Dear Amy

by Helen Callaghan

  20

  I was woken by church bells and the raucous cries of crows.

  My shoulder hurt less, but my limbs were just as heavy. It was very restful, actually, to just lie there and be unable to do anything.

  Then I remembered.

  ‘Martin,’ I shouted, or attempted to. My voice was tremulous and insubstantial.

  My car was still in the juggernauts’ graveyard. I had to get it back. I had to get to the police and describe my attacker. I had to get Wendy to forward my mail somewhere safe. I had to . . . tell Martin that I knew who Bethan Avery was.

  I couldn’t see my mobile phone.

  I touched my shoulder. It was still a little hot and tender, but the bandages felt far less tight. This gave me so much confidence that I got out of bed and stood up in one motion. I was in the process of taking my first step when the dizziness hit me and I collapsed to the floor. For a moment I couldn’t move at all.

  I was so frustrated and angry that I wept hard but silently into the coarse carpet for a few seconds.

  Now, now, Margot, you were just a touch too hasty, that’s all. If you stand up slowly then you’ll be all right.

  I sat up, slowly. Even this made me feel vague and numb. How the hell could I accomplish anything in this condition? If that thug burst in here right now I would be utterly helpless. This sobering notion gave me renewed strength. Sitting around and crying about it was quite simply not a luxury I could afford.

  I tugged down the shoulder of my shirt to examine my injuries with my own eyes. I gently pulled off a little of the tape and lifted the bandage. Even this hurt, the cooler air stinging it. It was a knife cut, a long furrow beginning at the top of my shoulder, and coming down over my chest until it was level with my armpit. It was a perfectly straight line, about a quarter of an inch deep at its widest, with slightly raised edges that were white against the angry red skin surrounding it. Within the lacing of the stitches, the blood within had congealed to a dark ruby red. I peered at it. It looked ugly, but was hardly the death-dealing injury I had mistaken it for. I replaced the bandage carefully, the tape refusing to stick properly again. Sod it.

  I stood up, slowly. Far better. I still felt weak and dizzy, but it would pass. I tried to smooth down my tangled, sweaty hair.

  The room, now that I saw it in daylight, was small but pretty, with pale blue curtains and a sanded grey wood dresser. This supported a warped antique mirror that threw my reflection back at me at a slightly queer, fun-house angle. A conch shell rested before it.

  Nudging aside the curtains, a tiny but beautifully maintained scrap of garden lay below me, edged in dark green hedging. Blue tits and chaffinches were darting in and out of a bird feeder. Beyond the garden were fields, their stubble ploughed under, bounded by a thin ribbon of trees. The landscape was flat, the sky wide – this was the Fens, I understood immediately – but where in the Fens?

  It was a beautifully cold, sunny day on the very lip of autumn, before it turns to winter. With my good arm I opened the window. There was a squeal, then the fresh tang of a cold breeze ruffled against my face.

  Where was I?

  I made it, one foot at a time, to the top of the stairs. On the landing, a trio of plastic crates full of papers, folders and other bric-a-brac stood one atop the other, the debris of a house move, if I was any judge. Getting down the stairs was the worst thing and took the longest time.

  Eventually I found myself in a small living room, low ceilinged and crammed with bookshelves. Books burst untidily out of these, stacked up in rows two deep in places, every available nook and cranny full of them – non-fiction, literary novels, a smattering of crime and thrillers with their titles in large block capitals. There was lots of twentieth-century literary biography – De Beauvoir, Sartre, Miller, Hemingway – clearly Martin had a thing for Left Bank writers.

  There was also a record collection comprised of real records near the wide-screen television – vinyl, stacked in their own cabinet and with the names on the spines. As I hobbled nearer I could make out the Sex Pistols, the Stranglers and the Clash, which made me smile. So Martin spent his leisure hours mourning the fact he was too young for the punk rock revolution, did he? How adorable.

  Stop that, Margot, I told myself sternly.

  Everything looked slightly amazed, a little jumbled, as though this was the condensation of the contents of a much larger home.

