The Bad Things (22 page)

The village was different from the Google pictures: it was now two years on and midwinter as opposed to early summer. The council houses she drove past looked drab and utilitarian; their long gardens with grass that needed cutting and borders that needed tending. The village hall, that had looked charming on Street View, was on its last legs, with rotting window frames and peeling paint. Rain-sodden Remembrance Sunday poppies were scattered around the war memorial. She turned left.

The hedgerow was a collection of bare twigs and trees reaching up like skeletons into the sky. The rain had stopped falling. And there it was: Whitehouse Farm. Alex pulled up in front of the gate. That, too, looked as though it could do with a lick of paint. Then she put the car into gear again and drove on a little way, finding a farm track where she could park her car. She switched off the engine.

So. Here she was.

Still not convinced she was actually going to do this, Alex got out of the car and walked along the lane to the gate, avoiding muddy puddles as she went. The catch was easy to open and she found herself walking down the driveway. The garden either side was neat and well cared for. Martin’s wife obviously liked her roses, judging by the well-pruned plants. The house was redbrick and solid, with sash windows, russet-coloured pantiles, and a solid, four-panelled front door. A comfortable family home.

God, what was she
doing
?

‘Hello?’

A woman appeared from round the corner of the house. She was wearing black wellies and an old, comfortable anorak that was damp from the recent rain. In her hand was a small spade.

‘Hello,’ she repeated, pushing the anorak hood off her head. Her blonde hair was streaked with grey and gathered in an untidy bun on top of her head. ‘Can I help you?’

Alex recognized her from the courtroom and the myriad of pictures that had appeared in the papers before, during, and after the case, though the well-groomed woman she remembered had been replaced with a more careworn version. Uncomfortably, she remembered some of the headlines: ‘The Monster’s Wife’; ‘How Didn’t She Know?’; ‘She Lived With A Murderer’, and some of the supposedly serious analysis all the papers filled their columns with for weeks – ‘Can You Live With A Murderer And Not Know It?’ – was the general tenor of such articles. Articles that could have just as easily referred to her, had the press but known it.

‘Mrs Jessop?’

The woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Alex. ‘Who wants to know?’ She cocked her head onto one side. ‘Hang on, I do know you, don’t I?’

Alex swallowed. ‘Mrs Jessop, my name’s Alex. Alex Devlin.’ Her name hung in the air.

‘I see.’ A small frown appeared on Angela Jessop’s face, as though she was trying to place the name. ‘Sasha Clements’ sister.’

‘Yes.’ Alex swallowed. Was she going to be told to go away? She looked around. ‘You have a beautiful garden.’

‘It keeps me busy.’

‘It must do. There’s a lot of work here.’ Bloody hell, she really shouldn’t have come.

‘Did you want something, Miss Devlin?’

Alex shook her head, sudden tears in her eyes. She hadn’t fully comprehended in all her Googling and fantasising just how damn difficult this was going to be. ‘I’m so sorry; I’ll leave you in peace.’

She turned to go when she heard a clatter on the stones as Angela Jessop dropped the spade. She felt a hand on her arm.

‘I’m sorry. I’m being very rude. It’s just that I’m very careful who I talk to these days, and…’ Her voice was soft.

‘I should have realized,’ said Alex. ‘I’ll go.’

‘No. No, don’t go. Come inside. Please. I was going to make some tea anyway.’ Her mouth seemed to force itself into a smile. ‘I don’t get much peace these days anyway, so don’t be worried about that. And it would be interesting to talk to you. I expect that’s why you’ve come here? To talk to me?’

‘I…’ She was lost for words. ‘Mrs Jessop, I’m not really sure what to say. After all this time, I mean.’

‘It should be me feeling awkward, not you. And call me Angela. If I may call you Alex?’ Angela Jessop gave a wide smile that, just for a moment, swept away the cares of the last fifteen years and Alex saw what a beautiful woman she had been. ‘Come on.’

Alex didn’t want to go inside Angela’s house; it would make the reason she had come here feel even more sordid. The woman seemed so nice, genuine, and all she wanted to do was to find out about the diary and cut and run. It was unworthy of her. No, there was no way she was going to be able to do this; she would leave now.

