One year later
Martin
Sitting on the picnic bench, outside the Old Mill Tearooms, Martin watches his daughter fidget in the seat across from him, notices the way her eyes are drawn to that dark tunnel of trees at the start of the trail that leads into Cooper’s Wood. She gets this way sometimes, when Jessie is out of sight for too long. Restless, fearful. Worried that Jessie might not come back. Nine months is a hell of a long time for a six-year-old to be without their mum.
He waves a hand to attract her attention. ‘Hey, sweetheart, you OK?’
She turns to him and nods, then asks, for the second time, ‘Why can’t I go with Mummy?’
‘We’ve talked about this,’ he says. ‘Because Mummy has something important she needs to do, and she wants to be by herself while she does it. But I promise you that she’s OK, and that she’ll be back very soon.’
‘But why does she want to be on her own?’ Freya pouts.
‘Because.’
‘But why because?’
‘What are you, four years old?’
‘No.’ She laughs, then rolls her eyes as if he is being very silly. ‘I’m six now, Daddy.’
‘Ah yes, that’s right. So that means you’re old enough to understand that Mummy wants a bit of peace and quiet while she says goodbye to somebody.’
Freya looks puzzled. ‘How can Mummy say goodbye to somebody if she’s on her own?’
Good question, thinks Martin. He tries to think of a way to explain, to help her understand.
‘Sometimes, when somebody says goodbye, they’re just saying it for themselves, to make them feel better about the other person having gone away. So it doesn’t matter if the other person isn’t there to hear them. Does that make sense?’
Freya frowns. ‘Sort of.’
‘I’ll tell you what, when Mummy gets back, maybe she’ll explain it to you, if you ask her nicely. Anyway, we’re OK here, aren’t we? Do you want another drink? Or do you want to take your dad on at football? I’ll give you a three-goal head start. What do you reckon?’
She’d usually scoff at the suggestion of him going easy on her, but today she only shrugs. She’s unhappy and unsettled, and who could blame her.
The last year has been hard on all of them. For Jessie, of course, because she had to leave Freya and him behind. A surprisingly swift trial resulted in a custodial sentence for the accidental death of Julie Mitchell, mother of Chloe Mitchell – nine months, three of which were deemed to have been served while on remand.
For Martin, those nine months were long and lonely, but for Freya, they must have felt like an eternity. Even if, as far as she was concerned, Mummy was simply away on a very important work trip. How long that particular piece of misdirection will hold up, Martin isn’t sure. That anxious look Freya gets in her eyes when Jessie leaves the room, even for a moment, makes him worry that she already suspects something. He’s tried his best to shield her, but it’s probably only a matter of time before one of her schoolmates lets something slip, or she stumbles upon an article in a paper, or online. God knows, the story was everywhere for a while: footage of Chloe and Oscar being bundled into police vans with blankets over their heads; countless column inches poring over every gruesome detail of Jessie’s time in the well; think pieces weighing Jessie’s nine-month sentence against the four years Chloe received for kidnap and assisting an offender, and the life sentence, with a minimum of sixteen years served, Oscar was given for Evan’s murder. And with the forthcoming release of season three of Born Killer – made without Jessie’s approval or involvement, of course – it looks like the story won’t be going away anytime soon.
If only Freya knew what today means, he thinks. If she understood that it is a momentous day: the day when her mum not only says goodbye to her childhood friend Amy, but also to Born Killer, for good. Soon, they’ll be heading back to London, having put all this behind them.
Things will be different now. Jessie needs to work out what she wants to do with her life, seeing as she’s done making crime documentaries. But she’ll get there – she is brilliant, after all. The most important thing is that she’ll be home, for good. And while there’s always the chance that others might want to tell Amy’s story, nobody is going to put their heart and soul into it the way Jessie did, which also means Martin isn’t going anywhere.
It was a tense few months when Jessie first told him she was going to make a documentary about Amy’s murder. He thought he was in real trouble at first, that it would only be a matter of time before she uncovered the truth. He even contemplated running away, flying to some far-flung country to start a new life. But as much as he was terrified of getting found out, he couldn’t face the idea of leaving Jessie behind.
Fortunately, as the investigation progressed, he realised that Jessie wasn’t in the least bit suspicious of him, and never would be. She thought of him as a gentle person, who would never hurt another soul, if he could possibly help it. She just didn’t look at him that way, didn’t think him capable of such cruelty.
When he thinks back to that night, he barely remembers the argument about the kiss, though he remembers the aftermath: Jessie and Amy both in tears; making Jessie give him back the ring he’d bought her for Valentine’s Day; Amy threatening to go to the police to tell them about the accident before storming off. And he remembers later that night, when Amy called up to his bedroom window.
