Finding Jennifer Jones (25 page)

Or were they taking other kinds of pictures entirely?

Jennifer closed her eyes tightly. She tried to sleep. Maybe, for a while she did.

When she opened her eyes there was light coming through the glass bricks. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was 05:07am. She got off the bed and stretched her legs. She bent down at the sink and splashed her face. Then she went to the door and knocked. Moments later an officer came along. He looked wary, as if he expected her to try and escape.

“I’d like to talk with DI Lauren Heart,” Jennifer said.

“I don’t know whether she’s in or not. I can get someone else.”

“No, it’s just her I just need to speak to.”

The officer went off grumbling. Jennifer sat back down. It was achingly early and unless Lauren Heart was on a night shift she’d probably be at home with her family. It would be hours before she could speak to her, if at all. In fact, it was barely an hour later that the door was opened and Lauren Heart stood there. Jennifer sat up, her head a little dazed because she had dropped off to sleep again. She crossed her arms and tried to look straight at the detective. The last time they’d spoke DI Heart had told Jennifer (Kate, then) a few bald truths and it had not been easy for her to listen to them. Now the detective looked tired. The uniformed officer followed her in with a chair for her to sit on.

“Will you have some tea, ma’am?” he said.

“Sure. Milk, no sugar. Jennifer? Will you have tea?”

“Yes, black, please.”

The door was left open. Lauren Heart pushed the fingers of one hand through her hair. Then she yawned and covered her mouth with her free hand.

“What do you want, Jennifer?” she said, softly.

“I have some information that I maybe should have told the police about years ago but I never did.”

“Regarding your case? The killing of Michelle Livingstone?”

“No, not really.”

The custody sergeant came into the room holding two cups and saucers. He passed one to DI Heart and the other to Jennifer. Steam rolled off the top of Jennifer’s.

“Anything else, ma’am?”

“No, thank you.”

DI Heart looked quizzically at Jennifer. “What do you want to tell me? I thought you’d done all your talking on the television, yesterday.”

Jennifer gulped at the boiling tea. What had she expected? A sympathetic response from the detective? Gratitude? DI Heart had been quite clear that she owed Jennifer Jones nothing. She stared at DI Heart’s hand. She was wearing the garnet ring that looked too big. Maybe it was something she never took off. Jennifer wanted to ask her about it but it gave her a bad feeling; as if the ring was a memento of something sad. Under the strip light it glowed, a deep blood red.

“When I was ten and I lived with my mother in Berwick she had an agent, a man who took her photos. His name was Mr Cottis, Kenneth Cottis. He was friends with the Bussell family and I guess that’s how my mother met him. He was around the house a lot in those days and one day he asked if he could photograph me.”

DI Heart sipped at her tea. Jennifer faltered. Was there really much to tell?

“I felt at the time – I was only ten, of course – I felt that what he was asking was not right. He gave me old-fashioned school clothes to dress up in and I was sure that something was wrong with what he was asking me to do.”

“Did he touch you? Did he take photographs of you? What are you getting at?”

DI Heart put her cup on the floor. She leaned forward, her hands clasped.

Now Jennifer had to lie.

“No. I never posed for him, but he had a suitcase that held his photos and I was nosing around in it one day and I saw some pictures of…” She paused, remembering the day, the naked photos she saw of her mother; the sight that had filled her with confusion.

“Children? Pornographic photos?”

“Yes, children. I think so. I might have been wrong. I was only ten. I might not have understood what I was looking at.”

It was a small lie but it told a bigger truth.

DI Heart’s face had darkened.

“And where is this man now?”

“He has a photography business in Alexandra Palace, north London. I saw it advertised on the internet.”

“This certainly made an impression on you. You were ten, you say? Was it round about the time of Michelle’s death?”

“Sometime round then.”

“Did your mother know about this?”

Jennifer looked at DI Heart. She felt her face tremble.

“Did she know, Jennifer?”

“No.” She shook her head, affronted. “I never told her. If my mother had known she would have gone to the police. She would
never
have let such a thing happen to me. She never knew. She
loved
me. I kept it from her.”

