by C. J. Tudor
This particular afternoon Fran hurried in, saying she couldn’t stop long. And then her eyes fell to the card on the table.
“What’s this?”
Nothing. Just junk. I was about to throw it away.
That’s what she should have said.
But she didn’t. She felt a compulsion to share it. Perhaps because it was something she and her sister could actually have a conversation about.
She said: “It’s a weird story, actually…”
* * *
—
THE FUNERAL WAS a week later. It passed. That was probably the best thing she could say about it. Their mum managed to stay sober enough not to embarrass herself during the service, although a couple of times Katie had to grab her arm to hold her steady.
There was no one to do the same for her because Craig was at home looking after Sam. Again. Although they had agreed that they couldn’t bring a screaming baby to a funeral, Craig hadn’t made much of an effort to persuade his parents to step in and babysit so he could support his wife. Katie tried to convince herself he was just being a good father, and almost succeeded.
The vicar delivered a speech which talked a lot about their dad in life, as Katie and her sisters had requested, but omitted the brutal and senseless nature of his death. He also talked about acceptance and forgiveness, but every time she glanced at the plants arranged around the coffin, which she would take away and put in his beloved garden, she thought about the myopic mole—other services—and fought to contain a shiver.
Standing at the graveside felt surreal, like she was in a movie, playing the role of the grieving daughter. Despite the very real sound of Lou wailing and sniffing beside her, red-faced and snot-full of grief, it didn’t seem possible that this was actually happening. It couldn’t be her dad, in that hard, wooden coffin being slowly lowered into the earth. This wasn’t his ending. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. It was inconceivable that she would never see his smile or feel his warm touch again. Gone, she thought. Forever. The tears rolled down her cheeks and she felt a hand take hers. Fran.
Katie had booked a small village pub for the wake. It was crowded. Dad had been popular, and she knew he would have been happy to see so many people there. The room buzzed with conversation and, away from the bleak solemnity of the church, she felt some of the heavy grief not exactly lifting, but dissipating. This was Dad, she thought. Not that cold grey church and hard wooden coffin. This. Here. People. Friends. Laughter.
She had put Lou in charge of monitoring Mum, but it was a pointless task. People kept buying the grieving widow drinks and she was already pretty drunk. In a way, Katie envied her. She wished she could just throw back the gin and surrender to oblivion. But she couldn’t. Someone had to circulate, to accept condolences, thank people for coming, chat to the vicar, make sure that there were enough sandwiches. A funeral certainly seemed to make people hungry.
Finally, face hurting from the forced smiling, she managed to get away and find a quiet corner, where she stood, sipping a warm white wine, nibbling a breadstick. Fran emerged from the crowd and came to stand by her side.
“I visited that website,” she said, with her usual lack of preamble.
“What? Why?”
Fran held out the business card. “I borrowed this. I was curious.”
Katie took the card back with a shaking hand. She hadn’t even noticed it was missing. “And?”
“I did it.”
“Did what?” Katie stared at her, a tight knot forming in her stomach. “Fran, what did you do?”
Her sister glanced out of the window. Katie realized a taxi had pulled up. She frowned. “You’ve booked a cab? I thought I was giving you a lift.”
“I have to go home and pack.”
The knot grew tighter.
“Pack? Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t stay here anymore. Not now Dad’s gone. I need a fresh start. It’s best for everyone.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her sister turned and suddenly grabbed her in a fierce tight hug. “For Dad. Just remember that.”
“Fran?”
Releasing her, leaving Katie feeling a little dazed and breathless, Fran turned and walked briskly from the pub. Katie wanted to run after her, to scream at her to come back, to explain. Then she heard a smash of glass from the other side of the room. Mum. She couldn’t make a fuss at her father’s funeral. Her mum had that covered. She would not let anything else ruin this. She watched her sister climb into the waiting taxi and then she turned. Smiling and nodding, she crossed the room to deal with her mother, even as Fran’s words reverberated around her brain.
“For Dad.”
* * *
—
THE PHONE CALL came a week later. Katie was in the kitchen trying to soothe a grizzly Sam when her mobile rang. She snatched it up, wedging it between her shoulder and her ear.
“Hello?”
“Katie?”
“Yes?”
Sam wailed. She tried to ease a pacifier into his mouth.
“It’s Alan Frant here.”
Their family liaison officer.
“Oh, hello, Alan.”
Sam spat the pacifier out onto the floor.
“There’s been a development in your father’s case.”
“What sort of development?”
She bent awkwardly, clutching Sam, and rescued the pacifier from the floor.
“Jayden Carter has been found dead.”
She froze. Jayden Carter. The teenager who had murdered their dad.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure that—”
Sam wriggled in her grip. She stuck the pacifier briefly into her own mouth then wedged it back in his. This time, he accepted it.
