‘Caroline, you must have got back before me.’
‘Just been for some milk.’
I fumble with my keys and try to put everything in order in my mind. My overnight bag in the hotel. Jamie. My grandmother’s engagement ring. The Facebook #cheatingbastard #allgirlstogether thread. My hand is shaking and I can feel tears rising.
We go into the kitchen. She sits down opposite me and I can tell there is more. She gets out her little notebook.
‘OK, so we still don’t have a link between Peter Daubney and Brian Patterson, the other fraud victim, apart from you, or an identity for the stalker. So we’re working on that. But the other matter, well, it seems to have blown out of proportion. Your ex-husband has been down to the station with his solicitor demanding that you are arrested.’
Of course he has. I don’t say anything. She looks at me and waits for a reaction.
‘To complicate matters, the holdall was found at his mother’s house.’
This time I gasp.
‘You’re kidding me! But why …?’
‘It was found this morning with some other things.’
‘Right. So she was posting the pictures?’
She sighs. I study her face. She looks tired. Dark circles under her eyes. I wonder if she has kids and a husband. If she can possibly imagine what I’ve been through.
‘That’s the problem. We have no evidence it was her.’
‘But she had the bag. When you thought I had the bag, you thought it was me posting the pictures. Have you charged her? And where are my children?’
She shakes her head. ‘The thing is, she has no motive to post, well, pictures like that of her son. And she denies it. We would have to prove it. And there are other things. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more. It’s more than my job’s worth. But what I will say is that your ex-husband is gunning for you. He absolutely insists that you are behind this.’
She’s warning me. She’s telling me to be careful, without telling me. I’ll take that. But I need to know something else.
‘Have you got children?’
She reddens. She’s actually wondering whether to tell me or not.
‘Yeah, I have.’
‘Then you’ll understand why I need to know where my children are.’
‘Yes. Yes. They’re with his mother.’
I breathe out. So they’re not with Jack and one of his lying girlfriends. Not playing happy families with Katy and Jamie.
‘Thank you. I appreciate it. You know, they’re all that really matters to me.’
She nods, but I see her looking at the bottle of milk. Checking it out, scoping where it came from.
‘I’ll get going, then. Give me a call if anything else occurs to you. I’ll be in touch.’
Her eyes are on my shoes and my jumper, looking for clues as to where I have been. She has the journal now, so she has the key to all this. She suspects something. I need to act fast.
Chapter Twenty-five
I watch her as she walks down the drive. She stops beside my car and feels the bonnet. Then she walks towards her car and walks straight past it. I run downstairs and out of the kitchen door. As I duck through the back fence and up the alleyway I see her walking towards the shops.
Did they have CCTV? Shit. Shit. Shit. I still had the wig on when I went in. I follow her, keeping back. Outside the shop she looks around for cameras. There are none. She goes in and I stand around the side where I can just see her through a gap in the newspaper stand in the window.
She looks at the milk then speaks to the assistant. She raises her phone and shows her something and the assistant shakes her head. She looks around for CCTV and the assistant shakes her head again.
I run, run, run before she can see me and I’m back at home to see her take a last look at my house before she drives away. I wait twenty minutes – enough time for her to not be coming back but not enough time for her to send someone to watch the house. I’m shaky and upset. She’s starting to believe them. She’s starting to think it’s me. It’s just like before.
It’s getting late now but I take the back roads up into the hills, then the dimly lit lanes. One thing in particular is playing on my mind. I saw your mother at the police station. They brought her in. She had the bag. So why haven’t they charged her?
Some people lead a charmed life. They never get found out. For some people it takes a considerable effort to cover themselves, but others just charm their way out of it. She’s like that. Melissa Atkinson. Missy, as everyone calls her.
She even looks like a Missy. A blonde bob, neutral clothing. Beige and navy. Chanel and Dior lines. Even though she’s barely middle class and had to scrape enough money together to keep the house when her husband died, she was always considered ‘posh’. Or ‘snobby’, as my friends called her.
But I’ve known her a long time. I know her secrets. I know how she would pay for a bottle of milk in the shop, the same late-night Costcutter’s as I went to today, and take a loaf of bread on the way out. When she got caught she would claim that she was on her way back to the till to pay. If she’d been a regular run-ragged housewife, they would have called the police. I’ve seen it happen.
Because she was tidy and well-spoken it was difficult to resist her lies. She would explain to us that they couldn’t have done anything because it’s not a crime until you get outside the shop. She didn’t pay for anything she didn’t have to.
‘Who can I use today?’
She would actually say it. Neighbours and friends would come around with shopping and cooked food that she never paid for. I grew to realise that she thrived on the awkwardness of situations that stopped anyone asking her for money. As a result, she could save her salary from the antiques shop she managed part-time and the family allowance and buy herself ‘key items’.
These were mainly designer clothes that she would mix and match with charity-shop-sourced designer labels to give her an expensive aura. Jack seemed oblivious that it was wrong. That she was stealing and manipulating. He simply learned it and used it in his own life. I was too engrossed in him and my college work to realise how bad she actually was. How damaging the lies were, and how she believed her own hype.
