Chapter 42

FORTY-TWO

Familiarity made things easier to bear. The second time she arrived at the prison wasn't such a shock. Freddie had been surprised that she'd applied for another visiting order so quickly. In turn, she was surprised that he hadn't any family members or friends who would've already planned to come.

In the waiting area, she thought of her own mother and her refusal to go anywhere near the prison that held her father. When she'd asked why they weren't visiting, she'd been given a story about how horrible the men were in the prison with her father. ‘It's not a place for people like us.'

Seated at the nailed down table in the visiting hall, she fought to keep her nerves under control. If she couldn't persuade Freddie to retract his confession, if Annabelle got away with killing her daughter, if she lost Charlotte's baby…The metal door banged open in the corner to interrupt the downward spiral of catastrophe that'd kept her awake into the small hours. She counted seventeen prisoners before she spotted Freddie. When he reached the table, she could see he was even thinner than her last visit; his blue eyes more full of concern. ‘My solicitor sent me a message. Said that Eliza needs a brain scan. Is she okay? Is it serious?'

His face begged her for news, but she had none to give him. ‘I'm seeing the consultant tomorrow. I'll know more then.'

His face creased in pain. ‘She's so tiny. Hasn't she been through enough? I thought she was going to be okay. They said she just needed to grow.'

For the first time, Joanna truly considered what it must've been like for him. Trapped in here, not able to see his daughter. ‘Has the hospital been giving you regular updates?'

He nodded. ‘My solicitor passes them on. We've been trying to get permission for me to come and see her, but it's taking so long. If she needs extra help, I want to make sure she gets the best treatment possible. We have plenty of money, we can get her whatever she needs. The best doctors, the best treatment, anything. Can you make sure they know that, Joanna? I can't lose her, too.'

Her heart squeezed at the agony in his voice, she needed a moment to compose herself. ‘I know. I know.'

He pushed himself back into his chair. ‘I'm so desperate to see her. Have you held her?'

He'd already missed so much. Would miss even more if he pled guilty in court and went to prison for a crime he hadn't committed. She needed to get through to him. ‘Yes, I've held her. She's beautiful.'

A strangled sob escaped from him. ‘I knew she would be.'

The clock on the wall behind him was ticking down the minutes of the visit. She needed to do what she'd come here for. ‘I don't think I'm going to get guardianship, Freddie.'

He stared at her as if she had two heads. ‘Are you serious? Why?'

‘Your mother came to see me yesterday. She was pretty…brutal. She wants Eliza and she has the resources to get her.'

He frowned. ‘And you're just going to let her do that?'

Of course she wasn't, but she wanted him to think she might. ‘The thing is, I have some money issues. And – as your mother so kindly pointed out – she doesn't. Plus, she's going to tell them that Charlotte and I were estranged.'

Freddie looked terrified. ‘But that's not true. I mean, I know you'd had an argument but…no, it's not true.'

She looked him in the eye. ‘It doesn't matter what's true, does it?'

The irony wasn't lost on him. His face darkened. ‘I don't want Eliza with my mother. And that can't be what you want, either.' He lowered his voice. ‘You know what she did.'

She looked him dead in the eye. ‘And so do you.'

He rubbed at his chin with his palm, the scratch of his stubble filled the space between them. Again, he shook his head, as if there were flies buzzing in his ears. ‘No. No, Joanna. You can't mean this. My mother can't have the baby. Think about Charlotte. She wouldn't have wanted that at all. She wanted…'

She looked at him, heart thumping. ‘What did she want, Freddie?'

His eyes, his cheeks, his whole face twitched as he tried not to cry. ‘She wanted us to move away. For me to leave my job and do something different. To raise the baby the way we wanted.'

Annabelle had been right. Charlotte had wanted to rescue Freddie and let him live his life away from his family. Emotion wobbled her voice. ‘She wanted you to go away?'

He nodded; head bowed. ‘Yes. The only person she was worried about was you. She thought…She hoped that if she could get us to know one another, you might come with us. Start again somewhere new.'

Charlotte had wanted her to go with them? ‘You can do that, Freddie. We can still do that. But you have to tell the police. You have to withdraw your confession. And you have to tell them who really hurt Charlotte.'

Freddie stared at his fingers. There were flecks of blood around his thumb where he'd picked at his own skin. Shoulders hunched, he looked more like a schoolboy in detention than a man on a manslaughter charge. ‘She used to talk about you a lot you know. Charlotte. Particularly after we found out she was pregnant.'

Joanna pressed her hand to her breastbone, where the pain was coming from. ‘Did she?'

He nodded but didn't raise his head. ‘All these stories about what it was like when she was young. All the things you did together. The three of you.'

