by Carol Smith
Sam was stunned. He raced downstairs to the kitchen, hoping she’d left a note, but of course there was nothing. The fridge, now he came to look properly, was empty too, stripped of most of the things he had bought last night, in his big Sainsbury’s stock-up for the long weekend.
She had gone. There was no doubt about it. He glanced round the living room door, still searching for a note or something, to be confronted by a gaping blank where the television once stood. It was also the end of the month, he realized, and she owed them a quarter’s rent.
• • •
Duncan was waiting on the doorstep of The West Australian first thing next morning, his authorization to use their library in his hand. Another old school friend, Barry, had done the honors. One thing about returning to your roots, it was a hell of a lot easier to pull favors on the old pals’ network.
He quickly located the appropriate file and settled down to read. And there it all was, spread sickeningly across the front pages—headline after headline screaming the details of the child murderer who had escaped, only to be recaptured by the police after a weekend’s rampage involving a pair of sailors. And there, indeed, was Sally Brown, sixteen years old but still recognizable in her stark convent uniform with the honeyed hair cut short and severe. He drew a sharp breath. Until this moment it hadn’t seemed possible, but here was irrefutable evidence. He had been right to have qualms; even in handcuffs, surrounded by mean-faced cops, the expression was the same, the seraphic smile with the fuck-you look in the eyes he recognized only too well.
• • •
Richard Brooke rang as Beth was unpacking the groceries. Early-evening sunlight slanted across the kitchen table and Bruch’s violin concerto was playing on the stereo. Beth wore a long T-shirt over leggings and wonderful thonged sandals she had picked up for a song last year in Tuscany. She felt terrific. It was the start of a holiday weekend and, for once in her life, she had nothing in the world to hurry for.
“Hi, sweetie, how’s it going?” she said, sorting chickpeas and sun-dried tomatoes and coconut milk ready for stacking on the appropriate shelves. Organized, was Beth, at least where her cooking was concerned. She nibbled at a piece of Brie and debated whether the phone wire would stretch as far as the fridge, so that she could pour herself a drink while she gossiped.
“I’m off to the south of France,” he told her.
“For how long?”
“Forever. It was your idea.”
“Hang on while I get myself a drink,” she said. “I certainly need it after that!”
It was all her fault, he told her, for putting the idea into his head in the first place, and now everything was fixed. The studio was sold, along with most of his paintings, and he was off to Perpignan at the crack of dawn to become a tax exile and live a rural life.
“Perpignan’s not exactly away from it all,” protested Beth, her heart sinking at the prospect of no longer having him within easy reach.
“Come with me!” he said, as he’d said before, and she knew he really meant it.
“Sweetie, I’d love to but I’ve other things to do,” she replied, sipping her wine. Richard was charming and talented and kind but his treacle-colored eyes were not the eyes she yearned for.
“You beast,” she said, “fancy leaving without a proper good-bye. I would have given you a party or, at the very least, a farewell dinner.”
“I know you would,” he laughed. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. You’re altogether too generous, lady, and I insist you spend whole summers with me once I’m settled, so that I can repay some of your hospitality.”
She would, she said, and wished him loads of luck.
“Be sure to ring,” she said, “as soon as you’re connected so that we can keep up the gossip.”
Imagine, Beth thought to herself, as she went on stashing the food, that’s the last of my inner circle left town for this long weekend. Apart, of course, from Sally. And I wonder what’s happened to her.
• • •
Duncan still sat at the library table, his head in his hands, unable to believe what he had just been reading. All the papers carried details of the notorious jailbreak, and the unrepentant young sinner who had raved her way across half a continent before being caught and returned to the nuns to finish her sentence. What they did not reveal was the severity of her punishment, details of which were concealed in the file locked in the drawer of the Mother Superior. To some extent he could see her point; the girl was a reprobate and entirely beyond control. But such an act seemed excessive, even for a murderer, and a serial one at that.
The crime itself, the part his mother had flatly refused to discuss, was also here in all its lurid details. It preceded the escape by six years and covered acres of newsprint. Duncan was sickened but quite unable to stop; on and on he read in fascinated horror when all the time he should have been scrambling for a phone.
This was the story he read: a ten-year-old girl, Sally O’Leary, had murdered her two young brothers on the family farm outside Wagga Wagga by sticking them ritually to death in an outhouse where her father had earlier been slaughtering pigs. She had then calmly returned home, in the middle of the afternoon, while her father and his men were tractoring a distant field, and murdered her mother too. She had hit her over the head with a brick tied up in a stocking, then finished her off, as she lay wounded on the floor, by tipping a cauldron of scalding jam over her. She was still there in the kitchen, laughing and calmly eating a piece of bread and jam, just as if nothing had happened, when a neighbor dropped by.
Duncan felt totally nauseated and had to go outside for a while to walk in the courtyard in the fresh morning air until the faint dizziness had passed. Could this be their Sally, this monstrous child? It seemed beyond belief but the photographs were there to prove it. Small wonder she had changed her name, even though by now she had served her sentence and was legitimately free.
