The Girl Who Came Back (31 page)

‘I’m fine,’ Jules replied, lifted by the sound of her mother-in-law’s voice, just because she loved her. ‘How about you?’

‘Oh, you know how it is. Over my cold, but I’ve got myself a niggling pain in the back to take its place. It’ll go. It’s not why I’m ringing.’

Jules guessed as much. ‘Is Kian OK?’ she asked, always her first concern.

‘Sure, as OK as he can be, but I’m afraid someone’s told him she’s out. Don’t ask me who, but with that telly thing we heard about and everyone knowing, it was bound to reach him sooner or later.’

Of course. She should have thought of that. ‘How’s he taken it?’

‘To be honest, he didn’t say much, but I heard him on the phone to our Danny last night.’

‘Saying what?’

‘I didn’t catch a lot of it, but he was definitely asking Danny to look out for you. Do you reckon that girl means you some harm, Jules? Is that why she’s back there?’

‘I think she’s trying to mess with my head,’ Jules admitted, ‘but as for anything else …’ Her eyes flicked across the street to the closed gates of Crofton Park. Thank God Aileen couldn’t see where she was, but presumably Amelia could. ‘Don’t let’s talk about her,’ she said, turning aside. ‘Tell me about Kian.’

Aileen didn’t need much encouragement, so it wasn’t long before Jules knew that Kian had started to help his second cousin Cullum on the building sites, and he’d been to see Father Michael a couple of times lately, although Aileen didn’t know what they’d discussed. ‘I don’t think he’s doing the confessional, or has settled down to some praying,’ Aileen ran on ruefully, ‘but he’s got a lot of questions he still wants answering, so I’m guessing he’s testing the Good Lord through our long-suffering priest.’

Jules couldn’t be sure whether she was finding it hard, or easy, to picture her shattered husband sitting down with a man of God to demand reasons for why he’d had to lose his daughter, especially in such a senseless and brutal way, or even why he’d had to lose her at all. All she knew was that her heart was filling with his confusion and pain, and all the love she still felt for him. She missed him so much that sometimes it was almost as hard to bear as losing Daisy, but it still did no good for them even to speak on the phone. They couldn’t go more than a few minutes without mentioning her, or, even if they did manage not to, she was so powerfully there they simply ran out of words. How sad and hard it was that they couldn’t bear each other’s pain.

Eventually, she said, ‘It’s good to know that he’s going out. Be sure to send him my love, won’t you?’

‘Oh, and he’ll be sending his too,’ Aileen responded. ‘Can I tell him you’re coping all right with her being around?’

Jules looked over to where the CCTV camera was partially hidden in a tree. ‘Yes, you can tell him that,’ she replied, and after promising to be in touch again soon she switched off the phone.

A few minutes later she got out of the car, walked across the street and stared up at the lens.

If Amelia was watching at her end they’d be in eye-to-eye contact now.

Did Amelia feel afraid, or at least unnerved by these unusual visits from her victim’s mother? This was the third one Jules had made in as many days, each time parking in the same spot under the sycamore, and crossing from time to time to go and stare up at the camera.

With a small twist of her mouth, that might have been a smile, she turned from the camera and walked back to the car.

If this wasn’t throwing doubt on her sanity, she didn’t know what would. A mother, torn apart by grief, crushed by the system that had robbed her of proper justice, traumatised by the proximity of her nemesis, besieged by Facebook posts and attempted visits to her old home … How, in the light of all she’d been subjected to, could it come as a surprise to anyone that she’d lost all sense of reason? And if she had no sense of reason, how on earth could she be held accountable for her actions?

Maybe she’d be tried for Voluntary Manslaughter – With Provocation.

Stephie was going to be away for two nights. She’d rented a car so she could drive up north to visit Dean in prison, and was planning to drop in on his parents on the way back, if they were up for seeing her. After that she’d arranged to spend the night at a hotel near Heathrow in order to be handy for picking up Joe and his friend when they flew in the next morning.

