The Hook (16 page)

Tobin was questioning her.

‘So, Mrs Jackson, take your time and tell the jury in your own words what happened on the afternoon of June the 25th last year.'

Mrs Jackson cleared her throat and began.

‘I picked Shelly up from playschool at about two o'clock and drove to the car-park in the centre of Melkley.'

Tobin interrupted.

‘That is your local town, Mrs Jackson?'

‘Yes, it's about an hour from here, sir, quite a small town.'

‘Very well, carry on, Mrs Jackson.'

‘Anyway, I parked and took the children to a news-agent's for some sweets. Mark was only two then and he's always a bit naughty shopping, so I bought the sweets to keep him quiet.'

Tobin again:

‘Mark, your son, was in his pushchair, was he?'

Mrs Jackson nodded.

‘Yes, he was in the pushchair and Shelly was holding it with me.' She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was tiny. ‘I needed to go to the bank before shopping, to pay some money in for my husband.'

Tobin was gentle but insistent.

‘Mrs Jackson, I know this is painful, but I don't think the jury can hear you; could you try to speak up a little?'

She threw her head back to continue. My heart thudded; I was terrified of what she was going to say.

‘We went into the bank and queued for our turn. Shelly went and sat at a desk near the door because she likes drawing with the bank pens.' Mrs Jackson was crying now, but she kept going with her story, her hands kneading her handkerchief in and out of my sight. ‘There was a crash suddenly, and I looked round and a man with a mask was in the bank, right next to Shelly, and he locked the door. He had a gun: I don't know if it was real or not, but I thought it was.'

‘And was it from him that the crashing noise had come?'

‘No, there was someone else with a mask on behind the counter with the staff. I think he had smashed a window. He had a gun as well.'

I couldn't see Mrs Jackson's face, but the jury could. The two women who liked Mick were dabbing their eyes, the man with the Roman nose had distaste arching his brows and the lines around his mouth. I looked across at Mick, but my eyes blurred tears before he saw me and I turned back to Mrs Jackson. She went on, and from the detail she supplied, I could tell she had gone over this statement a lot, and had rehearsed coming to court, determined to get it over with and say everything.

‘He shouted something, the man near Shelly. I don't know what because Shelly was crying and I had to get her. I ran from the queue towards her but he had already picked her up. I thought . . .' She faltered.

Mr Sindall stood up and said, ‘Your Honour, I don't think the witness need tell us what she thought.' The Judge nodded.

‘Mrs Jackson, tell us what happened next.'

She gulped.

‘I shouted Shelly's name and the man brought her to me. She was screaming and struggling with her arms reaching out. He gave her to me and said, “Keep your kids out of the way.” I backed away to the corner where I had pushed Mark and I crouched down with the children.'

Mrs Jackson was trembling. I could see fear through her tidy courtroom clothes; she leant forwards on the witness box. If I had been Tobin I would have finished there. There cannot have been a soul in court unaffected by Mrs Jackson's evidence.

But before anyone could gather their thoughts Tobin was probing.

‘Mrs Jackson, may I just stop you for a moment? Could you describe either of the men, their clothing, their accents, anything about them?'

She shook her head.

‘The thing I noticed was the gun. Both of them had guns.'

‘Can you describe the guns, please, Mrs Jackson.'

‘I'm sorry, I can't. I have tried to remember more; it was all so fast and yet so slow, I can only remember the children screaming. I had to look after them.'

I couldn't listen any longer, I couldn't go through with this woman's ordeal. I pushed my way past the two men on the end of my row in the public gallery and out of the courtroom. It would look bad for Mick that I left like this, but I didn't care. Why should I? He hadn't cared about Mrs Jackson and her children in the Melkley bank last summer.

I didn't go and see him after court that day; I drove home instead and went down to the lake. During the trial it was easy to forget there was a real world dazzling in late spring. I sat on the grass and afternoon sun warmed me to the bone. I watched a family of ducklings scull across the lake, their small feet invisible oars beneath the surface. Trees shimmering
in the breeze and a distant mower were all I could hear. It was so peaceful by the lake. I wished I did not have to go back to the court; I wanted to go into the house this afternoon and get on with my life on the trout farm without ever having to think about Mick again. I could do it, he couldn't stop me, he was locked up. And he trusted me.

