Hunter arrived in a police car to drive me to Penrith police station. He still wasn’t talking. My queries met with monosyllabic answers: Selena was in custody, charged with murder. Matt had been D.O.A.
“And Freddie? Have you talked to him?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he all right?”
“No.”
“How’s Griff? Is he okay?”
“Yes.”
“Not badly hurt?”
“A superficial wound. Four stitches.”
“At least he’ll have forgotten how it happened.”
“Yes.”
“And how about you, Eden? How are you?” I said. “After being kidnapped, stuffed in a car boot, thrown in a lake and convinced you were going to drown? No hypothermia from your half-mile swim? No ill effects? Why, thank you, Hunter, nice of you to ask.”
At that he turned his head, briefly. “Sorry,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m still here.” I wished he cared a little more.
“Anyway, it wasn’t half a mile.”
“A third.”
“You did well,” said Hunter. But he was desolate.
“Hunter? You did okay too,” I volunteered.
“No. A man is dead.”
“Not because of you. I don’t see how you could have prevented it. And you did save me and Freddie from being shot. There might another medal in it for you.” I was joking, but I immediately wished I hadn’t. I watched his hands on the steering wheel, at two and ten o’clock like in the driving manuals: echoing the gap where his fingers weren’t.
“There’ll be an enquiry,” he said.
“You’ll be okay. You didn’t kill him.” And then I had to turn and look out of the window because I was suddenly back in that boat, blind and listening to the waves, feeling fear stretch out its tentacles to fasten round my neck. I saw Matt’s eyes gazing into Freddie’s face. And closing. Going under.
I took a deep breath: turned my collar up, rubbed at the window.
“Don’t,” said Hunter.
“How’s Selena? Is she–” I didn’t know what to ask. Was she okay? She had never been okay. Was she sane? Was she wicked? Was she sorry?
“You’ll find out,” he said. “She wants to talk to you.”
“To me? What for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hunter, how do you think she got involved with Matt?”
“It seems they met in Liverpool. When he came back up here two years ago, he brought her with him. He arranged for her to meet Luke,” said Hunter. “He sent her to the funeral with instructions. He had plans back then. If you believe her.”
“Do you?”
“Possibly. Matt was a manipulator. That was evident last night. He liked playing with people. Masks all the way down: he was a con-man through and through.”
“Hunter? When we were out on the lake, Matt said something about his former career, which I supposedly ruined when I got nicked. He was dealing forged antiques. Prior to that, motor fraud with Luke, and carousel fraud too.”
“Is that right?” For the first time, Hunter showed some animation. “Well, it doesn’t surprise me.”
“He was creating signed editions for the bookshop.”
“I wonder if Freddie knew,” said Hunter grimly.
“I doubt it. Can’t you leave Freddie be?”
He was silent. The car turned on to the motorway, speeding up, while all the other cars around us slowed down and kept a discreet distance. The magical effect of tasteless blue and yellow checks.
“I found some old blank MOTs in the farmhouse,” I said after a while, as the high, bleak slopes of Shap rose up before us. “There was a forged letter too, supposedly by Wordsworth, supposedly found by Luke. I should have told you.”
“You should.”
“I think Matt and Luke were partners early on. I think Matt tried to introduce him to a life of crime and got pissed off when Luke dipped out and informed on his so-called mates. Matt had to disappear in a hurry, so he went to Liverpool: that’s when he met Selena. When he came back here, he got her married off to Luke. And then he encouraged her to drive Luke so crazy with fear and anguish that he killed himself.”
“That’s doubtful,” Hunter said. “We don’t have any evidence of that.”
“But Selena spun a yarn to Luke about his dad and Bryony having an affair: that was Matt’s idea. That must have really knocked him sideways. There was something strange about that foot and mouth scare too.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “Selena hasn’t opened up to us. We still don’t even know her real identity. Maybe you’ll do better.”
We arrived at Penrith. I was shown into a tiny room where I was formally interviewed by a female detective inspector with a face as red and square as a brick and a voice as sweet as honey. I was mesmerised. I kept listening to the music of her questions instead of the content, so that she had to repeat most of them.
When eventually I’d managed to answer them all, she took me down the corridor.
“She wants to talk to you. Answer normally, ask her questions if you like, but keep it low-key. Don’t show any anger,” she said, before opening the door to another room, windowless and charmless. Inside, Selena slouched with her feet on the edge of her plastic chair and her knees pulled up to her chin. A WPC sat demurely in the corner with her hands in her lap. She stood up and gave her seat to the inspector.
I sat down on the third chair, a blue moulded thing straight out of a school hall. Selena looked up at me, the beautiful face expressionless.
“I’m glad you learned to swim,” she said. Was she being ironic? I didn’t think Selena did irony.
