by Alex Pitt
“Well the reason I called was to ask if you wanted to meet today. Go into town and do something, yeah? There’s someone I want you to meet.”
This made me shoot out of bed, as if someone had placed a sparkler in my bum.
“Who?” I asked suspiciously.
“Her name is Trisha. She’s well nice,” Scooter giggled, and I could hear someone else laughing in the background.
I rolled my eyes at him, but I’d be secretly glad if he had found someone nice. Scooter had never been an overly confident person, so he’d only ever attracted a few girls in his life, none of which had lasted very long. On the other hand, this was the first time I’d ever heard him mention this girl, so I hoped it wasn’t someone he’d pulled off the street the night before.
“And she’s the reason you haven’t been to sleep?”
“Yep,” Scooter said, and I could feel the grin on his face in the way he spoke.
“Jesus, Scooter. All right, I’ll meet you later. Spiceball park at one, yeah?”
“Sounds good to me. But sorry in advance if I’m a few minutes late. Might be busy, you know?”
“I think you’ve still got a few more rounds left in you, baby,” I heard someone say in the background, making me cringe.
Scooter hung up without saying another word and I stared at the phone long after he’d finished speaking, not sure if that conversation had really just happened. I was pleased that Scooter was getting some action and I was looking forward to meeting this girl, but I was still cautious as to where he’d actually met her.
Nevertheless, I hopped in the shower, got into my jeans and t-shirt, and crammed in a few hours of revision before heading to the park. My mum stared at me when she saw that I was preparing to leave, a disappointed look on her face.
“Don’t worry, Mum. I’ve been doing revision since I woke up. I need a break,” I told her, reading her mind. “Scooter’s got a new girlfriend, and he wants me to meet her.”
“Scooter? The one who’s been round here a couple of times? We are talking about the same guy, right?” she chuckled, and I reciprocated it.
“I know, I’m as shocked as you. I have to go, Mum. Back in a bit.”
With that, I kissed her on the cheek and headed out of the door.
The park was packed full of children milling around, having fun, just as you’d expect on a warm Saturday in May. I planted my bum on a metal bench and checked my watch every couple of minutes. It was twenty-past one when Scooter sidled up alongside me, an extremely tall girl clutched to his arm.
My first impression wasn’t positive. I’ve always been told not to judge a book by its cover, but that wasn’t always an easy feat. She was a good few inches taller than Scooter, with dyed red hair hanging in a ponytail and a skirt that was way too short for her.
Scooter was supporting a massive smile, one that I don’t think had left his face since we’d spoken on the phone.
“Jack, Trisha. Trisha, Jack,” Scooter introduced us.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, not sure if I was supposed to shake her hand or not.
“Alright?” she said in response, chewing her gum far too loud.
“Sorry we were late, mate. I’m a bit sore down there,” and he itched his crotch right in front of my face. Not something I needed to see.
“Don’t worry, mate. What did you want to do?” I questioned, not sure what Trisha was really into.
“Babe?” Scooter asked her, and she shrugged.
I got the impression that Scooter didn’t really know what his girlfriend liked, and that was when I decided I had to find out more information. The first chance I got, I’d have a quiet word with Scooter and just make sure that she wasn’t a hooker, only interested in him for money. She probably wasn’t, but you can never be too careful.
My impressions didn’t raise any higher when she took a pack of fags from her pocket, placed one in her mouth, and lit the tip. Closing her eyes, she breathed in heavily for a few seconds, and then released.
“I was going to suggest you brought Daisy along, but I don’t think you’ve asked for her number yet, have you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But she finally accepted my request on Facebook. I thought she was gonna leave me hanging forever.”
“Who’s Daisy?” Trisha asked, blowing smoke in my face. I couldn’t imagine it was very nice, mixing the smoke with the gum.
“Jack’s friend. Well, she’s all of our friends, but she’s Jack’s extra special friend,” Scooter told her, as she dropped her half-smoked cigarette and crushed it with a boot.
“But you’re not together? So, are you, like, friends with benefits or something?”
“No,” I said, agitated. “Shall we go?”
I think Scooter was glad about that suggestion, and we set off towards the town. Scooter and Trisha were all over each other, holding hands and making out every time we stopped to cross the road. There was a detail I hadn’t noticed at first, but he’d actually got a love bite on his skin, just underneath the collar of his shirt.
“Why don’t you message Daisy on Facebook? Ask her to come out,” Scooter proposed, pulling away from Trisha for just a moment.
While I would have liked that very much, I knew she had other plans on a Saturday.
“Can’t,” I shook my head. “She sees a therapist every Saturday, then goes bowling with her dad in the evening.”
“What does she see a therapist for?” Scooter asked, perplexed.
“I wish I could tell you, mate, but I don’t think it’s anything too serious. I did ask her, but she kind of shrugged it off. Apart from those couple of weeks when she looked depressed as hell, she seems fine.”
“Yeah,” Scooter thought aloud. “I still wonder what all that was about.”
Trisha was obviously bored by our conversation and, as we waited to cross the road, she forced Scooter’s head towards her face and stuck her tongue down his throat, tickling his tonsils. I sighed, but said nothing. This was a big thing for Scooter, and I didn’t want to ruin it.
