BONE BABY: chilling emotional suspense with a killer ending

by Diane M Dickson

  * * *

  On Saturday morning, she put the blue urn into the cupboard and then, when the walls began to close in, she walked to the seafront. She had to choose. Either she fought back, or finished it quickly with the pills that were still in a tiny heap on the table in the living room. She must not let herself go slowly with neglect and despair, she was worth more than that.

  She turned to watch people strolling along the seafront, across the common. There was a sharp breeze across the pebbled beach. She stood in front of the war memorial, thought about the wasted lives. If these people had been given a second chance, they would have snatched at it and lived it until the last breath. She had been given so much more than them and on top of that the chance to do some good in the last days.

  She followed her usual route through the rose garden and then back to Palmerston Road. It had all changed, she didn’t belong here, no longer went to work, no longer mixed with friends. She wasn’t needed, and she wasn’t loved. But she wasn’t dead yet and there was still work to do.

  She spent the night on the settee in the living room. Her body refused to join her spirit in the newfound resolve and any exertion brought on the pains that took her breath away. Mrs Fleming had made up the bed with fresh sheets and covers, she could snuggle into the sweet-smelling softness but, tempting as it was, upstairs was too far away, and the effort too much.

  All day Sunday she spent under the blanket in the downstairs room. She left the curtains closed and moved from the settee only to visit the downstairs toilet, or to heat some water and pour it onto powder to make lemon tea.

  She drowsed through the day and by evening she was stronger. She was determined to be ready for Monday when Terry Robertson would come, and she would take her part in the next act of the shadow play that was her life.

  * * *

  He didn’t come until after lunch and Lily had spent much of the morning looking through the window and even, on one occasion, standing at the front door, peering back and forth. She washed her hands and face and dressed in a plain skirt and sweater. She combed her hair, put away the blankets, and tidied up in the living room.

  He arrived when she was in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea and eating biscuits. The biscuits were a little stale but the sweetness was kind to her depleted body, and she felt better. He was dressed very much as he had been for their meeting in Bath, but had on a wool hat. He snatched it off as she opened the door and waved an arm behind her, silently inviting him inside.

  “Terry. Did you have a good journey?”

  “Yes, it’s not that far. Cold here though. I had to park down on the seafront, finding a space nearby is impossible.”

  “Yes, I know. I don’t drive but it was always a problem for Charlotte. She used to fume about it.”

  “I never said, I am sorry that you lost your friend. Well, partner. It must be hard for you.”

  She couldn’t answer his unexpected kindness, so she nodded and turned away.

  His voice was low and quiet as he spoke again, “I want to apologise to you, I was very rough, rude, last time I saw you. You had come with good intentions, and I shouldn’t have behaved the way I did. I’ve felt so bad since then. Even though, what your erm… what Charlotte did was wrong, that wasn’t your fault, and I respect what you tried to do, letting my mum know about him – about the baby.”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes, and turned from the door and walked into the living room where she had placed the urn, again, on the low table in front of the settee.

  He stopped as he walked through the door, his eyes on the blue jar. “Oh. Oh. I…”

  She was shocked to see the gleam of moisture in his eyes. He took a few steps forward and cleared his throat and then paused, unsure of what to do next. Lily sat in the chair next to the fire and Terry perched on the edge of the settee.

  After a few moments, he reached towards the table. “May I?”

  He glanced at Lily and she nodded. Her heart was racing and she felt sick.

  He picked up the urn carefully, in both hands, and drew it towards him. “It looks new, it looks very new. You must have taken great care of it, for all this time.”

  Chapter 21

  Lily pointed to the cabinet in the corner.

  “It was in the cupboard,” she said. Not a lie, not the truth.

  Terry nodded. He spoke again, quietly, almost reverentially, “I thought it would be different. Something like you see in films, fancy, old-fashioned, and a bit silly really, if you know what I mean?” Lily nodded. “Only, this is nice,” he continued, “well, maybe that’s the wrong word but, you know, it’s... well, appropriate I suppose.” He continued to hold it, his thumb stroked the little white bird on the side. His next question startled her. “Is it sealed?”

