If You Only Knew

by Cynthia Clark

  “Tell me about yourself,” I say.

  “What do you want to know?” She doesn’t miss a beat, staring at me, not blinking, one eyebrow raised impossibly high.

  “Tell me about school, the subjects you enjoy, what you like to do in your free time, about your friends…” I prompt, eager to know more about her.

  “What does any of that have to do with the case?” she interrupts, an unmissable edge of sharpness in her tone.

  “I want to get to know you better, understand who you are.”

  Chloe purses her lips, looking as if she’s about to protest again. Instead she says: “I do very well in school, always top of my class. I don’t have any favourite subjects; I do well in everything.”

  “What about your friends?”

  “I don’t have any close friends. It’s not exactly easy when you move all the time, changing schools so often.”

  An expression flashes across her face as the corners of her mouth twitch downwards and she looks away. But she quickly regains her composure and assumes the same stoic look as before.

  “Tell me about the incident.”

  “I didn’t realise that I had put the car in reverse and when I pressed the pedal it lurched backwards and onto him.”

  She is economical with her words, making her explanation sound rehearsed, as if she’s thought about it several times or been told what to say. “What did you do then?” I nudge.

  “I got out of the car and left.” She doesn’t flinch.

  “You didn’t check on him?”

  “No,” she says, her voice suddenly shrinking. Then, regaining control, she continues: “I didn’t realise he was badly injured. I thought he’d maybe have a couple of bruises.”

  “But neighbours said they’d heard him scream from inside their houses,” I stress. “Surely you must have realised this was worse than that.”

  “I was scared and I wanted to get away.”

  So, Maya was right. Something had to have frightened this girl. Torn between wanting to know more and a fear that probing too much would cause her to completely clam up, I decide to sidestep her departure from the scene for now.

  “Why were you in his car anyway?”

  “I was just using it to get back to the party my foster carers were at.”

  “Ok, let’s go back. How did you get to the Grants’ house?”

  “My foster carers took me to a party at a friend’s house,” she starts. “Ben and his family were there. His mum had forgotten to bring a trifle she had prepared and Ben was on his way out to fetch it. He asked whether I wanted to go with him.”

  “Were you friends with Ben? He’s quite a bit older than you.”

  “No, I barely knew him.”

  “So why did you go with him?”

  She shrugs. “It was better than staying at the party.”

  “Why?”

  “Everyone was already drunk. Like my foster carers too. I just wanted to get away.”

  “Ok, so you went to Ben’s home. Did he let you drive? Is that when the accident happened?”

  “No, he drove. We got to his house and he invited me in to play video games.”

  “Had you been to his house before?”

  “Yes, once, with my foster carers. Ben wasn’t there that time.”

  “Does he have an Xbox or a PlayStation?” The details might derail her if she’s lying.

  “PlayStation,” she answers quickly. “I’d seen them on television.”

  “What did you play?”

  “I don’t know what it’s called, but we were killing zombies,” she says.

  “Was it fun?”

  “Kind of,” she answers noncommittally.

  “How long were you there?”

  “An hour maybe.”

  “Was Ben going to let you drive back? Is that why you were in his car?”

  “I just wanted to go back to the party.” A muscle in her jaw twitches slightly.

  “Were you worried that your foster parents would wonder where you were?”

  Chloe shakes her head and for an instant what seems like sadness flashes across her face. “They don’t really care.”

  Perhaps she’s right, but for now I cannot allow myself to feel sorry for her. “So why were you so keen to get back?”

  She shrugs.

  “You said earlier that you wanted to leave the party. That everyone was getting drunk, including your foster parents. Why were you suddenly so eager to go back?”

  “It was a sunny day. The house where the party was being held has a big garden.”

  Taking a deep breath, I try again, unable to shrug off the feeling that she’s hiding something. “Chloe, can you stop skirting my question and give me a straight answer?” Perhaps a tougher stance works better with her. “Why were you so keen to get back to the place you had wanted to leave just a short time earlier?”

  Her eyes open wide as if the question startled her. She bites her lip and breathes deeply between clenched teeth. Seconds tick by. “I wanted to get away,” she finally says.

  “Why?”

  She is silent, and looks down at her hands, which she’s twisting in her lap. The confidence that was so apparent earlier has dissipated and in front of me I can only see a young girl who is hiding something.

  “Why did you want to get away?” I ask one more time.

  Again, no response. Her fingers fiddle with the hem of her sweater, twirling a piece of yarn that is hanging loose.

  “Chloe, answer my question. Why did you want to get away?”

  She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look up. Maya’s words echo in my head. “Chloe, did he try to hurt you?”

  She continues tugging at the loose thread, making it longer and longer, then twirling it between finger and thumb. “Chloe, look at me. Tell me what happened. It’s the only way I can help you.”

  She finally looks up at me, and I can see the fury burning in her eyes, mingled with fear. Even before she speaks I can sense that what she’s about to say is traumatic. “I wanted to get away from him,” she starts. “Because he raped me.”

