Marty is a talker, like Ruby, which is fine with me because I prefer to listen. He used to be a printer with his own shop, but the Internet took off and people didn’t need professional printers any more.
‘There’s loads of jobs like that,’ he says. ‘Once there were blacksmiths in every village and lamplighters and rat-catchers and switchboard operators.’
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
‘They even had knocker-uppers,’ says Marty. ‘Know what they did?’
‘They got women pregnant.’
He laughs. ‘Nah, they used to wake people up before alarm clocks and mobile phones by knocking on their windows with long poles. Imagine that.’
I couldn’t.
‘The world is getting faster just as I’m getting slower. I can’t keep up so I’ve stopped trying.’ He pauses and looks at me. ‘How about you, young Evie? Do you want to make your mark on the world?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
I shrug. How do I explain to him that I don’t want to leave a footprint or a fingerprint? I want the world to leave me alone. I don’t want someone else’s life, or to take what they have. The three biggest lies in the world are these: it gets better; everything will be OK; and I’m here for you.
‘Are you OK?’ asks Marty.
‘Yeah.’
‘You went all quiet for a while.’
‘Thinking.’
‘You looked sad.’
I don’t answer.
We eat in silence. Butter melts on the soft centre of the potatoes and the salad is dressed in vinegar and oil, salt and pepper. Marty offers me a beer.
‘You don’t look old enough, but a good host should ask.’
‘No, thank you.’
He hasn’t mentioned the police and why they were looking for me. He seems to accept that either I’ll tell him or I won’t. By the time we finish eating, storm clouds are gathering to the east, lighting up the horizon with flashes of orange. Soon the air is thick with the smell of rain.
‘You’re welcome to stay here tonight,’ says Marty, glancing skywards. ‘Otherwise there’s a train station at Long Eaton, about a mile from here. Best leave now, or you’ll get a wet tail.’
‘Where will I sleep?’ I ask.
‘You have the main cabin. There’s a lock on the door.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ve got a lovely bunk in the aft cabin.’ Almost as an afterthought, he says, ‘You’ll be safe here, Evie.’
I look at his face and know he’s not lying.
‘I don’t suppose you have a bath,’ I say.
‘Nothing so fancy, but I can boil up a kettle.’
We clear away the plates, fold the chairs and wash up. Fat drops of rain are sizzling on the coals of the barbecue as Marty checks the ropes and makes sure everything is tied down.
He boils a kettle of water and retreats to his cabin, giving me some privacy. I take off my top and wash my upper body with a warm cloth, feeling how quickly my skin grows cold. Peeling off my jeans, I sponge the rest of me and get dressed in the same clothes.
There are voices outside on the towpath. For a moment, I panic but it’s only a couple, caught in the rain, running and laughing, telling each other to be quiet.
‘I’m finished,’ I say. Marty comes out of his cabin and collects a sleeping bag from a cupboard below the stairs.
‘Pancakes for breakfast,’ he says. ‘You like blueberries or bananas?’
‘Both.’
‘Good. So do I.’
It’s still early, but I’m exhausted. I pick up a book from Marty’s shelves – a crime novel with yellowing pages and small print – but it doesn’t hold my attention. Turning off the light, I hear Marty snoring through the thin wall. Gertrude has stayed with me, curling up on the end of the bunk, keeping my feet warm.
Alone in the secret room, I had no way of telling how many days and nights had passed. I slept. I woke. I grew thirstier. Hungrier. I pressed my ear to the wooden panel but there were no sounds of men arguing or searching. Instead, I could hear Sid and Nancy whimpering and whining in the garden. Did they have food? Water?
It was late afternoon when I emerged from hiding, crawling into the bedroom where dust motes floated in the bright cracks of light at the edges of the curtains. Terry’s body creaked and made other sounds that belonged to death. Flies lifted off his face and settled again. The smell of him made me retch, but I had nothing in my stomach to bring up.
In the bathroom, I drank water from the tap, tilting my head so that it ran across my cheek and down my chin. I scrubbed my face and peered in the mirror. I looked hollow-eyed. Haunted. Maybe I was dead, I thought, a ghost.
