False Hope

by Lynne Lee

  And once we’re finished, I head to the geriatric ward.

  Mum’s out of bed, sitting in the chair in her dressing gown and slippers, and riffling through a shoebox-sized box on her lap. Holly has obviously been in again at some point, because the box is full of photos from her flat. She glances up from them when I appear, but only briefly.

  I perch on the bed. ‘How are you doing, Mum?’ I ask her. ‘Home on Monday, I hear.’

  ‘So they say,’ she answers, still not looking up. Still sorting through the photographs, most of which are old, some of them torn, many fluffy round the edges. Our childhood, her childhood, her parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods. She’s going through them – front to back, front to back, front to back – like a game-show host trying to memorise her cue cards.

  ‘So they do,’ I say. Then point to the photos. ‘Has Holly been in to see you?’

  Now she does look up. ‘Holly who?’ Then she scrutinises my face, where the last vestige of the bruise is now a smear of chartreuse. ‘What’s happened there, then?’ she asks, a look of concern on hers suddenly. ‘Have you taken a bit of a tumble?’

  The exact thing she’d say when I was five or six or seven, and had run in, snivelling, from the garden or the park or the street, having grazed a hand, or an elbow, or a knee.

  I nod. ‘I have indeed.’

  She shakes her head and makes a ‘tsk’ sound. ‘Well, let me see then,’ she says, waving a bony hand to coax me closer. I lean towards her, and feel the long-forgotten sensation of her fingers fluttering gently against my cheek. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she decides finally. ‘Dab of witch hazel on that and you’ll be tickety-boo in no time.’

  Satisfied, she sits back again. Looks down, back at the photographs. Then, abruptly, back up at me again, quizzically. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks. ‘Have you come to take me home, then? And where’s your sister? They told me your sister was coming. When’s she getting here?’

  I’m not sure how to answer that. Whether to even try. What the point is.

  ‘Soon,’ I say. ‘Soon.’

  She leans forward again, whispers. ‘They think I’m doolally. They’re the ones who are doolally. I want my Grace. Where’s my Grace?’ She flaps a hand again, irritably. ‘Well, don’t just sit there. Go and ask them. And what are you doing now, child?’

  ‘I’m crying, Mum. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why? What on earth have you got to cry about?’

  I pull a floral-patterned tissue from the packet on the cabinet by her bed, open it out, and blow my nose.

  Then lower it and reach out, take her hand, squeeze it. I am never going to know, I think. And does it even matter?

  I smile to reassure her. ‘I’m just letting it go. That’s all I’m doing, Mum. Just letting it go.’

  And as I make my way back up to my office, I feel such a weight lifted from me that it’s almost as if I’m floating up the stairwell. Because it really does feel done now; that I’ve finally drawn the last of several lines under what’s happened. That the consequences of what my sister did are over.

  Yet, despite that, I’m dogged by a wisp of thought.

  It follows me up the stairs, whispering you hope so.

  Chapter 27

  If there’s a colour I most associate with Hope, it’s yellow. Not because it was her favourite – I don’t think I could even name her favourite – but because she died in February, and was buried at the cusp of spring’s awakening, when everywhere you looked, there were daffodils. As we travelled to the burial ground, it seemed as though they’d come out just for her; great swathes of them, suddenly, as if conjured from nowhere, in that impossible, almost neon, shade of yellow.

  And here they are again, to see Aidan off as well. He was cremated two weeks back – Jessica texted me to tell me – and a part of me wishes I did have some kind of faith, to allow me to believe that he and Hope are back together. That they are soul mates in an afterlife as well.

  I don’t. Though it feels comforting to imagine it, even so.

  And now it’s almost half-term, and spring is springing up all over. On either side of the front path to our house, new growth is pushing up through the dark loamy soil. Crocuses and snowdrops, as well as all the daffodils, and the multiple knife points of what look like bearded irises. They are pea-green. Straight and strong. Determined. Almost defiant, as if our new-old house senses I’ve yet to befriend it, and is trying its level best to make me change my mind. To remind me that life must keep moving forward.

