Outside, the night was bright, but shockingly cold. Already Jamie was becoming a weight in my arms. I wondered if I could make some kind of sling out of the blanket, but it was difficult on my own. So instead I wrapped it around Jamie, making him into a big, cosy bundle and, talking to him for my own reassurance, we set off. I’d forgotten about the electric gates at the entrance to the drive, but fortunately they were still open. With a sigh of gratitude, I set off down the lane.
All the way, I told Jamie a story about a dinosaur who was fed up with living in the quarry and wanted to make a better life for himself so he decided to run away. Jamie was sleeping, but I hoped he’d hear the words subliminally and that they would help him understand what was happening to him when he woke.
At first we were fine going down the hill. I walked in the middle of the lane, following the frozen, muddy grass that grew in a long, narrow strip where car wheels never rolled, but when we reached the entrance to the old quarry I saw the shape of a police car parked outside the gates. There was no other way round so I hugged my precious bundle to me tight and crept through the shadows as best I could. I couldn’t see inside the car, I didn’t know if there was even anyone in it, but I couldn’t take the chance of being spotted. I huddled over Jamie, like an old woman, and hoped the steam-cloud of my breath would not give us away.
The car made me worry. What if journalists or camera crews were lurking in the lane on the off-chance of snatching a shot of one of us? It was all right, though. The rest of that remote road was quiet. In the trees I heard owls calling, and little, secretive animals rustled in the frozen hedgerows, but that was all. Nothing dangerous. The moon rolled slowly across the sky and the stars twinkled in the black and it was beautiful.
We made it all the way down to the bottom of the lane without any trouble, but by then my shoulders were aching and I knew we wouldn’t be able to go much further on our own. I sat down, for a moment, at the village bus stop, but as soon as the movement stopped Jamie stirred, so I stood again and lost myself in the rhythm of my footsteps. It was only a couple of miles to the main road, where we’d be able to catch an early bus to Bristol or Wells. It was unlikely anyone at the Barn would notice we were missing until the morning. I’d turned off the lamp and scrunched up the duvet to make it look as if we were huddled beneath, just in case Bill awoke and put his head around the spare bedroom door before he went to bed. So, I thought, so long as we were safely onboard a train travelling north before anyone started looking for us, we’d be all right.
I didn’t know what time it was. I guessed it was approaching 4 a.m.
During the walk from the bottom of the hill to the main road, we were only passed by two vehicles coming from the direction of the village. Each time, I turned my back to the road so that nobody would see I was carrying a child, something which was bound to attract attention in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold. I don’t think either of the drivers noticed me; neither slowed their vehicle down.
At the junction to the main road, I stopped, considering which would be the best direction to travel. All the time I’d been walking I’d been planning on Manchester, but that would be the obvious place for me to go and that’s where people would start looking. If I went south instead of north, I’d have more time to sort us out with accommodation and a story. Nobody would ever think we’d go to Fowey, for example. Why would they? We hadn’t told a soul about our plans. Alexander said there were plenty of places to rent in the town. I could probably find the apartment he’d spoken of, and he’d said the landlord was ‘desperate’ to have it filled. It wouldn’t even look odd. I could just turn up and say that we were Alexander’s family and we’d come early, in time for Christmas. They wouldn’t know anything about what was going on here in Fowey, surely. The pictures in the papers would be of Genevieve, not me. Jamie would love it by the seaside. That was a good plan, a better plan. That’s what I’d do.
A vehicle’s headlights were approaching along the main road. I stepped back, into the shadows, but the car indicated left and, as it turned into the Burrington Stoke road, I felt the full glare of its headlights. I squinted and turned away, but I was too late. I had been spotted. The car came slowly to a halt and the driver door opened. A tallish, slight man stepped out and walked calmly across the road towards me. He was wearing a dark-blue beanie. He leaned down to look at my face in the light of a street lamp.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked very gently.
