Remember Me

How have I waited so long for Ava? I’ve been planning. It keeps me sane, and I did have one little leap across the board. I was right about Fate, and he stepped in, in a totally unexpected but totally deserving way. I landed right on the edge of a black square. The memory of his useless screams comfort me during the long hours of daylight. I watched him frantically trying to regain control, using everything he had to survive. But it was impossible, the odds were stacked against him, and when it was over I went to check, inhaling the luscious smells of blood and terror. I could almost taste it, but I couldn’t linger long.

The road was lonely, but fuel spilling from his bike into the dry summer grass might cause a fire. Not that it mattered because he was gone, but I needed to be at home, waiting to hear the news. It was an accident, the diesel in the road that caused the bike to skid could have come from any tractor, any delivery lorry… or from a can in the back of my Land Rover.

I didn’t enjoy that move, but when fate presents an opportunity I’d be a fool to turn it down. Still, it was never part of the game plan. My first ever kill was the same. It was rushed, and although better planned, I made mistakes. Naturally, at thirteen years old, I was a beginner, but everyone has to start somewhere. With the darkness still complete, my mind wanders back to that day…

I knew that morning before school that she had to die. It just came to me in a rush as I helped her wash and dress, chucked her shitty knickers in the bin, and made us both some breakfast. She mumbled something incoherent, and when the doctor telephoned to check on us, I was careful to say she seemed a bit better and had taken her tablets. I mentioned that I was going out with a friend after school so I wouldn’t be back until about four. There was nobody else in the house that day.

Before I left the house, she had heaved herself onto the sofa, and was shouting for me to bring her cigarettes and a cup of tea. I knew she had a couple of bottles stashed under the sofa, but instead of emptying them as usual, I left everything as it was. Only the thought of freedom kept me going. I don’t relish the memories of this kill. As she bled out, it was more a rush of relief so intense I nearly threw up, than any actual enjoyment. I was careful to leave the knife in her hand, and the note propped on the Welsh oak dresser.

When it was all over, I lingered in the kitchen for a full five minutes, savouring the peace I had created. Then I got to work.

Back in the present I close my game board with a sigh and walk carefully to the spotless bathroom. My footsteps are stealthy in the darkness, and the shadows leer and dance in doorways and on window ledges.

In some ways my whole life is just spent waiting for the next game, the next high. Killing is great, but the rush of playing the game is better than anything. No artificial high, no orgasm ever beats that feeling of my players moving to an unseen order, inching closer to their fates.

I flush the toilet, and head across to wash my hands. It has always been important to be very clean, I suppose a therapist might track the compulsion back to earlier childhood. I count the number of times I apply soap and lather up. After the sixth rinse, I am sated. The water gurgles away with a satisfying gasp, but there’s a smear across the tap in the bathroom. Red. Is it blood? A tiny paper cut on my thumb trickles a rebellious streak of scarlet. My mind races again, scrabbling with the image, skittering back to my childhood and the day of that first kill…

As I stood in the kitchen after it was all over, staring out the window, I noticed a smear of blood on an apple – spoiling the ripe, juicy perfection of the pile. There were green pears, and orange apricots too, carefully arranged in a white dish on the sunlit windowsill. The arrangement was a gift from a well-meaning, but deluded neighbour. The fruit seemed almost too bright, the colours too perfect, given what they had witnessed.

It was annoying, that smear, spoiling my view, spoiling my happiness. But whoever knew that blood could gush and spurt so far? I licked my finger thoughtfully and leant across the sink to remove the offending stain, inhaling a lungful of bleach as I did so. Cleaning had been easy – I was used to it, and had got stuck in. I’d given myself twenty minutes to finish, and the tick-tock of the yellow alarm clock had driven me on. When I was done, the house was looking like a normal home, as opposed to somewhere social services would have been called to in an instant. That’s what I mean about taking time with appearances. People see what they want to see, and if you can help them along…

By the time the uniformed police officers arrived, I was sitting on the bottom step, teary-eyed and snotty. They fell for it, of course. It was the easiest thing to do. The alternative was to believe a thirteen-year-old was capable of murder. She always said I looked like butter wouldn’t melt, with my charm and wide-eyed stare – well, in this case blood didn’t stick either.

