We didn’t stay up long after the news report, as we were both so tired. Knowing that we’d reached the next step of our journey was more of a ticked box than an actual event. We’d both known it was going to happen, although that did little to dull the shock on my part. I’ve started to feel prepared, though, which is always a good thing from my point of view. Perhaps going through the possibilities and permutations earlier this evening helped more than I realised.
I hadn’t expected to get so tired so quickly, or to want to actually sleep so quickly after finding out we were the most wanted people in Britain. My brain had already turned to mush after trying to piece together what had happened and going over and over my life story with Jess. I feel really uncomfortable with her knowing so much, but I don’t see what difference it makes now.
For the first time since it happened, I can feel my brain starting to clear properly. Just lying here, in the darkness, with the pale-blue moonlight pushing around the edge of the curtains, I feel as though I’ve got a little breathing space. Even though I’m lying inside a tin box in the middle of a field, I feel like I’m cocooned in an underground shelter, safe from the goings-on around me. As a child, this used to be my way of getting to sleep. Whenever anxieties took me, I would pull the covers over my head and pretend I was anywhere else – a tent and a lorry cab were two regular favourites – and for some reason I felt much safer and more relaxed. It’s bizarre, now I think about it: neither of those two places could be considered safe, and particularly not when compared to my childhood bedroom, but the key was that they were somewhere else.
I think that’s what’s helping me now. I think that’s why I so readily fled the hotel after finding Lisa’s body. I’ve never been good at staying put and facing up to my problems. I’ve never been someone to actually deal with things. I’d far rather run, get some distance between me and the problem. I think disappearing from Herne Bay so quickly was far more of a subconscious decision than a conscious one. And yet again my subconscious mind has been proven right over my conscious mind. Maybe I just need to stop thinking so much. The problem is, I’ve always been a thinker. That’s often been my downfall.
I can’t remember the last time it happened, but I soon realise that I’m actually thinking of nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m almost completely relaxed. For the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel peaceful. It feels wrong, like I shouldn’t be allowed to, but I’m going to enjoy it while I can. I’m aware of, but barely notice, the sound of a wild dog crying somewhere outside. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, though, as I’m allowing myself to enjoy this – no doubt brief – moment of calm.
Just as I feel my eyelids are starting to get heavier and my brain begins to conjure up safe, fictional worlds, I’m jolted back into the moment by the noise of the bedroom door clattering open and Jess marching out towards me. The look on her face is neutral, as it so often is, but I detect a deep undercurrent of anger. She has this wonderful way of conveying anger without showing it. It’s then that I notice her jawbone jutting out, her jaw clenched tight as she heads into the living area. Before I can ask her what’s up, she’s opened a kitchen drawer, taken out a rolling pin, flung back the latch on the front door to the caravan and has jumped down the three steps to the grass below.
I sit bolt upright and look towards the door, confused in my half-asleep, half-awake state. Right now, none of this seems to make any sense. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. I hear her footsteps marching across the grass. Then silence. It’s then that I hear the unmistakable sound of the dog yelping and howling in conjunction with the violent thwacking of the rolling pin bouncing off various parts of its body. One after another, after another. In only a few seconds, the howling has been reduced to a mere whimper, and I hear Jess’s footsteps on the ground outside as she makes her way back up the steps to the caravan. I don’t dare look at the rolling pin as she lobs it into the sink with a clatter, locks the door behind her and heads back for the bedroom.
I blink a few times, trying to come to terms with what’s just happened. I sit, blinking in the darkness, unsure of what to do next. I get up and go to the bedroom. I don’t know what I’m going to say, but I can’t leave it like this.
‘Jess, what the fuck?’ I say, my mind unable to come up with anything more intelligent, my eyes clouded with tears.
‘It was keeping me awake,’ she says, her voice emotionless. ‘I don’t like being kept awake.’
And with that, she rolls over and closes her eyes.
27
The next morning, it’s almost as if it never happened.
I’m woken by the sound of Jess rummaging through the cutlery drawer. She pulls out two spoons and drops each one into a china mug. It’s then that I register the sound of the kettle boiling.
She looks over at me, sees that I’ve woken up, but doesn’t say a word. Instead, she takes a carton of milk out of the fridge and pours a small amount into each mug.
I rub my eyes, vague memories of last night starting to come back to me, and I notice a selection of newspapers on the table in front of me.
‘Where did they come from?’ I ask, going to run my fingers through my hair and instead being met by the rasp of stubble.
‘The shop,’ she replies. ‘Sugar?’
I don’t usually take it, but I think today I’m going to need the extra glucose.
‘Yeah, please. You’ve been out?’
‘Yes. You were snoring away, so I didn’t want to disturb you.’
I nod, not quite sure what to say. I sit up, my spine creaking, and take a look at some of the papers on the table. There are copies of Le Monde, Blick and La Repubblica. I don’t understand a word that’s written on any of them.
‘Maybe you’ll be able to make a bit more sense of this one,’ she says, slapping a copy of The Sun down in front of me. It’s the photo of Lisa that I see first. She looks so happy, carefree. I recognise it immediately as the photo she used as her Facebook profile picture. Next to it is a photo of me, taken on last year’s weekend away in the Cotswolds. Although it’s been cropped, I identify it as the one where I’m standing next to a sign for Cooper’s Hill. We’d found it funny at the time.
Then I see the headline. BLUDGEONED IN THE BATH: HOTEL HORROR AS POLICE SEEK HUSBAND. The usual tasteful, intelligent headline from The Sun.
To the right is a boxed-off section which is titled CLOSE FRIENDS REVEAL HUSBAND’S SHADY PAST. Underneath, there are a few words:
Close friends of murdered woman Lisa Cooper revealed yesterday that her husband Dan was ‘dangerous’ and ‘could not be trusted’. Full Story – Pages Four and Five.
I don’t even need to turn to pages four and five, nor do I want to.
‘Care to explain?’ Jess says, holding out a steaming mug of tea.
I take the mug.
‘Do I need to? No doubt you’ve already read it.’
‘Is it true?’