Talking to Strangers, page 32
XANDER
Mum’s put the house on the market at last, and the van’s coming this afternoon to take our stuff to a rented place near Grandma’s. I should be helping, but I had to come back here. For the last time.
The smell of the wood—that rich stench of rotting vegetation—fills my senses as I walk farther in and I take deep lungfuls of it.
I felt like shit when I woke up this morning. I’m not sleeping right. The doctor has given me something to help, but I still dream about Archie. His scabby knees and how he used to push his hair out of his eyes when he concentrated. And his face that day. It’s the first time in years I’ve had night terrors. I used to wake from them screaming, but they gradually faded away, slipping between my clammy fingers, losing their detail, then their outline.
But they are back.
And I can taste the panic and anger again, coating my tongue, as I push through broken branches and saplings. And then feel the calm. When it all stopped. And I sat him up and wiped his face clean. Like I did Karen’s.
My heart is pounding now, as it had when I walked out of the darkened station, the only passenger to get off at Ebbing. And the headlights flashed. My date had come as arranged, and my pulse was racing in anticipation—this moment often more exciting than the actual sex in my experience.
It’d been a last-minute decision—I’d been noodling on the dating app on the train down from London while Emily was in the toilet. And spotted LaDiva. Some of the boys on the forum had mentioned her—local and worth a go, according to X-Man. I’d swiped and she’d swiped me back.
But I didn’t text her until later. When I was sitting on the train to Brighton, stewing in the aftermath of that difficult evening with my family. A Brighton hookup would have been handier, really, but the evening had been all about the past. And the past was Ebbing.
Anyway, LaDiva looked fun. And I needed some fun. And she’d agreed to pick me up off the train and look for somewhere still open for a drink.
But then she wound down her window and shouted, “Oh, my God, it’s you!” like she knew me.
And I thought I must have the wrong car. But there weren’t any others.
“It’s me,” she was babbling as she untangled her seat belt. “Oh, God, I can’t believe this.”
“Er, hi,” I said, and caught my first proper look as she stepped into the headlights. She was wearing some cheap sparkly dress, had clearly had a drink already, and was a lot older than she’d said. I should have walked away. But there was something about her face.
And I was trying to remember, when she said: “Oh, Henry!” And I felt the old stomachache start low in my gut and spread to my chest so I couldn’t breathe for a minute.
“No,” I said. “I told you. It’s Bear.”
Karen’s face crumpled and then her legs. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, clinging to me. “It’s just I thought it was him.”
She let me drive when I insisted and said something about late opening for Valentine’s Day at a local bar. I wasn’t really listening. I’d already decided where we were going. She prattled on about the terrible evening she’d had, and I sped up as she got louder, and I veered dangerously close to the curb a couple of times before I got a grip on myself. I was going to be pulled over by the police if I didn’t slow down. I’d have to give my name, and everyone would know. Emily. Mum. Karen Simmons was going to ruin my life all over again.
By the time I turned into the car park at Knapton Wood and switched off the engine, she was half-asleep. I walked round and shook her, and she got out and slipped her arm through mine as I guided her into the darkness beyond the tree line.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“Just for a little walk to get you some air,” I muttered. She went quiet but she clung on to me.
“I think we should go back now,” she said suddenly and let go of my arm. “I’ll ruin my shoes.” She tried to laugh, but I could hear the scratch of anxiety in her voice.
“You do know me,” I said quietly, hearing my words being sucked into the blackness as I pulled on the gloves I’d found in the coat pockets. “You used to cut my hair. When my dad brought me to your salon.”
Karen pivoted and lost her balance, sitting down heavily on the ground.
“Oh, my God! You’re one of his boys,” she rasped, and turned her phone on so she could see me properly.
I crouched down beside her, my face lit up by the screen. I wanted her to see me. To know. “Yes,” I said.
“No, no, this is a horrible mistake,” she whispered, trying to get up. “I didn’t know it was you. Of course I didn’t. Xander, you must believe me.” She was crying and falling over her words. “Oh, God! I was going to be your other mummy,” she wept. “Me and your dad were going to have you for weekends when we got a house. With a garden. We were going to have so much fun. You, me, and Archie. Lollies every day.”
She had got to her knees. I could smell sugar on her breath, like the sweets she gave me for being a good little boy. And I just stared at her, the years of hate bubbling up and bursting in my head.
