Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (10 page)

The
music hammers at me like a rebuke.

I
can’t seem to breathe, this club is so hot and stuffy. Suddenly I feel sick again,
my skin clammy, and grope my way along the wall towards the toilets.

Did somebody spike that last cocktail?

It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning before
Denzil supports me outside into the cool air. The club is on the coast road near
the cliffs, and I sway there in the darkness while he’s fiddling about with the
jeep. The sea is crashing against rocks far below, a rhythmic boom-slap-crash.

I’ve
been sitting in a corner for hours, refusing any more cocktails and wishing I
had stuck to soft drinks. My head still hurts but at least I no longer feel
sick.

Denzil wraps his jacket round my shoulders. He lights
a cigarette and offers me a drag.

‘No thanks,’ I say, then add accusingly, ‘You spiked
my drink.’

He laughs and shakes his head, helping me to
climb into the front seat of the jeep. ‘No, you’re just drunk.’

The black sky is spinning above us. Diamonds
and more tiny diamonds, round in a circle. I try not to look.

‘I
only had a few drinks.’ That’s what I mean to say, but it comes out wrong, I
know it. My tongue feels numb, and I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. He’s
leaning across me, putting my seat belt on for me. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘Don’t try to talk. I’ll drop you home.’ Denzil
climbs into the jeep beside me. My dress has ridden up, my exposed thigh pale
under the overhead street lights. ‘You’re completely out of it, aren’t you? Do
you know how many offers I had to turn down tonight because I was taking you
back home after the gig?’

‘Sorry,’ I mumble.

‘And you’re gorgeous too.’ He hesitates, then
smooths back my hair. ‘And maybe not too drunk.’

I
should have realised he would try this. Perhaps that’s why he spiked my
cocktails. To make sure I would not fight him. His mouth is firm and demanding.
His hand is warm, moving suggestively on my thigh, and I fumble to push him
away.

‘It’s okay, I don’t want anything you’re not
willing to give,’ he whispers against my mouth, then kisses down my throat.

I
push at his chest. ‘No, I don’t … I can’t do this, sorry.’

To my relief, Denzil does not force the issue.

He
pulls away, shrugging, and only then do I see the small white card tucked under
the windscreen wiper.

I point at it. ‘What’s that?’

Denzil frowns and reaches round the windscreen for
the card. There’s silence as he reads it, then he shrugs and hands it to me.
‘Looks like it’s for you, Ellie.’ He watches me turn over the card. There’s a
note of frustration in his voice. ‘You gave some dude your anklet? While I was
working?’

‘What?’

My eyes can’t focus at first. But the message rouses
my brain from its drunken stupor. It’s been cut from a larger piece of card,
and not very expertly. One edge is ragged, the other less than straight. One
side of the card is blank. On the other is a handwritten note in black marker
pen, clumsy letters but clear enough to take in at a glance.

Suddenly
I understand there’s more than one person who could have spiked my drink
tonight.

You’re
my Number One. Thanks for the anklet.

I
stare down at the card in my hands, not quite understanding the message, then
read it through again slowly. Force myself to concentrate, despite the alcohol
in my system.

Number
One.

I think of the dead woman in the woods. The
number three written in what looked like black marker pen on her forehead.

Thanks
for the anklet.

I glance down automatically but my ankle is
bare. The little gold chain I was wearing earlier in the evening has vanished. Did
the anklet fall off when I was on the beach? Or in the club?

I
have been dancing tonight, and climbing on rocks, and getting drunk. And all
the while this person was watching me. Composing this note in his head.

‘Did you … ’ I stare at Denzil. ‘Is this from
you? Did you write this? And the number on her forehead?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

I am starting to panic. There was nothing in
the newspaper about the number written on the dead woman’s forehead. So whoever
wrote this note knows about it. That is only a very small number of people, I
realise.

And one
of them is the killer.

Denzil takes the note from between my slack fingers
and clicks open his lighter, setting fire to the edge of the card.

‘No.’ I try to reach for it, horrified, but he
holds it up in the air.

‘It was left on my car, I get to decide what
happens to it. And I can see that it’s upsetting you.’

‘It’s evidence.’

‘Of what?’ Denzil shakes his tawny head,
looking serious for once. ‘It’s only evidence that there’s some bastard out
there who gets his kicks out of frightening women. Don’t worry, I’ll get you
home safe.’ He tosses the burning card out of the window, then starts the
engine and pulls away from the kerb. ‘You’ve got to be careful who you talk to
at these clubs.’

