Guilty Innocence (4 page)

‘Nat,’ he says, his voice uncertain and a note or three above his normal pitch. ‘What…what are you doing here?’ It sounds as though his throat is as closed over as Natalie’s is. When she doesn’t reply, he tries again.

‘Has something happened? Are you all right?’

For answer, she brings her hand out from behind her back. In it, she holds the letter, now replaced in the envelope.

She thrusts it towards Mark’s face. Confusion floods his expression in the seconds before he recognises what she’s holding. Then all she sees is a weary acceptance, and hope for a plausible explanation of its existence fades within her. Natalie interprets his expression as one of guilt mixed with shame. He doesn’t speak, merely switches his gaze between her face and the letter. Behind Natalie, the kitchen clock ticks the time away and the sound seems magnified by the tension choking the room. She drags air into her lungs, eventually managing to get her tongue to work.

‘Why…’ She wets her lips, despite there being precious little saliva in her mouth. ‘This letter…why do you have it?’

Until he speaks, she tells herself, the chance exists he can explain this, rip away the dread in her gut at the suspicion she’s been sleeping with a child killer.

The clock continues to tick away behind her, measuring the seconds until he opens his mouth. He doesn’t, though, and Natalie tries again, forcing a calmness she doesn’t feel into her voice.

‘Are you Joshua Barker?’ she asks.

No reply. Mark won’t even look at her.

‘Answer me, for fuck’s sake.’

Anger mixed with fear bites hard at her as Mark turns away. He leans his palms on the kitchen table, pressing his weight forward onto them, increasing the distance between himself and Natalie as though he’s carrying some deadly contagion. She hears him sigh.

‘You’ve been going through my things again.’ No trace of annoyance in his voice, just a sad resignation.

She ignores his words. ‘I’ll ask you again. Why the fuck do you have a letter addressed to Joshua Barker? The child killer?’

Mark shakes his head. ‘Oh, Nat. Don’t do this. Please.’

‘Do what? Check whether the man I’ve been sleeping with is who he says he is? As opposed to a murderer?’ She tosses the letter aside, attempting to shove his arms off the table. Anything to get him to meet her eyes. ‘Don’t you think I’ve a right to do that?’

He does return her gaze then, weariness in his expression. ‘Yeah. I guess.’

‘Then answer me. Are you Joshua Barker?’

Sadness creeps over his face as the silence thickens between them.

‘For God’s sake, tell me. Yes or no?’

Eventually he nods, extinguishing all hope within her. ‘Yes.’

‘You killed that little girl. Abby Morgan.’ The accusation bursts out of Natalie now he’s confirmed his guilt. She sees him flinch on hearing the child’s name. Her fists fly at him, rage and revulsion in every blow; the man before her becomes symbolic of all those who have ever hurt her. A list that includes
him.
The one who abused her, so many years ago. Oh, the horror of it. Don’t go there, she warns herself, as she continues to punch Mark, her resolve not to get angry now forgotten. He doesn’t stop her and she pounds away before dropping down on the sofa, her throat full of tears, despair choking her voice. ‘You bastard. You fucking bastard.’

Mark stands in front of her, silent. She can’t look at him. ‘How the hell…’ She gasps in air. ‘How could you do something so awful? You and that other boy. You killed a child. A defenceless two-year-old.’

‘Nat.’ His voice reaches her, cutting through her misery. ‘I can explain.’

‘Like hell you can. You were convicted, you and that Adam Campbell.’

Natalie stands up, thrusting the letter into his face, the force of her fingers crumpling the envelope. ‘Your own mother. She rejected you.’

He turns his head away before she’s able to gauge his reaction. She presses on, driven by her overwhelming need to grasp whatever it is she’s dealing with here.

‘She didn’t even bother to tell you herself.’ He tilts his face back towards her then, and she sees him flinch again as her words whip against him. His reply is so quiet she has to ask him to repeat it.

‘I said, yes, she rejected me.’

‘You’re surprised?’

‘No. Are you going to do the same?’

‘Do you blame me?’

He shakes his head sadly. This defeatist attitude isn’t what Natalie expected at all. Where is the anger at her snooping through his things, where are the passionate denials that he’s anyone other than Mark Slater, where is the explanation for having the letter? She can deal with shouting, blatant lies, anything other than this weary resignation at whatever she throws at him.

‘I’m sorry, Nat. I’m not what you need me to be.’

