Tell-Tale

by Sam Hayes

  ‘I’m not letting you out until you tell me how you knew Miss Eldridge’s first name.’ Adam is quite calm about my kidnapping, but still angry nonetheless. He pushes up his white shirt sleeves, feeling the heat too, and leans sideways on the door. ‘I’m quite happy to stand here for the rest of term if need be.’

  I curse in my head. I refuse to show him I’m bothered. I can’t allow Adam to think he can unravel my past to patch up his own.

  ‘OK,’ I say finally. I’ve whipped up a vague story that will no doubt knit itself into believable form once the words leave my lips. Over the last two decades, I’ve become adept at fabricating just enough truth from too many lies. Tell the same tale enough times and it becomes reality. ‘I’ll tell you.’

  Adam melts away from the door with relief. He plants himself on the bed in a cloud of smoke and waits for me to speak.

  It’s like this, I hear in my head, although the words don’t actually come out. Years ago, I knew someone who had an aunt working at Roecliffe Children’s Home. Turns out that was Miss Eldridge. I met her at a fundraising event and . . .

  ‘Adam, I . . .’ My mouth is dry. I sit down on the desk chair. The cushion is scrunched and lumpy beneath me. I pull it out and hug it to my chest. I used to work with someone who was brought up in the children’s home. She once mentioned Patricia Eldridge’s name. That’s all. Nothing sinister.

  I dig my fingers into the feathers. My mouth is open, gulping like a goldfish, but nothing comes out. I stare into his eyes. Those colouring-pencil blue eyes leach the lies from me. I am captivated and mesmerised, drowning in the truth as it fights for a voice. I see his sister. Hear her calling out through the years. I am the link between them. If I tell one more tale, they will be lost from each other forever. I take a deep breath. It comes out in slow motion.

  ‘Adam, my father dumped me at Roecliffe Children’s Home when I was eight. I lived here for ten years.’

  A hurricane rushes through me, purging, destroying, cleansing. The noise is deafening, almost preventing what spills out next. ‘I knew your sister. I was the one who looked after Betsy. I was virtually her mother.’

  Adam says nothing for twenty minutes. He chainsmokes, lighting one cigarette before the other is out, head cupped in his hands, ash falling to the floor. I see the soul leaking out of him, all the pent-up anger and frustration draining out through the hole I have just made in his life.

  I hug the cushion closer, desperate for protection. ‘No one else knows.’

  He looks up from the ashtray mug he’s clutching between his knees. He coughs – a fake one because he doesn’t know what to say.

  It’s not just about Adam and his sister any more. It’s about me wanting to be me. I don’t want to lie about my past or think in twists and turns any more. I want to hear the sound of my heart beating inside my own chest. ‘I’ll have to leave Roecliffe,’ I blurt out, realising the implications. ‘I can’t stay now that I’ve told you.’ My hand rises to my mouth, my fingers splaying and pulling at the skin on my cheeks. What have I done?

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ll have to kill me now?’ Adam is unduly flippant. ‘Don’t be stupid, Frankie. You’re not going anywhere.’ He stands, knocking over the cup of ash. He opens a cupboard to reveal more books. Tucked between them is a bottle of expensive-looking Scotch and several small shot glasses. ‘For emergencies. This is one.’

  I take my measure gratefully. I’m shaking.

  ‘So.’ He sits down again. We are only a foot apart. ‘Please understand when I tell you that I don’t know what to say.’

  I nod.

  ‘Also understand that I want to know more. Everything.’

  I nod again. The whisky burns my throat, loosening it, opening it up. Suddenly, it feels as if I am about to vomit up my entire life.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ I tell him. I can’t think of a better way to illustrate the past, at least while I’m still here to do it. He doesn’t understand the danger I’m in. ‘Follow me.’

  Adam extinguishes his cigarette and opens the small leaded window in his room. I lead him downstairs, through the corridors, through the dining hall and the great hall, down further corridors, up another two flights of stairs and confuse him by doubling back along a passage.

  ‘I’ve never been in this part of the building,’ he says from behind.

  ‘Not many people have. I sometimes come up here to fold the laundry. It’s quiet. There’s space.’

