Yes, My Darling Daughter

by Margaret Leroy

  I look up at Adam. “Could you stay and wait for Deirdre, if we go now?”

  “Yes, of course,” he tells me.

  I press my face against Sylvie’s. Her skin is very cold.

  “Let’s go off somewhere happier,” I say.

  “Yes, Grace.”

  “Why don’t we go back to Coldharbour? We’ll do something nice. I could buy you an ice cream from Barry’s.”

  She scrambles back into the car.

  52

  I DRIVE CAREFULLY back toward Coldharbour. I haven’t driven this car very much, and I keep on grinding the gears. I glance at Sylvie in the rearview mirror. She still has her book on her lap, but she’s staring out the window. She’s quiet, but she doesn’t look upset.

  I clear my throat.

  “Sylvie. I need to tell you something sad,” I say. “You know there were all those garda cars at the quarry? They found two bodies there. The people who they were . . .” I take a deep breath. It’s a struggle to find the right words. “They were called Alice and Jessica—a mother and a little girl. They used to live at Flag Cottage. Somebody killed them a long time ago. A bad person killed them.”

  I keep looking back at her, wanting to gauge her reaction. She’s looking at her book now.

  “Yes, Grace,” she tells me. “Alice and Jessica died.” Saying the names so precisely. It’s like the way she says Coldharbour—slowly and exactly, as though she wants to hold on to the words.

  “Who killed them, sweetheart?”

  She presses her fingers through the holes in the page.

  “The water was red,” she tells me.

  “Sweetheart. Can you remember anything else about it?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I want my ice cream, Grace.”

  “Sure, sweetheart. Maybe we can talk about it later.”

  I drive slowly on, past reedy fields where heaps of peat are drying out. We pass a rusted tractor and the black, broken hull of a rowing boat that’s held in place by stones.

  I’m thinking over what Deirdre said. I remember her voice—high-pitched, and sharp with panic. You know that the worst can happen. I feel her fear as though it is my own. I wish that I could help her.

  We drive down the hill into Coldharbour. The sun is coming out through the mist, shining and veiled, like a pearl. We come to the wall of Kinvara House. Everything has a gray morning shimmer, and the plaited creepers and ivies are drenched and gleaming with dew. Nothing could be easier than to go and knock on the door, to ask if Gemma is there. As soon as I’ve thought this, it seems so right and obvious. Because really this seems the most likely explanation—that she spent the night with Marcus here. And if she isn’t here, at least Marcus might know where she is.

  I turn in between the stone falcons.

  “Grace. My ice cream,” says Sylvie.

  “You’ll have your ice cream soon,” I tell her. “We’ll only be a moment.”

  The garden stretches to either side, the white spilt pools of narcissi, the velvet, voluptuous rhododendron flowers. I haven’t been here in daylight before. It’s good to see all the colors of the flower beds, the salmon-pink azaleas, the Gothic reds and purples of the rhododendrons. It’s such a relief to be somewhere so peaceful and tended after the horror of the quarry.

  “What are we doing?” says Sylvie.

  “I want to ask Marcus something,” I tell her. “It’ll only take a moment.”

  I draw up in front of the house. I turn to face her.

  “Sweetheart, I want you to wait in the car for a moment. Just while I go to the door.”

  She has her book pressed tight against her chest.

  “Grace, you can’t leave me here. You can’t.” She’s imperious.

  “You’ll be able to see me,” I tell her. “Look, that’s where I’m going—just up those steps to the door. Not any farther than that. You’ll always be able to see me.”

  “No. I’m coming with you.”

  I get out, open her door. It’s not worth making a fuss about.

  We climb the steps. The scents of the garden brush caressingly against us, the languid sweetness of azalea, the subtle sherbet smells of the little spring flowers. I ring. The bell has an old-fashioned jangle—you can hear it echoing through the house. I think of the hall and its elegant stair, of all those imposing, immaculate spaces on the other side of the door. But we can’t see through the frosted glass.

