Girl, Missing, page 23
Maybe, this is her way of working through her grief. Which is fine for her, but I’m holding everything together by an incredibly thin thread.
‘What if it’s the same person you heard in the room with her when she was on the phone? The one you think was still in the school when you found her body? Set you up with the cops?’
Give me a break.
She follows me into the kitchen, barely able to catch her breath. Yak! Yak! Yak! My head’s pounding. I want her to shut up. I don’t have the headspace for more theories, regardless of whether they make sense. Not tonight. Not after seeing Miss Swan repeatedly stabbed, choked, brutalised, bloody, her tongue . . .
But Abby’s locked in her own little world and keeps going. She looks manic, her face streaked with the dirty tracks of her earlier tears. ‘What if she had an accomplice back then? You know, to kill Teddy. Maybe someone . . .’
Her hands stretch out, her fingers claw, scratching the air. ‘Maybe?’ Her voice catches in her throat. ‘Maybe . . . ?’
For the first time I observe her properly. Abby’s leaning so far forward she looks about ready to fall down. And she’s shaking. Hell, I’m not sure she’s even breathing.
Firmly, I touch her arm and instantly the tremors in her reverberate through me. ‘Abby, tell me what’s going on.’
She doesn’t answer, instead stares at her hands. But the look on her face suggests that it’s not her hands she’s seeing, but something that’s awful and terrible that she doesn’t want attached to her body. I remind myself that she was in the hospital not that long ago. Maybe tried to harm herself. My mind goes back to her apartment, the discarded pill bottles on the floor. Is she having another episode?
The girl’s still traumatised and what did you do? You made her sleep in the room of her best friend who she was abducted with. If that doesn’t send her over the edge I don’t know what will. What the hell were you thinking?
I get her sat down in the front room. Her fingers flex and twitch in her lap. She appears lost in another world. I’m not even sure she can hear me.
‘I’m going to call your grandfather.’ Looking back, I should have made her stay with him after leaving the hospital.
Her hand clamps on my knee, so strong I feel its grip right down to my bone. ‘Please. Don’t.’ The air’s harsh in her chest. ‘He’ll baby me, stop me from trying to think about the past. He hates seeing me in pain. Doesn’t want me to remember the past.’ She wrings her hands. ‘I have to remember! Remember!’
‘It’s not worth your mental health.’ I tell her the truth as I see it. ‘I get why Dale wants to wrap you in cotton wool. He wants you to be happy—’
‘Do I look fucking happy to you?’ She jerks away from me. ‘I want to be happy. Be normal. But that’s never going to happen until the past comes back to me.’
In a soft tone I say, ‘Get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be here soon enough for us to plan our next move.’
A weak smile, for an instant, lights up her face. ‘There is one place I am happy. In Sara-Jane’s room.’
A few minutes before I hit the sack too, I check on Abby. The tight expression on her face suggests that even sleep doesn’t offer her the refuge of peace. I lean down and kiss her on the cheek, hoping that will lessen her turmoil. The scent of lemon is strong, but strangely it’s not against her neck, which is where I’d expect her to dab perfume. Where’s the smell coming from? I sniff and find where it is.
Her hands.
Not a dab on her wrist. It’s all over her hands.
Why does she put lemon perfume on her hands? Or is it even lemon?
Feeling I’ve invaded her privacy I turn and leave.
The scent of lemon remains with me.
There’s something heavy on my chest. Crushing me. It feels like my ribs are about to cave in. I can’t breathe. Can’t find any air. Am I awake? Asleep? I’m not sure. After Abby went to sleep in Sara-Jane’s room I stayed up for a good twenty minutes, thinking everything over, including Abby’s suggestion that Miss Swan was not working alone. Then I went to bed. Surprisingly, almost instantly, I fell into a deep sleep. Now, I’m not sure what’s happening.
Is this a nightmare? Or real? I wonder if I’m having a heart attack. Isn’t that what they say happens, you feel a tightness in your chest and find it difficult to breathe? It’s not just my chest, I figure out, it’s my neck as well. What’s your neck got to do with having a heart attack? Nothing.
