The Second Life of Amy Archer

by R. S. Pateman

  And the tears she cried on hearing about Dana’s recording! Well, that’s how it goes when you’re caught in a lie. She didn’t listen to it on the computer, naturally – she wasn’t daft enough to fall for that. Defeated by the mouse and the cursor, she asked for a printout instead. Good old-fashioned paper. It’s easier to handle and amplifies the splats of tears. An ocean of them, apparently, a bottomless well. Too numerous and snotty to be anything but real.

  Even the police shrink was convinced. Enough said, then. Who can doubt the double whammy of psychological insight and investigative guile? Not me. Not Brian. However much we tried.

  Withholding evidence? Not proven. Case dismissed.

  Fuck off, detective, for being as oblivious to Libby’s greed as she was ignorant of the reward. Apparently. Wide-eyed and speechless at the news of the cash? You don’t say. In your considered opinion, no provable knowledge of the reward and no attempt to claim it makes for a case that could be argued in court – but not won.

  Case dismissed.

  Fuck off, detective, for still not finding Amy’s grave. For breaking my heart and my hope once more.

  And damn you, detective, for not being able to crack a ten-year-old girl. Who stonewalled you and the shrink with her simple, unswerving defence: ‘I don’t need an instruction manual. I didn’t even realise it was there. I know what I know because I’m Amy.’

  No court in the land would prosecute her for childish fantasies, however unpleasant or bizarre. She’s only young, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. It’s just her version of an imaginary friend, a phase she’ll grow out of eventually – sooner without all this attention.

  Case dismissed.

  I light a cigarette and open the hotel window. Smoke streams from my nostrils like ectoplasm. Brian nestles in beside me, sparks a match.

  ‘I can hardly believe I’m saying this,’ he mutters, ‘but maybe it’s better this way.’

  I shrug his hand away from my arm.

  ‘I can’t see how.’

  ‘God knows I want those two cows punished as much as you do, Beth,’ he says, putting his hand back on my arm, ‘but Harding’s right. It just won’t hold up in court.’

  ‘We should still try.’

  Brian frowns.

  ‘A private prosecution, you mean?’ he says.

  ‘Why not?’

  He exhales slowly. The smoke is whipped away by the wind.

  ‘I don’t think we’d fare any better,’ he says. ‘It’s going to be hard enough when Bishop comes to trial. And his lawyers are going to love it if we’re taking separate legal action against key prosecution witnesses. Let’s quit while we’re ahead.’

  ‘We’re ahead?’ My laugh is brittle. ‘It doesn’t feel like that to me.’

  ‘We know what happened to Amy,’ he says. ‘We’ve got one of the men responsible. We might still get the other. And that’s all down to Libby and Esme.’

  I loathe his measured, reasonable tone.

  ‘Forgive me, but I’m finding it hard to be grateful.’ I suck in the last mouthful of smoke. ‘We still don’t know where Amy is.’

  ‘There’s still time,’ Brian says. ‘Harding could get it out of Bishop or Palmer.’

  I flick my cigarette stub from the window.

  ‘Harding couldn’t get a prayer from a nun.’

  I’m not even going to get the satisfaction of seeing Bishop in court. Not yet. Harding has ensured that the hearing to remand him in custody is kept from the press so that Palmer doesn’t go to ground.

  The tactic works. Two days later, Palmer is in custody too, picked up from a flat in Ipswich. He’s been working in the city as a librarian and spending his spare time coaching youngsters at a local swimming club. On his computer’s hard drive are thousands of pornographic images of young girls and pages of his own lurid fantasies.

  But he’s been less expansive with the police.

  ‘He hasn’t said a word about Amy,’ Harding says. ‘Doesn’t admit it. Doesn’t deny it. Just blanks us – smirking in a sly, supercilious way that’s getting right up my nose. It’s all I can do to stop myself hitting him.’

  ‘If you don’t, I will!’ Brian says.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘We’ve got to break his spirit, not his bones.’

  ‘Your wife’s right, of course, Mr Archer,’ Harding says. ‘We can’t give his defence team any leeway. Give us time. We’ll crack him.’

