by Emily Gunnis
Jessie bit her lip. ‘I keep thinking of you walking downstairs and finding your mum. You were thirteen. Did the police offer you any kind of counselling?’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘No, it was a different world back then, they interviewed me at the police station right after it had happened, without a chaperone even. The policeman, Detective Gibbs, wouldn’t even let me use the bathroom. I was sick all over him in the end.’
‘But that can’t have been police procedure. It was 1960, not the middle ages,’ said Jessie.
‘What could I do? I had no one. Ted Roberts was a nice man, but he was an alcoholic, he wasn’t about to start complaining to the police.’ Jessie was looking at her intently. Rebecca no longer feared that she would walk out at any minute but this moment of togetherness she had craved all her life was taking its toll on her.
‘I’m just going to get myself a glass of water. Would you like one?’ said Rebecca.
‘No, thanks,’ said Jessie, and returned her attention to the cuttings.
Rebecca stood and walked through to the kitchen, running the tap to fill a glass then splashing some cold water over her face. She took a few deep breaths, and caught her reflection in the mirror. She felt and looked exhausted.
When she returned to the sitting room, Jessie looked up. ‘So when you had me, and you started to hear the voice of this policeman, Detective Gibbs, what did the staff at the hospital say?’
Jessie had obviously moved on from that night and was keen to talk about what had happened when she was born. Rebecca’s brain felt like it was going into shock, being made to recall events she normally forbade it to remind her of.
‘The hospital didn’t know. Nobody knew, except Harvey.’
Jessie frowned. ‘You hid how you were feeling? From the midwives and everyone?’
Rebecca nodded. ‘It’s one of the dangers of psychosis – you don’t know you have it. You’re convinced you are the only sane person and that everyone else is out to get you. Everyone is a danger, a threat. It’s incredibly frightening.’
‘But Dad said he knew about you seeing the policeman.’
‘Harvey wanted to call the doctor and have me admitted to a psychiatric hospital but, luckily, a friend of mine – well, John, my late husband, actually – paid me a visit. We worked together. I think he knew I’d been very worried about the pregnancy and he thought he might be able to help. He could see what a terrible state I was in and prescribed some anti-psychotic medication and persuaded Harvey to give it to me.’
‘But you needed professional help. You didn’t speak to anyone?’
‘Jessie, if I had been officially diagnosed, I would have been sectioned. I would have been separated from you and I would never have worked as a doctor again.’
Rebecca watched Jessie take this in, feeling her heart quicken. ‘Hang on? So you could have got proper help but you chose not to, for the sake of your career?’
‘Well, mainly because I didn’t want to be separated from you. Jessie, I didn’t need professional help. John gave me the medication I needed. I took it and the hallucinations stopped.’
‘How can you say you didn’t need professional help? After everything you’ve just told me?’
‘Jessie, you’re choosing not to listen to what I’m telling you. I would have been separated from you, my baby. They didn’t keep mother and baby together in those days. I was in a complete panic about something happening to you, the thought of you being out of sight for more than a minute sent my anxiety into overdrive. I was not prepared to be apart from you.’
‘Then why did you say that about never working as a doctor again? It didn’t really matter to you that you’d lose it all?’
‘It was a factor but what I cared about most was staying with you. I was psychotic. I got better. It was tough, I’ll admit, but I was coping.’
‘But you weren’t. Which is probably why Dad had to get Liz. And you try and paint him out as the bad guy in all this.’ Jessie’s mood had changed, and her eyes glared at her mother. ‘You needed help, Mum. You never dealt with what happened to you, you still haven’t.’
‘Jessie, I think you need to calm down,’ said Rebecca. ‘It isn’t good for you to upset yourself. Please, let’s just back up a bit. I’m sorry if I’ve said the wrong thing. I’m very tired and this is a hard conversation.’ She walked towards Jessie and put her hand on her shoulder.
Jessie pulled herself away. ‘Yes, you keep saying that. How hard it is for you. What about me? Your baby? Your child? Surely getting better should have been the only thing that mattered. So that you could take care of me?’
Jessie stood up, the cuttings scattering on the floor. ‘And what about John?’ Jessie continued. ‘You talk about Liz already being on the scene, as if she ruined everything, broke up our little family, but he was already sniffing around then, was he? Making sure you didn’t get off track with your precious career. Were you seeing him when you conceived me?’
‘No, I wasn’t! And I think this conversation is getting into dangerous territory. I told you that I would have to say some things that would upset you. About Liz and your dad. Why are you always so determined to trip me up? To back me into a corner so there’s nowhere for us to go? I love you, Jessie. I want you in my life.’
‘I don’t believe you! You’ve never done anything to make me feel that you’ve got me, that I can rely on you. That you won’t let me down. You always pull the rug just when I’m starting to trust you.’
‘Jessie, what are you talking about? Please, don’t go like this.’
Jessie walked to the door, but paused for a moment. Tears were pouring from her emerald-green eyes. ‘Giving me up was easier than getting proper help and facing your demons.’
