Cross Her Heart(85)

Peter Rabbit catches her eye, abandoned on the floor by her feet. A flash of something comes to her: hands, neck, Daniel. A dream? The nausea fades with a wave of something cold. Dread. A small shoe in the corner of her vision. A leg very still. She doesn’t want to look, oh she desperately doesn’t want to look, but she can’t help herself.

Oh shite, Daniel. His face is turned away, but there’s blood on the ground and he’s not moving at all, and he’s dead she knows he’s dead and she thinks she might scream or—

‘Oh my God, Charlotte.’ Katie is dragging herself upright, eyes blearily widening. ‘You did it. You actually did it.’

Charlotte’s shaking, her whole body trembling like she’s standing next to one of those stupid pneumatic drills they’ve been using up on the high street, and it’s so surreal, it’s all so surreal and he can’t be dead, not really dead, not like we talked about, hands around his throat, oh God Daniel you little shite I’m so sorry, Katie takes her cold hands and holds them up to her face.

‘Look at me, Charlotte.’

She does. She wants to look anywhere but at little Daniel and oh God what will Ma say, and so she stares straight into Katie’s perfect eyes. ‘It’s done,’ Katie whispers, hot breath on her cold face, Daniel will never breathe again, oh shite oh shite. Katie kisses her gently on her open mouth. ‘You’ve done it. It’s the beginning, Charlotte. We can be free! I can’t believe you did it, but you did. Oh, Charlotte, you’re my hero. There’s no going back now. Next, my mother. Then we run. We fly like the wind. Just us. You and me, forever. No going back.’

Charlotte’s teeth are starting to chatter. It can’t be real, how can it be real, it was only a fantasy, a crazy game. Everything is too bright, too real, and yet at the same time too surreal. No going back.

‘I need to go home first,’ she hears herself saying. ‘Make things look normal. If Ma’s home I’ll say I’m going to look for Daniel. Then come to you. They don’t know about you. They won’t look for me with you.’ How does she sound so normal? So calm. ‘We’ll do your ma and go, right?’ She kisses Katie back although her own mouth tastes sharp and bitter. Rotten.

‘Half an hour? At mine?’

Charlotte nods. She needs to get out of here. She needs to get away. Where is her anger now? Where did it all go? Into your hands and round little Daniel’s neck, that’s where it went and oh shite no going back.

‘I love you,’ Katie says with a smile as they clamber back out into the cold October air.

‘I love you too,’ Charlotte answers, her own smile a sickly grimace. And maybe she does. She does. But everything is broken now. She’s broken now. Daniel’s broken can’t be fixed never be fixed oh God oh God. ‘See you in half an hour.’

They go their separate ways and Charlotte knows she’ll never see Katie again. Not like this. She throws up around the corner, vodka and bile spilling out on to the dirt and leaving her empty. Hollow.

She looks back at the house, a wreck, unloved and unlovable. She doesn’t want to leave Daniel there alone with only Peter Rabbit for company. He’ll be afraid. He won’t understand. He’s dead you stupid shite cunt, he will never understand anything again because of you and your pills and your stupid voice in your head and your stupid hands and your stupid anger and he never hurt you, not really, Daniel never took you to the chippie or beat you or did the thing Tony did last night. Why is everything so clear now? Why is she always one step behind?

She knows what she has to do. The only thing she can do. No going back. She runs, faster than she ever has before, all the way to the train station. There’s a pay phone there. Her breath is raw in her chest. Her head is still spinning with the booze, the pills and the numbing shock, but her trembling fingers punch in the 999. I’m sorry, Katie, she thinks, when the call is done. I’m so sorry, Katie.

Daniel. I’m so sorry, Daniel.

She wishes she could cry. She wishes she could die. Instead, she goes home on numb legs with a numb heart and waits until she hears the sirens. It’s not long before Ma is wailing too, pushing Tony away.

When they take her to the police car, she doesn’t look back.

There’ll never be any going back.





73


NOW


MARILYN

I park up on the secluded road, away from the house, a black shape in the darkness up ahead, and get the torch from the boot of the car. I keep it turned off for now, walking carefully on the uneven track. My feet are invisible, no street lights to cut through the heavy darkness of the night. It’s not raining but the air is damp and heavy with pressure, the clouds hanging low under their own weight. As I turn into the drive I can’t see any other cars, certainly nothing resembling a police car, and for once I praise all the recent government cuts. No lights on. No sign of life. If they’re here, Katie’s dumped whatever car she’s been using out of sight. Without hesitating, without giving myself time to chicken out and turn around, I climb the steps. No police tape, no boards nailed across the door. No sign the police have taken this lead seriously at all.

When I push the door open, I understand why. The house is empty. In its soul it’s empty. I turn the torch on, a pool of yellow in blackness. There’s not much to see; wooden floors and pale walls and then a wide modern staircase that turns on a landing, before heading up to the next floor. I can hear nothing but the hum of my own body in my ears.