Willow Walk

by SJI Holliday

  She smiles at him.

  ‘Marie!’ His voice is thick with desperation. ‘Say you don’t mean it, Marie.’

  She opens the door and walks away.

  26th July 2015

  Marie,

  This has got to stop. You need to write back. I can’t keep on this one-sided conversation into the fucking abyss.

  Sometimes I hope the reason that you’re not writing back is that you’re dead. Then I think about that, and it makes me sad. They’d tell me if you were dead, wouldn’t they? I think they’d tell you if I was . . .

  Not that you’d pay any attention to their fucking letters. Would you, Marie? I get it – I do – it was a shock to hear from me. But you need to get over that now. You need to fucking write back to me, because I am going to be seeing you soon . . . very soon . . . and wouldn’t it be fucking awkward if we had nothing to talk about? I am trying to help you, Marie. I’m trying to make you realise that I am still me!

  You can’t ignore me forever.

  I won’t let you.

  G.

  38

  The scooter doesn’t want to start. He fires the ignition. Again. Kicks the front wheel in frustration. ‘Come on. Not now.’ He sits back, adjusts the strap on his helmet. Tries again. The bike comes to life and Davie turns, heads away from Willow Walk and back down into town towards Marie’s flat.

  He slows down, glances up side streets. Peers at anyone he passes on the way. Looking for Marie. Looking for Graeme. The streets are quiet. It is still early in the morning. A few cars are starting to appear, people heading off to work. People going about their day. No one knows yet. The town is small, but news has not yet spread. The residents are being kept in their homes, asked to stay calm. Be vigilant. Try not to spread their fear.

  It won’t be long before everyone knows what has happened. If they can find Graeme – find Marie – maybe they’ll have a fuller picture of what went on before the hysteria starts. Because it will start. There is no doubt about that. Davie turns at the bottom of the back street, heads up towards the estates. No sign of Marie.

  He’s almost there, two streets away, when the engine whines and the scooter sputters to a stop. He veers off the road, almost hits the kerb. Manages to right himself just in time.

  ‘For the love of God, not now.’ The bike has been due a service. He had the letter from the specialist garage in Edinburgh over two months ago. He’s been putting it off. Trying to find time to get it done. Too late now.

  He climbs off the bike, flicks out the kickstand. Leaves it sitting there at the side of the road. He could wheel it to Marie’s, leave it there, but he doesn’t want to waste any more time. He pulls off his helmet. Starts walking. Turns it into a jog. He glances down at his feet, realises he is still wearing the white shoe protectors.

  ‘Christ,’ he mutters. He stops, peels them off. Balls them up and shoves them inside the helmet that he is carrying by the strap like a basket of flowers. He picks up the pace. Jogs along the street, turns into the next one. He can see Marie’s flat up ahead. Nearly there. He passes a couple of people in suits, faces fixed on phones, fingers scrolling, texting. No one pays attention. No one knows what he knows.

  Not yet.

  He’d forgotten about the keys. He’d meant to give them back to Marie in the pub, but something stopped him. She’d asked him to keep hold of them. He hadn’t known why, but he was starting to realise. She’d been planning something. She knew something was going to happen.

  Visions of Marie lying in the bath, wrists dripping blood onto the tiles. Marie slumped in a chair, a bottle of pills and a kicked-over bottle of whisky on the floor near her feet. Please, he begs, please don’t let me be too late.

  He should’ve seen this coming. He should’ve known that something was very wrong. Marie’s behaviour had been erratic. Nonsensical. He’d put it down to him not really knowing her. Maybe she was prone to mood swings. Maybe she was a flake. He realises now that he got it wrong. She was all over the place.

  She was terrified.

  He tries the buzzer. If she answers, then he’ll know she’s OK. Nothing. He tries once more. Realises he is wasting valuable time. He sticks the key in the lock. Nothing. It doesn’t turn. Wrong key.

  ‘Fuck.’

  His hands are shaking. He tries the other key. Turns it the wrong way. Fuck! Eventually, it turns.

