DIRTY LITTLE SECRET - [Chapter 1]
Book 1 in the Louise Miller series. A serialisation.
MARCH, 1987
There are no secrets that time does not reveal.
Jean Racine
FRIDAY 13th
IT WAS ALWAYS 3AM WHEN THE PRESSURE SETTLED ON HER, the weight a crushing presence that pushed her so hard into the bed beneath her that she could hear the wooden slats that held the mattress creak and groan.
Sometimes she could feel hands gripping her arms, holding her legs. Pushing her down. Holding her so hard she couldn’t breathe.
Just like now.
Just like tonight.
Something was sat on her chest, crushing the life from her and stopping her from drawing in another lungful of sweet, sweet air.
It felt as though the blankets had been pulled tight across her, as though her mother had come into her room while she was sleeping and tucked the blankets deep beneath the mattress on either side of the bed, concerned that they would fall from the bed and leave Joanna cold in the night. But Joanna knew this hadn’t happened for two reasons.
Firstly, the suggestion that her mother would care enough for her to come and make sure her blankets were where they were supposed to be was anathema to everything that Laura Greene was. She had a daughter in the same way some people had a dog; a plaything, a distraction. Something to come home to on a night after spending the day in the pub with men who would just as easily scratch out her eyes as fuck her.
Secondly, Laura Greene, her mother, was downstairs drunk.
She had heard her come in shortly after midnight, crashing into the bin as she tried to manoeuvre down the side alley between their house and Clays Mill. She never remembered, yet she somehow always managed to crash into it. Every time. And every time was becoming every night recently. Out the door by five, as soon as Joanna and her friend Jessica got home from school. They had tea, a boil in the bag chicken supreme normally, or if they were lucky, boil in the bag chilli, and then she was out the door. All dressed up and smelling of Panache bought from the Co-Op. Ten minutes later she’d be in the Carps, propping up the bar and downing lager blacks and smoking Regals.
Joanna, with the help of Jessica, would see to her brothers and sister, making sure they were fed, washed up and in bed after watching cartoons on TV for a while.
Jessica would write in her journal while Joanna did the dishes and then they would play in her room until it was time for Jessica to go home. Luckily that was just across the street and down three houses. Not far. Sometimes her dad would come collect her if it was dark.
But none of that mattered. In fact, all thoughts had been pushed aside, replaced with the cold fear that had visited most nights since she was six. Half her life, her nights had been turned to periods of horror where she couldn’t move, where she couldn’t breathe.
Like tonight.
It was happening again.
She tried again to move but the weight was too much. It was crushing her, pushing down harder than it had ever done before.
It was hurting her. Fingers like steel clamps bit into her arms and even though she tried, the scream stayed lost behind her lips. The pain was a white heat that started at her arms where the fingers gripped tight and spread up towards her shoulders. From there, it flooded down her chest, making the weight that lay there almost breathe a sigh of relief.
She had heard it, she was sure. A long drawn-out sigh that hovered just above her face. The scent of lilacs left too long in a vase of dead water filled her nose and she would have gagged if she had been able to draw breath.
Instead, she lay there on the bed, unable to breathe, unable to move and waited for it to pass like it did every night. She remembered what the doctor had said, her soothing voice breaking through the rising panic: ‘Be still. Be calm and it will pass.’ Easy to say, easy to hear, but, oh, so hard to do. But here she was, being as still and as calm as she could, and it was working.
For now.
He would be in here, somewhere. Hiding in the shadows, nothing but a shadow himself. Sometimes he was more real than other nights; sometimes he was nothing more than smoke. Her eyes flit from side to side, seeking him out, wide as a saucer and twice as white. Her pupils had shrunk to nothing but a hazel pin, razor-focused on finding the figure that haunted her.
The shadow person.
The man in the hat.
He would stand, sometimes at the foot of her bed, sometimes right beside her. Other times he’d stay back in the corner, head tucked down beneath the shelf on which her books sat. Clothed in darkness he would sit or stand and stare. Watch as she struggled to move, struggled to breathe. Head cocked to the side so that the flap of his hat nearly touched his shoulder. Always watching.
Once again, the doctor’s voice cut through the fear. ‘He is nothing but a figment of your imagination, an illusionary manifestation of your fear. Pay him no mind. Give him no power and he will fade, like a bad dream.’
But there he was.
He moved slightly, the darkness of his being shifting from that of the wall against which he had been leaning. He was tall, taller than she remembered, but was what she recalled a true memory or merely her suggestion? That was something her doctor had talked about a lot. They all had. All of them who suffered the same night terror as she did.
But they didn’t talk about everything did they? She didn’t talk about everything.
He moved again. Moved closer. Nearly within touching distance, if she could just move her hand. But what would she feel? Nothing but embarrassment when her hand passed through his. There would be nothing to touch, she knew this figure, this thing of shadow was nothing but warped electrical signals in her mind. The doctor had said that as well.
And now he was right beside her. Peering down at her from beneath the wide brimmed hat. Leaning down. She willed her heart to slow, to steady in her chest. It would be over soon, he would be gone, and she would be able to move once more, another night over. She would sleep, and when she woke up, she’d tell her mother what had happened, hope that she listened, and then go see Jessica. They’d laugh about it, Jessica would probably write about it in her journal, and when she told the doctor . . .well, she thought she would be proud of her.
Joanna felt her heart slow as the calmness began to overtake the fear. She closed her eyes against the figure, the man in the hat who wasn’t really there.
When his hand closed around her throat her eyes shot wide. When the first punch hit, the world went dark.
HE DROVE ALONG KINGSWAY, heading away from the town centre. The headlights caught the trees that lined both sides of the road, the houses dark and just outside the narrow arc of the light that pushed the night aside as the vehicle rolled on.
He glanced back over his shoulder. A small window opened into the back, but he couldn’t make her out other than a dark shape huddled against a stack of boxes. She lay there, unconscious. Her soft moans echoed from the metal walls.
He turned back to the road. Up ahead Kingsway was giving way to Dewsbury Road and he had to decide which way to go. Straight on would take him to either the ‘Mad Mile’, the dual carriageway which led to the M1 and from there he could head towards London or Leeds – dealer’s choice. There were one or two places he could dump her, places that wouldn’t be too far out the way, just enough that it would be some time before she was found. Enough time for the panic and fear to set in. That would teach them.
That would serve them right.
He slowed down as he neared the junction, then turned right onto Chickenley Lane.
Chickenley was even darker than Kingsway had been. An almost forgotten village, the lamps here, like the houses, were neglected. Most had been broken by the kids that hung around the off license and the bus stop, smoking cigarettes and drinking Frosty Jack cider. A few had bulbs that were ancient and burnt out. Everything was dark, almost ruinous at this hour. The houses were prefabricated affairs, two-tone monstrosities that looked like tin boxes with their red brick lower half and yellow corrugated metal upper floor, the paint chipped and rusty. The majority had lace hanging at the windows, though one or two had Union Jack flags in place of curtains.
He passed them by, drifting through unseen and unheard. He could have turned right towards Dewsbury – there was a patch of land on the right, about halfway up Princess Lane which would be perfect – but he hadn’t checked it out properly and his memory of the place could be wrong.
No, he’d made his choice, and he’d stick with it.
It was too risky to go anywhere of distance and the longer he kept randomly driving round, the greater the chance someone would come along and see him. Then it would be over. Then he would be done, and all of this would have been for nothing.
Short, sharp shock. That was the way. That would send the right message.
When he reached the end of the road, he turned left onto Pildacre.
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