The Girl You Gave Away: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by Jess Ryder

There’s nobody else out here. The light is fading and the sky has turned mauve. I can hear lorries thundering past, heading for the dual carriageway, the jangling strains of the jukebox and the faint hubbub of conversation from inside the pub. Time stands still; it feels momentous.

  I know what’s coming; I virtually asked for it. The drink has unleashed that wild, destructive spirit inside me and I don’t have to be persuaded to undo my jeans. Dean pushes me against the brick wall that runs along the side of the yard; I feel its sharp edges dig into my back. He yanks one leg out of my pants and they slide to my ankle. Then he lifts the other leg and wraps it around his waist, unzipping his trousers with his free hand.

  It hurts. A lot. But I don’t complain. I try to make my squeals sound like cries of ecstasy. I clutch his bottom and move my hips back and forth as if I know what I’m doing, gasping as he pummels into me. It doesn’t last long. The veins in his neck stand out; he closes his eyes and groans, his body shuddering to a sudden stop. After a couple of breathless moments, he pulls out and I feel his warm sperm trickling down my thighs.

  The deed is done. I’m no longer a virgin.

  I dress clumsily, my fingers trembling as I fasten the button on my jeans. My face is a mess, my hair all over the place. I must look a sight, but I’m too drunk to fix it.

  ‘What’s the time?’ I ask him.

  He shrugs. ‘Dunno. About ten?’

  ‘Shit. I’ve got to go.’

  He leads me back through the bar and deposits me at the bus stop.

  ‘You will come back, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I say.

  ‘Try hard, princess.’

  He doesn’t wait for my bus to come, just kisses me goodbye and walks back to the pub. I watch him swagger away from me, hoping he’ll turn and wave, but he doesn’t.

  I feel strange, as if I’ve floated out of my body and am looking down from on high. I see a new creature, barely recognisable from her old self. The old Erin was so neat and respectable, obedient, hard-working, top of the class, a bright future mapped out for her. That pathetic kid who tried so hard to make her parents love her, and failed time and time again, has gone, replaced by a completely different person. This new girl is mad and bad, dark and dangerous, careless and carefree. You’ll never see the other one again; new Erin is here to stay.

  Chapter Seven

  Erin

  February 2020

  Maybe I’d had a premonition that the next contact would come via email, because I wasn’t surprised when I opened my work inbox the next day. There it was, titled simply ‘Hello!!!’ As soon as I saw the sender’s address, I knew it was her. AprilFool1995. Her birthday.

  I took a slug of coffee, then put down my mug. My hands were trembling as I clicked on the message heading and started to read.

  Dear Mum,

  * * *

  I hope you are well and had a great birthday! I was going to ring the bell but then I saw you were having a party and loads of people were there and I didn’t want to spoil your day so I just put the card in the door and ran off. So now I am trying with email instead. Sorry I’m no good at writing but I will try.

  * * *

  My name is Jade and I am your daughter you gave up for adoption though you already know that ha ha! Only it didn’t work out and I ended up in foster care and children’s homes but that is a long story!

  * * *

  I know you were only fifteen when you had me which is very young so I understand how you had to give me up and I don’t blame you for it cos it must have been really hard.

  * * *

  I am asking you if you will meet up with me. I don’t want to cause trouble, I just want to see you and get to know you properly. I miss you and I hope you miss me too and want to be a proper mum and daughter again like I do and have a new start.

  * * *

  I love you. Please answer soon!!!

  * * *

  Jade xxx

  Tears welled in my eyes, blurring the screen. I felt totally overwhelmed, drowning in emotion. Opening my desk drawer, I whipped a tissue out of the box and patted my face gently so as not to ruin my make-up. I didn’t want Hilary to notice and ask questions. I blew my nose and tried to compose myself, but I couldn’t stop shaking.

