by Kate Simants
That wakes him up. ‘Yeah? Like what?’
Wren shrugs. ‘Try to track down his last social worker, take it from there.’
‘Can you find my mum, too? Like tax records or whatever? Find them both?’
‘I’ll do what I can, Rob, like I said.’ They hit the A4 and join the stop-start stream out east towards Bath. ‘But you need to co-operate with this. All right?’
He nods. ‘You’re the boss.’
They crest Brislington Hill and start the descent down towards the Keynsham bypass, fields on either side now.
Wren looks away from the road for a moment to glance at him, desperate to know what he’s thinking about. He stares straight ahead, an old, old look in his eyes. Like a general at the end of a battle where everyone died.
‘She’ll be eighteen in a week,’ he says.
‘Maybe she will be, Rob,’ Wren agrees, keeping her eyes hard ahead. ‘If she’s alive.’
They find James Yardley in his back garden, kneeling on a green gardener’s pad with several trays of brightly coloured bedding plants beside him. A drift of something sweet, maybe jasmine, is carried past them. It is a warm morning, and Wren envies his freedom to potter. His housekeeper, who buzzed them through the huge electronic security gates, excuses herself once her employer has seen them, leaving Wren and Ashworth to cross the lawn unaccompanied.
Wren calls a hello and Yardley gets to his feet, visoring the sun from his eyes with one hand and lifting the other in greeting.
‘Wren,’ he says. He is an unremarkable-looking man, late forties, average height, with the light hair and darker skin that comes from plenty of leisure time in the sun. He turns to Ashworth.
‘And Robert.’ He pauses before carrying on, handling the tension and letting it slip like a fishing line. ‘I was going to say it’s a pleasure, but I don’t really know what it is,’ he says, unguardedly.
A breeze blows a thick flop of hair across his face. As he pushes it back, Wren sees the first shade of dread in his eyes as Ashworth returns his gaze.
‘Let’s go over to the deck, shall we? Have some coffee.’
Of all the people on Wren’s list, it was Yardley who had signed up first to the programme, who had been most keen to get involved. She hadn’t even needed to call him. He was a very well-connected man, having been involved in remodelling children’s residential care and insisting on psychological support for any child finding themselves a ward of the state. The moment the plans of the CAP were announced, he’d lobbied everyone from the Justice Secretary to the governor of HMP Bristol to Wren’s own boss at the Probation Service. He’d made the case that the project should include Ashworth, and his request had, unsurprisingly, been granted. He wanted reconciliation, forward momentum, proof that prison was not the only option, he said.
‘Nice place you’ve got,’ she says, following him. Lush climbers grow up well-maintained trellises, and somewhere nearby there is the sound of water.
‘I guess so.’ He twists to regard his home as if he hasn’t given it much thought. There is an easy poise to him, a humility, and she finds herself understanding Lily’s remark about everyone’s shock that he’d been targeted.
Ashworth lagging behind, they come to a wrought-iron table, and the young woman who let them in reappears with a tray. It’s shady here, and Wren wishes she’d brought her jacket. She’d assumed they’d be invited inside.
Yardley waits until the coffee is unloaded and the woman is out of earshot. ‘She’s a lifesaver, that girl,’ he says, picking up the coffee pot and pouring. ‘Helps Lucilla, my wife. Comes every day.’
‘What does your wife do now?’ Back then, she’d been a journalist. The bulk of the Yardley money, Wren knows, is his family gold, though. You didn’t get a house like that from a career in counselling.
Yardley finishes pouring and squints at her. ‘Do? She doesn’t do anything, not any more.’ He pushes a little jug of cream and the sugar bowl pleasantly over to Ashworth, then notices a beetle making its way slowly across the table. Gently, Yardley blocks the insect’s path with his hand, encourages it to crawl onto his skin, then reaches over to release it onto a glossy fig leaf. ‘PTSD,’ he says by way of explanation. ‘She gets flashbacks. Common thing with trauma. Wakes up screaming, and cries half the afternoon.’ He offers this information pleasantly, as if they are discussing the best way to prune a wisteria.
