Ready or Not, page 10
‘They advised you not to!’ Tom said.
‘They said I could.’
‘But why would you?’
‘It’s a big story.’
‘And you’re at the centre of it and you get a scoop,’ Tom said. ‘Then afterwards you tell the real story.’
‘Right,’ Alice said.
‘And our safety is less important than this story?’
‘No,’ Alice said. ‘Of course not. But I don’t know that our safety is compromised.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘We don’t? We do know this guy’s crazy, and that he knows our address and all about us. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Wynne thought we’re – I’m – not the target. There’s a ritual. And even if I am, the police will be nearby.’
Tom knew his wife. She had a quiet determination that bordered on stubbornness.
Crossed the border, if truth be told. She could be stubborn to the point of intransigence. She tried not to be – she recognized it as an unpleasant characteristic – but she couldn’t help it. In their first house they had argued about the colour they were going to paint the second bedroom. Alice had chosen the colour of all the other rooms, and so he decided to make a final stand about the last room to be painted.
She had refused to compromise, and in the end he had accused her of being stubborn. She had paused, then said, OK, have your colour.
He had painted the room, and then, the following Sunday come back from the pub to find it painted the colour she had wanted all along.
And she had that look about her now.
‘There’s nothing I can say to stop this, is there?’ Tom said.
‘No,’ Alice replied. ‘Not really.’
‘Jesus,’ Tom said. ‘How did they get our address? And Joanna’s name?’
‘An address is easy to get,’ Alice said. ‘And they could have found out about Jo from your Facebook. That’s why I don’t have it. People post way too much personal information on there. Middle names, birthdays, kids’ birthdays, favourite teachers, holiday dates and destinations. All that stuff used to be secret.’
‘I’ll close mine down.’
Alice looked at her watch. ‘I have to go. The press conference is starting. Will you be OK with Jo?’
Tom closed his laptop. ‘I’ll be fine. And Alice – be careful, OK?’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’
Ambleside, 2013
Alice
Ned had left before breakfast, but he did not make it far before he contacted her.
It’s not too late. I’m at Oxenholme and can get a train back
It was at Oxenholme that the local train changed to the mainline, and he clearly saw it as the last chance to salvage their holiday.
Alice read the message and slipped the phone back into her pocket. If he asked she could say she had missed it.
‘Was that Ned?’ Brenda said. They were sitting on the bank of a river – the Rothay, a plaque said – their feet in the water.
‘Yep,’ Alice said. The sun was already high and hot and she reached down to cup some water in her hands to splash on her face. Despite the sun the water was cold; she had swum in the lake two days earlier and it had taken her breath away. ‘He’s offering me one more chance.’
‘You interested?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Alice said. ‘It’s weird, but it’s like I’d known for a while that it was over, but I hadn’t realized it. Once I saw it, it was obvious, and I went from feeling like I was in a relationship that was a bit wonky, to being totally sure it was finished. And now I just feel relief. I feel light.’
Her phone buzzed again and she took it from her pocket.
‘Let’s try again,’ she read. ‘What we have is too precious to throw away like this.’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t recognize those feelings, Brenda. I see that message and I disagree. Whatever we had died long ago. Things were good – great, even – at the start, but it’s not been working for a while. And worse, it’s not recoverable. We’re not right for each other.’
‘I doubt Ned agrees,’ Brenda said.
‘I know. But he’s going to have to.’
Another message flashed on the screen.
Why are you ignoring me? What have I done to deserve this?
‘He’s persistent, I’ll give him that,’ Brenda said. She lit a cigarette. ‘And a bit of a baby.’
‘He’s not all bad,’ Alice said. ‘He’s a nice guy, really.’ She typed a reply.
I’m not ignoring you. I’m out walking.
I don’t have to leave. I could come back
I don’t think that’s a good idea
Alice, I love you, and I know you love me. I’m sorry for being like I was but let’s move on. I promise it won’t happen again
This was the moment when, for Ned, this would turn from a bump in the road to the end of their relationship.
I’m sorry Ned, but it’s over
She re-read the words, then hit send, and put her phone face down on the grass.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I feel like a right bitch now.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Not to come back. That we’re done.’
‘Congratulations,’ Brenda said. ‘That takes guts. But it’s better to be honest. And now you’ve got three more nights out with me!’
‘I was thinking about that,’ Alice said. ‘And I’ve got a spare bed in my room now. You could move in?’
Brenda grinned. ‘Why not? Travel in style for a change. We can split it.’
Alice shook her head. ‘That’s OK. I was paying for it anyway. Just buy me a drink.’
‘You sure?’
‘Sure.’
She grabbed her phone. There were two more messages from Ned, as well as a missed call. She ignored them and pressed the camera icon, then held it up and leaned towards Brenda.
‘Say cheese,’ she said, and took the photo.
Alice lay on the bed, a bottle of beer between her thighs. She and Brenda had stopped in a small supermarket on the way home from a swim in Rydal Water and picked up some drinks and hotdogs to, as Brenda put it, ‘pre-game it’, before they went out.
