P Kane - Her Last Secret

And that thought, the thought that there was something positive Jake could do, sent him off to sleep again. Gave him the oblivion he sought.

Made the darkness his friend once more.

Julie felt numb.

There was no other word for it, she was simply numb. Still cold from visiting the hospital, frozen solid: as if she’d brought some of it back with her. She was sitting there on the couch where she’d been since she returned, the FLO having made her a cup of tea which had also probably gone cold by now because she hadn’t even touched it.

She knew she shouldn’t be doing it, but she was going over and over the events of that day in her head. Like picking at a scab, except even if she left this one alone it would never, ever heal. And she felt cold, numb, like it hadn’t really happened to her but someone else.

Opening the door and seeing Matt there, a figure from the past. Then realising what it meant – some kind of trouble, definitely – and finally realising just how big that trouble was. Not being able to hold herself up, Greg catching her. Strong, solid. Supportive.

She just hadn’t been able to take it in, couldn’t believe it even as they were talking about it in that living room. Not their Jordan, it couldn’t be. They’d made a mistake. And Bobby? No … it couldn’t be. He’d seemed so …

And it had popped into her head at that point, his face. The other person who needed to know. No sooner had she asked whether he’d been informed than he was there, at the door and in the house. A ghost of relationships past.

Still as handsome as she remembered him, the man she’d fallen in love with when they were just kids themselves. Who she’d loved even when he walked out through that door after that final massive row that had broken everything. The row to end all rows, and she was glad of that at least because she was so, so tired of the circular arguments over Jordan. Why couldn’t he just see that she was going through what so many girls of her age went through? That one day it would all be over, she’d get her head together and they’d be the best of friends again? Instead of which, they’d hardly spoken to each other in all this time: so much wasted time. And now it was too late.

It was the reason he was there, standing in front of her. ‘Jake … Oh, Jake.’ She could barely get the words out, couldn’t make her voice work properly. All she’d wanted then was for him to take her in his arms and tell her it would all be okay, that it wasn’t really happening at all. That it had been a bad dream and they were still together and their daughter wasn’t really …

There’d been a moment when she thought he was actually going to move forwards and do that exact thing. But he wasn’t moving because of that, he was moving out of the way of her husband, who – quite rightly – was joining her. Who wanted to be with her for this, knew she’d be even more upset once Jake arrived. Greg was there, holding her close again, making sure she was all right. Probably wanted to make sure she didn’t keel over again.

Jake was doing the same thing as her, couldn’t believe what had happened – and it wasn’t long after that the accusations had begun, same as before. Interrogating her about Bobby, wanting to know what she was even doing out, for Christ’s sake! Like she was still a child. Why did everything always have to be her fault, Julie had thought. Jordan was a grown woman, she made her own decisions; had done for a long time, if Jake would just wake up and see it. Telling them they should have been vetting who Jordan saw? Absolutely bloody ridiculous!

Matt had done his best to referee, but her back had been up. She’d wondered then, and not for the first time, whether it was possible to love and hate someone at the same time. In equal amounts. ‘This is not my fault,’ she’d told Jake, locking eyes with him. But did she even believe that herself? Perhaps she should have been keeping a closer eye on her daughter; those seeds of doubt Jake was always so good at planting. Making her feel like shit, as always.

‘No, it’s ours ,’ had been his reply, which actually had been a fair comment. They hadn’t been able to make it work, and she had to wonder if they’d stayed together whether this would have happened. Impossible to know, and one of those things that if you thought about it too much would drive you stark, staring mad.

Just when Julie thought things couldn’t get any worse, Matt had raised the subject of the ‘formal identification’. That’s what he’d called it. Identifying the body was what he meant, as if there could be any doubt about whether it was Jordan or not. If it wasn’t and the police had put them through all this torment, she might just scream until there was no air left in her lungs, though that would also mean their daughter was still alive.

Jake had offered to do it so eagerly, like they were keeping him from something. As if he had a prior engagement somewhere – and she realised then that she knew absolutely nothing about his personal situation. Was there someone waiting back home for him, worrying about him? Strangely she felt a twinge of jealousy at that.

Greg had wanted to spare her the pain of going, was all for just letting Jake head off alone, but Julie needed to be there. Needed to see this, for her own sake. Needed to find the inner strength from somewhere. She hadn’t wanted to sit with Jake though, so had asked the liaison officer to come as well; with them in the back of Matt’s dark blue BMW and Jake in the passenger seat.

No one really spoke on the way to the hospital, except for when Jake’s mobile buzzed in his pocket and he’d reached in and switched it off. Work trying to reach him, he explained, but he didn’t want to talk to them. He wanted to get this done, it seemed. Get it out of the way … That just made Julie even angrier.

Matt had steered them up one familiar road and down another, spinning off on another roundabout that would take them to The Royal. Even up to the point that they were let into the morgue, let into the ice-cold room where the body was being kept, Julie had dared to hope. But not once the body had been pulled out of one of those huge things that looked like giant filing cabinets, drawers containing not papers and documents but frozen corpses. Julie had even expected the man in the white clothing to walk down the length of the wall of drawers rubbing his chin and saying: ‘Now where did we put her? O … P … Q … R! Here we go, R for Radcliffe!’

Jordan had never taken Greg’s name, had been too old for that really, adoption – if she’d even wanted it. R instead of A for Allaway … Putting off the moment once more, in her head at any rate. But there had been no denying anything once that drawer had been opened, the slab dragged out on those wheels which somehow kept the body horizontal, like some kind of magic trick where you dragged a hoop down the floating woman.

Then the man was ready to pull down the sheet, the one last barrier to the truth. Julie had moved closer to Jake, was at the side of him, couldn’t have been closer, and – without even thinking – she’d snaked her hand into his. Holding it tightly, so tight she was practically cutting off her circulation, then reaching across and grabbing his arm with the other one – squeezing that too. Praying, as he probably was, that this wasn’t Jordon splayed out in front of them.

And even when the sheet was down, the magician’s curtain swept back, revealing her face – even as Julie’s hands released their grip and went to her mouth, a stifled scream emerging – for a moment or two Jake looked like he refused to believe it. As if this was a special effect from one of those movies he liked … Prosthetics, life-casts, weren’t they called?