[Isle of Wight 2013]
Sandra reminded herself to keep her big mouth shut in future.
She couldn’t wait to leave the carriage and stood the short journey to Portsmouth Harbour, desperate for the train to stop and the door to open. She half ran, half walked along the platform and down the slope towards the Catamaran. Knowing she had plenty of time before the next boat, she headed for the toilet dragging her case into the cubicle behind her. After locking the door, she collapsed against the wall, her hands clammy, her mouth dry. The acrid stench of industrial cleaner caught in the back of her throat making her feel sick. What a fool. Given she prided herself on her newfound anonymity, she had done a great job of etching herself in Technicolor on a psychopath’s brain.
Using her thumbnail, she prized opened her rose locket, turning it to study the picture of her son’s face. If just looking at an image could wear it out, Carl’s photo would have faded long ago.
Here was proof of the happy, carefree life they had once shared. Carl was smiling, his eyes screwed up, squinting into the sun, overjoyed with his new scooter, her gift to him on his seventh birthday. It was taken in their garden at Muswell Hill. That glorious, perfumed space that had been the backdrop to so many golden and indolent days with her little boy. She could still smell the chamomile lawn and hear his laughter as he rode down the long manicured sweep of grass towards the back of the house.
‘Watch me, Mum! Watch me!’ he yelled, swerving to a halt beside the yew hedge. ‘Wow! Did you see that?’
She grabbed her camera from the bench.
‘Smile, Carl.’
Immediately, he grinned obligingly into the lens. As she pressed the shutter, he laughed and sped away.
Then, the scream.
Instinctively, she dropped the camera and ran towards the front garden. The scooter was on its side, the back wheel spinning. Carl was a little way off, face down on the path, a trickle of blood meandering like a worm across the paving stones. Frantically, she squatted beside him.
‘Carl! Carl! Talk to Mummy.’
She knelt down on the ground beside him, muddying the knees of her white trousers.
‘Carl?’
‘My…head…hurts.’
‘Mummy kiss it better,’ she said, brushing her lips against his grazed cheek.
‘Get off,’ he said pushing her away and getting to his feet.
Staggering backwards before getting up, she was relieved to see it was just a flesh wound. Nothing a dab of antiseptic and a plaster wouldn’t put right.
She was his mother but had been unable to protect him then and she certainly could not shield him from danger now.
That job fell to strangers, trained police officers heading up the Witness Protection Programme.
It would soon be Carl’s birthday but unlike all those years ago, she could not take his photo this year. The most she could hope for was a call, made from an untraceable location, as always. At least she could hear his voice and speak to him. Texts and emails were too risky. Carl wrote letters but each one took six weeks to reach her after going through the rigorous security process demanded by the Programme. She looked forward to holding the pages he had held and reading the words he had written. Recently, the paper had reeked of cigarette smoke. Who could blame him? He needed something to relieve the stress.
Sometimes it seemed like he was the one being punished, banished as he had been to the furthest corner of the country, alienated from his family and friends. Even his new job left him feeling frustrated and unfulfilled.
Sandra suffered too. Every day, she feared he would be killed in a reprisal attack, his life taken in return for the life sentence his evidence had secured.
She shivered and checked the time on her phone. The Catamaran was leaving in four minutes. She unlocked the door and ran through the departure hall to join the queue, relieved to be just another face in the crowd.
‘You cut that fine!’ the ticket collector said with a smile.
Ignoring his comment, she hurried down the tunnel and onto the boat, choosing to sit alone by the window. Looking out across the Solent, she replayed her encounter with the stranger on the train and felt inwardly embarrassed at how flirtatious she must have appeared. Fancy even talking to the man, let alone leading him on just to make herself feel a little less invisible. Pathetic. As for telling him she had a son, that was an unforgivable breech of trust. But her words could not be unsaid.
Blending into the background had never been her forte. Less of a wallflower and more of a burgeoning rose, people remembered her. What had been a blessing in her previous role as Director of a London PR agency had become a curse, ensuring she was often remembered for things best forgotten.
Her innate sense of right and wrong left her compelled to speak out if she witnessed an injustice and she had always encouraged Carl to do the same. Now look where it had got him, living in fear with an invented past and an uncertain future. Even his name had been changed, supposedly to protect the innocent. It rankled with her that he had been forced to live a lie for telling the truth.
‘If you go back to London, you will be murdered,’ the police officer had told Carl. ‘There’s always someone happy to step up, a family member out for revenge or someone from the gang who wants to be seen as some sort of hero. Unfortunately, you weren’t to know it but you couldn’t have picked a more notorious family, the Elliotts will not let this go. You’re the enemy, they want you dead.’