They had heated up the hotdogs in the youth hostel kitchen and headed up to the room to get ready; Brenda was in the shower.
Alice sipped her beer, aware that she was smiling. A lazy day mooching about in the sun, then a purposeless dip in a lake, with cheap hot dogs for dinner and beer in the room: Ned would never have agreed to spend a day doing that.
It would have been a waste. The beers would have to be some kind of special Lakeland ale, dinner had to be an event, the day had to be spent wisely.
And there was a place for Ned’s approach. She appreciated his interest in going places and seeing things and making sure nothing was wasted, but what he didn’t see was that relaxing and doing nothing wasn’t necessarily a waste.
It was fun. And that was enough.
She sat up and reached into her rucksack for her phone. She had heard it buzzing in there all day but had ignored it. She felt bad for Ned, but she couldn’t answer all his calls and reply to all his messages. It would set a precedent she couldn’t live up to.
She felt a mixture of sympathy and annoyance when she saw the missed calls – nine of them – and the multitude of messages. He needed to back off. She dismissed them and opened Facebook.
Nellie had posted a photo of her and Mads in front of the Sydney Opera House.
Tourist photo cliché, but it really is amazing!
God, she wished she’d gone with them. She couldn’t blame Ned – in the end she was her own person and so she should have gone, but that didn’t stop her resenting him for making it so difficult. In many ways that had been the beginning of the end. Looking back, the signs were there, but that was when she first started to really feel trapped.
She opened a message thread to Nellie.
Hi! Glad you’re having a good time. Me and Ned broke up (don’t worry, I’m not sad – I know, weird, right??? I’ll tell all later.) so I’m in Ambleside alone. With new friends, actually. One Aussie called Brenda. Photo attached. Have a great trip and safe travels. Tell Mads hi. Love you both. Axxx
She attached the photo of her and Brenda by the river. It was a lovely photo: the trees were a deep green, sunlight sparkled off the river, she was smiling – she looked a little tired, but happy.
It was a new her. Her first day post-Ned. It was worth recording.
She finished her beer and got up to grab another. They were on the floor next to the bunk bed where Brenda was going to sleep. Alice bent down and picked one up, then reached for the bottle opener.
It was on the bed, next to a bottle cap, and Brenda’s keys to the room.
They were in a clear plastic pouch, with her name on it.
Brenda Yates.
Alice opened the beer and sat on the bed. She typed Brenda’s name into Facebook. A list of profiles came up, so she filtered on location.
Perth, Australia.
Alice scrolled back a few posts. She was interested to see Brenda back home – who her friends were, what she did, what her house was like. There was a photo of her with three other women, all about the same age. They were sitting around a pub table, plastic cups of beer stacked on it.
She pinched the screen to zoom in on Brenda.
It wasn’t her.
It wasn’t the same woman. She looked like Brenda – same long blonde hair, same tan – but it wasn’t her. They were similar – could have been sisters – but it was clearly not the Brenda who was in the shower.
It was a different Brenda Yates. It happened quite a lot – when you had the entire population of a city to choose from, it wasn’t a surprise to find two people with the same name.
The shower stopped and she heard Brenda moving about in the bathroom. Would it be weird to show her the other Brenda’s profile? She might think Alice was stalking her. But then again, people searched for other people on Facebook all the time.
Still, it was a bit creepy. And it was no more than an odd coincidence. Alice remembered what her maths teacher, Mrs Noble, had once explained to the class – coincidences should be expected. If you baked a cake, the raisins weren’t evenly distributed in the cake. They clustered – and events did the same. You could never know what the coincidence would be, but you should expect coincidences to happen.
And that was what was going on here. It was a coincidence that there were two people called Brenda Yates from Perth, and there was no point making Brenda think she was stalking her by showing the Facebook page to her.
But she could ask some questions. She was going to be a journalist after all. Asking questions was in her nature.
Brenda came out of the bathroom in jeans and a tank top. She was lean and muscular; there was a sense of hidden strength in the way she moved.
‘Beer?’ Alice said.
Brenda turned to her; her expression was flat and emotionless, and, for a moment, there was an odd look in her eyes. Contempt, almost.
‘Shit, yeah,’ Brenda said, and smiled. ‘Sounds perfect.’
‘Are you on Facebook?’ Alice said. ‘I was looking at my friends. The ones in Australia.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Sydney. They took a photo at the Opera House.’
‘Of course they did.’ Brenda opened a beer and took a swig. ‘And no, I’m not on Facebook. Can’t stand it.’
‘Really? It’s a great way to keep in touch.’
‘Too public for me,’ Brenda said. ‘I don’t want the world knowing where I am and what I’m doing.’
‘You can change the settings so only your friends can see what you post. Or your family. Your parents would be interested.’
‘You’ve not met my parents.’
