The Wicked Girls

Chapter Five

A nice young constable gives Amber a lift home in a squad car, drops her off shortly before eleven. She feels wiped out, dirty and dry; but the sight of her own front door raises her spirits, as it always does. The door itself makes her happy. Just looking at it. It was the first thing they bought after they moved up to ownership: a proper, solid-wood, panelled front door to replace the wired-glass horror of council days. It represents so much, for her, this door: solidity, independence, her gradual rise in the world. Every day – even a day like today – she finds herself stroking its royal-blue gloss paint with affection before she puts the key in the lock.

Amber hopes Vic’ll be awake and is disappointed to find the house silent as she opens the door and breathes in the scent of the pot-pourri on the hall table. She glances into the living room, runs an automatic eye around it. Quiet and dark and neat: the sofa throws in place, the glass-and-wicker coffee table empty save for the couple of coasters that have their home there, papers put neatly away in the magazine rack. Rug hoovered, pictures straight, TV off at the wall, not just on standby. Everything is as it should be. All that’s missing is Vic. ‘Hello?’ she calls.

From the back of the house, faintly, a chorus of yips. The dogs are still out in the garden. They’ve probably been out there all night again. It’s not that he does it deliberately; it’s just that the dogs aren’t figures in his emotional landscape. They’re her dogs, not his, and Vic has a talent for simply editing out things that don’t engage him.

Amber is bone-weary. She plants her bag on the hall floor and walks through the kitchen – hard-saved-for IKEA cabinets, a vase of flowers on the gateleg table, yellow walls that fetch the sun inside even when it’s overcast – to open the back door.

The day is already warm, but Mary-Kate and Ashley shiver among the pelargoniums like the pedigree princesses they are. She bends and scoops them up in her arms: surprised again, as she is every time she does it, by the fact that they really don’t seem to weigh any more than the butterflies their breed is named after. Delicate, curious noses, fur soft as thistledown. She squeezes them close to her cheeks and is rewarded by great bursting wriggles of love.

She feeds them, makes a mug of tea and goes up to give it to Vic. She needs him. Needs to know the world is still the same.

He’s still asleep. Vic’s working day on the rides at Funnland starts at three, ends at eleven, and he often goes out to wind down afterwards – just like an office worker, only six hours later. Their lives are turned upside down from the rest of the world’s, and from each other’s. Occasionally they’ll see each other as her shift begins, but sometimes the only words they’ll exchange in a week will be on the phone, or as she gets into bed. It’s the price they pay for the life they’ve made. And it’s a good life, she assures herself. I would never have dared to think I’d have a life like this.

Mary-Kate and Ashley follow on her heels, shuffle about the carpet, sniff Vic’s discarded clothes in the half-light through the thin curtains. Amber stands at the foot of the bed for a moment, the mug warming her fingers, and studies the familiar features. Wonders, again, what a man like that is doing with her. At forty-three he’s still handsome, his dark hair still full, the fine lines that are beginning to creep across his weather-tanned skin just making him look wiser, not more tired as her own are doing to her. You’d never tell we were seven years apart, she thinks. What’s he doing with me, when he could have anyone?

She puts the mug down on his bedside table. Steps out of her sensible work shoes, sheds her jacket on to the chair. Catches the musky scent of her own armpits. Feeling another rush of weariness, she remembers the girl’s purple face, the burst capillaries, and wants to weep.

Vic stirs and opens his eyes. Takes a moment to focus. ‘Oh, hi,’ he says. ‘What time is it?’

She checks her watch. ‘Ten past eleven.’

‘Oh.’ He disentangles a weight-toned arm – an arm that filled her with lust back when they were getting together; that made her weak as he wrapped her into it – from the bedclothes and runs his fingers through his hair. The sleep-tangles fall instantly away. That’s Vic: a single grooming gesture and he’s ready to face the world.

‘You’re late,’ he says, and there’s an edge of reproof to the statement.

‘There’s a mug of tea.’ She waves her hand at it, sits down on the bed and rubs at her tired calves. ‘Didn’t you get my texts?’

‘Texts?’

‘I’ve been texting you all night. I tried calling too.’

‘Yeah? Oh.’ He picks his phone up from the bedside chest of drawers, holds it out so she can see the blank display. ‘Sorry. I switched it off. I was tired.’

She feels a twinge of resentment, squashes it down. He doesn’t suspect that anything is wrong. You can’t blame him for that.

‘Christ,’ he says, ‘you smell a bit ripe.’

‘Sorry,’ she says, and bursts into tears.

Vic lurches forward and pinches the back of her neck between thumb and palm, like a masseur. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Hey, I was just saying, Amber. It’s OK. It’s no big deal.’

Her tears dry as suddenly as they’ve come on. She finds that this is often the way with her emotions and that, though she’s good at controlling them, tears are rarely far from the surface. She loosens his grip, stands up and eases herself out of her trousers, rubs the place where his hand’s just been. Feels guilty. Stop it. Stop it, Amber. It’s not his fault. Be nice.