  “Sealed?” she repeated.

  “Yes, did they put something round the lid, to seal it? I don’t know about these things. Obviously if you’re going to – you know – scatter them it wouldn’t be, but keeping it?” He shrugged, but in the absence of an answer he was pressed to continue. “If they know you’re going to keep it, do they seal it with something?”

  She swallowed, tried to moisten her mouth before she could answer. She thought of the plastic bag, but that wasn’t quite the same, was it? “I don’t know. Whether they do that. Seal them.” Again, she had spoken the truth but on her lips it became a lie.

  They sat in uncomfortable silence, Lily was the one who broke it. “Tell me about her.”

  “My mum?”

  “Yes, Charlotte was the one who was in contact with her. I always thought she met her. What you told me about your grandfather – Clive. Well, it makes me wonder if even that was a mistake. On my part, I mean. Maybe I jumped to conclusions.”

  Terry took a minute to think before he answered. “She was okay as a mum. I always had stuff to eat. I had decent clothes. She wasn’t the sort who would come to the school, to plays and things. She never did much of that. She was… shy. She didn’t mix.”

  Lily could tell that he was feeling awkward, didn’t want to do this, but she pressed on. It was a snowball and now it was rolling, it wouldn’t stop. “So, your own father?”

  “What about him?”

  “Who was he, he wasn’t the same as…?” She pointed at the urn. Terry looked down, seemed only now to remember that he still had it on his lap, held gently between his curled fingers.

  He placed it on the coffee table, and shook his head. “No. He wasn’t.”

  “What was he like?”

  “He wasn’t, a father – not ever. I didn’t know him. I only know what I was told. My mum, she ran away from home at one stage, and it was during that time that she met the bloke who got her pregnant with me. When he found out she was pregnant, he went back to his wife. She tried to make a go of it on her own. She tried really hard I think. Struggled to keep going. But she hadn’t got much education, no real qualifications and in the end, he, Clive, found her and made her go back to Bath. That was before I was born. She lived there with her own mum, Granny, and me.

  “They’d always had property, some of it had been in the family for a long time, and he was clever. The boom in the sixties and seventies had made him rich, he bought more and more. Yes, to give him his due he did okay at that. In the end, he even converted the house in Southcote Place into flats and bought a different place for us to live, more modern. Granny was dead, my mum was ill by then and not long after we moved, Clive had a stroke. She couldn’t look after him and there was no bloody way I was going to. So, he’s in a nursing home.”

  “Oh, I thought Alzheimer’s, dementia.”

  Terry shook his head. “No, not that. He’s lost a lot of movement and his speech is not that easy to understand sometimes but, up to now anyway, he still knows what’s going on. They even tell me he’s improving. I go now and then, business stuff, that’s all.”

  “Right. Do you intend to ask him about the baby?”

  Before he answered Terry slid back on the settee, sat more
comfortably. “Oh, I’m going to do a lot more than ask him.”

  It wasn’t said kindly and Lily hesitated, but in the end, she had to ask for more. As they talked she felt her interest build, she felt more alive than she had for days. She was encouraged by the idea that maybe there was still a chance to find out about Peter, a little of the story anyway.

  “You really think he was the one who sold the baby?”

  “Yes. I do. My mum, oh, she had her faults, I’ve never pretended anything different. She was weak and she used stuff: drink, sometimes drugs. She was a mess a lot of the time, but she wouldn’t have done that. Not if she’d had any choice. She kept me, didn’t she? She did what she could to look after me.”

  “Yes, but so did he though, Clive, I mean. He didn’t do the same thing with you, did he? He didn’t sell you.”

