Elisabeth Carpenter - Only a Mother

After several minutes of composing, two lines of text appear:

Sorry, phone was dead. Helen stayed at ours last night – just dropped her home. Simon.

Is that it? He’s been worrying the best part of a day and that’s all the explanation he gets?

There’s silence between him and Amanda. Luke doesn’t want to ask her opinion on what it all means.

‘Anyway,’ she says, moments later. ‘I’m going to make a quick detour.’

She turns into Erica Wright’s road.

Erica’s standing in the street, hands in her hair, screaming. People are opening their front doors and staring at her.

‘Shit,’ says Luke. ‘What the hell has happened now?’

They pull up and he jumps out of the car.

‘What’s wrong?’ he says, rushing to her. The poor woman is shaking uncontrollably. ‘You look awful.’

‘He’s taken Craig!’ She reaches for Luke, taking hold of his hands. ‘We have to find them… Jason… It was Jason. He killed his own mother… Inkerman Street.’ She’s tugging at his hands. ‘But there’s no time. Will you help me find them?’

Luke can barely take in her words – she’s not making any sense.

‘Come on,’ says Amanda, snapping Luke from his thoughts. ‘You get in the back, Erica.’ She stops at the car door. ‘Are you just going to stand there, Luke?’

The canal is only twenty minutes away. Luke thinks it’s a pointless journey – why would Jason drive Craig to a place they went fishing as children? Isn’t that too obvious?

‘But he went back to the house on Inkerman Street,’ Erica says. ‘With Leanne. He’ll go to familiar places – where he knows he can’t be seen. And he knows that canal – it’s so dark at night. Not many people would go walking down there at this hour.’

Luke doesn’t know how Erica’s managing to sit upright. He’s never seen someone look so ill and not be in hospital.

‘I took a picture of Jason’s car and number plate,’ says Luke, ‘when I was outside his house the other day.’

‘I’m impressed,’ says Amanda with a smirk.

Luke wants to tell her to fuck off, but with their passenger within earshot that would be inappropriate, not to mention unprofessional.

‘We’re here,’ says Amanda, as they pull into a pub car park. ‘We’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.’

‘I can’t see the car,’ says Luke after getting out.

‘They’ve probably parked further up,’ says Amanda. ‘I can’t see him dragging Craig through a car park.’ She opens the passenger door. ‘Do you want to wait here, Erica? I could stay with you.’

Luke almost protests – he can’t chase after two convicted criminals alone.

‘No, no,’ says Erica, almost tumbling out of the car. ‘I need to be there for him.’

‘But he might not…’ Luke begins, but Amanda cuts him off with one of her looks.

They each take one of Erica’s arms and guide her along a footpath that’s lit with one solitary lamppost. Luke tries to bury his fear, but he can’t stop the nausea rising in his stomach. What if Jason is here? The three of them are hardly tough opposition.

After they’ve been walking for ten minutes, Erica stops.

‘There!’ Her voice is louder than it’s been since they saw her on the street, but barely more than a whisper. ‘I can see something over there.’

Oh God, thinks Luke. He’s not prepared for this at all.

‘Where are you taking me, Jason?’ I say.

I glance at him. He’s sweating… out of control. He’s driving too fast and it’s only a thirty-mile-an-hour zone. He’s going to get pulled over, but that’s probably too much to wish for. He’s barely said a word to me.

‘Why would you want to frame me?’ I ask him. ‘What have I ever done to you?’

He turns to look at me; his eyes are wild, filled with hatred.

‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ I say.

‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he says, but he turns to face the front.

His knuckles are white where his hands are gripping the steering wheel so tightly.

‘Being killed in a car wreck would be better than what I’ve got planned for you,’ he says, almost laughing. ‘You’re such an idiot, Craig. When I asked you to pick Leanne up from Sunningdales, you did it, no questions asked.’

‘Why would I have asked questions?’ I say. ‘You’re my— you were my friend. I can’t believe…’

I turn to look out of the passenger window. Seventeen years of my life I’ve spent in prison. There were times I wondered whether I could have hurt Lucy and then erased it from my memory. All those years at the beginning when I was beaten nearly every day. I’d recover, then I’d be punched again. The years spent with no hope, with only my mother visiting me. I should’ve known that Jason visiting me towards the end was about him more than me, but why would I suspect my best friend of something like that? I wouldn’t have believed it if someone else had told me. We’ve been through loads together. It was all fake. I thought we’d grown apart when I was inside. I’d come to terms with that. Then this past year when he got back in contact, I thought everything would go back to how it was.

But he was never there for me, not when it mattered. I heard nothing from him after I was arrested. I should’ve remembered that.

He’s a murderer.

Cold. Sociopathic.

Some of the most hard-hearted killers I met in prison could instantly turn on the charm to get what they wanted. He’s no different to them.

I’ve seen Jason with my own eyes, with his mum and Leanne; he’s capable of so much more than I ever was.

I turn to face the front.

‘Come on, Craigy boy. Man up! Are you crying, eh? All those years inside and now it’s all going to end. You should’ve been convicted for Jenna’s murder as well. I’ve had that hanging over my head for years… people whispering about me. The police should’ve fucking found her necklace, the top… bloody incompetent pricks.’

‘Hanging over your head? But you killed her!’

He bursts out laughing; he sounds like a maniac. He is a maniac; he’s insane.

‘Seventeen years of my life!’

‘Seventeen years… blah, blah, blah. You’re like a stuck record. What have you got to live for anyway? You’ve come back home, and no one wants you there.’

‘I loved her,’ I say.

‘Which one?’

‘Lucy,’ I say. ‘I barely knew Jenna.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he says. ‘Well, your Lucy soon forgot about you, I can tell you. I can’t believe she agreed to meet me.’

‘She wouldn’t have been up for it with you,’ I say. ‘She hated you. That’s why you killed her, isn’t it? She wouldn’t let you do what you wanted to her.’

‘Fuck off. You don’t know anything about that night.’

I can’t shake the picture of him on top of her – him with his hands around her neck. ‘I thought you were my friend,’ I say, wiping my face.

‘Right. And my friendship had nothing at all to do with the fact my precious, darling mother told me I had to keep an eye on you. She always preferred you to me when we were growing up. Do you know how that felt? I couldn’t spend time with my dad either, without you tagging along. When you were getting bullied, my mum actually paid me to protect you. Did you know about that? But after you were sent to prison, she came to her senses. She betrayed your mother – her best friend – to protect me. She gave me an alibi. It was all too easy. Especially as I managed to plant a few traces of you on Lucy. And I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep a straight face while your mother has been banging on about Pete Lawton all these years. That wasn’t even his real name. It was my mate, Gary. Your mum really believed you were innocent, didn’t she?’