In Her Shadow

by Douglas, Louise

  He smiled bashfully. ‘I’ve booked two tickets to New York on the early-morning flight.’

  I could see this was a good plan but I did not like it.

  ‘What about me?’ I asked.

  ‘Good point,’ said Jago. ‘You could be our back-up at the party. You could keep an eye on the Psycho and distract him if he looks like he’s going after Ellen.’

  That had not been what I meant at all. My eyes filled with tears and I chewed at a nail, but Jago didn’t notice.

  ‘I must make sure Ellen understands what she needs to do,’ he said. ‘I have to see her and talk about the plans with her. She won’t be able to pack or anything. It would be too risky. But she can have some of your things, can’t she, Hannah? You don’t mind?’

  I turned my head away.

  Jago noticed something was wrong then. He leaned over and punched me gently.

  ‘Oh come on, Spanner, don’t be sad. I’ll make it up to you one day,’ he said. ‘I promise I will. We both will.’

  Jago washed noisily that evening in the bathroom, leaving splashes of water all over the windowledge and the floor. He washed his face and under his arms with a flannel. He rinsed his beautiful copper-red hair under the cold tap, and shook his head like a dog. He went into his room with a towel around his shoulders, shut the door and put on some music, and stayed there until our parents were asleep. But I heard him go out at midnight. I heard and I ached with worry, because I knew it would only take one small thing to go against them, one glance from a window, one cough, one creaking floorboard – and they would be caught and that would be the end of everything.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  I was still awake when I heard Jago opening the back door less than two hours after he had left. I slipped out of bed, tiptoed past the half-open door to my parents’ bedroom, and went downstairs as quickly and as quietly as I could. Jago was in the kitchen, naked apart from his jeans, examining cuts and grazes on his left arm and shoulder. He looked terrible, as if he had been dragged through a hedge of thorns. There were leaves in his hair, and his jeans and hands and feet were bloody and filthy.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I gasped. ‘Where’s your shirt? And your shoes?’

  He didn’t look up as he answered, ‘The Psycho heard us.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘I got out the window but I couldn’t hold on. I fell. I think …’ Jago winced as his fingers touched a deep cut on his back ‘… I think he saw me in the garden.’

  ‘Did he recognize you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Ellen,’ I whispered. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’ll be OK. He thought I was trying to break in. He didn’t realize I was on the way out.’

  ‘What if he calls the police? Here, let me do that.’ I took a wad of damp cotton wool from Jago and washed the grit from a wound at the back of his shoulder.

  Jago winced again. ‘He already did. As I came home through the woods, I saw the patrol car go by on the lane.’

  Jago groaned. I gave him a gentle slap to make him turn his shoulder.

  ‘What will you say if the police come knocking on our door?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Mum and Dad will go mental.’

  ‘I’ll just deny I ever left the house. You’ll back me up, won’t you, Hannah? You’ll say I was here all the time?’

  Of course I would. I’d give him an alibi just like I always did. I had a pang of longing to be away, somewhere else, somewhere big and hot and different where people didn’t have to lie.

  ‘God, you’re a mess, Jago Cardell,’ I said as my brother’s blood turned the wet tissue a sickly pale pink.

  ‘It could have been worse,’ said Jago.

  ‘How could it have been worse?’

  ‘The Psycho was pointing a shotgun at me through the window.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  IT WAS A beautiful drive from Berlin to Magdeburg, the road following the wide river, and the city, with its mixture of old and new architecture, slowly unspreading itself before us. John told me that it had been heavily bombed in the war. He said the city and its people had suffered terribly. He talked about the reunification of Germany, and a colleague of his who worked at Magdeburg University, and I half-listened … but I wasn’t really interested. I was fizzing with excitement and nerves at the prospect of seeing Schloss Marien, the place that had been so central to Ellen’s life.

  We found the entrance to the grounds easily enough, but it was a private road, protected by large, wrought-iron security gates. Stone pillars stood on either side, and two Gothic wild boar lying on top frowning at us rather comically over their tusks. Trees in full leaf completely hid the view. John got out of the car and opened the map out on its roof.

  ‘We might be able to see something from up there,’ he said, indicating a vantage-point. I couldn’t follow the map, but I trusted him. He turned the car round and looped back along the main road, parking in a picnic area at the bottom of the hill on whose slopes the house was built.

  We walked together up a wide and well-trodden footpath, beneath a canopy of broad-leaved branches. Squirrels ran above our heads and there was birdsong, and sunlight dappling our way. It was very lovely. The air was fresh and although I was still nervous, I felt peaceful, as if I had been meant to come to this place.

  John strode out ahead of me. ‘I have to say, this is better than being stuck in a conference room,’ he said.

  I suspected he was worrying about what he was missing and how he would justify his absence to his colleagues, but didn’t want me to feel bad about it.

  After that, he didn’t say much, and I too was lost in my thoughts. The path grew narrower, the climb steeper. I took off my jumper and tied it around my waist. My scalp was hot and I wished I’d brought something to fasten my hair back with. I wondered if Ellen had played in these woods as a little girl. Probably she had. Anne Brecht loved nature. She would have brought Ellen here for walks and picnics. Had Ellen come back to the forest when she was a teenager, knowing she was already pregnant? Had she walked up this path on her own? God, she must have been so lonely here, motherless and cut off from Jago, with her little secret growing inside her.

