by Jack Jordan
‘Your mother never forgave me,’ he said. ‘Even on her deathbed, she called for him, for you, but never for me.’
He poured the milk into two mugs, added sugar and blew the surface of each to cool them down.
‘I never got the chance to tell him that I loved him, that I was sorry, and I can’t let the opportunity pass with you.’ He placed the mug before her and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She felt like a child again. ‘I love you with all my heart.’
He stroked her cheek and left the room, climbed the stairs with his mug in hand.
Lily and she would be like this, if Rose didn’t do something to bring them together. Lily would hate her just as Rose had hated her father for all those years. She couldn’t let history repeat itself. Once this was over, she would do everything she could to earn Lily’s love again.
If she could learn to love her father once more, perhaps Lily could learn to love her too.
THIRTY-SIX
Rose lurched awake.
She was twelve again, waking in her bedroom to the smell of fried bacon drifting up the stairs, the patter of rain against the window. A phone was ringing. It would be one of Mum’s friends; she always seemed to be on the phone. If Rose ever had to use it to call a friend, the earpiece would be warm from her mother’s ear.
But the ringing sounded different, and her body felt older, aching at every joint. Her eyes burnt with every blink. She wasn’t a child, but a grown woman back in her old bedroom. She shook the past from her mind and sat up, snatching her mobile from the floor where her clothes lay inside out in a tangled mess. She cleared her throat before answering.
‘Hello?’
‘Rose?’
‘Detective Montgomery.’
There was something in his tone that made the hairs on her arms raise, her skin come out in goosebumps.
‘What. . . what is it?’
‘I’m afraid something’s happened,’ he said.
They could have found Finn’s body.
Her house could have been broken into again.
Something could have happened to Lily.
Oh God, Lily.
There were dozens of scenarios, all of them bad. She longed to shut off her brain and focus only on what he had to say, but all she could think of was Lily, hurt because of her actions. Another daughter she had harmed.
‘What’s happened?’
‘There are. . .’ He cleared his throat. She could hear the rush of traffic on the other end of the phone, the odd gale cracking into the receiver. ‘Posters have been left around the town. Posters with slanderous comments. . . about you.’
Slanderous material shared with the town, just as the stalker had done with Finn.‘We’ve got a team assigned to take them down,’ he added.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I need to see them.’
She jumped out of bed and stumbled around for her clothes, half blind in the dull light illuminating the curtains.
‘Where should I meet you?’ she asked. ‘Where have the posters been displayed?’
‘They’re everywhere, Rose.’
She imagined them stapled to doors, taped to shop windows, drifting down the street and collecting in the gutter. Her head spun.
‘Just. . . just tell me where to meet you.’
She heard the shuffle of paper and wondered if he was looking at a map. He breathed heavily down the line. She stopped in the centre of the room and closed her eyes to calm the thoughts hurtling around inside her head.
‘Osborne Street at ten. That should be the last street to be touched.’
‘All right.’
She ended the call and listened to the empty ring of the room. The man who was responsible for Finn’s misery was closing in, like the clamping of a vice.
What had happened to Finn was happening to her. The man who destroyed his life was trying to destroy hers too. He wasn’t just after the journal – he was after her.
She dressed quickly, fumbling for her clothes in the shadows, and rushed towards the bathroom to use the toilet and brush her teeth. Montgomery had made it sound as though the police were taking the posters down at that very moment. She had to get to Osborne Street before all traces had been removed and see them for herself. She opened the bathroom door and froze.
The past was waiting for her. The bathwater was thick and red. She stared at her brother’s body, the shadows framing his ribs, every eyelash on his closed lids. Her jeans weren’t blue any more, but soaked through. She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head roughly. When she opened them again, the bath was dry and white. Jay was gone. She used the toilet and brushed her teeth, splashed cold water against her face, all the while keeping her eyes on the floor, closing them when red water slithered between the tiles and etched towards her feet, and rushed out of the bathroom before the past could drag her back again.
‘Dad!’ she called as she headed down the stairs, moving about the house like it was hers again. She entered the kitchen and found him standing at the counter preparing breakfast for them both. He turned with a smile, which fell the second he saw the fear in her eyes and the shake to her frame.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
‘I need a ride.’
Montgomery was right. The posters were everywhere.
Her own eyes stared back at her a hundred times, stuck to the glass of shop windows, every lamp post and wall; drifting down the road in the wind and stuck to the ground, soaked through with the rain. The large black words ran down the walls where the rain had got them.
KID-KILLER.
Montgomery stood beside her silently. People muttered about them as they passed. Rose snatched a poster from a passing woman.
‘Hey!’
The anger slipped from the woman’s face the second she recognised Rose from the flyer. She carried on along the street with her head down.
Rose looked at the flyer, damp and shaking in her grasp.
‘When did this happen?’ she asked croakily.
‘The first call came in after six. We’re searching CCTV back at the station and should have footage of who did this by noon.’
‘Doesn’t this seem familiar to you?’ she asked.