I nodded.
‘You must be frozen.’
‘No, I’m fine.’
The man held out his arms.
‘Let me take him now,’ he said. ‘You can sit in the car and have a bit of a rest.’
‘I couldn’t leave him,’ I said. ‘I promised I’d look after him. I couldn’t leave him to face everything on his own.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ said Neil. ‘But you don’t have to worry because we’re here now. We’re here to help.’
CHAPTER SIXTY
WE SAT IN the car for a while, in silence. May rubbed my chilled hands between her warm ones and we listened to Christmas music on the radio. Then Neil said: ‘We’ll have to take you back, Sarah, or else you’ll be in all kinds of trouble. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Oh, please don’t …’
‘Sweetheart, think about it,’ said May. ‘I know you want what’s best for Jamie, but you setting off a nationwide manhunt the day after Alexander’s been arrested isn’t the best way of guaranteeing a happy ending for the little lad. If you want to be with him, you’ll have to show that you’re responsible and go through the proper channels.’
‘But they’ll never let him come to me,’ I said. ‘The family will close ranks round him and they’ll tell him lies about Alexander and he’ll end up never knowing how it really was.’
May sighed. ‘He’ll know in his heart,’ she said.
‘They’ll change him,’ I said. ‘He won’t know anything of the truth.’
‘Perhaps that would be for the best.’
‘Oh, May, don’t say that!’
I was cradling the sleeping child on my lap. Most of him was hidden by blanket and clothes, but I could see his eyelashes and the lids of his eyes in their perfect little hollows. I leaned over him and touched my lips to his forehead. He tasted so dear, so familiar. His skin was so warm.
The car windows had steamed up. The engine was idling to keep the heater working. Outside, the night had darkened as the moon disappeared behind the hill.
‘What happened to your face?’ May asked.
‘I fell over in the dark last night.’ Was it only last night? It felt like a million years ago.
May and Neil exchanged glances.
‘You look like you’ve gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson,’ Neil said gently.
‘No,’ I said, but I was feeling hopelessly tired again. No matter how much I protested, they wouldn’t believe that Alexander hadn’t hit me. If they truly thought he was capable of murdering Genevieve, then what was a little domestic abuse? I yawned and, at the same time, Neil must have made a signal to May, because she nodded and said: ‘Come on, let’s just do it.’
I didn’t bother fighting them. I was exhausted, and everything seemed inevitable. They coached me on what we would say when we got back to the Barn to cover my tracks but, as it turned out, I didn’t have to say anything, because nobody had noticed we were missing and the French window was still slightly open. I went in that way with Jamie and Neil, while May rang the doorbell. Blue went mad barking in the kitchen and when Bill came out to investigate, May kept him distracted at the door. Bill was half asleep and fuddled with alcohol and didn’t notice Neil and me creeping back in. Jamie was undressed and back in bed before he, or anyone else, realized he had ever been out of it. Neil insisted I lie down too, although I knew I would not sleep. I lay with my arms around Jamie listening to the muted conversation downstairs, May’s cheeping voice explaining that they had got here as quickly as they could when
they picked up all the messages, and it was all so terrible, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like for the family, and Bill listening to her and making polite noises every now and then. Neil sat with me for a while, stroking my hair as if I were a child.
‘Go and be with May,’ I whispered.
‘You’re going to be fine, you know,’ Neil said. ‘And Jamie will be all right too. Life has a way of sorting everything out, you know.’
After a while he went out of the room. I lay there, feeling the seconds peel away, and each second that went hurt a little more than the one before and I thought that when I reached the last one, the one where I had to leave Jamie, I might die of hurt.
I heard Bill fetching blankets for May and Neil so they could snatch a couple of hours’ sleep on the sofas downstairs, and then his footsteps coming up the stairs, the sound of a toilet flushing somewhere, and then everything went quiet. I could not sleep. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be wide awake for every precious moment I had with Jamie.