DI Lauren Heart sat back.

“My mother loved me. She did,” Jennifer whispered, fiercely.

The policewoman touched her ring, making it swivel on her finger. She looked as if she wanted to ask something else, but in the end decided against it.

“Thank you for the information, Jennifer. We shall certainly look into it.”

Thirty-three

Jennifer was getting ready to go to a meeting at Exeter University. It was the second time she had attended that week. Her change of name and the accompanying publicity had sent the pastoral staff into panic mode. For a while, it had looked as though she might have to transfer and take the last year of her degree somewhere else. Julia Masters had stepped in, though. She made her view quite clear. The court authorities had allowed Jennifer Jones her continued freedom and so the university had no business undermining that by trying to send her somewhere else.

It seemed that she had yet another reason to be grateful to Julia Masters.

She was running a little late. She was standing at the kitchen table finishing a coffee and some toast and looking over some documents that she’d downloaded and printed off regarding her course. Her bag was sitting neatly on the chair next to her and her phone was flat on the table and she glanced at the screen of it from time to time.

“Busy day?” Sally said, coming into the kitchen.

“A meeting with the pastoral team. I’m also going to try and catch a couple of my tutors, see if I can have a word with them, before the course officially starts.”

“Wow, that sounds like hard work! You students!”

“I do have
studying
to do as well,” she said, in a voice of mock outrage. “I let it all drift a bit last year. I want to see if I can retake some things.”

“Everything all right? At university?”

“Oh, you know, not everyone’s back yet. There’ve been a few looks from staff, a few people nudging each other when I walk past, but it’s a big place. Most people are too interested in themselves to worry about the fact that my name has changed. Most of them won’t have even read the story and if they have …” Jennifer shrugged.

Jennifer began to pack the printed document and her phone into her bag. What she had said wasn’t quite true. There had been a woman in the course admin office, Rosemary, who had complained about her. Kate had been waiting outside the door for the office to open when she heard the voice, querulous;
I didn’t take this job so that I could sit in the same room as a murderer!
Rosemary, a woman who had always been really friendly, had swept past her moments later and walked off up the corridor. Another one of the admin staff had given an apologetic smile and helped her with her course query.

She’d seen some of the girls she had been friendly with the previous year. They’d returned to university early, moving in to new houses. They’d not snubbed her completely, but there had been no invites for lunch or coffee or drinks in the university bar. Jennifer was relieved. She dreaded questions, the inevitable enquiries.
So, what happened? How come? Was it, like, self-defence? If you didn’t mean to do it how come you didn’t call an ambulance? What was it like in prison?
Being close to people meant that they were entitled to some of your life story; Jennifer was pleased that she had become unpopular.

Sally was beating a couple of eggs in a jug. She was looking a little sleepy, her dressing gown bunched over where it hadn’t been tied properly. She yawned, using her forearm to cover her mouth.

“Heard from Jimmy?” she said.

Jennifer shook her head. She picked up her bag. “I’ll see you tonight. Remember, I’m cooking. Vegetable casserole. Will Robbie be here?”

“Does the night follow day?”

Jennifer left the house and headed down the hill towards the bus terminal. After a summer of walking to work on the esplanade it felt odd to be taking the bus again. It was sunny but there was a hint of cold in the air. Some gulls were sitting on the roof of a garage looking subdued, as though they knew the summer was over. The bus station was in shadow and she wished she’d worn a jacket. She pulled her phone out of her bag and checked it once more.

The screen was blank. No missed calls, no text messages.

Had she really thought that Jimmy might get in touch?

On the day after the court hearing she’d written him a letter and enclosed the passport she’d taken from his room. She’d tried to explain, in a faltering way, to sum up her life, to describe, to make excuses. In the end she’d deleted her attempts and sent him a few handwritten lines.

Dear Jimmy,

I know you’ll think badly of me now that you know the truth. I can’t make any excuses. I did what I did. I have to live with that. At least I don’t have to pretend any more. I’m enclosing Rebecca’s passport. I never actually used it. I’m sorry I took it. I was going through a desperate time.

