Still, I held back. I had a new name, a new life that I wanted to protect. Going to the police and telling them my story would have meant admitting that the last thirteen years have been a lie. No matter that I did it to protect myself, to keep myself safe from those who might wish me harm. I broke the law, committed fraud. I was terrified that if they knew this they might take Matteo away, like I was taken from my mum.
But then things started to change. After the celebrity’s death I saw it on the news, in documentaries. The police were starting to listen. Despite this, I was worried that my claims would be written off as outlandish, the people involved too powerful ever to be brought to account. I’d gone to the police for help before and it hadn’t turned out well.
I agree to meet Millie by the underpass next to Embankment Tube in ten minutes. As I hang up, the pay-as-you-go bleeps and a low-power warning appears on the screen. I usually charge it every morning at work – I can’t risk leaving it lying around at home somewhere Luca might find it, but what with the prospect of seeing Millie again I’d forgotten. I put on my coat and go to my boss’s office. I tell him I’ve had a call from Matteo’s school. He’s sick and they need me to pick him up. He wishes Matteo well and says he’ll see me tomorrow.
Outside, I start to walk. I feel almost as nervous about seeing Millie again as I do her father.
Leo.
There’s no way he’ll have bought my made-up reason for wanting to see him. He must know there’s more to it, yet he’s agreed to a face-to-face. I’m intrigued. By rights, he should be terrified of what I represent, of what I could do. Then again, he thinks I don’t know about Sunny and what he sent him to do that night by the canal. As far as he’s concerned, I never turned up. Maybe he thinks he can pay me off or that I have no proof, that it’s my word against his. Or maybe it’s the opposite: maybe he worries that if he kicks this into the long grass it’ll antagonise me, make me do something he may come to regret.
I keep walking. Now and then I catch my reflection in a shop window. Plain but smart, no makeup, my hair tied back in a simple ponytail. I’ve dressed like this on purpose. Nothing like the teenager he used to know.
It was Raf who helped me disappear. After a few weeks’ sleeping rough I went to him, desperate, told him I needed a new start, somewhere Sunny couldn’t find me. I expected him to talk me down, to tell me I had to come back to the home, to the system, but instead he put me in touch with a friend of his, a man who’d once been in care just like me. Raf said he owed him a favour and got him to sort me out with a new name, National Insurance number, the lot. He made me a few years older too. Sixteen. It meant I could get a job and a place of my own. I’m still careful. You won’t find me on social media and I’ve never been back to Oxford.
I’m passing Coutts when my pay-as-you-go rings. Millie again, checking I’m on my way. As I say goodbye, the phone switches itself off, the battery dead.
I pick up the pace.
At the end of Villiers Street I turn right and head for the underpass. A black Mercedes is idling on the corner. I open the passenger door and peer inside.
‘Rowena?’ asks the driver.
I recoil. It’s odd, being called by my old name.
‘Of course it’s her, silly. Who else would it be?’
I look to the back seat. There she is. Millie. She gives me a little wave.
I get in and sit next to her. We embrace awkwardly.
‘So good to see you.’
‘And you.’
She’s lost the extra weight she used to carry around the middle and her once ruddy skin is now pale, almost dishwater grey, but she still wears her jumper tied loose around her shoulders, shirt collar up, and she still seems clean, special somehow, in a way I’ve never figured out how to replicate.
She smiles brightly. ‘Shall we go?’
I nod.
Sarah
Sarah had worked so hard to hold back her tears. Now, though, seeing the figure of her mother in the distance was like a needle pressing against the skin of a balloon. All of a sudden everything seemed to pop.
Sarah began to cry.
They walked to the apex of the stone footbridge, to where her Mum stood waiting, and stopped. Below, the river rushed by.
‘Sarah?’ Her Mum looked from her to the man and then back toward the house from which she had come. She seemed more confused than concerned. ‘What are you two doing here together? Has something happened?’ She looked Sarah up and down as if checking for some kind of injury.
Sarah tried to find the words. She’d spent so long imagining this moment, fretting about how to explain what had been going on these past months. Now though, it seemed the matter was going to be taken out of her hands.
It had all started this morning.
She’d been eating breakfast at Paris’s house when the man had sent her a message. He’d told her he’d been thinking about their situation and that he didn’t want them to have to wait any longer. He loved her and she loved him. Now she’d had her passport renewed, he wanted them to go away together, today.
Her first instinct had been no. It was too sudden. Besides, she’d known for a while that although she wanted to continue seeing him she no longer wanted to do as he’d initially suggested and abandon everything for a life together elsewhere. She would miss her home, her school, her friends. Her mum.
After failing to persuade her over the phone, he’d got upset and asked to see her in person.
‘Sarah darling, what’s the matter?’
‘I told him I’d changed my mind.’ Sarah tried to breathe through the hiccupy sobs now racking her body. ‘I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.’
The man stared at her mother. It was almost as though he knew her, as though they shared some secret she wasn’t party to.
‘I don’t understand,’ said her mum.
