Authors: Alex Marwood
‘I don’t suppose,’ she says, ‘if she hasn’t wanted to say anything so far … if she’s going to talk it’ll have been negotiated.’
‘No,’ he says, ‘you’re not getting it. It’s not about her bloke. Well, it is, of course it is, ’cause no one would have spotted
it otherwise, but …’
She knows what’s coming immediately. Feels fear wash through her like Arctic ice. Drops the socks she’s rolling into a ball
and clutches the phone tightly because she’s afraid she’ll drop it too.
‘Turns out our Mrs Cantrell is actually Annabel Oldacre,’ he says.
A ‘no’ falls from her mouth. Not the ‘no’ he takes it for.
‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘No,’ she says again.
‘It’s a pretty definite ID,’ he says. ‘Victim’s sister, apparently.’
‘But she barely knew her,’ she blurts. ‘They only met when—’
She pulls herself up short before she lets any more out. She barely remembers Debbie Francis herself, she’s more of a blur
of piercings and nickel-studded leather than she is a face. She feels her skin crawl at the thought of how close she’s come
to exposing herself; feels iced water trickle down her back. In the other room, a burst of applause.
Stan continues as though he’s not noticed. ‘Well, yeah, but she went to every day of the court case, apparently. I guess they
must’ve thought it would be some sort of closure, or something. But she certainly got a good chance to study their faces while
she was there, didn’t she? Anyway, what are the odds?’
‘Not as long as you’d think,’ she says. ‘Surprisingly short, if anything. They’re the same odds it would be for anyone, actually,
with her social status and where she lives factored in. The fact that she … has a history … makes no difference to the odds.
There’s the odd violent death in Whitmouth every year, even
without a serial killer. Someone’s got to be married to the people who do them.’
‘Mmm,’ says Stan. ‘You’re right, I suppose. Anyway. It’s a story, isn’t it? Thing is, once it’s pointed out to you, it’s obvious.
You’d’ve thought they’d’ve got that bloody great mole taken off her face when they changed her name, wouldn’t you? It’s sort
of like they
wanted
her to be recognised. And “Amber”. They didn’t exactly fish about for a name, did they?’
‘I …’ She catches sight of her reflection in the window by the front door. Stares into it, studying her face for signs of
the child that once lived there. She sees little that she recognises: her face was always less individual, more common-or-garden,
than Bel’s, even without that mole; the sort of face you see streaming from school gates by the score. And besides, I was
fat then, she thinks. My features were blurred by years of chips and ketchup.
‘You coming, then?’ asks Stan.
Are you fucking kidding me? she thinks. I’ve got to be as far away from Annabel Oldacre as I can get. I should be on the next
plane to Australia. Tell Jim I’ve been sacked, leave journalism, get a job selling pizza in Queensland or somewhere, except
that no country worth living in would accept a residency application from the likes of me, and anyway that’s just the sort
of job the papers have been spotting me in for years. Getting a career, getting a degree, being a social-services success
story – that’s been the best cover I could have found. Hiding in among the jackals who seek me, the greatest camouflage. The
only thing better would have been to find some way of joining the police.
‘I – shit, Stan.’ She scrabbles for excuses. ‘No. I’m sorry. I can’t. Even if it wasn’t Dave Park’s territory, now. We’re
going up to Jim’s mum’s tomorrow. In Herefordshire. I’ve got to pack the kids’ stuff, get the house closed up …’
‘Jesus Christ,’ says Stan. ‘Priorities?’
‘Yeah, it’s called a family,’ she says, knowing how much it’ll annoy him, hoping it’ll make him hang up in disgust.
She hears him splutter. ‘Oh, come
on
, woman. What are you
on about? You’ve been trying to get a regular gig on News for
years
. If you can get her to talk, it’s a picture byline. Good God, it’s probably a
staff
job, if you can scoop the
Mirror
.’
She stays silent. Doesn’t trust her voice not to betray her fear. Hears him light a cigarette, prepare to have one more go
at persuading her. ‘Fish-and-chip wrappings, Kirsty,’ he says. ‘It’ll make fish-and-chip wrappings of that cock-up you made
last week. They’ll forget all about it.’
She pretends to consider.
