Black Cairn Point (11 page)

Now

‘Emma was screaming, you said. These are your words. Do you remember telling the police that, Heather? That you heard her, from the path?’

I ignore him. My eyes are on the clock, watching the minute hand tick round. Three minutes. I smile to myself smugly. Another hour gone and once again Dr Petersen has yielded little more from me than a word or two. I see him glance at the wall, too, register the time. He’ll be annoyed, and that makes me even happier. All the qualifications and certificates in the world can’t mask the fact that he’s failing to make any progress whatsoever.

No matter what he says, what he thinks, I am winning.

I shift in my seat, preparing to rise. To begin the long walk back through the plush hallways until we get to the polished linoleum and bare white walls that family members and visiting dignitaries never get to see, deep within the bowels of the institution; Petersen’s personal little empire. My escort coughs lightly behind me and I know he’s warning me: he’s there. If I should make any sudden movements – explode forward, launch myself at Dr Petersen as I have done in the past, and quite successfully, I might add – he will stop me. At least, he thinks he will. I am not so sure. He’s big, though. And young.

It doesn’t matter; I have no plans to attack Dr Petersen today. I’m just getting ready to leave. To go back to my non-life and stare at the walls. The television. The other ‘patients’ who actually are total whack-jobs. I stare a lot. I’m doing it to Dr Petersen right now, waiting for him to give up the ghost and dismiss me.

He turns away from the clock, back to me. I see a twitch as he registers the change in the way I’m looking at him – expectant relief rather than complete disdain and loathing – but he smothers the expression before I can read the emotion underneath.

‘Is something wrong, Heather?’ he asks me calmly.

Too calmly. My brain registers the odd tone – too nice, too smug – but I’m so desperate to get out of the room I’m not paying proper attention. Instead I speak. Might as well, there’s nothing he can do now with his perfect schedule and all that.

‘Our hour’s up,’ I say. A monotone. Another thing I do a lot.

‘Oh, I see.’ He’s still calm. Still self-satisfied. What am I missing? ‘Well, Heather, I cleared you a double slot today. I thought you and I needed to reconnect, and what with this being the anniversary of the event …’

His words melt away. There’s ringing in my ears and shock rebounds around my head. Two hours, not one. This sends me reeling.

Because it’s hard. I sit here and pretend that I don’t care, but it’s hard. Of course I care. Not about Dr Petersen, but Martin … Emma … Dougie. Even Darren. Not talking about it, swallowing it back and forcing it down – deep, deep down – isn’t helping. On the outside I’m a hard shell: detached, emotionless, cold. But on the inside I’m burning, suffering my own personal purgatory. And he knows. That bastard Petersen knows, and he will not rest until he pulls it out of me piece by piece.

Hate courses through me and I grab onto it, use to it brace myself until I can feel the ground under my feet again. Until I can feel some semblance of control come back to me. It’s fragile, though. Rage comes in waves, unlike contempt, and when it ebbs back out again, that’s when I’m vulnerable.

I take a deep breath. Make myself look at Dr Petersen.

God, how I hate you. But you will not break me.

‘Fine,’ I spit through tight lips.

He smiles at me; that’s another point chalked up to him. The rage burns hotter. I am not performing well today. Probably because it
is
the anniversary and yes, I
was
aware of that fact before he so kindly reminded me.

‘You didn’t like Darren, did you, Heather?’

There wasn’t much to like.
I don’t nod or speak, just stare at him, waiting for whatever’s coming next. He sees that and drags the moment out, taking a sip from an expensive bottle of fizzy water. The hiss as he twists the cap is oddly appropriate: it’s snakelike, just like him.

‘You were jealous of him. Of the way he was stealing your friend from you. Weren’t you?’

I raise one eyebrow in superb disparagement. Dr Petersen sits back a little and I’m even able to crack the barest hint of a smile.

No, I was not jealous of Darren. I might be a little bit now, though – at least he doesn’t have to sit here and listen to this.

