The Murder of Graham Catton

by Katie Lowe

  An hour later, I walk with Evie’s arm in mine, the high-school windows yellow against the dusk-grey sky, feeling eyes upon me everywhere. As we approach the caged court, I feel someone, too close, behind me. But I turn, and see only empty space, dead air.

  I see Evie looking, her attention caught on mine, and I smile.

  You’re imagining things, Graham whispers, and I squeeze her arm again.

  But it’s unmistakable, as we walk along. The sense of hooded eyes, glances slipped in my direction; of a silence falling as we approach the crowd, the hush of gossip swiftly stopped.

  No, I think. I’m not.

  For a little while I manage to lose myself in the match.

  As the second half begins, the match is tied, and I find myself understanding the urge to bray with the rest of the crowd. To jeer as a girl on the opposing team trips and drops the ball.

  But I’m interrupted; pulled back. My phone vibrates in my pocket. It rings, stops for a moment, and rings again. I glance at the screen. The name brings a jolt: Sarah.

  I miss her. I’ve been missing her, ever since we fought. I shouldn’t leave Evie – not now – but I want to make things right. I stand, wavering, pulled in both directions at once. On the final ring, I turn away from the match and take the call.

  Instantly, I know this isn’t an olive branch. It’s in her sharp intake of breath as I answer; the steely professional tone. ‘Hannah. How are you?’

  ‘I’m … I’m fine.’

  An apology lingers on my lips.

  But I feel eyes on me, at my back; his hands, pressed into my shoulders. It cuts me dead.

  A cheer from behind drowns her out as she speaks. A camera flashes from behind, and I turn. I’m exposed, and all too aware of the people around me: the strangers watching, waiting for me to do something awful. I need privacy. Just for a moment, I need to be alone. I walk away from the match, and escape between the trees.

  ‘Sorry, it’s … It’s not really a good time. Can I … Is everything OK?’ The woods open up around me, swallow me whole. The darkness is a comfort. I keep walking.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Sarah says. ‘I just needed to talk to you about a patient. She’s – she was – one of yours.’

  I hear the name in my mind before she says it. I close my eyes, in a kind of prayer. ‘Who?’

  ‘Amy Barker. She … Well, she was supposed to be grounds-only, but—’

  A vivid flash of memory hits me: a hand, lifeless, in cold water. A blue-light, red-light flash. It’s your fault she’s dead, they told me. We’ll defend you in court, but you have to accept your culpability in this.

  Sarah’s voice is buzzing in my ear, but I can’t understand her. Or rather, I don’t want to understand. I don’t want to accept it. ‘Sarah, hang on. My phone – my signal’s bad. Can you say that again?’

  ‘A lot of her notes are your old ones, in your … shorthand.’ There’s a slight there. I choose to ignore it. ‘I was hoping you might be able to come by, talk to the police, help them to … you know. I know you’re on leave, but …’

  I realize, at once, what she’s saying. What she’s trying to do.

  ‘Are you trying to blame me for this?’ My voice is hysterical, shrill. ‘You took me off her case. You made that decision, because you were too weak to stand up to the board. To stand up for your friend.’ I feel the words choking me. ‘I know what happened with Lucie Wexworth is going to make it very easy for you to scapegoat me, Sarah – but I’m not going to come in there and help you do it. I quit. Sort this mess out for yourself.’

  There’s a long, weighted pause. I feel a creeping dread, a realization that – once again – I’ve let my temper get the better of me.

  When she speaks, her tone is flat. ‘You’re delusional, Hannah. I’m just trying to do the right thing here. For the family. But clearly that’s not something that’s all that important to you. So, forget it. Thanks for your time.’

  I draw breath to reply. I’m too late. She ends the call with a click, and I stare at my screen. When the light goes off, it’s pitch dark around me. There’s a rustling overhead, a creeping among the trees.

  I hear footsteps approaching, the tell-tale snap and crunch of fallen leaves.

  I freeze. ‘Hello?’

  Something catches in my hair, and tugs. I spin around, pulse thumping in my ears.

  There’s someone here. Someone watching me.

