Sarah Dee Was Here

by Steve Galloway

  “But they think he killed Callie? Why?”

  Another serious look from Adam, then a hint of mischief:

  “Keep this to yourself Anna, but my editor at the Star, Jim Howell, he’s on very good terms with some senior police staff. It’s a freemason thing, apparently. From what I’ve been told Ricky had some pretty serious writings hidden in his room: violent poems and stories and stuff. And most of it was filled with hatred for Maggie, Callie and Millie.”

  I tried to take this in, but it didn’t make a load of sense. I’d always thought of Ricky as a bit of a lad, a jock. He played football and clearly worked out: judging by his strong looking arms. Strong in the arm, thick in the head, they used to say. He hardly seemed the type to hide away in his room writing poetry. It all sounded slightly weird and nonsensical.

  “But why?” I asked.

  “Who knows? Maybe he was obsessed with Sarah Dee and has been out to get revenge for her? Perhaps Sarah killed Maggie, but Ricky’s carrying on her work.”

  “Which means Millie would have been next?”

  “It’s only a theory, but possibly.”

  Adam sipped his lager thoughtfully.

  “You know that Ricky and Millie are going out?”

  “No,” – I was quite obviously out of step with Tarnsey news, and this little bit just made the puzzle seem even stranger.

  “Yeah” said Adam. “Maybe the police have just stopped him killing his girlfriend.”

  “But would Ricky really have an obsession with Sarah? She hardly seemed his type?”

  “Who can ever know what one person sees in someone else?” said Adam, suddenly looking a bit distant; “anyway, Sarah was quite pretty in her own way, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes she was” I agreed. Adam was quiet again and had another gulp of lager. I sipped my white wine and tried to relax and enjoy the sun on my back. We seemed to be talking about murder and death again, which I had been keen to avoid. But it struck me that Adam and I had little else to talk about other than the events that surrounded us in Tarnsey’s grim here-and-now. We hardly had any shared school memories to fall back on. I desperately tried to change the subject:

  “What made you go into journalism?” I asked.

  “A love of writing I guess” said Adam, “I’ve always been more comfortable writing than doing anything else. But also an interest in people I suppose: I’ve always liked people watching, and asking myself why people behave as they do. What made you want to be a doctor?”

  “Similar reasons I suppose: an interest in people. But more an interest in what makes them sick and what makes them better. I’ve always been into science and finding out how things work. I suppose I’m just applying that to the human body.”

  Adam nodded and smiled.

  From then on the conversation flowed with greater ease – away from murders and bodies and obsession – and onto nicer subjects; futures, hopes and aspirations. We covered my imminent departure to medical school and Adam’s desire to move on in journalism.

  After well over an hour we noticed that both our glasses had stood empty for quite some time. Adam got up and strolled back inside to the bar and I noticed that a girl sitting at another table was watching him keenly every step of the way.

  I sat back in the sun. The girl was slender and attractive with long blonde hair, but Adam was coming back to my table. It was a slightly immature emotion; but for the first time in my life I reflected that I might just have something that other girls could be envious of.

  Nineteen

  (Somewhere...)

  She woke to the sound of traffic and the sun flooding into the room through the attic window; like it did so many mornings in this sunny town. There was a smell of roasting coffee in the air, probably being brewed freshly by one of her flat mates; maybe Jin from Hong Kong or Camille from Limoges.

  Perhaps they would have a cup waiting for her when she got out of bed and went downstairs. Sometimes they did. Other times her new friends would be gone already: off to college for an early start to their studies. She didn’t mind though: she could always make a coffee herself before heading to the art gallery, which didn’t open until ten.

  Not today though. Today was the first day of her holiday, and she had somewhere else to go.

  She sat up on the edge of her small single bed and stepped onto the wooden floor; her sleep-tousled bright red hair falling into her eyes before being swiftly parcelled up into a bunch. She ignored the tingles of static electricity which touched her fingers.

  Some ten minutes later, with the coffee untouched, she was making her way through her little part of the city towards the station. It was largely the same route she followed every morning to the art gallery, and she passed a lot of the same faces every day: there was the young man in the ill-fitting suit who was always half-running and red faced, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to obey his alarm clock; there was the blonde-haired power-dressed middle-aged woman who was always barking into her phone; and the old man in the duffel coat and beard, who looked a bit like an old sailor but always had a smile on his face.

  There were lots of other people too – always different but often similar; students, coffee-shop staff, scruffy musicians with their guitar cases covered in stickers. There were office workers having a last cigarette, mothers with pram-loads of babies (she’d once seen a quadruple buggy) and the cops, who always looked a bit more serious than they had back home (and had guns attached to their belts).

  The one thing she loved more than anything about these people was the way they reacted to her. When they passed the slight red-haired girl in the flowery skirt and green jacket; the one who often carried the big sketchbook and the corduroy bag; they would either ignore her completely or even on occasion smile. What they never did was stare, or laugh, or point, or shout names. They never spat, threw things or stole her precious belongings. They never made her feel worthless, beaten and pathetic, like she had been made to feel every day for so many years.

