by Amy Lloyd
Contents
1 Her: Now
2 Her: Then
3 Her: Now
4 Her: Then
5 Her: Now
6 Her: Then
7 Her: Now
8 Her: Then
9 Her: Now
10 Her: Then
11 Him: Now
12 Her: Now
13 Her: Then
14 Him: Now
15 Her: Now
16 Her: Then
17 Her: Now
18 Her: Then
19 Her: Now
20 Her: Then
21 Her: Now
22 Him: Now
23 Her: Now
24 Her: Then
25 Her: Now
26 Her: Then
27 Her: Now
28 Him: Now
29 Her: Then
30 Her: Now
31 Her: Then
32 Her: Now
33 Her: Then
34 Her: Now
35 Her: Then
36 Her: Now
37 Him: Now
38 Her: Then
39 Her: Now
40 Her: Then
41 Her: Now
42 Him: Now
43 Her: Now
44 Him: Now
45 Her: Now
46 Her: Then
47 Her: Now
48 Him: Now
49 Her: Now
50 Her: Then
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Amy Lloyd studied English and Creative Writing at Cardiff Metropolitan University. In 2016 she won the Daily Mail Bestseller Competition for her debut novel The Innocent Wife which, when it was published, became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Amy lives in Cardiff with her partner, who is also a published novelist.
Also by Amy Lloyd
The Innocent Wife
For Mum and Dad
EVIL DUO RELEASED FROM PRISON
Pair given new identities, cosmetic surgery and full benefits costing the taxpayer over £1,000,000 …
Mother of victim says she is ‘horrified’ …
Public anger at resources spent on ensuring the pair remain protected …
Together they abducted their disabled classmate Luke Marchant …
Police involved in the investigation say justice has not been done …
1
Her: Now
There is a child staring at me from across the aisle. I turn to face the window and enjoy the warmth of the sun on my face until we pause at a bus stop and the light is blocked. When I look back the child is still staring and I blush. For a second I imagine doing something cute, something like sticking my tongue out at him or crossing my eyes but I know that when I do these things they are not cute and can even come across as sinister. Maybe it is my shyness. Maybe I cannot pull it off because I am shy or maybe people can sense that there is something missing in me, that I am broken.
‘Excuse me,’ someone is saying. They don’t say it in a nice way. When I look up there is an old lady who smells a little like lavender and like her coat has been tucked away for a long time over the summer and she has only just taken it out. I don’t know what she wants.
‘What?’ I say. It comes out wrong. I think about what Dr Isherwood said about appearing abrupt, cold. I smile with 70 per cent of my teeth showing and then relax my face.
‘Is anyone sitting there?’ she asks.
There isn’t anybody sitting there. It’s just my bag. Then I realise what she means and I put my bag on my lap and she sits down with a tut and a sigh. I don’t know why people don’t just say what they mean. Why she doesn’t say, Please can you move your things so I can sit down?
I look back to the child but now it is the mother who’s staring at me. It looks like others are, too, and that they are all wondering what is wrong with me and why I made the old lady stand for so long without moving my bag.
Now my stomach is trembling. I wasn’t worried about my first day of work until all this happened. Two more stops and we’ll be on Walters Road. Get off the bus, walk towards the traffic lights, take the next left. I need to go to Customer Services and say, Hello my name is Charlotte and I’m starting here today. I need to ask for Mr Buckley, the manager.
I can picture all of this in my head as Sarah and I did a dummy run last week before I left the unit for good. But still I think that I’m remembering wrong and I feel nervous. Sarah said it was fine to feel nervous, that this was a big step and she knew I could do it. Because Sarah normally works with teenagers and children she talks to me like I’m also a child. Dr Isherwood says Sarah means well and she’s just trying to put me at ease. Secretly I think Sarah believes I am mentally disabled and not just a little strange. This doesn’t know who I am, or my real name, or why I am twenty-eight and need help to get the bus. If Sarah knew who I am, I know she wouldn’t be smiling so widely. With 80 per cent of her teeth and intense eye contact.
My ankle itches. I bend down and squeeze a finger underneath my tag. Under the tag it is always moist and I can’t scratch it properly no matter how much I try. I snap back up, frustrated. Without thinking I bring my finger to my nose to sniff. Sometimes, if water gets trapped behind the tag when I shower, it starts to smell a little cheesy. The woman next to me hunches her shoulder away from me. I realise she has been watching and she is making a show of being disgusted. She needn’t be; my finger smells of nothing today.
My stop. I press the bell a long time before I really need to and I squeeze past the old lady and stagger down the bus, holding the bars as I go. When I look back the old lady has moved into the window seat and rested her large handbag on the space next to her. That’s rich, I think. I’ll tell Dr Isherwood about her tomorrow.
When I step off the bus I have a moment of panic. Nothing looks as I remember it. I’m worried I’ll get lost and be late. If I’m late they will change their minds about hiring me and if I don’t have a job they’ll send me back to secure care and— I take a breath. I look at the watch they gave me: I am forty minutes early. The walk there will take less than ten minutes. I want to be at least ten minutes early. Even if I am lost for twenty minutes, I will still be there on time.
