by Thorne Moore
‘Yes, but somebody’s finger was doing his work for him.’
She hesitated, then raised her chin and faced me. ‘Truthfully, I don’t know. But I’ve always suspected it was Barbara. It was so horribly bald, wasn’t it? So direct, like Barbara can be. Don’t hate her, Karen! I know, it was a ghastly thing to do, but she couldn’t possibly have predicted the consequences. We were so very young. We couldn’t understand.’
‘What about the cat?’
‘Cat?’ For a second, she was taken aback.
‘The first message was for Barbara and it said C A T and she got really upset. If it was her moving the glass, why would she upset herself?’
‘Heavens,’ said Serena softly, lost in thought. ‘You know, I had completely forgotten that. You’re right. Poor Barbara. She’d found a dead cat in the garden. It had been shot with an airgun or something – you know what boys are like – and she was terribly upset. I’ve never seen her so upset over anything. She adores cats. So… Someone else must have been moving that glass. And all these years I’ve been falsely suspecting my dearest friend. Oh Lord. Now I feel even worse.’
‘Then who was it, if not Barbara?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it really was the Devil. I’d thought… Barbara wasn’t over-fond of Janice, you know. She can be – I hate to say it, but she can be very adamant in her judgement. She just didn’t like Janice. She didn’t like the way the poor girl hung around with you. That’s why I thought the message must be her doing. Trying to break you up in a horribly clumsy way, but then Barbara has never been the most sensitive or tactful of people. If it wasn’t her, I suppose, it had to have been Angela or Denise or Ruth. Unless…’ Her eyes held mine for a moment, the question hanging between us.
Could I have done it? Subconsciously? Because I was torn between my old friendship for Janice and my new friendship with Serena and I wanted to break free? That was a possibility I’d never considered till now. It seemed impossible, when I remembered my own terror at the message. But then, I had learned, in the long painful years that followed, that I could split and shift and do things utterly alien to my sane self. Perhaps I had always been mad and it wasn’t the accident that had triggered it. Perhaps I had been born Dr Jekyll and Miss Hyde.
One will kill the other.
Serena shook her head in sympathy. ‘Whoever, whatever, it was a horrible thing and it taught me never to have anything more to do with that sort of thing.’ She smiled. ‘I won’t even read the horoscopes.’
Nor did I. I had no need of a horoscope to tell me the future. I just needed to know the past, now, quickly, before I split into a thousand pieces again. I snatched my hands from Serena’s embrace and clenched my fists, resisting the urge to beat my head. ‘What did I do to Janice? What did I tell you, Serena? It’s the key, I know, and I can’t find it!’
Gently, she took my hands again, pressing them into my lap. ‘Perhaps, Karen, in a way, it would be better for you if you didn’t remember.’
‘But I can’t go on like this. I have to know, once and for all. Did I tell you I saw Janice get into a car? I try and I try, but I can’t picture it. If I saw it, why wouldn’t I tell the police?’
She took a deep breath, scanning my face intently. ‘All right, Karen. I can see that not knowing is worse for you that the truth could be, however bad. And I bear some of the guilt too. I thought I was helping, but I obviously managed things so badly for all of us, I think I only made things worse. Perhaps it’s as Denise keeps telling us: confession is good for the soul, and we’ll both be cleansed by having it out in the open.’
She bowed her head and pressed her hands together, fingertips to her lips.
All right, children. Hands together and eyes closed.
Thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the food we eat, thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you God for everything. Aaaaamennn.
Grace. Give me some grace, for God’s sake.
‘Yes,’ said Serena, finally. ‘I’ll tell you. You came to me, the day Janice disappeared and you said…’ She took another deep breath, then started again. ‘You told me that you had been walking home together.’
‘Down Aspen Drive.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose you must have done. Because then you’d gone down the lane. You remember? Sawyer’s Lane? It led up to Foxton Road by the woodyard. You often went that way home. It came out quite near your street, didn’t it? And Janice went with you, like she often did. I remember, you used to play in the allotments after school.’
