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Tell Me Your Secret Page 22


  ‘No.’

  ‘Open your eyes. I want you to see me. I want you to know what I look like in our last few hours together. Come on, open your eyes, look at me.’

  ‘I can’t, Peter.’

  ‘I won’t kill you. If I’m telling you to open your eyes, that means it’s what I want and it won’t count.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t open my eyes.’

  ‘I know how much you hate the knife. I know how much it scares you. If you don’t open your eyes, I’ll have to bring it back. But please, just do this one thing for me. Please.’

  ‘I can’t, Peter,’ I said in the smooth concave of a sob. ‘If I do, you’ll have to kill me because that was the deal. And I don’t want you to have to do that. I don’t want you to have to live with doing that.’

  He stopped for a moment and then stepped back away from me. ‘What?’

  ‘What will you feel like if you have to end me? It will devastate you, and I don’t want you to go through that. I don’t want you to suffer like that. So no, I won’t, Peter. I won’t open my eyes. I won’t do that to you.’

  He was watching me now because he was confused, because he didn’t understand what I was saying, why I was saying it.

  ‘You care what happens to me?’ he eventually asked.

  Nod, Pieta, nod.

  I ordered myself not to flinch this time when he stroked his thumb down my face. I willed my body to relax as he pressed his face against mine. I made myself shut everything out as he started again.

  I forced myself not to recoil no matter what he did.

  Sunday, 23 June

  My body jerks suddenly and snaps my eyes open.

  My vision takes a moment to adjust. The walls look like wood and glass, not the buttermilk of my bedroom, there are windows all around instead of just in the bay. Panic lightning bolts through my body. Kobi. Where’s Kobi?

  I’m on Ned’s boat, still. My head is resting on his thigh. I roll my head to the left and see he is sitting upright but is fast asleep – his head is thrown back, his mouth is open, and he’s gently snoring.

  I have no idea what the time is, but I can’t see any lights from the windows.

  I’d stared at him for a long time after he told me he wanted to get to know me. This wasn’t like Reggie asking me out. Reggie I liked and in another life I’d love to be with him. But I couldn’t, because I had a son and I had to put him first; because I had a scar and no one could ever see it.

  I’d almost accepted that I was going to be alone for the rest of my life. That the scar, my exaggerated startle response, never being able to trust anyone would mean a life of solitude. Only almost, though. Sometimes I did crave companionship. Sometimes I did want someone to share a beer with, to talk to, to watch telly with. I could do that with someone like Ned because it wouldn’t mean anything. And, most importantly, I knew he didn’t really have feelings for me. This wouldn’t work if he did have feelings for me, if I had to worry about hurting him by never completely committing to anything beyond surface companionship.

  ‘I’ll have a beer,’ I’d said to him.

  ‘You’re going to stay?’ he asked, incredulous.

  I shrugged. ‘For a bit. I want to see your bedrooms and maybe look at some more of your photos.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ll have to call my mother, though, and tell her I’m going to be a bit later than I said but yes, I’ll stay for a bit.’

  He’d shown me around the rest of his boat; the cabins were larger than I expected, the shower room and bathrooms were all designed to a high spec. We’d taken our beers and sat upstairs, looking out over the water, not really talking.

  ‘What’s the deal with you and your son’s father?’ Ned asked.

  I stared at the beer label, wondering what to say without sounding defensive, without lying. ‘So did you never get married or anything like that? Kids?’ I decided on.

  It was his turn to stare at his beer bottle label. He sighed and eventually said: ‘No. I spent my twenties and thirties thinking I could have any woman I wanted and that I’d have plenty of time to settle down. I hit my forties and the shagging around lost its appeal in a big way but the women who I was meant to settle down with had all got on with doing just that with decent men, so potential partners got rather thin on the ground.’

  ‘So that’s a no then.’