‘Do you want to know what I think, Heather?’ No, but Petersen isn’t really asking. ‘I think you needed to get Darren out of the way. I think he was suspicious, a thorn in your side. Was it easier with him than with Martin?’ I look away. Not at the floor, that would send entirely the wrong message. I go back to the wall, those fancy glass-framed certificates. Foolish Dr Petersen, they’re potential weapons too. I try to use the wry humour of my thoughts to damp down my anger, but I can’t drown out his voice. ‘After all, with Darren gone, Emma might have come back to you afterwards. Was that it, Heather?’

I swallow back a wave of sadness, because Emma is not coming back. Not ever.

But I don’t want to think about that. I will not think about that. I grit my teeth, engineer synthetic anger and use it as armour. It can’t protect inside my head, though, and that’s the bit Dr Petersen is most interested in. I feel a wave of panic that nearly propels me out of my chair. I am not controlled, I am not composed, and I want the hell out of here before I do something stupid like let him in.

‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I say.

It’s a child’s tactic, but I’m clutching at straws. I look at him pleadingly, hating myself more than him at this moment. Please, please, after all you’ve put me through, give me this.

He shakes his head.

‘We are not finished here, Heather.’

‘I have to go,’ I insist. ‘I have my period.’

That’s a lie. He looks down at my file as he considers it and I wonder if the truth is written in there. They keep such meticulous records: the drugs I take, the drugs I don’t take; my weight, my height, the length of my fingernails; my mood; what I’m eating and how much of it. I would not be surprised to know they have my menstrual cycle charted too.

They must have taught strategic mercy at whatever nut-job university Dr Petersen obtained his PhD from, because he acquiesces with a subtle nod. I rise, thinking I’m leaving, but it’s a discreet door to the left that my escort guides me over to. He opens it and I see a tiny room, less than a metre square and fitted with a minuscule circular sink. Beyond that is a second door, half ajar, revealing a gleam of white porcelain. Not an escape then, but a reprieve at least. Dr Petersen acknowledges my lie by neglecting to offer me a tampon or any other such accoutrement.

I glance uneasily at the escort as he keeps close to my heels – surely he doesn’t think he’s coming in with me? – but he pauses in the sink room and lets me proceed, alone, to the cubicle.

There’s a mirror here, in the toilet rather than by the sink outside. I don’t know why – does Dr Petersen send his patients in here for self-reflection? I catch my face staring back at me and for a millisecond, just the smallest fraction of time, I see something else. Something black and evil and terrifying, hovering over me like a malignant aura. I start and can’t stop myself from crying out, but I muffle the sound before it can reach beyond this claustrophobic square of space. Another blink and the thing is gone. But my racing heartbeat remains.

I sink down onto the closed pan and drop my head into my hands. I concentrate on breathing normally. I know Dr Petersen’s patience will not let me draw out the rest of our ‘session’ in here; I have only five minutes at best before I’ll have to face him again. It’s important to be calm, collected, when that happens.

In. Out. In. Out. I count the breaths. Slow them gradually. Taming my pulse is harder. It speeds through my veins, screaming.

A gentle tap on the door. A summons. I stand, sniff, then swallow. Just to keep up the pretence, I flush the toilet. Then I smooth my clothes and open the door. It’s almost too small for me to squeeze in beside my escort to use the sink but I make a show of washing my hands, using the fancy soap dispenser, which daintily releases a splodge of pearly liquid that smells like oranges. Pretending I’m not unnerved by the man-mountain standing just inches behind me, I take my time coating and then rinsing the fingers on my good hand. All too soon the door is open and Petersen is smiling pleasantly at me from behind his desk.

The leather is still faintly warm as I sink back down into my chair. It should be comforting, but it isn’t.

‘Where were we?’ Petersen asks.

Trying to look as if I’m just idly glancing around the room, I let my eyes flicker to the clock. Forty minutes. I can last forty minutes.

‘Emma.’ He says her name triumphantly, as if his question was real, as if he hasn’t sat and planned this line of attack while I hid in the bathroom. ‘You disapproved of her relationship with Darren, didn’t you? In fact –’ he ruffles several note-covered sheets in front of him – ‘you were quite disparaging about it. You said since they’d met she’d become silly. Shallow. Pathetic, you called her more than once. Do you remember calling her those things, Heather?’ Pause. ‘Did you think that you were better than her?’

Yes.

