‘Who did you tell you were moving down here?’
‘I didn’t put it on social media, if that’s what you mean. I don’t have social media any more. I told you that. Ever since . . . ever since I was hurt, I don’t have social media on my phone.’
‘Did you tell anybody in real life?’
‘Only my brother and my mother. But they wouldn’t tell anyone. I had to resign from my job. I loved my job. And I was just getting myself back together and then that postcard and photo came and then that’s it, BOOM everything’s gone.’
‘We’re going to have to take you into protective custody,’ I tell her. ‘I mean, witness protection.’
That changes her again, she grows very still and stares right at me. ‘Why?’ she eventually manages, even though she barely moves her lips.
I sigh. ‘He knows you’re down here and has been leaving his past victims in different parks around Brighton.’
‘No. No, no, no.’ She shakes her head. ‘He’s found me?’ She crushes the tissue in her hand. ‘This is why I need to do the interviews,’ she says suddenly, desperation soaking each word. ‘I need the world to hear. I need those other women to hear so they’ll come forward and tell you their stories. The more stories you hear, the more likely you’ll get something that will help you find him, won’t you?’
‘In a way,’ I reply reluctantly. She does have a point. Just a general appeal should do it, but I understand human nature too. More people will respond if there is a face, a pretty one especially, saying what happened. I sigh again. ‘I will have Laura here and another officer accompany you to get your stuff and we’ll find somewhere for you to stay. After that, we’ll talk about the media thing. I’ll ask around and see if there are any trusted journos you can tal—oh, what now? Why have you got that look on your face?’
‘I . . . I already sent out an embargoed press notification. I let people know that I’ll meet them on Wednesday. The location will be kept secret until a couple of hours before so they’ll respect the embargo. I was specific enough to get their interest but vague enough not to give too much away.’
‘You’ve already sent it?’ Laura asks. She sounds more incredulous than I feel.
‘Yes. I worked in public relations, I know how to get the press interested. I had to do something to protect myself. And you said it yourself’ – she’s pointing at me – ‘we need as many people to come forward as possible to keep me alive.’ I didn’t say that, but she’s extrapolating and embellishing to suit her point.
‘At what point were you going to tell us you’d done this?’ I ask.
‘I’m here now, aren’t I?’ She crushes the tissue in her hand. ‘Look, I am not a victim who is going to wait around to be picked off like that other woman I got the picture of. That is not me. I have to do something.’
I can understand that. I am that. It’s just disconcerting when someone screws up your work by doing that something.
‘All right,’ I say tiredly. ‘Go get your stuff. I’ll find you somewhere to stay where you can meet the journalists who respond. We’ll have to move you afterwards.’
I was saying this, but wasn’t sure how I was going to get budget approval for it. We were already piggy-backing off the CID budget. This was not on the cards. I knew Callie existed, had read her statement, but I didn’t think The Blindfolder would be so focused on her that he would be doing this.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything straight away,’ she says, looking completely remorseful. ‘I was just scared and I had to protect myself. I’m so sorry.’
I find a smile, one that convinces her that it will all be OK. Laura isn’t able to do that. She is absolutely appalled by all of this. I am too, but I’ve had more experience at pretending the absolutely outrageous is absolutely fine.
‘It’s hard to know what to do sometimes,’ I say. ‘But please, don’t do anything else without asking us first. It really is in your best interest to let us take charge of everything from here on in.’
She nods, looking shamefaced. ‘I will. I absolutely will.’
And if I believe that, I really don’t deserve the title of detective inspector.
Pieta
Monday, 10 June
I still don’t know what I’m going to do.
I don’t want to meet this woman, I am sure of that. Yes, on many levels I do want to meet her, but really, how will I listen to her tell me her version of my story and not give myself away? Not break down?
But the only way out of this would be to call in sick tomorrow or Wednesday and not go back to work because if I do not get Lillian that interview, my life will be unbearable.
