Cross Her Heart(62)

They can’t hear what she’s saying but Ma’s laughter carries on the breeze. It’s sweet and soft and whatever she’s saying to Daniel is full of care. Charlotte bites hard on the inside of her cheek, her mouth metallic as she breaks the skin. It all has to come out somehow.

She glances over at Katie. ‘Can we go now?’

‘She was never like this with you, was she?’ It’s a question but it isn’t. Katie knows the answer. ‘She really loves him.’ Her voice is soft, talking to herself rather than her friend, but the words are like knives in Charlotte. She holds on to the imaginary steel slicing her. She’ll make it part of her.

‘Yeah, I wish he’d disappear,’ Charlotte says, bitter, watching her ma lift him gently out and on to the ground, face full of concern.

‘Imagine if he did,’ Katie says, a half-smile on her face, lost to the fantasy already. ‘Or if he died. Imagine how she’d feel. Maybe then she’d realise how much she loved you.’

It’s a sweet thought, but Charlotte knows nothing can make Ma love her. Ma looks at her like she’s bad and dirty and she is, but she only used to be bad. Ma can’t look at her straight because of what she and Tony make her do.

‘I’d run away,’ she says. ‘Leave them alone. With each other.’

‘No.’ Katie’s voice is hard and she crouches, pulling Charlotte down too, so their knees are under their chins and it makes the welts on the backs of Charlotte’s thighs burn fresh. ‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘We’d run away. Together. We will.’ She pulls the shell she brought back from Skegness from her jacket pocket and holds it up against Charlotte’s ear. It’s not the first time Katie’s done this but it still seems like magic to Charlotte, the sound of the sea coming from it.

‘We’re going to make them pay,’ she says. She leans in and presses her lips against Charlotte’s. ‘Your family and mine.’

Charlotte nods, Ma and Daniel behind her dissolving into nothing. ‘We’ll make them pay,’ she agrees.

It all has to come out somehow.





49


NOW


MARILYN

I didn’t sleep more than perhaps an hour’s fitful dozing and by the time I get to work my head is thumping, my mouth is dry and my heart is beating too fast in that way that comes with insomnia. I spent all night thinking about Lisa and everything she’s supposed to have done. She has a split personality, she must do. Maybe I should suggest it to the police – I’m fuck-all use to them for anything else. I can’t even think of any dates from the past year that may matter. All my days run into a blur of work and home.

Lisa killed Jon. She sent Ava those messages. I remember how quietly happy she was about Simon. How obvious it was they liked each other right from the start – all those unnecessary meetings he arranged. And her nerves, like a teenager, when they were going for dinner. Could she really have been that Lisa and this crazy person at the same time? Even if I was too stupid to notice, surely Ava would? Maybe not. She’s a teenager, absorbed in her own life.

The pregnancy test. Ava must have had a boyfriend. Have the police tracked him down? Is he relevant? He didn’t matter very much to Ava. She was too fixated on her online love. It makes me sick, the madness of it all.

I dump my bag on my desk and try to stay breezy, but the excited chatter is loud. They’re talking about it. Of course they are.

‘I mean, holy fuck, she killed her ex. Murdered him. While she was coming in here and being all sweet and nice and normal.’ Toby’s rocking back in his chair, like some show-off teenager at school. ‘Batshit crazy.’

‘It’s the daughter I feel sorry for. Where do you think she is?’

‘Dead probably.’

‘Julia!’

‘Well, it’s horrible but it’s probably true.’

The women are in a huddle around Julia’s desk, and none of them acknowledge my arrival.

‘Penny in?’ I ask, bright and breezy.

Heads turn, glances over shoulders as they quieten.

‘She texted me earlier.’ Julia, arms folded across her chest, all sharp eyes and confidence. ‘Got a breakfast meeting so won’t be in until about ten.’

Penny and Julia sitting in a tree T-E-X-T-I-N-G … Sly little Julia, a tapeworm in the guts of our world.

A phone rings. ‘Don’t, it’s reporters,’ Stacey says as I reach for it. ‘They’ve been ringing since we got here. They’ll probably turn up outside soon.’

‘Poor Penny, having to deal with all this.’ Julia turns inwards and neatly closes the circle again, me on the outside. ‘She couldn’t possibly have known. I mean, who would think a person could be doing anything like that and still coming in to work every morning?’

Their chatter has a hysterical giggly edge to it and it makes me angry. So it’s okay that Penny didn’t know it, it’s okay that Toby didn’t have any suspicions, but somehow I’m still tarred with the Lisa brush?

‘It’s like Rose West or Myra Hindley,’ Julia continues. ‘Murdering all those people and carrying on with life like normal. Who knows what else she may have done? This could be the tip of the iceberg.’

Giving your age away there, Julia, I think. These kids have probably never heard of Myra Hindley. Or Rose West, for that matter.