February 1992
Kenneth gets as far as the centre of the room before he stops. He pokes the rug with his cane as if roughly tracing the pattern.
‘The boiler?’ Marina says.
He looks up. His face is grey, devoid of colour, eyes almost hidden in their pouches of skin.
He has no toolbox. The observation flutters in Marina’s mind like a fat moth.
‘I am meticulous,’ he says at last, ‘in checking facts and figures, financial and personal. I am meticulous.’ He stops, clears his throat. ‘I realise this is partly what I pay the estate agent for, but at the same time . . . At the same time, I like to do it myself. I like . . . I like to be certain about the details of my clients. You might say,’ he adds, ‘that it’s my hobby.’
Marina shifts on her feet. A pulse throbs at her temple. She presses her fingers to her skull. She is wrong-footed. He has no toolbox. He is not here to fix the boiler. What then?
‘The thing is,’ he continues, resting the cane against the side of a chair, ‘it has come to my attention that there’s been a mistake. Yes, a mistake.’
There is a beat. ‘What do you mean?’
He is shaking as he balances the briefcase on the chair and awkwardly snaps it open. He pulls out a sheaf of papers with trembling hands, selects one, and brandishes it at her.
‘I have your name down on the contract as Zoe Alexander. Yet, when I examine the photocopy of your passport, I see that your name is not Zoe Alexander. It’s Marina Alexander.’
He looks at her directly, eyes watering.
She meets his gaze. ‘Zoe is my middle name.’
He nods, grimaces. ‘I know that. Yes. I can see that. The estate agent told me that you prefer to go by the name Zoe.’ He taps the piece of paper with one gnarled finger. ‘However, see here, the whole name needs to be recorded, not half. I don’t like slapdash errors and . . .’ He pauses, stares at the centre of the rug. ‘I don’t like being misdirected.’
A coldness seeps through Marina’s body. Can he be serious? She studies his face and concludes he is. He has a certain arrogance. Isn’t that what Victor had said? Paranoid too. Always thinking that people from the past are out to get him. Is that what is happening here?
‘You are not what you seem,’ he concludes, fumbling with the papers again, trying to get them back into his case.
She stays completely still, eyes fixed on his. ‘It’s a detail,’ she says carefully.
‘It’s more than that, I’m afraid. It’s a lie.’ The papers flutter from his hands. He rocks on his feet, steadies himself, but makes no attempt to pick them up.
Her mouth drops open. ‘That’s an exaggeration.’ She speaks quietly, still wary of upsetting him.
He closes his briefcase despite the missing papers. She considers gathering them up, but decides against it. She senses a change in his mood but can’t identify what it means for her.
‘I think you should leave my house.’
The air shifts about her. ‘I have a contract.’
He picks up his cane and leans on it heavily. So heavily, Marina thinks it might snap. She is wrong about him not needing it: he might not need it physically, but he certainly needs it metaphorically; the cane is his prop.
‘In my opinion, the contract is null and void on the grounds that you didn’t disclose your information directly on the form.’
She opens her mouth, incredulous again. ‘You are trying to evict me?’
‘If you like.’
She laughs in disbelief. ‘You are kidding.’
‘I am not.’ He looks around the room and his gaze falls again on the spot in the middle of the rug, lingers there before moving back to her.
She shakes her head. ‘You can’t do that.’
He shrugs. ‘We’ll see.’
Despite her instinct to be cautious, irritation is rising. ‘I have rights. I won’t go.’
‘It’s better if you do.’ He tucks the briefcase beneath his arm and makes to leave.
Marina shivers. His voice is ominous. It veils a threat. Yet there is more to this, she thinks suddenly. He can’t possibly believe that he can get rid of her on such a flimsy excuse.
‘If you know my name is Marina,’ she blurts suddenly, ‘then you probably know who I am. In which case, you know why I’m here.’
He hesitates and stares back at her. ‘I have no idea why you are here.’
‘But you don’t deny that you know who I am.’
‘Marina is an unusual name.’