  Which it is. And which we are, as a family, by increments. The horrors of the past are finally receding. It’s an important day too, this unremarkable Wednesday, because Daniel, to his delight, has been promoted. This afternoon he is going to play his first-ever away match for the A team. So when Isabel calls me during fracture clinic mid-afternoon, it’s that that’s on my mind, not life’s vicissitudes.

  But it seems they are on my tail, even so. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you at work,’ she says. ‘But I thought I’d better call you because I’ve just arrived at yours and there is a teddy bear, of all things, been left on the front doorstep. And I was, like, maybe it’s one of the boys’ and they lost it and someone’s dropped it back or something, but then I was, like, really? Do they even play with teddy bears any more? And then I thought about Dillon, and, I don’t know, perhaps I’m being super anxious over nothing, but it’s just so weird – I mean, who’d leave a manky old teddy bear on a doorstep?’

  I’m in the middle of reviewing a patient’s post-op X-ray when the call comes, so it takes a moment for me to focus on what she’s saying.

  And then I do. And my mind does a little hop, skip and jump. A teddy bear. Still, I’m a rational being, so I rationalise. Find a rational-sounding explanation. ‘Could the postman have delivered it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. There’s no packaging. No note with it or anything. It was just literally propped up against the front door.’

  I feel a sharp stab of fear. Then immediately rein it in again. I mustn’t run away with myself. After all, it’s just a teddy bear. But—

  ‘Is it a Steiff one?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Does it have a little metal button in its ear?’

  ‘Hang on. Yes, it does. Exactly that. Why? Does that mean something?’

  It does. Shit. But what? I check the time. It’s three twenty. ‘It might do,’ I say. ‘Where is Matt?’

  ‘Gone to pick Dillon up. His conference call finished early, so he called me when I was on my way here to say he’d go up and get him, save me going. He’s going to take him to the party straight from there. He’s taken Dillon’s swimming stuff with him. But I said I’d stick around for Dan—’

  The party. Of course. Dillon’s going to a friend’s swimming party this afternoon. ‘And it was definitely just the bear, on the front doorstep, nothing else? Nothing put through the door?’

  ‘No, like I say, it was just sitting there. Nothing else.’

  And Matt, having gone by car, would have left to meet Dillon via the garage. So it could have been put there at any time since this morning. And it has to be. Has to be Norma. So does this mean she’s out of hospital?

  ‘So is it something to do with this Norma woman then, you think?’ Isabel’s saying.

  ‘I think it might be. If it’s the same bear. It used to be Aidan’s.’

  ‘So you think she might have left it there for Dillon?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . Look, I’d better call Matt.’

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘I’ll be here.’

  I ring Matt next.

  ‘I’m in the car,’ he says. ‘Hang on, let me put you on loudspeaker.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Picking Dillon up. I’m just parking. Everything okay?’

  ‘Isabel just called me. She’s found a teddy bear on the front doorstep.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A teddy bear. A Steiff teddy bear. Aidan�
��s teddy bear. It must be. You remember that time when—’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. So does that mean they’ve let her out of hospital?’

  ‘They must have. Because she’s obviously been to our house and put it there, hasn’t she? How else would it have got there?’

  ‘But they were supposed to let us know if she was discharged from hospital, weren’t they?’

  ‘Well, they haven’t. But she must have been, mustn’t she?’

  ‘Assuming she put it there. And hang on – wasn’t her car written off? Hold on.’ I hear the door clunk.

  ‘It has to be her. And she could equally have gone there in a taxi. God, you don’t think she’s planning to try and snatch him again, do you?’

  ‘Well, if she was, she’d hardly be stupid enough to leave a clue on our front doorstep, would she?’

