Nausea rises inside me, then subsides and, at last I have a clear and coherent thought. I need to call the police. 999. The long-ago-learned emergency number. The national safety net.
I look down. I have dropped not only the stick I was holding but Bernard’s phone, which I know was in my hand when I heard the noise from the lock-up. But my own phone is still in my pocket. I reach into my jeans but before I can draw it out, a twig snaps to my right and I look up and he’s standing there.
Art.
Mummy always said I should be careful of the Bad People. But that day, when they came, I didn’t know they were Bad People so it wasn’t fair when I got home and Mummy was cross at me. I tried to tell Mummy I didn’t know, but she was shouting too hard to hear me. She said she always told me to watch out for strangers especially when she is not here and that lady was a stranger and so why was I letting her take my photo? And then Daddy came in and told her to stop yelling and then she was shouting at Daddy that he was Hardly Ever Here and it was All His Fault and then they made me go upstairs.
I sat on my bed and looked at the dressing gown I’d imagined before was a Bad Lady and then Mummy came and said what I had already guessed, that the lady outside school was a Bad Lady in real life, which was why Kelly pulled me away all rough and Mummy was upset.
Mummy said Daddy and she would deal with the Bad Lady but if she ever came again I would have to be her brave knight and do really clever fighting. That was a baby way to put it, because knights like that are just in stories, but I was only young then. Mummy said the Bad Lady would tell me lies and try to Poison My Mind against her and that I had to remember she is my real mummy, no matter what anyone says or if they try to trick me.
Then she told me her Special Fighting Plan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Art and I stare at each other. His face is pale, his dark eyes appalled.
‘Gen?’
He takes a step towards me, through the trees. The twigs on the ground snap under his shoes. He stops and puts his hand against the bark of the tree beside him, just a few feet away.
Bernard’s body flashes into my mind’s eye.
‘You killed him,’ I breathe.
‘No.’ Art shakes his head. ‘No, Gen, not that. I didn’t do that.’
‘Yes, you lied and you took our baby away and now you’re a murderer.’
Art stares at me. His eyes are an agony of feeling. ‘No, that’s not it. Oh, Gen.’ He walks closer towards me. The sun vanishes behind his head. My whole body is trembling.
Art stands right in front of me. ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘Please. I know I’ve lied and it’s unforgivable and . . .’ He takes a deep breath. ‘What matters is now. I’m going to tell you the truth. Just listen.’
I don’t believe him. I want to run, but my legs are rooted to the spot.
‘Bernard O’Donnell knew what you were doing and you killed him and . . .’ Panic whirls up in my head. ‘Are you here to kill me? Is that next? Are you going to kill me?’
‘No, Gen.’ Art’s eyes are pleading with me to believe him. His desperation is in the lines on his forehead and the hunch of his shoulders. He’s wearing a shirt I gave him. It’s the one with the tiny hidden rip on the back of the collar. How can I know such a minor detail about Art’s life but have no idea whether he might be about to try and kill me?
‘What the hell have you done, Art?’
He rubs his temple. It’s such a familiar gesture and yet he is now a stranger.
‘Please, listen, Gen. It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill O’Donnell.’
I stare at him. ‘But you know who did?’
‘Yes.’ He must be talking about the woman he’s with . . . the evil bitch who has my baby.
‘Who is she?’ I snarl.
Art shakes his head. ‘There’s no time.’
‘You said you’d tell me the truth.’ I feel myself standing straighter. This might be a new Art but it’s a new me, too, and I feel strong in the face of his helplessness. ‘Tell me who this woman is for whom you have betrayed absolutely everything between us?’ My voice rises. I’m almost shouting. I push myself off my tree and fold my arms. The light in the patch of woodland is almost silvery. Clouds are gathering around the sun. I can smell the hint of rain in the air. I steady my gaze.
‘You took our baby away,’ I yell. ‘You paid the doctor and the other staff to say he was a girl and that she was stillborn. You looked me in the eye and you lied to me. All these things are true. And you did it all for some other woman.’
