I put my hand in my pocket and touch the photograph. ‘We had an argument. I had an exhibition – the biggest I’d ever had – and I’d spent days setting it up with the man who curated it, a man called Philip. It was a day-time event, but even so Ian got drunk. He accused me of having an affair with Philip.’
‘Were you?’
I redden at the personal question. ‘Philip was gay,’ I said, ‘but Ian wouldn’t accept it. I was crying and I couldn’t see the road properly. It had been raining and the headlights kept shining in my eyes. He was shouting at me, calling me a slut and a whore. I went through Fishponds to avoid the traffic, but Ian made me pull over. He hit me and took the keys, even though he was too drunk to stand.
‘He drove like a maniac, all the time shouting at me about how he was going to teach me a lesson. We were going through an estate, through residential roads, and Ian was driving faster and faster. I was terrified.’ I twist my hands together in my lap.
‘Then I saw the boy. I screamed, but Ian didn’t slow down at all. We hit him and I saw his mother buckle as though she’d been hit too. I tried to get out of the car, but Ian locked the doors and started reversing. He wouldn’t let me go back.’ I take a gulp of air and when I exhale it comes out as a low wail.
There is silence in the small room.
‘Ian killed Jacob,’ I say. ‘But I felt as though I had.’
47
Patrick drives carefully. I brace myself for a thousand questions, but he doesn’t speak until the Bristol skyline is far behind us. As the towns give way to green fields, and the jagged lines of the coast appear, he turns to me.
‘You could have gone to prison.’
‘I meant to.’
‘Why?’ He doesn’t sound judgemental, simply confused.
‘Because someone had to pay for what happened,’ I tell him. ‘Someone had to go to court so that Jacob’s mother could sleep at night knowing that someone had paid for her son’s life.’
‘But not you, Jenna.’
Before we left I asked DI Stevens what they would tell Jacob’s mother, suddenly presented with the collapsed trial of the person she thought had killed her son.
‘We’ll wait till he’s safely in custody,’ he told me, ‘then we’ll tell her.’
I realise my actions now mean she will have to relive it all.
‘In the box with your passport,’ Patrick says suddenly, ‘I saw – I saw a baby’s toy.’ He stops, not putting words around his question.
‘It belonged to my son,’ I say. ‘Ben. I was terrified when I fell pregnant. I thought Ian would be furious, but he was ecstatic. He said it would change everything, and although he never said it I was certain he was sorry for the way he had treated me. I thought the baby might be a turning point for us: that it would make Ian realise we could be happy together. As a family.’
‘But it didn’t.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘it didn’t. At first he couldn’t do enough for me. He waited on me hand and foot, and was always telling me what I should and shouldn’t eat. But as my bump grew, he became more and more distant. It was as though he hated my pregnancy; resented it, even. When I was seven months pregnant I got a scorch-mark on his shirt while I was doing the ironing. It was stupid of me – I’d gone to answer the phone and got distracted, didn’t notice till it was too late. Ian went mad. He punched me hard in the stomach, and I started to bleed.’
Patrick pulls the car over and switches off the engine. I gaze out of the windscreen at the waste ground by the side of the road. The litter bin is overflowing, and discarded wrappers dance around in the breeze.
‘Ian called an ambulance. Told them I’d fallen. I don’t think they believed him, but what could they do? The bleeding had stopped by the time we got to hospital, but I knew he had died even before they scanned me. I felt it. They offered me a Caesarean section, but I didn’t want him taken from me like that. I wanted to give birth to him.’
Patrick puts his hand out to me but I can’t touch him and he lets it fall back on to his seat.
‘They gave me drugs to induce labour and I waited on the ward with all the other women. We went through it together: the early pains, the gas and air, the checks from midwives and doctors. The only difference was that my baby was dead. When I was finally wheeled through to the delivery suite the woman next to me waved and wished me luck.
‘Ian stayed with me during labour, and even though I hated him for what he’d done, I held his hand as I pushed, and let him kiss my forehead, because who else did I have? And all I could think was that if I hadn’t burnt that shirt, Ben would still be alive.’
