Kiss Her Goodbye: The most addictive thriller you'll read this year Page 23

  I ease my foot off the accelerator so that we’re barely moving and despite it being a busy high street he’s easy to spot. I notice his long strides as he crosses the road in front of the grocer’s.

  Christmas wreaths hang from the grocer’s window and, inside, the crates of tangerines and sprouts are neatly stacked. I’ve offered to work this year so that I don’t have to think about it. I’m just going to let it pass by, as if it’s a day like any other, and I won’t be paying the deposit for the work’s do. I’m not interested.

  Michael Lancaster checks his pocket before going inside and I’m glad that I’ve seen him, because it means that he’s still in the area.

  Nick looks over to me.

  ‘Wake up. The lights have changed.’

  He looks sideways at the shops. ‘Was that who I think it was?’

  I don’t bother to pretend. ‘Yeah, he never came into the station like he said he would.’

  ‘Probably slipped his mind.’

  I don’t see how it would. I press down hard on the accelerator and drive away. I’m not going to get into another discussion with Nick about it. Everything Michael Lancaster does appears normal, but the niggle in the back of my mind about that family will not go. He may look OK, but so did Tom at first and so did Moira Timperley’s stepdad. Just because he isn’t known to us doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of the unspeakable.

  If Nick knew all the times I’d been down to the industrial estate and past the Reynolds’s house he’d probably go to the inspector and I’d be told to take time off. It doesn’t matter though, because I’m not going to tell him. I thought I needed to get my head straight, but sometimes it feels as if I’m the only one who can see things clearly.

  I avoid checking the mirror to see if he’s come out of the shop, because I know that Nick is looking at me.

  ‘There was a group of lads in the alley before the attack,’ I say, to make him think I’m not interested in Michael Lancaster, ‘probably from the estate.’

  ‘And glued up to the eyeballs.’

  ‘Reckon.’

  We make our way to the other side of town and park up at the edge of the council estate. Identical houses form octagons with scrubby grass squares in the middle. One of the net curtains moves as we get out of the car.

  ‘Glad you came the other night. It’s not been the same without you,’ he says.

  As I look over at him I can tell that he means it. I’ve probably given him more of a hard time than I realised.

  I slam the door and smile back. ‘Ta.’

  ‘You used to be the one dragging me out and now look at you.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’

  ‘Good to have you back again. Been a bit odd lately. Anyway…’

  ‘Careful, you’ll have me crying.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  I sniff. ‘Yeah. Thanks for coming round the other night.’

  He glances sideways at me, but I keep looking forwards. That’s the end of it. A couple of old fellas wait outside the pub for it to open as we walk towards the shops. We’ll be lucky if anyone tells us anything. This will be another waste of our time. Three skinny girls with their hair pulled tight into ponytails and matching Adidas tops stare at us as we cross the road. The words ‘TORY SCUM’ are spray-painted on the wall behind them in white letters. One of them spits on the floor and stares back with narrow eyes as Nick sneers. He doesn’t understand them as I do. There’s an honesty here that’s missing from Kirsten Green’s neighbourhood, with its trimmed lawns and neatly painted window ledges.

  As we leave the girls behind the desire to go back to Michael Lancaster is so strong that it makes my stomach tighten. It’s getting to me. I could run for days and lie awake through a hundred sleepless nights and it wouldn’t make any difference. Being like this isn’t helping anyone.

  I remember imagining what it would feel like to walk into the river and end the pain. It could be what Kirsten Green did and I’ll never know. I just hope that Hayley Reynolds will contact me if she needs me. She’s memorised my number and I’ve done all I can. Whatever happened to Kirsten Green is the river’s secret now and perhaps it’s time that I just accepted it.

  30

  Hayley Reynolds

  It’s strange not having Mike around. The house is quieter, but it feels emptier too. Mum holds her wine glass with careful fingers so as not to smudge her newly painted yellow fingernails.