  But they don’t. His smug silence taunts and exasperates Harding and makes me hate Palmer more than I already did. Harding switches tack and spends more time questioning Bishop, who is more than willing to supply as much damning detail as he can.

  ‘Not enough to get a conviction for murder, or even accessory to murder, I’m afraid,’ Harding tells us, ‘but we’ll put him away for rape, sexual assault and procuring children, no question of that.’

  ‘So . . .’ I say, wringing my hands, ‘he’s got away with it.’ My head drops. ‘And I still don’t know where Amy’s body is.’

  ‘I understand that you’re frustrated, Mrs Archer.’ Harding looks sheepish.

  ‘You don’t understand anything.’

  ‘In my experience,’ he says firmly, ‘once they’ve been banged up, they can’t see the point of staying silent. They think it might help get their sentence reduced if they cough up information they’ve previously withheld. So we could still find Amy . . . at some stage.’ He coughs. ‘With any luck.’

  I’m demolished and defeated, too worn out to say any more. Palmer has had the last word. I go to stand up, then stop and turn to Harding.

  ‘What about Dana?’ I say.

  He holds his hands out and tips his head. He looks as beaten as I feel.

  ‘We’ve got people checking databases of unidentified drowning fatalities, coastguards and so on,’ he says. ‘But so far they’ve not come up with anyone who matches Dana’s description. She only said she was going to drown herself, but not where she was going to do it. Only the sea. That’s not much for us to go on.’ He sighs. ‘All we can do is wait. The sea still might offer her body up. But with heavy shipping traffic, currents . . . perhaps we’ll never find her.’

  I swallow back my tears. Dana’s parents have no body to bury either. I hope they find some comfort in knowing their daughter’s fate. I hope Dana is finally at peace.

  ‘Take me home,’ I say to Brian.

  He stands up and takes my arm.

  I need to get home, safely barricaded behind my own front door, before news of the arrests breaks.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Brian says on the way back to the hotel. ‘You’ll have the press at your door day and night. Why don’t you go to your parents’? Or come to my place?’

  ‘No.’

  My home has been my refuge for the last ten years. I am safe there. I pack my case, put my talismanic stone in my coat pocket. Brian carries the case to the lift and says he’ll get the concierge to find us a taxi.

  ‘No need,’ I say.

  But Dave’s phone is switched to voicemail and we end up taking a black cab to the airport. I try him again on the way. He still doesn’t answer, but this time I leave a message.

  ‘Dave, it’s Beth. I’m heading for the airport. Sorry you missed the fare. But I’ll make it up to you.

  ‘On our travels you boasted about Manchester being the city where Jack met Vera, where Engels met Marx, where Rolls met Royce . . . Well, it’s also where I met you . . . and you made it possible for me to meet Henry Campbell Black . . . I can’t tell you now why that’s important, but you’ll find out soon enough.

  ‘Remember you had me down as a secret millionaire? Here to do a good turn for someone? Well, I wasn’t . . . not in the way you mean. But that’s how it’s turned out anyway. Keep your eyes open for an envelope addressed to you at the cab office. Bye. And thank you.’

  Brian tilts his head at me.

  ‘What was all that about?’ he says.

  ‘That’s about you settling the reward by sending a cheque t
o the only person who deserves it.’

  14

  Brian startles me as I come down the stairs. He’s standing in front of the fireplace with his back to me, gazing at Amy’s photo on the mantelpiece.

  It’s odd to see him here again – reassuring, but at the same time unsettling. The comfort of company in the present, haunted by the memories of our past. Of the legacy we left for Amy.

  As I enter the front room, he turns to face me and I half expect him to leave the room or make some spiteful comment. But he smiles, a broken kind of smile with a quivering lower lip.

  ‘Okay?’ he says.

  I nod and walk towards him. I blow some dust from the mantelpiece and place the talismanic stone in front of Amy’s picture.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A sort of good-luck charm, I suppose,’ I say with a sigh. ‘An eternal flame for Amy, set in stone.’

  He picks it up and turns it in his hand.

  ‘I always loved this picture,’ he says, tipping his head at Amy’s photo. ‘I’ve got a copy of it on my living room windowsill.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know.’

