The Other Child

by Charlotte Link

  ‘Gordon McBright …’

  Semira Newton looked past her visitor and out of the window. The October day was turning to twilight. ‘It exists,’ she said. ‘Evil. More unimaginable, merciless and sly than most of us ever guess. In any case, I was then twenty-eight, and although I had certainly not only seen the sunny side of life in my time as a social worker in London, I didn’t then know real evil.’

  She was skirting around the topic, Leslie could see that. She found it difficult to return to that December day almost forty years ago.

  ‘Do you know what I read a few months ago?’ asked Semira. ‘I read how a lot of people get rid of their dogs in Spain. They hang them up on trees. But not in a way that lets them die quickly. They hang them up so that the claws on their hind legs just scrape the ground. That delays death. The dogs struggle for hours before dying.’

  Leslie swallowed.

  ‘And do you know what they call it?’ asked Semira. ‘The Spanish?’

  ‘No,’ said Leslie. Her No was a barely intelligible croak. She cleared her throat.

  ‘No,’ she repeated.

  ‘They call it playing the piano,’ said Semira. ‘Because in their desperate attempts to keep the tips of their paws on the ground, to avoid the slow strangulation, the dogs pitter-patter from side to side. Just like the movements of a pianist’s fingers on the keys.’

  Leslie did not say a word. She was horrified.

  ‘Yes,’ continued Semira. ‘That was what shook me. Not that fact that they do it. But the name they gave to the cruel show. Maybe we feel the full power of evil most when we aren’t faced with simple brutality, but when the brutality is accompanied by cynicism. Because then we see that the rational faculties are involved. And isn’t it unbearable to know that rational people do things like that?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Leslie.

  ‘But that’s not why you came, to chat with me about the evil in the world,’ said Semira. ‘You came about my particular story, about which I’ve thought so much over the years. About Gordon McBright, and Brian Somerville.’

  ‘And my grandmother?’

  Semira laughed. ‘Oh, you want to know if I murdered your grandmother last Saturday night? You want to know if I have a motive? Yes, Dr Cramer, I did. But I’m going to have to disappoint you. If I had wanted to kill Fiona Barnes, I wouldn’t have done it a couple of days ago, sparing her the troubles, hardships and loneliness of old age. Why would I have been that nice? And also – look at me. I read that your grandmother was beaten to death and thrown into some kind of gorge by a meadow. In the middle of the night. Do you think I could have done all that? Stuck as I am in this wreck of a body?’

  Leslie shook her head. ‘Hard to imagine.’

  ‘Impossible. I’d have trouble killing myself. Someone else? No. I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I didn’t want to suggest that you—’

  ‘No, I know you didn’t, my dear. You just want to understand a few things, I understand. You know, I always hated your grandmother. And Chad Beckett. The innocent couple – they made things easy for themselves. They would do anything to save their own skin. At the end of the day, my messed up life has a lot to do with their selfishness, cowardice and egotism. I can tell you about it, Dr Cramer, if you like. I can tell you how Gordon McBright beat me so badly I became an incurable cripple. I can tell you everything he did to me, and it won’t be like anything you’ve experienced in your life, Leslie. I don’t imagine life is easy for someone whose grandmother is Fiona Barnes, but it’s nothing compared to my suffering. You can bet your life on it.’

  ‘I’d like to hear about it,’ said Leslie.

  9

  ‘But why did you do that?’ asked Colin.

  He stood with his back to the little window of the garret they had always stayed in during their holidays on the Beckett farm. And although he was not a particularly wide-shouldered man, he covered almost all the pane and blocked out the late afternoon light.

  Jennifer was sitting on the bed with Wotan and Cal at her feet. Both dogs had put their noses on Jennifer’s knee and were looking up at her, their eyes pleading for her to stroke them. She scratched their heads absent-mindedly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said to Colin in the end.

  ‘Well, Jennifer, really …’ He shook his head. ‘You gave a false statement to the police. In a murder investigation! You could get into real trouble for that. And you say you don’t know why you did it?’

