Tell Me Your Secret Read online

  ‘We won’t need to worry about it, anyway, Ned, she’ll probably go with one of the bigger publications, much more coverage for her story.’

  ‘No,’ he says with such certainty I have to look at him. ‘She’s going to go with you. I know she is.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘She showed you her scars. No one shows someone their scars, makes themselves that exposed and then goes and talks to someone else.’

  ‘She probably showed it to everyone.’

  ‘Nope. You saw how the policewoman reacted. Callie hadn’t done that before. That scar is something they’ve kept back.’

  ‘She did it to get a reaction,’ I explain.

  ‘Yes, because you stirred something in her.’

  He’s right about that, at least – my attempt to keep myself stable and ‘normal’, to hide how all of this was making me feel, was interpreted by her as disbelief. And she had reacted accordingly. ‘She’s going to go with you, I promise.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I mumble and slide myself to looking out of the window again. I’m not sure I want her to go with us. In fact, I definitely don’t want her to go with us; I don’t think I could sit through something like that again.

  ‘No maybe about it . . . I don’t know how you managed to do it, how you guessed that was the way to go, but it worked.’

  Jody

  Wednesday, 26 May, 2004

  When the phone rang at 3 a.m., I knew who it would be.

  I’d been working night shift for the last two weeks and this was the first time I hadn’t seen the open pores on the cheeks of 3 a.m. in a long time. There was only one person who would call at that time.

  I picked up the receiver, put it somewhere near my ear as I grumbled, ‘Hello.’

  Heavy breathing, a sob, and then, ‘Jodes, it’s me, I need your help.’

  No, I groaned inside. No, it was all meant to be sorted. It’d been two years. Two years without incident, without any of these phone calls and middle-of-the-night dashes to help. Two years and I thought that was it, we were all right and she was all right and everything would be all right.

  ‘Jovie, I told you I can’t do this any more.’

  ‘I don’t want money,’ she said, her voice doused with tears. ‘I just . . . I just . . .’

  ‘You just what?’ I asked irritably.

  ‘Something happened. And I’m not sure if I should go to the police or not.’

  Well something was bound to happen. The way she lived her life, the people she hung around with, it was a miracle something hadn’t happened before. Or maybe it had and she was too far out of her head to even notice. But I couldn’t have her going to the police, talking to my colleagues, letting them see what my sister was like. It was hard enough being a black woman on the force. If they saw that my sister lived up to every wrong stereotype they had, it would make my life a million times more difficult. I knew they were already waiting for me to prove I wasn’t really one of them; they were gagging for me to have to choose between what they saw as legitimate policing and what was violating the rights of a black person. I wouldn’t put it past some of them to use this against me.

  ‘I’m coming over,’ I said.

  ‘Tha–thank you,’ she said through her tears. ‘Thank you.’

  She was shaking when she let me into her flat. The place was immaculate, I couldn’t smell any drugs, and I knew she’d given up drinking when she came off drugs four years ago.

  She rarely talked about how she detoxed, but she’d been clean all that time and had shown no signs of relapsing. Her home showed no signs of it, either. She was wearing navy tracksuit bottoms and a hooded top. Her hair was hanging around her face, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in days. After she let me in, she slowly led the way to the living room where she bundled herself into an armchair and began picking at her nails.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, when I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was so tired because, you know, I had a real job. I had to get up in the morning, go earn money, go do my bit.

  ‘I . . . I was raped,’ she said.

  ‘Oh no, Jovie,’ I said. Inside, anger exploded. I knew this would happen. ‘When? Do you know who it was?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to her. And I was sorry. No one deserved that. No matter what, no one deserved that. I dropped into the armchair opposite hers. ‘When did it happen?’

  I was doing it all wrong. I should be making her feel at ease, asking if she was in pain, if she needed medical attention, if she wanted to talk about it somewhere more comfortable. But I couldn’t help it. I had to know what I was dealing with. If it was someone from her old life, or someone from her new, hidden life.

  ‘Over the weekend,’ she said. ‘The whole weekend.’

  ‘The whole weekend?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What, did you go back to his house or something?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was outside a nightclub.’

  Scoring. She was outside a nightclub scoring. This guy probably saw an opportunity and took it. Or . . . probably did it in lieu of payment.

  ‘I was outside a nightclub, about to go home. And I was grabbed from behind. Bundled into a van, knocked out. He told me I had to keep my eyes closed for the whole weekend or he’d kill me.’ She started to tremble, her voice fragile and small. ‘He . . . I can’t even talk about it.’ Her eyes found mine, beseeching me to help her. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  I didn’t know what to do, either. Her story sounded fantastical. It was fantastical. With her history, no one would believe her. I wasn’t sure I believed her and I knew her. I knew there was no way she would lie about something like this.

  ‘And he . . . he branded me.’

  ‘Branded?’

  She nodded and showed me.

  I had to cover my mouth with my hand when I saw her back. The skin was blackened in some places, a raw, pink-red in others, the burnt area was large and distinguishable.

  ‘He did that?’

  My sister, the other half of me, nodded as she started to cry again.

