by Vivien Brown
‘A little chat? I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’
‘I’m afraid we recovered a body earlier today, from the railway line.’
‘Oh, no. No!’
‘One of your neighbours …’
Madi could feel herself start to shake, the blood draining from her face until she was sure she was going to faint. It was Suzy, she just knew it. It had to be. Suzy had seemed so troubled, so angry, but she had not expected this. An arrest, maybe, but not this. Never this. Madi closed her eyes and tried hard to control the long, anguished sob that was threatening to burst out from somewhere deep inside her.
‘And in her pocket we found a written confession, I’m afraid. You were the intended victim, as we had feared. Not Miss Harris.’
‘She hated me enough to want to bash me over the head, maybe even kill me?’ Madi’s voice wavered, the tears trickling unbidden down her face. ‘Didn’t she realise I had no idea who she was until yesterday? She was just a child back then. I was young, caught up in a foolish love affair. I didn’t think about anyone else. Who I might be hurting …’ Madi put her head down into her hands and breathed deeply, trying to stop herself from passing out. This was her fault. All her fault. What had happened to Prue, and now to Suzy. ‘Oh, but what about Aaron? That poor boy. Does he know? Has he been told?’
‘Aaron Jones, you mean?’ The officer looked confused. ‘Does he know what, exactly?’
‘That his mother’s dead. She was very upset, I realise that. All alone in that flat a lot of the time, and she was blind, for heaven’s sake. What an awful way to live. And then to have to find out about her father … and me. But she didn’t deserve any of this.’
The inspector put his cup down. ‘Miss Cardew, I’m not sure what you think has happened here, but I can assure you it does not involve Mrs Jones or her son. The neighbour I am referring to, the person who attacked Miss Harris and has now sadly taken her own life, was not Suzy Jones. It was a Miss Emily Parker.’
Chapter 42
To Whom It May Concern
I, Miss Emily Jane Parker of Flat 3, Belle Vue Court, do hereby confess my sins. I am not a religious woman, but I do have a conscience, and I have done wrong. The punishment of the law frightens me. I am old, too old for life in a prison cell. I prefer to deal with my guilt in my own way, but I do apologise to those who find me, and for the inevitable mess. That worries me now, above all else. I like to be tidy. Neat. Clean. I like a job to be well done. I am a perfectionist. I like to finish what I begin, tie up the ends.
In recent months I have allowed my hatred for another woman to take over my thoughts, my daily life, my very existence. I had all but forgotten about her, the usurper from my past, until I discovered she had been here all along, the two of us living only floors apart. And then, suddenly, she had a name and a face, and she was real again, and old feelings came flooding back. Feelings of betrayal, abandonment, grief. A desire for revenge.
I wanted only to hurt her as she had once hurt me. To confuse her, unsettle her, make her feel she was going out of her mind, as she once caused me to lose my own mind for a while. To that end, I have been entering her flat in her absence and interfering with her possessions, moving them, hiding them, taking them away. I took some pleasure from it, and there has been precious little of that these last years. I did not want, or expect, to cause her physical harm. I may have fantasised about doing just that, but the courage escaped me.
You will find her locket and her statuette in my bedroom. There will be blood on the latter, which I am sure will come as no surprise. There will be no need to break the door down. The key is here in my pocket, alongside this letter. Unless it has been dislodged by the impact of the train, in which case I am sure you will recover it from the track.
The keys to her flat. You will be wanting to know about those too. How I obtained them. How I got in. We can blame Betty Bloomfield for that. A more scatty woman you would be unlikely ever to meet. I do not know how she holds down a perfectly respectable and responsible job at the local lending library when she has the attention span of a goldfish. In and out of the place, being a Good Samaritan, leaving the keys dangling in the door. So easy to slip them out and have a copy made. She never missed them. Not until she found them lying on her own doormat later that day and thought she’d simply dropped them. The woman is a fool.