I begin to say, ‘I didn’t talk to anyone … ’ Then
stop, slowly going back over the evening – or what I can remember of it.

So I’m Public Enemy Number
One now?

Tris.

I talked to Tris.

The drive across
the moors from the coast has never seemed so long nor so tiring. I doze off
several times, then jerk awake, instantly aware of the man next to me, the
danger I could be in if I’m wrong. Denzil drops me in the turning area outside
the cottage. He’s exhausted, like me, and not very talkative.

‘See
you around,’ he mutters.

The
car roars away in the darkness, and I stand listening to the engine until I
can’t hear it anymore.

I pull my phone from my bag and light up the
screen. It’s nearly four in the morning. I check the signal strength. One bar.
Enough to send a text.

Meet me
Sunday 2pm at the church. Wear running gear.

I text it to Tris, then turn off the phone.
It’s probably a stupid thing to have done. I should go straight to the police,
tell them about the note. But I have to know the truth. And the only way is to
ask.

There is a sudden rustling noise from the
hedgerow behind me.

Sometimes
deer cross the lane here, plunging from heavy woodlands into open fields,
probably in search of water. Or foxes. There is a large male fox in this area,
we often spot it padding silently past at dusk, red bushy tail held out
straight. It could even be a badger. There’s a large holt dug into the sandy
bank behind the cottage.

Then I hear something more frightening.

Breathing.

You can hold your breath when standing still,
but it’s a lot harder when moving. Someone nearby is breathing and moving at
the same time, getting closer and closer. My ears track the sound and I turn
abruptly to my right, holding my own breath.

The breathing continues another second, then
stops too.

Like an
echo.

I catch a movement behind the hedgerow opposite
the cottage, and fix my gaze there, staring harder. There’s a shadowy shape, darker
than the night surrounding it. It shifts half an inch to the right as I watch;
a distinct movement, not my drunken imagination. Human, not animal. Someone is standing
a few feet away behind the hedgerow. Someone roughly the same height and build
as the shadow that comes to the end of my bed some nights, watching me through
the darkness.

Shadow
man.

I feel the familiar swell of panic in my chest,
and it makes me so angry. Why should anyone get away with frightening another
person like this? If it’s a person behind that hedge, they ought to be ashamed
of themselves. And if it’s a phantom of my sick imagination, then it can bloody
well piss off.

There’s
a long knotty stick near the door; we use it for unclogging the rivulet that
runs past the cottage when it gets blocked up with leaves and silt, which it
frequently does.

I
make a grab for the stick, and then lunge at the hedgerow like a crazed Samurai.

‘Take
that,’ I yell at the shadows, repeatedly smashing the sturdy pole against the
hedgerow. Great puffs of green and white fly up into the darkness and drift
back down around me like rain, ragged shreds of hawthorn blossom and nettle
heads and cow parsley. The whole structure creaks ominously. ‘Do you hear me?
You can stick this in your pipe and smoke it. Go on, get out of here, leave me
alone ...’

‘Eleanor?’

Someone is standing in the cottage doorway, directing
the white beam of a torch towards me. The outside light is broken, has been for
months, so we keep a torch on a low table by the front door. With relief, I
recognise the voice.

I toss the stick aside, clatter across the
stone bridge in my heels, and throw my arms around my housemate.

‘Hannah, oh my God.’

She snaps off the torch, and draws me comfortably
inside the cottage. ‘Good grief, Ellie. What the hell did that poor hedge ever
do to you? Are you on drugs?’

I
laugh wildly, then kick off my heels. ‘No.’

‘Pity.’
She puts the torch back on the hall table. ‘I could do with a pick-me-up.’

I
lean unsteadily against the wall in the hallway, rubbing my right foot. ‘I didn’t
know you were in. I thought you were working tonight.’

‘Not
Saturday night. I was trying to catch up on my beauty sleep, but hey, what do
you know? It turns out my body thinks it’s daytime, so I decided I might as
well get up and watch a film until dawn.’ She smiles ironically. ‘Then maybe
I’ll be able to fall asleep.’

‘Can
I sit up with you for a bit?’

‘Sure,
that would be great.’ Hannah pauses, looking thoughtful. ‘By the way, I heard
what sounded like a mouse in the walls earlier.’

