The Girl in the Empty Room

by Neil Randall

  The Girl in the Empty Room

  Neil Randall

  Copyright © 2017 by Neil Randall

  Design: Bukovero

  Editor: Crooked Cat

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Crooked Cat Books except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.

  First Black Line Edition, Crooked Cat Books. 2017

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  For Rowena

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my family and friends for their continued support and encouragement. Without them, this book wouldn’t have been possible.

  I would also like to thank everyone at Crooked Cat Books – Laurence and Steph and all my fellow authors. It’s a very friendly literary community, where each release feels very much like a team effort.

  About the Author

  Neil Randall writes in the sleepy fishing village of West Runton, Norfolk. The Girl in the Empty Room is his second novel with Crooked Cat Books.

  Find out more at: www.neilrandall.net

  Follow on Twitter: @NARandall1

  By the same author

  Isolation

  The Jacqueline Prophecies - EXCLUSIVELY DOWNLOAD AND READ FOR FREE

  The Girl in the Empty Room

  Chapter One

  When Helen Drummond did a final check of the school gates, she found Pippa Carmichael and her twin brother Liam still waiting for their mum to pick them up. The concerned teacher checked her watch. It was nearly three o’clock now; half an hour after the official end of the school day, and all the other children and parents had long since gone. Helen knew that Pippa and Liam lived just down the road, so their mum, Jacqueline, had no excuse to be late. It was becoming a regular thing. Ever since the twins started infant school they rarely arrived on time. Often they didn’t have any lunch or lunch money or P.E. kits, and time and again, just like today, Jacqueline had been late picking them up. Last time it happened, three maybe four weeks ago, Helen took her aside for a little chat, nothing serious, just a gentle reminder as to her responsibilities, and could smell alcohol on the much younger woman’s breath, and her eyes were all glazy and bloodshot, like she’d been smoking something.

  Helen walked over to the twins.

  “Hey, you two,” she said, smiling. “Your mum’s running a bit late today, eh? Did she say anything to you? Did she say she might be a little pushed for time this afternoon?”

  Both children shook their heads.

  “Okay,” said Helen. “Why don’t you come with me? We’ll pop to the secretary’s office and give mum a call.”

  Once inside the main building, Helen directed the twins to chairs, looked through the contacts book and dialled Jacqueline’s mobile number. She was shunted straight through to voice mail.

  “Damn,” she cursed, checking her watch for a second time – she had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for half past three.

  Running her finger down the list of contacts again, she found the mobile number for Jacqueline’s mother, and gave her a call.

  “Hello.” She answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello, Mrs Brooke, sorry to bother you. It’s Helen Drummond from the infant school here. I teach your grandchildren and, erm…well, I’m afraid Jacqueline hasn’t picked them up from school again, and I was wondering –”

  “What?” cried Mrs Brooke. “Not again! That girl! What on earth is going on with her? She’ll be the death of me, she really will.” Helen heard a sharp intake of breath. “Sorry. I’m rambling. Give me five minutes. I’ll drive down and collect them.”

  ***

  “I’m terribly sorry about this,” said Mrs Brooke. “I hope we haven’t put you out, and I – I hope you won’t feel the need to report the matter, to take things any further.”

  “Well,” said Helen, not wanting to get caught up in a big discussion right now – if she hurried she might just make that doctor’s appointment, “I don’t think that’s necessary. Only it’s not the first time, is it? It might be worthwhile sitting down with Jacqueline and having, you know, a mother and daughter chat. I know how hard it must be, a single mum bringing up two kids on her own, but, loathe as I am to get social services involved, we can’t keep turning a blind eye to things like this.”

  “You’re right,” said Mrs Brooke, looking at her grandchildren through the window separating the office from the main foyer. “I think it’s time I told that girl some home truths.”

  ***

  “Right.” Mrs Brooke parked up outside her daughter’s terraced house. “I’m just going to pop in and see if your mum’s about. Won’t be a minute.”

  As soon as she opened the rusty garden gate, she knew something was wrong. The front door was ajar. Through the gap, she could see that the living room was in complete disarray.

  “What?” With a wary look over her shoulder, she slipped inside the house and pushed the door to. “My God!”

  The room had been decimated; the three-piece suite, the armchairs and settee, demolished, reduced to splintered wood and torn upholstery, as if someone had attacked them with a sledgehammer. All the pictures had been knocked from the walls, including the children’s school photographs, shards of glass were scattered across the carpet. The television screen had been cracked down the middle, the DVD player and stereo system stamped to pieces, to no more than fragments of black plastic, so too the actual DVDs and CDs themselves. Even Jacqueline’s old acoustic guitar, her most prized possession, had been snapped in half, the strings all twisted and broken.

  In the adjoining kitchen, all the cupboard doors had either been wrenched off the hinges or were dangling precariously. Every plate, cup, dish or bowl had been smashed on the floor; the tiles a mess of splintered crockery.

  “Jacqueline!” shouted Mrs Brooke.

  No answer.

  She rushed upstairs.

