The Promise You Made

by A J McDine

  ‘It’s OK, I know. Danny told me.’

  ‘He’d changed.’

  If you say so.

  ‘He loved me.’ There was a pleading tone to her voice, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as me.

  I hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said, ‘He did.’

  Her tear-stained eyes lit up. ‘He said that? To you?’

  ‘He told me that letting you down was the biggest regret of his life. That’s why he came back from Australia. He came back for you.’

  Juliet’s gaze never left my face as she hung onto my every word and I warmed to my theme. ‘That’s what he said. He wanted kids, marriage, the lot. That’s why this is all so fucked up.’ I shook my head sorrowfully. ‘What a waste.’

  Now, sitting opposite Juliet in the pub, a sticky-topped table wedged between us, I had a sudden sense there was something she wasn’t telling me.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’ve spent the last five minutes ripping that beermat to shreds. What did it ever do to you?’ I joked.

  She sighed. ‘I guess you’re going to find out sooner or later.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  The beer-stained paisley carpet shifted under my feet. ‘What?’

  ‘I thought I was late because of the shock, but I did a test this morning.’

  ‘Christ.’ I was silent as the bombshell sank in. ‘Is it Danny’s?’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘Of course it’s Danny’s!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, holding my hands up, palms facing her. ‘Stupid thing to say. It’s just a lot to take in.’

  ‘For me, too,’ she admitted. She smiled and her hand crept down, cupping her stomach protectively. ‘But I’m kind of getting used to the idea.’

  I forced a smile, but inside I felt disappointment crushing the air out of my lungs. With Danny out of the picture, I’d assumed I’d be promoted to Most Important Person in Juliet’s life. But I’d never be able to compete with his baby. A mother’s love was unconditional, enduring, the strongest love of all. Unless you happened to be my mother, of course. But she’d been the exception to the rule.

  ‘How far along are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Only eight weeks. I wasn’t going to tell anyone until after the first scan.’

  No wonder she’d seemed composed at the funeral. As Danny’s coffin disappeared behind the curtains, Juliet knew she had his genes living on, his cells multiplying inside her. I thought back to obstetrics lectures at med school. By eight weeks, the fetus was the size of a kidney bean. Its facial features were becoming more defined and the nerve cells in its brain were branching out to form early neural pathways. Its legs were forming, and its hands were developing ridges where its fingers would be. It looked less like an alien and more like a human, albeit a tiny, non-functioning one.

  ‘You’re going through with it?’

  Her head snapped back. ‘Of course I’m going through with it!’

  ‘It’s a big ask, bringing up a kid on your own. How will you cope?’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Sometimes I think you think I’m totally incompetent. You’re forgetting I run a house and have a stressful job.’

  I hooted. ‘A house your parents bought and a job that basically involves you sitting behind a desk in a big white box looking pretty.’

  ‘Well, at least I have a proper job,’ she retorted. ‘At least I finished my degree. And at least I stand on my own two feet, unlike you. Almost thirty and still living at home. Tell me, Rose, because I’d love to know, who’s the incompetent one here?’

  ‘What if you meet someone else? They won’t want to take on Danny’s bastard!’ I cried. I was clutching at straws now, but I had to make her see she was making the biggest mistake of her life. ‘Twenty-nine is nothing. You’ve plenty of time to meet someone and have a family. A proper family.’

  ‘Don’t you get it? I’ll have a family. Just me and the baby. A little unit of two. That’s all I need.’

  ‘But what about me?’ The words slipped out, unstoppered.

  She shook her head. ‘You can’t see it, can you, Rose? You’re a friend, nothing more. Someone to have a laugh with once in a while. But I don’t need you in my life. I never have. Not like you seem to need me.’ She must have seen the shock on my face because she said, ‘If this is news to you, I’m sorry. But you have a distorted view of our friendship. You’ve always given it far more weight than I ever have. In fact, I’ve been meaning to say for a while that I think you should stop coming up to London. You need to build your own life, not leech off mine. Do you understand?’

