Ursula's Secret

by Mairi Wilson

  “Certainly not what did.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  Cameron smiled again. “Evie, amusing as our banter always is, we need to cut to the chase. These are the facts – Helen is alive, whereabouts unknown. Ross is alive and staying in a house a few streets from here. Do you think Helen might be interested in knowing that?”

  “You’re despicable, Cameron. I don’t know why you’d say a thing like that, but whatever game you’re playing I refuse to be a part of it.” Evie stood up to leave him there mired in his rank subterfuge, but he tugged her arm sharply so that she sat heavily again, the planks of the bench jolting her bones.

  “Sit down, woman,” he hissed. “You will hear me out, and then you will do what I want you to, if you want your beloved friends to stay safe.”

  “What do you want, Cameron? Just get on with it and say.”

  “Tell Helen she can have Ross.”

  “He’s really alive? How can that be?”

  “The bullet didn’t kill him. Richard came back with me to the house that night. Good man, our Richard. Dependable. He was listening outside the room, overheard everything. He hid in the shadows until I’d dragged Helen away, then slipped into the bedroom. He saw the boy twitch so felt for a pulse and found one. Faint, but there. So he took him. When I went back the body was gone, but I saw no need to mention that to Helen. I set fire to the room as a precaution.”

  “But you did that! You felt for a pulse. You said he was dead.”

  “Oh, all but. And the important thing was to get out of there. Dragging a dying child with us was only going to slow things down.”

  Evie stood, furious. “You cold-hearted—”

  “Spare me your condemnation, Evie. I really don’t care. And do sit down if you want to hear the rest of this.” He waited until she did as she was told. “That’s better. So. Against all the odds, Ross survived. For all that puniness, turns out he was a tough little beggar after all. But sadly, little more than an idiot now, so no use to me. And certainly no use to the company so better if he doesn’t surface and muddy the waters. Best he ‘dies’ alongside dear Helen and little Izzie.”

  Evie was incredulous. Ross alive.

  “But I’m a fair man.” Cameron was still speaking, enjoying his moment. “I’m prepared to strike a deal. I don’t need to know where Helen is and I don’t want to see her again. She stays hidden and she gets her boy back. And I’ll arrange funds to make sure they don’t starve and have whatever attention the boy needs. I keep David. He’s mine, after all. If she ever decides to surface, I have a witness to the shooting who will say she shot the boy in cold blood and turned the gun on me. And Richard assures me his testimony and the gun he recovered from the scene, along with one or two other items he could rustle up if needed, mean we have enough evidence to ensure she will be convicted.”

  “What items?”

  “Does it matter? I’m sure he’ll have had the foresight to have ‘saved’ whatever our lawyers might find they need.”

  Evie nodded. They would fabricate whatever they needed and with Chakanaya’s connections there was every chance their bogus evidence would be accepted.

  “So that’s the deal? She gets Ross and stays out of jail; you get David and, through him, the Buchanan money.”

  “Seems fair to me. And what man would want to see his beloved wife locked up in jail for the rest of her life anyway? I’m only doing what any loving husband would do: protecting my wife and her child.”

  “You make me sick, Cameron, you really do. How do I know you’re not lying?”

  “Why would I?”

  “I really don’t know, but you usually do.” Evie was all business, determined not to let her confusion and horror overwhelm her. “I’ll need to see Ross, of course.”

  “Of course, I imagined you would. My car’s just outside.”

  Evie started to rise, but he caught her arm again, pulled her round to look at him.

  “One other thing. If Izzie survived, I want her, too. As insurance.” He was watching her closely, but Evie was ready for him this time.

  “Of course you do. Well, sorry to disappoint you, Cameron, but that much at least is true. She died, despite everything Helen did to try to save her. She was drowned along with all those other poor souls when the mudslide hit. She slipped from Helen’s grasp.”

  Cameron raised an eyebrow. “Did she, now.”

  Evie found it impossible to tell if he believed her or not, but she kept her gaze steady, fought to stay calm.

  “You might as well have drowned her yourself, Cameron. Her blood is on your hands, so if you regret it now then you’ve only yourself to blame. But it’s the living we should concern ourselves with. Ross. Take me to him. Prove what you’ve told me is true.”

