‘I’ll get onto the case with Ward,’ he said briefly and said goodbye.
Getting dressed, Valerie realised how heavy and tired her movements were. She felt the opposite of her colleague: wide-awake, ready-for-action Sergeant Reek. Was it just the disappointment? That she had not solved the two cases in one go?
Had she even solved one case? She crept into the kitchen and turned the coffee maker on. Just a coffee, that was all she wanted. She did not even fancy her breakfast today, and that was usually sacred to her.
She had sat talking with Stan Gibson for almost two hours the previous evening, without once managing to put a crack in his good mood. He had answered every question politely and patiently with a smile, not showing the slightest sign of irritation or annoyance.
Yes, of course he had heard and read of Amy Mills’s death. It was the only thing people talked about all summer in Scarborough. Horrible, a horrible thing. That someone could do that! Of course he had felt personally involved. Amy had meant a lot to him, although he had never had the courage to talk to her. He did not seem to Valerie like a man who was shy with women? She should not be deceived by appearances! He had never tried to talk to Amy.
Yes, his telescope. The pictures! Of course he knew that you should not really do something like that. But nor was it exactly prohibited, was it? He had thought she was so pretty. When had he seen her the first time? He had to think. It must have been January. He had just spied on the flats opposite for a little fun, and that’s when he had seen her in Linda Gardner’s flat. She had been doing something with the child, and her wavy hair had looked like a halo to him. He had started to become interested in her, he had. Was he being accused of that?
Obsessed? He couldn’t say. OK, he had often followed her secretively, as much as his scarce free time allowed. She had gone on many long walks on her own. She had always seemed so lonely to him. She had rarely gone for a cup of coffee or a chat with a fellow student. Normally she kept to herself.
Had he approached her? Been rejected by her? Had that made him angry? No, no, no. Inspector Almond was barking up the wrong tree. He had never talked to her. He had said that already. So she couldn’t have rejected him. Anyway, he could live with rejection. He didn’t beat to death women who chucked him. Although he had to admit that he had never been chucked. Never! He had no problems with women. Particularly not with pulling them. Indeed, if he were honest, he didn’t know what rejection felt like.
And so he continued the whole time, smiling continuously. And everything in Valerie, all her nerves, her intuition, her experience, her gut feeling, whatever you like, they all told her that he had done it. That this grinning bloke had Amy Mills on his conscience.
While she waited for the coffee to percolate, Valerie asked herself what evidence she had.
Nothing, if she was brutally honest.
Nothing, except for the initial clues which had put her on to Gibson, and her intuition, which screamed murderer, and a vague hope. A hope based on the impression she had of him.
The coffee was ready. She sipped it, looking out of the window. It was still dark but she thought she could make out that the rain had stopped. Nor did it look like the fog had returned.
Gibson might show himself to the world as a nice, friendly, smiling young man, the dream of every mother-in-law, but he could not fool her, Valerie. She had seen that his smile was pathological, and seen the madness in his eyes. She knew that he had an enormous problem, and although she did not know him well enough, nor know the details of his life history, she could see that his relationship to women was the catalyst which could turn his problem into something horrific. Into hate, revenge, murderous anger and unbridled brutality. Amy Mills’s body had been clear enough evidence of that.
In her opinion, his problem was rejection. Gibson had kept on about how a woman had never turned him down. He had stressed that, and she had seen the expression in his eyes as he said it. She suspected that this was the reason why Amy Mills had been killed, and why her death had come with such violence. Gibson had been obsessed with her, all the photos he had made of her showed that, but she had not wanted him. At some point, either in the days before she was murdered or, at the latest, during that night in the park, she had told him no. Valerie was convinced that Gibson could not deal with rejection from women.
She knew what Sergeant Reek would say. ‘Facts, Inspector, facts! Don’t get carried away just because you want to find the culprit. Just because you want to wrap up the case. Stick to the facts!’
Or was that not Reek? Was it her own voice of caution?
She had woken up several times that night and wondered why it had started to go so smoothly. For months there had not been any clues or leads, nothing. And now suddenly Ena Witty had appeared, trembling with fear and reporting her boyfriend’s strange behaviour. Suddenly there was a suspect, photos that proved his obsessive attachment to the murdered girl, and a telescope that pointed into the flat where Amy Mills had started her last journey.
In the dark silent night she had asked herself if this was not all a little too pat. It looked as if her suspect was being handed to her on a plate. It looked like the culprit had been pulled out of a magician’s sleeve like an ace. It was impossible that Amy Mills’s apparent murderer would just materialise like that in front of her. Life or not to get too philosophical – her job did not provide such solutions normally.
Now in the early hours of the morning she knew the answer to all of her sceptical questions. The culprit had appeared so suddenly because he had wanted to appear right then. Stan Gibson had wanted all of what happened: the police in his flat and the questioning which he had prepared himself for in advance. He had known that his perma-grin would irritate no end the investigating officer. Because he had wanted all of this, he had told Ena about his telescope and placed the photos where she was bound to find them at some point. He had known that alarm bells would ring for Ena from that moment. It was only a question of time until she either went to the police herself or told a friend who would take that step for her.