The words had cemented themselves into the very fabric of her being, the bricks on which her new life would be built. Sandra wasn’t eligible to join the Witness Protection Programme but instinct told her to leave London. If the Elliotts couldn’t find Carl, they would come after her.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated in her pocket making her jump. Automatically, she clicked on the email. Much to her annoyance it was just an online bookseller suggesting new titles. Recently, she had bought several paperbacks from them and since then they had bombarded her with new titles she might like to read. Smart.
Such technology in the wrong hands meant Carl’s whereabouts were just a click away. These days, social media made it all too easy to track someone down. Carl couldn’t afford to leave a digital footprint. The police had made that very clear. Even a photo of him could give away his whereabouts. All it would take to flush him out would be an iconic landmark or a stretch of familiar scenery. It would be tantamount to giving the enemy his co-ordinates.
As the Catamaran slowed, a voice announced their arrival at Ryde. Sandra joined the throng of people threading their way off the boat and up the ramp. Some headed towards the station to catch the old London Underground train that ran along the pier. Others enjoyed reunions with loved ones in the car park where they embraced before loading their luggage and driving away to what Sandra imagined were idyllic lives.
She set off resolutely on the long walk down the pier, enjoying the feeling of being suspended over the water and getting glimpses of the waves below. At that moment, the island struck her a uniquely beautiful place. Something about the view of the town from half a mile out to sea reminded her of Venice with its elaborate, arched palazzos hugging the waterfront. It may have been a leap of imagination not shared by others but it didn’t bother her; she only had herself to please.
Her phone vibrated again. A text.
‘Hope you didn’t chat up any more murderers on the boat!!!! x’
It was her friend, Rob, carrying on what he thought was a harmless joke.
Annoyed, she threw the phone into her bag.
The sound of the Hover skimming the waves alarmed her, reminding her of the man on the train. He would have caught the earlier one and arrived here about an hour ago. She could just make out The Lud across the road from the pier and hoped Ben wasn’t waiting outside to greet her.
She told herself she was being silly. Although their encounter had unnerved her, doubtless it had been nothing more than a game to him. He would have forgotten her already. Nonetheless, her legs shook, her right foot like a puppet’s, pawing uselessly at the pavement, momentarily unable to take her weight. She held onto the railings to steady herself, suddenly aware she was shivering.
Eventually, she reached the end of the pier and rounded the corner into the bus depot where she was relieved to see the No 9 to Newport.
‘Shorwell, please,’ she told the driver breathlessly, handing him the fare.
She went upstairs and sat in the front seat where she tried not to glimpse inside other people’s homes. But with their curtains open, their cosy lives were laid bare. She looked away, not wanting to be reminded of the normality she would never again experience.
The bus terminated at Newport where Sandra changed onto the No 12.
‘Hello, there,’ said the driver. ‘Been anywhere nice?’
She smiled briefly and showed him her ticket before finding a seat near the door.
To most people, familiar faces and friendly greetings were a charming aspect of island life but recently Sandra had found it an unwelcome intrusion.
As they neared Bowcombe, the houses gave way to fields and farms. The sheep and cows were a welcome sight.
The driver stopped at The Crown in Shorwell without her even having to ring the bell. It unnerved Sandra; he must have remembered where she lived from a previous journey.
‘Have a good evening,’ he said closing the doors behind her.
Sandra walked along the narrow lane and up the stone path to her cottage. It was in darkness. She wasn’t the sort to leave lights and lamps on timers, never convinced anyone would be fooled into thinking she was at home when she wasn’t.
Turning the key in the lock, she pushed open the door and automatically clicked on the light. The smell of curry greeted her. She had made a large pan of madras the night before she left so she wouldn’t have to cook when she got back. She was looking forward to the bottle of Chablis waiting for her in the fridge. Three glasses was usually all it took to blot out the past and have the required soporific effect.
She carelessly wheeled her case over the mail, having noted it was mainly brown envelopes and nothing from Carl.
She bent down and collected up the letters. The impersonal marketing shots could go straight in the bin and the bills would have to wait. A flier with the headline, ‘No wind farms in West Wight’ took her interest. She picked it up, revealing a small, rectangular plastic card. It was obviously some clever piece of advertising, a mock credit card perhaps to convince people to want one. For a moment, she was back at work, pitching smart ideas to clients. For a moment, she felt good, like her old self. Then, she examined it closely.
It was an Oyster card.