I begin to shake and I press my palms on to my knees to anchor myself. For weeks after Ben died my body tried to trick me into thinking I was a mother. Milk stung my nipples, and I would stand in the shower and press my flesh to relieve the pressure, the sweet smell of milk rising up through the scalding water. I looked up once and saw Ian watching me from the bathroom door. My stomach was still rounded from pregnancy, the skin stretched and slack. Blue veins ran across my swollen breasts and milk trickled down my body. I caught the look of revulsion on his face before he turned away.
I tried to talk to him about Ben. Just once – once when the pain of losing him was so intense I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. I needed to share my grief with someone – with anyone – and by then I had no one else to talk to. But he cut me off mid-sentence. ‘It never happened,’ he said. ‘That baby never existed.’
Ben might not have taken a breath, but he lived. He lived in me, and breathed my oxygen and ate my food, and was a part of me. But I never spoke about him again.
I can’t look at Patrick. Now that I have started, I can’t stop, and the words tumble out of me. ‘There was an awful silence when he was born. Someone read out the time, and then they put him in my arms so gently, as though they didn’t want to hurt him, and left us alone with him. I lay there for ages like that, looking at his face, at his eyelashes, his lips. I stroked the palm of his hand and imagined I could feel him gripping my fingers, but eventually they came and took him away from me. I screamed then, hung on to him until they had to give me something to calm me down. But I didn’t want to sleep, because I knew that when I woke up I’d be all alone again.’
When I finish, I look at Patrick and see he has tears in his eyes, and when I try to tell him it’s okay, that I’m all right, I cry too. We cling to each other in the car by the side of the road, until the sun begins to dip, and then we drive home.
Patrick parks the car at the caravan park and walks with me along the path to the cottage. The rent is paid until the end of the month, but my footsteps slow as I hear Iestyn’s words in my head; his disgust as he told me to leave.
‘I called him,’ Patrick said, reading my mind. ‘I explained everything.’
Patrick is calm and gentle, as though I’m a patient recovering from a long illness. I feel safe with my hand tucked into his.
‘Will you go and get Beau?’ I ask him, when we reach the cottage.
‘If you want me to.’
I nod. ‘I just want everything to get back to normal.’ As I say it I realise I’m not certain what normality is.
Patrick draws the curtains and makes me tea, and when he is happy I am warm and settled he kisses me lightly on the lips and leaves me. I look around at the snapshots of my life here in the bay: the photos and the shells; Beau’s water bowl on the floor in the kitchen. I feel more at home here than I ever did in Bristol.
On impulse I reach for the switch on the table lamp next to me. It’s the only light on downstairs and it bathes the room in a warm apricot glow. I switch it off, and I am plunged into darkness. I wait, but my heart rate is steady; my palms dry; there is no prickle of fear across the back of my neck. I smile: I am no longer afraid.
48
‘And there’s no question that’s the right address?’ Ray directed the question at Stumpy, but widened his gaze to include the rest of the room. Within two hours of
leaving the Crown Court, he had assembled a public order team, while Stumpy got Area Intelligence working on an address for Ian Petersen.
‘None at all, boss,’ Stumpy said. ‘The Voters’ Register shows him at 72 Albercombe Terrace, and AIT have cross-referenced that with the DVLA register. Petersen picked up three points for speeding a couple of months ago, and they returned his licence to the same address.’
‘Right,’ Ray said, ‘then let’s hope he’s home.’ He turned to brief the public order team, who were getting restless. ‘Petersen’s arrest is critical, not just for the resolution of the Jordan case, but to ensure Jenna’s safety. There is a long history of domestic violence that culminated in Jenna leaving Petersen following the hit-and-run.’
There were nods from the officers in the room, their faces set with grim determination. They all knew what sort of man Ian Petersen was.
‘PNC shows him – unsurprisingly – with warnings for violence,’ Ray said, ‘and he’s also got previous convictions for drink-drive and disorder. I don’t want to take any chances with him, so it’s straight in, get him cuffed, and get out. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ came the chorus.
