by Kate Simants
With her arms around Wren, Shirley sighs, squeezes hard, then holds her out by the shoulders. ‘You got a good excuse ready?’
Wren wants to laugh, but the breath comes out rather more like a sob. ‘No,’ she says simply. ‘Not really.’
Shirley kisses her cheek and wishes her luck. ‘And congratulations,’ she says, mischievously. ‘He looks just like you.’
Wren can’t help but laugh.
As she enters the room, Wren is met with the soft sound of Suzy singing. In Suzy’s arms, his mouth against her breast and his eyes closed, is a black-haired boy, beatific peace on his snub-nosed, furry-cheeked face. Without looking up, Suzy reaches for her. Wren sits beside her and lifts a fingertip to her son’s face. He is a living, breathing thing. He is real, and he is theirs, and the miracle of it is more than she can comprehend.
Suzy turns her head. She acknowledges the thing with a single nod. ‘You’re here now,’ she says.
The apology evaporates unspoken on Wren’s lips.
And what comes out instead, as the first blue light of the rising moon casts their single, amalgamated shadow on the wall, is something else entirely.
Paige Garrett was three months old when the fabric of her family life first started to fray. Her mother, Leanne Garrett, had been known to social services since she was a toddler, and once she hit double figures she had spent most of her life in care. At fifteen, she’d been referred by the local NHS to a clean-needle programme. But when sixteen-year-old Leanne had become pregnant, she’d initially straightened out. Something had clicked in her, she told her social worker: she knew she could be a good mother. She’d get clean, find a job, enrol in all the mother-and-baby support programmes that she was offered. And at first, it had gone well. She managed the rehab with determination, she learnt how to cook, she read books on parenthood, sleep, childhood illnesses. Despite a complete lack of family of her own, with no contact with the father of the child since the night of conception, Leanne bonded with the baby better than anyone had expected. She attended all the appointments, said all the right things. But after a few months the grinding reality of single, unsupported motherhood set in.
At times of crisis, when the membranes between intention and reality are at their thinnest, all it takes is a little tear.
For Leanne, that tear came shortly after a move to one particular flat, when a well-meaning neighbour took a shine to Paige. She offered to babysit while Leanne went out. Have some fun, she told her, see your friends. The neighbour would never know that Leanne, a newcomer to the town, didn’t have friends. She used the time instead to find drugs, the way a recovering addict always can, as sure as water will find a way to sink lower.
Waking up after the first relapse, Leanne panicked. She returned to her flat hours late, and the neighbour was furious. But the baby was clean and fed and content. Her nails were clipped, the sheets of her cot were fresh and dry, and she was fast asleep. Oblivious.
And the seed was planted.
In Leanne’s absence, Paige had been better cared for. She was happier, and she was safer.
Leanne could have admitted defeat then, and given her daughter up for adoption while she was still an infant – and a white, pretty, healthy infant at that, the kind in highest demand. But what Leanne did was persevere.
It was the fork in the road that would haunt her for the rest of her days.
That night, Leanne borrowed money from her new dealer, the only person she could ask, and bought flowers for the neighbour as an apology. The neighbour forgave her, believed her promise that it would never happen again.
But even as she reached the end of her teens, Leanne was still a kid. She didn’t know how to meet her own needs, and how to keep herself safe, and the deck was stacked against her. With help only available to those who admitted their struggles, and the near certainty of Paige being removed if she asked for help, Leanne entered a slow, spiralling slump of drugs and prostitution, until one day, after years of concern, the neighbour reported her.
The process of removal was swift. Within a few weeks it became apparent that Leanne would be lucky to avoid prosecution. She was told that although Paige was five and a half, there was still a really good chance she could be adopted. A child psychologist claimed that the damage from a lifetime of exposure to drug addiction, dangerous men, neglect: all of that might be remedied, if her daughter got a clean break. And although Leanne realised by now that Paige was the only thing preventing her from sinking all the way down, she relented. She sent a frenzied series of letters, explaining herself, desperate that her child should know how dearly, how desperately she had been loved.
