‘Now you’re being childish,’ Dom said. ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t come. I just want to know what the outcomes are likely to be.’
‘Hell knows. That’s kinda down to Fran and Marcus.’
‘And that’s my point.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘You’ll be at their mercy.’
‘Yes.’ Even while agreeing, they could argue. The officer was still observing them. Body language didn’t lie.
‘Well, that’s not good, is it?’ Dom pointed out.
‘No. Not good. But that’s the point.’
‘We’re going round in circles. You’re going do it with or without me, aren’t you?’
To which Harry had answered ‘Yeah.’
There was a knock on his cell door. It was Jim. ‘You ready, lad?’
Harry stood up. ‘Yeah.’
Chapter 70
IT WAS all so ordinary.
A room set up ready for a meeting, with tea, coffee and biscuits laid out on the side, a flipchart in the corner. There were only five chairs in the room, arranged in a somewhat pathetic-looking semicircle. Fran and Natalie took their places, but their presence felt inadequate. The space could easily have accommodated twenty or more. Fran had read that some sessions involved whole communities facing down the perpetrator. She’d pored over the stories of neighbours brought together by their indignation over arson attacks; parents who’d stood side-by-side demanding justice for their murdered offspring; siblings who had fought for years for their day of reckoning, after a parent had been left for dead by a drunk driver. There was an army of victims’ families out there, united in their grief and their pursuit of the truth. Today she joined their ranks – while everyone else, including her husband, turned their faces away.
She had never felt more alone.
Chapter 71
HARRY STOOD on the other side of the door. He had never felt more alone.
Jim checked one more time that he was ‘happy’ to go through with the meeting. He nodded. The escorting officer opened the door and Harry walked through it.
There were chairs, set out in a semi-circle. A window. Three people. One of them Fran. No Marcus. No last-minute appearance by Dom. Mugs. A kettle. A plate of biscuits. Touches of humanity. Everyone standing. A woman with severely cropped dark hair taking drinks orders. The banality of it. Then everyone sitting. Harry opposite Fran, too close. Unable to look at her. Voices. The facilitator woman, ‘Kerry Something’, welcoming everyone. A calm voice that didn’t ease the thudding inside Harry’s head or lessen the discomfort of his ribs hitching up and down because there wasn’t enough air in his lungs.
The woman was going through the ‘rules’. There was no need; he had been told them, many times over. They were expected to stick to the basics of a normal conversation – in the most abnormal of circumstances – mutual respect, listening, no interrupting, learning from each other’s experiences. It was a mantra designed to make what they were about to do safe. It didn’t feel safe. Harry had never felt more aware of his body; of the bones in his backside that were making sitting on the plastic chair uncomfortable; of the noise of the air sucking in through his nose and out through his dry mouth; of the crack of his joints as he clenched and unclenched his fists. It was impossible to make himself less present. But there again, that was the point.
Finally the moderator turned to Fran. ‘Do you want to get us started, Fran? Bear in mind that you have your prompts, if you need them. And I’ve got a copy of your questions, should you need me to step in and facilitate at any point.’
There was a silence that was thicker and heavier than anything Harry had ever experienced before. Within that silence was compressed months and months of raw emotion – his and hers. He didn’t look at Fran. He couldn’t. He looked at the floor, not allowing his gaze to stray beyond the confines of his trainers.
‘I want to know what happened?’ Fran’s voice was clear and steady.
It was what he was expecting, what he had prepared for, but it was impossible to answer nevertheless. His trainers were dirty, stained by the months of walking the halls and yards of the prison. The lace on the left shoe had snapped. He’d had to knot and rethread it, so it was laced up wrongly. They were waiting. Fran was waiting. He was waiting.
‘Harry!’ Instinctively he looked up and instantly regretted it. ‘You have to tell me what happened. That’s why I came. You owe me that. You owe Jess that. Tell me what happened.’
She had every right to demand his confession. But still…where was he supposed to begin? He wanted to tell Fran, needed to, but he didn’t know how. Panic took over.
He hadn’t even been aware of Jim, until he felt the pressure of his hand on his arm. ‘Harry. It’s okay. Take a breath. There’s no rush.’ Fran’s face said otherwise. ‘Why don’t you start by telling Mrs Beaumont about the party? About what you and your friends were doing before the crash. Anything at all. Just to get us going.’
Under pressure, Harry blurted out, ‘I only had a couple of drinks.’ Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! That wasn’t what he’d meant to say. What the fuck had he said that for?
He heard Fran inhale – a short gasp of frustration. He’d disappointed her before, hundreds of times when he was a kid, but he’d never seen her look so disgusted.
What he wanted to start with was: I am so, so sorry that I took Jess from you. I would do anything to bring her back, if I could. I understand why you hate me. I hate myself. I hurt Jess. I didn’t mean to. But I did. I wish – more than anything in the world – that I hadn’t, but I did. I loved her, but I treated her like I didn’t. I don’t know why I did that. I regret it. Really, truly regret it. I never meant to hurt her. But that was the problem. I didn’t mean anything enough. I didn’t realise until it was too late how much I loved her. I didn’t appreciate how happy she made me. I didn’t realise that I had to let her know that I loved her by what I did. I was a shit to her that night. And other times. I made her sad. I made her happy as well, some of the time. But I didn’t stick to it. I didn’t stick to her. Not enough. Not in the way she deserved. She was better than me. And I took what we had and fucked it up.
He glanced at Fran. The look of disgust on her face was what he deserved.
The moderator stepped in, trying to make up for his false start. ‘I think what Fran wants from you, Harry, is a description of the events of the night. Why don’t we start with what happened at Alice Mitcham’s house? How did you get there?’
A simple question.
So, fucking answer it, the voice in Harry’s head screamed. He focused on the broken shoelace. ‘I drove to the party.’ Everyone sat back a fraction in their chairs – Harry could tell by the readjustment of their feet. He made himself keep going. ‘I picked Jake and Tish up from her house, and we went on from there.’ He was already forgetting that there were details Fran didn’t know, couldn’t know – because they had kept things from her. But now was the time for telling her the truth. ‘Jess was already at my house. She got ready there.’ Fran made another odd noise, a strange, stuttery kind of inward breath, like his words had got stuck in her windpipe. ‘Jess had said that she was staying with Gabbie.’