“I can’t let you in, Rose,” he said. “He’s under arrest.”
Rose tried to push past him. “Is he okay though? Is he going to be all right?”
But she’d already heard it. The heart monitor. It was beeping in a steady rhythm. He was alive.
“I don’t know—the doctor said he’s optimistic,” Baz said, holding her arms.
She twisted around and got a glimpse of Will through the small window. He was lying on the bed, cords and tubes connected to his body. She couldn’t see his face.
“Did Frank do that?” he asked her, seeing the top of the dark bruise on her chest that her T-shirt didn’t cover.
She pushed him off her. If he wasn’t going to let her through, she wouldn’t bother speaking to him.
“Rose? Did he do something to you?” Baz called, as she slowly made her way back to the elevator. But she ignored him. Optimistic. That was good. Surely that meant Will was going to be okay. She pressed the elevator button and waited, trying to think of a way she could get past Baz.
The doors opened, and she got in next to a man in a hospital gown with bandages over his face. Doctors didn’t say optimistic unless they really meant it. It was part of their jobs to be careful about people’s feelings, she was sure.
“Rose?”
She looked up; the word had come from the man standing next to her. The voice sounded so familiar, with its slight English accent.
“God, you look almost worse than I do,” he said. “I’ve just been up at Dental to see about some new teeth.”
“Steve?”
* * *
Later, when her mother had left for work and Rob had gone out with Laura for a talk, Rose sat in front of her computer. She stared into a white square, the empty document on her computer screen. Writing usually made her feel powerful, but she’d never felt so helpless. Damien wanted an end to the story, and last night, it had ended.
Her fingers rested on the keyboard. There were grazes across her knuckles, the red bright against her skin. Underneath each of her fingernails, the dirt and muck were still trapped. A curved line of black against the cream. Her left wrist was swollen and red. Shaking, she called Damien. She forced her voice to be steady as she told him about what Frank, Mia and Baz had done to Will.
He let out a long sigh, then asked, “Do you have any evidence?”
“No. Apart from him being in the hospital. Isn’t that evidence?”
“Did anyone else see all this? Anyone that wasn’t involved?”
“Only me.”
“The thing is, Rose,” Damien said slowly, “we’ve already covered the police-brutality angle. It worked with the video—people like a bit of blood. But throwing an accusation like torture at them with nothing to back it up isn’t a good idea. It won’t sell enough papers to make up for a potential lawsuit.”
But it’s the truth! she wanted to yell, but she stopped herself.
The truth didn’t matter; she knew that now. The facts had been decided, the truth meant nothing and her voice was powerless. What had happened with Steve should have taught her that. People didn’t care about human life like she’d thought they did. People cared about purity. They cared when something unexpected happened, something that confirmed the deep-seated fears they already held. They wanted black and white, someone was good or someone was bad, and nothing in between. Or at least that was what the papers thought that they wanted; it was all they were willing to give. If something didn’t sound good in a headline, it wasn’t news. And if something wasn’t news, it didn’t count.
“Rose?” he asked down the line. “So have they arrested this guy? That could be an easy way of wrapping it all up. Then you can get over here and start your cadetship, leave all this crap behind you.”
“I’ll send you something soon,” she told him and said goodbye.
Her throat contracted, squeezing so she almost couldn’t breathe as she began to type.
LOCAL POLICE SOLVE MYSTERIOUS
CASE OF PORCELAIN DOLLS
by Rose Blakey
The local police of Colmstock are being hailed as heroes, as the man who terrorized the tight-knit community who titled himself The Doll Collector has been apprehended. William Rai, a thirty-two-year-old graphic designer, was discovered to be the source of the terror. He violently resisted arrest, leading to the officers being forced to take drastic action.
The people of Colmstock are relieved to know they can return to their safe, peaceful lives.
She looked at the words on the screen. They would get her out of here, once and for all. They’d get her to safety. Slowly, she put her hand on the mouse and clicked Delete.
Damien wanted a story, but it didn’t have to be this one.
45
“I know this is hard to talk about, Mrs. Riley—”
“Liz.”
“I know you’ve had a real shock, Liz, but I need to know what happened.”
Elizabeth Riley wasn’t listening to Frank as he spoke. Instead, she was watching her children play together. A sight she had thought she’d never see again. Ben was lying on the carpet and her daughter, Carly, was tickling his feet. They were both letting out loud whoops of laughter. It was the best sound in the world.
“I need to know where you took your son, and why.”
She looked back at Frank. He was talking to her harshly, but quietly, looking around the room filled with women and children. He obviously didn’t feel very comfortable being the only man in a women’s refuge.
“I didn’t take him anywhere.”
Now she had her children somewhere safe, she definitely wasn’t going to be confessing to anything.
“That’s not what Ben said,” Frank continued, in that same low voice. “He told us quite a story about a place full of nuns. I’m thinking that you took him to a Catholic home, somewhere out of town.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked. Since she’d left her husband, her confidence was beginning to trickle back. This was her second chance. When she called the refuge and they’d said yes, they actually did have a room for her this time, it had been a sign. If her husband had found out what she’d done, he really would have killed her.
