by Sarah Wray
The letter taunts me on the stairs. I tear it into two, then four, finally letting out a scream that shreds and burns the back of my throat. I feel better for a second. I wonder if they heard it outside. Let them report it; I don’t care anymore.
I take the picture of me and Chris off the windowsill. We’re on the beach, bundled up against the weather. The rage swells again and I throw it as hard as I can against the back wall. It’s not heavy, but the corner hits the plaster with a dull thud, creating a dent before bouncing down onto the floor. The clean sound of glass smashing is pleasing. Then it’s cups, plates, anything I can get my hands on. Most of the cups don’t break, but the plates smash into thousands of tiny pieces and splinters that could lodge in your eye or sink into your foot, impossible to get out again. I don’t care if they hear me outside. They’ll write what they want anyway.
I go upstairs now, into the bedroom, dragging Chris’s clothes out of the wardrobe and throwing them on to the floor, pulling at the sleeves. The effort, the pain of trying to tear the tightly woven fabric of the shirts gives me some release.
I can still hear the journalists outside, shouting my name. I look out of the window, and one of them is pressed up to the living-room window, another one standing further back, his camera angled up towards me. I jump back.
I barely wait for the ladder to be in place before climbing up to the loft, pushing the hatch open with a shove so that it slams open onto the loft floor. I don’t use any of the usual caution, striding up the ladder quickly, not bothering to check my footing.
There’s no escape up here though. This room taunts me too. The queasiness creeps in again. What did Chris do up here all those nights? Nights while I was in the house downstairs, oblivious. I’ve tried to stop it, to hold the line, but something in me has given way. You read about these houses and hotels built on cliffs. The sea is eroding the foundations, bit by bit, day by day. The people won’t move out, though. Then one day the buildings go. They are hurtling towards the rocks below.
There wasn’t anything to connect Kayleigh and Chris before, but now the facts look stark, there are fewer places to hide. Chris and Kayleigh were both at the river. Kayleigh died in it. Now when I see Chris’s face, it’s all hard lines, that almost-sneer I’d sometimes catch during a row.
I pull out a drawer from the chest and launch the contents across the loft, old phone chargers, random photographs, pens clattering across the wooden floor. Why do we have all this stupid, useless shit? I think to myself, tension collecting again in my jaw.
I splay the photos out on the floor but they’re nothing. Days out in London, the weekend we took to Berlin. Chris’s parents’ wedding anniversary.
Pulling out the bottom drawer, I lose my grip. It’s heavy with old papers, tapes and empty CD cases. The corner falls to the floor and strikes me on the bridge of my foot. The pain radiates out and I stagger backwards.
I sit on the floor of the loft, exhausted from the outburst. Now that they are still, my upper arms feel stretched and strained from the weight of the drawers. I can feel the blood pumping around my body, the rhythm calming me down.
Catching my breath, I pull out my phone and switch it back on. Missed calls, texts, voicemails start to beep in. My heart rate starts to slow down again.
Would any of this have happened if we hadn’t come here? If I hadn’t made Chris leave London? He’d always joked about how awful Shawmouth was: the arcades, the grotty pubs, the lack of anything much to do. ‘You floaters,’ he’d say, after a weekend visit or a Christmas trip, ‘you’re a funny lot.’ Jokes about in-breeding…
But I picture him now as we left London on the train, rattling past glass skyscrapers, cement-grey balconies crowded with overspills from tiny flats – washing racks, bikes, makeshift gardens – eventually giving way to big houses, gardens with trampolines. He wasn’t smiling anymore. There was genuine sadness. But it’s not enough for this. It doesn’t explain this. Could anything?
The phone rings and it’s Sandra and Geoff. They must have been trying constantly. I can’t avoid them anymore; it isn’t fair.
Sandra lets out a sigh and starts speaking as soon as I pick up. ‘Oh my God, Rebecca – where have you been? What’s going on? We’ve been trying to reach you!’
