I Saw You

by Julie Parsons

  She began to walk again, impatient to get there, not to waste a second of the time she would have with Helena. She was so interesting. She knew so much. About art and books, about music and antiques, about history and archaeology. It was amazing to be with her. She had a way of making all her knowledge come to life. She could describe how the landscape around the lake had been created and make it far more vivid and real than any of the CGI effects in TV programmes about dinosaurs. She was awesome. In the dictionary sense of the word.

  Now Vanessa could see the gate ahead. She stopped and reached into her bag for a bottle of water. She unscrewed the top and took a long drink, then walked down the slight incline towards the keypad on the gatepost. She tapped in the code, the gate swung open and she walked through. She crossed the pressure panel on the other side and waited for it to swing shut. She still couldn’t get over it. Helena had told her the code.

  That day, not long ago, the first day they had met, Vanessa had been walking down the pier, daydreaming, trying not to think about her mother and Marina and the grief that hung around the house like a giant black shawl. And she had seen the tall dark woman with the huge dog. The dog, padding along by her side, so calm, so quiet, so completely at ease. And the woman had shown her that the dog wouldn’t hurt her. Had made her feel secure, powerful, even. They had walked together down the pier. And when the time had come to go their separate ways, the woman had told her she knew her name, she knew who she was. And she wanted to be her friend.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard about me.’ The woman had taken her hand. ‘All kinds of terrible things, I’m sure. But life’s too short to carry a grudge. Soon we will be neighbours. Won’t we? Soon you will inherit Dove Cottage. So, please, come and see me. It’s not far. There’s a bus you can get most of the way.’ She had squeezed her hand tightly. ‘You’ve never been to the Lake House, have you, since you were a baby? Well, it’s time to remedy that. You are James’s daughter. I can see that just by looking at you. You remind me so much of my son Dominic when he was your age. And if my daughter had lived, I’m sure she would have been like you too. So, please, make an old woman happy. Come and see me.’

  ‘Your daughter? I didn’t know you had a daughter?’ Vanessa said. ‘What happened to her?’

  The woman didn’t reply.

  ‘Sorry.’ Vanessa winced. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. My mother’s always telling me to think before I speak. Sorry, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘No, it is your business,’ the woman told her. ‘After all, my daughter was your half-sister, wasn’t she?’ She paused. ‘It was what they call a cot death. She was six months old. She was healthy, strong, beautiful. I went in to her one morning and I thought she was still asleep. Then I noticed she was very pale. I touched her cheek and it was cold. I picked her up and her body was white and stiff. Like a hard plastic doll. The doctor said she had died not long after I put her to bed.’

  The dog leaned close to the woman’s leg. It whined.

  ‘So you’re Helena – is that right?’ Vanessa tried to sound calm.

  Helena smiled. ‘Yes. And you’re Vanessa. Such a pretty name. Your father’s godmother was called Vanessa. Did you know that?’

  Vanessa shook her head.

  Helena patted the dog’s head. He looked up at her, his forehead wrinkled. ‘Yes. James loved her very much. I remember him saying to me that he was closer to her than he was to his own mother. You know how that can be, I’m sure. Sometimes one’s mother isn’t the easiest person in the world to talk to,’

  Vanessa nodded. ‘That’s true. They say it’s because you’re so alike. Although I don’t think I’m like my mother. I don’t look like her.’

  ‘No,’ Helena said slowly. ‘No. You obviously take after the de Paor side of the family. So,’ she smiled, ‘you will come and see me, won’t you? Sometimes I get lonely by myself, even though Dominic comes every week, sometimes more often, and he phones me all the time. He’s such a wonderful son. I’m so lucky to have him. Although,’ she frowned, ‘you may not want to come after what happened to your other half-sister. How sad and how strange that she should die in the lake too. How awful for your mother. How is she?’ Her eyes were sympathetic and concerned.

