Dad doesn’t interrupt, despite the thousands of questions that must be running through his head. His face grows darker and more concerned as I tell him about Nick being a journalist, and about the intruder in my house. Then I come to the part about the blanket. I pull it from my bag and hand it to him, watching his reaction as I explain how the box was posted to me but ended up with a neighbor. Realization and understanding dawn on him slowly.
“You got this yesterday?” he asks. I nod. “And that’s when you called me. Because I’m the one you trusted with Dylan’s things.”
“Yes. I’m so sorry, the last thing I wanted to think was that you had something to do with this whole thing. And then I rang you and you said you’d spoken to Rachael . . .”
“She called me. She said she felt obliged to let me know you were coming out of Oakdale. I thought you must have asked her to call me until she asked if I’d spoken to you.”
“Dad, about the blanket . . . If you didn’t send it to me, who did?”
His face is pained. “I never saw it, love. I packed up Dylan’s things, like you asked, but the blanket wasn’t one of them. I never even thought to look for it . . . I should have thought.”
I imagine my father silently putting away the memories of his beloved grandchild and pain pierces my chest. What made me think it would be any easier for him? I should never have asked him to do that so soon.
“It was the night before Dylan’s funeral,” he continues quietly, his face scrunched up as though the memory causes him actual physical pain. He refuses to look my way but begins to walk slowly along the riverside once again. I stay by his side, hanging on his every word.
“I went to the funeral, you know?” He isn’t waiting for a reply; I don’t think he’d even notice if I turned and walked away. “I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome, but Mark made sure no one so much as thought a bad word. I really appreciated that.” He shoves his hands deep into his pockets.
“The night before, I went round to do as you’d asked me. I sat on the floor in his room, putting all his teddies and clothes into storage bags, but it never even crossed my mind to look for the one thing he was never without. I’m so sorry, Susan, I have no idea where that blanket came from.”
I link his arm to calm him down.
“It’s okay, Dad. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” I assure him, but he shakes his head.
“I wanted to do it. I wanted to feel like I was being some use to you. But I never saw that blanket, not in the house, not at the funeral. So where the hell did it go? And how did it end up back with you?”
22
JACK: 24 JANUARY 1990
You are not going to fucking believe this.”
Jack hadn’t seen Billy like this in ages, not since everyone started filling out their university applications. Maybe he’d got laid. “What?”
“My dad, his business got a new investor. He’s brought in these massive new contracts, four this month. He’s going to be able to pay for me to go to uni.”
“Yes! Nice one!” Jack jumped up from the sofa and punched the air. He’d tried everything to get his friend to apply to Durham: offered to pay his rent, researched scholarship grants. He’d never admit it, but he hated the thought of going away without any of them: Adam, Matt, Billy, even Mike. With his grades Billy was the most likely to actually get in. “You’re applying for Durham, right?”
Billy’s face dropped and he looked down at his hands, where he started picking at his fingernails—something he always did when nervous. “Well, my advisor says with my grades I could try for Cambridge . . . Dad says he’ll pay for wherever I want to go now that the business has taken off, so I thought . . .”
“You thought you were too good for the rest of us now. Clever and loaded, well, haven’t we done well for ourselves?” Jack’s words were hard and his blue eyes flashed with anger.
“Don’t be like that, mate . . .”
“Mate? I gave you everything you wanted, let you borrow my clothes so you didn’t look like a bloody gyppo, introduced you to my friends—you had no one before you met me! Three years I’ve been the best mate you’ve ever had and what, now you just want to desert me? I offered to pay your fucking rent, for fuck’s sake! Now look at you, a fancy haircut and a bit of money and you’re off to Cambridge to try and outdo us all.”
