AUTHOR'S MESSAGE
After about six months of virtual masterly inactivity on the writing front, the lure of 'putting pen to paper' and coming up with another Skins story has finally proved too great to resist. So here I am again, this time with a (probably over-ambitious) attempt at a psychological mystery thriller involving some (or maybe even all?) of the cast of Series 3 & 4, including many of our old favourites. As usual, I've only got the bare outline of a plot worked out in my head for now so I shall be making spontaneous decisions as to where the story goes at certain points as I go along, which may not be the most disciplined way of writing a story but it seems to work for me.
I shall, as always, be thrilled to get any reviews along the way and am always extremely grateful for any comments or critical appreciation that anyone can spare the time to pass on any of the chapters that I write. I hope you enjoy the story (and the rocky ride along the way!).
CHAPTER ONE: RED LETTER DAY
When Naomi woke up that morning she had a strange feeling that this was not going to be any ordinary day. Not that many of her days over the last couple of years had been particularly ordinary or uneventful. Indeed she never ceased to be amazed at just how much dramatic and emotional turmoil she had managed to pack in to her hitherto fairly short life – emotionally and psychologically she felt like she was eighteen going on thirty-five. It was going to take something pretty special to knock her out of her stride after all she had been through in recent times and yet, as she quietly got out of bed, taking great care not to disturb a still peacefully sleeping Emily beside her, she had a vague notion that something inexplicably weird and disturbing was going to happen that day. With that in mind, she felt compelled to get up and do something rather than just lie in bed and meekly wait for it to happen, whatever it might be.
As she slowly put on her dressing gown which she had thrown carelessly on to the floor the previous evening, tidiness not being one of her strong points, she looked across at Emily who had curled herself up into a snug little ball and was breathing quietly and rhythmically on her left side. Naomi couldn't suppress a huge smile as wide as the Bristol Channel as she gazed over at the little bundle of adorable cuteness that was the redheaded Emily. Her Emily, she thought to herself as her eyes wandered over all the features of her girlfriend's face which she could see poking out from under the duvet.
She successfully fought off the temptation to go over to her and plant a passionate smacker on her delicately shaped rosy lips. She looked so peaceful lying there and it didn't seem fair to interrupt her beauty sleep – not that she was in great need of any, she couldn't possibly get more beautiful in Naomi's eyes – just to satisfy her own immediate sexual desires which she knew were bound to be fulfilled at some point in the day ahead in any case. Instead Naomi quietly tiptoed her way across the bedroom, opened the door and went out onto the landing, shutting the door behind her. She went downstairs, paused to pick up the post, half a dozen assorted letters which were lying on the front door mat and at which she only gave the briefest of glances and went through into the kitchen to put the kettle on, throwing the letters on to the kitchen table.
Five minutes later she was sipping at a steaming cup of invigorating black coffee, with her long legs stretched out on one of the other chairs around the table, impatiently willing the hot, strong, dark liquid to blow away the cobwebs of her befuddled mind, not to mention the still lingering after effects of the skinful she had knocked back the night before when she and Emily had been partying into the small hours with Effy, Katie, JJ and Lara.
She sat alone in merciful silence, recalling with a wistful smile random memories of the previous evening: JJ spectacularly falling arse over tit trying to execute a particularly ambitious but ill-advised dance manoeuvre which he had just seen Lara perform with consummate ease and felt compelled to seek to emulate for her approval; Katie accidentally sending some poor girl's drink flying as she waved her arms around manically whilst describing to the rest of the gang how she had just given some poor, misguided bastard the brush off after he had tried to pull her on the dance floor; Emily sneaking up on her unawares in the toilets and shoving both hands up her dress to grab her butt cheeks affectionately but firmly, causing Naomi to let out a high-pitched squeal of surprise and, it had to be admitted, not a little pleasure also, at exactly the same moment as Effy emerged from one of the cubicles and collapsed in fits of laughter at the sight of Emily's wickedly mischievous grin and Naomi's open-mouthed look of mock horror.
Naomi started sniggering to herself as she recalled the fun moments they had all enjoyed the night before and, as she struggled to contain her laughter, she begun to examine more closely the letters which she had previously put down on the kitchen table. A couple were obviously bills, electricity and water rates judging by the writing on the envelopes which she immediately chucked to one side as not worthy of any further attention. Two more appeared to be standard junk mail which she crumpled up and threw with a stifled scream of irritation and frustration at the litter bin, though her anger was instantly tempered by the small sense of achievement she felt in seeing the two screwed up balls of paper hit the sides of the bin before neatly disappearing inside it. The fifth and final letter did however grab her attention. It was an A4 size white envelope addressed to her in unremarkable capital letters, all of uniformly equal size and style, post-marked Bristol and posted the day before. Other than that, there was no indication as to who it was from or what it contained.
