The Rumour

by Lesley Kara

  I keep my finger on the bell for the third time. Fatima must be out. I glance over at Kay’s house. She’s said before that she’d be happy to look after Alfie at short notice and I know she’d say yes, so what’s stopping me? Before this morning, I’d have had no qualms about asking her. Alfie would be more than happy to spend time with Kay and her tropical fish. And she’d probably spoil him rotten.

  But something tells me it isn’t a good idea. A vague sense of foreboding. There’s something odd going on with her and her daughter. There must be. Why else would all Kay’s letters be sent back? And why does Kay feel she has to lie about Skyping her grandchildren? It doesn’t make sense. I’ll have to give someone from the babysitting circle a ring, see if they can help me out. I don’t want to ask Debbie, though.

  Just then, Karen walks by. She’s on the opposite side of the street and, at first, she doesn’t see me. When she does, she crosses the road straightaway.

  ‘Hi. You recovered from that godawful party yet?’

  ‘Just about.’

  Why don’t I ask her? Alfie’s already familiar with her flat. He seemed really at home there the other night, watching Frozen with Hayley. Although she has got her mum to look after at the moment.

  ‘What’s up?’ Karen says.

  ‘I was just wondering whether you could do me a huge favour and pick Alfie up from school this afternoon and look after him for a few hours. But I’m worried it’s asking too much of you. You must have your hands full, looking after your mum.’

  ‘Of course I’ll pick him up. Actually, it’s easier for us both when Hayley’s occupied with a friend. She can be a bit demanding otherwise, and Mum’s always too nice not to play with her, even when I can see she’s too tired and would rather not.’

  ‘Thanks ever so much. I hate to ask last minute, but I’ve got to do something in London. I’ll be back before seven. Seven-thirty at the latest.’

  ‘Be as long as you like,’ Karen says. ‘Hayley will be delighted. Did I tell you she thinks Alfie’s her boyfriend? It’s ever since they watched Frozen together.’

  I laugh. ‘I’m not sure Alfie realizes that.’

  ‘We’re having sausage and mash for supper. Will he eat that? I can do something different if he won’t.’

  ‘No, that would be brilliant. Thanks, Karen. I’ll phone the school and let them know. Let me give you my number.’

  Karen pulls out her phone and adds my name to her contacts. ‘I’ll send you a text,’ she says. ‘Then you’ll have mine.’

  ‘Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I’ll send you my mum’s number too, just in case of an emergency. She’s not very well at the moment, or I’d have asked her.’

  ‘There won’t be any emergency,’ Karen says. ‘Although Hayley will probably insist he watches Frozen again, so Alfie might think he needs rescuing.’ She glances over my shoulder and smiles. ‘Hi, Kay. How’s things?’

  I turn round to see Kay standing on her doorstep. She’s rubbing at the exterior of her front door with a cloth. Oh no. Her face. She must have heard every word and be wondering why I didn’t ask her. She’ll see it as a deliberate snub. I know she will.

  She waves the cloth at us and says hello. I open my mouth to give some sort of explanation, but she’s already gone inside and closed her front door. Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it right now.

  41

  Liverpool Street Station is heaving and it isn’t even rush hour. Up until four months ago, I’d lived in London for almost fifteen years. It felt like home. Now it’s as if I’m a visitor. I’m taken aback by the number of people and the speed at which they walk, the cacophony of voices and sounds that bombards my ears, the smell of food wafting from the takeaway outlets. I feel like a country bumpkin, dazzled by the bright lights of the big city.

  I start as Michael touches my arm. He’s wearing his grey woollen coat and looks suave and rugged at the same time. I think of what Kay said this morning, about him looking like Idris Elba, and smile. Then I remember that awkward moment earlier on and the embarrassment that she heard me asking someone else to look after Alfie settles over me once again.

  Michael kisses me lightly on the lips, then takes hold of my arm and gently steers me towards the Underground.

  ‘So where are we going again?’