The wind drops and the trees are silent. Art keeps his gaze fixed on my face. His eyes fill with shame. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, all these things are true.’
I wait for him to defend himself, for the inevitable ‘but’ at the end of the sentence. But Art simply hangs his head.
A devastating calm settles inside me. Art has, at last, admitted what he has done. I’m not going insane. And yet there is still no resolution. The enormity of his betrayal is barely conceivable.
‘Who is she?’ I’m shaking with rage.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Art rubs his forehead. The first drops of rain fall.
‘What?’ I shout. ‘What d’you mean it doesn’t matter? Who is she? Is it Sandrine?’
‘Gen, please.’
‘Charlotte West?’
Art shakes his head. ‘I don’t even know who that is.’
‘The woman from my writing class who called you twelve times in one day just before she came to our house. You said you didn’t know her.’
Art frowns. ‘I don’t. I did get a load of calls, but that’s been happening off and on since The Trials. If she tried to call me I don’t remember it. The only time I spoke to that woman was when she showed up on our doorstep.’
I stare at him. I’m almost certain he’s lying again. I’m not going to tell him Charlotte West called me earlier. Responding to him means engaging with him – he’ll think I’m starting to buy into what he’s telling me. And I won’t do that.
‘I want to meet her.’
‘What?’ Art frowns.
‘The woman. Charlotte or whoever. Your woman.’
‘No, Gen. That’s crazy.’
‘How dare you say anything I want is crazy after you made me feel I was going insane about Beth. Losing her. Finding she’s a boy, for God’s sake. I have a right to meet—’
‘You can’t,’ Art says.
‘Why?’ I demand. ‘Do I know her?’ My mind ransacks the options. I can’t bear to think it, but I have to ask. ‘Is it Hen?’
‘No, no.’
‘Does Hen know who it is?’
‘Gen, please.’
‘So if Hen doesn’t know, why did you pay off all her debts and not tell me?’
Art’s eyes widen with surprise. ‘Because she was desperate and the last thing you needed was to have to deal with her problems on top of everything else. I’d honestly forgotten about it when you asked me that first time.’
I stare at him. I have no idea whether he’s telling me the truth or not.
‘None of this is like you think, Gen,’ Art pleads. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Then bloody explain it,’ I shout. ‘Because I think I have a right to know who she is, this woman my son calls Mummy.’
‘I can’t tell you who she is, but we’re not, it’s never . . . it’s . . . you’re the only one who matters.’ Art’s chest heaves. ‘Oh Gen, I love you so much.’
‘You lie to me for eight years, you give my baby to another woman and you expect me to believe that you love me?’ The contempt in my voice is acid.
Art rubs his temple furiously. ‘I don’t expect anything,’ he says. ‘I’m just trying to explain that everything I did was to protect you.’
‘What?’ It’s raining harder now, the pattering on the leaves drowning out the distant hum of the traffic. ‘How is any of this to protect me?’
‘I can’t explain without putting you in more danger,’ Art says. ‘The Renners – Bit
sy and Bobs – when you started digging around, she warned them about you. And Kelly as well.’
‘They know I’m your wife?’
Art looks ashamed. He takes a deep breath. ‘They think you’re mentally unstable, potentially violent.’
‘What?’
‘That’s how we explained me being on The Trials as Art Loxley, why I have to use a different name down here. They think, she told them, that you might be a danger to . . . us . . .’ He tails off.
‘A danger?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
‘Once we knew you’d seen the Fair Angel CCTV film, she was scared you’d find out about Ed,’ Art explains. ‘She showed Bitsy and Bobs and Kelly your picture and told them to warn her immediately if they saw you snooping around Shepton.’
I stare at him blankly. Why on earth has Art been prepared to go along with all this?
‘Don’t you see what that means?’ Art goes on. ‘She knows you’re here. You have to go. Go back to London.’
‘Don’t be so bloody melodramatic. You can’t seriously think I’m just going to walk away?’ I shake my head. It’s almost impossible to believe the man standing in front of me with rain dripping down his face is my proud, driven, successful husband. I shudder as I look at him. A drop of water trickles down my spine. ‘Come on, Art. If you’re not going to kill me, what danger am I in?’
