The Day She Can’t Forget: Psychological suspense you’ll just have to keep reading

by Meg Carter

  ‘Do you fancy taking Matty to the park in a bit?’ she asks, suddenly. Because it is Sunday. And in an hour or so her neighbour will go out to the shops, as she always does.

  Sam nods. ‘Of course.’

  * * *

  Sam and Matty leave for the park after breakfast, letting themselves out while Zeb washes the dishes. True to form, Mrs Allitt goes out on the hour. Even allowing her neighbour a ten minute start, Zeb reckons she has an hour clear to get in and out of her flat – more than enough time to find what she needs, she reassures herself, as she stands at her front door watching through the peephole as the woman departs.

  A sailor’s chest sits against the wall by which Zeb now stands. Its lid is closed, with an earthenware pottery bowl on top. She sifts through the bric-a-brac it holds and gathers up an assortment of keys. There’s one for her car. Dad’s house keys, which she quickly lets slip back as if for fear her skin might burn. And a Yale and a Chubb attached to a silver Celtic cross which she stares at for a couple of seconds, buoyed by a fleeting surge of triumph.

  This is the spare set of keys Mrs Allitt offered in exchange for her own – a symbolic gesture of neighbourly trust that the other woman has clearly broken.

  Stuffing her own keys into the pocket of her jeans, Zeb slips out onto the landing. At her neighbour’s front door she pauses to check for the sound of one of the other residents’ imminent approach. But the building is still; the only sound the muffled pulse of distant traffic. She slips the Yale into the lock and gives it a turn. The mechanism won’t give so she pulls it free, rubs it on her trouser leg, then tries again. Wrestles with it for a moment. Removes it once more. Tries the Chubb next, but the damn thing won’t even turn.

  Clearly it’s pointless. Neither key works. Perhaps someone else in the house has a spare set, but what excuse would persuade anyone to give them to her?

  Exasperated by the opportunity lost, she retreats into her own flat where she slams the useless set into the kitchen bin then leans with arms outstretched against the kitchen worktop.

  A familiar sound comes from her bedroom. A slow, rhythmic tap-tapping, which makes her hurry along the corridor and into her room where through the open blind she sees Norton, the silver tabby, sitting on the sill outside the window. Zeb loosens the catch and gives the sash a firm upward shove. The window opens easily and she opens her arms to gather up the cat, which often comes and goes using the fire escape at the rear of the building, to bring him inside. But as she leans out, something catches her eye.

  Further along the metal walkway that extends from one side of her building to the other, just outside her bedroom window, a net curtain is softly flapping in and out of her neighbour’s bedroom window.

  Norton leaps from Zeb’s arms, thudding onto the floor with a trademark throaty exclamation that is half burp, half purr. As she gives him a rub, she feels the rounded fullness of his belly. Locked inside somewhere, probably, she frowns, realising this is the first she’s seen of the animal since her return. Someone’s been feeding him, too – Mrs Allitt, probably. In fact she wouldn’t put it past the woman to have lured him into her flat then kept him there until he slipped out through the open window.

  The cat starts to mewl, demanding attention. But now Zeb is fixated on an idea starting to form. Mrs Allitt took her basket on wheels which surely means she’ll be out a little while. She should do it now, she knows. Scramble out onto the fire escape, climb in through the open window, find the letter then leave, fast, and who would ever know? Eager to quell any second thoughts, Zeb pulls on a pair of trainers, slips into a hoody left hanging on the hook behind the bedroom door then clambers through the window.

  Though the rain has eased, the metal walkway beneath her feet is slick with water. Cautiously, she positions her back against the brickwork then side-steps towards the window of the next door flat. The fire escape is narrower than she expected. Rickety, too, as with her left arm stretched out to one side she feels her way along, her fingertips skimming the cracked brickwork until she finds herself gripping the edge of the window frame. A moment later she is peering into a bedroom window the lower sash of which has been left half-raised.

