Hold Your Breath (7 page)

She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘I said okay, didn’t I?’ she said.

Will’s face relaxed into a smile and Tara could see why some girls might find him fanciable, what with the puppy-dog eyes and the white teeth, which he flashed at her now.

‘That’s fantastic,’ he said. ‘You’re a real star. Here.’ He pulled out a business card from the front of his satchel. ‘If you could drop me a quick text
when you’ve done it.’

Tara took the business card and piece of paper wearily, and glanced at the address. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘So where is this anyway? I’m not trekking miles to her
house.’

‘It’s not too far,’ he said hurriedly. ‘It overlooks the river. You know where the old iron bridge is? The fancy one? It’s right by there.’

Tara did know, unfortunately. It was where she had last seen Melodie.

‘Well,’ said Tara, ‘thanks for the drink and the doughnut. I have to go now.’

She turned away, slipping his business card into her pocket.

‘Y
ou went
swimming
?’ Mum appeared to find Tara’s explanation for her afternoon out baffling, despite the wet bikini and
towel coiled snail-like in the plastic bag in her hand. What with the stringy damp hair and the flushed cheeks, it ought to be proof enough, Tara thought.

‘Why are you so surprised?’ she said grumpily, decanting the wet things into the washing machine, her nose wrinkling at the sharp chlorine smell. ‘I’m not some couch
potato who never does anything.’

Her mother was vigorously mixing vegetables and chicken in the wok. She brushed a strand of her hair, as inky black as Tara’s, but now kept that way by the hairdresser.

‘Well,’ said her mother, ‘it’s not that I’m surprised . . . Okay, I
am
surprised. It’s just because you didn’t mention it. But I think
it’s great. You used to be a right little fish when you were little.’

Tara involuntarily glanced at a photo on the bookcase. It showed her at ten, all fresh-faced and beaming as she held up a medal from a swimming gala. ‘Yeah, guess I was,’ she said
absent-mindedly. It was all such a long time ago.

‘So who did you go with?’ said Mum, her voice glass-bright.

Tara sighed as she filled a glass of water from the tap. Her parents were obsessed with her making friends since they’d moved here. They couldn’t seem to understand that their
constant questions about school and who she sat next to and what ‘the other girls’ were like only served to make the feeling of having failed ten times worse.

‘I went on my own, Mum,’ said Tara wearily and walked towards the doorway.

‘Tabs?’

She turned back. Mum was holding a wooden spoon in the air like she was conducting an orchestra with it. Her hair was even wilder than usual from the steamy kitchen air. Tara felt a rush of
love, despite her irritation.

‘What?’ she said softly.

‘You deserve better than Jay,’ she said. ‘You’ll look back and wonder what you saw in the little creep one day. Don’t sell yourself short. Any boy should thank his
lucky stars to have someone like you.’

Tara blinked, surprised. Mum obviously knew that Jay had been on her mind a lot. But in fact, Jay Burns hadn’t entered her thoughts for hours now.

‘Yeah,’ she said with a smile, ‘too right.’

Later, Mum had gone off to her monthly book group meeting and Dad was working late again. Tara curled up on the big chair with her laptop. Beck was having one of his
ridiculously long showers. Mum always said he was way worse than any girl with his ‘ablutions’. When he came out it took hours for the steam and aftershave smell to melt away.

Tara was looking at Google images of The Tin Gods, particularly Adam Stone. Most of the images were old, showing the bass guitarist in his early twenties, when he’d been thin and
moody-looking, with a mop of fair curls. A recent image from a fund-raising gig for the charity Water Aid showed a portly, balding man with a ruddy face, and a glamorous, bony woman with a frosty
smile on his arm. He had exactly the same shape eyes as Melodie.

Tara was almost disappointed by the realisation that Will had been right about Melodie’s dad. She’d half hoped this had been a misguided fantasy. That way, it would be easier to
ignore his obvious worries. For a moment she imagined what it must feel like to lose your mum when you were a baby and to know your dad didn’t want you. A pang of sadness tugged her heart.
Then she remembered how horrible Melodie was. Having bad things happen to you was no excuse for treating people like dirt. Tara had experienced bad things too, after all.

She sat back, the laptop balancing on the arm of the chair, and stared into the middle distance. It was odd that Melodie would leave her purse behind, though. But if something had happened,
wouldn’t it have been reported by now?

Tara was still deep in thought when Beck came into the room, a big towel wrapped round his waist, steam wafting around him, and his hair hedgehogged into spikes.

‘Ah, crap,’ he said and slapped his hand against the table. ‘Left my phone at work, didn’t I?’

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Tara, distractedly. ‘It’s slipped down behind your bed. One of Sara’s earrings is there too.’ Sara was Beck’s current
girlfriend. The picture was as clear as if it had appeared on their new HDTV. And then it was gone.

Tara twiddled a strand of hair around her finger in a black spiral, debating whether she really was going to do what she’d promised Will. It took her a few seconds to register the change
in the room. There was a weird stillness, but something unspoken charged the air. She looked up, her stomach swooping as she clocked the expression on her brother’s face. He was staring at
her, a wary half-smile on his lips.

He hurried out of the room. Tara heard him going into his bedroom and the scrape of the bed being shifted against the wooden floorboards.

Oh no,
she thought.
Stupid, stupid Tara
.
Why did I have to open my mouth?

