Out of the Depths

by Cathy MacPhail

  ‘She should have told my great-granny to take the picture out of the room,’ I said.

  ‘She couldn’t do that. Your gran was only a young girl then. She didn’t want to offend her mother-in-law. She thought she’d hurt her feelings. And anyway, you know your gran, she was sure she was just being silly. When you’ve just had a baby, you are terrified something’s going to happen to them. You get up in the middle of the night, just to make sure your baby’s still breathing. I think all new mothers do that.’ She smiled. ‘So … she decided it was her imagination. She’d just had a baby, her emotions were all over the place.’

  ‘But in the end, her baby did die,’ I said softly. And though I had never seen my great-grandmother’s old house, I could picture it. I was back there in that room, where my gran had slept. I could see the bed, the lamp, the crib, the picture above the bed, everything. I could feel the fear she must have felt too.

  ‘Joseph was rushed to hospital one night, and … after a few days … he died. The family were devastated. Your gran was so heartbroken. Then, one night after the funeral she was lying in bed and she looked up at the picture again … and Jesus wasn’t looking down at her any more. His eyes were turned to heaven, and His hands were held up, as if He was offering up something very precious. That’s the way your gran described it to me. As if He was offering up something very precious.’

  Mum squeezed my hand. ‘I’ve seen that picture, and that is exactly what it’s like. Yet, Gran swore those nights when she lay in bed with her baby that’s not what she saw. The picture changed.’

  ‘Didn’t she ask? Did she tell anyone?’

  ‘She told your grandad, but he said the picture had always looked like that. It was only her imagination. And she couldn’t bear to tell anyone else. Maybe I was the only other person she told, years later. It was only a few weeks before she died. I think other things were happening to her then and she thought she was going crazy too. I saw the expression on her face, whenever I would go and visit her, and it was just like yours, Tyler. She kept going on about that picture, and I think now she was trying to talk to me about those other things … And I didn’t listen to her … I couldn’t listen to her, the way I couldn’t listen to you. It always terrified me. Now I think perhaps your gran had some kind of gift, and she’s passed that gift on to you.’

  I thought about my gran. Had she been as terrified as me, with no one to confide in? I pulled my hand away from Mum’s. ‘You didn’t listen to her! You didn’t listen to me! How could you do that, Mum? You should have told me about this. I thought I was going mad.’

  Maybe Gran had thought that too. Alone. Sure madness was creeping up on her.

  Mum pushed her fist against her mouth. ‘It makes me so afraid, Tyler. You said you saw someone who was dead … and your gran tried to tell me that too. Someone was in the house with her … someone dead … and I thought … she’s just old, she’s imagining things … I wouldn’t believe her.’ Her eyes were filled with tears. ‘I was scared to believe her.’

  ‘But when I told you about Miss Baxter, why didn’t you tell me then.’

  She sniffed back a tear. ‘Because you were always one to tell stories, Tyler. When you were little you had an invisible friend, came everywhere with you. When we would go on holiday, you’d tell people we were on the run from the law. Always making up stories. Why should I have thought this was anything different?’

  ‘You should have told me about Gran!’ I snapped at her, and a second later, clutched her hand again. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

  Maybe she’d been right not to tell me, I thought. She would never do anything to deliberately hurt me. ‘So you think the same thing might be happening to me?’

  ‘If it could happen to someone as down-to-earth as your gran, why not you?’

  ‘So … what does it mean, Mum?’

  Mum put her arm around me. ‘Gran said the picture was trying to let her know Joseph was only there for a short time. He belonged in heaven. Maybe the statues are trying to tell you something too.’

  ‘Maybe that Ben Kincaid belongs in heaven too, if I can help him …’

  Mum squeezed my hand. ‘I don’t know, Tyler … but you’re not going crazy. And if you want, we’ll start looking for another school for you. OK?’

  I felt so much better when Mum left the room. I even agreed to have dinner downstairs. I wasn’t going mad. There was maybe something in me that had been passed from my grandmother.