  Chapter 6

  1998

  The news that a body had been found just a few miles from campus broke on a Monday morning. I was running late getting to class and rushing through the corridors when I heard other students talking about the grisly discovery. I willed myself to keep going, not to make any changes in my behaviour that could draw attention to myself. I got to class and sat down at the back, wishing that I’d woken up earlier and gone to the cafeteria, like I used to right after the incident, so I could read the newspapers, listen to what others were saying. For a moment, after hearing about it, I thought about skipping class, but exams were coming up and I couldn’t risk anyone being suspicious.

  A girl came and sat next to me, twirling her long hair around her fingers. “Did you hear?” she asked me.

  My initial reaction was to feign ignorance but I worried it would attract more attention. “Is it true that they found a body?” I asked her, rubbing the healing scar on the palm of my hand beneath my long sleeves. Her eyes widened, her lips curling with what almost looked like a smile. “I heard some people in the corridor but didn’t know whether it was true.” She was nodding at me. “Where did they find it?” I asked, reminding myself not to divulge any details that might not have been made public.

  “Only a few miles from campus,” she said, pausing for drama. “It’s a man and he’d been stabbed. Apparently his body was all swollen and decomposed and he had been partly eaten by rats. Or wild dogs.”

  A shudder went through my body at the thought of that windowless place, him lying there for so long. I had told myself over and over again during the past weeks that I really hadn’t had a choice and if I hadn’t killed him, I would not be alive now. But I still hated what I’d done. I wondered whether he would have survived if I’d only stabbed him once rather than twice. Or if I’d tried to stem the flow of blood immediately rather than losing precious seconds wonde
ring what to do next. I’d replayed the whole night in my head, trying to think what I could have done differently, but aside from not getting in his truck in the first place, I couldn’t find another way out other than what I had eventually done.

  And yet, despite knowing that I’d had no other choice, I still felt sick.

  “Awful, isn’t it?” I heard the girl saying.

  “Do they know who it is?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, apparently he’s unrecognisable.” She wrinkled her nose, looking disgusted. “But they did find his van just outside.”

  The lecturer entered the hall just then and the chatter died down. Despite my attempts to focus on what he was saying, my mind kept wandering back to that windowless room.

  *

  In the month since the incident in the woods I had been struggling. Part of me felt relief that nobody had come looking for the man’s killer. Relief that with every day that passed, the more I could distance myself from him. I was starting to feel more confident that horrific night could not be traced back to me. I’d gone back to my usual routine, and was even managing to get a little sleep, despite the persistent haunting dreams that woke me up multiple times a night.

  Then another part of me worried that nobody had reported finding the body. What about the person he had called? Hadn’t he or she come looking for him? Hadn’t they suspected that something was amiss when he didn’t call back? Who were these people and what were their plans? The unanswered questions terrified me. I felt like I was constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting someone to come around each corner, ready to hurt me as he had done.

  Each morning I would scour the newspapers for a missing person’s report, any mention of a windowless room with a dead man on a soiled mattress. I knew I was becoming obsessed with him. I tried to convince myself that the longer it took for the body to be found, the better it was for me. Yet I couldn’t help but worry about his family. Somewhere, somebody must have loved him.

  On darker days I realised too that if nobody had found his body after weeks, the likelihood that anyone would have found me had I not managed to escape was remote. I wondered what would have been in store for me had my hand not landed on that shard of glass and had I not instinctively used it to kill him. I shuddered every time the thought crossed my mind.

  To any outsider I remained my usual self, even though I felt constantly haunted by what I’d done. I studied hard, spoke to my parents each week and worked at the supermarket. But every unexpected sound, each sudden movement, startled me.

  *

  The minutes dragged eternally as the lecturer droned on. I twirled a lock of my long red hair around my fingers. I had considered dyeing it, removing any trace of the colour that reminded me of blood. I’d even bought a dark brown hair dye.

  In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to go ahead with it. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw the real me. My hair was who I was, who I’d always been, and who I knew I always wanted to be. I couldn’t allow him and what happened that night to change me even more than it already had. I knew that I’d never be the same person. I knew that something inside me was different and would always be. I knew that even if nobody else found out what I’d done, I’d always consider myself a killer.

  Instead I’d wear my hair with pride. It would remind me of that night, making sure I remained cautious so that I would never be caught.

  Finally the lecture was over. With only a few minutes to get to my next one, I bid a hasty goodbye to the girl and ran off, hoping to get there in time to pick someone else’s brains about what they’d heard.

  As soon as my next lecture was over I rushed to the cafeteria, stopping myself from breaking into a sprint. Once I got there, I forced myself to get lunch before heading to one of the tables and picking up a newspaper. It was well worn, evidently handled by tens of other students eager to know what had happened. On the front page was a picture of the shack surrounded by police cars, their headlamps bright against the night. The headline read:

  Dog Walker Makes Gruesome Discovery: Decomposed Body Found Close To Prestigious University.