  She said this slowly and with enunciation, like she was speaking to a particularly stupid toddler. As I nodded, a tear leaked out of the corner of my eye.

  ‘But we can still see each other every now and then? I can come and see the baby when it’s born?’

  ‘Danny’s bastard?’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘Christ, you’re a human fucking Terminator. No matter how many times I shoot you down, you never give up.’

  ‘Please, Juliet.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ll think about it.’ Her face softened, and she pulled a tissue from her pocket and gave it to me. ‘But seriously, you need to back the fuck off and give me some space. Understood?’

  I nodded miserably. And I did. I gave Juliet and her pregnancy space while I threw my energies into charity work. When the baby was born seven months later, Juliet emailed me a photo taken on the maternity ward, her sweaty fringe plastered to her beaming, shiny face and a grizzly-looking scrap of a thing with a red, scrunched-up face and a nest of black hair cradled in her arms. I studied the baby’s face, curious to see which parent it took after, but it could have been left on the steps of a fire station for all it looked like either of them.

  Juliet called the baby Eloise after her favourite song by The Damned. I kept my distance and, as a reward for good behaviour, she asked me to be the child’s godmother.

  I saw Eloise for the first time the day she was christened. When Juliet gave her to me to hold, Eloise took one look at me and her face puckered and reddened and she started to wail, arms and legs pumping violently. It was with relief that I handed her back to her mother.

  Chapter Forty-One

  India Matthews’ inquest was held at Archbishop’s Palace in Maidstone, an impressive fourteenth century building on the banks of the River Medway that was also, incongruously, used as a wedding venue. The coroner, Josephine Berisford, had steel-grey corkscrew curls that she’d coaxed into a loose chignon and a keen intellect beneath her disarming manner.

  ‘The purpose of this inquest is to determine who the deceased was, when they died, where they died and how they came by their death,’ she said, her gaze sweeping the room. ‘It is an inquiry, not a trial.’ She directed her comment at India’s father, Roy, whose jaw was clenched so tightly I could see a vein pulsing in his neck. ‘That is to say,’ she continued, a smile taking the sting out of her words, ‘it is a fact-finding, not a fault-finding hearing.’

  The words rolled off her tongue so easily, I wondered just how many inquests she had presided over as she sought to answer the questions a sudden death posed. Hundreds, probably. And every single one told a story: a story about a life, a death, and the family and friends left behind.

  India’s story began with the pathologist’s report, and I watched with interest as the pathologist took to the stand. Although I had found dissecting Buxom Beryl at med school fascinating, pathology wasn’t an area of medicine I’d ever been interested in pursuing. What was the point of being a doctor if not to save lives? Spending my days carving open the dead to reveal their secrets held no appeal.

  As he ran through India’s injuries in an almost-bored monotone, I sneaked another look at Roy Matthews and the rest of India’s family. Sitting to Matthews’ left was a hand-wringing, grey-faced woman I assumed was India’s mother. Her bloodshot eyes were glued to the pathologist as he droned on about pulmona
ry contusions and subcutaneous haematomas. I don’t suppose she understood a word of it, but you didn’t need to be medically trained to realise that being hit by a fast-moving train would cause catastrophic trauma.

  Sitting on her far side was a white-haired man in his late seventies who had a pale blue handkerchief balled in his fist and knuckles swollen with arthritis. He must be India’s grandfather. As I watched, he stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket, leaned over and took one of his daughter’s hands. It was such a small but poignant gesture that my eyes filled with tears. He looked up at me as if he’d felt my gaze on his skin and I looked away, flustered, but not before a look of loathing hardened his features and, with a jolt, I realised he also blamed me for his granddaughter’s death.

  My eyes slid over the motley collection of people who made up the rest of the Matthews family contingent. A teenaged boy with angular features and unwashed hair; a jowly woman in her sixties with the same piggy eyes as Roy Matthews; a harassed-looking woman trying, unsuccessfully, to quieten the snotty-faced toddler on her lap; a blonde girl around India’s age whose face was swollen with crying.

