by Sarah Hilary
‘Bruton doesn’t agree? Or is he following procedure by forwarding the visitor requests?’
‘There’s more to it than that. He intercepted hate mail Stephen tried to send to the parents of the girl who orchestrated that assault.’
Six months ago, Stephen had been brutally attacked and raped. The nineteen-year-old who’d instigated the attack had slit her wrists shortly afterwards. She’d survived, insisting it was attempted suicide despite having no history of self-harm. Marnie was sure Stephen had cut the girl’s wrists in revenge. She couldn’t prove it, and Sommerville Secure Unit had closed ranks, shutting her out until Bruton chose to share the story of the hate mail.
Ed said, ‘What did Stephen try to send to her parents?’
‘Bruton didn’t specify, just said he wasn’t making it a police matter but he wanted to let me know it’d happened.’
She tidied her hair. ‘Bruton’s trying to tick boxes because of what I saw in Stephen’s room. My dad’s glasses, mum’s brooch, photos … Stephen shouldn’t have had any of it. Murderers aren’t allowed to keep souvenirs from their victims.’
She heard the cold edge in her voice, and regretted it, and was glad of it. ‘Bruton swears Stephen didn’t have any of it with him when he arrived at Sommerville. He says a visitor must have brought it in. But what visitor? Who visits Stephen except me? Care workers, psychologists, and me. Not even Bruton would suggest I’d make a gift of my parents’ belongings to their murderer. So now he’s telling me every little thing that goes down, like this hate mail. To cover his back, I imagine, in case it gets worse.’
Escalates was the word Bruton had used: in case it escalates. When she challenged him on how it could escalate from rape and suicide, Bruton sidestepped, repeating that it wasn’t a police matter, as if that was a gift in his power of giving.
‘The girl who attacked Stephen,’ Ed said, ‘she’s still at Sommerville?’
‘Girls,’ Marnie amended. ‘Yes, they’re all still there. Perhaps I should pay him a visit. If it’s what he wants …’
‘What you want is what matters.’
‘Partly, perhaps. But I can’t forget what they wanted. Mum and Dad were trying to give Stephen a better life. They believed in second chances, for everyone. And who knows,’ she leaned to kiss the corner of Ed’s mouth, ‘maybe he finally wants to say why, or to say sorry. I should give him that chance, shouldn’t I?’
‘You’ve given him five years of chances.’ Ed rested his hand in her hair. ‘I think I prefer this new strategy, of distance.’
‘Last time you came with me.’
‘Last time I didn’t have so much to lose.’ He smoothed her eyebrow with his thumb. ‘I don’t want to see you upset. Entirely selfish on my part. It hurts too much.’
‘It’s mutual. This,’ she smiled, her mouth against his wrist, ‘is the reason I want to move on. Because I like where we’re headed.’
Ed put his free hand to her hip, finding the skin under her shirt, the place where the tattooist had inked the words Places of exile.
Who apart from Ed had seen the words on her skin?
Only one person: Stephen Keele.
Spying on her at her parents’ house, two years before he killed them.
She hadn’t known about the spying at the time. Stephen had kept it a secret, only telling her six months ago. He was so parsimonious with his secrets, drip-feeding them to her, his way of keeping her close …
Enough.
Marnie stood, holding her hand out for Ed’s. ‘Let’s go to bed.’
37
Lawton Down Prison, Durham
It’s night now.
Esther is sleeping. I envy her.
She dreams of them. The boys, the baby.
I think she shuts her eyes and somehow, like dodging bullets, she finds a way through the pain and the guilt and the punishment. A way back to them.
It’s not fair.
If one of us should be suffering more than the other, if one of us deserves to be in a worse predicament, it isn’t me. No corner of my mind, conscious or subconscious, has escaped the therapist’s scalpel. They’ve probed me from every angle, penetrated every defence. I am laid bare, once a fortnight. Twice, at the beginning, until they saw how fast I fell, how quickly I offered up the penance they wanted. My dreams and fears and, God help me, my hopes.
