How resilient she is. How quick to cover her tracks. No wonder Nick hasn’t caught her out yet. But surely he will soon. I wish I’d listened to him. I wish I’d never let this woman get close to me.
“Are you listening to me? Susannah? Suze? Are you all right?”
Suddenly I’m very tired. I want this all to be over. I feel like sitting down on the pavement, so that’s what I do. The concrete sucks the warmth greedily from my flesh, but I’ll have to learn to live with that. From now on, the world will be a very cold place.
“What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that? Get up off the floor, will you?”
“I believe him.”
Jackie laughs shrilly. “You what? Course you don’t, you dozy cow. You wouldn’t hurt your boy, no mother would.”
“I know I wouldn’t.”
For a minute her face turns blank and her eyes are dead and black. I wonder if this is how she looked when she killed Ryan. How did she do it? I expect I’ll find out one day. Eventually Nick will catch her out.
“You utter bitch.” She stares at me for a minute, as if considering whether to spit. “You make me sick. I hope you freeze to fucking death. And then rot in Hell when you get there.”
I know she’s leaving me because I can hear her footsteps getting fainter and further away, but I don’t watch her leave. I sit quietly on the pavement, breathing in, breathing out, in and out, waiting for my strength to return so that I can decide what to do next, knowing as I do the identities of two murderers. For now it’s enough to know that I will never see her again.
Life Without Hope:
How I got hooked on giving all my money to psychics
For the first few days after Joel disappeared, normality vanished. John and I both spent hours at the police station, being interviewed and giving information. We did interviews for news programmes and newspapers. We talked to everyone, every time they asked, going over the same things over and over; and we were glad to, because we knew that if we wanted to find our boy, this was the way to do it. We wanted everyone in the city to be looking for him. Everyone in the country. Everyone in the world.
Then as time went by and there was no news and no news and still no news, and the papers and the TV crews disappeared and the police investigation wound down and everyone else went on with their lives, I realised something terrible. I realised that this dreadful empty blank was our lives now. And somehow, we had to fill them.
John had his work. But I didn’t have anything. And I was determined to do everything I could to find Joel.
So I started going to psychics.
I can still remember my first one. She was a nice middle-aged lady who lived in an attic flat in a beautiful old house and I found her in the phone book. She had a good opening patter, lots of talk about invoking peace and light and kindly spirits. She told me that Joel still loved me very much, that he always would, and that he wasn’t in any pain and he wasn’t unhappy. She said he was missing me. She said I would see him again one day. Then I asked her, Is Joel alive or dead? And she had no idea what to say. And I realised she was probably great at giving comfort to people whose loved ones were dead, but when it came to someone like me she was completely lost.
Now I know that’s because she had no psychic gifts at all. None. Zero. She was just a nice old lady who knew how to talk to the bereaved. But before I left, she said something very clever that instantly convinced me of her talent, and that kept me hooked on psychics for an embarrassingly long time.
She said, I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you. My skill is mainly with those who have recently passed over. I think you need to find someone whose talents lie with finding the living.
And that was it. That was all it took. Because I wanted to believe.
So I kept looking. I went to shows and I joined online forums and I just generally asked around. After a while, John found out what I was doing and he said it wasn’t safe, going round to strange people’s houses where nobody knew where I was, so he started coming with me. We went all over the country and spent so much money. I didn’t mind about that part though. In fact, the more expensive they were, the more confident I felt. Surely no one would charge five hundred pounds for a half-hour session if they knew they were ripping people off?
(What I discovered later is that charging a lot of money is one of the tricks they use to get you to believe in them. The more we spend the more committed we feel. None of us want to think we’ve made a bad buying decision.)
We spent thousands. Maybe tens of thousands. And none of them, not one, was any help. Because psychics can’t do what they promise. Their talent is to find out what you want to hear, and then say that to you for money. And it only works because we let it. I was eager to be ripped off. I let them do it. I wanted them to do it. Because I genuinely thought I was helping to find my son.
