“What, Charly? What did you see?”
“There were these… letters. Bright red and huge. It took me a while to realize that they spelled the word ‘murderer.’” She rubbed her eyes in exhaustion. “And only then did I see the pictures lying around everywhere. It was the same pictures from the other day. Megan, Imogen, and me on our bikes. Only this time, not only Imogen was missing, but my face was also cut out.”
Alice nodded thoughtfully, sipped her coffee. Then she stood up, rinsed the cup, put it in the draining rack.
“What do you think?” Charly asked in a fragile voice.
Alice turned to her, appearing worried. “Both the writing on the wall and the photos were gone this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Did you check the front door? The windows? The basement?”
Charly shrugged. “I couldn’t. I must have collapsed, because when I came to this morning, I was lying on the carpet in the living room.”
“What about today? Have you looked everywhere?”
“I did. No signs of a break-in. Nothing. Not to mention—why would someone paint my wall and then take it all down again? And where are the photos?”
Alice came up to her and crouched down in front of her. “There are two possibilities: Either there is someone out there who deliberately wants to drive you crazy and has done the same thing to Imogen before, or you are imagining everything and my sister was paranoid, too. Maybe it’s the dark atmosphere of this house that pulls people down so extremely… Two happy people once lived here, of whom now only the shadow of a memory remains.” She stood up again. “To be honest, I don’t know which of these possibilities is the better one. But the fact is that I found someone who was a close friend of Adam. A man named Joe who worked with him. If all goes well, I’ll meet him in London this weekend. At least we’ll find out if there is any truth to the rumors of an affair.”
“By now I am sure Adam has nothing to do with this. I believe everything is connected with Imogen’s and my childhood, and that she went through the same thing I’m going through now. The photos… I cannot describe it… but they seemed like a threat to me. Do you understand what I mean? Imogen’s face was missing in the photos from the other day. In those last night, mine was missing too. It looks like those pictures are somehow trying to make me understand something.”
“That wasn’t real, Charly,” Alice said doubtfully. “You imagined it. So don’t interpret too much into it. Hallucinations are, as their name suggests, only a delusion of our brain.”
Charly shook her head violently. “I think my subconscious was trying to tell me something. Someone wants me dead, Alice. I must find out who and why!”
On the way to Jake’s mother’s house, Charly went through the events of the last days in her mind. Again, she came to the same conclusion: There had to be someone who had first killed Imogen, or at least driven her to her death, and was now after Charly herself. Alice had vehemently resisted the thought that Charly might be in danger, but had given in and agreed to watch Jody during her visit to see Megan’s mother.
When the Bishop house appeared in front of her, Charly gulped. She hoped with all her heart that Jake was at the police station and did not surprise her. She drove up the driveway, parked the car, and got out. Then she walked toward the front door. She was about to ring the bell when the door opened and Amanda Bishop stepped out.
The woman smiled and stepped aside to let her in. “What a joy, Charlotte. I heard you were back.”
Charly embraced the fragile-looking woman and hugged her briefly. Then she broke away from her, and took a long look at the woman. Jake was right. His mother looked anything but healthy. Her skin was a grayish color, her eyes were red, her blonde hair lank and dull. “Jake actually forbade me to come here. He said you were not well.”
Amanda Bishop raised her shoulders. “To be honest, I expected you to come much earlier.” She smiled sadly. “Would you like some tea?”
“I sure would.” Charly gratefully followed her into the kitchen.
Amanda Bishop pointed to the breakfast nook. “Take a seat. I’ll be right with you.”
Charly sat down and plucked nervously at the tablecloth. When Amanda placed a cup of steaming tea in front of her a few moments later, she clung on to it, ignoring the burning sensation on her palms. “I’m here because I need to talk to you about Megan. Is that okay with you?”
Amanda sighed heavily. “I don’t suppose I have any other choice, do I?”
Charly turned away. When she looked back at Amanda, she nodded, “I assume Jake has already told you that I don’t believe Imogen is dead by suicide. At least not a suicide caused by depression. I think there was something or someone who drove her to it, and that all this is somehow connected to Megan. With what happened to her.”
Amanda stared at Charly in amazement. “Jake only said you were in Newhaven to take care of Jody. And that you had some memory loss regarding my daughter.”
“I remember Megan, of course. She was my good friend. However, I did not remember that she was dead. Or how it happened.” She told Amanda briefly about Imogen’s decision and everything that had happened since she arrived in England.
“You understand?” Charly concluded. “Three people died, and I see things that aren’t there. Something terrible is going on here. Something that has to do with Megan’s death. That’s why I need to know exactly what happened.”
Amanda folded her hands. “Our conversation reminds me a lot of the one I had with Imogen. She was also here with me, wanted to talk to me about Megan. She asked me strange things, seemed a bit overexcited, almost paranoid. She wanted to know if I thought Megan would do something to her. I didn’t even know what to say to her, and I finally asked her to leave because it was all getting too much for me. Imogen just got stranger and stranger. Jake threw her out at some point, yelled at her to leave us alone.” Amanda looked at Charly pointedly. “She scared me, Charlotte. Imogen… I guess she was convinced that Megan had come back to get revenge on her. That’s what she said. That my daughter would be back for her.”
