The Beloved Girls

by Harriet Evans

  ‘Eileen –’

  ‘You never ask about him, when you come here. Claire, what’s she up to, these days?’

  ‘No – I’m not Janey.’ Her hand had left a sweaty print on the nylon-velvet chair. The phone buzzed again. ‘I’m Catherine. Simon was Janey’s father.’

  Eileen’s dark grey eyes rested on her for a moment, considering. ‘You two, you ran away, didn’t you? The house. Vanes. Now you remember the house, don’t you? They looked after those bees.’ Eileen twisted her wedding ring around her finger, round and round. Every time, the stones caught on the sagging webbing between her middle and ring finger. ‘So you’re one of them? One of the Hunters?’ Her voice was rising. ‘She was no good, that girl. Or the mother!’

  The door burst open, causing Catherine to leap out of her chair in shock. ‘Hello, girls,’ said Jonathan, the home’s director of entertainment. ‘Just giving you a leaflet about the show later on in the Trafalgar Suite. Four p.m. Brian and Julie’s Latin Lounge Time. A little tea dance for all our lovely ladies and gents, chance to trip the light fantastic, will you be there?’ His eyes twinkled encouragingly at Eileen, who paused and said flatly:

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Eileen.’ The joke passed without mention, neither Jonathan nor Eileen seeming to notice it. ‘You’d enjoy it. Katalina said you should give it a try. How about you, madam, will you be able to stay?’

  Catherine and Eileen jointly said:

  ‘No.’

  ‘She can’t go. She’s too busy, she’s a – what’s your job? She’s busy, anyway.’

  Jonathan stared at Catherine. ‘You’re her daughter? Oh my days!’

  ‘No, I –’

  He beamed at Eileen. ‘I never knew she had any family, poor dear. I’ve never seen you before.’

  ‘I’m not her daughter,’ Catherine told him. ‘I come every other week. I was a friend of her daughter. She’s dead.’

  ‘Well that’s sad, isn’t it? How it is.’ Jonathan put his head on one side. ‘What happened?’

  ‘What’s she saying?’ Eileen gave Catherine a nasty look. ‘Is she lying to you? She’s a liar. You’re a liar, aren’t you?’

  Instantly Jonathan said brightly: ‘Well, I’d best be off, know how it is! You two will want to catch up. I’ll hope to see you ladies later!’

  He almost ran out of the room. Silence fell, and Catherine resisted the urge to look at her phone. She gazed at the tulips again. Who had brought her such opulent flowers? What did she think about, alone in bed at night, did she know the truth? As she came to, Eileen was staring at her, her head turned towards her, eyes, mouth open, as if greedily waiting to gobble her up.

  ‘She’s dead. You make a fool of me. Coming here. You think I don’t remember? I’ve got all the time in the world to remember. I said this to her last week when she brought the flowers. I told her all about it and she laughed. She said I should ask you about it. Because you’re mine.’

  Catherine looked down; her hands were shaking. ‘Who brought the flowers?’

  I am mad. I’m in it, right now. It’s taking me over and I don’t – I don’t know how to get out of it.

  ‘I raised you. I didn’t want to, but I did. And you – you never came to me. You only wanted Daddy.’ She said it in a mocking tone.

  ‘Who brought those pink and red tulips, Eileen? It’s about a week ago, they’re dying, who was it?’

  And Eileen said: ‘A lady from the church. She knew it was my birthday. She’s from the church. She remembered my birthday. You didn’t even bother.’

  Catherine breathed out. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I forgot your birthday, Eileen. I’ve been –’ she looked at her hands, still shaking. ‘I’ve been busy.’

  ‘My own daughter, and you didn’t remember.’

  This had happened before, once before: Eileen had spent the entire afternoon asking her how Janey had died, where she’d gone. She had begun to remember. About that summer, and going up to Cambridge, and Kitty. Begun was the wrong word for it. More as though snow swirled almost ceaselessly across her thoughts but occasionally, just occasionally, the storm lulled and she saw a little clearly.

