by Anne Cassidy
He was leaning across the steering wheel looking to one side and then to the other, checking the traffic. The car pulled out and Jennifer asked him the question that had been playing around her head ever since the press conference.
“Will they send me back to prison?”
“Hard to say,” he said, without a moment’s thought. “My guess is that there’ll be a hearing in the morning, probably in front of a magistrate. You have certainly transgressed some of the agreed boundaries and of course you’ve come out publicly, which won’t please the authorities. We’ll have to see.”
Jennifer sat very still.
“I’ll come into the station with you and we will see how the police deal with your case. There’s a possibility you may be bailed, cautioned, told to report back to the station in the morning. Or they may want you to stay overnight until the hearing tomorrow – that’s if it is tomorrow. It all depends who is in charge. We shall see.”
They parked along the road from the police station. Jennifer picked her bags out of the back of the car and walked with heavy legs towards the front entrance. The last time she had been here was when they’d taken her in for questioning about the Jodie Mills murder. Then she had come in a car and been ushered into the station from a back entrance. Now they had to press an intercom button and Don Jordan spoke succinctly into the mouthpiece and the doors swung open. Jennifer walked behind the solicitor, ignoring the half a dozen people who were sitting in the waiting area. When they got to the counter she let her rucksack slide off her arm and onto the floor and placed her other bag by its side. A uniformed officer came towards them. Don Jordan spoke immediately, his voice booming out with authority.
“I am Donald Jordan and I’m here to represent my client, Jennifer Jones. I called earlier to outline my intentions. Jennifer Jones is voluntarily attending the station as recent events have led her to break the conditions of her release two years and nine months ago.”
The officer nodded. He picked up a telephone and made a call. Don Jordan stood to attention as though there was no awkwardness in the situation. The officer appeared to be speaking to someone but his words were muffled and Jennifer couldn’t make out what was being said. Don Jordan’s phone beeped and he flipped open the pouch and pulled it out. Kate heard the name Julia and thought that it was probably her probation officer. OK! Don Jordan said, jauntily. OK! I’ll tell Jennifer.
“Your probation officer has been held up. She will be here later,” he said, holding onto his phone for a moment before replacing it in its holder.
The officer finished his call. “Someone will be along to deal with you. Take a seat. I’m not sure how long they will be.”
They sat down. Jennifer prepared herself for a long wait. The inner door opened suddenly though and a couple of officers came out, talking, one of them laughing at something the other one had said. Just behind them was a plain-clothes officer, a detective. Jennifer recognised him immediately. DC Simon Kelsey. Her heart sank. He spoke to the officer on the desk who nodded in their direction, then he said something to the other officer who grinned. Then he walked towards them. Don Jordan stood up.
“I’m DC Simon Kelsey, Mr Jordan. Perhaps you and your client would care to come with me.”
He couldn’t even say her name. She watched his back as he pressed an entry buzzer. His shoulders seemed to ripple; perhaps with pleasure.
Thirty-two
She was taken to a cell. It was ten o’clock and she’d been assured that the hearing would take place the following morning and Don Jordan would apply for – and get – bail. A further hearing would have to be scheduled, Don Jordan was positive. You’ve not committed any crime. You’ve annoyed the probation service and the parole authorities won’t like the fact that you’re choosing to live under your own name. But you’ve served your sentence.
Tonight, though, she had to stay in police custody.
She’d been taken there by DC Simon Kelsey and he had waited in the corridor until the door was locked by the custody sergeant. Even then she had sensed him standing outside the door, listening to see if she would shout or cry out. Instead she sat rigid, her face turned away, staring at the wall opposite the door. There was no window, just rows of glass bricks near the top where light shone through. Eventually she heard him walk away, his footsteps receding.
The cell was small and heavy with the smell of disinfectant. She sat on the bed, a thin blanket pooled at her ankles. She wouldn’t sleep, she couldn’t sleep. She thought about the news reports and wondered who had seen them and what their reaction had been. Mainly she thought about Jimmy Fuller, who might think that the only reason she had been with him was so that she could steal his ex-girlfriend’s passport. Jimmy’s heart was already bruised, the girl he had loved working on a dig in Scotland, instead of living in a house in Exmouth with him. Now his rebound girlfriend had proved false in many more ways than one.
There was some noise out in the corridor, a female voice, talking to the sergeant. The door rattled and then it opened and Julia Masters was standing there. In her hand she had a bottle of water and a packet of sandwiches. The custody sergeant was holding a chair. He placed it in the cell.
“You’re allowed to eat this while I’m here,” Julia said, handing the food to her.
“Thank you,” Jennifer said.
She peeled back the wrapper, took a sandwich out and bit a corner of it off. She hadn’t realised that she was hungry. Julia was making herself comfortable, placing her bag on one side of her chair and her briefcase on the other.
“I had some appointments. Then I had to go home and wait for my husband to get home from work so that he could sit with Justin and Peter.”
“Sorry to cause you so much trouble.”
“Are you, Kate?”
Julia looked pointedly at her.
“It’s Jennifer now.”
Julia let out a sigh. She looked tired. Her hair was pulled back with a tie and she had no earrings on.
