by Julie Corbin
The only silver lining in this otherwise threatening cloud is that the blackmailer is giving us time to react. Bea hasn’t been taken out of the blue and she won’t be taken at all if we either hand over the witness details or keep her out of harm’s reach. I’ve yet to speak to Julian, but I suspect that handing over the details would be a last resort. And the best Mac can offer is for us all to be incarcerated in a safe house. Although this is an outwardly sensible option, it fills me with yet more dread. We will, most probably, be living miles from home, where we won’t know anyone. We will be powerless, utterly dependent on the integrity of the police. While I trust individuals within the law and the police service, I don’t trust the system. I know that sometimes, no matter how much manpower and money you throw at a problem, the outcome still isn’t good. And I don’t trust that everyone involved will keep their mouths shut. Georgiev has long fingers that stretch into other people’s pockets. Some he takes money from, in payment for drugs, prostitution and guns; others he pays for information. And I would bet my life on the fact that some of those people will be in the police service.
Of course, there is a third option. Today is Thursday and the pre-trial hearing is on Monday. Time enough to catch the blackmailer, either by tracing the emails or by working out who she might be. Because the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the threat is coming from a woman. It makes sense. All of us imagine women to be more trustworthy than men – especially around children. This may not always be accurate, but it is the perceived wisdom. So if this woman is out there, spying on us, following us, then I am in the best position to work out who she might be. A newly appointed nursery teacher or shop assistant? Someone who has suddenly made efforts to befriend our family? A brand-new neighbour?
I rack my brains, but nothing and nobody springs to mind. Whoever she is, she’s keeping herself well hidden. But from now on I will watch and listen and report anyone even remotely suspicious to Mac.
Mac. He’s another reason I’m feeling emotionally drained. Seeing him again has not been easy. I am treading a fine line and I need to concentrate on keeping my balance. Sure, the fact that I know him has an upside. We have professional respect for each other and that will make it easier for me to be kept informed. I can talk straight with him. I know the way he thinks. This whole case revolves round Bea, and as her mother, I want to be part of the decision-making process. I am confident that Mac understands this.
The downside is that because of our previous intimacy, the waters could grow muddy. I’m not sure I entirely believed him when he agreed to no distractions. It would be natural for us to fall back into an easy familiarity and further breach the trust Julian has placed in me. I don’t want it and I don’t need it. All I want is for this to be over as soon as possible, for my family to be safe and for me to be able to go back to concentrating on helping Lisa become well again.
I open my eyes and type Sezen’s address into the sat nav. The meeting with Mac has taken slightly longer than I thought and she will be waiting, excited at the prospect of coming to live in Brighton. I know the flat she lives in is close by, but I’m not sure exactly where. I watch the route pan out on the display before me and am about to start the engine when my mobile rings. The screen tells me it’s an unknown number. I answer it anyway, knowing it could well be Julian, and it is. He’s ringing from the airport in Sofia.
‘I called the house just now. Wendy told me you’re up in Tooting collecting Sezen.’
‘I offered to help her with her move to Brighton.’
‘And Wendy’s looking after Bea?’
‘I kept her out of nursery.’
‘I understand. It doesn’t do any harm to play completely safe.’ I hear apology in his voice. ‘Claire, I’m sure you’re not very happy with me.’
‘An understatement if ever there was one,’ I say, under my breath.
‘I didn’t catch that.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say, unwilling to enter into the futility of another long-distance disagreement.
‘Let’s make time tonight for us to talk about what’s been happening and what the police are doing.’
It’s my chance to say that I logged on to his computer and printed off the emails and that I’ve just spent the last hour and a half with the policeman in charge. If Mac is to be trusted, and I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that he is, then I’m as up to date with the details of the case as Julian is.
