Witness

by Mandasue Heller

  ‘No.’ Suzie pulled a face. ‘It’s never even crossed my mind.’

  ‘I have,’ Rob said. ‘I reckon the first would be a girl who looked like you, and then we’d have a lad who looked like me.’

  ‘And would they tear each other to shreds like us?’ Suzie sniped. Immediately feeling guilty when Rob withdrew his arm and took a swig of lager without answering, she said, ‘Sorry. That was uncalled for.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ he replied quietly. ‘I was a cunt, and you’ve got every reason to be glad we never got that far.’

  ‘We both had our faults. It wasn’t all you.’

  ‘Yeah, it was. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I blew it big time. Worst thing is, I don’t even know why I treated you like that. You hear people talking about a red mist coming down when they get mad, but with me it was like a raging inferno, and I couldn’t see or hear anything till I snapped out of it. I know it’s too late for us, but I am sorry. I hope you can believe that.’

  His gaze was intense, and Suzie nodded and looked down into her glass. He sounded sincere and her instincts were telling her that he genuinely meant it. But she was starting to feel a little tipsy and wasn’t sure she could trust her own judgement.

  ‘I think I’d best go.’ Rob sat forward. ‘I came to apologize, not rake up all that old shit and make you feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘You’re not making me uncomfortable,’ Suzie insisted. ‘It’s all water under the bridge now. Forget about it.’

  ‘Wish I could,’ he said wistfully. ‘Truth is, you’re all I’ve thought about for weeks. That’s why I’m moving to Scotland: ’cos my mentor told me I need to get away from you.’

  ‘Cheeky sod!’

  Amused by her indignation, Rob said, ‘He meant for your sake, not mine. He reckons you deserve the chance to move on without worrying about seeing my ugly mug every time you turn round. Anyway, I bumped into an old mate who works on the rigs and he told me they were hiring, so I applied online. They rang yesterday and asked me to go over for an interview. If I get it, I’ll be starting straightaway.’

  ‘On the rigs? As in oil rigs? In the middle of the sea?’

  ‘Well, that’s where the oil is, so, yeah. My mate reckons the weather gets a bit hairy at times, so I’m not looking forward to that. But the money’s top whack, and I won’t have any expenses while I’m offshore, so I’m sure I’ll get used to it.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Suzie lied, unable to think of anything worse.

  ‘Not so good for the old love life, though, eh?’ Rob quipped. ‘Subject of, how’s yours these days?’ Laughing when Suzie almost choked on her wine, he sat back and crossed his legs. ‘I’m asking as a friend – honest. You deserve a bloke who treats you good, and I’ll be made up for you if you’ve found someone.’

  ‘I’m not looking for anyone,’ Suzie said, plucking a tissue out of the box on the table and wiping wine off her chin.

  ‘Same here. No one’ll ever match up to you, so what’s the point?’

  ‘Don’t say that. You’ve got a lot to offer the right woman.’

  ‘Already had her and lost her,’ said Rob. Then, grinning again, he said, ‘But I thought we were supposed to be giving that subject a swerve, so what did you think of the match the other night? Cracking goal, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Seriously?’ Suzie screwed up her face.

  ‘Neutral ground, baby.’ Rob winked at her. ‘Unless you’ve turned into a secret City fan behind my back? ’Cos that’d be a step too far, that.’

  ‘Idiot,’ Suzie snorted.

  Laughing, Rob drained the last of the lager out of his can and nodded at her glass. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any more of that knocking about?’

  ‘The bottle’s in the kitchen,’ Suzie told him. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Not gonna join me?’

  ‘No, I’ve had enough. And it’s getting late, so I think I might try to get some sleep.’

  ‘Awww, don’t go yet,’ Rob moaned. ‘I’m wide awake here. Have one last drink with me. Please?’

  He jutted out his bottom lip and gave her the puppy-dog eyes, and Suzie felt the butterflies stir in her stomach again.

  ‘OK,’ she heard herself agreeing as she rose unsteadily to her feet. ‘One more, then I’m definitely going to bed.’