  ‘Who is it?’ I call out, my voice reed-thin. ‘I know you’re there.’

  My throat tightens – fear, I think. And then, it tightens, more, as though gripped by an invisible hand.

  It’s all in my head, I tell myself as I turn and run. He isn’t there.

  But I felt him. I still feel him, now.

  I stagger out from among the trees to a deafening roar: a cheer.

  And there, I see Evie, and the parents of Hawkwood’s kids, all staring in my direction, while the other team circles, wild with the thrill of their win.

  40

  ‘I’m sorry, Evie. Really. I—’

  ‘Leave it, Mum.’ She’s curled into herself, arms folded tight against her chest. Her trainers slap against the tarmac as she jogs towards the car. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Evie, please—’

  ‘Mum.’ She swings the car door open, and steps back, as though surprised by her own strength. ‘Just drop it. Please.’

  My phone buzzes twice in quick succession. I glance at the top notification. An update on your application for a loan, the subject line reads. In the snippet of text below, I see the word unfortunately. The word rejected. A flush spreads over my skin. There’s no way this isn’t about Conviction. It has to be.

  I put the keys in the ignition. ‘Pairing,’ the car announces cheerfully.

  Anna Byers’s voice immediately follows, her tone much the same. ‘Mike, we are – genuinely – thrilled to have you here with us. It’s such a pleasure to be able to sit down with you and talk.’

  I press the Bluetooth button and cut it off. ‘This bloody car. How do I turn this autoplay thing off?’ I’m trying for flippancy. It sounds like panic.

  Evie looks at me, unflinching. ‘I want to listen to it.’

  I know I’m being tested. It’s a punishment for missing the end of her game, and I deserve it. I don’t want to ask when she noticed; I don’t want to know if it threw her off, wondering where I’d gone. I can’t face the truth, though I know it: I’ve let her down again.

  I say nothing, and she clicks the Bluetooth back on.

  ‘I … Thank you.’ There’s a light Cockney twang to Mike Philips’s voice. I find a strange comfort in it – a reminder of the city I once called home. ‘Really. I can’t believe any of this is really happening.’

  ‘It’s going to take some getting used to,’ Byers replies. She’s being gentle with him, though it comes off as patronizing – or at least, that’s how it sounds to me. I imagine her fans, adoring, inundating her with appreciation for the way she’s handled his first interview. ‘Your routine is going to be a bit … thrown off, I imagine.’

  ‘No communal mealtimes, or showers. Yeah. It’s weird.’ His laugh is strangely high-pitched, a boyish giggle. ‘Not that I’m complaining, obviously. You know, the first thing I did was get a Big Mac. I’ve been craving one for ten whole years. Best burger of my life.’

  Byers laughs. I pull out of the school drive and try to focus on the road in front, to keep a steady pace. ‘You know, #BigMike was the number-one trending topic in the UK for two days after you posted that photo. You ought to go to McDonald’s and ask them for a cut of that week’s sales.’

  ‘He’s sweet,’ Evie says. ‘I’m glad they’ve let him out.’

  ‘I’m still not quite sure what half those words mean,’ he goes on. ‘I sort of knew about Twitter in theory, but … I mean, it’s a lot, you know? I feel like the world has changed completely since I went inside.’

  Me and you both, Mike, I think, the street lamps whipping by in beats. />
  He tells Byers and her audience of his first trip to buy clothes; his first encounter with a smartphone (a gift from a listener); his joy at finding his favourite film – Toy Story – available to stream, any time he liked. The shame of having stolen ten years of this boy’s life away settles, digs its claws into my chest.

  As we turn towards the village, we pass the petrol station, its gloomy greenish light. My eyes flit to the petrol gauge, a reflex. I’m down to an eighth of a tank.

  I turn to Evie and tip my head towards the glow. ‘Do you mind if we …?’

  She shakes her head, absently. She’s absorbed in Mike’s story, hanging on his every word.

  I pull on to the forecourt and stop the car. In the shop beyond, I see the cashier double take, and raise her phone. She snaps a photo as the car sits idling, and I catch sight of the sign below: the sandwich board emblazoned with the logo of the Peaks Gazette, above black print on milky white, screaming the words CONVICTION MYSTERY: BLACK WIDOW IN HAWKWOOD?