We didn’t really do much the whole day. We looked around the shops, Trisha bought a few clothes, Scooter bought a few games, and then went back to the park. Despite not really doing much and being the third-wheel all afternoon, I had to admit that it was nice getting out of the house for a while.
“Trisha, baby, do you want to come to a party in a couple of weeks?” Scooter asked, and I groaned. I was hoping they’d all forget about that stupid party.
“Will there be booze?” Trisha asked, and Scooter nodded. “Then count me in,” she grinned, and Scooter beamed back, clearly ecstatic.
“You are still coming, right Jack?” Scooter enquired.
“Yep,” I said bluntly.
“Great, because I was thinking that we could all go as a group. Me, you, Trisha, Daisy, Vince, Tom. Sound good?” and I nodded, teeth clenched.
“Babe, I’ve got to go,” Trisha said, suddenly springing to her feet.
Scooter looked surprised, and a little bit hurt by this. She bent back down, which was a long way for her, and squeezed his face. Kissing his cheek, she stood back up and grabbed her bag to leave.
“Don’t worry about it, Scooty,” she said, a heavy Northern accent coming through in her voice. “I just didn’t realise what time it was. I promised Ma and Pa that I’d make dinner tonight. Chicken noodles,” and my stomach growled when she said this. I did like a good noodle, and not eating lunch hadn’t helped my hunger.
“When will I see you again?” Scooter called, making me think of some famous goodbye scene in movies. Cliché or what?
“You have my number,” Trisha shouted over her shoulder. “Text me.”
Scooter fumbled with his phone and quickly opened his texts up.
“I don’t think she meant right away,” I laughed. “She’s only just gone. You have to leave it for a few hours.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Man, I do love that girl.”
“Love her?” I exclaimed. “You don’t
even know her. So, she gave you a good time last night, but that doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t mean that you love her. Where did you even meet her?”
“At the pub. She saw me, and I saw her.”
“Nice story. What, you went to the pub by yourself?” That wasn’t like Scooter at all.
“I had an argument with my parents and needed a walk. I was passing the pub, and she was outside smoking. I was staring at her for a bit too long if you must know, and she asked if she’d got something on her face. After that, we just clicked. She ditched her friends and I went back to her place, and the fun didn’t stop all night.”
“But she’s clean, right?”
“I bloody hope so,” Scooter laughed. “If not,” and he thought for a moment, “Well it’s a bit bloody late now anyway.”
I let that rest for a moment and lay on my back, soaking in the late afternoon rays. Laughter filled my ears and I smiled. I liked people having fun. It created a nice atmosphere. A moment later, Scooter followed my lead and lay on his back, staring up at the sky.
“We’re both lucky, you know?” he said to me.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because I have Trisha, and you have Daisy. Even if you and Daisy aren’t a thing, everyone knows it’s bound to happen one day. Sooner rather than later, I hope. But, more importantly, we have each other.” I turned and looked at him, wondering where all this was coming from. “Bros before hoes, Jack. Am I right?”
“Always,” I confirmed, then stood up. “Come on, we’d best head back as well.”
“Did you hear the latest news about that girl?” Scooter questioned, following me to the path.
“The dead girl, Rachel?”
“Yeah. They say she was strung up in that garage and driven into, just because she was pregnant. I guess the killer didn’t want any trace of that.”
“You know what the strange thing is?” and I paused, not sure if I should speak my mind or not. I could trust Scooter, but I wasn’t sure if this was my mind playing tricks or not. “I think I recognise the knife. You know, the one that was used on Rachel? I’ve got no idea where I’ve seen it before, but I just recognise it.”
“You know that knife he used on her? He left it behind but it was bought in Germany. No shops in England will sell that knife, and, if they do, it will be extremely rare.”
“How the hell could you possibly know that?” Scooter demanded softly, accusation creeping into his voice.
“Because they said so on the news,” I told him simply, and he relaxed.
I felt extremely sorry for Rachel and her family but, as I said goodbye to Scooter and headed in the direction of home, I couldn’t help but be drawn in and enraptured by the case. Little did I know that, before long, the events I’d seen on the news would become entangled with the course of my own life. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
Chapter Twelve
Daisy
“Daisy, darling, you have to open up to me,” he said, moustache bristling as he spoke.
I flinched away from him, opened my mouth to speak, and then closed it again. It had been weeks since I’d had a proper therapy session. I’d been coming along every week, but I hadn’t been very talkative at all. In fact, the last thing I’d properly spoken to him about was Jack. Not that we said much about him, because I left it to the very end of the session.
“I am getting sick and tired of this, Daisy. I am your therapist, I am here to help you. If you refuse my help, then there’s nothing I can do for you. Please, what’s wrong?”
A single tear slipped down my cheek. There was so much wrong, so much. He would never know, or so I thought at the moment, and Jack would never know, at least not yet, and even my mum didn’t know that I knew yet. I’d held in this secret for weeks now, utterly terrified at what the future would bring.