Mildly intrigued,Naomi gulped down the last dregs of her coffee, put the mug down on the table and proceeded to roughly tear open the envelope with her fingers, not even bothering to preserve the envelope for further use. She looked inside and then emptied the contents onto the table before peering down to examine them at close quarters. One of the two items that fell onto the table was a photograph and the other was a piece of plain paper with some writing on it but Naomi's attention was initially drawn towards the photo which she picked up and looked at. What she saw immediately chilled her to the bone and caused her to drop the photo onto the table with a loud scream which she instinctively tried to cover up by putting her hand to her mouth.. Her heart was thumping like the clappers and her palms had quickly become sweaty and clammy with fear and shock.
As she forced herself to look down at the photograph a second time with disbelieving, terrified eyes, she tried to take in the full horror of the scene that was staring back at her. It was a picture of what for all the world looked like a dead girl, lying on her back in a pool of thick, dark red blood. There were obvious stab wounds all over her naked body which seemed to be stretched out on a bed in a provocative, glamour model-style pose which Naomi found utterly sickening and almost made her throw up all over the table. The girl could only have been about her age or maybe a year or two older possibly but it wasn't anyone she recognised. Naomi didn't know whether that made her better or worse but she found she had to take in huge gulps of air to stop herself from screaming again and she was trembling so violently that she needed to grab hold of the side of the table so as not to faint and fall off her chair.
She didn't know how long it was that she just sat there staring down blankly and uncomprehendingly at the shocking image of the photograph. It felt like it could have been hours but in fact it was only a minute or two. Without being able to take her disbelieving eyes off the photograph she reached out her hand and picked up the other item which had fallen out of the envelope, the piece of paper with some writing on it. She jerked her head away from the image of the horrendously mutilated dead girl and focused her attention briefly on the piece of paper. It was an A4 sized plain white piece of paper, the sort of paper used in offices for printing or photocopying, and it had words stuck on to it which might have been cut out of newspapers and put together to spell out a message. Naomi read the words silently whilst holding her breath in abject terror and feeling overcome by a heavy sense of foreboding. When she had got to the end and the message had been taken in loud and clear she started crying and screaming, at first relatively quietly and then gradually her sobs and screams grew in intensity until they would have been clearly audible to anyone else in the house.
Unsurprisingly, barely a few moments after Naomi's screaming and crying had built up to an easily detectable level of desperate anguish, the sound of Emily tearing down the stairs could be heard and the redhead, still dressed only in the T-shirt and knickers she had been sleeping in, flew into the kitchen from where she had been able to make out Naomi's terrified screams were emanating
'Naoms! What's the matter?' cried an understandably frightened and bewildered Emily, who rushed over towards a still sobbing Naomi and threw her arms around her whilst frantically looking around the kitchen for signs of what on earth could have caused such an extraordinary reaction in her girlfriend who she knew all too well was not easily reduced to such howls of tears without a very good reason. Naomi gratefully sank into Emily's arms, still crying and clung on to the redhead for dear life, as if she was afraid to let go of her ever again.
'It's all right, Naoms, it's all right. I'm here, I'm here. What's up? What's upset you so much?' Emily was starting to feel sick with worry as she couldn't imagine what could have made Naomi react like this. She couldn't see anything in the kitchen which could have brought on such an untypical outburst in her normally so cool, so laid back and so controlled girlfriend. But she knew that the best thing to do was just to let her calm down, to give her time to recover her self-control and customary poise and then she would tell her what was going on. Emily knew there was no point in trying to force it or shake it out of Naomi before she was ready. She contented herself with hugging her tightly, kissing her softly on the side of her face and reassuring the distressed blonde that everything was going to be okay, that she, Emily, was here now and she would take care of her.
After a minute or two Emily could sense that Naomi's sobbing and shaking was starting slowly to subside and soon the blonde girl felt able to relax her hitherto vice-like grip on the redhead enough to pull back from her just a little and look into Emily's anxious yet still love struck big brown eyes. Emily smiled weakly at Naomi, more from an unspecified fear than from any firm conviction that all was fine and dandy in their world right then
'Take some deep breaths, sweetheart, and then tell me calmly what the fuck's the matter. Okay?' She leaned forward slightly and kissed the blonde girl ever so softly and sweetly on the cheek, hoping that would accelerate the calming down process.
Naomi nodded and attempted the tiniest of smiles at Emily's endearing words of advice and reassurance, breathing deeply several times as she looked deep into Emily's eyes, whilst still holding on to her with both arms tightly held around her neck. Finally Naomi felt calm enough to speak for the first time even though her voice was very shaky and betrayed the fear and utter bewilderment with which she still felt overwhelmed.