  Ned grinned at me. ‘That’s a no.’ He returned his gaze to his beer bottle. ‘I wasn’t being nosey when I asked about your son’s father. I was trying to find out if you were single or if I had a potential rival.’

  I shook my head. ‘You don’t have feelings for me, Ned. Well, not in the way you think. You feel guilt and remorse. Not anything else.’

  ‘I do feel guilt and remorse. I also feel . . . so much more.’ He started to pick at the label. ‘A whole lot more.’

  ‘You’re one of those blokes, aren’t you? You don’t “get” women so if you spend a bit of time with one and get on with her, you think it must mean something.’

  He grinned without looking at me. ‘You could be right. But you could also be wrong.’ His gaze found mine. ‘You could be completely wrong about what I feel for you.’

  ‘Can I see some of your other photos?’ I wanted to change the subject. He was ruining it. I didn’t want to know if he had feelings for me. If he did, genuinely, then I couldn’t spend time with him, I couldn’t have him as a surrogate companion. He was ruining it by sounding earnest. ‘You know, the photos you take with your mobile or a disposable camera.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss Rawlings.’

  We sat side by side, our arms brushed up against each other, while I went through his photos. At some point he put his arms along the back of the sofa. At another point, I rested my head on his shoulder while I flicked through his albums. When he’d stroked his hand over my hair, I’d looked up at him. He’d gazed down at me, asking if it was OK. It was fine, I realised. It was fine for him to do that. It was safe for him to do that. He’d stroked my hair and I’d closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation of his soothing, rhythmic motion. That’s probably when I fell asleep.

  I sit up. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep like that. And I need to leave now. Get home to my mother and my son, get back to my article, get back to my real life.

  ‘Hello, you,’ Ned says, making me start.

  ‘That wasn’t meant to happen,’ I state as I push myself away from him. He stretches his neck and rolls his shoulders, while I bend down to right my purple and white trainers so I can slip my feet into them. ‘I was meant to stay for a bit and then go home.’

  ‘I was meant to wake you up, not fall asleep too.’

  I find the clock on the wall near the steering wheel: 3:30 a.m.! ‘My mother will have a nervous breakdown. I’d better get going.’

  ‘Do you want me to walk you to your car?’

  ‘No, no, I’ll be fine.’

  The gentle rocking of the boat, the sound of it lapping against the dock fills the silence between us.

  ‘This is awkward, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘Do you think if we kissed it’d stop the awkwardness?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Can we try anyway?’

  ‘No, Ned, no. This is all a bit too weird for me. Tonight wasn’t what I was expecting. And I kind of like you but I’m really wary of you; I kind of don’t like you, but I’m curious to see if you’ve really changed. So let’s not rush anything, all right?’

  He’s disappointed – it’s plain on his face, but I can’t do anything about that. This is more than I expected to happen. ‘All right. At least let me walk you to your car.’

  Sunday, 26 April, 2009

  He placed the silk scarf across my eyes, then he gently moved my head and tied the scarf around the back of my head. He was blindfolding me again. He was letting me off. He was telling me that I wouldn’t have to keep my eyes closed the whole time; giving me a way to relax and keep my eyes clos
ed without all the effort, without taking the risk of being killed.

  ‘Peter?’ I called when I heard his footsteps leaving.

  He stopped but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I really appreciate you doing this.’

  Sunday, 23 June

  It’s like a ghost town over here. The ASDA is open twenty-four hours, but there isn’t much sign of life. The cinema is shut, the restaurants and bars are all shuttered for the night. The hush of the wind on the water is a constant, undulating backdrop. Off the gangplank and off the gated part of the Marina, we walk towards the car park, our footsteps echoing so loudly I start to feel that we really have wandered into a ghost town where something hideous befell all the previous residents.

  I jump when Ned hooks his fingers around mine but I quickly realise I don’t mind it actually – it makes me feel safe, even temporarily.

  ‘This is me,’ I say to him when we reach level 3 of the car park and arrive at my car.

