Mulhern’s face was thunderous. He glanced at Razor, who winked at him. Mulhern stormed from the interview room.
‘On a power trip that one, eh? Doesn’t like you, Rachel,’ Razor said.
‘I can’t please all the people all the time,’ I said. ‘Let’s get on.’
Alwyn switched on the tape recorder. ‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
We carried out the interview with no further interruptions. The plan that had been like ether in my consciousness for over four years began to form. And I could do nothing about it.
The number on the dice was clear.
—
Backhurst came into the station later. It was a difficult interview. In the end, we didn’t have enough to arrest him: more evidence was needed and would take weeks to investigate and collate. Mulhern was doubly pissed off and, in all fairness, so was I. To make matters worse (for Mulhern, anyway) Backhurst also backtracked and refused to implicate Razor in the fake ID. I could only guess that he’d had second thoughts about how it would look in the wider criminal community to grass up another. Razor had admitted nothing incriminating in his interview. I knew he wouldn’t; he was clever, but more than that, he knew the system inside out. So we were unable to arrest Razor, either, although I knew that Backhurst would soon be nailed, but not by me. I felt a lot of regret regarding Backhurst.
By the time the week had ended I’d handed in my resignation to Tom.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Three months later
Just before Christmas 2004
I sat down at the kitchen table, feeling sweat drip down my back, aching in my calf muscles, a drumming pain in my shinbone. There was something about exercising: feeling the agony of pushing your body to the limits, your pulse rate rage above a hundred and forty. It was the only time my mind was truly empty and, for a few moments, I was able to forget Joe.
I checked my watch. Ten miles in just over an hour. It wasn’t good enough; I needed to get down to an hour.
Over a few months I’d transformed my body. Now it was lean, toned, fit. And very strong. My resting heart rate was down to forty-nine. Getting into shape had become an obsession. I’d taken up karate again, for the first time since my mid-twenties, and had moved from brown to black belt easily. I could bring down anyone, of any size, without a knife or a gun – I was utterly self-sufficient. My teacher said I was lethal; that was the same day he asked me out on a date. I wondered if he knew who I was, if he remembered the newspaper coverage. I didn’t think he did, but he knew I was single.
Liam and I had gone through a quiet, but not amicable, divorce six months after I’d gone back to work. It was Liam who’d moved out. This was the way it had to be; I wanted be in the house with my memories of Joe. My son and I would be irrevocably linked, in this life and the next.
I sensed strongly that Joe was always near to me, but that he wasn’t sympathetic to my plan. Was it Joe’s reticence I thought I felt, or my own?
Liam had moved to a house very near to where Charlotte lived. It had a garden and he’d built a den at the bottom of it before moving in. He’d also taken up Buddhism, and we had less and less contact as we had increasingly little to say to each other.
But yesterday evening had brought us together again.
Tom Gillespie had been to see Liam, not me – he was still pissed off with me for resigning – to tell him the news that would soon break from Littleworth, news of which I was already aware. It was all as Razor had described: there had been ‘visits’ by young children to the institution. Brought in with adult visitors, the children had been left alone with convicted paedophiles and murderers within the hospital walls. It had been going on for years.
Michael Hemmings was instrumental in bringing much of the information to the attention of the hospital authorities. He had helped with the internal investigation that had been on-going for the previous six months. As Razor had told me after our official interview at the station, Michael Hemmings had testified at the internal hearing. The hospital’s management, undoubtedly with the help of the Home Office, had managed to keep it out of the press.
Liam informed me on the phone that Jonathan was looking into the allegations. I remembered I’d had a message on my answering machine from Jonathan around six weeks before. I’d deleted it as soon as I heard his voice, just as I’d regretfully ignored the other messages over the past three years. I’d wanted to see Jonathan and to talk to him, but resisted.
Jonathan had said it was something important, but I’d thought that it would be about my not contacting him or about my resignation. The message had probably been about Hemmings and his imminent review, the first steps towards a tribunal meeting.