  The statues were all a part of it, trying to tell me to help Ben Kincaid. And I thought, I know how to do that now. If I can help find his body. He will be able to move on.

  All the talk round the table at dinner was about the girl who’d gone missing. Debbie Lawson. Her picture was on the front page of all the papers. And on the teatime news there had been a press conference and a heartbreaking plea from her mum and dad asking her to get in touch. They were devastated. Her mother looked as if she hadn’t slept for weeks.

  Mum was taking it badly. ‘I couldn’t bear it if one of you went missing.’

  ‘They don’t think she’s missing any more,’ Dad said. ‘They think she’s dead. That she was picked up here and killed here. They’ve started searching everywhere for her body now.’

  Time stood still. As if everyone in the room went into freeze-frame.

  They were searching for a body.

  And all at once I knew exactly how I could get the police to drag the lake.

  32

  ‘You’re telling me you saw something in the lake outside your school?’ The big policeman seemed to tower above me. It took all my courage to look him straight in the eye. But I had to make him believe me. Yet, looking up at him made me feel dizzy – so I looked straight back down to the floor of the police station.

  ‘Yes, sir. This morning. I was standing on the wee bridge over the lake … and I saw –’

  ‘You saw … what … ?’ His voice was a growl.

  I swallowed. I’d already told him twice, now he had called some kind of plain-clothes policeman into the office with us and I had to repeat it again.

  I had worked out carefully what I was going to say. I didn’t want to be too specific. Didn’t want to say I saw Debbie Lawson’s body. But only hint that I might have. That would be enough, surely. Hadn’t Dad said they had to follow up every lead, no matter how tenuous? They wouldn’t take any chances. They were dragging the river for her. They were digging up waste ground. They were looking everywhere.

  I went on, my voice trembling. ‘Something under the water. I thought it was a doll, one of those inflatable dolls. She was lying face down, but she was dressed in pink … and I remembered about the girl … that Debbie girl. She was last seen dressed in pink, wasn’t she?’

  The policeman didn’t answer me. I licked my lips and carried on quickly. ‘And one minute she was there, and the next she was gone.’

  ‘A body could be dragged down by reeds or ferns.’ I saw rather than heard the plain-clothes man mutter this to the big policeman. He nodded. But a policewoman had stepped into the room now too. I hadn’t even noticed her come in. When I glanced at her, she raised an eyebrow. Her eyes were ice. Harder to convince than her male colleagues.

  ‘So why didn’t you run into the school? Tell your headmaster?’

  I had an answer, thought out, for that too. ‘I thought I had to come to the police first … did I do something wrong?’

  The policewoman recognised my tactics. Little innocent girl asking big man if she had done the right thing. I couldn’t help but glance at her and her disapproving glare again.

  The policeman growled. ‘You did the right thing, lassie … but are you sure of what you saw?’

  And I shook my head. I wasn’t going to be too sure. I wanted to appear like some young girl who thought she genuinely might have seen something … not like some crazy teenager who made up stories.

  ‘Maybe I was wrong? Maybe it was just a doll.’ And I knew, by the look that passed between them, that they would ta
ke no chances.

  Everything happened really fast after that. Phone calls were made, more people came to interview me. And finally they took me back to the lake in a police car, so I could point out where I had seen that … ‘something’.

  It was just then that Mr Hyslop came rushing across the drive. Someone must have gone in to inform him of what was happening. He looked furious. He stopped next to the big policeman with the gruff voice. His arms were waving about as if they’d been caught in a high wind. His face was beetroot red with anger. I’d never seen him so animated. Snatches of what he was saying drifted my way in the wind.

  ‘… can’t believe a word she says …’

  ‘… always making up stories …’

  ‘… been in trouble since she started in this school …’

  I held my breath as the policeman stormed towards me with Mr Hyslop galloping in front of him.

  ‘Tyler Lawless, what have you been trying to pull here!’ Mr Hyslop yelled at me.

  I felt my knees begin to buckle then. But I had to stay strong. I looked steadily at the policeman. ‘Sir, I did see something in the lake. I don’t know what it was …’ I let the words trail away.