‘Oeddet ti’n gwybod, Ava Cole?’

‘Did you know, Ava Cole?’

Chapter 6

‘Did it go well last night? I expect that boy of yours was pleased to see you?’ Mrs Birtley was sitting at her little mahogany reception desk in the pink hallway as Ava passed.

Ignoring her questions, Ava zipped up her jacket, smiled and pointed to her earbuds. Luckily, like several women of her generation in the village, Mrs Birtley was not familiar with the latest technology, and clearly assumed Ava couldn’t hear her. Ava was able to escape unscathed and un-interrogated into the icy air. Her friends all laughed at her fondness for country music, but alone on a run she could indulge unhindered. Thomas Rhett and Miranda Lambert filled her head as she warmed up.

The crisp beauty of the frosty hillside and the pain in her leg muscles as she ran up the steep, muddy inclines quickly drove everything else from her mind. Her lungs burned and her breath came in gasps. Despite the cold of the morning, she was soon wiping sweat from her face. The sky was spread above like a baby-blue sheet straight out of the wash, and even East Wood, down to her right, was cloaked in glittering, mystical beauty. The ugly, pebbledash houses of Aberdyth were given a sparkling makeover that turned the place into a fantasy wonderland. Forcing herself not to consider what lay beneath the frosty charade, Ava paused at the top of the hill, glancing at her watch. Twenty minutes for a 5km. Not bad, despite the jet lag and the hills.

Her phone vibrated, and she checked it out of habit. But it wasn’t her friends back home, her mom, or even her on-off boyfriend who she hadn’t checked in with yet.

‘Cofiwch fi’

‘Remember me’

‘Oh fuck off, Leo!’ she said out loud. She didn’t doubt it was him. When the messages had first started coming she had been shocked, even scared, thinking that the horrors of her past had finally caught up with her. There had been no question the messages were related to Ellen. Only seven people knew about the carved letters on the oak trunk. Only seven people in the entire world knew exactly how much it would rattle her to get a message like that. It was more than a shadow across the sunny beach – the darkness she kept locked away had started to seep into her carefully constructed life.

Safe on her icy hilltop she allowed her mind to drift back to the first message. That had been a hell of a night shift, starting with Paul’s email of course. Her regular partner, Pete, had noticed her lack of attention on their first shout.

* * *

Pete slammed the car door. ‘Coffee and doughnuts?’

‘Please. I’m going to stay out here for a bit. I just need some fresh air.’

‘Fresh air down here? You sick? If you aren’t feeling well, go home and sleep it off. You do realise you just ran a red light back there?’

‘I’m fine. Three doughnuts and black with two sugars please!’

She could tell he wasn’t fooled for an instant – with all the smog, fresh air in LA was a joke unless you were hiking in the hills. For a moment she was tempted to bail out and go home to an empty apartment. Darkness was sneaking in from the sea, the long black fingers of shadow triggering the familiar slash of neon lights slicing along the streets. Shouts and music mingled with the smell of fries and vomit and the hot air curled around her like a snake, oppressive and threatening.

As Pete shrugged and shambled off in search of food, Ava’s phone pinged again. She dragged it out, stared at the screen, and instinctively found her hand on her gun holster.

No name in the sender box, and just two words:

Cofiwch fi?

Remember me?

* * *

Coming back from the farm last night, she’d taken a long time to get to sleep. In the end, she’d downed a couple of glasses of duty-free whisky. There was no ice at the B&B unless you counted the frozen trough outside the front door, so she drank it straight, with a dash of water from the tap. The comforting smoothness of the alcohol had knocked her out for a good eight hours. So now what? She had three weeks’ leave to hang around Aberdyth, to get to know her son, and she supposed, to say goodbye to her ex-husband. To talk to Ellen’s parents… and what could she really do but offer comfort again? She could never tell the truth about Ellen’s death, but now she was an adult, it would be good to offer something more. Perhaps elaborate on Ellen’s reasons for going, and make it sound like she was definitely heading off on a big adventure. That would give them hope that their daughter was somewhere, living her best life. But it would also be cruel to give them false hope. How did you make something right, when it was all wrong?

