by Helen Cooper
She jumped as she registered the long-haired man behind him. Her crutches almost gave way. Robin. He seemed to be smirking at her—or was she imagining that? If she glanced down, maybe her chest would have flattened and her skinny knees would be knocking, and there’d be an Alien Girl cartoon shoved down the front of her top.
She found herself shuffling backward, almost clobbering her mum in her urgency to get away. Julie looked at her in surprise, and Zeb rushed forward. Emma couldn’t stop shaking her head. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she said to Zeb, the words spilling out before she could filter them. She flung a glance at Robin. “Either of you.” That panicky sensation climbing up into her throat again.
“What’s going on?” Julie asked.
“Please, Mum,” said Zeb. “Let me explain.”
“I don’t even know what to say to you, Zeb.” She wished she’d had more time to decide how to handle this. Her emotions were spiraling.
“She asked me to do those things,” Zeb said. “That’s how it started.”
“What?” Emma glanced around. “Who?”
“Freya.”
The mention of her name made a police officer turn their way. Emma seized Zeb’s arm. “You’d better come inside.”
She pushed him toward her flat, aware of her mum and Robin looking uneasily at one another, never having met before.
“Dad needs to hear this as well,” Zeb said, making Emma freeze.
She couldn’t have Robin in her flat. Sitting on her sofa, drinking from her cups . . . no.
“Please, Mum,” Zeb begged. “I want to talk to both of you.”
“Emma.” Robin spoke for the first time. Hearing him say her name made the hairs stand up on her neck. It used to shock her when Andy called her Emma rather than Alien Girl. It was like an alert: Was he going to be nice to her that day? Or was he lulling her into a false sense of security?
She remembered Robin whispering her name into her ear on the night they’d made Zeb.
“We could sit in the van, or go somewhere else, if you’d be more comfortable,” he said now.
His voice was deeper, more pronounced. More his own, perhaps, now that he wasn’t just parroting Andy. She knew his appearance was different, too, but she couldn’t look at him straight. Couldn’t help wondering what he was noticing about her, how changed she was, how bedraggled from a night in hospital.
She pulled back her shoulders. There was no way she’d let him see her break down.
“Let’s go inside.” She nodded toward her flat. Maybe she’d feel more in control on her own turf. She had to admit she was relieved when her mum followed them in.
It was as strange as she’d thought it would be, having Robin among her things. All the photos of her and Zeb from their years without him. The boxes of stock that made her life look as if it was in some kind of chaotic transition. Gilbert was awake and seemed to be rearranging his nest, a flurry of industrious noises coming from the cupboard. Emma urged everybody into the kitchen. Zeb sat between his parents—for the first time ever—while Julie busied herself making tea.
Everything about the situation felt wrong, wrong, wrong. This was a conventional family setup, but not for them. Not for their family.
Zeb stared at the table. “I’ve fucked up.”
“Tell us, mate,” Robin said, and Emma squeezed her fists, trying not to succumb to the rage she felt, hearing him address her son like that. Watching him parent.
This is about Zeb now, she told herself, pinning her eyes on her son’s face.
“The night Freya and I got drunk in the park,” Zeb said. “You were right, Mum, it wasn’t the only time. We bonded that night because we were both pissed off with life. After that we started sneaking out, just to talk, drink . . . It was good for me at first. I didn’t want to tell you because it was my thing, my way of dealing with how I was feeling.” He glanced at Robin, then back to Emma, then down again.
“I would buy the booze and bring the music, she’d lend me books. Sometimes we’d just listen to podcasts, trying to relax. But sometimes she’d be angry or upset, and sometimes I would be. She told me her mum was having an affair and she was planning to get proof. But she also . . .” He paused and coughed into his sleeve. “Well, she kind of recruited me.”
“How do you mean?” Emma asked in alarm.
“She was so fuming and hurt because she’d idolized her mum so much, and she’d always been sold this idea of their family being so close—‘three sides of a triangle’ or something. And she got me all riled up, too, even more than I already was. She convinced me to help her mess with her mum . . . Like, she had this idea of targeting their perfect house. She said it would be like irony or something—”
“But it’s your house too, Zeb!”
“I know, Mum. It was a shitty plan. But I was in a shitty place . . .” He tapped between his eyes. “I was furious with you for keeping me apart from Dad. I wanted to punish you too—it wasn’t just about Freya’s mum. And once I’d started doing all that nasty stuff, it got weirdly addictive. That’s why I kept phoning you, I think. I wanted to confess, wanted you to make me stop. But I always chickened out.” He flattened his palm against his brow and seemed to press hard.
“Mate—” Robin began, but Emma cut him a look that silenced him. Except she didn’t know what to say to Zeb. Whether to scream at him or console him.
“What about after Freya disappeared?” she said. “How could you have kept doing those things, knowing what her parents must be going through?”
“I didn’t know, at first. I was living at Dad’s, out of the loop, but I kept on with the plan Freya had made. When you told me she’d disappeared, I thought she’d taken the plan to a major new level. I felt like I should step things up too. And every day I seemed to get angrier toward you, Mum, not calmer . . .”
