by Perks, Heidi
Grace keeps flicking through the pages until she comes to the transcript from Anna’s last session, which took place not even two weeks ago. I left Heather, it reads. That night I made a decision to leave her. For good. I’ve never told another soul what I did, but it’s never left me. What I did was so wrong.
Grace carries on reading, about how she herself had always kept to her word, which is, of course, true, because she has carried Anna’s secret with her for twenty-two years, something only a good friend would do.
She is beginning to feel a tingle of warmth from such friendship when she sees Anna’s next sentence: Now she had a hold on me.
Grace’s fingers tap against the paper.
Grace always hated me being friends with anyone else …
I knew the moment I chose Heather she would have been furious …
… making sure I would never leave her again …
No one knows Grace like I do. No one has a clue what Grace Goodwin is capable of.
Grace turns the page, dropping it in her haste, scooping it up quickly to carry on reading.
How do you mean? Sally had gone on to ask her.
I think she might have done it.
A red pen has circled this last line, making three rings around the sentence. Probed for more, it states in a handwritten note. Anna refuses to tell me. Does she think Grace killed Heather????
Chapter Twenty-two
Anna
I climb back into my car, tap out a text and listen for the ping to signal that it has been sent. Meet me, I have written to Grace. In fifteen minutes on the beach.
I don’t specify where, but Grace will understand. It is barely a five-minute drive to the coast road, and yet when I turn on to it and head towards the Old Vic car park, I see Grace’s car already ahead of me.
I pull over as a reply comes through. I am here x
Surely it is coincidence, and yet it is an unnerving thought that Grace is always one step ahead.
I feel a burning apprehension as I climb out of the car. The beach is empty and no one else knows I am here. I didn’t even tell Nancy when she left because at that point I still didn’t know what I was going to do. But I shake any thoughts of danger out of my head.
Grace is smiling as she gets out of her own car and walks towards me. She is holding up her hand in greeting, but I don’t wave back. Instead I turn and look out at the vast expanse of sea that seems to go on for ever. Despite the waves that chop in frothy white fountains, it calms me to watch it.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ Grace says as she joins me. ‘You know you frightened me, Anna, disappearing like that.’
It has been two days since Grace turned up at the house, and so unlike her not to have been in touch since, which, doubled with her cheery disposition, is disquieting. But then she always has had a knack for throwing me off course.
I fight an instinct to apologise as we walk towards the wall. It is lower on this part of the road, which means we can sit on it and we do, our feet dangling over the side, the way we would when we were children, slowly licking Mr Whippy ice creams, Grace always passing her Flake to me as she didn’t like it.
‘I reported you missing,’ Grace goes on. ‘Did Ben tell you that?’
‘He did.’
‘You’ll never guess who I saw at the station.’
When she doesn’t tell me, I ask, ‘Who?’
‘Marcus Hargreaves. Do you remember him?’
‘Of course I remember him.’ I turn to Grace. I have never forgotten his name.
‘Well, he remembered you, too. Both of us, of course.’
I continue to stare at her, but Grace adds no more on the subject. Instead she says, ‘We have so many memories here, don’t we, Anna? Do you remember the time you wanted us to run away?’
There is a vague memory of something, but nothing I can put my finger on. ‘No,’ I say eventually.
‘I do,’ Grace laughs. ‘You’d had an argument with your dad. You rang me in tears and said you’d packed a case and we were going to get coach tickets to London.’
It is coming back to me now. ‘How old were we?’
‘Thirteen. Or I was. It was a week before your birthday.’
‘I don’t remember what the argument was about.’
‘You wanted a new pair of trainers and he told you he would sort it, but he bought a pair from some mate of his to give you. You were livid.’
‘That was it?’ I say.
‘Yes.’ Grace is beaming at the memory.
‘Why would I want to run away over that?’
‘I don’t know, Anna. It blew up into something bigger, I suppose. By the time I met you here you were adamant he didn’t care about you and that he never had.’
I turn back to the sea, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. All of a sudden I feel an urge to tell Grace I miss him. That I know he always cared about me. That the thought of running away from him over a pair of trainers makes me feel sick.
‘I know you miss him,’ Grace says, as if reading my thoughts. I can feel her eyes on me, her hand so close to my own. Any moment I might feel it on mine, and yet I don’t draw away. How easy it is to slip back into what was once normality. Does that mean there is a part of me that still wants it? It is a frightening thought.
‘We had happy times, though, didn’t we?’ Grace says. Her fingers are so close, I can almost feel them brushing my skin. Once, I’d known Grace’s hands as well as my own. We would often clasp them together as we walked down the road, even as teenagers, and would occasionally hold hands instead of linking arms. It had always made me feel safe.
‘Like when we were kids and your dad took us digging for razor clams and you screamed when one popped out of the sand,’ Grace says.
Despite myself, I smile.
‘And the time I nearly drowned out there because that tyre he sent us out to sea in capsized and I couldn’t get back up again.’
‘He refused to buy a dinghy, saying that would do,’ I remember. ‘He had to run in fully clothed to pull you out.’
