Because it’d been my idea for Isabel to socialise, I couldn’t help but feel responsible for everything that had happened since then. Perhaps it was my guilt that caused me to relax a little and reveal more about myself than I usually would.
“So you live on a farm?” she asked. “With your housemate?”
“On the edge of a farm. It’s a rental.”
“Sounds lovely.” Isabel bent her head and continued on with her drawing.
The corridor was quiet today, as the sun was shining and most of the patients were by the windows that looked out into the gardens. Watching Isabel work in the silence that followed her questions put me into something of a trance, and the last fortnight of interrupted sleep began to catch up with me as I felt my eyelids droop. I inhaled sharply through my nose, forcing myself to stay awake. Despite the welcome warmth and the fact that I was tired, I still had a job to do. I still had to supervise my patient.
When I forced myself awake, I took in the sight of Isabel bent over her desk. Warm brown hair spilled over her notepad. She was dressed in her usual jogging bottoms and sweatshirt. Blue today. All of the patients wore the same comfortable clothing. There were strict rules about what could be worn. Nothing that could be used as a weapon. No belts. No drawstrings. Even buttons could cause some damage.
“You know, I still can’t remember the day Maisie died,” Isabel said, her voice far away and dreamy. “But I meant what I said the first day I met you. I didn’t kill that little girl. I don’t think I could. I don’t have it in me.”
“If you can’t remember,” I replied gently, “how do you know?”
But Isabel didn’t reply. She sighed heavily and slumped closer to the desk instead. She sounded exhausted.
As I sat and studied my patient, I noticed a couple of woodlice crawling around the carpet towards her feet. I wasn’t sure if Isabel was afraid of bugs, so I didn’t want to frighten her.
I rose slowly from my char. “Isabel, I don’t want to alarm you, but there are two large woodlice crawling towards you.”
She lifted her head and regarded me with interest before dropping her gaze to the carpet. Then she lifted her head and looked at me again. There was a brief pause as she glanced from me to the woodlice and back to me again. “It’s okay, Leah. I get woodlice in my room every so often, but I leave them be. I can’t bring myself to kill them.”
“What about putting them outside?”
But she shook her head. “My room is plenty big enough for a few bugs.” She grinned, and every part of that smile seemed genuine to me. Her eyes slightly crinkled. Her slightly crooked teeth were charming between her soft lips. She was pure, childlike innocence.
Let me tell you a secret. I never killed that little girl. Shhhhh.
That moment remained as clear as the sound of a bell in my mind, but I’d always assumed that her words were Isabel’s way of playing with me. Because she said them on my first day, I’d presumed she was testing me, like a person with sociopathic tendencies would. But Isabel didn’t display any sociopathic traits. She wasn’t narcissistic. She didn’t talk about herself or her crimes. She wasn’t violent. She was often nervous or insecure about her art, and she didn’t have the superficial charm most sociopaths used to their own advantage.
And then I realised that I believed her. It hit me hard, sending shockwaves down my limbs and spine. My back shot up straight in my chair, and my jaw dropped. My heart beat a little faster, and I sat there wondering what I was going to do about the girl in front of me, quietly drawing my home, young and vulnerable and locked away from society. In little over a month, she was about to be reassessed, and in that assessment, she would be found fit to go into prison rather than stay in Crowmont. I knew she would. Isabel was the patient with the best track record, who built a rapport with staff members and remained polite, mild-mannered, and obedient at all times.
But even worse...
“The killer is still out there.”
Isabel sat up and turned to me, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “What? Did you say something?”
I’d spoken out loud without even meaning to. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and shook my head. “I was just mumbling to myself about tonight’s tea.”
She nodded. “You know, I find it kind of fascinating listening to people talk about their boring chores. Alesha used to tell me about how she had to pick up her kids from school, then go food shopping, then take them home and cook for her husband every night. He worked later, so she took on more of the duties at home. I don’t suppose I’ll ever have a husband to cook for.”
“You don’t know that,” I replied. “You might leave one day.”
“And go to prison,” she said. “Big-girl prison this time, filled with women, not the kids I was with in the juvenile detention centre.”
“But you could still be released from prison one day. Can’t you?”
“Yes,” she said. “But not for a long time. Not that it matters. Here, I’ve finished your picture. Do you like it?”
She held up the pencil drawing so that I could see it. There I was, standing in front of my panelled windows watching the blackbirds cluster around. One sat on the windowsill, another hovered in the air. Three were perched on the branch of a nearby tree. They all had their beaks open, releasing song into the air. I looked at her picture, and I could hear the sound of birdsong, calling to me, speaking to me.
“Blackbirds are good omens,” Isabel said. “They represent shyness or insecurity. The colour black is supposed to represent the supernatural. Do you believe in the supernatural?”
Her words brought back a recent memory that I had been trying hard to shut away. At first I wanted to ignore it, but then I decided not to do that.
“At my parents’ funeral I felt a strong presence.”
Isabel placed the drawing back down on her desk. “I’m so sorry. When did it happen?”