  And Vanessa couldn’t help but reply: ‘She’s very sad. She misses Marina very much and can’t believe that she took her own life. She says it wasn’t like her.’

  ‘And what do you think?’ Helena reached down and dug her fingers into the thick ruff around the dog’s neck.

  Vanessa felt awkward at the question. ‘I don’t know. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do it.’

  ‘That must have been hard for you. Were you close?’ Helena’s voice was soft and kind.

  ‘I don’t know, really. She was a lot older than me. She took me out shopping and things and she had lunch with us most Sundays, but I often felt she did it more for my mother than for me.’

  They stood then in silence. Vanessa knew she should go. But somehow she didn’t want to leave the woman. And Helena began to tell her about the Lake House and the grounds, the lake and the deer, the woods and the mountains, and Dove Cottage. ‘It’s such a lovely little house. Perfect for a couple. Years ago, when your grandfather was still alive and living in the big house, your father used to take me to stay there. It was like a doll’s house. Everything was very small. The rooms were little, with low ceilings. But it was lovely. It’s neglected now, so it will be good that you can give it some attention, won’t it?’ And Helena had pulled a pen from her bag. Taken Vanessa’s arm, turned it over and written a number on her fine white skin. ‘You need a code to get into the grounds. You know how to get there, don’t you?’ And Vanessa had listened as Helena explained. ‘Now, that will get you in through the gate. You can come any time. I’ll always be happy to see you.’ And she walked away, the dog by her side. Up the steps and across the footbridge over the railway.

  Now Vanessa began to walk down the hill. She could see the lake ahead and to her left. Its surface gleamed like burnished metal. It looked solid, hard, as if it could bear weight. And then a breeze stirred the trees and a wave like a feather dipped in ink dribbled its pattern across the water. She turned off the main drive, down a narrow path that led towards the water. And there was the cottage, with its own little garden front and back, surrounded by a high hedge with a pretty wrought-iron gate. Vanessa felt in her pocket for the key Helena had given her the first time she came to the Lake House. She opened the pink front door and stepped inside. It was cool and dark. She walked through the rooms, the sitting room, dining room, old-fashioned scullery and kitchen. Then up the narrow stairs and into the two bedrooms and bathroom. She was so excited. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was. She peered out of the windows to the woods and the lake, then moved to the windows at the back. The garden had a small greenhouse and shed. She had pulled open the door. Inside was a lawnmower and all kinds of old garden tools. Shears and clippers and bottles of weed-killer with ‘poison’ written on them in faded black capitals. She would watch all the gardening programmes on TV. She was going to make it beautiful. Grow vegetables and fruit, and invite her mother to stay and cook her lovely meals. And maybe Sally and Helena would be friends, and out of all that sadness and anger something good would come.

  Now she heard the sound of horse’s hoofs outside and ran back to the front windows. Helena was riding up the drive. Her horse was huge and as black as her hair. He made Vanessa nervous, even though Helena had said he was a pet, really, and very quiet. Helena had said she could ride him if she wanted, but Vanessa had said she didn’t know how. And Helena had shown her photographs of James when he was young, seated on a horse like this, jumping over huge fences, winning prizes.

  ‘Did your mother not tell you all the things he could do?’ Helena’s voice held a hint of disapproval. ‘He had so many talents. When I first met him, when we were teenagers, we used to go riding together all the time. We used to come out here and stay for weeks in the
summer and take the horses and go all over the mountains. And I used to pretend we were pioneers, discovering this wonderful world that was just for us.’

  Now she watched as Helena stopped at the gate and leaned down to open it, then walked the horse through, the dog behind. And she called,‘Vanessa, are you there? So glad you could make it today. We’re going to have such a good time. Come out and see what I have planned for you.’

