The Widow
Authors: Fiona Barton
Contents
Dear Reader,
I've spent a lot of time watching people. Not just in cafés and railway stations, but as a job. As a journalist, I've been a professional watcher â a âtrained observer', we like to joke â picking up the body language and verbal tics that make us individuals and interesting to others.
Over the years, I've interviewed the victims, the guilty, the famous and the ordinary people affected by tragedy or good fortune. But, strangely, it is not always the people in the spotlight that have stayed with me. It is often those on the periphery, the bit players in the drama, who continue to haunt me.
In big trials â notorious and terrible crimes that make headlines â I have found myself watching the wife of the man in the dock and wondering what she really knew, or allowed herself to know.
You will have seen her too, on the news. You may have to look carefully, but she's there, standing quietly behind her man on the court steps. She nods and squeezes his arm as he protests his innocence because she believes in him.
But what happens when the cameras are packed away and the world stops watching?
I have an enduring image of two people eating shepherd's pie, like any other couple in their street, but unable to speak. The only sound is the scrape of cutlery on china as they struggle with the doubts seeping under their suburban front door.
Because, without witnesses or distractions, masks cannot help but slip.
I wanted â needed â to know how this woman copes with the idea that her husband â the man she chose â may be a monster.
And Jean Taylor emerged. She is the quiet woman I have seen so often on the steps of the court, the wife I have spotted, watching, expressionless, as her husband gives evidence.
In this, my first novel, Jean tells her public and private versions of an adored husband and happy marriage turned upside down when a child vanishes and the police and press arrive on her doorstep.
I hope you enjoy this book. I have loved writing it and can't thank Jean Taylor â and the women who inspired her â enough.
Fiona Barton
For Gary, Tom and Lucy,
without whom nothing would mean anything.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
The Widow
I
CAN HEAR THE SOUND
of her crunching up the path. Heavy footed in high heels. She's almost at the door, hesitating and smoothing her hair out of her face. Nice outfit. Jacket with big buttons, decent dress underneath and glasses perched on her head. Not a Jehovah's Witness or the Labour party. Must be a reporter, but not the usual. She's my second one today â fourth this week, and it's only Wednesday. I bet she says, âI'm sorry to bother you at such a difficult time.' They all say that and put on that stupid face. Like they care.
I'm going to wait to see if she rings twice. The man this morning didn't. Some are obviously bored to death with trying. They leave as soon as they take their finger off the bell, marching back down the path as fast as they can, into their cars and away. They can tell their bosses they knocked on the door but she wasn't there. Pathetic.
She rings twice. Then knocks loudly in that rap-rap-rappity-rap way. Like a policeman. She sees me looking through the gap at the side of my net curtains and smiles this big smile. A Hollywood smile, my mum used to say. Then she knocks again.
When I open the door, she hands me the bottle of milk from the doorstep and says, âYou don't want to leave that out, it'll go off. Shall I come in? Have you got the kettle on?'
I can't breathe, let alone speak. She smiles again, head on one side. âI'm Kate,' she says. âKate Waters, a reporter from the
Daily Post
.'
âI'mâ' I start, suddenly realizing she hasn't asked.
âI know who you are, Mrs Taylor,' she says. Unspoken are the words:
You are the story
. âLet's not stand out here,' she says. And as she talks, somehow, she's come in.
I feel too stunned by the turn of events to speak and she takes my silence as permission to go into the kitchen with the bottle of milk and make me a cup of tea. I follow her in â it's not a big kitchen and we're a bit of a squeeze as she bustles about, filling the kettle and opening all my cupboards, looking for cups and sugar. I just stand there, letting it all happen.
She's chatting about the units. âWhat a lovely fresh-looking kitchen â I wish mine looked like this. Did you put it in?'
It feels like I'm talking to a friend. It isn't how I thought it would be, talking to a reporter. I thought it would be like being questioned by the police. Thought it would be an ordeal, an 1interrogation. That's what my husband, Glen, said. But it isn't, somehow.
I say, âYes, we chose white doors and red handles because it looked so clean.' I'm standing in my house discussing kitchen units with a reporter. Glen would've had a fit.
She says, âThrough here, is it?' and I open the door to the living room.
I'm not sure if I want her here or not â not sure how I feel. It doesn't feel right to protest now â she's just sitting and chatting with a cup of tea in her hand. It's funny, I'm quite enjoying the attention. I get a bit lonely inside this house now that Glen is gone.
