No Turning Back, page 9
‘Come on, darling,’ Anna said to her. ‘Say goodbye.’
Guy took Joni and Joni burst into tears. He frowned. ‘She’s not done this before with me.’
‘It’s confusing for her. She’s used to being with us when we’re together.’
Guy looked at Anna, his eyes hard. ‘Whose fault is that?’
Anna turned away, her own eyes filling with tears. What had she done to her little family?
What had she done to Elliot Nunn?
It took Joni two hours to go to sleep that night. Each time Anna left her room, she cried out. In the end, Anna had to lie on the floor, her fingers touching Joni’s through the cot’s slats until they both finally fell asleep.
Anna woke near midnight with an aching back, blinking in the darkness. Before she knew what she was doing, she reached for her phone, finding the news articles Guy had hinted at. She was shocked when she discovered they even had a photo of her and Nathan embracing in a dark alleyway. It was grainy but clear who they were.
Who had taken that photo…and why leak it now? Maybe they’d just been waiting for the right time and the perfect time was now, with Anna high on the news agenda.
She forced herself to read some of the articles. They weren’t quite From Hero Mother to Zero Adulterer. They were more restrained than that, her old school-friend journalist from the local newspaper even quoting a ‘source’ who said her and Guy’s marriage had been on the rocks for a while. But there was an implication underlining most of the articles: our hero of the moment isn’t quite as perfect as we’d hoped.
She dreaded to think what sort of calls would be coming in to the station the next morning. Luckily she wasn’t due back for another few days.
And that wasn’t to mention how her colleagues would react once the dust settled, and her friends too. She’d only had a couple of texts from her circle of friends, including one from Maxine saying she was around if Anna needed to talk.
The last thing she wanted to do was talk about it.
She walked to the bathroom and stared in the mirror at herself. Her scar was puckered and jagged in the moonlight. She smoothed her fingers over it and remembered the sting of pain as Elliot’s knife had sliced into her skin. She closed her eyes, saw the desperation in his eyes, the fear.
She took a deep breath then splashed some cold water on her face, drying it and stepping out into the hallway to find her mother standing in her nightie, rubbing her eyes.
‘Is Joni okay?’ Beatrice asked.
‘She’s had some problems getting to sleep. Sorry if she kept you awake.’
‘It’s fine. I was just about to make a hot chocolate. Do you want one?’
Anna looked at her in surprise. ‘All right.’
She followed Beatrice downstairs and watched as she heated up milk, her nightdress aglow in the moonlight. It reminded her of when her mother would do this for Anna as a child, making her hot chocolate before going to bed. She dwelled too much on the bad memories sometimes. But before her father died, they’d had a good family life doing things like this.
‘I know about the affair,’ Beatrice said curtly.
Anna sighed. So much for a nice restful hot chocolate with her mother. ‘It wasn’t an affair. It was just a kiss, a kiss I—’
‘No need to explain,’ Beatrice said, stirring chocolate into simmering milk. ‘I know more than anyone how people can do the most unexpected of things.’
Anna frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Beatrice went quiet as she carefully poured the frothing hot chocolate into two mugs and placed Anna’s on the table in front of her.
‘Mum, what you just said, what do you mean?’ Anna asked again.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does.’
‘I said it doesn’t!’ Beatrice shouted. She flinched and put her fingers to her head. ‘Now I have a headache.’ Then she left the kitchen, her hot chocolate forgotten.
The next day, Anna and Joni moved back to their house. It felt strange, they’d only been in the house a few weeks when Anna had returned to work from maternity leave. It felt they were moving in again, starting over again. Anna liked the fact the house was less than a year old, its clean white walls and sparkling light fittings feeling safe and clean and new.
After Anna put Joni down for her nap, she reluctantly looked at her phone, trying to ignore all the notifications. The tweets and emails she’d been getting had taken on an accusatory tone. People were disappointed in her for having an affair, like she owed it to them to be the perfect mother protector they’d built her up to be.
