by Simon Booker
‘Well? Are you?’
They’ve been arguing since Morgan got home. She began the inquisition gently, mindful of her daughter’s fragile state of mind, but things are getting heated.
‘You insisted I take the jacket into prison,’ says Morgan. ‘I need to know what’s going on.’
A toss of the head, a tremulous lower lip. Time for a softer approach.
Morgan reaches for her pouch of tobacco and begins to roll a cigarette. ‘I’m your mum. I’m on your side. Whatever you’re hiding, the first step towards making it better is to let me help you.’
The sympathetic tone of voice clinches it. Her daughter’s resistance crumbles, her eyes brim with tears.
‘It’s all so messed up. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Is it something to do with Pablo?’
No eye contact. A deep breath. Time to come clean.
‘Maybe.’
Morgan maintains her gentle tone. She has yet to lay eyes on Lissa’s latest boyfriend, but is fearful of what she’ll do if they ever meet.
‘OK, I’m listening.’
Another breath, then it comes out in a rush.
‘I mentioned you were going to see that woman in prison – Anjelica Fry – and he suddenly became really interested. He tried to get me to put a package in your jacket. Said it was just a laugh, for a mate, but I figured it was drugs so I said “no way”. But he swore it wasn’t drugs and he wouldn’t stop hassling me, so eventually I gave in.’
Morgan is stunned by her daughter’s naivety, but this is not the time to pick a fight.
‘What package, sweetheart?’
‘Like a little pouch, made of plastic? Light, so you wouldn’t notice.’
‘Do you know what was in it?’
A shrug.
‘Something hard, like a glass tube. It felt cold. I think it had, like, ice in it?’
Morgan remembers the shaven-headed prison officer’s insistence that she leave her jacket in the locker.
‘Has Pablo ever mentioned a man called Trevor Jukes?’
‘Who?’
‘Never mind. When did he give you the package?’
‘This morning, after we got back from hospital.’
‘You saw him here?’
Lissa shakes her head.
‘He phoned me. Said he’d left the pouch outside and the timing was crucial. I fetched it when you were in the shower. Then I sewed it into your jacket while you were in the kitchen.’ A whimper escapes her lips. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What did he mean by “the timing was crucial”?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Where is he now?’
The whimper turns into an angry sob.
‘I don’t know, OK? When I try his mobile it says number unobtainable. I think he’s gone now that he’s got what he wanted. He’s dumped me and disappeared.’
‘Where can we find him?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He doesn’t have, like, a house. He travels around in his camper van.’
‘Do you know the make? Registration number?’
‘Do I look like a copper?’
‘This is important.’
‘It’s just a shitty old van, OK? White. He calls it “The Love Shack”.’
A prince among men.
Morgan’s daughter had dated Pablo for seven weeks over the summer, sometimes sleeping in his van, but never discovered his surname, only that he wasn’t Spanish or Latin American, as ‘Pablo’ might suggest. His parents had simply liked the name. Lissa has no idea where he might be and took no photos, not even a cheesy selfie. He told her that being photographed was like having your soul stolen.
Puh-lease.
Morgan wonders if a penchant for bad guys can run in the genes. With her own track record, and now her daughter’s, the idea seems more than plausible.
She lights her roll-up, plucking a strand of tobacco from her tongue, and studies Lissa’s beautiful face, remembering what it feels like to be young and in love with a bastard. Been there, done that, got the broken heart.
‘Are you OK, Lissa?’
‘Not really.’
‘Need a hug?’
Her daughter’s voice is a whisper.
‘I don’t deserve one.’
‘Have one anyway.’
Lissa rises from the sofa and folds her slender frame onto her mother’s lap, taking care to avoid her ribs.
‘Am I forgiven?’
‘Ask me when you’re eighty.’
‘You’ll be so dead.’
‘Nicely put.’
A pause.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘You know the answer to that.’
‘Tell the prison? Or the police?’
‘Sure. If you feel like spending your twenties behind bars.’
A pause. Lissa coughs, waving away a cloud of cigarette smoke.
