22

The hotel where Georgina Teel’s mother Julie was staying, was just out of London. Lizzie planned to take her statement and then drive up to see her own mother, returning the following day and going straight into work. She had hoped to have time to pop in to her flat and grab some fresh clothes, but she had been running late and didn’t want to keep Julie waiting. So when Kieran dropped her outside her flat, she threw her overnight bag straight into the back of her Golf. After all, her mother had a washing machine. She could wear the same work clothes for her night duty the following day.

The A41 had fields, trees, hedgerows but was too busy, too fast and too well engineered to be a real country road. Its leafy edges were interrupted by the outlying suburban things that suggested the too-close city. Hotels with conference facilities, car showrooms, a drive-in McDonald’s, a Costco.

Lizzie swung into the ample hotel car park and made her way through the fake marble lobby to Julie’s impersonal room with its patterned blue carpet and taupe-coloured pleated curtains.

Julie was sitting on the bed, a small, thin figure. The room was warm but she was still wrapped in a blanket, rolling up a cigarette in her fingerless gloves. ‘I’m dying for a fag but I’m worried I’ll set the fire alarms off.’ She looked like a scrawny bird that had been taken from her nest, a bird you wouldn’t bet on surviving.

Lizzie fumbled with the heavy, supposedly portable silver box of the double tape recorder.

Julie said, ‘You seem a bit stressed with that.’

Lizzie looked up. Julie was smiling.

‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘It’s not like I’m going anywhere.’

The tape recorder’s thin black microphone leads were tangled in a compartment in the back.

Julie said, ‘This place has got a pool, a gym, a restaurant. I feel like I’ve gone to Mars.’

Lizzie slotted the tapes into place.

‘Nearly there. Do you mind if I write out the statement while you speak?’

‘Why would I?’

Lizzie knelt by the low glass coffee table and pressed play. Julie began.

‘Being a mother: it’s probably the most important thing anyone does. Anyway, whatever, I was no good. I know that’s true. When I got pregnant with Georgie, I didn’t even know what was happening I was so out of it.

‘I was on the junk – heroin. We got so many names for it. Horse. Brown. Candy. Tiger. Smack . . . Anyway, all those names, it’s like a love thing for H, making it sound glamorous, and it’s got to be glamorous in a way, something that’s so downright evil.

‘When I started, right at the beginning, I was just eating it. Thought I could handle it. But then it hit me and I didn’t know what was happening. It was like that song. “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. I had to keep moving on just to deal with how much I wanted it. I started chasing – you know, inhaling the fumes – and then a mate of mine said he’d sort me out. Not his fault: I knew what he meant. He taught me how to mainline and that was that. I was a junkie proper. Had my works in a little pink embroidered Chinese pouch with press studs: a spoon, a lighter, my spike.

‘The hit from shooting up, it’s like nothing else. Blows your head right off. But when you wake up, you’re so sick. No energy, just shivering. Sunny day, hat on, three T-shirts, jumper. And clucking, mind you. I was nothing but hunger. Junk, it eats you up from the inside, just craving it, like you’ve got ants under your skin. Only way to stop being sick is to score, and then you’re sick all over again. It’s the devil. You have your junkie friends, but really? Truth is you don’t have no real relationship with no one, no one except the juice.

‘I was all them things you hear about junkies. Couldn’t have got any lower. Tarting myself out? I done that. At the time, I didn’t even care that much. Just wanted to do it, get it over with, the punter give me the money, then I can go and shoot up. I stole from my own mum. Track marks down my arms and legs, looking for a vein in my inner thigh, in my big toe.

‘Georgie was born addicted. They weaned her off it in the hospital. They give me a chance and I did really want her but they took her away from me. Spent all the money they gave me for food and heating on junk, hadn’t I? Social worker come round and said it would be better for Georgie if I would sign her over. But I couldn’t. Georgie was the only thing that was ever stronger than H. That’s why I think she must have been some kind of angel, ’cos only an angel can fight the devil. I missed her so much that some better part of me got my shit together and got off the juice. Judge said I’d done really well and that the best place for Georgie would be with her mum.

‘I did slide a couple of times, I admit it. My mum took Georgie, locked the door on me. Told me, “Don’t come round here no more. Georgie don’t need to see you right now.”

‘But we had good times too. I used to get myself together and then I would do everything with Georgie. Spend all my money on her. Park. Ice-skating. Took her once on a holiday to Spain. There was a pool and everything. Just her and me. We didn’t need nobody else. I loved her.

‘Georgie got real good at keeping secrets. Too good. She tidied the house, kept it looking nice for when the social visited. She did well at school. Never any trouble. Quiet, she was. Neat. My mum used to say, “Old head on young shoulders.”

‘Finally, I worked my way round the turn once and for all. Took that Chinese purse, filled it up with stones and dropped it in the canal. After that, it was just the two of us: Georgie and me. I didn’t want no more trouble. Fergal only moved in after Georgie left even though he was always good to me.

‘She left school at seventeen. Got herself a job in a phone shop. That’s where she met Mark. Sold him a phone. God, I wish she hadn’t been at work that day! She told me he treated her proper. Didn’t come on too quick. Respectful. Always had money, of course, paid for everything. Right from the start he was the big I am. She moved out almost immediately. He gave her a home, all that. I think at the beginning she liked how he bossed her about, because when she was a kid I was never in control.

‘She couldn’t get enough of him. Mark this, it was, Mark that. Months before I was allowed to even meet him. She come round the day before he visited for the first time. Told me: dress nice, tidy up, clean out the ashtrays. No talking about the junk tattoos on my arms.

‘She says, “Don’t offer me a fag. I’m not smoking no more.” I said, “Oh that’s good.” And she said, “Mark doesn’t like it.”

