In Bloom

by C. J. Skuse

  Footsteps in the corridor outside. I shrieked, giving it the full BAFTA and pushing the iPad away from me. ‘Urgh! Why are you showing me that for god’s sake?’

  Jim came rushing in. ‘What? What is it? What’s happened?’ He picked up the iPad from the carpet. ‘What on earth is this? Dear God almighty!’

  ‘It’s Lana,’ I said to Jim, clinging to his cashmere. ‘She’s killed herself.’

  ‘The woman our Craig was – oh god.’ I cuddled in to his jumper and sobbed, thankful to give my aching face muscles a brief rest.

  ‘Were you there when Lana killed herself, Rhiannon?’ asked Géricault.

  ‘Jim – she’s victimising me. She keeps following me and showing me things I don’t want to see. She’s crazy. She’s showing me pictures of dead girls. This is police harassment, please get rid of her, PLEASE.’ I pulled away from Jim and clutched my bump, sitting back down on the sofa and breathing like I was in some practice class.

  ‘I think you had better go, DI Géricault.’ Jim handed the iPad back to Géricault and I watched her cross the lounge floor, Jim guiding her through, standing in front of me like a human shield. I did my best to look afraid.

  ‘Thanks for your time.’

  Jim led her out to out to the front door, politely threatening legal action the whole way. I didn’t hear Géricault say another word.

  You need to call Keston. Right now.

  Monday, 26th November – 29 weeks, 1 day

  1.People who ask ‘Is it the weekend yet?’ on a Monday.

  2.People who leave their car engines running outside for, like, HOURS.

  3.People who email attachments – then forget the attachment.

  South Wales Police have one blurry CCTV image of a ‘hooded woman walking through the Cardiff streets’ but nothing fixed on my face. God bless the rain down in Cardiff. God bless Keston Hoyle. Maybe this means I can trust him. I want to trust him but I can’t help thinking he’s too good to be true. Has Dad sent me a friend when I need one the most? Is Keston an angel in disguise? Send me another sign, Dad. A sign that I can trust him.

  The paps are back on the doorstep and this morning, one of them shoved his camera against my bump. I ripped it out of his hands and smashed it on the ground.

  ‘Oops,’ I said, waltzing past him along the footpath. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘… sue you, bitch,’ I heard. I heard something else about how expensive it was. Another guy started snapping away, though his camera was hanging on a strap around his neck so I couldn’t do the same to him. ‘We only want your side of the story, ya miserable cow.’

  I got up close to the guy who’d shouted, so close I had to whisper right in his ear. ‘Well when you ask so nicely, how can I refuse?’

  ‘You owe me a new camera.’

  ‘Prove it,’ said Freddie-by-the-way, my black-haired hero.

  ‘You were there, you saw her do it.’

  He looked at me, then back at the guy. ‘I saw nothing, mate. Fake news. It’s everywhere.’

  He got right up into my face so that his pot belly smushed against my bump. The sides of my eyes had clouded with an angry smoke. ‘You broke my camera and you’re going to pay.’

  ‘You broke your own camera when you shoved your hand up my slit. Whose story would you believe?’

  He stepped back and knelt down to gather up the shattered sections of his former camera, still muttering the words ‘bitch’ and ‘sue.’

  Freddie guided me along the footpath towards the gate. ‘He’s had warnings about this before. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah of course. Where did you spring from?’

  His voice was wobbly. ‘I came to see you. Have you time for a coffee?’

  The coffee embargo still in place, Freddie and I walked along the seafront instead. He bought me a strawberry ice-cream with double flake. We did the small talk thing for a while – turns out we both eat KitKats the wrong way, both have Chihuahuas called Tink, and both prefer Grease 2 to Grease.

  ‘Where do you stand on Sister Act?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh Back in the Habit is far superior.’

  ‘Snap again!’ he laughed. ‘Wow, what are the chances?’ We then broke into an acapella version of ‘If you wanna be somebody, If you wanna go somewhere… ’ only stopping when we got looks from two surly dog walkers in Mountain Warehouse parkas.

  ‘Well I don’t know why we’re talking about Sister Act.’