  My heart stops. I think – for a moment – that they must mean Margot; that they’ve figured it out.

  But then I see my own face beneath, haggard and cold, photographed from between the blinds.

  They’re talking about me.

  I put the car in gear and drive.

  ‘Forgot my card,’ I mutter. ‘I’ll have to leave it ’til tomorrow.’

  Evie tuts, but doesn’t say a word. She’s still more interested in the show.

  ‘So, Mike,’ Byers says. I catch the change in her tone. ‘You’ve got your life back now. What would you like to say to the people who put you in prison in the first place?’

  Evie tenses. I can’t help but do the same.

  ‘Well … I mean, it’s funny, because I’ve thought about it a lot – because when you’re in there, there’s not a lot else to do but think. Like, that’s the point, isn’t it?

  ‘But the thing is, I thought I’d be angry. I mean, I was angry, at first, for a really long time, because I just couldn’t understand why it’d happened to me. You know, it’s the most frustrating thing when you’re saying something you know is true, and nobody believes you – especially when you can see why they wouldn’t. So, like, his wife—’

  ‘Hannah Catton?’

  I flinch at the sound of my name – my old name. Evie stares straight ahead, pretending not to have noticed.

  ‘Yeah. I … I mean, look. She said she didn’t remember anything at first. Then she heard the “evidence” against me, and thought maybe she remembered me being there. Obviously she could’ve been lying, but …’ He trails off.

  ‘You sound pretty calm about that, all things considered.’ Byers is baiting him, attempting to tease out a response. ‘You’re not angry now?’

  He’s quiet. He’s learned, through awful experience, to think carefully before he speaks. I shrink a little in my seat. I wonder what he’s going to say. If it’ll be anything close to what he actually means.

  ‘I’m really not. I mean, I know there are a lot of theories out there about who could’ve done it, and I know some of them say it was her. Maybe it was. But … I don’t know. Either way, I think whether they get found out or not, the person who did it is the one who has to live with that. And they also have to live with what happened to me. I’ve been OK, all this time, because I knew, in my heart, that it wasn’t me, and my parents raised me to have faith.’

  He clicks his tongue three times, and sighs.

  ‘Someone – one of the people working on my case – said to me, a while ago: it’s one thing to have a stranger tell you you did something, but know in your heart that you didn’t. You can live with that. You can continue to speak your truth. But if you know you did something, even if nobody else knows about it … It doesn’t matter how fast you run, or how far you go.

  ‘In the end, the only person you can’t outrun is yourself.’

  Evie’s gasp breaks the silence between us.

  I follow her gaze, and I see it. Our front door is ajar. It swings, lightly, blown by the breeze. I look at Evie. ‘Stay in the car.’

  She looks back at me, her eyes wide. All at once, she’s my baby again. ‘Mum …’

  ‘Stay here, Evie. Do not move. OK?’

  I climb out of the car, and Evie follows, ignoring my instructions as usual. ‘I’m scared,’ she says, close behind me. ‘I can’t sit in there on my own.’

  I reach for her hand. ‘Stay behind me, then. And call the police if I tell you to. As soon as I tell you to.’ She squeezes back. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ I add with a weak authority. ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure I just left it unlocked.’

  I know she doesn’t believe me. I don’t believe me. But there’s nothing more I can say.

  I stand in the porch, feeling my heart thump, sick, in my chest. ‘Dan?’ I call, my voice hoarse, cut through with fear. ‘Are you in here?’

  There’s no answer. No movement, no sound. No signs of life at all. Only the past lurking beside me: the cold breath of it, the stillness, the knife pointing upwards, the blood turning black.

  ‘Dan?’ I call again. ‘Hello?’

  I hear a sound, sickening in its familiarity. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I squeeze Evie’s hand, so tightly she gives a faint little moan. I’m returned, in a blink, to another night, when I could still hold her in my arms. She’d made the same sound, then, when I’d held her too tight. I hear Graham’s voice: You’re hurting her. Give her to me. Let her go.

