Dark Spaces Read online

Sam slouched in the landing outside Lilly’s bedroom, a toothbrush lodged in the side of his mouth.

  ‘You should be asleep,’ she said.

  He pulled out the brush and waggled it, his lips ringed with white froth. ‘Why did you and Dad split up?’

  Lilly opened her mouth to give a platitude about no longer being able to live together.

  ‘And don’t give me any of that shit about not being able to live together,’ said Sam.

  Lilly let her lips fall shut. What could she say? Did Sam really need to know that his Dad had got bored of Lilly? That he’d started an affair?

  ‘Dad says it’s because you didn’t trust him. He says that’s why you split up with Jack too. He says you have issues.’

  Lilly felt a strong urge to tell Sam a few home truths but she kept it in check. ‘He’s quite the amateur psychologist isn’t he?’

  Sam pointed the brush at her. ‘He says it’s because your dad took off when you were a kid.’

  ‘All very interesting,’ said Lilly. ‘But let me refer you to the evidence here: our resident relationship expert is currently having to sleep on our sofa.’ She closed the lid of her laptop. ‘The truth is, big man, marriages end for all sorts of complicated reasons and things are never as straightforward as he did this or she did that. What’s important here is that your dad and I get on better than ever.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like that downstairs,’ said Sam.

  ‘Once again can I refer you to the evidence. Dad is sleeping on our sofa.’

  Sam pouted. The toothpaste had dried to chalky scabs that flaked down his chin.

  ‘Now go to bed for God’s sake,’ she said. ‘As much as I love these light-hearted little chats it’s ten o’clock on a Monday night.’

  She listened to the sound of the tap running, then the creak of his bed as he made himself comfortable before she allowed herself to return to her work. Trust issues indeed. She’d give David a royal bollocking tomorrow morning.

  PC Rashid put his foot to the floor and we managed to overtake the Mercedes.

  I turned around, looked at the driver through our rear window and made another gesture for the driver to pull over. Once again she did not do as requested and as PC Rashid began to slow, she hit the back of our car.

  We continued to slow and the driver of the Mercedes attempted to get round us several times, leaving PC Rashid with no alternative than to place the squad car in its way. It hit us a further three times.

  In this way, we forced the Mercedes to slow and I assumed the driver would eventually stop. However, when we reached approximately twenty miles per hour, the Mercedes veered off the road to its left, crashing through trees and undergrowth, landing with force in a ditch.

  PC Rashid brought the squad car to a halt and I ran towards the Mercedes, which was badly damaged from the accident. I opened the driver’s door and found the female driver slumped over the steering wheel. Her hair was covered in shattered glass from the windscreen. Her left hand was outstretched onto the passenger seat and she was still holding a bottle of Smirnoff vodka.

  I asked her repeatedly if she was all right, but did not want to move her in case of injury. After a few seconds the female appeared to come round and she turned her face to me. At this point I could see that she was younger than eighteen and that her mouth was covered in blood.

  She mumbled something to me that I could not make out so I knelt down and put my ear to her lips. I could smell alcohol strongly on her breath.

  ‘You shouldn’t have stopped me,’ she said.

  I pointed out that she was driving in a reckless manner endangering not only her own life but the lives of others.

  ‘You shouldn’t have stopped me,’ she repeated.

  At that point the ambulance arrived and I handed the scene to the paramedics who took the female away on a stretcher.

  As gently as she could manage, Lilly lifted Alice from the nesting place on her chest and placed the baby in the cot beside her bed. Lilly held her breath as Alice’s eyes fluttered open. When she cranked herself up, Alice could scream into the small hours and, having just read the shocking statement of WPC Knight, Lilly knew that she was going to need a good night’s sleep before her appointment at the Grove in the morning.

  Tyler has fallen asleep on the settee so Gem puts her coat over him. He needs a clean nappy but there wasn’t enough money left after she’d bought food, fags and saved a couple of quid for the meter.

  Mum looks up from the telly. ‘He’ll get a sore bum.’

  Gem don’t say nothing. Nothing she can say. There weren’t enough left.

