by Elena Wilkes
‘Frankie!’
She freezes with the door open and one hand on the wheel. Behind her there’s the tread and scuff of feet. The passenger side opens and everything stops. Alex’s face dips to appear in the gap. She’s trapped.
‘Actually, Martin was just telling me he needs to get the bus into town, but I have no idea how often they run. If you’re going out, maybe you could drop him off?’
She is aware that Martin is right there behind him on the drive. She tries to collect herself but fails.
Alex is looking at her questioningly. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Nothing… I…’
Irritated, he turns away from her. She can’t watch as the two men exchange goodbyes and she hears them making arrangements for this evening. She feels the car bounce a little as Martin gets in beside her, slamming the door and reaching for the safety belt. He raises a hand to wave to Alex as she closes the door and starts the engine.
She drives, aimlessly. Her entire body is screaming but her brain just feels numb. She feels his gaze resting on the side of her face.
‘Hello Frankie.’
Her eyes manage to make a forty-five-degree sweep, taking in the bottom of his jeans, blue, his shoes, trainers, his knees with their acutely familiar shape, but she can’t get any further. She yanks the car into a lay-by and a car horn blares out behind her.
‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘Stop this.’ Her voice comes out in a kind of croak.
‘Have you missed me?’
‘I said stop.’
Her eyes sweep across to take him in properly. Christ, she hadn’t realised how much he’d changed. The shock makes her giddy. His hair is longer; there are lines like furrows down the side of his face. His hand is resting on his knee; she sees the age on the back of it, the grime around the knuckles that sends a jolt through her heart.
‘How did you find me?’ She realises she’s breathless.
‘Find you? I never lost you.’
‘You need to stop this, Martin. You have to leave me alone.’
‘You know you don’t want that.’
‘Yes, I do. Yes, I do want that. I want that more than anything.’ She feels fear, but it is coupled with anger.
‘Why did you do it, Frankie? Why did you give the court that statement?’
Her anger rises. ‘How can you even ask that question? You disgust me, you are abhorrent, you are—’
‘I wrote to you in the very beginning. I told you what happened. I told you that you’d got it all wrong.’
She rounds on him, the anger taking over fully now. She bites down, hard. ‘I’m not interested in your lies, Martin! I don’t want to hear your excuses; not then, not now. Jude burned everything you sent.’
‘Burned my letters?’ He looks incredulous.
‘Look! You need to leave me alone, for fuck’s sake! I don’t want you, Martin! What you did – what happened…’
‘You do want me, you always have. Neither of us can forget what we had.’
It’s as though he can’t hear her; his face is full of tenderness.
‘We have nothing – do you hear me? You murdered a girl. You raped a girl. You’re a monster!’ Her voice rises to a shriek.
‘I don’t know what you thought you saw that night, Frankie, but it wasn’t me. You know that on some level. You know it wasn’t me.’
Her hands snap up to clamp her ears; she can’t hear this. She can’t listen to any of this anymore.
‘I’ve been to the police; I’ve shown them the stuff you’ve been sending.’
He pauses, searching her face for a second and then his head shakes slowly from side to side. ‘No you haven’t.’ He starts to smile.
‘What are you talking about? I have, I—’
‘Because if you’d given the police my name, they would have recalled me by now.’
‘I – I—’ She can hear the words blundering pointlessly.
‘I think you were pressurised back then.’ His mouth is set in a grim line. ‘I think you said those things to the court because you were a confused and pregnant kid who could be led to say all manner of things and end up believing they were true.’
‘No one wanted to lead me anywhere! I know what I saw, Martin! Can you imagine what it was like? Listening to a girl begging for you not to hurt her? Can you imagine that, you… you—’ But he talks over her.
‘They wanted someone to pay for what happened, Frankie, and I happened to fit their plan.’
‘“They”? Who’s “they”? What plan?’
He looks at her wide-eyed. ‘Charlotte’s parents.’
‘Vanessa and Peter? Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘They would have done anything – you could see that in their faces. They were out of their minds with grief. They could have suggested all of it to you… Fed you the lines… told you—’
‘No… No!’ She shakes her head vehemently. ‘None of that happened.’
