Perfect Ten

by Jacqueline Ward

  You don’t know about the hole. But you know me, and you know that I’ll never give up until I succeed. If you did know about the hole, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this car now. The rest of it, well, I can think about that later on because here we are. Home.

  DS Percy gets out of the car. A police van has followed us and everyone gets out and stands on my drive while I find my keys. I can see the neighbours’ curtains twitching, but I don’t care because this is exactly what I need to happen. To be seen to be innocent. I turn the key in the lock and DS Percy is behind me. I turn round in the hallway.

  ‘It’s a bit …’

  She nods and smiles. She puts her hand on my arm. Perfect.

  ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. We’ll soon be out of your way.’

  I watch as the rest of the officers stare at the hundreds of Amazon boxes. They look at DS Percy for guidance. It’s fairly obvious that they’re here to search not just for the journal, but for the stolen goods from the Premier Inn rooms.

  ‘Right, lads. Just have a look round. Mr Atkinson claims that five cases were delivered here and that Mrs Atkinson has kept one of them – a holdall. Inside were some papers and some kind of a diary. So that’s what we’re looking for.’

  Three of the officers have a look round and the other one lingers. DS Percy continues.

  ‘Oh. Right. Can we have your computer please, Caroline?’

  I pass my laptop.

  ‘I just use it to …’ I let my eyes wander over the boxes. ‘And Facebook. You should be able to get right in; it remembers the passwords. There’s some work stuff on there too.’

  DS Percy stares at me.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Caroline. You do understand why I have to …? Anyway, Gary, we’re looking for a fake Facebook account. Mr Atkinson claims that Mrs Atkinson is harassing him via a fake Facebook account in the name of Monica Bradley, somehow linked to this lost holdall.’ I can hear the sarcasm in her voice and I watch as her eyebrows rise as she speaks. ‘But he hasn’t said how it’s linked. He’s shown me the shared content, some photographs, but it’s not clear where they fit in. Anyway …’

  You haven’t told her what’s in the journal. You’ve held back, hoping that they’ll find something here and you won’t have to explain how you are so disturbed that you collect sexual memorabilia and mark your conquests out of ten.

  Gary takes the laptop and leaves, telling me he’ll bring it back as soon as he’s finished and that he’ll check my phone records if that’s OK. It is. There’s nothing to hide. Nothing at all. Not there, anyway.

  I make a cup of tea and watch as the other officer pulls out boxes. The dust particles sail through the sunbeams that filter through my stained-glass wind chimes and I’m transfixed. The more they move, the thicker the stream of crap that sails around, settling somewhere else.

  I suddenly snap out of it as I hear a door handle turn and the dull thud of a body against a locked door. And again. Footsteps on the stairs and DS Percy appears with Lewis.

  ‘Rooms upstairs. Both locked.’

  He’s blank. He hasn’t read my file. He doesn’t know what I’ve been through. How did I not think about this? That they’d want to look in there? DS Percy nods.

  ‘OK. OK. Right. So, is that OK, Caroline? Only we have to …’

  I feel sick. This can’t be happening.

  ‘There’s nothing in there.’

  Nothing except all my memories of my children. I don’t want the dust in there disturbed, flying through the air, changing things. She draws a chair close.

  ‘I promise we’ll be in and out. We won’t touch anything. And I’ll stay here with you. We just have to look round the door. Just to check.’

  I feel myself slipping into a panic. I look around for alcohol, but she’s putting the kettle on. She pours the hot water and the steam cuts through the dust in the air. I hear Laura’s bedroom door open and footsteps directly above me. DS Percy hears them too and sees my trembling hands. She sits down.

  ‘Look, Caroline, completely off the record, is there anything I can do to help.’

