The Widow (33 page)

They went round the corner and he started the engine. ‘Just want to see where they live,' he told himself. ‘That's all. Where's the harm in that? They won't even know I've been here.'

Driving home the back way, he pulled over and edged up a farm track, turned off his phone and masturbated. He tried to think about Dawn, but she kept sliding out of the picture. He sat afterwards, shocked by the intensity of the experience and afraid of the man he'd turned out to be. He told himself it would never happen again. He would stop going online, he'd stop looking at porn. It was a sickness and he'd get better.

He never used TallDarkStranger again and he dropped off Dawn's radar in the weeks that followed, but on 2 October he was given a delivery in Winchester and he knew that he would drive down Bella's street again.

He turned on the radio as he made his way, to distract himself, but all he could think of was that golden glint. ‘I'll just look to see if they are there,' he told himself. But when he stopped for fuel on the motorway, he bought a sleeping bag from the bargain basket and sweets.

He was so wrapped up in his fantasy that he missed his turning and had to double back to the garage. It felt dreamlike as he acted the delivery man for the customer, joking and asking after business, holding his secret close. He was on his way to Manor Road and nothing could stop him.

The danger was part of the reason he was doing it. Glen Taylor, former bank executive and devoted husband, could see the shame, the disgrace he risked by his actions, but TallDarkStranger wanted to stand close to it, to touch it, be singed by it.

‘See you soon, Glen,' one of the blokes in the Parts Department called.

‘Yeah. Bye,' he replied. He walked to the van and climbed in. There was still time to turn back, to go home and be himself again. But he knew what he would do and indicated to pull out.

Manor Road was deserted. Everyone was at work or indoors. He drove slowly, as if looking for an address, playing the part. Then he saw her, standing behind a low wall, looking at a grey cat rolling in the dust on the pavement. Time slowed and he found he'd stopped the van. The sound of the engine had distracted the child and she was looking at him and smiling.

He was jolted back to reality when a front door slammed shut behind the van, and in the wing mirror he saw an elderly man standing on the doorstep. Glen pulled away, turning left into a side street almost immediately, and drove around the block. Had the old boy seen him? Seen his face? And if he had, so what? He'd done nothing wrong. Just parked up.

But he knew he had to go back. The little girl was waiting for him.

The van pulled forward to turn back into Manor Road and Glen could see there was no one there. The only living things were the cat and the child, standing inside her garden, waving to him.

He didn't remember getting out or walking over to her. He remembered picking her up and holding her and getting back in the van, strapping her into the passenger seat. It took less than a minute and she didn't make any fuss. She took the sweetie and sat quietly as he took her away from Manor Road.

D
AWN HAS ALWAYS
been on the telly. She likes to tell everyone that Bella is alive. That someone took her because they couldn't have children and wanted a child so badly. Someone who's looking after her, loving her and giving her a good life. Dawn has got married now – one of the volunteers from her campaign, an older man who always seems to be touching her. She's got another little girl. Where's the justice in that? She holds her new baby tight when she's on the breakfast show, to show what a good mother she is, but she doesn't fool me.

Before he died, if Glen was in the room, he'd turn the telly off, casually, to pretend he didn't care, and then go out. But if he wasn't there, I'd watch. And buy the papers and magazines when they wrote about Bella. I loved seeing the pictures and videos of her. Playing, laughing, opening her Christmas presents, singing in her baby way, words muddled up, pushing her little pram. I've got quite a collection now from the magazines and newspapers Dawn has talked to. She has always loved the publicity. Her five minutes of fame.

And now, I am about to have mine.

When Mick finally turns up he's carrying bags of shopping and a Chinese takeaway. ‘Couldn't be bothered to cook,' Kate says with a laugh. ‘Thought we could have a treat instead.'

Mick's clearly staying, too and I try to remember where I put the sheets and duvet for the sofa bed.

‘Don't mind me, Jean,' he says with his teenager grin. ‘I can sleep on the floor. I'm not fussy.'