But I don’t tell him this. We talk about the children and about arrangements and then say our goodbyes. I wish him a safe journey before tossing my phone on to the passenger seat. Then I sit completely still, staring through the windscreen at the rows of cars lined up in front and to the side of me, sunlight reflecting off glass and metal. I feel bleak. Talking to Julian, the man I love and cherish, should make me feel better, but it hasn’t. It’s made me feel worse. Normally, I’m not someone who holds back. I don’t keep secrets from Julian. I never lie to him. Before today, I would have bet my life on the fact that our marriage is as honest as they get, and that our love and commitment to each other and our children keep our actions transparent. But now secrecy has its foot in the door, wedging it open, allowing doubt and duplicity to creep inside. Why didn’t he tell me about the blackmail? Could it be as simple as him not wanting to worry me, or is it something more? This question nags at me and now here I am, doing the same. I am holding back on my meeting with Mac. The same man I have history with. The same man on whom Julian and I must now rely.
Ironic, when five years ago it was sex with Mac that almost cost us our marriage. It’s a time I will never forget. For two whole weeks after Kerry’s wake I lived with my infidelity, my stomach in knots, my heart heavy with shame. I hadn’t told Julian about what I’d done, partly because I was afraid of his reaction – what if he was so hurt that he left me? Took the boys? – and partly because it felt unreal, as if I’d dreamed it. I didn’t do that sort of thing. I had never so much as looked twice at another man, let alone had sex with one.
And yet I just had. I’d behaved completely out of character. Sex and death, not an unusual combination, my behaviour in keeping with the sort of criminals I was mixing with. Fast lives and premature deaths, living on the edge, living for the moment, taking comfort where you can get it, never thinking about tomorrow. A life can easily slide out of control, and that’s what had happened to mine.
Over those two weeks I realised that my job was incompatible with my life. It was time to reassess. I was married to a man I loved. We had two children together. At that point Charlie was fourteen and Jack was eleven. Our lives needed an overhaul. Julian and I were both working too hard. While we were professionally linked and often shared lunch, at home we passed each other on the stairs and in the bathroom, hardly came together in the bedroom. Any energy we had left we gave to the boys at the weekend. It was one of those moments of clarity when I knew that if I didn’t put my marriage and my family first, pretty soon I wasn’t going to have a marriage or a family.
And cheating ruins lives. My father cheated on my stepmother, Wendy, more than once and I knew I never wanted to be that person or have it done to me. Julian deserved the truth and so I sat him down when the boys were in bed and I confessed. I told him I’d had sex with another man, that it had only happened once and would never happen again. Before I had the chance to tell him how much I loved him, he stood up and left the room. When I followed him, he held me at a distance with one arm, packed a case and left. For over a week he stayed away and in that time I was consumed with guilt and remorse. I could barely sleep, barely breathe, terrified that he might have left me for good.
On the ninth evening he came back. I’d told the boys he was away on a case. They were delighted to see him and we spent an almost normal evening eating and chatting. When the boys were in bed, he started to talk.
‘I don’t want to know his name. I don’t want any details,’ he said. ‘But I do want to know whether you love him.’
‘No.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t. It was ten minutes of madness. I can’t explain it. I don’t know what possessed me to do it. But what I do know’ – I dropped on to my knees in front of him – ‘is that as long as I live, I will never do anything like that again.’ Perversely, having sex with Mac had made me realise just how much I loved Julian and my family. ‘I love you, Julian. I love you more than I can express.’
‘Do you see us growing old together?’
‘Yes.’ I took his hand. ‘I can’t imagine my life without you. I see us age eighty or ninety or a hundred even! Helping one another, laughing, sharing everything.’
He looked at me for a long time and then agreed that we could put it behind us. On one condition. ‘You have to promise never to see him again.’
‘Absolutely.’
I promised and then asked him how he felt about me giving up work to become a full-time mother and wife. We could move to Brighton. My father, Wendy and my sister were all living there. We could spend more time as a family. At first he was sceptical – didn’t I love living in London? How would I cope without the buzz of taking criminals to trial? – but when we talked further, he could see that as a family we needed a change and so we shed the bulk of our mortgage and moved to the coast. The boys settled easily. They loved the open spaces and the sea, and they made new friends at once. Julian managed the commute by reading through documents on the train, and I quickly settled into life as a stay-at-home mum. A choice I have never regretted. And until today I’ve kept my promise to Julian and never been in touch with Mac.
