Michael Robotham - Say You're sorry

“You left the funfair at nine o’clock. Why was that?”

“Mum had gone to hospital.”

“Who called you?”

“My dad.”

“You said your mum lives in London now.”

“Yeah.”

“How often do you see her?”

“When Dad lets me.”

“How often would you like to see her?”

A hurt helplessness ghosts over her face. Only crumbs remain on her plate. “I have to go. I only get fifteen minutes.”

“Just one last thing,” I say. “Was there a special place where you girls used to hang out?”

“You mean like a clubhouse?”

“A favorite place.”

“You make us sound like we’re eight and still using secret passwords.”

I laugh. “It’s just that Piper and Tash took so little with them. No clothes were missing. I thought maybe they could have hidden bags. You said you were planning this.”

“We were.” She peers out into the street. “That summer we hung out a lot at the leisure center. The pool. We used the lockers. Tash used to hide stuff there.”

Emily pushes her empty cup away. She’s said too much. “I have to go.”

Without waiting, she grabs her coat and I watch her skip across the road, looking both ways. A sense of disquiet has been growing within me like the beating of a war drum, repetitive, dull, getting stronger every day.

She stops on the far side of the road and looks over her shoulder, holding my gaze for a fraction of a second as though worried about what she’s left behind, but determined to go on without it.

My dad once told me that people can sometimes do amazing things when they’re in life-and-death situations. Mothers can lift cars off their trapped babies and people have survived falls from airplanes.

When the time comes, maybe I can do something amazing. Every time I contemplate stabbing George, my throat starts closing. It feels like a heart attack, although I don’t know how a heart attack is supposed to feel. I imagine like heartburn only a million times worse because you don’t die of heartburn.

I know it’s a panic attack. I’ve had them before. Tash used to help me get through them. She would hold a bag over my mouth and get me to breathe slowly or she’d rub my back, telling me to picture something that made me happy, a place or a person.

That’s what I do now. I imagine I’m lying on the grass on a beautiful sunny day in our garden beside the pond. Phoebe is next to me and I’ve made her a clover crown and a matching bracelet and necklace. Mum is in the kitchen cooking chicken Kiev, which is my favorite.

I know it sounds corny, like a scene from a washing powder advert, but it takes my mind off my panic attack. After a few minutes I start to breathe normally again. I go to the sink and wash my face. Boiling water in a saucepan, I cook pasta and mix it with a teaspoon of oil. I can only swallow a few mouthfuls. My nerves are too bad for eating.

I look at the trapdoor and listen. If not today, maybe he’ll be here tomorrow.

I’ve washed out an empty can of baked beans, which I’m using as a hearing device. I hold it against the wall and put my ear to the base, hoping to hear Tash on the other side. I even imagine that she’s doing the same thing, listening for me. Our heads might almost be touching.

On the night we finally decided to run away our heads were touching and we made promises to each other. I thought Tash was unbreakable but that night she shattered into a million little pieces and I tried so hard to pick them up again.

Ever since Aiden Foster’s trial she had talked about running away. Getting expelled from school simply created a timetable. We had one more summer in Bingham, she said. When school went back, we’d have to leave.

The Summer Festival was on the last weekend of the holidays. There were funfair rides, stalls and sideshows on Bingham Green. The local pony club put on a display and Reverend Trevor judged the dressage competition.

The entire day was supposed to be a celebration. It began with morning tea in the gardens of The Old Vicarage-one of the traditions that Mum and Dad had to agree to when they bought the house. Apparently, according to local historians (by which I mean busybodies), the vicarage had hosted a morning tea for estate workers and townsfolk for the past a hundred and sixty-two years.

I don’t know what an estate worker is, but most of the visitors were old biddies from the church, sitting at long tables on the lawn. There were scones, sponge cakes, trifles and summer puddings under muslin to keep the flies and sticky fingers away. Jasmine Dodds brought her new baby, whose scalp was all scaly like it was molting, but that didn’t stop everyone ooh-ing and ah-ing every time it burped. Jasmine used to babysit me when I was a kid.

At lunchtime Mr. Swanson, the town butcher, set up a spit and roasted a pig that looked so much like a naked person it made me feel like a cannibal when my mouth watered.

Mum and Dad made me work all day, serving tea and cakes, then clearing away dishes and washing up. I stacked chairs and replaced divots in the lawn. Meanwhile, I listened to squeals from the Disco Rider and saw people climbing the giant slide and heard the PA system telling parents where to pick up their missing kids.

Finally my temper got the better of me. I said it was fucking unfair and told Mum she was being a vindictive bitch. Dad’s shoulders slumped like he was deflating. I’d disappointed him again.

I was sent to my room. Grounded. I could hear Mum and Dad arguing about sending me away again. She was saying I was out of control and he was telling her not to overreact.

Tash sent me an email from her phone with a photo attached. She and Emily were sitting in the pirate ship, their hair flying as it swung back and forth. I couldn’t even text them. My phone had been confiscated. What would they take away next?

At eight-thirty I made a show of brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. Phoebe and Ben were already asleep. As soon as I heard Mum and Dad start watching a movie in the lounge, I opened my bedroom window. From the roof I could climb onto the old stables and slide down the tree onto the woodpile. Crossing the garden, I silenced the frogs and crickets. Slipping through the side gate, I was only two minutes from the green.

Tash and Emily were near the bungee trampoline. They’d been riding the roller and were laughing how their dresses would flip up every time the cars went upside down.

It was only nine o’clock and the fair didn’t stop until midnight. We walked arm in arm between the sideshows. Tash was in her element, batting her eyelids and tossing her hair. Boys and grown men were looking at her, some like puppies, others like predators.

Soon after nine Emily got a phone call about her mum being taken to hospital. It wasn’t the first time. We were getting used to Mrs. Martinez being sick. I remember wishing my mum would get carted off to hospital, which makes me feel guilty now.

Tash slipped her hand down her pants and pulled out a small pillbox, pulling my hand until we were behind one of the tents.

“I only have one. We’ll have to share.”

She popped it in her mouth, slipped her arm through mine and kissed me, pressing her tongue hard against mine until the pill crumbled and dissolved like aspirin. She pulled away giggling. My cheeks were burning.

“I think you liked that,” she said, teasing me. Already I could feel the E filling me up with chemical joy. I could taste the music, which was fizzing in my brain like lemon sherbet.

She took my hand again.

“Let’s go swimming.”

“But the pool’s closed.”

“I know how we can get in.”

She was talking about the leisure center. Tash was pulling at my arm, dragging me with her. The idea of going swimming with her brought a flutter of happiness inside me. There were some drunken teenagers talking to the police near the park entrance. Tash steered me around them and we ran all the way to the leisure center.