by Chris Curran
She waited in the foyer for what seemed hours after that, but didn’t catch sight of the Blakes again so had no idea where the new room might be.
On the afternoon of the third day she took Fatty for a walk, keeping her on her lead and sticking to the streets although she knew the poor dog was desperate for a run in the park. When she got home she found an envelope on the mat. There was no stamp or address, just the name: Joyce Todd. Delivered by hand so it was probably another approach from a newspaper and she was tempted to put it straight in the bin, but she tore it open.
My dear, dear Joyce,
I read about what happened to poor Marcus and I’m so very sorry. You may have heard from Kay that I’ve been threatened myself and that’s why I’ve been lying low. However I can’t keep being a coward and I feel I owe it to you and to dear Charlie’s memory to set the record straight about Mary, your mum.
I realize this isn’t the best of times for you to leave town, but I daren’t come there. In fact I’ve decided to go abroad and I’m leaving very soon. For my safety and yours I can’t tell you where I’m staying, but if you take the 7.15 train for Uckfield from Victoria tonight and get off at a village called Eridge I’ll see you there. Just cross over and wait on the London-bound platform.
Please come on your own and make sure you’re not followed!
Joyce, sweetheart, do try to get there. I won’t be able to rest until you know everything.
Yours ever,
Dennis.
Chapter Twenty-Two
No change expected, no change expected, no change expected – the train wheels seemed to be chanting Mr Blake’s words. He’d rung just after she found Dennis’s note to say the doctors were sure nothing would happen overnight. She’d been telling herself that she couldn’t leave town for even a few hours, but it seemed almost as if Marcus was giving her permission to go. Though she needed to be extra careful, like Dennis said.
Before she left the house she closed all the curtains and left the light on in the living room, the radio playing in the kitchen. Then she put on a dark dress and tied a silk scarf over her hair.
She had time to walk to Victoria Station, but instead she headed towards Sloane Square Tube, doubling back on herself a couple of times. The station was busy, but she took the tube in the wrong direction: getting off at Earls Court where it was even busier before crossing the platform to go to Victoria. At the ticket office in the mainline station she bought a return all the way to Uckfield hoping to confuse anyone who might be lurking behind her in the queue.
By the time she was on the 7.15 she was almost sure she had avoided being followed. But as she watched the countryside slide by her heart began to beat faster and her mouth grew dry. The sky was splashed with orange and red. She was alone in the carriage and the world outside looked empty too. Everyone staying in because they could feel a storm in the air.
It was ridiculous to imagine that Marcus would want her to do this. He’d tell her she was putting herself in danger. And how could the doctors really know that nothing would happen to him before morning? They’d probably only said that to reassure the Blakes. As the train pulled into a station she put her hand on the door. She’d get off here and go straight back.
But something stopped her. This might be her last chance to find out the truth about her mum. And if she could do that at least it would mean that all the hurt she’d brought onto other people hadn’t been for nothing. She owed it to Marcus, and to poor Dennis.
She sat back, feeling sick and tearing at a piece of loose skin near her thumbnail. When she looked down there was blood on her hand. She sucked it off, but was back to worrying at it right away. She slipped her hand under her thigh, feeling the rough pile of the seat press into the sore place, but keeping it there despite the pain.
The carriage was gloomy and there were banks of dark cloud ahead. This was all wrong. She had promised Bill she was done with probing into the past and she couldn’t bear to think what might happen if he found out she was meeting Dennis. Marcus might not even be safe in his hospital bed.
The train whistled and they slowed to a crawl. Would Dennis wait if they were delayed? And what could he tell her anyway? If it was just backstage gossip that would be no use. If he’d seen something himself it would only help if he was prepared to talk to the police. She hoped he might have some actual evidence to give her, but after Bill’s visit she wasn’t sure she would dare take it to Inspector Flynn.
The train moved on fast for a few minutes, rattling over the points, then with a long moan from the wheels and a shriek of brakes they pulled into Eridge. She was the only passenger to get out and when she slammed the door the crash echoed all around. But as she made her way over the footbridge she heard a blackbird singing somewhere close by.