I said, “So am I. Did you know Matt was going to try and drown me?” A silly question. Even if she’d known, it wasn’t likely she’d admit it.
“I didn’t want him to drown you. You haven’t finished painting me yet.” The WPC eyed her askance.
“But you rang him up and told him where I was.”
“I didn’t know what he was going to do.”
I leaned back in my blue chair. I had no idea what I was doing here. I looked at the inspector, but she gave me no clues.
“Tell me about Luke,” I said conversationally. “Why did you want Luke to die?”
“I didn’t. I just wanted to scare him. It was Matt’s idea.”
“You went along with it,” I said. “Yet Luke and Matt had started out as such good friends. They were even in business together, weren’t they? Car trade, something like that?”
“That was years ago. Till they got into trouble and had to stop,” she said. “That was Luke’s fault. I don’t why exactly. But Matt forgave him. He wanted to be friends again. That’s why he arranged for me and Luke to meet up, because we’d be good for each other. Only he thought it’d be better if it seemed like chance, so I went to the funeral.” She smiled faintly, reminiscing. “And there was Luke, so handsome and so sad. He needed cheering up.”
“So that was why you married him? To cheer him up.”
“I liked Luke,” she said. Her forefinger traced a small pattern on the table. “To begin with, anyway, before he started crying all the time. I told him I was pregnant, that’s why we decided to get married.”
“Were you pregnant?”
“Of course not!” She ducked her head in revulsion. “It’s disgusting, having babies is. I’m never going to do it. I didn’t think he’d mind so much when I told him I wasn’t having one after all. I thought we could be happy, just the two of us, a family, you know? That would have been nice. I liked having a home. And he was kind, Luke was. He didn’t ask me to–”
“To what?” I said. I took a punt. What had Ruby said? Luke slept on the sofa. “To go to bed with him?”
She looked up at me, her eyes cold. “I hate that stuff. I’ve had it with that stuff. I did it at first to keep him happy, but then I’d had enough. I told him so.”
“Okay,” I said. “Is that why your marriage ran into trouble?
”
“It didn’t. We would have been all right if everyone left us alone. But there was Isaac, always watching us. And Bryony. I’d stolen him off her, and she wanted to steal him back. She did it, too, in the end. Luke was supposed to be mine! That was my home! I’ve never had a proper home before, and she spoilt it all.” Her fist clenched on her knee.
“So Luke had to die,” I said.
“He shouldn’t have done it with Bryony. I told him she was a slut because she’d been with his Dad, horrible old man. But then Luke wouldn’t talk to me either. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. He went all sort of white and quiet. So Matt said I should make the cow sick. He said he’d tell Luke a rumour about foot and mouth being found nearby. He said Luke would get worried, but then I could comfort him and he’d come back to me again.” All spoken in the same, flat, quiet voice, as if Luke had been a paper doll she could scribble on or tear up as she liked.
“Luke got a bit too worried,” I said. “How did you make the cow sick?”
“Peace lilies. Matt bought us a whole load for Christmas. He said to feed them to the cow, they’ll give her blisters. And he lamed it with a knife one night. I wouldn’t do that. I’m always scared they’ll kick me. He’s not scared of cows.”
“Or bulls,” I said. “Did you know Matt was planning to kill Isaac?”
“Matt rang me up that morning. Take Bryony to Keswick, he said, so I told him she was already out. Good, he said, you go out too. He told me to go shopping. He was dead annoyed when I lost the receipt.” She giggled faintly, and put her hand over her mouth.
“Did you know he was going to try and pin Isaac’s death on me?”
She stopped giggling. “No,” she said. “I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t have let him.”
“Did you really follow me to Waterhead, that first time we met?”
“Matt told me all about you. There’s this really good painter, he said, you should get to know her. Make friends with her. Invite her back to the farm. Maybe she’ll paint you.”
“So you got to know me by throwing yourself in the lake.”
She gazed into the distance. “That wasn’t part of the plan. I just felt like it. I wanted to lie down in the water, you know? And just forget everything. But you rescued me. I was really upset when I found out Matt had tried to drown you.”
My mouth had gone very dry.
“Almost as upset as you were when Luke died,” I said.
“I was upset! Honestly! I didn’t think he’d kill himself, I just wanted to teach him a lesson for sneaking off with Bryony. And I was fed up with him going on about the sex thing. Matt said maybe we should get divorced and I could marry him instead, because he’d never bother me that way. But then Luke shot himself so we didn’t need to get a divorce after all.”
My mouth had fallen open. “You planned to marry Matt?”
“Why not? Matt was good to me. He looked after me. Only he got really angry over that birth certificate, and then I thought maybe I didn’t want to marry him any more. I didn’t realise he could be that nasty.”
I couldn’t pretend indifference any longer. She spoke like a child living in a fairy tale.