Three weeks later, a stranger found Leanne on the Easton bridge of the M32, incoherent and disorientated. When she was released from hospital a week later, Leanne cleared her flat, sold everything she owned. She bought a 25cl bottle of fizzy white wine from a corner shop, and made a vow to herself that if she wasn’t clean in a year, she would return to that bridge, and she would do the job properly.
And twelve months and one day later, she took that bottle onto the bridge. She smoked a single cigarette, and drank the wine, and watched the sun go down as the cars full of lucky people with jobs and families and futures shot by underneath her. A year of constant, aching graft and perseverance had convinced her that she deserved another chance. So she left Leanne Garrett behind and she chose another name, and another path.
She stopped writing the letters, in case they became a trail of crumbs that Paige could follow, leading not to the safety of home but to the witch herself.
But even though she knew she could never have her back, she hadn’t quite been able to say goodbye to Paige. So she followed her doggedly whenever she could scavenge information about her, from foster home to foster home, stealing glimpses of her through windows and on her way to school.
Getting close enough to hear her voice, watch her grow and change, but always maintaining a safe perimeter. Because no matter what she called herself, or how she changed inward or out, Leanne would always be toxic.
As the years passed, the woman who had become Wren Reynolds realised that she had, after all, left it too late. Every time her daughter was moved on and Wren lost sight of her for a while, she believed that maybe this time it was for good, that a permanent family had been found for her precious child. But it never was. Paige never did get adopted, never put down roots. Was never loved, not properly.
Or at least, that was how it would have seemed to her.
Leo is asleep by the time Wren finishes the story. For a moment, Wren thinks that Suzy is sleeping too, her breathing steady and slow with her head resting on Wren’s chest. But then she clears her throat.
‘You know the first thing they teach you in forensics?’
Wren frowns. ‘No.’
‘They say, “Every contact leaves a trace.”’ She shifts and turns, looking up at Wren. The air pulls tight around them, like they are the only three people in the world.
Suzy finds Wren’s hand with her own and guides it over to Leo’s inert fist, the size of a small plum. Wren holds it in her palm, stroking the plump dents of his knuckles.
‘I know this is literally the worst time to burden you with this,’ she says quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’
Suzy weighs that up, a small smile on her mouth. ‘Well, there is that, yeah. As timing goes, it’s – I mean, it’s—’
‘Horrendous.’
‘Couldn’t be more inappropriate.’
They laugh. Suzy rubs her thumb gently over Wren’s hand.
‘But look. This is us now,’ she says. ‘I love you, Wren. I wouldn’t have gone this far with you if I didn’t love you. And that doesn’t just mean loving the things about you that you show. It’s all of it. You think anyone has the humanity you’ve got without shit happening to them? You think I believed you were perfect?’ She turns down the corners of her mouth, as if the very thought of it is something incomprehensible. ‘I didn’t once think you were perfect. That you had so
mehow just materialised, without a past, without family, the way you wanted people to believe. It was always obvious you had a past. And when Paige went missing – I mean, I found the pictures of her, Wren. And I’ve seen photos of you at that age. You may look different now but, back then, you could have been twins.’
‘So why didn’t you say anything?’
The baby sighs, and Suzy shuffles back, sitting up straighter. She goes to lift him, but grimaces. ‘Ow. Hurts, when they slice your guts open.’
Wren smiles. ‘Let me.’
She moves round and lifts him into the clear plastic cot beside the bed. When she comes back, Suzy takes her hands.
‘I asked. I asked you so many times what it was about that case. You chose not to tell me. And if you remember, we nearly split up over it. Actually I left, at one point – I never told you that. Packed up in the middle of the night and left. I sat in a Lidl car park for two hours and cried.’
Wren hangs her head. Suzy touches her chin, lifts it. ‘And then I came back. Because you’re mine. Whatever you are. We’ve got a lifetime to pick it over. Right now, you need to tell me what you know about Robert Ashworth and that bag of clothes.’
