Can't Let Go

by Jane Hill

  'This is safe', I told myself, like a mantra. 'This place is safe.' No one was looking at me. I was secure and hidden in my deep, dark corner. There was a guy on stage: a kid, no more than twenty-five. He was talking into the microphone, telling jokes. He had just split up with his girlfriend, he said. The audience – ten, fifteen people – said 'Ah!'

  Zoey said that was always a lie. The biggest cliche with male stand-ups, she said. 'They've always just split up with their girlfriends. Like, they even had one to start with.' That was what she said. That was what she used to say. I could hear her voice saying it. Her voice, with its confident sharp, zingy tones. The voice that was always so sure of itself. Zoey's voice. Zoey, who was lying dead on a sofa in a tenement flat a mile from here. Zoey, whose insides had spilled out onto the floor.

  Careful. Don't cry. Don't do anything stupid. Someone might notice me. I pressed my fist against my mouth and my head against my knees, trying to block everything out. Zoey was bleeding. Zoey was lying in a pool of blood. Zoey was dead. Zoey, my friend. He killed her. He killed her to teach me a lesson. People around me were laughing. I couldn't believe they were laughing. Zoey was dead and they were laughing. I looked up. He was still on stage, that young comedian. He was still on stage, skinny and awkward and full of fake woe and Zoey was fucking dead. I wanted to leap up on stage and tell everyone. How the fuck could you keep on telling jokes? How could everyone keep on doing this, this fucking pointless charade?

  A noise came out of my mouth. Someone looked round from a sofa in the row in front of me, shushed me. Suddenly everyone was looking at me. Concerned faces. Was I crying? Could they tell there was something wrong? I pushed my way out of that room. An arm reached out for me and I dodged it. I can hear the comedian's voice as I ran up the corridor and back up the stairs. 'Well, my jokes have never had that effect before . . .'

  Midnight. Too many people still on the streets. Faces looming out of the darkness. People reaching out to me as I ran past. Questions: 'Are you all right, love?' 'Hey, stop, what's wrong?' Other people laughing in big groups, outside pubs, cigarettes in hand; stopping to turn and stare at me. Gangs of drunks, four or five abreast, pushing me into the gutter as they went past. It was too crowded; too scary. He could be anywhere. He could be one of these smokers, masquerading as part of a group. He could be reaching out to help me, tempting me away down an alleyway. He could be anywhere. He could be anyone.

  I saw a church. The word 'sanctuary' came into my head. I had a half-remembered piece of information stuck in my brain, something my father had told me once, or that I'd read somewhere: you could take sanctuary behind the altar of a church, whatever you'd done. They would have to protect you in a church, even if you were a killer. I needed to get in. A church would be safe. There'd be pews to sleep on, and kneelers, and maybe a sympathetic priest, someone like my dad. I tried the door. I lifted the big brass ring in my hand, feeling its cold weight, and I turned it, hoping against hope that the door would open. It didn't. I tried turning the handle in the other direction but that didn't work either. The door was locked, of course. But I rattled it, anyway, as if it would suddenly spring open. Round the back of the church there was a small bit of open space – a square, concreted over. There was another doorway, hidden from the main road. By now it was becoming a matter of life or death to get into the church. I was desperate. I just wanted somewhere to sit down; to lie down, in safety. I wanted to make the world stop for a while. All I had to do was to get into that church and I would be safe, and everything would be okay, at least for a while.

  But the side door was locked too. I rattled the handle frantically. I knocked on that wooden door until I scraped my knuckles and they started bleeding. I pushed it as hard as I could. I rammed it with my shoulder; I kicked and punched at it. But it was locked, and there was no answer and there was no way I could get in. All I was doing was hurting myself. Sucking the blood from my grazed knuckles, I sank down on the ground, onto the cold flagstones, and I started crying with huge heaving sobs that could probably be heard from the street. I needed to rest. I needed to gather my thoughts. I leaned my back against the door and tried to stop crying, tried to count, tried to breathe normally.

