‘“We talked, in that house,” she said. “About our families, and that sort of thing. To begin with, I told her what I told everyone at school, nothing more than that. Then…I started to trust her. I told her I was adopted, and what a secret it was, and why she mustn’t tell anyone else.”’
The picture came together for me—Agnes Og, Melanie Cook, Lucy Fielder—leaping out in brutal technicolour. When I spoke, my voice was almost inaudible. ‘She blackmailed her,’ I said. ‘Eleanor Corbett blackmailed her.’
Donald nodded. ‘She changed out of all recognition, Rebecca told me. After she knew…after she had that hold over her. She seems to have been a very spiteful and manipulative child, and disturbingly skilful when it came to concealing that. But she didn’t conceal it any more from Rebecca. She had no reason to.
‘It began with requests for small things: sweets, hair-ribbons, little toys. Although, from what Rebecca told me, demands would have been a better word. Eleanor made it quite clear what would happen if Rebecca refused—she’d broadcast the secret of Rebecca’s adoption all over the school. Which was, of course, Rebecca’s greatest fear in the world.
‘It was immensely distressing even then, Rebecca told me. Of course, she felt appallingly betrayed; Eleanor was the only person she’d ever trusted in the school. But it didn’t seem a tremendous threat, at first. Rebecca had plenty of pocket money, and she could afford to buy Eleanor’s silence. Unpleasant as it was, it began to feel like a regular duty. Only, as the months passed, that began to change. Eleanor got greedier. She didn’t seem to understand that there were some things Rebecca simply couldn’t give away without her parents noticing—it sounds as if she was a rather stupid child, for all her slyness. She set her heart on a gold bracelet Rebecca wore sometimes—an extremely expensive item, which Rebecca’s mother had bought from a well-known jeweller in London. Rebecca gave it to her in a blind panic, knowing only that she had to keep her quiet.
‘When its absence was remarked on, Rebecca claimed to have lost it, precipitating an immense argument. Still that quickly blew over and life went back to normal. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, Eleanor’s mother discovered the bracelet under her bed and came to the Fishers’ home to return it. Rebecca had no choice but to admit that she’d given it away—she couldn’t possibly admit to the blackmail, much less accuse Eleanor of stealing it. After Eleanor and her mother had left, the argument erupted all over again. Rebecca’s mother told her she couldn’t be trusted with expensive things if she’d just give them to that little ragamuffin…all the jewellery in the house was put under lock and key, and Rebecca’s pocket money reduced to a pittance. Leaving Rebecca in an appallingly difficult position.
‘“I wanted so much to tell my mother,” she said to me, “but she’d have been more furious than ever. If she knew I’d told someone that I was adopted, I really don’t know what she’d have done…”
‘By this time, Rebecca had seen the darker side of Eleanor’s personality only too clearly—she knew that Eleanor was perfectly capable of blurting the secret out in the playground, for no better reason than that of malice. So she became very possessive of her at school, waiting for her outside classrooms just so she could lead her somewhere private, out of harm’s way. After Eleanor’s mother had returned the bracelet, Rebecca took her to some quiet corner, and Eleanor demanded that Rebecca steal it back somehow.
‘Rebecca said she couldn’t, but Eleanor simply didn’t believe her. Told her to bring it to the derelict house that Saturday, at half past two. She said she’d be waiting there.
‘And that, of course, was how it ended…’
He fell quiet and I sat bolt upright in my seat, electrified. ‘Did she tell you about that?’ I asked. ‘What really happened?’
He nodded. ‘Rebecca arrived a full hour before Eleanor did. Of course, she hadn’t been able to get the bracelet, and she was terrified. She’d found something else, a Wedgwood ornament from the living room, and was praying it would be enough to keep Eleanor quiet. But, when Eleanor finally came in, she just stared at it. Demanded to know what had happened to the bracelet.
