by J. M. Hewitt
And there was only one person she could talk to about this. The one person she should have been open and honest with from the start.
Carrie studied Jade as the younger woman poured out all of her secrets. The girl didn’t crumble, though; if anything, she appeared exhilarated to offload something that had clearly been haunting her for years.
‘So… you’re the mother of Jordan’s secret child?’ Carrie felt the need to say the words out loud. ‘Your child is Jordan’s baby?’
Jade nodded.
‘And Emma doesn’t know that your daughter is her grandchild?’
Jade shook her head, looked down at her lap. ‘I wanted to tell her so many times.’
‘But Jordan knew? You gave him the Father’s Day card, right?’
Jade nodded. ‘I told him as soon as I found out I was pregnant. He never told a soul.’
Carrie tapped her pen thoughtfully on her notepad. ‘Why didn’t he tell anyone?’
Jade looked surprised. ‘Because I told him not to.’ She leaned forward. ‘He was fifteen. He was underage. I thought they might—’
‘Might what?’
Jade fell back in her seat, defeated. ‘I thought they might take Nia away from me.’
Carrie looked at the little girl, sleeping on her mother’s lap. Her chest ached, and she pulled her gaze away.
‘Jade, has Jordan been in contact with you?’
Jade’s mouth fell open. ‘What do you mean?’
The girl looked shocked at the suggestion, but deep in her eyes Carrie was sure she saw fear riding waves through her irises.
‘You can tell me.’
Jade’s lips moved, but as Carrie watched her she folded back into herself. ‘How could he?’ she asked dully. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
Carrie smoothed her hands across her face. Suddenly she was shattered.
‘Jade, leave this with me, I don’t know if this information is going to help, but I’m glad you told me.’ She offered the now nervous-looking girl a smile. ‘I might need to speak to you again, okay?’
Jade stood up carefully. Over her sleeping child’s head, she nodded to Carrie. ‘He’s dead, right? He’s gone?’
‘We haven’t found his body. We need to explore all options,’ Carrie said.
It was like she couldn’t stop, now she’d started telling people. And now, as Jade sat opposite Martin in his plush apartment, she found it got a little easier each time. As she finished her story, she wondered how she would feel when Emma realised the significance of Claire’s earlier statement.
But offloading was only half of it. Had Martin pushed her, Jade, into the canal? Was he responsible for Jordan’s disappearance? She waited, holding her breath, wondering if her confession would lead to one of his own. She was drawn to Martin, as Emma had been, wanting to find out his secrets.
It took him an age to speak, as though he was taking it in, his link to her, Jade, and Nia.
‘So, she’s the baby?’ he asked eventually.
Nia removed her thumb, glared at Martin. ‘I’m not a baby!’
He smiled at her. Turning back to Jade he said, ‘What are you afraid of?’
She shook her head in frustration. Wasn’t it obvious?
‘What would Emma’s parents have said, if you’d popped up as Jordan’s father?’ She leaned forward, stroked her girl’s face with one hand. She didn’t wait for him to reply. ‘They would have strung you up, they’d have called you a pervert, a paedo. The police would have been involved.’
Martin passed a hand across his eyes. He looked tired. ‘You surely can’t think Emma would have reported you?’
She shrugged, averted her eyes. ‘I betrayed her. I slept with her son, her young son. She thought we were friends, what sort of friend does that? Emma would have been right to report me. Social Services would have got involved.’ She darted a look at him. ‘And I would have lost Nia and Emma. I’ve lost her now.’
He put his hands on his knees, seeming a bit more alert now. ‘Emma knows?’
‘Your fucking sister,’ she retorted, with a hurried, guilty look at Nia. ‘Sorry. Your sister, Claire,’ she said, quieter now. ‘She realised what Nia’s name means in Greek.’ She waited a beat before spelling it out for him. ‘Nia means purpose. I wrote that in the card I sent Jordan.’