I thought psychics were like forensic instruments. I’d go in with a few scraps of information and a fat wad of money and they’d be able to find Joel. But in fact, they’re like funhouse mirrors. They just reflect back at us whatever we bring into the room.
Posted on 24th November 2013
Filed to: Why All Psychics Are Frauds
Tags: psychic fraud, missing people, support for families, Susannah Harper, Joel Harper
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday 7th December 2017
At the edge of madness lies a curious invisibility. People slow their walk when they see me kneeling on the pavement, glancing at me cautiously from the edges of their vision; but no one stops, and no one speaks, and no one disturbs me. If I were sobbing, rocking, vomiting, if I were unconscious bleeding or bent over in pain, perhaps they’d stop and offer help. But I’m simply sitting, incongruous but seemingly at ease and not obviously wounded, and so they leave me to myself, hurrying obliviously towards the shops or back home again with a kind and gentle inattentiveness that I’m grateful for. Perhaps they think I’ve lost a ring and am searching for it in the gutter.
A man I think I can trust just told me that my friend killed her son. That wasn’t all he said and I’ll need to think about the rest eventually, but right now, I’m not ready. I’ve spent years pretending not to know, and although I know it’s nearly time to face the truth, I’m not quite there yet. Instead I want to sit here on the footpath, and concentrate on the part I can bear to process.
It’s the cold that gets me moving, creeping beneath the flimsy wrapping of my clothes to touch the skin beneath. When I try to stand, the cramp in my legs makes me whimper. I stagger back to my car and claw my way in, tearing a fingernail as I wrestle with the handle. I think I’ll never be warm again. The thermometer on the dashboard reads six degrees below.
I turn on the engine and shiver in the dry sour warmth. On the back seat of the car, Jackie’s scarf lies like a snake. I throw it out of the window. Will she be cold without it? Or does the terrible secret she has locked away in her heart keep her warm? The scarf is heavy sheepskin, buttery soft to the touch. It looks like a lost little animal, lying dead on the frozen puddle. But what if it’s not dead? What if it moves? What if it reaches out for me?
When my fingers have unfrozen enough to grip the steering wheel, I reverse clumsily out onto the road and drive home. My driving is poor and more than one person throws their hands up in despair at my drunken steering, my slow reactions, my misjudged guesses about the behaviour of pedestrians. Normally this would have me cringing in shame. Today I don’t care. I only want to be at home.
Home is cold. The boiler has gone out. I eventually manage to re-light it, but I wonder how well prepared it is for the coming winter. I should call an engineer and have it serviced, before winter takes too deep a hold. If my boiler failed me, how long would it take before I froze? And how long before someone noticed I was gone? Melanie has rejected me. John has a new life now. Jackie will never call me again. Who is there in this barren empty world who would care?
Standing in the silent chill of my kitchen, waiting for the k
ettle to boil so I can press a scalding hot-water bottle against my belly, the answer comes to me.
“Susannah?” Nick’s voice is eager.
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Don’t be. Don’t ever be. What do you need? Do you need help? Are you hurt?”
“Yes, I need help. I’m cold, Nick, I’m so cold. My boiler went out and my whole house is cold.” I’m surprised by how breathless I sound. “I want you to come and make me warm.” He’s with me in a few minutes, through my front gate and at my front door almost before the car engine is off. He’s thrown on a heavy jacket over a worn grey T-shirt and jeans. I must have called him at home. Was his wife with him? And where does she think he is? I ought to care but I don’t. Instead I pull his head down to mine so our mouths can fuse together. She has so much and I have so little and I am so cold, so cold and so lonely. All I’m asking is a little borrowed warmth. Are the starving judged when they steal a loaf of bread? Nick’s breath is warm against my face and neck. The scent of his aftershave makes me want to bite him.
