by Jane Bidder
“Don’t you want me to save Garth from going to prison?” she demanded disbelievingly. “Blokes on my estate get loads of money for doing that.”
Alice shook her head. “Not if my son really did it.” Then she looked away but not before Kayleigh saw a tear slide down her cheek. “If anyone should go to prison, it ought to be me.”
“No.” Kayleigh reached out for her. “You’re a good person. You gave me a home. You took me in and I … I wasn’t truthful to you. I stole something.”
Alice looked sad. “I know.”
“But it wasn’t what you thought. I stole a frame to buy my fare home ’cos I gave the money you gave me, to Callum.”
Alice frowned. “I don’t understand.”
So Garth hadn’t told her then.
“He’s my brother. Half-brother really. He saw me in the centre and said I had to get him some money. He’d just come out of prison, you see, and he was in trouble again.”
Kayleigh felt sick. Alice was looking at her in a way that suggested she despised her. “So you helped him burgle our house?”
“No. I didn’t know he was going to do it. But I did give him the name of the house. I’m really sorry.”
Alice was shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter any more. Not compared with this.” Then her voice hardened. “We’ve all done things we shouldn’t have done, Kayleigh. And yes, if I’m honest, I would rather you went to prison than my son. But I also know that I would never be able to find peace in myself if you took the blame. And nor would Garth. So if you really love him, you’ll tell us what really happened.”
Kayleigh hesitated. She’d told her story so many times, to the police and to that lawyer, that she could almost feel that pillow in her hand. Hear the old man’s mewing as she pressed it down over his face.
“I don’t know,” she said, turning away. “I don’t know nothing any more. I can’t properly remember.”
When she came out, Daniel was waiting in the interview waiting room with Garth. So too was Brian. Daniel’s face was stone. “I told you not to let that girl into our house.”
“Daniel.” Brian’s tone was mildly reproachful. “Recriminations aren’t going to help.”
“Aren’t they? What will help then?”
“Shut up, Dad.” Garth enveloped her in a big hug. “Mum’s had enough to cope with all these years.”
Daniel stood up and began pacing round the room. “I don’t know what to believe any more.”
Phil Wright got me pregnant, Daniel! It was on the tip of her tongue to say so. But now they were face to face, she began to doubt her earlier resolution to come clean. It might only make things worse. He might not believe her. Or he’d think even worse of her than he did already.
“Calm down everyone.” Brian had his lawyer voice on. “We all need to take stock here and …”
He stopped as the door swung open. Alice’s heart began to thud. Paul Black wasn’t looking at her. He was addressing Brian. But he wanted to look at her.
She just knew it.
“A new witness has come forward,” he said.
Alice’s heart quickened. Garth, she noticed, looked scared. “Someone saw what happened?”
“Not for the recent incident.” He still faced Brian. “For the complaint which Mrs Honeybun made about an alleged rape twenty-three years ago.”
Alice’s heart caught in her throat.
“Who?” she asked hoarsely. “Who?”
Finally, he turned to her. “We’ve been making our own enquiries; interviewing people who knew the Wrights. A Mrs Patricia Cross was their cleaner at the time. She saw what happened and she’s prepared to testify that Phil Wright abused you. She also claims she was bought off by the man and that it’s been weighing on her conscience for years.”
“But I didn’t see anyone,” Alice began to say, just as Daniel interrupted.
“Great. But how’s that going to help my son? You’ve got to see that he’s just pretending to have smothered Phil Wright out of a misguided sense of loyalty towards this girl.”
“I did …” began Garth.
“Don’t say anything,” said Brian quickly. Then he turned to Daniel first and then Alice. “If I’m not mistaken, this new piece of evidence might make all the difference. Whoever murdered Phil Wright could argue they did so out of loyalty to the rape victim.”
He coughed delicately. “Especially if the victim is the mother of the accused. The tape isn’t enough on its own because Phil Wright is a sick man. It could be argued that he made his confession when he wasn’t of sound mind.”