He turned away from her and lit a cigarette in a cupped palm, breathed out the smoke in a sigh.
‘This happened to Finn,’ she said.
She thought of the social media pages that had been created overnight, and wondered which had been completed first: the posters or the online slander. There was one page called #JusticeforViolet, another simply called The Kid-Killer of Rearwood. Photos of Violet had been posted on the social media accounts, photos of Rose, pictures she had forgotten existed. Post after post defiling her, demanding that she serve time in prison for her crime, random users suggesting the return of capital punishment and that she hang for what she’d done. How had someone got hold of these photos? Had they found their way online somehow? Or had they been hunted out? Lily hadn’t posted about this yet, but Rose knew she would. She regularly refreshed Lily’s social media pages.
‘It could be a coincidence,’ he said. ‘Bringing up the past can get people riled.’
‘Are you sure your colleagues didn’t do this?’
‘Of course they didn’t.’
‘Please,’ she said with a snort. ‘Please don’t act like you don’t know what goes on.’
She eyed the posters on the walls until her whole body shook with rage. She lunged forwards and snatched at them, one by one, wet paper digging beneath her fingernails and a path of it left behind her, soaking into the puddles.
‘Do you take me seriously now?’ she shouted, storming back to him. ‘Surely now you and your colleagues can’t write me off as a crazy woman making up lies.’
‘I’ve never believed that,’ he said. ‘It’s the lack of—’
‘Bullshit! You want this buried just like the rest of them. You might not have hung these posters or followed me down the street in a patrol car, but your silence, your inability to act, m
akes you complicit. You’re just as bad as them.’
‘What do you want us to do, Rose? Arrest everyone in Rearwood?’
‘I want you to take this seriously, look into the case and get justice for the victims. Finn might be dead, for all we know.’
‘You can’t possibly know that.’
‘And don’t pretend you aren’t aware of the others. Johnny. Jamie. Phillip. Zach. Adam. They’re dead or missing, and undoubtedly connected to this. Open your eyes!’
He crushed the ember of his cigarette beneath the tip of his shoe.
‘We’ll analyse the CCTV and be in touch.’
Then he turned down the street and blended in with the crowd, the last lungful of cigarette smoke billowing over his shoulders.
She waited a beat for her heart to calm, but tears fell instead. Stumbling back against the wall she breathed in the crisp, cold air as tears chilled on her cheeks. It wasn’t the hateful comments about her, or the people who wished her dead, but the invasion into her past. Violet’s photo had been taken by someone and re-posted by dozens of others, using her sweet, angelic face to push a cause that wasn’t theirs to claim.
She dashed the tears away with her sleeve and followed down the street. People on the path looked her up and down, muttered behind her back. Whoever had done this wanted the town to turn on her, for her to take the heat while the killer slipped beneath the radar. And to all intents and purposes, it seemed to be working.
She turned onto the high street with her head down, just as her phone rang in her pocket. She checked the screen and saw Christian’s name. He must have seen the posters or the social media pages. She put the phone back in her pocket, ignoring the dozens of texts that Rob had sent her, asking if she was okay, if he could do anything to help. He’d obviously seen the posters too. If he hadn’t known about her past before, he did now: she was a kid-killer. She turned off her phone and thrust it back in her pocket.
She didn’t want to talk to either of them; all she wanted was for her world to stop spinning out of control, just for a second, so she could catch her breath.
Her father was waiting for her further down the street, his BMW dented in the side, old bird shit baked onto the bonnet. She was about to cross the street when she spotted a familiar face and stopped.
Not one familiar face, but two.
Lily was sitting inside the café at a table by the window.
With Heather.
Lily appeared to be on the verge of tears. Rose watched Heather take her hand from the other side of the table and give it a comforting squeeze.
Rose crossed the street in a haze, not caring if cars came in either direction, or if people on the street recognised her from the posters and took a tentative step back. She couldn’t escape the sight of her daughter seeking comfort from the woman who had betrayed her again and again. Tears collected in her eyes. She pressed her hand against the glass.
When Heather glanced up, her eyes widened and her jaw fell.
She immediately let go of Lily, who followed her gaze to the window. Lily scowled and looked away.
She’s ashamed of me.
Rose turned quickly and headed up the street. She couldn’t let them see her break down. Tears fell in endless streams; her throat ached. She had to get home, had to get away from them, the posters, the whole town closing in.
‘Rose!’ Heather said, coming up behind her.
Rose spun around, giving Heather a look that stopped her in her tracks.
‘Her too? First my husband, and now my daughter? You had to take her too?’ Heather stared at her with her lips parted, words caught in her throat.
Rose turned and rushed up the street, finally letting the sobs free.
She had lost everyone and everything. The past was closing in, dug up by a man who would do anything to keep his secret buried. She had nothing left.
Nothing but the truth.
FINN’S JOURNAL
4th April 2018
I woke up, unsure if it was night or day. The bed sheets hadn’t been changed for weeks. I could smell my nervous sweat on them from where I’d jolted out of my dreams, the sheets twisted around my limbs. It was dark; I had slept through the day again.
