V for Violet (21 page)

Tuesday morning and it’s back to being winter again. Rain is hammering at the window and our little room which seemed so cosy and bright only yesterday, now looks shabby and gloomy and smells of damp and strangers. Beau groans and pulls the sheets over his head.

‘Is that our little holiday over then?’ he says.

I curl into the warmth of him. ‘Don’t know,’ I say. ‘Depends what the papers say.’

He groans again. ‘That means you want me to get up, doesn’t it?’

‘I’ll go,’ I say. ‘If you tell me where the paper shop is.’

‘No way,’ he says. ‘You stay here and keep the bed warm.’

He heaves himself up and sits on the edge of the bed. There are freckles splashed across his back and a thin white scar just below his left shoulder blade. I run my finger over it. ‘How did you get that?’ I ask.

‘Bike accident. Got another one here, look.’ He lifts his leg onto the bed and points to the only part of his thigh that’s not covered in dark hairs. The scar there is thick and twisted like a length of bleached rope. ‘Only you and me mum ever seen that one,’ he says. My heart jerks, and as I watch him get dressed and leave the room to go and find a newspaper, I realise that I’ve probably fallen quite a lot in love with him.

Beau throws the newspaper on the bed and it lands in my lap. He’s still panting and the rain has plastered the hair to his head. There’s something wrong, I can see that straight away. Beau’s face has turned white and his lips are pressed together in a thin line. He closes the door and sits on the end of the bed.

My hands are shaking as I try to unfold the paper. It’s wet from the rain and I have to peel it open. I ready myself to see Joseph’s face staring out at me with the word
Killer
emblazoned above it in thick black letters.

But instead of Joseph’s face on the front page, there’s another face. One that’s even more familiar than his. It takes a minute for my brain to catch up with my eyes. But when it does, I realise with a horrible sinking feeling that the face staring out at me is
my
face. It’s from the same photograph they used for Jackie’s picture in the paper, the one of us sitting on Brenda’s doorstep. But this time it’s Jackie that’s been cut out. There’s just the faint smudge of blonde where the end of her ponytail rests against my arm.

‘We’ve got to get you back home,’ says Beau. ‘Right now.’ He looks so grown up all of a sudden; with his collapsed quiff and with his eyebrows all knitted together in a frown.

I don’t move.

‘Come on,’ he says, urgently. ‘We’ll have the police here in a minute if the landlady’s read the paper. ‘She’ll think
I’ve
kidnapped you. She’ll think I’m the bloody Battersea Park Killer.’ He paces around the room, as I gather up my jeans and sweater and shoes. ‘I didn’t know we’d get into trouble for this,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know your mum and dad would report you missing.’ He glares at me. ‘What were you thinking, Violet? You could have called them any time. Didn’t you realise how worried they’d be? Are you really that stupid?’ He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lights one without even bothering to open the window

I can’t speak. I’ll just end up crying if I open my mouth. And I can’t bear him looking at me like that either; as though he’s wasted his time on a stupid, good for nothing little girl. I swallow hard and turn my back to him while I get dressed. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘We’ll go straight to the police station here, tell them you’re okay, tell them you’re safe. Or do you want to phone your mum first? She’ll be going out of her mind.’ He pushes his hand through his hair and groans, ‘Shit. Shit. Shit. I feel like such an idiot!’ He kicks the side of the bed.

‘I’m not going back!’ I shout. ‘I’m not going. And you can’t make me!’

He grabs hold of my shoulders and shakes me. His eyes have gone all glittery and hard. ‘Listen, Violet,’ he says. ‘I never wanted to tell you this. But I have to now.’ He takes a deep shaky breath. ‘I did know Jackie.’

He might as well have punched me in the stomach with a sledgehammer.

‘It was only the once,’ he says. ‘I got chatting to her at Ruby’s Café and she seemed like a nice girl. I took her for a quick spin on the bike.’

I feel sick.

I can’t believe I let him touch me.

I can’t believe I did it with him.

I don’t know him any more.

‘It was just that once,’ he says. ‘I never saw her again. She wasn’t my type. But the police got wind of it. They’ve been giving me a hard time, Violet. And if they know I’m here with you now … Well, can’t you see how bad it looks?’