‘Go easy on the lass,’ I hear Geoff say.
‘I’m sorry, Sandra. I’ve just been, you know, trying to deal with all this.’
‘We’ve seen the news, the police rang. How awful. That poor girl and her family.’ The panic is rising in her voice.
‘Are you OK, Sandra? You need to take some deep breaths.’
She puts Geoff on the phone.
‘Don’t worry, pet. I’m doing my best to look after her. Not bearing up so well myself.’
‘Geoff…’
‘Please don’t, love. Not right now.’
‘I can’t do it either. But she’s going to have to come to terms with the fact that… well, it looks bad, Geoff. He’d been seen at the river. She was in the river. Geoff?’
‘Geoff, what’s going on? What’s she saying? What have the police said to her? Does she know something?’ Sandra in the background, bubble not yet burst.
She comes back on the phone. ‘It’s not right what they’re saying. There’s no proof he did this!’
‘Sandra, it looks—’
‘He saved someone’s life once, you know.’
She always likes to tell this story. I don’t have the heart to stop her now.
‘Do you remember he told you about it?’
‘I do, Sandra.’ But I know she’ll tell me about it again anyway. I think it soothes her, the repetition of things.
‘He was working in a restaurant. More of a pub, really. A weekend job – while he was at college, before university. And this young lad just dropped to the floor. Like a stone, Chris said. They said he had a heart condition, the young lad.’
Her voice has drifted off now, become more wistful. I have to let her finish.
‘Chris did CPR. Learned it in the Scouts. Kept him alive until the ambulance came. We’ve still got the thank-you card the lad’s mother sent, haven’t we, Geoff?’
‘We have, love,’ he says in the background.
She’s sobbing now, struggling to get her breath. ‘Which thing do you think people will remember, Rebecca? It’s not going to be that he saved someone’s life, is it? They don’t write that in any of their stories now, do they?’
Geoff takes the phone back off Sandra. ‘We best get off now, Rebecca, love. Keep in touch. Please. We’d appreciate that.’
‘I will, Geoff. I’ll call soon, I promise.’
As I put the phone down, something on the floor catches my eye. It must have been stuck behind one of the drawers I pulled out. A large envelope, ripped open across the top. I shuffle over on the floor and pick it up to look more closely. The envelope is unbranded but from a business – one of the ones with a cellophane window for the address.
I tip out the contents onto the floor. Mostly official letters, folded neatly. A letter about the failure to repay a payday loan of £1,000 in May. I think back to May. Did I notice anything around that time? Was he on edge? Did we row? All I remember is that we did the garden up – Chris’s parents helped us – we all went to the garden centre together. It was a nice weekend. I remember a row too, I think. I don’t know exactly the month but it was spring because the nights were light. I said he never made any effort, that we didn’t do anything together anymore. We had become boring. I didn’t mean it, though. I just meant that I was bored that day. I wanted to get out of the house, see other people. For him to arrange something for once. I went to bed at 7 p.m.
There’s a letter from a Marshall Collection Services about a debt that had been passed to them. A notification from a credit card company that his limit had been increased to £10,000. I feel my chest tighten at the thought of my own mountain of credit card debt, rising and rising. Then there’s a credit card statement – from June of this year. My eyes d
art around the page, desperate for clues that might tell me where he had been, but there’s nothing. Just large transfers to his bank account – £300, £500, and cash withdrawals listed as being from here in Shawmouth. How did I not know?
There’s one more letter that is different to the rest. The headed paper says Powell & Sons. ‘Jewellers and pawnbrokers since 1840.’ My stomach clenches. I can’t take everything in; all the information in the different boxes. A serial number. Chris’s name. Our address. Description: 14 KT gold brown topaz diamond ring. Date: 15 July. He got £100 for it.
I feel winded. Gut-punched afresh. My mind is clawing around the edges, looking for an explanation, but there’s nothing. Not this time. Why should I still be surprised? Chris stole my ill mother’s wedding ring and sold it for £100.