Charly’s eyes widened. “Revenge? Did Imo really say revenge?”
Amanda Bishop nodded. “The bad thing about this is that I did not take Imogen seriously. Nobody did. After the death of her husband, everyone thought she went crazy. She never stopped pestering the police with perplexing suspicions about Adam’s death. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn’t let any of it get too close to me, do you understand?” Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “Now that she’s dead, I wish I had listened better, tried to help her.”
“You can help her now too,” Charly implored. “If it wasn’t suicide, Jody has to find out at some point. It will help her deal with it better. That’s why I just have to find out why Imogen is dead and who or what is responsible.” She swallowed. “I think the anniversary of Megan’s death is the key. I need you to tell me everything you remember.”
Amanda stood up and left the room. When she returned shortly afterwards, she had a photo album in her hands. She sat down again and opened it, took out a photo. After staring at it for a while, she handed it to Charly. “This was taken on the day she died. Imogen, you, and Megan had a play date. You wanted to ride your bikes and Megan got the idea that I should take a photo of you. It was a few minutes before you left. Hours later—it was already dark—Megan was still not back, so I called first yours and then Imogen’s parents. It turned out that you and Imogen had had a fight with Megan, so you came back earlier to play at Imogen’s house. Neither of you knew where Megan was, so I called the police.” Amanda took a quivering breath. “By the time they found her shattered body at dawn, it was already too late. The doctors said she had only been dead a few hours, that if she had been found earlier, she might still have been saved.” She wiped the tears from her face. “Since then I have wondered again and again what your quarrel was about. What can be so serious to just leave a friend behind?”
Charl
y stared at Amanda in horror. “I do not know.” She lowered her eyes. When she looked up again, Amanda was waiting for her response.
“Then the three of us were together that day,” Charly said absently. “Maybe that was what Imogen couldn’t get over. That we left Megan alone.”
She glanced at the photo again, felt something inside her break. Her muscles tensed up, then a pain shot through her head, taking her breath away for a moment. She had a flashback. She saw Megan exuberantly climbing over the barrier and running towards the abyss. Heard Imogen yelling at her to “stop this nonsense.” Saw Megan turn around laughing.
“I’m not a coward now, am I? Charlotte Beck, tell that stupid cow to take it back!”
Charly’s breath accelerated. She saw Amanda Bishop pick up a phone and call someone. Strangely, she couldn’t hear anything, just a terrible scream in her ear the whole time. Then, abruptly, there was silence. In her head, around her. Charly wondered if she was going completely crazy, then the jumbled mush of thoughts in her head formed into pictures.
Imogen was the first to dare to go to the edge of the rock and look down. “Maybe she’s dead, Charly, and it’s all our fault.” Imogen’s voice sounded tearful.
Charly had not dared to look down and had simply run away.
Then Imogen’s childlike voice in her head. “This is our fault, Charly. She has gone so far because of us. If this gets out, we may have to go to prison.”
Seven-year-old Charly began to cry.
“Let us swear something,” Imogen pleaded. “We will never tell anyone what happened here. Nobody.”
Charly had not understood what Imogen meant by this. “We must get help. I’m sure we can make her well again.
Imogen had grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “No one can help Megan now. She’s dead. We have to get out of here now and never talk about what happened here again. Do you understand me?”
Amanda Bishop’s voice penetrated her ears as if from far away, but Charly could not answer, let alone free herself from the terrible memory.
She saw her younger self move hesitantly toward the abyss, staring down at the motionless Megan, who lay on a ledge with strangely dislocated limbs. “H-her legs,” she stammered. “Look at her legs! We have to get out of here.”
Imogen’s voice drilled into her consciousness. “Come on now, before someone sees us.”
Then she saw the pool of blood. Dark red, almost black, it spread out under Megan, mixed with the foaming salt water.
Then it became dark around her.
Then and now.
Two faces pushed themselves into Charly’s field of vision as she gradually regained consciousness. Amanda beheld her with concern and Jake also radiated some consternation. When he saw her eyes open his expression changed.
“I warned you, Charlotte. You shouldn’t have come here. Not only are you getting all worked up, you’re dragging other people into it with you. My mother, Alice, Jody, me. What the fuck are you doing?”
Dazed, Charly looked around. She was in Amanda’s living room, lying under a blanket on her sofa. She sat up and opened her mouth to answer, though remained silent. What could she say to them? That she remembered everything? Should she tell Jake and his mother to their faces that she was responsible for Megan’s death?
Charly’s heartbeat accelerated. She flipped the blanket back, jumped up, and looked around. Her shoes! Where were her shoes?
“I took them off when I carried you to the sofa,” explained Jake, who had guessed her thoughts.
Charly staggered past him and his mother into the corridor. She couldn’t find her shoes there either, and reached into her trouser pocket, ripped out the car key, and rushed out the door.
Jake came up behind her. “Charlotte, what are you doing? You fainted and you certainly shouldn’t be driving right now.”
