The Good Samaritan

by John Marrs

  He continued by explaining that Laura’s father had used her to help him kill himself and her sisters. It went a long way to explaining her obsession with death.

  ‘Three years ago, while we were redeveloping our house, our marriage was going through a rough patch,’ he said. ‘One afternoon, the tumble dryer stopped working, and wedged behind it I found an envelope Laura had hidden. Inside was a long, detailed psychiatric report about her time in the care of social services. She’d been found a foster home with a woman called Sylvia and her son. Apparently dozens of kids had been in her care over the years and she’d even won a CBE or some such honour for it. Sylvia’s boy was a couple of years older than Laura but had some learning difficulties. He was fascinated by her and followed her around like a puppy, doing everything she told him to do, like shoplifting and fighting other kids at school. Sylvia kept Laura there for as long as she could, but she had to put her lad’s well-being first and Laura was by all accounts a terrible influence. But when social services arrived to take Laura away, she’d wound Sylvia’s son up so much that he attacked his mum. He punched her and pushed her so hard that she fell, hit her head. Died instantly. He was sent to a young offenders institute and then an adult prison. Laura got away with it.’

  ‘Did you tell her what you knew?’

  Tony nodded. ‘She denied it all. She claimed the report was falsified to hide the local authority’s own failings and I really think that’s what she believes. You need to know that my wife doesn’t recognise her own lies. The psychologists wrote that she rewrites episodes from her history and her recent past if they don’t suit her. She will always be the victim, never the guilty one. And she rearranges timelines and locations. Events that happened weeks ago she’ll think happened yesterday, and somewhere completely different.’

  ‘So when you learned all this about her, that’s when you left with your children?’

  ‘No, and that’s the biggest regret of my life.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Henry might still be the normal little boy he was when he was born.’

  I looked at him and waited for more, but he shook his head and brought our conversation to a close.

  ‘This will be the last time that you and I talk, Mr Smith,’ he said, and walked towards a red Audi.

  ‘Can I ask you one last thing?’ I said. ‘When I first started phoning her at End of the Line, she called me David. Do you know why?’

  ‘That was Sylvia’s son,’ Tony replied as he clambered into his car, choosing to drink and drive over facing any more questions from me. ‘When he came out of prison, he lived rough in Northampton. Laura brought him to the house a few times to clean him up – maybe she’d developed a conscience about what she’d done to him, or perhaps she’d changed their history to something that suited her better. David Nathan, but she called him by his nickname, Nate.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  LAURA

  Janine eyed me sceptically when I removed two raspberry and white chocolate muffins from a Tupperware box and left them on a plate on her desk.

  ‘They’re gluten-free.’ I smiled. ‘I made them last night.’ The first part I was lying about, the second part I wasn’t. For once I had baked them myself. ‘It seems a shame everyone gets to enjoy my baking but you. Sorry, but I ran out of paper cases.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and I turned to leave her office, but not before ‘accidentally’ kicking her vulgar orange handbag.

  ‘Oops,’ I said, and smiled as I bent down to straighten it up. She was too engrossed in her muffin to notice me removing her iPad.

  Back at my desk, I checked my mobile phone to see if the police had been in touch regarding Ryan’s break-in. It’d been six days now and still they hadn’t updated me. Likewise, there’d been no contact from Effie’s head teacher. What the hell was going on with these people? I didn’t want the accusation of Ryan trying to molest Effie to go as far as a court case, because she was not as strong as me – she’d crumble under questioning. I just wanted that accusation and the pornography found on his work computer to be enough to make it impossible for him to return to his post.

  They’d eventually learn the images had been placed there by a third party. I’d spent hours trawling the Internet searching for pictures of teenage girls in various states of undress involving school uniforms to show Ryan had a fetish for them. It was impossible to tell if they were underage and it didn’t matter – it would add to the mounting pressure I was piling upon him. I’d moved the images to a memory stick and given it to Effie. She’d spent so much time in Ryan’s office that she’d seen him input his password into his computer. It didn’t take much effort for her to log on, transfer my folder of pictures into his files and leave.

  I’d already got what I wanted when Ryan was suspended, but the longer the school and the police took to investigate, the more time they were giving him to plan his next move. I wanted to push him as quickly as possible into whatever he’d do next without thinking it out properly. Then he’d make even bigger mistakes and I could crush him once and for all. And, of course, there would be a next move, because that’s what I would do. He and I were a lot more alike than he would care to admit – constantly striving to stay one step ahead of each other.

  I took my landline off the hook so I wouldn’t be disturbed, put my mobile phone on my lap where nobody could see and went into my media files. It was time to see how far I could go before Ryan cracked. When I had finished, I swapped the phone for Janine’s iPad and set to work using it against her.

  I watched from my booth as she flicked through the office diary and saw a drop-in caller booked fifteen minutes after my shift finished. I’d asked Mary if she wouldn’t mind adding it, as the caller had asked for Janine by name.

  ‘Ryan Smith,’ I told her.

  ‘Okily dokily,’ Mary had replied chirpily. ‘I’ll be Big Brother and make sure the cameras are on.’

