The Bad Things

by Mary-Jane Riley

  ‘You know, getting pregnant just because I…we…want a baby. It seems a bit selfish, you know.’ She shrugged, aware of how useless she was sounding.

  ‘And what does your husband think?’

  ‘Chris? Oh, he’s desperate for them. I mean, he doesn’t put it like that, obviously, but I know that’s what he thinks.’

  ‘But you’re not sure?’

  ‘No.’ Her eyes began to fill with tears. For God’s sake. She blinked furiously.

  ‘Kate,’ the doctor started gently, ‘I’m not sure what I can do for you.’

  ‘I only came because Chris…’ She tailed off and stood up. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I came really, I—’

  ‘Sit down, Kate.’

  ‘No. I’ve got to go back to work. Thank you for your time.’

  Dr Bones looked at her computer screen. ‘You have a stressful job, Kate. Are you coping?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look, I’m going to give you some very mild antidepressants. You don’t have to take them, but they could help. And I’m going to put you on the waiting list for some counselling.’

  Kate opened her mouth to object.

  Doctor Bones held up her hand. ‘It’s just a waiting list. Have a think. It might be good to talk to someone other than your husband. An outsider. Okay? And I want to see you in a month.’

  Kate could only nod.

  Outside the doctor’s room she leaned against the wall and took deep breaths. The air was stifling. It had been a mistake to come here, but at least she’d done it and she would be able to tell Chris. And she would tell him that the doctor thought she was a bit down about things. It would buy her some time. Things would resolve themselves, wouldn’t they?

  She hurried along the corridor and out into the waiting room. Luckily the woman and her baby weren’t there. She made her way to the swing doors at the back.

  ‘Ms Todd?’

  Kate turned round. It was the pharmacist.

  ‘I’ll have your prescription ready in a minute, if you’d like to take a seat.’ The pharmacist smiled at her from through the hatch.

  ‘Right, thank you.’

  Kate stared at the television still murmuring in the corner, sitting up when she saw the breaking news headline running across the bottom of the screen.

  Jackie Wood wins High Court appeal.

  She watched the pictures – Jackie Wood on the steps of the court, reporters waving microphones, cameras, people jostling one another, a self-satisfied man standing next to her, opening his mouth, talking, but Kate couldn’t hear what was said. She hardly needed to, the inference was clear. Jackie Wood, one of two people responsible for the deaths of two small children, had finally won her appeal.

  ‘Ms Todd? Your prescription is ready.’

  Kate stood up automatically, walked over to the hatch, and took the paper bag handed to her by the pharmacist.

  Then she went outside, got into her car, and rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

  3

  Sasha had always been the troublesome one. The needy one. The daughter their parents worried about. The one they spoke carefully to, treated with kid gloves. Alex had learned from a young age that Sasha had to be indulged. She was ten months younger than Alex, but when they were growing up Alex had often felt ten years older. ‘Look after your sister’ had been drummed in to her. The ‘poor me’ attitude Sasha cultivated had annoyed Alex all her life. Sasha was willowy, with fine blonde hair that curled attractively around her heart-shaped face. Whenever people saw the two of them together, they’d never believe they were sisters barely a year apart in age, because Alex was short with dark hair that was poker straight. She had also inherited her father’s sallow – if she was feeling kind towards herself she’d call it olive – complexion. Sasha was the beauty and Alex was not. Or Sasha had been the beauty. That was the thing. Nowadays, she was still thin, still had blonde hair and the heart-shaped face and the blue eyes, but her thinness was of the bag of bones variety, the blonde hair was unkempt, her glacial features sharp and her blue eyes empty. She also had to wear long sleeves to cover up the scars.

  Sasha had never got over the loss of her twins. They were four years old when they went missing. One boy, one girl; the complete set, and both with her blonde hair and blue eyes. Harry was a typical boy: loved rough and tumble and was always grubby. Millie was much the same, but with that cute girlishness that made everyone want to hug her. She smiled all the time. They were adventurous children; curious, inquisitive, loving. It was Harry who turned up a few weeks later; Millie was never found.

