The Girl Who Came Back (2 page)

There had been a time when every day was filled with people seeking her out for one reason or another. Sometimes simply for a good laugh, or maybe sympathy for some troubles, the sharing of secrets, breaking of confidences, gleeful horror over the latest scandal … Her door had always been open, not this one, she’d lived somewhere else back then where her world had been full of people, music, rowdy applause, the clinking of glasses and cheers for whichever team they were supporting that day.

So who was this woman at the door of the home she had now, tall, dark-haired with aqua-green eyes that tilted at the corners towards a subtle, but quite arresting, beauty? Her smile was making Jules want to smile, although there was something hesitant about it, as though she was worried about intruding, or perhaps she didn’t really have anything to smile about.

Jules knew she should recognise her, the certainty of it was climbing all over her memory trying to find the right images to rouse from the shadows, but so far unsuccessfully.

Then out of nowhere it came to her that this woman used to wear black-rimmed glasses and her hair was usually severely scraped back, as though she’d been trying to hide her beauty, or at least downplay it. No glasses today, and a glossy abundance of curls tumbled around her collar and slender face.

Suddenly the mental Googling hit the right link and Jules’s heartbeat slowed as her smile both formed and drained.

She liked this woman a lot; there was a time when she’d felt she was the only person she could trust. She just hadn’t imagined, once it was all over, that she’d ever see her again. Or not here, knocking on this door.

‘It’s Andee,’ the woman told her. ‘Andee Lawrence.’

Jules nodded. The name had come back in the instant it was being said. Detective Constable Andrea Lawrence, but please call me Andee. Hadn’t she been promoted since Jules had known her? Jules was sure she had, and was now stationed locally, in Kesterly.

Why was she here?

‘How are you?’ Jules asked quietly.

‘I’m fine. And you?’

Jules shrugged. No one expected her to be fine, so she often didn’t bother to pretend.

‘May I come in?’ Andee asked gently.

Jules stood aside to let her pass, not quite able to summon a stronger voice yet, if she was even looking for one. She was too stunned – and anxious, and curious; she might even be slightly afraid.

There was nothing to be afraid of, she reminded herself as she led the way into a spacious open-plan kitchen area at the back of the house she now called home. It was a modern three-bed detached, on a street named the Risings, which was shaped like a banjo with two rows of semis lining the neck and fingerboard of the road in, and five individual properties forming the head around a central green. Her house was at twelve o’clock on the green. To continue with the banjo simile, overhead BT and power cables formed some random strings, though there was nothing musical about them. Where the instrument’s tailpiece would have been, however, was a quaint iron footbridge nestling amongst trees and crossing the stream that ran its tuneful way through Jules’s back garden.

She caught Andee Lawrence casting a subtle look around the room and wondered what she might be making of this modest new abode with its shiny black and white kitchen, natural pine dining table for six, and faux-marble fireplace with gas fire and lava logs. It was a fraction of the size of Jules’s previous home, had none of the period features, and could boast nothing more than a postage stamp of a garden. However, Jules was comfortable here; it was an easy home to take care of, bits didn’t randomly fall off the ceiling the way they had in the previous place, pipes didn’t burst, jackdaw nests didn’t clog up the chimneys and there was no whimsical ghost floating about in the wee small hours.

How she missed that ghost, and sometimes wondered if the ghost missed her too, mischievous little minx that she’d been. She had other people to tease now, although Jules didn’t think she bothered.

Had she ever told Andee about the ghost?

She doubted it; they’d had other things to talk about at the time.

‘Can I get you some tea?’ she offered, going to the kettle. ‘I have all sorts.’

‘How about peppermint?’ Andee suggested, unfastening the smart cream leather jacket that had clearly cost her quite a bit, and draping it over the back of a dining chair.

