The Stepmother(120)
It’s DI Stevens.
‘Marlena? I hate to tell you – but forensics have confirmed it is Nasreen’s body that was found.’ He’s matter of fact. ‘I’m sorry.’
I take a deep breath.
‘The good news is we’ve arrested Lenny Jones.’
I bloody knew it. I knew it when they found the decomposing body of a young woman buried out in an Essex wood a few weeks ago. It’s been a long, hot summer and – it wasn’t good. They were going to have to run extensive tests – but the odds were high it was Nasreen.
‘His DNA’s all over her T-shirt – along with her own blood,’ the DI goes on. ‘It’s a no-brainer.’
I knew when there was no trace of her anywhere in Turkey or Syria that something wasn’t right, that that boy Lenny had made that ISIS bullshit up. Such a convenient way to cover his dirty tracks, sending everyone in the wrong direction. Rather imaginative for a youth like him.
But I’m not glad to have been right this time. Poor, sweet girl. Poor family. I feel gutted for them.
‘You can have the scoop, if you like,’ the copper’s saying. ‘We’ve ordered a media blackout for tonight. I don’t reckon we’d have got him if you hadn’t been so bloody annoying.’
‘Persistent,’ I correct tartly. ‘That’s the word I think you’re looking for.’
On the other side of the road, I see Levi standing outside the Roundhouse.
When he sees me he starts waving madly. I wave back.
‘Hurry up,’ he’s mouthing over Camden’s traffic.
‘Okay,’ I say to DI Stevens. ‘Yes, please. But can I come down in a couple of hours? I’ve got somewhere I need to be right now.’
I hang up, and I hurry across the road to meet my boyfriend. The word nearly chokes me – and I think I mentioned before he has a really dodgy QPR tattoo that I’m not very happy about – but I hurry over with a spring in my step.
I never thought I’d write these words – and I feel a bit embarrassed – but I rush into his arms.
And actually, it feels all right.
Sixty-Seven
Jeanie
3 September 2015
Jon Hunter’s on his way back from Tanzania, so I’m renting somewhere of my own, slightly further out of town: a sweet little place called Pear Tree Cottage. It’s very like Jon’s home. Red bricked this time, a little crooked, on the top of a dale. Well it is the Peak District after all.
It’s got an open fireplace and sage-green window frames. The doorways are low, and the floorboards are a bit creaky – but it’s too small to be scary, unlike Malum House.
Jon’s emailed me a lot recently; we’ve chatted back and forth. He says he’s looking forward to seeing me; he’s got so much to tell me about the kids in the orphanage.
And I find, as I unpack my few boxes and put my clothes away, that I’m looking forward to seeing him too. He’s always been a nice man, Jon, and now he’s left his shackles behind him, he’s so much happier. More free. Free to be himself.
I’ve got a contract now at the same college, and I’m looking forward to going back. I’ve been reading some French literature this holiday for a new evening class I might teach in Derby; in particular a book called Bonjour Tristesse.
I started to enjoy it – a story about a French girl and her relationship to the various women who might end up being her stepmother – but it has a tragic end.
It was a little close to home.
Poor wicked stepmothers. They always get a bad press, don’t they?
* * *
Marlena came to stay just before Jon came back.
She’d bought walking boots and a black Barbour – although it was a super-cool, tight-waisted one of course.
On the second day the sun came out, and she suggested, to my enduring surprise, we went for a ‘proper, sweaty’ walk – so I took her to Thorpe Cloud. It was one of my favourite spots, despite its proximity to where I nearly died. The views went on forever; on all four sides of the summit you could see for miles.
But it wasn’t long before Marlena tripped and broke two of her new inlay nails (she was trying to stop biting the real ones). Then she kept moaning about the slopes being ‘vertiginous’, so we drove on to a less intimidating hill. When we walked through the first village and she spied a homely looking pub, we stopped for a drink.