He shrugs. “I assume they want you back. To join me and the rest of the gang. A reunion. The good old days.”
This is one of the many differences between Callum and me. He’s an idiot who doesn’t really think about the whys and wherefores. He has slightly more brain cells than facial-recognition software but not many.
Whereas I’m not an idiot and I expect the worst of people. “They weren’t good old days for me. You know my mum died? Did it occur to you, Sherlock, that given my change of appearance, name and location, I don’t want to be found? That I don’t want to be part of the Programme ever again?”
“I was sorry about your mum. That’s rough. But I’m just doing what I’m paid to do. It’s not as if you’re in any trouble, is it? They just want their star turn back.”
“Back? For what?” I push the panic down deep inside. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know.
We’re quiet while the waitress clears our table and wipes off the crumbs.
Callum checks his watch. “Listen, the last train back to London leaves soon. I don’t suppose you want to come? See what they’re offering?”
“What, like a company car and gym membership? No thanks. But I’ll walk you there.” Make sure you’re on your own.
We leave the café and take the street leading to the station. It’s getting dark. My phone beeps in my pocket. The others will be wondering where I am.
“Do you remember when we used to hang around in that park near the hospital, getting up to all sorts?” says Callum.
“Of course I remember.”
“It was never boring hanging out with you, Freya.”
“We bonded over the sharing of synapse information. Who else can say that? Remember the cute rubber caps we had to wear?”
“I haven’t said anything about the footage yet,” he says. “I wanted to be sure.”
I believe him. But I don’t believe he’ll be able to keep this coup to himself without a reason. “Yes. They were fun days,” I say. “How about that Halloween party that turned out to be another excuse for researching trauma? Or the time Brett shut me in a cupboard for the afternoon? Or the time he enjoyed strangling me until I passed out, so he could see whether I still remembered it with fear a week later?”
“Some of the stuff they did to you was pretty out there. You showed that Brett guy when you bit his ear, though. That was the talk of the unit.”
I swallow hard. I need Callum to be on my side. “At least having you around for a while made it more bearable,” I lie. I take his face in my hands and stand on my tiptoes to kiss him. Hard. I taste the bitter coffee from the café and gently moan when he pushes himself against me. I can feel his interest. We’re causing a minor disturbance on Totnes High Street. A passer-by tuts at us, which gives me the excuse to call a halt and lead him down an alleyway towards the railway.
“If any of that meant anything to you, Callum,” I say, going for the full wide-eyed vulnerable look, “don’t tell them you spoke to me. Keep looking through CCTV. Focus on Scotland or somewhere else far away from here.” I kiss him again. “Because what we had meant so much to me. That’s why I was so upset with you.”
“Really? Because you scared the hell out of me at times.”
“It’s a fine line between love and hate sometimes, especially with people like us, with our talents.” I can’t believe he’s falling for this rubbish. He and I are not in the same league in the talent stakes. He’s a one-trick pony. “And then when I’m ready, when I’ve sorted out my head, I’ll come to you. We can have that ‘reunion’ you talked about.”
I know the tiny little brain cogs are whirring in Callum’s tiny little brain. He’s computing the best course of action. But the brain cogs are competing with his hormones. He tells me his number.
I halt outside the station. I’m not getting caught on CCTV again.
“So I’ll concentrate on Glasgow. Mum’s the word,” he says, placing a finger on his lips. “I’m glad we met up. Of all the coffee shops, in all of Totnes, in all the world, you had to walk into my one, Freya.” He’s using a pants accent, as though this is all a game, a joke, for him.
“I’m not Freya any longer, I left all that behind.”
“Not many people have the chance to reinvent themselves, to walk away from everything they were,” he says.
“It’s not as cool as it sounds.” And not as easy either.
“So what are you really waiting for? Why are you hiding out here?”
I walk through my mind-library and rattle the door of the locked room in the basement. “I need thinking time. Something’s not right,” I say. “An irritating itch that I can’t scratch.”