Jules owned classy, expensive clothes too, but she hardly ever wore them now. She had no place to go that called for them. Not that she’d let herself go, she really didn’t want to do that, though there were times when she felt so drained, so lacking in purpose, even life, that it surely could only have been habit that drove her to make herself up in the morning, and do the necessary to keep the grey from her hair. Despite what she felt, others would describe her as an attractive woman, tall, a little too slim, with the kind of boyish frame that meant clothes usually looked good on her. Her fine, straight hair was raven dark, and sometimes fell loosely around her shoulders, or was scrunched up in a knot at the back of her head. Not so long ago she’d had the liveliest brown eyes, with spiky dark lashes and such a readiness for compassion or humour that she almost always seemed to be empathising or laughing or simply taking an interest in whatever was happening in that moment. Her eyes were different now – the same colour, just a sadder, more cautious version of what they used to be. As for her age, since she’d been blessed with the kind of complexion that made her seem much younger than her years, she still looked under forty in spite of all she’d been through.

Once, her spirit, her
joie de vivre
had seemed as inextinguishable as a joke candle, an inner flame that just wouldn’t stop burning …

Until one day it did.

‘You’re looking well,’ Andee commented, perching on a barstool.

‘Thank you,’ Jules replied, in her faint but unmistakable West Country burr. ‘Out of interest, how did you find me?’

‘I went to the pub.’

Of course, it would have been the easiest way. ‘Are you still with the police? You didn’t use your rank just now.’

‘I quit, about a year ago.’

The answer surprised Jules, although she wasn’t quite sure why.

‘I never really felt cut out for it,’ Andee admitted. ‘I mean, I always took it seriously, and gave it my best, but I … Let’s just say I reached a point where I felt I needed a change.’

‘You mean you needed to get away from the ugly side of life?’

Andee didn’t deny it. Why would she when, in Jules’s opinion, no one in their right minds would want to spend their days confronting the hatred, violence and evil which seemed so large a part of today’s world. Not that this town had an especially high crime rate, in fact it was one of the reasons people moved here, to get away from unwholesome inner cities. Although it had to be said that Kesterly-on-Sea could boast some terrible stories of its own. Now Jules came to think of it, the last time she’d heard news of Andee was about a year ago when a teenage girl had gone missing from a caravan park over at Paradise Cove. Detective
Sergeant
Andee Lawrence had led the search, so she
had
been promoted since the time Jules had known her, and apparently she had moved to Kesterly.

Though the missing girl had been found, the circumstances would have been hard for Andee, Jules realised, for Andee’s sister had vanished when she was in her teens and had never been traced.

Imagine that, never knowing what had happened to someone you loved.

Could it be worse than knowing? That clearly depended on what there was to know.

So it was over two years since Jules and Andee had last met, though Jules couldn’t quite remember where they’d been on that occasion, how they’d ended up saying goodbye. However, she had a clear recollection of their first meeting, at the Crown Court in the centre of Kesterly.

‘Are you working these days?’ Andee asked as Jules passed her a mug of peppermint tea.

Yes, Jules was working, but at a very different kind of job to the one she’d had before. ‘I’m an administrator for the Greensleeves Care Home, down near the seafront,’ she replied.

Andee’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

Managing one of her old ironic twinkles, Jules said, ‘My mother’s there, and it’s only part-time. I usually end up doing most of the work from here. How about you? What are you up to now you’ve left the force?’

Andee looked faintly sheepish as she took a sip of her tea. ‘Well, I tried being a full-time mum for a while, but my kids soon got fed up with that. They’re eighteen and sixteen now, so you can probably imagine, I was just in the way. Actually, their father and I finally got married a few months ago, they seemed to enjoy that, and of course they had to come on honeymoon with us, as did both our mothers, although we did manage a few days in Paris on our own.’

Jules felt dizzied by the image of three generations enjoying one another so much that they’d willingly travel together even for a honeymoon. Her own family had been just like that, doing everything and going everywhere together.

‘… so I’m now toying with the idea of studying for the Bar,’ Andee was saying.

Though Jules immediately saw beer taps and optics, she quickly realised Andee was talking about the law. Actually, she could see her as a barrister. She’d be good. Scrupulous, thorough, ruthless where necessary, sensitive, sharp, effective, but above all honest and incorruptible.

