Isolated

by M. A. Hunter

‘This interview is going to be undertaken under caution, Natalie, in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. What that means is, I will be formally recording your answers to my questions, and the document will become a legal document which could later be referred to in court if appropriate. It’s nothing for you to be scared about, but the reason we require an appropriate adult to attend the interview is so that they can ask any questions on your behalf, to ensure you fully understand what is being asked and what it means. Okay?’

  Natalie nodded, wishing she could wake from the developing nightmare.

  ‘Okay,’ Rimmington continued, ‘you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  Natalie blinked as the words settled in her mind. A police caution? A court trial? Did they think she’d done something wrong? She’d reported Sally’s murder in good faith. She hadn’t anticipated getting into trouble for it.

  ‘Do you have any initial questions, Natalie? Or do you require me to explain the caution any further?’

  Natalie shook her head under the heavy stare of Havvard.

  ‘Good, then can we start with what happened on Sunday night when you last saw Sally Curtis? I know I’ve asked you about it before but in your own words, can you explain where you were, and what you were doing when you last saw Sally?’

  Natalie proceeded to recount the story she’d delivered in the hospital room, how the four of them had gone to the woods to play truth or dare. At no point did she mention the spell, nor the fact it had been Sally’s idea that they meet at the clearing and lay it out as Jane’s mum’s book dictated. She could feel Havvard’s stare burrowing deeper and deeper into her soul as she spoke. Did he know about the Wiccan spell they’d cast? Was he here purely to stop her mentioning Pete’s possible involvement in the practice?

  Rimmington allowed her to speak without interruption, asking additional questions until she heard the answers she was expecting.

  ‘Someone phoned the police last night and reported that Sally was murdered on Sunday night, which is why our officers and Lieutenant-Colonel Havvard’s people are asking your neighbours whether they can remember hearing or seeing anything unusual on Sunday night. Now, I need you to remember that you are under caution, Natalie, and what I want to know is whether you saw Sally leave the woods after your game on Sunday night. I know the three of you have said she ran off, but did you see where she went, or whether she ran towards the hole in the fence through which you’d all snuck?’

  This was the moment, the chance to tell the detective about the bruises on Sally’s torso and about the conversation she’d overheard last night about Owen Curtis’s bad temper.

  Natalie remained silent, looking from the detective to Havvard and then back again. She finally shook her head. ‘I told you, I didn’t see where Sally went after she ran off. It was so dark and she didn’t have a torch. I don’t know how she could have found her way back out.’

  The detective closed her notebook and placed the lid back on her pen, offering Natalie a warm smile. ‘Thank you for answering those questions, Natalie. I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, and I hope nothing I’ve said today has upset you. Despite last night’s phone call, we are still treating Sally as a missing person, as there is currently no evidence to suggest anything bad has happened to her. I would ask, however, if you do recall anything else about that night – no matter how insignificant – that you ask your mum or dad to contact me. Okay?’

  Natalie nodded and watched the detective and Havvard stand and be shown to the door by her mum.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Now

  Weymouth, Dorset

  All those days when Mum thought I was just another of the ‘interfering nurses’, as she calls them, or when she thought I was an eight-year-old version of myself, and even when she had no clue who I was or what I was doing in her room, they melt into memory after the last twenty minutes, when Mum and I have just talked. She’s asked questions about my writing – I wasn’t even sure she remembered I wrote books – and so I have told her all about Monsters and Ransomed, and I was close to tears when she told me how proud she was to see how my career is flourishing.

  I know not all visits will be like this; that she will forget who I am again in the next hours, days or weeks, and it shines a light on just how cruel an illness Alzheimer’s is. I’m trying not to think about those future visits filled with my own tears and frustration. I’m just concentrating on being with her here in the moment. It’s the perfect Christmas present.

  ‘I bet you’ve already got your next book planned out, haven’t you?’ she asks, extending the cup in her hand towards me for a refill from the pot.

