‘Where are we going and what are we going to do when we get there?’ It took me a couple of seconds to realise we were on a train as Hazel’s terrified whisper woke me from a disturbed sleep. ‘We’ve got barely any money and they’ll probably come looking for us.’
I yawned and stretched my aching legs as far as the space in front of the train seats would allow. This was our second train journey. My entire body ached from the effort of taking Vinnie outside and then burying him. We had dumped some of his belongings in several bins around the main station and we’d loaded stones into the case before dropping it into a river nearby with the rest of his stuff. Then we’d caught an antiquated bus for a brief trip to a different village to get on another train. We were hot and sticky, and I just hoped we were getting far enough away from the country house.
‘Because the first train we could catch was going in this direction,’ I whispered when she asked me for a second time. ‘We’ll have to do whatever we can with any opportunities that come our way.’ I didn’t hold out much hope but was simply happy to be distancing myself away from Vinnie’s body more each second. I stared out at the fields as our train passed them by.
‘I was thinking, you need to dye your hair and I’ll cut mine.’ She pulled miserably at her long curly tresses she’d always been so proud of.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll cut mine. I’ve always wanted to see what it looked like shorter. You can dye yours red and cut it into a different style.’ I gave her a soothing smile. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘You’re sure?’
I wasn’t, but I couldn’t let her carry on getting into more of a state than she was already. I nodded. ‘How are you?’ I asked, unable to forget the sight of her bruised thighs and other areas Vinnie had abused so cruelly.
She groaned. ‘Sore.’ She picked at the skin next to one of her thumbnails. ‘Ashamed.’
I put my arm around her trembling shoulders. ‘You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of and don’t you bloody forget it. Neither of us could have known what he’d do.’ I reflected on my times alone with him and shivered. ‘We both thought he was perfect.’
She began to cry. ‘I can’t believe what we did to him.’
Neither could I. ‘Shush, you don’t want to alert the other passengers, we have to stay as incognito as possible.’ I was concerned one of them might read the papers the next day, assuming Vinnie’s disappearance would make the press, and connect us to him.
‘Were we right to—’ she murmured, leaned slightly forward and glanced around at nearby passengers, ‘—you know, do what we did?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘It’s too late to do anything about it now, isn’t it?’
She huddled up, bringing her slim legs up and hugging them. ‘I need to sleep.’
I was relieved. I didn’t know how to soothe her. I was grateful for the time I’d spent practising make-up techniques. They had come in handy when I needed to camouflage her bruises earlier, so we could go to the station.
It was slightly alarming that Hazel, after her bravado at Vinnie’s grave, had now dissolved into a frightened girl again. I wasn’t sure I had the strength for both of us. I stared out of the train window seeing Hazel’s sleeping reflection and my own pale expression looking back at me. I would have given anything to turn back the clock and find a way to change things. I felt so alone and for the first time in my life, truly frightened. The one thing I did know was that Hazel and I could never return to our parents’ homes again. If the police were looking for Vinnie they would probably try and find us there first. I might have been desperate to leave home, but it never occurred to me when I left that I was seeing my family for the last time.
The soothing monotony of the train wheels against the rails must have sent me to sleep because when I woke, it was morning and this time when I looked out of the window, it was at miles and miles of golden cornfields. The sunrise shone on the thin mist shrouding the town. It would soon burn off and as I looked up to the perfect, cloudless sky, it was hard to fit this picturesque scene with the horror of the previous night. I tried to clear my mind and wake up slowly, gazing at the perfection outside the window.
We needed to concentrate on making new lives for ourselves and somehow disappear. I wasn’t sure how we were going to manage it. At least, I mused, the very worst we had to deal with was over now.
I was wrong.
‘Psst, come here.’ Hazel waved me over at the café where we both worked. We’d been in Bournemouth for almost eight weeks, since earning enough money working in a café in Tenby on the Welsh coast to travel even further from Scotland.
We hadn’t spent much time getting to know the town, mainly because we wanted to save what money we still had. We knew nothing much about the area and had only chosen to come here in the first place because Hazel said she had read somewhere about there being lots of tourists – she’d thought we’d find work easily.
We liked it here, but both knew it wasn’t far enough from Vinnie’s body for us to build a new life. It was the first place someone had offered us a live-in job and not knowing how difficult it was going to be elsewhere, we took our chances.
‘What?’ I said when she called me again. ‘I’ve got an audition with one of the summer shows this afternoon.’ I carried on wiping the outside metal tables and emptying the filled plastic ashtrays into the disgusting bucket I had to carry around with me for this task.
She came closer and began straightening chairs when the owner walked past from his daily visit to the nearby guesthouse where we assumed he had a girlfriend. He was carrying a packet of his favourite cigarettes. I glanced down at the stinking bucket, waving away a waft of dank, wet ash with my hand and wondering what pleasure people got out of smoking.
‘I think I’m pregnant,’ she whispered.
I stopped what I was doing, nearly dropping the bucket. ‘Are you sure?’
She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.
I thought back to the sickness I’d been experiencing in the mornings for the past few weeks. ‘Me, too,’ I admitted, not only to her but to myself for the first time.
‘Vinnie lives on, after all.’