by Steve Mosby
And then, before Sullivan can think anything else, the world explodes in crimson and black.
Hannah lowered the shotgun.
It had been a controlled shot. She’d aimed, tightened, squeezed. The stock had juddered against her shoulder, jarring her, but not badly. It was the noise that was worst. The explosive bang seemed to have sucked all the other sounds out of the world, and her ears were ringing emptily now it was gone.
As the ringing subsided, the screams returned.
Hannah glanced across at the woman on the other side of the bunker – little more than a girl, really. Dawson’s partner. She was crouched down by a steel table, hands tied, and appeared to be trying to clench herself into the smallest ball possible, while still peering over her arm at the sight across from her.
‘It’s okay,’ Hannah said.
It was still hard to hear her own words, and she wasn’t entirely sure whether she was shouting or whispering.
The man that must once have been her brother was lying in the far corner of the bunker now. His head was gone, along with most of his left shoulder. The force of the shot had blown the rest of his body clean over the man lying on the floor. Hannah presumed that was Neil Dawson. It was hard to tell – he was on his back, entirely still, and his face was a mask of blood.
Hannah stared down at Dawson for a couple of moments, then at her brother’s body. At the moment, she felt blank. But as bad as this was, it wasn’t so bad, she thought. There was an odd sense of things slotting into place out of sight, things she didn’t understand but felt right – as though it would always have come to this eventually, and that it had needed to.
She cracked the shotgun to one side, and the spent cartridge clicked backwards through the air. She knelt down beside Dawson, made sure his airways were clear, and gently rolled him onto his side.
And then she stepped back out into the garden of silent black flowers, and called an ambulance.
One Year Later
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was an ordinary day, with no hint of magic to it.
Certainly not for the people braving the promenade in Whitkirk, anyway. Many of them were taking late holidays here, and the early September weather had not been as kind to them as last year’s. It was bitterly cold, the rain whipping across, stinging the road along the seafront. Behind the wall, the waves were turbulent and wild. They crashed angrily against the great stone blocks, and occasionally even cascaded over onto the promenade itself, landing with a hiss and a spatter.
In the moments when the wind stopped roaring, Hannah could hear the sound of the amusement arcades. The machinegun chatter of success; the whoop-whoop of failure. Up ahead, she could see The Fisherman’s Catch. A waitress was leaning over a table inside by the window, her elbow working at an angle. Opposite the café, on the promenade itself, a woman was standing.
She was wrapped in a coat, her dyed-black hair twirling in the wind like ribbons, and, even from a distance, Hannah could tell she was very beautiful. But there was also something spectral about her – something indefinable, or even supernatural. Standing there, clutching her handbag, she might almost have been a ghost from some old movie, or a flickering, sepia memory of the seafront itself. As Hannah walked towards her, a line from The Black Flower drifted into her head.
It is as if the world shifted in its sleep, and one of its ideas escaped and became real.
Something like that, anyway.
Except this woman wasn’t a ghost, and nor was she a sepia memory or an idea. She was a real person of flesh and blood, albeit one whose identity was constructed from lies so efficiently that she might as well have been a work of fiction. She certainly was on the few days every year she returned here to Whitkirk.
‘Hello, Charlotte.’
The woman had been staring out to sea, lost in thought, and hadn’t noticed Hannah approaching. She started slightly, then shook her head as she turned.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘It’s Charlotte, isn’t it?’ Hannah said. ‘Charlotte Webb?’
‘No.’
The woman feigned confusion but caught unawares, she wasn’t half the actor she could be. That name had hit home, and below the surface she was obviously wary, nervous. The wind struck up, and the woman’s hair wrapped itself around her face. The hand she used to hook it back over her shoulder was trembling slightly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘That’s not my name.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Hannah leaned against the wall beside her. ‘We both know what I’m talking about. And there are only two of us here, so it doesn’t really make any sense to lie, does it?’
She stared at the cafe across the street. Beside her, she could sense the woman’s gaze. Her real name was Suzanne Doherty. Right now, she was probably wondering who the hell Hannah was and weighing up her options. She was curious to see what Doherty would do. Would she deny knowing the name again – perhaps make some quick excuse and walk away – or was she going to admit it?
‘I’m sorry.’ She managed to sound more adamant now. ‘My name is Suzanne.’
Hannah nodded and smiled, but said, ‘No, your name is Charlotte.’
‘I just told you—’
‘Do you remember me?’ She turned to look at her. ‘We were at the foster home together, although I had a different name back then. That was when I was Charlotte. But now my name is Hannah Price.’
‘I’m – I’m afraid I have to go.’
And this time, the woman really did try to walk away. So Hannah grabbed hold of her arm, very hard.
‘What do you think—?’
‘DS Hannah Price.’
She waited for that information to settle, and for the woman to realise walking away wasn’t going to be an option. When the resistance was over, Hannah let go of her arm and nodded again.
‘Sensible decision, Charlotte.’
‘Stop calling me that.’
‘It’s your name, isn’t it? Or it might as well be. If you repeat something often enough, it becomes true. That’s how stories work. And we both know that’s what you did. You stole my story and pretended it was yours.’