‘Yes. We did.’
‘You told me…’ Serena took my hands again, squeezing them, ‘you told me you and she got into a dreadful argument in the lane. There was a bit of a tussle, I suppose. Children do fight. It doesn’t mean anything, half the time. But maybe it did on this occasion, because you told me she ran off, up past the woodyard, and a car stopped. Janice was upset and crying, and when the car door opened she got in.
‘You really don’t remember?’
‘No!’ I didn’t. But at least I had an explanation, at last, for why I’d blocked it all out. The source of all my guilt. I’d fought with my best friend and I’d scared her so much, she’d fled from me, to her death.
I covered my face with my hands. Serena said nothing, letting me take it in.
I looked up again. ‘Did I say it was Nigel Knight?’
‘Oh, no. No! That was all such a ghastly mistake. I don’t know how it happened. You never mentioned poor Nigel. All you told me was that it was a dark car, on Foxton Road, by the woodyard. That’s what I explained to Denise, but she started adding two and two and finished up making God knows what. She somehow equated a dark car and wood with Mr Knight’s Morris Traveller and then— She was always rather alarmed by poor Nigel, which was sad, because he was a completely harmless soul. But not the norm, I suppose, and that’s enough to frighten some people, isn’t it? And then Denise…’ Serena sighed, clearly chiding herself for uncharitable thoughts. ‘I’m afraid Denise was always rather too enthusiastic for her own good. So keen to be helpful. Especially with adults.’
‘She told tales.’
‘It wasn’t a very attractive trait, was it? But I suppose it spoke to her need for approbation. She needed praise. And that awful year – with poor Janice, when you wouldn’t…’ She pressed my hands together, leaning closer. ‘I do understand, Karen. Whatever had happened, it must have been so traumatising for you. I remember how terribly distressed you were, when you told me about the car, and your quarrel with Janice. You could barely speak, even then. Once you’d got it off your chest, I think you just couldn’t bring yourself to speak of it ever again, even to the police.’
‘Your father.’
‘Poor Daddy was very good with hardened criminals, but he had no idea how to deal with children. He didn’t understand that being angry with you would only deepen your terror and make you shut down still more. These days, I’m sure the police have a better grasp of psychology, but back then, well, we were still in a society built on deference. They assumed that little girls would automatically do as they were told by policemen. They didn’t understand that a child in shock simply couldn’t respond. It must have been horrible for you.’
‘Tell me!’ That look in Mr. Whinn’s eyes. So angry. So appalled… I said nothing, acid burning in my stomach at the memory.
‘I had to tell Daddy about the car, you do understand that?’ It was Serena, begging me for forgiveness.
‘Yes. Of course you did.’
‘I didn’t tell him about your row with Janice. I didn’t want it to look bad for you, you see. So I just told him you’d seen her get into a car. I thought the quarrel didn’t really matter, so it was something they didn’t need to know. I suppose that’s why I didn’t tell the others, either. I knew that Denise would blurt out anything I told her, and embellish it if she could, in order to earn Brownie points. But I never imagined that she’d claim to have seen the car too. Or fix on Nigel Knight so emphatically.
Such a tragedy. All I’d said was that you’d turned off Aspen Drive, down Sawyer’s Lane and a dark car had been hovering by the woodyard. Meaning on Foxton Road, of course. But she mixed it all up. Nigel’s father used to let him take the wheel sometimes, didn’t he, on Aspen Drive? Round and round all those bulldozed side streets. That’s what she must have been thinking of.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘He was a lovely man, Mr Knight, and he adored Nigel. He’d do anything for him. So sad. If only…’ Serena looked down guiltily. ‘I shouldn’t say it, not with Daddy being in charge of the investigation, but if only the police had acted with more tact, if they’d just been gentle, instead of swooping on the Knights’ house with sirens blaring and lights flashing. That must have scared Nigel almost to death. He was such a simple soul. He wouldn’t understand. Of course he ran away to hide.
