My Last Confession Read online

  ‘I like it when you’re all gooey,’ he said, kissing my neck.

  ‘But it’s not me, is it, Chas? I think my job’s upsetting me. God, the stories I hear are unbelievable,’ I said, filling him in on my cases so far. ‘And being full-time sucks. We’ve no time to have fun, have we? I don’t blame you if you go off me.’

  He sat me down.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘The whole idea of a love story being “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back” is bollocks. It’s not a line that starts then ends. It’s a circle. You meet, you lose, you meet, you lose, you meet and it goes on and on, round and round. We’re meeting each other again just now. Learning new stuff. I’m trying to put an exhibition together. You’ve just started a really difficult job and you miss Robbie, and I’m pleased to meet you, Krissie! I’m going to learn something new about you, and I’m going to fall in love with you all over again.’

  I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about with all his circles and lines. God, sometimes living with an artist was exhausting.

  ‘I don’t think my bad mood is really about us, Chas. I’m just worried about the pre-trial report case, Jeremy. He’s being beaten, maybe even raped, and I don’t know who to tell.’

  ‘Don’t get emotionally involved,’ he told me. ‘Ask any doctor or psychiatrist … it’s the rule.’ He knew what he was talking about, after his stint in Sandhill.

  ‘The prison oozes tragedy. The trick is to not let it seep into you. You have to keep a distance. When I was there, I sometimes imagined a protective shield surrounded me … like Get Smart’s cone of silence or Violet Incredible’s spherical force field. Sounds daft, but it worked. Look after number one,’ he said, ‘and two and three. That’s us, this family. Okay?’

  ‘Okay. I promised I’d go see his wife again tomorrow … But I’ll take my protective cone.’

  ‘Who’d you promise?’

  ‘Her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s upset.’

  ‘No social worker visited my girlfriend twice when I was due in court.’

  ‘Did you have a girlfriend?’ Chas had always been very vague about his exes. I knew he used to shag around a lot, but he told me he never got too involved with anyone ’cause he was ‘waiting for Mrs Donald’.

  ‘That’s not the point. Don’t visit people unless you have to.’

  I didn’t push him about the ex-girlfriend thing. I didn’t want to start imagining him kissing someone else on the neck, loving someone else. This kind of probing had driven many a woman round the bend. So with my issue of the day seemingly resolved, I moved on to Chas’s. He was having a ball with Robbie, but he told me that day he had bitten the bullet and booked a date for his first ever exhibition.

  ‘I’m terrified,’ he admitted.

  ‘You’re a genius. I know you are. It’ll be fantastic.’

  But his time was limited. And Chas’s cunning plan to paint and parent was (surprise, surprise) proving a disaster. So far, Robbie’s (very cute) handprints had made their way onto three of Chas’s masterpieces.

  Robbie was ready for some socialising anyway, so we decided to get him into a nursery three hours each morning, for Mum and Dad to look after him three afternoons a week, and for me to cut down on Marks & Spencer’s treats and make room in our budget for a cleaner.

  So when Chas went off to paint in his studio at nine that night, I felt very pleased with our plan. We had organised our lives and I had promised to keep a safe, professional distance from dangerous men about to go on trial for murder.

  An excellent plan.

  Wish I’d stuck to it.

  14

  With Jeremy in London, Amanda found herself in a huge house in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing to do. Or nothing she wanted to do anyway. She wasn’t a country girl, didn’t understand people who walked up hills just to walk down them again. She found the Scottish countryside so beautiful it was boring. She’d once done a driving tour of the Highlands with a friend and after days exclaiming at the rugged changeability of it she craved a loud smoky nightclub so badly she could have screamed. Without Jeremy, the Crinan Canal had nothing to offer Amanda. No pubs within walking distance, no good cafés or bookshops or litter that spoke of nights out. The canal was just that, a canal. Occasionally she saw yachts with families sitting at the lock waiting for the water to rise then fall again, and she really didn’t understand why parents would take their children on such trips, spending most of the day waiting for water to rise then fall again.

