by Tammy Cohen
What kind of person would I have been if I hadn’t warned the woman who lived with him?
Even so, I was nervous when I saw the string of comments from Stephens’s friends underneath my post. More so when I started scrolling through them.
U better back off, bitch.
Hey JLo, the crazy lady is back. She got the hots for you, bruv.
Then, finally, a message from the man himself.
OK. No more being nice. Your mental but you crossed a line.
I slammed shut the laptop, adrenaline heightening every movement. You crossed a line. It was undeniably a threat. But what did he have in mind? No matter. Let him bring it on. The anonymous letter was a tipping point. Being a mother was at the very core of me. He wouldn’t challenge that and get away with it. I felt charged and ready, fuelled by the sudden certainty of being right.
The feeling of being pumped up and energized lasted the whole of that Saturday. I tried to work, but concentration eluded me, the blue-and-white Facebook icon drawing me in like a call to prayer. The exchange from earlier was deleted not long after the last post I’d read, but still I waited for his next move, sure I would find it there.
But when nothing more happened that day, or the next, I relaxed, my guard lowering little by little like a slow-motion sunset until, by the following Monday morning, the whole thing seemed once again unfeasible. Like something that had happened to someone else far removed from me.
It was Em’s parents’ consultation meeting that afternoon and I was trying to cram in some intensive work beforehand when a sharp ring on the doorbell interrupted me, bringing on a shudder of irritation. It would be something from Amazon, I was sure, that I’d ordered in a fit of boredom, feeling I couldn’t do without it – a pack of cardboard folders in rainbow colours to help keep my accounts in order, special spectacles for applying eye make-up, with only one magnifying lens that you could flip from one side to the other.
Instead, there were two uniformed police officers on the doorstep, a man and a woman, neither of them looking particularly glad to be there.
‘Mrs Hopwood?’ The woman had an indeterminate accent, stressing and elongating the second syllable of my name so it felt unfamiliar. ‘We’re responding to a harassment complaint that’s been made against you. Can we come in?’
I showed them through to the kitchen, where we all stood awkwardly around the table. It hadn’t yet sunk in, just what they were doing here, and I felt only a kind of removed interest, as if they might be coming to tell me about a new parking scheme, or ask if I’d witnessed a car accident. I was a middle-class, middle-aged woman. I had no concept of being on the wrong side of the law.
‘I assume you might have some idea why we’re here,’ said the man, whose nose bent slightly to the right, as if it had been broken at some point in the past. ‘We’ve received a call from a Mr James Stephens, who claims you have been harassing him online and also in person. Attending the gigs where he DJ’s, following his pregnant girlfriend to the toilets, and now calling at his house and intimidating his elderly grandmother.’
I was still looking at them both with a polite smile on my face, as if waiting to hear how I could help them. Harassment. Intimidation. These were not words that related to me.
‘You do realize, Mrs Hopwood, that these are very serious allegations,’ said the woman sternly.
Only now did the first prickles of alarm make themselves felt. But surely they’d see, these two police officers, that I was respectable. Just one look around the kitchen would prove that. Would a woman with a fresh sourdough loaf sitting on a wooden butcher’s block go around harassing old ladies?
‘I don’t think you understand,’ I told them. ‘James Stephens assaulted my daughter two months ago. He was caught on the CCTV footage and appeared in the video line-up, only, unfortunately, my daughter was too overwhelmed by the occasion to pick him out at the time. And now he’s wandering the streets, free to do it again to another young girl. People need to be warned about him.’
‘So your daughter failed to identify him as her attacker?’
The woman had a way of making everything sound like a challenge, like she didn’t believe what you’d just said. I felt myself growing hot.
Oh, please, not here. Not now.
Sweat began to break out on my forehead, under my arms.
‘Like I say, she was thrown by the situation,’ I said, shrugging off the woollen cardigan that was already sticking uncomfortably to my arms. ‘But I know it was him, and Em and Frances both confirmed it. That’s Frances Gates, who was a witness to the attack.’
‘So you’re saying Ms Gates picked him out of the line-up?’ asked the wonky-nosed policeman. ‘In which case, why isn’t he—’
‘No, she picked the wrong guy.’ By now, sweat was trickling down my back and I felt as if I was about to explode from heat. I was conscious that everything I was saying was coming out wrong, but I couldn’t work out the right words to make them understand. ‘Look. Someone attacked my daughter half a mile away, in this neighbourhood. And that someone is still at large. And he’s dangerous.’
I needed to make them appreciate the seriousness of the threat Stephens posed. His grandmother’s words came back to me. The man who died following a fight.
‘He killed someone,’ I said.
Now they were interested.
‘So he has a murder conviction?’ asked the policeman, taking his notebook out. His fingers were poised, holding the pen. ‘Manslaughter?’
‘No, I mean, I don’t think he was ever charged. There was no case.’
