In Too Deep (40 page)

‘There was a risk it could all fall apart, of course, that you’d tell the police. But my stupid logic reckoned you wouldn’t put Mum through the pain of what you’d done, not after what happened to Jacob. Besides, why would you turn yourself in?’

He was right.

Dad broke down again then. I waited, hardly able to take it in on top of everything else.

‘The last thing I saw was your beautiful face, Hannah. It kept me going. I did it for you and Mum, even though it may not seem like that. I’ve made terrible mistakes in my life, and I couldn’t stand for you to be a part of that a moment longer. I never meant to hurt you.’

‘And I never meant to hurt
you
,’ I told him, sobbing. ‘I swear I didn’t, but after I’d seen those pictures of you with Tom in the letter from his mum, I couldn’t bear it. I’d fallen in love with him and it was all your fault.’

The pain came hot and fast as Dad drove recklessly away from the hospital. I had no idea where he was taking me.

‘It was during the time I was home from university that I found out I was pregnant,’ I whispered, clutching myself. ‘It made it all so much worse.’

He remained silent, occasionally emitting a choking sound.

‘I needed answers, Dad. I didn’t know who Susan was then, or that Tom lived at Fox Court. I didn’t want to believe it, but from the letter and photographs I’d seen, it was obvious that you were Tom’s dad too. And I knew what that meant about my baby.’

Dad made a strange noise then, not exactly an answer, though it showed he was listening, feeling wretched.

‘It’s all right, love,’ the police officer says to me, rubbing my back. ‘Try not to get upset. The ambulance is on its way.’

I look around me, my vision blurry. I don’t know how many police there are . . . three, maybe four – perhaps even more. I recognise one. PC Kath Lane is standing to the left of Dad, with a male officer on the other side. Dad’s hands are handcuffed behind his back, with the male officer keeping hold of his arm.

This is all my fault.

‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and kidnapping. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.’ PC Kath Lane raises her voice because Dad is interrupting her. She carries on regardless.

When she’s finished he’s still mumbling, the tears flowing down his terrified face.

The male officer tries to pull Dad away, but his legs give way and he sinks to the floor, his head level with mine. I shift back in my chair to distance myself. He drops low, almost on to me. His shoulders judder up and down.

‘Arrest me for murder as well, for God’s sake . . .’ he wails through deep, resonant sobs. He’s looking straight at me. ‘It was me . . . I . . . I killed Jacob.’ He screws up his face then, turning away, burying the shame against his shoulder. ‘I knocked down my own son.’

The room falls silent.

Mum turns around slowly.

More officers come in through the front door, instinctively surrounding Dad. The sirens and flashing lights from outside burst through my senses. I feel raw, unreal.

‘Jacob phoned me that afternoon,’ Dad goes on, his face wet with tears and snot. ‘It was after the end of school. I was away from home that day – from
our
home,’ he says, looking at me and Mum. ‘Jacob was in a terrible state. He was crying, said he’d seen something bad online. It was to do with a school project. He’d seen me in a newspaper article with . . . with my wife.’ He turns to Susan.

‘The restaurant award,’ Susan whispers, hugging herself. ‘There was a prize-giving at the hotel and the local papers were there.’ She moves closer to Rick. ‘I remember, you tried everything to get out of being in that photograph.’

Dad wails unintelligibly, shaking his head and rocking back and forth.

‘I had to go to him quickly. My boy knew stuff he shouldn’t. I wanted to explain, find a way to make him keep quiet.’ Dad retches several times. ‘But not like
that
,’ he says, looking panicked. ‘After all those years of somehow making it work, after living with my wrong decision for so long, I couldn’t let it end in that way.’

‘Go on,’ PC Lane says. There’s complete silence in the room, just the occasional car cruising past outside. She’s jotting things down in her notebook.

‘I was . . . I was Phil.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘I was driving to the hotel for a couple of days when Jacob phoned. You thought I was away filming.’ Dad looks at Mum. ‘So I turned around and headed to where Jacob said he was. I was in the wrong car, but figured I could
explain that away to a kid . . . tell him it was a hire car or something.