  Finally I had a name for my daughter. Jade. I liked it. It was strong and had an enduring quality. I’d had my chance to name her when she was born, but rationalised that there was no point when her adoptive parents were bound to change it. The truth was, I hadn’t felt entitled to lay the slightest claim on her. For years I’d only thought of her as an anonymous little baby, but here she was, all grown up with her own identity and her own story to tell. Suddenly the whole thing felt very, very real.

  The news that her adoption had failed devastated me – it was my worst nightmare come true. I’d given her up in good faith, assured that I was doing the right thing, that I was giving a childless couple a wonderful gift. The social workers had told me that her adoptive parents would love her and give her the stable, comfortable existence that I couldn’t provide. It had been framed to make me feel good about my decision, although it would have made little difference to the outcome. If I had refused to give her up, she would have been taken into care anyway. It had been quicker and less painful to do it immediately – for her and for me.

  So how come it hadn’t worked out? I couldn’t get my head around it. Had her adopters just decided to give her back? Was that even allowed? It seemed unspeakably cruel. This was a human being, not an unwanted item you could return to Amazon. I remembered the social worker saying that the couple who were taking her were desperate to be parents. Surely they wouldn’t have given up at the first hurdle? Something terrible must have happened.

  The thoughts were too much for me to hold in my head. I needed to share this.

  * * *

  ‘Asha? Can you talk?’ I’d come outside to the front of the building with my mobile. The afternoon changeover had just taken place and the car park was virtually empty.

  ‘What’s up, lovely? You sound upset.’ Her voice crackled down the line; it sounded like she was walking at pace. I pressed the handset against my ear.

  ‘I’ve had an email,’ I said, looking around guiltily, as if somebody might be eavesdropping, but all the children and staff were indoors. ‘From her.’

  ‘Oh … gosh …’

  ‘Her name’s Jade. She sounds really sweet – says she doesn’t blame me or anything.’

  ‘Well that’s good, must be a relief. See, I told you it would be all right.’

  The footsteps stopped. I could hear other sounds in the background – clunking, faint music, people talking. ‘Are you out shopping or something? Shall I call back later?’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ she chirped. ‘Just picking up some lunch from M and S. So … what did the email say?’

  ‘She wants to meet me.’

  ‘Wow …’

  ‘I don’t think … I’m not sure that would be a good idea.’

  ‘But she’s your daughter; you must want to see … I mean, you’ve got to be curious …’

  ‘Yes, I am, but what’s the point of building her hopes up when she can’t be part of my life? I mean, it’s impossible.’

  There was a slight hesitation before Asha replied. Either she was paying for her lunch or she was thinking about her response. ‘Difficult, yes, but not impossible, surely.’

  ‘I’ve already explained. I can’t meet her, not until everything’s out in the open. And that’s really tricky. I don’t know how Tom’s going to react, but I bet he’ll want to tell the kids straight away – you know what he’s like. Oli’s really worried about his exams and Chloe’s in danger of going off the rails as it is. It wouldn’t be fair to spring a long-lost sister on them right now. I have to put them first.’

  ‘Hmm … Sounds like you’re putting yourself first, Erin.’

  ‘Wha … what? That’s so not true! What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, this girl – Jade;
it must have taken a lot of courage to get in touch. If you reject her all over again, how do you think she’s going to feel?’

  ‘I didn’t reject her,’ I protested hotly. ‘I gave her up for adoption; that’s different.’

  ‘Yeah, well, whatever. That might not be how she sees it.’

  ‘I thought you’d be supportive, not give me a hard time,’ I snapped. ‘If I’d wanted that, I’d have called my mother.’

  Asha sighed. ‘Look, I don’t want to fall out with you. I’m just saying be careful.’

  ‘I am being careful. That’s why I don’t think I should meet her. Because I can’t give her what she wants.’

  ‘You won’t know what she wants until you meet her,’ Asha persisted. ‘Why do you feel so threatened?’

  ‘I don’t know. Look, sorry for disturbing you. I can tell you’re busy.’