  ‘Coram Street. She’s at the Holiday Inn. Her convention ends at four, so I thought we could have a drink in the bar and then wait for her in the foyer. Maybe it’s best if you approach her first.’

  ‘What shall I say?’ I’m not looking forward to surprising Liz like this. Not after what happened in her house yesterday. How is she going to react when she sees me?

  ‘Let’s work it out when we get there. I just want you to reassure her of my intentions. Let her know she can trust me, and that Sally can too.’

  ‘But why couldn’t we have waited till she got home? Why do we have to stalk her like this?’

  ‘Because it’s easier for her to shut the door in our face if we doorstep her. Meeting her in a public place is better. Even if she walks away, we can walk alongside her. She might not talk to us, but she’ll have to listen.’

  I suppose this is the dogged reporter in him coming out. The determination to make someone talk. To get a story at all costs.

  We take the Central Line to Holborn and then, blinking in the early-November sunshine, walk to Russell Square. It’s as much as I can do to keep up with Michael’s long strides. He knows this part of London much better than I do and within a few minutes we’re passing through the entrance of the Holiday Inn. I can’t believe I’ve allowed myself to be talked into all this, although I have to admit it’s exciting. I feel like a private eye. No wonder Michael’s so cloak-and-dagger sometimes, if this is the sort of thing he has to do to find things out.

  We wander through to the bar and Michael pulls out his wallet. ‘What do you want to drink?’

  What do I want to drink? I’m running on adrenaline now. I can’t think straight. The last thing I need is alcohol.

  ‘A Coke, please.’

  Michael orders a Coke for me and a lager for him.

  He gestures to a menu on the counter. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’

  I shake my head. I feel nauseous and apprehensive now that I’m actually here. Michael pays for the drinks and we find a table in a quiet corner in sight of the large wall clock and the glass doors to the foyer.

  ‘While I was waiting for you at Liverpool Street,’ Michael says, ‘I started wondering why Liz shut down on me so fast. I was really getting somewhere with her.’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? When she thought you were just some journalist in London interested in the rehabilitation of child offenders, it was different. But now she knows you’re my partner and you want to interview Sonia Martins about the false-accusation thing, it’s all a bit close to home.’

  Michael takes a swig of lager. ‘But maybe there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What if I’m right and Liz knows exactly where McGowan is? What if she’s somebody you both know and that’s why she doesn’t want to speak to me any more? Because she’s frightened you’ll find out.’

  Something bad bumps around in my head. If Michael’s right, then she and McGowan must have been scared out of their wits. Right from the start, when I first mentioned the rumour. Scared enough to want to stop it before it did any more damage? Scared enough to send me threatening tweets as Sally Mac? To digitally alter a school photo?

  I don’t know how computer-literate Liz is, but she has a blog, so she must be reasonably IT-savvy. But how would she have got into the school to leave it by the office hatch? Didn’t Mr Matthews say that Mrs Haynes found it there when she came in? And how would Liz have known about the photo in the first place? She doesn’t have anything to do with Perrydale Primary. No, whoever left that photo must have had access to the school first thing in the morning, and apart from the people who work there, that only leaves …
>
  Something drops into my mind and sets off a ripple effect. When Teri Monkton found me waiting for Mr Matthews and fuming with anger, I’m sure she said she was about to go into a PTA meeting. Could someone involved in the PTA have left the photo there when no one was looking?

  Michael narrows his eyes. ‘What? What are you thinking?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m starting to suspect just about everyone I know. It’s ridiculous.’

  He pulls out his phone. ‘Here, take a look at these. I managed to get hold of some photos from one of my contacts. They’re of Sally when she was a young woman.’

  He shows me three black-and-white pictures. Photos of old photos, so the quality isn’t great. I study the first one. It’s not an image I recognize from all my googling. She’s holding a child in her arms, a toddler, and mouthing something at the person who’s taking the photograph. Her face is contorted with anger. The toddler looks scared. She’s clinging to the lapels of her mother’s coat, her head tucked into the dip of her neck.

