The car gone, I wait outside the stone porch while Millie fumbles for her key. I shiver. Away from the city it’s cold. Heavy snow is forecast for later this evening.
Before she can locate it the door opens and Leo is there.
Since that appearance on BBC Breakfast I’ve seen him on TV many times and I’ve trained myself to be okay with it. Now, though, I understand there is a big difference between facing up to him on the screen and being able to handle seeing him in person. I can’t look him in the eye, it’s too much, so I direct my gaze to a spot just above his eyebrows. His hair is the same crush of curls, brushed back from his forehead, but the blond has been replaced by a silvery grey. The change suits him. I always thought the original colour plus the curls made him look like a giant baby.
‘You remember my friend, Rowena?’ says Millie.
He nods.
‘She has a favour to ask.’ She turns to me. ‘I need to check on Mummy. Come and find me when you’re done.’
She heads upstairs, leaving us alone on the front step.
This is it.
All the time I spent tracking down the other girls from back then I’d thought I could rely on my map, the sketch I’d drawn marking the location of Billy’s body. So, when Matteo brought home a letter asking for parents to accompany the kids on a school trip to Broadcasting House, I saw it as nothing more than due diligence, a chance to refresh my memory. But when I got inside the building, two things happened. One, I was left reeling from the memories it brought back, and, two, the layout had changed. The bust of that old guy was still on the second floor but the arrangement of the rooms and walls around it no longer matched my sketch.
It sent me into a tailspin. When we went to the police I wanted there to be no element of doubt. I looked up the name of the architects that had carried out the renovations, found the main guy and contacted him. He’d been away but I kept calling. His assistant said he’d be back on Monday. He’s the last piece of the puzzle, him and Leo, and then I’m done. I’m ready.
‘Let’s go for a walk.’ Leo motions inside, towards the back of the house. ‘Stretch your legs.’
A different person might feel worried, going somewhere alone with him. But I know he is not a man who likes to get his hands dirty. I follow him down a corridor and out through a small door. We cross the garden and head through a gate in the wall, over to the hills beyond.
Jessamine
Jessamine had questions but, knowing what she did about Sarah’s birth father, her instinct was to stay calm and get her away from him to safety.
She began to guide Sarah towards the house but they had taken no more than a few steps when Dougie ran ahead and planted himself in front of them. He held up his hands. Mea culpa.
‘Look, I’m sorry, okay?’ His hands were shaking. He seemed nervous, like he’d figured out his gamble wasn’t going to pay off. ‘I was just going to follow you around for a bit. I wanted to know more about who the social had got to look after my kid. But then that day in the restaurant I thought, Why not get to know her properly?’
‘Come on, Sarah,’ said Jessamine. She made another attempt to leave and this time she managed to navigate her way around where he stood without interference. But they’d gone no more than a few steps when he piped up.
‘Sarah’s a good kid. She thinks she owes you some kind of loyalty.’ His voice wavered and then he paused, as if weighing up what to say next. Jessamine kept walking. That seemed to decide it for him. ‘I brought her here because I want her to know what kind of a mother you are.’ He’d committed to this new tack, still he sounded unsure, but like he was trying not to be.
Sarah stopped. ‘Mum, what’s he talking about?’
‘I had planned on doing this differently.’ He raised his voice but there was a strain to his delivery. ‘A week or so from now Sarah was going to leave you a note, then we’d get on a plane and we’d be gone. But then this morning you got a call. I looked at the ID. It was a man’s name. I thought maybe you were seeing someone else and so I listened to the voicemail but it was from one of your colleagues. I don’t know how but he found out about me and Sarah.’
Jessamine remembered thinking she’d heard ringing that morning in Dougie’s flat. She reached for her phone.
‘I panicked,’ said Dougie. ‘Deleted the message and then I blocked him.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I decided to beat him to the punch. For us to go now, today. I hadn’t accounted for Sarah changing her mind. I figured the best way to get her to reconsider was to bring her to you. Once she has all the facts she can decide for herself what she wants to do.’
