“So you can put Geneva into context?”
“Or so you can freshly remember any details now that you have some distance from it.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll ramble, make an effort to keep relaxed, not trying too hard. Does that sound about right?”
“Absolutely. The less you edit it, the less you fuss over it, maybe the more will come back. We can but try.”
He sat back in his chair, closing his eyes. “Cloudy. Cool. Sitting at my desk doing prep work for Monday. Look at my watch. Still got some time before heading over to Susan’s place for dinner. Decide to freshen up.”
Maddie leaned forward so she could hear better. His voice was a low rumble.
“Glance out at the carpark. Empty except for my car. Everybody was gone.”
Maddie grabbed a notepad out of her pocket. She scribbled a question that needed to be answered: ‘Any staff normally walk rather than drive to school?’
“Stand outside my classroom and listen,” Henry continued. “Silence. Cleaners expected about six. Should be at Susan’s by then.”
Maddie nodded. New details about the cleaners she hadn’t remembered or nobody had mentioned. Also the listening bit. She jotted them down.
“Grab my towel from my locker in the staffroom. Head to the gym. Put my head into the boy’s changing room and pull back. Whiffy. Visiting teams’ changing rooms were locked as usual. Head to the girls’ changing rooms. Stop before going in. Listen. Now my shoes weren’t echoing my every step along the corridor, it was utterly silent. I look around. Nobody. Head in.” He looked up. Nodded.
Maddie scribbled on her notepad, ‘Did not call out before listening?’
“Turn on the lights just inside the door. See two things. A school blazer on one bench and a pair of shoes under another. Decide to drop them off at my locker when I return the towel so I could put them into the ‘lost property’ box in the morning.”
Maddie wrote, ‘Blazer to lost prop?’ First she’d heard about a blazer.
“When I see those things, I call out. “Anybody here?” I wait. Then repeat my call, which, by the way, echoes around that space. But only silence. So I walk to the shower block, take off my clothes and leave them on the bench just outside.”
Maddie remembered Geneva’s testimony was that the man coming out of the showers was naked. So seeing clothes on the bench was consistent.
“Have my shower. No soap, just a general rinse-off. But it feels good after the rigours of a typical school day.” He paused, his eyes briefly on Maddie’s before closing them again. “I turn off the shower and towel off. I take about three steps out of the stall towards the bench and my clothes. I have my damp towel in one hand. I see the girl and let out a … a noise. Maybe a grunt? Maybe a muted scream? Shocked. The girl lets out a screech and turns tail and dashes from the changing rooms. I am horribly embarrassed. I throw on my clothes and rush out the door. Girl long gone. Pause. Hold my breath. Listen. Nothing. Nobody.” He opened his eyes again. “It was as if the girl was a mirage.” He took another deep breath. “I went back into the changing room and collected my towel and the jacket and shoes. I was disturbed; I was breathing heavily. Annoyed at myself. What a stupid thing to have happened. I hadn’t checked carefully enough. The last thing I expected was a child. Maybe the janitor. Maybe a staff member. But it was over an hour since school had closed on a Friday. Everyone had gone.” His voice dropped even further. “No sounds. Nobody was there. I even checked Dymock’s office. Locked up. The girl had disappeared.”
Maddie noticed he’d switched from present tense to past. Was that significant? Up to that point, he was there, in his mind, doing what he said, thinking those things as if re-experiencing it all.
“And?” she asked.
“I walked to my classroom. Collected my coat. Put the jacket and shoes on my desk so I’d be reminded to take them to the lost property box.”
“Did it occur to you the girl was after the jacket or shoes?”
“Only much later. Certainly not then. I didn’t recognise the child. Did I tell you that? She was not in my home room class nor any I taught.”
“The towel?” she reminded him.
“Draped it over my chair to dry. Couldn’t be fagged going back to the staffroom. I’d do it Monday morning.”
“Okay. Back to what happened….”
“Yes. Well, when I put on my coat, I was feeling okay again. Looking forward to dinner out with friends.”