  Catherine stood up. ‘I’d better go. I have to catch a train. Goodbye – bye, Eileen.’ Her throat swelled up tight, and she bent down and kissed the older woman. As ever, she wondered if this would be the last time.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Eileen said, as if nothing had happened. She pulled at the top button of her cardigan, suddenly looking very tired, and gazed into space. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she, Catherine? She is, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She is.’

  She began fumbling for the remote. ‘I thought so. All the villagers ran. No one stayed to help. Isn’t that sad?’ She gave a little chuckle, pleased. ‘And the daughter. What was she called?’

  ‘Kitty. Catherine. Me. I’m Catherine.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘But you’re not the daughter.’ The eyes were watchful. ‘I know you’re not. You say this, every time. But you’re not.’

  ‘I can show you my passport. It says Catherine Christophe on it, and my date of birth,’ said Catherine with an attempt at humour, and that, at least, was the truth.

  Chapter Nine

  Dragging the suitcase through the automatic doors, waving goodbye to the receptionist, a glum man with a drooping moustache behind a glass partition, Catherine stood still for a moment, drinking in the open air.

  She looked up at a faint sound and ran, spotting a black cab in the distance down the wide empty road. She ran as fast as she was able to, the suitcase bumping over cracked paving stones. All the time, just saying to herself. Just get there. Davide will be there. Just get there. Walk towards him. Don’t look for anyone else.

  ‘St Pancras, Eurostar, please,’ she said, settling into the back seat and reaching for her phone. She tried to answer some emails. There was a text from Jake.

  U OK hun? Heard about Doyle. LMK if I can help.

  It was shocking how easy it had been to let go of Jake, to put him aside.

  She scrolled through old photos of the children: Carys on her tenth birthday, so adorable in her sundress. Tom on his first day of big school, hair slicked down, tanned cheeks from a summer in France with her in-laws, and she felt again the tide wash across her. She started deleting photos, selecting whole days, months, years at a time. Wiping out scores of memories.

  The phone froze with the effort, and in the end she just stared out of the cab window as she rolled down the road towards St Pancras Old Church. Thomas Hardy had dug up graves in the graveyard there to make way for the railway line in the nineteenth century. Joss had told her that – he had been a surprising mine of information, always picking up new things. What had happened to the bodies? She hadn’t known. Joss hadn’t, either.

  Now she had thought about it all anyway, she allowed herself the pain of recalling his handsome face, the cowlick of blonde hair, the flush across the cheeks, the hazel-grey eyes. The fingers, clumsily strumming a guitar. Studying Sylvia at her drawing board. Watching Merry, idly playing with Rory, a remote control in her other hand. Watching PF as he polished things, and timed things, and ordered people about. Pater familias. Poor Joss. He never stood a chance.

  They were closer than ever now. She could feel the swooping, awful giddy feeling, worse than ever. She tried to shut it out, to focus on getting past this moment, then the next, then the next. She told herself if she got past it then she’d be OK.

  It’s not real.

  Davide is real. He’s waiting for you.

  Forget about Grant. Leave him behind, for now. That and the house being for sale. That’s why. There’s reasons for all of this.

  It made such complete sense, almost immediate was the release in tension. She blinked, breathing slowly, drumming her fingers up and down the back of her skull, a habit she had developed as a way of releasing pent-up anxiety. The cab driver paid her no attention, thankfully. She carried on doing it.

&nbs
p; She had run away from Eileen before the usual hour and so Catherine was twenty minutes early to meet Davide. She wandered up and down the bustling concourse of shops in St Pancras, idly fingering baby clothes she did not need and books she would not read, all the time trying to ignore the feeling in her head, in her throat, the one that said Get out. Get out now. She paused in front of the Fortnum’s concession, remembering the paltry packet of biscuits, and Eileen’s face again as she stared at her.

  She went into Marks and Spencer, to buy some snacks for the train – when the Eurostar had first opened, in Waterloo, and she had been able to go over and visit him, she had always brought Davide something from M&S. As she was reaching for a plastic tub of pineapple chunks she felt an arm slide around her waist and a low, gently wry voice say in her ear:

  ‘Madame, by any chance are you free at all this weekend?’