  Did they all think I was to blame for India’s death? That it was me who India was speaking with in the precious minutes before she died? I willed the pathologist to get a move on, because the sooner Rhona took to the witness stand, the sooner everyone would realise I was not culpable. Not of India’s death, anyway.

  ‘… and so I conclude that the cause of death was multiple injuries consistent with being hit by a train,’ the pathologist said.

  ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ I muttered under my breath, earning a disapproving look from Rhona who was sitting to my right.

  The coroner plucked an A4 sheet from the sheaf of papers on her desk and slid a pair of glasses onto her nose.

  ‘Next, I will read the statement from Greg Thornhill,’ she said.

  Greg Thornhill, it transpired, was the train driver unlucky enough to be at the controls of the 9.20am Ramsgate to Faversham service the morning India died. Visibility had been good that day and as he approached the level crossing at Graveney he’d seen a woman crouching on the embankment. He sounded the horn but instead of backing away, the woman stood and casually walked onto the line towards the train.

  He applied the emergency brakes and repeatedly sounded the horn, but it was impossible to stop the train in time. The last thing he reported seeing was the woman staring at him with her hands over her ears.

  The engine stopped “a few seconds on” and he stayed in his cab until the emergency services arrived.

  ‘That concludes the evidence of Greg Thornhill,’ Josephine Berisford said. She placed the statement on her pile of papers and glanced up at Eddie, Rhona and me.

  ‘And now I would like to call Miss Rhona Richards,’ she said.

  There were audible gasps as Rhona rose stiffly to her feet and shuffled over to the witness stand to take the oath. India’s family looked from one to another in confusion and then, as realisation dawned, turned angry gazes on Roy Matthews. But he didn’t notice. He was too busy staring at Rhona in bewilderment. As she took the bible in her right hand and confirmed the evidence she was giving would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I willed him to look at me. Finally, he did, and I jutted my chin out and locked eyes with him until his gaze fell to the floor.

  With something akin to jubilation, I turned my attention back to Rhona.

  ‘You were one of the last people to speak to India on the day she died,’ Josephine Berisford was saying. ‘Please take us through what happened.’

  ‘I’d just started my shift at Sisterline when I took the call from India. She sounded distressed, and when I asked her if she wanted to talk about why she’d called, she told me she’d had an argument with her father. He’d lost his temper when she’d told him she was moving into a flat with her best friend and he’d hung up on her.’

  At this, the blonde girl with the puffy face broke into a storm of noisy sobs. A court usher scurried over with a glass of water and, once the sobs had subsided, the coroner said, ‘Did India elaborate on the state of her relationship with her father?’

  ‘She told me she’d spent her whole life trying to keep her father happy,’ Rhona said. ‘She said he was fine when he had his own way, but he flew into a rage if she ever disagreed with him. She said she’d been plucking up the courage to tell him she was leaving home for weeks but had kept putting it off because she knew he’d take the news badly.

  ‘I asked India if she was having any suicidal thoughts and she said no, she just wanted someone to talk to. I gave her some coping strategies and signposted her to a couple of organisations I thought might help her. She thanked me and hung up.’

  ‘How long did the call last, approximately?’

  ‘About ten minutes.’

  Josephine Berisford nodded. ‘I have read the transcript. As someone who must have spoken to many distressed and suicidal people while manning the phones at Sisterline, was it your opinion that India was at risk of self-harm?’

  Rhona shook her head. ‘She was upset, but calm. She told me she was looking forward to moving in with her friend and having her own independence. I had the impression it wasn’t the first time her father had upset her, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. I classed her as low risk.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the coroner said. She smiled at India’s family. ‘Any questions?’

  If I’d expected Roy Matthews to give Rhona both barrels, I was wrong. Slumped in his seat like the stuffing had been knocked out of him, he didn’t even lift his head. When no one else spoke, the coroner thanked Rhona and she stepped down from the stand and returned to her seat.

