Dead Girl Walking (15 page)

‘Miss Brown.’ He glances quickly up and down the corridor. ‘In here, please,’ he says, indicating an open door that reveals an unoccupied office.

I follow him and he closes the door softly behind us. ‘Take a seat,’ he says.

I stay where I am. ‘What’s happened?’

‘We tried to phone you – ’

‘What has happened?’ I ask again slowly.

‘I’m afraid your grandmother passed away.’

I grit my teeth. ‘When?’

‘About an hour ago.’

I pull out my phone and see the missed calls. ‘I was on my way.’

‘We wondered if you were, although, the nurse says you’re usually earlier than this so we also weren’t sure if you’d decided not to come.’

‘As if I wouldn’t come!’

He holds his palms out in a conciliatory gesture. ‘I’m sorry, truly I am.’

I rub a hand across my eyes. ‘Where is she now?’

‘She’s in the chapel at the moment, waiting for you to view. I can take you down there.’

There are flowers in ornate vases in every corner of the room. A long window at the far end is black, the night diffused through opaque glass. The room’s wallpapered in a bland beige design. The idea of a chapel being wallpapered seems odd; I expected something more church-like, but this just looks like some old dear’s living room. I walk in. It’s just us and the jarring, dusty silence. In the midst of a bustling hospital, there’s this room where nothing happens but death and grief. That seems even odder than the wallpaper.

Gran lies on a sort of trestle table, half-covered by a sheet. She doesn’t look like Gran. More like a wax copy. The doctor hesitates at the door as I go in.

‘Would you like to be alone with her?’

I nod. He pulls the door closed and leaves us.

I approach the table slowly. I’ve seen bodies before, more than I ever want to think about again, but this one is different. Maybe it’s because I know that this wasn’t a violent end, there’s a stillness and melancholy kind of peace about her. My hand hovers, just above hers. I take a deep breath and touch it…

After the first jolt of contact there’s nothing: no sight, no sound, no smell, no thoughts. There’s only a vague sense of being. I move silently from the light and slip into the shadows, and all is still…

I stumble away from her. I’m disconnected from myself, still not quite whole. I cast around and see a chair in the corner of the room. Dropping onto it, I stare at Gran as I fight to reclaim my mind.

She was peaceful when she went. More than that; Gran had not been in there for a long time. I hate the feeling of relief that floods through me. She wouldn’t have known I wasn’t there at the end, but I should have been. I would have been, had it not been for my stupid infatuation with a strange boy I’ve just met. Unbidden, memories of Dante flash through my mind and I shut them out. I’ve let enough people down already. I rip the skin from my finger-ends as I watch Gran do nothing. When the pain becomes intrusive I look down and see blood oozing from my fingers. I watch it drip onto my jeans, and then I rip a bit more.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here when there’s the faintest knock at the door. I listen but I don’t reply. A head peeps around the door; not the doctor that brought me
down, but a woman in a vicar’s dog collar. Her grey hair is pulled back in a messy plait that hangs over one shoulder.

‘I wondered if everything was alright in here,’ she says quietly. When she smiles it’s gorgeous, like the sun has just come out after thunder. I bet she’s brilliant at making people feel better, just by smiling at them. Not me, though. I’m not like other people.

‘I’m fine,’ I rasp. I suddenly realise how dry my mouth is.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ she asks. ‘Or would you like a friendly ear?’

I look at her, all kitted out in her God uniform, and it makes me want to weep. She thinks she’ll be saved, she thinks there’s something glorious waiting when the end comes. And she’s so lovely that there ought to be. How can I live with the knowledge that there’s nothing for people like her? Nothing for people like me or Gran? Or the girl whose murder still haunts my dreams? There’s only dust for us all.

So this is where I make my choice. Gran is dead, Mum and Dad and Tish are dead, but I have been gifted a second life. It’s time I lived it.

I scratch at him but his grip tightens. The moon is cold and bleak above us as his shadow fills the sky. In the half-light I see flashes of him: a snake winding around his wrist, hair lank and outgrown, tendrils shielding his face. I try to memorise the details but panic is taking me. I grab a handful of hair and yank hard but it only makes him squeeze tighter. I can feel him inside me, pain where it shouldn’t be. I can no longer tell where she ends and I begin. I want to scream but all I do is suffocate…

I bolt up, clutching at my throat. I take a breath, the sweetest lungful I’ve ever had. My bedclothes are twisted around me. Dante stirs and I hear his husky voice in the gloom.

