Chapter Twenty-seven

Felix

Six months later

I cringed away from the flash of lightbulbs, the pack of reporters outside the court having grown while we’d been inside. They wasted no time in shoving their microphones my way and barking out questions. Questions which overlapped and gave me no time to answer, even if I wanted to. “Mr. Church, how does it feel to have your name cleared after all these years?”

“How do you feel about what’s happened? Are you angry or are you relieved that the truth has finally come out?”

“Will you be applying for compensation? How much do you think will make up for seven years of being wrongly incarcerated?”

“Were you confident the judgment would go your way today? ”

“What was your previous relationship like with Ms. Blackwell? Are you grateful she came forward with new evidence? Why did she wait so long?”

“Mr. Church, do you have something you’d like to say to Mr. Blackwell, a message for him? Why do you think he lied?”

Darien kept tight hold of my hand to tug me through the crowd, as much an anchor today as he’d been for the past few months, getting here not seeming worth all the upheaval at times. I was beyond grateful for how supportive he’d been, spearheading everything from start to finish, and putting up with my moods on top of dealing with his own resignation from the probation service when it had become obvious it was only a matter of time before they’d terminate his contract, anyway.

As of today, it had been worth it, my name officially cleared and my criminal record expunged. I was no longer Felix Church, the man who’d been complicit in the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl, and instead, I was Felix Church, the man who’d suffered a terrible miscarriage of justice. Darien leaned in so his words were for me and me alone. “You should make a statement. They won’t stop hounding you until you do.”

Knowing he was right didn’t stop bile from rising in my throat at the mere thought of it. Right now, I would have taken a pack of savage dogs over this lot. Did they think I didn’t know they were the same people who’d driven me from my mother’s house? Therefore, this supportive act, complete with empathetic expressions and words of sympathy, was nothing but bullshit.

“And he’ll see it,” Darien said. “Or someone will tell him about it.”

I stopped dead. Yeah, he would. I hadn’t asked Laura whether there’d been any discussion with her brother about what she was doing. I assumed she’d confessed to him at some point, but honestly, all I cared about was him rotting away in prison. But saying one last fuck you to Julian was tempting. Very tempting.

Darien let go of my hand as I turned toward the nearest TV camera, the appeal process having received almost as much media attention as the murder had. My heart thrummed in my chest as I took a deep breath, wanting my words to be clear and wishing I’d thought of something to say ahead of time. “I’m sure you can imagine how I feel today. Seven years ago, I too was a victim of Julian Blackwell, just like poor Lily Reynolds, who none of us should ever forget. He may not have killed me, but he subjected me to physical and emotional abuse that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And then he implicated me in the heinous crime that he and he alone committed. Maybe in time he would have killed me, too. I guess we’ll never know. Maybe what happened was the best-case scenario, but you’ll have to excuse me for struggling to see that. Seven years is a very long time to spend inside when you did nothing wrong.”

I tamped down on the surge of emotion rising in my chest, wanting my words to stay calm and matter of fact. “The courts may have cleared me, but I still have a lot of healing to do mentally. With that in mind, I won’t be making any more statements after this one, and I ask to be left alone so I can get on with the rest of my life. I think I’ve earned that.” At least that got a few embarrassed looks. “As for compensation, that’s a conversation I need to have with my lawyer and not something I can currently comment on. Clearing my name was never about the money. It was about being able to live my life without constant whispers following me around. It was about being able to travel. Being able to do something as simple as applying for a job. All things that were taken from me when I went to prison. All I want to concentrate on from this moment forward is being happy.”

“Mr. Church, do you…?”

I was already walking away. I reached out blindly, warm fingers finding mine, Darien exactly where I needed him to be, just as he’d been ever since we’d met. “Very eloquent,” he said as we headed to the waiting car, my next breath not occurring until we were safely in the back seat with the door closed.

“Was it really okay?” I asked as the car pulled away from the curb.

“Do I ever bullshit you?”

“No.” It was the truth. Darien never did. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat.

“We did it,” Darien announced in a statement that was four parts relief and only one part smug.

“We did.” And it would probably be a few days before it sank in properly.