From this height she could see all the way to Big Water. Her gaze sharpened as she spotted figures scurrying like ants at the water’s edge. The early sunlight caught flashes of metal or mirrors, and a few more trucks were pulling up next to a copse. Of course, that must be Leo’s film crew. He’d mentioned they were filming for Tough Love up there.

After a few more calf stretches, she jogged slowly back down to the Birtleys’, dodging a couple of flocks of sheep, seeing nobody else but a pair of hikers in the distance. She already missed the beach and her surfboard, the sweaty little gym where she did kickboxing a couple of times a week, and even her job. It was hell having to leave an open case, but her boss had been very understanding, and promised to keep her updated. Exercise always helped in times of stress. So here, with no gym, no sparring partners, and no icy waves, she would need to run off her emotions.

She had just jumped in the shower back at the B&B when her phone rang. Swearing, she leant out, across to the pink bath top and grabbed her mobile.

‘Hallo, Ava. I hope you slept well. It’s Penny… I just wondered if you’d like to come down to the pub later for some dinner?’ Her voice was eager and girlish, but that hint of sharpness still played at the edges of her lilt.

Shit. It was not what she wanted to do but – ‘Yes, Penny, that would be great. I… is Stephen around today?’

‘Okay. If you get there for about five, we can have a few glasses of wine, and a good chat before the boys arrive. Stephen and Bethan are staying at Kai’s house tonight, but they have promised to join us for a meal.’

‘Kai?’ queried Ava, trying unsuccessfully to reach the pink fluffy towel on the wash basin, whilst continuing her conversation.

‘Oh, I forgot you probably wouldn’t remember. He’s Jesse’s son. Of course, Jesse went off to stay with relations in Yorkshire after we left school, didn’t he, and stayed up there when his girlfriend got pregnant, so you probably never met Kelly. They came back here eventually though – after you’d left. Did you hear Jesse was killed in a motorbike accident a few years ago? So it’s just Kelly and the boy now. Kai is a nice lad, and he works bloody hard. I think he wants to go to university, or take a year out travelling in Asia. Sounds great, I wish I’d gone travelling at his age, and got out of Aberdyth.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry about Jesse… I didn’t know,’ Ava wondered if Penny was aware of the coolness of her words. Just another baby, just another friend gone. There were other ways out of Aberdyth. And Jesse was dead. Why had her aunt not told her? Why had Paul never mentioned it? ‘When exactly did Jesse die, Pen?’

‘I told you, about two years ago. It was in June, I think,’ Penny chattered on, and Ava could hear sounds of washing up in the background. ‘We did think of telling you, but Paul said you wouldn’t want to be bothered with things from your old life, you know? Your aunt had moved away by then, and we hadn’t heard from you in ages. Jesse, well, he always did ride crazy fast, didn’t he? They said he lost control on the bend. You know that sharp corner before the speed limit sign – right before you come to the Aberdyth bridge?’

‘Yes… yes, I remember it. Poor Jesse.’

‘Yes, it was terrible for his parents. I’ve got some really exciting news about Stephen and Bethan though! We’ve known for a while now, but we wanted you to get settled in a bit before we told you.’

‘Tell me she isn’t pregnant,’ Ava said warily.

There was a pause before Penny giggled. ‘Of course not you dafty, something far better.’

‘Are you going to tell me, then?’

‘No, this is one I’m saving for when we’re all together. See you later.’

‘Okay, Pen, I’ll see you later,’ Ava said. Penny had always loved to be ahead on the gossip, and surely this must be something good, or she would have sounded worried. Maybe a surprise party or something, or one of the kids getting a new job. With a jolt she realised that very soon her son would be moving on, and she had no idea where he would be going. All her stalking on social media told her simply that he had a talent for photography, and a lot of friends. He would have dreams that she hadn’t shared in, hopes and worries that she wasn’t part of.

‘You still there, Ava? See you in the pub, lovely.’

Ending her call, she finished her shower, ignored a load of messages from her friends in LA, and sat on her bed, wrapped in a towel. Fair-haired Jesse, with his rosy cheeks and snub nose, had been part of Leo’s band of friends. Like Rhodri, he’d been a bit of an outsider. Also like Rhodri, he’d been part of the gang who were in East Wood the night her best friend died.

