Greenwich Park

by Katherine Faulkner

  Years went by. I thought it had all gone away. Serena and I were never going to last – I loved you, Helen. And she loved Rory. I stopped thinking about the girl, about what we’d done. But then every time we lost a baby, a voice in my head would tell me that it was because of what I did. That I had brought it on us. That it was all my fault.

  Did you ever suspect, Helen? There was a time when I wondered if you had caught us out. I found a photograph I didn’t know existed, of the four of us, at that play, the one where it all started, me in my wolf suit, Serena in her red cape. You’d torn it, right down the middle, between Serena and me.

  But I kept that picture, stuck it back together. As a reminder of what I’d nearly lost. You. And the four of us. We were something precious, weren’t we? Despite everything. I know you felt that.

  When you got pregnant again, and things finally seemed to be all right this time, I started to think maybe I’d had my punishment, that we were going to be left alone. Until that night, in Charlie’s club.

  It had been Rory’s idea to take a new client there, a bloke who was always going on about places that ‘felt corporate’ or ‘soulless’ or ‘out of keeping with the community’. I have to admit it was a masterstroke of his, taking him to Charlie’s dodgy club in Hackney. He loved it, kept saying it was ‘real’. Rory even made Serena come along, help to charm him. Rory had been lying through his teeth all night, making out like he went there all the time. I think Serena and I were both a bit fed up, to be honest. It was just by chance that we went to the bar together, to escape for a bit. And that’s when she saw us.

  She’d been working behind the bar, a glass in one hand, a cloth in the other. She’d recognised us straight away. I hadn’t known her face, but the truth of what she was saying registered immediately. My chest tightened, my palms were damp. I looked into her face and saw those green, watery eyes, the open mouth. Of course, by law, none of us had ever been allowed to know her name.

  She wasn’t making any sense. She was hysterical. She said she’d spent years looking for us, after it all happened. She knew we’d lied. She just kept asking us why, saying we’d ruined her life. She started demanding we go to the police. Changing our story, all these years later. It was insane.

  Serena picked up her bag and walked away. But when I tried to follow, the girl grabbed my arm, her fingernails piercing my skin.

  Don’t, she said. Don’t you dare. You fuck me around again, I’m warning you, you will regret it.

  Then she turned up at our offices. She lied, gave the name of the client, the one we’d taken to the club that night – she must have got it from the guest list. Lisa let her in, was fussing around her, bringing her a coffee, thinking she was someone important. I wanted to run, to throw her out of the fucking window.

  But I played along for Lisa, took her into my office. When Lisa was gone I asked her real name. She said I didn’t need to know, that I had no right to know. I told her I was sorry, that I’d been a coward, that I remembered that night and I wish I’d said something. I told her I was trying to protect my girlfriend, my now wife. My pregnant wife.

  That’s why I’d lied to the police. I told her that I was sorry, that I wished I could undo it. And then I asked her to keep quiet. I begged her. I offered her money. Anything to keep my secret.

  As soon as I finished my speech, she gave this little smile, started tapping away on her phone. And that’s when I saw how stupid I’d been. She’d recorded me. And before I could grab her phone, she’d sent herself the sound file. It was too late. There was nothing I could do.

  She said I had three options. I could go to the police, tell them I lied and risk getting done for perverting the course of justice. I could let her take the recording she’d made to the police. Same outcome, maybe worse. Or, I could give her money. It didn’t feel like much of a choice. I didn’t know then that money was never going to be enough.

  At first, I just took money from the company account. By now you’ll know, of course, that I’d moved the accounts offshore to make it harder for Rory to find out. Looking back, I can’t believe how naive I was. I’d meet her in the new development, hand her the cash in envelopes. But of course, it was never enough. She kept coming back.

  But even as I was giving her the stacks of fifties from the company safe she was starting to worm her way into our life. Turning up at your antenatal class, making friends with you. I didn’t even know her name, so it meant nothing to me, all this talk of Rachel, your new friend. She was laughing at us, she must have been.

