by Anne Cassidy
Rose stared at Wendy Clarke. Her hair stood out, wisps of it flying around. Rose half expected to hear the electricity coming off it.
‘It doesn’t,’ Rose whispered.
‘You do have something, though, some secret? But it’s not linked to this? To Daisy?’
‘It’s not linked to Daisy.’
Rose put her hand in her pocket and felt the card that was there. Her mother’s phone number. She ran the tip of her finger along the edge.
‘Well, you’ve said more than your stepbrother did,’ Wendy Clarke said, picking up the folder in front of her and holding it to her chest. ‘In any case you and Joshua Johnson’s secrets are your own affair.’
‘Can I go now?’ Rose said, standing up.
‘Sure. Oh! While you’re here, though, I would like you to take a look at these. These are things we found on or around Daisy’s body and we’re trying to link them to her or rule them out. Maybe items belonging to your family that were lost in the garden at some stage. It won’t take you a second to have a look.’
Wendy Clarke laid photos on the table as if she was playing Patience. Rose sat down again, only half on the chair, most of her body turned to the door. There were four items all placed on white backgrounds. The first was a ring. The second were some metal buttons, three in a triangle. The third was a watch face with no strap. The fourth was a picture of a part of a chain and a pendant. The pendant was a silver heart shape and in the middle of it was a red stone. A ruby. Rose’s eyes only stayed on it a second. She flicked her glance away but her throat had fired up and her thoughts were running ahead of her. Then she pulled each photograph back taking time to look in detail, her fingers tracing the items.
‘No, none of them ring a bell,’ Rose said, her voice thickening.
Wendy Clarke gathered the pictures up.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘And I don’t need to tell you to contact me if anything comes up.’
Rose stood up and walked to the door.
‘I’ll take you back to reception,’ Wendy Clarke said.
Rose went home. The Ford was parked in the street so she knew that Joshua was in. She went in and up to her rooms hearing the distant sound of music coming from the attic. She put her rucksack down and pulled a packet of gum from the front compartment and took a piece. Chewing gently, she went across to her pinboard and looked at the picture of her mother that she’d put there a couple of weeks before when the clearing out of the Blue Room started. She pulled the tack out of the corner of the photo and held the picture in her hands. Her mother’s smile beamed out and around her neck was the pendant. The silver heart sat on her breastbone, the ruby coloured gem in the centre. The same one that was in the photo which Wendy Clarke showed her.
Rose felt a crushing feeling in her chest.
She thought of that last summer when they were together as a family. In her mind those days had been perfect, halcyon. But now she had learned other stuff about that time: her mother and Brendan at odds, a miscarriage, time spent apart. Then there were the other factors: Daisy Lincoln’s older boyfriend, her hands tied up with Brendan’s tie.
Now her mother’s pendant had been found on or near Daisy’s body. Brendan had given this to her mother as a gift, she was sure. She had a picture in her mind of her mum opening a box and taking it out. Had Brendan been there? She couldn’t quite remember. She knew her mother hadn’t liked it much.
From upstairs she heard Joshua’s footsteps cross the ceiling.
She felt a cloying anxiety. She’d told Joshua none of this. She’d kept the story about the miscarriage and Brendan’s letters from him. Then the card with the phone number. Now the pendant. Why was she doing this? Hadn’t he a right to know about these developments?
She went out of her room and up the stairs. She was holding the photo flat against her chest.
She would make a clean breast of it. Tell him everything.
She knocked on the attic door and he shouted, ‘Come in!’
She went in.
He was standing facing the wall opposite his bed. He had papered the surface of the wall with articles and pictures. The images were all of one girl. Rose remembered her from Joshua’s explanation of Macon Parker’s activities. Polina Bokun, a nineteen year old from Belarus. She’d come to England as a student, part of some deal for the removal of an organ, Joshua had said. Then she’d disappeared, her body turning up weeks later in the Thames estuary minus her liver and kidneys.
‘How was it?’ she said.
‘What?’
‘At the police station.’
‘Oh, she kept going on about how well had I known Daisy,’ Joshua said. ‘If I’d seen her with Brendan. Whether Kathy was away a lot. Stuff like that.’
‘They’re trying to link Daisy to Brendan.’
‘She asked me if Daisy and I had spent time together. I laughed at her. In my dreams, I said. How about you?’
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about partly . . .’
‘But look at all this,’ he said, not seeming to register what she’d said. ‘I printed this stuff off the internet. It’s important to know this story. It’s important to read the detail behind the headlines.’
Rose walked across to the wall. There were newspaper articles pinned side by side. One said Belarus Teenager Wanted to Be a Nurse. Another said Polina’s Mother Suffering From Breast Cancer. Another, a magazine article, showed a small photo of Polina with a male friend. She Was My Soulmate, the heading said. Poverty forces the young to flee abroad, was a subheading further down the page.
In the middle of it all was the police photo of Polina.
In some way it reminded her of the photo of Daisy that had been in the newspapers. The hair was dark although not as long, the expression blank. They were passport photos, maybe. She focused a little longer so that the girl’s facial features seemed to dissolve. Polina and Daisy. Now she was on first-name terms with two dead girls.
