by J. A. Baker
The room is deathly quiet as she stands, waiting for her own body to respond. That’s when she hears it. It weakens her, the sound, cuts her in half.
A low moan, a whisper of breath, a rustle of fabric.
Her skin contracts, fine hairs raised on her flesh as she turns, blinking repeatedly, and forces herself to look at Chloe’s body, to stare at that bleeding battered mound on the bed. There it is again. A sound, a tiny murmur. The ambient temperature in the room plummets. The floor tilts. She gasps, presses her back against the wall. Then another noise. A low sound, a small quiver from underneath the sheet. The tiniest of movements but enough to make her bend double, to clutch her stomach and cry out before slapping a hand on her mouth to stem it.
Another movement. A twitch underneath the sheet, then a soft breath followed by a whimper, faint but there all the same. She isn’t imagining it. This isn’t a shock induced hallucination. It’s Chloe.
She’s still alive.
The sound of Chloe’s soft desperate sighs, Leah’s proximity to the bleeding body, the stench of blood and sweat, make Leah dizzy with guilt. Shame and fear bites at her. She clutches her chest, doubles over, retches again, bringing up nothing but belches of warm foul-smelling air.
Leah sobs, a quiet release of pent-up terror. Emotions that have been sitting in her gut for as long as she can remember come spilling out until she is howling, unable to stop the outpouring of every emotion she has ever experienced; primitive and powerful feelings that render her incapable of doing anything at all.
She stops, her chest heaving, her eyes reluctantly drawn to Chloe who is still twitching, her movements so slight, so very faint that Leah has to concentrate to ensure she isn’t mistaken. In the few minutes that she stands and watches, the sheet covering her rises and falls with growing regularity, Chloe’s breathing becoming more consistent, stronger and worryingly robust.
Leah’s head spins, she senses her own breathing becoming shallow and rapid. She is unsure what to do next. She didn’t want to kill her. That was never the plan, but now Chloe is sure to pass Leah’s name on to the police and a national manhunt will take place.
Unless Chloe dies before any help arrives. Before Jacob arrives back at the flat. Or unless she suffers massive memory loss and is left with permanent damage to her brain, unable to recall anything about the incident. Leah exhales, her breath hot, her mouth gritty with dread. It’s possible. She remembers reading about it once. It’s called retrograde amnesia, a condition that leaves sufferers unable to retrieve memories before the event that caused the damage. Perhaps Chloe will wake up with no idea of what happened by which time Leah will be far away from here.
She has already made up her mind to go to London. She will stay with Aunt Mary, tell her she is out of work and looking for a job in London. Except she needs to finish cleaning up in this room and she hasn’t any money to get to London. She bites at her lip, tugs at her hair until it hurts, pain screeching over her scalp.
She could make certain that Chloe will never identify her by lifting that stone lion once more and finishing what she has started. The thought of it is too much to bear. Another death. More shame. More terror. She isn’t sure she can take any more, is able to shoulder any more blame. This was an accident. She did it in a moment of confusion and panic. Doing something drastic now would be premeditated and that would make her a murderer. She isn’t a killer. This whole thing was an accident. Every stupid thing she has done has always been borne out of anger, not because of a need to spill blood just for the sake of it.
No, she must leave Chloe alone, clean up and get out of here.
Spurred into action by her diminishing options, Leah uses the detergent to clean every surface she has touched, ignoring the small sighs and groans of pain coming from under the blood-stained sheet. Her jaw clamps shut as she squats down to grab at the blood-smeared stone lion. Refusing to look at it directly, she drops it in the bag and knots it tightly. She’ll take it with her and dispose of it in a wheelie bin somewhere along the way – not Jacob’s bin. That’s the first place the police will look for evidence. She will spread pieces of herself far and wide and hope some unsuspecting neighbour doesn’t spot the extra bag stuffed deep within their bin.
Back in the kitchen, she pulls off the gloves, rinses her hands under the tap and stares at the handbag on the counter. How did she not notice it earlier? Pulling at it feverishly, the bag sits wide open like a hungry gaping mouth, its contents visible. She delves inside and brings out a purse stuffed with notes. Chloe’s purse. Leah’s face heats up as she quickly glances at the amount – at least a couple of hundred pounds, probably more. She quickly flicks through the notes, counting, stopping when she gets to 300. There’s more still, maybe another two hundred. Enough to get her to London. Her pulse quickens, her flesh warms. This is it. This is all she needs. This wad of cash is her ticket out of here. More than enough to get her to Aunt Mary’s and far away from here. Far from the trouble that this situation will undoubtedly invite.
Relief and euphoria washing over her, she whips up the bag and throws it across her shoulder. Once she has finished vacuuming and removing as much of herself as she can from this flat, she will be out of here, on her way to somewhere else. On her way to the safety of Aunt Mary’s – her sanctuary. Somewhere hardly anybody knows about. This time next week, the whole incident will be out of her mind, just another blot in her ragged copy book.
Heartened by her find, she finishes cleaning, a fresh surge of energy pulsing through her. She needs to get a move on, to get out of this place, to breathe clean air and leave this fucking awful mess far behind.
