by Adam Croft
The scuttling of browning leaves skipping across the pavement seems louder and crisper than usual, as though they are singing their way across the path. It seems like another world.
When they return home, Daniel is tired. He takes a bath and then gets ready for bed. Mr Cooper comes in to see him. He tells Daniel he’s really very glad he’s come to live with them and that they’re going to do everything they can to make life happy for him. They want to give him the best life they possibly can, he says. Daniel smiles.
Mr Cooper strides over to the bookshelf and takes a moment to select a book, his fingers rasping through his beard as he contemplates which one to choose. Finally, he picks a book and takes it over towards Daniel, sitting on the bed. Daniel can see it’s a book for children, much younger children than him, but he doesn’t say anything. He can see Mr Cooper is trying hard, and he doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. The story is fun, though, and Daniel realises for the first time in a long time that he’s happy.
When Mr Cooper reaches the end of the book, he smiles and places it on Daniel’s bedside table.
‘I think that’s enough for one day,’ he says, switching out the light. ‘Goodnight, Daniel.’
Daniel pushes his head further into the soft, plump pillow, smelling its freshness.
‘Goodnight, Dad.’
26
For some reason, it feels weird sleeping next to Jess, so I decide to bed down on the padded seats in the dining area and let her take the bedroom. I feel safer, actually, in full view of the front door and knowing that I’m near the kitchen – and its knives. It’s strangely comfortable; probably more comfortable than the bed itself, and it gives me the space and solitude I need to be able to get my head around everything.
I feel for Jess. Just knowing a little more about her past has allowed me to connect with her on an emotional level I’d never expected or intended. I’ve been there myself – without a proper home, without a proper identity. I’m not quite sure which of us is looking out for the other. Until now it’s been her guiding me and keeping us out of harm’s way, but I feel the need to step up to the plate myself. I’m just not sure how.
We didn’t stay up long after the news report, as we were both so tired. Knowing that we’d reached the next step of our journey was more of a ticked box than an actual event. We’d both known it was going to happen, although that did little to dull the shock on my part. I’ve started to feel prepared, though, which is always a good thing from my point of view. Perhaps going through the possibilities and permutations earlier this evening helped more than I realised.
I hadn’t expected to get so tired so quickly, or to want to actually sleep so quickly after finding out we were the most wanted people in Britain. My brain had already turned to mush after trying to piece together what had happened and going over and over my life story with Jess. I feel really uncomfortable with her knowing so much, but I don’t see what difference it makes now.
For the first time since it happened, I can feel my brain starting to clear properly. Just lying here, in the darkness, with the pale-blue moonlight pushing around the edge of the curtains, I feel as though I’ve got a little breathing space. Even though I’m lying inside a tin box in the middle of a field, I feel like I’m cocooned in an underground shelter, safe from the goings-on around me. As a child, this used to be my way of getting to sleep. Whenever anxieties took me, I would pull the covers over my head and pretend I was anywhere else – a tent and a lorry cab were two regular favourites – and for some reason I felt much safer and more relaxed. It’s bizarre, now I think about it: neither of those two places could be considered safe, and particularly not when compared to my childhood bedroom, but the key was that they were somewhere else.
I think that’s what’s helping me now. I think that’s why I so readily fled the hotel after finding Lisa’s body. I’ve never been good at staying put and facing up to my problems. I’ve never been someone to actually deal with things. I’d far rather run, get some distance between me and the problem. I think disappearing from Herne Bay so quickly was far more of a subconscious decision than a conscious one. And yet again my subconscious mind has been proven right over my conscious mind. Maybe I just need to stop thinking so much. The problem is, I’ve always been a thinker. That’s often been my downfall.
I can’t remember the last time it happened, but I soon realise that I’m actually thinking of nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m almost completely relaxed. For the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel peaceful. It feels wrong, like I shouldn’t be allowed to, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can. I’m aware of, but barely notice, the sound of a wild dog crying somewhere outside. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, though, as I’m allowing myself to enjoy this – no doubt brief – moment of calm.
