by Alex Slorra
Jessica wore Anna’s old Christobel Kent black cocktail dress. Form-fitting with lace sleeves, it showed off Jessica’s toned physique perfectly. On Anna, it had been too tight around the hips and bust, and she’d only worn it once to a dinner party in Edinburgh.
“So do you.” Jessica returned her smile and stepped down into the hall to place a hand on the curve of Anna’s waist.
Anna smiled back as best she could. As much as she was looking forward to the dinner, it was tainted by the fact Jessica would be leaving soon after.
Anna was terrible at keeping secrets and had told her everything that had happened with the police.
“I think I should go tonight,” Jessica had said. “The police might come back tomorrow or the next day. I don’t want Abbie to see them taking me.”
“Please! I want you to stay the weekend. You won’t see Abbie. She isn’t home until tomorrow. Beth is collecting her for me tomorrow at noon.”
“I have to get this sorted on my own terms. I can’t have the police dragging me away in front of the whole village.”
In the end, Anna caved in. It would be their last meal together. Jessica would leave at midnight when the tide was out. She tried not to sigh and almost succeeded. “So, where are you taking me?” Anna passed Jessica her coat, before donning her own.
“You’ll see.”
In the moonlight, the ruins of the priory cast foreboding shadows. It was as if dead monks waited in the dark corners for a soul to come too close.
Jessica had halted. “This isn’t the right way, is it?”
“Not unless the spirit of Saint Cuthbert is serving up a Sunday roast.” Anna laughed.
“Shit.”
“Where are we supposed to be going?”
“Well, the castle.”
“This way, love.” Anna spoke as if to a lost elderly relative.
After five minutes, Lindisfarne Castle rose before them on a pinnacle of rock. Light from the outside spotlights and windows illuminated and deepened its silhouette against the night sky. The air was still, and the sound of lunar-washed waves could be heard crashing along the shore.
“We’re quite late,” Jessica said. “I hope Beth isn’t too upset.”
“Beth?”
“She made the arrangements. She’ll be cooking for us. Kind of a thank-you.”
Anna checked her phone again. It was the third time in the last few minutes.
“Something wrong?” Jessica asked.
“Abbie’s not texted me back.”
“Give her a ring.”
“It’s okay. She does this a lot. Ignoring my texts is her way of rebelling. I’ll give it a bit longer.”
ABBIE BACKED AWAY from him, with tears streaming down her face. He’d told her on the phone he was her father. He’d sent her pictures of her real mother and her as a baby. She shouldn’t have met him. Not here, not outside the school gates. She knew that now, but it was too late. Her hands trembled, and her whole body shook.
She ran, trying to dial a number as she darted along the empty country lane back towards the path leading to her school. The call didn’t connect. She tripped as fear caused her legs to give way. He was right on top of her and snatched away her phone. He hurled it into the trees.
“No phones!” he snarled.
Abbie screamed for help as he slapped a hand over her mouth and carried her to the back of the car.
“Fucking behave!”
INSIDE THE CASTLE, the ten-foot-thick stone walls of the old fortress blocked out all radio waves, and Anna had no signal. She placed her phone face down on the table.
“This is awesome,” Anna said, glancing around the ancient dining room. They sat at an oval oak table, lit by a chandelier hung from the centre of a low vaulted ceiling. At one end, split logs blazed in an open fire. She could easily imagine herself in the sixteenth century.
The meal went by quickly, and the food had been fantastic—leek and potato soup to start, followed by Angus beef, dauphinoise potatoes, vegetables, and a lemon tart for dessert. But Anna knew she’d not been good company. Her lover would be leaving in a few hours, and she would be alone again.
She took hold of Jessica’s hand. “Thank you for this. Sorry, I’m not making this lit, as Sarah would say.”
Jessica gave a half smile. “It won’t be our last supper.”
“I know.” Anna wiped a tear away. “But it feels like it is.”
“Let’s thank Beth.”
