The Girl Who Turned a Blind Eye

by Diana Wilkinson

  Lots of love

  Jeremy x

  I delete the email and snap shut the laptop. My hands are shaking, my neck flushed. A sudden cramp shoots up my left calf, the pain drawing tears from my eyes.

  I pull up the cuff of my sweatshirt and look at the deep red angry welts across my left wrist. With the passing of time they’re more, not less, pronounced. I wear long sleeves as camouflage when I visit Ms Evans.

  The Stanley knife cut sweetly, seamlessly and the first cut was the deepest. That was Jeremy; my first lover, the man I dared to trust after my father let me down. I opened up, bared my soul and let him in and tried to draw a flimsy curtain across the past. It didn’t keep the darkness out but softened the edges. When he disappeared, raised his anchor and set sail, I was adrift and death seemed the best option.

  I go to the fridge, lift out the white wine and release the cork from last night’s half empty bottle. I fill a large glass until liquid drizzles over the top, the tremor in my hands like the precursor to a major earthquake. With eyes closed, I tilt my head and gulp, wiping my lips with the back of my hand before choking the final mouthful into the sink.

  The barren stalks outside remind me of death. The wilting stems, dead men walking, remind me of how I felt when Jeremy left. After the failed suicide attempt, despair turned to fury; then fury to action. Finding an outlet took time but I learnt not to give up, not to let go. The solution that afforded the greatest satisfaction, if not peace, was meting out punishment.

  The clock ticking interrupts my thoughts. It’s like the crocodile in Peter Pan, tick-tocking its way to eat me up. I refill my glass and wonder at the timing. Jeremy’s emails have hit my inbox the moment Travis has left. I’m not sure what is making me so uneasy. Surely I should be pleased that he has returned, eager to inveigle his way back in? Yet it crosses my mind that someone could be playing tricks on me; someone who knows about Jeremy’s and my past together and about that particular Achilles heel.

  I became a so-called stalker as a way to regain control after Jeremy left and the failed suicide attempt. A determination never again to be treated badly gave me a goal, a way to deal with things. Stalking just sort of happened and the word became linked to my behaviour. ‘An eye for an eye’ became my mantra. It’s taken up all my time and energy ever since, giving me a reason to get up in the mornings.

  Perhaps Jeremy really is back. He won’t know about my abortive trips to America to track him down. Only Ms Evans is privy to that information. What does he want? Why now?

  A bird is pecking at something on the patio, his beak persistent against the sandstone. There’s a small piece of stale bread stuck between the slabs and he’s determined not to fly away without it. The persistence and intent reminds me of Jeremy when he wanted something, his beak every bit as sharp.

  If he is back, it looks as if he’s brought a whole new bag of tricks with him. He was a master illusionist who tried to wow me with magic and sleight of hand. It was lucky he wasn’t around when Danielle fell down the stairs as he would have guessed what had happened. He would have been proud, as he used to think I wasn’t listening, wasn’t interested. Little did he know.

  ‘Not a real profession? That’s what you think. Isn’t it?’

  Yes. That was what I thought. His tutorials bored me to distraction but turned out to have their uses.

  I certainly won’t be meeting up with Jeremy, if he really is back. It wouldn’t take him long to piece together the puzzle of Danielle’s accident. He was the person who taught me how to make people fall down stairs without leaving a trace, a clever stunt but one that might yet put me in prison.

  I finish the bottle and bang hard at the window. The bird flies off, shocked into dropping the morsel from its beak. Persistence needs to be accompanied by awareness, otherwise all can be lost.

  42

  Queenie’s emotions were bottled up like a sealed jar of pickles, the acidic bite locked inside. It was time to take the lid off, talk to someone.

  She finally plucked up the courage and went to the police station, but DCI Colgate didn’t seem particularly interested. When she mentioned the name Beverley Digby, he clapped both hands over his face.

  ‘Okay. How can we help, Mrs Lowther?’

  ‘I hope I’m not wasting your time but I’d like my concerns noted.’ Queenie took a deep breath and gently whisked her fringe away from her eyes. ‘I’ve already talked to the head teacher at my son’s school but I’m not sure they’re taking me seriously.’

