The Mistake

by K. L. Slater

  Rose found herself surprised at the stark, bare quality of the prison. Like most people, she’d read the newspaper stories about the lax and luxurious life that criminals enjoyed in Britain’s cushy penal institutions but, now she’d seen it for herself, she wasn’t so sure.

  There was an air of abandonment here, a hopelessness that permeated the place.

  Rose could imagine, if one had to spend day and night here for some time, it might soon become difficult to imagine a prosperous future. Even more baffling would be how to make a new start back in the outside world, when the time came.

  She became aware of a shape… a shadow looming over her.

  The chair opposite was pulled back and, suddenly, there she was… looking up into Gareth Farnham’s eyes.

  63

  HMP WAKEFIELD

  PRESENT DAY

  Sixteen years ago, those same eyes had pleaded with her to help him prove his innocence. Rose had declined because she truly believed, like everyone else, that he had taken Billy.

  And she still did believe that.

  Her instinct was to look away from him but, instead, she found herself holding his stare. There they were; those lying eyes that looked so dependable.

  But Rose was no longer that naïve, impressionable girl. She now knew the essence of this man was rotten. She knew what he was capable of.

  She could detect nothing in his eyes today; no anger, love, regret… they looked darker than she remembered them, more vacant.

  His lips were pressed together in a tight, straight line and his mouth curved down at the edges, reminding her of a Great White.

  ‘Hello, Rose,’ he said smoothly, sitting down. She was reminded of how his strong, deep voice used to turn her knees to jelly. Today, it sounded thinner, more reedy.

  He laced his fingers together and mirrored her own position.

  Rose parted her lips slightly but couldn’t speak to him. She just couldn’t do it. It had taken all her resolve not to push back the chair and fly out of the place but she forced her attention back to him.

  He had put on a lot of weight. The flesh on his face and hands bulged, pale and bloated, his chin and forehead spotty. He opened his mouth to speak and she caught sight of yellow, neglected teeth.

  ‘Oh, Rose. What have you done to your beautiful hair?’ he murmured.

  Before she realised, her hand drifted up to self-consciously touch her dyed, dark hair, lazily pulled up into a little top knot. Her fingers brushed her exposed damp neck and she shivered.

  She snatched her hand away immediately but he noticed, of course, and a faint smirk fluttered over his mouth.

  ‘You know how I loved it long and red.’ He leaned forward and stared at her intently. ‘Maybe you cut it because you didn’t want anyone else to look at you. Is that it, darling?’

  She felt the heat in her face, knew she’d be slowly turning crimson in front of him. He would no doubt enjoy the public display of her wretched nerves but she knew herself well enough by now to accept there was little she could do about it.

  There were far more important things at stake.

  ‘So, how’s my Rosie?’

  Rose did not respond.

  ‘Finally, you came. I’d like to think it’s because you can’t live without me.’ He paused, studying her blank expression. ‘But now I’m not so sure.’

  She slipped a hand inside her bag and pulled out a photograph from the side pocket. She slid it across the table so it faced him.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Billy.’

  She wanted to punch him when he said her brother’s name out loud but, instead, she spoke levelly. ‘Yes. I’m here because of Billy.’

  Her tongue felt swelled and parched; it lay listlessly on the bottom of her mouth as if it was reluctant to form the words she needed to utter.

  She wished she had thought to pick up a plastic cup of filtered water from the machine when she came in but it was too late now. She needed to keep Gareth’s attention, keep him communicating.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Billy,’ he said evenly. ‘I want to talk about us.’

  ‘No. I’m here to talk about my brother.’

  She forced air in through her nose but it wasn’t enough to reach her lungs and she felt almost breathless.

  He shuffled in his chair, and leaned a little closer.

  ‘You know, I can still taste you, Rose. At night, in my cell, I imagine I’m on top of you, behind you… inside you. It’s what’s kept me going all these years.’

  She felt the heat breaking through into her face and ignored it.

  ‘So sweet.’ Gareth smiled and slid his hand towards her own. She pulled her fingers back. Tucked both hands under the table. ‘Still like a shy little girl, even after all this time.’ He tipped his head to one side and studied her for a moment or two as if he was trying to make his mind up about something.

  ‘You’ve not been with another man since me. I can tell I’m still the only one.’

  ‘Can you just stop?’ she snapped.

  Gareth threw back his head and laughed. ‘Oh dear, hit a nerve, have I? I can read you like a book, Rose. I know you. I know everything about you.’

  She swallowed hard and looked at Billy’s photograph. She’d taken it at the park just a few months before he died. He’d been swinging from the climbing frame like a little monkey, his face alive with dare and glee.

  ‘You’ve completed half your sentence now.’ She felt surprised to hear her voice sounded calm. ‘There’s no sense in denying what happened any more.’

  She watched as his fingers beat a rhythm on the table and she noticed that both thumbnails were long and manicured.

  She looked away.

  ‘With good behaviour I might get out early, they say. Did you know there’s a possibility? You and I… we could carry on where we left off, Rose.’ His tongue flicked out and back in again. ‘Would you like that?’

