Kiss Her Goodbye: The most addictive thriller you'll read this year Read online

  ‘Have you seen anyone today?’

  ‘No. No one. It’s been really boring.’

  Lies come easier than the truth these days and I put my hand over the knife and slip it into my back pocket.

  ‘Are you seeing Mad Max later?’ I ask him as I lean back and adjust my bra strap.

  ‘That’s next week. Don’t know why your mum’s so desperate to see it.’

  I groan. ‘Cause of Mel Gibson?’

  ‘Oh right. Should have realised it wasn’t for Tina Turner.’ He smiles. I lean forwards and smile at him as Mum steps into the kitchen. ‘Oh, hi,’ Mike says, and puts his head down.

  ‘Where were you?’ she asks.

  ‘Working.’

  Mum frowns, and turns to me on the counter. ‘Get down off there.’

  Mike smiles, but she doesn’t.

  ‘Where’s Leila? I thought she was coming round for tea, or have you upset her again?’

  ‘Maybe she’s upset me.’

  ‘Stefan knocked on earlier for you.’ Mum turns to Mike. ‘He’s another one. Used to set fire to things. A pyrotechnic.’

  ‘Maniac,’ replies Mike.

  ‘Exactly. So it’s no wonder. You should apologise to Leila. You don’t have any friends as it is.’

  I jump down from the worktop and walk out to the hall. ‘I’m not listening to this.’

  Mike follows, but Mum doesn’t.

  ‘She’s just worried about you.’

  ‘No, she’s not,’ I reply. ‘She’s in a mood because you’ve been out and she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’

  I pause, to give her a chance to tell me that she’s sorry, but she doesn’t.

  ‘Just let her go,’ she says, from behind the door.

  ‘Yeah, thanks for nothing,’ I answer, before I walk out.

  ‘What about your chips?’ Mike shouts after me, but I shut the door on him and walk down the path.

  *

  The road is quiet, but full of parked cars, and the faint scent of stew comes from one of the houses. I walk along the grass verge and kick the heads off the dandelions until my socks are covered in seeds. When I look up, I’m outside Mrs Green’s. It’s the same as all the other houses on the street: terraced, with long windows and red bricks. It has a black swirling number eight on the front. I look up at the red blinds in the top window and imagine the empty bedroom with A-ha posters on the walls and the silent stereo in the corner. I only followed Kirsten home once. She looked over her shoulder and I didn’t do it again. I’d walk past sometimes and hope she’d come out, but she never did. It feels odd standing here now.

  Through the open front door, I can see the rose-patterned wallpaper and I decide to go in, but when I open the gate Mrs Green stands up from behind one of the shrubs. She’s got a trowel in her hand and the smear of dirt on her cheek reminds me of that day by the river. As she returns my smile, she has the same dimple on her cheek that Kirsten had and I take a step closer to the red flowers growing by her feet.

  ‘Your garden’s nice.’

  ‘Just tucking the bulbs in ready for spring.’

  I smile at this. It’s almost as if she knows what I’ve been hoping for and it makes me feel good inside.

  ‘Our garden’s all grass. It’s like my house, horrible.’

  I’m not lying, because even though our house is cleaner than a show home, there’s something underneath the polish that’s rancid, something that wouldn’t come off if we scrubbed it till our fingers bled. I look through the door at the floral painting in her hall. The flowers are pink and fat like the ones on my New Order album and it’s a sign that we’re meant to be together.

  ‘Power, corruption and lies.’ I sniff, and nod at the painting. ‘The flower picture.’

  She looks confused. ‘It’s a basket of roses. You all right, hun?’

  Her voice is nice, a bit Irish perhaps, and I like the way she calls me ‘hun’ as if she has a special name for me.

  ‘Just had a massive argument with my mum.’

  She wipes her hands on her tabard and looks up at the clouds.

  ‘Well, sometimes that seems like the end of the world, but it’s not.’

  ‘She doesn’t want me around. All she cares about is her boyfriend.’

  Mrs Green raises an eyebrow. ‘Probably just the way it seems. You should talk to her about it.’