‘Evening, Miss. Looks like rain, don’t it?’
She jumped at the voice, but as she came down the steps she saw the stationmaster pottering about in a little garden next to the main entrance and ticket office.
‘You won’t find a taxi at this time of day,’ he said, straightening up and rubbing his hands together.
‘It’s all right, I’m going straight back. Just meeting a friend here.’
‘You’ll have a wait. The next London train’s not for nearly an hour and it’s the last one tonight.’ He threw his trowel and rake into the wheelbarrow beside him and she was relieved when he said, ‘Cheerio then,’ and trundled it along the platform to the little house at one end. She suspected Dennis would want to avoid being seen.
She sat on a bench and waited as the sky turned from red and orange to purple, the dark clouds building more and more. It was so quiet. Even the blackbird had stopped singing. She couldn’t sit still so she paced up and down the platform for a few minutes. Then walked out through the ticket office.
Outside was as deserted as the platform. Just an empty space covered in gravel, edged by bushes and trees. The village, if there was a village, must be some distance away. There was a lovely smell of cut grass in the air, but she thought she could also detect the scent of rain on its way. Back on the platform she sat on the bench again. Day was shading into twilight, but it was still warm. Joycie closed her eyes. She was so tired.
A car door slamming and footsteps walking through the ticket office jolted her awake. She stood, trying to force a smile for Dennis.
The door opened and she felt her face grow rigid.
Because it wasn’t Dennis.
***
Even as Joycie realized who it was, she struggled to believe her eyes. Cora was dressed, as always, in a too-tight skirt with black stilettos, but she seemed to have aged ten years since Joycie last saw her. Her red lipstick was smudged and there was a streak of mascara under one eye that reminded Joycie of a clown’s painted tear.
She tottered over and sat on the bench, leaning back with a huge sigh. Joycie thumped down at the other end, unable to do more than stare.
‘So you came.’ The words were slurred and Cora’s eyes were fixed on something in the distance.
‘Did you send me the note? Not Dennis?’
A laugh or cough, it was impossible to tell. ‘Knew you wouldn’t come if I asked you.’
‘Where is Dennis?’
‘Search me. Hiding out somewhere like the snivelling little worm he always was, I expect.’
Joycie’s stomach twisted. ‘What do you want?’ she said.
Cora’s eyes were glazed. ‘He’s dead.’ It was almost a whisper and for a fraction of a second Joycie’s heart shuddered. But it couldn’t be Marcus.
‘Do you mean Sid? Sid is dead?’ she asked. The hint of a nod. ‘What happened to him?’
The eyes focused, boring into Joycie. The voice rasping. ‘You should know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’ It was a high-pitched trill; a bad imitation of Joycie’s voice. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt, would it? I should have known you’d get round him with your sob stories. I can just hear i
t now. “Poor little me. That nasty Sid was cruel to me. It wasn’t my fault. I was just a little girl. I couldn’t have led him on.”’
‘Cora, what are you talking about?’
A lamp had come on just over the bench and Cora’s eyes glittered with dark tears. ‘You got him killed. Run down in the street like a dog. And the bastard will get away with it.’
A cold hand around her heart and she could only say. ‘Who do you mean?’ No answer, but she had guessed anyway. ‘Was it Bill?’
‘You told him a pack of lies and the stupid sod was taken in. I warned Sid not to get Bill or any of them involved this time. Told him to let me deal with it.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘But, no, “It’s Charlie’s girl,” he said. “Bill can give her a fright. That’s all we need.”’
Her sob was a groan of pain. She pulled a hankie already blotched with lipstick from her bag and blew her nose.
Joycie reached out again. ‘Cora, I’m sorry, I …’
‘Don’t you touch me.’ She pulled back and the handkerchief fell to the platform: a white bird, shot through with red. She turned to stare away down the line. ‘He was everything to me. There’s nothing left now.’ The rasping voice was softened by tears. ‘Oh, I knew there were others, but he only ever loved me.’
