When the tour was finished, she took me back to reception and I thanked her, telling her I would be in touch once I’d spoken to my sister.
I was outside the building, heading back to the car, when I heard the cleaner’s voice again.
‘Charlotte Copeland, you said?’
I turned. She was standing close to the wall at the side of the building, her eyes fixed upon me. It took me a minute to realise that she was keeping herself out of view of the security cameras above the main entrance. She wanted to talk to me, but she didn’t want to be seen. I fumbled in my bag, feigning a search, then headed back towards the building, keeping my eyes on the ground as though looking for something that had been dropped.
‘You know her?’ I said, when I was close enough to be heard.
‘I can’t talk here,’ the woman said. ‘My shift finishes in half an hour. I’ll go to the café at Marks and Spencer’s in town – you can meet me there if you want to.’
She turned and headed back through a side door. When I returned to the front of the building, I continued my pretence for the cameras, scouring the concrete slabs near the doorway before returning my attention to my bag and finding whatever it was I had been looking for.
Three quarters of an hour later, I was sitting in the café, waiting for the woman to arrive.
Twenty-Nine
I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that she might change her mind, yet the fact that she had risked speaking to me outside the clinic suggested that whatever she wanted to tell me was serious enough for her to follow through on her promise. I saw her moments later, entering the café wearing a heavy blue raincoat and carrying a leather handbag. She paused for a moment to scan the room, then spotted me sitting at a table in the corner. I watched her go to the counter and order herself a drink before she came over.
‘My name’s Cheryl,’ she said, putting her coffee on the table before slipping her raincoat from her shoulders. ‘Please don’t tell anyone I’ve met you, will you?’
I shook my head. I had no intention of getting her into trouble. I just wanted to learn more about the woman I was dealing with.
‘Likewise, though,’ I said, stirring sugar I would never usually have taken into my tea, ‘you have to promise you won’t mention seeing me. This is just between us, okay?’
She nodded and sipped her coffee. ‘What’s she done now, then?’
The question was enough to confirm my suspicions: whatever else Charlotte was and whatever trauma she had suffered, she was trouble.
‘She’s accused me of a serious assault against her. I can’t be sure yet, but I think she’s responsible for framing me.’
I noticed that while I was talking, Cheryl’s expression didn’t once change. It was as though she was almost expecting what I told her, or at the very least was unsurprised by it.
She put both hands around her coffee cup, warming herself with its heat. I guessed her to be in her early fifties, though she might have been older. She had a kind face, and I could only assume she was there because she wanted to help me. At that moment, I needed all the help I could get, yet I couldn’t understand why she would risk her job to help a stranger she had never laid eyes on before.
‘How do I know this is real?’ she asked, looking at me sceptically. ‘You could be someone from management for all I know, checking up on me.’
I took my phone from my pocket, unlocked it and searched online for one of the articles relating to the attack on Charlotte. When I’d last looked, there had been just over twenty comments left in the box below the article; now, I saw that there were almost a hundred.
‘Read this.’
I passed Cheryl the phone and waited until she had read to the end. ‘That’s me,’ I said when she looked up. ‘I’m the woman who was arrested. I’ve been charged with wounding with intent. I didn’t do it.’
Cheryl shook her head slowly as she handed the phone back. ‘I’m not supposed to talk about the patients, but you should know that Charlotte is dangerous. I can’t say much more than that, but she was asked to leave after an incident with another patient. The young woman was lucky that staff were nearby at the time, or things could have been much worse.’ She looked around her as though checking no one was listening in. ‘So she’s saying you stabbed her?’
I nodded and returned the phone to my pocket.
Cheryl’s eyes widened and she took another sip of coffee. ‘I’m sorry. It seems anyone who gets on the wrong side of Charlotte ends up suffering the consequences.’
‘But I don’t know her. I’d never met her before that night.’
‘You were there, then?’
‘I tried to help her. I was walking home and I heard her calling for help. I waited until the ambulance and the police came, then the next day she told them that I was the person responsible.’
‘Sounds about right. Charlotte always had a way of biting the hand that fed her.’
‘This young woman you mentioned… How did she get on the wrong side of her?’
Cheryl shrugged. ‘It involved a man, that’s all I know. They called themselves friends, the two women, but friendships aren’t really encouraged at the clinic. Sometimes they can be more damaging than anything else.’
‘How long ago was this?’
Cheryl exhaled. ‘Around 2009… 2010, maybe.’ She pressed a hand to her face, feeling the flush of pinkened cheeks. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she said, reaffirming her discomfort.
‘So why are you?’
There was something more, something she wasn’t telling me. I got the impression that her connection to Charlotte Copeland was more significant than she was letting on, running deeper than simply having been witness to the after-effects of the woman’s seemingly vindictive nature.
‘When you mentioned that name, I knew it meant trouble.’ She shrugged, as if this explanation was the answer to everything.
‘I promise you this won’t go any further. You won’t see me again after today. I just need to know as much as you’re able to tell me – I need to know why she’s doing this to me.’ I drank some tea, wincing at the sugary sweetness it left on my tongue. ‘Why was she admitted to the clinic?’
