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London
March 2005
Jonathan pushed open the door of the flat with his foot. As he did so, his mobile, which he was clutching in one hand, his keys in the other, began to buzz. Harry Broomsgrove’s name popped onto his screen. He let it go to voicemail. Waited for exactly the count of twenty; that was the average length of a voicemail, he’d found, then listened to the message.
Harry was enquiring if he’d had a nice holiday. Sarcastic sod. He wanted Jonathan in the office tomorrow for a ‘chat’. He had another few weeks of leave; had the reptile forgotten? As he stared at the mobile it began to shake again. Again, he left it. Again, he counted to twenty. Again, it was Harry.
Need you in, assignment for you. Topical at the moment. NHS disallowing smoking in would-be mums who are receiving IVF treatment.
Christ. Jonathan tapped the return-call button. ‘It’s me.’
‘Ah, you. Nice holiday?’ Harry replied in a croaky voice.
‘Can’t you find someone else to do it?’
‘Why, you given up your job? Didn’t notice any resignation letter.’
‘I still have couple of weeks left, Harry.’
Silence.
Jonathan grunted into the phone. ‘So, what’s this about the NHS thing?’
‘I want you to do it, shouldn’t take long, and then I won’t bother you until after your ... annual leave. Deal?’
Harry wasn’t being a bastard; Jonathan knew his editor didn’t have free reporters at the moment. He thought about the above-inflation pay rise Harry had given him four months before. Absentmindedly, he pulled a wipe from its holder on the hall table and cleaned the screen of his phone.
‘OK.’
Harry continued. ‘Whatever you’re up to ... will there be something for me?’
‘Patience, Harry, I’ll be in later.’ Jonathan disconnected.
The NHS story might be helpful. He could root around the mental health system, too. There was a less secure psychiatric unit near to the hospital where the IVF was supposed to be taking place. The hospital had strong ties with the unit, dating back twenty years to when it housed its own. If he asked the right questions he might find something out about the protocol.
Jonathan paced into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Empty shelves greeted him. He’d do this thing for Harry and then check out the Cambri School of Voice Coaching and Acting. He had a hunch that Rachel’s interest in the school was not a coincidence, and not just a newly revived interest in acting. And that Amanda McCarthy, the name in Marek’s personal diary, was Rachel. That the ‘R’ going to Malina’s was Rachel. Malina had told him nothing but Kacper had told him enough.
That was his plan, to Cambri, and then to see Tom Gillespie, speak to Charlotte again. He knew she was in the States. A phone call was fine.
He’d also received, and it’d been a surprise, an email from Morley. He’d told him about a case from a long time ago, even before the Asian bride. A known paedophile had ‘helped’ with info on a case Rachel wasn’t working on, and subsequently investigations into his activities were watered down. Rachel hadn’t been happy. She waited a year, maybe more, before – rumour had it – she ensured he was implicated in a wider paedo ring that was operating in that area.
Rachel certainly had attitude, and balls. And a strong sense of taking things into her own hands. It seemed that she’d set the paedo up beautifully, ensuring that the unit investigating found more than he actually held in his mangy flat. The rumour spread that the evidence had been planted, but it was never substantiated. Gillespie managed to entomb everything, as he’d managed to do with the husband of the Asian bride. Morley had made it clear that there was no point in him making a fuss. No one cared. The guy was a paedo that was for sure. Secretly, Morley said, everyone was aware of Rachel’s involvement. She’d gone to that much trouble for a family and child she had absolutely nothing to do with, need I say more? Morley had written.
Jonathan thought about calling Gillespie now, and decided against it, but did decide to call Charlotte Gayle. He checked the time difference. Five-thirty here in London, seven hours behind. It would be ten thirty in the morning on the west coast.
He dialled her mobile from his landline.
‘Hi, Charlotte Gayle speaking.’
‘Charlotte, it’s Jonathan Waters.’
A pause. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Are you in contact with Rachel?’
Another pause.
He carried on. ‘I think you might be. I’m finding stuff out, stuff I can’t discuss on the phone. Rachel could be in trouble and I want to help her.’ He waited a second. ‘And so should you.’
‘Look,’ she hesitated. ‘I have a PO Box for her.’ A rustle on the phone.
‘Go on.’
‘There’s something that should become known ... I was going to call Tom Gillespie, but I was unsure.’ The line went quiet for a few seconds. ‘I told Liam to contact Gillespie, to tell him.’
‘Tell him what?’
‘I can’t talk about this on the phone. But I’m worried about Rachel, too. I’ve meetings I have to stay here for, but I’ll come home as soon as I can, and talk with you.