‘You can say that again.’ She spits the words out as though they’re poison.

‘I never have been.’

‘You fucking bastard.’

‘I can explain. If you’ll let me.’

‘How?’ Natalie is struggling to understand. She’s always yearned for kids of her own and can’t comprehend how anyone can hurt them. What explanation exists for how a child ends up murdered? Battered with a rake and then knifed to death? By two eleven-year-olds, for Christ’s sake. Mark has once had the capacity to harm and kill a child and Natalie’s not so naïve as to believe ten years of detention in a secure unit and then prison will have knocked that out of him.

‘I didn’t do it, Nat.’ His eyes plead with her to accept his words.

‘Of course you did.’ Fury pounds through her at his glib denial. ‘You were convicted, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, but listen - ’

‘You and the other boy. I don’t remember much about the crime, but I do recall there being substantial evidence, enough to incriminate the pair of you. Bastards. Vile, twisted killers. Sick and evil, even at the age of eleven.’ Anguish sweeps away the fury. ‘How could you do something so awful? That little girl…’

‘Nat.’ He prises the letter from her grasp and places it on the coffee table, before trying to take her hands.

She wrenches them away. ‘Don’t touch me, you bastard.’

‘That’s not how it was, Nat. I didn’t kill Abby Morgan. I swear I didn’t. Like I say, I can explain. If you’ll let me.’

She pushes past him, making for the door, but he stops her, not forcefully or in an intimidating way, simply an attempt at detaining her so he can deliver his explanation. His words bounce around in her skull.
I didn’t do it, Nat.
Her desperation for all this crap not to be the way it appears leads her to sit back down on the sofa. She waits for Mark’s explanation.

He takes his time before he says anything. When he does, Natalie almost gets up to leave, so disappointed is she with the weakness of his words.

‘I didn’t want to,’ he says. ‘Adam - the other boy - made me go along with it.’ She stares at him in disbelief.

‘That’s it? That’s your great explanation?’ She can’t believe she’s hearing such crap. ‘What little kids say when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t? How someone else is to blame, never them?’ She stands up. It’s dark outside now and she yearns to be back in her flat, away from the disappointment the man before her represents. ‘Do you know how pathetic you sound?’

‘It’s true, Nat, I swear.’ She steels herself against the plea in his voice.

‘Yeah, right. So how come you got convicted? You were found guilty. Same as Adam Campbell. Given an identical sentence.’

He doesn’t reply. His silence grates on her. Surely he can find the words to speak in his defence when the charge against him is so serious?

‘I don’t remember anyone ever saying you were less guilty, not as involved in what happened to that child, than Adam Campbell.’

‘It’s like I told you, Nat. He forced me into it. Made me go along with the whole thing. I didn’t realise what he had planned until it was all too late.’

Lies, complete bollocks, Natalie tells herself. If he’s so innocent, why didn’t that come out during the police questioning or at the trial? Equal sentences were handed down and for Natalie that means matching guilt. A detail from back then floats down the years towards her.
Detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure…a recommended minimum term of ten years in custody.
Abby Morgan’s mother led an unsuccessful campaign to get the sentence increased, Natalie recalls, remembering her own mother remarking on the seeming inadequacy of ten years when a child’s life has been taken, despite the youth of her murderers.

Her next question is a direct challenge. ‘So how come you got an equal sentence with the other boy?’

He answers obliquely, merely repeating what he’s said before. ‘I didn’t want to hurt her, Nat, I swear.’

Why the hell won’t he give her a direct answer? Because he’s a bastard, that’s why. Worse; he’s a child killer, for God’s sake, and the sanctuary of her flat calls to her again, along with the bar of Dairy Milk she’ll buy on the way home. Except the idea of chocolate sends her stomach heaving again and she pushes Mark aside, running to the bathroom to bring up more of the sandwich and biscuits when she’d thought she had nothing left to vomit.

She’s aware of him standing behind her as the sour stench of puke rises from the toilet bowl into her face. The faint lemony tang of his aftershave causes her to retch once more. She stands up shakily, rinsing the acid from her mouth with cool water from the sink.

‘Are you OK?’ Now it’s her turn to flinch at the concern in his voice. It doesn’t gel with her new image of him as a heartless child killer; she can’t marry the two up and the divergence makes her angry and confused.

