The Flower Girls

by Alice Clark-Platts

  Max says nothing for a moment. His mouth is dry.

  ‘Do you know how stressful it is?’ Jonny turns to him angrily. ‘Leading a double life? I know . . .’ he taps his chest ‘. . . what this poor woman has been going through.’ He strokes Hazel’s hair. ‘I know, my darling. I’m here.’

  Max clears his throat and fingers the stem of his wine glass. ‘Well, yes. Of course it’s been terribly difficult for you. All of you,’ he says, looking apologetic as Jonny glares at him. ‘But . . . you must appreciate . . . what I’ve been reading . . . And then the interview with Evie . . .’ He hesitates, tracing the edge of his coaster with his fingertips, gathering his thoughts. ‘I really think you should consider doing what I’ve been asking.’

  Hazel’s crying quietens and eventually she stops, reaching forward to sip from her wine glass.

  Seeing Jonny open his mouth to speak, Max jumps in again to maintain momentum. ‘So, I should tell you that I have already contacted Toby Bowman, your sister’s solicitor – your uncle, Hazel, I believe? He’s been in touch with Laurel. He’s on a high after winning the hearing. And . . .’ Max reaches over the table as if to touch Hazel’s arm but drops his hand at the last second, resting it on his placemat ‘. . . she has agreed, Hazel. Laurel will see you.’

  Hazel gazes down at her lap, saying nothing in response.

  ‘And you think that bringing them together will stop the bad press?’ Jonny asks, returning to his chair, buzzing with a vitality that even Max has noticed is blurred by red wine. ‘I mean, call me an idiot, but why would it?’

  ‘Because it might jog Hazel’s memory. It might enable her finally to know what happened that afternoon with Kirstie. And if she does, then she might be able to help Debbie and Rob Swann get some closure. Which, frankly, will improve her popularity with the public no end.’

  ‘Right. I get it,’ Jonny says, looking over at Hazel. ‘What do you think, darling? Can it hurt?’

  The edges of her mouth twist, as if she is in pain. ‘No,’ she says at last. ‘I suppose it can’t.’

  ‘So you’ll go?’ Max says, his heart thumping. ‘Because, in actual fact, there’s a window this week. On Thursday. Toby can arrange a visit then.’

  Hazel looks at him, thoughts playing out across her mind. Finally she gives a short, swift nod.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’ll go.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Debbie is only three years older than her sister, but side by side the gap between them could be more than a decade. Debbie’s hair is grey and her face is scored with the grief of nearly twenty years. She cannot drink alcohol; she refuses even to take headache tablets. For her, the pain is what makes her daughter real. If she blocks it out, Kirstie will be gone.

  ‘She’d be twenty-two in September,’ Debbie says, a cigarette smouldering in an ashtray at her elbow. Joanna sits opposite her at the kitchen table, cups of tea in front of them. ‘So . . .’ Debbie sighs, looking down at her wedding band. ‘What does this latest court thing mean?’

  ‘It means,’ Joanna replies, ‘that Laurel Bowman has been given a chance to argue in front of a judge that the parole board were wrong to deny her release.’ She closes her eyes and exhales up towards the nicotine-stained ceiling. ‘I can’t believe it either. It never ends, does it?’

  Joanna stops talking, her eyes fixed on her mug. After a moment, Debbie pushes back her chair with a groan and walks to the sink, keeping her back to Joanna.

  ‘Deb?’ she asks. ‘Are you OK?’

  After a moment, her sister turns round and gives her a sad smile.

  ‘Yes. I’m OK.’

  ‘This is a shock, right? But let me tell you . . . we will not give up. We are not going to let this happen. We will honour Kirstie, we will.’

  Debbie smiles again and lights another cigarette, breathing the smoke deep down into her lungs. She studies its lit end for a moment before speaking.

  ‘Nineteen years ago, when it first happened, I wanted to die. You know, you were there. Even though I was pregnant with Ben. Even then. I couldn’t see . . . I couldn’t see how I could go on without her. Without my Kirstie.’

  ‘Of course, Deb,’ Joanna whispers. ‘No one can imagine . . .’

