by Susan Lewis
It didn’t surprise her to find that the next message was from Tommy, reminding her that she was welcome to drop in on him and Jackie any time over the weekend. And don’t worry too much about Ottilie Wade, he’d added. You’re doing a great job and you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t get involved.
‘If I thought you wanted off the case it might be different,’ he’d said an hour or so ago, when she’d gone to the office to discuss how concerned she was about her attachment to Ottilie, ‘but I know you don’t and I’m glad for it, because it sounds as though she’s built up a confidence in you that she doesn’t seem to have in anyone else. It would do her more harm than good to jeopardise it at this stage.’
Thankful to hear this, Alex had said, ‘I finally managed to get hold of Brian Wade on the way here. He apologised profusely – most unlike him – for cancelling the appointment with the psychiatrist, but apparently he’s made another for the week after next. It’s a Thursday, so I’m going to try to swap one of Ottilie’s nursery days so I don’t have to take any more time out of my schedule to look after her.’
‘OK. Have you broached the subject of a nanny with either of them yet?’
‘No, I don’t think I’ll get anywhere with it until we know what the psychiatrist has to say about the mother, so the sooner we get his report, the better.’
Tommy nodded agreement. ‘Any more news from your friendly policeman up north?’
‘No, but I’m pretty confident he’ll be in touch the minute he finds anything he thinks we should know.’
‘And the paediatrician’s all lined up, you say. I take it she’s going to carry out a virginity test?’
Feeling the horror of it hitting her, Alex said, ‘I’m hoping for a positive result, in that everything’s still intact.’ She didn’t have to point out to Tommy that if a child that age had been subjected to penetration often enough there would no longer be any bruising, because Tommy already knew that. He also knew that a little girl’s vagina was elastic enough to allow penetration more easily than most people realised. However, it would still be a brutally agonising experience in the early stages that, in her opinion, any perpetrator ought to be castrated for.
‘Is she showing any signs of masturbation?’ Tommy asked bluntly.
Alex shook her head. In spite of having done the job as long as she had, it still sickened her to think of a young child being sexually awoken to a point that he or she began behaving like an adult. ‘All I can tell you,’ she said, ‘is that her drawings aren’t suggesting anything unusual, and apart from holding herself when she wants to go to the toilet, I’ve never seen her touching herself down there.’
Thank God, she was thinking now as she scrolled on to her next message, because at least it afforded her some hope that nothing sexual was going on at Ottilie’s home. However, it wasn’t nearly enough to sweep away her suspicions – only the paediatrician could do that when she gave her report.
Seeing a text from Mattie, she almost groaned aloud. She’d totally forgotten to call her back after picking up a voicemail from her earlier saying, ‘Amazing news, you’re a genius. Call me as soon as you can.’
Guessing it must be about the idea they’d put to the local council several months ago of doing a Mulgrove’s Got Talent contest, she decided the call back could wait until she was in the house with a drink in her hand. So she clicked on to the last message, and as soon as she saw who it was from her heart turned inside out.
Hi, just to say thinking of you. Hope you’re OK. Love Jx
As her head fell back against the seat she tried to think why he’d have done that, unless he was genuinely thinking of her, and maybe even missing her too. He’d used the word love, but did he really mean that, or was it just habit, something he’d added without thinking? And now what was she supposed to do? Text back to say yes, I’m fine, btw did you know your wife’s having another affair? Maybe he did know and that was why he was texting her. Suddenly convinced that was the case, she felt a burn of outrage and immediately sent a sharp message back saying Please don’t text again. You made your decision, now we both have to live with it.
No sooner had it gone than she wanted to take it back, but it was too late now, it had probably already reached his phone.
That is so like you, Alexandra, she could hear Myra saying. Act in haste, regret at leisure. If only you could learn to think first you might save yourself, and others, a lot of trouble.
Not particularly enjoying the ghostly echo of the frequent reprimand, she got out of the car and went into the house. After pouring herself a glass of beer she decided she might as well get the rest of her messages over with, and hit the playback button on the answerphone.
The first, as she’d expected, was from Gabby, letting her know that she had accepted Mr Quigley’s offer subject to a couple of conditions, one of them being vacant possession on completion. ‘He’s not saying he wants you to leave straight away,’ Gabby assured her, ‘but obviously he won’t want you there once he’s signed and ready to send in the builders. That probably won’t happen for another couple of months, so no panic. We need to talk about Mum and Dad’s stuff, though. I thought maybe you could give all the clothes to a charity shop and I’ll arrange to come up and get the papers and jewellery and stuff. Anyway, call me when you get home and we can have a chat about it then.’