  ‘No, me either actually,’ he laughed. ‘So, I’ve quit the Plymouth Star. Handed in my notice. I’ve said I’ll stay on ’til the first week of January.’

  ‘Why?’

  He looked out to sea. ‘You heard about Lana Rowntree, I suppose?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That was the last straw. “Get down there,” my editor said. “Follow it up, no matter what it takes. Get the story.” Two weeks later the woman was dead. That’s on me, Rhiannon. That’s my fault.’

  ‘No it’s not.’

  ‘It is! She killed herself because I was harassing her. Day and night. Whenever she took the milk in or put the bins out, I tried to get a word with her. She kept telling me to go away. And I didn’t.’

  ‘Craig’s defence team were onto her as well, it wasn’t just you.’

  ‘I can’t stop feeling guilty about it. Anyway, it’s done now. I just wanted to apologise to you. I won’t see you again after today.’

  A silent wind whipped up around us, blowing his hair and mine around our faces. When it had settled again, I said ‘Fancy a shag before you go?’

  His jaw dropped. ‘Um. I’m actually gay?’

  ‘You don’t sound so sure about that.’

  ‘No, I’m really gay.’ He got his phone out and clicked it on – the screen saver was of him and another guy, cuddling in tuxedos. ‘Couldn’t be gayer. That’s our wedding.’ He scrolled along. Cutting the cake. First kiss. First dance under flashing disco lights. Their kids – Milo and Tilly.

  ‘Sexy husband. Cute family. Lucky bastard.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I gave you any false—’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ I sighed. ‘Shoulda known. You’re too nice to be straight.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re nice too.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Yeah you are.’

  ‘I only started talking to you cos I thought you might shag me.’

  ‘Doesn’t make you a bad person.’

  ‘Yeah it does. I’m horrible. The only thing I gave a shit about in The Green Mile was the mouse.’

  ‘Me too.’ We looked at each other and his face split into the most shit-eating grin I’d ever seen.

  ‘Oh don’t do that. I hate forbidden fruit.’

  ‘Sorry. Look, why aren’t you milking your fame more? A little birdy told me that you’d been offered loads of telly work and magazines.’

  ‘It was all the same kind of thing, mostly agents offering crap money to do crap personal appearances and donkey work. One was a gig on that TV channel where the women answer phones with their tits out. Another guy mooted the possibility of a post-baby workout DVD. Bloody cheek.’

  Freddie laughed and hopped up on the sea wall. ‘Craig’s story is interesting enough but you’ve got the whole Priory Gardens thing and a baby on the way. Personality. Looks. You’ve got star quality, Rhiannon. You’re Delires van Cartier.’

  ‘Haha, yeah right.’

  ‘No, you are. “Let’s get one thing straight, my dear. I am not, nor have I ever been, a Las Vegas showgirl. I am a headliner.” That’s you. You shouldn’t be in the back row. You should be centre stage.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem right, Freddie,’ I told him. ‘People have died, remember?’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, all his sparkle evaporating.

  I was joking, naturellement. Craig’s fame while he’d been in prison had bugged the hell out of me. I’d tried to avoid it, but it’s impossible when you live in an online world most of the time like I do. Playing Best Supporting Actress to him was not
something to enjoy but to endure. It was the only way.

  ‘I was writing something about you,’ he said, pulling a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘You don’t have to read it now—’

  I snatched the paper out of his hands and started reading. It was an article, all about me. Me. Me. Me.

  Rhiannon Lewis: A Born Survivor For The Age.

  It’s impossible to open a newspaper these days without reading some hideous doom and gloom tale for our times; stories of such evil or brutality that you wonder if the human race is worth saving. ‘Look for the helpers’ we are constantly reminded, for they are there in the worst of times.

  But so too are the survivors; those who keep hitting the deck but who rise up again like a phoenix, shaking ash from its feathers. Sometimes it is good to be reminded that people like Rhiannon Lewis exist. People who have been dealt such cruel cards but who keep on keeping on.

