‘Either’s fine, love.’ Maggie smiled but Emma didn’t return it, only nodded soberly and looked down at the loose leaf in her hand.
The phone rang again, the insistent shrill repeating threefold through the house.
Emma huffed, moved towards it. ‘I’ll get rid of them,’ she said to Maggie and then, on answering the phone, ‘Hello, yes, this is Fionnuala Greene.’ She cradled the phone to her shoulder whilst Maggie tried not to look, tried not to dwell on the ease with which Emma used the dead woman’s name, the ease with which she changed her West Country tones to that of the generic home counties.
Maggie looked round the room as she waited, unsure of what to do with herself.
A welsh dresser filled with fine bone china took up half of the far wall, the other half lined with thick wooden shelves holding candles, vases and a bronze-stemmed Tiffany lamp. The occasional space in between showed tell-tale scuffs and discoloration, marks on the wood where picture frames should have been.
Her mind fled back to Lois, to the bare walls in her house, to her head, resting on the kitchen table in a pool of thickening blood.
What had happened? Why was Emma here?
A click as the phone was put down.
‘Here you are.’
Maggie jumped as Emma placed the mug of tea on the table, her socked feet silent on the floorboards.
Her skin was paler in the light from the window. Maggie ripped open the biscuits and dunked them, two at a time, in her tea, hoping they would make her feel better, hoping to feel the relief she had felt in the hallway, the joy of seeing Emma in the flesh.
What had happened?
The tea was hot, melting the chocolate on the biscuits.
She ran a finger around her collar, made malleable with sweat, and shrugged the oilskin from her shoulders.
‘Don’t!’ Emma leant over, one hand on the sleeve of her coat. ‘You can’t stay.’
The shadows under her eyes were dark purple.
She wasn’t smiling any more.
‘And you can’t tell anyone you’ve seen me.’ She spoke to her half-drunk glass of water. ‘I mean it.’
‘I said already, I won’t tell.’ Maggie tried to smile. She ate another tea-dunked biscuit and carried on, ‘What happened? Can you tell me that, before I go?’
Emma’s eyes lifted to the white-rimmed clock on the wall above Maggie’s head. ‘Nuala told me about James and the letters. She’d worked out that they were from Lois, and felt bad for everything that had happened to me.’ She spoke quickly, not a single breath between words. ‘She was desperate, half mad. Told me she was going to walk out onto the hill and jump off, that she wanted to die in the village where James was born so everyone would remember her as his wife and perhaps forget he was once my boyfriend.’
She gave a short laugh then coughed, blinked hard. ‘I tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn’t listen. And then she gave me her bag, her keys; told me to take it, all of it, and start a new life somewhere else.’
Emma took a biscuit, picked at it. ‘It was a way of saying sorry, I think, for everything James and Lois had done. She was offering me a way out, a remedy for James’s cowardice.’
She looked at Maggie and shrugged. ‘I took it. I took her bag, her car and came here. It wasn’t until the next day that I found out what really happened.’
Emma left the biscuit alone. ‘And the business with the suicide note; she didn’t write her own name on it. She must have known that everyone would think she was me, must have intended to give me her identity. Don’t you think?’
Maggie ate the remaining four biscuits, their debris falling into her mug. ‘It sounds that way.’ She looked past Emma to the park outside, a man and woman pushing a pram, collars pulled up against the cold. Her throat was dry and she could have done with another mug of tea, but Emma looked pale, her tired eyes darting, and Maggie didn’t want to ask for more.
‘I should have come clean, told the police, but then the postman knocked on the door and called me Mrs Greene. And a delivery arrived, food that Nuala had ordered a week before she left, and the driver called me Mrs Greene, too.’ Emma’s heels were tapping a dull rhythm on the floor. She slid the glass from hand to hand across the table, her eyes flicking to the clock on the wall. ‘It was as if I’d gone to sleep and woken up in her life. I kept expecting a friend or neighbour to knock on the door but no one has; I don’t think she had anyone.’ She shrugged again.
‘What about DS Pale?’
Her eyes darkened, her gaze fixed on her glass. ‘Same as everyone else; he thought I was her.’