She didn’t say she wanted to talk, didn’t say much at all at first, but he thought it made sense, the two of them being together. The two wounded parties, both hurt and betrayed. More than anyone, they knew how the other was feeling.
They ambled through the town, across the valley, all the way up to Cooper’s Wood.
It was still light when they walked along the trail and Amy took him down the secret little path to the well.
‘Connor used to bring me here,’ she told him, peering off into the trees wistfully, as if her relationship had ended not several hours ago, but years earlier. She took a seat on a fallen tree, put her head in her hands, and wept. ‘She was supposed to be my best friend,’ she wailed when she surfaced for air.
He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shaking shoulders and that seemed to make her feel better for a while. But after she’d dried her tears, she looked up at him with an angry look in her eye and said the oddest thing.
‘Maybe they should be together. They suit each other, don’t you think? They’re both crazy. So maybe that means … me and you?’
She’d never shown any interest in him before. In fact, she’d often seemed to find him irritating, as if he were an interloper, getting in the way of her and Jessie’s friendship. Nevertheless, she leaned in and pressed her mouth against his, and her tongue was suddenly between his teeth. As she kissed him, she ran a hand over his chest and a shiver ran through him. It was then that she found the ring, plucked it from his shirt breast pocket and slipped it on her finger.
‘See?’ she said, her eyes red and sad. ‘Doesn’t it look better on me?’
He shook his head. He didn’t want this, any of it. Even if Jessie had cheated on him, it felt deeply wrong to be kissing Amy, as if they were setting off down a path they could never return from.
‘Can you give it back please?’ he said.
Amy laughed. ‘I’m just messing. I wasn’t being serious.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Just … I don’t like you that way.’
She nodded. ‘Good,’ she said, a mean look in her eyes. ‘Because I don’t like you either.’ Which wasn’t quite what he’d said to her. She went on, ‘Why would I ever want to be with you, anyway? I mean, look at you. You’re a loser. Everyone thinks so, even Jessie.’
‘That’s not true,’ he said.
‘Oh, it is. She told me. She only went out with you because she felt sorry for you.’
That stung, because he suspected there was some truth to it. He felt the prick of tears at the back of his throat. He wanted to go home.
‘Just give me the ring,’ he said, putting out his hand.
Amy puts her hands behind her back. ‘No way. It’s mine now,’ she said. ‘I’m keeping it.’
He got to his feet, tried to wrestle the ring from her, but she skipped away from him, then danced in circles, laughing. She was supposed to be his friend, but she was acting like one of the kids who used to bully him. But at least with Amy he had the physical advantage. He went for the ring again, feigning right, and when she ducked left and tried to spin away from him, he grabbed her around the middle. She fought to break free of him, twisted and turned her body, then pushed against him with both hands. When he let go, she toppled backwards, ending up sprawled on top of the rusted iron grate that covered the old well.
She sat up, unhurt but a little stunned, then looked down at her dress. There was a smear of orange across the hem, where it had rubbed against the rusted grate. ‘Look what you did!’ she cried. ‘You ruined my dress!’
‘And you took my ring!’ Martin shouted back.
‘God, you are such a loser,’ she said, then she went quiet for a moment before bursting into tears again. ‘I hate her,’ she sobbed. ‘I hate her so much.’
Martin thought about going over and comforting her, but she was being so horrible to him it felt wise to keep his distance. Still, it was starting to get dark. He was hardly going to leave her to walk home alone through the woods.
‘I think I’m going to go now,’ he told her. ‘Do you want to walk with me?’
‘Yeah. Sorry.’ She sniffed, then pushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘I didn’t mean those things. I’m just so … I dunno.’
‘I know,’ Martin said, as he watched her shuffle forward on her bottom so she could hop down off the well. But before she had the chance to climb down, there came a horrible metallic squeal from beneath her, like the pained cry of an injured animal.
Amy froze, lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes wide with fear.
‘Martin—’ she said, his name turning into a high-pitched scream as the section of the grate she was sitting on collapsed inwards, as if it were on a hinge. Amy’s feet shot up in the air as her body tipped backwards. Martin rushed forward, managing to reach her just in time to snatch a handful of her dress in his fist and stop her from falling further.
‘Pull me up! Pull me up!’ she screamed.
With his other hand he got a firm hold of her leg, ready to pull her to safety.
Then he hesitated.
Did Jessie really think he was a loser? he wondered. Is that why she’d cheated on him with Connor? And when she and Amy exchanged those looks with each other then burst out laughing, were they laughing at him? Maybe they were. He thought back to the moment he’d demanded Jessie return the ring he’d bought for her. He’d hoped she would refuse, that she’d insist on keeping it, on fighting for their relationship. Instead, she’d wrenched it off her finger and all but thrown it at him before chasing after Amy. She might have been upset about him breaking up with her, but what really mattered to her, as always, was her best friend.