“I want to go home now,” she said, gulping her words. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“No,” I growled, not recognizing the sound that came from my mouth. Frightening myself in the dark. I pushed her to the ground, keeping my hand on the back of her head, as I had with Archie, making her shut up as the memories flooded my brain. The sticky perfume of hair spray and the intense looks between Dad and this woman in the mirror. Their disappearance behind the bead curtain to the back room, the rattle and movement of the colored spheres of glass as they did whatever they did. And me and Archie sitting there in the chairs, licking our lollies. Red and yellow like the beads. I knew something bad was happening. Very bad. Knew I mustn’t say anything to Mum. Mustn’t make her cry any more. My father did this to me. It is his fault that I killed Archie.
Karen had stopped moving, face down in the leaf litter. I used the torch on my mobile, flicking it on and off so I didn’t have to look for too long, and then put it on the ground to cast a faint light as I grasped her shoulders and sat her up. I’d wiped the dirt from her cheeks with my gloved hands. And tiptoed away.
I felt Karen watching me with her dead eyes, and I walked faster and then ran out of the wood, her gaze burning into my back. I took her car and drove the back roads to Brighton, parked in the multistory, and went searching for my mates, screaming the wrong words to rock anthems with them in our Elvis wigs until the nightclubs closed.
I’d expected the police to come knocking the next morning. But as I sat in my hotel room in Brighton, I realized I had a way out. The coat. It’d been a snap decision to steal dad’s coat from the car boot at the station. I’d slipped it out with my bag to punish him. He was so fucking proud of it, and I was going to dump it in a bin. But it’d been so cold when I got off the train that I’d put it on and worn his gloves. Someone must have been looking out for me that night.
Because LaDiva had clung on to it, slobbered over it. The police only had to find it to connect him to the killing. I took it home a few days later. Simply hung it up on the hooks by the door and pulled one of Mum’s coats over it. Hidden in plain sight.
And then I told the reporter about my dad’s affair with Karen. Her face when I told her. She ate it up and spewed it out to the police. Of course, they came sniffing around him. It’d been so easy.
I lie back on the leaf litter and stare at the canopy. Almost perfect.
Of course, the truth about Archie was something I never thought would come out. Sixteen years had embedded the lie in our lives. No one was ever going to question it. But that pathetic Ash Woodward was going to tell. Unearth it again all these years later. I had to do something, didn’t I? And it, too, was so easy in the end. I read about it on the internet and shoved a few rags into his air vents while he was out. Gone.
He was my third, then. Or fourth, if I include Nicky Donovan. Okay, I know it was suicide, but it was me who named him. He deserved it. Filthy pervert—the world’s better off without him. Anyway, it’s going to be okay. Emily will come back. She’ll forgive me, just like Mum has. Both of them cried when they found out, but they know it was a terrible accident. Not my fault. A series of unfortunate events. God, I loved those books as a kid. They know I’m not a monster.
I roll over to look at the tree where I propped Karen up, and remember her face. And Dad’s face in the dock. Haggard and done.
And it is.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The women in my life have been so important this year:
My best friend, Carol Maloney, for urging me on and making me laugh even in her final illness. I miss her more than I can say.
My dear mum, who I lost this summer, and lovely sister, Jo, for all their support and love.
My brilliant editor, Frankie Gray, who has acted as my touchstone and mentor at Transworld from the beginning. I am thrilled for her—but bereft at her impending departure.
My wonderful agent, Madeleine Milburn, for always having my back.
My new UK editor, the irrepressible Thorne Ryan, who has pushed and persuaded me with great good humor to the end point of Talking to Strangers.
I am so grateful to everyone at Transworld and my US publisher, Berkley, especially my editor there, Tracy Bernstein.
As always, there are specialists to thank for guiding me through the minutiae of death and police work:
Home Office forensic pathologist Dr. Debbie Cook, who has talked me through a postmortem or three.
Former senior detective Graham Bartlett for his invaluable expertise. All lingering mistakes are my own.
And investigative journalist Livvy Haydock for sharing her hair-raising experiences of the online dating world.
Finally, but most importantly, my wonderful family—especially Garry, Tom, and Lucy—for bearing with.
About the Author
Fiona Barton is the New York Times bestselling author of Local Gone Missing, The Widow, The Child, and The Suspect. She has trained and worked with journalists all over the world. Previously, she was a senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at the Mail on Sunday, where she won Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards. Born in Cambridge, she lives in England.
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Fiona Barton, Talking to Strangers
