Finding Jennifer Jones (22 page)

“You haven’t been here five years. So how can you say that!”

“Other people have told me.”

“So, what’s this? I get gossiped about in my own house?”

After the meal Kate offered to help with the washing-up. Petra shooed her out.

“Greg does everything on a Wednesday night,” she said.

“I’ll be off, then. I hope everything goes all right on your travels!”

“Thanks. I’ll email you. Let you know. You will look after my stuff? In the wardrobe and chest of drawers? They’re locked but…”

“Course I will.”

“When I get back maybe there’ll be another room here for you. If not I know a few people in other houses who might be able to help.”

Kate left the house and made her way back to Archway tube station. She heard a beep from her phone and it made her instantly apprehensive. Stevie Bussell had her number and she no intention of answering if it was him. She had considered, late last night, whether or not to get rid of the phone and buy another. It would eat into her money though and so she’d dismissed the idea.

She looked down at the screen and relaxed. It was a text from Lucy Bussell.

Lovely to meet you yesterday Kate. Don’t forget to write me a letter xxx

She couldn’t help but smile. Lucy had no idea that her brother had been rifling through her belongings, looking at her phone, interfering in her life. She was blithely unaware of the way Stevie had confronted Kate yesterday, waving Kate’s personal letter to Lucy in her face.

But she had no intention of telling her. Why upset her? She’d done nothing wrong. She sent a short reply to the text and then headed down into the tube station.

Twenty-nine

Early the next morning Kate got dressed and ready for work. She’d slept on and off throughout the night but felt tired, the corners of her eyes gritty and her mouth dry.

The room seemed even smaller now she knew she was leaving it. Three or four steps took her from one wall to another. It had become untidier as well. Her rucksack and bag were taking up all the space down one side of the bed. On the other side was a chair with a towel draped over it and pairs of shoes that she she’d left on the floor. She kicked one of them out of her way. Then she went downstairs for breakfast. She picked at some cereal and a plate of toast. The other people in the breakfast room were focused on their newspapers or talking on their phones. After she’d finished she walked over to a large bay window and peered along the pavement as far as she could in either direction.

There was no sign of Stevie Bussell.

She went up to her room and picked up her things for work.

She headed towards the tube station. She found herself breathing normally, her shoulders relaxing, her jaw softening. She was overreacting. She’d faced up to Stevie Bussell and he did not know her new identity; neither did he have any idea where she had been staying. In a couple of days she would be living in Archway out of his reach. She stopped at the crossing and waited for the lights to go green.

A hand rested on her arm.

She looked round instantly, fearful. But it wasn’t Stevie Bussell, it was a man in a suit. She frowned at him, glancing down to the ground as though she might have dropped something and he had stopped her to let her know.

“Jennifer?”

He said the word in a whisper, his voice dropping below the noise of the traffic. It was so low she could have sworn that she’d lipread it. She recognised him then. She’d knocked into him after her confrontation with Stevie Bussell. His papers had scattered over the pavement. “Jennifer Jones? I’m Matt Murray. I work for a press agency and I need to talk to you urgently about a story I have concerning you.”

She walked off, gripping the edges of her bag. She went as fast as possible but she could hear him calling her, causing other people to turn around and look in her direction.

She stopped and turned to remonstrate with him.

There was a flash which startled her and she saw a man with a camera walking up behind him, taking one picture after another, the sound of the shutter clicking rapidly.

“Jennifer, we have pictures of you talking to Lucy Bussell.”

She went to speak but couldn’t. She turned away from the camera and tried to walk on but her steps had slowed. They had
pictures
. She thought of Lucy sitting innocently in the café in Finsbury Park, all forgiving, chatting lightly about Donny and her college course and all the while a photographer was crouched somewhere taking photographs. Lucy would be bewildered. A slight girl, she always seemed to be on the edge of things. She didn’t cause any trouble; she just attracted it. Kate felt anguish at the thought of her being the centre of attention again when Kate had only ever wanted to say sorry to her.

“Jennifer, my car is round the corner. Come and sit in it for five minutes. I have a proposal for you.”

“Was it Stevie Bussell? Did he contact you?”

“He was concerned that you’d written to his sister.”

Matt Murray pulled her letter out of his pocket. She recognised the envelope, her own handwriting, the rough tear across the top. Stevie had given the letter to the photographer. Now they had her words as well as her picture. She groaned.

“This needn’t be as bad as you think it is.”

“Are you paying Stevie for this?”

“Come now, Jennifer. Mr Bussell is a young man on the brink of getting married. He has expenses. We respect that.”

The photographer had moved to her side and taken another picture. Several people were staring across the road.

“Tell him to stop that,” she said, her voice cracking, her head buzzing with the noise of the traffic.

“Come and sit in the car. Just for five minutes. Let’s discuss it.”

The reporter was good-looking and his suit was smart. He was holding a set of car keys. The photographer, in contrast, was in jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt. He had a cap on and sunglasses. Although his camera was pointed at her he wasn’t looking at
her
, he was fiddling with the buttons and turning it from landscape to portrait and then back again. She wondered if, under the cap, he had hair or was bald like Mr Cottis.

“Come on, Jennifer. Then we can avoid people looking at you.”

Matt Murray’s voice was like honey; like he was her friend and had her best interests at heart. She stood, frozen, every cell of her body rigid. She suddenly understood that this was the end. She was not going to go and live in the house at Archway in Petra’s room. The plastic boxes she’d left there would collect dust. She was never going to use the name
Becky Andrews
. Her dream of shaking off the ties of her release, her probation officer, the police, the string of people who knew her story and who controlled her life, was over. She would be arrested for breaking the law. She would go back to prison and when it was time for her to come out again the whole thing would start over.

She would never be free of it.

“Jennifer, you coming?”

