The Stepmother(100)
Half an hour later I get a call from a Welsh-sounding girl called Sal.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Can you get to him? Talk to him?’
‘I can try, babe.’ Sal is cheerful and efficient sounding. ‘What you paying?’
‘What do you want?’
She sets out reasonable terms, and I agree.
‘I need answers – quickly,’ I say. ‘And, Sal…’
‘Yeah?’
‘I need all the help I can get please. Social workers and police, I guess, are the way forward.’
‘Sure thing,’ she says quietly, and I reckon Jez must have told her why. ‘I’ve got my contacts. No worries, babe. I’ll do my best.’
When I hang up, I go back through the cottage, and I open every drawer, every cupboard. I go through everything, through Jeanie’s bag, through her phone.
At some point I realise I’m muttering and cursing, sweating as I rush round the tiny house.
I take the phone, and I take the diary, and I put them in my own bag.
I knock on the cottage next door and ask that Ruth contact me on my mobile if anyone at all comes to the house. I give her my card.
‘I really do hope she’s all right,’ Ruth says, and she seems quite upset. ‘She seemed like a nice lady…’ And then she stops, thinking better of whatever it was she was going to say.
‘Yeah, I really hope so too.’ Don’t cry, Marlena. ‘Can I ask – how come you noticed she was gone?’
‘I had a sort of – hunch maybe? I don’t know. I saw her on Sunday. She seemed – disoriented. She was walking out on the back fields, and she looked…’
She is embarrassed.
‘Go on please,’ I say.
‘I don’t know. I just got the idea something wasn’t right. She seemed very – shaky. And I’m afraid – I heard her crying a few times in the night.’
Oh God.
‘You can hear everything when the windows are open, we’re all so near.’ She looked apologetic. ‘And when her door kept banging in the early hours, I thought – I’d better go in…’
‘Thank God,’ I say.
‘I just wish…’ She trails off. ‘Well. I wish I could have helped her more.’
She offers me a lift to the station, but I don’t want to talk any more, so I thank her again, as sincerely as possible, and say goodbye.
I walk down to the town square and call a cab. The air here is so fresh and so clean; I can see why Jeanie liked it. She could have been happy here, I can see that. I feel like it might have been the right place.
The cab drops me at the Royal Derby Hospital, and I sit with Jeanie for an hour before I catch the train. There’s no change, though I’m sure I feel a flicker of her hand in mine at one point, when I rest my forehead on her fingers.
When I leave, teary and fraught, I head back down south. I research Berkhamsted, the town I will finally visit later. Apparently this pleasant ‘commuter town’ was once the home of Graham Greene. It has a Waitrose, of course – but Jeanie’s no longer there.
And how ashamed am I that it’s taken this disaster for me to go? How ashamed am I?
I’ve got no bloody clue what to do next – that’s the truth. I’m so heartsick I don’t know what to do with myself full stop. And I haven’t managed to get hold of Frankie yet.
The image of Jeanie under that sheet spins round my head, so pale, that plastic thing shoved in her mouth, and all those stupid bloody machines, green lights and beeps. It’s unbearable. What will I do – if…
All the way from Derby on the train, my mind jangles like church bells rung by a group of pissed vicars.
As we’re pulling into St Pancras, the stringer Sal texts to say she’s made contact with her source at Hertfordshire County Council Social Services and started to dig around. She’s not seen Matthew yet; she thinks he’s still in custody.
She’s managed to speak to the investigating officer, who says he can’t disclose anything yet – but she knows the allegations have come from someone very close to King.
I get a cab home.
* * *
My neighbour catches me as I’m about to shut my front door.
‘Package for you,’ he says, ridiculous in tight Lycra, on his way to jog through the pollution.
It’s a badly wrapped book of some description; my name on the address label – but it’s misspelt.