‘Mum?’
‘What?’
‘Will the police be able to find out if it was Katie’s blog? Can they check her computer or something?’
‘I have no idea, love.’
We turn the lights off downstairs and go to our rooms. I keep my light on all night. I don’t sleep at all.
As I’m making myself some toast for breakfast, the doorbell rings. For the first time in weeks, I don’t wait for mum to open it, I go instead. It’s Inspector Foster. I’m not quite sure why I panic. I don’t know why she’s here. It could be to tell me Josh is dead, or it could be to arrest me for Katie’s murder, or to warn me that Katie’s dad wants revenge. My mind starts buzzing at the same time as my body.
‘Hi Hannah. Sorry to bother you so early but can I have a word? Is your mum in?’
I let her in but I don’t say anything. Mum’s walking down the stairs. She doesn’t smile or anything, she just leads us to the living room.
‘Ms Walker, I’m here to seize any computers in the house,’ she hands mum some paperwork.
My whole body tenses. I must be a murder suspect again. I can’t believe this is happening.
‘Why on earth would you want our computers? Are you saying we’re paedophiles or something?’
‘No, not at all. I was told about the blog Hannah found and, as is procedure, I need to investigate it as well as I can by finding out who wrote it and why.’
‘It’s Katie’s blog.’ I have to force that out. Then I understand what she meant. ‘You think I wrote it, don’t you? To get myself out of trouble? But it’s dated, you can tell it wasn’t only just written.’
Kath actually looks sorry to have to do it. ‘Hannah, I’m a police officer. It’s my job to check everything thoroughly. If it turns out to be Katie’s blog then it could help incriminate her dad. If I don’t check into it and it gets to court, Katie’s dad’s defence will accuse you of writing it. So I have to eliminate that possibility before it all gets to court. I’m sorry I have to take your computers. But you will get them back within a couple of weeks, a month max.’
‘A month?! And what are we supposed to do until then? Buy new ones?’
Mum’s pissed off. She really doesn’t like Kath.
‘I’m sorry. How many computers do you have in the house?’
‘Just my laptop and mum’s PC.’
‘Show me.’
I have to let her in my bedroom to take my laptop. I don’t know why I feel embarrassed at her seeing my room. It’s still so pink and childish. I guess I don’t want her to think I’m just a child. I’ve grown up a lot lately. I kick myself for not asking mum before now whether I can redecorate my room. I look at my Twilight posters with disgust. I don’t really see these things anymore when I’m in here. I feel like I’m looking around with new eyes. This room isn’t me, it doesn’t show how sorry I am or how much I’ve learnt from all the mistakes I’ve made. I’m definitely going to change it. Or run away.
‘Do you have the power supply?’
I rummage under my desk and give it to her. Then she goes back to the living room to take the hard drive from mum’s PC. She writes us detailed receipts for everything she takes.
‘Do you realise how this will look to our neighbours? Plus, you’ve made me late for work. Don’t you people ever make appointments?’
‘Ms Walker, I’ll ring you when I know more. I am sorry for the inconvenience.’
She makes two trips to her car with our stuff. I can see why mum looks humiliated. The neighbours must think we have some kind of association with Katie’s dad. I find myself wondering how the human mind can take so much bad stuff. Before she gets in her car I have to ask her a question.
‘Have you heard how Katie’s brother is doing?’
‘I’m going to visit him this morning.’
‘Can you let us know how he is?’
She shakes her head, closes her car door and opens the window. ‘Sorry, but I can’t do that. You’ll have to speak to his mother.’
She drives away. Mum ushers me indoors because she thinks the curtains are twitching over the road. Great. Looks like I’m confined to the house for a bit longer. I go back to my bedroom and tear down all the posters and stickers and stupid childish stuff I’ve got on the walls. Then I go down to our under stairs cupboard and find a box. I take it to my room and start packing up anything furry or pink or girly. In goes my furry bedside lamp, my many teddies from when I was a kid and all my hello kitty school stationery. Won’t be needing that regardless. Next, I root through my CD and DVD collection. Half of that can go. I should have started acting my age a long time ago.
Josh must have thought I had the mentality of a five-year-old when he saw my room. But then, this is what Katie’s room looks like too. Or did look like. I wonder how much stuff Josh got rid of. I wonder if they’ve redecorated it yet. I bet her dad would have painted over all the yellow by now, to wipe away any memory of her. That’s a point. How could his relationship with Katie’s mum have worked after she took him back? Did she just not mention Katie? So, does that mean that her mum would’ve gone along with pretending she never existed too? How could she have chosen a man over her own daughter? Josh chose his father over his sister.
Just thinking about it is stressing me out, I can’t imagine living in their house over the last few weeks. No wonder Josh wanted out. I just hope to God he pulls through and doesn’t try it again. His dad could stop all this if he’d just admit Katie was telling the truth. He’s more of a coward than I am.