‘But Arthur identified you, he saw your body in the morgue!’
‘Nuala had shot herself in the face! And besides, Daddy hasn’t looked at me properly in seven years, anyone could have been on that table and as long as their hair was blond, he would have thought they were me.’ Emma met her gaze and Maggie was struck suddenly by her resemblance to someone, who was it? The shape of her face and sharp cheekbones, who did she remind Maggie of?
‘I know it’s wrong of me, Maggie, I know I should have told the truth, but it’s my chance to escape, to start a new life where no one knows me as the girl who got screwed at fourteen, the girl whose own father won’t talk to her, still blames her for the death of both her mothers. I just wanted to get out; you have to understand that? And what options did I have, considering my money was all gone?’
Emma’s face darkened with the final line, and Maggie blushed, looked down.
‘Please tell me you understand?’
Maggie took Emma’s hand across the table, her skin cold. ‘I understand.’ She waited for Emma to squeeze her hand back, but she didn’t.
Maggie looked out at the garden, the grass rippling in the wind, the dead rose, and thought of the sessile oaks at home, the silver birch and sloes. ‘I wish I could take you with me, though.’ She laughed. ‘I wish I could tell that bloody DS Pale I was right all along!’
Emma’s hand shot away, ‘You can’t! Maggie, you can’t—’
‘I’m joking, it’s all right.’ She tried to laugh again but it stuck in her throat. Emma looked up at the clock.
‘Who was it, by the way?’ Maggie asked.
‘Who was what?’
‘On the phone?’
Emma’s eyes were darting about, stopping every few seconds to look at the clock, the empty mug of tea, the phone on the wall, the knife.
‘I think you should leave.’ Emma pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘You should go back home.’
‘What is it? Who was on the phone?’
Emma wouldn’t look Maggie in the eye. ‘Don’t tell anyone you saw me. I’ll write to you, I’ll find a way, but you have to go.’
‘Who was on the phone?’ Maggie hadn’t meant to shout, regretted it as soon as Emma jumped, hands flying up to her face.
Emma’s face caved in, eyebrows gathering in the centre like a knot. ‘Why did you have to come?’
The couple walking in the park had stopped. The woman, a pretty young thing with dark, bobbed hair, was pointing to the house.
‘Who was on the phone?’ Maggie said again.
‘The police.’ Emma hugged herself, her thin fingers gripping at the bones of her upper arm. ‘They know you’re in London, that you’re trying to find Nuala Greene.’ She looked back to the clock, ‘They told me not to worry. They told me you won’t be able to find me, that you don’t have the address. They’re going to send a car to keep an eye on the house, make sure I’m safe. One will drive by every twenty minutes until they find you. You have to go. Now.’
‘No, it’s best if I wait.’ Maggie stared at the couple outside. The man had his arms around the woman’s shoulders, leading her away, the woman craning her neck to see over the hedge. ‘We’ll wait until the first car has gone, then we’ll know I have twenty minutes to reach the station and get a train back to Paddington. I’ll let them find me there. It’ll be OK.’ She smiled, but Emma didn’t smile back and the lead in Maggie’s
stomach grew heavier.
‘I don’t want you to stay. I don’t want you to be here when—’ Emma stopped, carried the mug and glass to the dishwasher and binned the empty biscuit packet. ‘You have to leave now, within the next five minutes, or it’ll be too late.’
She opened the dishwasher and put the cups inside, turned the machine on even though it wasn’t half full.
‘I thought you said I had twenty?’
She came back with a damp cloth and a spray bottle, wiped the table clean.
‘Emma? I thought you said I had twenty minutes?’
Her hands, Maggie saw, had the scabs of bleach burns.
‘Please, go!’
Pinned to the fridge behind Emma was an old shopping list, the black ink sun-faded to blue.
And it was suddenly all too clear, all painfully transparent.
An irrelevant list of household items. Milk, bread, teabags, all written in Nuala’s handwriting. But it made Maggie realise why her stomach felt full of lead, why her mouth wouldn’t smile, why Emma wouldn’t meet her eye.
Why Maggie hadn’t believed a word she’d said.