‘I thought you were going to quit smoking.’
‘So did I.’
*
The visit from DI Neville Rook comes as a surprise.
‘I was on my way to the Anchor. Thought I’d pop in, see how you’re both doing.’
Morgan isn’t convinced (she clocked the softly spoken man checking out her cleavage at the hospital) but decides to take him at his word. Making tea, she experiences a flash of paranoia – has he discovered her unwitting role as a mule? – but quickly gets a grip. She renews her determination to remain silent about the plastic pouch. Assuming it contained drugs – ‘spice’ or some new chemical cocktail the sniffer dogs can’t detect – she sees no reason to confess to something guaranteed to land her and Lissa in serious trouble.
Possibly prison.
There’s no news on the man who attacked them on the cliffs. Even so, Rook manages to sound quietly confident.
‘We’ll get him sooner or later. We’re like the Mounties: we always get our man.’
Morgan isn’t so sure. Eighteen months ago she exposed two corrupt coppers; her faith in the police has yet to recover. All the same, she’s relieved that someone is taking her seriously. No victim-blaming for DI Neville Rook.
Finishing his tea, he gets to his feet, glancing out of the window at the deserted beach, the vast power station looming in the distance. When he turns, Morgan notices him checking out her breasts.
Again.
His gaze travels upwards to meet her eyes.
‘Sure you’ll be OK out here?’
Nice-looking guy. Kind face. No wedding ring. Another place, another time in her life, she might have given him a smile. Instead, she folds her arms.
‘We’re used to it.’
For Lissa’s sake, she forces herself to sound braver than she feels. Other people call Dungeness weird; she calls it home.
‘My fiancée’s a police officer too,’ says Rook.
Engaged? Sweet old-fashioned thing . . .
‘She says you wrote a book. About police cock-ups?’
‘Not exactly. It’s about mistakes across the criminal justice system.’
Morgan braces herself. That Trial and Error is resented by the forces of law and order is not surprising. The book chronicles miscarriages of justice dating back to 1679. Robert Green. Henry Berry. Lawrence Hill. Hanged for the murder of Edmund Godfrey. All three convicted on false evidence.
‘Mind if I ask why you wrote it?’
Where to begin? With her father, unjustly accused of rape? With her first love, wrongly imprisoned for the murder of his stepdaughter?
‘I saw too many movies when I was a kid,’ she tells Rook. ‘The world is meant to work a certain way: the bad guys get their comeuppance; the good guys don’t suffer for things they didn’t do. When the system messes up, we can’t just look the other way.’
Rook holds her gaze.
‘My fiancée says you’re anti-police.’
Morgan gives what she hopes is a friendly smile.
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‘Not remotely. Most coppers are decent people doing a tough job under difficult circumstances. But the rotten apples make life worse for everyone. If people like me lose faith in people like you, we’re all sunk.’
She can see Rook digesting her words. Something to tell his fiancée. Morgan visualises a gym-fit woman. Pursed lips. Short hair. No sense of humour.
The man clears his throat. Flips to a blank page in his notebook.
‘I’m not supposed to do this, but could I have your autograph?’
Morgan feels a blush steal across her face. Is this what happens when your book makes the Sunday Times bestseller list?
‘Of course.’
Rook clears his throat. Embarrassed.
‘I meant your daughter. I told my nephew I’d met the famous Lissa. Now he won’t stop pestering me.’
It’s the first time Morgan has seen her daughter smile since the attack on the cliffs. In the aftermath of her fleeting brush with fame, people regularly stopped her in the street. Those days are gone. Unwitting ‘star’ of a sex tape, she was a tabloid sensation, albeit briefly. Her particular brand of celebrity (famous for being famous) led to a couple of tacky reality shows before her career as a ‘celebutante’ fizzled out. No modelling contract. No Hollyoaks. No footballer boyfriend. Last month Celeb magazine mentioned her in a ‘Whatever Happened To?’ round-up, misspelling her name as ‘Lisa’.
