“Sure.”
The inside of his office looks a lot like Rachael’s, expensive wood and leather tomes, although this one has certificates on the wall bearing the name “Robert Lewis Howe, LLP.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet you during your trial.” Despite all the space in the office, he’s still standing just inches away from me. “When your husband phoned the firm, I wanted to take your case on myself but Rachael insisted, and your husband agreed with her. I got the impression they knew each other.”
“If they did, they never mentioned it to me.”
He shakes his head. “That’s what I was afraid of. Look, I might be speaking out of turn here, but I always thought there was something we weren’t being told about your case. Something Mr. Webster was keeping from us. Now if I’m talking rubbish, just say . . .”
“No.” My answer might have been a bit quick. “I mean, if there’s something you think I should know, I’d rather you told me.”
“That’s just it. I’m not quite sure what it was, more a feeling. I don’t have any actual proof. If you wanted, I could take a look at your notes again, see if anything strikes me. Of course if you’d rather put it all behind you, I’d completely understand. Start afresh, forget it ever happened.”
How can I tell him that’s impossible without telling him that I know Dylan is alive? “Look,” I say instead. “Look, and see what you think. If you find anything, this”—I pick up a pen from the desk and grab his hand, scrawl my number on the back of it—“is my number.”
He’s staring at the back of his hand and his face breaks into a huge grin. “Did you just write on my hand? All this paper in the office and you write on my hand? No one’s done that since school.”
I feel my cheeks redden. “I’m so sorry. What a stupid thing—”
“It’s fine.” He’s laughing, thank goodness. “Maybe we could go for a drink sometime? I’d understand if you didn’t . . . I mean . . .”
My heart’s pounding now. I don’t know whether it’s at the thought of going for a drink with Robert Howe, a real date where there’s wine, small talk, and perhaps a walk home—a kiss?—or at the knowledge that I’m going to say no. No matter how attractive he is, my life is too complicated at the moment for ordinary things like dates, a boyfriend. How would that even go? “How was your day, darling?” “Oh, wonderful, thank you, sweetheart, I spent the morning chatting to a missing doctor’s wife and the afternoon looking for my not-dead son.”
No, it most definitely isn’t going to work out.
“I’m sorry, Rob,” I say eventually, when I realize he’s going to want an answer. “I have so much going on, I’m just readjusting to being in the real world again—I’m not in the right place for dating at the moment.”
He doesn’t allow his face to fall even a fraction. Or maybe he’s just not that disappointed; maybe he asks out every woman he comes across, just in case.
“Of course.” He shrugs his shoulders easily. “But just in case you change your mind . . .” He takes the pen that I’m still clutching and turns my hand over, writes a number on the back. “That’s me. Call me. Anytime.”
“Thank you for saying you’ll help. I’d better get back to the car, my friend, he’s probably sealed off the building by now. But thanks. Thank you.”
I’m embarrassing myself, babbling, and Rob Howe is smiling again. I turn and practically fly from the room, along the corridor and down the stairs. I get the distinct impression he hasn’t moved.
“What was all that about?” Nick asks when I sink into the seat beside him.
“He wants to help,” is all I can manage.
“You didn’t tell him . . .”
“Nothing,” I reply a little too quickly for someone who’s telling the truth. If he notices the number on my hand he doesn’t mention it. “Are you going to tell me how you knew about her phoning Mark?”
“I noticed her number in Mark’s address book. I took a swing at it and made up the number of calls, but she obviously contacted him quite a bit or she would have just said she didn’t know what I was talking about. Bit of luck really.”
“So when did you speak to Mark about it?”
“I didn’t, did I?” Nick looks at me as though I am a bit dense. Well, forgive me if I’m not used to playing Inspector Morse. “It was a bluff. I bet she’s calling him now and kicking herself that she fell for it. Wish I could see her face.”
