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

  ‘I’m used to it.’

  ‘Still.’

  She tenses up and I realise that she doesn’t want to talk about him. I can understand that.

  ‘I’ll ring you if I remember anything else. I know the number. It’s in here.’ She taps her finger to her temple.

  ‘You memorised it?’

  Hayley turns and walks back to the house as though she hasn’t heard me, but she shouts back before she goes inside. ‘In case.’

  The door shuts with a hard slam. Everything she does makes me feel that there’s something she isn’t telling me. Why else would she learn my number off by heart?

  As I look back at the house, with its immaculate garden and spotless windows, I wonder if Hayley does know something about Kirsten Green or if she’s just another unhappy kid with issues. Whatever it is, I need to be careful. I’ve been here before. I was exhausted the night I went to see Moira Timperley after another sleepless night with Tom. I was told not to get too involved and I didn’t. On a different day I might have gone in for a chat. That night I decided to take the easy option and go home. Without Tom’s distractions I have focus again and my head’s clear. It’s been over a week since he’s been in touch. I’m functioning properly and I need to trust my instincts. If I’ve got a feeling that Hayley is hiding something, then I mustn’t dismiss it.

  As I start the car for Mrs Green’s, I wonder if Hayley Reynolds saw something that day: something that made her too afraid to speak to anyone.

  7

  DS Beverley Samuels

  When Mrs Green opens the door her face is blank, as Hayley’s was. Gone are the days when her eyes would widen with hope when she saw me. All hope has gone.

  ‘Come in,’ she says, without a smile, and leaves the door open for me to follow. As I walk in behind her, I’m aware of the quietness inside, the ticking of the old mahogany clock in the hall and the creak of the floorboards under my feet. I am reminded of the times I have put on the television just for a human voice to break the silence and the nights sitting in the semi-darkness with Tom’s number half-dialled. The thoughts in my head make me feel ashamed, because compared to her I don’t know anything about pain.

  She shows me into the living room and I sit on the same armchair as last time, as though there’s a place in her home that’s mine.

  ‘Her necklace?’ she asks.

  ‘Sorry, no.’

  I’ve memorised the pendant so well that I can almost imagine how the ridges of the engraved letters would feel in my hand. There hasn’t been any sign of it and I’ve found myself looking on the grassy verges by the riverbank for a glint of silver as I go on my run. I changed my route yesterday and went down to the common to look for it, where the old clay pits used to be, in case she’d been walking past her old school. This one small thing would be everything to Mrs Green, but we haven’t even managed that. I want to give her some good news, but there isn’t any.

  ‘We’ve circulated the photograph, but there’s a chance that it came off in the river,’ I tell her.

  I wonder if she’s picturing the black swirling water and the delicate body of her daughter. At least we’ve found her, I tell myself. She’s not out there alone in the darkness any more. That has to be something.

  ‘There were no marks on her. It wasn’t taken off her by force.’ I say this as a comfort, but it isn’t one. Her face drops. I dread to think what thoughts go through her head as she lies in bed at night.

  ‘I’ve been going to the river,’ she says, as she looks through the net curtains beyond the trees. ‘I know she didn’t do that to herself.’

  ‘We’re looking at all possibilities, but the evidence doesn’t suggest anyone else was involved. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Your evidence is wrong, then,’ she replies sharply. ‘She’d been revising for a test all weekend. She had a future.’

  ‘There’s a possibility that she fell in.’

  ‘She wasn’t stupid either.’

  I admire the way that she’s sure, but Kirsten Green may have stepped off the bank and we’ll never know why. No one knew her state of mind, not her mother, not her teachers and certainly not me. Hayley Reynolds said we were too late and perhaps she’s right.

  ‘I’ve been talking to some of her friends to try to get a better picture of what happened on the day she went missing.’

  ‘She didn’t have any friends.’

  She is unflinching in her certainty.

  ‘What about neighbours? Was she friends with any girls on the street?’