  Nobody comes. I ring again. Still nothing, just the hollow sound of the bell. It seems to be as Deirdre said—that nobody is here. Yet this seems surprising. You’d expect there to be somebody—a cleaner, or someone who does the accounts and typing, just like Alice used to. His house seems so perfect, so orderly; he must have people to run it.

  We go back down the steps. The blinds are drawn in the ground-floor windows on either side of the door, presumably to protect his expensive fabrics from fading. The house has the look of a blank face with closed eyes.

  I feel frustrated. I’m reluctant to give up so quickly—there must be somebody here. Perhaps we could look around the back. There might be someone working in the garden.

  I lead Sylvie off to the right of the house. There’s a sprawling herbaceous border and a twisted old magnolia with flowers like cupped, veined hands. A horse chestnut tree is just coming out, the new leaves hanging down like bits of crumpled linen.

  “Where are we going?” she says.

  “We’re going to walk right round the house. I need to find Marcus. We might find someone to ask. A gardener or someone.”

  She clutches at my hand, pushing her fingers between my fingers.

  We turn a corner of the house, and the view opens out before us, that whole wide windswept loveliness of the bay. The sea has a pewter glimmer in the faltering sunlight, and its sound is suddenly louder here, its heavy surge on the shore. To our left are the high arched windows of the drawing room where Marcus entertained us. The curtains are drawn back here, and there are paving stones under the windows so you can go right up to the glass.

  The light off the water reflects in the window and makes it hard to see through. I press my face to the pane, shielding my eyes with my hands. It takes a while for my sight to adjust.

  I’m hoping to see some sign of Gemma or Marcus. But the room is empty, and untidy. Two drawers have been pulled out of the desk, and papers are strewn around carelessly, as though someone was riffling through them and didn’t have time to put them back. One of the whiskey tumblers has broken, and no one has bothered to sweep up the glass. The fragments glitter harshly in the light that falls on the floor. The sight of the broken glass unnerves me.

  A sudden cold dread fills me. What if Gemma was here, what if she got caught up in something—a kidnapping, a robbery? Then I tell myself these are wild, crazy thoughts. I’m shocked, upset because of the discovery at the quarry. There must be some simple explanation: it’s probably just that his cleaner hasn’t come in.

  “What is it, Grace?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart. It just looks rather messy. It’s probably nothing,” I say.

  We walk on around the house. There’s a place, a darkened corner, where the building forms an L-shape, and creeper stems the color of rust reach out across the wall. A little chill wind from the sea lisps in the leaves of the creeper. Here, there’s a side door into the house; the paint is peeling from the salt. The door is slightly ajar. I push it, and it opens. Inside I can see the passageway that leads to the entrance hall, past the door of the downstairs cloakroom.

  “Marcus?” I say into the dark of the passage. My voice sounds hollow.

  There’s no answer.

  If only I could find Marcus, I think. He’d know what to do, he’d know what has happened to Gemma. If only I could speak to him.

  A sudden impulse seizes me. I bend to Sylvie.

  “Sweetheart, listen. There’s something we have to do now. The girl you saw on the beach . . .”

  “Lennie,” she says.

  “Yes.
Lennie.” It feels so strange to call her that. “We don’t know where she’s got to. And so we’re going to look for her. We’re going to slip in here and have a quick look round. We’ll see if we can find her, or if someone can say where she is.”

  “Yes, Grace,” she says, accepting this.

  I lead Sylvie down the passage past the cloakroom door. We walk silently, like sleepwalkers.

  I call out.

  “Marcus! Gemma!”

  The sound of my own voice unnerves me. It’s too urgent, too loud for this quiet place.

  Sylvie must feel this too. She presses a finger to her lips.

  There’s a noise behind us. I spin around. But it’s just the door moving against its frame; it makes a sound like knocking, as though someone wants to get in. It makes me nervous. I go back and shut it properly. It shuts off the sound of the sea, it shuts off everything. The silence of the house envelops us.