  She tasted a metallic tang in her mouth and realised she’d been biting down on her tongue. She relaxed her jaw and blinked steadily at him. Let him think it was a possibility… it was worth it, to get closer to the truth.

  ‘Tell me what you did with Billy’s blanket,’ she whispered, clenching her hands under the table.

  ‘Why do you suddenly want to know that? It seems a very specific question to ask, Rose.’

  ‘No reason,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve always wanted to know what you did with it.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re bluffing, I can see it in your face. What’s happened? Has new evidence come to light?’

  She felt a brief flutter of panic that everything inside her head, all her thoughts, her worries, were transparent to him.

  ‘It’s something I’ve always wondered,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m here, to finally ask you. I wanted to just do this by letter but—’

  Gareth gave a long, low chuckle, interrupting her.

  ‘Good try, Rose, but not good enough by far. Like I say, I know you. Wild horses couldn’t drag you here unless it was something special.’

  64

  ROSE

  PRESENT DAY

  When I get back home, I dump my bag at the bottom of the stairs… and freeze.

  The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly prickle and I walk slowly into the living room. It feels… different in here. A subtle change in the air, that’s all it is.

  I scan around the room. Everything seems as I left it. The visiting order still on the arm of the chair, the cup and plate I forgot to take through to the kitchen.

  I shake my head. I’m turning into a nervous wreck here.

  I kick off my flats and head upstairs to take a long, hot shower.

  I close my eyes and bend my head forwards, wincing as the needles of scalding water beat down on my terse neck and shoulder muscles.

  As I gulp in the thick, steamy air, I try to imagine the layer of invisible grime that visiting Gareth Farnham has left on my skin, dissolving and disappearing forever down the plughole.


  But despite repeatedly soaping and scrubbing myself, I can feel it there. Settled slick as a layer of grease, clogging my pores. Still, when I do finally step out of the shower, thankfully, I do feel a little fresher.

  Purging my mind proves to be a little more difficult.

  His words have taken hold inside my head, like a tick that grabs on to a hapless cat or dog, burrowing deep into its skin.

  With the heel of my hand, I rub steam from the bathroom mirror and study my ruddy face. My damp hair sticks up in clumps, exposing the bad cut I had done at a little back road salon in Hucknall that still had a row of old-fashioned hairdryers against one wall.

  There’s no doubt about it; my hair is very unflattering. It was always meant to be; part of the healing process was in getting rid of the long, red locks he loved. In the end, all that time ago, I’d felt my hair belonged more to him than me.

  Yet, as much as I hate him, Gareth’s criticism had hit home. I felt a jolt inside, as I did sixteen years previously, eager to please him and keen to avoid his disapproval.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  Why is my first reaction to act like his puppet again?

  I felt OK when I first arrived at the prison but then, the more he talked and the more he looked at me in that way, the more I became aware of an awakening of the old me… young Rose, dithering, rising to the surface. And he sensed that.

  My plan had been simple enough; get to the point quickly and succinctly. Demand Gareth tell me the truth about Billy.

  Surely, I thought, after all this time inside, I could convince him to unburden himself.

  But he soon put paid to my plans. Despite my best efforts, within minutes he’d taken control of the situation. Looking back, I don’t know how he even did that.

  In my mind’s eye, I’d imagined a Gareth who’d been beaten into submission by years of incarceration.

  I imagined a man, riddled with remorse, who would eagerly seize the chance to finally tell me the truth about Billy. I was very much mistaken.

  For the first three months after the judge imprisoned him for Billy’s murder, Gareth Farnham wrote to me every single day. Sometimes, it was more than one letter a day; two or three would drop through the letterbox.

  I grew to dread that sound, the clatter of the metal flap and the dull plop of folded paper on the entrance mat. After the first couple, my parents had destroyed every letter without opening any of them.

  The next three months saw maybe two or three letters a week and the six months after that it dropped to just a couple a month.

  On top of this, there were the phone calls. Daily ones for the first ten days or so, dropping to three or four a week for the next few weeks.

  Mum and Dad were still alive then, so it wasn’t always me who picked up the phone to be greeted by a recorded message.

  A disembodied voice would ask if we wanted to accept a call from an inmate at HMP Wakefield.

  The first few times, Dad would yell and swear into the phone until Mum explained there wasn’t actually anyone listening at the other end at this stage in the call. Soon, we were calling out ‘just the prison again’ and replacing the receiver.

  We couldn’t bring ourselves to use his name.

  After the first few weeks, we’d just kill the call without announcing who it was. We all knew who was trying to get through on the other end and it sickened us to the pits of our stomachs.

  And then, as fast as it started, just before we reached the first year, all contact stopped. No letters, no calls… nothing at all.

  ‘With any luck, somebody in there has done away with him,’ Dad kept saying hopefully but, of course, we knew that hadn’t happened because DCI North would’ve let us know immediately.

  I turn away from the mirror and begin to dry myself.

  How I wish I’d had the foresight to keep those letters he sent. Why did I never think that there might be a time I’d feel strong enough to open them, a time when I might want to scrutinise his loaded words for clues of his guilt?