Emma remembered the foul smell of dog dirt in their foyer. Her son had done that. Her son, who’d never done anything like it before, as far as she knew. She’d ignored the signs, though, hadn’t she? The recent temper that had led his teachers to suggest “a few anger-management sessions, nothing to be too concerned about.” The change in their relationship since she’d lied to him.
“Then, when I came here and saw it for myself—the police and the posters and everything—I realized there was no way she could be messing about. She really had gone.” Zeb’s voice cracked and Emma instinctively grabbed his hand. On his other side, she saw Robin take his arm. Her mum had stopped making tea and was standing very still by the boiled kettle.
“My anger just . . . exploded,” Zeb continued. “I think it was the shock of realizing this was real, she was missing . . . and then you and I argued, Mum, and you refused to even acknowledge you’d done anything wrong. And I know I was in the wrong, too, but I couldn’t think straight. I wrote that note and I . . .” He broke down into sobs, dropping his head into his hands.
“The last note was aimed at me?” Emma asked, choked with tears too.
“I wish I could take it back. All of it.”
Emma jumped to her feet, her own hurt overtaken by the sight of him so distraught. He hadn’t cried like that since he was tiny. She hugged him from behind, burying her face in his hood; it smelled woody, like a bonfire.
“Oh, shit,” Zeb kept saying, swiping at his eyes. “Shit.” Eventually he stood and ran out of the kitchen, toward the bathroom.
Emma looked at her mum, mainly to avoid looking at Robin. “What are we going to do?” she said.
For once, Julie seemed lost for words. Her gaze flicked to Robin as if to imply that she wasn’t the person Emma should be asking. Emma felt Robin’s eyes on her, and in her mind it was that blank stare from across a classroom as he’d failed to stick up for her, even after he’d been inside her.
But she made herself look back at him. At first all she saw was an older version of the boy who’d
followed Andy’s every cruel command. Longer hair, and the freckled, mildly weathered skin of somebody who worked outdoors a lot. After a moment or two, though, she couldn’t help but see Zeb in him. And she had to acknowledge he looked as sad as she felt.
“Emma,” he said, and still she shuddered at her name on his lips. “We need to be there for him.”
“No, I do.”
“Emma.” God, she wished he would stop saying it. “I’m so, so sorry for how I treated you at school. I was a coward. Unforgivable. But if it makes any difference at all, I really did like you. You didn’t follow the crowd the way I did. The way I followed that scumbag Andy.”
Emma made a noise of disbelief. Robin kept going: “I’m not making excuses. I was an utter bastard. But I swear I’m not that guy anymore. It keeps me awake at night, thinking about everything Andy did, and how I let him. Then finding out years later that I’d got you pregnant . . . It was the shock of my life. I can’t blame you for not wanting me to have anything to do with Zeb . . . but you’ve done an amazing job. He’s funny, smart, passionate, artistic . . . Basically, from what I can make out, he’s you.”
Despite everything, Emma flushed with pride. Her stubborn streak bristled, of course (Zeb had that too): I don’t need you to tell me I did a good job. But she had to admit it was gratifying to hear, especially when she’d been doubting herself so much. In the background, her mum nodded manically in agreement.
“The way he’s been acting, though,” Robin added tentatively, “all this bizarre stuff he’s done . . . surely it’s telling us something.”
Emma blew out another sigh. The lights of the police cars outside made her whole flat seem to flash and pulsate. Sounds from upstairs were strikingly absent. She thought of all the times she’d heard the Harlows’ footsteps and voices, their apparently perfect life rippling above. Now upstairs was empty, yet she had the chance to salvage her own family.
She was grown up now. So was Robin. Their son was standing in the doorway of this kitchen, looking from one parent to the other for help. How strange it must be for him, never having been in a room with both of them until tonight. And how lucky they were that he was here, and safe, with a whole life in front of him that could be better all round, if maybe they just called this their new Day One. Got reacquainted, without any secrets.
“I heard that,” Zeb murmured.
“What?” Emma asked, trying to collect herself.
“The stuff Dad said, about being shitty to you at school. About how hard everything’s been for you.” His eyes were wide. “I didn’t know all that.”
“Because we didn’t talk about it,” she conceded.
Zeb sniffed again. “It might’ve helped me understand things . . . you know, from your point of view.”
“I did think about telling you myself, Zeb,” Robin said quietly. “But I assumed there must’ve been a reason your mum hadn’t. And, since we’re being honest, I was worried it would kill our relationship before it even started. I wanted you to get to know me a bit first.”
“Well . . . I can’t exactly judge you,” Zeb said, twisting his cuffs. “I’m the worst person in the world.”
“No!” three voices protested in unison.
Emma, her mum, and Robin shared a glance before Emma pressed the point home: “You’re not, Zeb. You made some questionable choices when you were angry. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”
She remembered what he’d said during their last argument, exasperated with her for refusing to give his dad a chance. Is it one strike and you’re out with you? He didn’t realize that he, Zeb, was the one person who could have endless strikes with her.