  Harry’s funeral was unbearable. The little white coffin balanced on the shoulder of Sasha’s husband, Jez, and all the mourners; each and every one of them thanking whatever God they worshipped it wasn’t happening to them. Alex had vowed to keep her own little boy safe. Unusually for that summer, the sky was grey and the drizzle didn’t stop. God’s tears, she heard someone say.

  Alex wasn’t sure that either she or Sasha believed in God anymore.

  Their parents were there; shocked and bewildered that something like this could be happening to them. The church looked beautiful; a medieval place of worship in the Suffolk countryside. St Mary Magdalene. Sasha and Jez had chosen to bury Harry in their parents’ parish because Sasha couldn’t bear to be in Sole Bay at the time. And she wanted somewhere quiet for him, somewhere the birds would sing and the sunlight would dapple through the trees and warm the earth beneath. So she chose the next door village, where their parents had moved to when she and Alex left home. Someone – the good ladies of the parish, Alex supposed – had decorated the church with roses and willow and honeysuckle that scented the air. Harry was buried in the little graveyard at the back and it was overwhelming to see the tiny mound of earth that was going to hide his coffin forever.

  But at least they were able to bury Harry; not knowing Millie’s fate was unbearable.

  And now Alex was on a mission to get to Sasha before she hurt herself again. Her sister had stayed in the house she had lived in with Jez and the twins. Couldn’t bear to leave it, she said. Alex thought it was unhealthy, but despite her attempts to get her sister to either move in with her or find somewhere that wasn’t jam-packed full of memories, Sasha refused. ‘What if Millie comes back?’ she said. ‘What if she came back and I wasn’t there?’ And Alex wanted to say to her that Millie was only four when she went missing so she wouldn’t even remember where to come back to, even if she was still alive. Naturally, she didn’t say any of that to her. No one could say anything like that to her. At least, though, Alex was in the town and could look out for her sister, and, on a good day, she could run there in eight minutes.

  This was not a good day – lack of sleep and not much food – but adrenalin would add wings to her feet.

  ‘I have to go, Gus,’ she said, running to the door. ‘You finish your toast. There’s a new jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.’

  ‘But Mum – what’s up?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’ Alex felt breathless as she pulled on her coat and fumbled with the buttons. ‘I have to go and see Aunty Sasha. Okay?’

  He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

  The radio carried on in the background.

  The pavements were damp but thankfully not slippery. She ran, weaving through the people who blocked her way. Where was the family liaison officer? He’d said there wouldn’t be a decision this early. She’d have time to prepare Sasha for the possibility of Wood getting off. What had happened?

  Two old women pulling shopping trolleys were chatting, taking up the whole pavement. Trolleys with loud red and green spots, the sort that tripped up the unwary pedestrian. She hated them. She had to leap into the road to get round them; a car hooting as it just missed her. Then a woman with one of those pushchairs that could be used to haul babies up mountain ranges suddenly stopped, almost making her fall. A crowd of school kids laughing, pushing each other, appeared in front of her. Inside her head she screamed at them, wanted to
shove them out of the way. She barged through.

  Not too far now.

  She skittered around the corner into Sasha’s road.

  She needed to stop, lean up against a wall and catch her breath, but didn’t dare.

  She weaved passed two black wheelie bins, noticing that one of them was overflowing with rubbish – cartons, cereal packets, chicken bones – that littered the pavement. She crossed the road, passed the public toilets, to Sasha’s waist-high wrought iron gate. Alex wiggled the catch until it finally gave way, thinking she must get Jez to do something about that, then finally the five steps up the path to the front door.

  She slipped her key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open all in one movement, almost falling into the hallway.

