‘I saw the photos. Every trip you’d come back with photos. I saw them, I know I did.’
His laugh is mirthless and sends ice down my spine. ‘Yeah, a couple of hours before we’d leave for Crosshaven, Jeffrey would have me posing all over the place like some fucking catalogue model. Every photograph you saw was taken in one afternoon. He brought spare clothes, made me change over and over so it’d look like they were shot on different days.’
I stand with my mouth open, searching for words that don’t come. Anger and sorrow sludge their way in as I imagine that wiry, golden-haired boy I raced down to the little beach, banished to the basement.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I ask gently.
He shrugs. ‘Who wants to admit they’re that fucking unloved by their own father?’
We’re both quiet. I want to tell him that Jeffrey did love him, but we both know it’s probably a lie. ‘Kathryn – did she know?’
‘I told her. Once. Didn’t believe me. Thought I was making it up so I didn’t have to keep coming out here with him.’
Rage bubbles to the surface of me. ‘Seriously?’
‘She was in denial. She wanted Jeffrey to love me like he loved Charlie.’ There’s a quiver to his voice which makes my heart ache. ‘My father was smart; whenever we were around others after we’d come back from a trip, he’d be as nice to me as he was to Charlie. He kept it up for days after. He was so good at pretending even I started to forget what he’d done. I can’t blame my mother for believing him over me, not when he was such a good actor.’
Several times, Jack has compared the relationship I have with my parents to the one he has with his, but I think that’s to make himself feel better because it’s obvious he had it a thousand times worse.
I hug him tightly. ‘I’m sorry.’ It’s a weak offering, but it’s all I have.
‘Come on,’ he says, ‘let’s get out of here.’
He takes my hand and leads me up the narrow stairs. At the top, a thought leaves my brain on a breath. ‘What reason do you think Jeffrey had for not liking you?’
This is a question I’ve tentatively asked before, but, as usual, Jack becomes hard like granite. Then he turns side on to me and says, ‘Who knows what went on in his fucked-up brain in the years before he blew it out all over his office?’ He shrugs. ‘Crazy doesn’t deal in reason.’
He’s telling me a half-truth. I think he knows, or at the very least, has an idea. But I don’t push it. Not tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Three
19 Days Missing
Elodie Fray
The first time I kissed Jack was on the last day I saw Jeffrey Westwood alive.
We were at Jack’s house, sitting on the ledge outside his bedroom window, our bare feet dangling two storeys above the garden below. It was late, there were stars in the sky and the smokiness of a bonfire in the air.
Kathryn and Charlie were visiting Jack’s aunt in Taunton, and Jeffrey was locked away in the belly of the house, poring over emails in his study. We were alone. Jack’s mood was stony, which probably had something to do with the gash that split his bottom lip. One that hadn’t been there when he’d walked me to school that morning.
‘You need to tell Kathryn. If she knew …’
‘I’ve tried. She doesn’t believe me. Doesn’t want to.’
‘But the bruises.’
‘Brushed off as fights at college.’
‘She can’t be that gullible.’
‘She can when she wants to be.’
We lapsed into silence.
‘Jeffrey isn’t a good person,’ he said simply.
‘No, I don’t think he is.’
Silence stretched on. I scooted a little closer. Our arms touched, mine bare and his in a leather jacket I picked up from a charity shop for his birthday. We looked at the sky. There were so many stars. I wanted to say something knowledgeable about constellations, or something profound about life and the universe and how time was finite, and in five years, when he’d moved out and had a job, none of this would matter. It would feel as far away as the stars above us. But I didn’t because Jack whispered, ‘I don’t know if I’m a good person either.’
I frowned. ‘How can you say that?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’
‘You’re so much more like your mum. Everyone says so.’
‘Weak.’
‘Jack …’