Touching the Dark

by Jane A. Adams

  Alec didn’t reply straight away. He weighed her words and then his own reply. “If she killed him in self defence,” he said. “If Miles raped her and she fought back, the courts would be understanding, Naomi.”

  “Would they? You believe that Alec.” She sighed. “You know, if I’d been in Tally’s place. I guess I’d have paid off Jack as well. I couldn’t have faced that.”

  Alec looked sharply in her direction. “You’d have faced it,” he said. “And she’s got to now or spend the rest of her life running. What’s worse, Naomi, knowing the worst that can happen or just speculating about it? What was worse with Helen, knowing she had gone or knowing for certain she was dead?”

  Naomi said nothing. She had her own parcel of guilt to carry with her from childhood. At twelve years old she had quarrelled with her closest friend and on that one morning when Helen had walked to school alone she had been abducted. It had been years, only a few months ago in fact, before Naomi had known for certain that her friend had died. Been murdered only a short time after she had disappeared. It had been...yes, almost a relief. Death bringing a proper chanced to say goodbye and move a little out of Helen’s long cast shadow.

  “I’m not sure it’s the same thing,” she said stubbornly.

  “Not the same, no. But I’m talking about grief and guilt here, Nomi and you know what it’s like to live your life overwhelmed by both of those. Tally, if she did kill Miles, she’s served worse than a prison sentence. I’m not talking about ruining her life. I think it’s time she took it back.”

  “Not by forcing her into the open,” Naomi said. “She’d never cope with it. I know what it was like for me. Everyone knew. They all wondered, what if I’d been with Helen that morning. Even Mari, and I know Helen’s family never blamed me. They’re the best friends I could ever have had, but they knew and they wondered. How could they not? And I was a kid, just an ordinary kid with nothing much to lose in terms of reputation, or life or even friends. Think of Tally’s life in comparison. If she’s come clean at the time, run to fetch help even, she’d have been seen as a child who’d acted out of fear. For a woman with her influence, her money, her power to be implicated in such a sordid, nasty death. Alec, I don’t think she could cope with it, let alone walk away purged by it or whatever it is you’re thinking.”

  “So what do you reckon I should do?” Alec demanded. “Miles died, however you look at it. Should I ignore that just because by all accounts he was a little prick?”

  Naomi said nothing. She shrugged her shoulders uncomfortably and left Alec to interpret the gesture as best he may.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The day after Tally handed in Jack’s project, Mrs Dean talked to Tally’s mother and showed the project to her.

  “Tally’s been deeply upset by all this,” Rose said. “But she’ll come right. All she needs is a bit of time.”

  “I really think she could do with some professional help, Mrs Palmer. She doesn’t seem to be coming to terms with her brother’s death at all.”

  Rose shook her head. “It’s only been a short while,” she said. “Tally and Jack were so close...of course it’s going to take her time.”

  The head teacher sighed. She had known that this would not be easy. “Take a look at this, Mrs Palmer.” She pushed the history project over the desk and Rose obediently opened the folder.

  “I saw Tally working on this,” she said. “I thought it was just homework.”

  She flicked through the pages, drawings, written work, maps. Tally had chosen to write about Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day Queen who had been born close by. “I suggested the subject to her,” Rose said. “We went out to Bradgate to take pictures. Look.” She pointed at the photographs that Tally had used to illustrate the project. “I think it looks very good, but I don’t see what this has to do with Jack.”

  “It was to have been Jack’s assignment,” Mrs Dean explained, “ready for secondary school. They always set a project for the summer. When Jack couldn’t do it, Tally felt compelled to complete it for him.”

  “Really? Oh, Mrs Dean, don’t you think that’s rather sweet?”

