2nd December 2019
Night
I couldn’t see who had spoken, my eyes burning from the light in my face. But that voice, I knew it, though I couldn’t quite place it.
‘Take out your phone and throw it towards me,’ he commanded and, doing as I was told, I took my mobile from my back pocket and threw it on the ground, near his feet.
‘It doesn’t work down here,’ I said as a way of telling him I couldn’t call the police.
‘On your knees,’ he instructed and again I did as I was told. Awkwardly, I lowered myself to the ground, my hands up, shielding my eyes from the light, trying to see the man behind it.
‘You haven’t changed in all these years,’ he said, the torch dancing a little as he spoke, revealing more of his frame behind. But the voice, I knew who he was, I was sure of it.
‘I can see you really trying to work this out, Buttercup. You were never much good at problem-solving,’ he said, enjoying himself.
That name, Buttercup. I had been called it before, a very long time ago, and I knew who he was. Seeing my shock, my confusion, he lowered the torch and waited for my eyes to recover and for me to be able to see his face and confirm it was him.
‘Hello, Neve,’ he said, waiting for me to reply. I couldn’t, because I didn’t understand why the man standing in front of me wearing a long, dark coat, the man who I thought was the Drifter, was in fact the person I had come back to find.
‘Jamie?’ I said, trying to get to my feet.
‘Just stay on the floor, Neve,’ he snapped, frightening me into doing as I was told. I felt my head swim. Jamie was the Drifter? It didn’t make sense. People were looking for him, the whole village, someone would have seen him, and yet, as my eyes adjusted further, I could clearly see that the man in the Drifter’s coat was my first love.
‘I – I don’t understand.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t.’
‘Why am I here?’
‘Now, come on, Neve, surely even you can work that out.’
‘Where are the others?’ I asked, to which he laughed. ‘Jamie, where are the others?’
‘Oh, Buttercup, you are hopeless.’
There was something in the way he spoke that told me he wasn’t the same boy I’d fallen in love with all those years ago; there was something different, something dangerous, and in that moment, I knew the others were likely dead, and I would be next. It was him all along. He had faked being hurt; he had faked the Drifter back into existence. And he had come for the rest of us, one by one. I needed to buy time. No one was coming to help, I was alone, I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. I had stepped into his trap. I had made it easy for him.
‘Jamie, why are you doing this?’
‘Have you said hello to Chloe yet?’ he laughed. ‘Of course you haven’t, because you’re still a coward. You can pretend all you want, Neve, but she is there, behind you, in the bottom of that hole. She is still in the place we found her. The place where you couldn’t look and pleaded with me to help. Do you remember? You begged me to go down, take off her top, so we could plant it elsewhere. It was Michael’s idea, but you begged me to do it.’
‘You didn’t have to!’
‘Of course I did! You were hysterical, you were my girlfriend, and I wanted to make you happy, I wanted to help make it all go away for you. And I did, didn’t I?’
‘Jamie…’
‘But it didn’t go away for me. Every day since, I remember removing her top from her dead body, her glazed eyes staring at me. I remember her blood on my hands. Blood that should have been on yours.’
‘I didn’t kill Chloe; it was an accident.’
‘But you made sure we didn’t go to the police and tell them what happened. You were the one that said it would ruin us all.’
‘I was scared.’
‘So was I. I wanted to go to the police. You stopped me. You did this to me.’
Jamie began to cry, and I had to do something or else I knew he would kill me. The room was wide, and although it was pitch black either side of the small pool of light created by his torch, I knew the exit was to my right. If I acted quickly, I could bolt for it and run back to the real world and get help, and then, once I found Thompson or Hastings or the new DCI, I would come clean about it all. I would go back to 1998, say word for word what happened and what I did. Because Jamie was right, Chloe was behind me, and it was time she was laid to rest. There would no longer be an empty grave.
Taking a breath, I sprang up and I ran. Jamie didn’t have time to react, his sobs were uninterrupted, his torch stayed low. As I skimmed past him, I knew I could get away, lose him in the tunnels until I found my way out. Jamie was three paces behind and still hadn’t reacted when another torch blinded me coming from where I was trying to exit. I raised my hands to protect my eyes, and in doing so lost my footing and stumbled, coming to a halt, a rabbit in headlights.
Spinning around I saw Jamie, his torch low, still crying. Behind him, another torch shone towards me – the person advancing until they reached Jamie. To my right another torch shone, another to my left. Then a final torch lit. I was completely surrounded. I called out asking who it was, but no one replied. I heard only Jamie’s sobs, the sound bouncing off the mine walls coming back to me like the ground itself was weeping, and then the quiet whispers of a soft voice trying to comfort him.
‘It’s OK, Jay, everything is going to be OK, it’s over.’
‘Who is that? What’s going on?’ I asked, desperately trying not to cry. Jamie’s torch was raised to point at me, and I turned away from it, back towards the entrance, hoping there was a gap, a space for me to run to. Who I saw stunned me. Caught in the light from Jamie’s torch opposite was someone standing in a long, dark coat like the one Jamie was in.
I looked to my right, behind the torch that was pointed at me, and could make out the shape of another person, another coat, another Drifter. I couldn’t see their faces, but I knew at that moment who they were.