  “No, he didn’t. I’m still trying to process all of it. I’m confused and there are things that I don’t want to think about, but I have to. I have to and I will, but slowly and with as much information as I can gather. And if I can prove it, then he’ll pay. At the moment, we don’t know enough. That note, the receipt, I recognised that signature. It wasn’t my mum’s and I’d know his anywhere.”

  “So, you’ll ask him? Show him the receipt?”

  Terry rubbed a hand over his face and then before he spoke he leaned forward again. “Okay, this is the thing.” He pointed at the urn. “I want to try and get this tested.”

  “Tested?”

  “Yes, DNA. Now, it’s not usually very successful. I’ve looked into it in the past, researched the whole business but more from the usual side, people who are alive, you know? A few years ago, I thought about trying to trace the bloke that got my mum pregnant. I didn’t do it, I realised there was no point.” Lily nodded. “But this is different. Generally, it seems it’s impossible to do it on cremated ashes. But there are one or two places that say if there are bits of bone…” He paused and looked at her. “Is this upsetting for you. Talking about it like this?”

  The memory of yesterday, the transfer of the remains, brought heat to her face, but Lily shook her head and answered him. “No, no, I’m not squeamish about things like that.”

  “Well, there are a couple of places that reckon that if there are bits of bone, or teeth…”

  Lily interrupted, “He didn’t have teeth, he was new-born.”

  “I know, but apparently they are there in the skull, already formed. Anyway, if there is enough, these people reckon there is a chance that they can do the tests. It’s a very remote chance, but I reckon I’ve got nothing to lose. It hinges on how the, erm…” He pointed. “How the remains have been prepared. I’m hoping that because it’s a while ago, well, maybe they weren’t as efficient. I don’t know.”

  “But what do you want to find out?”

  “Well, they can find out the gender, but we know that already of course, we know he was a boy. More importantly they can give a good idea about paternity. They can prove who the father is, and the mother. Even though we know that, we know about Mum, it’s all part of it. It would all be evidence.”

  Lily covered her mouth with her hand, he didn’t need to spell it out and he saw that she understood. She whispered, “You think he did that to your mum? You think her own father did that to her, had sex with her?”

  Terry nodded. “I know he did. She told me before she died. But she didn’t need to. I knew full well by then what he was like. Oh, I knew alright. If I can prove this, he’s going to stand trial and it’s all going to come out. Everything. Not for what he did to Mum, it’s too late, she’s gone but – well yes, okay. If it’s the only way to get him, for what he did to me and then at least I can tell everyone… about this.” His face was red now and as he pointed towards the table, the urn, his hands were shaking.

  “Terry. Did he abuse you? Is that what you’re saying? How dreadful.”

  “I’m not going to talk about it, not with you, not with anyone, yet. But if it turns out that we’re right about this and I can prove this, well, then I’m willing to take it all to the authorities. I’ll ruin his reputation. He’s vain, he’s always been well-known, respected. He rubbed shoulders with the great and the good. I’ll shame him, for my mum, for me and for Peter and the others.” His face was twisted with fury, and he had to clear his throat and try visibly to calm himself before continuing.

  “I owe you my thanks. You gave me a kick up the bum. I’d made my mind up not to do anything, I thought I’d got past it, the things he did to me. I’ve toed the line, I still do. He’s the one with the money, the property and I’ve kept my mouth shut, just so I could have my nice life. He owes me that, but now…” He shook his head. “It’s all too much, it’s the last straw that’s all, it’s time to make him pay. When you came and told me about this, when I saw that receipt…” He paused and thought for a moment. “I’ve been a coward for too long, lazy and greedy and now, it’s got to end. He can’t get away with it. I had thought seeing him in the wheelchair, struggling to feed himself – I thought that was enough, but it’s not and so…” He fell silent and closed his eyes. He looked spent and Lily felt the stirring of her own fury on his behalf.

  Chapter 22

  Lily’s mind was in turmoil. Here was this young man, just a little younger than Peter would have been, opening his heart. Telling her things that he hadn’t told other people. He was revealing these dreadful secrets because he thought, in front of him on the table, was the evidence of such wrongdoing that he would no longer be able to turn from it. But there was a darker truth, one hidden in the gloomy room under their feet and fear won again.