  ‘I’ve never stopped loving her, Beth. Never forgotten her. Despite what you think.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  He kisses the stone and puts it back on the mantelpiece, but to the left of the picture instead of dead centre. When I move it, it is warm.

  Brian’s arm slips around my shoulders. I bite my lip.

  ‘God,’ I say, ‘I’m dreading the trial.’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ he says, pulling me closer to him. ‘We’ve got this far.’

  ‘Only just.’ I lay my head on his chest. ‘And we’ve not exactly done it together, have we?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Beth. I should have been more patient. More understanding.’

  ‘Yes . . . but I didn’t make it easy for you. I was . . . obsessed. Mad with it.’

  His grip around me tightens.

  ‘You were right,’ he says. ‘You’ll never know how it feels to have let Amy down while she was alive and then given up on her once she disappeared.’

  ‘I was on the point of giving up too. If it hadn’t been for that last trip to the psychic . . . It’s ironic, isn’t it? We wouldn’t have found the truth if it hadn’t been for Libby and Esme’s lies.’

  I miss the warmth and reassurance of his arms as he turns and sits down in an armchair.

  He checks his watch.

  ‘You should be going,’ I say. ‘Fiona will be expecting you.’

  ‘Actually, she isn’t,’ he says brightly. ‘I called her while you were showering. I’m going to stay for a few days . . . if that’s okay?’

  ‘Fiona doesn’t mind?’

  ‘Not at all. She practically insisted I stay. She’s lived with this as much as we have. The girls too. They’re being kept off school for a while.’ He coughs. ‘She said it’s been on the news. About the press conference being called, I mean.’ He checks his watch again. ‘Not long now. The press will be camped on the doorstep within the hour, you watch.’

  We sit in silence and watch the clock on the DVD counting down to the next part of the nightmare. At one o’clock, Brian stands up and turns on the television.

  The drums bang home the headlines from the BBC: a landmine kills four soldiers in Afghanistan; two men are charged in relation to the disappearance of Amy Archer ten years ago.

  We both recoil from the photo of Amy flashed on to the screen. The one of her in her school uniform given to the police to help in the search. The one I saw in the ghoulish galleries of missing people on websites about unsolved murders.

  It’s on the notice board behind Harding at the press conference too. He blinks at the flash of press cameras as he reads through a statement, occasionally looking up to give his words extra emphasis.

  My heart flies to my mouth when Bishop’s picture appears. There he is. The man who raped my daughter. The Grey Wolf. The hair is thin but messy, mostly white, but flecked with silver at the sides. His eyes are hard and hungry, dark as bullets. I can almost hear a growl from his slightly open mouth, feel his breath. The gappy teeth still have a bite.

  Palmer’s face is thinner than I remember, his hair receding. But it’s his expression that strikes me the most: insouciant, defiant. Unrepentant. I still see him when the picture’s no longer on the screen. I know I always will. Whenever I look at my own reflection, he’ll be there, mocking me.

  Brian stands up and turns the TV off. He looks out of the window.

  ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘They’re here already. Bloody parasites.’

  The doorbell rings.

  ‘Ignore it, Brian,’ I say quickly. ‘Close the curtains.’

  He is strobed by camera flash as he pulls the curtains. The room falls into the murky twilight we endured for weeks when Amy first went missing. Neither a life-giving light nor a mournful dark. Just an endless grubby grey.

  The doorbell rings again. Then the phone in the hallway. I unplug it from the wall. My mobile chimes in too. Jill’s name flashes up on the screen.

  The line is so crackly I can barely make out what she’s saying. When the hissing abates for a second, her voice is distorted by echo, as if she’s talking through a funnel. Then the line goes dead.

  A woman’s voice calls from the other side of the front door.

  ‘Mrs Archer? Are you there?’

  The doorbell rings once more. My head swarms with memories of Libby’s insistence at my door on New Year’s Eve. The ghosts and vultures I let in.

  ‘Go away!’ I yell from the hallway. ‘Leave us alone. We’ve nothing to say.’

  ‘Mrs Archer? I’m Lois Shaughnessy. Family liaison officer.’ A hand flaps a badge through the letter box. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m here to help.’

  Brian opens the door. Camera shutters whir. Journalists jostle, push microphones forward. The woman steps in quickly and closes the door.

