“I think you’re right.” He sighs. “Well, at least I tried.”
“I’ll find something to wrap it in, and we’ll bury it.”
Tom shakes his head. “I thought I could save it.”
As I move closer to wrap an arm around him, I’m aware of the t-shirt and knickers I’m still wearing after sleepwalking. Yet again, it takes me back to that night on the moors when Isabel and her father stripped me down and tortured me in front of Tom. Perhaps it’s that hesitation that Tom picks up on when he jumps to his feet and pushes his chair away.
“Don’t bother,” he says. “I’ll sort it out. You hate birds, anyway.”
“I don’t hate them,” I protest. “I’m afraid of them after what happened. You know what I went through.”
“Yeah. I was there.”
“I know,” I reply. “I know, Tom. Why don’t we talk about it? We haven’t sat down and talked through what happened. Not properly, anyway. Don’t you think that’ll help?”
“Why? Won’t everything just go back to normal? You sleepwalking, hallucinating, drinking and fucking up? Me on my own with no parents. Isabel out there waiting for us. Hunting us. Killing women who resemble you.”
“Tom.” My eyes burn with the sensation of unshed tears, and I realise that this might be the perfect moment to tell him what happened with our father. To tell him that I’m really his mother. That he does have a parent. I’m right here.
But then I’d have to admit to him that he was a child of rape. And I couldn’t do it.
“What?”
“Tom, I know you’ve been avoiding it, but you have to go and see my therapist. I’ve arranged an appointment with her.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
He snatches the bird from the table and walks out of the dining room into the garden. As he walks away, I notice a few feathers sticking out of the pocket at the back of his jeans, just like at the house in Scotland. Is Tom going out searching for magpies? Is he seeking them out to taunt me, to torture me?
I suppose there are a couple of options. Either Tom stuffed the bird in his pocket, or he pulled the feathers from its body and kept them. Whichever he did, it feels as though the bird situation has been orchestrated by Tom in some way. Did he kill the bird himself? Or did he find it dead and bring it into the house, then wait for the right moment to perform his theatrics? What was Tom trying to achieve by bringing a dead magpie into our home? Except frightening me, of course.
Perhaps that was his intention all along, as some sort of provocative act of teenage rebellion. I had thought, as Tom approaches his eighteenth birthday, that the teenage hormones would calm down, but they’re only getting worse. Maybe it’s the trauma. Or maybe it’s something much worse.
After showering and changing, I make a cup of tea to calm my nerves before doing some more research on the disappearance of Abigail. I have the scanned copy of “Mary” from Leeds, who certainly seems to be a dead ringer for George himself. But how am I going to track down Mary fifty years later? She could be anywhere.
I try Facebook first, putting “Mary, Leeds” into the search bar and filtering the results by age. But I think Mary is probably too old to have partaken in the Facebook migration, and most profiles are private now, anyway. There’s a chance that Mary might have died between 1984 and now. A good chance.
Then I try those family history websites, but most require you to sign up and pay a subscription fee to get any decent results. I can’t really afford to pay for them and wonder whether to ask George or his son if they’d lend me the money. At the same time, I felt bad about asking for handouts. What if they suspect that I’d spend the money on myself instead? No, they don’t know me well enough to know I’m trustworthy. I don’t want to cause problems, and borrowing money always causes problems in relationships. That’s just one of the things you learn when you grow up poor.
In the end, I give up and browse the Justice for Alison hashtag instead. It’s trending on Twitter right now, with more tweets coming in every second as I browse.
Release the bitch’s name. She’s in on it. #findthenurse #findisabel #justiceforalison
Are the police blind? The nurse is obviously hiding Isabel. #justiceforalison #isabelfieldingisoutthere
Why should my taxes go towards keeping scum like the nurse safe? #justiceforalison #nursebitch
#justiceforalison The people have spoken. We want to know who she is.
I feel sick to my stomach. I’m living in a pressure cooker, and the Twitteratti are about to lift the lid. Who knows about me? Seb, his brothers, the other nurses at Crowmont… They know my name, and they might have a photograph of me somewhere. I wasn’t social when I lived at Hutton, but there was a security photo of me at the hospital. What if they release it? What if my photo gets to the public?
And if they do come for me? Would I deserve it?
I shake my head and decide to check the footage from the cameras in the house. If Tom did orchestrate the bird scenario, maybe the footage will show something. I check the back camera, clicking on the back arrow, cringing as I enter the house dishevelled and bemused, going further back until the door opens and Tom is standing outside holding a cup of tea. He stands there for a moment before walking farther into the garden, nearer to the sea. Then he disappears out of sight. A few minutes pass before he comes back, the bird in one hand, the tea in the other. Nothing on the footage shows him doing anything to the bird, but I still feel a creeping sense of dread worm its way up my spine.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I spot George in the lounge as I’m showing visitors into the care home. He’s out of bed causing mischief with Agnes, a keen poker player. As I’m on my way back to reception, I plan on leaving him to his game, but instead he calls me over.
“Lizzie has been helping me look for Abigail,” George says to Agnes, eyes gleaming with what I think might be pride.