The last message he left had said, ‘When you’re ready, call me. I’ll wait as long as it takes.’
One psychiatric nurse at Littleworth had been cautioned and they were still investigating a contracted psychiatrist. Michael Hemmings had earned serious brownie points for his whistleblowing. Hemmings had proven that the treatment was working, proving, said the director of Littleworth, that we may have internal security problems but the ultimate aim of the institution, to rehabilitate and give hope to the mentally disabled within our society, is indeed, working and effective.
Liam had already contacted Sean Skerrit, to see whether we should appeal against the review of Hemmings’ case. Sean told Liam that any appeal would, in all likelihood, fail. Everything was too far down the line. Hemmings is responding well to treatment, Sean had said. I was sick of hearing that statement.
I left a voicemail on my karate teacher’s mobile, saying I’d be missing the class. I texted Jonathan. He texted me back within an hour, saying he’d drive up from London first thing in the morning.
That night, as I lay alone in the queen-size bed my mind cracked open a little, and I pushed hard mentally at the wall I’d constructed, allowing myself in. And watched from afar as if I were someone else.
If I did that I’d found I could look, only tentatively, but it was a start.
—
It was a wet Sunday and Rachel’s Dad was coaching the local football team. Rachel was at Sunday school. She liked going. It got her out the house when her dad wasn’t around. Even at seven, she found being on her own with her mother at home wasn’t that much fun. Margaret dropped Rachel off, saying she’d pick her up in two hours. Rachel had felt unwell before going, but ignored the discomfort from her stomach so that she could still attend. She suffered with regular cramps.
As soon as Rachel sat down on a small chair next to the other children, she squirmed with the pain in her upper gut. Mr Roberts, the teacher, saw straight away. They waited a while to see if the pain would go away, but it didn’t. Mr Roberts left the class in the charge of his sixteen-year-old daughter, and took Rachel to his car to drive her home himself. When they got to the house, Rachel saw her mum’s car in the drive and the door was unlocked. Rachel thanked Mr Roberts for bringing her home; he was keen to return to his class and happy to leave her. Rachel didn’t shout for her mother. Her stomach hurt. Her mum wasn’t in the lounge. She went upstairs, knowing she’d find her in the bedroom. The door was closed. Normally, she would have shouted or knocked to let her mum know she was coming in. Their relationship was like that. Only open doors with her dad. Her mum liked her privacy.
But Rachel opened the door.
My window was open and a strong wind from outside blew the lamp off the windowsill, pulling me away from the child, Rachel. The hot sweat that covered my body quickly became too cool, and I shook.
But young Rachel, opening my mother’s bedroom door, was still with me. And they were merging with thoughts of Joe, of him when he came home from Melanie’s to find Liam’s car in the drive, but no one answering the door, leaving him shut outside. The same as what had happened to me – my mother’s car had been there, too. She
had been at home, but had not opened the door. And no one had opened the door to Joe. Why didn’t you go to the den, Joe?
I sat up in bed.
The painting that I’d kept away from Liam lay in my bedside drawer. I studied it in the full moonlight, as I had done periodically over the last few years.
‘What did you see, Joe? What did you hear?’ I asked the darkness. A strong aroma. Then it vanished.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Hemmings has been very helpful. He’s not stupid.’
Jonathan sat cross-legged on my lounge carpet. It was as if I’d only seen him yesterday; the hallmark of a good friend. ‘Have you any idea what happens to a grass in those places?’ he carried on.
I nodded. I did. Although I suspected it wouldn’t happen to Hemmings, because yes, he was clever; as Margaret had pointed out.
‘But nothing has happened to him, he hasn’t even been moved to an isolation area. What have you found out? I know you’re investigating this. I bet Harry Broomsgrove wants an exclusive?’