‘So what did happen?’
‘I told you!’
‘I mean about our child.’ He’s looking at her with those eyes and an odd smile.
She hates him; she hates this. ‘We don’t have a child.’
His smile drops. ‘What are you saying?’
She stares resolutely out of the window.
‘You owe me that much, Frankie.’
‘She was adopted.’
He blinks, taking a moment. ‘She,’ he says finally. ‘A little girl. I can’t quite get my head around that.’
‘Arrgghh!’ She slaps her hands on the wheel. ‘We can’t do this, Martin.’ She skews round in her seat, forcing herself to look directly into his eyes. It’s as though the person she once knew is behind a deeply lined mask that’s bruised and scarred.
She swallows. ‘You are nothing to me. I am married to Alex. I have a life with him, a home.’
‘But you don’t have a child with him. You have a child with me.’
‘I wish I didn’t.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘We don’t have anything, Martin. She’s not ours.’
‘We made her. She’s ours. Who adopted her? Do you know where she is?’
‘No.’ The lie caught in her throat. ‘But listen—’
‘No, you listen.’ His face changes completely. ‘I found you. I can find her.’
‘No, no—’ She shakes her head from side to side. ‘You can’t do that, Martin. For god’s sake, haven’t you done enough?’ She feels the heat in her face growing. ‘You can’t.’
‘Of course I can. She’s older now, what? Fifteen? She’ll want to know—’
‘No! No, she won’t!’ Frankie almost reaches out a hand to touch him but then snaps it back to her throat. ‘She needs to be left alone to live her life. Don’t drag her through the dirt, too!’
She knows she’s pleading; she feels as though she’s pleading for everyone. ‘We all need to be left alone; don’t you understand that? You’ve destroyed so many lives: Charlotte’s, her family’s, mine… You have to go away somewhere. Anywhere. You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.’
‘Life’s dangerous.’
‘I’m being serious, Martin. You’ll be dead. Charlotte’s stepfather wants you dead – don’t you get that?’ She brings her hand down in frustration and catches the chain around her neck. It breaks, the pendant rolling into the footwell. He dips to pick it up.
‘You still have this…’
She goes to snatch it, but he closes his hand.
‘You never told me where you found it.’
‘I didn’t fi—’ Her fingers and his fist pause.
He stares at her hand and then his eyes lift to meet hers. ‘What did you just say?’ Frankie feels her cheeks burn.
‘You didn’t find it?’
‘I—’ She stumbles at the lie.
‘So where did you get it?’
‘Vanessa.’
‘Vanessa?’
‘It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Listen to me, Frankie. This is really, really important.’ He opens his fist.
She looks down at the broken necklace in his palm.
‘Charlotte was wearing this necklace the night of the party.’ His gaze bores into her.
‘Which means she was wearing it the night she died. You told me you found it on the street, but you’re now saying Vanessa gave this to you?’ His gaze won’t let her go. ‘Is that the truth?’
‘Yes.’
‘So this necklace got from around Charlotte’s neck the night she died and somehow got back to Vanessa? You understand, Frankie, I couldn’t have put it there, could I?’
She tries to make sense of what he’s saying.
‘So if I couldn’t have put it there, then someone else did. Someone else was there that night on the boat. Do you accept that?’
‘Martin, stop this.’
Vanessa would never hurt Charlotte, never in a million years.
But a fault line in her memory begins to falter.
He pulls his hair back. ‘Maybe the same person who gave me this—’
A huge curve of a scar runs from behind his ear down the side of his neck.
Her hand flies up to her mouth. ‘Jesus, Martin!’
The tips of his fingers gingerly trace the line. It looks fresh: the skin is still rippled and sore where it’s knitted together.
‘It was a present from Peter Vale.’
The fault line begins to crack and crumble.
‘Peter Vale?’ She repeats the name but she feels like crying. She shakes her head. ‘Charlotte’s stepbrother warned me… He told me – he said Peter knows that you’ve been released and he’s out looking for you. He hates you. He hates me. He thinks we should both be punished. Oh, Christ, Martin…’ she can’t stop the tears now. ‘When did this happen? Have you been to the police?’