I collect together all the old birthday cards, Christmas cards and Valentine's cards I’ve saved and put them in a pile for the recycling bin. Next, I go through my jewellery. From now on I’m only going to wear real jewellery, no more plastic or costume shit. I start a charity shop pile. I go through my clothes. I just need serious colours now. Black, white, navy, cream, brown. Pink, yellow and orange have to go. The same with bags. This is so satisfying. It’s like growing up within one day. I start taking everything downstairs to put next to the front door and eventually mum comes out of the living room to see what I’m doing.
‘Are you moving out or something?’
She says it with hope in her voice. How awful. She wants me to move out. But I don’t have anywhere to go. It’s embarrassing to admit what I’m really doing.
‘No, I’m just clearing out some stuff for charity.’
‘Oh right. I’ll need to go through all that before you take it anywhere. Some of it might be worth something on eBay. I’ll probably need the extra money if I have to keep taking days off work like this.’
‘Aren’t you going in today now?’
Then I notice the glass in her hand. It looks like lemonade but behind her I see a bottle of vodka. I wonder where she hid that.
‘No, I’ve got a stinking headache. I need a day off.’
She walks back into the living room and I notice she’s watching daytime TV. She hates daytime TV. I go to sit next to her on the sofa, just following my instinct. She does look tired. I never really thought about how all this must be affecting her. But I’ve hardly seen her lately, I’ve been stuck in my room and she’s been working. Come to think of it, maybe she’s been avoiding me. She tries to ignore me but I can’t leave her down here drinking by herself.
‘Mum?’
‘What?’
‘I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. Not just Josh but everything. I know now that I should have told you what Katie told me straight away.’
She looks at me with tears in her eyes, ‘I miss her Hannah. I can’t imagine how much you miss her.’
She starts crying, which makes me start crying. I lie against her and we just sit like that for ages, unable to say anything else without crying. Eventually, she sits up.
‘We need to pull ourselves together and start acting normal again. I can’t bear rushing to and from work in case someone speaks to me. And you shouldn’t be locked in this house all day on your own. The sooner we get our
selves back to normal, the sooner the neighbours will stop watching us and the court case will come and go. Once that’s over, we can properly move on. I don’t mean forget Katie, but I mean put it all behind us and start looking forward to something.’
That’s exactly what I need to hear, ‘Why don’t we sell up and move away?’
Mum laughs, ‘That is really, really tempting. But it would take months to do this house up to sell it and then it could be on the market for months, so it’s not a short-term solution. You need to finish school first.’
Ah, school. I move away and sit forward in my seat. Here goes. ‘I’m not going back to school. I know you’ll try to change my mind but think about it mum, how the hell can I walk into school in September and act like nothing’s happened? I have no friends left now. I ignored everyone on Facebook. I haven’t seen any of my old friends since the last day of term. No-one has called round for me since I told the truth. I’ll be a social outcast.’
Strangely, she’s not shouting at me or telling me I have to go back.
‘You need to start looking for a Saturday job then. Maybe in the city rather than locally.’
‘Really? You mean I don’t have to go back?’
‘No, I think its best you don’t to be honest. I don’t want to see you tormented by the kids at school. I don’t think they’ll let you forget any of it for the first few months. Eventually it would be yesterday’s news, but by then you could be a nervous wreck. You could always do some home schooling for your last year, so that you can still take your GCSE’s.’
This is awesome news. I can relax a little bit now; that’s one less thing to worry about. It also gives me a project to start on; finding a job. I need to redecorate my room first though. My head is buzzing with ideas.
‘Okay, well if you want to get back to normal, let’s go shopping for paint and stuff so that I can redecorate my bedroom? I haven’t been out for ages, like you said, and my room hasn’t been done since I was eleven years old.’
Mum laughs like the good old days but I can tell she’s dubious about going on a shopping spree. It does feel a bit wrong, given what’s going on around us. She considers it for a few minutes and then almost jumps off the sofa. ‘Luckily, I’ve only had one sip of this so, let me get changed and we’ll go out then. But we can’t shop around here because if I get caught by anyone I work with I’ll get sacked!’
We both run upstairs to our rooms to get ready. This really is like the good old days, when we used to go shopping together every now and then. I’m so happy that for just a minute, I forget about Katie. When I remember, it brings me right back down. Then when I remember Josh being in hospital I think about changing my mind about leaving the house. But as I can’t do anything about him or Katie, I selfishly decide to give in to the feeling of excitement for the first time in ages. I know I’m just pretending to be happy, but I just want to feel normal again. Just for today.
Chapter 13
It takes me three days to redecorate my bedroom. Instead of pink and yellow walls I now have mocha and cream. It’s been a great distraction from being in the house alone. Just as I’m about to take away all the sheets that are protecting the carpet from paint, my mobile rings. It sounds weird because my mobile hasn’t rung since Josh phoned me ages ago. It’s had so little activity since, that I can’t even remember where it is. I haven’t been turning it off at night. Then I remember I plugged it in to charge yesterday, so it’s still attached to the plug socket. I look at the caller display. It says Josh. My stomach flips as I accept the call.
