by Darren Young
‘Is that how she died?’
He nodded. ‘She overdosed. The day before. Died before the ambulance got to her. This lad’s mother said he had to come and tell us, and that he should bring you with him.’
Danni winced. Her whole body was shaking.
‘He told us what had happened, what hospital Julie had been taken to, and he more or less begged us to take you and of course we did. He handed over this bag with a few clothes and a doll and we never saw or heard from him again.’
Danni wiped her eye.
‘Mum took you upstairs, gave you a bath and put you to bed. You were not even three years old and you didn’t make a fuss at all. I went to see Julie’s body at the hospital and, when I got back, we sat up all night talking about what to do. We’d lost a daughter and found out we were grandparents in all of about five minutes. But we knew Julie would have wanted us to make sure we didn’t make the same mistakes as we did with her, so that’s what we set out to do.’
Danni’s eyes widened.
‘Your mum said it was a second chance; that we owed it to Julie. We always said we’d wait till you were old enough to really understand and then tell you.’
‘But?’
‘The older you got, the more you became our daughter. We never thought of you as anything else in the way we raised you. When you got to fourteen, Mum said we should tell you, but it was me that persuaded her to leave things as they were.’
‘How come?’
‘You were happy. It seemed wrong to just rip up everything you knew and believed, and I couldn’t see what good would come from it.’
‘You did what you both thought was best.’
‘What I thought was best. We hadn’t told anyone. We moved house and just kept up the pretence; no one knew any differently and I began to think it was better, for you and for us, if you never knew.’
He hesitated. Another tear formed in his eye and began to roll down his cheek.
‘Your mum wasn’t comfortable with it. It really made her so unhappy; she always hated living with the secret. The longer it went on, the worse she got; I worried what she might do. She thought that you had the right to know, which was true of course, and we ended up disagreeing about it, which made her feel even worse. I said that we should wait. And then, after her accident, I didn’t know what to do. You’d already lost your mum. How could I tell you about Julie after that?’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘Then you began asking questions, understandably, and I didn’t have the answers. No birth certificate that I could let you see, no photos. I knew you had to know the truth, but I didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘I understand.’
Danni wasn’t sure he even heard her. He was staring ahead, his eyes glazed over as he opened his heart up. A tear fell down her cheek too and she looked at Thomas. His eyes were hollow. He looked completely crushed.
‘I was scared I would lose you too.’
‘You won’t lose me. You did the right thing.’
‘What?’ It seemed as if he was finally hearing her.
‘I needed parents. Of course I wish Julie hadn’t died, she gave birth to me, but she couldn’t look after me. I never knew her or … ’
‘We just wanted you to have a normal life.’
‘And I did have. You and Mum couldn’t have done any more for me. When I needed it most, you gave me everything and more.’
They both stood up and began to cry as they hugged each other tightly.
‘As far as I’m concerned,’ said Danni, pulling him closer, ‘you’re my dad. You always have been and you always will be.’
83 | Laura
Laura sat on the sofa, her tongue constantly finding the side of her mouth where they’d taken the swab from, the way it always did for the few hours after you’d had treatment at the dentist.
She waited, although she was no longer entirely sure what she was waiting for, and she could still smell the surgical bag they’d put the blue cotton-tipped swab-stick into, even though it had been more than twenty minutes since the bearded policeman had shown the nurse out. Another half-hour passed; she began re-reading some of the stories in the paper, and she was about to call out and try to get some answers when the bearded officer came back in with a friendly smile.
‘You OK, love?’
‘Not really.’
He smiled sympathetically and nodded. ‘Thought not. You’d better come with me, then. You’re on the move.’
He led Laura into the corridor and to the reception area she’d first arrived at, which now seemed a long time ago. A blonde woman with a sharp face who introduced herself as Detective Constable Wicks was standing next to the desk. She held out her hand and shook Laura’s, while apologising for the time she’d been kept waiting, blaming procedure and the snow. She also told Laura they were taking her to another station, a larger one, where she could see Danni and finally give a statement.
‘What about Sandra?’ Laura asked.
‘We’re working on that.’ The detective refused to commit and ushered Laura towards the exit door.
‘You take care now,’ the friendly officer called as she left the building, and she gave him a nod and goodbye wave as DC Wicks closed the door behind her.
The drive was only twelve miles, but the problems on the roads made for a slow and frustrating journey. The detective spent much of it muttering under-her-breath expletives at other drivers who weren’t as capable in the snowy conditions as she was.
‘What happens now?’
The detective glanced at Laura in her rear-view mirror. ‘We need to get a statement, first and foremost,’ she said, ‘and, after that, I suppose we just go from there.’
‘Go from there?’
The detective smiled. ‘This is a new one for me, for everyone actually, so one step at a time.’
Laura nodded. It was new for her too.
They pulled on to the gritted black tarmac car park of a shiny new police station and Wicks led Laura into its reception area, where they were greeted, logged in by a desk sergeant and shown to a door at the side of the reception hatch that he buzzed open. It opened on to a corridor with three doors on either side. ‘Room Four,’ he said to the detective, and they walked down towards the last one on the left.
