Her Last Secret

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.

He’d got his job as a junior at The Granfield Gazette, and worked his way up, becoming one of the most trusted photographers on the staff. They got a house, a real house with stairs and everything. Jordan was doing well at school, showing signs of Jake’s own creativity – especially painting and drawing, some writing too – but also a love of animals that she got from her mother. Always wanting to take in strays, look after them. Things were good, life was good.

But then came the teenage years.

In the space of just a few months – so little time – when Jordan was coming up to her fifteenth birthday, her whole personality had changed. She’d always been so sweet, so thoughtful, but the kids she’d started hanging out with at school were just idiots, plain and simple. Jake and Jules had tried to instil in her a sense of right and wrong, a moral core, but that was soon eroded away by the need to be popular – to not look like one of the eggheads who were always studying. And those fucking smartphones, bloody social media … They’d been able to police it to some extent when she first got one, which they’d thought was a good idea to begin with, a way of keeping in touch. Jake had even bitten the bullet and got one himself at the same time, just to try and hang on to some of that closeness they’d once had as father and daughter.

Gradually, and inevitably it seemed, guys showed up on the scene. Jordan went from not really being interested, to plastering herself in make-up when she was heading out, even just down the road to a mate’s, or staying over at a friend’s (which they would later usually find out was male). Photos would appear all over her online pages: Jordan with groups of both girls and boys, some they didn’t even know from other schools, or older lads from college. Some of the comments beneath them were absolutely disgusting. They’d confronted her about it on several occasions, but her answer was always to point to their own teenage years. And, no, Jordan hadn’t got pregnant, but there had been a couple of scares at least that they knew about. All of which had Jake pulling his hair out.

It was also putting a hell of a strain on his marriage, the constant worry and the arguments. Each relying on the other to try and sort this mess out before it was too late.

By the time he’d decided to go and do more night-classes – now in camerawork, an attempt to move sideways into that field – Jordan had already failed most of her GCSEs and was looking to attend college herself for resits. That only made things worse, increased her contact with boys. A string of them stretching back and every single one interchangeable; same shit, different day, all because of the influence of her man-mad friends. Apparently, it was okay to jump straight into bed with someone, they were part of the so-called ‘hook-up generation’; try before you buy, before you put a label on it … all of that bollocks. Even with those guys who threatened to hurt her, that Jake had wanted to pummel on a regular basis – ride in like some kind of half-arsed knight on a white charger or something, when it was the last thing in the world Jordan wanted; she’d made that plain.

She’d started dressing in what he thought were totally unacceptable clothes, swearing and smoking like a chimney. Talking to her became all but impossible, the generation gap obvious, and she would disappear for days on end. They’d even called the authorities on a number of occasions, fearing the worst, only for her to crop up or call them to say she was okay and just staying with friends again. What could they do? She was lost, but she was also practically a grown-up. He’d lie there in the dark at night, time ticking away so slowly, wondering if his daughter was okay; his contact with her amounting to a green dot on a screen to show if she was online, to indicate whether she was alive or dead.

And yes, if he was honest with himself, he was jealous that she had this whole other life that didn’t involve him; that she actively kept away from him because she knew he wouldn’t approve. It seemed a million miles away from the relationship they’d once shared as dad and daughter, the time – the years – between them stretching out further and further.

There had been more rows, Jake’s imagination running wild and accusing her of all sorts – drugs were a particular suspicion – not that Jordan ever realised, because she wasn’t around. Her mother would always give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘What do you want me to do? We have no proof about any of this!’

‘By the time we find out the truth, it’ll be too late,’ Jake would always argue. Chicken, egg. Egg, chicken.

The other thing Jules would say time and again was: ‘She’s not doing any of this to get at you, it’s not personal. She’s just trying to find her way …’ So why did it all feel so fucking personal? They’d spent all that time trying to bring Jordan up right, and she was basically throwing it back in their faces.

It had all hit the fan one night when she returned, having missed her eighteenth birthday. This time she’d pushed Jake too far and he’d offered a few home truths, which had made the girl cry but also ended with her telling him that she hated his guts. ‘I never want to see you again!’ she barked into his face.