‘So, it’s obvious. You know that I was the baby that was abandoned in this house.’
He bows his head, conceding the point.
‘I came here looking for my mother,’ she says. ‘I have information, but I need more.’ She is bold now, moving in front of him, blocking his exit. ‘Tell me about Connie. Connie Littleton. She disappeared in 1964 – ran away to Paris and never came back, even missed her father’s funeral. Only I don’t believe she ever went. I don’t believe she would have just left me.’
‘You.’ He wipes his face with the handkerchief.
‘She was my mother.’
He shakes his head. ‘You are deluded.’
‘I have a letter to prove it.’
‘Prove it,’ he says quietly.
She is not sure if he is throwing down a challenge or whether he is simply repeating her words. She exhales slowly.
He speaks again. ‘You are out of your depth and should leave.’
Is he threatening her? She straightens, planting herself more firmly in his path.
‘It would be better if you moved,’ he says.
‘First, I want to know what happened to my mother.’
‘What makes you think I can help you with that?’
He is still water, she thinks suddenly – dead and quiet on the surface while underneath there’s a mass of dangerous currents and tangled weeds. She wants to take a stick and stir things up.
‘You knew her,’ she says, finally answering his question.
His expression is impassive.
‘Did you know that she was pregnant?’
He glances towards the door. There are familiar sounds, the sigh of the house, the creak of the stairs. Marina looks too and then back at Kenneth.
His face is hard and she feels a shiver of fear, despite his age.
‘You should go.’
‘I won’t.’ She steps forward, her face close to his. ‘I told you. I have proof that Connie was my mother and I’m not leaving until I know what happened to her.’
He looks at her, eyes flashing. Marina remembers what Victor said about him. Kenneth is racked with guilt. Anger too.
‘And I told you,’ he says slowly, ‘that it would be better for you to leave. Yet here you are still.’ He thumps his cane in time to his words.
‘Victor told me about the money.’
He is silent.
‘Did she take it? Is that why you’re so angry?’
He recoils. She has hit a nerve.
She goads him. ‘She was young, wasn’t she? How could you let someone so young get the better of you?’
He shakes his head. ‘You don’t understand.’
She grabs his arm, pulling him back. ‘Explain then.’
Her touch ignites him. Suddenly he snaps and pushes her away. She takes a step backwards, colliding with the sofa.
‘I gave you a chance,’ he says, ‘an opportunity to go without fuss. Get out of my house now or . . .’
‘What?’
He raises his cane and light from the window flashes on the silver top. The Devil is in the detail. Time slows. Tap. Tap. The man in the lake. The voices arguing in Eva’s head. The doll. The rose. Marina holds up her hand and it breaks the blow. With her other hand she shoves him, hard, in the chest, and he staggers.
‘Victor said you were gullible. The two of them together cleaned you out.’
She is taunting him again, hoping that he will break. That he will crack open like a nut and tell her ever
ything.
There is a sound. A figure comes into the room. Eva. Thin and shivering in her nightgown, pale as a spectre, like a little girl.
Something clicks inside Marina’s head.
She was a little girl who saw something terrible – something so terrible that she has forced herself to forget. Only you can never forget. You can only compartmentalise. Shut memories away in a section of your mind and slam the door. Until along comes a trigger or a series of triggers, clawing like finger nails to open that door.
Eva speaks. Startled, Kenneth turns. Marina takes her chance, thrusting him away, moving out of reach.
‘I saw you,’ she says, her voice shaking.
Marina is watching, heart thumping. She understands what is happening. She understands exactly. Eva has remembered.
‘You hurt Connie. It’s your fault she didn’t come back.’
Marina’s chest is tight. She puts her hand to her throat. Kenneth is ashen. He is crumbling, she thinks, like an ancient statue. Soon there will be nothing of him left.
