The Mother's Lies

by Joanne Sefton

  She gave one last kick and felt her sturdy school boots connect with the child in a sickening thud. It can’t hurt her now, Katy tried to reassure herself, scrabbling to her feet and rubbing her wrists and calves where the scratches were the deepest.

  Finally, thankfully, the thing was done.

  *

  The next day, the news that one of the Gardiners’ twins had vanished swirled round Katy like rising floodwater. With every new voice that added itself to the gossip, she felt a little closer to drowning. When she turned up at the church hall, the practice was fuller than it had been in weeks. Miss Tilley, who normally did the accompaniment on the piano, announced, in her flustered and slightly timid way, that she would be taking the session due to Mr Gardiner being ‘indisposed’. It was clear that there wasn’t going to be much singing going on.

  Ten minutes before they were due to finish, after a few slapdash numbers, and a tea break where Katy’s cup rattled so much in its saucer she was getting funny looks, Simon blustered in through the main doorway. He held his hands aloft to silence the clamour, looking not unlike the image of Jesus in the picture above his right shoulder.

  ‘There’s no news,’ he said, pausing to give his brow an anguished wipe. ‘We’re going to be organising search parties for tomorrow. If any of you can help, we’ll be meeting at the primary school. Children, do ask your parents if they could consider helping us, please. And make sure you all have someone to walk home with tonight.’

  Only she knew that it was a performance – that he was really there to see her. When she had the chance, she slipped off unnoticed into the dusty room where the hymnals were kept. He’d know to find her there, assuming he could get away.

  Sure enough, about twenty minutes later, the door opened.

  ‘Katy?’ came his voice. She’d left the lights off in case anyone else came to investigate.

  ‘Here,’ she said, stepping towards him.

  ‘Oh God.’ He held her tight, but only for a moment.

  ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘Yes. But she’ll be found soon …’

  ‘I know, I know, we have to move her.’

  ‘But if she’s found you can bury her properly. Nobody need know she wasn’t stolen.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, for Christ’s sake, Katy! No, it’s too risky. It wouldn’t work.’ He paused again. ‘You understand I can’t do it, don’t you? They’re practically going with me to the lavatory. It has to be you.’

  Katy’s tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth. She didn’t want this. She wished with all her heart she’d never had anything to do with him. But then who could have known it would come to this?

  Simon was pushing paper money into her hands. ‘Thirty shillings,’ he told her. ‘It has to be tomorrow, as early as possible. Bunk off school and get her out. Get to Lime Street and take a train somewhere. Not somewhere you know – somewhere random. Find some proper woods or a farmer’s field and bury her as well as you can. Don’t even tell me where it is. Try not to remember it yourself.’

  ‘You won’t be going to get her?’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t. It has to be you, Katy.’

  August 2017

  Helen

  An hour later – over sixty-seven hours since Barney had been taken – Helen, Darren and Alys had left the house. They were tramping along a footpath towards a local picnic spot with a duck pond. Veena had negotiated that they would give the photographers the chance to take a posed shot of the three of them leaving the house, and then the press would leave them alone. She’d recommended that they stick to the footpath rather than the road, and that was why they’d ended up coming here rather than the play park Helen usually visited with the kids.

  She remembered the path from when she was a child herself. Neil would bring her blackberrying here in the autumn. In her memory it had been wilder then, more overgrown, and she couldn’t decide if it was true, or if she’d just got taller.

  Alys ran on ahead a little and Helen managed to convince herself that she was happy to let her go. The ground was still too bumpy and rough for her little legs to get up much speed, and Helen was conscious that Alys had had very little chance of fresh air and exercise since the day that Barney was taken. There was no sign of anyone else around, but Helen still kept her eyes locked on to her daughter.

  ‘Do you think we’ll get him back, Darren?’

  She whispered it. The words had been jostling on her lips for minutes and she didn’t know whether she’d be able to say them at all until, suddenly, they were out. She knew that Darren would tell her the truth.