31
The stairwell and hallway are empty. Leah half expected to find Collette the nosy neighbour nearby, spying on her, peeping through her letterbox, then creeping out of her door and asking what she was up to; poking and prying until Leah finally comes undone and spills her darkest secret to a perfect stranger, but there is nobody about. Not a sound to be heard apart from the low shuffle of her own movements.
The urge to keep looking behind her is overwhelming but as far as she can tell Collette has stayed firmly put. Still unsure, she creeps and tiptoes until she is out of the front door at which point she begins to pick up her pace, fists clasping the bin bag tightly, holding it to her chest like a mother protecting her newborn.
The street is thankfully empty, everyone at work or busy in their homes, going about their daily business, their lives too full to take notice of some strange, frazzled young woman clutching a bin bag full of evidence tight to her body.
The walk is an onerous task. Her breathing is laboured, her skin both hot and cold at the same time. She has to keep a level head, not melt into a puddle of nervous desperation. She’s come too far now to slacken and come undone. It would mean losing everything – her life, the last fragments of her family. Jacob. She would lose him completely. That is, if she hasn’t already. He will discover Chloe, feel duty-bound to stay with her, to protect her, keep her from harm in the future. He will be wracked with guilt at not being there for her. This happened in his flat. He left her there, alone and exposed to danger. What Leah has done inadvertently is form a bond between the pair of them. They share a common tragedy and are now inextricably bonded. What started off as a bid to get Jacob back has driven him further away. Even this has gone terribly wrong. Leah has fucked up yet again.
She’s useless. A damaged human being, a pathetic individual who can’t even wreak revenge properly.
What a stupid awful fucking mess.
Clutching the bag even tighter, Leah bites at her lip until she can taste blood, and breaks into a run, desperate to be out of this street. Desperate to be away from everything.
32
It’s busy at the station, the platform filled with people.
Leah stands, shivering. It’s not particularly cold but her body is like ice, her flesh tingling, her extremities numb. She thinks that perhaps she is in shock, unable to come to terms with what she has jus
t experienced; what she has just done.
Maybe once she is settled in her seat, things will seem different, she will start to think clearly, to calm herself and get a grip of her senses. She can’t allow herself to fall apart. Not now. Not after all her efforts, not after the amount of energy she exerted to remove all traces of herself from that flat. The worst is over. That’s what she keeps telling herself. The alternative, owning up to what she has done, handing herself into the relevant authorities and accepting the consequences, is unthinkable. Perhaps she should have done things differently, left Jacob alone, gone to her parents for help, but it’s too late for that now. It’s too late for everything.
The sound of a train in the distance rattles her bones, regurgitating memories she would rather stayed hidden. Despite trying to suppress it, despite thinking of other things, filling her head with ideas and thoughts of more pleasant times, the image of Ellis catapults into her brain. What was he thinking that day before he lunged forwards onto this track? What sort of things were going through his poor tortured brain? Did he think of her, what she put him through? How she tried to ruin his life.
She allows herself to glance at the lengths of metal just for a few seconds, recalling that evening when the police called at their house, saying those words, telling her parents what no parents should ever have to hear, cracking their world in two. A streak of sunlight catches her eye. It spreads itself across the tracks, a ribbon of yellow, glinting, daunting, mocking her. Refusing to leave her alone. She forces her gaze elsewhere, swallowing and rubbing at her eyes.
She can’t begin to imagine how he was feeling, how desperate he was, how fragmented his thoughts were. Why didn’t he come home? Why didn’t he come home after school and speak to their parents about what was going through his head? They would have helped him. They would have protected him, kept him safe from all the insults and the jibes and the hurt. That’s the type of people they were – it’s who they were. Still are. Decent people. Caring people. If only she had realised it earlier.
A spark of irritation flares under her skin. A flamethrower burning at her insides. This is her fault. Even when it’s about Ellis and little Lucy, it all comes back to her, what she did. What she said.
It always comes back to her.
Perhaps she is cursed, blighted from birth. She has always felt like an outcast, an imposter. Maybe her brain is wired up differently to other people. Maybe she has every reason to feel permanently angry.
Or maybe she is just bad through and through.
The weight of Chloe’s handbag digs into her shoulder. It’s full of Leah’s belongings. After leaving Jacob’s flat and dumping the bag in a bin on a neighbouring street, she made her way back to her own place and crept around to the back garden where she rummaged through her belongings, the ones Grainne had thrown out. Ignoring the ripped flowers and the garden that she had ruined, she managed to salvage some of her own things which she then stuffed into the leather handbag she had stolen from Chloe; a change of underwear, her glasses and her purse with her bank cards still slotted inside. Not that they would be of any use to her now. Her account is empty. She is completely broke. Still, having some form of ID with her makes her feel a little less empty, as if she is a somebody, not just a criminal running from her past. She is a person – Leah Browne, and despite her anger issues, despite what she has just done, she deserves to be recognised as such.
