‘We fell out,’ Fay explained. ‘Over a man, would you believe it.’
‘A man?’
Fay sighed. ‘My husband. They had an affair. I felt betrayed, as you would. Began stalking her. I saw her as more guilty than him because she was supposed to be my friend. It’s hard to explain, really, when it was just as much his fault.’
Helen nodded because she sensed agreement was required, even if she didn’t agree. Her mother, stealing someone else’s husband? She hadn’t considered that Fay might have had her reasons, however wrong they were, and she’d never thought of her mother as anything other than a mother either. Then again, maybe it was all a lie.
‘The police got involved,’ said Fay. ‘My husband found out what I was doing and wanted a divorce. I was too immersed in the whole thing to get legal representation, so he more or less walked off with everything. I continued to follow her, hung around outside her house despite a restraining order. Made obscene phone calls, wrote letters … I was mad, quite literally. She’d ruined my life, and I was going to ruin hers.’
Helen’s hand tightened around the fork, and she put her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. She’d been waiting for years for this moment, for Fay to confess, except it didn’t feel like a proper confession. It wasn’t satisfying enough.
‘I was doing drugs, booze and God knows what. High as a kite half the time. The next thing I know she’s dead, murdered in her car, and they say I did it, except I don’t remember anything at all.’
Her appetite gone, replaced by a sudden queasiness, Helen put the fork on the tray and swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. She’d heard enough.
But Fay hadn’t finished.
‘My friend’s daughter, who was on the back seat at the time, pointed the finger at me. There was other evidence as well, but if the child had seen it, I must’ve done it. I just don’t …’ She sighed.
‘Did you ever find out what happened to the child?’
‘No.’
‘Did you even try?’ Helen’s voice rose a notch, and Fay sent her a curious look. ‘I mean, if you weren’t sure what happened, perhaps the child was the key.’
‘I tried, but obviously I wasn’t allowed anywhere near that little girl, and her family made sure I had no contact whatsoever. I don’t blame them. I’d have done the same, to protect my child.’
Family. Protection.
The words rang false, because the reality of the situation was so different.
‘That’s quite a story.’ Her voice cooled, certain that it was just that, a story for her benefit, and Fay was looking for sympathy.
Well, you picked the wrong person if you’re looking for pity, she thought.
Had Fay guessed who her new flatmate was? Helen didn’t look like her blonde, petite mother. She was just as slim, but with a taller and stronger build, and she tanned well like her father, Dmitri. But if Fay and Mimi had been friends, she may have seen a photo of him.
The thought unsettled her. She needed to be more careful, at least until she’d decided what she was going to do about Fay. Because someone had to pay.
Fay rose from the bed. ‘I didn’t mean to bore you.’
‘I wasn’t bored.’ Far from it. ‘Thanks for the curry. I’m not really hungry. I appreciate it, though. You must let me give you some money.’
‘Oh, yes, I forgot.’ Fay produced a tattered notebook, held together with an elastic band and a pencil tucked in between the pages. ‘Household stuff. Charlie said you wanted to give something towards food and things. There’s no fixed sum, just give me what you can afford.’
Helen set her mouth in a thin line. ‘I’ll pay what everyone else pays.’
‘All right. In that case, it’s forty quid a fortnight. Sounds like a lot, but it covers food, basic toiletries, and cleaning materials.’
Helen reached for her wallet in her rucksack and counted out forty pounds. Fay ticked her name in the notebook, pocketed the money and took the tray from Helen’s desk.
‘Why don’t you let me carry that downstairs?’ said Helen.
‘I’m fine.’
Fay shut the door behind her, and Helen listened to her soft footfall on the landing. She’d missed a golden opportunity to confront Fay.
She wasn’t ready.
Later as she went to bed, she sat for a moment in total darkness, hugging her knees to her chest. Although Fay said she couldn’t remember anything, that didn’t mean she wasn’t guilty, but it did make Helen question how much she actually remembered herself. She had a vague memory of some time afterwards – when, exactly, was still hazy – that Aggie drove her to Ealing police station …
… ‘Is Mummy going to be there?’ she asks eagerly.
