‘Joanne Rowles’ death was not an accident …’ So she was what … murdered? The skin on Beth’s arms prickled, but she shook her head, resolved to be logical, not fearful. If Joanne was dead, then why was her name on the list from the woods?
Beth checked the date of the article. It had been posted just over eight months ago. Then she ran a quick search of the newspaper’s site to find any subsequent articles about Joanne’s death. There were none.
‘Treated as suspicious,’ she repeated the line from the article and chewed her lip. What could the fire services have found to make them suspect foul play? Had someone deliberately killed Joanne Rowles?
The same someone who wrote the list?
Her stomach clenched and bile burned up her throat. Sagging forward, Beth held her breath and waited for the sensation to pass. Eventually it did, leaving her forehead beaded with sweat.
‘You might not even be the right Joanne,’ she told her laptop, though not entirely convincingly. The only thing that tentatively connected her with the tragic woman from the article was her age, and surely that wasn’t enough, was it? Was Beth grasping at straws? ‘It’s enough,’ Beth told the shadows around her. Without this Joanne, she had nothing.
Overhead, a floorboard creaked.
Josh.
Beth quickly minimised the article and then closed her laptop. She scurried into the kitchen and began running the cold water tap just as her boyfriend’s sleepy footsteps echoed down the stairs.
‘Hey, babe.’ He pushed a hand through the short bristles of his hair and regarded her with bleary eyes.
‘I didn’t mean to wake you,’ Beth explained as she filled a large glass with cool water. ‘I just woke up and was parched, needed a drink.’
‘Another nightmare?’ Josh leant against the door frame and yawned wildly, revealing teeth speckled with flashes of silver fillings. He had plump, sensuous lips which reminded Beth of soft velvet. The first time she saw him in the local nightclub, Passions, she knew she was desperate to kiss him, to taste him. Josh was confident, strong. Surrounded by a motley crew of mates, he’d walked through the club with an affable ease, shoulders back, head held high. But the glint in his eye told her that he was approachable. They’d kissed in that desperate, frantic way that people do when they let only their senses guide them. Josh was kind. Easily the kindest person she’d ever known. He invited her into his home, his life. He loved her.
Josh taught Beth that love was like a weed; it could spring up anywhere and grow in even the unlikeliest of places. And grow it did. She surrounded herself with Josh. His presence was so large, it didn’t matter that hers was so small. He was always patient, always understanding, avoiding the topic of her absent family, missing friends, as though they shared some silent understanding. He accepted Beth as she was. Which was something she herself struggled to do most days. For that alone she placed him on the highest pedestal she could find.
‘Yeah.’ Beth gave a quick shrug. ‘The usual.’ She saw no need to mention the fire, not yet. Although her curiosity was ravenous. ‘Doesn’t one of your friends work as a fireman?’ She tilted her head as the thought came to her.
‘Umm.’ Still groggy, Josh massaged his jowls. ‘You mean Si?’
‘Yeah, Si.’
‘He’s a fireman, yeah. Why, you want him to come do a house inspection?’ As he began to wake up, a mischievous smile lit up Josh’s face. Beth had always sensed that his smile could be devastating, in the way it broke down her walls, tried to burn a tunnel right through to her core with how it smouldered, made butterflies take flight within her. Whenever she was at the point of succumbing to her inner demons, her insecurities, he’d only have to give her that smile and she’d melt, lose all structure and just be malleable to his will. Josh’s smile was a siren’s call to lost souls. ‘Or do you want me to borrow his uniform sometime?’ he wondered slowly, smile widening.
Beth downed some of her water. She felt like she could still taste the smoke that had filled the air in her nightmare. ‘Maybe,’ she pouted alluringly.
It was time to be his perfect girlfriend, time to forget about what haunted her when she closed her eyes.
People always saw my brother before they saw me. Of course they did. How could they not? He stood out. Even without trying to, a blemish within a crowd. He was both striking and strange. I was always an afterthought.
The man in the corner shop, the bus driver, even our own family said his name first. Always. ‘How’s …’ as though my well-being was secondary. And I wanted to hate him for it. I wanted to be jealous, wild with envy, as a young girl should have been. But I could never be mad at him. No one could. It wasn’t his fault. None of it.
The stares. The remarks. The cruel comments uttered within earshot, he never set out to get them. How could he?
I learnt to be patient. Learnt to wait for people to react to my brother, then notice me. After the day our world was torn apart, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, it was my time to creep out from the shadows, to be the first name on everyone’s lips. But like a record stuck on repeat, all anyone cared about was him. What happened to him. The fact that I had been there, had seen it all, didn’t matter. At least not at first.
Morning sunlight burned through a gap in the curtains. Beth groaned as she felt its caress against her cheeks and rolled away to the other side of the bed, finding it empty.
‘Mmm.’ Sleepily, she fumbled for the crumpled sheets, feeling for Josh’s long back. The distant hiss of the shower told her that he was already up and about.
Flopping onto her back, Beth shielded her eyes from the new day. It was still early, but the sun outside was goading, urging her to get up and out of bed.
‘You need to be outside more.’ This had been her mother’s mantra during the long summer months, especially after Beth’s brothers became obsessed with their Sega Mega Drive. ‘You’ll get square eyes,’ their mother would chide. ‘Get outside and enjoy the day, go on.’
For a time, Beth believed that her mother’s insistence at them to go out and make the most of nature’s splendour was out of genuine concern for her daughter’s well-being. But she soon realised the truth of it. It was only later she came to understand that her mother wanted to enjoy her beloved day-drinking in peace.
‘Honey?’
When Josh returned from the bathroom, the curtains were open wide, allowing the full force of the morning’s brightness to penetrate the bedroom. Beth was at the window, admiring the way the light glinted off the roof of her car.
‘Hey,’ Josh came up behind her, warm hands settling on her shoulders. He smelt fresh – Lynx shower gel mixed with apple-scented shampoo. Beth liked him like this: when his skin was damp, and all the dirt and oil had been scrubbed away from beneath his fingernails. The moment he stepped on site for work, dust and debris would stick to him like a magnet. ‘You sure you don’t want to sleep in a bit? You had a rough night.’ He massaged her shoulders as he spoke. Beth leant into the sensation. If she were a cat, this would be the moment she’d start purring, loudly. Though Josh’s hands were rough, they were well-versed in how to caress a woman.
‘I’ll be okay.’ The sunlight on her face felt so good, so rejuvenating. Within its blast, Beth hoped to burn away the remnants of her nightmare, of her worries.