Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller (29 page)

Coming up out of one of these slow rolls, I
find an immense roller bearing down on me. It’s a giant Daddy of a wave, rising
high above us with a pale white lip just beginning to curl on the underside.

‘Looks like it’s going to be a big one,’ I
shout, turning my board to catch it, but nobody answers.

I stare west, directly into the sun, but can no
longer see the others. But then I’m down in a dip here, and the water is so
choppy, white waves are churning and surging all about me.

I paddle as slowly and deliberately as I can, long
arm-strokes to keep me centred on the board, waiting for the huge wave to catch
up with me.

Where is Tris? He was nearest to me before, now
I can’t see even the top of his head above the water. And Connor was on my other
side last time I looked, yet he’s also out of sight. Possibly he’s behind me
now. I dare not look back over my shoulder, or I’ll risk losing my balance. Here
in the surge zone, I can see nothing but bobbing water on either side and the
distant matchstick figures of people on the beach.

Are we really that far out?

For a few seconds I feel totally alone on a massive
ocean, light bouncing off the waves, a late sun beating down on my head. Which
is ridiculous, given that I know the others must be out there too, on their
boards either beside or behind me, hidden momentarily by the swell.

Yet I can’t seem to shake this feeling of
isolation.

Perhaps you’re asking the
wrong man
.

The wave’s almost upon me. No time to see if
the others are going too. With a long-practised move, I move my hands flat onto
the wet board. Suddenly the water begins to swell and rise around me. In the
deafening roar from the unseen wave, I jackknife my feet out of the water and
onto the central line in one smooth movement, straightening to a standing
position.

Only my surf board doesn’t respond as it
should. Something is dragging it down at the back. Down and sideways.

What the
hell?

The wave hits as I flail sideways, taken
unawares, slipping off the board like a novice.

I try to right myself, scrabbling wildly for
the board before it can be jerked away from me by the next wave. But before my
fingers even touch it, I’m struck from behind by an immense and irresistible wall
of water. The sky abruptly tilts, then disappears as I tumble under the sheer white
fall of the wave.

The huge wave drags me with it, my body rolling
over and over in the dizzying surge of bubbles under its surface. My board is
still attached to my ankle by a thin black leash; I can feel it tugging at me
from beneath. It should be a buoyancy aid, helping me to spring back to the
surface. But it’s no help at the moment. If anything, it seems to be dragging me
further down, as though anchored to something on the bottom of the ocean.

I struggle to rise, lashing out for the
surface. Or where I imagine the surface should be.

But
the world has shifted.

My
clawing hands meet only more water, not air, and my eyes fly open on grey-green
darkness, dirtied by the churning filth of bubbles and sand in the wake of a
big roller.

I can’t breathe.

I had no time to take even a quick gasp of air
before being dragged under the wave, and now my lungs are running out. I have maybe
a few more seconds before my desperate lungs try to take in fresh air and I
drown, breathing water instead.

My mind panics. I close my eyes against the
sting of salt water. I don’t understand. Where are the others? Did no one see
me slip from my board and under the wave? I’m struggling, flailing my arms and
reaching up for air, but I’m going nowhere.

Something seems to be tugging me down and down.
 

I force my eyes open and peer downwards through
the dark churning. The leash on my ankle is still attached to the board, which
is beneath me. How is that possible?

I
stare back along the thin black line of the leash. There’s a vague shadow below
me. The surf board? It must have got attached to something deep under the
water. Maybe a rock. They are a few out here, hidden away in odd dips where the
bay shelves steeply, but they don’t usually pose a problem to surfers.

Then suddenly I see it. A flash of white below
me.

I blink, staring at the moving shadows. It’s so
dark and cold this deep, my ears are popping, my lungs burning. My vision is
starting to blur as my body is starved of oxygen.

Thrashing about in panic, I see the shadow move
again. It’s a blackness that shifts with me, like someone in a wet suit holding
my surf board down under the water, with me attached to it.

Which is insane and impossible.