“I know about your husband’s temper, ma’am.”
“That’s a very polite way of putting it.”
“I know that he was rough with you and the kids, especially Benny.”
“If you knew all that, why didn’t you do anything about it?”
Frank shifted again, uncomfortably, looking around at the sea of women.
“I—”
“Please, I don’t want to hear any more about recourses.”
Liz stopped herself. She was about to get upset; she was about to talk about the way Ben had felt the full force of her husband’s “temper,” about how she was sure that it was he who had caused Ben’s brain damage. She would tell him how she’d started moving on, rebuilding her life, met a nice guy. About the morning her ex-boyfriend had turned up on her doorstep, saying he’d changed, and somehow she’d believed him. She slipped under his spell again. She would tell Frank how she hadn’t known she was pregnant. How she tried to hide the vomiting, cover the growing weight around her stomach. How when he found out he beat her so badly she almost miscarried.
How she knew if she didn’t pretend Ben was dead, he really would be soon enough.
But telling him those things wouldn’t help the situation.
“Listen, I’m on your side here,” Frank said. “I just want to understand what’s happened.”
Ben let out another whoop of laughter, and the other mothers looked over and smiled. The sun was streaming through the living room window, where the women sat around, drinking tea, talking quietly. It was the most serene place she’d ever been. Frank shouldn’t be here.
“How about I tell you what I think?” he said.
“If you like.”
“Okay.” His eyes were fixed on hers now, trying to intimidate her. “I think you hid Ben away somewhere, for protection. I think you staged the fire, tried to pass it off as the arsonist’s doing to cover your tracks, and it got out of control. You didn’t mean the courthouse to catch, and you definitely didn’t mean for your own business to catch. Am I on the right trail?”
Liz looked back at him carefully. The guy smelled like her husband. That sweet smell of yesterday’s drink trying to escape through his pores. The smell of mint chewing gum to cover up the swig he’d had in the car outside. He had the glassiness of his eyes, the same redness on his nose. And there was that same shadow on his face when he looked around at the women.
“Not at all.”
Which was true. He was not on the right track. Liz had definitely intended the courthouse to light up; that was why she’d doused it in gasoline. If it had just been the shed, it might have been obvious. And she’d definitely meant for their milk bar to go up in flames; she only wished the roof had caved in. They would have got more insurance that way.
When her husband was apologizing, when he was promising he’d never lay a hand on her or Ben ever again, he’d say it was the job that was making him so angry. He said if it weren’t for the job, for the long hours, for the income that barely covered their mortgage, then he’d stop. But he hadn’t kept his word.
Her former boyfriend was meant to have come and picked up Ben from the convent where she’d left him, but he hadn’t. She’d written him a letter one morning when things were really bad, when she could barely get out of bed she was so sore. He checked her phone records; he read all her emails. A letter was the only way. Perhaps Will never received the second letter she’d sent, perhaps he’d never received either of them, or maybe he wasn’t as good a guy as she’d remembered.
It didn’t matter anymore. They had a room for her and the children at the refuge now, and her husband had no idea how to find her. All her prayers had been answered.
“You told us that the children had been lighting the fires. Didn’t they light another one last week near the lake? I heard you were there. You witnessed it.”
He let out a patronizing sigh, and the grog smell blew into her face.
“Mouthwash,” she said, unable to stop herself.
“Excuse me?”
“That gum you’re chewing isn’t covering the booze on your breath. Mouthwash is the only thing that does the job. Trust me. When I smelled mouthwash, I knew it was time to duck.”
She held his gaze, not letting the resentment that was all over him scare her. She was sick of being scared.
“Thanks for your time, Mrs. Riley,” Frank said, getting up.
“Liz,” she said.
She didn’t show him the door; he could make his own way out. Instead, she clambered down onto the carpet with her children and joined in on their tickle fight. Little fingers rubbing her feet, her underarms, smiling at her hopefully, waiting for a reaction. So she let herself. She let herself laugh. Really truly, honestly laugh. No one was going to hush her now.
* * *
Frank took a deep swallow from his bottle as soon as he got in the car. That bitch thought she knew him, but she had no idea. She was just like all the rest of them at the refuge, playing the victim as though they had no choice in who they married, no choice in it when they stuck around.
She’d torched half of Union Street, tried to make it out that it was the kids and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Then she had the balls to tell him off for drinking? No wonder Mr. Riley couldn’t keep his fists to himself.
Screwing the lid back on tight, he threw the bottle of bourbon into his glove compartment, then turned his keys. He’d left his car out in the sun and the leather of the steering wheel was searing hot; he could barely even touch it. Winding down the window, he put the car into Reverse. He gripped the wheel with his knees and swerved backward, then changed to Drive and floored it out of the parking lot.