“Your wife not invited?”
He shook his head. “I was baching it. She was visiting her mother up north that week – probably why Susan invited me over as she was more Lucinda’s friend than mine. She was trying to help; feeling sorry for me being on my own, most likely. Although that didn’t occur to me at the time. I was just pleased to be going out to dinner with people I enjoyed.”
“Sorry for interrupting. I promise not to do so again.” She smiled at him. “You put on your coat and left the things for the lost property box on top of your desk. And the damp towel on the chair.”
“I walked back down the corridor to the side door, the one opening onto the car park. Before I opened the door, I stopped and listened one last time. I thought I heard something that time. Something like, say, a book dropped onto the floor. Muffled. Not a voice. I called out again. Nothing. Told myself it was my imagination and deliberately turned my mind to the upcoming dinner. I had a bottle of wine in the boot, keeping cool. I rescued it and put it in the passenger footwell. Drove to Susan’s place. Found a parking spot close by outside her next-door-neighbour’s place. Grabbed the wine. Locked up the car with the remote, which worked first time, for once. Headed to the front door. Knocked. Susan answered and ushered me in with a hug. I gave her the wine.” He paused. “Any further?”
“Did what had happened in the changing rooms come to mind during the dinner?”
“Not that I recall. I thought of it next when I showered the next morning. Was freshly embarrassed by it. Hoped the child was so startled, she didn’t recognise me. A vain hope, as it turned out.”
Maddie looked at her questions. “Any of the staff walk to school, or take a bus rather than take their cars?”
“Quite a few, actually, but they’re the first out the door so they can catch the bus before the rush hour – hours – get started.”
“Walking?”
“Me, usually. And….”
A loud buzzer sounded. All the prisoners rose to their feet.
Maddie said, “I’ll be back.”
He nodded and turned to walk away with the other prisoners. Maddie watched until he disappeared but he didn’t look back.
She had a long drive ahead of her and traffic would be steadily building. But the drive homeward provided a chance to ruminate on what she’d heard. Being careful he was alone in the school would be behaviour she’d expect from a personality such as his. Not calling out at first was not noteworthy. Calling out when going into the girls’ changing rooms even if he expected nobody to be there was also consistent with his personality. In fact, the whole episode, including his embarrassed reaction, was consistent.
A falling book. That was his interpretation of the noise he heard at the time. What else makes a sound like that? A closing door?
Chapter Twenty-four
Maddie had continued to open her work emails although the urgency to do so was fading. She still received some – all the general ones that went out to everybody in the department – and the occasional one from a colleague, mostly asking if she was okay. She hadn’t checked her emails since Friday.
Two emails of interest. One from Erin, the psychologist, one from Geneva Hopworth. She opened Erin’s. Progress report on Lawrence Reilly, once upon a time, her most despised client. Now of intense interest. Erin said they were cautiously optimistic about the meds. Lawrence said he’d gone an entire evening just watching television. The meant, Maddie knew, an entire evening without his gross and disturbing fantasies. A scrap of hope for the bedeville
d man.
Then to Geneva Hopworth’s email.
‘Hi Mrs Brooks!’ the email said. ‘Do you still live in Kingston? I’ve been thinking about what you said about the new murder and the man I accused. Maybe meet at the weekend for a coffee? My treat this time. Best, Geneva.’
It had been sent late on Friday. Maddie cursed the luck. The weekend was well gone, spent with Caroline in Oxfordshire.
She re-read it. ‘The man I accused’, not ‘The man who abused me’ or even ‘The man convicted of…’. Did the girl have some doubts?
‘Hi Geneva,’ Maddie replied. ‘I have been away for the weekend and only received your invitation for coffee just now and, yes, I still live in Surbiton, just south of Kingston. I would love to meet up again. But I do have access to trains and I also have my own transport, so name a place and I will be there.’ She hesitated. Should she suggest after work today? Tomorrow? No, keep it cool. ‘Would next weekend be a suitable substitute?’ Cool but not cold. Nothing to scare her away.
