The Secret Keeper

by Kate Morton

  Dolly was poised to shred further—she’d have gladly gone on all night—when something caught her eye. She froze, peering closer at the scrap in her hands, breathing heavily—yes, there it was.

  In one of the photographs, the locket had slipped from beneath Vivien’s blouse and was clearly visible, sitting crookedly atop her silk ruffle. Dolly touched the spot with her fingertip and gasped as she felt the scald of the day she’d returned the locket.

  Dropping the photograph fragment on the ground beside her, Dolly leaned her head back against the mattress and closed her eyes.

  Her head was spinning. Her knee ached. She was spent.

  Eyes still closed, she dug out her packet of cigarettes and lit one, smoking quietly.

  It was still so fresh. Dolly saw the whole thing in her mind—the unexpectedness of being admitted by Henry Jenkins, the questions he’d asked her, his obvious suspicions about his wife’s whereabouts.

  What might have happened, she wondered, if they’d been given a little longer together? It had been on the tip of her tongue to correct him that day, to explain about the shifts at the canteen. What if she had? What if she’d been allowed the chance to say, ‘Why no, Mr Jenkins, I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’m not sure what she tells you, but Vivien doesn’t report for duty at the canteen more than, oh, once a week.’

  But Dolly hadn’t said it, had she, none of it. She’d wasted the one opportunity she’d had to let Henry Jenkins know he wasn’t imagining things; that his wife was indeed rather more engaged in other affairs than he’d have liked. She’d thrown away her only chance to put Vivien Jenkins right in the middle of a splendid mess of her own making. For she couldn’t very well tell him now, could she? Henry Jenkins wasn’t likely to give Dolly the time of day, not now that—thanks to Vivien— he thought her a thieving servant, not now that her circumstances were so reduced, and certainly not without any proof.

  It was hopeless—Dolly let out a long deflating stream of smoke. Unless she happened to glimpse Vivien in a clinch with a man who wasn’t her husband, unless she then happened to procure a photograph of the pair of them together, an image that confirmed all of Henry’s fears, it was useless. And Dolly didn’t have time to hide in dark alleyways, talk her way into strange hospitals, and somehow be watching at the very right moment in the very right place. Perhaps if she knew where and when Vivien would be with her doctor, but what were the chances of— Dolly gasped and sat bolt upright. It was so simple she could have laughed. She did laugh. All this time she’d been stewing over how unfair it all was, wishing there were some way to put things right, and the perfect opportunity had been staring her in the face. Vivien Jenkins would get just what she deserved and, if everything played out, Dolly might just get a fresh start with Jimmy too.

  Nineteen

  Greenacres, 2011

  ‘SHE SAYS she wants to come home.’

  Laurel rubbed her eyes with one hand and felt about on the bedside table with the other. Finally she found her glasses. ‘She wants what?’ Rose’s voice came down the line again, slower this time and overly patient, as if she were speaking to someone for whom English was a second language. ‘She told me this morning. She wants to come home. To Greenacres.’ Another pause. ‘Instead of the hospital.’

  ‘Ah.’ Laurel looped her frames on beneath the phone and squinted out of the bedroom window. Lord, but it was bright. ‘She wants to come home. And what about the doctor. What did he say?’

  ‘I’m going to speak with him when he’s finished his rounds, but— oh, Lol,’ her voice hushed, ‘the nurse told me she thought it was time.’ Alone in her girlhood bedroom, watching as the morning sunlight crept along the faded wallpaper, Laurel sighed. It was time. There was no need to ask what the nurse meant by that. ‘Well then.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Home she must come.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And we’ll look after her here.’ There came no reply and Laurel said, ‘Rose?’

  ‘I’m here. Do you mean it, Lol? You’re going to stay, you’re going to be there, too?’

  Laurel spoke around the cigarette she was trying to light. ‘Of course I mean it.’

  ‘You sound funny. Are you … crying, Lol?’

  She shook out the match and freed her mouth. ‘No, I’m not crying.’ Another pause and Laurel could almost hear her sister twisting her worry beads into knots. She said, more gently this time, ‘Rose, I’m all right. We’re both going to be all right. We’ll do this together, you’ll see.’ Rose made a small choked noise, possibly of assent, maybe of doubt, and then changed the subject. ‘You got in OK last night then?’