Lissa sacked her agent and stayed in bed for three days. Morgan loves her daughter with every fibre of her being, but she’s not always easy to like.
‘What’s your nephew’s name?’ says Lissa, reaching for a pen.
‘Danny.’
The smile falters. Danny was the name of Morgan’s first love – the original Shit. Lissa scribbles a signature, then sinks back onto the sofa, jabbing an angry finger at her iPad.
The police officer leaves. Silence descends on the house on the beach.
*
Stacking the dishwasher, Morgan tries to imagine how it feels to be twenty years old and adrift in the world. Her own twenties passed in a blur. Single-motherhood. Low-level panic. Stress. Now Lissa is struggling too, but in her own way. PTSD has her in its grip. According to psychologists, ‘freezing’ is a common response to traumatic events. The word describes Lissa perfectly.
Frozen. Lost.
Darkness is falling. Outside, the waves are choppy and the sea mist is rolling in. It’s not yet seven thirty but Morgan longs for bed. Already woozy from the painkillers, she swallows two more then heats up the chicken soup she made earlier, while her daughter was sewing contraband into the lining of her jacket.
Morgan needs to decide what to do about Lissa, how to help her find her way in the world, a sense of purpose, but not tonight. Tonight she’ll deadbolt the doors and knock herself out with Zopiclone.
‘Soup and EastEnders?’
Lissa gives a wan smile.
‘Thanks, Mum. Love you.’
*
After supper, Morgan leaves Lissa to watch TV while running the vacuum cleaner over her daughter’s room. She chances upon an empty Smirnoff bottle stashed under the bed. She stares at it for a full minute, debating whether or not to take Lissa to task.
The discovery is disturbing. Drinking is one thing – secret drinking something else altogether. She decides to say nothing. For now.
*
Two hours later, brushing her teeth, she hears her daughter’s voice.
‘Mum? Phone.’
Emerging from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, Morgan grabs her mobile. A familiar name flashes on screen. Nigel Cundy, resident psychologist at HMP Dungeness. He sounds smug, thrilled to be the bearer of bad news.
‘Thought you should know, in case the media get hold of it.’
‘Hold of what?’
‘Anjelica Fry. She tried to kill herself, an hour after your visit. She sharpened the edges of her crucifix, managed to slash her wrist.’
‘Jesus . . . Is she OK?’
‘She’s on the hospital wing. Under sedation.’ He pauses before delivering the coup de grâce. Words to guarantee another sleepless night.
‘She left a note – blaming you.’
Five
The pills aren’t working. The bedside clock shows 2.06 a.m. – the night seems to be lasting for ever. Morgan has been lying in the dark, staring at the cracks on the ceiling, replaying her conversation with Anjelica.
Think about me when you’re trying to get to sleep. Imagine I’m your daughter.
Nigel Cundy’s mealy-mouthed attempt at reassurance has only made things worse.
You probably shouldn’t blame yourself. The woman is clinically depressed, highly unstable.
A creak from the iron bedstead as Morgan gives up on sleep and gets out of bed. She pads barefoot into the kitchen, careful not to wake her daughter, asleep in the next room. Waiting for the kettle to boil, she smokes a roll-up while gazing at the clouds scudding across the night sky. The sleeping pills have made her thick-tongued and groggy, but failed to induce oblivion. She shouldn’t have mixed them with painkillers. Two large glasses of wine have compounded the error. But however desolate she’s feeling, it’s nothing compared to Anjelica.
Sedated. Bandaged. Banged up.
She makes a mug of camomile tea and boots up her MacBook. Distraction is required. Something to reset her mind, to calm the ‘monkey brain’. Anything will do, even videos of cats. But the internet is insomnia’s partner in crime. Despite her best intentions it’s only a few clicks before she’s listening to a podcast about life behind bars.
Women make up fewer than five per cent of the prison population but are responsible for a quarter of all incidents of self-harm. Three-quarters go through detox and eighty per cent are jailed for non-violent crimes. They commit more assaults than male prisoners and are less inclined to blindly follow rules.
