Rattling the Bones
Page 27
Lottie, just as she said she would, is sitting tight and denying all knowledge of any of it. And do you know? She might even get away with it, at that. Duane will have his portrait up on the kitchen wall, after all.
A few days later I accompanied Jessica, at her own request, to the hostel where Edna lived.What might turn out to be the most difficult moment of all had come.
‘I have to tell my mother who I am. You’re her friend. She trusts you, Fran. I don’t want her to be frightened.’ Jessica, uncharacteristically nervous, fiddled with one large enamelled earring.
But Edna wasn’t at the hostel. She had already gone out. I’ll swear she knew that we, or someone, were on the way. Like the cats whose company she’d kept for so many years she was attuned to danger. Her whiskers had twitched and she was off.
Simon was bewildered and grouchily apologetic.
‘Nikki and I just don’t understand any of this. Inspector Morgan and some sergeant called Parry have been here and it’s upset all our residents. Sandra is huddled in her room upstairs and won’t come out. It took us months to get her as far as the front steps. Now we’ll have to start all over again.’ A pettish note entered his voice and he looked at me as if it was all my fault.
‘Edna!’ I said firmly, letting him know Sandra was his problem.
Simon shrugged. ‘Oh, she’ll be walking round the streets somewhere.You didn’t tell us you were coming, you know. We could have tried to keep her here. But it’s always very difficult. She’ll be back tonight with any luck.’
I was worried about that. Morgan’s visit must have frightened her. No wonder she had taken off. Would she return? I knew we had to find Edna at once.
Thought of delay clearly frustrated Jessica, who’d psyched herself up to this meeting though I had warned her you couldn’t ever count on Edna.
Nevertheless, I touched her arm. ‘I think I know where she might have gone. Come on, I’ll take you there.’
Sure enough, Edna was there, sitting on the same stone bench amid the headstones in Golders Green cemetery. The sun was shining and she had turned her face up to it. Her skin looked smooth, unlined and almost young. There was even a cat with her, a little black one with green eyes. Goodness knew where it had come from. Perhaps it had been mousing in the long grass. But it had joined Edna and they sat together like a couple of old friends.
Jessica and I stood a little way off and watched.
‘It won’t be easy,’ I warned her softly. ‘She’s happy this way. She doesn’t trust anyone who tries to help her. Some pretty horrible things happened to her in the past when people organised her life for her. I know some people might pity her now and say she doesn’t have much of anything. But when you look at her like she is now over there, you could say she has everything. She’s happy. There is nothing more she does want.’
‘I understand,’ Jessica returned. ‘But she can’t go on like it, Fran. No one will force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Neither Henry nor I want that. But somehow we will find a way. I’ll look after my mother.’ She hesitated. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done. Henry is grateful, too. He’d like you to go and see him so that he can tell you so himself.’
She set off towards the seated figure. I remained where I was, watching for a few minutes in case I thought it necessary to intercede. The cat blinked its eyes at the approaching woman and then got up and trotted away. Jessica bent over the seated form and, after a moment, Edna turned her head and looked up at her.
‘Hullo, dear,’ she said amiably.
‘Hullo, Edna,’ replied Jessica hesitantly. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Edna made an odd little sideways movement with her head. ‘I think so. You have Henry’s eyes.’
I saw the relief flood Jessica’s face. ‘My name is Jessica,’ she said and took a seat beside Edna on the bench. After a momentary hesitation she reached out and took Edna’s hand in hers.
I thought the older woman might resist the gesture but she didn’t. She seemed content to allow Jessica to have possession of her hand.
‘Jessica,’ repeated Edna. ‘That’s a nice name. I like that.’
I crept away.
I did go and see Culpeper. I took Ganesh with me for moral support but to be honest there was an element of wanting him to see that extraordinary house. I didn’t just go to hear Culpeper’s thanks; I owed him a sort of apology. Actually I felt pretty embarrassed and sad.
