I put the rest of the flowers in the rusty vase on Dad’s grave, even though there wasn’t any water in it. Half of them fell over because the vase wasn’t tall enough. I told him how his roses were still there and how I was going to bring him one but that Mrs Manners had seen me so I couldn’t, but I felt stupid standing there talking to nothing. It wasn’t like the time before when it felt like he was listening – maybe because there were more people around, or maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood. So I stopped talking and looked at everyone instead standing by graves or walking along the paths slowly, arm in arm, and then I saw the police officer that’d been at school with DI Burke – the one that’d written everything down, DC Hill. He was wearing jeans and a check shirt and standing with his hands in his pockets looking down at a gravestone, but I still recognised him straight off. It was his hair – curly and too long for an officer. I thought the police would’ve had a rule about their men having long hair, like they do at school – not that some boys take any notice. George O’Malley’s hair goes way past his shoulders (which is supposed to be the limit). It makes him look like a girl, but because he so obviously actually wants to be a girl, the teachers don’t say anything. I thought maybe DC Hill wanted to be a girl too, so the other police officers kept quiet. Or maybe the police don’t have a rule about long hair. Maybe that’s just the army.
I left then. I didn’t have anywhere to go, but I didn’t feel like staying. If it’d been any other day, I’d have hung about till DC Hill left so I could go and see which grave he was looking at, but I couldn’t be bothered. I thought, who cares whose grave he’s looking at? Not me. I didn’t care about anything anymore.
I wondered off towards town, pretending everything was fine and normal, my mind saying stupid things to try to keep it busy – things like, ‘Oh look at that bird there hovering over the field’ or ‘I wonder if it’s going to rain’ – but all the time all I was really thinking about was that laugh you’d done, as if you didn’t think we’d had a nice day and you didn’t like my lunch, and I thought, you did like my lunch. You ate it all. You even went ‘Mmmm’. I kept seeing your face when you grabbed me, too – your black eyes and the vein in your temple and the gap in your clenched teeth.
I didn’t feel too good. I couldn’t breathe properly, but it wasn’t like asthma. I wasn’t wheezing. It was more like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, even though I kept breathing in as much as I could. I made myself carry on, though. I puffed on my inhaler and kept walking and then eventually, after ages, I stopped thinking about how I couldn’t breathe normally and how angry you’d been, and started thinking instead about how it must’ve felt for you, finding out that I knew what you’d done. Awful, probably – and frightening. Because even though I hadn’t said anything to your neighbour, you’d have thought that I was going to go and tell someone, wouldn’t you? Because you didn’t know anything about how the police had been questioning me or how I’d protected you. I thought about the eyes on Alice’s Manga girl – about how they’d looked angry for so long and then how suddenly they’d looked scared, and I thought maybe it was the same with you – that maybe it was fear more than anger that’d made you grip my wrist so tight like that.
Then I realised something – that even though when you’d grabbed me you would’ve thought I was going to tell on you, you wouldn’t still think that now, would you? Because if I had – if I’d told anyone at all – you’d have been arrested. And realising that, I started to feel better. I could breathe more easily. Because whatever you’d thought when you grabbed me didn’t matter anymore. It was what you thought now that mattered – and you’d definitely know by now that your secret was safe – that, against all the odds, you had a friend. A friend that knew the real you and still loved you! And that would change everything for you, wouldn’t it? Everything! I thought you were probably, at that moment, wishing I’d come back so you could tell me how you’d really liked me all along, but how you hadn’t been able to tell me because of what you’d done. I thought you’re probably waiting for me.
I stopped walking then, because suddenly my heart started beating too fast, and as I stood there on the High Street, catching my breath and looking at all the Easter eggs stacked in the window of Poundland, I suddenly knew what I was going to do.