  ‘I did. Rather later than expected, though.’ In fact, it had been three in the morning when she finally let herself into the farmhouse. She and Gerry had gone back to his rooms after dinner and spent much of the night speculating about their mother and Henry Jenkins. They’d decided that while Gerry was chasing down Dr Rufus, it made sense for Laurel to see what she could learn about the elusive Vivien. She was the lynchpin between their mother and Henry Jenkins, after all, and the probable reason he came looking for Dorothy Nicolson in 1961.

  The task had seemed perfectly achievable at the time; now though, in the clear light of day, Laurel didn’t feel so sure. The whole plan had the flimsy quality of a dream. She glanced at her bare wrist, wondering vaguely where she’d left her watch. ‘What time is it, Rosie? It seems rudely bright.’

  ‘It’s just gone ten.’

  Ten? Lord. She’d slept in. ‘Rosie, I’m going to hang up now, but I’m coming straight to the hospital. Will you still be there?’

  ‘Until midday when I pick up Sadie’s youngest from nursery.’

  ‘Right. I’ll see you soon then—we’ll talk to the doctor together.’

  Rose was with the doctor when Laurel arrived. The nurse on the desk told Laurel she was expected and pointed her in the direction of the cafeteria adjoining reception. Rose must’ve been looking out for her, because she’d started waving before Laurel even set foot inside. Laurel wove her way between the tables and as she got closer saw that Rose had been crying, not lightly. There were balled tissues scattered across the tabletop and smeary black smudges beneath her wet eyes. Laurel sat down next to her and said hello to the doctor.

  ‘I was just telling your sister,’ he spoke in precisely the sort of professional caring tone Laurel would have used to play a health worker delivering bad but inevitable news, ‘that in my opinion we’ve exhausted every avenue of treatment. It won’t come as a surprise to you, I think, when I tell you that it’s now just a matter of managing the pain and keeping her as comfort-able as we can.’

  Laurel nodded. ‘My sister tells me our mother wants to come home, Dr Cotter. Is that possible?’

  ‘We wouldn’t have a problem with that.’ He smiled. ‘Naturally if she wanted to remain in the hospital, we’d be able to accommodate that wish, too—in fact, most of our patients stay with us until the end—’ The end. Rose’s hand reached for Laurel’s beneath the table.

  ‘But if you’re willing to care for her at home—’

  ‘We are,’ Rose said quickly. ‘Of course we are.’

  ‘—then I think now is probably the right time for us to talk about you taking her home.’

  Laurel’s fingers itched for their lack of a cigarette. She said, ‘Our mother doesn’t have long.’ It was a statement rather than a question, a function of Laurel’s own processing of the fact, but the doctor answered nonetheless.

  ‘I’ve been surprised before,’ he said, ‘but in response to your question, no, she doesn’t have long.’

  ‘London,’ said Rose, as they walked together down the flecked-lino- leum hospital corridor towards their mother’s room. Fifteen minutes had passed since they’d bade farewell to the doctor but Rose was still clutching a soggy tissue in her fist. ‘A meeting for work then, is it?’ ‘Work? What work? I told you, Rose, I’m on a break.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t say that, Lol. You mak
e me nervous when you say things like that.’ Rose lifted a hand to acknowledge a passing nurse.

  ‘Things like what?’

  ‘You, having a break.’ Rose stopped and shuddered; her wild and woolly hair shook with her. She was wearing denim overalls with a novelty brooch on the bib that looked like a fried egg. ‘It isn’t natural; it isn’t normal. You know I don’t like change—it makes me worry.’ Laurel couldn’t help laughing. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Rosie. I’m simply popping up to Euston to look at a book.’

  ‘A book?’

  ‘Some research I’m doing.’

  ‘Ha!’ Rose started walking again. ‘Research! I knew you weren’t really taking a break from work. Oh, Lol, what a relief,’ she said, fanning her tear-stained face with her hand. ‘I have to say I feel so much better.’ Laurel couldn’t help but smile. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘I’m glad to have been of service.’