  He walks into the dim hall. Turns the corner to Marie’s flat. Braces himself for what he might find. He knows which key to use now. It turns on first attempt.

  ‘Marie? Are you in here? Sorry for using the key. I tried the buzzer first but there was no answer.’

  Silence.

  The flat is empty. He can sense it. But there’s something hanging in the air. A faint imprint of someone. Marie. She’s been here. But she’s not here now. He walks inside slowly, pokes his head around the kitchen door.

  ‘Marie?’

  Nothing.

  The kitchen is a mess. Plates and mugs lying on the worktop. A carton of milk left outside the fridge, the top lying on the draining board. There are envelopes scattered across the floor. Balled-up paper. The knife block is lying on its side. Four knives are stuck in it. A fifth has slid out, lies nearby. There are six slots.

  One knife is missing.

  Davie swallows. Tries to push the thoughts out of his head. The state of Ian and Anne’s new house. The blood.

  The living room is empty. A blanket is crumpled up on the couch. The room smells musty, as if someone has been sleeping in there. Sweating. The window has been kept shut.

  In the bathroom, he sees two small plastic containers next to the sink. Drops of liquid inside. Contact lens packets. The disposable ones. He’s seen these before. Knows that the liquid inside evaporates after a while, once they’ve been opened. The lenses shrivel up when exposed to the air. They’ve been opened recently. He steps closer, pokes at one with his knuckle. No lenses inside.

  Marie has been back. Put new lenses in. But where is she now?

  He goes back through to the kitchen. He’s about to pick up some of the letters. Thinks better of it. He takes his phone out of his pocket, photographs the kitchen. Tries to capture the scene. A pair of pink Marigolds is draped over a small metal sink caddy. He pulls them on, squeezing too-big fingers into narrow rubber tubes. Feels slightly foolish, but knows he needs to avoid contamination. He knows that the CSIs will have to come in here, search the place. Look for things. He doesn’t know what. Not yet.

  He scoops up the letters that have been strewn across the floor. Unfolds one of them carefully. It’s dated 15 July. Only three weeks ago. The date sticks in his mind: Marie’s birthday. He starts to read. His stomach starts to churn again. I hope you haven’t cut your hair. Something about the line sends a chill down his spine. Marie has had short hair for as long as he’s known her. He takes the keys out of his pocket. Stares at her chopped hair. He swallows. Takes a deep breath, and picks up another . . .

  17th July. There is always someone watching, Marie.

  Another . . .

  19th July. How are Mummy and Daddy? Are they dead yet? I hope so.

  And another.

  21st July. If only you’d listened.

  26th July. You can’t ignore me forever. I won’t let you.

  29th July. I miss the feel of your skin against mine.

  30th July. I love you, Marie.

  He drops the letters and the envelopes on the table. Bends down to pick up one that has been scrunched into a ball. It is creased and torn, dated 31 July: Did you hear me breathing that day, Marie? Did you feel me watching you? I always loved watching you . . .

  Graeme sent her a letter every day, from their birthday to the 31st. The day before the woman was attacked. The day he went missing from the day trip.

  ‘Oh Marie,’ Davie says. He wants to cry. Wants to grab hold of her and shake her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why?’ He takes off the gloves and hurls them against the wall. Then he sits down at the kitchen table and calls Malkie
.

  39

  Marie keeps walking. She doesn’t pay any attention to where she’s going. She’s outside her body, looking down. Can’t feel her feet. Can’t feel her body. Everything has unravelled. Leaving Graeme in that house was like being pulled apart at the seams. He is broken. He doesn’t even know what he did. And it is all her fault.

  Moments of clarity burst through the clouds of her mind. Crushing up the pills. Mixing them into his drink. She thought he’d just slip away. That lad at Jack Henderson’s had been lucky – he’d convulsed for a bit, but then he’d thrown up and the stuff was out of him. Those other kids that she’d read about in the paper – they weren’t so lucky. One of them had been taking steroids for a bout of acute asthma. The drugs hadn’t agreed with each other. Another one had taken his with half a bottle of Jaegermeister. Heart attack.

