‘Oh, God, please help her! Somebody, please help her.’
I am ushered away, strong arms wrapping themselves around me. I see medics and police officers kneeling at Grandma’s side. I try to move back to her, shouting that I don’t want to leave her but I’m held in place and unable to move, their hands holding me fast, rooting me to the spot.
We’re all under suspicion. None of these people know what has taken place in this house. Officers cuff Dad and untie Alice. She struggles and tries to get away. I watch her through misted vision, silently willing her to show her true colours, to let the police see who she really is. She spits and fights, shouts and swears as they hold her down and place handcuffs on her wrists as well. Still, she squirms, still she protests, screaming that I was the one who did this, that I attacked Grandma and then attacked her. I almost laugh at the absurdity of it, the ill-thought-out stupidity of her claims.
My face flushes hot, my skin grows cold, a howling gale blowing through my veins as I’m forced to listen to her mad ramblings, the wild accusations of a woman unhinged.
Bodies surround Grandma, the hustle and movement of people trying to save her life. I close my eyes and pray, reciting the words I was taught in school and have never since repeated, saying them over and over until I feel movement nearby, hear the squeak of shoes against the flooring and then watch as she is strapped to a stretcher and carried outside.
Vomit and blood swill at our feet, the stench hitting the back of my throat with a swift punch, dragging me out of my stupor.
People everywhere, authoritative voices, shouts, commands barked out, bodies moving and pushing, and then the heat. So much heat. A wall of it. Yet I’m cold. Freezing, actually. I shiver. Sickness rises, swirls in my gut. I try to ask for help but nothing comes out. I try again but my words get lost amidst the noise and the confusion. My head pounds, crystals stab at my skull before I take a deep breath and everything goes black.
48PETER
It’s funny, he thinks, how the human brain works. And what can happen when it doesn’t. What dreadful atrocities can take place in the absence of all compassion and logic. He’s seen both sides of the coin, been married, in love, deliriously happy, and then subjected to the heartache that ensues when it comes to an end, when all life drains out of it and you are left bereft and rudderless. No sense of direction, no end in sight.
And then there was Alice. He put it down to grief and guilt, being sucked into her little game. Stupid. So stupid and blind and humiliating. A hard lesson to learn.
He feels foolish but is trying to get over it. He was deprived of all reason, pulled towards her by lust and a need to get settled again, get his life back on track. That’s what he keeps telling himself. He’s an educated man, practical and sensible, so how did he allow it to happen? He has no answers except to say, she was exceptional at spotting his vulnerabilities and exploiting them mercilessly. He has learned a solid lesson. One he won’t ever forget.
His mum is recovering. Still in hospital under observation and awaiting discharge, she is coming to live with him and Lauren until she is completely healed both mentally and physically. He anticipates nightmares and restlessness and fear. From all of them. It’s going to be a long road back to normality. Whatever normality is. It feels like a lifetime ago since their little family has led an easy, comfortable way of life without any heartache or acrimony, but he’s prepared to work at it, to restore a kind of loving routine back into their everyday existence.
Lauren has changed her mind about her studies, now preferring criminology rather than English. Both fascinated and repulsed by Jade Kennedy in equal measure, she has talked endlessly about what drove her to do what she did, what was going through her mind and mainly, how good she was at initially fooling them. At fooling him. Lauren had an inkling long before Peter did. He was too wrapped up in the idea of falling in love again to see beyond her charms. And my God, he tried so hard not to love her but a year of turmoil and sorrow had wreaked havoc with his senses and he lowered his resistances, allowing himself to get sucked in, crashing hard against the rocks when it all came undone.
And now, they’re being forced to go through the whole court process again. After doing their damnedest to avoid it the first time around, they’ve decided that they are going to attend this one. He wants to stare into Jade Kennedy’s eyes, try to see inside her head, work out what she is thinking. What drove her. See who she really is.
They’re on the mend, their little family. They still have some way to go but this journey that lies ahead of them will be easier than the last road they navigated. Smoother, easier. Fewer potholes and deviations.
The guilt is still the hardest thing to deal with. It follows him, trailing in his shadow, watching, waiting to bite at him, to take chunks out of his soul for what he did that night by the riverbank. But that is something he is going to have to learn to deal with.
49LAUREN
I’m sitting here reading about an antibody jab that works as a cure for peanut allergy sufferers. It’s not yet fully available for the general public but it’s a tiny ray of hope for people like me who, when faced with a plate of food of provenance unknown, take a tentative bite, unsure if it will be their last.
Jade has shown no remorse for her actions. If anything, she has apparently been intrigued by my condition, asking prison officers how much it would take to kill a person and how long it would take for them to die. I try not to think about that day, the possibilities of what could have happened had she not relented and given Dad the EpiPen. I try to not think about her at all but it’s almost impossible. Psychiatrists have assessed her, found her fit to stand trial after throwing out diagnoses like borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia.
Personally, I think that is bullshit and an insult to people who have those illnesses. I think Jade is just evil, her mind incapable of emotion.
How do I know that? Perhaps it’s because we are more alike than she will ever realise. We all have our flaws, our hidden identities, parts of us we would rather keep concealed. Until they’re required to show themselves, that is. I saw it in her – parts of me. The darkest parts. The uncontrollable parts.
I think that’s why Dad couldn’t spot it, her rotten inner core. He’s too unassuming, too blithe and breezy. So blithe and breezy that he couldn’t finish what he started that night all those months ago on the riverbank. The evening I followed him, a shadow darting in and out of the shrubbery, a ghost in the night.
