by Sant, Sharon
I push the drawing over to him and he stares at it.
‘You’re right,’ he says, looking up with a wry smile, ‘you’re not very good and this would stand up in court on a freezing day in hell.’
‘I’m sorry, I – ’
He holds up a hand to stop me. ‘There’s no need to apologise. This is more than we had before and I can’t begin to express how much I appreciate you wanting to help. I’ll start checking this on the databases tomorrow; see if we can come up with any matches. Is there anything else?’
I shake my head. ‘Not yet. But there might be later on. Like I told you it comes to me in pieces, a bit more at a time, until there’s a whole picture.’
‘Ok… I don’t suppose I need to say it, but I’d appreciate if you didn’t broadcast the details of this case and your involvement with it. Aside from the fact that it is highly unorthodox policing, I don’t want you put in danger either.’
‘Me, in danger?’
‘I’m probably being paranoid, but if the killer himself gets to hear about what you’re doing with the case…’
My limbs suddenly feel cold and numb, nausea rising in my throat. He must see the dawning look of terror in my face as he forces a smile.
‘I’m sure it’s not a real threat. I’m just saying that we should keep this under wraps. Is that ok?’
I nod.
He pauses for a moment. ‘You’re getting help with this, right?’
‘With what?’
‘Your grief, the things that have happened to you over the past few months. It strikes me that this is a huge burden for anyone to shoulder alone.’
‘I have a counsellor.’
He seems satisfied and scrapes his chair away from the table to leave. But then he stops and looks at me, deep in thought. His next sentence is spoken as if he’s only just been struck by this bolt of lightning. ‘Why are you in the hospital? Is everything ok?’
I shrug. ‘My Gran’s ill.’
His gaze is drawn to the gusting blackness outside the windows. ‘How are you getting home?’ he asks, his attention back on me again.
‘I’m not, I’m staying here tonight with her. The nurses said it would be ok.’
‘She’s that bad?’
I nod and grip my teacup.
His eyes narrow as he pulls on his jacket. ‘Stay here tonight, then, and don’t get any ideas about going home by yourself. While this man is on the loose no young girl should be out alone.’ What he fails to add is: particularly the girl who is trying to put him behind bars. But he doesn’t need to; the risks have been spelled out to me now. I’m scared, I’d be crazy not to be, but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to do something and the notion almost takes me by surprise. It makes me feel incredibly positive and gives me that little bit of false bravery I never had before.
‘I am staying here, honest,’ I say with as much cheer as I can muster.
‘Cassie… I’m a policeman but I’m a father too and I know how this works. You’ll let me go with good intentions of staying with your gran, get fed up of sitting around and want to go home in a few hours. Then you’ll think you’re invincible enough to go it alone.’
I think about Gran, no longer Gran but a slab of warm meat covered in blankets upstairs. She doesn’t know if I’m there or not and I’m tired and desperate for my own house, despite the ghosts and the guilt. Perhaps he’s right after all.
‘Maybe I will go home,’ I say. ‘I don’t suppose my sitting with her will help anyway and it’s not like she knows I’m there.’
He looks at his watch and sighs. ‘Come on, I need my bed too, so the sooner we get you back the better.’
As I cradle the warm mug, my absent gaze on the street outside, I think about going to sit with Gran. It’s been three days since she was taken in and each day it gets harder to visit. How can I sit and watch her disappear from existence? She’s always been this amazing, vital woman, the woman I looked up to, the only person now who really matters to me, but now she’s nothing, simply a body taking up a bed, waiting to die. But the temperature is kinder this morning, only a brisk breeze rattling through the bare trees, and I’m running out of excuses not to go.
Except for the one that lurks, thinking he’s out of my sight sitting on a low wall outside the park gates across the street. He’s been there for an hour. Just watching and waiting. Every now and then he takes a brisk walk along the pavement, stops to look at my front door, and then returns to his seat. Setting down my mug, I pull my mobile and the scrap of paper from my jeans pocket.
‘Hello?’ he says, the wind around him roaring through the phone mic.
‘You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.’
‘Cassie?’
‘Why are you hanging around my house?’
‘I’m not,’ he says. ‘Not deliberately.’
‘I suppose you want to come in?’
He hesitates. ‘Only if you want me to.’
Going to the mirror, I reach for a comb. ‘Come to the front door. I’ll be down in five.’
‘I’m not a stalking crazy axe murderer,’ Dante says as he follows me down the hallway to the kitchen.
‘I never said you were. But the description sprang to your mind before mine. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.’
‘You didn’t call me. And I never got your number. I just wondered how you were doing because I hadn’t seen you at the health centre.’ He hovers at the kitchen table.
‘You can sit down if you want,’ I say and he does. ‘I’m not seeing Helen now.’
He looks up in surprise. ‘You’re fixed?’
‘Not exactly.’ I click the still-warm kettle on. ‘I only have tea, sorry.’
‘You remembered I don’t like coffee?’ He seems pleased at this.
‘No,’ I say. I don’t know why I deny it and I don’t mean to burst his bubble so cruelly but the sight of his pleasure grates for a reason I can’t name.
His smile fades. ‘I can do tea. So what happened with Helen?’
