by Tim O'Rourke
‘Nothing’s going on,’ she said, white-faced.
I wasn’t convinced she was involved in Kerry Underwood’s death, but she knew something about it.
‘Charley, we can either talk about this now over a nice relaxing breakfast or we can discuss it down at the station. I would much prefer to stay here. What do you reckon?’ I tried to keep my voice calm so as not to upset her. I feared she might not talk to me, and I liked her.
She wrung her hands together. ‘You’ve got to believe me, Tom. I wasn’t involved in that girl’s death last night.’
‘So how do you know her name?’
‘I see things. I have flashes,’ Charley whispered like she was sharing some sacred secret with me.
‘You see things? What kind of things? What did you see?’ To ask so many questions all at once definitely wasn’t a great interview technique, but I was confused.
‘I know her name because I saw it on her necklace,’ Charley said.
She knows about the necklace? I really should take her down the road to the station but if I did would she clam up? ‘How do you know about the necklace?’ I asked, my breakfast now forgotten.
‘So she did wear a necklace?’ Charley said with a tinge of excitement in her voice.
‘You tell me,’ I said. ‘What else do you know?’
Charley leant forward and rubbed her temples. She groaned as if in pain.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked, wondering if this wasn’t all some kind of act to divert my attention away from what she had been telling me.
‘It’s just a headache,’ she winced, screwing her eyes shut. ‘I get them from time to time.’
‘You look awful,’ I said as what little colour she had left in her face drained away. This was no act. I picked up the cup of tea and closed her fingers around it. ‘Here, drink some of this.’ I helped her guide the cup to her lips. ‘Better?’ I asked.
‘Kerry didn’t walk up to that dirt road last night,’ she said, her voice hollow and breathless. ‘She was taken in a car. She was dragged onto the tracks. I could hear the trains …’
‘Charley, what are you talking about?’ I said, reaching for her hands twitching uncontrollably on the table.
She brushed me away. Although Charley looked scared, her eyes sparkled with excitement. It was like she had been proved right about something.
‘A part of me is so scared, Tom,’ she said, looking at me, her eyes wide.
‘Why?’ I asked her, not knowing or truly understanding what was happening.
‘I’m scared because I saw that girl being dragged to her death, but there is another part of me that’s happy too,’ she whispered.
‘How can you be happy about a young girl losing her life?’ I mumbled, fearing that perhaps Charley had mental health issues I had failed to pick up on.
‘It means I’m not losing my mind,’ she breathed. ‘It proves I haven’t been making this stuff up. The stuff I saw in those flashes wasn’t the work of my overactive imagination. They weren’t dreams, nightmares or hallucinations. They were real!’
‘Flashes?’ I gasped, realising this was the second time she had used this word.
‘I saw her, Tom. I saw Kerry,’ she said, rubbing her trembling fingers against her temples. ‘I saw her last night in my flashes.’
‘Right, slow down. What exactly are flashes?’
‘Tom, listen! I saw that girl last night. I saw images of what was happening to her in my mind as I lay on the bathroom floor.’
‘Do you know how crazy that sounds?’ I said. ‘It’s impossible!’
‘Why is it impossible?’ Charley said.
‘Because …’
‘Because the stuff I see in my flashes is just the product of my overactive imagination?’ she said with tears in her eyes. ‘I’ve been told that my whole life, but now I know that what I see in my flashes is true.’
‘I can’t believe that, Charley,’ I said. ‘But what you’re telling me implicates you in her death. Can you see that?’
‘You’re right. I am implicated, in a way.’ She sounded scared again. ‘I saw Kerry last night, yet I wasn’t there. It was like she was showing me what happened to her.’
‘But why would she do that?’ I asked.
‘I think she wants me to help her … catch her killer,’ Charley said. ‘Perhaps that’s what they’ve all been showing me …’
‘They’ve?’ I cut in. ‘You’ve seen more than one person?’
‘Yes,’ Charley nodded. ‘But this is the first time I’ve found a physical connection between those in my flashes and the real world.’