Alice hesitated. She did not like to interfere in other people’s lives; her mum had had a friend, Pru, who gave unsolicited advice on everything from politics to choice of car to home decoration. Her technique was to introduce a subject and then link it to the topic she wished to give advice on – I was reading an interior design article yesterday and thought of your living room. You could put the couch by the window and paint the walls purple – and then from then on you were fighting a tide of well-meaning but unwelcome advice.
After Pru had been at the house, Alice’s mum used to sit at the dinner table and go through all the advice she’d been given; any time anyone else did it, it was called ‘doing a Pru’, and Alice had decided never to do a Pru.
But sometimes you needed to, and maybe it was OK, if you trod carefully.
‘I don’t want to poke my nose in where it’s not wanted,’ she said. ‘So take this as me offering a different perspective – but I’d give anything to see my parents again. Whatever’s between you, it might be worth putting it in the past.’
Brenda closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. That was insensitive. And you’re not poking your nose in. But really – you don’t know my parents. They’re not like yours. I’m better off on my own.’
‘OK,’ Alice said. ‘We should get going. The others’ll be in the pub already.’
They walked along the road towards the youth hostel. The night was warm and soft in the moonlight.
Hendrik and Clara were ahead of her; Brenda and Lizzie were a few steps behind them, the smoke from their cigarettes drifting back to her and Donny.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Hendrik and I leave tomorrow.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to Rotterdam. We came to Hull on the boat and visited Durham and Northumberland and Newcastle.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Newcastle is famous in Holland for nights out and now I know why.’
‘You had fun?’
‘Maybe not the right word. We had an experience.’
‘I bet you were popular with the Geordie girls.’
He wagged his head from side to side. ‘It was a bit’ – he paused, searching for the right word – ‘intimidating.’
Alice laughed. ‘I can imagine.’
They were approaching a path that led to a park by the lake. Donny pointed to it.
‘Shall we walk to the water?’
She hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Why not? It’s your last night.’
The path led between two old stone walls and emerged onto another road. They crossed it and walked through a gate and into the park. There was a rocky outcrop by the edge of the lake and they headed towards it.
Donny sat down, took his flip-flops off and put his feet in the water.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I am polluting your clean English lake with my feet.’
‘I think it’ll be OK.’ She sat next to him. ‘I might do the same.’
‘But your feet are not smelly like mine.’
‘You don’t know that.’
He nodded. ‘True. But I am guessing.’
‘As it happens I have very smelly feet. Quick, hold your nose, I’m taking off my shoes.’ He laughed and pinched his nose while she slipped off her shoes and dangled her feet in the lake. ‘There you go. Safe now.’
He peered into the water. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’re right. I see a dead fish.’
‘Told you.’
‘Well. The world is full of surprises,’ he said. ‘Who would think such a beautiful person could smell so bad she kills fish?’
‘All part of life’s rich tapestry.’
He shifted so they were a little closer, his hip touching hers, and put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned against him. It felt odd to be touching someone other than Ned, but it was strangely comfortable.
‘I like you, Donny,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame you’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But always we will have this memory.’
He tilted his head to face her. She looked into his eyes and was struck by how blue they were, and how they were not Ned’s eyes, which was weird, it really was, and then they were kissing.
The kiss lasted a long time. How long she didn’t know, but kissing time was not like normal time. Sixty seconds of normal time was nothing; think of all the minutes that slipped by unnoticed, waiting for an appointment or idly surfing the web or passing the time of day with someone. But sixty seconds of kissing time was at once an eternity and gone in an instant.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That was unexpected.’
‘But nice, I hope.’
‘Very nice.’
And then they were kissing again.
They parted at the bottom of the stairs. She wasn’t ready for anything more than a kiss; Donny didn’t suggest anything more.
‘Goodnight,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we will see each other some time.’
‘Maybe I’ll come to Holland,’ she said, although she knew that, even if she did, she would not seek Donny out. The kiss belonged to this night, and it fit perfectly. She wanted to preserve the memory as it was.
‘You are welcome anytime,’ he said. ‘Good luck, Alice.’
Wednesday, 18 August 2021
Alice
‘CRUCIFIX’ KILLER COULD STRIKE AGAIN
By Alice Sark
The police confirmed in a press conference yesterday that they believe the Crucifix Killer is still a threat and may strike again soon.
Detective Inspector Jane Wynne urged the public to take precautions and avoid being out alone late at night, particularly in remote locations. ‘We understand that life goes on, but there is a dangerous predator out there and, until they are caught, we would advise members of the public to be careful.’
When asked whether the fact the police were saying this now meant they had some indication the killer may strike again soon, DI Wynne clarified that there were no specific reasons. She added that ‘in our experience, the gap between crimes often shortens, and we are concerned that is also true in this case.’
Speculation continues about the significance of the folded arms and the crucifix. At the press conference, Professor Bob Collins, a noted criminal psychologist, said that, in addition to any religious significance, it indicated a narcissistic personality type.
‘These symbols often suggest that the criminal has a grandiose self-image, typical of someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It is important we remember that this is a disorder: at root they are no different to anyone else suffering from a mental illness.’