“Tell me.”
“His wrists and throat were slashed with a razor.”
“Oh God!”
The room spun. Every bit of saliva seemed to have been sucked from her mouth.
“Yes. Very unpleasant.”
“But…it was suicide?”
She wanted him to say yes. Please say yes.
“There will be a full investigation. Obviously, Jayden was on remand and there are some, well, inconsistencies. But, as far as your father’s case is concerned, the CPS can’t prosecute a dead man.”
Inconsistencies. Other services.
“No,” she whispered. “I see.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Yes. Thank you. Bye.”
She put the phone down. Her stomach rolled. She walked into the living room and placed Sam in his playpen.
I’d like him to die, in pain and alone, just like my dad.
Oh, Jesus Christ. She ran to the kitchen sink, but could only heave. She splashed her face and tried to catch her breath.
I did it.
Coincidence. It had to be a coincidence. Surely. She was reading too much into it. And yet…
She grabbed her mobile, pulled up Fran’s number. She had tried calling her several times after the funeral, but each time it had gone to voicemail. Now, an automated voice told her: “The number you have called is no longer in service.”
She tried again, just to be sure, but got the same message. Shit. Okay. What to do? And then she knew. She grabbed Sam, bundled him into his buggy and left the house.
* * *
—
A YOUNG WOMAN with short blonde hair was serving behind the counter at the florist’s. She smiled pleasantly as Katie came in.
“Can I help you?”
“Erm, yes. I was in here the other day and there was an older lady serving?”
The pleasant smile vanished. “Martha?”
“I didn’t catch her name. Is she going to be in again?”
> The girl shook her head. “No. That’s why I’m covering. She called in yesterday and said she wasn’t coming back. She’s supposed to give a week’s notice and she’s really dropped us in it.”
Katie just stared at her, feeling her world start to disintegrate beneath her feet.
“I don’t suppose you have her contact details?”
“Even if I could give them to you, it wouldn’t help.” She lowered her voice. “They’re all fake. My boss is pretty pissed off, to be honest.”
Katie stared at her. Fake. She left the shop in a daze. Breathe, she told herself. Keep calm. Think rationally. Chances are, all of this is just a weird, horrible coincidence. Not a conspiracy. Real life. She needed to sit down, have a coffee, put all of this in perspective.
She found herself a seat in the local coffee shop, ordered a cappuccino and gave Sam some juice and a banana. Then she took the business card out of her purse.
THE OTHER PEOPLE.
Fran, what did you do?
What does it matter? Dad’s killer is dead. Justice. Rip the card up. Forget it. Get on with your life.
“Cappuccino?”
She glanced up at the waitress.
“Oh, yes, thank you.”
The waitress put the overflowing cup down on the table. Katie smiled politely, waited until she had walked away and picked her phone up.
Forget it. Get on with your life.
She opened Safari and googled: how to access the Dark Web.
Whatever Fran had done, she had to see for herself.
There was only one problem with hatred, Gabe thought. And it wasn’t that it would eat you up or destroy you. That was bullshit. Hatred could fuel you through the worst of times. Grief, despair, terror. Love and forgiveness might keep you warm, but hatred would power your rocket all the way to the moon.
No, the problem was that, eventually, hatred burned itself out. And now, when he really wanted it, when he needed to summon it for the woman who had taken his daughter, he found that his tank was dry. Running on empty.
He looked at Katie wearily.
“That’s why your sister was there. Repaying her Favor.”
Katie nodded. “I think so.”
“Why didn’t she just refuse?”
“You’ve seen the website. Do you really think refusing is an option?”
He would have liked to have said yes. It was just a website. Probably run by a couple of geeky kids with acne, an inferiority complex and a grudge against the world. And then a twinge in his side reminded him of the eight stitches pulling his serrated flesh together. The hot burn of the knife. The look in the man’s eyes.
Failure to complete a Favor threatens the very integrity of the site.
She was right, he thought. And her sister had had a daughter. A daughter she would probably have done anything to protect. Except it didn’t work out like that.
“I suppose she thought, better my family than hers?” he said bitterly.
Katie’s lips thinned. “I don’t believe Fran would have been involved if she had known what was going to happen.”
“But she was involved, even if it was just in getting Jen to let down her defenses so the killer could get in. She was still complicit in my wife’s death.”
“I know.”
She sipped her drink and winced as the glass touched her injured nose. Gabe felt the anger subside. This wasn’t her fault.
“What a fucking mess.”
“Yeah.”
“Who are these people?”
“Anybody, everybody. Obviously, there’s someone pulling the strings, but mostly it’s ordinary people looking for a way to ease their grief and pain. That’s what the website takes advantage of. And once you’re pulled in, that’s it.”
“What is it they say about six degrees of separation? We’re all connected in some way?”
