Escaping Life (15 page)

“
I
’
m
sorry about that,
”
he began
as Elizabeth poured three coffees
. 
It was time to start to piece this together.  He wanted to drag out the evidence
bags, and lay them out on the table immediately.  He was desperate for answers. 
Get it together,
he
told himself. 
“
It
’
s
just that, you
’
re
right.  It
’
s
like I have been looking at you for the last week.  The woman has to be your sister.
”

“
I
know.  I knew it from the start.  Yesterday, even when the guy called me and
said she had been ruled out, I knew really it still had to be her.
”
 
She placed a fresh coffee down on the table.  He wanted to ask for a shot of
whiskey instead, but decided not to.  He wanted to smoke too.  He had an
overwhelming urge to whip out a cigarette right now, but he thought better of
it.  It was like he had seen a dead person brought back to life.  All those
times he had tried to convince himself that his wife and son were still alive
somewhere; all the faces that he had tried to convince himself were theirs; all
of the shoulders that he had been so close to laying his hands on.  Nothing
compared to the feeling of seeing this green-eyed apparition materialise next
to him.   She took the newspapers out from the kitchen drawer, where she had
placed them on Monday morning after she had bid goodbye to Helen and David, and
placed them down on the table in front of him. 
“
I
kept the letters.  I thought you would want them as evidence.  Once you
realised.
”
 
He read the letters out aloud, as a shiver rose up each of their backs.  How
Jack had longed for a final goodbye.  How he had longed for one last chance to
hear from them.  He would have given anything for that a year ago.  Now, finding
letters like this, left in the paper for the world to casually see four years
later, somehow seemed a whole lot worse.

“
That
’
s
how I knew.  She was found on Lyme beach, right?
”
 
He nodded in agreement. 
“
She
says she left me the clues.  What clues?
”
 
Once again he felt the smoulder of the hidden documents, tucked on his lap. 
Graham joined them at the table, huddling in close like Elizabeth who, it
seemed, was still making the detective incredibly uncomfortable.  There was no
reason to hold things back anymore.  He knew the face in his little brown file
was that of Rebecca Jackson.  He reached down into his lap and ignoring his
final moments of hesitation, he brought the brown file up to the table.  He
pulled out several photographs and laid them out on the table before her:  a
close up of a bus ticket, a key, cigarettes, and shoes all photographically catalogued
before her.  Graham picked up Elizabeth
’
s
limp hand, and placed it in his.  She tenderly picked up the first photograph: 
it was a photograph of a photograph, Elizabeth and her sister in matching
dresses, her mum
’
s
eyes staring blankly ahead.  She picked up the next plastic bag.  Another
photograph.  She saw the words
‘
Christmas 1982
’
crossed out.  She wiped a small tear
away from her left eye, releasing Graham
’
s
firm grip and staring at Jack Fraser.  In the place of the original words it
said,
‘
Forget Christmas.  Who is missing?
’

“
This
is the back of the first photograph.  That
’
s
my
m
other
’
s
handwriting crossed out.  This is Rebecca
’
s
handwriting,
”
she said pointing at the freshly written words. 
“
Why
would she write that?  Nobody is missing.
”

“
Well,
we don
’
t
know what that means yet.  But there
’
s
this too.
”
 
Jack handed her the photograph of the bus ticket.  She examined it closely, and
at first it seemed meaningless.  It was then that she saw the date.

“
It
is from the day after she died.  Or, disappeared, whatever.  I don
’
t
know anymore.
”
 
She was getting flustered and her voice was breaking,
fragmenting as her mind wandered into disparate memories from the past.  For
the first time since the arrival of the first letter, the situation was finally
getting the better of her.  She needed to get out.  She needed to breathe.  She
needed desperately to breathe the fresh cliff top air that she had first breathed
in three years ago, as she sat on the nearby bench and felt free for the first
time since the car had been found at the bottom of the ravine.  She got up from
the table that she had tirelessly restored and walked out into the garden
sucking in the salty breeze, the scent of the lavender rows washing over her. She
looked down to the bay through her hair as it tumbled about in the wind, and
she could see the bustle of fishermen who had returned from sea, the crowds
that were slowly gathering, parking their cars haphazardly as they spilled out
of the car park.  She wanted to get down there, sit on the wall of the harbour
and forget all about the lives that had already passed.  She was so angry at
Rebecca, and she hit the base of her fist at the post of the fence, the only
thing between her and the towering cliff top as she let the tears roll down her
face.  Her initial sense of elation was giving way to nothing but anger at
Rebecca
’
s
choice of absence for the last four years.  She had chosen to leave her life,
to leave her when she was desperately in need.  Yet now she was back, really
dead this time, even more impossible to comprehend a second time around.  She
wiped the tears away from her cheeks and started back to the house.  She walked
back into the kitchen, her face in silhouette once again.