A car passed outside. Terror rose in me again. I heard laughter and peered through the gap in the curtains. A family walked past the house. Mum. Dad. Two children.
When it grew dark, I opened the curtains properly and moonlight fell across Terry’s body. I didn’t turn on the lights. Instead, I crept to the landing and peered through the spindles, imagining the men were waiting for me.
I crouched for so long my back grew stiff and I lost circulation in my legs. Sid and Nancy were still whining. I edged slowly down the stairs, pausing every few steps, listening.
The kitchen smelled of bleach and every surface had been scrubbed and cleaned. But the rest of the house was a mess, with holes in the walls and ripped carpets and broken furniture.
I debated whether to open the fridge because I knew it would trigger the light. I opened it quickly and held my finger over the button. It was empty.
Unlocking the back door, I smelled the grass and damp earth. Light rain was falling, clinging to my hair. I crossed the lawn to the kennel. Sid and Nancy were whining and barking. Excited to see me. I put my fingers through the wire mesh, letting them lick me.
I went back to the house and found half a bag of dried dog food below the sink in the laundry. I carried it outside and filled their bowls, sliding the ceramic plates beneath the chain-link gate. Dizzy with hunger, I ate a handful of pellets, which were dry and gritty and slightly sour, but they stopped my stomach from cramping. Afterwards, I unspooled the garden hose and gave the dogs fresh water.
Terry had always warned me about entering the kennel. He said Sid and Nancy were trained to attack people, but I knew they wouldn’t hurt me. When they’d finished eating, I unlatched the kennel and stepped inside. They butted me with their heads and licked my hands and wagged their tails. I laughed and whispered their names, telling them to be quiet.
Leaving the kennel door open, I let them run around the garden, where they sniffed at the shrubs and trees; and wrestled playfully on the grass. I thought about letting them go. Surely that was kinder. I couldn’t look after myself, how could I care for them?
I lifted the latch on the side gate and pushed it open. Sid and Nancy ran to the entrance and stopped, looking at the road and back at me, as if deciding what to do. They chose me.
While they chased and played, I took a shovel and cleaned up the kennel, hosing down the fake grass and shaking out the hessian sacks they used as bedding. When I finished, Sid and Nancy came back to the kennel and ate more kibble before curling up on the sacks. I lay between them with my arm draped over Nancy, feeling safe for the first time in days.
I didn’t dream of Terry because it made my heart ache. Every person I had ever loved had been taken away from me. My father. My mother. My sister. Terry had been mine. Terry had saved me. Terry was gone.
46
Cyrus
The laundrette is squeezed between two greengrocers who are locked in a price-cutting war over bananas and avocados. Cardboard signs have various prices crossed out and rewritten in a race to the bottom or bankruptcy.
Pushing open the heavy glass door of the laundrette, we enter the damp, over-heated air. Along one wall, tumble dryers rumble and thump, while opposite a row of washing machines are lined up, open-mouthed, waiting to be fed. Two middle-aged men are sittin
g on a central bench, watching the dryers as if engrossed in a TV drama. Meanwhile, a woman in her sixties with permed dark hair like a bad wig is sorting dry-cleaning tickets.
‘Mrs Green?’ I ask.
Her mouth wrinkles and her features sharpen on a face that only seems capable of a limited range of emotions, none of them positive.
‘We’re here to talk about Eugene,’ I say.
‘Course you are,’ she says sarcastically, going back to her receipts.
‘I work for the police. I understand that you talked to Hamish Whitmore at Eugene’s funeral.’
‘You understand?’ she laughs, putting on a posh accent.
‘He was reviewing Eugene’s conviction. Something prompted him to look at the case again.’
Her upper lip curls. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I would, but he died nine days ago.’
The information rattles her for a moment and I notice how the fingers of her left hand grip her right wrist, as though she’s holding herself back. She looks at Sacha and back to me.
‘How?’
‘He was murdered.’