Alice groaned.
“No. It’s not as black as it sounds. Now we have a witness, the tape assumes greater significance. The two pieces of evidence combined, might be enough to reduce the sentence. Substantially.”
Chapter Thirty-five
“See!” said the woman in the white coat. “Baby’s sucking her thumb!”
Kayleigh gripped Alice’s hand as they both stared at the screen in awe.
“Her?” she squeaked.
The woman who’d smeared all that gooey stuff on her stomach, made a cross sound with herself. “Sorry. I should have asked if you wanted to know.”
“Yes,” said Kayleigh, vigorously. “I did, didn’t I? I told you that on the way, Alice.” Excitement racing up through her throat. She was having a daughter. A girl! A doll she could dress up and teach her stuff like how not to do daft things with men who didn’t really care for you. A real person who would love her for ever.
Then she looked up at Alice, suddenly unsure. “Can we ring the prison to get them to tell Garth? Or should we wait till visiting time?”
A scared look flitted across the face of the woman who was doing the scan. A radiographer, she was called. That’s what it had said on the door. “It’s OK,” Kayleigh added hastily. “My partner’s a really good bloke. He just …”
Alice put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we, Kayleigh?” She was still looking at the screen. “It’s amazing. A miracle.”
Her eyes were wet. She cared, Kayleigh realised. Really cared. She’d waited until visiting time before telling Garth that her period was really, really late. He couldn’t run off, she told herself. ’Cos he was already in prison, waiting for his case to be heard.
But he’d been pleased. Really pleased. “That’s amazing,” he’d breathed, leaning across to give her a seriously heavy snog until one of the prison officers stopped them. “That’s fucking fantastic. I quite fancy being a dad. It will make me change my ways. Have you told Mum?”
At first, Kayleigh had been frightened of that. What would she do if Alice threw her out? They’d only just moved out of that big cold house and into a sweet little cottage near the sea front. It was really nice, just the two of them.
Daniel was welcome to Monica, Alice kept saying. He’d done her a favour. “So much for him saying he didn’t love her,” she told Kayleigh. “Still, at least I know where I stand now.”
Kayleigh liked it when Alice confided in her. It made her feel important. Respected.
So she’d taken the plunge, after talking to Garth, and told her about the kid. Kayleigh had thought she might go mad. But instead, Alice’s face had lit up in a way she’d never seen before. “A new life,” she kept repeating. “A new life.”
Postscript
It hadn’t been what Kayleigh had been expecting. Then again, everything that had happened in the last few months had been weird. First there had been Garth who had told her that if she didn’t tell the truth about what had really happened to the old man in the nursing home bed, they couldn’t have a future together.
“You’ve got to stop saying you killed him,” he’d told her. “I need you to back me up, to agree that I did it.”
She hadn’t been sure of that but then he’d added a sentence which she would remember for the rest of her life. “Will you wait for me, until I’m out?”
“You really want me to?” she’d asked, hardly daring to
believe this was possible.
He’d nodded, stroking her hair. Alice had been right even though it had taken Kayleigh a while to get used to a shorter style. A bob did suit her. Everyone said so. She’d even been approached in the street the other day by a scout who wanted a model for some pregnancy magazine. But she’d turned down the offer so she could concentrate on her studies.
“You’re different, Kayleigh. You understand me, like no one else.” Then he pressed his lips against her forehead. “Besides, we’ve been through stuff together that no one else has.”
Then there had been the murder trial which was horrible. Alice had cried in the witness stand when the lawyers had brought up all that stuff about Phil Wright raping her.
