by Jean Ure
“Well, I can’t help her!” I said. “What can I do? I don’t know where she is!”
“But you think she’s … in some sort of danger?” said Chloe.
That girl just never gives up.
“I think she’s in trouble,” I said. But everyone already knew that.
Dee picked up the locket and put it in her bag. “What shall we tell Ruby?”
“Just tell her I didn’t see anything.”
“But you did,” said Chloe.
“I did not!” I snapped. “I felt things.”
“So why don’t we—”
“Oh, Chloe! Do shut up,” said Dee. “Let’s play some music and just forget about it.”
We played some music, but I don’t think any of us could forget. Certainly not me. I’d said that I hadn’t seen anything, but it wasn’t quite true. At the very moment that Dee had shaken me, and the link had been broken, I had had this sudden flash of being in someone else’s body. Seeing through someone else’s eyes. What I had seen was a car. I was in the car. And the car was familiar. I knew that I had been in it before – or one very like it. It was a Ka. A Ford Ka. A blue one …
What I couldn’t work out, because I didn’t have the experience, was whether I was really seeing through someone else’s eyes – Gayle’s eyes – or whether the waves of terror that had engulfed me had reactivated my terror and transported me back to that dreadful night, trapped in the car as we hammered towards the gravel pits.
There just seemed no way of knowing.
That night the dreams came back. I kept waking, shivering and terrified; scared of going to sleep again. It was a comfort knowing that Dee and Chloe were there with me, curled up on the floor in their sleeping bags, yet at the same time I was just so angry with them for deceiving me. I knew they had acted from the best of motives, but they had no idea of the damage they could do, getting me to play around with forces that I hadn’t yet learnt to control.
I guess part of the reason I was so angry was that I knew, deep down, it was more my fault than theirs. I should never have agreed to play The Game in the first place; Mum had warned me against it often enough. Dee and Chloe weren’t to know. To them it was just a fun way of passing the time. On this occasion it had been more serious because they had genuinely wanted to help Gayle. But why put it all on to me? What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know where she was!
Next morning I took Mum her breakfast in bed, so that the three of us could pig out by ourselves in the kitchen. We turned on the radio to hear if there was any news, but all they said was that the police had staged their reconstruction. They didn’t mention if anyone had come forward.
“Maybe it’s a bit too soon,” I said.
“Or maybe they wouldn’t announce it till they’d checked it out,” suggested Dee.
We agreed that the police probably didn’t pass on everything they knew.
“Stands to reason,” said Chloe. “They’d have to keep something back … clues, and stuff.”
Dee had to leave early as she was going off to visit her grandparents. Her mum and dad were supposed to stop by and pick her up on their way, but when I went to answer the door I found Paul standing there. My heart went clunking right down into the pit of my stomach. Why did it always have to be him? Why was he always the one who turned up? It was like he was doing it on purpose to taunt me.
“Hi,” he said; and he smiled. “Is Dee ready?”
I said, “I’ll get her!” and slammed the door in his face and went galloping back down the hall. “Dee! It’s your brother!”
“Paul?” Her face lit up. “Oh, good! I didn’t think he was coming.”
She sounded really happy; she obviously adored him. It was just another reason why I couldn’t say anything. I told myself that of course I would, if I were really sure. Even if it meant a furious lecture from Mum, I wouldn’t hesitate. But how could I know, for certain? Dee was one of my two best friends! I would have hated to do anything to hurt her.
We watched as she drove off, sitting with Paul in the back of her parents’ Volvo. I wondered if Paul still had his little blue Ka, or if he had got rid of it. “Disposing of the evidence,” I thought.
“He’s really nice, isn’t he?” said Chloe, as we went back indoors. “Paul … he’s so lovely!”
I muttered, “He’s OK.”
“Don’t you like him?”
“He’s creepy,” I said.
“Mm …” Chloe crinkled her nose as she considered it. “I sort of see what you mean. He’s kind of, like … quiet.”
I said, “Creepy. Why does he keep smiling all the time?”
“Does he?”
“Yes.” I stretched my lips. “He’s always doing it.”
Chloe said she hadn’t noticed. “P’raps he’s just being friendly.”
“He doesn’t have to keep doing it. It just looks stupid, keeping on doing it. And why’s he still living at home? Why isn’t he married?”
“Not everyone gets married,” said Chloe. “He could be gay.”
“More like weird.”
“Dee practically worships him,” said Chloe.
“Yes, and that’s another thing.” I closed the kitchen door, in case our voices carried up the stairwell (remembering Mum’s phenomenal, lynxlike hearing).
“He wasn’t there when we first knew Dee. She never even mentioned him. We never even knew she had a brother. He just suddenly, like, appeared one day out of nowhere.”
“Actually …” Chloe hesitated.
“Actually what?” I said.
“Actually, I shouldn’t be telling you this ’cos I’m not really supposed to know, but I heard he’d been in hospital.”
“What, like you mean he’s been ill?”
“Sort of,” said Chloe.
“What d’you mean, sort of?”
“He’s been in Arlington Park,” said Chloe.