Wren glances back at the house. At a downstairs window – the kitchen – she catches half a second of a face, before it disappears.
‘Did Lucilla change her mind about taking part?’
‘She’s rather unwell, I’m afraid. Something of a relapse.’ He flicks a look at Ashworth.
‘I understand, but wouldn’t it be worth my asking if I could—’
‘No,’ he insists, raising a hand. ‘No. I’m absolutely serious. She is not strong enough.’
The face reappears, and stays long enough for Wren to take in the details of it, and the headscarf. If she hadn’t already known that Lucilla Yardley is in her early forties, Wren would have put her at least ten years older. More.
Yardley passes Wren a cup and she thanks him, takes a sip. It is excellent, of course – no catering tub of Nescafé here. ‘And you? How have you been, would you say?’
‘Since the—’ He breaks off, suddenly unsure of himself.
‘The attack,’ Wren says, remembering the training. The victim may appear to need the vocabulary approved. She gives Ashworth a look, wanting his engagement. But he doesn’t move, just sits with his arms folded.
‘At first I did exactly what I tell everyone not to do. Bottled it up, you know?’ Yardley replies pleasantly, lifting his cup to his lips. ‘But after that, I spent a lot of time working through it. I’m getting there. Couldn’t carry on at the school, though.’
Wren senses the admission is hard to make. ‘Why not?’
He shrugs. ‘It was all anyone saw. Kids and teachers, everyone. I was the victim – they’d either walk the other way when they saw me coming, or they’d want me to talk about how terrifying it was.’ He pauses, examining his hands. ‘I kind of – and honestly, despite what I do for a living, it’s taken two years of therapy to be able to say stuff like this out loud and not feel like a proper tit but – I lost my sense of self.’
Ashworth raises his eyes to Yardley’s. ‘Your… what?’
Wren glances down to his hands, which are now curled into fists in his lap.
‘We’re here to listen, Rob.’
The older man says, ‘But what’s done is done.’
‘So what are you doing now?’ Wren asks.
‘A lot of this,’ Yardley says, gesturing apologetically to the garden. ‘Spoils of privilege, being idle. I did try retraining, actually. Physiotherapist. I have this need to get involved in people’s problems, help people be their best selves.’ He rolls his eyes slightly at himself. ‘Narcissism, I suppose, if I’m honest.’
From anyone else it would be woolly, irritating, but somehow the self-deprecation balances any of that out.
Ashworth gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head, and looks away.
‘And what happened?’
Yardley brightens into a sheepish smile. ‘Silly of me really. It turns out I’d rather underestimated my squeamishness – all those broken bones and injuries were just a bit much for me. So I just do one-to-one now, psychotherapy, a few bits and pieces for groups. Emotions can get pretty icky but at least it’s not as bad as bodies.’
She laughs, ignoring Ashworth’s scowl. She hands him his script.
‘We want to hear every word of this, Rob. OK?’
He sighs heavily and takes it. In his defence, he reads dutifully, workmanlike and clear, no skipping parts or mumbling. Yardley listens with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, a frown of concentration sitting heavy on his brow.
Ashworth finishes, and for a moment, nobody speaks. And when Yardley looks up, a vertical wet streak shines on each cheek for a second, befo
re he briskly wipes them away with the heel of his hand.
He straightens up, and does an admirable job of summoning a smile. ‘I forgive you.’ He states it, enunciating every word slowly, like he’s practised it in a mirror. There is a moment of silence. Then, the smile falls and is replaced by a look of bewilderment.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Actually, I don’t think I do.’ He looks at Wren, almost apologetic. ‘I thought I had, but now we’re here…’
Wren glances at Ashworth, who’s staring hard at Yardley.
‘There’s no expectation that you have to forgive him, James,’ she says. ‘That’s not why we came.’
‘No. No, I know that. I just rather wanted to put a line under it, you know?’ He turns to Ashworth, seemingly unperturbed by his glare. ‘What I can promise you, though, is that I am trying. To forgive. I’m working on it.’