  She didn’t tell her mum and dad that Jeremy had headed south. Or her friends, ’cause this was her honeymoon, this house was for her and Jeremy. So she waited, watching the lock outside, trying to understand the point of sailing and weak jacuzzi baths.

  On the second morning she woke to the phone ringing. It was her boy, and he was so sorry, but he had to stay with his mum. She was having tests, and was still refusing to see anyone.

  ‘Let me come down!’ Amanda said, but he insisted that she stay and wait for him. ‘At least one of us should enjoy the place,’ he insisted.

  *

  Alone in Crinan, Amanda thought about Jeremy’s relationship with his mother. She first discovered there were serious problems between them when they decided to get married and Jeremy was determined not to invite her and even more determined not to discuss her.

  ‘She won’t come,’ he said. ‘There’s no point. We just don’t see eye to eye.’

  He wouldn’t elaborate. ‘Please, let’s not talk about it,’ he insisted.

  Amanda figured they’d just grown apart or something, and took it upon herself to intervene. One afternoon, when Jeremy was working, she visited his mother without telling him.

  The house was a small terrace in Haringey. Its occupant was a thin, worn woman, dressed in pressed trousers and a tight white T-shirt and firm, fitted pink cardigan. She smelt strongly of alcohol and cigarettes. Her gaunt, heavily lined face had settled in a frown. Unnerved by Jeremy’s mother’s unfriendly appearance, Amanda introduced herself. Jeremy’s mum grimaced and then beckoned her in. The interior was jam-packed with antique furniture that suggested wealth a generation or so ago. A barely opened curtain cast a shaft of light on the dust, smoke and grit that shared the air of the crowded room.

  Amanda told Mrs Bagshaw that she and Jeremy were getting married.

  ‘We’d be so happy if you could come,’ she said, handing her an invitation she’d designed and printed out on the computer especially. ‘Will you come?’

  Mrs Bagshaw sat down in the corner of the room, lit a cigarette and poured a glass of pure gin. She inhaled energetically, sucking the life out of her Marlborough full strength so hard that its end sizzled and curved. She exhaled less smoke than Amanda expected considering the hefty intake, and said, ‘Let me tell you what your fiancé did.’

  The cigarette ash clung on as Mrs Bagshaw told Amanda her half of a terrible story.

  ‘I won’t be coming,’ she said when she’d finished, tapping the two inches of grey into her overflowing ashtray. ‘And I’d prefer if you didn’t visit me again.’

  Amanda didn’t even try not to cry on the tube on the way home. She was devastated for Mrs Bagshaw, but even more devastated for her beloved Jeremy. She rushed into their Islington flat and immediately confessed her secret mission, hugging Jeremy tight and telling him how sorry she was, so sorry, please hug me, please hug me, please talk to me.

  So Jeremy hugged her, and then told her his half of the story.

  *

  As she sat alone by the window in Crinan, Amanda pieced the two stories together in her mind, imagining the terrible events of Jeremy’s childhood.

  *

  Jeremy’s parents met while they were both travelling in New Zealand. They then settled into a very happy affluent life in London. Jeremy’s father, Richard, was an accountant. His mum, Anne, had been a lawyer. Before having kids they loved travelling, had friends around as often as they could,
held hands, cuddled on the sofa, and slept for at least eight soothing hours a night. They had love and laughter, passion and spark.

  When Jeremy came into the world, they lived in a flat near Tower Bridge, just like the one Jeremy and Amanda lived in. On coming home from the hospital with their beautiful baby boy, Richard had filmed him as they escorted him around his new house.

  ‘This is your room, Jer!’ Richard said excitedly. ‘This is your panda, and this is your tiny cute little baby-grow thingy, and this is where Mummy will wipe your bottom.’

  ‘Where Daddy will wipe your bottom!’ said Anne, and they laughed a lot, as they were prone to do in those days.

  The first year was not the hell that Anne had been warned to expect. In fact, it was the happiest year of her life. She took twelve months off and spent a lot of it admiring her son, looking into his eyes and being awed by his cleverness. He was handsome, and very well behaved, and the bond between mother and child was rock solid.

