by Thorne Moore
So I take one of Janice’s feet, the one that has no shoe, and I help Serena turn the body and drag it down the stream. I look at the big hole in Janice’s dirty sock and I cry for my friend, but there’s nothing I can do.
The mouth of the tunnel is half clogged with slimy debris.
‘Push it out of the way,’ orders Serena.
I obey like a whipped slave. I open a way into the black mouth. Somewhere deep inside, something scurries. That’s it. I can’t do any more. I can’t look. I sit down, in the water and bury my head in my arms with a sob.
‘You’re not very helpful,’ says Serena, sadly, but I don’t care.
When I raise my head at last, she’s managed to drag Janice inside the tunnel and she’s pushing a foot in, out of sight. She pauses, looking down at her handiwork.
‘I think they will find her, though. They’ll probably come looking for her— I know!’ Her eyes brighten. ‘You can tell them she’s left home, run away. Daddy says children from families like that are always running away and it’s good riddance and a waste of time and money looking for them. If you tell them she’s run away, maybe they won’t—’ She stops, thinking, and she laughs with excitement. ‘Oh, I know! I know! Tell them you saw her get into a car with a stranger.’
I gape at her. Mr Cutler, that morning, in assembly, had gone on and on about not getting into cars with strangers, and Angela was whispering, ‘Black Jack Coke will get you!’ until Miss Protheroe reached along and slapped her hand. I don’t understand. What have cars and strangers got to do with me killing Janice?
‘Then if they find her, they’ll think the stranger killed her. That’s what they do, Daddy says. They mess with little girls and kill them. That’s what he’s done.’
‘Black Jack Coke,’ I whisper, staring into the tunnel. This culvert, if anywhere, is where Black Jack would live. He could be in there now. Maybe he’s just out of sight, looking at Janice, rubbing his hands. Perhaps he’ll mess with her. What does messing with her mean? Perhaps he’ll eat her. Perhaps he’s about to spring out and eat us too.
I wish he would. I wish something would eat me, so I don’t have to be here any more.
‘Yes, like Black Jack.’ Serena is considering. ‘We should make it look as if he’s messed with her.’
I can’t take this. Not anymore. Make it go away, please. I bury my face again, and when I look up, Serena is struggling back out of the tunnel, holding Janice’s knickers. They’re sodden, dirty, stinking.
‘Poo!’ Serena’s holding them with her fingertips, her nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘Horrible. Yuk!’ She throws them and they catch on a bramble behind a hawthorn bush. A little white ghost in the gloom, because it’s really dark now. The snow’s stopped and everything’s just black, except for the dangling knickers.
‘Come on.’ Serena takes my hand, hauling me to my feet and dragging me up the bank. ‘Now you have to get dry.’ Like a mother cat and I’m a kitten, she fusses over me, wringing out my wet skirt. She has a handkerchief and rubs my legs dry. She’s washed herself clean and now she wipes the blood off my hands, and the tears off my face and she smooths down my hair. Only my shoes and socks are still sodden, ice cold. I can’t feel my feet any more. Finally, she turns to see to her own clothes, which are not nearly as wet as mine, although she did most of the work.
For me, she said. She did everything for me.
‘Now.’ She’s very calm, very matter of fact, taking my arm as we walk on down Sawyer’s Lane, out of the woods, past the high fence of the timber yard, towards Foxton Road. ‘Remember what you have to say. Tell everyone you saw Janice get into a car with a stranger. Um. I think it was a dark car. And the driver was black. Like Black Jack Coke. No, don’t say that. They’ll think you’re making that up. Say you couldn’t see the driver. I know, say you shouted to her not to, because you knew we’re not supposed to get into cars, but she wouldn’t listen. And then the car drove off with her, and you haven’t seen her since.’
She’s squeezing my arm as we walk, hugging me, pinching me. ‘Are you listening to me? Do you know what you have to say?’
I nod.
‘Because if you don’t, they’ll hang you for murder and I won’t be able to help you any more. They’ll hang you till you’re dead.’
We walk along Foxton Road to the turning into Linden Crescent and she stops to face me once more. ‘You will do it, won’t you, Karen? You will tell them? Promise me.’
I promise.