I catch a flicker of light above me. The sun is
shining up there, dazzling and glinting off the waves. It feels like I’m
fathoms deep, but I’m probably only a few metres from the surface. I’m going to
drown within a few hundred feet of my friends, lost and invisible to them under
the rolling Atlantic waves.

I have to undo the leash or I’m going to die. I
bend double, fumbling for the leash on my ankle, but my fingers slip uselessly over
the fastening as I lose strength and sensation.

My lungs are a black pit of pain. My mouth
opens, an instinct I can’t hold back a second longer, and cold salt water
floods into my lungs.

My whole body jerks backwards in shock and suddenly
I’m convulsing, my lungs full of water. The pain is sharp and intense, focused
in my chest at first, in those fluid-filled sacs that are my lungs and are
designed to carry only air, not brine. Then it explodes like a series of
grenades through the rest of my body.

The ocean shifts around me, shadowy and
echoing, a dark ballroom of bubbles with a high ceiling, the grey-green gloom
punctuated by thin shafts of sunlight filtered by water. I can feel my brain
function rapidly disintegrating, my mind full of blurred and confused memories.

I’m
drowning.

And as I thrash against the inevitability of
death, I stare down through the murky depths and see that odd flash of white
again. And the shadowy outline of a man floating above it.

A man whose face I recognise only as darkness begins
to close in.

I’m six years old again, standing with my cheek pressed to the
gnarled bark of an old oak, both hands clutching the enormous trunk. My cheek
is wet because I’ve been crying. I’m sobbing now, but silently, biting my lip
until it bleeds, too scared to make a sound now that I’ve seen him.

The man in white trainers.

He was bending over Mummy when I crept back through the tangle of
brambles and ferns. I came slowly at first, slipping from tree to tree, careful
not to make a sound, half scared, half wondering if it was a game. But Mummy
shouted, ‘Run!’ and I knew from the high, angry note in her voice that I’d be
in trouble if she saw me coming back.

But when I got back to the path, she was lying still on the ground
and he was bending over her.

Is Mummy hurt? Did he hurt her?

My skin is scratched and bleeding from where I fell among the
brambles. My hands are dirty. Nasty and dirty. A bramble has ripped the sleeve
on my coat. My tears fall faster. Mummy is going to be so cross with me.

I risk a quick glance round the tree. Just a peek to see if he’s
still there.

The man is crouching beside Mummy now. He’s wearing a black
tracksuit and clean white trainers, and brown gloves. I don’t see his face. His
head is bent, looking down at her, and he’s talking under his breath.

‘You made me do this, Angela. It’s your fault. If you had kept your
mouth shut … But oh no, you couldn’t just put up and shut up. You thought you
knew best.’

He slaps my mum’s face, and her head flops limply towards me. Her
eyes are open and her throat is red and swollen, but she’s not in there. Not
anymore.

‘Now see what you’ve done. I won’t be blamed for this, Angela. This
is your fault. You hear me?’

Suddenly he turns.

I gasp and duck out of sight behind the tree again.

It’s Mr Taylor.

Mr Taylor. I see him at the school gate sometimes. He’s Connor and
Tristan’s dad. He often stops to talk to Mummy after school. She calls him
Pete. Sometimes she sends me to play in the field with the boys while they sit
in the car and talk.

But Mr Taylor likes Mummy. Why would he want to hurt her?

I hear him crash away through the trees a moment later, and wait
until the sound has faded, still not daring to move in case he sees me.

I step out quietly, trembling and unsteady, deliberately not looking
at the body on the path. Instead I’m staring up at the wooded slope all the way,
watching for the white flash of trainers through the trees.

When the trainers have finally gone, I kneel down beside my mummy
and take her hand. She’s warm, and I try to remember what you have to do in an
emergency. Call an ambulance. But Mum doesn’t have a phone with her. Pump their
chests so they can keep breathing. But I don’t know how. And she’s so still.

‘Mummy?’

She does not reply, lying like a rag doll on the path, knees drawn
up to one side. Her lovely hair is fanned out across the dirt, a tiny piece of
green fern caught amongst the fine strands. Her throat looks so swollen, and there’s
a smudge of mud on her cheek. I wish I could put something under her head to
stop her from getting dirty.

