by Kate Helm
‘I know but . . . I bet you’re hungry. I could bring food.’
Silence. But at least he’s stopped arguing.
‘You want to talk. You wouldn’t have called if you didn’t.’
I hear something between a yes and a grunt.
‘Good. Stay where you are, don’t drink or smoke anymore and I’ll get you sorted. All right?’
Silence.
‘You trust me, don’t you, Daniel? You know I’m the only one who knows how you feel.’
I hear a mumbled yes.
‘Good lad. It’ll take me a few hours, but I promise I am coming. I’ll phone you when I’m nearly there.’
‘Curry,’ he says. ‘Bring chicken curry.’
When he hangs up, I log onto Uber, hoping someone is desperate enough to drive me 180 miles.
I have to try to stop him.
Though, if this doesn’t work, I become an accessory to murder. And there’s a tiny part of me that thinks if justice can’t do its job, then maybe murder is exactly what Jim deserves.
65
The driver is silently resentful, despite the premium fee he’s getting for the trip.
Suits me: conversation is the last thing I need.
On the journey, I try to use my bag as a pillow, but I can’t sleep. I packed in a hurry, throwing in a sleeping bag for me, a few toiletries for Daniel, cash. And, as an afterthought, the photos from Copse View, and a kitchen knife. The photos, in case they trigger any memories for him, and the knife . . . Well, I still don’t know what Daniel did and didn’t do the night of the fire.
I cannot ever imagine using a knife. But who knows what I am capable of, if it comes down to him or me?
And, of course, I am going back into Jim’s territory, against his orders. If I can defuse the situation with Daniel, Jim will never know I was here. I can get the driver to drop me on the other side of the copse, where no one will see me. And hopefully, I can talk Daniel out of what he wants to do.
I call Daniel on the hour to check . . . I don’t know, that he’s still alive? That he hasn’t changed his mind and gone straight to the White House. I keep reminding him I’m bringing food. I hope he’s too hungry to do anything before he gets the takeaway I’ve promised.
As we drive, I stare out of the window at the cars and lorries and the cat’s eyes marking the lanes on the motorway. My world seems to be getting fuzzier, but I can’t tell if that’s real or simply because I have lost interest in most of it.
I doze eventually, and when I wake, Charlie is in the front of the car, grinning at me, as though he’s delighted to be up front like a grown-up. Pink sits at my side, hugging her long, skinny legs to her chest. Her shins are pale and bruised.
We’re going back, Pink, to the place where bad things happened. I hope it’s going to be worth it.
I check my phone to see if there’s been any response from Rosanna. My heart leaps as I see her name in the sender line of my inbox.
The email is blank: it’s a read receipt. But still – she’s read it.
How must that have felt, to read my message? I imagine it like a bomb exploding in the middle of the life she’s built for herself. I’m going to ask her to go back in time to pursue something – someone – she’s probably spent thirty years trying to forget. And I don’t even know for sure it’ll work, that any evidence would be admissible after so long, even if she wants to give it.
Oli would know, but I can’t ask him. All I can do is tell her, when she replies, that she might still be able to make a difference.
If she replies.
*
We stop at a wealthier-looking town five miles outside Ashdean, to buy Daniel’s curry. The car fills with the sickly, spicy smell of the food, as I direct the driver to the woods.
I tip him – for the first time, he smiles – and let myself out. It’s a sultry night and the moon has a red cast. Now the adrenaline has subsided, I realise that after days of numbness, I am afraid. I’ve seen two Daniels – the vulnerable, teenage defendant with the air of a victim, and the prison inmate whose unpredictable temper made me think he did kill Tessa after all.
But even if he did, hasn’t he served his time?
Pink and Charlie are no longer with me. Maybe my brain is too full to summon them up.
Copse View looms beyond the trees, its whitewashed walls tinted red by the moonlight. I try not to trip on roots or stumps I can’t see. Can I talk Daniel round? Give him hope that there could be more to his future than another brutal killing?
