Sarah Dee Was Here

by Steve Galloway

  CJ hit me in the face again, but I barely registered any pain: some sort of numbing adrenaline was kicking in. He grabbed my head firmly and stuffed some horrible balled-up oily rag into my mouth. I could now only mumble and moan; and my head felt woozy as I adapted to breathing only through my nose. CJ put his head inches from my face, and on his breath I smelt the wine we had shared in the restaurant. It had only been an hour ago; yet it seemed like a different life: the boy I had been with had vanished into the mist and someone else had come along; someone who was preparing to kill me.

  I kept trying to scream, but my cries were muffled by the gag in my mouth and I began to choke on its sharp fumes.

  “We only planned to kill three” said CJ in an emotionless voice, which was a million miles away from the impression of warmth he had been doing as Adam: I tried to take in what he was saying; what he meant by we…

  “Maggie died first, as you know. That was probably the killing I took the most pleasure in. Every time I hit her with that hammer I saw one of the bad things she had done to Sarah just fading away. Then more would pop up to replace them, and I’d have to hit those away too. It was like playing that fairground game where you whack a mole with a mallet. I must have hit her a hundred times in all, and I’d have carried on forever, if I didn’t have to escape.”

  “Sarah had left town the night before Maggie died. Nobody knew at the time, but she told me she was going away. She wrote me a letter explaining why she had to leave. She also asked me to get revenge on those girls for her. Not in so many words, but I knew what she meant: for us to ever be together in the future I’d have to bring Maggie, Callie and Millie to justice.”

  “We decided to wait a while until the next two murders. Two years, in the end. This way nobody knew if they were really linked, or random. Callie was easy; I hit her from behind as she walked to work and threw her off the cliff at this very spot. Millie was a bit more difficult; she already knew what was coming, but I got her in the end. If that farmer didn’t have a dog she’d have been in that fridge for a long, long time.”

  I stared at CJ; the oil on the gag was making me light-headed and it was getting hard to take in enough air through my nose. I was feeling sleepy, like I was slipping away somewhere…sliding…”

  “You should be getting tired now” said CJ. I choked back more of the fumes: it wasn’t only oil; there was something else on that rag, I could taste it now; something strangely chemical in smell… I was feeling weaker. I had to stay in the van, had to fight him off, had to stay awake, had to…

  “You’re lucky” said CJ, “you’ll be asleep soon. You won’t see the edge of the cliff as you fall off it; or the sharp rocks as they get closer and closer to your head. But before you go to sleep, I expect you’re wondering where you came into it? Well, I guess you were just unlucky. If you’d stayed in Selchester you’d probably be OK. But you came back, didn’t you? That was your mistake.”

  “I knew you’d been friends with Sarah in the past, and figured you’d be a useful source of information. But I had no idea you’d betrayed her. When you told me that, it all made sense: those girls bullied her because she was a loner. She stuck out, and she had no-one to stick up for her. If she’d only had one friend, just one, then maybe none of it would have happened. You could have been that friend. If it wasn’t for what you did, Sarah might still be here, with me. But she’s somewhere else now, somewhere without me. I don’t know where. All I have is hope now. I just have to hope she’ll hear about what I’ve done for her and come back for me.”

  It was true. I’d betrayed her… I saw Sarah’s face looking at me, dreamily, sadly. I saw her bright red hair. She was speaking… what was she saying?

  “Why?”

  Was that CJ or Sarah talking? I wasn’t sure. I was slipping off…

  “Sarah, I’m sorry”

  “It’s too late for sorry”

  Who said that? Was Sarah here?

  I was drifting away, swirling into some strange warmth. I felt the van jolt and shudder. I opened an eye, but it felt so heavy, so hard to keep it open. I shut it and drifted some more…

  The next sensation I was aware of was being lifted: arms wrapped around my limp body and carried me. I had little sense of where I was anymore; sleep was all that mattered to me now. I was vaguely aware of being placed down on the ground, before the mist engulfed me once more.

  Then all was blackness.

