Someone To Save you (24 page)

Sam shrugged. ‘Because I was afraid where it might lead. I didn’t want to risk inviting you back into my life without being one hundred per cent certain that you didn’t kill Cathy.’

‘And are you one hundred per cent certain now?’

‘I think so.’

‘You think so?’

Sam faced Marcus head on. ‘I’m trying to shake them off. But it’s difficult, after so many years.’

‘Sure,’ Marcus replied, stone-faced. He shook his head at some unknown thought. ‘You don’t know how much of a nightmare it is, not being able to remember. Being sure that you couldn’t do something so terrible, but just having that doubt. Do you know, my legal team suggested that I pleaded guilty, so I’d get a lesser sentence?’

Sam wondered how Marcus thought he would know such a thing. ‘I didn’t know that, no.’

‘Well they did. They said the evidence was so stacked against me that it was highly unlikely I would be found innocent, and that my best chance was to plead guilty and express remorse. But I knew I couldn’t have done that to Cathy. I would never have hurt her, never. And I didn’t care if it meant more time in jail. It didn’t matter, as long as someone out there believed me.’

‘I wanted to believe you from the beginning,’ Sam said.

Marcus declined to reply directly to Sam’s statement, or indeed reveal any internal reaction to it. ‘I always had the support of my family. Really, I don’t know what I’d have done without their belief in me. My mum and dad, they never wavered – or at least they never let it show. They were my lifeline, totally. Without them I’d probably have been brought out there in a box. You don’t know how powerful it is, to be believed, how it keeps you going. It’s like oxygen in there.’

Sam felt some discomfort at Marcus’s unspoken accusation – some had believed in him, but others hadn’t. But, despite the feelings of guilt, it was still remarkably difficult to consider Marcus as anything but the man who had killed and raped his sister. His brain had been hardwired to make that association, make that neural link, and it would take time to disconnect the two. ‘I haven’t asked how you are.’

‘I’m okay,’ Marcus said. ‘Better now I’m out of prison.’

‘What was it like?’

‘Prison?’ He shook his head as if dismissing some unwelcome memory, then took a gulp of beer. ‘You remember what it was like in our first year of High School? Being scared of all the older kids, the bullies? We just tried to blend in, disappear, so they wouldn’t bother us.’

Sam nodded. ‘I remember.’ They’d had some problems in the early years with a few of the lads in the top year. Marcus had taken the brunt of the bullying, targeted by a vile boy who had taken a particular dislike to him. Sam had been drawn into the tormenting through association with his friend.

‘Well prison’s like that. It’s a brutal playground, with all the same bullies, but in there there’s no hiding place, no way out, no going home to mum and dad for even just a few hours of peace. And when you’re in there for rape and murder, well, it’s open season and even the prison guards can’t, or won’t, help you. You think at first someone will come, someone to save you, and tell you they’ve realised there’s been a big mistake. But you soon realise that isn’t going to happen.’

Sam couldn’t really even begin to empathise with Marcus’s experience. He’d never even set foot in a prison, and all he had were the images offered by Hollywood movies and British crime dramas. ‘You got singled out?’

Marcus nodded. ‘Oh yes. Especially at first – I got lots of attention.’

‘Physically?’

‘A few times,’ Marcus revealed, ‘two weeks in three guys cornered me in the toilets and gave me a beating. They kicked me until I lost consciousness. Had to be rushed to the medical centre, woke up not knowing where the hell I was, and had the scars for a few weeks. But it taught me a lesson. I got smarter and didn’t leave myself open like that again.’ He took another gulp of beer.

Sam shook his head, trying to imagine how he might have dealt with such an experience. Would he have had the strength to survive? ‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For not believing you. For not visiting you in prison. For not replying to your letters.’

‘It’s okay,’ he said, waving away Sam’s apology, ‘honestly. It’s in the past and I just want to move on and forget about it all. Life’s for living, and all that.’

His response rang hollow when Sam looked at his one-time best friend. It was as if Marcus said these things enough times, he would start to believe them himself. Sam realised that this whole conversation, this historic reunion, was necessarily polite. The emotions were just too raw at the moment, too strong, needing to be restrained, for the time being. Just as Sam hid his unease and stubborn suspicion, Marcus’s bitterness surely had to be there. Bitterness at losing fifteen years of your life through a miscarriage of justice, bitterness at the best friend who had abandoned him to his unjust fate.

‘And what about now, what will you do?’ Sam said.

Marcus shrugged, playing with the rim of his glass. ‘Try and get some money together, work my way out of that shit hole of a flat. I’ve got a job in a warehouse, loading food containers for supermarkets. It’s not great, it’s nightshift work, cold, but it pays pretty well. Although the prices of property in London are astronomical, so I won’t be living in a palace anytime soon.’

‘I was surprised you moved down to London.’

‘I just ended up here,’ Marcus said. ‘I didn’t plan to, but after I got out, I went home and it just didn’t work out. People were talking, and I was getting looked at in the street. Then kids started shouting things outside the house. It was affecting my family. So I got out. I like the anonymity here.’

‘But you’re getting your windows shot out.’

‘True,’ Marcus conceded. ‘I’ve tried to run away from the past, but I haven’t quite managed it yet.’

‘But if the police announce that you’re innocent and people then get to know…’

‘Then it will help,’ Marcus said. ‘But mud sticks. There will always be that element of doubt in some people’s minds.’

Sam didn’t know whether that was directed at him, but it certainly felt like it. ‘What did the police say to you?’

‘Not much. They just told me that someone had claimed that they’d murdered Cathy, and that he had her locket. But they still treated me as if I was the guilty one. They even suggested that I might have given him the locket. Can you believe that?’

Sam kept quiet and Marcus continued, now revealing at least some of the bitterness and anger that he harboured.

