‘Definitely.’
‘Thank God he is, though. For you and your mum, I mean.’
‘Don’t know how he does it. When I ask him, he just shrugs and tells me that’s life; it throws rocks in your path at times. Seems like he leapfrogs over them, whereas I fall flat on my face.’ A shadow of a smile hovers round her mouth.
‘He’s never been treated the way you have by your mother, though. Rocks? Seems she’s more like one hell of a mountain.’
‘But that’s partly why I think he’s always dealt with everything so well. He won’t admit it, but I reckon it’s because his conscience is clear. Unlike me, he has nothing to feel guilty about where Abby’s death is concerned.’
Mark leans over, briefly touching her left arm. A gesture of support, of empathy. Even though the pressure of his fingertips is feather soft, he can feel the ridging of her scars through the thin material of her sleeve. An awkward moment passes between them before she pulls away.
Embarrassed, he seeks to smooth over the tension. ‘None of you has any reason to feel guilty, Rachel. If only you could understand how it wasn’t your fault, any of it.’
She chooses to ignore his words, not that he’s surprised. Self-blame as deeply entrenched as hers requires more than a few glib sentences to lever it out of place. ‘Shaun was upstairs, remember, when Abby was lured out of the garden by those boys. Doing his homework. He wasn’t drinking alcohol or too busy reading, like Dad and me. Just boring old schoolwork. So he has no reason for guilt. That’s my opinion, anyway.’
‘Neither do you.’
Her mouth twists bitterly. ‘You reckon? I had my headphones clamped on tight, Christina Aguilera booming in my ears. Couldn’t hear anything else. I wasn’t even watching her either, like I’d been told. Had my head in my book, oblivious to the world.’
‘Apart from your cat. I remember now. You were stroking your kitten.’ Mark smiles at his mental picture of the pretty ten-year-old, absorbed in another world, her right hand smoothing the animal’s black fur, the sunlight striking fire into the pale copper of her hair. He smiles, and the memory almost blots out the remembrance of what follows. Not quite, though, because nothing can ever erase Abby Morgan’s death. He’s lost, back in time, fourteen years ago, and so he doesn’t realise, not at first, the significance of what he’s just said. Neither does Rachel.
Time slows down to a crawl as awareness pulls him back, sharp and sudden, into the moment. His words echo through his head, plucking the mask of Mark Slater away to reveal Joshua Barker. What he’s said should never have been said, and he can’t claw the mistake back inside. His only hope is for Rachel not to connect the dots, a faint one admittedly, but perhaps she’s too immersed in her thoughts to register his words. To understand the implication of his knowledge of her black kitten.
At first, he doesn’t see any change in her expression. She’s still lingering in her head over Christina Aguilera and Harry Potter. Then Mark notes the exact moment when her mind shifts to the soft black fur of her cat, when not a penny but a whole pound coin drops in her brain. Her eyes stretch wider and her face, always pale anyway, takes on the colour of chalk. Her gaze slams into his, and he’s unable to hide behind the mask any longer.
‘How do you…’ Her voice sounds as though it’s fighting its way through treacle in her throat. ‘You mentioned me stroking my cat. How did you know about that?’
Mark’s aware of his breath, coming rapid and shallow, his chest tight. No words can explain the unexplainable. He takes refuge in a lie.
‘I…’ He swallows, trying to stifle his dread of what’s to come. ‘I must have read about it or heard it on the news.’
‘None of those details were ever released to the media.’ Her voice manages to be both hoarse and high at the same time. ‘I told you about listening to music, and reading, but not the cat. I never mentioned the cat. I know I didn’t.’ She staggers to her feet, pushing back her chair with one hand, the other grasping the table to steady herself. Mark aches to hold her, pour out what happened, receive her understanding, her absolution, whilst recognising the sheer impossibility of such a notion. She’s on the verge of guessing who he is; he’s the last person she’ll ever allow to touch her.
‘You’d only know that if…’ She’s pressed back against the wall now, hands in front of her to keep him at bay. He sees her swallow, her breath audible, as rapid and shallow as his own. ‘Oh, God. My God. Which one are you?’
A question he’s able to answer, yet he doesn’t. If he admits his identity, if he says his birth name, it will make all this real, and he’s unable to cope with it.
One, two…
He starts the familiar count in his head, abandoning it seconds later as she speaks again.