  It had been Gerry’s idea to start the search for Vivien at the British Library. A late-night Google session had led them only to Welsh rugby sites and other dead-ends in curious far-flung undulations of the Web, but the library, Gerry insisted, wouldn’t disappoint. ‘Three million new items every year, Lol,’ he’d said, as he filled in the registration details, ‘that’s six miles of shelf space; they’re bound to have something’. He’d grown excited when he described the online service—‘They’ll mail copies of whatever you find directly to your house’—but Laurel had decided (perversely, said Gerry, with a smile) that it was easier simply to make the trip in person. Perversity, be damned—Laurel had played in detective series before, she knew some-times there was nothing for it but to pound the pavement in a search for clues. What if the information she found led to more? Far better to be in situ than to have to make another electronic order and wait; far better to be doing than waiting.

  They reached Dorothy’s door and Rose pushed it open. Their mother was asleep on her bed, seemingly thinner and weaker than she had been even the morning before, and it struck Laurel like a brick that her decline was becoming more rapid. The sisters sat together for a time, watching as Dorothy’s chest gently rose, gently fell, and then Rose took a dusting cloth from her handbag and started wiping around the display of framed photographs. ‘I suppose we ought to pack these up,’ she said softly. ‘Ready to take home.’

  Laurel nodded.

  ‘They’re so important to her, her photos. They always have been, haven’t they?’

  Laurel nodded again, but she didn’t answer. Mention of photos had got her thinking about the one of Dorothy and Vivien together in wartime London. It had been dated April 1941, only a month before their mother started work at Grandma Nicolson’s boarding house and Vivien Jenkins was killed in an air raid. Where had the photograph been taken? she wondered. And by whom? Was the photographer someone the girls had known—Henry Jenkins, perhaps? Or Ma’s boyfriend, Jimmy? Laurel sighed. So much of the puzzle seemed out of reach.

  The door opened then and sounds of the outside world drifted through in the wake of their mother’s nurse—people laughing, buzzers sounding, phones ringing. Laurel watched as the nurse moved about the room efficiently, checking Dorothy’s pulse, her temperature, marking things down on that chart at the end of the bed. She offered Laurel and Rose a kind smile when she had finished and told them she’d hold onto their mother’s lunch in case she woke later and was hungry. Laurel thanked her and she left, closing the door behind her again and casting the room back into a still silent terminus in which to wait. Wait for what though? No wonder Dorothy wanted to go home.

  ‘Rose?’ said Laurel suddenly, watching as her sister straightened the clean photo frames.

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘When she asked you to get that book for her, the one with the photograph inside, was it strange to see inside her trunk?’ More to the point, was there anything else in there that might help solve Laurel’s mystery? She wondered whether there was any way to ask without tipping Rose off to her search.

  ‘Not really. I didn’t think much about it, to be honest. I went as quickly as I could for fear she’d follow me up the stairs if she thought I was taking too long. Thankfully she was sensible and stayed in bed where I’d put her—’ Rose gasped.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  Rose exhaled with relief, brushing her hair from her fore-head. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said, shaking her hand. ‘I just couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d done with the key. She was being difficult, you see; she came over all agitated when she saw I’d found the book. She was pleased, I think—I mean, she must have been, it was she who’d wanted it in the first place—but she was snippy, too, quite irascible; you know how she can get.’

  ‘You’ve remembered now though?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course—it’s back in her bedside table.’ She shook her head at Laurel and smiled guilelessly. ‘Really, I wonder about my brain sometimes.’

  Laurel smiled back. Dear, innocent Rose.

  ‘Sorry, Lol—you were asking me something … about the trunk?’ ‘Oh no, it was nothing. Just making conversation.’

  Rose glanced at her watch then and announced that she’d have to leave to collect her granddaughter from nursery. ‘I’ll pop in later tonight, though, and I think Iris is in tomorrow morning. Between us we ought to be able to get everything packed for the move on Friday … You know, I almost feel excited.’ But then her face clouded. ‘I expect that’s a terrible thing to feel, under the circumstances.’

  ‘I don’t think there are any rules about such things, Rosie.’

  ‘No, perhaps you’re right.’ Rose leaned down to kiss Laurel’s cheek, and then she was gone, leaving behind a trail of her lavender fragrance.

