She checked and double-checked the screen on her phone, paranoid it had stopped working or that in her nervousness she had turned it to silent. It was fine.
When he’d first suggested a phone call she’d been reluctant. The thought of hearing his voice, and him hearing hers, had scared and delighted her in equal measure. She was desperate for their relationship to move on to the next level but she was also worried that once she got talking she wouldn’t be able to stop. Online, with the distance between them, it was easy. She had time to think and compose her replies, to make sure they hit just the right note: friendly, happy, not too keen. But to have an actual human conversation? She worried she’d frighten him off, perhaps for good.
Gradually, though, she’d got used to the idea and started to look forward to it. Soon she was counting down the hours till the moment they’d finally get to speak and worrying about what tone of voice she should use in her first ‘Hello’. She’d practised by recording different versions on her phone, then listening back to herself over and over until she felt she had the intonation – happy and relaxed – just right.
Five minutes passed. Then another five. He’d said he would call at dead on four. This was like yesterday all over again.
Tears blotting the outer edges of her lashes, she began to walk away, back towards the arch from which she had come. She thrust her Vans deep into the snowy mush, not caring if they were ruined, and had almost reached the green perimeter when her phone rang, its tone brash against the still air.
It gave her such a shock that in her scramble to answer she dropped it and had to search for it in the snow. Terrified he might ring off, when she finally got to speak her practised nuances were forgotten, replaced by a panicky breathlessness.
‘Hello?’
‘Sarah?’
She laughed, relieved.
‘Happy Christmas, sweetheart.’ His tone had a smooth, rolling quality. It was like a magic key, able to access a part of her she hadn’t known existed.
And then, even though she knew she shouldn’t, the words came tumbling out of her mouth, still tight with the tears she’d been about to cry. ‘You didn’t call. Yesterday. You promised.’
‘We’re talking now, aren’t we?’ There was an edge to his voice, as though he was annoyed at being reprimanded. He paused, and when he next spoke it had returned to normal. ‘That’s all that matters.’
‘We are.’ Even though he couldn’t see her she covered her mouth to hide her smile.
‘Santa bring you anything nice?’
‘This and that.’ Her mum had bought her an Apple watch. She’d been campaigning for it since August but had never seriously thought she’d get one: they were so expensive. When she’d pulled away the wrapping paper and found it, she’d squealed and rushed over to her mum with a hug that made her spill her tea.
‘I got you a Christmas present.’
‘You did?’ He sounded pleased.
‘I wanted to post it but I don’t have your address.’
A beat.
Her comment hung, like unpicked fruit.
‘You thought any more about what I said, about us meeting up?’
Sarah looked at the towers of the cathedral. He’d been driving at this in their online chats for a while. She wanted to see him but she was also scared. What if she messed it up? What if, when he met her, he decided he didn’t like her after all? That she was just a silly little girl?
‘We could meet in a café or maybe somewhere more private, somewhere we can talk. My flat?’
She shivered. The slush on the ground had soaked through to her socks.
‘I want us to be together. Don’t you?’
‘More than anything.’
She knew that if she were to meet him she’d be consenting, by default, to something else. Something unsaid. Her mum had always told her to wait, that if and when the day came it was important she was mature enough to handle it, that she be ready.
‘I’ll bring it with me. Your Christmas present.’
‘So that means you’ll do it, you’ll meet?’
She’d heard the smile in his words. ‘Yes.’ She headed back towards the cobbles of Vicars’ Close. Her feet were sodden but there was a new lightness to her step. ‘I think I will.’
Thursday 29 December
Present day
Jessamine
Jessamine hunched over the last of her miso soup and tried not to make eye contact with any of the other customers. Set across the road from Broadcasting House, this particular Pret A Manger was frequented by BBC staff, which meant that, the longer she stayed, the more chance there was of her bumping into a colleague and having to engage in an awkward conversation about if or when she might be coming back to work. The location had been Mick’s idea, of course, and as she’d been the one who’d requested the meeting, she’d had to go along with it.
Her phone rang. Thinking it Mick calling to cry off, she checked the screen. But it wasn’t Mick, it was Jackie, her supervisor at the domestic-violence helpline. It was unusual for her to call. Any changes to the rota were usually agreed via email.
Jackie didn’t say hello. ‘I want to ask you something and I want you to tell me the truth.’ Her voice was tight. She was angry but trying not to be. ‘The last time you were on shift, Friday before Christmas, did you pay for a woman and her kids to stay in a hotel?’
Jessamine’s stomach dropped. Instead of calling back on her own extension Nicky must have called the general number. ‘She and her kids were in danger. I did what I thought was right.’
‘It’s not your job to think. The protocols are in place for a reason. They’re there to protect the callers and you.’ Jackie paused, readying for the ultimate purpose of her call. ‘Your volunteer contract is now terminated. You’ll receive formal confirmation in the post.’
Despite everything, Jessamine had to admire Jackie’s straight talk. It made a refreshing change to BBC HR double-speak.
‘I’m sorry.’
Jackie humphed. ‘Shoulda, woulda, coulda,’ and then she was gone.
