Are You Watching?, page 21
133
I refuse to cry in front of him, no matter how much I want to. I stare into his eyes until he’s the one to look away.
We’re upstairs, my back pushed against the side of his bed, when he reaches into his pocket and says, ‘You like being recorded, don’t you, Jessica?’
‘What?’
Holding his phone out to me, he says, ‘Smile for the camera.’
It takes a few seconds to understand what I’m looking at, then I realize it’s me, here, now.
I look up, scanning the four corners of the bedroom, and there it is, a camera like the ones in my house. Only this one isn’t streaming my life to the world; it’s going straight to Mr Farrell’s phone.
‘You can’t be too careful,’ he says. ‘I had a feeling your persistence would pay off. How old were you when your mum died … five?’
‘Seven,’ I say, and he grins.
‘Time flies.’ He walks over to the camera and pulls it off the wall.
‘I’ll have to get rid of these now … along with everything else.’
He smiles and there’s nothing fake about it. He looks like the monster I once imagined him to be.
‘You made me do something I haven’t done for a long time, Jessica. You made me kill quickly.’
‘I didn’t make you do anything.’
Elliot crouches in front of me and says, ‘But you did. You challenged me, all those grieving families with their T-shirts. It gave me an idea I couldn’t ignore. I had fun playing with you. It’s a shame it has to end.’
He grabs me under my arms and pulls me up, then opens Bernie’s bedroom door and pushes me inside.
I look at Jamie and hate myself for getting him into this. I want to tell him I’m sorry. I want to go back in time and do things differently. I want to ignore Mr Collins and force Lorraine to believe me about Clara and have the police find the receipt.
But, if I had a time machine, there would be no need for any of this.
‘Did you like my messages?’ he says.
Then, as if realizing something, he pulls me up and forces his hand into my pocket, pulling my phone out, then doing the same with Jamie. He looks at them, then smiles.
‘Call me paranoid,’ he says, ‘but I thought you’d be recording my confession. Who else knows you’re here? Have you got your little director friend hiding in the cupboard?’
He knows we don’t, because he’s been watching on his phone, but he still looks worried for a second, the sneer slipping just long enough to show something worse underneath.
He can pretend all he wants, but I know he’s terrified of being caught, no matter what he’s done to protect himself. And that scares me even more, because how far will he go to stay free?
He needs to think we wouldn’t be stupid enough to break into his house without telling someone.
‘The police are on their way,’ I lie.
He stares at me and says, ‘I don’t think so. They’re too busy talking to that poor teacher of yours. How does it feel to have an innocent man arrested, Jessica?’
But something in his eyes suggests he’s uncertain and that’s what I focus on.
He starts pacing the room, then takes the sim card from his phone and snaps it.
When I think he’s not listening, I lean towards Jamie and whisper, ‘I’m sorry.’
Mr Farrell yanks me up and pushes me on the bed. ‘Do not talk to each other,’ he says. ‘It’s time to end this.’
I imagine every murder is perfectly planned. It has to be for him to always escape unnoticed. He can’t kill us here in his stepdaughter’s bedroom and expect to keep living his lie. But he can’t let us leave.
This might not be his usual trap, but it’s still a trap.
We need to work out how to escape before he figures out how to kill us.
134
Elliot grabs Jamie and says, ‘If you scream, I’ll kill him.’
He forces Jamie out of the room, closes the door and pushes something against it and when I turn the handle it won’t budge.
I think of the bruises on Bernie’s bedroom door. What must it be like living with him? Does she know what he is? Or is he different types of evil in different situations?
There are clues all over the place if you look hard enough and I wonder if Clara suffers the way her sister does.
Her room looked normal, messy like mine, more clothes on the floor than in the cupboard, the noticeboard above her desk covered in Post-its and selfies. But Bernie’s room is the complete opposite.
I hear something downstairs and put my ear to the carpet, trying to figure out what’s going on. Then I move to the door and listen, praying he isn’t hurting Jamie.
This is my fault and if anyone dies it should be me. Jamie doesn’t deserve any of this. He did one good thing and I pulled him into my messed-up life and now he’s trapped in a madman’s house. He told me to run, but he should have been the one running. He shouldn’t have been here in the first place.
I hear footsteps on the stairs, the handle loosen, then Jamie is pushed into the room and Elliot reaches forward and grabs me.
‘Your turn,’ he says, and, as he pulls me out, I see Jamie has his arms tied behind his back.
Elliot is holding the rope and he forces me to the floor, then wraps it round and round until it cuts into my skin. He yanks it hard, making sure there’s no way I can escape, then he sits me down next to Jamie.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Now I can think.’
He looks scarily calm, his eyes flicking back and forth between us like he’s doing eeny-meeny in his head, picking which of us to kill first.
This isn’t what he had planned, even if he did prepare for the worst with the camera. If he’d known we were coming, he would never have left the house.
I’m desperately trying to use that somehow, because I don’t want to die. I have to fight. I have to beat him.
‘Remember,’ he says, ‘no talking.’
