The old gag ran through my mind:
just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me
.
‘You’ll have to direct me from here,’ he said, making the turn into the estate and slowing to a crawl.
I had a powerful urge to get out of the car. ‘I can walk from here. Why don’t you just drop me off?’
‘Absolutely not. It’s no trouble. Now where am I going?’ He nudged the accelerator a little, speeding up so that it was too dangerous to think of opening the door. Geoff was in control and he was loving it.
I told him the name of my road and how to get to it, defeated. When he pulled up in front of the house he looked at it, assessing it.
‘Not a bad place, but it needs a bit of TLC, I reckon.’
He was right. There were weeds sprouting in the guttering. Paint peeled off the windowsills and front door in curls, like dead skin.
‘I love a bit of DIY,’ Geoff said, flexing his hands so the muscles in his super-tanned forearms rippled. ‘Shirt off, up a ladder, painting windows in the sunshine – can’t beat it. I’d be happy to do yours, if you like.’
‘That’s really kind,’ I said, undoing my seatbelt. ‘But please, don’t think of it. I wouldn’t want you to go to the trouble.’
‘No trouble – I’d enjoy it,’ he said quickly. I was being too nice. Time to make myself clear.
‘Look, Geoff, I don’t really care about how the house looks, OK? Just forget about it.’
He shrugged. ‘Sure.’ Then, as I fumbled for the door
handle
, his hand shot across and held it. His arm pressed against me, pushing me back against the seat. ‘Sarah,’ he said throatily. ‘Wait.’
‘Get off me!’ My throat and chest had tightened and I was struggling to breathe. ‘Geoff, let go!’
‘I just want to talk,’ he whispered, undoing his seatbelt. ‘Sarah …’
He took his hand off the door handle so he could clamp both hands to my face and draw it closer to his. He was far, far stronger than me. I realised with detachment that he was going to kiss me and there was nothing I could do about it. His mouth came down on mine and I pressed my lips together primly, repulsed by the sucking lips and probing, wet tongue that was trying to pry them apart. I reached past him to find the horn and hit it with as much force as I could muster. It was shatteringly loud, the sound waves vibrating through the car.
‘Jesus,’ he howled, leaping back. ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’
‘Leave me alone, Geoff,’ I said levelly. ‘I mean it. I’m not interested in you.’
Don’t leave him on bad terms
, a voice inside my head commanded.
You don’t want any staffroom drama, do you?
‘Listen, I’m just not in a position to take this any further at the moment. I’m not in the market for a relationship.’
‘Well, you only had to say that.’
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. He looked out through the windscreen and sighed. ‘Look, can I at least try to convince you that I could make a good friend, if nothing else?’
I squirmed. ‘Geoff, you don’t have to—’
‘I want to,’ he said.
And it’s all about you, isn’t it?
It was my turn to sigh. ‘Whatever you like.’ I picked up my bag. ‘Look, Geoff, I’m knackered. Thanks for the lift. No hard feelings?’
‘No hard feelings.’
As I got out of the car, I looked up at the house across the road, Danny Keane’s house. Something had attracted my attention. Movement. The classic suburban curtain twitch. I turned and began to limp up the drive, going as fast as I could.
As if Geoff hadn’t provided enough interest to the neighbours already, he rolled down his window and called after me, ‘You’re something special, Sarah, you know. I’ll see you soon.’
I didn’t dare turn around. I was inside, locking and bolting the door when he finally drove away with a valedictory toot on the horn. I leaned against the door and made a noise born of pure frustration. Now he knew exactly where I lived, always assuming that he hadn’t already. Either he or I had slipped up. It was my fault if I had mentioned the Wilmington Estate in his hearing, but if he had found out by some other means, he had just blown it. I wasn’t at all sure that I believed his
you’ll-have-to-direct-me-from-here
line. He was the sort of person who wouldn’t give up until he knew everything there was to know.
He knew the house
, I thought. He had seen it before. Maybe he had been watching me. I shivered, suddenly cold, my damp clothing clinging to me. I had always thought Geoff was creepy but essentially harmless – what if I had been wrong?