  ‘He looks at me weird all the time, you know? He’s not right.’

  Mrs Green frowns and I stop talking because there’s a chance that she can tell the difference between the truth and the lies and I want her to like me.

  ‘Where are you going now?’

  ‘Just for a walk. I’ll go back when they’re drunk and can’t be bothered arguing.’ I emphasise the word ‘drunk’ to shock her, but she doesn’t look shocked at all.

  ‘Not by the river.’ Her voice is stern, but kind. ‘Don’t go there alone. It’s not safe.’

  She looks angry and it’s obvious that she doesn’t think Kirsten’s death was an accident.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know the truth, even if the police don’t.’

  ‘What is the truth?’

  As she presses her lips together I can’t help wondering if she knows it was me. The telephone rings from inside the house and she reaches inside the tabard she’s wearing, grabs my hand and turns it over, palm up. It surprises me, but I let her do it. Her hands are peppered with black soil as she tips some little bulbs into my palm. There are so many that some fall onto the grass by our feet.

  ‘You take these for your garden, hun. Your house is the one with the cherry tree, isn’t it? You always get better fruit than I do.’

  I close my fingers so that their dry skin is against mine.

  ‘It’s weird how they look dead and then come back alive again, isn’t it?’ I ask.

  I can’t help picturing Kirsten under the soil. Wiping the thick mud out of her eyes and digging her way through the bulbs and worms to get out.

  ‘Was she planted in her nightie?’ I ask, but Mrs Green starts to walk towards the ringing phone in the house.

  ‘Yes, you can plant them day or night-time, just make sure they’re pointing up, about that deep.’ She makes a gap between her finger and thumb to show me what she means. ‘Right, better get that.’ She nods at the house. ‘You’re all right, then, you sure now, hun?’

  She turns around in the doorway to look at me and even though we look different – her in her dirty polo neck and me in my fluorescent socks – we aren’t. We’re just like the little bulbs in my hand: different, but the same.

  ‘If you need somewhere to go, you’re always welcome, day or night. My door’s always open.’

  The hall looks cosy, with an oak hat-stand and a vase of flowers on a little table and I fight the urge to go inside now.

  ‘OK, thanks. I’d like that.’

  The door closes and her words stick with me. You’re always welcome, day or night. It’s the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me and as I stare at the paint peeling off the wooden front door I have to force myself to leave.

  13

  Hayley Reynolds

  The ivy hangs in hair-like strands from the trees and spins in the wind as I sit at my favourite bench by the river. Dad told me that, in the past, people used to hang dead kingfishers upside down from a cord, so that their beaks showed the direction of the wind like a weathervane. I poke my shoe in and out of the slimy yellow leaves and run the blade of Mike’s penknife along the wet flesh of a twig in my hand. The bark comes off in one satisfying piece and I let it drop on the floor next to me while the water laps against the bank.

  As the sun starts to fall from the sky I lie down on the bench and close my eyes. I try to imagine what it’s like to be dead and cold like Kirsten, but even if I hold my breath I can’t. I think about her hanging from the ivy, twisting upside down on the breeze like a dead kingfisher. Beverley Samuels was right. They’re beautiful, even if they are cruel. As the river rush
es past I hear footsteps on the sandy path and when I open my eyes, Stefan is walking towards me.

  I sit up and put the knife back in my pocket.

  ‘You’re here again,’ he says, before he sits down. ‘There’s no getting away from you these days.’

  He’s wearing his favourite black donkey jacket with the orange stripe on the back and his Meat Is Murder tee shirt. He thinks it makes him look alternative, but he just looks like everyone else. He lifts his hand as if he’s going to put it round me and scratches the back of his head instead. He’s the first boy I kissed and I remember the warmth of his lips on mine on that cold December evening.

  He flicks open his silver Zippo and the familiar smell of lighter fluid reminds me of the fun we used to have together.

  ‘Still setting the world on fire?’ I ask.

  ‘That’s more your thing, isn’t it?’ He flips it shut, as naturally as clicking his fingers. ‘Just bored.’

  ‘Want to go to the warehouse? It’s cold out here,’ I say.

