by Maggie James
‘Martin Burney’s got nothing on you,’ she says, laughing. He smiles back at her, not wanting to make an issue of it, and anyway she’s familiar only with Mark’s neatness obsession. Nobody has any idea about the counting or the pacing. Those rituals start once he’s released from prison and he sees, for the first time in ten years, a pretty blonde toddler, and yes, she’s wearing pink, of course. He stares at the child, frantically and for too long, until her mother notices and pulls her daughter quickly away, clearly rattled by Mark’s fixed gaze. Afterwards, he can’t breathe. He thinks his throat is going to close completely over; he’s back there, in Moretonhampstead, with Abby Morgan, hearing the childish nursery rhyme tinkle from her Fisher-Price CD player.
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe.
He doesn’t quite understand the psychology behind his obsession, but after seeing the first Abby lookalike, he begins to count, slowly, along with the nursery rhyme and it helps, especially when he gets into the higher numbers. By eleven, twelve, dig and delve, he’s starting to breathe more easily. By nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty and a bit more of the walk seven paces, stop for a count of seven, he’s more or less back to normal.
Until the next time. Too many blonde female toddlers exist for his compulsion ever to go away, and Mark never knows when he’ll see Abby Morgan again. Small wonder his neatness obsession has grown steadily worse. Food cupboards worthy of Martin Burney, DVDs in alphabetical order, books arranged by size and colour. It’s his way of imposing order on an essentially chaotic world. He doesn’t seek help for it, because it’s his safety valve, his magic pill. A sure-fire method of obtaining relief from the guilt swamping him every time he sees another incarnation of Abby Morgan.
It’s not just guilt plaguing him. Mark suffers a constant, overwhelming need to atone for her death, not that he has any idea how to achieve the impossible. Not when the whole world believes him every bit as culpable as Adam Campbell for her murder.
3
UNMASKED
Natalie’s stomach is less queasy now, but she’s certain she won’t be having Chinese food later on. And definitely not with Mark. He’s supposed to come round to her flat at eight, and she’s very sure she’ll be there alone by then, berating herself for her poor taste in men. Then she’ll remember her father, and the psychology will be all too obvious.
Where the hell is Mark? He should be here by now. Chances are her suspicions are right; besides being a child killer, he’s probably stopping off for a quickie with a woman with the initials A.J. Rage pounds through Natalie and if Mark were to walk through the door within the next minute, she might well slap him one.
She fights hard to regain control, push the anger down inside, shove it out of range, so she can confront him calmly. Such a contradiction in terms. The word confrontation itself is loaded; laced with connotations of aggression. Besides, she knows anger won’t do any good if she wants to get the truth out of Mark. Although on one level she doesn’t know him at all, on another she recognises any sign of fury from her will drive him away, and all she’ll get will be evasiveness.
Words from long ago drift back to her. An eleven-year-old Natalie, her pubescent self convinced she has the answer to her mother Callie’s puffy eyes, reddened after discovering her husband has been playing away from home yet again.
‘Why do you put up with it? Why not tell him what a jerk he’s being?’
She’s enraged by the passivity of Callie’s response.
‘I can’t, love. I don’t want to antagonise him, drive him away for good.’ At the time, Natalie can’t grasp how her mother can be, as she thinks to herself later on, such a fucking wimp. Sure, her parents argue about her father’s infidelities, but Callie always responds with tears rather than anger. More wrath might have grown her a pair of much-needed lady balls. Especially given how her husband moves out amid talk of divorce a few weeks later.
The irony is, Natalie reckons, she’s turned out every bit as bad when it comes to screwing up relationships. Even now, with what seems like incontrovertible evidence, part of her still believes Mark incapable of committing such an atrocity. Some other explanation has to exist as to why he possesses such a letter. What, she wonders. Nothing credible comes to mind, other than the obvious: Mark Slater and Joshua Barker inhabit the same body. He’s a child killer. And even if Mark provides some convincing explanation, can their fragile relationship withstand Natalie striking it such a blow? An accusation of being a notorious murderer isn’t one that can be shrugged off, cast aside like a lesser charge, such as infidelity with A.J.
