When She Was Bad (37 page)
Authors: Tammy Cohen
Tags: #Fiction, #Crime, #Thrillers, #Suspense, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural, #Psychological, #General
‘Oh. Maybe not so exciting then.’
Julia was encouraging confidences, but Amira clearly didn’t want to elaborate. Still Julia persevered.
‘While you’re in here, perhaps you can help me sort out who everyone is. That pregnant lady over there is Sarah, right?’
Amira’s eyes followed the direction of Julia’s nod to a woman standing by the printer absently rubbing her very obvious bump. Julia had already decided that when Sarah went off on maternity leave, she’d bring Naomi in to cover for her. Reinforcements, that’s what she needed. A friendly face out there on the main floor would make all the difference.
But Amira was frowning.
‘No.
That’s
Sarah.’ She gestured to a desk at the side where a heavily pregnant pink-faced, red-haired woman was shifting around in her chair as if trying to get comfortable. Now the penny dropped. Julia turned back to the figure by the printer.
‘Ah, so that must be . . .’
‘Yes, Chloe.’
Julia felt a secret thrill of excitement. So this was the girl at the centre of all the media speculation. Chloe was sticking to her story that the father of her unborn baby was a foreign student with whom she’d had a one-night stand, but that hadn’t stopped the rumours. Only last week, Julia had seen a photo of her in a magazine with the headline:
LOVE CHILD FOR SAUNA KILLER
?
She looked so young standing there on her own. So vulnerable. Julia felt the first stirrings of protectiveness towards her new, beleaguered team. She was known in the industry as someone who was fiercely loyal to her staff. No doubt that was part of the reason Mark Hamilton had brought her in.
After Amira had gone, Julia was thoughtful. She had expected that her new staff might be nervous, maybe even a bit hostile. But this polite guardedness was something she hadn’t anticipated. Still, she’d win them over gradually. She just needed to get to know them a bit, to find out what made them tick. Maybe she’d move her desk out on to the main floor. Or take them all out to the pub or out for a meal. Alcohol was the quickest way of breaking down barriers, she’d found.
She logged on to her computer, following the instructions the gangly young man from IT had scrawled on a Post-it and stuck to her monitor. Then she put the company postcode into a local search engine and looked up neighbouring restaurants. She picked up her phone and dialled.
‘Table for six, please.’
Four thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven miles away, Noelle Egan gazed at a magazine feature with her dull, dead eyes. She’d been out of jail for nearly six years now, having got time off her life sentence for cooperating with the state in the case against her ex-husband. Naturally, she’d gone looking for her daughter straight away but Laurie had disappeared – adopted overseas, apparently – absorbed so completely into the system it was like she had never existed at all.
But her son was different. Him, she couldn’t avoid. The news stations, running endless discussions about whether he was really a monster or just a victim of his early upbringing, statements from police who’d worked on the case when she and Pete were first arrested. An interview with one of the psychiatrists who’d assessed him, a ridiculously tall pompous man who liked the sound of his own voice. She’d seen her son on the news and felt nothing. Not even the old revulsion. Just nothing.
But this snippet in the magazine changed everything. She studied the photograph again. The girl looked so young still. Pretty. Long hair. Tall. Nice clothes. But it wasn’t her Noelle was interested in. Her eyes were drawn to the bump under her expensive-looking coat. Her grandchild. A girl. She was certain of it. A little girl to replace Laurie.
Noelle cut out the photograph neatly with a pair of nail scissors. After laying the scissors back down on the table, she changed her mind and picked them up again.
Snip
. She’d cut off the young woman’s head. That was better. Noelle taped the picture of the headless female carefully to the fridge and gazed at it, lost in contemplation. Contrary to what the world believed, she’d been a good mom. She’d been a great mom. But twenty-five years ago, her children had been stolen from her. And now, finally, she had the chance to reclaim what was hers. Children didn’t belong to the state. They were private property. They belonged to their parents.
Or their grandparents.
She sat down at her computer and logged into Facebook. After peering at the caption on the photograph on the fridge she typed the name Chloe Somerfield into the search box, absorbing the few biographical details on display. Not many, as the privacy settings were on high, but enough to get started. She noted the date of birth. Still so young. She could have other babies after this one was gone. Opening up Google, she typed:
Applying for a new passport
. Next she called up a map of the world and stared at it impassively for a long while. She hadn’t realized just how far away London was. That huge expanse of ocean. She’d never even been abroad before. For a split second her resolve wavered. Then she glanced at the photograph on the fridge and the doubts vanished.
Her grandchild would be needing her.
After all, blood was thicker than water.