  His hands turned her slim frame around so she was pressed against him and she stared into her husband’s face, drinking him in with joy. Joy that she loved him and still found him so savagely attractive. She could feel him very slightly pressing against her, and loved that – demure, controlled, urbane Davide in his beautifully pressed suit and gabardine trench coat, growing hard for his wife of twenty years, there in the fruit and deli aisle of Marks and Spencer.

  ‘I can’t wait for this weekend,’ he said, and he kissed her neck, and she felt as she always did at the end of the day the infinitesimal scrape of stubble, for he was beautifully clean-shaven. ‘I want you all to myself, my darling.’ He cupped her face in his hands. ‘I think you’ve guessed. And I’m sorry. Do you forgive me?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For taking you to Paris, not somewhere exotic?’

  ‘Oh. Oh! Of course –’ she said, and she told herself that it was OK, that she could feel all misery, anxiety, fear flowing away from her, far away –

  She kissed him again and then stopped, her eyes closed. Somehow her body knew before her brain. A cold, metallic numbness, the beating drum in her head and throat. And she looked over his shoulder, and she knew he felt her stiffen.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That –’

  She pointed, and he turned to look out of the shop at the Eurostar check-in, but then turned back. To him there was nothing, other than the usual stream of people queuing, passing through, saying goodbye. But there – at the front of the taped section. There she was.

  A tall, blonde woman in a white flowing top, fiddling with her backpack. It was red, rather tatty-looking, at odds with her glamorous appearance. She looked up and smiled at them both.

  Davide smiled back, then stopped, as if he wasn’t sure why he’d done it. ‘What?’

  ‘Hello,’ the woman said. ‘It’s time, Catherine. You know it is.’

  She walked on, towards a coffee shop on the corner, and paused for a second, before merging into the crowds. She looked over once, then disappeared. Davide had already turned away.

  ‘The tattoo,’ Davide said. He nodded very slightly towards her and lowered his voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘On her arm. Didn’t you almost get one of those? When you were travelling?’

  ‘What tattoo?’ She was fumbling through her handbag, looking for something. ‘Oh no . . . please, no . . .’

  ‘The bee tattoo. Thank God you didn’t, eh? This age, with a tattoo, and bees as well – are you OK, chérie?’

  Catherine straightened up. ‘Sorry. This is infuriating.’ She shook her head. ‘Don’t be cross, Davide. I’ve left my passport in the safe at work.’

  ‘Catherine,’ Davide growled. ‘Good Lord, woman, why do you try to offend me, to thwart me all the time?’

  She made herself look up, to play her part. ‘I do it to annoy you.’ She was shaking her head, smiling at him. His eyes were flinty grey with flecks of amber, it was one of the first things she had noticed about him when they’d met in that rose-gold square, all those years ago. She had fallen for him that very minute, and he had never doubted her, never not trusted her. ‘I can see it now, I can picture myself locking the safe. I had to take it in last month for a security check on the money-laundering case. I meant to remind myself this morning but I was in court . . . Oh shit. Darling, I’m so sorry.’

  He nodded, and flicked his wrist to look at his watch, and, she knew, to hide how irritated he was. She knew everything about him. ‘We will miss the train.’

  ‘Nonsense. I’ll hop on the Tube, it’s two stops to Holborn, I’ll be back here in half an hour. We are always early, remember? We have lots of time.’ Her voice seemed to thicken, and she coughed.

  ‘Lots of time?’

  ‘Lots of time – I’m sorry, darling. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘But –’

  The store was crowded; a man and an excited child pushed them out of the way and they stepped back out onto the concourse together. ‘Stay here. I’ll – I’ll –’

  She looked around wildly, then gave him one more kiss, a long, deep, intimate kiss only for him, and she breathed in deeply, as if inhaling his smell, and pressed his hand to her lips. They were still like that, for a moment, one more moment. She could see doubt, unease, flickering in his eyes.