“
OK,
what else have you got there?
”
 
She was back at the table now and eyeing up the brown file.  She was composed,
dragging her subconscious will to run kicking and screaming back into the
kitchen. 
“
What
is this key for?
”

“
Again,
we just don
’
t
know.  This woman,
”
he paused,
“
Rebecca,
disappeared four years ago.  I haven
’
t
got anything on her.  You are my best lead so far.  And this.
”
 
He pointed at the letters in the paper. 
“
Calling
the paper is my next step.
”

“
I
already called them.
”
 
Graham stared at her.

“
You
didn
’
t
tell me?
”
 
He didn
’
t
realise they had any secrets.

“
You
would have thought I was crazy.  It was the Monday after the first letter. 
They wouldn
’
t
tell me anything anyway.  Said it was confidential.
”

“
But
they
’
ll
tell me,
”
Jack said,
“
they
don
’
t
have a choice.
”
  
He was certain that they could follow this up.  There had to be a forwarding
address, a name, a contact, at least something.  So far, it was his next best
chance.  But there was something else on his mind.  Something that he couldn
’
t
shake, and just as always, that same uncomfortable feeling was creeping up his
back, starting to sit on his shoulders and push him further into a place of
darkness that he had been running from for so long now. 
“
Elizabeth,
”
he began, wishing he could scratch out the images racing through his mind;
images that he had prayed so many times to leave him, but yet remained as indelible
horrific memories.

“
I
have to ask you to identify the body.
”

After spending another
half an hour at the cottage, they were in Jack
’
s
car and driving up and out along the winding Haven road.  They left behind the
gentle coastal breeze, the sweet smelling scent of summer and the protection of
the colossal sea cliffs, and began the descent into four years of Rebecca
’
s
absence.  Jack had telephoned ahead and had asked the
mortuary
staff to prepare the body for identification, and he was certain now that the
teams of morticians would be doing their best to make the impossible possible: 
to make the dead look like the living.  He never understood this:  the clothes,
the makeup, the dressing of hair carefully to cover up the raised and fleshy
wound than encircled the scalp, haphazardly re-stitched together after the post-mortem.  
He didn
’
t
see the point.  You only needed to touch the skin, the soft rubbery feel of the
skin against the stiffened joints, to realise that there was nothing left that
was living.

They had travelled in
silence for the first fifteen minutes, save the fidgeting of Elizabeth
’
s
feet.  Her mind had been flooded with deathly stills ever since he had told her
that she would have to identify the body, thoughts racing through her mind like
the dancing disjointed images of a Victorian zoetrope.  In truth, she was
terrified.

“
Detective,
I have never seen a dead body before.
”
 
As he glanced over at her, her green eyes glistening in the advancing sun like
almost-ripe olives, he wondered how he of all people could possibly help her.

“
Call
me Jack, OK?
”
 
She nodded, a small smile pulling up the side of her mouth.  It was a soft
smile, although tinged with sadness. 
What it must feel like to have your family choose to leave you,
he
thought to himself.

“
What
will I have to do?
”
she asked, as the Explorer bobbed along the country lanes.  He remembered the
building, the small room that looked almost like a church, with its small
stained glass window and sympathetic strangers.  He could still see the white
cloth covering the table, and feel the rough texture of its open weave.  Some
days, he thought he could still smell the bitter stench of their burnt flesh.

“
You
will be asked to go into a room.  She will have been placed there.  When you
are ready,
”
he paused, taking out a cigarette as he held the wheel with one hand.  He
offered her one, but she brushed his offer aside much like he had seen her do
with Graham and his interjections.  He cracked the window and she moved in
closer to him. 
“
They
will lift the cover for you to see her face.  Just the face.
”
 
She listened intently, every word scalding her like a hot poker. 
You will see her face
. 
You will see her face.  You will see her face. 
She
said the words over and over in her mind.  Not since she had stood at the
gravesite and understood so clearly that she had not buried her sister, had a
single day gone by in the last four years that she had not wanted to see her
sister
’
s
face.  Now, she couldn
’
t
think of anything worse.   She would rather be any place in the world than here
in this car, and on the road to that place.  She didn
’
t
answer him.  She simply listened, the words sitting heavily in her throat like
a piece of indigestible meat.  If she could have coughed them back out, she
would have spat them out all over the car.