What
if he had known exactly where to touch me to get a reaction? What if he was responsible for the bruises? What if he knew that I didn’t have car keys and would need a lift home?
I swallowed, trying to calm down.
Colleague, not threat
, I assured myself.
Interest is not obsession. Friendliness is not stalking
. Even if he had mugged me, he couldn’t have known I wouldn’t have a spare set of car keys. He couldn’t have been sure I wouldn’t have got a lift from someone else.
I needed to stop worrying about Geoff, because I certainly hadn’t managed to get rid of him. Somehow I had found myself promising to get to know him better. Somehow I had brought him right to my door. It might have been the paranoia again, but I had a feeling that had been his plan all along.
I push the door to Charlie’s room and it swings open. I stand on the landing, listening, holding my three Barbie dolls by their legs. Mum is downstairs, watching television. It’s a cold, wet day, too cold to play outside. I don’t have to go back to school for another week, but I’m looking forward to it. The days have been empty and dull since Charlie disappeared. I miss the routine of school, the fun of it. I miss my friends. The rain spatters the windows and a car swishes past the house, there one second and gone the next. I take a step into Charlie’s room, and another. The carpet feels strange, different from the one on the landing or in my room. It’s thicker, springy under my feet. I had forgotten; it’s weeks since I have been in here. I know I’m not really supposed to be here at all, but I don’t care. If I’m quiet, Mum will never know.
I tiptoe around the room, looking at Charlie’s things. The bedroom still smells of him, that
boy
smell of dirt and socks. It’s nice to smell him; I miss him. I settle down on the floor, leaning up against the bed, and lay my dolls out beside me.
I sit and play for a while. I put on a fashion show, walking my favourite Barbie up and down my legs while the others watch. I have forgotten where I am, and when I hear a noise from the doorway, I don’t look up at first.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Mum is standing there, looking down at me, and the look on her face is scary. She’s white and her eyes are staring. I put my dolls down without looking away from her.
‘I’m just playing, Mum.’
‘Playing?’ She reaches over and grabs a handful of my hair, hauling me to my feet.
I cry out, ‘Mum, you’re hurting me.’
She shakes me, still holding me by the hair. ‘You don’t come in here, do you understand? You don’t come in here.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’ I’m crying now, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She is looking down at the dolls on the floor.
‘Pick them up.’
I obey, my eyes blurring with tears.
‘Give them to me.’
She has her hand out, waiting. I don’t know why she wants them. There’s nothing I can do but give them up. With her other hand, she
grabs
hold of my arm and pulls me out of Charlie’s room, shoving me through the door of my bedroom.
‘Stay in here until I tell you to come out,’ she says, and I am suddenly aware of the sweet-sour smell that means she has been drinking again. She pulls the door closed and I sit down on the edge of my bed and howl, really bawl. I have got to the stage of crying where I think I might be sick when I hear something from outside the house. Coughing, I get up and look out of the window.
Mum is standing by the bins at the kerb. She takes the lid off our bin and wedges my dolls in, head first, among all the rubbish bags. She crams the lid back on and comes back to the house, shutting the front door with a bang. My nose is running and I need to pee, but I can’t open the bedroom door; I’m too frightened of what she would do if she found me on the landing, disobeying her again. I can’t quite believe that she has put my dolls in the bin. I can’t believe that she won’t go and get them before the bin men come. But in my heart, I know that they are gone for good.
It’s late when I wake up and for a moment I don’t know why my throat is sore. There is a weight on the side of the bed. My father is sitting there, with one hand on my back and the other supporting his chin.
‘Are you all right, monkey?’
I nod, then remember in a rush what happened. ‘My dolls …’
‘Sorry, Sarah. They’re gone.’ Dad leans over and kisses my cheek. ‘I know you didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I’ll take you shopping on Saturday. We’ll buy you some new dolls, OK? Better dolls.’
I don’t want new dolls. I loved the old ones. I imagine them in the bin lorry, all broken and mangled, or lying in the dirt at the dump with muck in their hair, surrounded by rubbish.
