Sarah Dee Was Here

by Steve Galloway

  As she got Adam’s drinks the man left the fruit machine and stumbled towards the bar. Adam glanced around at the man, who was now rifling through his pockets for change. Adam recognised him, like he recognised most people in Tarnsey; it was his job after all. This guy was Dylan Hansen, and he reeked of alcohol. His face was red and his blond hair looked greasy and wayward.

  Dylan Hansen. He’d really gone off the rails in the last two years. He had been a bit of a golden boy once: a regular in the Selchester Athletic first team; good job; drove around in a silver BMW. But then things had started to go wrong. There had been rumours from the football writer at the Star that he was drinking too much and possibly taking drugs. Eventually he’d been dropped from the side and was now languishing in the reserves team.

  Then there’d been a couple of court cases that Adam had heard about: one for assault following a drunken fight outside Chic’s, the very un-classy nightclub on Tarnsey Pier. Dylan had been chatting up a girl who had eventually left with another bloke. Dylan had responded by clubbing the bloke round the head with a beer bottle in the taxi queue. He’d got community service for that. The other appearance was for drunk-driving, for which he received a six month ban.

  Dylan was probably one more offence away from a prison sentence, reflected Adam, and he seemed to be going the right way about it tonight.

  “Give us a cider, doll” he slurred at the barmaid.

  “I’m afraid I can’t serve you any more alcohol. You’ve had too much already, you’re drunk” said the barmaid, a young girl who looked pretty nervous.

  “No I fucking ain’t, I’m sober!” he shouted; slurring and spitting.

  “Paul” shouted the girl, and Paul walked over from the doors. The doorman was about six foot five and roughly as wide as a house. He folded his huge tattooed arms. Dylan was drunk, but he wasn’t dumb enough to argue with Paul:

  “Alright, alright, I’m going,” he said, staggering towards the door, “this is bullshit!” he yelled as he exited, before wandering off into the night.

  Adam smiled at the barmaid who looked mightily relieved, and carried his drinks back out to Anna.

  Twenty-four

  (Anna)

  (Friday night)

  Looking back, I was pretty drunk.

  I’d definitely had two glasses of white wine. I’d asked for medium, but I remember them being pretty big. I vaguely recall deciding that I was drinking the wine too quickly, so I’d had a cider next. Or had it been two ciders? Adam certainly went to the bar a few times. Then he’d got us a shot each of something.

  Come on, it’s Friday night!

  That’s how he’d justified it, and I didn’t take much persuading.

  The conversation had flowed as the alcohol took effect and our conversation had got sillier and lost its awkwardness. Somewhere along the line we’d stopped feeling for each other’s boundaries. We’d argued about whether rugby (my choice) or football (Adam’s) was the better sport. He’d mocked my taste in music (apparently Rihanna is a joke compared to bands like Metallica and the Foo Fighters) and we’d discussed other trivial things in great detail. I remember laughing a lot, and Adam’s face growing rosier and smilier and his eyes locking in on mine, giving me this look as if he was trying to say something... something else.

  By the time we left Flamingo’s, everything seemed like a good idea: especially food. So we made our slow way through the town centre to the Chinese takeaway opposite the bowling green.

  “It’s bloody well shut!” I said when we saw the restaurant’s dark windows. I slumped back against the wall and crossed my arms in mock petulance.

  “Fail” said Adam. “Thought you said it was open till eleven?”

  “You said that!” I shouted back at him with a smile.

  “It usually is. What are they playing at? It’s only half ten isn’t it?”

  “Just admit you got it wrong” I said.

  Silence followed as Adam walked up to me where I was leaning against the wall. He stared into my eyes and there was that look again; saying something. He put both hands on my waist and leaned in. Our lips met. My heart shook a bit; like the fluttering of hunger, but it was nothing to do with the closed restaurant.

  Now Adam’s tongue was in my mouth and I responded searchingly with mine. His hands clasped tighter. It was funny; I’d worried about this moment for so many years but now it was happening it just seemed strangely natural.

  It was my first kiss.

  Not many girls wait till the year of their eighteenth birthday to say that.

  Twenty-five

  (Friday night)

  Twenty-four hours. That was all the time police had to question a suspect. Millie knew because she’d researched it on the internet. After that they had to charge them or let them go. And they couldn’t charge Ricky with murder because he hadn’t committed murder. He’d been with her at the cinema. There must be CCTV to back it up.

  In twenty-four hours it would all be alright. She’d have him back to protect her from whoever sent that shoe.

  That just left tonight to get through. Millie’s nerves were shot: it was half past ten and she had the all the house lights on except for the kitchen, where was sitting in the gloom smoking one of her mum’s cigarettes. She had given up smoking almost two years ago, but she needed one now. Or two.

  The TV was on but the sound was down. She had her mobile and the home phone on the kitchen unit in front of her: both had 999 entered already, ready to call in case anything happened.

  The blinds on the big kitchen window were open so she could clearly see all of the front garden and driveway of her house. And here she would stay until the sun came up and Ricky was freed.

  She looked out of the window again through her narrow, tired eyes.

