I stop, trying to recalibrate what she’s saying with what I thought I knew to be true. ‘Millie, what are you saying?’
‘I’m not stupid, Rowena.’ She has a strange expression on her face. She looks me up and down. Brushes away the snow that has already collected on her shoulders.
I flinch. I’ve spent most of my adult life working hard to make sure no one looks at me like that ever again.
‘I’m sorry you had to find out like this,’ I say, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to him tonight. To give him a chance to tell you himself.’
‘Find out?’ She laughs. ‘You don’t really think I bought all that rubbish about a career change? I know why you wanted to talk to him. I’ve always known.’
I’m dressed smartly. I have a job and a house and a family. I am a good mother. No one looking at me would ever be able to tell what I was, who I used to be. But there’s something about her laugh that makes all this disappear. It disrobes me and leaves me there, nothing more than your regular garden-variety slag.
‘I saw you that night. My birthday.’
It’s as though she has punched me in the stomach. Suddenly I find it hard to breathe and hunch forward, shrinking in on myself.
It’s been thirteen years but I can still remember every detail. How much it hurt, how he pulled and twisted at my hair, yanking my head back and round. Knowing Millie was there, that she’d witnessed it, renews the shame. The thought hits me like a truck. This is why she stopped being my friend.
‘I know it’s weird for me to feel jealous. Of that. But at the time I thought it meant he loved you more than me.’
Her self-pity gives me strength. I draw on my anger, push back my shoulders, stand up tall. ‘Your dad was a predator. It wasn’t just me, there were others.’
Her face tells me this is news. That she has no idea about him, about the extent of it.
‘What he did, the people he was involved with. Never mind the things he knew were going on and chose to ignore.’ I think of that last night in Dolphin Square. How I told Leo what had happened. How he did nothing. ‘It was wrong. I hate him.’ I think of Billy, still hidden in the walls of Broadcasting House. How, after tonight, hopefully with the architect’s help, I’ll lead the police to him. How I’ll bring to light his murder and the people who covered it up. ‘I’d like nothing more than to leave your father here to rot. God knows he deserves it. But that would mean he’d never have to face up to what he did, that he’d never have to answer for his crimes. He needs to live.’ I’m back to my full height again, my voice strong and clear. ‘We have to call an ambulance.’
Millie steps away from the edge. Finally, I seem to have got through to her.
‘I don’t have my phone.’
‘Use mine.’ I hand her my mobile, get down onto the ground and carefully shuffle over to the edge. ‘Turn it on, call an ambulance, then go to the house to get help. I’m going to see if he’s still breathing.’
She does as I say and sets off back the way she came.
I look down. There is a root branch directly beneath where I’m sitting. It looks sturdy enough to hold my weight. If I use it as a foothold I can make the remainder of the drop to where Leo lies.
I’m about to lower myself down when I feel a whoosh of air near my ear. I turn to see a metal rectangle coming towards me. The shovel makes contact with the side of my skull and the clearing rings with the neat crack of metal against bone. I slump. A small pressure in the middle of my spine. A foot. And I am pushed forward into the hole. I land on top of Leo’s body. Thump. Underneath the light covering of snow, he is still warm, his breath tickles my ear.
I black out for a moment but am woken by the wet smack of mud landing on my face. I force my eyes open and see Millie, at the lip of the hole, shovel in hand. Another sod of dirt falls onto my mouth. I can’t move. I inhale and the grit joins the air. I gag as the particles hit the back of my throat.
The side of my temple is wet. Blood. I should crawl away but I can’t move. The soil is stuck to my eyelashes. Above I hear Millie’s quick breaths. See the flash of metal in the moonlight. More mud. It lands, wet and heavy, on my skin.
Friday 6 October
Present day
Jitesh emptied the last of the cardboard boxes onto the shelf and stood back to admire his handiwork. Tea, coffee, and a tin-opener were now lined up against what must have been at least a month’s supply of baked beans, dried pasta and tinned tomatoes. Student food.
He looked at his bed. Leaflets advertising Fresher’s Week activities were splayed out next to a map detailing the location of the various colleges. Durham was a small university town, just like Cambridge, and Meera’s hall of residence was only a five-minute walk from where he now stood. Later, they’d arranged to meet for dinner in hall after which she’d promised to give him a guided tour.
