‘Now hold on, Jemima,’ Sergeant C puts a hand up to stop her, ‘I’ve looked for him already and he wasn’t there, just some girl.’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ snaps Mum, ‘he was here carving up little girls’ heads, but he’ll have to go back now. Besides, there’s something else we need to look for. You know what I mean.’ Matthew follows her closely as she careers around the room, me sitting on the sofa holding tight on to my hair and Kit curled up beside me sleeping but with his eyes half open and the pupils rolled up under his eyelids like a zombie. I shake him awake, so I don’t have to see his weird eyes anymore.
‘You need to talk to Robyn,’ says Matthew.
‘Time for that later — we have to go now.’ And she opens the lounge door, and then we hear the front door, and then she’s rapping on the window and gesturing to Sergeant C. He says something to Matthew I couldn’t hear and then was gone too.
‘I had another dream about him,’ Kit said to Matthew. Then Matthew looked at me and said, ‘You look worn out, Robyn? Why don’t you head up to bed?’
It isn’t really a question, so I leave them there in the lounge. I can hear Matthew’s quiet voice talking in between bursts of sobbing from Kit.
I stand at the door to Kit’s room for a while trying to remember a time when I heard him crying out from a nightmare. I can only picture him fast asleep and completely still, one arm flung up beside his head or a foot sticking out from under his sheet. I notice that his Action Man is still hanging from the window sill, so I walk in and stand him up on guard by his bed.
My room is hot, so I don’t close the curtains and leave the window wide open. I pick up my book because I know I won’t be able to sleep until Kit comes up, and I want to listen for when Mum is back anyway. I read.
I am thinking about going down to see when Kit will come to bed, when there is a noise in the garden, and I wonder if it’s Mum. I look out and I can just see the shed door banging as someone moves around inside. Matthew must be putting something away, so I walk through to Kit’s room in case I didn’t notice him come up. The room is empty, and I sit for a moment on his bed, my back to the outside wall where you can tug the corner of the curtain and see whether it is dark or light outside. Something scratches on the wall outside the window, so I jump up and run back into my own room, but, when I go in, I slam straight into Ray. My dad.
‘Where is it?’ he growls. It takes me a moment to recover. ‘Well, come on, you owe me for those girls. Where’s the bag of stuff I showed you? I want it back.’
I look behind me to see if Matthew or Kit are there, but I can make out their voices still talking downstairs. I want to scream, but one good turn deserves another, so I don’t.
‘I don’t have it.’ I step back.
‘What do you mean? Where is it?’ My dad’s face is screwed up and red, and I suppose it’s from getting the ladder out of the shed to climb up, but then I see the cuts on his hands, and I think he might have just climbed up the rose.
‘Did you climb up the rose?’ I say. He puts his face down to mine and I can smell cigarettes and black coffee and something bitter and off on his breath.
‘Where is it?’ he asks me again. I walk backwards towards my door, and he grabs my shoulder.
‘Mum took it. It’s probably in her cupboard, I’ll look,’ but as I step into the hall, the door to the lounge opens downstairs and Matthews voice comes up to us.
‘Come on, Kit, let’s get you ready for bed. Nothing bad is going to happen tonight.’ Ray releases my shoulder and looks down the hall towards Mum’s room where I’m pointing. I hold my breath trying to work out if I could run down the stairs before he reaches me because I know I haven’t enough guts to shout out. Then my dad turns on his heels and crosses back to the window, and he slides through it like butter. I hear a thud as he lands on the patio among the footsteps coming up the stairs, and, when I get to the window, I see him pushing something further into the shed and hooking the padlock back through the bolt. I realise that I still have the silver bracelet, and I grab it from under the cushions where I hid it. I am holding it up when Ray turns and sees me watching. I pull my window shut with a bang and lock it. He points to his eyes and then to me, and then he’s over the back fence and gone. I lean my head against the window and hear the sound of a car start up on the road outside.
Chapter Fourteen
1988
‘You did what?’
I twist the tea towel in my hands. This was never going to be easy.
