The Widow

by Fiona Barton

  I should do something to stop it. If I don’t, we’ll both be lost.

  Chapter 41

  Friday, 11 June 2010

  The Widow

  TOM PAYNE CALLS me back at the hotel and says the contract looks OK but he’s worried about what they’ll write. It’s hard to talk with Kate in the room, so I go in the bathroom for a bit of privacy. ‘The press are not your friends, Jean,’ he says. ‘They’ll get the story they want to write. There is no copy control in the contract, so you’ve got no comeback if they twist things round. I’m concerned that you are doing this alone. Do you want me to come over?’

  I don’t want Tom there. He’ll want me to change my mind, but I know what I’m doing. I’m ready.

  ‘I’m fine, Tom, thanks. I’ll let you know how I get on.’

  Kate’s back in my room, clutching the contract again. ‘Come on, Jean,’ she says. ‘Let’s get this signed and get on with the interview.’

  She’s determined and I want to go home so I reach for the piece of paper and sign my name on the dotted line. Kate smiles and her shoulders relax and she sits herself down in one of the armchairs.

  ‘That’s the formalities out of the way, Jean,’ she says and pulls a battered tape recorder out of the bottom of her handbag. ‘You don’t mind if I tape the interview?’ she says, putting the machine in front of me. ‘Just in case my shorthand blows up,’ she adds, smiling.

  I nod dumbly and try to sort out how to start, but I needn’t have bothered. Kate’s in charge.

  ‘When did you first hear about Bella Elliott going missing, Jean?’

  I’m all right on this. I think back to the day in October 2006 when the story came over the radio as I stood in the kitchen.

  ‘I’d been working that morning,’ I tell Kate. ‘But I’d had the afternoon off for working the Sunday-morning shift. I’d just been pottering around, tidying, peeling potatoes for supper. Glen came home for a quick cuppa and I got ready for my class at the sports centre. I’d just got back and was putting the oven on when the news came on the radio. They said there was a massive police search for a little girl who’d gone missing in Southampton. A little girl who’d disappeared out of her garden. I felt really cold and shivery, a little girl like that, still a baby really. Didn’t bear thinking about.’

  I feel cold again now. It was a shock to be confronted with that little face, the plaster and the curls. Kate is looking anxious so I start talking again.

  ‘The papers the next day were full of it. Lots of pictures and some quotes from her grandma about how sweet she was. Heartbreaking, really. We all talked about it in the salon. Everyone was upset and interested – you know how people are.’

  ‘And Glen?’ Kate asks. ‘What was his reaction?’

  ‘He was shocked about it. He’d been making a delivery in Hampshire that day – of course, you know that – and he couldn’t get over it. We both loved children. We were upset.’

  The truth is we didn’t have much of a conversation about the disappearance beyond what a coincidence it was that he’d been in Hampshire. We had our tea on our laps, while he watched the news on the telly, and then he went back upstairs to his computer. I remember I said, ‘I hope they find that little girl, Bella.’ And I can’t remember him saying much else. I didn’t think it was odd at the time – it was just Glen being Glen.

  ‘And then the police came,’ Kate says, leaning forward over her notebook and looking at me intently. ‘That must’ve been terrible.’

  I give her the story about me being too shocked to speak and still being stood in the hall an hour after the police left, like a statue.

  ‘Did you have any doubts about him being involved, Jean?’ she asks.

  I swallow another mouthful of coffee and shake my head. I’ve been waiting for her to ask this – it’s what the police have asked me over and over again – and I’ve prepared my answer. ‘How could I believe he would be involved in something as awful as that?’ I say. ‘He loved children. We both did.’

  But not in the same way, it turned out.

  Kate is looking at me and I suppose I’ve gone quiet again. ‘Jean,’ she says, ‘what are you thinking?’

  I want to say I’m thinking about when Glen told me he had seen Bella, but I can’t tell her that. That’s too big to say.

  ‘Just about things,’ I say. And then I add, ‘About Glen and whether I knew him at all.’

  ‘How do you mean, Jean?’ she asks and I tell her about Glen’s face that day he was arrested.