A noise on the stairs and a boy appeared in the doorway, a plastic crate of stuff held against his chest. His new roommate, Christopher.
‘H-hi.’ Jitesh went to help him with the crate. ‘I’m J-J-Jitesh.’
He had been told the name of the person he’d be sharing with in an email a few weeks earlier. It had been hard but he’d resisted the urge to look Christopher up.
Christopher clocked the assortment of Feynman posters Jitesh had already pinned to the wall above his bed. ‘You’re a fan?’
Jitesh nodded.
Christopher smiled.
Jitesh wondered if this meant that he was also an admirer of the great man. But that question, along with all the other things he wanted to ask, could wait. Christopher would reveal the different parts of himself if and when he was ready, and this was the joy of it: this was how they would become friends.
*
Jessamine and Sarah navigated their way down the narrow staircase and into the bar. The final two steps jutted out at an odd angle and Jessamine struggled to find her footing. She stumbled and Sarah put out an arm to catch her. As she righted herself, she winced and had to stand still for a few moments until the pain subsided.
It had been eight months since she was shot. Thankfully the bullet had missed her intestine but she had had to have her spleen removed. She was making good progress with her recovery but there were still occasions when she’d misjudge leaning or twisting and experience an intense ripping sensation inside her abdomen. Her surgeon had told her it would stop eventually: it was just a matter of time.
Millie had told her that her surgeon had said the same thing. She had caught the bullet Dougie had intended for Sarah. Now in HMP Downview, awaiting trial, Jessamine had visited her on a number of occasions and found her to be in unusually high spirits. Prison, she said, was very like boarding school, in its own way.
Sarah waited until she was sure her mother was okay and then, linking arms, helped her up the final two steps. They emerged into the cavernous room and Jessamine was suddenly aware of all eyes on her.
Tonight was the launch of Went/Gone on Radio 4. The BBC had licensed it from her and to celebrate they were hosting a small party to which the press and some of her friends had been invited. Her fee for the podcast hadn’t been huge, but Jessamine had divided it equally between two trust funds, one for Matteo and one for Tasha’s baby girl, now out of the neonatal unit and thriving.
Meanwhile, interest in herself as an indie broadcaster continued to grow. In the last week she’d been contacted by three major brands offering significant sponsorship for her next series. She’d yet to decide whether or not to take any of them up, but if and when she did the sums in question would be more than enough to provide for her and Sarah for at least the year to come.
Jessamine spotted O’Brien handing a drink to a woman with red hair, and Ellen Griksaitis chatting to Jackie from the domestic-violence helpline. Ellen looked up and waved. Dougie was now back in prison, awaiting trial for the attempted murder of Millie, Sarah and Jessamine. Ellen had been key in helping them get in place a restraining order that would forbid him
to contact Sarah or Jessamine ever again.
Jessamine thought often of Rowena, the girl Cassie used to be, of Queenie and Billy Huggett, the boy whose body she’d discovered inside the walls of Broadcasting House. Cassie and Billy had both been in care. It wasn’t lost on her that, were it not for Sarah’s adoption, theirs was a life that could easily have been hers.
While Sarah went over to say hello to Ellen, Jessamine collected the large box she’d had delivered to the venue earlier that day, and approached O’Brien and his friend.
‘Jessie, this is Susan,’ he said, introducing the woman with red hair. ‘My fiancée.’
Jessamine offered her congratulations and, once she had admired Susan’s diamond ring, she handed him the box.
‘Charles, Susan.’ She presented it to them with a flourish. ‘This is for you. An engagement present.’
He tore off the gift wrap and studied the diagram on the outside, confused.
‘It’s a toaster, egg poacher and a Teasmade all in one.’ She’d tried to choose something akin to the many ridiculous multi-purpose presents he’d given her over the years.
He laughed.
The investigation into the murder of Billy Huggett was ongoing – the autopsy had revealed a fractured hyoid bone, an injury commonly associated with strangulation – but with Cassie, the only apparent witness, now dead, it seemed unlikely the police would ever be able to identify the culprit. O’Brien, though, was of the same opinion as Jessamine. Hiding the body in the walls of Broadcasting House, the very heart of the BBC, suggested the person had had some kind of grievance against the institution. The celebrity, later unmasked as a paedophile, was known to have felt under-appreciated by the BBC in his later years and had been at work in the building during the window of time Billy had been placed there. This, combined with the arrogance the celebrity had shown throughout his life – in his pursuit of his victims and his subsequent dealings with the police – suggested he considered himself untouchable. Jessamine and O’Brien were in no doubt that he was their man.