She unlocked the car with trembling fingers and dropped behind the wheel. At the exact moment Jake knocked on the side window and grabbed at the door handle, Charly activated the safety lock. “I’m sorry!” she screamed through the closed window and started the engine. Jake was just able to jump to the side before Charly shot backwards out of the driveway.
Away! Just get out of here!
It was all she could think of.
She was almost at the crossroads when it occurred to her she still had no shoes on.
No matter!
When the traffic light switched to green, she stepped on the gas.
“Oh, boy.” Alice tilted her head in surprise. “You just took off? With no shoes, no purse, no jacket?”
Charly nodded. “I have the feeling Jake won’t miss the chance to come here and throw everything at me. He is quite angry with me.”
Alice’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you tell him? Does he know you remember?”
“No, I was too cowardly to tell him. That’s why I left in such a hurry.”
“I think it was the only right thing to do,” Alice assured her. “God knows how Megan’s mother would have reacted if she knew…”
“Say it,” Charly snorted. “If she knew that Megan died because of Imogen and me.”
“I-I didn’t mean it that way,” Alice stammered. “You were children. It’s perfectly understandable that you got scared and ran away.”
“I should have had the courage to tell them.” Charly nervously kneaded her hands in her lap. “Now they both think I am even more insane, not to mention that I left my only pair of shoes there.”
“Imogen’s shoes should fit you. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
At the name of her dead friend Charly flinched. “Now I remember why I had a fight with Imo. She had wanted to tell Amanda for a long time. When I was here for Jody’s baptism she asked me to go with her. She was terribly afraid to do it, practically begged me not to let her go through it alone.”
“And because you didn’t remember anything, you thought Imogen was being crazy, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Charly whispered. “That’s exactly how it was. She got angry, called me a coward and said that I would be responsible if her feelings of guilt drove her mad at some point.” She gulped. “That’s exactly how it happened. The feelings of guilt ate Imogen up. After Adam’s death, everything became even more hopeless for her. Perhaps she wanted to show her remorse by committing suicide? To bring justice? Who knows exactly what was going on in her head. This whole thing must have driven her crazy and pulled her into a deep hole. Imogen was desperate, you know? So desperate that even her love for Jody couldn’t change anything.”
Alice nodded sadly. “It’s even more important now not to make the same mistake. Imogen trusted you when she left you her daughter. She knew that one day everything would come back to you. That’s why you have to tell them, Charly. For Jody. Why don’t you get in the car and go back to the Bishops’ house? You have to tell them what happened that night, even if it’s hard. You owe it to them, to Imogen, and to yourself.”
chapter 18
Newhaven, June 2015
“Charlotte, thank God you’re feeling better. Come on in.” Amanda Bishop stepped aside to let her in, cast her a concerned glance “Though you’re still a little pale.”
Charly smiled and waved her away. “I… I won’t stay long. I just want to tell you something.”
Amanda shook her head. “Out of the question. You fell down earlier and have to take it easy. We’ll sit in the living room and have a cup of tea.” She turned on her heel and instructed Charly to take a seat on the sofa.
While Charly made herself comfortable, Amanda disappeared in the kitchen. Shortly afterwards she returned to the living room with a fully loaded tray. “What did you want to tell me?” she asked while she filled two cups of fragrant tea.
Charly swallowed hard. “It’s about Megan. More precisely, the day she died.”
Although Amanda’s face darkened, she kept listening.
“For years I didn’t remember what happened back then,
but when I was with you this afternoon…” she faltered, “the memory came back.”
Amanda reached for her cup and sipped the tea, merely waiting for Charly to continue.
“Imogen and I… we lied to you. We did not have a fight with Megan that day. We went off on our bikes and did stupid things. Pranks and shit. At some point Imogen had the idea to seal our friendship with a dare. Megan was against it from the start, she was scared. Imogen and I talked her into it. We drove to the cliffs, climbed over the barrier, and each of us had to step so close to the edge of the cliffs that our toes would stick out. Imogen and I were fine, but then it was Megan’s turn. She didn’t want to, got angry when Imogen called her a coward. Imogen kept pushing, taunting me, infecting me with it and at some point we both teased Megan. Until she did it.” Charly stopped, short of breath.
Amanda was sitting stiff as a poker in her armchair, staring at her.
“I’m so sorry,” Charly said quietly. “You must believe me. And Imogen was also sorry. She wanted to tell you much earlier. I was the one who made it take so long for you to know the truth.”
Amanda looked at Charly in amazement then her expression changed, reflecting contempt. The woman broke out in hysterical laughter. “So you incited my child to such nonsense in the first place and when she had an accident, you just left her to her fate? They might have been saved if you hadn’t been such a damn coward.”
Charly stood up. “If I could, I would undo it, I swear, as sure as I stand here.”
“Out! Get the hell out of here! Get out of my house!”
Charly almost ran out of the living room when Amanda caught up with her and pushed a plastic bag into her arm in the hallway. “It has your shoes and other stuff in it that you forgot earlier. I don’t want you to come back here ever again.”
“What’s going on here?” Jake, who had come in unnoticed, interrupted the clamor and looked from his mother to glare at Charly. “Was I not clear enough? I told you to stay away from my family.”
I Will Break You (Best International Thrillers) Page 13