Her Last Secret

by P L Kane

  She closed her eyes, then slowly opened them again. ‘And what would you have done, if you’d found her Mr Radcliffe? Seen her in that state? He went to her, took hold of the knife to pull it out, then realised she was gone.’

  Jake almost laughed at the absurdity of that image, pulling the blade out like some sort of bloody Excalibur – but from his daughter rather than the stone. Bobby’s reward: instead of making him king, it had made him a criminal.

  ‘When he heard the police, he ran. I’m not defending or condoning that … It made it look worse than if he’d actually stayed, but he’s young. He got scared. I can understand that.’

  ‘Listen, Miss Ferrara, I’m not quite sure what you want from me. Does that boy want my forgiveness? Do you?’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t give it. There’s only one person who can do that, and she’s dead. Do you understand that? She’s dead!’

  ‘Please … Please, Mr Radcliffe, calm down. I’m not the enemy here.’

  Jake looked at her, slowed his breathing. No more kicking off at people, no more knee-jerk reactions or he’d end up back inside that cell he wasn’t far from right now – and he’d be no good to Jordan in there. Wouldn’t be able to do a damned thing in that box, with … with the key thrown away. So he repeated, more calmly: ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘All right. I can see what you’re trying to do, and I want to help. Strikes me we have the same goals here, Mr Radcliffe – and that’s to get to the truth.’

  ‘You want to get Bannister off,’ he stated flatly.

  ‘If by finding the truth, by getting to the bottom of this, the consequence is Bobby walks free, then I’ll have done my job, yes.’

  ‘Sounds like you have about as much faith in the coppers around here as me,’ he said wearily.

  ‘Well, they do have their moments, but …’ She leaned in, as if imparting something confidential that he didn’t already know. ‘They can play a bit fast and loose with the law, if you see what I mean. You shouldn’t have still been in that cell, for starters – that was Channing proving a point, and he knows I know it. And Mr Drummond …’ It was the first time Jake had heard anyone use the word Mister with regards to that individual. ‘He wasn’t the first person you’ve assaulted this week, was he?’

  Jake thought about the cells, about Bobby.

  ‘I mean, he doesn’t hold it against you or anything, he—’

  ‘Hold it against me?’ Jake couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His daughter’s murderer not holding something against him? Piss off!

  ‘But the whole cameras being on the fritz routine? Come on, pull the other one.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he told her.

  ‘You shouldn’t have been allowed within a million miles of my client and you know it. I’m guessing you put some pressure on your friend, DC Newcomb? Nice bloke, bit wet for my liking.’

  Jake shook his head. Just who the hell was this woman, and how had she ended up in his life?

  ‘Sorry, sometimes I overshare,’ she told him. ‘Which is not always a good thing in a lawyer … But anyway, here we are. What do you say?’

  He was genuinely bewildered. ‘What do I say to what?’

  ‘Joining forces, working together? Or at least moving in the same direction? Not strictly speaking on the level either, but … we can make allowances every now and again.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he told her.

  Without missing a beat, she replied: ‘It has been said. Hot-headed, impetuous – probably the Italian half of me.’

  ‘I …’ He didn’t know what to say.

  ‘First things first,’ she nipped in again before he could reply. ‘Let’s get you out of here. And not by the front door, either. Have you seen it out there? No, what am I saying, of course you haven’t – you’ve been in a cell.’ She smiled, placed a hand on his arm. ‘Trust me, it’s ugly. Okay, so, out the back way. My car’s parked round there, I can drop you off … Where? Maybe get you some proper food, breakfast?’ She looked at her own watch. ‘Lunch? Brunch? Then we can talk. Where would you …’

  ‘I-I guess we could grab something back at my hotel,’ he said. What harm could it do? he thought. It might just give him the inside track on Bannister. Besides, he was too tired to argue.