‘It wasn’t like that!’
‘Yes it was. You say your mother wanted you to have choices and freedom. But you’re as trapped as she was. The fact is that you’re both the same, you and Harriet, all she did was teach you how to be a victim and live a lie. I don’t want my daughter growing up exposed to that kind of fear and dishonesty. It wasn’t your fault, Mum, what happened to you, but still carrying it is.’
Jessie picked up her bag and yanked open the front door.
‘I love you. You’re my blood, but I can’t do this any more. It just hurts me too much.’
And with that, she slammed the door behind her, leaving Rebecca all alone with nothing but ghosts.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Iris
Wednesday, 19th November 2014
Iris finished reading Dr Hunter’s notes on his meeting with Harriet Waterhouse in April 1953 and let out a heavy sigh.
Jacob Waterhouse had been desperate to leave Greenways, but his multiple attempts to take his own life, coupled with their inability to track his wife down, meant he had to be detained. It was something he had no control over. According to Dr Hunter’s report, Jacob’s only comfort lay in talking therapies, particularly art therapy, and during his incarceration he rediscovered a talent for painting and drawing, submitting his work to the patient magazine, The Wishing Well. Iris couldn’t help lingering over Dr Hunter’s closing comment in response to Harriet’s asking about Jacob’s propensity to violence, with five-year-old Rebecca in mind: It is not unusual for relatives of a cantankerous patient to expect ‘recovered’ to mean that the patient is now a much nicer person. Treatment can only treat specific problems; it does not transform anybody. You can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear.
‘We are closing shortly. If you could start to gather your things.’ Iris seemed to be the last person there.
Iris looked up at the woman, her cardigan buttoned up to her neck, her hair parted neatly in the middle and scraped back into a bun, not a hair out of place, then down at her mother’s statement, staring up at her from the desk. She imagined her mother as a thirteen-year-old girl, tucked up in bed, oblivious to the horror that was about to unfold in the living room below.
There was a storm that night and as I lay in b
ed, I thought I heard a knock at the front door and someone else in the house. My father’s shouting became louder and I heard my mother screaming. I was normally too frightened to go downstairs when my father was angry but when I heard the gunshot I ran downstairs. I found my mother lying in the front room. Her face was very swollen, she was bleeding from her ear and eye. I called 999 and sat with her. She died a few minutes later. I did not go to my father . . . I could see that he was dead. There was no one in the house. Perhaps I imagined it from the knocking and whistling sounds the storm made at the doors and windows.
‘Can I ask a quick question? These notes from my grandmother’s inquest, they mention a patient magazine at Greenways called The Wishing Well. Do you know if any copies were kept?’
‘Yes, I believe we have a few. If you could come back in the morning, we can get them for you.’
‘Is there any chance I could see them now? Please? I don’t have to read them now, maybe I could photocopy them quickly?’ said Iris, her eyes pleading up at the woman.
The woman looked up at the clock, then smiled at her. ‘I’ll see what I can find.’
Ten minutes later, Iris left the office clutching a sheaf of photocopies of Wishing Well magazines from 1947 to 1952 and a list of Greenways patient admissions for the entire duration of Jacob Waterhouse’s stay.
As she ran out into the rain, with the bundles of papers in one hand and her phone buzzing in the other, she waved frantically at a taxi and jumped in.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Harvey
5 p.m. Wednesday, 19 November 2014
‘What are you talking about? Rebecca’s mother died when she was thirteen.’ Harvey had walked up the beach and called DI Galt back.
Harvey looked up at Seaview. He could feel the wind rushing past his ears, the sea thrashing behind him, and he felt like he was being pulled into a black hole. Sucked back in time.
‘That’s what we need your help with.’ DC Galt’s voice was faint against the thunder of the sea. ‘She says she’s Rebecca’s birth mother.’
‘I can’t hear you,’ said Harvey. ‘Hang on.’ He began to walk with heavy footsteps back towards the car park. Away from the wind, he tucked himself in the cave underneath the cliff edge. ‘What the hell is going on? Rebecca’s mother died when she was thirteen. What has this woman got to do with finding Jessie?’
‘We can’t prove it at the moment, but she’s saying she’s Rebecca’s birth mother, that Harriet Waterhouse stole her when she was a baby. We have reason to believe Jessie may have known about this, as she tried to visit Cecilia in the days before her disappearance.’
‘What? What do you mean, visited her? When?’
‘A carer at the home where Cecilia lives, Grace House, recognized her. She went a few days ago and asked to see Cecilia, but she was asleep so she left again. She didn’t leave her details but the carer recognized Jessie from the pictures in the Chichester Evening Herald.’
‘Okay,’ said Harvey, not knowing what to think. ‘Who is this woman, Cecilia?’
