by Jane Hill
And then, as I went back into the cafe, as I walked towards the door, I noticed a man sitting at a table right by the door. Had he been there earlier? Had he followed me here? He was watching me, intently. He was watching every step I took towards him. He had straggly long grey hair and piercing eyes. He was wearing an old corduroy jacket that was frayed and worn around the collar and sleeves. I could feel my legs start to shake but I forced myself to carry on. He hissed at me, beckoned me towards him. I stopped where I was. I stared at him. Was this him? Again, he beckoned me closer. I stepped towards him. He stood, suddenly, and put his face close to mine. His breath smelled of alcohol. 'Have you finished wi' your breakfast?' he said, in a Scottish accent. 'Mind if I finish it?'
I walked downhill, heading towards the big green area of Princes Street Gardens. I found a wooden bench near the National Gallery. I looked around, peered into the bushes of the park behind me. I listened, hard. I heard nothing. I let myself sit down. I curled my legs up under me and pulled my jacket tighter around me. I took out my keys and I jabbed them into the palm of my hand so that I didn't fall asleep. I sat there, poised, primed to spring up and run away; or primed to spring up and stab my keys into someone's face: whatever it took. I wasn't safe, but I would never be safe. It was somewhere else to sit for a while.
I didn't know whether my life was worth anything any more. I wasn't sure it had been worth anything for years. It was just a bunch of bits and pieces: fake name, fake friends, fake smile, fake pleasantness. My life was a tatty plastic bag, tied up with string, full of stuff that I had accumulated along the way, stuff that I thought was important to me. But at that moment, on that morning, sitting on that bench in the centre of Edinburgh, I realised that it meant nothing at all. I was nothing; I was worth nothing and no one would miss me because no one really knew me at all. Except him: the watcher, the killer. He and I, we were players in a particularly violent computer game. I was nothing but his target. I could run, I could hide, or I could come straight out and surrender. Or I could finish the job myself.
I was cold. I was in shock. I'd had almost no sleep. I was sitting there on a bench wondering if I should kill myself: really obviously, really publicly – so he would know that I was dead; so he would leave all my loved ones alone.
Loved ones. What loved ones? My own family didn't even know me. It was like they just gave up on Lizzie seventeen years ago and accepted Beth instead because she was so much simpler to handle. They loved me – if they loved me at all – because they had to, because I was a member of their family and custom dictated that they should love me. Loved ones. Maybe Zoey had loved me, a bit. But Zoey was dead. Who was there left who loved me for me, for who they thought I was? And then I thought about Danny. And for just a second it was like the sun coming out.
Danny. My friend Danny. Those dark eyes; that steady quiet voice; those strong hands. Danny, so calm, so reassuringly dull. Danny the grown-up with the proper job. Danny would know what to do. Danny would sort it out. Thank God for Danny. 'I'll call Danny; that's what I'll do.' It seemed so simple when I said it to myself. I would call Danny and tell him everything. But not yet, not yet. Too early. Far too early. I wasn't ready yet.
Time passed. I heard cars drive past along Princes Street. A man painted all silver – silver clothes, silver face – sat on the next bench along and smoked a cigarette: an off-duty living statue preparing for the day ahead. I wondered if it was the same one who had tried to outstare me the other day. A woman strolled along the path, a little terrier on the other end of the lead she held. The dog tried to sniff me; the dog-walker pulled it away. She frowned at me and walked on. I was aware that I was rocking to and fro like a madwoman. I was thinking about Zoey and how her hands were holding her insides in. I remembered how I touched her there, how I tried to put everything back in. The blood, everywhere. Her head, lolled back awkwardly like that. Her eyes open and staring. And only the day before, there she'd been on stage, funny and caustic and totally in control. 'Now you know what it feels like,' the note said. And I could feel it; I could feel the pain deep inside my own stomach.
