A sudden flash of anger. “Have you any idea how terrifying that call was?” I don’t remember the drive home; I remember only the blind panic that Dad wouldn’t be found. That we’d be too late. “You should have told me!”
“We’d committed a crime!” Mum stands up.
As she walks toward me I take a step back. I don’t mean to—my feet move of their own accord—but it makes her stop short, hurt in her eyes.
“We could have gone to prison—we still might! I didn’t want to ruin your life as well as my own.”
We fall silent. I take another sip of whiskey. It’s after midnight. Mark and Joan will be home soon.
“We held a memorial service for you,” I say quietly. “Laura organized it all. Billy made a speech.” I think of the young chaplain who cried at the inquest. Who found me afterward and took my hands and told me he was sorry his actions hadn’t been enough to save my mother from herself.
A thought strikes me. “Someone put a brick through the nursery window last night.”
“A brick?” She looks at Ella in horror.
“She’s fine. She was downstairs with Mark. There was a note with the brick, telling us not to go to the police. To stop before we got hurt.”
I look at Mum, who has covered her mouth with her hands, her fingers splayed around her eyes. “No. No, no, no.”
Fear courses through me. “Did Dad do it?”
Silence.
I stand up. “You need to leave.”
“Anna, please—”
“Mark will be back soon.”
“There’s so much we need to talk about.” She follows me out to the hall, trying to talk to me, but I won’t listen. I can’t listen to any more. I open the door, check the street is empty, then push her out into the cold, and for the second time today, I slam the door on my mother.
I lean my back against the stained-glass panel. I wonder if she’ll knock and ring, as she did this morning. There’s a moment’s pause; then I hear her footsteps on the steps, on the gravel. Silence.
My mind whirs. My father was a violent man. So cruel to Mum that she faked her own death to escape him.
And now he’s coming after me.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
MURRAY
When Murray woke up on Christmas morning, Sarah’s side of the bed was cold. He felt the familiar clutch of panic as he searched the house for her. The back door was unlocked, and Murray cursed himself for leaving the key out, but when he tore the door open and ran out into the garden, he found Sarah sitting quietly on the bench.
She was barefoot, dew from the bench soaking into the cotton robe she wore over her nightdress. Her thin arms encircled the knees drawn up to her chest, a mug of tea warming her hands, which were black with soil.
Ignoring the damp, Murray sat beside her on the bench. The garden was narrow, a once well-tended vegetable patch at the end, with a greenhouse and a neat rectangle of lawn between two beds raised with railroad ties. Closer to the house, where he and Sarah sat, was a square patio lined with pots. Murray watered them on the rare occasions the British weather failed to deliver rain, but didn’t know what to cut back and what to leave, and gradually even the winter color had disappeared from the patio.
“Look.”
Murray had followed Sarah’s gaze to the largest pot, in which a willow obelisk was embedded. There had been something growing, Murray remembered, with pale pink flowers as thin as tissue paper, before it had dried and withered, nothing more than a collection of dry sticks clinging to the willow. The sticks were on the ground now, the earth cleared of weeds and freshly turned.
“That looks a lot tidier.”
“Yes, but look.”
Murray looked. Beside one corner of the obelisk, where the willow sank into the earth, was the tiniest shoot of light green. Murray felt a glimmer of hope as Sarah slipped her hand into his.
“Happy Christmas.”
* * *
• • •
Dinner was turkey crown and all the trimmings.
“You sit there,” Sarah said, pushing Murray into the sofa. “Relax.”
It was hard to relax when he could hear Sarah swearing as several things came to the boil at once, just as something else proved to be “fuck, that’s hot.” After a while Murray poked his head around the door.
“Need a hand?”
“All under control.”
There were pans everywhere, including several on the floor and one balanced precariously on the windowsill.
“It’s still just the two of us, right?”
“We’ll have leftovers tomorrow.”
And for the next three weeks, Murray thought.
“Oh crap, I’ve burned the bread sauce.”
“I hate bread sauce.” Murray undid Sarah’s apron. He pushed her gently toward a chair. “Sit there. Relax.”
As he stirred the gravy he felt Sarah’s eyes on him. He turned around.
She chewed at a piece of skin at the side of her fingernail. “Tell me the truth: is it easier when I’m at Highfield?”
Murray didn’t hesitate. “Easier? Yes. As enjoyable? Nowhere near.”
Sarah digested his answer. “I wonder if he’s after her money.”
It was a while before Murray caught up. “Mark Hemmings?”
“Anna thinks Mark never met her parents, but we know Caroline had an appointment with him. We also know that together, Caroline and Tom were worth a fuck-load of money.” Sarah poured herself a small serving of wine and stood to top up Murray’s glass. “Caroline goes to see Mark when she’s distraught over the death of her husband. She discloses that she’s worth somewhere in the region of a million pounds. Mark bumps her off and moves in on the daughter. Boom.”
Murray looked skeptical. “I suppose it’s marginally more convincing than your theory that Caroline was murdered for lodging a zoning objection against the neighbor.”