I weave in between the damaged wire fencing that surrounds the house, and enter through the door I used the first time I came.
Is this where the story begins?
The smell of alcohol and urine stings my eyes. Perhaps there’ve been parties here. It’s gloomy, though some moonlight comes through the missing windows and the open roof above the rotting staircase. I use my phone as a torch, to make sure the floor in front of me isn’t missing.
‘Daniel?’ I call out. ‘Daniel, it’s me, Georgia. Where are you?’
Silence.
Has he gone already? Jim’s house is only fifteen minutes’ walk.
‘Daniel, come on. I know you’re here.’
I hear someone moving behind me.
Could I have been set up? Daniel’s call might have been a test by Jim, to see whether I was still trying to find out the truth.
I turn. In the half-light, I see Daniel, and smell him, too: booze and neglect. He’s lost even more weight since I saw him in prison, and the skin on his face clings to his skull. He wears new jeans, an old bomber jacket and filthy trainers. It’s thrown together, the outfit of an ex-con with no option but to take what he’s given.
He doesn’t look at me.
‘Thought it was a wind-up. Never thought you’d actually come.’
‘Well, we both want the same thing. Let’s eat first, then talk.’
‘Watch yourself,’ he says, as he sidesteps the rotting boards next to the grand staircase, moving towards the back of the building.
I follow him into what must be the largest room in the house. It would have been the drawing room for the first family who lived here. The fireplace has been removed, leaving a gaping brick hearth. At the back of the room, ornate glazed doors might once have led on to a manicured lawn. Instead, half are boarded, and the others mostly cracked. Through the panes, I can see building materials stacked up against the breeze-block garage.
There’s no furniture. In the corner furthest from the French windows, Daniel has unrolled his sleeping bag. I can smell it from here, the sourness of fabric that has been soaked hundreds of times and never quite dried out. Despite the muggy night, this space is chilly and damp.
I spread out my own sleeping bag in the opposite corner, pocketing the knife I’d rolled into the centre and slipping it back into my holdall. Where is Daniel keeping the knife he intends to use to kill his father? Will he use it on me if I try to stop him?
I take the lids off the takeaway boxes and Daniel sits next to me and starts to eat. I wait until he’s finished – no, devoured – his food, and hand him a bottle of Coke to wash it all down.
‘Why did you come here, Daniel?’
He shrugs. ‘Told you on the phone. It’s time.’
‘But why here? This building?’
‘Slept in the copse the first night after I hitched from Gloucester. Then worked out there’s no security here so moved in. There’s been no one else here until today when some of my dad’s guys came in, talking about the big launch tomorrow. He’s gonna show the press how he’s gonna change the face of this place. Such a good bloke, right?’
‘What did he do, Daniel?’
‘You’ve got a fucking short memory. I told you.’
He’s volatile. I need to take it more carefully.
‘I know you think he killed your mum, and Robert O’Neill. That’s who you were talking about in prison, wasn’t it? But why do you think something happened to him?’
He swigs the
last of the Coke.
‘Got eyes.’
‘You saw something?’
‘Might have.’
‘When?’
‘Few days after Mum . . . After she was on the bridge. Dad was drunk. Robert came round. A big row kicked off. I could hear them from my bedroom.’
‘What was the row about?’
He shakes his head. ‘I could only hear the noise, not the words. But Dad was louder. I heard Mum’s name. Then the back door slammed, and Dad’s big pick-up reversed out of the drive. He was gone . . . dunno, an hour. I was scared because I knew how drunk he was. I thought he’d crash. I didn’t want him to die too.’
Daniel stands up, goes to his rucksack and comes back with a roll-up, which he lights, taking a huge gasp like an asthma sufferer using an inhaler.
‘When he came back, he was swaying all over the place, but he still managed to chuck everything in the washing machine before he passed out.
‘I stopped the machine, pulled out the dripping clothes. Everything but his big coat was soaked with blood. So much of it. Mud, too, up his trousers, like he’d been digging.’
