Someone To Save you (18 page)

There was a slight hesitation, and Sam caught PC Stapleton glance nervously at Cullen.

‘We spoke with Shirley and Eric Ainsley,’ he confirmed. ‘PC Stapleton took Mrs Ainsley to see the body at the hospital.’

‘It must have been difficult,’ Sam noted.

Another glance by the female officer. This time Cullen spotted it and nodded her to speak. ‘It was a very traumatic experience for Mrs Ainsley. But not for the reason we had envisaged.’

Sam looked across to Paul Cullen. ‘I don’t understand.’

Cullen dipped a hand into his jacket and pulled out a photograph. He handed it to Sam. It was a smiling image of a young girl in her school uniform, posing for the camera.

Sam looked up at Cullen for an explanation.

‘This is a recent photograph of Alison Ainsley,’ he explained. ‘This wasn’t the girl you pulled from the river.’

‘What?’

‘The girl you pulled from the river – are you sure it was the same girl who led you to the train tracks? Or could it have been this girl, here, in the photo? There is a striking resemblance between the two.’

Sam looked again at the photograph and shook his head in disbelief. There was a resemblance, but he’d never met this girl.

He looked back at Inspector Cullen. ‘The girl I pulled out of the river last night was the same girl who led me to the car, definitely. And that girl told me she was Alison, and it was her mum in there. This girl,’ he said, lifting up the photo, ‘I’ve never seen before in my life. I don’t understand what the hell’s going on here.’

Cullen showed him his palms. ‘That makes two of us.’

Part Two

20

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

Sam nodded as Louisa fastened her seat belt, her overnight bag just having been placed in the boot alongside Sam’s belongings. The plan was to stay for the night at his parents, to make sure they were okay. He couldn’t just turn up at their door, drop the bombshell about Richard Friedman, and leave after a few hours. Louisa would stay at her family home, while Sam would have his old room.

Louisa waited until they had passed through the city’s outskirts and onto the motorway before speaking again. ‘How are you, Sam? After what happened at the river?’

‘I’ve been better,’ Sam replied, negotiating around the outside of a slow moving lorry, into the middle lane. He accelerated to seventy, as if trying to outrun the painful memories of his desperate efforts to breathe life back into the drowned girl.

‘It’s just so weird,’ Louisa said. ‘I mean, the girl, she pretended to be Alison Ainsley. Why? Who was she?’

‘I was up most of the night thinking about it,’ Sam admitted, moving back into the inside lane and slowing slightly. ‘I can’t think of any explanation. I’ve also been wondering how she got my mobile number. But it’s all questions and no answers.’

‘Are you sure you’re in the right frame of mind to be doing this today?’ Louisa said. ‘Dealing with your mum and dad, telling them about Richard Friedman?’

‘I’ve got no choice,’ Sam replied. ‘I don’t want them to find out from some policeman they don’t know, knocking on the door without warning – it could be too much for them, too much of a shock. It needs to be me who tells them. I owe it to them to be there, to look after them, to break the news gently.’

Louisa nodded her understanding.

The journey up to the North West was torturous. An accident just north of Stafford resulted in a ten mile tailback, meaning the three hour trip became a five hour crawl. Sam and Louisa hardly spoke in that time, letting Radio Four fill the void. By the time they reached Sam’s home village, ten miles west of Manchester in the Cheshire countryside, it was four o’clock. Sam hoped that the police hadn’t already broken the news to his parents; he was desperate to get there before them. But before then, there was something else he had to do, and ten minutes probably wouldn’t make a difference.

Sam sensed Louisa stiffen as he turned left before the village boundary and headed down a small country lane.

‘You’re going to the church?’

Sam nodded, keeping his eyes on the road.

Louisa didn’t say any more. She didn’t need to. Sam knew how long it had been since she’d visited this place. Not since the days after Cathy’s funeral. It was too painful, she had once admitted. Sam felt guilty for bringing her back to the spot, but he needed her with him and despite the element of selfishness, he truly felt it could do her good. They reached the church and came to a crunching stop on the gravel path just next to the churchyard. The ancient Norman stone building had played host to some of the happiest moments of his family’s life – thirty seven years ago his parents had married there, two years later Sam had been baptised, and three years after that it was Cathy’s turn. And then the dark moment – Sam had walked the same gravel-lain route holding Cathy’s coffin, struggling under the weight, fighting back tears as he pressed his ear against the wood. His mother had been against the idea, worried that it would be too much, but Sam had insisted on joining his father and two uncles as pall-bearers – he had wanted to be as close to Cathy as possible.

Sam looked across at Louisa, who was staring straight ahead, as if her mind was somewhere else. ‘You okay?’

Louisa nodded, even though she didn’t look okay at all. The happy, carefree Louisa seemed a world away, and for a moment Sam thought about turning the ignition and driving straight off. ‘You can stay in the car if you like.’

Louisa shook her head.

They climbed out of the car and passed through the rusting iron gate, Louisa following in Sam’s wake. The churchyard was a picture of tranquillity, sun bathing the area in a mild late afternoon glow. A blackbird was singing from one of the overhanging trees which swayed in the gentle breeze. Sam scanned the area – no one else was around.

They turned left and headed for the far corner. Sam stopped in front of Cathy’s grave. The plot was adorned with fresh flowers, left by the family just a few days earlier at the remembrance service. But Sam noted a new bouquet, a spray of yellow roses, with a note from his mother. He crouched down and ran a finger and thumb across one of the delicate petals.

‘My Mum has visited here virtually every day since Cathy was buried,’ Sam said. ‘I only found that out last week.’ He looked up at Louisa. ‘She’s been coming every day for all these years, and I never even knew.’