‘“I told you,” Rebecca said, “I couldn’t get it…” and Eleanor was furious. “I’m going to tell everyone about you being adopted,” she said, “just you wait till I get home. I’ll tell my family, everyone in Teasford. Your mother’s going to kill you.”
‘I can’t fully describe Rebecca’s terror. You could see it in her face as she talked about the scene: total recall, blind panic. Everything her adoptive mother had planted in her mind from the age of five was screaming at her inside. And there was more to it than that. Elements of the hamster she’d killed. That sense of betrayal coming back more strongly than ever. I doubt there was any rational thought going on at all, at that moment. Just animal terror, and fury, and people were going to know who she really was—
‘The knife was close at hand. Eleanor was tiny for her age. Rebecca overpowered her easily. I imagine it was over very quickly.’
‘The red mist,’ I said tonelessly.
‘She couldn’t remember anything after picking up the knife—at least, that’s what she told me, and I believed her. Just her terror, realising what she’d done when it was over. She ran home as fast as she could, she told me. It was a minor miracle nobody saw her. Her mother and her family’s housekeeper were out that afternoon, so she had the house to herself. Up in her bedroom, she noticed that there was blood on her clothes. Not as much as you’d expect, she said, but enough so you could see it.
‘“I wanted to burn them,” she said, “but I didn’t know how.” It dawned on me all over again how young she’d been that afternoon, just a child. She’d just pushed them down in her laundry basket as far as she could; she literally couldn’t think of anything else to do. After that, she told me she had a bath, and waited for the housekeeper to come home.
‘The next day…my God, she described it so vividly I could have been there. Everyone was talking about Eleanor’s disappearance, and Rebecca’s father called her down from her room unexpectedly. Both her adoptive parents were sitting in the living room with the housekeeper, she said, in total silence. And her father said that the housekeeper had been doing the washing that morning and come across her clothes. “You seem to have had an accident,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell us.”
‘“It felt so strange,” she told me, “so wrong.” Then and there, she understood that they all knew what had happened, to a greater or lesser degree—they knew that she’d somehow killed Eleanor Corbett. “I don’t think my parents were even wondering why,” she said, “just how they could stop a big scandal. The housekeeper was looking at me like I was a monster, but she didn’t say anything. I knew they’d given her money. I don’t know how much. It must have been a lot, though, to keep her quiet when she looked at me like that.”’
I remembered Melanie’s father-in-law, the cheque Dennis Fisher had written out for him—that had disturbed me at the time, but this new revelation was a thousand times worse. ‘They thought they could buy anything, didn’t they?’ I said quietly.
‘Including justice. But they overestimated their own powers considerably. I imagine they’d hired their housekeeper precisely because she’d be bribable in any situation, but they couldn’t silence the police or the papers that easily.’ He broke off for a second, frowning, remembering. ‘Her father said that the clothes weren’t fit to be worn again, and had been disposed of. She remembered what he said next word for word, and so do I: “I hope you’ll be more careful in the future.”
‘“It was horrible,” she said, “none of us even mentioned what we were talking about, but we all knew. It was always like that, there—we said my mother was unwell when we meant she was passed out drunk, that she’d had a visitor when we all knew it was a boyfriend. But I never knew it would still be like that, not if they knew I’d actually killed someone—”
‘I don’t know if she realised how badly she was contradicting herself, at that mo
ment—the happy family home she’d always described to me, how much she loved both her adoptive parents. I’m not sure if she ever knew. But I’m quite convinced the Fishers weren’t going out of their way to protect her; love and loyalty don’t appear to have entered into it. They couldn’t simply have let justice take its course, for fear of what Rebecca might say on the stand. Her alcoholism and promiscuity and mental health problems, his absolute indifference to all of them. I can only imagine how badly they both dreaded those things emerging.’
‘They did in the end,’ I said.
