It was hard to keep talking through the gathering tears. ‘Maybe I could research some homeschooling techniques too. Hopefully none of this will be necessary; Beth will come round, be fine and be out of hospital by, heck, Sunday.’
‘And back at school Monday,’ agreed Jacob.
‘Exactly! But this way, we’re prepared for every eventuality.’
As I wiped my face dry, we toasted our new-found positivity with tea.
Then I glanced at the clock, and couldn’t help thinking that this time exactly one week earlier we’d had no idea our lives were balanced on a cliff edge.
One week ago you had been at school, happy and healthy.
One week ago you had come home as usual, chatting about homework, rushing around, laughing.
Until you’d lied to us, and gone out for the night. Then everything had changed.
Why, Beth? Why?
Twenty-Four
It was inevitable that the police would trace the phone records eventually, but I felt confident they wouldn’t ever tie them to me. I’d covered my tracks too well, and destroyed my burner mobile as soon as it had served its purpose.
No, it wasn’t fear of discovery that was bothering me. It was that I was already starting to suffer withdrawal symptoms.
Like a drug addict, the high I experienced lessened each time the memory replayed in my mind. There simply wasn’t the same thrill any more at reliving the moment of attack. The huff of breath the girl gave as I smashed at her skull didn’t excite me; it was as dull as a pair of well-worn slippers. A crawling sensation under my skin made me so restless it couldn’t be ignored for much longer. I needed a fix.
But I couldn’t risk striking again. Not so soon. I would have to be patient, wait it out, plan things. It would happen again, though. Eventually. That thought was enough to ease the crawling skin for now, despite it being the equivalent of a junkie taking paracetamol.
One heroin hit was never enough, was it? And my particular drug was more addictive, more refined and harder to procure than heroin. Bloodshed was a drug for the elite, not the masses.
What I needed was a new supplier. And suddenly an idea leapt into my mind that made me chuckle out loud. A fresh person for me to target – or rather, an old one.
Twenty-Five
As the days passed, Jacob and I kept ourselves busy, distracting ourselves from the fact that there was no change with you, Beth. We kept asking medics what was happening, when we would see an improvement, but were constantly told it was too soon to tell, that we had to be patient, that more tests were being run. Our frustrations ate away at us, but we determined to stay positive. I struggled with it, but Jacob was such a tower of strength that he inspired me whenever I felt low. Seeing you like this was killing him. Sometimes he would lock himself in the bathroom and cry quietly.
In front of you, though, he always remained strong. He fussed over your bed sheets, smoothed your hair, talked to you in a bright, chatty voice, never betraying how devastated he felt.
‘We’re going to stay over tonight. So that’ll be nice, won’t it? Maybe we can all watch a film together, one of your favourites, eh? Frozen? Or… something else?’
He gazed at you. Waiting.
When you didn’t reply, he pulled something from his rucksack and randomly started spritzing perfume over your bed. The air filled with your scent.
You cuddling beside me on the sofa; me kissing the top of your head and taking in your smell. You hogging the bathroom, and emerging an hour and a half later on a cloud of scented steam. You breezing past me, waving goodbye as you skipped up the lane, cheeky grin on your face…
The memories punched me. With no time to brace for them, the tears welled. Yet Jacob’s spritzing had no impact on you. We looked at each other, needing no words to convey our disappointment.
‘We’ll keep trying things,’ Jacob said.
We’d done a lot of research into sensory stimulation in coma patients, and although you were in an induced coma we decided it might help your brain injuries to heal and bring you back to us. We’d checked with the doctors that it would be okay, and they’d given us the go-ahead. Talking wasn’t enough; all the senses should be targeted. So as well as your perfume, over the following week we tried my perfume and Jacob’s aftershave, and Mum found a bath bomb that smelled exactly like cut grass. Because you loved the outdoors so much, we were all excited as we wafted that under your nose. I stared at the read-out of your heartbeat, willing it to beep faster or slower. No change came.