Beck came back into the room holding his iPhone. He had a glass drop earring in the other hand. He looked down at both items with a frown.

‘Look,’ Tara said, ‘ I —’

She had been about to make up an excuse but couldn’t think of why she would be looking down the side of her big brother’s bed. Beck sat down heavily on the sofa opposite her, his
muscled shoulders still covered in drops of water, his face serious for once.

‘It’s still happening, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The whole spooky finding-stuff trick?’

Tara kept her eyes cast down. Tears were rising dangerously inside her. She nodded quickly, once, not trusting herself to speak.

‘Tar?’ Her brother’s voice was low and gentle. ‘Look at me, okay?’

She dragged her gaze up to meet his. Her eyes were now glittering and wet.

‘It’s okay,’ said Beck gently. ‘It’ll be our little secret, yeah? No need for the olds to know, is there?’ There was a long pause. ‘Look,’ he
continued, ‘I know it was rough on you, what happened back there, but it was really bad for Mum and Dad too.’

‘I know that,’ said Tara thickly, swallowing hard.

‘But do you know
all
of it, though?’ said Beck. ‘How bad it got? About how they only just avoided criminal charges?’

Tara sucked in her breath. She shook her head, speechless for a moment.

Beck’s expression softened. ‘They wanted it kept quiet. I only found out by accident,’ he said gently. ‘Anyway, Dad managed to talk the police out of it. The boy’s
mum . . . well, she would have had you hanged, drawn and quartered. If it was up to her, we’d probably all be banged up. Not to mention how the boy’s dad kicked off. It was really
embarrassing for the police.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ snapped Tara. She grabbed one of the cushions and squashed it against her damp face. She said something that was lost in the satin fabric.

‘What?’ said Beck. ‘I can’t hear you, because you have a cushion stuck to your face.’

Tara flopped back in the seat, the cushion in her lap. ‘I
said
, I can’t help it. It’s not like I chose to be a weirdo. I’m not even a weirdo who gets it
right.’

‘Yeah,’ said Beck with a smile. ‘But you’re
our
weirdo, eh?’

Tara shot her brother a disgusted look and then lobbed the cushion, which he caught with one hand.

‘All I’m saying is let’s keep this under the radar, yeah?’ He paused. ‘Oh and cheers. Sara was really upset about that earring.’

Tara nodded. Her brother got up, wafting Lynx. But when he reached the door he turned back, his face serious again.

‘It’s only phones and stuff, though?’ he said.

Tara breathed slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth as he spoke.

There was a pause. ‘Tar?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, avoiding his eye. ‘Only phones and stuff.’

She went through to her bedroom and closed the door, before gently turning the key in the lock. For a moment she lay her forehead against the smooth wood, hearing Beck
whistling in his room. No doubt his thoughts were already about Sara’s gratitude later or whether Arsenal would get through to the next round of the Cup. How lucky he was. He had no idea what
it was like being her.

A freak. And one step short of a murderer to boot.

She knew what she had to do when she felt like this.

Her hands were shaking as she opened her wardrobe. She reached to the very back of the shelf at the top. Rooting under the tangle of jumpers, her fingers finally found the cool metal lid of the
biscuit tin.

Taking it carefully over to the bed, she stared down at it. A familiar nauseous heat seeped through her. She had been trying hard not to look in here recently. She’d even contemplated
getting rid of the box and its painful contents a few weeks ago. She’d reasoned there was no point in keeping it. She knew what Mum would say. That it was morbid. And didn’t people
deserve a second chance, sometimes?

Maybe not Tara though. And forcing herself to look in the box reminded her all over again. It hurt. And the pain was what she needed and deserved.

Tara opened the lid and shook the contents onto the bed.

A few newspaper cuttings fell out, along with a letter handwritten on thin, lined paper. The paper was bruised with angry pressure points so it almost felt like braille. Tara imagined the pen
pressing the savage words into it and the hate that flowed through them.

She couldn’t look at that first. She always started with the newspaper cuttings. It was important that she did it in the right order. The first one was from the local newspaper in her old
town, dated February this year.

MISSING!

There was another cutting, dated the following week.

TRAGIC TOT FIGHTS FOR LIFE

And then . . .

R.I.P. TYLER:

BRAVE TOT LOSES BATTLE FOR LIFE

Tara’s eyes filled with hot tears. The words wobbled and blurred and her sinuses burned and fizzed. She dropped the cutting and reached for a tissue, before blowing her
nose with a loud honk.

Hand trembling, she left the cutting where it was and took a long shaky breath before reaching for the letter. The paper had been thin and cheap to begin with, but Tara’s countless
handlings of it since February had given it the quality of something much older than it was too. Mum and Dad didn’t know anything about her cuttings. The letter had been lying on the mat when
she’d come home from school, addressed to
Tara Murry
. Still in a state of shock and moving through the world like a ghost, she’d opened it without any sense of what might be
inside.

Tara smoothed out the pages and made herself read. The handwriting was childish and blocky.

Weeping quietly, Tara folded the letter again and put it back in the box. There was one more cutting, which she grimly unfolded, determined to see this ritual through. The
waves of shame and pain almost had a pleasure to them, in that they took her to her lowest place. She could purge herself through tears.

POLICE USE SCHOOLGIRL ‘PSYCHIC’ TO TRACK TYLER

A Miston Herald EXCLUSIVE!