  Sixty-one

  (Somewhere)

  The leaving party had been a resounding success. Sarah, Jin and Camille had spent the best part of the afternoon decorating the house with flags and posters to match the ‘round-the-world’ theme they had chosen for the occasion. It was a suitable theme, seeing as Sarah, Jin and Camille all hailed from different corners of the globe: Jin was born and bred amidst the bustle of Hong Kong, and Camille hailed from the French city of Limoges, which always sounded so pretty in her stories. Sarah, or Janie; as she always was to the other girls, told everyone she was from London; but it was a lie.

  The girls had come to the city from very different places for slightly different reasons. Jin had come simply to study; Camille had come to work and study, and Sarah had come to work and paint. That’s what she told them anyway; she never let on that there was a third reason she was sharing their home.

  Now it was time for one of the girls to leave, and tonight’s celebrations had been tinged with the sadness of saying goodbye. The party had peaked long ago, and now consisted of a few die-hards still drinking and talking, and various unplanned guests sleeping on the sofa and floor; lying there like leaves that had blown in off the street and settled where they fell.

  Sarah had long since taken herself off to bed, sleeping deeply in her attic room oblivious to the noise from the floors below. The warm buzz of the champagne had helped her to relax and drift away. She had shared a drink and said goodbye to Jin earlier in the evening:

  “I’ll miss you, Janie” said Jin.

  “I’ll miss you too” said Sarah Dee.

  The next morning one of the girls picked her way through the sleeping bodies and celebratory debris. She dragged a suitcase in one hand, and in her other - clasped tightly - was an airline ticket.

  Sixty-two

  (Anna)

  (Friday night)

  “Anna Keating’s body was discovered at the foot of Tardown Head by a dog-walker early on Saturday morning. Police are not linking the teenager’s death with the recent spate of murders in the town, and are instead viewing the girl’s death as suicide. It is believed that Anna had been disturbed by events in the town, and was also apprehensive about starting medical school later this month. A friend of the seventeen-year-old said that she…”

  I could hear someone talking. It was odd; almost like they were reading something aloud. Where was I?

  I breathed in deeply; this seemed different, new; something I hadn’t done for a while. I felt my lungs filling up with cold air. There was a sense of relief, but I wasn’t sure what had brought me relief. Then I realised what it was: the gag had been removed from my mouth. The cold air must have woken me. I opened my eyes and saw CJ standing above me. I was flat on my back; my head resting on the wet grass. The van was in front of me. Behind my head, I knew, was the sheer edge of the cliff.

  My first instinct was to shut my eyes again. They felt as if they were lined with lead, but I fought desperately to keep them open.

  CJ was holding a pair of garden shears. The blades glinted in the light of the moon. He grinned down at me.

  “Oh, did that wake you?” he asked, “I was just reciting what I’m going to write about you in the paper tomorrow. Your timing’s good though. Now you can experience your last moments on this planet for yourself.”

  This was it. Death. I thought about my parents, and how I would never, ever see them again; how I would never get to explain why I left them.

  That’s what got me.

  The tears came with huge, choking sobs. I was unable to wipe them away,
and they flowed sideways off my face onto the grass.

  “Too late, Anna, too late for tears” CJ opened the shears.

  “First your hands, and then your legs; the evidence goes back in the van with me. To the rest of the world, you threw yourself off this cliff. Only I will know the truth, and I will take it to my grave.”

  I started screaming at this point, but my throat was hoarse and dry, and hardly any sound crackled out. It was like one of those nightmares where you just can’t shout for help; except this was real; horribly real.

  CJ snipped the cable tie that was supporting my hands. I quickly wiped away a splodge of tears and started to crawl, dragging my body away from the edge.

  “You’re just prolonging the agony Anna” said CJ, following me.

  He stamped his foot on my hands and knelt down to snip my legs free. This, I realised, was my only chance of overpowering him, but everything was weak: my limbs, eyes, head; they all felt like they were wrapped in cement.

