The Pull of the Moon

by Diane Janes

‘I lied to them about the screwdriver,’ said Simon. ‘You know I lied, because I lent it to you. You told me you needed to borrow it, to help some girl fix the plug on her hairdryer. You told me you’d lost it.’

  There was an explosion inside my head. Blinding white light obliterated everything, laying waste to thought processes. I staggered backwards away from the kitchen; putting out a hand to steady myself against the hall table, feeling my way along the bottom of the banisters like a blind man. I shook physically as the aftershocks continued to pulse through my brain, jangling like a hundred broken mirrors. When I reached the stairs I sank down on to the bottom step, holding my head in my hands, trying to stem the awful pain you only experience when something splinters your soul.

  They were shouting at one another now, my fellow conspirators; but the short distance I had put between us, coupled with the thickness of the door, prevented me from hearing what they were saying. I couldn’t even distinguish between their voices.

  The same idea went round and round in my head like a merry-go-round – Simon thinks he killed her – Simon thinks he killed her – over and over, flashing silver sparks, overheating, until the fairground music became a constant scream.

  Danny had killed Rachel Hewitt. Danny had borrowed Simon’s screwdriver, and used it as a ruse to gain entry to her room on the pretext of mending her hairdryer. Why? Why? Surely not just to win some stupid academic prize. Only a madman would behave thus. But if Simon was telling the truth, then it was no wonder Danny had been so anxious to conceal Trudie’s accident from the authorities. I didn’t want to believe it was true but I could see why it might be. Simon hadn’t known about the screwdriver being found in Rachel Hewitt’s room until after we had buried Trudie – and by then it was too late. He was certainly right about that. By then we had implicated ourselves too deeply for anyone to believe in an accident.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ Danny startled me, opening the kitchen door without warning and emerging into the hall. He came straight to where I was sitting. ‘Have you been crying?’ His voice was full of genuine concern. His eyes tried to engage with mine. A part of me still wanted to believe in him, even as I wanted to escape.

  ‘I overheard you and Simon. I heard Simon saying things – I know you killed her.’

  Danny’s face didn’t register surprise. He scarcely hesitated. ‘It was for you,’ he said. ‘I did it for you.’

  I looked up at him not comprehending. I’d never met the girl.

  ‘She was coming between us,’ he said. ‘I had to stop her.’ His expression sought my understanding – my approval. He was saying that he had killed someone for the love of me.

  Then I did understand.

  I leapt to my feet and flung myself up the stairs. This must have taken him by surprise, because he didn’t move immediately – just stayed where he was at the foot of the staircase, saying, ‘Katy . . . Katy – wait.’

  By the time I reached the bedroom I could hear him coming after me, so I slammed the door shut and cast around for the nearest movable heavy object, which was an old-fashioned armchair with an upholstered back and seat. I dragged it behind the door and sat on it, just in time to stop him opening the door.

  When he realized he couldn’t get in he shoved the door a couple of times, jolting me and my chair, but not managing to dislodge us.

  ‘Katy . . .’ His gentlest voice, appealing and persuasive, slightly muffled by the solid panels. ‘Don’t be daft. Let me in.’

  ‘No. Go away.’

  ‘Katy – come on. I need to talk to you – face to face. I need to explain.’

  ‘Go away,’ I shrieked.

  I could see myself reflected in the long narrow mirror which was set in the wardrobe door. I looked bizarre, enthroned on the high-backed armchair, my face scarlet with the effort of thwarting the intruder, my expression demented.

  Danny began to push steadily against the door. My feet started to slip – he was stronger and heavier than me. A dark gap appeared between the door frame and the door, faithfully recorded in the wardrobe mirror; but by the time the gap had opened three or four inches the chair had slid me within reach of the bed. I braced my hands and feet against it, feeling as if my knee joints were liable to snap. Either this additional barrier defeated him or else Danny decided to concede, because the pressure ceased abruptly and I capitalized on his temporary surrender by shunting myself and the armchair back against the door in a single movement.