  ‘His face went blank,’ I say. ‘I didn’t recognize him for a few seconds. It frightened me.’

  She writes it down, glancing up to nod and look me in the eye. She lets me talk as the stuff about the porn spills out. She sits, writing quickly in her notebook but never taking her eyes off me. Nodding, egging me on with her eyes, all sympathy and understanding. For years, I accepted the blame for what Glen did, telling myself it was my sick obsession with having a baby that made him do terrible things, but today he’s not here to give me that look. I can be angry and hurt by what he did in our spare room. While I was lying in bed just across the way, he invited that filth into our house.

  ‘What kind of man looks at pictures like that, Kate?’ I ask her.

  She shrugs helplessly. Her old man doesn’t look at toddlers being abused. Lucky her.

  ‘He told me it wasn’t real. That it was women dressed up as children, but it wasn’t. Not all of it, anyway. The police said it was real. Glen said it was an addiction. He couldn’t help himself. It started with ‘normal porn’, he said. I’m not sure what normal is. Are you?’

  She shakes her head again. ‘No, Jean, I’m not sure. Naked women, I suppose.’

  I nod; that’s what I thought. The sort of stuff you get in magazines in the newsagent’s or in eighteen-rated films.

  ‘But this wasn’t normal. He said he kept on finding new things to look at, he couldn’t help himself. He said he found stuff by accident, but that isn’t possible, is it?’

  She shrugs, then shakes her head.

  ‘You have to pay,’ I tell her. ‘You have to put your credit card number in, your name and address. Everything. You can’t just stumble on to one of these websites. It’s a deliberate act which takes time and concentration – that’s what the police witness said at his trial. And that my Glen did it night after night, searching for worse and worse things. New pictures and videos, hundreds of them, the police said. Hundreds! You wouldn’t think there were that many to look at. He told me he hated looking at them but something in him made him look for more. He said it was a sickness. He couldn’t help himself. And he blamed me.’

  Kate looks at me, willing me to go on, and I can’t stop now. ‘He said I drove him to it. But he betrayed me. He pretended to be a normal man, going to work, having a beer with his mates and helping with the washing up, but he turned into a monster in our spare room each night. He wasn’t Glen any more. He was sick, not me. If he could do that, I believe he was capable of anything.’

  I stop, shocked by the sound of my own voice. And she looks at me. She stops writing, leans forward and puts one hand on mine. It is warm and dry and I turn my hand over to hold it.

  ‘I know how hard this must be, Jean,’ she says and looks like she means it. I want to stop, but she squeezes my hand again. ‘It’s such a relief to be able to say these things,’ I say and tears start. She produces a tissue and I blow my nose hard. I keep talking as I sob. ‘I didn’t know he was doing it, I really didn’t know. I would’ve walked out if I had. I wouldn’t stay with a monster like that.’

  ‘But you stayed when you found out, Jean.’

  ‘I had to. He explained it all so I couldn’t see what was right any more. He made me feel guilty for thinking that he’d done these things. Everything was concocted by the police or the bank or the internet companies. And then he blamed me. He made me see it was my fault. He was so convincing when he told me things. He made me believe him,’ I say. And he did. But he’s not here a
ny more to make me.

  ‘And Bella?’ Kate asks, as I knew she would. ‘What about Bella? Did he take her, Jean?’

  I have gone too far to stop now. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I think he did.’

  The room goes quiet and I close my eyes.

  ‘Did he tell you he had taken her? What do you think he did with her, Jean?’ she asks. ‘Where did he put her?’

  Her questions are battering me, coming so fast. I can’t think. I mustn’t say anything else or I will lose everything.

  ‘I don’t know, Kate,’ I say. The effort of stopping myself from saying any more makes me feel shaky and cold so I wrap my arms around myself. Kate gets out of her seat and sits on the arm of my chair and puts her arm round me. It is lovely to be held and I feel like I did when my mum used to gather me up when I was upset. ‘Don’t cry, chick,’ she’d say and hold me so I felt safe. Nothing could touch me. Course it’s different now. Kate Waters can’t protect me from what’s to come, but I sit there with my head resting on her for a while.

