make it work, and she had to wonder if they’d stayed together whether this would have happened. Impossible to know, and one of those things that if you thought about it too much would drive you stark, staring mad.
Just when Julie thought things couldn’t get any worse, Matt had raised the subject of the ‘formal identification’. That’s what he’d called it. Identifying the body was what he meant, as if there could be any doubt about whether it was Jordan or not. If it wasn’t and the police had put them through all this torment, she might just scream until there was no air left in her lungs, though that would also mean their daughter was still alive.
Jake had offered to do it so eagerly, like they were keeping him from something. As if he had a prior engagement somewhere – and she realised then that she knew absolutely nothing about his personal situation. Was there someone waiting back home for him, worrying about him? Strangely she felt a twinge of jealousy at that.
Greg had wanted to spare her the pain of going, was all for just letting Jake head off alone, but Julie needed to be there. Needed to see this, for her own sake. Needed to find the inner strength from somewhere. She hadn’t wanted to sit with Jake though, so had asked the liaison officer to come as well; with them in the back of Matt’s dark blue BMW and Jake in the passenger seat.
No one really spoke on the way to the hospital, except for when Jake’s mobile buzzed in his pocket and he’d reached in and switched it off. Work trying to reach him, he explained, but he didn’t want to talk to them. He wanted to get this done, it seemed. Get it out of the way … That just made Julie even angrier.
Matt had steered them up one familiar road and down another, spinning off on another roundabout that would take them to The Royal. Even up to the point that they were let into the morgue, let into the ice-cold room where the body was being kept, Julie had dared to hope. But not once the body had been pulled out of one of those huge things that looked like giant filing cabinets, drawers containing not papers and documents but frozen corpses. Julie had even expected the man in the white clothing to walk down the length of the wall of drawers rubbing his chin and saying: ‘Now where did we put her? O … P … Q … R! Here we go, R for Radcliffe!’
Jordan had never taken Greg’s name, had been too old for that really, adoption – if she’d even wanted it. R instead of A for Allaway … Putting off the moment once more, in her head at any rate. But there had been no denying anything once that drawer had been opened, the slab dragged out on those wheels which somehow kept the body horizontal, like some kind of magic trick where you dragged a hoop down the floating woman.
Then the man was ready to pull down the sheet, the one last barrier to the truth. Julie had moved closer to Jake, was at the side of him, couldn’t have been closer, and – without even thinking – she’d snaked her hand into his. Holding it tightly, so tight she was practically cutting off her circulation, then reaching across and grabbing his arm with the other one – squeezing that too. Praying, as he probably was, that this wasn’t Jordon splayed out in front of them.
And even when the sheet was down, the magician’s curtain swept back, revealing her face – even as Julie’s hands released their grip and went to her mouth, a stifled scream emerging – for a moment or two Jake looked like he refused to believe it. As if this was a special effect from one of those movies he liked … Prosthetics, life-casts, weren’t they called?
Jesus, she was so, so, pale: creamy-white skin, verging on blue. The lips definitely blue. Hair dull, eyes closed.
‘I-Is it Jordan?’ asked Matt, knowing the answer already.
‘It’s her,’ replied Jake, because Julie couldn’t even speak.
Then suddenly she was in his arms, completing what they’d started back in the living room. Jake held her as she turned away from the sight, as each sob wracked against his body. Yet there had been no tears from him.
‘Our baby.’ She spoke it into his shoulder. ‘Our baby!’
‘What happened?’ she heard Jake whisper to their child. ‘What were you doing out there, sweetheart? Why? Why did this have to happen …?’
Julie finally pulled her head away, saw that he was looking at something else and followed his gaze. One of Jordan’s arms, the closest to them – her left – was uncovered also. The skin of the hand and arm matched that face: drained, lifeless. But he’d definitely spotted something. Something a little higher, past her elbow. On her upper arm were some scratches. No, not scratches … cuts.
More wounds that had been inflicted during whatever struggle occurred? In her mind’s eye, Julie pictured their daughter fighting for her life, maybe even gouging an eye or two … she hoped. Only these looked a little older, more faded. They didn’t look defensive, either.
‘W-What are those?’ asked Jake suddenly, his voice cracking. The hand that had been on Julie’s back, rubbing and patting, fell away and he was pointing at the scars. Matt and the liaison officer were rounding the table, as was the man in white. All craning their necks to see.
‘I … I’m not sure,’ said the doctor, getting closer, then looking to the police officers in the room.
‘We’ll know more after the post-mortem,’ Matt informed Jake. Standard detective patter.
‘Are they … They look self-inflicted,’ he said by way of a reply.
Julie was frowning, sniffing back the tears, swallowing dryly.
‘Did you know about this?’ Jake asked her. ‘Was Jordan self-harming?’
‘Jake …’ said Matt. ‘Take it easy.’
‘Was she?’ Jake asked again.
‘I … I don’t know,’ Julie replied honestly. If she had been, she’d hid it well, there had been no signs of it.
Jake was stepping back, rubbing his forehead. ‘Good God. What could have made her …?’
‘I … I don’t …’ Julie was repeating.
‘Well, something was clearly worrying her – quite a bit if she was doing that to herself.’
Matt walked around to Jake. ‘Look, we don’t even know that—’
‘You can see it, as plainly as I can. Just what the hell was going on?’
Julie was getting mad again, glaring at Jake accusingly. ‘You might have found out, if you’d been around.’
‘Been around? Julie, she didn’t want me around!’
Is that what he thought? What he’d thought all this time? ‘That’s … That’s not true. You’re both as bad as each other. Both so stubborn, you’re …’ Julie had realised that she was talking in the present tense about her daughter, when it should have been in the past. But then she changed tack completely and her last words were intended to hurt: ‘You left her when she needed you the most.’
There was silence again, broken only when Matt said, ‘I think we’re about done here.’
About done. They were definitely about done.
Julie didn’t remember a lot of the next bit, probably because there wasn’t that much to recall. The pair of them being taken to a small café inside the hospital, away from the main drag and inside a little nook. Being furnished with more tea by the liaison woman, Matt insisting that they should eat something and when nobody replied buying them sandwiches anyway which Julie and Jake simply stared at like they no longer understood what food was, or how to process it.
How to process anything.
Every now and again they’d look up, at each other – accusatory stares saying everything that needed saying without words. A telepathic tennis match, words batted back and forth across the net.
Him: I told you, I said this so many times. That something like this would happen if we didn’t do something.
Her: And what