‘I want you to come. I think he’s under the ice. I can’t sleep for thinking about it.’
‘Why?’ she said again. ‘Why are you so obsessed with that idea?’ She turned her back on me to wring out a cloth aggressively under the tap. ‘You’re messed up in the head, you are.’
‘It’s like Carl said. It was me, wasn’t it? I told him people went skating on the ice,’ I said. ‘I told him it was a laugh. I said we did it all the time.’
‘We’ve never been skating on that ice,’ Chloe said. Her lips were flaking and cracked, and she licked them nervously. Where was her gloss?
‘I know,’ I said irritably. It was hard, trying to argue with her in a low voice, while Amanda was ironing in front of the television just through the archway. ‘I was just…’ What was I supposed to tell her? Making things up to impress a Mong? ‘… making conversation.’
‘So?’ Chloe shrugged.
‘So what if he did? What if he went through?’
‘It’d be his own stupid fault,’ Chloe said, decisively. ‘Just because you mentioned it doesn’t mean you forced him to do it.’
‘You’ve changed your tune.’
She was certain. I stared at her. Her eyelid twitched slightly and she took her hair from behind her ear and started to twirl it around her fingers. It found its way into her mouth, and she sucked it into a spike. She was so certain it made me doubt myself.
‘We’re not going to see anything you haven’t already seen,’ Chloe said. ‘You should just forget about it.’
‘I want to go and see.’
‘He’s not there.’ Her hands twitched towards a tea-towel on the draining board. ‘Can’t you just trust me?’ Chloe stared at me. I just shook my head and pulled the tea-towel away from her.
‘You should just trust me,’ I said.
‘You’ll just have to wait until the spring, won’t you? See what pops up when it thaws out.’
‘I want you and Carl to come, just to double-check. We’ll be there and back in an hour if he drives us.’
‘He’s not going to want to do that,’ Chloe said evenly. ‘He’s busy trying to get this darkroom finished.’ She pulled the teatowel gently through my fingers, spat out her hair and bent her head to scrub at the worktop.
‘It’s Valentine’s Day soon. Tell him he has to take you out, has to drive you wherever you want before you’ll shag him. Tell him you deserve a treat, and that’s the only thing you want. You can talk to him,’ I said.
I spoke more loudly than I needed to, and Amanda popped her head through the arch and smiled at us. She saw Chloe wiping the counter.
‘Good girls,’ she said, ‘but don’t waste your Saturday afternoon cleaning up in here, will you?’
Chloe ignored her and she looked hurt and went back into the living room. I wanted to tell Amanda how it worked. To ignore back. To pretend Chloe didn’t exist. She’d grow up and pack it in soon enough if we all did that. If we all did it, if everyone in the world pretended like Chloe did not exist, she’d probably die.
Amanda was watching Countdown and every now and again she would laugh at the programme, and the steam would come hissing out of the iron.
‘I wish you’d shut up about it,’ Chloe said, ‘you don’t know what you’re playing at.’
‘You’ll ask him though, won’t you?’ I said, and she ducked her head, and then nodded slowly.
‘I’ll ask him. I’ll get him to take us. But don’t talk to anyone else about it. There’s nothing in it. We’re only going to make you feel better.’
‘Tell him you’re humouring me, because I’m bereaved,’ I said, and Chloe looked at me, almost shocked, but saw me smiling and laughed.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’ll do that. You look like shit. I am humouring you because you’re bereaved.’
‘I want to go home now. So you’ll ask your dad to give me a lift back?’
Chloe dropped the tea-towel into the sink and wiped her hands on the front of her jeans.
‘I’ll come in the car with you,’ she said, and her eyelid started to twitch again.
Chapter 26
It is still dark and the cameras remain with Terry. He’s standing away from the bank of the pond where the forensic tent is a pale oblong behind the shadows of the trees.