He saw Mum with Phillip Kennedy, saw them argue, saw the push Kennedy gave her and then watched as he walked away. Mum wasn’t injured. No bruises, no bleeding, no broken bones. Only her pride was damaged as she picked herself up off the floor and tried to regain some of her dignity.
I wanted him to do it at that point: to end her life there and then. Is that a terrible admission? I wanted Dad to kill her. It needed to stop – her behaviour, the way she humiliated him, dragging his reputation through the dirt. I visualised him placing his hands around her neck and squeezing tight until her body became floppy and lifeless.
Except he didn’t. He moved, caused a rustling sound.
She turned, saw him, narrowed her eyes in disgust, called him a name. Something vicious, something demeaning. And then she spat at him. So he hit her across the face. She staggered, eyes wide, and fell back into a tree, her head smacking against the trunk before sliding to the ground in a heap.
He fled. I knew he would. Fear and guilt sent him running in the opposite direction. But not me. We are very different, Dad and I. I stepped closer, obscured by the dense foliage, was able to see that she wasn’t dead, her breathing gaining in momentum, growing stronger with every passing second. Her ability to resist would soon reveal itself as her strength returned. I did it quickly. Cleanly. The heavy branch was short and squat, more of a log, its end smooth and substantial. I held it tightly, swung it, catching her on the side of her face and then once more on the top of her head. Just to be sure. I heard the crack, saw the life drain out of her, and waited. No rising of her chest. No breathing. It was over as quickly as it began.
I’d like to say I was upset, nervous, sickened by my actions. Except it would be a lie. I wasn’t anything. That’s how I know Jade and I more alike than we care to mention.
With my foot, I rolled her down the bank, kicked the leaves over her body and left, throwing the log into the river, watching as it got carried away by the current before disappearing altogether. And the rest, as they say, is history.
My letter to Phillip Kennedy will serve as my defence should anything ever crop up in the future, should any prying eyes who saw me that night suddenly decide to speak up. Why would I write to him if I thought he was innocent? He’s as good as guilty. He was there that night. He started this whole thing. I may have killed her but he set the whole thing in motion. He’s in the right place. I feel no guilt. All I feel is relief.
On a different note, my life has taken an upward turn. Dad is still alone but I’m going out with Josh tonight and have been almost every night since Jade’s arrest. He has proven to be a great friend as well as an amazing boyfriend. I think maybe he is attracted to my strange life and the impending court case. He tells me nearly every day that he really likes me, but he would, wouldn’t he? That’s because he doesn’t know me. I’m not sure anybody does.
How well do any of us know our family, our friends, our neighbours? Every bit of confidence we have would be eroded if we could see inside their heads, pick our way through the debris of their thoughts. I can tell you with absolute certainty, you wouldn’t want to see inside mine.
50ALICE/JADE
Jade Kennedy. I am refusing to answer to that name. They call me by it all the time – Jade this, Jade that. Jade, Jade, Jade. She doesn’t exist. Not any more. I’m Alice. Alice Godwin.
They think they know me, these people. They don’t. Day after day, they try to get inside my head, to delve into the darkest corners of my brain and work out what I’m thinking; what it is that drives me. I won’t let them in. I’m good at shutting people out and keeping the secrets in. It’s what I do. I’ve been practising it all my life.
They tell me that they’ve been speaking to Jack Downey and that I am being charged with the kidnap of his son, Fionn and extorting money from him. I laughed. Fionn doesn’t exist. He’s a ghost of the past, somebody I used to know. Luke was sleeping peacefully the evening the police raided my house to find him. He was healthy, happy, unharmed. They should have let him be, allowed me to see him one last time but they didn’t. Such cruelty and heartache. That boy was all I had, and now he’s gone. As for the other fabricated claims – I wish them every luck. No contracts changed hands, no ATMs used. Just the cameras in the Downey household showing Jack handing me my wages. What does it matter anyway? I’m in here for the long haul. I know that. I stabbed an elderly lady. People don’t take kindly to such perverse acts of violence. Me? I don’t mind them either way. It’s part of life, part of our existence – survival of the fittest. I did what had to be done and now it’s over.
‘It’s Luke,’ I told them, as they sat at the table, their eyes fixed on me while they waited for my answers. ‘I don’t know anybody called Fionn. Luke is my son. Use his proper name or don’t speak of him at all.’
Sometimes, they roll their eyes when I reply to their statements, their rhetorical questions. They think I can’t spot their techniques, the tricks they use to try and elicit the correct responses from me. Responses that would undoubtedly lengthen my sentence, stripping me of my freedoms, depriving me of natural light and all the things we all take for granted day after day.
And then other times, they bang their fists on the table and shout, but only when none of the doctors are present. The head doctors as I like to call them. They are all a little more erudite and peaceable. They don’t have to resort to yelling and violence to get me to speak, to get me to open up about my past. They too, play their little mind games, asking me to tell the truth and telling me that they’re on my side. I don’t necessarily believe that but because I have a little more respect for them, I do try to speak openly and tell them of my thoughts, how they claw at me, daring me to do things.
None of them really listen to what I have to say, however. If they did, their lives would be so much easier. They wouldn’t have to probe and delve. It would be there for them, my thoughts an open book. They could pick through the unimportant stuff and get to the nub of my life. The bits that matter.