  She starts again, quietly. ‘Did Glen tell you anything about Bella, Jean? Before he died?’

  ‘No,’ I breathe.

  Then there’s a knock at the door. The secret signal. It must be Mick. She mutters under her breath and I can feel she’s struggling to decide whether to shout ‘Fuck off!’ or let him in. She eases her arm out and raises her eyebrows to indicate ‘Bloody photographers’ and goes to the door. The conversation between them is in fierce whispers. I catch the words ‘Not now,’ but Mick isn’t going away. He says that he’s got to get some photos ‘in the can’ because the picture editor is ‘doing his nut’. I get to my feet and go into the bathroom to pull myself together before he comes in.

  In the mirror I see my face, red, with my eyes swollen and puffy.

  ‘Whatever do I look like?’ I say out loud. It’s something I often say – pretty much every time I look in the mirror, lately. I look dreadful and nothing is going to help, so I run a bath. I can’t hear what’s happening in the other room until I turn off the taps. Kate is shouting, Mick is shouting. ‘Where is she?’ he yells. ‘In the bloody bathroom, where do you think? You fuckwit, we were just getting going and you had to barge in.’

  I lie in the hotel bubbles, swishing the water around me, and think. I decide I’ve said as much as I’m going to. I’ll sit and have my picture taken because I promised I would, but I’m going home straight afterwards. There, a decision all on my own. There, Glen. Fuck off! And I smile.

  Fifteen minutes later I come out, all pink from the heat of the bath and hair frizzy from the steam. Kate and Mick are sitting there, not looking at each other and not speaking. ‘Jean,’ Kate says, getting up quickly, ‘are you OK? I was worried. Didn’t you hear me calling you through the door?’ I feel quite sorry for her, really. I must be driving her mad, but I must think of myself.

  Mick attempts a friendly smile. ‘Jean, you look great,’ he lies. ‘Would you mind if I took some pics while the light is right?’

  I nod and look for my hairbrush. Kate comes over to help me and whispers, ‘Sorry. But it’s got to be done. Promise it won’t be too painful.’ And she squeezes my arm.

  We have to go outside because Mick says it will look more natural. ‘More natural than what?’ I want to ask, but don’t bother. Let’s get it over with and then I can go home.

  He has me walking in the garden of the hotel, up and down, towards him and away from him. ‘Look into the distance, Jean,’ he calls and I do. ‘Can you put on something else? I’m going to need some different shots.’ I dumbly obey, returning to the room to put on my new blue jumper and borrowing a necklace from Kate and coming back down the stairs. The receptionist must think I’m famous or something. I suppose I’m just about to be. Famous.

  When even Mick gets bored with snapping me leaning on a tree, sitting on a bench, perching on a fence, strolling down a lane – ‘Don’t smile, Jean!’ – we all go back inside.

  Kate has to start writing, she says and Mick needs to put his photos on the computer. We stand in the corridor outside the rooms and Kate tells me to relax for a couple of hours and charge anything I want to the room. When she disappears into her room, I go back to mine and start packing everything into a carrier bag. I’m not sure if I can keep the clothes the paper bought for me, but I’m wearing most of them and I can’t be bothered to change. Then I sit down again. For a moment I’m no longer sure if I can leave. This is ridiculous. I’m a woman of almost forty. I can do what I want. I pick up my stuff and walk down the stairs. The receptionist is all smiles, still thinking I’m a celebrity, I suppose. I ask her to ring for a taxi to take me to the nearest station and I sit on one of the armchairs in front of a bowl of apples. I pick one up and take a big bite out of it.

  Chapter 42

  Friday, 11 June 2010

  The Reporter

  KATE PLONKED HERSELF down at the reproduction Regency desk and pushed the reproduction leather blotter aside. Her much-loved and abused laptop was on the bed, where she’d left it that morning after typing up her notes with the first cup of coffee of the day. Its cable snaked across the expanse of white sheets to a plug behind the bedside table. She untangled and re-connected, took off her jacket and powered up. Her head rang with Jean Taylor’s voice and the story was already taking shape in her head.