  ‘Go on. I’m listening.’ Colgate rubbed his chin, sat back and swizzled the end of a pen round in his mouth. PC Lindsay, with a fresh notebook in front of her, proceeded to date the page neatly across the top.

  Queenie spoke quietly, her voice shaky. ‘Miss Digby is a teacher at my son Freddie’s school. She’s only there a couple of afternoons a week, so I haven’t met her properly in the school surroundings. I work daytimes and a neighbour picks up the children. It’s just that…’ Queenie cleared her throat, a dry nervous sound, and took a sip of water from a plastic cup. ‘It’s just that, Miss Digby has been seeing my husband, Travis, behind my back and he’s moved in with her.’

  ‘I see.’ Colgate’s fingers reached down his back and scratched, as if trying to ease a nagging itch.

  ‘Oh, that’s not what I care about. That’s not why I’m here,’ Queenie continued, reading his thoughts. ‘The kids are my concern. They went round for tea last weekend and something very unsettling happened. I wanted to report it. You see, Miss Digby bought our son, Freddie, a present, which according to my husband was an innocent mistake. But the present was a samurai sword. It wasn’t a plastic make-believe toy, but it had a sharp steel blade, like the real thing.’ Queenie lifted her phone off the table and scrolled through some photographs, her fingers damp as she tried to wipe off smudge marks with a tissue.

  ‘Look. Freddie took this picture himself after he had dead-headed flowers in the back garden with a single flick of the blade.’

  Colgate took the phone, checked the screenshot and turned it towards Lindsay.

  ‘You see my problem? What normal person would give a boy of ten a sword that could chop someone’s head off?’ Queenie took another sip of water, uncomfortable doing the talking but if the detective had kids of his own, he’d understand.

  ‘Yes, I do. It seems a very strange gift indeed. Do you think she realised how sharp it was? Perhaps she bought it online and thought it was just a toy?’

  ‘She’s passing the buck. She says she didn’t buy the sword, that it had nothing to do with her and that it was in a parcel which arrived for the children. She maintains she knew nothing about it until Freddie had ruined her precious garden. My worry is, whether she knew about it or not, she’s not the sort of person who should be teaching my children. Or any children for that matter.’

  Colgate listened to Mrs Lowther’s calm precise delivery but was hit by the intensity in her words. This was no rantings of a spurned wife, rather the fury of a mother whose children had been put in danger and the outcome could have been very different.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Lowther. Have you got all this down, Lindsay?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘We’ve logged your concerns and the school will be notified. While we’ve no jurisdiction over their staffing policies, we can at least make sure they’re aware of the incident.’

  Queenie stood up, straightened her skirt, and smoothed it down with both hands. ‘Thank you. That’s all I want. If she steps out of line again, they’ll have to take action.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your husband, by the way. That must have been upsetting.’

  Queenie’s cheeks flushed, a wry smile on her lips. ‘Not really. He’s already moved back home.’

  Once Mrs Lowther had gone, Colgate turned to his colleague.

  ‘Lindsay. Can you hang around? I’ve got something I need to run through with you.’

  Colgate disappeared, and returned a few minutes later holding a pile of box files ba
lanced precariously one on top of the other.

  ‘I need you to go through these case reports with a fine toothcomb, and do some serious digging.’ Colgate pushed the hefty boxes towards Lindsay.

  ‘Yes, sir. What’s it about?’

  ‘I want you to look into an old case from some twenty-five years ago. A guy got murdered in a garden shed in Holdenhurst Avenue not far from here. Off Southgate High Street near the Tube station, and no one ever got charged. It was a strange case because as a serial paedophile, the guy who got murdered warranted little sympathy. No one seemed to care at the time. “Just deserts” and all that. The thing that bothers me is that the victim was garrotted with a garden scythe. It might be nothing but I’m putting two and two together with recent events and coming to ten.’

  ‘What recent events? Sorry, I’m not quite with you.’