The rest of the night passed very quickly.
A while after the birds had started their singing, I heard the household stirring. I lay still, and Jamie, thankfully, slept on. He had been very late to bed the night before and maybe the fresh air in the night had also tired him.
There were breakfast noises in the kitchen, the sound of Claudia and May talking, May flustered and apologetic, Claudia at her most posh, her most brusque, sounding like her stepmother. I heard the police arrive. They were complaining about the barrage of press that was rolling up along the lane. Some of their vehicles were so large the police were having difficulty making their way through. The police voices were deep and business-like. I heard the female family-liaison officer ask how Jamie was. Then a door closed and all the talking became muffled and hushed and I knew they were talking about me and planning how to persuade me to leave Jamie behind.
He murmured and stretched beside me. I felt his ribcage expand beneath the palm of my hand and his feet worked their way down my legs. The nightie had tangled itself around him. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.
‘Hello, Sarah,’ he said.
‘Hello, Jamie.’
‘Can we go home and put the Christmas tree up today?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I wish we could.’
May came into the bedroom with tea and juice and toast. She told Jamie to run along and find his cousins, and when he’d gone she sat on the edge of the bed and I knew she had been elected to break the bad news.
‘Sarah …’ she began, and I shook my head.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Please don’t say what you were going to say. I know.’
‘It’s for the best, my love. What that poor little lad needs now is to be with his family.’
‘I promised I’d look after him.’
‘And you have,’ May said. ‘You’ve looked after him very well. But now it’s time for you to let him go.’
The downstairs of the Barn was crowded and it smelled of cold air and aftershave. Plain-clothes police officers were drinking tea in the living room with Virginia and Claudia and several people I did not recognize. Somebody had switched on the Christmas lights. They sparkled and twinkled and the room looked cosy – anyone looking in through the window who did not know what was happening would not have guessed the truth. They’d have thought it was some kind of social event. I noticed the footprints on the carpet around the French windows and I thought it was only a few hours ago that I’d gone out into the night with Jamie. I’d tried to do the best for him. I’d tried to protect him and I’d fallen at the first hurdle. God knows what was going to happen to him now.
The previous day I had been numb. That morning the shock hit me physically. I sat hunched at the periphery of the room while arrangements were made, and all the time I ached for Jamie and for Alexander. If Alexander was here, I thought, he would look after us all. He’d know what to do.
May wrote down addresses and telephone numbers for the police and agreed to various conditions on my behalf. An officer explained that I would need to be formally interviewed at some stage and that I should not, under any circumstances, have any contact with Alexander. He was due to be charged that morning, and I would be a key witness. I nodded to show I understood.
The police wanted to photograph the injuries on my face, but I wouldn’t let them do that.
‘Come on, Sarah,’ Neil said as soon as the police officer had finished. ‘Come on, love, it’s time to get going.’
‘I need to say goodbye to Jamie.’
‘No,’ said Claudia. ‘Don’t you go near him.’
‘I have to, Claudia. I have to explain.’
Bill stepped forward and put his arm around Claudia’s shoulders. She reached up and took hold of his hand.
‘Children are resilient,’ he said. ‘Jamie will be fine. We’ll take care of him now.’
‘Please …’
‘You’ll only upset him. Is that what you want?’
‘Hold on,’ said May, who could never bear to see me thwarted. She stood beside me and took my hand. ‘Sarah’s not going to upset the lad, she loves him.’
‘She’s only known him five minutes. And she doesn’t know the first thing about love.’
Neil joined the two of us.
‘Let’s just go,’ he said. ‘Come on, Sarah. I’m sure you’ll be able to see Jamie again when things are different.’
He took my other hand and his hand was cool and made me feel safe. May squeezed my fingers. I let the two of them guide me into the hall. The front door was open. The dogs were sniffing about on the lawn. We were on the drive, our heads held low against the stinging flash of lights from the photographers grouped behind the gates, when I heard the cry.