Jacob also tried different types of materials. He gently stroked your skin with a feather, fake fur, a brush for a slightly prickly feeling, anything. We once even used a scrunched-up piece of tinfoil that had encased our sandwiches.
We talked constantly about happier times, sharing memories. Made plans for the future, once you got out.
‘Maybe we could scrape up enough money to go away somewhere special. Whale-watching, or see the mountain gorillas or something,’ I suggested, desperately, one day.
An idea that, days earlier, would have had you running around screaming with joy didn’t elicit so much as a blink.
We played board games, with Jacob taking your turn as well as his own. And we played music constantly. I knew all the words to every single One Direction song.
Sometimes it all felt worryingly futile. As time passed, despair built in me of never hearing your voice again. But I pushed on with researching homeschooling. I also looked up exercises that we could do together to combat the muscle wastage you would be suffering after lack of movement for such an extended period.
Your dad and I spent every spare moment with you, Beth, but reality started to come knocking. Your dad had to return to work, which meant he often slept at the hospital then drove the two and a half hours straight to the factory, leaving me alone with you. I held your hand and talked until my throat hurt. Every. Single. Day.
You never reacted.
Despair closed in on me every time I saw your beautiful, animated face now empty. The sound of the machine filling your lungs with air made me want to scream. Being in the same room as you began to feel claustrophobic. My fingers twitched; I paced all the time. I wanted to run from the building, the tears, the pain, the guilt.
What could I do that would make things better? I offered every pact under the stars to God, the great They, whatever entity might be interested in taking me up on it.
Take me instead of her. Take me and Jacob – we don’t mind.
But there was never any change.
At home, the steady flow of concerned visitors slowed to a trickle, a dribble, a drought. After the fuss of your dad’s ‘drugs revelation’ in the newspapers, there had been no further coverage in the nationals and only a tiny update in the Wapentake Investigator. Posters around the village appealing for anyone with information to come forward were so shabbily made that they were peeling off street lights within a week. Yesterday’s news, tomorrow’s litter. Only the one in the window of the Picky Person’s Pop In looked as fresh as the day it was printed.
Not that it did any good. Not a single person had come forward.
‘Someone, somewhere must have seen something, surely?’ I despaired to Jill one day, after popping in for some milk. ‘There’s about eight hundred people living here, give or take. They can’t all have been at home with the curtains closed.’
Jill’s eyes were full of pity, but her words were to the point as she handed me my change. ‘Why not, duck? You were.’
It wasn’t an accusation. Still I blushed – with guilt and anger. I turned to the handful of other villagers browsing the shelves.
‘Please… have you heard a rumour even, of what might have happened? Any of you?’
They all suddenly found the floor interesting.
Outside, I spotted Ursula walking with Chloe. I called out. They turned, waved, but hurried on.
‘Sorry, we’ve got to get home. I’ll call tomorrow,’ Ursula said, with a melancholy smile.
&nbs
p; * * *
It was three days later before she did, then it was my turn to get away as quickly as possible because all she could give me were platitudes and news of how brave her own daughter was being.
All the time she talked, I wondered: Why can’t it be your daughter in hospital instead of mine?
On Saturday 6 February, a fortnight after you had been found, your fourteenth birthday dawned. To treat the day like any other would have felt like a betrayal to you, Beans. It would have felt as though we were forgetting about you and weren’t bothered enough to make an effort. So instead, the whole family gathered around your bed. We wore party hats, and opened presents in some twisted pass the parcel where no one wanted to rip off the paper because it should have been you doing it, Beth.
What do you buy the girl who can’t move? New clothes; the latest iPad, to replace your old one; tickets to a wildlife exhibition? Jacob’s present broke my heart. Using pale lime wood, he had carved your favourite bird, a little egret. You loved the way their brilliant white plumage made them appear almost ghostlike as they flew across the marsh. Dad had perfectly captured the bird’s long-lined elegance, so like a heron’s, and the ‘s’ shape of its lithe neck as it lifted its wings ready to take flight. You would have adored it. But you weren’t there to see it. Not really. Looking at you lying on the hospital bed, I felt a horrible disconnect, as if everything that made you my daughter had gone. All that was left was the shell.
