by N V Peacock
Mr Dawson arrives at 8 p.m. and helps us lock up. He looks beaten down, and this random appearance in the shop is unusual. Mostly, our boss lets us do everything on our own. We’re a family here, and he trusts us. He claims he’s at work because he’s bored. Maybe his wife has dumped him and he’s desperate to get out of the house; that could be why we have auditors in. They would need to value the business if he was teetering on the edge of a divorce. Maybe I won’t lose my job and everything will turn out fine after all.
I buy dinner for tomorrow and a care package for Kylie, only she’s a no-show. I don’t have her mobile number or address. Maybe she went into labour. I leave her bag backstage, and Tracy promises to give it to her if she sees her tomorrow. As I go to get my bag and coat, I notice my best friend putting a packet of nappies next to it.
Tracy drives me home; all the while, I watch for dark cars, but see none. The only vehicles on my street are the ones belonging to my neighbours.
By the time I get home, Leo has put Robin to bed and is beavering away in the extension. The noise I heard before stopped after Leo started work again; no doubt it was all in my mind anyway. I want to casually open the door to say hey; get a quick, accidental nosey at the fruits of his labours, but I don’t – we should all be allowed a secret or seven.
I don’t go to bed. Instead, I make popcorn and watch a couple of Grey’s Anatomy episodes. Soon, my real-life problems blend with the flimsy imaginary ones of the ditsy doctor until everything feels trivial; that is until I turn off the TV and thoughts of reality wallop me over the head, reminding me the worst can and probably will happen.
Before going to bed, I check The Flesh on the Bones, but it’s not there.
Chapter 13
I search for the podcast, but I can’t find it. I stumble over a few cooking websites, a slightly disturbing blog about theoretical cannibalism, but there’s nothing else. I go back to the local news article and try the links. They’re all broken. Well, hooray for meddling mothers. You rock, Mrs Patel, for telling that selfish son of yours to act like a decent human being. She must have made him take it down. No more secrets, no more podcasts, no more subscribers. As long as my six degrees of separation only spread two or three degrees to gossip-mongering mums at the school gates, I’m home free. Everything should calm down now, my past digitally buried by the next scandal.
Logging on to my emails, I see I have something from Jai. I open it to find a short apology for revealing my identity. It’s almost rude in its brevity. Still, it makes me smile. A sense of justice sweeps over me as I log off my computer.
Upstairs, I check on Robin. I watch him sleep for a bit. It’s a little creepy, especially if he wakes up to find me staring at him, but watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest is comforting. It probably goes back to when he was a baby. I was so paranoid he’d stop breathing in the night that I barely slept at all.
Eventually, I go to bed. Leo is snoring and taking up more than his fair share of the covers, but I don’t mind. Life is good. It is back to normal again.
Curled up on the edge of my bed, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Waking up, I look over at the clock. It’s past eight; Leo has let me sleep in and has taken Robin to school. I turn over to see a note on the pillow. It’s a drawing of a robot and a little boy standing in front of a big red Ferris wheel. The colouring escapes all the lines, and the smiles on the two subjects are too big for their faces. On the back, scrawled in red crayon, it reads, Nostrom and me at the fair.
I get up and take a shower. Maybe I should let Robin wear the robot costume tonight. What harm could it do? It might be fun to go to the fair with a robot.
Once dressed, I place Robin’s drawing on the fridge. I grab a quick bowl of cereal, then watch another episode of Grey’s Anatomy. My phone beeps and I find a text from Shania, but all it reads is Kylie and an unreadable emoji. I text her back to say I can’t read what she’s sent, so she tells me Kylie is at Dawson’s Food and says thanks for her stuff. I text back that I’ll see them both soon, but before the message leaves my phone, Shania asks if I’ve been to the fair yet. I tell her I’m going tonight, and I’ll let her know how it is.
Robin won’t need picking up until three, so I flip onto the news to check out the weather for tonight. I’m staring at a prediction of clear skies with a potential ground frost, trying to work out what the Fahrenheit is for the Celsius, when an urgent news story flashes onto the screen.
