The Second Life of Amy Archer

by R. S. Pateman

  Lois and Harding can barely look me in the eye.

  ‘He was meant to be in isolation!’ I sob. ‘Out of harm’s way!’

  ‘He was,’ Harding says, shaking his head. ‘But they couldn’t keep him locked up twenty-four hours a day, every day. And the prison officers don’t have eyes in the back of their heads. I can’t express how deeply we regret this, Mrs Archer. The prison authorities are investigating.’

  I slump on the sofa, sobbing into my hands. Brian sits beside me. There is no comfort in the arm around my shoulder. Instead of my daughter’s body, the best I can hope for is some bureaucratic inquiry that will find no one at fault and move on.

  ‘The bastard got away with it,’ I say. ‘And he’ll get a funeral too. Where’s the justice in that? It’s so bloody unfair. What have I done to be punished like this? Haven’t I suffered enough?’

  Lois squeezes next to me. She smells of coffee and cigarettes.

  ‘I promise we’ll do anything we can to help you through this,’ she says. ‘We won’t just walk away and leave you to it. We can arrange for you to have some counselling, for as long as you need it. We’ve got some very good people.’

  ‘I’ve done all that,’ I say, clenching my fists. ‘It doesn’t work. Nothing does.’

  Brian stands up.

  ‘I think it might be better if you leave us alone for a bit,’ he says.

  Out in the hallway I hear Lois tell him that she’s only a phone call away if we change our minds.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ she says. ‘Dana’s parents would like to meet you. When you’re ready.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Brian says. ‘We’ll see.’

  The door opens to journalists’ questions and camera flashes, then shuts them out. Brian coughs and comes back into the front room.

  ‘I don’t want to see Dana’s parents,’ I say as he sits down.

  ‘They’ve lost their daughter too.’

  ‘I know.’ I sigh heavily. ‘I can see how meeting and talking might help us – all of us. But not just yet, eh? I can’t face having to handle their grief as well as mine.’

  ‘What about your family?’ Brian says. ‘They’ll be in touch now the news is out.’

  ‘Maybe. Mum anyway. Some of my so-called friends too, perhaps.’ I can’t help my snide smile. ‘I don’t want to deal with any of them right now, okay? If they call or turn up . . .’

  Brian nods.

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  For the next few days we drift around the house, barely talking. I spend most of the time in Amy’s bedroom, my back to the mirror to block out the memories I might catch there. The slabs of colour from my experiments with paint samples now look like tombstones.

  Brian offers to redecorate, but I tell him to leave it.

  ‘You got rid of every trace of her last time,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘It’s more about removing any trace of Esme and Libby,’ he says, pointing at the walls.

  ‘They’re in here,’ I say, jabbing at my temple with a finger. ‘There’s no escape from them now either. They’ve taken every part of me. Christ, even Bagpuss has gone.’

  I left him behind at Libby’s flat in my rush to collect my things. Lois could get him back if I asked her to, but I never want to see him again. He has been sullied by Esme’s duplicitous kisses. He’s the Grey Wolf in another disguise.

  I shut the door when Brian talks to Fiona on the phone downstairs, but I still catch the odd sentence.

  ‘Beth’s resting . . . I miss you too . . . I’ll be home soon . . . Give my love to the girls.’

  I tell him he should go back to his family, but he says he can’t until he knows I’ll be okay.

  ‘Then you’ll be here for ever,’ I say flatly. ‘You might as well go now.’

  ‘I don’t want to leave you on your own. How about spending some time at your parents’?’

  ‘Maybe later.’

  I want to be here for the moment, alone once more with the memories the house holds. The regrets. Maybe I’ll move. Perhaps there’ll be a ‘For Sale’ sign outside my house after all. Just like Ian had said.

  ‘Your parents could come here,’ Brian says.

  My mother would fuss and fidget, boil kettles constantly, polish and vacuum and cook. Dad would sit in a chair, stoic and silent, uncomfortable with my tears, still doubtful of my innocence.

