Elizabeth’s burial would be over by now. Kevin Kelly, her eldest son, had invited Karl to join the mourners for lunch. He nodded when Karl made excuses. They both understood the difficulty of making polite conversation when the unspoken words were the only ones that mattered. Dominick’s family… he tried to imagine how they must feel, the shame, the guilt, the anger.
Elizabeth had written to Karl shortly after her son’s death. Fragile handwriting, as if she could barely hold the pen. She begged him to call and see her but he, knowing he would need to be stronger for such a meeting to take place, had not responded. And now it was too late. Three weeks in a nursing home before she slipped quietly away in her sleep.
He drove from the church to the Glenmoore Shopping Centre. The harsh supermarket lighting was welcome. It dispelled shadows, the unseen threat that could come upon him without warning. He stopped in front of the dairy section. So many decisions to make: low-fat, skimmed or fortified super milk, pure butter or low-fat spread, free range, farm fresh or organic eggs? Not so long ago he would have made such choices without thinking. Now, he was alarmed by his indecisiveness as he pushed his shopping trolley to the checkout.
Maria Barnes was sweeping dead leaves from her garden path when he returned to Cherrywood Terrace. He willed her to keep sweeping, her eyes on the ground, but she straightened and came across the road to him.
‘I’m glad you’re home, Karl,’ she said.
He nodded without replying and opened the gate.
‘Come over to the house and have a cup of tea. You look like you could do with one.’
‘No, thanks.’ He swallowed bile at the thought of the interview she had given to the Daily Orb.
‘Please do, Karl. I’ve wanted to talk to you ever since… since Constance… I still can’t say her name without wanting to cry.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘Those comments I made in the Daily Orb about her being in your house so often—’
‘Maria, I’m not interested.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant at all.’ She stepped back from his anger. Her discomfort was obvious as she drew the edges of her cardigan over her chest and tried to explain the suspicion that had grown like a cancerous root through this small terrace. ‘I don’t blame you being mad but all I said to that reporter was that your house was home from home to Constance and you’d never harm a hair on her head. It came out different when it was in print. I rang Eric Walker and called him a liar. He said he’d quoted me verbatim and had the recording to prove it, but he only used some of the things I said.’
‘It’s all to do with context, Maria. It doesn’t matter now.’
‘Of course it matters, Karl. I’m ashamed—’
‘Then let it go. Talking about it serves no purpose.’
She nodded. ‘I’ve a pile of letters for you. The postman’s been leaving them with me since the fire. Hold on ’til I get them.’
Probably junk mail or bills, he thought when she returned with two supermarket bags filled with letters. They could whistle Dixie for the latter, he thought. The rest would be hate mail. Social media hadn’t completely obliterated the poison pen letter.
The prospect of wading through them wearied him but a long afternoon stretched before him. As he suspected, some of the letters written after the discovery of Constance’s body were vitriolic, but most were recently dated and from supporters. People who claimed they had believed all along in his innocence. They wished him well, offered to pray for him or spilled out personal tragedies that they too had suffered through miscarriages of justice. All of them praised Amanda Bowe for her courage in organising such a powerful campaign.
Unable to contain the mixed emotions the letters evoked, he left the house and drove to Turnstone Marsh. The suspension in the car was bad, jolting him over every minor bump in the road. It was fifteen years old, and hard-used, but he had picked it up for next to nothing on Done Deal. It would do until he could afford something better.
When he reached the marsh, he parked the car at the side of the road and climbed down the grassy embankment. His boots sank into the soggy earth. The sun, fleeting between lowering clouds, glinted off the peaks of Toblerone Range. He used to ride the range with Dominick, the two of them hurtling fearlessly up and down the steep gradients, unafraid of falling off or of the consequences that would follow. The marsh was where they had smoked their first joints, drunk their first beers, kissed their first girlfriends on the bank of the river. Rock climbing, football matches, an unforgettable holiday in Spain to celebrate their Leaving results; they’d had a history spanning three decades. A history that had clearly counted for nothing when it came to Dominick’s self-preservation.
He crossed the marsh to Orchard Road and continued walking until he reached the old house. Someone, probably Jenna, had erected a small roadside shrine at the spot where Constance had been knocked down. The brick on which she had struck her head had been removed. A wooden cross, carved with her name, stood in its stead, bunches of fresh flowers beneath it. Karl knelt and bowed his head. No words came to him and, even if they had, they would have been inadequate. He imagined Dominick on his knees that night, probably in the same spot. Like Karl, he would have been unable to pray, ravaged as he was by the need to remove the tell-tale stains from the scene of the crime. Blood was easily wiped away, especially when it was fresh, but guilt had proved impossible to eradicate.
He had seen Amanda Bowe at Elizabeth’s funeral, his gaze drawn to her as he carried the coffin into the church. She was sitting in the back pew, inconspicuously dressed in muted tones, her hair flattened in a severe ponytail. Easy to miss among the congregation that had gathered to pay their respects to the quiet, inoffensive woman, whom she had thrust into the headlines. Monster Teen Killer Finds God. The front page as usual.
In the grotto she had stared defiantly back at him. She knew, as he did, that her campaign was throwing sand at the truth and proving that the last story written was the one that would be remembered.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The phone call came in the early hours. Amanda struggled from sleep and reached out to answer it. An accident, her mother, her sister… her thoughts hurtled from one fearsome scenario to the next. The number was unknown and the voice muffled, covered either by a hand or a scarf.
‘What’s keeping you up so late, my lovely?’ he asked. ‘Three o’clock in the morning and you still haven’t closed your eyes. I’m glad you sleep with your lights on. I want you to recognise me when I come to kill you.’ She resisted the urge to scream. To demand to know who was calling. No sense adding stupidity to her shock. She resisted, also, the temptation to look out the window. Even if Karl Lawson was standing below in a pool of light in the courtyard of her apartment block, she would be unable to see him.