‘Then let’s go.’
Albercombe Terrace was a run-of-the-mill street with narrow pavements and too many parked cars. The only characteristics that marked out number 72 from its neighbours were the drawn curtains at every window.
Ray and Kate parked in a neighbouring street to wait for the confirmation that two of the public order team had reached the rear of Petersen’s house. Kate killed the ignition and they sat in silence, the only sound a rhythmic ticking from the cooling engine.
‘You okay?’ Ray said.
‘Yup,’ Kate said tightly. Her face was set with a grim determination that gave no hint to how she might be feeling underneath. Ray felt fire coursing through his veins. In a few moments that adrenalin would get him through the job, but right now it had nowhere to go. He tapped his foot against the clutch pedal and glanced at Kate again.
‘Got your vest on?’
In answer, Kate banged a clenched fist against her chest, and Ray heard the dull thud of body armour beneath her sweatshirt. Knives were easily concealed and swiftly employed, and Ray had seen too many close calls to take risks. He felt for the baton and spray on the harness he wore under his jacket, gaining comfort from their presence.
‘Stay close to me,’ he said. ‘And if he pulls a weapon, get the hell out of there.’
Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘Because I’m a woman?’ She snorted derisively. ‘I’ll back off when you do.’
‘To hell with political correctness, Kate!’ Ray slapped the flat of his hand against the steering wheel. He fell silent and stared through the windscreen on to the empty street. ‘I don’t want you getting hurt.’
Before either of them could say anything else, their handsets crackled into life. ‘Zero six, guv.’
The units were in situ.
‘Copied,’ Ray responded. ‘If he comes out of the back door, nick him. We’ll make for the front door.’
‘Roger,’ came the response, and Ray looked at Kate.
‘Ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be.’
They rounded the corner on foot and walked smartly to the front of the house. Ray rapped on the door and stood on his toes to peer in through the small glass opening above the knocker.
‘Can you see anything?’
‘No.’ He knocked again, and the sound echoed in the empty street.
Kate spoke into her radio. ‘Tango Charlie 461 to Control, talk-through with Bravo Foxtrot 275?’
‘Go ahead.’
She spoke directly to the pair of officers at the rear of the premises. ‘Any sign of movement?’
‘Negative.’
‘Copied. Stay put for the time being.’
‘Will do.’
‘Obliged for talk-through, Control.’ Kate slid the radio back into her pocket and turned to Ray. ‘Time for the big red key.’
They watched as the Method of Entry team swung the red metal battering ram in a semi-circle towards the door. There was an almighty bang and a splintering of wood, and the door flew open, slamming against the wall of a narrow hallway. Ray and Kate stood back, and the public order officers ran in, fanning out in pairs to check each room for occupants.
‘Clear!’
‘Clear!’
‘Clear!’
Ray and Kate followed them inside, keeping each other in sight and waiting for confirmation that Petersen had been located. Barely two minutes had passed before the public order sergeant came down the stairs, shaking his head.
‘No joy, guv,’ he said to Ray. ‘Place is empty. The bedroom’s been cleaned out – wardrobe’s empty and there’s nothing in the bathroom. Looks like he’s done a runner.’
‘Shit!’ Ray thumped his fist on the banister. ‘Kate, call Jenna’s mobile. Find out where she is and tell her to stay put.’ He strode out to the car, and Kate ran to keep up.
‘It’s switched off.’
Ray got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
‘Where to now?’ Kate said, putting on her seat belt.
‘Wales,’ Ray said grimly.
As he drove he barked instructions at Kate. ‘Get on to AIT,’ he said, ‘and get them to pull anything they can on Petersen. Contact Thames Valley and make sure someone visits Eve Manning in Oxford: he’s threatened her once already, and there’s every chance he’ll go back. Get in touch with South Wales and log a fear for welfare relating to Jenna Gr—’ Ray corrected himself: ‘Petersen. I want someone to go to the cottage and make sure she’s okay.’