I tried to put on a brave face at college, mainly for Jack. It would have been embarrassing to cry in front of my classmates, but it was mainly for Jack. I really liked him, and I think he liked me. He hadn’t told me that he liked me, but I got the feeling that he did. I didn’t want to scare him away by dumping all of my problems onto him.
“Jack,” I mumbled.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“Jack,” I repeated.
“Good. Yes, Jack. He’s your boyfriend, right?”
I didn’t say anything more, just sat in the brown leather chair, arms folded. My hair was a mess, I hadn’t brushed it this morning, and I could feel the sleep in my eye. I wasn’t eating properly either. I was constantly hungry all of the time, but the sight of food made me gag.
I knew this was something I had to talk to my mum about, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. She would be so disappointed in me snooping, and heartbroken that I’d found out this way. I had to tell someone, I had to, and I was pretty sure that I was covered by patient confidentiality. I didn’t have a reason to keep it to myself any longer.
“She has cancer,” I whispered, and then covered my mouth.
He didn’t say anything for a minute, but his breath stopped, and I could see the pity in his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I laughed. “What good will sorry do? Will sorry remove the cancer from my mum? Will it let her live so that she can see my future? See me get married and have children? Or what about my dad? Mum has probably told him about the cancer, and I can imagine it tearing him apart. I wish they could both talk to me about it. My mum doesn’t know that I know, and I just wish they could fucking talk to me.”
As I shouted the curse word, I kicked the coffee table between the two of us, sending several magazines and an empty coffee cup flying.
“Daisy, I’m going to have to ask you to calm down please. I know you’re upset-”
“Upset? You don’t know the meaning of upset.”
This sudden outburst felt good, uplifting. I needed this. It wasn’t healthy to keep all of your thoughts and feelings bottled up. They’d been inside me for weeks now, and were finally being unleashed.
“Calm down, and then we can talk. I can help you.”
He reached forward and placed a sticky hand on my knee, but I pulled away quickly. I was still sitting there with my arms folded, like a naughty little schoolgirl. I was breathing fast and my palms were sweating.
I risked a glance up at him, and he was staring at me eagle-eyed. It was creepy, unnerving.
“Can I go?” I queried.
“There’s still half an hour of the session left, Daisy.”
“I don’t care. I want to go,” I told him firmly. That didn’t seem to matter to him.
“Tell me how you found out about your mother’s condition.”
“A letter from the hospital. It was addressed to her and I don’t know why, but I opened it anyway. I never thought in a million years that this would happen.”
With that, I couldn’t control the flood anymore and I burst into tears. Despite being a nice day outside, it felt cold in the office, and I folded my arms over my chest.
“Daisy, honey, I am so sorry.”
“It’s OK,” I sniffed.
It wasn’t OK. It was very fucking far from OK, but I just wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted to leave the building and never come back. These therapy sessions didn’t help anything anyway. The past was the past. Sure, terrible, unspeakable things had happened, but that was two years ago, and I’d learnt to move on. So had my parents, but this cancer situation was a real stitch in the side. It was worse than that. All of our hearts had been broken again.
He opened the notepad in front of him, something I hadn’t seen him do for weeks, and jotted a line down. I tried to peek and see what he’d written, but he closed it with some force, shutting me out.
“Don’t worry, it’s just for my own records.”
“I don’t want my mum to find out,” I told him. “She can’t. Please.”
“Whatever you say in this room stays between us,” and I sighed a big sigh of relief
when he said that. “However, I would strongly recommend that you tell your mother. I am sure she will forgive you, and speaking your mind will be very therapeutic.”
I shrugged, listening to what he was saying, but still not sure if I actually would tell her or not.
“Now, listen, Daisy,” he said, rising from his chair and moving to the door.
It had been open to let some air in and I was surprised no one had come to see what the commotion was about. Maybe they were used to it, or maybe they didn’t care. Either way, he closed the door and continued.
“I am going to help you. I promise. We will get through this together.”
And then he smiled at me. What a creepy fucking smile it was.
Chapter Thirteen
Richard
After getting back to the station later that evening, I found Davies and Becky conversing in her office. They quickly brought me up to speed on the latest that had been going on, and I was amazed at what Officer Cooper had found. Amazed, and even more repulsed. How could someone do that to a girl? It was inhuman.
We then went back to our cribs to catch up on some sleep, and I think we all needed it, before meeting again the following evening to return to the Venus club. There wasn’t going to be any more searching or nose-poking tonight; we were going to make an arrest.
I’d already had my suspicions on who was prime suspect number one, and Becky seemed to agree with me. We had both spoken to the same man on the same night, and he’d had the same attitude about Rachel to both of us. He didn’t care that she was dead. In fact, he seemed to be glad that she was. Our suspect: Spider.
“Shall we go in?” I asked, meeting the eyes of Officer Cooper, and she nodded.
Unlike the previous night, she had opted to go in her official uniform, to make the arrest seem a lot more formal. As a detective, I wasn’t qualified to make any arrests, so I would be leaving that up to Becky, but I was looking forward to interviewing him back at the station.
“Let’s get this over and done with,” she murmured, and gave me a fake smile. She was as pale as a ghost.