Trying to be as chirpy as possible, Anna said her thank yous and goodbyes to Beth, and they were soon walking hand in hand to the village. Moonlight provided ample illumination, ensuring they didn’t venture off the path and into the sea.
Anna checked her phone.
“Is Abbie okay?” Jessica asked.
“I have a missed call from her.” Anna tried to ring her, but there was no answer. “She must be asleep,” she muttered to herself.
It was midnight by the time they got back, and very little had been said. Anna busied herself making coffee while Jessica got changed.
When she reappeared in the kitchen, Anna wrapped her in her arms. She kissed her tenderly while sliding her fingers into Jessica’s hair.
“I love you. I’m going to miss you so much.”
“I love you too. And I don’t want to go… I’ll ring you as soon as I’m in London.”
“You need money?” Anna’s sorrow touched every word.
“I still have eighty pounds. Enough for petrol.”
Anna nodded. “All right.” She tried to steel herself, even though every cell in her body told her this was wrong.
“I better go.”
Anna released her and crossed her arms. “Call me every day?”
“Yes, my every day.” The attempted joke fell flat for both of them, and an awkward minute passed.
Anna picked up a travel mug and handed it to Jessica.
Tears ran down Jessica’s cheeks.
Anna brushed them away. “Drive carefully.”
Jessica nodded, seemingly too emotional to speak.
Outside, Anna watched as the Saab drove off. She stayed there long after its taillights disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-Two
STILL IN HER jacket and camisole slip dress from dinner, Anna wiped the already clean countertop for the third time. Then the tears came. She slid down the cabinets onto the floor. Bending her knees against her chest, she sobbed until her eyes stung and her lungs burned.
Go to bed, this is doing no one any good.
Dragging herself off the cold tiles, she snatched up the cordless handset and tried Sarah’s number. Her friend would help her return to a modicum of normality. There was no answer, so she tried her mom.
“Hello.” Her mom’s voice enveloped her in a comforter of familiarity. Shutters of emotion supplanted any chance of coherence, and she was unable to speak. “Annamaria? What’s wrong?”
Anna snuffled. It took a minute to find her voice. “What time is it there? It’s not too late, is it?”
“Honey, it’s just after seven. Why are you crying?”
Anna slowed her ragged breathing. “I have a lot to tell you,” she blurted out with a sigh.
“I’m listening.”
Between sobs, she started at the beginning, explaining how she’d met Jessica, how beautiful she was, before moving on to Abbie and the Fosters and how Jessica had fixed the stables, how Jessica was wanted by the police for something she didn’t do and how she’d left for London, leaving her alone. Of course, she left out the kissing, the sex, and what Jessica really meant to her.
“I’m just upset, that’s all.” Anna wiped her nose with her palm. “I needed someone to talk to.”
For a moment, there was no response
“Mom?” Anna asked, “Are you still there?”
“Yes, pumpkin.” Pumpkin? Her mom hadn’t called her that since she was ten. “So, you love this Jessica?”
It was Anna’s turn to leave dead air on the line. She closed her open m
outh and stammered, “I…well…” She paused, hugging herself with her free hand. “More than I can stand.”
“She feels the same?”
Anna nodded to the receiver. Realising that wouldn’t transmit, she added, “Yes.”
“I see,” her mom said in a measured tone. “Does Abbie know?”
“Yes, of course,” Anna said harshly, now feeling defensive. She wanted her mother to understand they were a family. “We’ve not spoken about it directly. Abbie’s just accepting, and she’s better when Jessica is around. We don’t fight… She’s happy.” The last words caused Anna to start sobbing again.
When Anna finally composed herself, her mom said, “You know, I suspected you might be.”
“Be what?”
“Gay.”
“Huh? Wait…you’re saying, you knew? Since when?”
Anna’s mom laughed. “Since you were fifteen or so, but I didn’t know for sure. You never showed much interest in boys. If anything, it was the Dicksons’ daughter that made you blush and go all doe-eyed. Do you remember her?”