  Her neighbour’s flat is in darkness, silent and empty, and the opportunity this presents is too good to miss. Despite this Zeb hesitates. What if someone sees me? Surely, if I wait for the woman’s return and demand her folder as I initially intended, she won’t refuse? But a stab of anger at the sudden thought of the peculiar clothes her neighbour brought to the hospital strengthens her resolve. Zeb stares across the empty room towards the corridor and sitting room beyond. The interior is in darkness, quiet and still.

  With a deep breath she braces her arms against the lower sash to open it wide enough then climbs inside. Facing her is a large mahogany wardrobe and beside this a matching chest of drawers. On an old-fashioned dressing table by its side an assortment of cheap cosmetics, bottles of scent and a large canister of hairspray are neatly arranged before an oval-shaped mirror. Catching sight of her reflection, wild-haired and pale-faced, she hurries out into the hall and almost collides with a tower of papers bound with string.

  She creeps around other obstacles now blocking her way – an assortment of cardboard boxes of varying sizes containing a selection of tinned fruit, a bulging pile of plastic carrier bags holding what looks like charity shop donations – until she is back in her neighbour’s sitting room. But today the coffee table is empty. Apart from the buff-coloured envelope on the far side which she drops as soon as it is in her hand, realising it is bulging with at least a dozen twenty-pound notes.

  Replacing the money, Zeb notices a business card that’s slipped onto the floor printed with the name Brian Jackson – a property consultant with a Marbella office address. Uncertain whether or not it fell out of the envelope, she decides it’s best to leave it on the rug. She scans the room once more. All she can hear is the blood now pounding against the inside of her skull.

  What am I doing? I should not be doing this. Because it’s wrong.

  But then she forces herself to remember. To think about the letter from the stranger at Dad’s funeral. Her letter. The letter she must now find.

  Remembering the line of filing cabinets in the hallway, she retraces her steps back through the sitting room door. And there she sees them, lining almost the entire walls of the darkened hallway. Archiving the details of God only knows what. Which end to start at, she wonders, briefly, until she notices that each drawer has been carefully labelled.

  The woman is meticulous, if nothing else, Zeb smiles, relieved. Her filing system even appears to be alphabetical. It takes only a couple of seconds to locate the drawer for H, tug it open and peer inside. A plastic tag, the third one in, is clearly marked with her own name. She pulls out the hanging file. Inside is a buff-coloured folder filled with her papers. With no time to spare, she stuffs this under her sweatshirt, securing it firmly beneath the belted waistband of her jeans. A distant slam signals the closing of the downstairs front door. Turning back towards the bedroom, she almost trips over a parcel the size of a shoebox, wrapped in brown paper and left standing upright on the floor. Noticing it bears her name, she takes this too.

  Zeb clambers out then drops onto the metal walkway. Straightening up, she tugs down the sash with her free hand but there’s no time to close it as the landing light flickers on in the communal hallway. As Mrs Allitt unlocks her front door, Zeb flattens her back against the brickwork. If her neighbour comes into the bedroom now, sees the window open, glances outside, she will surely be discovered. But no, the woman must have gone straight into the kitchen.

  As Mrs Allitt unpacks her shopping, Zeb side-steps towards her open window. Then, hurriedly tossing the parcel and papers onto her bedroom floor, she clambers inside. Only with the sash firmly secured and blind re-drawn does she start to take stock, considering with a mix of hilarity and relief the narrow escape she’s just had, before turning her head towards the spoils. Seconds later she is opening th
e folder and staring once more at the handwritten letter.

  Dear Elizabeth, it begins.

  I am so very sorry to have upset you yesterday by coming unannounced to your father’s funeral. It was not my intention to cause you any more heartache than you must surely be feeling at so difficult a time, and I regret now my decision to come in person rather than simply conveying my sympathies with flowers. But there was a reason I came – a pressing one, which is why I am writing now. To be blunt, I need to reach your mother. As will now be clear from this approach, I have not seen or heard from her in years. But it has become important that she and I now speak. I would therefore very much appreciate it if you could help by putting us back in touch. My address and phone number are detailed below.