  ‘I’ll see you in a few days,’ he replies.

  Awkwardness, again. The feeling that we should kiss, again. I take matters into my own hands and step forward, slip my arms around his middle and hug him. It’s not a natural hug and he’s not sure how to respond at first. Slowly he wraps his arms around me, even more slowly he lowers his head and rests his cheek on my head, even more slowly I feel him inhale, breathing in my scent.

  Too much, too much! Too close, too fast!

  I immediately step back, busy myself with opening the car door, throwing my bag and the photographs onto the other seat.

  ‘I’ll see you, Ned,’ I say, again ignoring his disappointment.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He steps back as I shut the car door and nods at me as I start the engine. The noise is obscenely loud in the dead of this night, the lights illuminating everything in the flood of their bright, white glare.

  I don’t know what I’m doing; I can admit that the further away I get from him. I can’t be with him, not after what he did. But is he the answer? I’ll never be able to completely relax with him, I’ll never allow myself to fall completely in love with him, so does it matter what our history is? Because, right now, it’s either him or nothing. And tonight has shown me that I’m not as accepting of nothing as I thought I was.

  Jody

  Monday, 24 June

  ‘I know this isn’t ideal, but I’d like you to delay running the interview for a few days,’ I say. I’m on speakerphone to Pieta Rawlings and her editor, Lillian Laird.

  ‘Unacceptable!’ Lillian immediately replies.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Pieta asks as though her editor hasn’t spoken.

  ‘There’s been a development,’ I explain. ‘I’ve had to go to London and it could have a bearing on this case and your article. I’m not asking you to pull it, I’m just asking you to delay it by a few days.’

  ‘And as I said, that is unacceptable. The story is already leaking out, those NDAs aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. All it will take is one person to leak it on the internet and that’s it, our exclusive is gone.’ This is Pieta’s editor again.

  I’d love to say I don’t care about her exclusive. That she can stick her exclusive where the sun doesn’t shine, but I need to not alienate people who can screw me over. I need to not alienate people full stop. ‘OK, we’re almost ready to release a proper public appeal for help. I’ll let you know when, so at the same time you can say you’ve got an exclusive story with one of the living victims. I don’t know how it works. But wouldn’t that be better, to be able to advertise that you’ve got an angle that no one else has?’

  ‘I think that’s a great idea,’ Pieta says. ‘Everyone else would be doing the advertising for us. People will be gagging to read it. Actually, Detective Foster, I think this would be a brilliant way to get us the traction and national recognition that this story deserves.

  ‘Just think, Lillian, we could devote half the issue to this. Look at these sorts of crimes, make it relevant to Sussex, but also the crime stuff on a national scale. Your editor’s letter could be a meditation on whether you think the police are doing enough – no offence, Detective. Everyone would have to take us seriously because we have something they haven’t. Yes, I think this could work really well for us. Really well.’

  I’m impressed by Pieta’s ability to take something I’ve dropped on them and spin it to her boss.

  ‘I’ll leave it with you,’ I say. I have to get off the phone. ‘I’m not around for the next few days, but if you call the office and ask for Laura Whittaker, she should be able to help.’

  ‘Is it OK if I speak to Callie again in the meantime?’ Pieta asks.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve written up the story, but there are a few gaps about her background. I won’t ask her anything about the case directly and you can listen to the tapes afterwards just to make sure I haven’t overstepped the mark.’

  I’d rather she didn’t, but she’s just helped me out with the editor and I can’t focus on this right now. I also need to get her onside because at some point, I think I’m going to need her. ‘Nothing about the case,’ I state sternly.

  ‘Nothing, I swear.’

  ‘All right. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days. Bye.’

  I ring off the phone and turn to go back into the room I left to make the call. I’m in London.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ I say to the forensic examiner who had begun to talk me through his findings. ‘Can you start again? Where were these remains found again?’