Jessamine used a plastic spoon to scrape at the dregs of soy paste in the bottom of her cup. She waited for the feelings of shame and guilt to wash over her but they didn’t come. She’d miss her work at the helpline but she stood by her decision to help Nicky and her kids that night. If anything, she felt defiant.
Mick was now twenty minutes late. She was just debating whether or not to give up on him when he knocked on the window and waved. He wasn’t wearing a coat and his red BBC lanyard swayed against the front of his jumper.
He came inside and took a seat. ‘So, how’ve you been?’ he asked brightly, as if she was a distant aunt he hadn’t seen in a while. ‘Nice Christmas?’
‘Really?’ she said, motioning to his fake smile and chirpy posture. ‘Are we going to do this?’
He kept the act going a moment longer, then let his shoulders drop. ‘Fair enough.’ He put up his hands in surrender, his voice back to normal. ‘You said there was something you wanted to talk about.’
Since her suspension Jessamine had sent Mick a variety of emails and texts asking about the word on the grapevine. Had anyone heard any murmurings about their show? Did people think it likely she would be reinstated? After his fourth one-word reply, she’d figured out the only way she’d get the information she was looking for was if she saw him in person. It was hard to evade someone when they were sitting directly in front of you.
‘How’s it going?’ She nodded in the direction of Broadcasting House.
He rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve been reassigned. Big Fat Facts.’
‘Oh.’
Big Fat Facts was a dull, archive-led show about the stories behind unusual statistics. It played out in the early hours of the morning, and being made to work on it was usually seen as a punishment of sorts, the place they put staff they didn’t know what else to do with.
‘What’s the chatter, about our show?’
‘PDP might come back. As for you .�
��. .’ He couldn’t meet her eye. ‘I’ll be honest, Jessie, it’s not looking good.’
Jessamine bit her lip. It was as she’d suspected, but hearing it said out loud was like a punch to the gut.
‘Maybe it’s for the best.’ He placed a hand on hers. ‘Eleven years on the same show. You said yourself it needed a bit of a refresh.’
Jessamine stiffened. ‘A content refresh. Not a new me.’
He fiddled with his laminate.
She hated being pitied. She wanted to retaliate. ‘As it happens I’ve been working on something new.’
‘Oh?’ He smiled benignly.
She’d been mulling the idea of turning her Cassie Scolari investigation into a written piece since Boxing Day. She still had contacts at the broadsheets: she could pitch it to them as a feature. Now, though, she saw that to Mick it would seem like a step backwards. She thought about the microphone Sarah had ordered her from Amazon, still unopened in its box. If she was going to stick two fingers up at the BBC, she’d need to ramp up her ambitions.
‘A podcast.’
‘You?’ The idea seemed to amuse him.
‘Something in the crime genre,’ she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. ‘Should have it up and running by next week. Just finalising the script.’
‘Really? Wow.’ He sat back, clearly impressed and also, maybe, even a little envious.
Jessamine felt a rush of victory but this was soon replaced by dread. A podcast, available next week? She had no idea how the technical side of things worked. Maybe Sarah would know, or she could watch a YouTube tutorial.
He looked across the road to Broadcasting House. A kid who’d played out past his curfew. ‘I’d better get back.’
‘But you’ve only just got here?’
He got up and moved to give her a hug, but seemed to think better of it. He waved awkwardly instead, his hand up near his shoulder, and then he was gone.
Jessamine stuffed her napkin into the empty miso cup and crushed the cardboard tight. She gathered her things and was about to go when she noticed someone queuing at the till. A young man with coarse black hair. He seemed familiar.
He finished paying for his sandwich and turned to leave. It was the kid who had given her Tasha and Theo’s names that day. Jessamine got up and, as he headed out, she followed him onto the street. She tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Remember me?’
He blushed furiously and looked around as if for an escape route.
She wanted to ask him about the names, how he’d come upon them. ‘You’re a sound engineer, right?’
He opened and closed his mouth, sipping the air. He looked terrified. ‘Int-t-t-t-tern.’
She considered this a moment. Asking him about Tasha and Theo could wait. ‘Know anything about podcasts?’
Sarah
Sarah ran down the two flights of stairs and out through the front door. On the street she paused, disoriented by the bright sun, then turned right and, with no particular destination in mind, began to walk.
It had finally happened. They’d met. And although it hadn’t felt anything like she’d expected, it had been good . . . or, at least, she’d thought it had.
His flat had been ordinary. Not much furniture. No pictures on the walls. She’d been shy at first, unable to meet his eye, let alone speak. That hadn’t lasted long. He’d cracked a joke and she’d laughed. After that there’d been no stopping her. She’d asked question after question. What was his job? What was his favourite food? Did he support a football team? Then she’d asked him about all the other things. The important stuff. The things she really wanted to know.
She tried to pick over the best parts of the encounter in her head. He’d talked loads but now, when she thought about it, his answers had been like those phone calls where the signal keeps dropping out. You can try to keep up, to fill in the gaps with guesswork and common sense, but in the end you find you have so little to go on that you might as well have been in conversation with yourself.