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ There was an intake of breath. He had more to say but was trying to work out the best way of saying it. ‘It being … it being … someone like Gardiner – I would have said that was the worst thing that could happen. But now they’ve got Gardiner in custody, well, we’ve just got to hope I suppose.’

  ‘But if he was keeping him somewhere, why not tell? Better even for him than letting Barney …’ She couldn’t say it. The thought that he was still alive but languishing somewhere, that Gardiner would allow Barney to die alone in order to protect himself, was torture.

  ‘There’s just this part of me that feels like it’s different …’ Darren was speaking slowly now, working out his thoughts even as he shared them. ‘He suddenly manages to find Katy Clery because of her health records – okay. He sends her threatening notes – fine. He poisons her in hospital – fine. Then, at the same time as he’s up to all that, he’s also arranging for a child to be kidnapped, when there’s no evidence he’s ever done that before.’

  ‘There’s no evidence he hasn’t. People do horrendous things and stay under the radar for decades.’

  ‘Yep, I’ll give you that, but the child who ends up being taken isn’t any child. It’s Barbara – Katy’s – grandson.’

  ‘Because it’s about revenge – she killed his daughter; he goes after her grandson.’

  ‘But her story is she didn’t kill his child. And if that’s right, then he would be the only person in the world to know that apart from her.’ He paused, as if trying to decide whether to share his thoughts.

  ‘Go on,’ she prompted.

  ‘All right. I heard Nelson on the phone, you know, talking about what they found on Simon Gardiner’s computer. The pictures were all girls – not boys. Young girls, but not infants. Nelson seemed to think it might not stand up in court. He said a lot of them could be sixteen or seventeen, picked out and dressed up to make them look younger. Having a thing for teenage girls is a bit different to having a thing for five-year-old boys, don’t you think?’

  ‘So you’re saying he’s not a paedophile now?’

  Darren shrugged. ‘I just wonder if this is more about Gardiner and your mum than about Barney, but maybe that’s just because that’s what I want to think.’ His voice rose as his anger returned. ‘Because I’m praying that some fucking pervert isn’t doing God-knows-what to our boy.’

  She reached out for his hand. He let her take it, then squeezed hers tight enough to hurt. For a minute or so, they walked in silence, apart from the occasional word of encouragement to Alys. The sun was warm and there was a slight breeze rummaging through the hedgerow. Even the birdsong sounded lazy. There was an idea, skittering just out of her reach, like the daddy-long-legs in the grass at their feet. Then Darren’s phone rang.

  ‘Probably work,’ he said, but she saw Lauren’s name flash up on the screen as he pulled it from his pocket.

  ‘Take it if you want,’ she said. ‘I’ll go on ahead with Alys.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  They’d pretty much arrived at the duck pond. She called Alys over and pulled the bag of crusts from her handbag. Darren hung back, speaking in a brusque undertone, and ending the call quickly, as he’d predicted.

  Helen didn’t ask about Lauren, but handed him some bread, which he began to break up and pass on in bits to Alys. Left to her own devices, she’d throw i
t a slice at a time and then complain when there was none left ten seconds later. Helen threw some crumbs from the bottom of the bag, tossing them over the heads of the ducks to encourage them to back off a little. The other typical conclusion to duck feeding was the ducks getting closer and closer until the children ended up running away.

  ‘I’ve told Lauren we need to put a pause on things.’ Darren’s eyes were fixed straight ahead.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I just couldn’t … and it wasn’t fair to her … not with everything that’s going on.’

  ‘I see.’ Though Helen didn’t see, not entirely, but nor did she have the energy to pursue it. A bit like him, she supposed. As they stood together, throwing the bread, laughing with Alys, her daddy-long-legs of a thought fluttered closer. She began to have glimpses of it, to make out its shape and its substance. She glanced at Darren. ‘I want to ask you something.’

  He shot an anxious look back. ‘Not about Lauren …’

  ‘No, not that. I just think I might be going crazy. No one else would get it.’