  With gratitude,

  Cynthia Purnell

  Bemused, Zeb reads the letter again. So this is an old friend not of Dad’s but of her mum’s; so old a friend – so distant, too – that she does not know the woman died almost three decades ago. She shakes her head, battling to remember just what passed between them at Dad’s funeral. Zeb thinks for a moment of the tall, ashen-faced woman with pale eyes and white cropped hair who’d seemed swamped by the grey overcoat and black trouser suit she was wearing. How she’d reached out for her hand and how when she clasped it her grip was weak, her wrist thin and brittle.

  Elizabeth, she’d rasped. Please. We need to speak.

  They were in the atrium outside the chapel at the crematorium, just after, looking at all the flowers. Zeb had just spotted the mystery floral tribute with its cryptic message and was holding the card in her hand.

  Never forgotten, forever forgiven, the message had read.

  Signed with a single letter: A.

  Zeb turns her attention to the parcel which Mrs Allitt also intercepted, though unlike the folder of correspondence it does not appear to have been opened. Tearing apart one end, she pulls out a shoe box. Intrigued by what might lie inside, she carefully removes the lid. Inside there is a poetry anthology; a first edition collection by Stevie Smith. Audio cassettes – three C90s featuring home recordings of piano concertos recorded some time during 1973 and 1974, according to the spidery writing along their spines. A small toy rabbit. A brightly-beaded purse. A tortoiseshell hair brush and matching comb which, when she peers more closely, holds a handful of fine silk strands of baby-blonde hair. Relics from a distant childhood which feels almost familiar.

  Turning her attention to a handful of photos of people she doesn’t recognise in wing collars and flares, Zeb stares at a colour print of a young couple standing in the garden of a country pub, squinting into the sun.

  The woman, a strawberry blonde with a fashionably short bob, is dressed in kitten heels, three-quarter-length skinny jeans and a halter-neck sun top. The man, in crepe-soled shoes, denim flares and a pristine white T-shirt, looks like a younger Dad – though the image is blurred, and from an era earlier than the one depicted in pictures she’s familiar with from his house. He has a moustache, too, and curly hair like a young Kevin Keegan. Her gaze lingers for a beat on his hand, softly resting on the young woman’s swollen belly.

  How different the world was in the early Seventies, Zeb muses. A clash of gaudy tank tops and wing collars. Industrial action and power cuts. Glam rock and the IRA. Her father with his high hopes and a full head of curly hair. How young he looked, and hopeful, too. Pete the photographer struggling towards his big break.

  Turning her attention back to the box and its contents, the last picture – a faded Polaroid of a child in its embroidered christening gown – makes Zeb pause.

  Only just a toddler, the subject is of indeterminate gender. But that grumpy pout seems familiar. A face like a festering storm. That’s how Dad described a similar picture he’d once taken of her. A picture quite like this – though the one she grew up with sits in pride of place on the mantelpiece in Dad’s home. Zeb has paid little if any attention to that snapshot in years.

  But now, spotting it amongst the papers she brought back from Dad’s, she can only see the similarities. This a bona fide carbon copy, she thinks. Was whoever sent this at my christening?

  As she pulls the last few bits and pieces from the box, a postcard drops to the floor. She picks it up. The card bears a pen and ink drawing of a Dickensian shop front, its window crammed with musical instruments. A name – The Bass Clef – is clearly visible in gold lettering above the front door. Printed along the bottom across the cobbled street is the shop’s address: 15 Church Street, Fort William. Zeb shuts her eyes, this time to think.

  Fort William, again. Where she was taken to hospital.

  Glancing back at the postcard, Zeb sees a message written on the back. Just a few things from your mother that she feels rightfully belong to you, someone has written. To find out more you can reach me at the shop. Ask for Anna.

  But now all Zeb can see is one word. Not felt, feels.

  Your mother feels. Like the feeling is still…

  Present.

  She frowns. Because her mother is dead. She, Zeb, is the sole survivor. And on this single and unassailable fact rests her childhood, her relationship with Dad, the rest of the world, everything. It’s sad, but simple. Unassailable. Mum died to give me life. What else is there to know?