For the next twenty minutes, Wren tells her everything. She holds nothing back, not the complicity with James Yardley, not the theft of the phone. She tells her about how it must have been Luke who sabotaged her car, and as she says it, she realises why.
‘So I’d need a lift back,’ Wren says, wincing at how stupid, how utterly reckless she’d been. ‘So bloody Yardley could come and save me and ply me with booze.’ She pauses again. ‘And find out where I lived.’
Suzy looks almost impressed, then she pauses, struck by a thought. ‘Not just where we lived, though.’
‘No.’ She’d led him right to Ashworth’s door.
Suzy closes her eyes, nodding, and neither of them speak for a while.
Wren sighs. ‘He killed her, then. Yardley did. He spent all this time talking out of his arse about forgiveness and redemption, when he just wanted to use me to get close to Ashworth, and get rid of those pictures of Paige.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And once Yardley was sure you were out of the flat with the phone, he dropped the clothes at Ashworth’s, and set him up. He’s the dog-walker.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And then Luke tries to steal the phone back, so – so what?’
Wren stands up, starts to pace. The thing is still just beyond her grasp. ‘Luke was furious with Yardley. He didn’t believe that I was going to hand the phone in, and he clearly hadn’t wanted to break in to the house. He mentioned you. That poor fucking woman, he called you.’
Suzy concedes it with a nod. ‘Makes sense. He kept saying sorry. I kind of – I almost feel sorry for him, now.’ Then, darkly, deadpan: ‘Tell anyone on the force I said that and, so help me God, I’ll break your legs.’
Wren smiles. ‘But that’s it – he didn’t want to be doing it, there was no bravado or anything. He just said how much he cared about her.’
She runs it back, then frowns. How had he put it? I’m the only one that really cares about her.
Cares, though, not cared?
Suzy studies her. ‘What is it?’
They lock eyes for a single moment, and then there is a knock on the door, and a nurse puts his head into the room. ‘Call for you,’ he says. ‘For Wren?’
She goes out and is handed the receiver at the desk.
She clears her throat. ‘Wren Reynolds.’
There is a moment’s hesitation, but then a voice.
‘Wren. It’s – ah, it’s Oliver Polzeath. I think we’ve got a few things to talk about.’
47
Before
Luke finishes digging. Any deeper and it’s just going to be water, this close to the river.
He turns on the torch and looks around for Yardley, finds him crouching the other side of the clearing, his head in his hands.
‘Ready,’ Luke tells him.
Yardley comes over. It’s so dark Luke can hardly see his face, even standing a metre away.
‘Anyone finds it, it’s on you.’
‘I know,’ Luke says.
‘I still think we should burn it.’
Luke doesn’t. He gives him the reasons he’s already given: the rain, the smoke.
Relenting, Yardley says, ‘Let’s get it done then.’ He touches the tarp with his toe, just where Paige’s elbow is.
‘No!’ Luke shouts. There’s the commotion overhead of several birds taking flight, disturbed from their roost.
‘Jesus. What?’ He puts his hands up, sneering at him like he thinks this is funny.
‘Don’t even fucking touch her.’ Fury boils up in his throat.
Yardley turns away. ‘Do it then. Go on.’
Luke gets down into the pit again, and he lowers her in. He moves her so she’s lying on her side, her back to the man, and lays the tarp out again, taking care to keep it a little way from her face.
‘What are you doing? It’s not like she’s going to suffocate.’
There’s nothing he can say to that. Luke takes a last look at her, and starts to climb out.
But then the terrible thing happens. ‘Hold on,’ Yardley says. And he throws down a knife. Tells Luke to cut her clothes off. Because of fibres, evidence. ‘We’re going to burn them,’ he says. ‘And ours, to make sure.’
