by Penny Kline
‘Have the police been in touch?’
‘I think they’ve lost interest. Apparently, a scaffolding tool was found, a spanner, but the company claim there was no way they could have left it there.’
‘Only I wondered . . . I have a lecture in ten minutes, but I’ll be free this afternoon.’
What was he trying to tell her? That Maeve would miss her lesson but he would drop by himself? ‘How was your conference?’
‘You’re busy.’
‘Not really.’ Why was she sounding so indifferent to his proposed visit when the truth was she badly wanted to talk to him. ‘I met an actor called Kent. I expect you know him. I had to sit through a play he’d written himself, a kind of parody of Hamlet, although that wasn’t how he described it.’
‘You spoke to him?’
‘He’s the man sitting next to Ollie in the photo I gave to the police. Ava told me about the play. I think she thought Ollie might have been in touch with him.’
‘Have you got a copy of the photo?’
‘I don’t know. I could check in Claudia’s desk.’
‘I’ll come round then, shall I? See if you’ve found one.’
Unable to concentrate on the illustrations, she decided to make an extra visit to the hospital. The previous day Andrea had been off duty but, with any luck, she would be there today.
On her way out of the house, she saw Jennie tipping the contents of a black polythene bag into her wheelie bin. She looked awful and when Erin spoke her name she jumped.
‘Oh. Hi.’
‘I’m on my way to the hospital.’
‘How is everything? The baby? You’d let us know if there was any news?’
‘Yes, of course.’ By “news” she meant bad news. Normally, Jennie took pride in her appearance, but lately she had stopped bothering. Not that Erin was one to talk, but Jennie was the type who touched up her roots and never had chipped nail varnish. Was she depressed? Something to do with Ben? If she knew her better she could have asked, and it reminded her again how much she missed her London friends – Lindsey, who was such a good listener, and Sonya who never listened but always made her laugh. She had phoned them and told them the bare bones of what was going on, and reassured them that she was fine, something Sonya seemed to believe, but not Lindsey who wanted to come and see her. Later, she had said, in a week or two, and Lindsey had accepted this because she was considerate and knew Erin so well.
Today Jennie was wearing pyjamas bottoms and an oversized sweatshirt. ‘Been having clear out,’ she said.
‘Good idea. I need to do the same, but I don’t feel I can throw anything away, not yet.’
Jennie gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Claudia thought people spent too much time and money on their houses.’
‘Did she? I’ve been meaning to ask you, Jennie, you say you didn’t know her very well but—’
‘I only meant… We were both quite busy, me with my tenants and Claudia with her jewellery and everything. Ben knew her better. She liked his funny stories.’
‘Yes, you said.’ Her feeling that Jennie had disliked Claudia was being confirmed. ‘We must go out for a coffee again soon, or you could come round to the house.’
‘Yes. Thanks.’ But she could hardly have sounded less enthusiastic.
‘Oh, by the way, Jennie, have you noticed someone hanging about in the road? He wears a hoodie and he smokes, at least I think he does. Every so often, he cups his hand and bends over to light a cigarette. And yesterday evening . . .’ But it would be a mistake to tell her about the graveyard.
‘Who do you think it is? Not Ollie?’
‘No. Roughly the same height but broader, not so thin.’
Jennie smiled to herself. ‘Have you met Harold Lord? Wears a gabardine raincoat. Has a little notebook, where he writes down all the comings and goings, who’s weeded their front garden, or failed to cut their hedge, who’s parked their car in a different place. Likes to find something to complain about, then add to it, embellish it.’
‘Like Ava.’
‘Sorry?’ Jennie was halfway through her front door. ‘Oh, no nothing like Ava. Whatever anyone says about her, she’s not boring.’
‘No, of course not.’ Erin had regretted her words as soon as she spoke. Jennie was tricky. A friend, but not a friend. All the same, she had no wish to fall out with her. Or with Ava.
‘Don’t feel you have to come in every day.’ Andrea was being kind, but Erin spun round as though her words had been a reproach.