The thoughts about what to do are still whizzing around my mind like racing cars on a track when I arrive home. Nothing seems easy or simple.
I climb the steps to my large, split-level flat in a Victorian villa in Hove, knowing I have to shed all of this. One of the promises I made myself when I had Kobi was to make sure, absolutely sure, that I brought nothing home from work. I wanted his life to be unburdened by the things that stalked the world; uncomplicated by me; unblemished by the adults that seemed determined to make life hard and brutal.
Stay there. Stay there. Stay there, I repeat as I climb the steps. I’m not going back there, and there isn’t coming here.
My keys feel rubbery, light and unreal as I raise the silver Yale one to slot into the lock. When I first thought about moving here, settling by the sea, I assumed I’d end up in Brighton. And then I came here and realised very quickly that Brighton was too much for me. I was escaping London, I was escaping chaos, I didn’t need to simply downsize it. Brighton was vibrant, buzzing, always moving; like the sinewy body of a person so comfortable with themselves they didn’t care what anyone thought and, in fact, didn’t stop to even notice that they didn’t care. Brighton was frenetic and I needed calm. I ended up buying this split-level place in the other half of the city – Hove – a bit further along the seafront. It’s right near George Street, the sort-of high street in Hove, and the train station. It was ideal for the time when I’d be OK to commute up to London for work and it was only one block away from the sea. It was the perfect place and I knew from the moment I walked in I would be able to live here, heal here, be whoever I needed to be now that I was in The After.
The me I was before him was gone. I needed to be away from London and who I was in The Before. And I promised Kobi, even before he had his name and he was outside of me and alive, that I wouldn’t allow the difficult bits of The After to infect him.
The flat oozes with happiness and contentment when I open the door, it rushes to greet me like a happy dog relieved and excited that its owner is home. Sazz does that. She and Kobi have a relationship that is solid and fun; he wouldn’t dream of trying to scam her out of doing homework, brushing his teeth, staying up after lights out. He saves all of that for me.
I kick off my shoes, head for the toilet by the door, pump a couple of squirts of lavender liquid soap into the well of my palms then wash my hands in the small sink. ‘I’m home!’ I call while I dry my hands. No answer.
In the living room, Kobi sits on our low, brown leather sofa beside Sam, one of his best friends from school. They each have a games controller in their hands and they are fixated on the twenty-two computer-generated football figures that run around a green pitch. ‘Hello, Sam,’ I say, because clearly my son isn’t going to acknowledge my existence while he is in the middle of football glory.
‘Hello,’ he says and takes his eyes off the screen for a moment to at least look and smile at me.
‘How are you?’ I ask. ‘How was school?’
Horrified that I might want to talk to him when he has a footie game to finish, he mumbles, ‘Fine’ and returns to the screen.
‘Hello, sweet child of mine,’ I say to my son. ‘How was school?’
‘Mum!’ Kobi hisses through his teeth.
‘Sorry I asked,’ I reply.
I go to him and press a kiss on the
top of his head. Love you, I whisper inside my mind. Because he can tell when I’m doing that, even when I say it silently.
‘Hello, Pi-R,’ Sazz says as she enters the room. From the kitchen I can smell the dinner she’s made – Bolognese – and I can hear the CD of musicals she’s been playing. Sazz likes to sing when she cooks, and I’ve caught her dancing between stirs before.
‘Hey. Where’s Oscar?’ I ask. Even though Oscar is the year above Sam and Kobi, he always comes over whenever the younger two arrange to get together.
‘He’s upstairs, doing his homework.’ She directs her voice to the other two. ‘He wanted to get it done before dinner. You know, sensible, like.’
In unison Kobi and Sam look at Sazz, double-checking she isn’t telling them to go and do their homework now, because they would. No arguments, no fuss, if Sazz was decreeing something, they would scramble to do it.
She winks at them, they grin at her. Clearly I’m not needed here.