‘And I should have spoken up and told them Denise had got it all wrong, that it couldn’t have been Nigel, because it must have happened on Foxton Road. But you see how it was. She was my friend.’
‘Of course.’
Serena smiled her gratitude at my understanding. ‘And she wasn’t really a liar, was she? At least, not a malicious fabricator, with evil intent. Just a little girl who was too keen for praise.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I think, maybe, she’d talked herself into believing her own story, I couldn’t come out and call my friend a liar. But it was such misguided loyalty on my part.’
‘You weren’t to blame! None of it was your fault, Serena. Not the message on the Ouija board, not my silence, or Denise’s lie, or Angela guiding the police to Nigel’s shed. Not Janice’s abduction or Nigel’s death. None of it.’
‘Thank you, but a sense of guilt isn’t an easy thing to shrug off, is it? It can be unbearable.’
‘Absolutely.’ How I knew it. How it had twisted my life from that day. ‘I am the one who was really to blame. I was the one who quarrelled with Janice, and made her run. I don’t remember the quarrel, but I do know I was scared. We both were, because of that spirit message. We believed it and suddenly we were terrified of each other.’
Sawyer’s Lane was a gloomy place, overhung with trees. An old farm track that lingered on long after the farm had disappeared under the growing estate. There was a carpet of bluebells under the trees in spring, but at other times of the year, there were just shadows. Still, I often took it as my route home, because the alternative, along Capstone Way, meant passing Tommy Renton’s house, and he delighted at driving his go-kart straight at passing girls.
Janice and I had skipped down Sawyer’s Lane countless times, together and unafraid, on our way to my house or the allotments. But that last January – I don’t imagine there was any skipping. Maybe it had been the sinister gloom of the naked trees that had re-awakened our terrified suspicions, despite our determined promises to trust each other. Somewhere along that lane, it had all come bubbling up to the surface, with such force that Janice had fled.
I could picture her running, down that last kink in the lane that ran beside the high fence of the timber yard, out to the bright light of Foxton Road. The dark nose of a car edging into view, stopping, a sinister shape within leaning across to push the passenger door open. Janice, peering back at me in tearful panic and then scrambling into the car.
The image was vivid. So vivid I could feel my chest rising and falling with a child’s confused emotions. And yet, I couldn’t honestly remember it. There were times, when I was seriously mad, when I couldn’t tell the difference between reality and whatever fantasy I’d conjured up. But I wasn’t seriously mad now. I wasn’t even light-headed with hunger. And I knew the difference.
‘It’s strange that I don’t remember. Still, even now, I can’t really remember the car, any car. All I get are little flashes. Instead of a car, what I actually see…’ I screwed my eyes shut, wishing I couldn’t see it. ‘All I see is Janice, looking up at me. Blood on her face. In dark water. Why? Why do I remember that?’
As I spoke, I could feel Serena’s gentle grip on my hands loosen and pull back. I opened my eyes and saw her face, white with shock. She pushed her chair back, stood up, walked to the window, a hand at her throat.
‘What is it?’
She shook her head, trying to get a grip.
I stood up. ‘Tell me. Please.’
She took three deep breaths, then turned back to me. ‘Karen…’
‘Tell me! There’s something more, isn’t there? Something you haven’t told me. Something worse.’
‘I…’ She bit her lip, then laid her hands on my shoulders, sitting me back down on the sofa, before she resumed her own seat, carefully stroking out the folds in her skirt. ‘I promised I’d tell you all, Karen, so I will. Not what I know – honestly, I don’t know, but I’ve always wondered. I’ve suspected. I’ve feared. That’s all. Please understand, I am not swearing this is the truth, but…
‘When you came to me, that day, after school, after walking home with Janice… You came running to me. You were in a terrible state, sobbing and – and you had blood on you. On your hands. You were gabbling like a mad thing. If you’d come into the house, if my mother had spoken to you… Oh, why didn’t I call her? But you found me in the garden and we sat and talked there, and I thought – oh dear God, I genuinely thought I was protecting you.
