by Emily Elgar
“I think I’ll sleep in your room tonight, Gracie.”
I heard her checking the locks before she dragged the roll-up mattress into my room. We both know who keeps calling. But neither of us dares say his name. That’s the biggest secret of them all.
Lots of love, Grace xxx
12
Jon
The last time I was in Ashford police station was after I was arrested on Meg’s lawn. The police had to yank the golf club from my hand. The station smells familiar, institutional, like a hospital or a school, of bleach and sand on vomit. I think only fleetingly about telling Upton about Grace’s real name and birthdate, about GoodSam, but I’m too wired to think through what the implications could be for withholding information—besides, they might know already, and I don’t want to give Ruth any more ammo, any reason to keep me away from Jakey. So I won’t risk it, not now.
Upton leads me into a gray, windowless interview room. The metal table is pushed up tight against a wall; it’s bolted, as are the four chairs, to the floor. There are microphones in every corner of the room and the beady eye of a camera at each end. There’s another door in the far corner. Upton sits down on one of the chairs and points to the chair opposite. “Please.”
I sit, dutifully. I’d anticipated a briefing, but from the way Upton is leaning forward across the table, the way she glances at her hands clasped in front of her, I have the feeling she’s about to tell me something big. She takes a deep breath before she starts to talk.
“My colleagues are preparing to speak to the press right now, but I wanted you to hear from me. The body of a young woman was recovered this morning, at the Point.”
I feel myself wince but she keeps her gaze steady and professional.
“You didn’t know?”
I shake my head. I’d only heard about the dress, not a body. I remember all those missed calls from Cara.
“I’ve been busy with another . . . commitment. Is it . . . ?” I can’t say her name, as though saying it will make the possibility of her death, her drowning, more real.
“We knew there were members of the public who saw the body. We’ve had to move quickly, before there’s too much speculation on social media. We were able to push through the tests, and forensics just confirmed the blood types don’t match. It’s not Grace. We’re about to release a statement in the next few minutes, but I wanted to let you know.”
It’s as though an invisible rope relaxes around my throat. There’s still a chance she’s alive.
Upton looks at me; spidery red veins lattice the whites of her eyes. I realize she probably feels the same as me, exhausted but wired.
“We are still searching the area.” Her eyes dart to her watch. “Look, Simon’s going to be brought in here any moment. I want to be gone when he arrives to talk with you.” She rests her elbows on the table. “I’m sure you’re aware how unorthodox this is, allowing a suspect to speak with someone outside the force, but Simon’s given us reason to believe Grace might still be alive, so that’s why we’re going to these unusual lengths.”
I think of Adam Rufton again, the claims of police negligence and rigidity in dealing with his case. Upton, it seems, is trying to learn from her colleague’s mistakes.
“I know you’ve met Simon before, you know how his illness makes him paranoid, distracted. He says he’ll only talk to you. We have no idea what he wants to tell you—if anything—but just try to keep him on the point and don’t put too much pressure on him. We’ll be recording everything.”
I nod and Upton keeps talking.
“There have been some concerns from my superiors about having a journalist meet with our prime suspect—”
“I’m not going to write about it, at least not until Grace is found, if that’s what you mean.”
Upton’s shoulders visibly drop an inch and immediately rise again as a heavy-sounding fist bangs against the door we entered through. She stands and says quietly, “Good luck, Jon,” before leaving through the second door.
I don’t have a chance to tell her to wait, that I’m not ready.
But the fist bangs again. I don’t know what to say so I call out, “Come in!”
As the door opens, my leg starts to shake, and I imagine the people watching the CCTV of me in the adjacent room, the comments about me being nervous, and I force my leg to still. I feel overwhelmed suddenly. I’m not a formal interviewer and what interview technique I do have is rusty. Upton didn’t even suggest any questions. I thought she’d prepare me more, but clearly there’s no time. I close my eyes briefly and picture Grace. I remind myself this is a chance to help her, that she needs me to get this right.
The door opens with a heavy metallic clang and Simon shuffles in, handcuffed to a short but thickset detention officer. Simon keeps his head down, pliant as a whipped puppy. He’s wearing grubby jeans that bag around his legs and a navy sweater. The DO steers him into the chair opposite me. To stop myself from staring, I pour water for us both into plastic cups. It’s only when he hears the door shut behind the DO that Simon looks up at me. It’s as though all his sorrows have been carved into his face. The lines around his mouth and eyes are so deep he looks like he needs to be sewn back together. His hair is matted and his stubble patchy and rough. His face is strangely lacking expression, like he’s someone who has lost all faith in the goodness of the world. I have the impression that if I punched him he wouldn’t even flinch.
I can’t remember how I was going to open the interview because now he’s in front of me I realize I was wrong. I’m not here as the interviewer. It was Simon who wanted to see me. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because he knows I’m a father, because he knows about Jakey’s illness, about all the crap online and about my arrest. He knows that, for a while at least, I was close to sitting where he is now.
“Hello, Jon.” His voice is a rasp but he smiles briefly, as though we’re back in the café in Plymouth, not in a police station. “How’s your boy? What’s his name again?”