‘God, look. No, Stan. Thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, but I’m sorry. I’ll give you Dave’s number, look. I’ll
call him for you. And anyway, he’ll have it in for me for ever if he thinks I’ve stolen his glory. You know what he’s like.’
‘Well. OK. Don’t say I never did you a favour.’
‘I won’t,’ she says. She can barely breathe. Wants him gone, so she can think. ‘I’m sorry, Stan. I’m dead grateful. Really
grateful. But I can’t do it. Gotta go. I’m sorry.’
‘Hang on—’ he starts, but she cuts him off. Sinks back against the step behind her. Sophie’s shed a sweatshirt, unwashed,
in among the clean laundry. She picks it up, buries her face in its musky pre-teen scent and breathes deeply. Oh God, the
kids, she thinks. What would it do to them?
She is frightened. A different fear from the fear she felt that night in Whitmouth, though the sense of something following,
something approaching from behind, is similar: an ancient, long-suppressed fear that creeps through her viscera, leaves her
hot and weak. You never know who’s watching, who’s waiting. You can never let your guard down, never feel safe. You can go
a year, three years, without an incident, then one day you open your inbox to find that someone you’ve always thought of as
reasonable, as civilised and thoughtful, has forwarded a round-robin email saying you’re about to be paroled and must never,
ever get out. Or someone goes to the papers claiming to have been drinking with you in a theme bar on the Costa del Crime,
or to have bought a house from you in Wythenshawe, or to have
been the object of your predatory lesbianism in some random prison, and you’re terrified all over again: waiting for your
husband to study those old photos one more time, and this time to look up with dawning recognition on his face. Waiting to
wake up one morning with the mob on your doorstep.
They’re already there on Amber’s, primed and ready for action. Dear God, she’s already been thrown to the lions. Those pictures
of her house – it was obvious they’ve been out there with their flaming torches and their pitchforks for days. It’s going
to be a bloodbath.
She hears the
Question Time
music start up in the living room. Struggles to compose herself before Jim comes out to find her.
Amber wakes to the sound of breaking glass. She hadn’t realised she’d fallen asleep; had only lain down on the bed to rest
for a few minutes at eight o’clock. She sits upright, fully dressed as she has been for the past few days, and ready to run.
Wonders whether to turn the light on and decides against. Light will show that she’s home, and at-home is more provocative
than away. Some irrational part of her has clung to the hope that, if she keeps a low profile, refuses to talk, refuses to
cooperate, the watchers outside will give up and go away. And even as she was hoping, she knew she was fooling herself. This
is the third window that’s been broken in the past twenty-four hours.
The clock tells her it’s gone eleven. She’s been out for the count for three hours. She feels for the table-leg she’s been
carrying around for comfort – wishes dearly that she lived in a country where baseball was commonplace – and gets carefully
out of bed. Her shoes – easy slip-ons for speedy exits – are on the bedside rug; she finds them, in the dark, in seconds.
She creeps through to the spare room. Even from the landing, she can hear the sound of movement out in the front garden: feet
shifting and the rasp of a throat being cleared. She can see the curtains wafting in the tiny breeze, a brick lying in a mess
of glass in the middle of the bed. They’re back. The neighbours, the drunks, the people who want her to know their Values:
they like to come down when the pub closes and share their feelings once
the press have gone to bed. The teenage policeman who occasionally stands outside is obviously gone, again. No one to take
pictures, so no need to be there. No one throws stones when the police are around.
She retreats to the bedroom, sits against the door and turns on her phone. Thirty-three missed calls, twelve messages. My
God, it’s got worse, she thinks. That’s more than yesterday. Has something happened? Something new? Or is it just that my
number’s getting passed around, from person to person, until by Thursday the whole country will have it? She ignores them;
scrolls through the address book to find the police station. No point dialling 999. It’ll come through to the same people
in the end, anyway.
She hunches against the door, listens to the empty ring. Registers, puzzlingly, that the dogs aren’t with her. They’ve been
reliable as the sunrise, since Vic was arrested. They follow her upstairs at bedtime to settle, comforting and thoughtful,
at the foot of the duvet, and are there to greet her in the morning: the we-have-survived-the-night awakening that gives her
the strength to go on. I must be sleeping more deeply than I’d thought, she thinks idly as she counts the rings. I’ve never
noticed that they get up in the night and do their own thing.