As for my nemesis, the true target of my vitriol, I would never have known it was her if it wasn’t for that damn fool solicitor. Or solicitor’s boy, I prefer to call him. Hardly out of school, still wet behind the ears, bumbling about, dropping papers and spilling secrets he had no business to even know, let alone tell.
Living here, he’d said. On the same special terms. Protected tenancies. Reduced rents. Two other women, one since dead. It was that skinny dancer from number 6, where the new family now lived. Jeremy’s family. His daughter, his grandson. Even his widow, for a while. How could I not have known who they were? But the dancer … I had never known much about her, never wanted to. She had been the one before me. Of no importance. She had been his past, and I was to be his future. I got some satisfaction from that. A small victory at least and, besides, it was much too late to deal with her now.
And then there was Miss Madalyn Cardew, at number 9. The one who came after me, the one he left me for. Right there under my nose, all those years. The one who had destroyed my life, and taken him away from me.
We met when he came into my café, Jeremy and I. It was 1976. A hot summer. I remember it as if it was yesterday. The place was empty, everyone outside soaking up the sun. We chatted as he drank his tea. I refilled his cup. He smiled and I smiled back. He took a rose from his lapel and handed it to me as he left. I pressed its petals inside a book. I have it still. There is nothing quite so romantic as a rose.
He came again the following week, and the one after. He would stay and chat when it was quiet, compliment me on my cakes, kiss my hand as he left. I was unused to male attention. I am not a woman of beauty. I never was. I was already forty and had never married. His charm, his easy manner, drew me in, enchanted me. Something in me must have appealed to him too, and for that I was grateful. Slowly, we developed an understanding, a closeness. I made no demands. I allowed him to shuffle off his fame and just be himself. Fed him, held him, listened to him. He would call in whenever he was rehearsing nearby, or when he was in a London play. Sometimes weeks would pass, but he always came back. We were like magnets, Jeremy and I. He was the north to my south. We were pulled together. He made me feel special, beautiful, desired, as no one else did, or had, or could. I gave myself to him willingly. I loved him, and I believed that he loved me. I like to believe it still.
When he ended things, I was devastated. He had met another woman. Younger, prettier, someone in the same business, and he had fallen in love with her. He told me her name was Lyn. Just Lyn. I never knew her full name. Just that he was sorry if he’d led me on.
It turns out that she – Madalyn Cardew – is Lyn. Some silly, shortened nickname he used, but it’s her. I know that now. Jeremy’s Lyn. Oh, I hate even thinking of her in that way. Jeremy’s Lyn. His Lyn. His! No, I was his, and he was mine.
I had accepted that he had a wife. Insipid, insignificant, but necessary. He had an image to maintain, a standing within his career, his world. And there was a daughter, still very young. He could not contemplate the possibility of a divorce and its consequences. I accepted too that there had been others before me, that liaisons were inevitable when a marriage was unhappy, a man unfulfilled. But somehow they didn’t count. The wife, the lovers, the confidantes. I could not let them enter my thoughts. They were there before me, and the past is, sadly, unchangeable. What’s done is done. But once we had found each other, I truly believed we would be together for ever. I never expected there to be anyone after me, instead of me …
He looked after me in his own way, gave me a flat to live in, made sure I felt grateful enough not to tell, but I never saw him again. Once, on stage, fr
om my seat at the back of the stalls, but he did not know I was there. And on TV from time to time, my breath caught in my throat at the sudden sight of him there in my own home. But never to speak to, never to touch.
I gave up the café. He was everywhere there, in its walls and its windows, and I could not cope with that. I did write to him some months later, a last attempt to hang on, to grab back at least his friendship if not his heart, to recapture something at any price, even if it meant having to share him, but he did not reply. I knew then that he was utterly lost to me. To say that it broke me would not be entirely true, but it certainly hardened me, changed me, and not, I know now, for the better.
I thought it was her – Lyn – in her flat that night. I thought she had come back, caught me snooping, trespassing, that she would report me to the police, shame me. I let my temper, my anger, my jealousy, get the better of me. Some primal instinct rose up in me, to protect myself, to escape, to survive. And I hit her. I hit her hard, and I left her there, bleeding. But it was not her. It was the wrong woman.