“I haven’t ruled that one out completely. But I think the money’s more likely.”
“Mark and Anna aren’t married. He wouldn’t automatically inherit.”
“Yet,” Sarah said darkly. “Bet he’s working on it. And once he’s got his hands on her money and the house . . .” She drew a single finger across her throat, making a melodramatic gargling sound as she did so.
Murray laughed at Sarah’s macabre mime as he started to dish up, covering the burned bits of potato with gravy, but the thought that Anna Johnson might be in danger sent a shiver down his spine. “As soon as the bank holiday’s over, I’ll see what the High Tech Crime Unit can do on the number used to make the Diane Brent-Taylor call. I’d put money on the fact that whoever put the brick through Anna Johnson’s window also made that call, and whoever made that call knows how Tom Johnson died.” He put a plate, piled high with food, in front of Sarah, and sat opposite her.
“It’ll be someone close to the family, though—mark my words,” Sarah said, picking up her knife and fork. “It always is.”
Not for the first time, Murray thought she was probably right.
But who?
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
ANNA
I haven’t held Ella all evening. She has been passed around like a parcel, seemingly enjoying the attention, and offering no resistance to the arms of friendly strangers. Robert’s Christmas Day cocktail party is the last place I want to be right now, but it has at least provided a respite from the scrutiny of Mark and his mother, whose sympathy for me on Christmas Eve had waned by lunchtime today. I was doing my best—opening a stocking for Ella I’d filled only hours before, sipping a weak Bellini at breakfast—but every conversation was an effort. Every word felt like a lie.
“She could make a bit of an effort. It’s Ella’s first Christmas, after all.”
It was somewhere around three, and Mark
and Joan were washing up after lunch. I paused on the stairs and dug my socked toes into the carpet. Not eavesdropping, just . . . listening.
“She’s grieving, Mum.”
“I grieved when your father died, but I didn’t give up, did I? I put on my face, and my apron, and carried on looking after you all.”
Mark said something I didn’t catch, and I carried on down the stairs and into the hall, deliberately stepping on the loose board I always made sure to avoid. The voices in the kitchen stopped abruptly, and by the time I came into the kitchen they were washing up in silence.
“There she is! Here’s Mummy!” Joan was falsely bright. “Did you have a nice nap, dear?”
I hadn’t napped. How could I have done? But I had seized the invitation to do so, as an escape from Mark’s cloying concern and Joan’s increasing irritation that I wasn’t the life and soul of the party. I had lain on the bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind racing.
It is still racing. Where is Mum now? Did she spend Christmas at the Hope? Is she safe? Why do I even care? The thought of Ella being in the nursery when that brick came through the window fills me with horror. My mother brought this to our door as surely as if she’d thrown the brick herself.
How can I forgive her for that?
And why, now that I know what my father has done, is there a part of me that still wants to see him?
For the last twenty-four hours I have been replaying the narrative of my childhood with the filter provided by the knowledge that my father was not the man I thought he was. My life is collapsing into foundations that were built on lies.
Faking your death isn’t something you enter into lightly. Mum must have been desperate.
She needs me.
I can’t forgive her.
I need her.
Around and around in circles.
Robert’s living room is full of our neighbors. There are a handful of children here, although most of the residents are older than us, their offspring grown and with their own families. I know everyone in the room, except the couple by the fireplace, who must be the new occupants of Sycamore—I saw the moving van there last week.
Mark is engrossed in an animated discussion about alternative therapies with Ann and Andrew Booth from two doors down, and Joan has found a comfortable spot on a sofa and isn’t moving. I am walking slowly from room to room. There are pockets of people in the kitchen, the hall, and the living room, and I drift from one to another, with a plate of food in one hand and a drink in the other, as though I’m en route to my seat. No one stops me. I don’t want to stand in a corner and make people feel they have to come and check I’m okay. I don’t want to talk.
Everyone tonight has offered their condolences, even though everyone did just that at my parents’ memorial service. I grow hot as I remember the tears that were shed, the speeches made, the kindness of near strangers who took time out of their week to write a card, make a casserole, send flowers.
What would they say if they knew?
Each well-meant, heartfelt platitude makes me sick with guilt, and so I keep moving from room to room, avoiding eye contact, never stopping. I move past Robert, who is holding court with the elderly sisters who live in the corner house. Not technically our street, but they make amazing sausage rolls, which ensure them invitations to any communal celebration.
“. . . sympathetically designed. I’d be happy to show you the plans.” One by one, he’s gaining support for his extension. He hasn’t won over Mark yet, but I have no doubt he will.
“I would, of course, be happy to compensate you for the inconvenience,” Robert had said, when he came over to show us the plans, which involve temporarily removing the boundary between our properties and digging up the disused septic tank and sewerage system. “I’ll ensure that any planting disturbed is replaced, and a brand-new lawn installed when everything’s finished.”
“I’m just a little concerned about the light,” Mark had replied, again.