“Exactly. Everybody has a use. However small. Perhaps the florist who gave me that card was just repaying a Favor.”
“Pyramid selling for the homicidal,” he muttered. “You sound like you’ve done your research.”
“After I found out about Jayden, I spent a lot of time lurking on the website. Trying to make sense of it all. I thought about passing on the details to the police but—”
“What?”
“I was scared. If they could get to a prisoner on remand—”
She didn’t need to finish.
“So, I just put it to the back of my mind, resolved not to think about it anymore, to concentrate on my family, the living. That’s what Dad would have wanted.”
“Shame your sister didn’t feel the same.”
“Don’t blame her. I was angry about Dad, too. If I hadn’t spoken to that woman, none of this would have happened.”
“Those were just words.”
“But I meant them.”
“Most of us, in our darkest moments, have wished someone dead.”
“The difference is, the Other People grant those wishes.”
Like a fucking psychotic fairy godmother. Gabe looked at Katie.
“In the morning, we need to go to the police. You need to tell them everything you know.”
She nodded. She looked pale and drawn, the bruising around her eyes darker, although the swelling on her nose had gone down a little. And he was about to make her night even worse.
“There’s something else. The police found the car Izzy was taken in.”
She seemed to sit up straighter. “And?”
He thought about the decomposed body. He was pretty sure that Fran was responsible. But mentioning it would only complicate things, and now was not the time to tell Katie that her sister was a murderer.
“They also found a woman. Badly injured. I’m afraid she died in hospital this morning.”
She drew in a breath. “Have they identified her?”
“Not yet.”
“Right. I see.”
“I mean, it might not be Fran but…”
“What are the odds?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” She cleared her throat and shook her head. “I think, in my heart, I knew she was dead.”
“Right. Well.” He tipped up his glass but, to his surprise, it was empty. “I guess that’s all the cards on the table.”
“Not quite. There’s one thing you haven’t explained.”
“What?”
“Who hated you so much that they wanted to kill your family?”
Izzy lay motionless in bed, her breathing slow and steady, eyes closed. But she wasn’t asleep.
She hovered over sleep in the same way an owl might hover over the dark fields below, occasionally letting herself drift down, close to the whispering grass, but soaring up again before she could let herself settle.
At the other end of the bed, Gracie snuffled into a pillow and Sam lay, sprawled, half in, half out of the covers. Downstairs, she could hear Katie and her dad (it still felt so strange to use that word) moving around, talking.
Her dad seemed nice. She could only remember bits of him, from before. Fran had told her it was too dangerous for her to see her dad, that he couldn’t keep her safe. But she wasn’t so sure that was true. She had recognized him straight away, and the feeling he gave her, when they hugged, had been of comfort, warmth, protection. There were a lot of things Fran had told her that Izzy was beginning to doubt.
Even about that day. The day it happened. The day the horror came.
Izzy had loved Fran, in her way. She tried to be kind, and Izzy knew Fran cared for her, would have done anything to protect her. But there was always something hard about her. Even when she hugged Izzy, her body felt sharp and bony, like she had managed to armor herself against the world, inside and out.
And now Fran was gone. Izzy knew, in a way she couldn’t
explain, that she was dead. Not having someone around, knowing they were somewhere else, was one type of being away. But this felt different. Like there was some sort of space, a gap in the world where Fran had been. Dead. Izzy let the word settle. Like her mum. Like Emily. Some people thought that “dead” meant going to heaven. Fran had told her that that was lies. “Dead” meant never coming back.
The wind whistled outside and Izzy reached for her rucksack of pebbles on the bedside table. She hugged the bag to her chest. Inside, the pebbles shifted and rattled. They were restless. They know this place, she thought. And, weirdly, she felt like she knew it, too. The feeling had grown stronger and stronger. And then, when she had looked out of the window and seen the beach, she had realized.
The girl in the mirror. She was here.
That was why Izzy couldn’t sleep. She could feel her presence, hear her voice, whispering to her from just the other side of the door.
I need you.
Of course, she didn’t have to go. She could just stay in bed and pretend to sleep. But the compulsion was so strong. Almost like a physical tug.
Pleeeaaase.
The girl needed her.
And she needed the girl.
She sat up and swung her legs out of bed. Gracie stirred and rolled over, murmuring something, but her eyes remained closed. Izzy pushed aside the covers and tiptoed across the carpet.
She reached the bedroom door and eased it open. The bathroom was to the left along the long landing. She padded out into the darkness, the light from the hall throwing up a faint illumination. She supposed it didn’t matter too much if anyone heard her. They would probably just think she was going to the toilet.
She walked along the plush carpet, reached the door and slid inside, pulling the door closed behind her. She didn’t lock it. Fran had always told her not to, in case she fell and Fran couldn’t reach her.