I followed him past the tube station, off to the right past Marks & Spencer's, then to the left, past a church and a betting shop. This was an area like mine, where the houses were surging in value as middle-aged blue-collar workers sold their homes for a quarter of a million pounds and moved farther out of town. Meanwhile, moneyed young things moved in and set about a flurry of home improvement, ripping out walls, sanding floorboards, and fitting power showers.
My father turned into number sixty-two, a crumbling terrace, its peeling woodwork surely an embarrassment to its freshly painted neighbors. He had a key, and vanished inside. I came to a halt outside the house. Coffee-colored lace curtains hung unevenly at the windows, obscuring any view I might have had of him. I hesitated for no more than a second. I had followed him this far, but why hadn't I simply gone up to him and confronted him? Because that, surely, was what I wanted.
I ran up the steps to the front door and pressed the doorbell, but I couldn't hear it ring. Instead I knocked, and after a few seconds the door was opened on a security chain. I could see a section of face, elderly and female.
“Who are you, what do you want?” she challenged me.
“I've come to visit Mr. Ballantyne.”
“Who?” Her face creased even more, the skin hanging loose from deep wrinkles.
“Mr. Ballantyne. I saw him come in here a minute ago. Are you his wife?”
She hooted with laughter at that and, to my surprise, opened the door wider to reveal a bony, lopsided frame clad in shiny polyester pajamas. A smell of boiled cabbage and stale urine wafted out onto the air.
“There's no one here by the name of Ballantyne,” she said, “and no husband either.”
With the door open I could see that this was a boardinghouse. A yellowing sheet of instructions titled “Rules of the House,” was stuck with tape to the nearest wall. The instructions—the last one was “Pull the Frigging Flush”—were handwritten in big, rounded letters and the paper was curling at the edges.
“The man who just came in here, wearing a raincoat, who is he?”
“None of your business, is it? My guests like their privacy, so if you'll excuse me …” She shut the door firmly in my face.
I knocked again, and tried the bell, but I couldn't be sure anyone heard. I walked up the street, then down, full of indecision. I glanced at my watch. I could lay siege to the house, I could wait for the man I thought was my father to come out, but my children were waiting for me at home and Erica was watching the clock. I started to walk back toward the hospital, where my mother and Lorna were waiting for me too. I couldn't even be sure that the man I'd followed was my father. I could have sworn I had seen him on the hospital telephone, and that I had heard him give his name. Perhaps I had lost him in the crowds and started to follow the wrong man. I tried to think back over our route, to identify how and when things might have gone wrong. I began to feel foolish and my pace quickened, away from the boardinghouse. It was possible, I realized, that I had followed a total stranger.
Chapter 20
ON Saturday, news from St. Celia's was encouraging. Lorna was feeling much better and was to be discharged. Tanya would pick her up when she went off duty. My mother had appointments to catch up on that afternoon, and groaned on the telephone to me that she hadn't prepared properly, and that she had indigestion.
“Why oh why,” she wailed, “is hospital food so totally vile?”
It was such a commonplace complaint that it made me feel better, as though perhaps that day would be more commonplace than the ones that had preceded it.
I was more tired than ever. Hannah had reacted to my long absence the day before by staying awake all night to be with me, which was flattering but devastating. She had cried every time I put her down in her crib, and eventually fallen asleep with her warm tummy pressed against mine, pinning me to the bed. Now, the only thing keeping me going was my own hunch that Paula Carmichael's death and Adam's were somehow linked. But with exhaustion came self-doubt.
Jane rang.
“I interviewed the Colby woman this morning, you know, Paula Carmichael's deputy, and when we'd finished I told her what you think about Paula's death. She'd like to speak to you if you want to see her.”
“I'm willing to speak to anyone who's willing to speak to me.”
“She's read all about you. Says you intrigue her.”
“Why, for God's sake?”
“Something to do with being a single mother of twins?”
“I always said it would come in useful one day. Lucky I didn't abort them, eh?”
There was silence from Jane, then her voice, embarrassed.
“Look, do you want my help or don't you?”
I apologized and thanked her, and she told me where to meet Colby, which was at a women's shelter in the north of the city, just off the Caledonian Road near King's Cross.
For the first time, there were no photographers outside my door. I thought their editors were probably disappointed that I had not yet been arrested. Or maybe something had happened to distract them. Leaving the house once Erica had arrived was easy, except that Hannah was upset, and that upset me. I found my way, through the traffic, to a four-story Georgian terrace in a crescent. There was no visible sign that this was a hostel. No nameplate, just a bell, which I rang. Only then did I notice the small closed-circuit camera above the doorway. I raised my face toward it and an instant later was buzzed in. Inside the doorway was a small antechamber and a second security gate, which was opened by a young woman with a blond crew cut who extended her hand and said, “Hi, Robin isn't it? Come on in.”