  ‘Katy, come on – let me come in and talk to you.’

  I didn’t respond.

  ‘Okay.’ Danny attempted a tone of cheerful resignation. ‘I’ll talk to you from out here.’

  I stayed silent.

  ‘We’re supposed to be together, Katy. We love one another. It’s meant to be. You and me – together.’ He paused, got nothing in return, continued: ‘Trudie was trying to take you away. She was leading you astray, in fact. Can you hear me, Katy? You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

  I said nothing.

  After another brief pause he went on. ‘I know you can hear me. Listen, babe, I’m not blaming you. She was leading you on – I know that. It’s not normal – all that girl with girl stuff. She was . . . defiling you. As soon as Simon told me he’d seen the two of you together, I knew I had to stop her . . . Aren’t you going to say anything, Katy?’

  I couldn’t say anything. I sat in my chair rocking to and fro, my lips and brain frozen.

  ‘Katy, I did it for us. Look – I’m going to come back later when you’re feeling calmer and we’ll talk it through. You’ll see it was the right thing in the end.’

  I heard the stairs moan out their discordant concerto as his feet descended. It was weird the way the stairs were sometimes so noisy and sometimes quiet – not like a normal house where you got to know the location of all the loose boards. Here everything was as variable as shifting sands.

  I was rooted to the chair, not daring to relinquish my guard on the door in case he came straight back. He wasn’t even bothering to deny it. Was I dreaming this? Had I somehow misunderstood?

  I forced my mind back to the night in the woods – the first moments when I found myself alone in the dark. I had called out to Danny but his light had disappeared. The only light I had seen was a much smaller one in the distance – Trudie’s light, which I had attempted to follow before I lost sight of it among the trees – but Danny had been somewhere between us. He must have switched off his lamp and followed Trudie, crept along in the dark until he caught up with her in the playground.

  My eye fell on Trudie’s library book, still sitting on the bedside table waiting to be taken downstairs. I recalled Trudie’s words on the night of the seance – how she had described the laughing, happy victim entering the woods and the man with the dark hair and beard, of whom she had been unafraid because he was her friend: ‘She’s on her own – dark all around – he’s coming up behind her. She has my face.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  Once Danny had gone downstairs there was nothing to be heard except the steady patter of rain. The bedroom window had been left open and one or two spots fell inside, where they sat isolated from one another on the window sill, as if each was waiting for one of the others to make a friendly move.

  A whole medley of thoughts passed through my mind and I followed them like a child stumbling through a maze, never quite catching up with the rest of the group, unable to see the way out. The most obvious idea was to put on my anorak, grab my rucksack and attempt to put as much distance as possible between myself and the other occupants of the house before my absence was spotted. I only had to get down the stairs, across the hall and out of the front door. It sounded simple but my legs refused to move. Moreover I had to gamble on the key being left in the front door and my ability to negotiate the stairs without setting up a racket. Danny’s recently acquired habit of appearing as if from nowhere was an added difficulty. Then it occurred to me that Simon ought to be on my side. Perhaps we could run away toge
ther – that way we’d have the advantage of the car.

  Another internal voice questioned where I thought I could run to. Wherever I went, there was no escaping from what I knew. The stuff in your head comes with you wherever you go. You can’t leave it behind.

  I waited a long time for inspiration, but it didn’t bother to show up. After a while I heard footsteps on the landing – but it was only someone using the bathroom. I wondered if it was Simon and considered calling out to him, but I dithered about it so long that the footsteps went away again. After that there was another long silence.

  Eventually I moved my chair away from the door and opened it a crack. I decided it would be better to do a recce before I risked being caught in the hall, laden with my rucksack. I stepped out of my sandals and crept across to the banisters, where I paused to listen. There was no sound from anywhere else in the house, but as soon as I ventured down a couple of stairs they immediately sprang into full orchestral mode, providing a loud overture to herald my appearance. I stopped dead, clinging to the banister and holding my breath. At that moment I heard the kitchen door opening, but I managed to conquer the urge to race back into the bedroom, because I knew that anyone coming out of the kitchen would have to walk right along the hall before they could see me standing on the topmost stairs.