Jake had taken one look over at Julie for support, but she’d turned away. And then so did he. Turning and walking out through the front door, going off to stay in a hotel that night. He’d returned the next day, of course he had – but Jordan hadn’t been around, and he could tell by the frosty reception he got from Jules that things would never be the same with them again either. He’d tried a few more times, to make their marriage work, to talk to his daughter, but in the end, he had just headed off because he thought that was for the best. Julie’s parents had been delighted by the news, naturally; probably thought it was his fault in the first place that Jordan had gone off the rails and they would now get her back on track. They never had been able to see what was right in front of their eyes.

Contact with the two ladies who’d been in his life, who’d been his life, had turned out to be minimal since the divorce. The odd strangled phone conversation, calls on birthdays or at Christmas – nothing more. Jake hadn’t seen Jordan in almost three years now, he got the feeling she preferred it that way. He’d deleted his social media accounts as well, got rid of his old mobile so he didn’t have to watch the continued self-destruction of his baby girl. He’d moved away, found a job at the local TV company and was doing all right … At least that’s what he told himself. He hadn’t even been fazed – much – by the news that Julie had got married again. Maybe at some point they could all sit together again in a room and talk like adults. At some point, that’s what he’d thought. His daughter’s twenty-first was fast approaching, so maybe …

But then the phone call. The news.

Another landmark birthday they’d miss. (No, it wasn’t true!)

He’d dropped the receiver, he remembered that much. Had to get in the car, get back – just to make sure it wasn’t real. Some kind of practical joke, it had to be. It couldn’t be right. Just couldn’t be!

Where’s all the big news?

You had to ask, didn’t you? Well, it’s here, this is it, his conscience taunted.

In any event he had to get back there, to the town he’d once called home. Get back.

Get to Redmarket.

***

In his haste to reach the place, pulling off the motorway but barely slowing down, he’d almost had a collision with a blue Sierra.

Jake heard the blast of the motorist’s horn, but it was muted. This whole journey had been like driving through a fog. But now he was emerging out of the other side, driving down that familiar dual carriageway, spinning off the roundabout that had only been small when he was growing up, but was now controlled by a lights system. Then up and into town proper, where the traffic was slowing to a crawl.

He craned his neck to see what was going on, but this scene was also familiar to him. He’d filmed ones just like it, with the police flitting around, tape flapping and crowds gathered. There were even TV crews setting up in the distance, vans with logos on the side that he recognised – some of them competitors. How long before his station showed up? he wondered. And he thought briefly then that he should have let someone there know where he was going, what he was doing.

But he didn’t really know what was happening, did he? Not for sure. Had to find out for definite – that’s what all this was about. Something had clearly happened here, but that didn’t mean it was Jordan. Let it be someone else’s daughter, he thought, then felt terrible for even contemplating such a thing.

Enough. Time to get this over and done with, get rid of the lump in his throat and the fist that was opening and closing in the pit of his stomach. It was time to really go home.

Except it wasn’t his home anymore. The house he pulled up outside, when he’d finally got past the jams that were snarling up the centre of Redmarket, belonged to other people now. He remembered coming here with Julie, looking around with the estate agent: a simple three-bedroom semi, but it seemed like a palace to them after their flat. It had not long been built back then, but looked so old and tired now, maybe reflecting all the sorrow it had witnessed over the years.

Nothing as sad as this, though. Not if it was true.

It couldn’t be. Just couldn’t …

Even as he was getting out of the car, another door was opening. The front door he’d entered through and exited from so many times; once permanently. It wasn’t Julie standing there, however, it was Mathew Newcomb. A blast from the past, an old mate he hadn’t seen in …

A policeman.

That was when he knew for sure, when the lump and the fist became permanent additions.

That was when he knew it was his little girl they’d found dead in the market square last night.

Chapter 3

The darkness was his friend tonight, he welcomed it.

