1st December 2019
Evening
Michael didn’t hold back as he spoke of the night. He didn’t omit any details. Much of the story I couldn’t remember; perhaps my own subconscious forced it back, trying to protect me. But he didn’t have that luxury. For Michael, it seemed every minute detail had been playing on a loop over and over for the past twenty-one years. He remembered exactly what we wore, exactly when the rain started to fall. He recounted everything up to the moment we walked into the mine, and as he spoke, he didn’t pause for breath. I couldn’t take it anymore.
‘Michael. Stop.’
‘No, Neve, isn’t it time we said it? Isn’t it time we took some fucking responsibility?’
‘I don’t want to go back there, Michael, I can’t.’
‘It’s too late for that. We were a group of seven, and now we are three. It’s pretty fucking clear we’ve been forced back, isn’t it?’ He pressed on, needing so say it out loud. Part of me understood, but I knew I wasn’t ready to hear it, even after all this time. ‘We went down the mine, to fuck about, and Chloe…’
‘Michael. Enough!’ I shouted.
‘No, Neve, no. I need to say it; for so long I have needed to say it. Aren’t you haunted by it?’
‘Yes. I think about it all the time.’
‘Don’t you still see her?’
‘All the time,’ I echoed, this time quieter.
‘So then why can’t you talk about it?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘Because you don’t want to feel responsible?’
‘Michael, stop,’ Holly said. ‘We were kids, we were scared.’
‘Yes, we were scared. We were all scared. Fucking hell, Holly, we’ve been scared ever since. And I’ve never directed that fear at anyone; I’ve swallowed it, smiled through it. I’ve mended cars; and drank in The Miners’ Arms through it, and when I’ve seen Chloe’s mum, I’ve nodded my head and offered a kind word, and you know what? I’ve been angry this whole time. Anger and fear, the only things I’ve really felt in twenty-one years.’
‘I know you’re angry, Michael, I am too…’ he cut me off. His words were hard and cold like the dirty floor we stood on. ‘Whose idea was it to go down the mine in the first place? Neve! Whose idea was it?’
‘It was my idea.’
‘And whose idea was it to do that stupid fucking ouija board?’
‘Mine. But Baz brought it.’
‘But it was your idea, Neve. In fact, who was behind every decision we made that night?’
‘Michael, that’s not…’ Holly started in my defence. He slammed his hand on the upturned table, silencing us. In the candlelight, I watched his eyes film over. When he blinked, a tear rolled down.
‘And then he came. Banging, do you remember? We panicked. And Chloe fell, do you remember, Neve?’ Michael rubbed his eyes, stepped away and faced the opposite wall, his head resting on it.
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Michael, it’s OK,’ Holly said, going over to comfort him. It looked like it was something she had done many times before. ‘It’s OK, it’s all right. Take a deep breath,’ she whispered, and I could see his shoulders relax a little. I didn’t know what to do, or say, so I said nothing at all.
‘I wanted to go to get help.’ His voice sounded, broken, defeated. ‘I wanted to call the police. Who stopped us, Neve? Who told us to keep quiet?’
‘I did,’ I whispered.
‘I can’t hear you.’
‘It was me,’ I said, again much too loud for the small space. My words echoed off the wall above Michael’s head, and landed back in my ears. It was me.
Michael turned, faced me, and seeing him so sad, so broken, I began to cry.
‘Do you remember what happened next?’ he said. I nodded. I begged. ‘Please, Michael. No more.’
‘When we found her.’
‘Please.’
‘You didn’t look, did you? Over the edge. You didn’t see her down there.’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Nor could the rest of us, but we had to. And then you used Jamie to bury her. You made us all responsible for her disappearance. Chloe has been down there ever since.’
‘It wasn’t just me, was it, Michael? It was your idea to take her top and put it somewhere else to draw people away from the mine. And it was Baz who said we should blame the Drifter. It wasn’t all me,’ I said, tears filling my eyes.
‘It’s your fault we had to all lie like we did. What happened to Chloe was a tragic accident, and you made us hide it from everyone. You made it a crime.’
‘I was scared.’
‘We were all scared. We wanted to get help. You stopped us. You did that, Neve. And then you fucked off and left us to clean up the mess.’