  * * *

  Richard Chakanaya was waiting by Cameron’s car, a slow smile spreading across his features as he saw Evie coming towards him.

  “Mrs Campbell. A pleasure as always.”

  She wanted to slap the obsequious man, but she nodded her head stiffly and got into the back of the car, staring straight ahead as the chauffeur closed her door. Cameron slid in the other side and Chakanaya got into the front.

  As the car set off, in her mind she ran through everything Cameron had said. It wasn’t possible, was it? The only way to be sure was to see with her own eyes. She tried to think of ways that Cameron might try to fool her, pass off another child as Ross, trick her into believing what felt like the unbelievable. And she found herself wishing she’d stopped to tell someone where she was going, or at least who with, before she left.

  But as soon as she walked into the tiny room and Ross turned his large brown eyes up to look at her from under a grubby bandage covering his head, she knew. It was him. No doubts, no subterfuge. Incredibly and against all probability, Ross was alive.

  “Ross! Ross darling!” She tried to pull him into her arms, but he ducked and stumbled over to an old woman Evie hadn’t seen when she came in. He buried his head against her apron, whimpering.

  “I have to warn you, Evie dear. He’s not ‘whole’.” Cameron stepped forward, tipped Ross’s chin up so he was looking straight into his eyes. Evie saw the boy tense. “He won’t remember you, Evie. Or Helen. In fact, I’m not really sure if he remembers anything at all.” Ross’s eyes flickered over to Evie and then he wriggled away from Cameron’s hold and buried his face again in the apron of the old woman.

  “Ross. Ross, it’s me, Auntie Evie.” She tried to take his hand.

  “Ross, look at me.” Cameron’s voice was bored. The old woman turned Ross to look at Cameron, the little head tilted to one side, his thumb plugged into his mouth like a comforter. “This is Auntie Evie. You remember her, don’t you?”

  But the boy’s face crumpled as if he were about to cry. Then a shout in the street made him scream and he turned to the old woman again, burying his head and sobbing. She crooned and soothed him, as his small shoulders heaved. Evie was horrified. He didn’t know her. Would he know Helen? Evie fought back tears. This was unbearable.

  But it was Ross. And he was alive.

  *

  “Not wearing her out again, I hope, Lexy.”

  Robert. Back to check on her.

  “Shh.” Lexy raised her finger to her lips, smug to be the one issuing the admonition for a change. “She’s sleeping and you’ll—”

  “Robbie?”

  “Now, look! You’ve woken her.” Lexy tried to sound exasperated but was secretly pleased. Would there be time before Evie went into theatre to talk some more?

  “Hello, Gran. Bearing up? They’ll be coming to prep you for theatre shortly.”

  “Not yet, Robbie, I need to … to tell Lexy, is she still here … I …”

  Even to Lexy the voice was thin, too weak. “I’m here, Evie.”

  “Lexy. I have to tell you the rest, to …”

  Lexy stepped forward, took the old woman’s hand. “Evie, it’s all right, I’m here.” She looked acro
ss the bed to Robert. He was frowning, feeling for Evie’s pulse.

  Had Lexy done this to her? Worn her out just before the operation? She felt a pang of worry. She’d been angry, of course she had, but she didn’t want anything to happen to Evie. It was just there had been no one else to be angry with, or at least there hadn’t been, until that phone call had changed everything.

  “You should go, Lexy,” Robert was saying. “She’s too weak to talk, I’ll stay—”

  “No, I need to tell … to …” Evie’s eyes were darting from side to side, her fingers twitching in Lexy’s hand.

  “No, Gran, you don’t. You have to rest. Whatever it is can wait. Lexy, you have to go now, you’re upsetting her.”

  “But she’s the one who wants to talk. I’m not forcing her.”

  “Robbie, I need to talk … Just five more minutes.”

  Lexy knew she had one last chance before Evie went into theatre. One last chance to find out what she really needed to know. “Evie, just tell me, why did she send Izzie away to Ursula? Why did she abandon my mother?”

  “She had no choice. It broke her heart.”

  “So why do it? Surely it made more sense to keep them together, Ross and Izzie?”