  The branding, the marking her as belonging to someone, sealed it for me in my mind – it was definitely to do with her past. This is the sort of thing the people she was involved with did to people to teach them a lesson.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll do whatever you want,’ I said gently. ‘Do you want to report it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose. But I don’t want to make trouble for you.’

  ‘It wouldn’t make trouble for me,’ I said. ‘But, Jovie, they will bring up your past. They might think it’s someone from those days trying to get back at you. You have to be prepared for that.’

  ‘But I’m not like that any more.’

  ‘I know, and I will tell them that, I just want you to be prepared, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘I do, I absolutely do . . . I just want you to know what people will say. The stuff with the van and the closing your eyes for two days. Those are the things people will struggle with.’

  My sister didn’t speak for a long time, just sat staring into space. I watched her, wondering what to do. Mum and Dad had been OK again, proud again of their daughter, and this was going to drag us all back to a place where Mum was defending Jovie and doing anything she could to see past her behaviour, and Dad would be wanting to defend her but being too ashamed and guilty to do anything except ignore it all. And I would start to overcompensate. Try to be extra good; try to be enough daughter to make up for the one they couldn’t really be proud of.

  ‘I’m going to try to get some sleep,’ she eventually said.

  ‘All right. Do you want me to wait here for you, or shall I come back tomorrow when you’ve had a chance to think about what you want to do?’

  She scrubbed at her eyes with the sleeves of her top. ‘You might as well go. I think I’m going to take a couple of days to
think about it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I felt bad now. I shouldn’t have told her that. I didn’t want her to be put off reporting it because no matter who did it or why, they deserved to be arrested, but at the same time, I didn’t want her blindsided by what the other officers could say to her. ‘Do you want me to put a dressing on the burn?’

  Jovie shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘It looks like it still hurts. Do you want me to get you some painkillers?’

  She scrubbed at her eyes again. ‘I can’t . . . since I stopped, I don’t take any of those things.’

  ‘But this is different.’

  ‘It’s not, Jodes, it really isn’t. Drugs are drugs when you are an addict. Look, I’ll be fine. I’m off to bed. You can let yourself out.’

  I felt utterly wretched. She really was clean and off the drugs. I hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt, I’d suspected she was outside the club buying drugs.

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, all right?’ I said to her.

  ‘Yes, talk tomorrow.’ Jovie conjured up a smile, even though I could see the agony clawing at the edges of it, threatening to take over.

  ‘Jov—’

  ‘Goodnight, Jodes.’

  I shouldn’t leave her, I kept thinking. I shouldn’t leave her, I shouldn’t leave her, I shouldn’t leave her.

  ‘I’m going to leave it,’ she said to me three days later. ‘Forget about it, move on. It’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine.’

  Sunday, 6 February, 2005

  Dear Jody.

  Hard to know what to say. At times like this, I want to reach for words that will mean something. I want them to have a lasting effect, after all. I want them to do so much. I want them to inform and comfort and bolster and reassure.

  Have you ever noticed that we ask so much from words? Maybe too much? Maybe we should expect less and we will get more?

  I have reached the end of this road.

  I didn’t realise that my stretch of it was going to finish here, but it makes total sense to me now. This is where I hang up my walking shoes and rest.

  I can’t do it any more. The pretending is too hard. The forgetting is too difficult. I’ve tried. I’ve honestly tried. And it doesn’t work any more. I can’t go back there and I can’t carry on like this.

  Keep your eyes open, Jodes. See the world for what it is. Its beauty. There is so much beauty and wonder out there, I can hardly stand it sometimes. And see its horror, Jody, its hidden face, the pain it inflicts sometimes every moment of every day.

  I don’t know which road I’ll be on next – if it is a pause rather than a stop, but I hope I see you there, one day. Not too soon, mind. Just at the right time for you.

  Miss me, Sis, I deserve it. Oh come on, you know I do.

  Take care of Mummy and Daddy like you always have.

  Jovie x

  She posted the letter to me, I guess to make sure I had no chance to stop her.

  I opened it and read it and then I was running. Dashing outside to my car, tearing through the streets, using my spare key to barge through her front door, telling myself that maybe, just maybe, it’d turn out all right.

  You know, she’d changed her mind, she’d thought again, she’d picked up the damn phone and spoken to someone. There would be someone out there who would tell her no, who would make her see there was another way. There was another way. There was always another way.

  I told myself as I rounded the corner into her bedroom that I would make it all right. I would take her to the police station, explain what had happened, make sure they pursued him, make sure they found him, make sure they would get justice for what he did to my sister.

  I told myself so many, many things.

  But I’d always been stupid. I’d always been walking around with my eyes half-closed. Why would this time be any different? Why would it turn out the right way, when I’d done so much to make sure it turned out this way?

  Pieta

  Wednesday, 12 June

  Ned is bringing his car around the A27 into Brighton and I have no desire to go back to the office. I can’t sit there, not after this.