  Asha thanked somebody, then walked out of the shop. ‘If you really want to know my opinion,’ she continued as the background noise died down, ‘I think you should tell Tom immediately and take it from there. It’s not right that we know about Jade and he doesn’t. It’s always made me feel uncomfortable. You’ve kept this secret for far too long, Erin – it’s time to confess.’

  ‘But what if he leaves me?’

  ‘He won’t. He loves you, worships the ground you walk on.’

  ‘Not if he finds out I’ve been lying to him all this time.’

  ‘He’ll understand.’

  ‘But what if he doesn’t?’ I fought back the tears. ‘I’m scared, Ash.’

  She stopped walking and her voice steadied. ‘What do you mean? Scared of what?’

  ‘I don’t know …’ My voice tailed off as I grasped for the words to explain. I sensed my thoughts dissipating and drifting away, looking for new hiding places in the corners of my brain. ‘I just have this feeling that everything’s going to go wrong, that I’m going to be punished.’

  ‘It’s going to be fine, I promise.’ She switched tone. ‘Sorry, lovely, but I’m back at the practice now. I’ve a full schedule of patients this afternoon. Gotta go.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Ring me later. Or much better, let’s have a night out, the three of us, then we can have a proper talk. Make a plan.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d really appreciate that.’

  ‘Great. I’ll text Holly and we’ll sort out a date.’

  We said our goodbyes and ended the call. I felt light-headed and disorientated as I walked back into the nursery building; it reminded me of being drunk on an empty stomach, although I hadn’t experienced that sensation for many years. I’d hoped talking to Asha would have made me feel calmer, but I was more confused than ever.

  I wasn’t up to working, so I told Hilary I had a headache and needed to go home. It was a relief to be in my car, doors locked, on my own. As I reversed out of my parking space and turned onto the main road, my thoughts inevitably strayed back to Jade’s email. If my mother was to be believed, she’d had nothing to do with giving Jade my contact details. So how had she got hold of them? I didn’t think my email address was listed on the company website. We kept our personal names out of it, only using info@ for general enquiries.

  I crunched the gears absent-mindedly as I slowed down for the roundabout, still wondering. If Jade had searched the internet using my maiden name, she would have drawn a blank … So how had she found me?

  Marriage records, I concluded as I turned onto our street. It was impossible to be private these days. Anyone could look up the records online and order a copy of the certificate; it didn’t even cost that much.

  I pulled the car onto the drive, pausing for a moment to compose myself before going inside. Tom was at work, Chloe at school, but Oli might be at home, revising.

  ‘Hello?’ I called out as I unlocked the front door. To my relief, I was greeted with silence. I dumped my work stuff on the dining table and went to the kitchen to make myself a late lunch.

  As I heated some soup in the microwave, Jade’s email ran through my head. Why did it make me feel so uneasy? She had said all the right things to put my mind at rest – didn’t blame me, didn’t want to cause trouble. I should have felt relieved, happy, excited to meet her, ready to put the mistakes of the past behind us. But I didn’t feel any of those things. Asha was right. I did feel threatened, as if there was another message there, hidden between the lines.

  Chapter Eight

  Jade

  February 2020

  A whole week has passed and still her birth mum hasn’t replied. Jade checks her smartphone every few minutes, but her inbox remains horribly empty. The special email address was Amy’s idea – she thought it was a cracking joke. Jade didn’t argue, didn’t say that she’d been bullied at school for being born on such an embarrassing day. Kids pushed her around the playground shouting, ‘April Fool! April Fool!’ It didn’t help that she was usually bottom of the class.

  Perhaps the email has gone into her spam folder. That happens sometimes, she knows for a fact. Mandy, her key worker, is always going on about regularly checking her spam, but she keeps forgetting. Maybe her birth mum suffers from the same problem.

  Jade eases herself out of bed and goes into the bathroom. It’s en suite; nobody else can use it. There are no worries about finding alien pubes in the toilet bowl, no need to suspect that someone else might have borrowed her towel. It’s unlikely that she’ll find such good facilities in her next place, and she’s concerned about the prospect of sharing with strangers. Her twelve months are nearly up. Soon she’ll have to leave supported accommodation and find somewhere new to live.