Jessamine remembered New Year’s Eve. How she’d confided in him about what she’d done – what she’d almost done.
‘Tell her,’ said Dougie. ‘You owe her that at least.’
‘Please,’ she said, feeling sick.
Growing impatient, he turned to address Sarah directly. ‘When you were first adopted you were a lot of trouble. Too much trouble, as it turns out. She was going to give you back.’
Sarah looked to Jessamine for reassurance. ‘What’s he talking about?’
‘I struggled, at first. With being a new parent.’
She thought Sarah was going to walk away but instead she took her hand. ‘It doesn’t change anything, Mum.’
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Increasingly desperate, he grabbed Sarah’s arm. ‘You were two years old. Two, and she was going to return you. Like you were a pair of shoes she’d got home from the shop and decided didn’t look right.’
‘Let go of her,’ said Jessamine, trying to pull him off Sarah. For a few moments they struggled together and then, lifting his hand in the air, he slapped her and she fell to the ground.
‘I’m your flesh and blood.’ He tried again to reach for Sarah, to embrace her, but she recoiled from his touch. ‘All I’ve thought about every day for the last twelve years is you.’
Jessamine had just pulled herself to her feet when behind her she heard a metallic shunk-shunk noise. Dougie heard it too. He turned round, trying to locate the source, and his expression went from confusion to fear.
Jessamine followed his gaze. There, at the foot of the bridge, was a woman, a rifle cocked against her shoulder. It was the nurse, the one from Gloucester Road, and her gun was pointed right at him.
Jitesh
Jitesh followed the long driveway to the house and parked next to two other cars. Dusk had fallen and the lawn that stretched in front of the building was cast in a blue-purple light. He got out and was about to go to the front door when he became aware of voices.
He squinted into the gloom. They were coming from somewhere out of sight, beyond the garden, down towards the valley. He crossed the lawn and was about to continue when he saw it. A sudden drop cut into the side of the grass. A few metres deep, it looked like some kind of ditch, one side of which was a sheer vertical wall. From what he could tell it curved along the lawn’s entire perimeter. He sat on the ground, then scaled the steep grassy slope to the other side.
The voices were getting louder.
He continued for a few metres more and then he saw them: Jessamine, Sarah and a man. They were standing in the middle of a bridge, below which flowed a river.
Then he saw a fourth figure. A woman. He couldn’t see her face but even from that distance it was clear she had a gun. Slowly, she approached where they stood, the rifle pointed at the man’s head.
What was going on?
Jitesh’s breathing quickened. Retreating towards the ditch, he skidded down its grassy slope until he was out of sight. There he got out his phone and called the police.
Jessamine
The nurse took a few steps towards Dougie. ‘I suggest you back away from the girl. Otherwise . . .’ She waggled the end of the gun and shrugged as if the consequence of his non-compliance was a matter beyond her control.
Dougie looked to Jessamine for an explanation and, when none was forthcoming, took a
step away from Sarah.
‘That’s better,’ said the woman. Satisfied he was no longer a threat she put the safety on and slung the rifle over her shoulder. ‘I’m Millie.’
‘Yes,’ said Jessamine. She was grateful but also cautious. Could this woman, Millie, be trusted? ‘I don’t know if you remember . . .’
‘You came to the flat.’
‘I’m looking into the disappearance of Cassie Scolari?’
‘Rowena,’ said Millie. ‘Her name was Rowena.’
Dougie had been sat on the side of the bridge, his head in his hands. Now, making sure to keep his distance, he approached where they stood. ‘Is that it?’ He directed his question at Sarah. ‘Are we done?’
Still huddled into her mother’s side, she looked at him with worried eyes.
‘I’m sure we can work something out,’ said Jessamine, a little too quickly. This was a lie. As soon as they got away from here she planned to report Dougie to social services and the police. Then she’d find a solicitor and apply for a restraining order that would prevent him from coming within a metre of her daughter ever again.