No. Maybe.

No.

I hadn’t believed her, though.

As angry as I was at my parents, the police, Dr Petersen – all the people who refused to listen to me – I hadn’t believed her.

Then

The sound rent the air. It froze the breath in my lungs, freezing me. Like a statue I stood there, listening to it bounce off the water, the hills, before finally falling silent. There was an instant of sweet relief, then Emma screamed again.

This time I rocketed towards the noise, stumbling over tufts of grass and large pebbles, my feet fighting to find purchase on the uneven ground. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to follow the sounds ringing in my ears.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started again, it stopped. I ground to a halt, staring about me, wide-eyed. I was still on the narrow cliff-top path, the sea pounding the rocks down to my right. It was darker than it had been just five minutes before, though I knew it wasn’t time for nightfall yet. I looked up at the clouds and they were tumultuous, black and bulging. A cold mist descended in a feather-light curtain, dropping like a fog. Water droplets caught in my eyelashes and the world around me receded to no more than a few metres in every direction. Cautiously, I started moving forward again.

‘Emma?’ I shouted.

My voice bounced back at me, but nothing from Emma. I tried once more.

‘Emma? Where are you?’

Still nothing. I continued on and just a minute or so later came to a fork in the trail. One path carried on before me, skirting the curve of the coast. The other branched off to the right and I could just see it begin to dip down towards the water before the misting rain obscured the view. I guessed it must lead to the cove.

Clenching my hands into fists to stop them from shaking, I started down the second path. The way was bumpy, already slippery. My shoes couldn’t find any grip and I slipped and slid my way down. The sound of the sea scratching at the shore grew steadily louder until abruptly the hard-packed trail gave way to mounds of small stones that clattered noisily under my weight. I’d reached the cove.

I looked around me. The rain seemed to be worse down here, as if it was lifting from the sea as well as dropping from the sky. The cliff walls were dark, streaked with white where lime had leached through. The beach itself wasn’t sandy but pebbly and strewn with seaweed and driftwood. Dougie’s dad had been right: this was a good place to find firewood. The one thing I didn’t see was either of my friends.

‘Emma?’ I called again, then, slightly more quietly, ‘Darren?’

They didn’t reply but a bird squawked angrily from somewhere above me. I shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable. Even with my jumper on I was cold and there was an eerie feel about the place, as if dozens of pairs of eyes were watching me from the tiny dark crevices in the rock walls. I took a half-step back, my feet responding to my body’s urge to get the hell out of there, but I managed to stop before I could give in to the urge to turn and run.

Where were Darren and Emma?

I forced myself forward. Stones scattered in front of me, the noise making me catch my breath. I made a second, more thorough assessment of my surroundings. Though it was a small cove, hemmed in by the high cliff walls, there were plenty of places two people could conceal themselves.

‘Emma, this isn’t funny!’ I said loudly. If they were playing a joke on me …

I knew they weren’t, though. The new, unimproved Emma screamed a lot: when she didn’t get her own way, when she wanted boys – or anyone – to notice her, when there was a spider. But I’d never heard her scream like that before. It had been real, terror-filled.

I was halfway towards the water when I heard something. I paused, cocked my head, trying to pinpoint the direction, trying to work out what it was. It wasn’t continuous, but started and stopped in an uneven pattern, and it was oddly muffled. After several long seconds I realised what I was listening to.

‘Emma?’ I hurried towards the sound, my eyes on a large rock erupting out of the pebbles, near the far cliff.

The closer I got, the louder the sobbing was until I was positive I would find her there. Still, when I rounded the boulder I skidded to a stop, shocked.

Emma was huddled on the ground, her back wedged into a corner of the rock. Her arms were folded up to protect her chest, hands covering her mouth, and her feet were in constant motion, scrabbling, trying to propel her further backwards, although there was nowhere to go.

‘Emma!’ She didn’t react. Her eyes were sightless, gazing in my direction yet looking straight through me. ‘Emma!’ I closed the distance between us, crashing to my knees beside her. I grabbed her shoulder but she still took no notice of me. I shook her, hard, and finally got her attention. Her eyes bored into me, petrified.

‘Heather!’ Her fingers were claws, digging painfully into my collarbone.

