‘It’s time,’ Max says as they walk away from the prison. Hazel shivers as she stands by the passenger door, waiting for him to retrieve his keys from his coat pocket. ‘I think it’s time,’ he says again, clicking the lock and hefting himself into the driver’s seat. The pain in his gullet is so bad today, he can hardly swallow.
‘Time for what?’ asks Hazel. She can’t get the visceral image of Laurel’s rage out of her mind. She plays another old game where she puts the confusing thoughts into a Perspex box in her mind. She watches them rattle around inside, jiggering and scuttling like trapped angry beetles. In the box, they are separate from her; that is the game. She can watch how they move, how they clatter, but keep them away from inside of her where it must be peaceful and safe.
The game.
There are so many games, Hazel thinks. The games they used to play together as children. The games her mother taught her. You can call them games but, ultimately, they’re really about survival.
‘BITCH!!’ The cry comes from across the car park like a banshee’s wail. ‘YOU SHOULD ROT IN HELL!’
Hazel jerks round to see a woman in a denim jacket a few yards away, her face fixed in a snarl.
‘Come away, Hazel,’ Max says urgently. ‘Get into the car.’
She climbs in hurriedly, pulling her collar up around her ears, pushing her chin into her chest. They are everywhere these days. Ghouls and monsters, lurking in the shadows. Leaping out at her with teeth bared, drooling hatred. She fears them with an intensity so raw it is as if her skin has been flayed. Every approach, every word, is like a scald. Leave me alone! she screams inside her head. Leave me alone!
‘Just ignore it,’ Max says, his voice shaking as he starts the engine. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Hazel is silent as the car makes its way through the wet streets. The hush of the rain washing across the windscreen and the squeak of the wipers have a near-meditative effect on her. They echo the rhythm of her thoughts.
‘I’ve set up a meeting,’ Max says after a while. ‘It’s all a bit cloak and dagger.’ He shrugs wryly. ‘That’s just the way of the business.’
‘What business?’ Hazel asks, moving her head from side to side, trying to focus, erase the thoughts of Laurel and what she said, how she abandoned her own sister in the visiting room.
‘The publishing business,’ Max replies. ‘I’ve got a meeting with Romilly Harris. She’s a huge literary agent. Massive. She’s read my proposal and loves it. Wants to send it out to numerous publishing houses. She’s hopeful for a bidding war. But we have to keep it secret for the moment. We mustn’t let the papers get hold of the same idea.’
Hazel stares out of the passenger window as if she isn’t listening.
‘Hazel?’ Max says, glancing across but she still doesn’t answer. He sighs, staring out at the darkening skies. ‘Look, can they really hate you forever?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hazel says, understanding what he means. ‘They hated Myra Hindley until the day she died.’
‘But you’re not her. What she and Brady did to those children was depraved. It was deliberate and sadistic. But you and Laurel . . .’ Max exhales loudly. ‘I don’t know. It’s not the same thing. You were so young. I mean, you wouldn’t have had the capacity, would you? To know what you were doing? And what Laurel did, it was an . . . an aberration, wasn’t it?’
Hazel says nothing, stares straight ahead at the reds and greens of the traffic lights gleaming through the fading afternoon light.
‘It was play that went wrong. And you were just a bystander. And in any case, you can’t remember.’ Max shrugs, keeping his voice low as if he’s convincing himself, running the patchwork of the story through in his mind. ‘The shock of what your sister did paralysed you, sent you catatonic. Six years old. The damage caused on that day has had far-reaching consequences for everyone involved. But now it’s time to move on. Maybe you will regain some memories. Maybe it will come back to you some day . . .’
Hazel remains quiet, watching the wet streets out of the window. She thinks of the plane tree outside her flat, the way its falling leaves drift down in waves, spreading in a carpet over the ground.
‘Don’t you think?’ he says. ‘What do you think?’
Hazel nods, folding her hands in her lap. ‘The thing is . . .’ she says at last, before faltering.
‘I think . . . I think some things are coming back.’ She looks over at him.
‘What things?’ he asks, a pulse point quickening in his temple. ‘Memories?’
‘Yes,’ she answers slowly. ‘I think I might be starting to remember.’