  ‘Suit yourself, man.’ It was Danny’s voice. He didn’t sound angry; just ordinary – his everyday self.

  Simon’s reply was no more than a brief mumble: his words failed to reach me.

  ‘Well, you know where I am,’ said Danny. He sounded ridiculously breezy.

  I was poised for a speedy retreat but he didn’t approach the stairs. He must have gone into the drawing room. Damn. If he left the drawing-room door open there was no way I could get past it and into the kitchen without him seeing me. Then I had another idea. If I could slip downstairs and out of the front door, I could go round the other side of the house and back in at the kitchen door, without having to pass the drawing room at all. Simon and I could use the kitchen door to get away via the same route, without Danny realizing that anything was afoot until he heard the sound of Simon’s car – and by then it would be too late for him to do anything about it.

  It took me an age to bring myself to make a move, after which I took the stairs one at a time, leaving long intervals between any which uttered so much as a squeak. When I finally reached the bottom I padded across to try the front door, but the big mortice lock was secured and there was no sign of the key. Where had Simon last put the keys? Why had we never bothered to establish a hard and fast rule for this sort of thing?

  A noise from the drawing room sent me diving through the nearest door – into the room we called the library. I listened for a moment, but there was no sound to indicate that anyone was approaching along the hall. A new idea struck me. The library occupied the front right-hand corner of the house and had windows to two sides, each with top lights and side openers. There was gravel under the front window and a flower bed under the one at the side, neither of which presented an ideal landing for someone with bare feet – but at least they weren’t too high off the ground. I tried them all and every one was painted shut. What kind of decorators did Simon’s uncle employ? It was probably the same story as the garden – get in some half-baked family member who was short of cash and let them make a mess of the job.

  Just then the quiet was shattered by two or three guitar chords. I turned around in double quick time but then I realized that Danny was still safely in the drawing room, where he had begun to strum a familiar tune. At least this covered any slight noises I might make. I had completely exhausted my small store of ideas and I felt dangerously exposed downstairs so I edged cautiously out of the library door and crept back to my room, slightly reassured by the fact that while ex-altar boy Danny was playing ‘He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands’ he was unlikely to come out of the drawing room and see me. Then again, so long as he was in the drawing room, there was no way I could reach Simon in the kitchen.

  Perhaps he had forgotten his promise to come up for another chat. I kept my door open a crack, monitoring his position by the music. Every so often there would be a pause in the programme – but then he would begin again, working his way through that extensive familiar repertoire, every song of which would be forever tainted with its own particular horror from now on.

  I was hungry by then and dreadfully thirsty. I addressed the latter problem by rinsing out the tooth glass I had used for Danny’s rose, and drinking water from the bathroom. I threw the white rose out of the window.

  The playing had become more sporadic – he must be getting tired. That was it, of course. Danny always slept like a baby. He could be absolutely relied upon to fall asleep sooner or later. I only had to wait him out. Then I could go down and solicit help from Simon. It would have been useful if Simon himself had come up to bed – but, now I stopped to consider it, I didn’t think he’d spent a night in his room since Trudie died – or the first night maybe – but not since.

  Down in the drawing room Danny was attempting ‘Moonshadow’ – attempting it but missing loads of notes. He was either very drunk or very sleepy – possibly both. The guitar eventually fell silent. When the silence had lasted for several minutes I sensed my chance and stole down the stairs. No one had bothered to extinguish the hall lights since I switched them on that afternoon. I got as far as I safely could, then very slowly inched my head sideways until I could see into the drawing room. Danny had his back to the door. Good – and also drat – because if he’d been sitting like that all along, I could probably have got past him ages ago.