Just as I feel my eyelids are starting to get heavier and my brain begins to conjure up safe, fictional worlds, I’m jolted back into the moment by the noise of the bedroom door clattering open and Jess marching out towards me. The look on her face is neutral, as it so often is, but I detect a deep undercurrent of anger. She has this wonderful way of conveying anger without showing it. It’s then that I notice her jawbone jutting out, her jaw clenched tight as she heads into the living area. Before I can ask her what’s up, she’s opened a kitchen drawer, taken out a rolling pin, flung back the latch on the front door to the caravan and has jumped down the three steps to the grass below.
I sit bolt upright and look towards the door, confused in my half-asleep, half-awake state. Right now, none of this seems to make any sense. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. I hear her footsteps marching across the grass. Then silence. It’s then that I hear the unmistakable sound of the dog yelping and howling in conjunction with the violent thwacking of the rolling pin bouncing off various parts of its body. One after another, after another. In only a few seconds, the howling has been reduced to a mere whimper, and I hear Jess’s footsteps on the ground outside as she makes her way back up the steps to the caravan. I don’t dare look at the rolling pin as she lobs it into the sink with a clatter, locks the door behind her and heads back for the bedroom.
I blink a few times, trying to come to terms with what’s just happened. I sit, blinking in the darkness, unsure of what to do next. I get up and go to the bedroom. I don’t know what I’m going to say, but I can’t leave it like this.
‘Jess, what the fuck?’ I say, my mind unable to come up with anything more intelligent, my eyes clouded with tears.
‘It was keeping me awake,’ she says, her voice emotionless. ‘I don’t like being kept awake.’
And with that, she rolls over and closes her eyes.
27
The next morning, it’s almost as if it never happened.
I’m woken by the sound of Jess rummaging through the cutlery drawer. She pulls out two spoons and drops each one into a china mug. It’s then that I register the sound of the kettle boiling.
She looks over at me, sees that I’ve woken up, but doesn’t say a word. Instead, she takes a carton of milk out of the fridge and pours a small amount into each mug.
I rub my eyes, vague memories of last night starting to come back to me, and I notice a selection of newspapers on the table in front of me.
‘Where did they come from?’ I ask, going to run my fingers through my hair and instead being met by the rasp of stubble.
‘The shop,’ she replies. ‘Sugar?’
I don’t usually take it, but I think today I’m going to need the extra glucose.
‘Yeah, please. You’ve been out?’
‘Yes. You were snoring away, so I didn’t want to disturb you.’
I nod, not quite sure what to say. I sit up, my spine creaking, and take a look at some of the papers on the table. There are copies of Le Monde, Blick and La Repubblica. I don’t understand a word that’s written on any of them.
‘Maybe you’ll be able to make a bit more sense of this one,’ she says, slapping a copy of The Sun down in fr
ont of me. It’s the photo of Lisa that I see first. She looks so happy, carefree. I recognise it immediately as the photo she used as her Facebook profile picture. Next to it is a photo of me, taken on last year’s weekend away in the Cotswolds. Although it’s been cropped, I identify it as the one where I’m standing next to a sign for Cooper’s Hill. We’d found it funny at the time.
Then I see the headline. BLUDGEONED IN THE BATH: HOTEL HORROR AS POLICE SEEK HUSBAND. The usual tasteful, intelligent headline from The Sun.
To the right is a boxed-off section which is titled CLOSE FRIENDS REVEAL HUSBAND’S SHADY PAST. Underneath, there are a few words:
Close friends of murdered woman Lisa Cooper revealed yesterday that her husband Dan was ‘dangerous’ and ‘could not be trusted’. Full Story – Pages Four and Five.
I don’t even need to turn to pages four and five, nor do I want to.
‘Care to explain?’ Jess says, holding out a steaming mug of tea.
I take the mug.
