She agrees with them. It’s something she’ll feel guilty about for the rest of her life.
Jayne believes she is responsible for the deaths of Rob, Paul, and Edie because she was blind to who Mark is and the reason that she was blind is because she was selfish: she was on a mission of her own, to help him, and by helping him, to help herself.
She mistook his psychopathy—her shorthand for the multitude of personality disorders he’s been diagnosed with—for PTSD, because she was in love with the idea of them both healing together. It was her own self-absorption and egoism that caused this.
Their friends died because she believed that she was guiding herself and Mark on a journey toward a perfect, happy ending.
Once, she told her therapist this, but her therapist countered by saying she thought Jayne should focus on defining her identity as a victim before exploring guilt and Jayne was confused and felt another part of her mind break away to float in a soup of inert emotions.
But William’s email has woken her up a little, and it’s a nice feeling. She barely remembers how it feels to have her interest piqued.
She holds her breath as she opens it.
Dear Jayne
I got your email address from my mother. I hope you don’t mind me making contact like this. Please ignore if it’s an intrusion. We will understand.
Neither Mum nor I have been able to forget you and your friends and we’re so very sorry about what happened to you.
I know we’re strangers but the coincidence of our family tragedy and the horrific events you went through at Dark Fell Barn have made me follow your husband’s case closely. I suspect it’s fanciful to say that what happened that weekend links us in any meaningful way, but it has made me think of you and your friends, often. I’ve kept intouch from afar and followed the progress of the case through my colleagues in Bristol. Your husband’s confession must have been both shocking and devastating but I’m glad you were spared a trial.
We are fine, under the circumstances. My mother has borne a lot of guilt for what happened at the barn. We would both like to apologize for my dad’s actions that night. As I believe you’ve been made aware by my colleagues, my father was not in his right mind and while it was his intention to frighten you with the scarecrow, the man who did this was not the man we knew. An autopsy after his death revealed that he had advanced dementia with Lewy bodies. This means, to cut a long diagnosis short, that he was not only suffering the symptoms of advanced regular dementia but was also likely to have been experiencing hallucinations and delusions. My mother and I believe this to be the case and that it’s what made him act the way he did. And we are so very sorry if it contributed in any way to worsening the horrific experiences that you went through.
We both send you our warmest wishes and hope that now that a year has passed since then, you’re able to find some kind of peace and a way forward.
William and Maggie
His mobile number’s at the bottom of the email. Jayne looks at it, wondering if the fact that he included it is an invitation to call him, or if it’s one of those automated signatures.
For the first time in a year, she feels a strong urge to reach out to someone. To him. It’s as if he’s been able to crack open the wall that she’s built up around herself.
Before she can change her mind, she picks up her phone and dials his number. She holds her breath while it rings. He’ll be busy, she thinks, with family, or friends; he won’t pick up because hers isan unknown number and then she won’t be brave enough to leave a message and she’ll hang up and never dare to call him again.
“Hello,” he says.
“Hello. It’s Jayne. Jayne Pavey. I got your email.”
“Oh, Jayne.” His voice is just as she remembers. Singsong, measured.
It sounds as if he’s settling down onto a seat of some kind. She imagines him staring out of a window as he does, at the moorland, perhaps. But perhaps not. Maybe he has the football on TV and he muted it.
Her mouth is dry. “Thank you for what you wrote,” she says. “Please, tell your mother there are no hard feelings, no blame. It’s tragic what happened to your father. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
She doesn’t know what to do with compliments. “Is your mother all right?” she asks.
“She is. She’s done well considering. We had to let the farm go but we managed to lease it to a family member, so she spends time up there. She lives in a cottage that’s close. And the farm is being looked after well, the land and the flock, which is what my father would have wanted.”
“That’s good,” she says. She doesn’t ask about the barn because she’s looked it up online and knows it’s still being rented out for holidays. Its website has been beefed up and it’s marketed as one of the few places in Britain you can experience the dark sky. It has WiFi, a telescope, a drivable track to reach it, and boasts about zero light pollution.
A holiday is not something Jayne can imagine anymore. Her life now consists of work, of meals for one, and of visits to a man who will spend the rest of his days incarcerated in a secure psychiatric institution. She’s in a cycle of self-punishment that feels never-ending.
“How are you?” he asks.
She inhales and worries he hears it, that it’s a sharp sound. “I’m managing.”
“Well done,” he says. “It’s not easy, I’m sure.” She’s grateful to him for not sugar-coating it.