  Brian is on the point of calling them when Jill steps in to save me.

  ‘My sister’s on the mend,’ she says on the phone, ‘and the hospital have finally got their act together and managed to get the home help in place. I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  Brian doesn’t leave me until she arrives.

  ‘It’s good of you to come, Jill,’ he says as he opens the door.

  ‘I’m only sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. Where’s Beth?’

  I sit up from the sofa as they come in. Jill looks pale and tired but finds a smile.

  ‘Don’t get up, Beth,’ she says.

  I collapse into her arms as she sits beside me. Her embrace is a fortress, strong and impregnable. It’s the safest I’ve felt in weeks.

  ‘I wish I could wave a wand and make this go away,’ she says. ‘It’s so unbelievably cruel.’

  Brian makes some tea for us, then sits down. He seems agitated.

  ‘If you want to go, it’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘Jill’s here now.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that,’ Brian says thoughtfully. ‘It’s just . . . I’ve been thinking. What Jill said about waving a wand to make it all go away.’ He rubs his eyes with the hub of his palms. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but . . . would it be worth asking that psychic to see if he knows where Amy’s body is?’

  ‘What?’ I say, sitting up.

  ‘Brian, you can’t possibly be serious?’ Jill puts her hand on my arm and leans towards him. ‘Don’t you think they’ve done enough harm already?’

  ‘Over the years, yes,’ he says. ‘But this one . . . He seems to have got a lot of things right. He might be able to help.’

  ‘Seems to,’ Jill says, shaking her head. ‘That’s not nearly enough . . . particularly for something like this. He could send you off on a wild goose chase, and Beth’s been chasing shadows for too long already . . . If you’d seen the state she was in after that horrible picture of Jesus, after all that false hope of the last ten years, you wouldn’t even contemplate such a ridiculous, dangerous idea . . . And you still don’t know that he wasn’t involved with Libby and Esme.’

  ‘The police can’t find any link,’ Brian says.

  ‘Maybe they should ask a psychic to help.’ Jill sniffs and takes a sip of her tea. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so flippant. Shouldn’t have said anything, really. It’s not my place. It’s your decision.’

  ‘Beth?’ Brian says, tilting his head towards me.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say.

  ‘But the picture. Dana. The thing about the book,’ Brian says. ‘Even Esme turning up. It’s all too . . .’

  ‘Premeditated? Convenient?’ Jill mutters.

  ‘Accurate.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ I say, leaning back. I want the sofa to swallow me up.

  ‘Everything’s changed, Beth,’ Brian says. ‘Look, I’m not saying I believe, wholeheartedly, one hundred per cent, but . . . there’s a doubt in my head now. A crack. Maybe it’s worth a try? It might be our only hope of ever finding Amy.’

  ‘He couldn’t help me when I asked him to find Libby’s telephone number.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ he says. ‘That’s not exactly the same thing, is it?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Jill says, putting her cup down. ‘Needles and haystacks come to mind.’

  ‘He couldn’t help then because it was a specific request about a particular detail,’ I say, closing my eyes. ‘I’m not sure this is any different.’

  ‘It’s not treating the “other side” like directory enquiries.’ Brian’s voice has the sneer h
e once used to dismiss psychics.

  ‘No, more like a missing persons bureau,’ Jill says. ‘And they haven’t come up with anything in the last ten years, have they? If Ian is genuine, his “gift” would have told you where Amy was buried before now, and spared you all this heartache. Why prolong it? I hate to be so brutal, but it’s time to face facts. We’ll probably never know where she is.’

  ‘Bishop might tell us – eventually.’ Even I don’t believe that’s true.

  ‘That seems as likely as this Ian doing so,’ Jill says. ‘But I’d take Bishop’s word over his any day.’

  I remember what Ian said the last time I saw him, about not choosing which of his predictions to believe or ignore.