  That one last drink had inevitably turned into two, and then three, until, before Suzie knew it, they had finished two bottles between them and it was almost 4 a.m.

  The alcohol, added to the cosiness of the room – and Rob’s presence in it – had slowly dismantled the wall Suzie had built around herself in his absence. She’d found herself relaxing as they reminisced about the past – focusing on the good bits while studiously avoiding the not-so-good. The sexual tension in the air had been so thick by the time the wine was finished, she fully expected Rob to make a move on her. But he was now stretching, and she guessed she’d read it wrong when his gaze drifted to the clock on the wall.

  Think yourself lucky, the sensible part of her brain whispered. You’re pissed, and you’d regret it big time if you slept with him.

  Unsure if that was true, because her body was crying out to be touched, Suzie drained the dregs of her wine and placed her glass on the coffee table.

  ‘You look as tired as I am, so I think it’s time we called it a night,’ she said, half hoping Rob would disagree.

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ he said, covering a yawn with his hand. ‘I need to make an early start.’

  ‘Do you want me to set my alarm to wake you?’ she offered, trying not to let her disappointment show as she pushed herself up to her feet.

  ‘No, it’s OK, I’ll set my phone alarm,’ he said, also standing.

  Suzie froze, her nerve endings sparking with anticipation. Was this it? Was he going to take her in his arms and . . .

  ‘Just need to use the loo before I hit the hay.’ Rob nodded towards the door, the path to which she was blocking.

  ‘Oh, sorry . . .’ She moved aside, feeling foolish. ‘I’ll, um, leave you to it, then. Night.’

  ‘Night,’ Rob said. Then, touching her arm lightly before she moved, he said, ‘Thanks for tonight, Suze. I really appreciate you letting me kip on the sofa, and it’s been great catching up with you.’

  Catching up . . . Suzie mentally repeated the words as she made her way up the stairs ahead of Rob. Was that all tonight had meant to him: a chance to apologize before he left the country, and – bonus – salvage a bit of friendship from the ruins of their relationship?

  They said goodnight again when they reached the landing, then Suzie went to her room while Rob headed into the bathroom. Climbing into bed, she heard the flush of the toilet a couple of minutes later, followed by the pad of his feet on the carpet as he went down the stairs, and the click of the living room lamp being switched off.

  Sighing when silence fell over the house, Suzie rolled onto her side and pulled the quilt up over her shoulders, trying to ignore the yearning in the pit of her stomach.

  It’s the wine, she told herself firmly. If you were sober you wouldn’t even be thinking these things. You split up with Rob for a reason, and you’ve been doing fine without him, so stop this pathetic pining and go to bloody sleep!

  Downstairs, lying on the sofa in his boxers, his arms behind his head, the spare quilt draped over his legs, Rob stared up at the ceiling and listened to the creak of the bedsprings as Suzie settled down for the night in the room they had once shared.

  Given the way things had ended between them, he hadn’t really expected Suzie to open the door, so he’d been pleasantly surprised when she not only invited him in but had also offered him a bed for the night. Her guard had been high to start with, but the booze had gradually lowered it, and by the time they’d finished the second bottle – most of which she had necked – Suzie had been giving him the full-on fuck me eyes.

  He could have taken her up on it. He could have had her right here on this sofa and then carried her
upstairs and fucked her all night. And he’d wanted to – God, he had wanted to! But he had resisted – for her sake as much as his.

  He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her until he saw her tonight, and he wished he could turn back the clock and start over with her. But if he was to stand any chance of getting back with her, it had to be her decision – and a sober one, at that, so she couldn’t accuse him of taking advantage of her further down the line.

  A buzzing sound coming from under the coffee table interrupted Rob’s thoughts, and he leaned over and dragged his rucksack out from under it. There were several messages and missed call notifications on his phone screen, none of which he’d heard because his attention had been focused on Suzie. It was too late to reply to them now, so he slipped the phone into the bag and lay back down, casting one last glance up at the ceiling before closing his eyes.