‘Ugh.’

‘It
was upstairs near your bedroom. I hate the idea of putting down traps or
poison. Do you think we should get a cat instead? It might scare the mice away.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Good.’
Hannah smiles, and her whole face changes, becoming almost beatific. ‘One of
the women I work with at the hospital, Sally, has a tabby cat who’s just had a
litter of kittens. I hope you don’t think this was high-handed of me, but I spoke
to Sally on the phone earlier, and she says we can have one of the kittens for
free once they’re six weeks old.’

‘That
sounds perfect.’

‘Great.
I’m going to make some cocoa. You interested?’

‘Sure,
if you’re making some. Thanks.’

Hannah
shuffles into the kitchen to make cocoa, looking like Mrs Tiggywinkle in her
fluffy dressing-gown and slippers.

The door to the
cottage safely locked and bolted, I stand with my back flat to the frame, then
peer round out of the glass. I stare at the lane and turning area for several
minutes but can see nothing in the darkness. Not even the hedge.

I
remember Denzil outside the club, burning the note.
It’s only evidence there’s some bastard out there who gets his kicks
out of frightening women.

It’s
working.

I decide to drop by
my dad’s place on my way out to meet Tris.

It’s
a little after one o’clock in the afternoon, and I’m dressed for running. I
hesitated over what to wear, but in the end picked out exactly what I was
wearing last time I was in the woods. Black Lycra shorts, white tee-shirt with
red Nike logo, my Mizuno trainers. That may be a mistake; I don’t know. I’m
acting purely on instinct now.

I
tried to do the ‘right thing’ last time. And look where it got me. Now I’m
under suspicion from the police, and back in hypnotherapy. I even had a brisk letter
yesterday from the head teacher, reiterating what had been agreed about my
taking more time off, and mentioning that Paul Cannell’s parents had been in
touch about an ‘incident’ during our lesson on self-defence.

I
jog slowly down through the yard to the caravan where my dad lives. Plastic
sheeting flaps uneasily over the ruined walls and roof of the farm. I remember
the night of the fire, my father’s drunken confusion, the fast blue-and-white
strobing of the fire engines and ambulances that had packed into this yard.

One
cigarette. Such a small thing to have caused such long-lasting devastation.
Though of course much more than one cigarette lay behind the wreck of our
lives.

Dad
opens up after my third knock, still in the crumpled shirt and jeans he had
worn last night, I suspect. When my mother was still alive, he had always been
impeccably dressed. Suit and tie, his shirts ironed, leather shoes polished. He
has bare feet today, and badly needs a shower.

‘Ellie,’
he says, frowning at me through the half-open door. He’s growing a beard and
moustache again. I suppose it’s easier than shaving. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Checking
how you are. I’m worried about you, Dad.’

‘I’m
your father. I can take care of myself.’

Churchill
appears behind him, wagging his tail at the sound of my voice. ‘He needs to go
out,’ my dad says, and opens the door wider to let the dog jump down. Churchill
stays for a quick fuss from me, then trots away across the farmyard to do his
business.

‘Can
we chat for a minute?’ I come up the steps into the caravan, and my dad
hesitates, then reluctantly moves aside to let me in.

The
place is a mess, and stinks of stale smoke and alcohol. The bin has spilled
over and there’s rubbish on the floor beside it, mostly crushed beer cans and empty
whisky bottles. The beige carpet itself is filthy and needs to be shampooed; my
trainers stick to its tacky surface. The sink is stacked high with dirty plates
and pans, and there are flies crawling on them. As I approach the sink, the
flies lift and slowly circle.

‘Christ,’
I say.

He
watches me angrily. ‘You never change, do you? Don’t think I don’t know why
you’re renting that cottage, Ellie. To keep an eye on me. When you’re the one
who needs to be locked up.’

‘Thanks,’
I say drily.

 
‘We lost your mother, but you weren’t
content with that.’ He looks almost sick, his cheeks hollow, dark bruises under
his eyes from lack of sleep. ‘Years of that nonsense about shadow men, and people
watching you through the windows, so we had to keep the curtains closed as soon
as it got dark. And the tricks you pulled at school. Do you have any idea what
I went through, especially when it looked like I would lose you too? The months
of therapy, and never knowing if you’d be brought home in the back of a police
car … ’

‘I’m
sorry about that, I really am.’