‘Why?’ She’s crying now, the chalk of the previous moment replaced by red staining in her cheeks as the sobs come. ‘Why did you seek me out? How
could
you? I thought….’ The words fight with her breath in her throat, her syllables strangled. ‘We talked about going running. You asked to meet me for lunch.’
Mark can only nod, still silent.
‘You
kissed
me.’ She flings the word out, as though by even saying it she’s defiled.
Mark doesn’t respond. What, after all, can he say? No words exist to vindicate why he’s here, why he approached her after the vigil. She’ll be attributing all sorts of twisted motives to his behaviour, how he must have drawn sick gratification from kissing his victim’s sister, how he’s revelling in turning the blade deeper in her wounds. How can he possibly explain the kiss being a cry for understanding, a gesture of repentance?
Rachel’s face is contorted with disbelief, denial, rage. She’s regarding him as one would a fully-fledged incarnation of the Devil, standing before her reeking of brimstone and brandishing a pitchfork. He doesn’t blame her. It’s even worse than being back in the courtroom before the handing down of his sentence by the judge. So he sits in front of his half-eaten plate of lasagne, too agitated even for his counting rituals, waiting for whatever she has to say.
‘Which…’ She swallows, clearly attempting to get her mouth to work. Her voice still sounds as though it’s being pulled through razor wire. ‘I asked you before. You owe me that much. Which one are you? You’re Joshua Barker, right?’
‘Yes.’ He doesn’t even attempt to prevaricate. All traces of Mark Slater have been stripped away. The events of fourteen years ago arise in front of him and Rachel, their sting uncurled and ready to strike.
‘Rachel, please listen to me…’
‘You’re fucking joking, right?’ She’s found her voice now, and it’s more of a scream. ‘Why the hell should I listen to you? Mum’s been right all along, when she says the two of you are evil, how neither of you has any conscience, how you should rot in jail for the rest of your miserable lives. I thought you were genuine. That you liked me. We
kissed.
’ Again, the words are spat out. Mark’s shocked by the profanity. Rachel has always been so polite, so well-mannered.
‘Do you get some weird kick out of this?’ A bead of spittle flies from her mouth, landing on the table between them. ‘Enjoy this, do you? Leading me on, making me think…’ It’s then that she breaks. She sinks back into her chair, pillowing her head on her arms as she leans on the table. Sobs hiccup from her, her scars lividly in view where her sleeves have ridden up. For once, she obviously doesn’t give a toss. Apart from her tears, she’s silent, spent, finished.
‘Rachel.’ He has to try to gain her understanding. ‘I’m sorry. For your sister’s death, for what I’ve done to your family, for everything. I should never have approached you after the vigil. I did it…’ He swallows hard. ‘Because I needed to make sense of Abby’s death. I’ve always been so sorry, Rachel. You must believe me.’ Why should she, though? Even as he says them, the words sound cheap, easy, the kind liars always use to justify themselves.
‘You fucking bastard. Don’t you even dare say her name.’
Mark tries again. ‘I didn’t hurt her, Rachel. It was Adam Campbell, the other boy. He did it all. It was impossible to stop him. He was so…’ Adam muscles his way into Mark’s mind, his size, his innate aggressiveness. Above all, the sense of the other boy harbouring inside him something warped, twisted, beyond redemption.
‘I’ve always been desperate to make amends. I just don’t have a clue what to do. That’s why I approached you after the vigil.’ Is she taking any of this in? She’s a foot or so away physically but emotionally she’s light years distant. Mark has no idea whether anything he says can bridge the gulf between them. ‘I hoped if I could talk to you, find out how it’s been for you, for your family, I might get some pointers. I never meant to hurt you, honestly I didn’t.’
What he’s just said bridges the gap between them all right, but not in the way he intends. She raises her head, spearing him with the loathing in her eyes. It’s so strong he flinches, as though her hatred might shoot forth to stab him, cut him, slice and dice him into shreds.
‘Is that the best you can come up with? He made you do it? How fucking feeble.’ She’s getting into her stride now. ‘I don’t believe a word of your shit. You’re evil, pure evil, the pair of you. You beat and stabbed a two-year-old child to death, for fuck’s sake. Only someone completely without any conscience would do such a thing. You’ve breached the terms of your release, not that you should ever have been paroled in the first place. By going to the vigil. By even daring to look at me.’