But one stuck out, an email from a familiar name: the so-called Ophelia Killer again. She considered deleting it without reading it but she couldn’t help herself, she quickly opened it.
From: Ophelia Killer
To: Anna Graves
Subject: Nathan and Anna sitting in a tree…
Don’t tell me you don’t feel a sense of relief, Anna, to finally have your big secret out there? It’s like when I finally gave in to my desire to kill again, a twenty-year itch that needed scratching. This is much the same, a secret that has burdened you finally takes flight.
That’s why you shouldn’t feel bad about the stories circulating about you and Nathan. The truth purifies like water does, just like the water purified my boys. After the poison, they need cleaning. I did them a favour, Anna, like you did Elliot Nunn a favour.
Yours, TOK
PS. About that itch that needs scratching. I still haven’t scratched it properly. Elliot didn’t die at my hands after all. Not long though, not long…
Anna stared at the email in horror. Then she turned all notifications off her phone and shoved it in her pocket.
That night, she woke from a horrific nightmare. She’d been leaning over Elliot, her fingers itching at his wound, blood pooling around her nails, into the creases of her knuckles. She was trying to get to something. Finally, as she sank her fingers into the gaping wound in his neck, she found it.
One solitary foxglove, its purple bell-shaped petals shuddering in the breeze.
She got up and found her phone, staring at the email from the so-called Ophelia Killer. She thought of what Jamie had said about his brother being poisoned. She tapped into her phone’s browser and found the Wikipedia page about the Ophelia Killer, scrolling down the footnotes until she found the link she was looking for: a link to her dad’s old news reports. She clicked on it then found her earphones, slipping them in.
‘It’s Simon Fountain,’ her father said, his deep voice filling her ears. Anna felt her heart clench as she listened to her father’s familiar voice. ‘I’m reporting from the scene of the latest killing to rock the Ridgmont Waters community.’ There was a squawk of seagulls in the background, the sound of a passing car. ‘This is a community waking up to the reality that a serial killer may be operating on their very doorstep. Today, a second boy, fourteen-year-old Sam Twiselton, was found drowned in his garden pond in the heart of the town’s docklands estate. Sam’s teachers report him leaving school at the usual time of three p.m. in good spirits. An hour later, he was found lying in his garden pond, just as Alex McDonald was discovered the week before, surrounded by flowers. With Alex’s autopsy results revealing he had taken – or been administered with – a dose of digitalis, the chemical derived from foxgloves, will pathologists discover the same in Sam Twiselton’s body? The community awaits the results with fear in their hearts.’
Anna sighed. Her father had been so talented, so wonderful with words. It was such a waste. She reluctantly clicked out of the report on her phone and looked up the symptoms of ingesting foxgloves. Confusion. Hallucinations.
That might explain why Elliot tried to hurt Anna, the hallucinatory effect of the poison making him imagine all sorts of things. He did seem out of his head.
But who administered the poison? The Ophelia Killer?
Or Elliot himself? But Anna tended to agree with his brother, it didn’t feel right that he’d kill himself.
The next morning, she called Detective Morgan’s number.
‘Anna, how are you?’ he asked when he picked it up.
‘Good. Look, I was doing some research into foxglove poisoning, I don’t know whether you guys have done the same? The symptoms can include confusion, even hallucinations.’
‘It’s a strong drug.’
‘Maybe that’s why Elliot targeted me and Joni, he was confused?’
‘Yes, it’s something we’re looking into.’
‘Okay, great.’ She paused. ‘I got another email claiming to be from the Ophelia Killer, I’ll send it on.’
‘Please do.’
‘The last line implies they want to start killing again.’
‘Just trying to scare you, Anna, ignore it.’
‘But what if the Ophelia Killer really is back?’ As she said that, her body shuddered. But it was a possibility, wasn’t it? It was something that had been playing on her mind ever since getting the emails.
She heard the detective sigh down the other end of the phone. ‘I appreciate your concern, Mrs Graves, but this is a police investigation. I’d rather you leave this to us, especially considering your involvement with it.’