I don’t know if the girl will live. Perhaps it is better I die not knowing. If I am a murderer, I prefer not to know it. Either way, how am I supposed to live with what I have done? She was a sweet girl, with a good heart. She wanted to help others, to make a difference. I hope I have not broken that in her.
If she lives, tell her I am sorry. I wish I could have seen her garden, sat in it in the sun, seen out my days in peace, surrounded by roses. But now I never will.
I hate you, Madalyn Cardew, even now. And that bastard son of yours, the one I used to see running up and down the stairs from time to time, playing in the hall, holding your hand. I had no idea then who you were, or who he was. That Jeremy had given you a child, the one thing I craved above all else. My own child was stripped from me before it had a chance. That pregnancy was the beginning of the end, as far as Jeremy was concerned. I didn’t have your determination, your willpower, your fight. Two hundred pounds he paid to have it taken from me. And abortion was not a pretty thing, not an easy thing, not back then. Never is, I suppose. I gave in too easily, to please him. To keep him. It didn’t work, did it? I let my baby go, and I never had another.
This is what love does to a person. It takes away your sense of self, your reason, your soul. It breaks not only the heart and the mind but everything else in between. And yet, I would not have been without it. Its memory keeps me warm.
At least now I will be with him again. My Jeremy. The love of my life. And maybe with my baby too. I am not a religious woman, as I have said, so I don’t know if I really believe that, but there is nothing left to me now but hope.
I have a niece, Sandra, who lives in Canada. Nobody else. Give whatever I have to her. And a quiet cremation please. No ceremony. No flowers. I do not deserve them.
Believe me, I am sorry. I don’t quite know what I wanted to happen but it was never this.
Emily Parker
Chapter 43
PRUE
Three months later
‘This long-distance-dating thing is a bummer.’ Simon sneaked a kiss while nobody seemed to be looking.
Prue laughed. ‘Not for much longer. I’ll be back here properly in September.’
‘Ah, but you’ll be so wrapped up in your uni course, not to mention all those intelligent creative types you’ll be mixing with. Will you still have time for me?’
She squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll make time.’
‘Ah, so this is where you’ve got to.’ Madi was making her way across the grass towards them, balancing drinks on a tray. She handed them each a glass of wine, kept hold of one for herself and put the empty tray down on the ground, gesturing for them to budge up a bit so she could join them on the shiny new bench beneath the tree.
‘You’ve done a wonderful job, Simon. And Aaron too, of course. The furniture, the paths, and now that all the plants are in, it looks really lovely.’
‘And smells lovely too.’ Suzy had joined them, clinging to Aaron’s arm as they finished a tour of the flower and herb beds. ‘Such a good idea of yours, Prue, to think of the sensory side of things. I love the noises it all makes too. The wind chimes, the crunchy gravel, the rustling of the grasses …’
‘Here, take my seat.’ Simon jumped up and laid his hand gently on Suzy’s elbow.
‘Nonsense. I’m blind, not crippled! I’m perfectly happy to stand. In fact, I think I might take another walk around. It’s so nice to get out into the sunshine. I like the warmth of it on my face. I’ve been cooped up inside for far too long.’
‘Do you need me to come with you, Mum?’ Aaron said.
‘No, let me.’ George broke away from the small group of residents standing behind the tree and took her hand.
Prue saw Suzy blush as she realised who had spoken. It was clear she was still not used to having this newly discovered brother in her life, but that she was definitely coming around to the idea.
‘I’d like that.’
‘Mind if my wife comes too?’
‘Of course not. How are you feeling, Jessica? Morning sickness kicked in yet? I remember mine went on for months.’