  By the time Jeremy was three and a half, they had built the new architect-designed house on the outskirts of Oxford overlooking fields. Jeremy loved running around the huge garden, collecting things like straight sticks and small spiders. He kept them in the clever storage facility under his bed, adding to his collections each day, proudly looking them over and re-organising them so that they made more sense.

  One day, when Jeremy was nearly four, he was midway through putting his sticks in order of straightness and then length when his mother came into the room holding something in her arms. It was a baby, his sister, and she was such a good girl, so gorgeous.

  ‘Look at her eyes!’ said his mother, unable to take hers away even for one second to look at his new stick system.

  Jeremy had vague recollections of his mum before the baby came along. He could picture her making him mashed potato with sausages and tomato ketchup. He could almost hear himself saying ‘You’re my best girl’ and almost see her smiling face as she said ‘Yes, my love, I am, and you’re my best boy’. He could recall playing hide-and-seek in the park with her, and reading stories at night. He could picture how interested she always was in the sticks he had collected, and how – at night – she laughed and danced in the kitchen with a bottle of pinot grigio half full on the breakfast bar.

  But everything changed after his sister came home.

  Bella, she was called. She had thick dark hair and a squashed nose and she cried. And cried. And the laughing and dancing in the kitchen turned to yelling and screaming. The park strolls were replaced by frantic drives around and around town until Bella got to sleep.

  As for his stick collections, Jeremy distinctly recalled his mother using a voice he’d never heard before when she yelled, ‘For God’s sake Jeremy, those stupid sticks have brought mud in all over the place!’

  When he started crying his mother spoke softly for the first time in a week. ‘I am so sorry, baby boy. I didn’t mean that. I’m just tired. Your little sister keeps me up all night with her hungry tummy and her nappies.’

  ‘Well, don’t use nappies, then.’

  ‘I have to, honey, she pees in them and gets all wet and uncomfortable and that’s why she cries. I’m sorry, I’m just very tired because there’s no one to help. I do love you, my little boy, you know that, don’t you? I love you more than ever, and little Bella doesn’t change that. I’m just tired, that’s all.’

  Jeremy went to bed without a story after that and felt so sorry for his mummy. How could he help? He lay awake for hours thinking about it and when Bella cried her piercing cry in the middle of the night it came to him.

  He would dry her nappy and his mummy would not have to wake up at all.

  He crept into the nursery and looked into the cot. She was so lovely, this poor little girl, so wet and uncomfortable. And he was her big brother and he would look after her. He would pick her up and kiss her on the forehead and look into her special little eyes and hold her head up like he’d been taught to do, and rock her gently back and forth as he walked down the hall, through the kitchen and into the utility room. And he would kiss her once more and smile so lovingly at her, because she was the only little sister he had, and he would touch her on the nose once she was in the barrel and blow her a kiss and then shut the door and her nappy would soon be dry. Then Mummy and Daddy would have a good night’s sleep so that tomorrow they would drink a bottle of pinot grigio and dance and sing in the kitchen.

  *

  It was still pitch black outside when Jeremy figured the nappy would be dry. When he opened the door of the dryer his gorgeous little sister fell out with a thud onto the floor at his feet. It had worked. The nappy was dry as a bone and Bella was quiet as anything, snug and warm without the grimace on her face she always seemed to have. Happy to have helped, he picked her up in his arms and cuddled her gently and kissed her on the forehead and then noticed his mother standing over him in the doorway. His lovely mummy, standing over him, white as a ghost, and then screaming.

  And then grabbing his sister from his arms.

  And then running to the phone.

  And then breathing into Bella’s face with her large mouth and not even looking at Daddy who was also white as a ghost.

  And then sobbing, sobbing, holding her, little Bella, Mummy and Daddy both crouched over her, rocking and sobbing and screaming ‘NOOOO!’

  ‘Her nappy …’ Jeremy ventured, as the siren got louder and louder outside, then stopped.