It wasn’t until my wedding day that I fully understood how destructive she was. I thought we were keeping her sweet because you were as desperate as I was for us to have our own lives. For us to be together.
I’d planned the day meticulously. We had a lot of friends – a very popular couple – and the reception numbers were brimming with hangers-on. Early on, she’d tried to muscle in on the planning, but gave in surprisingly easily, telling me she had other things she could be doing. I was relieved, because her ideas and my ideas did not match. Relieved but wary.
I thought she was being nice by offering to put down the deposit on a small semi-detached for us. We all went along to see it and I started to plan the curtains and the carpets. When I became busy with the wedding, she offered to take over the financial dealings with the house and I let her. I fucking let her.
I thought we would be going home. Home to our house. Missy had other ideas. I found out on my wedding day that the mortgage had ‘fallen through’. I knew that look by now, a slight smirk to hide a lie. An amused expression, waiting for my response. Deep down I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t surprised that she wanted you with her and I wasn’t surprised when we left our wedding party and returned to her home and she had a room ready for us. Missy always got what she wanted and she wanted you. Then, when we had the kids, she wanted them. But not me.
So I learned from the best. Somewhere inside me I knew that everything I experienced, all Missy’s little tricks, would come in handy one day. The problem was that until now I hadn’t been able to deal with the accompanying feelings. I didn’t think I had it in me to face it out. Not like her.
Now things are different. I knew back then and I know now that she doesn’t hate me. She just doesn’t care about me. Missy doesn’t care about anyone except her
self. Everything’s a battle to her and for years I felt sorry for her. It must have been exhausting. Even when she took Charlie and Laura and I’d recovered from the initial shock, I knew she would look after them.
It would be a challenge for her. She would make absolutely sure that everyone knew she was the best grandmother ever. She would put everything she had into it and they would receive the best care, and her best attempt at love. She wanted them, but they were also a means to an end and I was confident that when they got older I would have my chance to love them again. It’s what kept me going.
Now that time is here. If I can get it all to come together by Tuesday, to show that I am a good person, supporting other women, just fighting for my rights, then I have a real chance.
I drive a mile past the hotel and check Facebook on made-up Monica’s laptop. While it’s booting I assemble Frances’s phone. I post some more photos to her Facebook. People are linking it to Monica’s thread and tagging her. Five messages. I listen to the first one.
‘Fran. I’m getting worried now. Why’s the shop shut? Is it about that Facebook thing? Why did you post it? Where are you? Ring me back?’
Then: ‘Hi. This is a message for Frances Burrows. Please could you call DS Percy at Greater Manchester Police. As soon as possible.’
I drop the phone in my panic to get the battery and SIM card out. My God. She’s following it up. She’s tracking the women and probably getting statements. They all think it’s me. I jump out of the car and onto the soft moss at the side of the road. In the distance I see the moon reflected on a moorland pool. I run to the edge and hurl the phone and the battery into the water.
Think, Caroline, think. She’s got the journal. Why wouldn’t she investigate? This is why you took the phone in the first place, to find out. All she’s going to find is evidence of lying and cheating. There’s the little cricket and mouse incident with Frances, which I’m mortified about, but she’s probably got a new phone by now and she’ll get hold of her on that.
I never thought she was stupid. I knew she would get both sides of the story and I knew that this was where it would get tough, because he’s so fucking plausible. Of course she has to look into what’s in that journal. Some of those women will have complained as well. They’ll have instinctively thought that it was me. So she’s just ruling me out. She can’t prove anything.
I walk back to the car, still mulling over DS Percy. She knows all this is connected somehow, and it’s connected by me. So she’s sticking by me. But how has it escalated? Why is Jack suddenly at the station again with his solicitor? I have to be careful. The only thing I can do now is carry on with my plan. It’s the only way. Until I’ve been to the social services meeting. I’m too deep in now to do anything else, even though the only thing I really want to do is to hug my children.
I get back in my car and drive back to the layby. I open Monica’s laptop and log into Facebook. I’m Alicia now and the thread has grown and grown. Lots more women are sharing their Jack stories and the whole thing has been shared. Other women who don’t even know you are on the #cheatingbastard #allgirlstogether thread, sharing their stories about men who had sex with them and used them.
They’re posting pictures of themselves and one of them has mentioned Twitter. I log into my Twitter account and type the #cheatingbastard keywords in and it’s gone viral. It’s trending. They’ve added a #Jacksthedaddy hashtag. Twitter has firmly divided itself into two camps – #teamJack and #teamCaro. I can see why you’re so furious now. And I’m fucking delighted.
Chapter Twenty-six
#Jacksthedaddy. I couldn’t have made that up myself. All I wanted was for people to realise what a cheating piece of shit you are, but this has exceeded all my expectations. Still, I know you, Jack. You’ll already be planning to get your own back.
‘I did it because Caroline didn’t understand me’ isn’t going to wash with what appears to be a lynch mob gathering on social networking. ‘She was no good in bed. That’s why I marked them out of ten.’ Nah. ‘She was busy with the children and work.’ Nope. Even, ‘She was crazy and always accusing me of having affairs.’ That definitely won’t work.