‘And that’s the problem,’ I sighed, not wanting to belittle her. ‘Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in the real world.’
Staring at me, a grim look of determination on her pretty face, Charley clenched her fists. ‘Kerry had blonde hair, blue eyes, she was about eighteen. She wore blue jeans and white trainers. There was a dirt track close to where she died and it was swimming with puddles. A man dragged her up that track and all the time he was calling her a bitch. Her mobile was ringing and the killer snatched it out of her hands and tossed it away. The ringtone was that song Burn by Ellie Goulding. The killer drove a white car. He parked it in the lane. I could see what looked like some kind of outhouse with a broken chimney pot on top.’
I stared at her. ‘You would know all of that if you had been there last night.’
‘But I wasn’t, I was home,’ she said.
‘So you say.’ There was an uncomfortable silence.
‘So arrest me then!’ she finally snapped, shooting to her feet and thrusting her wrists across the table at me.
I glanced sideways and could see some of the other customers staring. ‘Sit down,’ I hissed.
Charley took her seat again.
‘So what did this guy – the one you say dragged Kerry down onto the tracks – look like?’ I asked. I really did want to believe her. I had learnt to believe in my instincts just like I had last night when dealing with Jackson. I knew he had been wrong, and if what Charley was telling me was half true then my instincts had been right.
‘I don’t see the faces of the living in the flashes, only those who’ve died,’ she told me.
‘Convenient,’ I sighed, sounding more flippant than I intended.
‘I don’t make up the rules,’ Charley said. She drew a deep breath. ‘For years I’ve been ridiculed and laughed at because of my flashes, even my own father doesn’t believe I see things. Do you think it was easy to sit here and tell you this stuff ? I know what you’re thinking – you think I’m some kind of crazy. But why would I risk that? Wouldn’t it have been easier for me to stuff my face with hash browns and head off home again? I told you what I saw in my flashes because I got the feeling that perhaps you were different. You had a kind smile and you got me to trust you. You told me you were off duty and we were just here for breakfast. But you’re just like everyone else. I just needed to talk to someone – a friend. But you’re not a friend. You can never really be anyone’s friend because you’re a copper first. You’d probably arrest your own grandmother if you had to, so you wouldn’t think twice about arresting someone like me.’
‘Have you finished?’ I asked. ‘You seem to be forgetting that I haven’t arrested you.’
And how could I? What would I be arresting her for? I didn’t even know if a crime had been committed yet. I didn’t believe that Kerry Underwood staggered blindly onto the tracks and collapsed like Jackson wanted everyone to believe, but I needed more evidence first.
Regardless of whether Charley was telling the truth, she knew something about Kerry Underwood’s death. Whether that came from a series of supernatural flashes, or if she had some kind of deeper involvement but was just too scared to tell me yet, I knew I had to keep her close. Gain her trust.
In my heart I knew I should really take her to the police station and do a proper interview, but what would Harker and Jackson make of her? Walking into the police station with someone who claimed
they had been having psychic visions about the death of Kerry Underwood wouldn’t do any wonders for my credibility.
No, I would keep it all to myself for now. I would wait until I had more proof before I risked telling my colleagues about Charley. Besides, I couldn’t deny that I liked her – there was something different about her and not just the fact she claimed to have visions.
‘So are you going to arrest me?’ Charley asked.
‘No,’ I said.
‘You believe me then?’ she said, her voice sounding hopeful.
‘I didn’t say that,’ I said, taking a business card from my pocket and sliding it across the table.
She picked it up and inspected it. ‘What’s this for?’ she said, turning it over in her hands.
‘My number’s on it,’ I told her. ‘Call me.’
‘And why would I want to do that?’
‘So you can tell me what you see in those flashes,’ I smiled, fishing my notebook out. ‘What’s your number?’
She gave it to me without any further questions. Deep down, some part of me hoped Charley would call, flashes or not.
CHAPTER 9
Charley – Monday: 08:57 Hrs.
