The images flashed through Jules’s head as she pounded past the lake: Rowan climbing into the car with Saffie, to drive her to the bus stop, his face set. Rowan playing the perfect husband that night, cooking the meal for her. The mud on his boots. The receipt from the garage at Downham Market when he only said he’d gone to Ely. Had he driven out into the Fens first, deposited Saul somewhere and then coolly gone shopping in Ely Waitrose as if nothing had happened? It was the kind of thing you heard on the news. Murderers who carried on as normal after chopping up a body and hiding it and cleaning away the evidence. Popping to get the weekly shop after depositing a bleeding corpse in a river or a drain or a shallow grave.
By the time Jules finished her run, in record time, as it turned out, she was more convinced than ever that her husband had done something to her odd son. And if he had, and if Holly’s new theory that the kids loved one another was right, then . . . But she must not go down this line of thought. Holly was wrong. Saul had raped Saffie. And Rowan’s irate reaction was understandable. But he would not have gone that far.
Would he?
*
When Jules got home, the house was quiet. Rowan had left a note saying he’d gone to meet the lads for a game of golf and wouldn’t be in until that afternoon. He spent most of his time out with his mates these days; Jules didn’t care. She felt tense when he was in the house. Was almost relieved each time the police came back and took him away again to help with their enquiries. Almost disappointed each time he came home, though it was hard to admit that, even to herself.
As she did her post-run workout to a Motown compilation in the home gym, she wished she had honoured Saffie’s wish and never, ever told Rowan about the rape. She wished Holly had never told the police about it.
They could, and should, have kept it between them-selves.
She and Saffie. Holly and Saul. Between them, they could have dealt with it without any of the repercussions telling others had caused.
*
At least the shop was busy today, the bell on the door ringing constantly as wealthy parents came in to buy their children’s winter wardrobes. Hand-knitted pullovers flew off the shelves, and the new line of baby parkas was selling out fast.
‘We’ll have to put another order in for those,’ Jules told Hetty.
At lunchtime, Hetty went out to get them their usual bagels and coffees from Indigo. There was a lull at about half past one and they sat at the back of the shop. Jules couldn’t eat.
‘I may have to leave a bit early today,’ she said, folding the paper bag back over her bagel. ‘Will you be OK on your own?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Hetty said.
‘I knew so. It’s so great having you, you know, Hetty. You’re a real find.’
‘You OK, Jules? You’ve been looking preoccupied recently.’
Jules’s head shot up. ‘I’m just having a few issues at home,’ she said, giving Hetty a weak smile.
‘To do with Saffie?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘You have that mother’s frown on your forehead!’
Jules wished she could blurt out what was really on her mind. ‘There’s always something to worry about,’ she said instead, ‘once you have a child.’
‘You’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child – that’s what my mum used to say,’ said Hetty.
‘Tell me about it,’ said Jules.
*
When Jules got home that afternoon, she went straight to find the bag she had pulled out of the bin and stuffed in the back of the kitchen cupboard. She took it up to her room, sat on her bed and, shutting her eyes as she did so, pulled out the fabric.
She didn’t find what she feared – and half expected – she might. It wasn’t, after all, a scarf or any kind of garment that might have been used to strangle a person to death. The pieces of fabric were barely long enough to go round a small child’s neck. Instead, Jules saw, they were sexy undergarments – a few triangles of silk and a couple of ribbons, barely anything to either piece. They’d been worn, and were Saffie’s size. The sight set Jules’s heart thudding anyway, gave her a hot and uncomfortable feeling in her gut. Why had Saffie bought sexy lingerie like this, worn it, then thrown it into the bin?
