LAST RITES - Neil White

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to cry. ‘I don't know what you want.’

      ‘Don't be scared,’ came the reply, followed by a low chuckle. He was enjoying this. ‘Consequences, Sarah,’ he said. ‘That's all you are interested in. Fear of them. They hold you back.’

      Sarah sank to her knees. ‘I don't know what you mean,’ she wailed, but then she scuttled backwards as she heard his steps in the dirt floor, coming towards her, slow and deliberate.

      ‘Your time is running out,’ he said as he got closer. ‘I am not your enemy. Fear is your enemy.’ And then he laughed again, this time low and mean.

      Her head hung down and she dug her hands into the mud, cold between her fingers. ‘Please, please, please,’ she sobbed. ‘Let me go. I won't say anything. Just let me go home. Please.’

      He paused, and then said, ‘That's a lie, and it's wrong to tell lies.’

      Sarah looked up, sucked in air, tried to calm herself down. ‘I can't do this,’ she said. ‘I don't know what game you are playing, but I don't want to play any more.’

      ‘It's no game,’ he said. ‘I want to see what you see, that's all, just that moment.’

      ‘What moment?’

      ‘The final moment,’ he answered, his voice turned into a growl. ‘It's unique, that glimpse, when you know what lies ahead, the answer to everything. The final look back on yourself, and that last look into the future. Is there life beyond what we know?’

      ‘So I'm going to die?’

      He laughed. ‘We're all going to die, Sarah.’

      Sarah put her face in her hands. ‘What about Luke?’ she said quietly. ‘He'll tell the police.’

      He laughed again, but louder.

      ‘What's so funny?’ asked Sarah, but she felt her stomach turn as she guessed what he'd done. She put her arms over her head and leaned forward, so that her forehead touched the soil. It was cold on her face, and images of Luke flashed through her mind. Smiles, laughs, good times, all rushing into her head. She started to tap her head lightly against the soil. Then she got faster, and her moans turned into screeches, the pain as she banged her head a distraction, until she was rocking up and down, her arms clasped around her body.

      She looked up at him. ‘You've killed him,’ she screamed. ‘You fucking monster!’

      He knelt down so that the hood was next to her face. ‘He didn't come to help you, did he?’ he mocked. ‘He stayed in bed as we took you to the car. What was it? Drunk? Or just not bothered?’

      Tears streamed down her face. She clutched her stomach, his words making her want to retch.

      ‘Maybe he thought it was you running up the stairs,’ he continued. ‘He was still under the sheets when I ran in there.’

      When Sarah didn't respond, he leaned into her ear and whispered, ‘Would you like to kill me? Right now, if you had the weapon, would you do it?’

      Sarah didn't answer.

      ‘You could do it, right now. Your hands around my neck. I would fall over, you would overpower me.’

      Sarah stayed silent, but as she felt his eyes on her, even through the cloth, she spat at him.

      He wiped off her spittle. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘there's not much that separates us. Just my courage, and your cowardice.’

      He stood up and left the room. And as the door slammed shut, the lights came back on, and the sound of the heartbeat returned, louder this time.

       Chapter Sixteen

      Bobby was playing on the floor as I browsed the internet, looking for information on Sarah Goode. He was talking to himself, soft chirrups, all part of his game. I liked the distraction. I worked better with a background sound, much different to the hush of Blackley Library.

      The library had been my first stop after leaving Katie, to get copies of the stories written about Sarah. It was a long Victorian building, an old workhouse, with stained glass and arched doorways, incongruous among the glass shop-fronts further along the street, where bored sales assistants stared out of the windows and fiddled with their necklaces, the lunchtime rush long gone.

      I was able to spend an hour making copies of the articles that had been written about Sarah, and now they were spread across the table. They all had the same theme: a pretty young teacher had killed a boy and run away. It wasn't explicit, but all week long there had been tributes to Luke, about what a nice young man he had been, sporty, outgoing, good looking. The comments about Sarah were different, tinged with surprise, at how a popular young teacher, vibrant and pretty, could kill someone.

      I started to trawl through the Google hits once I'd read the newspaper articles, to find out more about Sarah, and it only took a few pages to start to build up a picture of her life. Sarah was listed on Friends Reunited, a jokey entry, saying how she had left school but then gone back, alongside her graduation picture, showing Sarah with a proud smile, her face dotted by freckles, her parents alongside. On other websites, I found news from her workplace, a state school on the edge of Blackley, not often a first choice when the applications went in. A school play. Ofsted reports. A charity event.

      I browsed Facebook for her, it was always good for a quote, and wasn't surprised when I found her. I couldn't access her page, though; Sarah would have to accept my ‘friend request’ for me to be able to do that. I sent a request anyway, it only took one click, and then I turned to look at Bobby. He had found the play dough made by Laura a couple of days before, just salt dough laced with food colouring. He was cutting into it with a plastic knife, his tongue darting onto his lip with concentration.

      ‘What have you got there?’ I asked.

      He looked up, distracted from his game, and then he beamed at me, the dimples he'd inherited from Laura flickering in his cheeks. ‘I've made you a pizza,’ he said, and held up a lump of green dough criss-crossed with lines.

      I found myself smiling back at him, but I felt a kick of guilt as well. He shouldn't be making things for me. He should be making it for his father. What was I doing, making him live up here, so far from everyone close to him?

      ‘That looks great,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to eat it now?’

      Bobby smiled proudly and brought over the lump of dough and placed it on the table in front of me. I sat him on my knee and tickled him, enjoyed his squirming and his giggling.

      ‘When's Mummy back?’ he asked between laughs.

      ‘I don't know. Soon.’

      ‘Do you like your pizza?’

      I mimicked some lip-smacking sounds. ‘The best one I've ever had.’

      When he looked pleased with himself, I asked him if he could make me a cake. Bobby hopped off my knee and went back to his place on the floor.

      I was about to pick up my papers when I heard a car crunch onto the gravel outside the front door. Bobby looked up and then ran to it. As he looked outside, he shouted, ‘Mummy's here.’

      I felt some of his excitement; I always did when Laura came home. While we hadn't been getting on recently, as soon as I heard the car I wanted to see her smile, wanted to feel that sense of excitement of us all being together. Her dimples, the hint of red to her brunette, the colour of the London Irish. And those private moments always came to me, of the Laura that only I knew: the feel of her skin under my hand, the way she kissed, soft and slow, those breathless whispers.

      But when Laura strode into the house I sensed the darkness of her mood. She threw her bag onto the table and smiled a hello, but it was perfunctory and brief. Bobby ran to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Laura kissed him on the top of his head, then gently peeled

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