Jonathan’s smile was wan. He picked carpet fluff from his trousers, nervously raked his hair and put the collection of fluff in the waste bin. ‘We can’t report on this, just yet. Don’t ask me why; I have no idea whose pockets are being filled. It’ll come out soon, though. Harry has already suggested I make a visit to Sam and Bridget ... An exclusive with Hemmings’ parents, to get the interview before the story breaks properly.’ He paused. ‘We may not get the story first but we’ll have a follow-through ready.’
‘It’s good of you not to request an interview with me.’ I touched his hand.
‘No way. I’m hesitant about your aunt and uncle, to be honest. You don’t mind?’
‘No, I don’t. I feel for them, really. Can’t be easy.’
‘Hasn’t been easy for you.’ He pushed a stray curl behind his ear. ‘Have you seen anything of your mum and dad?’
‘I see my dad reasonably regularly ...’ I knew my face betrayed me.
‘All well?’
‘Not sure. We feel uncomfortable with each other. I think Dad misses the “doting daughter”.’
‘What’s changed? Is it because of Joe?’
‘In a way.’
‘You don’t want to talk about it, do you?’
‘Not at the moment but, one day, I’d love your ear.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Don’t see her.’
‘At all?’
‘No.’
He took a breath. ‘I did a bit of research ... in prep for the Bridget and Sam article. I didn’t realise Margaret had been a teacher.’
‘Why would you? She gave it up years ago.’
Jonathan was doing his job. I had to be careful with Jonathan. I looked at him, the softness of his hair that shone dark in the afternoon light, the defined jaw, the kindness that was so easily expressed in his face, his keen eye for motivation, for a change in emotion, or character.
‘I don’t intend on putting anything in the article about Margaret looking after Hemmings when he was a child, although Harry would wet his pants if I did.’
I sat down opposite him. ‘It’s good of you not to.’ I wanted to tell Jonathan about my mother and the last time I’d seen her. It had been three years, but her words were as piercing as the reverberant noise from clinking crystal wine glasses, still ringing on inside my head. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,’ I said instead. And I was.
‘It’s OK, I understand.’ He didn’t understand; how could he? I didn’t, really.
He carried on, ‘I thought the job was going well ... from what I’ve heard. Your resignation came from nowhere.’
‘Have you spoken to Tom?’
‘A short conversation.’ He smiled. ‘He doesn’t do journalists.’
‘He’s protecting me.’
‘So?’
‘So?’ I repeated.
‘Why?’
‘I need a break. I plan on having a short holiday.’
‘And then?’
‘I don’t know...’
He surveyed me. ‘You look ...’ His voice trailed off. ‘What’s going on, Rachel? You can’t spend the rest of your life getting obsessively fit.’
‘We all deal with things in different ways.’ I caught his eye. ‘How are you and Michelle?’
‘We’re divorced.’ His tone was flat.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘I tried to call, over a year ago now.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve been a crap friend.’
‘It was always on the cards with Michelle and I. But I thought you and Liam would survive this. I really did.’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Did you? He finally admitted to an affair.’
‘Twat.’
I laughed out loud. ‘He is a bit.’
‘Did he reveal who with?’
‘Someone I don’t know.’
Jonathan looked away. ‘So, this is it then? You, running, and mindless keep-fit classes?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘And you’re going to sit back and allow Hemmings to be sent, probably in the not too distant future, to a step-down unit? Because I think that could happen.’
‘It’s out of my hands now. I’ll accept what will happen. As you’ve said, I need to get on with my life.’
He stood up and walked towards the window. ‘The Hemmings thing – you should speak to your barrister.’
‘Liam did.’
‘You can’t be alone, Rachel, not all the time. And finishing work, is that such a good thing? Just take a long holiday, Gillespie’ll understand. Why don’t you come to London, stay in a hotel, I’ll take you out.’
I glanced at him. ‘You asking me on a date?’
He reddened. ‘Come on...’
‘Only teasing.’ He fiddled with his watch strap. ‘Stop it, Jonathan,’ I laughed.