‘He’d recently started high school and he told me he’d taken the wrong bus because he was so upset by what he’d seen online. He’d ended up in the countryside between villages. That’s when he phoned me.’

I want to block my ears, shut it all out. But like everyone else in the room, I listen intently.

‘He called you on the phone you use when you’re Rick?’ Kath asks blankly.

Dad nods. ‘I was driving the Range Rover and I was wearing the wrong clothes. I wasn’t the father he knew, but I had to get to him.’

There’s more deep, guttural sobbing, which makes me start, too. And Mum. In all the times we’ve hugged and comforted each other through our tragedy, in our triangle of grief,
Dad knew
.

‘I drove fast to get to him. Probably too fast, but I had to stop him from phoning you, Gina. I’d told him not to call anyone.’

‘You bastard,’ Mum whispers. She turns away, unable to look at him.

Dad stares at the wall. ‘He just came out of nowhere. I didn’t know he’d started walking. I came round the bend too fast and I wasn’t sure what it was at first. Perhaps a dog . . . an animal.’

He sucks in breath, trying to keep his voice steady.

‘I jammed on the brakes but it was too late. Whatever it was had hit the front of my car, gone up over the
windscreen and flown off behind. I reversed back at speed . . . then there was a bump, so I pulled forward again.’

Dad wails.

‘I got out of the car. I saw his backpack. I recognised his shoes. But I didn’t recognise my son.’

He hangs his head low, deep down between his drawn-up knees.

‘Then I got back in my car and I drove away.’

The silence is bigger than the room.

‘Did you administer any kind of first aid, Mr Forrester?’ PC Lane asks. ‘Did you check to see if your son was alive?’

Dad shakes his head.

‘No, I was too scared. I just drove away. I didn’t believe what I’d done. I couldn’t tell anyone that I’d killed my own son.’

I couldn’t tell anyone that I’d killed my own father
.

PC Lane arrests Dad again on suspicion of manslaughter. He struggles up off the floor and is manhandled out to the police car by several officers.

I can’t look at him.

Mum and Susan are speaking to officers again – Mum crying and hysterical, Susan calm. There’s so much noise around me, so much going on, and I feel weaker and weaker, yet there’s only one person I really want in all of this.

Only one person who can put his arms around me and make it all better.

He meant the world to me.

‘Thank you,’ I say as two paramedics wrap me in a blanket and strap me on to a carry-chair. I’m shivering.

I glance back at Mum as I’m wheeled out. She catches my eye, telling the officers she wants to go with me.

I still love Tom, yet differently now. And I know he loves me, too.

That never need change, I think, which makes me manage a tiny smile as they push me out to the waiting ambulance.

It’s late by the time I get back home.

The taxi pulls up outside, the engine idling. I pay and get out, heading up the path, trying not to think about how many different people at different ages have come up and down it.

I unlock the front door, fumbling with the key in the lock that feels foreign to me after only a few days.

It’s as if I never even lived here.

‘I sat over there and watched your house,’ Susan says. ‘Last November.’

We stand together on the top step and my eyes follow where she’s pointing. I don’t remember anyone sitting in their car, viewing my life from another perspective.

Susan sighs, lowering her hand. It’s only just starting to sink in what all of this means, how I feel, what the future holds. That my husband’s other wife is here, standing beside me, about to enter my home. But oddly, there is no room for anger or hate between us. In fact, right now, it feels like the opposite. I was right to trust her, my
initial suspicion having transformed into a strange need for friendship. I know she feels the same, and though it could be a temporary reaction – an intense need for comfort from the only other person who could possibly understand, a counterfeit attachment born out of our loss – we decided together, peacefully, that it would be beneficial to be together this evening.

Suddenly Paula is on my mind, her wise, comforting words wrapping around me like a light shawl – she’s always there when I need her, yet never intrusive or overbearing.

It’s time to look after
you
now, Gina,
she’d said
,
her hands drawing the shape of a protective dome around me
. Time to use what you’ve discovered about yourself and go on with your life.