‘Sarah!’
I turned my head and there was Jamie, hurtling towards the front door, holding his arms out to me.
Bill caught Jamie under the arms at the door, and pulled him back. He wasn’t properly dressed. His skinny bare legs were flailing.
‘Sarah!’ he screamed. ‘Where are you going?’ There was a barrage of lights.
‘You can’t snap the kid!’ May shouted, dropping my hand and heading towards the assembled press. They immediately turned their lenses towards her.
‘Leave her alone!’ Neil shouted.
‘Let me go to him!’ I pleaded to Neil. ‘Let me just have a word!’
‘Get in the car, Sarah,’ said a voice at my shoulder. It was Detective Inspector Twyford.
Jamie was screaming: ‘Let me go, let me go, let me go! Sarah!’
‘Oh God,’ I cried, trying to pull my hand away from Neil’s. ‘Please let me go to him!’
‘You bastards!’ May yelled at the cameramen.
DI Twyford gripped my arm and spoke in an authoritative voice.
‘Turn to Jamie,’ he said. ‘If he sees you panicking, he’ll be even more scared. Smile like nothing’s wrong and wave and say you’ll see him soon.’
I turned and I saw the little boy reaching both arms out to me and screaming to come to me.
Bill was trying to close the door but Jamie had his fingers gripped around the edge. He was going to get his fingers trapped. I knew he wouldn’t let go.
‘Why are you going away?’ he screamed. ‘Where’s my Daddy? When are we going home? Where’s my Mummy? Don’t go!’
I opened my mouth but could not speak.
‘Go on,’ said the inspector. ‘Smile. Reassure him. I’m going to get your sister before there’s trouble.’
I turned and caught Jamie’s eye, and he was so distressed it was terrible to see.
‘I’m going to get Daddy. I’m going to bring him home,’ I said, and I said it so quietly that I could not be sure I’d actually spoken the words, but may have just held them in my mind.
Jamie did not hear of course. He couldn’t possibly have heard. He screamed and held out his arms to me: ‘Sarah! Sarah! Don’t leave me! You promised you wouldn’t go! You promised!’
‘Get in the car,’ May cried, shaking the detective away. ‘Please get in the car, I can’t bear this! It’s horrible.’
Bill prised Jamie’s fingers from the frame. He closed the door. I climbed into the back seat of Neil’s car and put my head in my hands, and I wept.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
I WENT BACK into the bed in May and Neil’s spare room and I stayed there for a while – days, a week, longer. The bruises on my face turned black and then yellow. The scabs started to heal. May took me back to see my old GP and I was scolded, gently, for not even having bothered to register with a doctor in Somerset.
‘Still,’ said Dr Rooney, ‘saves us having to start all over again, eh?’
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to be back in bed, warm under the duvet.
‘You’d been through a lot last time we spoke,’ said the doctor, ‘and now you’ve been through a whole lot more. Can you tell me how you’re feeling?’
‘I’m not feeling anything,’ I said, which was the truth.
I was prescribed some tablets and I went back to bed.
I didn’t read, I didn’t think, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t dream, I didn’t talk, I didn’t eat or drink or remember or laugh or cry or anything. I was like a non-person. I didn’t wash my hair. Every so often May ran a bath and filled it with nice-smelling bubbles and while I soaked she straightened the sheets on the bed, gave the room a clean, took away whatever it was I’d been wearing and replaced it with something soft and folded. Poor May. It must have been awful for her, and she was so patient and so kind.
Betsy called. I saw her number come up on the phone, but I didn’t answer. I was too tired. May must have called her back because a parcel arrived from Burrington Stoke with some of my things in it.
‘They must be letting people back into the house,’ May said, holding a jumper up to her nose and sniffing, before tossing it into the laundry basket.
‘Does that mean I can go back?’ I asked.
May shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
The Secrets Between Us Page 32