I love Easter Eggs – the colourful boxes and shiny foils and the feeling you get when you unwrap them and see the egg there for the first time, smooth and perfect and just waiting to be smashed into great long shards of melting deliciousness. And even though I thought this would be the first year I wouldn’t get one (because Mum and Gary wouldn’t get me one, would they? They were so thrilled to be together again, they probably wouldn’t even notice it was Easter), it didn’t matter – because it’d be the first year I’d get you one.
I chewed my cheek, looking at them all and wondering which one you’d like most and thinking I’d better choose quick the way people kept swiping them off the shelves. Then I saw a bin at the end of the aisle – one of those big metal mesh ones – and I went over and fished out one of the sacks of eggs that were in there to have a look. They were Cadbury’s Turkish Delight eggs! Mini ones, wrapped in gold foil with Turkish Delight-coloured splashes on them. I’d never seen Turkish Delight eggs before. I didn’t even know they made them. It was like magic – a massive, flashing, neon sign that everything was going to be OK – and I knew my idea to go back to you was a good one.
The next day I got up early, had a shower, put on my peach jumper and jeans, put China Bea in my pocket, got the Poundland bag with the Turkish Delight mini eggs in, and went out before Mum and Gary were up.
Because it was still pretty early, I decided to walk a different way to yours, along Rectory Road where Alice disappeared. I thought that, seeing as it was Easter Sunday, I’d look at all the flowers people had put there because I’d only seen them on telly.
The police were there – four of them – standing spread out along the middle of the road. They were wearing those bright yellow see-in-the-dark vests, even though it wasn’t dark, stopping cars and bending down to talk to the drivers through their windows. One of them saw me, but I don’t know if he knew who I was. Maybe he did, but it’s hard to tell because people stare at me anyway.
There were signs out on the pavements too. They said:
WE ARE APPEALING FOR WITNESSES.
CAN YOU HELP US?
ABDUCTION
ON SUNDAY 2nd APRIL
AT APPROXIMATELY 6.45 P.M.
A 15-YEAR-OLD SCHOOLGIRL WAS
ABDUCTED ON RECTORY ROAD
DID YOU SEE OR HEAR ANYTHING?
PLEASE CALL US WITH ANY INFORMATION
There was a phone number at the bottom in red. I realised then that it was two weeks since Alice had disappeared. It didn’t feel like two weeks. It felt much longer – as if she’d been gone for months and months, like maybe she’d never really been here at all and had only ever existed in my head.
There were so many flowers, it was crazy – hundreds and hundreds of bunches, all in their plastic or paper wrappers, some of them new, some all wilted and brown. And there were cuddly toys and candles and cards, too. I read some of them. I didn’t touch any of it, though. I didn’t want to. Then I looked round, thinking how this was the last bit of world she would’ve seen – at least, the last bit before she’d have been too frightened to look properly. It wasn’t a very nice last place to see – just an empty football pitch, a wire fence and a road.
That policeman was still looking at me. I thought about making my eyes all starey back at him, but then I thought I’d better not. I thought there’s probably some law about making starey eyes at policemen, even if they were staring at you first and I definitely didn’t want to get arrested, so I just walked on without looking back till I got to the footpath that leads to your estate.
You weren’t in, and you couldn’t have been pretending to be out because Bea doesn’t do pretending and would’ve been barking her head off.
&nb
sp; I put the Poundland bag on the step, opened the letterbox and looked in at the hall. It was so empty, so still. I couldn’t even hear the cuckoo clock. I thought maybe you’d taken it down to paint the wall, and stepped into the nettles by the stone Scottie dog in your flowerbed to look through the window. I had to cup my hands to block out the light so I could see in.
The front room looked exactly like it had when you’d told me to leave, the clock still on the wall, the ladder in the same place in the far corner, half the china dogs on the hearth, and the walls – no more painted than when I’d been in there telling you you couldn’t sell the house.
And then suddenly I knew why you weren’t there. You weren’t there because you’d gone – because you weren’t coming back.
‘Are you alright there?’
