‘A man’s decomposed body found on the premises is believed to be that of Jon Roper, the ex-partner of child murderer Charlotte Nevill and father of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Ava. As we heard earlier, police had been looking for Roper in connection with Ava’s disappearance from a safe house where she and her mother had been staying after Charlotte Nevill’s new identity and location had been exposed. But now, with Jon Roper dead and Charlotte Nevill having absconded, it seems this is a much murkier situation than at first thought and there is a real sense of concern here for the missing sixteen-year-old, who only last month saved a child’s life.’
It’s Bray’s turn to take to the cameras, and she stands in front of the cordoned-off house, the wild wind blowing her hair around her face, dragging strands free from her sensible ponytail. She says I should be considered dangerous. She says if anyone sees me they should call the number at the bottom of the screen but should not approach me.
She’s not telling the whole story. She’s got something that very firmly makes them think I killed Jon. I saw it in the stiffening of Alison’s spine in the flat and I can see it in the serious guarded expression on Bray’s face. I have survival instincts second to none. And I know my enemy. My best friend. Two sides of the same coin. Where are you, Katie? Where have you taken my baby?
I clear up the cards as if I’m bored and throw the young couple on the other side of the room a smile as I get up. They give me a polite smile back, but there’s no recognition. Nothing. How easy it is to become someone else. How easily people see only what they want to. All those years of fear that I’d be recognised were wasted time. No one sees anything at all. There was no anonymous caller to give me away after the photos in the papers. That was Katie. I know it. She set the whole thing up.
I go back to my room and lie on my bed. I can’t do anything until tomorrow, except think. I’ve been blind too. I’ve missed someone right in front of me. I felt something, sure, and alarm bells were ringing deep inside me, but I didn’t see you, Katie. Who are you? Anxiety bees buzz in my head and I want to curl up and cry for Ava, to scream for someone to get my baby back, but the only person who can do that is me, and I need to stay tough. To stay Charlotte.
Peter Rabbit. Drive Away, Baby. The missing photo.
Penny? No, Katie can’t be Penny. Penny’s been there forever. Marilyn? No. I can’t even countenance that thought. Marilyn is my best friend, even if she hates me now, and as with Penny, ten years is a long waiting game for this. To have me in her sights all this time and do nothing surely isn’t Katie’s style. Katie was impetuous. Impatient.
But who else can it be? A stranger? No. She has to be someone I know. I think of the photos. Whoever it is has been in my house. Ava probably left the back door unlocked a million times. Maybe they found out about the spare key and took it? I think about all the occasions I’ve left my bag unattended at work. Or on the back of a chair in a pub. Could someone have copied the keys and put them back before I noticed? Stolen them temporarily from my handbag?
The thought of someone stealing from my bag makes me sit bolt upright. Julia. The thoughts follow in a succession of quick-fire bullets. She stole from Penny. She’s new. She’s sneaky and snide. She’s older than she’s made herself look. She’s determined to turn people against me.
My breath comes in sharp pants and I take deep breaths to ease the pain in my gut. Is Julia Katie? Is this what she wanted? To make me a murderer all over again and then kill my baby, leaving me with all that grief? It should surprise me, but it doesn’t. Deep down, I’ve always known she’d come for me.
Cross my heart and hope to die.
PART THREE
47
HER
Girl B. I never liked it. Sounds so second best. A tag-along. A pitiful runner-up. Like being the lesser half of a whole. Ironic, given how I’m the brains in this outfit and always was. Charlotte? God, how to describe her? She was brave. Strong. Wild and wicked. Yes, she was all those things, but I was always that bit smarter. I still am. But I haven’t changed. Not like her.
You know what? I’m actually pleasantly surprised she’s got this far in my game. I wasn’t sure she had it in her to run. I’d hoped she would, I hoped those old instincts would kick in, but I wasn’t banking on it. People change as they get older. That’s the dull part of growing up. But there’s changing and then there’s Lisa.
The old Charlotte – my Charlotte – I’d have had no doubts about her. She’d have sensed what was coming and fled. She may not have been so smart but she was feral. This thing she’s become, this ordinary middle-aged mother of yours, I thought she’d still be sitting there like a pathetic damp dishrag until they carted her off for Jon’s murder and then she’d spend the rest of her miserable life locked up and wondering what happened to you while the world screamed at her to tell them where she’d left your body.
As a Plan B, I could have coped with that but it would have been such a disappointment. After all this time hiding and waiting to resurface. After all the planning. No, it would not have been a fully satisfying conclusion to our friendship. Certainly not quite the same as a proper reunion. She’d have been cheating herself too. She wants to see me. Of course she does. The question is, is there enough of the old Charlotte left to find me? To find us?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Anyway, Ava, time for your medicine. You need to go bye-byes. I’ve got things to do.
48
BEFORE
1989
Everything has to come out somehow.
That’s what Tony’s sister Jean had said two years back when Charlotte had been puking with the measles. It all has to come out somehow. Don’t fight it. It’ll make you better. Maybe it does. Maybe that’s why she shoved dog shit through old Mr Perry’s letterbox and laughed at him, even though he’s never done anything to her. Maybe that’s why she sprayed her name big over the school wall with the can she found in the alley where the boys shoot up. Maybe that’s how it’s all coming out, all the rage that’s wrapped around a bubble of something else, something deep inside she couldn’t explain if she tried, something horrible and desperate.
They haven’t made anything better though, these things she’s done. They’ve just brought the police and the social and more warnings, and her ma screaming at her and Tony and the belt and always always, through the jumble of her thoughts, is the tight tear in her stomach since the chippy. It didn’t turn out to be a one-off. It wasn’t ever going to be. She should have known. More special friends and always a fish supper she feels sick eating after as if that makes it all normal. As if that makes it a treat. More pills, more often. Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t know what’s real or not any more. Surreal maybe. Surreal. A new Katie word she didn’t understand and still doesn’t even though Katie’s tried to explain it. But she likes the sound of it anyway. Surreal makes everything sound cleaner. Safer.
Nothing is safe though. She’s still sore from Tony’s beating after the woman from the social left last Tuesday. The belt has left welts across the back of her thighs, and there was something different about it this time. Something animal in his face. It made her think of the chippy and she didn’t like it at all. His face, the sound of Daniel crying and Ma soothing him. Her own shrieks and shouts as the belt came down, hating herself for making a sound. She didn’t cry. Not even after, when she was alone. Instead she lost herself in their song, hers and Katie’s. Playing it over and over, loud in the headphones.
She’s out of the house as much as she can be despite what the police and the social say about school and happy families. Ma and Tony sleep late and she’s gone by the time they wake. She shoves some milk or juice and bread at Daniel over the side of his cot and gets out. They can play their happy families, the three of them. That’s what they want anyway.