I shrug. I'm too fed up with the whole thing to care any more. Once, I would've run round making up beds, putting clean towels out, changing the soap for a new bar. But now I can't be bothered. I sit with a plate of noodles and shiny red chicken on my knee and wonder if I have the energy to lift my fork.

Kate and Mick sit on the sofa facing me. They are eating the noodles without any enthusiasm. ‘This is horrible,' Mick says eventually and gives up.

‘You chose it,' Kate says and looks at my full plate. ‘Sorry, Jean. Shall I get you something else?'

I shake my head. ‘Just a cup of tea,' I say. Mick asks if I've got any tins in the cupboard and goes off to make beans on toast for himself. I get up to go to bed, but Kate turns on the news and I sit back down. They are saying something about soldiers and Iraq and I lean back in my seat.

The next item is me. I can't believe what I'm seeing. My face in one of the pictures Mick took. ‘Mick, quick, your stuff's on the television,' Kate shouts through to the kitchen and he races in and drops heavily on to the sofa.

‘Fame at last,' he says with a grin as the presenter rattles on about the exclusive interview I've given to the
Daily Post
and my ‘revelation' that Glen was responsible for taking Bella. I start to say something but the programme cuts to Dawn, who's been crying, all swollen eyes, and she's asked what she thinks about the interview. ‘She's an evil monster,' she says and it takes me a minute to realize she means me. Me. ‘She must've known all along,' she wails. ‘She must've known what her husband did to my poor baby.'

I stand up and turn on Kate. ‘What have you written?' I demand. ‘What have you said to make me the evil monster? I trusted you, I told you everything.'

She has difficulty looking me in the eye, but Kate tells me Dawn has ‘got it all wrong'.

‘That isn't what the story says,' she insists. ‘It says you're another of Glen's victims, that you only realized much later that he could've taken her.'

Mick is nodding dumbly, backing her up, but I don't believe them. I'm so angry I go out of the room. I can't bear their betrayal. Then I go back in. ‘Leave now,' I say. ‘Get out or I'll call the police and have you removed.'

There's silence while Kate wonders if she can talk me round again. ‘But the money, Jean …' she starts to say as I usher her and Mick into the hall, and I cut her off. ‘Keep it,' I say and open the front door. Mr Telly's still standing at the end of the path with his crew.

As she reaches the gate, he says something to her, but she's already on the phone to Terry, explaining how it's all gone ‘pear-shaped'. I beckon the film crew in. I've something I want to say.

D
AYS AND THEN WEEKS
had ticked by without a decision being made to re-arrest Taylor. The new bosses clearly didn't want to stumble down the same disastrous path as their predecessors and defended their inaction strenuously.

‘Where's the evidence to link Taylor with this new CCTV? Or the internet club?' DCI Wellington had asked after watching the images. ‘We've got a partial number plate and the dodgy word of a porn merchant. There's no further identification of the suspect – apart from your gut feeling, Bob.'

Sparkes had been ready to resign, but he couldn't abandon Bella.

They were so close. The Forensics team were working on the number plate of the van in the CCTV to try to tease out one more digit or letter, and experts were trying to match phrasing in the emails from TallDarkStranger and BigBear. He almost had his hand on Glen Taylor's arm.

So when he heard that Glen Taylor was dead, he felt it like a physical blow.

‘Dead?'

An officer he knew from the Met had called as soon as the news came through to the operations room. ‘Thought you'd want to know immediately, Bob. Sorry.'

It was the ‘sorry' that did it. He hung up and put his head in his hands. They both knew there would be no confession now, no moment of triumph. Bella would never be found.

His head suddenly shot up. Jean. She was free of him now – she could speak out, tell the truth about that day.

Sparkes shouted for Salmond and when she put her head round the door he croaked, ‘Glen Taylor is dead. Knocked over by a bus. We're going to Greenwich.'

Salmond looked as if she might cry, but checked herself and went into Superwoman mode, organizing and chivvying.

In the car, Sparkes filled in the details for her. She knew as much about the case as he did but he needed to say everything out loud, to walk himself through it all.