I eyed the house in front of me like it was the door to hell, regretting now that I was here, having told Darien that this was something I needed to do on my own and turning down his offer to accompany me. I’d picked up the phone to call my mother more times than I could count over the past few months, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to press the last button that would connect us. Perhaps I’d felt I needed that judgment from the courts, that without it, it was nothing more than me insisting, yet again, with no evidence that I was innocent.

Well, now I had it. Only instead of calling, I’d come here in person. It was unlikely given the time of day that she’d be in, my subconscious probably picking the time deliberately so I could say, oh, well I tried, but I had no luck. In which case, I should probably turn and walk away now and save myself the trouble.

I was still frozen in place when the neighbor’s door opened and Mrs. Featherstone stepped out. She didn’t notice me for a moment, all her attention on making sure she’d locked her door properly. When she did finally look up, she had the good grace to color slightly. “Oh! It’s you. I suppose you’re here to see your mother?”

“Is that allowed?” I could have been nice. I could have let bygones be bygones. I chose violence instead. Or if not violence, snark. I figured she’d earned it, and I wasn’t sure that even a paragon of virtue like Darien would argue with that.

Her already red cheeks became redder. “I… er… suppose I owe you an apology given recent events?”

“I suppose you do.” She nodded and made to continue walking, and I laughed. “Was that it?”

She stopped in her tracks and turned back to face me. “You could be gracious.”

“I could, but I’m choosing not to be. Must be all those years I spent in prison. It changes a man.”

She drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much, Mrs. Featherstone barely reaching my shoulder. “I am sorry. I treated you unfairly, and I made assumptions I shouldn’t have done.”

“And you set reporters on me.”

There was a moment where I thought she might deny it, but then she grimaced. “I did. I didn’t want you staying here. It was wrong of me, and it wasn’t my decision to make.” The glint of tears in her eyes had me feeling like a complete shit for hassling a woman in her seventies. Is that what I’d come to? She’d only done what most of the population would do. “It’s fine.” She didn’t look convinced. “It is. In some ways, you did me a favor. ”

“Oh?”

“I ended up staying with the man of my dreams.”

“Is that the young man you were holding hands with on the news?”

“It is.”

“He’s very handsome.”

“Handsome. Kind. Sweet, and many other things.”

“Will you marry him?”

Wow! Despite the question hitting like a baseball bat to the solar plexus, I didn’t have to think hard about the answer. “If he’ll have me. Not yet, though. But maybe one day.”

Mrs. Featherstone’s smile looked genuine. “I suppose I’ll see you around here more often from now on?”

My gaze drifted to the house, the door looking no more inviting than it had prior to this conversation. I answered honestly. “I don’t know.”

A taxi drew up in front of the house, and Mrs. Featherstone made her excuses and hurried over to get in. I watched the car until it disappeared around the corner and then went back to staring at the house that had been my childhood home. Before I could think better of it, I unlatched the gate and marched straight up to the door. I didn’t bother to knock, pulling the key I’d never gotten round to returning out of my pocket and unlocking it instead.

I knew as soon as I stepped inside that the house wasn’t empty like I’d expected it to be. There was just an energy about it that said someone was here. And given the house only had one occupant, chances were it was my mother. Acting on instinct rather than rational thought, I didn’t let the door swing shut on its own, pulling it to, so there was nothing more than a quiet click when it closed. I trod silently—or as silent as you could be when you were over six foot—as I traversed the hallway. The kitchen was my first stop, but it lay empty, with not a single cup or plate out of place to show that anyone had used it that day.

A slight noise had me heading for the room at the back of the house my mother favored because of its view out over the garden. It was a different room from the one that held such good memories from my first sexual encounter with Darien.

The door was open to reveal a mess, my first thought that there’d been a burglary. Except burglars didn’t go to town in one room while leaving the kitchen and all its expensive gadgets untouched.

No, this was a mess created by the woman kneeling at its epicenter with her back to the door. A tipped over cardboard box showed where the mess had originated. And as Katy Perry stared back at me from the carpet, the top of her head blocked by the chihuahua sitting on the edge of the poster, I worked out what the ‘mess’ was.

My mother sat amidst all the childhood things she’d claimed she’d gotten rid of. It was all there as I let my gaze travel over it. My school report cards; old exercise books; the Warhammer models I’d painted before boys had interested me far more than staying home; the obligatory World Cup sticker albums so loved by teenage boys during that era. I’d never completed one, but I’d kept them, regardless. Pokemon cards from when they’d been a craze; a football scarf and a cap bought for me by my father when he’d taken me to an Arsenal game, and a hell of a lot more. There were photo albums as well, but they were my mother’s, not mine.