‘Nothing.’
His eyes travel the walls. The room briefly illuminates as the sun breaks from behind the heavy cloud and every coating of dust on every surface becomes visible. ‘Sounds like that’s the problem?’ he says. ‘I know what you mean. You feel as though you’re just talking and nothing changes.’
‘Something like that.’ I rinse out two mugs. He watches but makes no comment on the fact that I’m probably going to give him salmonella poisoning. ‘But I think that, maybe, my problems are just too big and weird for anyone to help.’
‘I know how that feels too,’ he says, fingers knotting on the tabletop. ‘I have to keep going, though. I hate it but Mum insists.’
‘Mums do that,’ I say as the kettle clicks off. I grab a couple of teabags and drop them into the mugs.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, colour rising to his cheeks, ‘I didn’t mean –’
‘I know you didn’t. You can’t stop mentioning your family just because I don’t have mine.’
He takes a mug from me. ‘You’re lonely all the time?’
I nod and sit next to him. ‘Pretty much. I have my gran… actually, I had my gran.’
‘She’s dead too?’
‘More or less.’
‘Like you?’ he asks and then flushes again.
‘No,’ I smile slightly at his awkwardness, despite myself, ‘she’s ill. She’ll probably die any day now.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too.’
He takes a sip of his tea before putting the mug down and staring into its depths.
‘You never did tell me why you’re going to Helen,’ I remind him.
He looks up at me. ‘You really want to know?’
‘Well,’ I begin slowly. ‘Now that you’re in my house drinking my tea, I think I have a right to know what kind of nutter I’m entertaining.’
He doesn’t speak right away, like he’s forming the sentence carefully in his head before he airs it, cal
culating my every possible response. All the while he holds me with the intensity of his gaze.
‘Every night when I sleep I dream about dying.’
It seems that everything around me is about death at the moment, even the boys I seem to attract. For a mad second, I think about the killer that Karl is trying to catch. Could we all be connected somehow? I shake the thought. It’s ridiculous and I don’t need to be freaked out any more than I am these days. I smile slightly. ‘That does sound odd, but not like the mayor of Weirdsville.’
He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t explain properly. I mean, like, I know that it’s my true future. And it’s really soon.’
‘It’s just a dream though,’ I say, stroking the handle of my mug.
‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘But it feels real. And it’s the same every night, it never alters.’
‘Are you scared?’
‘Yeah, terrified. When it started I couldn’t concentrate on anything, dropped out of college, lost my friends. Mum decided I was going loco and sent me to see the counsellor.’
‘You don’t think you’re mad, though?’
‘It’s real. I can’t explain how I know but I do. And it feels like something I can’t escape, something that will happen no matter what I do.’
‘You believe in a fixed path?’
‘In some things, yeah, I think maybe I do. I wondered when I first had the dreams, but…’ he holds me in his dark gaze, ‘something happened recently that made me think this is fate, and I can’t escape it.’
‘Oh. What happened to make you think that?’
He stares at me. His breathing quickens. ‘Something I’m not sure I understand and something I’m not sure I can talk about. All I know is that it’s made me think my path has already been decided no matter what I do.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that I’m going to follow it, wherever it leads.’
‘That sounds very poetic and not at all practical.’ I laugh uneasily.
‘Probably.’
I take a breath. Then I reach for his hand.
‘Don’t,’ he says, pulling away.
‘I could help you.’
‘How?’
‘I thought it might put your mind at rest, if I didn’t see anything when I touched you.’
‘You see death after it’s happened.’
‘I know. But I wondered if I could also see it coming.’
He places his hand back on the table in front of me.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘I think so.’
I make contact. A thrill of desire rips through me.
‘Nothing,’ I say, my heart suddenly hammering in my chest.
He looks down at where his hand lies under mine. ‘That’s good,’ he says. Our hands stay together and he looks up at me. ‘I’d like to kiss you.’
I don’t move. He takes my silence as permission and leans towards me. Life, death and everything in between fades as his lips find mine. There is only a ferocity of need that shocks me and I feel more alive than ever before. I reach for him, fingers in his hair, drawing him in. I hear his chair hit the floor as he pulls me up and into his arms. My head is full of the scent of him, erasing all resolve or logic until all I can think of is the taste of him and the heat of his body against mine.
Just as I think I can’t fall, I know I’m already lost.
Seven: Coping Mechanisms
‘How’s it going Gran?’ I take a seat by the bed. She hasn’t moved, of course, since I saw her last. She looks even hollower today, like she’s desiccating by degrees until she becomes a dry husk. ‘So… you know how you’re always telling me I should get a nice boyfriend?’
Nothing.
‘I sort of have. He’s nice, anyway. I’m not sure if he’s my boyfriend. Although we did sort of cement our relationship. But we never actually said we were an item. And he might be a bit mentally disturbed. But then, I suppose you could say that about me… being half-dead and all…’
I turn my face to the window where a rolling expanse of cloud scuds across the sky. ‘I washed my hair today, though,’ I say, my attention back on her prone form. ‘That’s good, right?’
The sound of the machinery keeping her breathing is my only reply.