  The second picture is of a market square. Lots of stalls heaped with fruit and veg and pots and pans. A woman with dark hair in a bun is examining some apples. You can only see her profile, but I’m assuming this must be McGowan too. She’s holding the mittened hand of a young child. The same child that’s in the first photo.

  The third one is of a house at night. Now this one I have seen before. The front window is smashed and a policeman is standing on the front path, his back to the house. The words ‘Child Murderer’ have been daubed on the door in paint. An involuntary shudder travels the length of my spine.

  I look at them all again – the one of McGowan’s profile as she reaches for an apple. Something about the bridge of her nose is vaguely familiar. I’ve never seen a photo of her from this particular angle. She does remind me of someone. But who? I press my fingertips to my temples. Maybe if I press hard enough I’ll remember.

  My eyes return to the toddler. A new thought is swirling around in my head, trying to make itself known. When it does, it’s like a jolt of electricity. ‘Oh my God, Michael. Maybe it’s the daughter I know. Sally McGowan’s daughter!’

  Michael blows air through closed lips. ‘Well, that certainly widens the field.’

  ‘And if Liz knows McGowan, she’ll know the daughter too!’

  A series of images like scenes from a film flash before my eyes: the look on Liz’s face when I first mentioned the rumour. Those wide, inquisitive eyes. The way she casually reached for an olive. Too casually, I see that now. The astonished expression on Karen’s face and the way she stared at me at the babysitting circle when Cathy told me to tell everyone what I’d heard.

  My spine slowly straightens. Another image presents itself. Karen and her mother peering in at me through Pegton’s window. The mother’s head turning to look back as they walked away. That peculiar expression on her face. Karen desperate to volunteer for doing the Pass the Parcel music. Deliberately letting Alfie win the main prize. Inviting us back to her flat to meet her mother. She and her husband run a computer graphics company. She’d have known exactly how to alter that photo, wouldn’t she? And – oh my God! – she’s the secretary of the PTA! If anyone could have left that photo by the hatch before Mrs Haynes arrived, it was her!

  I think of Alfie in Karen’s flat right now and dread writhes in my gut. What did Karen say when I asked her why she was walking so fast with him that time? She said she was in a rush to take her mother to the doctor’s. What if she was lying? What if she was trying to abduct him all along? What if Karen’s mother is Sally McGowan and Karen told her it was me who passed the rumour on? They’d hate me for that, wouldn’t they? For putting them at risk?

  Then I remember my nightmare: Sally McGowan standing at the foot of my bed, hands smeared with blood. How she looked … how she looked just like Karen! I stand up so fast I almost knock my chair over. It scrapes and wobbles on the floor.

  ‘Oh my God, Michael. They’ve got Alfie! We’ve got to get back!’

  ‘Who’s got Alfie?’

  ‘Hayley’s mum, Karen. Karen has just picked our son up from school. I think she’s Sally McGowan’s daughter. She must blame me for spreading the rumour about her.

  ‘Alfie’s in danger, Michael. We have to leave now!’

  42

  I make a grab for my bag. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to call the police. And Mum. I need to let her know what’s happened. And the school.’

  Michael stands up and puts both his hands on my shoulders. ‘Wait a minute. Let’s think logically about this. Even if you’re right and Karen is McGowan’s daughter, why would she harm Alfie?’

  ‘To punish me for spreading the rumour. Oh God! What if McGowan hurts him?’

  ‘Joey, you’re not making any sense.’

  ‘No, you’re not making any sense. Why are you still sitting here when Alfie could be in danger?’

  I run out of the bar and into the foyer. Michael races after me. Now I’m out of the glass doors and on the street again. It’s started to rain and someone almost pokes my eye out rushing past with their umbrella. After the quiet of the hotel, the noise of the traffic is loud and insistent. Too many people moving too fast. I’m in their way and I don’t know what to do, where to go. I fumble in my bag for my phone. Have I still got the Uber app on there, or did I delete it? Where the hell is my phone? It must be in here somewhere.