I’m shaking. My teeth are chattering. ‘I … I just need to pee,’ I manage to say. ‘I won’t be a minute.’ I hurry out of the room and straight past the bathroom. I run down the stairs, keeping my fingers crossed that the landlady is busy in the dining room polishing spoons or something. And she must be, thank the stars, because the hall is empty. I’m out of the front door, at least two streets away and soaked through to the skin before I realise I’ve left my jacket back at the boarding house. But it’s too late now. I’m not going back. I don’t know where I
am
going, but I know I can’t go back there.

Jackie and Beau. Jackie and Beau. I clutch my stomach, but it won’t stop hurting. I remember that night at the Roxy. Jackie laughing at me for being a little Rocker. But she’d already been there. She’d already been with Beau. She’d been there first. Like she did everything first. I push away the other thought. Because it’s too unbearable. But it’s there all the same, prodding at my brain.
What if it was Beau? What if it was Beau?

I keep my head down as I wander through the tangle of lanes and streets behind the seafront. I walk blindly, my mind a blank. The rain keeps pouring down and the only thing I really think about is that luckily, no one will recognise me, because I must look more like a drowned poodle fished out of the sea than anything like the picture in the paper. I want to go home. But I can’t go back. Not until Joseph is behind bars. I’ll sleep on a park bench if I have to, I’ll go begging on the streets, I’ll do whatever I have to do until someone believes me; until someone takes me seriously.

I stop and rest for a minute in the doorway of a bakery. Someone pushes past me into the shop and shakes the rain from their brolly all over my feet. Not that it makes any difference. My socks are already squelching around in my shoes. I haven’t got a clue what to do next. I feel around in my jeans pocket and pull out a couple of pennies. That’s it. The rest of my money is still in my purse in my jacket pocket.

I rub the two pennies together in my hand. I’ll call Norma, I suddenly think. It’s the obvious thing to do. I’ll tell her I’m safe and then I’ll tell her all about Joseph. She won’t believe me at first, she’ll think I’ve gone funny in the head; that I need to be taken away by the men in white coats and be locked up in a padded room. But somehow I’ll have to make her believe me. I’ll tell her that if she doesn’t convince the police to arrest Joseph, then I’ll walk out to sea and drown myself and she’ll have to live with the guilt of my death for the rest of her life.

I wander down a few more streets until I find a phone box. It’s empty, so I quickly step inside, grateful to be out of the rain at last. I stand for a minute dripping on to the floor and squeezing out the ends of my hair. There’s nothing to wipe my glasses on, but I do my best with the cuff of my sweater. Norma’s the only person I know with a telephone at home, so there’s only ever been one number to memorise. I cross my fingers that it’s still early enough to catch her at home before she starts her shift at Fine Fare, or even better, that today is one of her days off. I pick up the phone and dial BAT7654, then chew my lip as I wait. One ring, two rings, three rings …
please answer
… four rings, five rings … then at last, a click, and Norma’s voice, ‘Hello, Battersea 7654. The pips cut in and I fumble with the pennies in my hand to get one in the slot.

‘Norma?’ I say. ‘Norma, is that you?’

There’s a long silence. ‘Hello?’ I say. I check to see the penny went all the way into the slot and that I am actually connected.

But then Norma’s voice explodes into my ear. ‘VIOLET! OH MY GOD. IS IT YOU, VIOLET?’

‘Yeah, Norma, it’s me. Listen …’

‘Oh God, oh God. Violet, where are you? We’ve been out of our minds. How are you calling me? Oh God. We thought … we thought he’d got you. We thought you were dead.’ Her voice breaks into loud sobs.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ I say. ‘I’m fine, Norma. Really, I’m fine. But you’ve got to stop crying a minute and listen to me. I haven’t got much money and the pips are going to go in a minute.’

She sniffs loudly. ‘Oh God,’ she says again.

‘Listen to me, Norma, I’ve got to tell you something about Joseph …’

‘Joseph!’ she says. ‘Oh, Violet … it’s so awful. You know about Joseph? What do you know? What’s he done to you?’

‘What do mean, what’s he done to me?’ I’m puzzled now. What is she talking about?

‘The police have got him, Violet. Don’t you know? They came for him yesterday. They’re questioning him about the murders, and then you were missing, and we all thought … we all thought. We didn’t know what to think.’ She’s gabbling now. Her words are falling over themselves. ‘But you’re alive. They’ve got it all wrong. Oh, Violet, you’ve got to come home.’

Now it’s my turn to be silent. My thoughts are jumping around in my head. They’ve got him. They’ve got him. It’s all going to be okay. I can go home now. I can tell them all everything I know. They’ll lock him up. And it’ll all be over. This awful nightmare will all be over.

