The Unravelling: Children can be very very cruel (A gripping domestic noir thriller)

by Thorne Moore

  Besides, I wouldn’t have recognised her either, if I weren’t on the lookout for glimpses of the girl I’d known. She was solid, this woman. Hefty. Tall and sturdy. She’d been tall at school, but ungainly with it. None of Serena’s grace. The weight of age had added a certain gravitas. Her hair was clipped short in an aggressively neat style, dyed a honey colour. It had been longer, curly and plain brown back then. She’d always looked plain, next to Serena. Now she looked – I think they’d call it handsome. Discreetly but carefully made up. Commanding. All quite different.

  Except the eyes. They were still the same. Hazel, watchful, without warmth. It hadn’t just been me she hadn’t liked. She’d never been very friendly with anyone except Serena.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I croaked. My mouth was dry, sour sawdust soaking up my saliva. ‘I’m sorry to intrude at this time – you’ve had a bereavement, they said. I…’

  ‘Oh. Yes, my mother died.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ If I could just keep apologising, perhaps I’d get a grip.

  ‘It wasn’t a shock. Ninety-three and she’d been ill for several years. Alzheimer’s. Didn’t know who I was, by the end. So, shall we attend to your business, Mrs Garnet?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I swallowed and tried again. ‘I’m not really Mrs Garnet. I’m Karen Rothwell.’

  Her hands were laid flat, eighteen inches apart, on her desk. They didn’t move. Those hazel eyes surveyed me without expression, while my skin crawled.

  Then she sat back and looked up at the ceiling, leaving me to study the stretched skin of her throat, wondering how long she could stay like that.

  At last she tilted forward and folded her arms. ‘Karen Rothwell. Of course. Ruth said you’d surfaced. Warned you might be on the prowl.’

  Warned. Did she need to be warned? I must be a monster.

  ‘Said you were anorexic, too. Yes, I can see that. I should have guessed when you came in. So, you’ve made an appointment. Do you really need legal advice or was that an excuse?’

  ‘An excuse. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me, otherwise.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ She made my suggestion sound utterly absurd – why would she have any problem seeing me? But I could feel the aggressive defiance in her. She was in control, she was trained to deal with things – but that was what she would be doing: dealing with me. ‘You realise you’ll have to pay for the consultation, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ I had a cheque book. Whether it had funds in it to cover the fee was another matter.

  ‘All right.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. I was to have my allotted quota of time. ‘So no legal ramifications still stalking you. But you felt this subterfuge was necessary.’

  ‘I saw Ruth. She didn’t want to see me. She got in a state, so I thought…’

  ‘Oh Ruth.’ A short, scornful laugh. ‘Still finding ruination and despair round every corner. And if you were round the corner, well of course she’d scream blue murder. Everything is a catastrophe to Ruth, an insufferable imposition, not to be borne. As you doubtless observed. This is what happens when you have a dictator ruling your life, telling you what to do and think, and suddenly he’s hanging from a lamp post.’

  ‘Her father? Was he hanged?’ Hanged. The word wound itself round my vocal chords with a shudder of panic.

  ‘What?’ Barbara looked at me as if I were a complete idiot. ‘No, of course not. I meant metaphorically. All that humiliation, with the photographs. Public exposure. Ridicule. It was probably worse than hanging, for him. They had to move, you know. To the other side of town. I’d say that was what sent her over the edge. Good girl Ruthie suddenly became bad girl Ruthie who missed class, smoked behind the bike sheds, tried a bit of petty larceny. And got herself pregnant, of course. Almost a joke, really. You wouldn’t know about that, I suppose. You’d been hustled away from Lyford long before.’

  Pulse racing again. We’d moved, yes. A new factory for my dad to work in, a new place for us to live – a flat in a tower block – new schools for Hilary and me. It must have involved upheaval and disruption, but I had no recollection of it. And why did Ruth have to move too? What was this humiliation over photographs?

  ‘I’m sorry. The truth is, I don’t remember being hustled away. Were there photographs? I don’t remember anything. That’s why I came. I can’t stand it anymore. I need to find out. All I can remember is Serena. Serena and…’ I shut my eyes.

  ‘Yes.’ Quite expressionless, her voice. ‘You would. Everyone would remember Serena.’ Her one special friend. I don’t suppose Barbara Fulbright had ever had another. She wasn’t the sort of woman to have friends. She’d had one, and that one had been murdered. Dear God.

