Only Darkness. Danuta Reah

the article was Monday morning, when she was teaching her second-year A-level group again. Leanne Ferris, unusually prompt, dumped her bag on her desk, opened a can of Coke and said, ‘We want to hear about the murderer. Go on, tell us.’ Debbie looked blank. Leanne dived into her bag, and after a few seconds rummaging, pulled out a copy of the paper. ‘They’re doing a big thing about the Strangler, so I got it. Look.’ She showed Debbie the article, and the others crowded round.

      ‘It’s a good picture, Debbie.’ That was Sarah, with her usual capacity for focusing first on the least important issue. Or maybe to Sarah that was the most important – to look nice if she appeared in the local paper. Debbie recognized the photograph. It had been taken at the staff party in July. In the original, she and Tim had been together. This one was cropped, so she was alone, smiling up at someone who wasn’t there. She didn’t know if she was more angry or upset. She played down both the article and her reaction to it for the students, much to their disappointment.

      ‘Did he look really scary, you know, mad?’ Leanne’s eyes were bright with eager curiosity.

      ‘Look,’ Debbie began, firmly. ‘No one even knows …’

      ‘Did you see the body?’ That was Adam, aficionado of video nasties.

      ‘No one knows …’ Debbie tried again.

      ‘Were you scared?’ That was Sarah.

      ‘Listen.’ Debbie’s voice was louder than she’d intended. She got a moment’s silence. ‘Listen. There’s no reason to think that the person I saw was the killer. No one knows. I just talked to the police and I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

      ‘Didn’t he chase you then? With a knife?’ That was Leanne again.

      ‘Oh, come on, Leanne, it doesn’t even say that there. Now I’d just like to …’

      ‘He cuts their eyes out,’ Leanne said with relish to the rest of the group.

      Adam chipped in. ‘He doesn’t use a knife. Not at first. He strangles them.’

      ‘Oh, trust you to know that!’ That was Rachel, more level-headed than Leanne, quieter. ‘Look, Debbie says she doesn’t want to talk about it. Let’s drop it. Have you marked our essays, Debbie? Did I get an A?’

      The session dragged on from there.

      Debbie was angry, and she was worried. She left the classroom quickly when the morning was over, ignoring requests from the cohort of poor attenders, including Leanne and Adam, that she go over the new assignment again. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t got time,’ she said, and then felt guilty. In the staff room, in response to Louise’s interrogative look, she said, ‘I didn’t talk to them.’

      ‘I thought you didn’t,’ was all Louise said.

      The rest of the day she seemed to be saying over and over – I didn’t see the Strangler, I didn’t talk to the paper, I don’t want to talk about it now. She got a memo from one of the vice-principals asking her why she had given an interview to a local paper without clearing it with the college management, and wasted her coffee break trying to make contact with someone to explain – not that they’d believe her. She looked out for Rob Neave, so that she could explain to him what had happened – she wasn’t sure why she felt that was important, only that it seemed to be – but he was nowhere around. ‘He’s working off site today,’ Andrea, the clerical officer for that section, told her when she asked. She didn’t see Tim Godber until she was leaving at five. He was unapologetic.

      It was a legitimate interview; Debbie should make it clear if she was talking off the record and what was she making all the fuss about? He’d only written what she had told him.

      Debbie left college that day in the mood she’d often left school when she was a child, particularly that bad year when two of her classmates – once her friends – had decided to gang up on her. ‘We don’t want you,’ Tracy would say, putting her arm through Donna’s; and, ‘Nobody play with Deborah Sykes, her mum’s a witch!’ they’d tell the others. She couldn’t remember now what had started the campaign, or what had ended it, but she could still remember how miserable it had made her feel. She often thought that the saying, Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you was one of the most stupid ones she’d ever heard.

      As she walked through the town centre, she couldn’t shake off a feeling of foreboding. It was as if she was being watched by malicious eyes. She had felt exposed in the college, as though people were looking at her, talking about her, but now the feeling chilled her as it followed her through the streets to the station, until she managed to shake it off in the anonymous brightness of the train.

      When she finally got home, the phone was ringing. She waited for a minute to see if it would stop, and when it didn’t, she answered it. ‘Deborah Sykes speaking.’ Silence. ‘Hello?’ she said. There was no reply, and then the phone was put down. She tried 1471, but no number was recorded.

      Sarah was combing her hair in front of the mirror in the students’ cloakroom, prior to going home. She could smell the smoke from Leanne’s cigarette as Leanne and Rachel chatted over a cubicle door. Sarah stared into the mirror, and wondered if her face was too fat. She was thinking about Nick. Was she attractive enough? When she looked in the mirror she thought she was, but sometimes she caught sight of herself unexpectedly and saw someone frighteningly plain. She was seeing him on Friday. She put away her comb, anxiously looking at her reflection.

      ‘… essay title?’

      ‘Sorry?’ Her hand jerked a bit. Leanne was beside her, energetically back-combing her hair.

      ‘Have you written down that essay title?’ Leanne bundled her hair up on top of her head. ‘Look out, world,’ she said. She usually relied on other people to keep her up to date with assignments. ‘Are you coming to Adam’s party on Friday?’

      Sarah felt the usual pang of exclusion. ‘He didn’t ask me,’ she said.

      Leanne was applying colour to her eyes. ‘You don’t listen, do you? He asked everybody in the group. You can come with me and Raich if you want.’

      Sarah was cautious. Leanne made her nervous. ‘I can’t, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m seeing Nick.’

      ‘Bring him.’ Leanne fastened a clip into her hair. Sarah bit her fingernail. Nick could be difficult with other people. He didn’t like students.

      ‘OK, I’ll ask him,’ she said, not meaning to. ‘Thanks.’

      ‘Don’t ask him, tell him,’ said Leanne, running the tap over her cigarette end and discarding it in the basin. ‘See you.’ She and Rachel left.

      Sarah went back to her contemplation of the mirror. Now Leanne would want to know why she wasn’t there on Friday. She couldn’t say that Nick didn’t want to go. They wouldn’t ask her again. Maybe she should suggest it to him. It was the kind of thing he liked, though Sarah preferred quieter places where her soft voice wouldn’t be drowned out by loud music and shouting. Maybe if they did that they wouldn’t have an argument. She ran a tentative hand over the bruise hidden by the scarf on her neck.

      Mick Berryman’s mind shut down on him. He needed a break. The clock on the wall said six, but it hadn’t been altered since the clocks went back weeks ago. He’d been at it for over ten hours. He could go home, put his feet up, but he decided to go over to the Grindstone for an hour or so. He needed a drink and he needed some quiet.

      The pub, like most of the pubs in Moreham centre in the early evening, was almost empty. There were a couple of old men at a table in the corner, and a solitary drinker at the bar, reading a paper. As he crossed the room, he realized that the man at the bar was Rob Neave, and slowed his pace for a moment.

      It was eighteen months now since Neave had left the force. He’d been one of the most talented officers in the division, following Berryman up the promotions ladder. They’d worked together, and they’d spent a lot of time at this bar.