  ‘Perfect. That’s perfect. So let’s go.’ She led the way out through the back, where Matt had brought him in the morning they’d seen Bobby, and where he’d been brought after the fight; Jake was guessing the media had been massing even then.

  But as they got in Miss Ferrara’s sleek red Audi – and Jake couldn’t resist pausing a moment to admire the vehicle – then drove past, he saw just what she meant by ‘ugly’. There were twice as many vans and people as there had been camped outside his old house, and he would have had to walk through that if it hadn’t been for the woman beside him in the driving seat. For a brief moment, he felt quite grateful to her. As it was, a couple of more observant reporters spotted him in the car and started to run over, but the lawyer was already turning and speeding away from the scene.

  ‘Can’t have them scratching the paintwork,’ she told Jake, then asked him as they left the mob behind, ‘How’s it feel to be on the other side, for a change?’ When he looked at her blankly, she clarified: ‘Your job? You film stuff like this, right?’

  It was the first time he’d thought about his job in days, and the battery on his phone had almost run out by the time he was arrested otherwise he might well have heard from work again. When he plugged it back in, he was willing to bet it would be crammed with messages about the weekend’s events. ‘Not … not exactly like this, no.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, you’re flavour of the month I’m afraid – for better or for worse. Probably that late-night market photo; I have to say, my heart went out …’ She glanced over, then changed the subject. ‘Even your own channel have been running stuff about you, work colleagues saying what a top bloke you are. And then the fight …’

  Jake shifted about in the seat uncomfortably.

  ‘I know what you were up to, you know.’

  ‘Oh, you do?’

  She nodded and her bob jiggled slightly. ‘You were chasing up a lead, thinking Drummond was maybe something to do with all this, right?’

  ‘Well … sort of.’

  ‘So, come on – give. We need to start scratching backs here, Mr Radcliffe.’

  He sighed. ‘All right, if you really want to know. I spoke to some friends of Jordan’s and they said he’d been following her. They also told me it had led to an argument between Bobby and her, that he grabbed hold of her because of it.’

  Miss Ferrara stuck out her bottom lip, did a kind of Robert de Niro thing with her mouth and nodded, impressed. ‘Not bad, not bad. Go on …’

  ‘Er … that was it really. That and the fact this Drummond is just generally incredibly creepy.’

  ‘Right, so you like him for the murder of Jordan, then?’

  ‘I … No, I didn’t say that.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Maybe. No, no, it was Bannister, I really do think it was.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that. Why?’

  ‘Apart from the prints, you mean?’

  Miss Ferrara changed gears and dodged up a side-street. ‘Which can be explained by what Bobby’s already said.’

  ‘Okay, I have reason to believe Jordan was scared of him, that he had mood swings. And he didn’t like the way other guys looked at her.’

  ‘You got this from the friends, too?’ asked the lawyer.

  ‘Not … not as such. I kind of got it from her,’ he explained.

  ‘But I thought … I mean, you were estranged, right?’

  Jake turned in his seat. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Well, you moved away from the family home for a start.’

  ‘A lot of families split up, doesn’t mean that—’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but quite a bit of that stuff is out there now. Comes with the territory. You of all people should know that.’
She gave a quick shake of the head and the bob swung from side to side. ‘We’re getting off-topic. How did you know about Bobby?’

  ‘I …’ Jake clammed up. He was getting carried away, swept up in the fact that this was the first person who’d actually wanted to talk about this stuff – rather than demanding it from him. Demanding he kept out of it. But she was still a lawyer, defending his sworn enemy at that, and he had only just met her.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ she asked again. ‘Because I tell you, I’m pretty good at picking up on people’s characters. Again, the Italian in me. I’ve looked into a lot of people’s eyes who did things like this, whether they were crimes of passion or not, and I just don’t see it in his. I see a scared, lonely boy. I see someone who’s grieving possibly as much as you are. Who really did love Jordan.’

  ‘Miss Ferrara,’ Jake pleaded; he didn’t want to hear all that. What did it matter, what she thought?