  We had reached the top of the hill. I leaned over, panting, my hands on my knees. My legs were aching with the exertion but it was a good sensation.

  ‘Hannah!’ John called. ‘Come and look at this!’

  I followed him over to a gap in the trees where a bench hewn from a fallen trunk overlooked the valley below. We could see for miles. There, on the slopes, was Schloss Marien, a rambling set of buildings set in well-ordered gardens that gave way to fields and meadows. The river curled in a u-shape around the estate like a giant, green-grey ribbon.

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘It’s some place.’

  ‘Ellen always said …’ I began, but I trailed off. I had never entirely believed the stories of her life in Magdeburg. The Schloss had sounded too much like the setting for a fairy tale.

  There was no moat or drawbridge, and no dungeon. It certainly wasn’t the turreted, fairy-tale castle that Ellen had described to me as a child, but the main house was three storeys high, with the top set of windows looking out from amongst the red roof tiles. It was grand, but it had a friendly, haphazard look to it, as if buildings had been added on over the years without too much thought for aesthetics. Standing on the hill, looking down, I had a strong sense of déjà vu. It was Ellen, I thought, standing at my shoulder, looking with me. I held onto the trunk of a tree, rested against it and gazed down, taking it all in. I was certain, absolutely certain, that Ellen had stood where I was standing now, in this exact same spot, beside the same tree. The feeling was so strong that I thought if I reached out my hand behind me, Ellen would take it in hers, and hold on to me. I missed her. I missed her with all my heart. For a moment the grief was unbearable.

  ‘Hannah?’ John said. ‘Are you O
K?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Do you think the Brecht family might still live there?’

  ‘I don’t see why they shouldn’t,’ John replied. ‘Not unless they had some financial misfortune and had to sell. These kinds of places tend to stay in the family.’

  I sat down on the bench, trying to take it all in. Below, in the grounds of the house, somebody was sitting on a ride-on mower, making stripes in the grass on the lawned areas to either side of the drive. The drone of the machine’s engine drifted up to us through the air. It was indistinct, but I thought I could also hear music coming from inside the house, just snatches of it every now and then when the wind was coming in our direction. I could have been mistaken. Several cars were parked in the courtyard beside the house.

  ‘Someone’s coming out,’ said John.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Down there, at the side. Someone’s coming out into the garden.’

  I craned forward to look, and he was right. We were too far away to see clearly, but it was obvious that the person was a woman. She was slender, with dark, shoulder-length hair. Everything about her was absolutely familiar to me.

  I reached out and took hold of John’s arm.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘You can see that woman, can’t you?’

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Then she’s real, she’s not in my mind?’

  ‘I’d say she’s definitely real.’

  I turned to look at him.

  ‘That’s her, John,’ I said. ‘That’s Ellen Brecht.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  I HARDLY SLEPT and was up at dawn the next morning, anxiously waiting for it to be late enough for me to go to Thornfield House to make sure that Ellen was all right and to collect Jago’s clothes.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter with you two this morning?’ Mum asked as she scrambled eggs, clattering away at the side of the pan with her fork. ‘Jago was out of the house before the birds were up and now you’re jumping about like you’ve got ants in your pants.’

  ‘I just want to see Ellen,’ I said. ‘I want to check she’s all ready for her party.’

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Ahh,’ said Mum. She scraped the eggs onto toast and passed me the plate. ‘Who’s going to this party then?’

  ‘Family mainly, I think. I expect the German relatives will be coming over.’

  ‘I dare say that’ll be it,’ Mum nodded.

  I had no appetite but I ate to stop Mum from nagging, and as soon as I’d finished my breakfast, I walked up to Thornfield House. My heart was pounding in my chest as I rang the doorbell. Mrs Todd answered. Her face was pinched and tense.

  ‘Ellen is in the garden,’ she said, standing aside to let me pass. Since the day at the clinic, Mrs Todd and I had been awkward with one another. It was the burden of sharing a guilty secret; but I knew something else was wrong that day, something extra.

  I walked through the house into the back room, through the French windows and into the garden. It was early, and not warm, but Ellen was sitting on a chair beneath the frondy branches of the willow tree, reading. I could tell by her posture that nothing was right. Her back was straight, her shoulders rigid, all her angles were sharp. Her father sat beside her, cleaning his gun. I baulked at the sight of it, then stepped forward again.

  ‘Hello!’

  Mr Brecht looked up at me, then, without acknowledgement, looked down and continued his work.

  I sat on the chair beside Ellen. She was breathing strangely, panting almost.

  ‘OK?’ I asked. She gave the tiniest of nods and turned a page of her book.

  ‘Somebody tried to break into our house last night, Hannah,’ said Mr Brecht. ‘Isn’t that strange? Aren’t we unlucky to have attracted the attention of yet another intruder?’