  ‘We don’t want the social on our backs again,’ Mum says.

  Their caseworker, Maria, is a proper cow. One time she checked the baby and he had rotten nappy rash so she put him on the child protection register. Being honest, it were pretty bad, the skin peeling off and bleeding and that, but all it needed was some cream from the doctor’s.

  ‘That bitch is just waiting for me to slip up,’ says Mum. ‘Then they’ll put Tyler up for adoption and we’ll never see him again.’

  She don’t worry so much about Gem. If they put her in care again, there’s not much can happen at her age. They might find a foster family, but probably not. Wherever they place her she’ll just get on the next bus home.

  Mum opens the packet of Bensons, counts them up to make sure she’s got two left for the morning, and lights one. Gem fishes in the ashtray and finds one she nipped earlier then she flicks through the channels to find something to watch.

  ‘I hate that one,’ says Mum, when Gem settles on a programme about traffic police.

  ‘There ain’t nothing else on,’ says Gem.

  Gem laughs as some boy on a dirt bike gets chased through an estate, ’til he hits the kerb and it flies from under him. The copper jumps out of his car and tears after him. But he’s a fat bastard and the kid gets away on his toes. He thinks he’s escaped when another police car pulls up right in front of him.

  ‘He’s fucked now,’ says Mum.

  The boy spins around, trying to work out which way to run, but there’s filth on all sides of him. The first copper, the fat one, is on him now and looks like he wants to give him a right clump. Gem cringes, waiting for the fist to strike.

  Instead, the telly goes dead and they’re plunged into darkness.

  ‘Shit,’ says Gem.

  The money in the meter has run out.

  They sit there for a few seconds, their fag ends glowing red in the black, ’til their eyes get used to it. Then Gem stabs out her dog-end and picks up the baby. Maria says he should be sleeping in his own bed now, but the sheets ain’t been changed. And anyway he prefers it in with Gem.

  ‘Might as well go to bed,’ she says.

  ‘Might as well,’ says Mum, but she don’t move.

  Chapter Two

  In the Central Criminal Court Case number 1374

  Regina

  v.

  Talbot, Talbot and Yates

  On 11 June 2004, His Honour Judge Wilkes ordered reports to be prepared on the convicted defendants George and Sinead Talbot and Mary-Ann Yates in order to assist with their sentencing.

  In my capacity as a probation officer, I was tasked with the report on Sinead Talbot and scheduled three appointments with her at HMP Highpoint where she was in custody.

  During the first meeting on 18 June, Mrs Talbot remained extremely taciturn for much of our time together.

  She spoke only to confirm that she had been born Sinead Yates on 9 May 1969 in Liverpool and that she had spent her childhood living with her parents who were immigrants from County Cork in Eire, though she spent extensive periods in the care of the local authority.

  Mrs Talbot would not comment on why she had been taken into care and unfortunately there is scant documentation on the Social Services file. There is an indication that on at least two separate occasions her mother voluntarily placed her daughter into the hands of social workers.

  The record does however
show that at fifteen, Mrs Talbot ran away from the children’s home where she was then residing and became pregnant to and engaged with George Talbot, the first defendant. He was twenty-seven at the time.

  Mrs Talbot confirmed by nod only that she miscarried that child, but married her husband two days after her sixteenth birthday.

  When I asked Mrs Talbot to describe her marriage she did not reply, eventually placing her hands over her face. She did not acknowledge any further questions and did not provide any explanation as to why she, her husband and her sister abused their victims. She did not, in fact, move.

  As the end of our appointment drew close and I stood to leave, Mrs Talbot finally looked up at me and asked if I had seen her ‘babies’. I informed her that I had not met the children. She told me that was a great shame and that they had ‘lovely manners’.

  Lilly poured boiling water over instant coffee, the steam swirling around the kitchen.

  ‘Milk no sugar,’ David called from inside his sleeping bag.

  ‘Get it yourself,’ Lilly shouted back. ‘This isn’t a bloody bed and breakfast.’