  “No. He knew, you see.” Evie’s voice cracked and her shoulders heaved as coughing racked her body. “He’d have taken—” The coughing took hold once again and small beads of perspiration appeared on her creased forehead.

  “For God’s sake, Lexy, just leave it.” Robert reached over to put his arm around his grandmother’s shoulders, lift her into a more upright position. “Easy now, Gran. Let me get you some water.”

  “Taken what? Izzie? But how—”

  “Enough, Lexy!” Robert’s voice was harsh, his fury evident. “Get out. Just go. Have some compassion, can’t you?”

  “Well, of course, but I … just … One last question before I go.”

  “No,” he shouted, then visibly restrained his temper and added more calmly, “She needs to rest.”

  “No, it’s a question for you. Why, after you told me you no longer spoke to David Buchanan, did you get into his car and drive off with him yesterday afternoon?”

  “Look, Lexy. I’ll explain.” He looked at Evie. “But not right now. Later. I’ll come to the hotel, after … when Gran’s out, okay?”

  That’s right, Lexy thought, Give yourself time to dream up a story.

  “Fine,” Lexy said, though it wasn’t at all. “Evie, I hope—”

  “Go, Lexy, now. Leave her alone.”

  Lexy looked at them both for a moment, then walked out, pulling the door closed behind her. No slam. That was good. Although it hardly mattered now. Lexy didn’t plan to see either of them again, or at least not until she’d found the answers elsewhere. She had other options now. She had family. Real, blood family. That open ticket she’d bought would be pressed into service as soon as possible. Tonight, if she could make the London flight, and from there, a credit card would get her to Scotland and to her uncle, Ross Buchanan-Munro.

  26

  Taigh na Mara, Ross-shire, Scotland, June 17th

  Helen stood, arms crossed across her chest, staring out at the thin grey ribbon of road winding down the hillside past the peat banks towards the shore, watching, waiting. She’d stood here for hours, days, it seemed, watching, waiting. Each time she saw a splash of colour, a flash of movement, her heart stalled, kicked again when the car turned off to the right at the T-junction, leaving her behind, still hidden, still safe, still dead to those she had run from. Nothing had come her way since she’d begun her vigil, the height of the bracken and shallow ruts on the track a testament to the croft house’s isolation. Her sanctuary. Her prison.

  In the early days, they’d tried, these scattered inhabitants of the slopes and shoreline beneath Ben Mor Coigach. There’d been the odd curious neighbour dropping by with words of welcome on their lips to mask the inquisitiveness, the intrusiveness, of their uninvited calling. Helen had been cold and distant, relentlessly unfriendly. She’d shrugged off her interest in society, her need for company and conviviality, with the fur stoles and cashmere wraps she’d left behind her in the hills above the lake. No need now to concern herself with pleasantries, with doing the done thing, with the conventions of hospitality. She had no need, no desire, to like or be liked. Anonymity, isolation, secrecy: these were what had come to define her. The croft house had lain empty since she and Ursula had left it, Helen armed with a certainty that deserted her now. No one had stepped over the threshold, seen inside the croft house until she’d returned, almost half a century ago. No one, she’d believed, ever would.

  She knew they spied on her. She sometimes caught the flash of sunlight on a metal buckle, or the glint from trained binoculars. But the word had spread and no one came near these days, the lifelines and rhythms of this peninsula community ebbing and flowing round her like snowmelt round a rock.

  She could see a face looking back at her, distorted by the buckled glass of the windowpane, like Munch’s Scream. Gaunt and hollow as a skull, black holes where once there’d been bright eyes, rictus where there’d once been a smile. Who was she? What was she, this creature, haunting her like a silent reprimand, a story whose ending would never be told? Helen Buchanan, heiress, socialite, adored mother, happy wife. Gone. Abandoned. Forgotten. She couldn’t be, didn’t know how to be, that woman again, even if she were free, or inclined, to try. Instead she’d turned liar, deceiver, destroyer of lives, become wraith, remnant, more dead than alive. What would her daughter make of her? Would she come, would she try?

  Izzie.

  Who was she now? Had those blue eyes stayed baby blue, the blonde waves straightened or furled into curls and ringlets? Did she grow tall and strong, like her father, or delicate and slight like her mother, loud as David, shy as Ross? Helen would know soon enough.