Maggie
Tuesday, 12th December, 2017
‘Why did you have to come?’ Emma twisted the cleaning cloth between her hands, wringing out the bleach.
‘The suicide letters,’ Maggie whispered.
‘Why couldn’t you just let me be?’
‘You said Nuala wrote them, but she didn’t.’
‘Why do you have to try and drag me back there?’ Emma clawed her fingers violently through her hair. ‘Every time I try to escape, you pull me back.’
‘You wrote them; they were all in your handwriting. And she was wearing your clothes.’ Maggie looked at her open-mouthed, and Emma met her eye. Her face was no longer pale but flushed, her forehead gleaming with sweat.
‘For God’s sake, what have you done?’
Emma turned her back, stared into the garden, fingers manically picking the scabs on her knuckles. ‘Nuala was wild, raving on about how I had no right to contact her husband, that I had no claim on him. She attacked me, I had to defend myself and then I … I—’ Emma paced the room, blood dripping in thick rivulets from the picked scabs, her socked feet catching the wood like fur. ‘I knocked her out; smashed the back of her head on the flagstones by the fire, just once, but it was hard enough. Afterwards I picked up her bag and her wallet fell out. I saw the money inside, her credit cards, debit cards, everything. I saw her keys and I thought, why not? Why don’t I finally run? Why don’t I finally, finally, try and have a life?’
‘But why kill Lois? You didn’t have to do that!’
‘She told me!’ Emma cried.
Maggie stopped, her jaw hanging loose, saliva flooding her mouth. ‘Told you what?’ she asked, but she knew.
‘He was my brother Maggie! My brother! She sat there with his Polaroid in her hands and told me who he was, said that was why she was horrified that I was pregnant. She should have just told me the truth from the start!’
Backlit against the window Maggie could see it more clearly, the resemblance Emma shared with someone. It was a similarity to her brother, to James.
‘I never—’ she began, but Emma cut her off.
‘You never told me! You knew and you never told me!’
‘I didn’t know, not until recently, not until—’
‘Another lie, like all the rest. Another fucking lie! I thought I could trust you, Maggie, but all you did was deceive me.’
She stopped. Maggie could see her profile, the feverish gleam in her eyes, the sheen of sweat on her forehead. ‘I couldn’t let Lois get away with it.’ Her fingers searched out the scabs on her hands again, and a drop of blood fell to the floor. ‘I couldn’t leave, knowing she was still there, still alive, still free to do whatever the fuck she wanted.’
Maggie looked out at the park, a distant shape of deer crossing the grass. She thought of Lois, trapped in her small, cold house, the house that was owned by the man who had raped her. Thought of Emma, doorstop in hand, raising it up and forcing it down, down, down, down until Lois’s face was dripping with blood, flesh, hair, brain, bone fragments and spinal fluid.
But Emma couldn’t do that.
She couldn’t, she must be lying again.
Her head began to ache, her ears thrumming with Emma’s soft voice.
‘I drove Nuala’s car out of the village and left it on the hill. I ran back to the pub, dressed Nuala in some of my clothes, scrubbed bleach into her hands and the pads of her fingertips, so they’d be just as damaged as mine, and dragged her body into your car. I got my gun, Elaine’s gun. I wrote the letter for Nuala. I wrote another for Lois, backdated, saying that James was dead. Then I drove to Lois’s house, told her I wanted to give her the photo of James from the pub, knowing it was the only way she would ever let me in. I sat Nuala beside Lois, once Lois was dead, and shot her in the face. I left by her back garden, ran over the fields until I reached the red car.’
Emma walked to the door and flicked a switch, killing the lights. The room turned grey, the white walls and bleached floor all reflecting the colour of the dull afternoon clouds outside.
‘I’ve tried so hard to make this work.’ Emma picked up the knife beside the kettle and balanced it on the butcher’s block, point end to the wood, spinning the blade. ‘I’ve done so much. I’ve cleaned this whole house, top to bottom. It was disgusting, it stank of rotting food, of filth.’ She faced Maggie, her eyes almost black in the dim light. ‘I’ve read all the paperwork I could find, learned about Nuala’s background.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off the knife. It collected what little light filtered through the window from the winter sun, the blade decorated with spots of bright silver.