During the long hours at the hospital, Joanna had been remembering those days herself. Memories that had been too painful to unwrap since Steve had passed away had assailed her as soon as she got in bed each night. Like beautiful bullets. ‘I'm not sure I always got it right. I wanted…I wanted her to have a good life. To have everything she needed. To protect her from getting hurt. But I'm beginning to realise I went about it the wrong way.'

The more she'd pored over the memories of Charlotte's childhood, the more she'd realised that she'd tried to push her into the things that she'd wanted or needed. Not the things Charlotte wanted. If only she could go back twenty years and shake herself, take her own face and point it in the direction of what mattered.

Now Freddie looked up. ‘That's not the way she saw it.'

Joanna sucked her bottom lip hard, trying not to cry. ‘No? She didn't tell you about all the times I forced her into piano lessons, or extra tuition or made her take the eleven plus because I wanted her to go to the grammar school?'

He shook his head. ‘She said that she knew that you only ever wanted the best for her.'

Joanna felt her face crumple. ‘But I was so controlling.'

He smiled a watery smile. ‘Yeah, she said that too.'

Joanna coughed a laugh. ‘I can imagine.'

‘But she also said that she was grateful.'

‘Grateful?'

‘Yes. And that she always knew that she was loved.'

Joanna couldn't stop the tears that spilled onto her cheeks. Isn't this what she'd always wanted to hear? Hadn't she said it enough times to Steve? One day she'll thank me. But not like this. Not like this. ‘I wish I'd been different.'

Now Freddie's eyes were misted by memory. ‘She told me about your holidays. That her dad would take her on all the water slides and buy the ice creams and play in the pool for hours on end.'

Steve had always been the fun parent. She remembered watching them in the pool, while she stayed guard on the sunbeds, piled up with the towels and hats and suncream. ‘He was a great dad.'

‘And then she said you'd be the one who would find the best places to eat, who'd bring colouring books and pens so that she didn't get bored at dinner. And you'd be the one to arrange playdates and take her to her friends' parties and invite them over for sleepovers. She kept saying that to me. We have to be a team, Freddie. When this baby comes, we have to be a team like my mum and dad were.'

This was almost too much to bear, but she was so hungry to hear it, like food for her starving soul. ‘She really said that?'

He nodded. ‘And she also said that I wasn't to leave all the discipline to her. That it wasn't fair on you that you always had to be bad cop. She knew that you got a rough deal.'

In all these years, she hadn't realised that Charlotte had known that. Had thought that Steve was her idol. ‘She loved her dad so much.'

His laugh was more like a cough. ‘I know. Believe me, I knew when she told me she was pregnant what massive shoes I'd have to fill. But she also said how much she loved you. She said that she wanted to be as good a mum as you were.'

That broke her. She covered her face with her hands. Wave after wave of grief poured over her. For all that she'd lost when her precious daughter was taken from her. Her clever, beautiful, kind and funny child. ‘Oh, Charlotte. My poor girl.'

Once she regained herself, she reached across the table and placed her hand over Freddie's to stop him picking at his thumbnail, taking it back immediately when she realised the guard was looking over. ‘I'm sorry that I didn't get to know you when she was alive.'

He swallowed. ‘I could've tried harder, too. I just didn't want to push myself where I wasn't wanted.'

She could understand that. ‘I know that you loved her.'

Another sob escaped from under the hand across his mouth. It seemed to come from deep within him. ‘I really did.'

Whatever he'd just told her, however much she didn't want to cause either of them any further pain, she needed to keep pushing. ‘And I know that you love Eliza.'

‘I do.'

‘She might need extra help, Freddie. Extra support. We don't know what this brain scan is going to show, but even if it's okay this time, there's no guarantees?—'

‘Whatever she needs. I can't be as good as Charlotte would've been, but I will do everything I can. Until I get out of here, I want her to be with you, Joanna. I want you to tell her all about Charlotte. About when she was little and when she grew up. How clever she was, how funny, how wonderful.'

It was impossible to keep the tears from falling. ‘I want to tell her those things too.'

‘Then apply for the guardianship. Please, Joanna. Not for me. For Charlotte. For Eliza.'

There wasn't a doubt in her mind that she would fight with her last breath to protect that little girl. But she needed more than that. ‘I can only do it with your help. You need to get out of prison, Freddie. And the only way to do that is to tell the truth about what happened. You need to tell the police the truth.'

‘If I do that, my mother will never forgive me. My whole family will cut me out.'

‘Eliza is your family. And I will be your family, too. Think about her. Think about what Charlotte wanted for you both.'

His whole face was an open conflict. ‘I want to do the right thing.'

She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. ‘The truth is the right thing. Being there for your daughter is the right thing. Do it for her.'

Relief shook through her as he nodded. If only she could throw her arms around him.

But there was still one problem. ‘What about evidence? I'm worried that it'll just be your word against hers.'

For three ticks of the clock behind him on the wall, Freddie looked at her. He seemed to come to a decision. ‘I might have something that will help.'