His Kidnapper's Shoes (33 page)

‘Yes. She does, or rather she did. Now I’m not so sure anymore. I think, in time, Mum might call her. I keep on at her about it and I doubt if she can hold out against my charms for much longer.’ He laughed. ‘Everything’s so good, Annie. With my family, I mean. I don't want there to be hatred, and divisions, and blame anymore. I think we all need to move on from what happened. We have twenty-two years to make up for, and there doesn’t seem much point in agonising over what’s in the past.’

Annie smiled. ‘Listen to yourself. You’re all stoked up because your nanny and your mother might be about to heal the breach between them. You say you don’t want hatred and blame anymore. Are you going to apply your newfound philosophy to yourself?’

‘You mean Laura Bateman.’

‘Yes.’

‘Whether I can forgive her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Not all of us can be saints, Annie. Have you forgiven your husband’s killer yet?’

‘No. I never said I find all this easy, Daniel. Those days when I want to crawl under the duvet, they’re the ones when I want to kill the man who murdered my husband for ten pounds of crack money. On the good days, well, I give it my best shot. That’s all I can do. I try to remember he was one very fucked-up young man, human like the rest of us. And yes, I get a little bit closer to forgiving him.’

Daniel shook his head. ‘You’re definitely more of a candidate for sainthood than I am. We’re talking here about some murdering crack-head.’

‘I’m not perfect, Daniel. Truth is - I find it hellishly difficult most of the time.’

He didn’t doubt it. ‘Don’t write me off as a lost cause, though, Annie. Flipped through one of your books on forgiveness the other day.’ He hadn’t meant to tell her that, but what the hell. ‘Some of what it said made sense. You asked if I could forgive Laura Bateman. I admit I’ve thought about it.’

‘Have they found out any more about her life before she kidnapped you?’

‘No more than the obvious. You were right about some things. Turns out she’s had a pretty shit life in many ways. She spent her teenage years in foster care, after her alcoholic mother died, until she was almost eighteen. Then she went to a new placement and not long afterwards ran away from there. Nobody knows why.’

Annie grimaced. ‘Not hard to think of a possible reason. I’ll bet you anything some abuse, or worse, went on there.’

‘You think?’

‘Yep. Told you, that woman has had a tragic life, one way or another. You’ll probably never discover the full extent of what happened.’

‘Well, she’s still not speaking.’ Daniel sighed. ‘God knows I tried hard enough to make her talk when I went there. Anyway, after she ran away, she lived with her grandmother, and then she had her baby, Daniel Mark Covey, whose birth certificate she gave me. The grandmother died not long afterwards.’

‘So she’s eighteen, alone, with a tiny baby. I’m telling you, that’s rough.’

‘Yes. I get that.’ He did, too. Laura Covey stood in front of him, her judge, in the court of his mind, and time wound backwards, and she wasn’t his kidnapper anymore, but a fragile and damaged eighteen-year-old. Protectiveness rose in him then, and understanding.

‘What happened afterwards? To the baby? And how did she end up in Bristol?’

‘That’s the bit nobody’s sure about. How she managed to carry out the kidnapping isn’t clear, either. The police traced her to a waitressing job in Bristol and to where she used to live, but she had no baby with her then. There’s no death certificate, so nobody knows what happened. If her child is dead, they’ve not found a body. They’ve done extensive searches, but nothing’s turned up.’

‘And then four years later she kidnaps you and brings you up as her own.’

‘I was a substitute, I guess. She couldn’t live without her child, so she replaced him with me.’

‘You had the same name, remember, and were about the same age. You say she’s always been a bit flaky mentally – well, I think you did become her son in her mind. And so she took you.’

‘Probably, I guess. It’s difficult to know.’

‘Will she stand trial? For either the kidnapping or for what she did to your stepfather?’

‘Hard to say, but it’s doubtful. They’re still trying to assess her mental state, find out if she’s competent to stand trial, and of course, these things take time. And everything changed when she stabbed my stepfather.’