My
father shakes his head, leaning back against the plate-stacked sink, his arms
folded. ‘What’s the point in apologising? I thought you’d sorted your head out
at last. But now it’s starting all over again.’

‘I
was just a kid then,’ I say, struggling to hold onto my temper, ‘and yes, I needed
therapy for a while, and probably made your life hell. But this new thing is
real, I didn’t make it up. I saw a dead woman in the woods, exactly where Mum
was killed, maybe even deliberately posed to look like her. And I need to
convince the police that I’m not crazy or lying to get attention.’

He
makes a disbelieving noise. Like a snort.

I
hesitate. ‘Will you help me or not?’

‘I
can’t help you, Ellie. You’re beyond help.’ He indicates the mess around us.
‘See all this? You and your obsessions have reduced me to this. If I hadn’t
been using all my strength to keep you out of care, I might have kept my job. I
might never have started drinking. The house fire wouldn’t have happened.’

I
hate the accusation in his voice.

‘Now
you want my help convincing the police you’re not crazy. Well, I’m sorry to be
blunt, but I think you are.’ He straightens up, pointing to the caravan door.
‘You threw me out the other day, remember? Now it’s my turn to throw you out.’

‘There
was a note,’ I say, not moving.

‘What
do you mean?’

I
tell him about the note on Denzil’s windscreen, and for a few minutes he seems
to calm down and listen.

‘Where
is this note?’ he asks, frowning.

‘Denzil
burnt it.’

My
dad sneers. ‘How very convenient.’

‘The
note was real, we both saw it. You can ask Denzil if you don’t believe me, I’ll
give you his number. The note proves I’m not making any of this up.’

‘All
it proves is that you are a manipulative little bitch,’ he tells me coldly. ‘You
probably wrote that note yourself, and planted it on his windscreen to get
attention.’

I
stare at him, shocked. Not simply by what he said, but the way he said it. I
don’t recall my father ever swearing at me before now.

‘That’s
not true, and you know it. Why are you being such a bastard? Is it because
you’re drunk?’

He
slaps me round the face. I do not see the blow coming and stagger backwards in
surprise.

My
hand whips up though and I slap him in return. Pure instinctive response. When
I lower my arm, there’s the livid imprint of my hand on his cheek, and a thin bleeding
cut under one eye where one of my fingernails must have caught him.

He
stares at me, his mouth open, breathing hard. ‘Get out,’ he manages to say. ‘Get
out and don’t come back.’

I
stumble out of the caravan, my palm aching from where I slapped him, only to
falter at the bottom of the steps. ‘Wait,’ I say, looking back at him.

He
is closing the door. ‘Goodbye, Eleanor.’

‘There’s
more,’ I say quickly through the door crack. I can see my father staring back
at me, one bloodshot eye rolled in my direction, his mouth trembling. ‘I think
someone might be watching me and Hannah. Up at the cottage.’

‘For
God’s sake, this business is driving me out of my mind. Don’t you see that?
Can’t you, of all people, understand that?’

He
shuts the door. I hear a key turn in the lock, then the sound of him stumbling
back to the crumpled sheets of his bunk.

‘Dad,
are you okay?’ I wait a minute, listening. ‘I’m sorry I hit you. But you hit me
first.’

There
is no reply.

Churchill
appears, still wagging his tail. I stare at him blindly. The dog whines, then
lies down at the base of the caravan steps in the shade.

My
father has never hit me before. Angrily, I put a hand to my cheek. It feels
tender and slightly swollen.

He’s
right though. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that I slipped out of
the club while Denzil was deejaying, wrote that note myself, stuck it on his
windscreen, and am simply too far gone in my psychosis to remember a single
minute of it.

The
sun dips momentarily behind a cloud. I look around the yard. There are weeds
sprouting from the cracked concrete, dandelions with bright yellow heads, dusty
nettles and tufts of grass. Beyond the caravan, the fields stretch away into
the distance, climbing inexorably towards the steep, brown-grey outcrops of
rock that mark the start of Bodmin Moor.

I
remember long summer days here as a child, my mother stretching up to hang
washing on the line, the chickens pecking at the dirt as they wandered freely
about the yard.

Then
came the day that changed our lives.

