by Lauren North
Was it him following me? What does he want, Mark?
I brush too close to the shelves and knock into a display of sweets. A packet of Haribo drops to the floor with a crackle of plastic. It’s when I’m bending down to retrieve them that I see the newspapers—knee height and spread out so that every front page is visible.
My breath catches in my throat and I make a noise, a yelp. Every newspaper, every single one—tabloid and broadsheet alike—has the same photo on the front page. I’ve seen the image before—watching the news on the TV in the hours, the days that followed the visit from the police. When I clung to every word about the crash, desperately praying they’d made a mistake. Got the wrong flight number, or found survivors.
I stopped watching when they showed the crisp white body bags lining the concrete beside the black, charred wreckage. There was no mistake, there were no survivors.
I’ve stayed off the Internet and Facebook, I’ve kept the TV channel on Jamie’s kids’ shows. I’ve hidden us away in our bubble of grief. But I guess somewhere in the weeks that have passed I assumed the news cycle had moved on to an earthquake or a political scandal. I was wrong.
My chest heaves up and down, up and down. I’m breathing, I know I am, but I can’t seem to get the air in. My head is spinning. It’s too hot. My scarf is too tight around my neck. The heat of the shop is suffocating me and I’m sweating under my clothes. The walls are closing in. I can’t breathe. I can’t think.
When I open my eyes the photo of the wreckage, the body bags, swims into focus and I read the bold lettering of one of the headlines: SUICIDE PILOT’S FAMILY FINALLY SPEAKS OUT.
Underneath is a smaller headline that reads: Seven Weeks On the Parents of Philip Curtis Break Their Silence. There’s movement at the door and I cry out as I turn. It’s the man in the black baseball cap here to get me.
I can’t breathe.
“Tess, it’s me,” Shelley says, her voice loud and clear in my ears. I stumble back, knocking against the sweets again, and when I blink Shelley is standing before me in her black winter coat.
“It’s OK, I’m here,” she soothes, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and steering me away from the newspapers and out of the shop, only stopping when we reach a bench on the street.
“That’s it,” Shelley says. “Breathe. You’re OK. You’re having a panic attack. You’re OK. Just keep breathing.”
A panic attack? It feels more like I’m dying. My heart is racing so hard it feels like it’s going to explode. My head is filled with helium and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get the breath into my lungs.
It’s another few minutes before I notice the rain drizzling on my face, soothing my hot skin. The day pulls back into focus—I smell the salt water in the air again and hear the cars moving on the wet road and the cry of the seagulls above my head.
The world has kept turning. I’m not dying.
“Sorry,” I whisper, drawing in a long breath.
“Don’t be sorry. Seeing those newspapers must’ve been a terrible shock.”
“I . . . I thought they’d moved on to something else. I didn’t think it was still news.”
“It’s not front page every day now, but it’s still a big story. I’m sorry. It can’t be easy seeing it.”
“There was someone following me too.” I sit up straight and look around. Shoppers are hurrying to get out of the rain. The street is quieter, the market stalls are packing up, and there’s no sign of the man I saw in the dark hoody and baseball cap. “Do I call the police?”
“Are you sure they were following you, Tess? One hundred percent sure?”
“Yes.” I nod.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
So I do. From the moment I stepped out of the alley until she called me.
Shelley slips her hand in mine before she speaks. “Is it possible that you saw someone by the building and they made you jump, and when they started walking, you freaked out and thought they were following you?”
“I . . . I don’t think so. He was definitely chasing me.”
“Did you see this person actually running behind you? Did they call out to you?”
I close my eyes and think back. I heard his footsteps, I felt him closing in, but I didn’t turn back, I didn’t see. “No . . . but—”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Tess. If you tell me that you’re one hundred percent sure that someone was following you, then I’ll come with you right now and we’ll report it at the police station.” She gives my hand an extra squeeze. “I just want you to think first about how certain you are. Maybe this trip was too much for you and you started to panic and imagined the worst.”
My mouth is dry and it’s hard to swallow as I process Shelley’s words. I thought I was sure. My fear was real, I know that much, but Shelley’s thoughts ring with a truth I can’t ignore.
“I . . . I don’t know. There was a car right behind me all the way from the village. Someone might’ve followed me?”
Shelley doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. I can hear the waver of doubt in my voice. Lots of people use the lane.
“Shall we get out of the rain and get lunch?” Shelley asks. “Or do you want to go home? I can drive you and you can collect your car tomorrow.”
I nod. “Thank you. I think I should go home, but I’m OK to drive. Sorry for messing up our plans.”
“It’s fine, Tess. I’m glad I was here to help you. I’m visiting my sister in Hertfordshire this weekend but let’s arrange another trip together next week. I’ll come with you from the start. Until then, stay close to home, OK? If this happens again and you’re alone it could be much scarier for you.”
Scarier than this?
Shelley is right about one thing—I wasn’t ready to come out today. Driving on the lanes was too much. It felt so good to leave the village and be away from the house, but now all I want is to be back there, safe and protected in my bubble of grief. Shelley is probably right about the man I saw too, but the fear is still pumping through my blood. He was so close to getting me, I’m sure of it.