  ‘How awful,’ I said. The words sounded all wrong; artificial, not convincing. ‘Was it a burglar?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Brecht. ‘But he was trying to take something, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Papa called the police,’ Ellen said in a loud, brittle voice. ‘They think it was unpremeditated. Just some lad walking by who thought he’d take his chance.’

  ‘What do you think of that, Hannah?’ Mr Brecht asked, smiling at me as if he could see right into my soul. I was afraid to say anything. He would know if I was telling the truth or a lie, I was certain of it.

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  ‘Strangest thing was,’ said Mr Brecht, sticking a long, thin brush down the barrel of the gun and pumping it up and down viciously, ‘this opportunist wasn’t wearing a shirt. Don’t you think that’s odd, Hannah?’

  ‘It was warm last night, Papa,’ Ellen said.

  Mr Brecht raised a disbelieving eyebrow as if he thought his daughter could hardly have come up with a less likely explanation. If the situation wasn’t so terrible, I thought, it would be funny.

  ‘Or shoes,’ he said.

  Now I was afflicted with a terrible urge to laugh. The feeling came over me all at once and the more I fought it, the stronger it was. I wrapped my arms around my waist and leaned over, trying to suppress the feeling.

  ‘Are you all right, Hannah?’ Mr Brecht asked. ‘Ellen, take her inside and get her a drink.’

  We went upstairs, and I threw myself face down on the bed, laughing uncontrollably. I couldn’t stop. Tears were streaming down my face, and it was only when I heard an enormous bang that I managed to swallow the hysteria. I sat up straight then, wiping my face with my sleeves.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked, as gunshots boomed through the early-morning air, shattering the quiet, rousing every nerve in my body. The ugly noise ricocheted around the room, bouncing off the walls.

  ‘Oh God, Ellen, is that your father? What’s he doing?’

  ‘Shooting rabbits.’

  ‘Killing them?’

  She nodded. ‘Target practice.’

  We stared at one another. I sniffed.

  ‘You need to go,’ Ellen said. ‘Go now while he’s out in the field.’ She dived under her bed and emerged with a large carrier bag. ‘It’s Jago’s things,’ she said. ‘Get them out of here.’

  I took the bag, saying, ‘Did Jago have a chance to tell you last night about his plan? Do you know what you have to do at the party?’

  Ellen nodded.

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’

  Ellen pulled a face, hugged herself and shivered. ‘He knows something, Papa does. He keeps saying stuff.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘Sly little remarks and comments.’

  ‘But he’s always been like that. He’s always trying to catch you out.’

  ‘I know – but this is different. Even before last night … I don’t know what he knows, but he knows something.’

  ‘Do you think he recognized Jago last night?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ellen bit her lower lip. Her arms were wrapped around herself and she jiggled up and down. ‘What if he did, Hannah? What if he was watching and waiting? What if he saw Jago climb out of my window? What if he saw him climb in?’

  ‘He probably didn’t,’ I said without much conviction.

  But he might have done. Ellen was right. He might have done anything. I stood up and put my arms around her, pulling her to me. She rested her head on my shoulder. We looked out through the window and in the field over the road we saw Mr Brecht raise the gun to eye-level and take aim.

  ‘I hate him,’ Ellen whispered.

  ‘It’ll soon be over,’ I said, stroking her head. ‘Just a couple more days and you’ll be away from here for ever. You’ll be free. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  THE MOMENT I saw Ellen, a little breeze blew up on top of the hill and wafted my hair across my face. It was soothing and soft – it made me feel as if I was where I had always been supposed to be.

  ‘Are you all right, Hannah?’ John asked.
/>   I nodded.

  John sat on the bench beside me. He rested his elbows on his knees and turned a twig between his fingers.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I said, ‘but she’s there. That’s her. What should we do?’

  ‘Perhaps we should sit here a minute and think about this.’

  The sweet breeze cooled my face on the hilltop, and down below, the same breeze lifted her hair. John and I watched as she pulled up a chair on the terrace, by the fountain, and then another. She went back inside the house and returned shortly with a straw hat on her head, and a book in her hand. Another woman followed behind, a tall, short-haired woman. I couldn’t be certain, but she looked to me like Tante Karla. The two women appeared to be laughing. After a few moments, a third person came out to join them and they all sat down together.

  ‘She looks happy,’ I whispered. ‘She looks all right.’

  I looked to John for confirmation and he smiled at me. He brushed his fringe out of his eyes.

  ‘Hannah, you know that can’t be Ellen.’

  ‘It’s her. My hunch was right. She never died.’

  I gazed down again. I felt as if I were looking into a different world, a world where a dead girl could be alive again, where she could be happy, where her life could play out in safety, away from anything that could hurt her. I had the feeling that, if I took my eyes from her, Ellen would disappear. She would be gone from me, for ever this time.

  Perhaps, I thought, we didn’t need to do anything more. We had come to Magdeburg, I had seen Ellen. God knows how, or why, but she was there and now I knew she was there, maybe the best thing would be to leave her in peace, and go back to my life and forget her.

  Only I could not do that.

  ‘Oh John,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I could bear to lose her again.’

  I stood up, and I knew what I had to do. I turned back to the path and began to walk downhill; after a moment, my footsteps quickened and I broke into a run.