by Claire Askew
‘What are you thinking about, Mum?’ Abigail had said to her. She’d walked out of the satin-curtained cubicle in a swishy taffeta dress that would, eventually, be the one Ishbel paid for.
‘Time,’ Ishbel had replied. ‘I was thinking about time. It only feels like two minutes since your father and I were buying your first school uniform. Now suddenly you’re this terrible adult. How did that happen?’
Abigail had laughed, showing the good, white teeth she was proud of, her smile very like Ishbel’s own.
‘I’m only seventeen,’ she’d said, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t condemn me to adulthood just yet.’
Ishbel blinked the memory away – the pain was too hot, too sharp. DI Birch was probably right: it might take a while.
Birch opened the driver’s-side door of the car and sank down into her seat. Moira was still standing in the doorway of her house, watching them: a black figure in that orange column of light. The house looked big and empty, Ishbel thought: no other lights on anywhere, and curtains pulled across all the windows like grey shrouds. It looked sad – haunted, even. Against the side of the house the hoarding from the now-mended bay window was stacked: the words Death is too good still daubed there in red paint. As DI Birch started the engine and began to edge the Mondeo out into the road, Ishbel raised a hand and held it up close to the steamy glass of the car window. She saw Moira raise her own hand in farewell – and in the rear-view mirror, Ishbel watched her small form dwindle in the lit doorway, until they turned a corner and Moira Summers, and her house, disappeared.
They drove through the rain-lit streets in silence for a while, the car thick with unspoken things, each woman busy with her own thoughts.
‘Okay,’ Birch said, and Ishbel turned to look at her. ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you something. Something not-great.’
Ishbel slumped in her seat. Something else? she thought. Really?
‘What?’
Birch had her tongue slightly out: she was negotiating a roundabout.
‘It’s about Aidan,’ she said. ‘He’s been taken in for questioning. I just had an email about it, while you were . . . dealing with Lockley.’
‘Questioning about what?’ Ishbel’s head swam. Birch looked pained.
‘You might have seen in the papers that Moira . . . she’s been receiving death threats.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ Birch paused at a junction, and risked a glance at Ishbel. ‘At first there were a lot of threats. I mean hundreds. Not all of them were credible, but . . . several were. That’s why we’ve been . . . keeping an eye – on the house, and on Moira herself. As the weeks have gone on, they’ve thinned out pretty drastically, and we’ve been sifting through them, monitoring them all. We’ve ended up with only one source that we consider particularly credible, and . . . my guys have been working to find out who that source is.’
Ishbel let Birch see she’d figured it out.
‘And . . . your guys. They think it’s Aidan?’
There was a pause.
‘He hasn’t been arrested yet,’ Birch said, and Ishbel could tell she was trying to tread carefully. ‘We’re very aware of how the press might report it, so at the moment he’s just talking to us, and they’re not being told what it’s about.’
Ishbel kept her eyes fixed on the side of Birch’s face, and stayed silent: a trick she’d learned for when people were dodging a question. Birch got the message.
‘They’re pretty sure,’ Birch said, ‘yes.’
Ishbel pressed one hand to her forehead.
‘DI Birch,’ she said, ‘I cannot believe I married someone that stupid.’
They drove on in silence again. Ishbel closed her eyes, and listened to the hiss and ebb of the rain-soaked city.
‘Anyway,’ Birch said at last, as though the quiet had become too much for her, ‘it’s been quite the day. You must be exhausted.’
Ishbel thought for a moment.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘But I feel like I did something good today. I haven’t felt like that in a really long time.’
Birch smiled.
‘You did something that a lot of people have wished they could,’ she said. ‘You’ve neutralised Grant Lockley, even if only temporarily. Many have tried . . . but in the end, it took a very smart woman.’
Ishbel was quiet.
‘Not smart,’ she said. ‘Just desperate. It felt like he was never going to leave me – leave us – alone. And I don’t think I could have survived another Lockley grenade being lobbed into my life.’
Birch was nodding, her eyes on the road.
‘But I didn’t mean Lockley,’ Ishbel went on. ‘Just then, when I said “something good”; I meant . . . well, just talking about it. About what happened. With Moira.’
Birch stopped at a crossing. A young woman walked into the street in front of them, bundled under an umbrella and looking down at her phone, her face illuminated by a little updraft of light.
‘You know,’ Ishbel said, ‘I haven’t talked with many people, since that day. Aidan of course, and my mother-in-law, and Rehan. I talked a little bit with a friend of ours – a friend of mine, Greg – at Abigail’s cremation. I kept expecting people to understand, to really understand, you know? But I felt like no one did. Especially not Aidan, though she was his daughter, too. And . . . it’s odd. It’s really odd, but . . . tonight, I feel like I finally talked with someone who got it. When she said she was sorry for my loss, I really believed it. Isn’t that strange? Of all the people . . .’
Both women were quiet for a moment. The light changed, and the Mondeo chugged on.