“Why do you think she was really ringing him? There were never any problems with my funding.” The excuse seems ridiculous in light of what I found in Mark’s accounts ledger. “And surely she shouldn’t have been speaking to one of the main witnesses?”
“Definitely not,” Nick replies. “This might be a bit of an awkward question, but do you think . . .”
“I don’t know,” I answer unhappily, knowing what he’s about to ask. “You want to know if they were sleeping together and the answer is I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, about anything.”
“Maybe your ex-husband isn’t the saint you thought he was.”
I only allow myself a second to wonder what the hell that is supposed to mean. Nick knows nothing about Mark, or our life together. I know my ex-husband. I know Mark. I do.
37
We’re back at Nick’s house and I’ve known there has been something on his mind since we arrived. He’s been fidgeting, tidying things that haven’t needed tidying, and he’s made three phone calls in the kitchen where I can’t quite catch what he’s saying. It’s almost a relief when he says, “Look, there’s something I have to do.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” I say. “Do you want me to go and do some shopping or something?” I’m trying to sound easygoing, but I want to know what it is that’s so important. I selfishly want to keep him by me (what could be more important than what I’m going through?), but I know that’s ridiculous and I don’t want to sound like a petulant child. I have to remember how much of his life he’s given up to help a complete stranger; he has other commitments too. Right? But why won’t he tell me what they are?
“No, you stay here. If you’ll be okay? You feel safe here, right?”
If I say no, will he stay? I don’t want to test him so I just say yes. I don’t want to sound like a wuss.
While he’s away, I just walk around the house, feeling like I should be doing something, keeping busy, trying to avoid looking at my son’s blanket, which has been in my handbag since Carole delivered it to me. I’m imagining him as a four-year-old child playing delightedly on a swing somewhere unknown to me. I try not to think of him being brought up by someone else, calling someone else Mummy, instead focusing on all the things we might do together when I find him. Because I’m certain now I will find him.
My phone rings. Cassie.
“Hey, how are you feeling after last night?”
I don’t tell her that my eyes are aching, my face is tight with tears, and my head hurts from thinking. I don’t want to worry her so I don’t say I feel like I’m a car cruising down a motorway in neutral. Instead I say, “I’m okay, really. We saw Rachael today.”
“Oh yeah? And how did it go with Cruella?”
I smile. Never one to mince words. “It went okay. Quite well, in a grim way. Not so good with Mrs. Riley.”
Filling her in, I can sense her frustration that she’s so far away, unable to help.
“I promise I’ll keep you informed every step. I’ll call you every day. It’ll be like you’re here.”
She sniffs. “I guess you’re not coming to the shelter tomorrow?”
Shit, is it Saturday again already? Part of me feels like it’s been a lifetime since I received that small brown envelope; the other part feels like it happened just yesterday. The week has been a crazy blur, a snapshot out of a Hollywood blockbuster.
“Sorry, Cass, can you make me some excuse? You understand, right? I have to see this through now, I’m not coming home until I find Dylan. As soon as this is all over, I’ll take y
ou out for a Sunday roast, I promise.”
“Yeah, of course. It’d better be a roast lunch, though,” she grumbles. “And you’d better call me tomorrow. I really wish I could be there with you, but I kind of feel like I’m in the way.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I say. “You were amazing last night, but I know you have a home to be at.”
As soon as she’s gone, I grab a pen and paper. Lists have always been my lifeline—back when I had a life. Maybe they will rescue me now. I start writing down all the facts about my son’s death. From the trial notes I can see exactly what my mind won’t allow me to recall, exactly what happened that day in July 2009. Well, not exactly. Because nowhere in there tells me why my son’s DNA was on that hairbrush, four years after his death.