‘All right. Bye!’ And she’s on her way, skipping up Foxton Road as if nothing had happened.
If I squeeze my eyes shut very hard, perhaps nothing will have happened. But when I shut my eyes, all I can see is Janice looking up at me and then—
A lump of sharp concrete, in the water, with blood and hair and stuff streaming from it.
A hole in a sock.
A black tunnel.
I want to be in that tunnel. I want to disappear into it and never come out.
I run, down Linden Crescent, to my house. I run round and in through the back door. Mummy is in the sitting room, talking to Hilary. I can hear Children’s Hour on the television. Vision On.
I want vision off. And hearing, and touch and consciousness.
I run upstairs and into my bedroom. I pull off all my clothes and scrumple them into a ball and push them under my bed, right to the back, behind the bag of toys and the box of books. I climb into bed and I pull the bedcovers over my head and I curl up as small as I can be. If I can just shut it out, it will all go away.
It’s dark, under the covers. Dark as the tunnel where Janice is lying.
Are there rats in that tunnel? Or Black Jack? She’ll be lonely and cold and afraid. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t…
‘Karen, is that you?’ My mother is coming up the stairs. I squeeze myself even smaller, gripping the blankets tighter.
She’s tugging them back. ‘Karen? What’s the matter? Are you feeling ill? Tell me what it is.’
But I don’t tell her. I can’t tell. The words are there, shouting at me in Serena’s voice, telling me what to say, but I can’t do it. I shan’t ever speak again.
— 21 —
Something moved overhead. Flick of a fluffy grey tail. A squirrel.
I was standing by a horse chestnut tree, looking down at the culvert that carried the brook under Foxton Road and the railway embankment. The banks were smooth and green, and the water ran clear, a solitary cigarette packet the only debris catching on the concrete lip of the low tunnel, but even now it was sinister, that black mouth leading into nothingness.
On a dark, cold, January evening, that tunnel had eaten my soul.
My feet were wet. Had I been in the brook? Had I stood staring into the culvert as the memories had come flooding out of me? I looked back at the bridge, and the iron pipe. I must have been doing enough re-enacting to cause alarm. The old man who’d been reading his newspaper was standing on the bridge, looking at me. I looked at my hands. Had I been heaving concrete? They were wet but not bloody. Long-bitten, but not scratched.
And no blocks of concrete around. No jagged lumps embedded with blood and hair and brain.
I raised a hand to shield my eyes as I looked back at the bridge, and the old man took it for a wave and hurried off, newspaper under his arm. Best not to have anything to do with mad women, he’d be saying to himself. That’s what they always say. I’ve had people hurrying away from me, in anxious embarrassment, for thirty-five years.
But just for once, without medication or therapy, I was not feeling mad. I was feeling purged. Thirty-five years of confusion, denial and screaming dread drained out, leaving a vacuum that gave me a moment of perfect sanity. A brief moment. Already, the vacuum was beginning to fill with blubbering grief.
And cold, hard anger.
I walked back to the bench where I’d sat.
This bench, donated by Cpl Kenneth Dexter, is dedicated to the memory of his beloved sister Janice, 1955 – 1966.
&nbs
p; In my bag was a nail file. Unused until now. It was a well-meaning gift from Charlie, who despaired of my nails. With good reason. They were always so bitten, the file was useless. But I had a use for it now.
The grey, weathered wood of the bench was soft enough for the file to bite in easily enough as I carved.
S O R R Y.
Vandalism. Defacement of council property. Okay, so arrest me.
The lawn around me had been mown, but not so recently that daisies hadn’t sprung up again, spangling the green. Nothing keeps a daisy down. The petrol mowers and rollers used by the silent groundsman at Marsh Green school never kept the daisies down on the playing fields, where we were allowed to play on hot summer lunch breaks. Janice and I were experts on daisies.
I gathered them now, more and more into my cupped hands, then I sat on Janice’s bench and made a daisy chain. Solemnly, carefully splitting the stems and threading them through. The stems were too short and my nails were too savaged to use half of them, but I managed to finish up with a small ringlet. I carried it onto the bridge and dropped it in the brook, watching the water dance it away, down towards the culvert.
I was crying. Wouldn’t anyone?