  I must have closed my eyes. I must have gone to sleep, because suddenly a huge hand gripped my shoulder and wrenched me from some kind of dark, amorphous nightmare. An undefined face loomed over me. I was terrified. I probably cried out – screamed – something like, 'No! Leave me alone!' This is it, I thought; he's found me. The huge hand shook me fully awake. There were Scotch-whisky fumes in my face. I opened my eyes fully and saw a big grey beard covering a red face. A homeless man: that was all. He wanted me to move. The doorway I was slumped in, the doorway that I'd been trying to get through: that was his bed for the night.

  Thirty-five

  The light from the kebab shop seemed preternaturally bright. The pink neon sign outside was winking at me from across the street. The fluorescent lights seemed to beckon me in. If the church wouldn't give me sanctuary then this place would. It was one in the morning and the bright lights seemed like a gift. I'd been trying to hide in dark corners but perhaps this was the safest place for me now. How could I come to any harm under the glare of a dozen fluorescent tubes?

  There were gaudy photographs of the menu, backlit above the food counter. I stood there, confused and indecisive. I pointed at one of the photos almost at random, and then said yes to everything that the man behind the counter offered me: extra salad, onions, cheese, yogurt sauce – everything. I grabbed a can of Diet Coke, fumbled in my bag for my purse and then I took my yellow polystyrene tray of food across to a white Formica-covered table in the corner of the cafe, from where I could see everyone who walked past, and everyone who came in.

  I picked at the food aimlessly. The lettuce was limp and warm from touching the lamb kebab. The flatbread ripped when I tried to pick it up. The meat was chewy and the salad was tasteless, and I was eating for the sake of eating; eating for the sake of doing something with my hands. My mind wandered. I thought about Zoey again. The last time I'd eaten a kebab I'd been with Zoey, here in Edinburgh. We'd walked into the cafe and she'd asked the guy behind the counter, 'What's good here?' It was a joke, of course; she often said it, ever since I'd picked her up on it that first time. 'What's good here?' But in a way it wasn't a joke; it was just Zoey being Zoey. Zoey loved food. She loved to eat. She loved tastes and flavours. She loved kebabs and curries and chips, and finding new places to eat, and she always had the expectation or the hope that maybe the food would indeed be good. She always had an idea that something on even the most unpromising menu would be good, would be fun to eat.

  I ate for fuel, pretty much. I rarely noticed much about what I was eating. But Zoey would nudge me: 'Hey, what's yours like?' Or she'd lean over and steal some of my food – she'd dip her bread in my sauce or scoop up a spoonful of whatever I was eating and she'd try it. 'Yum', she'd say, not always facetiously. 'Here, try mine,' she would offer. 'Isn't that great?' 'Zesty' – that was a word she used often to describe flavours. It seemed such a Zoey word, so full of life and zing and enthusiasm. What would she have thought of the kebab I was eating? But she wouldn't have ordered this kebab. She would have tried the house special, or maybe the plate of food that she'd never come across before. Right now she would have been tucking into something spicy and unusual. And I could have watched her face and I would have known almost instantly from her expression whether it was disgusting or delicious.

  Friendship is like electricity. Zoey was all exposed copper wires, fizzing with energy. I was insulated, with heavy plastic tape wrapped around my nerve endings. And Zoey had started to unwrap the tape. She'd started to show me how to fizz and spark against other people, how much fun it could be. Oh shit. Don't start. Not now. More tears were crowding into the corners of my eyes, and I had to press my hand hard against my mouth. Even then a few whimpers escaped. Can't let go, I told myself. Can't start crying or I'll never stop.

  I
looked around. No one seemed to have noticed. There was an older guy eating his way through a huge mound of meat and salad. There were a few young couples holding hands and giggling. A bunch of young men who might have been Turkish were gathered around the counter, laughing and joking with the guy who was serving. I wondered how long this place would stay open, whether it was an all-night place or whether it would be closing for the night soon. I wondered how long I would be safe here. I wondered what I should do next.

  I fingered the note in the back pocket of my jeans. Since I'd found Zoey's body I had been all panic and grief and unfocused terror. Now it was time to put those to one side. I would grieve again later. I'd be scared again later, I was sure of it. But for now it was time to think. I made myself eat my kebab, methodically chewing each piece of food eight, twelve, sixteen times. And I made myself think methodically, too. I tried to make a mental list of what had happened and why it had happened. And I tried to work out what to do next.

