In the Spider's House

by Sarah Diamond

  I was about to ask further, but Liz was going over to Socks, bending, scooping him up in her arms. ‘I’d better get on, anyway, I should be making a start on the housework. Do let me know if he pops round again when I’m at home, won’t you—just check and see if my car’s there. He’s such an old cat, it’s quite a worry when I don’t know where he is. I can’t help fretting that something’s happened to him.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said as she headed towards the back door. ‘I will.’

  When she’d gone, I found myself thinking about Helen, wondering exactly what her background was. She was virtually a stranger to me, but something about her interested and repelled me simultaneously. That air of chilly self-righteousness, that quiet, flat, emotionless voice. If it hadn’t been for Rebecca, she’d have stayed in the foreground of my thoughts much longer; as it was, however, she was driven out in minutes, replaced by more immediate concerns. I thought of that girl from the ivory-coloured newspaper pages and their archaic-sounding world, standing in this kitchen just as I did, thinking, feeling, alive.

  St Anthony’s would have changed over the years, I thought, but it was still the same school. There must be some still-functioning links back to 1969, what people had thought of the name Rebecca Fisher when it had been no more notorious than my own. The girl she’d been then, adequately described, would give me the key to so much else—not just the ten-year-old killer, but the woman she could have become…

  Pulling myself together with an effort, I went over to the back door and slammed it. Then I made a start on vacuuming the living room; trying not to sense the echoes its previous tenant had left, focusing my thoughts on the prosaic reality of one o’clock.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘I WAS JUST starting out as a teacher at the time it happened,’ Judith Davies told me. ‘I’d only been at this school for a year—my God, I was twenty-three years old. To think of that, now.’ A short bark of laughter—I tried to join in.

  ‘So you taught her class?’

  ‘Not on a full-time basis. But I stood in for her teacher once, for two weeks. I must say, I was a lot less impressed with the famous Miss Fisher than most of my colleagues seemed to be.’

  Was that truth, or hindsight? ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, of course, the school’s changed a good deal between then and now—the whole area has. But it was rather a snobbish place then.’ Seeming to read my bewilderment, she carried on quickly, slightly impatiently. ‘Oh, I don’t mean wealthy, or privileged. Quite the opposite, in fact. Nearly every local parent with a say in the matter sent their children to a single-sex private school in the area—the girls’ one was called St Anne’s. Maybe that was why so many of the teachers were so snobbish. Tired of all the outbreaks of head lice and scabies and what have you; you’d be amazed what some of the children brought to school with them in those days.’ A deep, world-weary sigh. ‘They tended to treat Rebecca differently for just that reason. I never had any patience with that. As far as I was concerned, she was just the same as any of the others.’

  ‘They treated her differently because she was well-off?’

  ‘Her parents were extremely well-off. In a completely different class from most of the others. Even I sometimes wondered why she wasn’t at St Anne’s—it was impossible not to. From the little I saw of her parents, they certainly didn’t seem the type to hide their wealth.’

  My cigarette was burning away to nothing in the ashtray beside me. I took a deep, quick drag before speaking again. ‘Perhaps she was thrown out of St Anne’s. Expelled.’

  ‘She joined St Anthony’s at the age of six. No school in the area took children younger than that.’ I scribbled down a short note on my pad of A4. ‘Rather a mystery, isn’t it? You should have seen the sort of things she wore to school. Ridiculous things to give a child.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Oh, the sort of thing children seem to wear all the time these days. But I can’t tell you how bizarre they seemed then. Little gold earrings and velvet hair bows, little high heels like a grownup woman’s. Her mother sent her to school dressed up like a china doll. Of course, it was totally against school regulations. But as far as the other teachers were concerned, they simply didn’t seem to apply to her.’

  A china doll. I seemed to be hearing about one, somehow—there was an odd unreality about the description. In Judith’s words, I sensed a character as essentially fictional as the beautiful, sinister Child of the Damned I’d read about in that Daily Mail article; I struggled to find some detail that would make the picture come alive, give human detail to a competently drawn cartoon girl. ‘Did she ever take advantage of that at all?’ I asked. ‘Break other rules?’