  ‘It’s cold,’ Adam comments. He’s right. The temperature has dropped by several degrees. We go through a brown painted door and into a room with two tall windows. Boxes and general forgotten rubbish are stacked over to one side, while the other half of the room is taken up by the table I dragged over for folding the sheets on. I also brought in one of the ironing boards and there’s an old armchair for when I take a break.

  ‘Looks like you’ve set up camp.’ Adam circumnavigates the room.

  ‘Stop right there,’ I tell him. ‘Step back a bit.’

  He squints at me, but does as he’s told. ‘That’s where her bed was. The head was under the window. She liked the morning sun on her face. She said it tickled her awake.’

  Adam turns and spreads his hands against the wall, as if touching the plaster will connect him with his dead sister. ‘Here? Really?’ he asks in a voice that tells me he needs to know everything.

  ‘There’s so much more,’ I say. There’s a battle raging in my head. Be quiet! Get out while you still can! The other tells me to not stop talking until I fall to the floor, spent, sobbing, empty of all the filth that I’ve carried around for so long. ‘Look at this.’ I rub my hand up and down the door frame. It’s not been painted in all these years. If the school gets bigger, they’ll strip it all off, redecorate, to accommodate more beds.

  ‘What is it?’ Adam bends and stares at the notches in the wood.

  ‘Betsy and me. When she first came here, I was about twelve and she was tiny. Only three or four. These grooves marked our heights back then. I did it to amuse her. The notches going that way are her, and these ones are me. See how she caught up with me as we got older?’

  Adam is suddenly upright, clinging to me, forcing the breath from me in an embrace that oozes gratitude and sadness. ‘Frankie, I don’t know what to say,’ he tells me. ‘This is the closest I have been to her for so long.’ He crouches by the notches again, running his fingers over the grooved wood.

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to have a knife in the bedroom. I got it from the kitchen.’

  He stares at me again. ‘This is immense. You telling me this is huge, you realise. What we do now, I don’t know.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do, Adam. It’s over. It’s gone.’ I think of everything else in my life that’s gone too, wondering how much I need to involve Adam in that. ‘It’s history.’

  Adam shakes his head. ‘But you will tell me everything about her, won’t you?’ Panic sweeps over him. ‘You can’t dangle the bait then whip it away.’

  ‘It’s not bait, Adam. It’s the truth. Telling it is hard. I don’t know what made me say this much.’ Then I realise it’s because I like him. I like him a lot. But I don’t tell him this.

  He frowns, not understanding. His focus soon turns back to Betsy. ‘I’ll tape everything you say, make notes.’ He claps his empty hands by his sides. ‘I need to plan questions and interview—’

  ‘Adam, stop. It’s not going to be like that.’ I reach back my hands to knot my hair – a stress habit – but, as usual, I find it’s not there. ‘I’m serious when I say that I can’t stay at Roecliffe. There are things about me you can’t know, don’t want to know. I will help you, really I will, but it has to be on my terms. And I would like to read your book.’

  Adam nods vigorously. ‘Of course.’ He’s weighing it all up, pacing himself for the dump of information he’s going to get. He knows there’ll only be one chance. He wants to get it right. ‘Come with me,’ he says solemnly. ‘I’ll g
et you my computer immediately.’

  I am alone in my room with Adam’s warm laptop resting on my legs. He handed it over as if it was his firstborn child, telling me how to find the file, to read it as quickly as possible. But first things first. I log on to my staff account and waste no time in getting online. I sign in to Afterlife and see that I have a string of messages.

  The first one asks when I will be online again. An hour later, dramaqueen-jojo messaged me again, wondering where I was. At regular intervals after that, she’d come online looking for me, leaving comments, seeking out her old friend Amanda. Then I click the link that tells me she’s sent chocolates. Thanks, the message reads. For being like me.

  I’m halfway through typing a reply, telling her that I’ll be around for the rest of the evening, realising that it’s already late and she probably won’t be up anyway, when her icon flashes live and a message box pops up.

  -Mand, she says. finally.

  -Hello, I type, abandoning my other words. How r u?

  -lol still alive. u?

  -still alive, I say, wishing that I was. Kids are resilient, I tell myself.

