Stage Fright
Page 23
‘For a while longer. It takes time, you know, for someone to be declared dead. But it will happen, I think. Melissa will not return.’
‘No, I don’t think she will.’
‘You think it was Kevin who murdered her?’
‘I suppose I could play with words and say that in a sense I think it was. But in the generally accepted meaning of the word, I have to say, no, he didn’t kill her.’
‘She killed herself?’ Véronique’s eyes were wide.
‘Melissa is dead. The Melissa I knew, that is. But there was another Melissa, one I knew nothing about. Oh, don’t worry,’ I said, responding to the alarm in her face, ‘That Melissa won’t come back either.’
‘She won’t? But why not?’
‘I think you know why.’
The air was electric. For a moment I wondered if I’d made a mistake coming here alone. Then Melissa sighed. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. When she looked at me again, her whole face seemed different.
‘I thought if anyone managed to work it out, it would be you,’ she said. ‘How did you do it?’
‘I asked myself what I might have done in your position and who in the end was left holding the baby. I did wonder about Maire. Whether she was really you, if you see what I mean. But funnily enough, she was actually too similar to you in some ways. The mannerisms, that way she had of glancing sideways. No, you would have tried to bury that resemblance, if you were acting the role of your own sister. And then there was Geoff. He had to have known about Jake dressing up and scaring Belinda. Jake said as much, even implied that Geoff had put the idea into his head. That seemed so unlike him. Once I’d taken on board the idea that Geoff might not be quite what he seemed, everything started to unravel. There was nothing really that couldn’t have been set up by you and Geoff, from the anonymous letter to the bloodstains in the bath.’
‘But you weren’t sure at first, were you? When you got here, I mean?’
‘You’re right. I did have a moment or two of wondering if I was about to make an almighty fool of myself. You’re good, Melissa. Bloody good. The hair, the glasses – contact lenses too, to change the colour?’ She nodded. ‘But it was the acting, really. You didn’t let up for a moment. And that accent…’ I shook my head. ‘Just brilliant.’
She shrugged. ‘Not difficult when you’ve got a French mother. And it’s the best possible way to disguise a voice.’
‘That’s why the photos disappeared from your dressing-room. That one of your parents…’
‘Yes, standing outside the pâtisserie they used to run in Carcassonne.’
‘I was virtually sure, and when you pushed up your sleeve, that clinched it…’
‘The burn on my arm.’ She looked at it and grimaced. ‘Ah, yes, one of the mementoes of my past life. Kevin did that, of course. Among other things.’
‘You know, Geoff was good, too. Of course, I was blind with lack of sleep and mother-love, but all the same I have to hand it to you. The pair of you played me like a fish. And of course, Maire was in on it, too, wasn’t she?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Are you? Are you really?’
She thought for a moment.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I’d do it all again. You found out what Kevin was like, didn’t you? When we first met he was so charming, so clever, so sexy – I’d never known anything like it. He was a bit possessive even then, but I was flattered. He swept me off my feet. After we got married, it grew worse. He was suspicious of my male friends. Wanted me to account for every moment I wasn’t with him. There were rows, he started to hit me. Oh, you can write the script yourself. Things improved a bit after Agnes was born. And then the worst thing of all happened. He tried to control me through her.’
‘Couldn’t you have left him?’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt how inadequate they were.
‘He said he would hunt me down and kill me. I believed him. I knew I’d never really be safe. Not unless he thought I was already dead.’
I thought of something I’d heard on the news a few months ago. A woman and her children had fled from a violent husband and gone into hiding. Her address was kept secret but the name of her social worker was given in court. That clue was enough. He’d tracked his wife down and murdered her.
‘When did you actually leave the house?’ I asked. ‘I’ve often wondered about that.’
‘I left it as long as I dared. Geoff cycled over and he arrived about an hour after you’d left. He helped me set the scene, then he took the car and dumped it in London. I waited until I knew people would miss me. I was actually still in the cottage when the phone started ringing. That was my cue. I cycled over to Ely station. I was wearing a wig, padding, the works, my own mother wouldn’t have recognized me. I went straight to Wales and took up my new identity.’