The police have found Thomas Doncaster’s body.
Swearing, I turn up the volume just in time to hear the newscaster say, ‘Police discovered the body early this morning in an industrial estate on the edge of town. He was bludgeoned to death. Although found fully clothed, his trainers were missing. The police are treating the death as suspicious.’
Rolling this new information around in my head, ideas like shadowy tumbleweeds begin to form. I feel awful for the parents, but at least they know the fate of their son and can look for the bastard who did it. There’s no mention of bones, or anything remotely similar to my dad’s dark deeds, so that’s something at least. The police won’t release all the relevant information to the press, but fortunately, the little they have freely shared makes me sure Thomas Doncaster has nothing to do with my family tree.
After making lunch, I settle back down in front of the TV. I try to get into the medical drama, but the image of poor Thomas Doncaster lying shoeless, covered with dirt and lorry fumes, clouds my thoughts. Over an hour slips by like this. An untouched chicken sandwich on my lap, a now-blank TV screen in front of me. I look at my phone and see three text messages. Tracy, Gurpreet, and Shania. They’ve all seen the news about Thomas’s body. I then realise why I can’t let this go: Mariah was right. She said that he came to her shoeless and coughing on car fumes. Does this mean she is for real? Could her prediction about Robin being in danger be real too? I look for her telephone number online and quickly find her website. I call. Jon answers the phone.
‘Can I speak with Mariah?’ I ask.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Cherrie Forrester. You came round …’
‘Yes, I remember you. Can we help?’
He’s heard the news about Thomas; I can hear the righteous indignation in his voice.
‘I just wanted to ask Mariah something about my little boy. She said he was in danger.’
There’s a rustling sound. I hear Mariah’s voice. ‘Cherrie?’
‘Yes, it’s me. I’m sorry I was weird with you the other day, but I’m sure you’ve come across other people like me.’
‘You’re not alone. Many people are troubled with darkness.’
‘Pardon? I meant I was sceptical.’
‘Even sceptics can have dark and sticky clouds clinging to their future.’
‘What?’ I hold my breath waiting for her to explain. I don’t like the image of something shadowy glued to my future. Who would? And I’m an expert in dark and sticky things. My dad made sure of it.
‘You want to know what danger your son is in. You want to be forewarned so you can be forearmed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come over to my house; bring your little bird Robin. I’ll do a reading for you both. We’ll get to the bottom of this danger. Unstick the darkness.’
That would cost £50. If Dawson’s Food is really in trouble, I can’t justify the cost.
Sensing my hesitation, she says, ‘There’ll be no charge. Your little bird is very special. Come over tonight.’
‘Oh, damn. I promised Robin we’d go to the fair at Black Friars Park tonight.’
‘Sarah loves fairs. I understand. Come tomorrow night.’
‘Okay, thank you,’ I say.
Mariah hangs up on me.
My dad is locked away. He’s not guilty of Thomas’s murder, but there could be another killer out there – one just as wicked as him. A terrible creature looking for another boy to take back to his lair, and what if he has his sights set on Robin? What if this ki
ller is the dark and sticky thing clinging to my future?
I text Tracy about my fear that Robin could be in danger, along with Mariah’s kind offer of free readings. She texts back that she’ll come with us to the psychic’s house tomorrow. I feel better for that, for being proactive. While on my phone, I decide to set up a Google Alert for convicted sex offenders, and child kidnappers on my estate plus the two neighbouring ones. You shouldn’t just rely on psychics when there is a wealth of information online. I realise the irony with The Flesh on the Bones, but quickly shrug it off.
While driving to school, I wonder if I should cancel tonight’s trip to the fair. Wrap Robin up in a blanket, plonk him in front of the TV surrounded by his own weight in sweets and crisps; let him safely marinate in sugar and trans-fats until I get to speak with Mariah. Yet, when he gets in the car, wrestles off his shoes, and looks over at me with his face alight with joy, I realise cancelling is not an option. Anyway, the fair is just a short walk from the house. He’ll be with me the whole time.