  If we did ask him and he gave us a location, what then? We’d have to convince the police and get them to excavate the site, with the press prying and speculating from the sidelines. And if Ian was wrong and told us to look elsewhere, then somewhere else, how long would the police cooperate? How would we cope with the stress, the anguish of dashed hope? It would be like Millennium Eve all over again, a scab that just won’t heal.

  Ian has been wrong before; his ‘connection’ with the picture of Jesus sent me running around the streets, a madwoman making wild accusations. Unsubstantiated ones – there is no evidence that any vicar was involved with Amy’s abuse. Not so far. I can’t see how there ever will be. But then maybe the error was mine in interpreting the picture as a lead to a vicar, rather than a clue to Bishop, or to Dana.

  What Ian might say could be read in so many ways and take us down blind alleys. Further into despair. I’m too tired to go on.

  ‘Let’s wait for Bishop’s conscience to get the better of him,’ I say, my shoulders slumping.

  ‘But he says he doesn’t know!’ Brian throws his hands out towards me.

  ‘He could be lying,’ I say.

  ‘And Ian will be lying if he says he does know.’ Jill takes my hand. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’ve made the right decision.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say.

  Brian falls back into his chair and sighs heavily.

  ‘If you’re sure, Beth?’ he says.

  ‘Quite sure,’ I say. ‘You won’t see or get in touch with Ian, will you? Go behind my back, like you did with the reward?’

  ‘No. I swear.’

  He looks at his watch and stands up.

  ‘Before you go,’ Jill says, ‘I’ve had an idea that you might want to think about. I’ve interfered enough already and if you want to tell me to take a running jump then I’ll understand.’

  ‘What is it, Jill?’

  ‘I went to St Anselm’s on my way here, you know, to say a prayer for you and Amy, and I wondered . . . well, if you’d thought about having a memorial service?’

  Brian suggested one a year after Amy vanished, but it was too final to me, too much of a full stop. She might still be alive. And although that hope faded bit by bit over the years, I just couldn’t face shutting the door on her completely.

  If we were ever to have a service for her, it would be a funeral, with a body in a coffin carried in a procession to a grave with a headstone adorned with flowers I could replace each week. The chance of that has been snuffed out for good now; a memorial service is the best I can hope for.

  ‘I did think about a service myself,’ Brian says. ‘But I thought I’d give Beth some time before I suggested it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jill says. ‘You’re quite right. I should have kept my mouth shut.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’m touched you thought of it.’ I look up at Brian. ‘You want to do this?’

  He nods.

  ‘Do you?’

  I am wary of a church service. God has played a long, cruel and vindictive game with me, let me believe that there is always hope, a chance to start again and lead a good and meaningful life.

  I regret that I ever believed it.

  All the alternative venues for some kind of service seem wrong too. The park is too public and too painful. Nothing could exorcise the ghosts there. I cannot even think of walking into Amy’s school, and the hall where she went to Brownies and did her dance class is too functional, its memories too frivolous.

  ‘Maybe we should have a word with the vicar,’ I say, shuddering at my suspicions about the local clergymen.

  ‘I spoke to Philip when I was there,’ Jill says. ‘He said he’d be happy to offer guidance on the service. He suggested you might want to consider a memorial plaque too.’

  It’s a consolation prize for plucky contenders who haven’t quite made the grade.

  I felt the same years ago when I considered planting a tree in Amy’s memory. It would bear her name and be a living monument, an ornament to the park. Somewhere for me to sit. Something for me to care for.

  But I couldn’t escape the thought that the other bereaved families who planted trees in the park also had graves to visit, or places made sacred by their loved ones’ ashes. The tree was an add-on, a supplementary flourish.

  I’m ambivalent about the plaque being in the church, too. It wouldn’t just concede my defeat at the hands of God, it would write it on the walls for all to see. A scoreboard and a trophy cabinet. But I am cheating Amy once more if I turn down the offer of the plaque. It may only be a facsimile of a grave, but it’s the best she’ll get.

  We agree a date in early April. Maundy Thursday. The day of the Last Supper, when Jesus anticipated his betrayal and crucifixion. Entirely appropriate for my final farewell to Amy.