“Do you really think that reverting to your birth name will make your life any better?” she said. “It won’t. It will make it a lot worse. Everyone will know what you’ve done! Is that what you want? To go through your life with people staring at you, pointing fingers at you? That’s the girl who killed the ten-year-old.”
“I was ten years old myself.”
“You don’t need to tell me. I know everything about your case. Every single thing!”
“I’m tired of living a lie.”
“Maybe you’ll feel differently in a few weeks’ time.”
“Why are you so angry at me?”
“Because of the trouble we went to hide your identity. Arrangements had to be made, people’s time was taken up. Public money was spent on you, Kate!”
“Have you just come here to shout at me?”
“No. No.” Julia looked sheepish. “Course not. I guess it’s just late and I’m tired. I came to tell you that I’ll be there at the hearing in the morning and I’ll be speaking on your behalf.”
“Thank you.”
“But you know that it won’t make any difference to your commitments to me. You’ll still have your appointments with me whatever your name is.”
“I know.”
“I just wanted you to know that you have my support.”
“Do I?”
Julia stared at Jennifer, her mouth open, an expression of exasperation on her face.
“You’ve never liked me, have you?” she said.
Jennifer was taken aback. It might well have been true and maybe they both knew it, but it was an awkward thing to say out loud. She didn’t know how to answer.
“I had such good reports about you from your other probation officers. A bright girl, a terrific student. A person who wants to do what is right. She is a delight to work with. Just be careful that she doesn’t crumple under pressure. But I never found that person. All I found was a stroppy teenage girl who thought she’d been dealt a bad hand. I’ve tried to help you as much as I could
, but you didn’t go out of your way to make it easy.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just tried to keep myself to myself.”
“Standoffish I could have handled, but at times you’ve been like a snappy dog.”
Jennifer felt herself slump. She put the half-finished sandwich back into the packet.
“I’ve been close to people before. My first probation officer, Jill. She was great. She looked after me whatever happened. The woman I lived with in Croydon, Rosie. She… She was like a mother to me. I had to leave her and Jill behind though. That was hard. I missed them. I missed Rosie every day. It was like I was grieving for her. I just thought it was better not to get close to people again.”
Julia blew through her teeth.
“I didn’t want to take anyone’s place. I just didn’t want to feel that you weren’t always at odds with me.”
“I’ll try to be different.”
“Maybe you will,” she said, softly. “Finish your sandwich. Then I’ll go.”
Jennifer ate the sandwich and drank the water. When Julia got up to leave she remembered something.
“Where will I live? After the hearing?”
“Where you’re living now!” Julia said.
“But Sally and Ruth might not feel comfortable about my past….”
“They’ve always known! Why do you think they took you in? I told them right at the beginning.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“OK, Jennifer. Let’s hope tomorrow and what comes after is what you wanted.”
Later, long after Julia had gone home, she lay down on the bed. Sally and Ruth had never given any hint that they’d known. And Julia had arranged it all. Why had she always been so harsh on her? It was a question she couldn’t quite answer.
She dozed for a while then woke up with a start. It was 01:06. She listened for sounds of other prisoners but there didn’t seem to be any. It was Thursday night and not much crime, perhaps.
She thought about Jodie Mills, murdered by a man who worked at Sandy Bay as a gardener in the caravan parks. Had he sat here, in this very cell? It made her shiver a little, and yet what was the difference between her and that man? He had taken a girl’s life, but so had she. Did that make her the same as him?
She shook her head. She was not the same, she was not. She turned her face into the pillow. Too much death.
She remembered Joe Bussell who had gone to a DIY store and bought wire cutters and rope. He’d queued up like everyone else and paid maybe with cash or a card. Then he’d carried his purchases in a bag and hanged himself at the back of Kings Cross station.
Mr Cottis came into her mind. Mr Cottis always seemed to be somewhere at the edge of her thoughts, a recurring ghost. Joe Bussell had been doing some kind of apprenticeship with him. He’d been coping really well, Lucy had said, and then for no reason he had killed himself. Jennifer wondered what his days with Mr Cottis were like; photographing family portraits? Wedding photos?
Or were they taking other kinds of pictures entirely?
Jennifer closed her eyes tightly. She tried to sleep. Maybe, for a while she did.
When she opened her eyes there was light coming through the glass bricks. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was 05:07am. She got off the bed and stretched her legs. She bent down at the sink and splashed her face. Then she went to the door and knocked. Moments later an officer came along. He looked wary, as if he expected her to try and escape.
“I’d like to talk with DI Lauren Heart,” Jennifer said.
“I don’t know whether she’s in or not. I can get someone else.”
“No, it’s just her I just need to speak to.”
The officer went off grumbling. Jennifer sat back down. It was achingly early and unless Lauren Heart was on a night shift she’d probably be at home with her family. It would be hours before she could speak to her, if at all. In fact, it was barely an hour later that the door was opened and Lauren Heart stood there. Jennifer sat up, her head a little dazed because she had dropped off to sleep again. She crossed her arms and tried to look straight at the detective. The last time they’d spoke DI Heart had told Jennifer (Kate, then) a few bald truths and it had not been easy for her to listen to them. Now the detective looked tired. The uniformed officer followed her in with a chair for her to sit on.
