It Should Have Been Me

by Susan Wilkins

  Jo’s rescuer faced him. ‘Need to slow down, mate.’

  There was no reply. He bulldozed between them and barged the people in front aside.

  ‘Oi! Watch it!’ The hoodie ploughed on, ignoring them all.

  As the escalator carried Jo to the bottom he scurried off, disappearing down a tunnel. She was shaken and a little dizzy.

  The bloke who’d helped her shook his head. In his fifties, the Italian wool overcoat and cashmere scarf didn’t match the cockney accent. ‘Bloody London, eh. Love it and hate it! You okay, love?’

  Jo’s heart was thumping in her chest but she painted on a smile. ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Had she been deliberately targeted? Jo walked along the underground platform anxiously scanning the sea of faces. He could still be lurking, though she told herself that was unlikely. She walked close to the wall giving the edge of the platform a wide berth. Her head had started to throb. The splinters of light bouncing off the tiled walls seemed dazzling, they seared her retinas. Her shoulders were tense, her neck rigid. She was rapidly developing a migraine.

  Her plan had been to return to the office, but she was hardly in a fit state to deal with Foley. She headed back up the escalators and out on to the street.

  Jo was prone to migraines, often brought on by stress. Rummaging in her bag she found some painkillers and popped a couple. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes to hail a cab. She gave the driver her mother’s address, sank into the back seat and closed her eyes.

  The cabbie regarded her in the rear-view mirror. ‘You all right, love?’ He was probably worried she was going to throw up.

  ‘Headache. Nothing really.’

  Like the man on the escalator who’d grabbed her, he too had concern in his face. It did exist, good people were out there, she tried to remind herself of that.

  The journey from Shepherd’s Bush to Greenwich was long and expensive. But, as the shock of the encounter subsided and the medication kicked in, it gave her time to replay the incident and consider it from every angle. Had the hoodie been planning to push her down the escalator? Was he carrying a knife? He’d been aggressive and keen to escape. On the other hand it could’ve been a piece of random hostility from an angry lout.

  If this thug had been sent by the Kelmendis, how did he know where to find her? In order to follow her they would’ve needed to know where to look. Had they picked her up as she left the office? But then how did they know she’d be going out this afternoon? The informant? They would’ve needed to watch the building closely and that seemed too well organized. She’d walked out of the estate agents’ feeling smug, guard down and proving the DS wrong was all that had been on her mind. Was this payback for her hubris?

  Paying the fare with a credit card, she stood beside the cab’s open window and noticed her hand was shaking. The cabbie gave her a smile and advised her to take care before driving off, red tail-lights blinking, into the early encroaching wintery darkness.

  Jo had to rest her bag on the garden wall to search for her front-door key. The afternoon rain had cleared and eddies of freezing fog were drifting down the road creating a sulphurous glow around the Victorian streetlamps.

  Suddenly, from nowhere a dark shape launched itself at her. She leapt back, fear shooting up through her body and seizing her by the throat, the contents of her bag spilling out on to the pavement. Perched on the wall next to her, the sinuous shadow raised its tail and meowed.

  It was the fat old ginger moggie that lived next door. Jo took a deep breath. Her nerves were still jangling. Relief flooded through her, causing her hands to tremble even more. To calm herself, as much as the cat, she stroked his head. He was a friendly old thing and rubbed his nose enthusiastically against the side of her hand and started to purr.

  ‘You should be tucked up indoors, buddy. We both should.’

  Slowly collecting up her things she found her keys and unlocked the front door. As she stepped over the threshold delicious cooking smells assailed her. Alison was in the galley kitchen, apron on, stirring a large orange Le Creuset pot, which Jo hadn’t seen in use for years.

  ‘You’re back early. I’m making ratatouille. I thought we’d have it with some pasta and cheese.’ She sounded positively jaunty.

  Dumping her bag by the door Jo joined her mother in the kitchen. The last thing she wanted was to tell her what had happened.

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. I do know how to cook.’ She raised her wooden spoon from the pot, blew on it and tasted, nodding in approval. ‘Yeah, not bad.’