  ‘Oh, you needn’t bother,’ I replied. ‘I think they’re old friends.’

  Janine’s greed was satisfyingly predictable, and I smiled to myself when she couldn’t resist tucking into the second muffin.

  Once I’d begun answering calls again, I slipped into autopilot with my responses and questions, all the time keeping an eye on the clock and willing my shift to end. Then I waved goodbye to the other volunteers, grabbed my coat and bag, and made my way downstairs.

  When the door to the drop-in office opened a few minutes later, Janine was surprised to find me sitting there, waiting for her.

  ‘Take a seat,’ I began. ‘I think you and I need to have a long-overdue conversation.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  RYAN

  I had nowhere to go, no friends or family to talk to about the mess I was in, and no way to resolve any of it. From the moment Charlotte threw herself from that clifftop, my life was no longer mine to control.

  Alcohol gave me the strength I needed to open the door to the nursery in the flat for the first time since Charlotte and Daniel’s deaths. There was a gossamer-thin layer of dust on everything from the changing table to the veneer flooring. I looked up to the ceiling and noticed the missing battery cover from the animal mobile. I’d left it open to remind me to buy batteries the next time I passed a supermarket. By the time I remembered, my family was dead and the mobile never moved. The animal theme continued across a row of cushions scattered on a sofa-bed, emblazoned with textured cartoon giraffes and elephants that would never feel my son’s ten tiny fingertips.

  I closed the door and took myself to my bedroom. I’d been drinking on an empty stomach, so it hadn’t taken much to get me drunk. But now I was tired, so I crawled, fully clothed, under the duvet. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Tony had told me about Laura. From the beginning, I hadn’t stood a chance against her. She was a survivor who had years more experience of manipulating others and getting away with it than I had. Even her own husband was convinced she had a psychological disorder. She was impossible to predict o
r outwit.

  My biggest mistake had been using Effie to get to her. If I’d just remained in the shadows and called it quits after she’d fled the house, I’d have been okay. Instead, I’d unleashed a whole new vitriolic side to her.

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t have slept for long, as it was still light outside when a banging on my front door woke me up, and what sounded like my dad’s muffled voice.

  I heard the key turn and he entered the hall. I climbed out of bed too fast and my head spun. He was with Mum; she was crying, and immediately I knew they’d learned of my arrest. My heart sank.

  ‘Why haven’t you been answering your phone?’ Dad demanded. I looked at it – the display was black; the battery must have died.

  Mum thrust her iPad into my chest.

  ‘Open it,’ she ordered. ‘Look at my Facebook page.’

  ‘How long have you had a—’

  ‘Just open it!’

  I scanned her timeline and immediately wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Message after message referring to her son as a paedophile and demanding that I should be fired from school or castrated. I felt dizzy and steadied myself against the wall. Dad grabbed the device and swiped through pages from school-related Facebook groups, created by parents to discuss issues that affected their children in different Years.

  ‘Years Seven, Eight, Nine . . . right up to Year Thirteen,’ Dad continued, ‘all talking about how you’ve been suspended for molesting a girl and terrorising her mother.’

  At the top of each page, and in a post made from an account with no picture but using the name Charlotte Smith, was a photograph of me, an audio file of the recording Effie had made and video footage of me trying to break into Laura’s house. I wanted to be sick.

  ‘Mum, this is not what it looks like . . .’ I began, but she gave me a look that told me that whatever I had to say wouldn’t exonerate me from what she’d read, heard and watched.

  ‘Where’s Johnny? He can back me up and tell you this isn’t true. Well, not all of it, not in the way they’re saying it is. I’m not a child molester. I promise you.’

  ‘Is that your voice on the recording?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And who’s the girl?’

  ‘Effie Morris, one of my students.’

  ‘And who is that woman whose house you broke into?’

  ‘It’s the girl’s mother, but she has it in for me. She killed Charlotte.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Charlotte killed herself.’

  ‘Look, I know I’m not making any sense, but it’s a long story . . .’

  ‘She’s a fourteen-year-old girl, what the hell were you thinking?’ Dad asked.

  ‘I didn’t touch her!’ I yelled in frustration.

  ‘Then what was she doing alone in a car with you? You say you gave her lifts home! I’m not a teacher and even I know that’s wrong. And why the hell were you trying to break into someone’s house?’

  ‘You’re not fucking listening to me!’ The speed at which I flew off the handle took even me by surprise. ‘You’re as bad as everyone on Facebook, believing those lies! You’re not letting me give my side of the story.’

  ‘You’ve had some kind of breakdown,’ Mum continued, tears streaming down her face. ‘The stress of what happened with Charlotte, you’re not dealing with it properly. You’ve been confused. And those things aren’t helping.’ She pointed towards a fresh six-pack of lager. ‘We can get you help.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ I said. The room began swimming faster and faster and the walls and ceiling were closing in on me. I had to get out of there and away from their noise.

  I grabbed my car keys from the bedside cabinet and pushed past Mum. However, my shoulder caught hers and knocked her off balance, sending her spinning into the wall and then the floor.

