‘I thought you two met at uni?’
Mark scoffed. ‘Oh no, Jenny and I go way back, don’t we, Jen?’
‘I loved you,’ she spat back at him. ‘Always fucking had. Ever since Jack trailed you home looking like a bedraggled little dog, I knew. I knew we were meant to be together, and I thought you’d finally realised it too; I thought that was going to be it – we would be together. Then you woke up the next day and told me you’d made a mistake. That you’d rowed with that stuck-up little bitch and you’d been too drunk to know what you were doing. You made me swear never to tell her, not to ruin your wonderful relationship over one
stupid mistake
. That’s what you called me. But that wasn’t it, was it, Mark? You had to completely ruin me.’
‘He forced you to have an abortion.’ I do remember. I remember hearing those words from this stranger’s mouth four years ago and thinking,
She’s crazy. She’s lying and she’s crazy.
‘He forced me to kill my child.’ There are tears streaming down her cheeks now, and for a moment I feel sorry for the girl she used to be, in love with a man who treated her so callously.
‘Then he tells me the two of them are getting married. There was me, fresh out of the clinic, upset, lonely, furious and devastated that he’d murdered our baby, and Lady Muck comes back from dinner with a nineteen-carat iceberg on her finger.’
‘You must have been devastated.’
‘Devastated? I was
furious
. That’s when I decided I was going to have her killed.’
60
The space that was so huge and draughty just a short while ago now feels no bigger than my cell in Oakdale. The smoke from the fire is thicker, cloying at my throat and stinging my eyes. Jennifer seems oblivious, and Mark is practically catatonic. It’s as though he’s accepted our fate and is staring ahead, his mind in another place altogether.
‘Where is Dylan, Jennifer?’
She pretends she hasn’t heard me, or maybe she really hasn’t.
‘Are you remembering yet, Susan? Do you remember what happened next?’
I struggle to focus, to picture the woman sitting in my front room telling me that the father of my baby had murdered hers. I see her lips forming two words.
‘Eleh Toldot.’
She smiles, claps her hands together. ‘That’s it! You’re getting there. We’re almost done, I promise. Eleh Toldot.’
A noise comes from Mark, low and indistinguishable.
‘What was that?’ She crosses to him and picks his head up by the hair. ‘For the benefit of the audience, please, sir.’
‘I said, “These are the generations.”’
Oh God, oh God, I remember. I remember it all. The most horrific story I’d ever heard, a story of abuse and ritual humiliation, a story of overprivileged boys who used the university as their playground. I hadn’t believed a word, I’d gone mad, called her a liar and pushed her, hit her, shouted at her to get out of my house and leave my family alone. I can see her now, putting up her arms to defend herself against my blows, and then she pushed me. That was the last time I ever saw my son, as I fell towards the ground.
‘You hit your head,’ she says lightly, as though she can read my mind. ‘I thought you were dead. I thought I’d been given a second chance at being a mum. Mark had given me back my child. And so I took your son.’
‘You just took him?’ I turn my body to look Mark full in the face again. Pain blasts through my arm and side, I can barely breathe through the smoke and I know I don’t have long left. I have to find out the truth before I go. ‘And when you got home . . .?’
‘I didn’t come home, Susan. I was at work when I got a phone call . . .’
Jennifer smiles. ‘Cousin Jack. I called him to smooth things over for me. He has the best way of fixing, erm, difficult situations.’
‘Jack?’ I’m confused. ‘The boy you said Beth hated? He’s the one who pretended to be Rachael’s boss? He’s your cousin?’
‘Every day since I was born. And he is Rachael’s boss, just not the one he said he was. He’s so clever. He and Rachael have been keeping an eye on you since you got out; he’s senior partner at Zara, Bratbury and Howe and she does as she’s told. It was his idea for her to take your case. Like I said, always the puppeteer. Well, nearly always. Jack’s always been the clever, popular one, but I knew something he didn’t want anyone else to know. I knew about the girls they were all drugging just to get laid. Pathetic. And I knew about Lucy.’
‘Lucy?’ Even Mark sounds surprised. ‘Wasn’t she the housekeeper Jack was sleeping with when we were fifteen?’
