by Julie Howlin
I felt Jonathan stiffen slightly. ‘That information isn’t much use to him unless you also got who killed her and where her body is,’ Jonathan said, smoothly. He was stroking my hair.
When I lay down again, and Jonathan began to snore softly, I frowned to myself. Before, when I had been resisting getting involved in police work, telling myself that I wouldn’t get information of any use, Jonathan had brushed it all aside and said I was perfectly good enough and should go for it. Now I’d taken his advice, he was echoing my own insecurities back at me. He sounded as disapproving as Daniel had been. It didn’t make any sense. I tossed and turned for ages and didn’t sleep again until I fell into a fitful slumber about an hour before the alarm went off. I felt like a wreck and had a splitting headache. I was going to have to phone in sick.
Jonathan said he would call the office for me, and that he would take the day off himself to take care of me. I told him there was no need - I was going to sleep all day anyway. At that point, I felt certain that was indeed what I wanted to do and he seemed to believe me. By the time he left for work, I was dead to the world.
I woke at noon with the words, ‘St Lawrence’s Church. Behind the grave of Samuel Morrison’ echoing in my head. I had no idea why. I didn’t know of any St Lawrence’s, and had never heard of Samuel Morrison. But I reached for my dream diary and wrote it down. Then I went back to sleep. This time, I dreamed of Daniel’s friend, Jenny Givens. I’d never met her, but she had come to my flat and was telling me, ‘It’s the same guy’ over and over.
When I woke again I realised that I had just the kind of information Jonathan thought Jamie would need. I reached for the phone.
22 jamie
Something wasn’t right. Something about that Jonathan guy just didn’t sit right, and I don’t think it was just because he’d appeared just as I’d decided to ask Tabitha out. I was glad he had, in a way. If he hadn’t, I would have made a proper fool of myself with Tabitha. I should have guessed a girl like her wouldn't stay single for long. I should have asked her if there was anyone new before taking the plunge. He saved my face, actually. But I didn’t like him. It’s understandable he’d be frosty with me - no doubt he could see I was hitting on Tabitha, but my dislike of him went deeper than that. I couldn’t explain it. It was what Maggie Flynn would have called a gut feeling. I wondered what she would have thought of Jonathan. Not much, I guessed.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t going to let the thugs who’d laid into Tabitha get away with it. I filed a request for the CCTV footage for her estate from Saturday night.
**
I was about to watch the tapes when Tabitha called. Monica was dead, she told me. She thought she knew how Monica died and where her body was. She agreed to come and see Mr and Mrs Harman in a few days and hopefully find some comfort for them. In the meantime, I called them myself and asked if there was a St Lawrence’s church anywhere near their home.
They said there was, so I sent a couple of constables round there to take a look. Sure enough, they found the body of a young woman, wearing football kit. Monica. There was one of those dolls lying on the grave - its head ripped off. Just like with all the others. Tabitha was spot on. I don't care what she says. She's bloody good.
The worst part of my job is calling on people and telling them someone they love has died. It never feels right, as a stranger, to be sitting in someone's living room and breaking their world apart. Mr Harman sobbed, and his wife wept silent tears. Then they offered me tea. I declined, and had to ask one of them to come in to formally ID their daughter's body.
**
When I got back to my office, I watched the CCTV tapes. I saw no gangs of youths on camera after about nine p.m. I saw Tabitha getting out of her cab, tottering on her high heels as she fumbled in her bag for the fare. I had to smile. It was obvious she'd had a few. Two shadowy figures followed her towards the stairwell, but they did not approach her. She did not appear to notice them. In fact, they were quite indistinct and I had to rewind several times trying to get a clear impression of them. Of a gang of five hooded youths, there was no sign at all. I watched Tabitha lurch from taxi to flat untouched. She had made it home in one piece. Whatever had happened to her did not happen on the estate on Saturday night. So why had she told me differently? Who was she protecting?
