P Kane - Her Last Secret

He’d turned it on and immediately found several voicemails from colleagues, Alison, Phil, Howard – even Sarah. And Trev, his boss – the media studies graduate who looked about 12. All concerned about him, wanting to know if he was okay and if he needed anything. Jake had sighed. Yes, he needed for things to go back to the way they had been. Not yesterday, or the day before, but many years ago when they’d all been happy: a happy family. Could they possibly sort that out for him please? Or perhaps that weird time thing that was happening could wind itself back instead of playing around with the speed … do some editing of the movie.

Jake had turned the phone off again, not wanting to speak to anyone at the moment, but vowing to put them in the picture tomorrow.

He’d been well into his mission to drink the hotel bar dry of their house whiskey, however, putting double after double on his room tab, when the TV had been turned on in the corner and the local news had thrown back pictures of the market square, of presenters who looked like Sarah doing their piece to camera. On any other day, it would have been him pointing that camera, but not today. He’d squinted at the television set, then at the barman who was looking sideways at him, looking at him funny like he was making that connection with the drinking.

The thin man, whose uniform was hanging off him like washing on a line, looked like he was about to say something. It would have been the only thing he’d said in all this time, if he had, apart from ‘What’ll it be?’, with a kill-me-now expression on his face …

Kill me …

But he’d wandered off to serve a couple of other customers instead. People were starting to filter in, because it was early evening now, and Jake knew that it wouldn’t be long before the TV people who were camped out in Redmarket started to check into hotels themselves.

Light was giving way to darkness, and it was time to take this ‘party’ back to his room. Time to welcome in the dark to get rid of those bright memories of the daytime. So Jake had levered himself off the stool, gripping his carrier bag tightly, and begun his trek to the lifts, swaying slightly as he went. He’d stabbed at the button for his floor once he was inside, then waited for the lift doors to open again. He’d reached into the bag, opening up the full bottle he still had and ignoring the glances from people who were just on their way out to start their evening proper. He didn’t give a shit, just needed to get to the room. Needed to get to the bed, needed to start on this bottle now, bring on the real darkness.

Because this was no good; the dark in the room wasn’t chasing away those bright memoriesthe movie still playing out in front of him. Only the booze could do that. More and more of it, with Jake wondering if maybe he should have picked up a couple of bottles rather than just the one.

Especially when he started having those telepathic conversations, not with Julie, but with Jordan. The kind he’d play out mentally whenever she wasn’t listening to him or wasn’t even around. Asking those questions again:

‘Why were you out on a weeknight, and with that guy?’

Getting answers like: ‘That’s my business, it’s got nothing to do with you, Dad. You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me … I was young once.’

‘I love him!’

‘No, you just think you do. Like all the others that ended up causing so much trouble.’

‘What, like you thought you loved Mum? That why you left and never came back, why she had to turn to a guy like … like him.’

‘I left because she didn’t want me around. You didn’t want me around, remember? Christ!’

Some part of him knew it was his own mind filling in the blanks, but it was based on knowing her like he did. Based on previous arguments they’d had, which he could trot out word for word.

And finally, that last one which neither of them could ever answer: ‘How did we get to this? How did we become strangers?’

Both at fault, neither giving any ground. He thought they’d have time – there it was again, that word, the strangeness, the trickiness of time. He thought they’d be able to fix things once enough time had passed. But time also had a way of running out.

Just like he was passing out, losing consciousness. His friend, not Matt, the other one – the darkness – embracing him.

Only to let go again in the middle of the night, the darkness outside almost matching the oblivion he was rising from. Waking up when he heard noises, sounds that his rational mind would have told him were people in the next room, or in the corridor …

Except, when he looked over into the corner of the room he thought he saw someone there. A shape.

‘Who …who’re …?’ he managed, but there was no reply. His hand, still wrapped around the practically empty bottle of whiskey, tightened its grip. If this was someone here to rob him, they’d really picked the wrong night.

However, as the figure moved closer, further into the room, he recognised its delicate features. A mixture of him and Jules, the figure holding out her hands – a different kind of darkness staining the middle of her chest. Opening her mouth, though he didn’t want to hear what she had to say:

‘You left me when I needed you the most. You left me …’

Not him putting words in her mouth now, but Julie’s from earlier, recycled.

‘You left me,’ she kept repeating over and over. ‘You left …’

Jake put his hands to his ears, still holding the bottle in one of them so that it stuck out at an odd angle. ‘No … No!’ he shouted, then when the voice wouldn’t stop, he threw the bottle at the opposite wall. But he couldn’t even get that right, and instead of smashing it just bounced off and hit the floor.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said for each accusation. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You left, you left, you left …’

‘I know, I’m sorry.’

The darkness, or this darkness at least, wasn’t his friend at all. It was showing him things he really didn’t want to see. His dead daughter getting closer and closer, so close he could see marks on her outstretched arms, and imagine the knife there sticking out. There was no getting away from today, from the memories, nor from what had happened.

‘No … please God, no! ’ The tears were finally coming now, thick and fast. There was no holding them back at all. ‘No, I’m sorry. I … I can make it up to you,’ Jake said quickly, as if that would will the vision away. ‘I … I can … I can be there for you now, sweetheart.’

What was he saying? How could he be there for her when she was lying in that cold drawer with all the other corpses. What help could he be now? What use?

But that was the thing, he hadn’t been around when she’d needed him; hadn’t been a real dad to her. Hadn’t been there in the run-up to this, nor on the night of the murder itself when he should have been protecting her. (how, how could he have done that? She would never have let him!) It was all getting tangled up in his drunken mind, her words, Julie’s words, his; all mixed up and jumbled.

Except for one thing – how he could do something now. How he could help … Not to save her, because it was way too late for that – was probably too late even before he walked out of that front door … But to get to the bottom of this, find out what happened. Perhaps even avenge her. No, back to that stupid image of a knight on a white horse, riding to the rescue … not rescue, not this time.

It was there, though, that germ of an idea. Something he could do that wouldn’t leave him feeling completely useless. Something he could … And almost immediately, the image of his daughter faded, and he felt more at peace than he had all day – than he had in a long while. The worst thing he could have possibly imagined had happened, he couldn’t do anything about that now – there was no winding back time. So, moving forward, he had to get his head around what had happened. Knew what he needed to do, even though the police, even though Matt, had told him they were doing everything they possibly could.