There was more. She was underage but still went on trial, the family lawyers putting up a defense of unfitness to plead due to insanity. But the town officials, appalled by the crime and the bad publicity it engendered, had done something unprecedented and hired themselves the best criminal psychologist they could find to come in and examine the patient. They had done it, it transpired, with the full consent of her shattered father.
He was expensive, he was American, but he had done an excellent job. After weeks of intensive interviews and tests he had come to a terrible conclusion, based on his years of expertise in the field of criminal pathology. There was no question of insanity or of her mind being temporarily unbalanced. There was no evidence she was anything but sane. She was guilty, he said, of the most heinous crimes he had ever encountered and, furthermore, she showed not an ounce of remorse. It had taken the judge and jury only a few hours to agree on a unanimous verdict.
“Guilty!” they had thundered, and Sally O’Leary had been sent down for the longest period on record for a child.
“The most savage crime I have ever encountered,” the criminal psychologist was quoted as saying after the trial. “Just once in a hundred years a child is born that is pure evil; perfectly sane but without conscience or soul. Sally O’Leary is just such a one and ought rightly to be destroyed before she can do further harm.”
There he stood, outside the courthouse, surrounded by reporters and cameramen, holding in his arms his own small daughter for the sake of the world’s press. Emmanuel Kirsch, handsomer then even than now, with hair raven black—and Georgy, cute as a button in a red pixie hood trimmed with white fur, just five years old.
“My God,” said Duncan, coming at last to his senses. “I have to warn Beth!”
Chapter Fifty-two
Philomena Jenkins, glistening with goodwill and with a smile as wide as her hips, progressed along All Saints Road at the stately rate of three conversations for each ten houses, slapping palms, calling out greetings; letting the world know she was finally returned from Bridgetown, having successfully birthed her latest
grandchild, her eighth.
“Yo there, Philomena,” they greeted her, with smiles as wide as hers. “You back then?”
“You be sure of that,” she beamed, gold tooth flashing. “Another fine boychild for my Josephine, an’ now she can raise it alone, along with the rest.”
“So you didn’t linger for the fine hot winter?”
“You’m crazy, man. I be back for Caan-ival. Can’t have Caan-ival without Philomena. Wouldn’t be proper, now.”
And cackling with pure happiness she continued to patrol her route, her janitor’s keys jangling from the rope she used as a makeshift belt, comfortable straw sandals flipflopping from her feet. Three months she’d been gone and not even the company of all those children and their own children had stopped her pining just a little. For Philomena was happy to turn her back on the sunshine and golden sand of the island of her birth to return to the rain-soaked streets of London, the London she now called her own.
She stopped outside a gaunt house with peeling paint and selected a key as she slowly mounted the steps.
“Lawdy me,” she breathed as she stepped into the musty, rubbish-strewn hallway and inhaled the familiar scents of faded pee and stale cat. “Can’t leave them to cope alone for a minute,” she muttered, clumping heavily up the stairs toward the first of her tenants’ flats.
The stench on the first landing was considerably stronger, exuding from the floor above where that nice young drummer had lived for two years and never given her an ounce of trouble. Off on the road, they had told her; touring Ireland with a reggae band and probably left his fridge full and unplugged, in that switched-off way creative people had. Philomena shook her head as she sorted through her keys. She was well used to cleaning up around her boys; after the number of children she had raised it was purely second nature.
Joe’s door unlocked with one turn of the key, which was odd considering how highly he valued his drum kit. She pushed open the door and went inside, squinting into the dimness because a bedspread had been pinned across the window, cutting out most of the light. At first she thought the room was empty. There were glasses on the table and a full ashtray, and a strong sweetness on the air as if he had lately been burning joss sticks.
Then she saw the mass on the mattress which she took at first for a tangle of old clothes but which slowly assumed the form of a man, lying—arms flung wide—staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Philomena sighed as she stared down into the gasping face of her favorite streetboy. With his eyes rolled back, displaying the whites, he looked as though he were grinning.
Until she saw that beneath the buzzing dark mass, his throat had been skillfully slashed from ear to ear.
Chapter Fifty-three
The Carnival, of course. She had quite forgotten. The muffled beat of distant drums that greeted Beth’s ears as she stood at her open window was simply the sound of all those West Indian neighbors warming up for the biggest steel band event of the year. For once it looked like they were getting the weather for it, too. It was nine o’clock but the sun was already high and the sky a wonderful Wedgwood blue with not a hint of a cloud in sight.
Beth unlocked the kitchen door which led into the garden and propped it open with a brick to let the warm air circulate. Then she made herself a pot of coffee, picking up the newspapers from the mat, and carried them into the living room to indulge herself in a solitary breakfast. Though she lived in a constant frenzy, surrounded by other people, being alone was still a private luxury, a rare and exquisite pleasure to be savored slowly. Two more empty days stretched ahead of her, with nothing whatever to hurry for, no commitments of any kind except to pamper herself a little and unwind.
