“I can’t imagine how you must have felt.”
“We were going out of our heads and the police wouldn’t even ask around. They made up their minds Scar was lying, and after that they never followed up on anything. They never even asked that stupid old cow Thomas for a description of the woman who snatched Rosie and said she’d found her in the park. We were nowhere near the park. We were in the supermarket—I’d gone back to get something we’d forgotten in the fruit and veg, and Scar turned her back for a second—a split second. We were still searching the shop when that woman brought her back and knocked on our door. And it was nothing like the two hours she’d said. It was ten minutes at most. Only no one believed us.”
“I believe you,” I said. I believed that Scarlet McFarlane wasn’t a neglectful mother, just like I believed that Alan Best wasn’t a paeodophile and I believed that Cloud Irving couldn’t be a drug dealer without her sisters knowing. This wasn’t the devil’s work, but it was just as evil.
“Thank you,” Scarlet said.
“And I’m sorry, because this must be very upsetting, but I’m going to have to ask you some questions.” She nodded for me to go ahead. “First, and please don’t jump up and storm off, but I need to ask you where you were on Monday night. And Tuesday too.”
Her eyes narrowed again, but she nodded and answered. “That’s easy,” she said. “I’ve got a bar job at nights. I was serving behind the bar at the Brig O’Dee. A hundred witnesses. I couldn’t get down to Glasgow on Tuesday. What happened on Monday?”
“Someone was chasing April Cowan all over the countryside down by Eden,” I said.
She swallowed hard and looked away from me. “I don’t like thinking about it,” she said. “It was a bad place. It was a bad place even before Mitchell died. It … It didn’t make sense.”
“Why did your parents send you there?”
“My dad had some kind of business dealings with Jacky Tarrant that owned it,” Scarlet said. “I think he got a good deal.”
“And Scar?” I asked. “Was that the same?”
“No, she was connected to the teacher,” said Scarlet. “She was some kind of second cousin or something. That’s right: Scar was Miss Naismith’s cousin’s daughter. Not a close connection, but Naismith must have put the word out that they could get discounted fees.” She stopped talking and stared into the distance, her eyes following the shoppers who were passing on the street. “Maybe Naismith thought she’d have an ally, her cousin’s kid and all that. And Scar was kinder to her than the rest of us. Well, Scar was kind to everyone, always. But she didn’t hold out at the end. When the hm-hm hit the fan.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That boy—Douglas, was it? Douglas Martin?”
“Duggie Morrison?” I said, and my heart was thumping the way it always did whenever the talk turned to him.
“He persuaded us to … what’s the expression? Drop Naismith in it. She nearly blew a gasket. I really thought she was going to give herself a stroke.”
“Scarlet, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I thought you knew what happened that night.”
“So did I,” I said.
We had been getting filthy looks through the window from the Caffé Nero baristas, because we’d been sitting there for ages and hadn’t bought a thing, so I left her lighting another cigarette and went to order. Two lattes and two pieces of the millionaire shortbread, whether she wanted one or not. She was strung out with all these painful memories and the sugar would be good for her.
“So,” I said, sitting down. “April the thirtieth to May the first, 1985. What really happened?”
“We cooked sausages,” Scarlet began. “They were really disgusting, and one of the kids—it was Stig, I think—had to make a run for the bogs but the rest of us just bedded down. All the weather girls, that’s these three—”
“I know,” I said. “I spoke to Rain and Sun this morning.”
“Okay, well, they were all zipped into the same sleeping bag and Scar and me were too, and we were teasing the boys about being too macho to cuddle in together and keep warm. It was bloody freezing for a spring night, that I do remember. Then, about eleven o’clock, Naismith came and asked us all if we wanted to go back in and sleep in our beds.”
“What?” I said. “She did come?”
Scarlet looked into her coffee cup and swirled it around for a while before answering. “Yeah, she came. Once, though, not twice like she said. We lied, but she lied too.”
“Why?”
“It was Duggie Morrison’s idea. When we realised that Moped had drowned, he said we would be blamed for it and that wasn’t fair because it wasn’t our fault. He said Naismith had left the gate open—we’d all heard a car—and then she’d gone and locked it. Covering up after herself. So we needed to make sure she was punished. So we all said she had left us out there. And she got done for it.”
“Wait!” I said. “Scarlet, wait! You’re saying Duggie Morrison put together this whole story when you realised Moped was drowned? When you saw Moped’s body on the way back to the school in the morning?”
“No,” she said. “When he fell in. It was about four o’clock, just getting light. We all woke up when we heard the car and then Duggie came back and told us that Moped was dead, in the water.”
My head was reeling. This was nothing like what Stig had told me.
“Why did you wait?” I said “Why didn’t you go back to the school right then and raise the alarm?”
“We didn’t want to get into trouble,” she said. “We knew it was too late for Mope. Alan Best was terrified. He thought his dad would kill him. We all thought if they knew Duggie was traipsing about the place and Moped was mucking about, we’d get blamed. So we decided to say we’d all been asleep, like little angels, and we didn’t know when Moped left or why. And we said nothing about the car because we didn’t think the cops would believe us. How can a car drive through a locked gate, you know?”
