Final Cut(21)

‘What d’you want?’

I can’t see him well. The hall light is behind him; the porch is in darkness. He’s tall, though, and thin, his body angular and his movements awkward. I try to keep my voice even.

‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I hope you don’t mind me interrupting you.’

I hold out my hand, but he makes no move to take it and I’m relieved. I don’t want him to touch me. His attention seems focused on a spot a little way beyond me.

‘I’m Alex. I’m just—’

‘I know who you are.’

He leans forward. His thin face catches the moonlight. His complexion is waxy; he looks bleached, overexposed. He gives me the creeps and I fight the urge to run, as hard and as fast as I can, until I’m miles away.

‘Why’ve you come here?’

To find out about Daisy, I think. About Zoe.

I drop my hand and he flinches; his eyes dart with a feverish intensity, though he avoids looking at me directly. He scans my neck, my cheek, the side of my head; anywhere but my eyes. He doesn’t blink. Even in the dim light I notice a patch of stubble on his neck where the razor missed, a tiny scar above his lip. He seems desperate to escape, even though he’s standing in his own home and I’m the one trespassing. ‘I just wanted to ask you about—’

‘Why have you come to Blackwood Bay?’

I open my mouth, but the words catch in my throat. Nothing will come.

‘You need to get out.’

His voice quivers. He sounds odd. Scared. Drunk, perhaps.

‘What?’

‘It’s not safe for you here. You shouldn’t have come.’

His tone is menacingly low. I lean in, just a little, though my body is pulling against me. ‘I just … I want to talk to you.’

‘Leave. You should never—’

‘Wait!’ I say. He’s closing the door. I’m desperate; my chance to speak to him is disappearing. ‘You knew Zoe Pearson.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘No. I’d never … not after what happened.’

‘What happened?’

He says nothing.

‘Talk to me.’ I glance towards the edge of the cliff. ‘Daisy jumped from here, didn’t she?’

He shakes his head. He looks haunted.

‘David!’ I say. ‘Please! Will you help me?’

‘I can’t!’ he says. ‘I can’t! Leave me alone.’

He lets the door go and it snaps shut. The house shivers. I peer in through the glass, but all I can see is his silhouette, the back of his head.

I lean in close. I know my words won’t be picked up by the camera, but I’m not sure that matters now. My focus has shifted. I need to know what happened, to Daisy, my friend, and to Zoe.

‘Tell me what happened to the girls, David.’

He speaks then. ‘You should know,’ he says. ‘You should know more than anyone.’

I don’t react. I can’t. What does he mean? In any case, the light goes off and the house falls silent once more.

I walk away, back to my camera. It’s not possible. He can’t have recognised me, surely? Not in the half-light, not if I didn’t recognise him. He can’t be the one person in Blackwood Bay who knows I’m Sadie Davies.

But then it comes to me. What if he’s not? What if I’m kidding myself that no one knows who I am? I look back towards the house and see something there, a figure half hidden in the dark. It’s David, I think, and again I want to run. But then I realise I’m wrong. It’s not David at all, but a girl. She’s just standing, watching me. I take a step towards her, but my feet are suddenly heavy, mired in the sludge. I don’t know what makes me, but I almost say it. Daisy? But the word catches in my throat, and when I look again there’s no one, nothing at all. The place is deserted, but there at the back of the house, glinting in the moonlight like cold steel, I see it.

A caravan.





Then





12


FROM: ALEXANDRA YOUNG

SENT: 22 JUNE 2011 17.06

RE: NO SUBJECT

TO: DR LAURE OLSEN <[email protected]>

Hi Dr Olsen

I know you asked me to write to you when I got settled, but I haven’t been able to until now. There’s only one computer in this place and we all have to share it, and anyway, the internet is down half the time.

I’m still in the hostel. St Leonard’s. It’s okay. Noisy, though. There’s a girl three doors away who has a baby that won’t stop crying, but it’s not too bad. He’s cute, so that makes it okay. We’re not really friends, but she lets me hold him sometimes and one time asked me to look after him.

I have made a friend, though. His name is Aidan. He’s about five rooms down on the same corridor as me, but on the other side. He came here about three weeks ago, when I’d already been here a couple. He makes me laugh, I like him a lot. He says the only thing he wants in life is to meet a nice man and settle down! It’s a shame that he’s gay. His dad threw him out because he found him writing about it in a diary (I know you said I ought to think about starting a diary, but I haven’t yet, sorry! I have started filming things on my phone, though, just so I don’t forget them) and he had to come to London. He slept in a sauna for a few days until he met someone who took him home. He won’t tell me what happened then, but he ended up here. He’s nice to me. We share cigarettes and stuff. We’ve promised each other we’re going to be friends for ever, no matter what. He said he thought I was gay, too, at first, because according to him I go really quiet around men, like I wish I was invisible.