‘Bad dream?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Makes a change from me,’ he says sleepily, wrapping his arms around my waist.

‘I need a drink.’ I prise myself from his embrace.

He sits up, unfurling the scent of us from the sheets. The faint light from the street outside throws shadows over the beautiful curve of his collarbone and lean muscles of his torso. It’s strange, but leaving the hospital I had a sudden urge to see him. Perhaps
I didn’t want to be alone on a night like this when I am, for the first time in my life, really completely alone in the world. But it feels like more than that. And even though he hardly knows me, he came when I called.

‘Hang on, I’ll come down with you,’ he mumbles.

‘I’m fine. Go back to sleep.’

Weirdly obedient, he flops onto his side and almost immediately his breathing returns to a steady, slumbering rhythm.

My legs tremble as I make my way downstairs in the darkness. At the foot of the stairs, I fumble for the locks of the front door, just to check. The bolts are drawn and I heave a thankful sigh.

In the kitchen I use the small light over the cooker. I don’t want to light up the whole place, I want to feel invisible, and it’s just enough to get me a drink. I click the kettle on, sit and pull my journal across the table. On an empty page I try to tip out the memories of my dream.

Disgusting hair. That’s probably not enough to spark off a manhunt but I write it down anyway. The fridge starts to hum and makes me jump. Resting my elbow on the table, I focus again. His hair is shoulder-length, greasy, a bit wavy, but not in a good way, in a needs-to-be-washed way. The tattoo, but I already drew that. What else? I screw up my eyes and concentrate, but it’s no good. I just couldn’t see his face properly in the dark and it’s infuriating because I feel like I’d know it if I did. I seem to have a vague memory of a smell. I’m not sure how, as I wasn’t breathing at the time. I’ve smelt it before too, really recently, I just can’t place it. I write it down anyway:
funny smell. What is it?
The strongest recollection of all is the pain and the fear. I can’t get that out of my head. Just like last time, she begged for death in the end.

I’d thought that, maybe, Gran’s peaceful passing would somehow dilute these other memories. If anything, tonight’s dream was worse. Whatever is happening, there’s no escaping these visions. Maybe that’s a good thing, though. I need to use them if I’m going to help Karl.

The scream from upstairs startles me.

A few moments later Dante appears at the doorway of the kitchen shivering, an awkward glance in my direction.

‘I don’t know why you’re still embarrassed about that,’ I say as I get an extra cup out.

‘I wish I could stop having them.’

‘They’re a part of you right now,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it that you aren’t already doing. You want a drink too?’

He rubs a hand through his hair and drops into a seat at the table. ‘What was your dream about?’

‘The usual. Yours?’ I ask as I squeeze out the teabag. The milk splashes up over the side of the mug as I add it.

He nods. ‘The usual.’ He takes the cup I set before him. ‘I thought you might have been dreaming about your gran.’

‘I’m ok with that,’ I say.

‘Really? She died today.’

‘I know. I’m ok with it. She didn’t really know much about it and at least it was peaceful.’

He takes a tiny sip of his drink, looking at me over the top of the mug. ‘That’s why you called me when you got out of the hospital,’ he says as he puts it down again. ‘Because you were absolutely fine with it?’

‘Didn’t you want to come over?’

‘Of course I did. I wanted to see if you were ok.’

‘You thought you were on for sex, more like.’

He pouts at me. ‘We haven’t had sex.’

‘You’re complaining that we haven’t had sex tonight?’

‘God, Cassie, no! Stop doing that. Would you just let someone be nice to you for once without seeing a catch?’

I stare at him. His hair is sticking up in all directions; he still looks half asleep and totally out of his depth. He looks so pitiful I could almost laugh.

‘Ok, be nice to me.’

He frowns. ‘What do you want?’

‘Tell me about your dream.’

‘That’s not being nice to you.’

‘I want to know.’

He hesitates, like he’s thinking hard about every word before he utters his response. ‘I die. There’s nothing else to tell.’

‘There must be more than that: a location, a time, what do you feel, is it violent or quiet?’

