Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘She refused to go to hospital,’ the policeman said helplessly. Then as Norah came flapping down the hall, directing him to carry her into the sitting-room, Rosie began moving in his arms.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said, in a surprisingly clear voice. ‘Take me into the kitchen. I’m all wet and muddy.’

  Later on, after the doctor had pronounced her injuries to be only superficial scratches and bruises, they even managed to smile about her concern for carpets and furniture. But at that moment they were all so profoundly stunned at actually having her back, alive and able to speak clearly, that they did as she asked and sat her on a wooden chair.

  Donald’s arrival a few moments later almost eclipsed Rosie’s ordeal. Their first view of him – mud-caked face and hair, blood-stained hands and raincoat – gave them all a turn. But while Rosie sat in silence, wrapped in a blanket, Donald excitedly related a garbled tale about how he’d stopped ‘the bad man’.

  Once it was established that Donald too was unhurt, Norah took Rosie upstairs to bathe her and put her to bed, and the police took Frank aside to speak to him in private. They left soon after, saying they would call back later in the day in the hope that Rosie would then be able to give a full account of the night’s events.

  Norah came back downstairs sometime later, grey-faced and shaking. She managed to order Donald upstairs to take the bath she’d run for him, but once he’d left the room she burst into tears as she related to Frank and Thomas what Rosie had told her.

  ‘It was Seth who murdered Ruby and Heather, not his father,’ she wept, clinging to her husband. ‘Can you imagine! He boasted about it to Rosie and told her all the horrifying details. He said he was going to blind and disfigure her, and he was trying to rape her when Donald charged through the woods and stopped him. She might have no serious external injuries, but heaven only knows what terrible damage he’s done to her mind.’

  Frank spoke then of what the police had told him in private, how Donald had leapt on Seth and almost clubbed him to death with a stick. They thought Seth’s skull was broken and doubted whether he would live to stand trial. He was on his way to a hospital.

  There was only one role left for Thomas to fill. He made tea, poured brandies, listened and offered consolation, but the role he was burning for was avenger. He wished more than anything that it was possible for him to have five minutes alone with Seth Parker, for he would make the man beg and plead for death.

  In the absence of any opportunity to exact revenge, Thomas chose to pray silently as he gave his help to each member of the family: that Rosie would come through this unscathed; that Donald would never again need or want to use his physical strength to get the better of another man. But most of all he prayed that Seth would survive, so that he could endure the kind of terror he’d inflicted on Rosie, waiting to be hanged.

  Thomas poured a jug of water over Donald’s head to rinse off the last of the shampoo. Then he handed him a towel.

  ‘I was just like a Red Indian,’ Donald said proudly as he dried himself. ‘I would have scalped him too if I’d had a knife.’

  That boast of Donald’s brought a chink of light to Thomas’s black thoughts and even made him smile. The lad sounded like an excited six-year-old just back from a feast of Cowboys and Indians at Saturday morning pictures. Fortunately he had no real conception of exactly what Seth was intending to do to Rosie, or in fact how close he’d come to murder himself. He had been guided only by a primitive protective instinct, and within days he’d probably have forgotten all but the glory of it.

  For the first time ever Thomas found himself envying Donald’s simpleness. He didn’t look back over his shoulder at the past, or try to see into the future. He accepted everything as it was. Good food, clean clothes, the love of his family, warm smiles from neighbours and occasional words of praise were all he needed for complete happiness. Thomas remembered how he’d felt in the camp in Burma, when just one tiny piece of meat or fish in his daily bowl of rice was enough to make him delirious with happiness. He wished he could regain that ability to need and want so little.

  *

  Two days after Seth snatched Rosie from her bedroom, the press were in the garden of The Grange photographing Donald. Overnight he had become a national hero, and because Norah and Frank were afraid that unscrupulous reporters might resort to underhand methods to talk to their son, they had allowed them this one photo-call, strictly under Frank’s control.