Upstairs, I pop my head around the door of my office. Oscar sits at my desk with his head down as he writes something on the large, A2 sheet of paper in front of him.
‘Hi, Oscar,’ I say.
He lifts his head and looks at me, a bit surprised, then perplexed. Clearly I have interrupted him at a crucial moment and he’s having trouble returning to this world from wherever he was while he was homeworking.
‘Hello,’ he eventually says.
‘How was your day?’ I ask.
‘Fine.’
‘Good, I’m glad. I’m sure Sazz will let you know when it’s dinner time.’ I’m talking for the sake of it, now. Those poor boys. It’s really not fair on them to have me trying to start a conversation when they’re clearly busy, but I can’t help myself.
‘Thank you,’ he responds, itching to get back to what he was doing before he loses his train of thought.
‘OK. Well, see you soon. At dinner.’
He nods and I back out of the room, feeling foolish. This is clearly why Kobi only invites people over when Sazz is doing pick-up – he can’t risk having me put his friends through this every time.
Thursday, 15 September, 2011
She was smiling, like the universe was chock-full of wonderful things and she had a trillion and one things to grin about.
‘Hello, I’m Sarah Sazzleoj, most people call me Sazzle or Sazz,’ she said at the front door. ‘I’m fine with any of them, but I’m so used to Sazz now that I don’t really answer to Sarah first time.’
I stepped back to let her into the flat. Immediately I felt the warmth from her, she was naturally at ease with the world and her place in it. She was younger than me, but seemed to have everything sorted.
I didn’t hold out much hope for Sazz. On paper she seemed ideal – but so had the other seven I’d interviewed. They’d all been highly praised by the agency, had a battery of credentials and experience and each of them had left me cold.
When Sazz had arrived, I was still reeling from the last woman who’d just left. She had been twenty-four, lived on the outskirts of London/Croydon so couldn’t be expected to get here before 10 a.m. She didn’t smoke but asked me if it would be a problem if she needed to nip out for a cigarette break every now and again; she suggested I brush up on my French if I wanted to be able to communicate with her properly, and then told me she didn’t think children needed much stimulation so spending hours in their cots was perfectly fine. She’d been the best one.
Kobi was precious to me. I’d had him eighteen months and every day – every day – I woke up terrified he’d be taken away from me. By someone who thought I couldn’t cope, by someone who thought I wasn’t looking after him properly, by someone who saw the terror in my eyes at making a mistake with him and decided to relieve me of that burden.
Whoever was going to look after my son had to be as close to perfect as I could get. Selling my flat in London had given me enough money to live on for a while, and the bits of freelance I managed to crowbar in around Kobi’s naps kept us afloat, but I needed a proper plan. I needed someone who could look after him in the flat so I could keep an eye on them while I worked. I couldn’t keep asking my mum to come down from London. It wasn’t fair on her, and after two days we were both ready to throttle each other.
‘Can I see him?’ Sazz asked in the corridor. ‘The agency said you had a boy, can I see him?’ She kicked off her shoes without being asked.
‘OK.’ I was confused for a moment. None of the others had even mentioned seeing Kobi, they’d come for an interview and that was that.
We climbed the stairs to the bedrooms and I quietly opened the door to his room. He was fast asleep, flat on his back, eyes tightly shut, dreaming his way through the evening.
‘Hello, buddy,’ she whispered before stepping back to let me close the door. ‘He looks like a proper little character,’ she said as we descended the stairs.
‘He is,’ I replied.
Sazz was disarming. Her dark brown skin was flawless, her nearly black eyes sparkled with curiosity and excitement, and a grin was never far away from her mouth.
‘So, what is it you’re looking for?’ she asked as she settled herself right in the middle of my sofa.
‘Sorry?’
‘Do you want someone to play with him? Or do you want me to read with him, teach him stuff? Take him to playgroups or nursery? Take him to swimming lessons and the like? Clean up his stuff when he’s asleep or not here?’
