How I Lost You

by Jenny Blackhurst

  “Thank you, Jean. We realize that you may not want to go into what happened to Beth, but if there’s anything you think we should know, we would really appreciate your help.”

  She picks up the remaining coffee mug and sits down to join us. “Susan, you have been honest with me and told me what must have been a difficult story for you. I’m going to extend you the same courtesy, but I must ask something of you first.”

  I nod. “Anything.”

  There is fear in the small woman’s eyes. “If anything should come of this, if it is related to what happened to your son in any way, I must ask that my name is kept out of it altogether.”

  I nod again, more emphatically this time. “Of course.”

  She nods and sits back in her chair. “Beth was a lovely girl. I know supervisors shouldn’t have favorite students, but Beth was one of mine. Everyone who met her fell in love with her instantly; she had a very soft voice but her fellow students hung on her every word.” She looks upset but carries on talking. “She was a bright and committed young girl and she had a brilliant future ahead of her. At the end of her first year she began dating Mark Webster.”

  My heart speeds up at the mention of my ex-husband’s name.

  “Your husband was a very charismatic man, even at such a young age,” she tells me. I don’t bother to correct the “husband” part. “He and Beth had a lot in common, people adored them both. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but they made quite the couple.”

  I do mind her saying.

  “When they got engaged, she was over the moon. Not many people know this, but Beth had been offered a job in Sorrento after graduation and Mark had agreed to go with her.”

  My heart drops and my throat constricts to the size of a pencil. Sorrento. The place Mark and I had taken our honeymoon. Had he been thinking of her even then?

  Neither Jean nor Nick seem to notice my discomfort. Jean carries on but she has just ruined my memories of two of the best weeks of my life. “In the days before her death Beth was a different person. She barely spoke to anyone and I hardly saw her with Mark at all. Her best friend, Jennifer, told me much later on that she had planned to break up with him. She said he wasn’t the person she thought he was.”

  “Was Mark ever a suspect?” Nick asks. Jean shakes her head.

  “No, never. He had an alibi from around six p.m. until eight the next morning. He was drinking with friends until the early hours and passed out on a friend’s sofa, where he woke the next day.”

  “He was out drinking when his fiancée was missing?” It doesn’t sound like the Mark I know.

  “He told the police they’d had a fight and that he thought she’d stood him up to get back at him. He was devastated when her body was found, I honestly believe that. He’d called her best friend, who was worried enough to call me, and I alerted the police but they couldn’t have cared less. Myself and some other students looked everywhere we could think of . . .”

  So far I haven’t heard anything helpful. Nick glances at me as though he’s reading my mind. Again.

  “When Bethany was found, the whole college was heartbroken. To lose a fellow student and a friend is bad enough, but the way it happened . . . When Beth’s body was discovered, the police found evidence of a brutal sexual assault. She was completely naked, her wrists and ankles bruised from the ligatures that had held her, and her throat had been slashed—”

  “Please, Mrs. Whitaker,” I interrupt quickly. “We know from what we’ve read what happened to Beth. Maybe you could tell us about what happened after she was found.”

  She’s visibly relieved and nods gratefully. “Everyone was scared. Things like that just didn’t happen in our little world. Parents demanded answers. Trevelyan and St. Chad’s are a twenty-minute walk apart and the easiest route is through the university grounds. It’s mainly students around here and they feel safe. It was a couple of days later that the rumors started.” She takes a deep breath and I can tell this is hard for her. Neither Nick nor I speak. I feel bad that we’re causing her pain, but I need to know what happened from her point of view, not just what we’ve read on the Internet.

