Chapter 31
He’d said yes. On Friday – which was, in fact, Good Friday – Bella drove west on the North Circular Road towards Oxford.
She was going to Jamie Clarke’s home. She was going to meet him.
She was wired with anticipation, with the strangeness of it all.
Each time the traffic stopped, she would angle the rear-view mirror towards her face and feel a surge of incredulity at the reflection gazing back at her.
The make-up. The hair! She had often wondered what she would look like as a blonde, and now she knew.
She had found the wig online. It had lovely long wavy fair tresses and was so different from the sleek dark bob she’d worn since childhood.
She had once worked with someone who had alopecia and knew she should have the wig professionally fitted, but when it arrived, it looked good enough.
In fact, she barely recognised herself, and she was confident that no one else would either, not even Justin or her dad – not if she walked right past them in the street.
A stab of hurt came with the thought that both would disapprove of the way she looked; in fact, her dad would hate it.
He had never let her wear make-up when she was growing up.
‘Get that muck off your face,’ he would say if he ever caught her with it on.
And now here she was, wearing lots of it – heavy eyeliner, deep red lipstick – and on the seat next to her was a pair of high-heeled work shoes, the kind she had never worn to work, ever, and which her dad would definitely think were slutty.
But she was playing a role, and she looked the part.
She was dressed in a suit, which she had ordered from Boohoo along with a smart belted coat, and on the back seat were a clipboard and a fake ID and lanyard, all of which had come from an online office store.
She had designed an impressive-looking badge and company logo to go inside them.
Her art foundation year at Middlesex hadn’t been wasted after all.
She was going to be a market researcher named Gemma Washington, who owned her own agency: GWS Research.
Attached to the clipboard was an information sheet about the kind of work the agency did, along with a list of questions about people’s online buying habits and a printout with a load of data that she’d got from ChatGPT.
The whole thing – the new persona, the company, the questions – felt wildly creative.
She felt alive in a way she couldn’t remember ever feeling before, or at least not since early childhood, when the world had still been full of wonder and possibility.
Jamie had listened carefully to her plan and, after hesitating for just a moment, had agreed that she could come to his home in Oxford, where he was living while renovating a loft space for someone he knew.
The owner was away and he had seemed worried about being alone with her, but Bella had reassured him about her intentions.
He was, understandably, afraid. God, she was afraid.
But they both wanted this meeting; they both knew it had to happen.
And in some strange way, they seemed to have become united in their fear – of the police, of the outcome, of each other.
It was mid-afternoon when she arrived. The street was in an affluent part of Oxford and was impressive – broad, quiet and lined by huge mansion houses, all gothic in style but each one individual.
Bella drove slowly, gazing at the ornate walls and arched doorways, until she found number twenty-one.
The few parked cars in the road were empty.
She made sure to check the driveways too, and then messaged Jamie to tell him she had arrived and that she thought the coast was clear.
He replied to confirm that he hadn’t seen anyone suspicious.
Even so, they agreed that she would come to the door with her clipboard as planned, and when he answered, they would go through the pretence she’d outlined on the phone.
She got out of the car, her feet unsteady in her high heels, and then she was there at the front door, holding her clipboard, pressing the bell and lifting the heavy iron knocker.
And then the door was opening and he was in front of her.
She took him in: the short grey-brown hair, the dimple in his clean-shaven chin, the thin, unsmiling mouth, the metal-framed glasses, the intense blue eyes behind them – those famous eyes. The eyes of a monster.
‘Hello,’ she said, forcing herself to sound calm and confident. ‘My name’s Gemma Washington. I’m from an agency called GWS Research.’ She lifted her lanyard to show him her ID. ‘I wonder if you have the time to answer a few questions?’
‘What kind of questions?’ he asked, scratching his chin, playing his part well.
‘Well, we’re looking into the consumer habits of a series of different age groups and backgrounds to establish the impact of AI on market trends.’
He looked amused by this, as if trying not to smile.
‘Could you spare me some of your time?’ she asked, her own nervous energy rising.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not? You’d better come in.’
He stood back to let her pass. She hesitated for just a second.
He was around six feet tall and although not particularly intimidating, his chest was broad and she could see the muscles in his arms and shoulders.