My eyes slam open. There’s a shadow, a silhouette kneeling on my chest. My reasoning comes back. This is no phantom, it’s a person. Somebody. And, God help me, the pressure on my throat is because they have something wrapped around my neck. And they are pulling it tight.
I freeze, paralysed with shock. Petrified of what’s happening to me. Someone is trying to choke the very life from me. I feel the material around my throat, pressing into my skin. My windpipe. The dark presses down, disorientating me.
Fight! Fight!
Somehow, a thread of air whizzes past my lips and down to my chest. It balloons inside me. Grows. Gives me the energy to fight back. I shake my head madly from side to side, trying to break their hold on my neck. It has the reverse effect because their hands pull whatever is wrapped around my neck. Tighter. Tighter.
Air. Need air. Oxygen. Please.
My chest arches unnaturally seeking air. It finds none.
I’m going to die. Going to die.
My narrowed side-eye sees Sara-Jane’s socks and glasses and the faceless angel picture pinned to the wall.
Sara-Jane.
Her name gives me the strength I need more than air. With all the power in me I buck my legs. Rock my body one way, then the other. Keep rocking and bucking. Move my body any way I can to get this murdering maniac off me. The person on me, their legs slip from my chest, but their tightness on the thing they have wrapped around my neck holds. However, their grip loosens.
I kick their stomach. Once. Twice.
With a cry of pain they roll over, off the bed and land harshly on the floor near the side table. Coughing violently, I grab the material from my neck and fling it on the bed. It’s a towel. One of my own from the bathroom.
Lunging sideways, I find the lamp and jerk it on. Swivel its head to shine on the bastard on the floor. The bastard who I know must be Miss Swan’s killer. From the bedside drawer I take out a penknife. I jump down. Carefully crouch over my attacker. My fingers dig into their shoulder and roughly shove them over so I can see their face. Gasping in disbelief I lurch back.
Abby.
Chapter 43
‘I’m not like other girls.’
That’s what Abby tells me, her voice flat, devoid of life.
The shocking horror of the situation has me cringing against the wall. Both as a way to protect myself from my attacker. And . . . And . . . I cannot believe this.
Abby?
My grip is solid around the penknife. She was choking me. Didn’t Detective Wallace say that’s how Teddy Spencer had died? Miss Swan had been choked too? Strangled. Good grief, did Abby kill them both?
But she was a small child, my inner voice reasons. How could she do that to a grown man? And she was such a small mite then, she wouldn’t have had the strength to hurt a fly. Would she? If she murdered him what would stop her from murdering . . . No! No way! Stop! She would never do anything like that.
Kill Sara-Jane? Murder her own best friend?
Kids killing kids.
What if she had murdered Sara-Jane. And her mum and granddad knew. And all of this has been a set-up. They planted the stories about the black van near Stroud Road and Glass Alley? The kidnappers? What if it was one of them who called the police and pretended to have been someone nearby who heard screams on the street? What if the girls never sneaked out of school? What if . . . ?
Have I been in a hall of smoke and mirrors all this time?
My shattered gaze assesses Abby. The lamplight is doing awful things to the colour of her skin. She’s back to resembling the skeleton-head that she was in the back of the black van. A ghoul. Someone who’s lost control of themself. Lost control . . .
I make a run for it. Knife still in hand. Bolt out of the room. Enter the jet-dark hallway.
‘Gem!’ I feel the blast of her voice against my back.
Pulse banging, heart thudding, I reach the door. Grab the lock. Sweat makes my fingers slip and slide, eventually slide off.
‘Gem! Please!’
The heat of her is behind me. I twist around and jam my back against the door. I’m trapped. Don’t know what to do. I point the knife at her. My hand shakes badly.
Abby stares at me, breathing erratic. Hard. An awful noise hisses from the back of her throat. She looks like the one who is being hunted down.
‘Please! Let me explain.’
‘That you tried to kill me?’ My free hand desperately searches behind me for the lock.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she pleads. ‘I didn’t kill – murder – anyone.’ Abby takes a single step towards me.