Shelley and I walk back to the car park arm in arm. We’re both soaked from the rain. Shelley’s mascara has smudged beneath her eyes and her normally glossy hair is damp and clinging to her head. She is still beautiful though.
“Thank you,” I whisper as we say good-bye.
“It’s what friends are for.” Shelley smiles. “I’ll call you later, and remember—no trips out. Wait for me to come with you,” she says, hugging me tight.
* * *
—
When I’m home and the back door is locked and I feel safe again, I sit for a while at the kitchen table staring at nothing. Rain patters on the glass panes.
Was it real? Was that man with the hat pulled low and the dark clothes following me?
I reach for the notebook Shelley gave me and turn to a clean page before I write. The pen feels alien in my grip and my hands are still shaking with a jitter that makes the letters almost impossible to form. Almost.
Followed in Manningtree by a man in a black baseball cap, I write. Could be imagination????? It felt real!
I add the date and the time and stare at the words.
I wish I knew what it meant, Mark. I wish you were here to help me.
CHAPTER 25
IAN
I really had no idea what was going on with Tess. The first I heard of someone threatening her was from you. But I’ll tell you this—my brother was always crap with money growing up. If someone was after Tess then that’s the first place I’d look. I bailed Mark out more times than I can remember when we were teenagers. I gave him his first loan when he was twelve and he never paid me back. I offered to take over the probate of Mark’s will because, well frankly, someone had to do it and it clearly wasn’t going to be Tess.
From what I c
ould see she was barely getting dressed most days. Personally, I’ve always thought it was a ridiculous idea for spouses to name each other as executors for each other’s will. It’s not something we encourage at Clarke & Barlow Solicitors. I’m surprised my business partner didn’t point that out to them at the time. Tess was devastated, obviously, but the legal arrangements can and often do drag on for months. I didn’t want Tess to wait too long. Credit card companies and banks don’t generally care that much when someone dies. They still expect to be paid, and I didn’t want Tess falling into arrears. She didn’t listen to me though; she was too busy letting Shelley take over.
SHELLEY
We started seeing a lot of each other. I really believe it did Tess the world of good. She was feeling better. I was on my way to meeting Tess when I called her and she told me someone was following her. By the time I got there she was having a full-blown panic attack.
I should’ve taken her more seriously. I didn’t know what to think. It’s a horrible thing to say now, and of course I didn’t say anything to her at the time, but I did wonder if it was her imagination getting the better of her. It can’t have been easy living in that big old house.
If I could go back and do it all over again then of course I would’ve done something, but Tess didn’t tell me everything that was going on. Maybe if she had, things might’ve been different. You have to believe me, I would never hurt Tess, and if things had been different, I wouldn’t have hurt Jamie either.
CHAPTER 26
Transcript BETWEEN ELLIOT SADLER (ES) AND TERESA CLARKE (TC) (INPATIENT AT OAKLANDS HOSPITAL, HARTFIELD WARD), WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11. SESSION 2 (Cont.)
TC: I don’t know what I think. It’s hard sitting here knowing Jamie is out there somewhere. It’s all in my notebook. I wrote everything down. My memory wasn’t great, and I wasn’t thinking straight a lot of the time. But even so, I knew something was going on. I didn’t suspect Shelley at first but I knew someone was trying to scare me. There was a man who called me. He threatened me and Jamie. He said Mark was working on something for him and he wanted it back. I can still hear his voice in my head. It was horrible.
ES: Did he tell you his name?
TC: No. Oh God, what if it isn’t Shelley who has Jamie? What if it’s the man? He knew all about me and Jamie. Oh God. What have I done?
ES: Take a breath please, Tess. Let’s try and calm down.
TC: Has that ever worked?
ES: What’s that?
TC: Has anyone ever actually calmed down because someone told them to? Jamie is missing. I won’t calm down until he is in my arms. Can you get an officer to get my notebook? If you just read that, then you’ll see everything. I’m sure the answer is in there.
ES: The police have your notebook, Tess. They are looking at it right now. They are interviewing Shelley and Ian.
TC: What have they said? Do they know where Jamie is?
ES: Why don’t you tell me your side of things? Starting with the night of Jamie’s birthday.
TC: I need to know Jamie is safe first. I have to see him.
ES: Let’s take a break.
TC: I don’t need a break. Jamie hasn’t been found. Jamie is still out there. How can we take a break?
ES: Tess, you’ve had a serious injury to your abdomen which you are reluctant to talk about. If you want to help us find out what happened to Jamie then you need to rest. We’ll talk again later.
CHAPTER 27
Thursday, March 8
31 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Something occurred to me this morning, Mark, as I watched Jamie dash into the school. Time is no longer the constant ticktock that it used to be when you were alive. In the daytime, when it’s just me, and in the dead of night when I can’t sleep and I listen for hours to the owl hooting for a mate, time grinds to a stilted crawl—a train drawing into a station.