‘I know.’ He’s the one sounding hoarse now. ‘It was wrong. I thought -’
‘You didn’t think at all. You bastard. All you cared about was getting your kicks out of tormenting me. As if I’ve not suffered enough, every fucking day, since Abby’s death.’ She pushes back her chair violently, the legs scraping against the carpet, pulling herself to her feet. ‘Get out. Get the fuck out of my flat. You’re scum. Fucking scum. Don’t think I won’t tell the police you’ve broken your parole. I’ll make damn sure your arse gets thrown back in jail where it belongs.’
18
STUPID AND WEAK
Mark has no idea how he manages to unlock his car door, let alone start the engine. He drives a mere couple of hundred yards from Rachel’s flat when he has to pull over or risk a crash. The pain in his chest squeezes tight, constricting his breath, far worse than when Natalie walked out on him.
Breathe,
just breathe through it
, he tells himself.
Rachel’s tortured face flashes before him, white and terrible, with its accusatory gaze. Her words slice through him. How she concurs with her mother about him being evil. How he’s scum, wicked, should be rotting in jail. Mark’s inclined to agree. Wrong, ill-judged, selfish, to have ever talked to her that day in Moretonhampstead, to burst the bubble of her grief by foisting his own issues on her. Hell, he needs to confront the damage he’s caused to the Morgan family, sure, but piling more hurt on top of what already exists isn’t part of his game plan. Desperate to drive out his own demons, all he’s succeeded in doing is sending them Rachel Morgan’s way.
With eyes squeezed shut, he begins to count.
One, two, buckle my shoe,
and Abby Morgan’s wrenched-off trainer flashes into his mind, transporting him back to the shed floor, with the streams of sunlight bouncing off the pink Velcro. God, oh God. He’ll never be free of the horror of his past. He’s at liberty when it comes to his physical self, but his mind’s forever imprisoned in the abandoned farm shed of fourteen years ago.
Three, four, knock at the door.
Onwards and upwards, his brain moves through the numbers, seeking the safety of the higher ones, except this time the comfort doesn’t come. The anguish, the memory of Rachel’s face, her voice, as the realisation slams home of who she’s kissed, stays firmly wedged in his mind. It’s all too much, and for the first time since he was a child, Mark cries. He rests his forearms on the steering wheel, the unfamiliar sensation of tears on his face, as the wounds inside him split open, raw and deep.
Joanna Barker strides into his head, the pain of her rejection chilling him. She’s followed by the fury that overwhelms him as he drives his fist into the wall of his room at Vinney Green. Natalie walking out on him. Rachel’s slashed arms. His fault, all of it; and crowding out all of them is the memory of Abby Morgan’s broken and bloodied body, accusing him of cowardice for not preventing her death.
Knuckles rap on the glass beside his ear, jolting his head off the steering wheel.
A policewoman is bending towards the window, her hands motioning for him to open it. Panic kicks into Mark, sharp and instantaneous. Immediately he’s eleven years old again, cowed and confused. Impossible not to obey this woman. His fingers fumble for the down button.
‘Sir, are you all right?’ The woman’s voice is concerned, kind, but Mark needs her to get the hell away from the car, right now. No police, not today.
He nods, unable to speak.
‘Is something wrong? Do you need help?’
Mark shakes his head, trying to find his voice. When he does, it’s croaky. ‘No. I’m fine, honestly. It’s just that…’ He clears his throat. ‘I’ve got some shit to deal with, that’s all.’
She nods in sympathy. ‘Where are you heading for? Do you have a long way to go?’
‘Bristol. Not far.’
The woman’s mouth purses a little. ‘You shouldn’t attempt to drive a car. Not whilst you’re…’ She’s clearly searching for the right word. ‘In a distressed state.’
Desperation to get rid of her grows ever more urgent in Mark. ‘You’re right. Thing is, I just need to sit for a while and get myself together, you know?’ He manages a weak smile. ‘I’ll be fine. Honestly.’
She’s clearly unconvinced, but as Mark’s not breaking any laws, all she can do is reiterate her warning not to drive until he’s safe to do so.
Once the policewoman’s gone, Mark leans back against his headrest, incapable of further tears. He’s spent, finished. Exhaustion born from the strain of recent weeks slams into him; he’s weary all the way down to the bone and into his marrow, tired of everything. Somehow, he has to drive to Bristol, back to his life. Such as it is. Recollection hits him. Hell, he’s supposed to be seeing Natalie on Tuesday. Their big talk is in the evening, the one supposedly to sort things out between them, convince her he’s worthy to share her life. Well, that’s fucked up now, for sure. The contempt in Rachel Morgan’s face has hammered a basic truth home to him; he doesn’t deserve happiness.