‘Thank you,’ said Alex, following her into the porch, where Angela hung her anorak on a peg and wrestled off her boots before going through into the sitting room. A fire was burning in the grate, and Alex sat down in an easy chair next to it.

‘I’ll go and make us some tea,’ Angela said.

After she had bustled out, obviously glad of something to do, Alex looked around the room, interested to see where Martin had lived, wondering how much Angela had changed it over the last fifteen years. There were bookcases either side of the fire, and she stood up to see what were on the shelves. Poetry, biographies, and some books about gardening. Self-help books. Volumes and volumes of self-help books. No pictures of her children.

She wandered over to the window and looked out over the back garden, which was mostly lawn with curved borders stuffed full of shrubs and small trees. More shrubs stalked in a line, breaking up the expanse of lawn, giving the garden more depth.

‘It’s taken me along time to get the garden how I want it.’

She turned as Angela came back in, carrying a tray. ‘Gave me plenty to do,’ Angela went on. She put the tray down on a small occasional table. On the tray was a teapot, a jug of milk, and two cups and saucers. There was a plate of brownies that looked home-made. Alex shivered, taken back to when she’d been to see Jackie Wood not many days before.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘The garden. I wasn’t sure you would still be here. Whether or not you would have moved out.’

‘Gone somewhere nobody knew us, you mean?’ There was a bitterness to Angela’s smile. ‘Unless we’d gone abroad I don’t think that would have been possible. And I didn’t want to take the children away from everything and everyone they had ever known. The school was very good, though being teenagers they went through their own difficult phases. Whether what happened made them more difficult, I’ll never know. But we managed.’ She poured the tea.

Jackie Wood, Angela Jessop, both wronged women; both had their lives torn apart when the men in their lives were weak. Both pouring her tea, offering her refreshments. Her head began to ache again.

‘They’ve moved away now. The children. Couldn’t wait to leave, actually.’ Alex remembered there had been no pictures of them in the papers, thanks to the judge. He had ruled they should be allowed their privacy. Allowed to grieve. It must have helped. ‘James is abroad. Australia. He’s a lifeguard. I hear from him occasionally.’

‘And your daughter?’

‘Bea? I have no idea. Brownie?’

‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ Alex sipped her tea, wondering about Bea and why Angela’s mouth had tightened at saying her name.

‘What about you? Have you any children?’

‘One. A boy, Gus. He’s sixteen.’

Angela smiled. ‘I’m glad. And your husband?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not married. Though I do have a partner.’

‘I’ve followed you over the years, you know. Read your articles. Seen your picture. You haven’t changed a lot.’ She smiled. ‘I’m glad you were able to…well, get on with your life.’

‘Yes,’ Alex said, not knowing what else to say.

‘And I see that the Wood woman is dead now.’ She cleared her throat, pulling at her skirt. ‘I saw it on the television.’

There was a silence Alex didn’t know how to fill.

‘I’m glad she’s dead,’ said Angela, fiercely. ‘I saw her when she came out of prison, standing on those court steps, talking about compensation. Compensation.’ The word was spat out. ‘I hated that woman for taking everything away from me, you know.’ She lifted her eyes and looked straight at Alex. ‘You must know what I mean?’

Alex nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Angela looked into the distance, rubbing the rim of her teacup with her forefinger. ‘When he died – Martin, I mean – when he died they asked me where they should send his belongings. I said I didn’t care what they did with them.’ She shrugged. ‘I sometimes wonder what happened to them. He used to wear a watch that had been given to him by his father. He always said he wanted James to have it when he died.’ She kept rubbing the rim of the cup, round and round.

Alex remembered that watch. Martin used to wind it up religiously. It had a cream-coloured face with Roman numerals. The rim was silver, and the strap was a worn dark leather. It had suited his wrist.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘even if I had got it back from the authorities, there’s no way James would have wanted it.’

‘No,’ said Alex. In silence, they both watched the flames dancing in the fireplace. ‘So didn’t you want anything back from him?’

Angela shivered. ‘What do you think? Would you like mementoes from the husband who murdered two little children? Who didn’t even have the guts to serve his sentence? Who took the easy way out and cheated all those who needed to see justice served, including me? As I said, I didn’t care what they did with his stuff. Whatever it was.’ She looked up from the flames. ‘Why are you so interested? Sensing another story?’

