Cross Her Heart(45)

Cross my heart and hope to die.

Breaking those kind of promises wreaks vengeance. I should have known. I did know. I’ve always known. It’s the cause of the fear that’s eaten at me for so long.

Alison leans forward, obviously seeing how irritated the donkey is getting with me. ‘It’s Jon,’ she says. ‘He’s the man Ava has been talking to on the Internet. But the things he’s been saying. Well – they’re not the sort of things a father would say to his daughter. Look.’ She nods at Bray, who holds out a sheaf of printed paper. I frown as I take them, and look at Alison. ‘What are you talking about?’ Finally, I engage.

‘Jon found Ava on Facebook. He’s been messaging her for several months. But he hasn’t told her he’s her father. The messages have been of a more …’ she hesitates. ‘Sexual nature. He’s groomed her to run away with him.’ She takes my hand as if we’re friends and it’s awkward for both of us. My palm is suddenly sweating, damp springing from my skin like the tears I can never cry. ‘Have you heard from him at all?’ she asks. ‘He’s not at his house. He told neighbours he was going travelling almost a year ago. The police are doing everything they can to find him – to find both of them – but they need your help. Is there anywhere he may have taken her? A place that was significant to both of you maybe? Or just to him? Somewhere you went on holiday? We can go through the files, but not everything will be in there.’

Drive away, baby. The rabbit. The photo smashed at the bottom of the stairs. It’s all making a terrible sense.

I want the radio on. I may miss something vital. I zone out their words, Alison and the Braying woman still trying to speak to me. I cling on to the printed messages though. I’ll study them later. I need to try and make some order out of all this if I’m going to save my daughter.

‘She’s not listening,’ Bray says. ‘We need someone who can get through to her. And she needs to ease off the meds for now.’ She stands up and leans over me. ‘Lisa.’ I ignore her. ‘Charlotte!’ She barks the name, and I can’t help but look up. ‘Is there any way he could know where you were living?’ she asks. ‘Anything at all?’

‘No,’ I say, although even as I do, I know it’s a lie. ‘No. No way.’

Another piece of the puzzle falls into place. I was young and stupid and it’s the only piece that could fit.

Clever. So very clever.

I wish I could cry.





37


AFTER


2006

Her heart thumps as she licks the bitter glue of the envelope. She shouldn’t send the letter. She knows she shouldn’t, but although the world might think she’s evil, if she can’t forgive him for the thing he did, then how can she ever expect to be forgiven herself? She can’t stay filled with hate. It’s too exhausting. And he’s sorry. He’s done the best he can to prove that.

They can keep giving her new names – Lisa, she’s now Lisa – but they can’t so easily wipe out all the versions of her who went before. They are ghosts who live under the skin and one ghost loved him for a while. Even with how he was towards the end, and after what he did when they left, she still misses how she felt in the early days. And he gave her Ava – Crystal has a new name too this time – so how can she not forgive him now that he’s done his best to make up for it all?

She physically flinches when she remembers the headlines – how he made their story, their life together sound so awful. How he blamed his drinking on her. How he said she’d ruined his life. All the tiny details of their relationship that she’d once treasured, he publicly trampled them and made them dirty.

At least they hadn’t been able to print her picture. But still, there had been the relocation and another identity to be created, more taxpayers’ money spent on someone most of the public would rather had been hanged for what she’d done. She was sure the team around her muttered at the ridiculous cost of it all and blamed her for being a lovesick fool who’d brought this on herself with her big mouth.

But over a year has passed and life has settled and now Jon’s done this good thing which will allow her and Ava to have a better life. Alison – there’s no more Joanne; a new town means a new probation officer – says that under no circumstances can she have any contact with him. They will pass on her thanks or any note or message she wants to send him. She’s told them to do that, but she’s also so very tired of everyone knowing everything and her life being under a microscope again. If she gives them the letter for him they’ll read every word and some words, even I forgive you and I wish you all the happiness, should be private.

She stares at the envelope, the carefully printed address in stark black against the white. His mother’s house, that’s what the papers had said. He was moving there because his mother was sick and looking after her would help with his rehab. The papers said he wanted to start a fresh life away from his memories of her. Maybe he’s not living there any more. But if his mother – Patricia, that was her name, Patricia of the over-sweet perfume – is still alive, perhaps she’ll pass the letter on. She wouldn’t, of course – she’d probably read it and burn it and curse the day her boy met Charlotte Nevill – but at least she will have tried.