  ‘In East London. There used to be an area of warehouses that were marked for renovation. They ended up being demolished after a series of fires destroyed them. It took a while for them to be rebuilt. We think it was in that time period that these remains were deposited there, sometime before the cement was poured. They could have been stored elsewhere and moved there. I think that’s likely given the state of decomposition. Either way, we may never have found them if the contractors hadn’t thrown the building up so badly it essentially fell down and needed complete demolition.’

  I fold my arms across my chest, hiding the way I dig my fingernails deep into the palms of my hands. ‘When were they found?’ I ask.

  ‘Around March.’

  ‘So why am I only hearing about it now?’

  ‘You know how slowly these things move. There are quite a few more things that are further up the list. But, having said that, I did my best to make these a priority since we identified three separate bodies, which indicated the work of a serial.’

  He spins on his chair away from the photos to his computer.

  ‘Once everything was entered into the system, DNA matches for all three of them came back quite quickly. They were all reported as missing after a night out between twelve and ten years ago. That seemed to fit the MO of who you’ve been looking for.’ He types into his computer, clicking through old images of young women. ‘Jolene Benkko, disappeared in 2007.’ Click. ‘Robyn Kiernan, also disappeared in 2007.’ Click. ‘Sandy Vainna, disappeared in 2008.’

  They must have been the ones who couldn’t keep their eyes closed, who didn’t manage to escape and make their way home.

  ‘Any chance of a cause of death?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I’ve tried. I’m trying, but it’s been so long, the bodies exposed to so many different elements. I haven’t given up, but don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘I know it’ll be a long shot to see if there are any metabolites left after all this time, but you could try Succinylcholine. That’s how the more recent ones were killed.’

  ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  ‘OK, thank you.’

  Jolene. Robyn. Sandy.

  More names to add to the list. More photos for our wall. More women to come to tea in my dreams, accusing me, reminding me that I could have done more to prevent their deaths.

  Pieta

  Tuesday, 25 June

  Opposite Room 101, Officer Perry seems to be sitting i
n the same position in the bucket chair as he was the last time I was here, last Monday.

  I don’t know if he’s been here all week, but by the greyish tone of his face, and the slightly weary slump of his shoulders as he sits in his chair, he’s definitely been there all night.

  I wonder what the other people on this floor think, of a man sitting in the chair in the corridor all night. I wonder who they think is staying on their floor. I nod to him before I move to knock on the door.

  He nods very briefly, so briefly I wonder if I’m imagining he did it at all.

  My fingers are very loud rapping on the wooden door, and I’m embarrassed – when PC Perry is so still and quiet, I’m disordered and messy creating all that noise, encroaching on the ordered calmness of his world.

  ‘Who is it?’ Callie calls.

  ‘Me. Pieta.’ I’d messaged her yesterday asking if I could ask her some follow-up questions.

  ‘Oh, hi, Pieta. Is it that time already? Let me just put on some clothes and I’ll be right with you.’

  After a while, she throws open the door saying, ‘Come in, come in.’ The last time I saw her, she was falling apart, in the midst of a complete breakdown. She’s got herself together now, so much so she seems even better than when we first met. She’s wearing a pretty blue-and-white flowered summer dress, her hair is loose around her face, rather than hanging there as something to hide behind. Maybe that’s what telling the truth does. Maybe it brings about a cathartic release, brings you a new type of peace.

  The police wouldn’t have needed to hear everything that Callie told me. They wouldn’t require all those intricacies to try to find the man who did it, they’d just need to know all about The During. Maybe a little of The Before, maybe a little of The After. I needed to know all of it to tell her story, and that seems to have freed Callie.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ she chatters like a bird as she leads me down the corridor past the wardrobe and bathroom. ‘I didn’t realise the time and we were up a lot of the night, talking.’

  I register the ‘we’ at the exact same time I come into the main room and see, sitting on the edge of the bed looking sheepish and dishevelled and like he’s just spent the night, Ned.