When he leaves, he doesn’t close the door and the creak of the floorboards suggests he is only a room away.
And that’s when I realize I’ve got another phone, stuffed somewhere he would never think to check.
‘Shit,’ I whisper, and Jamie looks at me, his eyes wide, and shakes his head.
I had the perfect chance to call for help and I didn’t do it. How many times can I screw up on the same day?
My secret second phone is in my bra and I was three numbers away from rescue and it slipped my mind. Who does that?
We had him. All I needed was to dial 999 and tell them where I was and we would be the proof they needed. And, if they still didn’t believe me, I would pull the receipt out of my sock and Elliot couldn’t lie his way out of that.
Plus, somewhere in this house is the worst photo album imaginable.
I only need one chance to make a call. But no matter how much I fight against the knots behind my back I can’t loosen them.
He knows the police aren’t coming. We’re alone in this fight.
135
Every now and then, we hear movement, but he doesn’t come back.
Every bump and bang downstairs makes my heart jump, yet after what feels like hours he still doesn’t put us out of our misery.
Eventually, when I’m sure Bernie’s stepdad isn’t listening, I say, ‘We need to do something.’
Jamie stares at me, his eyes bloodshot, and says, ‘No shit.’ He looks terrified.
‘He’s not going to kill us here,’ I say.
Jamie shivers and shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’
‘We have to. We don’t have much time. We need a plan.’
But it’s hard to plan when you have no idea what’s going to happen.
Is he going to keep us here until his wife gets back? Will Bernie come home from school to find us trapped in her room?
How long does it take a serial killer to work out how to murder two people who willingly walked into his house?
It feels like another hour or more has passed when Mr Farrell comes into the bedroom, a weird smile on his face, and says, ‘I know what to do with you.’
He pulls Jamie up, then me, and bundles us down the stairs. In the kitchen, he rips a tea towel in half, then gags us with it, and I have to focus on breathing through my nose as my chest tightens.
Then he pushes us through the broken back door, points to the garage and says, ‘In there.’
His car is inside, the boot open, and when Jamie looks at him, he says, ‘Get in. Now.’
Jamie climbs in and, even though I’m sure there won’t be enough room, I follow.
I was right. But Elliot doesn’t care, slamming the boot.
I hear the front of the garage slide open, the car door slam shut, the engine rumble and the car slowly move forward.
Elliot gets out and pulls the garage door closed with a clunk, then starts driving.
It’s hard to breathe but I do my best, while simultaneously trying to wriggle free of the rope without kicking Jamie in the face.
We don’t attempt to communicate. We work with the space we’ve got, struggling helplessly to untie ourselves before the boot springs open.
Wherever he’s taking us, that’s where he’ll do it. That’s where we’ll die. But I’m not ready to. There’s no way this bastard is going to kill me. There is no way he’s going to win.
I think of Mum and if Mayfield Lodge is right, and she is looking down on me, if she really can hear the prayers I say inside my head.
Is she scared? Does she know I’m going to get out of this somehow? Or is she already planning my welcome party?
I try to shake the thoughts away, because they are not helping.
The car stops before I expect it to, but Elliot doesn’t come for us.
In the darkness, Jamie’s finger grips mine and I pray that we’ll figure out a way to stay alive.
136
I try to keep track of time but it’s impossible. It feels like we’ve been here for hours. Finally, I hear a car door open, the jangle of keys, then the boot springs up.
It takes a while for my eyes to get used to the moonlight and when I recognize where we are I start to retch and Elliot pulls the gag from my mouth just as I throw up.
When I look up at him, he smiles and I notice he’s head to toe in black, with only his face visible. I look at his hands and wonder if those were the gloves he used to strangle my mother.
He doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to take a few deep breaths, then pulls me forward. I know exactly where we are going and he doesn’t disappoint.
Elliot Farrell keeps pushing us along until we reach my mother’s gravestone.
Only then, when he forces us to the muddy ground, does he say, ‘Surprise.’
137
‘Are you impressed?’ the Magpie Man says. ‘I don’t know where they all are. But she was special.’
I want to smash his face in. I want to kill him right here, where we buried my mum.
Jamie is breathing fast and I look at him, telling him to settle down with my eyes.
The Magpie Man stares at him and says, ‘Calm down, little man,’ but that only makes him worse.
He unzips a bag and pulls out a kitchen knife, the biggest in those five-set collections that sit in blocks of wood on the worktop, the one you only use on special occasions.
When Jamie sees it, he starts making whimpering noises through the cloth and I guess this is it. He’s going to murder me next to my mother’s grave. So what harm is there in talking to him, if he’s already decided my fate?
‘This is your big plan?’ I say. ‘You’re going to kill us here. They’ll find you, you know.’
He laughs, so loud it echoes in the darkness, and says, ‘I’m not going to kill you, Jessica. You are going to kill each other.’
‘What?’
‘Well, technically, I’m going to force you to kill each other. But they won’t know the difference.’
‘You’re sick.’