Agnes lifts the corners of her freshly dealt cards and eyes them carefully. “Terrible what happened to your Abigail. No one ever forgot it, you know, George. We thought about her all those years, and still do.”
A flicker of pain crosses George’s face. “So do I. Every day since then. I know she’s out there somewhere. Well,” he says, glancing down at his cards, “I fold. Are you busy, Lizzie?” Agnes chuckles at that. “Fancy going for a walk with an old man?”
“Come on then, old man.” I offer him my arm and he takes it, heaving himself up to standing position.
He pats my hand. “Thank you, dear.”
“Don’t thank me too soon, because I don’t have great news. I’m just not sure where to search for Mary. I’ve tried the internet, but I’m not coming up with anything. Perhaps I could meet your grandson in the library, and we can do a bit of research together. I don’t know my way around Clifton well enough, to be honest.” I steer us out into the garden behind the home. It’s a lovely sunny day, and it seems a shame to waste it indoors, where everything smells faintly of disinfectant.
“I’ll ask him, but I’m sure he will. How are you settling in?”
“Oh, okay.”
“Now, don’t be offended, but I’m an old man and I don’t have much to do. I noticed that you seem a little tired. Is everything all right?”
I turn away from George and focus on the flower beds around the garden before answering. “I live with my younger brother because our parents died recently.” I feel guilty about lying to George, but I also don’t feel like explaining that my murdering father killed my mother. “He’s a teenager, and he’s become… difficult.”
“Oh, well! Teenagers aren’t much fun. You should’ve known me when I was a lad. I don’t look like much now, but I thought I was James Dean.” He chuckles. “My father played hell when I bought a motorcycle. It was more of a scooter, if I’m honest. Not a Harley Davidson or anything like that.”
“George, I bet the young women of Clifton thought you were a real catch. Were you the bad boy of this seaside town?”
“I thought I was at the
time. But, no.” He laughs. “Just a rebel without a clue.”
Listening to this man lifts my spirits. I laugh for the first time in a long time.
“Now, that is a nice sight. I don’t see a smile on your face too often. Be honest with me, Lizzie. Is this task too much for you? I look at you and I see grief etched on your face, and I wonder if searching for my Abigail is taking a toll that one human being should not place on another without a good and true justification. If it is, then please say. Because I would hate to contribute to your troubles.”
I take a deep breath, steadying myself. It takes a while to reach a point where I can speak again. “No. You’re not. You’re taking away from my troubles. Investigating Abigail’s disappearance, or Mary if that’s her in the photograph, is helping me. It’s what I need right now.”
“Good,” he says. “You’re a true friend, Lizzie. We would have been fast friends growing up. Though I only had eyes for my Judy and always will.”
What a life I would have, being loved by a man like George. I see myself on the moors next to Seb—terse, tranquil, strong Seb—and my body aches to be back there. Even with the pain that comes along with my memories of Seb, I can’t help but miss him.
“The library might have more information on Abigail’s disappearance,” I say. “I need to check out the newspaper articles from that time and see if there’s anything I’ve missed. But I’m not sure how I’m going to track her down after the fire. At least you have that photograph. Perhaps there’s a marriage certificate for a Mary of that age in Leeds. If it is Abigail, it could be that she had a birth certificate forged. Otherwise, she would have had problems getting married, getting jobs and bank accounts and so on. I’m not sure. It was a different time then, with different rules. I have to show three forms of identification for a gym membership.”
“All you can do is your best, Lizzie.”
Perhaps he’s right.
*
I don’t want to be the big sister/mum who checks up on her brother/son, but I have to know if he turned up to his therapy session with Dr Qamber. When I speak to her, I’m relieved to hear that he did, but she won’t tell me how the session went. Still, that’s progress. But perhaps I should have pushed him sooner. I shouldn’t have listened to what he was telling me and paid more attention to his mood and behaviours. But it’s hard to do that when living has become making it through one day and then the next. When you’re hanging by a thread, it’s almost impossible to think of anyone but yourself. I’m trying.
All you can do is your best, Lizzie.
#justiceforalison
Am I a good and true friend? Or am I the terrible person that the internet has deemed me to be? I’m not sure I know.
It’s early evening, and Tom is at work. I’ve wolfed down macaroni and cheese and am about to curl up on the sofa with reality television when the phone rings.
“I hear you’re Elizabeth now.”
The connection breaks up for a moment, and in the space of a heartbeat I hear the voice as female. After freezing like a cat caught in the headlights, I realise that the voice isn’t female at all. It’s male.
“Detective Murphy.”
“You sound surprised,” he notes.
“I am. I didn’t think you were given details of where we moved.”
“I wasn’t,” he admits. “But the team decided to let me in.” He pauses, and the silence hangs when I realise that there must be a valid reason for the programme to give DCI Murphy my information. Have they caught her? “There’s been a development, and I felt that I had to tell you myself.”