‘Emma, where’s Darren?’

She shook her head, mouth opening and closing uselessly.

‘Emma,’ I pulled her forward and banged her back onto the wall, trying to jolt her back to reality. ‘Where’s Darren?’

‘Gone,’ she whispered. Her eyes were crazed.

‘Gone?’ I frowned. ‘What do you mean, gone?’ Then a thought occurred to me. ‘Emma, did he go in the water?’ Nothing. ‘Is he in the water, Emma?’ I was shouting right in her face. Instead of answering, she started crying.

Convinced now that Darren – idiotic Darren – had tried to show off by wading into the swell pounding the rocks, I whirled round and started scanning the jagged formations jutting out of the water. My eyes hunted for a glimpse of the orange t-shirt he’d been wearing earlier. Jesus, he could be anywhere! If he’d bashed his head off one of those rocks … If he’d gone out too far … It was cold enough that he might have just lost consciousness, be floating somewhere, facedown.

I took a half-step, still not sure what I was going to do. Something icy cold wrapped itself around my wrist and tightened like a manacle.

‘Don’t leave me!’ Emma gasped.

She’d come forward to grab me, but as soon as I turned she scuttled backwards, pulling me with her.

‘Emma –’

‘Don’t leave me,’ she repeated.

I shook my head at her, frustrated.

‘We need to help Darren,’ I said. ‘Where did he go in? Think, Emma!’ I snapped, because she was rocking again, eyes sightless.

‘Don’t go in there,’ she mumbled into her fingers, hands back up at her face.

‘What?’ My voice was sharp.

‘Don’t go in the water, Heather. Don’t, don’t go in –’ She broke off, coughing out more sobs.

I gritted my teeth. My initial terror was rapidly dwindling. There was nothing wrong with Emma. But Darren … I was getting pretty worried about him.

‘Emma!’ I grabbed at her t-shirt again, made her look at me. ‘Where’s Darren?’

She gazed wildly about, eyes searching the sky, then she fixed her sights on me.

‘Gone.’

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Dougie came hobbling across the beach as soon as he saw our silhouette against the skyline. We must have appeared as a single confused smudge, huddled together the way we were. I was fully supporting Emma’s weight, her arm gripping my neck so tightly she was choking me. Tiny as she was, she felt twice as heavy as Dougie had earlier. She wasn’t injured; she just refused to move on her own. It had been carry her or leave her. I’d deliberated for at least a minute before hauling her to her feet.

‘Help,’ I gasped, stumbling into him and momentarily forgetting about his ankle.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asked. I couldn’t speak but bent over and gripped my knees. ‘Emma? Emma, are you all right?’

Emma didn’t reply either but she launched herself into his arms. I eyed her suspiciously – this was much more like typical Emma behaviour – but she was shaking from head to toe and those little gasping cries were still juddering out of her lips. Dougie stared at me over her shoulder, completely bewildered.

‘Where’s Darren?’ he asked me.

I lifted a shoulder, an apologetic grimace on my face.

‘I don’t know, she wouldn’t say. She just kept telling me “he’s gone”.’ My breathing was returning to normal, although the muscles in my legs were burning, my back aching.

‘What do you mean, gone?’ Dougie demanded.

‘Gone,’ I heard Emma mumble against the fabric of his jumper.

‘I’m sorry, Dougie. That’s all I can get out of her.’ I ran my hand through my hair, agitated. ‘She’s totally freaked out.’

Dougie nodded awkwardly, because Emma was tucked under his jaw, and tried to smile at me, but the worry was plain in his eyes. First his best friend, now Darren. What the hell was going on?

‘Help me get her to camp?’ he said.

Together, we half-dragged, half-carried Emma down to the fire pit, which was flickering welcomingly. The flames drew me in and I was grateful to Dougie for lighting it with the last of the driftwood. More than the glow that chased away the gathering dark, I was desperate for the heat. I was shaking almost as much as Emma, chilled down to my very bones.

Even with his badly swollen ankle, Dougie took most of Emma’s weight, supporting her entirely as he tried to manoeuvre her into one of the folding chairs. He dropped her gently, but she wouldn’t even hold herself up, slipping down and folding like a rag doll onto the sand. Dougie sighed and reached for her, but I stopped him.