I'd have to tell Danny the full story. It was as simple as that. I had to tell someone; I couldn't go on like this. I'd have to tell Danny what I did all those years ago. It wouldn't matter what he thought of me; he hated me anyway for the way I'd treated him. Danny would know what was best to do. He would tell me that I'd have to talk to the police. I knew that. I would have to tell them how I found Zoey's body. I would have to tell them about the note, the one I found on her body. And all the other notes, too. I'd have to explain it all; how I killed Rivers Carillo all those years ago. I'd have to tell Danny, and then the police. What would happen then? Was there some kind of statute of limitations? Could they charge me with a killing in another country seventeen years ago? Would people have to know about it? Would my parents have to know about what I did? What was going to happen to me?
Thirty-seven
When I was eighteen I killed a man and got away with it.
I had never said those words out loud. I had hoped I would never have to. But now the time had come. The axe had finally fallen.
Edinburgh's old town loomed above me like an illustration from an old-fashioned book of fairy tales, from an era when it was acceptable to terrify children. Tall, crooked, pointed grey buildings huddled around the giant's castle. It was a city from a nightmare: a city of ghosts and goblins and witches, of dark alleys and whispers and hauntings. Looking up at it made me dizzy. I felt that I might fly away on a broomstick or on the wings of a bat.
Help me. I need a friend. That was how I would begin the call. I held the phone in my hand and searched the contacts list for Danny's number. He'd be up by now, just drinking his first cup of coffee, listening to the Today programme on Radio 4, maybe checking his emails: ordinary, mundane stuff. He wouldn't be expecting to hear from me. Help me, Danny; I need a friend. And he would listen to me and say the right things and maybe he'd make everything okay. But in my heart I knew that nothing could ever be okay again because today – in just a few minutes – I would have to say those words out loud for the first time.
When I was eighteen I killed a man and got away with it.
Just before I made the phone call, just before I dialled Danny's number, just before I told him my awful secret, while I was still sitting there in the stasis of that preconfession moment, I reached into the deep back pocket of my jeans. I pulled out the piece of paper. My hand trembled as I straightened out the creases. There was blood on the paper, blood from my fingers. I read it over again to myself.
You murdering bitch. Now you know what it feels like.
His voice sounded tired and detached. He didn't want to speak to me; he made that clear with his tone of voice. My first words didn't help much. 'Danny, I need you. I need a friend.' I tried not to cry as I spoke.
'Beth, this is not the time. I'm in a hurry. I need to be at work early. Let's talk later, okay?'
'Danny, no. Stop . . .' I thought he was about to put the phone down and I was desperate. He must have heard something in my voice, because he gave a resigned sigh.
'OK, I'm listening. What is it? What's so important?' I opened my mouth and nothing came out.
'Come on, tell me.' His voice was gentler now.
'Danny, something awful has happened. Zoey's dead. He killed her. And it's all my fault.'
'What? What are you on about? Is this a joke?'
From nowhere I could feel a hideously inappropriate laugh start to bubble up in my chest. I opened my mouth to let it out and it turned into a sob. Before I knew it I was weeping loudly, hysterically. I didn't care if the silver statue heard me. I just didn't care. And on the other end of the phone there was Danny, all sensible and kind, saying, 'Shhh. Beth, shhh. Calm down. Calm down. Please. Just tell me all about it.'
So I did. In a tiny, shaky voice I told him about Zoey, and about how I found the body. I told him what it looked like, how she'd been sprawled on the sofa, and how much
blood there'd been. I told him about how scared I'd been, and how I had run for my life, and he interrupted me. 'Why didn't you call the police?'
'I was scared, Danny. He was after me. He wants to kill me. I know he does. I know, I know, I should have called them. But I had to run. There was a note, you see. He left me a note.'
As I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the letter again, I was going to read it to him, but he interrupted me again. 'Beth, you're not making sense. Who was after you? What note? What on earth are you talking about?'
'The man who killed Zoey. He left a note on her body. A note for me. I've got it here, with me. I can read it to you.' I wasn't telling the story very clearly. I knew that. It wasn't coming out properly. I wasn't explaining myself.
'Beth, if the killer left a note on the body, why have you got it? Why didn't you leave it there for the police to find?' Danny's voice was sharp, as if he was trying to trip me up. I realised that he didn't believe me.
