Cross Her Heart: A Novel

by Sarah Pinborough

  The old Charlotte—my Charlotte—I’d have had no doubts about her. She’d have sensed what was coming and fled. She may not have been so smart but she was feral. This thing she’s become, this ordinary middle-aged mother of yours, I thought she’d still be sitting there like a pathetic damp dishrag until they carted her off for Jon’s murder and then she’d spend the rest of her miserable life locked up and wondering what happened to you while the world screamed at her to tell them where she’d left your body.

  As a backup plan, I could have coped with that but it would have been such a disappointment. After all this time hiding and waiting to resurface. After all my preparations. No, it would not have been a fully satisfying conclusion to our friendship. Certainly not quite the same as a proper reunion. She’d have been cheating herself too. She wants to see me. Of course she does. The question is, is there enough of the old Charlotte left to find me? To find us?

  I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Anyway, Ava, time for your medicine. You need to go bye-byes. I’ve got things to do.

  48

  1989

  Before

  Everything has to come out somehow.

  That’s what Tony’s sister, Jean, said two years back when Charlotte had been puking with the measles. It all has to come out somehow. Don’t fight it. It’ll make you better. Maybe it does. Maybe that’s why she shoved dog shit through old Mr. Perry’s letter box and laughed at him, even though he’d never done anything to her. Maybe that’s why she sprayed her name big over the school wall with the can she found in the alley where the boys shoot up. Maybe that’s how it’s all coming out, all the rage that’s wrapped around a bubble of something else, something deep inside she couldn’t explain if she tried, something horrible and desperate.

  They haven’t made anything better though, these things she’s done. They’ve just brought the police and the social services and more warnings, and her ma screaming at her and Tony and the belt and always, always, through the jumble of her thoughts, is the tight tear in her stomach since the chippy. It didn’t turn out to be a one-off. It wasn’t ever going to be. She should have known. More special friends and always a fish supper she feels sick eating after as if that makes it all normal. As if that makes it a treat. More pills, more often. Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t know what’s real or not anymore. Surreal maybe. Surreal. A new Katie word she didn’t understand and still doesn’t, even though Katie’s tried to explain it. But she likes the sound of it anyway. Surreal makes everything sound cleaner. Safer.

  Nothing is safe though. She’s still sore from Tony’s beating after the woman from social services left last Tuesday. The belt has left welts across the back of her thighs, and there was something different about it this time. Something animal in his face. It made her think of the chippy and she didn’t like it at all. His face, the sound of Daniel crying and Ma soothing him. Her own shrieks and shouts as the belt came down, hating herself for making a sound. She didn’t cry. Not even after, when she was alone. Instead she lost herself in their song, hers and Katie’s. Playing it over and over, loud in the headphones.

  She’s out of the house as much as she can be despite what the police and the social worker say about school and happy families. Ma and Tony sleep late and she’s gone by the time they wake. She shoves some milk or juice and bread at Daniel over the side of his cot and gets out. They can play their happy families, the three of them. That’s what they want anyway.

  Causing havoc or seeing Katie is how she spends her days. Katie. Oh, she lives for Katie. They have their den now, here in Coombs Street. There’s blankets on the ground that Katie snuck out from home, some candles Charlotte nicked from the big shop in town, a couple of old cushions from the youth center over on Marley Street. It’s here she feels safest. She lights another cigarette as Katie speaks. Ma trouble, that’s what Katie’s got. The opposite of Charlotte. Too much love, that’s Katie’s problem. Everybody loves her.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t smoke this around you,” Charlotte says, and laughs. Katie does too as she shakes the blue inhaler and squirts it into the air.

  “I don’t have asthma. Even the doctor knows that. I don’t think he’s put anything in this thing. He’s probably given me an empty one to stop her going on and on at him. He said my lungs were fine. But did she listen? Of course not. It’s her who stops me breathing. She’s going to suffocate me soon. Wrap me up so tightly she’ll never let me go.”