“But how did you know the gate was locked?”
“Duggie told us at four o’clock when he came back.”
“How did he know?”
Scarlet shrugged. “We were just getting our story all straight when Stig Tarrant came back from the bogs. So we all shut up and kept quiet and when it was a bit later, Duggie woke him up and tried the story out on him. He bought it hook, line, and sinker.”
“But why did you not trust Stig?” I said, starting to feel sick again.
“Because his dad owned the school,” said Scarlet, “and we thought he’d shop us.”
“So you said the teacher failed in her duty, when she didn’t?”
“But she did,” said Scarlet. “She did. She let someone drive out and locked the gate behind them. And she said she came back out after the first time when she didn’t. All we did was change the story of what she did wrong. So the cops would believe us.”
I couldn’t help shaking my head as I listened to her, and her eyes filled with tears.
“You ruined a lot of lives,” I said. “People couldn’t live with the guilt.”
“I know,” she said. Now the tears were falling. “Scar was one of them. When Rosie kept disappearing, she went kind of nuts. She started talking about the curse and about not taking care of Moped and how she was being punished for it. She even tried to get in touch with her cousin to say sorry. Can you imagine how that would have blown up?”
“Couldn’t she find her?”
Scarlet shook her head. “If only she’d been as hard to get in touch with when we were twelve as she was when we were seventeen,” she said. “Just think. Scar was from London. If it wasn’t for Eden, she would have stayed in London, and she’d still be alive.”
“But Rosie wouldn’t exist.”
“There’s no pain in not exis
ting,” Scarlet said. “I’ve lost her anyway.”
“And where would you be?” I said. “If there’d been no Eden.”
“Well, not working in a shoe shop and a pub in this tinpot town.”
“Why do you stay?”
“I stayed until Rosie’s eighteenth birthday in case she came looking for her mum. I thought it was better to be near. And then the last few years … I’ve got a girlfriend here and her kids are settled in their schools.” She gave me another smile. “I’m okay. I’m a damn sight better off than Mrs. Best.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “Sure, Alan Best killed himself, but he wasn’t the only one. Why did you pick his mother?”
“Don’t you know?” said Scarlet. “He’s Rosie’s biological father. He’s on the birth certificate. You should see your face!” She was laughing at me, but it was so good to see laughter in her eyes that I didn’t care. I couldn’t believe Lynne, with her love of gossip, had missed it.
“Alan Best,” I said. “How did that happen?”
“Party,” said Scarlet. “We were young and daft. It could have been either one of us that got knocked up, actually.” She laughed even harder, and I couldn’t blame her; goodness knows what my face looked like as I took that in.
“You know what happened to him, right? The rumours?”
“Yes. It was one of the few times I’ve been glad Scar was dead.”
“It wasn’t true,” I told her. “No one who knew him believes it.”
“Of course not,” she agreed.
“The only person who even half believes it is his mum, and that’s only because she’s so miserable. I don’t think she knows about Rosie. I’m sure she doesn’t. I don’t suppose you’ve got pictures, have you?”
“Only baby pictures,” said Scarlet. “Better than nothing, though, eh?”
I said goodbye soon after that and walked away. I hardly knew where I was going, dizzied by the thoughts whirling around in me. They had made up stories, hidden the truth—hidden a lot of what the police needed to know to find out what really happened that night. And then what?
Did one of them finally realise the power they held? If one of them threatened to change their story, they could have blackmailed everyone else into—
I brought myself up short. One of them had started changing her story. April had finally told Stig she’d heard the car. When everyone else had been hurt beyond the reach of more pain—when Jo-jo and Alan and Nathan and Edmund and Scar were gone, when Sun and Rain had lost their beloved sister, and Scarlet had lost her first love and their baby—April had turned to Stig to back her up before she confronted … I had to face it.
Before she confronted Duggie.
Duggie, who knew what the other kids thought of him. Duggie, who masterminded the story of poor frightened children out in the dark and put all the focus on the teacher and the school. Duggie, who had managed to make the others say he was in his sleeping bag, when in fact he was somewhere in the woods when Moped died (and he knew about that first too, with plenty of time to make up a story). Duggie, my husband, who had fooled me into thinking I was lucky. Duggie, who was so far from the great guy he pretended to be that a son like Nicky was just a dent in his pride, not a blessing.
I was back at my car. I got in and sat staring out through the windscreen.
But Duggie had an alibi for Tuesday night when April Cowan was moved. He had been with Zöe. Could I trust that? I asked myself, and decided that I could. A wife might lie for her husband, but a new girlfriend wouldn’t tell a lie like that for a man she’d just met and hardly knew. Only she did seem to have fallen for him. And it hadn’t taken him long to get his hooks into me all those years ago. I lowered my head and rested it against the steering wheel. It pounded right behind my eyes when I leaned forward and deep in towards the back when I sat up again. I couldn’t do this on my own. I needed Stig to help me.
