In the beginning, there was a girl.
She met a boy in school and fell in love. Teenage love, of course, but that only grew into something more over those first few years. Until she couldn’t imagine a life without him in it.
The mobile phone she had bought earlier that day vibrated in her pocket. She had set it up with a pay as you go SIM card, downloaded a few apps while she waited, and charged it up in the lobby.
She was waiting for him.
That’s how we live our lives now. A series of moments, interspersed with mobile phones vibrating or dinging away to let us know what is happening around the world. We’re instantly contactable. When the world ends, we’ll find out from a breaking news notification, she imagines.
And that’s all it was. A news notification. She didn’t look at it straight away.
She was alone and running away. From the life she had once had. That she worked hard to build and never wanted to change.
If everything had gone to plan, like she knew it would, then they would think she was already dead. They had planned well for this moment. Had an escape route worked out. A way out if it all fell apart.
She had dyed her hair and put in fake contacts. At a cursory glance, a change of hair and eye colour would be enough. Every day would be a struggle, but she was well prepared for that.
If he didn’t come, she knew what would happen. They would want her secrets. They would ask her questions and demand answers. She would be on the front page of every newspaper, talked about online, accused of being the Rose to his Fred. The Carr to his Huntley.
The Hindley to his Brady.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t know who he was. Not until recently.
Okay. Maybe a little longer than that.
Maybe she’d always known on some level.
The boy in the scrapyard, twenty-three years ago. The one who had insulted her mum. She’d known about him. Had been there when Chris hurt him.
Killed him.
It was an accident, he’d told her later that night, when they’d run away and left the boy to die alone. He’d just gone too far. It would never happen again. And anyway, he was only doing it to protect her honour.
They were kids.
She had believed him. She loved him.
She hadn’t known about the others. Not until that night in the woods. Then it all made sense. Why he kept the candles burning all year round. Why he could never rest.
They had moved Mark Welsh’s body together. So it wouldn’t be found. That’s when she was brought into his world for real. That’s when she’d had to make a choice.
She’d chosen him.
He’d asked her to tell Matt about finding the candle. Hoped it would be enough to tip him over the edge and run to the police. Put him out of the picture. No such luck.
A dye job and a foreign country. A bit of cash stored up.
A simple notification on a phone.
She lifted it from her pocket and read the headline. Read the two that followed. Watched two ferries depart without her aboard them.
They had found bodies. She recognised the place that was pictured on the news app. The family home that had become a burial ground.
She read there were two survivors being treated in hospital.
Finally, she understood that Chris was never going to meet her.
Her world ended in a breaking news notification.
It was over.
She was on her own.
She remembered the last thing he’d said to her, as she boarded the train and left him behind to finish cleaning up the mess they had made.
‘No matter what I’ve done, I really do love you. I just . . . I’m just a bit broken. I never did anything to hurt you. I’m sorry. If I don’t make it, please don’t look back. Go far away. Never come home. They’ll think you’re a part of it.’
Inside her mind, the words made sense.
In her heart, she wanted to go back. To hurt the people who had taken him from her.
Nicola sat there for a long time, trying to decide what to do. Whether her heart would overrule her head.
Let the anger build and build inside her, until it became all she could feel.
There is no black and white. No good and evil.
There is only grey.
Hate and love.
In all shapes and forms.