I stare at her, rubbing my eyes. I’m starting to sob again and can’t
stop myself. Everything is so confused in my head. It’s jumbled up with odd dreams
I’ve had, noises in the night, then getting up for a glass of water and finding
Mummy downstairs with a man. With Mr Taylor.

‘You won’t tell Daddy that Mr Taylor came to visit me while he was
away, will you? Daddy wouldn’t understand.’ I remember her hand squeezing mine,
her voice urgent. ‘You must promise, Ellie. Promise Mummy you won’t ever tell anyone
you saw Mr Taylor with me.’

‘Mummy, Mummy.’ Tears are running down my cheeks and everything
becomes misty. I can’t see her face properly anymore. I wipe my nose on the
back of my coat sleeve. ‘Tell me what to do, Mummy.’

Her voice is still in my head. ‘Daddy wouldn’t understand. Promise
me you won’t ever tell.’

I’m shelving it all away
behind the dark line of trees, packing the unwanted memories into a box with a
lid under my bed. They can stay there for a while. Until I’m sure what to do
with them. They’ll be safe enough, so long as I never forget. Never forgive.

I know
she’s dead. But I have to check before I run to the village for help. You
always have to check, right?

‘I promise, Mummy.’ Cross my heart and hope to die. ‘I promise, I
promise.’

The birds are singing overhead. In a minute, I will drop her hand
and start to run.

With one last violent
effort, my body convulses. I’m flailing backwards with the last of my strength,
acting on some final message to the brain that translates as
escape
. I jerk my foot, snapping the
leash on my ankle, then I’m kicking upwards to freedom and salt air. To the promise
of sunlight.

I burst the surface, choking and spewing water
from my lungs. But it’s too late, I have no strength left for swimming. The
water is so heavy now it feels like thick velvet curtains, wrapping around me,
hampering my attempts to stay afloat. A strong wave crashes over my head,
knocking me under the water again, and the world rolls above me through a thin
layer of white foam, dazzling and cold. The ocean feels so warm, a good place
to rest a while, to sleep.

I begin to sink again, my head tilted to one
side, arms limp, letting the water take me where it will.

‘Eleanor …’

It’s Tristan’s voice but I don’t have the
energy to listen. His hands hook under my arms, pulling me up again, out of the
comfortable green depths. He’s tilting my head back cruelly, forcing his body
under mine, his legs kicking against the relentless rush of the tide.

‘I’ve got her, she’s over here.’

My eyes close.

Four hours later,
I’m sitting up on a bed in a cubicle of the Accident and Emergency Department
at Truro Hospital, Treliske, feeling very weak and foolish. My head is
throbbing like I hit it on a rock, and I have a severely bruised ankle where I
fought to get the leash free. But at least I’m alive. Which still feels like a
miracle. I can’t remember much about how I got here – there’s a vague
memory of sirens and the bright interior of an ambulance, an oxygen mask over
my face – but I am glad I’m not so much flotsam in the Atlantic Ocean.

The nurses are very sympathetic and concerned,
but a little wary of leaving me alone. It’s as though they think I tried to
kill myself.

The curtain rattles open, and the smiling nurse
with braces on her teeth pops her head back in. ‘Feeling better?’

‘Much, thank you.’

‘Cup of tea?’

‘I was wondering when I could go home.’

‘That depends on what the doctor says. You may
be kept in overnight if she thinks you need a few more hours’ observation.’ The
nurse busies herself with tidying away some empty packets on the trolley next
to my bed, then meticulously washes her hands at the sink. ‘You may be feeling
right as rain, my love, but you did have a good gargle of sea water. Not good
for the lungs, you know.’ She smiles. ‘Now, are you sure I can’t get you a cup
of tea?’

‘No, thanks.’

She shrugs and slips out again, drawing the
curtain shut behind her.

I lean back and close my eyes, then snap them open
them again. Whenever I shut my eyes, I see
him
again. Pete Taylor. Connor and Tristan’s dad. Bending over my mum in the woods.

