‘Why didn’t you mention the deal in court? It would have made sure Katie got in trouble too.’ I’m trying to form a clear picture of the past she’s kept boxed up. She told me most of it in the car but it’s still a whirl in my head. Who she was. Who Katie was.
‘I didn’t want Katie to get in trouble. And anyway, I didn’t say a word about anything. Not one. I stayed silent throughout the whole trial. And before. I only spoke three words. I killed him. It was all there was to say. Katie cried and whispered and looked around nervously as she said whatever it took to get herself freed. I sat there like stone. None of it mattered.’
‘Because Daniel was dead?’ I phrase it carefully, not because you killed Daniel.
‘Because it was all for nothing.’ She stares into space, a window opening into a past I can’t even imagine. Her voice changes too, a hint of an accent, an edge of the north, Charlotte’s accent. ‘I’d been so wrapped up in myself. In all the shite of my own life. My jealousy of him ate me up. All those treats, how carefully Ma handled him. God, I hated him. I couldn’t see the truth though it was right in front of me.’
Her eyes are brimming and I think of the girl they reported in all those newspapers, the monstrous girl who never cried. I’ve never seen Lisa cry either. Are we only ever transfers of adulthood pasted on to our childhoods? How much has she been holding inside? ‘What didn’t you see?’ I ask.
‘When the pathologist’s report on Daniel’s body came back it showed evidence of several injuries received over a long period of time. Sustained, I think was the word. I didn’t know what it meant at first, like it was a new Katie word. Of course everyone presumed it had been me and I let them believe it by my silence. I didn’t care by then. I wanted them to use it against me. Because I should have seen. I should have known.’
‘It wasn’t you.’
‘No. All those times he wanted my attention. My affection. When he followed me. He didn’t want to be alone with Tony and Ma either. Tony was hurting him too. I should have run away with him. Told the social worker. He must have been so scared and alone and I was his only hope, but I was too blind with my own anger and pain and fear, and the pills and the booze, to see. I should have protected him.’ Her breath hitches. ‘But instead I killed him.’
Her shoulders start shaking and the sobs come thick and fast. Snot runs from her nose as she breaks, wailing quietly with the terrible grief of it all. I wrap her up in my arms, not caring how my ribs hurt with the pressure and rock backwards and forwards, soothing her.
‘Hush now, hush now, it’s okay,’ I say, although I know it can never be okay, this terrible thing she carries inside her. ‘We’ll find Ava.’ I can’t talk about Daniel, I can’t make it better with platitudes and I won’t try. But Ava is alive and I love her and I also love my best friend regardless of her past. You can’t rule your heart and my heart beats for these two.
‘We’ll find Katie,’ I say, with grim determination. ‘And we’ll save Ava.’
57
LISA
It’s not long past dawn but Marilyn is up and ready to go. Neither of us have slept much. ‘I want to get back before Simon turns up,’ she says. ‘I’ll shower there. Leave my hair a bit damp so it looks like I’ve just got up. Maybe it’s over-cautious, but we can’t take any chances, can we?’
She amazes me, this woman. All the shit going on in her own life, everything she knows about mine now, and yet she’s still here, with me.
‘I’ll make my excuses as soon as I can and get out,’ she continues. ‘Meeting at the bank or something. Hopefully I’ll be back by lunchtime. You going to be okay?’
‘I’ve got stuff to get on with.’ On the small desk in the corner is notepaper with everything we know about Katie scribbled down on it – not much – and now it’s up to me to draw up a list of people in my circle, people she could be hidden amongst.
‘My number’s on there too.’ Marilyn is at the door, hesitant to leave me alone. I want to reassure her that despite last night, I can do this. I’m Charlotte Nevill as much as I am the Lisa she knows. ‘I’ll pick up a pay as you go phone on the way back, but for now, use the hotel phone if you need me, okay?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ I get up and hug her gently. ‘And thank you. Thank you for everything.’
‘That’s what friends are for, right?’ She grins, despite her tiredness and her pain. Maybe helping me is helping her, giving her strength.
I wait until she’s gone, put the Do not disturb sign on the door and then sit for a moment as the coffee machine gurgles. I feel different. All those tears, years of tears, a lifetime of them, suddenly bursting free, have left me feeling stripped back to the bare bones of whoever I am, clean and refreshed. And I have a kernel of hope. I have Marilyn. She loves me. I am not unlovable. Whatever happens next, I will have been loved.
We slept together in our underwear, all our damage on show. The marks of our hidden lives. Faded-to-white cigarette burn scars on the backs of my knees from the worst part of those days immediately after when I wanted to hurt myself, and the fresher, larger bruises on Marilyn’s skin. Once the lights were out and we were safe in the darkness, she told me about Richard. About the slow decline in his behaviour, how over the years, irritation turned to rage and then, more recently, to violence and how she always hoped it would never happen again, all the shame of it. This time it was my turn to listen and wonder how someone could hide a thing like that as a stumbling, stuttering story was told in the night.
We’re strong this morning, both Marilyn and I. We’ve found that in each other. And I’m calm. Cool-headed. Katie won’t hurt Ava – not yet. She’s many things – crazy clearly amongst them – but she’s not a cheat. She’s taken Ava to lure me and she’ll want to see that weakness in me when we reunite. This is like some forties gangster film fantasy we would play on the wasteland. She’s Cagney, holed up somewhere, hostages for leverage, and I’m the FBI goon coming for her. We age, but we never really grow up. We never really change. I know Katie.
When Marilyn asked me, later last night when all the quiet talking was done, what I thought Katie wanted from all this, I lied. I said she wanted what I’d promised. That we’d run away together. Be free and on the run all at the same time. I don’t know if she believed me but she didn’t say any more. What could she say? Katie isn’t real to her, she’s just a bogeyman. A wicked figure from my past. And maybe she is, but back then, she ruined me and saved me all at once. Those days before were some of the best days of my childhood. How can I ever explain it? How I’d never loved anyone like I loved Katie and how I’d never been loved by anyone the way Katie loved me? How precious it is to be loved in this mess of life. I close the door on those memories, running hand in hand across the wasteland, but I remember the deal. The intensity of her gaze. Yes, I know what Katie wants. She wants to kill me. I owe her. A mother for a mother.
Maybe she will kill me. As long as Ava is safe, I don’t care what happens to me. In some ways, it would be a relief. Justice for Daniel and freedom from the heavy constant guilt that has become my lifetime companion. At least he wouldn’t be alone in the cold any more. So, yes, maybe she will kill me, and I’m not scared by the thought. I feel Charlotte’s steel in my backbone as I go to the bathroom. I may not be afraid to die, but I don’t intend to make it easy for her. Maybe I’ll kill her. I’ve already killed once. How hard can it be to do again?