‘This is a girl’s life that has been snuffed out. That’s why they’re going after Macon Parker!’
Rose turned to him. He was moving about, looking from one article to another. He was like an enthusiastic teacher in front of a classroom display, pleased with his work.
He stepped across and put his hand on her shoulder.
‘We have to keep this clear in our minds. So that when it happens we know why they did it.’
He meant the execution of Macon Parker.
‘What’s that?’ he said, pointing to the photograph of her mother wearing the pendant.
‘Nothing,’ she said, folding it in half and half again.
He turned back to the display. He was building up a case for murder. On the wall were pictures of a girl whose life had been taken. He was amassing evidence of waste, of loss and despair. She couldn’t tell him about the pendant or the other stuff about her mother and Brendan’s relationship. None of that would be important to him. All he was interested in was this. In his head this murder would balance whatever their parents were going to do to Macon Parker.
Oh,’ she said, tucking the photo in her pocket. ‘Margaret Spicer came to my college today. She wanted to speak to me, to tell me that Skeggsie’s death really was nothing to do with her. She seemed to be distancing herself from Munroe.’
‘Yes?’
‘And she’s leaving. Getting a new identity. Starting a new life.’
Joshua’s face hardened. ‘Right. Pity Skeggsie will never be able to do that.’
‘You know what she called it? The Butterfly Project.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve moved on from Margaret Spicer. I’m not interested in her any more.’
Rose stood for a moment and watched him tidying up his wall display.
‘I’ll go. I’ve got some work to do.’
She left him in the attic and went back down to her room.
She sat on the edge of her bed, the wrinkled photo of her mother on the bedside table. In her hand was the card with the telephone number.
She c
omposed a text. I need to see you urgently. Let’s meet. Just you and I. No one else needs to know. xxxx
She pressed Send.
After a short while came a reply. Liverpool Street Station Cafe Black Tuesday 1 p.m.
She had just under twenty-four hours to wait.
NINETEEN
At ten to one Liverpool Street Station was busy. A rush of faces passed her by, moving in different directions. Coming off the tube escalator, she sidestepped travellers who were heading for different platforms, their shoulders down, their faces pinched with determination. Rose felt herself being pulled here and there with the flow. After searching round for several moments she saw Cafe Black on a mezzanine floor. She headed for the stairs and went up. Inside the cafe it seemed soundproofed. The announcements and collective noise of the station were hushed. One wall had screens which were full of listings of departing and arriving trains. There was a counter and also a self-service area packed with rolls and sandwiches. There were circular tables, most of which were occupied. Rose bought a coffee and found an empty seat by the window and waited.
At one thirty she’d long finished her drink and was wondering what to do.
Could something have happened to detain her mother?
She looked out of the window at the people below heading for the platforms. Many of the men had on suits and overcoats, carrying computer bags. She was reminded of James Munroe in his Crombie overcoat. He always looked so respectable. An ex-policeman, now a civil servant, who had a sideline in assassination. She thought about him hurting her hand and warning her off. Margaret Spicer said that it was he who organised all the new identities. He had contacts so he was able to get hold of new papers, passports and so on. He would be doing this for her mother and Brendan, which meant that he would know where they would relocate and their new names. They would always be dependent on him.
‘Rose.’
She looked up. Her mother was there.
Her face broke into a smile. She stood up and her arms moved upwards as if to hug her as her mother had done in the car park of the pub in Great Dunmow. Her mother stepped back, though, glancing from side to side. She looked stiff as if standing to attention. She was wearing a dark jacket and trousers and had a pink silk scarf wound around her neck a number of times. It had fringes at the end and looked out of place against her sober suit.
‘I’m getting a coffee. Do you want one?’
Rose shook her head. Dismayed, she watched as her mother went up to the counter and waited to be served. She wasn’t wearing any glasses and she was scrabbling about in her purse for money to pay. The barista must have made a joke because he laughed and handed her a tall cup. Her mother gave a weak smile and walked back towards her then sat in the seat beside Rose.
‘I haven’t got long,’ she said, placing a hand on the table.
Rose saw her nails then. Long and manicured, painted a pearlised white. It reminded her of Anna, who spent many hours having her nails shaped and coloured. Rose frowned. This was not something her mother had ever done before.
‘Why aren’t you wearing your glasses?’
‘Contact lenses.’
Her mother’s words were spare as though she was paying a bill and had just the right money. She seemed angry that Rose had called her there so soon. The phone number she’d given her was possibly just a gesture, a token which Rose had used up. She felt like she was on the brink of crying but then her mother placed her hand lightly on top of hers. It was warm and firm.
‘Rose, I’m getting the two o’clock train back. There are things I need to tell you but first you have to promise you will not try to contact us again and you will not come out to the house.’
The house. She meant the mansion owned by Macon Parker, the man who stole people’s organs.
‘Ben and I work there. He manages the grounds and the cars and I am the housekeeper. We’ve been there for over a year now and are trusted.’
‘How can you call him Ben?’