  -i took ur advice. i went to my doc.

  -that’s good josie, I say.

  -jojo, she corrects. I’m jojo now.

  She’s trying to reinvent herself. -What did the doctor say?

  -gonna see a counsellor. a shrink. I’m a screw up thanks to her.

  -thanks to who?

  -who do u think? my mother.

  My fingers freeze, quivering slightly over the keys. There’s nothing I can say that will take away her pain.

  -how’s ur dad?

  -obsessed

  -with what?

  -this man keeps coming to our house.

  -who?

  -man who buys dads pictures. dad needs a rest.

  My chest tightens. -tell me more. Oh God, this can’t be happening.

  -he paints loads of these stupid pictures 4 this man.

  -can’t you and your dad go away for a while?

  -LOL fat chance.

  -why not? I ask.

  -dad says he has massive debts to pay.

  I frown. Debts? I don’t understand. -Josie, I need you to listen to me very carefully. You and your dad have to get away for a while. Tell him to rent a house by the sea. Somewhere nice. He can paint there. It’ll do you both good.

  He said he’d leave them alone.

  -wot u on about?

  I hate it that I am remotely pulling strings; still trying to influence shattered lives.

  -When my mum died, that’s what me and my dad did. My fingers fly through the lie. Dad took six months off work. We went away. Spent time together. It helped us grieve. It might work for you.

  -my dads not like that. he barely speaks now. feel like running away on my own.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply out loud. ‘Run away as fast as you can. But please, take your father with you.’ But she can’t hear me. I pray it wasn’t all in vain.

  -what if I came to stay with you? she types.

  Then all would be well, I think, forcing myself to type the words, -you can’t.

  CHAPTER 45

  Later, alone, Nina knew she had to act. It was never going to end. He’d threatened Josie. Twenty years in prison didn’t change people like him.

  Josie was safe in bed. Mick was, of course, working. He’d said angrily that she didn’t – couldn’t possibly – understand. She’d wanted to say exactly the same to him. She’d been down to his studio, to apologise, but he’d locked himself in. ‘I’ll be finished soon,’ he called through the door. That was hours ago.

  In the bedroom, Nina gripped her phone. She toggled through the received calls list to Jane Shelley’s number. If I tell her everything – names, dates, facts – she thought, then she’ll have to log my call into the system. The names involved in the case would flash a beacon to anyone in the force interested in my whereabouts. Trust no one, Mark McCormack had said. There may be more . . . How, she wondered, could she have even trusted Mark?

  Back then, Nina hadn’t understood, couldn’t comprehend the depth and breadth of the network being smashed up by the police, all the arrests and convictions nationwide – police, teachers, judges, lawyers, fathers, doctors and brothers. If she had, she might have kept quiet in the first place.

  ‘Hello?’ Nina heard the tiny voice coming from the phone in her lap. She hadn’t realised she’d dialled Shelley’s number. She brought it up to her ear. ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Nina,’ she said quietly. ‘Nina Kennedy.’

  A pause, then, ‘Hi, Nina. How can I help?’ There was an experienced patience to her voice, coaxing Nina to spill everything she knew, to fall into the safe arms of the law, except she couldn’t be certain that those arms wouldn’t creep around her throat.

  ‘I was after some advice.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Protection.’ Nina faltered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is there a department that deals with this sort of thing?’

  Nina heard the waterfall of relief as Jane Shelley breathed out. ‘Of course, Nina. It’s what we do.’

  Nina remained cryptic, but felt she was getting somewhere. ‘I’ve had it before. To help me survive, to relocate. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘With your current husband?’

  ‘What?’ Nina said.

  ‘Was it because of your current partner or someone else?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Nina’s voice rang tight as a wire.

  ‘The abuse, Nina. You can’t live in shame. I’m so glad you’ve taken the first steps.’

  ‘No, no, you don’t understand.’

  ‘Actually, I do,’ Jane Shelley continued. ‘I’m going to send round a support officer. Someone who is trained to help you, plan the next steps—’

  ‘Don’t send anyone round. He’ll kill me!’ Nina’s heart pounded at the thought.