Jules went into Saffie’s room and glanced around. She had done this several times in the last week, seeking evidence for the rape. She never really knew what she was looking for, and had found nothing. Now she spotted the Michael Morpurgo book, with a page marked with a little business card. She pulled out the card. It was for a beautician in Cambridge Jules had used herself. She picked it up. A date was scrawled on it, for a wax. The appointment was for next Wednesday at five o’clock. Jules shuddered. Saffie didn’t need to start waxing her legs: her hair was still soft and golden and invisible. When she checked again, however, she saw it wasn’t for a leg wax at all but a bikini wax. A Brazilian. Saffie had only just begun to develop hair there. What was she waxing it off for? Jules resolved to talk to her daughter about that once things were back to normal. If they were ever back to normal.
Jules then opened up her daughter’s laptop. Saffie used a MacBook, one Jules had passed down from the shop. It seemed intrusive looking at it, but since the rape, and everything else – the waxing, the underwear – Jules felt she had a right to look. All Saffie’s emails were innocuous and mostly to friends about the various arrangements they had at the weekends. She had hundreds of WhatsApp and Instagram followers, but none stood out particularly. There were photos of models posing in skimpy underwear, people whose names Jules had heard Saffie mention, girls with what looked like fake eyelashes and enhanced figures, the Instagrammers and YouTubers they all liked to emulate these days. But no photos of Saffie wearing that slinky underwear that Jules could find. Thank God.
Nothing else seemed different to usual. The soft toys Saffie still slept with were piled on the pillow, including the teddy bear Saul had given her when she was born. Thank goodness they were going to sort it all out this afternoon, Jules thought, so that Saffie could reclaim her childhood.
*
At three thirty, Jules listened out for Saffie. She was keen to get the visit to Donna over and done with, the pregnancy terminated once and for all.
Saffie, however, still hadn’t come in by four. The early school bus usually dropped them off at around three forty-five, and Saffie had promised to get it today, in order to be in time for her appointment. When by four thirty she still wasn’t home, Jules began to feel anxious. She reassured herself – if Saffie had missed the first bus, she would be back at five. Or sometimes Saffie stayed to chat to the others at the bus stop before ambling home, forgetting the time. But it seemed highly unlikely she would do so when she had the appointment hanging over her.
Jules became more uneasy as the clock turned past five. If Saffie wasn’t back soon, they would be late.
Jules texted her.
‘Where are you? Have you forgotten the doctor?’
It was getting dark. Jules began to really fret. Saffie was usually good at texting straight back, but the minutes went by and no text came. Should she get in the car and look for her? But then if Saffie took the shortcut through the housing estate from the bus stop on the green, Jules would miss her.
She would wait.
*
It was five thirty when Saffie finally came in. Fifteen minutes late for the doctor.
Jules stood in front of her, arms folded.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Nowhere.’ Saffie pushed past her mother and headed for the stairs.
‘Do you realize you’ve missed the appointment? I’m going to have to phone and make another one and—’
‘I don’t need to go to the doctor.’
‘Saffie. We’ve waited all week for this. Come on. I know it’s scary for you. But you’ll feel much better once we’ve spoken to Donna. You knew about the appointment. Why were you so late home?’
‘My maths teacher wanted to talk about my assign
ment.’
‘If I were to ring your maths teacher, would he confirm that for me?’
‘Why do you want to ring him?’ Saffie snapped, swinging round. ‘He’ll think you’re insane.’
‘Because something’s going on with you, Saffie . . . You’re not telling me everything. I think you’re finding ways to avoid dealing with this whole thing! Why didn’t you tell him you had an appointment?’
‘How could I tell him? What did you expect me to say?’
‘There’s no shame in saying you had a doctor’s appointment.’
‘Why won’t you leave me alone?’ Saffie wailed. ‘You go on and on and on at me and I can’t take any more!’ She was backing away from Jules, her face screwed up – furious, or terrified; probably both.
Jules was angry with herself; this wasn’t the time to start chastising her daughter. Not when they needed to get to Donna’s. Not when she was clearly so distressed about the looming abortion.
‘OK. Listen, Saffie. I understand this is very difficult for you, but right now we need to get you to Donna. I want you to get in the car.’
