P Kane - Her Last Secret

But he was never going to get it finished at this rate, not if Sarah, Phil and Howard didn’t get their arses in gear so they could get this over and done with. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, stifling yet another yawn.

They were lucky he was in at all, the restless night he’d had. It had taken him ages to actually get to sleep and he’d only been in the land of nod a short while when he’d woken up, panicking and sweating. He could have sworn someone had been calling out his name, but when he turned on the light he felt quite silly for answering. Jake had struggled to get back off, tossing and turning, rolling onto his front, his sides. Thank Christ he didn’t share a bed with anyone anymore, because they probably would have kicked him out onto the couch. In the end, he’d got up at stupid o’clock and made himself several cups of coffee – which was probably why he’d got here so early that morning, and why it seemed like he’d been waiting ages. Couldn’t blame the others for staying tucked up in bed a little while longer, he supposed, but all the same …

Jake was relieved when he saw Sarah, their reporter, come through the doors, looking immaculate as usual (he’d once joked that she probably got out of bed looking like that, and she’d scowled and filled him in at great length about all the prep it took). She held up a hand in greeting, then pointed to indicate she was going to grab a drink before coming over. He sighed … but then neither of the others had even shown their faces yet.

Phil and Howard turned up together, laughing and joking as usual – not a care in the world – and Jake was just rising to go and join them when someone actually did call his name. It was their IT person, Alison, holding up a phone for him to come over. Jake touched his chest and she nodded, face quite serious.

‘Who’s calling me here?’ he asked her as he trotted over. He had his work mobile on him, so why not use that? ‘What’s it about?’

Alison shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t say. Sounded official, though.’

Jake took the phone from her, his brow creasing. ‘H-Hello?’ He nodded when they asked if they were speaking to the right person, before realising they couldn’t see him. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

Then, as the words came through the receiver, it was as if time stood still. Jake tried and failed to process them. Instead, he dropped the phone which hung down the side of Alison’s desk by its cord. Then he walked away, leaving Alison and everyone else mystified, ignoring their calls.

He had somewhere to be.

He had something to do.

How Jake got to his Silver Toyota, got on the road, and made it to the motorway was something of a mystery in itself.

There were just too many thoughts racing through his mind. Memories especially, winding back time to the day he’d first seen Julie at school, and they’d shared that moment – the one that told them both they’d be together forever (hadn’t made seventy years, though, had they). Hanging out with her and Mathew after hours – the Three Musketeers – then him and Matt getting into all kinds of trouble as they started to gravitate towards the wrong kind of company. Graffiti, bit of pickpocketing, joyriding; the usual juvenile stuff. In Jake’s defence, he’d lost his father back when he was only 10 to bowel cancer and his mother was so busy working all the hours God sent, she couldn’t keep a proper eye on him. That was the excuse those lawyers had used at any rate. Then they were caught with a stolen car, and Jake had carried the can for Matt. It had seen him get away with a suspended sentence and community service, thank Christ, though it had probably contributed to his mum having her heart attack a couple of years after that.

None of this had put Julie off him, though. In fact, it only seemed to make her want him more, despite the fact he’d dropped out of school and she was trying to get her A levels. Maybe it was the bad boy thing a lot of young girls went through? He hadn’t been that bad, though, not really. In any event, they’d ended up spending more and more time together – at the local skateboarding area, at the park after sunset, at the woods nearby. Her parents, the Brents, who to him were like something out of the 1950s, definitely didn’t approve. But it was getting to the point where they couldn’t really tell her what to do anymore. He and Julie started sleeping together, and it was amazing … right up until the point that the condom they were using one night split; Julie had been too scared to go to the doctor’s and get the pill, so that had been their only method of birth control.

Jake remembered the night she’d told him, having hidden it from everyone for months – right up to the time when it was too late to do anything about it but have the baby. Not that they’d have done anything differently, he didn’t think. So there they were, not even 18, green as grass, and they were looking at being a family. Naturally, Julie’s parents had freaked the fuck out – her dad even handing her an ultimatum, to give Jake the heave-ho or get out, much to her mother’s distress. He hadn’t meant it, he’d told her later, just hadn’t known what else to do to get her to see sense. Stubborn Jules and that fiery temper, which matched her hair. She’d been his little girl, and the man had seen it as a violation (Jake didn’t get that until much, much later). He wasn’t exactly a catch anyway …

However, Julie had chosen to be with him – put her faith in Jake even though it scared the crap out of him. It had forced them both to grow up overnight, for Jake to take some responsibility and get whatever above-board job he could (and now he could finally understand what his mum had been doing to put clothes on his back, to put food on the table). He’d done all kinds of work back in those days, from manual labour on building sites to packing goods on a conveyor belt in a factory.

Julie had to give up on the A levels, of course, abandoning her ambitions of becoming a vet. But oh, it really was worth all the struggle in the end. Because when Jules gave birth that afternoon in January, it was like their lives had only really started. The love they’d felt for her … for this girl they’d named Jordan – becoming The Three ‘J’s now – well, it was just indescribable. Like he would do anything for her, anything at all. Step in front of a bullet, a train …whatever, gladly.

She’d been Jake’s pride and joy, had brought so much happiness to their tiny little home: a two-bedroom flat, in quite an undesirable part of town. They didn’t have much, but they had each other, they had love. More love than some folk had with mountains of cash.

And, in time, Jake had found himself in better – more regular – employ, while Julie had gone to work part-time at a local vet’s, just while Jordan was in school. Jake began to think about bettering himself, and Jordan had made that happen. He wanted to be somebody she could look up to, not just ‘Daddy’ but a guy who had a vocation. That was when he’d taken the night-school classes in photography, something he hadn’t thought about in years but had been quite keen on as a young kid. He soon found he had an aptitude for it – composition and framing came as second nature to him (this was back in the days of single lens reflex and developing fluids, back before digital photography became the norm). Some of his work had even been sent with the classes’ offerings on a touring exhibition abroad.

It gave him the encouragement he needed to apply for work at all the newspapers in the surrounding areas, especially now they’d finally managed to afford a small car. Julie’s parents had started to chip in as well, not vast amounts but at least they were trying – probably so they could gain more access to their grandchild. By then, Jake’s mum had passed away, so really they were all Jordan had in terms of grandparents.