  25

  The door slammed into the wall below the girl’s room, and her heart skittered in her chest when she heard footsteps rushing through the kitchen, the hallway and up the stairs. Remembering what her mummy had told her to do if anyone ever came into the house while they were sleeping, she quickly rolled off the bed and wriggled under it, unsure if it was the police looking for drugs, or the bad men coming to fight with her stepdad again.

  She didn’t understand why those horrible men always wanted to hurt him, because he was really nice to her and her mummy. Most of the time. When he had money and smokes and they weren’t arguing and throwing things at each other. But, as scary as it was when the bad men came, at least she didn’t get sent away to stay with strangers afterwards, like she did whenever the police turned up looking for drugs and made her go with the fat lady social worker.

  Under the bed now, trying not to sneeze as dust went up her nose, she bit down hard on her hand to stop herself from crying out when the footsteps ran past her room and her mummy screamed . . .

  PART TWO

  26

  Holly woke in a cold sweat. The room was pitch-dark and all she could hear was the jackhammer of her heartbeat pounding in her ears. As it began to settle she heard a dull thud coming through the wall behind her headboard, and she jumped up when the memories of the previous night rushed back to her. Stumbling out into the hallway, groping for the light switch as she went, she tiptoed into her mum’s room and quietly approached the bed.

  Josie’s mum was still out of it, her closed eyes rolling inside their lids as if she was dreaming deeply – but not peacefully, judging by the way her legs were jerking. She was mumbling and Holly leaned closer to listen. Most of the words were indecipherable, but one leapt out loud and clear, and Holly pulled her head back and stared at her mum open-mouthed.

  She’d said Charlie. Short for Charles – or Charlotte, the name of the missing girl.

  It was too much of a coincidence for it not to mean anything, and Holly crept over to the wardrobe to take another look at the newspaper cutting. She eased the door open, scared that the hinges might squeak and wake her mum, then carefully lifted the tin box out and carried it back to her room.

  She spread the cutting out on her bed and re-read it before typing the names of the murdered couple into a Google search. A stream of articles appeared on her phone screen and she quickly scrolled through them. Most pretty much mirrored the story in the cutting, with occasional updates on the progress – or lack of – in the search for Charlotte. The last article was dated three months after the original, and Holly’s heart sank when she read that the search had been called off. A piece of clothing, believed to belong to the missing child, had been recovered from the bottom of the Rochdale canal a mile away from the murder scene, and Charlotte was now presumed to be dead. In light of that, a police spokesperson had said, they were now focusing their efforts on finding her remains, which were believed to have been swept away during the recent floods in the area.

  There was no further mention of the case and Holly assumed they had never found Charlotte’s body. It saddened her to think the police had given up on her so fast, and she hoped Charlotte hadn’t suffered too much – especially if there was a possibility that they had been related, as Suzie had suggested.

  She scrolled back to one of the earlier articles which had contained an image of the murdered woman and her child, and enlarged the picture. It was grainy, and the facial features weren’t very clear, but she scrutinized it closely, looking for similarities between the woman and her mum. There didn’t seem to be any. Her mum’s hair was brown, but the woman’s was fair; and her mum’s eyes were dark blue, whereas the woman’s looked a lot lighter – although it was impossible to tell their actual colour since the photo was black and white. The shape of their faces was also quite different: her mum’s longer, her jaw more square than the woman’s.

  It seemed pretty clear to Holly that her mum and the woman weren’t related, so she switched her gaze to the child instead, wondering if the link might be between her mum and the girl’s father. Charlotte’s hair looked almost white-blond and was tied up in pigtails secured by ribbons. She was really cute, with a heart-shaped face, a button nose and a wide, happy smile. The individual features revealed nothing significant, but there was something familiar in the image as a whole, something that stirred a hazy, distant memory and made Holly’s stomach feel funny.

  She told herself to stop being ridiculous. This was wishful thinking, that was all. She was so desperate to know there was more to her life than her mother and this boring, claustrophobic flat, she was trying to force Charlotte and her mother into the blank family photo of her imagination, and it was pathetic.