Her aggression vanishes, taking away her last defences and she becomes a frail old woman with a drug-ravaged face and jeans that hang so loosely on her bony hips they could be pegged to a clothesline.
Sacha lifts the hinged countertop and steps inside, leading Mrs Green to a chair. We’re squeezed into the small back room, which smells of dry-cleaning chemicals and ironing spray.
‘I only talked to him a few weeks ago,’ says Mrs Green. Her breathing is ragged, and I recognise the early stages of emphysema. ‘Hamish never judged me. He wanted to help.’
‘Why would he judge you?’ I ask.
Her eyes narrow. ‘You know, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘I’m not proud of what I done – to Eugene, or to me – but you can’t escape a past like mine.’ She looks at Sacha defiantly. ‘I was a sex worker. That’s what they call them these days – not prostitutes or hookers or call girls. Makes it sound like it’s a proper job, but it’s still the same: spreading your legs for money. Does that shock you?’
Sacha seems unsure how to answer.
‘That’s why they took Eugene away from me when he was still a baby; said I wasn’t a fit and proper mum because of the drugs and the sex work. I tried to get clean. Got him back for a while. But when he was five he accidentally drank my methadone and almost died. That was my last chance. I didn’t see him again for thirty years.’
‘Did he come looking for you?’ I ask.
Mrs Green nods.
‘I got a letter from social services saying the boy I gave up for adoption wanted to get in touch with me. I remember crying all over my cardigan. Eugene wrote to me at first. He sent me a photograph. We arranged to meet. I expected this little boy to show up. I know that’s silly, but then Eugene came through the door. Overweight. Curly-haired. Greying. I figured there’d been a mistake, but he marched up to my table and said, “Mum?”’
Her eyes are shining.
‘He bought me flowers. Nobody ever does that. We sat in the café for hours and drank so many cups of tea I was busting for the loo, but I didn’t want to go in case he walked out and I lost him again.’
‘Where was he living?’
‘Right here in Leeds. He was driving trucks, travelling all over the place. Belgium. Germany. Spain. He used to send me postcards from the places he visited. And whenever he was home, he’d drop by and see me.’ Her voice grows thick. ‘He did the most wonderful thing. I didn’t deserve …’
She lets out a strangled sob.
‘What did he do?’ asks Sacha.
‘He bought me a flat. Paid for the whole thing. Put it in my name.’
‘How could he afford that?’ I ask.
‘He said he was injured and got an insurance pay-out.’
I’ve read the files on Eugene Green and there’s no mention of a compensation claim.
A bell rings above the door and a customer comes to the counter. Mrs Green wipes her eyes quickly and takes the receipt, before retrieving the dry-cleaning from the racks along the wall behind her. Having sorted out the payment, she returns to her seat.
‘How did you hear that Eugene had been arrested?’ I ask.
‘I saw it on the TV. I didn’t want to believe that he could have kidnapped those kiddies … that he could have done those things …’
She pauses and begins again. ‘I visited him in prison when he was on remand. I sat opposite him, as close as I am to you, and looked him straight in the eyes. “Did you do it?” I asked. I expected him to lie to me. Maybe that’s what I wanted. But he broke down and cried. Sobbed. He said I should have suffocated him at birth, or drowned him in the bath.’
She looks up, wanting us to believe her. ‘I know people say he was a monster, but he was sorry for what he did, and he didn’t expect people to forgive him. He apologised to me. Imagine that. The boy I abandoned as a baby was saying sorry to me.’
‘Did he ever talk about the murders?’
‘No.’
‘What about other missing children?’
‘I didn’t want to know, but I’ll tell you this much, I don’t think Eugene did this on his own. I think someone manipulated him. I think he was being used.’
A middle-aged woman enters the laundrette carrying drawstring bags of dirty washing. She empties the contents into a pile and begins sorting whites and coloureds into different machines, before purchasing detergent from a dispenser. Mrs Green knows her name. They exchange nods, but no words. A dryer thumps in the background, something heavy inside.