  ‘Look at them!’ Norah whispered scathingly to her husband as they posed for one picture with Donald. She inclined her head towards the end of the garden where people from the village were packed shoulder to shoulder, rubber-necking through bushes, even climbing on to the wall and gate. From time to time someone would shout out extravagant praise, or lead a chorus of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. The reporters thought it was very moving and were puzzled by Norah’s refusal to be photographed with the villagers.

  There was an excellent reason for her refusal. Twelve years ago some of these very same people had stood in the same place, screaming hysterically that Donald was a maniac and ought to be behind bars. Norah had forgiven them for that – they were ignorant people who allowed themselves to be caught up in group hysteria. But proud as she was of her son’s courage, she didn’t intend to share a moment of it with them.

  ‘You don’t have to do it,’ Thomas reminded Roise as they came downstairs. They had been watching the noisy scene from a bedroom upstairs and Rosie had suggested that she went out there too and got it over and done with.

  ‘They won’t stop telephoning and calling round until I do,’ she said in a firm, crisp voice. ‘Besides I’m fine now, and they’ll like it better if they can see me while I still look beaten up.’

  Thomas looked at her appraisingly. She was still very pale and was having difficulty in holding a cup of tea because of her shaking hands. But apart from one badly bruised eye where Seth had punched her and vivid scratches on her arms and legs, she didn’t look so bad. He thought she must have a nervous system made of steel, because apart from breaking down when she first told Norah everything Seth had said and done, she had somehow managed to maintain an air of near-indifference to the events of that night.

  ‘Well, just do a quick interview then,’ Thomas said, his hand on the half-glass door which opened into the porch. He wasn’t convinced that she was as inwardly composed as her exterior suggested. ‘If they ask any awkward questions or I think you look distressed, I’ll drag you in by the scruff of your neck.’

  ‘Okay, bossy-boots,’ she said with a grin. ‘Lead on.’

  The moment Rosie stepped outside the front door, a buzz went round amongst the journalists and photographers gathered round Donald and his parents further down the drive.

  ‘It’s her,’ ‘The girl’s here’ and ‘It’s Parker’s daughter’ were some of the remarks Thomas heard. As one they turned away from Donald and flocked up the garden towards Rosie.

  ‘How are you feeling, Rosie?’ one young reporter shouted out, determined to get something meaty out of her if it was the last thing he did. Donald Cook was a dead loss as far as he was concerned, keen enough to pose for pictures, but he couldn’t give a very lucid account of how he’d managed to overcome Seth Parker. What’s more, his father had already marked their card and said no one was to print that his son was simple-minded, and without that juicy bit there wasn’t much of a story.

  ‘I’m better now, thank you,’ Rosie said. She felt intimidated to find herself surrounded by men clamouring to speak to her.

  ‘How do you feel about your brother now?’ the same reporter threw in, hoping for an unguarded answer while she was still unprepared.

  Thomas bristled at the question and tightened his grip on Rosie’s arm. She glanced at him to reassure him. ‘He’s only my half-brother,’ she said. ‘I’m just glad he’s somewhere he can’t hurt anyone else.’

  ‘Is it true that it was him and not your father who murdered Ruby Blackwell and Heather Farl
ey?’ another reporter called out.

  Rosie lifted her head and looked out defiantly. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. ‘Seth told me himself that it was him. My father was an innocent man.’

  ‘But your father must have guessed it was his son who killed them. Why didn’t he speak up at his trial?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. That was a question she had asked herself again and again in the last two days, and she still hadn’t come up with any answer. ‘Maybe he hoped Seth would confess, but it’s too late to ask him now.’

  ‘Do you hope Seth will recover to stand trial?’ someone from the back of the bank of reporters called out.

  Rosie knew someone would find fault, however she answered that question. ‘I hope he recovers enough to make a confession which will clear my father’s name,’ she said evenly. ‘I haven’t thought beyond that.’

