Final Cut(43)

But all that was later, after I’d run. There was none of that here, I’m certain of it. Or at least not for me.

‘You’re saying your father killed Daisy?’

I haven’t said the wrong name deliberately, but I notice that she doesn’t correct me. She shakes her head.

‘He said he didn’t kill her, but …’

‘But he was involved?’

She nods once.

‘What did the police say?’

‘He never told them what he knew.’

She says it bluntly. Her voice is cold.

‘He told me a couple of years ago. Just before he died. He had cancer. He knew he didn’t have long.’ She hesitates. ‘And there was that other girl. Zoe. He said it just felt so … similar, I guess. Like history was repeating itself. Everyone said she weren’t the type to run away.’

I think back to my friend, Alice, to meeting her in London. Is that what they said about us? We weren’t the type? Maybe no one is the type to run away, to get out of a bad situation, until one day they find they are, and they do.

‘It was then he told me that Sadie didn’t run. She was dead.’

Daisy, I think. He meant Daisy. Maybe he was confused; he must have been on medication for his illness.

‘He said they killed her.’

‘Who?’

‘He died before he could tell me.’

The words catch in her throat. I can almost see the grief inside her, battling it out with the resentment, the disappointment, the shame.

‘He drowned.’ The word echoes. Liz blurs, shifts out of focus. I have to concentrate to bring her back. ‘They found him halfway to Malby.’

‘Suicide?’

She answers quickly and with contempt.

‘That’s what they said. All I know is, he was scared.’

‘Of those involved in Daisy’s death?’

‘Sadie’s,’ she says, this time correcting my slip. ‘Maybe. Who knows?’

‘Look,’ I say. ‘Are you sure he didn’t mean Daisy?’

‘I don’t know. He were on drugs, for the pain …’

Exactly, I think, but I say nothing.

‘I suppose it’d make more sense,’ she goes on, ‘what with them saying they found her.’

‘What?’

‘Sadie. They found her, they said. My father said they must’ve faked it …’

They couldn’t have found her. It’s impossible. The only people who knew my name were Alice and Dev. And Aidan, I suppose, though I think he only heard it once. I was never found. Unless …

‘When did they find her?’

‘I can’t remember. I just know the police got in touch with her mother. She’d been frantic.’

Frantic? I almost laugh. How did she pull that one off? The truth would have been closer to the opposite. I see her calm shrugging of the shoulders: She’ll be back, or not, I don’t much care. I see the new boyfriend telling her not to worry, all the time secretly – or not so secretly – hoping I’ll never return and that I’m off his back for ever; good riddance. Frantic? My arse.

‘Where?’

‘Sheffield, I think it was.’

No. It’s not true. It never happened.

‘Not London?’

‘No. Why?’

I ignore her question. ‘But they’d have brought her back, surely?’

‘They told her mother she didn’t want to come back, said she’d told them she wasn’t safe at home, that her mother’s boyfriend had raped her.’

I freeze. No, I think. No. I remember the boyfriend. Eddie. He worked on the rigs. For a month I’d have my mother to myself, then he’d return and I was forgotten. She was out every night, drinking too much, not bothering to tell me where she was going to be or when she’d be back. It was like living with two different people, and when, after a few months, she moved him in, it got even worse. His sole purpose seemed to be to get rid of me. But he never touched me. That much I was sure of. He used to tell me he’d rather chop it off than stick it anywhere near me.

‘Raped her?’

‘They said they’d rehome her, just until she was old enough. They wouldn’t tell her mum where she was. Said she didn’t want to be found. Her mum never believed it, said the police were lying. Said Sadie never got on with her boyfriend, but there was no way he’d … do that. And Sadie wouldn’t make something up. She was a good girl, underneath it all. She’d never run away.’

I fight the urge to laugh. A good girl? My mother always was fond of rewriting the past. So skilful she’d end up believing it herself. Suddenly, I want to see her, to find out the truth. But I can’t. A bit of plastic surgery isn’t going to fool my own mother.

Some instinct kicks in. I can’t get lost in my own memories, my own story, not now. I count – one, two, three – but it doesn’t work. I name what I see. Car. Wall. Road. Yew tree. Liz.

It’s enough to snap me back. Daisy. What happened to her? I steel myself to ask.

‘And Daisy? Do you think she took her own life?’

‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘Plenty don’t. Or didn’t. There was a story about some boyfriend who dumped one for the other, but that doesn’t sound right to me. Her mother never believed it. And my father never believed it, neither. He said she wasn’t the type. Too much of a fighter. He said they must’ve got her, too, in the end. Anyway, none of it made any sense to me,’ she says. ‘Jumping off a cliff? And one that’s not even that high. Seems to me there are better ways, if you really want to die.’ She stares at me. ‘Unless she wanted to make a statement.’