‘No, darling, your mummy won’t be there.’
Disappointed, Helen sits back in her seat. She frowns. Aggie has never called her ‘darling’ before, and somehow this frightens her though she doesn’t know why.
At the police station Helen and Aggie are taken down a long corridor, past many closed doors with letters on them. People’s offices, Aggie explains. Finally they’re led into a room with a large window looking into another room, which is empty. A man and a woman are waiting for them. The man has light-coloured hair and wears a blue suit, and the lady is dressed in a baggy green jumper and red trousers. Fascinated, Helen stares at the lady’s trousers. They’re not the sort of clothes Mummy would wear, and from the horrified look on Aggie’s face when she sees the lady, she’s sure Aggie is thinking the same.
‘I didn’t know the handover was today,’ Aggie says and puts her hand on Helen’s shoulder, where she leaves it. Helen shifts uncomfortably; Aggie’s never done that before either.
The lady nods. ‘Your daughter Letitia called me. I told her this isn’t how we normally do things, but she insisted. Said you’d prefer it to be dealt with quickly. It’s not a problem, I hope. We don’t really want a scene in front of—’ She stops and bites her lip when she sees Helen staring at her.
The man looks at Helen too, then at Aggie, and his expression isn’t kind.
Aggie’s voice is small when she says, ‘The child is ill. Neither of my daughters are willing to take the responsibility, and I … well, I’m too old.’ She turns away, fiddling with the clasp of her handbag as if she can’t open it.
Helen has a feeling Aggie is upset about something, but she has no time to think about it because the man kneels down in front of her, smiling. Involuntarily she takes a step back. When grown-ups kneel down like that and smile in a certain way, it’s because they’ve got something to say that you don’t want to hear.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘My name’s Barry. I’m a detective. Do you know what a detective is?’
Helen shakes her head. Why isn’t Mummy here?
‘A detective is a policeman who doesn’t have a uniform on, and who has to ask people questions when something bad has happened. He has to ask people if they saw anything, or anybody. Do you understand what I mean?’
Helen stares at him, unblinkingly. Her tummy feels hard, like there is a big lump inside it.
‘Did you see anyone that day you were with your mum in the car?’
‘I saw a lady.’
‘If you saw her again, would you be able to point at her and say “that’s her”?’
Helen nods. ‘She’s a vampire,’ she says and waits for the grown-ups to laugh and say there are no vampires, they don’t exist, but no one does.
‘I see.’ The man looks at her closely for a while then takes a tube of Smarties out of his jacket pocket and hands it to her. ‘Tell you what,’ he says, ‘why don’t you have some Smarties while you think about this vampire, because in a minute that door in there’—he points to a door which is inside the room behind the window—‘will open, and some people will come in, and maybe you can tell me if that vampire lady is one of them. Yeah?’
Helen hesitates. She loves Smarties, they’re her favourite, but Mummy says she can only have sweets on Saturdays, and she’s
not sure it’s Saturday. Plus she’s not allowed to accept sweets from strangers. But she doesn’t want to disappoint him, so she nods and smiles in the way she knows is expected of her. Where is Mummy?
‘Good girl.’ He gets up and asks over her head, ‘Does she know?’
‘No,’ says Aggie quietly. He doesn’t look pleased, and neither does the lady with the red trousers. ‘There were fears it would bring on another seizure.’
Helen knows they’re talking about her, but she ignores them and concentrates on her Smarties. She pours them out into her hand and picks the blue ones first. She likes them the best, even though they’re full of nasty colouring, and she hurries up and eats them, just in case someone tries to get them off her.
When she’s finished, the man takes her over to the window.
‘Are you ready?’
Helen nods.
‘Remember to tell me if you see anyone you know.’
He presses a button, and the door opens at the back of the room. Some women walk in, each carrying a piece of paper with a number on it. Helen knows them, because she can count to twenty, but she’s more interested in the women’s faces, and even before they’re standing still and looking at the window, she sees one she recognises.
