Authors: Jack Jordan
‘Both,’ Dean replies, frankly.
Sweat begins to drip from Louise’s underarms.
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. Two searches: one starting from here, another from the station. Many volunteers have joined from neighbouring villages and towns. The DNA results will be ready in the morning.’
‘What if nothing is found?’
‘Then we will continue searching, pushing the search further out. CCTV footage is being scanned, Gloucestershire Constabulary officers have interviewed almost everyone in the village, but nothing has been discovered. No clues. No sightings.’ Jessica clears her throat and clasps her hands together on the countertop. ‘I think you need to consider using the media, Louise. If Brooke is out there – if she’s fled of her own accord – it might bring her back. If someone has taken her, they may feel the pressure and hand themselves in.’
‘I don’t want a mob of journalists sitting outside the house. I just want to be left alone.’
I don’t want the media to be here if you discover what happened that night
.
‘We can prevent that.’
‘Can you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I don’t want to be interviewed.’
‘It would help tremendously if—’
‘Jessica, listen to what I’m saying. I do not want to be interviewed, photographed, or splashed over national television. You can broadcast Brooke’s photo and you can make a statement, but I’m not going to be exploited. I won’t do it.’
‘Okay, I’ll respect that.’
‘Good.’
The room falls silent for a moment. Chris looks as though he feels the most awkward. He is new to the case. The two women know each other, while he has been thrown straight in at the deep end – and has to catch up.
Louise hands them both a mug of tea and sips from her own. She forgot to take the tea bag out of hers, which floats like a deflating raft in a boiling, beige sea. She turns her back and discards it in the sink.
‘May we ask you some more questions?’ Chris asks, breaking the silence. ‘With our increasing knowledge of your daughter and her life, we have a few more queries that need to be answered.’
Louise feels infuriated by the police intrusion, both into her home and her mind. She feels pressured by their constant questions and their relentless digging.
She just wants to be left alone.
‘Fine. But at some point I’d like to get some rest.’
‘We won’t be long,’ Chris replies.
Louise sips at her tea and waits for the questions to begin.
‘Would you say Brooke is depressed?’
Yes. Absolutely. She longs to die, just like me
.
‘No.’
‘Do you think she keeps secrets from you?’
We are in on the secret together
.
‘No.’
‘Did you know she writes poetry?’
A frisson runs down Louise’s spine. She clears her throat, which seems to have tightened.
‘Poetry?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, she used to as a child, but she stopped indulging in it when she hit puberty.’
‘She didn’t,’ Jessica replies, picking up her bag. She pulls out a black, tired journal.
Oh, Brooke. Not you, too
.
Her back becomes moist with nervous sweat.
Jessica flicks the pages and stops when she finds what she is looking for. She clears her throat, looks up at Louise to check she has her attention, and returns her eyes to the page.
‘Living the memories,
Each day and night.
Truth is the enemy,
No exit in sight.’
Louise is shaking; she firmly clamps her vibrating hands around the mug in an attempt to still them.
‘Do you have any idea what that’s about?’ Jessica asks.
‘None at all,’ she replies, clearing her throat.
Jessica returns her eyes to the journal.
‘Daughter and mother,
Bonded by blood,
A secret to smother,
Buried in mud.’
Louise feels trapped, as though she has nothing left to do but confess.
‘Are you sure you don’t know what she’s talking about?’
‘Of course not. She’s an imaginative child.’
‘These aren’t stories.’
‘Fantasies, then.’
‘She sounds pretty sure to me.’
‘What teenager isn’t depressed?’
‘Depressed enough to talk about blood? About truth being her enemy? To have a glove covered in old blood hidden beneath her bed?’
They found the glove
.
Louise’s jaw clenches.
‘If you have something you would like to imply, Detective Inspector Dean, come out and say it. I’m too
old and too tired to play games.’
‘I don’t make assumptions or imply anything. I ask questions in search of answers. I search for evidence and facts.’
‘Well, present your findings to me or get out.’
‘I think this is getting a bit heated,’ Chris interjects.