  Accepting the cup, I fill it with the dregs of the pot on the side and pass it back to her. ‘I’m working on a story at the moment. It’s about a fourteen-year-old girl who disappeared mysteriously about fifteen years ago.’

  Mum stares at me. ‘Can I ask a blunt question?’

  I nod. ‘Of course.’

  Her brow furrows. ‘Do you think… I mean, if your sister hadn’t gone missing, do you think this is what you would be doing with your life? Writing books, I mean?’

  The question catches me off guard. The truth is that I never pictured myself as a writer when I was younger. Yes, I enjoyed making up stories at school and always had a penchant for language, but I’ve kind of stumbled into what I’m now doing. I only took the job at the local newspaper because I didn’t want to be stuck working in a nine-to-five office. I liked that I could set my own hours; I liked chasing down stories and trying to get to the heart and essence of the truth. Had Freddie Mitchell not opened up to me that first night we met, I’d probably still be freelancing for the Dorset Echo.

  ‘I’ve never thought about it, Mum. Why do you ask?’

  She sips from her cup. ‘I know life wasn’t easy at home when you were growing up… your dad and I splitting up, and me so focused on trying to get Anna back… It must have been very tough for you at times.’

  My eyes are filling and I can’t prevent them from doing so. This is not only the most candid she’s been in months, but it’s also the most honest conversation we’ve ever had. Never before has she admitted prioritising Anna over me after she wandered off that day. I can only imagine how long these thoughts have been bubbling beneath the surface of her troubled mind, waiting to be released.

  ‘I understood that you wanted to find her,’ I say, dabbing my eyes with the sleeve of my cardigan.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry that I haven’t been there enough for you. It’s funny, after they got me up off the bathroom floor, I caught a glimpse of that photograph on the side there.’ She waves at the frame she means, beckoning me to go and collect it for her, which I do. ‘Yes, this one. Do you remember where it was taken?’

  I look at the picture of me, Anna, Dad and Mum. We are all beaming, and in the background I can see what looks like a seafront, pier and some amusement arcades. I don’t even recall the picture being taken, though I have seen it here a number of times.

  ‘I don’t know, Mum.’

  She accepts the frame and turns it over in her hands, but fails to swivel the clasps keeping the felt-covered back of the frame in place. I take it from her and turn the clasps, lifting off the back. She pulls out the image and pushes it close to her nose, trying to read something on the upper corner of the back.

  ‘Brighton, May 1998,’ she tells me, before showing me the pencil-scrawled date. ‘Your dad had won us a weekend break away at a fancy hotel along the seafront. We arrived Friday night after school and left on Monday morning. I remember we all had to share a room, and you and your sister moaned about your dad’s snoring.’ She smiles at the memory and I just want to cuddle her, to commit this passage to my long-term memory. ‘I remember your dad devouring the fried breakfast each morning, but you and Anna were just excited that you were allowed Coco Pops,
because I wouldn’t let you have them at home.’

  I don’t remember this particular incident, but I do recall Anna and me always busting a gut to get to the breakfast bar on those rare occasions we’d be on holiday, desperate to see whether the hotel stocked Coco Pops.

  ‘Sounds like us,’ I say warmly.

  ‘You’d have been… ooh, what… four or five? I think Anna would have been…?’

  ‘Seven,’ I answer for her, doing the calculation in my head.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. The two of you kept on and on and on at your dad to let you go on the arcades along the seafront. God knows how much money was wasted on those machines where you can scoop out teddy bears. Do you remember those? They probably don’t have them anymore.’

  ‘They do,’ I advise her. ‘All the old amusement arcades are still going, though they’ve added some newer, more violent games since then.’

  She nods but is staring wistfully into the distance. ‘I think that was my favourite holiday. It wasn’t long, but it was perfect… surrounded by the people I loved most in the world, and before all that nasty business with your dad and your sister.’

  It’s an interesting way to summarise her daughter going missing and her husband’s suicide, but I don’t question her on it, instead squeezing her hand.