‘Neil let you go on your own?’
‘I didn’t tell him either.’
Kit’s face is taut with anger. I reach out for him, but he brushes me away.
The tension that’s always just beneath the surface snaps, and he hurls the mug he’s holding across the room. It shatters against the back door, shards of china hailing and skittering across the floor. I step back.
‘I’m sorry, Kit.’
Kit slides down on to the floor, his legs stretched out like a ragdoll. I sit down beside him.
‘What did he say?’ Kit wipes a hand across his forehead as if the action might sweep away the furrows and the pain.
No more secrets.
‘He wouldn’t tell me anything. Kept to his story that she left.’
Kit stares at me. ‘So, did you at least find out what he’s going to do with her bag?’
I shake my head. All I really learnt is that he didn’t give Mum the bracelet. ‘I didn’t give it to him. It’s not what he really wanted —’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter now. We have to get away from here! Jesus!’
The wildness in Kit’s eyes frightens me. I move over and start picking up the pieces of china from the floor so I don’t have to look at him. The fragments are wet with tea and stain my hands. I start to cry.
Kit gets up and walks out of the kitchen, and I let myself sit among the ruins of the mug and sob. The door to the lounge slams and then opens again, and Kit is back and squatting on the floor in front of me.
‘Get up, Robyn. Get up and help me pack so we can get out of this bloody place at last.’
No more secrets, Robyn.
‘I can’t,’ I sniff. ‘I have to make up for what I did.’
Kit pulls down some kitchen towel from the counter and passes it to me, but the gesture makes me weep more. I know if I don’t tell him what I did now, I’ll never have the courage. And I have to tell him because Ray knows. And if Ray knows, then he’ll find a way to use it against us.
‘It’s a bit late for that.’
‘I don’t mean about going to see him.’
‘What are you talking about then?’ Kit is irritated that I’m not moving, his whole body tense with the effort of staying where he is.
‘It was all my fault.’ I sob. ‘What happened to Mum was my fault.’
Kit leans over and tries to put an arm around me, but it feels awkward and I move back.
‘No, it wasn’t, Robyn. You were an idiot to be taken in by him, but it wasn’t your fault. You were just a little girl.’
I look him straight in the face and brace myself, gathering my strength.
‘It was my fault. I told him. I — He stopped the WendyCarols hurting me, so I told him Mum was going to take Sgt C to the farm because she said she knew where the bodies were buried. You were all lying to me, and he was the only one who cared about me.’
Kit stares at me. I hope he heard me because I can’t say it again.
‘He knew what she was trying to prove. He knew she’d keep going and he told me he was ready for her because I warned him. He was ready for her, she was walking into a trap because of me.’
Kit’s eyes are pale flashes of glass, and the colour has drained from his face. I hold my breath waiting for him to react, but he’s frozen, and I want to shake him, make him tell me I’m forgiven, but I don’t want him to break.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told him. But I need to explain. I push away the panic. He’s hurt, and there’s nothing I can do to make it better.
‘That’s why I have to finish what she started because it’s my fault she couldn’t.’ I blink through the tears. ‘And it’ll never be okay that he’s only served his time for half of what he’s done. She wanted to put that right, and now I need to do it for her because it’s my fault she can’t.’ His hand shoots up and I flinch as he slaps away the hair I’ve been twisting round my fingers. I cringe away.
He looks at his hand, swears, and then pulls himself up to full height so that he towers over me. I cover my head with my arms so he can’t see my shame.
‘I’m sorry, Kit, I’m sorry.’
Kit snorts. ‘Looks like you still can’t do the right thing though, doesn’t it?’
When I look up again, he’s gone. I hear him upstairs moving around his room.
I’m waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs when he comes back down.
‘Please don’t go, Kit.’ He doesn’t even look at me but adjusts the bag he’s carrying on his shoulder. ‘I am going to put this right, Kit, I am!’
I move between him and the door.
‘No more secrets, Kit, I promise. I’ll tell you everything.’