‘Hello? Is that you Josh?’
‘Hannah’s, it’s Josh’s mum.’
Oh shit. My instinct tells me to hang up, but I’m not that brave. ‘Hi.’
‘I’m not phoning to have another go at you, I just wanted to let you know that Josh is getting better quite quickly. I just thought you might want to know.’
‘I do, thanks. Is he still in hospital?’
‘He is, yes. He’s got to have some counselling before he can leave. But his wrists are healing really well and he says he regrets what he did.’
This is awkward, she knows he did it because of what I showed him. ‘I know this is all I ever say to you but I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have sent that link.’
‘No Hannah, we’re sorry.’
She starts crying. There’s silence. Should I hang up?
‘Hannah, you were right; it is Katie’s blog. I’d know her sense of humour anywhere. I don’t need the police to tell me it was her. The things she wrote? About her dad? About what a good friend you were to her. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. That I didn’t believe her.’
She breaks down really bad and I feel so uncomfortable, I wish mum was here to speak to her. But I can’t believe she’s apologised to me. Then I hear someone take the phone from her
‘It’s Josh.’
Shit! What do I say? ‘How’re you doing?’
‘Fine. I just wanted you to know that mum kicked dad out of the house. We won’t be standing by him.’
He sounds very grown up and matter of fact.
‘I’m sorry for sending you that link. It was stupid.’
‘Well I’m glad you did, because otherwise I’d still be living with a paedophile. I suppose I should apologise for being horrible to you.’
‘Don’t be stupid, neither of you ever have to apologise to me. This messed up situation is mostly my fault.’
Silence. Oh no, I’ve reminded him why he should hate me.
‘Mum reckons we should be glad Katie had you to confide in, she thinks it would have helped her.’
Now I’m crying. I didn’t expect him to say that. I wonder if it did help Katie. Surely the only thing that would have helped was for the police to stop her dad while she was still alive?
‘Well put it this way, if I could go back to the day she told me, I would have gone straight to the police. I’ve learnt my lesson the worst way possible.’
‘I think we all have.’
I hear his voice break. I realise then how bad he must feel about finding out he didn’t protect his sister from what his dad was doing to her. I have lots of questions for him but I decide to let him go for now.
‘You better get some rest. See you soon though?’
There’s an agonising pause before he responds. ‘Probably. I’m allowed home tomorrow.’
My stomach flutters. Is he telling me that because he wants me to go and visit him? ‘That’s good news. I bet the hospital food’s been awful?’ What a totally dumb thing to say. How embarrassing.
‘Mum’s been bringing me MacDonalds.’
‘Oh,’
I don’t know what else to say. Neither does he by the sounds of it. I’m just about to say goodbye when he speaks.
‘I’ll text you tomorrow, when I’m back.’
When I hang up I’m smiling. There’s some hope left for me then. I feel a bit weird. Happy and guilty at the same time. Am I allowed to feel happy? I don’t know, but I can’t control it. All of a sudden, the landline starts ringing. I run to mum’s bedroom to pick it up.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Hannah?’
My heart sinks. I recognise the voice. ‘Yes. Is that Kath?’
‘Yes, hi. Is your mum there?’
‘No, she’s at work, why?’
‘Can I contact her on a mobile number?’
‘Just tell me what it is, please.’
‘Hannah, I need you to come in for some more questioning. I need to arrange a suitable time with your mum.’
Oh God. I try to ignore the flashback of my previous police interview when she said I’d probably have to give more statements about Katie’s dad. I’d let myself forget until now.
‘It’s nothing to worry about; we just need to go over some things in more detail.’
I don’t have any fight left in me so I just say that I’ll let mum know when she gets home from work. She’s not going to want to get a phone call at work from the police. J
ust as I think Kath’s going to hang up, she stops me.
‘Just one other thing. We’ve checked in to the blog you found on-line.’
‘Oh right.’
‘It was Katie’s. It’s all over her internet history. You’ll have your computers back within the next week or so.’
I don’t hear anything else she says. I find myself back in my bedroom sitting on all the pink torn off wallpaper left on the floor, crying. It’s stupid because I already knew it was Katie’s writing. But I guess I hoped it was just a coincidence and that what Katie had gone through wasn’t as bad as what that person was going through. I didn’t even get to finish reading it all. I don’t think I’ll bother. As much as I’d love to hear her voice again, even if only through written words, I don’t want to hear what she has to say about what she went through.
Then a completely random thought pops into my head. Ouija board. I stop crying and try to clear my head. Why have I thought of that, they’re just toys? Would doing a Ouija board be a good idea? Do they really work? I suppose it would mean I could ask the questions I don’t have answers to, like is she mad at me for letting her die, or for telling the police what she told me, or for hurting Josh. Josh. Would she be mad at me for wanting to be his girlfriend? Is she happier wherever she is now?
The Girl Who Died: A Young Adult Novel Page 13