  ‘We had other holidays,’ I counter. ‘I remember we spent a week in South Devon. A week at Butlins in Bognor Regis. We even flew to Jersey at one point, I think?’

  ‘Did we…? I really don’t remember.’ She tries to sit up in bed but her arm slips, the cup tips, and suddenly there is tea all down her nightdress. ‘Oh gosh, I’m sorry,’ she quickly whimpers.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I try to reassure as she suddenly starts crying. ‘I can get you cleaned up.’ I take the cup from her and put it on the side. ‘There’s no need to cry over spilled milk, even when it also includes tea,’ I say, trying to ease her obvious concern.

  ‘Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it was an accident.’

  ‘Mum, it’s okay, it really is. No need to make a fuss. Come on, I can get you out of this nightdress and into a clean one. The good news is you didn’t get any on the bedspread.’

  I pull back the duvet before the excess liquid leeks down onto it, and take her frail hand. She’s trembling as she swings her legs out, her voice still little more than a whisper.

  ‘I’m so sorry, please don’t be cross.’

  I lift her chin slightly so I can look straight into her eyes. ‘I’m not cross, Mum. Okay? This is nothing. I’m sure you had to clear up much bigger messes when I was younger.’ I smile at her, until her worry softens, and then I lift the nightdress up and over her head.

  The fact that she isn’t wearing a bra doesn’t come as a shock, but it is her chamois-like wrinkled skin, black and blue down her left side which causes me to gasp. The colouring is much deeper than the bruising on her face, and as I study it closer, it doesn’t look as recent as the yellowing of her cheeks.

  ‘You look like you’ve been in the wars, Mum. Tell me again how you fell in the shower.’

  ‘I told you, I slipped and fell.’

  ‘Yes, but how?’ I look closer at the right side of her torso which looks almost jaundiced, such is the intensity of the golden colour, similar in shading to the bruises on that side of her face. ‘Mum, the bruising on this side of your body… was today not the first time you’ve fallen?’

  ‘I can be so clumsy at times. Please just fetch me a new nightie.’

  I move to the chest of drawers and locate a new nightdress in the second drawer down, carry it over and help her slip it over her head. Then I help her to her feet, so the gown will slide down and over her bottom, before getting her back into bed, but as I do I find further latent bruising along the back of both calves.

  The home hasn’t phoned me before to say that she’d fallen and injured herself. Today was definitely the first time, but clearly Mum’s bruises are telling a different story. Either she fell but managed to get herself back up without any trouble, or these injuries were caused in another way.

  I pass her a tissue so she can wipe her eyes. ‘That was the last of the tea. Do you want me to ask the staff to make you a fresh pot?’

  ‘Probably best not to,’ she says, blowing her nose and composing herself once more.

  ‘The bruises on the backs of your legs, Mum… how did they happen?’

  She stares blankly back at me. ‘What bruises are those, dear?’

  Oh no. When she refers to me as ‘dear’ it usually means she can’t place my name, which means those firing neurons are starting to burn out again.

  ‘Mum? Look at me, please. Your legs are covered in bruises which can’t have been caused by your fall today. Can you tell me how you got them? Did you fall before?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear. What fall?’

  My heart is breaking as the confusion descends on her face. ‘You fell getting out of the shower this morning. Do you remember?’

  ‘Did I?’ She half laughs. ‘I can be so clumsy at times. Oh well, no harm done.’

  I’m not cold enough to show her the outcome of the fall by holding a mirror to her face. Tucking her into bed, I kiss her cheek and promise I’ll come back and visit her again soon, but I can see from her face that she’s struggling to recall why my face looks familiar. How is it that so many strangers can recognise me instantly, and yet the one person I want to know every contour of my face doesn’t?

  She is happily humming along to the theme tune of Bargain Hunt as I close the door behind me and hurry back along the corridor, willing the tears not to break free of my eyes. I take the stairs down two at a time until I’m outside Pam Ratchett’s office door once again. Knocking, I hear her stand and move to the door. Dr Benjamin is sitting in the chair I vacated as the door opens.