  When I turn to look up at him, he’s smiling. I can tell that he thinks I’m asking for something else, but I wasn’t. It feels good though, because no one else ever wants me. I just exist near them, unnoticed, like a piece of furniture.

  ‘OK.’

  On our way there, the grass is clumpy and full of holes. I nearly fall a couple of times, but I manage to keep my footing.

  ‘Maxine was out of order the other day. Tripped Leila up outside the canteen,’ he says.

  ‘She’s a nasty cow.’

  ‘We should get rid of her.’

  He slices his finger across his throat and then sticks out his tongue as if he’s dead. I laugh. If he knew how good I am at getting rid of people he wouldn’t make jokes like that. The warehouse is boarded up, but he kicks the panel at the side to loosen the door and goes in.

  It’s dark inside and there’s a smell of oil and machinery. He twists on the heel of his boots and the gravelly sound echoes around the empty walls as I wait near the door. He walks over to the corner of the room, to sit on the old mattress that we dragged in from the field in the summer, and looks up at me.

  ‘It’s dry,’ he says, and pats it, for me to sit next to him. ‘Hey, it’s nearly your birthday, isn’t it, Bonfire Night?’

  ‘You remembered,’ I reply as I walk over.

  ‘Hard to forget.’ He looks down at the floor. I smile and listen to the slow drip of water from a hole in the roof as it hits an old printing press in the corner. ‘I’ve decided to do an art degree,’ he says.

  ‘What for?’

  He laughs and looks up. ‘So I can be a sculptor.’

  ‘Why?’

  His face drops. I think about Mum and how she can get men to do everything that she wants. I’m OK at it too, but just not as good as her yet.

  ‘I’d make a good life model,’ I say as I sit down next to him.

  ‘You make me laugh sometimes.’

  I smile at him as though he’s perfect, even though he isn’t. Close up, he smells musty, like the old mattress, and his hair hasn’t been washed for a while.

  ‘Oh, shit, I’m out,’ he says, and pulls out his pocket to reveal the purple satin lining. I reach into mine and take out a small silver-wrapped condom. I’m on the pill too, but I’m not taking any chances. There’s no way that I’m going to be stuck with a kid that I don’t want.

  ‘I meant fags.’

  I laugh. ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Erm, yeah, I did. Got any?’

  I think of Kirsten. Nothing can give me a rush like the one I got from her and I shut my eyes, in case she’s in one of the dark corners. Saving her was the only good thing I’ve done. It makes me realise that being with Stefan doesn’t do anything for me any more. It’s fine for a bit of fun, but I’m never going to feel the way I used to. We’ve done it so many times that there’s nothing new about it. Everything about Kirsten was so different. Even that one afternoon we spent together was better than a hundred dates with him. Sometimes I wish she were still alive, but then I remember the crying by the river. The sobs went on and on and on and now she’s free. Sometimes it hurts to do the right thing. She’s always with me now though. Kirsten’s name is chiselled through my bones forever.

  I close my eyes and imagine that she’s sitting on the end of the mattress. I can almost feel it sag under her weight, but when I open them again, there’s only us here. He waits for me to tell him that I love him, with eyes that are hopeful, but I don’t. I take out my cigarettes and put one in his mouth. He moves back.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ve missed this,’ I say, not meaning it.

  He straightens the cigarette in his mouth to light it and smiles. ‘I’ve missed you. It’s been a while.’ He exhales.

  He doesn’t interest me any more. It’s not just because he’s a boy. It’s because he’s the boy that he is. I’d like to be flung back and kissed hard on the lips like in the films, but it’s never like that with him. Lying wet and flat by the mattress is a discarded condom from the last time we were here. A sad and shrivelled reminder of everything we’ve become.

  ‘We gonna do it or what?’

  He runs his hand through his greasy hair. ‘Would be rude not to.’

  ‘Be rude either way.’

  He smiles as I pull off my top. It doesn’t take him long. It never does.

  *

  When I get back home, Mike is in on his own watching television.

  ‘Your mum’s gone out with Karen,’ he says, ‘but she wants to talk to you when she gets back.’