  He cut the tie free and immediately threw his arms around my waist, pulled me up and started to push me to towards the cliff. I dug my feet into the grass and started scratching at his face. I was going for his eyes – someone once told me, jokingly, that this was what you should do in a shark attack – I needed to blind him. I succeeded in freeing an arm and poking a finger into his right eye. He grimaced in pain, and slammed the top of his head into my eyes and nose. My arms weakened and I started to feel dizzy again.

  “Bitch!” he yelled.

  CJ had regained power over me and started to push me back towards the cliff edge. I felt my feet moving against my will; and saw his eyes staring into mine. His pupils were huge, blank and inhuman. I could see myself in them; stumbling backwards towards oblivion.

  One step, two steps.

  We carried on our slow, shuffling dance of death. I knew the edge was somewhere behind me, but couldn’t tell how close it was.

  Three steps…

  I gripped CJ as tightly as I could, but my fingers felt so weak.

  One more step.

  Then I was falling.

  *

  I hadn’t seen the shape approaching until just before it hit us. I’d been vaguely aware of the pounding of running footsteps over the grass, but had been too terrified to pay them much attention. I caught a glimpse of a face in the darkness as it slammed into me and CJ and sent us tumbling to the floor away from the cliff edge. As I rolled away from CJ’s grip everything was a dark blur; and when I attempted to get to my feet I slipped in the wet mud. Behind me I could hear raised, angry voices:

  “What are you doing!?”

  “What the fuck are you doing? Go away, you shouldn’t be here, you’re ruining the plan!”

  “This wasn’t part of the plan...”

  I looked around and saw CJ and another boy wrestling each other on the cold ground. CJ’s face was contorted with anger and surprise. I recognised the other boy; it was Ricky James.

  At the time I was too confused and drained to feel much relief. The relief came much later. I lay there on the muddy grass transfixed by the two boys as they fought. Somehow, what I was seeing was the answer to everything that had happened in Tarnsey, and I was caught between sheer intrigue and the natural instinct to flee. I suddenly realised that virtually every part of my body hurt like hell. There were scratches and bruises on my head, and blood on my hands. I crawled to what felt like a safer distance from the edge and looked back at the brawling boys.

  CJ was wiry and strong enough to overpower me, but Ricky was bigger and more powerful all round. Despite this, CJ was brawling with a manic intensity. Eventually Ricky managed to wrestle himself free of CJ’s grip and got up to his feet. CJ followed, and the two squared up to each other, with CJ throwing punches and slaps which Ricky managed to fend off.

  “This girl’s nothing to do with us, why are you doing this?” said Ricky.

  “She abandoned Sarah, she’s as guilty as the others!” shouted CJ, “she told me herself, told me the sick, twisted truth.”

  “We had to stop now. You fool, you stupid fucking fool. We’d got away with it. The police have charged Hansen.”

  “Anyone who hurt Sarah has to pay” replied CJ.

  “Can’t you see it’s time to let it go?” said Ricky.

  “We can’t. We have to finish this girl off, don’t you see? She knows about us now, knows what we’ve done. She has to die.”

  “You’re mad” said Ricky.

  “Maybe I am,” CJ shouted, “but I’m doing it for Sarah. I’m the one she loves. She told me. She still tells me.”

  “Rubbish” said Ricky. “She’s dead, and she never loved either of us anyway.”

  CJ was silent for a second.

  “She loved me,” he said.

  “No she didn’t. She barely said a word to you. She sent you one letter; that was it. What we did was about getting revenge for her, not about winning her back. She’s never coming back. I can see that. Why can’t you?”

  “You’re lying. You want to steal her off me.”

  “SHE’S DEAD!” Ricky yelled. “She killed herself and we avenged her. That was what we planned. That’s what we did. But you can’t stop now, can you? You’re addicted.”

  CJ looked stranger than ever. I stared, gripped by his bizarre expression of sadness and simmering anger. It was an expression that had overtaken him when Ricky had told him that Sarah was dead. It was as if he was struggling to suppress some disturbing truth. I jumped in shock as he let out a horrific, primal roar and charged at Ricky.