  ‘Sam. Please call me Sam … It’s short for Samantha.’

  He opened his mouth, ready to fire something back at her about her client, but all he managed now was, ‘I’m Jacob. Jake.’ She knew it already, hell apparently the bloody world knew it now, but thanked him nonetheless.

  ‘All right, Jake. You don’t have to tell me how you know, that’s fine. I believe you. Like I said, I’m a good judge of character. You’re a father trying to do right by his daughter, I can see that. Christ, I wish mine had bothered as much!’ She let out a small laugh. ‘Oversharing again … I really have to watch that, Jake.’

  In spite of himself, Jake laughed as well. Then he said, ‘All this first name stuff, it’s not very professional.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know each other in a professional capacity.’

  ‘We don’t know each other at all,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Not yet, no.’ Sam flashed him a smile and it was the most comforting thing he’d seen all week, perhaps in a long time. ‘Maybe brunch will fix that?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jake said and left it at that, noticing that they were nearly at the hotel.

  Inside, the restaurant bit was practically empty and for that Jake was grateful as well. They were probably all at the station or still camped out back at the Allaway house. It would only be a matter of time before they twigged where he’d gone, but even the couple of folk who did spot him as they grabbed a table and looked like they were about to make their way over, were stopped in their tracks by Sam. He didn’t hear what she said to them, but they listened and nodded; perhaps it had been a request for privacy, or she’d worded it a little more strongly than that … Whatever the case, it did the trick and he suddenly felt more at ease here than he had at any other point during his stay.

  That, in turn, made him feel hungry – and he surprised himself by ordering the eggs benedict after spotting it on the menu. Sam just ordered a muffin, and they both had black coffee. Jake tried to put it all on the room, but she waved that away and gave the waiter her card. ‘And this is not to be construed as a bribe in any way, shape or form. Just so long as we’re clear about that,’ she informed him with a grin, and he smiled too; thanked her. ‘If I wanted to do that, I’d let you drive my car.’

  Now he laughed. ‘I might even take you up on that.’

  There was more chat as they ate, some exchange of what they knew – mainly Sam trying to get Bobby’s point of view across again. Trying to persuade Jake that the lad might actually be innocent, though he warned her that was an uphill battle.

  ‘All right, all right … But can we at least agree to keep in touch, and if either of us finds out anything we tell the other. Deal?’ she said, draining the last dregs of her coffee. Jake gave her a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders, which she said was close enough. ‘Now, before I head back to the office is there anything else you want to tell me. Anything I might be able to help with?’

  Jake thought about it, then shook his head. It was only as she was about to get up and leave that he remembered the numbers. He fished about in his pocket where he’d put the piece of paper after it had been returned to him at the station. ‘Do these mean anything to you? I’ve been trying to figure out what they are – but I’ve come up empty.’

  Sam took the paper and stared intently at it, then looked up at him. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me where you got these from, either?’

  ‘You suppose right,’ he told her.

  ‘But it’s Jordan-connected, right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Okay, well, nothing’s jumping out at me at the moment. Might be some sort of code … Leave it with me and I’ll have a ponder.’

  He thanked her again and she got up to leave, though not without giving him her card. Jake wrote down his own number on the bottom of the piece of paper, and it reminded him that he still needed to charge his phone, which he’d do when he got back to the room.

  Then he sat there at the table for a few moments after Sam had gone, thinking. Thinking about how things had changed once more, about how there was someone in this with him now – someone he could talk to about his ‘investigation’. Who was helping him to get to the truth …

  Of course, she had her client’s interests in mind first and foremost; Jake had to be careful to remember that. But for some reason he had a feeling, maybe the same one Sam said she got herself when she was weighing someone up, that she’d abide by whatever their findings were – whether they pointed to Bannister or not.

  Jake was shaken from his thoughts when more people entered the hotel. He’d been lucky there were no more scenes, no more people coming across while Sam had been with him, or even afterwards, but it was time to head up to that other box now.