The police still had no idea who had done this to you. Jacob’s mate, Stuart (aka Stinky Stu, because he smoked so much dope he was permanently impregnated with the smell) had confirmed they had watched a marathon run of Family Guy and smoked a joint before Jacob walked the ten minutes home at just after midnight. The problem was, your dad hadn’t arrived home until gone 1 a.m. He claimed he’d spent that time looking up at the stars – a distinct possibility given that he was mashed – but it meant there was an hour or more of that night for which he didn’t have an alibi.
Officially it meant that Jacob still wasn’t eliminated from the police’s enquiries. We didn’t see much of the investigating team, including the cool DS Devonport; all our information came through Flo, our Family Liaison Officer. And although they didn’t seem to be investigating your dad further, no one else was in their crosshairs either. All Flo ever said when we asked was that the team were pursuing several lines of enquiry, but that it was too soon to tell us anything. Sounded like a load of excuses to me. Your dad was far more tolerant of Flo than I. Her constant visits grated, when she never had any news. I suspected she was keeping an eye on us, waiting for evidence to trip us up in a lie about your dad’s missing hour. As my annoyance showed more and more, Jacob took over dealing with her, to spare my blood pressure.
Nothing was happening, Beth. Everything was in stasis. I wanted to smash down the walls I could feel closing in on me.
Twenty-Six
Jacob’s leg twitched then stilled. He lay slumped on the sofa, mouth slightly open, a gentle snore escaping every now and again. Zonked out in front of the television, bless him, despite it only being 6.30 p.m.
Hardly surprising. That morning, we’d had to get up ridiculously early to set off for home from the hospital, then poor Jacob had had to go straight to work.
Lack of sleep had become a way of life for me in the sixteen days since you were found. I’d gone through the stage where insanity felt likely because of it, and come out the other side. There was no point complaining about feeling permanently shattered, because no one could fix it.
Loath to wake Jacob, but unsure what to do with myself, I thought perhaps a walk was the solution. Wiggins stood at my movement, tail wagging hopefully. I beckoned him over and he let me pop his lead on.
A biting wind froze my cheeks the second we stepped outside. It flew gleefully over the rooftops, using the height to launch itself at me and stab through my clothing. Walking wouldn’t be such a good idea after all. Besides, the tiny sliver of new moon hid behind banks of clouds, so the night seemed even darker than usual. I decided to nip over the road to The Poacher instead.
Inside the pub were only a handful of locals; typical for a Monday night. They looked at me briefly, nodded, then looked away. That had been happening to me a lot; since your attack, Beth, no one seemed able to look me directly in the eye. Perhaps they thought bad luck was catching. Perhaps they knew more than they were letting on.
Dale, the owner, scribbled answers on The Sun’s crossword. He was so engrossed that I had to clear my throat to get noticed, then realised I hadn’t decided what I wanted.
‘Umm, a glass of cabernet sauvignon, please.’
That would do.
To distract myself, I gazed around the pub I knew off by heart. Read the poster on the wall telling me to Keep Calm & Carry On. Scanned the old photographs of Fenmere from 1852, 1912, 1950… They all looked pretty much the same, except that the quality of shot improved and the angle changed slightly. There was a slight jump in the number of buildings in the 1984 photograph, when Joe Skendelby had built his place on the land between what was now our house and the general store. It was after his death, four years ago, that Ursula Clarke turned it into her café, the Seagull’s Outlook.
My eyes followed the hairline crack that ran across the ceiling, down the wall and, ah, over to something different. A person tucked behind the table in the far corner, well away from the fire. A stranger. Interest flared in me, then disappeared like the glow of a cigarette end. It was probably a birdwatcher.