  I opened my eyes, expecting to see her distraught, but her face was as expressionless as her voice. Unmoved, or just frozen.

  She studied me for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘Funny that you can’t remember, because it was all anyone talked about for weeks. The murder and the photographs. They weren’t actually connected, as it turned out. Inadmissible evidence, you might say. Even so, it was all mixed up in one very distasteful mess. I expect Ruth chooses to think of herself as a victim. Never one for taking charge, even of herself. Too accustomed to being quiet and doing what she was told.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘With the photographs? You really don’t remember? After the murder, the police were everywhere, of course, nosing into all our lives. Everyone and anyone connected with the school. They must have had a tip-off. After all, I’m sure someone, somewhere, must have suspected. They searched the Jeffersons’ house and found photographs. Stacks of photographs. All of children.’ She laughed, a short, sharp laugh. ‘Ever go round Ruth’s house? Told to get changed? He probably had a spy hole. I expect we were all in those photos. No idea how extreme or explicit they were. Maybe just lots of little girls stripping down to their knickers. But they were lewd enough for the police.

  ‘God!’ She laughed again. ‘These days, he probably would be strung up on a lamp post. Lynched by an angry mob. We do love our paedophiles. Back then, it just got him labelled a dirty old man, which is all he was, don’t you think? Wouldn’t ever have dared touch any of us up. Too much of an ineffectual coward, under all that bluster. But in the circumstances, with a murder on their hands, the photographs were enough to make him a suspect. There was obviously a sexual motive. I can see that now, although, back then… What were we? Ten? Eleven. We had no idea about these things, did we? Nowadays, I imagine most ten-year-old girls have tried it all and could write a book on it. Not us. The worst we ever imagined was Black Jack Coke stealing our undies.’

  She was still looking at me, waiting for a reaction rather than a response. I didn’t know how to react.

  She shrugged. ‘Well, however innocent we were, adults could imagine a lot more, even back then. A little girl on the estate had been molested and murdered, and here was a dirty old man with stacks of pathetic kiddie porn. He was hauled in for questioning. Flashing lights, handcuffs, full scale arrest to scandalise the neighbours, oh the dishonour. But then it turned out he had a watertight alibi, a governors’ meeting or something, that put him out of the running, so they let him go. Besides, he couldn’t drive, and they’d identified the car by then and thought they had the real culprit, so Jefferson walked.

  ‘Never got his reputation back, though. Very wise of him to move. Unfortunately, Ruth had to move with him, which is when she started to go off the rails. She just wasn’t very good at it. Could have gone the whole hog and joined some revolutionary terrorist gang, but no, she just gets pregnant and finishes up as a housewife, complaining about the ironing.’

  I don’t think Barbara took her eyes off me once, while she was speaking. She spoke not so much to communicate as to pin me in place while she examined me. Judging how much of an irredeemable wreck I was.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I repeated. ‘Any of it. Photographs, murder, any of it.’

  ‘Not even her getting into the car? No?
Well, that’s very odd. You wouldn’t talk then, and now, I suppose, you can’t talk. And yet you were the one who saw it.’

  I was shaking inside, and the trembling was beginning to work its way to the surface. Car. There was an image, almost. But not quite. A car, Serena getting in… but it wasn’t real. It was an image I was constructing. I couldn’t… It wouldn’t…

  ‘So it looks as if we’ll never know the truth. I suppose it’s hardly surprising that you blocked it out. Only way to get on with your life. Did you? Get on with it, I mean?’ Her gaze flitted forensically over me. I didn’t look like a woman who’d got on with her life. At least I could explain that away.

  ‘I had an accident, after we left Lyford. I fell from a window. I spent forever in hospital. I think that became such an all-consuming part of my life that I never really thought about what had gone before.’

  ‘Mm-hmmm.’ She took the explanation, without apparent doubt or sympathy. ‘Career? Family?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Not married to a Mr Garnet then?’

  ‘Oh, no! No, he’s my boss. I just wanted to use another name.’ A long pause. ‘You not married then?’