  Time …

  At least it was a comfortable box, his room. A place where he could think, maybe even read the diary once more for clues.

  A place where he could ponder the fact that it was funny how things turned out, how they could get a little better sometimes. And that in the space of just a few days …

  How things could change so much.

  Chapter 14

  She’d done nothing but think about how things had changed.

  Over the weekend, since Friday actually when she’d seen him again. Since Julie had sat down with Jake and had that tea. It had been just like the old days – well, not exactly like the old days, but close enough for Jake to have been on her mind since then.

  In fact, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, about their time together when they were younger – and how it felt simultaneously like yesterday and so, so long ago. About how much they’d loved each other … Until the upsets with Jordan, the quarrels. She’d always stop before she reached that point, not wishing to relive any of that crap. Just focusing on the good times, like when they’d been to the zoo and had bought Jordan that penguin.

  Jake didn’t have to give her that, had been searching for a keepsake for himself, but she’d appreciated the gesture. Had stared at it long and hard, clutched it in her hands until Greg came home from work. Had hidden it away then, just like Jordan had clearly done, to avoid the questions. To prevent the past being dredged up when her husband was around; she knew how much he hated thinking or talking about the time before they met. The opposite of when they’d first got together, when she needed a shoulder, an ear, it was just a reminder now that she’d had an entire life before he showed up on the scene.

  Greg had the weekend off and could spend some proper time with her, he said. Julie knew that meant he wanted to be close, show her how much he loved her – but she simply couldn’t. Julie told him she was too upset and could he just hold her, and he’d seemed okay about that. Because yes, of course she was still upset – still in a state of shock really – about her daughter, but there was also the small matter that she kept seeing Jake’s face, too. Couldn’t stop seeing it, imagining they were his arms around her offering comfort just like they had been when they’d gone to see …

  That wasn’t healthy, she recognised that, but Julie couldn’t help it. T
hey’d been together such a long while, since they were kids themselves really. It was a bond that they might have put to one side, forgotten about temporarily, but would never break as such. Not that she wanted to get back together with Jake, God no! Too much had happened since they’d split up, too many accusations. Too many words said that couldn’t be unsaid, no matter how much you wanted to wind back the clock. Too much that couldn’t be forgiven, on both sides she was sure. She’d moved on, he’d moved on – had a whole other life she didn’t know anything about, didn’t want to (because it hurt too much, was easier to pretend he didn’t exist anymore). He was only visiting her world, had been forced to come because …

  In the days, weeks after he left Julie used to have a recurring fantasy that he’d walk back through that door (the front door, not the back like he’d used on Friday). That he’d say he was sorry, they’d all say how sorry they were – and then he’d hug her, he’d hug Jordan. They’d be a family again.

  But he never did, he never came back to them.

  If you talked to Jake, he would say it was because they wanted him to stay away; that he felt like they both hated him. Especially Jordan, she knew for a fact he thought that. And, indeed, the girl had said it to him … though hadn’t meant it, Julie knew that. Neither of them felt that way, not deep down. They just wanted things back the way they were, or moving forward at any rate. Julie would have given anything for that. Too late now, of course. All too late …

  Yet she couldn’t shake him, not yesterday nor the day before. She’d tried to stay away from the news as well, especially newspapers after that photo had been published. Julie understood it had been taken from a distance, that Jake hadn’t had a clue he was being snapped. That he hadn’t spoken to anyone from the media before or since (the old ‘a source close to the family’ bullshit), but still it had hurt seeing it. Seeing those words that made it look like he was the best dad in the world, that made the fantasy real. That he had come back and they’d all been together just before …

  However, she’d also heard about Jake’s antics on Saturday from a friend who’d called. None of the details, because she didn’t want to know the ins and outs – something about a fight? – and she should have felt mad about that, too, because he’d been on the news again. It just made her all the more eager to see him again, though. Find out what it was about, just him lashing out or …