Doherty looked as though she was about to deny it again, but then seemed to understand there was no point. Instead, she just stared at Hannah, not blinking, not knowing what to say. Caught out, and scared of the consequences, the trouble she was in. She was almost shaking.
Good, Hannah thought.
But at the same time, that brought a twinge of guilt. She didn’t actually remember sharing the foster home with Suzanne Doherty – the time she’d spent there was as hazy and indistinct as all her early memories – but, looking at this grown woman, she could easily make out traces of the child she had been. From what Hannah had read in the files, she knew that at six years old Suzanne Doherty had been one of those hollow-eyed, skinny-shouldered children who had never been safe in her home. She also knew that, unlike Hannah, Doherty had been in the foster home not because her parents couldn’t be found, but because they had been all too horribly present.
It was natural to feel sympathy for the little girl she’d once been. Normally, as people grow up and commit acts of harm themselves, that sympathy gives way to blame and anger. No matter what has happened to them in the past, adults are culpable. Under different circumstances, Hannah would have had no trouble tearing into Suzanne Doherty for what she’d done but the problem was that little girl was still so readily apparent below the surface. While Doherty had grown older physically, inside she had not.
Perhaps there were other reasons too. Doherty had stolen her story, so their identities were bound together in some ways. And without the intervention of Colin Price, this was the woman Hannah might have become.
Doherty said, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’
That was the child talking. Hannah noted the defensiveness: the almost pleading tone of her voice. No longer denying what she’d done, but still shifting positions to refuse taking the blame. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t my f
ault.
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ Hannah said. ‘Maybe there was nothing legally wrong in pretending to be someone you weren’t, but it had consequences for people, and you know it. You told my story to Robert Wiseman and he wrote about it in his book. That had consequences for him and his wife. It must have been very exciting for you, to have somebody paying you that much attention, but didn’t it ever bother you, what happened to him afterwards?’
The woman said nothing.
‘And last year, of course, Christopher Dawson died trying to protect you. He was a small man, but he probably bought you enough time to escape into the woods. Which means that he died because of your fantasy. Don’t you think that was wrong?’
‘That wasn’t—’
‘Your fault.’ Hannah folded her arms, shook her head. ‘I really didn’t know if you’d come this year, after what happened last time. Because it must have been terrifying at the time. I suppose you knew it was safe this year, didn’t you? After all, you knew the family had been found. So what was there to be afraid of?’
Suzanne Doherty turned away, then took a long, deep breath. She spent a few seconds just looking out over the crashing waves, and Hannah allowed her them. The wind picked up again. It seemed to batter the people walking past, but she ignored it, and eventually Doherty spoke.
‘I didn’t believe they existed.’
‘No.’
‘It was enough that other people did. He did. Christopher Dawson. I met him the day before what … happened. We arranged to go to the viaduct. I was going to help him research his book. I thought it would be “fun”.’
Hannah said nothing.
‘I didn’t think anybody would know.’
‘Well, if it makes you feel any better, coming here today didn’t make any difference. I was just curious to see if you would. If you hadn’t, I already knew your name and address, and I’d have come to see you instead.’
‘How did you find me?’
Hannah shrugged. ‘It wasn’t so hard.’
If Neil Dawson had died from his injuries at the farm, she wouldn’t have known there was a woman impersonating her at all. But, after Dawson had recovered enough to be interviewed, it had been fairly straightforward to put the various pieces together. She knew someone had been pretending to be Charlotte Webb. Whoever that was must have heard the story somewhere, and it seemed they also had a reason to return to Mrs Fitzwilliam’s foster home every year. It was reasonable to assume those two facts were connected, and so Hannah had obtained the foster home records for the period she had stayed there. In reality, she had needed only one. The girl was right there in the photograph on Mrs Fitzwilliam’s mantelpiece. Even all these years later, it was possible to recognise her. Dawson might have too, if he hadn’t been looking at the wrong girl – or rather, the right one.
Hannah said, ‘You haven’t changed much, Suzanne. The moment I saw the picture of you as a little girl, I recognised you from the photo with Robert Wiseman. And the shot in your adult file isn’t so different either. It’s as though not much has changed for you at all over the years. That’s interesting, isn’t it?’
Suzanne continued to stare out to sea and didn’t reply.
It wasn’t just the physical resemblance either. As an adult, Suzanne Doherty had been convicted of wasting police time on several occasions. She had once been charged with fraud, after pretending to be the victim of a real-life murder, one where the body had never been found. Doherty had claimed she’d actually disappeared and was in hiding from her alleged attacker, and extorted money and shelter from a well-meaning man she’d met in a bar. Those charges had ultimately been dropped at the man’s request, but similar activities dotted her case file. False accusations; false reports. The little girl had grown into a woman who lied, personally and professionally, in order to get attention. A woman who had learned first-hand which stories mattered to people and which did not.
That woman sighed now, defeated.
‘I remember you,’ Doherty said.
‘And?’
‘You talked so much. Do you remember that? You used to tell your story, over and over again. And that policeman who came to see you, believe me, he never tired of listening. He kept coming back to see you.’