He could restrain her and hurt her, without a doubt, but she pushed the thought out of her mind and moved past him into the hallway, waiting while he closed the door.
‘Not locked,’ he said, demonstrating this for her by turning the latch easily and opening it again, very slightly. ‘I mean, it’s locked from the outside, obviously. But that’s all you need to do to get out. You want to try it?’
Bella leaned forward and turned the handle. The door opened easily, and she closed it again.
He gestured for her to follow him to the kitchen, where he showed her to a seat at the table, nearest the door to the hallway.
He offered her a cup of tea. She said she would just have water.
She watched as he opened a cupboard and filled a glass at the sink, unable to believe that right here in the same room – padding around in his socks, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with the name of a band on the front – was the man who had haunted her for the past twenty years.
‘That was good,’ he said, taking a seat opposite her. ‘The market research thing. I almost feel like that’s what you’ve come to ask me. Not that I’d have much to say. I don’t do much online shopping.’
‘I don’t do much either,’ she said nervously. ‘Although this is new, obviously.’ She tugged at her blonde tresses. ‘And the clothes. And the shoes.’ She paused. ‘I actually have dark hair.’
‘Like your mother.’
She nodded, swallowing.
‘You remind me of her,’ he said. ‘You have the same eyes. The same smile.’
A lump rose in Bella’s throat. ‘My grandparents say that.’
‘It’s true.’
‘I’m wearing too much make-up,’ Bella said. ‘It’s part of the disguise. I wear barely any normally.’
‘I can still see the likeness.’ He took off his glasses and looked back at her, waiting, expectant.
‘You met her in a shop,’ she murmured.
He nodded. ‘The corner shop on … Stamford Road, I think? It was the nearest one to your house.’
‘I remember it. I know about the door. You came to fix it. I know all that. I read about it.’ She paused, took a breath. ‘I want to know why … why she let you into her life. If she did. If what you say is true, then why …?’
He shook his head, his eyes questioning. ‘Why …?’
‘Why you? I mean … you said at your trial that you were seeing her, that you liked her and that she liked you back, so … why did she like you?’
‘Well, that’s a difficult question to answer.’
‘I don’t mean that she shouldn’t have done,’ Bella said, flushing. ‘I just want to understand the attraction.’
‘Well, like I said, she had a good sense of humour and so I suppose she must have thought I did too. We laughed a lot. And we had lots to talk about. I liked books too. We shared the same view of the world.’
‘Which was?’ Bella held her breath in anticipation.
The room was silent. Bella could hear the birds chirping in the garden, the rustling of the trees in the breeze.
‘She didn’t look down on me,’ he said, ‘even though she had a better education, a better job. She took people as she found them. She didn’t judge.
She thought anyone could achieve greatness, no matter where they came from.
I felt more myself with her than with anyone I’d ever met before, and I knew that together we could be more than the sum of two people.
’ He paused and spots of colour appeared on his cheeks. ‘That sounds a bit grandiose, but—’
‘No. It doesn’t,’ Bella jumped in, wanting him to continue.
He cleared his throat.
‘What did you talk about?’
He looked thoughtful. ‘It was a long time ago, so it’s hard to remember … It’s like when you read a book and years later you can’t remember much about it, except that you loved it.’
‘You loved her?’ Bella said, feeling her throat tighten.
‘I was beginning to fall for her, yes. I wanted to be with her. I remember hoping that she wanted a future with me.’
She waited.
‘She wanted to travel,’ he said. ‘I remember that.’
‘Where?’
‘Everywhere. Europe. America. Africa. I did, too. We talked about that quite a bit. Where we would go first.’
‘Where?’ Bella asked. ‘Where would you have gone?’
He thought about this. ‘Nepal. I think that was her first choice.’
‘But she had me.’
‘She thought it would be good for you. Educational.’
‘She would have taken me too?’ Bella felt the next wave of emotion rise inside her.
‘Of course.’
‘I was seven.’
‘She wouldn’t have left you behind.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because you were her world.’
Bella swallowed back tears. ‘Did she actually say that?’
‘She didn’t have to.’
‘Did you know me?’ she asked. ‘Did I know you?’