  “One of Mark’s friends made a statement to the police that he’d seen Beth in a less than reputable area of Durham, getting into a car with a strange man a few weeks before her death. The friend—I believe on Mark’s insistence—retracted his statement, claiming it had been dark and he may have made a mistake about exactly what he’d seen, but the damage was done. Rumor spread like wildfire that Beth had been making money by having sex with strangers. It was presumed after that that she had got into trouble with a paying customer”—she blushes when she says this—“and been killed when things turned nasty. With a complete lack of evidence the case went cold and the police all but gave up.” Jean looks angry, her hands are shaking, and tears have filled her kind eyes. “That’s when they arrested that man, the drifter, Russon, his name was. They said he killed Beth because he didn’t want to pay her.”

  “You don’t believe that’s what happened?” I ask gently. She shakes her head emphatically.

  “There’s no way Beth would do a thing like that. Don’t look at me like that, Mr. Whitely, I’m not some naive sentimental old fool and I’m no prude either. I know students do things that are less than savory sometimes to make ends meet, although less so at Durham than other places, but not Beth. It was complete rubbish and the police knew it too. They were under pressure from some very important people to close the case and it was a convenient explanation at the time. I never believed a word of it.”

  “But others did?”

  She puts down her cup and looks at me. I’ve become so used to people ignoring me lately, preferring instead to direct their questions and answers to Nick, that this sudden shift of attention makes me uncomfortable.

  “They believed what they wanted to believe. It’s hard to convey just how scared these girls were. No one wanted to think badly of her, but the alternative was far more disturbing. The thought that another student or someone she knew might have done this to her was petrifying for them. They wanted to believe she had brought this on herself because it meant they weren’t in danger. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the police went away, a true case of out of sight, out of mind. Life here went back to normal and sure enough, no one else got hurt. That settled it in the minds of the students; it became an unfortunate incident that no one mentioned again.”

  “Did no one stand up for her?” Nick asks.

  “Of course,” Jean replies. “I and several of the tutors all begged the police to look closer to home. We were threatened with losing our places at the university if we continued to bring the college into disrepute. Her brother, Josh, was tenacious. In the end, though, even he gave in. However much we loved Beth, getting ourselves into trouble wasn’t going to bring her back.”

  “Do you know where her friends went after graduation? Do you think any of them would be willing to talk to us?”

  “I don’t know.” The supervisor gets up to take our cups and carries them out to the kitchen.

  When she comes back, she has a piece of paper. “These are the names I can remember. Jennifer was Beth’s best friend. She still lives close to here; as a matter of fact, she works a few shifts at the university library.”

  Nick and I exchange a glance and suddenly it becomes clear why the woman at the library reacted so violently to the photograph. She was Beth’s best friend.

  Somehow I don’t think she will be as easy to talk to as Mrs. Whitaker has been.

  “You could speak to the police officer who dealt with Beth’s, um, investigation. He never believed Russon was guilty, he resigned shortly after they convicted the homeless man. I don’t remember his name, but I have a stack of old diaries here somewhere, I might be able to find it. And she had family, a sister as well as a brother. I don’t know where they live, sorry, I never met them face-to-face.”

  She gets to her feet again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help wi
th regards to your son,” she says to me as she shows us to the door. I get the feeling she really means it.

  “You’ve been more than helpful, thank you so much,” I reply genuinely. “I’m sorry to have dragged this up for you.”

  “It’s no bother,” she assures us, but I can’t help feeling she won’t find sleep easy tonight. “There’s one more thing you could try . . .”

  “Anything you think might help.”

  “Well, it’s just I always did wonder about the boy who made the statement about Beth in the first place,” she says quietly. “If it wasn’t for him, the police wouldn’t have thought so badly of her.”

  “It’s definitely worth looking into,” Nick says, pulling out a pen and his notepad. “What was his name?”

  “Let me see.” She looks thoughtful. “He was Mark’s best friend and neither of them came to me at Trevelyan. It was a common name, what was it?” She looks annoyed at her failing memory. “That’s it! I can’t believe I forgot! He was a charming boy but I never trusted him after what he said about Beth. They called him Matty but his name was Matthew. Matthew Riley.”

