The Girl You Gave Away: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by Jess Ryder

  Jade looked thoughtful for a few moments, then said, ‘I’m really hungry. Can we get something to eat?’

  ‘Good idea.’

  She led me to a chicken shop and we both ordered spicy wings with fries. Mysteriously, my hangover seemed to have vanished, apart from a faint headache behind the eyes, and I felt newly energised. Maybe it was the heavy intake of fat and carbs, or maybe it was because at last I felt in control. My lies had been exposed and my secrets were out in the open, but instead of making me vulnerable, it made me strong. Nobody could manipulate or threaten me any more. I no longer had to hide, not even from myself.

  It didn’t take long to find Dean’s gym online. I noted down the address and opening times and skimmed through the photos, mostly showing hard-looking men with enormous biceps shifting impossibly heavy weights. But what took my eye was a picture of ‘Charley Philips, Membership Manager’. I instantly recognised the cocky smile.

  ‘That’s her,’ I said to Jade. ‘That’s who impersonated you. Dean and Gemma’s daughter.’

  ‘Just wait till I get my hands on her,’ Jade growled, shovelling the last of the chips into her mouth.

  ‘We have to stay calm. It’s Dean I want to talk to first. We’re going to go to his gym tonight and surprise him.’

  ‘What if he gets some of his bodybuilders to chuck us out?’

  ‘We’ll wait until the end of the evening, when everyone else has left and he’s locking up.’

  ‘Okay, makes sense.’ She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. ‘What we going to do while we’re waiting?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s get to Camford and take it from there.’

  I regretted not having the car with me; another annoying consequence of getting drunk last night. We would have to take the train to Camford and then a taxi to Deano’s Den. I didn’t like the thought of not being able to make a quick getaway. I briefly thought about going home to pick up the car, but Tom would be there by now, and I didn’t want to bring Jade back with me in case he made a fuss.

  If only I had gone back …

  Of course, it might not have changed the course of the evening. Tom might not have been home yet, or he might have been okay about seeing Jade. I might have stayed to cook supper for our new family – five of us around the table instead of four. Tom might have persuaded me to pursue Dean through the law, or I might have decided to let it go, to concentrate on mending my marriage and my relationships with my children. All kinds of things might have prevented me from going to Camford that night. But it wasn’t meant to be.

  * * *

  We took the Tube to Liverpool Street station and caught the fast train. I took Jade to a pub in the town centre. It was smart and modern, more of a wine bar than a boozer. She drank lager while I stuck contentedly to my usual soft drinks: Diet Coke, cranberry and soda. I felt relieved to be back on the wagon. The previous night had been an appalling lapse, but maybe it had been necessary, the release of something that had been building inside me for years. I’d had to touch the bottom in order to rise to the surface. Now my head was firmly above water and I hoped to God that I would never sink down again.

  Jade and I talked for hours. Really talked. She told me about her childhood and how difficult she’d found it at school. About how long it had taken for her parents to obtain a proper diagnosis, and how few resources there were to help people with foetal alcohol syndrome.

  ‘I was lucky really,’ she said. ‘I was adopted at birth. I’ve got awesome parents who really love me.’ She paused to chew on her words, and I wondered if that was the first time she’d really admitted it to herself. ‘They’re amazing,’ she continued. ‘Irritate the hell out of me, but that’s okay.’

  ‘All parents do that,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, and to be fair, I’ve given them a load of grief over the years.’

  ‘I’m sure. But they’ve stuck by you.’

  She smiled. ‘Yeah, they have. You know, some kids with FAS aren’t taken away from their mums until they’re a bit older. By then it’s too late. Not many people want a kid with my kind of problems. They end up in care, fostered out to people who send them away as soon as there’s trouble. I’ve met lots of young people like that. They’re on their own, they don’t have anyone who understands, who accepts them for who they are.’

  I took her hands and squeezed them tightly. ‘I’m so sorry, Jade. I know I can never make it up to you, I can’t turn back the clock. I’m really glad that you’ve got such fantastic parents and I want you to know that I’m here for you too. I’ll never let you down again, I promise. I want to help in whatever way I can.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she whispered. ‘I believe you.’

