I Looked Away, page 1
Jane Corry
* * *
I LOOKED AWAY
Contents
Prologue
Part One: BEFORE THE ACCIDENT Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Part Two: AFTER THE ACCIDENT Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Part Three: THE TRIAL Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
A Note from Jane
Acknowledgements
I Looked Away: The Science Behind the Story
References
About the Author
Jane Corry is a former magazine journalist who spent three years working as the writer-in-residence of a high security prison for men. This often hair-raising experience helped inspire her previous Sunday Times-bestselling psychological thrillers, My Husband’s Wife, Blood Sisters and The Dead Ex. Jane was a tutor in creative writing at Oxford University and is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and My Weekly magazine. She is an award-winning short story writer and also lectures all over the world on creative writing as well as speaking at literary festivals. My Husband’s Wife has recently been optioned as a television series. Jane’s books are published in more than 35 countries.
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT
I LOOKED AWAY
★★★★★ ‘WOW, just WOW! I was absolutely blown away by this book’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘Riveting’ NetGalley
★★★★★ ‘The twist almost made me drop my Kindle in shock’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘This book completely stunned me’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about it’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘Oh my – this book was an absolute DELIGHT’ NetGalley
★★★★★ ‘I couldn’t put it down. It seemed so real, I was in pieces by the end’ NetGalley
★★★★★ ‘OUTSTANDING’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘Highly recommend … be prepared for surprises!’ NetGalley
★★★★★ ‘Kept you guessing right until the end … I couldn’t put it down’ NetGalley
★★★★★ ‘Jane Corry gets better and better’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘I loved it from beginning to end’ NetGalley
★★★★★ ‘A must-read’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘This had me frantically turning the pages to find out what happened next’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘Thank you Jane Corry for another CRACKING read’ Goodreads
★★★★★ ‘Wow, what a fabulous read this was’ NetGalley
In memory of my mother: the warmest, kindest grandmother of all.
Also to my husband, children and grandchildren – as well as my funny, naughty network of new granny friends.
Finally, a big hug to Doris, our much-loved grandmother, who lived with us for all those years. My sister and I had to call her by her first name as she thought ‘granny’ made her seem old!
I shouldn’t walk too fast.
But if I go too slow, I will be a moving target.
Every bone in my body is scared in case I feel a hand on my shoulder. A tugging at my arm.
Cars drive past. Some kerb-crawl, as if checking road signs. I’m frozen with terror. What if they want something else?
I move on. Squat on a damp pavement.
‘Please help me,’ I plead. ‘Give me something to eat.’
My belly might be full for a time. But what happens after that?
Will you get me on the street?
Ben Westwood, poet and author of Poems from a Runaway
DAILY TELEGRAPH
CHILD DIES IN ‘TRAGIC ACCIDENT’
A young boy has died in what police are describing as a ‘tragic accident’. No further details have been released.
Prologue
Ellie
Oxfordshire
Saturday 17 August 2019. A date that will forever be engraved on my heart, although I don’t know that at this precise minute in time. Right now, it’s simply a scorching summer day, just as the forecasters predicted. Roger and I have the rest of our lives before us. It’s what the marriage counsellor said when she signed us off. You’ve agreed to give him a new start. It’s a clean slate. Don’t look back.
But although I’m trying to take her advice, I can’t quite ignore the invisible scar that I carry around with me. A constant nagging pain inside.
‘Doing something’ helps. That’s why I’m walking into town in my new turquoise sandals with gold trimming – which I’m rather pleased with – to replace my favourite ‘miracle’ moisturizer. I’d never win a Glamorous Granny competition but I do get a real kick when people say, ‘What? You’ve got a grandson of four? You don’t look old enough.’ At forty-nine, I’ve finally settled into my skin in a way I never did as a gauche teenager. I have my family and my own interests now, as well as my voluntary work at the prison. It keeps me busy. Helps to distract me from the past.
‘Big Issue,’ pipes up the woman squatting on the pavement outside Boots. She speaks in the same hopeful voice, but without the accent of some of the other homeless people I’ve seen around here. I’ve regularly bought magazines from her and she can seem rather abrupt, though she’s pleasant enough.
She arrived on our high street around eighteen months ago in her purple ‘hippy trousers’ (the type that balloon at the sides and then taper to the ankles), along with those silver and gold tattoo stars down her neck, a baggy navy-blue windcheater, plug earrings, shaved head and a weather-worn face that could make her age anything from forty upwards. After seeing her a few times, I started to give her a little extra for something to eat, which she promptly stuffed into one of her voluminous pockets. ‘Ta,’ she always said. Then she’d brush her hands together as if washing off some unseen dirt from the money. Another of her habits, I noticed, was to hum quietly, although it was hard to make out a proper tune.