I reach for his bag, but he doesn’t let go.
‘Please, Kit, say something!’
‘I’ll say this, Robyn,’ he opens the door, ‘I’m leaving now. What you do is up to you.’
Eva is furious with me too. I couldn’t be more sorry, but there’s no end to what she has to say on the matter. There’s no point going home though — there’s no peace for me there either.
‘How could you do that to Kit?’
‘I wasn’t doing anything to Kit. I was doing it for Mum!’
Eva’s eyes narrow, and she pulls me into the kitchen away from her customers.
‘He said he was waiting for her because of what I told him,’ I sob. ‘I didn’t mean for her to get hurt, Eva!’
‘Now listen good, young lady, you need to get your head screwed on straight. And fast. You should be at home packing that house up so that you and Kit can disappear again, not here serving tea.’
‘Well, I’m not; so get used to it.’ I stamp over to serve a table of ladies I don’t recognise.
‘I recommend the soup,’ I tell them, and they agree immediately without even asking what it is.
‘And what exactly, are you planning to do?’ Eva follows me back into the kitchen and sets the bread rolls on plates while I slop the soup into bowls. I don’t know. The soup ladle slips out of my fingers and chicken and vegetable broth splatters my apron.
I just stare at it.
‘Look, Robyn, I’m really worried about Kit. Do you know where he went?’
‘As long as you’re not worried about me!’ I pick up the tray and slam out of the kitchen.
‘Robyn!’
The sleet lances into the café when the door opens, and Michelle slips through, head down. I go over to where she sits in the corner, the water dripping from her hair and nose and pooling on the menu before her. She looks almost as pathetic as I feel; soaked through and shivering and it’s possible there are tears on her cheeks. She should go home to her mum to get warm — we’re not here to mollycoddle teenagers. I get some more paper napkins and put them in front of her.
‘I’m going to find him,’ Eva calls out and leaves the café. Fine.
‘Hot chocolate for you,’ I tell Michelle and leave her pulling her hair into a tail so she can wrap it in one of the napkins.
Eva will find Kit at school because whatever’s happened, he’ll do what he’s expected. Besides Ray’s still locked up so it’s not like we have to run away this minute.
‘Thanks,’ Michelle holds the hot mug between her hands when I give it to her and blows on the steaming liquid. What’s she got to be upset about anyway?
‘Lost your pencil case or something?’
She shoots me a look full of daggers and tells me to ‘piss off’ between angry sobs. At least she’s still got some fight.
I check that the soup ladies are still eating and sit down.
‘Go on, let’s hear it then’
She picks up a teaspoon and stirs the chocolate. She still hasn’t taken a sip.
‘When my dad gets here, we’re supposed to be moving out to a new place, but he says he’s not even sure he’s gonna bother coming at all now. Said he doesn’t even care if he never sees us again.’
Blood and pain, Michelle.
‘Well, if it helps, my dad’s a right bastard too.’
‘You can’t say that!’ She scowls at me. ‘You don’t even know him!’
Brilliant, thinks she’s heard enough about my dad to know him better than me. I stand up. Apparently, I don’t understand anything anymore.
When I get home, it’s already dark. The front door jams against something on the floor so I can’t open it fully, and when I flick the light switch, nothing happens. Typical. I squeeze in to get to the fuse box and then freeze when I hear a sound from the living room. The door bursts open, and a body slams into me. I’m thrown off my feet, and the breath is knocked out of me. I try to push myself off the floor as the intruder starts kicking things out of the way to open the front door.
‘For shitting fuck’s sake!’
The door gives suddenly, and the edge of it crunches into my jaw so hard I can’t scream. I reach out in anger, and my hands grab on to trousers, and then a boot kicks me in the face, so I fall back. Cold air hits me as the door finally swings opens and my attacker is out and running down the road leaving a smell of sweat and stale smoke around me. And a piece of torn material in my hand.
When I can’t hear feet slamming on the tarmac anymore, I pull the telephone cord as far as it will go and call the police from the front step. I look at the piece of fabric in my hand and see that it’s a pocket from combat trousers.