But now the parameters have shifted. Bea’s life is under threat and Mac is back in both our lives. Somehow Julian and I have to negotiate a way through this without losing our trust in each other.
I already feel like it’s a big ask.
Sezen and her daughter, Lara, live in a flat, one of three unimaginative blocks of grey, each about ten storeys high. The balconies are a dirty blue colour, the paint chipped and worn. What little green there is around the buildings is trampled on and strewn with litter. Sezen is waiting for me outside, and as soon as my car pulls up, she comes across to meet me. She looks distracted; her normally serene amber eyes are troubled.
‘Everything OK?’ I ask.
‘Yes. We can be quick.’ She glances around as if expecting to see someone lurking behind a lamppost. ‘This is not a good place for you to come. I have packed all our belongings. Lara is upstairs.’
I follow her into the tower block, relieved not to have Bea with me. The glass in the door has been smashed and, despite the summer morning outside, there is a vicious draft blowing up through the stairwell. Squashed cans, cigarette packets and plastic bags swirl round in a circle, but at least the fresh air dilutes the smell of urine and stale beer. There is a sign on the lift that screams, ‘Fuckin’ out of order again!’ Sezen looks embarrassed, as if she is personally responsible for all of this, and I realise too late that she didn’t want me to see exactly where she lived. Then it strikes me that in the time it takes to gather everything together my car could be broken into. So much for me thinking my brain was back in streetwise-solicitor mode. I look behind me to where it is parked by the kerb, a lone vehicle, much shinier and grander than its surroundings.
‘We can be gone in minutes,’ Sezen says, and starts to climb the stairs two at a time. I follow, glad that my sandals are functional as well as fashionable.
When I worked for the CPS, I spent time interviewing witnesses, often in their own homes, so I’m no stranger to the run-down places some people are forced to live in, but there is a pervasive feeling of tension in this building and I want to get away as soon as possible.
Lara is on the third floor, sitting on top of a black bin bag just inside the front door of one of the flats. She stands up as soon as she sees us coming. She is seven months older than Bea but about six inches shorter. She is petite, with thick black hair that falls in ringlets past her cheeks. Her eyes are amber, like her mother’s. She is clutching a child’s pull-along case, both her hands tight round the handle.
‘Hello.’ I squat down in front of her. ‘I’m Claire. You and Mummy are coming to live close by.’
Her eyes are solemn. She extracts her right hand from the handle and offers it to me. ‘I am happy to meet you,’ she says.
Sezen gives her a brief, pleased smile.
‘And I am happy to meet you.’ I give her a welcome hug and then I look around. Apart from the bin bag and Lara’s small case, there is one other suitcase tied in the middle with a scuffed leather belt. ‘Is there anything else?’
‘No.’ Sezen is whispering. ‘We share the room and already the others are sleeping. They work night duty. We have all our belongings here.’
I know from her references that her last position was a well-paid one, so I wonder why they’ve been living in such run-down, cramped circumstances, but I don’t ask. I want to get home. I want to take Bea in my arms and never let her go.
I pick up the suitcase and start down the stairs. We’re in the car and on the road in minutes. Lara is in Bea’s car seat, and Sezen is next to me. On the drive back to Brighton, Lara falls asleep.
Sezen talks about the preparations she has made for Lisa. ‘I have been researching,’ she says. ‘We must use food’s healing properties. That will be important for your sister. A ginger compress is effective for removing poisons from the blood. A kudzu drink strengthens digestion.’
She reels off some more remedies, ticking ingredients and their potential for healing off on her fingers. I join in with the conversation, ignoring the fact that all of Sezen’s plans could come to nothing. She has brought skill and enthusiasm to my kitchen and revitalised Lisa’s appetite and I don’t want to give her up. Until the safe house becomes our only reality, I’m determined to employ her as usual.