Tom parked the car outside my house. My father was on the drive working on his car. He looked up. He looked surprised. Did he believe that I had been in bed? It was light now, but still early for me. My father held a cloth in his hand and I could see that he had been waxing the back of his cab where there seemed to be some kind of dent. I hadn’t been aware that he’d had an accident. It didn’t look very bad. My father placed the cloth on the roof of the car and stood looking at Tom and me. The wind swept his greying hair back from his brow. There was a bucket of soapy water at his feet and his fingers looked red and raw from where they had been in the water.
‘Is that your dad?’ Tom asked.
‘Yep,’ I said, opening the door.
‘I’ll say hello,’ Tom said.
‘No, it’s okay …’ But it was too late; Tom was already out and standing on the pavement.
‘Hey, Dad,’ I smiled.
‘I didn’t know you were up,’ my father said, shooting Tom a sideways glance. ‘Where have you been so early?’
‘Just out walking,’ I said, closing the car door with my hip.
He eyed Tom again. Why did he always have to be so freaking hostile to my friends? I was nearly eighteen; couldn’t I choose the people I wanted to hang out with? He was always telling me to get some friends and get out of the house. But Tom was a guy – and that’s what he didn’t like. I was his little girl.
Tom walked towards my father with his hand out. ‘Hello, Mr Shepard,’ he smiled. ‘I’m Tom Henson.’
My father wiped his hands against his jeans then gripped Tom’s hand. He pumped it briskly up and down. ‘Hello,’ he said, without a smile.
There was an uncomfortable silence, only filled by the sound of the nagging wind. I felt the urge to say something, but didn’t know what.
‘So you’re a friend of my daughter’s?’ my father finally said.
‘Kind of, I suppose,’ Tom said, looking at me.
I smiled back and shrugged. Were we friends?
‘It’s just that I’ve never heard my daughter mention you,’ my father said. ‘We’ve only just met,’ I started to explain and then wished I hadn’t.
‘And you’re letting him give you a lift already?’ my father said, raising his eyebrows.
‘It’s okay,’ Tom said, hooking his badge from his pocket. ‘Charley’s quite safe with me, I’m a police officer.’
‘A police officer?’ My dad’s brow furrowed. ‘Is my daughter in some kind of trouble?’
‘No, don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘Tom just gave me a lift home, that’s all.’
‘I see,’ he said.
But I knew Dad didn’t see at all. He only saw what he wanted to and that was a young, good-looking cop giving his daughter a ride home first thing in the morning. Did he think I had snuck out in the night to see Tom and had been caught sneaking home? I could see my father’s eyes narrowing. Those were the thoughts I guessed all dads had when their daughter first brought home a guy. But I wasn’t bringing home a guy. Tom wasn’t my guy. He was a cop.
‘Well, it was good meeting you, Mr Shepard,’ Tom said, with a wave of his hand. ‘But I’ve been up all night and I could do with some sleep.’
My father scowled and I couldn’t help but wonder if Tom hadn’t made that last comment to tease him. I’d already got the impression Tom liked to tease people. He was kind of cocky, but in a mischievous not an arrogant kind of way. I hid my smile, looking down at my boots. Tom climbed into his car and fired up the engine.
‘Come on Dad, I’ll make you a cuppa,’ I said, taking his arm and leading him up the drive towards the front door.
I heard Tom’s car pull away from the kerb and glanced back over my shoulder. He smiled at me, then was gone, his taillights glowing red in the overcast light of the morning. I pushed open the front door and stepped inside. Dad followed me into the kitchen.
‘So where have you really been?’ he asked.
I switched on the kettle. He took a seat at the kitchen table. His hands still looked pink with cold. I took my coat off and hung it over the back of a chair. ‘I couldn’t sleep so I took a walk up to the railway tracks.’
‘Why?’ he asked.
I took two tea bags from a box on the work counter, refusing to look at him. ‘I wanted to see if I could find the place where that girl died.’