As she looks at her watch, concerned now about his lateness, she hears the main door to the building being opened. Footsteps echo in the hallway. A pause; the rustle of letters being rifled through. Mark will be checking the post on the communal table, seeing if anyone’s sent him mail. He won’t find anything; Natalie’s got there before him. The only important letter is the one she holds clenched in her hand.
He crosses the hallway, puts his key in the latch; Natalie imagines his concern when he finds it unlocked. The door inches open slowly and then Mark is framed in the doorway, surprise registering on his face as he takes in the sight of Natalie, standing there pale and unwelcoming. One hand clutches Mark’s sofa, the other is held behind her back.
He doesn’t speak at first, but she watches his eyes glance from her to the empty plate and biscuit packet on the table. He’s well aware of her comfort eating and the evidence is there before him, along with her silent, accusatory stare.
‘Nat,’ he says, his voice uncertain and a note or three above his normal pitch. ‘What…what are you doing here?’ It sounds as though his throat is as closed over as Natalie’s is. When she doesn’t reply, he tries again.
‘Has something happened? Are you all right?’
For answer, she brings her hand out from behind her back. In it, she holds the letter, now replaced in the envelope.
She thrusts it towards Mark’s face. Confusion floods his expression in the seconds before he recognises what she’s holding. Then all she sees is a weary acceptance, and hope for a plausible explanation of its existence fades within her. Natalie interprets his expression as one of guilt mixed with shame. He doesn’t speak, merely switches his gaze between her face and the letter. Behind Natalie, the kitchen clock ticks the time away and the sound seems magnified by the tension choking the room. She drags air into her lungs, eventually managing to get her tongue to work.
‘Why…’ She wets her lips, despite there being precious little saliva in her mouth. ‘This letter…why do you have it?’
Until he speaks, she tells herself, the chance exists he can explain this, rip away the dread in her gut at the suspicion she’s been sleeping with a child killer.
The clock continues to tick away behind her, measuring the seconds until he opens his mouth. He doesn’t, though, and Natalie tries again, forcing a calmness she doesn’t feel into her voice.
‘Are you Joshua Barker?’ she asks.
No reply. Mark won’t even look at her.
‘Answer me, for fuck’s sake.’
Anger mixed with fear bites hard at her as Mark turns away. He leans his palms on the kitchen table, pressing his weight forward onto them, increasing the distance between himself and Natalie as though he’s carrying some deadly contagion. She hears him sigh.
‘You’ve been going through my things again.’ No trace of annoyance in his voice, just a sad resignation.
She ignores his words. ‘I’ll ask you again. Why the fuck do you have a letter addressed to Joshua Barker? The child killer?’
Mark shakes his head. ‘Oh, Nat. Don’t do this. Please.’
‘Do what? Check whether the man I’ve been sleeping with is who he says he is? As opposed to a murderer?’ She tosses the letter aside, attempting to shove his arms off the table. Anything to get him to meet her eyes. ‘Don’t you think I’ve a right to do that?’
He does return her gaze then, weariness in his expression. ‘Yeah. I guess.
’
‘Then answer me. Are you Joshua Barker?’
Sadness creeps over his face as the silence thickens between them.
‘For God’s sake, tell me. Yes or no?’
Eventually he nods, extinguishing all hope within her. ‘Yes.’
‘You killed that little girl. Abby Morgan.’ The accusation bursts out of Natalie now he’s confirmed his guilt. She sees him flinch on hearing the child’s name. Her fists fly at him, rage and revulsion in every blow; the man before her becomes symbolic of all those who have ever hurt her. A list that includes him. The one who abused her, so many years ago. Oh, the horror of it. Don’t go there, she warns herself, as she continues to punch Mark, her resolve not to get angry now forgotten. He doesn’t stop her and she pounds away before dropping down on the sofa, her throat full of tears, despair choking her voice. ‘You bastard. You fucking bastard.’