‘Becky and Adam are your grandchildren,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you would really have preferred I’d found out none of this. It must distress you more than any of us could possibly understand. I really am so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault, my dear.’ Culpeper smiled at me and then raised his thin shoulders in a shrug. ‘If it’s anyone’s, it’s mine, all of it. I fell in love with a sixteen-year-old innocent, when I was married and couldn’t be free, and was too selfish to walk away immediately and not let things get out of hand. I ruined Edna’s life. I destroyed my wife’s trust in me. I set up the situation which Adam tried to resolve in his own wrong-headed way. Becky was under the influence of her brother. She’s always been of a malleable character. Wrong-headedness seems a trait in our family.’
He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and gazed from his window down the length of his beautiful garden. ‘You might even say I cost that unfortunate young man his life.’
‘No!’ I interrupted. ‘You’re not responsible for anything that happened to Duane Gardner.’
He turned back to me. ‘Well, even so, I don’t intend to fail Edna again. Thank you for coming to see me.’ He held out his thin, blue-veined hand. ‘It has been very nice to meet you, Mr Patel.’
‘He still wants to believe in his granddaughter,’ said Ganesh as we made our way downstairs. He shook his head. ‘It’s incredible after what she tried to do.’
‘You haven’t met her,’ I said. ‘I have. I hope she gets a woman judge and a nearly all-woman jury. I wouldn’t trust a set of men not to buy the “influenced” theory.’
‘Now, now . . .’ said Ganesh.
‘Still,’ I added, ‘in a funny sort of way Culpeper probably needs to believe at least one of his grandchildren wouldn’t cheerfully bump him off. Whatever happens, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Becky eventually worked her way back into his good books, if there’s time and he doesn’t drop off the twig too early. I don’t know about Adam. I don’t think he’ll be forgiven quite so easily.’
Alice met us at the bottom of the stairs and shook our hands. ‘It was a good job you came along that night, after all,’ she said to me graciously.
‘Glad we could save him,’ I replied, biting back the observation that a fat lot of help she’d been, turning up when it was all over.
‘Poor old bloke,’ observed Ganesh with a sigh as we walked out through the opened security gate. ‘Shut up with all those memories making him feel like shit and thinking he’s responsible for everyone’s bad deeds.’
‘He’s got Jessica,’ I said, ‘and with luck he’ll get Edna back again. He’s got a chance to put some things right. It’s not often anyone gets that, a second chance.’
Ganesh and I, with Bonnie at our heels, climbed Primrose Hill again later that day to take in the sunset.
‘Indices?’ I asked Ganesh. ‘Who the heck ever says indices?’
‘The plural of index is indices.’ Ganesh is like me, obstinate. He never wants to give way.
‘Who cares? No one ever says it. They say indexes.’
‘Then they’re wrong. The plural of index is indices, it’s Latin.’
‘No, it isn’t. I looked it up in a dictionary. OK, yes, it is from the Latin and there is a plural indices, but it isn’t used for books. That’s indexes. The plural indices is only used when the word “index” is being used in one of its other senses.’
‘The Latin language was around long before that dictionary was printed. If Julius Caesar said indices, then it’s still indices.’
‘Nobody goes round talking in Latin any more.’
‘What’s the plural of addendum?’ demanded Ganesh, changing tack.
‘Addenda,’ I admitted.
‘And what’s the plural of erratum?’
‘Give over, Ganesh. I know it’s errata. Have you been reading one of those reference books again? What are you trying for? Brain of Britain?’
‘So the plural of index is indices.’ Ganesh wasn’t sidetracked. ‘You don’t say “erratums” or “addendums”. Why say “indexes”?’
‘Because that’s what people do. It’s called usage.’
That’s the nice thing about old friendship. You can wrangle for hours about nothing and it doesn’t matter a jot.
‘Jot is from the Greek,’ said Ganesh.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty