Chapter 12: After

AFTER

They made a mistake.

The words are ringing in Hannah’s ears as she shoves a tenner down on the table and shoulders her way blindly out of the cafe.

Outside she leans with her back against the wall, feeling the drizzle on her face, her breath coming quick.

They made a mistake.

Emily chose her words with care, but that “they” is a euphemism and they both know it. Because in spite of the police, and the forensic experts, and the judge, and the jury, and everyone else involved in convicting John Neville of April’s murder, there is only one person that “they” really applies to.

Hannah.

Because it was her evidence that sent John Neville down.

She was the one who told first the police and then the courts about his behavior. It was her name on the harassment complaint submitted to the Pelham College authorities, a complaint they brushed under the rug, later issuing fulsome apologies to both Hannah and April’s family for their dismissive attitude.

And it was she, Hannah, who saw John Neville that night, hurrying towards her out of the gloom, head down, away from staircase 7.

What “they made a mistake” really means is you made a mistake. You. Hannah.

You convicted an innocent man.

And suddenly she cannot do this. She cannot do this anymore—not any of it. Not the memories crowding her head, not the voices in her ears, not the faces in the crowd around her, looking at her curiously as she puts her hands over her face and screams silently, internally, wanting nothing more than for it to all just stop.

She becomes aware that she is making a strange sound, like a sobbing moan—and a woman touches her on the shoulder, her face full of concern.

“Are you all right, ducks? Is it the baby?”

“No,” she manages, though the word comes out like a wail. “No, I’m fine, leave me alone.”

“Maybe you’ve had a wee bit of a shock?” the woman asks kindly, but Hannah cannot take it—she cannot take the woman’s well-meaning concern, she cannot talk about any of this.

“No, I mean—just leave me alone!” she chokes out. “I’m okay!”

And then she pushes past the woman, stumbling away into the rain.

She is not okay. She is very far from okay.

But it is not because Em’s words were a shock.

It is the exact opposite. It is because Emily echoed the voice that has whispered in her sleepless ear every day and every night for ten years.

Did she? Did she make a mistake?