If I had been listening to my usual complement of radio news, I would have known that Rachel Colby was Australian, but as it was I hadn't and I didn't. Rachel led me through a sitting room decorated in minimalist style with what I guessed were donated secondhand armchairs and a television set. One woman lolled, watching Oprah Winfrey, and another sat at a small table, writing what looked like a letter. They glanced up as we walked by, and I followed Rachel into a small office opposite a kitchen. She waved me to a chair while she stood and poured mugs of coffee from a pot. Somewhere Radio One was playing.
“I used to work here all the time. This was my baby, my project,” she told me. “I set the whole thing up. I love it. Miss it like hell now I'm a bloody bureaucrat. I'm only here today because there's a dispute with the neighbors, and the women here are a little bit nervous. So if anything blows up today, if we get any media interest or anything, I'm the troubleshooter.”
“The neighbors don't want you here?” I asked as I took the coffee from her.
“Well, they sort of do and then they don't,” she answered with a grin. “They're all good tolerant liberals, and they're all very sympathetic to the Carmichaelite name, particularly at the moment, but we had a domestic two nights ago. An angry husband put a brick through the window. Wouldn't much matter if it was ours, it's happened before, it'll happen again, but he got the wrong house. He put it through a neighbor's window, into a room where the kid was sleeping. She wasn't hurt, but that's not the point, and then he followed it up with some colorful abuse and the threat of arson. Well, I wouldn't be too happy about that myself if I had kiddies upstairs in bed. It's a tricky one, and the ridiculous thing is that we may end up having to identify ourselves more clearly, so that if men do follow their women here, they at least attack the right house. You know, paint a nice big bull's-eye on the window or something.”
She grinned, and I knew at once not only that she would solve this particularly knotty problem without a bull's-eye, but that she'd solve many more. She was young, and energy and confidence and competence breezed out of her.
“Jane said you have twins,” I said.
“No way,” she laughed. “Is that what she said? Ha! Me with twins, that'll be the day.”
“Then why …?”
“Why did I want to see you, when no one else will talk to you? Paula was obsessed with you, she told me all about you. You were this m
ythical figure in her eyes. She used to call you the reluctant earth mother. How could I not want to meet you?”
I smiled politely. The reluctant earth mother. How very charming.
“Doesn't the fact that I killed Adam Wills put you off?”
“You didn't kill him,” she assured me. “It just doesn't fit and believe me, I know about these things. I'm an expert on murderous spouses.”
She didn't seem inclined to elaborate and I didn't push her. I already knew I hadn't killed Adam. Besides, if she was going to detail her theory I'd rather she did it to Finney, not to me.
“You know Paula and I were never introduced,” I said.
Rachel Colby grinned. “That was part of the charm. Paula always said it was like watching a lab experiment.”
“Well, it is great, obviously, that she spied on me,” I said, trying not to show my irritation, “and that I gave hours of pleasure. But why me?”
“She'd heard about you before she ever saw you,” Rachel explained. “Adam poured out his soul to her one day, and she was immediately hooked and wanted to know what had become of you. Then she and Richard had to move, and the real estate agent took them to see this house, and she told Adam about it, and he said that was your street, and she told him the number and he said it was right opposite. Richard doesn't know it, but you're why they bought the house.”
“She bought a house because of me?”
I was incredulous, and Rachel smiled at my expression, then her face became serious.
“I know it sounds spooky,” she said, “but that's not how it was, it wasn't anything threatening. Richard wanted to buy it anyway, and he knew nothing about you. When I say she was obsessed by you, she never peered through your windows or anything like that. She just liked to keep a kind of motherly eye on how you were doing. It may have been a bit wacky …”
“Was it something to do with Adam?” I was having trouble finding Paula's fascination with me endearing. “Were they having an affair, was that why she wanted to watch me?”
“No,” Rachel said, then reconsidered. “Well, I don't think they were. This whole thing with you, that wasn't about Adam. It was about Paula. There she was, hugely successful, achieving all the things she'd dreamed of, and helping lots of people into the bargain, just like she'd always wanted—but she hardly had a moment for her own kids. All the time she was traveling, or she was in Parliament, or she was giving speeches. And in those speeches she was telling other people to take better care not only of their own children, but of all the children in society, because they are our future, they are the world of tomorrow … but at the same time she was all chewed up with guilt over Kyle and George. I used to tell her: Look, they're teenagers, they don't want their mum hanging round their necks anyway. But she tortured herself—every time any little thing went wrong she said it was because she wasn't spending quality time with them. Watching you took her back to when Kyle and George were babies too, before she had to be everything to everyone, when she was just a young mother looking after her kids. Babies never have problems with drugs, or fall behind in class, or mix with the wrong kids. As far as I could make out, it was nostalgia that drew her to you. Nostalgia and regret. Great combination. Paradise lost.” She paused and thought for a moment. “Nostalgia, regret, and Adam Wills would be an even more potent combination, I have to admit.”
“You say they weren't having an affair, but they were close.”
“They were really close.” Rachel was as far from inscrutable as you could get. Everything she said was accompanied by an expression as readable as a book, open and direct.
“But they weren't lovers?”