Since Rose had got that bullshit article published in Sage, that second note that he now knew the bitch had written herself, there’d been an influx of visitors in town. The road that turned off from the highway to Colmstock was usually his; he could do any speed he wanted without having to worry about idiots slowing him down. Now there was always someone driving like an old woman in front of him. Hack journalists wanting their piece of the pie, religious groups looking for a cause, children’s groups trying to find a new level of outrage, they were all here. More than anything he wanted to expose Rose for the hack bitch she’d turned out to be. All of this, everything, was her fault.
It would feel so great to arrest her. To pull her wrists behind her back and cuff her, pull them tight and hear her squeal. But Frank wasn’t stupid enough to do that; if he told the chief the truth about Rose the case against William would be almost nonexistent.
A cane toad crouched in the road a few meters away. It faced Frank, the road glinting in the sun all around it, its neck blowing out like bubble gum. Frank accelerated, heard the pop under his tires as it exploded underneath the car.
There was a girl riding a bike on the side of the road way ahead. That wasn’t something you saw every day around here. As though summoned from his daydream, he saw that it was her. Rose. Her hair was blowing back behind her; a backpack was sitting heavy on her back. Pushing the bike to go faster, she was standing on the pedals, her arse up in the air. He had no idea what she was doing out here; nothing much was in bike-riding distance apart from the old Auster’s factory.
Frank swerved toward her, squeezed the brake and pressed the horn down hard, and laughed as her shoulder clenched, as she veered off the road awkwardly, almost falling off the bike completely. Her foot hit the ground hard to stop herself.
Rose turned and caught his eye as he slowed. Just because he couldn’t arrest her didn’t mean he was done with her. He was just biding his time. He’d make sure she got what she deserved, one way or another. Looking around, he saw there were no other cars on the road. No witnesses. He turned sharply.
She didn’t race away, just stood, feet on the ground, her slut legs either side of the bike seat. Bet she enjoyed riding that thing. Her arms were dirty too, as if she’d been clambering around a junk site.
As he reached for his door handle, he saw her turn, her eyes squint. A bright light appeared from the other end of the road. It was the sun bouncing off the windscreen of a car coming toward him. Frank pulled back onto the road. He’d get her. Now wasn’t the time, but it would come.
Frank parked outside the station. He had to fill in the chief about his pointless interview with Mrs. Riley. Once that was over, he would knock off. It was early, but he’d done more than enough over the last months. He’d say he was going to do recon or something.
Taking just one swig from the bottle, he got out of his car, tossing a piece of mint chewing gum into his mouth. He wondered if he’d remembered to put deodorant on this morning; he could smell his own musty perspiration strangely and his underarms felt more damp than usual. Mornings were a bit of a haze these days. It didn’t matter anyway; he’d be home again soon enough.
He waved hello to the front desk as he buzzed his way inside. As he walked past the interview room something made him look over. Maybe it was intuition, or that instinctual pull that cops in films were always harping on about. At first he didn’t recognize the man. It was more the receding hairline and the impossibly shiny scalp that he identified, rather than the face. The nose was covered in a large strip of white gauze; each bloodshot eye was shadowed with a bluish-yellow crescent; the mouth had black stitches on each side, as though the whole thing was a gash to be sewn up. But none of that was the worst of it. The worst was when Steve saw him, when they locked eyes, and before he had a chance to look away,
Steve’s face broke into a jagged broken-toothed smile.
Frank almost ran into the chief’s office.
“What the hell is Cunningham doing here?” he asked.
“He has some information for us,” the chief said, not looking up from the piece of paper in front of him. “Apparently the council has had some people come forward confidentially.”
Frank nodded. “Sure, but does he have to come in here? The guy looks like something out of a horror film.”
The chief looked up at him then. “How’d you go with Mrs. Riley?”
Frank filled him in and kept his eyes on his feet as he walked out. Last thing he needed to see was that face again. Sure as shit he’d have a nightmare about it tonight as it was.
He got back in his car and got the hell out of there. Every intersection he stopped at, he considered getting the bottle out of his glove box for a sip. He resisted, even though his hands felt shaky.
He knew he should be stopping by the mine, seeing if there were any updates or progress. It was still alight. There was enough oil shale down there that apparently the fire could keep on burning, indefinitely, under the surface of the town. The area was cordoned off and firefighters and engineers from all over the region were milling around it, trying to control the blaze. He couldn’t bear to go and see it again right now, to watch as Colmstock’s last chance burned away beneath them.
After pulling into his driveway, he left the bottle in the car for tomorrow—he had another in his room—and slammed his car door. Hopefully his mum would have started cooking already. It wasn’t even five o’clock and he was starving.
“Is that you, Francis?”
“Yeah,” he said, closing the door behind him. It was good to be home.
“Come in here—we have a visitor.”
Frank rounded the corner, expecting to see one of the old Nonnas his mother was friends with sitting on the sofa opposite her. It wasn’t. Sitting in his house, on his sofa, directly across from his mother, was Rose.
“Hey, Frank,” she said and smiled.
He stood rooted to the spot. How much of that bourbon had he drunk today?
Little Secrets Page 26