‘Last time I came you were off duty. No, I didn’t mean . . . You must get worn out.’
Andrea was studying the array of monitors above Claudia’s bed. Erin had checked online what they all meant but just now she had forgotten and the lights blurred in front of her eyes.
‘I planned to go to a movie,’ Andrea said, ‘but in the end I spent most of the day in my pyjamas.’
Like Jennie, Erin thought, except Andrea was not in the least like Jennie. ‘It’s all so . . . Claudia . . . the baby.’
‘I know. It’s hard for you.’
Erin wanted to ask if they did regular scans. And was it true baby girls were stronger than baby boys and, if so, did it apply to premature ones because Claudia’s baby was going to be born early, possibly dangerously early.
‘Would you like to feel the baby?’ Pulling back the bedding, Andrea took Erin’s hand and placed it on Claudia’s stomach. Her skin was soft and warm and for a split second Erin thought the doctors had got it wrong and she had come back to life.
‘We rub her stomach,’ Andrea explained, ‘to give the baby the stimulation it would have received.’
She meant if its mother were walking about, carrying on her life as normal, laughing, talking, sleeping, waking. ‘That’s why you play music, isn’t it?’ So far, she had felt nothing and she decided to ask the question she had been putting off. ‘If you were the baby how do you think you’d feel when you found out your mother had been kept on life support so you could be born?’
‘It would make me sad, but grateful she’d given me life.’
‘It wasn’t Claudia’s choice.’
‘You’ve done what you thought she would have wanted.’
‘Have I?’ For the first time, Erin was unsure. ‘The baby’s father . . . Oh!’ The baby gave a sudden kick, a foot, or it could have been an elbow. ‘I had no idea. She’s so strong. She is strong, do you think?’
Andrea replaced the blanket that covered the lower half of Claudia’s body. ‘She’s a surprisingly good size for the period of gestation.’
That was not what she wanted to hear, although recently she had stopped thinking of Ollie as the father. Did it matter who it was? Yes, it did. She was trying to keep an open mind, but it was not something she was good at. ‘If Ollie doesn’t come back, who will she belong to? I suppose social services will take over.’
‘They’re not as bad as people sometimes make out.’
‘Have the doctors said anything since I was here before?’
Andrea lifted the clipboard from the end of the bed and flicked through a couple of sheets. ‘No change. That’s good.’
‘The infection has cleared up?’
‘In these circumstances, infections are quite common. Try not to worry. No, that’s a silly thing to say, of course you will.’
Erin found a chair and sat down next to the bed. She wanted to tell Andrea everything, her doubts about Claudia’s life, and the men she had slept with. Her fear that people knew something they were refusing to tell her. Her loneliness. Above all, her growing suspicion that Claudia’s death had not been an accident.
Andrea was busy updating her records, then she came round to Erin’s side of the bed and pulled up another chair, and because she wanted to get to know her better, she asked if she had any children.
She shook her head. ‘How about you?’
‘No. I was living in London. I split up with my partner. That’s why I came to stay with Claudia.’
‘So y
ou don’t know the city very well.’
‘I thought I’d only be here for a few months. I was feeling pretty low, trying to work out what to do next.’
‘Men,’ Andrea said, and Erin started to cry.
She expected Andrea to jump up, find her a tissue, even apologise for upsetting her. Instead, she put an arm round her shoulder and said nothing. A monitor beeped twice but it was something that happened often. Claudia lay motionless. Beneath the blanket, the baby moved, or had she imagined it? The room was pleasantly warm and part of her wanted to move in, stay until the baby was large enough to be born, but another part could hardly bear to see Claudia looking so peaceful, so smooth-skinned and, with her hair brushed and arranged on the pillow, so alive.
She asked Andrea if she had ever come across a case like Claudia’s before.
‘No, but I’ve read about them. It’s awful for you, but for us . . . We all want to do our best for the baby. And for your sister.’
‘I checked some other cases online. Newspaper reports and one website had medical details.’
