Silent Waters, page 17
‘You have a son. I’ve seen a picture. He’s Mark’s, isn’t he?’
Shit. Jen knew she couldn’t hide it. Claudia has seen Sam’s face, and Jen hates this.
‘Is that what you found out?’ she asks.
Claudia laughs then, a sad little ‘ha’. ‘No. Not that. I could have coped with that, Jen. That’s nothing.’
‘Then—’
‘But you’re a fool.’
Jen scowls. ‘Look—’
But Claudia interrupts again. ‘How often do you see him?’ she asks quietly. ‘Does he ever take your son?’
‘I . . . No. Sam doesn’t know who his dad is. Mark only found out by chance when you both moved back here. I had told him I was pregnant . . . but . . .’
‘A child out of wedlock would ruin his image.’
This stings coming from Claudia’s perfect rosebud mouth.
‘That’s cruel of him not to have recognised your . . . predicament,’ Claudia says.
‘Don’t call Sam a predicament.’
‘I can’t believe you let Mark get away with it.’
Jen clenches her fists. ‘Oh fuck off, Claud. Mark and I have history, like the two of you have history, right? It’s raw and horrible and precious. It’s also balanced on a knife-edge.’
‘And that’s what he’s always been so good at,’ Claudia says. ‘I never realised. But it’s a good thing he never claimed Sam as his son. You have to keep it that way. Sam should never know that Mark is his dad.’
‘Why not?’
‘He can be violent.’
Jen starts to laugh. ‘Violent?’
Claudia moves towards her. ‘You don’t know him like I know him.’
They’re interrupted again by Jen’s phone ringing like it’s burning a hole in her trousers.
‘Answer it,’ Claudia says.
Jen goes to silence it because she thinks it’s Bill, or Kerry, but it’s Idris’s name on her screen and she clicks to answer, wants to tell him that she was about to go to the medic but had to get Sam. She wants to tell him that Sam is unwell, that she’s probably got a sickness bug from him. She needs to lie, tell him anything to shut down his questions. But she doesn’t get a chance to say anything.
‘We’ve got a body,’ he says.
THIRTY-ONE
Jen’s sweating, heart crashing against her chest like waves against rock.
She saw a body, she did, and this changes everything.
‘Hang on,’ she says to Idris.
She mutes the call, looks at Claudia.
‘I need to go. When Bill comes back, tell him to call me. I’ll meet you at his flat. I want you out of my fucking house.’
She takes the phone outside, leaving Claudia alone because she can’t have her overhear this conversation – no way. She gets into her car, grips the phone in her hand so tight that her skin is going white. She clicks to unmute.
‘What happened?’ she asks.
‘We found her,’ Idris says. ‘She’s taken quite a journey.’
‘Where? Where did you find her?’
Or rather, who.
‘Downstream from where we were earlier. Tangled up in weeds but obviously been disturbed. She’s in a pretty bad state.’
‘Have we had identification?’
He laughs. ‘Good one.’
Bile creeps up her throat and she pushes it back with her tongue.
‘You know the drill as well as I do,’ Idris continues. ‘We’ll wait for the formal ID, but the case needs to progress and she’s become a figure of interest. The team will put out a statement to the media tonight or tomorrow to say we’ve found a body.’
Jen nods, although he can’t see her down the phone. Who did she leave in the water?
‘Did you manage to sleep?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘But you saw the medic, right?’
‘No—’
He sounds annoyed. ‘Why the hell not? I’m not letting you dive again until you do, Jen. I’m serious.’
‘I slept . . . I—’
‘I thought you said you didn’t sleep?’
‘I’ll go to the medic now.’
‘It’s too bloody late now, idiot. Clinics will be closed. Go first thing tomorrow.’
Jen drives without thinking. She should go back to Kerry’s house and make sure Sam is OK, but instead she’s found herself somewhere she really shouldn’t be. There might be a police presence at Oak House right now, but she’s left the car in town and walked the back way, followed the river past the barn, skirted the water-meadows and up through the fields. She stops outside the woods, at the back of the house.
There’s a possibility that Mark has been called to the police station already. Claudia told her that he has a violent streak, but Idris had called before Jen could get a sense of what that meant. Did she mean emotionally? Physically? Either way, Jen’s disturbed by the revelation and thinks of Sam, her wonderful, good-natured boy, and a deep ache of disappointment throbs in her heart. She’d grown to enjoy her meetings with Mark and talking about Sam. She had entertained the thought of introducing them someday, had even imagined Mark sitting at her kitchen table and helping Sam with homework. Perhaps she’s been a fool, but when it comes to Mark, she supposes that she always has been. The body found isn’t Claudia’s, but could Mark possibly be involved somehow in someone’s death? Or is Claudia, and by proxy and his own stupidity, also Bill?
Jen also used to come in through the panel of the garden fence but she won’t dare do that now the police are all over it it. She remembers as a teenager once going through it and finding Henry in a deckchair on the lawn, a cigar dangling between his two fingers and his dogs at his feet. One had stood up at the noise of her coming through, and barked.
‘Shit!’ she’d said. ‘I’m sorry.’