I remembered a visit we'd had before Christmas when he was still on remand. He was smiling and confident; he said he had a present for me. It had to go and be checked by security, but at the end of the visit he was allowed to give it to me. I shut my eyes and the guards brought it round the screen and placed it in my hands. A small pink bear made of felt. It burnt my hands as if it were made of ice.

‘I made it,' he whispered, leaning forwards so our conversation could be private. ‘They've got a soft-toy class here, it's packed out, all the cons love it, but I swapped with someone and got one session so I could make this for you. Keep it on your bed, sweetheart, to remind you of me.'

The pink bear came home and I put it at the bottom of my bed. I hated it. It glowed with love and it made me cry. I couldn't bear to think of Mick sewing pink felt ears and paws.

Jessica went to the doctor out of spite. She hoped there was something wrong with her, something to make Frank and Charlie feel guilty. A web of exhaustion smothered her, her eyelids drooped when she was driving, when she was cooking, when she was trying to have a conversation with one of her children through a closed bedroom door. They rarely stayed in a room with her long enough for her to speak, so she had taken to pursuing them around the house until they slammed into their bedrooms. Everything was unsatisfactory and everything was filthy.

Mrs Edge, the cleaning lady, had decided to move to southern Spain, and now only came to the house to sit with a cup of coffee and regale Jessica with her plans.

‘Ernie's been out there now for a month and he's found a very nice new house just behind the car-park. Of course I asked whether there was a garden for the dogs, but Ernie, bless him, he was so excited about
the golf, he hadn't looked. We'll have a front drive and we might plant some of those evergreen trees. I think they grow in Spain – we don't want those Spanish-style cactuses or anything.' On she went, unheeding of Jessica's set smile or of the sink full of washing up.

Dust banked beneath beds and sofas and the ironing pile bulged, spewing shirts and pillowcases out of the airing cupboard and across the bathroom where Danny trod mud from his football boots over them. Jessica tried to clear up, but by the time she had done the kitchen after breakfast each morning black spots danced behind her eyes and singing dizziness forced her to sit down and rest. She had stopped going to work for Charlie, and had decided to tell him it was over. But when she saw him her resolve vanished. He was so concerned, so charming and so interested in her. Next time would do.

She planned to have lunch with him after her doctor's appointment, to announce her illness, which she imagined would be diagnosed as something Victorian and romantic like a decline.

But Dr Fellowes was inconclusive.

‘I will make an appointment for you at the hospital. We must do some blood tests, Mrs Naylor.'

A chill descended in his consulting room. Jessica rose.

‘I've got cancer, haven't I?' Dr Fellowes had a prominent jaw muscle – she saw it quiver as he swallowed.

‘That is not a conclusion we jump to. Blood tests are routine in a case such as yours. There is no evidence of cancer as yet.'

Jessica nodded, not even trying to believe him.

‘So I will hear from the hospital, will I?' She pulled her coat tight around her to hide her trembling limbs.

Dr Fellowes swallowed again; the jaw had a spasm.

‘Yes, don't worry, I must stress that it's purely routine at this stage.'

Jessica left the surgery and walked out into Lynton. A bus roared by flecking damp dust over her feet as she waited on the pavement. She looked at its wheels, black and dripping from a puddle. It would be so easy.

She told no one about her visit to the doctor or her subsequent trip to the hospital for blood tests. She was biding her time. The results came through, but she hadn't needed them. The consultant's solicitousness was touching but unnecessary. She told Frank and the children on Hallowe'en. Someone else told Charlie.

The family were sitting at the table after supper when Jessica said, ‘I am dying of cancer.' No preamble, just five words.

Christy couldn't see anyone's face or clothes, just the shapes of them silhouetted in a room fragmenting like a shattered windscreen. She remembered the car crash long ago. The sensations were the same, everything imploding, sinking inward to a black dot. In the
car crash the radio had carried on playing, and the words of that song came back to her now:

If you've got leaving on your mind,

Hurt me now, get it over,

Tell me now, get it over,

If there's a new love in your heart.