  Rhiannon was six when fate struck a devastating blow in a tragedy which shocked the nation. She and five of her friends were subjected to a frenzied attack at their child minder’s house in Priory Gardens, Bradley Stoke, Bristol. The child-minder – Allison Kingwell – had begun divorce proceedings against her estranged husband, Antony Blackstone, and for him it was the final straw. He broke into the house one morning and murdered her young charges in cold blood – Rhiannon was the only one to survive. And somehow, she came back stronger with the help of physio and speech therapy. She walked again, talked again, attended school, passed all her exams and went on to university. This year she and her boyfriend had discovered they were to have a baby so they got engaged.

  But Fate wasn’t finished with Rhiannon yet.

  A second earth-shattering card was dealt. Not long after learning of her pregnancy, Rhiannon’s fiancé was arrested and charged with murder – multiple murder. Craig Wilkins – the West Country man charged with the brutal slayings of five people in what has been dubbed the ‘Gay Ripper’ Murders – is awaiting trial in Bristol Prison. He has been denied bail.

  Clearly Rhiannon had thought her days of being a media fixation were over when I meet her on the doorstep of her parents-in-law’s house one warm July morning.

  ‘I just want to get on with my life,’ she says…

  I turn the page but it’s blank. ‘That’s all?’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, you wouldn’t speak to me about it.’

  ‘I was enjoying that.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad you liked it.’

  ‘What will you do next?’ I asked, handing the page back to him and finishing off my cornet.

  ‘Dunno. My husband Jason’s applying for ad agency work in London.’

  ‘Freddie and Jason?’ I sniggered. He afforded me a rather bored-looking eyebrow. ‘Aww, that’s so sweet you guys finally made up!’

  He smirked. ‘We’ve heard all the jokes.’

  ‘You applying for jobs too?’

  ‘Yeah, there are a couple of editorial assistant jobs I’m applying for. I’d like to be at one of the big newspapers. I still want to be in journalism – a magazine, maybe. Features and stuff. I’ll make the tea and sweep the floor if I have to. Need to get my foot in the door.’

  ‘And a big exclusive story might help you do that, I suppose?’

  ‘God no, I wasn’t insinuating anything, I promise!’ he said, horrified. ‘No, Rhiannon. We’re done, I promise. I came by today to say I was sorry. That’s it. And if I can make it up to you in any way, please let me know.’

  ‘I suppose a shag’s still out of the question?’ I chanced. He laughed a lot. ‘All right, all right I get the picture. So journalism is your bliss?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your bliss. The thing you most love doing.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. Well, I like writing. I like researching stories.

  And I like meeting people and finding out about their lives. I’m interested in others.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘What’s that like?’

  He laughed, even though I was genuinely interested to find out the answer so I laughed along with him. We passed the snack shack. I bought a stick of Monks Bay rock with a picture of the funicular railway on the wrapper. ‘Here. Something to remember me by.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he smiled, slipping me his business card in return. ‘Freddie Litton-Cheney – Journalist’. The Plymouth Star newspaper address was crossed out in blue Biro.

  I did the approximation of a smile and hope it reached him as intended. ‘Good luck, Freddie. I hope you get your big break.’

  *

  I’ve been sitting here for an hour. Catfished a few more pervs – some kid called GeekBoy3000 in Florida is the latest to draw the flower. He sent me a ten-minute clip of him crying and saying how much he loved me.

  BLOCK.

  Some capuchin-faced dude with wispy grey hair calling himself The Impregnator flung me a few dick pics.

  BLOCK.

  Then I found some filtered messages from a guy I’d muted months ago, saying he was going to toss himself off his local viaduct if I didn’t respond to his flower carving. So I did.

  Sweetpea: Kill yourself. You’re no good for anything else.

  BLOCKITY BLOCK BLOCK BLOCK BLOCK BLOCK. It’s a block party all up in here today.

  Then I updated AJ’s Facebook page again – he’s ‘in Thailand now, meeting up with his friends’. For a dead guy, he sure as hell gets around.

  ‘Ow!’ I got kicked for that.

  Anyway, I Photoshopped a picture of his head onto some other Australian gap year friend of one of the PICSOs and put him on a beach in Phuket, playing with a stray dog. It’s not the most proficient Photoshop job ever but unless you’re looking for anomalies, I don’t think you’d see it.