One of the school report cards was open on my mother’s lap to show she’d been reading it. Instinct told me to retrace my steps and get out of here before she registered my presence.

“You were always so good at school,” my mother said without turning .

Too late to escape then. She’d probably heard the key in the door, and as only the cleaner and I had one, and it wasn’t the right day for Gemma to pay a visit, it didn’t take a genius to work out who it was.

“You managed to be sporty, academic, and creative,” she continued. “I used to love going to your parent’s evenings and listening to the teachers talk about how much they enjoyed teaching you.”

“I was never any good at languages,” I said. “I bet none of my French teachers talked about how much they enjoyed teaching me.”

“I don’t remember.”

I stepped into the room, picking my way carefully across the floor so I didn’t stand on anything. When I reached the sofa, I sat. I could see my mother’s tear-streaked cheeks, now. Something twanged in my chest, but I refused to let it show on my face. I’d let my mother keep hurting me for years. There came a time when you had to harden your heart against it. Although, if that was the case, it begged the question why I was here. “You told me you’d gotten rid of this stuff. Where was it?”

“I know… I lied. I’m sorry.” My mother lifted her arm, using her sleeve to wipe her face. “It was mean of me. I wanted to get rid of it all, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go through with it. I stored it in the garage instead and tried to forget it was there.”

Just like she’d tried to forget I was in prison. There was a running theme there. I picked up the closest photo album and opened it to the first page. The photos were from when I was a toddler. I’d seen them before, but not for years, a reluctant smile pulling at my lips as I found myself confronted with pictures of my mum, dad, and me in various combinations, one of them usually required to take the photo. However, there were a few pictures with all three of us, where someone else had taken on the task of capturing it .

The sofa gave as my mother joined me on it. I didn’t look up from the photo album, tracing my finger over my father’s familiar features instead. “I miss him,” I admitted.

She sniffed, and I wondered if she was crying again. “I miss him too. I often think I should have remarried, but I’ve never met anyone who could hold a candle to him, so it didn’t seem fair.”

“You’ve still got time.”

“I’d probably just mess it up like I mess everything else up.”

I wasn’t brave enough to ask if she was talking about me. Instead, I went back to studying the photos with my mother watching silently as I flicked through the pages until I reached the end, where there was a photograph of me in my uniform from when I’d started school. The problem with reaching the end of the album was that it left me with nothing to do except stare at the closed book. I waved a hand at the array of stuff covering the floor. “Can I take this stuff?”

“It’s yours.”

I nodded without looking at my mother. Apart from that first glance when I’d seen she was crying, I hadn’t looked at her at all. It was easier that way.

“Why did you come here?” My mother’s voice sounded cracked and dry, like an autumn leaf that had long since fallen from the tree.

Why indeed? “I don’t know. I was going to call, but…”

“I was going to call, too.”

“Were you?” I didn’t need to be looking at her to know she’d winced. I felt it.

“Yes… I just… I didn’t know what to say.”

“Hello would have been a good start. Maybe you could have followed that up with, how are you? You know, normal conversational stuff. Anything would have been better than complete silence.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me. Not after… ”

“Not after you told me to leave.”

“I put more money in your account.”

She had. Regular amounts. Far more than I could ever spend, especially when Darien had never asked me for a penny. I bought groceries, but that was about it. It was something we needed to talk about now that life wouldn’t be dictated by talking to lawyers and pleading my case for the millionth time. We should at least be splitting the bills.

I forced myself to lift my gaze and look at my mother, really look at her. Her eyes were red, like she’d been crying for some time prior to my arrival, and her hair was greasier than I’d ever seen it before, even after my father had died, like she hadn’t been taking very good care of herself. “I didn’t want money. I wanted…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, focusing on Samson instead, who’d stretched out over Katy Perry so that little of her could still be seen.

“I saw the news. I saw you on the news.”

“Right?” What else could I say?

“You were innocent. You were always innocent.”

I laughed, because what else could I do? “I told you that time and time again. Before I went to prison, whilst I was in there, the few times you deigned to visit, and after I got out. I had to use emotional blackmail to get you to let me stay here.”