  CJ aimed a karate-kick at Ricky, who managed to grab his foot and clasp it determinedly. CJ started to hop uncertainly on one leg.

  “Get off me” he yelled.

  Ricky threw CJ towards the floor and jumped on him, pinning him to the ground. The boys’ faces were mere inches apart, but this didn’t stop Ricky shouting:

  “You’ve messed it all up! Look at this fucking mess. We’re going to go down for this, you know that? We’d gotten away with it, but now we’re going to spend the best part of our lives in prison.”

  “Not if we finish her off” said CJ, nodding in my direction.

  Ricky didn’t look round. Instead he started hitting CJ in the face with both fists. I looked away in disgust as blood started to spray from CJ’s face.

  “You’ve fucked it all up. You madman!” shouted Ricky as he pummelled away at CJ’s face. I covered my mouth and felt nausea overwhelming me; I was certain that Ricky was going to kill him.

  It was at that point that I heard the sirens, wailing urgently on the wind. I looked over at the road and saw the blue lights of the police van flashing across the darkness and the high-visibility stripes catching the moonlight. The van left the road and started wobbling across the grass towards us. Behind it, moving faster, was a police car. Further away I heard more sirens.

  Ricky stopped hitting CJ and stood up, before backing away and falling to his knees. CJ rose slowly to his feet. I blanched at the sight of his face: it was a sickening mask of blood and bruises. One eye was beaten shut, the other wide open and staring. He looked at me, and then at Ricky, his eye a bright white hole in amidst all the red. Finally, he looked up at the police van which was now only seconds away from us.

  CJ grabbed the buttons of his shirt and ripped it open violently. I stared at his pale chest, and could just about make out a small tattoo surrounded by a circular red scar. He placed his hand over it.

  The police van screeched to a stop and three officers clad in dark blue leapt from the back and raced towards us like panthers. Across the grass I saw CJ start to pace backwards, open-shirted and still staring through his one good eye.

  One step…

  Two steps…

  CJ was now right on the edge of the cliff: behind him only blackness. He rose both arms up like an eagle spreading its wings, and turned his head towards the moon. He yelled across the night; hoarsely and mournfully:

  “SARAH! I’M SORRY”

  Three steps�
��

  CJ fell backwards into the darkness – almost in slow-motion - and then he was gone.

  There followed a few seconds of stunned silence, which was broken by a sharp, distant crash.

  I shuddered. It suddenly felt very cold.

  I felt the hand of the policeman on my shoulder.

  Sixty-three

  The sun was rising now; heralding a new day while she was still living the last one. She could see the sun now: it loomed in the east like a vast red beach ball, floating high above the clouds, just like she was.

  The plane had been in the air throughout the night, but she hadn’t felt like sleeping. She was too excited; excited by new beginnings and fresh adventures.

  She was nervous too, but that was to be expected.

  The seat-belt light flashed on and the plane began its long, steep descent. The captain had informed the passengers at the start of the flight that the weather in London was bright and sunny, but cold.

  The sun in the east was gradually getting brighter.

  She couldn’t wait.

  Sixty-four

  (Sunday evening)

  Detective Superintendent Nick Crane turned his car into the narrow terraced street and looked for somewhere to park amidst the two banks of dilapidated vehicles that lined each pavement; but there didn’t look to be a lot of spaces.

  Instead he left his car around the corner in the council car-park, under the shadows of Tarnsey’s two high-rise blocks of flats, and walked the short distance to the house.

  Young Harry Wollers was a stylish sort-of chap; Crane mused, from his smart suits to his fashionably-cut hair. This aesthetic streak extended to his choice of home; he had used his police salary - along with years of conscientious saving - to buy a plush new apartment overlooking the canal basin in Selchester. Crane had been round there for a few nice meals (Harry was also a useful cook) and had admired the young man’s home; with its leather sofas, big plasma TV and minimalist furnishings.