The pity Joycie had been feeling dissolved in a fierce surge of anger. ‘I was just a kid when he forced himself on me, Cora. I wasn’t one of the others as you call them. I wasn’t much more than a child.’
‘You weren’t too young to lead a man on. Don’t think I didn’t see it – from you and the rest of them.’
Joycie’s anger forced her to keep going. Cora had to know everything; to understand what Sid really was. ‘But he did other things, dreadful things, Cora, and you need to face that. I think he killed people. Murdered my mum and a girl in Hastings.’
Those eyes were on her again, the tears gone. Only the darkness remaining. The tiniest smile playing on the smeared lips.
And Joycie’s insides clenched as she saw the truth. ‘You?’ It came out as a gasp.
‘Sid was too soft. Never understood what evil cows women can be.’
Oh God, oh God. Joycie was on her feet wanting to run away, but needing to stay. She stared down at Cora. Seeing the same blowsy drunk she always had, but so, so, different.
When she had forced her brain to work again she managed to say, ‘But why bring me here? Why are you telling me now?’
‘Because he’s gone. Sid’s gone so none of it matters any more.’
A gust of booze and stale perfume as she stood turning to look up at the clock hanging just in front of the departures board. Joycie followed her gaze. Fifteen minutes until the London train.
She had to calm her racing heart. Had to hear it all.
‘The girl in Hastings. That was you?’
Cora’s eyes were fixed far into the distance along the track; her voice a monotone that Joycie struggled to hear. ‘It was an accident. Poor Sid came running home. He’d met her on the pier after the show. They had a few drinks and things got out of hand. She knocked herself out somehow. He was frantic so I went to see what I could do. The little tart was staggering about in the dark. I tried to help her, but she was saying terrible things about my Sid, threatening all sorts. I couldn’t let her carry on like that. I was just trying to shut her up.’
‘And?’
A shrug. ‘She fell.’
‘And you just left her there?’ It was difficult to breathe.
‘What could I do? It was dark and the sea was rough. No one could have helped her – the state she was in.’
As she spoke Cora had been pacing slowly forward, still staring down the track. Now she looked up at the clock again, and Joycie went cold. Saw what she was planning.
Ten minutes until the train. No sign of the stationmaster.
A lump of something hard as rock was lodged in Joycie’s chest. She wanted to scream, but she had to keep control. ‘Please come and sit down so we can talk properly.’ But Cora didn’t move, and Joycie had to find out. ‘My mum?’ Her voice broke on the words, but she carried on. ‘Did my mum guess?’
‘Silly bitch came to see me. She’d read about the girl in the paper and said she thought Sid had something to do with it.’
‘And you killed her too?’ Even as she said it a tiny hope flickered.
‘I didn’t want to. Came to your place that night to talk some sense into her.’ Cora turned back, speaking more clearly. ‘It was quick, if that’s what’s bothering you. Used a sharp knitting needle. I did a bit of nursing in the war and if you know the right spot there’s not much blood. Just a bit on the mat.’
That painful lump was in Joycie’s throat now. She felt she might choke, but had to hear it all.
‘I knew the landlady went to her daughter’s on Wednesday nights and I arranged to go then. The rest of the lodgers were all in our show so the house was empty except for you and your mum. She told me to come after you were in bed, which was perfect. She had to open the main door to me herself. Was surprised to see I’d come by car. But I’d brought an old blackout curtain with me. Told her Charlie had been complaining he had trouble sleeping and I thought it might help.’ She sounded almost proud.
The noises Joycie had heard that night: the rustling and dragging. ‘And you rolled her in the blackout curtain and just carried her down to your car.’ Her own voice sounded like a stranger’s.
A chuckle. ‘Lucky she was as thin as you and short with it. And I was strong in those days. Had to get Sid to help me with her afterwards though. He was so upset. Felt sorry for Charlie and you.’ The chuckle turned into a little sob and she rubbed her fist under her eyes, dragging the mascara stain further down her cheek.