  ‘Was. Divorced. Went back to my maiden name. Just the once was enough for me. Not like Angie. She never seems to learn. Three divorces, I think? Don’t suppose there’ll be another. Too drunk to stagger down the aisle or up the register office steps these days. Hasn’t had an exhibition in years, though she keeps talking about it. Probably can’t hold the camera steady any more. And Serena, - not divorced, of course, but still got through two husbands. Hers just died. Funny, when you think about it, that Ruthie, who complains non-stop about what a shit it is, trapped into marriage and babies when she was just a kid, is the one who’s made a long-term success of it. Unless you count Denise, who’s married to Christ, and He’ll be on His knees and begging for a divorce before she releases her talons.’

  She was talking, but I couldn’t really hear, because my head was buzzing, aching, trying to understand. Serena was widowed? Twice?

  So she couldn’t have been murdered in 1966.

  Serena turned and smiled at me, tears in her big brown eyes. Tears of sympathy and disappointment, because I—

  I couldn’t breathe. ‘Who?’ I gripped the desk, trying to get control. Fighting to speak. Barbara sat there, watching me, emotionless. ‘Who died?’ I managed at last, bile rising with the words. ‘Who was murdered?’

  Those hazel eyes widened. The glossed lips pursed. ‘You are honestly telling me you don’t remember?’

  ‘No!’ I bit my fist.

  ‘You seriously don’t remember them finding Janice Dexter?’

  The name was carried away on the roaring of my blood. My brain wouldn’t hear it.

  ‘Janice Dexter,’ repeated Barbara, coldly. ‘And you were her best friend.’

  I threw up, staggering to my feet. Somewhere, in the raging storm of my brain, I could hear Barbara sigh and press an intercom. ‘Julie, could you send Mr Cox in here, to clean up a mess.’

  And then I was outside, walking, like a drunk, people swerving to avoid me. Somehow I must have found my way back to the station, because I was on a train, getting away. Away. Away.

  Except that I couldn’t get away. The images came with me.

  — 10 —

  Barbara Fulbright stared out of her office window. The room stank of disinfectant, now the janitor had done his work. Better to open the window, clear the air.

  She forced her fingers to move. Cold air swept in. She turned back to her desk, seeing and not seeing the neat papers, the files, the pens arranged in regimented order. The calendar. Ridiculous cute touch in an office so dedicated to hard-nosed legal efficiency. A calendar of cats. Today’s cat stared at her in unblinking accusation.

  Abruptly, she turned the calendar around, sat down and picked up a pen. Work to do.

  She sat staring at a blank sheet. Work to do.

  She picked up the phone and consulted her address book, rearranging her pens as it rang and rang. And rang.

  At last it stopped ringing. ‘Yeah? What?’

  ‘Angela, is that you?’

  ‘Well, I’m never too sure about that. Looking around, can’t see her anywhere else.’

  ‘You’re drunk again.’

  ‘S’right! I am drunk again.’ The voice faded as if the speaker had forgotten the need to speak into the phone.

  ‘Is Denise there? I thought she’d taken you on as her mission, now the convent’s sent her packing.’

  ‘Oh yes, a mission. That’s what I am. And she’s out shopping for healthy goodness.’ A pause. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, hello, Angela. Concentrate. It’s me. Barbara Fulbright.’

  ‘Yes, yes. That’s right. Barbara full of brightness. How’s your mother?’

  ‘Dead. I’ve just had a visit from Karen Rothwell.’

  ‘Ah! Ah. She’s a ghost, is she?’

  ‘No, she’s not. Just a basket case. She’s seen Ruth and she’s seen me. I’m just warning you, she’ll probably come looking for you and Denise.’

  ‘Oh. Well. If she finds me, perhaps she can tell me where I am.’

  ‘Somewhere at the bottom of a bottle of Scotch, by the sounds of it. Anyway, there you are. I’ve warned you.’

  ‘Should be Serena you warn. Spoken to her?’

  ‘What do you think I’m just about to do?’

  ‘Ah well, that’s good. Leave it to Serena. Serena always sorts it out. Everyone and everything. Lovely Serena, Serena my—’

  Barbara put the phone down. Took a breath, took a sip of water. Then she tried a second number.

  — 11 —

  ‘Janice wet her knickers! Janice wet her knickers!’ The boys are chanting, and some of the girls with them.

  Janice is standing in the playground, looking forlorn, waiting for me.

  I come running up and take her hand. ‘Go away!’ I shout.

  ‘Karen Rothwell’s pooped her pants!’