  ‘There was a girl, Hannah, she used to come round sometimes, but she moved away last summer.’

  ‘Hayley? Was she a friend of hers?’

  ‘Hannah. I don’t know any Hayley.’

  ‘A girl from up the road that goes to All Saints?’

  Mrs Green doesn’t have to think before she answers. ‘She wasn’t friends with a Hayley. She told me things. We were close.’

  ‘And no boyfriends?’

  Mrs Green’s eye twitches. ‘I told you before. No boyfriend. She was a good girl. She studied hard.’

  ‘Right.’

  It’s clear that Kirsten wouldn’t have confided in her if she did have a boyfriend and I wonder how well Mrs Green really did know her daughter, how well we really know anyone, even the people we sleep next to. I thought I knew Tom, but I might as well have been living with a stranger. He said he loved me, but he loved the drink and the football more than he ever loved me.

  ‘I pray that it won’t happen again. I fear for the girls out there,’ she says as she squeezes her hands together. ‘I really do fear for them.’

  ‘There’s no evidence that anyone else was involved.’

  I hear myself saying the words, but I don’t really believe them. I think that someone else was responsible. It crossed my mind that Mrs Green herself could be and as I look at the grieving woman in front of me, I wonder what this job has turned me into.

  ‘Perhaps stay away from the river yourself, until we get more answers.’

  She stares into my face. ‘I’ve nothing to fear from anyone.’

  Mrs Green would walk that river path at midnight and not blink an eye. She is outside what is normal in ways that I can’t begin to understand.

  I want to reiterate the point about the river, but I don’t. Who am I to tell her to do anything? I don’t stay for much longer. She has nothing else to tell me. If Hayley and Kirsten were friends, then Mrs Green didn’t know about it and neither did anyone at All Saints college.

  *

  When I get back to work, I take out the piece of paper from Michael Lancaster and ring his work’s telephone number. A woman answers.

  ‘This is DS Samuels from West Eaton Police Station. Do you have a Michael Lancaster working for you?’

  ‘Mike? Yes. Is he all right?’

  ‘Could you just confirm if he was working on the 20th September?’

  There’s a pause and the sound of papers being turned.

  ‘He was off sick.’

  ‘The week of 20th September?’

  ‘Yes, all that week. I’m just typing up the return-to-work details now. Is there a problem?’

  ‘No problem at all. Can I take your name, please?’

  ‘Yes, it’s Margaret. Margaret Jones.’

  ‘Thank you, Ms Jones. You’ve been very helpful.’

  When I put the phone down, I wonder why Michael Lancaster would say that he was working when he wasn’t. I also wonder why Hayley Reynolds wants me to know that he isn’t telling the truth.

  Nick walks over with a piece of paper in his hand. ‘We got the guy for the licences. There’s a garage owner we need to look at though.’

  He nods at the case file for Kirsten Green on the desk.

  ‘Been to Mrs Green’s again?’

  ‘And Hayley Reynolds’.’

  Nick picks up my pen and taps it against the side of his leg.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Her mum’s boyfriend said he was working when Kirsten G
reen went missing, but his work say he was on leave.’

  ‘Probably got his dates mixed up.’

  ‘I don’t like him and it still doesn’t feel like a suicide to me.’

  Nick pulls up a chair next to me. When he talks, it’s quiet. ‘You don’t think you’re over-compensating?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What happened on the Timperley case is done with. You weren’t to know.’

  I feel numb as he says her name. Moira Timperley’s face is the one that wakes me up at night. She was just a child. A girl only a year older than Kirsten Green and he was too busy cradling his ego to ask how it affected me. Afterwards, I lost his friendship as well as my confidence. I’m still grieving for a girl I didn’t know.

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Really?’

  I’d like to ask him where he was when I needed him six months ago, but I don’t. I thought we were more than just colleagues, that we had a connection, but he ignored me when I needed him the most. After that night we spent together I found out that he was never really a friend. He just pretended to be.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The girl was a serial liar and you did everything right.’