  ‘Fire away,’ he said, but then, picking up on her hesitation, he showed Alys that the bread bag was empty and sent her off to pick some dandelions growing by a fence post, safely back from the water’s edge. ‘Go on then, what is it?’

  ‘Could Mum be setting Simon Gardiner up?’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All the stuff you said, about why it doesn’t fit for him to have taken him. What if it’s not his revenge on her; what if it’s her revenge on him?’

  ‘So she’s arranged for Barney to be spirited off somewhere, entrapped Gardiner into sending those emails …’

  ‘Or even planted them on his computer. Remember all those OU courses? I bet she’d be good enough to do that.’

  ‘But what about the notes you said she was getting that were supposed to be from Gardiner’s daughter? In fact, never mind those, what about the overdose in the hospital?’

  Helen’s mind was whirling faster than she could get the words out now. It all fitted. The whole cancer gene testing thing had never sat right with her, not when she knew the lengths Barbara had gone to, to keep her identity secret for all those years. Helen couldn’t imagine for a moment that she’d accidently give up those details, that she would encourage NHS bureaucracy to link her with her estranged family.

  ‘That was her way of leading them to Gardiner.’ Helen flung the few crumbs that she still had in her fingers onto the path. ‘Don’t you see? That was the trail of breadcrumbs leading straight to the witch’s cottage. She knew all this would happen.’ She slapped her palm against her forehead. ‘Of course Amy didn’t leak anything to the press, it was all Mum. She’s been setting this up for years. It’s probably all part of the plan that her family get dragged through the papers into the bargain. That’s their just deserts for turning their backs on her all those years ago.’

  He whistled. ‘You really think she’d do that to you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought it before – because who would, right? That’s why it’s so good; it’s just too much to believe. When I visited her, she was making this big deal about me being strong. I think she’s spent decades plotting her revenge. She’s so obsessed with making him suffer, she’d blinded herself to the suffering she has to put others through to get there.’

  Darren let out a long sigh. ‘Well, you’re right about one thing – it does sound crazy.’

  ‘But crazy-right or just crazy-crazy?’

  She needed him to back her up. Darren knew them all better than anyone else outside the family. If it didn’t fit into place for him, then she knew it couldn’t be the truth. Her heart was in her mouth waiting for his verdict, but before he spoke she remembered something else. The tears came before she could get it out. Alys wandered back with a floppy bouquet of dandelions. Helen wasn’t able to say thank you as Alys pushed it into her hands.

  ‘Mummy’s a bit sad, sweetie,’ said Darren, scooping her up into his arms.

  Alys gave a solemn nod. ‘Mummy sad you go and Barney go. Now you’re back, so Barney come back soon and make Mummy all happy.’

  He kissed her forehead.

  ‘She told me he’s safe, like she really knew for a fact.’ Helen got it out in a whisper. ‘When I was at the hospital, she told me Barney was in a safe place.’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell she thinks she’s playing at dragging our son into this, but I think I actually believe you,’ said Darren. He bent down to meet her gaze as he said it and Helen had never seen him look so earnest. ‘We need to get back.’

  Eklund

  In a cramped office, Haldor Eklund loosened his tie and rubbed his eyes, looking at the MRI results for the twentieth time. Given Barbara Marsden’s presentation, he’d feared the worst – rapidly advancing metastases, perhaps even affecting her brain. But there was nothing here to explain her confusion, or her vagueness. Not the slightest indication of any cancerous spread. Of course, she would have been tired following the surgery, but all the physical signs were that she was recovering well. The constant, leaden fatigue that she seemed to be experiencing was a familiar hallmark amongst his patients, but not for someone whose surgery seemed to have been so comprehensively successful. Particularly a patient who was fairly young and otherwise in good health.

  He had to acknowledge the unwelcome possibility that there were other reasons for this patient’s presentation. Were tiredness and confusion convenient cloaks for Mrs Marsden to pull on just at the moment? Was his patient an actress as well as a victim? And should he share his suspicions with the police?

