Final Cut(90)

I’ve no idea where she went. I haven’t seen her.

Daisy, I think. Is that what happened to you?

A woman’s voice echoes in the dark.

‘Are you going to stand there for ever?’

It hits me hard as a punch. I recognise it. I’d recognise it anywhere. It’s her.

‘Daisy?’

Relief thunders through me as the truth snaps into focus. I was right all along. I didn’t kill her. Bryan was lying. She must’ve jumped from the cliff and into the water, then swum to the cave. She escaped. I didn’t kill her. She’s here, not buried on the moor.

But has she been here all along? In this cavern under the rocks, waiting for me?

‘You came,’ she says. ‘I knew you would. Only you’re not there yet.’

I draw breath. My teeth clash painfully together, stammering with the cold.

‘Help me.’

‘Turn around.’

I do as she’s suggested. I swivel towards her voice.

‘Put your hand out. To the left. Feel the gap?’

I stumble blindly but find the narrow opening in the rock.

‘Go through.’

The entrance to a tunnel, perhaps? The gap is little more than a slit.

‘Daisy?’ I say hesitantly. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can,’ she says. ‘You have to. I did.’

I turn side on. The air is stale; there’s the sharp taste of salt. If it weren’t for her voice, I’d be certain it was a dead end.

‘Daisy?’

‘You’re fine,’ she says. ‘Just try harder.’

I stretch out my hand. She’s near, but how did she get here? There must be a tunnel, a way in from above. It’s the only explanation.

I think back to the legends, the smugglers who could land their contraband and get it up to the clifftop without it ever seeing the light of day. This must be one of their routes.

Suddenly, I feel it. It’s like I knew about this place, have known it all along.

‘Daisy, please?’

She says nothing, and I realise she’d no way of knowing I’d find my way to the cave this morning. Unless …

I see what I’ve missed. Bryan must’ve told her he’d deliver me here; they must be working together. Even though just a few minutes ago he’d been trying his hardest to kill me, it must’ve been just to get me to jump into the water, to swim to the cave, to end up stuck here in this gap.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘You can get through. You did it before, after all.’

‘Before?’

Even as I argue, I know she’s right. I have been here before, trapped in this narrow gap. Wondering whether I’ll make it through. I breathe in; I wriggle. The jagged rock scrapes against my face and the back of my legs, I taste blood, but then it gives and I almost fall through into a larger chamber beyond.

‘There we are,’ says Daisy, louder now I’m in the same part of the cave. It’s as if she can see me in the blackness. ‘A bit further.’

I step up towards her voice. My hands find a ledge and I lift myself up and out of the water.

‘I’m right here.’

She’s near now. I can hear her breathing, mingled with my own. After all this time, she’s close enough to touch, yet I keep my hands still.

‘What do you want with me?’

‘I’ve been here all along. Watching you.’

‘The postcard. You sent it.’

‘Yes.’

‘The videos. They were from you.’

‘Some of them, yes.’

I listen to the hypnotic drip, drip, drip of water from the roof of the cave. I was right.

‘Why? Why did you do it?’

‘You don’t get it, do you? You still don’t know.’

‘To get revenge?’ I say. ‘But you’re alive. I didn’t do anything.’

She sighs. ‘I thought we were friends.’

‘We were. We are. You’re here, aren’t you?’

‘And you filmed it. You filmed it.’

‘I had no choice.’

Her voice is mocking. ‘No choice? They made me do it? You and your boyfriend? Bryan.’ She laughs. ‘You thought he loved you. All those presents; you thought you’d got it made. Until he gave you that first little white line. Until he started selling you to his friends.’

‘No. That came later. That was after I’d gone to London.’

She laughs once more. A brutal snort of derision. I’m so cold. I feel my body closing down. I want to close my eyes, to sleep.

‘Really? You can’t still believe that, surely? Not even you can be that stupid.’

‘It’s true,’ I say, but even as I do I see it, shockingly real. Me and Bryan, we’re in bed; he’s told me he loves me so I’m happy, but at the same time my stomach is cramping. Tiny insects crawl through my veins; I want to be sick, but then he offers me something. ‘It’ll make you feel better, baby,’ he says. ‘It’ll be like the first time.’

Daisy’s voice cuts into my memory. ‘You remember now?’

Opposing forces rupture through me, nausea spilling up from my guts, vertigo spinning me down. It can’t be true. It can’t.