‘A bit of all of that, I guess.’
‘No problem. How often?’
‘Erm . . . a couple of days first of all, maybe more, maybe less depending on my work.’
‘No problem. You tell me the days you need and we can sort it out. That’s if I get the job. Mustn’t get ahead of myself there. I’m often doing that, I say stuff then realise I’m making some huge assumptions.’ She flicked one of her shiny black plaits that had fallen over her shoulder away. ‘Sorry about my hair, when I’m working, it’s always up and out of the way. I wear comfy clothes so I can chase after the kids. I’m not the best cook, but I can get by and I will make sure he eats healthy food as often as possible.’
‘If I was to go ahead, when could you start?’
‘Whenever you want me to.’
‘Don’t you have another job? I saw that you’re training to be a doctor?’
‘I’m not training any more, I’ve finished. Passed with flying colours. Just call me Dr Sazz. Actually, don’t. That sounds rubbish.’
‘And you’re doing this job? Don’t you have debts?’
‘I do, some of them are huge, but I work for about six families – no one needs me all the time – so I manage my schedule really carefully. I earn enough to do this, get by and start to pay off my debts.’
‘Don’t you want to be a doctor?’
She shrugged happily. ‘My mum and dad – typical African parents – always said to have a second career in case my first one didn’t work out.’
‘Being a doctor is your second career?’
‘Yes. I’ve always loved looking after children.’
‘Oh, right. What about being a paediatrician?’
‘This is more fun.’
I nodded.
‘Shall I go away and you can think about it, check my references and then let me know? I can come and meet him, see if he likes me. But if you decide against me that’s totally cool. It’s been great meeting you.’
Her grin was back, fastened over her energy that fizzed with happiness. I needed that around Kobi. I needed him to be safe from my fears and worries. I kept them in check every day, reminded myself to be grateful to be alive, to be here to be his mother, but sometimes I would falter – the memory of The During would snare me in its barbed fingers and I would be stuck. I would have no way out. That wasn’t good for Kobi. We were on our own down here, having someone like Sazz around him could only be good.
‘Let’s arrange for you to come and meet Kobi next week,’ I said to her at the door.
‘Sure
thing, Pi-R,’ she replied with a wide grin. She immediately grimaced. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Pi-R, do you? Can’t help myself sometimes.’
I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t mind at all.’
Monday, 10 June
Sazz has gone by the time the boys’ parents come to pick them up. ‘Thank you so much,’ Karen, Sam and Oscar’s mum, says at the door. ‘Just let us know if you want us to have Kobi over. Any time.’
‘Any time,’ echoes Julian, the boys’ dad.
‘I didn’t actually do anything, it was Sazz who picked them up, made them dinner and then supervised homework. I just came home and embarrassed my son by talking to his friends.’
‘Mum!’ Kobi hisses, mortified all over again.
‘See?’ I say as my son stomps off down the hall to the stairs and then climbs them. ‘Eternal embarrassment.’
The Newbys laugh (the adults, anyway) and then wave as they leave me to the wrath of my first and only born.
‘I love you, Kobi!’ I shout up the stairs.
The righteous silence of my son is my reply.
‘I love you, Kobi,’ I whisper. ‘And that’s what makes this decision so hard, because I don’t know what will happen to you if everyone finds out what happened to me. I don’t know what will happen to all of our family if that ever comes out.’
Jody
Monday, 10 June
I’ve only been here three days, so I’m not used to the flat or Brighton yet. This place is not far from the sea and it’s down on a nice mews-type road. There are two flats downstairs, two on the middle floor and then this one on its own on the top floor. Lots of slanted ceilings but not oppressive, and nicely furnished.
When I open the door to the flat there is music, warmth, the smell of home-cooked food. Winston, my fiancé, isn’t meant to be here, but I’m glad he is.
‘Hellooooo,’ I call. The door clunks shut behind me and my shoulders fall, my body relaxes, my mind attempts to unwind.
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