This small house was going to seem quite crowded with all four of them bustling about in it, something Jules had no idea if she was ready for, or was even looking forward to. She felt sure she must be, given her fondness for Stephie and Joe, but lately she’d seemed so out of kilter with her feelings, as if they weren’t really hers, that it wasn’t always easy to know what was actually going on in her mind. All she could say for certain was that in the wake of Stephie’s departure she was aware of a swamping loneliness trying to drag her into its endless murky depths.

However, she’d made plans for this evening that should, in their own strange way, rescue her from the worst of it.

It was just after eight when she got into her car and drove into Kesterly. A dark mass of cloud was swirling in from the horizon as she reached the seafront, dimming the evening light, and making the Victorian promenade appear like a faded postcard of its original era. She’d heard on the forecast that there might be rain later; it seemed they were right.

After parking in the multi-storey close to the marina, she crossed the busy main road and headed into the old town’s pedestrian area. Here the streets were cobbled and crooked, with quaint Dickensian-style shopfronts, quirky restaurants and plenty of cafés with bistro tables and parasols spilling out of their bi-fold doors on to plant-studded courtyards. It was the part of town Daisy had always loved to come to with her friends, and where Jules and Kian had enjoyed many nights out too – and where, tonight, Amelia was ‘meeting up with the girls’ at Fruit of the Vine Wine Bar.

Jules knew this because she’d begun visiting Amelia’s Facebook page. She’d discovered that Amelia was using it to make public just about everything she was doing.
Manicure at K’s Tue 3 pm; hair at Jessica’s Wed 5 pm; Ollie back from London tonight, going to movie
, Fifty Shades of Grey,
anyone seen it yet? Party at Mel’s, what’s everyone wearing? Anyone fancy some shopping tomorrow?

To read her entries anyone would think she was like any other girl of her age, mostly interested in herself, her boyfriend and having a good time. There was nothing about being a killer, or a person of no conscience, or someone who’d carry out a deadly revenge if anyone wronged her.

Jules had started to wonder if Amelia was advertising her movements on Facebook especially for her benefit. Though the girl’s warped mind was impossible to read, it seemed like the perverse kind of thing she’d do, either wanting to rub Jules’s face in the fact that Daisy could no longer do these things, or to taunt Jules into following her.

So far Jules had done no more than walk into the nail bar a few minutes after Amelia to make an appointment of her own. Since she hadn’t glanced Amelia’s way it wasn’t possible to know if Amelia had spotted her, but Jules liked to think she had. Later, she’d rung to cancel the appointment, making the call while waiting for a ‘friend’ outside the cinema that was showing
Fifty Shades of Grey
.

Although Amelia hadn’t taken long to spot her – under the hanging flower baskets at the centre of the plaza – she’d quickly turned away and gazed laughingly up into her boyfriend’s eyes while clinging to his arm.
Oh, she was so happy and in love, and with her whole lovely, privileged life unrolling like a carpet of fresh, vibrant daisies in front of her
.

She apparently chose not to be aware of the mutterings around her, some of them so loud that even Jules, standing fifty feet away, could hear them:
There she is, over there. The one who killed Daisy Bright. I don’t know how she’s got the nerve to show her face around here. Hope she’s not sitting anywhere near us, we’ll have to move if she does.

Of course Jules was recognised too; at least a dozen old friends came up to ask how she was and to say how good it was to see her out and about, as if this were the first time they’d seen her since Daisy’s murder. For some it was. No one mentioned Amelia, clearly not wanting to bring Jules’s attention to the fact that her daughter’s killer was in the vicinity; a couple even tried to persuade her to abandon her plans for the film and go and have a drink with them.

Declining the offer, she simply went home and after she and Stephie had finished watching the start of a new drama series on TV, she’d made a last check of the day on Amelia’s Facebook page. Finding nothing new, she closed down her laptop and took herself to bed and the gruesomely vivid dreams she’d been having lately about Amelia Quentin.

A lot of blood, sweet revenge and endless tears.

Now, as Jules pushed through the crowd of youngsters outside Fruit of the Vine, she was looking around for Amelia and saw her almost immediately, sitting on a stool at the bar, surrounded by a gaggle of her ex-con girlfriends. Had she been interested Jules might have noticed their cheap spray tans, tattoos, piercings and mega-lashes, but she wasn’t looking at them. She was staring straight at Amelia, who was swaying around on her stool while waving her glass in the air and slurring something that Jules couldn’t hear, although it seemed to be some sort of toast.

