I am in the cottage kitchen after school eating my tea, whilst Jonesy is running through her thoughts out loud.
‘Why would someone kill her?’ she says.
‘Whit?’
‘That Jane girl, why would anyone want her deid?’
‘I dunno. Any number of reasons.’
‘Well what are they? Come on, Les, you’re the brain.’
‘They hate her. They’re jealous of her. They want her deid or need her deid.’
‘Why would anyone need her deid?’
‘I dunno, I’m just giving you possible reasons, I didn’t say it was the reason. Mibbie she saw something she shouldn’t, or mibbie she knew somethin’ they didn’t want people knowing about.’
‘Like whit, like a spy?’
‘I’m just giving examples.’
‘What if the person just liked killin’ people?’
‘Yeah, that could be a reason.’
‘Yeah, they just liked killin’ people and they wanted to kill some more people, more people like us …’
‘Don’t be daft, Jonesy, people don’t get killed for fun.’
‘What about those Montrose murders?’
The murders happened seven years ago. A man from Lanarkshire called Peter Montrose killed a lot of women, eight, they think. But they caught him and he went to Barlinnie jail, then they hanged him. Jonesy is obsessed with him. She will bring him up at any time.
‘They caught him.’
‘Aye, but whit if there’s someone else like him, someone else going round killing girls.’
‘They’ve no killed girls, they’ve killed a girl. They couldae done it for all sorts of reasons, as I’ve said.’
‘They’ve only killed one girl so far. Even that Montrose had to start with one—’
‘Jonesy, if you don’t shut up I’m going upstairs to read.’
‘I’ll shut up.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Makes you think, though, doesn’t it?’
‘Shut it.’
*
Later in the evening we hang out at the top of the stairs to eavesdrop on the big girls. The rumour is that Jane was pregnant by the man she was seeing and that’s why he killed her, so she didn’t have his baby.
At this Jonesy and me share a look but don’t say a thing.
At bedtime that night Jonesy whispers, ‘I don’t want to go to sleep, Lesley, just in case.’
‘Sssshhhh!’
‘Aye, you shush me, girl, but you wait.’
‘Night, Jonesy.’
‘Night, Les.’
Jonesy is often quite scared to go to sleep, usually because of ghost stories. We have this thing in our bedroom where we tell each other ghost stories. They don’t scare me, and the reason they don’t scare me is because I know they are made up, and the reason I know they are made up is because when I tell my stories I just make them up.
Shona is the other one who is good at telling stories. I enjoy hers, but I know she makes them up too, as I asked her. The other girls get genuinely scared, it’s a bit pathetic, but then it is also a bit funny. Jonesy is the worst for it. It’s as if the story comes out your mouth and happens straight in her brain, there is no questioning or calling it for what it is, which is a giant made-up fib. I feel sorry for her sometimes, how she takes everything so literally.
*
‘Leeeessssss!’ A whisper from the next bed.
‘Whit?’
‘You awake?’
‘Naw.’
‘Aye, you are.’
‘So?’
‘Can I come in with you?’
‘Naw.’
‘Why no?’
‘Go to sleep.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can. Just shut up and it will happen.’
‘I did shut up, but my head won’t shut up.’
‘I’m going to sleep now.’
‘I bet you don’t.’
‘…’
‘Les?’
This conversation happens about three times a week, always after the ghost stories, and I stay silent until she goes quiet.
I have got willpower when I try, and tonight I have to really try.