The crowd is growing as quickly and silently as dividing bacteria. They push against the yellow tape the police have strung between the trees. They are stamping their feet and puffing hot air into cupped hands. They move together, one man’s mouth at another’s ear. I stare until my eyes feel gritty. These are the hard-core fans: thirty or forty people in anoraks with their hoods up, or duffel coats, or sports jackets with bright, reflective panels. These are the people who follow Terry when he is off-duty, who think they are his friends, who appear like ghosts over and over again in the background of his on-location shots. Some of these people will be his ex-vigilantes from the late nineties and their faces are all the same: solemn, with wide, hungry eyes that track Terry as he moves up and down the tape cordon that separates him from them. He shakes hands over it like the Queen and he nods when they speak, but we at home can’t hear anything because they’re doing the voiceover bit again.
‘It was supposed to be a private ceremony. Close family only, plus media partners and business sponsors. We weren’t even invited.’
Emma’s outraged voice in the dim quiet of my sitting room shocks me. I look at her, but she’s frowning at the television.
‘I think it’s gone past that now,’ I say.
My glass is empty and I wedge it between my thighs, testing the pressure – not sure if I want it to shatter or not.
‘Something’s happened,’ she says. ‘Look, they’re moving.’
The wood was such a dark, quiet place the last time I was there. No one but me, Carl and Chloe wandering along the path and laughing at how often we tripped. Now it’s an outdoor studio, and the black bowl of the sky is stained with the spotlights from the camera crew.
A mortuary van rolls along the footpath, its wide tyres crushing the shrubs and scattering the undergrowth in a soft hail of snapped twigs and torn leaves. The engine thrums gently and there’s a shuffling, a ripple across the crowd of people waiting as they sigh and reorder themselves. Terry is out of shot, and the van can’t get near enough to the tent where the exhumed body is because of the trees. So it stops and two men in navy boiler suits jump out.
The pair move slowly round to the back of the van, open the double doors and bring out a plastic stretcher without a blanket. There’s a gasp, as if no one knew that they’d come to collect the body. There’s some pointing and head-shaking and the police officers move the tape and divide the onlookers to let them through. They don’t unfold the stretcher, but carry it under their arms like a ladder and move along the path cleared through the crowd and marked out by the yellow tape. Heads bowed, and towards the white tent. No rush.
‘It’s weird, isn’t it? It doesn’t feel real.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Who’s to say that they aren’t actors? Don’t you think it’s all just too perfect? It looks like an episode of Silent Witness.’
‘What would you expect it to look like?’ she says vaguely, and refuses to bring her eyes away from the screen. She chews on the cuff off her coat absently. It’s an old habit, that.
‘Do you remember when we did our interviews?’ I say. ‘They filmed us, didn’t they?’
Emma screws up her nose. ‘Not for the telly though.’
‘No, but it’s creepy to think of it, isn’t it? What we said still being on record somewhere. Some tape in an archive. Don’t you ever wonder what they’re going to do with it?’
She finally looks at me. ‘I never think about it.’
‘I do,’ I say, and swallow. ‘I wonder, sometimes, if they were asking you and me the same things, and comparing our stories.’
Emma coughs decisively and pulls her tobacco out of her pocket. The movement is enough to declare the topi
c of conversation closed.
‘I think it’s disgusting,’ she says, hunched over the packet, ‘all those people. This is Chloe’s night. We’re her friends, not them.’
‘It’s not that,’ I say, half-amused when it strikes me that she could just as easily be talking about party crashers at a birthday or wedding reception, ‘it’s Terry. There’s always a crowd like this when he does on-location stuff. He’s not been able to do his own shopping for years.’
‘They should be sent home,’ Emma says. ‘It’s disrespectful.’
The men carrying the stretcher disappear between the trees. The police return to move the tape back and the crowd gathers to fill the space. The shot cuts to a view from above – they’ve got the helicopter out. There’s a wide red van in the car park – as big as a tour bus, and the paintwork is so clean and glossy it is almost glowing. This van is painted with the logo of Terry’s programme on the side of it and it has a set of aerials and dishes sticking out of the top. It looks like it’s had acupuncture. They’ve set up a mobile studio, and Terry is settling in for the night.