  I only found out later that she was blackmailing your brother, too.

  It was when she said she wanted the money from the house that I really lost it. She deserved it, she said. Her baby deserved the sort of life that we had. She called it justice. I went too far that night, I admit that. I hadn’t meant to grab her throat that hard. But it was like she wanted to destroy us.

  I told her to forget it, to leave us alone, for good. She did the opposite. She turned up at our house, that very same night. Our anniversary. And you told me this was her – your new friend, Rachel. And that was when I saw that I couldn’t scare her. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  Having her in the house was like being slowly suffocated. She wouldn’t rest until she’d taken our home, or put me in prison, or both. I’m sorry, Helen. I am. But in the end, it felt like the only way. She had to be stopped. She left me with no choice.

  You know the rest. Charlie had left the cellar, gone outside to find Katie. I took a coat from the pile in the hallway, so I could hide the brick inside it. And then I found Rachel, wearing that velvet dress. I told her I’d made a decision, that I had worked out how to get her the money quickly. I pulled her down to the cellar, and I closed the door behind us. And then I did it.

  I thought I could make it look like an accident. But every time I tried to leave the cellar, I could hear people on the other side of the door. And there was so much blood. On my hands, on the brick, on the coat. Spreading out behind her head, like I’d knocked over a tin of paint. And then when I looked closer, it wasn’t just blood. Something white and translucent. Something that told me there was no way back. In the end, I panicked. The concrete just seemed like the only way. I thought I could make it go away. For you, for us. I was wrong.

  I’m so sorry about Rory, about what I put him through. I didn’t know it was his coat I’d taken. I hadn’t planned it like that. But when I realised – I suppose it just presented itself as an easy solution. I know how insane that sounds. I think I really did lose my mind, for a while.

  I am sorry, Helen, about your beautiful house. I’m sorry about the dreams you must have now. I hope they are nothing like mine. I’m glad that, unlike me, you are still able to wake up from your nightmares.

  My lawyer tells me that our son, our precious boy, is all right now, that you are both doing well. He told me the name you had chosen for him, Leo James. I say his name to myself before I go to sleep. I am sorry I was never more interested in your lists of names. I am sorry I could never think of ideas, of any names of my own. I wish I had, now. I wish a lot of things. I wish I had listened, that I had been a better husband to you, Helen. Leo James. I would never have thought of anything even half as beautiful.

  I long to see him, Helen. I know I have no right to ask, but I am asking anyway. I would give anything to see my son. Even just a picture of his face. I dream of him. I dream of you both.

  I am sorry, Helen. More sorry than you can ever know. Forgive me, Helen. Please, forgive me.

  Daniel

  HELEN

  I push the playground gate with one hand, the pram with the other. Katie rushes to help me, while Charlie lifts Ruby down from the climbing frame. ‘I’m fine,’ I insist. I am learning to manage things myself.

  The trees are shedding again, the golden leaves dusting the playground like confetti. There is a cool, watery sunlight, a smell of burning leaves, bonfires. I can hardly believe it’s been a year already.

  Ruby wants
to play with Leo, to push him on a swing. I haven’t tried him on a swing yet. I wonder whether he is still too little for it – he is still not sitting up fully yet, still toppling forward, a look of surprise in his huge blue eyes. He should be crawling by now, pulling himself up, starting to take his first steps. Every time I see him wobble over, it feels like a fish hook snagging at my heart.

  Charlie says it doesn’t matter. They all do everything eventually, he says. He shows me how to ball up a blanket from the pram to wedge him into the swing, instructs Ruby to push him gently. Leo is stunned, an amazed smile lighting up his face. He giggles, kicks his legs for more. And in this moment, I try not to worry. About whether he is too hot or cold, whether he should be wearing a hat, or a thicker coat. Whether he is damaged, forever. I try to just stand and smile. To see it as a gift. To be here, despite everything. Me and my son. My brother. My friend. My niece. In the park, in the sunshine.