Surprisingly, they’re also more violent.
I’ll hold the bitch down, you kick her tits.
Turning to coverage of Anjelica’s case, Morgan scrolls through newspaper accounts of the investigation into Karl Savage’s death.
According to evidence given by the Met’s Senior Investigating Officer, DI Brett Tucker, there was no time to investigate Anjelica’s allegations against her ex before the fire that killed him. DI Tucker took the statement that incriminated Karl in large-scale drug dealing on Friday morning. By Sunday night the man was dead.
According to Anjelica’s testimony, the father of her child had been selling class A drugs for years, working with a long-time crony known only as Spike, rumoured to be lying low.
Brett Tucker had planned to question both men on the Monday, after taking Anjelica’s statement, but never got the chance. Assigned to investigate the Dalston blaze he worked alongside a fire scene investigator to establish probable cause, which was deemed to be arson. Anjelica was arrested four days after Savage’s death.
The petrol can had been discovered in her car.
The Anjelica matches were in her kitchen drawer.
Morgan finishes her tea and checks her watch. Nearly 3 a.m. Time to give the pills another chance. Rinsing her mug, she glances out to the beach. The light is spilling from the window.
Parked fifteen yards away is a van.
A white camper van.
She’s certain it wasn’t there earlier. Are the pills and alcohol playing tricks with her mind? Was she too immersed in reading about Anjelica to hear the engine? Either way, there’s no mistaking the van.
Or the outline of a man sitting behind the wheel, his face obscured by shadows.
Hairs prickling the back of her neck, Morgan moves to the door, checking the bolt. Now the back door. The windows. She grabs her mobile, on the verge of dialling 999, then glances out of the window again. The van is still there, the driver’s face hidden from view.
The interior is illuminated as he lights a cigarette.
Morgan can’t hear the sound of the Zippo but she can imagine it.
Clink-rasp.
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For two seconds – perhaps less – his face is visible. Morgan can feel the blood thudding in her ears, her heartbeat racing. The face she is staring at is in some respects different from the face she’s seen in the papers – full beard, shaved head – but it is unmistakably the face of a dead man.
Karl Savage.
‘Lissa!’
Her voice shatters the silence.
‘Lissa!’
She hears her daughter stumbling out of bed. The bedroom door opens, light spilling into the kitchen.
‘Mum?’
Outside, the van’s engine is revving. A crunch of tyres spurts shingle against the clapboard house. Morgan looks out of the window. The van is no longer in sight, the sound of its engine receding into the distance as tyres hit tarmac.
‘Was that his van? Did you see him?’
‘See who?’ says Lissa.
Morgan knows she’s not being clear – the pills and booze are making her woozy – but she can’t stop babbling.
‘I don’t understand . . . That man . . . he wasn’t your boyfriend . . . It wasn’t Pablo . . . It was Karl Savage.’
Her daughter frowns.
‘What are you talking about? Who’s Karl Savage?’
‘The man Anjelica is supposed to have killed.’
Morgan unbolts the front door, flings it open and peers out into the night. No headlamps, no lights, no sign of the van. Straining to hear, she catches the distant echo of what might be an engine but could just as well be waves hitting shingle.
Her daughter takes a step closer.
‘Mum, are you OK?’
Morgan is hit by a wave of giddiness and nausea. Bolting the door, she leads Lissa to the kitchen table and reawakens the laptop. The article on Karl’s murder reappears on the screen. She points to his photo. No beard. A full head of hair. But it’s the same man. The man in the van.
‘Who is this, Lissa?’
She doesn’t want to put words in her daughter’s mouth.
Lissa glances at the photo. A shrug.
‘No idea.’
‘Look closer.’
Lissa leans over the laptop.
A gasp escapes her lips.
‘What the fuck? Why is Pablo in the paper?’
*
The next hour passes in a blur. Sitting at the kitchen table, Morgan studies her daughter’s tear-stained face, her dismay growing by the minute. Lissa has been keeping more than one secret. The stash of vodka is the least of it.