She looked at how Geneva had signed off and typed ‘Best wishes, Madeleine Brooks.’ If this came to pass, she resolved to invite Geneva to call her Madeleine. Just a little more formal than ‘Maddie’ but infinitely better than ‘Mrs Brooks’. She pressed ‘send’.
Putting aside the temptation to continue working on Henry’s case, Maddie set to doing the chores she’d neglected by going away for the weekend. Laundry, putting away a variety of clothes, books, papers and several pairs of shoes and realising she’d need to vacuum. Yet again she found the unmistakable evidence that Jade and/or Wayne ate crisps in front of television.
Next was a clean-up of the kitchen including several meals’ worth of dirty dishes and a burnt frying pan with the remains of who-knows-what thoroughly stuck. She put it to soak with fingers crossed.
Enough! Time for some changes.
Okay. They – Jade and Wayne – needed to take regular responsibility for at least one dinner each every week. Neither could cook and it was about time both learned. And it would remove at least one duty from her own shoulders even if she had to teach and supervise for a while. Yes, meals could be planned each Sunday for the week; she’d do five, Wayne and Jade one each. For a start anyway.
She’d do the shopping so the ingredients were all there. No excuses.
She ran up to the computer and produced a form with Week of … as the header for the first column filled in with days of the week, and Maddie, Wayne and Jade along the top of their own columns with empty blocks to fill in with what each planned. It felt assertive and, yes, therapeutic to do it. She printed the form off and placed it prominently on the kitchen bench. Things were going to be different around here. Starting now.
Maddie checked her emails again straight after lunch. Yes! Geneva. She held her breath as she opened it.
‘Hi Mrs Brooks! I live in Kingston (with my parents still ) but I’d rather we didn’t meet where my mum could see me. She thinks I’ve completely erased that whole episode from my memory. I wish! So I’d rather meet elsewhere. How about the Centre Court shopping mall in Wimbledon? There’s a café on the upper level in the mall right by the station. Say 9:30 Saturday? (Way too early for any of my mum’s friends to be having their elevenses!!!) Best, Geneva.’
Maddie knew the coffee shops in the mall by Wimbledon station. She sent a quick reply agreeing to the time and day and specifying the café. Send.
Perfect.
But when she went outside to wrestle with the worst of the weeds growing around the terrace, she plunged into despair. Wayne. Was he really thinking of having an affair? The woman must be young, given that haircut and the hair dye. An older woman wouldn’t care. And had he lost a bit of weight off his incipient beer belly?
She tugged at the weeds with renewed vigour. Once she had a decent pile, she sat back on her heels. Putting the world to rights. A basic part of her existence. Whether it was figuring out what happened to young Geneva or tidying her garden, or, dammit, putting everyone on a schedule, that’s what kept her going.
She had to think through how she was going to handle the Wayne problem. Find out more, for sure. Visit him at his studio? They had an unspoken agreement – he didn’t show up at the Probation Offices and she didn’t drop into his studio. Somehow, such an agreement had evolved over years. Decades. And, now she was thinking about it, she’d had no hand in deciding this should be so.
Who would know what he was up to? She realised she had virtually no relationships with any of his friends or fellow musicians. Wayne socialised during the day. She was aware of that mainly because of the many times a café entry on their credit card bill appeared. Yet, he was always home for dinner. He watched television in the evenings, sometimes with her, sometimes with Jade, but mostly alone while she and Jade did their own things. Jade doing homework and now studying for her exams or texting her friends in her room; Maddie in her home office, lately working, but before that, doing her emails – always several from daughter Olivia – and reading while curled up in her superbly comfy chair in her office with its excellent reading lamp.
She wrestled with a tall weed about to seed. She stood, pulling with all her weight. The weed gave way, snapping off at its base. Maddie cursed. Its roots were intact. She sat down to tackle smaller weeds, those she knew she could handle. But somehow the thought of those viable roots solidly sitting out of sight was disconcerting.