Lots of other people in court had cried when the cleaner woman told the court what had happened. “I only came round to get my money. I have a key you see and I didn’t normally go round on a Saturday so he wouldn’t have been expecting me, but Mrs Wright had agreed to pay me early. So I let myself in and that’s when I saw him. Forcing herself on to that poor girl. I should have said something. I know I should have done. But I was that shocked, I went and hid. After she’d gone, I came out and told him what I saw. I know I shouldn’t have taken the money he gave me but I was desperate. And scared. Haunted me for years, it has. So when I read about the case in the paper, I felt I had to come forward. Better late than ever, you know …”
And there’d been more tears when Alice had described how she’d got pregnant and she’d had an abortion out of fear. “I’m sure it was a girl,” she kept saying. “I’ve felt guilty ever since.”
How bloody unfair. Kayleigh’s hands crept protectively round her own stomach. No wonder Alice had been so supportive. She was a good woman. Nicer than Kayleigh deserved. But she’d show her. She’d do everything she could to make Alice’s life better.
Mrs Honeybun’s mother was in court too. There was something about a letter which she’d given Alice that day but Kayleigh didn’t really understand that bit. She’d been too engrossed looking at the jury, hoping they might let Garth off.
When he got six years, she’d burst into tears.
“It could have been more,” the lawyer kept saying outside the court. “Better than I had hoped for, to be honest.”
Alice had been pale and quiet. Daniel stood some way off from her.
“Can we go and see him soon?” Kayleigh asked.
Daniel glared at her. “The best thing you can do is stay out of our lives.”
She’d felt really small then.
“Actually,” said Alice. “Garth told me that if he was sent to prison, I was to bring Kayleigh with us to visit.”
Her heart had leaped at that but then Daniel had then given Alice a really nasty look. “Us?” he repeated. “You really think there’s an us still? You hid things from me Alice. You didn’t tell me about the abortion.”
“You hid things from me too,” Alice had whispered. “What about Monica?”
It was clear that things weren’t great between them. “It’s all right,” she’d whispered, reaching out her hand to Alice. “I’ll be there for you.”
“And I’ll be there for you too,” Alice had said back.
It was true. They’d gone to court. Made it formal. Alice was allowed to look after Kayleigh until she was twenty-one now. Mum hadn’t even bothered to turn up at the hearing. When Kayleigh had written to her, at Alice’s suggestion, the envelope had come back with ‘Not known at this address’.
To be honest, she hadn’t been surprised.
As for Callum, she was beginning to wonder if she’d got him wrong too, like she had the others (apart from Garth of course). A proper brother wouldn’t have got her into trouble, would he?
Kayleigh continued to stare at the screen. Not that any of this mattered any more, now there were two of them. Three, counting Alice. Maybe four if that policeman came back although none of them had seen him for a while. No. Make that three.
Three of them, waiting for Garth to come home.
“When you have a child,” Alice had said with a strange look in her eyes, “you are never alone again. There will always be someone for you to love who, touch wood, will love you back. Whatever happens.”
She couldn’t wait!
When she was a mum, Kayleigh told herself, she was going to be the best one in the whole world. She just knew it.
“It’s going to be a girl,” said Alice down the phone. “A girl!”
She’d rung Janice as soon as she’d got back from the hospital and sent Kayleigh to have a lie down. “Isn’t that exciting?”
“I don’t get it.” Her friend’s voice was tight. “You really are thrilled about this girl having Garth’s baby?”
“Of course I am.”
“And how do you know that …”
“How do I know it’s his?” Alice had asked herself this a few times and always come up with the same answer. “Because Kayleigh says it is and I believe her.”
Janice made a despairing noise at the other end. “You’re too trusting, Alice.”
“Maybe.”
For a few moments, Alice allowed herself to think about how she had trusted Daniel. How she’d believed him when he’d said the affair with Monica had started at the golf club dinner.
After the trial, when he had told her he didn’t want to stay married any longer, he’d admitted that it had been going on for years. “What else was I meant to do?” he’d said angrily. “I’m a man, Not a monk. It wasn’t as if you showed any interest.”