Twenty-Nine
How I got home without driving off the road I’ll never know. It was dark before I was bumping down the track to Rough House, and when I tried to get out of the car and stand up, I found myself bent over like a crone, my arms set stiff from gripping the wheel so hard and my clutch foot cramping. I hobbled towards the back door as Stig opened it.
He took a step back, his eyes flaring with fear.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“Gloria?” he said, stepping forward again. “I didn’t recognise you.”
I put my hand up and brushed my hair away from where it was hanging over my face. I was so exhausted I’d forgotten.
“What else is wrong?” I said.
“Oh, Glo,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell you … it’s Walter.”
I shouldered past him into the kitchen, dropped my bag at my feet, and rushed over. Walter was lying stretched out in his basket in front of the stove. In the low light I couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
“Is he gone?” I said.
“No,” said Stig. “But he’s been really bad since lunchtime. He was having fits, but the vet came and gave him a jag to stop them.”
“You phoned the vet?” I said. “Stig, you’re supposed to be hiding!”
“But if you’d seen him,” said Stig. “Nobody could have sat and watched. And anyway, it’s nearly over, isn’t it? We’re getting to the end now.”
I got down onto my knees, still stiff, beside Walter and laid my hand on his side. Now I could tell that he was breathing, shallow but laboured, and his fur felt hot.
“Didn’t the vet ask who you were?” I said. “Was it Mandeep?”
“I said I was a friend,” said Stig. “He was only worried about Walter, really.”
“I’ve got to talk to you,” I said. There was silence for a minute and then Stig spoke up, almost laughing.
“Me?” he said. “I thought you were talking to him. I think he’s dying, Glo.”
And yet I managed to turn my back on him and look at Stig. This was the thing I had been dreading, the second worst thing that could happen: Walter going before Miss Drumm.
“He’s had a good life,” I said. “And this is a pretty good death too. When my time comes it’ll do me. Listen, Stig, I really need to lay this all out in front of you because I think I know who’s behind it. And I think you know too. I think you’ve known all along.”
“Yeah,” said Stig. “But I couldn’t face knowing, so I just … unknew. Does that make any sense?”
It makes more sense to me than it possibly could to anyone, I thought. I spent my life doing just that, just way he described it, all day every day. What didn’t make any sense was why Stig would have any trouble facing the truth about Duggie. Unless because the shock of it or maybe the shame of it would floor me.
I made him tea, put a tot of whisky in it, and told him everything. How Moped followed Duggie that night, how Cloud Irving died, how Scar McFarlane died, how Duggie had tried the gate lock, how Miss Naismith had checked on the kids and Duggie had made up a story. He listened in silence until the end, but then he shook his head.
“She didn’t check,” he said. “I know she didn’t. I don’t know why Scarlet said she did.”
“Stig, Scarlet had no reason to lie to me about it,” I said. “I trust her. Look, maybe Miss Naismith didn’t come and bang on the latrine door, maybe she fell short by that much, but she did go out to check on the other kids. You wouldn’t know. You weren’t there.”
He waited a while before he spoke again.
“I wasn’t in the bog either,” he said. “I’m sorry, Gloria. I lied to you.”
“Why?” I said. Then all of a sudden I thought I knew. “Oh my God.” The words fell out of me like clods of mud. “It was you, wasn’t it? It’s you.” I scrambled to my feet and backed towards the door. “You got close to me to kill me, thinking you’d hurt Duggie that way, didn’t you? You killed all of them, didn’t yo
u? Picked them all off one by one and now it’s my turn.”
“Gloria, you’re disturbing Walter,” he said.
“And you killed my dog!” I shouted. “What did you give him? What did you do?”
He stood up very slowly and snapped on the light above the stove. Keeping eye contact with me all the time, he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He reached forward and held it out to me. I reached forward too and snatched it, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from his face to look and see what it was. He put his hands on his head and backed away to the far wall.
“You’re safe,” he said. “Read it.”
I dropped my eyes and scanned the sheet as quickly as I could. Then I let all my breath go. It was a vet’s bill, Mandeep Bhullar’s signature along the bottom, with a note. Looks like the end of the road, Gloria. You did well. Love, M.
“So,” said Stig. “Let’s sit down, stop freaking out Walter, and face the facts. I’ve never wanted to be wrong about something more than I want to be wrong about this, but no more denial, eh? It’s time to tell the true story.”
“Once I’m changed,” I said. “My feet are killing me and my head feels weird.”
When we were settled and I was plaiting my hair, grips in my mouth and brush in my lap, he spoke again.
“I know Naismith didn’t go out to check on the kids at eleven o’clock,” he said, “because I was at her cabin hiding outside, trying to decide whether to go and talk to her. I got there about ten o’clock and sat there until I woke up at four. And she was inside, Glo. She was playing music and she had a bath. I heard her.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why were you there? What did you want to talk to her about?”
“I really don’t want to tell you,” Stig said. “I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to tell you.”
The Child Garden Page 24