Billy hung his head and Jack could see he knew how right he was. It was only through him that the square boy people called Shakespeare had become attractive and popular. His pimply skin had cleared up thanks to Lucy’s various face creams; it had been Jack’s mum who had taken him to get his mop of greasy hair cut into a half-decent style at the best barber’s in town. He’d even had his first shag courtesy of Jack’s wallet—not that he knew that Jack had paid the girls they had taken home that night. And now he was going to swan off to Cambridge and look down on the person who’d made him. Jack was clever, but he was too lazy to get the kind of grades Cambridge required, and even if his dad could pay his way in there, he wouldn’t last long. And what was wrong with Durham? It was one of the best universities in the country.
“Look, I just thought you would be happy for me, I didn’t think you’d take it personally. My dad said—”
“Fuck what your dad says. What, he gets a couple of contracts and he’s Donald Trump? Just fuck off to Cambridge, go on.”
Billy opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it and got up to leave. Good fucking riddance. Who did he think he was?
Jack heard the front door slam, then stood up and made his way to his dad’s study. So Billy thought he’d be leaving behind everyone who’d made him what he was. Jack didn’t fucking think so. His best friend was not going to Cambridge.
He banged on the door to his father’s study. “Dad, I need a word.”
23
We wander along the river and talk for the next two hours. It’s as though we’ve never spent a day apart. The fact that I refused his visits, effectively cutting him out of my life for three years, has fizzled and faded away, as though it was a tiff over who took control of the TV remote.
“I’m torn, Dad,” I confess to him when he asks in his most fatherly voice how I’m coping with the situation. “I haven’t told anyone else this, I’ve barely admitted it to myself, but a part of me so badly wants to believe that someone is trying to tell me that Dylan is still alive and the whole thing is a mistake, some cruel prank. Then I get this reality check, this nasty little voice telling me that real life doesn’t work like that. But people do lash out at convicted killers. Human beings don’t care about the truth, justice, or rehabilitation, not really. They care about revenge, retribution, and judgment.”
“Even if it was someone wanting to punish you, would it change things?” Dad asks. “Would it make you feel you were any more capable of taking Dylan’s life? If you want to find out the truth, you have to stop doubting yourself, Susan. Before you went to that place you knew who you were, and what you were and weren’t capable of. I’m going to tell you this right now: I never for a minute believed you killed your son. Not just because I’m your dad and I raised you, but because I saw you with Dylan and you loved the bones of him. I’m not saying that I know whether that little lad is alive or not; all I know is that you didn’t hurt him. I’d like to think that after thirty-two years of being your father I know you better than some doctor who met you days after you’d lost your son. You’re as sane as I am and I’d have attested to that in any court of law if they had given a fig what I thought, but they didn’t. I’d say it’s about time you shared a bit of my faith in you. That’s just what I think, if it matters.” He falls silent, looks embarrassed at his outburst.
“It matters, Dad,” I tell him, tears stinging my eyes. “It matters a lot.”
I leave with the promise that I’ll phone him every day to let him know I’m safe and sound. I feel like I’ve gained so much more than getting my dad back today. I have finally begun to remember how it feels to be Susan Webster again.
&
nbsp; Dad’s right. Before I went to Oakdale, I knew unequivocally that I hadn’t killed my son, no matter who tried to convince me otherwise. I’d trusted in my own sanity, my own mind, and believed in my love for my son. Gradually my certainty had been chipped away by so-called “experts,” who’d decided that just because a jury of my peers had deemed me responsible for my son’s death, then it was true, and eventually I began to believe it too. It’s taken my father’s faith in me to remind me that I once believed in my own innocence. Well, now I believe again. And if I’m innocent, then my son might still be alive.
24
I push open my front door, emotionally exhausted and ready for bed. It’s only seven o’clock, but all I can think of is crawling under the covers and sleeping for a lifetime.
The house is too quiet, too empty without Cassie or Nick here. Throwing my bag onto the chair, I quickly fire off a message to both of them: Things went okay with Dad—no closer to truth. Call u 2moro. Then I make a cup of tea and grab a girlie book to take to bed. Reading takes my mind off everything; when I’m lost in the words on the page, I don’t allow my mind to think of anything else.
