Close Your Eyes (28 page)

I glance at my watch. It’s just gone midday. ‘You might also want to check out Father Abermain.’

‘The priest!’

‘He was at the farmhouse on the night of the murders. Elizabeth thought the place was haunted. She asked him to exorcise her demons – literally not figuratively.’

‘So the candles and the Bible…’

‘Some form of blessing.’

‘Why didn’t he come forward?’

‘I’m sure you’ll ask him.’

Cray turns away from me, moving as ponderously as a knight walking in a full suit of armour. On the edge of the horizon, a container ship barely seems to be moving, as though pinned between the sea and the sky like a drop of moisture trapped between two panes of glass.

Having done a circuit, we arrive back at the cars where Bennie and Charlie are chatting as though old friends. My shirt is damp with perspiration and clinging to my back.

Cray has walked under the tree again, tucking one thumb into her belt as she talks on her mobile. She’s reporting Father Abermain, spinning another thread in an investigation that has spread her resources so thinly there is no strength left in the web.

The farmhouse is empty today. The psychologist must be busy elsewhere. He has some sort of shaking disorder or strange palsy, Parkinson’s perhaps – not a death sentence, but he’ll die sooner than he expects. He’ll lose his balance and fall under a car or a train. Either that or he’ll aspirate food into his lungs and die of pneumonia or another pulmonary condition.

I have watched the house for the past hour, making sure nobody is home. Moving towards it now, I skirt the edge of the stables and follow the stone boundary wall until I reach the western corner. I cannot see the road but I will hear any vehicle approaching.

It wasn’t like this on the night they died. I didn’t wait an hour, weighing up my options or debating what to do. Internal monologues are repetitive and annoying.

Elizabeth opened the door and asked what I was doing here.

‘I have a present for Harper.’

‘Her birthday is tomorrow.’

‘I want her to have it when she wakes.’

I thought she was going to argue, but she saw I wasn’t alone and became distracted. Although outwardly calm, inside my mind was screaming, ‘She knows, she knows, she knows. She’ll tell the police. I’ll be interviewed. They’ll poke around … try to dig up dirt.’

Elizabeth waited in the sitting room while I climbed the stairs to Harper’s room, just as I’m doing now. Quietly, I opened her door without knocking. She was asleep. The curtains were closed. Today they’re open, yet I half expect to see Harper still lying on her bed beneath the window, curled up under her duvet in her nightdress.

I knelt beside her bed. I listened to her soft breathing. I leaned my face close, inhaling and exhaling in the same rhythm, slowing my heartbeat. Her eyes opened.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked sleepily.

‘Nothing.’

She pulled the cover up beneath her chin.

‘Why are you here?’

‘I brought you a present, but don’t open it now.’

I ask her about the bag she was carrying when I saw her that day.

‘Where do you keep it?’

‘Bag?’

‘It was blue and grey.’

‘Somewhere,’ she said sleepily.

‘I need you to find it.’

She thought. Frowned. Shrugged. ‘Can’t it wait? I’m tired. I’ll find it tomorrow.’

Then she remembered something else and asked, ‘Did you see the news? A woman was attacked on the footpath.’

‘When?’

‘This afternoon. Did you see anything?’

‘No. What did you see?’

She shrugged and yawned, turning towards the digital clock. ‘It’s nearly midnight. I’m almost eighteen.’

‘Yes, you are – happy birthday for tomorrow.’

I hugged her from behind, slipping my arm around her neck. She laughed and pushed against me. I remember how her hair smelled of coconut shampoo and was still damp from the shower. I applied pressure. She fought. Her body bucked and heaved. Her legs thrashed at the bedding. Her fingers clawed at my arms.

If only she hadn’t been there. If only she hadn’t seen.

– She saw nothing.

She saw me.

– Nobody will believe her.

She can place me there.

When it was over, I opened the bottle of bleach and dipped each of her fingers inside. I could hear Elizabeth talking downstairs. Waiting for me.

‘I’m sorry – I woke her,’ I said, when I reached the ground floor.