How has Esther been allowed to keep back a private piece of herself, when it was made clear to me that nothing less than wholesale evisceration was good enough?
‘All right, Alison?’
It’s Beryl, in a white trouser suit that would look natty in an amateur production of a musical about dentistry. I don’t know how she stands to wear a uniform that’s so man-made it throws sparks when she walks. Her big face, moon-like and pitted, peers in at us through the porthole in the door. I should be grateful for her pretence that we have a little privacy. She won’t come into the room unless one of us asks, or yells, for her.
‘Just reading,’ I say.
‘Your last night here,’ she says.
I don’t want to think about that, so I don’t answer. But she’s right.
We’re getting out tomorrow.
I knew I’d lost track of time in here. I knew I couldn’t remember how many days – months, years – it’s been since I saw them. But I didn’t realise the days were slipping past this slyly. We’re getting out tomorrow, me and Esther.
The world has gone mad. The lunatics are being let out of the asylum and no one – no one – is going to know what hit them.
Beryl is still in the doorway, watching.
‘Lights out soon,’ she says.
‘Soon,’ I agree.
I agree with everything and everyone here. From the senior psychiatric team to the funny little Sikh who washes the floors.
Yes, no, of course.
I couldn’t agree more. If I did, they would suspect me of sycophancy. I’ve tried sycophancy and it doesn’t work. Not unless you’re lucky enough to get stuck with someone whose ego casts a shadow. I’m good with egos. I know exactly where to stroke and how hard. But they need to know that my subservience is sincere and not just a reflex, a new way of paying homage to the system that, let’s face it, has the authority to make or break me many times over. It’s strange, but what they want from women like me and Esther isn’t humility.
It’s more, and less, than that.
They want … modesty.
How old-fashioned, I thought at first. But now I think, how clever. How clever and cruel to ask for something at once so small (it’s only modesty) and so gargantuan.
Do you think that if we had even a fingernail-full of modesty, we could have done what we did? That anyone in any prison passing itself off as a mental institution has anything approaching modesty? It’s like asking a wild animal to please keep the noise down when it rampages. If we had modesty, we would never, ever have done what we did.
They demand modesty but they hang mirrors everywhere.
Plastic mirrors, but mirrors all the same, where you find your face first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
If you’re unlucky, you’ll recognise what looks back at you from their mirrors. After what you’ve done, you shouldn’t be recognisable to anyone. You should have a face smeared with ashes and a mouth that’s a howl, eyes that bleed and hair coming out in handfuls, because it is, look, it’s coming out in handfuls.
Their mirrors strip-search your face of all the things you’ve hidden, everything you’ve done, until you look like the person you were before. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’ve checked every mirror in this place and they all tell the same sloppy lie that nothing has changed, I’m just an ordinary woman in extraordinary circumstances.
Esther is the same.
Some days, in a soft light, she even manages to look nice.
Harmless.
I want a proper mirror. A hard surface, high shine. I want to really see us. What we’ve done. Who we are. No hiding places.
Fuck modesty.
Hang up more mirrors.
Let more of us see how scary we look.
Show us that there’s no escape.
Not even when the lights go out and all that’s left is an amber prod from under the door, where the corridor bleeds into our room for one last night.
38
London
Dan rolled on to one shoulder, blinking up at Noah from the bed. ‘You’re dressed.’
Noah smiled at the accusation in his voice. ‘Yes.’
‘I’ve got a Mexican headache …’ Dan rubbed sleep from his eyes as he slid, gingerly, from the bed. ‘It’s wearing a sombrero and shaking maracas.’
‘Coffee,’ Noah said. ‘I made a pot.’ His eyes followed the line of Dan’s shoulders, admiringly. He wanted to fill his fist with Dan’s fringe and pull until—
‘Careful,’ Dan warned. ‘That suit would never be the same again.’
Noah said, ‘Fuck the suit.’ But he stepped away, throwing Dan a clean towel.
Dan tied the towel round his hips and glanced at the alarm clock. ‘Shit. Eight a.m.? When’d that happen?’