  To Nick, her death is just sad and unfortunate, but nothing to feel bad about. He has no idea.

  ‘I know I did.’

  ‘Do you?’

  She had an active imagination. A year previously, she’d accused a police officer of touching her and he’d been suspended from work while it was investigated. He’d resigned soon afterwards. The man who ran the youth club had made sure he wasn’t on his own with her because of it. She’d thought it was just a laugh. We all knew what she was like.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look, you’ve had a bad time lately. I know that you and Tom…’

  My muscles tighten. He’s no right to talk like this, as though he understands everything about me. He doesn’t.

  ‘Something’s not right about that family. Full stop. My personal life’s got nowt to do with it.’

  He can’t just show an interest when it suits him.

  Nick puts his hands up. ‘OK, sorry. Just run a marathon or do what you do these days to relax.’

  A year ago, I’d have phoned Jackie or Toni to sit in a pub with a few pints until the problems became a joke. They’re friends of Tom’s though and I haven’t kept in touch. Jackie used to come round most weekends with a video for the three of us to watch, but it stopped after I threw Tom out. It was easier to distance myself. There were too many emotions.

  ‘I’m doing my job properly. Try it some time,’ I say to Nick.

  ‘Harsh.’

  He pats me on the shoulder and I flinch. As he removes his hand I wonder if he noticed. He’s right. I do need to relax. Nick stands up and grabs the file from the desk. As he walks away I’d like to tell him that the Timperley case affected me in a good way: it’s made me determined that I’ll never miss something like that again, but he wouldn’t understand. I didn’t want Moira to end up with a record like her mum’s. When they moved house, Moira got better. She went back to college and got herself a Saturday job. I never thought the threat would come from her stepdad. I was more worried about who she was mixing with. I didn’t let her speak to me. Thinking that she tried makes everything worse.

  It would be nice to talk it over with Nick and if things were different I’d ask him to go for a drink, but he’d get the wrong idea. His indifference makes me realise that our friendship didn’t matter at all. His ego was always more important than I was.

  8

  Hayley Reynolds

  After college, I see Leila walking into the bus station, her red hair blowing in the wind with Wellington Mill behind her. The Victorian mill rises up into the sky with endless bays of rectangular windows. A foreboding seven-story structure that towers over us like a prison. When Leila sees me, she pulls her bag over her shoulder and walks over.

  ‘All right?’ she says.

  ‘Yeah. Just don’t feel like going home yet. What you up to?’

  ‘Well, I was waiting for…’

  I laugh. ‘What? Christmas? Wanna get some chips? I’ll pay.’

  Leila looks at her watch as the brakes of the bus hiss to a stop.

  ‘I don’t mind getting some for Barbara if you’re waiting for her,’ I say.

  Leila frowns. I’ve already seen Barbara get on the bus to town with two other girls, so it’s irrelevant.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Let’s go,’ she says, with a glance back over her shoulder. She’s chosen me over her. I knew it. She’s still mine. As we wait for everyone to get on the bus, I look around for Beverley Samuels and wish I could talk to Leila about it. There’s so much I want to say and can’t.

  We get off at George’s chippy and go inside. As the man wraps our chips Stefan rides past on his bike, combat jacket flapping in the breeze and hands off the handlebars. He sits upright as he passes and the bike swerves as he looks back over his shoulder to see if we’ve noticed. As he goes past the war memorial and through the red light at the top of the hill I’m glad that Leila didn’t see him. She would have called him over and we’d be stuck with him for the rest of the afternoon.

  We walk to the river and sit with our chips on the top of the concrete steps that lead down to the water. The current moves over the rocks and I pretend that no one else exists. The salt stings the cut on my bottom lip and the smell of the vinegar reminds me of eating chips with Dad after a day out by the beach. I think about the tinny music from the arcades and the orange lights along the pier as the waves lapped against the shingle. I must have been about four at the time, but I can remember it clearly. It’s the perfect dream: a place in my mind that exists only for me. I can almost smell the hot doughnuts from the stall near the arcade and the sound of dad’s laughter. I loved it there. We stayed out after dark and watched the lights on the boats as they came in across the sea. Dad carried me back to the car and I fell asleep in his arms.