Anna swallowed— she hadn’t thought about Heather in fourteen years. Tall, smart, with chestnut hair, Heather had been a complete mystery to her. She remembered those awkward moments when Mom and Dad would have the Dicksons over to play bridge while she and Heather were left to watch TV. Even now, she cringed at how tongue-tied she’d been.
“But then Emma died,” her mother continued. “And you lost your chance to work things out. When John came along, you saw a way to escape. Running was how you dealt with it.”
“Jesus, Mom…why don’t you lay it all on me now!”
“Look, a mother only wants her children to be happy. That’s it. But I can’t find yourself for you. You have to deal with things your own way.”
Anna sighed. “Awesome. You could’ve said something, a hint perhaps?” she huffed down the phone.
“Annamaria, you must know from Abbie, you can’t tell a girl from our family what to think or do. I couldn’t get Emma to leave, that…that devil. You think I could’ve stopped you going to England just because I thought John wasn’t right for you, or any man was?” Her mother’s tone held no anger or accusation—if anything, sadness floated on her words.
Anna knew she shouldn’t be blaming her mom for the crippling torture of Emma’s loss, the fear of Abbie’s father, and the choices she’d made that had moulded her life.
“Pumpkin, the past is gone. It shouldn’t define your present. You’ve been unhappy for so long, and I prayed one day you would look in the right places. So, I suppose now you need to make sure you don’t lose her.”
Anna blew out the braid of hair she had in her mouth and wiped away the tears that still fell like a dripping tap. “Yeah. I need her to live.”
“And how are you going to make sure you keep her?” Her mom’s tone implied she was feeding a rhetorical question Anna should’ve asked herself.
She took a deep breath and explained what John had suggested and added Jessica would call her as soon as she could.
“You know, sweetheart, I don’t trust him.”
“Nor do I, but he’s our best option.”
“Just be careful… Oh, the time. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have ballroom dancing in ten minutes.”
“I didn’t know you did that.”
“It’s Friday, I’m not staying in to watch reruns of The Love Boat. Phone me anytime. But not Friday evenings.” Her mom chuckled down the phone. “Love you.”
“Love you too.” Anna hung up, feeling a lot better; things weren’t as dark as they seemed. And although she hadn’t planned it, she’d come out to her mom. “Who knew?” she muttered. “Mom did…and never said a thing!”
She put the handset back in the docking station and noticed the flashing message light. She pressed play, wondering if it was Abbie. A synthetic voice said, “Thursday 11:22 p.m.,” before reading a series of letters: H-T-T-P-S colon forward slash forward slash D-R-I-V-E…” The letters continued, and Anna wrote them down. She knew it was a text message that had been sent to her landline by mistake. Her mom still did this when she got telephone numbers mixed up.
At her laptop, she typed the characters into her browser. The link was to a Google Drive, and it played a video of a group of people in a pub. She flicked a quick, what-the-hell-is-this-about? smile and was about to close her laptop when she heard Jessica’s name. Stock options were then discussed, a question as to whether a laptop had been restored to normal, then, finally, a woman with long jet-black hair looked towards the camera and said, “Is that Jessica’s minion?”
Anna wasn’t sure what to make of it, so she watched it again, before emailing the link to John, with a message:
This might be useful for Jessica’s case. She’s heading to London tonight. Please do what you can for her, thanks. Anna.
THE COLD WATER woke Chris but, cruelly, only to tell him he was drowning. Sinking lower into the dark muddy void, with his air spent, he’d hoped he’d done enough. In the last, fatal few seconds, the events of the prior thousand rushed back.
Halfway to Shadwell Station, someone jumped him by a church.
He knew who it was. Brian had been buying him drinks all night and must have followed him when he left the pub. His boss had punched him hard in the neck and bundled him into the trees behind the church.
“I’m sorry, mate. But you shouldn’t eavesdrop,” Brian had told him while he’d lain winded on the ground. Pain from a tirade of kicks to his head caused Chris to lose consciousness.