  ‘Everywhere I looked there were reminders. The house. The garden. The street. The corner shop. All her toys everywhere. Her bedroom. The smell of her pillow, her clothes. Even Rob’s face.’ Debbie coughs, taking another drag. ‘She was the spit of him. So I couldn’t bring myself to look at him some days. He thought I hated him. Sometimes I do …’ She grimaces, leaning forward and stubbing the half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray.

  ‘But through all of it, my main thing was . . . like you said . . . to honour Kirstie.’ She looks directly at Joanna. ‘To keep her alive in people’s memories. To tell the world how beautiful she was, how innocent she was. How she should never have died.’

  She nods a few times.

  Joanna can’t breathe, can’t move.

  ‘And that’s what we’ve done, isn’t it? All these years. All of us. Me, Rob and Ben. And you. You’ve fought like a Trojan, haven’t you, Jo? More than anyone outside of here, outside of our home. And we’ve kept together as a family, haven’t we? We made it. Not many people would.’ Her eyes are bright blue and fierce on Joanna’s face in the winter sunshine coming through the window. ‘And I thank you for that. Really I do.’

  It’s there in the room, Joanna can feel it as strongly as the warmth of the mug in her hands.

  The but.

  ‘But sometimes . . .’ Debbie reaches for her pack of cigarettes again and sighs, her voice trailing off.

  ‘Sometimes?’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if the memories of Kirstie are getting . . . tainted by all this fighting. Keeping that woman inside. Making everything about her. It’s all about Laurel, isn’t it? Not about Kirstie any more.’

  Joanna swallows. ‘But it is, Debbie. It is about Kirstie. It’s about getting her justice. Why should Laurel be allowed to get away with—’

  ‘Get away with it?’ Debbie interrupts sharply. ‘She already has, hasn’t she? She has got away with it. She did the moment she killed my baby. I’m not getting Kirstie back, am I? What punishment can make up for that?’

  ‘The sentence . . .’ Joanna tries.

  ‘Ben’s having a baby. I’m going to be a granny,’ Debbie says, folding a tea towel and placing it on the counter. ‘There must be some happiness we can have, mustn’t there? Waiting for us in the future or even here now. Where we’re not always fighting.’ She comes back to the table and puts her hand on Joanna’s. ‘I want to remember Kirstie as she was. Not as a rod to use on someone else’s back. If we carry on, all the months ahead – more fighting – I don’t think I’ve got the energy for it, Jo. I really don’t. The only thing I care about now is Kirstie and my family.’

  ∗

  The rhythm of the train back down to London feels like a cradle to Joanna, the sensations of rocking and speed lulling her into calm. Her breathing has lengthened from the agitated state she’d been in on leaving Debbie’s house and she watches the fog-covered, tawny outline of the Yorkshire Moors stretch past her with a growing sense of detachment. Here she is, about to witness Laurel Bowman’s release, and everyone around her has given up. They’ve all stopped caring.

  But why does she care when even her sister is moving on?

  Why can’t she let it go?

  Joanna traces with her finger a bead of condensation falling down the window and brings a can of lager to her lips. Here she is again. The one on the outside. Even when they were kids, she would barrel into anyone who dared have a go at her sister. Debbie was always the popular one anyway. She was happy and easy, and people generally just seemed to do her bidding. Joanna would stamp her feet and demand that people did what she said, even though they never would.

  When Kirstie was born, Joanna had held her in her arms and she had felt such a burst of love and of pride that this little girl was part of her, her
family’s blood. And then to see that blood spilt on the ground …

  But Debbie is the one who bore her. Debbie the one whose genes spiralled through Kirstie like strands of fairy dust. So why is she able to accept a future without her? How can she let her go when, for Joanna, it seems impossible?

  Kirstie is dead. And Debbie’s right, nothing is going to bring her back.

  So it’s not that Joanna can’t accept that Kirstie has gone.

  But to abandon the fight against Laurel seems only to offer the prospect of a life without any kind of meaning.

  God, am I that selfish? she wonders, resting her forehead on the glass. Has it all just been selfishness, a way to avoid her own failings? Without the fight to win justice for Kirstie, Joanna fears she will be untethered. Her anger keeps her on the ground. Without it to anchor her, there is only a void.

  Suddenly Joanna feels cold, wrapping her arms around herself. Suddenly she feels very alone.

