Page 69 of Cross Her Heart

My face is sore from snot and tears and my jaw aches from this gag and I hate myself for being so helpless. I should have fought back. I should have known something was wrong when I saw her at the car, but it was so fast, and I was so confused. Before I knew it there was the cloth on my face and the darkness and then I woke up here, bruised and sore.

I don’t hate Mum. I love her. I want to tell her. She’s going to die thinking I hate her. I can’t let her die thinking I hate her. She thinks everyone hates her. I want to be sick. I can’t be sick. I’ll choke. The blanket is heavy on my face and I try to shake it away but I can’t. I want to see my mum. She’s being so tough. Not like my mum at all. She came here to die for me. She loves me that much. I’ve had long days of hearing about her life as Charlotte. My mum before she was anyone’s mum. She wanted it all to be better for me and whatever she’d done,the awful thing she’d done, I was selfish and thoughtless and awful and now I feel five years old again. Pathetic. I’m pathetic.

I can hear Crazy Katie talking to her. She’s talking about the day Daniel died. She doesn’t care about me now Mum’s here. It was all about Mum. I’m nothing to her. Worse than nothing. I was a pawn and now she’s going to knock me off the board. All that time at swim club,MyBitches, the Fabulous Four, all the shit she gave me about weird mums club, how I looked up to her, how we all kind of looked up to her – none of it was real. A bubble of anger bursts through my self-pity. How fucking dare she do that to us?

She doesn’t care about me now Mum’s here.The thought repeats itself in my hazy brain.She can’t even see me. I’m under a blanket.When did she last re-tie my hands? A day ago? More? Less? Time has lost all meaning. It wasn’t recently anyway. I wriggle my fingers to see if there’s any give. It’s hot under here and I’m sweating. Sweat is good. Sweat is a lubricant.

75

MARILYN

My mind is too distracted with what Simon’s told me to have any fear of the cellar. I shine the torch on the stairs and creep down. Jodie Cousins never attended Allerton University. She registered, went through the process to get all her documents and her student card etc., but never showed up to any courses. By the time Ava went missing it was the summer holidays, and so the police never went there to ask her any questions. They probably just got her number from one of Ava’s school friends or the swim club. Jodie would have given them her mother’s number – always away working or with her boyfriend – and that was that. After all, the girls weren’t suspects.

Katie was both JodieandAmelia Cousins. Mother for buying the house and setting up the bills and then vanishing off to an imaginary life in Paris and becoming the daughter for insinuating herself into Lisa’s life via Ava. No one evermetAmelia, only Jodie. I think about Jodie. Slight, never in any make-up, a hard trim boyish body. Short. Quiet. In the background. You see what you want to see. You believe what’s in front of you. Another thought strikes me. Katie supposedly died by drowning. A strong swimmer. She must have thought her luck was in when she found out Ava was a swimmer too.Fate.

The basement is quite cluttered and dusty. Old furniture stacked up against a wall. A dresser, probably worth a fair bit, covered with a sheet. Boxes of knick-knacks. Scraps of a life with no one left to remember it. If there’s a clue in here it will take me a while to find it.

Still, something feels odd. I sweep the torch around, looking into the corners and nooks and crannies. The plaster of one wall is damp and cracked.That’ll need looking at,I can hear Richard saying. I look at the wall on the other side, furthest from the stairs. The plaster matches. I move closer and shove some of the boxes that are up against it out of the way, not caring as their contents spill. Italmostmatches. There are no cracks though and the surface is slightly smoother. I spin round and look at the space again, fresh eyes this time.It’s not big enough. It should be far bigger than this. An illusionist’s house.

I run up the stairs and back to the scullery. As soon as my phone shows service, I’m dialling Simon.

‘You need to get the police here. Now.’ I cut short his protests and questions. ‘There’s another room. A secret room. Underground somewhere.’ I’m breathless with the realisation.They’re here. So close to me.‘That’s where they are. I need to find it. Get the police here now. I don’t care how, say I’m here with Lisa or whatever. Just get them here!’

I hang up and my face burns as I look around me. A house of tricks. There’s a doorway here somewhere. And I can’t wait for the police to arrive to find it.

76

LISA

I’m drunk and there’s some shite drug in my system slowing everything down, but I’m not as wasted as Katie thinks I am. I’ve been on a lot of pills over the years. Anti-anxiety meds, anti-depressants, Valium, sleeping pills – you name it, I’ve had it. And it’s paying off now. In all her planning, Katie thinks I need the same dosage as I did when I was eleven. Not so perfect Katie. I slump slightly in the chair and let my eyes drift in and out of focus. Here but not here.

‘You think you betrayed me by calling the police?’ She looks at me wide-eyed. ‘Oh yes, that was part of it. But you’d done the damage before then. I tried to make it better, but you wrecked it.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I ask.

‘You changed your mind.’ She spits the words out, disgusted. Her tone constantly changes on a whim, light and entertained becoming hard and bitter between breaths.

‘I know. I’m sorry. But that’s not Ava’s—’

‘No you don’t know! You don’t know at all!’ I flinch as she barks the words out, and her face draws close to mine and she whispers, ‘All the things they did to you and you still couldn’t do it.’ She sees my confusion. ‘You didn’t change your mind after. You changed your mindbefore. You didn’t kill Daniel.’ She smiles but her eyes are cold. ‘I did. I did it foryou.’

For a moment, everything is frozen. What is she talking about?

‘No,’ I say, my heart racing. She can’t be right. I murdered my little brother. It’s a fact. It’s the bedrock truth of my whole sorry life. ‘No,’ I say again. ‘I remember my hands round his throat. All my angry thoughts.’ I pause. ‘And Mrs Jackson from the shop. Shesawme. She saw what I did while you were asleep.’

She snorts. ‘Oh come on. Mrs Jacksonhatedyou. And there was no way my parents were going to let there be even the slightest chance that I could get dragged down with you. Not their little angel. Mummy made Daddy talk to her. They came to an arrangement. Mrs Jackson was more than happy to make sure you went to prison.’

‘No.’ My head is spinning. ‘No, that can’t be. It can’t …’ Nothing is making sense. The Battens paid the shopkeeper to lie in court? ‘But I remember … I …’

‘He’s only a bairn, Katie. We didn’t mean it, Katie, did we? We can’t really kill anyone.’ Her voice is a mocking whine. ‘Ring any bells?’

The words echo somewhere deep in my subconscious. There’s a weight ofrealabout them. ‘But,’ I say, as my whole existence, everyone I’ve been, shimmers and cracks. ‘I was so angry with him. I remember my hands on his throat.’

‘You remember what I made you remember. Gullible Charlotte. Always a victim. You were so out of it. You think I was too, but I wasn’t. I’ve never liked being out of control. Anyone can do anything to you when you’re out of control, Charlotte.’

‘No,’ I mutter. ‘I killed him. I know I did. There were all those thoughts in my head …’

‘Iwas the voice in your head, Charlotte. Those words were mine. You put your hands on his throat for barely a second before laughing it off as a joke even though we’dswornto do it, and you’d brought him along. You were allWe didn’t mean it, did we Katie? He’s only a bairn. We can’t really kill anyone.Can you imagine how you made me feel? You were weak. But it wasn’t what was best for you. It wasn’t what was best for us. I forgave you, Charlotte, but I had to put it right. We had a plan. We’d made a deal.’

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