  I sit down, on the other end of the sofa from him. ‘Can’t wait.’

  ‘Got A Nightmare on Elm Street from the video shop if you want to watch it?’

  ‘S’pose.’

  ‘You might not sleep after though.’

  I’ve got enough nightmares of my own already that one more won’t make any difference. I tuck my legs in, while Mike presses play on the video recorder, as if he’s been waiting for me. As the ‘coming soon’ starts, the heat from the gas fire warms the bottom of my legs and Mike wedges a bowl of toffee popcorn into the groove of the sofa in between us. I put a piece in my mouth and glance over at him.

  ‘I went out to find you after you’d gone,’ he says as he looks back at the screen with a rub of his beard.

  ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘I looked at the park, then the river. I was worried.’

  I think about the dirty cracked window in the warehouse and wonder if he saw us.

  ‘See anything you liked?’

  He exhales and the toffee popcorn on his breath is mixed with the smell of the coffee that he’s been drinking.

  ‘I’m not the enemy here. Me and your mum just want what’s best for you.’

  ‘I’ll put on a better show next time.’

  I run my fingers through my hair with both hands, stretch out my chest and lean back while he coughs and moves back into the sofa.

  ‘You talk in riddles sometimes,’ he says, with a glance down at my cut-off tee shirt, ‘and I don’t think you should be so…’

  ‘So what?’ I ask, but he won’t look me in the eye.

  ‘Never mind.’

  A receipt has fallen out of his pocket and I hold it up to see what it says. ‘Golden Duck? Very nice,’ I say. ‘Don’t remember Mum mentioning it.’

  ‘Business,’ he says, before he takes it out of my hand and scrunches it into a ball. Leila’s dad keeps receipts for his business too, from the clubs he takes his clients to. He doesn’t scrunch them up into a ball though: he keeps them in a shoebox in their conservatory. I sit back and look at Mike, but he won’t look at me. As I stare at the flecks in his beard, it’s so obvious that he’s hiding something. I’ve got a world of secrets buzzing around my head and I can spot it a mile off.

  Mum comes back earlier than I thought she would. She stands in the door, in her red pencil skirt and matching lipstick, and looks me over. ‘Decided to come home, then?’


  ‘Of course she did. She just needed some air,’ Mike says.

  ‘Well, I wish she wouldn’t just walk off like that. You don’t know who’s out there.’

  ‘Just high emotions. Oh, this is a good bit. Don’t do it, Nancy.’ Mike laughs, with a nod at the television.

  ‘I thought you took that film back? We’ll get another fine.’

  ‘Live a little,’ he replies.

  ‘You can invite Leila round tomorrow, if you want. Or someone else? I’m putting on a nice spread,’ she says to me sadly. She takes three steps sideways and I notice the bottle she’s carrying. I know that they’ll keep me awake with their laughter and muffled pig grunts later. She’s ruined the film, just as she ruins everything.

  ‘Or we could go to the Golden Duck?’ I say.

  Mike coughs and Mum looks at me as if I’m stupid. ‘Sure, if you’re paying,’ she says, before going in the kitchen to get glasses.

  ‘Probably more of a date place anyway,’ I shout through the kitchen door at her, as Mike stares at the television.

  ‘How was Karen?’ he asks.

  There’s the sound of glasses clinking before she comes back with two pink-ridged tumblers in her hand and sits in between us.

  ‘Drunk,’ she laughs. ‘She wants to get Cheryl back from Blackpool for a proper night out.’ Her breath smells of cigarettes and coconut, while her red heel points at me: dirty and scratched with mud on the tip.

  ‘Your dad’s coming in a few weeks,’ she says as she presses the glass against Mike’s lip and tips Malibu into his mouth.

  For a second I think she means Mike’s dad, until she turns to look at me. I sit up.

  ‘What?’

  She looks me in the eye. ‘He’s moving to France so he’s coming to get a few things.’

  I feel as if I’ve been hit in the belly.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Sooner the better. I just wish he’d get it over with.’

  Mike nudges her and she frowns. ‘What? So, now she knows. You know how I feel about it.’