‘We only met a couple of times. But she talked about you a lot.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That you were the best adventure of her life.’
Bella looked at him, her heartbeat quickening. ‘She actually said that?’
He nodded. ‘More than once. She adored you. She talked about how – even though things hadn’t worked out between them – she was glad she had met your father, because if she hadn’t, she would never have had you.’
Bella closed her eyes.
‘But I think she wanted to be sure about me – about us – before she let you get to know me. And …’ He hesitated. ‘She didn’t want it getting back to your father that she had met someone.’
They looked at each other in silence.
‘Did you know my dad?’ she asked.
He shook his head.
‘Go on,’ Bella pressed him. ‘You obviously know something about him.’
He sighed, looking uncomfortable. ‘Well …’
‘Please. There’s nothing you can say that will hurt me. Or at least, if it does, it’s a good thing. This is exactly what I came here for. Please. Tell me.’
‘I never met him. I only knew about him through your mum.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Look, he’s your dad, so I really don’t—’
‘We don’t get on,’ Bella said quickly. ‘We never have. He was really hard on me. I moved out when I was seventeen and it was the best day of my life. I never wanted to live with him in the first place. I hated that I had to leave my home. My mum was the one I loved, but she was taken away from me, and if it wasn’t you who took her from me, I need to know who did. ’
‘I wish I knew the answer to that,’ he said.
She paused. ‘But my dad wasn’t nice to her, that’s what you’re saying?’
Jamie looked awkward for a moment. ‘He gave her a bit of a hard time too.’
She lifted her eyes towards him. ‘In what way?’
He swallowed. ‘He didn’t approve of the way she was bringing you up. She was … a free spirit. You know? And he didn’t like that. He thought she should be more …’
‘More what?’
‘Restrained, I suppose. More … conservative. Less friendly with people.’ He paused. ‘He thought her clothes were too revealing. That she should cover herself up.’
Bella thought about this. What Jamie was saying rang true. ‘He was the same with me,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t let me wear what I wanted. And he was strict with me. He had a whole bunch of rules about … well, everything. He wouldn’t let me do half the stuff my friends were doing.’
He nodded.
‘And you’re right. He was critical of my mum.
He rarely talked about her, but when he did, he never had anything good to say.
It was always negative, and it really upset me.
It was almost as if he thought she had brought what happened on herself by being the way she was.
I didn’t know then that this was victim shaming.
I just knew it used to make me mad. He said she had let me “run riot”, which wasn’t true at all. I always did what I was told.’
‘She was great with you,’ Jamie said. ‘She was a good mum. I could see how much she loved you.’
‘How?’
‘By the way you were. Happy. Relaxed. Bubbly. Yourself. You were just like her.’
‘Tell me,’ Bella blinked back tears. ‘Tell me how I was like her.’
‘Well,’ he said, scratching his head. ‘I mean, to look at, you were just like her. The same dark hair and olive skin. But it was the way you were. You did things together. You liked the same things.’
‘Like …?’
‘Like … reading. Art. Writing stories.’
‘Together?’ Bella asked him, her heart rising in delight.
‘Yes,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘She wrote the words and you drew the pictures.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said, blinking back tears. ‘Yes. I remember. I drew the pictures for her stories.’
He smiled gently. ‘I remember her showing them to me. She was very proud.’
Bella smiled back, and then it dawned on her, right at that moment, as she looked into his eyes: this is all true.
Her mother had let Jamie Clarke into her life.
Her mother had confided in him. Her mother had liked – maybe even loved – this gentle, kind man sitting opposite her, looking worn and injured.
This wasn’t the same person who had hurled her mother’s phone across the room, who had violently broken her jaw and fingers, who had brutally raped her and ended her life.
She felt a rush of cold dread as the true force of this took hold of her, as the past twenty years began to take on a new shape and form in her mind.
She gazed at the man sitting opposite her, at the anguish behind his smile, at the pain etched into his forehead, at the stoop of his shoulders, and a blade of horrible regret passed through her.
She thought about what it would feel like to have your good name taken and tarnished, to have your reputation destroyed, to have the whole world hate you.
She thought about what two decades in prison must have done to him and wondered where on earth he had found the strength to survive.
Fresh tears fell down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,’ she whispered.