Charley

by Tim O'Rourke

  ‘I don’t want to be rich and famous,’ I said, gathering up my bag and standing up.

  ‘I was just messing about.’ Lucy smiled up at me. ‘Don’t go, Charley. Stay and tell me more about some of these dead people.’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to get home.’

  I had been right. I did get a stream of text messages and Facebook comments, not just from Lucy, but a whole bunch of other people. Lucy started it first, just the smallest of comments, on my Facebook page, but then it spread.

  Tracy from Year 10 asked me if I could contact Heath Ledger as she wanted me to tell him that she hoped he rested in peace and she thought he played a mean Joker! That comment got over three hundred ‘likes’.

  Some guy I’d never even heard of left a comment on my page saying that his dad wanted me to ask Lady Di who was driving the white Fiat in the tunnel the night she died. Another wanted me to give their love to Michael Jackson.

  Then the comments got nasty, more sick and cruel. Some called me a witch, a freak. Someone wanted to know if I could ask Mary Ann Nichols what Jack the Ripper looked like. And all the while, Lucy melted away into the background.

  But there was one person who hadn’t melted away, and that had been Natalie. I hadn’t known her that well before the bullying started, but that changed when she found me crying as I waited for the bus home from college.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Kinda,’ I said, sniffing back my tears.

  ‘You’re Charley Sheppard, aren’t you?’ she said, coming to stand next to me. She clutched an armful of text books to her chest.

  I nodded, waiting for the taunts to start.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, what?’ I said glancing at her through my tears, waiting for the punch line to come.

  ‘Okay so far,’ she said with a kind smile. ‘It’s just that I’ve heard all this weird stuff about this girl called Charley Sheppard and so far I haven’t been melted by the laser beams that come out of your eyes and the lightning bolts you shoot from your arse.’

  ‘Is that what people are saying about me?’ I gasped.

  ‘Yep,’ she said, with another smile. ‘And unless you have it stuffed up your sweater, I can’t see your broomstick either.’

  ‘They’re saying I have a broomstick now?’ I cried.

  ‘And that you’re followed around by dead people – I think someone said you talk to zombies or something,’ she added.

  ‘Are they being serious?’ I breathed. ‘They really believe that stuff ?’

  ‘They sure do,’ Natalie said. ‘And they say you’re the one with issues. That’s what’s so funny, don’t you think?’

  ‘I guess,’ I said with a frown.

  ‘So why look so sad?’ Natalie said. ‘The next time any of the others give you any kind of crap, shoot ’em down with your exploding farts or set your dead friends on them.’

  I didn’t feel like laughing, but Natalie’s unusual view of the bullying I had been subjected to made me chuckle.

  Then, giggling herself, she said, ‘What I don’t understand is, if you really are a witch like the others say you are, why are you standing around in the cold waiting for a bus when you could be home already by using your broomstick?’

  ‘Beats the shit out of me,’ I shrugged with a wide smile.

  And that’s how Natalie and I became friends. She just believed me. She believed in me.

  But if I ever wanted my father to have such faith in me, I would have to prove my flashes were real. I would have to try and locate the place I had seen and find the man who had killed the girl named Kerry.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, deciding now was as good a time as any. I’d go in search of the tiny building I had seen on the hill and the narrow dirt road Kerry had been dragged along. As I pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans, I wondered where I should start my search.

  I remembered hearing the sound of trains. So, wrapping up warm in my coat, I crept out of the house and headed in the direction of the nearby railway tracks.

  With my hands thrust into my coat pockets, I headed across Marsh Bay and towards the railway line that cut across the fields on the outskirts of town. It was cold, and the faintest glimmer of winter sunlight was making the early morning sky look turquoise in the distance.

  Reaching the edge of town, I followed the winding country roads in the direction of the track. I didn’t have an exact location to fix on. Everything I had seen in my flashes had just been a snapshot of information, but I could remember seeing a tumbledown building with a broken chimney pot on top. Could it be the same outhouse I had hidden in at Natalie’s funeral? No, that hadn’t had a chimney. It had barely had a roof and it hadn’t been on a hill. But there had been trains running close by. I had heard them.

  It’s just a coincidence, I heard my father breathe in my ear. You’re putting two and two together and coming up with five. You only saw an old building in your flashes because of the outhouse you discovered at the edge of the graveyard. Charley, your mind is just trying to make sense of the traumatic experience you’ve been through.

  I pushed my father’s words from my mind. They were his doubts, not mine. I had to believe in myself.

  Bent against the nagging wind, I pushed on, following the winding roads that snaked across the countryside. As the last of the stars winked out in the early morning sky, I stopped in the quiet country road to get my bearings. It was then I saw it. In the distance and on the crest of a small hill was a chimney pot sticking up from behind some trees. Could that be the rundown building I had seen in my flashes?

  I couldn’t be sure without taking a closer look. It could have been any old farmhouse or outhouse, but my knees felt as if they had turned to rubber. I lurched forward, the ends of my long auburn hair whipping about in the cold wind. If it was the building I had seen, then my flashes were real and so were Kerry and her murderer.