‘Do I need to? No doubt you’ve already read it.’
‘Is it true?’
‘How do I know? I don’t even know what they’ve said. It’s the British media. It’ll either be spot on or completely made up. In which case there’s either no point lying to you, or no point trying to convince you it’s lies.’
‘The company. Russ Alman. The bankruptcy,’ she says, surely knowing by the look on my face that she doesn’t need to say any more. I look away. It was something I’d tried to block from my memory since it happened, but I could tell Jess wasn’t going to make that so easy.
Russ and I set up a company a few years back, based around a concept Russ had for a free-standing lighting rig that could be set up and taken down in a couple of minutes at most. He was convinced it was going to make millions. We both were. I’d managed to build up a good network of contacts who were all really interested in the product, but we couldn’t get it to the point where it was ready for production. The whole process of testing and development killed us, not to mention having to go through applying for patents and trademarks. Sure, perhaps I put a little too much pressure on Russ. But all I had to offer was the pure, hard facts: that so many people were interested in our product, we’d be multimillionaires if we could just get it to market. Russ took that at face value and put everything he had into it – his life savings, his house, everything. By the time the last penny was rattling around in the tin, we still weren’t any closer to launching the product.
‘It was a long time ago, Jess. And it’s got nothing to do with Lisa’s death.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ she says, sitting down opposite me. ‘Dan, you screwed that guy over for two hundred grand. He was your business partner. Wouldn’t you be a little fucked off about that?’
‘He was fine. Well, not fine, but we sorted it out. We’d been on speaking terms. And I didn’t “screw him over”, either. We both lost out. Heavily.’
‘You didn’t go bankrupt, though.’
‘No. I wasn’t quite as naive as he was. Look, it was business. It happens. We both knew the risks when we set up the company.’
Jess takes a sip of her tea. ‘The paper said you were arrested and cleared of fraud.’
I shake my head vehemently. ‘No. There was a tax investigation after the company was liquidated and I was found to have done nothing wrong. The police weren’t involved at any point.’
She says nothing for a few moments.
‘He lost his home, Dan.’
‘I know.’
It hurts to think that the papers have uncovered that episode in my life. It was a difficult enough time for me as it was, almost losing my home and everything I knew, but to think that they are actively using it as some sort of proof of my guilt over my wife’s death is an entirely new level of shitty. But could Russ really be behind all this? Personally, I can’t see it. He’s always been the quiet, inventive one. The Nutty Professor, we used to call him. He’d be in his workshop at all hours, playing around with new ideas and testing different types of rig. He certainly never struck me as the crazed-killer type.
‘I just can’t believe they’re bringing that up now. It’s got nothing to do with Lisa. It’s just the tabloid bastards trying to dig up dirt and make out I’m some sort of monster. Trial by fucking newspaper, yet again.’ I can feel the veins in my head throbbing.
‘Dan, you need to calm down,’ Jess says, placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘We knew this was going to happen. The media attention, I mean. And anyway, in a few days’ time everyone will have forgotten your name and my name and they’ll be on to the next new scandal. Sod them.’
‘I dunno,’ I say, rubbing my forehead with the palm of my hand. ‘I don’t think I can handle this. What other stuff are they going to dig up?’
‘What is there for them to dig up?’
I shake my head. ‘Nothing like that. That’s not what I mean. I just . . . I just know what these people are like. They’ll find anything they can and twist it in any way that suits them. They’re parasites.’
‘Yep, they are. And parasites move on to a new host when they realise they’re not getting anything out of the old one. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Let it wash over you.’
I’m not really even listening to a word she’s saying.
‘I mean, fuck’s sake. “Dangerous”? “Can’t be trusted”? What the fuck’s that all about? Seriously, those people are going to ruin my fucking life.’ I’m yelling now, feeling the anger and resentment flowing out of me like lava from a volcano.
Jess pulls me towards her.
‘This isn’t doing you any good at all. We’re going to get through this, alright? This is the tough bit now, but if we sit it out we can get through this.’