  To the left, she could see all of Jacqueline’s clothes dumped on her bedroom floor, in a mutilated tangle of fabric, as if they’d been cut and hacked away at with scissors. A mirror had been smashed, the wardrobe turned over. On the wall above the bed, someone had spray-painted the words: SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT in big red letters.

  To the right, the bedroom the children shared had been reduced to a similar state: the bunk-beds demolished, all their toys, the Lego and doll’s house, the rocking-horse and games console, had been bashed and broken and trampled underfoot.

  “Who – Who would do something like this?”

  With shaky hands, Mrs Brooke took her mobile phone from her pocket and dialled 999.

  “Police, there’s been a burglary…And – And my daughter’s gone missing. Her house has been completely trashed, and nobody can get hold of her…She didn’t pick her young children up from school. I’m so, so worried.”

  Chapter Two

  Ten Days Earlier

  Jacqueline felt as if she’d been fighting all her life, fighting her parents, teachers, the benefits system, landlords, credit card companies, Ryan – the father of her children – men in general, but, most of all, herself. Why did she have to keep making the same mistakes? Why did she have so much bad luck? Why did she feel so angry, lonely and miserable all the time? Why couldn’t something nice happen to her for a change? – one single solitary slice of good fortune.

  The stran
ger lying next to her in bed started to snore. Up until that moment she’d almost forgotten about the lad she’d picked up in town. Up until that moment her sparsely-furnished, carpetless bedroom, a cold ugly space, now bathed in darkness, had felt almost comfortable, comforting.

  “Typical!” she muttered under her breath, resisting the impulse to elbow him in the ribs, face, balls.

  Reaching over to the bedside table, she fished a half-smoked joint out of an ashtray, and lit it with a cheap plastic lighter. After a few lungfuls of smoke she started to relax; to run last night’s events through her head: how she’d been sitting in a pub with her cousin Bea, how, with the kids at their dad’s for the weekend, she’d only planned on having a couple of quiet drinks and an early night, and how she’d got talking to this really good-looking local lad, with big brown eyes and cropped hair, a bit docile and full of himself, but fit nonetheless. Wait. What was his name?…Aaron, that’s it – and she chuckled to herself, because she could clearly remember the moment he told her: “My name’s Aaron, Aaron Wells.” She had to chuckle again, because he said it like James Bond, only he had a horrible country bumpkin accent, the one she hated so much. But he did offer to buy her a drink, and he did walk down to the pier with her, and he did hold her hand, and he did talk loads, and showed a real interest in her life. And when she told him she had two kids he didn’t make some excuse about having to get off home soon. He asked about them, whether it was two boys or two girls or one of each, how old they were, did they go to school, and for the first time in a long time, Jacqueline hadn’t felt awkward talking about her children, and for that she felt a little gratitude, fondness, but more than anything else: guilt, because she knew the likely outcome of sleeping with him tonight.

  “So, Jacque,” Aaron had said earlier, as they walked back to her house, “do you maybe wanna go out for a drink sometime?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said, drunk, stoned, uncaring of the ramifications for either of them now. “That would be…great.”

  Aaron stirred, rolling over onto his back.

  “Shit.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “What time is it?” Before she could answer, he reached out and put his arm around her, drawing her close, planting a warm kiss to her cheek, as if he’d been a regular fixture in her bed not just a passing boat in the night. He sat up. “I’m gonna have to take a piss, Jacque. Your bathroom’s downstairs, past the kitchen, right?”

  She watched him get out of bed, naked, the pale outline of his skinny white body, the non-existent buttocks and slender, almost girlish back, skipping out of the room.

  “What have I done?” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed, all the time thinking, but if it happened to me, why shouldn’t it happen to him?

  It was like that time with her last serious boyfriend Jason, when he brought take-away curries home from town. At the kitchen table, the plates and cutlery all set out, she tipped her food from the foil containers, and then reached for the salt – Jason went berserk.

  “What the fuck are you doing? That curry’s got all the spices and seasoning already in it. You don’t need no salt or pepper.”

  This pissed her off, because she knew he didn’t really give a shit if she put salt on her curry or not. He was just trying to exert control over her, show that he was the one in charge.

  “Look,” she said, determined not to be dominated by him. “It’s my fucking curry, if I wanna put salt on it, I’ll put fucking salt on it.”

  But when she shook the salt cellar the top came off (probably one of her kids messing about) and the entire contents, a mountain of salt, poured out over her curry, ruining her meal.

  “See,” he said, with that horrible, smarmy look on his face. “I fucking told you. Now you’ve got what you deserve. Now you’ll have to go fucking hungry.”

  From downstairs, she could hear Aaron’s fierce piss gurgling into the toilet bowl. Bet he goes all over the seat, she thought with completely disproportionate bitterness. As so often recently, little things could send her into a fit of upset or rage, so random and inexplicable. It was one of the ironies of her condition, how she managed to absorb all that psychic pain, the pain of rejection, infidelity, of being treated like a piece of shit by nearly everyone she met, especially men she genuinely liked, coveted, wanted to settle down with, but how an innocent word or gesture, sometimes even the Eastenders theme tune, could reduce her to something far worse than tears.