Jennifer Jones.

She had been tempted to put
Kate
in brackets after her name just to reassure him that she was the same person he’d known but then she thought,
What’s the point?
It wasn’t like she’d been in love with him. He was a nice lad, easy to spend time with, but like everything else it had been predicated on a lie. Now she had to step out, make her life as Jennifer Jones. Finish her degree, get a job, find a place for herself in this world.

“Well, well, look who it is.”

A loud voice broke into her thoughts. She saw Aimee standing a few metres away, with her daughter, Louise. She began to smile but immediately sensed that it wasn’t the right thing to do. Aimee was holding her daughter’s hand up high, protectively, as though someone might be threatening to rip her away.

“You’ve got a nerve coming back here,” Aimee said, her eyes steely.

Some of the people at the bus stop looked round. Jennifer stepped away from the queue. She made eye contact with Louise, who looked puzzled. Aimee used her free hand to edge her daughter back so that she was standing partially behind her.

“You lied to us, to everyone. When all the while you’d done this terrible thing! There should be a law against people like you, people with fake IDs pretending to be like everyone else. I told you things about my family, my daughter…”

“Mummy, what’s wrong?” Louise said.

Aimee took a step towards her, holding her daughter behind her back. Jennifer looked around, embarrassed. She could just walk away, but where would she go? She was on her way to college. She had to expect that some people might react badly. This was something she had to endure. A group of women at the bus stop were staring at them. A schoolgirl, chewing gum, was pulling her earphones out, one by one, so that she could listen.

“Aimee, I…I had to live like that. It wasn’t my choice.”

“It was your choice to
kill
someone! A child!” she hissed.

A ticket inspector at another bus stop was frowning at them. He probably thought it was just an argument between two women.

“I’m sorry…I don’t know what to say…” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Why don’t you pack your bags and get away from here. We don’t want your sort living here.”

Jennifer stared down at the ground. She wondered how much longer she would stand there. Aimee was still talking, her voice droning on.
You pretended to be someone else! You lied to me and I gave you my friendship!
Louise was interrupting, asking her mother what was wrong. Her voice sounded high, as though she might burst into tears at any moment. The sound of a bus wheezing to a halt alongside them filled Jennifer’s ears and without a word she spun on her heel and walked towards it, ignoring Aimee’s tirade. She got on the bus and went up the back. She got a book out of her bag and opened it randomly and stared down at the pages, her eyes blurring on the print. She could hear other people getting onto the bus, the women perhaps who had been watching, the schoolgirl who had found the scene interesting enough to take her earphones out. There were other footsteps as well, and chatter, some boys bursting onto the bus on their way to school. She didn’t look up, she just tuned in and out of the fragments of conversation and felt her nerves uncoiling. It was clear that Aimee hadn’t followed her onto the bus.

She looked up from her book.

There was a banging on the window beside her. She turned and saw Aimee’s furious face, her mouth opening and shutting, as the bus moved away from the terminal and headed out onto the road. She swivelled and looked out the back window and saw Aimee standing still, her daughter next to her, rubbing her eyes as if she was crying.

She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and held it to her mouth, afraid she was going to burst into sobs. After a few moments she calmed down. She started to shred the tissue, pulling it into strips. Then she balled up the mess of tissue and pushed it down the side of her bag. She hugged herself. She was cold. She should definitely have worn a jacket. Or maybe she should have stayed at home, in her room, with the duvet pulled around her.

After the meeting with her mentor –
Things might be difficult for you but we will support you, Jennifer –
she walked towards the refectory at the far end of the campus. It was brimming with students but they were all new, preparing for their fresher’s week. She was relaxed because there was no chance of her bumping into anyone she knew. She bought a sandwich and a drink and took it out onto the grass. She sat down cross-legged and ate her sandwich while she stared off into the distance and wondered whether she’d done the right thing coming back to Exmouth. The meeting with Aimee had shaken her.