The room was now at capacity. Donna, the BBC publicist, gave Jessamine a wave, beckoning her to the microphone where she was to give a speech about the podcast and thank everyone for coming.
En route to Donna, Jessamine stopped where Ellen and Sarah were chatting at the bar. Bringing Sarah in for a hug, she pressed her face into her daughter’s hair. She smelt of hairspray and shampoo but there, underneath the raspberry and vanilla, she could smell something else too, loamy and familiar. Sarah’s scalp, sweeter than any shampoo. As she breathed deep, she was hit by the almost painful rush of feeling she’d experienced many times before. Now, though, she found she had the word to describe it. The word was love.
Went/Gone: Episode 6
Early evening, Friday, 11 November 2016, the heart of the Berkshire Downs. In a wooded copse half a mile’s walk from her parents’ Elizabethan manor house Millie Wiles looks down to where her father, Leo, and her childhood friend, Rowena, lie unconscious in a hole twenty feet deep. As the snow starts to fall, she picks up a shovel and covers their bodies with two inches of earth. The snow will do the rest, hiding them for months to come. Afterwards, Millie returns to the house and sends a number of texts and emails from her father’s phone to colleagues, saying he has decided to take compassionate leave of absence to care for his sick wife and that, for the foreseeable future, he will be uncontactable.
My name is Jessamine Gooch and you are listening to Went/Gone. If you’ve listened to every episode so far then you’ll know that what began as a podcast into the investigation of a missing woman named Cassie Scolari turned out to be the story of what happened to a teenage girl named Rowena Garbutt, more than fourteen years earlier. Now, in this, the last instalment in a series that has been all about questions, we bring you some answers.
Acknowledgements
Sophie Orme, my whip-smart bobby-dazzler of an editor.
Kate Parkin, Jennie Rothwell and all at Bonnier Zaffre.
Mary Griksaitis, for lending me her expertise on the care system and adoption process. Mary is an incredible woman and over the years has helped many children like Rowena.
Steve Roche, for helping me with the beginnings of this book and for always being there whenever I need guidance on police matters.
Sarjoo Patel, for introducing me to the wonder that is Neasden Temple.
Naomi Kelt, for her insight into those who volunteer at the Domestic Violence Helpline. I have taken liberties with the ways in which the helpline operates but, sadly, the lack of refuge places for women and children is not a fiction. If you would like to donate then please go to www.refuge.org.uk
Helen Oakwater. I was first alerted to the issues surrounding adopted children and social media thanks to Helen’s excellent book Bubble Wrapped Children: How Social Networking Is Transforming the Face of 21st Century Adoption.
Luke Genower, my development partner-in-crime, brain-stormer of sticky plot points, first reader and, most importantly, my friend.
CPL Productions. My work family. Charlie, Amanda, Trish, Arabella, Danielle, Murray, Janet, Heather, Abigail, Jess, Dawn, Arshdeep and Alex.
But, as always, thanks above all to Alan and Dorothy. My world.
Also by Deborah O’Connor
My Husband’s Son
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Dear Reader,
I first heard the term Potentially Dangerous People while researching a TV programme I was working on. The concept fascinated me. There were all these people out there who had never committed a single crime but who the police felt certain would one day go on to commit an offence that would cause serious physical or psychological harm. I wrote it down in a notebook and forgot all about it. Then the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal happened, closely followed by Operation Yewtree and many other horrific cases of historic sexual abuse. Watching the news I was struck by how ubiquitous the abuse was, stretching as it did across time, culture and class. The dangerous kind, it seemed, were everywhere. Even more terrifying, they tended to hide in plain sight. Stumbling across that note I’d made all those years earlier, I decided I wanted to write a novel about these monsters, more importantly I wanted to write about the incredibly courageous people who stand up to them.
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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Zaffre
This ebook edition published in 2019 by
ZAFFRE
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Copyright © Deborah O’Connor, 2019
Cover design by Nick Stearn
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978–1–78576–208–6
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The Dangerous Kind Page 31
