“Why not? This is a children’s home, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“Please don’t make me beg.”
Wendy Jennings flinched at the tone. There was real distress there, but anger too.
“I can’t care for her anymore,” the woman continued.
“I see that and I understand, I really do, but there are ways of doing these things. Procedures we have to follow. The first thing we have to do is call Social Services.”
“No social services.”
“Let me call an ambulance, then. Get you seen to and then we can talk about your baby.”
It was a trap. Had to be. She had hoped she would find someone good here, someone she could trust, but there was nothing for her here. She turned on her heel.
“Where are you going?” Wendy shouted. “Stay, please, and let’s talk about it.”
But she didn’t respond.
“I mean you no harm.”
“Like fuck you don’t.”
She hesitated, then turning, took a big step forward and spat in Wendy Jennings’s face.
“You should be ashamed of yourself.”
She marched off down the street without looking back, her baby clutched to her chest. Tears streamed down her face—fat, hopeless tears of impotence and rage.
Her last chance had gone. Her last shot at redemption.
Now there was only death.
89
It was hopeless. The police had moved the press pack back, reminded them of their responsibilities, but as soon as they departed, it started up again. The hammering on the door, the questions through the letterbox. A few had tried their hand round the back, clambering over the garden fence and rattling the back door. Peering in through the conservatory window like ghouls.
Robert and his parents now lived in perpetual darkness on the second floor. At first they thought they would be out of sight up there, but then they saw a photographer hanging out of a second-floor window across the road and they’d pulled the curtains firmly shut. Now they behaved like creatures of the night, huddling in the dark, eating food from tins and packets—existing rather than living.
At first, Robert had steered clear of the Internet, didn’t want to go there. But when it’s your only window on the world, it’s hard to hold out. And once on it, he couldn’t resist. The national papers had gone to town, bringing Marianne the bogeywoman back to life in all her glory. He didn’t want his parents to see, knew it would hurt them, so locked away in his bedroom he read and read. Climbing inside his mother. He was surprised to feel a modicum of sympathy for her—she had clearly suffered terrible abuse and neglect—but her crimes made for grim reading. She had obviously been intelligent—more intelligent than he?—but not intelligent enough to pull herself back from the brink. Her life had ended in disgusting and depressing fashion. According to theNational EnquirerWeb site, the bullet had penetrated her heart and she had bled to death in her sister’s arms. In the aftermath, Helen’s life had been exposed and now it was his turn. Every failed exam, every minor indiscretion, every brush with the law had been seized on by the press. They wanted to portray him as a loser, a drifter, violent, a chip off the old block. A bad seed. He had been so enraged by the character assassination visited on him and his parents that when Helen Grace texted him with a message of support, he’d replied tersely and unpleasantly. Maybe the journalists could intercept their messages or maybe not. He didn’t care.
Something had to be done. That much was clear. His parents were suffering terribly, unable to talk to or see their friends, tainted by association with him. Robert knew he had to draw the pack off, give them something else to think about. He owed that to the couple who had raised him since birth.
He toyed with the bandage that had recently swathed his injured arm, wrapping it over and over in his hands. A plan was forming in his mind. It was desperate and it meant the end of everything, but what else could he do? He was backed into a corner and now there was nowhere to run.
90
Tony was amazed at the transformation. He knew Melissa had asked for some fresh clothes and makeup, but even so he hadn’t expected her to look so different. Up until now, he had seen her only in battle dress, the sex worker’s uniform of boots, short skirt and low-cut top. Dressed in jeans and a jumper, with her hair tied back in a loose ponytail, she looked happy and relaxed.
She greeted him tentatively, as if not quite sure what to expect now that they had been apart for a little while. Truth be told, he hadn’t been quite sure how to play it either, but now that he was here it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take her in his arms. Fearing detection, they had hurried upstairs, but this time passion wasn’t on their minds. They simply lay side by side on the bed, holding hands and staring at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry if I’ve caused you trouble,” Melissa said quietly.
She had obviously guessed that he was married, despite the fact that his ring was on his bedside table back at home.
“I didn’t mean to.”