I remember feeling so tired, so upset. Why? Why would I have been upset that day? Something that had happened with the health visitor . . . something she’d said had rattled me, made me feel like a bad mum, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it was. I came home and settled down for a nap with my son. No, wait, first I made myself a cup of tea while Dylan lay on his play mat, kicking at the toy lady bird that dangled from the arch above him. I fed and winded him . . . That was it! The health visitor had asked why I’d switched to the bottle, completely insensitive considering the trouble we’d had breastfeeding. I fumed about it the whole time I was giving him his bottle that day . . . then I placed him in his Moses basket next to the sofa and . . . nothing. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital, two police officers outside my room and a crowd of journalists outside the front doors.
Or is it? Hazy images from a dream I’ve had, more than once, swim in and out of focus in my mind, images of people talking, arguing. Are the images just dreams, or are they real memories of that day? It makes sense that they would be real: Mark was the one to find us; if he’d found his son dead in his Moses basket, a cushion covering his mouth and nose, he would be crying, and he would assume it was me who had killed him. Something about the scene doesn’t seem right, although it’s all written there in the trial notes in black and white, but I can’t place what’s wrong. Why can’t I remember anything properly? It’s so strange. I can remember other days with crystal clarity. Taking Dylan to see the diggers when they did construction on the local park; visiting my mother’s grave to place a picture of Dylan and Dad on top. That was one of the main reasons why the doctors had diagnosed the psychosis: my complete lack of memory of Dylan’s death. Although I could always sense Dr. Thompson’s frustration; the thought I might be acting, to lessen the impact of my crime.
I pull out the pack of aspirin I keep in my handbag to stave off the migraine that’s threatening and swill a couple down with a glass of water. Without hesitation I grab an already open bottle of wine from Nick’s never-ending stock and pour myself a glass of that as well. I figure I deserve it after what I’ve been through, and it might stop my hands shaking. Nick should be back soon; he can help me finish it off.
38
JACK: 16 DECEMBER 1992
Keep it together, Jack. You’ve come this far, don’t fuck it up now.
He could see things were getting worse and he’d had to do something. Shakes wasn’t coming back to Durham—the situation with Beth had sent him completely over the edge and his father had pulled some strings to have him finish his degree from home. Now Jack was sitting in the police station, ready to be questioned about the murder. God, the filth really were clutching at straws.
I’m not here as a suspect. I’m here of my own accord.
The mantra made him feel calmer, more in control. The detective leading the case had offered to interview him at the university, given the family he came from, but he’d been insistent: no, he’d come to the station, he didn’t want special treatment. Now he was sitting next to his father’s best friend and lawyer—unnecessary, the detective had said, but his father would never allow him to cross the threshold of a police station without Jeremy present.
“So you knew Bethany Connors well?”
Jack looked at Jeremy, who nodded. “Not really. I mean, she was my friend’s girlfriend . . .”
“Fiancée,” the detective corrected. Fucking imbecile, what difference did that make? “Yes.” Jack allowed a terse smile. “Of course. But I’d only met her a very few times.”
The detective smiled back. His podgy stomach rubbed the edge of the table, pushing it closer to Jack every time he leaned forward slightly. His dark hair was slicked with the grease of a few days without washing and his face was darkened with stubble. This man was working overtime, but he wasn’t going to get anything more out of Jack. Jack would wager his own life on that.
“Some of Beth’s friends mentioned you had a crush on her.”
Jack sighed. You could always rely on hysterical females to over-fucking-dramatize things. “I thought she was attractive, yes. I mean, you’ve seen her, right? She had that tiny little waist and tits you could balance a bowl of cereal . . .” Jeremy cleared his throat. “Sorry,” Jack apologized, allowing himself to look chastised and trying not to grin at the detective’s look of disgust. “Yes, I found her attractive.”
“So it must have annoyed you when she began dating your best friend.”
Dating? Who did this guy think he was, the Fonz? Screwing was more appropriate; she was screwing Billy and it never would have lasted. Jack could see the look in those gold-digging green eyes whenever she looked at him; it was him she really wanted.