  It had been different with Rose in the room, another moving, bustling breathing body. Without her, Laurel was even more conscious than before of just how faded and still her mother had become. Her phone beeped with an incoming message and she leapt to check it, clutching gratefully at the lifeline to the outside world. It was a form email from the British Library, confirming the book she’d ordered would be available the following morning and reminding her to bring identification to complete her registration for a reader’s pass. Laurel read it through twice and then slid the phone reluctantly back into her bag. The message had offered a moment of welcome distraction; now she was back where she’d started, in the stultifying stasis of the hospital room.

  She could stand it no longer. The doctor had said her mother would most likely sleep all afternoon due to her pain medication, but Laurel took up the photo album anyway. Sometimes the well-worn patterns and roles really were the best. She sat close to the bedside and started at the beginning, the photograph taken when Dorothy was a young woman, working for Grandma Nicolson at her seaside boarding house. She made her way through the years, recounting her family’s story, hearing the reassuring sound of her own voice, feeling vaguely that by continuing to speak in such a normal way she might somehow keep life in the room.

  Finally, she reached a photograph of Gerry on his second birthday. It had been taken early, as they gathered the picnic together in the kitchen, just before they set off for the stream. Teenage Laurel—look at that fringe!—had Gerry on her hip, and Rose was tickling his tummy, making him gurgle and laugh; Iris’s pointed finger had made it into shot (angry about something, no doubt), and Ma was in the background, hand to her head as she regarded the contents of the hamper. On the table—Laurel’s heart almost stopped—she’d never noticed it there be- fore—was the knife. Right by the vase of dahlias. Re-member it, Ma, Laurel found herself thinking, pack the knife and you’ll never need to come back to the house. None of it will happen. I’ll climb down from the tree house before the man walks up the driveway and no one will be any the wiser that he came that day.

  But it was childish logic. Who was to say Henry Jenkins wouldn’t have come back again if he’d found the house empty? And perhaps his next visit would have been even worse. The wrong person might have been killed.

/>   Laurel closed the album. She’d lost the spirit for narrating the past. Instead she smoothed her mother’s sheet across her chest and said, ‘I went to see Gerry last night, Ma.’

  From nowhere, as if a sound upon the wind—‘Gerry …’

  Laurel glanced at her mother’s lips. They were still, but slightly parted. Her eyes were closed. ‘That’s right,’ she said more eagerly, ‘Gerry. I went to see him in Cambridge. He was so well, such a clever boy. He’s mapping the sky, did you know? Did you ever think that little boy of ours would do such incredible things? He says they’re talking about sending him to research for a time in the States, a tremendous opportunity.’

  ‘Opportunity …’ Ma breathed the word rather than spoke. Her lips were dry and Laurel reached for the cup of water, feeding the bendy straw gently towards her mouth.

  She drank stiltedly, not a lot. Her eyes opened slightly. ‘Laurel,’ she said softly.

  ‘I’m here, no need to fret.’

  Dorothy’s delicate eyelids quivered with the effort of staying open. ‘It seemed …’ She was breathing shallowly. ‘It seemed harmless.’ ‘What did?’

  Tears had begun—not so much to fall as to seep from her eyes. The deep lines of her pale face glistened. Laurel took a tissue from the box and patted her mother’s cheeks, as gently as she would a small frightened child. ‘What seemed harmless, Ma? Tell me.’

  ‘It was an opportunity, Laurel. I took … I took …’

  ‘Took what?’ A jewel, a photograph, Henry Jenkins’s life?

  Dorothy clutched Laurel’s hand tighter and opened her watery eyes as wide as she could manage. There was a new note of desperation in her voice when she continued, determination too—as if she’d been waiting a long time to say these things and despite the fierce effort it took, she was going to finish. ‘It was an opportunity, Laurel. I didn’t think it would hurt anybody, not really. I just wanted—I thought I deserved—that it was fair.’ Dorothy drew a raspy breath then that sent jitters down Laurel’s spine. Her next words spooled out like a spider’s thread: ‘Do you believe in fairness, that if we’re robbed we should be able to take something back for ourselves?’