Can You See Her?: An absolutely compelling psychological thriller

by S. E. Lynes

  ‘I prefer not to call it madness,’ she said. ‘It’s really just love. Love on steroids, if you like. The love we have for our children particularly can be terrifying.’

  I’ll never forget her saying that. It helped me so much at the time, and I still often think of it and her. Love on steroids. My first baby, I was overwhelmed by love. Made mad by love for my little boy. I’d thought I loved Mark, and I did, but this! It was the most petrifying thing I’d ever experienced. It was beyond any kind of control. It took some strong meds and a kind psychiatrist to help me understand that my fears were manifesting themselves in frightening fantasies of my own making. The fear of anything bad happening to my baby was so deep in me it became a reality in those moments. My love was a knife sailing through the air. And it was me throwing it.

  Downstairs, the pink pre-dawn filtered through the patio doors. I sat with a cup of tea and trawled through the local news sites.

  One dead and several injured in knife attack outside McDonald’s in Birkenhead.

  Young lads, as per. One arrest. The usual statistics. At least they’d charged someone this time. The related links had an article about weapon checks in primary schools after a four-year-old was found carrying a knife. Police seized knuckledusters, swords and a meat cleaver. One child had adapted a fidget spinner with a spike and made it into a weapon.

  I made another brew and cleaned the kitchen, put a wash on and made sandwiches for work for Mark and myself before I sent the story and the article to the printer, slid both into plastic sleeves and clipped them into my file. I was saying a few words for the victims, their families and friends when the doorbell went.

  On the step, a lanky blonde stood shivering in a silk dressing gown. Seven o’clock in the morning. I was cold just looking at her.

  ‘I’m Ingrid Taylor,’ she said, as if she were apologising. ‘I’ve just moved into the flats opposite and in all the upheaval I’ve mislaid the teabags. I wondered if you’d have a spare one. I’ll find them eventually so I can pay you back.’

  ‘You don’t have to pay me back for a teabag, love,’ I said. ‘The Edwards family will still eat.’

  Her forehead wrinkled. I smiled to show I was joking, and she opened her mouth in an O of relief.

  ‘Oh my God, thanks. That’s really kind of you.’

  She struck me as quite posh for round here, from the way she spoke, the out-of-proportion gratitude posh people have when they talk to the hoi polloi and her silk dressing gown – which I didn’t dream might be actual silk; she only told me that later. Shoulders hunched, she appeared fragile but glamorous. A bit Blanche DuBois, if you know what I mean. I felt sorry for her in the way normal people do for a certain kind of vulnerable but beautiful woman, do you know what I mean? Men, especially.

  Blue Eyes is nodding, but I suspect she’s humouring me. ‘So, you gave her a teabag?’ Get on with it, woman.

  ‘I invited her in, actually. She looked like she was about to burst into tears.’

  I can picture soppy Ingrid as if it were last week. The silk robe was olive green with flowers embroidered down the front, the ties knotted around an impossibly skinny waist. She was almost leaning backwards, as if waiting for a second invitation.

  ‘Come in then if you’re coming,’ I said. ‘It’s chilly out. Kitchen’s through the back.’

  ‘Thank you.’ In a whiff of perfume I didn’t recognise, she scurried through to the kitchen and stood with her fingertips pressed together at her waist, shoulders still round her ears.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘Don’t stand on ceremony.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s kind of you to let me in.’ She sat, looked around her as if doing a recce for a film shoot or something. ‘You were filing?’

  I followed her eyes to my clip file, which I quickly picked up and took over to the dresser. ‘Just bank statements. A very exciting household is this.’

  She forced a brief laugh.

  Before Blue Eyes asks me anything about the file, I tell her that Ingrid was a funny mix. Obviously not a hugger or a smiler. Not a great sense of humour either, apparently.

  ‘So how’re you settling into the street?’ I asked her once I’d got us some coffee.

  ‘It’s early days. I’m still unpacking.’ She gave a sad smile, a half nod. She pushed her thumb to her mouth and tore off a strip of thumbnail, picked it out of her mouth and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. She patted at her robe.