  Michael grabs me by the arm, starts pulling me back towards the hotel. People are staring at us as if we’re having a domestic on the street, but I don’t care. I don’t care what they think. All I want is to go home and get Alfie. Hold him in my arms and never let him go.

  Michael’s voice is in my ear. ‘Do you honestly think that, after thirty-six years of freedom, Sally McGowan – or her daughter – is going to do anything to jeopardize her anonymity? They’re not going to hurt a little boy in front of Hayley. Why would they?’

  If it weren’t for Michael’s hands on my arm and his eyes locking on to mine, holding them firm, I think I’d collapse in a heap on the pavement. I’m shaking now. Crying like a child.

  ‘They wouldn’t risk throwing their lives and contact with Hayley away just to teach you a lesson for spreading a rumour.’

  He holds me tight. ‘They’d disappear if they thought they were in danger. Up sticks and start again somewhere else.’

  He’s right. Karen’s mum’s dying. You’ve only got to look at her to see that. She doesn’t even live in Flinstead. She’s just come to stay so Karen can take care of her. Liz has been in Flinstead for years and years. She said as much the first time I met her. If she moved there to be closer to Sally, that means Sally must have been there for years and years too. Sally can’t possibly be Karen’s mum. I’ve got it all wrong.

  But if it’s not Karen, then who is it? Who else could have doctored that photo and left it in the school?

  Michael leads me back to the bar and buys me a brandy. He glances towards the foyer. ‘It’s nearly four o’clock. Liz should be coming out of the convention soon. Let’s sit here so we can keep an eye out for her.’

  ‘Show me those photos again,’ I say, when we’ve settled at a different table. I have a horrible feeling that Liz will take one look at us and disappear before we get a chance to speak to her. If he’s right, and McGowan is someone Liz and I both know, then surely I’ll be able to recognize her if I look hard enough. That nose is still bugging me.

  Slowly, I scroll through them, study each one in detail. ‘Where did you say you got these?’

  ‘From a contact of mine in the police. He managed to dig them out from the archives. They were never published, but … well, he owes me a couple of favours.’

  I don’t ask why, or whether all this is something that could get him into trouble if it came to light. It’s probably best I don’t know.

  ‘Are you sure they were never published?’

  ‘Yes. A hundred per cent sure.’

  ‘That’s weird, because I’ve defin
itely seen the one of the house before. It must have found its way online at some point.’

  ‘I doubt it. These were never released to the press.’

  ‘But I’ve seen it. I know I have. It’s almost as if …’

  ‘Almost as if what?’

  I’m imagining this. I must be. But it’s almost as if I’ve seen this house in real life. As if I’ve stood in the same position as whoever it was who took this picture and seen it with my own eyes. But that’s impossible. A mistaken sense of déjà vu, that’s all. It happens sometimes. I suppose it looks a bit like my grandparents’ house in Romford.

  ‘When this picture was taken she was called Sally Holmes,’ Michael says. ‘She was married to a guy called Benjamin. In Coventry.’

  Benny. Benny and Sal.

  Benny and Sal? That’s odd. What made me think of that?

  ‘Did he know who she was?’

  ‘That’s what I can’t find out. Benjamin Holmes seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Which means it’s more than likely he got a new identity too. Joey, are you okay?’

  I swallow hard. Why do I have a sudden memory of playing in that front garden? I’m going mad. I must be. I’m remembering playing in Nana and Grandad’s garden in Romford, that must be it. I think Mum has an old Polaroid of me sitting by a flower bed with my dolls. It’s one of the few photos she has left from that time. Most of them were destroyed in the fire.

  The fire.

  Something weird happens to my insides. A hollowing-out sensation.

  ‘What was the daughter’s name?’

  He checks a notebook in his pocket. ‘Lucy.’

  Lucy. No. No, it can’t be. I close my eyes and take myself back to when I was a little girl, shrinking into my pillow, rigid with fear and confusion. A fireman’s arms stretch towards me and he plucks me from my covers with his large, gloved hands. His voice is kind in my ear.

  ‘I’m taking you to Mummy and Daddy. Don’t be frightened. You’re quite safe.’