  ‘In that case, I ask Roy Matthews to take the stand,’ the coroner said.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The usher accompanied Roy Matthews to the witness box, handed him the bible and a card and he mumbled the oath, his chin pressed against his barrel-like chest.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to speak up, Mr Matthews,’ Josephine Berisford said. ‘Please read from your statement if it’s easier.’

  He gave her a baleful look, fished a pair of spectacles from his pocket and put them on with fumbling fingers. ‘I am Roy Matthews, father of India Matthews…’

  He spoke of a happy child who began to suffer from periods of anxiety following her parents’ divorce. How India used to stay with him a couple of nights a week until she was sixteen, after which she lived full time with her mother so she could see her friends.

  And because you were inside doing time for assaulting poor Kerry Davis, I thought, glaring at him.

  ‘Could you please take us through the events of the morning of Friday, July thirtieth?’ the coroner asked, picking up her pen.

  ‘India phoned me just after eight. She said she had some news. I said I had some news, too, and told her I’d put down a deposit on a two-bedroom place in Minster, down the road from her mum’s, so she could start splitting her time between the two of us again. Then she dropped her bombshell.’

  ‘Her bombshell?’

  ‘She told me she was moving in with her mate Kelsey, that she was sorry, but it was all sorted, like. I told her I’d put down a grand’s deposit, so she’d have to change her plans, but she refused. She said she was going to do what she wanted for a change. Things got a bit heated, and she hung up on me.’

  ‘India hung up on you?’ Josephine Berisford queried, flipping through her notes. ‘Only according to Miss Richards’ evidence, India said you ended the call. Please think carefully about your answer and remember you are under oath.’

  He rubbed his face. ‘I dunno. It may have been me who hung up first. I was sore she hadn’t told me she was moving in with Kels. I don’t like her keeping things from me.’

  ‘Did you speak to India again that morning?’ the coroner asked.

  He looked up at the ceiling briefly, then nodded and mumbled something into his chest.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you
’re going to have to speak up,’ Josephine Berisford said again.

  ‘I did,’ he said.

  The room was so quiet I could hear Rhona’s shallow breathing next to me. I wriggled my toes in anticipation. This was better than any television crime drama.

  ‘And when did you speak to India again?’ the coroner asked.

  ‘Just before ten o’clock.’

  ‘You’re certain of the time?’

  He nodded. ‘I was on my tea break. She phoned to apologise, to say that she could still come and stay with me in the new place now and then.’ He lifted anguished eyes to his family. ‘I saw red. I told her it wasn’t enough. She’d lied to me, see? She’d broken my trust.’ He gulped and lowered his gaze. ‘So, I told her she was dead to me.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  Beads of perspiration had broken out across his forehead. ‘I heard a thud, like she’d dropped the phone, then a horn blasting over and over. A whooshing noise, then… nothing.’

  India’s mother jumped to her feet, her face contorted. ‘You said she was on the phone to them when she died!’ she shrieked, pointing at us. Rhona shrank back in her seat. ‘But she was on the phone to you. I might have known. You’re the reason she killed herself. You!’

  ‘Mrs Matthews, please,’ Josephine Berisford said, nodding to the usher who magicked another glass of water from nowhere. India’s mother crumpled back into her chair, a shell of a woman. India’s grandfather put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him as she sobbed.

  ‘I know it’s my fault,’ Roy Matthews said, directing his words at his ex-wife. ‘I wish I could turn back the clock. I wish I hadn’t lost my temper with her. That whooshing sound…’ He clamped his hands over his ears and shook his head from side to side. ‘I hear that fucking sound every second of every fucking day and I will for the rest of my life.’

  The coroner cleared her throat, dragging everyone’s attention back to her. ‘I understand this is a distressing time, Mr Matthews, but can I please ask that you moderate your language. And remember, we are here to establish the facts of India’s death, not to lay blame at anyone’s door. We’ll take a ten-minute comfort break before we hear from my officer.’ With that, she pushed her chair back and left the room.