Mrs Green hacks out a cough into a handkerchief and folds it into her sleeve.
‘You said before that Eugene was being manipulated,’ I say. ‘Any idea of who would do that?’
She shrugs. ‘That’s what Detective Whitmore was looking at. When he turned up at Eugene’s funeral.’
‘I thought he’d come to dance on my boy’s grave, but he was very respectful. He said he was sorry for my loss. He’s the only one who ever said that.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘I told him I had a box of Eugene’s things. It was in a storage locker, paid in advance, but when Eugene went to prison, the money ran out and the box was sent to me. Mainly it was photographs and other bits and pieces. A birth certificate. A Holy Communion medal. A Bible. Some of the pictures were taken when Eugene was in a children’s home in Wales.’
‘Hillsdale House.’
‘Yeah, that’s the place,’ says Mrs Green.
I do the calculations in my head. Dates. Years. Ages. ‘How old was Eugene in the photographs?’ I ask.
‘Fourteen or fifteen.’
‘Did he ever mention a boy called Terry Boland.’
‘Detective Whitmore asked me that. He was going through the box and he found a picture of Eugene on a football field in front of goalposts. He was standing next to a bigger boy, not fat, just big all over. Both their names were written on the back. Terry and Eugene.
‘As soon as I saw his picture, I remembered Eugene talking about Terry. As a boy he used to get bullied on account of his weight, but when Terry arrived at the home, he put a stop to that.’
‘Did they stay in touch after they left Hillsdale House?’ I ask.
‘They went to Scotland once.’
‘When?’
She shrugs.
‘The photographs you gave to Detective Whitmore – did you keep copies of them?’
‘No. Why? Hamish promised to get them back to me.’
‘They were stolen by whoever killed him.’
‘But they were mine,’ she protests.
‘Did you keep any?’ asks Sacha.
‘No, I don’t think—’
She stops herself and frowns, her eyes disappearing in the creases. Reaching into a drawer, she pulls out an old mobile phone.
‘This belonged to Eugene,’ she says. ‘I dropped mine in the bath and he gave me
this until I could buy another one.’
The mobile has an early camera and enough charge in the battery to light up the screen. Mrs Green scrolls through the images in the phone library.
I glance at Sacha, reading her thoughts.
‘There are no pictures of any kiddies,’ Mrs Green says defensively. ‘Eugene must have taken these.’ She passes the phone to me.
The photograph shows a ragtag group of men standing in front of a fountain. In the background is a grand-looking country house with turrets and towers and ivy trailing up the walls. The men are dressed casually in heavy shirts, jeans, sweaters, woollen hats and wellingtons. A few are carrying flags and sticks, ready to march across the moors, beating at bushes and hedges, scaring up grouse for the guns.
Looking along the line of beaters, I spot Eugene Green second from the right. He’s wearing a soft tartan cap and a brightly coloured scarf. I study the other men. On the far left of the frame is another familiar figure, unmistakable because of his size: Terry Boland.
Sacha takes the phone from me, looking for a date or a location. The date on the image is 8 December 2012. She comes across a second photograph. This one is a wider shot of the same group of men, but it captures more of the house and the outbuildings, including a garage and a collection of luxury cars parked in the forecourt.
I can’t read the number plates, but one of the vehicles has a distinct outline. It’s a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow with red leather seats. I know a car just like this one. I know the man who owns it. My self-appointed guardian. My adopted uncle. My friend.
47
Evie
Ropes creak, wood groans and water sloshes against the hull. I wake to these sounds, feeling like I’m trapped in the belly of a beast, like Jonah inside the whale – one of the few Bible stories I remember. Dressing in darkness, I tiptoe from the cabin and put ten pounds on the table for Marty. He won’t take the money, unless I give him no choice.
Gertrude watches me curiously but doesn’t make a fuss of me leaving. I feel the narrowboat rock under my weight as I step on to land. To my right the canal is like polished black marble, reflecting the streetlights along the towpath. There are fields on one side and a golf course on the other, both in darkness.
When She Was Good Page 23