Bad Little Girl

by Frances Vick

  Lorna had started the fire.

  But you knew that all along, didn’t you, Claire? You hinted as much to the girl last night. And think about the soap opera countdown, Claire. Think about that. The abuse. The fire. Even the name Lauren.

  Had Lorna started the fire?

  Her fingers typed ‘cause of boxing day fire’, though she knew the answer already. Here it was, in cheerless black and white in the Daily Mail. Accelerant likely to be petrol and/or lighter fluid. Down the drains, the stairs, the letterbox. That smell when Lorna had arrived that final time, almost catatonic. ‘We have to go to Cornwall’; that smell, mingled with, but not masked by, dirt, sweat, sugar, all those familiar Lorna odours – ‘He poured lighter fuel on me!’ Back, back, her mind ran, panting, to an earlier memory; Claire had been at Lorna’s home, the time when the dog had attacked, and the men had been drinking, watching football. Outside, the barbeque, crusted with rust and meat, one of the men squirting lighter fluid on it, to make the burgers cook faster.

  This little girl. My little girl. This sweet, goofy, kittenish darling. This killer of her own people.

  Claire sat like a sack of laundry on the swivel chair, mouth open, eyes glazed. She didn’t notice the assistant standing by her, a middle-aged woman gifted with the stunned, emptiness of heavy medication. She was saying something.

  ‘Need ID for the computers.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the girl on the desk didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Need ID.’

  Claire scrambled in her bag, pulling out mints, fumbled for her purse, and stopped. Think Claire, think. They keep records of who looks at what on the internet, and what would it look like if one of the ex-teachers of a kidnap victim was researching her?

  ‘Sorry, I’m not sure I have anything on me. All I seem to have is this.’ One of Marianne’s loyalty cards for Boots, she had two – ‘You keep one, Claire, just so we can get double points for Lauren’s vitamins’ – and it was this that she handed to the woman. ‘Will this do?’

  ‘Is it a credit card?’ The woman stared at it, her face completely blank.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘We take them. I’ll photocopy it. Give it you back.’

  She ambled off; Claire’s stomach turned over, hoping that she wouldn’t be checked on by another, more competent, assistant. At the photocopier, the woman stopped, frowned at the card, turned it over, frowned again. Claire stopped breathing. Then the woman, still frowning, pressed a button doubtfully, then another. A smile edged across her face when the paper churned through the machine and arrived, hot, in the tray below. She came back to Claire, smiling still, proudly. ‘Not done that before. Couldn’t work the buttons.’

  ‘You did very well.’

  ‘Here’s your card.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Can carry on your session now, on the computers?’

  ‘No, thank you. In a hurry now.’

  ‘Bye Miss Cairns!’ bellowed the woman, suddenly, and turned around. Claire sped out of the library, into the sun.

  35

  She drove back, carefully, well below the speed limit.

  She planned. Tried to plan.

  Get your things and go, Claire. Just leave or get them to leave? How can I make them leave? She slowed down even more, annoying a tourist in a hire car behind, before pulling over onto a verge to think more clearly.

  Tell them you’re sick, tell them that you went to see the doctor and you’re sick, and you have to go to hospital. But that won’t get them out of the house. No. Tell them that there’s a problem with the will – that some cousin’s come out of the woodwork and wants them out of the house. Would that work? Tell them, oh, what? Tell them you got a solicitor’s letter. But they’ll ask to see it. OK then, tell them that you had to take the letter to a lawyer today – that’s why you went out, you didn’t want to worry them – and the solicitor kept the letter, and they advised you to vacate the property immediately until it’s all sorted out.

  Would that work? Claire looked at herself in the mirror, mimed explaining a letter. Oh God, she was a terrible liar! But it’d have to do. Yes, tell them that she’d been told that it would be the best thing to get out of the house while the will was being looked at again. Tell them to get as many of their possessions out as they could, take them to Marianne’s house, wherever that was, and, and then what? Then, they’d all meet up at a – some kind of cheap hotel – yes, the Premier Inn on the edge of the caravan park. Claire would go first and make the reservations. And then she’d drive away, leave them. Go back home to her flat and her job.