  The train pulls into a station and someone sits down opposite, throwing their newspaper onto the shared table in front of her. There they are, the Flower Girls, captured for eternity in those two photographs.

  Laurel and Rosie Bowman.

  Joanna turns away and considers her reflection in the window as rain begins to spatter the glass.

  What now? she thinks. What now?

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Toby waits for Laurel in the private room he has requested for the purpose, away from the cacophony and chaos of the main prison-visit cattle pen. The room has walls painted a dirty cream; the table is stained and chipped. It is at least quiet, overheated but calm. Outside, a downpour is reaching biblical proportions. The sound of it is a white-noise hum, washing against the wrap-around window that runs around the top of the walls. The halogen light above emits a stark, unattractive glare. Toby’s bald head is illuminated like the top of a boiled egg, his jowls and eye-bags cast into sinister shadow.

  ‘Jeez, you look rough, Uncle Toby,’ Laurel observes accurately as she enters the room. ‘I thought I was the one who should be shitting themselves about today: not be able to sleep, off my food . . . I’m all right, though, as it goes, but you . . .’ Her voice trails off as she sits down opposite him. ‘Well, let’s just say, you’re not going to be winning any sexy solicitor contests any time soon.’

  Toby sighs, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. He knows he looks a sight. Ever since his last hospital visit, on the day of Laurel’s hearing, when he was told there was no hope and that the cancer had progressed too far, weight has seemed to drip off him like candle wax. His face is haggard and sunken. It is as if his body overheard what the consultant said and has immediately put the truth of it on display. Rogue thoughts of food, which used to dominate his waking hours, now make him irreversibly nauseous.

  ‘It’s only a joke,’ Laurel says. ‘I’m being a bitch. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine. Don’t fuss yourself. How are you feeling about today?’

  Laurel shrugs. ‘Don’t feel anything.’

  Toby raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Seriously. Now I’ve got used to the idea, it’s all right. It’s about time, I suppose.’ Laurel’s lips are thin, her eyes dark as currants.

  ‘You know, I’m still not entirely convinced it’s a great idea. What with the full hearing of the judicial review happening soon, I don’t want anything to jeopardise that.’ He leans forward, frowning. ‘But look . . . maybe it might help to have her on side. To resolve things finally. Anyway, I suppose, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, right?’ He gives a short laugh then stops abruptly as Laurel looks at him, her face expressionless.

  ‘It’s just . . . you have to be calm, Lulu. Right? The purpose of the visit is closure. Or that’s how she’s presented it. She misses you. Wants to see how you are. You don’t have to fight her—’

  ‘Why would I fight her?’ Laurel interrupts. ‘She only hasn’t bothered having anything to do with me for nearly twenty years.’

  ‘This is what I mean.’ He wags a finger at her. ‘I know you have a lot of anger. But if you don’t deal with that – demonstrate that you’ve dealt with it – you’re really going to struggle with the parole board. They need to see that you are now rehabilitated. That your demons have been exorcised and you’re ready to return to society.’

  ‘Rehabilitated?’ Laurel says. ‘I haven’t been in a supermarket since I was ten years old. I can’t drive a car. I don’t know how to use a bank account, for fuck’s sake. How am I supposed to return to society when I was barely in it to begin with?’

  Toby purses his mouth, looking at her. ‘And that is exactly the kind of thing you have to stop saying, Laurel.’

  ‘My name is L.’

  ‘L, then. L!’ Toby slaps the table with both palms. ‘Please! Work with me here, L. I’m trying to help you. The advice I give you, it’s not to piss you off. It’s not to try and make your life even worse. It’s to get you out of this place. On the outside . . . where we can help you. Help you adjust to living. But first I need to get you out! If you stay in here for the rest of your days, what’s the point of any of it? Come on, you know that. Please.’

  They sit in silence, looking at each other. Laurel takes in Toby’s appearance, his normally mild-mannered face now creased with worry and strain. This man who has come every month without fail to visit her. Brought her presents, sent her Christmas cards. He has never been paid, he has never asked to be paid. Laurel feels her stomach dip, an unfamiliar contraction in the back of her throat, and wonders, surprised, if she is about to cry. Because it is Toby who has been her father all of these years. Her own father, long-since disappeared, went scurrying off with her mother to burrow down into the dank earth, far from their responsibilities, from what they had produced. But Toby has always remained.