  Graeme’s had been mixed with alcohol. And with his troubled mind. She hadn’t expected the outcome. She’d wanted his heart to stop. It was the only way to stop him from taking over her life. But that’s not what happened.

  Marie doesn’t really know what happened. Doesn’t want to. Memories spin inside her skull and she can’t shake them away. When he’d turned up at the party, she’d panicked. She tried to push him out of the door. She’d begged him. Screamed at him. He’d just smirked. She remembered someone coming into the hallway, remembered screaming at them too – fuck off, just fuck off, leave us alone . . . and later, with Anne. Another argument with her best friend, the one she’d never been able to share her darkest secret with, despite her being the only one to give her a chance when she’d turned up in Banktoun all those years ago, all badly shorn hair and unrelenting anger. Scott had said something, and the news had spread. Marie has a brother . . .

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Anne had begged, gripping her shoulders, trying to shake the words out, hurt shining in her eyes.

  There was nothing else for it. When she’d put the pills in her bag, she’d fully intended on taking them herself. Using them to forget all the shit that was going on in her life. But when Graeme had appeared, clearly having followed her there, he’d taken her choice away.

  She’d drunk too much. There are gaps. Blackouts. Time seemed to slow down and speed up. The place was packed with bodies, and then it wasn’t. The party was winding down. After giving Graeme the cocktail, she’d gone upstairs with the vodka and the wine. Passed out in one of the spare rooms. Laid herself down in a corner. Covered herself with coats.

  Had Graeme come looking for her?

  There must be witnesses. Some of those people in there were sleeping it off. Someone was in the garden.

  Someone must’ve seen something.

  What Graeme did.

  What she did.

  Even without her contact lenses, she’d known what she was walking through in that room. She’d known that the coppery tang in the air was blood. Recognised the dark-brown stains on the rubber soles of her shoes.

  She left her shoes with Graeme. She doesn’t know why. Her plan was to finish what she started, but when she saw him there in that room, she knew she couldn’t do it. She’d wanted to curl up, go to sleep. Wanted it all to be over.

  She finds herself on the railway bridge, the first one along the old line that they call the Track. It’s a popular walking spot. Other stuff happens along there, too. Good things. Bad things. Strange things.

  She stands on the bridge and looks along the path towards the stagnant pool that lies hidden amongst mossy boughs and tall reeds. Hidden from the sun, it is a dark and frightening place. From her viewpoint on the bridge, she can just make out the edge of the water. She can see a flash of white from the statue of the fairy with the water lily. She’d found the pool when she’d first moved to Banktoun. She’d stood too close to the edge, reaching out to touch that statue with its cold, blank eyes. She’d almost slipped in, caught herself by grabbing onto an overhanging branch.

  She wants to go back there now. She wants to soar from the bridge, dive into the pool. She wants to sink to the bottom. How deep is it? How dark?

  What’s in there?

  She feels the statue calling to her. Beckoning her. Marieeeee . . .

  There’s a faint rustle of wind catching leaves. No one else is around. No one has come looking for her. Not yet.

  She strains her ears, listening for the sounds of police sirens. Nothing.

  Graeme . . .

  She lays her hands flat on the cold stone wall and pulls herself up. She rolls onto her knees, positions her feet on the wall and stands up, slowly, carefully. Tries not to wobble.

  Her feet are cut and bleeding. Her blood now. No one else’s.

  There is too much blood.

  She has to get away.

  She stands up straight and tall. Holds her hands out at her sides. She wonders if anyone can see her – from a distance, she must look like she’s on a giant cross.

  Marie the Martyr.

  She leans forwards slightly, gets a better view of the pool. She can see about a quarter of it now. Bright-green scum coating the surface. If she leaps . . . if she soars . . . will she make it to the pool? She imagines herself sinking through the soft, slimy surface. Feels it enveloping her into its depths.

  She takes a breath. Sixty . . . fifty-nine . . . fifty-eight . . .

  Do it, Marie. It is Graeme’s voice.

  Do it.

  Jump!

  She jumps.