I push the bedroom door open with my bum, careful not to spill the tea. The smell hits me before I see what’s waiting on the bed. My cup hits the carpet, scalding tea spraying my trousers and feet. My scream pierces the silence like a siren.
The cold air hits my face, but it’s not until my hands are in the mud that I even realize I’m kneeling on the grass outside my house. How did I get here?
On the bed, a voice in my head reminds me. There’s something on your bed.
“Emma?” A voice I’m very familiar with cuts across my thoughts. Oh God. What do I do? What can I say? Carole is at my side in moments; no time for me to think of a good reason why I might be hunched on my lawn at seven in the evening. I sure as hell don’t look like I’m gardening.
“Are you okay? Shall I call a doctor? Are you hurt?”
The questions hit me like gunfire. Stunned, I recoil from her voice. “I’m fine,” I manage to mumble. Unsurprisingly, she’s not convinced.
“Come on, let me get you into the house.”
“No!” My shout shocks us both. “No, sorry, Carole, I can’t go back in there.”
Confusion and concern cloud her face. “Has someone done something to you? Look, come to mine then. Come on, love, you can’t stay here.”
Carole deposits me as carefully as she can manage on her sofa. “Is this something to do with . . . you know, who you are? Does someone else know? What can I do? Can I call a friend, relative?”
I immediately think of Cassie. There’s no way I can sit here for the half hour it will take her to get here, no way I can go back into my house to wait.
“Can you call the Travelodge? There’s a man staying there, a friend from back home. His name is Nick Whitely, he’ll come and get me.”
Carole nods. “Would you like a drink while you wait?”
I shake my head. Anything I put in my mouth right now is surely going to come back up. The image of what I saw lying on my bed brings bile into my mouth again and I don’t trust myself to open it to speak. I can’t risk being sick in this nice woman’s front room.
“Okay, I’ll call now. I’ll tell him there’s been an emergency?”
“Yes,” I mutter. “An emergency.”
I know I should have warned Nick what he was about to see, but the minute I saw him, words failed me. He thanked Carole, helped me up from the sofa and into his car outside. That’s where I’m sitting now, waiting for him to come back, to explain what’s in my room.
His face is deathly pale as he emerges from the house and crosses the grass. Once inside the car, he takes me in his arms. I let myself be held and try not to cry.
“What is it?” I whisper when I eventually let him go.
“It’s a cat, what’s left of it,” he replies, looking like he’s going to be sick himself. “It’s been . . . it’s been skinned.”
The image of the small animal lying on my blood-soaked sheets pushes itself uninvited into my mind. The smell of the poor thing lingers inside my nostrils and I wonder now why I didn’t smell it as I came up the stairs.
“Oh God.” A sudden terrible thought crosses my mind. “Did it have a collar?”
Nick looks as though he’d rather spend the night in bed next to the dead cat than answer my question. Eventually, though, he nods.
“Tartan?” I croak, wishing he could just make this easy for me and say no, knowing he will tell me the truth no matter how hard. He nods again. Oh no, please no. Not another casualty of this whole crazy mess, someone else I care about.
“Joss.” It’s a statement not a question, and Nick knows I don’t need an answer. Any energy I have left drains from my body and I fall back into his arms, a fresh wave of tears overcoming me. Stupid cat, stupid, stupid, dumb animal! Why couldn’t he have just stayed away? Why did he have to be so nosy, so goddamn friendly? And why pick me of all people? Cats are supposed to be clever; surely he could sense the curse that follows me around, ripping apart the people crazy enough to care about me?
“You should go,” I whisper, pulling myself away. “I’ll take care of this, I’ll check into a hotel.”
Nick looks confused. “What are you talking about?” he asks sharply. “We’re calling the police and then you’re coming back with me.”