‘This is the street.’ Sezen points to the left. ‘Number seventeen is about halfway along.’
We’re back in Brighton now, close to where Sezen and Lara will be living. I indicate left and pull into the nearest spot.
Sezen turns to Lara, who is just waking up. ‘Lara! This will be our new home.’
Lara looks out of the window, taking in the houses but making no comment.
The three of us climb out and go to the front door. The house looks tired – the external walls are stained, and the woodwork around the windows could do with being rubbed down – but the windows themselves are clean, and the curtains inside are hanging neatly. The garden at the front has been gravelled and a car sits to one side of the two-car parking space.
Sezen rings the bell and within a minute the door opens. The man standing there looks about sixty. His moustache is a silver-grey colour, his eyes and skin a deep caramel.
‘Mr Patel?’ Sezen says.
‘I am he.’
‘I am Sezen Serbest.’ She holds out her hand and he shakes it. ‘This is my daughter, Lara, and my employer’ – there’s a split-second hesitation – ‘and friend Mrs Claire Miller.’
‘I am enchanted to meet you all.’ Mr Patel bows his head at each of us in turn.
‘I spoke to your son about renting the small apartment on the top floor. I have my belongings in the car.’
‘I see.’ He nods. ‘But we have very little space. I was expecting you to bring your belongings with you when you move in.’
‘Yes.’ Sezen smiles uncertainly. ‘And that is today. After one o’clock.’
‘We are not expecting you this week. Mrs Patel and I are expecting you in almost three weeks.’ He stresses the last two words by nodding his head from side to side. ‘Twenty days, to be exact. When our tenant Mr Archibald has moved out.’
Sezen looks at me and then back to Mr Patel. ‘But we arranged for me to move in on 3 June. I spoke to your son and—’
‘I am afraid you are mistaken. My son would not say such a thing. Mr Archibald has not left and therefore you cannot move in.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘I am so sorry. There is nothin
g to be done.’
Sezen clutches her chest and turns to look at me, disappointment darkening her eyes.
I take her hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘There has been a mix-up, but we can fix it.’ I look at Mr Patel. ‘So Sezen definitely has a place when?’
‘She most definitely has a place on 23 June, when Mr Archibald is leaving for Sheffield.’
‘Thank you.’ I hold out my hand. ‘We will return then.’
‘I am a man of my word.’ His handshake is warm and firm. ‘And I am most sorry for the misunderstanding.’
When he closes the door, Sezen is still looking confused. ‘I am sure he said 3 June. I am sure he did. I gave his son my deposit.’
‘You have a receipt for that and a tenancy agreement?’
‘Yes.’ She digs around in her pocket. ‘Here.’
She hands me the paperwork. I read it. Everything looks above board, and what’s more the date of entry into the apartment is 23 June, just as Mr Patel said. I point this out to Sezen and she shrinks back into her jacket, then murmurs something under her breath. ‘I am so stupid.’ Her face is flushed, and she pushes back a small tear that has escaped from her right eye on to her cheek. ‘I am so sorry this has inconvenienced you.’
‘These things happen.’ I manage to smile. This whole time Lara has been standing silently. So different from Bea, she barely makes her presence felt. I lift her into the back seat of the car and strap her in. ‘It’s nobody’s fault.’
‘You went out of your way to come for me and help me with my things.’
I feel for her and on almost any other day of any other week I would immediately offer her a place to stay, but I hold my tongue. While Sezen seems a lovely person, hardworking and considerate, I’m disinclined to extend that to a live-in position. There’s enough going on in my life as it is.
‘Your journey has been wasted and now we will have to go back to London.’ She is pacing the pavement, her fists clenched by her side. ‘I will talk to someone in . . . I may be allowed back.’ Her face betrays her doubt. ‘And if not, the neighbour was . . . may be willing . . .’