  I slid along to the furthest end of the hall, turning the knob on the kitchen door as quietly as I could, while holding a finger to my lips ready to shush Simon until I was safely inside. I needn’t have bothered. Simon was slumped forward at the kitchen table where he had fallen asleep, with his head resting on one arm. He was facing away from me and beyond his head I could see the neck of the whisky bottle. I was shocked to note that the hands of the clock were recording half past eleven. I had been skulking upstairs for hours and hours.

  I made a wide detour round the table, not wanting to startle Simon into shouting out. I saw the fallen glass first, then the aspirin bottle open on the table. His long fair hair had fallen across his face.

  ‘Simon, Simon.’ I grabbed at him urgently, entirely forgetting the need for stealth. The arm lying closest to me slid off the table, thudding against my thigh before it fell useless at his side. I drew back his hair, the ends of which were sticky with the vomit which had choked him. His eyes were closed.

  ‘Simon – Simon.’

  I took up the fallen arm and tried to find a pulse. I didn’t know much about first aid, but maybe if I could clear his airway . . . Even as I thought of this I knew it was pointless. The flesh of his arm felt unnaturally cool.

  I stood beside him taking in foolish details: the puddle of whisky which had escaped from the glass when it fell, knocked over accidentally by Simon no doubt. The whisky bottle next to it was the same one Danny had opened two nights before: I recognized it by a small tear in the side of the label. There was still about an inch in the bottom, so Simon couldn’t have drunk very much. He hadn’t bothered to replace the cap on the aspirin bottle. I automatically rectified this, noting that the bottle was still three parts full.

  It came to me that until a few days ago I had never seen a dead body. Now I had seen two. Simon’s neither frightened nor repelled me. The pyrotechnics failed to make their usual explosive entrance. Instead I experienced a strange sensation of calm. It arrived in waves, rolling steadily across my consciousness, and with it came a submerged current of anger: a surging rip tide which infused me with a powerful sense of strength and purpose. It seemed to me as if the very creatures of the night were aware of my presence and trembled before it.

  I walked calmly from the kitchen to the drawing room, taking a route which brought me in front of the sofa where Danny was slouched with
his guitar in front of him, held upright between his knees. He appeared to have been dozing, but as he registered my arrival he gave a lazy smile.

  ‘Katy.’ His voice was slurred. The other bottle of whisky was standing at his feet and told its own story. He patted the sofa beside him, enjoining me to take a seat.

  ‘Are you okay, Danny?’ I asked. He began to fumble the guitar out of the way and I bent to help him, propping it against an arm of the sofa.

  ‘Thirsty.’ He grinned at me stupidly, still patting the vacant cushion at his side.

  ‘Wait there,’ I said. ‘I’ll get you something to drink.’

  ‘Had something to drink.’ He winked and nodded in the direction of the bottle on the floor.

  I picked it up. ‘You’re going to have an awful hangover in the morning; but I can cure that. Hang on – I’ll be back in a minute.’

  I returned to the kitchen where I placed the whisky bottle with its fellow on the table, before reaching a clean half-pint glass from the cupboard. I filled it with water, unscrewed the cap on the aspirin bottle and upended it over the glass, only righting it after perhaps a dozen or more pills had splashed their way to the bottom, where they began to effervesce like an experiment in a chemistry class. There were so many of them that they needed some help, so I got a spoon out of the drawer and stirred the mixture vigorously, but a lot of undissolved residue still kept falling to the bottom. The cloudy liquid looked extremely unappetizing, so I hunted out a bottle of Ribena from the pantry, some of which I trickled in. Then I went back to the drawing room, with the glass in one hand and four aspirin tablets in the other.

  Danny’s face lit up when he saw me. I don’t suppose the Reverend Roger Webb Wilkins-Staunton gave his executioner such an enthusiastic welcome. This time I accepted the invitation to sit down and submitted to a lengthy kiss. He tasted vile. I suppose it was the result of an excess of alcohol in a stale mouth, but in my mind it represented a breath of evil escaping from somewhere deep inside him. I steeled myself not to recoil: told myself that I could endure much more than this, for Simon and for Trudie – and for that Rachel girl too, although I had never known her.