I look up into her eyes, feeling like a lost puppy.
‘Who’s doing this to me, Jess? Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says, kissing me on the head. ‘I don’t know. But we’re going to sort it out, okay? I think the best thing for you to do is to keep yourself busy. You need to give your head some space. Thinking about things over and over isn’t going to help at all. Why don’t you go into town and get some bits? We could do with some proper milk, rather than that revolting stuff in the fridge.’
I think for a moment before realising she’s right. I nod, stand up and go to fetch my shoes.
28
It’s about a mile and a half’s walk into the town from the campsite, which is just enough to start to get my head clear. The only problem is, every car that goes past is a potential threat, as far as I’m concerned. My photo’s out there now. Jess is right – it’s unlikely anyone’s going to recognise me from those old photos, particularly with my head shaved and my beard gone – but that doesn’t stop me feeling paranoid.
I’m wearing a pair of reading glasses we found in one of the cupboards in the caravan, presumably left by a previous guest. It goes some way towards being a disguise, I guess, especially seeing as I’ve never worn glasses in my life. They don’t look too obvious as a disguise, either. I didn’t particularly fancy walking around in a massive top hat and a false nose.
As I reach the town, I find a small supermarket. I check my pocket to make sure I’ve still got the money. I don’t know how much stuff costs, or how much a Swiss franc is even worth, but Jess said she thought a hundred francs would get us some food and stuff. Not that I can carry much home with me with that walk, and I wasn’t going to risk taking the car out – especially as we’ll no doubt have been seen driving it at some point. I’m desperate for Jess to get rid of the car somewhere, but she thinks that’d be too risky. We’re better off leaving it at the campsite, she reckons, as it’s hidden well out of the way as it is. I’m not so sure.
Once I’m inside the supermarket, I grab the milk as well as some ham, bread and a large carton of orange juice. I find what looks like a packet of roasted nuts, so I grab those, too. The weight’s going to add up quite a bit, so I decide this’ll probably do for now.
; When I get to the checkout, there’s a British family in front of me who seem to be taking their time paying for their stuff. What’s really worrying me, though, is their young daughter, who’s turned around and is staring up at me blankly.
‘Nick, will you hurry up, please? I wouldn’t mind getting these ice creams back to the car before they melt,’ the wife says. She seems like a bit of a cow, from what I can see.
‘Give over, Tash,’ the man replies, insisting on counting out every last coin from his large handful of change, rather than just handing over a banknote like most people. ‘She’s pregnant. It’s the hormones,’ he says to the cashier whilst receiving an icy glare from his wife.
Their bloody daughter’s still looking at me. Just staring. As if she knows me. As if she knows everything that’s gone on. Children are meant to be perceptive. Her family’s British, so there’s a good chance they’ve read the newspaper and she’s recognised my face from the front page. I try my best not to smile, not to look like I do in the photo. Before I can worry too much, the man’s finally paid for his shopping – to the last centime – and they’re trying to coax their daughter from the shop.
‘Ellie, come on,’ the mother says, grabbing her hand and pulling her along behind her.
I’m not going to lie; I’m panicking. But I try to keep that panic off my face as I step up to the counter to pay for my shopping. My brain’s already conjured up the little girl’s voice as she tells her parents That’s the man from the newspaper! Little brat. Fortunately for me, neither of the parents so much as glanced at me, so there’s no chance of them being able to take her seriously. One of the benefits of those sorts of parents being so self-absorbed, I guess.
Once I’ve paid for my shopping, trying to avoid making eye contact with the shopkeeper the whole time, I saunter over towards the exit. There’s a stand selling magazines just inside the door, so I pretend I’m browsing through those, whilst actually looking through the glass door and watching the British family disappear off towards their car. I can’t risk them looking back and seeing me. Eventually, I see them all climb into a hired Skoda Octavia and drive off towards the north. That’s particularly handy, because I’m headed south.