The stranger looked up.
‘Melanie Ludlow?’ A deep, quiet voice. ‘It is, isn’t it. Melanie Ludlow. You’ve not changed a bit. Don’t you recognise me?’
He grinned, which transformed him from a slightly menacing hulk into a face I’d first seen at the village school when we were both four years old. The cheeks were as chubby as ever. He came over.
‘Glenn Baker! You haven’t changed much, either.’ Apart from the tight curls of his hair dulling down from almost white blond to the colour of corn. They had thinned a bit, too.
‘You do remember me, then?’
‘Well, there weren’t many people in the whole school, Glenn. ’Course I remember you. You always used to choose me to play on your football team.’
‘Oh, yeah. You were nippy, that’s why. Your ball skills were a bit lacking, mind.’
‘Can’t have been that bad. Seem to remember scoring a few times when I was against you.’ Smiling. I was smiling. The second I realised, it slunk away, ashamed.
‘Bet you couldn’t do it now, though.’
‘Probably not.’
If I said nothing else, the conversation would die. But… chatting felt good. Odd, but good. Talking about nonsense with someone who clearly knew nothing about my recent past. He looked me in the eye; no pity, no judgement, or fear that I may be contagious with bad luck. I didn’t want to let that go yet.
‘What are you doing back here? Visiting someone?’
‘Nah. I’m back for good – to quote Gary Barlow.’
‘He a hero of yours?’ Get that: banter. My first attempt at it since… Best not to think about that.
‘Oh yeah, Gary’s my idol.’ Glenn’s blue eyes twinkled.
Funny how someone can look so exactly like the child they were, despite being six feet tall and broad. His ruddy, well-scrubbed cheeks added to the good nature that radiated from his round face. Although a little overweight, he looked strong. As he grasped his pint, I noticed his hands: the big, capable kind inherited by so many in an area whose ancestry was generations of farmworkers.
He took a slurp of his drink. ‘Yeah, I’ve rented a place in Wapentake. Moved in the other week. Couldn’t get anything here in the village, but hope to soon.’
‘Well, it’s only nine miles down the road, not the end of the world. But what brings you back after all these years?’
‘Took redundancy a while back, spent some money travelling. Now it’s time to get back to the real world and… Well, I could have
settled anywhere, really, but all that travelling made me yearn for home.’
‘And home is here? After all these years?’ I tried to think back to the last time I had seen Glenn. Must have been just before I had you, Beth. ‘You moved away when you were about, what, nineteen, or something?’
He nodded cautiously, busy with his beer. ‘Never looked back. But now Fenmere is calling me. I miss it – no place like it, is there?’
True. Once you were used to Fenmere’s open landscape, everything else felt hemmed in or cluttered with buildings and trees.
‘I’ve applied for a job at the furniture company.’ Glenn didn’t need to say the name; Woodturners is the biggest employer in the immediate area, not counting farming. It’s where your dad is a foreman.
‘You married?’
‘Was. Divorced. Twice. Heading for a third. Can’t seem to make ’em stick with me.’ His eyes flicked to one side, as though the thought had sparked a memory. Then they were right back on mine again. ‘Look, I’m not going to lie… When I came over to chat, it was only because I recognised you from school. It was nice to see a familiar face again. But, well, I’ve just realised you’re Melanie Oak now, not Ludlow, and…’
‘And you’ve remembered the headlines.’
A single nod.
Taking a big slug of my wine made my eyes water. As soon as my vocal chords realised they weren’t burned away, I spoke. ‘Right. Nice chatting. Got to go.’ Each word a bullet of sarcasm.
Wiggins stood, sensing we were leaving.
‘I’m sorry for upsetting you, but I didn’t want to lie.’ Glenn still looked me in the eye. He still spoke to me as if I were human, not something fragile that might break. ‘Stay. Have another drink.’
The Darkest Lies: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist Page 8