  “No. No I don’t. I think it’s rather worrying. And even more worrying...Mrs Palmer, look at this.” She selected two pages of text and lay them before Tally’s mother. “Look. I’ve compared the work to both Tally’s and Zachary’s. Not only has she done his project for him, but much of it is in what looks like her brother’s writing.” She shook her head. “I don’t see that as normal, grieving behaviour Mrs Palmer. I think it shows something far more disturbed.”

  Rose frowned. She leaned forward to study the two pieces of work. One was obviously Tally’s hand; the other was different and did indeed look more like her son’s. “He could have done it before....before the accident,” she said hesitantly.

  “The project wasn’t set then. Mrs Palmer, I can’t tell you what to do, I can only advise. I really do believe that Tally needs help and if you like I can arrange something for her.”

  Rose was already shaking her head. She leaned forward earnestly. “Tally hurts,” she said. “We all do. People have different ways of grieving. When my grandmother died I still talked to her every night for weeks but I got over it.” She stood up preparing to leave. “All she needs is time and patience Mrs Dean. Nothing more.”

  *

  “I’m remembering more things,” Jack told Tally. “Things that happened that day and other stuff, you know, ordinary stuff.”

  “That’s good,” Tally approved. He was becoming more solid now. Could hold a pen and sit on the edge of her bed without the daisies sticking through. In fact, he had become so solid and dependably real that she knew she was going to have to watch herself when she talked about him around other people. Her mother had sat her down and told her what Mrs Dean had said. Her mother had been very upset by the inference that Tally was acting funny and told her that she’d have to pull herself together.

  “But he’s not gone, mum,” Tally tried to tell her. Rose just held up a hand to stop her saying more.

  “I’m so glad you feel like that, love. People we care about are always with us one way or another, but other people. Other people might take that kind of talk the wrong way. You don’t want to get a reputation, Tally.”

  Tally had agreed that she did not though she had no clear idea of what her mother meant. After that she had been more careful. All hope she had once had that her mum and dad might be able to share in this new person that was Jack come alive again faded as well and she began to realize that Jack could only ever be for her.

  Jack seemed troubled tonight, Tally thought and the trouble seemed to be caught up with the memories that were coming back.

  “What is it?” Tally wanted to know. “What did you remember?”

  Jack looked sideways at her as though he didn’t want to tell. “I know who chased me,” he said. “I know who it was with that woman. It was dad.”

  *

  Tally had no wish to hurt her mother but what Jack had told her was not something she could keep to herself. She turned things over in her mind, imagining the scene as Jack had presented it to her and however she looked at it she could only think that her father was to blame. That his actions had caused Jack to run and fear of what his father would do had caused Jack to fall. Tally knew that she had to say something. In her own mind she felt that she must confront her father and make him pay for his crime.

  She finally cornered her father one night when he was in the kitchen poking in the fridge for beer.

  “What’s her name?”

  He was bending over, peering into the refrigerator and he glanced at Tally under his outstretched arm.

  “What’s whose name?”

  “The woman you’ve been seeing? You were with her the day Jack fell. He saw you in the field down by the railway line.”

  Her father straightened up. He was frowning at her.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Tally. Where did you get this daft idea from.”<
br />
  He popped the ring pull on his beer and took a glass from the drainer, a nod to Rose who hated to see him drinking from the can.

  “Jack told me.”

  Her father stared at her for a moment and then turned away, closing the fridge door and then moving towards the dining room where her mother sat feeding baby Carl.

  “Jack,” he said. “Always bloody Jack.”

  His voice was thick as though he had a cold and Tally wondered if he were about to cry.

  “He told me,” she repeated. “You saw him watching and thought he was spying on you. But he wasn’t, dad. He truly didn’t know until you looked up at him. Then he got scared and tried to run away and you chased after him and then he fell.”

  She saw her father’s back stiffen. She could tell that what she had said to him struck home. That it was the truth no matter how much he should try to deny it. She moved around him, blocking his path to the dining room and leaning against the door so that he must physically move her out of the way if he wanted to get through.

  “You killed him, dad. You killed Jack.”