They had all been expecting her to say she was going. Leaving with Charlie to lead a life full of satinwood furniture and sin. Christy hadn't been to church since childhood, but she believed her mother was committing a sin and she hated her for it. Now it was different. She wasn't going with Charlie after all.

Aunt Vaughan, clad in a pink satin négligé, mules and diaphanous nightdress, swooped on Christy, chattering, black eyes darting over Mick as she kissed her god-daughter.

‘You're so late, I couldn't think what had happened to you. I've saved some mussels, so delicious, and I know you never have them at home. Come in, come in and have a drink.'

She shook hands with Mick, her sagging face tightening into flirtation as instinctively as the schooling of features before a looking-glass; chin down, kohlrimmed eyes widened, a half smile lifting the red droop of her lips.

‘Well, Christy, he's very handsome,' she murmured, as Mick disappeared to the spare bedroom to deposit
the bags. ‘He reminds me of someone, I can't think who, but it will come to me. Jessica would have loved him.'

She and Christy moved through to the sitting room where Spanish music tinkled from behind a screen. They sat down facing one another by the gas-coal fire. Vaughan's pink mules sank into the depths of the carpet, and her dressing gown hissed as it met the drum-tight stuffing of the armchair. Christy lit a cigarette and tucked her feet up under her, twisting to look around the room, already feeling faintly sick as she absorbed the viridian energy of the walls. Layer upon layer of colour built up from pale silver in the hall through the kitchen bright as newly podded peas and on into the splendour of the sitting room where everything not green was gold except for Vaughan herself.

She lay back in her chair like a prawn on a bed of lettuce and gave a little cry.

‘I knew I'd remember. Christy, have you noticed what you've done? Mick looks just like Charlie. Remember Charlie? Your father was so upset, of course, and Jessica paid no attention. I must say, charming as Charlie was, I did see Frank's point, and of course it never really was resolved, was it?' On she went, crossing and uncrossing her white ankles, waving her hands to amplify a story Christy never liked hearing, unravelling the lace of protection Mick and her happiness with him had woven since last seeing Vaughan.

Mick came into the room and Vaughan's voice flew with amusement.

‘Yes, yes, you even frown like Charlie. Dear me, how history repeats itself. Of course he didn't have a scar but otherwise the likeness is startling.'

Christy didn't move; she closed her eyes, saw green and opened them again. Mick stroked her hair, silenced himself by Vaughan's sing-song monologue. Christy couldn't look at him. All her excitement at coming to London had vanished. Vaughan had spoilt it through tactless, pointless gabble; Mick had spoilt it through being stopped by the police. They were taking away her pleasure, her unique love affair, tarnishing every aspect so none of it was hers and none of it was safe.

Vaughan tripped off to the kitchen to bring in the mussels and Mick knelt in front of Christy, leaning close to whisper, ‘Shall we go? I've got a few mates we could stay with, you know.'

All the nausea and anger rolling through Christy slowed and collapsed into exhaustion and she shook her head.

‘No, it's fine here; she'll calm down. Please don't pay any attention to her, she's drunk. She's imagining things.'

‘So what are you doing in London, Mick? Are you here to make money or spend it?' Vaughan staggered back in under a heaped tray, bearing most of the weight on the jut of her bosom.

Mick took the tray and it shrank as it passed from Vaughan's diminutive clutch into his hands.

‘I'm here to spend money on Christy. We'll be going to the shops tomorrow and finding whatever she wants.'

Vaughan clutched his arm as he put the tray down on a small table.

‘Goodness, I meant to ask you, did you see anything of the robbery this morning?'

‘What robbery? Where?' asked Christy.

‘In Lynton, of course. Can you believe it? It was on the news.' Vaughan shuddered and announced, ‘They had guns.' She continued, ‘There was a raid on the main bank this morning. They said there have been a few violent robberies in the area. You've probably read about them.' She gulped more gin, swilling it in her mouth and swallowing loudly.