‘You argued about money,’ Eva says more calmly. ‘You pushed her, and the door crashed against the wall. I was so small and so afraid, I went to find my mother, but she was playing the piano and crying, like she always did, so I went to my room because I had wet myself and I changed my clothes. When I got back to the landing, I saw you coming out alone, holding the baby. You did something to Connie and then you stole her baby.’
Eva stops and there is a stillness in the room.
Marina speaks to Kenneth. ‘Is that what happened?’ Her voice sounds far away. She clasps her hands together and feels herself shivering, teeth chattering.
His eyes are watering so badly now, it’s as if he is weeping. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I didn’t kill her.’
Hope pulses through Marina. Her mother is alive. She can still track her down. ‘So what happened?’
His body droops. ‘She was dying, anyway.’
Dismay twists inside Marina’s stomach. She is wrong. There is no hope.
He staggers backwards and drops into the armchair and Marina sees him for what he is: what he has become. He is a man given up. Old and tired and plagued by guilt. He will confess, she thinks, but what will he confess to? What has he done?
‘What happened?’ Marina repeats. ‘How did she die?
Slowly he shakes his head. ‘There was so much blood.’
Marina breathes slowly. ‘Because you hurt her.’
He shakes his head. ‘No. There was so much blood because . . .’ He stops, starts again. ‘I didn’t see the baby at first. I was angry with Connie because she had my money. She was leaving, taking it away. She had no right to do that. Nobody did.’
‘What did you do?’
He ignores her question. ‘I knew if the police found her dead, they would accuse me and I didn’t want to go back to prison. I couldn’t risk that.’
‘Why?’
‘He had friends.’
‘Who?’
‘Frank Dennis.’
Frank Dennis. The dead man in the lake. ‘Did you kill him?’ she says, her mouth dry.
He stares back at her and she can see that he did. His guilt is palpable now, his expression unflinching.
‘You killed him,’ she says loudly. ‘You killed Frank Dennis and then you murdered my mother.’
‘No!’ he snaps.
‘Then tell me what happened.’
‘She was dying. It was too late to do anything. She was bleeding so much. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.’ He looks at his hands, then at the ground as if he can see it still.
‘Why would you be afraid of the police if you didn’t kill her?’
‘I didn’t understand what was happening.’
‘Yet you pushed her. Did you hurt her that way?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. I told you. She was dying anyway.’
‘Dying anyway?’ she hisses. ‘What do you mean, dying anyway? What was wrong with her? You could have called a doctor, they might have saved her. Instead you left my mother alone to die.’
Her voice breaks. The tragedy and injustice is too awful to bear.
‘I had no choice. I took the baby and I put her in the hall. I would have taken her to a hospital, but there was no time. The baby was crying. And when I got back . . .’
Marina clenches her fists. ‘What?’
‘It was too late. I told you. Connie was . . . dying.’
Marina looks across at Eva. She is sitting now, head in her hands. ‘She died alone,’ Marina repeats.
‘No.’
‘Why did nobody find her?’
‘They didn’t search the house. They thought the mother had come in from outside.’
‘You mean you led them to believe that. You said you had found the front door open.’
He doesn’t need to reply. She knows it’s true and from what she has read about the other tenants, they would have said the same. Hadn’t Eileen Clarke talked about the open front door and how someone must have come in? Marina could almost hear her wanting to help like witnesses do. Kenneth would have backed her up, misdirected the police. At the same time, the other tenants would have said the same thing. Thomas was on holiday in Whitby and Connie had gone to Paris to be with her boyfriend. There would have been no reason to look in Flat 4.
The police had been scouring the streets when all along they should have been searching the house. Connie had been dying in her flat. And they simply hadn’t looked.
‘Where is she now?’ Marina manages at last.
He is silent and she realises she has underestimated this man. He won’t confess and she can feel her rage growing. Yet she will make him. She will force a confession. She hasn’t come this far to fail now.
‘What did you do?’
He looks away. She moves closer, reaches out to grab his collar. She will shake the truth from him. She will find out what . . .
She turns abruptly.
There is someone in the doorway.
Dorothy, wizened and tired, hands clasped, eyes cast down as if in supplication.