“My advice is try not to scratch it. Something tells me you’re safer that way,” he says. “Look after yourself.” He gently ties the scarf around my neck before kissing me, his revolting tongue pushing deep into my mouth.
I shut my eyes tight until he’s finished rubbing his hands up and down my body. I want to wipe my mouth on my hand, spit him away, swill mouthwash, but instead I stand there, pretending to be a love-struck bimbo, waving as he slowly disappears from view.
25
Play the game: Jess packed a one-eyed teddy, a pendant, a wooden box, an envelope of old photos and a make-up bag which belonged to Hanna.
Work Your Memory
When we get back to Dartmeet, I go straight up to my room to wash the sand and the smell of fish and chips out of my hair. I want to wash Callum away too but that won’t be so easy. And how long can I trust him to keep his mouth shut before he tells them I’m in Devon – somewhere within travelling radius of Totnes? I’ve bought some more time, that’s all. Before I have to leave, again.
They’re going to considerable effort to find me, but for what? To persuade me to rejoin a Programme Coleman doesn’t even mention in her book?
As soon as I open the door, I know someone has been in here again while I was out. They’ve tried but they haven’t put everything back exactly as they found it. The drawers are partly open and the clothes inside have been roughly searched, the bedding has been lifted and repositioned. I could go on. To my keen eyes, everything has been touched and looked through. But nothing obvious is missing. And there’s no new postcard on the board.
It can’t be Callum’s handiwork so soon. He’d only tracked me to a potential sighting in Totnes, miles away.
I check the trunk. Someone has scratched at the lock, maybe inserted a piece of wire, because it’s open. It’s Kim’s game again. I check quickly through the clothes for the pearl pendant – still safe in its cloth bag. The inlaid box of Mum and the envelope of old photos are tucked at the bottom. My ancient teddy glowers at me with his one glass eye.
Only one item is missing.
*
“What?” says Dan. He’s hoovering out the sand from Uja’s boot, fretting over his ‘vintage’ car. “Why would anyone nick that? A skanky old make-up bag. Are you sure?”
“It wasn’t mine. It was Hanna’s,” I say, “and nobody knew I kept it there.” Except you.
I pause and wait for him to draw the same conclusion and offer some explanation. But he doesn’t. “They could have taken my pearl pendant but they didn’t.”
“That is weird. So what exactly was in the bag?” he asks, still fiddling about with his flipping car.
“First, the Pill prescribed to Hanna by her family doctor in Denmark. Her name was printed on a label on the side,” I say. “But here’s the weird bit – there was no such label on the other medicines in there and that’s where I’ve seen the words sodium amobarbital before. She wasn’t getting it prescribed by her doctor.”
“So she was taking a drug for anxiety,” says Dan, stopping what he’s doing at last.
“It seems so. She took stuff every day – pills, supposed weight-loss rubbish.” I say. And I should have intervened. “But why take it from my room?”
“What about a room search by the houseparents?” says Dan. “A random drug search? Have they ever done that before?”<
br />
“Once, with a kid last term. I swear to God, you could get high standing next to him with what he was breathing out. Do you think they’re going to call me in?”
“Possibly. At least if they do, you know who was in your room. Are you going to report it?” He shakes out the blanket, scattering sand on to the gravel.
“And say what? My stash of illicit drugs has been stolen? I don’t think so.”
Something stops me from telling Dan this isn’t the first time I’ve had an intruder. I haven’t told him about the postcards either. More lies by omission. I’m working out how long I left my room empty before we all met up for the beach. I took my dirty washing to the laundry on the way to the car park. Was that enough time for someone I know here to search my room? Because the nagging voice in my head won’t shut up. Even though it can offer me no rational explanation, it keeps telling me that the only person I’d shown Hanna’s bag to was Dan.
*
“I think we should do something major for Halloween,” says Maya, flopping down next to me on the sofa in the Common Room. She’s waiting for me to say something. So I don’t.
“I thought we could go to the party at the Fox and Badger in Saddlebridge. Do you think that’s OK? Not too soon, after Hanna?” She mouths this last bit as though Hanna’s listening in the room somewhere and about to pop out on us, zombie-fashion.