  I recognised the gesture, saw the rectangular bulge in her silk pocket.

  ‘I’ll fetch an ashtray,’ I said.

  Neither me nor Mark smokes but Katie’s boyfriend and a few of our friends do, or did when we used to have them round, so we do keep an ashtray in the house.

  I dashed into the living room. The ashtray wasn’t in the usual place on the sideboard, which wasn’t unusual, if you know what I mean. I knew where it would be, even though I’ve told Katie a thousand times that we don’t smoke in the house and that her boyfriend is not exempt. I dashed up to her room, pushed open the door, felt it snag against clothes on the floor.

  ‘Mum!’ One syllable, into which my daughter managed to muster a world of disdain, before she threw the duvet over her head, an action that muffled but failed to disguise the ‘What the fuck?’ that followed.

  ‘Good morning to you too, darling.’ I grabbed the ashtray – home to some shady-looking butts of the hand-rolled variety, if you know what I mean, and four mugs from her chest of drawers, kicking her pile of dirty clothes out of my way as I left, all the while trying not to breathe in a smell so rank I thought it might stick in scales to the back of my throat. The mugs were half full of a brownish liquid that might once have been coffee, mini flotillas of grey-green discs bobbing on the surface. I love Katie, don’t get me wrong, but she’s an absolute pig in knickers sometimes.

  Ingrid seemed to be taking a tour of the kitchen when I got back. When she saw me, she returned to her chair and lit up, slid the lighter back into the packet and blew out a jet of smoke, obviously no intention of stepping into the garden like our friends do. Still, she could have been sitting on a spike for how uncomfortable she looked. She’d blagged her way into my home but it was as if she no longer wanted to be there. As if she wanted company like a vase with a hole in the bottom wants water: she seemed to want to be filled up, only to let it run out of the bottom. I wondered if her chewed-off piece of thumbnail was in her pocket or whether she’d chucked it on the lino or what.

  ‘So where did you move from?’ I asked her once I’d rinsed and dried the ashtray and sat down.

  ‘Helsby way.’ She flapped at the smoke. ‘It’s so hard coming to a new place.’ She dropped her hand to her lap, the better to pick at her nails.

  ‘It is,’ I said, no clue really, as I’ve only ever lived here.

  ‘Especially if you don’t have kids or a job. I suppose I’m feeling a bit lost.’ Her accent sounded like she was from the north-west, like me, but posher. The Wirral, maybe.

  ‘Have you plans to get a job?’

  She nodded sadly, as if employment were a personal tragedy. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to. The joys of an addict for a husband.’ She met my eye. Hers were filmed in tears. ‘Ex-husband, I should say.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’ I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t want to know, to be honest. Addicts frighten me a bit, and I’m ashamed to say this, but I was shocked as well. To look at her, you’d never have thought. ‘So, what kind of work are you looking for?”

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe a gallery assistant? Or a music tutor. I play the flute. I thought I’d ask at the Brindley – you know, the arts centre on the canal?’

  ‘Yes.’ I wondered why she’d think I wouldn’t know the arts centre if I’d lived here all my life. Sorry, I mean I knew why and I bet she didn’t think I read books either when actually I’m an avid reader. But it was fine; I’m used to people underestimating my intelligence.

  We chatted for a bit. I told her I’d not been to uni – financial reason
s. That I had two kids, one at uni, one still at home. She told me her ex was a businessman but not which business specifically. Small talk really, until the conversation stalled.

  ‘Maybe I’ll open a café,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m quite a good cook.’

  Maybe you need more than a flute and a flair for quiche, I almost said. Business smarts, for example, and capital, which had presumably disappeared up her ex-husband’s nose, but who was I to say? She was a bit dolly-daydream, I thought. A bit dippy in the way you can afford to be when you’ve never had to work.

  ‘I work in the old town.’ Never being asked a question makes you good at volunteering information about yourself. ‘The Barley Mow, you know? The pub on Church Street.’