'The note was left for me. It's for me. It's written to me. He killed Zoey to get back at me. He wanted me to know that.'
'Beth, what the hell are you talking about? I'm sorry, I really don't know what you're saying. I don't think you know what you're saying. Are you okay? I mean, of course you're not. That's obvious. Are you ill? Are you in shock? Because you're making no sense at all.'
I tried to pull myself together, to make my voice stop shaking. I tried to make sense: one final effort to get him to believe me. 'Danny, I've been getting notes. Anonymous letters. All summer. Someone's been watching me and threatening me. And the man who killed Zoey is the man who's been writing those notes to me. It's the same handwriting, the same paper, the same man.'
'Christ, Beth, why didn't you say so? Please tell me the police know about this. Please tell me you've reported it.'
'No. I haven't told anyone any of this. Until today. I've been so scared and I didn't know what to do. And now this has happened.'
'One more time, Beth: why not?'
'I couldn't. I couldn't tell the police, I couldn't tell anyone, because . . . God, Danny, there's all this stuff I need to tell you, and I've wanted to for so long, and . . .' I put my hand over my face and I started to hyperventilate.
'Beth, what is it? Why is someone sending you anonymous notes? Why did he kill Zoey?'
'To get back at me for something terrible I did.'
'Okay, I'm listening.' Danny sounded grim. He sounded like he was bracing himself for the worst that I could tell him. I wasn't sure if the worst he was imagining went far enough.
I sat there on that bench in Princes Square Gardens and looked up at the narrow grey skyline of the Old Town that loomed above me. The living statue had moved. Now he was standing on a podium on an open paved area by the National Gallery, and a small group of people had gathered to watch him. It was the start of another day in the life of the festival city, and here I was about to tell Danny everything. Danny Fairburn, serious, caring and kind. This was it; this was the end. I needed to do it. I needed to tell Danny all about Rivers Carillo, and about my summer in San Francisco. I needed to tell him about Alcatraz and Sausalito, and how Rivers and I slept together, and how he was an itch I couldn't scratch, and then everything – almost everything – that happened after that. Nothing in my life would ever be the same again. I took a deep breath and started to tell my story.
'Danny, when I was eighteen I killed a man and got away with it. At least, I thought I'd got away with it. I've been looking over my shoulder ever since and now someone's found out. He's stalking me. He's trying to punish me. And he did it by killing Zoey.'
Thirty-eight
I killed Rivers Carillo on my last day in San Francisco. I hadn't planned to kill him. I didn't go out that morning saying: 'Today's the day I'm going to kill a man.' But the opportunity presented itself, like a little demon sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear. I did it, and I've been paying the price ever since.
My last day in San Francisco, I woke up feeling sore but excited. I'd changed, I'd grown up, I'd become a woman. I felt myself 'down there', fondling my tender skin. My breasts felt tender, too: bigger and fuller than before, the nipples harder and more distinct. I'd forgotten all the squalor and the discomfort of the previous day, of that wretched houseboat in Sausalito. All I could think about was the huge thing that had happened: the excitement, the awesomeness of losing my virginity. And the fact – or rather the assumption – that it tied me to Rivers Carillo in some mystical way.
Romantics need things to mean something. Romantics look for meaning in everything: in gestures, in words, in things unspoken. So when something this big happens, it has to mean everything – love, at the very least. Perhaps romantics with a religious background are the worst. Naive romantics with a religious background. Naive, flirty, romantics with a religious background. I operated on the assumption that other people thought like me, had the same values that I did. I'd been brought up to believe that sex was a dangerous, threatening thing; something that was safe only in the confines of marriage – or, if your faith was a bit liberal, a little fuzzy around the edges, as mine was, within the confines of a loving relationship. I'd been brought up to regard my body as a temple, to exercise self-respect and control. I'd been brought up to believe that my virginity was the one thing I should keep; something that I should only hand over to the right man at the right time; something nonnegotiable.
