This is a murderer before me. A man who should have been convicted of killing his girlfriend. Yet this polite picking-up-the-key gesture suggests courtesy. And that’s the nub of it. Of course Joe is bad. But he also has shades of not-so-bad.
I like to think I am good. But – there’s no getting away from it – I have also done wrong. Not just a wrong that affects me. But one that touches Ed too. And, more importantly, Tom.
And as I run back across the road towards the front, the sea now washing smoothly against the pebbles, I finally allow my mind to go back to that evening after the case.
Forget the pain in my chest, making it hard to breathe.
It’s nothing, compared with the agony of waiting.
My body is tense. Stiff with apprehension.
I can hear her now. She’s coming.
50
Carla
The pains started the following day, when Carla was in the office, going through her post. There was always something, thank goodness. A letter, a contract, a phone call, a meeting with counsel. Anything to block out the image of Ed waiting for her at home, his eye on the clock, his hand on the bottle.
‘Got another one here,’ announced Lily’s old secretary, popping her head round the door. ‘Just been delivered by hand.’ Carla’s heart quickened, although there was no need. Many letters were hand-delivered. Couriers were nothing out of the ordinary. Yet she could see as she took the envelope that her name hadn’t been typed, but written by hand in spidery capital letters. She opened it.
YOU AND YOUR CHILD WILL PAY.
Carla felt the baby launch another kick, far bigger this time. ‘Who dropped this off?’ she heard herself say in a strangled voice.
The woman had made it clear that she didn’t care for Lily’s successor. ‘A motorbike courier. Didn’t say which company he was with.’ Flouncing off, she left the door wide open.
Getting up to shut it, Carla suddenly felt a trickle of water running down her legs.
How embarrassing! She had wet herself. Was this what her body had come to? Stuffing the letter in her bag, she scuttled past a partner in the corridor and dived into the Ladies. To her horror, the same secretary was there, drying her hands.
The woman gasped. ‘Have your waters broken?’
Of course, she knew that waters breaking was a sign of labour. But the teacher of her antenatal class had described it as more of a flood than a trickle.
‘This happened to me too with my second,’ said the woman. Her tone was grudgingly kind. ‘Sit down while I call the ambulance.’
Carla felt as though the walls were coming towards her. ‘But it’s too early. I’m not due for another six weeks.’
‘Even more need to get you into hospital.’ The woman was already on her mobile. ‘Ambulance, please. Urgent.’ Then she turned round to Carla. ‘Shall I call Ed? I’ve still got his number in Lily’s old address book.’
Lily … Ed … Would they never go away! Was she destined to be trapped for ever in this marriage of three?
‘I am sorry,’ she called out as the ambulance sped its way through the streets.
‘No need to apologize, love,’ said the voice next to her. ‘It’s our job.’
It’s not you I’m apologizing to, she tried to say. It’s the baby who’s coming into this terrible mess we’ve created. Go back. Go back to where you came from so you are safe. But strange pains had started in her belly. Wave after wave of pain, each one beginning almost as soon as its predecessor had finished.
‘We need to slow her down,’ said another voice (female this time).
The urgent yet calm tone reminded Carla of the time she had been taken into hospital as a child. You could have died, the doctor had told her strictly at the time, as if she and not her mother were responsible for failing to react to her symptoms fast enough. Maybe she was dying now. Perhaps that would be best. What kind of life would the baby have with parents who were already fighting before it was born?
‘Carla, can you hear me?’ The first voice was hovering over her. ‘We’re just going to give you a little injection to try and keep baby inside for a bit longer. All right?’
And then it went black.
51
Lily
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Joe said after we’d won the appeal, all those years ago. Such innocent words.
We began to stroll across the Heath, breathing in the cool night air after the tension of the court.
‘Do you remember,’ he said, his eyes straight ahead, ‘when our hands touched in the prison?’
How could I forget? He had made it seem that the advance was all mine, rather than the other way round.
‘You know,’ he continued, without waiting for an answer, ‘there are very few people in this world whom I can bear to touch. I’ve always been like that, even as a child.’
And then I found his hand – strong and firm – taking mine as we continued to walk into the dark, leaving the pub lit up behind us.
Of course, I should have withdrawn it. Made my excuses and gone home, right there and then. But I was on a high after our victory. And a low because of Ed. I had to face it. My new husband wasn’t interested in me. He and Davina had been much better suited. It was her he should have married. Not me.
There was something else too. There are very few people in this world whom Joe could bear to touch. That’s what he said. Yet I was clearly one of them. And I was flattered. Why not? This was a man whom I believed had been wrongfully imprisoned. A man who was to be pitied and also admired – not least because he had decided not to press for financial compensation. Nothing, he had told the court, would bring back his ‘poor’ girlfriend, Sarah Evans. All he wanted was justice. And his freedom.
‘You’re crying,’ Joe said when I found my hand squeezing his in return.
And that was when I had told him. Told him everything about my marriage. Let down my guard. I’d like to say it was because I don’t normally drink a double on an empty stomach. I’d like to say it was because of the flush of success at winning my first big case. But the truth is that Joe was someone I could talk to.
As I had discovered, prison can do that to you. It creates a common bond. The very act of being in a place where most people fear to be makes you feel different. It creates some unlikely pairings. The fraudster and his rapist cell mate. The teacher and the murderer. The solicitor and her client.
And of course there was also that one thing that you can’t impose rules or laws upon. That physical energy which sizzled between us. An electricity I’d first felt in the visitors’ room below that HOPE poster. Something that should never exist between prisoner and lawyer. Except Joe was no longer a prisoner. He was a free man.
We were both free to do what we pleased.
I can’t even say it was rape, although I did try to resist for a few seconds. All I knew was that suddenly I was lost. I didn’t even try to pretend to myself it was love, because it was far better. Why? Because love is too fragile and can be broken too easily. Lust is more robust. Immediately gratifying. Hadn’t my past taught me that all too well?
As Joe pushed me roughly to the ground and unbuttoned my blouse, I remembered how ‘wrong’ and ‘lust’ could give you an inexplicable million-volt charge that was like nothing else. So strong that it made you melt and burn at the same time. It’s an exhilarating feeling when someone gives you permission to break all rules – especially when that person is yourself. Finally I felt free.
‘Quick,’ said Joe, soon after we’d finished. ‘Someone’s coming.’
I scrambled to my feet.
Only then, when I saw the disgusted look on the face of the approaching dog walker, did I feel the shame I should have felt before. Shame that might have saved me from this situation had I felt it sooner.
‘Go away,’ I said, my fingers trembling over my buttons. ‘Go away and never come back.’
Then I ran. Ran across the Heath, aware that I must have looked a mess. Ran down pavements and into the Tube, pressing myself against other sweaty bodies, conscious that I was smelling of ‘wrong’. Desperate to get back home for a shower. A long, hot shower to wash Joe Thomas away.