‘She doesn’t know you yet.’ I explain.
‘Yes.’
Mani is gathering her things.
‘I’ll call the agency,’ I say. ‘They’ll let you know.’
But we both realise what’s happening. She’s going to take a job elsewhere. It’s a shame. A misunderstanding.
After she’s gone, I make Emma a sandwich and settle her for her afternoon nap. There are chores to do- washing and ironing.
I know I’m not supposed to admit such a thing, but being at home is boring. Emma is wonderful and enchanting and I love her to bits but there are only so many times I can play sock puppets or watch her stand on one leg or listen to her declare from the top of the climbing frame that she is indeed the king of the castle and I am, yet again, the dirty rascal.
Looking after young children is the most important job in the world. Believe me- it is. However, the sad, unspoken, implicit truth is that looking after young children is boring. Those guys who sit in missile silos waiting for the unthinkable to happen are doing an important job too, but you can’t tell me they’re not bored out of their tiny skulls and playing endless games of Solitaire and Battleships on the Pentagon computers.
The doorbell rings. Standing on the front step is a chestnut-haired teenager in low-slung black jeans, a T-shirt and tartan jacket. Ear studs like beads of mercury glisten on her earlobes.
She is clasping a shoulder bag hard to her chest, leaning forward a little. An October wind whips up an eddy of leaves at her feet.
‘I wasn’t expecting anyone else,’ I tell her.
Her head tilts to one side, frowning.
‘Are you Professor O’Loughlin?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Darcy Wheeler.’
‘Come in, Darcy. We have to be quiet, Emma is sleeping.’
She follows me along the hall to the kitchen. ‘You look very young. I expected somebody older.’
Again she looks at me curiously. The whites of her eyes are bloodshot and raw from the wind.
‘How long have you been a childcare professional?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘How long have you looked after children?’
Now she looks concerned. ‘I’m still at school.’
‘I don’t understand.’
She hugs her bag a little tighter, steeling herself. ‘You talked to my mother. You were there when she fell.’
Her words shatter the quietness like a dropped tray of glasses. I see a resemblance, the shape of her face, her dark eyebrows. The woman on the bridge.
‘How did you find me?’
‘I read the police report.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘I caught the bus.’
She makes it sound so obvious but this isn’t supposed to happen. Grieving daughters don’t turn up on my doorstep. The police should have answered Darcy’s questions and given her counselling. They should have found a family member to look after her.
‘The police say it was suicide but that’s impossible. Mum wouldn’t… she couldn’t, not like that.’
Her desperation trembles in her throat.
‘What was your mother’s name?’ I ask.
‘Christine.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Darcy?’
She nods. I fill the kettle and set out the cups, giving myself a chance to work out what I’m going to say.
‘Where have you been staying?’ I ask.
‘I’m at boarding school.’
‘Does the school know where you are?’
Darcy doesn’t answer. Her shoulders curve and she shrinks even more. I sit down opposite her, making sure her eyes meet mine.
‘I want to know exactly how you came to be here.’
The story tumbles out. The police had interviewed her on Saturday afternoon. She was counselled by a social worker and then taken back to Hampton House, a private girls’ school in Cardiff. On Sunday night she waited until lights out and unscrewed the wooden blocks on her house window, opening it far enough to slip out. Once she had dodged the security guard, she walked to Cardiff Central, and waited for the first train. She caught the 8.04 to Bath Spa and a bus to Norton St Phillips. She walked the last three miles to Wellow. The journey took most of the morning.
I notice the grass clippings in her hair and mud on her shoes. ‘Where did you sleep last night?’
‘In a park.’
My God, she could have frozen to death. Darcy raises the mug of tea to her lips, holding it steady with both hands. I look at her clear brown eyes, her bare neck; the thinness of her jacket and the dark bra outlined beneath her T-shirt. She is beautifully ugly in a gawky teenage way, but destined in a few years to be exceptionally beautiful and to bring no end of misery to a great number of men.
‘What about your father?’
She shrugs.
‘Where’s he?’
‘No idea. He walked out on my mum before I was born. We didn’t hear from him after that.’
‘Not at all?’
‘Never.’
‘I need to call your school.’
‘I’m not going back.’ The sudden steel in her voice surprises me.
‘We have to tell them where you are.’
‘Why? They don’t care. I’m sixteen. I can do what I want.’
Her defiance has all the hallmarks of a childhood spent at boarding school. It has made her strong. Independent. Angry. Why is she here? What does she expect me to do?
‘It wasn’t suicide,’ she says again. ‘Mum hated heights. I mean really hated them.’
‘When did you last talk to her?’
‘On Friday morning.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘Normal. Happy.’
‘What did you talk about?’
She stares into her mug, as if reading the contents. ‘We had a fight.’
‘What about?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
She hesitates and shakes her head. The sadness in her eyes tells half the story. Her last words to her mother were full of anger. She wants to take them back or to have them over again.
Trying to change the subject, she opens the fridge door and begins sniffing the contents of Tupperware containers and jars. ‘Got anything to eat?’
‘I can make you a sandwich.’
‘How about a Coke?’