  ‘Is this all it is?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  When the phone rang at six in the morning ten years ago, and she came down into the hallway to see him in his blue pyjamas, ruffled hair, toes curling because of the cold Victorian tiles, on the phone, being told that his dear father had passed away in the night, Davide had had a smile on his face. A sad yet quizzical smile, as if he knew life was – what? A construct, a cage of spun sugar, a comb that could be smashed open at any time. He had that expression now.

  He watched, as she pressed a square of paper into his hand.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘You asked me about it, the other week.’ She looked up, a small smile playing on her pale, heart-shaped face. ‘The cutting. And Carys found it, online, too. It’s not the wrong way round.’

  ‘What? Catherine – I don’t care, chérie.’ She saw the panic mounting in his eyes.

  ‘I’ll be b-back in forty minutes.’ She could hardly speak. ‘I have – to, I have to go now. I love you.’ He was shaking his head. ‘I love the children. Tell them? Will you please make sure you tell them? Will you promise? I’m sorry.’

  And then she was gone.

  Davide watched her go. He looked down at the flimsy square in his hand. It was a photograph from a newspaper of two girls. The one on the right was a young Catherine, with short, patchy hair, a big smile, huge eyes. There were so few photos of his wife as a young woman: as the hubbub in the station raged on, even as he knew she was walking away, he looked eagerly at the photo, but as he did so his frown deepened, his eyes widening, and then he put his hand to his mouth, frozen to the spot.

  The Beloved Girls, missing after yesterday’s tragedy: Left, Jane Lestrange, a family friend. Right, Catherine Hunter, daughter of Charles and Sylvia Hunter. Below, Catherine Hunter, as a young girl, with her parents and brother and sister.

  Davide stared at the photos of Catherine Hunter.

  ‘But that woman is not my wife,’ he said. He said it softly, then again, then again, louder each time. ‘That’s not my wife.’ He was shouting it now, shouting into the emptiness of the crowded station. No one paid any attention. ‘That’s not her!’

  DAILY MAIL, 7 MAY 2018

  Disappearance of top woman barrister ‘entirely out of character’ says family

  • Third day since last sighting of Catherine Christophe, 47

  • Mother-of-two left husband at London’s St Pancras station

  • Top barrister had recently lost high-profile murder trial

  Police today were appealing for help in tracking the last known movements of London barrister Catherine Christophe, whose anniversary trip to Paris with her husband was abandoned after Mrs Christophe left the Eurostar terminal to collect her passport.

  But she never went back
to her office and there is no sign of her passport either there or at her £2 million home in Dartmouth Park, North London. Friends and family say there is no reason for her sudden disappearance and, though she had been under pressure lately, she had not been acting out of character. Mrs Christophe had recently unsuccessfully defended the high-profile Jolyons school Snapchat murder case; the 18-year-old Grant Doyle was found guilty and attempted suicide in prison last week.

  Mrs Christophe’s credit cards have not been used, there are no phone records of her and, bafflingly after the initial CCTV of her leaving the ticket hall, there appears to be no further video evidence of her in the station. Her empty suitcase was found nearby.

  ‘Any help the public can give as to the whereabouts of Mrs Christophe would be greatly appreciated in reuniting this lady with her teenage children and husband who are understandably concerned for her safety,’ said Commander Sam O’Reilly of the Metropolitan Police.

  Davide Christophe, her husband, insists he is frantic with worry. ‘She was so excited about the weekend. And then it’s as if she changed. She said she’d forgotten the passport and she had to go and get it. But Catherine never forgets anything.’

  Yesterday it emerged that as a teenager Mrs Christophe, then Catherine (Kitty) Hunter, was present at a notorious tragedy at her family home, Vanes, near Exmoor in Somerset, in August 1989. Several members of the Hunter family died during a secretive ancient ritual in a chapel in the grounds of the family home. At the time it was widely reported that Mrs Christophe and her best friend, Janey Lestrange, had escaped the carnage. Police did not investigate further, at the family’s behest. Mr Christophe refused to comment.