‘Don’t be such a fucking idiot, Mark! You were supposed to be the clever one when we were growing up, and yet you just blindly believed whatever he told you. Jack wasn’t
sleeping
with her! Don’t you remember me telling you that girl was a prick tease? Well Jack doesn’t like to be teased, does he? So when she told him where to go, he shagged her anyway whether she liked it or not. Turns out she didn’t like it, and Uncle George had to pay a fortune to shut her up. There was no way Jack wanted everyone on campus to know what he was really like, and I was the only person who knew what you filthy little boys had been up to.’
‘So you blackmailed him to steal my baby?’ My voice is as loud as I can make it; there is as much venom in my words as I have the strength to project.
‘I’d already taken Dylan and left. Jack just fixed it after the fact. My cousin is a fucked-up little boy indeed. Let me tell you about Beth.’
She cleared her throat. ‘Jack wanted Beth from the minute he saw her. He bombarded her constantly with flowers, jewellery, anything you can think of. She said he scared her but she was polite in her refusals, classy until the end. And the end was inevitable as soon as she got together with Mark a few months later. Jack was never going to allow that to continue.’
‘Why not? Couldn’t he accept defeat gracefully? Couldn’t you?’ Where is Cassie? Where are the police?
Where is Dylan?
‘I’m going to let that one go, Susan. I knew when Mark dumped me, when he made me kill our child, that if I played my cards right, Jack would do the work for me. He was so easily manipulated. Angry people usually are. The cleverer they think they are, the stupider they turn out to be. He was so arrogant he wouldn’t have thought for a second that he wasn’t running the show.’ She screws up her face. ‘It took months of putting up with Beth preening her feathers like a goddamn peacock, flaunting the rock on her finger and simpering about her wonderful Mark before Jack snapped and decided to take things to the next level. With a bit of gentle persuasion, of course. I threatened to tell.’
I imagine Bethany Connors at her happiest, flicking through wedding magazines, phoning her friends and family to gush about her good news, planning her life with Mark, never knowing that all along the person she believed to be her best friend was silently despising her.
‘Does Jack have Dylan now? Tell me my son isn’t with Bratbury.’ Mark sounds like he’d rather Dylan was brought up by Ted Bundy. Jennifer laughs.
‘Now that would be good. Cousin Jack bringing up Mark Webster’s son, wouldn’t that be poetic justice?’ She turns back to me.
‘What happened at the clubhouse,
this
clubhouse,’ she gestures around with her arms, ‘you can imagine. When Mark and Matt dumped her body, I followed them just to make sure they’d done the job properly. They drove like lunatics; I could have been
killed
.’ She can’t contain her cackle at the joke. ‘When she was found, I planned to be there for Mark and naturally we would grieve together. He was going to be mine, after all. We could have a baby, a planned one this time. When they left, I took a few pictures for future leverage, borrowed those same handcuffs you’re wearing now. When I took them off, I felt her breath and realised she was still alive. Useless idiots had barely scratched her. She would have bled to death
eventually
, but I couldn’t take any chances. I had to finish the job myself. It had to be done.’
‘How?’ I ask her. I don’t want to know but it makes her happy when I ask questions. She grins.
‘I put my bag over her face and smothered her.’ She relishes the words, as though she’s been waiting to say them out loud for a long time. ‘She was already unconscious so I didn’t get to watch the life drain out of her or anything as pleasing as that, but I have to say it was satisfying. I didn’t get nearly as much satisfaction when I killed that bitch Riley. Although I did get a little kick out of using a
real
crystal vase, bought from Riley’s family fortune no doubt. Mark will be more rewarding. You’re an unfortunate by-product, I’m afraid. I like you, I think we could have been friends.’
After everything I’ve heard, all the pain I’m feeling, it’s this that makes me feel like I’m going to be physically sick. That this woman would identify with me, that she would feel we’re kindred spirits in this fucked-up little play will haunt me for life, however short my life may be.
‘And Beth’s brother definitely had a thing for you.’
‘Beth’s brother?’ When did I meet him?
‘The guy pretending to be a reporter.’ I can’t see her expression as realisation dawns on her, but I hear her chuckle in the dark. ‘Oh I see, you didn’t know! Well, well, Susan, you really should choose the men in your life more carefully.’