‘Do you still feel the same hatred towards her?’

‘No.’ Daniel shook his head. He didn’t. Perhaps time had worked its magic, perhaps the joy of being with his family again had too. But it was more than that, as he’d already admitted to himself. He now had the satisfaction, savage and bloody, of knowing his pen had skewered his stepfather's eyeball.

‘Do you think…?’ Annie paused, choosing her words carefully. ‘Do you think eventually you might be able to forgive her?’

‘Possibly.’ He couldn’t believe he’d said it, but it was true. The quiet words of the police liaison officer, telling him about the alcoholic mother and the foster homes and all the rest, had sunk in and he’d started to try a few footsteps in his kidnapper’s shoes. Those footsteps had hurt. He might not be able to manage forgiveness yet, but compassion had started to elbow out hatred, and it felt good, as if something inside him were healing at last.

‘And your stepfather?’

‘No.’ Daniel’s reply was vehement. ‘Never. Some things don’t warrant forgiveness. I’ll never forget the awfulness of that bastard raping me. I can’t forgive him and I don’t want to.’

‘I'm not trying to make you live according to my rules, Daniel. All I’m saying is - forgiveness can be an immense force for good, if you let it.’

‘Yes. I can understand that. I think, in time, I’ll get there with Laura Bateman. And you know why? It’s because of what she did to my stepfather the day after I visited her and told her about the abuse. He’s lost his eye. They couldn’t save it. He’s permanently disfigured.’

‘Justice, in a way, for what he did.’

‘Yes. I had no redress at all before she stabbed him. I’d never, ever, have brought a court case against him. The rapes and the abuse, they were eating away at me, making me hate her, when really I hated my stepfather. I always felt so powerless against him. And then she did that to him, with my pen, and all the anger seemed to find a way out.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘And I’d rather he was dead, and that’s probably what she intended, but hey, Annie, as we both know, life’s not perfect. I reckon I can settle for what she did to him, though, as a way of tipping the scales back in my favour. He’s not talking about what happened – not surprising, really - meaning the police don’t know what prompted the stabbing.’

‘That’s all to the good, don’t you think?’

Daniel nodded. ‘They tell me he’s lost his job as well as his eye. He had to quit; not in good shape mentally, it seems.’

‘I can’t be the judge of it, but it sounds like justice knocked on his door, without any need to involve the law.’

‘The bastard deserved what he got.’ Daniel grimaced. ‘I hope it hurt like hell.’

‘Amen to that. Remember, Daniel, when you think about forgiving Laura Bateman - you did get the answers you always wanted from her. Just not in the way you expected.’

‘You’re right. What she went through - I can understand how it must have affected her mental state. Compassion, rather than judgement, you said. I’ve thought about everything over the last couple of months, and no, I don't hate her anymore. I can’t bring myself to forgive her yet but I think I’ll get there, in time.’

‘You’ll be glad you made the effort. Remember what you said before; there’s no point in agonising over the past. Go and enjoy your art, Daniel, have a blast with your life and when it comes to your stepfather, remember the old saying.’

‘Which is?’

‘Living well is the best revenge.’

35

BROKEN SILENCE

I stare out of the window. The view here isn’t as good as the last place but then I’m not here for the scenery; I’m here for the added security. Obviously, ever since I attacked Ian, they regard me as a high-risk case and so I ended up being transferred here. The nurses search my room and me regularly in case I’ve hidden away any more pens and intend gouging out someone else’s eye. Totally unnecessary, of course. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone, not until I found out the ugly truth about the man I married. I have no remorse whatsoever for what I did, though. He deserved the retribution I delivered to him, and more, and my only regret is not managing to kill the bastard. Still, they couldn’t save the eye, so I’m told, and I harbour a certain smug satisfaction at such news.

I wonder how my boy is. By now, the police will have told him the facts of my life and he’ll have had time to think about how things were for me back then. He’ll understand what I did for him by stabbing his stepfather.