  Zoey was dead. She'd been killed by my faceless, implacable stalker. He had suddenly upped the stakes. Why? Had there been any real warning that he might kill? I thought back to the notes I'd received. He was watching me, the notes had said. He knew where I was; he knew where I went. There had been a veiled threat that he would tell Danny what I'd done. There had been nothing about this. Nothing about killing someone. No warning that this would happen. But he had called me 'the murdering bitch'. Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps I'd been stupid not to see that his vengeance would be murder.

  Why now? Why this sudden escalation? The reason suddenly seemed very clear: the same reason he'd started writing the notes in the first place. I was happy. I'd escaped my fear. I was taking baby steps out into the world of normal people. Despite the notes, I'd been happy in Edinburgh. I had been out there on the streets, amid the bustle of the Festival, flaunting my happiness. No wonder he couldn't stand it.

  Why Zoey? The question made me shudder. Why the hell did he kill Zoey? It was my fault. It was me who had dragged her into my nightmare. I'd been so careful about Danny. I'd thought that he could be in danger in some way. I hadn't even thought that Zoey was at risk. It was my fault. Zoey was dead and it was my fault. He killed her because he knew she meant something to me. He killed her because of what I'd done all those years ago. She did mean something to me. She meant a lot to me. I knew that now. She had meant more to me than I'd realised. I loved her. I sat there in that brightly lit kebab shop and I realised that I had loved Zoey. She was the best friend I'd had in years. And that was why he killed her.

  I thought about that second note. Does your new lover know how evil you are? I'd assumed he meant Danny. But the stalker – the avenging angel – had left the note on my car on the evening that I had driven Zoey all the way down to Southampton. He killed her in the flat that we were sharing. Oh Christ, he thought we were lovers. He thought we were lovers and that was why he killed her. I had tried to escape him. I had fled to Edinburgh and I'd thought I had escaped him, but all I had done was sign Zoey's death warrant.

  What next? What was he planning to do next? Now you know what it feels like. You murdering bitch – now you know what it feels like to lose someone you love. Now you know what it feels like to be truly afraid. He'd had no qualms about killing Zoey. It was supposed to serve as a warning to me. Don't try to escape again, don't try to be happy, because I know where you are and I will kill you. I was sure that he would be coming for me next. He was out there somewhere in the dark – and at that I quickly looked up from my food and gazed around the cafe. Most of the young couples had gone. The Turkish lads were tucking into food now. The older guy must have left. I hadn't noticed him go. I looked out of the window, trying to see into the dark night, but all I could see was my reflection on the window. I looked pale and haunted, with huge dark circles etched into the skin around my eyes. He was out there somewhere, enjoying my fear. He would string it out for a while, but eventually he would strike.

  I wondered if anyone had found Zoey's body yet. I wondered if Suze or Laura had a key to the flat. Maybe Steve did. Maybe one of the girls would have called Steve when they'd got no answer from their repeated phone calls to me. Or, if he didn't have a key, maybe he would have hammered down the door, calling Zoey's name. He would hammer frantically, like I had done on the church door, and he would run at it with his shoulder and the door would break. Or maybe one of them would have got hold of the landlord, somehow, and he would have let them in with his spare key. And then they'd find Zoey. I thought about her body and I couldn't eat another mouthful. I didn't want to eat, ever again.

  I should have gone to the police. I should have phoned them and reported what had happened, and I should have stayed there with Zoey's body until they turned up. It would have been safer than being out here, at his mercy. I knew that now. But then there'd be questions, and probing, and somehow I would have ended up telling them the whole awful story about Rivers Carillo. And that would be a disaster. I just couldn't do it.