He doesn’t get an answer.
‘Rob,’ Wren prompts.
‘What?’ Fury in his eyes.
Yardley clears his throat. Then he stands, sudden enough to knock the table. ‘OK,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘Maybe I was wrong.’
He’s leaving. She can’t let him leave.
‘Let’s talk about it a different way,’ Wren says quickly, aiming to sound coaxing but overshooting, ending up closer to desperate. ‘Let’s talk about the material side of it. About the stolen bracelet. What did it mean to you?’
But Yardley is gathering the coffee things back onto the tray.
‘Mr Yardley. Please.’
He stops. When he speaks again, his eyes flash with fear, or bitterness.
‘I think I have maybe made a mistake. I thought I’d never fully recover from it unless I embraced this.’ The cups clatter on the tray as he lifts it too abruptly, as if he expected it to be heavier. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.’
‘Five more minutes,’ Wren calls after him, standing.
He doesn’t stop. ‘I think you better leave,’ he says over his shoulder. ‘As quickly as possible, please.’
‘Do you know what?’ Wren says to Ashworth as they get in the car. ‘I’ve had enough.’ She slams his door, rounds the bonnet, gets in and slams hers too for good measure. ‘You don’t get to do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘Fuck it up.’ She can’t even look at him. ‘You couldn’t just say thank you for forgiving me?’
‘No.’
‘Why? Tell me why, Rob!’
But he doesn’t tell her a thing. He closes his eyes and leans back into the headrest.
She forces herself to take a breath. She’s livid, her stomach rigid with it. She hadn’t even started with Yardley. He’d known Paige, she’d liked him. His name was on half the Care Ambassador documents Wren had dug out from the Children’s Services archives. If she had a proper chance to question him, she was sure he’d have some theory about what had happened to her.
‘You wanted him to kick us out,’ she says.
‘Why would I want that?’
‘Because you’re avoiding any kind of conversation about where Paige is!’
Ashworth laughs. ‘That again.’
Wren lets out a wordless shout of frustration.
Ashworth flinches, shock splitting the indifference on his face wide open. ‘You’re fucking mental, you know that?’
‘Where did she go, Rob?’
‘I’ve already told you, I don’t—’
She leans in, right into his face. It’s against all the best practice guidance and she doesn’t give one particle of a shit. ‘Where. Is. She?’
Ashworth blinks. ‘You really want to know.’
The rage drops out of her all at once. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do.’
He turns away from her. ‘Then help me find my family.’
She wants to floor the car out of anger. But she reins it in and forces herself to go smoothly, respectfully, to the end of the drive. There is no case for misinterpreting Yardley’s instruction: he wants them gone. The automatic gates are already open when she reaches them, and she drives slowly through. In the rear-view mirror she watches the gates judder as their motor completes their opening arc and reverses, beginning the return, shutting them out.
Her one chance to talk to the victim, to properly mine what he knows, what he saw, is closing. The space between the gates narrows.
Wren pulls up on the kerb, yanks the keys from the ignition, barrels out of the car and runs full tilt. Because she can’t leave. Not yet.
The gates graze her hips but she slips through, seconds before they lock behind her. Yardley, who must have been watching on the monitor, comes jogging down the drive, his face a confusion of anxiety and fear, with an undertone of rage that he is clearly trying to hold back. And all things considered, he has good reason to feel every one of those things, especially the last. Hasn’t he gone out of his way for Ashworth, when most people would want him locked up for good? And how did Ashworth thank him?
‘Look, I said go,’ he calls. ‘This is not what I thought it would be. I don’t—’
She puts her hands up. ‘Please. It’s just me.’
‘What do you want?’
Letting her hands drop, she opens her mouth to try to convince him to let them stay, to try again. Then she remembers something about that face in the window. That fear – and Yardley’s fury, right before he kicked them out. He hates Ashworth. He doesn’t want to hate him, he believed that he could cure himself of it, but he failed. The hurt has gone too deep. Putting the two of them together, getting them to understand each other – it had been like trying to talk oil into making peace with water.