On the twelfth ring, a voice comes on the line: casual and unconcerned, for someone whose job it is to answer the phone in
the middle of the night. ‘Whitmouth Police?’
‘It’s Amber Gordon,’ she says, keeping her voice low, as though the people outside might be able to hear her through wood
and stone.
He doesn’t seem to recognise the name. ‘Victor Cantrell’s …’ she prompts.
‘Ah. Hello,’ he says, but his voice doesn’t sound friendly.
‘There’s someone outside my house. They’ve broken a window.’
‘OK,’ he says, but he doesn’t sound unduly concerned. ‘Give me a moment.’
Amber goes back to the corridor and listens. There are definitely people outside. They’re being quiet, deliberately so – she
hears a voice stage-whisper and another shush it quiet – but she can feel the presence, not just of people, but of a crowd.
Thinks she hears the metallic chink of someone trying the garden gate, tenses as she wonders if the bolts will hold. It’s
a feeble protection, she knows. The gate and fence would give under a couple of kicks. She just has to hope they know that
there’s a line that can’t be stepped over, a line where protest becomes trespass.
Though that’s not stopped them when it comes to criminal damage. It can’t be long now before someone decides that, with the
breaking already done, the entering is the next logical step. She can’t stay here.
‘Ms Gordon?’
Her heart jolts. She’d almost forgotten what she’d been waiting for.
‘We’re sending a patrol car round. They should be there in twenty minutes or so.’
Twenty minutes? I could be dead by then. ‘Can’t they get here sooner? What’s happened to the lad who was on my door?’
‘Limited resources,’ he replies. ‘Maybe you’d like to take it up with the Home Secretary. I don’t know if you’ve noticed,
but half the forces in the country have been providing backup to the Met this summer.’
How much am I supposed to bear? She feels her eyes fill with tears.
‘If you like,’ he says, ‘they could bring you down here.’
‘What for?’
‘We’ve been calling you all evening. You might want to consider protective custody. For the time being. It’s up to you.’
Cells and locks and corridors; the echo of painted concrete, the long, empty waits before the brief highlights of bland meals.
Solitary confinement without the human rights. The crushing memory of guilt, and Vic three rooms down. She jerks, like a dreamer
who’s found themselves falling. His ’n’ hers jail cells: partners in everything.
‘Why?’ she asks. ‘There must be some other … somewhere else. It can’t be a choice between here and a cell …’
‘Like I say. It’s up to you. But it might be best,’ he says, and adds again, significantly: ‘Under the
circumstances
.’
‘The circumstances’. What a lovely way to put it. ‘Can’t I … isn’t there somewhere else? I … you can’t really expect me to
… can’t you take me to a hotel or something?’
‘Well, Ms
Gordon
,’ he says, drawing out the name so it’s no longer a simple address but some insult she doesn’t understand, ‘it’s the only
way we can guarantee your safety,
under the circumstances
. We’ve been calling. You didn’t answer. And anyway, I very much doubt there’s a hotel that’ll be prepared to take you.’
‘You couldn’t guarantee my safety yesterday either,’ she protests. ‘Why are you suddenly so …?’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You don’t know.’
Creeping disquiet. ‘Know what?’
‘They know who you are, Ms Gordon. The papers.’
Her mouth goes dry. ‘Who I am …?’
‘Annabel Oldacre,’ he says. Then adds, spitefully: ‘But of course,
you
know that already.’
Amber hangs up.
She crawls, hands and knees, across the spare room and cracks a curtain aside. Peers into the darkened road, the glass-strewn
front garden. Jumps back, gasping for air. There must be thirty of them out there: standing, hands in pockets, staring at
the house like extras in a zombie movie. Oh God. I’m dead. By morning there will be hundreds.
She has to accept the policeman’s offer. The moment the squad car turns up, she’s got to be out of here, and damn what happens
next. If they come in, she will never survive.
She creeps downstairs, gets a hooded fleece and pulls it on. Calls, in a whisper, for the dogs. They have to come with her,
there’s no way she can leave them. Once the crowd has seen her the house is done for, and its contents with it. She knows
they
won’t let her keep the dogs in the station, but once she’s brought them in, they will become someone’s responsibility: they
can’t just chuck them on to the steps to fend for themselves. They’ll have to find something to do with them. The RSPCA. Something.
Anything is better than being left to the tender mercies of the mob.