But he shook his head. ‘It was on the wing. The others jumped him, otherwise he’d have killed me.’
‘The wing?’
Something appalling begins to dawn. Her head swings dully. She’s not comprehending this properly. She doesn’t want to comprehend it.
‘Peter Vale was in the same nick. He got out a few days after me.’
Her hand drops into her lap. She feels sick suddenly. ‘Seriously Martin, he wants you dead.’
‘I know, but he can’t show his face on the street. People know, you see. He has to be careful.’
Her brain can’t take it in. She doesn’t know what he’s saying.
‘They know what?’
‘What he was in for. Indecent images of kids. Thousands of them.’
Something drops like a stone.
‘He got sussed by the other cons while I was still in the hospital wing. They found him out. Peter Vale is a sex offender.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Get out of the car.’ She doesn’t know how she’s able to articulate the words.
‘I’m not going away, Frankie.’
‘You need to get out. Get out. Please.’
‘You know I can’t leave you alone, not now. I want to see our daughter. I want to find her. Will you let me see the adoption paperwork? Will you do that for me?’
She is trying really hard to hold it all together, concentrating on a piece of lint that’s caught in the air vent. It waves like a tiny finger. Her eyes lift; she is more afraid now than she’s ever been.
‘I understand why you wouldn’t tell Alex. I understand why you’d want to forget the past, but the thing is, Frankie, it happened; it’s a part of who you are. I mean, what will you say if our daughter decides to come looking for you?’
She is beginning to feel frantic. ‘Please get out now, Martin. I need you to get out.’
‘You can’t be sure she won’t – and if she does then Alex will be devastated that you didn’t tell him yourself.’
GetoutGetoutGetout.
‘You’ll have to explain why you’ve lied all these years. You’re living on borrowed time, Frankie.’
‘You don’t know anything…’ Tears start to sting, blinding her.
‘Alex told me you’d talked about children, but he wasn’t sure they were on your radar. Wouldn’t it be better to tell hi—’
‘Now, for Christ’s sake! Get out of the car now!’
Stunned, he reaches for the door catch, swinging the door wide.
‘Now! Get out now!’ Her hands slam repeatedly onto the wheel. ‘Leave me alone, can’t you?’
Martin leaps from the car as she guns the engine. The door jerks wildly and crashes closed on its hinges but she doesn’t care. She accelerates, hard, over-taking blindly, and swerving to miss a lorry coming the other way. All she can think about right now is Chloe.
She glances in the mirror. Martin is exactly where she left him in the lay-by: a lone black figure getting smaller and smaller. The roads and hedges flash past the car windows yet it feels as though she’s driving through treacle. Every car in front is deliberately slowing down, every traffic light makes her want to scream. The engine wails in resistance; her foot is hard on the floor as painful sobs rack her dry throat.
A sex offender. Peter. My daughter was in that house with a sex offender. She could scream it, yell her terror as the roads whizz past her, not caring about lights or cars or danger, as Vanessa’s street lurches into view and she jams on the brakes.
Banging on the front door as hard as she can, she begins to shout, not caring who can hear her.
‘Vanessa! Open this door! Vanessa!’
Silence.
She bangs again, standing back, frantically scanning all the windows, begging to see some movement.
There’s nothing.
Snatching the phone from her pocket, she finds Vanessa’s number with shaking fingers, listening to the bland tone ringing out, giving nothing in return. Glancing up at the windows again, she makes her way around the side of the house, cupping her hands either side of her face and peering in every gap in the windows she can find.
The back door slams open.
‘What the hell do you want?’ Vanessa stands there, pink with anger. ‘I told you—’
‘Where the hell is he?’
‘Where’s who?’
But Frankie has already barged past her, pushing her way into the kitchen. She can smell him. It stinks of him. Peter. He’s been here. She knows it. She rounds on Vanessa.