I yearn for some contact with him. Daniel has always been like oxygen to me. I’ve thought about writing to him, but that would involve speaking to ask for paper and a pen and I’m not sure they trust me where writing implements are concerned.

I make a deal with myself. If I haven’t seen or heard from him by the end of this month, I’ll pour my soul out to him in a letter, even if I have to break my silence and dictate it to someone to get it sent. With a letter, he can read what I’ve said and let the words sink in, and perhaps his heart will soften a little towards me.

I look at the calendar on the wall. I think today is the fifteenth; I can’t be sure when every day is the same. Sixteen days until the end of the month.

On the twenty-fourth, I’m told I have a visitor. Hope floods me; if you don’t count the police and the doctors, nobody but Ian and Daniel has ever visited me, and my bastard husband will never come again, that’s for sure. I wait as the nurse stands back, and then he’s here, in front of me, my beautiful son, and I stare at him, and I can’t get enough of him. I blot out the sight of the man standing in the room with us; he’s there to make sure I don’t do anything I shouldn’t. To me, only Daniel and I are in the room, and I’m so delighted.

I have so much more to make me happy than him visiting me at last, though.

His eyes are what fill me with exquisite relief. They’re not full of hatred anymore. Instead, understanding reaches out to me from his expression.

He pulls a chair across and sits in front of me. I can’t help myself; I lean forward and rest my fingers lightly on the back of his hand. He doesn’t pull away.

His voice is gentle when he speaks. ‘You’ve had a lot of shit in your life, and I’m sorry.’

I don't reply. I can’t, not yet. I need to soak up his words first, find out what he’s come here for.

‘I’ve had shit in my life too, but it’s in the past now. Life is good for me these days.’

I’m glad, even if he means with his new family, away from me. I want him to be happy, whatever that signifies for him.

‘Been turning everything over in my head for a while now.’

I curl my fingers around his hand, and squeeze lightly.

‘I’m going to apply for art college. Been looking into what I need to do. Painting pretty much all my spare time now.’

I smile and squeeze his hand again. It’s not enough, though. My boy is going to do something that means the world to him, something my bastard of a husband cruelly denied him, and I need to tell him how happy I am for him. To do so requires breaking my silence, but now is the right time.

‘I’m glad.’ It’s all I can manage, but I register the surprise in his face on hearing my voice and I know I’ve done the right thing.

‘Been seeing a woman.’ He smiles fondly. ‘She’s special. She’s been good for me these past few months. We need each other. For how much longer, I’m not sure. What we have probably isn’t a permanent thing but she’s one hell of a woman. She’s suffered shit, too. She told me I should walk in your shoes and find out how they feel.’

I like the sound of this woman. The memory of Emma Carter comes to me. Seems as though my son found his own version of Emma, when he needed it most.

‘She talked to me about forgiveness. What she said didn’t make much sense at first. I couldn’t understand how I could forgive either you or my stepfather. And whatever she says, I’ll never be able to forgive him. Never. But I don't need to. What you did to him. The assault. It made all the difference to me.’

His words bring me some comfort. Perhaps I’ve succeeded to some extent in making amends to my boy.

‘You know why? The fact you took my pen to attack him. You used something of mine as a weapon, and in my head, it was as if I had stabbed him, not you. It gave me what I needed to move past all the anger.’

I try to think what his words imply. Does he also mean he’s been able to move past his rage at me?

He gives me my answer.

‘I can’t say I’m there yet where you’re concerned.’ He pauses. ‘But I’m not full of my own crap anymore. I don’t think so much about why it all had to happen to me. Me, me, me. Annie made me understand that’s how life is. Shit happens, and sometimes the crap happens to you, not the other person.’

I guess Annie must be the name of his new woman.

‘Been told a lot about your life, how things were for you when you were younger. There’s a lot we don’t know, though. You had a baby.’