Charley (8 page)

She picked it up and inspected it. ‘What’s this for?’ she said, turning it over in her hands.

‘My number’s on it,’ I told her. ‘Call me.’

‘And why would I want to do that?’

‘So you can tell me what you see in those flashes,’ I smiled, fishing my notebook out. ‘What’s your number?’

She gave it to me without any further questions. Deep down, some part of me hoped Charley would call, flashes or not.

CHAPTER 9

Charley – Monday: 08:57 Hrs.

T
om parked the car outside my house. My father was on the drive working on his car. He looked up. He looked surprised. Did he believe that I had been in bed? It was light now, but still early for me. My father held a cloth in his hand and I could see that he had been waxing the back of his cab where there seemed to be some kind of dent. I hadn’t been aware that he’d had an accident. It didn’t look very bad. My father placed the cloth on the roof of the car and stood looking at Tom and me. The wind swept his greying hair back from his brow. There was a bucket of soapy water at his feet and his fingers looked red and raw from where they had been in the water.

‘Is that your dad?’ Tom asked.

‘Yep,’ I said, opening the door.

‘I’ll say hello,’ Tom said.

‘No, it’s okay …’ But it was too late; Tom was already out and standing on the pavement.

‘Hey, Dad,’ I smiled.

‘I didn’t know you were up,’ my father said, shooting Tom a sideways glance. ‘Where have you been so early?’

‘Just out walking,’ I said, closing the car door with my hip.

He eyed Tom again. Why did he always have to be so freaking hostile to my friends? I was nearly eighteen; couldn’t I choose the people I wanted to hang out with? He was always telling me to get some friends and get out of the house. But Tom was a guy – and that’s what he didn’t like. I was his little girl.

Tom walked towards my father with his hand out. ‘Hello, Mr Shepard,’ he smiled. ‘I’m Tom Henson.’

My father wiped his hands against his jeans then gripped Tom’s hand. He pumped it briskly up and down. ‘Hello,’ he said, without a smile.

There was an uncomfortable silence, only filled by the sound of the nagging wind. I felt the urge to say something, but didn’t know what.

‘So you’re a friend of my daughter’s?’ my father finally said.

‘Kind of, I suppose,’ Tom said, looking at me.

I smiled back and shrugged. Were we friends?

‘It’s just that I’ve never heard my daughter mention you,’ my father said. ‘We’ve only just met,’ I started to explain and then wished I hadn’t.

‘And you’re letting him give you a lift already?’ my father said, raising his eyebrows.

‘It’s okay,’ Tom said, hooking his badge from his pocket. ‘Charley’s quite safe with me, I’m a police officer.’

‘A police officer?’ My dad’s brow furrowed. ‘Is my daughter in some kind of trouble?’

‘No, don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘Tom just gave me a lift home, that’s all.’

‘I see,’ he said.

But I knew Dad didn’t see at all. He only saw what he wanted to and that was a young, good-looking cop giving his daughter a ride home first thing in the morning. Did he think I had snuck out in the night to see Tom and had been caught sneaking home? I could see my father’s eyes narrowing. Those were the thoughts I guessed all dads had when their daughter first brought home a guy. But I wasn’t bringing home a guy. Tom wasn’t my guy. He was a cop.

‘Well, it was good meeting you, Mr Shepard,’ Tom said, with a wave of his hand. ‘But I’ve been up all night and I could do with some sleep.’

My father scowled and I couldn’t help but wonder if Tom hadn’t made that last comment to tease him. I’d already got the impression Tom liked to tease people. He was kind of cocky, but in a mischievous not an arrogant kind of way. I hid my smile, looking down at my boots. Tom climbed into his car and fired up the engine.

‘Come on Dad, I’ll make you a cuppa,’ I said, taking his arm and leading him up the drive towards the front door.

I heard Tom’s car pull away from the kerb and glanced back over my shoulder. He smiled at me, then was gone, his taillights glowing red in the overcast light of the morning. I pushed open the front door and stepped inside. Dad followed me into the kitchen.

‘So where have you really been?’ he asked.

I switched on the kettle. He took a seat at the kitchen table. His hands still looked pink with cold. I took my coat off and hung it over the back of a chair. ‘I couldn’t sleep so I took a walk up to the railway tracks.’

‘Why?’ he asked.