I turned round. An old man was standing on the pavement with one of those tartan shopping bags on wheels meant for women. He was smiling at me and nodding at the house. ‘Locked out, are you?’
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I could only stand and stare at him.
‘Oh, right you are,’ he said after a few seconds, backing off, wagging his finger to show me he understood it was none of his business, that he hadn’t meant to pry.
I suppose, any other time I’d have said something or at least smiled at him, but I couldn’t move. I could only stand and watch him walking away with his trolley, thinking you’ve gone, and feeling like the whole world had gone.
I went down the side of the house, leaving your eggs on the doorstep. I thought it didn’t really matter if someone took them now. I trailed my hand along the wall and told myself I should be happy that you’d gone, that at least the police would never find you and that even though it meant I’d never find you either, it was a good thing. Even though I’ll never see you again, I thought, never cuddle Bea . . .
I stopped at the side door to the kitchen and looked through the frosted glass. For a second I thought I saw something move behind it, but it was only my shadow. Everything was so still. Even the leaves on the tree that grows over your garage were just hanging there, limp. I leant my forehead on the cold glass of the door and listened to a bird singing, a motorbike revving its engine somewhere and driving off.
The garden looked the same as it had the last time I’d stood on the patio – overgrown grass, trees and bushes at the bottom, dog poo and roll-up butts everywhere. It didn’t feel the same, though. It felt abandoned – empty and forgotten. I didn’t look in through the kitchen window on purpose. I wanted to keep it how it was in my mind, with you standing at the worktop and pouring Coke from a can into two glasses. I don’t know why, but I knew if I saw the kitchen without you in it, I’d start crying. And what was the point in crying?
I picked one of the daisies hidden in the grass and wandered down the flattened grass path, pulling its petals off one by one and rolling them under my fingernails till they turned into a sticky mush. I remembered the cat and whistled for it in case it was somewhere nearby. If it was, it didn’t come.
I looked down at the pile of blackened wood and ash and kicked at it, moving a charred branch with the end of my trainer. It looked like some material had been burnt there – a brown rug – maybe something that’d belonged to your mum that you’d cleared out. I stepped forward into the ashes and pulled up the lid of the barbeque. It opened like a bread bin, the front half of the lid going up and over inside the back.
There was another pile of black, burnt stuff inside – paper mostly, in a big wad like it was from a book, the cover all twisted and black like tar that’d melted then gone hard again. I touched it to see if it was warm, even though it was obvious it wasn’t, then picked out a bit of the charred paper. It felt nice – sort of silky – and I stood, rubbing it gently in my fingertips till it disintegrated into a grey dust.
I looked across the fences on either side of the garden and called for the cat again. I thought, I bet it can hear me. I thought, if I keep calling, eventually it’ll have to come, even if it doesn’t want to, just to shut me up. I picked up a twig and poked around in the barbeque – poked at the hard cover. Then I saw a scrap of white paper, caught in the back corner behind the lid. It was only small, a few centimetres across, and it came free easily.
I turned it over.
It was one of the flowers from Alice’s sketchbook – one of the flowers she’d drawn in the corners to show the page numbers. The petals were burned on one side, but otherwise it was undamaged. It was page 64, the number in its centre drawn in the same fine, flowing lines as the heart I’d kept in Alice’s Box.
I think I stood there in your garden for a long time, the trees and sky swimming slowly round me. Then I went back along your driveway to the front of the house and sat on your doorstep. The eggs were still there, but I didn’t eat them. I just picked at some moss and then, after a while, because I didn’t seem to be thinking about anything, I wondered what I thought about finding Alice’s sketchbook. I supposed it wasn’t exactly a shock, even though everything looked strange now – the grass too green, the clouds too low – and when I held out my hands, they shook like crazy. I mean, I knew you’d done it, didn’t I? From the second I saw you, I thought. I always knew.