He stared out at the river, crushed.
‘I need to get back to Mum,’ said Millie. ‘Come to the house, get warm.’ She nodded at Dougie. ‘You, too, as long as you promise to be on your best behaviour.’
Head hung low, he followed the three women back up the path to the house.
‘How did you know to come here?’ asked Millie, as they walked.
Jessamine registered the slight inference of guilt in her question but, not wanting to scare her off, decided to take a softly-softly approach. ‘Thirteen days after she went missing, Cassie sent a WhatsApp to her friend from her mobile. The phone was only turned on for a very short time, but the police were able to cell-site it to an area a few miles from here.’
‘A message? That’s not possible.’ She seemed genuinely perplexed.
‘Millie, do you know what happened to her?’
‘She said there were others, that lots of women were planning to come forward. I turned on the phone because I wanted to know who they were, to see how much time I had,’ she said, still fixated on Cassie’s message. Her conversation was with herself. ‘It wasn’t until I looked through her messages that I clocked she’d changed her name. Cassie. It doesn’t suit her at all.’
They’d just reached the drive when in the distance they heard a wailing sound.
Dougie stopped, listening.
Sirens.
‘You called the police?’
Jessamine tensed. There was a new bite to his tone. Angry, but also afraid. ‘When would I have been able to do that?’ she said. ‘We’ve been with you the whole time.’
Dougie seemed to accept her explanation. They continued around the drive, but they had gone no more than a few steps when he came up behind Millie and kick-swiped her legs out from beneath her. As she stumbled he grabbed for the rifle, but she held on to it. They wrestled for a few seconds and then Dougie punched her once, hard, in the teeth. She recoiled in pain and relinquished her grip.
The gun was his.
He took a step back and raised the rifle towards Sarah.
‘Please,’ said Jessamine, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘This isn’t necessary.’ She grabbed Sarah’s hand and held it.
‘All I want,’ he said, his voice thick with tears, ‘all I’ve ever wanted was to have my daughter back with me, where she belongs.’
He released the safety catch.
‘Dougie, you don’t need to do this. Whatever you want, we can work something out.’
The sirens were getting louder.
‘I’m not going back to prison.’ He shook his head, the tears falling freely now. He seemed to have gone into himself, to some reality they weren’t part of. ‘I can’t, I won’t.’
‘They’re not for us. Think,’ she said. ‘I promise we haven’t called the police. We couldn’t have.’
He wiped his face on the upper part of his sleeve. His eyes were bloodshot, his eyelashes wet. ‘But she could,’ he said, nodding at Millie.
‘I didn’t, truly,’ said Millie, her hands up in surrender.
‘Please, put the gun down,’ said Jessamine. ‘I’m begging you.’
‘It’s very simple,’ he said, crying. ‘If I can’t have her, neither can you.’
He pointed the gun at Sarah’s chest and, staring his daughter in the eye, he squeezed the trigger.
Rowena/Cassie
Leo and I have been talking for a while when he hits me. The slap is like a wake-up call. I think of all the times he hurt me. All the times he made me feel small. And then I think about that night by the canal, how he tried to have Sunny kill me, how he didn’t care about what they’d done to Billy.
I step forward and, just as he lifts his gaze, I give him a push towards the hole. He is confused more than surprised, and seems to understand what is happening to him only at the last minute. He scrabbles with his feet and hands, but his efforts are too little too late, and as he makes his descent, his head slams against one of the knuckled tree roots and bounces forward, cracking his chin into his chest.
I fall to my knees and peer over the side, expecting to see him on his feet and angry, already trying to brush the dirt from his suit.
He is not moving.
Lying on his back, with his head at a funny angle, his eyes and mouth are open. Ice is starting to curdle the puddles surrounding him. The sky finally decides to release its load. Snowflakes thicken the air. They catch on his eyelashes.