  Her father’s face twisted with emotion and he clutched the beer can hard enough to compress the sides. Beer spilled out over his hand and onto the floor and his other hand gripped the glass until his knuckles turned white and the bones pressed against the skin.

  “Jack knows you didn’t meant to, dad.” Tally didn’t know if this was true but her father looked so pained she felt she must make the offering. “He knows you didn’t.”

  “Jack’s dead.” Her father said. “Jack’s bloody dead, Tally. When will you get that inside your thick little head?” His voice had raised now and so had the hand holding the glass. For a frightened moment she though that he was going to strike her but instead he smashed the glass into the wall beside the door. “Jack’s fucking dead and gone Tally, he can’t tell you a frigging thing. Dead, dead, fucking dead.”

  He shouted the words, punctuating them by hammering what was left of the glass against the kitchen tiles. Blood ran down between his fingers where he had been deeply cut and as he moved his hand it splashed redly on Tally’s face and dress. She cried out, more startled by the wetness of the blood than by her father’s outburst. She could hear her mother calling to them from the other room, hearing the raised voices and wondering what was wrong. Her father bent down, his face close to hers.

  “Your mam told me what that teacher said.” He tapped his head with bloodied fingers, then straightened and called back to his wife that everything was all right. They’d just broken a glass and not to come through until he’d cleared it up. Tally stared at him, scared but not so scared that she was prepared to give up.

  “Jack told me,” she asserted “and I don’t care if he is dead, he’s still Jack and Jack didn’t lie. You were with that woman and you chased him so he wouldn’t tell.”

  “There was no woman. There is no Jack.” He shook his hand as though trying to free the fragments of glass that pierced the palm and between his fingers. Blood splashed against the door and he cursed. “Get out of here. Out while I clean up this mess. Go on.” He used his other hand to urge her through the door, spilling beer on a skirt that was already stained with his blood. Tally grasped the door handle and pulled the door open. As she did so she said loud enough for her mother to hear. “What are you going to tell mum. That you weren’t fucking someone else?”

  She ran then, more shocked by her own use of a forbidden word than by anything else that had passed between them. Scared too because she knew her mother must have heard and it would not be like Rose just to let things lie.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  They arrived back at Naomi’s flat around five o’clock to find a message from Patrick’s father, Harry. Alec called him back, then put it on speakerphone so that Naomi could hear. Patrick, it seemed, had come home very excited. He swore that the man from the photo fit, this Jack, had been hanging around outside the school. What should they do?

  “Did anyone else see him?” Alec wanted to know. “Harry, did he report this?”

  “He went back in and told one of the teachers, yes. She came back out with Patrick and the man was still there but he took off when he saw Patrick wasn’t on his own.”

  “Did he say anything to Patrick? Approach him?”

  “Fortunately, he didn’t get the chance.”

  “Harry, I’m not doubting him, but I don’t see what interest Jack would have in Patrick.” He paused, wondering, Pat often came over to do his homework at Naomi’s. “Unless he’ saw him at Naomi’s place.”

  “There’s another possibility,” Harry told him. “This Tally Palmer, she did a talk at the school and Patrick spoke to her afterward. He mentioned Naomi. You know what Patrick’s like, didn’t even tell me about the talk never mind having spoken directly to the woman.” Harry was clearly miffed by this lack of communication, though Alec knew It had nothing to do with the way the two got along. Patrick just didn’t mention things, unless he was talking to Naomi or Napoleon. Napoleon was a good listener. Alec himself had frequent and long conversations with the big black dog.

  “I don’t like this, Alec,” Harry was saying and Alec agreed quickly.

  “I’ll need to get a statement from him and I’ll make arrangements with the school, maybe get a police liaison officer to go in for assembly. Look Harry, I’m going to catch Dick Travers before he goes off duty, get the wheels in motion. I’ll get someone over there to take Patrick’s statement. I’ll come myself if I can, meantime, I’ll send Naomi.