‘What did you do with the clothes?’
Another drag on the roll-up.
‘Put the wash back on. What else was I meant to do?’
‘Go to the police?’
‘I was fifteen. Mum was dead, and I loved my dad. He was all I had. I thought if he’d . . . hurt Robert, well, Dad must have had his reasons. Robert was a twat. Up himself, acting like he was a big deal. And I didn’t think he was dead. It was only when Charlie’s mum started looking for him, when I wondered . . . but not for long. My dad was my hero.’
He scoffs at his own naivety.
‘What about your mum, Daniel?’
He nods. ‘For two years I believed she jumped. Hated her, some days, for leaving us. When Dad married Tessa, I was angry with her too and . . .’
Daniel stubs the roll-up out on the wooden floor.
‘The autumn after they got married, I ran away. They were all lovey-dovey. Couldn’t hack it. I kipped on mates’ sofas, smoked a lot of weed. But Dad never gave up on me. Gave me cash. Told me I could come back whenever I wanted. Then he got firmer, telling me I shouldn’t spend Christmas alone, and he had news. It was two years after Mum had died. I wanted to be with my family again. Even took them a present, showed up early on Christmas Eve, let myself in with my old key. I wanted to be there when they got home. Surprise!
‘It was so nice. There was a Christmas tree and all these presents.’ He blinks. ‘It was . . . homely, just like it’d been when Mum was . . . happy.’
He is silent for a minute.
‘I stuck the kettle on, went through my post. I was waiting for my provisional driving licence, one of the things Dad had sorted for me. He was gonna teach me. That hadn’t arrived. But there was a letter.’
‘From who?’
‘It wasn’t signed. Fuck knows.’ He shrugs.
‘What did the letter say?’
‘That Dad had killed my mum by driving her to the bridge and then pushing her off. That he’d murdered Robert O’Neill and buried him in the woods. All to get them out of the way so he could be with Emma.’
Isn’t that what the neighbour hinted at? Could she have sent the letter? I imagine the young, grieving Daniel reading it, in the house where he grew up, letting graphic images of his father’s actions form in his head.
‘What else was in the letter, Daniel?’
‘It told me everyone in Ashdean knew what he’d done but they were too chicken to do anything about it. That I should man up . . .’
He spreads his fingers. I realise I recognise the gesture: his father does the same thing.
‘Now, I wonder if it meant, come forward, be a witness. But that afternoon, I couldn’t think straight and . . .’
I look at his pinched face, and I see the boy he was much more clearly than the man he is now.
And I see the truth.
‘Oh God. It was you, wasn’t it?’ I whisper. ‘You did start the fire that killed Tessa.’
66
Daniel turns away from me, shoulders hunched as though he’s expecting a blow.
‘Tell me the truth. What did you do?’
He keeps his back to me and begins to speak.
‘I . . . I ran out of our house. Bought two litres of cider and went to the woods. Got drunker and drunker while I worked out what to say to him . . . You really want to hear this?’
I realise it might be the first time he’s ever told anyone what happened that night.
‘Go on.’
‘I was gonna confront him alone. But when I walked back, I could see him through the window in his fucking Santa outfit, reading to the O’Neill kids as if he’d had nothing to do with killing their dad, or my mum, and I . . .’ He begins to cry. ‘I swear I didn’t know about Tessa being pregnant. But I can’t say for sure it would have stopped me.
‘All I could think was – Mum’s dead, he killed her, he doesn’t deserve to live. And I thought about all the nights I’d cried because I’d let her down, or hated her for leaving me. The betrayal of knowing Dad caused it all . . . It was like my head was going to explode if I didn’t do something.’
I wait.
He steps towards the French windows. The darkness outside has an amber tone.
‘I went into Dad’s garage, and got his petrol can and then I crept out the door and up the stairs, dribbling a trail along the carpet—’ He stops. Takes a breath. ‘I didn’t put any on the ground floor.’