  ‘Far from it. If it wasn’t for her clothes, I’d hardly have noticed her at all. A very colourless sort of child, I always thought. Insipid. Obedient.’ She laughed. ‘In all fairness, a lot of teachers love children like that, rich parents or not. I was never one of them. I always preferred the ones with a bit more get-up-and-go.’

  ‘But she was intelligent?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far. You’d be surprised how many children can be competent at primary school level—it’s really just a matter of neat handwriting and a reasonable memory. No, she was the very last child I’d have expected to become notorious. In terms of her personality, I’d have said there were dozens of girls just like her, in every primary school in Britain.’

  I had a clear mental picture of the sort of little girl she was describing, a type I recognised from my own primary school days, the sort who worried about colouring pens running out, and flinched old-maidishly from any activity more controversial than skipping. It couldn’t have been further removed from everything I’d read about Rebecca. ‘So she blended in well?’ I asked. ‘She was a part of things?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘With her classmates. In the playground. You know.’

  ‘To be honest, I can’t say I ever noticed. I’ve never had time for teachers who get involved with eight- or nine-year-olds’ social lives—who’s best friends with who, and who’s not talking to who, and who we should have a quiet word with for not inviting so-and-so to their birthday party.’ She spoke frankly and dismissively. ‘Unless a child’s being physically threatened, I’ve always believed they should be left to sort things out on their own. What they do outside the classroom is their own affair, as long as they don’t break any rules, of course.’

  I struggled not to let my mounting frustration show in my voice. ‘Well, what about in the classroom? Did you feel she was in the middle of a group? Or did she seem more isolated?’

  ‘I’m afraid it never occurred to me to think about it. She never seemed particularly unhappy, as far as I can remember.’ The short silence had an unmistakable edge of finality. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s very much all I know about her. I hope it’s been of some use to you.’

  ‘You’ve been very helpful. Thanks a lot for your time.’ I felt deeply disappointed, and my next words sounded more perfunctory than purposeful. ‘If I could just ask—do you know anyone else I might be able to talk to? Any of your colleagues who were there at the time?’

  ‘Nobody who still teaches here. But there is an ex-colleague. Her name’s Miss Watson, Miss Annette Watson.’ Judith’s voice was businesslike. ‘She was Rebecca’s teacher for a year. She retired three years ago, to Bournemouth.’

  ‘That’s near me. I live in Dorset, too,’ I said quickly. ‘If you know how to get in touch with her, do you think you could pass on my phone number?’

  ‘Well, I can certainly do that. I must say, I’m not sure she’ll want to go over it again, after all this time. But there’s no harm in trying.’

  The aftermath of that phone call brought a profound sense of anticlimax. It was as if the newspaper library had brought my appetite raging up, and the promised meal had never arrived. I’d felt much the same way following my conversation with Liz, Helen and Muriel, but this time, frustration an
d disappointment seemed a hundred times worse. It stood to reason that the adult Rebecca would go out of her way to seem colourless and perfectly normal, so perhaps they couldn’t be blamed for noticing so little. But Judith Davies was a completely different matter. Rebecca hadn’t needed to wear a mask in those days; there was no possible reason why she’d have had to hide her true self that skilfully. She’d killed her best friend at the age of ten, and her former teacher could have been describing virtually any well-behaved little girl in Britain.

  In the days that followed, the other teacher Judith Davies had mentioned began to feel like a lifeline, a last resort. Whenever I was in the house, part of me was alert and waiting for an unexpected phone call, an unknown woman’s voice on the line. It was, I knew, ridiculous; there must be other people I could track down, and the book I’d bought online should arrive soon. But I worried there’d be nobody to find, and made a shrewd guess that the book in question would contain nothing but crude half-truths polished up into high-gloss clichés. A morbid, fretful little voice spoke up inside me rather too often, warning that there might be no way into this novel after all, that I’d had a distant glimpse of an apparently accessible paradise only to get a little closer and find eight-foot gates uncompromisingly padlocked.