  But this was absurd! Lorna wouldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t let her go. Especially now, when she knew that Claire had a pretty good idea about the fire . . . Wherever Lorna went, Claire would have to follow. She was trapped.

  She gave way to tears, great, racking sobs, her thin arms hugging her chest, and after the tears stopped, she still shook. Terror. This girl, this lovely little girl, her girl, had done something that terrible. The horror that everything was a lie – could that be true? That she’d made it all up from the start – No! Not all of it, surely! Yes, all of it. All the love she’d given and had felt flowing back to her in welcome waves was based on sickness, deceit.

  I want to go home, Claire thought, like a child. I want to go home, back to Mother’s. I want my job. I want my eiderdown, my trinkets, my books and my pride back. I want to wake up. I want to go home.

  It was an hour before she was able to stop shaking, and another by the time Mother’s voice was summoned, bringing something approaching clear-headedness, practicality. Pull yourself together, Claire, and don’t be such a milksop! You have a plan. Do I? Yes! The solicitor’s letter, the will! That’s your plan. But Marianne . . .? Marianne wouldn’t know the truth if she found it dead in her bathtub, she’s easily fooled. And as for Lorna, anything complicated or legal bores her to death. You can do this, Claire. You can. But, it couldn’t all be done today, no. It’ll have to be spread over a few days. Today, plant the seed of the will problem. Then go into town a few times to ‘see the solicitor’, then say we have to leave. A few days. A few days of breathing space, time to finesse . . .

  Her hands were steady now, her tear-ruined face almost back to normal. Just get away from them – now. Just drive away now. No-one’s seen you with Lorna. You could be free. But, what if I leave, and Lorna tells? Tells people that the only reason she was in Claire’s house was that Claire took her there? She’d threatened that, after all. If you tell them, I’ll tell more. That’s what she’d said. God knows what she’s cooked up, God knows what contingency plans she’s already put in place. So tired, so tired, not pill-tired, not-used-to-using-my-brain tired. Bone-tired as Mother would have said.

  No, Claire, no. She closed her eyes and took deep, slow breaths, trying to get to the core of herself, where the courage lived. It was getting dark by the time she got back.

  * * *

  Turning down the lane to the house, she saw a scrap of material caught in the hedge. Then another; she slowed. Pink netting of a ballet skirt. The door to the house stood open and yellow light was pouring into the darkening driveway; Marianne was silhouetted against it, waving frantically.

  ‘. . . gone!’ she was yelling. ‘Gone! Did you see her on the way?’

  ‘What?’ Claire stopped the car with a jerk, and Marianne lurched towards the driver’s side and yanked open the door.

  ‘Lauren! She’s gone! Where’ve you been for such a long time? You didn’t take your phone—’

  ‘I was, I was at the solicitor’s—’ Claire brought out the lie like she was about to be sick. ‘I had a letter—’

  ‘Oh, God, Claire, who cares about that now? Lauren? She’s gone!’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Oh my God, it’s all so crazy! You didn’t see her on the lane? No?’

  ‘No. What? Marianne—’

  ‘Come inside, come inside—’ She herded her out of the car and into the kitchen, where the strip lig
ht shone unforgivingly on what looked like the aftermath of a fight.

  ‘What happened?’ Claire asked weakly, picking up a chair.

  ‘I don’t know. God. Tea?’ Marianne had her hair pushed over one side of her face. Her expression was hard to read.

  ‘Tea? No. Marianne? What happened?’

  ‘Something upset her. That’s all I know.’ She kept her back to Claire, and fiddled in a drawer for a teaspoon.

  ‘What?’ Claire was dazed. There was glass on the floor; not a kitchen glass, but the toothbrush glass from upstairs. Lorna must have brought it downstairs specifically to break it in the kitchen. ‘What happened?’

  Marianne took some deep breaths, and swung around dramatically. ‘She just went crazy! She was so upset. Something about the cellar. She said she’d lost something, and couldn’t find it.’ Then she turned round again and busied herself with a tea bag.

  ‘In the cellar?’ Claire asked stupidly.

  ‘Yes. In the cellar.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well I don’t know! All I know is she came streaking up here, looking for you, and when I said you weren’t back yet she went crazy. Smashing things. And then she just tore out of the door, still in her dancing kit. And then you didn’t have your phone—’

  ‘What did she say was in the cellar?’