  ‘Firstly, Mr Barry receives pictures of the Grim Reaper holding aloft a deadly weapon, as a sinister threat. Then Mrs Lowther tells us of how her son received a random but deadly samurai sword in the post around the same time. The one thing that links the two events is Miss Digby. Get my point, so to speak?’ Colgate laughed at his own joke. ‘Also, I don’t believe in coincidences. Two sharp-bladed instruments have caused alarm bells with several people in a very short space of time. Do you see what I’m getting at?’

  ‘Sort of. You think there’s a connection between these two incidents and the Garden Shed murder? Seems a bit of a long shot.’

  ‘I haven’t had many murder cases over the years to deal with but I can smell a rat at fifty paces. Call it gut instinct, but I think whoever sliced Mr Chuck Curry’s throat open could be back to haunt us.’

  ‘You don’t think his murder could have anything to do with Miss Digby, do you?’

  ‘Perhaps. Maybe In some roundabout way. She would have been only about twelve or thirteen when the murder took place. I want you to check out the names of all the children who came forward at the time; victims of Curry. Check out where they are today and if any of them still live in the area. You know the drill. See if Digby’s name comes up.’ Colgate paused, pursed his lips and chewed the inside of his gum.

  ‘Also it might be a good idea, if you’ve got any spare time, to check out the names of other kids around then who were taken into care.’

  ‘Why? You don’t think it was a kid who killed Curry?’

  ‘Yes, I do actually. It’s always been my suspicion. I think it was one very strong, determined child who severed the bastard’s carotid artery.’

  Queenie felt light-headed as she strolled home in the warm afternoon sunshine, letting the fine summer breeze tickle her skin. She knew so much about Beverley Digby, it would have been good to share more but patient confidentiality meant the only concerns she’d been able to raise with the police were those relating to her children’s safety.

  Queenie had never been a talker, always a listener. She’d bottled up so much, so many secrets over the years, but today she’d inched the memory door ajar. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

  43

  Uncle Chuck had a small back garden, which he nurtured with meticulous care. He also had an allotment on the other side of the tall spiky hedge but although he talked about it, I was never allowed to visit. I was kept hidden inside the shed.

  ‘I don’t want to share my special friend, now do I?’ he would say. I realised shortly after I killed him that he was scared people would see me; know that I was there. That was why he never let me wander.

  He talked to the plants, coaxing and cajoling them to full bloom. The first time I heard him outside the shed whispering, I thought he had a sick child wrapped up tightly between the stalks; or perhaps he was minding a bird with a broken wing.

  ‘Come on, my beauty. Drink the water. Take in the rays and you’ll grow to be big and strong.’ He sprayed rain from a watering can over the mysterious object, looking skywards when he talked about the rays, spouting forth about the beneficial effects of the sun. Of course he was just a weirdo who talked to plants.

  I would peer through the muddied windowpanes, tugging back the stiffened netting which smelled of damp cardboard. At the same time I crunched madly on biscuit crumbs trying to bury the taste of semen and vomit. It was this caring, nurturing façade that made me question where the blame lay for what was going on. If Uncle Chuck was so kind and considerate of plants and sick beings, then perhaps I was the one who deserved punishment.

  That’s when I took an interest in gardening. Perhaps if I was kinder and more nurturing, I would no longer deserve the punishment.

  ‘This is a spade. You use this for digging holes for the larger plants and this smaller tool is a trowel. It’s what I use for the bedding plants and for the colourful pots. You can have this one. Here.’ He handed over the tool, his kindness confusing. It was as if the last half hour hadn’t happened.

  But it was the implements hanging inside along the length of the shed wall that grabbed my interest the most. Some had long handles; some short. But they had one thing in common; they all had sharp edges.

  ‘Can I hold one?’

  ‘They’re much too heavy for little hands. When you’re older.’ He shouldn’t have said that. The older bit. It made me think that I’d be coming here for ever.

  ‘What about the little one on the end? What’s that? Perhaps I could hold that.’

  ‘My, you are a pest. That’s a scythe. It’s for dead-heading the really tough weeds. The allotment grows wild in the spring and summer and that’s when the scythe comes out. I can clear the weeds in ten minutes, it’s that sharp.’

  ‘Can I try?’