‘Claire was there?’
He appeared more haunted by this little piece of news than learning of Nia’s parentage. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. She had come here for help and to carry out her own small piece of detective work. She wanted answers.
‘Well?’ she asked. ‘I’ve told you my deepest, most personal secret. What do you think?’ She bit her lip, not knowing how to get him to confide in her without stating it loud and clear. If he did have anything to confide, of course.
‘Martin?’ she prompted.
He wiped at his bloodshot eye and sighed and Jade caught a whiff of something on his breath.
‘God, how much have you been drinking?’ she said. She got up, placing the little girl on the big leather chair and moved to sit closer to him. She was embarrassed at her judgemental tone. She wasn’t used to chiding people older than her.
He looked affronted. ‘What? Nothing—’
She swung an arm out, pointed a finger towards the kitchen area, to a box waiting to be recycled. It held considerably more bottles than it should.
‘You need to get it together,’ she said. She stood up, slipping her coat on. ‘And if you’ve something on your mind maybe you should talk to someone.’
‘You’re going?’ he asked, ignoring the last part of her speech.
‘I need advice, I came here for advice,’ she replied. ‘You can’t give me that with a skinful.’ But even as she spoke she slid back onto the chair. ‘I needed… someone to tell me what to do, when Emma realises what she knows.’ She smiled briefly, raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I needed an adult.’
‘Jade,’ he said, gripping her hand. ‘When are you going to realise that you are the adult?’
He slumped into his chair, still just for a moment before pushing himself up and heading towards the door.
‘Martin?’ she said, tentatively.
‘I need some air.’ His words were almost a gasp as he yanked open his door. ‘You can let yourself out.’
Stunned by his sudden departure, Jade pulled Nia close to her as she walked out of this stranger’s home.
Forty
THE PUSHER
I wait for her in the darkness of the ginnel. I clench my jaw when I see her shadow enter the alleyway. Her silhouette is big and misshapen because she carries the little girl in her arms. I know by the position of the moon that it is well after midnight. Little girls and young women shouldn’t be walking down back lanes like this one at this time of the night.
I glance up at the house next door to hers. It is in darkness, but the occupant won’t be sleeping. I walk down the ginnel to meet Jade.
I take no pleasure in her reaction when she sees my figure approaching. She doesn’t know who I am, it is too dark to see, but someone approaching in this dark place at this time of night would frighten anyone. She stops dead, wraps her arms even tighter around the sleeping girl.
And still she doesn’t yet know that it is me.
I draw level with her, lookout from behind my hood. She is not looking at me. She is looking down, submissive, afraid, like always.
I say nothing, but because I am unmoving beside her, she has no choice but to look at me.
Her hair is hiding her face, that wild hair. Through it I see blue eyes.
In those eyes I see her fears.
What does he want?
What will he do to me?
Will he take my daughter?
Will my girl witness my rape, my murder?
She is the only one who has ever evoked feelings in me akin to what most normal people feel. I don’t prolong her agony.
‘Hello,’ I say and when I speak my voice is raw and scratchy. I clear my
throat. I hold my arms flexed and ready to stifle the cries that will inevitably come from her mouth.
But the cries don’t come. Instead, she inhales deeply, and shifts her daughter so she can brush a hand across her forehead, a sweeping gesture I’ve seen a thousand times before to move the hair out of her eyes.
‘I wondered if it was you,’ she says.
The sound of her voice makes Nia stir. Wordlessly, I put my finger to my lips and step back into the shadows.
‘I’ll put her down,’ she says.
She goes to brush past me, but I put out a hand to stop her.
‘Wait,’ I say. I peer at the sleeping child in her arms before releasing her arm, pulling the blanket back from her face. She moves on along the alleyway to her gate. It is dark down there, all that is visible is the shine of their golden hair.
She is back within a minute. We stare at each other for a little while, neither of us speaking. Then, she breathes my name.