  This place was a big city with its fair share of crime, drugs and violence lurking under the successful surface. It had its scary-looking cops, down-and-out drinkers and gangs warring in its shabbier neighbourhoods. But in terms of sheer evil it was leagues behind that little town she’d grown up in.

  She loved it here. She loved her tiny attic room with its whitewashed walls and tiny window which opened to a vista of skyscrapers and a cacophony of motors and horns. She loved its bustle and industry and grime. And above all this she loved her new anonymity and freedom.

  Maggie, the cage you made was never strong enough to contain me, and now its twisted and broken bars have wrapped around the limbs of you and your friends and squeezed out your evil. I’ve flown away, and you’ll never shoot me down.

  Soon she had taken a seat on the train and was being sped away through the outskirts of the city. There was something she needed to do.

  Twenty

  (Friday night)

  The Tarnsey Star

  Arrest made in girl murder enquiry

  Police investigating the murder of 18-year-old Caroline Cox, whose body was found at the foot of Tardown Hill last week – have arrested a suspect on suspicion of murder. Richard James (18) an apprentice carpenter of Rosemary Way, Tarnsey, was taken into custody yesterday evening.

  James was originally questioned two years ago after the murder of his girlfriend Maggie Cox but was released without charge.

  Police are still searching for Miss Cox’s shoes. The red Converse-style trainers were missing when the girl’s body was discovered and police believe they might hold vital forensic clues.

  Detective Superintendant Nick Crane said....

  Millie Blunden threw the paper she had been reading through tear-stained eyes across the room. It was a joke, a fucking ridiculous joke. There was no way that Ricky would kill anyone. She was sure of that more than she was sure of anything. She knew for a fact he couldn’t have killed Callie, because he had been with her the evening she had been murder
ed. They had gone to the local multiplex to see the new Batman film. Ricky would tell the police this and she’d back him up and they’d have to let him go.

  The police were fucking stupid. Ricky loved her and she loved him.

  Right now though, she was scared.

  Petrified.

  She thought of that shoe hidden in her cupboard. It sent a deep chill though her bones. Whoever had sent that shoe was still out there, and now Ricky wasn’t around to protect her.

  She slipped the chain onto the door and went and sat in the kitchen. It wasn’t even dark yet, but she had turned every light in the house on. Her parents were away for the evening; going to the theatre in London and staying overnight. But she hadn’t told them what was going on.

  She didn’t want to worry them.

  She just had to sit this night out.

  *

  Detective Superintendant Nick Crane said “we are keeping an open mind as to the motives behind this murder and welcome any information – however insignificant seeming – that the public may be able give us.” Anyone with information should contact 0800...

  Adam Jacks – Tarnsey Star Newsdesk.

  The figure in black cracked a wry grin as the article drew to a close. It made no sense, he knew. Anyone reading it would imagine they knew what was going on, but they wouldn’t have a clue. Not a single clue. There were facts and myths and rumours all swimming around in circles and somewhere – just out of their depth – was the truth.

  Only he knew it.

  And soon this – all of this shit – would be over, and he’d have the thing he’d always wanted.

  Sarah Dee.

  Him and Sarah Dee; forever.

  Twenty-one

  (Two years ago...)

  Once he was back under the strange glow of the lamppost CJ started to unfold the letter that Sarah Dee’s grandmother had given him. His heart was thumping even harder now, so much he felt like it might explode. It felt like he was about to read the results of some medical test: like the contents of this letter might determine whether he lived or died.

  In a way they would.

  He focused on the girlish, looping handwriting in the orange glow of the streetlight and began to read:

  Dear CJ

  Thank you for telling me that you love me. It must have been difficult to say and I think you’re very brave. To be honest though, I sort of guessed from the way you waited at the bus-stop for me every day and walked around the outside of the flats at night.

  I am sorry, but I’m writing to tell you that I can’t come and talk to you tonight. It’s for the best. I am leaving Tarnsey very soon and going far away to start a new life, and nobody must know where I am. Those three girls have made it impossible for me to stay here. You know who I mean don’t you? Maggie Dickens, Callie Cox and Millie Blunden. They’ve ruined my life in this place for ever. But I was never planning to stay here past school anyway: I belong in a big city, not a small town.

  I think you do too.

  If I was to give you one piece of advice for the future, it would be to get out of here too. Set sail for less troubled seas. Maybe our paths will cross one day; but it’s best we leave it up to fate.

  I believe in fate, and I believe that fate will one day make those girls pay for the things they did to me. Do you think so too?

  Maybe if fate can catch up with them, it will also catch up with us.

  Goodbye CJ, for now.

  Love Sarah

  x

  He read again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Searching for meaning within meanings.

  Twenty-two

  (Friday night)

  DS Crane preferred facts. Facts were much easier to work with than the soup of uncertainty that currently surrounded this case.

  The facts of Callie Cox’s murder were as follows:

  On the night she was murdered she left the flat she shared with a friend – Jennifer Andrews – at 7pm. She started to walk the distance to the pub she worked at, which took her along an alleyway and across the common on the top of Tardown Head.