  ‘What’s brought this on?’

  ‘You work hard. You need a decent meal when you get in.’ Alison peered at her daughter. ‘Actually, I have to say, darling, you look like shit. White as a sheet.’

  ‘Bit of a migraine.’ She opened the fridge and found a bottle of wine in the door. She lifted it out. ‘Top up?’

  Alison picked up her glass and held it out. ‘You sure you want to drink with a migraine?’

  Jo poured. ‘Yes.’ Taking a glass from the cupboard she filled it for herself as she scanned her mother.

  The volatility of Alison’s moods was nothing new. There’d been some discussion with her GP a few years previously about whether she was bipolar. He was reluctant to make a diagnosis and she’d refused to accept the label or the drugs that went with it.

  Now she was all smiles though, definitely up, beaming at her daughter. ‘What shall we drink to?’

  ‘How about confusion to the enemy?’ The toast slipped into Jo’s head from nowhere in particular. Then she remembered it was a favourite of her father’s.

  But Alison ignored this. ‘What about truth?’ She had a wistful look on her face. Jo had given up trying to interpret her mother’s emotional states. Now she simply rode the rollercoaster and hoped for a soft landing.

  ‘What do you mean, truth?’

  ‘You’re a police officer. Surely truth matters.’

  Jo chinked her glass, she hadn’t the strength to argue. ‘Okay then, truth.’

  She took a large swallow of wine. It was quite a good Sauvignon Blanc, but it could’ve been anything. A couple more glasses tonight should do the trick. Calm her down and chill her out.

  Alison was twisting the stem of her glass and Jo sensed her anticipation. Something was clearly going on.

  Her mother took a sip, smiled. ‘What if Nathan Wade didn’t kill Sarah?’

  ‘Fuck a duck, Mum! Who have you been talking to? Has that bloody woman been hassling you?’

  ‘I called her.’ Alison was trying to sound casual.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . . well, it’s never felt quite right.’

  Jo plonked her glass down on the counter. ‘Look, you can’t allow her to get inside your head—’

  ‘I don’t think I am. I’ve always had a feeling—’

  ‘Mum, feelings aren’t evidence. The prosecution case was rock solid.’

  ‘Jo, you were only eleven—’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘If you ask me, you get way too many migraines. Too much stress.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Alison gave her a sceptical look and shook her head. ‘Your father was right, it’s a horrible job. You shouldn’t be doing it.’

  ‘I remember enough. I was twelve by the time it came to trial. The verdict was unanimous.’

  ‘You didn’t sit in that courtroom day after day.’

  ‘Whatever she’s told you about miscarriages of justice – okay, they happen. But you have to ask yourself, why’s she doing this now? Is it coming from him? Is he now saying he’s innocent?’

  ‘I remember him in the dock. Such a boy. And when they went through—’ She swallowed hard. ‘Well, how she was hit, then choked, all that. He looked so shocked. And Briony says he really loved her.’

  ‘Briony says! Yeah, I’ll bet she does. But ask yourself this, Mum, why didn’t she say it sixteen years ago to the police?’

 
‘I know you’re upset, Jo.’

  ‘I’m not upset. I’m angry. And you should be too. You’re being manipulated.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like that.’

  ‘That’s because—’ Jo cast around for the right words. ‘Because she’s telling you a story you want to hear.’

  The image of Ivan Rossi flitted into Jo’s mind. Lies and manipulation. But that was different, it was her job and he wasn’t an innocent dupe like her mother.

  ‘I’ve agreed to meet him. Then I think I’ll know.’

  ‘You won’t. Psychopaths can be charming and very manipulative.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s ever been diagnosed as a psychopath. I remember the psychiatrist who gave evidence. She said she didn’t think he was that.’

  ‘Why are you even thinking about this? And why are you so pleased about it?’

  ‘Because it explains.’

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘Why I’ve never been able to let it go.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he’s innocent. It means . . .’

  Alison had tears welling in her eyes. ‘That I’m some crazy person who can’t cope?’

  She put her glass down and pulled her cardigan around her. Jo took a step forward and coiled her arms round her mother.