  The evening passed more quickly than I’d been expecting. When I checked my phone, I was surprised to see that it had just turned half past nine. We went back to the station and picked up a taxi from the rank. I gave the driver the address and we set off towards the industrial estate on the outskirts of town. Jade and I sat in the back, her hand gripping my arm. I sensed she was holding her breath.

  ‘You okay?’ She nodded, unable to speak. ‘Let me do the talking. If he turns nasty, just try to stay calm.’ She nodded again.

  I got the driver to drop us off around the corner from the gym. He gave me his card and I said I’d call when we needed a lift back to the station.

  He seemed uneasy. ‘You girls going to be all right? It’s a bit dodgy around here. I can wait for you if you like.’

  ‘No thanks. I don’t know long we’ll be,’ I replied, adding. ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine.’

  ‘Okay, take care,’ he said, then drove off into the darkness.

  Deano’s Den was situated in the far corner of the industrial estate, next to a carpet warehouse that looked as if it had recently closed down. It was a shabby place, with chipped paintwork and a flat corrugated-iron roof. An incongruous neon sign shone proudly over the front door – red lettering with a yellow star serving as the apostrophe in Deano’s.

  There were a few cars parked outside, including a massive black jeep with tinted windows that I guessed belonged to the man himself. The personalised number plate confirmed it.

  ‘That’s good. He’s definitely here,’ I whispered, pointing to the car.

  ‘Bastard,’ she murmured.

  We hid behind a large rubbish container, watching the last guys leave and drive away. Then the neon sign went out.

  ‘Right. Go now!’ I said, ‘Before he locks up.’ Jade didn’t need any encouragement. She strode towards the building and I followed her. She’d been sinking lagers all evening and I sensed she was ready for a fight.

  The front door had been left ajar and we went straight in. There was nobody on reception and the lights in the office had been turned off. A smell of stale sweat and old trainers hung in the air. The silence was eerie.

  ‘He must be in the studio.’ I nodded towards a glass door. It pushed open easily and we entered. The room was crammed with machines, exercise mats, giant balls and shelves of free weights. Dean was in the process of putting dumb-bells back on a rack. He heard our footsteps and turned around.

  ‘We’re closed,’ he said gruffly.

  If I hadn’t already seen the website photos, I wouldn’t have recognised him. The young man I’d once found so attractive had turned into a stocky, hard-faced geezer. His hair – what remained of it – was cropped against his skull; his skin was tanned and leathery, making his teeth look artificially white. His black tracksuit had a slight sheen on it and rustled as he walked towards us.

  ‘Who are you?’ Familiar blue eyes stared at me.

  ‘Hello, Dean,’ I said as calmly as I could.

  ‘Sorry. Do I know you?’

  I too had changed in the last twenty-five years, but I was surprised by his blank expression.

  ‘It’s Erin.’ Still there wasn’t a glimmer of recognition on his face. Either that or he was doing some very impressive acting.

  ‘Sorry, love, you’ve got me stumped. If
you want to join up, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Let’s cut the bullshit, Dean. You know full well who I am. Erin Coughlin. I was your girlfriend – sort of – twenty-six years ago, when I was fourteen.’

  He looked at me again, more closely this time. ‘Erin …’ he repeated, almost to himself. ‘Yeah, maybe … What’s this about, only it’s late and—’

  ‘I want to you to meet someone.’ I gestured towards Jade. ‘This beautiful young woman here is your daughter.’

  He instinctively took a step back. ‘Whoa … What’s going on? You can’t just walk in here and accuse people. I’m a married man, I got kids—’

  ‘Jade is your child too,’ I replied. ‘It’s pointless denying it. All it would take is a simple DNA test.’

  Globules of sweat started to pop onto his forehead. ‘Enough of this. Get off my turf right now.’

  But I carried on. ‘I was underage. You got away with it at the time because you threatened to beat me and my family up if I went to the police. I was scared of you then, but I’m not now.’

  ‘No?’ He shot me a withering glance. ‘Then you’re even more of a fool than you look.’