Kate scribbled down actions as Ray listed them, updating him after every call she made.
‘There’s no one on duty at Penfach tonight, so they’ll send someone out from Swansea, but they’ve got Sunderland playing at home today and the whole place is rammed.’
Ray gave an exasperated sigh. ‘They do know the history of domestic violence?’
‘Yes, and they’ve said they’ll make it a priority, they just can’t guarantee when they’ll be able to get to it.’
‘Jesus,’ Ray said. ‘What a joke.’
Kate tapped her pen on the window as she tried Patrick’s mobile. ‘It’s ringing out.’
‘We need to get hold of someone else. Someone local,’ Ray said.
‘What about the neighbours?’ Kate sat up and brought up the internet on her phone.
‘There aren’t any neighbours—’ Ray looked at Kate. ‘The caravan park, of course!’
‘Got it.’ Kate found the number and pressed it to dial. ‘Come on, come on…’
‘Put it on speakerphone.’
‘Hello, Penfach Caravan Park, Bethan speaking.’
‘Hi, this is Detective Constable Kate Evans, from Bristol CID. I’m looking for Jenna Gray – have you seen her today?’
‘Not today, love. She’s in Bristol though isn’t she?’ Bethan’s voice took on a note of caution. ‘Is something wrong? What happened at court?’
‘She was acquitted. Look, I’m sorry to rush you, but Jenna left here about three o’clock and I need to make sure she arrived safely. She was being driven by Patrick Mathews.’
‘I haven’t seen either of them,’ Bethan said, ‘but Jenna’s definitely back – she’s been down to the beach.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’m not long back from walking the dogs, and I saw some of her writing in the sand. Not her usual style though – it was most peculiar.’
Ray felt a sense of unease creep across him. ‘What does the writing say?’
‘What is it?’ Bethan said sharply. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘What does it say?’ He hadn’t meant to shout, and for a moment he thought Bethan had hung up. When she eventually spoke, the hesitation in her voice told him she knew something was badly wrong.
‘It just says, “Betrayed”.’
49
I didn’t mean to f
all asleep, but the knock at the door makes my head jerk upwards, and I rub my stiff neck. It takes me a second to remember that I’m at home, and I hear another, more insistent knock. I wonder how long I have kept Patrick waiting. I clamber to my feet and wince as cramp seizes my calf.
As I turn the key I feel a whisper of fear, but before I can react the door flies open, slamming me into the wall. Ian is flushed and his breathing is ragged. I brace myself for his fist, but it doesn’t come, and I count my heartbeats as he slowly draws the bolt across again.
One, two, three.
Fast and hard, banging against my chest.
Seven, eight, nine, ten.
And then he’s ready, and he turns to me with a smile I know as well as my own. A smile that doesn’t reach his eyes; that hints at what he has in store for me. A smile that tells me that, although the end is coming, it won’t be swift.
He rubs the nape of my neck, his thumb pressing hard against the bone at the top of my spine. It’s uncomfortable, but not painful.
‘You gave my name to the police, Jennifer.’
‘I didn’t—’
He grabs a handful of my hair, yanking me towards him so fast I screw up my eyes, waiting for the explosion of pain as he breaks my nose with his forehead. When I open them again his face is an inch from mine. He smells of whisky and sweat.
‘Don’t lie to me, Jennifer.’
I close my eyes and tell myself I can survive this, although every part of me wants to beg him to kill me now.
He grips my jaw with his free hand, and strokes his forefinger over my lips, slipping a finger into my mouth. I fight the urge to gag as he presses down on my tongue.
‘You double-crossing bitch,’ he says, the words as smooth as if he is paying me a compliment. ‘You made a promise, Jennifer. You promised you wouldn’t go to the police, and what do I see today? I see you buying your own freedom by taking mine. I see my name – my fucking name! – all over the Bristol Post.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ I say, the words thick around his finger. ‘I’ll tell them it’s not true. I’ll say I lied.’ Saliva escapes my mouth to coat Ian’s hand and he looks at it with revulsion.