by H. Y. Hanna
“So that’s why…” said Leah slowly.
“Why what?” asked Toran.
“We’ve had someone tailing us around London,” said Leah. “I was sure he was the same man who stole my bag at the airport. And if nothing was taken, then it seems to support my theory that it wasn’t some petty criminal—it was someone after something specific. This Ru-Yi must be what he was looking for. He probably thought I was carrying it in my bag. He was following us around Knightsbridge yesterday as well… and he sent me a nasty message, warning me to stop digging up the past.”
“Are you saying he threatened you?” Toran demanded, feeling a surge of protective anger.
“No, it was just a… a cheap scare.”
Toran could tell from Leah’s voice that there was more than she was telling, but she obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “I need to go back and speak to Beng’s wife,” he said. “Find out why she lied to me—and where the Ru-Yi actually is.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, then Leah said in a rush, “I’ve got something I need to do this afternoon, but I can get on a flight back to Singapore tonight.” She sounded like she was struggling to find the right words. “Do you… Do you think you could wait for me? Maybe we could go see Beng’s wife together?”
Toran hesitated. A part of him was still angry at her, still wanting to punish her for lying to him. After the way she had gone behind his back, he would have been perfectly justified to say no. Then he thought of what Dieter had said: two wrongs do not make a right. Besides, if he was being honest, he wanted Leah with him. He wanted them to solve this together.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll wait till you get back and we’ll go see her together.”
“Thank you,” Leah said, her voice trembling slightly. “That… that means a lot to me.” She paused, then added awkwardly, “Um… I’ve got to go now, but it’s… it’s been really nice to speak to you.”
“Take care,” said Toran. He wanted to say something else, but the words stuck in his throat. He cleared his throat. “I’ll see you soon.”
“You too.”
He could hear the smile in Leah’s voice, then she hung up and the connection between them was broken.
CHAPTER 19
Leah stared apprehensively at the little terraced house in a lane overlooking the ornamental canal in Wapping. She didn’t know why she was so nervous, but something made her reluctant to go in.
“Leah?” Julia looked hesitantly at her.
They had been standing outside the house now for over five minutes and her friend must have been wondering why she wasn’t going up to ring the bell. Taking a deep breath, Leah marched up to the front door of the house and pressed the buzzer. The bell sounded hollowly and then Leah waited, with her heart beating uncomfortably, for someone to answer the door.
Footsteps approached.
They heard the rattle of the chain being pulled back.
And then the door swung open.
An elderly woman stood on the threshold, wearing a powder-blue cardigan and a long tweed skirt. Her white hair was pulled back into a neat bun and the blue eyes that looked out from behind her reading glasses were kind.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
Leah hesitated. She had been prepared to continue the smooth lies she had been telling at the nursing home but now, faced with this woman’s open, honest face, she found herself suddenly struggling to come up with the glib words.
She stammered, “I… uh… I think I’m… I mean, you might be—”
“Oh!” Rose Pritchard gasped. She took a step forwards, peering at Leah wonderingly. “I can’t believe it! You must be little Leah—Natalie Fisher’s daughter! My God, you look exactly like her!”
Leah stared at her, speechless. She felt the world tilting around her. How did this woman know her mother?
“Come in! Come in!” Rose Pritchard said in delight, stepping back and urging them into the house.
Leah walked in as if in a daze and found herself in a small hallway, leading into a comfortable living room with French windows overlooking the canal. Unlike the nursing home, this was decorated in pastels and furnished with simple pine furniture, which gave the place a bright, modern feel. A bowl of hydrangeas sat on the coffee table next to a couple of magazines on knitting. A ginger cat was curled up on an armchair by the window, obviously enjoying the patch of afternoon sun that flooded that corner.
“Please… sit down,” said Rose Pritchard, gesturing to her sofa with a smile.
Leah sank down on the sofa and was vaguely aware of Julia sitting down next to her.
“Would you like tea?” asked Rose.
Leah just looked at her blankly and, after a pause, it was Julia who said politely, “Thank you—that would be very nice.”
Rose bustled out and left the two girls alone. Julia turned to Leah and gave her a small shake.
“Leah! How does this woman know your mother?”
Leah shook her head. “I don’t know…”
“Do you think that random lie at the nursing home could have been true?” asked Julia in wonder. “Maybe she really did deliver you.”
Before they could say any more, Rose came back with a tray which she set down on the coffee table. There were three beautiful porcelain teacups accompanied by a matching teapot and a silver sugar bowl. Rose poured the tea and handed the girls each their cup and saucer, then she poured her own cup and sat down in the armchair opposite them, her face creasing into a wide smile.
“Natalie’s daughter! I still can’t believe it!” She shook her head. “It’s just so incredible to see you, all grown up at last. You’re the spitting image of your mother. I got such a shock when I opened the door—for a moment I thought she was standing there.”
“You… You knew my mother?” said Leah, finding her voice at last.
Rose nodded. “I was a midwife at the hospital where you were born. In fact, I delivered you.” She smiled. “You were such a pretty baby. Most newborns are quite wrinkly and red and unattractive, to tell you the truth, but you came out just perfect, with your tuft of dark hair and those startling blue eyes, so like your mother’s.” She leaned forwards eagerly. “So tell me about yourself—where are you living?”
