Dead Girl Walking (16 page)

‘Things can go wrong. This has to be done by the book.’

‘The book is shit! And it hasn’t helped much so far… that’s why you called me. I’m not exactly by the book, am I?’ I know my voice continues to rise and he glances at the adjoining office through the window, where his colleagues mill around a huge board covered in maps and photos.

‘It’s not like that, Cassie…’ he says in a low voice. ‘There are things I can get away with involving you in, and things I definitely can’t. Putting people deliberately in danger – it’s just not my style. This is a categorical no and there is no further discussion.’

The rage rolls in, and all I can think about is how angry I am that my idea is being ignored, how sick I am of everyone treating me like I’m weak and feeble. ‘I’ve been through more than you can ever imagine. This need to wrap me in cotton wool is ridiculous.’ I grab my coat from the chair, knocking my tea across the desk. ‘I’ll find him, whether you help me or not.’

As I run out, there is the beginning of a reply on his lips. I don’t get to hear what it is.

The bedclothes are soaking again as I extricate myself from the mess twisted around me. The smells of my dream remain: sweat and dirt, and something else that I still can’t recognise. I take a moment to catch my breath, the memory of his hands around my neck still raw. I feel for the lamp and pull across the notebook I’ve started to keep on the bedside table. There was a ring, a gold one, with St Christopher on it. It’s a disappointing amount of new information but I write it down anyway.

Putting the book away, I strip the sheets from the bed. My dream has been messy tonight: flickering, confused images of a stranger’s death mixed with Gran’s silent passing and the car accident. Dante was in there too. None of it makes sense, except for the feeling of filth that seems to run through my very veins.

I run the shower as hot as I can stand it. I scrub with a soapy flannel, over and over, up inside, until I’m raw and pink everywhere. I stand under the showerhead and let the water burn away
his
stink. But all the scrubbing in the world won’t wash away the nausea that sticks in my throat.

Even though I still don’t feel clean after an hour, I remake the bed and check my phone. No missed calls, no texts. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I wonder if Dante will come back after the way I sent him away. The idea leaves me strangely hollow. After three deleted messages from Karl, there are no more from him either. The first made him sound like a dad chastising his kid. The second was a little more pleading, and then the third virtually threatened to arrest me if I did anything remotely vigilante. Even though it made me feel bad that I plan to go against his strict instructions as soon as I figure out how, it also made me smile. He takes me seriously, and that’s the first time in ages someone has reckoned on me doing anything of worth.

I slide back in beneath the covers and stare at the ceiling, trying to separate the details of what’s played out in my head tonight. Nobody has ever been gifted what I have before and I can’t help but keep coming back to the same conclusion about it. I’ve come back from the dead with this ability… why? I try hard to bring the details of the killer’s face back to my mind to no avail. But what if I saw him on the street? Surely I’d know him. I could end this, with or without DI Massey’s help and I know that would finally bring me peace. I wish I could make him see that because I’d much rather do it with his support than without.

I soon realise that sleep won’t be returning tonight. Flicking on the lamp, I throw off my covers and reach for the clothes hanging on the back of a chair. I go to the window and pull back the curtains to see that although the night is heavy with clouds soaked in the orange glow of the streetlamps, it’s dry. Not that it would have mattered either way. I know now what I have to do and I’m psyched enough to do it.

I’m about to let the curtain fall back into place when I see some movement in the shadows. When I look back and focus, everything seems still, but I can’t shake the sudden feeling that I’m being watched. I snap my head back round to my room; I’m half expecting some bogeyman to leap out at me. But there is just Marmalade, lying on the bed and regarding me with inquisitive watchfulness. It’s nerves, I tell myself, and that’s only natural given what I’m heading out into. But if I keep my wits about me and arm myself, I can do this, I know I can. And in the unlikely event that I am being watched by someone with ill-intent, isn’t it better that I know about it so I can be ready for them?