Maybe this was the first time Amelia had ever been the real centre of attention. Did she realise they were probably more interested in her money than they were in her?

It didn’t take long for one of the friends to notice Jules, and after treating her to a long, slit-eyed look up and down she dug Amelia in the ribs and nodded Jules’s way. Amelia peered over her shoulder, seeming vaguely irritated until, realising who was watching her, she turned right around on her stool and met Jules’s stare.

Her eyes were mocking, challenging and narrowed with interest.

Having achieved what she’d come for, Jules broke the stare and left.

The forecast storm started around ten that night, long after Jules had returned home, and was still battering the windows by the time she went to bed at eleven. Unable to sleep, she lay in the darkness listening to the frantic clanging of the wind chimes Stephie had brought back from Thailand, as fierce gusts swung them wildly to and fro.

Stephie had texted earlier to say that she was feeling a bit down after her visit with Dean, although she’d tried not to show it while she was there.

Saw Mrs Foggarty, but Mr F was away on some sort of retreat. She looks terrible. Hard talking to her. Apparently he’s in an even worse state. Feel desperately sorry for them. Driving to Heathrow now. No idea what I’m going to do with myself until Joe’s flight gets in but I guess I’ll find something. How’s everything your end? Sxxx

Everything’s fine here
, Jules had texted back.
Sad that seeing Dean upset you. Thinking of him where he is upsets me too. I can imagine what it’s doing to his parents. We’ll talk when you get home. Jx

Poor Stephie had lost her two closest friends thanks to Amelia, and was still, three years on, struggling to find her way without them. She was directionless, lonely, and though not friendless exactly, she still hadn’t connected with anyone who was coming close to filling the void left by Daisy and Dean.

Turning on to her side Jules continued to stare into the darkness, thinking about Dean and how wrong it was that he was still in prison while Amelia had been allowed to go free. Was there anything she could do about that? Maybe his parents already had it in hand. If they did, she hoped it was with lawyers, because she didn’t imagine that God held much sway with the parole board.

It wasn’t long before her head was spinning with so many fears and worries that she wasn’t sure at first if the banging she heard downstairs was real, or something she’d imagined.

Was someone knocking at the door?

Her heart tightened with alarm as the banging started again.

It was definitely someone at the door, but who on earth could it be at this time of night?

Throwing back the sheet, she moved silently through the darkness into Stephie’s room and peered down to the garden and pull-in drive. There was no moon, but a nearby street lamp was casting a greyish glow over her car and what little she could see of the porch. There was no sign of anyone, but the wind chimes had stopped, she realised, so they’d either fallen or someone had taken them down.

Concerned that they’d been annoying a neighbour who’d come to complain, she ran downstairs ready to apologise. As she reached the front door she jumped violently as someone banged on the back door.

Quickly moving through to the kitchen, she shouted, ‘Who is it?’

The only reply was a rowdy blast of wind that sent a dustbin crashing to the ground.

‘Who is it?’ she called out again.

Still no answer.

‘Danny?’ she shouted, knowing it wouldn’t be him, but needing it to be.

No more knocking. No footsteps either.

She stayed where she was between the hall and kitchen, hands clenched tightly together as she listened, waited and prayed that whoever it was had gone away.

Surely to God it couldn’t be Amelia?

Maybe her ex-con friends were helping her to play a sick joke.

Minutes ticked by.

Knowing she couldn’t return to bed until she’d checked there was no one outside, she moved carefully towards the dining-room window, inched back a curtain … and almost screamed as a face loomed towards her.

Belatedly realising it was her reflection, she pressed a hand to her chest and wondered if she should phone Danny.

She continued to wait in the darkness, trying to hear the sound of movements or voices above the storm.

Nothing happened, until suddenly the letter box creaked open.

She spun round.

‘Jules?’ a voice whispered down the hall.

Horrified, Jules took a step back. ‘Who is it?’ she shouted, praying it was Stephie come home unexpectedly and had lost her keys.