Emma dried her eyes, smoothed her hair. “We can fix this. It might be tough but we can try to fix everything . . .” Letting her gaze flit toward Robin, she took the plunge and added, “All of us.”
As she said it, she felt an unexpected bud of hope. Maybe this really could be a fresh start for them. Maybe, once they’d got through this, she could even try again with the shop, rebuild her confidence, the vision she’d had . . . After all, she was still the owner. Perhaps there was a reason she’d procrastinated over letting the estate agent relist it.
Her optimism grew a little stronger: Maybe Freya would be found too. Emma would go back to hearing laughter from above, smelling bakery bread and Friday-night takeaways. And she’d feel differently about it now. Not envious or obsessive or excluded, but relieved, and sorry for her own part in their ordeal, and connected to her neighbors because they’d both lost their children and got them back, in the end.
66.
CHRIS
He felt an avalanche of release once he’d made the decision to confess. The weight lifted from his chest and, for a fleeting moment, he was almost elated. He didn’t realize he was crying until he felt the moisture on his collar and saw Johnson watching him with that scathing expression.
They were back in the interrogation room, camera rolling, Chris alone on his side of the table. The elation crashed away, but he knew he had to go through with it. For his own sanity, for Freya’s parents, who were trapped, not knowing, not deserving this. For Freya herself.
Ford recited the date and time and other details. Chris wished he could just open up his brain and show them the memory of that day, rather than have to describe it in words.
“We’ve established that Freya Harlow had been blackmailing you,” Ford summarized brusquely, “and that you were contacted by an unknown woman who offered you money to make Freya think her mother was having an affair. This woman then offered you more money to take Freya away.”
Chris nodded. He couldn’t stop imagining Vicky’s reaction if she could hear this. The hope he’d dared to feel when they’d spoken on the phone seemed absurd now, as did all his attempts to hide what he’d done. He would release Vicky from any obligation to him. He didn’t want her to visit him in prison, wait for him, put her life on pause.
“Which brings us to March the fifteenth,” Ford said. “Tell us what happened.”
Chris sat up as straight as he could. His body felt soft, withered.
“I planned to get us ‘lost’ during the driving lesson, and somehow lose Freya’s phone as well, keep her out of touch long enough to panic the Harlows . . . To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull it off, and I was having serious second thoughts.
“In the end, Freya and I argued before I had a chance to do anything. Like I said before, she seemed generally angry, and she started shouting, driving crazily. So I forced her to pull over and swap seats with me before she killed us both.” His own turn of phrase lurched through him.
He made himself continue.
“I pretended I was going to take her back to school but I drove out of town. When she realized we were going the wrong way she started screaming and trying to get out of the car. She grabbed the wheel a few times. I only just managed to stay in control.”
He remembered how his mind had blanked. He was no longer thinking about what he’d been paid to do, no longer deliberating about whether he could go through with it, or how to execute the plan. He was just trying to keep the car from crashing. It had been a relief, in a way, to be able to focus on something so immediate.
“At one point she was fighting me for the wheel, making the car swerve. We were on a quiet road by this point but we could easily have hit a tree, and if anything had come in the opposite direction . . . I was shouting at her to stop but she wouldn’t let go, and I swear I thought, I’ve just got to keep us alive and then I’ll take her home. I knew things had gone too far.”
Chris put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. His palms were burning hot.
I really was going to bring her home.
He realized he was speaking to Vicky in his head, saying the thing he most wanted her to know.
“She just wouldn’t let go of the wheel,” he said into
his palms.
“Could you speak up, please?”
He lifted his head and looked at the camera. “She wouldn’t let go so I shoved her away. Her head hit the window . . .” He shuddered, the sickening crack reverberating in his mind. “It knocked her unconscious. As I was looking at her, trying to see if she was okay, I realized we were about to hit a road sign. I swerved . . . but because she was unconscious and not wearing a seat belt, she slumped forward and her head smacked the dashboard . . .”
Chris began to splutter, as if choking. The air in his lungs felt noxious.
After that second blow to the head, he’d known she was gone. But all he’d felt able to do was keep driving. He’d driven like a robot as Freya had crumpled down, blood oozing from her head. The sight that would never leave him.
He’d pulled over down a deserted lane and called The Woman. It’s gone wrong, he’d told her, in a voice he’d never heard himself use before. Very wrong. She’d asked him where he was and told him to stay put. When she’d arrived in an old Fiesta half an hour later, he’d still been in shock. He hadn’t yelled at her, like he had in his head a hundred times since. Hadn’t asked who the fuck she was. She’d been wearing a hat and scarf so he couldn’t see her whole face, only watery green eyes. When she’d caught sight of Freya she’d let out a low, pained moan, and chanted softly to herself as she’d felt for a pulse, inspected the head wound, gestured for Chris to help her move Freya into her car. Seconds later she’d been gone, leaving Chris to fall to his knees at the side of the road.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d stayed there, kneeling, in denial. How long it took him to emerge from the fog and realize that Freya’s jacket was still on his passenger seat, that there was blood everywhere, that he had to deal with these awful, awful facts, and then return to his house where Freya’s parents also lived.