  Brian stands back from organising the service. Not because he doesn’t care, he says, but because he thinks doing it will help me heal. But nothing ever will.

  I choose pop songs over hymns, poems over prayers and dither over the type of plaque. Stainless steel is too cold and corporate, marble too fancy and formal. Sandstone is warmer but drab, and wood not special enough. I choose a silvery slate for its elegant glow, for being halfway between light and dark.

  The inscription is harder to decide. The list supplied by the plaque company is generic and bland. Amy’s epitaph isn’t going to be off the peg or shared by countless others. Some of them resonate in ways they don’t intend.

  Step softly. A dream lies buried here. This isn’t Amy’s headstone. She isn’t buried here.

  Called by the one who loves her dearly. It’s as good as a summons from the Grey Wolf.

  Our littlest angel who went back to heaven. And then returned again as Esme.

  ‘There,’ I say to Jill. ‘That’s what I want.’

  She pushes her glasses back on her nose and squints at my writing on the notepad.

  Amy Elizabeth Archer

  1989–1999

  Let Love Lead the Way

  ‘It’s a Spice Girls song,’ I say.

  ‘Ah, I see. Perfect.’

  The day of the service is bright with spring but the warm sunshine fails to breach the church walls. The pink roses in the vases all around the church have no scent and the photo of Amy on the altar jumps in the stuttering flames of the candles. The music from the speakers is underscored by an incessant hiss and the poems are deadened by dull acoustics.

  When we file outside to unveil the plaque, the sun goes in. God turning his back on me one more time. I hear a titter in the wind in the trees.

  15

  Jill holds on to my arm as we catch our breath climbing the hill to the Royal Observatory. Sunlight glints from the offices at Canary Wharf on the other side of the Thames.

  Jill sighs.

  ‘You can just feel summer coming, can’t you?’ she says.

  I can’t, but I nod anyway. I don’t think I will ever feel warm again. Parakeets squawk from the trees overhanging the path.

  ‘It’s funny how they survive here. You’d think it would be too cold for them,’ Jill says. ‘Did you know we’ve even got them in Kennington Park now?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘They’ve adapted. Found a way to survive.’ She snuggles into me. ‘Just lik
e you have.’

  ‘They’re making a better job of it than I am.’

  ‘You’re getting there, Beth.’ She takes a deep breath and leans into the hill. ‘Shall we?’

  We walk on, the incline growing steeper. Two boys on bikes whoop as they fly down the hill, spraying stones behind them. They bounce and flex, absorbing bumps and swerving to avoid potholes. Amy used to love riding down hills. I’d watch her, envious of the full-pelt thrill of her descent but worried by her precarious rush.

  ‘They’re not even wearing helmets!’ I say.

  ‘I think that’s wonderful.’

  ‘They’ll know all about it if they fall off.’

  ‘But it’s their confidence I like,’ Jill says. ‘They’re not expecting to fall.’

  ‘Every child falls,’ I say, shuddering. ‘Mothers should be more careful.’

  As we approach the Greenwich Observatory, a red ball slides up a spindle protruding from one of the turrets, stopping halfway.

  ‘It must be almost one o’clock,’ Jill says, pushing back her sleeve to check her watch.

  A few moments later, the ball slides right to the top, waits for a minute or two, then falls in one smooth drop. I think of Esme being catapulted into the air on the Ice Blast ride at Blackpool, then falling back to earth, loaded with lies.

  The police may have warned them not to get in touch with me, but there’s nothing I can do to stop them intruding into my thoughts, even though I fight it. If they have tried to contact me, I wouldn’t know it. I haven’t logged on to the computer since I returned from Manchester, and my mobile has been switched off. But they infiltrate every memory of Amy like weeds in a crack. When I try and picture her, Esme gets in the way, sly and precocious. Alive.

  The Meridian stretches out in front of us, like a solitary tramline. A sign says that it divides east and west, and marks the point from which the whole world takes its time. The official starting point of the new millennium. My stomach knots.