“Um… in Singapore,” said Leah.
“Oh yes, I knew your father had moved out there with you. So you’ve just remained an expat all this time?”
“Actually, I did come back to the U.K. in my teens,” said Leah. “And then university, and then I worked for a few years in London. I only just moved back to Singapore.” She turned to Julia, suddenly remembering her friend. “This is my friend, Julia. We went to school together in Singapore.”
“Pleased to meet you, dear.” Rose inclined her head at Julia and smiled. “So are you just back for a holiday?”
Leah stirred uncomfortably on the sofa. “Well… actually, I did have another reason for coming back. My father passed away recently—”
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” said Rose. She looked genuinely distressed. “He was very kind to me, your father. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated his support in the last few years.”
“Um… yes, actually, that was one of the things… er…” Leah trailed off. She didn’t know how to broach the subject of the payments. She didn’t want Rose to think that she was questioning her father’s gift of the money, but she couldn’t think of any way to ask about them without sounding rude. “I… um… that was how I found you, actually. I noticed my father was sending regular payments to the U.K. and I… I wondered what they were….”
“Yes, your father was so generous and kind to me,” said Rose. “I know many people found him quite intimidating—he was not an easy man to get to know—I think he cultivated that on purpose to some extent, because of his profession. It’s good being a bit enigmatic and intimidating when you are a lawyer,” she said with a small laugh. “But I always saw past that and I knew that he was really a very good, kind man.”
Le
ah stared at her in bewilderment. She had never heard of her father described in those terms. She just couldn’t square her memory of him with Rose Pritchard’s description. For a wild moment, she wondered if there had been some terrible mistake and there was another David Fisher and another Leah Fisher out there that Rose had confused her with.
“So… my father was in touch with you all this time?” asked Leah, trying to steer the conversation back in the direction of the payments.
“Well, in a way,” said Rose. “After he left the U.K., I would get a card from him every Christmas. He wouldn’t say much—it was quite formal, really—but it was nice that he remembered me. Then five years ago, I had a bad fall and hurt my hip. It meant that I couldn’t work as a midwife anymore. I got a letter from him telling me that he would be sending me these regular payments to help support me. I was shocked—delighted, of course, but really it was incredibly generous of him. And that was the last personal correspondence I had from him. I did used to write to him regularly—I would send him a couple of letters each year and a card at Christmas, asking after you and about life in Singapore. But he never wrote back, other than the brief Christmas card, and after a while I stopped sending them. I didn’t want him to find me annoying or feel obliged to keep in touch with me.” She shook her head. “I used to feel quite bad about taking the money—in fact, I wrote to him several times telling him that there was no need for him to keep sending me money—but those letters went ignored too. I’ve had a lot of patients who were very appreciative of my care, but your father was the first one to take the gratitude to such a level.”
She looked around the living room with pride. “I’m very grateful, of course. His generosity is one of the reasons I’ve been able to buy such a lovely house in such a nice area.” She waved a hand around the room. “I saved up all the money and I was able to leave the council flat I was living in, in Whitechapel, and move here for my retirement.”
Leah felt a flash of disappointment as she listened to Rose speak. Was there no mysterious reason behind these payments after all? Was it simply her father showing generosity and kindness to an older woman who had done him a service once? It seemed so strange and out of character for him—but she was beginning to realise that she didn’t really know her father at all. Or at least, not the whole man. She knew one side of him—the side he had always chosen to show her—but she was beginning to realise that there was another—equally real—side to him as well. How could people like Ah Song and now Rose talk about her father in such positive terms, unless there was something more to him than the ruthless, immoral lawyer she had always thought him to be?
Rose leaned forwards, her blue eyes twinkling. “Forgive an old woman’s prying,” she said. “But are you married, dear?”
“No,” said Leah with a slight blush.
“But you’ve got a young man?”
“Um… yes, I’m sort of seeing someone,” said Leah lamely.
“Ah!” Rose beamed. “And what does he do, your young man?”
“He’s an investigative journalist,” said Leah, unable to keep the note of pride from her voice. “He’s brilliant at his job—he’s been responsible for exposing some of the biggest news stories around Southeast Asia.”
“He sounds wonderful,” said Rose with a wistful smile. “Your mother would have loved to meet him, I’m sure.” She laughed. “I remember her once saying to me, as she was changing your nappy, ‘Rose, this one is going to be a heartbreaker someday. I can’t wait to meet all the boyfriends she’s going to bring home’.”
Leah froze. “Sorry… Did you say when my mother was changing me?”
Rose nodded. “Yes, her own mother was dead, you see, so I used to show her some of the ropes in the early days. Best way to change a nappy, fold the swaddling blanket, that sort of thing…”
“But—” Leah suddenly felt like the room was spinning around her. “But she couldn’t have been changing my nappy! She died giving birth to me!”
Rose sat back in surprise. “No, your mother didn’t die giving birth to you. Why would you think that?”