Sarah had stolen away after chemistry. She’d only truanted twice before and both times she’d felt sick with nerves. This time was no different. Back at the flat, Munchie had come to greet her, delighted to have company after her night alone. Nuzzling her hand, she’d weaved around her calves, miaowing to be fed. After filling her bowl with cat biscuits and replenishing her water, Sarah had stood up and surveyed the living room, trying to see it through the man’s eyes. This would be the first time she’d ever invited him into her home and the prospect of him coming here left her feeling strangely protective of the place. She tried to tidy up but she’d only got as far as fluffing the sofa cushions when the intercom rang.
‘He said you’re no good,’ said Sarah. ‘That there are things you haven’t told me. About you, about us.’
Inside the flat, even though he was acting strangely, her heart had leaped at the sight of him. Munchie had transferred her affection to this new person and started weaving in and out of his legs, her tail pressed against his jeans. He’d asked her to pack her things. When she’d refused he’d lost his temper. Stormed out. But Munchie was still hovering around his ankles, hoping for a stroke. As he opened the front door he stumbled and trod on her tail. Munchie hissed and jumped up onto the walkway’s railing to get out of his way. In all the commotion the cat had lost her footing and tumbled five floors to the courtyard below. He’d been distraught. Begged for her forgiveness.
She went to go to her mother but the man grabbed her arm and pulled her to him.
‘Let me go.’ In the struggle she felt the underarm of her school blazer rip. ‘Please, Dad,’ she said, the noun still strange on her tongue. ‘You’re hurting me.’
Rowena/Cassie
Inside the car it’s warm and has that artificial pine smell, like it’s just been valeted.
I check the time. It’s nearly two o’clock. I normally leave at five to pick up Matteo.
‘How long do you think we’ll be? My son, I’ll need to sort out alternative arrangements.’
‘Depends. It’s an hour or so’s drive. If you get the train you should be back around six.’
I compo
se a WhatsApp to Marnie, one of the school mums, on my regular mobile, asking her to pick up Matteo from after-school club. I tell her I’ve had to work late, that I’ll collect him from her no later than seven. She’s always offering to help so I’m sure she won’t mind. Then, wanting to conserve power on my only remaining device, I turn off the phone.
The driver pulls away and heads west, out of the city.
‘Are we going to the cottage?’
At the mention of her old house Millie shudders. I’m not sure why, she always seemed happy there.
‘We’ve got a place in Berkshire now. We move between it and our London flat.’ Her voice falters and she stops to compose herself. ‘Mummy’s not well. Hasn’t been for some time. She’s out of it most days, the medication. Still, she prefers to be in Berkshire as much as possible. She likes the space and the fresh air.’ She blinks fast, as though she’s trying to reset, and when she speaks again she’s back to her bright and breezy self. ‘How about you? Tell me everything.’ She squeezes my knee. ‘I’ve missed you.’
I take her through the simple facts of my life. Luca, Matteo, our house, my job, and then she takes me through hers: caring for her mum, her horses, hunting, a story about a guy she stopped seeing a while back. The exchange complete, we settle into a comfortable silence.
I watch the fields and trees go by. My hands are trembling so I push them down into my lap and try to prepare myself.
It was an interview Leo did on BBC Breakfast at the end of the summer that had decided it. He was on to talk about a new bike-to-work scheme the government were launching, and the hosts were so nice to him and so respectful, but all I could think was that he didn’t deserve their respect and that they and the rest of the world needed to know who he really was. Once it was over I went to the bathroom and threw up my cornflakes. On the way into work that morning I came up with a plan.
In the documentaries I’d seen it was clear that, in historic cases like mine, it often came down to your word against theirs. However, it was also clear that any physical evidence was incredibly powerful, and the more victims involved, the harder the case was to dispute. So before I went to the police I decided to do my homework, to make my case as robust as possible.
I figured the location of Billy’s body was the least of it. I had a map, after all. Instead, I focused my energies on reconnecting with the girls who used to attend those parties with me in the early noughties. Luca liked to check my mobile-phone bill so, not wanting him to know what I was up to, I bought a pay-as-you-go.
My first port of call was Queenie. She had been the one person I had confided in about what happened that night with the celebrity and then by the canal. I eventually tracked her down to a hostel in Camberwell. Years of drinking and life on and off the streets had left her in a bad way. She remembered who I was and was happy to see me but she was far from coherent, her mind addled from years of alcohol and substance abuse. Not exactly a reliable witness.
I moved on, seeking out as many of the other girls as I could. It was time-consuming and there was more than one occasion on which I lied and called in sick to work so that I could meet someone in person and try to encourage them to talk. Some turned out to be like Queenie, and one was dead. Others were struggling to cope and often found themselves and their kids without any money for food. Luca monitors my bank account so it was hard to get the cash, but I found a way, borrowing from Matteo’s after-school-club fees – I’d pay it back once the story came out – and helped when and where I could. Others were on the game. They were the hardest to persuade. But their testimony was important, and I knew that the more of us there were, the stronger our case would be. I followed a few out onto the streets – turns out there’s a roaring lunchtime trade in white-van men and bored lorry drivers by the Kent Medway railway arches – and did my best to convince them. That wasn’t without its risks. On one occasion I was talking to a woman when the police pulled up. They did us both for soliciting. I tried giving a false name. After that I made sure to meet them only in pubs or cafés.