‘I was going to move away.’ Emma set the knife down. ‘Sell the house, empty her account, take the money and run. But then you came. And you ruined everything.’ The blood from the scabs had left congealed ribbons on her skin. ‘Again.’
Her hand went back to the knife, clutching the hilt in her fist.
‘I won’t tell anyone.’ Maggie looked at the knife. Her chest felt tight, the shake in her hands had returned. ‘I won’t say a word.’ Her mouth was filling with saliva and her stomach, far from feeling comforted by the biscuits, was churning the crumbs like a mixer.
Emma dipped her head to the side. ‘I don’t believe you.’ A tear slid down her cheek. Her grip on the knife tightened but her hand, like Maggie’s, had started to shake. ‘You’ve ruined everything, just like Lois. Just like James.’
James. The name ran through Maggie, a last opportunity to save them both.
‘Think of James,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t want you to do this, sweetheart.’
‘James?’ Emma’s voice was small, reminding Maggie of the child that had bounced on Maggie’s knee, who had wrapped her scrawny arms around her neck.
‘You loved him—’
‘Is that what you think?’ Emma’s flush deepened, pillar box red across her cheeks and brow. ‘That I loved him?’ She lifted the knife and slammed it down, the point spearing the butcher’s block. ‘He left me! He ran and left me alone!’ And again, again, again, the knife splitting the wood, the blade bending.
‘I’ve had time and distance to reflect, to understand what he did to me; leading me on, seducing me, it was all wrong. But it went deeper than just the physical. He was manipulative, controlling, made me question my own judgement so I would trust his completely. There are few worse things that you can do to a person than making them doubt their every little action. I used to worry if I was even breathing right, if my breath was too loud, too wet, too dry for James’s approval. His twisted mind made me question my very ability to survive. And once that’s gone, that survival instinct, there’s nothing left. You have to build yourself up from scratch. The first feeling to return, once the numbness had gone, was anger. The anger helped me survive.’ Emma rubbed the tears from her
eyes before they had a chance to fall. She pushed her shoulders back and stood tall, regaining control.
‘Did Daddy know, too? That James was his son, my brother?’ Emma’s face was crestfallen, making her look so young, so damaged, that Maggie’s heart ached for her, despite the knife in Emma’s hand.
Maggie nodded. ‘Arthur knew.’
‘Why did everyone know but me?’ Rage filled Emma’s voice, her cheeks flushing dark red. ‘You all thought I was too weak to handle the truth, was that why nobody told me? That I was a sorry little girl pining for the man who abandoned her?’
‘I didn’t know until—’ the night that you died, Maggie nearly said, but Emma cut her off. ‘I’m not that weak!’
‘Do you know what I’d have done if he’d come back? Why I had been searching for him online all these years? What I had planned to do if I ever saw him again?’
Flashes of Lois filled Maggie’s vision, lumps of dead meat clinging to the fur on the cast-iron doorstop.
Emma lifted the knife and held it by her side, closing in on Maggie.
All ideas of calming Emma down, of easing the tension, vanished when Maggie saw the frenzied look in her goddaughter’s eyes.
Maggie knew she had to get out.
She could run out into the garden, jump over the hedge, through the park.
On cue a shot of pain ran up from her calf to her hip, aching from the earlier run, threatening cramp.
‘Do you really think I’m so pathetic?’ Emma said, the light from the window softening her, her eyes returning to normal, blue irises and bloodshot whites, her skin spotted and sallow.
She sat at the table, her spine curved to a slouch, top lip pulled into her mouth and Maggie remembered her at home, leaning against the kitchen door, collecting empties from the bar.
‘I never thought you were pathetic.’ Maggie wanted to hold her hand, to touch her. ‘I want to help you, please.’ But the sight of the knife warned her away, telling her to run, run, run.
‘You never helped me.’ Emma rubbed a stray tear from her cheek with her sleeve, the knife still gripped in her fist. ‘You just stand in my way, every time. And when I finally decided to leave, to start over, what did I discover? That you pissed all my money away, that you left me with nothing.’
Never Go There Page 27