  She pretended to be unaffected by his words. ‘Maybe I was a little too impulsive. I just felt it would be better … to have an alibi. That policewoman, she’s like a bloodhound. She wants to see this case solved however she can, even if the person she’ll present as the culprit isn’t guilty. I wanted to avoid any problems.’

  ‘And so you claimed that you and Gwen spent the whole evening together, even though it wasn’t true?’

  ‘What’s so bad about that?’

  He put his face in his hands. This was not the Jennifer he knew. She was acting so naive and yet stubborn. ‘It’s a false statement. There’ll be hell to pay if it comes out.’

  ‘How should it come out?’

  ‘Well, Gwen told me. Obviously she’s wondering why you thought it was necessary to knock together this story. Then she’ll talk to Dave about it. Then maybe her father. And Leslie Cramer – it’d be good to tell her too. In the end, you can bet on it, the police will hear. Jennifer, how could you count on Gwen? She’s a little girl, who always needs someone’s advice. You’ve known her for years!’

  ‘So what? So the police will hear about it. Colin, my conscience is clear. Let Inspector Almond think what she likes, she won’t be able to pin anything on me. Because I haven’t done anything. I haven’t murdered Fiona Barnes, have I?’

  ‘You’re not making sense. First you say you want to avoid any problems, so the policewoman can’t stick anything on you. But now that you might have got them properly interested in you by lying about an important fact – now you act as if none of it matters and they can’t do anything to you anyway. Why the change?’

  Jennifer did not stop scratching the dogs’ heads. They were starting to drool with joy. ‘She was already suspicious of me. Because of what happened back then. It doesn’t matter what else comes up. She’s been out to get me from the start.’

  ‘And so you go and give her plenty of reason to be suspicious.’

  ‘Maybe it will become clear somehow that it was Gibson. Then the whole thing is settled anyway.’

  Colin moved away from the window. He drew up a chair and sat opposite his wife. ‘Jennifer, you yourself told me he wasn’t anywhere around here at the time of the crime. That’s even in the statement of the woman who reported him to the police, and she has absolutely no reason to cover for him. So the two of us are still suspects, like it or not.’

  ‘We would be even if I hadn’t agreed anything with Gwen.’

  ‘Yes, but you wouldn’t have put yourself in such a risky position. No one, not even Inspector Almond, can seriously consider what happened back then with your pupil as the basis for a murder charge. It doesn’t help her. Your false statement does.’

  ‘Gwen’s in it just as much as me.’

  ‘But it wasn’t Gwen’s idea, it was yours. We were all in shock after Fiona’s murder, and I expect it wasn’t hard for you to convince our inexperienced Gwen that it would be best to accept your suggestion. Well, now she’s starting to think about it, and I get the feeling that she is getting more and more uncomfortable with going along with the lie. Jennifer, the longer the investigation goes on, and the more thorough it becomes, the more her discomfort will rise. And even if she doesn’t spill the beans to one and all, at some point she will buckle when questioned. Unfortunately, I’m completely sure of that.’

  ‘I can’t do anything about it now,’ replied Jennifer. She sounded resigned, as Colin realised with some apprehension, as if it were no longer of importance to her.

  ‘Go to DI Almond,’ he told her.
‘Go and explain what happened. Tell her what you told me: that you were afraid, because you had been out with the dogs and so were an immediate suspect. That you wanted to avoid any problems and so you reacted as you did in a thoughtless panic.’

  ‘Then she’ll ask why I panicked. Colin, it’s almost like admitting I’m guilty!’

  ‘But it’ll be worse if she hears it from Gwen. Or from someone else. Much worse.’

  They looked at each other. The dogs felt the tension in the room. They pricked up their ears and looked attentively from one master to the other.

  Jennifer said quietly, ‘I think I’d like to go home.’

  ‘We have to leave on Saturday anyway. My holiday is over by Monday.’

  ‘I want to go today.’

  ‘Now? Today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In my opinion, we shouldn’t do that.’