  ‘I don’t know, Claire, it’s not my house. I’ve never been down there.’

  ‘Didn’t you look?’

  ‘No! It’s not my cellar, is it? I thought maybe you kept private things down there. And I wouldn’t pry.’

  ‘This doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘I know that!’ Marianne stared at her angrily. ‘I just felt so helpless. And you not being here, and everything. She just tore out of the place like a hurricane. If you’d been here, I know she would have been able to calm down. She needed her mum, Claire.’ Marianne gave a small, tight smile.

  ‘Have you looked for her?’

  ‘She’s only been gone a few minutes. Look, I’ll take the car and go down the lane looking for her, you go down to the cellar, and try to find out what upset her so much.’ Marianne was all eyes and flurrying fingers. She hustled Claire through the door to the cellar, banging the light switch down with one mottled hand.

  The cellar steps smelt of damp, and there was a rottenness underneath it, like tooth decay. It was dark here, despite the bare bulb, and cool as a tomb. Claire could hear Marianne tapping one fingernail on the door frame.

  ‘Hurry up, I want to know what’s down there before I get in the car.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Claire, negotiating the faintly slippery steps.

  Marianne hesitated. ‘So when I find her, I can reassure her.’

  ‘But there’s nothing down here that could possibly have scared her! She never kept anything down here.’

  ‘But at least I can tell her—’

  Claire stopped. ‘This is silly. We could both be out looking for her now.’ She started back up the steps.

  Marianne huffed and lumbered down the steps in her cowboy boots, blocking Claire’s exit and forcing her back down towards the cellar door. ‘Well, we’ll both go, then, OK? And we’ll both go and look here first, and then we’ll both go and look for her.’

  The cellar door, a thick, ancient slab, stood slightly ajar. Claire shivered. ‘I can’t think why she’d come down here. She said it scared her. I even wanted to make it into a playroom at one time – silly . . .’

  ‘Is there a light?’

  ‘Yes, somewhere, there’s a pull light in the middle. Hang on, I’ll get it.’ Claire walked into the darkness in her stockinged feet. ‘Prop the door open a bit more, so I can get to it. Marianne?’

  Marianne stood framed in the door, backlit by the dim light from the stairs. She said, ‘Put the light on.’

  ‘I’m trying to get it, but I can’t see it. Open the door a bit more, won’t you?’ Her fingers groped for the light pull, touched a cobweb instead. ‘Marianne?’

  And then she heard something behind her. A flurry and a rush. The dark walls wheeled crazily and Claire fell heavily, clumsily, her head smashing into the stone floor. Cold shock and nausea kept her prone, as Marianne sat on her back and wound something tight and painful around her wrists. Claire, her face pressed to the dirty floor, tried to cry out, but Marianne’s weight was such that even breathing was hard. Claire could smell the panic on her, the fury.

  Then Marianne stood up, swaying dizzily on her heels.

  ‘Don’t try to scream,’ she muttered. Claire heard the heavy wood of the door being wedged back into the swollen frame, the bolt pushed, and Marianne’s hurried steps and coarse breathing as she ran back upstairs.

  36

  Lorna came a few hours later. She hovered in the doorway, standing on one foot, then the other. She held something behind her back.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked at last. She sounded concerned.

  ‘What’s happening, Lorna?’ Claire tried to keep her voice steady.

  ‘How are you? Do you need water or something?’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘God, Marianne’s really mad at you. Really angry. She didn’t even want me to come down and see you, but I said I had to. I mean, it’s scary down here, isn’t it? I bet you need the toilet too.’ She giggled, now.

  ‘Are you going to hurt me?’ Claire’s voice cracked.

  The girl sounded injured. ‘Course not! How could I hurt you?’

  ‘Why am I down here, then?’ Claire moved forward a little.‘Don’t get close.’ Lorna backed away and partially hid behind the door. Something heavy landed on the steps. ‘She’s up there in the kitchen and she’ll grab you if you try to run.’

  ‘Does she know you’re called Lorna?’

  ‘Well, she calls me Lola and things anyway.’