  But there was something else. Something I didn’t care to look at too closely: my hunger to find out more about Rebecca wasn’t just about the book, not any more. The article from the Daily Mail had revealed a too-sharp parallel between her mind and my own; it had taken root in my thoughts, and demanded to be torn out. I wanted to know her true character so I could look back at this irrational unease and laugh at myself. Possessiveness was a common enough characteristic, and Rebecca’s had been created by entirely different circumstances. Beyond our ownership of this house, we had nothing in common at all.

  It seemed that I sensed her presence there more and more strongly, that week. When I came back from the shops in the afternoon and the heavy front door creaked shut behind me, the rooms looked alien for a second, as if I was trespassing in someone else’s home. And in those moments, I had the distinct feeling that the real owner had left a very short time ago, and that she’d let herself out through the back door mere minutes before I’d entered.

  That feeling always vanished when Carl came home in the evenings; its charged, haunted quality couldn’t possibly coexist with his good humour, his practicality, his incidental tales from the office. It was as if the sound of his car outside flicked a hundred-watt light on in a darkened room, showing the monsters lurking in shadow for the prosaic furnishings they really were.

  ‘I saw Jim at work today,’ he said on Thursday night. ‘Him and his wife can’t do this Saturday night, but I’ve invited them over for dinner on Sunday—is that okay with you?’

  We were sitting in the kitchen over our evening meal, and his voice came unexpectedly to disturb a lengthy pause—I’d been thinking about Rebecca and the living room phone simultaneously, and pulled myself back with an effort. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it.’ Laying his knife and fork down, he looked at me closely. ‘Ever since you came back from that library, it seems like you’ve been on another planet, Annie. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter. Not really.’ My reaction to that Daily Mail article felt as impossible to share as an intensely personal, disturbing dream—at best it would make me look ridiculous, at worst, something I didn’t like to think about. ‘I’m just a bit preoccupied, I suppose. With the book and everything. With the research.’

  I could see him trying to look supportive, but instead looking slightly worried. He was obviously about to say something when the phone shrilled through the half-open doorway, and I jumped up from my seat. ‘I’ll get it,’ I said quickly, ‘I think it’s for me.’ Hurrying into the living room, I took a deep breath before answering, composing myself to speak professionally to a stranger. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi.’ Disappointment hit me hard—it was a stranger, but a male one. ‘Can I speak to Carl, please?’

  ‘Certainly, I’ll go and get him.’ I went back into the kitchen, trying my hardest to look untroubled. ‘It’s for you.’

  A last frowning, concerned glance at me, and he was leaving the room himself. I overheard snippets of brief and businesslike conversation, the kind that only men seem to have. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘not a problem. I’ll bring it in tomorrow morning. See you then.’ He hung up. When he reached the kitchen doorway, he stopped and stared at me for several seconds, with an odd mixture of puzzlement, exasperation and concern.

  ‘A bit preoccupied? When the phone rang just then, I thought you were about to have a bloody heart attack. Annie, you really need to relax.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m still waiting to hear from that woman, the one who taught Rebecca—you know, I told you about her the other night. The headmistress told me she’d give her my number.’ His incomprehension suddenly infuriated me. ‘It’s important,’ I said hotly. ‘She’s got to call. She’s just got to.’

  ‘She hasn’t got to do a damn thing. She’s a free agent. Maybe she doesn’t want to go over it all again, wants to forget she ever taught that kid in the first place.’ Seeing my stricken expression, his own softened slightly and he came over to the table and sat down. ‘I’m sorry, Annie, I know it’s important to you. But you’re taking all this a bit too seriously—it’s research for your novel, not life and death.’

  ‘I know.’ But I spoke to conciliate only; in the most literal sense it was, or at least had once been, exactly that. ‘Look, I’m sorry. But I just can’t wait to make a start on this idea. You can understand that, can’t you?’

