Her Last Secret

by P L Kane

  Where was all the big news? he had to ask himself. He’d been on more exciting gigs when he’d been a photographer for The Granfield Gazette back in the day. There was even that report about mob boss Danny Fellows and his operations that Jake’s old colleague Dave Harris had been lining up until it got squashed. It had been exciting though, going round and taking pictures of the places Fellows owned, like that casino or the strip joint. Felt like they were doing something important, something worthwhile … Probably a good idea it stopped where it did though, if Fellows’ rep was anything to go by, Jake often thought to himself. At least when you were interviewing old married couples there was no chance of ending up at the bottom of the river wearing concrete slippers.

  He looked at his watch again, then out across at the newsroom at the various people who were in at this hour: only a handful so far, checking emails, answering or making calls. Jake yawned again. What was the point of arranging a time to set off on their long drive when nobody was going to show up but him? He had been hoping they could get this in the bag and out of the way before lunch, so he could sneak off and do some more editing on the short film he’d been making in his spare time. It was just something he was doing for fun at the moment, not really thinking it would go anywhere – and certainly not thinking along the lines of BAFTAs or Oscars – but maybe if he could get it up to scratch he could hit the festivals with it. Jake had mostly recruited students from the local unis and colleges to help with it all, people who’d work just for credits over several weekends. And it wasn’t shaping up too badly at all, if he said so himself: a film about young people today and their thoughts about the future, where everything was heading. Fiction, but in a documentary style.

  But he was never going to get it finished at this rate, not if Sarah, Phil and Howard didn’t get their arses in gear so they could get this over and done with. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, stifling yet another yawn.

  They were lucky he was in at all, the restless night he’d had. It had taken him ages to actually get to sleep and he’d only been in the land of nod a short while when he’d woken up, panicking and sweating. He could have sworn someone had been calling out his name, but when he turned on the light he felt quite silly for answering. Jake had struggled to get back off, tossing and turning, rolling onto his front, his sides. Thank Christ he didn’t share a bed with anyone anymore, because they probably would have kicked him out onto the couch. In the end, he’d got up at stupid o’clock and made himself several cups of coffee – which was probably why he’d got here so early that morning, and why it seemed like he’d been waiting ages. Couldn’t blame the others for staying tucked up in bed a little while longer, he supposed, but all the same …

  Jake was relieved when he saw Sarah, their reporter, come through the doors, looking immaculate as usual (he’d once joked that she probably got out of bed looking like that, and she’d scowled and filled him in at great length about all the prep it took). She held up a hand in greeting, then pointed to indicate she was going to grab a drink before coming over. He sighed … but then neither of the others had even shown their faces yet.

  Phil and Howard turned up together, laughing and joking as usual – not a care in the world – and Jake was just rising to go and join them when someone actually did call his name. It was their IT person, Alison, holding up a phone for him to come over. Jake touched his chest and she nodded, face quite serious.

  ‘Who’s calling me here?’ he asked her as he trotted over. He had his work mobile on him, so why not use that? ‘What’s it about?’

  Alison shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t say. Sounded official, though.’

  Jake took the phone from her, his brow creasing. ‘H-Hello?’ He nodded when they asked if they were speaking to the right person, before realising they couldn’t see him. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  Then, as the words came through the receiver, it was as if time stood still. Jake tried and failed to process them. Instead, he dropped the phone which hung down the side of Alison’s desk by its cord. Then he walked away, leaving Alison and everyone else mystified, ignoring their calls.

  He had somewhere to be.

  He had something to do.

  Chapter 2

  How Jake got to his Silver Toyota, got on the road, and made it to the motorway was something of a mystery in itself.

  There were just too many thoughts racing through his mind. Memories especially, winding back time to the day he’d first seen Julie at school, and they’d shared that moment – the one that told them both they’d be together forever (hadn’t made seventy years, though, had they). Hanging out with her and Mathew after hours – the Three Musketeers – then him and Matt getting into all kinds of trouble as they started to gravitate towards the wrong kind of company. Graffiti, bit of pickpocketing, joyriding; the usual juvenile stuff. In Jake’s defence, he’d lost his father back when he was only 10 to bowel cancer and his mother was so busy working all the hours God sent, she couldn’t keep a proper eye on him. That was the excuse those lawyers had used at any rate. Then they were caught with a stolen car, and Jake had carried the can for Matt. It had seen him get away with a suspended sentence and community service, thank Christ, though it had probably contributed to his mum having her heart attack a couple of years after that.

  None of this had put Julie off him, though. In fact, it only seemed to make her want him more, despite the fact he’d dropped out of school and she was trying to get her A levels. Maybe it was the bad boy thing a lot of young girls went through? He hadn’t been that bad, though, not really. In any event, they’d ended up spending more and more time together – at the local skateboarding area, at the park after sunset, at the woods nearby. Her parents, the Brents, who to him were like something out of the 1950s, definitely didn’t approve. But it was getting to the point where they couldn’t really tell her what to do anymore. He and Julie started sleeping together, and it was amazing … right up until the point that the condom they were using one night split; Julie had been too scared to go to the doctor’s and get the pill, so that had been their only method of birth control.