There were lawyers like that, Jules was in no doubt of it, it was just that she and her family hadn’t come across them.

‘What about the women’s refuge?’ Andee asked. ‘Are you still involved with that?’

Jules both nodded and shook her head.

It seemed such a long time ago that she’d set up the refuge for battered women, probably because it was. It had happened in another lifetime, when she’d been as fearless of consequences as she had of raising money; she’d thought nothing of taking on the council for permissions, getting the social care they’d needed, financial support and even protection for the women and children to keep them safe from their tormentors. Memories of the fund-raisers they’d staged for the place and shows they’d put on for the children began flickering as though trying to find a focus, but she quickly shut them down again. ‘They still have lots of volunteers doing their bit,’ she told Andee. ‘It’s lovely how supportive some people can be, especially when there’s nothing in it for them.’

‘Apart from the satisfaction of knowing you’ve done something good for someone else. That’s always rewarding.’

Jules didn’t disagree, although she couldn’t remember ever thinking much about how she felt when helping others. It was just something she’d done, because she could, and what sort of person turned their backs on someone when it was in their power to make a positive, even life-changing difference to a wretchedly unfortunate soul?

She wondered if they were now getting round to what this visit was actually about. Perhaps Andee had come to solicit her help in setting up some new kind of social project? She’d happily work with Andee on anything, since she had no doubt it would be a worthy cause. In fact she felt a stir of excitement, as much at the thought of getting involved in something new, as at the idea of becoming friends with Andee. It seemed such an age since she’d had someone to chat to, confide in, share a goal with, apart from Em, but with Em being so far away now she couldn’t count on her in the same way as if she were still in Kesterly.

Andee was here, and they’d got along very well the last time they’d known one another, in spite of her not really being Andee’s type. Actually, they probably were quite similar in some ways; it was just that they were from very different backgrounds. She, Jules, had started out life on the notorious Temple Fields estate, across the other side of town, whereas Andee was from the right side of London, where her father had been high up in the police force before his retirement. Not that she could imagine anything like disparity in social backgrounds being a problem for Andee; during the time Jules had known her she’d never shown any signs of considering herself superior to anyone, which made her pretty unique for someone doing her job. No, as connected and cultured as Andee might be, she’d been every bit as appalled as Jules had when the wheels of justice had turned the way they had almost three years ago.

It was time, the therapist had told Jules only last week, to start making efforts to move on. Though Jules had known it, hearing it had made her want to bury herself even deeper in her grief and anger, to tell the wretched woman that she had no idea what she was talking about, that if she were in her shoes she’d know what a ridiculous, insensitive and impossible suggestion that was. However, when she’d got home she’d found herself collecting up photographs and other treasured mementos and putting them away. That was all she’d done. It had felt huge at the time, exhausting, debilitating, but now, like some guardian angel, Andee had arrived, maybe to help her on the next stage of the journey?

She could do it. Whatever Andee was about to ask of her, she was going to say yes.

‘I have some news,’ Andee said, and her lovely blue-green eyes seemed to search Jules’s in a way that made Jules start to tense.

She’d read this wrong. Andee wasn’t here for a worthy cause, or to make friends, she was here for only one reason, and now Jules wanted her to leave before she confirmed her worst fears.

‘I had a call from an old colleague,’ Andee continued. ‘He thought I should … He asked me if I would break it to you.’

Though Jules’s heart was starting to thud, the beats were all wrong, fast, slow, harsh, so faint it might have stopped with dread. She knew what was coming, and yet she couldn’t allow herself to think it, much less believe it.

‘Amelia Quentin is being released,’ Andee said quietly.

Jules’s insides turned so hard they might crack. The hand she pressed to her head, to her cheek was stiff like a claw, yet shaking. She knew she shouldn’t feel shocked, if anything she should have been expecting it, but so soon … It was as though no time had passed; considering what the girl had done, no time had.