  “I don’t know if I want to let him go,” she whispered.

  Terry had to lean forward. “What, what did you say?”

  “I said…” She raised her voice and looked at him. “I said, I don’t think I want to let him go.”

  “I can understand that.” He was calm as he responded, he didn’t see any threat to his plan, not yet.

  She reached towards the table. “No, you see. I thought that you were going to bury him, with his mother. I said that I would let you take him away because that felt right. But this…” She pulled the urn towards her.

  “Well, I will. I will bury him with her. I have already looked into it and it’s easy to arrange, just a question of paperwork really. I will bury him with his mum.”

  She felt panic building and her voice sounded like a whine. “But first, this thing that you’re proposing. How will that be? You’ll have to send it all away, will you?” She paused, remembered Friday, the desecration, then continued. “Will you disturb him?”

  “It’s impossible not to, of course.” He slid forward now, bending towards her. “I see that this must be hard for you. After all this time. But why did you come to Bath, if you weren’t going to let him go?”

  The answer was another lie, they came so quickly now. “I thought that your mother would want to have him, and I was ready for that.” She hadn’t been, now she saw she hadn’t been. She had thought that they would open the grave, arrange to put the child to rest somewhere pleasant, a wood perhaps or secretly in a family plot. She had thought the mother might feel just as guilty as she and Charlotte Mary of wrongdoing. It had seemed logical that she would want to be a party to a plan that would keep the secrets.

  In the desperate days after Charlotte Mary’s funeral, with her mind in turmoil, she had acted impetuously. The plan was unravelling and becoming so much more complicated. She needed time to think. She felt the pain, building in her chest.

  She leaned over and took up the little jar, held it close. “I don’t think I want you to take him away.”

  Terry had moved towards her. “Oh, come on. You have to, you came to me, remember, you told me about this. I’d cut the very idea of him, of my brother, out of my life. I didn’t want to know and you made me face it. It’s ashes Lily. It’s just his ashes. He’s gone, he can’t be disturbed, and then they will send it back and I promise you…” He looked d
eep into her eyes, his voice was low, serious. “I promise you that I will bury him with his mum and that I will take you there to see where he is. I will have his name on the headstone. His full name, Peter Robertson, we can put his birth date on, and when he died. It will all be done properly. Now, wouldn’t that be nice? His name, his memorial. Wouldn’t that be better than him just here? In a cupboard, only you knowing. Isn’t that what you wanted? I thought that was what you wanted. You said so. You said you came to Bath because other people should know.”

  “Why can’t you just go to the authorities and tell them what your grandfather did. Other people have done it. Brave people have done it after years of silence. You don’t need this, this is not you. This is Peter. It’s a different thing.”

  “I’ve told you, haven’t I? He has always ruled the roost and I’ve let him. I suppose I thought that if I could just hang on until he was dead, then I would get it all, everything he’d built up, all that he’s worked for. I didn’t want to risk losing it, so I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t just for me though. While my mum was still alive I hid what was happening with him, with me. When I was very small I was confused and frightened, when I was older I was ashamed. I knew it was wrong, but I never told her, I never told anyone. When she first told me about her other baby, she didn’t say it was Clive’s. She never did, and I never told her what he’d done to me, so it all stayed secret. But when I saw that paper, that receipt, I realised what it could mean. It’s quite simple really, I changed my mind. I can’t let him go to his grave without facing him with it. I must. If I can prove that he is the father of his own daughter’s baby, and that he sold it, it will destroy him. I’ve got access to him, and I’ve got stuff left from when she died. I’m sure there must be hair, something like that in all the stuff I kept, stuff that’s still at the house. And, I may be damned for it, but I want to destroy him. I want him to face what he’s done, all of it. I want him to look me in the face and acknowledge all of it. Then I want them to throw him in a cell.”