There’s a pause, then Art glances in the direction of the lock-up. ‘You’re right. She did . . . that . . .’
An image of Bernard’s twisted body forces its way into my mind’s eye.
We stand in silence for a moment. A car hums in the distance. Rain patters around us.
‘You’re saying she’ll kill me?’
‘She might, Gen.’ Art meets my gaze. His eyes are pleading with me.
Hurt and fury rise up inside me. ‘You think she might kill me and you still won’t tell me who she is.’
‘I don’t know for sure what she’ll do,’ Art says. ‘But the closer you get to her, the more danger you’re in. I saw her kill O’Donnell. She guessed he might follow us. That’s why she made me meet her at the lock-up, not the house. But when he turned up she got hysterical because he’d seen her . . . It wasn’t done in cold blood, she panicked and the gun was in her hand, so . . . Look, it’s simple, Gen. You’re just not safe if you keep pushing at this.’
I stare at him.
‘Art, you have to go to the police.’
His eyes widen with alarm. ‘No.’
‘It’s not just Bernard O’Donnell, is it? The bitch killed his wife, Lucy, too, and the anaesthetist, Gary Bloode, didn’t she? And she sent that guy to mug me . . . to take the memory stick with the CCTV footage?’
‘I don’t know about Bloode or Lucy O’Donnell.’ Art’s voice is a whisper. ‘But yes, she arranged to get the memory stick back. I didn’t know at the time, but Rodriguez told her you’d taken it and—’
‘And now you’re saying she’s going to kill me?’
She’s terrified that she’ll lose everything . . .
‘And she’ll do anything to stop me from being with him? With our son . . .’
The two words slam into me. Our son. It should have been me and Art taking him shopping on Saturdays, holding his hand, walking him home from school. Instead, some other woman has become his mother . . . stolen years of his life from me. I can barely take it in.
‘Why have you done this, Art?’ My voice breaks as a tidal wave of images washes over me: the lilies at Beth’s funeral, arguing with Mum about scattering the ashes – I’d wanted to scatter them on the South Coast, like we did with Dad; she wanted a service at the crematorium – the willow tree through the window of the Fair Angel hospital, the white babygro, soft and empty in my hands. All of it built around an illusion – the lilies for a death that was a birth, the ashes only wood and dust, the pain and the memories. All for nothing. ‘How could you do this to me? I don’t understand . . . why did you give her our baby?’
‘I had to,’ Art says, his voice barely audible. The rain has stopped now, but our hair is plastered to our heads, our clothes soaked through.
‘Why did you have to?’ I persist. ‘What on earth could justify taking a little boy away from his mother?’ I pause. ‘What could justify destroying my life?’
‘I can’t explain, Gen, you’re safer if you don’t know.’ Art rubs his arms. He’s only wearing a thin jumper over his shirt. It’s dirty as well as wet.
‘I’m safer?’ I say. ‘If I’m really in this much danger, why can’t you stop her? Why can’t you just go to the police?’
‘That won’t work.’
‘Art, this is crazy. You’re talking about this woman as if she’s beyond the law or something. You’ve admitted to me that you saw her murder Bernard O’Donnell. Let’s just go to the police and tell them.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Art says. ‘My word won’t count for anything, not if people find out about Ed and . . . and how I got everyone to lie that he was stillborn.’
‘Then you have to tell the police about that. Tell them how she forced you to give up our baby. Tell me.’
There’s a long pause as a breeze rustles the branches above us, sending a patter of raindrops onto our heads.
‘Paying Rodriguez to lie about Ed and paying the others involved to keep quiet about it was the price of your safety,’ he says. ‘Lying about Ed is still the price of your safety.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I say.
‘Back then, when Ed was born . . . she said she would kill you if I didn’t do what she said. So I had to choose,’ he says slowly. ‘A straightforward choice, between you and Ed. I chose you. I chose to keep you alive and to let Ed go, knowing that he would be safe and looked after and I could come here, like I do every couple of weeks, and spend a few hours so I would still get to be his father.’