I’d cried when Janice died. I’d cried and cried, as much for me as for her. It was all I could do – cry. I couldn’t speak. That was what Inspector Whinn didn’t understand, when he questioned me. And questioned me and questioned me. He had to, I suppose, because I was a vital witness. The only witness.
*
‘Now, young lady, let’s have no more of this snivelling. A girl is missing. Janice Dexter, and I understand you know her. You claim to be her friend. Isn’t that so?’
‘They’re not really close friends,’ says my mother, but her voice is small, as if she realises, even as she speaks, how silly it is to pretend to have nothing to do with the Dexters when something this serious has happened.
Inspector Whinn raises a hand to silence her, his eyes very stern on me, as I crouch in my chair. I don’t want to be in the chair. I want to be under it. I want everything to go away.
‘Come along now. You’re not a very good friend, are you, if you won’t tell me what happened to Janice. She’s missing and we believe you saw something. Is that right? Karen, look at me. Is that right? What did you see?’
He’s a heavy man. He has Serena’s dark hair and her dark eyes, but he’s not gentle and beautiful like her. He smokes, and his face goes dark red when he’s annoyed, and there’s a little tick in his cheek. I know Serena’s mother, who is very elegant and wears earrings even in the house, but I’ve only seen Serena’s father once before. He’s always at work, because he’s very important. He’s angry, which would be scary, but I’m already so scared it can’t get any worse.
‘My daughter tells me you saw something. Is that right, Karen? Stop pretending the cat’s got your tongue. I want you to tell me in your own words. Did you see Janice Dexter get into a car?’
I know what I’m supposed to say. I can hear Serena reciting the story that I’m to tell, and my chest is bursting with a longing to say it, to do as she has commanded. But I can’t. It won’t come out, because it’s not true. It’s splitting my head in two and the words are like dust in my throat. I can’t say anything. I just rock, the tears rolling down.
Inspector Whinn pushes his chair back violently, and goes to the door. He’s speaking to someone. Then he comes back and stands over me, like a bear, smoking, watching me with disappointment, like Serena looked at me. I let her down.
The door opens and a policewoman comes in with Serena, holding her hand.
‘Let’s try again,’ says Inspector Whinn, crumpling up a piece of paper. ‘Karen Rothwell, tell me what you told my daughter. Did you see Janice Dexter get into a car?’
Still I can only sob.
Serena kneels beside me and takes my hand. ‘Tell them, Karen. Tell them what you told me. About Janice. She got into a car, didn’t she? Wasn’t that what you said? Tell them, please?’ She’s smiling encouragement.
Her nails are biting into my hand.
I say nothing. A lump of bloody concrete is stuck in my throat.
*
That must have been when Janice was merely missing. How long did it take before her body was discovered? Days, I think. Time enough for sleet and rain and rising waters to wash away all outward sign of what had happened by the bridge. I don’t know how she came to be found, but I have a feeling, a dim memory of something my parents said, that it was some man, walking his dog, who discovered her. Maybe, until then, the police weren’t really looking. They had to go through the motions, of course, but Dexter children weren’t high on their priorities. An inspector would never have been involved, if his daughter hadn’t told him that I had told her about the car.
It was all down to her being the daughter of a policeman. If she hadn’t been ‒ if I’d been the one to tell the police, as she had commanded, would anything have been done, I wonder? Would the mysterious disappearance of a grubby and unwanted Dexter brat have aroused any more interest than a straying dog? Going off with strangers, just like her mother, probably did it all the time. What would you expect from the Dexters? Wasn’t that how Mrs Dexter earned her living, off with strangers in cars? If there’s one less of them in our neighbourhood, so much the better.
But Serena was the daughter of an inspector, and she’d come to him with a story of possible abduction, so of course they took it seriously and questioned me. Janice might not count, but Serena did.
Then the body was found. It didn’t matter quite so much that it was a Dexter after that, because it was a murder, too serious to shrug off, and the police had to come out in force. And though I still wouldn’t talk, Denise did, always so helpful, always so eager to carry tales, pointing the finger at Nigel Knight. Then, Angela, always ready for a jolly game, such as Hunt the Nigel.
Then they came back to me.
*
‘Now listen, Karen Rothwell! You hear me? I’m not putting up with any more of this snivelling and dumb silence. Tell me! Spit it out and stop pretending you’re a baby! What did you see?’
