by Fiona Barton
“Can we have a word in a minute?” she asked as he put the glasses down on the bar.
“Sure. But my missus still isn’t here. She’s the one you should be talking to. She hears everything.”
She and Joe sat at the same table as the last time and he scrolled on his phone while she watched the faces around her. She loved spotting the telltale details—the stained trousers that spoke of neglect, the love bites that told of teenage lust, the disguised shaking hand, the blank eyes, the back-combed hair of someone clinging to their youth.
“Kate,” Joe said suddenly.
“Yes, Joe?” she said, turning her attention back to him.
“Miss Walker. We still haven’t seen her.”
“Yes, let’s do that,” she said, putting down her half-finished drink. “I wonder if the police have talked to her yet.”
They had. Miss Walker was fizzing with excitement when she let them in.
“I had two police officers here. Telling me about them finding Alice Irving. I can’t believe it. That little girl buried in Howard Street all those years.”
“Do you remember the case, Miss Walker?”
“Oh yes. Well, they reminded me a bit, but I knew who they were talking about.”
“How do you think Alice ended up here?” Kate said.
“I have no idea,” Miss Walker said. “Complete mystery, the officers told me.”
Joe sat forwards and handed her his phone.
“These were people who lived here in the sixties and seventies, Miss Walker. One of the families is called Walker—are they relatives?” he said and showed her the list.
She put on smeared glasses and peered at the screen but then handed it back. “Sorry, I can’t read that,” she said, and Kate fished out her notebook.
“Luckily, I used paper,” she said, raising a triumphant eyebrow at her colleague.
Miss Walker pored over the names. “Oh yes,” she said. “This is my aunt and uncle. They lived at number 61 for years. My dad’s brother and his wife. We lived the other side of the South Circular—over in Charlton. But I lived at number 63 Howard Street for a few months—in the eighties.”
“Wow,” Joe said. “So you must know all of these people on the list.”
Kate sat back and watched. He was doing well.
Miss Walker read slowly, her hand straying to pat Shorty at her side.
“Well, I knew all of the families in the terrace from visiting my auntie. Used to go most Sundays for tea when I was young. And a couple of the tenants’ names ring bells, but they came and went so quickly you didn’t really get a chance to get to know them.”
“Are you still in touch with any of the people on the list, Miss Walker?” Kate asked. “We’d love to talk to them about the area as it was then. They may know something.”
“Oh, well. My aunt and uncle died a long time ago. And they didn’t have any children. The Smiths had a son who was older than me, but they all moved north as far as I know. There are Speerings and Bakers who still live round here. I see June Speering in the Co-op most weeks. And her daughter, Sarah.”
Joe was scribbling the names in his notebook.
“Who owned the houses in the seventies, Miss Walker?” Kate asked. “When they were flats and bedsits.”
“Please call me Barbara, dear,” Miss Walker said. “A horrible man bought them. He was full of himself. Boasted how he knew everyone who was anyone. Mr. Soames, he was called—like in the Forsyte Saga.”
“Not a fan then, Barbara?” Kate asked.
Miss Walker blinked. “No,” she said, her voice tight. “He was vile. Thought he was God’s gift. He came round regularly. Chatting up the girls in his bedsits. Pretending to be Mr. Charming. But he sent his blokes round to collect the rent every week. God forbid you got behind with payments. They used to break up your furniture. And worse.”
“Sounds appalling,” Kate said. Bet he’ll have lists of tenants and their details, she thought.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“God knows. Dead, I hope,” Miss Walker said.
“Goodness. What did he do to you?” Kate said.
“Nothing, nothing,” Miss Walker said nervously. “Anyway, he sold the houses before the prices went up. I bet he’s furious he didn’t wait,” she added.
Kate looked at her watch. “We’d better get off, Barbara—got lots to do.”
“Thanks, Barbara,” Joe said. “You’ve been a great help. Must be funny living at the center of the story.”
“Yes. And we’ve had sightseers. A woman who came and stared through the fence was the first, but there’ve been others.”
“I bet,” Joe said, putting on his coat.
“Come anytime,” she said as they left. “I enjoy a bit of company.”
FORTY-TWO
Jude
THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012
She hadn’t gone out for a couple of days. She felt adrift from reality, as if in a dream. She needed to find an anchor. Collect her thoughts. Needed to think. To make sense of this news.
Jude put on CDs of her favorite albums—the vinyl originals long gone—and ignored the frantic thumps on the wall from the flat next door. The music helped her remember. It was the soundtrack of her youth. Of her twenties. Of her love affair with Charlie.
She’d met him when she was twenty-eight, living in London and working for a publishing house. She hadn’t kept any photographs—she’d got rid of them when Emma started asking about her father, thinking, stupidly, that removing the evidence would solve the situation—but she could still conjure up that face.
He was a musician, feckless but beautiful, and she’d fallen for him like a ton of bricks despite warnings from friends that she would get hurt. She was a sucker for a pretty face, she told them. And anyway, she was lonely.