‘What are you waiting for?’ shouted Amy. ‘Help me. Pull. Me. Up!’
He had a firm enough grip, and Amy wasn’t heavy. He could have pulled her to safety without too much effort. But as she shouted at him, cursed him, called him names, he found that he didn’t want to help her. He was tired of being second best.
‘Martin, come on!’ she shouted, and at that moment, he let go of her leg and relaxed his grip on her dress. The fabric slipped through his fingers, and he felt something click into place inside his chest, like he’d just found the key to a door he’d been trying to unlock for a very long time.
‘What are you—’ he heard Amy start to say, but her words were drowned out by another one of those metallic squeals as the rest of the grate gave way beneath her, and she slipped out of view.
Martin gets another soft drink from the tearooms for Freya, and a packet of crisps for good measure. Once she’s finished eating, they kick a football around on the grass for a while, until Freya gets breathless. She comes to a stop, puts her hand to her chest and calls over to him.
‘Daddy, I need my breather.’
He goes to her, crouches down to her level, gives her a big hug then pulls back and looks in her the eye.
‘It’s right here,’ he tells her, patting the bulge in his hip pocket. ‘But before I give it to you, I want you to take a few deep breaths – look at me – take a few breaths, let’s slow things down. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Do it with me.’
He shows her how, and she copies him, pulling in air through her nose so that her chest inflates, then pushing the air out between her pursed lips.
‘Remember, you’re the one in control here, not your asthma,’ he tells her.
She keeps going, taking slow, controlled breaths, until finally she looks at him and smiles. ‘I think it worked!’ she says.
‘You’re sure? You can have your inhaler if you need it. The important thing is that you tried.’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t need it now.’
‘All right!’ Martin high-fives her. ‘Good girl. Now, go and play, but take it easy, OK?’
‘OK, Daddy,’ she says, and she runs back to her football.
He knows it won’t work every time. He can’t cure her, but maybe he can help her not to be so reliant on her medication. Besides, she’ll hopefully grow out of her asthma entirely as she gets older, then he won’t have to listen to the awful crackle and wheeze of her constricted breathing when she’s having an attack, a sound that never fails to take him right back to the moment Amy fell into the well.
His first thought, after she slipped into the darkness, was: I’ve killed her. And with that, he almost turned and ran. But then he heard a frightened moan that froze him in his tracks.
He inched forward, braved a look over the rim of the well, and there she was, tangled up in what was left of the metal grate that had collapsed under her weight. He could see blood smeared across her forehead, and her arm was twisted at an odd angle, like it had an extra elbow. The rest of her was submerged in a pool of filthy-looking water. Seeing her like that made him feel sick to his stomach.
She called up to him in a broken whisper. ‘Martin? Are you … there? Help … me.’
She did not sound good. He pulled back, out of sight, pretended not have heard her.
‘Martin?’
Her breaths were coming in short, sharp, wheezing gasps, like she was an old man of ninety.
‘My inhaler … It’s in … my bag … Need it.’
He looked over to the fallen tree where they had been sitting just moments earlier, and saw Amy’s bag lying on the ground. He went over and picked it up, checked inside it. Beneath her purse and her phone, and a bunch of other girl stuff, he could see her blue asthma inhaler, the one he’d seen her use dozens of times when she got breathless during sports, or if they’d walked a long way.
He took the inhaler out of her bag, weighed it in his hand.
He could drop it down to her, then go and get help. He’d have to explain that there’d been an accident, but that would be OK. Accidents happen all the time, and it wasn’t like he’d actually pushed her in. Although … she was awfully mad at him, and at Jessie. What if she told the police he’d pushed her? And what if she told them about the woman Jessie hit while she was driving? They’d lock Jessie up, take her away from him forever.
A brilliant and terrible idea came to him, how he could make sure he didn’t get in trouble, and how he could make sure Amy would never tell anyone about the car accident. Not only that, but if he was smart about it, perhaps he could get Connor out of their lives for good too.
But he couldn’t just leave her here, could he?
‘Martin?’ Amy wheezed, her breaths growing shallower by the second. ‘Are you … still … there?’
He put Amy’s inhaler back in her bag, slung the bag over his shoulder, then put his hands over his ears and turned and walked away. He only removed his hands once he’d reached the main trail, by which time her cries were so thin, with so little breath behind them, he could hardly hear them at all.
The next morning, when Jessie called and told him Amy was missing, it was like their fight had never happened. She asked him to come over, said she was sorry for everything and that she needed him – what a wonderful thing that was to hear. So, he went to her, comforted her, and they joined in the search for Amy. Before long, Connor appeared, of course, but that didn’t worry Martin. He had a plan for how to deal with his old bully. All he needed to do was to plant Amy’s bag in Connor’s bedroom, and he was pretty sure that, given Connor’s reputation, the rest would take care of itself.