  She’s about thirty, short, dumpy even, her head lost somewhere between her neck and a blob of curly reddish hair.

  ‘Sorry about that lot,’ she says. ‘We’ll get them moved back.’ She puts her hand out. ‘I’m Lois. DI Harding sent me down from Manchester to help you through this.’

  Brian shakes her hand. I do too, reluctantly.

  ‘Can we sit down?’ she says. ‘Have a chat?’

  She follows Brian into the front room. I go in behind her. She has a hole in her tights just above the heel.

  ‘Harding didn’t say you were coming,’ Brian says as he waves her towards one of the armchairs.

  ‘Didn’t he?’ She grimaces. ‘I’m sorry. He really should have done. Ideally, you and I should have met before you left Manchester, but . . . well, things have moved very quickly.’ She undoes her coat buttons and smiles. ‘I suppose I’d better start by telling you why I’m here.’

  Brian nods.

  ‘I’m part of the investigative team,’ she says, ‘but my main role is as a more informal line of communication between you and the police. You know, to smooth the way as much as possible. Keep you up to date with any developments, talk to the press on your behalf, explain what will happen between now and getting to court – that sort of thing. Anything really. Anything that helps.’

  ‘We didn’t get one of you when Amy first went missing,’ I say. I feel defensive and I don’t know why. Perhaps she’s here to keep an eye on us.

  She nods her head.

  ‘Ah, well, the job didn’t exist then, you see,’ she says. ‘It was created after the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I’m sure you remember that? Awful case. The only good thing to come out of it was the creation of family liaison officers. I’m sure you’ll find it useful if—’

  My mobile interrupts her.

  ‘Beth? Can you hear me? It’s Jill.’

  ‘Just about,’ I say, putting one finger into my ear to hear her better. ‘It’s a dreadful line. Shall I call you back?’


  ‘Won’t make any difference,’ Jill says. ‘It’s always like this here. I’ve just heard the news on the radio and wanted to tell you I’m thinking of you. And Brian. It’s just dreadful. I only wish I could be there to help. I don’t like the idea of you being on your own.’

  ‘Oh, we’re not. The police have sent us a . . . sort of go-between.’

  ‘Oh, you mean Lois! I spoke to her earlier. She sounded very nice. I don’t think I was able to tell her anything useful . . . but she seemed glad that I’d called.’

  ‘You rang her?’ I say, puzzled.

  ‘I rang the police in Manchester. You said they might want to talk to me, but I knew they’d have trouble getting hold of me so I called them as soon as I got a signal. Didn’t last long, needless to say, but long enough to say what little I had to tell them.’

  ‘Right.’

  The line begins to crackle. I twist around on the seat, trying to boost the phone’s signal.

  ‘Looks like my luck is about to run out,’ Jill says. ‘If you want to talk, text me and I’ll find a proper phone. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep me posted.’

  ‘I will,’ I say. ‘Hope your sister feels bet—’

  The phone hums with an empty line.

  Lois tuts.

  ‘I had the same problem when I spoke to Mrs Redfern,’ she says. ‘It’s mad that there are still so many mobile black spots, isn’t it? Still, it was useful to talk to her. She gave us the names of some other people to talk to.’

  ‘Like who?’ Brian says.

  ‘Some of the teachers at Amy’s school. A few of her contacts in the local community. We haven’t spoken to them all yet, but we will. People are keen to help.’ She coughs. ‘I am too, Mrs Archer. I know you’re angry and frustrated, but you’ve got to remember, I’m on your side.’

  We swap smiles. Hers is sympathetic, mine circumspect.

  ‘So,’ I say, ‘what happens next?’

  ‘We build our case. Meticulously. We lean on Palmer. Relentlessly. And we wait. Patiently. It could be quite some time before this gets to court. But it will be worth it. We’ll get a result.’

  God has other ideas, though; He decides to punish me once more. Three weeks after Bishop and Palmer are remanded in custody, God, disguised as a prisoner with a life sentence and skilled with a knife, steals Palmer away. Snatching Amy’s body from me for ever, blessing Palmer with celestial rest and condemning me to eternal torment.