‘These are strange times,’ Birch said, into the quiet. ‘I think we’ve all been navigating a world that none of us really recognises.’
The black car slid on through the streets. Whenever it slowed or paused, Ishbel looked out at pedestrians hurrying home through the weather, and in at lit windows softened by condensation, beyond which glasses and silverware and faces vaguely gleamed.
‘I’ve just realised,’ Birch said, ‘I’m driving you home. To Trinity. But . . . is that where you want to go?’
Ishbel said nothing for a long time. The car idled at a crossroads, floodlit by the high windows of a steamed-up city bus.
‘You can’t stay in a Travelodge forever.’ DI Birch’s voice was gentle. ‘Don’t you have somewhere else you could go? Perhaps . . . the friend you mentioned?’
Ishbel frowned: no, that was no good. She realised it wasn’t the first time she’d considered calling Greg, asking if he could help her. He would want to, she knew. Taking care of people was what Greg did. But he wouldn’t understand, not properly. Moira Summers understood, but it turned out even she couldn’t help, even if she had shone a small and temporary light into the darkness. The darkness was still huge, and loud: things moved around inside it that Ishbel couldn’t see, and it frightened her. The darkness was called my only daughter is dead and she knew she would have to navigate it alone, for as long as it took. For as long as its terrible terrain stretched out in front of her.
‘You’re right,’ Ishbel said. She sniffed back a sudden headful of tears. ‘But it’ll do for now.’
She straightened her shoulders and looked up through the windscreen, at the yellow lights of the Old Town, aware of DI Birch watching her.
‘I can tell you how to get there,’ she said. ‘We’re already going in the right direction.’
Allegations of email hacking: our official statement of 10 June
It has come to our attention that several allegations of email hacking – and of the dissemination of confidential information obtained illegally – have been made against Grant Lockley. Mr Lockley has for three years been one of our staff columnists, and prior to that worked as a freelancer, with some articles commissioned by our parent group and published here.
We want to assure our readers that we take such allegations very seriously, and that we do not condone any kind of exploitative or illegal behaviour conducted in the
pursuit of news stories. We will always seek to work with regulatory and legal bodies to ensure that any such behaviour is thoroughly and fairly investigated, and we support appropriate sanctions – legal and other – for any individual who is found guilty of conduct that breaches our code of practice.
We are currently working with Police Scotland to assist their investigation into Mr Lockley’s activities, both historical and more recent. We are unable to comment on the specifics of this investigation at this time, for legal reasons. However, we can confirm that Mr Lockley has been suspended from his post, pending the outcome of this investigation. Until such time as this matter is concluded, Mr Lockley’s column will be authored by a series of guest writers.
Richmond Sheridan
Editor-in-Chief
Grant Lockley is away.
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That day
14 May, 7.45 a.m.
Abigail stepped down off the bus, blinking fast. It had been stuffy in there: too many people crowded together, swaying sleepily in their seats and in the aisles. She’d been nodding off herself, and almost slept past her stop; the inrush of cold air from the folding doors, and the chatter of her fellow students as they jostled to disembark had roused her. She’d been weirded out by a dream – could still feel the shadow of it clinging to her like a chill cloud, like the shadow of a stranger standing a little too close. She’d been dreaming about her mother. They’d fought, last night – they’d been sniping at each other a lot lately, and in her more honest moments Abigail knew that it was her own fault, and that she was making her mother sad.
In the dream, Abigail was floating, like she had no body, or as though she were weightless: able to hover above the world without effort, and watch it go by. She was watching her mother from a great distance – though of course, because it was a dream and dreams are strange, she was also able to see every detail of her mother’s movements, right down to the expression on her face. And her face was frantic. Her mother was convinced that something had happened to Abigail, something bad, that Abigail was lost, somewhere, and needed her. Her mother was running, running, running – her feet slapping on concrete, her possessions scattering around her – trying to get to Abigail, trying to reach her. Above her, Abigail could feel herself floating, bodyless, motionless, and she was calling out, Mummy, it’s okay, I’m fine. I’m fine – I’m here. Look up! Mummy, I’m here! But her mother couldn’t hear her: she only got more and more frantic. She only kept on running, and running.
Abigail did her best to shake off the dream. She had other, bigger things to think about today. As she climbed the sloped pavement, the outline of the campus buildings began to appear on the rise above her. The sun, not long above the roofs, lit up their topmost windows with soft bands of pink and orange light. All around her, fellow students were plodding towards the campus gateway: backpacks slung low on their shoulders, and white wires, exactly the same as her own earbuds, hanging from their ears. Among them, Abigail tried to pick out Jack – the long, slim curve of him in his good wool coat – or to smell on the air the fragranced smoke from his cherry-flavoured vape. But Jack wasn’t in yet. She’d planned to come in early, and she’d actually managed to do it. She had a little time left, to think, before he arrived.