‘Sorry. Nerves.’
‘I’ll come to London soon; that would be good.’ I was good at telling untruths, according to my dad. But I found it difficult to lie to Jonathan. My heart ached and I wondered how Michelle could have let him go.
‘You should.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go.’
I saw him out, returned to the kitchen and sat down. There was nothing Jonathan could have told me about what was happening in Littleworth: I knew everything. I’d met with Razor four days after our interview at the station, a day after I’d resigned, and he’d been a mine of information. We agreed that was to be our last meeting; from then on I’d use the secure email address only. A ripple of anxiety had woven through me at Razor’s astuteness. A convicted criminal understood me better than I understood myself. Razor’s information had encouraged me to make my own subtle investigations into Hemmings and Littleworth, and moved me forwards.
Joe visited me the evening of the day I’d met with Razor, trying to encourage me to stop pursuing my revenge on his murderer. Was it Joe, or was it the core of my old self that I heard? I’d tried to grasp the popcorn-laden air, but Joe had already disappeared.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jonathan left Rachel’s feeling oddly perplexed. Something wasn’t right with her. He knew she wouldn’t come to London, sensing she was distancing herself, and not just from him but from everyone. Was he despondent because he thought she wasn’t interested in him? No, that wasn’t the reason. His ego wasn’t that big.
No, something was wrong. He’d seen the same expression, the same body language a long time ago. When Rachel had shown what she was capable of; when she’d managed effectively to nail Sorojini Jain’s husband.
His interest in Rachel was not professional.
He thought of her long limbs, the softness of her expressions, the quirky way she played with her hair. The strength of her resolve in all things, even if sometimes misdirected. These were the things he loved.
No, his interest was not at all professional.
He unlocked the door of his lonely flat in Wandsworth. He’d got back from Rachel’s two hours befo
re, deciding on stopping off at the local pub rather than returning straight away to an empty home.
The Christmas lights he’d admired on his way back through London were still imprinted on his mind and, casting his eyes across his own space, he decided he should at least put up some holly sometime soon. He couldn’t get used to living alone with its tidiness and the absence of Michelle’s stuff littering the space as it had in their Edwardian terrace in Fulham.
He hadn’t been totally honest with Rachel about Margaret Hemmings, and didn’t feel good about it. Margaret hadn’t left her profession strictly to pursue having a family. By all accounts she’d been pushed. Although he’d have to put the Margaret Hemmings findings on hold – Harry was impatient for the Sam and Bridget article.
When he’d interviewed Bridget and Sam after Joe had gone missing, he hadn’t been firing on all cylinders. It had been a mistake to cover Joe’s case. Although he’d only met Joe a handful of times, he liked the boy and had been too emotionally connected to do a good job.
Bridget and Sam had been cagey that day, Bridget in particular. He’d sniffed something but hadn’t pursued it, having been interrupted by a call telling him that Joe’s body had been found, which was a fact he already knew. He could have given Harry Broomsgrove a brilliant scoop before it became official about Joe’s body. Harry would have turned a blind eye to his ‘source’ of police information, but he’d stopped himself.
He was good – no, better than good – at computer and phone hacking and in the past hadn’t been troubled by using the information. He didn’t do celebrity stuff; he only searched for information that he truly believed the public had a right to know. He had a love-hate relationship with his abilities; he wasn’t a hundred per cent comfortable doing it, but many other journalists were doing the same thing and he had to keep up. He eyed up the awards that were framed and mounted on the living-room wall, proud he’d achieved those with old-fashioned journalism.
When he’d got into the police computer network the day Joe’s body was found, he’d done it for himself with no intention of using any of the information in a story. Would he have done so if he hadn’t known Rachel and Joe? Probably, he admitted. Harry could have had the headline for the next morning’s paper. It had been in the following morning’s instead, with no detail, only that Joe’s body had been located and identified.
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