  “How come you’re not at school?” Charlotte’s lungs are tight with smoke. She’s smoking more. She wishes she had some booze but Tony had only two cans left in the fridge and she chickened out of taking one. She’d rob something later. From the shop. Or somewhere. Or maybe one of her ma’s pills. She’s getting itches for them a bit like the fags.

  “Forged a letter. Family problems. It’s easy. Summer hols start soon anyway. It’s only sports days and activities left, and my mother won’t let me take part in those if she can help it.”

  It’s easy for Katie. Katie’s a good girl. If Katie had to go to the chippy and then told about it, people would believe her. They’d help her. No one would believe Charlotte. Or they’d say she brought it on herself. Maybe she did. Maybe she is a little bitch like her ma says when she’s angry.

  “Come on,” Katie says. “Let’s go for a wander.”

  They clamber out the window, keeping an eye out that they haven’t been seen and their secret den is safe. Charlotte holds the cigarette out for Katie, who takes it and puffs once before giving it back. She doesn’t inhale. Charlotte would rip the shit out of anyone else for that, but she knows Katie only smokes for her. Because Charlotte does it. Not in a trying-to-impress way, but in a being-as-close-as-they-can-be way. Best friends. No, something more. There are no words for what this is between them. Charlotte doesn’t want words for it. Words might break it.

  They throw rocks at the wrecked houses just because they can, and for a little while they pretend they’re the last two people left on earth in the wasteland after a nuclear bomb like in that program on the telly a few years back that her ma still talks about sometimes because it scared her so much. Eventually, survival stories exhausted, they head toward the Rec and the crappy playground there.

  They’re inside the gates when Charlotte freezes.

  “What?” Katie almost whispers it, so attuned are they to each other’s feelings that she stills too. Charlotte feels Katie’s hand slide into hers. She grips it. Her rock. Her strength.

  “My ma,” she says. “And Daniel.”

  Katie gasps a little, and her eyes widen. Their real lives have always been other, Katie’s in her big house and posh school, and Charlotte’s in her scummy estate. But now, here, a door has been opened.

  “Come on,” Charlotte grunts, tugging Katie backward.

  “But I want to see.” Katie pulls the other way, nodding Charlotte to the overgrown bushes on the other side of the railings. Charlotte glares at her. “They won’t spot us.” Katie leans in and kisses Charlotte’s nose. “Don’t be a wuss.”

  The word makes Charlotte grin almost as much as the kiss does, even though she doesn’t want Katie to see, she doesn’t want her shite life to be real to Katie. Wuss. No one around here ever says that. They have to move though, otherwise Ma will spot them soon enough. The Rec’s not busy because the weather is crap and the bins haven’t been emptied for ages, so all the good mums take their bairns up to the big park where it’s clean and sometimes there’s an ice cream van parked, but Ma would never do that. Not without it being a special day and even then it would depend on her, or Tony’s, mood.

  They wriggle through the bushes, quietly giggling as the leaves and hard thin branches jab into them and snare their clothes, until they’re both camouflaged behind the railings. Two pairs of eyes peering through shrubbery. Katie is alive with excitement, and Charlotte wonders how her family must seem to her. Ma, scrawny and in a cheap old anorak, her hair lank and pulled back into a ponytail. She probably hasn’t had a wash. She
looks like she got dressed fast to get out of Tony’s way. A good job she hadn’t nicked one of his cans, Charlotte decides, if Tony’s in one of his moods. Daniel has Peter Rabbit tucked under his arm as Ma lifts him carefully into one of those swings with the safety rail, one leg on either side. She handles him so gently it hurts Charlotte’s heart.

  Once he’s settled, he gives her a smile and chews on Peter Rabbit’s ear as she pushes him, not too hard, just enough for him to enjoy. Tony used to push Charlotte on the swings, but he’d push her so high she’d be crying out in terror for him to stop. He found it funny. She’s never seen him do that with Daniel.

  They can’t hear what she’s saying but Ma’s laughter carries on the breeze. It’s sweet and soft and whatever she’s saying to Daniel is full of care. Charlotte bites hard on the inside of her cheek, her mouth metallic as she breaks the skin. It all has to come out somehow.

  She glances over at Katie. “Can we go now?”