  Aaron tiptoed back into the room, got into bed and put his arm around her again; hugging her like he really meant it.

  “Thanks for last night,” he whispered into her ear, “– for letting me stay, I mean. I didn’t plan on coming back, you know, and us sleeping together. Hope you don’t think I’m one of those lads who’s only after one thing, ’cause – ’cause I really, really like you.”

  His words made her feel sad and uncomfortable, because she wished it wasn’t him, someone she had little or no affection for, saying all those nice, tender things. Closing her eyes, she thought back to all the nights she’d shared this bed with Jason, how she could never get enough of him, how badly she wanted the two of them to get together properly, how the one good thing to happen in life was him: Jason.

  When Aaron nuzzled his head against her shoulder, as he snaked an arm around her waist, she knew she couldn’t take it anymore, she knew she had to get this imposter out of her bed, her house, as soon as she possibly could.

  With far more force than intended, she elbowed him in the side of the head.

  “Ah!” He bolted upright. “What was that for?”

  “For coming back here,” she cried, drawing on all her past pain, hurt and frustration, “drinking all my wine, smoking my weed, practically forcing yourself on me, snoring half the night, keeping me up.” Kicking out her legs, she peddled his skinny body out of bed, toppling him over the edge of the mattress, where he hit the floor with a dull thud. “And you didn’t use a condom, did you? So I’ll have to get down to the clinic for a morning after pill.”

  “Morning after pill?” he said, getting to his feet. “I – I didn’t think. Shit. Do you want me to come down there with you? I could –”

  “Don’t fucking bother!” She shot out of the other side of bed. “You’re just like all the rest. I’m the mother of two young kids, you bastard, and you don’t give a shit. ‘Don’t think I’m one of those lads only after one thing!’ What a joke! Now get out of here!”

  Hurriedly, he picked up his clothes, pulling his shorts and T-shirt on, stepping into his jeans.

  “But, Jacque, I thought you liked me. I thought we were gonna go out for a drink. I – I thought this was gonna be the start of something.”

  Chapter Three

  As Aaron walked through the cold October darkness, he couldn’t get his head around what had just happened. Ten minutes ago he’d been snuggled up in bed with one of the fittest birds he’d ever pulled. How had things gone so badly wrong? What had he said or done to upset her so much? Why had she gone off at him like that? He couldn’t understand it, any of it. It was typical of his luck, though. Just lately, he couldn’t seem to hold onto a girl for very long. It was as if his ex, Jade, had put a curse on him, one that went far deeper than just telling everyone in town that he was a wanker.

  Crossing the road, he dug his hands into his pockets and thought back to everything that happened last night: how he’d been down the boozer with a few mates, playing darts at the top end of the bar, how he’d clocked Jacqueline as soon as she walked in, how hot she looked, with her light-brown hair cut into a fringe and heavy eye make-up, and how he kept staring down the bar, just to get another look at her. Perhaps it was the beer (he’d had four pints of Stella, and always got pissed quick on that stuff), but he felt this proper strong impulse to walk right up to her, to offer to buy her a drink, to ask her out on a date.

  “Go on, then, Azza,” said his mate Goosey. “Go and talk to her, you twat. You haven’t been able to throw a dart straight since she walked in.”

>   Aaron told him to piss off, that he didn’t know what he was talking about. But he did, and maybe he only protested so much because he knew Goosey would taunt him even more, forcing him into a corner, challenging him to do the one thing he really wanted to do – go and speak to her.

  Eventually, after the expected ribbing, Aaron plucked up the courage.

  “Okay.” He downed the last dregs of his pint. “I will. I’ll go over there right now.”

  Confident as he was ever going to be, he walked up the bar, towards Jacqueline and her cousin.

  “All right,” he said, loud enough so she’d know he was talking to her. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  Breaking off from her conversation, she turned and looked at him like he was the biggest dickhead she’d ever seen, like he was proper rude, that someone like him had no right to march up and interrupt her chat, and he was sure she was going to tell him to piss off, that he was about to be humiliated in front of his friends. But she didn’t do any of those things – she smiled, and this soft dreamy light came into her eyes, which were lovely anyway, with the heavy Amy Winehouse mascara and everything.

  “Yeah,” she said, looking him over, as if she really liked what she saw. “All right, then.”

  “Great.”

  Smiling back, he made a big thing of calling the barmaid over (purely for Goosey’s benefit), bought Jacqueline a pint of San Miguel (“girl after my own heart”, he’d said to her, even if he didn’t really like the idea of a bird drinking pints.) Knowing the score, the cousin soon skulked off, and he was left alone at the bar with Jacqueline. And he didn’t know quite what it was, usually he felt so awkward around women, especially at first, but with Jacqueline it was different. She had a way of making him feel relaxed, confident, she asked questions at the exact moment he was struggling to think of what to say next, and the conversation just flowed and flowed.