Grace is laughing, and for a very small moment it feels like this is how it should be. Talking about the past, talking about my dad. It is something we rarely did, I realise. Usually Grace would put him down and yet she must have been able to see how he was always there for me.
I shift on the hard wall and look away into the opposite direction. ‘Why did you come back?’ I ask. When Grace doesn’t answer I carry on. ‘Graham says it was because of me. He says I begged you to come here.’ Now I face her.
Grace’s eyes narrow and she doesn’t ask how I know this, but instead says, ‘When I left I felt like part of me had been cut out, not having you in my life. Didn’t you ever feel like that?’
I want to say no, but that isn’t true, because for a long while I did. For years I wanted Grace back, but it wasn’t until later I realised that just because you missed something it doesn’t mean it was good for you.
‘The day I came back here and you found me standing on your driveway,’ she continues, ‘tell me honestly what you thought.’
My mind drifts back to it for the second time today. Grace must have seen my immediate elation as I was swept up in the surprise of seeing her again. But I had spent the morning clearing out my dad’s house. In that moment I craved having someone I could talk to again. Someone who knew him.
‘Grace, why have you come back?’ I ask her again. ‘You surely didn’t return to Clearwater because of me?’
‘Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Anna,’ she mutters. ‘I came back because my husband left Matilda and me so he could travel round the world. I thought you would be there, but clearly your priorities lie with your mum friends.’
I close my eyes and sigh. We will go round in circles, and so instead I say, ‘We need to talk about what happened the night Heather died.’ When I open them again I see Grace’s mock surprise. I’m grateful for the padding of my coat that hides my pumping heart, which races so quickly it almost hurts. The blood
in my ears swishes loudly, I can no longer focus on the sound of the waves.
‘Why?’ Grace’s face is blank. Her response surprises me.
‘Because …’ I search for the right words. Isn’t it obvious? ‘I need to understand …’
‘If I killed her?’ she says. ‘Is that what you want to know?’
My lips part but I don’t answer.
‘Only I saw you, Anna. Your argument with Heather, which you never told me about. Why didn’t you?’ she asks. ‘Because I heard all of it.’
I open my mouth but she’s already saying, ‘You really think I killed her? After everything I did – and you can sit here and suggest it was me? I saw you and her, Anna. I saw what happened.’
I shake my head. The day has turned sour, as it was always going to.
‘So shouldn’t I be asking you that question,’ Grace says. ‘Did you kill Heather, Anna? Did you push her off the cliff?’
‘You need to go, Grace.’ I want the conversation to end now. I don’t think I want to dig any further into what happened that night.
Grace laughs.
‘I mean it. I don’t want you in Clearwater. I don’t want Matilda at the same school that Ethan goes to. You should never have come back.’
‘You’re telling me to leave?’
‘Yes. You came back thinking we could be best friends again but I don’t want that, Grace. I don’t need you in my life any more.’
Grace opens her mouth to answer but when no words come out she clamps it shut again.
I shuffle on to my hands, which have been shaking by my sides, pushing them under my bottom to still the nerves. In some ways I do actually wish it could be different. We do have so many memories that have bound us together, closer than possibly anyone else in my life bar Ben or Ethan. It shouldn’t have had to be this way, and yet it needs to be.
There is nothing I can do but cut Grace out of my life once and for all.
Chapter Twenty-three
Grace
Grace watches Anna drive away. In the space of two days her husband and her best friend have told her they don’t want her in their lives any longer. Both of them have broken up with her, dumped her, whatever you want to call it.
Graham has told her that he will never be good enough for her, will never be able to do anything right. His friends, it turns out, warned him of this at the beginning of their relationship but he chose to ignore them because he loved her. In many ways she shouldn’t be surprised. This is why she had come back to England.
She finds herself pacing the pathway alongside the beach, in the direction that Anna has just left, heading towards the roundabout at the end of the road. Grace doesn’t actually know why she is still walking but she doesn’t want to go home, not until she knows for sure Graham will have gone.
‘All this a week before Christmas?’ she had asked him. ‘What kind of Christmas is this going to be for our daughter?’
‘What do you suggest, Grace?’ he’d said. ‘That we play happy families until the new year?’
Yes, she supposes, that is what they should be doing, or at least that is what he should want to do. But the thought of him continuing to live in her apartment for the next few weeks is unimaginable. This is his doing, and when their daughter doesn’t get over this and in years to come remembers her father for what he is – a selfish coward who has always put himself over her – Grace will not contradict her.
Opposite the roundabout the rowing club’s stupid Christmas fairy lights are flapping in the wind as they twinkle dimly against the dull grey sky. Her husband might as well have punched her in the gut, but Anna has reached a hand in and squeezed so tight that Grace can hardly breathe.
It is Anna, Grace realises, who she’d expected would pick up the pieces. Be there for her in a way no one else ever could. It was only ever Anna who made Grace feel noticed, listened to, important.
‘You’ve always needed me,’ she would say to Anna when they were younger, and Anna would agree with her and tell her yes, she did need her and she was so grateful for Grace being there.
Only deep down Grace has a feeling – a horrible, horrible feeling – that maybe she needed Anna more.