‘I think as far as they’re concerned, I’m out of prison, a free man, so what’s the problem. I lost my trust in the law a long time ago. This guy Richard Friedman might be guilty, but, to be blunt, I don’t think the police give a shit.’

He let out a bitter chuckle.

‘Did they tell you anything about him?’

‘No.’

Marcus had a right to know the full story. ‘He was one of Louisa’s patients – she’s a psychologist at the same hospital as me.’

‘Right.’

‘And he’d been ringing me up, taunting me about Cathy.’

Marcus looked perplexed. ‘So he tracked you down and targeted you both?’

‘Looks like it.’

Marcus looked to be in thought. ‘What else do you know about him?’

‘Not much really, apart from his wife was killed by a hit and run driver. According to Louisa, he became depressed after that.’

‘But you don’t know anything that might link him to Cathy? Whether he used to live in that part of the country, or even work on the camp site?’

‘No.’

‘Aren’t you interested in finding out more?’

‘‘Course I am,’ Sam replied.

‘So why don’t you?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘He was a patient at your hospital.’

‘Yes.’

‘So his details must be on the computer system - where he lives.’

‘I’m sure the police can handle the investigation,’ Sam replied. ‘I don’t want to interfere. It’s best to leave this to the professionals.’

Marcus pulled a face.

‘You don’t think so?’ Sam asked.

‘It’s up to you,’ Marcus replied. ‘You always were a stickler for doing the right thing. I just wish I shared your confidence in the ability of Her Majesty’s Police.’

27

‘Let me know if you hear anything,’ Marcus said, as they stood outside the snooker club, for what felt like an uncomfortable goodbye - like the culmination of a first date, with both parties unsure whether this was the start of something more, or simply the end.

‘I will,’ Sam replied. ‘You too, if anything happens, call me.’

Marcus nodded, then glanced over his shoulder. ‘Better head off home.’

‘Me too.’

‘It’s been good to see you, Sam.’

Recognising Marcus’s discomfort at how this was ending, Sam decided to make the first positive move. ‘We should do it again. Soon.’

Marcus nodded, then smiled, visibly relaxing. ‘Definitely. I’d really like that mate.’

Sam stood at the bus stop, running over the reunion with Marcus. It was too early to take it all in, to fully assess what had happened, and how he felt. The truth was, he didn’t know how he felt. But one thing was certain – despite his best intentions, he hadn’t been able to completely rid himself of the feelings he’d cultivated for Marcus over all those years. Maybe that explained the vague sense of self-loathing he now felt. For the first time since Cathy’s murder, he was facing up to the hatred he’d carried but buried for so long.

As Sam waited at the stop, he remembered about the comment the ICU nurse had made about Tom Jackson. He pulled out his mobile and dialled Tom’s number. It rang through to voicemail, but he didn’t bother leaving a message. Instead, he called their home number.

Sarah answered. ‘Hello?’

‘Sarah. It’s Sam Becker...’

‘Oh my God, has something happened to Sophie?’ she interrupted.

‘No, no,’ Sam reassured her, trying to stem her panic, ‘everything’s fine, as far as I know.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, ‘I thought for a second that...I thought that...oh God, I really thought...’

Sarah Jackson broke down on the other end of the line.

‘I’m sorry I scared you,’ Sam said. This was why you weren’t supposed to call the family of patients outside your professional capacity. But he had crossed that line with the Jackson family many years ago – it was too late to play the dispassionate medical professional now, even if he wanted to. ‘I just called to see if Tom was alright.’

The sobbing continued.

Sam moved a few paces away from the bus stop as two elderly Afro-Caribbean ladies approached and sat down in the shelter. He didn’t really want anyone overhearing this, even if they didn’t know who he was talking to. ‘Sarah, what’s happened?’

‘Tom’s left.’

Sam was shocked. ‘What?’

‘Two days ago. I came home from work and he’d gone.’

Sam couldn’t believe it. Tom had always been so devoted to Sarah and Sophie. It seemed inconceivable that he would abandon them. ‘He just disappeared?’

She had recovered some of her poise now. This was of course a young woman who had dealt with trauma very effectively for years. ‘He left a note, saying that we’d be better off without him, and that everything was his fault.’

‘And you’ve not heard from him since?’

‘Nothing,’ she confirmed, sniffing. ‘He didn’t say where he was going, and he’s not answering his mobile. I’ve been worried sick.’

‘I just tried to call him,’ Sam revealed.

‘He’s not been to see Sophie,’ she continued. ‘He wouldn’t do that, Sam. You know how much he loves her. He wouldn’t do that unless he wasn’t himself. I’m worried about what he might do.’

‘Have you told the police?’

‘No. Do you think I should? He’s a grown man, and he decided to leave on his own accord, so I didn’t think they’d care.’

‘Tell them everything,’ Sam advised. ‘Tell them about Sophie, that it’s totally out of character for him to leave like this, and that he’s anxious and depressed. Call them right now. If they want to speak with me, give them my number. I’ll do anything to help.’

Sam returned to home just before ten. He would never get used to the quietness of the place without Anna. He’d just made himself a drink when someone knocked on the door. But when he reached the front, no-one was there. Two minutes later, just as he had switched on the radio, a knock sounded out again, this time more insistent. This time he reached the door quicker, but again there was no-one there. Sam scanned the path and front garden, and looked out towards the street and the parkland beyond. There was no sign of anyone.

‘Very amusing,’ Sam spoke out into the darkness, his voice not sounding as confident as he’d intended.

It was probably kids knocking on doors and then running away. They’d played the game when they were young, nine or ten years old – running around the village, goading one another to linger longer at the door while still evading the homeowner. At the time it felt like harmless fun, but as an adult he now understood the more sinister effects on the victims.