  We walk along the passage, emerge into the airiness and gleaming space of the hall. But here too there’s disorder. An overcoat has been flung down in the middle of the floor. On a side table I notice a shredder that must have been recently used, the bin beneath it overflowing with flimsy ribbons of paper. I look around for a telephone, but there doesn’t seem to be one. We pass the Tang horse and the orchids. I notice with a thrill of fear that the gun has gone from the wall.

  Sylvie must hear the catch in my breath.

  “What’s wrong, Grace?”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I tell her. “But I think we ought to go now.”

  I keep my voice very calm, I’m trying not to frighten her.

  “Is Lennie here?” says Sylvie.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart,” I tell her. “But it’s really time to leave.”

  “We’ve got to find Lennie,” she says.

  I reach for her hand. She slips past me. She runs ahead of me, up the pale curving stair.

  “No, Sylvie.”

  She pays me no attention. I run after her. My chest is tight; it hurts to breathe.

  She reaches the top of the stair. On the landing there’s a window that has lavish velvet curtains, and in front of us is a bedroom with a wide-open door. She goes through the door. I follow.

  This must be the main bedroom. You can see it’s a beautiful room. The bed has a red satin coverlet, the curtains have an intricate pattern of Chinese flowers and birds. But the wardrobe door is pulled open, and opulent men’s suits and shirts are all tossed on the bed, on the floor.

  “It’s untidy, isn’t it, Grace?” says Sylvie rather severely.

  I move a jacket with my foot. Underneath, there’s a glint of color, something that doesn’t belong amid all this masculine clothing. I kneel to look. It’s the rainbow scarf that Gemma wore. The silk is crushed and torn.

  I think of something Deirdre said: Gemma remembers her mother going to answer the phone . . . She thinks she said, Okay, I’ll be there for seven . . . She says her mother sounded happy . . . I think how she may have told Marcus—will certainly have told Marcus. And where that memory might lead now, all the questions it might answer—with the finding of the bodies, the bullet wound, the stones.

  I grab Sylvie’s hand. My palms are suddenly wet, and Sylvie’s skin slides against me.

  “We have to go, Sylvie.” My voice is shrill and rapid and doesn’t sound like my voice. “We shouldn’t be here, really. We’ll go and get that ice cream . . .”

  There’s the softest footfall behind me.

  I turn, my heart in my throat.

  53

  MARCUS IS STANDING in the doorway, perfectly groomed and unhurried, despite the disorder in his house. He’s smiling at me pleasantly. I remember that smile from the night when we were stranded in Coldharbour Bog, when he rescued us and welcomed us in for a whiskey at his fireside. I remind myself how kind he was then, and I push away the thoughts I was starting to think. With him actually standing there, my suspicions seem like crazy fabrications. There’s something about his presence—his easy smile, the scent of his cologne—that immediately makes me feel calmer. I’ve been overwrought, emotional—I know that.

  “Marcus. I’m so glad we’ve found you.”

  I know it will all be all right now. Marcus will take over—he’ll know where to look for Gemma. Marcus, who knows how the world works, who wears his life like it’s tailored just for him.

  He inclines his head a little.

  “Grace,” he says. “And Sylvie. Well. It’s nice, as ever, to see you. Though you could have come in by a rather more orthodox route.”

  I feel my face go red.

  “I did ring the bell, but nobody answered,” I tell him. “The thing is—Deirdre phoned this morning, and Gemma’s disappeared. I came here looking for her. I was wondering if she was here or whether you’d maybe seen her?”

  I’m aware of Sylvie pressing against me, as though she wants to melt into my body.

  Marcus doesn’t answer my question.

  “Technically, it’s trespass, of course,” he says. His smile is amused, flirtatious. “But I’ll overlook that—as it’s you.”

  Hs eyes are on me, taking me in.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” I tell him. “But I didn’t know what else to do. We were looking for Gemma. I thought that she might be here, or that I could find you and ask you . . .” I know I’m babbling on—I’m nervous, embarrassed. “And here you are,” I say lightly. Trying to sound at ease, like him.

  “Yes. Here I am,” he says.

  “I’m sorry about the trespassing thing,” I say again. Though I’m rather unnerved that he seems to mind. “You know how it is, in the heat of the moment. It happens so quickly, you do things you shouldn’t have done.”