  Sasha was in what passed for the sitting room; a room that had once been light and full of laughter, but with its faded blue and white striped wallpaper and cream carpet that had seen better days, was now oppressive. A two-bar electric fire in the fireplace pumped out a desultory amount of heat. There was a television in one corner, and a sofa pulled up in front of it. The curtains were half drawn and the place smelled fetid and unkempt: all a sure sign that Sasha was in one of her downward spirals. Some thirty pictures of the twins, in various stages of development, right up to the day they went missing, were arranged on every surface. One photograph had been taken in the clearing in the woods, the tartan blanket laid out, picnic basket ready to disgorge its lunch of dainty crustless ham sandwiches, slices of banana, apple, segments of tangerine. And the treat of lemonade to drink, with iced biscuits and little strawberry yoghurts to finish. A perfect day out. A few days later they were gone.

  The television was tuned to BBC News, its red logo adding a bit of colour to the room. The breaking news strapline screamed out at Alex from the crawler across the bottom: Jackie Wood wins High Court appeal – conviction quashed. Pictures flashed up: Jackie Wood on the steps of the High Court smiling and waving, her solicitor by her side about to read out a statement. The words washed over her and around her.

  ‘Held for fifteen years…an innocent woman…rebuild my life…’

  She heard the viper’s tongue in every word.

  And the shouted questions from reporters: ‘How did you cope with life inside?’

  ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘Are you going to try and get some compensation?’

  The sound of the traffic and blaring horns obliterating some of the syllables.

  Wood smiled, and Alex saw the smug look in her eyes. She could imagine the triumph the woman was feeling and she wanted to reach into the box and grab her round her scrawny neck. At least she didn’t look great on prison life or food – she was alabaster pale and thinner than Alex remembered. Her skirt and jacket looked chain-shop cheap. She quite fancied strangling the solicitor too, though his neck was much less scrawny. In fact, the feeling was so visceral she could almost taste the air being squeezed from the man’s body. How much of any compensation was the woman going to get? Alex looked at Wood again. Three appeals and finally she’d managed to get off. Three appeals, a campaigning television producer, and a discredited expert witness and there was finally enough evidence to make two out of three High Court judges feel her conviction for the abduction and murder of Alex’s niece and nephew was unsafe. She was a free woman. At least, Martin Jessop, her accomplice, was dead and gone. Hanged himself in the first three months of his sentence.

  ‘I have nothing more to say, thank you.’ Wood turned and went back into the building. The newsreader moved on, unaware of the effect the news was having on both her and Sasha.

  The telephone started to ring, making both of them jump.

  Alex thought quickly, then picked it up.

  ‘’Allo?’ she said in a bad imitation of a French accent.

  ‘Is that Sasha Clements?’ The slightly breathless, high-pitched voice of a journalist hoping to get the first interview.

  ‘Non.’

  ‘Is Sasha Clements there, please?’

  ‘Non. She moved from ’ere three years ago.’ She winced, unsure her days of am-dram had stood her in good stead after all.

  ‘Oh.’ Disappointment in the voice. ‘I don’t suppose you have a number for her, do you?’

  ‘Non, sorry.’

  ‘Do you know where she went?’

  ‘I think she went to Spain.’

  ‘Spain?’

  ‘Spain.’

  ‘Oh. I see. Well thank you for your time.’

  ‘Plaisir.’

  Alex cut the call and then put the receiver down on the table, wanting to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all, and wondering if she’d done enough to delay the feeding frenzy. Only time would tell.

  She turned off the television and looked at her sister properly. Sasha hadn’t noticed her, hadn’t realized there was no sound or picture coming from the television. She was sitting staring at the now blank screen, tears rolling down her cheeks and her arms hugged around her body, hands tucked in the sleeves of her shirt. The material was stained red. Alex wanted to cry.

  She sat beside her sister and put her arm around her, trying to ignore the fact that she flinched. Alex didn’t say anything for a moment, attempting to breathe evenly to get some saliva into her dry mouth. Then Sasha leaned her head on her shoulder and let out a shuddering sigh.

  ‘Alex.’ She said her name softly, like a small puff of wind. ‘I didn’t think they’d let her out. They told me the appeal would fail. They told me.’