  ‘And why did you tell Dr Tibbs that Mike has been upsetting you?’ she says. ‘He’s been nothing but good to you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She phoned me.’

  ‘I was joking with her. She’s an idiot.’

  ‘You just can’t tell the truth. Your dad used to say it all the time.’

  ‘Well, she’s got it wrong.’

  ‘I don’t care what you’ve said to her about Mike. Just untell her, please,’ she says, as she takes a sip of wine. ‘He’s coming tomorrow. I need to get things straight.’

  ‘Why? He lied to you.’

  She sniffs. ‘It’s like you want to drive him away.’

  ‘Like you drove Dad away?’

  I dare her to challenge it with a knowing look and when she doesn’t I use the thing that really gets to her. ‘I wish I was with him instead of you.’

  As she stands up the wine from her glass spills. ‘You’re lucky you don’t remember what he was really like. France doesn’t know what’s coming,’ she says, before she walks out of the room.

  There’s nobody to pretend to when Mike isn’t here and she’s back to her old self, but it’s better this way – less confusing. She’s wrong though; I do remember what he was like. I remember the people that he’d bring to the house when she was upstairs. The woman with glazed eyes that he’d take into the other room and the man with the dirty fingernails. I know that Dad used to get angry with her. I heard the shouts from behind the door. He told me how much he loved her though and how he loved me too.

  Sometimes, I wake up and taste the water in my throat and remember the feeling of hands pressing me down and I’m there again: in the bath looking up at a blurred shape through the water as if it happened yesterday. All I know is that Dad loved me. She can make up all the excuses she wants, but she was never there when I needed her. He just wanted what was best for me and she never did.

  ‘Anywhere would be nicer than here,’ I shout after her, but she doesn’t reply. She spends her whole life ignoring things.

  *

  The next day, I look out of Mum’s bedroom window to check for Mike. A couple of kids are throwing a tennis ball up the street, but there’s no sign of Mike’s car. As the church chimes three, I hear familiar laughter from down the road and see Leila coming out of Stefan’s house.

  He stands in the doorway and pulls her towards him, before they kiss. He holds the back of her neck and the light catches her hair, making it shine like all the reds of autumn. I remember the smell of her and the sweet taste of strawberries; it’s like being twisted inside out. They laugh, before Leila walks away. She doesn’t once look over at my house. As the wind blows through her curls, I could scream.

  After she’s gone, I see brown muddy footsteps on his path and can almost smell the thick mud from the riverbank. Kirsten wants them both and I can’t do anything about it. My head hurts and my palm itches, because it’s getting out of control again. The bad thoughts have spread like ink drops in water and I can’t stop them. I think about being different, but the old feelings bob up to the surface and won’t be pushed down.

  I stay in Mum’s bedroom and watch the neighbours park their cars in neat lines along the pavement, until Mike arrives. He leaves his car off the drive and knocks on the door instead of using his key.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come back,’ I hear Mum say from downstairs, which is a lie because she’s wearing her best dress.

  He coughs and mumbles something back to her and for some reason it doesn’t feel terrible to hear his voice again.

  ‘Sh
e’s upstairs,’ Mum says. ‘This is about us, not her.’

  ‘This isn’t easy for any of us.’

  Five minutes later, the front door slams and I watch them walk down the road towards The Crown. They’re gone for hours and when they come back it’s past eleven. I hear a crash as someone knocks over the hat stand in the hall and then laughter. He stays all night.

  When I wake up in the morning, a white piece of paper has been pushed under my door that says:

  We need to talk.

  I fold up the note and put it in between the jumpers in my wardrobe. I can almost smell the desperation coming off the paper.

  *

  News Today, the local television programme, comes to college and there’s an excited hum in the air. They’re here because of Kirsten, but everyone is more bothered about how they look than with what happened to her. The receptionist is wearing pink lipstick and the toilets are full of girls spraying their hair.