  ‘That’s enough now,’ Thomas said suddenly as the reporters’ questions became too probing. He could see they didn’t care tuppence about Rosie. All they wanted was more horror to thrill their readers. One had actually seemed disappointed to see she wasn’t more badly scarred. He knew they would rush back to their offices and embroider what they’d been told with sensationalism, twisting the truth to make both Donald and her into a pair of freaks from a sideshow. ‘I’m taking Rosie in now. You have everything you need.’

  ‘Not quite, Mr Farley. It is Thomas Farley, isn’t it, the brother of Heather Farley?’ A foxy-faced man in his twenties pushed his way to the front of the crowd, his eyes narrowing with malicious intent. Thomas was pretty certain he was one of the journalists who had practically camped outside the shop in Flask Walk during the trial. ‘As the brother of one of the women murdered by Parker, and chief prosecution witness at his trial, I’m somewhat surprised to find you involved here. I’m sure we’d all love to hear how and when you and Rosie came to be such good friends. Was it before or after the trial?’

  Thomas couldn’t think of any reply, clever or otherwise, so he merely glared at the man for a second, then took Rosie’s arm more firmly, wheeled round and escorted her indoors.

  Rosie went over to the stairs and sat down, looking questioningly back at Thomas. He was still standing by the porch door, quivering with anger.

  ‘Thomas,’ she said quietly, ‘what is it?’

  ‘I loathe and detest journalists,’ he said vehemently. ‘They are the human version of vultures.’

  Rosie could understand him being angry at being picked on by that journalist. There was a definite implication that there was something odd, shady even, about them being friends. Yet she thought his reaction was a bit extreme. ‘We always knew that someday, someone would ask us that question,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should just have told him how it came about?’

  The front door was still open wide, but they had closed the inner door. It had red stained-glass panels and the sun coming in was turning his fair hair pink. Outside the press were still firing questions at Donald and his parents, but here in the hall they seemed a long way away.

  ‘You know why. I can’t stand talking about Cole or Heather. I never see our friendship as having anything to do with them, or what happened. We are separate.’

  Rosie was just about to say how good that sounded, when Thomas turned his head to one side. His face had been in shadow until then, but as he moved she saw tears glistening on his lashes. It reminded her that she’d thought he’d changed in some way since Seth abducted her – how exactly she couldn’t pinpoint, just less sure of himself, brooding perhaps.

  In the last two days she’d had every opportunity to talk about what had happened to her. The police, the doctor, Mrs Cook, everyone was only too keen to listen and give comfort. Yet although she’d told all those people most of what had happened, she still hadn’t revealed how she actually felt about it.

  That policeman’s words, ‘It’s all over now’, came back to her. He was wrong, just as she’d suspected. An incident as traumatic as this one had been, with deep roots in the past, couldn’t be forgotten with just a couple of brandies and a hot bath.

  In a flash of intuition she knew that it was the same for Thomas as it was for her. Both of them needed to examine their feelings, about the recent events and the old injuries too. Thomas had joked soon after she was brought home about being as useful in her rescue as a chocolate fireguard. Now she realized it wasn’t a joke, but a statement of exactly how he felt.

  She got up from the stairs and walked across the hall to him. Impulsively she slid her arms around his waist and held him tight. ‘It’s time we really talked,’ she said softly against his shoulder, surprised by how good it felt to hold him. ‘After all those people have gone, shall we slip out on our own somewhere?’

  His lips brushed against her cheek. ‘I was thinking I ought to go back to London. Mr Bryant sounded as if he was losing patience when I phoned him yesterday.’

  Rosie sensed this was an excuse. He wanted to crawl back into a hole where no one could question him. But she wasn’t going to let him do that. ‘You could go back on the evening train,’ she suggested. ‘That still leaves this afternoon.’

  She heard a sigh form deep inside him, almost as if he knew he couldn’t fight her will. He took a step back from her and forced a smile. ‘Okay, but I don’t know where we can go without bumping into someone.’

  ‘I do,’ Rosie smiled up at him. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Thomas asked as Rosie unlocked the side gate of Swallows, a small cottage just five minutes away from The Grange.