‘Not to the public. There was a very good reason for that, as well…yet another thing I learned in that single session. The most extraordinary conversation I ever had in my professional capacity, or out of it.’ His dark eyes were very remote, at once compassionate and judging. ‘Soon, she told me, they all knew she’d be arrested…when the police found the knife, it was over. It was then that her mother sat down with her, and told her what would happen if she talked to any of the psychiatrists who tried to interview her. “If you tell the truth about yourself and your home life,” she said, “they’ll have you classified as a lunatic and sent to an asylum. They’re cruel to people there, burn your brain out with electric shocks and leave you for days, not even able to feed yourself. And you’ll never get out as long as you live, not then.” “—I cried,” Rebecca said, “and she held me, and said it didn’t have to be that way. If I just kept quiet, said I’d been happy before, that I didn’t know what had come over me…
‘“Of course, I didn’t talk to them,” she said, “I was too scared. But I can trust you. I know that, now. You’d have had me sent to an asylum when I told you about Toffee, if you were like the other ones…”’
I understood too much, too suddenly, and looked at him, appalled. When he spoke again, his voice was oddly gruff, and I thought I saw a subtle glint of tears in his eyes.
‘Naturally, I told her over and over again that no psychiatrist in the world would behave like that…but it was the adoption issue all over again, she simply didn’t believe me. Still, I suppose the most important thing was that I’d gained her trust. She never spoke to anyone else about the things that really mattered to her, but after that extraordinary session, she spoke to me at length, in detail and completely without fear.
‘I’m quite convinced that I knew her better than anyone else in that unit, children or staff. She was very different from the girl you might imagine and, as the years passed, she didn’t change at all. Extremely sweet, in many ways. Self-possessed on the surface, but deeply shy behind that. She’d have any number of acquaintances who’d take to her, but no close friends at all. She was simply too afraid of opening up to people, to strangers. I liked her very much.’
‘But…you overruled the unit manager,’ I said, confused. ‘You recommended that she should go to the highest-security prison there was, didn’t you?’
‘I did indeed.’
He’d never appeared more comfortable with silence, and it had never seemed more maddening to me. I found myself forced to put a glaringly obvious question into words. ‘Why did you think that, if you were so fond of her?’
‘I said I liked her, and I did. But at the same time I was well aware that she was more potentially dangerous than any patient I’d ever treated…more than thirty years later, I’d say the same.’ His expression was inscrutable, meditative. ‘To think where they ended up sending her, a virtually open prison with security designed for petty drug dealers and prostitutes—that’s frightening enough—you’re probably aware that I resigned over their decision, and you can be quite sure I didn’t do that lightly. But, as for what happened next—releasing her into the world with a whole new identity—I simply can’t describe to you what a mistake those people made.’
‘But…nothing happened after all,’ I said. ‘If she’d ever killed again, we’d all know. It would have been all over the papers.’
‘Nothing’s happened yet. Rebecca would be forty-three years old today—hardly in her dotage. I still stand by my original judgement. She is, and always will be, a danger to society.’
‘Why?’ I meant to ask, was aghast to find myself demanding, ‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because nothing will have changed inside her from all those years ago. In that respect, she’s entirely different from the handful of child-murderers I’ve encountered in my career, and others I’ve read about; even worldwide there are surprisingly few. Virtually all of those children have a motive in common: absolute ignorance of what death really means. Their victims are strangers or casual acquaintances, they simply wish to know what it feels like to kill. Evil as that motive sounds, it never survives into adulthood…it’s the darkest of childhood fascinations, outgrown as quickly as the lightest.’ He paused for a moment, with the same faraway look. ‘Rebecca’s motives, by contrast, were only too clear. If she found herself in those same circumstances at twenty, or thirty, or forty, she’d react in exactly the same way.’
‘But—with her secret identity—she’d be too afraid to do anything like that!’ I burst out. ‘It would be the end of everything for her. She’d know that—’
‘Do you believe she was thinking so rationally when she killed the hamster? Or Eleanor Corbett?’ His smile was enigmatic. ‘The red mist I referred to earlier had nothing to do with the impetuosity of childhood. She was as guarded at ten years of age as she will be today. In that state, self-preservation simply ceases to exist. The threat of personal revelation. Betrayal by a loved one. Those are her triggers. The hamster released one. Eleanor released both.’