So maybe when I woke up that morning feeling full of love and tenderness towards Rivers, I was merely justifying my own behaviour to myself. I woke up telling myself that I loved him – and so he must surely love me. I had to tell myself that, or else there was no justification for what I had done. That's what had motivated me as we waited for the ferry in Sausalito; why I'd flirted with Rivers again and kissed his fingers. You see, sex couldn't be the end. Our romantic idyll couldn't end that way, with bloody sheets on a squalid houseboat. I couldn't have given away my virginity as cheaply as that, just bartered it away in return for a hug and a slow dance to Bob Dylan in the cramped cabin of that horrible boat. That wasn't how the story went. Sleeping with Rivers Carillo was so big and so significant to me that it had to be the start and not the end. It had to be a prelude to something better, or else why had I done it?
I know all this now. Back then, as I woke up that morning, all that hopelessly romantic Lizzie Stephens could think was: Today's the day that Rivers Carillo will tell me he loves me. As if those words – those three words – were like a precious diamond on an engagement ring.
We met, as usual, secretly. We pretended to bump into each other in the food court in the basement of Macy's on Union Square. 'Hey, look who it is!' Rivers said.
'Fancy meeting you here,' I replied, my usual arch, jaunty self.
'How're you doing today?' he asked, and there was an extra note of tenderness in his voice that made my romantic little heart leap for joy.
'I'm very well indeed, thank you,' I replied and he laughed. I knew he would. It was simple to make him laugh: just a few words of very proper English were all it took. He hadn't touched me; I knew he wouldn't until we were somewhere alone. But that was okay. It could wait. It would happen.
We caught a bus and sat on the back seat – together, but not too close. It was a long bus ride, through endless streets of Victorian wooden houses. We passed close to Joanna's house and skirted a little green square. 'Look back at the view,' he told me, and I did. It was the famous view of San Francisco: a row of Victorian houses, the city skyline in the background with the Transamerica Pyramid stretching high into the sky. I was glad to see it on my last day. I would store that picture in my memory bank.
Rivers didn't say much on that journey. Occasionally he'd mutter something about the scenery or where we were. 'Haight-Ashbury,' he said at one point, and I looked out of the window to see the same type of Victorian houses, but this time painted in gaudy colours, or allowed to get tatty, and shops selling vintage clothes, secondhand records and drug paraphernalia. We skirted Gold
en Gate Park and drove into a coastal fog. And then we were the only two remaining passengers, and the bus stopped and we were at the beach, on the far western tip of the city. It was chilly, and we were swathed in swirling damp fog. But we were alone, and we were together, and he let me wear his jacket.
We played on the beach for a while, skimming stones into the sea that was virtually invisible behind a thick shroud of grey fog. He taught me how to skim the stones properly: standing behind me, touching me, his hand on mine, his chest against my back. This is it, I thought: any moment now, the declaration. But it didn't come. Instead he looked at my shoes.
'Are those comfortable?' he said. 'Can you walk in them?'
I was wearing trainers: jeans and trainers. I hardly ever wore jeans and trainers that summer in San Francisco. Almost every other time I'd been out with Rivers, I'd worn skirts with flip-flops or sandals or something else flattering. But that day I was wearing jeans and trainers. I had packed my suitcase and was dressed in the clothes and shoes I was planning to wear on the flight home. I emphasise this, because it's one of those 'if only . . .' things. If only I'd been wearing sandals, Rivers wouldn't have taken me on that walk. And if he hadn't taken me on that walk, I wouldn't have killed him.
'It's foggy now,' he said. 'But the fog's going to lift later today. There's this amazing path around the cliffs, right round to the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a few miles, and it's kinda rocky, but it's not too difficult. And it's worth it, because you get an unforgettable view of the bridge, especially just as the fog is lifting. It's amazing, and I think you'll like it.'
With hindsight, he was trying to say sorry. Rivers Carillo was a sleaze, but not an evil sleaze. He was probably genuinely upset by what had happened in Sausalito. He probably hadn't expected it to end like that. He probably just wanted to give me a nice day out, to say sorry; to give me a memorable end to my summer in San Francisco. He wanted to give me a treat, and his treat was to give me a chance to see one of his favourite parts of the city. He simply wanted to share a beautiful view with me. It wasn't meant as a declaration of love; I just took it that way.