Page 4 of Her Last Breath

‘That scumbag had slammed her face into the living-room wall, in front of the children,’ Owen said, barely containing his anger. ‘Her neighbours rang your lot, who found out about the history of violence, then Alice was told she couldn’t provide a safe environment for her kids. Made no sense to me, she were the one being attacked. You know how people are, though. Twisted it all up. Made out to the police as though her and Liam enjoyed beating the hell out of each other. As though they got off on it.’

Owen cast a quick glance towards his wife.

‘Alice had no choice,’ he added. ‘It were either leave the children temporarily with us or lose them to the system.’

‘Alice would never let that happen; she was a good mother,’ Trish insisted. ‘Better than I was in some ways.’

Jane nodded, looking at this middle-class couple from Cliviger, wondering how their only child had ended up at the bottom of a river.

‘We thought it was normal teenage rebellion at first,’ Trish explained, as though reading her thoughts. ‘Staying out late with friends we never met, parties we had no clue about. I was so naïve, checking her bedroom for cigarettes and booze. And all that time she was already taking much worse.’

Trish stared to cry again, her head in her hands.

‘I blame myself,’ she said through her sobs. ‘I was so strict on her, growing up.’

‘Come on now, love, it’s no one’s fault,’ Owen tried to reassure his wife.

‘She made me so mad,’ Trish said. ‘She was so beautiful, so clever, throwing it all away on the worst boys. I knew she did it just to spite me. She would bring them home when she was older, each one more brazen than the last, trying to get a rise from me. When it didn’t work, she lowered her standards even more. I clashed with her all the time, out of desperation. Then one day she just left. And you know the worst part? I felt relieved. What sort of mother does that make me?’

‘That were a long time ago,’ Owen said quietly. ‘Alice is different now. She’s getting her life together, keeps telling me about some woman at Citizens Advice helping her. She swore on the kids she’d given up the drugs. If you make her swear on Emily and Peter, she won’t do it unless she’s being one hundred per cent honest.’

Jane could hear the pride in his voice. She also felt deep empathy for this man who couldn’t accept his daughter was dead, couldn’t speak about her in the past tense.

‘She loves her children,’ Owen said affectionately. ‘She threw Liam out after we took the kids, was determined to turn her life around.’

‘How did he take that?’

‘Not well,’ Owen replied, his voice becoming angry. ‘Alice didn’t say much about him, but I remember her getting endless calls from him when she were with us. He were withholding his ID, so he could bypass her blocking him.’

‘Did he threaten her?’ Jane asked.

‘I don’t know, she didn’t say.’

Jane knew men like Liam Harrison wouldn’t take no for an answer, couldn’t cope with someone they had controlled suddenly standing up for themselves.

Owen was silent, then looked Jane hard in the eyes.

‘Alice would never leave her kids like this,’ he said defiantly.

Jane didn’t look away, didn’t want him to see any doubt in her eyes.

‘She didn’t leave them,’ Trish said. She wiped her tears away roughly, suddenly alert. ‘That man had something to do with this, I know it. He had such a hold on her, it was sickening to watch. I only met him once, but he made my skin crawl. He did this to her.’

Trish pulled out her phone, showed Jane the last text message she’d received from her daughter. It was dated 18 August at 1.12 p.m.

Can’t come today. Tell the kids I love them always. And that I’m sorry.

Had her colleagues interpreted this as a suicide note? Not investigated Alice Rogers’ disappearance properly as a result? Suicides were a common occurrence in places like Burnley and Blackpool, Northern towns hit hard by the cost-of-living crisis, benefit cuts and decades of no one taking an interest. ‘Deaths of despair’, they labelled them in the papers.

‘Can I ask why you didn’t report your daughter missing for over a week?’

‘That message were sent on one of her visiting days,’ Owen explained. ‘We just thought she needed some headspace. Then she missed the next two visits. Now to us that didn’t make sense. Unless she were in trouble, she wouldn’t do that. The old Alice might, but not now. I’m telling you she is … were changing things.’

Jane wondered if they were desperate parents trying to absolve themselves of guilt for their daughter’s death. Had they failed her to the point she thought taking her life was the only way out? Or were they right about this Liam?

‘Your lot were kind enough when they came,’ Owen said. ‘But I could tell they weren’t that bothered. I get it, given her history. You get tarred for life, don’t you?’

Jane understood what that felt like. Carrying the weight of being falsely accused of something, nobody even stopping to ask you what the truth was, because your voice didn’t matter. Fighting back against that sense of injustice had driven Jane throughout her career. Had it been too overwhelming for Alice? Despite her attempts to change, had she never been allowed to?