Alex glimpsed the bitterness that must eat her soul every day. She knew that look. She had it herself. ‘No. I’m sorry.’

Angela sighed. ‘I’m the one that should be sorry. Sometimes I think I’ve got out of the habit of speaking to people, which is why I tend to say things out of turn. You know, I truly didn’t know what Martin was really like. I still can’t believe it to this day. But it must be true, so I have to believe it.’ She picked up her teacup and Alex saw that her hands were shaking. ‘I’ve often thought about contacting you and your sister, but my nerve failed me every time. I thought I wouldn’t know what to say to you, that you wouldn’t want to see me, that I would bring back too many bad memories. But all I really wanted to say was just that: I am so, so, sorry. And if I could change the past I would.’ She shrugged. ‘I know. It’s not enough.’

Alex felt ashamed. Here was Angela, face contorted with shame, apologising, unwittingly showing the pain and suffering she’d been through the past fifteen years, and all she, Alex, had come for was to find out about a fucking diary.

‘Your sister?’ Angela hesitated. ‘How is she?’

Alex thought of Sasha, still caught in her own private hell. ‘She’s coping,’ she said at last. ‘I know it seems a long time ago, but for her it’s like yesterday.’

Angela hung her head. ‘I can’t imagine.’ Then she looked up. ‘Why did you come today?’ Her forehead creased with a frown, as though she had just realized there was no real reason for Alex to be there. She was right, there wasn’t. ‘I mean, I’ve told you that I wanted to see you, but you weren’t to know that. And it’s been fifteen years. Why did you choose today?’

Alex opened her mouth, but no words came out.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I think I understand.’

‘You do?’

‘I think seeing Jackie Wood out of prison opened the way to wanting to see me. Perhaps to lay some ghosts to rest.’ She leaned forward and put her hand on Alex’s knee. ‘Maybe your sister could see her way to paying me a visit? Would that be asking too much?’

Yes it would, far too much. She should tell her, extinguish any hope that she might get some forgiveness from Sasha.

‘I don’t think she will. But I’ll certainly try and ask her.’

Angela sat back once more. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You see, it’s been good for me. To be able to say sorry at least to one of you – even if it took you having to come to me rather than the other way round.’

There was nothing more Alex could say, so she put her cup and saucer down and stood. ‘I ought to be going, Angela.’

‘Yes, you must be busy.’ Angela put down her own cup and saucer and stood too. ‘I’ll see you out.’

They walked to the door. ‘Thank you for coming, Alex. I do appreciate it. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be able to talk to you. Now I know. And it has made me feel better.’

Alex felt Angela’s eyes on her back as she walked down the path. Even if the problem of the diary hadn’t been solved – and maybe now it never would be – at least Angela Jessop might sleep a bit easier in her bed tonight. She damped down a sudden flare of resentment. As she reached the gate she turned to wave, and imagined she caught a look of pure hatred on Angela’s face before it was replaced with a smile. Alex shivered.

Alex climbed into the car and a great deluge of tiredness washed over her. All she wanted to do was to lean back and sleep. What had been the point of the afternoon? It had been obvious right from the start Angela didn’t have Martin’s diary otherwise she wouldn’t have been so accommodating.

And, there was always the possibility that there was no diary, that Jackie Wood had been playing with her. But then, she couldn’t afford to take that chance.

Ever since Jackie Wood had come out of prison Alex had been on a feverish spiral down into places in her head she hadn’t been to since the twins went missing. And that was probably the other reason she went to see Angela. Because for fifteen years she’d refused to acknowledge that she’d done Martin’s wife any wrong. And yet she had. A great wrong.

By seeing his wife she was making herself bleed.

23

‘You sure you want me to stay in here?’ He peered through the windscreen at the tall green pines that were waving in the wind, at the grey skies that seemed to be pressing down on top of them, and at the drops of rain that occasionally splattered onto the glass.

Kate nodded. ‘Please, Steve. I think I’ll get more out of him if I speak to him on my own.’ She tried not to smile or feel irritated at Steve’s subtext: she would need brawn to deal with Jez Clements.

Steve Rogers shifted his bulk behind the steering wheel. ‘If you say so, Ma’am.’