‘Be easier if you told me now. Is this something about Liam?’
‘We’ll speak soon,’ she said.
‘I think she plans to kill him,’ Jonathan said.
‘Liam?’
‘No, Michael Hemmings.’
Why did she think Liam?
‘I’ll be home as soon as I can, Jonathan.’ She hung up.
Jonathan threw the phone on the sofa. Something was going down with the twat, Liam, and he thought he knew what it might be. He felt Rachel’s pain; he felt it as if he was feeling it himself. He wanted to hold her, protect her, love her. He wanted to save her, from everything and everyone.
—
It took Jonathan a little longer than he’d anticipated to finish the NHS assignment. He wasn’t sure if this was because he had absolutely no interest in the subject, or because most of his time had been spent at the psych unit a mile down the road from the hospital asking questions. The unit was closely affiliated with Broadmoor in Berkshire. The opportunity to find out more about the inner workings of the mental health system was God-given.
Jonathan had always assumed that the people who went into these institutions never came out. He was wrong. There seemed to be a whole system of which the public in general had absolutely no knowledge. Joe Public had their eyes on the headline offenders – the patients that would never see the light of day again, who would spend the rest of their lives within these institutions. Although, there had been several cases where, not that many years after trial, ‘patients’ who had previously been detained ‘without limit of time’, were later put in an institution – being diagnosed with a personality disorder, rather than a ‘mental disorder’ or with ‘severe mental health problems’ – and so viable to be considered for a tribunal review.
Those patients deemed to be cured, or on the way to recovery, were duly sent to an independent step-down psychiatric unit. Like the one near to the hospital Jonathan was investigating. It mattered not how heinous the original crime had been. If a panel of experts, including a specialist judge, decided the patient was ‘treatable’ and was responding to treatment, then that patient had the opportunity to present his/her case, and if that outcome was positive, he or she could be offered a place in one of these units. This could then lead to the offender having much more freedom; mixing with the public with a ‘shadow’ or chaperone. And, eventually, as long as they did not live or visit the area where the crime was committed, the patient could, in theory, attain full freedom. Jonathan had spoken at length with psychiatrists at the independent unit, and with a few of the patients. It appeared well-run. Broadmoor seemed a world away from the chaos at Littleworth, thank Christ, he thought.
Hemmings had already attended one tribunal and was soon to sit his second. Rachel understood the implications of this, and it was the reason why, five years after the devastating and brutal murder of her son, she had ‘disappeared’.
His quest to find Rachel was turning into something more. He found himself thinking about Michael Hemmings’ trial – the prosecution had never pinned down his real motivation for killing Joe. The evidence was circumstantial; the conviction had relied heavily on Hemmings’ confession. Now Jonathan wasn’t sure what had motivated Joe’s murder. His recent research implied that in high likelihood motivation existed, no matter how warped it might turn out to be.
—
It was a few more days before Jonathan had time to go to Cambri – Harry had landed him with an unexpected editorial, too. He’d called the school and spoken with a Stanley Fishel. Jonathan explained that he was writing an article about small businesses and tax evasion.
He was meeting Fishel later that afternoon.
He tapped his mobile rhythmically, thinking about the information he’d unearthed about Cambri. For the last five years, they had been doing something quite creative with their accounts. It seemed the small school was not paying all the tax that it should. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the information to elicit his own from Mr Fishel. He hoped Mr Fishel had some information.
Jonathan had done more ferreting around on the computer, and managed to find on Marek’s records a telephone number for an address near the school, registered to Langfen Xú. Rachel must have called Mrs Xú from the clinic in Warsaw. He’d conjectured that was where ‘Amanda’ was, or had been, staying, mainly because after more investigating, he knew Mrs Xú took in paying guests, short term stays only.
Jonathan was due at Cambri at two-thirty. It was ten and he’d just received a text from Toby Abbs, who’d informed him that an Amanda McCarthy, American from Ohio, had visited Michael Hemmings. Abbs hoped, he’d said in the text, that his help would persuade Jonathan not to say anything to the director about his relationship with Michael Hemmings.
He had spent the morning researching Amanda McCarthys in Ohio; he found two still alive, but it was the one who had died a few years previously who caught his attention. He’d seen and heard terrible stories in his career, but the American woman’s tale had affected him strongly. He was sure that was the Amanda who Rachel was basing herself on.
Although the temperature was oddly high for the time of year, London was as grey as it ever was. Jonathan paid and tipped the cabbie who dropped him outside Cambri in Soho.