‘Morbid.’

‘I thought it might help.’

He takes another sip of his drink. ‘I don’t think it would,’ he says. ‘I don’t think it would help at all.’

We listen to the fridge hum for a while.

‘What are you going to do about your gran?’ he says finally.

‘What do you mean?’

‘About the funeral and stuff. Maybe I can ask my mum to help.’

‘I’ll sort it.’

‘But there must be stuff you don’t know about. When my granddad died –’

‘I said I’ll sort it.’

‘I only wanted to help.’

‘Why does everyone feel like they need to cosset me? I’m not made of china.’

‘It’s what friends do.’

‘I can manage just fine by myself.’ I don’t want to hurt him but that old suffocating feeling of helplessness washes over me and the only way I know how to deal with that is to close up against it. Sometimes, when I look at the task I’ve set myself it all seems huge and impossible.

He drains his cup. ‘I’ll be upstairs if you want me,’ he says. ‘Unless you want me to go now…’

I watch as he gets up from the table. There are things I need to get my head around and a dark place I need to pull myself out of before I drag him there too. ‘Maybe it’s best if you do,’ I say quietly. ‘I made a mistake calling you and I think I need to be alone tonight.’

The hurt in his eyes makes me hate myself. But it’s all I deserve.

Karl sets a plastic cup in front of me before taking a seat behind the desk.

‘Absolutely not, Cassie. It breaks every rule in the book.’

‘So you’ve never set a honey trap before?’

There’s a ghost of a smile about his lips. ‘Honey trap? You’ve been watching too many films.’

‘It’s perfect,’ I insist. ‘You’ll be nearby, right? All I have to do is hang around and look like the kind of girl that needs murdering. At worst, he won’t turn up, and at best, he’ll turn up and you’ll be waiting to grab him.’

‘No!’ He scans his notepad. ‘The information you’ve given me this morning is brilliant. It gives us extra to go on. There are ways to do this without putting any more people in danger.’

‘But –’

Karl holds up a hand to silence me. ‘I said no. I’d be reluctant to let a trained officer do it, let alone you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of looking after yourself, but there are rules about these things and I can’t just let you go vigilante on me.’

I fiddle with the lip of my cup. ‘Now who’s been watching too many films?’

He gives me a faint smile that fades as quickly as it came. ‘I’m grateful you feel so strongly that you want to help.’

‘What I gave you this morning still isn’t enough, though, is it?’

‘It’s more than we had before.’ He looks at me thoughtfully. ‘How’s your gran?’

‘She died yesterday.’

His expression is unreadable. ‘You’re trying not to deal with that. It’s why you’re here now.’

‘I have a counsellor to tell me that, thanks.’

He leans across the desk. ‘Go home, Cassie. Give yourself time to grieve.’

‘I don’t need to grieve, I’m fine.’

He sits back and holds me in an appraising gaze. ‘Then go home and sleep. Maybe you’ll bring me an address for this guy tomorrow.’ His faint smile is back again.

‘I thought you wanted to catch him, no matter what it took. I’m giving you the perfect way to do that.’

‘You’re giving me a highly dangerous way to do that,’ he says. ‘What do you need to do for your gran? There must be a funeral to arrange, her affairs to put in order… did she leave a will?’

‘How should I know?’

‘Then you need to find out. I can put you in touch with someone who can help. What about the home she was in, have they talked to you?’

‘I haven’t come here for that.’

‘But have you done it? These things won’t go away, Cassie.’

I shoot up from my chair and slam the table. ‘What do you care? I came here because that damned girl’s death won’t leave my head, not to get a lecture about sorting out Gran’s affairs!’

He holds his hands out in a gesture of appeasement. ‘Sit down. Do you want to see someone from Victim Support?’

‘No!’ I shout. ‘I want to catch the bastard who did it to her, who’s still doing it to me every fucking time I close my eyes!’

‘Cassie, please, sit down.’ He shoots a look at the door of his office before returning his gaze to me. ‘Nobody wants to catch him more than I do. But your idea is madness. Even if you were one of my trained officers, your emotional state is not stable enough to deal with it.’

‘My emotional state has nothing to do with this. What does the killer care whether I’m in a bad mood or not? All I have to do is lure him in. You’ll be there and I trust you.’