“I know.” Tears were running freely down my mother’s face now. “And I should have known you weren’t capable of covering a murder up. Not my little Felix. I know I can’t ever make it up to you, but I want to try. I really do.”

It would have been the perfect cue to get up and leave, and I could picture myself doing it—the equivalent of a mic drop. I could leave knowing that she finally knew the truth, that it had taken the courts admitting to a miscarriage of justice for her to reach that conclusion. I could go home to Darien and hold him tight, kiss his hair and then kiss a few other parts of him that would make him moan—my boyfriend incredibly responsive. But if I did that, things would carry on exactly the way they were with me and my mother. No bridges built. No hope of a future where we could get back to where we’d once been. Just two people living in the same city who shared genes and the loss of a man we’d both loved with all our hearts.

And then what? When she died, would I go to her funeral? Or would I have become so bitter and twisted about the whole thing that I’d give it a miss? It was a glimpse of a future I didn’t want. One that I could still avoid if I could find it within myself to forgive. “Julian was abusive,” I said, needing to go back to the beginning, just as I’d once tried at the kitchen table when she’d given me short shrift.

“I know.”

“He manipulated me into stopping coming here.”

She gave a jerky nod.

“It was him. Not me.”

Another nod. “I knew you weren’t happy. I should have seen what was going on, seen through all the bullshit. I should have been there for you and I wasn’t, and I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

“It’s in the past.” I almost laughed at the words I’d never used before, my chest suddenly feeling ten times lighter. Because it was in the past. And if I let it keep dragging me down, Julian still won. And I wouldn’t let the bastard have the satisfaction. I was going to be happy. I was going to euthanize the snarling dog and move on. And with Darien, I could do that. But not if I punished my mother for being human. If I got married, I wanted her there. I wanted her to get to know Darien and discover how wonderful he was. Not as a probation officer who’d once sat at her table, but as my boyfriend, as the man I loved, who’d taken my monochrome life and little by little brought color into it. None of that could happen unless I extended an olive branch.

I took a deep breath and held my arms out. “Come here.” It had been years since we’d hugged, long before I’d gone to prison, and for one frozen moment as she stared at me without moving, I thought I’d misjudged how willing she was to reunite, that I’d pushed things too far, too fast. But then she almost threw herself into my arms. I squeezed her tight as she cried, tears welling in my own eyes and forcing me to blink them back. Because if we both cried, there was no telling how long we’d sit here before we got ourselves back under control.

Instead, I talked, content for her to listen without expecting a response. “Things have been good over the last few months. It’s been stressful waiting for the court of appeal to make their decision, but apart from that, it’s been great. Darien’s been an absolute rock. I don’t know what I would have done without him. Darien’s my boyfriend. You probably saw him on the news because he stayed by my side the whole time. You met him, remember, when he was my PO?”

I took the slight rock of my mother’s chin against my shoulder as a nod and confirmation that she remembered. “He gave up his job for me. He’s an absolute sweetheart, and I can’t wait for you to meet him properly.”

“I’d like that.”

The sincerity in her voice had me smiling. “I have a job as well.”

“Yeah?”

“Not doing what I did before. Working in a restaurant. Darien’s brother’s restaurant, actually, Quinn’s Brasserie.”

“I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never eaten there.”

“You should. We should. When I’m not working, obviously. ”

She finally eased back, and I passed a box of tissues across. She took one and blew her nose loudly before reaching for another.“I don’t deserve for you to forgive me that easily.”

I let out a slow breath. “I just want my mother back. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy and that I won’t bear a grudge, but if we’re both willing to work on it, then hopefully, we can get there.”

She was nodding before I’d even finished speaking. An immense feeling of calm swept over me. If someone had told the man leaving prison that he’d have a wonderful boyfriend, a job that he enjoyed no matter how much of a tyrant Hayden could be, a quashed conviction, and the ability to start afresh with my mother, I doubt I would have believed them. Actually, that was an understatement. I probably would have laughed so hard it hurt. But that was exactly what had happened.

My mother turned to study the detritus on the floor, her expression troubled. “I’ll give you a hand clearing it up,” I offered. “It would be useful to go through it. I’m sure there’s some stuff here that’s not worth keeping.”

She managed a tremulous smile. “That would be nice. I’ll put the kettle on.”