This soothes me and when I look at the road ahead of me it looks just as it did before: the traffic lights and the railway bridge behind them. Further ahead will be the supermarket where I will work part-time, some mornings and some afternoons, for as long as I am told to. Maybe this will be forever. I walk slowly because I have time. Too much time, I realise, as I turn left. I’m glad I brought a book.
Inside the supermarket is a Costa coffee shop. When I arrive I have enough time to get a coffee but when I look at the menu behind the counter I can’t believe how expensive it is. The man at the till asks me what I’d like and I pretend to look at my watch and tell him I’m just waiting for my friend. I walk away as if I’m looking around for someone and my cheeks burn. What if he sees me working later and he knows I was lying?
I wonder what it’s like to meet a friend for coffee. I’m imagining the type of friend I might have, someone quiet, a woman – obviously – who wears glasses and puts their hair up in one of those claw clips. Someone who likes to read and hates loud places. I’m walking around in my own world, as Dr Isherwood says I am prone to, when I see something that I can’t ignore, even though I want to.
It is today’s newspaper. A headline: ‘EVIL DUO RELEASED FROM PRISON’.
For a second I think this can’t be about me. The article says I’ve had cosmetic surgery but I haven’t had anything like that. So I unfold one from the shelf to see the rest of the article. As I read it I have to resist the urge to talk to it, to tell it it’s lying. To shout This I’m not evil and to beg it to stop talking about it, that it doesn’t understand and it just mak
es people mad.
Then I read a paragraph. Then I reread the headline and I realise the worst part. They said ‘duo’. Two. Not just me, but Sean is out as well.
2
Her: Then
There are no windows in the van and it’s dark. I’m sitting facing sideways which always felt like fun until now. Each bump and turn makes me lean on to one of the policemen either side of me. Whenever I lean on Constable Hartley he pushes me back and his nose wrinkles like he smelled something bad. Constable Adams is kinder. He says things like ‘Whoopsie-daisy!’ and he smiles to try and make me feel better. It doesn’t really work, though.
I feel sick but not car sick. It’s worse because I can’t see where we’re going and I don’t know how close we are to the court. The policeman who’s driving says something to his radio and the radio says something back. I try to hear what it is but the engine is too loud so I can’t.
The policemen start to act differently. They sit straighter and they roll their shoulders and this is how I know we’re getting close.
‘Shit,’ says the one who’s driving, and Constable Hartley stands, bent over so he doesn’t hit his head on the roof, and slides the hatch between us and the driver open a little further.
‘What is it?’ I ask Constable Adams. My lip is already wobbling because I can hear the noise of the people outside. Adams pats my knee and smiles.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ he says, lying to me.
The noise is deep and angry. The kind of sound the earth makes before it cracks apart.
‘I don’t like it,’ I’m saying. I can’t catch my breath. The shouting is getting louder and louder and the van has slowed to a crawl.
‘There’s fucking hundreds of them,’ Constable Hartley says as he sits back down.
‘Lee,’ Constable Adams says quietly. The kind of voice someone uses when they’re warning someone they’re about to tell them off.
‘What?’ Hartley says. He’s pretending he doesn’t know that I’m scared. He likes to do that; he does it a lot.
There’s a bang. Something against the metal at my back. It hits the van so hard that I can feel it. I scream.
‘Quiet,’ Hartley snaps.
‘It’s OK,’ Adams says, holding my hand in both of his. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Some bastard threw a brick,’ the driver calls back. I cry. I can’t help it, even though I know it will make Hartley angry.
There’s more banging, coming from the outside of the van.
‘Don’t let them in,’ I sob.
The van has stopped completely and people are pushing and slapping the sides. We begin to rock and the noise gets so loud that I cover my ears with my hands and I’m crying so much my body is shaking.
Hartley takes my wrists and pulls my arms down. From the outside I can hear people screaming: ‘Evil!’ ‘Monster!’ ‘LIAR!’
‘You listen to it,’ Hartley says. ‘Listen to how much they hate you.’
‘Lee! What the hell is wrong with you? She’s only ten!’
‘So was Luke,’ Hartley says, and the name makes me scream and try to wrench my hands free.
Luke. I can hear his voice. Feel his warm hand in mine.
The crowd outside are slapping their palms against the van like a drumroll. I cover my ears again and close my eyes. Then I take one of my plaits and put the end in my mouth and suck on it. Miss told me not to do that but she isn’t here and so I do. I like the way it feels on my tongue, between my teeth.
Before the van came to pick me up, Miss sat on a chair behind me and pulled my hair into two plaits so I’d look smart for my first day of court. I was crying like I had been all night and all through breakfast.
‘Tell me all the things you’re afraid of,’ Miss said. ‘Tell me everything and we’ll see how to make it better.’
I told her about the people who shout and about Constable Hartley. I told her about having to stand up and say my name in front of everyone in the court. I told her how I didn’t like it when people talked about what had happened. How I didn’t want to hear them say what we’d done because I couldn’t remember what happened and I didn’t know if they were telling the truth.
‘Is that all?’ she asked. I shook my head. ‘What else?’