  We both thank her again and leave in stunned silence. In all the years Mark and I were together, he never once mentioned that Matt Riley was his best friend. They made no allusion to knowing each other during the trial, and he never told me that Riley had gone missing immediately after giving evidence.

  “How do you feel about staying here tonight?” Nick asks me as we make our way back to the car. “That way we can go and speak to Jennifer tomorrow, do a bit more asking around.”

  I was thinking the same myself. I agree and pull my phone out of my handbag. I have five missed calls. Three are from Cassie, one is from my father, and the other is from an unknown number. “Cass and Dad.” It’s too late to call either of them now, so I send them both a text to say I’m still alive and I’ll be in touch.

  We check into the Travelodge, managing to get rooms next to one another. Knowing he’s on the other side of the wall makes me feel a bit more secure about being so far from home, especially after what happened on the drive up here, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling a bit disappointed in myself—after my years in Oakdale, I didn’t see myself relying on another man for safety quite so soon.

  “I know that can’t have been easy for you today,” he says as I stand in the doorway, waiting to go into my room. “Especially after . . . the library. But we’re one step closer to finding out what happened to them.”

  “Them?”

  “Him, Dylan. Sorry, what did I say?”

  “You said ‘them.’ I’m tired too. Like you said, we’re so close now and I wouldn’t have got anywhere near the truth if it hadn’t been for you. I mean, I wouldn’t even know Dylan was alive . . .”

  “Susan, I’m not some kind of hero,” he starts to say, but I shush him.

  “There’s no need to be modest.”

  “Susie, there’s something I need to tell you . . .”

  “You need to go back to work, don’t you?” I’ve been waiting for days now for him to tell me, but I’m not prepared for how disappointed I am.

  “No, it’s not that. My boss has been really good, I haven’t taken leave in years and he’s told me to take what I want.”

  “Then there’s no problem. Unless you want to go now, unless you’re fed up of running around after me. I wouldn’t blame you, you know.”

  “It’s not that. I don’t think I could stop now if I wanted to. I need to find out the truth as much as you do. I’m more involved in this than I should be because I . . .”

  Oh God. Is he hitting on me? I should have seen it coming. Have I been leading him on? Does he think this is more than it is? I’ve been so wrapped up in finding out about my son that I hadn’t stopped for more than two minutes to wonder why a good-looking, apparently single guy would want to drop everything in his life and go running around the country with someone who’s spent the last three years in a psychiatric institute.

  “Ssshh, tell me tomorrow. Tonight let’s just forget. I don’t want to talk.” I feel bad that I’m taking what I need emotionally and giving nothing in return, but he doesn’t push it; maybe he feels the same. Maybe this is as innocent as it looks and he just wants to help me. Maybe I’ve pushed too far.

  45

  The sound of a telephone ringing pulls me from my sleep just after ten the next day. It’s not my home phone and definitely not my mobile, I think as I wake gradually and begin to remember where I am. As I lie there, I run through yesterday’s events in my head. Everything that has happened to me, everything I’ve seen and heard in the last twenty-four hours, still seems surreal. Eventually I throw a hand out of my warm bed and grab the receiver.

  “ ’Lo?”

  “You awake?”

  “Am now.”

  “Do you think Mark had anything to do with what happened to us yesterday? In the car? Is he capable of something like that?”

  “If you’d asked me that two weeks ago I’d have said there was no way, but two weeks ago I didn’t think he’d had me framed for murder and lied to me about having a dead fiancée and a fortune in the bank. Now I don’t know what the hell to believe. Should I be worried?”

  “I don’t know. Is there any way he might know where you are?”

  “Not unless he asks Cassie.” If I wasn’t so scared, I might laugh. The idea of my ex-husband and my best friend having a cup of tea together and discussing my whereabouts is ludicrous.

  The banging in my head gets louder.