  ‘You better not be making all this up, girl.’ The big policeman looked at me in a different way now. I knew that look so well.

  ‘I’m not, sir … I promise … Something was in the lake … I don’t know what it was.’

  The headmaster tutted. ‘A complete waste of taxpayers’ money. I can’t believe you’re dragging this lake on her say-so!’ he muttered.

  It was too late to stop anything now anyway. An underwater search unit had arrived, and when I glanced up at the old school there were faces at every window, vague, ill-defined faces, all eager to watch the excitement.

  And I wondered, was Ben Kincaid’s face somewhere up there? Was he at one of those windows, watching?

  I was ordered into school, and I was informed by an increasingly angry Mr Hyslop that my parents would be sent for. I stepped into my class and I knew from all their faces that none of them believed what I had seen. Even Jazz looked fed up with me.

  ‘You’re making it worse for yourself, Tyler,’ she whispered during one of the lessons. ‘First Ben Kincaid and now Debbie Lawson? Oh, Tyler.’

  She was sick of me. They were all sick of me. But they’d know soon enough. When Ben Kincaid’s body was dragged up from the depths, they would know I wasn’t lying. His body … or would it be his skeletal remains after all this time? It didn’t matter; there would be ways they could identify him. They would find him and then everyone would know I was right.

  We all watched, all that day, cramming round windows as we moved between classes.

  Divers, all in black, slid into the water like seals. Time and time again I saw them, and every moment when their heads broke the surface, I held my breath waiting for them to call out they’d found it.

  All day they searched, till the winter dusk began to settle on the afternoon.

  But they found nothing.

  An old rusty trolley.

  A pram.

  A bag full of dead kittens.

  But nothing else.

  Nothing.

  ‘But I did see something,’ I kept saying as I was dragged to the Rector’s office. My parents were there, as well as the police. My mother looked as if she’d been crying.

  Not one of them thought I had simply made a mistake. Not with my reputation.

  ‘You could be charged with wasting police time, young lady.’

  When the policeman said that, my mother gasped and covered her mouth with her hand as if she might cry out if she didn’t.

  ‘I did see something.’ But my words were a mumble.

  Mr Hyslop would never believe that. ‘Of couse you didn’t see anything. You’re an attention-seeker, Tyler.’ He turned to the policeman. ‘She’s only been in the school a few weeks and the whole school recognises that. She’s always making things up. Ghosts and strange noises and goodness knows what other lies.’

  ‘They’re not lies! I don’t make things up!’ I shouted at him. Only made myself look worse.

  A stroppy teenager, that’s what I was.

  The policeman left with the warning that this matter would be put in the hands of the Procurator Fiscal, who would decide if there was a case to answer. I could be charged. I could end up in court. Mum began to cry again when he said that.

  And it still wasn’t over after the police left. The Rector wasn’t finished with me.

  ‘I’m afraid this is her last warning, Mr Lawless. I’ve heard all about her at her last school. She was disruptive there and she’s a very disruptive pupil here too. And I can’t have the likes of her in the school … unless she behaves herself.’

  My last warning … again.

  I tried to explain to Mum and Dad on the way home. But Dad wouldn’t listen. He was way too angry with me. ‘History repeating itself,’ he said.

  ‘You said I might have a gift,’ I reminded Mum when we were alone. ‘You said maybe the statues were trying to tell me something.’

  ‘You think they were trying to tell you to drag the lake for Debbie Lawson?’ she snapped the words out. ‘I should never have told you that story. It only gave you ideas. I just didn’t want you to think you were going crazy. I don’t want to hear any more about this, Tyler.’

  If they were angry … I was even angrier. Angry and confused. I had done everything I could. So what was this Ben Kincaid after? Why was he haunting me? If his body wasn’t in the lake, how the hell was I supposed to find out where it was?

  I was in trouble with the police, in trouble at school. I had lost the few friends I had made here. All because of a dead boy who had had as bad a reputation as I now had.

