Good Me Bad Me(20)

I tried so hard not to believe the things you used to say – it’s just me and you, Annie, nobody else will want you. I’d agree, say, yes, you’re right, of course. Programmed to obey. But late in the night when the threat of your visiting shadow kept me awake, I’d reject your words in my head. Clinging on to the thought that, one day, I could be liked and accepted for being me. Whoever. Whatever that might be. But currently I don’t stand a chance, Phoebe’s seen to that. Quickly decided not only was I someone she didn’t like, but someone that nobody else should either. Powerful, like you.

Hurt. It does, to be Phoebe’s target, but it is at some level inclusion. A learning opportunity, one I am hungry for. I’m my own teacher now though your lessons still ring loud in my head. I remember one weekend, helping at your work. I played with the children while you tended to their mothers. One of the women commented on me, called me beautiful. Striking. In the car on the way home you told me, beauty gives a person power.

And camouflage.

It has for me, you said, and it will for you.

I asked you what you meant. It’s nature, you replied. Beauty blinds, draws people in. A brightly coloured tree frog, a spider that smiles. The beautiful shade of blue on its head distracts its prey. The web, sticky. Thick. The prey realizes too late. Realizes what, Mummy? You smiled, pinched my thigh, hard, and said – there’s no escape.

Your voice, the way you told stories. Captivating, yet terrifying. I remember thinking I didn’t want to blind people or draw them in so they couldn’t escape.

I didn’t want to be like you.





10


When I check my computer this morning the news is full to the brim of you. Snippets of information leaked and gobbled up by journalists.

One of the articles reads:

The jury are expected to hear evidence not only from the mother of Daniel Carrington, the last child found dead at Thompson’s home, but also from a forensic expert who will answer questions both on his death and the crime scene, the room in Thompson’s house of horrors that she called the playground. It’s unclear at present if this is a normal part of the proceedings or if the forensic expert has been called upon at the request of the defence. Thompson is currently being held in Low Newton Prison and the trial date is yet to be released.



I wish I could rationalize it in my mind. That the reason the defence want to focus on Daniel’s death is because it’s the most recent and the evidence is fresh. But I know you better than that. It’s you. You’ve told them to focus their efforts there because you know it’ll hurt me the most. I knew Daniel from the refuge. Him and his mum. I think about her all the time, and the other mums. How they must have felt when they realized what you’d done. Who they’d given their children to. Monsters for husbands, but in you, something worse. You’ll be thinking about it too, remembering it in a different way though. A way that feeds your penchant for the macabre, enjoying all the buzz surrounding you, seeing how far your lies can reach. I think about the jury too, who they’ll be, what kind of people they’ll be. And how sorry I feel for them. The things they’ll hear, the images they’ll be shown. Months it’ll take, maybe longer, for them to stop seeing. Imagining. If ever.

The picture the press use, I don’t know where they got it from, I’ve never seen it before. The public will look at your face, into your eyes, and say, look at her, you can tell she’s evil, gives me the creeps she does. You won’t care, you believe in your beauty, your likeability, even still. The men and women in uniform who guard you, some of them will forget, discuss the weather with you. Maybe even share a joke. You, charming.

The interest from professionals, the many who’ll want to interview you, scan images of your brain in an attempt to decode you, will only grow as more details emerge. Female killers who operate alone (yes I was there, but still), are rare. Then there’s the others, like the ones you invited for my birthday, lurking, creeping in the shadows. Admiration for you. Pen pals, perhaps even a future marriage proposal, or two. The queen of an underworld nobody wants to acknowledge exists. Ordinary people. Extraordinary evil inside. The brain of a psychopath is different from most, I’ve weighed up my chances. Eighty per cent genetics, twenty per cent environment.

Me.

One hundred per cent fucked.



I’m glad it’s the weekend, no school to worry about. My first whole week over. Survived. Mike left a new phone outside my door on Thursday night. I reach down, unplug it from charging. When I get up and part the curtains to the balcony door, the sky is clear and blue. In the next few weeks when October arrives the sun will sit lower in the sky. When I was very little, three maybe four, I used to like the darkness of winter. We’d light the fire in the living room and sometimes toast marshmallows. It wasn’t just us at home then, Dad and Luke were there too. I don’t like to think about my brother, how he found a way out, left me behind. The feelings, buried deep. It’s something you should think about addressing in time, the psychologist at the unit said, but as part of a longer-term therapy plan, and after the trial. I remember watching the way you were with Luke and wishing it was me, a wish I came to regret.

A scrap of paper tucked behind one of the plant pots on the balcony catches my eye. I unlock the door, go out, pick it up. A phone number, the letter M underneath. Clever girl. Risky though, coming so close to the house. I send a text to the number letting her know it’s me. She replies instantly, asks if I want to meet up later. Yes, I answer. She tells me to meet her at three at the bottom of the garden, make sure I wear a hoodie. I get back into bed, cocoon myself in the duvet, enjoy the way Morgan’s message makes me feel. I didn’t have many friends at my old school, the invites to stay over petered out when they weren’t reciprocated. Couldn’t be.