“Six months ago. They… it isn’t a happy story. My father was an alcoholic, and he killed my mum before killing himself. That’s why we moved to Hutton. I was working in a different high-security hospital at the time, and I knew there was one here. I figured I’d be able to get a job here, so we moved.” It was only after I stopped talking that I realised I was gripping the sleeves of my blouse and pulling them down as though trying to hide my hands beneath the fabric.
“You felt the presence of your parents at their funeral?”
“Just my father,” I said.
“I’m so sorry,” she replied.
I smiled slightly. That was a phrase I had grown accustomed to when I was still back in Hackney. The parents of the children at school with Tom said it frequently when I went to collect him from school. My neighbours called round with casseroles and a weak smile, the same words on their lips. Everyone liked my father. They couldn’t believe what he’d done. But the person behind closed doors is not always the person out in the world.
“So who did you move here with?”
The words pulled me from my thoughts and thrust me back into the corridor at Crowmont.
“What?”
“You said ‘we moved here.’ Who did you move with? A boyfriend?”
I was still distracted by thoughts of my father on that rain-soaked afternoon in the cemetery when I’d heard his voice call my name. Wet dirt landing on wood. The musty smell of my one good black dress that I’d pulled out from the attic storage. My mother’s perfume sprayed on my wrists.
“With my brother,” I replied. “Tom. My little brother.”
Chapter Ten
When I left work that day I felt ashamed of myself for the way I’d opened up to Isabel. After working as a nurse for several years, it was disappointing to see how easily my guard could come crumbling down. In any other hospital, telling a patient about your private life is no big deal, but in a high-security hospital with patients suffering from illnesses such as antisocial personality disorder, those private details could be used against you.
But at
the same time, I felt deeply connected to Isabel after our long conversation. I couldn’t deny that each day Isabel became more to me than a disturbed patient with a terrible crime in her past; she was a talented artist who could be sweet and considerate. Her morning drawings were often the highlight of my day, and the way we talked, you would think we were friends, or niece and aunt, or sisters. With the date of her reassessment looming over me, I felt sick at the thought of her being transferred to a maximum security prison.
No, I told myself, I was experiencing dangerous thoughts. I unlocked my Punto and speedily reversed out of the parking space, barely noticing Ian as he waved goodbye to me through the gates. I was too close to Isabel now. I’d already begun down a perilous road of believing she might be innocent. In fact, I was sure of it. There was no part of the girl sitting in her room looking at me with wide, childlike eyes that married with the thought of a murderous teenager bludgeoning a child to death before mutilating her corpse and smearing the blood across her mouth like lipstick.
The two together did not make sense.
I cooked for Tom that night, and in my distracted state I let the potatoes boil over and burned the chicken. Tom was far too polite to say anything, but I could tell by the way he chewed and swallowed quickly that he wasn’t impressed.
“How’s school going?” I asked, hopeful of directing my thoughts away from Isabel.
“Fine.”
“It’s been a few weeks now. Are the other students okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve not shown me any essays for a while. Can I read some?”
“Maybe.”
I was about to give up when I noticed Tom pull down the sleeve of his shirt for the third or fourth time. I’d seen that same movement when my patients were hiding a self-inflicted wound. I reached across the table, but he pulled his arm away from me.
“What are you doing?”
“I just want to look,” I said. “Show me.”
“No, leave it alone.”
But before Tom could get up from the table I managed to get hold of his shirt and pull it back. Underneath his beaded bracelet there was a bruise about the size of a thumb.
“What’s that? Has someone hurt you?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, snatching his arm away. “I banged it on the door, that’s all.” But I knew he was lying because of the way his eyes roamed all over the walls.
“Tom…” But I didn’t know what to say. I felt rage bubbling up from my abdomen at the thought that someone would hurt my gentle brother, but at the same time I felt a deep sense of impotence, because even if I did try to step in, it could make things worse for him. When I’d first realised Tom was being bullied I’d researched as much as I could on the internet, and what I found from desperate parents’ first accounts was that the school had done little to nothing, and the bullying had escalated after they’d intervened.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he snapped.
“I can listen!” I had to raise my voice as he stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.
Throwing my fork down onto my plate, I stood, making the chair screech against the old kitchen tiles. As I began furiously scraping leftover burnt chicken into the kitchen bin, there was a knock at the door. I opened it, already knowing it would be Seb Braithwaite here to fix the sticky kitchen door. The handle required some yanking before it opened to reveal Seb standing there, his light blue eyes flicking from me to the half-cleared kitchen table.
“Bad time?” he asked.
“No, come in.”
“Brought my tools.” He lifted his toolbox as evidence. “Thought I’d take a look at the door for you.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
His laconic nature was fine by me, and I set about tidying the kitchen, working quickly, still fuelled by my anger about Tom’s bruise. Those uptight village kids needed to be taught a lesson. Elbow deep in washing-up suds, I resolved to speak to the school, and if necessary, the parents of the kids involved. Meddling caregiver be damned, I couldn’t sit back and see my brother miserable at the end of every day.