“No, you don’t understand.” I want to tell him how only bad things can come to anyone who gets themselves involved in my life. Mark, Dylan, Dad, even Joss the cat. I want to tell him that eventually his life will be ruined, just like the people on that list.
“What exactly is it you think I don’t understand, Susan? That you did something four years ago that you’ve never come to terms with? That someone is using that against you to try and make you think that your son might still be alive? Or maybe I don’t understand that this person has kept such a close watch on you since your release that the minute you contacted me they had your house broken into and vandalized, then killed your pet cat and put him on your bed? Do I sound unclear on any of that?”
“He wasn’t my cat,” is all I can think to say. Nick’s outburst has shocked the fight right out of me.
“Susan, this is a horrible thing to be happening to you, but it’s about time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself and let me help you. I’m a big boy and I’m perfectly capable of deciding for myself whether you’re cursed, or bad luck, or just plain crazy. Now, if you can’t stand to have me around anymore, then tell me now and I’ll drive you to your dad’s and hand you over to what I’m sure are his capable hands.” His eyes fix on mine, look right into my head, and it’s as if he’s running his fingers through my thoughts. “Is that what this is about? Are you trying to get rid of me?” I shake my head numbly. I don’t want to get rid of him. We’ve only just met, but he’s one of only three people at the moment whom I can be myself around, who know who “myself” is.
“I’m not trying to get rid of you,” I whisper. “I’m—”
“No,” Nick says roughly. “Don’t say sorry. Don’t apologize to me again. Just stop it, Susan. I’m not going to bail on you; I’m here to help you. Stop acting as though I’m Mark.”
The shock of his words hit me like a slap in the face. Before I can speak, Nick opens the car door and gets out, pacing the lawn. He pulls his mobile from his pocket and dials what I presume to be the local police station. Was I comparing him to Mark? Were my attempts to push him away a defense against him doing exactly what my ex-husband had done—flee from me as soon as the going got tough?
His voice wafts through the closed window as I sit shaking. Oh God, oh God. Poor Joss.
The police take an hour to arrive and forty minutes to take my statement about what has happened at my house. The ever-so-polite officer nods in all the right places, promises to arrange for Joss to be taken away as evidence, and if there are any developments he will be in touch, thank you, ma’am.
“Am I okay to go in
and get some of her things?” I hear Nick ask him. The police officer shakes his head: best not to go in there until Forensics have finished.
“I’ll book another room at the Travelodge,” I suggest, car door open and my legs dangling out. “I can buy new things for now. I don’t really want anything he may have touched . . .”
Nick shakes his head. “You don’t need to be here, or anywhere near here right now. I’m worried for you. I think you should come back to my place.”
“Oh no,” I object straightaway. “I can’t let you . . .” I don’t know you . . .
“Don’t start that. I’m warning you.” He sounds serious. “The officers can lock up; we’ll pick up your keys from the station. Let’s go.”
25
When we eventually pull up outside a semidetached house in Doncaster and Nick parks his car in the drive, I’m shocked, in a good way. Far from the bachelor pad I was expecting, this is the type of house I would imagine belonged to a married man with a design-savvy wife. A fleeting vision of a woman in a power suit opening the door to greet Nick with a kiss crosses my mind and I have to shake my head to rid myself of it. What does it matter to me if he’s married? He’s only helping me in order to flex his journalistic muscles anyway. The garden is small but well manicured; despite the fact that he’s been away for the last few days, the grass is still short and huge planters encase thriving flowers. Who’s been looking after all this, then?
Nick gets out of the car and motions for me to do the same. I follow his lead, pulling my bags out after me. He isn’t rushing me in; isn’t he worried about people knowing who I am?
“Won’t the neighbors talk?” I ask him, trying to sound casual as I haul my bag to the front door.
“I bloody hope so,” Nick replies cheekily. “I know the nosy old biddies are starting to whisper about me being gay.”
How I Lost You Page 11