‘Jordan.’
By a mutual, unspoken agreement we walk in silence to the end of the ginnel.
‘Why were you at the apartment on the Irwell?’ I ask. ‘Who lives there?’
I watch her carefully in the moonlight. She breathes in, hesitates. Then she comes back, meets my eyes for the first time.
‘That’s Martin’s home, we’ve been in contact.’
Martin… it means nothing. I wait and she continues.
‘He’s your father, Jordan. Martin is your dad.’
The old guy is my father. Memories of the few times I have seen him play behind my closed eyes like a movie reel. His expression was closed off, shutters down. Just like my face.
He was here all this time, the figure that I most wished for, desired, the role model I thought might have saved me, that my mother told me I didn’t need. So close, yet out of reach.
I struggle to keep my composure. I don’t want her to see how this news has affected me, all the while a foghorn blares inside my head.
It’s too late, too late, too late.
Forty-One
DAY TEN
Jade waited for a reaction, and for a moment she thought she had him, just the smallest noise that came from him, a strangled cry.
And then he spoke. ‘I really wanted a dad, my father, I knew she’d never tell me, but I always wanted to know.’
Her heart leapt. ‘He wants to know you, too, Jordan, he’d love you,’ she cried.
But she’d said the wrong words, could tell immediately by the half-sneer that twisted his lips.
‘Too late,’ he said. ‘She always told me men were useless, that they couldn’t be trusted. I always thought my father must have been a really bad man.’ He looked Jade straight in the eye. ‘And I always thought she must see him whenever she looked at me.’
‘No!’ Jade shook her head violently. Was that what had led him to be the way he was? All Emma’s bravado, all the man-hating talk, surrounding Jordan with her, Jade and Nan. Was all this in fact not all the things he did, but what Emma had done? Or were Emma’s original suspicions right, was Martin a bad man? Had his DNA sown a bad seed into his son? ‘Oh, Jordan,’ she said, close to tears.
Seeing her hurt for him, he returned to the boy she had always known.
He shrugged.
No big deal, as though he had forgotten to do some menial task like load the dishwasher. Like he hadn’t ripped all their lives apart. Anger came so rarely to Jade, but it thudded inside her now in a way she had never known.
She slapped him, she wanted to see some emotion for once, to show him what his absence had done. He didn’t rub at the mark she had made, it was as though there had been no impact, and it made her even angrier.
‘They told us you were dead,’ she hissed. She grabbed the sleeve of his coat. ‘Everyone thinks you’re dead! Where have you been?’ As quickly as her anger had risen it dipped, and relief flowed through her at last. She wanted to hug him to her, wanted to wrap her arms around him and show him with her embrace that he was loved.
But she didn’t. She’d never been able to do that to him.
She heard his breathing now, in and out. She dropped his arm. It hung loosely at his side.
A noise from the other end of the ginnel. As one they retreated further down the alleyway. There were no streetlights here, it was as dark as a grave, and she strained in the dim moonlight to see his face.
‘That could be your mother. Do you know she searches for you every day, every night?’ she whispered. ‘This is killing her. I’ve lied to her for you, not just about the other night, at the canal, for years, since Nia… since…’ her voice cracked. ‘I hate myself for lying to her.’
He made no response. She pushed on. ‘I lied to the police, too, they were asking so many questions about you. They know about you, they know something.’
At the mention of the police, although he didn’t physically move, she knew she had lost him. She reached out into the darkness, touched nothing but air.
She shoved the baby monitor in her pocket, trailed him as he walked down the side until they were heading for the part of the road where the front of their respective houses were. He looked at her, an almost-smirk on his face, before glancing at the bulge in her pocket.
She nearly screamed out of sheer frustration. He knew she wouldn’t go out of the baby monitor’s range. She knew that once he was out in the open he would be off, away, and who knew the next time he would come back?
Never, something inside told her. This is it, the end.
