Kiss Her Goodbye: The most addictive thriller you'll read this year Page 9

  ‘Just people. You can’t trust them.’

  I look over her shoulder, at the river and the red-bricked mill behind it, and decide that it’s unlikely Kirsten entered the water this far up.

  ‘She didn’t jump in here,’ Hayley says, as though she knows what I’m thinking. ‘She hated attention.’

  Hayley keeps telling me she didn’t know Kirsten, but she seems to know her better than anyone else.

  ‘On your way to the bus station?’ I ask, because I want to chat with the bus drivers on the new shift, but she points in the other direction.

  ‘I’m walking home,’ she says.

  ‘Long way back, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not by the river. Anyway, I prefer to walk.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I like being outside.’

  ‘Can I join you?’

  She attempts a smile. ‘Free country.’

  I glance back to where the roaring river disappears under the concrete shopping centre, no longer a force that powers the mills, now hidden away like Stockport’s dirty secret. As we leave the precinct behind, the sign above the old pub creaks in the wind and I wonder if Kirsten got the bus after all. We don’t know anything for certain. Hayley leads me behind the office blocks, onto a track by the river, where there’s an eerie quietness as soon as the busy road is behind us. She glances sideways at the water and taps the poster to her mouth like a kiss.

  ‘Do you come this way a lot?’ I ask.

  She brings the poster back down to her side. ‘Sometimes,’ Hayley says.

  ‘Ever come this way with Maxine Turner? Or Kirsten Green?’

  She snorts. ‘You’re joking, right?’

  Her reaction seems too natural to be a lie. We walk further along the path, with only the crunch of the stones under our feet and the sound of rushing water to break the silence, as her eyes dart between the fast-flowing river and the undergrowth.

  ‘What did you mean, when you said you can’t trust people?’ I ask as we stop to let a man and his dog pass.

  Hayley glances at me. ‘You should know. That’s your job.’

  The man pulls hard on the dog’s lead and it pants through yellowing teeth.

  ‘I know when someone’s holding back.’

  She lifts her neck and pouts. ‘How?’

  ‘I meet a lot of people.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean you’re always right, though.’ She smiles smugly.

  We walk down the lane, past the fields where the Bleachworks laid out cotton in industrial times. Some kids throw a ball about on the scrubland while a couple of teenagers stand and watch from the back of the council estate.

  I remember what it was like being her age and I’m not sure if she’s playing me. I remind myself that the last girl I thought was playing games ended up in the hospital. I thought she was messing around when she mouthed the word ‘stay’ to me. I didn’t put that in my report and I didn’t tell anyone about it afterwards – not even Nick. It’s why I can’t forgive myself. It won’t happen again.

  Hayley is fiercely bright, I’ve seen her school results, but it’s more than just that. It’s as though she’s always thinking ahead before she speaks, and just before we get to the bench near the fish sculpture she stops.

  ‘You’re not walking all the way home with me, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t need a police escort.’

  ‘I realise that.’

  When I’m about to say goodbye, she points at the river. ‘There used to be kingfishers here. Dragonflies too.’

  As she tells me about the river, I’m half listening and also wondering if this is just a distraction. If Kirsten came this way she could easily have been followed. I go over to the bench, expecting Hayley to walk on towards her house, but she picks up a stone and throws it in the river before sitting beside me. The sound of it makes a deep plop into the water as we both turn towards the weir.

  ‘Water’s high today.’ She smiles.

  It was like that the day Kirsten disappeared. After heavy rain the river always rages. It’s threateningly fast now and easy to see how it once motored the mill’s water wheels.

  ‘My dad used to bring me here,’ Hayley says as she stares into the water.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He’s got a new family now,’ she explains, without expression.

  ‘That’s tough.’

  ‘You get used to it.’

  I nod. She’s right. You do.

  ‘He’s a photographer,’ she continues, and turns to look at me, ‘a good one. Been in magazines. You remember I showed you? The kingfisher picture? He took that here. With me.’