‘Violet? Violet? Are you still there?’ Pip … pip … pip …

Shit! I push my last penny into the slot. ‘Norma! Listen, I’m in Brighton …’

‘Brighton? What the hell are you doing there?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. My brain’s clicking and clicking. ‘Can Raymond come and fetch me in his taxi? If I wait by the entrance to the pier, can he come and pick me up?’

She hesitates. ‘I … I suppose so, yes. Of course he can. Of course he will.’

‘Is he there now? Can he leave now?’ All I can think about is getting home. Getting out of these wet clothes. Getting into a hot bath. Seeing Mum. Seeing Dad.

‘I’ll run round to Mum’s,’ says Norma. ‘She’ll have to let the police know … I’ll tell Raymond now … oh God, Violet.’

And then the pips go again. And then the line goes dead. And I stand there and listen to the soft purr of the dialling tone until my hand goes numb and I’m shivering violently in my wet clothes.

It’ll take Raymond about an hour to get here. And it feels like the longest hour of my life. I pace up and down outside the entrance to the pier, anxious that at any moment someone’s going to recognise me.
Look! It’s the girl from the newspaper. The one that’s missing!
Luckily, there’s hardly anyone around. The weather’s seen to that. The rain has stopped hammering and has turned into a cold and miserable drizzle. There’s a few people braving the walk along the pier with their brollies bouncing above their heads. The tide’s high and the water’s all black and grey and choppy. I watch waves crash onto the beach and listen to the roll and clacker of a million pebbles as they’re pulled back into the sea. It feels like Southend all over again.

Every time a black car hisses past on the wet road, I think it’s going to be Raymond. I sit on the sea wall and try to hug myself warm. A green car, a blue car, a bright white Mini. And then, at long last, a black shape at the end of the road, growing bigger and bigger. And instead of hissing past, this car begins to slow down. It crawls to the kerb and stops.

I never thought I’d ever be so glad to see Raymond, but it just shows how wrong you can be. When I jump into the passenger seat, I can’t stop myself from leaning over and giving him a quick hug. He’s all stiff and awkward, like hugging a gravestone.

‘Thanks for coming,’ I say.

He shrugs and pulls the car away from the kerb. ‘S’all right,’ he says. ‘You haven’t half stirred it up. Couldn’t you think of a better way of getting yourself in the papers?’

‘I never meant that to happen. I wasn’t thinking,’ I say.

‘You had the entire Met out looking for you. Good one, Violet.’

I don’t know if he’s trying to be funny or what, but I’d rather he didn’t point out the obvious. ‘So what’s going to happen to Joseph?’ I ask, ignoring his remark. ‘Have the police said anything?’

‘Not to us,’ he says. ‘But I reckon now you’re back, that’s one less murder they can do him for.’

He almost sounds disappointed. I start to wish I’d hitchhiked home or even bloody walked. I’ve forgotten what a total bore Raymond can be. But luckily he’s not the talkative type, so when I decide not to carry on the conversation, he lapses into silence too.

I look out the window and watch raindrops chasing each other across the glass. I watch the sea disappear around a corner. And then I watch the chalk hills and the velvet-green slopes and all the hundreds of sheep slide by. I rest my head against the cold glass. The car engine thrums through my bones. Cars pass by on the other side of the road. There’s a farmhouse. A river. A small wood. A field of cows. My head empties. My eyes begin to droop. I’m sliding into a blissful nothingness.

Then suddenly. ‘Violet. Pass my fags, would you. They’re in the glove compartment.’

I lift my eyelids. They weigh a ton. Raymond’s put the heating on and I’m too hot. And my head hurts. I sigh and lean forward to find his fags. I pull open the glove compartment and dig around inside.

‘There’s a packet of Camels in there somewhere,’ he urges. ‘And me lighter.’

I find the cigarettes first, and slide one out of the packet to hand to him. Then I rummage around some more until my fingers close around the metal square of a lighter. I pull it towards me just as the car turns a tight corner. I fall back into my seat and the lighter drops to the floor. ‘Sorry,’ I murmur, and I reach down to pick it up. I can’t see it anywhere; it’s obviously slid under the seat. So I lean forward even further so I can get my arm under. I feel around blindly with my fingers, but it must have slid back further than I thought. I stretch my arm back as far as I can and then my fingertips touch something. Something metal, I think. But not the lighter. I scrabble my fingers along the floor until I get a better grip. Something thin and cold and delicate. I close my hand around it and bring it out from under the seat.