The world’s shrinking. Just you and your solicitor now. Sitting in his office, planning how you can stop me. There’s no evidence it’s me, so I wonder what the Director of Public Prosecutions will say? I haven’t broken the injunction or the family access order. I haven’t accused you of sending those photos like you thought I would, so you could have an alibi and I would look like a paranoid mess. As far as I’m concerned – and DS Percy is concerned, for that matter – all I know is what I’ve read on Facebook and Twitter.
I feel better now. Kind of supported. I know that studies have been done about empathy, and it always helps when someone else has suffered in the same way as you. I am starting to have a helicopter view of this now; I can look at it from the outside. The Twitter storm is erupting, with men joining in to defend you. Real charmers, fellow #cheatingbastards and the kind of men who would let you get up before them so that you could make breakfast for them. Or fuck your sister. Which reminds me: Paula. Next but one in the queue. I Google her and try to find her on Facebook. I’ve reconciled myself that the other women were like me, duped, but Paula’s different. She knew. I’ll find her eventually.
I take a last look at Facebook. Someone has posted a blog article about the women in the journal. An analysis of everyone up to Katy Squires, with a little drawing of them at the side. She’s drawn you as a good-looking but slimy wolf, preying on those poor girls. I thought I knew better. I thought that they were equally responsible. That they all knew you were married. But even as I think it, a question mark hangs over it. Did they know or were they duped, like Pam claims? I refresh the page and then check your profile.
There’s a statement.
As many of you know, Caroline and I divorced a year ago. At the time there was some fuss about my being unfaithful. Can I just assure my friends who have supported me, and Charlie and Laura, through this tough time, that what has happened over the last couple of days is a re-occurrence of Caroline’s unfortunate mental illness. We wish her well but appeal to her to stop the damage that this is causing to lives.
That’s it. I’m going to face you with this. You’re the one who is mentally ill. You’re a serial adulterer and a psychopath. Why didn’t I just tell DS Percy that you’re behind the photos? That you’re trying to discredit me in a power struggle. Again, only my word for it. Anyway. Sod the injunction. I need to see you face to face. I can’t carry on talking to you in my head. I need to tell you that I know for sure and so does everyone else.
As I drive up towards the posh flat up in the hills, I wonder at Jack’s audacity. The odds are stacked against anyone believing him but he still has to stick the knife in and turn it. It’s as if he can’t come to terms with the fact that he’s been found out.
I grip the steering wheel and my knuckles are white. I want him to look at me, right at me, now that we are equal. Now that I know everything. I want him to smirk at me now, look down his nose. Wave me away, be completely distracted because I don’t matter. He won’t be able to, because he knows me. He knows that he doesn’t have the power over me that he used to have. It’s fading. He’s fading.
I pull up to the flats and there are several prestige cars parked outside. I make a bet with myself that his is the Aston Martin. He always fancied himself as a bit of a James Bond. I stop at the bottom of the driveway and park up behind some bushes. Even though I’m in Jane Smith’s car and I’m disguised, you can’t be too careful. There’s no way of knowing how the layout is organised, so I have no choice but to go up to the main door and read the list.
Number 23 is a ground-floor apartment. According to a helpful leaflet in the entrance hall it’s facing outwards on to a picturesque lake and a forest. How lovely. It also has a small raised balcony, which frames double sliding doors to the main living area.
I press the buzzer. I don’t leave it
long enough before I start to press it more urgently. I keep my finger on it and I’m just changing hands when a woman appears from the front flat.
‘Can I help you?’
She’s aggressive and annoyed and I check that I have been pressing Jack’s buzzer and not hers. I just stare at her.
‘You’re pressing the doorbell to an empty flat.’
‘It’s not empty. Jack Atkinson lives there.’
She sighs.
‘It’s been empty for ages. Perhaps you’ve got the wrong building?’
I step backwards. The inlaid stone says Villa Place. The woman at United Utilities definitely said number 23.
‘Oh, wait a minute. There was a bloke round here about two months ago. Had a look round with an estate agent, then came back a couple of days later. Tall, good-looking in a classic kind of—’
‘Yes. That’ll be him.’
She folds her arms and moves closer.
‘Not seen him since, more’s the pity.’
I walk away and she watches me as I turn at the bottom of the drive. I creep up behind the bushes and across the lawns at the back of the building. The flat with the balcony is in darkness but that doesn’t mean anything. I know he travels a lot. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t seen him.
I have to sidle up to the nosy woman’s window and I can see her eating toast and jam. I wait until she goes into the kitchen and then I run across the front of the window and climb up onto the balcony. The green velvet curtains are slightly parted and I peer through them, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light.
She’s right. It’s empty. No furniture. I can see into the kitchen. No cooker or fridge. There’s a mezzanine where the bed would go, but again, empty. The gas and electric are on – I can see a glow inside the boiler and plug socket switches show little red lights here and there. I’m about to walk away and admit defeat when I see a small bedroom window further up the apartment.
Perfect Ten Page 17