  ‘Then you need to come and see us. Is there a time when you can—’

  ‘No, no there isn’t. I was wrong to call. Please do not log this. Pretend I never rang.’ Nina fumbled with her phone until she managed to end the call. She buried her head and wept.

  Ethan Reacher was an old man. He’d retired from the business only when his body had forced him to quit. Occasionally, even in his eighties, he was called upon for advice by the big studios. Nina had been a favourite of his since the day she’d met him at the workshop. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Taking him at his word, she’d studied hard, got good grades, contacted him after she’d finished college. He was instrumental in helping her establish a name for herself. He held her hand through several movies, allowing her to work alongside him and his team on set.

  ‘You’ll never be out of work with my name on your CV,’ he said. And he’d been right. Nina’s reputation floated on having Reacher’s name in her past. He’d always been there for advice; only a phone call away. This time, though, Nina had driven all the way to London to visit him. She’d dropped Josie and Nat at a nearby cinema complex with strict instructions not to leave. She was certain she hadn’t been followed. It gave her time to talk to Reacher.

  ‘Sounds like a load of cornball to me.’ He wrung his hands in his lap.

  ‘No, honestly, it’s going to be great.’ Nina knew she sounded unenthusiastic about the fabricated movie she’d told him she was working on. ‘There’s a big budget. They’ve got some good names, and the script’s all finalised.’

  Reacher’s wheelchair wheezed up to the fridge. He pulled out a carton of milk and held it up to Nina. ‘Want some?’

  She shook her head and watched as Ethan poured himself a pint glass full and swigged the lot. ‘They said that I shouldn’t eat fatty food.’

  ‘Then why are you drinking full-cream milk?’

  ‘To help things along. You think I like living like this?’ He pressed the chair’s controls and cruised off, instructing Nina to follow. ‘It’s been done before,’ he told her. ‘But they’ll keep rehashing the s
ame old same old until the day I die.’

  Which won’t be long at this rate, Nina thought sadly. Reacher coughed as he scanned shelfloads of DVDs. ‘Up there,’ he said, pointing. ‘Pull down Leap. There’s a scene I want you to watch.’

  Nina found herself watching the end titles for a low-budget made-for-television adaptation of a little-known novel. ‘There. You see that?’

  Nina shook her head.

  ‘My name in black and white. Special effects advice Ethan Reacher.’ He pointed the remote at the machine and selected a certain scene. ‘Sued the pants off the bastards for that one. The only advice I offered them was to cut the damn scene entirely unless they could do it properly. If you ain’t got no stunt man, then less is more in your suicide scene.’ Reacher mimicked a fake Hollywood accent.

  ‘There’s no stuntman in my movie,’ she said solemnly. ‘The . . . the actress insists on doing it herself. For real.’

  ‘A woman?’ Reacher’s interest was kindled. ‘A bridge, you say? How high?’

  Nina swallowed. ‘About two hundred and fifty feet. Maybe a little more.’

  Reacher guffawed with laughter. ‘You’re having me on, right?’ Nina shook her head. ‘I want a front-row seat to the premiere then. This is going to be a box-office smash.’

  Reacher hit play and talked Nina through the scene. He paused and flicked backwards, illustrating over and over how not to create a convincing suicide jump. ‘That cut was wrong. Did you notice how attention was lost at the crucial moment? How our eye was drawn back to the car when it should have been focusing on the body? The car shot should have come later.’

  ‘But can you tell me about the stunt, the equipment, the conditions?’ Nina asked. She hadn’t come to find out how not to do it, or to learn about camera shots. ‘How can the actress do this and survive?’

  Again, Reacher roared his trademark laugh. Then he became serious and Nina waited for the pearl of wisdom she needed to make this work. ‘The only truly convincing suicides in this business, Nina honey, are the real ones.’

  CHAPTER 46

  The last time I saw Betsy alive, it was as if spring had wound its way through her veins. Even though it was November, even though there was a biting wind that sent our toes purple and numb, even though there was nothing at all to look forward to, her heart beat with the lightness of new life. The reason for Betsy’s happiness was because of an old piano. I’d convinced Patricia to have several of the caretakers drag it down the corridors from the storeroom where I’d found it.