  Crane knew that the common was surrounded by wooded areas and was some ten minutes walk from East Down; the suburb of Tarnsey where Callie worked.

  Callie failed to turn up at the pub to begin her shift at 8pm.

  Mike Crossley – the landlord at the East Down Arms – phoned Callie’s mobile at 8.30pm to see where she was. It went to voicemail.

  At 9.20pm Mike Crossley phoned Callie’s home number, but Jennifer Andrews had gone out to visit her boyfriend, and Mike got no answer. Being short-staffed and busy, Mike assumed Callie simply wasn’t coming in and carried on with his shift.

  At 11.30pm Jennifer Andrews returned home and assumed that Callie was still at work. She went to bed.

  At 7am the following morning Derek Smith found Callie’s body at the foot of Tardown Head.

  A post-mortem examination revealed that Callie had been assaulted with a blunt instrument – possibly a hammer – before presumably being rolled off the edge of Tardown Head. The pathologist also found that Callie had been dead for approximately twelve hours; which to his estimation put the time of death somewhere between 7pm and 8pm the previous evening.

  Unless he was the murderer, Ricky James couldn’t have known this. But something in his steely, cock-sure eyes told Crane that this lad somehow knew far more than he was letting on.

  Why else would he be so sure about the time he had arrived at the cinema?

  “6.50, that’s what time Batman started. Well, the trailers and that. Me and Millie got to the cinema at about 6.30 I reckon, to get our tickets and some sweets.”

  James smiled at Crane, almost as if he was playing a game of chess with the officer.

  Your move, detective superintendant.

  “So” said Crane, “if I was to look at the CCTV from the multiplex it would show you and your girlfriend turning up at 6.30 and buying a load of Maltesers?”

  “M and Ms, actually. Millie prefers them.”

  Crane looked at Harry Wollers and the two men exchanged an exasperated look. Crane spoke in the direction of the tape recorder:

  “Interview adjourned at 6.43pm.”

  He then looked at Ricky:

  “I’ve got better things to do than sit around with you discussing chocolate. I’ll speak to you later.”

  Wollers led Ricky James back to his cell. As he did he noticed that Ricky was quietly whistling a tune as they walked. Wollers couldn’t quite work out what song it was, but he was sure of one thing: Ricky James certainly didn’t seem like someone worried about being charged with murder.

  *

  Several hours later and Crane and Wollers were sat in the video suite at Tardown police station. They each had a coffee in a cardboard cup and an unopened bag of doughnuts lay in front of them on the desk. Neither of the policemen felt much like eating until they had seen what was on the DVD. It had been delivered to them by police car direct from the Cineland Multiplex in Tardown, and showed all events from 5pm until closing time on the night of Callie’s murder.

  Wollers placed it in the player and Crane wound forward. Little figures sped across the lobby at breakneck speed, buying tickets and popcorn and chatting. They resembled busy little ants. The digital time display in the corner of the picture crept onwards; 1755, 1818, 1823.

  At 18.28 Crane stopped skipping forward and the two men watched the scene from the lobby in real-time. Crane was still; Wollers pressed his coffee cup against his chin.

  The CCTV footage was remarkably clear, and in colour: very apt for a cinema, Crane thought. But as the time ticked on to 1832 there was still no sign of Ricky and Mille.

  1833.

  1835.

  The two men glanced at each other: they knew the stakes were high: this was Ricky’s alibi, whether they saw his face or not could be the difference between letting him go and charging him with murder.

  1837.

  “They’re late” said Wollers
.

  At this moment two youngsters appeared from the corner of the screen; a young girl with big blonde hair and a long summery dress and a lean young man in a tight red t-shirt. The girl touched the man’s arm and walked over towards the ticket desk, leaving the man standing in the middle of the lobby.

  What happened next made Crane’s skin break out in goose-bumps.

  Slowly, confidently, the man started walking towards the camera until his face could clearly, unmistakeably be seen. He stared into it and his face fell into a half-grin; smug and cocky. He then touched his hair into place as if looking in a mirror and strolled back towards the girl.

  Wollers gasped and Crane shook his head. It was Ricky James, and he was laughing at them.

  The digital time read 1838. Across the town Callie Cox was about to be murdered, but Ricky was clearly there in the cinema. Crane watched as Ricky and Millie purchased their M and Ms and strolled arm-and-arm into Screen 4. He turned to Wollers.

  “What are we gonna do, chief?” asked Harry.

  “We’re going to have let him go, I’m afraid” replied Crane.

  Twenty-three

  (Friday night)

  When Adam Jacks reached the bar of Flamingo’s he was aware of a man standing a few feet away from him at the fruit machine. He heard the clicking of buttons being pressed and then a loud “fuck it!” from the direction of the machine.

  The barmaid came over to Adam.

  “Hi, what would you like?”

  “Pint of lager and a white wine please.”

  “Medium or large wine?”

  “Large, thanks.”