The Fear. C.L. Taylor

the horn to block out the soft murmur of Mike’s voice in the back of my skull. ‘I don’t. I don’t.’

      Sweat prickles at my armpits as I push open the gate to Mike’s house and walk up the path. If his wife answers, I won’t recognise her. There are no photos of her on the internet and Mum made sure I didn’t get so much as a peek at the news or the front page of a newspaper after the trial. I didn’t have a mobile phone or home computer back in 1989 either.

      But what if Dee Hughes recognises me? She never went to the dojo or to any of the matches but she must have tried to find out who I am. What if she screams in my face and tells me that I ruined her life? When I look at photos of fourteen-year-old me, I barely recognise myself. My face was soft and round, my hair dark and cut into a jaw-length bob with a thick heavy fringe. These days it’s lighter and longer, with pale tendrils that hang over sharp cheekbones and a tight jaw that I didn’t have eighteen years ago. But it’s not just my face that has changed. The softly curved body I despised so much as a teenager has gone. On a good day, I can look in the mirror and tell myself that I’m slender. On a bad day, my body looks wizened and androgynous, as though the years have eaten away at my femininity.

      I knock three times on the front door. I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times. Sometimes Mike looks shocked to see me. Occasionally he starts to cry. Once I stabbed him before he could speak. I concentrate on the thick, glossy red paint and take a deep breath. If Mike peeks from behind a curtain, I want him to see me standing here confidently, not twitching and shifting. I want to get this over and done with now, before any more memories overwhelm me. I have to do it while I’m still feeling brave. We can talk on the doorstep or in the pub down the road. If he invites me in, I’ll say no. Even if he’s home alone. Particularly if he’s home alone.

       That’s her, someone shouts as I step out of the French police station. Flashbulbs light up the dark sky as I’m sandwiched between four police officers and shepherded into a black car. That’s the girl who ran away with her karate teacher.

      ‘Hello?’

      I am vaguely aware of a voice, a male baritone, shouting hello, but it doesn’t register. Nothing does.

       I need to find out where Mike is. Did they bring him here too? Is he being interrogated behind one of these flat, beige doors?

      ‘Hello! You at the door of number fifty-nine!’

      I turn slowly. There’s a man in his mid to late fifties, hanging out of the first-floor window of the house next to Mike’s. The upper half of his body is naked and his hair is slicked back, like he just stepped out of the shower. I try to erase the image of Mike’s face from my mind, to mentally shake myself forward in time, but the memory’s still holding me tightly, like the last vestiges of a dream. Or a nightmare.

      ‘Were you after Mike?’ the man asks.

      Do I say yes or no? I have no idea who this person is.

      ‘I was, yes.’

      ‘Friend are you?’

      I smile tightly. ‘Old friend.’

      His eyes flick the length of my body and he smiles lasciviously. ‘Lucky Mike.’

      I ignore him and head back down the path to my car.

      ‘He’s at work,’ the man shouts, making me pause as I touch a hand to the driver side door. ‘Greensleeves, the garden centre. He does their pick-ups on a Saturday.’ No mention of Mike’s wife, but I’m not about to ask.

      ‘Fancy going for a drink sometime?’ he adds as I get into my car. ‘Thank me properly?’

      I consider shouting something abusive but I haven’t got time to explain why no sane woman would date a prick who slathers at women out of a window. It’s half past five. I need to find out where the garden centre is and get there before it closes. I need to find Mike. Now. Before the fear sets in again.

       Chapter 4

       Lou

       I change out of my uniform in the car, wriggling out of my school skirt and pulling on my jeans. When I undo my seat belt so I can take off my shirt, Mike snaps at me.

       ‘What the fuck are you doing? We’re on the motorway for God’s sake.’

       I quickly plug my seat belt back in but tears prick at my eyes as I struggle to pull on my jumper. It was supposed to be a romantic weekend away and he’s just snapped at me like I’m misbehaving in class.

       ‘I’m sorry.’ Mike rests a hand on my knee. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just don’t want anything to happen to you, Lou. You mean the world to me. You know that, don’t you?’

       I nod, but I don’t squeeze his hand. It remains on my knee like a dead weight until he has to lift it up again to tap the indicator and change lanes.

      I push open the doors to Greensleeves Garden Centre. As I step inside the woman behind the counter, dressed in a red polo shirt, shouts that they’ll be closing soon. I ignore her and speed through the shop, barely registering the shelves of bird food and ornaments and the displays of garden furniture and houseplants. The only other customer is a heavily pregnant woman pushing a trolley full of fertiliser and decorative fencing with bedding plants piled on the top.

      I glance at my watch as I step through the large double doors next to the restaurant. 17.53. Seven minutes until they close. If Mike’s not out here, in the yard amongst the plants, shrubs and timber, I’ll head round the back, see if there’s some kind of loading bay. I don’t want to have to come here again or go back to his house. I want to get this over and done with now.

      I walk along the length of the aisles, pausing to peer down each one as I pass. The place is deserted. I’ll just do one last loop of the yard and then head round the—

      It’s the flash of blue amongst all the brown and green that makes me pause. I’m at the far end of the yard, standing beside a raised pallet full of shaped bushes and willow-like trees in decorative pots. There are six sheds and summer houses, standing in a row like sentries, directly to my left – no more than a couple of metres away. A grey-haired man wearing a blue T-shirt just ducked inside the summer house.

      A sharp pain cuts across my chest, like cheese wire being pulled tight around my ribcage. It’s him. It’s Mike. I only caught a glimpse before the door closed behind him, but it was enough for me to take in the thick grey hair, the deep lines either side of his mouth and the pronounced limp as he walked. He must be forty-nine years old but he looks older. So much older than I remember, but I know it’s him. I’d stake my life on it.

      I crouch down and peer from between two bushes. Unlike the two wooden sheds on either side of it, the summer house has white PVC double doors and two long windows. As Mike appears in one of the windows, someone else steps out of the shadows. As she reaches a hand to touch Mike’s face, he glances over his shoulder, back towards the yard. For one terrible second I think that he’s seen me, but he turns back to face the woman. He sweeps the hair from the side of her face, then, cradling the back of her head, leans in for a kiss.

      They kiss for several seconds, then the woman pulls away and I catch a glimpse of her face. Bobbed brown hair with a thick fringe. A soft jawline. Full, plump cheeks. Jeans that cling to thick thighs. A red polo shirt pulled tight over large, weighty breasts. She’s not a woman at all. She’s a child, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old.

      I don’t burst into the summer house and scream at Mike to get his hands off her. Nor do I run off in search of a staff member. Instead I turn and flee, flying through the aisles of trees and bushes, brushing past plants and dodging statues. I don’t stop running until I’m back in the safety