An Accusation: A Novel

by Wendy James

  “But I’m not.” Suzannah’s indignation made the phone vibrate. “I’m not involved. That’s the thing. The girl has accused me, but it’s insane. I’ve never even seen her before.”

  Honor waited a beat. Two, three, four. “Okay.” Her response was painfully neutral.

  “Well, thank you for being honest. I guess we won’t be seeing you in the near future?” Suzannah was clearly making an effort to contain her emotion, but Honor could hear the slight tremor.

  “No. I guess not. It wouldn’t be . . . appropriate.” Having to speak so bluntly made her voice harsh, and the silence that followed was drawn out, potent.

  Then: “Honor?”

  “Yes?”

  “You must know it’s not true, what the girl is saying. You do know that, don’t you? She’s lying. You’ve been here. You know me.”

  “Perhaps . . . perhaps there’s just been some terrible . . . mistake?” Honor knew that Suzannah wanted her to proclaim her faith in her with some sort of certainty. But she couldn’t.

  “A mistake. That’s what you think. Really?”

  “I don’t know. I can only go on what Ellie says. Whatever it is that the police have found. I have to go with that. That’s all any of us can do.”

  “But what about what I have to say?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why doesn’t that mean as much?”

  Honor took another deep breath. “But there’s so much evidence. Her memories. The DNA. It can’t be ignored. And what reason would Ellie have to lie? I can’t see it.”

  “But what reason would I have for doing what she says I’ve done? That makes no sense either. Why would I want to keep her here—to impregnate her, for God’s sake? It’s grotesque. It’s not as if I was trying to get pregnant. I haven’t even thought about having a baby since . . .” She paused. “This pregnancy came completely out of the blue. It was an accident.”

  “Look”—Honor was completely businesslike now—“there’s no point in going over this with me. This is stuff you have to discuss with Hal—and the police. I’m just Ellie’s agent. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  This time Suzannah’s response was slow in coming, and her words were measured. “Okay. You’re right. Of course there’s nothing you can do. I’ll talk to Hal.” She sounded calm, but Honor could feel the sharp edge of the other woman’s fear.

  Suzannah might have trained as an actress, but she was out of practice. Or maybe the part was way out of her league.

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  ELLIE CANNING: TRANSCRIPT #12

  I had to get away. And I had to do it fast. I knew there was no way I was going to escape if it involved some sort of physical confrontation. I’d been in bed for so long, and even if I wasn’t so out of it anymore—I’d been trying not to eat or drink too much—I was still pretty weak. The only way I’d even have a chance of escaping was if I could stop the woman from locking the restraint.

  I told her I needed to pee, so she undid the belt thing and helped me to the toilet. After she’d locked it back up, I distracted her by knocking the bowl of soup she’d brought me onto the carpet. She had to go into the bathroom to get a wet cloth, and while she was gone, I grabbed her keys, which she’d left on the bedside table, and unlocked the belt. By the time she finished cleaning up, I’d pretended to fall back asleep. She wasn’t suspicious—she just kissed me good night and left.

  After she’d gone I waited for what felt like forever. I didn’t have a clue what time it was—it was always dark in the room when the light was off—but I assumed it was night. I heard doors closing and footsteps and muffled voices from upstairs. And then finally, when it was completely silent, I got out of bed and tiptoed across to the door. I don’t know what I’d have done if she’d locked it, but she hadn’t—there wasn’t any point, was there? I was out of the room. There were two staircases, one on the left and one on the right, so I had to choose. I didn’t have a clue where either of them led, but I chose one and crept up, hoping the door at the top would also be unlocked.

  Actually making it to the top of the stairs was, like, really hard.

  I’d barely used my legs for weeks, other than the walks to the bathroom, and I was so shaky and nervous that I actually crawled up. I was scared the door at the top might be locked, but it opened easily, too. I remember it creaking a little, but nothing happened. There was a light on, so I could see that the door opened into the hall, and then at the end of the hall was the front door. I crept down the hallway to the front door, and then I was out.

