Laura is shaking. She’s sitting in her living room, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Mark was taken home. She wants to be with him, but her mum is refusing to let her leave the house. She’s fussing over her, bringing her cups of tea with too many sugars. But Laura is still shaking.
She knows what she has to do. But if she’s right, then the consequences are huge. Devastating. She’s not sure if she can be the one to make this choice. She wanted to tell Mark, ask him what to do. But then the police had turned up, found them there in the shed. They’d taken them out the back gate, driven them home. A young detective called Louise kept trying to ask her questions, but Laura felt like her throat had closed up. She couldn’t speak. Shook her head.
‘So, you didn’t hear anything?’ Louise Jennings had asked her. ‘Nothing at all? No shouts . . . screams . . .’
‘Louise,’ the other detective had said. Simon, his name was. Maybe. There had been a warning in his voice. Louise had stopped asking questions after that.
Laura had questions, like: why are you here? Why didn’t you let me go inside to use the toilet? She heard it on the radio. Simon and Louise had looked at each other, Simon had tried to turn it down, turn it off. But it was too late.
‘Suspect is an IC1 male, name of Graeme Woodley. Suspected armed and dangerous. Do not approach.’
‘What did he do?’ Laura said. Her voice was a croak. A whisper.
‘Are you sure you didn’t hear anything?’ Louise said, one more time.
‘We were in the shed. We had headphones on. The music they were playing was shit. People were screeching in the back garden. We just wanted to drown them out.’
Louise caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. Her face looked pained.
‘Let’s get you home,’ she’d said.
Laura is still shaking. She picks up her phone. Knows that she’s got no choice. She saw it. She thinks she saw it. What if she’s wrong?
She starts texting. She writes in short sentences, trying to get it all across. Trying to explain: ‘I saw Marie at the party. She was mixing up a drink. Crushing stuff up. She kept stirring it. I asked her what it was, but she ignored me. She gave it to him. Her brother. I don’t know if he drank all of it, but I saw him drink some of it at least. There was a brown scum on top. It stuck to his upper lip. I think she put something in there. But I can’t be sure. Please don’t say it was me who said anything. I might be wrong. Maybe it was just some scuzzy cocktail.’
She puts her finger at the end of the line. Delete. Just delete it, she thinks. You don’t know. You don’t really know. She takes her finger off the screen. Checks that she’s picked the right contact. Closes her eyes and counts to three.
Hits ‘send’.
28th July 2015
Marie,
I’ve written a letter to Mummy and Daddy. I’ve told them I don’t want to speak to them, but I wanted them to know that I am still here, still breathing. I know that they will never reply, but I hope that when I see you, you can tell me about them. Tell me if they did anything interesting with their pathetic, miserable lives. Do they ever talk about me? Does anyone ever talk about me?
Do I still fucking exist?
One day, Marie. One day, you will fucking answer me.
Your brother,
Graeme