The Wicked Girls

Chapter Forty

Jim falls asleep quickly – wine and tiredness and the stress that comes with hope – and Kirsty lies awake, staring dry-eyed at the streetlight on the ceiling. Somewhere out there in the night, the drama is playing out and she has no idea how it is unfolding. Knows only that she is afraid, that she wants to pack up and run, to distance herself from any evidence that she has ever been to Whitmouth.

I am such a fool, she thinks. Such a fool. The first time I saw her, I should have run. Should have called the probation people and got what had happened on record: put myself in the clear, established myself as a victim of extraordinary coincidence. If they ever find out now, if anyone ever puts the two of us together in that café, I’m screwed. And Jim’s screwed and Sophie’s screwed, and Luke, and their worlds will crash to the ground and they will never, ever trust anything – no situation, no story, no appeal to kindness – again. Everything I have done, every attempt at reparation, every moment of following rules and obeying instructions and being good and penitent and kind, wiped out in an instant by one stupid, crazy impulse of curiosity.

Tomorrow, she thinks. When we go up to Jim’s mum. I’ll call in to work and sign off till it’s over, whatever ‘over’ will mean. Bird flu. Typhoid. Hepatitis B, meningitis, doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s catching and no one will want me near them. I’ll keep away from Whitmouth, pretend I’ve never seen the place. I’m good at that: at dissembling. I’ve been doing it all my life.

On the bedside table, the phone springs to life. Bright light and the rattle as it starts to dance across the polished surface. Jim stirs, grumbles, turns over. Kirsty seizes hold of it, looks at the display. A number, no name. She doesn’t need a name. It’s Amber.

She sends her to voicemail. Seconds later, the phone rings again. She’s not even paused to leave a message. Oh God, thinks Kirsty, how do I get that number off my call history? They’ll check her phone records; they’re bound to, aren’t they? No, why should they? She’s not done anything wrong in twenty years. Apart from telephoning me. She presses the Reject button again, goes hot as, without delay, the ringtone restarts.

‘God’s sake answer that,’ mutters Jim. ‘Trying to sleep.’

Kirsty gets out of bed, slips into the en suite. Doesn’t turn the light on, as the sound of the extractor fan will wake him further. Sits on the lavatory in the windowless pitch-black and, when the phone starts to vibrate again, answers in a whisper.

Amber’s voice – panicked, whispering too – over the drag of waves on pebbles. She’s on the beach. Must be. ‘You’ve got to help me.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Please. They’re looking for me.’

‘Where are you?’ she repeats. She has some idea that she’ll block her number and call the police, call Stan, call Dave Park, and send them down to collect her.

‘You’ve got to get me out of here.’

‘No!’ The word bursts from her mouth like a bomb. ‘I can’t, Amber. You know I can’t,’ she adds. ‘It’s crazy. A crazy idea.’

‘I’m not – Jesus, you don’t understand. There’s – there’s a mob out there. They broke my windows. They killed my dogs. Jade, they’re going to kill me.’

‘Please,’ says Kirsty, ‘you’re not thinking straight. Tell me where you are and I’ll send someone. I’ll get the police to come and pick you up.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ says Amber. ‘The police are Whitmouth people too. You tell them, and… You’ve got to get me out of here. I have no one else to ask.’

‘I can’t. You know I can’t. Amber, if I come down there now, if I’m anywhere near you, they-’

‘I’m not fucking asking you to… throw a party, you silly bitch. Just… for Chrissake, you’ve got a car, haven’t you? Just come and get me. Take me somewhere else. It doesn’t matter where. Take me up the motorway to a Travelodge and book a room and leave me. It doesn’t matter. I’ll work out what to do after that. But I have to get away from here. Don’t you understand? The minute it’s daylight, I’m dead.’

‘No,’ says Kirsty. ‘No, I can’t. You know I can’t. Tell me where you are. I’ll send someone.’

She hears a tiny, tinny scream at the other end of the line. Thinks for a moment that it’s already too late, then realises that it’s a sound of frustration. ‘NO!’

‘I’ll do what I can,’ she says, ‘but I can’t do that. I won’t. It’ll all be over for both of us, you know that.’

‘Kirsty,’ says Amber, ‘you can’t leave me here. I’m begging you. You have to help me.’

She struggles to stay firm. I can’t do this. It’s too much. She’s asking too much. They’ll know. They’ll know it was me, and they’ll know who I am. I can’t. It’s not my fault. I wasn’t the one who chose to… it’s not my husband who… ‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’

Silence. Breathing. Three waves roll up the shore, suck away again. ‘You have to,’ Amber says again, and her tone has changed.

Kirsty is enraged. Who is she, this woman, to tell me what to do? She’s not my boss. She’s not my friend. She’s the cause of everything, the reason I’ve had to live a lie my whole life. I owe her nothing. Nothing at all. ‘No,’ she says firmly.

Amber’s voice has gone hard; emotionless. When she speaks again, it’s with cold authority, the authority Kirsty remembers so well from the day they killed Chloe, when she took over and started issuing orders. ‘No, but you do,’ she tells her. ‘Because you’re involved, whether you like it or not.’

The implicit threat makes her angry, defensive. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she snaps.

‘Fuck you, Kirsty Lindsay. If you don’t help me, I’m calling them all. Every single one of them. All of them, do you get it? Every newspaper, every TV station, everybody I can bloody think of. And then it won’t be just me any more. Do you understand? Do you understand what I’m saying? They know who I am already. I have nothing to lose. If you won’t help me, then I swear to God they’re going to know every single thing about who you are too.’