As I leave the warm bubble of my bedroom, the chill of the empty house makes my skin erupt into goose-bumps. I try to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and stay strong, though my resolve is crumbling even as I take the stairs and I start to tremble. It could be the cold making me shiver, but somehow I know it’s not.

In the kitchen, I stare at the knife block. I think about how it would feel to stab someone. Would it make me throw up? Is flesh hard to pierce? Perhaps it’s just like hacking at a joint of meat. Could I kill someone; could I stand and watch as their life ebbed away? Do I have the right?

I take the longest carving knife from the block and slip it into my rucksack. I pocket my phone and keys and pull up my hood. My heart is almost bursting from my chest, my pulse so loud I can barely hear anything outside myself. My hands shake as I shoot back the bolts on the front door.
Hold it together, Cass
.

But I don’t even get as far as opening the door. Something inside me snaps. I slide down the door and start to cry.

As dawn creeps into the room I’m on the sofa, still in my coat, the rucksack on the floor beside me. I can see the wooden handle of the knife poking from the top, and the tip tearing its way through the fabric. The memory fills me with anger again. One simple act would cure me, and I can’t even do that. A weak sun slants through the
blinds, throwing dusty blades of light across the sitting room. There’s a tacky, fetid taste in my mouth. I sit up and my neck protests against the change in position.

As I pass the hall to get a drink, the phone starts to ring. I hover for a moment, then carry on to the kitchen. I’m not up to talking now. It trills steadily in the background as I fill a glass and gulp some water down. Just as I think I should get it after all, it stops. My mobile phone buzzes in my pocket.

‘Hi Gail… yes, I’m coping…. Ok, sure. I can come down later today.’

It seems cruel to clear Gran’s room like this. She’s only just gone, and isn’t even buried yet, and already her memory is being erased from the physical world. I gaze at the tiny space. A single bed in the corner, some framed photos, a small, faux-wood wardrobe, a chest of drawers with boxes ranged along the top. This is all there is to show that she was here at all. The room smells – a strange mix of peppermints, old dinners and musty neglect. I wrinkle my nose and Gail shoots me a quick glance before crossing to open a window.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘We haven’t had the staff to come and clean it yet.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Do you need any help?’

A draught from the window tickles my neck and makes me shiver. ‘No, I can manage.’

Gail hands me a roll of bin bags. ‘If you sort out what you want to keep, I’ll put it into the utility room until you can arrange to collect it. Everything else you can bag up and we’ll dispose of it for you.’

I stare at her. This is my gran she’s telling me to sort into useful and rubbish, my gran’s life she’s slinging into the utility room like she’s a bag of cleaning products. When the end comes, what we all boil down to is refuse that needs disposing of neatly. But Gail was the one Gran liked best: the way she hummed when she made Gran’s bed, always cheerful, the way she didn’t talk down to Gran like some of the staff did. I don’t suppose it’s her fault this has to be done. She pushes a lock of platinum hair away from her face and gives me a sympathetic pat on the arm. ‘Are you sure you don’t want some help?’

I shake my head. ‘I’d rather go through everything on my own.’

She nods. ‘What are you doing about a funeral?’ she asks as she hovers at the door.

‘I don’t know.’

‘We could phone the undertaker that we always use, if you like.’

I think about this for a moment. That would be the undertaker they use when one of the residents has no living family left to bury them. I try to smile at her.

‘That would be good.’

‘Come and see me in the office when you’re done here,’ she says as she closes the door.

My legs collapse and I sit in the middle of the floor with the roll of bags discarded at my side. Sorting out this room feels like sorting out my life: I don’t even know where to begin and it seems easier to do nothing. Being alone in this room makes me realise just how alone I am in life. I take out my phone. Dante’s number has left the scrap of paper and is now on my contact list, like he might be permanent. Helen would call that progress, right? I could call him now and I know he’d come. He’d come and hold me and kiss me and whisper that everything will be ok.

My phone goes back in my pocket and I start to scoop Gran’s belongings into the bags.