‘She’s an elderly lady who was brought into St Dunstan’s Hospital in Chichester this evening. She’s dying, Mr Roberts, and she wants to find her daughter before it’s too late. She saw you on the news today and she says you knew her daughter, who she lost as a newborn – Rebecca.’ DC Galt paused. ‘And Rebecca is obviously Jessie’s mother’s name. We think it needs looking into, and you may be able to help work out if there is any validity in her story, or any reason for Jessie to contact her, if you would be willing to come and speak to her.’
‘Why would Jessie have contacted her? It must be a mistake. I don’t want to leave the beach. The window to find Elizabeth alive is closing. If Jessie’s here, we should be trawling the coastline until we find her. You should be here with torches looking through the dunes for them. We’re running out of time.’
Looking down the beach, he could picture tomorrow if they didn’t find Jessie tonight. Imagine the fleet of police cars rushing to Wittering Bay, forensic teams, their tents erected on the dunes, the bodies of Jessica and Elizabeth being examined for evidence of when exactly they died. Probably right this moment, as he stood, on this beach, being asked by the police to leave them behind. Right now, there was still a chance. Where were they?
‘We’ve had confirmation from the bus driver that it was definitely Jessie and Elizabeth on the bus. We are briefing a search party at 5 a.m., ready for first light at Wittering. In the meantime, there are ten police officers patrolling the dunes and coastline tonight.’
Harvey looked up to scan the dunes and saw torchlight moving in the distance. ‘If you could come into St Dunstan’s Hospital to speak with her, it might help us to work out why Jessie tried to contact her. It’s a long shot but possible she may have some information that could help us work out where Jessie’s gone. Her visiting Cecilia is too significant to not act upon.’
‘Can’t Rebecca do it? If it concerns her?’ Harvey let out a heavy sigh.
‘We’d rather you spoke to her first. Her connection to Jessie, rather than to Rebecca, is the most pressing issue. You know Jessie better than anyone, by all accounts, so it needs to be you. You’re the most likely person to be able to work out why she tried to visit Cecilia.’
‘Fine.’ Harvey ended the call and backed out of the cave, looking up at Seaview as the moon appeared from behind the clouds. The cottage lay in darkness, the lights turned off since the police had left, yet it still glowed on the cliff edge, its white walls catching the moonlight, its black windows making it look like a dice waiting to roll off the cliff and seal his fate.
The drive to St Dunstan’s Hospital was a blur of distant memories returning to haunt him. It was the same road he had taken the night Rebecca’s parents had been killed. When he had sat in the back of a police car on the way to Chichester police station.
Through the pouring rain, he had seen the faint brake lights of the police car in front of them, the car containing Rebecca. By the time they reached the police station, she was gone.
When he arrived he had called out for her, desperate to see her and make sure he was okay. After he had caused a scene at the station looking for Rebecca, they had held him and his father in a holding cell all night, finally taking their statements at dawn, as they both sat bleary-eyed and shocked. ‘The daughter of Harriet and Jacob Waterhouse is saying that someone knocked on their front door last night, that whoever it was started an argument that led to their deaths. Was that one of you two, by any chance?’
‘No, we were in the King’s Head all evening – there must have been a dozen witnesses. The first I knew of any of this was when I saw the police lights as we came into Seaview. I need to speak to Rebecca, please. I’m begging you.’ The duty officer had just looked away, making painfully slow notes, never replying to his increasingly desperate request to see her.
‘She’s adamant she heard someone at the door. Who else could it have been?’
‘How should I know!’ he had snapped.
‘Look, laddie, I’m not sure I’m liking your tone.’ The policeman leaned forward, beads of sweat forming on his brow. ‘It’s clear for me to see that Mr Roberts here is inebriated, so perhaps I should lock the pair of you up until he’s sobered up and can think a bit more clearly about the events of last night, because he’s not able to corroborate your story at the moment.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean any disrespect. I want to help you with your enquiries. Please just let me speak to her.’ Harvey had tried to stay calm, knowing that he needed to keep the police on side, that if he lost his temper he would never get to Rebecca.
At dawn, with no reason to hold them and their sworn statements signed, they had been released and he was told that Rebecca had left. He raced back to Seaview Cottage to try and find her. But it was cordoned off with police tape, two policemen milling around drinking cold cups of tea and trying to shelter from the fierce wind from Wittering Bay. He sat in the truck, not knowing where she had gone, and
then went frantically driving around the town looking for her, asking if anyone had seen her. Finally he went home, fell through the front door, exhausted, and found her fast asleep in a chair in front of the fire.
As Harvey pulled up outside the hospital he could see the throng of reporters milling around in the drizzling rain and a policeman waiting at the entrance to the car park waved him in. The rain pelted at his windscreen as he pulled into the same parking space he had pulled out of just under twenty-four hours before to leave Jessie.
Harvey took several deep breaths and looked up at the group of reporters at the entrance to the hotel. Shaking away the tears, he opened the car door and walked towards the pack.
‘How are you feeling, Mr Roberts? Is there any news from Jessie’s partner?’ They rushed at him, and he bowed his head. ‘Have there been any developments since the press conference this afternoon? Do you fear that time is running out for baby Elizabeth?’