  I shake my head and wipe a tear away as I hear Laura’s door close and Charlie’s door open. I can see his room clearly, the Lego constructions carefully placed on the red and blue carpet squares. The Manchester United bedspread and the England posters. Charlie’s teddy bears, all in a line on a shelf above his bed, and a squishy rabbit that he’d had since he was a baby and wouldn’t go anywhere without. They wouldn’t even let me give it to him. She sighs.

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, I think you need professional help. With this.’ She waves at the boxes and looks around. ‘Is there anyone at work who can help?’

  I somehow dredge up the words.

  ‘It’s mainly research. I talk to my supervisor every month. She knows. She’s helping. A little.’

  She looks relieved, as if someone had taken the weight that is me and placed it on someone else.

  ‘Good. Good. But the thing that I don’t understand is about your children. You’re allowed to see them, aren’t you?’

  I nod. Stay quiet, Caroline. This is a dangerous time, when I’m upset. I could say anything. So I say nothing. She stares at me, waiting for me to defend myself. Explain why I’ve abandoned my own children. When it’s clear that I’m not going to speak, she carries on.

  ‘Your ex’s mother looks after them, yeah? And you and your husband have split access, with his mother looking after them when he’s out of the country?’

  I nod again.

  ‘It’s not access. There was not a custody order. It was an arrangement but I’m just too … too …’

  ‘And they’re still living with his mum, even though your ex is back?’

  In the middle of all the revelations and shockers that the last couple of days had brought, I hadn’t thought of this. I’d assumed – ha – assume makes an ass out of you and me – that you had only been back a few days. But why? Why, if you were back and living in one of those posh, spacious apartments, hadn’t you claimed Charlie and Laura? Wouldn’t that strengthen your case against me, make me look worse? I stare vacantly at her, listening to ‘Lewis’ close Charlie’s door and stomp across the landing. I need to say something or she will start to suspect I’m withholding.

  ‘I don’t know. I had no idea he was back. I don’t keep up with his movements. To be honest, it takes me all my time to look after myself. As you can see.’

  Despite myself, I break down. I might be lying through my back teeth, but some of it is painfully true. I sob deeply and she puts her arms around me. I don’t want this. I don’t want her close. Taking an interest. It’s the wrong thing. But I can’t stop the tears.

  She gets me a tissue and I blow my nose. She passes me my tea and sips hers. Lewis is in the bathroom now, struggling with the bath panel. I know how he feels, because that used to be a hiding place before I started to use the hole. All cleared now, just like the rest of the house. DS Percy’s features are soft and sympathetic and I can see that she’s trying to decide whether to say something. She eventually does.

  ‘Look, I shouldn’t really ask you this, but it’s been puzzling me. And when I saw those …’ She points to a huge pile of unopened mail. I never open mail. Never. I do all my banking over the internet and my pay slips arrive by email. ‘Well, the other day when I saw those I wondered if you had contacted social services.’

  Social fucking services? This is a new one.

  ‘I have. At the beginning. But they just told me to make an arrangement with Jack and his mother, and they wouldn’t speak to me. So … No. Not since then.’ But I do see my children. Every day that I can. Lunchtimes. Spaces between research meetings. I want to tell her that I watch them from a distance, willing them to feel my love. ‘Nothing’s wrong, is it?’

  I know nothing is wrong because if it was your fucking mother would have been telling me through the door yesterday, playing the martyr, reminding me how I’d ‘lost’ my children because everything is win or lo
se to her. DS Percy – call me Lorraine – panics.

  ‘Oh God, no. It’s just that, well, I don’t know if I should say …’

  I wait. And fucking wait. While she has a moral dilemma, I listen to ‘Lewis’ forcing the panel back on and then going into my bedroom. The room where you fucked Alicia Turnbull. He’s pulling out the divan drawers, looking for something that he doesn’t even have a picture of. I hear him push up the loft door and the ladders come down. DS Percy – I prefer to keep it formal – decides to spill the beans.

  ‘This thing is. Well, you’ve had some letters from social services asking you to contact them.’

  I look at the pile of letters. I should have opened them. I should have.