The answer came to me at once. A cop’s instinct, I guess, having attended numerous crime scenes where the victim refused to make any statement or completely fabricated it. I knew why I’d taken such an instant dislike to Jonathan. I was shaking with fury. I wanted to see the smug, controlling bastard behind bars as soon as possible. There wasn’t much I could do without hard evidence, though. I had to get Tabitha to admit what had really happened and only then could I throw the book at him. I reached for the phone.
Tabitha’s number was busy. Then I got a call from a colleague about a burglary and had no opportunity to try again until about seven in the evening. I left a message for her to call me as soon as she could and set out for home.
She never returned my call.
23 secrets and lies
The atmosphere was quite weird at group that night. I had the feeling Megan was going to raise some important issue, but when she saw the state of my face, she just stared. ‘My God, Tabitha, what happened to you?’
‘She was mugged,’ Jonathan answered for me.
‘God, that’s dreadful. On the estate?’
I nodded.
‘She’s going to put that flat on the market and move in with me,’ Jonathan said. I stared at him. It was the first I’d heard of it. Weren’t couples supposed to discuss this sort of thing in private first? After a year I might have considered it, but we had been together barely a month...
‘That’s probably best, my dear,’ Cynthia said.
‘Can we talk about this later?’ I said to Jonathan.
‘Of course, Darling. We need to make a start, now.’
I had been growing in confidence in the group and had lost my fear of speaking in the circle. So I did my best to make an intelligent contribution - but Jonathan's attitude to anything I had to say had changed. He dismissed everything I said with a condescending wave of his hand or a sarcastic remark. I felt like the class dunce and after a while, gave up and sat looking at my hands, wishing I was alone, so the tears of shame that welled in my eyes could be allowed to come out.
When they had all gone, I gathered the courage to challenge him.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he said, smoothly. ‘Psychic powers can fluctuate and weaken from time to time. They’re not constant, and we all have times when our instincts seem to fail us. You’re having one of those times right now. It’s nothing to worry about. It will come back.’
I opened my mouth to protest, and say that I had received very accurate information about Monica Harman, but Jonathan put his finger to my lips, and kissed me softly. ‘Sssh, now,’ he whispered. ‘Come to bed.’
**
We called at my flat on the way to work. Thumbelina was waiting by the door, mewing and rubbing against my legs. I went straight into the kitchen to feed her. As I put the bowl down, I thought I heard something. A muffled voice. I went into the living room just in time to see Jonathan pressing the delete button on my answerphone. ‘Was there a message?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Some bloke wanting to sell you insurance. I deleted it.’
‘There’s another,’ I said. He paled a little as I reached over and pressed play.
‘Tabitha, it’s Mum,’ came the voice. I sensed Jonathan’s relief and wondered what it was he had been frightened of. ‘Hope you’re okay. Please call me as soon as you can - Dad and I were wondering if you could have Amber on Saturday - Auntie Jean and Uncle Tom have asked us over for a whist drive. Let me know.’
‘If I have Amber,’ I told Jonathan firmly, ‘you’ll have to make yourself scarce. Mum won’t like it if we’re sleeping together in front of my little sister. Is that okay with you?’
To my surpri
se, he agreed.
My next issue was what to tell my parents about the bruises on my face. If I told Mum I had been mugged, she’d worry about me even more than she did already. It would start her off on how she never wanted me to live in London. She might not let Amber stay with me anymore. I peered at myself in the mirror. The bruises weren't gone, but they didn't look as angry as they had. Walking into a door might just be believable now. That was what I would tell them.
I was about to tell my family a different lie to my friends and workmates. If any of them were ever in the same room as each other I would always be afraid that they'd talk about it and find out the truth.
Jess and I once made a pact that we’d never let any man come between us, and now I was involved with a man who had forbidden me to see her. I was claiming to be busy most evenings, which was true, I suppose, and meeting up with Jess for lunch, instead. Work was the only place Jonathan seemed to allow me to go on my own. The only alone time I got was on the tube.