A building site reared up on her left. All dust and piles of sand. A gust of wind swept grit into the air. She closed her eyes but she couldn’t stop it catching in her lip-gloss. She paused to pick clear the tiny particles and, for the first time since she’d started walking, she took in her wider surroundings. She didn’t know this part of London. All dirty white terraces and crumbling front walls, it had a drab, down-at-heel vibe.
They’d spent two wonderful hours together. But then, as it came time for her to leave, his behaviour had changed. He became quieter, maybe even a little offhand. She’d worried that she’d done something wrong, that she hadn’t lived up to expectation. The notion had left her on the verge of tears.
She picked up the pace and tried to put aside her unease.
So what if he hadn’t answered her questions? The other things he’d said, about them being together, about how much he loved her and how special she was, were all that mattered. That and the way she’d felt when he’d hugged her just before she’d left, her head on his chest, listening to the whump of his heart.
Warm, safe, happy.
Home.
Jessamine
Propelled by her fib to Mick, Jessamine returned home and spent the rest of the afternoon contacting key people connected to Cassie’s case. Jitesh, the sound-engineer kid she’d accosted in Pret, had agreed to help her with the initial podcast record, edit and upload to iTunes. Still, if she was going to get a script together in a week she had a lot of work to do.
First on her list had been Cassie’s husband Luca – Marnie had supplied her with his number. His phone had been switched off so she’d left him a voicemail asking him to get in touch. Then there was Matteo’s school. Jessamine had also looked up the postcode she’d found on the slip of paper in the back of Cassie’s diary. It corresponded to an Oxfordshire bed-and-breakfast. She’d called to ask if they had any record of Cassie staying there but she’d been out of luck. The phone had rung twice before defaulting to a recorded message, which informed her that the hosts were away for the holidays: any booking enquiries should be directed via their website.
Now sitting cross-legged in bed, she’d moved on from calls to transcribing her chat with Marnie. Her fingers flew across the keyboard and before long she reached the part of the recording in which Marnie had explained how she and Cassie had come to swap handbags in the playground. Hearing it again, Jessamine was even more aware of the pride in Marnie’s voice whenever she said her friend’s name. She scrolled the recording back thirty seconds. This time she made sure to listen extra carefully. Marnie’s tone was proud, yes, but also possessive. When she spoke Cassie’s name her mouth seemed to close around the word, as though she was reluctant to share even this small part of her with the world. Jessamine made a note to dig a little deeper into the exact nature of their friendship and was about to continue with the recording when she noticed Sarah hovering in the doorway. She smiled and lowered the screen. ‘Hello, darling.’
Sarah approached the foot of the bed, lifted the covers and snuggled underneath, stopping only once she lay perpendicular to her mother. Jessamine felt a twinge of nostalgia. Sarah had done this all the time when she was little and had had a bad dream. Back then she had been so stealthy that Jessamine would be unaware of her presence until the morning when she’d wake to find her daughter’s knees pressed into the soles of her feet.
Sarah pulled the duvet down, away from her mouth.
‘Everything okay?’ Jessamine knew she had to disguise her pleasure at Sarah coming into her room. In recent months, to acknowledge or draw attention to positive behaviour in any way was to scare her off or, worse, to start a fight.
‘I just want to lie here for a bit.’ She bunched the duvet up around her chin. ‘Go back to whatever it is you were doing.’
Desperate to keep her close, Jessamine did as she asked. At first she found it hard to concentrate. There was an energy coming off Sarah, as though she wanted to tell her something, if only Jessamine could ask the
right question. But after a little while she started to relax. Having Sarah nearby was comforting, and after the disaster of the Christmas holidays it felt like a reconciliation of sorts.
She enlarged the document at the bottom of the screen and went over the list of questions she’d compiled on Boxing Day. Lots could be answered quickly and cleanly by the police, but for that she’d need access to someone on the case.
She picked up the phone and dialled O’Brien.
‘Jessamine. How are you?’ There was a crackling noise that sounded as if he’d pressed the phone into his jacket. Through the muffle she could hear him talking to someone. His tone was placatory. Another crackle and he was back. His voice had dropped to a whisper that was as conspiratorial as it was apologetic. ‘I’m in the middle of something.’
‘I can call back.’
He hesitated. ‘Give me a second.’
More crackling and muffled chatter, then footsteps. When he spoke next his voice was back to normal. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I wanted to thank you for my Christmas present.’ O’Brien had sent her a pair of slippers that doubled as a floor mop. Each sole was covered with knobbly Microfiber, which the accompanying leaflet explained you could use wet or dry.
‘Ha-ha-ha! Glad you liked them!’
She gave it a beat. ‘Also, I need your help. That misper case I told you about. I need to talk to someone direct.’
He whistled. ‘I’ll ask, but you know what they’re like. They all march to the beat of the press office, these days.’
In the background she heard giggling. A woman.
‘O’Brien, are you on a date?’ Jessamine’s tone was light.
‘Ha-ha-ha.’ His staccato was more uncertain than usual. ‘I’ll do my best to get you someone that can help. Glad you liked the present. Talk soon, Jessie.’ And with that he was gone.
The Dangerous Kind Page 16