‘We don’t have fizzy drinks in the house.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
She’s found a packet of biscuits in the pantry and picks apart the plastic wrapping with her fingernails.
‘Mum was supposed to phone the school on Friday afternoon. I wanted to come home for the weekend, but I needed her permission. I called her all day- on her mobile and at home. I sent her text messages- dozens of them. I couldn’t get through.
‘I told my housemistress something must be wrong, but she said Mum was probably just busy and I shouldn’t worry, only I did worry, I worried all Friday night and Saturday morning. The housemistress said Mum had probably gone away for the weekend and forgotten to tell me, but I knew it wasn’t true.
‘I asked for permission to go home, but they wouldn’t let me. So I ran away on Saturday afternoon and went to the house. Mum wasn’t there. Her car was gone. Things were so random. That’s when I called the police.’
She holds herself perfectly still.
‘The police showed me a photo. I told them it must be somebody else. Mum wouldn’t even go on the London Eye. Last summer we went to Paris and she panicked going up the Eiffel Tower. She hated heights.’
Darcy freezes. The packet of biscuits has broken open in her hands, spilling crumbs between her fingers. She stares at the wreckage and rocks forward, curling her knees to her chest and uttering a long unbroken sob.
The professional part of me knows to avoid physical contact but the father in me is stronger. I put my arms around her, pulling her head to my chest.
‘You were the
re,’ she whispers.
‘Yes.’
‘It wasn’t suicide. She’d never leave me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Please help me.’
‘I don’t know if I can, Darcy.’
‘Please.’
I wish I could take her pain away. I wish I could tell her that it won’t hurt like this forever or that one day she’ll forget how this feels. I’ve heard childcare experts talk about how fast children forgive and forget. That’s bullshit! Children remember. Children hold grudges. Children keep secrets. Children can sometimes seem strong because their defences have never been breached or eroded by tragedy, but they are as light and fragile as spun glass.
Emma is awake and calling out for me. I climb the stairs to her room and lower one side of her cot, lifting her into my arms. Her fine dark hair is tousled by sleep.
I hear the toilet flush downstairs. Darcy has washed her face and brushed her hair, pinning it tightly in a bun that makes her neck appear impossibly long.
‘This is Emma,’ I explain as she returns to the kitchen.
‘Hi, gorgeous,’ says Darcy, finding a smile.
Emma plays hard to get, turning her face away. Suddenly, she spies the biscuits and reaches out for one. I set her down and, surprisingly, she goes straight to Darcy and crawls onto her lap.
‘She must like you,’ I say.
Emma toys with the buttons of Darcy’s jacket.
‘I need to ask you a few more questions.’
Darcy nods.
‘Was your mother upset about anything? Depressed?’
‘No.’
‘Was she having trouble sleeping?’
‘She had pills.’
‘Was she eating regularly?’
‘Sure.’
‘What did your mother do?’
‘She’s a wedding planner. She has her own company- Blissful. She and her friend Sylvia started it up. They did a wedding for Alexandra Phillips.’
‘Who’s she?’
‘A celebrity. Haven’t you ever seen that show about the vet who looks after animals in Africa?’
I shake my head.
‘Well, she got married and Mum and Sylvia did the whole thing. It made all the magazines.’
Darcy still hasn’t referred to her mother in the past tense. It’s not unusual and has nothing to do with denial. Two days isn’t long enough for the reality to take hold and permeate her thinking.
I still don’t understand what she’s doing here. I couldn’t save her mother and I can’t tell her any more than the police can. Christine Wheeler’s final words were addressed to me but she didn’t give me any clues.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I ask.
‘Come to the house. Then you’ll see.’
‘See what?’
‘She didn’t kill herself.’
‘I watched her jump, Darcy.’
‘Well, something must have made her do it.’ She kisses the top of Emma’s head. ‘She wouldn’t do it like that. She wouldn’t leave me.’
7
The eighteenth century cottage has gnarled and twisted wisteria climbing above the front door, reaching as high as the eaves. The adjacent garage was once a stable and is now part of the main house.
Darcy unlocks the front door and steps into the dimness of the entrance hall. She hesitates, jostling with emotions that retard her movements.
‘Is something wrong?’
She shakes her head unconvincingly.
‘You can stay outside if you like and look after Emma.’
She nods.
Emma is kicking up leaves on the path.
Crossing the slate floor of the entrance hall, I brush against an empty coat hook and notice an umbrella propped beneath it. There is a kitchen on the right. Through the windows I see a rear garden and a wood railing fence separating neatly pruned rose bushes from adjacent gardens. A cup and cereal bowl rest in the draining rack. The sink is dry and wiped clean. Inside the kitchen bin are vegetable scraps, curling orange peel and old teabags the colour of dog turds. The table is clear except for a small pile of bills and opened letters.
I yell over my shoulder. ‘How long have you lived here?’
Darcy answers through the open door. ‘Eight years. Mum had to take out a second mortgage when she started the company.’
The living room is tastefully but tiredly furnished, with an aging sofa, armchairs and a large sideboard with cat-scratched corners. There are framed photographs on the mantelpiece. Most of them show Darcy in various ballet costumes, either backstage or performing. Ballet trophies and medals are lined up in a display case, alongside more photographs.