  He decided he was overdramatising things. Making a mountain out of a molehill, as the English would have it. No, even the thought of breaking patient confidentiality turned him cold. He would keep a close eye on her and continue to try to persuade her to begin chemotherapy. She was an elderly lady in hospital, after all – what harm could she pose to anyone?

  June 1962

  Katy

  She slipped down the hallway, taking care to avoid the places where the boards creaked. The voices from the telly were murmuring. If there was snooker on then Ma would be up till all hours.

  It was late June. The darkening street was full of evidence of the kids who had whiled away the evening there. There were hopscotch squares chalked on the pavement; burnt-out squibs and strips from cap guns; pop bottles stacked neatly inside gates that would go back to the shop tomorrow for sixpence. A home-knitted cardigan cast a shadow from a gatepost.

  She didn’t bother to keep to the shadows herself. If Ma had really wanted to, she’d have twigged what was going on long before this. It’d been three years since Mr Gardiner had called her back on the day before she left St Gregory’s to offer her singing lessons. Back then she’d been eleven and ready for high school. Mr Gardiner was young and new, with slick dark hair and a smart tweed jacket.

  At first, the lessons were a secret because the Clerys couldn’t afford to pay and the money was a struggle for almost all his students. He said he made an exception because she was special and, back then, she never thought to question it.

  Given that he was teaching her for free, though, it seemed rude to complain that they did more talking than singing. Truth be told, Katy quite liked the chance to talk about herself; it didn’t come along often in a family of four kids with a four-month-dead Dad. She could talk about Dad with Mr Gardiner, when they’d all learnt it was a mistake to mention him to Ma.

  When talking turned into touching, Katy wouldn’t have known what to tell, even if she had someone to tell it to, which she didn’t. When Simon told her she was beautiful, she didn’t believe him, but the fact he said it was good enough.

  He’d leave Etta for her, he said – damn the Church and the school and the neighbourhood – they could move to the seaside, or even to France. He’d play piano in a bar for money and they’d live on bread and cheese and she could try oysters. They weren’t so prudish in France – the pair of them could stroll along ho
lding hands and kiss on the beach. She could try French cigarettes.

  It never happened.

  A year or so after Katy first started going to Mr Gardiner’s house, his wife had fallen pregnant. Katy hadn’t known about it straight away; she heard from her Ma, who picked it up at the grocer’s. Soon after that, though, Etta swelled up big as the side of a house, and no wonder, because it was twins. Jennifer and Mary.

  They came early and Katy first knew they were born when she was in the little front parlour Simon used for the singing lessons and their cries started up from above. ‘It was last week,’ he’d said.

  ‘You should have told me,’ she replied. ‘I’d not have come today.’

  But he had simply shaken his head, turned the key in the lock and moved quickly to undo his trousers.

  That first year, Katy wondered if Simon had invented the things they did together, if she was the first girl in the world to seethe like a witch’s cauldron with the pleasure and pain and love and hate and shame of it all bubbling around together. Later, when she finally started to piece together her bits of whispered knowledge about ‘women’s business’, with the things that happened in her singing lessons, she was hit by the fear that what had happened to Etta might happen to her too. Luckily, Sonia, who was almost fourteen by then, was able to enlighten her.

  ‘You only get pregnant if a boy puts his thing in you,’ she whispered as they lay side by side under Katy’s blankets. Although it was dark, Katy imagined she could feel the heat radiating out from her sister’s red cheeks. ‘Even then, it’s okay as long as nothing comes out of it.’

  They both giggled, but Katy’s fingers prickled with her own knowledge. Her mouth ached with it. Perhaps she could tell Sonia; they could keep it between them, in the cocoon of the blankets. This secret that Katy feared would otherwise overwhelm her.

  ‘Don’t you let any of them dirty lads near you, though, Katy. Our Terry would batter them. You wait till you’re older, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’