‘It snuck up just after 7.55.’ Noah picked a feather from Dan’s fringe.
Dan leaned into his touch provocatively.
‘Careful,’ Noah warned. ‘That towel would never be the same again.’
• • •
In the sitting room, Sol was sleeping face-down on the sofa bed, bare feet kicked from under the blanket, one arm curled around his head.
He’d got as drunk as Noah and Dan last night, ended up dancing with Abercrombie, who’d kept the safe side of groping after Noah caught his eye. Dan was right: it had done Sol good to see his big brother letting off steam. Maybe they should go out together more often.
Noah had called their dad when he was making the coffee. ‘Sol’s staying here for a bit. How’s Mum?’
‘She’s miles better,’ Dad had said. ‘New pills doing the trick …’
New pills always did, until her body adjusted to them and the trick stopped working.
Sol muttered in his sleep, drawing his arm tighter around his head. Noah twitched the blanket back over his brother’s feet, shutting the sitting room door softly.
In the kitchen, he rinsed the coffee cup and dried it, making space in his head for the thought that had been stalking him since last night, seeing Sol’s eyes jumping around the room, hearing him dodge the questions about their mum.
Then the phone call with his dad, this talk of Rosa’s new pills …
He got out his phone and texted Marnie. Think I might have something. See you on the estate?
• • •
Marnie’s phone buzzed as she was parking up in Blackthorn Road.
‘You didn’t call.’ Accusation in Adam’s voice, and cigarette smoke. He’d started early.
She locked the car. ‘I didn’t see your story in any of the papers today. Are you holding out for a higher bid?’
‘How about breakfast?’
‘You go ahead. I’ve got work to do.’ She ended the call, needing a sugar hit before she tackled the interview on the housing estate.
There was a newsagent’s not far from the Doyles’ house, so she walked in that direction, glad of the stiff breeze pushing at her face. The crowd had gone from the pavement on Blackthorn Road. Boredom and hunger had moved most of them on when they realised the police presence had thinned to a couple of uniforms guarding the tape.
The newsagent’s had a notice: No more than two schoolchildren at a time.
Marnie wondered whether the Doyles’ kids came here; Clancy, fumbling for mints, sneaking glances at the adult magazines. From a fridge, she took a bottle of Fanta, hideously orange, promising a sugar punch.
‘Any for a pound,’ the cashier said.
‘Any what?’
He gestured at the counter: giant chocolate bars, in sun-bleached wrappers.
‘Right. No thanks, just the drink.’
The counter was doing a nice line in miniature teddy bears, sympathy cards and fake blue roses with fat plastic raindrops glued to their petals. The teddies had blue bows around their necks. Marnie picked up one of the bears. ‘How much for this?’
‘Three fifty, or five pounds for two. Most people buy two.’
‘Why’s that?’ She knew why. She wanted to hear him say it, hoping to hear at least a little shame in his voice.
‘They found two bodies, in the house up the road.’ He nodded at the blue bow around the bear’s neck. ‘Two little boys.’
‘And you just happened to have these in stock?’
‘From the Jubilee. We took out the red and white ones.’
Marnie put the bear back. ‘Too bad they didn’t find more bodies. You’d be raking it in.’
The newsagent looked at her for a second, trying to figure out if she was joking. Then he said, ‘Most people only buy one card.’
• • •
Outside the shop, Marnie snapped the cap on the bottle and drank three long mouthfuls of the oversugared, undercarbonated orange drink. It was really good. She walked up the road to where the Doyles’ house was under siege from cheap toys and sympathy cards.
Bunches of flowers wrapped in cellophane had been fed into the gaps between the railings. A foil balloon was fastened to the railings: Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.
Marnie crouched on her heels to read one or two of the cards.
The messages made her eyes hurt.
Her memory served up a junk pile she’d seen spotlit in an art gallery, years ago. The spotlights had been rigged to pull silhouettes from the junk, conjuring the image of a man and woman seated back-to-back, sipping champagne. The art was just a pyramid of tin cans and broken boxes – a garbage heap – but the artist had posed a champagne glass at its heart and lit the whole thing so cleverly he’d extracted a love story from the mess.