  ‘I suppose.’ He smiled as if against his will, and I watched the inexorable return of seriousness. ‘But there are other things in the world, you know—this book’s not the be-all and end-all, you’ve written one, you’ve proved you can do it. If you start having too much trouble with this one, just give it up. Nobody’s going to hold it against you.’

  I would. The words rose in my throat; I forced them back down. ‘And then what?’ I asked. ‘Fun-filled days at the WI?’

  ‘Well, that can wait a few years. Or a few decades.’ We laughed. ‘But come on, Annie, I’m making good money now, we’ve got a nice house. You know, this would be a great place to start a family. From the sound of it, a baby would be a lot less trouble than a book.’

  It was a subject we’d never really discussed at all seriously before. I struggled to suppress my instinctive rise of panic, to speak with warm, sweet rationality. ‘Look, Carl I’m really not ready for all that yet. There’s plenty of time.’

  ‘You know I’m happy to wait.’ His voice was slightly but unmissably defensive. ‘I just think it’d be good for you.’

  ‘It wouldn’t.’ The last word came out a little too strongly. ‘I’m not having a child I don’t want in the hope I’ll get to like the idea, that I’ll feel different when it’s born. I’ve been there myself, you know that—you don’t understand how it feels, growing up that way.’

  I felt his surprise at the same time as I felt my own—it was something we rarely talked about, the kind of subject that dominated a three-hour heart-to-heart before being placed tactfully out of sight. ‘You wouldn’t be like that, Annie,’ he said quietly. ‘You’d try.’

  ‘My mother tried. All the time. It didn’t make any difference. In fact, it made things worse.’ A moment’s pause as I struggled to move this conversation away from my childhood, back to us. ‘I want kids as much as you do. There’s going to be a time for them. It’s just not now.’

  For several seconds, neither of us spoke; while I was very pleased that the matter had been brought out into the open at last, the silence was heavy and awkward. Unexpectedly, the phone shrilled again in the living room, and my relief at the interruption almost overcame the sharp rise of hope. ‘Okay, okay, I’m not moving a muscle,’ I said, ‘I’m totally relaxed. You get it, if you like.
’

  With a slightly distracted smile, he got up and left the room. ‘Sure,’ I heard him saying, ‘I’ll just get her.’ Then he was coming back in, expression part-pleased, part-cautious. ‘For you,’ he said. ‘I think it’s that teacher of yours.’

  Delight, apprehension that he might be wrong—with his eyes on me, I found myself trying to conceal both. In the living room’s Tiffany-shaded half-light, I lifted the receiver from the table and prepared myself for disappointment. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, good evening. Is that Anna Jeffreys?’

  My writing name. My heart jumped. ‘Speaking.’

  ‘This is Annette Watson. Judith gave me your number this morning.’ There was something vague and kindly and approachable about the elderly female voice—it seemed expressly designed for pleasant chit-chat over a sweet sherry. ‘I hear you’re writing a novel about Rebecca Fisher.’

  ‘Well, based on Rebecca Fisher. Based on the whole case, really.’ That memorable experience with Mr Wheeler made me wary of half-truths, and I spoke carefully. ‘I was hoping you could give me some background on her character.’

  ‘Oh, I’d be more than happy to help. I always felt there was more to be said about that little girl—I’m delighted a writer feels the same way. She wasn’t at all what you’d have imagined from the newspapers, you know. When I read them all those years ago, they could have been talking about a different person.’

  ‘That was the impression I had,’ I said slowly. ‘When would be a convenient time for us to talk for an hour or so? I can come and visit you in Bournemouth—I’m based near Wareham.’

  ‘I’m free most of the time, to be honest. One of the best things about being retired, I suppose. What about this Saturday, if that’s not too soon for you?’

  She gave me her address, and we agreed that I’d come round at half-eleven in the morning. As I replaced the receiver and came back into the kitchen, everything else was virtually forgotten—Mr Wheeler, the conversation I’d just had with Carl, even the novel—it was as if I’d walked out carrying two heavy suitcases and returned empty-handed. ‘You were right,’ I said, sitting back down. ‘It was her. Annette Watson.’