Dinner is a quick stir-fry. I watch as Robin eats the noodles and bean sprouts by wrapping them around his fork like spaghetti.
‘Mummy, can I please wear the robot costume tonight?’ he asks again as he takes his empty plate into the kitchen.
I think about it for a moment, then decide on a compromise. ‘You can’t wear the whole thing, it’ll be too bulky for the rides, but how about part of it?’
I go to the robot costume and pick off one of the sparkly red buttons. Looking over at Robin, I say, ‘How about having an on-off switch. You’ll then look like one of those synthetic human androids.’
Robin gives me a suspicious look, but still runs across to grab the cardboard button. He picks up his red Puffa jacket, then slips the piece of painted cardboard into a pocket. He narrows his eyes at me. ‘If I had an off switch, would you use it, Mum?’
I smile at him. ‘Maybe. If you refused to eat your carrots, I could turn you off, open your mouth, and feed you baby-bird style. I’ll even coat them in cheese spread so they slide down easier.’
‘Ewwwww, gross.’ Robin turns his back on me.
‘What are you doing?’
Grinning, he spins back around. ‘My button is in one of my pockets, but now you don’t know which one it’s in.’ He pokes his tongue out at me, then carefully lays his jacket over the couch. ‘This way, you can’t turn me off and feed me vegetables.’
‘Oh, you’re too clever for me.’ I chuckle.
We wash up the dishes and watch TV for a little while. I avoid putting on the news. I don’t want to hear any more about poor Thomas Doncaster; I don’t want Robin to see anything about it either.
Leo isn’t back from work yet and hasn’t sent a text to say he’ll be late. Usually, I receive an alien face emoji accompanied by a short explanation. I shrug it off but take my phone off silent mode. It’ll be loud at the fair and I don’t want to miss Leo’s text.
When it’s time to go, Robin slips his jacket back on. It makes him look like a giant tomato. I can see the glitter from the makeshift robot button dotted around his left pocket.
Reaching for the door handle, I have second thoughts about going out tonight. Robin would eventually get over being disappointed and it’s better safe than sorry. Even as I think it, I realise it’s a terrible cliché. All I have to back up my craziness is paranoia and one vaguely correct prediction from a woman calling herself a psychic. Thomas’s death could have easily been a good guess. Yet, the shoeless thing. But you hear stories all the time about so-called psychics playing the odds; she did spout a lot of nonsense too. She didn’t even know who I really am, which would have definitely come up if she was for real. I’m being silly again. Just because something terrible could happen, it’s still highly doubtful it will. I’ve spent years of worrying about my past, worries that never materialised into anything.
‘Mum?’
I can’t disappoint Robin on an unsubstantiated whim. ‘Let’s go, sweetie.’
As we leave the house, I look up to see a black car parked across the street. I blink at it. At six o’clock, I can only see by randomly lit streetlights. Not parked near any particular house, the car idles by the kerb. I squint. Someone is inside on the driver side; I can see their outline like a jagged shadow.
Robin grips my hand and tugs on it. He wants to get to the fair, but I need to find out if this is all in my mind, or whether it’s part of Mariah’s prediction. If I can just get a look at the person in the driver seat, see if it’s my stalker or someone else …
I slip my hand out of my son’s grip.
‘Wait here by the front door,’ I tell him.
He nods at me.
Striding across the road, I fortify myself to confront the dark car’s owner.
Chapter 14
As I get within a few feet of the car, its engine roars. It pulls away from the kerb and aims itself at me. I stumble backwards out of its way. As I watch it speed up the road, I kick myself for not looking into the driver’s window to see who was behind the wheel.
‘Mummy!’
Robin stands by the front door, his hands on his hips, unfazed by what just happened. ‘Nostrom says you shouldn’t play in the road. We don’t want you to get hurt.’
I should tell Leo about the car when he gets in. In fact, I should sit him down and tell him everything. Open up my secret past with its serial killer father, my present with a psychic who could be the real thing, and my future that might see our son in mortal danger. I look at my phone, but there’s still no text from my boyfriend. Where is he? Leo said he’d be home by now.