The huddle of toys and flowers left on Blackthorn Road had no champagne glass.
Shivering, shading her eyes, Marnie looked at the houses.
All the same, giving her nothing, their pantiled roofs pink in the early light from the sky. The beech trees were better at this end of the road, taller and thicker. Good cover, if you were trying to hide something. Or getting two small boys to play at climbing trees. Finding a secret hideout, underground. Making a game out of trapping them. Killing them.
She shut her eyes before she refocused on the litter of tributes at her feet. Thinking of another crime scene, a different litter of flowers left by strangers, most of the bouquets inside cellophane which attracted dust and rain so that the patch of pavement outside her parents’ house was permanently discoloured and smelt fetid.
Looking for the champagne glass …
Was that what she was doing?
‘Hello.’
She turned her head so fast her vision blurred.
Terry Doyle was standing next to the railings where the flowers had been pushed. Like his wife, he’d lost weight since he was moved out of number 14. ‘You know they’re selling those teddies in the corner shop? Beth was really upset when she found out.’ He looked down at Marnie. ‘Julie Lowry called. She said you found bunkers in all the gardens.’
‘We found six bunkers, but no bodies. No other bodies.’
‘Do you know yet who they were? In our garden?’
‘Not yet. I’m sorry. We’re working on it.’
‘But you know how they died.’ Remnants of shock in his voice, even now. ‘How – how much they suffered. You know that.’ He moved his right hand, then stopped it, holding it still with his left. ‘I’m sorry, I know you can’t say. It’s just … I can’t stop seeing them, and I’m not sleeping well.’ His face searched for a smile to give her.
‘You’ve got a job to do, I know that. Beth said you’d been round. I’m sorry I missed you. I thought perhaps you had news.’
‘It’s early days. We’re still finding out about them. But I can say that I don’t think their death was violent. Our pathologist used the word quiet.’
‘Quiet …’ He reacted to it in the same way she and Noah had, by flinching. ‘You haven’t found their families?’
‘Not yet.’ She tried to keep the taint of pessimism from her voice, but his bleak look intensified. ‘How’re you doing? You said Beth was upset about all this.’ She gestured at the teddies, flowers and cards. ‘How’s Carmen, and Tommy?’
‘They’re safe. Kids are amazing. Beth … Beth’s not coping so well.’
‘She said you two met at work?’
‘Yes. A landscaping job, at her offices.’ His mouth twitched into a fond smile. ‘Hardly love among the roses, more a case of durable turf and gravel edging, but it was love all right. It happened so fast. One of those times when you don’t stop to ask questions of fate.’ He drew a breath. ‘She said you two talked about Clancy? His temper …’
Marnie calculated, decided to be direct. ‘Yes. How is that?’
‘Much like any teenage boy with his upbringing, I expect. He resents me trying to be his dad. I knew what I was signing up for. It’s no worse than I expected.’
‘Isn’t it? Beth seemed agitated when we talked about Clancy.’
‘She worries about him,’ Terry said simply. ‘The kids who’re the hardest to love? Those are the ones who need it the most.’
‘Sometimes love’s not enough. Isn’t that true?’
A frown pinched the skin under his eyes. ‘Sometimes, perhaps, but you have to start there. No point going straight to discipline, or drugs.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Ritalin,’ Terry said, ‘you know the sort of thing. Often it’s the parents chasing the diagnosis, giving up too quickly on kids who need extra help. Jumping to drugs because it makes life easier for them, never mind what it does to the kid.’
‘You think someone did that with Clancy? Jumped to drugs?’
He blinked. ‘Clancy’s not on drugs. Is that what you thought?’
The strip of anti-psychotics was in her bag. She could have shown him the evidence but she didn’t, because something here didn’t add up. Terry was intelligent, big-hearted maybe, but no fool. If the kid he was fostering was on medication, he’d have known about it.