  I was finished with it, finished with everything.

  Let Ben Kincaid do his worst. I was through with trying to help him.

  33

  Believe it or not the sun came out the next day. A weak, frosty sun, but the sun none the less. It should have cheered me, but nothing could.

  I had to go back to school and face everyone. Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me take a day off. Even though I begged them.

  ‘It would be better if I stayed away. I’m on a last warning anyway,’ I tried to tell them. ‘I’ll be so embarrassed.’

  Dad had an answer for that one. ‘You’ll be embarrassed! How embarrassed do you think we were yesterday! Well, you can face it today. You’ll go back, my girl.’ He sounded disgusted with me too. ‘And I don’t care if you witness the Titanic rising from that lake – ignore it – don’t mention it to anyone – OK?’

  So I went to school, dragging my feet. Knowing how everyone was going to treat me when I got there. And I would know what they were all thinking of me. Jazz and Aisha and Adam and Mac. Mac especially. I didn’t think I could take any more of his horrible comments. Or that disgusted stare of his.

  There was a crowd of pupils at the gates at the end of the school drive, waiting for me. Somehow I knew they were waiting for me. They began to taunt me right away. ‘Seen any dead bodies lately?’

  I sidestepped past them, didn’t even look their way, and almost tripped over a pair of legs that were sticking out from under a bush.

  ‘Oh, look!’ one of the girls said dramatically, pointing them out. ‘A dead body. Who’s going to report this?’

  Another one called out to me, ‘Oh, there’s Tyler. Tyler, want to get the place searched for another dead body?’

  I could hear the giggles from behind the bush and two of the boys appeared, each holding up a Hallowe’en dummy’s leg.

  I know they aren’t real! I wanted to shout back at them. I can tell the difference!

  It was the same all the way up the drive. Pupils giggling, or pointing, or just staring at me. I’d have rather they turned their backs on me. Pretended I wasn’t there.

  Jazz and Aisha were standing at the entrance. At first I thought they were going to make a fool of me too. I did them an injustice. J
azz slipped her arm in mine. ‘We thought you might need a bit of support today,’ she said.

  I felt my eyes fill with tears. Aisha took my other arm. ‘Oh, don’t cry on us now. Walk tall. Head high.’

  So I did. Not so afraid with them beside me.

  ‘I have to tell you about yesterday,’ I started to say. I wanted to explain to them, but Aisha shushed me.

  ‘Look, Tyler. Whatever made you do what you did yesterday is your business. Jazz and me decided we’re not going to talk about that, OK?’

  They weren’t going to believe me, probably did think I was a bit mad. But even so, they were going to be there to support me. I felt like crying again.

  Mr O’Hara glared at me as soon as I stepped into the classroom. After that, I could have been invisible. His eyes scanned the rows of desks but skimmed over me completely, as if I wasn’t there. In fact, apart from the few who sniggered at me as I walked past them, the whole school ignored me.

  All except Mac. At breaktime in the cafe, he banged into a seat across from me. ‘What is it with you, always making a fool of yourself? Bodies in the lake! Getting the cops to drag it! Come on, get real. You’re such an embarrassment.’

  He went on so much Jazz told him to shut up.

  ‘Why can’t you just let her be, Mac?’ Adam said.

  And Callum agreed with him. ‘What’s it to you anyway? Why does it annoy you so much?’

  ‘I think maybe you fancy Tyler. Maybe that’s your problem.’ It was Aisha who said it, taking me completely by surprise. Wasn’t she the one who fancied Mac?

  Mac jumped to his feet as if he’d been lifted by an unseen hand. ‘Her! Tyler blinking Lawless!’ He snapped my name out. ‘You’ve got to be joking. She’s the last one I’d ever fancy.’

  And he stormed out of the cafe.

  That almost made me cry again. Because in that moment … I knew I liked Mac. I liked his dark chocolate eyes, and his white teeth, and the way his hair hung over his forehead, and the way he had of swaggering when he walked. Oh no, it was me who fancied Mac!