There he is. In front of the van, in his furry hat, with bags under his eyes. He’s been there hours. Got to do something to break up the monotony.
‘We’re busy taking calls,’ Terry says. ‘We want to know what you think. The number is on the bottom of your screen right now. Dial that number and tell me what’s on your mind. We know you’re keen to share, and we’ve already got our first caller. Paul?’
‘Terry, I just wanted to say that I went out with the dog tonight, just to give him a walk, and that big poster of you on Blackpool Road – you know the one on the billboard with your thumbs sticking up?’
‘I do, Paul, yes.’
‘Well, someone’s gone and torn it down. Or it wasn’t stuck up properly in the first place. There’s bits of it all over the road.’
‘A spot of anti-Terry vandalism, or should we say, community-based direct action?’ Terry says, and smiles, right through the television screen. There’s a beat or two of silence, and then the smile turns into a slow laugh that doesn’t get to his eyes.
‘Well, whatever you want to call it, I think it’s a disgrace, and come the bit of rain we’re forecast tomorrow morning, could turn out to be a health hazard. What if some young couple skids off the road on some mashed-up paper? Do you think it’s going to be any comfort to their kids that the accident happened because of a picture of your face?’
‘Quite so, and I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Terry says. ‘And anything else, Paul, on this evening’s main topic? What’s your opinion about the events of the past ten hours? What are your feelings?’ Terry touches his ear and leans into the screen. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Well, it’s just like this, isn’t it, Terry? How long’s it been there? They’re never going to find out who did it, until they find out when it was done, if you catch my drift. That’s what they’ve got to set about first, isn’t it?’
‘You’re speaking about the unfortunate – the body?’
‘Sure,’ Paul says, and his voice is warm again – amused and friendly. ‘My kids play in that park. I take the dog out there. What I want to know is, how long has it been there, and how long till they get it shifted?’
‘Forensics are working on that right now, Paul,’ Terry says. There’s a twitch in his left nostril. ‘In fact, they are shifting it, as we speak, and I’ll personally pass on your thanks for their sterling efforts tonight. The forensics team is very possibly the least visible and most under-appreciated echelon of our police service, and I know for a fact they’d be grateful you’re thinking of them at this time.’
He sighs, too visibly, and reads out the number at the bottom of the screen again. ‘Remember,’ he says, ‘while we want to hear from you all, we’re particularly interested in those of you who knew the deceased personally. Those of you with a story to tell about what he might have been doing with himself in these woods when he died.’
Paul is still speaking.
Suddenly, the camera snaps back to the studio. Fiona is there – working a double shift but looking as fresh as she did when she stepped out of Make-up yesterday afternoon. Not a hair out of place and her eyes are as bright as ever. She smiles and it is perfect and blinding.
‘Later,’ she says warmly, ‘we’ll be interviewing the men who run the forensics department at the hospital. Real-life CSI, and bringing you the facts in small words that you’ll understand.’ She squints slightly, her hand moves to her ear. I bet Terry or one of his lackeys is shouting at her. ‘But for the time being,’ she says, ‘back to Terry, who’s still on location at Cuerden. Terry?’
Terry’s red in the face and his mouth is twisted – he’s apoplectic, in fact, at the interruption. For a moment the screen is split like a Lynda La Plante adaptation and we at home can see the two of them – him outside in the mud and the cold, and her curled up on the couch in the studio wearing a suit that is perfectly coordinated with it. He does not acknowledge her on the other half of the television but makes a snapping gesture with the flat of his hand – she disappears, and he carries on as if she never existed.
‘Remember, Paul, Rome wasn’t built in a day and perfection takes patience!’ He jerks his jaw to someone off screen. ‘Next caller, please! We’ve got Peggy, here, from New Hall Lane. Peggy – what do you want to say?’
There’s a pause – too much dead air for a live broadcast, and they are seconds away from moving on to the next call when there’s a crackle on the line and Peggy starts to speak. I can’t hear what she’s saying because she’s sobbing, and the catarrh is rattling in her throat and her own telephone, as well as the equipment in the portable news studio, is amplifying the bubbling, popping sound she is making between every word.