I took two tea bags from a box on the work counter, refusing to look at him. ‘I wanted to see if I could find the place where that girl died.’

‘What girl?’ he asked, his voice sounding stiff.

‘The girl I saw in my flashes last night. The girl called Kerry,’ I said, splashing milk into the cups. ‘I wanted to see if I could find the place where she was killed.’

‘Enough already,’ my father said. I heard the sound of his chair scraping as he stood up. ‘This madness has got to stop, Charley.’

‘It’s not madness,’ I said, wheeling round to face him. ‘I’m not mad, Dad. I found the place where that girl died. I saw the tumbled down house on the hill. It was the same house I saw in my flashes.’

‘It was the place you came across the other day at Natalie’s funeral,’ he said. ‘Your mind is playing tricks with you. It’s understandable, Charley, you’re grieving …’

‘My mind isn’t playing tricks on me, Dad, and it wasn’t the same place. I was nowhere near the graveyard where Natalie was buried. And besides …’

‘Besides what?’ His boots made a clacking sound on the tiled floor as he took a step towards me. The boiling kettle seemed so loud. I wanted to cover my ears.

‘There was a girl who died on the tracks last night and her name was Kerry,’ I whispered.

‘And how do you know this?’ my father asked, his voice dropping too.

‘That police officer … Tom … told me,’ I said. ‘He told me a girl named Kerry Underwood was hit and killed by a train last night. So my flashes are real, Dad.’ I hoped that this was the proof he needed. All I wanted was for him to believe me. That’s all I’d ever wanted. But it was like he hadn’t heard what I’d said.

‘What did you tell that police officer?’ he asked, coming closer still.

‘What do you mean?’ Why was he so worried about Tom?

‘Did you tell him about your flashes?’ he said.

I turned away to pour water into the cups. Steam coiled up all around me, and I just wanted to sink into it. I wanted it to hide me from my father so I didn’t have to answer his questions.

‘You told him, didn’t you?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said, picking up the cups of tea. I had nothing to hide. I had done nothing wrong. ‘Have you got a problem with that?’

‘Yeah, I’ve got a problem with that,’ my father said, nodding his head and looking at me.

‘I can’t see the harm in telling Tom if it helps the police catch the person who killed that girl,’ I said.

‘But you don’t know the girl was murdered,’ he said, exasperated. ‘You can’t go around telling the police stuff that you don’t know is true – that you don’t know is
real
! You could be leading them away from what really happened.’

‘I know what really happened,’ I said. I felt the anger and frustration I always felt around my father growing inside me.

‘Charley, you don’t know! You can’t know!’ he shouted.

‘But Tom said …’ I started.

‘I couldn’t give a crap what that cop said,’ my father barked. ‘Can’t you see, Charley? That cop will just use you for information.’

‘I think he believes me,’ I shot back.

‘He probably believes you were involved somehow. You’re probably his prime suspect.’

‘That’s just ridiculous,’ I said, placing my cup down. I didn’t want it any more.

‘No, you’re ridiculous, Charley,’ he said.

It felt as though he’d slapped me. Hard. My father must have seen the look of hurt in my eyes because he came towards me again, arms open.

‘Don’t,’ I said, raising the flat of my hand at him. ‘Don’t touch me.’

‘I’m sorry, Charley, I didn’t mean that.’

‘Yeah, you did,’ I said, biting my lower lip in an attempt to stop it trembling. I refused to cry. I wouldn’t allow myself to shed one more tear in front of him. I was never going to fall apart in front of anyone ever again. Looking straight back at him, I took a deep
breath. ‘I only went looking for that place because of you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I was so desperate to prove to you that my flashes were true, I crept from my bed and out into the dark and cold,’ I told him, my heart racing in my chest. ‘I just wanted you to believe. I just wanted you to believe in me.’ I felt tears stinging in the corners of my eyes. ‘But you’re just like the rest. Do you really think I want to spend the rest of my life seeing people die?’ I snapped.

‘Charley, I’m just trying to protect you,’ he said. ‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. You’re my little girl.’

‘I’m not six any more,’ I said, heart still thumping.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you will always be my little girl. I can’t help feeling like that. I just don’t want to see you being used.’

‘Who by?’

‘By that cop,’ he said, inching closer still. ‘Don’t you see, Charley? He will just bleed you for information about what happened to that girl you say was killed last night. That’s what the police do – it’s their job.’