  I had never heard Martin talk of a Mrs Forrester, but to me this looked like the pad of a divorcee rather than a bachelor, with its sense of belongings decanted into a smaller space than they were used to.

  A pair of glass doors led to the little garden, and in the middle of the room stood a low coffee table surrounded by a sofa and chairs. A remote for the expensive stereo and a glass bowl full of coins and keys lay on top of it, but despite the genial messiness, there was no sign of any dust – I suspected he got someone in to clean as he didn’t strike me as a neat freak.

  There was also no sign of my phone, though.

  I sighed.

  ‘What are you doing downstairs?’ Martin asked suddenly from behind me.

  I started, shocked. He had emerged from the hallway, and behind him I could see a door standing open, displaying a vast, very expensive iMac, and an ergonomic desk chair with a mesh back. It must be his office.

  I blushed hotly, aware of myself as nosy and furtive.

  ‘Um, where am I?’

  He furrowed his brows, as though in disbelief. ‘You . . . well, this is my house. In Little Wilbraham. Why aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘Oh.’ I bit my lip. ‘I have to make a phone call,’ I mumbled, feeling very vulnerable standing there, sticky and dishevelled and sheet white.

  He raised a finger, as though I had a point, and vanished back into his office before reappearing a second later with my iPhone, fully charged. ‘Here you go.’

  I accepted it without looking at him. I was embarrassed, very embarrassed, for a variety of reasons. The circumstances of my presence here created a peculiar kind of intimacy with him, one I hadn’t thought I wanted but did not resent.

  ‘Martin,’ I began awkwardly.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Um . . . thanks, you know. For everything. I’m sorry about . . .’ I twitched my shoulders vaguely and the hurt one twanged. ‘Well, you know . . .’

  ‘You thanked me already.’ He put his hands on his hips and looked down at the floor. ‘So don’t worry about it.’ His head snapped up suddenly, as though he’d had a burst of inspiration. ‘Are you hungry yet?’

  Before I tackled Martin about what I had realized in my dream, I wanted to talk to Lily, to whom I owed an apology. I might have been right about the fact that strange men were after me, but I had still behaved disgracefully, and unlike Ara, I thought with a little stab of shame, Lily did not deserve to be spoken to in that way.

  She didn’t answer – and when I thought about it, I realized she might be in class. In fact, I ought to be in class, I remembered with a gut-lurching spasm of guilt.

  ‘What?’ asked Martin. He had stopped by my shoulder while I sat on the sofa, in order to put a fresh cup of hot coffee in front of me. Bless him, he’d remembered I take it black. The smell of it immediately made everything seem fractionally more manageable.

  ‘I need to call work. What time is it?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. The police took care of it.’ He flicked a tea towel back over his shoulder and vanished into the kitchen. ‘Toast? It’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid.’

  I paused, frowning at the coffee, then at the door he had gone through.

  ‘The police called my work?’ I could hear the suspicious note in my voice. ‘Very obliging of them.’

  ‘I told them you weren’t in a fit state to bother yourself.’ I could hear bread being sliced in the next room. I was starving, I realized. ‘You weren’t, at the time.’

  ‘I’m surprised they let me leave with you.’

  He chuckled drily, then stopped dead.


  ‘What?’ I asked, craning my head round towards the kitchen.

  Silence.

  I stood up, hobbled towards the open door to be met by him.

  ‘What?’ I repeated. ‘What’s so funny?’

  He glanced down, embarrassed again. ‘I was the only person you would leave with. You wouldn’t give them the names of anyone to call.’

  I met his eyes as they came up. They were very green. ‘Tell me.’

  He licked his lips. ‘You were on their system, and since you were obviously distressed they wanted to send you to Narrowbourne, and then I said, you know, you could stay with me in Little Wilbraham overnight, and you liked that plan, and after some very fast talking, and getting O’Neill out of bed and running it past him, they reluctantly agreed. So, here you are.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why would they send me back to Narrowbourne?’ A cold dread and fury was starting to hammer against my breastbone. ‘Good God, I was the one that lunatic attacked, why would—’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘I mean he broke into my home and tried to kill me,’ I continued, feeling the ignition turn in the engines of my rage. ‘I didn’t imagine that, did I? Or did I?’