“Will you have some tea, ma’am?” he said.
“Sure. Milk, no sugar. Jennifer? Will you have tea?”
“Yes, black, please.”
The door was left open. Lauren Heart pushed the fingers of one hand through her hair. Then she yawned and covered her mouth with her free hand.
“What do you want, Jennifer?” she said, softly.
“I have some information that I maybe should have told the police about years ago but I never did.”
“Regarding your case? The killing of Michelle Livingstone?”
“No, not really.”
The custody sergeant came into the room holding two cups and saucers. He passed one to DI Heart and the other to Jennifer. Steam rolled off the top of Jennifer’s.
“Anything else, ma’am?”
“No, thank you.”
DI Heart looked quizzically at Jennifer. “What do you want to tell me? I thought you’d done all your talking on the television, yesterday.”
Jennifer gulped at the boiling tea. What had she expected? A sympathetic response from the detective? Gratitude? DI Heart had been quite clear that she owed Jennifer Jones nothing. She stared at DI Heart’s hand. She was wearing the garnet ring that looked too big. Maybe it was something she never took off. Jennifer wanted to ask her about it but it gave her a bad feeling; as if the ring was a memento of something sad. Under the strip light it glowed, a deep blood red.
“When I was ten and I lived with my mother in Berwick she had an agent, a man who took her photos. His name was Mr Cottis, Kenneth Cottis. He was friends with the Bussell family and I guess that’s how my mother met him. He was around the house a lot in those days and one day he asked if he could photograph me.”
DI Heart sipped at her tea. Jennifer faltered. Was there really much to tell?
“I felt at the time – I was only ten, of course – I felt that what he was asking was not right. He gave me old-fashioned school clothes to dress up in and I was sure that something was wrong with what he was asking me to do.”
“Did he touch you? Did he take photographs of you? What are you getting at?”
DI Heart put her cup on the floor. She leaned forward, her hands clasped.
Now Jennifer had to lie.
“No. I never posed for him, but he had a suitcase that held his photos and I was nosing around in it one day and I saw some pictures of…” She paused, remembering the day, the naked photos she saw of her mother; the sight that had filled her with confusion.
“Children? Pornographic photos?”
“Yes, children. I think so. I might have been wrong. I was only ten. I might not have understood what I was looking at.”
It was a small lie but it told a bigger truth.
DI Heart’s face had darkened.
“And where is this man now?”
“He has a photography business in Alexandra Palace, north London. I saw it advertised on the internet.”
“This certainly made an impression on you. You were ten, you say? Was it round about the time of Michelle’s death?”
“Sometime round then.”
“Did your mother know about this?”
Jennifer looked at DI Heart. She felt her face tremble.
“Did she know, Jennifer?”
“No.” She shook her head, affronted. “I never told her. If my mother had known she would have gone to the police. She would never have let such a thing happen to me. She never knew. She loved me. I kept it from her.”
DI Lauren Heart sat back.
“My mother loved me. She did,” Jennifer whispered, fiercely.
The policewoman touched her ring, making it swivel on her finger.
She looked as if she wanted to ask something else, but in the end decided against it.
“Thank you for the information, Jennifer. We shall certainly look into it.”
Thirty-three
Jennifer was getting ready to go to a meeting at Exeter University. It was the second time she had attended that week. Her change of name and the accompanying publicity had sent the pastoral staff into panic mode. For a while, it had looked as though she might have to transfer and take the last year of her degree somewhere else. Julia Masters had stepped in, though. She made her view quite clear. The court authorities had allowed Jennifer Jones her continued freedom and so the university had no business undermining that by trying to send her somewhere else.
It seemed that she had yet another reason to be grateful to Julia Masters.
She was running a little late. She was standing at the kitchen table finishing a coffee and some toast and looking over some documents that she’d downloaded and printed off regarding her course. Her bag was sitting neatly on the chair next to her and her phone was flat on the table and she glanced at the screen of it from time to time.
“Busy day?” Sally said, coming into the kitchen.
“A meeting with the pastoral team. I’m also going to try and catch a couple of my tutors, see if I can have a word with them, before the course officially starts.”
“Wow, that sounds like hard work! You students!”
“I do have studying to do as well,” she said, in a voice of mock outrage. “I let it all drift a bit last year. I want to see if I can retake some things.”
“Everything all right? At university?”
“Oh, you know, not everyone’s back yet. There’ve been a few looks from staff, a few people nudging each other when I walk past, but it’s a big place. Most people are too interested in themselves to worry about the fact that my name has changed. Most of them won’t have even read the story and if they have …” Jennifer shrugged.
Jennifer began to pack the printed document and her phone into her bag. What she had said wasn’t quite true. There had been a woman in the course admin office, Rosemary, who had complained about her. Kate had been waiting outside the door for the office to open when she heard the voice, querulous; I didn’t take this job so that I could sit in the same room as a murderer! Rosemary, a woman who had always been really friendly, had swept past her moments later and walked off up the corridor. Another one of the admin staff had given an apologetic smile and helped her with her course query.