  Maxine walks past me with three of her friends and looks me over as she passes. I’ve phoned her nearly every night this week. I started it after Kirsten died, but I got a taste for it. Sometimes I hear the panic in her voice before she slams the phone down and on other days there’s just silence as we wait to see who will hang up first. On Tuesday she waited half an hour before putting down the receiver. It’s a game we play now.

  ‘He’s taking me to Paris for the weekend. An early Christmas present,’ I hear her say, as she twists her necklace around her fingers.

  ‘What will your mum say?’ Beth asks.

  ‘Oh, I’ll just tell her I’m at yours.’

  Beth presses her lips together. ‘Go on, tell us what he does, then, at least. Is he married?’

  Maxine laughs. ‘I told you. I can’t say.’

  Beth squeals. ‘What if he’s going to propose?’

  I open my mouth to say something, but change my mind. She’s seeing Mr Phillips, the English teacher. His Morris Minor was parked at the end of her road on Tuesday night and I’ve seen the way that they look at each other in the corridor. As I watch her smirk I know that she should have been the one in the river. If she hadn’t bullied Kirsten, then everything would be different. She took her away from me before we even had a chance.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ Maxine says.

  I could punch her, but I can almost feel Kirsten’s hands on my shoulders, the smell of her hair as she leans in and the warmth of her breath in my ear as she tells me what I need to do instead. Maxine Turner must go. She’s a scab that wants picking and it doesn’t matter if it hurts afterwards. I don’t know how long I stand there, but when I come to my senses the pair of them are gone and I’m all on my own.

  It’s an odd feeling as I walk through the empty corridors and make my way to see the counsellor that Dr Tibbs arranged. My thoughts stop and my feet just take me there.

  I knock on the wooden door below the silver plaque that simply says, ‘Room 4,’ and a voice tells me to, ‘Come in.’

  I expect to be greeted by a silver-haired old woman, but when I go in the counsellor is young with healthy pink skin and a bob. When she introduces herself I hardly listen, because I do want to talk to someone. I want to ask her if what happened outside when I blanked out is normal, but I don’t know what to say. I want to tell her about Dad too and all the dark feelings inside me. As she taps her pen against her chin it’s never been harder to speak.

  ‘Next time try to be on time. I’ve got a schedule so…’ she says, with a smile that looks angry.

  I look down at my feet. What’s real isn’t the same as what’s made up. There’s too much to say.

  ‘Just start at the beginning.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  The muscles around her mouth tighten, but she keeps up the smile.

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  I’m nervous and I don’t know if I’m making a mistake. I will start with what happened after Mum got pregnant, because that’s when it all went wrong. As I try to find the right words she makes a clicking sound with her tongue. I pause to think, but she interrupts me before I start.

  ‘Just try to relax.’

  She moves her chair forwards and nods her head.

  ‘Don’t worry. Anything you want to tell me is confidential.’

  Now that she’s close, she smells like carbolic soap.

  ‘Strictly confidential.’ She nods again. When she says ‘confidential’ it feels like a lie and her nodding reminds me of the dogs you get in the back of cars. It’s a technique she’s got to make me talk and she must think I’m dumb. I’m not interested in being manipulated. My life is not a game.

  ‘OK, so shall we start with whatever’s on your mind right now. Anything at all.’

  ‘Spaghetti.’

  She sighs, and it’s obvious that there isn’t anyone that wants to listen. They hear what they want to and there’s no point talking to this woman or anyone else. I’ve kept everything inside me for so long that it’s where it lives now. Without it, I’d probably be empty like the rest of them. I think about the darkness outside and the darkness inside; how they’ve blended into one. Sometimes, I think it’s gone, but it hasn’t. It’s always there underneath. I know that now. It’s just taken this long to accept it.

  She sits there with a blank pad of lined paper ready to write down everything about me, while the thoughts swirl around my head. Behind her are shelves and shelves of books with smooth unbroken spines and I’d like to tell her now that I won’t fit into any of her pre-defined categories. I’m a book all of my own.