T
HE END
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the amazing Emma Herdman for the time and energy she put into helping me with this book. Her future authors don’t know how lucky they are. Also at Curtis Brown, thanks go as always to Felicity Blunt, my fearless agent, and to Vivienne Schuster, Alice Lutyens, Sophie Harris, Katie McGowan and Luke Speed.
The Transworld team, as ever, have worked tirelessly to effect the usual sow’s ear to silk purse transformation. Heartfelt thanks go to my brilliant editor, Jane Lawson, my publicist, Sarah Harwood, and everyone else who contributed to the book including Katrina Whone, Alice Murphy-Pyle, Kate Samano, Larry Finlay and Bill Scott-Kerr. Also to receptionists extraordinaire, Jeanette Slinger at Penguin Random House and Jean Kriek at Transworld.
The book blogging community has been a massive support to me over the last few years. First and foremost, thanks go to the wonderful Anne Cater, who lends her name to one of the main characters in this book (although the similarities stop there) and who has been a valued friend and cheerleader. I’d also like to thank Cleo Bannister, Liz Barnsley, Pam McIlroy, Victoria Goldman, and of course the famously indefatigable Tracy Fenton who established The Book Club on Facebook.
Though it’s been a while since I last went out to work, writing this book inevitably stirred up memories of various offices I worked in during my career as a journalist, and I’d like to pay tribute to the friends and colleagues who shared those endless mid-afternoon tea-rounds. Sharon Bexley, Jacky Hyams, Rupert Mellor, Bridget Freer, Sue Cocker, Sue Ricketts, Sue Garland, Graham Kerr, Philippa Gibson, Belinda Robey, Liz Garment, Suzy Barber, Maria Trkulja, Jonathan Bowman. I’m raising a plastic cup of lukewarm white wine to you all now around an imaginary desk.
The science of early years memory is ever evolving and could fill several volumes. In my efforts to distil various theories into a concise enough form to fit this narrative, I have almost certainly taken heinous liberties with the facts and I apologize in advance. Huge thanks to Dr Jez Phillips, deputy head of Psychology at the University of Chester, for his patient help in explaining some of the current research in this area. Any mistakes are definitely my own.
In the absence of a real office environment, I rely heavily on my virtual workmates when writing a book, and I’d like to thank everyone at Crime Scene and Killer Women and The Prime Writers. Also Amanda Jennings, Louise Millar, Louise Douglas, Cally Taylor, Emma Kavanagh, Clare Mackintosh, Marnie Riches, Mark Edwards, Susi Holliday.
I also would not function without my friends, so thanks once again to Rikki Finegold, Mel Amos, Juliet Brown, Roma Cartwright, Fiona Godfrey, Mark Hindley, Mike Wilkins, Sally Thompson, Steve Griffiths, Ed Needham, Jo Lockwood, Dill Hammond, Mark Heholt, Jos Joures, Renata Barcelos, Helen Bates.
To my family – Sara, Simon, Colin, Emma, Paul, Ed, Alfie, Margaret, Gaynor, and particularly to Otis, Jake, Billie and Michael, and even to Doris – once again all my love and thanks.
About the Author
Tammy Cohen
(who previously wrote under her formal name Tamar Cohen) has written several acclaimed novels about family fall-out:
The Mistress’s Revenge
,
The War of the Wives
and
Someone Else’s Wedding
.
The Broken
was her first pyschological thriller, followed by
Dying for Christmas
and
First One Missing
.
She is a member of the Killer Women crime-writing collective and lives in North London with her partner and three (nearly) grown children, plus one badly behaved dog. Chat with her on Twitter
@MsTamarCohen
or at
www.tammycohen.co.uk
Also by Tammy Cohen
THE MISTRESS’S REVENGE
Her sharp debut novel written as a journal addressed by a former mistress to the married lover who dumped her.
THE WAR OF THE WIVES
A happily married woman whose husband dies unexpectedly is confronted at his funeral by a woman who claims that she was his wife.
SOMEONE ELSE’S WEDDING
The story of a wife and her grown-up family whose secrets come shimmering to the surface at a wedding: told in real-time over thirty-six hours.
THE BROKEN
A couple are sucked into their best friends’ bitter divorce with devastating results for all.
DYING FOR CHRISTMAS
A young woman is held captive over the twelve days of Christmas.
FIRST ONE MISSING
The parents of missing children club together for support. But all is not as it seems.
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Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at
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First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Black Swan
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Tammy Cohen 2016
Cover photograph © Alamy; Cover:
www.headdesign.co.uk
Tammy Cohen has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473509597
ISBN 9781784160197
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