He waited for me to reply, to fuel the argument he had been clearly dying to have for so long. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. He was right about it all. If we’d gone to the police, explained what had happened, we wouldn’t have got into trouble. It was an accident. And although we were trespassing, I don’t think we would have been punished too severely. What happened to Chloe was punishment enough. Michael turned away from me, unable to look at me anymore and lit another cigarette. I didn’t blame him either. I wanted to turn away from me too.
‘I refuse to go to jail for something I didn’t do,’ he said.
‘You did, Michael. You did, we all did,’ Holly said quietly. Sympathetically.
‘Holly, you’ve got more to lose than us. What about your kids? What happens if the truth comes out?’
‘Michael, don’t you think I’ve thought about my kids?’
‘And now, that copper from back then is snooping around, there is a new hotshot DCI in the village, and we are going missing one by one. People are going to find out what happened…’
‘The truth won’t come out. Don’t you see, Michael? What’s going on now has nothing to do with Chloe; this is about crimes that are happening now.’
‘Yes, but they are happening because of Chloe. And the Drifter is back to punish us.’
‘It doesn’t make sense to me,’ I said, shocked I was speaking at all.
‘What?’
‘The Drifter. Why is he after us?’
‘It wasn’t just our lives you ruined that night. It was his too.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Neve.’
‘Michael,’ Holly comforted, her arm reaching out to hold him once more.
‘Have you not thought about this?’ he persisted.
‘No.’
‘No, you just moved to London, brushed us all under an old carpet.’ His words stung, but I didn’t correct him. ‘The Drifter, whoever he was, was just a man, he wasn’t a ghost, he wasn’t Georgia’s dad, he wasn’t a kid killer. He was just someone who missed the mine. Someone who wanted to care for it. That’s why we saw him there. That’s why he chased us out that night. He was trying to scare us from hurting ourselves. He wasn’t in the wrong, we were. And then he got the blame. We’ll never know who he was, but I know one thing. We ruined the chance for him to have anything like a normal life.’
‘You don’t know that, Michael, you’re speculating.’
‘Am I? The Drifter was all over the news. And he knew it was him they were referring to. Imagine always looking over your shoulder, Neve, always waiting to be caught.’ I knew exactly how that felt. ‘Always waiting to be caught for something you didn’t do,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘We ruined his life, and now he is doing to us what we claimed he did back then.’
‘Fine, let’s say that’s what’s happening. But why now, Michael? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘I don’t know, Holly, because we are getting on with our lives? I don’t know why he’s waited this long, but if I were him, if any of us were him, wouldn’t we do the same? Wouldn’t we want revenge?’
We fell silent. I hadn’t thought about the consequences of having the world look for the Drifter. I didn’t think what it must have done to that person, whoever they were. I had ruined not only our lives, but I had ruined his too. And now he was back to make us all pay.
‘So, what do we do now?’ Holly asked.
‘I guess, we find him, before he finds us.’
‘And what about Hastings, and the DCI?’
‘We need them to stay focused on the now.’
‘How do we do that?’ asked Holly.
‘Lie,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Lie,’ I repeated quietly. ‘Holly, you need to tell them you have seen the Drifter too.’
‘Neve, I can’t do that.’
‘You’ve lied before. And this isn’t really a lie at all. He is out there.’
‘Like we lied in ninety-eight – like that, Neve,’ Michael hissed. ‘Look how well that’s worked out for us.’
‘This will make it go away. Tell them about the Drifter, tell them you’ve seen him around the mine or outside your house. Even better, say you’ve seen him outside Baz’s house. It will make him focus on what he should be seeing, not looking for anything else.’
‘Fine.’
‘Holly?!’ Michael said.
‘She’s right. It makes sense,’ Holly said, defeated but knowing it was the only thing we could do. ‘I’ll call it in first thing.’
‘Do it tonight, late, say midnight.’
Holly didn’t respond but nodded.
‘And Thompson?’ Michael added.
‘I don’t know. I’m hoping he and Hastings will talk, share information, but I doubt it. Thompson didn’t seem keen on Hastings,’ I said with a pause. ‘But he seemed to trust me.’
‘So, what are you going to do?’
‘I guess I’ll keep him sweet. Keep him focused on what’s happening right now to us.’
I took out my phone and unlocked it.
‘Who are you messaging?’ Holly asked.
‘Him. I’ll meet, keep him looking the wrong way Thompson.’
I messaged him. My hands shook as I did. I needed to make this go away, I owed it to them all.