  “She was never like this with you, was she?” It’s a question but it isn’t. Katie knows the answer. “She really loves him.” Her voice is soft, talking to herself rather than her friend, but the words are like knives in Charlotte. She holds on to the imaginary steel slicing her. She’ll make it part of her.

  “Yeah, I wish he’d disappear,” Charlotte says, bitter, watching her ma lift him gently out and onto the ground, face full of concern.

  “Imagine if he did,” Katie says, a half smile on her face, lost to the fantasy already. “Or if he died. Imagine how she’d feel. Maybe then she’d realize how much she loved you.”

  It’s a sweet thought, but Charlotte knows nothing can make Ma love her. Ma looks at her like she’s bad and dirty and she is, but she only used to be bad. Ma can’t look at her straight because of what she and Tony make her do.

  “I’d run away,” she says. “Leave them alone. With each other.”

  “No.” Katie’s voice is hard and she crouches, pulling Charlotte down too, so their knees are under their chins and it makes the welts on the backs of Charlotte’s thighs burn fresh. “No.” She shakes her head. “We’d run away. Together. We will.” She pulls the shell she brought back from Skegness from her jacket pocket and holds it up against Charlotte’s ear. It’s not the first time Katie’s done this but it still seems like magic to Charlotte, the sound of the sea coming from it.

  “We’re going to make them pay,” she says. She leans in and presses her lips against Charlotte’s. “Your family and mine.”

  Charlotte nods, Ma and Daniel behind her dissolving into nothing. “We’ll make them pay,” she agrees.

  It all has to come out somehow.

  49

  Marilyn

  Now

  I didn’t sleep more than perhaps an hour’s fitful dozing and by the time I get to work my head is thumping, my mouth is dry, and my heart is beating too fast in that way that comes with insomnia. I spent all night thinking about Lisa and everything she’s supposed to have done. She has a split personality, she must. Maybe I should suggest it to the police—I’m fuck all use to them for anything else. I can’t even think of any dates from the past year that may matter. All my days run into a blur of work and home.

  Lisa killed Jon. She sent Ava those messages. I remember how quietly happy she was about Simon. How obvious it was they liked each other right from the start—all those unnecessary meetings he arranged. And her nerves, like a teenager, when they were going for dinner. Could she really have been that Lisa and this crazy person at the same time? Even if I was too stupid to notice, surely Ava would? Maybe not. She’s a teenager, absorbed in her own life.

  The pregnancy test. Ava must have had a boyfriend. Have the police tracked him down? Is he relevant? He didn’t matter very much to Ava. She was too fixated on her online love. It makes me sick, the madness of it all.

  I dump my bag on my desk and try to stay breezy, but the excited chatter is loud. They’re talking about it. Of course they are.

  “I mean, holy fuck, she killed her ex. Murdered him. While she was coming in here and being all sweet and nice and normal.” Toby’s rocking back in his chair, like some show-off teenager at school. “Batshit crazy.”

  “It’s the daughter I feel sorry for. Where do you think she is?”

  “Dead probably.”

  “Julia!”

  “Well, it’s horrible but it’s probably true.”

  The women are in a huddle around Julia’s desk, and none of them acknowledge my arrival.

  “Penny in?” I ask, bright and breezy.

  Heads turn, glances over shoulders as they quiet.

  “She texted me earlier.” Julia, arms folded across her chest, all sharp eyes and confidence. “Got a breakfast meeting so won’t be in until about ten.”

  Penny and Julia sitting in a tree T-E-X-T-I-N-G . . . Sly little Julia, a tapeworm in the guts of our world.

  A phone rings. “Don’t, it’s reporters,” Stacey says as I reach for it. “They’ve been calling since we got here. They’ll probably turn up outside soon.”

  “Poor Penny, having to deal with all this.” Julia turns inward and neatly closes the circle again, me on the outside. “She couldn’t possibly have known. I mean, who would think a person could be doing anything like that and still be coming in to work every morning?”

  Their chatter has a hysterical giggly edge to it and it makes me angry. So it’s okay that Penny didn’t know it, it’s okay that Toby didn’t have any suspicions, but somehow I’m still tarred with the Lisa brush?