  ‘You can talk to me about anything at all,’ she says.

  ‘I made pasta last night, but it wasn’t that good.’

  ‘Right.’

  It’s easier to tell her about the things that don’t matter and work up to the things that do. The words pour out of me as I tell her about the kingfisher picture on the living-room wall. I tell her that male kingfishers’ beaks are all black while the females have orange under the beak. She sits in silence and the white pad on her knee remains blank. As she clicks the top of her pen I’m about to tell her about the day I woke up and Dad wasn’t there any more, but she interrupts me before I have chance.

  ‘This is voluntary. You do realise that?’

  It’s like a slap.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t take a genius to see you’re not really up for this. You’ve spent the last five minutes talking about kingfishers and spaghetti. If you change your mind just make another appointment. It’s always the same when Dr Tibbs books someone in. Shall we call it a day, then?’

  I don’t tell her that Dad taught me everything about kingfishers. I don’t tell her any of the secrets we shared in the kingfisher hide. I don’t tell her that his pasta was better than the Italian restaurant’s where we’d go for a treat on pay day or that Kirsten Green wound spaghetti round her fork more delicately than anyone I’ve ever seen. I don’t tell her anything, because she doesn’t deserve it.

  I know that later Dr Tibbs will ask how it went so I recite the lyrics of ‘Sub-Culture’ in my head so that I don’t tell her to go fuck herself. She smiles a wide grin as I get up and gives me a card, which I throw in the bin by the main entrance. As I leave she tells me to, ‘Just drop in any time if you want a chat.’

  I resist the urge to ask, ‘What for if you don’t listen?’ and give her a smile back instead. I just don’t understand people at all.

  31

  Hayley Reynolds

  Outside, it’s cold enough to see my breath. A white seagull lands on the college field and stands alone on the dark green grass. I notice Leila standing near the doors and walk over to her.

  ‘They’re interviewing people about Kirsten Green,’ she says, with a nod towards the common room. ‘It’s horrible.’

  ‘Reporters’

  Leila looks down at my arm wh
ere the cuts are and I pull my jumper down so that they’re hidden. She bites the end of her thumb. ‘Didn’t see you in English.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve been…’ she pauses ‘…acting funny. I don’t know what to think.’

  I look down at the fishnet stockings she’s wearing under her skirt. She’s the one changing, not me. I’ve always been the same.

  ‘I went to see the counsellor. Waste of time.’

  She opens her mouth to say something and changes her mind. We stand in silence for a minute before she puts her hand on my shoulder. Her touch is so gentle that I can hardly feel it, but I don’t want it to stop. A boy walks past with his friend, laughing as we used to, and she takes her hand away.

  ‘You OK?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah. I had some stuff on my mind, but I’m all right. So what’s happening with you?’

  She looks down at the floor. ‘Stefan asked me out.’ She shrugs. ‘I said yes.’

  I turn to look at her. I would give anything to take her to the river where we can be alone.

  ‘It doesn’t bother me. We’re not together any more.’

  She speaks slowly. ‘He said you never really were.’

  She just doesn’t get it.

  ‘He would.’

  She gets out a cigarette and lights it.

  ‘He said Mike chased him off when he brought a book back to yours?’

  I squint at her. He lies to her too, of course he does.

  ‘Mike’s nuts. So’s Stefan.’

  ‘We’re going to the pictures tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Just the two of us. So you know.’

  ‘I said I don’t care and I don’t.’

  She sighs as an aeroplane moves across the sky.

  ‘I’m worried about you.’

  She puts the cigarette to her mouth and inhales. I turn to look at her, but I don’t know if she means it or if she’s just saying the words.

  ‘Barbara says…’ she continues.

  I press my nails into my hand. ‘She says a lot.’

  She exhales. ‘I just wanted to check you’re all right.’ She nods at my arms. ‘It doesn’t look like you are though.’