I hear an owl hooting, and it makes me shiver. It’s an unearthly noise, and I think, God, where are all the people and the buildings and the light?
I think of her life in the few pages I’ve just read, and I think, Why the hell didn’t she tell me about this campaign of terror she was living under?
She did try though, didn’t she? Come on, Marlena, I think, you know she bloody did. Innocent Jeanie. Always willing to believe the best of people – and letting them make her feel like shit.
I feel the tears start again, and I dash them away impatiently. I don’t have time for this. I have to find out what happened.
Otherwise I will go as mad as…
As mad as Jeanie has. But what is it that pushed her over the edge in the end?
Okay – so that’s a no-brainer. I wince as I think of the BBC news site. Presumably Matthew and the abuse allegation was too much for her.
I light another cigarette, thinking, thinking, thinking. The vodka has made my head a little fuzzy, but I’m well used to drinking on the job.
Why was the daughter here the other day? That really puzzles me. This girl who was so close to her mother that she hated Jeanie at first, that she blew this hot and cold.
Why would Scarlett come to Jeanie, all the way up north, when she hated her at times? When Robo had just found out it was her sending the poisonous messages, trying to take Jeanie down?
Did she come to destroy her?
I need to find her, this Scarlett, and talk to her. I need her to explain. And I need to know what was going on with her and her father. I fear that this is what has pushed Jeanie to this point.
But another thought is there.
The thought that Scarlett could be involved in a worse way than might seem obvious.
But it can’t be that.
Can it? A fifteen-year-old girl couldn’t try to kill someone, remotely… No, it doesn’t add up…
And the police obviously don’t think anything untoward has happened. All the pills and the whisky bottle in the rucksack were signs enough for them: the writing was on the wall. Or in the medicine cabinet, rattling with pills – above the fresh blood on the carpet.
And Christ, how bad do I feel that I didn’t even know Jeanie had slid back down the slope?
I mean, I knew she started again after the whole Otto Lundy episode; I knew she was prescribed various things, that at one point she was taking all sorts of antidepressants. And that wasn’t the first time. After Simon, things got so bad I had Frankie for a short time whilst she got well. And for years she was well. For years – until Otto.
After Otto she was seriously depressed for a while. With good reason: she lost her job. Her reputation. Her livelihood and her reason – other than Frankie – to be.
I helped her out, got her back on her feet. She had some savings, thank God, because she was always cautious.
In the main, it was the thought of Frankie that got her through – him just being there.
I did try, at one point, to get Jeanie to see a shrink, but she refused. She seemed better. ‘I may be sad, but I’m not mad.’ She even smiled about it, and I believed her. She thought therapy was ‘trendy’ and ‘faddy’ – and her response annoyed me, but she knew her own mind, my big sister, for all her kindnesses.
Then she did actually see that CBT guy, when her cleaning got compulsive again. I thought she was going to be all right.
I didn’t like Matthew all that much when he came along; I thought he was smug – but harmless. I thought she was in with a good chance of a good life. I thought he really loved her, that he saw the goodness reflected back at him.
I thought we were past this now.
I think of his harsh words to her – the words written here in this diary.
And you know what else? It pains me to say it – but she kind of was a blank, my Jeanie. I’ve seen it written down – and I hate the man who said it – I knew there was a reason not to like him.
But there’s a part of me – and I bloody well hate to admit it, I really, really do – that understands why he said it.
She wasn’t always like that, not as a younger child. No; then she was vibrant, if always a little shy and retiring.
It happened later. And I blame our mother. Well, both our parents really – though my dad fucked off when we were so young, I barely think of him. I wholeheartedly and squarely lay the blame at our parents’ door. But then why wouldn’t I?
Don’t have kids if you can’t cope, I say.
Around two I fall asleep on the sofa in the living room, curled up uncomfortably, knees almost at my chin. But I am good at sleeping anywhere; it’s a long-won habit. I sleep for a bit.
* * *
I’m woken by the next-door neighbour knocking gently at the front door. She is a spry-looking older lady with gun-grey hair and shiny red glasses, and it’s her who rang 999.
‘Ruth Jenkins. Next door. I’m so sorry about Jeanie…’
‘Thanks.’ I try to shut the door.