Page 47 of Cross Her Heart

I pretend to be playing solitaire with an old deck of cards, but my ears are locked on to the quiet sound of the TV in the corner of the communal sitting room. There are only two other people in here, sipping coffee and reading the papers. I figure everyone else has gone into town for the evening. That’s what young people do, after all.

The lorry dropped me in Calthorpe and I got the bus to Ashminster from there, checking into this youth hostel for three nights, and paying the extra for a private room with a shower. First, I scrubbed myself clean, washing him off me until my skin was red raw, and then, despite the fear and nerves that have turned my guts into a painful acid tear in my midriff, I fell asleep for hours, a bleak, black empty sleep of non-existence.

When I eventually woke it was evening and I sprayed fresh colour into my hair, painted my face on and became Lily again. I think about the name. The flower of death. A mourner’s bloom. Please don’t let me be mourning Ava. Please let me have bought some time.

I’m on the news. Not Lily, but those othermes, Charlotte and Lisa. I was Lisa for so long, it should hurt more that she’s gone; but I’ve shucked her off like a snake’s shed skin. After the last time I changed my name, after what happened with Jon, I think I knew she wouldn’t be forever. Charlotte is harder to shake off. I have to die to truly end Charlotte. Maybe that’s what this will come to, this battle of wits. But I’m not ready for that yet and Charlotte definitely isn’t. I’m reclaiming the game as best I can.

It’s the second time the news report has been on and this time I’m calmer and listen properly, pushing aside my grief for poor Jon who never did anything wrong apart from fall in love too young with someone who wasn’t lovable. I try not to look at my face as it stares back at me from the screen, all Home Office anonymity deals off now I’m once again a murderer. I look so meek. So invisible. They’ve used the photo from my work pass. The newsreader says I now have shorter, blonde hair, and then there’s a farcically bad Photofit that looks like a very non-sexy blow-up doll version of me with blonde hair added. It almost makes me laugh. It almost makesLilylaugh. She’s tougher than me, whoever the hell I am. Lily’s more Charlotte than Lisa. I’m only the husk they inhabit.

I glance at the photo on the screen again. It’s nothing like me. Is that really the best the police can do? I wonder ifshe’swatching. What’s she thinking? This won’t be how she expected it to go. She thought I’d be locked up by now. Game over.

The newsreader tells the world I’m wanted in connection with the murder of Jon Roper whose body has been found in a rented property in Wales. After an overhead shot of the isolated cottage, the local reporter shares what they know.

‘A man’s decomposed body found on the premises is believed to be that of Jon Roper, the ex-partner of child murderer Charlotte Nevill and father of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Ava. As we heard earlier, police had been looking for Roper in connection with Ava’s disappearance from a safe house where she and her mother had been staying after Charlotte Nevill’s new identity and location had been exposed. But now, with Jon Roper dead and Charlotte Nevill having absconded, it seems this is a much murkier situation than at first thought and there is a real sense of concern here for the missing sixteen-year-old, who only last month saved a child’s life.’

It’s Bray’s turn to take to the cameras, and she stands in front of the cordoned-off house, the wild wind blowing her hair around her face, dragging strands free from her sensible ponytail. She says Ishould be considered dangerous.She says if anyone sees me they should call the number at the bottom of the screen but should not approach me.

She’s not telling the whole story. She’s gotsomethingthat very firmly makes them think I killed Jon. I saw it in the stiffening of Alison’s spine in the flat and I can see it in the serious guarded expression on Bray’s face. I have survival instincts second to none. And I know my enemy. My best friend. Two sides of the same coin.Where are you, Katie? Where have you taken my baby?

I clear up the cards as if I’m bored and throw the young couple on the other side of the room a smile as I get up. They give me a polite smile back, but there’s no recognition. Nothing. How easy it is to become someone else. How easily people see only what they want to. All those years of fear that I’d be recognised were wasted time. No one sees anything at all. There was no anonymous caller to give me away after the photos in the papers. That was Katie. Iknowit. She set the whole thing up.

I go back to my room and lie on my bed. I can’t do anything until tomorrow, except think. I’ve been blind too. I’ve missed someone right in front of me. Ifeltsomething, sure, and alarm bells were ringing deep inside me, but I didn’tseeyou, Katie. Who are you? Anxiety bees buzz in my head and I want to curl up and cry for Ava, to scream for someone to get my baby back, but the only person who can do that is me, and I need to stay tough. To stay Charlotte.

Peter Rabbit. Drive Away, Baby. The missing photo.

Penny? No, Katie can’t be Penny. Penny’s been there forever. Marilyn? No. I can’t even countenance that thought. Marilyn is my best friend, even if she hates me now, and as with Penny, ten years is a long waiting game for this. To have me in her sights all this time and do nothing surely isn’t Katie’s style. Katie was impetuous. Impatient.

But who else can it be? A stranger? No. She has to be someone I know. I think of the photos. Whoever it is has been in my house. Ava probably left the back door unlocked a million times. Maybe they found out about the spare key and took it? I think about all the occasions I’ve left my bag unattended at work. Or on the back of a chair in a pub. Could someone have copied the keys and put them back before I noticed? Stolen them temporarily from my handbag?

The thought of someone stealing from my bag makes me sit bolt upright.Julia.The thoughts follow in a succession of quick-fire bullets. She stole from Penny. She’s new. She’s sneaky and snide. She’s older than she’s made herself look. She’s determined to turn people against me.

My breath comes in sharp pants and I take deep breaths to ease the pain in my gut. Is Julia Katie? Is this what she wanted? To make me a murderer all over again and then kill my baby, leaving me with all that grief? It should surprise me, but it doesn’t. Deep down, I’ve always known she’d come for me.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

PART THREE

47

HER

Girl B. I never liked it. Sounds so second best. A tag-along. A pitiful runner-up. Like being the lesser half of a whole. Ironic, given how I’m the brains in this outfit and always was. Charlotte? God, how to describeher? She was brave. Strong. Wild and wicked. Yes, she was all those things, but I was always that bit smarter. I still am. But I haven’t changed. Not like her.

You know what? I’m actually pleasantly surprised she’s got this far in my game. I wasn’t sure she had it in her to run. I’d hoped she would, I hoped those old instincts would kick in, but I wasn’t banking on it. People change as they get older. That’s the dull part of growing up. But there’s changing and then there’sLisa.

The old Charlotte – my Charlotte – I’d have had no doubts about her. She’d have sensed what was coming and fled. She may not have been so smart but she wasferal. Thisthingshe’s become, this ordinary middle-aged mother of yours, I thought she’d still be sitting there like a pathetic damp dishrag until they carted her off for Jon’s murder and then she’d spend the rest of her miserable life locked up and wondering what happened to you while the world screamed at her to tell them where she’d left your body.

As a Plan B, I could have coped with that but it would have been such a disappointment. After all this time hiding and waiting to resurface. After all the planning. No, it would not have been a fully satisfying conclusion to our friendship. Certainly not quite the same as a proper reunion. She’d have been cheating herself too. She wants to see me. Of course she does. The question is, is there enough of the old Charlotte left to find me? To find us?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Anyway, Ava, time for your medicine. You need to go bye-byes. I’ve got things to do.

48

BEFORE

1989

Everything has to come out somehow.

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