Dad is looking at me, worry in his eyes, and I sit up and put my arms around his neck. I let him think that I’m excited about the new dolls. I let him think that he’s fixed everything, that I’m not upset any more. I let him be happy to have made me happy.
It’s what he wants.
I DIDN’T ALLOW
myself to look behind me more than a couple of times on the way to the library the following day. I had called in sick again, and I couldn’t help worrying that someone from school would see me out and about in Elmview town centre, manifestly capable of sitting around in an empty school. It would reopen properly on Monday, Janet had said, which meant that I needed to make the most of today. Normality would reassert itself eventually, though at the moment ordinary everyday existence seemed completely out of reach.
The boards advertising newspapers outside Elmview’s newsagents were the most obvious sign that things were not normal – H
UNT FOR
J
ENNY’S
K
ILLER
read one. S
TOLEN
A
NGEL
read another, with the usual picture of her. She did look angelic, and Vickers had managed to keep the fact of her pregnancy out of the news so far. There was no sign that interest in her murder was subsiding. It was still a huge story, as the news crews roaming the streets of the town suggested. There were other things too that made me shiver: police notices appealing for information in the windows of almost every shop, and flowers left outside the church where the memorial service had been. People walking past me looked
nervous
, haunted, and I felt as if everyone I passed was talking about it.
The town was quiet, but that was hardly unusual. The residents of Elmview divided their custom between Guildford and Kingston when it came to proper shopping; the tiny town centre was strictly for the basics. It was dying slowly, small businesses withering away week by week and nothing replacing them. The only surprise was how long the whole process was taking.
The local council wasn’t going to give in without a fight, though. The library had been recently refurbished and the tang of fresh paint still hung in the air, making my nose sting. There was a queue of people in front of me, but by the time I reached the librarian’s desk, I still hadn’t worked out what to say. The librarian was young and had obviously taken great care to differentiate herself from the dowdy-cardigan stereotype: full make-up, poker-straight highlighted hair, a skimpy top and narrow black trousers tucked into wedge-heeled boots. The nametag she wore was too heavy for the fabric of her top, dragging it down to reveal a canyon of bony sternum. I squinted at the nametag, eventually determining that her name was Selina. Almost before I had finished explaining that I wanted to look at the archive of newspaper files, she bounded up from behind her desk.
‘We’ve actually got all the back issues of the local paper archived on CD-ROM, going back to 1932. What are you looking for exactly?’
‘Oh – er, local history, basically,’ I said, reflecting that
I
should have thought up a credible cover story before launching into a conversation about it. ‘I’d like to start from … let’s say 1992.’
‘Is that when you moved here or something?’ the librarian asked, leading the way to a computer terminal. I followed her, not answering.
‘This is really a fantastic system. They did it for the millennium. If you’d been here a few years ago, you would’ve had to look at the files on microfiche. They were a nightmare – the reader was always breaking down, and it was so noisy,’ Selina prattled, making a fair amount of noise herself. She tapped in a password. ‘Before that, it was all bound copies of the paper – massive, leather-bound books. They took up so much room. Now, you’re looking for 1992 …’
I found it ironic that a librarian should find actual books objectionable, but I didn’t say that to Selina, who was exploring a filing cabinet that stood beside the terminal. She slid open a drawer, flicking through the contents at lightning speed. The drawer was filled with CDs in plastic sleeves.
‘I’ve got local news for 1992 on this disc and I can give you national as well, if you like.’
‘Local and national would be brilliant, thanks. If I want to look at any other years, can I find them myself?’
‘Absolutely, as long as you remember to sign them out.’ She showed me a clipboard that was kept on top of the filing cabinet. ‘Put in the date, the time, your name and the serial number of the CD. And don’t try to put them back when you’re finished; just bring them over to the
desk
. I’ll file them again. It’s not a complicated system, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t seem to be able to follow it. I’m not saying that you would get it wrong, but we just have a rule, you see. Oh, and there’s a printer under the desk; you can print out anything you like and there’s a charge of five pence a page that you pay when you’re finished. It’s not bad value, really. We don’t make a profit from it, or anything. It would cost twice that at an internet café, though I suppose they have to keep an eye on the bottom line.’