I’m half hoping Neil will come, but it’s an older policeman with a well-fed belly and an air of quiet resignation. My face throbs and when I try to speak, sparks of pain shoot through my jaw.
‘I don’t need an ambulance.’ I put my hand up to stop him arguing, but he just shrugs. I pull out some ice from the freezer and wrap it in a tea towel while he finds the smashed pane of glass in the back door.
‘Can you give me a list of what they’ve taken, young lady?’ he asks. I look around me without being able to see, partly because I have the tea towel of ice cubes firmly held to my face and partly because my head is throbbing with the riot of colour. Books have been flung from shelves, furniture has been overturned, and there is newspaper all over the carpet in the hall from the cupboard under the stairs. I walk around listing things of value off in my head. The phone is still there, the radio, for a minute I think the TV’s been taken but it’s on its side behind the sofa. I return downstairs and tell the policeman who looks at me with irritation.
‘Nothing taken? Maybe they didn’t find what they were looking for. Do you keep cash here, drugs?’ I shake my head. ‘Either that or you’ve just really pissed someone off, haven’t you?’ I take the tea towel away from my face for a minute and see that it is pink with blood. Sergeant Whatever looks at it and shakes his head. ‘Can you think of anyone who might want to do this to you?’
Yeah, I can. But he’s in prison, isn’t he?
While the 24-hour locksmith fixes the door, I stay close by. I sort out the things in the kitchen that are not broken and put them back into the cupboards, filling a bin with smashed crockery and burst food bags. Then I sweep the floor clean of the shards and sugar grains and wipe the flour dust from the surfaces while he nails a bit of wood across the broken pane.
‘They really did a number on you, didn’t they?’ He chats away as he works, stopping to take a swig from the mug of tea I made him. ‘You need a straw for that,’ he laughs when he sees me struggling to drink mine. When he finishes, he follows me out into the front hall and picks up a sheet of newspaper that has slipped out from behind the radiator on to the floor with the rest. There’s a photograph of two little girls with shaven
heads. It could have been done deliberately by the doctors to stitch up the cuts on their scalps, but I know it wasn’t.
‘Bloody hell, when did this happen?’ The locksmith says, and I take the paper and point to the date.
‘A long time ago.’
I pay him with a cheque from a book in my bag. I fold up the paper and place it with the picture of Danny and then pile the rest into another bin bag, ready to put out in the morning.
‘Haven’t you got someone coming round?’ he asks, checking his watch, and I try to smile with the unbroken side of my face. Then I hold the door open for him to leave.
Well, I can’t ask Neil. He didn’t want me to visit Ray, even if he was really only worried about Kit. He doesn’t understand it wasn’t a choice for me. And he was waiting at the station when I got back, checking up on me, so it’s not like he didn’t know I’d go. I tried to tell him that I didn’t give Ray anything, but he wouldn’t listen. Just turned and walked away, hands rammed down into his pockets, and his head bent over.
I consider trying to find Kit, but he’ll just say it proves we’re not safe here. I haven’t seen him since he came back for his stuff.
‘Stop being so pig-headed about this Robyn, you have to let it go.’
He said we don’t owe her because she should’ve taken us away when she could.
He thinks she had a choice, too, like wearing jeans or chinos or choosing between Marmite or marmalade. I tried to tell him how Ray can turn on the charm, but he just grabbed his case of vinyl and a small bag of clothes and left, pulling the front door shut with a soft click.
I get the newspaper article about Carol and Wendy out again and read it for the first time. There’s a comment from Carol’s mother that I hadn’t noticed before. ‘She loved that top and there’s no money for another.’ Carol’s eyes stare straight at the camera. I wonder how long it took for her hair to grow back.
I take my time locking up and checking all the windows, and then I find the telephone directory and look up Carol’s number. While I dial, I think about the frayed shorts she wore back then and the carefully done make-up and hair now. She doesn’t answer immediately.
A Little Bird Told Me Page 19