  She stared at me, her eyes wide and clear. I wondered if she was Swedish, taking in her blonde hair, the length of her limbs, her first name. I smiled. At least she was looking at me.

  ‘I used to live in a house,’ she said, apropos of nothing at all. ‘Victorian. Detached. Now I have a one-bedroom flat.’ She gave a half laugh, as if she found it funny, which I doubted she did. ‘We had a garden twice the size of this. Three times, actually.’ She looked out of the French windows at my garden, gave a wistful smile and stubbed out her cigarette. The butt had lipstick on it, even though she was still in her nightie. ‘Now I have an equal share of a tiny lawn with two half-dead potted geraniums, whoop-de-do.’

  The rattle of the kitchen door handle startled us both. It was Mark, dressed and ready for work. He saw Ingrid and pulled his mouth into a smile of sorts, which was more than he usually managed.

  ‘Mark, this is Ingrid,’ I said. ‘She’s moved into one of the flats across the way.’

  Ingrid smiled, showing an even set of teeth. ‘I was just admiring your beautiful garden. You must have very green fingers.’ She wiggled her own fingers, in case he didn’t know what fingers were.

  Mark nodded and opened the fridge. He pulled out his packed lunch, held up the Tupperware, as if to show it to us. ‘I’m off then.’

  Ingrid pulled her robe around her and stood up. ‘I should go too.’ She smiled at me. ‘You probably need to get on. It was nice meeting you.’ Another second and she was following Mark out of the house. I went as far as the kitchen door, watched them leave.

  ‘ICI,’ I heard Mark say, and, ‘Castner Kellner,’ and, ‘Chemical processing engineer,’ and, ‘Just in the labs, you know.’

  It sounded like he was answering an interrogation.

  ‘I’m actually looking for work,’ I heard her say, scampering after him like a puppy, a feat for someone so tall and thin. ‘Do you know if they have any vacancies?’

  A warm jet of air shot through my nose. What, love? I nearly called out. Safety flautist? Piping the workers out of danger to a laid-on buffet? It’s an industrial chemical plant, for God’s sake, with 30,000 employees, not a cultural centre with walk-in café.

  Still, Mark seemed happy to say he’d have a word with Pamela in personnel, that there might be something on the admin side.

  It was the most I’d heard him say in a while. And it was only when they’d both gone that I realised I’d never given her any teabags.

  7

  Katie

  Transcript of recorded interview with Katie Edwards (excerpt)

  Also present: DI Heather Scott, PC Marilyn Button

  HS: Hi, Katie. Thanks for coming in to talk to us. I know this is a difficult time. We’re just trying to build up a picture of everything that’s happened over the past few months, all right? Does that sound OK?

  KE: Yeah. No worries.

  HS: Would you like a cup of tea or anything?

  KE: I’m OK, ta.

  HS: OK. All right. So, first of all, can you tell us anything about your mother’s state of mind, going back to the end of June this year?

  KE: She was depressed. That’s why I took a year out.

  HS: You took a year out because of your mother?

  KE: Don’t tell her. Don’t tell her, will you?

  HS: Of course not. Can you tell us why you wanted to keep that from your mum?

  KE: (Pause) It was before June. She was bad last year – not as bad, but bad, like, you know? I was meant to be going in the October, a month after Kieron, but I just felt really heartless leaving her. But I didn’t want her to know I knew how bad she was, like, so I said I wanted to do a gap year, and to be fair, I was meant to be doing psychology but I was thinking of changing and going into stage management or stage make-up or something on that side, so I wanted to be sure before I took out a big loan. So yeah, I was worried about her. But can I just say, she didn’t kill those people. My mum’d never kill anyone.

  HS: All right, Katie. Let us do our job. I promise we’ll get to the truth for you. I’m going to ask you where you were on the following dates, is that OK?

  KE: Of course. Ask me anything you like. It wasn’t her, though. I’m telling you. It just wasn’t.