  Taking a deep lungful of freezing air, I headed along the road. I hadn’t gone very far when I came across a dirt road leading off towards the hill. I heard the sound of thunder and glanced up at the sky. It was dank and overcast, but there were no signs of a storm. I realised it wasn’t thunder but the distant roar of a train. I closed my eyes, the sound of my heart now beating in my ears.

  Had I found the dirt road where the man in my flashes had left his car? Was I standing near to where the girl named Kerry had been dragged, kicking and screaming through the undergrowth? Fighting the urge to drop to my knees, I swayed from left to right as if being blown by the wind. I was about to topple face first into the puddle-ridden track when I felt a hand grip my elbow and steady me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I heard someone ask.

  With a gasp, I opened my eyes. A guy dressed in a dark suit and tie had appeared from nowhere and was now holding me firmly by the arm.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked again, his light blue eyes fixed on mine.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, pulling my arm away. I took a step backwards, nearly losing my footing in the mud.

  The young guy shot his hand out and took hold of my arm again. ‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘What are you doing out here so early?’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, ignoring his question. How could I answer it without lying?

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ he said.

  His eyes were the colour of the sky on a bright summer’s afternoon. His hair was black, and the lower half of his tired face had grown dark where whiskers had started to show through. He looked like he had been awake all night.

  Suspecting I was in the very same place I believed a girl called Kerry had been murdered, and not knowing who this man was, I pulled my arm free from his grip again. The guy was way past just good-looking, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a killer.

  ‘How do I know you’re a cop?’ I asked, taking another step backwards in the mud.

  With his eyes still searching mine, he fished what looked like a silv
er badge from his trouser pocket and showed it to me. There was a picture of him fixed next to the badge in the little black leather wallet. ‘I’m Police Constable Tom Henson,’ he said.

  ‘Am I in some kind of trouble?’ I asked him.

  ‘Not unless you’ve got something to confess,’ he half-smiled, placing his badge back in his pocket.

  I couldn’t help but notice how his smile made his face kind of look mischievous, like he was trouble somehow. I liked that. Even so, I broke his stare and looked away.

  ‘So do you have something to confess?’ he asked softly.

  ‘No,’ I told him.

  ‘You never answered my question,’ he said.

  ‘And what question was that?’ I said, glancing sideways at him. ‘You’ve asked so many already.’

  ‘What are you doing all the way out here so early?’ Again, his eyes fixed on mine and even though his hair was skew-whiff and the stubble gave him the good looks of a rock star, I had to remind myself that he was a police officer.

  ‘Taking a walk,’ I said.

  He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘What, at just before seven a.m.?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I said, and it wasn’t a lie. ‘That isn’t against the law, is it?’

  ‘No,’ he said with that smile again. ‘It’s just that there was an incident out here last night.’

  My heart started to beat faster again, and not just because he was hot. ‘What kind of incident?’ I asked as casually as I could.

  He was watching me closely.

  ‘A young woman got struck by a train,’ he said.

  It felt like I had been slapped and I couldn’t be sure if I physically flinched or not. It wasn’t the girl’s death that surprised me as much as the manner or it – exactly the same way as Natalie.

  ‘Do you know anything about that?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said with a shake of my head, trying to recover from my shock. ‘Why would I know anything?’

  ‘It’s just that you look upset by what I told you,’ Tom said.

  ‘I’m cold,’ I lied.

  ‘So am I,’ he said, with that half-smile tugging at the corners of his lips again. ‘In fact, I’m cold, tired and very, very hungry. I’ve been awake all night and could do with some breakfast. What do you say?’

  ‘About what?’ I said.

  ‘Would you like to join me for breakfast?’ he asked, taking me by the arm and guiding me away from the entrance to the dirt track.

  ‘I haven’t got any money …’ I started, searching for an excuse. I didn’t want to be asked any more awkward questions.

  ‘I’m buying,’ he said, leading me towards a car parked around the bend in the lane and hidden from view.

  I looked at the car. ‘Isn’t it meant to have lots of blue flashing lights?’ I asked as he opened the door for me.

  ‘I don’t drive around in a marked police car,’ he said.

  ‘How come?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m a detective.’ He smiled and swung the door closed.

  So a detective was investigating the death of the girl I had seen in my flashes … Perhaps having breakfast with him wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He might mention something about the girl’s death I could link to what I’d seen.

  CHAPTER 8

  Tom – Monday: 07:34 Hrs.

  I stood in line and looked up at the breakfast menu. The girl stood beside me. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to take her other than McDonalds. I was new in town and didn’t know of any other cafes.

  ‘What do you fancy?’ I asked her.

  She blushed and looked back at the menu. I was yet to ask her name, but she was really pretty. Fiery auburn hair hung over her shoulders and down her back, her skin was creamy-pale and she had sharp green eyes. I could only guess her age, but she didn’t look more than eighteen. That was okay. I could ask her questions about the death of the girl up at the tracks; I wasn’t planning on interviewing her, but should I need to, she wouldn’t need an appropriate adult present.