She wavered; they were on the road now. To her left was the shrine that had been created for him by people who didn’t know him. And over the road, across from where they inched their way along, Jade saw the familiar shadow of Mrs Oberman.
It was nearing 1 a.m. and the streets were dark, the whole of Manchester slept behind closed curtains. But Mrs Oberman stood on her never-ending sentry duty, watching, waiting for those she had lost, the ones that would never come home.
On impulse she grabbed Jordan’s arm. Shocked at being touched he jerked away, but she wasn’t that fifteen-year-old girl who had allowed herself to be pushed off a garage roof. She wasn’t even the same woman she’d been when she had allowed herself to be picked up and dumped into the freezing waters of the canal.
He moved along with her as she swept him off the kerb towards the house on the other side of the road.
Mrs Oberman’s face was closer now, her eyes were wide, her hands resting, no, clenched at the inside window ledge.
Jade jerked her head to the left. Mrs O – God bless her, thought Jade – understood and vanished from the window.
They met in the middle of the path, Mrs Oberman scanning her eyes up and down Jordan’s body, before flicking her eyes back to meet Jade’s.
‘Can you sit with Nia? She’s asleep, the back door is unlocked,’ she said breathlessly as she pulled Jordan past the startled woman and into her house.
Inside she closed the door. Before it shut, she saw Mrs Oberman, walking briskly across the street.
She turned to face him.
‘Nobody pushed you into the water,’ she said, her voice dull and listless. ‘You jumped.’
Jordan jerked his head once. A single nod. ‘I got out of the other side.’
‘But – but the others, the one before you, the one after you…’
‘I pushed them. I killed them.’
‘I saw his picture, one of those men. He was a big man, bigger than you.’ She challenged him, hands on hips.
‘It doesn’t matter how big anyone is, not if you’re like me.’ All his words monotone.
Jade knew his statement was true. She had been pushed by him. Twice.
‘The other people,’ she blurted, ‘you can’t have pushed them all, it’s been going on for years, you can’t—’
‘I didn’t. There was another one.’ He offered her a tiny flicker of a smile. ‘But he’s gone now, too.’
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
‘You pushed the Pusher?’ she asked, finally, when she was able to speak again.
Jade felt suddenly weak. She moved around him into the living room and folded herself into Mrs Oberman’s armchair.
‘What about Lee?’ she whispered. She tracked his path from the hall to where he levered himself into the chair opposite her.
He was silent but there was a flicker of something in his jet-black eyes.
‘It’s not a big deal, you know, if you love Lee. If you love any man, it’s okay.’
Whatever it was that had shone so briefly in his eyes burnt away.
‘Live normally, you mean?’ he said, simply. ‘I tried that.’
‘But we could help you!’ she cried. ‘You can get professional help, plenty of people suffer from mental health issues. It isn’t a big deal, just like being gay isn’t a big deal!’
He tipped his head back and she stared at his throat. He looked as exhausted as she felt. And he looked cold, and skinny, and for a moment, he looked just like a little boy again. That little black-eyed boy she had once known.
‘My issue isn’t up here, Jade,’ he said as he tapped at his temple, ‘it’s here, all inside, I’m rotten, right to the core,’ he said, as his hand moved to his heart. ‘I can’t live with the things I’ve done, I shouldn’t be allowed to live.’ For the first time he sounded unsure, emotional. It was the most honest and open she’d ever known him. She sobbed, suddenly. There was no helping him.
There was no way to bring him back.
‘What about your father?’ she tried, once more, showing her hand, the only card she had left to play.
His smile was gentle now, as he said, ‘Too late. If I’d have known, when I was a child, when I needed a…’ He shook his head, and when he flashed his eyes in her direction again, she shrank back in her chair. ‘Find one for Nia, a father. It’s important, regardless of what Emma says.’
That he used his mother’s first name wasn’t lost on Jade.
Oh Emma, she thought. What did you do?