Elizabeth had poured herself a glass of wine. ‘Did she see her present?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you get her?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

She offered me wine. I told her no. She topped up her glass and said it helped her sleep.

‘Did Harper mention that she saw me today?’ I asked.

‘On the footpath.’

‘What else did she say?’

‘She said a woman was attacked. Did you see anything?’

‘No.’

‘I told her to call the police – just to make sure. Are you sure you won’t have a drink?’

She waved the glass in front of my face.

‘No.’

‘You really have to learn to relax around me. I won’t bite … not unless you want me to.’

Her dressing gown drifted open. She stepped closer, pressing her body against mine. I tried to shove her away, but she clung on.

‘Nobody has to know,’ she whispered into my mouth. ‘I won’t tell.’

I held her hands above her head as we kissed. Her pelvic bone was grinding against me and I could hear the soft sandpaper sound of her pubic hair on the front of my jeans. Her tongue wormed into my mouth. I wanted to gag.

I swung the knife, metal on air, and heard the gurgling noise, as her flesh gave way to the blade. She staggered. I lay her down. ‘See what you made me do,’ I said as certainty faded from her eyes.

A bubble of snot popped in my nostrils and I moaned in self-pity as the knife rose and fell. When it was over, I knelt beside her body, rocking back and forth, shaking uncontrollably. The rest was theatre. The rest was show.

Everybody thinks they are important. Unique. Special. They imagine their life to be like a journey and talk about finding themselves and gaining closure, when there is nothing to find and the only closure – the one that matters – is the ultimate one. Death. Deliverance. The end.

I hear a sound outside. My heart quickens. There is a vehicle coming. I stand for a moment on the landing with an ear cocked. The car has stopped outside. Keys jangle. One of them slides into the barrel of the lock. Turns.

A door opens and closes. I feel the tiny tremor of footsteps in the hallway.

Charlie stands by the car and studies the farmhouse as though trying to decide if a building takes on the particular character or ambience of the events that occur inside. Does it become soaked in blood or tainted by tragedy? Having reached the front door, I begin unhooking the padlock.

‘Why won’t you let me come in?’ she asks.

‘You know the reason.’

‘I don’t have to look in that room.’

‘Just stay by the car.’

‘But I have to pee.’

I look at her sceptically.

‘I have a small bladder,’ she says defensively. ‘And I’m not squatting in the field.’

We walk around the house and I take her through the kitchen door.

‘There’s a toilet under the stairs,’ I say. ‘Down that hallway is off-limits.’

‘I know, I know,’ she replies.

I open my laptop on the kitchen table and boot up the hard drive, looking for Jeremy Egan’s statement to police and copies of his phone records.

The toilet flushes and Charlie reappears, shaking her wet hands. She walks around the table, glancing at the crime scene albums that are stacked on the bench.

‘You can’t look at those either,’ I say.

‘I know.’ She runs her fingers over the lid of a half-opened box. Inside there are hundreds of Polaroid photographs with distinctive white frames. ‘What are these?’

I glance at the label. ‘They came from Harper’s room. The police must have finished with them.’

‘Can I look?’

‘OK.’

She reaches into the box and grabs a handful of photographs. Most of them seem to be random shots of pouting girls and punkish boys, pulling faces at the camera or striking silly poses. Some are selfies of Harper, sitting on her boyfriend’s lap, kissing his cheek or putting her tongue in his ear.

After a while Charlie gets bored and wanders through the other rooms on the ground floor – studiously avoiding the sitting room. She calls to me from the stairs. ‘Did Harper do the paintings?’

‘I think so.’

‘They’re really good.’

‘Some of her sketchbooks are upstairs.’

‘Can I see them?’

‘You’re supposed to stay in the kitchen.’

‘Why? Is there something scary up there like, I don’t know,
a bedroom
?’

She’s teasing me. Maybe I’m being too cautious. There are no bloodstains or symbols painted on the walls of Harper’s room. I take Charlie upstairs and she moves slowly from room to room. I notice how she occasionally touches things, brushing her fingertips over the face as if trying to pick up some vibration or hidden energy.