‘That lady there,’ she says and points. ‘With the funny, wild hair. The one who looks like a witch.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘She did something to my mummy.’
‘Yes, she did,’ says the man.
‘Where is she?’
None of the grown-ups answer her question. They just stare at each other as if they all have a secret that Helen isn’t supposed to know about.
‘There’s something else I’d like you to do for me,’ he says instead.
Aggie puts her hand on Helen’s shoulder, and this time she doesn’t move away from it. ‘Don’t you think the child has been through enough?’
‘Just one more thing, I promise. It’s important’, he says to Helen. ‘Is there anything else you remember that you haven’t told anyone already? Anything at all?’
‘There was a knife. It was my mummy’s.’
‘We didn’t find any knife. Are you sure?’
Helen nods.
‘O-kay,’ he says. ‘In that case, do you think you can tell me what the knife looks like?’
‘No, but I can make you a picture. I’m good at drawing.’
‘That would be very helpful.’ He smiles and takes a small notepad out of his jacket pocket, and hands it to her with a pen.
She would rather have crayons, but she takes the pen and draws a picture in the notebook. ‘This is gold’—she points—‘and where you hold it, it’s made of swirly blue rocks. They’re called leopards,’ she adds, proud of her own knowledge. ‘A man had it in the olden days. He was a king, but then the commas came and killed him and his family in a forest. It was very sad.’
The policeman just stares at her, and she thinks he must be a little bit stupid.
‘If I may,’ says Aggie, ‘I think I know what the child is referring to. My step-daughter had a pair of paper knives, period pieces with lapis lazuli inlay. Fabergé, I think.’
‘Would you be able to get me their complete specifications?’
‘I should think so. It’s a well-known set, and collectors are often on record.’
Helen can see from the man’s face that what Aggie has said must be important, but she’s getting tired now and wants to go home. ‘Can we go now, Aggie? I want to see Mummy.’
The lady in the red trousers, whom Helen has forgotten all about, is the only one who answers. ‘You need to come with me, darling. I see your granny has brought your bag with you. Have you got all your nice things in there?’
Helen stares at her. What does she mean, go? Go where?
The lady holds out her hand. ‘Come, sweetheart, we’re going to a nice place where there’s lots of other children you can play with.’
Helen shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to play. I want to see Mummy!’
The lady just smiles sadly. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but you can’t see your mummy.’
‘Now!’ Helen stamps her foot. She’s close to tears. Why are they keeping secrets from her? It’s not fair.
Without another word the lady lifts her up and carries her towards the door. Suddenly it hits her, from the look on Aggie’s face, that the bad thing which the policeman talked about happened to Mummy, and that she isn’t coming back.
Mummy is dead.
Furiously she kicks and beats her fists against the lady’s chest, but the lady is strong and doesn’t drop her. Whispering soothing words, she carries her out of the room and down the long corridor, but Helen can only hear herself screaming at the top of her lungs.
‘I want my mummy! I want my mummy!’
Helen woke, disorientated and cold, her body leaden. She’d fallen asleep on top of the covers and realised she’d been crying. With no tissues handy she wiped her face on the bedspread and tried to make sense of her thoughts.
She knew this was a real memory, but she also knew her mind had always had a tendency to fill in the blanks when she tried to focus on it, leaving vital impressions tantalisingly out of reach.
Except this time it had been different. This time she’d pictured herself firmly in that room, tasted the Smarties, felt Aggie’s shaking hand on her shoulder. She had been there, and the sequence of events was probably pretty much as she’d just pictured them. But how could she begin to make sense of it?
Rising early, she met Jason in the kitchen.
‘Rough night?’ he asked when he saw her blotchy face, which no amount of ice cold water had managed to soothe.
‘You could say that.’
He handed her a cup of tea, and gratefully Helen wrapped her hands around it, allowing the warmth from the mug to quieten her nerves.
‘You know, I’m here if you want to talk,’ he said.
‘That’s okay. I can’t imagine you’d be interested in what goes on in my head.’