'I got these sent to me in the post,' she said, almost in a rasping whisper, as she tried to clear her throat and get the words out more strongly. She nodded towards the photograph and the message on the piece of paper and as Emily followed Naomi's gaze and looked across at the table, her eyes bulged wide and she caught her breath as she saw the horrific image of the dead girl which had so shocked Naomi only a short time ago.
Emily reluctantly picked up the photo to have a closer look at it and Naomi could see that she was as horrified and sickened by what she saw just the same as she had been.
'Oh my God!' cried out a stunned Emily who put her hand up to her mouth, perhaps to stop herself from heaving. 'Who is she? Why have you been sent this? Who did this?'
Those and many more equally good questions appeared to defy any rational answers at that precise moment. Emily sharply turned her head away from the sickening image of the blood-soaked dead girl and focused on the message pieced together letter by letter on the plain piece of paper.
'I'D KEEP LOOKING BEHIND YOU, IF I WERE YOU. YOU NEVER KNOW, YOU COULD BE NEXT!
'Jesus Christ! What the fuck does that mean, you could be next?' Emily's heart was beating louder than your average heavy metal band drum and she felt her stomach drop several feet and almost hit the floor. She turned her eyes back to a still badly shaken but now much becalmed Naomi who shook her head slowly in complete bewilderment.
'I haven't got the foggiest, Ems. I don't understand any of this. Why has all this revolting stuff been sent to me?'
'Maybe it's just some sick bastard's idea of a joke. Maybe someone you've pissed off recently?' Emily knew she was clutching at straws with this suggestion. Sure, Naomi had an unerring ability to piss people off with her forthright manner and plain speaking but even she couldn't possibly have wound someone up so much as to go this far in getting their own back. No, it had to be something more than that.
'Oh come on, Ems. Who do we know who could have done something like this? We don't know anyone with that much imagination if it's supposed to be a joke. Besides, that picture looks fucking real to me.'
The blonde girl fell silent once more as she contemplated the photograph of the girl lying in the pool of what looked very much like real blood to her. She bit her bottom lip as she often did when she was deep in thought or anxious or nervous about something and reached out her hand towards Emily's who immediately took it and squeezed it reassuringly, although Emily couldn't begin to imagine what she could do or say to reassure Naomi that this was really nothing to get upset or worried about. At that moment Emily felt as frightened and confused as she had ever felt in her life. Some complete stranger, some sick psycho, had made a cold, calculated threat on her beloved Naomi for no apparent reason whatsoever and she was terrified to death. But she didn't want to show it. She had to try to remain strong and calm and not fall to pieces in front of her girlfriend who needed her now more than ever before.
'Well, there's only one thing to do, Naoms. We've got to show this to the police.'
'Hang on, Ems. Don't let's be too hasty. Let's think it through a bit at least before getting the police involved.'
Emily frowned at Naomi and looked up at her with more than a degree of suspicion and curiosity. She couldn't believe Naomi's obvious reluctance to take the sensible course of action and call the police in. What else were they supposed to do?
'What? Naomi, do you understand what's happened here? It looks like some girl's been brutally murdered by some sicko who's taken a photo of her afterwards and sent it to you! Oh, and by the way he's also warned you that you could be the next one on his list! For fuck's sake, what else do you think we should do? Look into it ourselves? Don't tell me you've always fancied being a bit of a private detective on the quiet!'
Emily burst into tears after that impassioned plea to Naomi to get real and come to her senses. Naomi immediately regretted what she had said and pulled Emily towards her, put her arms around the distressed redhead and started apologising profusely for being so insensitive.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Honestly. I wasn't thinking straight. Of course we'll go to the police. I'm just…a bit angry and confused, that's all. Please don't cry, Ems. It'll be all right, you'll see. The police will sort it all out.'
Naomi wasn't bullshitting when she told Emily that she was feeling angry. Her initial feelings of horror and fear when she had first seen the photograph and the message which she believed were genuine enough had now been replaced with fury and outrage that someone had dared to try to frighten her and her Emily like this. She was quietly seething inside with all manner of resentments and righteous indignation and was harbouring unrealistic thoughts of revenge and retribution against person or persons unknown. It was probably better for everyone, she thought, if the police found whoever had done these sick and depraved acts before she did otherwise she might not be responsible for her actions.
'Come on,' she said softly to a still distraught and emotional Emily. 'Let's get dressed and go straight to the police station and tell them what's happened, eh? We'll feel much better when we've put them in the picture. Hey, just think, they might even give us our very own personal bodyguards for a day or two until they catch the guy!'
'Oh great!' said Emily smiling weakly at Naomi, though the blonde could see that her eyes weren't laughing much. 'We get given a couple of Neanderthal macho bobbies hanging around us the whole time when all I want to do is fuck your brains out. Terrific'!
