Final Cut(93)

‘But she sent a note to her mum.’

‘They made me write it.’

‘And the people who saw her hitching a lift?’

‘Making it up,’ I say. ‘Or maybe they were bribed to say it. Either way, it wasn’t her.’

I wish it was, more than anything. But no. They took her body and buried her on the moor.

I feel my heart collapse.

‘I can’t tell you anything else.’

He touches my arm. ‘You don’t have to.’

I’d do anything to bring her back, I think. Anything to change what happened, anything at all. I think I hear her voice then, way out in the distance. Do what? she says. Scrub your arm with bleach? Burn the tattoo away, the one that marks you as Daisy, the murderer? Cut it out?

Maybe. Even scars are preferable to that mark on my forearm, that perfect circle, that unbroken O. I was such a fool, having it tattooed there, where I could see it, where it was a constant reminder. He gave me the choice, after all. Anywhere you like, he said. But I thought I was doing it for love, I wanted people to see it, so I picked there.

I look at the bowl of soup. Steam rises from it like smoke. Burn it away? If that’s what it takes, then yes.





Now





54


And now I’m back here. Lured by a postcard I must’ve kept for ten years before I sent it to Dan and then forgot doing it. I’m here, shivering in the damp tunnel that leads to David’s cellar. He must’ve recognised me that first time I saw him. And recognised me for real, as Daisy, not as Sadie, as I’d thought, as I’d feared. He must’ve been certain enough to have broken into my room, to go looking through my stuff for proof. No wonder he asked me why I came back. No wonder he tried to get me to leave, before it was too late. No wonder he tried to show me the tape of myself jumping.

Except Bryan got to him first. Silenced him before he could tell me what he knew. Before he could give me the film of my own suicide. But he made a mistake. He’d left it there for me to find.

I hear a voice, echoing off the walls of the cave.

‘Alex?’

It snaps me back to the present, but it sounds alien. Alex? Who is she?

It takes me a moment to remember. The voice comes again. ‘Are you there?’

No, I think. No. You’re not real. But it’s not Daisy’s voice, and neither is it mine. It belongs to someone else, someone I know.

‘Alex! Answer me!’

My eyes blink in the light. I struggle to focus and, as I do, I feel the last remnants of Sadie disappear. I force myself to speak.

‘Hello?’

My voice ricochets from the walls of the cave. A little way above me I see a figure, a torch swinging wildly.

‘Monica?’

A pummelling dread hits me. She’s mixed up in all this, though I wonder if she really believes the girls are just going to these parties to lure the men, to blackmail them, that they’re not being forced into sex. Has she come for me? I might still have to fight, though I think the odds are better with her. I remember then: it was she who’d been Bryan’s number-one girl before me, she who brought me on board with promises of booze and cigarettes and a place to hang out when things were shitty at home. She must’ve stuck with him, all these years, helping him.

And she’s helping him now, too. I wonder what happened to Zoe; I expect they snared her, Kat and Ellie, and the rest, the same way they had me.

‘Alex?’ she says. ‘Are you there?’

I keep quiet. I’m trapped; there’s no escape. I knew her, I think. Just like I knew Bryan. She was a few years older than me, she introduced me to one of her friends, an older man whose name I’ve erased, the boyfriend in the leather jacket, who gave me drink and bought me presents and told me I was beautiful. We had sex, and it was good, except after a while he told me I needed to earn my treats and started sharing me with other men, men who’d pay. He took me and waited outside, squats in Malby, empty homes in the middle of being renovated, the arcade in Blackwood Bay and upstairs at the pub. I tried to escape but, every time, Monica told me I must have led the guys on, that I was underage and in too deep, and if I spoke out I’d go to prison. I believed her. And then, right when I had no self-esteem left, she introduced me to her boyfriend. Bryan. It was a while before I realised he was controlling it all, but by the time I did it was too late. I was in love.

I hold my breath. I can’t let her see me. But then another voice joins hers.

‘Sadie?’

Gavin?

The torch flashes off the walls of the cave. Eventually, it finds me.

‘Shit. There she is! Sadie!’ His voice is flooded with relief. ‘You’re here!’ he says, then, turning to Monica. ‘She’s here!’

Can he be in on it, too? I have to get away. I wade back into the water, slipping as I do. I go under; freezing water rushes into me and I can’t move. I need to escape, but where to?

There’s only one place. Back into the dark, into the cave and out to sea.

The hesitation costs me, though. Gavin reaches me and grabs my upper arm.

‘Stop!’ he says. ‘What’re you doing?’

I try to pull free, but his grip is firm. Just a little way behind, Monica is clambering over the rocks, wielding another torch.

‘Let me go!’