  Vanessa waved to her, then hurried down the stairs, out through the low front door and into the sunshine.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The house was a mess. The patio doors had been forced open and the locks broken. Someone had rampaged through the kitchen, smashing glasses and plates and pulling food from the cupboards. McLoughlin stepped over the remains of the glass decanter that had been his retirement present. He hadn’t had the chance to use it and now he never would. There was worse to come in the sitting room. Everything had been ruined. The TV had been lifted from its table and smashed on the floor. The sofa cushions had been ripped with a knife and every painting and print had been pulled from its hook on the wall and stamped on. Glass crunched underfoot as he picked his way across the room towards the table where he had left Marina’s laptop. It was no longer there. Neither were the cardboard boxes that had contained her files, her books, her bills and letters. And his own computer was wrecked.

  He walked down the corridor into his bedroom. It was a similar scene here. The drawers in the bedside locker were pulled out. Someone had been through his letters. They had ripped the pages from their envelopes and scattered them everywhere. And they must have found the photographs of Marina because they were no longer there. And neither was the piece of paper he had taken from Marina’s computer with the words ‘I SAW YOU’ in capital letters. He knelt down and sorted through everything, gathering it together in an effort at a neat pile.

  He felt nauseous. He thought of all the burglary scenes he had attended through the years. He had taken notes, offered words of advice about future security, even made the odd cup of tea. But he had never really understood. He had walked away from houses with smashed front doors, broken windows – even, he remembered, one case where a burglar had removed some roof slates to gain entry. Walked away, closed his notebook, got into the car, and thought nothing more about it. But now bile filled his mouth and he got up quickly, half ran into the bathroom and knelt over the toilet to vomit.

  The young uniformed guard who stood behind him in the doorway filled a glass with water and handed it to him.

  ‘Thanks.’ McLoughlin sat on the side of the bath and sipped it.

  ‘They made a hell of a mess, didn’t they?’ she said. ‘Do you have any idea who might have done it?’

  McLoughlin wasn’t going to tell her about Gerry Leonard and his friend so he said nothing.

  ‘Apart from all the damage, is there much missing, do you think?’ She moved out into the corridor and he followed, checking the spare bedrooms as he passed them.

  ‘Actually, there isn’t. The only thing I can’t place is a laptop that belonged to the daughter of a friend of mine. An Apple iBook G4. Quite new, I’d say, but not worth much.’ He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid as to leave those photographs lying around. But at least he had the disk with the scene at the party. He patted his jacket pocket and felt the hardness of its plastic case.

  ‘We’ll ask the neighbours, but I don’t think we’ll get very far with this.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘You know the way it is with burglaries.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Erdinger. ‘You don’t happen to see the bottle-opener, do you?’

  She bent down and fumbled under the table. ‘Here you go.’ She handed it to him.

  He prised off the cap, picked an unbroken mug from the counter top and poured the frothy liquid.

  ‘You look like you could do with some sleep – and what happened to your face?’ Her expression was concerned.

  ‘I fell down some stairs. Think I need new glasses. Anyway,’ he raised the cup to her, ‘you get off. I suppose the fingerprint guy will be here in the morning.’ Her expression was now sceptical. ‘Oh, I see, cut-backs, is that it?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, but given the level of loss, well, it won’t be top of the list.’ She stepped out of the broken patio door. ‘Nice to meet you at last. You’ve quite a reputation. I’ve heard a lot about you from your old friends.’ She held out her hand. ‘You should get some rest if you can.’ She looked down at her watch. ‘It’s late, after two. Sleep would be good for you.’ He felt tears prick and turned away, embarrassed. Couldn’t figure it out. Why was he crying? He wiped his eyes surreptitiously with the back of his hand.

  It was mid-morning when he woke. He had cleared up the worst of the damage, and phoned for an emergency locksmith. He had sat up and waited for him, drinking beer until the guy arrived, fixed the patio door and changed the locks, ‘just to be on the safe side’, on the front door and the windows. It seemed too much of a coincidence that the break-in had happened on the same day that he had been beaten up by Gerry Leonard. And when he thought about what had been taken, the boxes of Marina’s books and papers, her laptop, it seemed even more obvious who was the culprit.