  ‘Not yet. Perhaps one day. You can finger the handle but you mustn’t lift it down. It’s very dangerous.’ He patted me on the head, like he cared.

  The handle was solid oak, smooth and fine. My hand fitted round it perfectly. I felt it wriggle in the metal slot and knew if I could stand on something, like a crate or a box, I could push it up over the top and get it down.

  ‘How dangerous? Does it kill the plants?’ I widened my eyes in childish innocence. Uncle Chuck didn’t realise he’d stolen it long ago. I feigned excitement in being allowed access to adult danger. Uncle Chuck would have likened my glee to when he let me sit in his Ford Escort and turn the wheel without a key in the ignition.

  His chins wobbled when he laughed. Jelly on a plate. Jelly on a plate.

  ‘It doesn’t kill the plants exactly but takes their heads off. It stops them growing and coming back. I only use it on the bad weeds, the ones that suffocate the goodness.’

  My final question, and his answer, made up my mind. I knew I was strong enough to manage the scythe.

  ‘So you only need to take the heads off and that makes everything else die and makes the soil good again? The weeds are bad then.’

  ‘That’s right, my little friend. Slice the tops off and the rest wilts and dies. No one misses them when they’re gone. That’s what the scythe is for.’

  ‘Show me how you use it? Go on. Please?’

  ‘Like this. Keep clear. You swish the blade along with a quick flick, turning your wrist as you go and everything drops in its path.’

  ‘Like this? Is this right?’ I had to make sure. I swished left and right and back again with the imaginary tool in my hand. I laughed and Uncle Chuck seemed mesmerised by my mood, my sudden hysteria.

  ‘Come here, my poppet. Come to Uncle Chuck.’

  He put the scythe carefully back in its slot and lifted me gently onto the sofa.

  I no longer had to count spiders. I closed my eyes and practised swishing. Left and right; right then left. I could dead-head with one slick movement.

  I also knew where the carotid artery was. It was a random fact I’d picked up at school; during a talk on parts of the body. Everyone giggled at the words penis and vagina but the jugular vein drew my attention. This titbit of information was my ‘get out of jail’ card. It was all I needed to know.

  I was only twelve and gruesome, macabre st
ories had become my bedtime reading of choice. Under the warm damp duvet I concocted sinister plots, but unlike the Brothers Grimm’s fairy stories, my tales had no happy endings.

  44

  A summer thunderstorm finally breaks through the early dawn. Dark, threatening clouds burst and release their laden contents, like a dam bursting its banks and lightning streaks herald in the deafening thunderclaps. Slumped in the driver’s seat, the noise is comforting and I’m glad to have escaped the quiet confines of the house where the silence has become amplified by menaces.

  Last night the phone calls started at one; then two, then every hour on the dot until sunrise. It’s a nightly ritual. The ringing tone tells me I’m not mad, that it’s not in my imagination. Heavy breathing follows long eerie silences and each time the caller disconnects I find the handset stuck fast to my ear, disbelieving that they’ve gone. I know they’ll be back so don’t see the need to hang up.

  I keep an eye on the entrance to the police station, waiting for the first signs of life. It’s still only 6am. I don’t want to speak to the night officer, I need to see Colgate, my old nemesis. With what I’m bringing him, I think he’ll listen. I’m banking on it.

  My mind races, digging around the detritus of my brain for clues. I’ll need to keep my statement clear, or I’ll be palmed off, but it’s not going to be easy as there are so many possibilities for who my stalker is.

  The emails from Jeremy have doubled my anxiety. There was a time when contact from him would have made me euphoric, victorious that he might want me back. Now all I feel is dread and I’m worried the emails might not be genuine, but from someone playing with my mind. Scott knew about Jeremy. I’d told him often enough when we first got together. But it wasn’t long before I made snide little asides about the differences in their characters, in a negative way as far as Scott was concerned, when he started to pull back and treat me badly. Jeremy wouldn’t have done that. Jeremy wouldn’t have said that. ‘Then where the hell is this fucking precious Jeremy?’ Scott would yell. I didn’t know, of course. I hadn’t been able to track him down. I wanted to find him, punish him and wrest back control but he’d been too slippery.