The officer closed his notepad, tucking the pen back inside the loop at the top.
‘He stole my dog,’ I blurted out.
‘Your dog?’
The woman again, with her flat, sceptical voice.
I strode to the back door and opened it.
‘It’s hot in here, isn’t it?’ I asked, tugging aside the neck of my T-shirt to waft in the colder air. ‘Aren’t you both hot?’
The police officers exchanged a glance but didn’t reply. Then the man spoke again.
‘Mrs Hopwood, if the two witnesses both failed to pick a man out of a line-up, the chances are that case is now concluded and that man is now at liberty to go about his business. May I remind you there is such a thing as due process in law. And you are in very big danger of finding yourself on the wrong side of it. How can you even be sure it’s the same man – if the two witnesses couldn’t identify him?’
‘He sent me a photo. Of my house. As a threat. Look.’
I scrolled wildly through my emails, relief flaring as I found the photograph.
‘See how my dog is right there in the centre of the picture. Then, just days later, she goes missing. That’s not a coincidence.’
The two police officers bent over my phone screen.
‘And this came from Mr Stephens’s personal email account?’
The woman’s expressionless voice was getting under my skin.
‘No, it was from a weird fake account with just jumbled numbers and letters. But I know it was him.’
Again, they glanced at each other. Then back at me.
Just like that, the heat abated and I felt my arms go goose-pimply with the cold. I slammed the door shut, trying to disguise a shiver.
‘I’m afraid there’s nothing to prove this came from the person in question,’ the man said evenly. ‘And even if it did, there’s no threat made.’
I tried one more time to appeal to them, addressing myself to the woman.
‘My daughter is only sixteen. She still has nightmares about that night. Can you understand how it feels, knowing the man who did that to her is still strutting around the neighbourhood without any repercussions for what he did?’
The policewoman looked back at me through wary blue eyes.
‘We’re very sorry about what happened to your daughter,’ she said, ‘but you can’t go around taking the law into your own hands. Consider this a warning.’
What had happened to my life?
I wanted to shower and get out of my now damp clothes before going to Em’s parents’ consultation, but the unexpected visit from the police meant I didn’t have time. I had a quick look in the hall mirror as I dashed out and cringed at the sight of my lank, sweat-straggled hair and the dark shadows under my eyes that gave my irises the appearance of being mired in mud.
For a moment I wavered, torn between my need to be on time and the temptation to nip upstairs and try to slather make-up over the worst of it, but I knew what those afternoons were like. If you missed your slot, you were put to the back of the interminable queue, forced to watch everyone else’s consultations, trying to gauge from their expressions whether it was good news or bad.
I called an Uber as I was running so late. Belted into the back of a Prius – why was it always a Prius? – my thoughts circled back to Stephens, as they always did these days. Once again, doubt came crawling into my mind. Why would someone who already had a criminal record involve the police in a dispute in which they themselves might be incriminated? Might I have made a mistake?
I got out my phone and scrolled to Kath’s number, needing to talk it through, but my finger hovered over the call button. There was already so much I hadn’t told her and Mari. So much I wasn’t proud of. Better to save it for the next time I saw them in person, where I could explain it all properly.
On impulse, I called Frances. She was at work, but she said she could talk for a few minutes. I think she could hear in my voice how wound up I was. I told her about the malicious note sent to Phil’s studio and how the police had turned up on my doorstep.
‘Would he really do that,’ I asked her, ‘if he was guilty?’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Frances. Then she paused. When she resumed, her voice was hesitant, but kind.
‘But Tess, the thing you have to remember is you have no idea what kind of person you’re dealing with. This is someone who has been in prison before, he’s familiar with the law and what the police can and can’t do. He knows what he can get away with.’
When I arrived at the school Em was waiting outside the gates, glaring at her phone screen.
‘You’re late,’ she said, then looked me up and down. ‘Is that what you’re wearing?’
‘Of course it’s what I’m wearing. Did you think I brought a change of clothes in my bag?’
There was a time when I enjoyed these occasions. Having a full-time job meant school remained an enigma, a place whose rooms and corridors my daughters knew like the backs of their hands but to me were unknown and imbued with mystery. I used to love stepping inside those locked front doors, making my way past reception to meet the teachers who gave me an outsider’s view on my own children so I saw them as the world might see them. I loved walking past a wall display and catching sight of ‘Rosie Hopwood’ or ‘Emma Hopwood’ on the bottom of a piece of work, loved this glimpse into the people they were becoming separate from us.
But that was before my family was split down the middle like a ripped ticket stub.
The first meeting was with Em’s English teacher. Em had always been good at English, so I was looking forward to this one. Before I had children, I hadn’t considered it possible to love someone so much that hearing them praised, knowing other people recognized what was special in them, brought you more pleasure than any amount of glory for yourself. But my optimism soon turned to dismay when Mrs Malik put her head to one side in the time-honoured fashion of those about to deliver unwelcome news.