I
pick a point on the wall and stare at it, willing myself to stay awake until
the doctor pronounces me fit to leave. Jenny is still out there, dead or alive,
and she needs to be found. I have things to do. People to see.

But my fatigue wins in the end. I close my
eyes, unable to keep them open any longer, and dream.

When I wake up
again, it’s dark outside and my father is beside the bed. I struggle to sit up.
‘Dad, what are you doing here?’

‘Someone
needs to take you home,’ he tells me. ‘No, stay still for now. I’m waiting for
the doctor to check you over again.’

I
stare up at him, uncertain. He’s clean-shaven, and looks sober. He even appears
to have changed his clothes recently. ‘You look good, Dad. You look … better.’

‘You
look awful,’ he says bluntly.

‘Thanks.’

‘What
on earth happened? They told me you went surfing at Widemouth and nearly
drowned.’

‘I
did, yes. But I can’t remember much. Who pulled me out?’

‘Some
lifeguards,’ he says, then adds reluctantly, ‘and Tristan Taylor helped too, I
believe.’

‘You
don’t like Tris much, do you?’

He
looks away, his face shuttered. ‘I didn’t like his father much either, to be
honest. Pete was a difficult character. Always saying one thing and meaning
another. Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve never been able to see past my dislike
for Pete where the Taylor boys are concerned.’

‘Men,’
I correct him. ‘They haven’t been boys for a long time.’

‘I
still remember when they were teenagers. Always hanging round the farm, sniffing
after you, making a bloody nuisance of themselves. Especially that Connor. He
was very keen on you as a lad.’ He looks at me closely. ‘Is he still keen on
you?’

I
change the subject, nodding to the coat on the back of his chair. ‘Whose coat
is that?’

He
stands and lifts it up, frowning. It’s a black mid-thigh length coat, looking a
little damp and rumpled, with deep pockets on either side. ‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘I think I was wearing it in the ambulance.’

‘It’s a man’s coat.’

‘Someone must have put it on me at the beach.’

An
image flashes through my head. Someone draping foil over my wet shoulders. A
paramedic, perhaps. Tris in the car park at Widemouth Bay, a strange look in
his face, bending over me with a coat in his hands.
Here, put this on.
Then the ambulance doors shutting out the light.

‘I’ll
ask Hannah,’ I say, leaning back on the pillows. ‘She’ll know who it belongs
to.’

My father hesitates, then drapes the long coat
over the chair again. ‘We’ll take it home with us,’ he says, then glances at
his watch. There’s something in his voice, some quiver of emotion, but I can’t
pinpoint what it is. ‘I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you in the caravan. I
should never have hit you. It was unforgivable.’

I
say nothing.

‘Where’s
that bloody doctor?’ he demands irascibly, not looking at me. ‘You try to rest.
Let me call one of those nurses back. See if we can’t get them to release you.’

While he is gone, I flex my arms and legs, wiggle
my fingers and toes, and shift carefully about in the bed, trying to ascertain
whether I’ve damaged myself, and where. But apart from a dull pain in my chest,
and the lingering headache I’ve had since waking up, I seem to be miraculously intact.

My
mind is another matter though. I haven’t mentioned to anyone that I saw a face
in the water when I was drowning. Nor whose face it was. They will only think I
need further psychiatric help if I tell them what exactly I saw. Or thought I
saw.

I saw a man
in the water who’s been dead for months. I think he may have strangled my mother
when I was a child. Oh, and he just tried to drown me, too.

My father rustles
back through the curtains a short while later, closely followed by a harassed-looking
nurse who picks up my chart and examines it without even glancing in my
direction. I watch my dad thoughtfully. He is still avoiding my gaze.

I
study his face. ‘Dad, what is it you’re not telling me?’

He
swallows, then shakes his head.

‘Tell
me,’ I insist.

My
father looks stricken then. His face just crumples. ‘It’s Hannah,’ he admits, tears
in his eyes. He takes my hand and squeezes it. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie. I’m so, so
sorry.’