‘Don’t I get a phone call?’ Laura said as they reached it.
Wicks laughed. ‘You’re not under arrest.’
‘So can I make a call?’
The detective looked around; they were alone in the corridor and the door had closed behind them. She took her mobile phone from her pocket and handed it to Laura. ‘Nothing controversial. Just a quick hello and I’m all right, OK? Do you know the number?’
Laura nodded. She dialled the Gazette. Sue answered; her surprise at hearing Laura’s voice was obvious.
‘Is David there, Sue?’ Laura knew he would be. It was almost nine and David would have been at his desk for at least an hour and a half by that time. She asked Sue to transfer her, telling her it was important, and David’s PA obliged.
‘Laura? How are—?’
‘David. I can’t speak for long. I just needed to tell you something.’
Wicks looked at her and frowned.
‘Yes?’ said the editor.
‘I’m Jessica Preston.’
The words, almost shouted rather than spoken, caught in her throat. Wicks tried to swipe the phone from her grasp but Laura ducked away. Through the handset, David Weatherall’s voice was asking her to repeat what she had said. The detective glared at her, grabbing her wrist and holding it in a vice grip.
‘Jessica Preston! I’m the child that was taken, David. Print it!’ she shouted as the detective yanked the phone from her hand and ended the call.
‘What are you playing at?’
‘I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.’
Laura stared at the detective, who shook her head and put her phone back in her pocket and shrugged. ‘I guess it’s going to come out anyway.’
They walked down to Room Four and, as Wicks pushed the door open to let Laura in, another door opened at the top of the corridor behind them and the desk sergeant came through, surprised to see they were still there. Wicks looked at him and tried to usher Laura inside the interview room, but she heard a voice and shrugged her off.
‘Can someone tell me what I’m doing here?’
The voice was so distinctive. It was a woman’s; weary, and more than a little angry too. Laura had heard it so many times recently, she didn’t need to look, but she did anyway.
Sandra Preston walked through the door at the end of the corridor, followed by a uniformed officer.
‘If we can just get to the interview room, Mrs Preston,’ the officer said softly, ‘we can explain everything in there.’
Sandra looked up. At first she didn’t react when she saw them, and was about to argue with the officer, and then she did a double-take. ‘You!’
Laura froze to the spot.
‘Mrs Preston,’ the officer was saying, looking up and seeing Laura and the detective still in the corridor ahead of him. He tried to put an arm on Sandra’s shoulder but she pulled clear and began marching towards them.
DC Wicks stood in front of Laura outside Room Four.
‘You!’ Sandra shouted loudly, quickening her steps. ‘Where is she?’
‘Mrs Preston … ’
The officer was a couple of paces back now and DC Wicks stepped into Sandra’s path, communicating with a simple look for the officer to leave her be.
‘You said you were bringing my daughter to me!’ Sandra Preston reached Wicks and looked over her shoulder at Laura, her eyes raging with anger and frustration. Laura realised she’d never seen her face like this before – she was usually looking out of the window and sideways on, but now she could see all her features. She was only a few feet away, and Wicks stepped aside. ‘You said you were bringing my daughter!’ Sandra shouted, her words echoing around the corridor. ‘You said you’d bring her to me!’
The policeman and the detective looked at each other but didn’t move.
Sandra stopped right in front of Laura. She put her face right up close, and Laura stood her ground, staring back, unable to find any words.
And, for the very first time, Sandra Preston looked directly into her eyes.
Epilogue
You know, now I’m actually here it’s not as bad as I imagined it would be.
I’m in a cell of my own and I spend hours in the library reading, or on the computer, or talking to the librarian, Mrs Aston, and so far she hasn’t judged me or, if she has, she’s not shown it. The routine’s there but I also get to exercise for at least an hour a day. There are no monsters screaming my name in the dark, or ambushing me in the showers.
OK, so it’s only been three months; who knows how I’ll feel after a year or more? But this is my new home now – for the next ten years with good behaviour – so thank goodness it’s not the hell I’ve seen in my nightmares.
When I came around in the ambulance, and found my hands in cuffs and fastened to a stretcher, and as one of the police officers in there with me read me my rights and informed me that I was under arrest for the abduction and unlawful imprisonment of Jessica Preston, I was actually thankful that I wasn’t under arrest for her murder.
I had no recollection of what had happened – the last thing I remembered was Helen standing in front of me in the garage doorway – but I felt the pain from the cut on my head, which ended up taking eight stitches to close, and the stinging in my eyes from where she’d sprayed me. I think the police officers must have thought I was mad, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat, as we reached the secure hospital where they sewed up the opening in my head.
But then, they didn’t realise I was finally free.
Free from the lies. Well, almost. I just had one more to tell.
In the hospital room, the police hung around while the doctor stitched me up and told them I probably needed to rest before they began questioning me. No, I told him, I was ready to tell them everything.