‘I think I might be falling for him, though, Gran. And I don’t think it’s a good idea. In fact, I know it isn’t. I mean, look at his writing…’ I wriggle to one side, pull the scrap of paper from my jeans pocket and hold it up for her. ‘Just look at that. That’s bad, isn’t it?’
I turn the paper back to look at it myself. Now that I really come to inspect it, I can see that it wobbles in places. But maybe that was just him writing in a rush on a rickety table.
My gaze travels to the window again. My lips are raw and I can still smell him on my skin. The thrill of these sensations brings guilt.
‘There’s something else, too. I stopped seeing the counsellor.’
I try to imagine what she would say to this. She might click her tongue on the roof of her mouth like she always does. Then she’d weigh her words carefully before delivering a succinct nugget of barbed wisdom. Something about being my own counsellor. But then I think back to the last time I visited her when she was conscious, in this very hospital, how anxious she seemed for me to get some good out of my visits to Helen.
‘She wasn’t doing me any good. In fact, all she did was complain how I wasn’t trying hard enough, how nobody can help me until I help myself…’ I look at Gran, her face wrung out like an old dishcloth. ‘And her voice was really annoying. Sort of smug all the time, like she wanted to pull out her degree certificate and wave it in my face, so I’d know how clever she is.’
I’m not sure who this conversation is trying to convince. Even if Gran was awake, I’d still think it was more for me than her. I know in my heart that my decision has nothing to do with Helen’s inefficacy and everything to do with my skewed vision of the world. And I know that I need help. I just need to hear it from someone who counts to know it’s true. If Gran was here, she’d be that someone.
‘Do you think I should go back, Gran?’ I ask. Stupid, I know, but I need to say it out loud.
I listen to the steady bleep of the machinery keeping her alive.
‘There’s something else,’ I say. ‘I’ve been dragged into this murder thing. I’m helping the police, at least, one policeman in particular. He asked me to see if I could identify a serial killer. And I keep getting this horrible feeling that things are going to get messy. I don’t know what to do, Gran. I couldn’t see clearly at first, it’s always like that when I get the visions, but you know how it is, stuff comes back to me later. And that’s what’s happening now – stuff is coming back to me, creeping into my brain all the time. Should I tell the detective everything I see? I mean, I want to help prevent another murder, of course I do, but I feel like… like the murderer will find out. Then he’ll come after me.’ I grab her hand. ‘Gran, tell me what to do.’
I’m suddenly aware that we’re not alone any more. I spin around to find Gran’s nurse, the one I had an argument with on my first visit, in the doorway.
‘Can I disturb you?’ she asks with the faintest trace of amusement on her face. ‘I need to clean her.’
I get up, catching my ankle on the edge of the bed in my haste, trying not to let her see me wince. My face is starting to burn.
‘’Course.’
Grabbing my bag and coat from the spare chair, I shuffle to the door. She barely moves aside so that I have to squeeze past her, all the while eyeing me with this sardonic half-smile.
Out in the corridor, I tussle with my belongings, trying to organise myself without having to stop. Of all the people who could have overheard that conversation, the only worse possibility would be the serial killer himself. But maybe I’m being paranoid, maybe she didn’t hear anything. She’s such a smug cow that she probably looks like that all the time. And part of me vaguely wonders which bit of the conversatio
n I’d be most embarrassed about – the bit about the murders or the bit about Dante. Thinking of him brings his smell back to me and suddenly it’s not humiliation or the overheated corridors making me colour. I shouldn’t have slept with him; he’ll probably never call me again. I shrug my coat on and search for the now-familiar slip of paper. It doesn’t look like the writing of someone who doesn’t call. I find myself hoping, against my conscious will, that I’m right. I shove the scrap back into my jeans and just catch the lift as the doors are closing, forcing a click of the tongue from a middle aged woman as I squeeze my way in. Then I realise that I’ve been so wrapped up in my thoughts of Dante that I forgot I don’t like full lifts. I don’t like people at this proximity at all. The doors close and it’s too late so I pull myself in, as tight as can be until my arms ache, anything not to have to touch any of them. I’m afraid of what else I might be able to see if I do.
‘I’m sorry we had a misunderstanding last time you were here, but I’m glad you decided to come back. Helen smiles.
‘I hadn’t got much else on,’ I shrug.
‘It’s good news, whatever your reasons. Especially in light of what you’ve told me about your grandmother.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘Because, whether you like it or not, you need to face up to the fact that you don’t have that support any more. You said you have no other family?’
‘None worth mentioning.’
‘There you go again. I wish you’d contact them, or at least let someone do it on your behalf. But as you won’t, it’s more important than ever that you become self-sufficient, not only domestically but emotionally too.’ She folds her hands in her lap. ‘So, let’s talk about what you’ve been doing since I last saw you.’
I run over recent events in my mind. How can I tell her any of this? I’m not sure I can talk about Dante and I’m certainly not allowed to tell her the police stuff. ‘I’ve been trying to make myself more useful,’ I say carefully, deciding on a fairly neutral statement.
‘In what way?’
‘Being a bit more public spirited, helping others where I can, keeping an eye out for crime, that sort of thing.’