  Jade, who had been standing close to me, suddenly made a move towards him, like a greyhound that had been let out of the traps. ‘You bastard!’ she cried. ‘You raped her! You made her drink, you drugged her up. You got her pregnant, you made me brain-damaged. You! You!’

  He looked startled. ‘Brain damage? What the—’

  ‘It’s true, Dean,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t all your fault – it was mine too – but you were old enough to know better. I’m not interested in prosecuting you for rape; I want you to admit you’re Jade’s father, that’s all. And I want you to apologise to her for what you did.’

  ‘And she wants her ten grand back,’ added Jade.

  ‘What ten grand? What are you talking about? This is crazy …’ He ran his fingers over his tightly cropped scalp. ‘Just piss off, both of you, will you? I’m tired, it’s been a long day and I want to go home.’

  ‘Yes, back to your lovely wife Gemma,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Remember how we met in the hospital – both pregnant at the same time with your baby? You denied it and she pretended to believe you, but she knew. Gemma’s a nasty piece of work; you’re as bad as each other. And your other daughter … Charley, is it?’

  ‘Now just hold on,’ he said, sharpening his tone. ‘You leave my girl out of this.’

  ‘We can’t leave her out of it, I’m afraid. She’s a main player.’

  ‘I’m warning you …’ he snarled.

  Jade stepped forward and prodded Dean with her finger. ‘And I’m warning you. Blackmail is a crime. Pretending to be somebody you’re not is a crime. We’ve got the proof. Your girl’s going to prison!’

  His expression was a mixture of astonishment and fear. This wasn’t acting, this was real.

  ‘I’ve had enough. Get out. Go on, out!’

  Jade was prowling around him now, like a wild animal closing in on its prey. I was aware of her in my peripheral vision, could sense her pacing the floor, working herself into a frenzy. Her eyes were blazing with anger and she was breathing in hard and fast through her nose.

  I should have told her to calm down, but I was focusing on Dean, trying to work out whether he genuinely didn’t know about the blackmail. Could Gemma and her daughter have acted without his knowledge? That was what was going through my head in the few seconds before it happened. I wasn’t watching Jade, wasn’t aware of what she was up to. I didn’t know she had the dumb-bell until I saw her raise it above her head and smash it into Dean’s skull.

  He stumbled and she struck him again. Everything went into slow motion. He fell to his knees and was on the floor, groaning as she hit him repeatedly on the back of the head. There was blood everywhere, all over his skull and neck, soaking into his white T-shirt.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ I shouted, but my voice was thin and reedy.

  I lunged forward and pulled her off him. She staggered back, dropping the weight with a loud clang. Her eyes were glittering, nostrils flaring. She looked like a matador standing over her kill.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Jade

  May 2020

  ‘My God … oh my God … Jade, what have you done? Oh my God, what if he’s dead?’

  ‘He asked for it,’ Jade says, panting heavily. Her chest is a block of pain, but she feels elated. The scene is unreal. She’s a living statue of herself – a powerful woman with a sense of justice. Jade the Avenging Daughter.

  Erin drops down at Dean’s side. He’s stopped moaning and has gone very still. Jade watches as her mother tries to find a pulse in his neck. There’s blood on her fingers. She starts to scream and shout for help. It’s pointless. They’re in the middle of nowhere; nobody will hear her.

  ‘He mustn’t die, we can’t let him die!’

  Why not? Jade thinks, but she doesn’t say it out loud.

  Erin grabs her bag and rummages in it furiously, throwing things onto the floor. Her purse lands with a thud, a lipstick rolls, pens scatter … She finds her phone, cursing as her bloody fingers slip across the screen. She’s talking to somebody now, telling them to send an ambulance, giving them the address. The person on the other end is asking questions she doesn’t want to answer. ‘I don’t know!’ she keeps repeating, then hangs up and turns to Jade.

  ‘They’re sending the police!’ she says.

  The operator calls back immediately, but Erin ignores it. The phone rings and rings; they’re not giving up. The sound pierces Jade’s eardrums, making it hard to hear what her birth mum is saying.