Forcing herself to breathe deeply, Ava knew what she had to do next. Ellen’s house. It was still hers, even though she lay in the cold woodland down the hill.

The mirror on her wall caught her as she turned to chuck the phone back onto the table. The pink towel slid downwards, exposing the intricate ink work across her lower back. Although the flowers and sun (so innocent and pretty), stretched down to the curves at the top of her butt, she knew that underneath were two words. Leo had done it himself, and when she screamed with pain, he’d given her more pills. She remembered frantically shaking, scrabbling with sweaty fingers for the drugs he held out. The words on her back weren’t inked either – they were twisted white scars etched into her skin with a sharp knife. At the time she had wanted the pain, wanted to be indelibly marked, scarred in a way she would never forget. It felt like the least she could do for Ellen. Leo had offered to do the job, and the others had watched.

It was a miracle she had managed to get out of Aberdyth at all. Horrified by her pregnancy and impending hasty marriage, her parents had moved back to Florida before Stephen was even born. Their bleak hilltop caravan park had finally gone bust, and they offered to take Ava with them. There was no need for her to marry Paul, they said, when she could return to America and have their help in raising the baby. When she refused, to her surprise, they went anyway. It left her with no ties, apart from those she subsequently created for herself. Ava often wondered what life would have been like if she had gone then, but she had been carried away by the idea of marrying Paul, raising her child, trying to prove she was an independent adult. To an outsider, it was laughable, the mistakes she had made. Except it wasn’t funny at all. She had made so many wrong turns, and that, perhaps, was one of the reasons she was so good at dealing with the victims and perpetrators at work. Often the dealers were just kids who’d made bad choices, who were desperate to escape poverty, and who had been promised wealth and freedom. The real evil players were those who traded on those dreams.

Ava reached for her iPad, quickly checking emails, grasping for the return of her cool efficiency. Work always did this to her. She was like a machine, her boss often said. There was nothing new on the handful of cases she was personally connected with, and no progress on her current job. There was a suggestion from Pete, her partner, that she might have to send someone in undercover to crack that particular drugs ring.

Her own drug-taking had stopped when she discovered she was pregnant, so teenage-Ava couldn’t have been all bad, she told herself. But those years had taken a vicious toll on her mental health, and being a young mum pushed her nearer the edge, until finally, she saw that the only thing to do was to run. When Stephen was nearly two years old, she had kissed him goodnight for last time, scrabbling to drag her backpack from the wardrobe. The devils that whispered in her ears told her to go, to go now or she might hurt her son. She had failed as a wife and mother, and they would be better off without her. Her son cried, and she soothed him back to sleep, driven by a teeth-chattering panic. Before Paul came back off the hills, she was gone, leaving nothing but a brief note. Paul’s dad was in his study, and she sometimes wondered afterwards if he heard her go. Good riddance would have been his attitude, she knew.

If the drugs hadn’t been so easily available throughout their early teens, she doubted any of them would have bothered. Aberdyth was a desolate village between two hills, and the nearest town was a bus ride away. Even then it was another ex-mining community, dragged down by lack of jobs, and lack of money.

Maybe she and her friends might have dabbled a little on rare nights out in the city, certainly they would have smoked and drunk. But to have pills handed out like bags of sweeties…

It was a joke really, she always thought, that so many of her current friends claimed to be in therapy for this and that, but her own monthly sessions really did keep her sane. Hell, after everything that had happened, she was allowed a little craziness, and in LA she fit right in.

She chucked her iPad back down on the bed. Combing out her long, wet hair, Ava blasted it with a dryer, and plaited it neatly out of her face. Her dark, shiny fringe was cut just above the arctic blue eyes and framed the determined face in the mirror. Her dad always said there was Native American blood in the family, and her darker skin colour, high cheekbones and full lips made her a dead ringer for her paternal grandmother. Maturity had added stubbornness to her square chin, and the year-round tan added warmth to her smile, but some darkness in her expression kept most people away – men included. Detective Ava Cole was tough, independent and athletic, and that was just how she liked it.