That policeman. Her father, of course, the man who had ultimately adopted her. With some trepidation, Hannah had looked into her past and had the relevant files opened. She had read the documents Colin and Melissa Price had made for application of custody, the agency investigations and reports, the evaluations and conclusions. Colin Price was a respected member of the community, and had supporting statements from several equally well-respected sources. Even more importantly, the reports noted he had already established a considerable rapport with the girl then known as Charlotte. One line had leapt out immediately at Hannah as she read the file. It had stayed with her ever since.
Although traumatised, it is evident that Charlotte has developed a deep, reciprocal bond of affection with Colin Price, and that his presence is reassuring and comforting to her. In her own words, he makes her ‘feel safe’.
Amongst her father’s papers, she had found the birth certificate they’d given her. She had been adopted as Hannah Price, in a bid to provide a break from her past. To start again and try to forget.
And that was exactly what had happened.
‘I was so envious of you,’ Doherty said. ‘So envious of how much you mattered to people. Because I didn’t matter to anyone. Nobody listened to me. Nobody ever came to see me. They just didn’t care. I mean, do you think someone like Robert Wiseman would ever have written a book about me?’
She seemed about to say something else, but the words fell away. She looked back out to sea again and just shook her head.
Hannah watched her for a moment, and thought about all the things she could say. All the rage she could unleash on this ultimately inconsequential person – someone who, really, had nothing to do with anything. Just a little girl who had heard a story and seen how it could benefit her. And ultimately, Doherty was right. She had never been adopted, just bounced from foster home to foster home until adulthood. And no, Robert Wiseman would never have written a story about her back then, although he might have done now.
‘You don’t have to worry,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m not going to arrest you. I could, and I probably should, but I don’t see much point. Everything is closed now, give or take. Nobody even knows for certain you were there that day at the viaduct with Christopher Dawson. Nobody really cares about you at all.’
Doherty frowned. ‘But—’
‘I just came out of curiosity. Maybe I just wanted to see what had become of me.’ Hannah leaned away from the barrier. ‘Goodbye, Charlotte.’
‘That’s not my name.’
‘It can be. You wanted it and I don’t. It’s yours now.’
Hannah pressed a piece of paper into Doherty’s hand; it had her phone number written on it.
‘If you don’t want it either, maybe at some point I can help.’
And then, before the woman could reply, she walked quickly away, back down the promenade. If Doherty wanted to continue her charade then so be it. It didn’t mean anything any more. The story was past tense now. You don’t have to read anything you don’t want to, and if Doherty got in touch then she would try her best to explain why and how.
The end.
When Hannah reached The Southerton, she thought about glancing behind her – but didn’t. She had no wish to see Suzanne Doherty standing where she had left her, her dyed-black hair whirling in the wind like tattered petals. She had her own flowers now, growing in the back garden of her father’s house. She’d planted them that summer, and they were very beautiful indeed. Reds and blues and yellows, just like she remembered. What she wanted to do now was light a fire and sit inside, and maybe go through to the kitchen occasionally, glance outside, and remind herself they were there.
And she could do that.
Extract from unfinished document
by Christopher Dawson,
retrieved from his laptop
It’s one night, early September, 1993.
He is sitting at home with his wife and they are watching the television – or Laura is. The programme is a documentary about cancer. Years later, this is the disease that will claim her life, although neither of them knows that yet. Watching the programme, Laura keeps expressing small noises of sadness at the accounts of suffering and courage that flicker on the screen. It’s impossible to imagine, he can hear her thinking, it’s so horrible for the people involved – thank God we aren’t going through something like that ourselves. In the future, when they do, Laura will display levels of resolve and strength equal to anyone in the programme tonight, and he will save his own expressions of sadness and grief for times and places when she can’t hear them.
For now, though, he is just sitting beside her, reading. The front room is threadbare (they can’t afford better tailoring than this) but at least it’s warm and gently lit. The volume on the television is turned down: a low murmur, as quiet as a parent whispering to a sleeping child. Without taking his eyes off the book, he reaches down and runs his little finger over the back of her hand. A gentle tickle, just to remind her he is there and thinking of her.
And that is when someone knocks at the door.
It’s three hard raps from downstairs, harsh and aggressive. If the noise hadn’t stopped, he might have thought someone was trying to break in.
He turns to face the door to the hall. His first thought, of course, is of Neil, who is a light sleeper at the best of times and hard to settle. The noise might disturb him.
The second thought is the hour.
‘Late for visitors,’ Laura says.
‘I’ll go.’
He stands up and heads as quietly as possible into the hallway, to the top of the stairs. For a moment, he listens for signs that Neil has been disturbed, but that end of the house remains silent, so he heads down the stairs carefully but quickly, anxious to avoid more noise. There is a square panel of bobbled glass above the old front door, black with night. It makes him uneasy. Laura was right – it is late. And it takes effort to get to their house, the long driveway and steps discouraging casual visitors. As he reaches the front door, he wishes there was a chain he could put on. He has never got round to installing one.