  Later there are thunderstorms. We pile back to the house. Katie and Charlie play with Leo. Ruby watches cartoons and I make her hot chocolate. When Charlie goes home, Katie follows him to the door. I think I hear him kiss her, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t look. It’s none of my business.

  Leo is rubbing at his eyes, pressing his forehead against my legs. I gather him up in my arms and take him upstairs. He settles in his cot, his arms thrown over his head, the way he always sleeps. I watch his eyelashes fluttering until they rest on his chubby cheeks. Until his breathing slows.

  Downstairs, Katie is sitting at the kitchen table we share. We’ve been here nearly a year now. The decor isn’t what I’d have chosen, the garden tiny, overgrown with ivy and cow parsley. But it’s cosy, and warm, and the landlord let me repaint Leo’s room, put hooks in the ceiling for the elephant mobile Katie bought for him. New curtains, with a dandelion pattern. A soft carpet he can play on. It’s home, for now.

  Katie has put some thick socks on, made a pot of tea, arranged the remains of the misshapen cupcakes Ruby brought us on a plate. The thunder cracks overhead – I close the kitchen window, yanking it hard to stop it sticking. I check the washing line is empty.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘Are you going to show me this letter?’

  I hesitate, unsure at first whether this is a good idea. Eventually, I reach behind the coffee pot, retrieve the envelope from the shelf. The paper is pale blue and cheap, flimsy in my fingers, the hand unmistakable. My husband. The murderer. Katie’s eyes widen at the sight of it.

  ‘How did he find your new address?’

  I shrug. ‘No idea.’

  ‘I thought they checked their letters, made sure they weren’t sending stuff like this. Especially when there’s a court order.’

  ‘I know.’ I toss the letter at her. ‘I don’t know how it got to me. Or what to make of it. Maybe you will.’

  Katie unfolds the letter and reads it. Every so often she makes an expression of incredulity.

  ‘I picture you in your kitchen! As if you could have ever lived there again!’

  I sigh. There are times when I long to go back. Some nights I dream I’m back there, in my lovely house on the park, everything back the way it was before. But then some nights I dream about other things. The buzz of the dehumidifier, the smell of smoke. A crack opening up underneath my feet. A body, hollowed out and rotting, underneath.

  The cameras were all there by the time they found her body. Lights flashing, drones buzzing over the house, even a helicopter. It’s all online, if you want to find it. I couldn’t stop watching, for a while. The drilling had taken several hours, I read. Then the money shot that they had all been waiting for. Four white-suited men, like astronauts, carrying the stretcher through my front door, so carefully, like something so fragile, so precious. It occurred to me that no one had ever been careful with Rachel before.

  Katie is shaking now. Tears in her eyes.

  ‘How dare he write these things? About Rachel, about the blood. How dare he haunt you with them? Oh, Helen, you ought to burn it. And for him to talk about Leo!’ Her voice is cracking now, and I feel the stir of a lump in my own throat. ‘How can he think you’ll let him see Leo, after what he did? After what you were put through?’

  I try not to think too much about those early days. When I’d woken up in hospital, I’d tried to scream, but no sound had come out. I couldn’t work my mouth, couldn’t work my lungs. My head hurt, something pulling tight above my eye. When I’d put my hand to my head, there had been the sting of ripped flesh, raised contours, lumps of stitches. But then my hands had gone to my stomach. A hot, searing pain across my belly. And my baby was gone. And I was alone, all alone.

  The nurse had come, then. Explained some things, avoided others. She explained I’d had a head injury, that the paramedics had found me unconscious. That they’d had to operate straight away to save the baby.

  He was small, much smaller than he should have been at full term, and floppy, refusing to feed. They didn’t know why he’d stopped growing in the final month. Was I sure I hadn’t taken any medications? Anything at all? Any benzodiazepines? I’d shaken my head. Of course not. I would never have taken pills. Never. The doctors had glanced at each other, but they hadn’t asked again.