Jess called me a week after we'd drunk the wine at my flat.
‘You said you'd call me about that missing person case,’ she said. ‘You didn't.’
‘Sorry. I completely forgot.’ Not entirely true. I hadn't wanted to call Jess with Jonathan breathing down my neck, and I hadn't been left alone.
‘So?’
‘It wasn't good news. The girl was dead.’
‘That's sad. How's the face? Fit to be seen in public yet? Fancy a drink later?’
‘I can't do it tonight, sorry. I'm babysitting my sister.’
‘When, then? Next week?’
‘I don't know. I haven't got my diary with me. I'll have to call you back.’
‘Okay, whatever,’ Jess said, and I could tell that she believed I was breaking the pact.
I lied to Jonathan about what I did during the day, missing out the bits that would anger him. Lying to Jamie Swan was the worst of all, though. He was a policeman and so I was lying to the police, which could have dire consequences. I could get done for perjury or whatever they call it. Better to ignore the several messages from him asking me to call. If I didn't speak to him, I couldn't lie to him.
**
When my parents came over with Amber, I told them I had walked into a door. ‘Typical Tabitha,’ my mother had actually laughed. ‘Always the clumsy one. I’ll always remember you reaching for the Monopoly set that time from the shelf in the caravan. You dropped it and all the bits went everywhere. We never did find the little Scottie dog.’
I cringed, remembering how Caroline had whinged for years that her favourite playing piece was missing and it was all my fault. At least they believed me. Feeling confident and on a roll, I made up a story surrounding it. I’d been sent to get coffee for a meeting and the door to the supermarket had never, ever been closed, until this one particular day...
‘I hope you went to the doctor,’ Dad said. ‘Tell me you went to the doctor.’
‘Oh, Dad, it wasn't that bad. I didn't want to make a fuss about nothing.’
‘You could have been concussed,’ Mum said. ‘That can be really nasty, you know. It could have triggered a brain haemorrhage.’
‘Well, it didn't. I'm fine. Please, stop fussing over me! You'll be late for your whist drive.’
When the door closed behind them I turned to look at Amber and I realised it had not gone as smoothly as I had thought. She was sitting on my sofa, arms folded, a little frown on her face. ‘You were telling porky pies, weren’t you?’ she said.
‘Why do you think that?’ I asked.
‘It was the colours around you. They’re usually so pretty but they went all funny while you were talking.’
‘I see,’ I said. My sister was like Lorna. Like Lorna, she could see from my aura when I wasn't telling the truth. I tried to deflect her with a quick lesson. ‘There’s a name for those colours around people, you know. It’s called an aura, and...’
She wasn’t having any of it. ‘Why did you lie?’ she demanded.
I sighed and sat down beside her. ‘It’s complicated,’ I said. ‘It’s grown up stuff. You wouldn’t understand. Perhaps I’ll explain when you’re a bit older.’ Then I went on with my lesson. I told her that the colours mean different things - different colours in the aura represent different emotions - red might be anger, green jealousy, blue calm, and so on. I got her to tell me which colours appeared in my aura. Pink and purple, she said, only when I was lying, it went a kind of dirty mustard colour.
‘What does it mean when someone’s aura goes away?’ she asked suddenly.
Another topic I wasn’t sure I wanted to discuss with her. I knew that auras often diminished a few days before a person died. I read a really spooky story once about a man who could see auras. One day he went to get in a lift but as he stepped inside, something about the people inside it made him really uneasy - he couldn’t quite put a finger on why, but he didn’t like the feeling and so stepped out of the lift. As the doors closed, he realised what it was - none of the people in the lift had a visible aura. Moments later, the lift cable snapped and all those people fell to their deaths. Being able to see auras had saved this man’s life... But that was far too scary a story to tell Amber.
‘Have you seen that happen?’ I asked, hoping she wasn’t going to say that my aura had vanished.
‘It happened to Gran. We went to see her just before she went to Heaven and her colours were gone.’