  ‘Maybe it’s not a clue, maybe it’s, I don’t know, some kind of parting shot, meant as some sort of message. Like that awful plant she sent me that time. Maybe she plans to take him and leave us that in his place. Don’t forget, that teddy bear has major significance for her. And—’

  ‘Well, if she is hanging around here, she’ll have me to deal with, won’t she? Anyway, no panic, I can see him. He’s coming over now. I tell you what, though, we should probably call the police in any case. If she has been let out, it would have been nice of them to let us fucking know.’

  ‘They wouldn’t necessarily know themselves yet, not if it’s only just happened. God. I don’t believe this. Okay, I’ll call them now. You take Dillon to his party. I’ll keep you posted.’

  I disconnect, feeling calmer. Dillon’s with Matt. I mustn’t panic. Instead I must think. And my first thought is to verify one simple fact. If Norma’s out of hospital. And since it’s true that they might not be aware of that fact yet, I don’t call the police. I call Jessica Kennedy.

  Who turns out to be in the hospital today too, just finishing the last of her bank shifts before leaving Brighton. She’s heading back to Hull to be closer to her family. As far away as she can get from here, I suspect.

  But she hasn’t seen Norma. ‘Well, not to speak to,’ she tells me. ‘I saw her briefly at Aidan’s funeral, but she came nowhere near us. She had someone from the hospital with her. One of the psychiatric nurses, I think. I did message her last week – I have a lot of stuff to sort out at the house, and some of it’s hers – but I’ve heard nothing back, so I assumed she must still be in hospital. What’s happened?’

  I explain about the bear.

  ‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘So they must have let her out then.’ And I note she doesn’t even question whether we’re discussing the same bear. ‘D’you want me to see if I can find anything out? I have the number of her next-door neighbour. I could try her, perhaps? And I finish my shift in twenty minutes, so perhaps I could drive round there?’

  I’m almost overwhelmed – almost undone – by her kindness. ‘Thank you,’ I tell her. ‘Thank you so much. It might be nothing – well, nothing to worry about, anyway. Perhaps she just wanted him to have it. Nothing more malevolent than that.’

  Then she really scares me.

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ she says.

  But that is as nothing to my terror fifteen minutes later. I’ve seen a further patient, and tried to put it out of my mind. Or at least tried to process it differently. It’s just a bear on a doorstep, I keep telling myself. Just a gesture. Despite what Jessica has said, my interpretation could so easily be correct. Perhaps she’s planning to take her life and, grim though the thought is, perhaps she genuinely wants to leave the bear for Dillon. And he’s with Matt. I mustn’t panic. No one’s in any danger. It’s just a teddy bear on a doorstep. That’s all.

  But then my mobile rings. It’s Jessica. And I am wrong.

  ‘Grace? Listen, you won’t believe this, but my car has been stolen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m in the staff car park right now, and my car isn’t where I left it. I think she must have taken it. No way is this coincidence.’

  There isn’t a single shred of doubt in her voice. Not a thread of hope to cling to.

  Think, I think. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘What car is it?’

  ‘It’s an old Mini Cooper. Dark red. The utter bitch. She must have planned this . . .’

  ‘But how could she have stolen it without a key?’

  ‘Oh, she will have a key. The other set’s at home still. Or at least was. Shit. Why the hell didn’t I think?’

  ‘So she could get into your house?’

  ‘Of course she could. She had a key for that as well. She used to childmind the girls for me, didn’t she? Look, I’m going to call the police and report it, but I thought I ought to tell you first. Because I’m seriously worried now. Grace, your son might be in danger.’

  ‘It’s okay. Dillon’s fine. He’s with his dad.’

  There is a heartbeat of space between my words and her next.

  ‘I don’t mean Dillon,’ she says. ‘I mean your other son. Daniel!’

  Chapter 28

  Once again I have to make my excuses to Neil Porter, then try to think on my feet as they pound back down the corridor. Down the stairs – there is too big a queue for the lifts – along the main corridor, and out into the sunshine. Which dances gaily off the cars – all bar one – in the staff car park. Of Jessica, now, there is no sign. I call Daniel as I run, but he’s not answering, so I text, realising that, given the time, he will still be on the pitch.