‘Where did you …? Where did you take her?’ The words hurt.
‘Drove out to the country next day. Sid said a few words. It was a nice spot. Quiet.’ Those dark eyes gazed into the past again. She was far away.
‘Where was it?’ Please, please tell me.
But when Cora looked at her it was with a little, wouldn’t you like to know, smile.
Joycie had to wipe that smile off her face. ‘You forgot something though, didn’t you? The bloodstained mat. And I found it.’
The smile stretched wider. ‘Oh no. I was going to take it, but then I thought: what if Charlie didn’t believe she’d run off and he called the police? He’d be the first one they’d suspect, and if they found that mat hidden under the bed he’d be done for. So I just packed up her clothes and took them. I went back for the mat once we knew Charlie wasn’t going to make a fuss.’
Five minutes until the train. The stationmaster’s little house far away in the dusk at the other end of the platform. No lights, no movement.
She fought to keep the hatred out of her voice. ‘What about my dad and Dennis?’
‘It was fine until Charlie decided to leave. Sid was daft enough to mention that bloody mat and tell him I got rid of it, and we knew he was getting suspicious so …’
‘You had them jailed?’
‘Filthy bastards deserved it.’
Joycie bit hard on her lip and clenched her fists, holding back the vicious words she wanted to use. Don’t let her see how you feel. Finally she managed to speak almost normally. ‘Did Sid know you arranged for my dad to be killed in prison?’
‘I told you. He was always too soft. Needed me to sort everything out for him. I told Ernie Georgiou I knew your dad had killed your mum and got away with it. Ernie doesn’t like men who hurt women for no reason. So he had a word with some friends doing time in Wandsworth Prison where your dad was.’
A sudden urge to run at her. To hurt her. Push her onto the rails. If she wanted to die why not help her? But that would be the easy way out. And there was more she needed to know. ‘Did you sort Pauline out too?’
‘Who?’
‘You don’t even remember her, do you? My friend from Clacton, Mrs Shaw’s daughter. The girl Sid raped and made pregnant.’
‘
Oh her.’ A little laugh. ‘I guessed she’d got herself into trouble and I helped her, if that’s what you mean.’
This time she couldn’t stop a single sob filled with pain and rage from escaping. ‘She never came home again. Your help killed her.’
‘I just gave her the money and the address. It must have gone wrong.’
Not the whole truth. Joycie was sure none of it was. But she needed to let Cora talk. It was three minutes until the London train. Big spots of rain beginning to fall from dark clouds – and the two of them alone on the platform.
Cora’s smile was almost kindly now. She spoke softly. ‘Would you like to know where we put your mum? That’s what I really wanted to tell you.’ Joycie held her breath, moving close. ‘It was a little wood in the country, an hour or so outside Hastings.’
‘Where? Cora, what was it called?’
Cora looked along the track again; poised on the edge of the platform.
Less than a minute. The rumble of the train. And still so much more Joycie needed to know. She grabbed Cora’s arm. Fingers digging into the plump flesh. Smelling stale perfume, booze, and sweat. Shouting against the roar. ‘Cora, don’t. Don’t do it.’
Cora looked back. Her eyes were dark pits.
And she smiled.
Her hands latched onto the collar of Joycie’s dress and she jerked her forward. Joycie’s feet slipped. They swayed together. She pulled hard back and they tilted upright; the soft heavy body almost crushing her. Another sickening pitch forward. The black rails surging into view. The dark glitter of Cora’s eyes as Joycie tried to push her away.
Running feet. A shout. A piercing whistle, and a roar from the train. So close, so close.
Flashes of light. Screaming metal. And something – someone – dragging her back.
Her dress ripping. Pain screaming through her head as Cora clutched at her hair.
But those other hands wrenched her back, tearing out hair. And she crashed onto her knees on the platform.
A huge black shape, brakes squealing.
And no Cora.
Just something warm and wet spattering Joycie’s face.