‘I did what I was told. Wore a nice shirt with long sleeves and a long skirt. Then I was in the kitchen having a roll-up and he comes in and says, bit ridiculous really, pole stuck right up his wide-boy arse, “Don’t be smoking around Georgie.”

‘If it wasn’t for Georgie I’d have just told him to mind his own.

‘But I didn’t have a leg to stand on, did I? Did what he said then and there. Emptied out the ashtray in front of him, put the baccy in a drawer. Wanted to show him I could be a good mum, that he’d want me around when the kids come. Turns out I’d have been a better mum if I’d have told him where to stick it. You never know where you are in this life. I should have stood up to him. I’ve never done nothing right for Georgie.

‘I’d started knitting – baby and children’s knitwear to sell at one of those stalls for tourists in Covent Garden. Turned out I was good at it. Could do cable, Fair Isle, all that stuff. Real quick and neat. Think they said I was some kind of fisherwoman on a Scottish island. Only isle I’ve ever been on is the Isle of Dogs! Got my own little site on eBay now and I supplies some nice shops – Hampstead, Kensington, that kind of thing. Anyways, whenever Mark and Georgie come round, I used to knit for Britain. Kept my mind off the fags, didn’t it?

‘When Skye was born, I used to mind her. Mark would drop her off. Didn’t speak hardly at all. Just says, “See you” and leaves. It’s hard when you feel you can never make up for something. Makes you feel powerless. I was always on the back foot.

‘She wouldn’t tell me at first, but I noticed. Walked into a cupboard, hadn’t she? Knocked herself on the table. Nobody never walks into a cupboard, do they? I wasn’t born yesterday. Then there was little Skye. She says to me one day when she’s round at my house, “Dad hits Mum.” “Oh, does he?” And she says, “Yes.”

‘I would try to talk to Georgie. “If there’s ever anything you want to talk about . . .” Or, “I know I wasn’t the best mum, but you know I’m always here for you now. Whatever you need. I’d lay down my life for you.” Georgie would say, “Everything’s fine, Mum.” Then he knocked her front tooth out and finally I sat down with her. “You ready to talk about it now? You know I love you all the world.” She was a pretty girl and she couldn’t hide that she minded. He’d left a great big gap in the front of her face. Told her if she went to the police he’d kill her.

‘I couldn’t sleep. Knew it was my fault because she had been looking for someone strong, with rules and all that.

‘I said, “You’ve got to leave, you know you have. Think about Skye. She can’t see him doing this to you. I know I made lots of mistakes. I’m not one to talk. But I’m going to be there for you now when I wasn’t before. Me and Fergal, we’ll do everything for you. Fergal loves you like you’re his, you know that.”

‘But she couldn’t see her way to leaving. There was Skye, the flat, everything. Plus he said he’d kill her if she ever left him. I was determined. I said, “One day you’ll want to go, and when you do, we’ll just do it sudden. Move you out one day when he isn’t there.”

‘That’s when he started coming round here, banging on the door, threatening me. “Mind your own business, you old slag!” That was a different side of him then, wasn’t it? Got so bad in the end I had to stop him coming round. That’s when I went to court, got an injunction.

‘Georgie got a part-time job as a teacher’s assistant. Just two days a week but it was a start. I helped her out with Skye. She’d drop her off. Skye would help me with the skeins of wool. I would put my hands out and she would ball it up. Knitted me a scarf, lovely colours. Must have taken her ages! Fergal would sleep on the sofa. Skye would be in the bed with me. Had her own little set of drawers with pyjamas, change of clothes, duvet, teddy, everything. She used to run to get that teddy, Roly Poly. We used to say he’d been waiting for her. Sally the dog, too. She’d sleep next to the bed when Skye was over.

‘It brought me and Georgie closer. It was like I got the chance to say sorry over and over again just by being there for her. I never made no criticisms. Same time, it was like . . . like she maybe understood how we can all make mistakes and end up somewhere we didn’t mean to be. Mine was different, of course, brought it all on myself. She’d just moved in with a bastard.

‘Things were starting to look better. It’s like she’s turned a corner. Got her tooth fixed. Turned out she was still young and pretty after all. Says she’s going to think about training as a proper teacher. She’s clever and determined. I’m sure she can do it.

‘I said to her, “The day you’re ready to move out, you ring me and we’ll do it together.” Being a junkie taught me a few things, and leaving places quickly, that was one of them. Just a matter of time, that’s what I was thinking. I think he sensed it too, that’s what I think.’

It was only when Lizzie looked up from her scribbling that she realized Julie was crying silently, knees bent up like she was a little egg, arms wrapped tightly round.

‘Should I stop the tapes?’

‘That’s why he did it. Knew she was going to leave him. Make herself a life.’

Lizzie moved over, put her hand on Julie’s knee. ‘I’ll stop the tapes.’

‘I saw them WhatsApps she sent, the day he killed her. I should never have encouraged her. It’s like I killed her because I didn’t have no data.’

‘No . . .’

‘He wasn’t going to let her get away. Course he wasn’t. I should have known that.’ She had her head in her hands and was rocking, crying. ‘He’s broken me.’

‘Julie . . .’

She looked up, her face now drawn tight and determined. ‘Tell everyone at the police! I don’t want him to die. I want him arrested. You be sure to tell them that.’

‘Of course.’

‘And I want my Skye back. I’m living for her . . .’

‘They’re doing everything they can.’

‘I want him to live a long life because it’d be better for Skye. She could learn to hate him rather than feeling sorry for him. And for him, living is the worst punishment he can possibly have. I want him to have to stand up in court and listen to what he’s done. The whole bloody lot. And then I want him to have to study it in prison day in, day out for at least thirty years. Because it’s going to get to him in the end, what he did. And then he’ll feel like me. He won’t want to live no more.’