  ‘You see,’ she moves closer still and I can feel her breath on my face, ‘I wanted to understand what had gone on here. To see if there was more to this. So I requested your file. Your daughter has told her teacher that she wants to see you. Make contact.’

  Of all the things it could have been, I didn’t expect this. I’d convinced myself that my children completely hate me and have been fully influenced by your bitch mother and their lying bastard father. That they’d never, ever want anything to do with me.

  But Laura does. She wants to see me and she’s told someone that isn’t your mother or you. It lights a flame inside me and this is what I’ve been waiting for. I dive for the unopened letters, rifle through them frantically. Most of it is, as I suspected, junk mail, but she’s right, there are nine or ten from social services. I rip them open and scan the letters.

  It’s true. They want to see me ‘about a family matter’. They want me to make an appointment. I have a rush of despair – is it too late? But it isn’t. This seems to have happened recently, the last letter is dated only a couple of weeks ago. DS Percy is enjoying the high, pushing the junk mail into a bin bag and putting the letters in date order.

  Lewis appears, along with his colleague Sam.

  ‘Nothing. We’ve had a good look round. In the loft and everywhere.’ He looks through the kitchen window. ‘No shed?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Just a lock-up cupboard outside. Where I keep the lawn mower and that.’

  I pass him the key and they go outside. DS Percy looks at me.

  ‘So all’s not lost. Follow it up. And get this lot sorted out. You’ll have the kids here before long.’

  Her hand is on my arm again and she’s all touchy-feely with me. I put my hand over hers.

  ‘Thank you.’ I lie. I’m not thanking her at all. And she’s already looking like she shouldn’t have broken confidentiality and told me. I know guilt when I see it. I’m wishing her away so I can think what all this means. You set me up. Got someone to follow me. Take photos. You took my children away. You took them away, but now you don’t want them. But Laura wants me. I bet she asked your mother and she wouldn’t let her see me. You won’t let them see me.

  You know me. I’ll never give up. And now, now I know there is hope, I’m stronger. A lot stronger.

  You know me, Jack. And I know you. And I’m coming to get you.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It’s not just hope, it’s hope and anger all mixed into one huge mass of emotion. DS Percy stands in my kitchen, arms folded, watching Lewis and Sam wander around my garden. They look in the lockup cupboard and then walk up the lawn, stopping almost over the hole. Under normal circumstances I would have held my breath, scared to exhale in case something bad happened, but now I’m too preoccupied.

  It’s all bullshit. I realise that now. You’ve been playing a game with me. I suddenly understand. Why you made an elaborate plan to make me point at you and scream like a harpy. Why your mother took a photograph of the inside of my kitchen.

  You want to finish me off once and for all. Push me to the limits, accuse you of stalking me, while you stand there and shrug with your alibis. You can’t do anything to me because you will be the first suspect. So you’re trying to make me do it to myself. Again.

  All because my children want to see me. All because Laura has broken out and told on you and your mother, that you won’t let her see me, and that she wants to.

  The two police officers stand talking at the top of my garden, right over the hole. DS Percy is checking her texts, sipping her coffee. I sip mine and wish they would fuck off so that I can make a plan to get my kids back. To give you a taste of your own medicine. I know you, and you’ll be waiting, waiting, waiting for a call to tell you that I’ve accused you of all sorts. That I’ve found the journal and I’m raging. You’ll be ready to restate your alibi, with your cheating fucking lawyer at your side. Raking over the past, the she’s done this befores and the this is what she’s like eye-rolls.

  Of course, people will be saying, ‘How could she have suspected her ex of all this and never taken action?’ Of course they fucking will. It’s all the above and more. I’m too scared that I will be wrong, even when I’m right. That’s how it makes you. Unsure of everything you say. Suspicious that you are seeing things from the wrong perspective permanently. They’ll be the same people who look at women who don’t leave their abusive partners and pour scorn on them. ‘Why didn’t she just leave?’ Because she’s in a psychological prison that they are too single-minded to understand. Because the consequences for everyone, especially her children, are too high. The other person is holding all the cards. Every single one of them and the fear is so deep that it’s impossible. You know this, Jack, don’t you?