Suddenly, she doesn’t want to tell him. Doesn’t want to tell him because she doesn’t know how she wants him to react. Doesn’t know if she could bear sympathy, doesn’t know if she could bear not to get it. The last time Amber saw a murdered body, there were days of pretending, of hugging it close to herself, of hiding. A bit of her wants to try it again with Vic: to see if the outcome will be different this time. Stupid thought. The police are swarming all over Funnland, the park is closed. She could keep it to herself for no longer than it took him to go in for his shift.

‘Something happened,’ she tells him; keeps her voice even, controlled, as though she’s discussing a surprise electric bill. She keeps her back turned, doesn’t trust her face.

Vic sits forward. ‘What?’

Amber folds up the trousers, lays them on the chair. ‘At work. Tonight. I… oh God, Vic, there’s been another girl killed. At work.’

‘What?’ he says again. ‘Where?’

‘Innfinnity.’

‘Innfinnity?’ She hears him hear the word, take in the implication of what she’s just said. Amber’s the only one who ever goes to the mirrors at night. It doesn’t take long for him to understand that she’s the one who found her.

‘Babe,’ he says. ‘Oh, babe. You must have been so afraid. You should have called me. You should have let me know.’

She’s annoyed. Turns and glares. ‘I did. I called and texted. I already told you. All night. Turn it on. You’ll see.’ They don’t have a house phone, just pay-as-you-go mobiles.

He picks the phone up again, switches it on. ‘Amber. I’m so sorry.’

She sits on the edge of the bed as the phone lets out a series of incoming-message beeps. Rubs her neck again. Vic kneels up behind her and bats her hand away. Starts to knead the muscles: powerful, working-man’s hands squeezing, pressing; strong fingers straying upwards, brushing the line of her jaw. She has another brief flash of the swollen face, the bruised lips parted to show young white teeth. Shivers and closes her eyes. He presses the heel of his hand to her spine, pulls back on her shoulder. She feels a tiny skeletal clunk somewhere deep down and sighs with relief. When I was young, I had no one to do this for me. I thought back pain was just part of the human condition. Thank God for Vic. Thank God for him.

‘What was it like?’ he asks. ‘Who was she?’

‘Some poor little girl. Can’t have been more than twenty. All dressed up for a night out. Oh God, Vic, it was awful.’

‘But how? What happened?’

Amber sighs. ‘I don’t know. If I knew that, I’d either be psychic or a policewoman, wouldn’t I?’

The hands fall abruptly still. ‘You know what I mean, Amber.’ He sounds offended.

‘Sorry,’ she says, hastily. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just been… a long night…’

He forgives her, thank God, and the hands start their work again. It’s only a day since their last disagreement, and she can’t bear to start again. Vic has so many good qualities, but he can hold a grudge for weeks, the chill of his vexation filling the house with silence. She had been half afraid throughout her shift that their stupid spat might have kicked another episode off, until her discovery drove it from her head. It’s probably, she reflects, why he had the phone off. But I’m not going to push things by asking. Not when he’s being so nice.

‘So what was it like?’ he asks again, abruptly. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen anything like that, have you?’

She turns and looks at him. She doesn’t know what she had been expecting, but his look of sharp enjoyment surprises her. He covers it quickly with concern, but she’s seen it now, and it feels ugly. It’s not a real thing to you, she thinks, any of it. Not the girl under the pier, not the one they found in among the bins in Mare Street Mews, not this. In fact, now there’ve been three of them, and only a fool wouldn’t be asking if it’s the same person doing it, you’re probably just feeling a bit more excited – like Whitmouth’s finally on the map. It’s the same thing that keeps people reading the papers every day: if it’s not your family, if it’s not one of your friends, a murder is little more than a night out at the cinema; something to discuss gleefully at the pub.

The girl’s face flashes through her mind again, pop-eyed and black-tongued, cobweb veins on livid cheeks. Death, so abnormal yet so familiar: the shock, the cavernous emptiness behind those reddened eyes; it’s what it always looks like. Nobody dies and looks like they’d been expecting it.

‘It was…’ She has to think about her words. Strives to recall her emotions, to separate her response to the scene in front of her from her panic on her own behalf. ‘I don’t know. It’s weird. It was like I was in a bubble. Watching myself. In a weird way, I felt like I wasn’t really there.’

Vic leans back and opens the drawer in his bedside table. He fishes out his Ventolin inhaler. Takes a puff. ‘Bet you were scared, though,’ he says, his voice small from holding his breath. ‘Was there a moment when you thought they’d think you’d done it?’

‘Vic!’ She’s scandalised. ‘My God!’

‘Sorry,’ he says. Breathes out.

7 p.m.

‘We can’t go home like this.’