  She was a plunger, not a planner when it came to writing. When it came to her life, really. Some of her colleagues sat with their notebooks, marking quotes with an asterix and underlining important points. Some even numbered paragraphs, as if frightened their notes might disappear or that they’d break some sort of spell by starting to write.

  Others – the real talent, she acknowledged to herself – wrote the whole thing in their heads over a coffee or a beer and then threw it down on the page in one beautiful, flowing draft. She did a bit of both, depending on how much was going on around her: wrote a bit in her head as she left the interview and then plunged into the story on her computer, getting a flow going and editing and rejigging as she went.

  It was funny; even though they all wrote on computers, the journalists of her generation still talked as if they were scribbling on bits of scrap paper and filing stories to heartless copytakers – ‘Is there much more of this?’ – from piss-stained telephone boxes. She’d come in at the very tail end of the Fleet Street years, but had loved the raw edges of journalism then. The newsroom had rung with the sounds of newsmen and women at work. Now, her newsroom was open plan, hushed and planed smooth by designers. It felt more like an insurance office than a national newspaper and, exposed by the silence, bad behaviour and colourful office characters had faded. It was a grey world now.

  She ought to ring the news editor, but she didn’t want to hear his take on her interview just yet. He was bound to get in on the act, telling her how to write it even though he only knew a couple of quotes. Then he’d stride into the editor’s office and tell him he’d got the scoop. It was his reward – seldom paid out – for all the shit he had to take. She understood, but wanted to savour the moment; she’d got a confession from Jean about Glen and Bella. It wasn’t the full Monty, but Jean had said she thought Glen had taken the child. Good enough. The first words from the widow. Kate began typing.

  From time to time, she looked up to rethink a phrase and caught sight of a woman’s face in the huge mirror over the desk. She looked like a stranger – serious, focused on something in the distance, and somehow younger. She didn’t look like a mother or wife. She looked like a journalist.

  Her phone rang as she finished the section of killer quotes and she answered immediately. ‘Hi Terry. Just got out of the interview. I’ve got a brilliant line from her.’

  Fifteen minutes later, he rang back. The paper had cleared three pages inside and planned a second day. All Kate had to do was finish writing it. ‘Two thousand, five hundred words for the inside, Kate. Let’s do the background on their marriage and all that for Day Two. Give it a kick up the arse for the front, OK?’
/>   The serious woman in the mirror was nodding.

  She wondered what Jean Taylor was doing next door while she was writing about her. ‘This is a weird job,’ she told herself as she started to perform surgery on the body of the story, cutting all the good quotes on the Taylors’ marriage and pasting them into the follow-up story.

  Despite what most people thought, the ordinary men and women facing tragedy or drama who crossed Kate’s path were largely grateful for her attention and the stories she wrote. The celebs, the infamous and other critics claimed everyone hated the press because they did, but many of Kate’s interviewees stayed in touch for years. She was part of their lives, part of an event that changed everything for most of them.

  ‘It’s really intense and intimate during the time we’re together,’ she told Steve in the early days of their relationship. ‘Even if it’s only a few hours. It’s like when you meet someone on a long train journey and you tell them everything. Because you can, because it’s a moment in time.’ Steve had laughed at her seriousness.

  They’d met through friends at a disastrous Murder Mystery dinner party in north London and clicked when they laughed at the wrong moment, mortally offending their hosts.

  In a shared taxi home afterwards, he’d perched on the fold-down seat opposite so he could look at her and they had talked drunkenly about themselves.

  Steve was a final-year medical student, working with cancer patients, and thought journalism was superficial, fluffy even, and she understood. It was a common misconception and she tried to explain why journalism was important to her. Then she waited to see if their love affair would take, and when it did, Steve came to see things differently.

  He witnessed the early-morning calls from the distressed, the late nights she spent reading court documents or driving up the motorway to track down a key piece of evidence for a story. It was serious stuff, and the proof was her annual haul of Christmas cards that hung alongside those from Dr Steve’s grateful patients. Hers were festive greetings from parents of the murdered, rape victims, survivors of plane crashes, rescued kidnap victims and winners of court cases. They all took their place on the ribbon streamers festooning their house from early December. Reminders of happy days.