For the second time that morning my heart went into free fall. Arlington Park is a psychiatric hospital. People only go there if they’re too sick to be let out into the community. I stared at Chloe. Her face had turned bright scarlet, so I guessed it was something she’d been sworn not to tell.
“Is that really true?” I said. Chloe nodded. “It’s not just you, making it up?”
“I don’t make things up!”
She does; all the time. But she said she’d actually been there when her mum was discussing it with a friend of hers who cleaned for Dee’s mum. (Imagine having someone to do your cleaning for you! But Dee’s mum is a solicitor, so I suppose she can afford it.)
“Mum didn’t let me listen any more,” said Chloe, “she sent me away, and afterwards she told me I wasn’t to go gossiping about it to anyone. I’m only telling you,” she said, “’cos we’re friends.”
I swallowed. “So … what was … wrong with him?”
“Dunno. Didn’t get that far,” said Chloe. “But you have to be pretty bad to be locked up!”
We agreed that you did; and that that was almost certainly why Dee had never mentioned to us that she had a brother.
“I mean, you wouldn’t want to talk about it, would you?” said Chloe. “So we mustn’t ever let on that we know.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. The last thing I wanted was to talk to Dee about her brother.
“He’s obviously all right,” said Chloe, “or they wouldn’t have let him out. But it’s probably why he sometimes seems a bit strange.”
“Let’s not discuss it,” I said.
“No,” said Chloe, “we probably shouldn’t. Not behind Dee’s back.”
“Not any time,” I said.
Later on, I listened to the news again, with Mum.
“Still nothing,” I said.
Mum shook her head.
“You’d think someone would have seen her!”
“People don’t always want to get involved,” said Mum.
“You mean they wouldn’t go to the police even if they had seen something? That is just so antisocial!�
�� I said.
“I’m afraid people often are,” said Mum.
“But why?”
“Oh, Jo! For all sorts of reasons.”
I frowned, trying to think of some. “You mean, like … if someone mightn’t want the police to know they were there? Like if they were committing a robbery, or something?”
“That could be one reason,” agreed Mum.
“Even if someone’s life was at stake?”
I just couldn’t believe anybody would stay silent. Mum said, well, maybe they wouldn’t.
“There’s still time. Let’s just hope someone’s memory’s been jogged.”
“When would we know?” I said. “When would they tell us?”
“That’s up to them,” said Mum. And then she looked across at my plate and said, “What a mess you’re making!”
We were sitting in the kitchen, having Sunday lunch, and I’d been slowly churning my cauliflower cheese into some kind of sculpture.
“Actually, I don’t really want it,” I said. “I’m not very hungry.”
“Try,” urged Mum. “I’m aware it’s easier said than done, but honestly, sweetheart, worrying isn’t going to help.”
“No, I know.” I heaved a sigh, and did a bit more sculpting. “You know those Ka things?” I said.
“What car things?” said Mum.
“Ka. K-A. Ka.”
“Oh, those! Yes. What about them? Did you fancy one?”
“No,” I said. “I think they’re horrible.”
“Cheap to run.”
“Yes, but they’re horrible.”
“So why did you mention them?”
“I was just wondering whether … they were popular.”
“I should think so. You see quite a lot of them about.”
“Do you?” I said.
“Well, I do,” said Mum.
“Why, anyway?”
“Oh, it’s a – a project we’re doing,” I said. “Environmental studies.”
“Yes, well, I should think they’re probably a good thing,” said Mum.
Depends who’s driving them, I thought; and I forced down the mashed remains of my cauli cheese.
“I might like to do environmental work some day,” I said.
“Well, that would be a good thing, too,” said Mum. “Certainly an easier way of earning a living than delving into the depths of other people’s minds,”
“Do you ever have bad experiences?” I said. “Do you ever … see things that are … frightening?”
“Occasionally.”
“Really frightening?”
“Like what?” said Mum.
“Well, like … like if someone had done something evil, like … murdered someone, or something.”
“No,” said Mum. “I’ve never had that.”
“What would you do? If you thought someone had murdered someone?”
“Oh, Jo, what a question! It’s never arisen, so I’ve never really given much thought to it. In any case, how would I know whether it was real, or just a fantasy?”
“Couldn’t you tell?” I said.
“Not necessarily. People have the oddest things going on inside their heads. I think probably, unless the circumstances were quite exceptional, I would just have to … take no account of it.”
I was so relieved when Mum said that. How would you know whether it was real or a fantasy? Not even Mum could be certain!
“What is all this, anyway?” she said. “Another project?”
“It’s for a story,” I said.
“A horror story?”
“Well – yes.” I gave a little giggle, which even to my ears sounded somewhat hysterical.
“Wouldn’t it be better just to write something about everyday life?” said Mum.
I thought, this is about everyday life; but to keep Mum happy, and set her mind at rest, I said that she was probably right.
“I’ll try and think of something else.”
But I couldn’t. I was obsessed by thoughts of Gayle. Where she might be, what might be happening to her. All the stories I’d ever read about young girls being abducted came crowding and jostling into my mind. Had any of them ever had a happy ending? Ever? Had anyone ever been found alive?