  The full article didn’t have many more details than the girl had shared with me. A man walking his dog had come across a shack. His dog, which was not on a lead, entered the room and the man followed, to be faced with the decomposed body. He ran out horrified and rushed back home to call the police, who were now investigating.

  My insatiable craving for more details shocked me. For weeks I had tried to block the incident out of my mind, especially at night when the memories came flooding back. At times I would get out of bed and jump into the shower, wanting to wash any remnants of the night off me. Even though time had passed since the attack, I felt dirty and broken and only the hot water almost scalding my skin would make me feel better, even if momentarily.

  But now I wanted to know what leads the police had, what their theories were, and whether they’d found any evidence pointing to the killer. I noticed that the article didn’t mention the two wounds or where he’d been stabbed and made a mental note to be careful not to divulge those details when I spoke to anyone. Neither was there any mention of an accomplice. I worried that they would track this person down through the last phone call the man had made. He knew my name, that I was a student, even that I had red hair. How long would it take the police to trace these clues directly back to me? My breathing became shallow, my fear becoming more intense. I felt slightly relieved that there was no mention of the man’s mobile phone and wondered whether someone had gone there after I left and taken it.

  Luigi, the Italian exchange student in my philosophy class, was standing in the middle of the room. We had plans to study together later that afternoon. He too wanted to become a barrister and we often shared notes and helped each other revise for our exams. He was in lively conversation with a group of students. I stood up and walked over to them, wanting to hear what they were saying, whether there was anything else that they’d heard, what the rumours were. Sure enough, they were talking about the state of decomposition.

  “Elizabetta!” Luigi exclaimed as I approached. “Have you heard?”

  I nodded.

  “Horrible, isn’t it?”

  Everyone else nodded gravely. “Do they know how long he’s been dead?” I asked, bracing myself for more of their gory curiosity.

  Luigi shrugged and another guy, with spiky black hair, said: “Two weeks, maybe more.”

  This was all conjecture, I realised. Students making up facts to fill in the many blanks that the article had left. “How close is this place to campus?” I prodded, looking around the group.

  Spiky hair answered again. “Very close, only a ten minute walk.”

  I remembered how my arms had hurt as I pulled the bike over the rough terrain. It had certainly taken more than ten minutes. But I had to act ignorant to anything that wasn’t in the papers. “Eek, that’s really close.” We all shuddered in horror at the thought of something so awful happening close to a place where we felt so protected and safe.

  We chatted for a while longer. Despite my thirst to hear more, I quickly realised that they didn’t have any more information to share. They rehashed what had been written in the article over and over as I stood there, silently taking everything in, nodding my responses and agreement but not really speaking, terrified of saying anything that might throw suspicion on me.

  After a while the crowd in the cafeteria started to thin. Luigi was the first of the group to bid his farewell. “Arrivederci,” he said. The group dispersed in different directions and I picked up the sandwich I’d bought earlier, realising that I hadn’t touched it. Reading about the discovery of the body sucked the appetite right out of me.

  As I walked down the corridor, someone grabbed me by the arm. A scream formed in my throat and I clamped my mouth shut to stop it from escaping. I looked at the student, taking in his short brown hair and slight stubble. I didn’t think I’d seen him before, and if I had, I didn’t recognis
e him.

  “I wanted to apologise,” he said.

  Confused, I thought he had mistaken me for someone else and was about to point that out.

  “Don’t you recognise me?” he said. “Wow, you must have been more drunk than I was.”

  Frowning, I struggle to remember. “Sorry. I think you must have the wrong person.”

  “No, I’m certain it was you,” he insisted. “Don’t you remember? You were sneaking into your building early in the morning and I fell right in front of you. You stayed with me while I puked my guts out. It had been quite a night.”

  Fear mounted as I looked at him. I vaguely remembered a guy stumbling over and vomiting, but my mind had not registered anything else. What else had I forgotten from that night that might come back to haunt me?

  And what about him? I assumed he had been too drunk to remember anything, let alone me, and pushed the encounter to the back of my mind. But now I started to wonder whether he had spotted the blood in my hair. That he remembered how dishevelled I had looked.

  “Oh.” I was at a loss of how else I could answer, not wanting to talk too much for fear that my voice would start shaking.

  “Are you ok?” he asked, looking at me through narrowed eyes.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I said. “I’d forgotten about it.”

  I tried to walk away, but he held my arm. “Well, I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “Thank you for stopping to check whether I was ok. Especially since you didn’t look too hot yourself.” Our eyes locked and his grip loosened. “You look better now that the bruising has disappeared.”

  Blood roared in my ears. He had seen the marks on my face and might suspect I had something to do with the death of the man found in the fields. He could help the police work out the exact day it happened. He could tell them he had seen me in the early hours of that morning looking a wreck. I stood dumbfounded as my mind reeled with panic.

  He started turning away, but then stopped and extended his hand. “I’m Miles Perkins, by the way,” he said.