I didn’t want to say it at first. She smoothed my hair and told me I’d feel better if I said it.
‘I don’t want to see Sean,’ I said. She held me and it was so warm, her woolly jumper so soft, that I didn’t want to let go even after I stopped crying.
‘Sean won’t be there, sweetheart. Remember? Sean has already been in court. You don’t need to worry. You’ll never see Sean again.’
The van starts to move again and Constable Adams gently pulls my plait from my mouth.
‘You don’t want to do that, love,’ he says. ‘Yuck. If you chew your hair you’ll get big hair balls in your tummy, like a cat. And then you know what will happen?’
I shake my head but his face is making me smile so I think I know what he’s going to say.
‘One day it’ll start to come up again, like this,’ and he starts to pretend to throw up, like a cat, and it’s so funny that I laugh. Then he pats my head. ‘That’s better,’ he says.
Suddenly Constable Hartley stands and thrusts open the doors and there’s a million flashes and the roar starts all at once. Constable Adams hangs a blanket over my head but it’s too late, I know they’ve already seen me. The crowd swarms in and I don’t want to get out of the van. Adams tries to pull me out and he’s telling me it’s OK, but I know it isn’t. People are shouting my name.
‘Enough,’ Hartley says, and he grabs my legs and puts one hand under my arm and carries me on his shoulder. The blanket falls on the floor and I want him to let go so I thump his back with my fists as hard as I can.
My face is all screwed up from crying but they’re still taking pictures. They don’t stop; they never stop.
3
Her: Now
‘Stop!’ I say out loud. Stop thinking about it! I look around, remembering I am in a supermarket, in front of the news stand. A pretty blonde TV presenter smiles at me from the loud cover of a gossip magazine. For a second I can’t remember where I am or how I got here. These memories are so real that I can feel Constable Hartley’s shoulder digging into my stomach, taste the salt of my tears on my lips.
Dr Isherwood tells me these are ‘intrusive thoughts’, memories that I suppress but which come back when they’re triggered. Perhaps I shouldn’t have looked at the paper.
I don’t recognise myself in the girl in the picture. She is smiling, one baby tooth at the front of her mouth that didn’t fall out until she was almost twelve. The caption reads: ‘CHILLING SMILE AT FIRST COURT APPEARANCE’.
Her hair is so blonde it’s nearly white. After the sentencing it grew out mud brown, as if whatever evil was inside her spilled out and tainted the surface.
She is so small. Almost eleven years old but looks eight. Can we really be the same person? I’m not even sure. I am new now: new name, new history, new life. I can’t tell what the old me is thinking in this picture, what she was ever thinking, before …
I fold the paper and take it to the counter, then I grab a tube of Polos and pay for them both with a five-pound note.
I need to get some fresh air. I try not to think about Sean and where he might be, what he might be doing. I try not to think about whether he is thinking about me.
‘Don’t think of a pink elephant,’ Dr Isherwood said once. I smiled like I understood. ‘Do you see what I mean? If you tell yourself not to think of something, you’ll think about it anyway. Let’s try some exercises to help you when you get trapped in these memories.’
I put a Polo in my mouth and bite hard.
‘Concentrate on your breathing. Breathe in for five, out for seven,’ Dr Isherwood said.
This helps. This always helps.
I close my eyes and count. Soon my heart rate is slower and Sean’s face disappears from my mind.
‘Charlotte.’
I take another Polo out of the packet and place it on my tongue.
‘Charlotte?’
When I open my eyes there’s a man standing over me, one hand holding on to the strap of his bag and the other stretched out in my direction.
‘I’m Neil? Mr Buckley? We met at the interview? I’m your manager.’ He smiles and waits before pulling his hand back and adjusting his bag on his shoulder.
‘Hi,’ I say. The collar of his shirt is dotted with flakes of skin. One of his top front teeth is trying to push past the other one.
‘Do you want to come in with me now and I can show you where the staff room is?’
I look at my watch.
‘But I don’t start for twenty-two minutes yet,’ I say. The Polo I tucked into my cheek is starting to melt but it’s rude to chew when people are talking to you. Neil stares at me, smiling. I try not to look at his tooth.
‘Quite right,’ he says after a moment. ‘Of course. I just mean that you’re welcome to spend time in the staff room if you want to get out of the cold? Perhaps a good opportunity to meet some of your new colleagues, if you like?’
‘No, thank you,’ I say. I smile. He smiles.
‘Well,’ he says, but doesn’t continue. ‘I suppose I shall see you again in twenty-two minutes.’
Twenty-one, I think, minus the five minutes I’ll take to speak to Customer Services and find him. If you aren’t five minutes early, you’re late. They told us that in Life Skills at the centre.
‘Nice to meet you again, Charlotte,’ Neil says before he leaves.
I resist the urge to look at the paper again as I don’t want to lose track of time, but I feel it next to me, the hate it’s radiating. For a second I think of leaving, for anywhere, taking the bus to the seaside and reading on the pier, a bag of chips hot in my lap. But this is my first day and Dr Isherwood said I must at least try. So many people would be disappointed, she told me. ‘We all want you to succeed.’