She made it to the campus gates. In front of her, the great expanse of the car park stretched – almost full already. The weather forecast had said it would be warm today, but the air still felt cool and damp: little curls of steam were rising from the shiny bonnets of recently arrived cars. Along the side of the car park, there was a row of sycamore trees, with picnic benches dotted around underneath them. They were still young trees: out of nowhere, Abigail remembered the day they’d been brought on a huge truck and planted, their roots wrapped in some weird, pale-coloured felt. Between them, the watery sun was shining now, throwing bars of light–dark, light–dark across the grass. As everyone else funnelled towards the college buildings, Abigail peeled off from the pack and crossed to the nearest picnic bench, which, though cold to the touch, was fairly dry. She swung one foot into the bench’s well, and then the other. Around her, the foggy strands of her dream still hung.
This is it, she thought. Today is the day. She felt strangely excited: today would be like all those scenes in movies, where the heroine makes a decision to leave her old, terrible life behind and walk forward out of its smouldering ruins. The movie versions usually involved some sort of radical makeover, too: Abigail toyed with the idea of shaving her head, or ditching her patterns and colours in favour of rock ’n’ roll black and red lipstick, like Sandy in Grease, her secret favourite film. But no – she mainly just needed to do the thing. And the thing was get rid of Jack. Abigail didn’t like the word dump – it was so teenage, and felt like too trivial a description for her scenario. But yes, she was going to dump him. She expected it would nearly kill her, but she felt like she was dying anyway. Dying of anxiety at being caught with enough gear on her to make an intent-to-supply charge stick. Dying of jealousy whenever Jack talked about another girl, or looked at another girl, or made a disparaging comment about her, or forgot to text back. Dying of embarrassment about the meet last night, which Jack had failed to show up for. Dying of fear over what Jamie might do to her if the next meet didn’t go perfectly to plan. And dying of shame, because her parents were paying for her to do a college course that she wasn’t really doing, paying for her to pursue a career and a future that she was rapidly losing sight of. She was failing. She was dying of failure. So, though it was going to hurt probably worse than any hurt she’d felt before, she had to do it. She had to get out.
Abigail rummaged in her backpack, and took out the brand new journal that she’d bought just a couple of days before. Last night, having fought with her mother, and having locked herself in her room to cry, she’d got up in the middle of the night and written a stern letter to herself, on the first two pages of this crisp new book. A fresh start. This journal didn’t have a lock, like her old one – that also seemed too teenage – and she was worried that someone might steal it, and find out what was inside her head. But now she flipped the front cover and quickly skim-read the bullet points she’d made, the action plan that, any minute now, she’d need to follow. When she got to the letter’s final paragraph she slowed down, and read more carefully, letting the words sink in.
This is it, girl. This is enough. Haven’t you had enough? This is NOT how love is supposed to feel. This is NOT the person you really are. I mean, who have you become? Who IS this girl who’s blowing off all her friends to hang out with a guy? Who is this girl who’s being a total dick to her parents? Who is this girl who’s throwing away her dream career so she can hang about in cemeteries and do pathetic drug deals with pathetic men? That girl is not me, that’s not who I want to be. I want to be able to think my own thoughts, without Jack constantly hijacking them. I want to be able to put my phone away and not look at it for an hour, or a day, or however long I like! I want to be able to walk down the corridor at college and not have everyone staring at me and whispering. I want to give Mum a big hug and tell her I’m sorry for all these times lately that we’ve fought, and I’m sorry for all the things I’ve said that were terrible. I want to be better. I really do. I love Jack, but I love my family more. I love myself more. It’s time to let go and GET OUT! Tomorrow, okay? NO BACKING OUT. This is IT. This is it, Abigail. GO GET IT.
Abigail sat looking at those final lines for what felt like a long time. Around her, she could hear birds singing. She could hear the low rumble of buses pulling up at the stop down the hill, and the chatter of students as they wandered onto campus, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. She felt cold, and she shivered, and the shiver felt like a bolt of electricity running through her, galvanising her for the task. Yes. She was going to do it. She was going to do this thing.
The smell of cherries on the air made her look up. Jack was standing on the other side of the car park, vaping and looking down at his pho
ne, a fat plume of smoke hanging beside him in the chill morning air. He wasn’t wearing his wool coat today – instead, that pink checked shirt that was his favourite, with the grey lambswool cardigan buttoned over the top. His uniform, Abigail thought. He hadn’t spotted her, and she let herself luxuriate in a last, long look at him: the last few minutes of being his girlfriend, before she did the painful deed. She looked at his fancy brown brogues as they tapped – one toe and then the other, a nervous tic – against the tarmac. She looked at his fine face with its high cheekbones: his grey eyes held captive by the big glasses in their tortoiseshell frames. He’d seen something on his phone that made him smile, and she felt a final snap of jealousy, wondering who might have sent him a text, who might be flirting with him. His smile was what she’d always loved most about him, she thought, but lately, he’d weaponised it. He brought it out whenever he wanted something from her, and withheld it when she didn’t comply. It had become the smile of a tiger: beautiful, but also a warning. It always came before a snarl.