  ‘The police have our names. They have our addresses. We live an hour and a half’s drive from here. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.’

  His eyelids hurt. He was sure he looked just as tired as his wife and asked himself where this crippling tiredness came from which enveloped the two of them and filled them with an indeterminate sadness.

  ‘I think you should go to the police,’ he insisted.

  ‘I can call them from home.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Of course!’

  He had the impression that she was ready to promise whatever he wanted to hear at the moment, as long as he agreed to leave the Beckett farm with her right then. He reached out and took her hands in his. ‘What’s happened, Jennifer? Why this sudden flight? Is it … because of yesterday? It shook you deeply. It wouldn’t be surprising if it had disturbed you. Maybe we should have another chat. About today, about the man, about your fears. About how you have had to be strong the whole time and support this woman, when maybe you yourself needed someone to support you.’

  ‘It’s not just the whole thing with Stan Gibson which is on my mind. It’s … everything. The farm. Gwen. Dave Tanner. The police. Everything on this farm is grey, have you ever noticed? Lifeless. Chad is lifeless. Gwen’s life is no life. Tanner is a parasite, not a ray of light. Can you imagine the three of them living here together – Chad, Gwen and Tanner? Without even Fiona’s sharp tongue to stir things up?’

  He could not believe his ears. ‘Everything grey on this farm? Lifeless? You always wanted to come here, Jennifer. You were fond of all of this. The landscape, the sea, the house, Gwen. I had the feeling that … the Beckett farm was everything to you. And now … you’re telling me this?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Now I’m telling you this.’ She stood up with a strange mixture of sadness and new-found resolve.

  ‘We’re changing, Colin. All of us. I’ve changed in the last few days.’

  He got up too. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Hard to describe. I don’t know when it started, either. Maybe when Almond dug up what happened back then and thrust it in my face. When I felt pushed into a corner again because of it. But I only understood what I felt yesterday. When I saw how scared Ena Witty was of Stan Gibson. And her hesitation. Should she split up with him or not? Did he have anything to do with Amy Mills’s death? Was she just imagining his strange behaviour to her? Back and forth it went, and the only thing that came across was her uncertainty, weakness, lack of courage and inability to make a decision. I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon with her. The evening. The night. This morning. And at some point I just wanted to go. To get away. I couldn’t bear her any more!’

  ‘That poor woman? You couldn’t bear her any more?’

  ‘She made me so angry. So terribly angry. Her submissiveness. Her fear. Her whining. Everything she had told me about the weeks with Gibson. How could she have taken that crap from him? How could she make herself so weak and let him be so strong? I felt ready to explode. I could explode now!’

  ‘I understand,’ said Colin in a calming voice, although he did not really see what she was trying to tell him.

  She looked at him with an expression which was almost scornful. ‘I don’t think you do understand me, Colin. It’s taken me a while to understand it. Because, you see, I wasn’t actually angry with her, but with me.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘I saw awful Ena Witty and had to think of Amy Mills – of what the media said about her. She must have been just the same. A victim. Stan Gibson likes women like that. Women who lie down and turn over. Who let a man like him be their lord and master. And what’s worse: he can find them. They exist. And there are plenty of them.’

  ‘It does seem so, unfortunately. But you …’

  Now she was avoiding his gaze. She was staring at some invisible spot on the opposite wall. ‘I’m like that too. I could have been. A victim. The victim of a person like that.’

  He was confused. ‘But you aren’t! You have your issues, but I certainly wouldn’t describe you as a completely shy, submissive person.’

  ‘I’m different from Ena Witty. And Amy Mills. But I’m eaten up by self-doubt, Colin, you know that. The only reason it’s not too obvious is because I’ve withdrawn almost entirely from normal life. For long periods you and the dogs are my only company. I find it difficult to mix with people. I can’t even drive a car, because I don’t dare to. So many fears stop me living my life. Maybe I’m just better at hiding it than some others.’

  ‘But someone like Stan Gibson would sniff it out?’