  Izzie. She breathed the word again, saw it snake like a hiss of steam in the air between Helen and her reflected self, felt the prickle of impatience on taut skin, a fluttering in her stomach. Years of not knowing, not daring to ask, not trusting herself to remember, wiped out in that instant when she’d finally relented, replied to Ursula’s letter with a single word scrawled on the back of a postcard of Inverness Castle. YES. Her reward: this purgatory of waiting.

  Helen turned from the window and looked up at the clock. Nearly midnight. Long days made longer by summer light. No one would come now. She could go to bed, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep. She’d stare at the light filtering through curtains, fading but never fully darkening before brightening again into yet another morning. And each time the same thought, the same question: today, this day, would this be the one?

  The corners of the room were dim, too dim for reading, so she picked up the single page she’d left on the table by dirty plates she’d yet to clear and took it back to the window. Perching one hip on the wide ledge, she dropped her glasses from the top of her head onto her nose and began to read, as she’d read umpteen times before, searching for clues the words wouldn’t yield, answers they didn’t hold.

  Edinburgh, May 24th 2014

  My dear Helen,

  She’s coming. She’s agreed, as I so very much hoped she would, and she will be here in a few days. I am praying that she will forgive us, although I am afraid, truly afraid, that she won’t. I have this single chance – we have this chance – to make her understand how much she is, and always has been, loved by us both. Oh Helen. My youthful stupidity has led us both to do so much wrong. But no point in repeating all that here. You know how sorry I am and I know you have forgiven me even though I can’t forgive myself. Your generosity and love overwhelm me.

  So, to the matter in hand. I have prepared a folder, a portfolio, for her. I will tell her what I can, and provide her with evidence from my diary and our letters for her to read through and keep. It will be too much, I’m sure, for her to absorb, to follow, in a single conversation, and I fear that’s all she will allow me when she hears what I have to
say. I also fear that Jenny will not leave me alone long. And as you know, I have my concerns about her. In some ways she reminds me of Izzie – quick-witted, funny, gregarious – but she has a level of cunning to her intellect which is unpleasant, and there is something that just doesn’t ring true about her. As if she’s acting. And that worries me. She is too much the serendipitous helper at times. I am sure she is reading my mail, looking for something, although I don’t know exactly what. I pray it is simply a way to establish my worth, to decide if I’m worth robbing or bumping off or whatever. God forbid it is anything to do with all of this. But how could it be? Jenny is a child of poverty, that much is clear, hardly likely to have been brought up on tales of Africa and fortunes. I’ve promised her a legacy and spoken to my lawyers in the hope that that will be enough to keep her from prying further, but time will tell.

  In the folder I show Izzie our deception. My shameful behaviour, Evie’s solution. Our trip to Scotland. But from the point where you returned to Africa and I remained here, I will be silent. I died a kind of death when you left. I have no words to express what I felt, if indeed I felt anything at all, until our darling girl brought me back to life with her laughter and love and joy. So the years of hiding are yours to tell, dear Helen. Your story, not mine. Your horror. You tell it as you see fit. And feel no need to hold back on my account. Not a day goes by when I don’t blame myself for what I did to you. For what I let Cameron do.

  There are some details I will not include in the folder for fear of – I’m not sure what. Superstition perhaps, force of habit, or maybe even Jenny again. I cannot trust her. But I will not write down your location, nor will I commit details of the financial arrangements to paper. There will be nothing in writing that will lead to you or any of the others. If Izzie wants to find you, I will give her details of the croft face to face. If she doesn’t come I have arranged for a “clue” to be left with my lawyer. A copy of an old unsigned lease for the croft house in the middle of my current file. Our Izzie won’t be able to resist the questions that will pose and she will find you. Jenny’s legacy will serve a similar function. Should I be right in my fears about her, our inquisitive Izzie will track her down, I’m sure, when she comes across a name she doesn’t recognise. I leave it to you to provide details of anything, anyone else, if you see fit to do so, when you meet with her. Revelation will, after all, break our side of the pact we made with our very own devil and his henchmen and could mean no further support for you and R. So again, that must be your decision. I am simply a conduit in the matter of the funds.