  That’s when I really started to be afraid. More scared than I’d ever been in the room. I almost wanted to go back inside, to get back in the bed, pull up the covers, and go back to sleep. There was no moon that night, so once I got past the house, it was really dark; it took ages for my eyes to adjust. It was really cold, too—I hadn’t expected that. All I had were those silky pajamas she’d given me. I had socks, but no shoes. I followed the driveway down past the mailbox, and then I walked along the road trying to get as far away as I could. My legs still weren’t working properly, so it was slow going.

  After that it’s all a bit of a blur. I think I must have walked for hours. I had no idea which way to head, so I went one way along the road and then the other. Then I got even more confused—I couldn’t work out where I’d escaped from, which driveway was safe to go down . . . And I was feeling kinda crazy and paranoid. Worried that wherever I went, maybe the people would be in on it, that it was some sort of giant conspiracy. I mean, I had no idea what was really going on. It was like one of those crazy movies where they’ve been in some sort of alternative reality where everyone’s actually aliens.

  I was hoping I’d get to a town or something, where there was somewhere safe I could go to—a servo or a police station, something like that. But I was literally in the middle of nowhere. I just kept walking and walking, and eventually I was so tired and cold, I could barely stand up. And then I saw that hut and went in, and there was that disgusting old blanket . . . and I just wrapped it around me and collapsed.

  SUZANNAH: AUGUST 2018

  I woke up to the familiar, low murmur of the ocean—a sound from my childhood. I closed my eyes again, thinking I must still be asleep, waiting for this pleasant dream to fade, another to take its place, but the incoming tide of nausea assured me that I was truly awake and that the waves of sound were real.

  I’d just worked out that the noise was, bizarrely, the sound of traffic when Chip came into the room.

  “It’s the fucking media.” He spat the words, clearly agitated.

  “What?”

  “There are television crews down at the end of the drive, and I don’t know who else. Newspaper journos. Podcasters. Sightseers, probably. I don’t fucking know. There’s at least a dozen vans out there. A couple actually started coming up the drive, so I threatened them. I’ve closed the gate and padlocked it so they can’t get in.”

  “What did you threaten them with?”

  I was expecting strong language, maybe even a lawsuit.

  “My twenty-two.” He grinned unexpectedly. “Don’t worry—it wasn’t loaded.”

  “Oh shit.” I pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes, visualized a sunshiny morning on a tropical island.

  Lapping water. A hammock swaying between palm trees. This was clearly the wrong image for someone in my condition, and I only just made it to the bathroom in time.

  The three of us ate breakfast together. Chip was talking to his brother on the phone, breaking off occasionally to relay information and give out terse directions.

  “Hal says you’re both to stay inside,” he said. “They’ll probably have some sort of supersonic telephoto lens . . . He says it’s possible they’ll jump the fence, so they could be in the yard. If they get to the door, you’re not to answer it. And you’re not to take any phone calls from numbers you don’t know. Actually, you sh
ould turn your mobile off. Pull the plug on the home phone. If anyone desperately needs you, they can call Hal. And, Suzannah, he says you should probably stay away from the internet, too. Whatever you do, don’t google yourself.”

  Chip disconnected. He stared into space for a moment, then stood up. “I’m going over to my place. I’ll go through the back paddock so they can’t see me. I’m going to bring the dogs back. That should make them think twice about coming any closer. You two stay inside until I get back.”

  Mary had barely spoken a word all morning. She sat at the breakfast bar, hunched over her bowl protectively, spooning soggy Froot Loops into her mouth. She was taking longer than seemed humanly possible, sloshing each spoonful noisily before swallowing. I avoided watching her as I nibbled my dry toast.

  As soon as Chip left, she perked up. “I wanna go up to the mailbox again, Suzie. Why can’t we go?” The ends of her hair drifted into the milky mess of her bowl.

  “Chip says we need to stay inside. There are people up there that we don’t want to talk to.”

  “People?” Her eyes lit up. “Why don’t we want to see them?”