‘I’m not the instigator, DI Jones. Now get to the point or get out of my house. I may not have my husband, or know where my daughter is, or own this house for much longer, but right now this is all I have. Don’t you
dare
come in here and attempt to incriminate me because you can’t find the real culprit. Get out! Both of you!’
‘Your sister reported a threat you made to her,’ Jessica says. ‘She said that you threatened to kill her if you ever saw her again.’
Louise takes their mugs and throws them in the sink. The china smashes against the stainless steel basin. Tea splatters everywhere.
‘
GET OUT!
’
They rise from their seats. Jones looks horrified. Dean looks satisfied: she has pushed a button.
Louise stares at her with wide, furious eyes. Her whole frame is trembling.
‘We’ll see you in the morning for the search,’ she says. ‘Get some rest, Mrs Leighton. We’ll let ourselves out.’
When Louise hears the front door close, her legs
buckle and she collapses to the tiled floor.
She is going to figure it out. She is going to unearth everything
.
While listening to her heart thrashing in her chest, she wonders whether she can run and escape her fate. She is startled from her thoughts by a loud bang on the window.
She freezes. Her heart hammers.
Booming thuds pound the front door three times as though a heavy fist is trying to break through it.
Tears shimmer in her eyes.
The windows facing the back garden begin to clatter in their frames from heavy hits.
A spontaneous whimper escapes her lips where she sits frozen to the kitchen floor.
More banging on the door.
Silence.
Banging at the kitchen window above her.
Silence.
One of the windows at the rear of the house shatters. The lowered blind billows from the freezing gale pouring into the house. Louise releases a terrified, harrowing scream.
‘
What do you want from me?
’
Nothing but the sound of the whistling wind can be heard.
Louise struggles to breath, to think, to act. Her nerves spark and shoot through her body in vicious,
piercing shocks.
‘Just kill me! Just get it over with and kill me!’
She clamps her eyes shut and waits for death.
The only thing she can hear is her own pounding heart and the whistle of the wind as it flows through the broken window. A violent gust hits the blind and knocks the lamp from the side table to the floor with a great crash. Louise screams at the noise, and curls into a tight ball on the floor.
She loses track of how long she has stayed there curled up on the floor, waiting for the attacker to reach her, but once her heart begins to calm and her quaking lessens, she opens her eyes.
No attacker. No threat. Just the blind flicking in the breeze, and shards of glass decorating the floor like a sinister, loose mosaic. She sits up and a stray tear drips from her chin.
She takes a knife from the knife block on the worktop and heads for the window with caution. The darkness outside taunts her with threats of danger. She hovers before the window and moves the blind with the blade of the knife. She dares to look out.
Louise’s shadow is projected onto the snow before her, mimicking her quivering legs, the sharp kitchen knife in her hand, and her hair blowing in the wind.
She looks down at the shattered glass. Surrounded by jagged splinters, rests a lifeless robin. Its eyes are closed, but its beak is prised open. What looks like a
piece of rolled-up paper protrudes from its mouth.
She crouches down, rests the knife on the floor and cautiously extracts the paper from the bird’s throat.
A tiny note reads:
You know why I’m doing this
.
Chapter Thirty-two
That Night
Brooke and her two friends – Claire and Simone – stand outside the back of the house where the party is being held. All three are dressed in short evening dresses, with their make-up applied so thickly that it would make a clown blush.
‘You said this was going to be a good party, Simone,’ Claire moans. She crosses her arms, disgruntled at the sight of the few people visible through the front window.
‘It’s early yet. More people will come.’
‘What, more losers?’ Brooke replies, taking a drag on the spliff she brought with her.
‘Pass me that,’ Claire demands, putting her hand out for the spliff.
Brooke takes a long drag on the tar-stained roach, holding the smoke inside her lungs for as long as she can. She passes the spliff to Claire as she exhales.
‘Look, he’s my cousin, all right? He’s cool. It’s his friends that are losers.’
‘Simone, if you have a hard-on for your cousin, that’s your problem, but don’t trick us into situations so you can have the chance to shag him.’