‘But I wouldn’t get to be his mother?’ I spit the words out.
‘I thought, back then, that you and I could have another baby,’ Art says. ‘I always thought that. I didn’t imagine for a second that you wouldn’t be pregnant again within months.’
‘But I wasn’t Art, was I?’ Pain twists inside me. ‘I didn’t get pregnant again. I didn’t get to be a mother. Anyway, how did you know this woman of yours – that you were so prepared to give everything to – wouldn’t demand the next baby or the one after that?’
‘It was atonement,’ Art says. ‘I owed her. One baby was the payment.’
‘You’re not making any sense. Payment for what?’ I take out my phone. ‘If you won’t do it, then I’m calling the police.’
‘Please don’t, Gen. Please think about what I’m saying. If you do that, you won’t ever see Ed again.’
I hesitate, my hand over the keypad on my phone. ‘That’s rubbish. I know where he lives . . . where he goes to school . . .’
‘She’ll take him away. She’ll stop you,’ Art insists. ‘Look, she and I just argued about it. I said I would try and get you to back off. That if you did, there’d be no need to . . . to take things any further.’
‘And what did she say?’ The words fly furiously out of me.
‘She didn’t say anything for sure, but I can persuade her to leave you alone. It can end here, if you’ll just back away.’
‘And if I don’t, she’s going to kill me?’
‘I honestly think that she might. Before, when you started snooping around, I thought I could handle her but now, after O’Donnell . . . Please, Gen, Ed is okay. He’s looked after. He has a stable life. He’s not being abused or unloved. I visit him when I can. Just let it go.’
‘Are you listening to what you’re asking?’ My voice rises, tears choking me. ‘You’re asking me to forget he’s my son . . . to walk away. It’s impossible.’
‘It’s the only way you’ll be safe. If you let all this go everything can carry on as before. I’m in this brilliant position with work. I’m advising the Prime Minister on policy and he’s listening. I’m in his inne
r circle, Gen . . .’
‘What’s your work got to do with this?’ I say, disgusted. Is this woman somehow connected with Loxley Benson and Art’s government contract? My mind flashes immediately to vivacious Sandrine. ‘It is her,’ I insist. ‘Sandrine. She came to our party with her hus—’
‘No.’ Art shakes his head. ‘I didn’t mean . . . my work itself doesn’t have anything to do with this, but there are reasons . . . I won’t be able to work if you carry on pushing this . . .’
‘I’m not pushing anything. And I don’t care about your bloody work. I’ve just found out that—’
‘You have to go away. Back home or . . . maybe even somewhere abroad. Just for a while, so I can calm things down.’
‘You’re mad.’ I press the ‘9’ on my keypad once. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Let Lorcan help you get away,’ Art says.
My finger stops, poised over the ‘9’. ‘Lorcan?’ I look up, my heart thudding.
‘I know you’ve been with him,’ Art growls. ‘I know he’s helped you already, so let him help you get out of the country.’ His expression grows fiercer. ‘Though that’s all you should let him do, he’s not good enough for you any other way.’
‘Why? Because of him sleeping with a client’s wife?’ I snap. ‘I know the truth about that now, Art. It was you who slept with her.’
Art’s face reddens. ‘That was a long time ago,’ he says.
‘That was a lie. Another lie. Jesus, Art, I don’t know who you are any more.’
There’s a long pause.
‘Whatever happened in the past, Lorcan still isn’t good enough. Christ, I can’t bear the thought of you with anyone else.’ He curls his lip. ‘Especially not him. But what matters now is you getting away from here. Just for a couple of weeks . . . long enough to prove you’ve stopped coming after Ed. Please, Gen, because unless you leave right now, I can’t guarantee you’ll be safe. Or Lorcan for that matter.’
I hesitate. ‘You mean she might hurt him too?’
Art nods. ‘Lorcan’s in danger as long as he knows things . . . as long as he’s helping you come after Ed.’
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