  Alex kissed the top of her head. ‘I know, my love, I know.’

  ‘I thought I was dealing with it, you know; living with the fact that Millie was gone, buried somewhere and we’d never find out where.’

  Alex tightened her arm around Sasha. And me, and me, she thought.

  ‘But now—’

  ‘We will find Millie, you know, one day. I promise.’ And she felt the burden of that promise settle on her shoulders.

  ‘I don’t want you here,’ Sasha said suddenly. ‘Not you.’

  Alex closed her eyes, briefly, trying not to be hurt, telling herself that her sister was like that, had been for the past fifteen years; that Sasha couldn’t hate her any more than Alex hated herself. That Sasha didn’t mean what she was saying. She didn’t answer.

  They sat quietly for some minutes. ‘Sash?’ Alex said. ‘Can I look at your arm?’

  A shrug.

  Gently, Alex lifted Sasha’s head off her shoulder and took her arm, pushing up the sleeve of her sister’s shirt. The gash down the side of her forearm glistened wetly, but she judged it didn’t need stitches this time. She got up and went into the kitchen, finding a bowl and some kitchen roll. She filled the bowl with warm water, poured in some salt and went back to sit beside Sasha. She wiped the cut, thankful to see it had stopped oozing blood. Her movements were mechanical – if she thought too hard about what she was doing, about what Sasha had done, she wouldn’t have been able to clean up the wound.

  ‘Don’t take me to hospital, Alex. Please. Otherwise, I won’t be able to feel.’ She rubbed her face with her other sleeve. ‘I need to feel.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Okay, but you must take care of yourself.’ She bit her lip. What she was saying was nonsense. She could never stop Sasha from self-harming. God knows, she’d tried. Their parents wouldn’t believe it was going on, not even when Sasha had to stay in hospital because she’d cut herself so badly, and not even when the local doctor had her sectioned after she’d cut her wrists – not self-harming, not a cry for help, but a real suicide attempt. But she hadn’t hurt herself this badly for months and Alex had been beginning to hope she might be on some sort of road to recovery.

  Sasha looked at her with dead eyes. ‘How can I take care of myself,’ she whispered, ‘when I couldn’t take care of my children? When the woman who murdered my babies is out there again?’

  There was nothing Alex could say to that.

  4

  It was mid afternoon and the light was already lea
ching out of the day when Alex left Sasha, having bandaged her arm and made her lunch, which she picked at. Alex also tried to persuade Jez to go round and stay, at least for one night. That was hard work. She knew that statistics for a couple splitting up after the death of a child were higher than average – she wasn’t sure what they were when two children were dead. But Sasha and Jez had disintegrated pretty quickly after Harry was buried, and not even the thought that Millie might come home one day was enough to keep them together. Anyway, Alex had always thought he ought to give his ex-wife more support, so she steeled herself and rang him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said to her, whispering fiercely down his phone, ‘I do know about the court’s decision. I am in the right place, you know.’

  ‘And you hadn’t thought to go round to Sasha’s?’

  There was silence. ‘I couldn’t, Alex. I thought you—’

  ‘Yes, well, I’d been told nothing would happen before midday, but they were wrong there, weren’t they? So you can imagine what she was like when I got to the flat and she’d been watching it over and over again on bloody 24-hour news.’ She found she was whispering, too.

  He sighed, and Alex imagined him raking his hair with his free hand, making it all stand up on end. ‘Look, it’s difficult enough for me to process this right now, and I’m in the middle of another case.’

  ‘I’d have thought you would have been there. At court, I mean.’ Alex couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Why weren’t you?’

  ‘They weren’t my children.’ No, they weren’t her children, but they were her sister’s children, and if it wasn’t for her they might still be alive. But she had to stop thinking that or it would send her mad. ‘Couldn’t the police give you compassionate leave or something? Look,’ Alex went for a more conciliatory tone, ‘I’m not asking you to drop everything now. I just want you to go over later. Stay there for the night. I would if I could but I’ve got Gus to think about.’