Beth’s brother. He’d known all along who the redhead in the photo was, known all about her death. I’d just been a means to an end. He hadn’t cared about what happened to Dylan; he’d just hoped I’d lead him to the truth about his sister. I don’t know whether I blame him or not for that. To get to Dylan I’d lie to anyone I had to, but that doesn’t stop me feeling betrayed. Betrayed and stupid.
My thoughts are cut short at the sound of sirens in the distance. Jennifer hesitates and I can see her trying to judge if they’re coming this way.
‘Luckily I choose my friends much better.’
It only takes her a second to recover. ‘This doesn’t change anything. Just moves things along a little faster.’
She sinks into the shadows. Mark doesn’t look at me, but when she’s out of sight he murmurs, ‘There’s a break in the pipe. Don’t look, it’s about ten feet to my right.’
And I thought he’d been catatonic, frozen in shock and fear, when this whole time he’s been searching for a way out of this mess.
‘When I say go, we’ve got to move as fast as we can to it. If she sees us, we’re dead, but we can’t just lie here and wait to die anyway.’
‘I’m not sure I can make it,’ I whisper. ‘My head is so heavy, I can barely breathe and I don’t think I can lift myself up.’
‘You can do it, Susan. You’re strong, stronger than me, stronger than I ever thought you could be.’ His voice is filled with something that sounds like respect, a respect I’ve never heard from him before. His fingers link with mine and he squeezes my hand tight.
‘I need to know, Mark, if we’re going to die. Did you ever love me?’
‘I loved you. I loved you more than you’ll ever believe now. And when you gave me Dylan, I was so happy, and so afraid it couldn’t last.’
‘Because of . . .’ I can’t say her name. ‘Because of what you thought you’d done?’
‘Because of what I did. Jennifer may have said I didn’t do it, but I did. I killed Beth, and I knew that one day someone would come back and take everything from me.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
He looks away. ‘I don’t think you need me to answer that.’
He’s right. I honestly can’t say what I would have done, whether I’d have made him go to the police, or taken our son and left. All I do know is that the last four years of my life would have been so different.
‘When Jack called me that day, he told me that Jennifer had been to our house and told you everything. He said you’d gone mad and Jennifer had called him to calm you down but when he got there it was too late. You’d killed Dylan and blacked out, hit your head on the table. I didn’t even go to the house; I met Matty in the car park of the hospital and ran with you into A and E. Matt rushed Dylan through, I didn’t even see him. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.’ His voice breaks. ‘I really thought you’d done it, Susan. I never should have believed them, I never should have thought you would . . . but you’d been a different person after Dylan was born; it was easy for me to believe you could have hurt him. As far as I knew, all I was hiding was the reason why you flipped out.’
Warm tears roll down my nose on to my lips, but I don’t brush them away. Let him see, let him see how he’s hurt me. ‘How could you not know? How could you just believe him over me?’
‘
You
believed you’d done it.’ Mark rubs his face with his free hand. ‘Susan, I’d thought about telling you about Beth a million times. I’d imagined you hugging me and telling me it was OK, that we’d get through it together and you’d still love me but I knew deep down that could never happen. When Jack said that Jennifer had told you everything, and that you were both dead, I was devastated, but I believed him because I knew you. I knew you couldn’t live the rest of your life with a murderer, and I knew you couldn’t turn me in to the police. I thought you’d seen no other choice.’
I do feel for him; my heart aches at the thought of him going through his daily life thinking all the time that he was about to lose everything. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Then I remember how I felt every day thinking I’d killed my son, how that was a direct result of the terrible thing he had done, and I want him to pay.
‘I can’t tell you how I would have reacted if you’d told me what happened to Beth.’ I keep my voice low and he has to lean in to hear me. ‘But know this, Mark, I would have killed all four of you before I let anything happen to my boy.’
‘Susan, we’ll go to the police, I’ll tell them everything, we’ll find Dylan, I promise. But we have to get out of here first. For Dylan.’ He squeezes my hand again. ‘Can you do that?’
I nod.
The sirens are louder now, announcing our rescuers. But they’re going to be too late. Jennifer is moving back towards us, something in her hand. A small transparent bottle that looks empty but isn’t. White spirit.
‘I knew it would come to this.’ Her voice is level, calm. ‘I hope you’re happy, Mark. This is for Beth.’