  ‘Oh, Mum—’

  Alison accepted the hug, but only for a moment, then she wriggled free.

  ‘I know how you see me, Jo. Mad mother who you have to keep an eye on.’

  ‘Grief does weird things to people.’ It was a lame cliché but all Jo could manage.

  ‘That’s for sure. It turned your father into an angry stranger who decided he hated me.’

  ‘He doesn’t hate you.’

  ‘He brought the shutters down. Froze me out, like it was somehow my fault.’

  ‘He froze us all out, not just you.’

  Jo didn’t want to think about her father. He was the ghost in her life. She maintained polite relations with him and his new wife. They sent her a John Lewis gift voucher at Christmas and periodic invitations to visit, which she usually declined.

  ‘Okay, let’s try and look at all this objectively.’ Jo picked up her glass, took another sip. ‘This Briony whatever-she’s-called comes out of the woodwork and she wants to make a film.’

  ‘She was a friend of Sarah’s.’

  ‘So she says. How do we know that?’

  ‘She’s said things about Sarah that ring true.’

  ‘Even so, she’s seen an opportunity. Have you looked her up on the net? What kind of film-maker is she? Does she have a track record?’

  ‘What does that matter? I think she’s had a guilty conscience for years and now she wants to make things right.’

  Jo shook her head, took another slug of wine.

  Alison reached out, touched her daughter’s sleeve. ‘Jo, if you’d only talk to her. All the stuff you’re saying, it may be right.’

  ‘I know it’s right.’

  ‘No you don’t. You think you know. And Briony says there’s evidence.’

  ‘Briony, eh?’

  ‘You’re in a much better position than me to assess it.’

  ‘It’s a waste of time.’

  ‘If the man who so brutally killed your sister is still out there, is still walking round free—’ Alison pressed the side of her clenched fist to her lips to hold back the tears. ‘I can’t stand that. Even the possibility of that. Please, Jo, I’m begging you. Talk to her. Listen to what she’s got to say.’

  ‘Okay okay! If that will settle this for you, I’ll talk to her.’

  ‘And you’ll listen?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I’ll listen.’

  Mother and daughter stared at each other, relief on both sides.

  Alison nodded slowly, then she smiled. ‘Okay, then. Now I hope you’re hungry. Because there’s a lot of ratatouille here.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Nathan Wade got off the train at Victoria. The journey up from Littlehampton had taken an hour and three quarters. Mostly he’d gazed out of the window at the bare fields and spectral trees shrouded in morning mist. The rumble and rattle of the train as it sped through the landscape was a novelty. He felt like a kid on an outing. The only other trip of this length that he’d made since his conviction was a depressing and fleeting visit to his old hometown. But today he was putting thoughts of the deadening years of imprisonment behind him. Resentment took up too much energy, now he was moving on. Now it was payback time.

  As the train trundled through the suburban outskirts of the city he’d started to feel a little tense. It was so many years since he’d been to London and stepping down from the carriage and joining the press of passengers hurrying towards the automatic ticket barriers, he became more aware of how odd it all felt. He seemed to have lost the skill of weaving effortlessly through crowds, people en masse made him uncomfortable. Long periods of incarceration could make you agoraphobic, he’d read that somewhere and with no ankle bracelet tracking his movements he felt naked. Being free was more complicated than he’d expected. As he puzzled over where to insert his ticket in the barrier, Briony Rowe appeared.

  They smiled at each other awkwardly.

  She was sweaty and slightly out of breath. ‘Good journey?’

  ‘It was okay.’ He had no intention of sharing the novelty of it, nor his trepidation, with her.

  Dressed entirely in black – black coat, black leggings, a sable cashmere wrap – she seemed older and more sophisticated, which was possibly her aim. He considered his own shabby outfit: cheap trainers, threadbare jeans, a thin grey hoodie and ratty scarf. He smelt of prison and looked more like an overgrown teen, which didn’t please him. Inside, clothes and appearance hadn’t mattered to him. But now he was out in the world again he felt self-conscious.