‘I’m not going.’ She stomped up the stairs.
‘I’ll phone the surgery and explain we’ve been held up,’ Jules called after her. ‘I’ll say we’ll be there in ten minutes.’
Jules was dialling the surgery when Saffie’s footsteps came banging fast down the stairs again. She’d changed out of her uniform into jeans and a bomber jacket.
‘I’m not going to the doctor,’ Saffie said, walking backwards towards the front door. ‘I don’t need to see her because I’m not pregnant.’
And then she hurled the door open and slammed it hard as she went out into the darkness.
‘Saffie, wait!’ Jules cried. But Saffie had gone.
Jules grabbed a coat as the receptionist answered.
‘Yes?’
‘I had an appointment with Donna Browne.’ Jules was panting, pulling on her Barbour jacket as she spoke. ‘We’re late, but it’s really urgent. Can I make it later? Say six?’
‘I’ll have a look for you.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Jules said. ‘Please could Dr Browne phone me back?’
Jules tugged on her wellies. As she flung back the door in pursuit of Saffie, her mobile rang and she snatched it up, expecting to hear Donna Browne’s measured voice.
‘Jules? It’s Pete. Holly isn’t there, is she?’
‘Now’s not a good time, Pete.’
‘I’m worried about her,’ he said. ‘She’s very distressed. She’s gone out without telling me where she’s going and I’m concerned for her. She’s in a terrible state. I’m worried she might do something foolish.’
Jules felt sick.
‘Has something happened?’ she asked.
‘They found a body,’ Pete said. ‘The remains of. Up near the Ouse Washes. The state of it is consistent with the time Saul went missing.’
‘The Ouse Washes?’
Jules stared at the phone. It was where Rowan had gone that morning! To Downham Market. Past the Ouse Washes. The day Saul had gone off to school and never arrived.
The Ouse Washes was a broad stretch of flat, marshy land that acted as a floodplain in weather like this. It lay between the major drains of the Fens, the Old Bedford River and the Hundred Foot Drain. When those channels flooded, they spilt onto the plains, along with whatever waste they were carrying. Jules had been up there with Rowan and Saffie soon after they moved to the area, to watch from a bird hide as swans glided in to feed. She had seen how the water deepened and widened as winter approached. It was a remote, underpopulated area, where the wide stretches of flat water reflected the vast, empty Fenland sky, so the world seemed turned upside down. Where you could walk for hours and not see another living soul. Where there were long, secluded ditches behind high banks.
Where you could do what you wanted and never be seen.
‘They’re trying to identify the body, but it’s in quite a bad state, apparently. They didn’t want Holly to know. It wasn’t all in one piece, let’s say. And they can’t move it until they’ve done various forensic tests, in case . . . I don’t want to tell you the details.’
Stars began to appear in the air above Jules, and she gagged. She clutched the table and put her head between her knees. When the sense she was about to pass out subsided, she sat down.
‘Holly’s not here, though,’ she said when she could speak. Her voice was dry. All she could think of was Saffie out there in the dark. It was irrational, in a way, to link this with what Pete had just told her, but something was out there. Something or someone capable of rendering a body unidentifiable in a matter of days. ‘I have to go.’
She slammed down the phone. Grabbed her keys. She had to protect Saffie from whatever evil was lurking out there in the Fens.
Or maybe even within her own walls.
*
There were only two routes Saffie could possibly take from their house in the dark. One was along the road over the railway line towards the village. Saffie had been told not to cross the railway in the dark. Only six months ago, a man had been minced up by the wheels of the King’s Lynn–King’s Cross service. The other was down to the river, a place she often met her friends on a fine summer’s evening. Jules was happy for her to go there when it was daylight because she could actually see the lock from the house. But not this evening. Not when body parts had been found up near the Ouse Washes. And when Saffie was so obviously not herself. Jules wanted her home and safe. Not out there as it grew darker and the wind got up.