She stretched out her suntanned feet and noticed the varnish was chipped. She would finish her breakfast, have a laze in the tub, then make that batch of crabapple jelly and get it out of the way. After that, and a midmorning Bloody Mary in the garden, she would fix a light lunch and watch the omnibus edition of EastEnders. Then she’d have a nap, give herself a thorough pedicure, and perhaps stroll up the road and join in the Carnival festivities for a while. Delicious. This was life as she loved to live it—occasionally. Beth’s greatest privilege was that she was never lonely; indeed not often enough alone. She knew she was lucky. Weekends alone through necessity must be a different matter entirely.
She had gone a bit wild in the market yesterday and bought up all the crabapples they had, but she loved the consistency of the clear, sparkling jelly and could always give away any jars she did not need; they made useful and attractive Christmas presents. She poured the apples into two huge plastic mixing bowls, put a Barbara Cook CD on the hi-fi, and set to work to pick them over while a cauldron of water heated slowly on the Aga. This was the sort of mindless labor she found therapeutic, normally undertaken by Deirdre.
She smiled as she thought of Deirdre and her squabbling kids on the Isle of Wight; at least they were getting a bit of fine weather, which meant they would not be cooped up inside. Imogen too. Jersey at this time of year was always great and Gus the best possible company anyone, young or old, could ask for. It was odd not to have the child around for once, constantly asking questions and getting in her way, but something she would have to get used to as Imogen grew older and headed more into a life of her own. As it was, she had borrowed one of her mother’s silk shirts and Beth had even caught her rooting around in her tights drawer, about to filch a pair of her best ten deniers.
“You won’t need tights in Jersey, certainly not in this weather.”
“Mu-um.” The eternal cry.
“Well, at least take something a bit more substantial. Those fine ones won’t last you a second, the way you go through them.”
They had compromised on Lycra with a satin finish and Imogen left, well pleased. Kids. She’d certainly miss her when she finally flew the nest.
If only Duncan were here, what paradise it would be to have him all to herself for once. She smiled as she thought about him and, right on cue, Barbara Cook swung into “I’m in the Mood for Love.” She wondered when he’d be back, whether he’d think to call her over the holiday weekend if he knew she were here alone—she couldn’t remember what she had told him. Outside, the reggae music was growing louder, with the urgent beat she always found so stirring, and soon the decorated floats would be on the move. She must get down there in time to see them properly this year.
The telephone rang. It was Sally, the first time she had checked in for several days.
“Sweetie!” said Beth in delight. “Where are you? I’ve been so worried, you seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth.”
Sally explained she had been moving house. It was a sudden decision, as usual done on the spur of the moment, but she’d save the details until they met. No, she wasn’t doing a thing this weekend, now that she’d sorted herself out more or less, and yes, lunch was a great idea.
Terrific, thought Beth, speeding up the fruit-picking process. Sally was exactly the extra something she needed to spice up the weekend. They could have a salad in the garden, then mosey on over to the Carnival together, which would be far more fun than doing it alone. How my resolutions crumble, she thought. But that was the joy of the single life, flexibility, and Sally was, after all, one of her dearest friends.
• • •
Duncan got through at last, to his infinite relief. Connections from Western Australia were not always as instant as they might be and there had been some trouble on the line which had kept him trying on and off for several hours. It was ten o’clock at night in Perth, which meant noon in London. She was bound to be home on a Sunday morning and, in a way, the delay was good since he didn’t want to scare her unduly. Just alert her to be on her guard.
Beth was overjoyed to hear his voice and ran to turn down the volume of the music. The fruit and cloves were simmering gently and could be left alone for a while, certainly as long as she chatted to Duncan.
He began carefully, protective of her feelings, and told her firs
t the good news about his father: that the pacemaker had gone in safely, which meant he would soon be making tracks for home.
“That’s wonderful!” cried Beth, a touch teary at the sheer relief of hearing his voice. “I just can’t wait, it’s been so long.”
“I know.”
He could picture her there in her kitchen, probably with something simmering on the stove, brown and healthy and reliable, so infinitely dear. He ached to be there with her, to hold her in his arms and breathe the fragrance of her healthy skin. After that, he meant to make sure they were never, ever apart again; he had wasted too much time as it was. But he still had other things to tell her; it was time he got to the point.
“Beth,” he said slowly, “listen to me. There is something you need to know but I don’t want to rattle you unduly.”
“Oh dear, that does sound serious,” said Beth gaily. And then, distinctly, he heard her doorbell ring.
“Hang on, that’s the door. It’s only Sal. Wait while I let her in.”
Sally stood on the doormat in her familiar garb of check shirt and jeans, her arms full of lilies which she handed to Beth with a radiant smile. They kissed.
“Lovie, how marvelous! It’s great to see you. Quick follow me through. Duncan’s on the line and he’s about to tell me something terribly important.”
She sprinted on bare feet back into the kitchen but when she picked up the dangling receiver, she found they were no longer connected.
• • •
“You just caught me.”
Oliver was literally out of the door, suitbag in hand, when he heard the phone and went back in to answer it. With Vivienne gone for the whole three days, he was taking advantage of her absence for a little unscheduled dallying with his latest inamorata in Henley. Duncan sounded tense and urgent so he cut the cackle and listened. It only took a couple of minutes and Oliver was set to go.