“I’ve dreamed about this.” His words are like sweet poison in my ear, melting my bones and stealing my senses. “I’ve prayed for you to call. Do you know that? I’ve prayed for you to call and ask me to come to you.”
His hands, his skin, his mouth. This is what I need. To be needed. To be craved. To be consumed. To be stripped. When I take his hand and show him where I want him to touch me, his moan of pleasure is almost too much to bear. The carpet is painfully rough beneath my back but his weight against me is so very tender, so very smooth. I would let him fuck me right here on the stairs if that’s what he wants. Instead he lets me go and asks me to forgive him for being in such a rush, turning me round so he can kiss the tender places on my naked spine where the coarse wool has scratched my skin. He knows where my bedroom is, but he doesn’t move until I take his hand and lead him, even though he’s naked and needy and my compliance, my complicity, cannot be in any doubt.
In the bedroom, the chill of the cold sheets beneath me contrasts deliciously with the heat of our flesh. He mutters something in my ear, something about needing to slow down, to stop, that I’ve got him so nuts he’ll never last a minute, not even a few seconds, and I claw at his back because I think a few seconds might just be all I need, but he pulls back, panting and wild-eyed, and stares at me, as greedily and openly as if I’m a sculpture or a photograph.
He’s so dark, so lean, so skilled but still so hesitant, so forward and yet so reverent. I have never felt so powerful. I take his hand and guide it to the place where I want him to stroke me, and close my eyes and sink into the dark.
Afterwards, he dozes for a few minutes, and I watch the way his face changes in sleep. At work, he’s closed and confident, his police officer persona sealed around him like a mask that covers his whole body. In my arms, he becomes someone else, someone softer and needier, wilder and more vulnerable. Now, while his soul wanders somewhere I will never reach, the body that remains behind has the look of a beautiful statue.
How will I tell him what I know? In his heart, he knows the truth already. He’s tried to tell me, as much and as well as he can. Now I know too, but I can’t tell him, because what will I say? How will I explain? He looks so beautiful asleep, all the tension smoothed out of his face, his eyes closed, that I’m almost tempted to try. I could lie beside him and trace letters on his back, letting him absorb my words through his skin. I could rest my mouth against the shell of his ear and whisper: Jackie killed her son.
As if my gaze has weight, is pressing gently against him, he wakes and smiles.
“Sorry. Late turn last night. Still catching up.”
“Busy night?”
He looks at me warily, as if he’s wondering whether to trust me. How strange that we can be as intimate as we are now, smelling and tasting of each other, our naked bodies twined together, and still he’s unsure if he can trust me. Or perhaps it’s not strange at all. Our ancestors variously believed that their king was appointed by God, that trial by combat would reveal the truth, that women’s wombs could become detached and wander all over their bodies. Perhaps the belief in the deep and binding intimacy created by having sex is simply the delusion of our times.
“Quite busy,” he says. “Can I kiss you again?”
“What are you working on? Can you tell me? Just a little bit?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because it’s interesting.”
“It’s not interesting, it’s boring. Lot of paperwork. Lot of cross-checking and asking the same questions over and over.”
“So why do you do it if it’s not interesting?”
“Because in the end, when you’ve done all the paperwork and the cross-checking and asking the same questions over and over… sometimes you get the bad guy. That’s a good feeling.”
“Are you close to getting a bad guy now?”
He shifts around a little in the bed so he can see my face more clearly. His instincts are razor-sharp. Or perhaps I’m just too easy to read. How else would James O’Brien have plucked my memories from me so effortlessly?
“Why are you asking?”
“I just… I suppose I just realised I don’t really know you. Isn’t that strange? I’ve known you for years and now we’ve gone to bed together and I still don’t really know you.”
“Susannah.” He takes a lock of my hair and tugs it gently. “You’re so beautiful, and I’m so crazy about you. But you’re a terrible, terrible liar. What’s really on your mind?”
“You know you warned me not to get too close to Jackie? Well, we had an argument today.”