‘I know, I just—’
‘Think about it, what’s more likely? A kid with a troubled background and violent father tries to extract himself from his miserable life by killing himself. Or a serial murderer who hasn’t committed a crime in twenty years returns? My money’s on the former.’
‘Really? The Ophelia Killer did stalk this very town, target boys who looked just like Elliot. What if the killer has been in prison for something else the past twenty years? What if—’
‘That’s enough, Mrs Graves,’ Detective Morgan said, voice sharp. ‘I think you have more pressing matters to deal with, don’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
He coughed slightly. ‘All the stuff in the papers. Just focus on your family and let us focus on our investigation.’
Anna felt anger build inside. ‘This is about my family. I’ve been getting threatening emails and—’
‘Emails which we’ve been looking into. I really must go, Mrs Graves. But please trust us to do a thorough job. Goodbye.’
Then the line went dead.
Anna looked at her phone in disbelief. Jamie was right, the police weren’t taking this seriously enough.
She impulsively did a search on her phone then called the number she found.
‘Dockside Mechanics,’ a bored-sounding woman said on the other end.
‘Can I speak to Jamie Nunn, please?’ Anna asked.
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Just a customer. He said I could call to ask a question if I had any problems.’
‘Jamie!’ the woman screeched out. ‘Some customer for you.’
Anna tapped her foot, trying to contain her nerves. Was this a mistake?
‘Jamie speaking,’ Jamie said when he came onto the line.
‘Jamie, it’s Anna Graves.’
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. She felt foolish. She shouldn’t have called him. She was about to hang up the receiver when he spoke.
‘What do you want?’ he asked coolly.
‘I looked up the symptoms of ingesting foxgloves,’ Anna said. ‘It might explain why your brother did something so out of character.’ She told him what she’d told the detective a moment ago. ‘I thought it might help knowing Elliot wasn’t in his right mind when he attacked me and Joni.’
‘My brother was poisoned. My mind is far from rested.’ He sounded angry.
‘I shouldn’t have called, I don’t know why I did. I’ll let you go, sorry.’
‘He knew you, didn’t he?’ Jamie asked quickly.
Anna frowned. ‘Sorry?’
‘I spoke to one of the kids who saw it go down. He told me Elliot seemed to know you before it happened.’
‘He probably recognised me, I’ve done some work at the community centre.’
‘The kid told me Elliot looked scared of you too,’ Jamie said, voice stony. ‘That was even before he got the knife out.’
Anna thought back to that day, the fear in Elliot’s eyes. ‘I don’t know. It must have been the drugs.’
‘Did he seem like he was out of it?’
‘Yes, he did to be honest.’
‘Did he actually aim for your face when he cut you?’
She got a flashback to his arm raised in the air, the feel of the blade on her skin. ‘Jamie, I can’t—’
‘Was he in pain? Did he call out when he—’
‘Jamie!’ she shouted out. ‘We shouldn’t be talking like this, I shouldn’t have called.’
‘But there are lots of questions to be answered, aren’t there? You’re a journalist, surely you see none of this makes sense.’
She hung up the phone before he could respond.
What had she been thinking?
She tried to focus on playing with Joni after she put the phone down. But she kept thinking about what Jamie had said. He was right, none of it made sense to her.
Then something occurred to her. What if the person sending the emails had poisoned Elliot? As she got Joni a snack, she quickly found the so-called Ophelia Killer’s last email and hit reply.
Did you poison Elliot Nunn? Was he running from you when he ran into me?
The next week rolled by too quickly and before Anna knew it, it was time to go to work. Nathan wasn’t in, and Anna had thought about not going in too after spending a few quiet days in with Joni – well, as quiet as they could be with a nine-month-old. But she couldn’t keep hiding away like she had the past week, she had to face up to it all. It didn’t start well though, hammering rain meaning she couldn’t walk to the studio like she did on dry days. Then her car refused to start. So she quickly jumped on a train at the station right near her estate. It wasn’t too bad as it was so early in the morning, but the handful of passengers on the train clearly recognised her, one even trying to take a sly selfie with her in the background. Anna sighed. No doubt that would be on Twitter soon.