  He was ready for bed now, but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep in his own. Instead he got into the narrow single in the boxroom, and pulled the blankets up around his head. It was, inevitably, his phone that woke him. He peered sleepily at the screen. He had three new text messages. He sat up and began wearily to scroll through them. They were all from Gwen Simpson. The first and second had been sent last night, the latest a few minutes ago. She wanted to meet him. There was something she needed to tell him. He got out of bed and walked slowly into the kitchen. He hunted in the fridge and found a carton of orange juice. He slid back the glass doors and stepped out on to the terrace. He lifted the juice to his mouth and took a long swallow, then picked up his phone. ‘Hi, Gwen, Michael McLoughlin here. What can I do for you?’

  They met in the large ugly pub across the road from Mount Jerome cemetery. Gwen, in black, was sitting by herself at a table in the corner. The pub was crowded and very hot. Most of the customers were dressed similarly in black. The noise level was high. The tables were crowded with drinks and plates of food. McLoughlin recognized a few other faces. Anthony and Isobel Watson were sitting, looking awkward and out of place, on a bench seat, and standing at the bar, he saw Dominic de Paor with his wife and Sophie Fitzgerald.

  McLoughlin pushed his way through the crowd. It was customary for mourners to come to this pub, but he wouldn’t have thought it matched the social standing of those at Mark Porter’s cremation. They must need a drink badly, he thought, as he saw Gwen.

  ‘I didn’t realize Mark’s funeral was today,’ he said, as he sat down beside her.

  ‘Your face, what happened?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing much. Wasn’t watching where I was going.’ McLoughlin signalled to a passing waitress. ‘How was the service?’

  Gwen grimaced.

  ‘Same again for the lady,’ he told the girl – Gwen’s glass was half-empty. ‘And a pint of Guinness, please.’

  McLoughlin waited for her to speak. He was conscious that he was being watched. De Paor couldn’t keep his eyes from straying towards him. And there were others, too. Poppy Atkinson and her husband were at a table near by. She was not completely sober.

  Eventually Gwen said, ‘I haven’t smoked for years but I’d give anything for a cigarette now.’ She gave a brief laugh. ‘I wanted to see you because, as I said, I need to tell you something. But this isn’t the place to do it. I was going to wait until later but I couldn’t bear it any longer. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you first came to see me. I was preoccupied with issues of confidentiality. But now—’ She finished her wine with a gulp.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Those considerations don’t seem to matter. What matters is that this dreadful business is brought to an end.’ She stood up. �
��Come with me. My car is parked down the road. We’ll go there.’ She picked up her bag, and before McLoughlin could finish his drink she was heading for the door. He stood up quickly and followed. He could feel the eyes watching him. He glanced around the bar. There was no sign of Gerry Leonard.

  Gwen had walked on ahead and was unlocking her car door. She sat into it and reached across to open the passenger door for McLoughlin. He settled himself beside her. ‘Now,’ he turned to her, ‘what’s this all about?’

  It was a hot Saturday at the end of July. Marina wasn’t happy. She hated being at the Lake House. She hated being cooped up with him and his son. She hated him so much she couldn’t even bring herself to call him by his name. But she had to be nice because her mother got so upset if she made a fuss. And she loved her mother. And she was terrified of losing her. Terrified of being like one of those girls at school whose mothers didn’t care about them, who hardly ever wrote to them. Who, even in the holidays, contrived to spend as little time as they could with them. And, besides, there was one compensation. He was so keen to make her like him that he was always giving her presents. And the most recent and the best was the dinghy. It was an Enterprise, bigger and faster than anything else she had ever sailed. Painted blue with sails to match. And a 10cc Seagull outboard engine. She had named the boat Bluebird even though Dominic sneered and said it was a cliché. But she didn’t care. She was happy when she was out in Bluebird, far away from the rest of them.