There was a pause. Around us, the noises of the café – the hum of conversation, the hiss of the coffee machine behind the counter, the crying of a tiny baby on the other side of the room – filled what might otherwise have been an awkward moment of silence between us.
‘She’d tried to kill herself. Look, I’m no medical expert – I just clean up other people’s messes, so what do I know? But I’ve seen enough to understand that Charlotte Copeland wasn’t like any of the other patients I’ve come across since I’ve been working at the clinic, and I’ve been there nearly twenty-four years. There was something behind her eyes, you know. Something already dead. In my opinion, that makes her the worst kind of dangerous.’
Her words sent a chill through me. Why had Charlotte targeted me? Where would all this stop?
‘Do you know what happened to her before she came to the clinic? Before the suicide attempt, I mean… There must have been something that prompted it?’
‘I don’t remember all the details, I’m sorry. I know bereavement was a big factor, and there was a history of mental illness in the family. I’m sorry, I wish I could help you more. I just think you need to be careful.’ She was about to say something else, but instead she stopped herself and sipped her drink.
‘Is Copeland her married name?’
Cheryl nodded. ‘As far as I know. She was married briefly, I think, before the suicide attempt.’
‘Do you know what her maiden name was?’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry.’ She had clammed up again, holding back something she was reluctant to share.
‘Please, Cheryl, I’m desperate here. I don’t want to make things difficult for you, but I need help and I’m running out of time. I think she’s going to hurt my family. Someone set fire to my car while it was on my drive and my children were asle
ep in the house. I’m sure it was her. I don’t know how much further she’s prepared to go.’
Cheryl bit her bottom lip. ‘I’m sorry, I really am.’ She paused and sipped her drink, and I knew that what I’d told her about my children was making her reconsider. ‘There’s someone who knows more than I do, but I doubt she’ll talk to you.’
‘Please… tell me who she is.’
Cheryl took her phone from her bag and I watched as she opened her Facebook app. She typed a name into the search bar and a moment later handed me the phone. ‘This is the woman she attacked. Well… she was just a girl then.’
‘The one she fell out with over the bloke?’
Cheryl nodded. I looked at the woman in the photograph. She was around my own age – mid, maybe late thirties, a blonde bob and lips that looked as though they had been surgically enhanced. She was pouting at the camera, but there was something distant behind her eyes, something lost and younger than her years. I made a mental note of her name: Zoe Macmillan.
‘But if Charlotte attacked her, why wasn’t she arrested?’
‘The clinic covered it up. They didn’t want the negative publicity. Look, I can’t be certain, but I think Zoe received a payout to keep her quiet. If the press had got hold of the fact that there’d been a stabbing among the patients, the place might have faced closure.’
‘Charlotte stabbed her?’
‘In the leg. She wasn’t seriously injured, but that wasn’t the point. The poor girl was a mess afterwards. She still is.’ Cheryl took her phone back and returned it to her bag. ‘Look, no one at the clinic knows this, but Zoe used to go out with my son. Years ago, when the pair of them were teenagers. I always had a soft spot for her, even after they’d split up. Bit of a lost soul, Zoe was. Needed a mother figure in her life, but her own was useless. Anyway, I wanted her to get the help, so I paid for her rehab. Nearly cleaned me out, but it seemed worth it at the time. No one knows about that either, so please keep it to yourself. The only reason I’m here is for Zoe. That cow Charlotte has got away with enough over the years. She deserves everything she’s got coming to her.’
I reached into my pocket to take out my phone again, knowing that another question – perhaps the biggest of all – remained unanswered. I felt certain that Charlotte was responsible for the notes that had been sent to Damien, though I was pretty sure it would have been impossible for her to deliver all four of them. It meant someone else had been running errands for her, and my heart was sinking under a weight of dread at the thought that I already knew who that person was.
I unlocked my mobile – I had two missed calls from Sean and three from Damien – and went to my photo gallery, searching for the still I had taken from the CCTV footage. Though the image was grainy, I could see what might have drawn Lily to him, imagining myself as I was at her age. He looked younger than I suspected he was – passable as someone in his late twenties – yet there was something about his eyes that spoke of a secret worldliness, one that might only be noticeable to someone else who had plenty of experience of life. The truth would be easily kept hidden from a girl like Lily. She had seen what she had wanted to see, and she had welcomed his attention in the way I felt certain Charlotte had planned it.
Something inconceivable was starting to make itself apparent, and I cursed myself for not having seen it sooner. ‘Do you know him?’ I asked, holding the phone in front of Cheryl.
She didn’t need long to study the photo; a mere glance was enough to confirm that she recognised him. ‘Jacob,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘He’s not still latched on to her, is he?’
Thirty
As I headed back to the car, I listened to the answerphone message Sean had left.
‘Jenna, can you phone me when you get this.’
Then I listened to Damien’s.
‘Is this some sort of joke? What the hell were you thinking taking the car like that? Call me.’