In a funny way, she could see his point. It wasn’t the act of sex that was important, Alice was beginning to understand. It was what it represented. Love. Respect. Attraction. Something that she’d like too.
At first, Daniel had blamed her for ‘being deceitful’ too. “Why didn’t you tell me about the abortion?” he had demanded during the same horrid, turbulent argument.
“Because I felt dirty. When we had Garth, I kept looking at him and thinking of the baby I got rid of. That’s why I couldn’t cuddle or hold him. I felt too guilty.”
To give Daniel his credit, he’d seemed to understand that. “I’m sorry,” he’d said. “If you’d told me, it might have been different.”
Would it, she wondered, looking at him. They’d never had anything in common, to be honest. Only a mutual desire to find a mate. There hadn’t been the lust. The passion. Daniel had never aroused the feelings she’d had for Gordon, her first boyfriend; whom, ironically, she had never allowed to go further than a kiss. Nor had he precipitated the strange stirrings she now felt in the night as she lay, spread-eagled, alone in her new double bed.
Then there had been her mother. Alice had forgotten about the letter until her mother had been called as a witness. It had been the defence lawyer who had asked why she’d instructed Alice to go round that day.
“I needed her to take a note.”
“And what was in it, that was so important?”
“None of your business.”
But the judge had intervened. Told her mother that she had to answer.
“I told him I was breaking it off.” Mum’s voice had been so low that she’d barely heard it. “Phil and I had been … close. I felt guilty at betraying my husband, especially after he was ill.”
“And you think that’s why he abused your daughter – to get back at you.”
Appalled, along with the rest of the court, Alice had watched her mother nod her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“But you refused to believe your daughter when she told you she’d been raped,” persisted the lawyer.
“I was scared,” her mother had whispered. “I thought that if I allowed my daughter to make a complaint, the truth about Phil and me would come out. As for her being pregnant, I couldn’t cope with that.” She glared at the judge. “He was mine. It was inconceivable for my daughter to have my lover’s child.”
Alice had felt sick. How could a mother do that to her daughter? But according to Bri
an, her mother’s evidence had had the effect of making the jury even more lenient towards Garth.
“Have you heard anything from Daniel?”
Janice’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“Only that he and Monica are renting a cottage in Dartmoor.” How odd. It didn’t hurt as much as it should do, to say that. “Did I tell you that I’ve also promised to help Kayleigh find her father?”
Janice let out another I-don’t-believe-it laugh at the other end. “That could open up a real bag of worms, couldn’t it?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s part of her moving-on process. Her social worker thinks so too.”
“I have to say, Alice, I take my hat off to you but …”
The rest of Janice’s voice was obliterated by the sound of a car pulling up outside and Mungo’s frantic barking. “May I call you back? Someone’s arrived and then we’ve got Visiting.”
“You make it sound so normal,” said Janice admiringly. “Give Garth my best, won’t you? Ask him if he’d like me to visit too.”
“Thanks.”
Normal, wondered Alice as she opened the front door. That wasn’t how she’d describe the shock at going into a prison twice a week to visit her son. But she had to pretend it was normal, to reassure him as much as herself.
In reality, it terrified her. All that security. Being frisked. Asked questions. Sitting in a room with a real mixture of people; some of whom you might expect to find there and others whom you wouldn’t. Seeing his scared face as the prisoners came in. Knowing that he was there because of her. There was nothing as strong, she had learned, as a son’s sense of loyalty towards his mother.
“Hi,” said the tall, good-looking man on the doorstep.
Paul? Paul Black?
It had been weeks since she’d seen him. She’d almost forgotten how he reminded her of a middle-aged Steve McQueen with that all-weather glow to his skin, that ‘let’s-go’ look in his face, and the enthusiasm in those bright blue eyes. “Is this a convenient time?”
The formality of his words took away her initial surprise and, to be honest, excitement. Suddenly a curtain of awkwardness hung between them.
