Looking for JJ (9 page)

Why was everyone so interested in her now? When it was too late to change anything? What was the point? The monkey’s eyes stared up at her and she had a sudden feeling of impatience with it. Stupid child’s toy! What did she want it for? She took its arm and flung it aside. Then she pulled the duvet around her and sat in the corner of the bed.

 

Alice ended up in the stockroom. It was quiet in the café and she was using the time to tidy up the wholesaler’s packs of coffee, tea, chocolate and biscotti. The room was tiny, barely enough space for two people to pass each other. She didn’t mind. She liked sorting out the stock, putting it in
use by
date order, checking through the boxes of paper cups and lids, plastic spoons, knives and forks. Counting up, matching stuff against the master list, seeing if anything was running low. It was all about organization. Without well stocked back-up the café might run out, and then where would they be. She stood back feeling satisfied. It was good to know that everything was in order.

Brushing the dust from her overall she felt the crinkle of the paper again. Finding some space she sat down cross-legged on the floor, took the newspaper picture out of her pocket and spread it out in front of her. Her mum’s face smiled again. A
permanent home
. Her mum believed it, she was sure.

How could she explain it to anyone? She hadn’t been hit, punched, locked away. She hadn’t had anyone screaming at her, ordering her about, insulting her. She’d just been sidelined, forgotten about. She’d been left with friends and family, the social services, complete strangers; finally when there was no one else she’d just been left on her own. That brilliant smile, that lipsticked mouth, the sparkling eyes, those were for her once, but as she grew up they had turned away and were gazing in a different direction. Jennifer had been an inconvenience, and whenever her mother had a new set of friends, a new boyfriend, a new modelling job, she simply cast her off.

She did it so beautifully, with promises and toys and kisses. And every time Jennifer believed her. This was the last time she would have to stay with gran or be in care or stay in with Perry. After this time it would all settle and there would just be her and her mum.
Just the two of us.

But each time there was the choking hurt of it. The days when they’d been together were full of brightness and colour. But slowly, with a look, a phone call, an extra hour in the bathroom, Jennifer knew that things were changing. The days turned from colour to black and white, and she was alone again; the plastic smiles of another foster placement, or her gran’s weariness. Inside she felt each separation like a blast of cold. She couldn’t be angry. She just had to wait until one day the door would open and there her mother would be, resplendent in a matching outfit, her hair hanging wispily, her skin glowing, her mouth pouting with the need for forgiveness.

Except in Berwick it had been different. Then her mother hadn’t abandoned her. She had done something much worse. She had
used
her, and Jennifer had hated her for it.

Alice folded the picture up again and was about to replace it in her pocket when she suddenly thought,
Why?
Instead she screwed it up and tossed it into the bin, with all the empty packaging and foodstuffs that were past their sell-by date.

Later, just before she was due to go home, she was surprised to see the man in the leather jacket, the detective, Derek Corker, struggling in the door. He was carrying a laptop case as well as a rucksack, and he had a couple of newspapers under his arm. Pippa was about to serve him but Alice edged in.

“I’ll get this one,” she said. “You have a break.”

Derek Corker gave her a smile of recognition.

“We must stop meeting like this,” he said. “A large latte and a Danish to go.”

“To go?” she said.

“Yep, I’m moving on today. My investigation? That girl I told you about? It’s come to nothing.”

“Oh,” Alice said, a smile settling on her face. The newspapers looked ruffled as if he’d been reading them somewhere.

“I’ll still get paid, though. So it’s no skin off my nose.”

“Have a good trip,” she said, handing him his change.

“Sometimes people don’t want to be found,” he called.

She nodded, watching him as he struggled out of the café door and walked towards the station.

 

 

 

The flat smelled of rich spices. Alice inhaled the aroma all the way up the stairs, speeding towards the top, keen to see Rosie and tell her about the detective’s departure. When she threw open the kitchen door she saw Rosie seated at the table. Opposite her was Kathy, her mother. Both women were cradling cups of coffee.

“Hi, Kathy,” Alice said, grinning at the older woman, her heart racing.

“Hello, Alice love,” Kathy said.

“How are you?” Alice said, lightly, pulling a chair out, easing herself down on it.

“Never been better, sweetheart.”

It was her usual kind of answer. Kathy was a relentlessly cheerful woman who didn’t seem to have a bad word to say about anybody. Rosie adored her, phoning her almost every day, talking for ages and then going through the conversation again with Alice, keeping her up to date on her mum’s new clothes or hairstyles.

Kathy was very different to Rosie. She was smaller and thinner and dressed up every day as though she was always getting ready to have her photo taken. She wore trouser suits from Marks and Spencer’s and her hair, a shocking red colour, was always neatly styled. Her skin was perpetually tanned from frequent holidays to an apartment in Majorca which she owned.

“My neighbour is going to the Maldives for her holiday!” Kathy said, looking faintly shocked. “It’s a long way to go to lie on a beach.”