  “Because . . . because they’ll want to talk to us, and we don’t want to talk to them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re not our friends.”

  Mary leaned toward me, her soaked dressing-gown sleeve smearing milk across the table, and whispered conspiratorially, “Oh, Suzannah. Haven’t you noticed? You and me, we don’t really have any friends. We’re just not that type.”

  I busied myself with housework—cleaning the kitchen, throwing on washing—and then wrangled Mary into semiappropriate cold-weather clothing, a pair of green-and-purple harlequin pants, worn under a hoop-skirted mid-Victorian confection, overlaid with a dark-gray knitted tunic designed to look like medieval armor for added warmth (all taken from my collection of stage costumes). I got her to sit quietly with some coloring-in, the TV blaring as backup.

  But after more than an hour of this enforced busy-making, I could resist the siren song of the internet no longer. I googled Ellie’s name initially rather than my own. There were already a few interviews, all remarkably similar in content and tone: the interviewers bordering on reverential, Ellie herself composed, self-deprecating, unaffected, serious, and so, so sincere. There was nothing of the victim about her and nothing in the least confrontational. There was no anger or outrage: she was careful to never mention her alleged abductors and, despite the journalists’ efforts, reluctant to comment on the clearly flawed system that had allowed her disappearance to go unnoticed. All the details of her ordeal were cleverly glossed over; Ellie merely expressed her deeply felt relief over her escape and her hope that she would be able to get on with the rest of her life. She was entirely media-friendly and utterly, utterly convincing.

  I browsed the newspaper accounts, scrolled through all the #EllieCanning tweets, listened to a few talking heads pontificating on the bizarre nature of the kidnapping, their intense admiration for Ellie: her determination and fortitude, her remarkable lack of self-pity—what an excellent role model she was for her generation. A couple of teenage girls had recorded their take on the story—a confused analysis that seemed to be more concerned with Ellie’s perceived attitude and her looks than the serious aspects of the abduction, and featuring a tutorial on how to achieve her signature look (pale foundation, concealer, gray eye shadow, kohl, salt spray for the messed-up hair), as well as a conversation about how Ellie’s escape—her empowerment!—had already made her, like, so iconic.

  My own web presence was a significant contrast. Just a few months ago, the hits would have been minimal: my very brief IMDb bio and a few articles of the “Whatever happened to” variety, detailing my exit from acting into teaching and motherhood and illustrated largely by pictures of me taken from the show, with perhaps a wedding photo thrown in for contrast. There were a couple of dedicated Beachlife fan sites, too, but these tended to focus on the characters’ dramas rather than the actors’ life stories. Now, in just the few days since my arrest, the links had multiplied exponentially. The fact that the case was sub judice had restricted commentary by most of the respectable media outlets—they could mention only my name, the fact that I was a teacher and former soap star, and that I had been charged. One broadsheet had made a valiant attempt to broaden the discussion, with an outraged young feminist arguing that my transgression was yet another instance of the ways in which internalized misogyny forced women to replicate patriarchal power structures.

  Legal ramifications appeared to have little effect in other places. The number one link took me to a site called 180Degrees, which had scooped up all the available facts and run with them. Their piece managed to insinuate that not only was I a failed actor of negligible talent, but I was also embittered and barren, with a sinister character and a dubious past. According to “unnamed sources,” I was an unpopular figure in the town—a bad teacher and social climber to boot—and my connection to the rich and influential Chip Gascoyne made me even more suspect. In the accompanying image, another one that must have been taken outside the station just after my arrest, I looked frankly hideous—my body hunched, hair flying around my face, my expression vindictive. Like Ellie, I had earned my own Twitter hashtag, and the accompanying tweets were horrifying to view. Of course most threads linked to the 180Degrees piece, and the comments ranged from the mildly alarmed—the types who wondered how someone so clearly disturbed had been allowed to teach young people—to those that questioned why I was given bail. A few called for royal commissions into foster care and private schools. A frightening number suggested that I should be sterilized, that my baby should be adopted out (or aborted), that I should be thrown into prison and the key destroyed. I was described as a bitch, a witch, a sicko pervert. The invective was impressively nonpartisan, coming from all directions: young and old, men and women, left and right. But the fact that I’d created some rare form of community cohesion by being universally loathed was of no comfort at all.