It was like a nightmare, ongoing, without end. And I kept thinking, if it was like a nightmare for me, what must it be like for Gayle’s mum and dad, and Ellie?
Monday morning, we heard on the news that two women had come forward as a result of the reconstruction. They said that they had seen Gayle talking to a man in a car, on the ground floor level of the car park.
They didn’t know whether she had just got out of the car, or whether she was just about to get into the car, or whether she was just having a chat before going on her way. They were only passing through, and hadn’t waited to find out.
“Why didn’t they come forward earlier?” I cried. “If they’re so sure it was Gayle?”
Mum said the whole point of a reconstruction was that it would jolt people into remembering things they might otherwise have forgotten, or not even realised they had seen.
“Doesn’t seem to have jolted very many of them,” I said, glumly.
At school, everybody was talking about “the latest development” (as they said on the news); but quietly, almost furtively, in corners or behind desk lids.
“Don’t really see that it’s going to be much help,” I said, as I walked round the field with Dee and Chloe at first break. “I mean, they don’t know whether she actually got into the car … they don’t even know what sort of car it was.”
“It says in the paper,” said Chloe. “Least, it did in my mum’s.”
Chloe’s mum read the Daily Mail, so later on, when I had a free period and was meant to be doing homework, I went to the library and had a look. It didn’t actually say very much more. Neither of the women could remember anything about the car except that it been blue, and “small”. Like a Mini, or a Micra, or a Ford Fiesta.
Or a Ka.
I probably shouldn’t have blurted everything out to Chloe. Chloe, of all people! I knew how scatty she was. Chloe has loads of good points – she is bright, she is bubbly, she is a whole lot of fun. But she is such a blabbermouth. Just because you are best friends with someone doesn’t mean that you are blind to their faults; experience should have told me that confiding in Chloe was not the wisest thing I had ever done. But I was in a panic! I had found it difficult to believe when Mum had told me how people “don’t always want to get involved”, how they wouldn’t necessarily go to the police even if they had seen something. How could they not? How could they possibly stay silent when a girl’s life was at stake? Now here I was, doing that very thing. Going to school, chatting to friends, moaning about double maths, grumbling about too much homework, when all the time I had information that could be important. I knew that I had to tell someone. So I told Chloe.
We were sitting on the terrace together at lunch time, in the usual howling gale which blows across from the playing field. Dee wasn’t with us, she was at a meeting. Dee was always going off to meetings; she is a very public-spirited kind of person. If she had been there, I don’t know what I would have done. Waited till I got home, perhaps. I would certainly never have said anything in front of Dee. But Chloe was giggling at the way I’d behaved in maths when Mr McFarlane, in his sarcastic way, had asked me if I intended “touching down on this planet any time soon” and I had stared at him, goggle-eyed, and said, “In a right-angled triangle?” which is somewhat, if not indeed totally, meaningless, but was all I could dredge up on the spur of the moment.
“I didn’t hear him,” I said to Chloe. “I didn’t hear what he said!”
“In a right-angled triangle! It wasn’t even geometry,” gurgled Chloe.
Ha ha, hugely ha. I could see that it was probably quite amusing to small minds, and I would probably have laughed like a drain myself if it had happened to anyone else, but I thought it was quite uncalled for to suggest, as Mr McFarlane witheringly
did, that my mind was “cluttered up with cheesy images of the opposite sex”. He had some nerve! What did he know about my mind? Needless to say, Mel Sanders had slewed round in her desk to look at me and contorted her features into prunelike disapproval.
“Naughty naughty!”
I’d felt like slapping her. I’d also felt like jumping up and rushing out of the room. My mind was in a torment – and not with cheesy thoughts of the opposite sex. Mr McFarlane and his stupid irritating maths was way down the scale of anything which might merit attention.
“I suppose you were thinking about him?” said Chloe. “Dreamboat Danny! Swoon.”
“Actually,” I said, “I was thinking about Gayle.”
“Oh. Well! Yes.” Chloe pulled a face. “I keep thinking about her, too. It must be so awful for poor Ellie!”
“And her mum and dad. Not knowing. That must be the most terrible part!”
Chloe agreed that it must. But surely, she said, Gayle wouldn’t have gone off with a total stranger? I said that she might, if she’d just had a row with Ruby.
“You really think so?” said Chloe.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! But things happen – people do these things! You know what those women said about the car? A small blue car? You know they said they didn’t know what make it was but it could have been a Ka – K-A, Ka! You know! Those little ones?”
“Y-yes.” Chloe was eyeing me, uncertainly. I suppose I did sound slightly mad. It just suddenly all came spurting out of me.
“Well …” I took a breath. “I got into one of those.”
“You mean, like … with a stranger?”
“Someone I didn’t properly know.”
Chloe chewed at her lower lip. She obviously sensed that this was something serious because for once she managed not to say anything; just waited, in silence, for me to continue.
“It was Paul.”
“Dee’s Paul?”
I nodded. “That night at the Pizza Palace … he gave me a lift.”
“I remember! Dee was cross ’cos you’d jumped out of the car. You said – oh” Chloe clapped a hand to her mouth. “He didn’t—”