  ‘Have not!’ It makes me angry and my eyes sting, but Janice just squeezes my hand. Children have been shouting and taunting her since we started school and she knows there’s nothing she can do about it. They shout at me because I’m friends with her. Sometimes, I secretly think that if I stopped being friends with her, they’d stop being nasty to me.

  But she is my friend, my very best friend, and now that school’s over for the day, we can get away from them all.

  My mother’s waiting at the school gate. Hilary is already with her, having her mittens pulled on straight. Mummy sees us and looks annoyed. ‘Oh. I suppose you’re going off with that girl.’ She always calls Janice That Girl. ‘Is That Girl staying to tea? I can’t feed the five thousand, you know.’

  Janice doesn’t mind. There’s no point minding.

  ‘Don’t be late for your tea,’ my mother warns, and leads Hilary off.

  Hand in hand, Janice and I start off down Manor Way. We start to run, then stop and just walk, because Mr Jefferson is on the prowl, watching us, and we don’t want him bawling at us again, promising spankings.

  Once we’re out of Manor Way, we can safely run, past the playground and the bus roundabout and the Parade, with the post office and Co-op and butcher’s shop and hairdressers, on round Aspen Drive. It’s downhill in places, not very much, but enough to have us flying, squealing as we go, hair streaming. We can fly!

  In Aspen Drive, I can turn left towards Linden Crescent and Janice can turn right towards Austen Road, but that’s for later. What we’re really running for are the empty prefab plots off Aspen Drive, because that’s where we have our den. One of our dens. The world is full of dens. We have one among the kingcups in the Rough and one on the Allotments, among the raspberries, and we have one on the plot that used to be No. 12 Brontë Road, when the prefabs were still here. There’s a blackcurrant bush that didn’t get squashed by the bulldozer, and a pile of rubble that used to be a coal bunker, but the front bit’s still standing, with a hatch you can pul
l up, and behind it we’ve got a treasure chest that used to be a biscuit tin. It’s for special things.

  Janice needs somewhere to keep things, because her home is so crowded, and the little ones make off with anything she leaves lying around. She hasn’t really got much, except the doll Kenneth got for her. It used to belong to Jacqueline Winstanley, but Kenneth took it. He shouldn’t take things, but I don’t care because Jacqueline was being horrible to Janice and pinching her. I’m scared of Kenneth, even though he never takes things from me because I’m Janice’s friend.

  They are both in my class, Janice and Kenneth, but they’re not twins like Gordon and Guy. It’s because Kenneth was born in September and Janice was born in August, so they’re in the same school year. Janice likes him but I’m glad he never comes to play with us. Too busy fighting other boys.

  ‘Come on!’ Free from adult eyes, we race to our den and lift the coal bunker hatch, and lie down to peer into the cave in the rubble behind.

  ‘Is he here?’ Janice lifts up a mixed-peel carton that’s jammed next to the biscuit tin. It’s waxed paper and printed to look like a little house. It’s empty.

  ‘Oh.’ I’m as disappointed as she is. We’d found a mouse and we wanted him to live in the little house, but he’s gone. It would have been nice to have a pet.

  Crouching down in the concrete corner, out of the wind, the smell is getting a bit pongy.

  ‘Did you really wet your pants?’ I ask.

  ‘A bit,’ Janice admits.

  ‘Oh well.’

  *

  Once more, I was sitting on a train, staring out of the window blankly, seeing nothing. Not hellfires, this time. Not cities, or stations or fields. Just Janice, my very best friend.

  Tears were pouring down my cheeks, my chin, my neck. How could I have done it? How could I have betrayed her by forgetting her?

  Janice Dexter. The saddest girl in the world, it sometimes seemed. You didn’t get to be joyful if you were a Dexter. Everyone called her names, said she smelled, said she had nits. I expect she did. We all did from time to time, queuing up to face the terror of the nit nurse. Janice was as undernourished as all the Dexters – I realise that now, it being an issue I’ve come to know a lot about. Back then I thought she was just small, like a fairy. Or maybe a pixie, because she wasn’t pretty enough to be a fairy. How could she be pretty? Her face was never washed, her hair never combed, her clothes were always grubby and had holes. My mother despaired of our friendship. What she wanted was for me to play with the nice girls, the ones who went to Sunday school, who wore blazers and hairbands and whose mothers walked upright, without falling over. But I wasn’t in with the nice girls, not till that last year. I was with Janice. My friend. My very best friend ever.