Shadow of a Doubt

by Michelle Davies

  ‘Please be assured, Ms Marshall, that Leonards will get you the best possible price for your property and will facilitate a smooth sale. I appreciate this is a difficult time for you and the circumstances are a tad unusual, but my firm is on your side and I shall work tirelessly to make sure the house is sold as soon as possible.’

  ‘Good. I just want to get it sold and get out of here,’ I fib.

  ‘I expect you do.’

  He gives an involuntary shudder as he glances back at me, then smoothly covers it by pretending to adjust his cuffs. I feel deflated. He’s just like all the rest.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Cara

  The landscape gardener’s name is Jason and when I phone, he says he is free to come round at noon tomorrow to give me a quote and if I find the price reasonable, he can start immediately. I’m guessing the time of year is a factor in his availability – how many people want their gardens done at the approach of December?

  I spend the next hour or so picking through the drawers of paperwork I’ve already searched through four or five times, looking for even the tiniest reference to Matty’s death or Limey Stan. Should I really be surprised there’s none, though? My parents seemed to wash their hands so effectively of me that it stands to reason they would avoid any reminder of why they did. Eventually, I give up, frustrated, and stuff the papers back in the drawers. Then I go into the hallway and kneel down to run my hands over the skirting boards on the left-hand side, where the shadows that hid Limey Stan used to stretch across from. I don’t know what I expected to find, but the focused act of examining the walls and flooring calms my agitated mind a fraction.

  Part of me wants to call Anne to talk it through with her, but I’m not ready for another conversation with her in which Limey Stan is referenced. The blow-up between us still feels too raw. Instead, I prowl about the house, poking through more drawers and riffling through cupboards to no avail, and as I do, I become worked up again, because the longer I spend here, the angrier I am becoming that I was sent away in the first place. I was a child, for crying out loud. Why didn’t anyone intervene and stand up for me? Where was the compassion, the attempts at understanding? I know my parents must have been devastated by Matty’s death, but they knew me. I was no naughtier than any other child my age – how could they have been so quick to believe I was guilty of such a violent act? Why did they never reclaim me when the Peachick decided I was well enough to leave?

  Those questions and more continue to pirouette through my mind as I move restlessly from room to room until I find myself on the landing upstairs. There is one room I haven’t searched yet and that’s Matty’s bedroom. I’ve been putting it off, out of fear of what I’ll find in there, so before I can talk myself out of it again, I throw open the door and step inside.

  A sob escapes my lips: the room is completely unchanged from how it was a quarter of a century ago. I had a feeling it would be, which is why I hadn’t dared open the door before now. I wasn’t ready to confront my past in such an emotive, devastating fashion.

  My breath catches as my gaze falls first on the Power Rangers duvet cover and then on the bedside-table-cum-toy-chest that is covered in the detritus of a nineties childhood: dozens of Pog discs scattered randomly, two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures and a green Power Rangers one (Matty’s absolute favourite), a yo-yo and a Tamagotchi key ring. Stacked on the floor beside the chest, on a rug designed to look like a football, are the board games Matty and I played with endlessly: Twister, Operation and Hungry Hungry Hippos.

  Gingerly, I sit down on the bed. On the one hand, it breaks my heart that Matty’s bedroom has been frozen in time by my parents’ grief, but on the other, I am upset his was preserved while mine was redecorated. It’s yet another slap in the face and I speculate how quickly my parents cleared mine out after I went into the Peachick – was it weeks, months? I wish I knew.

  I expected Matty’s room to be dank, but it doesn’t smell of anything in particular. Dust lingers in places, but not in large enough quantities to suggest it was never visited or cleaned. Mum must have ventured in here regularly to banish the dust, or maybe there were times when she just did as I am doing now – sitting on the bed with tears rolling silently down my cheeks, wishing Matty wasn’t dead and missing him so much it hurts. I reach my hand out and stroke his pillow and think about how I used to ruffle his hair to wake him up when Mum would ask me to get him ready for school. Straight away, my throat starts to thicken and tears well in the corners of my eyes.