  I can’t remember where the school is. Can’t even remember what the name is. All I remember is that they were going up and back on the school minibus and that he was going for food with his friend after they were dropped back at school, and that after tea, his friend’s mum was going to drop him home.

  I clamber into the car. Find the number of his high school. Call the office. They’re playing at a school up near Falmer, and due back around ten minutes after school ends. ‘Traffic depending,’ the receptionist says brightly. ‘You know what it’s like.’

  I thank her. Start the car. Pull out of the car park, pyrotechnics exploding in my head. Of course, I think. I’ve been so utterly brainless. So stupid. All my mitigating nonsense; yes, she might love Dillon more than all the tea in China, but she hates me even more. If she’s obsessed with anyone, it isn’t Dillon – it’s me. It’s me because of Dillon. I’m her nemesis.

  You’ve stolen my grandson. You’ve ruined my son’s life. Now you’ve chopped off his arm. Disfigured him. Destroyed him. Do you want to fetch one of your scalpels and rip my heart out as well?

  Because she knows, doesn’t she? Knows the pain that transcends any other. The pain of a mother who has buried their child. I could never rip her heart out because it’s already been ripped out. And now she wants to rip mine out as well.

  She knows exactly how to do it, too – how to get the ultimate revenge.

  But how could she possibly know that Daniel is at a football match near Falmer? Which is a comfort, but only momentarily. She knows where we live. And how do we know she wasn’t discharged days ago, and has been waiting for her moment? And she has been in Mum’s flat, so she will have seen his school photo – didn’t take it, but will have seen it, so she’d know. What’s to say she hasn’t even been on the school website? As my father used to say back when he was still delivering sermons, if you really want something, you never give up.

  What an idiot I’ve been. She will never give up.

  Daniel calls just as I’m joining the traffic on the coast road. ‘Winnerrrrrssss!’ he sings. I hear a cheer go up around him. ‘Two nil and I assisted. Soooo pumped!’

  ‘That’s brilliant,’ I tell him, all the while scanning cars for Jessica’s red Mini Cooper. ‘Listen, sweetie, I’m on my way to school to pick you up.’

  ‘But I’m going with Josh. We’re going for food, remember? His mum’s going to drop me home after. Remember?’

  ‘Change of plan. I’ve finished early so I’m going to come and m
eet you. Where are you now?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But you don’t need to. I’m going with Josh.’

  And wants to, I know. It’s important. A precious friendship. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I really am, but I have to come and get you.’

  ‘But Mum, I’m supposed to be going for food with Josh.’

  ‘Well, perhaps Josh can come to us.’

  ‘Mum. Why are you being weird? It’s all arranged. I’m going to his.’

  ‘Something’s come up. Where are you now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I told you. Somewhere on the Falmer Road, I think. What, Mum? What’s come up?’

  ‘Just something. Something that means I need to come and fetch you. I’ll explain when I get there.’

  ‘Why aren’t you at work still? You never finish early.’

  ‘Because I’m not and I have. Look, I’m on my way now. If you get there before me, just stay there. Okay? I’ll probably beat you, but if I’m not there, just wait for me, okay? With the teacher. In the car park. By the bus.’

  ‘Mu-um! Tell me!’ he barks. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Just wait for me till I get there, okay? With the teacher. By the bus.’

  ‘Ok-ay,’ he huffs. From twelve going on ten to twelve going on fifteen, in what feels like the blink of an eye. My baby.

  ‘I love you,’ I tell him. But he’s already rung off.

  It takes a good fifteen minutes to drive to the high school, during which time I call DS Lovelace’s mobile, which goes straight to voicemail, so I have no choice but to leave a message. Then Matt, whose phone doesn’t even connect, which I already half expected, because he’s probably at the swimming pool, out of signal. So, till I can stop and send a text, I’m on my own.