  Are you out there Sarah? Is it you? Can’t you see that I’m sorry?

  *

  An hour or so had passed. Jonathon Ross was on the TV, silently interviewing some Hollywood star that Millie didn’t recognise. Her eyes flicked from TV to window and back again. She had to know that she was safe in her empty house, but also that there was a real world out there; carrying on as normal.

  Whenever she finished watching a horror film she always used to watch ten minutes of something normal before going to bed: cookery, sport, whatever: just to reassure her that everything was OK. In a way that’s sort of what she was doing now.

  Ricky had always laughed at her for it.

  “It’s not real” he would say.

  But this was real.

  Very real.

  Wasn’t the guilt she had felt for two years enough? Did she have to keep on paying back for all the things she’d done to Sarah?

  The name calling, the spitting, the burning of her clothes, the destruction of her artworks, the graffiti on the wall of her grandmother’s flat (ginger loner freak) the spite-filled notes slipped into her locker (nobody likes you because you’re so ugly and boring and ginger. Why don’t you fuck off and die?)

  The physical assaults... that day on the field:

  Millie remembered the sensation of pressing Sarah’s slim, pale wrist down into the grass as Maggie ripped off her clothes. She remembered the baying of the crowd and the strange feeling it had stirred in her.

  Was it power?

  God she was sorry. Did Sarah know that?

  Would that be enough to save her?

  Twenty-six

  (Friday night)

  Millie’s stomach rumbled again; this time as loud as thunder. She hadn’t really felt like eating for, well, all day actually. But now it seemed her body was catching up with her and screaming for food.

  Maybe it would help, give me a bit more energy?

  It had only just gone eleven; and already Millie was feeling tired. She needed to stay alert; awake. She flapped around the kitchen, opening cupboards in search of food but desperately trying to keep an eye on the dark garden and driveway in front of her at the same time. It was no good: she’d never be able to make any food wh
ilst keeping up her vigil.

  But shit she was hungry.

  Millie opened her laptop and typed ‘pizza delivery’ into Google. She found a restaurant in her local area which even had an online ordering system. That was good; as she didn’t really fancy talking to anyone.

  She placed her order for a medium margarita with ham, mushrooms and olives and a large bottle of coke. Caffeine was definitely in order.

  When it was all paid for she closed her laptop and looked back out at the darkness behind the window.

  Twenty-seven

  (Anna)

  (Friday night)

  At some point my taxi rolled up and Adam finally prised his lips off mine and stared into my eyes in the moonlight. His eyes looked like white holes. He smiled and we both made poor attempts to smarten ourselves up.

  I don’t know how long it had been since I called the taxi: but it was probably the best part of an hour. Or was it? Time seemed to take on a weird elasticity. It seemed like an age and a second at the same time: we had spent every minute of it in the shadow of the closed restaurant kissing and hugging, pausing only for air and to stare and mutter at each other.

  Part of me wanted it to go on forever, but part of me also wanted to stop, get home and try and make some sense of what had happened. While I was in the middle of it there was no sense: just madness, passion and fear all fighting for room.

  What did this mean? Was this the start of something big or just a bump in the road?

  “I’ll call you tomorrow” said Adam in a half whisper.

  We kissed goodnight; a more formal kiss made pointless by the oral explorations of the past hour. I climbed into the taxi and looked at Adam as we pulled away. Adam didn’t wait, or wave goodbye, but simply thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled off into the darkness.

  Suddenly I felt cold and silly. Had the spell been broken already? Was this just something he did? Was this just something all boys just did and thought nothing more of? Was Adam really like that?

  “Where to, miss?” asked the driver through the screen.

  “24 Cuckfield Close” I replied.

  The driver turned left sharply and I felt a whole wave of alcohol surging up through my body; seemingly from my feet up to my neck. My head started to spin. The inside of the taxi started to spin.

  The driver broke sharply and took a right. My stomach lurched again, and the dizziness became unbearable. I grabbed onto the headrest for support.

  BZZZZZ.

  I felt the vibration of my phone in my pocket. I fished it out with my left hand whilst clenching the headrest in my right. I looked at my phone: it was spinning and dancing, its backlit display moving like a firefly in the dark.

  I tried to read it.

  Messge on Adaaam Jacksd reveeivd.

  The words were jumbled about and my head rocked from side to side trying to read them. I tried to press to read the message but couldn’t. Suddenly I felt a wall of saliva building up in the back of my mouth, and my stomach rolled with a wave of nausea. I wound the window down and tried to breathe some fresh air.

  “Are you OK?” asked the driver. I was aware that I was breathing quite loudly.

  “Feel a bit sick” I said.

  “You want me to stop?”

  I carried on gasping for air, feeling the drink - all that drink - rising slowly through my gut.

  “I’m gonna stop” said the driver. “If you’re sick in here it’s gonna be fifty quid to get it cleaned.”

  He pulled the car over at the side of the road and I almost fell out of the door; sank to all fours, and emptied my stomach violently all over the pavement while the driver waited patiently in his cab.

  Twenty-eight

  (Friday night)

  Man it was hot. Boiling.