‘Peggy,’ Terry says gently, ‘take your time. I’m listening. We’re all listening. This is a hard night for us all. Did you – do you believe you know the deceased?’
He’s hoping for an exclusive and not a lonely crackpot who’s had too many Babychams and managed to dial the studio’s number. He’s hoping she’s going to make some kind of confession, live on air – you can almost see the awards and the plaudits glittering in think-bubbles over his head.
‘When you’re ready, my love.’
He may be rehearsing the possibilities but he knows his game – he doesn’t smile, doesn’t rush her; he looks solemnly at us all through the clank of the digging machinery and the increasing tempo of her sobbing.
‘It’s just so… ugh ugh ugh, so tragic,’ Peggy splutters. ‘She was so young! Does anyone know, has anyone thought to ask, if they’re still going to be able to build the little memorial for her? I thought it was such a lovely idea.’
There’s a pause while she blows her nose, deafeningly, into the telephone. Terry does not visibly flinch.
‘A Wendy house for her friends to play in.’
I glance at Emma and she’s wet-eyed: sorrow is still as contagious as plague, and this woman is forgetting that while Chloe is still fourteen, the rest of us are knocking on twenty-five and long past playing in dens in the woods.
‘Thank God it wasn’t one of us,’ Emma says, and I ignore her.
‘Ah,’ Terry says, and bows his head for a moment, ‘a timely reminder to those of us who are caught up in the drama of the night.’ He looks piercingly at the camera. ‘This is no soap opera, friends – this is a real-life memorial to a teenage girl.’ They cut to a montage of shots taken around the City in the days leading up to Chloe’s funeral. The cards and stuffed bears. The drifts of browning flowers. Terry does not stop talking. He writes his own autocue, apparently.
‘A teenage girl who loved so deeply, and so completely, that she felt no other option but to end her life alongside her forbidden lover. Ten years has passed – which is why we’re here tonight. Let’s take a moment of silence to reflect on that and – as Peggy has reminded us – return our focus to Chloe, departed, not forgotten, and loved in death as much as she eve
r loved in life.’
The minute’s silence, the second of the evening, is the opportunity to show the jingle from the chocolate sponsor and cut to the adverts. Emma stands up and goes into the bathroom. She’s hunched, and the back of her shirt is darkened with sweat between the shoulder blades. I think, just for a second, about following her in there.
That is what is supposed to happen, isn’t it? Girls go to the toilets in pairs. She’s supposed to cry and I am supposed to hold her and say some comforting things, pass her loo paper and help her fix her mascara. Reassure her, before we emerge into the glare of the screen in the sitting room, that she looks fine, that it isn’t a problem, that no one thinks she’s stupid. I mute the television and listen to the water running for a few seconds, then go into the kitchenette to make coffee.
This evening is turning into another Chloe-thon. Terry asked Peggy about the body in the present tense – ‘Do you believe you know the deceased?’ – and I think about it, think about how Wilson is still here, not dead at all, not to his parents, not to anyone who misses him and is still waiting for him to come home. Not to Terry, who always refused to believe, despite the last two attacks, that it was not Wilson who was stalking us. I wonder, not for the first time, if Wilson’s parents were watching when the mayor started to dig. If they were feeling the sickly churning of anticipation that I’ve been feeling in my stomach all night.
The present tense is full of possibilities: a future is bolted on to it like time is a row of railway carriages flicking through a train station, one after the other after the other. Now the body has been identified that possibility has been cut off and worse than that, Wilson’s mum and dad, wherever they are, are going to know that it never really existed and didn’t all the years they were hoping for it.
The coffee smells ashy and foul – there’s a ring of multicoloured bubbles around the rim of the mug that I sweep away with the teaspoon.
‘Here,’ I say, still standing when Emma comes in.
‘I’m not drunk,’ she says, takes the coffee and sniffs it without drinking.
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