‘Stay there,’ I harshly command.
She sniffs back her tears. That’s when I notice how she’s continuously rubbing her hands up and down the side of her naked legs. ‘Let me explain. I know what you’re thinking. But I couldn’t have murdered Miss Swan because I spent the evening with Traci, next door. Ask her.’
I don’t need to. I bumped into Traci earlier, on my way back, on the communal balcony. Playing Mother Hen, Traci had made it her business that Abby got a decent meal down her. I bite nervously into my lip. I don’t know what to make of this. She has an alibi for this evening and was too small as a child to be able to strangle anybody.
It’s my turn to plead, ‘Abby, what’s going on here?’
‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never do that. Not on purpose. Can we talk in the lounge?’
I don’t move. Mull it over. Hell, what if I’m placing myself in danger? I feel the sensation of the towel around my neck.
I nod. ‘But you stay on one side of the room while I stay near the door.’
‘No problem.’ She lets out a tiny shaky smile. ‘I need to get my bag first.’
This is your chance to get away. Open the door. Alert Traci.
I do none of that. Instead I wait until she has returned and entered the main room with her bag. What her bag’s got to do with this I don’t know. I suppose I’m about to find out. With a pinch of hesitation I slowly pull off the door and warily move towards the room. But I don’t go inside, instead remain on the threshold. Abby hovers behind the two-seater sofa, creating enough distance for me to feel, not quite at ease, but safe enough. The strap of her satchel is on her shoulder.
She starts, strangely calm, her every word clear. ‘Do you recall the incident when Miss Swan asked you to come to the school because Sara-Jane had tried to strangle me?’ No mother will ever forget an event like that. ‘It wasn’t Sara-Jane. It was me. I tried to strangle myself.’
My shocked gasp tears through the air. ‘What? All these years I thought—’
‘I know. And I’m sorry for that. Sara-Jane was only trying to cover for me. That’s how we became friends.’ She looks so beaten down. ‘Sara-Jane found me in the toilet with the handle of my bag wrapped around a window frame and the other around my neck.’
‘Oh, Abby.’ Horror doesn’t do justice to what I feel for her.
‘Don’t interrupt. Please.’ Anxiety pushes her voice higher. ‘If you do, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the words to continue. This is the first time I’ve ever told anyone.’
My soft nod is my way of communicating that I understand.
So I listen.
‘Sara-Jane stopped me. She was so gentle when she unwound it from my neck. I don’t know why I was doing it. But I knew Mum would go ape-shit if she found out. But of course she saw the marks on my neck and made me tell her who did it. Sara-Jane’s name just came out of my mouth.’
She pulls the strap of her bag closer to the twisting muscles in her neck. ‘Sara-Jane played along and took the blame for me.’
That’s my Sara-Jane. Always got enough kindness in her for the whole world.
I ask, ‘Had you tried to harm yourself before?’
She makes a dismissive noise. ‘See, it’s not self-harming. I don’t just want to choke myself. I want to strangle other people.’
With a tentative step, I enter the room. ‘When was the first time you did it to anyone else?’
‘It wasn’t a person. When I was about seven, a year before me and Sara-Jane were taken, I started strangling my dolls. Having mock hangings.’
Jesus Christ! I’m paralysed with shock. Panic. Distress. I’ve never heard of anything like this before. This is way out of my comfort zone. I’ve seen and heard some freaky stuff in my time. But this . . . ?
Then something occurs to me. ‘Is that why your roommate at medical college left? Did you try to strangle her?’
Her eyes widen. ‘It’s like tonight, I don’t remember getting up. Doing it.’ Her eyes shine. ‘I used a belt on her. I only came to when she managed to throw me off and started screaming.’
‘Why didn’t the college authorities call the police?’
‘They didn’t want any trouble. For whatever reason, they didn’t want the cops snooping around. And my roomie obviously didn’t tell anyone. But she never came back. I hope I didn’t ruin her chances of becoming a doctor.’