“Didn’t you go to a party already?” I say, as though neither of us remember that she had no reservations about going to the ‘after-vigil’ bash in B-Block. “So I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Hanna would want us to enjoy ourselves, wouldn’t she?” says Maya.
“I suppose so,” I say, but I’m thinking that Hanna would have been mightily annoyed that the official period of mourning was drawing to a close so that we could all dress up as vampires and bob for apples.
“We’ll need a pass to go out on a school night,” says Maya. “I was wondering if you’d ask Barker or Dr Harrison for permission. I mean, they’re more likely to say yes to you, with you seeing Dr Harrison and everything.”
So Maya knows I see Dr Harrison, which presumably means everyone knows. I’m officially the mad girl who had the meltdown in the library. “He doesn’t prescribe under-age drinking.”
“We’re not all under age,” she says, missing the point. “Pleeease, Keira said she’ll sort out old costumes from the drama department if I do the make-up, and I’ve got an amazing surprise too.”
Like that’s a good thing. Please don’t let it be ‘Hanna’s Halloween’ T-shirts. She hands me a form with the names neatly printed: Maya, Keira, Dan, Jess, Makoto, Lena and me.
“Dan’s agreed to drive,” she says, smiling coyly at me. “So that’ll be nice, won’t it? If Uja the Mini starts. And Makoto’s driving Lena in her flash sports car. I think they want some alone time. Jess, are you listening?”
I say yes but my mind’s still thinking about the missing medicines. No one’s spoken to me about them yet. Not the houseparents, or Barker, or Dr Harrison. So I can assume it wasn’t an official visit. I tell myself there’s no reason for anyone I know to take that bag, least of all the three friends I spent the day with. It’ll just be that kid in my block with a minor drug habit. Seeing Callum is making me paranoid about everyone, even Dan.
The only consolation in seeing Callum, and the puzzling part too, is that if they really don’t know exactly where I am they can’t be sending the postcards or poking around my room. Or why would Callum pretend they were still trying to find me? Why have the Missing Person flyers? Just to mess with my head again?
So the postcards are coming from someone else. Not the Programme.
“How are things going with Dan?” asks Maya, poking me playfully on the arm.
I remember Dan kissing my neck with a pleasant shiver. As he says, it’s good to make new, good memories. I should focus on that, starting with a party.
“You know, you shouldn’t feel pressured into anything.” Maya pauses, no doubt waiting for me to supply an answer to her massive, nosy question. “You’re not as tough as you pretend,” she says. “And now, with Hanna gone, you can always talk to me.”
“Honestly there’s nothing much to talk about,” I say, though we both know I’m lying and don’t want to share. But I feel guilty enough to give her what she wants on the party front. “I’ll ask Harrison for permission,” I say.
It could be fun, I suppose, and Harrison owes me many favours after I saved his bacon the other night. I haven’t been to a proper Halloween party before. There was one once on the Programme with idiots like Callum. We all watched a couple of horror movies and ate popcorn. It was Coleman’s big treat but even for that we had to wear electrodes to monitor the effects of the horror films on our nerve activity.
I tell Maya that I have to hand some work in, which is kind of true, but she insists on walking with me part way to the pigeonholes, still wittering on about Halloween make-up. She skips off to the drama department to get started. I put my maths homework in Mr Humphries’ pigeonhole at the porters’ lodge and check my own. A flyer about Hanna’s Hike, an audition notice for Othello and a postcard of Dartmoor ponies. The now-familiar handwriting tells me:
THE ONE WHO REMEMBERS MOST WINS THE GAME
26
Do you remember how things used to be?
Are you missing me, missing me, missing me already?
‘Missing Me Already’ – Silent Fjords
Maya insisted I report to her and Keira’s room at five and now I understand why. She’s gone all out on the Halloween look as Morticia Addams in a fishtail dress with flowing sleeves, and a long black wig and immaculate make-up.