He’d looked at her, amused. ‘So this is how you come in.’
The dogs padded over, sniffed at her, and she’d stroked them in turn.
‘I didn’t know we had a loose panel.’
‘Claudia says it’s easier to come through this way, otherwise she has to open the gates and everything.’
He laughed.
‘I’m sorry I came through.’
‘I won’t tell Victoria. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it.’
She had smiled gratefully, had made to go, but his face clouded and it made her pause.
‘Jen?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Does Claudia bring boys back in through here? Is she seeing anyone?’
‘Not that she’s told me. We’re too busy for boys. Or, that’s what I thought.’
‘Is she happy? With the swimming? The diving? I know you have the championships next year.’
‘She’s not nervous.’
‘Do you like your coaches? You like the team?’
Jen grinned. ‘We all like the coaches. The team is great. She’s happy, Mr Barton. I think she’s doing good.’
He nodded. ‘OK. And how’s your mother?’
‘She’s . . . she’s OK.’
‘I read in the paper yesterday that Addens Hospital are conducting some new medical trials,’ he said. ‘For dementia. It might be worth looking into?’
‘It’s OK,’ she replied. ‘We can look after her.’
‘I’m happy to enquire on your behalf?’
‘It’s OK but thanks, Mr Barton. I’ll ring the GP.’
He regarded her then, silently. ‘Claudia is in the kitchen,’ he said.
The flitting of a bird in the branches above her snaps Jen out of her memories and she stares at the back of Oak House, which has become dark against the skyline. She just wants to fall asleep right here, in the shadow of this house where she used to spend so much time, and become oblivious to what’s happening around her.
Her phone vibrates and she reaches for it – a message from Bill lights her screen.
We’re here at mine. Please come.
She goes to leave, but as she does so, a haze of a dream drifts in front of her eyes. But no, it doesn’t feel like a dream but a memory, a retelling. The dream house is dark, black eye-socket windows except one – a bedroom light is on, the curtains are ajar. There is movement, the front door is slammed and someone walks down the driveway and out of the gates.
An image of bulrushes rips across her eyes like spears against the sky. There’s a distant humming sound in her ears and her feet are freezing cold.
THIRTY-TWO
Claudia has listened to her at least – she and Bill have left Jen’s flat and Jen is purged of that acute sense of vulnerability she felt in her own home.
‘Come in,’ Bill says when he opens the door to her, but she is rigid in the darkness of the corridor.
‘Shit is about to hit the fan,’ Jen says.
‘Shit is already hitting the fan.’
‘But the shit that I know about is going to drown us,’ she says. ‘Listen very carefully. I’ve got to ask you something and you’ve got to answer me honestly.’
Bill frowns. ‘Can’t you come in first?’
‘No.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘The tie you wore for that interview, the red one. What did you do with it when you’d finished with it?’
‘I don’t know? I gave it back, right? Why are you asking me about it?’
‘Back to who? I can’t remember you giving it to me.’
‘Didn’t I leave it back in your flat? I didn’t know where you got it, so where else would I have put it?’
‘You’ve got to think, Bill. Really think.’
‘Who has access to your flat apart from me?’ he asks.
She pauses. ‘Kerry.’
‘Would Kerry have taken it?’ he says.
‘No? Why would she?’
She doesn’t say who else has all the passcodes to her flat – Mark. But Mark has never been in her flat without her being there because there’s never been a need for it.
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
‘Jen, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember. I’m fucking knackered, can you just come in and we can explain all this?’
‘You’re exhausted?’ she mutters.
‘Andy knows I’ve screwed up,’ he says. ‘It’s only a matter of time until he discovers more.’
‘Screwed up?’ she says and then the penny drops. ‘Bill, you’ve stolen from Andy?’
‘Just come in,’ he urges.
She steps through, immediately treads on a stray sock. Beyond that, an empty crisp packet and a penny gathering dust where the carpet meets the wall. On a normal day, she’d berate him for the mess, but nothing about this day is normal. She wonders how she’s supposed to keep the body a secret from them. She wonders too how she’s not already horizontal on the floor from exhaustion.
‘Do you want some wine?’ he asks as they go through to the kitchen.
‘Sure. And some nachos,’ she says.
‘Jen—’
‘I don’t want any wine, you knob.’
Claudia is already in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, still wearing Jen’s top. She looks better in it too, and this pisses Jen off more than it should. She sits down on the kitchen bar stool.
‘If you both don’t tell me soon what the hell has been going on the last fortnight, I’m going to lose my shit, OK? I am verging on the edge of a breakdown. Leave nothing out, OK? I need to know what we’re dealing with here or, I swear to God, I’m going to radio you in right now. Start at the beginning. You wanted to leave Mark.’
Claudia nods. ‘I had planned to leave for Canada over the two weeks that the Olympics were on. I had arranged for a story to be printed – about Mark – that would allow me a reason to leave him. And I banked on him being so absorbed with fighting the accusations of it, and with the diving, that he wouldn’t have time to try to find me. That he would just leave me alone.’
‘What was the story?’
‘It was about a girl back in America that he’d become close to.’
‘Right?’