  “Thanks Alec. I appreciate it.” The relief was evident in Harry’s voice. We’re at Mari’s, Pat came here after school and she had the sense to call me. I came straight home.”

  “Of course he did,” Naomi smiled when he got off the phone. “Poor old Harry, life just won’t settle down for him will it. First Helen and now this. She reached for her coat. “Drop me off on your way, will you Alec, I’ll go now rather than ring a taxi. She frowned. “I’m worried,” she confided. “First me and then Patrick. This Jack, he doesn’t like people getting in his way.”

  *

  DCI Dick Travers had pulled out all the stops. He’s contacted the head teacher at home, got liaison officers in place and briefed the teaching staff before the children arrived that morning. Officers and teachers were standing by with copies of the photo fit compiled from the descriptions of Nat Sullivan and the ad vice centre staff and arrangements had been made that any pupil feeling the need to call their parents would have a teacher standing by to explain.

  Patrick found himself the centre of attention and not liking it very much, the only compensation being that a girl he fancied who’d spent all term ignoring him, finally glanced his way.

  The head teacher, Eileen Mathers, cast her most serious expression over the sea of expectant faces and told them about the incident reported last night.

  “This man could be dangerous,” she said. “We don’t know why he was here outside our school, but Patrick Jones must be commended on his sensible actions. He did exactly the right thing in reporting it to a member of staff and his father then informed the police.”

  She nodded across to Alec sitting next to her on the stage. “Detective Friedman and his team want to know if any of you others spotted this man. If you’ve seen him before. If anything has happened either close to the school or on your journeys home that have given you case for concern and I’m sure they will emphasis, do not approach this man. Keep together and if you see him report it immediately, you’ll be given a number to contact should you have any worries on this score. I know, despite our rules,” she paused and fixed her charges with the beadiest of gazes. “that many of you persist in bringing your mobile phones to school.”

  A frisson that was almost a giggle, drifted through the room.

  “This might be one time when the infernal devises actually prove useful, but,” she raised her voice emphatically. “They must still be kept switched off on school premises. I hope that’s understoo
d. Now, return to you tutor rooms. Any of you who feel you have something to say will be released by your tutors and allowed to come to my room for interview. A teacher will be present and I’m sure I can count on all of you to deal with this with maturity and restraint.”

  She left the stage, Alec following. The soft buzz of conversation that had broken out the moment she had turned to go exploding into full scale hullabaloo as the hall doors closed.

  “Maturity and restraint,” she said and laughed somewhat mirthlessly. “Some hope of that. You realize you’ll have half the school queuing up to talk to your lot just so they can claim their five minutes of fame.”

  Alec smiled and nodded. “I realize,” he told her, but we’ve got to be seen to go through the motions just in case. I thought it was fifteen minutes of fame,” he added.

  “Not in my school. You’ll give them five each and no more.” She smiled properly at him. “Play it my way, Inspector Friedman or believe me, you’ll be here for days.”

  By lunchtime, Alec was beginning to believe her, the queue snaked down the corridor, noisy and giggly – and that was just the boys. Alec was reminding himself of why he wasn’t all that keen on teenagers.

  Most were dealt with in much less than the five minutes. Many had come along as moral support for a friend – why was it that girls always had to do everything together, Alec wondered – and he was learning that one interview could often do away with three or four waiting in the queue.

  Most thought they might have seen something. A few were genuinely scared. One or two actually had spotted Jack, standing across the road and watching the school gates, though they had assumed he was just waiting legitimately for one of the kids. That they noticed him at all was down to him not being one of the regulars who stood there and Alec decided it was worth getting uniform out to talk to the parents at the end of the day. A regular collector of children was more likely than not to notice someone new. He’d almost discounted the parent thing, thinking that these kids were mainly old enough to take themselves home, but it emerged than some came quite a distance, out of catchment and off the regular bus routes.