  I can’t be who they think I am – deputy, Lillian-whisperer, coffee-maker, temper-soother, ordinary woman. I have to think. Properly think. There is a murderer out there. He is coming after us. The ones who survived. Do I run now? Do I pack up my son and leave? Or do I call the police? Do I tell them what I should have told them all those years ago? Will they protect us like they’re keeping Callie safe? Or will they look at me like I am guilty. Like this is my fault because I kept quiet?

  ‘Could you drop me at the corner of North Road and Queen’s Gardens, please?’ I ask Ned.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve not lived here for long enough to know where that is.’

  ‘OK, if you head back past the station, I’ll direct you from there.’

  ‘Are you not going back to the office?’

  ‘Not straight away.’

  ‘Fancy some retail therapy, huh?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. I need something to decompress my head, too.’

  ‘Head left from here,’ I reply.

  Once he has delivered me to the place I need to be right now, he pulls up on double yellows and sticks his hazard lights on. Their loud clicks fill the car, a metronomic sound. My mouth floods with saline suddenly. I always remember the ticking of the clock. It was somewhere, ticking away the time before it would be over. Not the end of those forty-eight hours, but the end of me. I knew almost as instantly as I heard his words that I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes closed for that time.

  I couldn’t.

  I didn’t.

  I didn’t keep my eyes closed for forty-eight hours.

  I can’t stand ticking clocks, even on a watch, it sparks a tidal wave of nausea. So many inconsequential things, so many triggers.

  ‘I meant what I— Please don’t start laughing at me again, I’m being serious. You can tell your boss you can’t work with me. I won’t protest. In fact, say the word and I’ll call her, tell her I can’t handle this story and want to pull out. It’s up to you. I’ll do whatever you want.’

  I stare down the street as he talks, watch the busy-ness that carries on when I am usually shuttered up in the office. I don’t often think about the world that carries on around me when I am not there to see it.

  Right now, more than anything, I want to run. I want to get over to Hove, I want to snatch my son and head for somewhere away from this.

  ‘Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. It’s your choice, totally up to you.’

  ‘We talked about this, Ned. Until we know who she chooses, there’s nothing really to discuss. OK?’ I said. ‘I’ll see you. Thanks for the lift.’

  I escape the car, the man, the relentless clicking. Sometimes it feels that everything is too much. Even though I remind myself to appreciate life, living, it feels too much.

  When he drives away, I cross the road to the shop. It’s painted in outlandish primary colours that clash and make it stand out on the corner of The Lanes. There’s a little bell that tinkles when I enter and the place is busy, with six or seven different people dotted around, paintbrushes in hand, intense concentration on their faces as they paint plates and bowls and mugs and moneyboxes and teapots and coasters.

  Mirin, the willowy, bespectacled owner, comes out of the back at the sound of the door. She blinks and frowns. ‘Pieta!’ she exclaims and comes to greet me like we’re old friends. Which we are since I’ve been coming here for about ten years. ‘We don’t often see you here at this time.’

  ‘Bunking off work,’ I say.

  ‘Cool,’ she says. And she gives me that knowing look. I used to come here in a panic, barely keeping things together. You could only tell I was trembling if you looked carefully at my hands; you could only tell I was about to scream if you stared intently at my clenched jaw; you could only tell I was falling apart if yo
u examined the tangled threads of my life to date.

  ‘Paint or throw?’ she asks.

  ‘Throw,’ I reply.

  ‘You know where the aprons are.’

  ‘Thanks, Mirin.’ She’s one of those people who doesn’t ask questions. She’s seen enough, I guess, to not force anyone to talk or confront anything they don’t want to.

  Saturday, 25 April, 2009

  ‘Please,’ I whispered.

  I could hear my breath, ragged and laboured in my ears as the fear trembled through every nerve in my body. I was cold, freezing, my skin a mass of heightened, painful goosebumps, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the temperature or from the way my body was shackled.

  I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout and yell and twist and wrench my body out of the things on my wrists and my ankles. I wanted to cry and plead and beg. I wanted to say and do anything through those tears, promise everything, if he’d just let me go.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do any of that.

  I had to be calm.

  I had to breathe.

  I had to do this.

  ‘Please,’ I whispered again.

  My upper eyelids were too heavy, they felt like lead weights on the lower part of my eyes. My eyelashes were like shards of glass on my skin. I wanted to open my eyes, to relieve the pressure but I couldn’t. I knew what he would do if I did.

  ‘Please,’ I said a third time, slightly louder. I knew he was there, I could hear him, his breathing was even and normal, like this was nothing out of the ordinary for him; I could feel the way his body displaced the atmosphere somewhere to my left.

  ‘Please.’ A bit louder. ‘Please.’ Louder still.

  ‘What do you want, Pi-eta?’ he eventually said.

  I tried to hide how I quailed inside at his voice: it drizzled fear over my skin, trickled terror through my veins.

  ‘My name.’ I swallowed. I had to do this. I had to try this. ‘My name is not Pi-eta. You’re meant to say it like the boy’s name – Peter. Pieta.’

  He said nothing and he did not move. I held my breath, stilled my racing heart as best I could. Would this work? Would he go for it?