A crackle in the undergrowth. Someone else is here.
‘What have you done?’
Millie emerges from the gloom. She must have followed us. How long has she been listening? How much has she heard?
She approaches the hole and then she asks again, louder than before, ‘What have you done?’
Jessamine and Jitesh
On instinct, Jessamine jumped in front of her daughter, trying to shield her from the blast. As the bullet tore through her abdomen she was thrown back, onto Sarah. They fell to the ground in a heap.
Sarah scrambled from beneath her mother’s weight and cradled her head in her lap.
‘No,’ she said, crying.
Jessamine lay where she fell, unable to move. The lower half of her body was numb, her top soaked with blood. She breathed in the cordite-seared air and felt Sarah’s face come close to hers, her tears dripping down onto her cheek and neck.
She squeezed her hand and kissed it. ‘My girl.’
But then Dougie was there, walking towards them. He stood over where they lay on the grass and raised the gun to Sarah’s forehead. Crying and jittery, he kept shaking his head and moving the gun away, only to move it back again, as if he was trying to talk himself out of it.
Jessamine put her hand in her coat pocket, scrabbling around for something, anything to protect her daughter, but apart from the usual pile of pumpkin seeds there was nothing.
Millie stepped forward, trying to intervene. But she’d gone no more than a step when he swung the gun round at her. ‘Back off.’
Millie did as he said. The sirens were getting closer.
He redirected the gun at Sarah and this time he pressed the muzzle into her cheek. She began to whimper.
‘No.’ Jessamine tried to push the rifle out of the way with her hand. He placed his boot on the part of her stomach where he’d shot her and pressed down until she released her grip.
‘Please,’ said Jessamine, almost blacking out from the pain. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
It was no good. His shoulders were set, his eyes desperate. ‘What have I got to lose?’
*
From his hiding place in the ditch, Jitesh watched the scene unfolding in front of the house with growing horror. He had planned on staying out of sight until the police arrived but now, after seeing Jessamine shot, he knew he had to do something. He had to act.
The man pointed the gun at Sarah’s head.
He
concentrated on his breathing. Hold for ten, exhale for five. He thought of Shanae and her fluorescent pink and yellow Nikes. Hold for ten, exhale for five. The look on her face when he told her about the video he’d found on Kishor’s computer.
Sarah was sobbing, her eyes closed in anticipation of what was to come.
Taking one last breath, he pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and brought his teeth together, preparing to shape the word. Then, steadying his hand against the brick, he peered over the edge of the wall.
‘Stop!’ he shouted, as loudly as he could. The word rang out loud and clear. ‘Stop!’
*
The voice came from nowhere. It caught Dougie off guard and, for a brief moment, he took his focus off Sarah. A flash of blue and red. The police car’s lights, making their way through the tunnel of trees. Jessamine did the only thing she could. Bringing a handful of pumpkin seeds out of her pocket, she raised her hand in the air and threw them into Dougie’s eyes. He flinched and Millie took her chance. She ploughed into him, head first, and as he toppled towards the grass the rifle went off, the muzzle flash an orange cloud, bright against the black.
Rowena/Cassie
‘I lost my temper. He hit me and then . . .’ I fumble for my phone. ‘We need to call an ambulance.’
Millie uses the toe of her shoe to poke at the handle of one of the discarded tools. ‘I thought you were after cash. That you were going to try to blackmail him.’ She kicks the tool away. ‘I could have lived with that.’
‘Millie. Your dad.’
‘But the police?’ She approaches the hole and, wary of the crumbling sides, takes in the sight of her father unconscious below. A fine layer of snow already covers him. ‘Even after everything I told you about my mother?’ Gently, as if she’s preparing for a plié, she slides the inside of her foot forward, making sure to keep it close to the ground. ‘If this were to get out.’ A small pile of soil masses, then collapses over the side. It falls like dust. ‘The scandal. Her last months would be ruined.’
The Dangerous Kind Page 30