All of the women I spoke to were reluctant. Some didn’t want the families they had now to learn about their past. Others were worried about not being believed, especially the two who had ended up as prostitutes. I told them I had proof. Something that would be impossible to contest. Eventually three women agreed to come with me to the police.
That was when I discovered my trump card, the location of Billy’s body, might not be everything I’d once thought. I started to panic.
We continue on the M4 for another half hour or so before the driver pulls off onto a dual carriageway. A little while longer, a few more roundabouts, and we’re in open countryside. The light is just starting to fail when we turn into a narrow bumpy lane, lined on either side by trees, which meet overhead, forming a kind of tunnel. It makes it impossible to see where we are or where we’re going. Finally, we emerge onto a gravel drive. To the right is a large manor house. The driver guides the car round to the front door and stops. Millie and I get out and he pulls away, heading back towards the tunnel of trees.
Jessamine
‘Dad?’
For a moment, the world seemed to stop. Jessamine shook her head, trying to make sense of what was she was seeing and hearing.
‘You?’
The man did as Sarah asked and let her go. She ran to Jessamine and pressed her face into her mother’s chest. ‘I’m sorry. It was just I wanted to see him.’
Jessamine couldn’t take her eyes off the man’s face. He blinked slowly, like a person who has just bet big on a horse he knows is fixed to win. ‘You’re Sarah’s birth father?’
He took a step forward. Up close she got a waft of his smell. Like pears, new to the bowl.
‘I prefer father, but yes.’
‘Are you okay?’ She studied Sarah for any signs of bruising and then, when that proved fruitless, for any hint of something else he might have done, something that might not have left a mark. ‘Has he hurt you?’ She tried to focus on her daughter’s features – her throat, her wrists – but images from last night kept invading, clouding her ability to think. ‘Sarah, has he hurt you?’ she asked again.
‘Course I haven’t,’ said the man. ‘I love her. I’d do anything for her. To protect her, keep her safe.’ He reached out and tucked a strand of Sarah’s hair behind her ear. He turned back to Jessamine. ‘Shame the same can’t be said for you.’
There it was again. His smell. Fresh. Tart.
Familiar.
A few hours earlier, as she’d leaned in to kiss him goodbye, she’d breathed in that same scent and smiled, savouring it and the night they’d just shared.
Dougie.
The man standing before her, her daughter’s birth father.
The man was Dougie.
Jitesh
Jitesh guided his dad’s car along the narrow country lane, overgrown bramble bushes and low-hanging beech trees at either side. He reached a particularly tight gap and, slowing down, tried not to flinch at the thump-thump-thump of the branches against the doors.
Ahead there was another potential vantage point. Once more he stopped, got out and scanned the horizon.
The bloke from Jessamine’s building, the one who’d saved him from a parking ticket, had told him where to go looking. It turned out that the guy had had a conversation with her that morning in the lobby. She’d told him she was driving out to Berkshire for the day. As soon as Jitesh heard that, he’d known exactly where she was headed. The message from Cassie Scolari’s phone had been cell-sited to somewhere in the Berkshire Downs. Jessamine must have decided to go and check it out.
He dialled her number, held the phone to his ear and scanned the horizon for any sign of her. Her phone rang once before the automated message kicked in, telling him the person was not available. It had been the same all day, ever since he’d left that voicemail this morning. Either her mailbox was full or something else was going on.
Jessamine had never mentioned her daughter was adopt
ed, but after reading through Sarah’s emails it hadn’t taken him long to figure out. Her father had killed her mother, after which Sarah had been taken into the care of the state. Since then, Sarah had never had any contact with her birth family.
Her father had tracked her down via Facebook four months ago, and although at first Sarah had shunned his advances, he had managed to persuade her that he wasn’t to blame for her birth mother’s death. In long, gushing emails he had said she hadn’t died because of him but because of a terrible accident. He had been wrongly accused and imprisoned for her murder. Within weeks he had Sarah convinced of his innocence. Once he had her on-side, the nature of the emails changed. He started talking about how badly he wanted to be back living with Sarah, as a family, and had concocted a plan that involved her leaving Jessamine and coming to live with him abroad where they would not be found.
Behind the trees, the sun was starting to set.
Jitesh was about to get back into the car when his phone beeped with an email. It was from Jessamine. She’d sent him a picture of an old house asking if he could look into it when he got a chance. Strange. She was on email but not answering her phone. He clicked on the photo. It was geo-stamped to a point somewhere outside the cell-sited zone. Google Maps had it down as Maugham House, less than two miles from where he now stood. She’d sent the email twenty minutes ago. She might still be there.
He replied, asking her to call him as soon as possible, and got back into the car. After a three-point turn, he drove back up the lane from which he had come. This time, his speed and lack of care meant that the thump-thump-thump of branches colliding with the metalwork was even louder than before, but Jitesh was oblivious, his focus set forward, on the road ahead.
Rowena/Cassie
The Dangerous Kind Page 29