Her head still full of Kenneth’s guilt, Marina takes a deep breath, willing her heart to slow.
‘We buried her,’ says Dorothy. ‘But she didn’t die alone. I was there.’
35
Eva
February 1992
Eva remembers many things as she stands in the hall listening to Kenneth and the woman who she has now discovered is called Marina.
She remembers Little Eva changing her clothes. She remembers how she hid her purple dress and wet knickers in her room where later her mother would find them. She remembers pulling on a different dress. It was yellow, she thinks. Or maybe blue. The details are hazy. She remembers returning to the landing to find Connie, but she wasn’t there. Instead, the door of the flat was closed and so she waited, uncertain, until the door opened and Kenneth appeared. He was holding a bundle, wrapped in blue. Eva crouched, making herself small, hoping he wouldn’t see her, but he didn’t look up anyway, because he was too set on creeping down the stairs.
Eva remembers many things. She remembers Little Eva watching the small woman with the bright eyeshadow hurrying up the stairs shortly after Kenneth had gone. She remembers her rushing into her flat, coming out with a bunch of keys on a ring and then fumbling with the lock on Connie’s door.
She remembers the silence and the waiting and how she traced a pattern in the dust with her toes. She remembers a baby crying from all the way at the bottom of the house in the hall and then a voice exclaiming. She remembers recognising the lady who said words like candy and sidewalk and who gave her special chocolate bars that had come all the way from America. She remembers hearing Kenneth’s voice and how it made her shudder and feel afraid because she was thinking that maybe he was like those boys who had wanted to hurt her mother, or maybe he was like the nasty husband of the small woman – the woman who had just gone into Connie’s flat and still hadn’t come out.
Little Eva has a r
ule. Her mother comes first. Besides, Connie has told her not to tell. She puts her finger firmly on her lips to remind herself, then slips into her own flat and shuts the door.
36
Marina
February 1992
Marina crosses Trafalgar Square. People are scurrying, dodging the pigeons. The midday light sparkles on the fountains. A child tosses a coin and makes a wish. A tourist climbs onto the plinth and has her photo taken with a lion. The scene is less dour than a Lowry painting, less glamorous than a Renoir. It is ordinary and safe.
She climbs the steps of the National Gallery and heads for the restaurant. It strikes her that until she moved into Harrington Gardens, she had spent little time in London beyond a few school visits or trips with Ruth and David.
And yet, London is her home. It was where her mother lived and where she was born.
Her mother. Connie Littleton.
She has said these words many times since Kenneth and Dorothy made their confessions and Eva remembered what she saw.
She has visited the place, marked by that simple cross, where they buried her mother in the churchyard, close to the wall. Kenneth and Dorothy had carried her body out in the dead of night. How hard they must have worked to clean up the blood so Harry didn’t notice when he came. Marina tries not to think about that. Instead she clings to Dorothy’s description. The blanket they had wrapped her in, the prayers they had said, the flowers Dorothy laid on the grave month after month. Year after year.
Dorothy held Connie’s hand as she lay dying and promised to look out for her baby. She turned up at the hospital on the baby ward, found out who was fostering, and then adopting her. It wasn’t hard with a criminal for a friend. Kenneth knew all the right people to ask. And then she appeared at significant moments. Not a figment of Ruth’s imagination after all. Dorothy had kept her promise, tracking Marina’s progress, making sure she was happy. How had she felt when Marina had turned up at the house? She must have recognised her immediately.
It will be a while before there can be a proper funeral. The post-mortem must be completed as they try to establish the cause of Connie’s death. Dorothy thinks it was the placenta – that a fragment had been left behind and caused bleeding, slow at first, but steady. Like a dripping tap. Taking Connie’s life drop by drop with an occasional gush of blood and then a massive haemorrhage. Is that what happened? Too late to prove it, but Marina believes that her mother’s death was natural. She believes, too, that if Dorothy had realised, she would have called a doctor.
The Hiding Place Page 23