“No,” she said, standing firm.

“Think carefully, Jennifer. This stuff will be all over the papers today. If you come with us you can give your side of the story.”

To put your side of the story
. Hadn’t Sara Wright said that very thing to her just two years before?

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said.

“Jennifer, there’s no point in running away. I got your new name from the landlady of the B&B,
Rebecca Andrews
. You can’t disappear again…”

She waved him away. She cut through the traffic and headed for the tube station. When she got there she walked along the tunnel and then paused. She leaned against the tiled wall, a feeling of grief gripping at her insides. People filed past her deep in conversation, oblivious to her. No one knew that she was a girl adrift in dangerous waters. The news would emerge later in the day, Matt Murray said, and then it would be in the papers the next day and be read by everyone in her life; that long list of people who had come into contact with her over the years. Added to that were the people she knew in Exmouth; her housemates, the students on her course, the people at the tourist information office. Jimmy Fuller would know; he would also find out how she’d intended to use the name
Rebecca Andrews.
Maybe he would look through his ex-girlfriend’s papers and find that her passport was missing. She pictured him sitting cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, his back against the box holding the file that said
Rebecca Andrews Papers
and realise that Kate had crept out of his bed and stolen it from him.

“Are you all right, dear?” a woman said, looking concerned.

“Thank you, I’m fine,” she muttered.

Kate went further into the station. In the concourse she stood in front of a London Underground map and stared at it. There were hundreds of stations in London, the many different coloured lines criss-crossing each other making the city look like a blueprint rather a place. It was another world to her. Her eye moved along some of the lines, some of the stations familiar; Euston, Camden Town, Oxford Street, Marble Arch. Most of the others she’d never heard of; Caledonian Road, Great Portland Street, Seven Sisters, Walthamstow. That was why she wanted to come here, to lose herself in the middle of eight million people. London was like a heaving mass; she’d tried to fit in, to find somewhere to stay and a job.

But her past had followed her like a sad-eyed dog that she’d tried to abandon.

She ran her finger along one of the lines and stopped on a station.

Angel.

An image came into her head; a graveyard, a white alabaster angel, her face still and sad, her hands joined together in prayer. She’d thought of this before. She was familiar with this place. It was printed on a card that she’d been given. She patted the pockets of her rucksack, opening each one, feeling inside it then fastening it again. She finally found the card and looked at the name and address on it.
Angel
was the right station. She traced the line back to Finsbury Park, where she was now. It meant a change of line but it was only a couple of stops.

She got a ticket. In less than fifteen minutes she was above ground, standing in front of Angel station. The pavement was as wide as a street and had a newspaper and magazine stand as well as a mobile coffee van and a flower stall. She stood with her back to the traffic and rang the number on the card. The call went to voicemail so she left a message, her voice strong against the backdrop of traffic and passers-by.

This message is for Sara Wright. This is Kate Rickman. I am in London and I am in trouble. You said if I ever needed your help to get in touch. I need your help now. It’s 10:10. I’m standing in front of the Angel tube station and I’ll stay here for an hour. Please, when you get this message call me.

She put her phone away and stood to the side of the flower stall. The scent of blooms wafted by her as she leaned against the steel and glass wall of the station. She would wait for an hour. After that she would go to the nearest police station and hand herself in.

Twenty minutes later a car pulled up, its hazard lights flashing on and off.

Kate stared at it, holding her breath. The driver’s door opened and Sara Wright stood there. Kate felt her legs wobble with relief as she walked towards the journalist and got into the passenger seat of her car.

Thirty

Kate was in a meeting room at the television centre where Sara Wright worked. There was a round table with chairs for ten people. In the middle of it sat an arrangement of flowers, pale pink roses and carnations. On the wall opposite was a line of clocks which showed the time in different parts of the world; London, New York, Moscow, Johannesburg, Beijing. The other side of the room was glass which looked down onto the road outside. She was seven storeys up. She could see traffic but the sound was far away. From here it reminded her of the sound of the surf. She closed her eyes for a few moments and leaned her forehead against the cool glass. She saw herself on the beach at Exmouth, striding along the water’s edge, her walking boots digging deep into the packed sand, the waves crashing further out, the sea racing towards her ankles.

Now she felt thick carpet under her feet. On the table, in front of her, were a packet of sandwiches and a large cardboard cup of coffee. She’d drunk the coffee but not touched the food. She sat down again and her hand played with the sides of the lukewarm cup and she wondered where everyone had got to.

Earlier there had been a meeting with Sara’s boss, Mr Cosgrove. He was a tall thin man with steel-grey hair and half-moon glasses. He seemed to have a permanent frown, his forehead in lines. He had been polite but not friendly. Sara had spent some time explaining the situation, checking with Kate now and then if what she was saying was right. Kate agreed, looking at the editor for some kind of eye contact or softening of attitude. He focused on Sara though and made notes on an A4 pad. After a while he left and Sara told her to give him some time.
He needs to think it all through, there are legal implications
, she said. Then she left, making sure that Kate had everything she needed.

Kate’s bags were leaning against one of the table legs. Sara had dropped Kate off at the offices of the television company and then driven to the B&B and packed Kate’s belongings and paid her bill.

She reached into her rucksack and felt about for her old phone. Now she could turn it on because her whereabouts would be known anyway. In a couple of hours, when the afternoon newspaper came out in London, the story would be public. Then she might get a call from Julia Masters demanding to know what was going on. There might be other calls as well. She switched her mobile on and watched as it came to life. There were a number of beeps indicating missed calls or texts. She looked at the screen. There were seven missed calls; two from Sally and five from Jimmy. There were also six texts; one from Sally, one from Aimee and four from Jimmy.

The missed calls were on Sunday and Monday. The texts were from the day before, Wednesday.