‘Tom seems nice,’ I told him. ‘He could have arrested me. He could’ve taken me into custody and interrogated me.’

‘And he still might, Charley,’ my father warned. ‘All I want for you is to have some fun.’

‘So you keep saying,’ I said.

‘You should be out with friends, not creeping around in the dark looking for places where young girls have died. I think this has more to do with the death of Natalie than you might want to admit.’

Then something struck me as hard as my father’s unkind comment. What if Natalie had been killed by the same person as Kerry? They had both died on the railway tracks, at night, and both had been near some kind of outhouse. Was there a connection? The phone call I’d received at the funeral. Had it really been Natalie trying to make contact with me?

NATALIE CALLING!

NATALIE CALLING!

NATALIE CALLING!

My flesh turned cold and felt as taut as a bowstring. My heart sped up and I looked at my father.

‘What?’ he asked, looking back into my eyes. ‘What’s wrong now?’

I couldn’t tell him. He would just get angry again and tell me I was making connections that weren’t really there. I swallowed hard. ‘The flashes aren’t connected to Natalie’s death. I’ve been having them since I was six. Since Mum died.’

He looked at me. He was so close I could smell the car cleaning fluid he hadn’t yet wiped from his hands.

‘Dad, how did Mum die?’

‘Don’t go there,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Charley, but you’re wrong.’

‘What’s to say that Mum’s death didn’t trigger something inside of me?’ I said. ‘I was so young I barely remember her. Any memories I do have of her are just like those flashes – broken.’

‘And that’s why your mum’s death hasn’t got anything to do with this’, he said, and I saw him tense up again. He’d always been reluctant to talk about her as I’d been growing up. But maybe her death did have something to do with my flashes?

I took his hand. Mine trembled and I knew he felt it. ‘Why did Mum kill herself ?’

‘Because she was unhappy,’ he said.

‘But what did she have to be unhappy about?’ I asked. ‘She had you, and she had me.’

‘It wasn’t enough,’ he whispered.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did she leave a note?’ I asked.

‘A note?’

‘Saying why she wanted to kill herself.’

He shook his head.

I drew a deep breath. ‘How did Mum die? You’ve never told me and I’ve always been too scared to ask.’

‘So why ask now?’

‘Because as I keep trying to tell you, Dad, I’m not a little girl any more,’ I whispered.

‘But …’ he started.

‘How did she die?’

Dad squeezed my hand and said, ‘She died just like Natalie and Kerry did.’

‘How do you mean?’ I breathed.

‘Beneath a train.’

CHAPTER 10

Tom – Monday: 21:54 Hrs.

I
reached the police station with just minutes to spare before my nightshift started. The station wasn’t big, just two floors of offices and a custody block containing six cells. The town of Marsh Bay was small, set on the southwest coast of Cornwall. It wasn’t busy like Truro and didn’t attract the number of holidaymakers St Ives or Penzance did.

I’d heard that Marsh Bay was pretty quiet all year round and practically dead in the winter. It could be so quiet that Force Headquarters had mooted the idea of closing Marsh Lane Police Station altogether and centralising us all. But as yet that hadn’t happened.

I liked the idea of being moved to a busier town after my attachment came to an end at Marsh Bay. It would be a good way of gaining experience, especially for someone young in the service
like me. But transfers weren’t always easy to come by. Nowadays most forces wanted to shed officers not recruit them. So for the time being I was stuck in Marsh Bay, but I intended to make the most of it.

The CID office was on the ground floor, at the rear of the building. The whole department consisted of four officers, and that included DI Harker. Taylor was the skipper and Jackson the detective constable. There was another, DC Kent, but he was long-term sick, and that’s how I had got my attachment; I had been brought in to cover his post until he returned to work.

Detective Chief Inspector Parker and Detective Superintendent Cooper were based at Force Headquarters in Exeter and should we ever stumble across a serious crime like a murder, then they would put in an appearance and extra resources would be drafted in from there. But until that day, we were pretty much left to our own devices, and DI Harker had built his own little kingdom within the CID department at Marsh Lane Police Station.

I entered the CID office. DC Jackson was sitting at his desk, feet up, thumbing through a file. He glanced at me then went back to the paperwork. DS Taylor was standing by the coffee machine in the corner.