Jenn Ashworth - Cold Light

‘She was hardly going to chase after him, was she?’ Emma said.

‘Ask him for a second helping!’

I looked at Chloe. ‘It was that pest.’

‘Probably.’

‘They’re appealing for any information. They said the smallest detail could be the key that unlocks the whole case.’

Chloe laughed. ‘It was a pretty big detail.’

‘She didn’t really get a good look at him, not even what he was wearing,’ Emma said.

‘She could give a description anyway,’ I said to Emma.

‘What of? A mask? There’s been nothing about a mask in the newspapers. Terry hasn’t said anything about a mask,’ Chloe said.

‘Well that proves it,’ I said, ‘they do that all the time. Keep one detail back so that they can tell if someone calls in with a hoax. I’ve seen it on Crimestoppers . That’s how they’ll know you’re telling the truth. It’s too weird to make up.’

‘She doesn’t want to go to the police,’ Emma said, ‘she’s already told you that.’

‘This is my room, thanks, Emma,’ I said, ‘and I’m not forcing her to do anything, am I? Just saying that they’re trying to catch this weirdo. If you know something, and don’t say it, you can get yourself into trouble. Barbara says they progress from one thing to another. He’ll be dragging girls into cars if he’s not caught.’

‘No one’s saying anything,’ Chloe said. ‘If I tell my mother about this she’ll never let me out of the house again. None of us will get out this side of Christmas. Is that what you want?’

‘If they catch him, she’ll let you out. And if you did go to the police,’ I paused, just for effect, ‘Terry and Fiona would interview you. Fiona talked to that other girl, didn’t she? They had an actress do her voice but it was still her in the studio. You’re fifteen in March – you could go on the telly and get interviewed for real.’

Chloe hesitated. I knew she was imagining herself ‘in make-up’, sitting in front of a mirror framed with lightbulbs. I think she might have changed her mind, except Emma said, ‘Then you’d have to tell your mum why you took the long way round –’ she smoked an imaginary cigarette, ‘where you got your fags from. How you find the money.’

‘She wouldn’t care about that,’ I said, but Chloe pursed her lips and shook her head. She’d made up her mind.

‘It’s not going to happen, Laura ,’ Chloe said, ‘and we wouldn’t have come round here to tell you about it if we’d known you’d be such a granny.’

‘What did you tell me for then?’ I sat on the desk chair Chloe had vacated, and looked at the two of them together. Emma wasn’t pretty, not like Chloe, but they suited each other. Like negatives of each other, one brown, one blonde, in jeans, slouch socks and smudged make-up.

‘We thought you’d think it was a laugh,’ Chloe said.

‘It was funny,’ Emma said weakly.

‘See?’

I looked away, felt humble and stupid and young.

Chloe and Emma got their way, and instead of telling anyone else, we carried on telling the story to each other. I think it made Chloe feel special, and almost famous, and because she’d found Emma first and had told her while the whole incident was still fresh in her mind, that was the thing that had brought them together. She’d often rely on Emma to fill in the details, or elaborate on the shape of the mask or the exact intonation of the words the man had spoken.

The story was theirs, really – I was just the person who they told it to. Just audience. Whenever there was another sighting of the pest, or something new about the case appeared in the local news, she’d look meaningfully at Emma and I would try to join in with their laughter but it never worked. Sometimes I thought if Emma would just mind her own business, Chloe would do the right thing and report the flasher to the police. That was ridiculous though. I’d yet to meet the person who could coax Chloe into doing anything she didn’t feel like doing.

The next time the three of us went to the park she showed us the exact place where it had happened, as if she knew I didn’t quite believe her. Just where she said, on a track through an unkempt, almost wooded area of the park, and behind the bandstand where lots of hawthorn and holly had been planted to discourage people from sleeping or injecting there. She didn’t seem scared or upset, not on any of the occasions that we spoke about it, but she did once claim that she’d had a dream about the man – still in his mask and his light brown boots, crunching through the leaves and staring at her through the eyeholes.

‘Right here,’ she said, ‘that’s where he came out.’

‘Okay,’ I’d said, and she moved around me quickly, standing on the path with her hands on her hips.

‘And here’s where I was, just walking along like this.’

‘Right,’ I said.

Emma was nodding furiously.

‘And what were you doing in the park?’ I said to Emma. ‘Wandering around on your own. That’s not a good idea.’

Emma looked away and Chloe rolled her eyes.

‘She was in a bush, stoned off her tits and fucking her boyfriend – what do you think she was doing?’ she said, and she laughed, and Emma laughed too, and the two of them were laughing so hard I thought it was a joke – that even the idea of Emma having a boyfriend when Chloe didn’t was hilarious – so I joined in with the laughing and didn’t ask her again.

Apart from the dream, which she had mentioned more in the spirit of entertaining me than confiding a worry, Chloe didn’t seem interested in talking about it anymore. After her initial excitement and hysteria the whole incident seemed to be boring to her. The evening when she showed me where it had happened was the time that she took me to meet Carl, and soon after that whenever we were in the park he managed to turn up too, so at least she didn’t need to worry about strange men in the bushes creeping up and surprising her anymore.

I stand and look at Emma sitting on my couch and I wait for a second, as if she is going to say something else. Nothing. So I sit next to her. We watch the pictures change on the soundless television. Nothing new. The replay of the replay of the discovery: the mayor leaning back on his spade, the balloon floating upwards into the damp air.

‘Were you watching it when it happened?’ Emma says.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure I didn’t miss anything? On my way over here? Do they know if it was a man or a woman? How old they were, even? Those things must be quick to find out.’

I shake my head. ‘Nothing like that,’ I say.

‘Did you think about going down there for the groundbreaking?’

The police have set up a cordon with yellow tape and uniformed officers. Terry is standing in front of it, gesticulating behind him at the comings and goings of the forensics people. They really do wear all-in-one suits made out of white carrier bags. I thought that only happened in films. Now and again, someone just out of the camera shot catches Terry’s eye and he nods, or frowns slightly. It’s busy there. There’s a crowd. The first lot turned up early, for Chloe’s memorial. Now it is dark and the body is being dug out of the clasp of soil, the ghouls have come out.

‘No,’ I say carefully, ‘did you?’

She shakes her head. ‘I was scared someone would recognise me.’

I remember something. ‘You know what I was thinking of tonight?’ I say. ‘That time you and me and Chloe went into town, nicking stuff, and Carl came to pick us up. Do you remember? It was freezing – the cars were slipping all over the roads but he insisted on driving us back.’

Emma nods. ‘I remember,’ she says. ‘Chloe walked out with half a make-up counter up her jumper and all you managed to swipe was a handful of toffees out of the pick ’n’ mix.’