  I’ve started to realise that Hayley Reynolds won’t tell me anything she doesn’t want to. Everything has to be on her terms.

  ‘That was a great photo. I take terrible pictures,’ I reply.

  She looks back at the weir. ‘I don’t. I’m good. We used to come here at weekends. It’s not the same any more, and not just because of the kingfishers.’

  ‘They are beautiful.’

  She looks at me with cold blue eyes. ‘Beautiful? They throw their babies out early…’ she pauses ‘…and loads of them drown. They push them out and start again with a new brood.’ Her lips are thin as she says the words. ‘They’re territorial. Even against their own babies,’ she continues. ‘Not as nice as they look on the outside.’

  She waits for me to comment.

  I’m not sure if it’s to gain her trust, or because in the moment we’re sharing something, but I start to tell her about me.

  ‘My dad left us too,’ I tell her.

  She frowns. ‘Yeah, well, people always leave. You can’t make them stay.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  I give her a sad smile. She’s right; you have to let people make their own decisions.

  ‘Were you close to your dad?’ I ask.

  She gives me a sideways smile. ‘We told each other everything. All our secrets.’

  She stares at the water with such fierce intensity that I can see how much she misses him.

  ‘Mine’s a musician. Goes all over the place still. Don’t get to see him much now,’ I tell her.

  She squints. ‘Mine’s in Brighton.’

  ‘You’ve got your mum. That’s good.’

  ‘She’s no use.’

  I’m glad that she’s finally opening up. She wants to say more. I can feel it.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem too happy,’ I reply.

  We sit together with the sounds of the river and a distant birdcall from the trees.

  ‘I was. Before Mike moved in.’

  Her voice is cold every time she mentions him.

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘Everything.’

  I think about his annoyance when I wanted his work’s phone number and the look of obvious discomfort while I was there. I understand the pain of being trapped in a place that should be safe and I wonder if that’s what’s happening to her too. It was my choice to stay with an alcoholic though, and she’s just a child. I hope she knows I’ll help if she needs it.

  ‘Don’t you get on, then?’ I ask, hoping to find out something else about him, but she sits back.

  ‘I know what you’re doing. I’m good at reading people too.’ She smiles knowingly. ‘I can tell what you’re like.’

  ‘What am I like?’

  She raises an eyebrow and turns to face the water.

  ‘Lonely,’ she replies, with a flick of her hair. It shocks me, but I try not to show it.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ I say, as though it isn’t true.

  She smiles with the corner of her mouth. ‘Takes one to know one.’

  Her answer has wrong-footed me, because I don’t like her seeing that in me. I regret telling her about my family. It’s not what I would usually do. There’s a difference between being lonely and being alone.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Better to be lonely than a total sleaze like Mike.’

  I o
pen my mouth to speak and change my mind.

  She narrows her eyes. ‘Don’t you get worried?’

  ‘Of being lonely?’ I ask.

  She frowns. ‘Of your job! It’s dangerous.’

  ‘I know how to look after myself.’

  Her gaze goes from me to the river as she holds tightly onto the poster in her hand. The trace of a smile on her lips makes me uneasy. Dead leaves rattle from the nearby trees and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle when I notice her face. Behind her eyes, a thousand thoughts seem to be raging and her face goes blank, as though she’s in a trance. The stretch of river where a strong undertow hides under a deceptively smooth surface comes to mind. I take my hands out of my pockets to sit upright, as she moves towards me on the bench. It feels as if she’s about to grab me, before she stiffens and relaxes again.

  ‘Yeah, reckon you can. I can look after myself too,’ she replies, with a glance at her watch. ‘See you, then. I’m off.’

  As she stands to walk away I know that I’ve glimpsed the real Hayley and she’s a troubled girl.

  ‘Thanks for the walk.’

  She smiles. ‘You just wanted to check me out.’

  I don’t deny it.

