Looking for JJ Read online

  “Like any other offender Jennifer Jones has been carefully vetted. It was the considered opinion of all those concerned that she poses no threat to children and accordingly she was released under licence and is currently living in a safe environment. Any talk of revenge or vigilante action is wholly inappropriate and will be dealt with in the most rigorous manner.”

  Where was Jennifer Jones? That’s what everyone was saying. There were only a handful of people in the country who knew. Alice Tully was one of them.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Prologue

  Title page

  Part One: Alice Tully

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Two: Jennifer Jones

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part Three: Alice Tully

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part Four: Kate Rickman

  Chapter 27

  Copyright

  part one: Alice Tully

  Everyone was looking for Jennifer Jones. She was dangerous, the newspapers said. She posed a threat to children and should be kept behind bars. The public had a right to know where she was. Some of the weekend papers even resurrected the old headline: A Life for a Life!

  Alice Tully read every article she could find. Her boyfriend, Frankie, was bemused. He couldn’t understand why she was so fascinated. He put his arm around her shoulder and dipped his mouth into her neck while she was reading. Alice tried to push him away but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and in the end the newspaper crumpled and slipped on to the ground.

  Alice couldn’t resist Frankie. He was bigger and taller than her, but that wasn’t difficult. Most people were. Alice was small and thin and often bought her clothes cheaply in the children’s section of clothes shops. Frankie was a giant beside her, and liked to pick her up and carry her around, especially if they were having an argument. It was his way of making up.

  She was lucky to have him.

  She much preferred to read the articles about Jennifer Jones when she was on her own. It meant waiting until Rosie, the woman she lived with, was out at work. It gave her plenty of time. Rosie worked long hours. She was a social worker and had a lot of clients to see. In any case the stories about Jennifer Jones weren’t around all the time. They came in waves. Sometimes they roared from the front page, the headlines bold and demanding. Sometimes they were tiny, a column on an inside page, a nugget of gossip floating on the edge of the news, hardly causing a ripple of interest.

  When the killing first happened the news was in every paper for months. The trial had thrown up dozens of articles from all angles. The events on that terrible day at Berwick Waters. The background. The home life of the children. The school reports. The effects on the town. The law regarding children and murder. Some of the tabloids focused on the seedier side: the attempts to cover up the crime; the details of the body; the lies told by the children. Alice Tully hadn’t seen any of these at the time. She had been too young. In the past six months, though, she had read as much as she could get her hands on, and the question that lay under every word that had ever been printed was the same. How could a ten-year-old girl kill another child?

  In the weeks leading up to the ninth of June, Alice Tully’s seventeenth birthday, the stories started again. Jennifer Jones had finally been released. She had served six years for murder (the judge had called it manslaughter but that was just a nice word). She had been let out on licence which meant that she could be called back to prison at any time. She had been relocated somewhere far from where she was brought up. She had a new identity and no one would know who she was and what she had done.

  Alice fell hungrily on these reports, just as she sat coiled up and tense in front of Rosie’s telly, using her thumb to race past the satellite channels, catching every bit of footage of the Jennifer Jones case. The news programmes still used the only photograph that there had ever been of the ten year old. A small girl with long hair and a fringe, a frowning expression on her face. JJ was the little girl’s nickname. The journalists loved it. It made Alice feel weak just to look at it.

  On the morning of her birthday Rosie woke her up with a birthday card and present.

  “Here, sleepyhead.”

  Alice opened her eyes and looked upwards at Rosie. She had her dark suit on and the white striped blouse she always wore with it. Her hair was tied back off her face, making her look serious and stern. Instead of her usual hanging earrings she was wearing gold studs. It was not the way Rosie liked to dress.

  “Don’t tell me, you’re in court today!” Alice said, sitting up, stretching her arms out, ruffling her fingers through her own short hair.

  “You guessed it!” Rosie said. “Here, take this, birthday girl!”

  Alice took the present while Rosie walked to the window and pushed it open. A light breeze wafted in, lifting the net curtains. Alice pulled the duvet tight, up to her neck.

  “Do you want to freeze me to death?” she said, jokingly.

  Rosie took no notice. She loved fresh air. She spent a lot of her time opening windows and Alice spent a lot of time closing them.

  Inside the wrapping paper was a small box, the kind that held jewellery. For a moment Alice was worried. Rosie’s taste in jewellery was a bit too arty for her. She lifted the lid off gingerly and saw a pair of tiny gold earrings.

  “These are lovely,” Alice said and felt a strange lump in her throat.

  “More your taste than mine,” Rosie said, looking in Alice’s wall mirror and pulling at her jacket, using the flats of her hands to smooth out her skirt. She looked uncomfortable.

  Alice got out of bed and stood beside her. She held an earring up to one ear and nodded approvingly. Then she squeezed Rosie’s arm.

  “You’re on lates this week?” Rosie said.

  Alice nodded. She didn’t have to be at work until ten.