‘No, I’m fucking well not OK.’ She pushes past him, intent on leaving. He grabs her arm as she does so. Part of her, a rapidly shrinking one, still needs to believe he’s not an evil child killer; she doesn’t pull away.

‘I’m sorry, Nat,’ he says. ‘Sorry you found out this crap. I couldn’t tell you any of it, of course.’

She stands there mutely. Yes, she gets that. How do you tell your girlfriend you’re a child killer?

‘I wanted to.’ His voice is plaintive. ‘Didn’t think you’d understand. Besides, it seemed too soon. We’ve not been together long, after all. Had no idea how you’d react. Anyway, under the terms of my release, I’m supposed to tell my supervising officer if I get serious with anyone.’

Natalie doesn’t understand. He’s supposed to obtain permission to date her?

‘So whoever it is can be warned, you see. Told I’m on the Violent and Sex Offenders Register, although I’m not allowed to say why.’ He sighs. ‘You think I don’t care about you. Not true, Nat. Always liked you, more than I’ve let on. I want to get closer but -’ He shrugs. ‘Not easy, when I’ve got something so awful hanging over my head. The police don’t give out information about my past, of course. All part of keeping my new identity intact. No idea what I’d have told you if things had gone further between us. Probably not the whole truth.’

Certain phrases leap out at Natalie.
Always liked you. Want to get closer.

She forces words past dry lips. ‘I thought you were sleeping with someone else. Decided that must be why you didn’t want to see more of me. It’s the reason I came here today.’

‘A.J.’

‘Yes; who -’

‘Tony Jackson, my supervising officer. I meet with him once a month. The guy in the police force who makes sure I’m complying with the terms of my release.’

‘Like a parole officer?’

‘Yes. Has to be a cop, though, not anyone from the Probation Service, not for someone like me. Jackson’s one of the few people aware of my true identity.’

The words of the letter come back to Natalie. ‘Did you have to break off contact with everyone you knew?’

He shrugs again. ‘More or less already done, Nat.’ He pushes past her to pick up the letter from Linda Curtis. ‘You’ve already gathered how my mother reacted to my arrest and conviction.’

‘You’ve not seen her since? She really did move away, change her name?’

He nods.

‘What about your father? Is he dead, like you told me?’

‘He died when I was nine, Nat. His parents were long gone, too. Had to end all communication with my grandparents on my mother’s side once released, although whilst I was locked up they wrote to me, sent cards for birthdays and Christmas. Good people, both of them, but they didn’t visit me in Vinney Green. Too disturbing for them.’

He waves the letter at her. ‘Can’t tell you how bad it was, getting this. Never let myself get close to anyone afterwards, Nat. Didn’t seem any point. Not as if I have much to offer a woman. I can’t be honest about my past, that’s for sure.’

‘Did you think about a future? With me?’ She hardly dares ask.

‘Yes. Wanted to get closer, Nat, I really did, but it seemed impossible. Catch 22, you see. I can’t trust a woman enough to reveal I’m on the Register if I don’t get close to her, and I can’t do that whilst lying about my past. Or without discussing it with Tony Jackson.’

Natalie is silent. Part of her understands how difficult it’s been for him; what he said about his father dying when he was still so young tugs at her emotions. Did his death play some role in shaping the nine-year-old Joshua into a killer two years later? Especially when coupled with a mother who seems the archetypal cold, hard bitch. She’s no armchair psychologist but both those factors have to have exerted some influence. Something she recalls her mother saying about the Morgan murder comes back to her.
I blame the parenting
, Callie Richards pronounces decisively, and Natalie’s inclined to do the same.

There hasn’t been another woman. He wants to get close to her. Can she overlook what happened to Abby Morgan, though?

Mark’s always seemed the non-aggressive type. Natalie finds it difficult to reconcile the man before her with the stereotype of a brutal child killer. She wants to accept he’s telling the truth about the girl’s death. The problem of her messy history with relationships concerns her, though. Can she trust her instincts around men?

Without warning, a male voice sounds in her head. ‘Frigging fat bitch.’

Natalie thrusts the memory away. No thoughts about
him
, not here, not now
.
She forces her mind instead onto Darren, her first boyfriend, who ends up stealing money from her. After him comes Rob, who screws half the female population of Bristol behind her back, echoing her father. After those two, Natalie vows she’ll do better in future when it comes to men. And Mark’s not a thief or a womaniser. He’s been convicted of murder, though, a far bigger and uglier can of worms. One she can’t bring herself to open.