“But it’s beautiful, Mum, I’d love to go there.”

“Honestly,” Kathy said, turning to Alice, pulling her into the conversation, “I’ve tried to get her to come to Majorca for the last five years. Will she come?”

“I’ll come,” Alice said.

She was only joining in the playful banter, but a strange light-headed feeling came over her because she suddenly thought,
I could go! Why not?

“You come any time you like sweetheart,” Kathy said, picking up her coffee mug and peering into it. “Maybe you can persuade my Rose to come as well. Yuck, I’ve had enough of this coffee. I’ll be running to the loo all the way home.”

“I’ll drive you,” Rosie said, picking up the cups and taking them to the sink. “You’ll be OK on your own, won’t you Alice?”

Alice nodded, pushing down a tiny blip of disappointment. She had looked forward to having Rosie to herself. She had envisaged the two of them chatting about the newspaper story, about Derek Corker and his hope - less detective work. She was feeling pumped up with confidence. He’d stood next to her, talked to her on three occasions and yet he’d never once realized who she was.

And then, floating around the edges of her mind, was this idea that she might go with Kathy to Majorca. It had only been said as a joke, but why not? She so much wanted to talk to Rosie about it, to hear Rosie’s soothing words and feel that finally, after many months, things were going to be all right.

But Rosie’s car keys were rattling.

“I’m not an invalid,” Kathy was saying. “Tell her, Alice, that I’m capable of getting the bus!”

Alice shrugged her shoulders. “She likes taking you home,” she said, rolling her eyes as if she also was vexed with Rosie’s over-protective attitude towards her mother.

“I suppose so,” Kathy said, sighing, as though it was something she had to bear.

Alice leaned across and gave Kathy a kiss on her powdery cheek. She listened for a few moments as the two women disappeared down the stairs. She would have to be patient. She and Rosie had the whole evening to talk.

She walked into her bedroom, pulling her T-shirt off, intending to have a shower. Beside her bed, on the floor, was her carry-all bag, partly packed for the trip to Brighton to stay with Frankie. She’d pulled it out the previous weekend and chucked a couple of things into it but hadn’t got any further. Now it would be a rush, making sure that the clothes she wanted to take were washed and ironed. It didn’t matter. The main thing was that she was going. She sat on the bed and peeled her jeans off. Lying back, stretching her arms and legs, she thought of Frankie. He had rung her every day since he left. He missed her and
loved
her, he’d say and she’d felt mildly embarrassed at his words.

How lucky she was. She had Rosie, Frankie, a place at uni. She had a bag to pack and a trip to Brighton to look forward to. She was even thinking of going to Majorca to stay in Kathy’s apartment. How normal was that? Her new life fitted her comfortably, like a favourite chair that she could curl up in.

And yet the past was there. It always would be.
You can’t change what happened
, Patricia Coffey had said over and over.
No matter how much you think of it or cry about it you can’t change a single second of it. The only thing you can change is the future.

I don’t deserve a future,
she had said.
I can’t go on and live my life normally when I took someone else’s life away. How can I do that?

You’ve got to. Otherwise two lives have been wasted. You have to go on now and make a good life for yourself, to make up for what you’ve done.

Is this what she meant by a good life? Alice wondered. Is this enough? To go to work every day? To have friends? To become educated? For what, in the end? To become a wife, a mother? Would it be better if she went abroad and worked among the hungry and the desperate? If she could prevent others from suffering and dying, would that make up for what she did six years before on Berwick Waters? Would it then be a life for a life?

Alice turned on her side pulling her knees up to her chest. Feeling her insides harden up, she closed her eyes and let the day come back into her head. In May it was, cold but sunny, and she had to keep shielding her eyes with her hand. The other two up ahead, chatting away to each other, their jumpers tied round their waists. Three of them out for a day’s adventure. On their way into the reservoir Michelle told Lucy to be careful of the cats.
They hate people
, she said, in her know-all voice.
They blame people for flooding the land and drowning them. Don’t look straight at them because they might scratch your eyes out.

Alice reached out and pulled the corner of the duvet towards her. She was too warm by far but it didn’t matter. She let the feral cat creep into her thoughts. The memory of it uncurled in her head. Its face was bony, its skin stretched across its skull. On that day it had appeared from nowhere and sat on the ground staring heavily at her. She’d backed away, startled by its glare. It had seen everything and hadn’t flinched. Just raised its paw and started to clean itself, ignoring everything else, not even glancing over at the girl’s body on the ground.

She choked back a sob and pulled the duvet over her face. Three children who went out for an adventure. Only two came back. The knowledge of it would always drag her backwards in time. No matter how many years passed it would always be there, attached to her by some invisible thread. She tried to curl herself up into a ball, to cover herself completely with the stifling duvet. At times like this she wanted to disappear and no amount of hugs from Rosie or text messages from Frankie could change that.

She should have died on that day. Perhaps, in a way, she had.