Acid rises to my throat, I force myself to swallow. I glance at the camera; I don’t want to say his name out loud in this room where the air seems to hum with other people’s sadness and regret. I clear my throat. “Jake . . .” I cough; my mouth tastes sharp. “Jacob.”
Simon keeps his empty eyes on me; a corner of his mouth twitches, like he’s trying to stop himself from smiling again.
“That’s it. Jacob. Is he better?”
I nod, feel heat rise to my cheeks.
“You look embarrassed, Jon.” As he says the words I catch his eyes flickering, fast as a snake’s tongue, back and forth in his sockets.
“I’m not, I’m just—”
“You’re not used to the questions being about you, is that it?”
There. Again. His eyes flare. Something’s wrong. His mouth twitches and I realize he’s not trying to suppress a smile, he’s trying to stop from mumbling to himself. Something’s seriously wrong with him.
I realize I’m staring, so I look down at the table, pick up my water. Simon sees my hand shaking. I hope the people behind the camera don’t. Simon waits for me to answer.
“I didn’t think the questions would be about me, no.”
Simon shrugs. “That’s fair enough. Everyone wants to ask the questions, no one wants to be the person who has to answer them—ever noticed that?”
He raises his plastic cup to his mouth with both hands. He drinks and licks some water across his lips. The corner of his mouth twitches again, and I catch the beat of two syllables but I can’t make out the words. He closes his eyes quickly to compose himself before he asks, “You know the date today?”
Out of habit I glance at my watch, but I know without having to look.
“Sixth of June,” I say slowly. “The anniversary of Danny’s death.”
Simon widens his eyes at me. “Twenty-one years.” He glances down at his hands, his fingers splayed in front of him, as though he needs them to calculate the number of years gone by. “Tw
enty-one years of reliving that day, a lifetime of wishing I was dead instead of my son.”
His voice doesn’t crack, but for just a moment his mouth becomes a thin, hard line. Grief has grown around Simon like ivy, twisting and squeezing until at last it swallowed him whole. I glance at the camera. Upton said I only had ten minutes; this might be my only chance to find out the truth.
“Simon, we need to talk about Grace.” I keep my head turned away from the camera and my voice low as I add, “Or Zoe.”
His eyes widen when I say her real name, flash with recognition before his forehead creases. “Grace?” he whispers. He won’t call her by her real name, not here. His gaze searches the boxy room around us, as though he expects to find his daughter hiding in a corner.
Without warning he stops searching, stares back at me. The left side of his mouth curls upwards again as he says, “She was always such a little thing, so small I could pick her up with one hand.” He raises his right hand to demonstrate. I fear for the imagined baby in his hand. “But I wasn’t allowed to see her. Not since everything. She said I was too dangerous to be near her.”
“Who said that? Meg?”
His eyes trace around the room again, as though his whole dead family are in here with us. At last, his eyes come back to me.
“She said after Danny that I shouldn’t be near children, that I was dangerous, that I’d hurt them even without trying. She said I pushed her down the stairs.”
“Did you, Simon? Did you push Meg?”
The corner of his mouth twitches again, as though he’s struggling with the words inside him. He can’t contain them, but he can’t release them either. Again two syllables escape, but I still can’t make out the meaning.
He starts shaking his head. “No, no,” he says, and at first I think he’s crying, but then I realize he’s shaking with laughter.
“I don’t know, I can’t remember.” He raises his hands to his head and he starts pulling his hair so hard it looks as though he could rip his scalp clean off his head.
“But you’d been calling the house, trying to speak to Grace recently, hadn’t you?”
“Grace wanted me to call so I did. I kept trying, again and again.”
“How did you know Grace wanted you to call?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.”
He cries out in a damp sob, it sounds like laughter has become tears. But his eyes are dry. Suddenly he stills, becomes calm again. It’s like talking to many different people at once. He clears his throat as though he’s been sitting here, perfectly composed, all along, but I see his eyes skip, his teeth chatter again around the words he can’t say but when he does talk it’s with almost alarming clarity.
“Look, I was a mess after Danny’s death. Meg kept saying it was my fault, and it was easy to believe her. I couldn’t live with the guilt. Then Grace was born too early. She said it was my fault again, the stress from Danny’s death. Grace’s illnesses were my fault. I believed her. I thought it was better for Grace if I stayed away.”
His eyes sweep the room. I worry I’m going to lose him again.
“Tell me what happened next, Simon.”
His eyes widen when they land on me.
“One night I got a phone call from the hospital. They couldn’t get hold of Meg, but my number was still linked to her record. They told me Grace was sick, meningitis they said. I drove straight to the hospital, but Meg had already taken Grace home. I still had a back-door key so I let myself in. I just wanted to see her, that was all.”
“But you took Grace away.”
“I just, I just wanted to talk to her, make sure she was OK . . .” Simon shakes his head emphatically.
“But you couldn’t leave them alone, could you? You kept calling them, over and over, but they ignored you until you took Grace away again, didn’t you, Simon, after you murdered Meg?”
He becomes very still, his pupils black and bottomless, and he stares over my shoulder and says as calmly as if this were just a chat about the weather, “I wouldn’t hurt Meg.”
