‘He came home for his girlfriend’s mother’s funeral. I’m sorry, Mrs Reynolds,’ said the detective superintendent. ‘I know that’s not the news you wanted to hear.’
Callie got out of bed and pulled the curtains back. On the street below she could see people getting up, going to work. Going to jobs where they’d earn in a week about as much as she might have spent on a dress. It was a world away from the one she used to inhabit. A world she’d never inhabit again, and yet, what difference did it make. That world had been false.
‘Perhaps they are the words I needed to hear, Detective Superintendent,’ she said. ‘I gave up hoping for the fairy-tale ending a long time ago. You told me he was guilty and it was obvious he was. And he betrayed my daughter.’
‘He betrayed you too,’ said the policeman bluntly.
‘I think he betrayed me a long time ago, Detective Superintendent,’ she replied. ‘I was just too blind to see it.’ She let out a deep breath. ‘Now, what happens next?’
‘We’ve arrested him ...’
‘Will he get bail?’ she asked.
On the other end of the phone, the detective superintendent snorted.
‘I sincerely hope not, given that he is a flight risk. You’ll be able to see him if you want.’
Callie rolled that thought around in her brain. Finally, she could ask Jason all the hard questions.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘I’d like that very much. There are a lot of things I want to ask my former husband.’
‘Former?’
‘Obviously it’s going to take a little while for the divorce to go through, but as far as I’m concerned,’ Callie said, ‘he’s my former husband.’
They discussed the logistics and then hung up. Callie sat down on her bed. It was six-twenty in the morning and she didn’t have to be up for another half an hour, but she wouldn’t be able to lie in bed and read, and she certainly wouldn’t sleep. Her heart was racing. Damn Jason. Damn him for creating this havoc in her head again. Once, she would have reached under her bed and found her stack of tablets, but not anymore. Beating her Xanax habit had been hard, no doubt about it, but Freddie had made her see exactly what she’d have lost if she lost herself to addiction.
‘It’s never just the one spliff or the one drink when you’re an addict,’ he’d said. ‘It’s so many that you’re numb. You can’t do that to Poppy.’
Every day she dealt with beautiful people who had their cognisance taken away from them. Addiction meant she’d unwittingly thrown her own away too. She had lots of people in her life who truly cared for her. But first and foremost she had Poppy, and she had to be there for her daughter. Jason was going to go away for a very long time and Poppy would need her mother to be strong.
She’d gone to a couple of NA meetings with Freddie and Ricky, but she wasn’t sure if it was for her. So far, she was coping on her own and she knew now that someone with her genetic history was better off without any sort of drug. Herbal tea and early morning walks with the dog, before anyone else was up: that was working pretty well so far. But Callie knew the serious help was there for her if she needed it.
The gates of Mountjoy Prison loomed large and slightly threatening to Callie when the taxi dropped her off. To the left was the red-brick building she knew housed the Dóchas Centre, which was the women’s prison.
She had so many chances growing up, despite there never being a spare ha’penny in the Sheridan household. But she’d been loved, fed and educated. Her mother had paid for those dance classes. She’d had every opportunity and she’d squandered a large part of it on a stupid man called Jason.
The men’s prison was old and she felt scared as she entered. Scared because she felt as if she might never get out of it once she got in. She still had that fear that she had been complicit in all of Jason’s terrible actions because she’d spent the money. She’d never asked where it came from. She’d bought hisstory, hook, line and sinker. She’d been part of the public face of Jason and Rob and people had looked at her and believed everything. When had she become so stupidly trusting?
Finally, she was in the visiting room. Prisoners were walking in to see their visitors and then, there he was: Jason.
He looked diminished somehow. Not the suave and unconcerned Jason of those photographs from the newspaper all those months ago, when he’d been wearing the beautiful linen shirt she’d bought him. No. Now he was wearing a tracksuit and runners with no laces. He hadn’t shaved either. No wonderful electric razor in here, she thought. He sat down in front of her and reached forward to grab her hands eagerly, as if he’d just come out of the desert and she were a long cool draught of water. But Callie pulled her hands away and put them on her lap. Startled, Jason looked at her.
‘I just—’ he began.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Callie stated in the cool, clear voice she’d promised herself she would use. ‘I came to see you to ask you questions. That’s it.’
‘But, Callie – I love you. You’re my wife. I have to explain ...’
Callie stared at him in astonishment.
Over six months of nothing, six months when she and Poppy had been through hell, and he still thought of her in terms of being his wife?
‘Jason,’ she said, unable to stop the anger from rising, despite all her best efforts to prevent it: ‘We’re over. We were over the moment you planned your escape and left us behind.’
He buried his face in his hands and his voice was muffled as he spoke.
‘I know I should have brought you with me, I’m so sorry, I just panicked and then ...’