  All the same, she pulled another mug from the cupboard and shovelled in a spoonful of granules. When David ambled into the room in his boxer shorts, she thrust the drink into his hands. ‘Sleep well?’

  He frowned his answer.

  ‘I’d jump in the shower before Sam if I were you,’ said Lilly. ‘Or there’ll be no hot water left.’

  ‘Haven’t you had the boiler fixed yet?’ David asked.

  ‘My ex-husband insists on sending his son to private school,’ said Lilly. ‘After the fees we can barely afford to eat.’

  David slapped Lilly on her ample backside. ‘You don’t look starving to me.’

  She laughed. He wasn’t being rude. He’d always had quite a thing for curves. Or so she thought before he took up with the bag of bones that was Botox Belle.

  ‘Towels are in the airing cupboard,’ she said, ushering him upstairs. ‘And whatever you do, don’t come down while Jack’s here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Lilly sighed. ‘You know how prickly he gets. He’s already on the warpath about not coming to the hospital with me yesterday. If he finds out you’re staying here, it’ll just make things even more difficult than they already are.’

  David shrugged and headed into the bathroom. Lilly knew she was being daft about what Jack might think. First, David was just crashing on the sofa, and second, it really was none of Jack’s business. But there didn’t seem any point in troubling trouble.

  When the doorbell rang, she scooped up Alice and opened the door. Alice beamed at the sight of her daddy.

  ‘Hello, angel.’ Jack took the baby from Lilly. ‘I hear you were a very brave girl for the doctors.’

  Lilly laughed. ‘She screamed the bloody place down.’

  Jack’s smile fell. ‘You said she was fine.’

  ‘Relax, Jack. I’m joking. She was fine. She was just being Alice.’

  Jack looked from Alice to Lilly and back again, clearly unsure where the truth lay. Lilly knew there was nothing else she could say and bent down for Alice’s changing bag.

  ‘Everything’s in there.’ She handed it to Jack. Their conversation was at an end.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Lilly kissed Alice’s head and was grateful when she shut the door behind them.

  ‘You don’t have to be so rude.’ Sam was chewing a piece of toast.

  ‘How was I rude?’

  ‘You couldn’t wait to get rid of him.’

  ‘It’s tricky at the moment.’ Lilly’s stomach rumbled. She was starving. ‘Jack’s being tricky at the moment.’

  ‘Whereas you …’ Sam let it hang in the air.

  Lilly marched to the kitchen and rammed a slice of bread into the toaster. ‘Whereas I am just trying to do my bloody best.’

  She waited for it to pop and then smeared it thickly with butter and lime marmalade.

  ‘Any going spare?’ David appeared with a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping down his bare chest.

  ‘Not a chance,’ Lilly told him.

  ‘Oh go on.’

  Lilly waved him away, but he stood there opening and closing his mouth like baby chick.

  ‘Jesus,’ Lilly laughed and shoved the toast into his mouth as if she were posting a letter, vaguely registering the doorbell ringing again.

  The next moment Jack was stood in the kitchen with Sam behind him mouthing an apology. Jack’s face darkened at the sight of Lilly and her ex-husband frolicking half-naked in her kitchen.

  ‘Hello, David,’ he said.

  David ripped the toast from his mouth and swallowed what was left. ‘Hi, Jack.’

  ‘David’s staying here for a few days,’ Lilly said. ‘On the sofa.’

  Jack nodded coldly. ‘I just wondered if you’d got any antiseptic. Alice’s arm looks a bit inflamed where the needle went in.’

  Lilly rummaged in the drawer where she kept her first aid kit. Among the empty packets of aspirin and out-of-date cold sore cream she found a half-used tube of Savlon.

  ‘I changed the plaster this morning,’ she said.

  The tube of cream was missing its cap and there were congealed lumps around the nozzle. Lilly grabbed a piece of kitchen roll and wiped it clean. The smell of antiseptic hit the back of her throat.

  Jack took the tube. ‘Like I say, it looks a bit inflamed.’