  ‘If you need someone? You’ve got my number,’ I shout after her, and she raises her hand in a wave without looking back. She looks over at some fallen branches where an old den has collapsed and doesn’t answer. As she disappears around the corner I know that something’s bothering her. I might not be as good at reading people as I’d like, but I know that she’s hiding something. We’ve got things to connect us now and I hope she trusts me. As I stare into the brown river water, I know that whatever it is will come to the surface in the end. Nothing stays hidden forever.

  *

  It has been a fruitless and tiring morning. Nick is on the telephone. He puts down the receiver and shakes his head.

  ‘You interviewed the teachers again? Why?’

  I shrug. ‘I was passing. Just wanted to clarify a few things.’

  ‘What things? And they’ve asked for advance warning next time, by the way.’

  He looks me up and down and clenches his jaw.

  ‘We’ve missed something,’ I say as I open my desk to take out some paperwork from the top drawer.

  ‘You should have told me, Bev. They’re not happy upstairs. The principal complained.’

  I wish I hadn’t gone now. It was pointless. I thought that someone would tell me something about Hayley and Kirsten, but they weren’t even in the same classes.

  ‘She doesn’t like police in her college. Well, she’ll just have to get on with it.’

  ‘I just don’t see where you’re going with it,’ he says.

  ‘I want to speak to Michael Lancaster again.’

  Nick exhales. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘He wasn’t working when he said he was.’

  ‘He’s just mixed up his dates,’ he replies.

  ‘Something’s going on with him and Hayley Reynolds.’

  ‘So pass it on as a concern. He’s her mum’s new boyfriend. It doesn’t mean anything.’

  It annoys me when he’s so dismissive. If it’s passed on to someone else, it’s dealt with as far as he’s concerned.

  ‘He knows where he was.’

  ‘I need help on the garage case. There’s too much for me to go through. They’re pushing for progress and it’s taken me days already. You can’t just go off all the time.’

  As Debbie and Steve glance over at me, I wonder if Nick went upstairs himself. I overheard him talking about me in the canteen a few weeks ago and I know that he’s not happy.

  ‘I’ll focus on it this afternoon.’

  He nods without a smile. ‘Thanks. And the Kirsten Green case?’

  ‘After I’ve spoken to Michael Lancaster I promise you’ll have my full attention.’

  He looks worried. ‘Just go easy, all right?’

  ‘You know me.’

  ‘Exactly. Drink after work?’

  The thought of it makes my stomach lurch and I turn away.

  ‘I’ve got things on.’

  ‘Suit yourself. You know where we’ll be if you change your mind.’

  I open one of the case files on the desk in front of me and feign interest as I start to read the case notes.

  ‘Did anyone speak to the bank about this?’ I ask Nick, and he shakes his head.

  ‘They said they’d fax some of the information through yesterday, but they haven’t. Want me to chase it up?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He takes my cup off the desk and walks away, without checking if I want a refill. He just assumes he knows what I need. As he passes Debbie, he places his hand on her back and she turns to face him with a smile. Once he gets what he wants, he’ll ignore her as he does the others. I look away. He’s right about Michael Lancaster though. There’s no evidence to suggest that either him, or anyone else, is involved and we don’t even have the pendant. We don’t have anything.

  Conversations rise and fall around me as I look through the files, while Kirsten Green stays on my mind. I know it’s because of what happened to Moira Timperley, but that doesn’t make it easier. Moira said her stepdad was hitting her mum, but when we arrived, Mum said it was a lie – just Moira’s way of getting back at her for not buying her a concert ticket. I believed her. She looked fine. Everyone did. It turned out later that he’d been hitting her all along and Moira too. He was no different from her mum’s other boyfriends; he was just better at hiding it. After we’d gone, he turned his attention to Moira.

  Tonight, my run will take me by the river and up towards the town and I can almost smell the damp sandy path as I sift through the paperwork in front of me. I’m here, but somewhere else. The worst thing is that Nick’s right: we’ve exhausted everything. If someone else was involved, then it looks as if they’re going to get away with it.