Mark stands in front of her, silent. She can’t look at him. ‘How the hell…’ She gasps in air. ‘How could you do something so awful? You and that other boy. You killed a child. A defenceless two-year-old.’
‘Nat.’ His voice reaches her, cutting through her misery. ‘I can explain.’
‘Like hell you can. You were convicted, you and that Adam Campbell.’
Natalie stands up, thrusting the letter into his face, the force of her fingers crumpling the envelope. ‘Your own mother. She rejected you.’
He turns his head away before she’s able to gauge his reaction. She presses on, driven by her overwhelming need to grasp whatever it is she’s dealing with here.
‘She didn’t even bother to tell you herself.’ He tilts his face back towards her then, and she sees him flinch again as her words whip against him. His reply is so quiet she has to ask him to repeat it.
‘I said, yes, she rejected me.’
‘You’re surprised?’
‘No. Are you going to do the same?’
‘Do you blame me?’
He shakes his head sadly. This defeatist attitude isn’t what Natalie expected at all. Where is the anger at her snooping through his things, where are the passionate denials that he’s anyone other than Mark Slater, where is the explanation for having the letter? She can deal with shouting, blatant lies, anything other than this weary resignation at whatever she throws at him.
‘I’m sorry, Nat. I’m not what you need me to be.’
‘You can say that again.’ She spits the words out as though they’re poison.
‘I never have been.’
‘You fucking bastard.’
‘I can explain. If you’ll let me.’
‘How?’ Natalie is struggling to understand. She’s always yearned for kids of her own and can’t comprehend how anyone can hurt them. What explanation exists for how a child ends up murdered? Battered with a rake and then knifed to death? By two eleven-year-olds, for Christ’s sake. Mark has once had the capacity to harm and kill a child and Natalie’s not so naïve as to believe ten years of detention in a secure unit and then prison will have knocked that out of him.
‘I didn’t do it, Nat.’ His eyes plead with her to accept his words.
‘Of course you did.’ Fury pounds through her at his glib denial. ‘You were convicted, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, but listen - ’
‘You and the other boy. I don’t remember much about the crime, but I do recall there being substantial evidence, enough to incriminate the pair of you. Bastards. Vile, twisted killers. Sick and evil, even at the age of eleven.’ Anguish sweeps away the fury. ‘How could you do something so awful? That little girl…’
‘Nat.’ He prises the letter from her grasp and places it on the coffee table, before trying to take her hands.
She wrenches them away. ‘Don’t touch me, you bastard.’
‘That’s not how it was, Nat. I didn’t kill Abby Morgan. I swear I didn’t. Like I say, I can explain. If you’ll let me.’
She pushes past him, making for the door, but he stops her, not forcefully or in an intimidating way, simply an attempt at detaining her so he can deliver his explanation. His words bounce around in her skull. I didn’t do it, Nat. Her desperation for all this crap not to be the way it appears leads her to sit back down on the sofa. She waits for Mark’s explanation.
He takes his time before he says anything. When he does, Natalie almost gets up to leave, so disappointed is she with the weakness of his words.
‘I didn’t want to,’ he says. ‘Adam - the other boy - made me go along with it.’ She stares at him in disbelief.
‘That’s it? That’s your great explanation?’ She can’t believe she’s hearing such crap. ‘What little kids say when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t? How someone else is to blame, never them?’ She stands up. It’s dark outside now and she yearns to be back in her flat, away from the disappointment the man before her represents. ‘Do you know how pathetic you sound?’
‘It’s true, Nat, I swear.’ She steels herself against the plea in his voice.
‘Yeah, right. So how come you got convicted? You were found guilty. Same as Adam Campbell. Given an identical sentence.’
He doesn’t reply. His silence grates on her. Surely he can find the words to speak in his defence when the charge against him is so serious?
‘I don’t remember anyone ever saying you were less guilty, not as involved in what happened to that child, than Adam Campbell.’
‘It’s like I told you, Nat. He forced me into it. Made me go along with the whole thing. I didn’t realise what he had planned until it was all too late.’