‘When Phil came out of your house wearing clothes I didn’t recognise, I thought my mind was playing tricks. He kissed you so tenderly, I could see he loved you.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say through the semi-darkness. There’s a chill in the air.

‘He walked off down the street with a spring in his step that I’d never seen before. I got back in the car and followed him slowly, pulling over every hundred yards or so, watching as he talked on his phone a couple of times. He got on a bus, which I also followed, and ended up at the railway station.’

I take Susan’s hand. We don’t deserve this.

‘I left the car on double yellow lines and ran in after him. I had to be certain it was him. Do you understand that?’

I give a tiny nod.

‘I watched him buy a ticket. My head was telling me one thing, my heart quite another.’ Susan laughs, turns away to hide the tears in her eyes, but I see them glinting in the street light.

‘You already knew it was him . . .’ I say, saving her the pain.

She returns the nod. ‘He phoned me later. He sounded the same as ever, and I acted as normally as I could. In fact, it was a lot easier than I thought. I asked him about Dubai, where he was meant to be, and he told me his news. He even sent me the view from his hotel that evening, probably taken off the internet.’

‘He must have had two phones,’ I say. ‘One for each of us.’

I think about this, wondering how he prevented his two lives from becoming entangled for so long. The logistics make me shudder. One day would be hard enough, let alone years and years.

I push the door open and we go inside the house.

My
house.

It feels cold. Unlived in.

I will try to change that.

‘Welcome,’ I say, closing the door behind us. We’re both still for a moment. ‘Rick was standing exactly where you’re standing the last time I saw him.’

She turns slowly, looks about. ‘Rick . . . or Phil?’ she says.

‘Phil or Rick?’ I reply, but there is no answer to that.

I take her coat and pick up the mail. It’s mainly junk, but there’s a handwritten letter addressed to the parent or guardian of Hannah Forrester. Curious, I tear it open, skimming the messy writing. My heart clenches as I take it in. It’s only brief, but nevertheless puzzling. A social worker calling himself James Newton says he spoke to Hannah in a pub ten days ago. He had some concerns about her.

While I’m unable to be specific about her problems
, he wrote,
I felt I should inform someone close. Do call on the number below should you need advice
.

There are good people in the world, I think, folding up the letter and taking Susan through to the kitchen. But what was Hannah doing in a pub? Then I remember the night she was meant to be at Emma’s house but didn’t show up. She obviously poured her heart out to a stranger instead of me. I’ve been so blind to my daughter’s needs – been so blind to everything.

‘Make yourself at home,’ I say, flicking on all the lights.

Earlier, Susan insisted I stay at the hotel, but because Hannah was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital here in Oxford, I wanted to be close.

She was doing well, the doctor reported before I left, and would likely be home in a day or two. She had a mild wound infection that antibiotics would sort out quickly, but her main problem was that she’d been up and about too soon after the operation.

It was then that I tentatively suggested to Susan that she come back with me so we could talk, stay the night
if it was easier. I was testing the waters. Seeing if she was now as curious about me as I was about her. It felt strange, of course, to be spending time with the woman I now knew to be as much a part of Rick’s life as I was, but there was a burning itch inside me that I knew would only get worse if I didn’t scratch it. This was the only way I was going to get information, in the short term anyway, and information was what I craved. I suspected she felt the same.

She hesitated for a moment, but then agreed, saying she’d let Tom know her plans, and also asking if he could take care of Cooper for me. The staff would manage without her for one night, and besides, like me, she said we had a lot to talk about.

I open the fridge. There are just enough ingredients to make a simple meal.

‘Chilli and rice OK with you?’ Neither of us are hungry, but it’s a distraction at least.

We look at each other for a moment, then both burst out laughing at the stupidity of such a mundane task. Then our laughter turns to tears and we’re in each other’s arms, the stream of light from the fridge cast across us.

I pluck two tissues from the box on the table.

‘Chilli is perfect,’ she replies, peeking inside my fridge. ‘And look, you have wine too.’

There are several bottles of white in the door, but I get the other things out first. Then I pour Susan a glass and make a cup of tea for myself.