‘You told me you and Janice had fought, in Sawyer’s Lane. Really fought. You’d hurt each other. You said she’d hurt you and then you’d badly hurt her. You were scared, acting so strangely. Hyperventilating, I suppose it was. I didn’t understand hysteria. I just knew you were upset. Then, when I asked you what happened next, you told me this story about the car.’
She stared at her hands. ‘I had a suspicion, even then, that you were making it up. It seemed so improbable, didn’t it? A car just happening to stop, at that moment, and on Foxton Road, of all places. It’s such a busy road. Someone would have seen. And it was just after Mr. Cutler had given us that talk, about being wary of strangers and not getting into cars and so on. We’d been talking about it in the playground – about how none of us would ever do it. And then, within hours, there you were, claiming you had seen Janice get into a car…’ She stopped.
‘What?’
‘You told me it was Black Jack Coke in the car.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’d been talking about him. How we would never get into a car because it was bound to be Black Jack, the bogeyman who lived in drains and under bridges and so on. We all knew he was just a fictional monster, so when you said it was him, I thought – well, you can imagine what I thought. I didn’t want to believe it. I told my father about you seeing the car, but I didn’t mention Black Jack. And then, when was it, a few days later? When they found her. It was where they found her, you see, Karen… I understood why you’d mentioned Black Jack. She was in that culvert, you see. The stream that ran through the woods by Sawyer’s Lane – it disappeared into a culvert under Foxton Road and the railway, do you remember? And that’s where they found her, just inside.’
It was as if an army of panicking soldiers in my head, who had been careering around in screaming chaos, not knowing which enemy to attack, had suddenly started to align themselves into order, and were marching, inexorably, towards a black chasm. I couldn’t move. I had never been able to remember the alleged car, because it had all been a lie, but I could remember that culvert. I could see it, opening up to swallow me. I could feel water flowing round my feet. I could see blood in that water.
‘It was so close, you see, to where you admitted you’d fought with her. I thought – I really didn’t want it to be true, but I thought – think – you must have killed her, Karen. I’m sure it was an accident. You fought, just as you said, and somehow, in the struggle, she died, and you were terrified, so you hid her body.’
‘I don’t know. I think – I think I must have done. But…’ I was biting my fingers again. ‘She was raped. Wasn’t that what they said? Why would they
say that, if I killed her?’
Serena sighed. ‘I don’t think she was raped, dear. I think it was just an assumption that she’d been sexually molested. You see, when she was found, her panties were missing. And that was part of the Black Jack myth, wasn’t it? When we’d talked about him, we’d concluded that the terrible thing he did was steal people’s panties. I suppose you must have been trying to make people think it was Black Jack.’
‘Oh God. Oh my God.’
‘Karen, honestly, all this is just supposition – based on half-forgotten stories and bad dreams. I don’t know what really happened. I have never mentioned those suspicions to anyone, I promise you. I couldn’t do that to you. I’d never have mentioned them now, if you hadn’t remembered seeing blood on Janice’s face and water. I can see how much it’s torturing you. Perhaps it’s time for the truth to come out. Was I right to tell you? I think maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. You’ve been ill, and you were always so sensitive, weren’t you, Karen? I should have kept quiet.’
‘No. I have to know.’
‘I have another confession.’ She looked up at the ceiling this time. ‘When you moved away, and we never heard from you, I thought… I was the one who said you were dead. Because I thought you must be. You see, I was nursing this terrible secret, imagining what you were going through. I knew how guilty you must be feeling. You’d killed your best friend. It must have been too awful to bear, so I thought you must have killed yourself. It’s what I’d have done, what I would do, I think, if I’d killed my best friend.
‘I know what suicidal impulses are like. When Tony died, I blamed myself so much for letting him fly when we knew a storm was brewing. He was such a daredevil, but still I should have tried harder. When they told me he’d crashed, I nearly – well… It’s just that I understand the impulse to do away with yourself. I thought you’d have done it. You were so hurt, so broken up. But you were stronger than that. You dealt with it in other ways. You got over it. And now I’ve opened it all up again. Can you forgive me?’