Lies, complete bollocks, Natalie tells herself. If he’s so innocent, why didn’t that come out during the police questioning or at the trial? Equal sentences were handed down and for Natalie that means matching guilt. A detail from back then floats down the years towards her. Detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure…a recommended minimum term of ten years in custody. Abby Morgan’s mother led an unsuccessful campaign to get the sentence increased, Natalie recalls, remembering her own mother remarking on the seeming inadequacy of ten years when a child’s life has been taken, despite the youth of her murderers.
Her next question is a direct challenge. ‘So how come you got an equal sentence with the other boy?’
He answers obliquely, merely repeating what he’s said before. ‘I didn’t want to hurt her, Nat, I swear.’
Why the hell won’t he give her a direct answer? Because he’s a bastard, that’s why. Worse; he’s a child killer, for God’s sake, and the sanctuary of her flat calls to her again, along with the bar of Dairy Milk she’ll buy on the way home. Except the idea of chocolate sends her stomach heaving again and she pushes Mark aside, running to the bathroom to bring up more of the sandwich and biscuits when she’d thought she had nothing left to vomit.
She’s aware of him standing behind her as the sour stench of puke rises from the toilet bowl into her face. The faint lemony tang of his aftershave causes her to retch once more. She stands up shakily, rinsing the acid from her mouth with cool water from the sink.
‘Are you OK?’ Now it’s her turn to flinch at the concern in his voice. It doesn’t gel with her new image of him as a heartless child killer; she can’t marry the two up and the divergence makes her angry and confused.
‘No, I’m fucking well not OK.’ She pushes past him, intent on leaving. He grabs her arm as she does so. Part of her, a rapidly shrinking one, still needs to believe he’s not an evil child killer; she doesn’t pull away.
‘I’m sorry, Nat,’ he says. ‘Sorry you found out this crap. I couldn’t tell you any of it, of course.’
She stands there mutely. Yes, she gets that. How do you tell your girlfriend you’re a child killer?
‘I wanted to.’ His voice is plaintive. ‘Didn’t think you’d understand. Besides, it seemed too soon. We’ve not been together long, after all. Had no idea how you’d react. Anyway, under the terms of my release, I’m supposed to tell my supervising officer if I get serious with anyone.’
Natalie doesn’t understand. He’s supposed to obtain permission to date her?
‘So whoever it is can be warned, you see. Told I’m on the Violent and Sex Offenders Register, although I’m not allowed to say why.’ He sighs. ‘You think I don’t care about you. Not true, Nat. Always liked you, more than I’ve let on. I want to get closer but -’ He shrugs. ‘Not easy, when I’ve got something so awful hanging over my head. The police don’t give out information about my past, of course. All part of keeping my new identity intact. No idea what I’d have told you if things had gone further between us. Probably not the whole truth.’
Certain phrases leap out at Natalie. Always liked you. Want to get closer.
She forces words past dry lips. ‘I thought you were sleeping with someone else. Decided that must be why you didn’t want to see more of me. It’s the reason I came here today.’
‘A.J.’
‘Yes; who -’
‘Tony Jackson, my supervising officer. I meet with him once a month. The guy in the police force who makes sure I’m complying with the terms of my release.’
‘Like a parole officer?’
‘Yes. Has to be a cop, though, not anyone from the Probation Service, not for someone like me. Jackson’s one of the few people aware of my true identity.’
The words of the letter come back to Natalie. ‘Did you have to break off contact with everyone you knew?’
He shrugs again. ‘More or less already done, Nat.’ He pushes past her to pick up the letter from Linda Curtis. ‘You’ve already gathered how my mother reacted to my arrest and conviction.’
‘You’ve not seen her since? She really did move away, change her name?’
He nods.
‘What about your father? Is he dead, like you told me?’
‘He died when I was nine, Nat. His parents were long gone, too. Had to end all communication with my grandparents on my mother’s side once released, although whilst I was locked up they wrote to me, sent cards for birthdays and Christmas. Good people, both of them, but they didn’t visit me in Vinney Green. Too disturbing for them.’