  And now it was too late, anyway. Another awful thought had struck me. The police would find footprints in the blood in the hallway and all around Zoey's body. The footprints were of a woman's size six shoe. There were bloody fingerprints on the sink, and on the white painted window frame, and on the front door: bloody fingerprints that showed I had been all over the flat after Zoey's death. There was only one conclusion that could be drawn from the evidence there: I killed Zoey Spiegelman. I was responsible for her death, and the police would believe I had done it. There was no escape. All I could do was to keep on running.

  Thirty-six

  I thought I knew what fear was. I had lived with it for half my lifetime. I knew what it tasted like, I knew the hollowed-out feeling it gave me under my ribs and in my stomach. I knew how it could make every hair on my body stand to attention, like a sensor or an early warning system. I knew the varying degrees of cold that fear could make me feel. But nothing I had ever experienced before could have compared to how I felt when I woke the next morning.

  When people in films are in dire straits – chased, cornered, fleeing for their lives – someone always says to the heroine, 'Get some sleep,' or 'Get some rest.' Someone did a survey once, and found that the sentence was the most used in films – of any sentence. More even than 'I love you.' As if whatever monster is chasing you, whatever disaster is around the corner, sleep will somehow make it better. As if the next day you will wake up and everything will be brighter.

  In fact you wake up the next day and things are worse, because nothing just gets better by itself. And now time has gone by and your fate is closer, and you're still unprepared. The day dawns with its harsh light that peers into all the shadows, and all it does is make the terror even more relentless and real.

  The sky was grey, with a bright white band low down in the sky over to the east. The air felt big and empty. No one else was around. I felt as if I had stepped outside the known world and now it was just me and him, a fight to the death. He was waiting for me somewhere; I didn't know where. But somewhere, out there, he was waiting with a knife or a gun to kill me, or a fast car to run me over. There was no one to protect me now. I had to face this on my own.

  It was cold: damp, shivery dawn-cold. I pulled my green velvet jacket closer around me and I felt a shudder go through my whole body. I was in a doorway in a little alleyway at the top of the Royal Mile near the castle. I had spent the night there, half-dozing, half-wakeful, just counting the hours until Edinburgh woke up and I could try to get lost in the bustle again.

  There was a tall, dour-looking house across the street from where I was sitting. I recognised it: Deacon Brodie's house. We had stopped there on the bus tour. Had that really been only twelve hours ago? I had sat upstairs in that green open-top bus, in the middle of the festival throng, and they'd told us the story of Deacon Brodie, the man who lived a double life: respectable cabinetmaker by day; ruthless thief by night. His story inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to create Jekyll and Hyde. I wasn't sure how
much of what the bus driver told us was true. It all got mixed up in my head with the stories of Burke and Hare, the body-snatchers. So many stories of crime and gruesomeness round here. I was telling myself this stuff in my head to stop myself thinking about Zoey, lying like a rag doll in that pool of blood.

  The streets around me seemed post-apocalyptically empty: just a couple of homeless men asleep in doorways, on bits of cardboard and old blankets. The nearby shops were all boarded up with metal grilles across their windows and doors. I was tired and I was empty, and I could not stop shaking. Somewhere out here, in this city, was someone who wanted to kill me; someone who had already killed my friend; someone who was prepared to slash open the stomach of a woman he didn't know and didn't care about, just to teach me a lesson. And I didn't know who he was. I didn't know what he looked like. I didn't know who it was that I was supposed to be afraid of.

  I stood up and staggered away from my doorway. My legs would barely carry me. I was walking – staggering – looking behind me with almost every step. Could I hear footsteps, or just echoes? I needed somewhere else to shelter; somewhere to sit while I worked out what I should do next. I found a cafe in a little side street, the kind of cafe that stayed open all night. I went in and took a seat in the far corner, so that I could see everyone who came and went. I ordered food that I didn't want. I tried to eat my full Scottish breakfast, but the yolk on my half-eaten fried egg unsettled me with its shiny viscosity. It reminded me of the blood.

  I left some money on the table and found the tiny toilet at the back of the cafe. I thought I was going to be sick, but when I leaned over the toilet bowl and started to heave, nothing happened. I looked at myself in the mirror, and tried to wipe off the worst of the smudged mascara with a piece of damp loo roll. There was still a little bit of dried blood on my face, and I rubbed at that too.