Алекс Баркли - I Confess

‘Well,’ said Laura. ‘I hope you all fucking choke on it.’

As she turned away, she caught Clare staring at her, shaking her head.

‘What?’ said Laura. ‘What’s wrong with you now?’

Clare’s eyes were lit with anger. ‘Is everything an absolute with you? The black and white, the “surely” this, the “I’m on the moral high ground, you’re all a disgrace”.’

‘I didn’t say anything about the moral high ground,’ said Laura. ‘But sorry if you’re all so fucking offended by the fact I thought you’d do the right thing. That’s actually a compliment, if you think about it.’

‘Yes,’ said Clare, ‘if your definition of “the right thing” is the only one anyone can have.’

Laura looked away.

‘OK,’ said Clare. ‘Let’s be very clear about what this “truth” is that you’re so determined to get off your chest to the guards.’

Laura turned back to her.

‘The truth is,’ said Clare, ‘that before we did get around to calling them, we all sat back and had a brandy by the fire while we discussed whether or not we actually would.’

‘That wasn’t my fault!’ said Laura, pointing at Johnny. ‘He locked—’

‘We even had a vote!’ said Clare.

‘He locked us fucking in!’ said Laura.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Clare. ‘If you really wanted to get out... what did you think he was going to do?’

‘Then why are you still sitting here if you think you could have left?’ said Laura.

‘Because we are friends,’ said Clare. She looked around the room. ‘And if our friends are in trouble—’

‘We cover up for them and shit ourselves for the rest of our lives that we’ll get found out?’ said Laura. ‘Hear on the news a body’s been found off the coast of wherever the fuck and wonder if it’s Terry Hyland’s?’ She stood up. ‘If I’m free to go, then I’m not sitting around listening to this shit.’

‘You might want to hear me out,’ said Clare.

‘About the truth?’ said Laura. ‘The truth is the truth.’

‘That’s my point,’ said Clare. ‘So let me tell you the last of it. The guards are asking you how this whole voting thing went so they can get a good handle on who might have had something to hide and you’re telling them and they’re asking who seemed particularly wound up. And you say Clare! And she’s a District Court Judge! She even said “Fuck Honour!” That’s how bad it was! And why did she say that, Mrs Hurley? That’s what I asked her! And what did she say? Oh, she told a terrible story about how a former sergeant in the same small town mistreated the father of a little girl who was raped in her bed and left for dead... all because of a personal grudge he held against the man, who was having an affair with the Sergeant’s wife at the time! And did she say who that sergeant was, Mrs Hurley?’

Everybody went very still.

Laura stared at her. ‘Wow.’ She looked around the room. She waited. ‘Is no one going to say anything?’ She turned to Clare. ‘Am I the only one you’re blackmailing? Or are you just assuming none of our “friends” will go to the guards either to protect Dad’s reputation?’ She turned to Patrick. ‘Are you OK with this, all of a sudden — not going to the guards? Murph? Or has Clare ruled and “case dismissed”?’ She looked at Johnny. ‘I think you at least owe her a big thank you.’

‘Shhh,’ said Johnny, raising his hand.

‘Don’t fucking shush me,’ said Laura.

‘Seriously,’ hissed Johnny. ‘Stop. Did anyone hear that?’

‘What?’ said Patrick.

‘Knocking,’ said Johnny. ‘On the window.’

‘Oh, fuck off,’ said Laura.

Clare sat up straight, her eyes wide. She nodded. They all went quiet.

‘Such bullshit,’ said Laura. ‘There’s a gale blowing, Clare hasn’t stopped talking for the past ten minutes — how could anyone hear a thing?’ She reached for the pull cord on the curtains and yanked it down. The curtains swept open as the hammering on the window struck up again. A figure in a dark hooded jacket was standing outside, shoulders hunched against the wind and rain, fist raised.

Johnny squinted into the darkness, then started to walk towards the window. His eyes went wide. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said, then rushed in a smile. ‘Val!’ He pointed to his left and mouthed. ‘Front door.’

Val gave him a thumbs up, then disappeared from view. Johnny’s legs went weak and he grabbed on to the back of Clare’s chair to steady himself.

‘Who the fuck was that?’ said Murph. ‘What’s wrong with her face?’

Johnny’s knuckles were white, his head hanging. ‘We’re fucked, lads.’ He raised his head slowly. ‘Fucked.’

‘Why?’ said Clare. ‘Who was that?’

‘Our neighbour,’ said Johnny. ‘The Sergeant.’

Edie sat in the driver’s seat of Terry’s van, her head bowed against the steering wheel. Her heart flipped with the guilt of not telling Johnny where she was going, or how she had known where the van might be — her own fears about the anger that Terry brought out in him. At first, she had asked Terry not to park outside the inn because they didn’t want guests to feel like they were arriving into a construction site. Then he had parked at the side of their house, out of sight of the guests. But as things worsened between him and Johnny, she had decided it was better for everyone if she kept them as far apart as possible, so she cut an extra key to the chapel gate, and had given it to Terry earlier in the week — he could park along the ditch outside, and come and go in a way that limited the risk of running into Johnny.

She looked around the car for Terry’s phone. It wasn’t in the holder on the dashboard, it wasn’t in any of the compartments. She leaned across the passenger seat and popped open the glove box. It wasn’t there. She saw the new key to the chapel and put that in her pocket. Then she remembered there was storage underneath the seat and she popped it open. She was hit with the faint smell of paint. She saw a can of red spray paint, a pair of black gloves streaked with red, and a white mask with traces of a fine spray in the same shade. She set them on the floor of the van and started rifling through everything else. Wedged behind some small, sample wood panels was a thick plastic bag. She pulled it out. It was folded tightly around something rectangular. There was a notebook inside; a cheap, black A5 hardback. She opened it, expecting to see job lists or price lists or floor plans. But when she started to flick through it, she realized it was something else entirely. Her heart started to pound. A blur of vile, angry words, in red and black ink, hopped off every page.

Then she started to see drawings like the ones she had found on the dining-room floor — with the same punctures in the pages from the same heavy hand. Like the ones she had found, the drawings of the faces were on the right-hand page. The facing pages were covered in single words or sentences or phrases, in all different sizes of writing, some of it almost illegibly small, one word always bigger than the others.

Edie closed the notebook. What was wrong with him? And why had she never suspected that anything was? But had Johnny? Her stomach flipped. She got a flash of Johnny on a witness stand. She wondered how he would come across to a jury.

Clare looked across the room at Johnny. ‘She didn’t see me behind the curtain. Can I go... until she’s gone?’

Laura shook her head. ‘Jesus, do you give a fuck about anyone but yourself?’