He had planned his appearance, and it had all gone like clockwork.
And Valerie realised one more thing. He had made sure that she would not be able to prove anything. He had not been surprised by the investigations, and so he had thought it all through in advance. He would not have let the police have all the clues they had if any of them presented a danger to him. He was clever and rational. Valerie could turn the whole world upside down, but she would not find the evidence to put Gibson behind bars.
There was no such proof.
If there had been, then Gibson would not have given himself up. And he would not have played the grinning game at the station.
She poured herself a second cup of coffee and drank it quickly, as if she could swallow her bitterness and frustration with it, before they became too much for her.
Yet she could feel a spark of hope, a macabre, almost cynical hope, which sprang from the pleasure she noticed Gibson felt during their conversation. He had been enjoying the situation immensely. It was the ultimate kick for him. It made him euphoric. He was already addicted to it. She had done that to him, and so she was one step ahead of him, although he did not know it. She had also come to two realisations of immeasurable importance. He was really sick. And he would want to do it again. He would want to repeat the deed and his cat-and-mouse game with the police.
She was ready to swear an oath on it.
She poured the rest of her coffee down the plughole. It was no good. She had to face the day. She had to check Dave Tanner’s statement, and she hoped Reek managed to find Karen Ward as soon as possible. She would also talk to Ena Witty once more. Hopefully she had calmed down by now and might remember one or two important details from the short time she had been together with Stan Gibson. Not that she was going to provide the key that unlocked the case. Valerie had no illusions about that. But she had to do her work, the day-to-day routine of the job she had learnt. And going beyond that,
she had to try to get close to Gibson. To find out everything about him that she could.
You’ve got a bloodhound on your heels, Gibson, she thought. I’m going to be there when your smile freezes on your face and you realise you’re up shit creek without a paddle!
She took her bag and car key, folded her coat over her arm and left her flat.
The Other Child.doc
15
Dear Chad,
I am going to write the end of our story as a letter to you. I have told most of it by now, and the only thing remaining is my need to explain why I wrote down our story at all.
I know you as a taciturn and pragmatic man, who only sees the value in things which have an obvious and clear use. And I know what you will think after reading all this about us: Superfluous scribbling! Our story – so what? As if I didn’t know it already!
So what was the point?
Our story always made me so sad, Chad. For many reasons. Above all because of Brian Somerville, of course. Perhaps I was closer to the young boy than you, although you spent more time with him. He lived in your house for years, even after I had left.
But he left London as a young, orphaned boy holding my hand. He always wanted to be close to me in Scarborough. I was the only one he called by name. Did you notice that I was the only person he ever called by name? Not even Emma, who loved him more than anyone else. Who, in fact, was the only one who loved him. But he had chosen me, from the first moment of that November morning in bombed-out London, next to the smoking ruins of his family home. And although I never responded to his affection, and continually betrayed his trust, he stayed loyal to me. Sometimes I think that no one else in my life has ever been as true to me as Brian Somerville.
The second reason why I am always dejected and almost melancholy when I think about the two of us is due to the directions our paths took. In other words, to the fact that we did not take the same path, as I had dreamt we would. To this day I am convinced that we were meant for each other. I was not happy with the man I later married, and nor were you happy with the woman you finally decided to marry at quite an advanced age. I am convinced that our relationships were not blessed because they were not our destiny. That is why we both experienced disappointments with our children. Your Gwen became a gauche old virgin who is now about to marry a charming con artist who is only interested in her property, and will – I would bet on it – cheat on her even before they marry. And my daughter … well, you know.
Hippy communes, hash and LSD, never a proper career, screwing around in everyone’s bed, and worst of all: the irresponsible way she brought her daughter into the world. I was not surprised that she died of an overdose of drugs and alcohol. I even saw it coming. Of course I wished a different life for her.
Without a doubt there is a connection between Brian Somerville and the fact that we did not forge a life together. Although we could not see it at the time, our story was decided on that August day in 1946. I pedalled away on your mother’s bike with its flat tyres to Gordon McBright’s ghostly, barren farm, and understood that something terrible had happened and we had to intervene. You will remember that I brought it up that evening in our bay.
It was not the romantic atmosphere of the previous evening, which had been full of happiness and light as we reunited, loving each other. That first evening I had seen our future lit up brightly ahead of us. On the second meeting we started to argue. I told you about my trip, and you resented my visit there. You started shouting so aggressively that I burst into tears. I could not understand what had made you so angry. Of course I can see now that it was your fear. Fear that I might take further steps which could put you in the difficulties you were so afraid of. You reacted with dismissive scorn when I tried to explain how palpable the horror and evil had been in that place, I even dared to tell you about Brian’s screams which I had heard in my head.