I called Sean’s number, but it rang through to his voicemail, so I tried Amy, hoping that if something had happened, he might have let her know. I was still reeling from what Cheryl had told me. Charlotte wasn’t just manipulative; she was dangerous. A new possibility was beginning to take shape inside my brain, something I wanted to find evidence for before I let it take root and grow. Had Charlotte used Matthew to get to me through Lily? If so, why?
‘Have you spoken to Sean?’ I asked when Amy answered. ‘Everything okay?’
‘He’s been trying to get hold of you. Charlotte Copeland has withdrawn her statement.’
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know whether to cry with relief or scream with frustration that the woman had put me through hell just to end it all like this, though any potential reaction was then halted by the thought that nobody had yet said it was over.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Apparently she told Sergeant Maitland that she made a mistake; that she can’t remember what happened that evening.’
‘Bullshit,’ I said bitterly. ‘She remembers exactly what happened.’
‘I thought you’d be happier.’ Amy sounded disappointed.
‘Yay,’ I said sarcastically. I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids and reminded myself that taking my anger out on Amy wasn’t going to get me anywhere. None of this was her fault. ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired and I’m just sick of all this. What happens now, do you know?’
I heard Amy sigh. ‘The trial will still go ahead.’
I said nothing. It made sense that people who were suspected of crimes as violent as the attack on Charlotte didn’t tend to walk free just because the person they had supposedly attacked claimed sudden memory loss. The thought that I should tell Sean what I had learned about Charlotte and her link to the man who had been bothering my daughter for the past couple of months had rooted itself at the forefront of my brain, and yet I couldn’t allow myself to divulge the details – not until I knew more and had ascertained the facts for myself. If either Charlotte or Jacob was to find out that I knew about their time at the clinic, I might inadvertently put Lily at greater risk.
‘It should help, though, once the police have established there was no coercion involved.’
‘Coercion? What… they think I might have intimidated her into withdrawing her statement?’
Just as I had allowed myself to believe that finally something might be going my way, another blow hit me, knocking any sort of hope, no matter how flimsy, from my grasp yet again.
‘It’s standard procedure, apparently – they do it whenever this happens. Like I said, once they realise you’re not involved, it’ll work to your advantage.’
‘And if Charlotte decides to lie about that as well? What if she tells them I am involved in some way?’
I couldn’t tell Amy where I was or what I’d discovered, not when I was this close to uncovering the truth. The best thing I could do to help myself and Lily was to finish what I had started here, then find out what I could about Jacob Perry, the man who had been linked to Charlotte and Zoe while the three of them were patients at Oakfield Manor.
‘If she was going to lie about that, she’d have done it by now.’
I put my head back against the head rest, trying not to think about the drive home.
‘The man Charlotte accused of raping her. Do you know what his name is?’
‘No.’
‘Can you find out? Will Sean be able to find out?’
‘Jenna,’ Amy said, ignoring my questions. ‘Where are you?’
‘Cardiff,’ I said, already prepped with the lie.
‘Doing what?’
‘I’m in the library. Just researching.’
‘Researching what?’ Amy sighed. ‘What are you hoping to achieve? The fact that she’s withdrawn her statement is bound to help your case now. Please just let Sean do his job.’
‘What harm am I doing?’ I asked, feigning ignorance. ‘They can’t charge me with reading, can they?’
I paused and exhaled loudly
, running a hand through my hair as I checked my dishevelled appearance in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired and I’m worried about my family. You get that, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. But I’m worried about you, Jenna. You sound exhausted. Don’t try to take this into your own hands, okay? Make sure you’re eating properly, spend time with your family, just try to get things back to normal.’
I promised her I would do all those things, knowing that they would have to wait; that there was one other thing I had to do first. I contemplated calling Damien, but the coward in me couldn’t face his anger and the lecture that was bound to accompany it, plus he would want to know where I was. Instead, I started the engine and tapped the address that Cheryl had given me into the maps app on my phone.
As I drove, I couldn’t stop thinking about Charlotte Copeland and what she had done – what she was doing – to my life. She had withdrawn her statement because she knew the police were delving into her past. She had realised, just as I had, that it was only a matter of time before the truth came out.
Zoe’s home was a flat in a tower block, and I realised when I pulled up on the opposite side of the street that I wouldn’t get into the place unless she let me in. Dejection pulsed through me in waves as I suspected that what Cheryl had said was likely to prove correct and Zoe wouldn’t want to see me.
I locked the car and went to the main doors of the building, finding the intercom button that linked to her flat. The first call went unanswered, but on the second, there was a click as she connected.
‘Yeah.’
‘Zoe?’
‘Yeah. Who is it?’
‘You don’t know me,’ I told her, ‘but I was hoping you might be able to help me.’
‘Probably not. This isn’t a charity.’
‘I don’t want anything from you. Well… information, that’s all. I want to talk to you about Charlotte Copeland.’
There was a second click, and it took me a moment to realise that Zoe had cut me off. I stepped back and looked up at the mass of windows that made up the building’s facade, wondering whether she was looking out of one and could see me. Then I tried the intercom again.
The Accusation: An addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Page 18