I began by saying that my wife had been suffering with severe depression when she took the child that day. Which was very true. She’d had three miscarriages in the previous two years, we’d had all the tests, tried IVF, and then she’d finally been told she’d never be able to have children, so she hadn’t been in control of her actions on that beach. I told them that when she got back, when I saw what she had done, I was the one who had said we should keep her even though she begged me to take them both back to the beach, or to the police, at that very moment. I told them that she had wanted to confess her crime then, and for more than twenty years since, but that I had always stopped her. That I had been desperate for a child, but also because I wanted to keep us both out of prison. I told them I was a controlling and intimidating husband of whom she lived in perpetual fear, so much so that she would probably try to take the blame herself when they questioned her. I admitted that when the truth began to surface she had wanted us to hand ourselves in, even that late on, but that I had threatened and eventually beat her to prevent that happening. The medical records were there to prove it; they just needed to check. I told them I had become consumed by the secret and would have done anything to keep it hidden. That I had long since crossed the line, and would have continued to cross it had my wife not had to use a wrench to stop me. My wife had saved lives.
Because of what I said, and her intervention, they gave Helen less than two years – just under ten months’ jail time if she co-operates – for her part in this. And of course she’ll do as she’s told. It’s a chance to start again. Without me. I don’t think she’ll ever put a foot out of line again.
Everything I did, it was for her. As I told you at the start, I love her. Always have.
What would you have done?
I can’t believe it’s already been three months.
Three months since I walked out of High Cliffs House with my dusty suitcase – a suitcase that still had plenty of room in it after I’d packed everything I owned. Three months since I began the process of reintegrating into a society I’d long left behind and hadn’t thought I’d ever return to.
It hasn’t been easy. You can quickly become institutionalised, even when it’s you who has exiled yourself in that institution to begin with. But, three months ago, the only thing I had to live for was the tiniest sliver of hope that my daughter might one day find me again.
Now I have so much more to look forward to – and I’m playing catch-up as it is – so everything they’ve put me through – it’s all worth it. I’ve been through three months of counselling – we both have, actually – plus heaven only knows how many psychoanalytical tests, assessments and role plays; not to mention the endless bloody form-filling, just to get this far.
But you don’t simply pick up where you left off when you haven’t seen someone for twenty-one years; that was never realistic. It was always going to take a lot of work, and it has, and we’re not completely there yet, but it’s a landmark moment this afternoon.
You see, today, we’re seeing Stuart for the first time in what seems like for ever, and it more or less is for his sister. He’s twenty-nine now, with a wife and a young baby of his own, can you believe?
Am I scared? Of course. Most things are scary these days – but in a good way.
And I’ve had worse days, put it that way.
Now, my daughter and I are building our relationship from scratch. One piece at a time. I didn’t expect her to be able to just waltz into my life, and I haven’t been able to waltz right into hers, but we’re working on it, and we’ll get there.
It’s wonderful but also weird. They can’t prepare you for some of the obstacles that come up almost every day – for instance, what I should call her, and her me. She’s been Laura her whole life; the part she can remember, anyway. It’s who she is. You don’t lose that.
So, one step at a time. She’s moved into an apartment, she and her do
g, and we only live a few miles apart. She’s had so many job offers she’s lost count – she could work for virtually any newspaper in the world right now – but she wants to see how she feels when all the media attention has settled down and she’s adjusted to the changes in her life.
We get together a few times a week, and talk every day on the phone, and we rebuild piece by piece. She’s making a new life for herself, meeting new people, and I’m trying to do the same. In that sense, we’re both starting from zero. I’ve had to learn to look at people again, but it’s a lot easier now.
I still go to High Cliffs House, but as a visitor. I went to see Violet Stanton – we’re on first-name terms now – and we’ve set up a programme to help the patients interact more and not get so disconnected from the world outside. At the moment I’m teaching a group, including Mary and Tony, how to play poker. Tony’s quite good – he can bluff with the best of them. Mary’s rubbish, but at least she’s stopped climbing on the windowsills quite so much.
But this afternoon feels like a big step into a new world.
The powers-that-be believe that not only am I ready to rejoin society, but I can see my son again.
My son. Her brother. She can hardly believe it.
She’ll be here any moment now.
I can’t help thinking about what she’s been through, or if, when she looks at me, she thinks I should have taken better care of her. That she was just a small child and I let her down by allowing that woman to take her.
But I don’t think she does. She doesn’t work like that. Neither of us works like that. Everyone I speak to presumes that I’ll never forgive those people for what they did, but, every time I look at my daughter, I find myself grateful instead.
Grateful because they took such good care of her and made her the person she is today.
I sense my daughter has that same confusion, not knowing if it’s right to feel the way she does when logic says she shouldn’t. But they loved her as if she were their own for more than twenty years; you don’t wipe that away at a stroke. She even wrote a letter to the court asking the judge to pass the most lenient sentence he could. She asked me beforehand if I was OK with it, because if I wasn’t she wouldn’t do it.