My palms begin to sweat, but I can’t pinpoint my exact emotion. Am I afraid or excited? Is this the moment when I will finally hear that Isabel has been caught and will be brought to justice for the murders of James Gorden and Maisie Earnshaw? Or is it bad news? Does Isabel know where I am? Is she out there on the cliffs, drawing me a new bird to post through my letterbox? Or is she in the attic, like last time? Sharpening her knives. Waiting for me to sleep before she slips one under my chin…
“Because Isabel has indicated that she’s obsessed with you, we’ve had surveillance in a few different areas. At the Braithwaites’ farm.” I hold my breath as he speaks. Don’t let her have hurt Seb. “Tom’s—sorry, Scott’s old school, his foster parents, your family home in Hackney, and your mother’s grave.”
“Have you found her?” I ask.
Murphy hesitates again before answering. “No.”
There is weight behind that word. I hear the exhaustion in his voice.
“No, we haven’t.”
“Okay. Tell me what’s happened.”
“A few weeks ago, several bird illustrations were sent to Anna Fielding’s house. She was understandably upset. We moved her to a hotel and increased surveillance on her house for a few weeks to see if Isabel would try anything. But in order to do that within our budget, we had to let a few officers go from another surveillance spot.”
Oh, God, please. Not Seb.
“Okay.” My blood pumps so hard that I’m convinced he can hear it.
“We decided that your mother’s grave would be the least likely place she’d try anything. The other areas of surveillance were all protecting people, and we had to make sure those people were protected. But unfortunately, my officers have noticed a disturbance at the grave.”
“A disturbance? What kind of disturbance?” My first thoughts are of Seb. He’s okay. Isabel hasn’t gone after him. Then the horror of what Murphy is telling me sinks in. Isabel has done something to Mum’s grave. She’s disturbed it in some way.
“She… She dug it up.”
“She did what?”
“We assume it was her,” he says. “I can’t imagine why anyone else would… do that. But the soil around her grave has been… transferred. And we believe her coffin has been opened.”
Despite everything that Isabel has done—delivering the head of my ally, hiding in my attic, killing a child—this still shocks me. She dug up my poor mother.
My stomach flips, and my mouth fills with bile. I take the phone away from my head and gag, almost throwing up on the carpet. My head is light and my legs are weak and I’m all too aware of the ground beneath my feet and my body wanting to sink into it.
“Leah?”
As I fight the nausea, I barely register his slip-up, calling me by my real name.
“Are you all right?”
I place the phone back to my ear. “Not really.”
I’m relieved that no one living has been hurt by her, but… my mother. How could she?
“I know how difficult this is. And I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, as terrible as that might sound, your mother’s body has not been… stolen. Our forensic team is checking over the remains now, but there was no sign that she has been… tampered with. Was your mother buried with any jewellery or heirlooms?”
“Her wedding ring,” I admit. I’d agonised over it. What do you do when your father murders your mother? Do you pretend her alcoholic arsehole of a husband never existed? Or do you bury her with the one piece of jewellery she wore every single day, no matter how many bruises he gave her? I decided on the latter. She was faithful to him to the end, and I believed she would want that ring.
“It’s gone.”
So there it is. That’s what she wanted. A piece of my mother. A piece of me. She’s still as obsessed with me as always. After moving away from Hutton, I hoped that her attention might have been directed elsewhere. Survival, perhaps. Preservation. Because it couldn’t be easy out there on her own.
Fuck.
Am I sympathising with her now? Am I feeling sorry for this girl who could at best be described as deranged and at worst a monster? Is there anything human left of Isabel Fielding?
“I’ve got a team down there now. If she comes back to the grave, we’ll find her.”
“She won’t,” I reply, my voice flat and dead. “She took what she wanted and left. You were too late.”
&nbs
p; I hear Murphy sigh down the phone and again feel the exhaustion in that sigh. I imagine him crumpled up. Stooped.
“I’m sorry, Leah.” Leah again. It’s nice to hear my real name spoken out loud. “We’re doing the best we can.”
“I know.”
But is their best good enough?
“There’s no reason to believe you aren’t safe where you are.”
“Okay. But what if the Justice for Alison people get hold of my name? Then someone might recognise me here and put my location up on the internet.”
“I heard about that shitshow,” he says. “I’m sorry about that. There’s not much we can do about the actual posts—free speech and all that. But if anyone does share your name or photograph, they’ll be arrested, and the image and or name will be deleted.”
Nothing is ever deleted from the internet, I think. Just ask Beyonce.
It’s not much reassurance, but it might be the best I’ll get under the circumstances.
“How are you?” he asks.
The question takes me by surprise. I’ve never thought of myself having much of a relationship with DCI Murphy. But I suppose there’s been something of a bond, especially when he visited me in York Hospital. I still remember him sat by my hospital bed, guilt and worry on his face as he admitted that Isabel had disappeared.
“It’s nice here,” I admit. “I have a job I enjoy. Tom is… struggling. But I’m okay. Actually, I’m helping an elderly man search for his sister, who disappeared during a house fire. I know how busy you are, but if you could look into it…”
No hesitation this time. “Sure. What’s the name?”
“Abigail Hawker,” I reply.
“When did she go missing?”
Two For Joy (Isabel Fielding Book 2) Page 7