“But Matt was a murderer!” I exclaimed. “You knew that he’d killed Isaac!” The inspector gave me a warning glance, but Selena didn’t notice. She pulled a face.
“Isaac deserved it.”
I quietened my voice and tried to sound merely interested. “Why? What had he ever done to you?”
“He hadn’t done anything yet, but he wanted to.” She shivered, wincing. “Horrible old man. He was going to.”
“What was he going to do?”
“You know,” said Selena, her voice low. She shook her hair over her face. “What they all want, those old men who can’t get it any other way. I mean, who’d have them?”
“Had Isaac threatened you?”
“Not yet. But he would have. He was going to. Matt said so. He’d already had it off with Bryony, after all, hadn’t he?”
“No, he hadn’t,” I said. “Matt was lying.”
She pulled at a strand of matted hair. “Isaac would have tried it on with me soon anyway. I know the signs. It always happens. It’s me, I make them like that.”
“You don’t,” I said. “Why do you think that?”
She spread her hands in exasperation. “I steal men’s souls,” she said. “I bewitch them. I make them wicked.”
I looked over at the inspector, who raised one eyebrow but otherwise did not move.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“I can’t help it. But I don’t mean to! You know that, don’t you? You’ve painted me. You know who I really am.”
I was perplexed. “I don’t think you steal men’s souls.”
She pulled more ropes of hair down to hide her face, her voice quiet. “I do. I’ve always been that way. He said it was a curse. They can’t help wanting me.”
“Who said that? Matt?”
“No.” She began to twine the hair around her finger.
“Who was it, then? Was it Luke? Selena, who told you that you steal men’s souls?”
Round and round went her finger, bound in her hair.
“Ralph,” she whispered. She wasn’t looking at me any more.
“Who’s Ralph?”
“My father.”
“Why did he say that?”
“He said I was a selkie. A siren. A water-witch. He told me all the stories. He said I made them true.”
“But I thought that was your Grandad,” I said.
She nodded.
“Well, which?” I said. “Grandad or father?”
The hair wrapped her finger closer, tighter.
“Ralph. He’s both.”
“He can’t,” I began, and stopped. The room had gone very still.
“He can. He is. Horrible old man. Him, and all his friends, in that room with the chairs and the cameras. They’re all horrible old men. The lot of them.” She shook her head vehemently as if to shake away a cloud of flies. “They’re sex-mad, old men are,” she muttered. “They leer and peer with their wrinkly old faces and they poke and prod with their horrible old fingers. He said sex was best with old men because they were more experienced. He promised it would make me feel good. It was a load of crap.”
I looked at the inspector again. She opened her mouth, then stopped and gave me a tiny nod, which my mind was whirling too much to interpret.
“Selena,” I said, “when did Ralph say this? How old were you?”
The answer was no more than a breath. “Nine. He said nine was the right age. He said that I had started to bewitch him and make him love me. But I didn’t do it on purpose. He said all the men would want me. It was true. I hate him.” She began to shake her head, face twisting, hair catching on the trails the tears made down her cheeks. “He said I stole their souls and I had to give them something back. I didn’t mean it.”
I took her hand, the forefinger still twined in hair, not cold and limp this time, but warm.
“He lied to you,” I said.
“He didn’t. I’m made all wrong. I tried to tell a teacher once about me being a selkie, and she said it was just fairy stories. But it’s true. Ralph said that was why I didn’t like sex, because there’s something wrong with me. I’m not quite human. That’s the selkie bit. I don’t feel the way humans do. I’m not quite real.”
“You are,” I said. “You’re real. It wasn’t your fault.” But she shook and shook her head, her face netted by her hair.
I persisted. “I’ve painted you, remember? I know you’re real.”
“He said I made men crazy with love for me, but I could never love anyone except him.”
“He was lying to you.”
“Yes.” She looked up fiercely. “He was wrong. I loved Luke, didn’t I? Until he stopped loving me, and went back to Bryony. And I loved Matt, because he rescued me when I was in Liverpool and had nowhere to live. He looked after me. I would have kept on loving him if he h
adn’t called me a slag. I loved them both, you know. That was real love. We didn’t have to do all that sex stuff to love each other.”
“I know.” The two dead men stood in the corners of the room, both slowly seeping blood, the listening policewomen all unaware. She had learnt the lesson well: the one you love is yours to do with as you wish. “I know, Selena. But I don’t know your real name. What was your name, back then when Ralph told you all those lies?”
Her face screwed up. Her eyes were red, her skin mottled, no longer beautiful. “I never want to see him again. Have anything to do with him. Ever.”
“You won’t,” I said. “I promise,” and she leaned her head over to mine, close to my ear, and with a wistful sigh exhaled a name.
Chapter Thirty-two