He’d have gotten on well with Mum. He could have joined her campaign to stop back-garden development, listened to her arguments about environmental impacts and the integrity of historic buildings. For a second I see the two of them plotting over the kitchen table, and I have to swallow hard to stop myself from crying. Mark would like Mum—I know he would. And she’d like him; she’d like anyone who looked after me the way he does.
I have a sudden picture of Murray Mackenzie with Mark’s business flyer, of my mother’s handwriting on the reverse. I shake it away.
They never met. Mark says they didn’t, and he has no reason to lie. I trust him.
I trust him, but I can’t tell him about Mum. The second I do, he’ll make me call the police. There are no gray areas for Mark; he’s straight down the line. I used to like that in him. I still like it; it’s just . . . complicated now. I wander back to the kitchen. A neighbor from several doors away catches my eye from the opposite side of the room, and without thinking I smile. I look away, but it’s too late; he makes a beeline for me, his wife following in his wake.
“I said to Margaret we must catch you before we go, didn’t I, Margaret?”
“Hi, Don. Hello, Margaret.”
Having reached me, Don takes a deliberate step back in order to look me up and down, like an absent uncle. I wonder if he’s about to comment on how much I’ve grown, but instead he sighs.
“Spitting image of her, you are. Isn’t she, Margaret?”
“Oh yes. Two peas in a pod.”
I force a smile. I do not want to be like my mother.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Don looks positively disappointed. “It must be hard, though.”
“Christmas,” Margaret chimes in, in case I’ve forgotten what day it is.
Despite spending the last nineteen months grieving, I am suddenly paralyzed with uncertainty. Should I be crying? What do they expect from me?
“I’m fine,” I repeat.
“It still doesn’t feel real,” Don says. “I mean, both of them—such a shame.”
“Terrible shame,” Margaret echoes. They’re talking to each other now—my presence irrelevant—and I have the uncomfortable feeling of having been sought out as a catalyst for their entertainment. For the ghoulish pleasure derived from talking about those less fortunate. I scan the kitchen to see who is holding Ella, so I can manufacture a breastfeeding-related exit.
“I thought I saw her in the park yesterday.”
I freeze.
“Funny how your mind plays tricks on you.” Margaret gives a little trill of laughter. She looks around—a storyteller in full flow—and her laughter stops abruptly as her eyes reach mine. She rearranges her face into something approximating sympathy. “I mean, when I looked properly, it was nothing like Caroline. Older, black hair—very different. Clothes she wouldn’t have been seen dead in—” Too late, she realizes her faux pas.
“Will you excuse me?” I say. “The baby . . .” I don’t even bother finishing my sentence. I retrieve Ella from another neighbor’s arms and find Mark in the study with Robert, looking at the extension plans.
“I’m going to take Ella home. She’s tired. All the excitement!” I smile at Robert. “Thanks for a lovely party.”
“I’ll come with you. Mum’ll be wanting her bed, too. We’re all done here, I think?”
The men shake hands and I wonder what they’ve been discussing, but I’m already on my way to find Joan. As always, it takes ages to leave, as we say good-bye and Merry Christmas to people we see on the street or in the park most days anyway.
“See you on Sunday!” someone calls out as we leave.
I wait till we’re out of earshot. “Sunday?”
“I invited the neighbors over for New Year’s Eve.”
“A party?”
He sees my face. “No! N
ot a party. Just a few drinks to see in the New Year.”
“A party.”
“Maybe a little party. Oh, come on! We’d never get a babysitter on New Year’s Eve. This way we get to stay home but still have fun. Win-win. Text Laura—see if she’s already made plans. Bill, too, of course.”
It’s days away, I tell myself. I have more pressing things to worry about.
“I’ve told Robert we’ll support his planning application,” Mark says, when Ella’s in her Moses basket and Mark and I are getting ready for bed.
“What changed your mind?”
He grins through a mouthful of toothpaste. “Thirty grand.”
“Thirty grand? It’s not going to cost thirty grand to replace the lawn and stick some plants back in.”
Mark spits and swills water around the basin. “If that’s what it’s worth to him, I’m not going to argue.” He wipes his mouth, leaving a white smear on the hand towel. “Now I don’t have to worry about the flat being empty for a while.”
“You didn’t have to worry anyway—I told you.”
He gives me a minty kiss and heads for bed.
I stare in the mirror. My skin is still free from lines, but the bones over which it stretches are undeniably my mother’s.
Margaret thinks she saw Mum in the park yesterday. She doesn’t know it, but she probably did. It’s only a matter of time before someone really does recognize her; before someone calls the police.
I could stop all of this, right now, by telling the truth.
So why haven’t I? I’ve known for more than twenty-four hours that my parents are alive; that my father faked his death to escape debt, and my mother faked hers to get away from my father. She betrayed me. Lied to me. Why aren’t I calling the police?
My face stares back at me from the mirror, the answer written in my eyes.
Because she’s my mother, and she’s in danger.