When the wardrobe is emptied of her scant selection of clothes and her few books are taken from the dusty shelf, I turn my attention to the dresser. In the drawer is a diary, bound in red velour. I run my hand over the fabric, feeling the nap brush against my fingers, and then hold it to my nose for a moment. It has that old page smell that takes me right back to my favourite second-hand book seller. I didn’t even know Gran kept a diary. I peel back the cover, tears already blurring my eyes so that I can’t read the first entry. I bite them back. The first pages are really old and the dates are far apart; it seems that she only recorded significant events in her life. One of the last entries is the day my family died and me along with them. It’s short:

Today is the blackest day of my life. If ever there was a case for atheism, it has hit me right in the face today. How can a god that loves us take away everyone who ever meant anything in one deadly moment? How can he cut short young lives so full of promise? No one should have to live through losing their child, no matter how old they get. Today, I did not die, as my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughters did, but I died inside
.

I’m struck by the simple eloquence of Gran’s words. I never imagined she could write like that. She was an intelligent woman, of course, and she knew how to throw a winning argument at anyone who tried to best her, but this… It’s so fragile, so mournfully beautiful. Emotion chokes me and I sniff it away.

The following entry is dated the day of the funeral that I should have been at. But there were only three coffins at that funeral, not four. Instead, I was lying on my bed, shivering and staring at the walls. This page of Gran’s diary is blank. Book-marking it is a copy of the order of service. Mum would have hated these hymns, but she only liked happy ones about God’s little sparrows, or whatever, and I don’t suppose they’re suitable funeral songs. Not that I would have had any better suggestions, even if I had been in a state to be asked. It wasn’t the sort of thing you discussed with your family at breakfast on your average day.

The last page is about me coming back. My eyes skim the details until one passage catches my attention:

The profound and overwhelming sadness of my every day is tempered by the happiness of one survival. God only knows how or why (the more I think about it, the more incredible it all seems) but perhaps He couldn’t stand the thought of my fall from faith, because He spared my Cassie and she came back to me. There is no rhyme or reason why; I can only be thankful. My worry now is how she is coping, or not coping, with being the only one left. If I had to choose which one would struggle, Cassie is the one I would have pointed the finger at. I’m afraid she’s the one out of all of them who won’t be able to cope alone with the incredible burden of survival
.

I stare at the entry. I read it again. Gran wanted someone else to survive. Anyone but me.

When I get home all I want to do is sink into a bath with the last of my rose scented bubbles, one last time to remember, and then let go and never look back. I’ll throw the bottle away and it will be another tiny step. Gran was right, of course, I really haven’t coped alone. But it’s time to change that now and show her that I can do it. I lug in the bags of Gran’s things and line them up against the kitchen wall. I couldn’t bear to leave any of it in the end so I dragged it all home while my fingers ached and my
muscles burned. It’s the last thing I could truly do for her so it seems only right. Her belongings join the other ghosts that live in my house.

I’m suddenly aware of how cold it is in here, colder than normal, and I realise that the window is open. My heart seems to stick in my throat as I stare at it, before running over to close it. Just before I do, I notice a trail of tiny red specks. I chide myself immediately for being melodramatic, but it looks suspiciously like blood. I hover over one, poised to wipe a little up with my finger and inspect it, but then I’m gripped by a cold fear and I slam the window shut.

I know for sure that I didn’t leave it open this time so what the hell is going on?

The second thing I’m aware of is that Marmalade’s food is untouched from when I left this morning. She doesn’t eat it all at once now, like she did when I first got her, but usually during the day she nibbles at it until it is gone. There’s an awful lot left here. I call her and listen for a moment, expecting her to trot in, tail high in the air and purring at my arrival, but the house is silent and still. I call again. Nothing. My gaze flits back to the window. Perhaps she got out when it was open and can’t get back in. Perhaps she somehow got it open to go out and I’m overreacting. I suppose I could have left it not properly fastened and I suppose she could have got a clever paw to it and prised it open to make her escape. It’s not the only explanation for the window and it’s certainly not the most logical one but it’s the one I want to believe right now.