You did not want to accept that. I saw something close to hatred in your eyes. At that moment I was like an enemy to you. And a threat.
You let me know that we would not exchange another friendly word if I did not forget the Somerville affair. You said that the Beckett farm would be closed to me. In short, that there would be no more contact between us, ever. It would be the end not only of our love and friendship, but you would act as if you had never known me.
I am not reminding you of that evening to put the blame for Brian Somerville’s fate on you. Even admitting that at the time I was only seventeen, in love, inexperienced and helpless, too deeply involved to ignore the threatened consequences and do the right thing, I still had many opportunities to be brave in later years. I could have looked into it again, done something. I was not seventeen for ever. I did not always have the excuse of being young and helpless.
At some point my conscience should have been stronger than … well, than what? I have thought long and hard about what always stopped me from acting. Was it the fear of losing your friendship? As important as you were to me, and still are, I do not think that fear was enough on its own to silence for ever the little voice which often reminded me of Brian. I do not think that the only explanation, or even justification, for my silence is that I was once in love with you. Not even that I, perhaps, have loved you all my life.
No, the explanation is much more banal. It is almost like a law of nature. The further we go down a path, the harder it is to go back, and the more consequences the U-turn would involve. There is always a point when we can shout No! and refuse to go on. If we miss it, each later moment is more complicated and brings with it the need to explain why we did not say no earlier. And then there comes a time when we no longer dare to. We have gone so far that it is impossible to turn back. At least, it is impossible to turn back without losing face completely. So we grit our teeth and march on, whistling and humming as we go, so as not to hear the voice of our conscience. That is what I did.
Maybe you did too. I don’t know. Sometimes I fear that your conscience did not prick you nearly as much about Brian’s tragedy as mine did me. I could never work that one out. The few times I tried to talk to you about Brian and our role in the drama, you torpedoed my attempts. You just did not want to talk about it. Full stop.
That summer I went back to London just a few days after I had arrived in Yorkshire. Everything had changed. I could not bear your aloofness. You were so cold. And the fact that you always avoided me, that you made it obvious you wanted to avoid contact with me. There were no more evenings in the bay, no more conversations, certainly no more tender displays of affection. Brian Somerville and the threat he represented to you stood between us. You could no longer approach me. I think you were extremely relieved when I finally packed my rucksack and left the farm.
I no longer remember what I told my surprised mother and gobsmacked Harold. Something or other. I expect they figured the rest out for themselves. I never spoke about my feelings for you, but at least Mum would have suspected something, and now assumed it had not worked out, that I had left Scarborough in such a hurry because I was disappointed in love. That was not completely wrong, although she could not guess any of the complications and events which had led to the situation.
I went to the borough office and asked about the Somerville family, I gave their previous address and said they were acquaintances whose current address I was looking for. Such queries were absolutely normal back then, just one and a half years after the war ended. Men had not returned from the front. Families had been evacuated from the major cities and then disappeared. There were still children who were looking for parents, parents searching for children, wives for husbands and fiancés, husbands for wives, and so on. The Red Cross hung up long lists of missing persons, and people who had given up hope were still finding each other in this way.
The shadow of war still hung over the country.
As for the Somervilles, I was told, as I had expected, that the whole family had been killed in November 1940 in an air raid.
‘All of them?’ I asked the young wom
an behind the counter who had looked at the files for me.
You could see her heart go out to me.
‘All of them, I’m afraid. Mr and Mrs Somerville and their six children. The house collapsed and they were trapped in the cellar.’
‘They were all found in the rubble later?’ I had to ask.
‘Yes. I’m sorry that I haven’t got any better news for you.’
‘Thank you,’ I mumbled.
Back then half London had burnt down. The injured and dead had been dragged out of the rubble. No wonder that in this case it had no longer been possible to ascertain whether all six children had died in the cellar of a collapsed house with their parents. I can still remember the words of poor Miss Taylor on that November morning: ‘They dug them out … at least, what was still left of them.’
Perhaps there had been a leg here, an arm there … Who would have had time, in the midst of the inferno that had raged night after night in the city, to carry out extensive post-mortem tests?
Now I knew for certain. Officially Brian Somerville had been dead for almost six years. Nobody really had become a nobody. He no longer existed. There had been a note about him on a Red Cross nurse’s notebook once, but that had obviously been lost somewhere on its way through the organisation. So no one had asked about Brian, and nor would anyone. Something had happened which seems impossible today in our networked, computer-driven world: someone had just slipped through the cracks. He was there in body, but not officially. He would never have to go to school, nor pay taxes. He had no national insurance, and no right to vote.
And he was not in the least protected in the way a civilised society protects the people in it.
I crept home and wrote a letter to you, telling you what I had found out. I don’t know if you remember that letter. In any case, it was one of the few times you replied to me – and without delay. I expect you were rather relieved to hear about Brian’s official ‘death’. Now you could be sure that the authorities were not going to ask questions. As long as I kept quiet, you had nothing to fear.
The Other Child Page 35