Outside, winter had turned to spring, but I rarely saw it except for the occasional glance between the slats to check whether he was standing on the other side of the street.
I kept the blinds closed. If I opened them, I immediately felt his eyes on me, watching my every move; even if he wasn’t there, his presence was. I would move around in the dark, my eyes accustomed to the dim light of day behind the blinds and the deep, black shadows of the night. The fridge was empty, the cupboards bare but for the last few tins of beans and soup. Each time I prepared to leave the house to go shopping, I stood by the door with my wallet in my pocket and the key in my hand and broke down. It always ended with me returning them to the sideboard before crawling back into bed, fully clothed and weeping at my weakness. Leaving the house meant facing him. I would rather have starved.
I looked through the darkness to where I had left my phone on the bedside table.
I turned on my phone twice a day: once in the morning, and again in the evening, to check if my boss had given me a call or sent an email, with a small sliver of hope that he would take me back. He never did. Instead, I had messages filled with hate pouring into my inbox. My voicemail was full with messages I didn’t have the strength to listen to. The police hadn’t been in touch either. I left all the texts and other communications from him unread, turned off my phone again, and closed my eyes.
I remember everything about this night. The building was quiet, except for the occasional gurgle of the pipes within the walls. I couldn’t hear the usual mutter of the television downstairs, or the heavy footsteps from the flat above. Even the street was quiet: no breeze, no sirens, no vixens wailing into the night.
The bedroom door creaked.
My eyes flew open.
He was standing in the doorway, a silhouette against the darkness.
I screamed so loud, so suddenly, that pain burst in my throat, as though it had erupted with the force, split from the back of my tongue to the depths of my stomach, stealing away my voice. I pressed myself against the headboard and pulled my knees up to my chest. He stepped forward, so I backed away, falling from the bed to the floor with a jarring thump, and pressed myself in the corner of the room, making myself small. Hot, salty tears shot down my face and wet my lips. My lungs shrank. I couldn’t breathe.
He stepped further into the room with his hands up. I could just see the whiteness of his palms.
‘No! No, no, no, please! Just leave me alone!’
I clamped my eyes shut, waiting for the moist press of his hands on my body. I wondered what he would touch first: the parts he desired, or my neck to silence me.
I tried to scream again but couldn’t, steeled my teeth shut until pain shot down to the roots.
Further away in the apartment, the front door clicked shut.
I opened my eyes.
He was gone.
I paced the apartment from one end to the other, entering every room with a nervous glance to make sure he was definitely gone.
I hadn’t left the flat, so he’d come inside. I couldn’t even lock myself away.
I had stayed in the corner of the room for what felt like an hour, struggling to find my breath, to stop the tears. Someone had banged on the front door. I thought they were worried about me, following the scream. But it was the man from upstairs, telling me to keep the noise down in a trail of expletives and threats.
Eventually I found the strength to stand, sliding up the wall, and stumbled over to the bed for my phone. I turned it on, ignoring all the messages he had sent.
I blinked away the tears and called the police, barely able to speak clearly, stumbling over every word, my breathing inconsistent.
All I could do was pace as I waited for them to arrive – I can’t remember how much time had passed. And all
I could think about was him inside the flat, staring at me through the darkness, asking myself how he’d got inside after the landlord had finally got around to changing the locks.
When the door buzzed from downstairs, I froze. It could be the police, or it could be him. He had let himself in before, but maybe he was trying a different approach, wanting me in the doorway so he could silence me faster, shield my mouth mid-scream.
It buzzed again. If I didn’t answer, the police would leave. But if it was him, I would be powerless again. I could already hear Byrne’s tone, asking why I didn’t defend myself, speaking through the smirk that made me blush whenever I thought of it.
When it buzzed a third time, and I heard the movement of feet from upstairs, pounding against the ceiling, I made for the door and rushed down the stairs to the front door of the building.
It was dawn. The sky was waking in colour and reflecting in the glass of the cars lining the street. Officers I hadn’t met before stood on the step, with a man in a suit behind them, a detective perhaps. I stayed behind the door and stared past the officers, scanning the opposite side of the street, to where he usually stood. He wasn’t there.
The male officer made to speak, but I pressed a finger against my lips. I beckoned them inside with my hand. They glanced at one another with an expression I was too slow to catch, and the man in plain clothes watched me intently from behind his spectacles, reflecting the officers’ high-vis jackets.
I made my way up the stairs and flinched when the shout came.
‘Arrest this fucker!’ my neighbour shouted from the top of the stairs, in nothing but a vest and boxers. Hair on his chest crept around the limits of the vest.
‘He’s making our lives hell. Shouting all night. Slamming doors. Causing leaks in the building. He smeared his own shit on the walls, did you know that? He’s fucking loony!’
‘Sir, we’ll need you to calm down,’ the female officer said from behind me. She walked past me on the stairs and moved him aside. I couldn’t go any further.