  ‘Listen to me, Jade! You’ve got to leave. Right now. Just go!’ Erin stands up and starts shaking her by the shoulders. ‘Do you understand? Go! Don’t call a taxi, just run. Run as fast as you can, get away from here, go back to London.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think? You’re in big trouble. Please! Just go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere! Back to Amy’s, to your parents – they’ll look after you. Don’t tell them anything!’

  ‘I can’t go without you.’

  ‘You must! I have to stay with him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t keep asking questions, just do as you’re told, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jade says, still not understanding.

  ‘There’s no time. Just go!’

  Erin pushes her towards the exit, through the door and onto the concrete forecourt. Are those sirens she can hear, or is the phone still ringing in her head? The sound is faint but persistent. Maybe it’s getting louder.

  She puts her hands in her jacket pockets and starts walking away from the unit. Everything else is closed for the night, shutters down, gates padlocked. It all looks the same, anonymous yet threatening. She moves forward, imagining herself in a computer game where you have to find your way through a maze while the bad guys chase you. Nearly every road leads her to a dead end, or sends her back to the place where she started. It’s as if the units are moving around to confuse her and take her back to Deano’s Den.

  That noise is definitely sirens, and they’re much louder now, only a few streets away. She thinks about running – that’s what Erin told her to do – but her legs are protesting. They feel heavy, yet her feet don’t seem to be fully connecting with the ground. She’s hovering just above the surface. Going this way and that. Getting nowhere. She racks her poor fuddled brain for a sense of direction, but it’s as if somebody has tied a scarf over her eyes and is spinning her around. Blind man’s buff. She always hated that game.

  Perhaps she should stop trying to escape and hide instead. Find somewhere to kip until morning. She’s slept on the streets before; she’s not afraid. But the police will search for her. They’ll send their dogs out sniff-sniff-sniffing. She won’t stand a chance. No, she has to keep moving. If she can find her way to the train station and get back to London, she can disappea
r into the city’s shadows.

  That’s what fugitives do. They dump their clothes in the nearest skip and steal new ones from washing lines. They dye their hair and wear dark glasses, put on foreign accents, fall in love with strangers who take them in and tend to their wounds. Jade doesn’t have a wound – not a visible one anyway – but the principle’s the same. It’s hard to hide on your own; you need a friend. But she won’t ask Amy for help, it wouldn’t be fair. The poor girl has got enough to deal with right now.

  She rushes on, taking random turnings, staying close to the inside edge of the pavement, trying to blend into the walls and railings.

  What is happening at the gym? she wonders. The sirens have stopped now. She imagines paramedics rushing into the building, armed police sealing off the area, creeping around corners, training their sights on the slightest movement in the trees. Orange lights flash into the darkness. A city fox looks on curiously; red and white tape flutters in the night breeze. But these are scenes from a thousand crime movies she’s watched. It won’t be as dramatic as that. Probably just a couple of duty PCs pulling up in a car and flipping open their notebooks.

  She thinks about her birth mum, crouched over the body. Why did she stay? There was nothing she could do and she didn’t owe Dean a thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. He deserved everything he got; had it coming to him for a long time. Anyway, she thinks, he’s not really dead. He can’t be. All she did was hit him over the head a few times, not enough to kill him.

  But there was a lot of blood. And he went so quiet, lay so still …

  It makes her think of that other party game her parents used to make her play – sleeping lions. She was useless at it, couldn’t keep still for a second. Daddy laughed and called her his fidget fairy. Later, the psychiatrists called it ADHD.

  Her legs are moving more easily now, her pace quickening. What’s more, she seems to have reached a proper road. It’s open here, the land flattening out, and there’s a dark patch on the other side that looks like a field. She can hear the distant thrum of a motorway. Funny how Camford just stops. One minute you’re in a town, the next you’re in the countryside. They passed fields on their way earlier. She remembers the taxi going around a roundabout, the click-click of the indicator as it turned off. Is that the same roundabout she can see up ahead? Impossible to know for sure, but she sets off towards it anyway. Maybe there’ll be a sign for the station there. Please God.