‘But I never sent the story. Instead, we had a huge fight on that Saturday afternoon and I knew I had to disappear for a while. I wanted to take my stuff but I . . . I couldn’t.’
‘Why?’
Claudia shakes her head. ‘I . . . He . . . was too strong for me.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means violent,’ Bill says. ‘She just had to run.’
Violent, that word again.
‘Did he hurt you, Claudia? On that Saturday when you fought?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘He hit me on the head.’
‘You were in the garden, weren’t you? You left through the fence panel.’
Claudia looks at her wide-eyed. ‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s called forensics.’
‘What do the police think happened to me?’
‘They don’t have a bloody clue,’ Jen says. She turns to Bill. ‘You didn’t pick Claudia up from there though, Bill? You didn’t go through the fence at that point?’
‘No. Claudia rang me, we met at the water-meadows and then we came here, to my flat.’
‘What time did you meet – that day?’
‘About . . . six? And then we waited until it got dark and then Bill drove me back to get stuff. Mark wasn’t at the house.’
‘Wait, you went back? When?’
‘About ten-fifteen, ten-thirty?’
‘That makes sense. Your phone was last on then, Claudia. The police tracked it.’
‘I switched it off after that. Bill bought me a pay-as-you-go phone to use so Mark couldn’t trace me.’
Jen looks at Bill. ‘And you were where at ten-thirty?’
‘I waited up the lane in the truck.’
‘Listen to me very carefully,’ Jen says. ‘When you went back to the house at ten-thirty, did you see anyone there? On the road? Walking a dog? Walking out by the water?’
Bill pauses a moment. ‘No?’
‘If you remember seeing anyone else there, now is the time to tell me.’
‘If there was anyone there, we’d left by then. And I don’t see why that’s relevant now that we know Claudia is actually here?’
‘Trust me, it’s relevant.’ Jen turns to Claudia. ‘What then?’
‘Mark wasn’t at the house. His car wasn’t there, so I thought it would be easy to get my things, and the money I had promised Bill, which was in the safe in the study. But I . . . I couldn’t get into the house. Mark had changed the goddamn code to the gate and I couldn’t . . .’ Claudia starts to cry. ‘I couldn’t get into my own house.’
Bill reaches for her and Jen sees how tenderly his fingers wrap Claudia’s arm.
‘We got a few things together from my flat,’ he says. ‘Some of my clothes for her to wear and some other stuff. Mark had seen us together in that cafe, and we were worried he’d come to my place to look for her. I had the idea that Claud could stay in one of the houses on the building site and hole up until we figured out what to do. I had a generator and a fridge, everything she could need.’
Jen exhales. ‘Why the secrecy, though? Why the lengths of silence when you’ve seen everything happening on the news? What was the story you were going to send to the tabloids? You said you’d found something out about Mark, so tell me why the fuck you would upend your life like this – all our lives – when Mark is the one holding all the cards about what happened at the barn?’
THIRTY-THREE
Bill wasn’t even supposed to have been anywhere near the barn that day – that’s what upsets him most of all. He was supposed to be at the cinema with a friend, but he’d been ditched last minute. Instead, he’d idled the morning away playing PlayStation with Jen while Fiona drank heavily through the morning as had become her habit when she was navigating a difficult phase of the dementia. Before long, she’d passed out face-down on her bed, and, after they had cleaned up the sick on the floor, he’d turned to Jen.
‘You want to go swim at Cowell Farm?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Shall I invite Claudia?’
‘Sure.’
They’d gone out at midday, in the thick heat of August through the bracken and the foxgloves, under a cloudless sky. Crickets sounded in the reeds, birds called from low thicket branches. Jen tore off her T-shirt, jumped straight in with her bikini top and her shorts still on. Bill sat on one of the stones, rolled up a joint, before a spray of water hit him in the face and then his sister cackled. They were fifteen and nearly seventeen, two teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, who wanted to spread their wings into the world but knew – with their mother the way she was – that they were clipped. But the river was always their salvation: to stress, to boredom.
‘Get in, you muppet!’
He left the joint for later, and they spent an hour, maybe more, timing themselves against the current, bombing each other, and after they were spent in the water, they laid on the bank and drank the flat lemonade Bill had brought them from home.
‘You think Mum is OK?’ Jen asked.
‘She’ll be out of it for hours,’ he replied.
‘What will we do when it gets really bad?’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not for you to worry about.’
‘In six months’ time, it’ll be the British Diving Championships,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll show everyone what I can do. Then the European Championships. And then I’ll get to the Olympics.’
He’d looked at her with pride.
‘I’ll get the money for Mum,’ she said. ‘Sponsorship will bring money.’
‘You’ll get there. I believe in you.’
But secretly he was worried. Secretly he was making enquiries into care homes, terrified of his mother’s future, of what their lives would become without her, but he couldn’t articulate this to Jen because she needed him to be the strong one, the one who made the difficult decisions even when they would inevitably cause heartache.
They stared up at the sky.
‘I brought something,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I’ve got some mushrooms.’
‘You brought mushrooms? From who?’
‘A guy from college.’
‘Have you taken them before?’