“Not really,” he said. “Girls like Beth are commonplace at Durham. I’m hardly short of dates.” He emphasized the last word, mocking the detective for being so out of touch.
“So you didn’t send her presents?”
There was no point in lying. Jennifer would have told the filth all about his gifts to Beth. “Yes, when I first met her she mentioned she liked some artwork and I had it sent to her. Unbeknownst to me at the time she was already seeing my best friend; when I found out, I immediately apologized to Beth and suggested she keep the presents as a gesture of my sincere remorse. He’s like a brother to me; I would never knowingly pursue a girlfriend of his.” He hated having to sound so pathetic, but it was working: this idiot was eating up the “my brother my friend” act. Jack glanced at Jeremy, who nodded again. Jesus, how much was his father paying him to sit there and nod?
“Okay, so—” There was a knock at the door and a young police officer entered the room. His eyes were wide, as though he still couldn’t believe someone had allowed him into a police station unsupervised. His hands fidgeted as he addressed the detective at the table.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, it’s just, well, we got him.”
The fat man at the table scowled. “Fuck’s sake, David, can you not see we’re in the middle of an interview?”
The young man at the door reddened at the dressing-down. “Sorry, sir, but Chief Inspector Barnes wants you in there now. He said—”
The detective turned back to Jack. “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to excuse me. Can I just get you to wait here for a minute?”
Jack’s heart began to pump. Had they found the tramp? The door closed behind the detective, but not all the way. Jack got up and opened it a crack more. He couldn’t hear anything.
“I need the john,” he told Jeremy. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Jeremy didn’t have the balls to argue and Jack pushed open the door and made his way in the direction of the two officers. Raised voices made him stop short. Fuck, this was it. This could end it all.
39
After an hour Nick still hasn’t made a reappearance, so I refill my wineglass and go back to my notes. According to the investigating officer’s statement at the trial, Mark found me and Dylan and rushed us both to the hospital. When the police got to our house, they found the offending cushion on the floor—where Mark had thrown it after finding it clutched in my hands—along with an empty bottle of aspirin and a pool of blood where I’d hit my head when I passed out. Mark accosted Dr.
Riley in the hospital parking lot and it was he who pronounced both me and my son dead. As they rushed us in, another paramedic noticed I was breathing, shocking the life out of them all. Once the police psychiatrist had confirmed that the blackout had probably been caused by puerperal psychosis as a direct result of the trauma of killing my son, it really was an open-and-shut case. I was admitted to the hospital, where I woke up the next day.
I realize with some surprise that my glass is empty, and when I turn to refill it so is the bottle. How did that happen? I remember a time when you could get at least three glasses out of a bottle of wine. Uncorking a second bottle, I return to the sofa and put my feet up. I’ve only taken a couple of sips when I decide to lay my head down and rest my eyes, just for a second.
40
Susan! Susan, wake up!” Something is wrong, someone is shouting, shaking my shoulders frantically. Where’s Dylan? Is he okay? As I slowly take in my surroundings, I remember. Dylan is gone, I am not in my home, and the man shaking my shoulders isn’t my husband, it’s Nick.
“Nick, what the hell?” I sit up groggily, my head pounding and my mouth dry. “Where’s the fire?”
That’s when I see what’s wrong. The living room around me looks like a piñata has been battered to death above us. The floor is covered in ripped-up paper and it takes me a second to realize that every last page of jottings, trial minutes, medical notes, and articles has been shredded.
“What have you done?” I shout, jumping to my feet. When Nick doesn’t speak, I take in the rest of the scene. Three empty wine bottles lie on the floor next to an overturned glass, and my packet of aspirin sits on the arm of the sofa, empty but for two pills. “Did you do this?”
The look on his face tells me he didn’t. “Well, it wasn’t me. Someone else—”
“How the hell did someone get in here while you were asleep, drink three bottles of wine, empty out a packet of aspirin, and rip up all this paper without you noticing?”
How I Lost You Page 18