  Leila fiddles with the CND badge on her coat as a muddy wave laps against the bottom of the steps. It’s the same badge that Barbara wears and she’s ruined our special time without even being here. The chips start to taste soggy, as if they’re yesterday’s, and I throw one into the river and watch it sink.

  ‘Maxine was slagging you off before,’ Leila says. ‘She thinks you asked out Daz Granger’

  ‘In his dreams. He’s full of shit.’

  Leila laughs.

  ‘He reckons his uncle had New Order in for questioning once.’

  ‘As if.’

  ‘I know. He’s such a dick. He’s never met Stephen Morris in his life.’

  Leila throws her chip paper into the river and it opens out like a bridal veil, before the current takes it across the brown water. I’m envious of her. The only thing that she has to worry about is getting caught in the pub without her fake ID. My thoughts are like a hundred angry wasps in my head and I never get any peace. Something moves in the bushes on the other side of the river.

  ‘Did you see that?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’

  I narrow my eyes to see through the tangled brambles. The ripening berries look like splatters of red on the leaves and even though I can’t feel Kirsten today it doesn’t mean that she’s not here. I wonder who she’d choose if she was. It would be Leila. Of course, it would be Leila.

  ‘Do you think this place is haunted?’

  ‘No,’ Leila says as she chews her knuckle and looks behind her.

  ‘What was that?’ I say, as I get up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kirsten Green!’ I shout, and point into the trees as I drop the chips and run away with a laugh. Leila squeals as she stumbles to catch me up.

  As I run round the corner, someone in a long beige mac is standing in the middle of the path and when they look up it’s Kirsten’s face looking back at me. Her face, but different: older, as she’s never going to be. Leila runs round the corner behind me and makes a sound somewhere in
between a scream and a yell as she skids on the stones and sends up a chunk of wet sand from the path. It’s not Kirsten. It’s her mum. She puts her hand over her mouth and I wonder if she sees Kirsten in me too.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Leila, going red.

  ‘You girls shouldn’t be here on your own.’

  In her hand are a bunch of yellow carnations and the cellophane crackles as she squeezes them.

  ‘You’re on your own,’ I reply.

  She sighs, as if it’s her last breath. ‘I’ve got God with me.’

  It’s a strange thing to say and I lean out to look behind her.

  ‘Are you lost?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, and see that she’s lost too. We both are.

  Leila looks at me as if I’m crazy. ‘We’re not lost. We’re going now anyway. Come on,’ she says, with a pull on my sleeve.

  ‘There’s nowhere else to go,’ I say as I shake her off.

  ‘Go home,’ says Mrs Green, and holds out her palm towards the path. She’s a tiny woman with bitten nails, but her face is kind.

  I look into her eyes. ‘Not everyone’s got a nice house to go home to.’

  The smell of Mrs Green’s perfume on the breeze reminds me of sherbet lemons and I can’t smell the river any more: only her. Her hand twitches and I wonder if she’d like to hug me so close that we could feel our hearts beat together. I think that she would.

  ‘Are you putting those on the tree?’ I ask, with a nod at the flowers. ‘No one will see them anyway down here, nobody comes here much.’ She looks behind her, as though she’s expecting to see someone, but there’s only the warehouse through the trees.

  ‘I’ve got to come in case.’

  ‘They’re nice though.’ I nod. ‘She’ll like them, I reckon.’ I smile.

  She looks surprised and Leila looks shocked. ‘Hayley.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Mrs Green and touches a flower head with her fingertips as her eyes moisten. ‘Just in case.’

  I wonder if Kirsten waits under her bed too, when she’s trying to get to sleep at night. I want to grab and hug her tight, because she knows: she knows everything and at that moment I feel closer to Mrs Green than I’ve ever been to anyone else.