She waited for Andrea to say it was probably best not to read stuff that might confuse or alarm her. Instead she started talking about the baby’s birth. ‘All being well, she will need to be delivered around thirty-two weeks. Mothers have been kept on life support for up to fourteen weeks, but that’s unusual and there’ve been a few problems. Although that’s only to be expected,’ she added.
‘I prefer to know the truth.’
‘Nobody’s going to lie to you. You must trust us to tell you what’s going on.’
‘I trust you,’ she said, and Andrea gave her a quick hug she would like to have lasted longer. The comforting warmth of someone else’s body.
‘When the baby’s born she will have to stay in the Special Care Baby Unit for several weeks, but you’ll be able to visit as often as you like.’
Erin wanted to tell her how alone she felt, and how she suspected Ollie was not the baby’s father. ‘I’m living in Claudia’s loft conversion,’ she said. ‘It’s not very big, but I don’t really mind. I’m an artist and at the moment I’m doing illustrations for a children’s book.’
‘Really?’
‘There’s a deadline. It helps to take my mind off things. I miss my London friends and the other artists I sometimes met up with. It’s important to know people who do the same kind of work. One of them is having an exhibition. I’d like to see it but I don’t expect I will.’
‘I’d love to be able to draw and paint. Hang on.’ Andrea jumped up and began checking a piece of equipment and Erin started to panic. A short time ago, the baby had felt so strong, but things could change in minutes. Supposing she had died. What would happen? She would be removed and Claudia’s life support would be switched off. She would have to organise a funeral. They would be buried together, or cremated. Would there be a headstone? Would Ollie come back in time?
‘No problem.’ Andrea sat down again. ‘What’s the book about? I have a niece who’s going to be four at the end of March. Would it be suitable for a child that age?’
‘Oh, yes, definitely.’ Andrea was so important to her, Erin would like to have given her a sketch, a token of how much she appreciated her kindness. ‘It’s about a pet shop and some guinea pigs.’
‘I love guinea pigs. All animals.’
‘Do you?’ Erin felt close to tears. ‘So do I.’
Chapter 16
Did dust collect if a room was uninhabited? Somewhere, Erin had read that dust was particles of skin, but no one has been in Claudia’s front room for days. Then she remembered the police. And the time she had planned to switch the television on for Maeve, so she could talk to Jon.
A thin layer of dust covered the mantelpiece, where Claudia had positioned her collection of glass and china cats, and a pair of white kittens, nose to nose. She had enjoyed collecting, an excuse to go from junk shop to junk shop, searching. Before the cats, it had been horses but, for some reason, they had been abandoned. Why? But Erin had never understood how Claudia’s mind worked. Even as a young child, she would announce her latest craze – shells, pressed flowers, marbles, or some game they all had to play with her – dropping each new obsession as quickly as she had taken it up. They had both longed for a pony, but only ever ridden them on holiday. Erin had been a natural, but Claudia had bumped up and down on the saddle, complaining that the pony was going too slowly, or too fast. Nothing was ever her fault.
Picking up one of the cats, a blue one that bore no relation to a real cat, Erin found it was sticky, as though the last person who touched it had been eating sweets. It was bound to be Claudia, with her love of chocolate and jelly babies, and Erin could almost hear her voice, loud, filled with laughter. Look, Ollie, I bought this one in a second-hand shop in Newquay. Isn’t he sweet? He’s called Tom.
Living in Claudia’s house was making her morbid – if Ollie had hung around it might not have been so bad – and she was relieved when Jon turned up, just as she was dragging the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard under the stairs, a cupboard full of junk, old cardboard boxes and cans of paint.
‘Having a clear out?’ He had such a serious expression, she tensed, afraid he had come with bad news. ‘I could help if you like.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll do it later.’
‘Do your windows have locks?’
‘I’ve no idea. Actually, I’m thinking of changing the locks on the front door, having stronger ones fitted. I don’t suppose you know a locksmith, someone local?’
‘Supposing Ollie comes back.’