She’d thought London—and publishing—would be full of exciting, clever, creative men, and at first glance, they were, in their King’s Road uniforms. But it turned out being hip was a facade. Beneath the sharp jackets and drainpipe trousers, they were still children of the postwar era, tied to the apron strings of their mumsy-mums at home. Turned out they were looking for a woman to make the bed as well as jump into it, and she wasn’t interested.
She’d kept the sexual wolf from the door with one-night stands and willing men friends before she met Charlie. He was only five years younger than her, but he seemed to come from a completely different era—and he definitely was not looking for a mother figure. He was living in a squat in Brighton and she’d met him at a pop concert in Hyde Park. The Rolling Stones just after Brian Jones died. She’d been queuing for a drink and there he was, long hair, lopsided smile, beautiful hands, and, if she was honest, not that interested in her. Definitely a challenge and, so, irresistible. She had to have him.
She’d become obsessed with him. Spending money on him, paying his fares up to London, dressing him like a mannequin, taking him to the theater, lending him books by Mailer and Updike, and hanging on his every drawled word.
Of course, Charlie was, as predicted, unfaithful. All the time. It went with the territory of musicians, apparently. Didn’t mean anything, he said. So, girls and groupies. But Jude stuck to him like glue.
“He makes me laugh, he makes me feel good,” she’d told friends. “He’s fun and I love him.”
And she did love him. He was the first man since Will at university who’d made her feel alive.
But she didn’t take him home to meet her parents. She didn’t need their disapproval to sour her happiness. She’d tell them when she was ready. When everything was settled.
Because she’d decided to marry Charlie whatever it took. Her biological clock was ticking and she needed to bind him to her—that was all. He needed to appreciate what he’d got in Jude.
She knew Charlie thought marriage was square—“It’s w
hat old people do. We’re free spirits, Jude,” he’d said, but, after a year, she decided to force the issue. Get pregnant. Forget the shame. He’d marry her.
She’d dropped her contraceptive pills down the sink each morning, and when she missed a period, she told him he was going to be a father. He looked as if he was about to cry.
“Pregnant? How can you be? You said you were on the pill,” he’d said.
She’d lied easily, telling him that she must have forgotten to take one or had an upset stomach. And she’d told him she was happy about the pregnancy. She’d hoped he would be, too. But it wasn’t that simple for Charlie.
He’d looked as if he was about to bolt for the door, saying he wasn’t sure if he was ready. He’d even suggested that she could get rid of the baby.
She’d burned with indignation at the thought and shrieked: “Absolutely not. I’m keeping this baby.”
For the hundredth time, Jude wondered what her life would have been if she’d followed Charlie’s suggestion. If she’d got rid of her baby then. If she hadn’t talked him round, telling him he’d make the most brilliant father and kissing him into submission.
Too late for all that what-if, she told herself. She’d won the initial battle with Charlie and had to live with the consequences.
He’d taken a while to get used to the idea, but there were days when he stroked her stomach and joined in her chatter about names and the future. But he went away more and more. On tour, he said. She wasn’t sure if he was lying but decided she didn’t want to know. He always came back to her, and she was convinced he’d settle down when the baby was born.
FORTY-THREE
Emma
THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012
I feel stronger this morning. Better than I’ve felt for weeks. I don’t know why, but I reach for the phone and ring Jude to tell her.
“Hello, Jude,” I say.
“Oh, I am honored,” she says. “You sound good.”
She doesn’t.
“Is everything okay with you?” I say. I don’t really want to hear about her problems. I don’t want to lose my high.
“Yes, yes,” she says. “So, why are you so chirpy?”
“I just feel happy today,” I say. I don’t mean to, but I find myself going straight to the news that has lifted my mood.
“You know that baby I told you about, buried in Howard Street? It’s been identified as a little girl who went missing forty years ago,” I say. “Alice something . . .”
“Irving. Alice Irving,” Jude says. “Yes, I heard on the news. She went missing before we lived there.”
“Oh, do you remember the case? I couldn’t believe it when I heard it on the radio.” I’m sounding manic. I try a deep breath.
“Nor me. Unbelievable,” she says, but there’s no mania in her voice. No emotion at all.
“So it can’t have been the drug addicts,” I say.
“It looks unlikely,” she says. “It happened so long ago, I expect they will never find out the truth.”
“Oh no, the police have got new methods now, Jude. They’ve managed to match the DNA after all this time, haven’t they?”
“Well, so they say,” Jude says. “Why are you so pleased about it?”
“I’m not,” I say. “Just interested.” Jude clearly isn’t, as she changes the subject. To Will, naturally. She is obsessed all over again. And I feel my mood dip.
“I haven’t heard back from him,” she says. “Do you think I should ring him?”
“No.” It’s the wrong thing to say and Jude’s voice hardens.
“Well, I’m going to. I don’t know why I asked you, really. You only think of your own feelings. You have got a husband, a job, colleagues, friends. Who have I got? A daughter who I barely see. I need someone in my life. I’m lonely, Emma.”