That was one of the reasons Jake was sitting with the lights off, hadn’t bothered to even turn them on when he crashed in through the door. There was still enough light coming in from the window to see, to make his way to the edge of the bed, casting off his jacket as he went. He’d thought about one of the chairs, but reasoned – while he was still capable of doing so – that he would end up on the bed at some point anyway. Sooner rather than later, he hoped; he’d put the whole of this wretched day behind him and wake up the next morning to find it had all been some horrible nightmare. An anxiety dream, didn’t they call them?

Jake took another swig from the full bottle of whiskey he’d opened back in the corridor, pulling it from its plastic bag and ignoring the filthy looks some of the other people staying in the hotel were giving him. A place that hadn’t even been there when he was young, back before he and Jules had …

That was why he needed the darkness, because unlike those memories, unlike the past – dulled by time, by heartache – the ones from today were so, so bright. Like they’d been seared into his brain, would probably never, ever fade. And they hurt. By Christ, did they hurt, worse than anything physical he’d ever endured. These were wounds that wouldn’t, couldn’t ever heal as far as he could see.

And now, in spite of the way he was working his way down that bottle – having already been in the hotel bar the last few hours – those memories were playing out in front of him like a projector throwing out images on the cinema screen. Or a home cinema, like he had back at his own place: hi-def, the sound crystal clear. Maybe it helped to think of all this as a movie … No, he decided, shaking his head and almost falling off the end of the bed, it didn’t help at all.

That was still Matt, his old friend, now a copper, waiting for him when he pulled up outside his old home. Not some character in a script, not an actor playing a part, but his actual best buddy. Waiting there in the doorway to confirm his worst fears. That there hadn’t been some kind of mistake, a mix-up; you heard about those all the time in cases like this. Mistaken identity, people getting the wrong end of the stick. Families suing because of the trauma of getting it wrong.

But no. Matt’s face said it all. He knew this particular family, knew Jordan as well. He wouldn’t be putting them through this if there wasn’t just cause.

Jake couldn’t remember getting out of the car, or even closing the door again, locking it – that didn’t matter anyway, not in the great scheme of things – but suddenly he was at the door with Matt, who was just shaking his head. Didn’t have the words, clearly.

So Matt was stepping aside instead, letting Jake pass through. It felt weird to be back, and if this really had been a film he was directing or something, he would have noted how the carpets had changed; the wallpaper and pictures, photographs hanging from those walls. All reflecting how things had moved on, how it was no longer a place he shared with—

Suddenly there she was, in the living room: the woman he’d spent so many years with. The love of his life, he would have said at one time – still was, probably, there’d been no one else who’d been serious since her anyway. She was rising, albeit shakily, getting up off the couch. He was aware of someone else in the room, another woman standing, Matt saying something behind him, maybe trying to introduce her, something about liaising? Jake wasn’t really listening, because all he could see and hear was Jules.

Standing there, as striking as he remembered her with that auburn hair falling about her shoulders. Those freckles on cheeks that were still wet with tears, reminding him again why he was here. Her green eyes doing the same, moist, cloudy; looked like they could barely focus on him. Yet she knew who he was, instantly, just as he had when he walked in. There had always been that unspoken connection between them, they could always tell when the other one was nearby.

If he’d needed any more proof that she recognised him, she provided it by saying his name, though it came out as more of a squeak than anything; a noise that would have been comedic in any other circumstances. ‘Jake … Oh, Jake.’

She was shaking her head as well, just as he was back in that hotel again now – mirroring her actions, playing them out with her. Jake drank deeply from the bottle and watched as more of it unfolded, as he was about to go to her. About to take her in his arms and try to comfort her, if that was at all possible, drawn by that look on her face he’d seen many times before (not least when she’d told him she was pregnant), scared and in desperate need of a hug.

But then realising that there was yet another person in the room with them, someone who’d come through from the kitchen or even upstairs; yes, the sound of a toilet flush. Someone who’d shoved past Matt and caused Jake to start. Someone who’d skirted around this newcomer in his house. Who was stepping between them, ensuring that Jake could not reach Julie. Someone snaking a hand around her waist, not to try and tell her that it would all be okay, but telling everyone else that this woman was his property … that’s very much how Jake saw it, anyway.