  He still has that slightly flirtatious smile.

  “You certainly do. In the heat of the moment,” he says.

  Sylvie seems to be messing about, trying to get my attention, deliberately shaking my hand. Then I look down and see that she’s trembling, her entire body quivering. I wish she wouldn’t.

  “What I thought—if Gemma isn’t here—you might know places she goes to, places where we might find her,” I say. “D’you know what might have happened?”

  “So you’ve come here to ask about Gemma,” he says.

  It’s rather odd, the way he puts it—pushing my question away. There’s a sudden little movement at the edges of my mind, a scurry of alarm, or fear. But I tell myself that nothing bad can have happened, that all must be as it should be. He’s so relaxed, so unconcerned.

  “Deirdre’s out of her mind with worry,” I tell him.

  “Well, yes, she would be. Deirdre does worry,” he says.

  I wish he’d answer my question.

  “I was wondering when you last saw Gemma,” I say. I hear the shrill note in my voice. I know I sound too emphatic. “Deirdre did mention—I mean, I know that Gemma comes here sometimes . . .”

  His eyes are still on my face.

  “And, well—her scarf’s here,” I tell him. “We saw it, it’s here on the floor . . .” I’m bending to pick it up. “Look . . .”

  He raises one hand in a slight, controlled gesture that stops me in my tracks and chills me.

  “Yes,” he says. “Her scarf’s here.”

  “I don’t understand,” I tell him.

  He raises his eyebrows a little. “No, you don’t understand, do you, Grace?”

  There’s a cold edge to his voice now. My heart lurches off. I hold Sylvie close against me.

  With a small, cool part of my mind, I’m working out how to push past him—whether he would let us go. His body fills the doorway. He looks quite relaxed, but he’s a fit man, and he’s so much bigger than me.

  “Your coming here like this was unfortunate, really,” he says. “You can see that now, can’t you? For you, certainly. Maybe for me . . . Still, I guess the jury’s out on that.”

  I take a step toward him, holding Sylvie tightly.

  “I think we ought to go,” I tell him.
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  Again, he raises his hand in that little chilling movement.

  “I’m sorry the way it’s all turned out,” he tells me. There’s a tinge of regret in his voice. “Believe me, I’ve nothing against you. Not as people. You seem perfectly pleasant, both of you.” He shrugs. “But there we are.” He laughs briefly, like something has just occurred to him, something he finds amusing. “We’ll blame it on the heat of the moment,” he says.

  He turns, pulls out the key that was in the lock of the door. He steps briskly out onto the landing. He slams the door shut, and I hear the click as he locks the door behind him.

  54

  I LISTEN AT the door, hear his step move off along the landing. Each step, I think, He’s nearly gone. I let myself breathe out. It’s something to be so grateful for—that he’s no longer standing there looking down at us with that mocking, chill expression. I tell myself they’ll come looking—Adam, Brian, Deirdre—that they will certainly find us. I see it clearly in my head—the gardai breaking down the door, the relief in everyone’s eyes. They’ll come to Kinvara House to hunt for Gemma and they’ll rescue us.

  But then I hear footsteps drawing nearer again. My heart thuds so hard it hurts me. I wonder if he is coming to kill us; I wonder if he has his gun. I grab Sylvie, push her behind me.

  But the footsteps seem to pass our door, and I don’t understand this—why he should come back like this and then just leave us alone.

  Then I smell the hot, sharp scent of petrol from the landing.

  “Oh God,” I say. “Oh God.”

  Panic wipes my mind clean.

  I sink down on the bed, I cover my face in my hands. Despair floods through me. Nobody knows we’re here. Perhaps they’ll come looking for Gemma, but not soon enough to save us. There’s no time now.

  It slams into me then, the reality of it, like a physical blow. The absolute wrongness of everything—all my decisions, all the choices I’ve made. I’d wanted to help Sylvie, to try to make her happier. She had only me to look after her, and I’ve led her into danger, let us be drawn to our deaths.