Page 97 of Close to You

As for Yasmine, I don’t know what to think. She never showed up for another class and the ‘really got it coming to her’ that I overheard must have meant someone else. She could have been talking about that night’sEastEndersfor all I know.

Trevor, who Jane hit in my car, is out of intensive care. He’s conscious but still in hospital. I suppose that’s one thing. Mr Patrick tells me there was a sighting of a young man running in the centre of Gradingham at roughly the time of the crash. It’s a new line of enquiry that is, apparently, still open – even if it is nonsense. Whoever they’re looking for didn’t steal my car and didn’t hit Trevor. I can hardly tell the police that – but I’m in the clear anyway. My insurance company are even paying out – and it’ll be more money than my car was worth. What goes around definitely does not come around. I can promise people that.

So it’s over.

I win.

Hurray for me.

Life goes on.

I’m pouring hot water into a mug when the letter box clinks. I pop in a teabag and then cross to where the mail has hit the welcome mat.

There is an IKEA catalogue, something from a bank – and then one letter with my name and address handwritten on the front.

I recognise Jane’s writing immediately. It’s not changed since school and we sat together for long enough. There was a time when actual, real letters used to mean joy. It would be something from a friend or a penpal. A mate from camp who we’d never see again. Now it’s only bills and adverts.

Except for this.

The pages inside have been torn from a notebook, with the scrambled spiral holes along the left side. The letter doesn’t say much – but it says enough.

Why did ‘you know where’ mean the lake at Little Bush Woods?

Jane hasn’t signed it – but she doesn’t need to. I’d somehow missed that. In believing it was David who was texting me, I’d led the real messenger directly to the place where my greatest secret is hidden. Jane must have followed me. I suppose it would be a fun game with most people to tell them to meet ‘you knew where’ – and then see where they go. How many long buried stories would emerge?

And so she knows.

I’d already led her to the lake and, when I told Jane that I’d killed David, it wouldn’t take much for someone to figure out that the two things are intrinsically connected.

There is no further threat, but I suppose it is implied. Jane knows my secrets – all of them. I suppose this is her way of saying that, if I go for her, then she’ll come for me. That, perhaps, she has already set things in motion. Perhaps an anonymous tip to the police that they should check the lake? Even with that, there would be no proof that I put David there. That’s if he’s still there anyway. He could be bones by now.

But Jane knows – and she’s saying that it’s not only her who is going to spend a life looking over her shoulder. We all lash out when we feel under threat.

I finish making my tea and then take the lighter from the cutlery drawer. I burn the letter in the sink, watching the embers crisp black before I run the tap to wash it all away.

Who’s good and who’s bad?

Everyone might be the hero of their own stories and, whatever others may think, I’m the hero of mine.