‘Yes, that’s why I’ve put it off.’ She was thinking about the money in the desk and wondering if Claudia had been keeping it to pay someone for work carried out on the house, cash in hand. Several small jobs needed doing, an upstairs window that refused to close, a patch of damp in the bathroom, tiles missing on the roof of the kitchen extension.
She could have told Jon about the man in the graveyard. Instead, she said she had been unable to find a copy of the photo of Ollie and Kent. ‘If I do, I’ll let you know. Kent’s got thick white hair. In his late fifties, I’d say. I only went to the play so I could see what he was like and, to be honest, I thought he was going to be one of Claudia’s beautiful young men.’
He laughed, and she thought, that’s better, I need someone to cheer me up, not drag me down. He was wearing new clothes, at least they were new to her, grey jeans, a tartan shirt and a denim jacket, and as he climbed the stairs ahead of her, he had to dip his head to avoid the chandelier, another of Claudia’s impulse buys.
Up in the loft, he pretended to be studying her drawing of the mynah bird. Playing for time? Preparing himself to tell her something he should have told her days ago?
‘One of the doctors wondered if Claudia could have got her dates wrong,’ she said
‘What makes him think that?’ He pointed at the dormer window where big drops of rain were landing.
‘Yes, I know.’ So they were going to talk about the weather. ‘The doctor was a woman. I shouted at her.’
‘Why?’
‘She said the baby was larger than she would have expected. No, that’s not why I shouted. It was the way she was talking, not looking at me, not really bothered—’
‘That’s good, isn’t it? The baby.’
So he had failed to reach what, to her, was the obvious conclusion. ‘It was all so sudden, Claudia and Ollie. They met in July and by the end of August he’d moved in. I thought . . . Do you think it’s possible she was pregnant when they met but the father of the baby didn’t want to know?’
Jon frowned. ‘She’d have done that to Ollie?’
‘If she didn’t relish the prospect of bringing up a child on her own.’
He thought about this. Or perhaps he was thinking about something entirely different. With Jon, it was impossible to tell. ‘Do the doctors think the baby’s going to be all right?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But so far it’s developin
g normally.’ He was humming under his breath, a sure sign he was trying to summon up the courage to say something that would be unwelcome. ‘I can’t stay long. Diana’s at the shop and Maeve’s with a neighbour.’
So why choose this particular time to put in an appearance? ‘Has she really got a sore throat?’
‘When she was younger, colds tended to turn to chest infections. She’s toughened up as she’s grown older, but Diana still worries, she’s the worrying kind. How’s your work going?’
‘My editor’s been on at me, but that’s nothing new. I told her about Claudia but I don’t think it sunk in. Or if it did, it made no difference.’ Her throat hurt. Perhaps she was developing Maeve’s mythical cold. Pulling open a drawer, she took out her thickest cardigan, one her mother had knitted for her when she was in her teens. Even after all those years, it still had the oily scent of unwashed wool from a Jacob’s sheep.
‘I find a deadline helps,’ Jon said. ‘I had to finish a paper for the conference. Stayed up half the night.’ Now he was studying the sketches of chipmunks, some leaping from branches, some curled up asleep. ‘You and Claudia are so different.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t know her that well.’ She was losing patience. ‘Look, if there’s something you’ve found out, something that was going on before the . . . Don’t you think it’s stressful enough with the baby and not knowing if it was an accident or . . . There’s a man wearing a hoodie who stands in the road. And there was someone hanging about in the graveyard at the back. I saw him through the window but by the time I’d—’
‘Did you call the police?’
‘No, of course not. I expect he was looking for somewhere to shelter. Anyway, there was something far worse than a harmless tramp. A rat.’
‘Where? In the house?’
‘No, in the churchyard. Rats don’t usually go inside houses, do they?’ Her heart was thumping, but it had nothing to do with the rat. She needed someone she could trust and, until recently, she had thought Jon was that person. ‘Well, do they?’ Her phone rang and she snatched it up. ‘Yes! I mean, sorry, yes, who is it?’