He keeps his face carefully still and neutral. “Did she hurt you?”
“No. Why would you ask that?”
“And are you going to patch things up with her?”
“No. I don’t think we can. We can’t be friends any more, it’s over.”
“I’m sorry. I know you liked her. But she wasn’t good enough for you.” He strokes my hair away from my face. “You’re not like anyone else I know. You keep yourself locked away from everyone, like a glass princess in the centre of a maze, but when someone finally finds their way to the centre…” He laughs. “God, listen to me. I always was crap at English. I’m glad she’s out of your life. If you can, keep her that way.”
“She said you’d been asking her a lot of questions recently.”
“We’ve had a couple of new bits of information, that’s all. It’s an ongoing investigation. They all have their ebbs and flows. If this doesn’t pan out, we’ll likely be back to weekly updates again for a while.”
“Do you think she hurt Ryan?”
He picks up my hand and kisses my fingertips.
“We haven’t ruled out any lines of enquiry.”
“She thinks you suspect her.”
“Does she? Sweetheart, I can’t talk to you about this, you know I can’t.”
“Do you think I’m asking for her? That I’m going to tell her what you tell me?”
“It’s not that, I swear. I trust you with my life. Christ, I have trusted you with my life. But I just… I can’t.”
He’s not being completely honest with me, I can tell. But then, I’m not being completely honest with him either. In the yellow light of my bedside lamp, we lie and look at each other and consider the nature of trust.
“She’s heartbroken,” Nick says at last. “She’s been in Hell since Ryan disappeared. But what you realise in my job is, sometimes the people who are the most upset are the ones who carry the most guilt.” He strokes my hair. “I’m glad she’s out of your life. I don’t want her to hurt you. You’ve been through enough.”
I think about Jackie’s sharp clever little face. Her unexpected strength. It’s rare for a mother to kill her own child. But it happens.
“So you really think she—”
“All I can tell you,” he says, slowly, carefully, his eyes fixed on mine, “is that statistically speaking, the people most
likely to hurt a child are the adults who have the responsibility to care for that child. That’s not a trade secret, that’s just the truth. Nine times out of ten, when a child or a young person comes to harm, that’s where we find the perpetrator. In the home with them.”
Before Judas pressed his lips against the cheek of his friend, there must have been a moment when he hesitated. The hesitation is the true moment of betrayal, because that’s the moment when you acknowledge that, yes, what you’re doing is wrong, you have doubts, you know that doing it will make you a bad person; and yet you’re going to do it anyway, because the right price will buy you, and now you’ve been bought. My price is not silver coins but silver words and a shudder of deep-seated pleasure that’s both profound and fleeting. I know this is wrong, because I’m hesitating. But I’m going to do it anyway.
“I think Jackie knows something about what happened to Ryan,” I whisper. “More than she’s said to you. That’s what we argued about. I told her—”
“Yes?”
“I told her that I think she killed him.”
The only sound in the room is our breathing and the ticking of the radiator as it warms.
“What makes you think that?” Nick asks at last.
“It’s just a feeling I have.”
“But what gave you that feeling? Was it something she said? Something she didn’t say? Something you found, or saw her do maybe? You can tell me anything. Anything at all. I promise.”
“I can’t prove it. But I feel it.” I put my hand on his chest so I can feel the throb of his heart. “And you feel it too. Don’t you?”
“I can’t say. Please don’t ask me to say.”
“Then tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking,” he says slowly, “that I am the luckiest bastard who ever walked this sorry earth. I’m thinking, how can this be happening? How can it be me here in this bed with you? I’m thinking that just you looking at me like that… that’s probably enough to get me there.” His eyes are huge with longing. “But I don’t want to do that. I want to get you off first so I can watch your face, and then I want to be inside you when I come.” His hand reaches out to me, trembles, pauses. “Is that all right with you? Can I please do that? What I just said? Can I please get you off first and then be inside you when I come?”
The Winter's Child Page 24