She walked into the studio a few minutes later, shaking her umbrella to let the raindrops loose.
‘Hey, Jim,’ she said, smiling at the security man.
‘Mrs Graves,’ he said, nodding curtly at her, no smile this time.
Anna’s heart sank. She walked through to her studio, the wide smiles and ‘how are yous’ she’d grown so used to over the years now gone, replaced by tight nods and even disgusted looks from some colleagues. Anna took a deep breath, trying to mentally prepare for Heather’s reaction. But all she got was a smirk from Heather as she stepped into the studio. It was the production assistant’s reaction that was worse: he could barely look Anna in the eye.
Anna had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying. She deserved this, she knew that. But that didn’t stop her from hating every moment.
As they gathered around the large table in the studio to go through their daily task of reading the morning’s papers, the first thing Anna saw was her and Nathan’s faces staring up at her.
‘Maybe you should sit this one out, Anna,’ Georgia said as Nathan’s replacement, the man who usually did the sports, squirmed beside her.
Anna shook her head resolutely. ‘Thanks, but it’s fine,’ she said, turning the page to look at another story inside. ‘I thought this piece on the UK’s infant death rate being the highest in Europe might be worth looking at? Would be of interest to our listeners who are parents?’
As they discussed the story, Anna’s eyes strayed over to the other newspapers scattered over the large table.
Support for Anna Graves drops by 10% among our readers after affair reveal, one headline claimed.
They were running polls on her?
Nathan Wheeler’s wife leaves, a headline from the local newspaper declared beside a grainy photo of Valerie packing up her car.
Oh God, poor Valerie, Anna thought. She’d always liked her. How could Anna have done this to her?
Heather peered at Anna and Anna turned away, trying to compose her face. But not before she caught sight of another headline: Graves’ case in danger after fling revealed.
Her breath quickened. Her case was in danger? But there was no case. She’d been released. As soon as Anna got the chance, she made an excuse and went outside, calling her solicitor Jeremy and telling him about the article.
‘Don’t worry, Anna,’ he said, ‘your affair has nothing to do with Elliot’s death. Even if the police were doing secondary checks on you, this isn’t something they would really consider.’
‘Secondary checks? What are they?’
‘After what happened, the police would have done some cursory checks into your background, just to cover all bases. But they wouldn’t have gone into huge detail, it was a pretty clear-cut case of self-defence on your part plus you have no previous. But if they begin to suspect you’re not quite the person they thought you were, then they might begin to delve more into your character, question more people you know, do some more detailed investigations. But they won’t, Anna,’ he added quickly. ‘Not based on a few kisses with a work colleague.’ He paused. ‘Unless you have anything to tell me?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then you don’t need to worry. You know more than anyone these articles will be paper for fish and chips tomorrow.’
Anna scratched at her arm with her free hand. No, she knew more than most how important public perception could be with things like this. If her image continued to deteriorate, it might influence the direction of the police investigation. Detective Morgan was already cooling towards her, she could tell during their phone conversation the other day.
By the time the workday was over, she was so relieved she virtually ran out of the door despite the heavy rain outside. She just wanted to go home and hide herself away from the world. But she needed to get a birthday gift for Florence. It was her seventieth birthday party that evening, a ‘small gathering’, as she’d described it, at her house. It was the last thing Anna needed but her gran had arranged it months ago and Anna couldn’t let her down, despite what was going on in her life. As she walked to the shops from the radio studio, people scurried by under the rain, umbrellas vying for space. Anna was relieved. She could disappear head down into the clatter too. No one would see her, recognise her, glare at her as they had been doing all day at work. Then she’d get a taxi home and avoid getting the train during rush hour. Or maybe it would stop raining and she could walk home?