  I blink again. The sound goes on. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I turn to Evie and steer her to the foot of the stairs. ‘Stay here. Just for a minute. OK?’ The sound doesn’t mean to her what it means to me – and yet, still, there’s an awful fear in her eyes.

  I step towards the kitchen. I imagine the blood, my black reflection in the pool. A warm liquid slivers down my neck, and I stagger back; drag my palm across it, reeling. I hold it up to the light, and exhale.

  It’s only water. Not blood. I look up and see it: the circular pool of water gathered in the ceiling.

  My breath catches in my throat. I don’t know if it’s relief, or a deepened fear. This is another nightmare. A horror for which I’m not prepared.

  I turn back to Evie. ‘Wait here. Do not move from this spot.’

  She chokes on a sob. ‘I’m scared. You’re—’

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Just … Just stay here.’

  She swallows. I see her trying to articulate something; to make sense of what’s going on.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Evie. It’ll be fine.’ It’s a lie, and she knows it. But it’s all I’ve got.

  I climb the stairs, calves aching with the same, acidic drag as after a run. ‘Dan?’ My voice is a whisper now. ‘Dan, please.’

  I push the bathroom door, a whoosh of water carried along beneath. The bathtub is overflowing, water seeping over the edges, spilling across the floor. I wade through, I close the taps, and stand, perfectly still. I remember something; feel a distinct pang of familiarity. But I can’t put the pieces together.

  ‘Is he OK?’ Evie calls, her voice ribboned with fear.

  ‘Stay there,’ I say. ‘Stay there. OK?’

  She doesn’t reply. I step back, press myself against the wall. I steel myself for it.

  There’s only one place he can be. The walls lurch inwards around me. I close my eyes. He can’t be, I tell myself. It can’t be happening again.

  I step out of the bathroom, the floorboards groaning underfoot.

  ‘Mum, is he—’

  ‘Wait there, Evie.’ I sound cold, callous. I don’t mean to. ‘Please. I’ll be down in a minute.’

  I push open our bedroom door. My pulse thunders, my skull ringing with it. ‘Dan,’ I whisper. ‘Dan?’ I see him lying on the bed. He isn’t moving. I think of the anonymous message, my name and face attached. Graham’s body, the open tear in his neck. The words beneath: You’re next. Our address, plastered across the internet for the world to see. I step forward.

  L
ook what you did, Graham hisses. Look what you always do.

  My heart cracks open. I am torn in two by the horror of losing him. Of what this loss will do to Evie. To both of us.

  I look for the blood, for the knife.

  And then, he moves.

  ‘Hannah?’

  I stagger back. ‘Jesus,’ I hiss, reaching for something to hold on to. ‘Oh my God. You’re OK. You …’

  He rolls over, groaning. He’s flushed, his skin slick with a thin film of sweat. ‘I don’t feel OK. What’s going on?’

  ‘I thought …’ A sob shudders through me. I can’t say it. But the thought is there. I thought it had happened again.

  He looks up at me, his face blank, confused. ‘I must’ve … I lay down for a few minutes, and – I must’ve just dropped straight off. What time is it?’

  Evie appears in the doorway, her eyes ringed red with tears. ‘Oh my God,’ she says, both words and tone the echo of my own. ‘You’re OK.’

  ‘Did you …’ I begin. ‘Did you run a bath? The place is flooded.’

  He drags himself up to sitting. ‘I don’t think I …’ He runs a hand through his hair and closes his eyes. ‘I feel like death.’

  I stare at him, the word ringing horribly through the air. ‘You look terrible.’ I turn to Evie. ‘Can you grab him some water?’

  She nods and disappears, her footsteps fleet, rhythmic, on the stairs.

  ‘What happened? Did you – Are you sure you’re OK?’

  The scream cuts through me. Evie’s voice is all terror. I stand and run down the stairs, barely touching the ground. I hear Dan stagger up behind me. Hear him fall with a horrible thud.

  Evie stands in the kitchen, pointing to the windows. There, dripping in bloodied paint, are those awful words, again.

  MURDERER.

  WHORE.

  41

  I search for the number on Dan’s phone and hit call.