  These were only the public sites, the ones I could see—the open forums, the less mainstream and sometimes completely dodgy news sites. Their dodginess didn’t seem to matter—whatever they reported, regardless of whether it was true or false, would be accepted by some, and often by many, as the truth. And then there were all the other sites that couldn’t be seen, the private forums, Facebook pages, Snapchat communications, where the gossip moved like wildfire, where stories could be shared by hundreds, thousands, without any threat of exposure or censure. I’d seen it happen to others, though never had I imagined being the subject of this deadly game of telephone. I might as well forget the formal legal process: this was where I was being tried, by these thousands and thousands of people who had nothing at stake and who were enjoying every moment of their own outrage. It was completely beyond my control.

  When Chip arrived back with the dogs, it came as something of a surprise, to me, at least, that Mary was a dog lover. My grandparents had had German shepherds—spoiled family pets—when I was a child, but somehow I had never really considered that Hugo, the shepherd who’d already been an old dog when I was a small child, had once been Mary’s childhood pet. Chip had two almost-retired working dogs—black-and-white border collies, Rip and Ned, siblings I had met on only a few occasions, who were slavishly loyal to Chip and almost embarrassingly indifferent to me. But Mary was another matter.

  Initially, Chip tried to get her out in the backyard with them, teaching her to use some basic commands, but Mary tired of this quickly and so did the dogs. Instead she huddled with them on the front veranda, ignoring the arctic outdoor temperature, her beloved television programs forgotten. For the rest of the afternoon, I sat in a patch of sun and watched as Mary regaled the patient duo with stories about her youthful exploits, real and imagined, the dogs’ attention assured by her petting and the cereal she shared with them, doled out piece by piece, straight from the packet.

  I wasn’t sure if the dogs were pro
tecting us from the barbarians at the gate, but they were saving my sanity, even as they added to my Froot Loop bill—pun, metaphor, irony, whatever, intended.

  ABDUCTED: THE ELLIE CANNING STORY

  A documentary by HeldHostage Productions © 2019

  ELLIE CANNING: TRANSCRIPT #13

  After a couple of days, I had to leave the hospital—they needed my bed—but I really didn’t want to go. My foster parents didn’t want me back, and there was no point going back to school.

  There was no way I was going to my mother’s. I’d turned eighteen, so the department wasn’t legally responsible for me anymore. There was literally nowhere for me to go. That’s when Honor came on the scene.

  Once the media knew Honor was involved, things calmed down. Before that it was nuts. Some journalist had even dressed up as a nurse to get into my hospital room.

  Honor fielded all the calls, and then I made an official statement. I was able to make sure that what went on the record was true and not just speculation. The police told me what to say and what not to say. I had to be careful to leave out any information that might identify my captors before the police could do their job.

  At first I resisted Honor’s advice that I be paid for interviews and appearances—it didn’t really seem right. But my life had changed because of what happened to me, and not necessarily for the better. I wasn’t going to be able to go back to school or to Manning. Honor offered me a room at her place, but I was eventually going to have to find somewhere to live, and for that I needed money.

  And even though Suzannah Wells had been charged, the committal hearing was still four months away. And we had no idea about the trial itself. It seemed as if it was going to be a long, boring wait.

  SUZANNAH: SEPTEMBER 2018

  I had work that had to be handed back to my classes, and there were a few things I wanted to collect from the staff common room and the drama room, so I rang to arrange a suitable time. Tania was civil but cold: I wasn’t to be on the grounds between nine and three; 4:00 p.m. would be best, as most of the children would have left by then. I wasn’t naive; I wasn’t even hopeful. I had a pretty clear idea about what was going to happen when I turned up at the school, how my colleagues would behave, but I wanted to go anyway. I wanted to see it for myself, perhaps.