  You’ll be pushing for another search of our house, more disruption to my life. Pushing me over the edge of my sanity. It’s not going to work. You should know this. You’re the expert. All that training you did; all the nature/nurture debates you had with people who weren’t really interested.

  You’re the one who lectured me on the unconditional love that mothers have for their children. Your passive-aggressive style of making a point coming into its own as you verbally punished me for wanting to go back to work after having Laura. You never said it outright, so I could never accuse you, but you went on at length about how ‘kids who are “farmed out” end up damaged, it’s against what nature intended’.

  Now it’s going to bite you on the arse because just when you think you’re wearing me down, when you think I am weak again, I’m the strongest I’ve ever been. That’s the thing about being a mother. Whether you like it or not, you love your kids. Not like romantic love that can change to hate or that you can get over, given time, but a visceral caring that, even if you try to force it, won’t go away.

  It’s a deep worry that your child is hungry, in danger, making bad decisions, crying. I’ve had to sit here night after night wondering if Charlie and Laura were crying, ill, hurt, happy, sad; and not being able to go to them. I tried everything to forget, to stop the gnawing at my soul. I distracted myself with work and vodka and Amazon Prime and Premier Inn. I tried to convince myself that they had forgotten about me. That they no longer thought about me and their childhood with their mummy.

  The only time I actually achieved any kind of relief was in the in-between vodka trance I drank myself into on a regular basis. Now, it turns out, I don’t need to. Because Laura wants to see me. I’m still celebrating inside when Lewis and Sam come into the kitchen. DS Percy stands up and they prepare to leave.

  ‘Nothing. We’ve found nothing at all.’

  I nod.

  ‘So will you be bringing my stuff back, you know, the laptop and that?’

  She smiles. ‘As soon as they’ve finished. I don’t expect they’ll find anything of interest on there either.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, at least it’ll put a stop to this.’ I wave vacantly at the boxes. They all look at the sea of insipid cardboard packaging. ‘I’m going to speak to someone about it tomorrow.’

  They leave and I watch them drive away. I stand on the doorstep for a while. It’s quite exciting really. The thought of calling social services and making an appointment to see them. To arrange to see Laura. I don’t even
care if your mother comes with her, I can handle anything now. The thought of stepping up my game, of catching you in a trap of your own making.

  As soon as they’re gone, and they’re not coming back, I pick up the phone and dial the number on the letter. My children. I have a chance. The first ring. The second. I look around. What if the social worker says she is coming round tomorrow? What if she wants to inspect the house before she makes a decision? Third ring. Fear sets in. I desperately want this, but I need to sort myself out. And I need to sort you out. I reluctantly replace the receiver and the fear subsides a little.

  One thing that I need to do is to move the journal and Monica’s computer. A load of random shit in the hole is one thing, but those in particular would incriminate me. Oh God, what have I done?

  I wait until sunset then I take my wheelie bin around the front of the house for collection. The fucking dog starts to bark and I make a show of rolling the bin about until he’s in a snarling frenzy. Then I creep around my back garden and retrieve the things I need from the hole and go to work.

  I’m going to need a car. I know that I’ve got money in the bank – but when I check my internet banking on my work computer I’m shocked. Even after all the booze and Amazon purchases, all the direct debits and standing orders for things I use once then forget about, I’ve still got over fifty thousand pounds.

  I ring the bank and tell them I want to withdraw twenty thousand pounds in cash. That I’ll be calling at the local branch for it at lunchtime. To do my house up. Needs a complete renovation and several skips, I explain to the call that is recorded. My next call is to a skip company who I ask to deliver a medium-sized skip to my driveway and I will pay cash on delivery.