Lie in Wait

She shouldn’t be out here. Not at this time of night and certainly not alone. How can she be so stupid. So reckless and irresponsible. I watch her shrink into the far corner of the bus shelter, pressing her back against the metal rail and jamming her hands in her pockets.

“Do you want a lift?”

She startles, shaking off her hood and inching closer to peep through the gap in the passenger window. Her coat shimmers in the glow of the streetlamps, a million raindrops sparkling and twinkling like fireflies.

“The bus should have been here ages ago. I don’t know what to…” she trails off, shrugging her shoulders.

“Hop in. It’s not safe to be hanging around by yourself. Not right now anyway.”

She hesitates, but only for a second, yanking open the door and sliding in next to me. Her shoes squelch in the footwell and droplets of water spatter the dashboard as she brushes strands of soggy hair from her face.

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping the leather seat with the hem of her coat. “I’m making such a mess. I should have just waited for the bus.”

“Don’t be daft. I’ve had far worse things in this car than a bit of rainwater. Oh, I’m Lilith by the way.” I smile. “I know, dreadful name. Not sure what my parents were thinking. My friends call me Lily.”

She grins and holds out her hand: “Mallory Harrison.”

“Mallory, your hands are like blocks of ice,” I say, angling the vent towards her. “I’ll turn up the heat.”

The warm, fusty air swirls round the car, her damp clothes fogging up the windows. I lean forward, struggling to see, the rain hammering against the glass and the windscreen wipers shrieking as they scrape left and right.

“Is that the news?” she asks, biting her bottom lip. “Can we listen?”

“What? Yeah, sure.”

I fiddle with the dial, turning up the radio volume, bracing myself for what’s to come, praying there’s no more bad news. That nothing else has happened.

“… Suffolk police are under fire for saying women should not go out alone at night following the abduction and murders of Juliet Montgomery and Naomi Parks. Petra Davies from One Step Ahead joins us in the studio. Petra – do you agree Suffolk Police is guilty of victim blaming and…”

I switch the radio off. It doesn’t help. Listening to the same things over and over again. How they shouldn’t have gone out alone, how they should have avoided dark, unlit streets. How they should have fought back a little harder.

“I knew her,” says Mallory, slumping back in her seat, her forehead resting against the glass. “Juliet Montgomery. I knew her. We were at school together. We lost touch, my fault, it just…”

Her voice wobbles and she rubs at her face, blinking back tears. I reach into the side pocket and hand her a pack of tissues, our fingertips touching, briefly. She pulls one out and presses it against her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just different when it’s someone you know. It feels...”

“… No, I’m sorry,” I say, taking one hand off the wheel and reaching for hers. “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. It’s been awful enough just watching the news.”

She nods and twists the soggy tissue round and round her fingers: “I feel guilty too. I didn’t pay much attention when the first girl went missing, but when Juliet… Well, when Juliet was found, it felt different, personal.”

“I understand.”

And I do. Nobody seemed to care about Naomi of no fixed address. Not at first. Not until Juliet was seized, her body found dumped in woodland a few days later. That’s when everything changed.

The media went mad for the story then.

Juliet’s piercing blue eyes and dazzling white smile were everywhere. On the TV screens, in the newspapers and on the missing posters plastered all over town. We knew every detail about her life. How she loved horses, how she captained the local netball team and how she dreamed of backpacking round Australia with her fiancé...

Journalists are like that though. Such parasites. Vultures. The way they scavenge through people’s lives to make every situation sound more tragic. As if being murdered wasn’t bad enough.

“… Do you think she knew what was happening to her?”

“What?”

“Do you think she knew she was going to die? That something awful was happening to her,” she whispers. “I’d have been petrified if it was me…”

“You can’t think like that.”

“I can’t help it. I can’t think about anything else. It’s all anyone talks about…”

The air escapes through my teeth. She’s right. It is. Everything’s different now. The streets are a little emptier. Women walk a little more quickly, heads down. No lingering for a cheeky after work drink in the high street bars.

Even my manager Damian has started letting us leave in daylight hours, although that must have been his wife’s idea. It’s always falls to us women to take care of each other.

“My mum would kill me if she knew I’d been standing at the bus stop alone.”

“You didn’t tell her…”

“No way. Bethany’s bus always left just a minute before mine. We’ve done it a thousand times, but tonight she went and there was no sign of my bus.”

I nod, flicking the indicator and swinging the car off the dual carriageway and onto the old coast road. The rain is finally easing, but it’s even darker now as the trees crowd in overhead, smothering the last of the light.

“Oh,” giggles Mallory. “I’ve just realized I didn’t tell you where I live, which way you need to go…”

I smile, my fingers gripping the steering wheel, my knuckles white. The car tires slither in the mud as I turn into the layby, my headlamps illuminating the hedgerow, the holly berries gleaming blood red in the light.

“It’s funny, I would never have got into the car if you’d been a man…”

Her eyes widen as I lean across her and pull a knife from the glovebox.

“It’s funny,” I mimic. “That’s exactly what all the others said too.”