‘Leave her there,’ I said. ‘She’s freezing.’

‘Yeah, but –’

‘Just leave her,’ I repeated.

Emma didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge us, just gazed into the flames, rocking gently.

‘What the hell happened?’ Dougie asked again.

I had no answer for him. Only Emma knew, and she wasn’t talking. I stared down at her, watched her rub her arms, the skin already turning pink from being too close to the blazing heat.

‘I’ll get her a jumper,’ I muttered.

I disappeared into the shadowy darkness of our tent and dropped to my knees. The air mattress had almost completely deflated and my knees dug painfully into the ground. I ignored the discomfort, rooting around in Emma’s backpack, chewing down hard on my tongue. Tears were blinding me and I didn’t want Dougie to see.

Emma wasn’t acting. She was terrified and it had something to do with Darren’s disappearance. I hadn’t even been able to get her to confirm that he’d gone into the water. When I tried to go and look for him, scanning the waves, she’d erupted, hauling me back, away from the shore. I’d done the best I could, fighting Emma off every second, but in the end, I’d had to abandon the search and get her out of there.

I was scared. Darren was gone. Martin was still missing and we had no way to get away from the beach. The Volvo was dead, Dougie was in no fit shape to be hiking God knows how many miles to the main road, and neither was Emma. Panic bubbled in my throat but I swallowed it back, took a deep breath. My fingers closed around the fuzzy warmth of Emma’s pink cardigan and I dragged it out, pulled it to my chest. Her perfume rose out of the wool and the familiar smell cleared my head a little.

Scrubbing my cheeks to make sure there was no evidence of my little meltdown, I scrambled to my feet and lurched back towards the safety of the fire.

‘She any better?’ I asked as I approached.

Emma was still hunkered down on the ground; Dougie sat staring at her, anxiety etched across his face. He shook his head at me, blinking ferociously. I looked away.

‘Emma?’ I dropped down so I was on her level, held out the cardigan to her. She had stopped rocking and though her face was still deathly pale at least she wasn’t wailing any more. ‘Put this on,’ I ordered.

She did as I asked, obediently folding her arms into the garment, then buttoning it right up to her throat, but her eyes continued to stare into the brightness at the heart of the fire.

‘What do we do?’ Dougie asked, his voice tight. I ignored him, concentrating on Emma.

‘Emma.’ I reached out and took one of her hands in mine, forced it to lie still. ‘Emma, look at me.’

She did, though I wasn’t sure that she was actually focusing on me.

‘Emma, where’s Darren?’

Her face folded, tears brimming over straight away. She started shaking her head, the movement quickly escalating, threatening to get out of control. I reached out my other hand and grabbed her chin. Maybe I should start with something easier.

‘You guys went to get firewood?’

A nod.

‘Down at the cove?’

Another nod.

‘Did you have a fight?’

A shake of her head. No.

‘Did Darren go off somewhere, then? By himself?’

No again.

I looked at her, a crease of confusion between my eyebrows as I tried to work out what could possibly have happened. Had I missed him?

‘Emma, is Darren still at the cove?’

She paused before answering and my stomach dropped – had I left him there? I didn’t want to go back out into the dark. To my relief she shook her head slowly from side to side. Another no.

I was out of suggestions.

‘Emma, where is Darren?’

‘Gone,’ she repeated, the word twisted through tears.

‘Gone where, Em?’ I said it as gently as I could manage, but frustration threatened to destroy my outward calm. We were going round in circles.

‘Was there someone else there, Emma?’

I jumped. I had almost forgotten Dougie was there, silently watching. I went back to Emma just in time to see her finish nodding her head. What?

‘Who?’ I asked, too sharply, too eagerly. She shrank back but I didn’t register the gesture, pounding her with questions. ‘Did you see him? Was it just one man? What did he look like?’

‘Not who,’ Emma whispered.

‘Not who? What you mean, not who? Emma, talk sense! Were they old or young? Did you recognise them? Did you see which way they went?’

‘Not who,’ she said again, even quieter this time. ‘Not who,
what
.’