“That’s not the same as saying you didn’t,” I say as Simon starts moving his head frantically, as though there’s something stinging him inside. I think about saying her real name again or telling him I know Grace’s real date of birth, but I don’t want to send him over the edge. Suddenly he stops, blinks, and relaxes again.
“You have to find her. You have to find Grace, Jon.”
“I need your help. I need you to tell me where she is.”
“Why would I ask you here if I knew where she was?”
I don’t have an answer, so instead I ask, “Why me?”
“Because you know what it’s like to have a sick kid; you know what it’s like when the whole world hates you. We share all that, you and I.”
I reach for the elastic band, but there’s nothing there so I press my thumbnail into the soft part of my palm to stop myself from shouting that I’m nothing like him. He lifts his hands and points a finger at me.
“But there’s one big difference between us. You have the power to tell the world the truth.”
“Simon, what is the truth?”
But he squeezes his eyes shut and starts shaking his head again, back and forth, back and forth, chattering nonsense, and then he starts ripping at his hair with angry fists. He stands up quickly and leans across the table, so close I can almost see the anger, the pain, boiling inside him.
“The truth is . . . the truth is that I don’t remember what the truth is . . . that’s all . . . I don’t remember,” he shouts, then starts to shake with sobs. I hear the key turn in the lock. Simon raises his hands to his face and, turning away from the cameras, wipes his face in the heel of his hands, but as he does so, he lifts his hand a little and I see his mouth is fixed in a hard line. He mumbles those two syllables again, but this time just clear and loud enough for me to hear.
“The twins.”
“You could have warned me he’s fucking lost it.” I’m pacing, almost shaking with adrenaline, when Upton walks into the interview room. I sound angrier than I feel, taut as a wire. The twins. What did he mean?
Upton holds her hands up. “I know. You’re right.”
“So why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“We had a choice: risk you being pissed off or risk you behaving differently around him. Look, two doctors have confirmed he’s coming out of a psychotic breakdown and paranoid. He self-harms if anyone says he’s unwell; it’s like torture to him. We wanted you to treat him as normally as possible. That’s what he craves and that’s why we think he asked for you. You treated him normally when you met before and you did again. We are trying to learn from the Adam Rufton case, we don’t want to make the same mistakes again.”
“Adam Rufton was murdered because you lot didn’t listen.”
“And I’m working as hard as I can to try to make sure that never happens again. I want to listen. I want to know how you knew Simon had been calling Megan.”
I can’t let Upton know I’ve read Grace’s diary, so I try to sound casual. “If my wife kept me away from our son I’d be calling every minute of the day to try to see him.” My shoulders ache as I shrug. “It was an educated guess.”
Upton keeps her eyes on me, nods slowly—she looks like she’s working hard, trying to figure out why I’m lying.
“He’s clearly unwell. What’s going to happen to him now?”
“He’s going to be transferred to a secure psychiatric hospital immediately. I’m going to keep questioning him there as much as I can. I need to make sure he doesn’t get so stressed that he suppresses what happened to Grace.”
“What if he can’t help?”
Upton looks away. She can’t answer me so instead she says, “Thanks for coming in at such short notice, Jon.”
We shake hands and I’m relieved. I want to get out of here, need to get out of here, now. The bleach feels like it’s coating the back of my throat, makes me want to gag. I need to breathe, to think.
It’s pouring with rain as I drive away from the station. I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours but I don’t want to go back to the flat, I need some space. The closest beach to the police station is about five miles away. Ruth once told me the locals call it Goat Beach. Granted, it’s no beauty spot—it’s overlooked by an industrial center and the pebbles are always covered in drink cans and used condoms—but at least it won’t be busy. The rain has darkened the day, the lights are already on outside the boxy buildings, lighting up the back of the beach. I trip over the pebbles and slide over a couple of tendrils of seaweed that lie slick like long, wet hair. I’ve never seen another person down here so, for me, it’s perfect. My phone vibrates in my pocket but I ignore it. I need to shake off the connection with Simon, make sure his madness hasn’t rubbed off on me. I open my body to the wind, like Ruth does, and let it creep under my T-shirt and down my back, let the air freshen and cool. I let myself shout out to the sea, before I feel self-conscious and lie back on the pebbles to look up at the sky. My phone vibrates again. I toy with not answering it, but then I think it could be Jakey so I look at the screen.
It’s Cara. I want to be alone but I also feel an urge to answer. I want to tell her about my conversation with Simon.
“Cara.”
“Where the fuck have you been?” She’s out of breath, she sounds like she’s been running.
“Long story. I only just heard the police found a body, but—”
“I know, it’s not Grace.” She cuts me off. I thought she’d sound relieved, but she only sounds tense.
“What’s wrong, Cara?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone. Where are you?”
“You know Goat Beach?”
“That shitty little spot near the industrial estate?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I wait for Cara at the top of the beach, next to an abandoned pram. She’s wearing a red raincoat, her arms wrapped around her chest like a straitjacket. As she gets closer I see she’s shaking and there’s mud between her toes, but her eyes are wired, full of stars, and for a moment I think she’s taken something. But as soon as she starts talking I know she’s sober.