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ I said and went to help her up. Dad retaliated by shoving me out of her reach and raising his fist towards me. We remained in stalemate for a moment, before he thought better of it. Instead, he bent down to help Mum up.

  There was nothing else I could say or do to pacify them, so I left the flat and staggered towards the car.

  I no longer had any choice in what to do next. I knew I had to go and see the only person who could bring an end to all of this, and beg the woman who killed my wife and baby to show me mercy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  LAURA

  ‘I assume you weren’t expecting to find me here?’ I said.

  Janine hovered by the door, debating whether to leave, or stay and face the music. She hesitated, before curiosity got the better of her.

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ she replied.

  ‘Take a seat.’

  She didn’t move. ‘I don’t answer to you, Laura.’

  ‘But you want to know why I’ve gone to the trouble of getting you here though, don’t you?’

  ‘If it was you who put Ryan Smith’s name in my diary, then I’m quite sure I can guess why. You’ve learned that he and I have met, and now you want to convince me that he’s some kind of fantasist who has an obsession with you. Does that about cover it?’

  ‘And what would you say if I said yes?’

  ‘I’d tell you that when he first called asking to see me and gave a brief outline of why, I did think that he was just a troubled soul. Then I’d tell you that I did a little background research and discovered he was a teacher.’

  ‘Did he mention that he’s also taught my daughter Effie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or that he spent months grooming her before making sexual advances towards her? She’s fourteen years old. He’s currently suspended, pending investigation.’

  ‘No, he didn’t. But then I only have your word for that, don’t I? And you are hardly the epitome of honesty, are you?’

  Janine sank her shapeless frame into the sofa opposite mine, crossed her legs and folded her arms.

  ‘Your body language is quite hostile,’ I continued.

  ‘Let’s just say that you don’t bring out the best in me.’

  I leaned forward. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘I’m not like the others upstairs who think the sun shines out of your backside. They only like to see the good in people, but I can see what they can’t. I’m not blind to how you operate; I’ve watched you manipulate people with your Mary Poppins act. You can float into the office on an umbrella with your store-bought cakes and the clothes you pretend you’ve repaired. And you can impersonate a wonderful, devoted-to-her-family mum as much as you like, but I can see through you.’

  ‘I’ve never claimed to be perfect.’

  ‘You’ve never tried to dispel the myth either.’

  ‘You made a judgement about me without knowing me. From the day you started, you disliked me.’

  ‘And I was right to, wasn’t I? I’m a good judge of character and I’ve met plenty of people like you over the years. You convince everyone that you’re on their side but it’s all for show, it’s all to hide who you really are.’

  ‘Who am I then? Enlighten me.’

  ‘You’re someone who gets her kicks from encouraging vulnerable people to die.’ When no expression crossed my face, she continued. ‘Ryan was right about what you did to his wife, wasn’t he? And she wasn’t the first. That’s why this branch’s suicide statistics are higher than any others, because you are actively encouraging it.’

  My eyes flicked towards the security cameras. Their green lights didn’t flash, indicating they weren’t recording.

  Finally, I gave her a condescending smile. ‘There is one thing that I like about you, Janine – and believe me, it’s only one thing – your self-belief. You really think everything that comes out of your own mouth is the gospel truth.’

  ‘When it comes to you, yes, I do.’

  ‘And just so it’s clear, your perception of me has nothing to do with the fact that you’re screwing my husband?’

  Janine’s calm composure faltered ever so slightly befo
re she quickly regained it. ‘So it was you, then . . . The word scratched into my car door. I told Tony that it was your doing, but he was adamant you didn’t know about us.’

  I was happy to hear my husband still saw the good in me.

  ‘You try to put me down and make these horrible accusations, when all you really want to do is push me out of End of the Line so you don’t have to see my face every day and feel guilty for what you’ve done to my marriage. You’re a homewrecker.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, so I don’t feel guilty about anything. Tony and me got together long after he walked out on your madness.’

  ‘But you set your sights on him before that, didn’t you? I saw your hopeless attempts to flirt with him at Mary’s sixtieth birthday dinner.’

  ‘Only they weren’t hopeless, were they?’ She gave me a sly smile.

  ‘And I suppose you think you know me after everything my husband has told you about me?’

  ‘He’s said very little, actually.’

  ‘Do you expect me to believe that?’

  ‘I don’t care what you believe. But for some reason, probably only because you’re the mother of his children, he still feels a sense of loyalty towards you.’

  I was pleased to hear Tony kept secrets from Janine, and I knew just why he hadn’t told her about my personal business. Four years earlier, he’d coerced me into ‘borrowing’ £25,000 of End of the Line’s charitable donations to help him when he set up his IT business. I still had the bank account numbers of where the payments had really gone. They were so cleverly squirrelled away that even the charity’s auditors had no clue that money meant for them had been directed elsewhere.

  Even if it meant dropping myself in it, I’d have gone to the police with them had Tony not allowed me to see Effie the day we met with the head teacher. And, as you don’t keep secrets from the one you love, clearly Tony didn’t love Janine.