‘Hello, Eleanor,’ the lady says, getting up from behind her big
wooden desk. She speaks softly and slowly, as though I’m a little kid, which
I’m not. ‘How very nice to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about you from
your Daddy.’

The lady comes round to stand in front of me. She is wearing a
flowery blue skirt down to her knees and a white shirt with flounces on her
collar. Her shoes are plain black and shiny. I think she looks very smart and a
little bit stern, like our head teacher.

‘I am a doctor,’ she tells me, ‘and my name is Isabel Quick. Do you
know why your Daddy has brought you to visit me?’

I raise my eyebrows. Everyone knows what a doctor does. ‘Because I
keep getting into trouble, and the police think there must be something wrong
with me.’

 
The
doctor smiles as though I’ve said something funny. She shakes her head, then
looks up at my dad. ‘Not quite, Eleanor. Do you mind if I call you Eleanor?’

‘Most people call me Ellie.’

‘Then I shall too.’

She’s got a nice enough smile, I decide, but I don’t much like her
office. It reminds me of hospital rooms, the walls white and clean,
important-looking notices on the board behind her desk. The doctor has a glass
vase of flowers on her desk: pink and yellow flowers, very pretty. I can smell
them even from my seat on the other side of her desk.

Dr Quick sees me looking at the vase. She slips one pink flower out
from the rest and hands it to me. ‘They’re called freesias. My favourite
flowers. Smell nice, don’t they?’

The smell is strong but very sweet. And I do like flowers. My mum
used to keep flowers like this in a round blue vase on the kitchen table. I don’t
remember much about my mum but what I do remember makes my tummy ache. The
smell of her perfume, and the flowers she kept on the pine dresser; the pretty
clothes she wore; her smile, that was for me alone.

Dad never brings flowers
into the house.

I say nothing but grip the
flower stalk tightly, breathing in its sweet perfume as the pink petals tickle
my nose.

I feel tears pricking behind my eyes and fight them, embarrassed. I
don’t like crying. I try never to cry in front of other people.

‘I’m not the kind of doctor who looks after you when you have a physical
sickness, Ellie. I’m a very special kind of doctor. A doctor of the mind.’ She crouches
in front of me so her eyes can look directly into mine. It’s not a very
comfortable thing, but I try not to look away. ‘I’m a hypnotist. Do you know
what that means?’

I shake my head.

‘It means I’m going to ask you to look inside your head. Deep inside
your oldest memories. But it may take some time. You might have to visit me quite
a few times before it starts to work.’ She smiles. ‘It’s not always easy to remember
things, is it?’

I’m in trouble with the police for what I did, that’s the truth, or
we would not be here. I don’t remember everything I did wrong, those days are
all confused in my head. But I know the police insisted on this visit. They
think it will keep me out of trouble in the future.

That doesn’t mean I have to
take it seriously though. I’ll play along with the doctor, that’s all. Maybe
Dad will not be so angry with me then.

The doctor checks her watch. ‘Right, I think we should start. First
I’m going to let you get nice and comfy on this couch, so you can fall asleep.
Then I’m going to ask you some questions.’

‘How can I answer questions if I’m asleep?’

My tone is rude, deliberately so. But the doctor keeps smiling. She
puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘You let me worry about that. Lie down now and get
comfortable.’

She helps me lie back on the long seat. There’s a cushion for my
head; it’s softer than the scratchy grey material of the seat. I stare up at
the white ceiling, wondering what’s coming next. She slips off my outdoor
shoes, tucking them beneath the seat.

I’m a little bit worried now, but I’m not going to let her see that.
I look round at Dad, who winks.

‘Do what the doctor tells you, angel,’ he whispers, then bends and
kisses me on the forehead. ‘I’ll be right here if you need me. Everything’s
going to be okay.’

The doctor sits beside me on the seat. ‘Look at me, Ellie,’ she says
firmly. ‘I want you to listen very carefully to my voice.’

Great, I think, another lecture. I prepare myself to be bored.

She talks to me for a while
in her soft voice, then starts to move her finger back and forth a little
distance from my eyes, asking me to watch it very carefully as it goes back and
forth, back and forth, back and forth, swinging like a pendulum on one of those
old Victorian clocks. I try not to watch her finger, or to listen to what the
doctor is saying, but it’s impossible not to. Something about my eyelids starts
feeling heavy. Dr Quick tells me this is going to happen, and I wonder how she
knows.