I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,23

It will take two buses to get to the other side of town. I didn’t want to show up in an expensive car, it would be too conspicuous. No one in my new life knows anything about my old life, and no one would understand the reason for this trip, why I have to do this.

* * *

The first bus is full of commuters, but on the second the passengers are different. Mums with pushchairs at first, manoeuvring in and out of the buggy space. Elderly people with sticks and shopping trolleys. Once we get out of the city centre, they get off one by one, until only a few of us remain. There’s a man who sits right at the back, tapping his fingers to the beat coming from his headphones, and an elderly woman on the seat nearest the front. And me. I stare out the window watching the scenery go by. An estate of low-rise flats. A park. A children’s playground. A row of small shops: a newsagent, a dry-cleaner, a cafe.

I feel sick, wondering if I should turn round. My life is exactly as I want it. I have everything set up. A job that I enjoy, charity work where I make a difference. A calm, tidy home. A husband. Why am I taking this journey back here? Shouldn’t the past be left where it belongs?

But I can’t do that, not anymore. If I don’t visit, don’t have this conversation, then I know she’ll come and find me. And what will I do then? How will I explain my absence all this time? How will I explain that I wanted to forget it all, and to do so I had to forget her too? I thought I’d moved on and left everything behind. I thought marrying Peter and changing my name would have meant I was no longer that girl, Sophie Loughton. The girl whose name was instantly recognised. The girl journalists tried to track down all those years later.

I look anxiously at my phone, watching the dot of the GPS moving closer to my destination. I want to turn round, but I can’t. Not easily. That’s another reason why I didn’t bring my car. So I couldn’t change my mind and drive straight off again.

We’re nearing the destination now. Outside the window, I see the tall brick walls, the barbed wire on top. The prison’s been here since Victorian times, and countless inmates must have passed through.

I get off the bus, my heart hammering. It’s forty-five minutes until visiting hours start and I kill half an hour walking around the outside of the prison, thinking of all the people shut inside, how endless it must seem, counting the days until you’re released. I can’t imagine it.

I don’t know how she’s coped, how she’s got through day after day, locked up. She liked the finest things in life. She had everything. But now she has nothing. She has no one.

I go up to the main gate fifteen minutes early, knowing I’ll need to be processed first, details taken and searched. I shiver as I approach the huge gates and then go through the innocuous wooden door on the right-hand side.

‘Hi,’ I say to the person on the reception desk. ‘I’m here for visiting hours.’ My voice shakes as my confidence trickles away.

‘Take a seat,’ he says.

Gradually the chairs around me fill up and then we’re taken through, one by one, to be searched.

Entering the room, I scan the rows of prisoners sitting behind desks. Some of them anxiously look up, watching for their visitors, while others pick their nails or slouch nonchalantly in their chairs. They’re dressed in everyday clothes: jeans, jumpers, blouses, sweatshirts. If they weren’t behind bars, they’d look like ordinary women. There’s nothing that stands out about them. I see movement in the middle row, a tentative wave. I meet her eyes and her face breaks into a smile.

The guard’s shoes squeak on the polished floor as he walks me over. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes as she reaches out to put her arms around me. The guard coughs and we pull apart and sit down.

I look at her, her eyes a mirror of my own.

‘Hi, Mum,’ I say.

Fifteen

Beth

It’s Richard’s afternoon off, and I’ve invited him round so he can see Charlie, and we can talk. I know how much Charlie misses his dad and I need to talk to Richard about the house. There’s no way I’ll