  ‘She doesn’t know who you are, though, does she?’

  The girl shrugged and began backing out into the stairwell.

  ‘Is any of it true? Lorna? The stories you told me?’ Claire croaked.

  There was a pause. ‘What do you mean?’ She began picking at a plaster on her elbow.

  ‘About Pete? About him hurting you?’

  ‘Oh of course.’ She scraped one toe on the floor. ‘Of course it is. I wouldn’t lie.’

  ‘Was any of it true?’ Claire’s mouth was so dry she could barely get the words out.

  Lorna sighed. ‘He was nasty to me and called me names. You heard him. And he hit me – you were there.’ The plaster came off and she gave a little satisfied intake of breath. ‘Look, it’s all healed!’

  Claire tried to moisten her lips and shuffled up the wall a little. ‘What about Mervyn Pryce?’

  Lorna frowned, then laughed. ‘Oh, Mr Pryce!’ She picked something up from the stairs, and came forward.

  ‘Did he ever do anything to you? You said he did.’

  ‘I thought you liked that idea! I knew it!’ Lorna smiled widely. ‘He was well creepy though, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Did he do anything to you, Lorna?’

  ‘I don’t lie.’ The girl was indignant. ‘Oh no! God no!’ Lorna laughed. ‘D’you think I’d let him get anywhere near me? Ew!’ She shuddered theatrically and smiled. ‘You don’t need to worry about that.’

  Claire closed her eyes, whispered, ‘What about the fire?’

  ‘Not this again.’ Lorna sighed.

  ‘Lorna. What about the fire?’

  Lorna peered at the ends of her hair.

  ‘You know there was a fire.’

  Lorna began sucking the tips.

  ‘It burned them all up. You know that. It was on the telly.

  ‘Did Pete start the fire?’ She could hear the wet crunch as Lorna bit into her bunches. She ground away at the ends with her sharp little canines and didn’t answer.

  ‘Did you do it?’ Claire kept her eyes closed because she didn’t want to see the girl’s face as she answered.

  She sighed again. ‘Well, what did it say on the TV?’

  ‘
It said someone put petrol through the letterbox and in the hall.’

  ‘That, then.’

  ‘Oh Lorna . . .’

  ‘Yeah. Petrol and some lighter fluid down the drains, too.’

  ‘It didn’t say that on the news. About the lighter fluid.’

  She shrugged. ‘I think it did, didn’t it?’

  Claire took a deep breath. ‘You did it.’ Her body relaxed as she said it, her mind suddenly clear, but tired. So tired. ‘Why?’

  Another shrug. ‘You said you loved me, you said you’d take care of me and we’d live at the seaside and have pets and no school.’

  ‘Tell me, please Lorna, just, please, tell me. Was anything you told me true?’

  ‘Please tell me the trooooooth,’ Lorna sang, and giggled.

  ‘Please, Lorna. Some of it had to be true?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ Lorna said with finality.

  ‘Lorna. Did you hurt Johnny? Did you kill him?—’

  * * *

  The girl sighed. ‘He was old. He wouldn’t have liked it here anyway. Everything happens for a reason.’ She giggled, hiccupped, and moved forward. ‘I can’t believe how well my elbow healed.’

  ‘Lorna?’

  ‘Lorna.’ The girl’s voice took on a privileged lilt. ‘“Lorna, you’re safe with me, Lorna. Lorna, you don’t deserve to be treated badly. Lorna.”’ She walked forward, pigeon-toed. ‘You did say all that, didn’t you? And the stuff about what happened to you. You shouldn’t have told me that. That’s private.’

  She reached forward, gently stroked Claire’s cheek. Her other hand swung at Claire with a spanner. It smashed into her cheek with a faint clang, throwing her, stunned, against the wall.

  ‘Auntie May! Auntie MAY!’ Lorna was terrified, so frightened. Claire heard Marianne running down the steps. The skin under Claire’s eye felt hot and tight. Blood tricked into her mouth.

  ‘What happened?’ Marianne was breathing hard, panicked.

  ‘She tried – she tried to grab me!’ wailed Lorna. ‘She tried to grab me! Like you said she would! And I-I hit her. I’m sorry.’