I take out my phone again and go to the video. Chris on the grass, the sun beaming down. I’ve watched it every day since he left. I think for a second, but not for long. I don’t want to remember those times now, the happy times. They make me feel almost as sick as the other thoughts now. Me, the stupid wife, unsuspecting, smiling.
I delete the video. Are you sure? the phone asks.
The journalists are gone when I eventually come outside. The housing estate looks stark: completely still and deserted, the street lamps putting each empty house into its own little spotlight. I walk all the way back to the caravan park.
Along the seafront there is just the odd car every now and then. I tense up each time. I sit on a bench for a while, listening to the waves. There’s nothing to see; just blackness.
Thirty-Four
Thursday, 19 November
They’re treating Kayleigh’s death as ‘unexplained’. There are going to be more tests. But I think I know enough already. I can’t cling on to false hope anymore. A small part of me still does, but mostly there’s a sense of inevitability. Maybe there always was.
The blue glow from the laptop. The cursor has been hovering here for over half an hour now. Are you sure you want to delete this page? I take a deep breath and delete the ‘Find Chris Harding’ Facebook page. I expect something to happen, something to lift, but there’s nothing, just the unbroken silence. I’ve sat in it at the caravan all day, a strange calmness.
I flip-close the laptop and lie down under the blankets. It’s almost 10 p.m. But then I hear it: the shuffling. I knew they’d come; I just thought it would be sooner. Maybe this time they will really do some damage: to me, to the caravan. But I am strangely calm.
The sound is coming from the window closest to the sofa, a scuffling sound. But it doesn’t sound like there is a group this time. An animal? A cat? I don’t put the light on but I pull on my jeans and a jumper and grab the torch, feel the weight of it – am I taking it for light or protection?
I shine the light out of the kitchen window, but I can’t see anything except my reflection. Kneeling on the sofa bed, I look out of the side window opposite, placing the torch next to me, letting the beam cast light upwards. My hands are shaking as I cup them around my face to look out of the window. At first I am confused, thinking it’s my reflection staring back at me, but I am too close. It’s someone else’s face looking in at me. A shock of terror runs through me and I close the curtain again, my heart bursting in my chest.
I throw open the caravan door and use the torch like a searchlight. But there’s only one silhouette running away towards the exit. I recognise who it is. I switch the torch off before she has a chance to turn round.
I open my mouth to call out to her, but I think better of it. It is Kat. Chris approached her too. Jeannie’s words run through my head: Sometimes you have to give yourself closure. You can’t wait for other people. I have my chance right here. I don’t think following teenage girls was what she had in mind, though. I quickly find my coat and boots.
Her silhouette looks small, fragile and childlike. She shouldn’t be out this late, alone. And alone, why would she come here alone? They always come together. I’m walking after her, keeping a safe distance behind. She walks along the seafront, the blue in her hair suddenly showing each time she passes under the street lights.
She stops every now and then, taking her phone from her pocket to check it – the screen glowing a white rectangle. She looks around from time to time too. Does she know I am following her, or is it just the natural nervousness of any woman out walking on her own on a dark night, in a town like this?
Eventually she turns down the alley where Star Pizza is. It’s in total darkness downstairs tonight, an early finish. But upstairs, the lights are on. She stops and looks up, like she’s thinking about something. Going in? Ringing? I wait at the top of the alley. But then she’s on the move again.
I wait a while and follow her from further behind, staying close to the walls where it’s darkest. At one point, she stops and turns. Perhaps she’s heard my shoes or my breathing. But I turn my face slowly to the wall and stand still and silent, disappearing into the darkness. I chance a look. She’s getting away.
We’re weaving down some back streets I haven’t been down for years, since I was a teenager myself. The backs of takeaways and arcades – just bins and closed back gates. Eventually, the shops give way to the backs of houses. I never go this way, but I think I realise where we’re going, heading up towards the station. Or – my stomach flips over – maybe the river. I think again of what they said about Kayleigh, and I wince. ‘Injuries consistent with being dragged through a rocky, fast-flowing waterway.’