She yanked on her jeans and hill boots. The Birtleys were out and the house was quiet as she slipped out of the front door. A few battered trucks and a mud-plastered Land Rover decorated the track downhill. She turned the corner and marched briskly past the pub, ready to ignore anyone who challenged her. There was only a dog to watch her progress. It was a shabby, red-coated mongrel, and its half-hearted bark didn’t bring anyone running.

Breathing fast, eyes down, Ava reached the garden gate, and stopped. Her throat was tight and her eyes stung. She needed to get a grip.

Ellen’s place was the same as it always had been, up on the end of the row of houses, just above the wood. The garden, even in early spring, was well tended and neat. She smiled as she recognised the greenhouse, the garden gnome, and then pushed down the acidic swell of nausea as she also recognised the little wooden gate at the end of the vegetable patch. Ellen’s shortcut to the woods. Jackie and Peter had always been stricter than the other village parents about curfew, and to their knowledge Ellen had always been home and in bed by a certain time. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately enough for her friends when they had to cover up her death, Ellen would often wait until her bedroom door was closed, slip out of the window, and run down behind the trees into the East Wood.

The front door opened, and Ava clenched her hands in her woollen gloves, willing herself to walk up the path, pinning a smile on her face.

‘I knew you’d come. As soon as I heard that you were coming back, I knew you’d come down and see us.’ Jackie Smith reached out her arms. Ellen’s mum.

Her face was older than her fifty odd years, and her hair had gone white. But despite, or maybe because of, her lines and wrinkles, and her kind of grief-stricken serenity, Ava thought she was beautiful.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t stay in touch,’ she almost whispered, submitting to the warm, scented embrace.

‘Cariad, we never expected you to. We knew why you went in the end. It wasn’t having a baby that messed you up, it was Ellen’s going, wasn’t it?’

Ava studied Ellen’s dad, Peter, carefully. He was bald now, which gave his dark eyes and beaky nose the look of a ferocious bird of prey. As always, she had been handed a cup of tea and some bara brith and settled down on the sofa. She could tell, just by looking around, that there would be no lodger, and the lights in Ellen’s room were still for her.

After a bit of chat Ava carefully sidled around the subject. ‘Do you think you’ll stay here? I mean, my mum and dad keep on about you moving out to live on the Keys with them… I wasn’t sure if that was just my dad being bossy as usual.’

Jackie and her husband exchanged glances, and she was the one who spoke. ‘Actually, we are moving. Not to Florida, but to England. I must tell you, cariad, we decided this when we heard you were coming back. The thing that keeps us – it sounds so stupid when I say it aloud – but we never believed that Ellen ran away. To have kept silent all these years. She just wouldn’t. Your parents agree that she would at least have contacted you, Ava. The two of you were like sisters. But the police never bothered to look too hard, did they, and we hoped for so many years she would just come back. Then, Jesse – you know he was killed in a motorbike accident?’

Ava nodded, heart pounding, and a trickle of sweat edging down her backbone and along her hairline.

‘Jesse was a nice boy, and he always liked Ellen, didn’t he?’ Peter looked at Ava with Ellen’s eyes. The almond shape, with long lashes, were almost too pretty for a man, but luckily the rest of his face was masculine enough. The eagle image persisted.

‘Yes… What… what did Jesse say?’

‘We were having a drink one night, and he brought the subject up himself. Actually, I tell you how it happened. He had been doing some course online, graphic design I think it was – wasn’t it, Peter?’

Her husband nodded, and carried on carefully sipping his tea, quietly observing both Ava and his wife.

‘Anyway, he had been offered a job in Glasgow, and we talked about leaving Aberdyth. I think I mentioned that we couldn’t leave until we found out what had happened to Ellen, and he took it very badly. Said he had the same trouble, but he was going to put it right, and then we could all leave.’

Peter turned to his wife. ‘And those were his exact words, weren’t they, Jackie? We didn’t know quite what to say to him after that, but of course we tried to question him when he had calmed down a little.’

She nodded, lips trembling a little. ‘He said that… he said that he had proof of where Ellen was, but he needed to check something…’