It is a big admission from my mother and I try to be sympathetic.
“I’m sorry, Jude. I didn’t know you felt like that. I would ring you more often but we always seem to end up arguing. Don’t you see any old colleagues from work or friends?”
“They’re all busy with their own families—or dead. I’m getting to that age where it seems as if practically everyone I know is dying. I wonder when it will be my turn.”
“Why? Are you feeling ill?”
“No, just old today. But don’t you worry about me.”
And I feel a flicker of intense irritation. She is manipulating me. I know it, she knows it, but I can’t stop it happening.
“What about joining a club or evening class?” I say, desperately grasping for ways to draw her out of her gloom.
“Not interested,” Jude says. “Why would I want to do basket weaving or line dancing? I need someone to talk to and make me laugh. And take care of me.”
“But surely there is someone better than Will Burnside.”
“There isn’t. I’ve looked,” she says. “And Will was the love of my life. You know that. Anyway, you haven’t done any better.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, marrying someone old enough to be your father—what a cliché.”
I don’t rise to it. I hunker down to absorb the blows. And that makes it worse. Jude has always hated my silences. She’s got the bit between her teeth now, dragging up all her past hurts and accusations. “You’ll end up as his carer,” she shrieks at one point. And I realize we’ll never get past her disappointment in me.
“Look, I’ve got to go, Jude. Sorry I’ve upset you again. I’ll call you again soon.”
I let the line go dead before I put the phone down.
FORTY-FOUR
Jude
THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012
She sat looking at the phone for a minute, finishing her last rant in her head.
“I should never have had you,” she said. “You’ve been trouble from the start.”
It had all begun to go wrong when Charlie came home from the tour. She’d stood at the door with Emma in her arms to greet him.
She’d longed for the moment when he’d come back to her—had planned the big reunion—but once it was a reality, it didn’t go to plan.
She thought he would turn up with roses and an engagement ring, but he brought nothing but a bag of dirty clothes and stories about drunken nights. And when he’d reached to take the baby, she hadn’t been able to let go of her. She was the bargain they’d made, but Jude needed reassurance that Charlie was playing by her rules.
Jude had dry-swallowed her disappointment and tried to involve him in her new domesticity, letting him change Emma and make up her feed. But she didn’t let him hold the baby for too long. He had to earn that privilege.
“She’s asleep, Charlie,” she’d say when he reached for Emma. “Don’t want to wake her up.” She’d seen the hurt in his eyes, but she couldn’t let that sway her. She had to be careful with her daughter.
She’d held on to Emma all that first evening. Keeping the baby between her and Charlie.
He hadn’t asked about the birth when she’d told him on the phone that Emma had been born. He just wanted to know about the baby.
“Who does she look like, Jude? Has she got your beautiful eyes?”
But sitting across from her for the first time, he’d wanted to know everything. She’d told him how she’d wanted a natural birth with no doctors sticking metal instruments up her. She’d decided to give birth at home with a friend who was a doula.
He’d made a face. It was all a bit too visceral for him. He hadn’t been to any of the classes or read any of the books. Too busy being a rock star, she thought.
He’d shied away from the gory details and focused on what a doula was.
She’d explained that doulas had helped women with labor throughout history. They were often sisters or aunties. But her doula was someone she’d met through
NCT classes. National Childbirth Trust, Charlie.
“Sounds cool,” he’d said.
And when he’d yawned and suggested bed, she’d made him sleep on the sofa—so he wouldn’t be disturbed by the crying.
The next morning, he’d come in with a cup of tea and sat on the bed.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, Jude,” he said. “But I am now. Okay?”
And she’d said yes, hoping he’d talk about marriage. But he’d hugged her and tried to get in under the covers. She’d pushed him away, saying Emma needed feeding.
• • •
For God’s sake,” he’d said after two weeks, when the tension threatened to suffocate both of them. “What’s going on here?”
He was standing by the window, looking out, not at her.
“You’ve changed, Jude,” he’d said. “You’re so uptight about everything. Paranoid. I’m not even allowed to hold my own baby. It’s like I am nothing to do with her. As if she’s just yours.”
She’d put Emma down in her carry-cot and tried to keep her voice level.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve had to do everything else on my own. I’m not sure if you are here to stay.”
He shrugged, his back still turned.
“You are treating me like a stranger. It makes me wonder if I ever had anything to do with her. Is she someone else’s? Is that it? Did you sleep with other blokes?”
She could still feel the heat in her body as he screamed the accusation at her. She’d told him she’d never slept with anyone else, that Emma was his. But he wasn’t listening anymore. The thought that he’d been betrayed had driven reason out of his head. It’s what people do in his rock star world, she told herself.
“Charlie, please listen to me. Maybe if we got married?” she’d said. “Maybe it’s because I’m not sure of your commitment. Maybe that’s what’s come between us.”
“Bollocks,” he’d said. “Marrying you wouldn’t solve anything. It’d just bind me to this nightmare situation.”
• • •
And he’d kissed Emma and left.