Kat turns into a snicket, looking about her more than ever. The passage overlooks gardens with swings and plastic slides. Greenhouses, rusting gas barbecues bought in a wave of optimism one sunny day, not uncovered for years. I can see her more clearly now as the alleyway is quite well lit, a half-arsed concession to safety after an old woman was robbed last winter, her bag stolen for just the £3 that was in it. She was on the front of the newspaper a week later, her cheek bruised and purple, the white part of her eye turned solid red.
I put my hood up, making a point to hide my face. Why? A shiver of fear – what am I thinking of doing? If she tells me about what happened with Chris, him approaching her, what will I do? I have lost my grip on what anyone is capable of these days. But at the same time, I have to know. I can’t look away anymore.
I hold back until she clears the snicket. I could go back now. I should go back. What am I doing, stalking a teenage girl? But it was Kat who started this; she came to me for a reason.
She comes back into view, crossing the street; I pick up the pace so as not to lose her. As I come out into the clearing, I recognise where we are now. Right at the top of The Parades.
I am closer now, but I jump and freeze when the electronic song from her phone blares out. She ignores it and puts it back in her pocket.
The football field is floodlit but empty. As we get closer, the sound of the river hissing and rushing is getting louder, making it harder to keep a sense of my bearings.
The lighting is petering out – I can’t see her now apart from the odd glimpse of a silhouette. I hold my breath.
As we edge into the darkness, I have to speed up again because I am losing her.
Then we are in a clearing. The sound of the river rushing is very close.
I stand on something and it releases a loud snap.
‘Who is it?’ I can hear in the movement of her voice that she has spun round. ‘Who is it? Paige, is it you?’
I don’t say anything straight away.
‘Who is it?’ she asks again, the panic clear in her voice.
‘Hey. Hey!’ I call out, trying to stay reassuring, non-threatening. ‘Please stop. I need to talk to you.’
But I can’t hear anything over the rushing river. And my eyes haven’t properly adjusted to the new level of darkness yet. I wait and listen, worried that I have frightened her away.
Then there’s a small voice, very close, although I can’t see her yet. It must be Kat. She sounds frightened. ‘Who is it? What do you want?’<
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‘You came to my house; my caravan. Just now.’ My eyes are adjusting. She’s less than an arm’s length in front of me. Touching distance.
‘What caravan? I don’t know what you’re on about. Why are you following me?’
I hadn’t noticed before, but her accent has a soft cockney lilt; she’s not from around here. I reach out to grab her by the shoulder, but I misjudge the distance and grasp at the air. ‘I know you know who I am. I know you are Kat. You knew Kayleigh.’
‘Look, I don’t know what you want but, please, just leave me alone.’ She’s trying to sound tougher than she is, but I can hear the crack in her voice too.
‘What are you doing up here by the river at this time of night? It isn’t safe.’
‘I am going home. It’s quicker this way. You should do the same. Please go away.’ I know she’s trying to be forceful, but her voice is wobbling.
I can’t see her again now so I spin round – she must have moved further away.
I shout out; I think I am shouting forwards, where I expect her to be. ‘I saw you. You were looking into my caravan.’
Her phone rings again, sounding unnatural in this environment. She takes it out and the glow helps me get my bearings.
‘Fuck,’ she says, looking at it, but she doesn’t answer.
A text beeps through almost straight away.
‘You really need to just leave it. Like I said. You shouldn’t have followed me. But you really, really need to just leave it.’
‘Kat?’
‘Please, please, please just go away and leave me alone. I can’t do this.’ I can hear her breathing fast or starting to cry.
‘It’s OK, Kat.’ I try to mimic the tone people used with me. The doctor, the police, the therapist, Jeannie in the early days. I can’t sound hostile to her. No sudden moves.