Wren looks at the house behind him. She knows its angles and divides from the countless viewings of the tapes. The way the apex of the long, slated roof has bowed slightly with age in the middle, the way the ancient oaks frame it at both ends.
Right there, she is within a few feet of where Paige disappeared from view.
Wren makes her decision.
If it goes wrong, and he reports her, the whole thing is screwed. But his anger – that is something she hadn’t banked on. She only has this chance to use it.
‘Do you want to know what happened to Paige?’
‘Wh—what?’ he says, sagging as if someone has put a pin in him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ashworth knows.’
He stops dead. ‘Why do you think that?’
There is no way she’s telling him what Ashworth has just said. Anyone can claim they’ve got information to trade – she knows that, and so will Yardley.
‘He’s the only one who was with her that night. He said nothing about where she might have gone, the whole way through the investigation and the trial. Nothing. I don’t believe him. He knew a side of her that no one else had seen.’
Yardley watches her. ‘You haven’t got any evidence.’
‘Not yet. But he knows something he’s not telling. And I think you can help me find out what it is.’
13
Before
Luke piles out of school the moment the bell rings. Doesn’t need to bother with the usual tactic of taking ten minutes over a piss or suddenly remembering that really important thing he has to do before he goes, so he can leave after everyone else. Because today’s a Thursday, and if anyone even thinks about giving him any gyp on his way out on a Thursday, they’ll change their mind pretty bloody quick when they see his brother at the gate, waiting for him.
Rob’s in his usual spot, leaning against the sign. He’s never been a student at Westmead but the kids dodge him when they pass like they know who he is. People don’t look Rob in the eyes for long, because it doesn’t take long to see he’s hard as. Even from the other side of the playground.
Luke strides out across the tarmac, waiting until Rob looks up and catches his eye. And when he does, Rob grins and raises his hand. Luke’s shoulders relax.
They high-five and start walking back to Rob’s place. Rob’s still got his work stuff on: blue rolled-down overalls a
nd a T-shirt with the name of the garage where he’s apprenticing on City and Guilds. There’s a black streak of grease on the side of his face. Luke points it out and Rob starts rubbing.
‘They wanted me to stay and finish putting in a gearbox. I had to say you were ill so they’d let me out,’ he says, smearing the dirt. ‘Gaffer was proper miffed.’
‘Sorry. You didn’t have to.’
Rob rolls his eyes and smacks Luke on the back. ‘I know I didn’t have to. Don’t be soft, mate. Want to show you the new place.’
He’s moved flats because the social worker told him he’d need to show he had room for Luke, so the guardianship application had a chance. His last place, you couldn’t even open the door properly because the bed was half blocking it.
‘It’s bigger. You’re going to like it,’ Rob tells him. ‘Even got a bedroom separate from the main bit. It’s yours, once you’re in. Soon as it gets approved they’ll send over the first lot of cash and we’ll get a bed and that. Four to six weeks, social worker reckons.’
Luke balls his hands in his pockets a few times and then he just comes out with it. ‘Is it just me you can have?’ He looks at his shoes. Rob’s frowning at him, he can see him out of the corner of his eye, but Luke keeps his eyes down.
‘Not planning to open a children’s home, if that’s what you mean.’
‘No,’ he says, and he’s not going to lose his nerve. ‘But what about if there was someone who needed somewhere, just for a while?’
Rob stops. Luke tries to style it out, carrying on walking, but eventually he has to stop too. He turns and Rob’s got his arms folded. An artic goes past and blows Rob’s bomber jacket against him, and he must have been lifting a lot more lately because the chest on him, it’s huge now. Luke goes back.
‘What are we talking about here?’ Rob says. ‘Are you talking about that girl?’
‘No.’
‘Are you though?’
‘I just thought if we could change it just a bit so that she—’
‘No.’ Rob dips his head, forcing Luke to meet his eyes. ‘Because let’s get one thing fucking clear here, Luke. The guardianship is for you, OK? No one else.’