I shivered. Amber had a clear talent for reading auras.
‘Tabitha?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m a whole half an hour older now - why did you lie?’
‘I meant a few years older.’ She pouted. Still, I had to admire her reasoning.
‘I know why you’ve got a poorly face. He did it, didn’t he?’
‘Who?’ I asked, even though I knew exactly what she would say.
‘Jonathan. He beat you up, didn’t he?’ There could be no secrets from a psychic child. ‘I don’t like him,’ she said. ‘His colours clash.’
I sighed. The only people who seemed to be keeping their noses out of my love life were my spirit guide and Jamie Swan. Dakota presumably wasn’t concerned with such things and Jamie probably didn’t think it was any of his business - but neither of them had said anything positive, either.
‘Why did Jonathan beat you up?’
‘He lost his temper,’ I said, carefully. ‘But he apologised and he won’t do it again. But grownups get really uptight about that sort of thing, which is why I didn’t tell Mum and Dad. So will you promise me you won’t say anything to them, or to Caroline?’
‘I promise,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
‘I saw Gran last night,’ Amber announced after a pause. That hurt. I still hadn’t seen her - she must still be angry with me.
‘Did she say anything?’
‘Yes. She said to tell you that you should have waited. You jumped too quickly and got it wrong.’
‘Got what wrong? Waited for what?’
‘I dunno. She just said to tell you that.’
I didn't have time to wonder what that meant.
‘What's a brain haemorrhage?’ Amber asked.
Before I could think of an answer the phone rang. I knew Amber would admonish me if I ignored it, as I would have done if I'd been alone. It was Jamie Swan. ‘Finally!’ he said. ‘I've been trying to get hold of you for days.’
‘I'm sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I've been very busy.’
‘Monica’s parents have been asking if they can see you,’ he said. ‘They've been quite insistent. Would you talk to them? Connect with Monica for them? Tomorrow if possible.’
‘I can certainly try,’ I said, relieved that he was not calling about what had happened to me. Perhaps he was going to leave it alone. My relief was short-lived.
‘There was something else,’ he said. ‘I asked for that CCTV footage.’ My heart hammered. He knew. ‘Bad news. There was footage of you but there’s none of the gang. A couple of the
cameras were out of order, the crucial ones, of course. So it seems that unless you get a psychic insight about the people who attacked you they’re going to be impossible to find.’
‘Typical of the council not to keep their cameras in working order,’ I said, feigning disappointment. ‘That’s a real pity.’
‘There were a couple of potential witnesses, though,’ he said. ‘There were a couple of guys on the tape. It wasn’t that clear but they looked like two big rugby players with blond hair. Did you see them? Do you know who they were? They must have seen something, so if you know who they are it’s probably worth asking them.’
‘Can’t say I do, I’m afraid,’ I said, but a shiver went up my spine. My guardian angels! They really did exist! They really did escort me through my dodgy estate! Pity they couldn’t protect me from the dangers in my own home.
‘Oh, well. I’ll see you tomorrow. We'll talk then.’
As soon as I replaced the receiver, it rang again. Jonathan. ‘Who were you on the phone to?’ he demanded, without even saying hello.
‘The police,’ I said. ‘Telling me that they couldn’t find any CCTV footage of the gang who attacked me.’
‘I thought we agreed we wouldn’t report it,’ he said, ominously.
‘I didn’t have any choice - showing up at Scotland Yard with GBH victim written all over me,’ I hissed.
‘We’ll talk later,’ he said, ‘but it looks like we might have to re-think your involvement with police work. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I said, but shuddered as I replaced the receiver. Amber was looking at me. ‘Why do you lie so much over the phone?’
‘What?’
‘You said it was a pity the cameras didn’t work, but you were glad, really. And you don’t love Jonathan anymore. You’re scared of him.’
‘Like I said, Amber, it’s complicated grown up stuff. You’re only a child - you can’t possibly understand about love between grownups.’