‘Everything OK?’ I ask.

‘It’s a bit weird,’ she replies.

‘What is?’

‘Harper and I were the same age. She was going off to university. I’m going off to university. Makes you wonder if anyone should bother making plans when life can be so transient. You’re here one day, gone the next.’

‘I used to feel the same way,’ I tell her. ‘When I was your age we were still dealing with the Cold War and the possibility of nuclear attack. There was something called the “four-minute warning” – an alarm that was going to sound if the Soviets launched a missile.’

‘Why four minutes?’

‘That’s how long it was going to take for the warheads to reach us. We made all sorts of plans about what we’d do in the four minutes.’

‘Four minutes isn’t long.’

‘Yeah, well, I had a great imagination.’

Charlie laughs. ‘Did it change the way you behaved?’

‘I don’t know, maybe … I think I learned not to dwell on what
might
happen and save my energy for the real stuff.’

I retrieve a pile of sketchbooks from beneath Harper’s bed. They’re covered in a fine dusting of fingerprint powder and labelled with a police evidence sticker. Detectives must have looked through the sketches and decided they had no investigative value.

Charlie sits on a chair and begins leafing through the pages. I look over her shoulder. Most of the portraits are done in charcoal or pencil. I recognise Harper’s boyfriend and her father.

‘Why don’t you study art?’ I suggest.

‘I can’t draw,’ replies Charlie.

‘I thought you wanted to be a fashion designer.’

‘When I was twelve.’

‘You could be a lawyer.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘How about medicine?’

‘I don’t have the right A-levels.’

‘You could do a bridging course.’

‘Please don’t do this again,’ she says, flashing me her mother’s look. She goes back to the sketchbooks, opening a new one. ‘What day did it happen?’

‘Saturday June sixth.’

‘Harper must have been drawing. Look –’

Charlie holds up the page. The unfinished sketch is of a large Victorian house with steeply sloping roofs, asymmetrical chimneys, a vertical façade and a generous garden. Through the trees, I can just make out the coastline.

‘I don’t understand.’ I say, leaning closer to the sketch.

Charlie points to the bottom right-hand corner. Tucked away, written in tiny handwriting, I notice four digits: 6615.

‘It could be the date,’ says Charlie. ‘The sixth of June.’

She turns the page. ‘Here’s another one.’

The second drawing is also unfinished. It’s a portrait of an old man with a craggy face and wisps of hair clinging to his scalp. The crosshatching shows his deep wrinkles and weathered skin. The number in the right-hand corner is the same: 6615.

I turn back through the pages – confirming Charlie’s discovery, the numbers appear to be dates.

‘The missing hours,’ I whisper.

‘Huh?’

‘There is a gap in Harper’s timeline. The police couldn’t fill in her movements that Saturday afternoon. We knew she was sketching but didn’t know where.’

‘So this is important?’

‘Maybe. It’s a good pick-up. An excellent one.’

Charlie studies the sketch, looking pleased with herself.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the door sway and feel a change in the air pressure – as though someone has opened a door or window somewhere else in the house. Cool air kisses the back of my neck and I feel a tiny tremor beneath my feet. I go to the landing and look over the banister.

‘Ruiz?’

Silence.

Returning to Charlie, I scan the room. Two drawers on the dresser are slightly open. The contents are pushed forward, as though someone might have searched them.

‘Wait here,’ I tell her.

I move from room to room, looking for more evidence of an intruder. I cautiously descend the stairs, wincing as a floorboard creaks. I look along the hallway. The front door is closed. We came in through the kitchen. I glance into the dining room but don’t go inside. The mahogany table and matching chair are so dark they look like silhouettes. Small brass animals line the mantelpiece next to a porcelain horse and scented candles. I can see the room reflected in a mirror on the wall. There’s nobody hiding behind the door, but still I sense a flaw in the ambience, a lingering ripple where someone has passed through.

Moving along the hallway to the kitchen, I try to remember how I left the house yesterday. Has anything been moved? Disturbed?