  Pizza-Mia was a terrible place to work in the summer.

  The huge clay ovens poured out heat into the little kitchen and Trey felt his clothes sticking to his skin and the sweat matting his hair. Thank God the night was almost over and he could go home and have a cold beer in the garden.

  Reni, his boss, barged through the kitchen doors:

  “Order through on the email for delivery, who’s gonna do it?”

  “I’ll do it boss” shouted Trey quickly. He was insured for delivery driving, and he’d do anything to get out of this kitchen.

  Half an hour later he was carrying the pizza box and bottle of coke out of the restaurant and across the car park. It was a hot night, but compared to the kitchen the summer breeze was beautiful and refreshing. He opened the door to the blue delivery Nissan with its Pizza-Mia sign on the roof and chucked the food onto the passenger seat. He glanced at the order details and noticed the address: Bramble Gardens.

  Very posh.

  It was a short drive, and when he found number twelve Bramble Gardens he noticed the bright lights that were still on in almost every room of the house. He parked in a shaded area just before the turning into the house’s driveway. That way he could just drive away without having to manoeuvre in and out of the drive. The street was very dark, he thought. In posh areas like this they turned the streetlights off at midnight.

  Tap tap.

  Trey jumped and looked up. Someone was knocking on his passenger window: all he could see in the darkness was the hoodie and the eyes. He wound it down a crack and the young man in the black hoodie spoke.

  “Is this the order for number twelve mate?”

  “Yes mate” said Trey.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Thirteen ninety-nine” said Trey, winding the window down further.

  The man in the hoodie handed Trey a ten and a five. Trey passed the pizza and the coke though the window.

  “Keep the change mate” said the hoodie man.

  “Ah, cheers. Have a good night my friend!” said Trey cheerfully.

  Bonus, thought Trey. Got a tip and didn’t even have to leave the car!

  The man walked off towards the house. Trey kept the car’s engine on and lit a cigarette. He turned the radio up. He’d kill five more minutes here, and then by the time he got back to the restaurant it would almost be closing time.

  Excellent.

  He took out his iPhone and started idly surfing the web, nodding his head to the dance tune on the radio.

  The man in the hoodie was now out of sight.

  *

  All Millie Blunden could see were the headlights of the car parked at the end of the drive. Was this the pizza at last? She was seriously hungry now. She was feeling light-headed. She needed food and sugar and caffeine. It was just gone midnight now, and she still had to last four or five hours before the sun came up and the safety of day arrived.

  She peered out at the headlights again. Her eyes began to adjust a bit and she noticed the triangular sign perched on top of the car. It was the Pizza-Mia car.

  At last.

  The doorbell rang.

  Millie ran from the kitchen along the hall to the front door. She peered through the spy-hole and saw a blurry dark face in a hood. She couldn’t really make out any facial features. The box was clearer though: the unmistakeable blue and red of the Pizza-Mia sign. She took the chain off the door and opened it, clasping the money ready in her other hand.

  She first saw the pizza box and drink, and then looked up at the face. He mouth dropped open in a split second of utter confusion: it was too soon even for fear to kick in. The man holding the pizza was wearing a black hoodie and, underneath, a black army balaclava. All she saw of his face were two pale eyes staring at her.

  Then she screamed; or tried to. No sound came out.

  Millie grabbed the door handle and tried to shut it, but the balaclava man had jammed his foot in the door. It felt like pushing against a wall. The black face and pale eyes looked utterly blank and robotic. Millie’s mind was swirling with sheer terror.

  It was the last emotion she felt.

  The man dropped the pizza box and punched Millie square in the face. She staggered backwards
and he followed her into the hallway, slamming the door behind him. He punched her again with his gloved fist: hard between the eyes, and the girl fell backwards onto the thick white carpet.

  She was out cold.

  The man waited until the pizza guy had driven off and the street was once again cloaked in darkness, before picking up Millie’s slender body and carrying her out to where he’d left the van.

  Twenty-nine

  Nothing seemed wrong to Sharon and Terry Blunden as they finally turned into Bramble Gardens. The midday sun was shining brightly and the peace and quiet of their road was a welcome sight after the traffic-choked streets of London and the monotonous slog down the A3. Neither did anything seem wrong when they pulled into their driveway.

  Terry stopped the BMW and let Sharon out. Sharon walked over to the front door whilst Terry retrieved their bags from the boot.

  “Terry” said Sharon from the doorway. Her husband noted a slight sound of concern in her voice but carried on emptying the car of her bags. There were a lot of them: plastic and paper bags depending on the classiness of store she’d picked them up from. Christ alive, this woman could shop.

  “Terry, look at this” she said again. He put down a Selfridges bag and walked away from the car.

  “What is it, love?”

  “Look”

  “Where?”

  Sharon pointed to the ground, just in front of the door step. Terry looked down and saw a blue and red pizza box lying just to the side of it. He crouched down onto his haunches and opened the lid, revealing the untouched pizza inside. He prodded it.

  “Did you order this or something?” said Sharon.

  “Of course not. How was I supposed to order a pizza? I’ve been driving a car for the last two hours. Anyway, this is stone cold.”