  Only the lifetime of gaps still to fill, she thinks, her mind suddenly racing. Everything about the woman I never knew which Dad seemed so reluctant to share. For he’d rarely talked of her when Zeb was young except to say how they’d fallen in love too young to know better. How not long after, she’d fallen pregnant. Too soon. And then, little more than a child herself, she was gone.

  Zeb can still see Dad’s face when he told her. The way his eyes seemed clouded. How while relating the tragedy, his sadness had seemed boundless. The weight of it had smothered all of the answers Zeb had not dared to ask for yet deeply craved.

  Am I like her?

  How did you meet?

  Did she have family?

  Did she look like me?

  What were her parents like?

  Have I got cousins?

  Why didn’t you tell me before?

  And now here I am, she thinks, over thirty years later – a mother myself, wrestling with the same unanswered questions.

  She impulsively dials the music shop’s number but it is Sunday and all she hears is an answerphone. Hurriedly hanging up, she carefully redials a couple of times to scrutinise the recorded voice. It is a woman, though she does not sound Scottish. Her accent is… neutral. By the third listen Zeb wonders whether to leave a message and, if so, what she should say. But then, after a short tone, it is too late and she is being recorded.

  Hurriedly, she asks whether someone can pass on her name and number to Anna, then quickly hangs up.

  Stumbling into the kitchen, Zeb upends what’s left of last night’s second bottle of wine into yesterday’s wine glass – just to steady her nerves. After a couple of sips she glances up at the clock on the kitchen wall above the cooker. As her attention is snagged by the faltering stagger of its second hand she senses an uneasy tremor of déjà vu. And then she knows. She has done this before, too. Standing here, against the counter, though then she was dressed in black. Holding the card from those flowers.

  It was just past eleven three weeks ago when she first considered the insane possibility that perhaps her mum wasn’t dead. With normal thought processes suspended, all she had felt was numb. Like her very existence had been frozen while, fast and ever faster, the world spun away. And as it did she’d felt nothing – neither anger nor upset, neither bafflement nor hurt. As if her emotions had been cauterised.

  So, unable to digest the immensity of it or its meaning, she’d sat here with the unimaginable possibility that everything she’d believed and taken for granted, forever, had been built on shifting sand.

  That life as she’d known and lived and loved up to this point had been based on a lie.

  16

  Buckinghamshire, February 1975

  T
hey drive north out of London into open country where shabby fields cower beneath a concrete sky. Winter has returned, leaching the landscape of colour, and snow flits like ash against the shades of grey.

  ’Take my coat,’ Pete offers. ‘It’s on the back seat.’

  Wrapping the extra layer around her shoulders over the coat she is already wearing, Alma can’t help but marvel at how, though poised for rebirth, the world outside feels like a terminal case with no energy left to fight for survival. Ever since she can remember the period between Bonfire Night and Christmas has been her least favourite time of the year. But now she decides these hopeless, stop-start weeks of early spring are surely worse.

  Glimpsing herself in the rear-view mirror, Alma stares at her reflection.

  Her cheeks are lightly powdered, her eyes rimmed with blue, and with the lip gloss she has borrowed from Viola her face has a luminous glow. The world outside may be bleak but inside she feels hopeful – an indication of the extent to which her new life with Pete has dislocated her from the natural rhythms of her old one.

  A passing shadow darkens her face as she remembers where they are going.

  Will she pass muster?

  Sunday lunch with Patsy in the tiny village just north of Gerrards Cross where she now lives is Pete’s idea. Recently his mother has been unwell. But now that she’s feeling better, he is eager to support her desire to reinstate the regular gatherings for family and friends that she once hosted in happier times, before becoming a reluctant divorcee.

  Patsy was a one-time artist’s model who’d married her childhood sweetheart, Bert – a compositor at a local print works in Clapton where Pete, their only son, was born. She met Phil when she was working double shifts as a waitress in a cafe on Rathbone Place during the difficult months after Bert was killed in a car accident. Pete was just five.