He had woken behind the gravestones near the water of Shadwell Basin, too broken to move. He had managed to pull out his phone and dial 999, but his throat had been badly damaged, and he struggled to speak. When approaching footsteps echoed towards him, he’d desperately flicked to another app and selected “share.” Fuck you, Brian. The video upload had completed, and he’d shared the link to the number Jessica had given him. Fuck you to hell!
THE CAUSEWAY WAS clear when Jessica crossed. And although the old Saab continued to tick over, she had shut down, locking out her emotions for Anna, Abbie, and the home she had just left. Kermit came to mind, more as a remembered smell than an image and she started to cry. Jabbing at the tears with her sleeves, she pulled into the first open petrol station.
A full tank would be enough to get her back to London. As the pump rattled off litres, she glanced around the forecourt. An unshaven, muscular man in a leather jacket and blue jeans, from the car opposite, had gone in to pay. She noticed the Diesel sticker on the petrol cap, which told her it was a hire car. As her pump spun past fifty, she watched as the rear of the man’s car rocked of its own accord.
“Bizarre,” she muttered and went in to pay.
The man was in front and spoke with an American accent as he ordered cigarettes.
“Is it now safe to cross to the island?” he asked.
“Yes, but you’re cutting a bit fine,” the middle-aged woman behind the counter answered. “It’s not unusual for tourists to misjudge the depth and have to be rescued. Last year, a couple died. The sea here is very cold.”
“I’m not a tourist.”
The attendant shrugged. “Visiting someone?”
“Mind your own business,” he snapped.
The hairs on Jessica’s neck stood on end. There was something very wrong with this guy.
She paid without waiting for change and tailed him out. By her Saab, she hesitated. The rear of his car bounced up and down again. “Sir,” she yelled after him and raced over. She grabbed the frame of his door before he could yank it shut. “The attendant wants to talk to you. Says she got the tides wrong.”
He rolled his eyes. “So can I cross or not?”
“I don’t know. You need to talk to her.”
“For fuck’s sake,” he cursed and stomped back to the kiosk.
As soon as he was inside, Jessica tried to open the boot, but it was locked. She tore to the driver side and searched for a boot release. The model had o
ne, and she popped it.
“Hey, what the hell, lady!” the man’s voice boomed from fifty feet away.
Jessica lifted the lid to see a mouth covered in grey tape and a pair of terrified blue eyes.
“Abbie!” Jessica’s scream was cut short as a hand spun her around.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!” He smashed the back of her head into the rim of the open boot.
Pain halted all her senses. Her vision split into colours of red, yellow, and blue just before she blacked out.
JOHN CLOSED THE book he was reading and picked up his phone. The hotel he’d been staying in for weeks now was taking on his odour; a sign he needed to get his act together and find a flat. But why should I? If all goes well, I can get back together with Anna, and we can buy a place in London. He remembered Abbie. She can stay at the boarding school. It all works out.
He absentmindedly flicked between apps before checking his emails, jerking to a sitting position when he saw a message from Anna.
After reading the email, he followed the link and watched the video with a raised eyebrow. “So, Jessica Cox is innocent.” He frowned and clicked “delete.”
THE NOISE OF the BMW door slamming shut woke Nadia. The crick in her neck was getting worse. Why the hell they didn’t just drive back to London, she couldn’t fathom. After finding nowhere to stay, her boss had suggested they hang about and see if their visit would flush out Miss Cox. And so, next to a campervan in the main carpark, they’d been stationary for nine hours. The camper hid their vehicle from anyone leaving the island while offering a clear view of the causeway.
“I heard a car, was it Miss Cox’s?” he asked as made himself comfortable.
“Nope,” she lied, having dozed off for the last ten minutes and not having a clue whose car it had been. “Where did you go?”
“To take a slash and see if I could find somewhere to get a coffee. But this place is fucked up. Nothing is open.”
“I think we should go, or we’ll be stuck here until tomorrow.”
“And? Is that a problem?”
There wasn’t any point in arguing, he’d just pull rank.