  And this is when Jeremy got the look from his mum that he would get from her for the rest his life. Slowly her face withdrew from his lovely little sister and her clenched hands climbed from her thighs to her waist and she stared at him with eyes that were filled with rage and hatred, confused though, because this kind of rage and hatred would usually be followed by action, but this time the eyes just held themselves on him and no action followed.

  Ever.

  15

  Ah fuck, I should’ve listened to Chas. Not only had I decided to make a completely unnecessary visit to Amanda, but I’d also forgotten to conjure up an imaginary glass cone to protect me from getting emotionally involved. I was welling up. I could hardly see the Ayr Road as I headed back to work from the salon.

  Poor Jeremy, I thought.

  Wee Bella. I shook my head, a tear falling.

  And Jeremy’s parents … Imagine.

  I stopped the car to compose myself, knowing I needed to get my head together for a meeting with the police.

  *

  ‘Well done,’ said Hilary as I came into the office. ‘I hear you did well at the pre-release. I’m going to allocate you as Marney’s supervising officer.’

  ‘Can I talk to you about that?’ I started. I wanted to ask her if I had to supervise paedophiles. I wanted to convince her to give me murderers, drug dealers, car thieves, anyone, rather than child sex offenders.

  ‘Sure,’ Hilary said. ‘We’ll put it on the agenda next supervision. But I’m afraid I have to head home now. Migraine.’

  I should probably have given this more thought before applying for the job. These guys were the big yins in criminal justice: high profile, high risk. And very few escaped social work supervision since the new Sex Offenders Act, which meant that our teams were bulging at the seams with rapists, flashers, stalkers, lewd and libbers, etcetera, etcetera. There’d probably be no way of avoiding them, even if I told Hilary why I felt so uncomfortable. Or did everyone feel this way? Not just those who’d been touched by one in the past? I’d tell her, I decided, at our next supervision session – and ask for her advice.

  Looking in the mirror of the grotty office toilet a few minutes later, I was thinking to myself that I looked a bit like Jodie Foster, when someone farted unashamedly in the cubicle, the force of it bringing me back down to earth – Glasgow earth and not Hollywood. Soon after, Penny walked out and said hello and I wondered how she could just smile and wash her hands like that, as if nothing had happened. Not even a slight blush or an apology (I’d have done both if a fart of mine
had managed such longevity and volume). I guess her upper-middle-class self felt there was no need, that if one was to fart then one should let rip in the communal toilet. I didn’t like Penny.

  ‘How you doing?’ I asked her.

  ‘Fine,’ she replied. ‘Busy busy!’

  FARTY! FARTY! I thought as she left, before returning to my pre-gusset-burp line of thinking which was that I looked and indeed was a little bit like Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling – tough and sexy and embedded in a shocking murder case.

  I took my place at a risk management meeting that afternoon. It was about James Marney again, the ‘lewd and libber’ (i.e. a kid-toucher-upper). As I was now his supervising officer – although I would do everything in my power to get Hilary to change her mind – I needed to liaise with other agencies to help find him somewhere to live quick smart.

  We spent about half an hour sharing soft intelligence. God, even the words used in my job were sexy – soft intelligence, and even better than that, hard intelligence! It was practically as good as my bunny.

  ‘Krissie?’ said the police officer, Bond, clicking his fingers at me and stilling my wandering mind. Without even thinking about it, I had placed a cone of silence over my head. All I’d caught was something about needing to check with the housing officer in the prison. ‘Can you get onto it and let me know as soon as they have something for us to check out?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, and we exchanged direct telephone numbers.

  *

  While my colleagues were tear-arsing around town with a flurry of court reports, absconding sex offenders and homeless drug users, I still only had the one report and one case, so I decided to be thorough.

  I rang Jeremy’s lawyer, a young man with a lovely English accent. He told me he felt the attacker was probably a known sex offender. There had been several rapes in the Highlands over the last two years, he said, and one sexual assault and murder. The case against Jeremy was weak, he believed, and rested on two things: Jeremy’s mother’s alibi, and the DNA.