She still doesn’t move so Phoebe grabs her collar, drags her out on to the patio. The security light goes on overhead. She stays outside with her even though she doesn’t have a coat on and I know from the air filtering in, it’s freezing. When Rosie’s finished Phoebe brings her in, closes the door, her eyes trained on her phone. Mine, on her. It’s now or never.
‘Can I talk to you about something, Phoebe?’
She looks up from her phone but finds it hard to look directly at me, her eyes wandering all over the place.
‘Depends.’
‘I know we haven’t really been getting on very well but I’d like that to change.’
‘No point.’
‘Why?’
‘You won’t be here for much longer.’
‘I’d like to stay for as long as I can.’
‘Not up to you, is it?’
I stand up, she looks at me, asks, ‘What are you doing? One of my friends is coming over, he’ll be here in a minute.’
She’s scared. I don’t want her to be. I want to tell her together we could run the world, a killer team, excuse the pun. She walks past me, gets to the doorway, and just before she leaves the room she says, ‘Before you know it, Dad will have some other fucker in your room. It’ll be like you never existed.’
32
The next day when I leave the school courtyard Phoebe’s there with Clondine and Izzy. Clondine smiles but the other two turn away. How long have I got before smiles and ignoring turn into staring and pointing? That’s her, can you believe it, the Peter Pan Killer’s daughter.
When I get home both Mike and Saskia are there. Good timing, he says, we wanted to talk to you about something before the weekend begins. Saskia won’t meet my eyes when we sit down, Mike offers to put the kettle on, neither of us replies.
‘We wanted to tell you, Sas and I, that we’re very proud of you, of what you’ve managed to do. There aren’t many other teenagers I know that could have coped with such pressure, and in such a mature way, but now the trial’s over we need to look forward and discuss what the future holds.’
Two days, that’s all it’s been since the verdict. Can’t. Wait. To get rid of me.
‘June and the social services team have been looking into a permanent placement for you. They think they might have found a potential family who live in the country near Oxford, lots of space and fields and two dogs, I believe. It’s not confirmed yet, obviously you’ll have to meet them and see how you get on, but it looks very promising. What do you think about the idea?’
‘Sounds like I don’t have a choice in the matter.’
‘We don’t want you to feel that way, we’re just trying to work out what’s best for you.’
‘When am I leaving?’
‘Milly, please don’t be like that,’ Mike says.
I cross my arms, feel for my scars. Turn my face away from them both.
‘We’d really like you to have your birthday with us and finish the term at school, we’ll have to work something out for the art prize exhibition.’
Too late, by that time everybody will know. The cat. Out of the bag.
‘I feel so stupid.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mike asks.
‘I thought you liked me.’
‘We do,’ Saskia replies. ‘Very much.’
‘Sas is right,’ Mike says. ‘But you staying here was never supposed to be a permanent arrangement, we spoke about this in hospital, remember?’
It was never supposed to be permanent because of Phoebe. Sugar and spice. And all things.
‘Like we said, nothing is set in stone yet but we’ll be looking at arranging a preliminary visit with the family in Oxford, perhaps even next weekend.’
The sooner the better, they all think.
It’s the early hours of the morning and my head is clear for once. No battle raging inside me, pulling me this way and that. I suppose I’ve known for a while now that I don’t belong here. Fit in. I’ve also known for a while that maybe there isn’t anywhere for someone like me. If I’d known that before I left you, I might have stayed, nestled into a bosom that didn’t necessarily give love but a familiar place to be. Birds of a feather.
I take the sock out of my underwear drawer, tip the pills I’ve been hiding into my hands, months of deceiving Mike. I walk into the bathroom, put them on the floor, bring my laptop too, slide the lock on the door, it can’t be opened from the outside. I look at the pills, enough there I’m sure. I sit down, my laptop on my knees, a secret folder hidden in documents labelled:
You.
I reach for some of the pills, wash them down with a drink from a half-empty bottle of water I left by the sink. I watch the video clips of you arriving in a van. Windows, tinted black like Mike’s car when I went to court too. The next clip is the last day of the trial. Verdict. Guilty times twelve. The crowd surged as the van transporting you left the courthouse, the press with their cameras held high. I take another mouthful, a mixture of blue and white pills, a few pink too. I press pause when the picture of you comes on screen. The room becomes furry after an hour or so, my body full of sand, slides down the wall a little. I feel like giggling, high from the drugs, but I don’t remember how to, or the last time I did.
I take the rest of the pills, a good handful. Mainly pink, not to make the boys wink but so I don’t have to think, any more. I take a gulp of water, mouth dry, a snail made of chalk meandering down my throat. I close the lid of the laptop, pull myself up on the side of the sink. This time I do want to look in the mirror, I want to see you before I go, but my hands slip off the side, the mirror melts. Bright spots of light in my eyes. Shooting stars. Make a wish, no point. I’m tired, so tired.
I climb into bed, no, I think it’s the bath. The shower curtain moves in my hand, I need to cover myself quick, phone’s at the ready, she takes pictures of me, remember. Fourteen tiles at the foot of the bath, I counted them the night before your trial began, when I couldn’t sleep. My head rolls to my chest, a place of rest, a belly full of pills.
I’m pulled. My legs.
Grabbed from below.
Up eight. Up another four.
The door on the right.
Now I am dead, they’ll find the things I hide.
The sketches of you taped back together.
Sick, they’ll call me. Her mother’s daughter.
There’s other things too.
The first one by accident on my hands and knees cleaning the room.
A sugar cube on the floor. No. A milk tooth from a boy.
In my pocket it went.
After that I looked, searched. Pieces and bits, clothing, an item from all nine, an obsession of mine smuggled out in my bag the night of your arrest.
Why did I keep them?
Not treasure for the fairies, not under my pillow.
The answer, it was my way of caring for them.
Jayden. Ben. Olivia. Stuart. Kian. Alex. Sarah. Max. Daniel.
Nine little somethings I wanted to help.
You never knew I kept them.
Nobody did.
33
Tubes.
In me.
Lights.
Above me.
Dry throat, choking. A needle in the back of my hand, the shape of a butterfly. Wet on my face, a small stream. Tears. I don’t want to cry, no point. Feel. Fear. Nothing to fear. Fear nothing. Fear everything.