  “I don’t mean to worry you,” he says in a low, comforting voice. “All we can do is try and get sufficient evidence to have the police reopen Dylan’s case, and that means staying alive long enough to do that. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think we were followed after that guy ran the car at us, so it’s possible whoever it was didn’t know where we were going after all. We should go and speak to Jennifer Matthews, then get out of here. One step ahead and all that.”

  “Okay, but they saw me escaping from Mark’s house, remember? Which means they followed me there without me knowing. I’d say we’re not the ones who are one step ahead here.”

  There’s silence at the other end of the line, and for a minute I picture Nick Whitely on the other side of the wall. Eventually he asks, “Don’t you feel safe with me?”

  It’s a stupid question and slightly petulant. It’s a very teenage notion to believe that someone can keep you safe just because he’s a big, strong man. In the last week I’ve had my house broken into, been in danger while I was sleeping, been followed over a hundred miles, had my photograph taken climbing out of a window, and been run off the road. And Joss. Whoever these people are, I think I’m justified in believing that a journalist from a local newspaper probably can’t guarantee my absolute safety. In fact if I’m brutally honest, I’d be safer with Cassie, but I’m sure as hell not going to tell Nick that.

  “Of course I do. Forget I said anything. I’m still freaked out about yesterday. I’ll just be glad when we’ve spoken to Jennifer and gone home.”

  “If she’ll speak to us. She wasn’t exactly inviting us around for tea when we mentioned Bethany yesterday,” Nick reminds me. He has a point, but we’ve still got to try.

  “I’ll go out and get breakfast while you drag yourself out of bed. I’ll knock five times when I get back so you know it’s me.”

  Is he joking? Christ, I hope so.

  Armed with a hefty breakfast order Nick hangs up, leaving me to make myself look half-decent. While he’s gone, I quickly phone my dad to assure him I’m okay. He’s quiet throughout, and at the end of the conversation he tells me to be careful. I promise I will—fingers crossed—and jump in the shower.

  I spend longer than necessary under the hot spray, the water that pounds my neck and shoulders feeling better than any massage I’ve ever had. I could stay here all day, but I know I’m just delaying the inevitable, so I drag myself out and wrap myself in one of the hotel’s fluffy towels. Nick�
�s made no mention of anything between us. Maybe that’s not what he was going to say. I’m not ready to think about what might happen between us when all this is over—I’m not ready to think of anything other than getting my son back in my arms.

  I’ve been out of the shower just minutes when my mobile rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “Susan?”

  “Mark.”

  “Where are you?” He sounds concerned.

  “I can’t talk now, Mark. How did you get this number? Why are you calling me?”

  “I’m worried about you, Susie.” My old nickname. Seconds on the phone to him and I’m so close to tears it’s unbelievable. “Come home to me and we’ll work something out. I want to help you.”

  My heart pounds against my chest and my throat’s almost closed. I want to do what he says. I want to turn around and go home, to the house where we were so happy. I want my husband to fix what’s wrong in my life. That’s why I surprise myself by what I say next.

  “I’m not coming home, Mark. I need to find out what’s going on here. I need to know what you’ve done.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  He’s lying. Dylan is alive, Mark’s former fiancée is dead, and I want to know who the hell I was married to. I stop myself from telling him any of this; I can hear Nick’s voice warning me not to show my hand, not to trust him, to be careful.

  “Good-bye, Mark.” I hang up the phone and begin to cry. This is it. I’ve chosen to distrust the only man I’ve ever loved, the father of my child, and there’s no turning back.

  No questions have been asked, so I’m not forced to lie about Mark’s phone call. When Nick gets back he either doesn’t notice my puffy eyes or presumes that things have just got on top of me, which suits me fine, I don’t like to lie.

  The older woman behind the library desk today is friendly enough and doesn’t pry when we inquire what time Jennifer will be here.

  “She doesn’t start until one,” she tells us as she issues us with another two guest passes. Clearly Jennifer hasn’t had a chance to warn her to look out for a pair of evil journalists. “But she usually gets here a bit early for a cigarette.”