‘But I am.’
She looked up and read not only curiosity in his eyes but openness and sincerity as well. Was he really just a nice guy, or did he have an agenda? It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him all about her mother’s murder, about Fay, and about her epilepsy and fragmented memories, but she had no doubt what the outcome would be. He’d reject her, like everyone else had done, because people always did. For that reason she’d learned to rely only on herself. It might lead to loneliness, but it kept her safe from hurt.
So why did she find the thought of confessing so appealing? Was it simply his kind blue eyes? The carefully shaved goatee which showed someone who took good care of himself without worrying that it made him less of a man? Or maybe the way he wore a pair of old jeans, low-slung and hugging his backside like a second skin, inviting you to reach out and run your hand over the soft, worn fabric. She couldn’t decide whether it was the sex appeal which attracted her, or Jason the person.
So it was probably best to leave well alone.
‘Another time,’ she said and felt like a meanie when the eager light in his eyes went out.
Armed with the business card Aggie’s solicitor, Ronald Sweetman, had given her in Goa, Helen tracked down his office in a less salubrious part of town with a strong Asian influence, above a shop selling fabrics. Access was through an alley, at the backstreet level via an entry phone.
Someone buzzed the door open. Inside, narrow steps led upstairs. Water damage had caused the plaster to crumble in the corners, and the hall itself smelt very faintly of cat piss.
A woman, presumably the one who’d buzzed her inside, met her at the top of the stairs. Dressed in a black trouser suit, she was tall and angular with flat straw-coloured hair and horsey smoker’s teeth. Clutching a stack of files, she had a harassed air about her.
‘Third door on the right,’ she replied when Helen asked for Sweetman. ‘Tell him I’ll bring some coffee in a tick. And don’t worry if he snaps at you, he’s
as tame as a pussy cat.’
Puzzled that she hadn’t been challenged about an appointment or asked who she was, Helen knocked on the door at the end of the corridor.
‘Come in!’ bellowed a voice.
Ronald Sweetman was sitting behind his desk with his feet on the windowsill, staring out through the grimy glass while twirling a pen in his hand. He was wearing a polo shirt like last time they met, which stretched tight across his belly, grey trousers, worn leather belt and scuffed black shoes, and looked more like a down-at-heel private detective than a solicitor. Turning in his chair, his eyebrows rose when he saw Helen, and he quickly righted himself, extending his hand.
‘Miss Stephens. I was hoping I’d see you again, but I didn’t expect you so soon. Obviously I was mistaken.’ A teasing look accompanied his outstretched hand.
Helen shook it politely then withdrew quickly. There was something about his demeanour which didn’t sit right with his cuddly exterior. She’d sensed it in Goa, and did so even more now. Pussy cat, my arse.
‘Just Helen,’ she said.
‘I see, Just Helen.’ He ran his tongue over his lips as if tasting her name. Maybe he had synaesthesia, she thought, the ability to taste and smell sounds. She wondered what hers tasted like, fancying the idea of sticky toffee pudding, but maybe it was more like earwax. The thought made her smile.
Ronald Sweetman caught her grin. ‘That’s quite a different expression from the one you greeted me with in India. Never has one man travelled so far to be so cruelly dismissed.’
His paraphrasing of Winston Churchill’s famous blood, sweat and tears speech broadened her grin despite the serious business she wanted to discuss. ‘I was horrid, wasn’t I? Sorry about that.’
‘But you’re better now, Just Helen?’
‘Much better. By the way,’ she jerked her head towards the door, ‘your secretary said she’d bring you coffee in a minute.’
‘My wife, yes. Let’s hope she remembers to bring two. Shall we sit down?’
Sweetman’s office was small, and apart from the desk and the chairs, there was only a yucca plant in the corner and a row of steel-grey filing cabinets against the back wall. Everything looked as if it had been collected haphazardly from second-hand furniture shops, apart from the filing cabinets which appeared strong enough to withstand a terrorist attack. The shabbiness gave Helen a sense of being on an equal footing with him.
The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) Page 10