I move closer as my brain tries to sort through and make sense of what she’s told me. ‘Why would you, a little girl, start behaving like this? Aged seven? Did something happen to you then?’
In a weak, barely there voice, she answers. ‘That’s the thing, it’s part of the time that I don’t remember.’ Her hand stretches out to me. ‘Look at them. My hands. They keep doing this. I’m not normal, am I?’
Abby urgently reaches for something in her bag. A small transparent bottle filled with yellow liquid. She squirts some on her hands. Lemon. Not perfume, but real lemon juice. With frenzied motion, she rubs and rubs the lemon over her hands.
‘My hands are unclean. They make me do dirty things. No matter how I try to cleanse them they’re still filthy.’ Her body heaves with sobs. ‘They won’t make the stain of my past go away.’
She starts hitting her fist against her head. Back to being the traumatised Abby crouched in a corner in a hospital room. Degraded. Bewildered. Drained. That’s how Abby looks. I can’t watch her go through this agony any more. The knife slips from my fist as I rush over and take her in my arms.
Through her trembling tears she whispers, ‘When you told me Miss Swan was strangled I think it triggered something. I kept seeing my hands. I think I was remembering something. It kept fleeting across my mind, but before I could make it out, it had gone. My head’s a blank.’
An unspeakable possibility grips me. ‘Did you witness one of those monsters trying to choke Sara-Jane in the van? Is that what this is?’
‘No! I remember us in the van. She helped me escape. And this started before we were taken. Sometimes I don’t want to remember. I think whatever it is was so horrible – I don’t want to go back there—’
Abby’s body stiffens. ‘What’s that? I heard something outside the door.’
I listen carefully. She’s right, there’s a noise in the hallway. The baby hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There’s something in the air.
‘What’s that smell?’ Abby’s nose twitches.
I know what it is. We both rush into the hallway in time to see a gloved hand push through the letterbox. It holds a lighter. Beneath is a pool of liquid.
Petrol.
No!
It’s too late. The lighter flicks on. A flame ignites. It drops on to the petrol-soaked floor. Fire rapidly climbs up the front door.
Chapter 44
Abby’s mouth’s moving, but I don’t hear her because I’m paralysed in chilling horror by the fire sweeping the hallway. I might not be able to hear her, but the noise of the flames overwhelms my mind. Crackling. Hissing. Spitting. Fiery orange and yellow coiled snakes trying to get us.
Something shoves and shakes me hard. It’s Abby pulling me out of my grisly trance.
She’s terrified. ‘How are we going to get out of here?’
‘I . . . I . . . I don’t know,’ I stammer back.
Poisonous smoke starts snaking towards us.
Think! Think! Think!
Suddenly there’s a brutal banging against the door. Someone’s trying to kick the door in.
‘Stand back!’ It’s William outside trying to rescue us.
His mum yells, ‘We’ll get you out. We’ve called the fire brigade.’
He tries again and again, but the door won’t give. No wonder, I locked the door securely tonight using both bolts at the top and bottom. I can’t wait around, there’s no time to lose. I rush into my bedroom and come back out holding the towel Abby tried to strangle me with. The heat is intense. I head into the bathroom and drag another towel off the rail. Soak them both with water.
Back in the main room I chuck one at Abby. ‘Tie it over your mouth. The smoke is more deadly than the fire.’
I do the same with the other towel. Now what?
Think! Think! Think!
Abby bends double, spewing her guts out, coughing. Come on, there must be an escape route out of here. William is still hammering at the door. In despair, I begin to turn around and that’s when I see it peeping through the curtains. The balcony. The bedroom balcony where I would once wait all night for Sara-Jane to come home.
I rush back into the hallway. The flames are fierce here, they’ll be licking at the bedroom soon. I shout at the door, ‘William, go out to your mum’s balcony at the back!’
‘What? I can’t hear you!’
It’s my turn to double over and cough. The smoke is nasty and thick in my throat and tongue. ‘Your mum’s balcony!’ I scream it this time, leaving my voice hoarse and rough. ‘Get to the back.’