  There is one saving grace when I think about Matty dying and that’s in the moments before it happened, he was as happy as he had ever been. I was certain I had worked out a pattern to Limey Stan’s comings and goings and thought that if we crept downstairs after midnight and hid in the bay, we would catch a glimpse for sure. Matty was so excited when I woke him up – I set my alarm clock to wake me up at 12.30 a.m. and hid it under my pillow – and it was an effort to keep him quiet once we had taken our places behind the curtains. When I finally got him to stop giggling, Matty whispered to me that this was the best adventure he had ever had and I was the best big sister in the world. Those were the last words he ever said and it comforts me to know that they were positive ones.

  When the moment of his death came, suddenly, violently, and with little warning, I am ashamed to say I did nothing to help him. I didn’t even scream. Feeling the near presence of this thing that had terrorised me for so long stunned me into silence. I became tangled in the curtain too and began to panic, but still I was physically unable to scream for help. Then, after what mercifully must have been only a few seconds, Matty’s body slumped against mine and the curtain went slack and that’s when I managed to free myself and run upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom.

  I have relived the moment many times over the years, wishing I had reacted differently, wishing I had saved him. It was my fault he was there and my fault that he died. Now, reliving it once more in the house where it happened, I am crying so hard, I cannot see straight. I fall sideways onto Matty’s bed and bury my face in his pillow. My body heaves as I cry and cry, until eventually I’ve exhausted myself. Then I slide under the duvet and pull it tight around me and soon I’ve fallen into a fitful sleep, plagued by dreams of shadowy figures climbing the walls and the face of my little brother screaming at me to help him.

  When I awake a couple of hours later, I feel no better. The half-light between afternoon and evening has dimmed the room and it takes me a moment to realise where I am, until I spy a film poster for Super Mario Bros. stuck on the wall by Matty’s wardrobe. The film was released the summer before he died and he and Ryan loved it so much that Uncle Gary took them to see it three times. As I stare up at the poster, my gaze is slowly drawn to three medium-sized cardboard boxes neatly stacked against the wall directly beneath it. Each has something written in marker pen on their side. I scrunch my eyes to read the lettering, then sit up, stunned. It’s my name.

  Scrabbling out of the bed, I dash across the room to them. I am not mistaken: each box has my name written on it in block capitals. I take the first one off the pile and set it on the carpet. It feels light. I need something sharp to cut the tape with, so I leg it downstairs for a knife. Mustard is asleep in the kitchen when I thunder in but scrabbles to his feet and wags his tail as he picks up on my excitement.

  Back upstairs, Mustard at my heels, I slice easily through the tape and pull back the lid of the box. It occurs to me that the box looks new and the cardboard has a stiffness you wouldn’t expect if it were decades old. That suggests they’ve been packed fairly recently.

  I open the box to find a pile of clothes staring back at me. My clothes, from when I was a kid. I take the first item out – a denim pinafore dress Mum bought me at Adams and that I loved so much I wore it endlessly. Next in the pile are some stripy T-shirts, a grey sweatshirt with a transfer of a cat ironed to the front that’s all creased and faded, and a flowery pink and blue skirt that I instantly r
ecall as being the one I wore to the funfair the day I heard Limey Stan say his name. I drop the skirt to the floor as though my hand has been scalded, then I sit back on my haunches, fighting back tears.

  It’s not the sight of the clothes that’s upsetting me, but that Mum kept them. I have no recollection of what belongings were sent to the Peachick with me, but I always assumed the clothes I wore there were ones from home. Now, judging by the contents of this box, I must have been provided with new clothing, while my parents held on to these. I cannot fathom why though. If I had come home after my discharge, I would have outgrown them by then and needed new stuff. Or did they simply decide to store them, knowing they would never be worn again? I push the box to one side and set down the next one. This contains toys and books I recognise as mine from my childhood, as does the final box. I don’t get it: why keep all this stuff but not keep me?