I watched him sit back in his chair, aware of every breath I took. The silence around us grew deafening before he spoke again.
‘You’re aware of minefields, I imagine, Miss Jeffreys. The mines themselves are extraordinarily easy to produce and distribute—cheap things, scattered as casually as seeds. But there is no high-tech solution for clearing them from the ground once there. A mine can lay dormant for years, decades, longer. Then, when triggered…I believe the technical term is fragmentation.
‘I can’t think of a better metaphor for that woman’s mind. It will never be safe in her lifetime. The mines are still there.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
IWAS ALMOST the only person in my carriage as the train started pulling out of Waterloo station. There was no background noise at all beyond the half-felt, half-heard rhythm of it settling into motion. The time was five to five. As we emerged from the station’s shadowy outskirts, into early evening sunlight, I saw grimy house-backs and embankments frenetic with graffiti. I waited to be gradually taken back to Bournemouth and the world I knew.
The stillness around me was absolute, my thoughts in a state of turmoil. For the first time, I understood the darkness within Rebecca; she was more pitiable than I’d ever appreciated and, simultaneously, far more terrifying. Donald Hargreaves’ remembered voice drifted in to me, quiet and authoritative, by turns sardonic and deadly serious. Telling me all over again that she was no pathetic victim to cuddle and console in my mind, that the damage that had been inflicted on her made her nothing short of lethal.
Yet I’d never empathised with her more deeply. I saw her life reflecting my own, and the picture was both fragmented and crystal clear; a shattered, age-speckled mirror showed me vivid elements of myself from crazy angles. My terror of revealing my writing, irrationally convinced that single truth would give strangers a too-intimate knowledge of my life, and my past, and the things I was in most agony to hide from the world. I looked, and saw it become Rebecca’s feverish secrecy regarding her adoption; it would instantly mark her out as an outsider, as unwanted. Her terror ran fathoms deeper than mine. I supposed it wasn’t surprising. I’d acquired it on my own, while she’d been painstakingly tutored by an expert in the field: Rita Fisher had known the byways of paranoia and concealment as intimately as anyone could know anything. Nobody must ever know about the mental illness, or the drinking, or the marriage that was nothing mor
e than a grotesque sham…
I thought of Rebecca’s much-trumpeted love of her adoptive parents, her outburst in the Southfield Unit’s common room; her passionate insistence that she was the Fishers’ natural daughter, that the newspapers had lied. I wondered if she’d cling to her secret identity in the same way these days, and imagined that she would. The longing to become what everyone thought she was, what she longed to be in reality—a beloved daughter then, a blameless citizen now—she’d want to believe the illusion so deeply that she actually would, forcing her mind into the thought patterns of an envied stranger. She’d never betray her past in a casual remark, any more than she’d betrayed it at St Anthony’s—before, of course, she’d made the mistake of confiding in someone else. Vicious, grasping, doomed little Eleanor Corbett…
Of course, Eleanor’s hadn’t been the only death. Rita Fisher had committed suicide two days after the trial had ended. From what I’d learned about her, I was quite convinced that she hadn’t been driven to it by love of her adoptive daughter, or even by remorse. I imagined the effect public loathing would have on someone so insecure and unstable, whose only happiness came from the imagined respect and admiration of the little people around her. The firebombing of Dennis’ factory would have been reflected in a thousand petty local incidents, intensifying as the trial began. I recalled A Mind to Murder, Eileen Corbett’s outburst in the courtroom. How Rita must have felt at that moment…but, even as I understood her terror and humiliation, I found it impossible to sympathise with her in any way that mattered. She’d sacrificed Rebecca on the altar of her own neuroses. Ultimately, she’d created the monsters that would live inside a child till death.
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