She’d sworn she would never again be in a situation where she lost control. And this instance was too close to home. Far too close.
She was fifteen when her mother had discovered her father was having an affair. Maddie had arrived back home after school to find her mother crying in the sitting room and her father shouting as he packed a bag in their bedroom.
Maddie desperately wanted to interfere, to stop them but didn’t know what to do. She knew her mother would hate Maddie seeing her like that. And her father was shouting. Best keep away. She felt her mother’s eyes on her back the entire time she dashed up the stairs; she safely arrived at her bedroom without her father seeing her.
She’d flopped on her bed, her fingers in her ears. In spite of that, she could hear her father. "Damnable woman! You can’t just let well enough alone, can you? You have to make a big production out of it. But I’ll be damned if I can’t have a little happiness in my life.” And so on.
After her father left, she crept downstairs and made her mother a cup of tea. But when she brought it into the living room, her mother was clutching a tumbler full of scotch.
“You have the tea, dear,” her mother had managed to say. “I need something stronger.”
Her mother had spiralled down into a depression fuelled by lashings of alcohol leaving Maddie to cope on her own, do most of the housework and cooking and be the only support her mother wanted. She saw her father only rarely after that. He appeared at her wedding, she well remembered, and got maudlin with the drink served. By then he’d remarried, only a year or two later to be involved in another messy divorce.
Maddie didn’t care. But she swore she’d never be in a situation where she had no control ever again. And, mostly, that’s how she’d lived her life for the next thirty-odd years.
Suddenly Maddie was overwhelmed her own marriage was in jeopardy. Tears, for the first time, filled her eyes. No one was around. No need to pretend. She let them flow. Sitting back on her heels, unseeing eyes fixed on her pile of weeds, gardening gloves on, all alone.
Chapter Twenty-five
Shirley suggested coffee at their usual place. And here Maddie was yet again, entering the café and spotting Shirley at ‘their’ table. She waved.
“This is becoming an enjoyable habit,” Maddie said as she sat down. “Have you heard from our mutual friend?”
“I have.” She waved another letter, replete with closed space handwriting, just like the previous one. “I know now why she’s so long in South Africa.”
“Sounds like she has had plenty to do.” Maddie chucked her jacket, draping it over th
e back of the chair.
“Yes, I would expect Kathy to fill her days productively no matter where she is, but she had a very practical reason to sojourn in South Africa. And it’s all to do with economy.”
Maddie smiled. Easy to spot that Shirley was prolonging the moment.
“She got a very good price for her return flight! But she had to wait to take advantage. Such a good excuse to do a thorough job of seeing South Africa and meeting as many of her long-lost relatives as she can.”
Maddie thanked the waiter who brought her flat white. “So she found a good deal. And she has the time and energies to take advantage.”
“It’s winter down there now. So much nicer than if she’d been there during their summertime. Very hot, you know.”
Maddie smiled and sipped her coffee. “Did she say when she’s coming back?”
“July 27th. So, she’s still got six weeks there.”
“Did you ask her to call the police here?” Maddie mentally crossed her fingers.
“I did. But she didn’t say anything about that. Sorry.” Shirley looked abashed.
Maddie kicked herself for not timing her question after Shirley had come down off her high. “I’m sure it’s not top of her priorities,” she said. “But maybe you can remind her about it when next you write.”
“Yes, I’ll do that,” Shirley said, sipping her coffee. “And I have one more thing to report.” She paused for emphasis.
“Go on.”
“Nobody called Milhousen was recorded speaking at the Genealogy Society at our last meeting. I specifically asked the secretary but, I have to admit, she doesn’t always get every person who asks a question or makes an announcement right. I looked at the minutes. Nothing there. I asked if I could see her scribbles during the meeting. Nothing at the time. But she had a list at the bottom of who attended the meeting. I recognised all the names except for one. A Mr Timmig. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
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