Sam looked back at the grave, thinking back again to the day of the funeral. The pain on his parents’ faces, the sobbing of his grandmother, who had always been so close to Cathy. ‘I don’t really have any idea what my parents went through,’ he said. ‘I ran away and let them deal with it. They had to cope with Cathy’s death on their own.’

Louisa moved towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘We all had to deal with it the best way we could.’

Sam shook his head. ‘But I ran away, Lou. I went to London, got on with my life, tried to forget about what had happened.’

‘You went to university to train to be a doctor,’ Louisa said. ‘What good would it have done anyone if you’d just thrown your future career away?’

Sam stood up and faced Louisa. ‘I didn’t have to throw my career away. I could have stayed around here, supported my parents more. After Cathy had gone I looked at local courses. I contacted the admissions at Manchester and they said that they’d offer me a place. But I decided I needed to get away, so I went to London.’

‘Did your parents know?’

Sam shook his head. ‘I didn’t mention it. How could I? Basically tell them that I’d had the chance to train in medicine and stay close to home, but rejected it, because I wanted to be anywhere but here?’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t like that, Sam.’

‘Wasn’t it? I ran away Louisa. I saved myself by running away and trying to forget.’

‘You’re being too harsh on yourself.’

Sam turned back to the grave. ‘I hardly ever came home in the holidays - because I couldn’t face being back here and having to walk past Cathy’s bedroom. Everything here reminded me of my sister, and it was easier to just get away and surround myself with new places and new friends.’

‘You did what you had to do.’

‘I didn’t help my friends and family when they needed it the most.’

‘You helped me,’ Louisa countered. ‘Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to get through what happened. You might not realise it, Sam, but you saved me back then. Really saved me. I don’t know what I would have done without you there to support me. I really was losing my way, and you pulled me out of it. With all those letters and phone calls, you supported me more than anyone.’

Sam shook off the comment. ‘You helped me more than I helped you.’

‘We helped each other. We were closer to Cathy than anyone, and we helped each other. You might have regrets, Sam, we all can think of things we should have done, but it’s easy to say that now, all these years later. You were only eighteen. You were just a boy, Sam, having to cope with a very traumatic event.’

Sam nodded to concede the point. ‘But I’m not eighteen anymore. And I’m not going to run away this time.’

Louisa smiled, placing a hand on his arm. ‘Good. I wouldn’t expect you to.’

‘I mean it, Lou. Whatever it all means, Richard Friedman having Cathy’s locket, saying that he murdered Cathy, whatever it leads to, I’m not going to run away this time. This time I’m going to protect my mum and dad. I’ll be there for them.’

‘How do you think they’ll handle the news?’

‘Badly probably – just when it looked like they were moving on, it could bring them back to square one.’

‘They might surprise you,’ Louisa replied.

Sam dismissed the notion. ‘They still look really fragile, Lou. Dad especially – I could see it in his eyes last week at the remembrance service. He’s trying to move on, but something like this could drag him right back.’

‘Last week, back here, was harder than you’ve admitted, wasn’t it?’

Sam nodded. ‘It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I missed you being there, you know.’

Louisa surprised Sam by looking off, guiltily. ‘I’m really sorry, Sam.’

‘You don’t have to apologise.’

‘No, I do,’ she explained. ‘The wedding I said I was going to that day, it didn’t exist. I made it up. It was an excuse not to go.’

Sam waited.

‘You’re not the only one who can’t face being reminded of Cathy,’ she added. ‘I wanted to come, but the thought of celebrating her thirtieth, when she’s, she’s just, dead, I couldn’t do it, Sam. I just couldn’t. I’m so sorry.’ She started to cry.

Sam’s thoughts turned to the note in her locker. She’d been beating herself up over this for days. But he could understand why she had done it, totally. He knew all about running away from the pain.

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Honestly.’

‘I was dreading coming with you here,’ she revealed. ‘But I just had to do it, after last week, I couldn’t let you come up on your own.’

Sam smiled. ‘I’m really glad you came.’

They hugged briefly and then both turned to face Cathy’s grave once again. It felt like a weight had been lifted, albeit temporarily.

‘Mum says that she feels closest to Cathy when she’s here,’ Sam said. ‘She believes that there’s some kind of link here, to Cathy in heaven.’

‘Do you think that?’

Sam shrugged. ‘I’d like to believe. But I don’t have any evidence.’

‘But you’re a Christian. You believe in heaven?’

‘Lapsed,’ he corrected. ‘Maybe. Just after Cathy’s death, I came to this church, every day, sitting there, listening out for something. Some sign that she was out there. But I didn’t hear anything.’

‘I did the same,’ Louisa admitted. ‘Not in church; in my bedroom. I talked to her for hours, like we used to do on the phone after school, telling her about my day. I think my parents thought I was going crazy. My dad walked in on me one night and made me go and see Dr. Philips at the surgery to discuss it.’

Sam smiled. ‘So we’re both as mad as each other.’

‘Seems like it.’

‘I wish I could hear her voice now,’ Sam said.

‘Is that why you came here? To see if you could hear Cathy?’

Sam lifted up his arms. ‘What can I say? I’m desperate. But it would be good if she could speak to us. She knows who really killed her.’

‘True.’

‘Maybe if I closed my eyes I’d hear something. A whisper. A name.’

‘Try it,’ Louisa said.

Sam closed his eyes, concentrating on his breathing. The bird song faded, and suddenly everything seemed to be shut out. He could hear Cathy’s voice, full of fun and laughter, teasing her big brother on the day she had beaten him at his then favourite racing computer game.

What can I say? Some people are just naturals, Sammy.

And then a sadder time; Sam consoling her on the day that their pet rabbit died, squeezing her tightly as she sobbed into his shoulder.