  Lilly was still cursing herself as she arrived outside the Grove. Why had she tried to hide the fact that David was staying? She should have just told Jack what was happening. Instead, the situation had put her on the back foot.

  She glanced at her mobile, abandoned in the central console. Should she call him? Try to clear the air? Then again, why should she? They were finished. Over. Not long ago it had mattered to her what he thought. Then he’d started something with a cute little teacher from South Africa. All slender legs and smooth blonde hair. He said he hadn’t slept with her, and Lilly believed him. Or at least she wanted to. But ultimately it didn’t matter. While she’d been swollen and irritable with pregnancy, Jack had been sneaking around, enjoying dinners out and secret texts. That was enough for Lilly.

  She turned off her phone and slid it into her jacket pocket.

  The Grove had an impressive red-brick facade, the gaping entrance flanked by white columns. Built at the turn of the nineteenth century, it was impeccably maintained, swallowing government funding like a frog swallows flies. Its beauty had seen off numerous attempts to shut it down and replace it with a site built for purpose and efficiency.

  Lilly grabbed her bag, locked the Mini and strode inside with more confidence than she felt. She absolutely detested hospitals, and if forced to come within spitting distance of one would start to sweat and shiver as if she had flu. It had been this way since her mother had died slowly and painfully when Lilly was twenty-one.

  She fiddled with her top button and plastered on a grin, telling herself that this was different. This was a facility providing mental health care and conducting research. No one was dying.

  By the time she approached the reception desk, her cheeks were beginning to ache with the width of her grin.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The receptionist wore a jersey wrap dress, pearl droplet earrings and a smile.

  ‘I’m here to see Lydia Morton-Daley,’ Lilly replied.

  Before the receptionist could answer, a nurse, who had been ferreting in a drawer, interrupted. ‘Visiting hours are not until two.’

  ‘I’m a solicitor,’ Lilly told her. ‘I have an appointment.’

  ‘A solicitor?’ the nurse asked.

  Lilly didn’t let her smile fade. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You’d better call Doctor Piper,’ the nurse told the receptionist.

  The receptionist nodded and swivelled her chair so that her back was to Lilly, then she spoke quietly into a telephone. At last she replaced the receiver and came ba
ck to Lilly.

  ‘Take a seat.’

  The two women spoke in hushed tones as Lilly did as she was told, tucking her ankles under the chair, scanning the room. To her left was a low table scattered with leaflets. She picked up the brightest, shocking pink letters screaming at her to ‘Spot the signs of an eating disorder’. As she read through the ten most common ways to identify anorexia, she noticed someone had scrawled a tiny message in biro: ‘Fuck food’.

  ‘Miss Valentine?’

  Lilly looked up at a man in his mid-forties, eyes dark brown and accentuated by laughter lines, a smattering of grey at his temples. The nurse pounced on him and hissed something Lilly didn’t catch. The man tapped her shoulders with the blades of his hands three times. Chop, chop, chop. Then moved towards Lilly.

  ‘Harry Piper.’ He held out his hand to Lilly. ‘I’ve taken over Sheba’s patient list while she produces the next Nobel prizewinning psychotherapist.’

  Lilly shook his hand. The grip was firm, the skin of his palm smooth against hers.

  ‘Our guest says she’s a solicitor,’ the nurse told him.

  He turned to her. ‘It’s fine, Elaine. We’re expecting her.’

  The nurse gave Lilly a final look and left.

  ‘Don’t mind Elaine.’ Piper bent his head towards Lilly. ‘She’s very suspicious.’

  ‘Of what?’ Lilly asked.

  Piper laughed. ‘Everything.’ He gestured to a side door. ‘Shall we?’

  Lilly nodded and let him lead her through to the corridor beyond.

  ‘Have you ever been in a mental hospital before?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s not how most people imagine,’ he said.

  ‘What do most people imagine?’ Lilly asked.

  There was a twinkle in his eye. ‘Oh I don’t know. A cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Jacob’s Ladder. Lots of blood and screaming into the night.’

  Actually Lilly had pictured it as pretty calm. The patients koshed by antipsychotic medicine.