I thought maybe I should go back to Gary’s, go somewhere, but there was nowhere else to go. Nowhere else I’d rather be. It made me think of Spock, his hand sliding down the glass in the scene where he dies, telling Captain Kirk, ‘I have been, and always shall be, your friend,’ and I thought, even if you’ve gone, I’m still happiest here. I thought I’d just stay on your step and eventually – even if it took days – someone would call the police. It wouldn’t matter if they worked out then that it was you that had killed Alice, because you’d be far away, living under some different name, going on morning runs along a beach with Bea, the sun rising over the sea. I don’t know why I thought you’d be doing that, because I’ve never seen you run and you’re always smoking. I suppose because that’s what it’d be like if it was a film. Anyway, whatever you were doing, you’d be far away, safe. And I wouldn’t care about going to prison for perverting the course of justice, because at least then I’d belong somewhere, and the other people in prison couldn’t hurt me like Mum and Gary had.
I looked at Alice’s burnt flower and thought about how lovely she was, how she’d looked when she laughed in that light, happy way of hers and how, when she was writing in class, her hair always slipped forward and fell round her book. I couldn’t help smiling, remembering her, and then an incredible thought popped into my head right out of nowhere – a thought that should’ve popped into my head before, but hadn’t. It was about the moment I’d said I was trying to protect her from a man. I thought if Beth and Sophie and Katy heard me say it, Alice must’ve heard me say it too! I thought, she’d have thought about me saying that when you took her, wouldn’t she? It would’ve been the first thing she thought. It might even have been the last. She’d have known I was never stalking her. She’d have known I really was trying to protect her, just like I said . . .
And then suddenly the sun came out, bathing me in orange warmth, and I looked up, closing my eyes against the brightness so that when I opened them again I couldn’t tell if it was really you and Bea standing on the pavement across the road, or if it was in my head, like a mirage.
I blinked and looked again, shielding my eyes. You were still there – not walking but standing and looking at me. And Bea was barking.
I couldn’t help crying then – crying and laughing because you were there, you hadn’t gone – and I stood up, using your door to steady me because my legs were wobbly and my bum was numb from your step. You were crossing over to me, Bea straining on her lead. I saw you glance at the bag with the Easter Eggs in it, then bend down to unclip Bea’s lead.
She rushed forward, jumping up on me, nearly knocking me over she was so pleased to see me. I stroked her head and rubbed her sides and said, ‘Hello, little Bea,’ and then tears were blurring everything again so I didn’t see y
ou walk past me.
You unlocked the door and stepped inside.
I turned to face you. I said, ‘I thought you’d gone.’
You were looking down at the key in your hand, turning it over and over. Then you looked at me.
‘You’re not selling the house?’ I said. I couldn’t breathe. I daren’t breathe. Because even though you weren’t saying anything, the way you were standing there, looking at your key, looking at me – you were sharing your secret with me – sharing Alice. Not outright. Not openly. You weren’t saying, I killed Alice, but that’s what you were telling me, what your eyes were saying. I’d never imagined this moment, never prepared for it, but it was so beautiful I can’t even explain. Before, it was like I knew that you had Alice and everyone else was looking for her. Now, though . . . now it was like I knew you had Alice and you knew that I knew. It was like we had Alice.
‘No one knows,’ I whispered, wiping the tears off my cheeks, and I smiled at you.
You looked down at the key in your hands again, then your eyes flicked up to mine – dark and wonderful – and I felt sick and dizzy. It was like the strands of our auras were reaching out to each other, pulling and twisting and intertwining, locking us together.
‘Are you coming in?’ you said.
The kitchen was still pretty clean, but there were dirty dishes and pans piled up next to the sink and breadcrumbs and orange stains like tomato soup on the worktop.
You opened the cupboard Bea’s food used to be in. There was a new bag of pasta in there and a four-pack of tinned tomatoes. Then you closed it and opened the one I’d moved her food to and took out a tin, smiling because you’d got it wrong, I think – because you still hadn’t got used to how I’d rearranged things. You didn’t look at me, though.
Things We Have in Common Page 20