“It’s what I’ve always been told,” said Leah. Her fingers clenched around the sofa armrest. “Are you telling me that it’s not true?”
Rose looked puzzled and upset. “My dear, I thought you knew. Didn’t your father tell you?”
“Tell me what?” asked Leah.
Rose reached across and placed her hand gently on Leah’s. “Your mother committed suicide when you were three months old.”
CHAPTER 20
Suicide.
The word burned into Leah’s brain. For a moment she couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t quite come to terms with what Rose was saying. It was as if someone suddenly told you that something you had taken for granted your whole life was completely untrue—like saying milk didn’t come from cows or grass wasn’t really green. She heard Julia inhale sharply next to her, but she, herself, sat immobile.
“I’m so very sorry, dear.” Rose’s eyes were full of sympathy. “I thought you knew.”
Leah shook her head slowly. “I thought… I was always told… that my mother had died giving birth to me.”
Rose sighed. “No, although she did have a very difficult birth. In fact, I think the whole pregnancy was quite difficult for her. She had suffered three miscarriages previously, you see, and had been very anxious that everything would go all right this time. Of course, you came out fine and, as I said, you were the most beautiful little baby. Your mother was over the moon, and your father too—he was a very different man in those days. I don’t think I ever saw anyone prouder than him the day he held you in his arms.”
“Then… what happened?” asked Leah. “I don’t understand…”
Rose’s expression hardened. “It was a very unfortunate thing, but the hospital that your mother was at—well, they had quite a strong policy on breastfeeding. Most of the other midwives and nurses were strong supporters of the ‘Breast is Best’ brigade and were always putting a lot of pressure on new mothers to breastfeed. Personally, I’ve always felt that it was more important for a new mother to be happy and bonding with the baby, especially if she was struggling. Not every woman finds breastfeeding easy—sometimes they have problems with milk production or mastitis or with the baby latching on…” She sighed. “Your mother was one of those. She was determined to breastfeed you because she had heard that it was the best and she wanted to do everything right by you. But her milk just wouldn’t come. She was producing very little and you were crying all the time and going hungry. After a few weeks of this, you started losing weight and there were serious fears for your health. Your mother was beside herself—”
“Didn’t she have family? Someone to come and give her some support?” asked Julia, horrified.
Rose shook her head sadly. “No, Natalie’s parents had died when she was young and David’s mother had passed away the year before, from cancer. His father was very elderly and in a nursing home himself. One of Natalie’s closest friends had emigrated to Australia and the other one lived in Scotland so… she had no one close by.” She looked at Leah. “Your father was a young lawyer at the time—he had just joined a busy practice—and he had to work very long hours, so he often couldn’t get home until late and your mother was left alone a lot. A social worker was supposed to come check in on her, but perhaps they didn’t take it very seriously. At any rate, I never saw them. I used to try to pop by and see your mother a couple of times a week. It wasn’t part of my duties, of course. I guess I’ve always been more involved with my patients than I should have…” She gave a wry smile. “But I was worried about Natalie. She wasn’t coping well and she was always crying all the time.”
“Sounds like she was depressed,” said Julia.
Rose nodded. “Yes, I think Natalie had severe postnatal depression. Especially as she had apparently suffered depression following her previous miscarriages. It’s known to recur. But I assumed that her social worker knew about it and was arrangin
g the necessary support.” She sighed. “I feel terrible now when I think about it. I shouldn’t have just assumed—I should have tracked down her social worker and made sure they were getting Natalie the help she needed—”
“Don’t feel bad,” said Leah quickly. “It sounds like you already did far more for my mother than anyone else did.”
Julia shook her head. “What I don’t understand is why she couldn’t have just fed Leah formula from a bottle?”
Rose made a face. “The pro-breast lobby was so strong at the hospital that none of us midwives were allowed to mention bottle feeding as a substitute unless the patient expressly asked. Of course, Natalie never asked because she felt like she was a failure if she admitted that she wasn’t managing to breastfeed.” Her lips tightened. “Also, there was a nurse on the ward there who was very opinionated about the superiority of breast milk over formula. She was right, of course—breast is always better. It’s the gold standard. But you have to consider things on an individual basis and certainly not make new mothers feel guilty for being unable to breastfeed,” said Rose angrily. “In most of those situations, the mother is desperate to feed naturally and it’s not her fault that she is having problems. She should be given support and shown the alternative options, instead of feeling forced to continue with something which is making her miserable and depressed—and the baby malnourished.”
“I’ve heard of the ‘Breast is Best’ brigade,” said Julia. “The movement is strong in Singapore too.”
Rose winced. “It’s a worthy ideal, but unfortunately some individuals take it to extremes. This nurse was certainly one of them—and it’s especially harmful when they harass vulnerable women, like your mother.” She looked at Leah. “My heart went out to Natalie because she was trying so hard. I remember arriving at her house one day and finding her collapsed on the floor, crying. It took me nearly an hour to calm her down. And I was horrified to find you in the crib, so thin and malnourished. I didn’t realise how bad things had become because I had been busy that week and hadn’t had time to stop in for a while. I rang your father at work and he came home immediately and we took your mother and you to hospital.”