‘What girl?’ he asked, his voice sounding stiff.
‘The girl I saw in my flashes last night. The girl called Kerry,’ I said, splashing milk into the cups. ‘I wanted to see if I could find the place where she was killed.’
‘Enough already,’ my father said. I heard the sound of his chair scraping as he stood up. ‘This madness has got to stop, Charley.’
‘It’s not madness,’ I said, wheeling round to face him. ‘I’m not mad, Dad. I found the place where that girl died. I saw the tumbled down house on the hill. It was the same house I saw in my flashes.’
‘It was the place you came across the other day at Natalie’s funeral,’ he said. ‘Your mind is playing tricks with you. It’s understandable, Charley, you’re grieving …’
‘My mind isn’t playing tricks on me, Dad, and it wasn’t the same place. I was nowhere near the graveyard where Natalie was buried. And besides …’
‘Besides what?’ His boots made a clacking sound on the tiled floor as he took a step towards me. The boiling kettle seemed so loud. I wanted to cover my ears.
‘There was a girl who died on the tracks last night and her name was Kerry,’ I whispered.
‘And how do you know this?’ my father asked, his voice dropping too.
‘That police officer … Tom … told me,’ I said. ‘He told me a girl named Kerry Underwood was hit and killed by a train last night. So my flashes are real, Dad.’ I hoped that this was the proof he needed. All I wanted was for him to believe me. That’s all I’d ever wanted. But it was like he hadn’t heard what I’d said.
‘What did you tell that police officer?’ he asked, coming closer still.
‘What do you mean?’ Why was he so worried about Tom?
‘Did you tell him about your flashes?’ he said.
I turned away to pour water into the cups. Steam coiled up all around me, and I just wanted to sink into it. I wanted it to hide me from my father so I didn’t have to answer his questions.
‘You told him, didn’t you?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, picking up the cups of tea. I had nothing to hide. I had done nothing wrong. ‘Have you got a problem with that?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got a problem with that,’ my father said, nodding his head and looking at me.
‘I can’t see the harm in telling Tom if it helps the police catch the person who killed that girl,’ I said.
‘But you don’t know the girl was murdered,’ he said, exasperated. ‘You
can’t go around telling the police stuff that you don’t know is true – that you don’t know is real! You could be leading them away from what really happened.’
‘I know what really happened,’ I said. I felt the anger and frustration I always felt around my father growing inside me.
‘Charley, you don’t know! You can’t know!’ he shouted.
‘But Tom said …’ I started.
‘I couldn’t give a crap what that cop said,’ my father barked. ‘Can’t you see, Charley? That cop will just use you for information.’
‘I think he believes me,’ I shot back.
‘He probably believes you were involved somehow. You’re probably his prime suspect.’
‘That’s just ridiculous,’ I said, placing my cup down. I didn’t want it any more.
‘No, you’re ridiculous, Charley,’ he said.
It felt as though he’d slapped me. Hard. My father must have seen the look of hurt in my eyes because he came towards me again, arms open.
‘Don’t,’ I said, raising the flat of my hand at him. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘I’m sorry, Charley, I didn’t mean that.’
‘Yeah, you did,’ I said, biting my lower lip in an attempt to stop it trembling. I refused to cry. I wouldn’t allow myself to shed one more tear in front of him. I was never going to fall apart in front of anyone ever again. Looking straight back at him, I took a deep breath. ‘I only went looking for that place because of you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I was so desperate to prove to you that my flashes were true, I crept from my bed and out into the dark and cold,’ I told him, my heart racing in my chest. ‘I just wanted you to believe. I just wanted you to believe in me.’ I felt tears stinging in the corners of my eyes. ‘But you’re just like the rest. Do you really think I want to spend the rest of my life seeing people die?’ I snapped.
‘Charley, I’m just trying to protect you,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. You’re my little girl.’
‘I’m not six any more,’ I said, heart still thumping.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you will always be my little girl. I can’t help feeling like that. I just don’t want to see you being used.’