‘You’re a dancer.’
‘Yes.’
It should have been obvious. She has the classic dancer’s body: lean and loose-limbed, with slightly out-turned feet.
My questions have brought Darcy inside.
‘Is this how you found the house?’
‘Yes.’
‘You haven’t moved anything?’
‘No.’
‘Or touched anything?’
She thinks about this.
‘I used the phone… to call the police.’
‘Which phone?’
‘The one upstairs.’
‘Why not use this one?’ I motion to the handset of a cordless phone, sitting in a cradle on a side table.
‘The handset was on the floor. The battery was flat.’
A small pile of women’s clothes lie discarded at the base of the table- a pair of machine-distressed jeans, a top and a cardigan. I kneel down. A flash of colour peeks from beneath the sofa- not hidden but tossed away in a hurry. My fingers close around the fabric. Underwear, a bra and matching panties.
‘Was your mother seeing anyone? A boyfriend?’
Darcy suppresses the urge to laugh. ‘No.’
‘What’s so funny?’
‘My mother is going to be one of those old women with a herd of cats and a wardrobe full of cardigans.’ She smiles and then remembers she’s speaking of a mother without a future.
‘Would she have told you if she was seeing someone?’
Darcy isn’t sure.
I hold up the underwear. ‘Do these belong to your mother?’
She nods, frowning.
‘What?’
‘She was like really obsessed about stuff like that, picking up things. I wasn’t allowed to borrow any of her clothes unless I hung them up or put them in the wash afterwards. “The floor is not a wardrobe,” she said.’
I climb the stairs to the main bedroom. The bed is untouched, without a crease on the duvet. Bottles are lined up neatly on her dresser. Towels are folded evenly on the towel rails in the en suite.
I open the large walk-in wardrobe and step inside. I can smell Christine Wheeler. I touch her dresses, her skirts, her shirts. I put my hands in the pockets of her jackets. I find a taxi receipt, a dry cleaning tag, a pound coin, an after dinner mint. There are clothes she hasn’t worn in years. Clothes she is making last the distance. Here is a woman used to having money who suddenly doesn’t have enough.
An evening gown slips from a hanger and pools at my feet. I pick it up again, feeling the fabric slip between my fingers. There are racks of shoes, at least a dozen pairs, arranged in neat rows.
Darcy sits on the bed. ‘Mum liked shoes. She said it was her one extravagance.’
I remember the pair of bright red Jimmy Choos that Christine was wearing on the bridge. Party shoes. There is a gap for a missing pair at the end of the lower shelf.
‘Did your mother sleep naked?’
‘No.’
‘Did she ever wander around the house naked?’
‘No.’
‘Did she draw the curtains before she undressed?’
‘I’ve never taken much notice.’
I glance out the bedroom window, which overlooks an allotment with vegetable gardens and a greenhouse guarded by an elm tree. Spider webs are woven through the branches of the tre
es like fine muslin. Someone could easily watch the house and not be noticed.
‘If someone came to the door, would she have opened it or put on the security chain?’
‘I don’t know.’
My mind keeps going back to the clothes by the phone. Christine undressed, making no attempt to close the curtains. She didn’t fold her clothes or place them on a chair. The cordless phone handset was found on the floor.
Darcy could be wrong about a boyfriend or a lover, but there’s no sign of the bed being used. No condoms. No tissues. Similarly, there’s no trace of an intruder. Nothing appears to be disturbed or missing. There is no sign of a search or a struggle. The place is clean. Tidy. It’s not the house of someone who has given up hope or someone who doesn’t want to live any more.
‘Was the front door deadlocked?’
‘I don’t remember,’ says Darcy.
‘It’s important. When you came home, you put the key in the door. Did you need two keys?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Did your mother have a raincoat?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did it look like?’
‘It was a cheap plastic thing.’
‘What colour?’
‘Yellow.’
‘Where is it now?’
She takes me to the entrance hall- an empty coat hook tells the rest of the story. It was raining on Friday; bucketing down. She chose the raincoat but not an umbrella.
Emma is sitting at the kitchen table, attacking a piece of paper with coloured pencils. I walk past her into the lounge, trying to create my own picture of what happened on Friday. I glimpse the ordinariness of the day, a woman doing her chores, washing a cup, wiping down the sink and then the phone rang. She answered it.
She took off her clothes. She didn’t draw the curtains. She walked naked from her house wearing only a plastic raincoat. She didn’t double lock the door. She was in a hurry. Her handbag is still on the hallway table.
The thick glass top of the coffee table is supported on two ceramic elephants with tusks raised and flattened above their heads. Kneeling beside the table, I lower my head and peer along the smooth glass surface, noticing tiny shards of broken crayon or lipstick. This is where she wrote the word ‘slut’ across her torso.
There is something else on the glass, a series of opaque circles and truncated lines of lipstick. The circles are dried tears. She was crying. And the lines could be the edges of looping letters that departed from a page. Christine wrote something in lipstick. It can’t have been a phone number, she could have used a pen for that. More likely it was a message or a sign.
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