  At the very bottom of the third box, I find a small ceramic box. I do not recognise it and it looks fairly new. I open it up and I am surprised to find two hospital ID bracelets nestled together on a bed of white tissue paper. Examining them closer, I see both have the name ‘Baby Belling’ printed on both of them and my heart catches: these must be mine and Matty’s from when we were born. Gently, I take the first one out and I can tell it is mine because it has my date of birth on it and the weight I was. I turn it over and over in my palm, marvelling at how tiny my wrist once was.

  Matty’s band contains the same details, but there is also something written on the inside of the band, in tiny printed capital letters: HL72QR, presumably a hospital reference number. With a sigh, I return both bracelets to the box and put the lid back on. I suppose I should be happy that my parents kept my bracelet – as keepsakes go, it’s a lovely one.

  I stack the boxes back where I found them, then leave Matty’s bedroom, pulling the door firmly shut behind me. I decide to go downstairs – all that crying has left me parched and I am craving a glass of water. I also need to put all the lights on – the onset of dusk means the house is now shrouded in gloom and I don’t like it.

  But as I trudge downstairs, I notice the door between the lounge and the hallway is ever so slightly ajar and I stop. This is a door that was never used when I was a child and still isn’t now – to maximise the space in the front room, the sofa is pushed up against it, so if you tried to enter from the hallway you’d walk straight into the back of it. The only way to access the extended lounge now is to go through the kitchen – yet while I’ve been asleep, the door has been opened a fraction from the hallway side.

  Unease creeps over me as I inch towards it, my brain searching for a reasonable explanation as to why it’s open, but knowing there is none. There are no windows open downstairs that could’ve facilitated a gust of wind blowing it ajar and while Mustard has been known to open the doors in my flat, it’s only because they have lever handles he can lean his paws on. But in this house the handles are round – there is no way the door could have opened without someone turning the knob to do so.

  I am shaking from head to foot and barely managing to breathe as I reach the bottom stair and cross the hallway to the door. I peer through the gap and what I see causes me to let out a cry of shock. The coffee table with the shiny black lacquered top has been moved into the middle of the lounge from its position next to the sofa … and it’s upside down.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Karen

  Eight months on from taking early retirement, Karen still isn’t used to being at home during the day. She’d been in employment since leaving school at sixteen, breaking only for a year both times after Lisa and Ryan were born, then returning on a part-time basis until they were at secondary school. Her final position before retiring was on the front desk at a building society in town and she still hankers for the daily interaction of talking to customers, especially the pensioners who came in every week at exactly the same time, regular as clockwork.

  Her decision to quit work was driven by Anita’s illness. She wanted to spend every moment she could with her sister and it was inconceivable for her to be at work every day while Anita faded away. Karen needed to be with her. It left things a bit tight on the financial front and she sensed Gary wasn’t happy at the amount of time she spent in Parsons Close, but he was sensitive enough not to say it out loud. Karen supposes it was because he knew that once Anita had gone, he wouldn’t have to share his wife any more.

  She’s spent most of today doing housework, but now she’s ready for her usual Wednesday afternoon coffee break. While a fresh cafetière brews on the hob, she nibbles on a second biscuit, taken from the plate she laid out on the table earlier. Tishk is running late again, which is par for the course.

  Their Wednesday get-togethers began a couple of months ago, when Anita was in the last stages of her life. Tishk had been keeping an eye on Anita since living next door again and he and Ryan had also become friends, the decade age-gap between them no longer feeling as pronounced as it did when they were children. One week, Tishk unexpectedly turned up at Karen’s house to see how she was holding up being Anita’s full-time carer and from there they segued into a ‘same time next week?’ routine that had quickly become a highlight of her week. Tishk is a good listener, and thoughtful, and Karen is grateful for the kindness he’s shown her since her sister died.