Stanley Fishel answered Cambri’s door at exactly two-thirty. Jonathan had been waiting outside for twenty minutes, and he’d had a double espresso from the deli next door and had finished it off.
‘Jonathan Waters?’
‘Great you could see me,’ Jonathan said, unsmiling.
Stanley shook his hand. ‘Come through.’
He followed the ambling but handsome man through to a large kitchen area. Jonathan found it difficult to nail Fishel’s age. Anything between fifty and sixty-five.
‘Coffee?’
Jonathan shook his head.
‘I’d like to see some ID,’ Stanley said.
Jonathan pulled out his NUJ card. Stanley barely looked at it.
‘I was surprised you agreed to see me, to be honest.’
‘Let us be transparent. Cambri could do without this. We are small. This could ruin us.’ Stanley allowed himself a fey smile. ‘It’s only been the last few years. The rents around here went through the roof five years ago. We struggle.’
It was now Jonathan’s turn to be transparent. He disliked massive businesses getting away with tax evasion, and didn’t condone what Stanley was doing with his small set-up, but that was not the reason he was here. Although he did hope it might be a reason why Stanley might open up.
He took in Stanley Fishel’s overall appearance, clocking that he looked like Albert Einstein. ‘There might be something else you could help me with.’
Stanley grinned. ‘A complimentary course?’
Jonathan smiled. The guy had a sense of humour. ‘No, I don’t need voice coaching, and I’m not cut out to be an actor.’ He watched the distinguished older man in front of him. ‘And I’m not really interested in small-time tax evasion either.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘I want to know if you’ve had an Amanda McCarthy registered here as a student recently.’
‘You’re not her husband, are you?’
‘I’m Amanda’s friend. It’s a long story.’
Stanley sipped from a bright yellow mug. ‘She was here a few weeks ago. I liked her.’ He placed the mug deliberately on the table. ‘She said she was researching a book.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t think she was researching a book. Why was Amanda here?’
‘Like I said, long story.’ Despite small-time tax evasion, Jonathan had decided almost immediately that he liked this man.
‘I’ve got an hour,’ Stanley said.
Jonathan told Stanley the story that he knew; and the story that he thought he knew, figuring he had nothing to lose.
Stanley had perched himself on the side of the table. When Jonathan finished he whistled. ‘That would make a great script.’ He watched Jonathan. ‘She did well here. Obviously not a professional, but she learnt quickly. She managed to master a few accents but was most keen on one in particular.’
‘And that was?’
‘The Ohio accent.’
‘Did you get to know her?’
‘I was her teacher. I knew, sensed, Amanda was, almost like two people. Distanced, disconnected.’ Stanley opened a leather satchel that hung over the chair, and pulled out his mobile. ‘I have a photo of her ... here. I took it one day in the school; she was a bit miffed I took it. I was going to ask her if I could use it on our website – an example of our friendly school – but never got around to asking, seeing as she seemed so opposed to having her photograph taken. I gave her a print of it, though.’ Stanley stared at the image. ‘Nice photo, I thought. She left before the end of the course and seemed in a hurry.’ He pointed to his phone. ‘But that’s what she looks like now. ‘What was Amanda ... Rachel like before?’
Jonathan took the phone and squinted. ‘Nothing like this.’
‘Perhaps she looked more like Julia ...’ he smiled gingerly.
Jonathan’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, ‘Julia?’
‘Roberts. Only a small joke between us. I’ve got your mobile number. I’ll forwards this to you.’
‘Thanks.’ Jonathan looked at his watch. ‘And if I were you, I’d get a better accountant.’
‘I may well do that.’ He stared at Jonathan. ‘Perhaps you should just let her get on with it?’
‘I know what you mean, but I can’t.’ He smiled weakly.
Stanley only nodded and showed Jonathan back to the front entrance.
Back home, he went through Amanda McCarthy’s details again. She died early 2004. Heroin overdose. Three children, now all living in Pennsylvania. Amanda was a frequent visitor to Chillicote Correctional Facility, visiting Stephen Passaro – a really lovely character – on death row for murdering his wife and three children. He was sizzled in 2003. There had been rumours that Amanda McCarthy had killed her second husband, a sheep farmer in Toledo, by inserting a cattle prod into his anus, and switching it on. Jonathan shivered, and clenched his own bottom.
He now understood the ‘US’ in Gorski’s diary. Amanda/Rachel was American, from the US. And this was probably where Rachel/Amanda intended to disappear to once she’d achieved her aim.
Rachel had assumed Amanda’s identity, including an American passport. The works.
Jonathan couldn’t quite believe it.