  “It’s like Rose West or Myra Hindley,” Julia continues. “Murdering all those people and carrying on with life like normal. Who knows what else she may have done? This could be the tip of the iceberg.”

  Giving your age away there, Julia, I think. These kids have probably never heard of Myra Hindley. Or Rose West, for that matter.

  “Gosh!” Emily’s eyes widen. “What if this was just the beginning? What if she was going to kill one of us next?”

  “I thought that last night,” Julia, all glee, answers. “Who knows what she’s capable of? If she could kill her own daughter . . .”

  “We don’t know she’s murdered anyone yet.” My rage bursts into flames, and I glare at them, all these young and not so young people so full of judgment and accusation.

  “Oh, I think we do.” Julia turns, arch. “What about her poor little brother?”

  “You know what I meant.” My face reddens. My answer is weak.

  “Oh, you meant we don’t know whether she’s killed anyone this time.”

  Lisa is a murderer, but that was a long time ago. A different life. A different name. But it’s so hard to believe she’s got anything to do with the rest of all this crazy. Because she’s not crazy, and even if she is crazy I’d still like her better than this grade-A bitch in front of me. She’s smiling. This is exactly what she wanted. Well, fuck her.

  “No, as a matter of fact, we don’t. So why don’t you get on with the work you’re paid to do, and leave the police to get on with theirs.” It’s not my finest ever comeback, but given that I’m a heartbeat away from screaming nonsensical swearwords of rage and frustration into her smug face, it’s not bad. It’s not only her, it’s all of it. Richard, Penny shutting me out, Simon being kind, Ava going missing, and Lisa—I can’t even begin there.

  “I’m surprised you’re not more worried,” Toby joins in, not wanting to be emasculated by Julia, the new power in town. “I mean, you knew Ava pretty well, didn’t you? I’d have thought you’d be more upset about her, instead of defending Lisa.”

  I stare at him, this peacock of a boy who’ll be bald and fat and unfuckable by the time he’s forty. This boy who knows nothing. “How dare you! How dare you presume to know my feelings?”

  Red spots rise in his cheeks. He doesn’t know whether to go forward or back.

  “She stole the money.” A soft voice, barely there. Stacey. Sweet, dumb Stacey, defending her man. Julia’s eyes dart back and forth, relishing every moment of
this overdue confrontation. There’s a long pause of held breaths, and then I don’t disappoint as all the heat rushes out of me. A blaze of fiery words.

  “God, you’re all so fucking stupid!” I say. “You can’t see what’s right in front of you! Lisa never stole any money! Jesus Christ, ten years she worked here and never a penny went missing! Julia stole it! Little miss resting bitch face over there. Yes, you! And you know how I know? Lisa saw you at the party. You took twenty quid out of Penny’s wallet and bought her a thank-you bottle of wine with it! You want to talk about crazy? Well, that’s crazy!” I pause for a breath, my whole body shaking, as they stare at me.

  “Yes, Lisa did something terrible a long time ago, and no, I’m never going to understand it, or get my head around it, but fuck you for thinking people can’t change. Fuck you for being so quick to believe the worst because you’re too young and too lucky to know what life can make you do, and fuck you all for being so stupid to think that girl”—my finger stabs at Julia—“that woman, because she’s my age if she’s a day—is your friend!”

  I finish my tirade to an applause of silence and wide eyes. Stacey looks about to burst into tears. Toby’s mouth is hanging open but his eyes are gleaming with regret he hadn’t videoed me on his phone. They don’t get it. They’ll never get it. But still, I’m feeling better already, as if I’ve just vomited up bad food, and then I see Julia’s expression. Victorious even as she tries to look distressed. She’s not looking at me. She’s looking over my shoulder. My stomach sinks. Penny’s arrived. Of course she has.

  “Perhaps you should go and work from the hotel, Marilyn,” she says. Her smile is tight. Any other day and I’d be fired, I’m sure of it, but God bless Simon Manning. “Feelings seem to be running a little high this morning and I know you have a lot to organize there.”