‘Maybe. But I’m also smarter than you. If you and your boyfriend make a suicide pact, if you slit your wrists by your mother’s graveside, that’s not suspicious – it’s just sad.’
‘I won’t hurt him.’
The Magpie Man smiles and says, ‘We’ll see about that.’
‘This won’t work,’ I say. ‘The police will figure it out.’
‘They didn’t last time.’
He pushes me on to my front and cuts through the rope holding my hands behind my back.
Rolling me over, he leans down and stares into my face until I have to look away.
‘You look just like her,’ he says.
‘Fuck you.’
‘No, Jessica. Fuck you. You thought you could catch me. But I’m always one step ahead. Did you really think that dressing up like your mother or standing in that alley was going to be enough? Did you really think I would come? I kill when I want to. You don’t choose. I do.’
His smile makes my skin crawl, but I need to focus on the phone he doesn’t know I have, the hands he has freed, the space into which I will run if I have the tiniest chance.
‘I liked your T-shirt,’ he says. ‘Did you like mine?’
I imagine the picture of his last victim with her fate carved below her number.
‘You’re sick.’
He smiles. ‘You made me more creative.’
‘Why did you kill my mother?’
For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer, but then he sighs and says, ‘I’ve been watching your show, Jessica. You know that. How could I not? You’re a strong girl. I like to think I’m the reason.’
I take a deep breath to stop myself from spitting in his face; then he stands and walks over to Mum’s gravestone and touches the words.
‘I killed her because I had to.’
I stare at his face, trying to match it with the hidden image Mum took the day she died.
Is he the man in the photographs? Was his blurry image sitting unseen in a forgotten camera all this time?
‘She changed everything,’ he says.
I could run now, but I need to know. I need to hear what only he can tell me.
‘You were there all along,’ I say. ‘You weren’t a monster. You were our fucking neighbour.’
The Magpie Man smiles and says, ‘I was both.’
When I was seven, when my whole world fell apart and my dad chose to live in the wreckage, I didn’t pay much attention to the man who replaced Bernie’s dad.
Even before that, he was just a shape, just a noise next door, another stranger in a world full of them.
‘Why?’
‘She saw,’ he says. ‘I had no choice.’
I glance at Jamie, his tears soaking the rag in his mouth.
‘She was taking photos, snooping on me. She hated me living next door, in his house, moving in with her friend. But she picked the wrong day to spy.’
I think of the four blurry images, the mixture of colours that has now seeped into my dreams.
‘What did she see?’
The look on his face chills me. ‘She saw what I was burning.’
I don’t think she did. I think she was trying to, but whatever it was she couldn’t get it clear enough. She tried, she failed, and he killed her anyway.
‘I should thank you,’ he says. ‘It seems right that we end it here, back where it started.’
I don’t understand what he’s talking about, and then suddenly I do.
‘What did you mean when you said this worked last time?’
The Magpie Man smiles and says, ‘I think you know.’
The suicide in the graveyard on the day before Mum died wasn’t suicide. It was murder.
‘You’d killed before,’ I say.
He crouches down next to me and says, ‘It wasn’t the same. I felt nothing. And there was so much blood. I had to burn my clothes.’
The reds and yellows and greens – the garden fire Mum was trying to stare into. He saw her watching, he took her photo, and that night he took her life.
‘She didn’t see anything,’ I say. ‘It was blurry. She didn’t know what she was looking at.’
He looks confused, then says, ‘I got rid of her phone.’
‘It wasn’t on her phone. It was a camera.’
For the first time, Elliot looks genuinely scared, and as he turns away I seize my chance.
I stand and run and for a few seconds there’s no sound except my breathing and my feet against the ground. Then he’s shouting and I start weaving between the gravestones, running as fast as I can.
Not stopping, I reach into my bra and pull out Dad’s phone and dial 999.
I hear the Magpie Man behind me, his own heavy breathing ripping through the darkness, and I dart to my right and start moving slower, trying not to make a sound.
‘999, what’s your emergency?’
I hear him stop, the crunch of the leaves on the ground suddenly slow and deliberate, as if he heard the operator speaking into my ear.
If I reply, he will hear me and I won’t have time to tell them where I am, let alone why.
The woman starts to repeat herself so I hang up, feeling my way between the stones, praying that I’m moving away from him with each careful step.
‘What do you expect to happen, Jessica?’ he calls. ‘I will find you.’
I hear him walking towards me, too slowly to know exactly where I am.
I stick to the shadows, terrified the moonlight will give me away. Every sound feels louder in the darkness, each snap of a twig like thunder in my ringing ears.
His footsteps crack against the uncut grass and I freeze, my fists balled up so tight my fingernails dig into the skin. The pain focuses me and I close my eyes, listening for his movements, figuring out exactly which part of the darkness he’s coming from.
I’m too scared to breathe deeply. Instead, my breath comes out small and jagged, my chest growing tighter until I’m sure I’ll explode.
He isn’t calling any more. He’s listening as closely as I am. He’s hunting me.