  Today, though, she wishes he’d hurry up and arrive. This is their second catch-up since Cara reappeared in Heldean and Karen is desperate to know if Tishk has seen her at all since Saturday. She knows they are already reacquainted: Tishk told her he’d found Cara in the house on the day of the will reading, although he didn’t say much else beyond that it was lovely to see her again. It surprised Karen how much she minded him saying that. In fact, it bothered her more than Lisa saying on the phone the other day that Cara deserved the house. Karen has grown used to her daughter’s little digs at Anita over the years, which she puts down to Lisa still being upset with her aunt that Cara was sent away like she was.

  Suddenly the back door opens and Tishk appears.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he says sheepishly. ‘I dozed off. One minute I’m working, the next I wake up with a textbook over my face.’

  ‘Just as well I’ve made the coffee strong,’ she laughs. ‘Come in, sit down.’

  Tishk takes his usual seat at the table and helps himself to a biscuit. He wolfs it down, then takes another, and not for the first time, Karen wonders if he’s feeding himself properly. His mum, Nura, was a fantastic cook but, in that way that was traditional in many Muslim families, passed down her skills to her daughters but not to her sons. Tishk reckons it’s because she thought he’d have a wife by now to cook for him. Instead, single again after a broken engagement, he’s done nothing to remedy his lack of kitchen skills in the four years since his parents moved away and there isn’t a single meal he eats that doesn’t begin life in a tin, jar or packet.

  Karen doesn’t want to jump straight into the subject of Cara, so they chat for a bit about the progress of Tishk’s PhD – or rather the lack of it, as he is an arch procrastinator, as well as tardy.

  ‘I need to knuckle down and get it finished,’ he says, snaffling a third biscuit. ‘Otherwise I’ll lose my funding. The Bank of Mum and Dad is only open for a limited time,’ he adds with a grin.

  It works in Tishk’s favour that he is a nice, genuine person, Karen observes, because otherwise it would be very easy to think he is taking advantage of his parents by using their pension pot to gain a qualification he doesn’t really need and staying in their house rent-free while he earns it.

  ‘Perhaps you could get a part-time job to earn yourself some extra cash?’ she suggests.

  ‘I could, but I prefer to work through the night; it’s the way I’ve always studied. If I had a job during the day, I couldn’t catch up on my sleep and I’d be shattered all the time.’

  ‘Best hurry up and finish your thesis then.’

  ‘I will. I’m just a bit distracted, with everything going on next
door at the moment.’

  Karen’s fingers tighten on the handle of her coffee cup. ‘Why’s that?’

  Tishk regards her with a grin.

  ‘Come on, Mrs J’ – try as she might, she can never get him to call her Karen – ‘you know exactly why. Because of Cara.’

  ‘Hasn’t she left yet? I told her on Saturday she needs to go.’

  ‘It’s not really your decision whether she stays or not,’ says Tishk carefully. ‘It’s her house now.’

  ‘I know it is, but she’s not welcome. No one wants her here.’

  ‘She’s not causing any harm.’

  Karen scoffs at that. ‘Cara was responsible for the death of her brother, and her returning to Heldean is raking up painful memories for the rest of us. To say she’s causing no harm is plain wrong.’

  ‘Okay, let me reword it then. She’s not trying to cause more trouble. She didn’t ask to be left the house.’

  ‘She could easily rectify that. Anita added a clause that if Cara doesn’t want the money, she can give it to charity.’

  Tishk pauses for a moment. ‘What about redemption, Mrs J? She was a nine-year-old child when she was last here; now she’s a woman of thirty-four. She’s not the same person. Doesn’t she deserve the chance to make amends?’

  ‘She doesn’t need to be in Heldean to do that.’

  Karen doesn’t like how harsh she sounds and hates that Tishk might think badly of her because of it, but she will never embrace what he’s saying. Cara doesn’t deserve her understanding and if Tishk had seen Matty’s broken little body laid out in the chapel of rest, he’d agree with her.

  ‘I think, if you took the time to get to know her again, you might like her. She reminds me a lot of her mum.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ Karen says, rising from her seat and taking her mug to the sink so she can stand with her back to him. She doesn’t want him to see how upset he’s making her, because she knows it’s not deliberate.