“You have to understand, Paula was very depressed before she died, and Richard was no good at dealing with it. She was getting no support from him, and she was lurching around, trying every damned thing to get some satisfaction. As far as I know, she and Adam were never lovers, but they were very intense. Even I don't know what went on between them.”
“Was Paula always depressed?”
“Well,” Rachel paused to think. “She was always up and down, very volatile. Her ups were great, except that none of the rest of us could keep up with her, and her downs were miserable. But this last time was different. It came on quite suddenly, and it was …” She shook her head. “It was really distressing to watch for anyone who loved her. She just couldn't shift it. Suddenly she was disillusioned by the whole Carmichaelite thing. She even wanted to close everything down. I never really got a good reason from her …”
Rachel's voice trailed off. When she started to speak again her words were slower, more considered. “We did have a problem … This goes no further, is that agreed?” I nodded. “I mean you swear on Paula's grave?” I nodded again. “Because this has never reached the press. We had a problem with fraud. Thousands went missing. We never did find what happened to it. It seemed to be the thing that triggered the depression. I tried to tell her it was just a tiny bit of the picture, but she seemed to think it made the whole thing rotten and corrupt. It changed her whole attitude to everything we've achieved. I mean—and this also, on Paula's grave—by the time she died I'd been carrying the organization for months.”
She heaved a sigh and sat back in her chair, giving me time to digest all this. I gazed at her, and she was the sort of person who didn't mind. She didn't avert her eyes, just sat there content to be inspected.
“Do you have any idea who took the money?”
Rachel shook her head.
“There was no obvious suspect. It was done by manipulating the accounts, which were all on computer, and a lot of people had access. Paula refused to involve the police. It was something we disagreed on, quite badly in fact. I said we had to make it public if we were going to maintain our integrity as an organization. She said the police would trample all over the private lives of our volunteers, and that we'd end up convicting some poor chap who just needed to pay his rent, and that we'd lose the goodwill of donors too. She said we'd conduct our own investigation, but she was busy with that documentary that never got shown and really there never was any investigation.”
“Charity accounts have to be audited,” I pointed out. “You can't just have thousands disappearing and cover it up.”
“You can if Paula pays the cash back out of her own pocket,” Rachel corrected me.
“Which is what happened?”
“Which is what happened, but you never heard it from me. Look, Paula would have gone to the end of the earth for all of this. Never mind good sense. She was all about instinct and inspiration and devotion and loyalty. She expected a lot from people, she expected them to do the right thing time after time after time. It really hurt her if they didn't. I mean it was like a physical pain. Don't get me wrong, I'm devastated that she's dead, but this Carmichaelite thing … well, ultimately Paula couldn't have kept it up. She was exhausted by it, drained. It's a wonderful thing, there's a real energy there, but it's not a fairy tale. There are thousands of people involved now, each with their own agenda, and just because it's charity doesn't mean people are nice together. Now Paula was a great leader, but she was no good with factional fighting, and cliques, and egos that belong to people other than herself. She could have motivated a sloth, and she wanted people to take the initiative, that's what it was all about, but she just got irritated when people started arguing, and let me tell you that six months from now that's what every Carmichaelite in town will be doing. The movement is just too big, too unfocused. You can't keep up a feel-good factor like we've had.”
“If you feel like that…”
“Oh, I'll defend it to the death … but realistically, if we're going to keep any impetus going, we'll have to narrow the focus of the movement, pull out of some projects, concentrate on others. People are going to get hurt. It'll be very messy.”
“You've given this a lot of thought,” I said. “I mean what happens, post-Paula.”
“I was thinking about it long before she died. We'd have got to this point
whether she was alive or not.”
“But you've been telling the press that the movement is going full speed ahead.”
She shrugged.
“It's not a good time to announce a major restructuring,” she said. “And there's this huge surge of interest that Paula's death has inspired. I'm not going to knock that on the head.”
There was a tap at the door, and Rachel left the room. Her assessment of Paula's legacy was a sobering one, but I was not sure that it got me very far. When she returned and told me she was running out of time, I asked her about the Corporation documentary.
“Paula really didn't say much about it afterwards. She got very tight-lipped any time I brought it up. I think she talked to Adam a lot more. They didn't meet until they were working on the documentary, and it was only afterwards that they became bosom buddies. Anyway, I got the impression she and the producer had a personality clash.” Rachel pulled a face, and added, “These things happen.”
“But not between you and Paula,” I said.
Rachel smiled, and there were tears in her eyes.
“No, not between me and Paula.”
“What about Richard? Do you see a lot of him?”
“Paula had compartments for things. It was how she got such a lot done. Anyway, Richard was one compartment, I was another. I knew what was going on with him, but only from her. He was watching her like a hawk at the end. He knew something was wrong and it scared him. He just didn't get that it would have been better to talk to her than to yell at her and listen in on her phone conversations.”
“He did that?”
“Uh-huh.” Rachel nodded. “Well, he wouldn't be the first husband to do it, but it didn't help when Paula was saying she felt claustrophobic, hemmed in, as though everyone was watching her, waiting for her to fail.”
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