As she reached the track that ran from their house down to the river, she could see her daughter, a small figure silhouetted against the first light of a large moon, leaning into the wind, moving along the flood bank. From where Jules stood, she appeared to be the only living thing on the landscape, heading towards the lock. Poor Saffie. Jules should have realized the enormity of the impending abortion for her daughter. She should have dealt with it differently. Sooner. Taken Saff straight to a specialist clinic even if Saffie hadn’t wanted her to. Saffie had said she wasn’t pregnant as she’d slammed out of the door, which was obviously her last-gasp attempt to avoid the truth. She was clearly more terrified of having the termination than Jules had fully realized.
It was hard for Jules to run along the track in her wellies. The ground underfoot was thick with wet mud, which sucked at her feet. She should have put on trainers and taken the road, but she hadn’t thought about that in her rush. The sun sank behind the horizon and Jules stumbled on as best she could in the dark. She would reassure Saffie that the appointment would be over very quickly, and that she would be fine. She would not let her know what Pete had told her on the phone; she didn’t know how exactly she would keep this news from Saffie, but she knew she had to, because otherwise Saffie would think she was to blame, and who knew where that would lead them? They were already in about as bad a place as possible. All of them. Saffie. Jules. Holly. Saul.
Saul most of all, from what Pete had said, because there was no hope for him. Jules swallowed the feelings that threatened to engulf her at this thought, and tried to focus instead on catching up with her daughter.
17
HOLLY
Saffie stops a few feet from me and stares. I can see she wants to turn and run away, but we can’t avoid each other here on the bridge. I have a compulsion to take her by the shoulders and shake her. Slap her, even. Beat the truth out of her. But the look on her face – sheer horror that she’s bumped into me, and something else, her childishness perhaps, or helplessness – stops me.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, amazed at how calm and normal, even, I sound.
‘I had a row with Mum,’ Saffie says, and I see now that she’s terrified, her skin pale beneath the make-up, her voice tight. ‘She keeps on nagging me about where I’ve been.’
I look at Saffie, my odd daughter. At her heart-shaped face under her bobble hat. At her carefully shaped eyebrows and the thick mascara and
the veil of foundation that doesn’t properly cover her. I want to shout that she doesn’t need to do this. To plaster her lovely face with make-up. To act older than her age. To stick to the story that Saul raped her.
When I do speak again, my voice is faint. ‘Do you want to talk to me about it?’
It’s almost completely dark, but a large moon has risen and the wind has dropped and it’s become mild, almost warm. We lean on the damp railing and Saffie takes a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket, cups her hand and lights one.
‘Don’t tell Mum,’ she says, inhaling. Her hand holding the cigarette is trembling and I wonder what’s made her so palpably distressed. She can’t have heard about Saul. Only Pete and I and the police know.
‘I’ll have one, too, if you don’t mind,’ I say. ‘I’ve had a nasty a shock. It’s been one hell of a shit day.’
‘Do you want to talk to me about it?’ Saffie says.
I glance at her.
Yes. She’s making an attempt at a joke.
She hands me a cigarette and flicks her Bic lighter for me. The flame flares up, and I put my cigarette end to it and inhale, watching it glow amber in the darkness. It’s years since I’ve smoked. The effect is swift. My head swims. My lungs instantly reject the sensation. I cough, then gasp for breath. Saffie’s far more experienced at this than I am. She’s inhaling without a flicker of discomfort. But I need it. So I puff again, and inhale. It occurs to me briefly to tell Saffie she shouldn’t be smoking since she’s only thirteen, let alone the fact she’s pregnant. Instead, I say, ‘I need to sit down,’ and walk towards the bank. She follows me, and we sit, not caring about the wet mud or the damp that seeps up through our coats.
‘Has something horrible happened?’ Saffie asks at last, her voice tiny. A child’s. ‘It has. Something’s happened to Saul, hasn’t it?’
I Thought I Knew You Page 27