One day, I found myself asking how long she’d been homeless for. ‘On and off,’ she said vaguely. It was the beginning of a series of short conversations each time I bought a magazine. She even told me her name was Jo (although the way she said it made me suspect it wasn’t the one she was born with), and how she ‘couldn’t be bothered with school’ as a child. (‘Mind you, I used to read a lot in prison,’ she declared.) I wondered what she’d been in for but didn’t like to ask. One time we had a fascinating discussion about whether the new government homelessness guidelines were actually going to help people on the streets.
When the weather got bitter, I was so worried about her that I even tried to find her accommodation – although that didn’t work out. Maybe I got too involved, but it’s my nature to help. It seems so wrong that in this day and age we still have people without homes and food. But a few months ago, when the old suspicions about Roger began to loom again, I saw Jo staggering out of the pub, blind drunk. It wasn’t exactly the waste of my money and everyone else’s that upset me. It was more the thought that I had been taken for a ride. Of course, I don’t care for alcohol myself. Not with my history.
Since then, I confess I’ve tried to avoid her, sometimes crossing the street and pretending I haven’t seen her. But on this particular scorching August morning, for some reason I feel the need to stop.
‘Thanks,’ she says, looking down at the palm of her grimy hand. It’s the correct change for the magazine. Her disappointment makes me feel bad. There’s something about this square-jawed, skinny, shaven-headed woman that gives her both a vulnerable and tough air at the same time. I find myself reaching into my bag for some extra money.
And then I see her. Carole.
For a minute, I stand riveted to the spot as I take in the sight of this woman who so nearly destroyed my family. I’m not the kind of person who swears much, but I could happily curse to hell those shapely twenty-denier sun-kissed legs, flaunted shamelessly in those strappy creamy stilettos. Her nipped-in dress (so much more stylish than my summer jeans) show off that slim waist in such a way that I wonder if the woman ever eats. I can put on four pounds just by looking at a chocolate bar.
Carole’s arms are bare, I notice – she’s younger than me and has no need of sleeves to hide the loose flab that sneaked up on me a few years ago, in my mid-forties. My rival has long brunette hair (not dead straight and mousy like mine), which pretends to nestle naturally below her shoulders, but I know for a fact is blow-dried every Thursday. I’m aware of this because one of my friends goes to the same hairdresser. This is the sort of medium-sized, honey-stoned Oxfordshire town – just twenty minutes from the city itself – where everyone knows everyone else’s business.
I wish to God that we’d never set eyes on this place. Or her.
Carole is now walking along the high street straight towards me with that confident stride, navy handbag swinging from her shoulder. Her tinted sunglasses are artfully perched on top of her head as if to show off the designer brand rather than be of practical use. She is wearing bright coral-orange lipstick. The same shade that I’d found on Roger’s shirt just after Christmas. ‘Mine!’ it had screamed out at me.
I choose safe shades myself. Either translucent lip gloss or – for special occasions – Pale Peach. But where has ‘safe’ ever got me?
The very sight of the woman makes my knees judder. I put out my hands to steady myself but in so doing drop my purse. Coins clatter on the pavement. What is she doing here? The last time I’d driven past Carole’s pretty brick-and-flint cottage with honeysuckle around the door, it had a SOLD sign outside. Roger had sworn she’d moved back to London. Yet here she is, heading straight for me.
‘It’s Carole’s,’ my husband finally admitted at Christmas when I confronted him about the lipstick. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie. This is the real thing. We’ve put down a deposit on a place in Clapham.’ Then he groaned as if he was in pain. ‘The thing is, I love her.’
No. He couldn’t. I wouldn’t allow it. Of course, Roger had had his liaisons before but he’d never mentioned the word ‘love’. That belonged to us. His family.
I had tugged his lapels, pulling him towards me. My husband still wore brown tweed jackets indoors, just as he had during his lecturing days.
‘How can you throw away twenty-eight years of marriage?’ I had sobbed. ‘I thought we’d grow old together. And what about the children?’
‘For pity’s sake, Ellie,’ he said, pushing me away as if he couldn’t bear my touch. ‘The kids are grown up.’
But children need their parents, however old they are. Don’t I know that all too well?
Fear then turned to anger. ‘What about Josh, then?’ I spat. ‘Do you really want us to tell him that his granddad has left us for another woman? What will he think of you when he grows up?’
Roger shrugged. ‘I’ll be there for him. Carole likes kids. She’s always wanted them. She won’t mind if he comes to stay at weekends.’
‘You can’t do this! I won’t let you!’
He took another step away, eyeing me as though I was a stranger. ‘Let’s face it, Ellie. Ever since I found out what you did, I just can’t see you in the same light. We’re not too old to start again. So …’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘I want a divorce.’