Prue watched the three of them set off along the path, George stopping to rub a finger over a thyme leaf and hold it up to Suzy’s nose, Suzy giggling almost girlishly as she breathed in its scent. It was amazing just how much George looked like his famous father. Tall, dark, handsome, with that twinkle of easy charm in his eyes. She wondered why she hadn’t spotted it before, when she’d lain in Madi’s bed night after night and seen his face looking down at her from the photo in its fancy frame. Maybe you just don’t see what’s right in front of your eyes sometimes, until you know exactly what it is you’re looking for. Like Joe and his struggle with his sexuality. She should have spotted that too, but it wasn’t what she had wanted to see, was it?
She shook her thoughts away and turned her attention back to the garden. Having an official ‘grand opening’ party, now it was finally finished, had been Aaron’s idea, and a good one at that. It was a Friday evening, still light, and surprisingly warm. Every resident of the block was here, even miserable old Stan, who continued to find things to grumble about while simultaneously helping himself to free beer and sausage rolls. The little girl from the ground floor, whose name Prue couldn’t remember but who was noticeably taller than the last time she’d seen her, was happily running around with an ice lolly in one hand and a doll in the other, not in the least bothered that there was no swing, and several people had brought guests and family members along, Madi’s son and his newly pregnant wife included.
Being asked to cut the ribbon at the small opening ceremony had been an unexpected honour and one Prue felt she really did not deserve, but it had all been her idea, as so many kept reminding her, even if circumstances had prevented her from playing an active part in most of its construction. She had coiled the shiny red ribbon up afterwards and slipped it into her pocket. A keepsake, to look back on. She smiled as she realised it was almost the exact same shade of red as her new T-shirt, the one with all the zips that she’d bought in Oxford Street and still hadn’t quite found the nerve to wear.
It must have been her being thumped over the head and the shocking news of Miss Parker’s involvement, right here under their own roof, that had jolted so many of the other residents into backing the scheme and contributing a few pounds towards the costs. Either that, or Aaron shaking a bucket on their doorsteps until the guilt kicked in. She could just picture him, staring them in the eyes, not moving an inch until the coins, or better still notes, had landed. She had laughed when he’d told her about it, but it seemed to have got results.
One or two had even helped with the digging and carrying, so she’d been told. But she knew it was Suzy who had really made it all happen. She had finally agreed to sell Miss Parker’s flat to Simon’s uncle, and Simon had told her on the quiet that Suzy had made what was meant to be an anonymous, but considerable, donation to the garden fund, pushing a large wad of c
ash into his hand to buy supplies. Prue wouldn’t let on that she knew, not if Suzy wanted to keep it a secret, but she felt immensely grateful, just the same.
There had been a huge change in Suzy since she had found out she had a brother. Prue had heard all about it from her many phone calls with both Madi and Aaron over the last few weeks, and seen it for herself whenever she came up to see Simon, with Madi letting her stay for a night or two in her spare room. Suzy had even invited her in for tea, saying with a laugh that her cakes were probably nowhere near as good as Emily Parker’s, but to blame Mr Tesco if they weren’t.
Whatever feelings Suzy had had about her father’s affairs, and her understandable animosity towards his many mistresses, none of that had shown itself in her blossoming relationship with George. Believing yourself to have no family and then discovering that you did after all must be a strange notion to come to terms with, Prue thought, wondering how she herself would feel if an unknown brother or sister suddenly crept out of the woodwork. But it was different for Prue. She still had two living parents, and the possibility that either of them might harbour memories of long-distant affairs or have created secret children was quite frankly unthinkable.
‘Penny for them.’ Madi’s voice broke into her thoughts.
‘Oh, sorry. Miles away there!’
‘So, what do you think? Is it how you imagined it?’
‘Even better.’ Prue stood up, with Camilla the camera bouncing on its strap against her chest. ‘And that is why I am now going to take so many photos that I’ll be busy for a week trying to edit them!’
Madi put her hand out and stopped her from walking away. ‘I am sorry, Prue. I know I’ve said it before. But if it wasn’t for me, you would never have been living her, never have had that evil woman attacking you like that …’