  The offices of Xtraordinary Productions were off Tottenham Court Road, so she proposed that they take the Victoria Line to Warren Street; it was, she explained, only three stops. He nodded mutely; he’d hoped they would take a cab, had imagined being whisked up to the door and stepping out on to the pavement. If he was about to become a TV star, that seemed a more appropriate arrival. Still he’d resolved to be patient; Briony would realize soon enough that she couldn’t take him for granted.

  Xtraordinary occupied the second floor of a brick-fronted building of media businesses in Whitfield Street. Briony could claim an acquaintance with Gordon Kramer and his company, having done some editing work for them in the past. But this would be her first visit in her new capacity as a creative.

  Gordon’s wife, Tania Jones, was the real boss and it had taken a couple of difficult phone conversations to secure a meeting. Gordon may have the awards and the reputation but it was Tania, at least twenty years his junior, who had the business nous to keep the place afloat in the choppy waters of independent television production.

  She had given Briony quite a grilling on the phone: was there a realistic chance of getting the case reviewed? She was interested in the possibility of Alison’s involvement. But before she’d commit to anything she insisted on seeing Nathan for herself. This was, in effect, an audition to check whether he would make a plausible and sympathetic protagonist. Briony hadn’t explained it to Nathan in these terms, but she was beginning to realize that she probably didn’t need to. He was proving far more astute than she’d expected.

  The reception area contained several low leather sofas and was divided from the main office by an opaque glass panel. Hung next to this were half a dozen BAFTA awards, a large glossy photograph of Gordon Kramer riding into Baghdad on an American tank and a smaller, more grainy print of his younger, long-haired self with an old-fashioned mic standing beside broken chunks of the Berlin Wall.

  Nathan stood looking at this particular shot for some time. He rarely watched any television news. The horrors of the Middle East had largely passed him by. But he had a keen sense of history. He remembered the Wall coming down – he was only eight years old – but his father had been excited, tel
ling him that everything would be different and Nathan would grow up with a better life in a better world. That seemed ironic now, given how things had turned out.

  Briony whispered in his ear: ‘He’s such a legend.’

  ‘Must’ve been interesting to be there.’

  ‘You should ask him what it was like.’

  Tania Jones didn’t keep them waiting. She was a woman with a schedule and she believed in sticking to it. They were ushered into the conference room by an enthusiastic intern, who offered them coffee, tea and four kinds of herbal infusions.

  Tania immediately threw her arms around Briony Rowe’s considerable bulk and air-kissed her cheek. ‘Briony! It’s been way too long. How are you? You’re looking great.’

  ‘I’m good. And so psyched about this project. But let me introduce you to Nathan Wade.’

  Nathan knew without prompting that he had to impress this woman. That’s why they were here. Shrewd dark eyes under a severe fringe scrutinized him as she offered her hand to shake. He found it difficult to guess her age. Briony had said she must be forty-five but a lean runner’s frame and bags of restless energy made her seem much younger.

  ‘Nathan! Thanks so much for coming in today.’ Holding on to his hand she covered it with her left palm and squeezed. ‘It’s great to meet you.’

  His instinct was to pull away. He wasn’t used to this kind of physical contact with women. Forcing himself to hold her gaze, he smiled.

  ‘I’m incredibly grateful that you’re interested in my case.’

  She let go of his hand, which was a relief and they all sat down at the table.

  ‘Obviously Briony’s told me about it. But, really, I’d like to hear about what happened from your point of view.’

  Briony Rowe held her breath. The next few minutes were crucial. Would he make the right impression? She had no idea. He could be difficult and obtuse, she was well aware of that. His reticence wasn’t so much of a problem, shyness made him more sympathetic. But if he was glib or, God forbid, mentioned money, that wouldn’t play at all.

  Nathan shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain. I’ve spent years trying to understand it myself. I was a student in my first year at uni, still a kid. I fell in love with a girl. She was . . . well, the most amazing person I’d ever met. We were having so much fun. One night we got pissed, as students do. I went back to my room and the next morning the police were hammering at the door. They told me she was dead and arrested me for her murder.’