And Luke knows this could go two ways. He could do it, or Yardley could come down and do it. And he can’t have that. So, as carefully as he can, he peels off her jacket, and her shirt, and everything else. Yardley makes him take her necklace, everything.
He folds it all up, and Yardley takes it from him, tucks it inside his coat.
And then an idea slips into Luke’s mind.
‘What about her hair? Fibres. There’ll be my hair in hers, probably. And yours.’
Yardley folds his arms. Agrees, tells him to cut it close.
The whole thing takes a few minutes. He twists the hair into a loop and zips it into his jacket pocket, then climbs out, teeth chattering, and faces Yardley.
‘We should split up,’ Luke says. ‘You go back. I’ll walk home after. Don’t want to be seen together, do we?’
‘You’re sure they don’t know you’re out? And you can get back inside without being seen?’
Luke gets his phone out, checks the screen. ‘No calls. They think I’m still in bed. I’ll go in through the back door.’
Yardley looks at the hole, then back to Luke. ‘You’re going to fill it in?’
‘Of course I’m going to fucking fill it in.’
‘And cover it over. Leaves,’ he says, gesturing to the ground. ‘Make sure it’s hidden.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll throw the spade in the water. Burn these later on,’ he says, gesturing to the clothes. ‘Give me the hair.’ He puts a hand out.
Luke shakes his head.
‘Give it to me.’
Luke sighs, knowing he can’t win. He unzips the pocket and reaches in. But – without knowing why he’s doing it, without even thinking – before he pulls his hand back to pass it over, he parts the hair with his fingers, saving just a finger-thickness of it for himself.
Yardley takes it and looks at him hard. ‘How do I know you’ll do your side of it properly? Given how badly you’ve fucked everything else up?’
‘Because it’s me going to prison if I don’t, isn’t it?’
‘And your mum left with no kids.’ Yardley keeps his eyes on him. ‘No one taking care of her.’
Luke doesn’t look away. ‘Yeah.’
Eventually Yardley looks up at the sky, sniffs in a long breath.
‘Right then, Luke. But I promise you this.’ He points at Luke’s chest, his face an animal snarl. ‘What you’re doing here is making a deal, like a man. I have helped you. I will keep my word. And if you go soft about this, mate, if you decide you’re turning yourself in, or if you don’t complete your side of the barg
ain and you don’t get that phone back for me: you’ll wish you’d never been born.’
And then he leaves.
Luke watches him duck through the low branches, back towards the path. He listens to his footsteps cracking the twigs, getting softer and softer. He closes his eyes and strains his ears, stands there for five minutes, longer, until he hears the faint boom of the Audi starting up.
He waits even longer than that.
And then he goes over to the pit, and he gets back in. He shrugs off his coat, and crouching, he lifts the tarp.
‘He’s gone.’
And Paige opens her eyes. The last severed strands of her beautiful hair fall away and she smiles, taking the coat and pulling it tight around her perfect, living body.
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’
48
Now
Wren waits outside the hospital, right next to the main entrance. It is dark now, into the evening, and most of the traffic is leaving the complex. She hopes this will make it easier to spot him on his way in.
But when he arrives, Oliver Polzeath is an entirely different person to the man she’d met at Beech View the previous week. So much so that when the battered twenty-year-old campervan pulls up, initially she looks straight through it.
He winds the window down. ‘There’s a bay just over there, to the left and back a bit. Nice and private, OK?’
She nods and follows him. Pulling the van into a layby there, he silences the engine, and hops down.
Since she saw him at Beech View, he’s had what is left of his hair cropped tight against his skull. He is wearing clothes that suit the person she’d met there better: a faded khaki coat over a grey-brown jumper, possibly hand-knitted; well-loved corduroy trousers. There is nothing of the businessman about him now: she can’t see anything in this man that would make sense alongside a woman like Alice Polzeath.
Which, she supposes, is probably what divorces are for.
‘I’d invite you in for a chat, stay out of the cold, but I imagine you’re not too trusting of people at the moment,’ he says grimly.