Keira’s picked a stunning costume for herself too. She’s dressed as a female vampire in a long dress and cloak apparently from last year’s Christmas production of Great Expectations. Her hair’s up, swept back from her neck where she wears a black choker. Her skin’s pale anyway but Maya’s added dark eye make-up and outlined her perfect lips. She looks like she’s about to do a fashion shoot draped over a coffin.
I wasn’t sure I was even going to come until ten minutes ago. I’ve been brooding on the latest message. But here I am, figuring that all I have to do on Halloween is turn up and be my usual gloomy self. For me they’ve chosen more ‘living dead’ than fashion-model look. Keira’s fixed me up with a ripped, cobwebby wedding dress which she says was worn by Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. Maya’s transforming me into a zombie bride, complete with lesions and bruising. I can’t help fidgeting as it’s taking so long and I’m fed up of her spooky party mix at high volume. The last touch is the veil, complete with bloodstains. When I look in the mirror, I barely recognize myself.
Dan and Makoto arrive. Makoto’s dressed as Edward Scissorhands. He’s managed to backcomb his hair so it sticks up in all the right places. Lena’s still getting ready; she’s not renowned for her timekeeping. Her time being way more important than everyone else’s. Not.
I can’t lie, I’m pleased to see Dan’s reaction. “Wow. You look…”
“Drop-dead gorgeous?” says Maya. “I’m taking the credit for the hair and make-up.”
He’s rocking a hot vampire look in a velvet jacket and ruffled shirt with a cravat. I can finally see the appeal of all that vampire fiction.
“Particularly loving the rotting flesh on your cheek,” he says. “Very sexy.”
“Your turn now,” says Maya, pushing him into the chair. She applies foundation to make him paler, puts some dark shadows under his eyes and draws in a line of blood dripping from the edge of his mouth.
Keira keeps on about how she and Dan make a lovely couple of vampires and takes selfies of the two of them. She’s obviously planned from the start to be the ultimate accessory for Dan tonight.
Meanwhile, I’m the zombie bride with no bridegroom.
“Let’s take some photos in the cloisters by the chapel,” says Maya. “I can use them in my art portfolio. Grab your cloaks, people.”
The cloisters at dusk are the perfect place for Maya’s shots. She sets up her camera and tests out the flash and different angles while we wait for Lena to make an entrance. I sit with Dan on a stone bench in the pool of light from the sconces, leaning into him so our bodies touch.
“Do you normally wear a wedding dress on your third date?” he asks. “Some people might find that presumptuous.”
“Third date?”
“First there was Ashburton, then the beach.”
“The beach was with the rest of your harem,” I say. “So that doesn’t count.”
“Funny. OK, the Memory Club in the private snogging room then, and now this.”
“I try to make an effort,” I say.
“Good, because so do I.” Dan gets a small box from his pocket. “They’re from the antique emporium in Totnes. The guy said they were Victorian.”
Keira and Maya crowd in to see what I’ve got. I open up the box and lift the black tissue paper. A set of dangly earrings: dark and Gothic and perfect.
“I thought they’d be ideal for Halloween,” says Dan. He’s beaming like a kid, waiting to see what I think.
I pick them up and examine them closely. They have matching ovals set in pewter, each containing a picture of a skeleton, their skulls contorted in agony. The glass casing is yellowed and dappled with age. A delicate silver hourglass hangs off the bottom of each one.
“I love them,” I say. I mean it.
And Dan smiles in relief.
“They’re memento mori,” says Maya, leaning over me to get a better look. “So cool. The Victorians were big on death and mourning and reminders of mortality. We did it in art. Memento mori: Remember that you will die.” She waves her hands in front of my face and uses her best spooky voice. “They remind the wearer that death is around the corner, time is passing quickly like the sand in an hourglass.”
“How romantic,” says Keira.
I ignore her sarcastic tone and put on the earrings, wondering how many people have worn them since they were made. They finish off my outfit beautifully and match Mum’s pendant. The black pearl’s nestled in my new cleavage, courtesy of a push-up bra and the low-cut dress. “Thank you,” I say, kissing Dan on the cheek.
The Truth About Lies Page 11