A muffled voice over the public address system announces the arrival of the next train and then goes on to make a long-winded, incomprehensible announcement that Leah cannot hear properly or decipher. Disappointment and frustration fizz up inside her. All she wants to do is get on that train, settle back and think about arriving at Aunt Mary’s door unannounced. A warm glow blooms in her chest at the thought of the expression on Mary’s face when she opens the door and sees Leah standing there. She just wants this damn train to get here. She doesn’t want delays and muffled announcements. All she wants is to escape, to get to Mary’s safely and be welcomed home. Jacob will possibly be back at his flat by now. He will have driven like the wind, discovered Chloe’s body and called an ambulance and the police who will be currently crawling all over the place, an army of white-suited forensic investigators dusting for fingerprints, swabbing everything, every surface, every piece of furniture for traces of DNA.
She’s not so stupid as to think they will not investigate this crime. Chloe is seriously injured. She may still die. They will want answers. And soon. They will also be searching for Chloe’s phone. Leah exhales and shields her eyes from the glare of the sun. They won’t find it. She threw it in the river on her way to the station. She took a diversion and headed up to a lane where it was quiet. Nobody saw her. It landed with a quiet plop and disappeared. She had hidden herself amongst the bushes as a precaution, and then walked back to the station feeling lighter. Another piece of evidence disposed of. One less thing to worry about.
She is so close to escaping this trauma. All she wants is for this bloody train to turn up and only then will she truly begin to relax. She deserves that much. Because for all she knows she has done something terrible, she is also aware that she was backed into a corner. Both Jacob and Chloe conspired to shut her out of his life. They did their utmost to curtail her visits, to make sure they could continue with their own lives undisturbed, acting as if Leah and Jacob never existed as a couple. She was robbed of her life, her relationship, everything she ever cared about. What they did was cruel – beyond cruel. All she ever did was try to defend herself. And now look where she is.
Look at what she has done. What they made her do.
More tears fill her eyes. She thinks of everything she is leaving behind. She thinks of her diaries, her innermost thoughts and feelings that are stuffed in a bag for anybody to find and read. Her private desires and emotions. The scribblings of a madwoman. She simply didn’t have the time to go rummaging for them. If she is lucky, the binmen will take them away and she will be saved the humiliation of having strangers read through her thoughts, sifting through her personal effects. And if not – well if not, then they will see what she had to endure. What they put her through.
This is their fault. They drove her to it.
A collective groan forces her out of her thoughts and back to the present. A crowd of people are standing looking at the electronic timetable, muttering to one another, their faces pink with anger.
‘For God’s sake,’ a tall man wearing a silk scarf announces loudly. ‘That’s all we bloody well need. It says here that most of the trains are running late due to problems with overhead wires. There’s a statement on the website.’ He stares at his phone then back at the board before shaking his head in disgust and marching off out of view.
Terror grips her, spiking her stomach, curdling her blood. She needs to get on that train. The longer she waits, the greater the chances are of somebody finding her. She walks to the board and squints, running her eyes over the list of times and destinations. Something inside her concertinas, her innards squirming and shifting in fear. Her train is delayed by two hours.
Two hours.
She closes her eyes, tries to blot out the image of a police raid on the station, a siege where she is publicly dragged to the floor and cuffed before being led off to a car where a team of reporters and photographers are waiting to take her picture and splash it all over the front pages of every local and national newspaper.
Sweat blinds her. She staggers away from the board, slumps down on a nearby seat, trying to slow her hammering heart, to control her breathing before she hyperventilates and draws unnecessary attention to herself. Two hours. Two long hours of watching and waiting, imagining that every dark suit, every rustle of fabric, every heavy footfall is a police presence, scouting out her whereabouts, surrounding the station before putting it in lockdown and calling out her name as they pounce on her and read out her rights.
A vice clamps itself around her head. Her back aches, her stomach roils and knots, a strong fist gras
ping at her insides. It’s imperative she remains calm. She can’t spend the next two hours like this. She will implode, her body pushed to its limits by the sheer stress of it.
Dipping her hand into the bag, she grabs at a handful of coins and makes her way over to the vending machine only to find it not working. Jesus Christ. Everything is conspiring against her, even inanimate objects designed to give her some sustenance are refusing to help. She will have to simply sit and wait like everybody else here. Pacing and getting angry will heighten her unease, drawing unwanted attention from other passengers. Guilt and anxiety are written all over her face, chiselled into every feature.
She sits back on the bench, trying to unwind. It’s impossible. She can’t concentrate on anything, can’t think straight.
Out of the corner of her eye, something flickers. A quick movement. Somebody watching her. Slowly, so very slowly, her lungs refusing to inflate properly as she heaves for breath, she turns and sees a small girl standing alone on the platform. Leah’s muscles contract. Her throat closes up.
The child is shivering, crying, holding out her hands, beckoning for assistance, appealing for help. Her wails grow louder. Blood runs down her face, drips over her tiny twisted body, cascading down her bare legs. Leah dips her head, turns away, covers her ears. Dear God, what is happening? Why isn’t anybody helping this poor child?
The world speeds up, everything spinning around her. The floor inclines to one side under her feet. The air is too thin. She cannot bring herself to turn around, to look at the child, to see her small pained expression.