  Deflated, she closed her phone and refolded the article before putting it back into the box and sliding it under her bed. She was too tired to replace it in the wardrobe tonight, so she would do it tomorrow, she decided as she reached out to switch off the light.

  27

  Suzie felt bright and energized when she woke the next morning, so much so that she was shocked to see she had only slept a couple of hours when she glanced at the clock. She had been going through the motions for the last few weeks, each boring day an exact replica of the one before: waking up, pottering about, eating, drinking – so much drinking – then sleeping again . . . But, today, she felt like she’d broken out of the rut, and she smiled when she heard Rob whistling along to the music that was drifting up from the kitchen.

  Last night, she had seen the man she fell in love with for the first time in a long time: the lovely, caring, easy-going Rob who could charm the birds out of the trees and turn her legs to water with one sexy smile. She wasn’t so stupid that she had forgotten the other side to him: the possessiveness, the irrational jealousy, the rages . . . But the anger-management course he’d taken during their separation certainly seemed to have had an impact, and she was glad they could be friends again.

  And, who knew . . .? she mused. If he stayed like this, there might even be a possibility of them reuniting further down the line.

  She’d been disappointed by the way things ended last night, but, in hindsight, she was glad that Rob hadn’t tried it on with her. She was also glad that he was heading off to Scotland today. Not because she wanted him gone, but because it would give them both time and space to think about what they wanted. If they decided they still loved each other, then they could make a go of it when he came home from the rigs. But if not, they would have been apart for so long by then that it wouldn’t really hurt either of them.

  The smell of bacon drifted up to her now, and she climbed out of bed and pulled her dressing gown on over her pyjamas when her stomach rumbled. After nipping into the bathroom to use the loo, brush her teeth and wash off last night’s make-up, she headed downstairs.

  ‘Morning, gorgeous.’ Rob smiled when she entered the kitchen. ‘Hope you don’t mind me raiding the fridge, but I wanted to make breakfast for you before I left – to thank you for letting me stay.’

  ‘There was no need, but thanks,’ Suzie said, returning the smile as she took a seat at th
e table. ‘Did you sleep all right?’

  ‘Like a log,’ Rob said, slotting bread into the toaster. ‘Oh, and I had a shower when I got up. Hope that’s OK?’

  ‘Course it is,’ Suzie said, amused that he was being so respectful when it was only a matter of weeks since he’d lived here and wouldn’t have thought he needed permission.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, I’d forgotten how comfy that sofa is,’ Rob went on as he pulled out the grill-tray and turned over the bacon strips that were sizzling on it. ‘It wrecked my back, sleeping on my old bed. But it was better than a bench, I suppose, so I’m not complaining.’

  The mention of benches reminded Suzie that he’d intended to sleep on one at the station last night, which also reminded her that he hadn’t told her what time his train was due.

  ‘Two o’clock,’ he said when she asked. ‘But I want to get there early, so I’ll head off as soon as we’ve eaten.’

  ‘It’s only quarter past eight,’ she said, glancing up at the clock. ‘You’ve got hours yet.’

  ‘Yeah, but I told you I’d be gone first thing, and I don’t want you to think I’m taking the piss,’ Rob said, walking over to the fridge to get butter for the toast.

  ‘You don’t need to rush off on my account,’ Suzie said, admiring the way his muscles rippled beneath the material of his T-shirt as he moved, the gloss of his newly washed hair, the curve of his sexy backside encased in the tight jeans, his masculine thighs . . .

  Blushing when Rob turned and looked at her, she dipped her gaze and pulled her phone out of her pocket when it beeped.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Rob asked, carrying their plates and the cups of tea he’d made to the table and taking the seat facing hers.

  ‘Message from Holly,’ she said.

  ‘Oh . . .?’ He raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘She said her mum seems a bit better, but she doesn’t want to leave her, so she’s asking if I can ring her school and let them know what’s happened.’