  12

  Hayley Reynolds

  I look out of the window for the policewoman, but the road is empty. She isn’t like the others. She knows that Kirsten didn’t kill herself and I wonder if she followed me to the café or saw me with Leila at the shopping centre. My hand throbbed with the urge to push her in as we sat by the filthy water near the broken hide that I built.

  Kirsten was there too. I saw her legs in the shadows and her hair pulled taut by the current, while she curled around a rock waiting. Her green eyes are like silt now and she’s more river than girl – my dirty mermaid, sliding through mud with the minnows, always watching. Beverley Samuels didn’t notice her though. She’s easily missed, but I know where to find her. The heron doesn’t fish in the shallows as it used to and the moorhens have left. It’s her bit of the river now.

  Mum’s bedroom door is open and she’s lying on top of the bed covers with her back to me. I ask if she wants a drink and when she doesn’t reply, I sit on the bed. She doesn’t move and I know straight away that I won’t be able to wake her up. The night that the baby died she was the same. He cried, and cried, and cried until I thought he’d never stop, but she didn’t wake up. I saw him through the open door – his face all pink and sweaty. I was glad when the noise stopped, but afterwards the house was horribly quiet. She got worse after he died, but I’m surprised to see her like this now – it’s been a while since the last time.

  I try not to think about it and yet I can’t forget the way that she wouldn’t look at me afterwards, as though she’d have preferred it to be me. I remember the smell of her unwashed hair, when I kissed her as she slept. Dad used to look after me then, just as he could look after me now, if he were here. He’d know how to make all of this better. After that night he made sure that I wasn’t on my own. We were always together. He said he didn’t like it in the house and we went to the river all the time. He started to teach me about birds and he told me stories. We were closer than best friends and knew each other’s secrets. I made my promises and he made his. He always knew how to make me feel better. Beverley Samuels’ dad might hav
e left her, but that doesn’t mean she understands me. No one does. My dad isn’t like anyone else’s; he’s unique – one of a kind.

  On Mum’s bedside table is a copy of Jilly Cooper’s Riders and a can of hairspray. Yellow flowers creep across the wallpaper towards the window in a bid to escape. The bedroom is just like her: immaculate and cold. Being this close makes me feel awkward and I get up off the bed and walk over to the door. If things were different, then I could talk to her about Leila, but they aren’t. Words are just air to her. They float into nothing. When I wanted to talk about the baby, she said it affected her like nothing I can ever imagine, but she doesn’t know anything. It affected me too. She wouldn’t let me speak to her about it. Dad’s friends were there downstairs, as usual, and the music was too loud – not that she heard any of it. The baby cried louder than he’d ever cried before. I held my hands over my ears because the noise wouldn’t stop. Whenever I start to talk about it she shuts me down. He wasn’t just her baby, he was my brother too and now he’s gone. I’d give anything to hold him again. When Dad left it was the same. She wouldn’t let me say his name, but he was my dad. It wasn’t fair. That night everything fell apart.

  I go into the back garden and light a cigarette. There are no sounds from next door and the street outside is quiet. There isn’t any wind and I try to hear the river, but, despite it being so close, there’s only the sound of a train in the distance. I know that Kirsten isn’t far away either. Even though I can’t see her, she walks barefoot in the shadows on silent footsteps. She’s always nearby and I wonder if the policewoman has noticed the ripples on the water where she swims underneath. She’s fast now, as swift as a kingfisher. Sometimes, I feel her breath on my neck, but when I turn around she’s gone back into the undergrowth and there’s only the movement of the leaves to show that she was ever there at all.

  *

  At teatime, Mike comes in with a plastic bag in his hand. The smell of hot chips fills the room and I know that he’s brought them to make up for being out all day.

  ‘Where’s your mum?’ he asks.

  ‘In bed.’

  He walks into the kitchen and starts to get plates down from the cupboard. I hop up on the worktop next to him as he takes out a blue penknife from his back pocket and slits open the plastic bag. When he puts the knife next to me, I notice that it’s engraved with his initials. I want it.