  ‘Margot, stop. Stop—’

  ‘I mean, maybe I did, maybe this is—’

  He raised a quelling hand. ‘Stop!’

  I paused, waiting, as my chest rose and fell.

  ‘It’s exactly what you think it is,’ he eyed me keenly. ‘Whoever kidnapped Bethan Avery saw your picture in the paper, or you on TV, found out where you worked, followed you home and attacked you there.’

  My mouth snapped shut. I was so unused to people agreeing with me lately that I think I was astounded.

  He offered a little bounce of a shrug. ‘That’s exactly how it went down. And it’s something that should have been anticipated, given everything we know.’

  I considered this and sighed. My anger was draining away. ‘Well . . .’ I took a deep breath, tried to force some calm back into my lungs. ‘Why should it have been anticipated? Why should these people come after me? If I knew where Bethan Avery was, we wouldn’t need to pay drama students and film crews and get underfoot at hospitals making movies about her, would we?’

  Something queer came into his expression then, something both sympathetic and yet speculative.

  And increasingly, nothing about this whole incident and its fallout made any sense. If, as I had suspected before the attack, I was being hunted because Bethan’s kidnapper thought I knew where she was, why had he not tried to question me about her whereabouts? And what about the other man, the one from the car park? Was there really a gang after all? And why had the police wanted to send me to Narrowbourne? I couldn’t go home, obviously. I probably had come over as a little hysterical (and who could blame me) but why not keep me in hospital overnight? I mean, I know the NHS is under pressure, but still . . .

  I felt sick. I couldn’t remember much at all about the previous night. The hospital had been a blur. When I don’t remember things, it’s never a good sign. I don’t remember drinking, so there wasn’t even that for an excuse.

  Oh Jesus, maybe I am really crazy.

  ‘These men . . .’ I began.

  A faintly embarrassed look stole over his face. ‘Well, man.’

  ‘There were two . . .’

  ‘No. The other fellow who followed you to the car park was, um, an undercover police officer.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, stunned.

  He shrugged, his mouth twisting ruefully. ‘Yeah. The police have had you under surveillance for a couple of weeks now.’

  ‘They . . . surveillance?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand.

  ‘I don’t . . . they think I knew who was writing the letters, don’t they?’ I drew a sharp intake of breath. ‘Martin, I think they’re right. Listen, I’ve been thinking about my time with the nuns, and there was a girl there who could have been Bethan Avery. Someone I knew at the hostel. Her name was—’

  ‘Margot, I don’t think it was anyone you knew at the hostel. We found Bethan Avery. Last night.’

  I couldn’t reply. I was absolutely amazed.

  ‘You have? I don’t understand . . . Martin, tell me. Honestly. What’s going on? Who is it?’

  He looked at me then for a long silent moment, before he threw down the tea towel. ‘Come with me.’

  I pulled my arm around myself and shivered, despite the cheery warmth of the house.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Martin, bending down to clear papers off the mesh-backed office chair.

  I couldn’t, not straight away. I was transfixed.

  On the wall opposite, a map had been put up – a gigantic view of East Anglia, scattered with pins. Over the top of this was a collage of sorts – a diagram of missing girls. They smiled out with guarded shyness from school portraits, they glowered from mug shots, they lay curled and sunken on steel gurneys or wrapped in rotting blankets.

  I blinked, overwhelmed, horrified. Then I began to distinguish what I was looking at out of this carnage. There were six major hubs of photographs, connected by arrows. Some of these pointed at the girls, some at random locations, and all were dotted with notes – Cambridge Methodist Youth Club, St Hilda’s Academy – with an icy shock I recognized Katie Browne in her St Hilda’s uniform.

  In the upper left corner was Bethan Avery, and I was struck suddenly by how similar the two girls were, with their dark hair and suspicious, keen dark eyes.

  ‘What is this?’

