It’s a demeaning photograph, snapped in a hospital bed. In order to get a clear shot of her face, it looks as if someone removed her respirator, which lies discarded on the pillow next to her. No doctor would have allowed the invasion; the press must have found an underhanded way to get hold of the image.
Her grey skin tone and sightless, glassy stare remind Harriet of a dead carp she’d seen as a child on the banks of the River Trent. It had been clutched in the hands of a fat, grinning fisherman with ruddy cheeks and a wispy comb-over and, for some inexplicable reason, it had made Harriet feel desperately sad.
She scans the printed columns.
As she suspected, the article states that the photograph was leaked anonymously, that the image and details of what the woman had done were posted on social media, just before midnight yesterday. The full report is inside.
Harriet turns to page two and her breath catches in her throat. All the words, pictures and headlines scream at her, but do not make an ounce of sense. For a few moments she can neither breathe in nor out, staring at the quarter-page image in front of her.
She coughs and splutters, gulping in air. The page begins to tremble as her hands buckle beneath the tremor.
She is looking at a picture of Evie.
Harriet tries to tear her eyes away but can’t. Through blurred eyes she registers the odd shocking word but is still unable to put it into context in a sentence.
Abducted . . . missing . . . alive . . . dead . . .
It says that Joanne Deacon worked with Toni Cotter at a Hucknall-based property agency. A property agency!
Harriet closes the newspaper and casts it aside, where it slips from the arm of her chair and onto the floor. She sits in the armchair and stares into space.
None of it makes any sense.
Mary Short – no, Joanne Deacon – had struck up a conversation with Harriet outside the school one day. Ms Deacon had flattered her, told Harriet that she had a wonderful way with the children in her care.
She said she worked as a school improvement officer with the local education authority and had been tasked with recommending outstanding staff at St Saviour’s Primary.
She’d worn her ID on a lanyard, displayed around her neck. Of course, Harriet hadn’t inspected it properly, that would have appeared rude.
Joanne Deacon told Harriet that her work was confidential. She’d asked Harriet not to mention her involvement to any of the other staff and Harriet had readily agreed, privately hoping her name might appear on the list of exemplary members of school staff that Joanne had explained would form part of her forthcoming report to the regional educational committee.
That had been their first conversation.
Over the next week and a half, Harriet had bumped into her in the supermarket, at the bus stop and in the chemist, where she waited patiently at the same time every Friday afternoon whilst her mother’s prescription was made up.
On each occasion, they had conversed.
Harriet hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, she’d been too busy revelling in someone official taking an interest in her opinions and educational ethos. Joanne Deacon had a good command of language. Harriet remembered she had this way of bringing someone around to her way of thinking, making them feel special. The woman had been so easy to trust.
One day, the two of them had begun talking about some of the children in Harriet’s small library group, including Evie Cotter. Then, somehow, they had gravitated to just talking about Evie – and Joanne Deacon began to ask all sorts of questions about Evie’s mother and her home life. Harriet had been frank and unguarded in her responses. After all, Miss Deacon was a professional woman herself, a highly regarded employee of Nottinghamshire County Council.
Harriet’s eyes blur as she considers her naivety. She leans her head back, the tweedy firmness of the chair cushioning her skull. When she lifts her face up to the ceiling and thinks about the room on the third floor and what it holds, her heart begins to race and she grapples for a few moments with a sudden and powerful wave of nausea.
When it recedes, she tries to consolidate what has happened as simply as possible, so it is straight in her own mind.
Harriet had allowed herself to be persuaded to do something that went directly against her better judgement.
As far as she can tell, there is only one way to put it right.
70
Present Day
The Teacher
Harriet has already called the hospital and established the visiting hours. She’d confidently asked which ward Joanne Deacon was on and, rather worryingly, the receptionist had happily furnished her with the details.
It has been a number of days since she had left the house, despite running low on various provisions, and it takes her a while to locate her shoes, coat and hairbrush. She opens her handbag and checks that her purse is in there, then lets herself out of the back door, ensuring it is locked behind her. A chill brushes her cheeks, but it feels fresh and clean on her skin after nearly a week stuck inside, breathing in the still air of rooms filled with dust motes that reveal themselves in the rare arrows of November sun that somehow manage to creep through the thick nets.
Harriet has found that the less she ventures out, the less she actually wants to leave the house, but in this case, it is important. She has a very good reason for making the effort.
She walks down the overgrown path at the side of the house and opens the squeaky wooden gate, automatically bracing herself, even now, for her mother’s sharp instruction to ‘get those hinges greased’.
But, of course, the voice doesn’t come. The squeak will get worse and the wood will dampen and rot without its annual stinking preservation treatment and Harriet will enjoy watching its descent into ruin.
She pulls the gate closed behind her until it catches on the latch and turns left, to walk up to the top of the street and the bus stop. In just over a week it will be Bonfire Night. The smell of burning will carry on the air and groups of students will let off isolated bangers and rockets, scattering in the street in clouds of smoke and laughter that will chip into the stillness of Harriet’s front room.
When you are a bystander to life, rather than an active player, the rota of events can be disturbing to witness. Halloween, Bonfire Night, then Christmas. New Year brings talk of holidays, spring brings Easter and then there are the long summer months before autumn once again draws near and the whole cycle begins again.
When she’d still been teaching, Harriet had liked the autumn term the best – the start of a new school year with new pupils to guide and support in her own inimitable way. After so many successful years, her career had ended very badly. She doesn’t want to think about that at the moment, though. It is more important to keep focused on the task in hand.
The digitised display at the bus stop tells her the next bus will be arriving in just three minutes. This particular one will take her into the heart of the hospital’s vast complex, which she knows very well due to frequent visits over the years to address her mother’s countless ailments.
There is nobody else waiting. Indeed, the street is even quieter than usual.
Harriet stares across the road at the familiar Victorian villas that, on the one hand, seem very similar to her own, but on the other have been changed beyond all recognition.
The small, walled front gardens invariably contain torn, rotting bin bags that bulge with dissolving cardboard packets of cereal and empty beer cans and wine bottles. Single light bulbs illuminate sparsely furnished rooms, all of them inadequately screened behind draped sheets or paper-thin curtains that fail to meet in the middle. The student properties look cold and isolated, forgotten by the bustling lives around them. Hiding their grubby secrets like weeping sores under flimsy, inadequate dressings. No more families, huddled in front of their log burners and soft pools of elegant light, like in the old days.
Harriet turns away and watches the digital update, the glowing amber numbers ticking down to the arrival of her bus.
71
Present Day
Toni