‘Emma,’ I say, ‘if there’s anything you want to talk about, you can always come to the chapel. I’d be –’
The door to the bar suddenly swings open. An old dear in tweed and wellies totters in, nods at us and lets herself into a cubicle.
‘Emma?’
She smiles, mask firmly back in place. ‘Thanks for the chat, Reverend. And we really must get the girls together sometime. Bye.’
And then she is gone, in a waft of perfume and pain.
I sigh and look back at myself in the mirror. My face surprises me sometimes. The bags beneath my eyes, the heaviness around my jowls. If Emma has chosen to disguise herself with needles and knives, I have done the opposite. I have let myself go. I have let the years erase the girl I used to be, hiding behind crow’s feet and middle-age spread.
I think about what she said again. Do you believe in evil? Can someone be born bad? Nature versus nurture. And, if so, can they change? Or is the best they can ever hope for to deny their nature, hide the darkness inside, try and fit in, act just like anyone else? I don’t have the answer, but I do wonder who she was talking about.
I walk back into the bar and sit down. Mike pushes my wine across the table.
‘Here you go.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You were a long time.’
‘Queue.’
He nods and picks up his orange juice. The not drinking makes sense now. Atonement. He blames himself for his daughter’s death, even though it wasn’t his fault. Just an unforeseeable tragedy. As all tragedies are. That’s what makes them so hard to bear. The acceptance that life is random and often cruel. We seek to attribute blame. We cannot accept that things happen without reason. That not everything is within our control. We make ourselves small gods of our own universe without any of God’s mercy, wisdom or grace.
I pick up my wine and take a swig.
‘So, tell me, Jack?’ Rushton says, interrupting my thoughts. ‘We were just discussing important theological matters.’
‘Oh. Really?’
‘Yes. Who is the best on-screen devil? Al Pacino or Jack Nicholson?’
I smile. ‘Who says the devil has to be a man?’
THIRTY-ONE
‘Stay the hell away from Wrigley. If you know what’s good for you.’
Fucking Rosie. The girl was a bitch and a bully, but was she also a liar? Flo was pretty sure Rosie Harper could twist the truth until it screamed. But there was something about her face when she issued her warning about Wrigley. Flo didn’t like it.
Flo had found the story online. It had headlined the local rag. A fire had been deliberately set in the sports hall of Ferndown Academy. It had devastated the hall but hadn’t reached the rest of the school. Firefighters had rescued a girl who had been trapped in a storeroom.
A pupil was arrested on suspicion of arson. There was no mention of the pupil being charged. Neither the alleged arsonist nor the girl were named. It might not even have been Wrigley. And, even if it was, if he hadn’t been charged, they obviously didn’t have enough evidence. It could all be gossip. Rumours spread like, well, wildfire, in schools.
Worst-case scenario, Wrigley had set the fire. That was bad, yes. But it didn’t mean he knew there was someone in the storeroom. Perhaps it was an accident.
On the other hand, how well did she really know him?
‘If I really wanted to murder you, I wouldn’t have told you about the well.’
She had tried to put it out of her mind when she got home, distracting herself with a book – an old Clive Barker. But it was no good. It was still there, like an itch. And then Mum had come in, rattling on about some stupid quiz at the pub. She had cracked. Lost her temper. She shouldn’t have taken it out on her mum. It wasn’t her fault, not really.
She lies back on her bed. What a shitshow. And the really, really crap thing? It isn’t even the arson that bothers her the most. It’s what Rosie had said about sucking Wrigley off. She’s more bothered that Rosie sucked his dick than the fact he could have burnt a girl to death. She’s jealous. Stupid. She only spent a few hours with him. But she had thought he was different. He’s the only friend she’s made here. And now it turns out he’s an arsonist and the sort of twat that would let a bitch like Rosie go down on him.
There’s a soft knock on the bedroom door.
‘Okay, I’m going.’
She doesn’t reply. Anger has filled her throat.
‘Love you.’
It’s not her fault.
‘Don’t get too drunk,’ she calls gruffly back.
She hears her mum go back into her room and then trudge downstairs. The front door slams and Flo is alone. She rolls over and tries, again, to concentrate on her book. But it’s too hot in the small room, even with the window open. And the claustrophobic silence of the cottage is distracting. She finds herself feeling tense, waiting for something to break it, even though she knows she is alone. What’s the scariest sound? A stair creaking in an empty house. The soft tread of non-existent feet. Perhaps belonging to a headless, armless, burning girl.
Give it a rest, brain! She reaches for her headphones and sticks them on, selecting something loud and punky to distract her. Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes.
She manages most of the album and several more chapters of the book before her stomach starts to growl. Despite what she told her mum, she’s starving. All she has eaten today is half a muffin.
She swings her legs out of bed and pushes open the bedroom door. She pads downstairs. Even though it’s not fully dark outside and all the lights are on, the cottage always feels full of shadows. Something about the rooms. The light never seems to stretch into all the crooked corners.
Despite the heat, she shivers. Reading too much horror again. She’ll be seeing frigging clowns next. She walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge, surveying the contents. Mum’s been shopping, but there still doesn’t seem to be much here. Cooking and domesticity are not exactly her mum’s strong points. She tries her best, but she is never going to be one of those TV mums who whips up a gourmet meal while spinning around the kitchen in an apron.
She spots some eggs, cheese and peppers. She could make an omelette, she supposes. She grabs the ingredients, slams the fridge shut and dumps them on the table. Then she goes over to the sink to get a knife out of the drainer.
Something catches her eye outside the window. A flash of movement. White between the grey headstones. From this angle, she can just make out a narrow strip of graveyard to the left of the chapel and then the chapel itself. She squints. There it is again. A figure. A girl? Moving swiftly from the graveyard towards the chapel. Instinctively, Flo turns and looks for her camera, then remembers that it’s broken. When she looks back, the girl is gone. If she was ever there at all.
She debates. She has the strongest urge to follow her. But she’s also well aware that following a ghostly girl into a deserted chapel at twilight is pretty much ‘Dumb Movie Heroine 101’. She could only make it more clichéd if she was wearing a push-up bra and hot pants.
Still, something about the girl tugs at her. She grabs her phone and heads for the door. She is still holding the knife from the drainer: a small, sharp vegetable knife. She thinks about putting it back and then slips it into the back pocket of her jeans. Just in case.