‘Mummy! Come on.’
‘Okay, okay, we’re going.’
I grip Robin’s hand as we walk towards Black Friars Park. Fortunately, he doesn’t notice I’m clinging to him like a Titanic survivor to a life raft. He sings as we walk, and points when he sees the Ferris wheel in the distance; its lights make a slow, spooky glow against the dark, like a lazy sparkler. Robin’s mouth opens at the sight as if he’s about to say something, yet can’t form the right words. It’s weird, a colossal foreign structure has grown overnight in a place so familiar to us; I’m not surprised my son is overwhelmed.
I tug on his hand, and we stroll past the park’s playground.
‘Look, Mum, it’s where I first met Nostrom. Do you remember?’
I’m not sure I do. In my mind, Nostrom has always been around. Not in a worrying way that indicated Robin has psychological problems, but in a comfortable childish way. Nostrom helps my son enjoy math and science. Every little boy should have an imaginary robot friend.
‘Can we stop to play on the swings?’
I hesitate. It would be nice to linger a little; the sky is clear and there’s only a slight chill in the air. I can hear the faraway beat of the music coming from the fair – although, the sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back home.
‘Not right now, sweetie. We can play on the swings any time.’
My little boy’s bottom lip trembles. ‘Please, just for a little while.’
‘Maybe tomorrow, eh? Crazy Clive is only here for a few days. Don’t you want to go to the fair while it’s still here?’
‘That’s a good point, Mum.’ He dramatically points to the lights of the Ferris wheel. ‘To the fair!’ he declares with a grin.
Laughing at my son, who seems destined to be an actor, we rush past the playground, the music from the fair getting louder the closer we get.
I keep vigilant for dark cars near the park. So far, I see none. Maybe the car before was nothing to do with my problems. The world doesn’t revolve around me. Perhaps it was someone checking up on the neighbours. A jilted ex-lover, a worried spouse, or even a government benefits team waiting to catch the woman down the road without her walking stick.
The nearer we get to the fair, the calmer I become. It wouldn’t be the first time a worry has festered in my mind out of all proportion. I will still tell Leo about the car and the stalker when we get in, just not ab
out my past. His sound, logical mind will outweigh my crazy one.
Robin is so excited when we cross Crazy Clive’s threshold that he bounces along beside me like Tigger. I feel it too. It’s like stepping into another world. The smell of salted popcorn and sweet cotton candy suppresses the park’s scent of nature. Overpowering pop music pulses through a massive speaker system, and the sound of laughter is everywhere. Scattered around us are several rides, but just one ticket booth. The line for the booth is fortunately short, which is good because I’m not sure my arm could take much more tugging from Robin. I get us ten tickets for five rides together. We decide to go on the Twirling Tea Cups first.
Running the ride is a teenager dressed in cropped cargo trousers and a ripped black T-shirt with goose bumps decorating his rail-thin arms. With the kind of boredom only teenage boys can muster, he waves us through. We climb into a chipped blue patterned cup on our own. The ride reminds me of Mariah’s motley china collection that decorated her reading room. The cup is so large, even I feel small in it; it must overwhelm Robin. I look over at him, expecting a worried face.
‘This is awesome!’ Robin’s smile is so big it reaches his hairline.
The teenager pulls down a creaking metal bar, which barely reaches Robin’s lap. Before I can query it, he lollops off and starts the ride. Our cup spins almost instantly. My arm instinctively shoots out to hold Robin back.
Around and around we go. I quickly regret eating before we left. I haven’t felt like this since I was pregnant with morning sickness. I should have let Mrs Duffill come with us. I could have sat on a bench and watched her swirled and pulled around until she primly vomited.
Somewhere in the heart of the ride, there is piano music playing; an old tune I’ve heard before, but can’t remember. It’s hard to listen to it through the squealing of the ride itself. I am so grateful when the whole thing stops that I laugh aloud.
‘Again!’ screams Robin.
‘We can’t ride again, sweetie. Other people want to have a go,’ I explain, and we wait for the black-shirted teenager to pull up the bar, which bruised my ribs, and free us.