  ‘Ah, Emma, I’m glad you’ve stopped by. There’s something we’d like to speak to you about.’

  I don’t wait to be invited in, pushing through the gap between Pam and the door. ‘There’s something I want to speak to you about too.’

  Pam closes the door and encourages me to sit in the remaining vacant chair, but I don’t want to sit. My mind is whirling with questions and irrational conclusions… and I want answers.

  ‘I’ve just had to change Mum’s nightdress and she looks like she’s been in a boxing match. Have you seen how battered and bruised she is?’

  Pam fires a silent look at Dr Benjamin. ‘That’s what we were hoping to speak to you about, Emma. Please do sit.’

  I huff, but relent and pull the chair over, plonking myself down on it.

  ‘Dr Benjamin has just brought your mum’s condition to my attention,’ Pam says, before Dr Benjamin clears his throat and leans forward in his chair.

  ‘Today’s the first time I’ve been called here to treat your mum,’ he begins, his voice deeper than I was expecting for someone his age. ‘And I was shocked to see how bad a state she is in. The good news is, I don’t have reason to believe she has suffered anything more than bruises as a result of her fall today. I have carefully examined her face, ribcage and left wrist, and all have the normal range of motion for someone her age. I was, however, concerned about the bruising I discovered on the right-hand side of her torso, the bruising behind her knees, and a swelling on her right shoulder.’

  I didn’t see any swelling on her right shoulder, but then I didn’t give her a full body examination.

  ‘Having spoken with Pam, here,’ he continues, ‘she’s said your mum hasn’t reported falling before to any of the nursing staff, and we wanted to check whether she’s mentioned anything to you. All falls and injuries have to be recorded in the home’s log as they are primary healthcare practitioners for all their patients and are subject to oversight by both the NHS and local council authority.’

  I feel my eyes filling again. ‘I’m not aware of any previous falls, and when I asked her just now she had no idea what I was talking about.’

  A si
lent look is exchanged between the two of them again. What is it they’re keeping from me?

  ‘I asked her about the bruises too,’ Dr Benjamin continues, turning back to face me. ‘She clammed up as soon as I mentioned them, kept trying to distract me with what she was watching on the television. She was evasive the more I pressed, but she was also growing more upset as I asked about specific bruises.’

  ‘She spilled her tea,’ I say, ‘and it was when I changed her that I saw the bruises. She dismissed my concerns as her just being clumsy, but I think it’s more than that. When she spilled the tea, her mood totally changed, like some cold shadow fell across her. She became overly apologetic and upset, despite my trying to calm her down and reassure her that it was just an accident. It was almost as if…’

  The penny drops. Oh good God, no.

  ‘She was terrified she would be in trouble,’ I continue, now understanding the silent exchanges between Pam and the GP. My eyes widen as my mind processes why they specifically wanted to speak to me. ‘Oh God, you don’t think… Oh God, you do… You think I could do that to her? How could you?’

  ‘Nobody is accusing anyone of anything,’ Pam quickly pipes up.

  ‘I didn’t cause those bruises!’ I say raising my voice in defiance. ‘I couldn’t; she’s my mum.’

  ‘We’re not accusing you of abuse, Miss Hunter,’ Dr Benjamin chimes in, ‘but I have reason to suspect that someone may have done this to your mum. That’s why I was keen to speak to Pam at the earliest opportunity.’

  ‘So, what are you saying?’ I ask, wiping my eyes with the tissue again. ‘One of the staff has been…’ – I can barely get the words off my tongue – ‘beating my mother?’

  ‘We don’t know anything yet,’ Pam interjects as defensively as I was a moment ago. ‘We will need to carry out an internal investigation to better understand what has occurred. Our home has always had a perfect track record with our staff and there’s no reason to assume that standards have slipped.’