‘You thought the kids would be able to get out?’
Daniel turns towards me, but he still can’t meet my eye.
‘They were downstairs. I thought Tessa was too. She was a party girl. She never went to bed early.’
I fill in the gap.
‘Except she was pregnant. Tired out.’
Daniel makes a choking sound.
‘I should have made sure. But I was so angry. I wanted the house gone, the lie of it. I didn’t care if me and Dad died. Maybe I wanted that. An ending.’
He scrubs at his cheeks.
‘Almost as soon as I saw the flames going up the staircase, I . . . It was like waking up except the nightmare was in front of me. It was me that called 999. I ran to the phone box and when I got back, Dad was outside, with the kids but no Tessa. It was only when he went back in that I realised she was still inside—’
‘Stop crying,’ I snap. ‘Why not own up to it straightaway, if you felt so bloody guilty?’
‘I had to lie. To tell the truth.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No. Believe me. I couldn’t tell the detectives what I knew, because they were in with Dad, and if they’d told him, he’d have found a way to shut me up before court. But I knew he couldn’t stop me once I got in the witness box, with journalists and the public there. So I kept my gob shut all through remand, but pleaded not guilty so I’d get my turn. Tell them what he did. And what I did too. I wasn’t going to lie.’
‘But you never gave evidence.’
He returns to his backpack and pulls out a battered photo.
‘This was on my bunk, in an envelope, the night before I was going to go in the dock. I knew it was from Dad. I put my hand in, expecting a razor blade or, I dunno, a bullet. It was just a photo.’
He passes it to me and though I can’t make out the details, I know what it shows. It’s the picture of the Cherry Blossom Lane summer barbecue. A copy of the one Chrissie showed me.
‘Turn it over,’ Daniel says.
When I do, I see the names written on the other side, the way people used to on old pictures. But this is different. Three of the names are crossed out: Sharon’s, Tessa’s and Robert’s. Next to Amy Fielding’s, there’s a red question mark, and a scrawl. I angle it to read:
It’s your choice, Dan.
I look up at Daniel.
‘He’d kill all of us, don’t you see?�
� he says. ‘Even Amy, his favourite. He’d even kill Amy to save his own fucking skin.’
The favourite.
I try not to think of my own father, sparing me.
I force myself to think about Jim instead: a psychopath who sees everyone as disposable.
‘So you changed your plea to keep Amy safe.’
‘It was too much of a risk. I thought, when I was free, I could try again.’
‘And now you are free.’
He shakes his head. ‘Amy’s not. She writes to me, once a year, on my birthday. The last letter, she told me she was pregnant. That’s when I realised she’ll never get away from Ashdean or Dad.’
As I watch, he leans down to scratch at his scarred ankle.
‘You tried to kill yourself after that last letter from your sister, didn’t you?’
He sighs. ‘I wanted to die. But now I’m glad they found me before I bled out. It means I can finish it. Set her free. It’s the only way to stop him.’
He’s not pretending: he really is capable of murder.
‘Daniel. Listen to me. It might not be the only way.’
‘More bullshit.’
‘It’s not. There might still be a way we can make him suffer. Something that’ll take everything from him.’
He looks up.
‘I believe your dad abused girls, right here, at Copse View. Maybe your mum, too. It goes back that far.’
He frowns and then turns slowly, looking round the once-grand room, as though he is seeing it for the first time.
‘Abused?’
‘A long time ago, I think your grandfather knew as well, that he helped to cover it up. Robert knew too. That’s probably why he died.’
Daniel’s fists are tight against his thighs, as they were when I saw him that time in prison. Perhaps it’s a strategy they taught him to control his anger.
‘Changes nothing.’
‘Except I think I’ve found one of the girls he hurt. I’m going to try to talk to her, tomorrow. If I can persuade her to talk, then it’ll all come out. Your father will go to prison. And you know how they treat sex offenders. If you want him to suffer, that’s going to be worse than a quick death.’
His features are difficult for me to read.