  ‘You’re not going to be there, though, are you?’ Laurel says at last. ‘On the outside.’ She juts her chin at him. ‘I mean, look at you. How long have you got?’

  He glances down at his lap. ‘I’m having an operation,’ he lies. ‘Soon. The prognosis will be good after that. I still have hope.’

  ‘You don’t look very hopeful,’ Laurel observes with her sharp eyes fixed on him. She throws back her head, gazing up at the ceiling and exhaling in a whoosh of air. ‘Fuck, this place is shit, isn’t it?’ she says, looking back to meet his gaze. ‘I’ll be a good girl,’ she says at last. ‘For you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  Thunder rolls above them and the rain hardens as she says, ‘May as well bring her in then. Let the fun begin.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Joanna sits by the window in a café, a chipped white mug of brown tea slowly cooling between her hands. She takes no notice of it, nor the pieces of toast dripping with butter on the plate in front of her. Her eyes are fixed on the block of flats opposite, still visible despite the steam rising up the window which, every so often, she wipes away with a sleeve.

  Days later and she still can’t get the image of her sister out of her head. She hasn’t slept and every thought in her brain feels like a hammer. Added to which, it’s been over a week since she had the fight with Will and she still hasn’t spoken to him. The sadness she feels that her oldest friend has betrayed her is incalculable. So she does what she always does when she feels overcome. She buries her feelings.

  She has been in the café for nearly an hour. As she has sat there, the number of photographers and journalists across the street from her, outside the flats, has steadily increased. There are now at least twenty of them, chatting and smoking; frowning at the faint drizzle which drifts down from the sky.

  Other punters in the café have noticed the throng on the other side of the road and periodically gesture over to it, clearly wondering which celebrity is staying in the flats. She has already heard the Eastern European waitress state with utmost certainty that she saw Keira Knightley go in there earlier. But Joanna knows this isn’t true. She knows the flat belongs to Rosie Bowman. />
  In her handbag is yet another copy of the Sun with Rosie’s photograph on its front page. It seems fated that Rosie should appear like this – pop up in the world after being hidden for so long – just as Laurel may finally be close to achieving her freedom. After everything that has happened in the last week – the court hearing; the fight with Will; seeing Debbie – the lure was irresistible. Joanna had called an ex-boyfriend who works in communications for the Met Police. She hated herself for it, had avoided the mirror this morning, but she had done it. It had cost her six pints of bitter last night, a considerable amount of flirting and the promise of dinner next week, but she had managed to get him to drunkenly look up Hazel Archer’s address.

  As she arrived at the block of flats, she realised she has been unusually naive. The press pack have zeroed in on the youngest Flower Girl like snipers. They hover around the door, cameras flashing whenever a delivery arrives or another inhabitant braves the throng in order to leave their flat.

  She’s not sure why she’s here, why she wanted Rosie’s address in the first place. She’s been trying to work that out as she sits here in the fug of the café. She isn’t even sure what she’d say to the woman, if she met her face to face. She has imagined countless conversations where she confronts Laurel Bowman, makes her realise what she’s done, makes her cry heavy, heartfelt tears over Kirstie’s grave. Makes her finally say how sorry she is, over and over again. But Rosie has always remained a shadow. Six years old, too young – according to the system – to be cognisant of a crime. Too on the cusp of what it is to be human to be able to have developed a mind that desires harm, that actively seeks it out.

  Joanna has read a great deal of criminal psychology, particularly in connection to young children. She has read Jean Piaget, scoured books on the mental development of children. She has sought to understand what drove Laurel Bowman to commit the atrocity that she did. There are more child murderers than perhaps society likes to acknowledge, she has discovered. The famous ones: Mary Bell; Robert Thompson; Jon Venables. The lesser-known: Jesse Pomeroy, Barratt and Bradley, Hannah Ocuish. Children who have come from broken homes, from situations of horrific abuse, but also those – like Laurel – who have committed an aberration, travelled so far out of character and what would be considered normal with regard to their background, that their behaviour seems alien: it becomes inexplicable.