentist.

  As he navigates the rungs, I will him to stumble, fall.

  Even just to look away.

  Now.

  As I thrust my left hand into the backpack next to me, groping for the knife, his fist strikes my chin.

  Something cracks. My jaw. My teeth? Pain follows. Dazzling, light-splintering pain.

  Another punch.

  So shocking I cannot breathe.

  He makes a grab for the photo in my right hand. Claws at my shoulder, wrenching it so hard I scream through bloodied lips, letting the photograph go. Now I begin and end with pain.

  But there is something else, too.

  Rage.

  Rage at what he’s done to all those people.

  I will not be buried with everything I fought so hard to understand.

  As he tips the contents of my bag onto the earth, I fling my body towards the other side of the pit, where he climbed down. My ankle screeches in agony as I drag it behind me.

  ‘Come here, bitch!’

  I grit my teeth. ‘No, you come here.’

  I know what I have to do.

  He launches himself at me. As he does, I raise the knife.

  We tumble back and for a moment, I think he’s somehow avoided the blade; his face, close up, is still blank with fury.

  I’m almost relieved – that I haven’t hurt him, that it’ll soon be over.

  But now his eyes are widening and his lips are parting. As he falls away, the knife pulls out of his chest with a strange slurp. He lands on the dark, wet earth, gasping. And then I see the blood.

  So much blood – a circle blooming on his chest, dripping onto the ground.

  Vermillion. Lamp Black.

  Can I watch someone die?

  Do I have another choice?

  Robert looks outraged. He rasps, ‘You . . .’

  But he’s too breathless to articulate what he’s thinking.

  His T-shirt is soaked now. My own pain comes back and all I can see when I look down is more blood. Blood from my own wounds, covering my skin and clothes. Blood in my mouth, mingling with the taste of aftershave.

  Robert’s movements are slowing now, like a toy whose battery is running down.

  He is dying.

  I scramble towards the ladder and, ignoring the pain, pull myself up to the first rung. My shoulder doesn’t work properly, and my ankle throbs as I drag it behind me, but the fear of looking back – at him, at what I’ve done – keeps me going. There are five rungs to go.

  Time slows. I hear my own laboured breath.

  Am I dying too?

  But now I can just see over the top of the hole, I know I can do it. I reach up and pull myself along the damp earth to where Robert tethered the other end around a tree trunk.

  Out.

  Above me, the leaves rustle, and the white sky is like bleach in my eyes.

  I try to reorientate myself. Through the trees, I glimpse the deserted cafe and playground and, turning my back on it, move a few pain-filled steps at a time, stumbling and leaning against trees. Checking each new section of earth with my foot to ensure it’s not about to give way.

  The world is darkening. Fireworks flash across the sky – my brain shutting down? – and I sense my last strength leaving me.

  But ahead of me, Pip is beckoning, and beyond him the road is visible, though it might as well be miles away because I have no reserves left and I don’t even feel pain anymore as I sink onto the hard, soft, forest floor, the bracken sighing underneath me.

  Rosanna is here, too, somewhere close.

  As I feel insects scuttling around me, I imagine them working their way through layer on layer of vegetation, soil, leaves. One day, millennia ahead, all of this will be compressed and carbonised. We will be forgotten, merely another seam of coal.

  As I let go, it is almost a comfort.

  75

  Cold. So cold.

  Am I dead?

  The pain returns in a hot wave – first ankle, then back, shoulder, head, jaw, everywhere – and that’s how I know I’m not. That, and the figure of Charlie who sits next to me, cross-legged, looking impatient.

  A lorry flashes past along the road ahead – white against green, a thundering sound echoing long after it’s gone. I am so close to the road, but when I try to move, my body doesn’t respond.

  I listen for another car and when I think I hear something, I call out:

  Help me . . .

  But it is no more than a whisper.

  I blink and I am alone again. No Pip, no Pink, no Charlie.

  I listen, because it is all I can do. Then
I realise I am holding something. My phone?

  No. It’s the knife.

  My phone is in the pit. With Robert. What happened – what I did – seems less real than my hallucinations.

  No. I remember his face, his chest, the blood.

  I am a killer.

  I strain to hear more wheels against the road.

  Instead, I hear footsteps, breaking twigs. A man, walking through the forest.

  Robert?

  Fear makes me curl up, like an animal, trying to make myself as small as I can, despite the pain.

  Did I leave a trail of blood?

  I am tired of everything being a fight. I have nothing left.

  Robert is getting nearer, I hear him breathing. I should have stabbed him again. Made sure.

  But alongside the fear: relief. At least I am not a killer. I am not my father.

  Georgia! GEORGIA!

  Not Robert’s voice.

  ‘I’m here.’ My last scrap of energy.

  Try again.

  ‘Here.’

  The man lifts me up. He’s running now. My ankle jolts, burns, jolts, burns. My cries muffled by his chest. The dirty smell of him is familiar.

  Daniel.

  I want to know how and why and when but I can’t form the words. In my head I am thinking don’t slow down but watch out for pits and mines and scowles . . .

  He knows that already because he belongs here.

  ‘He’s dead,’ I whisper.

  But he can’t hear me.

  He holds me tighter. Am I going to live?

  Here comes the dark again, to swallow me up.

  76

  Before I open my eyes, I know where I am from the sharp smell of disinfectant.

  A place of safety.

  But there is no relief, because I know something else too: I am a killer.

  Now other things register: the quicksand feeling of sedation and the numbness in my ankle; the burning around my ear that the drugs don’t seem to be touching.

  I am a killer.

  Someone is in the ward with me. Close. When I open my eyes, the strip light overhead is so aggressively white that I instantly want to close them, but I fight against it, and my visitor comes into half-focus.

  ‘You’re back again,’ Oli whispers.

  He stretches, his arms and legs too long for the hospital chair.