  8

  Rachel

  As I said to Ingrid, I work behind the bar at the Barley Mow. I’ve been a barmaid for about three years, but I’ve done everything. You name it, I’ve had a go at it. More careers than Barbie, me. Mark used to tease me that I’d be an astronaut before I was done – when he used to tease me, that is. I’ve been a shop assistant, supermarket shelf stacker, restaurant receptionist, childminder, waitress. Before I had Kieron, I was a line manager over in a paper-ware factory on Astmoor Industrial Estate – party cups, napkins, tablecloths and the like. It had to be me that gave up work. I never suggested Mark be a stay-at-home dad in the same way I never suggested he wear a tiara to the pub, if you know what I mean.

  Then, when the kids were little, I looked after some of the other kids along with mine. That way, I made a bit of cash on the side and I always had plenty of mum friends. We used to go to the park together and to the soft-play centre, where we could drink coffee and natter safe in the knowledge that the kids wouldn’t hurt themselves on anything sharp. Kieron was mad for the coloured ball pit, used to cry when we left, bless him.

  Once my own kids became more independent, I got a cashier job in the Co-op, but then I saw they were hiring in the Barley Mow. I love talking to people and you don’t get decent conversation if someone’s just paying for milk and a packet of sausages, so I went in and asked at the bar and got the job on the spot. I suppose my favourite jobs have always involved dealing with people, which is maybe why I thought I could read them so well. University of Life type thing. You might find this hard to believe once I’ve finished, but I like people. I do. I really do. And I didn’t mind Dave getting the manager position over me, even though he’d only been working there for a year, because he has a BTech in hotel management and I think for him it’s more of a career.

  ‘David King.’

  Christ, I’d almost forgotten old Blue Eyes was there. My hand flies to my chest. I gasp. I must have been speaking out loud without realising.

  ‘Mr King is your manager, is that right?’

  ‘He was, yes.’

  ‘Why was?’

  ‘Because I don’t work there anymore, do I? I mean, I’m guessing I won’t be going to prison on a part-time basis. I’m guessing murder doesn’t look good on a CV.’

  She scribbles on her notepad and looks up, tips her head forward ever so slightly. ‘And you say you weren’t angry at Dave?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. Why? Is this to do with the next weird thing?’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s just interesting.’ She notes down something else, looks up. That smile/indigestion again. Which is it, Blue Eyes – are you pleased with the progress we’re making, or is it nothing a good belch won’t sort?

  She doesn’t answer. I guess I didn’t say that last bit out loud.

  ‘I mean, Dave got on my nerves, but I wouldn’t say I was angry at him. I mean, I was angry all the time, but not with him specifically.’

  She chews her cheek, presses her lips together to stop herself. After a moment she says, ‘W
hy don’t you talk us through the next weird thing?’

  Oh, she’s good. She’s like that Kirsty Wark on Newsnight, leading me gently with that rope of hers until I’ve tied myself in knots. She doesn’t need to. I’m busy tying my own hangman’s hitch. As I said, it’s me that turned myself in, me that gave my statement to the ones in uniform… yesterday, was it? Day before? Last week? Whatever, I tell Blue Eyes about the next weird thing.

  It will have been the Monday. Katie was still in her pit as per and Mark had said his usual two words as we went about our morning routines, dodging each other like bumper cars, scared that one jolt would wake both of us up to reality. You wouldn’t think we used to wake up and cuddle listening to the news on the radio alarm before we got out of bed. There was a time we couldn’t bear to leave the warmth of ourselves. Getting up used to feel like breaking myself in two, half of me going wherever he went. And when the kids were babies – we had Kieron and Katie so close together they were nearly twins – when he went to work I used to miss him so much I’d often walk all the way to ICI just to meet him for half an hour in his lunch break. Used to take him the Scotch eggs that he liked, and cheese and onion crisps, and we’d eat them, delighted as teenagers having a midnight feast, Kieron and Katie asleep in the double buggy, Kieron, a year older, looking like the twin that had drunk all the milk. Lately, we’d been more like grumpy old geezers than teenagers. I called goodbye to him from the front door, not loud enough that he could hear but just so that I’d be able to say I’d said it if he asked me why I hadn’t, which he would have done once upon a time, though he never would now.