Final Cut(77)

I grip his arm. The carols have started beyond the door. ‘Away in a Manger’.

‘Don’t you see?’ I go on. ‘He didn’t kill Sadie. He can’t have, she’s alive. But he said he did. Someone’s trying to frame him, but more importantly—’

‘That means the rest of the note might be a lie, too? His confession to killing Daisy?’

‘Yes! Exactly! And it all ties in to Monica.’

‘Fuck.’ He hesitates, and I know what’s coming next. ‘Have you been to the police?’

‘No. I can’t. Not yet. I need to be sure. About Monica. That she’s behind it all. Back then, too. Then I can tell them.’

I can see he’s struggling to take it all in.

‘Will you help me?’

His confusion seems to clear, just a little. ‘Of course. But Ellie went to Monica’s the night she came back; she’s not scared of her. There must be something more going on, someone else. So I think you’re right. Let’s not be too hasty in going to the police. Not ’til we know more. Who else have you told?’

‘Gavin. Some of it, anyway.’

Again, a glimmer of something on his lips.

‘But can we keep it between us?’ I continue. ‘Just while I figure out what to do.’

‘Yes.’ He smiles and puts his hand clumsily on my arm. ‘Of course.’





44


There’s nothing we can figure out together, so when we leave St Julian’s Bryan takes his car and I mine. He follows me most of the way back from the church, peeling off to head home only as we come into Blackwood Bay. I park and walk down to Hope Cottage. The village is still deserted; everyone is at the concert, and I just about manage to resist the urge to run. Before I turn into Hope Lane I see The Ship, its orange lights haloed in the thickening mist. I picture me and Gavin, the two of us sitting with drinks, chatting as if nothing was wrong, nothing was happening. I see us gazing out over the water, staring at the moon, watching the ships shimmer in the distance. A different time. It wouldn’t be so bad.

I double-lock the door. I’m safe, I think. Hope Cottage is quiet. Just the steady, relentless ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, the faint click of the fridge, a steady drip from a tap upstairs. I rest for a moment by the door, check it again before I go through into the kitchen, and pour myself a glass of wine. Maybe it will help. I need to figure out how Daisy can be back. And what to do about Monica.

I examine my reflection in the glass. I look thin; I can almost see through myself to the yard beyond, the dead plants in their terracotta pots, the chair I left out when I scaled the fence to get into Monica’s.

I go over to the window. The moon is bright tonight, but not full. It’s waning. Waning gibbous.

How do I know that? Who told me?

A voice comes, then. David, of course.

I look back at my reflection in the glass. I’m forgetting. There are two of me now. The me that’s here, looking out; the me that’s outside, looking in. The me who grew up in Blackwood Bay; the me who did her best to leave it all behind.

But I can’t live like that. I say my name, under my breath. Alex. My name is Alex. Anything else is an illusion, that’s all. Anything else is just light bouncing off the glass. Sadie is dead and, if I have to, I’ll bury her once more, bury her so deep this time that she’ll never escape.

I force a smile, and my ghost smiles, too. That’s more like it. But still I hear David’s voice, distant now, like I’m listening through a radio that’s stuck between stations, picking up static.

You know, he says, they used to think the moon hunted people. They thought it travelled through the skies looking for people to kill and eat. And then, later, people thought it was where dead souls go. Some people think the moon makes people do crazy things, that even just by looking at it for too long you can go mad. The word ‘lunacy’ comes from the word ‘luna’. That’s Latin for moon.

I don’t answer.

Finished your drink?

Not yet, I say. Are they out?

I look back up, at the stars. I look for Orion. For Betelgeuse. I look for Andromeda.

Yes. The seeing should be good tonight.

Shall we, then?

David. He said he’d always looked after me, and I’m beginning to believe it must be true. Both Kat and Ellie have vouched for him, Geraldine, too.

I turn away from the window, take a sip of red wine and, without thinking, light a cigarette from the packet on the worktop – the packet I guess I must’ve bought earlier today – then go upstairs.

Shit. I need an ashtray. I’m about to retrace my steps when I see a saucer by the side of the bed, a single cigarette butt stubbed out and standing upright in the centre. I stare at it for a moment, trying to remember when I brought it up, when I started buying cigarettes, when I started leaving filthy ashtrays on my bedside table. The memory flickers into life: it was this afternoon, or yesterday, I think. Except, when I probe it in more detail, it stalls. Was it even me?

I think about Daisy. Where is she? That saucer, used as an ashtray. Has she been here? Does she hate me for what I’ve done? What did I do?

I try to put myself back in the past, to relive it. Daisy and Sadie, best friends; they did everything together, except Daisy was being abused and Sadie wasn’t.

How did she feel about that? Did she try to tell me? Did I listen? Why have I forgotten?