  27th July 2015

  Dear Marie,

  Sorry. Again. I don’t like to get angry with you. I never liked to get angry with you. But sometimes you do stuff that is just so infuriating. I don’t think you can help it. I was thinking about you at breakfast this morning. The way you always put three sugars and half a sliced banana on your cornflakes, and then you threw the other half of the banana away. Why didn’t you eat it? Do you know I used to take it out of the bin? I imagined you biting it. Your lips around it. Sometimes I used to rub it on myself, then eat it. Imagining it was you. Wishing you would touch me just one more time. I never wanted it to stop. No one said it had to stop. Only you, Marie.

  You wanted it to stop.

  You tried to replace me with that boy. Why?

  I realise my mistake now. It was him I should’ve taught a lesson. Not you.

  Love,

  Graeme

  40

  Laura is shaking. She’s sitting in her living room, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Mark was taken home. She wants to be with him, but her mum is refusing to let her leave the house. She’s fussing over her, bringing her cups of tea with too many sugars. But Laura is still shaking.

  She knows what she has to do. But if she’s right, then the consequences are huge. Devastating. She’s not sure if she can be the one to make this choice. She wanted to tell Mark, ask him what to do. But then the police had turned up, found them there in the shed. They’d taken them out the back gate, driven them home. A young detective called Louise kept trying to ask her questions, but Laura felt like her throat had closed up. She couldn’t speak. Shook her head.

  ‘So, you didn’t hear anything?’ Louise Jennings had asked her. ‘Nothing at all? No shouts . . . screams . . .’

  ‘Louise,’ the other detective had said. Simon, his name was. Maybe. There had been a warning in his voice. Louise had stopped asking questions after that.

  Laura had questions, like: why are you here? Why didn’t you let me go inside to use the toilet? She heard it on the radio. Simon and Louise had looked at each other, Simon had tried to turn it down, turn it off. But it was too late.

  ‘Suspect is an IC1 male, name of Graeme Woodley. Suspected armed and dangerous. Do not approach.’

  ‘What did he do?’ Laura said. Her voice was a croak. A whisper.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t hear anything?’ Louise said, one more time.

  ‘We were in the shed. We had headphones on. The music they were playing was shit. People were screeching in the back garden. We just wanted to drown them out.’r />
  Louise caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. Her face looked pained.

  ‘Let’s get you home,’ she’d said.

  Laura is still shaking. She picks up her phone. Knows that she’s got no choice. She saw it. She thinks she saw it. What if she’s wrong?

  She starts texting. She writes in short sentences, trying to get it all across. Trying to explain: ‘I saw Marie at the party. She was mixing up a drink. Crushing stuff up. She kept stirring it. I asked her what it was, but she ignored me. She gave it to him. Her brother. I don’t know if he drank all of it, but I saw him drink some of it at least. There was a brown scum on top. It stuck to his upper lip. I think she put something in there. But I can’t be sure. Please don’t say it was me who said anything. I might be wrong. Maybe it was just some scuzzy cocktail.’

  She puts her finger at the end of the line. Delete. Just delete it, she thinks. You don’t know. You don’t really know. She takes her finger off the screen. Checks that she’s picked the right contact. Closes her eyes and counts to three.

  Hits ‘send’.

  28th July 2015

  Marie,

  I’ve written a letter to Mummy and Daddy. I’ve told them I don’t want to speak to them, but I wanted them to know that I am still here, still breathing. I know that they will never reply, but I hope that when I see you, you can tell me about them. Tell me if they did anything interesting with their pathetic, miserable lives. Do they ever talk about me? Does anyone ever talk about me?

  Do I still fucking exist?

  One day, Marie. One day, you will fucking answer me.

  Your brother,

  Graeme

  41

  Marie’s ankle burns. Jumping backwards down onto the bridge in her bare feet like that had been a stupid thing to do.

  But not as stupid as if she’d jumped the other way.

  It might have only been thirty feet high, but she would’ve never made it as far as the pond. There would have been no quiet release into the soft green water. Only the pain of broken bones. A crushed skull.