‘I always thought that Jean was covering for Glen. She was a decent woman but she was completely dominated by him. They married young – he was the bright one, the one who did well at school and had a good job, and she was his pretty little wife.'

Salmond glanced at her boss. ‘Pretty little wife?'

He had the grace to laugh. ‘What I mean is that Jean was so young when they met, he swept her off her feet with his suit and prospects. She never had a chance to be her own person.'

‘I think my mum was a bit like that,' Salmond said, indicating to turn off the motorway.

Not you, though, Sparkes thought. He'd met her husband. Nice solid bloke who didn't try to outshine her or put her down.

‘Sounds like it could be a
folie à deux
, Sir,' Salmond said thoughtfully. ‘Like Brady and Hindley, or Fred and Rose West. I looked at their cases for a paper I wrote at college. A couple share a psychosis or a delusion because one is so dominant. They end up believing the same thing – their right to do something, for example. They share a value system that is not accepted by anyone outside their partnership or relationship. Not sure I'm explaining it properly. Sorry.'

Bob Sparkes was silent for a bit, turning the theory over in his head. ‘But if it was a
folie à deux
, then Jean knew and approved when Glen took Bella.'

‘It's happened before. Like I said,' Salmond continued without taking her eyes off the road. ‘Then when you separate the couple, the one who's been dominated can quite quickly stop sharing the delusion. They kind of come to their senses. Do you see what I mean?'

But Jean Taylor had not let the mask slip when Glen had gone inside. Was it possible that he had kept control of her from behind bars?

‘I wondered about cognitive dissonance or selective amnesia,' Sparkes ventured, a little nervous about trying out his homework reading in Forensic Psychology. ‘Maybe she was too frightened of losing everything to admit the truth? I read that trauma can make the mind delete things that are too painful or stressful. So she deleted any details that challenged her belief that Glen was innocent.'

‘But can you really do that? Make yourself believe that black is white?' Salmond asked.

The human mind is a powerful thing, Sparkes thought, but it sounded too trite to say out loud.

‘I'm not an expert, Zara. Just been doing some reading at home. We'd have to talk to someone who's done the research.'

It was the first time he'd called her Zara and he felt a prickle of embarrassment. Inappropriate, he told himself – he'd always called Ian Matthews by his surname at work. He risked a quick glance at his sergeant. She showed no sign of offence or even of having registered his unprofessional slip.

‘Who would we approach, Sir?'

‘I know an academic who might be able to give us a steer. Dr Fleur Jones helped us before.'

He was grateful that Salmond didn't react to the name. It hadn't been Fleur Jones's fault that everything had gone bad.

‘Why don't you call her?' she said. ‘Before we get there. We need to know the best way to approach Jean Taylor.'

Salmond pulled over at the next service station and began to dial.

An hour later, Sparkes walked through the Accident and Emergency department doors.

‘Hello, Jean,' he said and sat down beside her on an orange moulded-plastic chair. She barely moved to acknowledge him. She looked so pale and her eyes were blackened by grief.

‘Jean,' he said again and took her hand. He'd never touched her before, beyond guiding her into a police car, but he couldn't help himself. She looked so vulnerable.

Jean Taylor's hand was frigid in his hot hands, but he wouldn't let go. He kept talking, low and urgent, taking his chance.

‘You can tell me now, Jean. You can tell me what Glen did with Bella, where he put her. There's no need for secrets now. It was Glen's secret, not yours. You were his victim, Jean. You and Bella.'

The widow turned her head away from him and seemed to shudder.

‘Please tell me, Jean. Let it go now and you'll have some peace.'

‘I don't know anything about Bella, Bob,' she said slowly, as if explaining to a child. Then she slipped her hand out of his grasp and started to cry. No sound, just tears running down off her chin on to her lap.

Sparkes sat on, unable to leave. Jean Taylor stood and walked away towards the Ladies'.

When she came out fifteen minutes later, she was holding a tissue to her mouth. She headed straight for the glass doors of A&E and was gone.