They face each other in the field, waist-deep in cow parsley. The sun is low, but still bright, and they cut smeared and dingy figures now they’re out in the open. Bel looks down at her hands, and sees that her nails are cracked and black from digging. Looks back up at Jade. She’s filthy. Earth and lichen, scraps of leaf and twig, scratches from thorns and bark on her arms and shins.

‘My mum’ll kill me,’ says Jade.

‘It’s OK,’ says Bel. ‘Just put it all straight in the washing machine. She’ll just put stuff on top. She won’t even notice.’

Jade is appalled. There is no washing machine in the Walker household. She’s always thought of them as things you found in launderettes. That Bel would assume they had one underlines the gaping chasm of difference between them. Jade’s mother does the family wash by hand, soaking everything in a heap in the bath on Monday night, then squeezing and scrubbing it wheezily through before pegging it all out on the network of lines she’s rigged up across the yard on Tuesday. It’s just another thing that makes Jade stand out at school: that all her clothes, hand-me-downs from older siblings, are grey and threadbare compared with her peers’. Everyone knows that the Walkers are dirty and have no self-respect; someone makes sure to tell her so every day.

‘I can’t, she…’ Even now she is unwilling, in front of this girl with her cut-glass accent and her Levi’s jeans, to admit the whole truth. She doesn’t have friends, but she knows instinctively that this new, shining person would vanish from her life in an instant if she discovered the full extent of where she comes from. She still hasn’t realised that their brief friendship is already over. ‘She’ll kill me,’ she finishes lamely. ‘Look at me.’

‘Come on,’ says Bel. ‘We’ve got to get clean.’

They pick their way back along the sheep path to the stream. The meadow is splashed bright yellow with islands of dandelion and ragwort. They are silent, now, and don’t dare look at each other. Their hateful task has robbed them of the chatter of the early hours. The only words they can find are practical, brief. They scramble along the bank to the pool. It seemed deeper when they were floundering about, fighting for footholds, but the water is deep enough to reach their thighs, and runs clear, the mud they kicked up all settled. Neither mentions what they’re doing, but each girl looks about her surreptitiously for Chloe’s blood, for any signs of what has happened here.

‘Come on,’ says Bel again. She strips off her top, her jeans, and dumps them into the water. Jade hangs back. ‘Come on, Jade,’ she urges.

‘Then they’ll be wet,’ says Jade doubtfully.

‘We’ll squeeze them out. And it’s still hot. They’ll be dry in no time. And anyway, we can say we fell into the river. No one knows where we’ve been all day. Come on!’

Jade strips off her top and skirt. Her knees are green from kneeling in the woods. She wades reluctantly down into the water and stands there, shivering despite the heat, hugging the clothes to her chest. Bel snatches them away, throws them into the water. ‘Scrub,’ she orders. ‘Come on. Just get on with it.’

Bel drops to her knees, water up to her chest, and rubs vigorously at the dirt on her arms and shoulders, the sweat in her armpits. Dips her head beneath the surface and re-emerges, dripping and swiping the grime from her face. Gestures to Jade to follow suit.

I can’t, thinks Jade. That’s where she… Where her face…

‘I can’t swim,’ she says.

‘Don’t need to. Come on.’

Bel lunges suddenly forward and grabs her by the arm. Stares hard into her eyes. ‘Jade. Don’t go soft on me now. If you don’t do this, if you go home looking like that…’

She avoids completing the sentence. Doesn’t need to. Knows that Jade is filling the words in for her. They’ll know. They’ll realise. Already they’re distancing themselves from what they’ve done. Trying to separate the actions they’re taking now from the reason why they need to take them.

Jade kneels and plunges beneath the water, like a Baptist.

She opens her eyes below the surface, sees that the water is once again thick with kicked-up mud. It’s dark down here. Quiet. This is what she saw, she thinks. This is how it was, her last moments.

Chloe’s face looms at her through the gloom. She kicks back in panic, struggles upward, bursts out into air. She flounders through the water to the bank. Half crawls, half runs to the top. Stands there shuddering in her underpants.

They reach the gate. Each girl is dripping, clammy in her damp clothes.

‘We’ll split up,’ says Bel.

She’s much calmer than me, thinks Jade. She seems to know what to do. If it was just me, I’d have made so many mistakes by now. They’d all know already. That it was me.

‘I’ll go back through the village,’ says Bel. ‘To mine. They can’t know we were together. Do you understand?’

Jade gulps, and nods. ‘Yes.’

‘They can’t know we were together, ever,’ says Bel. ‘You know that, don’t you? We can’t see each other again. If we see each other, we just pretend we don’t know each other. OK?’

‘Yes,’ says Jade.

‘Do you understand?’ asks Bel again. ‘Not ever. Do you understand?’

Jade nods again. ‘Yes. I understand.’

‘Good,’ says Bel.

She turns away and starts across the meadow, towards the west end of the village. The sun is beginning to set, and she casts a long shadow.