‘That is his name just as mine is Kate Markham. We are different people now, you have to respect that. We have a job to do. It’s our last one and although it is unpalatable and hard for you to understand we must do it to the best of our ability. All I would say to you is that you have not seen the things that Brend– Ben and I have seen. You have not walked in our shoes. You cannot know what made us do this.’
Rose looked down at the table. A couple had just come into the cafe and sat next to them. They were young with giant rucksacks which they struggled out of, laughing. The rucksacks sat on the floor, discarded shells, as the couple went up for their drinks. Rose looked and saw labels on them. They were heading off on a journey, carefree. No doubt their parents were at home doing normal things.
She turned back to her mum. She should ask her about the last summer and Daisy Lincoln, how she and Brendan had been getting on, about the miscarriage. Then she could mention Brendan’s tie and the pendant. The words were there, in her mouth, practised frequently over the last twenty-four hours. Is it possible that Brendan was having a relationship with Daisy Lincoln? This is what she would say.
Instead she said something quite different.
‘How could you leave me?’
Her mother’s eyebrows crinkled. Rose noticed deep lines between her brows. Worry lines.
‘I thought . . . Ben explained this yesterday?’
‘I want to hear it from you.’
The white nails tapped on the table and her mother picked her cup up and drank from it. When she put it back down again her face had reddened.
‘It started with Judy Greaves.’
The Butterfly Murder. Rose nodded.
‘I knew nothing about it until a year after Stuart killed Simon Lister. That was when Brendan told me everything. He showed me the things that had been on the man’s computer. The pictures, the plans to kill another girl. Judy Greaves was ten. You were ten. I just looked at it all and thought of you and it seemed as though some sort of rough justice had taken place and that was just the beginning.’
‘But to kill someone . . .’
‘We worked in cold cases,’ her mother said, lowering her voice, looking carefully round the cafe. ‘We saw lots of killing that went unpunished. We decided on two things, we would only pass judgement on killers if there was no chance that they would ever be caught by the authorities. And we would only pass judgement if it seemed that they might do it again. That way we were saving lives.’
Pass judgement. Rose had heard Brendan use these words. She’d seen the word judgement in the back of the notebooks. She wondered if they did it in a formal way, a group of people sitting round saying ‘Guilty?’ or ‘Not Guilty?’
Her mother was holding her hand now. Her scarf had come undone, the end of it slithering on to the table. Rose was afraid for a moment that it might dip into some coffee that had been spilled.
‘This is our last case. We want to move on and have a new life. We can do that. There’s a place in British Columbia where we can go.’
Rose sat back and pulled her hand away.
‘You’re going to leave again?’
‘We have to. There’s no life for us here. We will get settled. Then send for you and Josh. That was always the plan. To start a new life.’
‘We have a life here. We all had a life here, in Brewster Road.’
Brewster Road. Hadn’t Rose called her mother here to talk about precisely that? To ask her about what might have happened to Daisy Lincoln?
‘We did,’ her mother said. ‘But we had to leave. We had serious gangsters after us. The judgement on Baranski was carried out in 2006. In May 2007 one of our group, a man called Jason Butler, went missing. He was never found but things started to happen through that summer and we had to assume that he had given information about us to the Germans who were looking for the money that Baranski owed them. Whether this information was given for money or whether it was forced from him we will never know but it became clear that they knew who had killed Baranski and
they were coming for us. Leaving you? It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The other stuff? The killings?’ Her mother shook her head. ‘These things are distasteful, brutal, but nothing ever clawed at me like leaving you.’
‘But Munroe told us that those German gangsters had been arrested. Weeks, months, after you went away. Why didn’t you come home then?’
Rose felt her throat drying, her voice thinning.
‘That was part of the story he fabricated about our bodies being found in a submerged car. It was an attempt to persuade you and Joshua that we were dead. The Germans in question were killed just months ago actually. This was nothing to do with us, it’s just a fact of life for these people. They live by violence. Sometimes they die by it. This is why we are able to finish our work now. Move on with our lives. We have rid the world of some very nasty people, Rose.’
Rose sat back in her chair. She folded her arms across her chest. She wasn’t hearing what she’d wanted to hear.
‘I always thought that maybe you’d just gone along with it all because of Brendan,’ she said. ‘I never thought, for one minute, that you left voluntarily. You left me clues – the glasses case in the restaurant, your signature in the B and B. You wanted me to find you . . .’
‘Oh, Rosie . . .’
Her mother moved her chair around the small table. She put an arm around Rose’s shoulder and pulled her close. Rose felt the silky scarf rub against her face. Her mother spoke in her ear.
‘I was a willing participant. Brendan didn’t force me. At least he didn’t force me to go along with the judgements. I agreed to those. He had to force me to leave you behind. I admit to that.’
‘But have you . . . Have you actually killed someone?’
‘That’s something that none of us will talk about. How it’s done, who does it. Those things are drawn randomly.’
‘Viktor Baranski?’
‘I can’t say. It doesn’t matter who did it. We are all responsible. The judgement is the deed and we all make that. The act is inconsequential.’