“That’ll do it.” Seb stood up, his height almost blocking the doorway. His broad, farm-built shoulders filled the narrow space. He demonstrated the door, pushing it back and forth so I could see that there was no more sticking. It opened and closed perfectly.
“That was fast,” I said. “I didn’t even get to make you a cuppa.”
“No worries,” he said. “Need any milk and eggs?”
I checked the fridge. “A pint would be good, and maybe half a dozen.”
He nodded. “I’ll stop by in the morning.”
“Thanks. How much do I owe you for the eggs from last week?”
“Nowt. They’re on me.”
I was so relieved that for one embarrassing moment I felt my chin wobble and a surge of emotion stung my eyes. The tear was swiftly wiped away with the back of my hand, and I cleared my throat.
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
Just as he was about to duck through the door I caught him on the shoulder to stop him. The kitchen was tiny enough that I barely needed to reach out. He turned back slowly, with an impassive expression on his face. For a moment I wondered whether I’d annoyed him by stopping him from leaving, and considered abandoning the thought that had popped into my mind.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, tentatively, regretting the decision already.
He merely nodded.
I took a step closer, and he inched back away from me. “You can say no if you want. It’s a big favour to ask and… well, you’ve done a lot for me already. But it’s Tom. The kids at school are bullying him.” I paused to glance over my shoulder, afraid he might have wandered into the room at the wrong moment. “At first I thought it was just name-calling and usual teenage crap, but now he has a bruise on his arm and I’m worried. Your family are respected in the village.” It was more like an apprehensive fear, but I remained tactful. “Would you… Could you… maybe take him to school once or twice? It might act as a warning. Show the bastards that someone else is on his side.”
Seb exhaled through his nose and half of his mouth lifted in a slight smile. “Sure. I’ll pick him up tomorrow morning. Is that it?”
“That’s everything, yes. Thank you so much.”
As I watched him walk down the driveway, Pye leapt out from the hedgerow and Seb stumbled as he sidestepped out of the feral cat’s way. I couldn’t help but giggle as the burly farmer continued down the path to his Land Rover, swearing as he went. When he got in the cab, he turned to me and waved, and I saw that his face was red with embarrassment.
“He fancies you.”
I spun on my heel, clutching at my chest. “Tom! I didn’t hear you come down the stairs. What are you, a mouse?”
“Vole, actually. They’re smaller than mice.” He flicked on the switch to turn the kettle on. “He fancies you, though.”
“Does not.”
Tom raised his eyebrows. “Does too.”
“I’m sorry about grabbing your arm like that.”
He fiddled with the sleeves of his shirt. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
I stepped across the room and pulled gently at a strand of Tom’s dyed-black hair. “What can I do about it? Want me to go into school? Want me to beat them up? I can, you know. Hey, just tell them your big sis beats up serial killers for a living, that’ll scare ’em.”
“Nah,” he said, staring intently at the kettle. “None of that works.”
A tear dropped onto the kitchen counter, and as I watched another fall, I felt a tug come deep down in my stomach. He was in pain, and it ached to watch.
“Come on, kiddo.” I pulled him into a hug and held him close, thinking about our parents’ funeral, with the two graves and Tom’s hand in mine. I thought about the moment I’d heard my father’s voice, clear as day. I thought about the hole their deaths had created,
even my father’s, deep inside me, and the perpetual itch of grief.
Father. The word choked me.
There was a time when he had been a good dad to me, but those memories were fading, and now I couldn’t remember him as anything but the bully he’d turned into.
I’d stopped thinking of him as a dad after what he did. Some fathers didn’t deserve the title of ‘dad,’ and he was one of them. Yet everyone else had loved him so much. That was what got to me the most when I thought about him. They’d never seen him destructive and dangerous, with a belly full of Scotch and a self-loathing so deep it spilled into his fists. We were his property. What happens when property misbehaves? It gets hit. But never the face, because then our outward image of perfection would crack and everyone else would see.
The first thing Tom did after our father died was dye his hair black. I already knew he was sneaking Goth jewellery in his pockets to wear outside the house. He used to wear as much black clothing as he could get away with without Father making unpleasant comments. But if Tom dared to show any kind of “alternative” personality… bam. Hit. And the dress code hadn’t stopped at Tom: My skirts were measured; my tops were shapeless and high-collared. No daughter of his would look like a slut.
His.
Property.
But here we stood. Together. Stronger. Alive. And there he was, in the ground gathering worms.
But Mum. Oh, I missed her. I missed the stories she told me at night when she tucked me in, and I missed the way she stroked back my hair as her eyes were tearing up. She cried a lot when she said good night to me—a whisper of a cry, with silent tears running down her face. I missed the sound of her voice, and the pretty dresses she wore around the house. I missed listening to her hum as she made apple crumble, and the bread she used to bake for us every weekend. I missed her so much that not even holding Tom tight could erase the hole her death had left when my father snapped and took her away from us.
After a mug of hot chocolate, Tom went to bed and I turned on my laptop, intending to do some more research into the bullying. But after reading the same stories over and over again, I decided to type another topic into the search engine: the murder of Maisie Earnshaw.
One For Sorrow Page 7