  In the end, they said it might just be one of those things. They gave him oxygen, steroid injections to help his lungs to grow. But he was here, he was alive. And then later that day, they’d taken me in a wheelchair, to see him. His little head, all squashed and puffy. His tiny hands. His perfect, sleeping face. He didn’t know anything about what had happened. I had tried not to think about the two police officers, lurking outside the swing doors to the ward. Waiting to ask me questions. I just looked at Leo, and I felt I could hold on to that. He got me through, in the end. He got me through everything.

  Katie has pulled her chair closer to me now, her hands on top of mine. ‘I don’t know how you can be so calm.’

  I smile. Maybe it’s lucky I’m so tired. Leo is difficult at night, always has been. He has nightmares, or at least I think that’s what they are. I’ll find him screaming, inconsolable, his little face contorted, even though he’s not really awake. Sometimes, I have to hold him for a long time before he will go back to sleep.

  ‘It was horrible when I first read it. But – I don’t know. At least it explains some things.’

  ‘Does it? That’s what I’m trying to work out.’

  I fold the letter back into its envelope. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just … I know this explains some of it. Like why she pretended to be pregnant.’

  I can still hardly believe that part. The lengths she’d gone to. It came up in the trial, the device she had been wearing whenever she saw us, the website she had ordered it from. The papers had gone mad for that part of the story, of course.

  ‘I suppose it also explains the money – why she always had so much cash,’ Katie goes on. ‘But it doesn’t explain other things. Like, what about all the other stuff you told me about? The notes you found in Rory’s house? What were they all about?’

  I shake my head. ‘Oh, Katie, who knows what I thought I found? Some old scrap of paper from years ago – it could have been anything.’

  ‘I suppose,’ she says gently, ‘they could have been … from Lisa?’

  It was Lisa, the secretary, who’d saved Rory in the end. She’d been having an affair with him for months, she admitted – and could give him an alibi for the night of the bonfire party when he’d left the house at 9pm, as well as most of the other gaps he’d disappeared for. Once Daniel confessed to the whole thing – including that he’d been the one wearing Rory’s coat – the case against Rory had fallen away.

  Not that they didn’t fight it. Daniel said he had acted alone. But DCI Betsky wouldn’t have it. She just couldn’t drop the idea that someone else was involved. According to Rory’s lawyer, they dragged it on for far longer than they should have done, talking endlessly about fibres on Rachel’s body that they thought could have been from Rory’s house, and abo
ut the phone triangulation data that placed her phone at Rory’s the next day, when that text was sent.

  Luckily, his lawyer had it all thrown out of court in the end. We found experts of our own; they said Daniel’s and Rory’s homes were too close for the masts to say with any real accuracy that Rory had had the phone at his house. But still, the police insisted. Even that detective, Carter, the one who saved Katie’s life, wasn’t entirely supportive. He kept asking awkward questions, making out like it couldn’t have just been Daniel, that there must have been someone else involved.

  Katie keeps going on at me, saying we should listen to him, and what if he’s right. We have nearly fallen out over it, once or twice. I don’t know if Katie is still talking to him, even now. I hope she isn’t. I wish she would just lay it to rest, that both of them would lay it to rest, like I have tried to.

  Serena left Rory before it even came to trial. Neither she nor Rory came to see Daniel in court. Only me. Amazingly, Rory and Lisa are still together. They have moved to somewhere in the West Country. I keep saying I’ll go and see them, but it seems so far. And it is difficult, being on my own.

  Serena, meanwhile, has moved abroad with her little baby, Sienna. A little girl, the same age as Leo. My niece. I’ve never even seen a photograph. Rory doesn’t like to talk about her. It must break his heart. But she has washed her hands of me, of Rory, of all of us. If I’m honest, I would have liked an explanation, about her and Daniel. I know it was years ago, but it still hurt. Then again, after everything that’s happened, who could blame her for cutting ties, for moving far, far away?

  ‘I don’t know though,’ Katie is musing, stirring her mug of tea. ‘Could the note you found at Rory’s really have been from Lisa? If Lisa was W, why would Rachel have had it? How would she have got hold of it? And why would Rory call Lisa “W”?’