  “I’ll be home early. So I’m going to cook a special meal,” Rosie said. “And it’s not only your birthday we’re celebrating. Next Saturday, you’ll have been here for six months!”

  That was true. Six months of waking up every morning in that bedroom, of eating in Rosie’s kitchen, of seeing her name on letters: Alice Tully, 52 Phillip Street, Croydon.

  “My mum’s coming. What about Frankie?”

  Rosie had been making a special cake that had been hidden from Alice. Her mother Kathy, a funny Irish woman, was helping her.

  “He can’t come.”

  She didn’t bother to explain. Frankie said he felt awkward around Rosie, as though she was watching him, waiting to tell him off every time he touched Alice. He preferred it when they were alone.

  “Oh well. It’ll be just the three of us then.”

  After Rosie left Alice sat on her bed holding the earrings and looking at her card. There would be nothing from her mother, she knew that. She sat very still for a moment, aware of her own body, trying to read her own sensations. Was she upset? She had other presents and cards. She had Frankie and her friends from the Coffee Pot. Then there was Rosie herself. Rosie with her powerful hug and no-nonsense manner; Rosie who smelled of lemons and garlic and basil and who was always trying to fatten her up. Dear, sweet Rosie. Alice hadn’t
known that such people existed.

  The sound of the letterbox distracted her. She got up and took her card over to the mantelpiece and stood it up. Then she walked downstairs to the front door where the morning paper was sticking through the letterbox. She pulled it out, taking care not to graze it or tear the pages, and took it back up to the kitchen. Without looking she laid it down on the kitchen table and got on with making her breakfast. She tipped out some cereal and poured milk into her bowl. One dessertspoon of sugar was all she wanted. Then she got out the orange juice and poured herself exactly half a glass. Where eating was concerned she had a routine. She wasn’t fussed about her weight or her shape. She just ate what she wanted and no amount of persuasion from anyone was going to change that.

  She sat down and flattened the newspaper. There it was again, the headline she had expected.

  JENNIFER JONES FREE AFTER SIX YEARS

  Is this justice?

  Her wrist trembled as she lowered her spoon into the bowl and scooped up some cereal. The story was the same as every other one that she had read over the last weeks. Should Jennifer have been released? Should she stay in Britain? Is she a danger to children? Then there was the revenge angle: Would the dead girl’s parents try to find Jennifer?

  As ever, the newspaper gave a brief outline of the story of that day at Berwick Waters. Alice read it. It was just like all the others. She had read them all. If anyone had asked she could have probably recited it by heart.

  A bright blue day in May, six years before. The sun was staring down from the sky but a sharp breeze bothered the bushes and flowers, bending them this way and that. When it died down, the sun’s glare was heavy, and for a fleeting moment it might have seemed like a midsummer day.

  The town of Berwick. A few kilometres off the main Norwich road. It had a high street with shops and a pub and road after road of neatly laid-out houses and gardens. Beyond the small school and the park the road led out of the town past the disused railway station to Water Lane. A row of cottages, eight of them. Formerly owned by the council, they stood in a small orderly line along the road.

  They weren’t all run-down. Some were cared for, with conservatories and extensions built on. Others had peeling paint and broken fences. Some of the gardens were colourful and neat, their blooms in geometric beds, their terracotta pots standing upright, early blossoms tumbling over the edges. Others were wild with weeds and strewn with broken toys. Above them all were washing lines hoisted up into the sky, children’s shirts and dresses struggling in the breeze one minute and hanging limply in the sun the next.

  Three children emerged from a gate at the back of one of the gardens and started on the path to Berwick Waters. It was only a kilometre and a half away and they were walking smartly, as though they had some purpose. The lake at Berwick Waters was man-made, filled up some ten years before by the water company. It was over three kilometres long and was surrounded by woodland and some landscaped picnic areas. The water in the lake was deep and children were not encouraged to go there alone. Some people said that families of feral cats had lived in the area and had been drowned when it was filled. At times, during the day, when there was absolute silence, some people said, their cries could be heard. Most people dismissed this, but many children were in awe of the story.

  On that day in May the children were cold at first, that’s why they were hugging themselves, pulling the sleeves of their jumpers down, trying to keep the niggling breeze from forcing its way inside their clothes. Five minutes later it was too hot and the jumpers came off and ended up tied round their waists, each garment holding tightly on to its owner. Three children walked away from the cottages on the edge of the town towards Berwick Waters. Later that day only two of them came back.

  Alice Tully knew the story. She could have written a book about it.

  She looked at her cereal bowl and saw that she’d eaten only half of it. She picked up her spoon and continued, chewing vigorously, swallowing carefully, hardly tasting a mouthful. At the bottom of the editorial there was a final quote from an official at the Home Office:

  “Like any other offender Jennifer Jones has been carefully vetted. It was the considered opinion of all those concerned that she poses no threat to children and accordingly she was released under licence and is currently living in a safe environment. Any talk of revenge or vigilante action is wholly inappropriate and will be dealt with in the most rigorous manner.”