‘Claire, that’s sick,’ Simone retorts, blushing hard. ‘I
don’t fancy my own
cousin
.’
‘Then why are we here?’ she asks. ‘Why are you defending this shit party? Why did you lie and tell us this was going to be a good night?’
Claire takes a drag on the spliff and coughs hard as she exhales.
‘I thought it
was
going to be a good night,’ she replies defensively. ‘I got it wrong. I’m sorry.’
The girls stand in tense silence for a moment. Claire and Brooke pass the spliff back and forth, and Simone gulps at her vodka and lemonade while eyeing her cousin entertaining his friends inside.
Beneath her acne and foundation, Simone’s cheeks continue to blush at the mention of her feelings for her cousin. She had once confided in Brooke that she
did
fancy him. She has loved him since they were children, looking up to him as though he were some sort of god. Brooke wonders whether Josh had told Simone she could come to the party, but only if she brought some girls with her; so she instantly invited Brooke and Claire, overselling the idea of the party so they would come. Brooke also wonders if Simone had somehow believed her own lies about the event, falling for her own tale of how amazing it would be. Simone is probably the most disappointed out of the three girls. Josh hasn’t spoken to her once. She looks as though she could cry.
‘We might as well make the most of it,’ Brooke
decides, feeling bad for Simone. ‘We’ve got free booze to drink, we’ve got weed, we’ve got music and we’ve got each other.’
Two skinny teenage boys stand nearby and laugh hysterically as they urinate on a snowman, turning it yellow and melting holes into its torso and face.
‘Have fun? Surrounded by weirdos like this? Give me a break.’
‘Claire, get over it,’ Brooke says. ‘It’s a shit party and we’re stuck here. We might as well enjoy it.’
The girls had made no arrangements to get home. The party is over an hour away from their homes in London. They caught the train into the town and have wishfully left their return route down to fate.
‘My cousin said we can stay at his house,’ Simone had said.
‘If we hook up with guys, we won’t need to go home until the morning,’ Claire added.
‘Let’s party until the sun comes up and then head home,’ Brooke had decided. ‘We’ll sleep when we’re dead!’
The party consists of eight teenage boys; most – if not all – of them are virgins. They congregate in terrified groups and stare at the few girls who are there as though they are naked. The two other girls at the party – skinny, plain twins – have also been tricked into coming with the promise of a great night. Both of them sit in silence, sharing looks that only the two of
them can understand.
Brooke takes one last drag on the spliff and holds it in for as long as she can. Every muscle feels relaxed; her arms, legs and head feel heavy and languorous, and her thoughts swim lazily inside her mind in a mist of marijuana.
‘So who’s going to do one of these geeks a favour and take his virginity?’ Claire jokes. ‘Simone, you can take your cousin’s,’ she adds, making her friend blush again. ‘Brooke, you can bang those three.’
‘Three?’ she exclaims through a relaxed smirk. ‘Why do I have to have three?’
‘You’re the biggest whore here,’ Claire replies. ‘You’ve never gone to a party without opening your legs.’
Simone stands in silence and looks at the ground, as if wishing she hadn’t invited Claire, wishing she hadn’t been invited herself.
‘Piss off, Claire,’ Brooke spits. ‘It’s not my fault that your nose is bigger than your cold, spiteful heart.’
Brooke wanders through the doorway into the house.
‘Where’re you going?’ Simone asks.
‘To find a dick to suck,’ Claire retorts.
Brooke waltzes through the living room. All eyes turn in her direction. Her head is spinning. She feels sick. She wishes she had stayed at home.
She reaches the cloakroom off the hallway where a
young, inebriated boy is waiting – hardly able to stand. Suddenly he lunges forwards and vomits inside an umbrella stand. Brooke sighs and heads for the stairs. The stench of vomit seeps up the stairs with her as she sways from left to right, tasting her own bile as it creeps up her throat.
She opens doors along the hallway in search of a bathroom, accidentally stumbling into unoccupied bedrooms. She opens one door and sees a young boy, of about Dominic’s age, lying awake in his bed. He looks terrified.
‘Sorry,’ she whispers, and shuts the door again.