  Mandy is already preparing her for the move. They have chats about what independence means – finding a paid job, shopping, cooking, cleaning, managing money, using public transport, relationships, staying safe. Jade can do bits of some of those things – she makes a great bacon sarnie, for example, and knows every stop on the Victoria line, but she’s never done all of them at the same time.

  She has a shower and dries herself slowly, then brushes her hair, trying to occupy her hands and keep them away from the phone.

  ‘Why doesn’t she get in touch?’ she asks the photo of her brother. It’s pinned on the cork noticeboard next to the one of Chloe. The pictures are out of date, taken when they were little – about ten and six, she reckons, although she’s not a good judge of ages. They both look so cute, she can’t wait to see how they’ve turned out.

  There’s this scene she sometimes plays in her head when she’s fantasising about the future – she’s walking down the street with Oliver and Chloe, arm in arm, one on either side, and a neighbour or somebody stops them and says, ‘Oh my gosh, you all look so alike, you must be related.’ ‘Yes, they’re my brother and sister,’ she replies, and everyone smiles like it’s the best thing in the world.

  Skipping breakfast as she always does, Jade leaves the hostel and walks down South Street towards the charity shop. She has a feeling she’s late, but if she checks the time on her phone, she’ll end up checking her emails again and she’s trying really hard to resist that.

  No news is good news, that’s what Amy’s mum said the other night, but Jade isn’t convinced it applies here. No news most likely means her birth mum doesn’t want to know. But surely that can’t be the case.

  When she showed Amy and Mia her adoption file, they were both very moved. ‘It sounds like she really loved you,’ Mia said. ‘Giving you up must have broken her heart.’

  It was a very sad story. Her birth mum – Erin Coughlin – came from an Irish background, although she’d been born and raised in the UK. The family were Catholic. Erin’s parents were very upset and angry with their daughter and the case worker observed that the relationship had broken down ‘irretrievably’, whatever that meant.

  There were quite a few mentions of her birth dad. Erin said she didn’t know who the father of her baby was, which on the surface made her look like a right slag. Her parents said they’d found out from
one of Erin’s friends that it was someone called Dean Philips, but Erin was insisting she’d never heard of him. It was very mysterious, but in another report the social worker said she thought Erin was lying to protect the father because she was fourteen when the baby was conceived and he could have been prosecuted for ‘statutory rape’.

  Jade found this all very romantic; it made her think of the star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet. They’d done the play at school and she’d thought it was terrible that the two families had been so horrible to their own children. Erin was the same age as Juliet when she got pregnant, which was an amazing coincidence. She started to fantasise about her birth parents eloping to some remote island in Scotland, or maybe even Italy, marrying on the day they turned eighteen. How much they must have missed their beautiful little daughter, torn from their arms and given to another couple. And how thrilled they’d be when she tracked them down – the family happily reunited at last.

  But there was no marriage record for Erin Coughlin and Dean Philips – Amy checked online. Instead, Erin had married a Thomas Whitesteed, and their first child was born only six months after. Jade wondered if her birth mum was a bit of a slag after all.

  There was so little to go on, so many gaps she couldn’t fill in. The only useful thing in the adoption file was Erin’s home address: 76 Coleridge Close, Camford, Essex. It was very unlikely, Jade thought, that the family were still living there after all these years, but Amy pointed out that she wouldn’t know until she tried. Jade wanted to send a letter with a stamped addressed envelope, but her friend said that was too slow; they should go there in person, knock on the door and see who answered.

  They took the train from Liverpool Street station. It was late December and the heating in their carriage didn’t seem to be working. Erin and Amy sat close to each other, like two owls huddling together for warmth. They were venturing into deepest darkest Essex to follow the trail of her birth mum. Was the house still standing? Were Erin’s parents still living there? Would they take one look at her, realise she was their long-lost granddaughter and take her in their arms?