  Where was Jennifer Jones? That’s what everyone was saying. There were only a handful of people in the country who knew. Alice Tully was one of them.

  It took a few days for Alice to actually notice the man in the leather jacket. She might have served him each time he came in but she couldn’t be sure. She was on an early shift that week, getting to the Coffee Pot at around seven. Between them, she, Pip and Jules served hundreds of customers every morning. It was especially busy in the half-hour before eight o’clock. There was a constant stream of business men and women in smart clothes, rushing in for a coffee or cappuccino, a Danish or croissant, all served in a handy carry-out bag that could be taken on to a train and consumed on the way to work. By eight-fifteen, when the rush trailed off, Alice was usually exhausted and the other two were sneaking upstairs for a cigarette break. That was when there was time to rest, to look around the coffee shop, to get her bearings and maybe have a drink herself.

  The man sat at a table by the window in the smoking section. He had a large cappuccino and a muffin. It took him a while to drink it and when he’d finished he came up for a refill. In all he sat in the same seat for about ninety minutes each morning. This didn’t bother Alice. There were about ten tables in the coffee bar and, apart from lunchtime, they were usually half empty. If someone wanted to linger, read the newspaper, work on a laptop or just flick through a magazine, that was no problem. They were about two hundred metres from the station. People were often waiting to meet someone, or maybe just passing the time of day.

  When the man in the leather jacket sat down for the third morning running Alice had a good look at him. He was middle-aged and quite large, his body too big for the tiny tables and chairs that dotted the front of the coffee shop. His head was balding on top and the rest of his hair had grown long and was held back in a straggly ponytail at the base of his neck. The table in front of him was covered in things that he’d unpacked from a battered rucksack which sat on the floor: a camera, a notepad, a map book, some document folders. There was barely room for his cardboard cup of coffee and his pastry. He spent most of his time looking out of the window and making notes. She wondered whether he was a writer of some sort.

  She was preoccupied that morning. The night before she and Frankie had had an argument. She had been due to go round to his flat after work but had been a little late because she’d popped into the hairdressers for a trim. It hadn’t taken more than fifteen minutes but when she arrived he’d taken one look at her tightly cropped hair and got into a mood.

  “I thought you were going to grow it!” he said, padding up the hall in front of her.

  “I never said I was,” Alice said, letting her hand slide down the back of her short hair.

  The flat was empty, Frankie’s flatmates probably still out at college.

  “You look like a boy!” Frankie said.

  “I like it short.”

  Frankie sat down on the sofa. He’d left her standing and the way his legs were spread across the seat it didn’t look as though he wanted her to sit down beside him. She tried to keep cheerful. He had his exams and was under pressure.

  “Shall we have a takeaway? I’ve got some cash?”

  He didn’t answer. He glared at the blank screen of the television. She felt tired suddenly and couldn’t be bothered with the row.

  “I’ll go. I’ll ring you later,” she said and turned.

  She hadn’t got far when she heard him coming behind her. She kept on walking. Just as she was a couple of metres from the door he darted ahead of her, blocking her way.
In a moment his arms were around her and he was giving her a tight squeeze, squashing her small chest against his.

  “Don’t let’s argue,” he whispered and slid his hands under her T-shirt.

  Later, after eating the takeaway, they sat watching the television.

  “I thought you had some work to do,” Alice said, looking at a pile of books and folders on the sideboard.

  “Tomorrow,” Frankie said, stretching back, lifting his arms up in the air, taking up more space on the sofa.

  She’d wanted to go home soon after, but he’d held her there on the sofa in a kind of play fight. She made a half-hearted attempt to wrestle him off, but it wasn’t going to happen and in the end she lay limp and captive, laughing at him. He began to kiss her gently at first, holding himself up above her as though he was doing press-ups but then the kisses got longer and he half lay on top of her, rifling her clothes and stroking and touching her until she was dizzy. I’ve got condoms, he’d whispered hoarsely but she had shaken her head and pushed him off. He’d been good-natured about it but underneath she sensed a growing impatience.

  Would there be a day when he got fed up with her? Alice thought about this as she cleared the tables in the smokers’ area. Some of the daily newspapers provided by the coffee shop had been opened up and left on various tables. She tidied them up, catching the eye of the man in the leather jacket as she did it. He held his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and nodded pleasantly at her. When he finally left, Jules cleared his table and came walking back to the counter with a piece of paper flapping in her hand.

  “That fat bloke with the ponytail? He must have left this behind. Keep it behind the counter. He might come back.”

  Alice took it. It was covered in scraps of writing and some doodles.

  “It was on the opposite chair. Most probably it slid off the table. Look, there’s a couple of phone numbers on it. He might miss them.”

  But Alice wasn’t looking at the phone numbers. At the top there were three names written out and several lines drawn under each of them.