  For all I know, one of those letters might have contained a confession. Too late to find out now and besides, I know why I never gave a second thought to getting rid of his communications.

  It was because there wasn’t a shred of doubt in my mind.

  I was entirely convinced of Gareth Farnham’s guilt.

  When the police arrested and charged him, nobody in the entire village had a flicker of doubt. When I gave evidence in court against him, I did so with a firm conviction that I was doing the right thing.

  The small detail of the receipt placing him somewhere else entirely was, in my mind, a barely concealed attempt to evade justice for my brother’s death. I didn’t believe a single thing that came out of his mouth in the end.

  He was shameless; we all knew that. He’d have throttled his grandmother to save his own skin.

  He had strangled my little brother in a fit of pathetic jealousy. I will sit with my own corroding guilt until the day I die.

  Billy was killed because of me and my choice to have a relationship with Gareth Farnham.

  In the days leading up to his arrest, it was as though someone shone a bright light into the dark corners of my life. I saw everything with a stark and painful clarity.

  The way he had schemed and burrowed into my life in record time, how he’d controlled even the slightest details of my appearance. Censored what I read and what I watched on TV.

  I asked myself why, if it was so obvious, how could I ever not have seen it?

  I still don’t have an answer.

  A slight breeze shakes me out of my thoughts. I head to my bedroom and stand, wide-eyed on the landing. The window to the spare bedroom is slightly ajar.

  I rush in and pull it shut, my hand shaking a little.

  I open the windows upstairs periodically to air the rooms but… I never, ever leave them open. It’s part of my routine. Check, check, check… it’s all I ever do.

  Lately I’ve been so stressed, is it possible I’ve neglected to properly maintain my security measures? I think about the strange feeling I had downstairs, as if something had changed – yet everything was as I left it.

  There’s only one answer that fits all.

  In getting back in touch with Gareth Farnham, I’m finally losing my mind…

  65

  ROSE

  PRESENT DAY

  ‘How’s Rose doing?’ Jim asks from behind me when I arrive at work.

  ‘What? Oh, fine; thanks, Jim. Sorry, I’ve been a bit distracted lately, I think you’ve had to repeat everything you’ve said at least once this past week.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, pet. You’ve been a good neighbour to Ronnie but the old girls tell me he’s picking up a bit now. It’s probably helped with Eric coming back.’

  I grin, thinking what Mrs Brewster and Miss Carter might say if they heard what he just called them. I feel relieved Jim assumed I’ve just been busy sorting Ronnie out. God only knows what he’d think of me if he knew I’d been to see Gareth Farnham.

  In the afternoon, Mrs Brewster stops at the desk. ‘Your hair looks nice today, Rose,’ she says, tipping her head to one side and studying me. ‘You’ve got a bit of a glow about you.’

  ‘Oh,’ I mumble, fiddling with a protective book jacket. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re not one of those people, are you, Rose?’ She tucks her chin in and peers down at me over her gold wire-framed glasses until I look up from the desk. ‘I mean someone who is more comfortable being criticised than taking a compliment?’

  She smiles at me in a kind of reprimanding way if that makes sense, as you might do to a mischievous child.

  ‘No,’ I say brightly, shifting in my chair and turning away from her incisive eye. ‘Just busy. You know how it is here, always busy.’

  The truth is, I don’t receive compliments very often and on the very rare occasion I do, I feel my skin crawling in protest. Like it’s crawling right now, under Mrs Brewster’s gaze.

 
; My first thought is always that the person giving the compliment is lying, saying something nice just to make me feel better. How could they possibly mean it?

  A few months after Billy died, I remember my therapist telling me about a concept she called ‘self-loathing’.

  ‘It’s a way of coping,’ Gaynor said in that rather convoluted way therapists have of speaking. ‘Fostering low expectations to avoid further disappointments.’

  Over a couple of sessions, to use the therapist speak she was so fond of, we ‘explored the concept’.

  ‘I want you to think about some of the things you tell yourself on a regular basis, Rose,’ Gaynor said. ‘The words that play in the background like a tune on a loop. I’m talking about the stuff that’s been there so long you barely notice it any more.’

  I hummed and hawed a bit, to use more session time up, but Gaynor was having none of it. She sat back in her seat, folded her hands in her lap and waited in silence.

  ‘I suppose I tell myself I’m a bad person quite a lot,’ I mumbled.

  ‘And why’s that?’ she instantly prodded. ‘Why do you think you’re a bad person?’

  ‘Because of what happened to Billy,’ I said, as if it should be obvious.

  ‘You didn’t hurt Billy.’

  ‘No, but it was because of me that it happened, wasn’t it?’ I said quickly, wishing we could just move on. ‘I brought Gareth Farnham into all our lives. I stopped spending as much time with Billy, maybe if he’d felt he could talk to me, he could have…’

  I swallowed hard against the dryness of my throat but shook my head when she offered me water.

  ‘What else do you tell yourself?’

  I shrugged but ended up saying the thing that popped in my head next just to avoid that awful silence again. ‘That no one will ever want me again.’

  I hated this self-examination. It felt so indulgent, for one thing, when the only thing that mattered was losing my brother.