‘I’m afraid we’ve had a bit of a rocky time this term, haven’t we, Emma? The last three or four assignments have not been up to her usual standard and she’s appeared very distracted in class, which is not like her. Is everything all right at home?’
I glanced at Em, who had gone a deep wine-red and was busy staring at her hands.
‘Well, I’m sure you know that Emma had an unpleasant experience a couple of months ago,’ I said. ‘And to be honest, I think it’s had more of an effect on her than she’s letting on.’
‘I’m fine.’
Em looked furious. Though the school had been informed at the time of the attack and, obviously, she’d talked to her friends about it, she’d been emphatic about not wanting a fuss made. I knew she’d hate me discussing with her teacher things she considered private.
Mrs Malik’s head remained on a tilt, her black hair swinging, mouth scrunched up in concern.
‘I do understand Emma has been through a horrible ordeal, and we’ll all help in whatever way we can. But this is a critical time academically and it would be such a pity for her grades to start slipping now.’
The rest of the consultations followed the same depressing narrative. Em had appeared to be working well, certainly on target for her predicted grades, but then in recent weeks something had gone badly wrong. With each encounter, pity for my daughter wound itself tighter around my heart.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked her after we said a terse goodbye to the fourth teacher.
‘I’m dealing with it,’ snapped Em. But I could see she was shaken by what she was hearing, the incontrovertible evidence that the attack had affected her on a more fundamental level than she was willing to admit to.
For the first time, I wished Phil was there and not stuck in his studio on the last crucial stages of an edit. I felt like I needed an ally, someone who knew how sensitive Em was, how conscientious, and could help me find the words to make the staff understand how precious she was to us. Alone, I felt unequipped for the task of protecting her.
By the time we got to the queue for maths, always Em’s weakest subject, we were both reduced to a kind of numbed silence, just wanting the whole thing to be over with, standing side by side, staring ahead in a daze.
Which is why I didn’t see Anna Cunningham until it was too late.
‘Oh,’ she said, clearly having failed to notice me also.
She recovered first.
‘Tessa. It’s been a while.’
Her eyes, perfectly made up as always, with those flicks of liquid eyeliner that some women manage to pull off, looked me up and down, distrust written into every subtly bronzed and shimmered pore.
I remembered with a sharp feeling of loss how, when she first found out I was a magazine editor, when Rosie and Anna’s daughter, India, were in reception, she used to seek me out at school events as if I were some sort of minor celebrity, and how grateful she’d been in Year Ten when I gave India work experience on my magazine. And in return I’d been able to call her when I was running late, asking if she could keep Rosie an extra hour or drop her off on the way back from orchestra.
She was one of the stay-at-home mums, one of the PTA mums, and we didn’t have a huge amount in common, but I knew that she and her husband slept in separate rooms and she’d seen me break down after I was made redundant, and those things, plus our mutual love for our daughters, seemed to be enough.
Until they weren’t.
‘We’re just here seeing my teachers,’ said Em, her jaw set in that way she had when she was anxious and trying to be brave.
Anna seemed to see Em for the first time.
‘Yes, of course. Michael’s too.’
She gestured towards her son, a sullen teenager in Emma’s year, with a pronounced Adam’s apple, a scattering of wispy facial hair and his hands wedged deep into his pockets.
How is India? The words formed on my lips, but I couldn’t say them.
‘Well, goodbye, Emma.’
The very obvious slight made my face burn as Anna Cunningham turned and walked away, steering her reluctant son in front of her.
Emma stared m
iserably straight ahead of her. I knew I should try to make everything all right, but I didn’t trust myself to speak.
The maths teacher’s comments were just as bad as I’d feared. Em had been trying really hard, not top of the class but certainly holding her own, then in the last few weeks everything had gone to pieces. Again I had to listen to my daughter claiming everything was fine, and this time I didn’t even attempt to justify and explain to the concerned-looking teacher.
A single thought tattooed itself painfully across the inside of my head.
Him.
This was all his fault.
It’s just a glimpse of blue. That particular blue of a shirt you wore one time. I see it from the corner of my eye while I am standing at the school gates. And that’s all it takes.
When Henry comes out I grab his hand and haul him away, even though he doesn’t like me holding his hand any more, not when his friends might see.
‘Can we go to the park?’
‘Not today.’
My voice sounds weird, like I am out of breath.
‘Stop!’ says Henry. And when I don’t comply, he yanks his hand from mine and stands in front of me so I can’t go any further.
‘I don’t like you when you are like this, Mummy.’
His bottom lip is wobbling and his brown eyes are huge with reproach and worry.
Love pricks the balloon of my fear and I hold out my arms.
‘Sorry, bubba. Forgive me.’
We hug. Henry’s sweet nature means he can never stay angry for long. Hurts are instantly forgotten.