  I suspected that her being at the scene of a death was more than just mere coincidence. She had gone up there for a reason. There was a nervousness about her that told me as much. I could’ve driven her straight to the station, but she would’ve clammed up, especially if she had come across top detective Jackson and his collection of thumb screws.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I think I’m going to have a Big Breakfast and some hash browns.’

  ‘I’ll just have tea, please,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and placed the order.

  ‘You know you’re not going to stay in shape if you keep eating fast food,’ she said.

  I turned to her and smiled. ‘You think I’m in shape? Thanks for saying so.’

  ‘It’s not what I meant,’ she said, her cheeks flushing.

  ‘No?’ I teased. ‘So what did you mean?’

  ‘You’re not going to be chasing too many criminals if you stodge up on junk food,’ she said. ‘I thought cops had to be fit.’

  ‘So you don’t think I’m fit then?’ I winked at her.

  ‘Oh, please,’ she sighed, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m going to find us a table.’ She headed off across the restaurant.

  I paid and carried the food over to the table. Sliding into my seat, I said, ‘So, you never told me your name.’

  ‘Why do you need to know my name?’ she asked, taking her tea and warming her hands against the paper cup. ‘Is this some kind of interview?’

  ‘Are you always so hostile with every guy that buys you breakfast?’ I shot back, opening the lid off my food.

  ‘You’re not just any guy, you’re a cop,’ she smiled over the rim of her cup.

  ‘Is that a problem?’ I asked, forking scrambled egg into my mouth.

  ‘No, problem,’ she said. ‘It’s just that cops are meant to always be on duty, aren’t they?’

  Putting my fork to one side, I reached into my coat pocket and removed my radio. It hissed with static. I switched it off and placed it on the table. ‘Okay, so now I’m officially off duty.’

  ‘My name’s Charley Sheppard.’

  ‘Good to meet you, Charley,’ I said, reaching out across the table.

  Slowly, she took my hand. Her skin felt soft but cold. I let her hand go so she could warm it again around her cup.

  ‘So how old are you?’ I asked her.

  ‘Are you sure you’re off duty? It’s just that this is beginning to sound like some kind of interrogation,’ Charley said. ‘Why do you need to know my age?’

  ‘Just being friendly,’ I said with a shrug, returning to my food.

  There was a pause. ‘I’m seventeen. Seventeen and a half in fact. Actually I’ll be eighteen in just a few months. Well six months …’

  ‘So you’re seventeen and a half,’ I smiled.

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘No problem,’ I said with a casual shake of my head.

  ‘So what about you?’

  ‘Twenty years, two months, three days, five hours and four seconds …’ I said.

  ‘Ha-ha, very funny,’ Charley said, looking through the window and out onto the cobbled high street. A few people passed by, bent forward against the rising wind.

  ‘I was just messing with you,’ I said, fearing my teasing might have hurt her feelings. ‘Honest, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she shrugged.

  I didn’t need to be a cop to know she was worried about something.

  ‘You look tired,’ I said, not knowing what else to say but not wanting the conversation to dry up. I needed to keep Charley talking.

  ‘So do you,’ she said.

  ‘Is that a polite way of telling me I look like a sack of shit?’ I said. She just looked at me. Now I felt like I was on the spot. ‘I’ve been up all night,’ I told her.

  ‘Investigating the death of that girl?’ Charley said.

  Why was she so keen
to know that?

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘So why were you really up on that deserted road this morning?’

  Charley looked out of the window again. She did know something. I could see her whole body tensing up. Picking up one of the hash browns, I tore it in two and offered her half. ‘Go on, it’s good,’ I said.

  Looking down at the food and not at me, she took it from between my fingers. She pulled a piece off and popped it in her mouth. I watched her chew it slowly, thoughtfully.

  ‘My best friend was killed by a train on the railway tracks a few weeks back,’ she said. She must have seen my look of surprise because she quickly added, ‘Didn’t you know? I thought it would be your business to know something like that. Her name was Natalie Dean.’

  Charley was right, I didn’t know. I had only made the move from force headquarters in Truro to the coastal town of Marsh Bay a week ago, so I wouldn’t have known about her friend’s death. But why hadn’t Harker, Taylor or Jackson mentioned it? Why had they kept that from me? I didn’t like the fact that I was being kept out of the loop.

  I tried to mask my surprise. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your friend, but that still doesn’t account for you being up on that remote dirt track this morning.’

  ‘I just wanted to go up to where she died, to pay my respects …’

  ‘So she died in the exact same place as the girl last night?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, sounding confused, as if I’d put her under some kind of pressure.

  ‘So what are the chances of you stumbling across the very same place where a girl died?’ Charley was right; breakfast was turning into some kind of interrogation.

  ‘Look, I didn’t have anything to do with Kerry’s death …’ Realising her mistake, she stopped midsentence and looked at me.

  ‘Okay. So how come you know her name was Kerry?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Charley said, looking as shocked as me.

  ‘Yes you do. You just said her name was Kerry.’

  ‘What I meant to say was I couldn’t be certain her name was Kerry,’ she said.

  I placed my knife and fork down on the table. ‘Look, what’s going on here, Charley?’