  *Gordon Ramsay clap* DONE.

  This is what I do now. I update a dead man’s Facebook page. I catfish perverts with no intention of ever meeting up with them. I sit in the car park at Mel & Colly’s Farm Shop and wait for Sandra Huggins to clock on.

  I come back at closing time to watch her leave. It’s been the same rota for the past week. Being close to her is the nearest I get to happiness.

  There’s more to life than happiness.

  Oh yeah, the Aubergine is talking to me again.

  It won’t make you feel good. You’ll be sick again. I’ll make it worse. If you make her bleed, I’ll make you bleed.

  *

  The farm shop itself was a charming little place – a large shed with a corrugated roof, selling everything a middle-class person could possibly want – overpriced organic fruit and veg, camel’s milk, jams, chutneys, locally-sourced rare breed pork and eggs, plus a range of artisan cheeses and gift ideas for people you hate – floral notepads and candles and the like. Out the front there were signs for ‘Eco logs – chop your own’ and sacks of dry kindling and coal. They’d already trimmed up for Christmas – tinsel draped along shelves, fairy lights around the fridges and a full-size neon Santa by the entrance, offering a tray of mulled wine tasters and mince pies. ‘Eat Drink and Be Merry’ read the sign around his neck.

  I spied the paedophile formerly known as Sandra Huggins – now ‘Jane Richie’ – stocking up the Christmas card rack. Jee-zuz. She was even uglier than I remember from the garden centre. Granted she’d lost some weight – prison food’ll do that to you, I guess – but she was still greasy and jowly AF. I became aware of the positioning of the Sabatier in my rucksack.

  ‘Hi there,’ I said, as breezy as breezy gets.

  ‘All right?’ she replied, looking me up and down. This is a standard response I have found in my limited career as a Paedo Chaser. Both Fenton and Derek Scudd looked at me the same way. They’re processing whether you’re going to be nice or throw acid. Sadly, I had no acid to hand. Also, for a homespun farm shop, they were surprisingly tooled up when it came to CCTV.

  I had no plan of what I was going to say or do – I was just looking at her and thinking about what she’d done to those babies in her care. The pictures she had se
nt to those men. Those children she had supplied. I powered down long enough to speak. ‘Where are the gluten free pasties please?’

  She huffed as she put down the stack of Christmas cards, walking over to the far end of the shop where there were two large chest freezers, full of frozen pastries and pies. She presented the sight with her thick, rough hand, like a pissed-off magician awaiting applause.

  ‘Great, thanks,’ I said, smiling sweetly. Inwardly I was baking her in an oversized pie and boiling her bones down to glue. I wanted her so badly I became quite aroused looking at her, as she waddled back to her Christmas cards – the way a lover looks. Except in my case, I didn’t want to fuck her. I did want to stick something inside her though, right up to the hilt.

  Again and again and again.

  Mummy…

  ‘I know, I know,’ I said, pretending to look through the chest freezers, keeping one eye on Sandra Dee. I checked the time – the store would be closing soon. I was all out of options. I had to follow her home.

  Mummy please don’t do it…

  So I waited back in my car in the car park. Around 5.05 p.m., Sandra Huggins left the store – red handbag on her shoulder, green fleece over her forearm. She locked up and walked over to one of the picnic tables out the front, leaning against it. Within five minutes, a green Vauxhall Cavalier with filthy mud flaps swooped into the car park and pulled up alongside her. She got in to the passenger seat and off they went. I started my engine—

  I’m sending the pains now…

  ‘Oh Jesus wept!’ I cried out as my abdomen tightened in the middle, taking my breath away.

  I told you it was too risky. I told you to walk away.

  ‘You let me kill Troy. She deserves it!’ I turned off the engine.

  Go home.

  ‘All right, I’m going. Please stop the pains, please!’ I hurriedly Googled What to do if you have pains pregnancy help ow. The first result back was Braxton Hicks contractions. Dehydration was a cause.

  I grabbed the bottle of water from my rucksack and necked it in one long series of gulps.

  It’s not dehydration. It’s me. I don’t like it when you kill people. How many more times do I have to say it?