‘I know,’ she snarls. ‘I know about your sick, sick, bastard of a husband… And you… Both of you. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.’ Her hands come up but she doesn’t know what to do with them. Her eyes are burning with violent tears of rage. ‘How could you, Vanessa? How could you have stood by and… Oh, Jesus Christ!’ She whirls round, tearing at her own hair. ‘This is absolutely beyond anything possible…’ She can’t find the words. ‘You took my baby, you sick bitch. You took my baby knowing… Knowing…’
Vanessa shrinks back against the door edge. The pink in her face has turned to white. The fear in her face translates into anger. ‘Get out of my house! I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘Peter. That’s what I’m talking about. Peter. Your husband. The sex offender. The man who…’ She can’t bring herself to articulate the words, to let her lips even form them. Her mind shows her pictures of his hand on her knee, squeezing it. The smell of his breath on her face as he leaned in to kiss her goodnight. The black figure in the bathroom touching her – Yes. Yes. She can see it all.
‘Sex offender…? Don’t be disgusting! This is bizarre and absolute rubbish! Why would you concoct such filthy lies? You know Peter! You know him, you know he would never, ever do anything to a child. You know that Frankie! Stop this! Stop!’
It’s as though she’s in some kind of bizarre state of denial.
‘Where is he?’ Frankie stands panting, her blood is singing in her ears. ‘Where is he? Where’s my daughter, Vanessa?’ She wheels round, angrily. ‘I want to see her. You can’t keep her from me anymore! Do you hear me?’ She marches int
o the living room with Vanessa right behind her. Every wall, every angle, every object in here is so familiar that the past is instantly dragged back to the present.
‘Is she upstairs?’ She puts her hand on the door to the hallway and pulls it open.
But Vanessa blocks her.
‘I won’t have this, Frankie! I won’t!’ Her whole demeanour is charged and indignant. ‘You can’t barge in here, shouting the odds about Peter, throwing your weight around as if you owned the place! Who the hell do you think you are?’ She uses her weight to force the door from Frankie’s fingers. She knows she’ll have to lay hands on her to get past.
‘Where have you suddenly got all this crap from?’ Vanessa stares at her and then her face changes as it dawns. ‘Oh… you’ve seen that bastard Jarvis, haven’t you? Oh my god, you’ve spoken to him and he’s fed you all this filth! Of course he has.’ Her mouth drops open as she shakes her head. ‘Even after everything he’s done to you, done to this family, you’re still there, aren’t you, Frankie? Standing in his shadow and watching from the sidelines. Have you any idea of what that man actually did to us? What he continues to do every moment he’s still alive and breathing?’
Frankie flinches but holds her ground. ‘I’m not in his shadow Vanessa. I’m not being manipulated by him.’
‘Ohh no of course you’re not! You never were, were you Frankie? – you with your drug-soaked, booze-raddled life where you turn a blind eye to a girl being raped and murdered! You’re never duped are you?’
The guilt grips Frankie’s heart. She can hear her own breath whistling high in her lungs.
‘And then you turn up here in your fancy clothes and your fancy car shouting and demanding to see Chloe. Look at you! You’re the same piece of rubbish you were back then. You’re not a mother!’ She sneers at her, up and down. ‘You could have walked past her a hundred times in the street and never known it! What kind of mother is that?’
Frankie recoils at the truth.
‘You helped destroy our lives, Frankie. Peter lost everything – his job, his dignity, everything. And so we decided that piece of filth needed to lose too.’ She’s shaking uncontrollably. ‘Sex offender?’ she scoffs. ‘I’ll tell you the truth, shall I? Peter sacrificed the tatters of his life and got himself put inside to have one good go at him – one good go. And I know he nearly got him.’ Her lips break into a terrible leer. ‘He very nearly got him. So near and yet so bloody far.’ The taunting mouth stretches wider into a grin, baring her teeth. ‘“Never mind,” I told him, “better luck next time…” And there will be a next time, Frankie. Martin Jarvis might try all the tricks in the book, but we’ll make sure he spends his life looking over his shoulder. Peter only has to get lucky once; Jarvis has to wake up every day wondering whether this is the day that it’s going to happen.’