  Jake remembered the night she’d told him, having hidden it from everyone for months – right up to the time when it was too late to do anything about it but have the baby. Not that they’d have done anything differently, he didn’t think. So there they were, not even 18, green as grass, and they were looking at being a family. Naturally, Julie’s parents had freaked the fuck out – her dad even handing her an ultimatum, to give Jake the heave-ho or get out, much to her mother’s distress. He hadn’t meant it, he’d told her later, just hadn’t known what else to do to get her to see sense. Stubborn Jules and that fiery temper, which matched her hair. She’d been his little girl, and the man had seen it as a violation (Jake didn’t get that until much, much later). He wasn’t exactly a catch anyway …

  However, Julie had chosen to be with him – put her faith in Jake even though it scared the crap out of him. It had forced them both to grow up overnight, for Jake to take some responsibility and get whatever above-board job he could (and now he could finally understand what his mum had been doing to put clothes on his back, to put food on the table). He’d done all kinds of work back in those days, from manual labour on building sites to packing goods on a conveyor belt in a factory.

  Julie had to give up on the A levels, of course, abandoning her ambitions of becoming a vet. But oh, it really was worth all the struggle in the end. Because when Jules gave birth that afternoon in January, it was like their lives had only really started. The love they’d felt for her … for this girl they’d named Jordan – becoming The Three ‘J’s now – well, it was just indescribable. Like he would do anything for her, anything at all. Step in front of a bullet, a train …whatever, gladly.

  She’d been Jake’s pride and joy, had brought so much happiness to their tiny little home: a two-bedroom flat, in quite an undesirable part of town. They didn’t have much, but they had each other, they had love. More love than some folk h
ad with mountains of cash.

  And, in time, Jake had found himself in better – more regular – employ, while Julie had gone to work part-time at a local vet’s, just while Jordan was in school. Jake began to think about bettering himself, and Jordan had made that happen. He wanted to be somebody she could look up to, not just ‘Daddy’ but a guy who had a vocation. That was when he’d taken the night-school classes in photography, something he hadn’t thought about in years but had been quite keen on as a young kid. He soon found he had an aptitude for it – composition and framing came as second nature to him (this was back in the days of single lens reflex and developing fluids, back before digital photography became the norm). Some of his work had even been sent with the classes’ offerings on a touring exhibition abroad.

  It gave him the encouragement he needed to apply for work at all the newspapers in the surrounding areas, especially now they’d finally managed to afford a small car. Julie’s parents had started to chip in as well, not vast amounts but at least they were trying – probably so they could gain more access to their grandchild. By then, Jake’s mum had passed away, so really they were all Jordan had in terms of grandparents.

  He’d got his job as a junior at The Granfield Gazette, and worked his way up, becoming one of the most trusted photographers on the staff. They got a house, a real house with stairs and everything. Jordan was doing well at school, showing signs of Jake’s own creativity – especially painting and drawing, some writing too – but also a love of animals that she got from her mother. Always wanting to take in strays, look after them. Things were good, life was good.

  But then came the teenage years.

  In the space of just a few months – so little time – when Jordan was coming up to her fifteenth birthday, her whole personality had changed. She’d always been so sweet, so thoughtful, but the kids she’d started hanging out with at school were just idiots, plain and simple. Jake and Jules had tried to instil in her a sense of right and wrong, a moral core, but that was soon eroded away by the need to be popular – to not look like one of the eggheads who were always studying. And those fucking smartphones, bloody social media … They’d been able to police it to some extent when she first got one, which they’d thought was a good idea to begin with, a way of keeping in touch. Jake had even bitten the bullet and got one himself at the same time, just to try and hang on to some of that closeness they’d once had as father and daughter.

  Gradually, and inevitably it seemed, guys showed up on the scene. Jordan went from not really being interested, to plastering herself in make-up when she was heading out, even just down the road to a mate’s, or staying over at a friend’s (which they would later usually find out was male). Photos would appear all over her online pages: Jordan with groups of both girls and boys, some they didn’t even know from other schools, or older lads from college. Some of the comments beneath them were absolutely disgusting. They’d confronted her about it on several occasions, but her answer was always to point to their own teenage years. And, no, Jordan hadn’t got pregnant, but there had been a couple of scares at least that they knew about. All of which had Jake pulling his hair out.

  It was also putting a hell of a strain on his marriage, the constant worry and the arguments. Each relying on the other to try and sort this mess out before it was too late.

  By the time he’d decided to go and do more night-classes – now in camerawork, an attempt to move sideways into that field – Jordan had already failed most of her GCSEs and was looking to attend college herself for resits. That only made things worse, increased her contact with boys. A string of them stretching back and every single one interchangeable; same shit, different day, all because of the influence of her man-mad friends. Apparently, it was okay to jump straight into bed with someone, they were part of the so-called ‘hook-up generation’; try before you buy, before you put a label on it … all of that bollocks. Even with those guys who threatened to hurt her, that Jake had wanted to pummel on a regular basis – ride in like some kind of half-arsed knight on a white charger or something, when it was the last thing in the world Jordan wanted; she’d made that plain.

