Final Cut(70)

She reaches into her jacket for her pack of cigarettes, and I remember a different time. Daisy is sitting where I am now, and I’m on the bench just next to her. It’s dark, winter, the bandstand feels cavernous. Both of us have a lit cigarette. I take a final drag and flick the butt under the bench opposite, where it lands with a shower of red sparks.

‘I mean,’ says Daisy. ‘He’s all right. He has this telescope. It’s really cool. He lets us look through it. You can see the stars, the planets. I’ve seen a galaxy, even. You should come up some time.’

I shiver. A telescope. It’s like I knew all along. I suppose I did.

‘He has a telescope?’ I say to Kat.

She nods.

‘Where?’

‘On the roof.’

I close my eyes and picture it. David’s right there, taking the plastic cover off. He’s asking the girls what they want to see; it’s bright tonight, he’s saying, the seeing is good.

The seeing? Somehow I know what that means – there’s not too much turbulence in the atmosphere, the image will be sharp and clear – but how? Did Daisy tell me? Or did he?

I shut my eyes and see him. He’s looking down at my hands. ‘You brought your camcorder.’

My eyes flick open. I’m back in the bandstand, Kat next to me.

A camcorder. My first.

‘There’s Betelgeuse,’ says Kat. She’s looking up, and I follow her gaze until I see the reddish blob.

‘Want to hear something interesting?’ I say. ‘The thing you’re looking at now probably doesn’t exist.’

‘But I can see it.’

‘Yes. But the thing is, it’s so far away that the light it gives off takes over five hundred years to get to us. That means that what you can see through the telescope now is what Betelgeuse looked like in 1500 and something. And Betelgeuse is a supergiant right at the end of its lifespan. Any day now, it’ll explode.’

We both look at the red star.

‘But don’t forget you’re looking back in time. By the time we see it explode from Earth, it will already have happened. Five hundred years ago.’

She’s silent for a minute, then she says, ‘It’s your favourite, too?’

I search for Andromeda. No, I want to say. But I keep quiet. I hug my jacket against the cold.

‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ I don’t wait for her to answer. ‘I think Ellie was taken out on to the moor to teach her a lesson.’ I pause. ‘Or as a warning.’

Her silence is enough.

‘A warning not to tell anyone what’s going on. That’s what I’m guessing.’

She stares into the distance. Her hair falls over her face.

‘I can help you,’ I say. ‘If you let me. If you tell me who’s hurting you.’

She’s silent. The cigarette glows in her hand, forgotten.

‘It’s not your boyfriend, is it? Or not only him. Who else?’

I wait but, still, she doesn’t answer. I reach into my pocket and find my phone.

‘Can I show you something?’

I find the film I was sent earlier and press Play.

‘What’s this?’

‘Watch.’

She does, wordlessly. When it’s finished she looks back to me. ‘That’s the girl they killed.’

She says it without question, without thought. There’s no doubt; she knows that’s what happened.

‘Who sent it? Do you know? Who’d have this?’

She shakes her head. I press Play once more. Daisy poses and pouts. She puts on her sunglasses and turns away from the camera.

How’s this? she’s saying, even though I can’t hear her; there’s no sound, it’s just her voice in my head.

Am I doing it right?

I freeze the screen, zoom in. There’s a reflection in the mirror of her sunglasses, a blur really, only vaguely recognisable as a human face, impossible to know whose it is.

Except now I do know. I’ve known all along, I’ve just been pushing it away, keeping the certainty at arm’s length, avoiding it like it’s a dead thing I don’t want to look at. An animal, bled out in the snow.

It was me. I was there. Behind the camera, telling her what to do, directing her, lending her my jacket and my glasses and my heels. It was me filming her as she pouted and preened outside her caravan. It was me.

But why? And how did the person who uploaded it get hold of it?

I put my phone away. ‘I think it’s a warning.’

‘Who from?’

‘From the person who killed her. Who else? They want me to stop asking questions.’

She doesn’t argue. She knows I’m right.

‘It might not be a bad idea.’

‘I’m not scared, Kat. I’ve been through some shit you wouldn’t believe. It’ll take more than this to scare me.’

She stares straight at me. ‘You really have no idea,’ she says. ‘No idea at all.’

‘What d’you mean?’

She stands up. ‘I have to go.’

‘Kat,’ I say. ‘Please talk to me. I can help you.’

‘You can’t,’ she says. ‘No one can.’

I watch her leave the park. I knew David, too; I know that now. So why do I have no recall of him? I lift my phone once more. Daisy’s face fills the screen.