  ‘I’m convinced of it. He’s a master of it. If I didn’t have you, I’d be a lonely person. Plagued by all kinds of neuroses. And probably I’d be ready to make any number of allowances, just to get someone to care for me.’

  He could think of nothing to say which would contradict her theory. ‘Oh, Jennifer,’ he said helplessly. Then he added, ‘But you do have me. You’ll always have me.’

  But that was not the point. That was not what she had meant. And he knew it.

  ‘Why do you think Inspector Almond had her sights set on me?’ continued Jennifer, ignoring Colin’s interjection. ‘Without any real reason, in a flash, I became a victim again.’

  ‘Well, you have to admit—’

  She did not let him finish. ‘I’m so angry, Colin, so damn angry. I think I’m going to get more and more angry every day. I’m angry about the way they forced me out of my job back then. About how this policewoman has tried to use my past against me. About how I’ve hidden away all these years. How I’ve stopped living. How I felt – injured, overwhelmed and under attack. And angry about the deeper reason why I always came back to the Beckett farm: because they aren’t really alive here. Gwen and her father are just existing like the living dead. That’s why I felt comfortable here. I fitted in here, because I was lifeless too, paralysed. I don’t want that any more. I don’t want to fit in any more, here in this isolated house near the sea. The only thing they do here is keep the world far away. I want to be part of the world again. Not its victim.’

  Thinking about the start of their conversation, Colin was tempted to say: And so you put yourself in the role of the victim again by making up a dodgy story with Gwen?

  But he did not say anything. It was not appropriate. Jennifer had made a mistake, but a finicky criticism of her ill-thought-out action would only have put a damper on the new direction she was deciding to take. She had bigger and more important things to think about than who had murdered Fiona Barnes and whom the police might have their eyes on. Even if they suspected her, it did not seem to be what she was thinking about now. So he smiled, more with resignation than happiness, but it was a smile to reassure Jennifer that she had his support.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then let’s pack and get going. And leave this room behind us for ever, right? I don’t think we’ll be seeing it again.’

  ‘No way,’ said Jennifer.

  10

  ‘So, as I was saying,’ said Semira. The children of one of my husband’s fellow workers came to me about it twice. They had been at McB
right’s farm and noticed something strange and unsettling … a child cowering in an abandoned-shed. He had an iron ring around his neck and was chained up. He could barely move, and was shivering with cold.’

  ‘And you didn’t report it to the police immediately?’ asked Leslie. She herself felt ice-cold, down to the tips of her toes. She kept her coat on, not wanting to freeze completely.

  ‘I thought about it,’ replied Semira. ‘But John advised me not to. The kids were known to make up all manner of crazy stories and tell them to people. John said I’d make myself look like a real fool if I went to the police about it. He said I shouldn’t take it seriously. A child on a chain! That just doesn’t happen!’

  ‘But you couldn’t get the story out of your mind,’ prompted Leslie.

  ‘That was it. Unlike John, who has always worked as a cook, I wasn’t sure that there are things which don’t happen. Especially when it comes to what people are capable of doing to each other. As I said, I had been a social worker in London. I had experienced any number of cases of serious domestic violence. I was six years younger than John, but much less naive than him.’

  ‘You looked for the farm.’

  ‘After much humming and hawing, I thought I’d better see the farm for myself and then tell the police and youth services, if what I saw confirmed what the kids had said. I was certainly afraid. Like I said, Gordon McBright had a scary reputation in Ravenscar. Although at that point we had not been living there for long, we had already heard a lot about him. People said he was a brutal, completely asocial man, full of hate. Apparently he had been mistreated for years by his own father. I don’t know if that rumour was true. It was an explanation for why he lived in a wordless fury against God and the world, showing a vicious contempt for other people. He had a wife. She was said to be a physical wreck. She had only been seen two or three times in the village in all the years she had been there. Apparently she no longer had teeth, was as skinny as a rake, and lived in patent fear of her husband. But she had never asked anyone for help, including the police. And no one had intervened on their own initiative. Everyone was too afraid of McBright.’