‘Grace Goodwin?’
A man’s voice is calling her and she turns to try to identify him, but it takes her a moment to acknowledge Detective Marcus Hargreaves ambling along the pavement across the road.
She stops but she doesn’t speak. Her heart is beating like she has run a marathon when she hasn’t even walked half a mile.
‘Hello?’ He is calling her. He is crossing the road now, skipping between the sporadic traffic as he makes his way round to her. ‘Hi,’ he says when he finally stands beside her. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes. Fine,’ she tells him.
‘Only you don’t look …’ He waves a hand in the air, gesturing for a word that he doesn’t end up using. She knows she is staring at him blankly, but she feels blank. Her whole body is numb. It is shock, she presumes, although now she has stopped she is beginning to feel something that more resembles anger, hatred, a desire to explode with rage.
But she is far too composed for that, and with the detective staring at her oddly she ignores the sensations she’s experiencing and says, ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
He smiles but there isn’t the twinkle in his eyes that she saw when they first met last Thursday. He is worried about her, she realises. It is nice to have someone worrying about her. ‘I just wanted to catch up with you to see if there is any news?’ he asks.
‘News?’
‘Your friend, Anna …’ He clicks his fingers, searching for a surname.
‘Anna Robinson.’
The detective nods. ‘Have you heard from her yet?’
‘I have,’ Grace says. ‘Yes.’
‘Oh, great.’ He pauses as if he is expecting more. ‘And so everything is okay?’
‘Yes, I suppose everything is fine.’
‘Right. Listen, Grace, I really wanted to say I’m sorry, you know; I realise you were worried about your friend last week, but I’m glad everything has turned out well.’
‘You’re sorry for what?’ Grace asks. ‘For not listening to me?’
‘Well, yeah, but it wasn’t my call. DCI Barker’s an experienced detective and … well, thankfully it looks like she was right.’
‘Not to be worried?’
‘Yeah. Are you sure everything is okay?’
‘Just because Anna is back, it doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to worry about, does it?’
‘No, I suppose not always, but it’s not a crime to disappear and … Listen, Grace, do you want to talk? I have time to grab a coffee if you like?’
‘Why are you being so kind?’ she says to him. ‘You don’t owe me anything. Like you say, it wasn’t your call to decide whether or not to listen to me.’
‘I know, but—’ He breaks off, and once again she cannot help but notice just how handsome he is and suddenly she feels like she is being a complete bitch to him when he doesn’t deserve it. ‘I guess I just remember you so well when you were younger and I came to your house that time. It’s like I said to you before, the case has never left me. And when you turned up at the station last week it all came rushing back.’ He is squinting at her as if he doesn’t expect her to understand, when she understands only too well.
‘I do have time for a coffee,’ she tells him with a smile. ‘I’d like that, actually.’
‘Good. That’s great. There’s this place up the road over there, on the high street, that does the best lemon drizzle cake. Actually, it’s my sister-in-law’s café,’ he grins, ‘so I’m a bit biased. But it’s my treat if you’re happy to go there.’
‘Perfectly happy,’ she tells him. ‘It sounds lovely.’ Grace follows him, over the road again and towards one of the small alleyways that will take them up towards the café.
‘I’m glad I’ve bumped into you, Marcus,’ she says as they walk. ‘I haven’t spoken to anyone about
Heather Kerr in a very long time.’
Because, Grace thinks, there is no harm in having a little chat to the detective about what happened all those years ago.
June 1997
The detective sat in the living room. Grace was curled up on a beanbag. He was perched on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward, his hands clasped together as they hung between his knees.
‘Gracie, darling, move out of there,’ her mother told her quietly. ‘Go and sit on the chair.’
‘It’s fine, Mrs Goodwin,’ the detective said. ‘Grace is fine where she is.’
He had big eyebrows that just about met in the middle and a pair of sunglasses that were pressed into the top of his bouncy hair. He’d introduced himself as DS Hargreaves but told Grace she could call him Marcus.
Grace had heard her mum in the kitchen, talking to her dad, worrying that she didn’t think he looked old enough to be running an investigation this important, but he must have been at least twenty-five and to Grace that felt really old.
‘Do you like school?’ he was asking her.
Grace shrugged. ‘It’s okay, I suppose.’
‘Do you have any idea what you want to do when you leave?’
‘Not really.’
‘What do you enjoy?’ he asked.
‘Art.’
‘She’s forever drawing,’ her mum butted in. ‘She’s actually very good at it.’
Marcus smiled and nodded. ‘Grace, I want to ask you some questions about Heather Kerr. I believe she is in your class?’
‘Yes. She’s only been there since Christmas. Is she in trouble?’ Grace asked.
‘No. She’s not in any trouble.’
‘She’s always getting caught. Doing things she shouldn’t be.’
‘Is she?’ he said. ‘What kinds of things?’
Grace told him some of Heather’s exploits and realised she had said the right thing as he seemed particularly interested in her take on the girl.
She could feel her mum shuffling about in the corner of the room. ‘Gracie, the girl is missing. I don’t think you should be talking about her like this.’ Her expression was pained.