And she seems to be in charge of things. It's quite nice really, to have someone in charge of me again. I was beginning to panic that I'd have to cope with everything on my own, but Kate Waters is saying she'll sort everything out.
All I have to do is tell her all about my life, she says.
My life? She doesn't really want to know about me. She hasn't walked up my path to hear about Jean Taylor. She wants to know the truth about him. About Glen. My husband.
You see, my husband died three weeks ago. Knocked down by a bus just outside Sainsbury's. He was there one minute, giving me grief about what sort of cereal I should've bought, and the next, dead on the road. Head injuries, they said. Dead, anyway. I just stood there and looked at him, lying there. People were running round finding blankets and there was a bit of blood on the pavement. Not much blood though. He would've been glad. He didn't like any sort of mess.
Everyone was very kind and trying to stop me seeing his body, but I couldn't tell them I was glad he'd gone. No more of his nonsense.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
The Widow
T
HE POLICE CAME TO THE
hospital, of course. Even DI Bob Sparkes turned up at A&E to talk about Glen.
I said nothing to him or any of the others. Told them there was nothing to say, I was too upset to talk. Cried a bit.
DI Bob Sparkes has been a part of my life for so long â over three years it is now â but I think perhaps he will disappear with you, Glen.
I don't say any of this to Kate Waters. She sits in the other armchair in the sitting room, nursing her mug of tea and jiggling her foot.
âJean,' she says â No more Mrs Taylor, I notice â âthis last week must have been terrible for you. And after all you've already been through.'
I say nothing, just stare at my lap. She has no idea what I've been through. No one has, really. I've never been able to tell anyone. Glen said that was best.
We wait in silence, then she tries a different tack. She stands up and picks up a photo of us from the mantelpiece â both of us laughing at something.
âYou look so young,' she says. âWas this before you got married?'
I nod.
âDid you know each other a long time before that? Did you meet at school?'
âNo, not at school. We met at a bus stop,' I tell her. âHe was very good-looking and he made me laugh. I was seventeen, an apprentice at a hairdresser's in Greenwich, and he worked in a bank. He was a bit older and wore a suit and good shoes. He was different.'
I'm making it sound like some romantic novel and Kate Waters is lapping it up, scribbling in her notebook, peering at me over those little glasses and nodding as if she understands. She isn't fooling me.
Actually, Glen didn't seem the romantic sort at first. Our courtship was mainly in the dark â the cinema, the back seat of his Escort, the park â and there wasn't much time for talking. But I remember the first time he told me he loved me. I prickled all over, like I could feel every inch of my skin. I felt alive for the first time in my life. I told him I loved him, too. Desperately. That I couldn't eat or sleep for thinking about him.
My mum said it was a âfascination' on my part when I mooned around the house. I wasn't sure what it meant, âfascination', but I wanted to be with Glen all the time and back then he said he felt the same. I think Mum was a bit jealous. She relied on me.
âShe relies on you too much, Jeanie,' Glen said. âNot healthy to be going everywhere with your daughter.'
I tried to explain about Mum being frightened of going out on her own, but Glen said she was being selfish.
He was so protective, picking a seat for me in the pub away from the bar â âDon't want it to be too noisy for you' â and ordering for me at restaurants so I tasted new things â âYou'll love this, Jeanie. Just try it.' So I did and sometimes the new things were lovely. And if they weren't, I didn't say anything in case I hurt his feelings. He would go quiet if I went against him. I hated that. Felt I'd disappointed him.
I'd never been out with someone like Glen, someone who knew what they wanted in life. The other boys were just that â boys.
Two years later, when Glen proposed, he didn't go down on one knee. He held me very close and said, âYou belong to me, Jeanie. We belong together ⦠Let's get married.'
He'd won Mum over by then, anyway. He'd come with flowers â âA little something for the other woman in my life,' he'd say to make her giggle and he'd talk to her about
Coronation Street
or the Royal Family and Mum loved it. She said I was a lucky girl. That he'd brought me out of myself. Would make something of me. She could see he'd take care of me. And he did.
âWhat was he like, then?' Kate Waters asks, leaning forward to encourage me. Then. She means before all the bad stuff.
âOh, he was a lovely man. Very lovey-dovey, couldn't do enough for me,' I say. âAlways bringing me flowers and presents. Said I was the one. I was blown over by it all. I was only seventeen.'