‘But weren’t you afraid for Agnes? How could you leave her behind, knowing what he was like?’
‘That was the worst part, but it was the only thing I could think of that would convince him. I knew he wouldn’t dare to hurt her with the police and social workers swarming around. And you’d be there, too. And he wasn’t interested in her except as a counter in the game with me. I thought he’d soon get sick of looking after her and surrender her to Maire.’
‘It didn’t work though, did it? He didn’t believe that you were dead. That TV broadcast did for him, didn’t it? So then it was plan B. Was it you or Geoff who went round to Journey’s End, planted the biscuits, removed the adrenaline…?’
‘Geoff didn’t know until afterwards.’
‘That’s what I guessed.’
‘And I didn’t really think Kevin would die. It was more of a warning than anything else. I wanted to give him a scare. I mean, I thought there’d be another kit in the car.’
‘And there was. If Kevin hadn’t taken Grace, and I hadn’t taken his car keys … I suppose you could argue that Kevin was hoist by his own petard.’
We sat in silence for a bit.
‘Would you have let me go on thinking that you were dead?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe one day, when I felt it was safe…’
‘An enigmatic postcard from some big anonymous city? Or perhaps a phone call that couldn’t be traced?’
She nodded. ‘Something like that.’
‘But wouldn’t even that have been a risk? How could you be sure I wouldn’t give the game away? That I won’t give it away even now.’
‘I can’t be sure, but—’
She didn’t have to finish her sentence. I did it for her.
‘But I’m a mother, too.’
‘Kevin was a monster, you know.’
‘What are you trying to say? The end justifies the means?’
‘Sometimes it does. What it comes down to here is something very simple in the end. Agnes. You would have done the same for Grace.’
Was this true? I thought of the satisfaction with which I’d kneed Kevin in the balls. What if I’d had a knife in my hand? That was different from actually planning to kill him, but even so … What was it Nietzsche had written? He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
‘I’m very fond of you, Cass,’ Melissa was saying. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll meet again, though, will we?’
‘Better not.’ I didn’t say it unkindly.
‘I’m not going unpunished, you know. I’ll never act again. At least—’
‘Not on the stage.’
‘Exactly.’
I pushed my coffee away undrunk and got up.
‘Better go, I’ve got a long drive home.’
Melissa got to her feet, too. She walked me to the door. We stood on the threshold and looked at each other.
‘What about Stephen?’ Melissa asked.
‘He doesn’t know. Or at least he can’t admit that he knows. He’s a lawyer after all. He’d feel he had to do something about it.
I’ll find a way of sharing it with him without actually telling him.’
She nodded.
‘The police,’ I said. ‘They might still tumble to it…’
‘I know … that’s part of it.’ Part of her punishment, I guessed that she meant. ‘But every day it goes on is one more day I’ve had with Agnes.’
We walked out to my car. I got in and started the engine. Now at the last moment I somehow felt reluctant to say goodbye. I wound the window down. Melissa bent down.
‘What are you going to tell Agnes when she grows up?’ I asked.
A shadow fell across her face. ‘Am I going to go on pretending not to be her mother? I don’t know. Mother, but not mother. It’s a bit like East Lynne, isn’t it?’
I nodded and wound up the window.
As the car jolted down the track, I kept glancing into the rearview mirror. Melissa was standing alone in the middle of the farmyard. She raised her arm in a gesture of farewell. I raised my own arm, though I wasn’t sure if she could see it.
Then the track turned and she disappeared from view.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
STAGE FRIGHT. Copyright © 2003 by Christine Poulson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
ISBN 0-312-34074-5
EAN 978-0312-34074-2
First published in Great Britain by Robert Hale Limited
First U.S. Edition: May 2005
eISBN 9781466842076
First eBook edition: March 2013