The Messengers Read Free Page A

last thing I remember was looking up at the ceiling, beyond Mum, beyond the fat men who were throwing air punches of their own. The ceiling had fancy swirling borders and a chandelier hanging like a bunch of flowers.
    During the weeks I spent in Helmstown at Auntie Lizzie’s, I kept thinking back to that day, the fight, and that first blackout. The memories kept intruding: waking up in the bedroom of my Nana and Granddad’s house in Whiteslade; Johnny standing over the bed; the trancelike state I was in; and the sudden urge to draw. I suppose it was natural that I would remember my first blackout so clearly. After all, it changed my life.
    With no chance of getting any sleep, I decided I might as well get up and do something semi-constructive. It was pointless, lying there just
thinking
about Johnny.
    I always had the hope, especially late at night, that he might have found his way to an Internet café and e-mailed to say he was safe. At around one a.m., I left the spare room and crept around Auntie Lizzie’s big house. It was beautiful, all dark wooden floors and clean cream walls. Books everywhere. It was a world apart from our flat back home. Auntie Lizzie had married Robert, an architect who had his own practice, whereas my mum had married — well — my
dad
, who I’d never even met. “Don’t screw your life up for love,” Mum had always told us.
    Our flat was so small, you could barely breathe without waking someone up, but here, there was space and privacy. I sneaked up to the top floor, into Uncle Robert’s study, and turned on his iMac. While I waited for it to fire up, I looked out the window. A black cat with white socks slinked along a low wall outside a house across the street. I’d seen the cat before. It was the one I’d drawn after my last blackout. It looked up at me now, its eyes lit with the reflection from the streetlight. Accusing me. I shuddered and closed the curtains.
    There was no message from Johnny, and I didn’t know what to do anymore. I’d called all the guesthouses and B&Bs back home, and the few friends that Johnny had, but they were quick to distance themselves from him now. I’d called them cowards.
    I Googled Johnny and tried not to read the old news reports. There was no further information, so I went on Facebook and checked up on my friends back home. Keisha, my best mate, had updated her status four hours earlier:
    Keisha McKenzie misses Frances Clayton.
    I commented that I missed her, too, and wrote that Helmstown wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I spent a bit of time looking at the pictures from a recent party and felt annoyed that I was missing out on the summer holidays — the time when everybody had those life-changing experiences — but what could I do?
    I checked my e-mails one last time. There was still nothing from Johnny, only a single unread message from someone called P. Kennedy. Junk. Then it hit me. The man from the beach hut. How did he get my e-mail address?
    I don’t know if I can handle this
, I thought. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I’d read what he had to say. I opened the e-mail.
    It was a short message, with a link:
    Dear Frances Clayton
,
    Be here at 11 a.m. tomorrow and you will begin to understand. I know you think I am strange, but if I am, then so are you. I want to help
.
    Regards
,
    Peter Kennedy
    I clicked the link, and it took me to a map. The map showed a network of streets in Helmstown, near the seafront. Halfway along one of the streets, Landsmere Road, was a red pushpin.
    I didn’t write the address down, and I tried to forget the time. But I knew I would remember both of them, and I knew I would be there. Peter Kennedy flashed into my mind, bits of him. His lips, the workman’s boots, the streaks of paint on his long fingers. I had spoken to him only for a few minutes, but I couldn’t get him out of my head. It was a raw, dangerous sort of feeling.
    I updated my Facebook status:
    Frances Clayton is in a