  Martin came to stand at my shoulder. His heat was palpable, even through my shivering cold.

  ‘The other victims,’ he said, almost gently. ‘I mentioned them before, remember?’

  ‘The ones you think he killed?’

  ‘The ones we’re now sure he killed.’ He placed a hand on my good shoulder. ‘Or at least the ones we know about.’

  I tried to parse this. ‘There’s . . . good God . . .’

  ‘Six, yes. Six we know about. Two more that we suspect.’

  I was shaking. ‘But . . .’ I pushed my hair out of my face. ‘They’re all so young.’

  ‘Let me talk you through it,’ he said, releasing my shoulder. His tone was still gentle, but there was something glittering underneath, some hard edge of determination. ‘It works like this. In 1998, he kidnaps Bethan Avery while she is visiting her grandmother in hospital. He keeps her for no more than two months, but she escapes.’

  I nodded.

  ‘There’s no evidence,’ he continues, ‘and the case dries up. No body, though everyone assumes she must be dead because of the blood loss on the nightdress they found.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, trying to rein in my impatience.

  ‘Fine, so we’ll come back to Bethan. Because I think that’s what’s happening in this case. We’re coming back to Bethan. The next one that we know about is Jennifer. And there’s a long gap – about three and a half years – which makes a few of us very nervous, as someone like this, well, three and a half years is a long time when you’re that driven.’ He scratched his stubbled chin thoughtfully. ‘I think that when we catch him we’ll find there was another victim during that period—’

  ‘Or that Bethan’s escape frightened him off for a while.’

  Martin let out a short hmm. ‘Possibly. But yes, sorry, Jennifer Walker.’ His finger nearly fell on the face of a heartbreakingly young girl in a pink sundress, seemed to reconsider and then touched the photo margin below instead. ‘She was only twelve. Like all of them, she was known to social services, in this case in Norwich. The social services thing is going to be a theme, I warn you. She was put into residential care for six weeks when her mother refused to leave her father after his conviction for breaking her jaw. He got out of prison, moved back in, and Jenny was moved out in very short order.

  ‘So, Jenny is bullied in care and wants to run away. Tries a couple of times, is brought back. She’s a sensit
ive sort, finds it very hard. This is also going to be a recurring theme, incidentally. She’s last seen in a McDonald’s with a strange man before vanishing. It hits the media. Search parties, press conferences, the works . . . Sorry, are you cold?’

  ‘I . . . a little.’ My teeth were beginning to chatter.

  ‘Try this.’ He put a heavy Barbour jacket over my shoulders, and leaned over and switched on a mobile heater by the window. ‘It won’t take long to warm up.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘after ten days a family out camping find her buried in a shallow grave near a picnic ground in Thetford Forest. She’d been strangled, and buried in a white nightdress that wasn’t hers. Again, there were no hair or fibres really, as she’d been washed post-mortem – but not well enough to take out all the DNA, so we do have a profile on him if he’s ever caught. The nightdress is still creased from the packet it came out of. Everyone thinks of Bethan Avery, and there’s talk about a serial killer, but even though Jennifer and Bethan have their own Crimewatch special and there are a billion people and their dogs phoning in with leads, nothing comes of it.

  ‘So a couple more years go by, and then in 2003, the summertime again, Lauren Jacks goes missing. Lauren is from Newmarket, about fifteen miles up the road, and she’s another girl that appears to have absconded from care. Her body isn’t found, and it’s not clear whether she just ran away.

  ‘Then two years after that, something changes. Sarah Holroyd, who’s twenty-one and three months pregnant, is found dumped by the side of the A11, near Mildenhall.’

  He stabbed the point on the map with his finger, but I didn’t see it. I was staring at a photograph near the pin, and couldn’t actually breathe or speak.

  ‘No attempt to bury her – she was nude. She’d been beaten to death. But her body was suggestive – she’d definitely been kept alive somewhere in poor conditions for a significant period in the run-up to the murder, and more than that – she looks, physically, like the others. Well, she doesn’t there, obviously, poor girl . . . sorry, are you all right?’