Inspector Whinn’s face is really dark now, the tick in his cheek much worse. I can feel his spittle on my cheek, he’s so close.
‘She hasn’t been well,’ pleads my mother. ‘I don’t know what it is. A terrible cold. She’s not right. Pneumonia, I wouldn’t be surprised. You can’t just keep shouting at her like this. She’s not well.’
She’s defending me, but only half-heartedly. At home, she’s been doing the shouting, shaking me, telling me they can take me away and good riddance if I’m going to be like this. But I don’t speak. I can’t.
I will not say the lie.
Inspector Whinn is breathing heavily, trying to get control. He must realise that shouting at me isn’t going to work. He pulls up a chair and sits down beside me, folding his fingers together, then unfolding them, then folding them again. He’s trying to speak calmly. ‘You spoke to my daughter, didn’t you? Yes? You told Serena that you saw Janice Dexter get into a car. Is that right, Karen?’ He draws a very noisy breath. ‘It was a dark car, that’s what you said. Was it a dark car? Karen, look at me.’
He taps me on the cheek, to make me turn. It’s more than a tap. It’s almost a slap, but I don’t care. I won’t raise my eyes. I bite my thumb, really hard, so it hurts, but it won’t block out the other pain.
‘Was it a maroon Morris Traveller? You know what that is?’ Inspector Whinn snorts, starts again. ‘Was it a car with wooden strips? Is that what you saw? Your friend, Denise Griggs, says it was. My daughter says Denise sometimes makes things up, so I have to check. What really happened, Karen? Tell me. Shall I fetch my daughter again? Would you like Serena to help you?’
My head jerks up. I can’t help it. My eyes meet his.
I don’t know what he sees in my eyes, but I know what I see in his. Shock. I am ten but I recognise shock. It fills me up to the brim, so I know when I see it in someone else’s eyes. I s
ee the blood drain from his face. One minute he’s dark red and the next he’s a sort of grey and his face looks like it’s melting.
He sits back. I can see his hands on his knees, clenching into really tight fists. White knuckles. I remember Serena’s white knuckles on the rail of the bridge, and I begin to shake. His fists go all hazy.
Inspector Whinn coughs. I see the lump in his throat go up and down as he swallows. ‘Very well, it’s obvious we’ll get nothing useful from this child. Take her home, Mrs Rothwell. We’ll just have to manage without her evidence.’
*
What was the truth he saw in my eyes? He couldn’t have guessed the whole truth, in every sickening detail, but he must have seen enough to suspect that he wouldn’t want to know more. He was an intelligent man. A busy man, though. Fathers were busy in those days. Sometimes their children only got to see them when fathers sank down in front of the TV after work and told them to keep the noise down. Fathers didn’t take their children to the dentist, or go to parents’ evening. That was the mother’s role. Maybe, as a police inspector, working whatever strange hours the criminal world set, Inspector Whinn saw even less of his child than most. Such a man might well not know his daughter at all – but I think I must have understood, in that instant when I looked into his eyes, that he did know her. He knew more than he wanted to know. I was a child who couldn’t cope with the impossibility of Serena’s contradictions, her outward angel and inner devil, but he might be a man who lived with the secret knowledge of exactly what his daughter was.
Thirty-five years ago, my child’s brain had simply not been able to compute. But I had computed it now.
I left the pretty little stretch of brook, in the pretty, manicured wedge of urban woodland. I walked back down the pretty lane to Foxton Road, and crossed it to the ranks of new housing and small closes that clustered between it and the railway. A gate marked a passage between two houses. It was a metal-framed gate now, instead of the wooden one I remembered, and it swung easily on its hinges, instead of dragging across the grass track that led me through to all that was left of the allotments. A couple of dozen strips, mostly under glass and plastic. The rest, including the old weedy strips at the far end, probably abandoned to nature once the urgency of wartime food production had faded, had disappeared under a new, cramped rabbit-hutch estate. Long gone were the mossy, unpruned fruit trees concealing Nigel Knight’s secret hideaway. Gone were the corrugated sheds of the pig farm that had blocked his escape when the police and their dogs came to hound him out. Nothing left of the story but the railway line where his terror had taken him.