The action made him feel physically sick and his eyes flicked away, coming to rest on another new addition to the décor of this house: their wedding photograph, Julie and Greg Allaway, the happy fucking couple. About two stone lighter in that, there was a meanness to the man’s face even back then. Jake had to ask himself again, as he did when he first heard the news: what the hell had Julie been thinking? And the answer, not that it was anything to do with him anymore, was that Greg had been there for her when Jake had not. But he also knew that in times of stress, people act hastily, act without thinking, and he had to wonder whether she regretted her decision now.

Especially when he forced himself to look back at them again, Greg still holding her in a vice-like grip. Her pleading face.

Jake steeled himself, then replied to her, his name still hanging in the air. ‘Jules. Is it …?’

She closed her eyes, squeezing more tears out, and nodded. His ex-wife also leaned in more closely to Greg, though whether that was because he was pulling her in Jake couldn’t tell.

‘It can’t be,’ said Jake, a part of him still unwilling to believe it. ‘What … what happened?’ He knew the broad strokes, though he’d had trouble taking them in over the phone. Jordan found on the market square, stabbed in the chest.

Dead.

That was when he was aware of Matt behind him again, moving into the room and joining his colleague … Linda something? Had that been her name? Everyone was standing now in that room, everyone paired up – except him.

‘All I can tell you at this time is that we have someone in custody who was fleeing the scene. Jordan’s boyfriend.’

‘Her what?’ Jake shook his head. ‘She had a new … I didn’t know.’ There had been a couple of guys she’d mentioned the last time they talked, but then there always were. Always had been. But nobody serious that Jake was aware of. Nobody she’d put that label on.

‘Why would you?’ This was Greg, grunting out the words.

Jake ignored him. ‘And … and he did this? Why?’

Matt shrugged. ‘We don’t know yet. He claims he didn’t do it, but …’

‘I … What was she even doing with this bloke, if he was … What was she doing out at all, at that time of night?’ It was a general question, speaking out loud, but without thinking he directed it towards Julie.

Then he saw it, the strength there as her face changed, as she straightened up and dried her tears with the back of her hand. Saw the feistiness that had been so attractive once, but could be lethal if you were on the wrong end of it – as he so often was towards the end. ‘What was she doing out? She was nearly 21 for heaven’s sake! Jordan could come and go as she pleased, she had her key.’ Twenty-one, key to the door and all that, though Jake knew she’d had one of those for a long, long time. She had been an adult, or acted like one anyway, for a good while. ‘And we don’t vet who she sees, Jake!’

‘Maybe you should have.’ The reply was out of his mouth before he could stop it. He couldn’t help it, a knee-jerk reaction.

‘Maybe you should keep your big mouth shut.’ Greg again, letting his wife go and moving forwards. In spite of himself, Jake was doing the same, teeth gritted. He needed someone to take all this out on; it might as well be the twat in front of him. His fists were already clenched, and now he couldn’t see anyone else apart from Greg.

Not even Matt, as he stepped between the two men and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. It wasn’t a tight grip, but there was strength there as well – enough to stop Jake and Greg in their tracks. ‘Maybe you should both calm down,’ he suggested.

Jake looked from Matt to Greg, and then gave a nod. He backed off, but it was a moment or two before his opposite number did the same, shrugging off Matt’s hand. It was only then that Jake glanced over at Julie again. She was looking daggers at the pair of them, didn’t need anyone to fight her battles for her. When she said her next words, she held Jake’s gaze and didn’t blink. ‘This wasn’t my fault,’ she said simply.

He sighed, and even after everything, he couldn’t help himself. Jake said, ‘No, it’s ours.’

She looked away, drawing in a breath and trying not to cry again. Trying not to let him see that she was crying. Love, hate. Two sides of the same coin.

‘Again, not really helping,’ Matt whispered to Jake.

He’d like to know what would at that precise moment in time.

There was silence for a few long minutes, then Linda suggested they all sit down again. Maybe have some more tea? But nobody did either of those things. In the end it was Matt who spoke again, breaking that silence which felt like it had gone on forever.