But when I need to leave for the school run—no matter how many extra minutes I have—time seems to bound ahead of me like a dog chasing pheasants across the fields. Jamie is always the last one through the glass doors in the morning and the last one waiting in the school playground in the afternoons.
The minute I step back into the house and shut the back door I feel the shift in time, the cogs grinding down, but I won’t let it beat me today. I’m going to keep busy.
I’m on my way to the parlor to finish sorting the boxes when the phone rings.
It’s rung half a dozen times this week. Each time I’m frozen to the spot, holding my breath and waiting for the answerphone to pick up, waiting to see if it’s him again. Each time my voice from before echoes through the rooms, the message starts to record, and then they hang up.
Today’s call is no different.
Why? Who is at the other end? I wonder as silence fills the house.
I close my eyes for a moment and the image of the charred wreckage fills my head. I know I should carry on walking, carry on with my jobs, but instead I find myself in the living room with the TV remote in my hand.
Sky News appears on the screen.
An anchorwoman with glossy brown hair and the wrong shade of lipstick is staring right into me as she speaks: “A suicide note from the pilot of the Thurrock plane crash has been handed in to police.”
Stop, Tessie. Don’t watch it!
Too late.
I sit down, perching on the edge of the sofa.
An expert of some sort—a lecturer in aviation safety—is talking about the failings of the airline, but I’m only half listening. A picture is forming in my mind of you sitting down and clipping on your seat belt. The compensation letter from the airline flashes in my thoughts. It’s still tucked in my cardigan pocket waiting for me to do something about it or throw it away.
“The plane left London City Airport on schedule and was on the flight path bound for Frankfurt, but we know from the cockpit recording,” the lecturer says, his eyes moving between the camera and the anchorwoman as if he’s not sure where to focus, “that the pilot sent the copilot out of the cockpit only a few minutes after takeoff, supposedly because he had a headache and asked the copilot to get him some painkillers.”
“Is it normal practice for the copilot to leave the cockpit during takeoff?” the anchorwoman asks.
“No, it is not. Aviation Safety regulations recommend two people should remain in the cockpit at all times during the flight, which is why the CAA—the Civil Aviation Authority—ruled the airline to be negligent. Alarm bells should have rung for the copilot then as it would have been far simpler to call a member of the cabin crew into the cockpit and ask for painkillers from their medical kit. But as we know, the copilot didn’t question the pilot and left the cockpit.
“Following the tragedies of 9-11, all cockpit doors were installed with a lock on the inside, which the pilot then used, giving him sole access to the aircraft controls.”
“And we also know that the pilot—Philip Curtis—was signed off on medical leave by his doctor with stress,” the anchorwoman continues, “just four weeks before the Thurrock crash. The flight to Frankfurt was his first flight back at work following his absence, leaving many people to speculate that Philip Curtis returned to his duties as a pilot with the intention of killing himself and all those on board. What kind of safety measures are in place with airlines to support the mental health of their employees?”
My heart is beating in loud rapid thuds in my ears. The anchorwoman and the lecturer are still jabbering on about negligence and suicide, but I know what’s coming. A red banner flashes across the bottom of the screen. THURROCK CRASH UPDATE: PILOT SUICIDE NOTE FOUND is written in bold white writing.
My throat constricts, and tears blur my vision, but not enough to obscure the change in the screen and the amateur video footage now playing, just as I knew it would.
I blink the tears away and feel myself sucked like the last
dregs of water down the drain, all the way back to that first Monday. The bonfire is smoldering in the garden and the smoke from it is still clawing at my throat. From the kitchen I can hear the whir of the kettle and the murmur of PC Greenwood talking quietly to the other officer, the one with the gray face and tearful eyes. A phone is ringing somewhere in the house.
Shaky footage starts of a young girl in a park riding her bike. Then the camera moves up to a clear blue sky. The image blurs as the person filming zooms in on an aircraft. It’s flying low in the sky but climbing higher and higher, until it isn’t. Until the nose of the plane dips suddenly and it’s rocketing straight toward the ground. The video shakes as the plane disappears into a fireball of black smoke. The voice of the person filming is screeching out of the TV, but I block out the sound and think only of you, bent over in your seat with your warm hands wrapped around the back of your head. How scared you must have been in those final moments. Were we your last thoughts? The wife and son you’ll leave behind?
It breaks my heart to think of Jamie watching this one day. I didn’t tell him it was the pilot’s fault. “Daddy’s plane crashed. It happened very quickly. He wouldn’t have felt any pain” was all I said. One day, when he’s older, I’m sure he’ll search for more answers. He’ll find the footage of the plane going down and learn about the pilot’s cruel and selfish actions, but I’ll shield him from it for as long as I can.
The news anchor appears back on the TV, her lips touched up with more of the wrong color, and I’m back, almost eight weeks on. Almost eight weeks without you.
The camera zooms in, cutting out the expert, and leaving only the anchorwoman. “Up next, we’ll be talking to two of the families of the Thurrock crash victims and the lawsuit they are filing against the airline.