  ‘Mr Tweedy asked me a while ago to come and make a plan for improving his garden,’ Rosie replied with a mischievous grin. ‘He and his wife are away on holiday until next Saturday, that’s why they gave me this key. So maybe I’m not actually going to plan the garden today, but I need to sit in it for a bit to get the feel of it.’

  It was a garden that had been allowed to run wild for several years. The many flowering shrubs overshadowed the small lawn, and a pergola was almost collapsing under the weight of wisteria and climbing roses. Seen now at the height of summer after the recent heavy rain, it was a glorious, colourful jungle and an ideal secluded place to talk freely.

  ‘So what else do we have to talk about that requires so much privacy?’ Thomas asked eventually. They were sitting on a bench in the sunshine and had already been through a discussion about Donald and what effect being pushed into the limelight might have on him.

  ‘Something I should have admitted a long time ago,’ she said simply. ‘You may hate me after I’ve told you.’

  Thomas turned on the seat to look Rosie in the face, disturbed by her words. She had regained her colour since the press had left the house. In fact she’d seemed quite bouncy and normal again over lunch. He hadn’t imagined she intended to reveal any deep, dark secrets this afternoon. He thought she just needed to get away somewhere quiet.

  ‘I don’t think I could hate you for anything, however bad it was,’ he said, putting one hand on her cheek. ‘But what makes you want to tell me now?’

  ‘Something you said this morning made me see that neither of us can move on in our lives until we fully come to terms with the past,’ she said in a rush, brushing his hand away from her cheek. ‘I’ve got this locked away. I think you’ve got something too. So I’m going to tell you mine, in the hope you’ll tell me what’s bothering you.’

  Thomas felt an unpleasant prickle in his spine. He frowned. ‘Something to do with Heather? Did Seth tell you what he did to her?’

  ‘Yes, in crude, graphic detail,’ Rosie admitted, hanging her head. ‘But that’s not it. It’s something that happened a year before she disappeared. If I’d told my father then, Heather would still be alive now.’

  Rosie had buried the memory of her brothers raping Heather. It hadn’t been entirely erased from her mind, any more than she could wipe out the horror of her father’s trial and hanging, but she had buried it deeply enough for her to go months and months without th
inking of it. When Seth forced her to listen to his boasts about all the other times he’d abused Heather, and that last day with her before he killed her, the true significance of what she’d seen and kept quiet about was laid bare.

  Every word stung as she described to Thomas what she’d seen as an innocent eleven-year-old. She could recall all the noises, from the rain outside to the creaking bed, the men’s grunts and Heather’s cries, just as if it happened yesterday.

  Thomas sat very still as she was speaking, but he was clenching and unclenching his fists in a frightening manner.

  ‘I’m to blame,’ she whispered when she’d finished. ‘If I’d told Dad that night, he would have thrown Seth and Norman out. Dad and Heather would have been happy again. But instead it just went on and on.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell him?’ Thomas said in a strangled voice.

  ‘I was scared.’ It sounded so weak and pathetic, but yet she could vividly recall the terrible nightmares which followed that day, and the fear that Seth would do it to her too.

  Thomas took a deep breath. He wanted to go and punch that tottering pergola in front of him so it came crashing to the ground, but he controlled the urge.

  ‘You were only a child,’ he said at length. ‘You didn’t fully comprehend what you’d seen, any more than Donald really understood what Seth was trying to do to you the other night.’

  ‘I did,’ she admitted. ‘I even expected that Heather would run away after that. I just hoped she’d take me when she went.’

  Thomas just sat there unable to speak for a moment. He wondered how Rosie could have become such a beautiful person, inside and out, after being exposed to such things.

  ‘So that’s why he killed her?’ he said eventually. ‘She got brave one day and she threatened to blow the whistle on him?’

  Rosie nodded.

  Thomas slumped forward, his head nearly on his knees. ‘Oh Rosie,’ he said. ‘I don’t know which is worse – you carrying that memory in your head, or putting such a terrible picture into mine.’