 

Later, after a long cool shower, she put the ironing board up in the kitchen and started to sort out her clothes. She heard the front door open and waited for Rosie’s footsteps and for her to appear at the kitchen door, her face beaming with some story about her mum and then a hug for Alice. She would be deliberately upbeat, trying to take Alice’s mind off the newspapers and then she’d show Alice the meal she’d cooked, probably something special to make up for the rotten week they’d both had.

As Alice pressed the iron’s face on to the board she felt an aching inside her for Rosie’s presence. Where was she? Why was she taking so long to come up the stairs? Footsteps sounded then, but not just Rosie’s. Someone else was coming as well. Was it Kathy come back for some reason? Seconds later she heard voices. It was Sara from down stairs. She was immediately irritated. Why was Sara always hanging round? Waiting to talk to her or Rosie, coming up and sitting in the kitchen as though she owned the place.

“Look who I’ve brought back with me!” Rosie said, coming in through the kitchen door, her mouth in a sort of rictus smile that Sara couldn’t see from behind. Alice immediately softened. It wasn’t Rosie’s fault and Sara would probably be gone in a half an hour.

“Hi, Alice. I’m glad I’ve caught you. I wanted to chat to both of you.”

“Cup of tea?” Rosie said.

“No.”

Alice noticed something odd about Sara. She looked different. She was wearing a dark suit and not carrying a bag. In her hand was a set of keys, a big bunch as though she had lots of doors to open.

“I think you both should sit down,” Sara said, in an odd bossy way.

“What’s the matter?” Rosie said, looking from Sara back to Alice and then back again.

Sara looked taller, that was it. Alice looked down at her feet and noticed her high-heeled shoes and light-coloured tights. The suit was fitted at the waist and made her look slimmer altogether. It looked expensive, she hadn’t seen her wear anything like that before.

“You look smart,” Rosie said, pulling a chair out and sitting down. “Are you going somewhere nice?”

“It might be a good idea to sit down, Alice,” Sara said, ignoring Rosie’s question. Sara said it in a tone of voice that suggested she was used to being obeyed. Maybe she wasn’t such a bad teacher as she made out to be. Alice bent down and switched the iron off at the plug and then pulled out a chair to sit beside Rosie. She glanced over at the kitchen clock. It had just gone six. She hoped Sara wouldn’t be long.

“What’s this all about?” Rosie said, raising her eyebrows, giving Sara a pleasant smile.

Sara didn’t sit down. She had her hands clasped behind her and looked as though she was going to make a speech. Alice had a sudden bad feeling about it.

“I may as well be completely straight with you. My name is Sara Wright and I work for a Sunday newspaper. A couple of months ago we had a tip-off that Jennifer Jones had been released early and was living in South London. Through some other contacts we were able to pinpoint a number of teenage girl placements in this area and it didn’t take long to find out which of them was Jennifer—”

“What?” Rosie spluttered. “You’re from the news - papers?”

Alice looked from Rosie to Sara and then back again. Rosie’s expression was of total disbelief. Her hand shot sideways and grabbed Alice’s arm. Sara looked a little uncomfortable but rushed ahead as though she had a lot of words to get out in a short time.

“When we were sure that Jennifer Jones had been placed here we made plans to investigate the situation. I rented the flat downstairs and have spent the last six weeks or so collecting information.”

“You’ve been spying on us?” Rosie said.

Alice couldn’t speak. She looked at Sara without blinking. Her eyes felt like stones, ready to drop out if she wasn’t careful.

“The newspaper I work for is a quality journal. When we knew that Jennifer was living here we decided not to make a splash of it. We decided to wait and go for a more analytical approach. We wanted to see what sort of person Jennifer . . . Alice was. How she fitted into the community, and so on.”

“You told us you were a school teacher,” Rosie said, her voice dripping with disappointment.

“We made plans to write an article about Jennifer . . . Alice. It was going to be a prelude to my writing a book about the whole case. The . . . incident at Berwick, the trial, the aftermath, Alice’s new life. That’s why I moved in downstairs. Not to expose you, Alice, I could have done that six weeks ago. No, no. I wanted to get to know you. I wanted to be able to write a serious book about you and your new life. To show the public that it is possible for people to change.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?” Alice said.

Sara’s face softened and she leaned forward, resting her hands on the back of a chair.

“I knew you would refuse. I thought if I came to you, you would just disappear, go somewhere else.”

This was true and Alice knew it. It didn’t make her feel any better. She looked at Sara’s suit and smart shoes. That was the difference. In the past Sara had dressed like a school teacher. Baggy tops, jeans, jewellery, a giant bag that looked as though it held a set of exercise books. She’d been in disguise to fool them. Rosie had liked her, taken her into the flat and made her drinks and homemade biscuits. She had trusted her, made plans for theatre visits, when all the while Sara was a person in disguise. Just like Alice, really. Poor Rosie, she was surrounded by fakes.