  She’d started dressing in what he thought were totally unacceptable clothes, swearing and smoking like a chimney. Talking to her became all but impossible, the generation gap obvious, and she would disappear for days on end. They’d even called the authorities on a number of occasions, fearing the worst, only for her to crop up or call them to say she was okay and just staying with friends again. What could they do? She was lost, but she was also practically a grown-up. He’d lie there in the dark at night, time ticking away so slowly, wondering if his daughter was okay; his contact with her amounting to a green dot on a screen to show if she was online, to indicate whether she was alive or dead.

  And yes, if he was honest with himself, he was jealous that she had this whole other life that didn’t involve him; that she actively kept away from him because she knew he wouldn’t approve. It seemed a million miles away from the relationship they’d once shared as dad and daughter, the time – the years – between them stretching out further and further.

  There had been more rows, Jake’s imagination running wild and accusing her of all sorts – drugs were a particular suspicion – not that Jordan ever realised, because she wasn’t around. Her mother would always give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘What do you want me to do? We have no proof about any of this!’

  ‘By the time we find out the truth, it’ll be too late,’ Jake would always argue. Chicken, egg. Egg, chicken.

  The other thing Jules would say time and again was: ‘She’s not doing any of this to get at you, it’s not personal. She’s just trying to find her way …’ So why did it all feel so fucking personal? They’d spent all that time trying to bring Jordan up right, and she was basically throwing it back in their faces.

  It had all hit the fan one night when she returned, having missed her eighteenth birthday. This time she’d pushed Jake too far and he’d offered a few home truths, which had made the girl cry but also ended with her telling him that she hated his guts. ‘I never want to see you again!’ she barked into his face.

  Jake had taken one look over at Julie for support, but she’d turned away. And then so did he. Turning and walking out through the front door, going off to stay in a hotel that night. He’d returned the next day, of course he had – but Jordan hadn’t been around, and he could tell by the frosty reception he got from Jules that things would never be the same with them again either. He’d tried a few more times, to make their marriage work, to talk to his daughter, but in the end, he had just headed off because he thought that was for the best. Julie’s parents had been delighted by the news, naturally; probably thought it was his fault in the first place that Jordan had gone off the rails and they would now get her back on track. They never had been able to see what was right in front of their eyes.

  Contact with the two ladies who’d been in his life, who’d been his life, had turned out to be minimal since the divorce. The odd strangled phone conversation, calls on birthdays or at Christmas – nothing more. Jake hadn’t seen Jordan in almost three years now, he got the feeling she preferred it that way. He’d deleted his social media accounts as well, got rid of his old mobile so he didn’t have to watch the continued self-destruction of his baby girl. He’d moved away, found a job at the local TV company and was doing all right … At least that’s what he told himself. He hadn’t even been fazed – much – by the news that Julie had got married again. Maybe at some point they could all sit together again in a room and talk like adults. At some point, that’s what he’d thought. His daughter’s twenty-first was fast approaching, so maybe …

  But then the phone call. The news.

  Another landmark birthday they’d miss. (No, it wasn’t true!)

  He’d dropped the receiver, he remembered that much. Had to get in the car, get back – just to make sure it wasn’t real. Some kind of practical joke, it had to be. It couldn’t be righ
t. Just couldn’t be!

  Where’s all the big news?

  You had to ask, didn’t you? Well, it’s here, this is it, his conscience taunted.

  In any event he had to get back there, to the town he’d once called home. Get back.

  Get to Redmarket.

  ***

  In his haste to reach the place, pulling off the motorway but barely slowing down, he’d almost had a collision with a blue Sierra.

  Jake heard the blast of the motorist’s horn, but it was muted. This whole journey had been like driving through a fog. But now he was emerging out of the other side, driving down that familiar dual carriageway, spinning off the roundabout that had only been small when he was growing up, but was now controlled by a lights system. Then up and into town proper, where the traffic was slowing to a crawl.

  He craned his neck to see what was going on, but this scene was also familiar to him. He’d filmed ones just like it, with the police flitting around, tape flapping and crowds gathered. There were even TV crews setting up in the distance, vans with logos on the side that he recognised – some of them competitors. How long before his station showed up? he wondered. And he thought briefly then that he should have let someone there know where he was going, what he was doing.

  But he didn’t really know what was happening, did he? Not for sure. Had to find out for definite – that’s what all this was about. Something had clearly happened here, but that didn’t mean it was Jordan. Let it be someone else’s daughter, he thought, then felt terrible for even contemplating such a thing.

  Enough. Time to get this over and done with, get rid of the lump in his throat and the fist that was opening and closing in the pit of his stomach. It was time to really go home.

  Except it wasn’t his home anymore. The house he pulled up outside, when he’d finally got past the jams that were snarling up the centre of Redmarket, belonged to other people now. He remembered coming here with Julie, looking around with the estate agent: a simple three-bedroom semi, but it seemed like a palace to them after their flat. It had not long been built back then, but looked so old and tired now, maybe reflecting all the sorrow it had witnessed over the years.