There was only one thing to do. Years ago, I’d promised to give it up. But old habits die hard. Luckily, kitchen scissors were at hand.
‘For God’s sake, Ellie!’ he screamed, grabbing a tea towel to press to my bleeding wrist. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
I have a sudden flashback of my stepmother’s voice. ‘What’s wrong with you, Ellie?’
It chills my bones to think of it.
After they had sewed me up at the Radcliffe, Roger told me (with a sad look on his face), that maybe, on reflection, I was right. He couldn’t break up the family. He was going to stay. And yes, he would finally agree to counselling if I absolutely promised not to hurt myself again. He said that he’d told Carole and she’d ‘accepted it’.
‘Here you are, love.’
The Big Issue seller’s voice breaks into my thoughts, bringing me back to the present. At my feet, she is scooping up my scattered coins on the pavement. ‘They’re all here. Honest.’
Embarrassed, I reach down to accept them. As I do so, I glimpse the cream stilettos. Smell an overpowering sickly scent. Then I hear Carole above me. Loud enough so only I can hear. She has one of those little-girl voices that are so irritating in women of a certain age – yet which some men fall for, every time. ‘I thought you should know, we’re still seeing each other,’ she hisses.
I peer up at her, my heart thumping.
‘Roger wants me to be part of the family. Is your grandson enjoying his new playhouse, by the way?’
How did she know about that? Roger had bought it for our garden as a present for Josh. He must have seen Carole without telling me and mentioned it in conversation. My mouth goes dry. Or was it even possible that she had been there when Roger chose it?
I feel sick at the thought. Maybe the shop staff assumed that she was his real flesh-and-blood grandmother …
‘Leave me alone! You’re a liar,’ I say shakily.
She puts her head on one side, as if questioning me. ‘Really? From what I’ve heard, you’re the one who’s been doing that all your life. Some might say that you’re not fit to look after children …’
Had Roger betrayed me? Or had she found out from someone else? Maybe she’d looked up my name. There would be a record somewhere. What would I do if it came out?
‘How dare you,’ I try to say, but the words are strangled in my mouth. Before I can get them out, Carole has disappeared, swallowed up by high-street shoppers with their smart carrier bags.
‘I’m back,’ I call out. I lock the door behind me, hands still shaking, then put my keys carefully in the blue-and-white Wedgwood bowl on the hall table, next to Roger’s set with the ‘Granddad’ fob that our daughter had given to him last Christmas. Over the past year, we’ve become increasingly conscious about security after a spate of burglaries in the area, including a physical assault on a neighbour. But right now, I feel more upset by the shock of seeing Carole.
Somehow I force my voice to sound normal. But my mouth is dry with fear. I head for the fridge to pour myself a glass of elderflower cordial. I make my own every summer from the bushes in the garden. Its rich herbaceous borders and extensive lawns are partly why we bought this house, a lovely Queen Anne on the outskirts of town with a pale-lemon exterior, sash windows and gracious chimneys. There’s also a little copse where I’ve seeded poppies and forget-me-nots in memory of Mummy.
You’re never too old to need a mother.
Even after all these years, I still get flashes of her lovely, caring, kind face, and her soft skin that smelled of roses. I can still feel her cheek against mine. In my distant memory, I kneel next to her in her beloved garden, side by side as she weeds until she is too tired and needs to rest. I walk with her in my head along the country lanes. It was she who had taught me the names of all the wildflowers and hedgerow plants. We would pick and press them between the pages of the Children’s Encyclopaedia Britannica before taking them out, flat, and labelling them with the help of my well-thumbed wildflower book.
She loved forget-me-nots best. My own favourite was cow parsley, also known as Queen Anne’s lace. I used to finger the delicate white flowers and cried when they fell apart in my hands. ‘It’s all right,’ said my mother. ‘There are others you can pick.’ It’s one of the few memories I have of my childhood, so I hang on to it tightly, scared of breaking it. How she would have loved her grandchildren. And how she would have adored Josh …
‘I’ll be with you in a few minutes,’ Roger now calls out from his study.
Radio 4 is blaring out from the kitchen with advice on making the perfect cheese soufflé. I always leave the radio on even when I am out. I find its measured tones soothing, apart from the news, which I turn down. There’s enough to worry about as it is.
I wash my hands with my favourite Neal’s Yard lavender soap at the ceramic double sink and put the kettle onto the Aga. But inside, my head is still whirling. Should I tell Roger I saw Carole in the high street – even though he’d told me she’d moved? I desperately want to. But the counsellor said there should be no accusations. I’m meant to act like I trust him. I even pretended to be pleased when he gave me a silver bracelet last month out of the blue. Did he really think that a guilt present could make everything better again?