Abruptly erasing the message, as though in some way it might make the whole horrible, unthinkable situation go away, she took another sip of her beer as the machine skipped on to the next call. Since it was a voice she didn’t recognise, she assumed it was a telemarketer and was about to erase that one too when her heartbeat started to slow as she realised who it was.
Quickly going back to the top she pressed play again, and had to put her glass down as she listened carefully to what was being said.
‘I’m afraid I don’t like leaving messages,’ the croaky voice told her, ‘but it seems I must, so here goes. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the last couple of weeks to tell you ... It’s Helen Drake here, by the way ...’ Helen Drake her great-aunt, her grandfather’s sister. ‘You told me once that I was to let you know if I had any news of your mother. Well, I have, so if you’d like to call me back on this number ...’ Alex was so unprepared for this that she couldn’t even fumble for a pen, much less register the number. It didn’t matter, she could always play the message again. ‘I’m at home most of the time these days,’ her great-aunt continued, ‘unlike you, it would seem. I shall wait to hear from you.’
Without giving herself a moment to think, Alex replayed the message, wrote down the number and started to dial. It was only as the call was about to connect that she heard Myra’s warning, Act in haste, regret at leisure, and realising she had to give herself some time to think, deal with the shock even, she quickly hung up again.
Turning to the window, she gazed at the ghostly reflection of herself that seemed to hover over the garden, and had an eerie sensation of her mother looking at her from the past. She was shaking, she realised, feeling as though she wanted to run, though to where, or even to whom, she had no idea. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to wish, yearn for her mother to be in touch, that trying to face it now was almost surreal. And shocking, even frightening, though she wasn’t sure what she needed to fear.
Apart from her father, of course.
Her great-aunt hadn’t mentioned him, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to speak of him when Alex rang back.
Her heart was pounding, her mind reeling so chaotically that she was finding it impossible to think straight.
Who was her mother now, where was she, what news did her aunt have? If it was good ... Alex almost took a step back as though to avoid the hope. What would good news be? That her mother wanted to meet? She could hardly begin to imagine where, how, when that might happen, or what might come of it. What did her mother look like now, what sort of person was she? The only pictures Alex had seen she’d found online, taken before the traged
y when Angela Nicholls was still in her twenties. She would be fifty now. Her mother, the young girl in the pictures with shiny blonde hair and bright, laughing eyes – eyes that had had no way of seeing the future – was fifty. Was she still Angela Nicholls? Almost certainly not, or the rector would have been able to find her.
She must have another family, a husband, children, grandchildren even.
Did they know about the child who’d been given up for adoption? The little girl who’d grown up apart from her mother, deprived of the family that should have been hers?
Her great-aunt’s news might be bad. Perhaps she had somehow learned that her mother was in trouble, sick, even dead. Millie had planted the idea, and now it was seeming to take root again. What was she going to do if her mother had died? She couldn’t grieve for someone she didn’t know, and yet if it was what her aunt wanted to tell her, she knew already she was going to be devastated. Her mother had never been real, but the dream of her, the hope of something bringing them together one day had never gone away, in spite of how hard she’d tried to banish it.
And now it was back and coming at her so forcefully, so hungrily that it might engulf her.
She turned to look at the phone. Would she be able to handle her mother’s death on top of everything else she seemed to be losing? The answer was, she wouldn’t know until she faced it, and it might not be that, so just call, Alex, just pick up the phone and find out.
After dialling the number again she allowed it to connect, and started to feel a little queasy as the same slightly stern, but thready voice that she’d heard on the machine said, ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, it’s Alex Lake here,’ Alex told her, hoping she sounded friendly and not defensive. ‘I’ve just picked up your message.’
‘Aha. I was beginning to wonder if something had happened to you,’ came the reply.
‘No, I’m fine, just ... I’m out quite a lot. You said you had news ...’
‘Yes, and I hope it’s going to be welcome. I know it would have been once, but times change, so do people.’
Please just tell me, Alex was silently urging, while at the same time dreading going any further.
‘Your mother’s been in touch with me ...’
Alex lost her breath, to a sob. So she wasn’t dead, and until this moment she’d had no idea how much those words might mean to her. Their impact was so huge, so shattering that she barely heard what her great-aunt said next.
‘She would have rung you herself,’ Helen Drake was saying, ‘but she thought ... She felt it would be easier for you if you had some time to think about whether or not you wanted to hear from her. So she’s asked me to act as the go-between.’
‘Where ... Where is she?’ Alex heard herself asking.
‘I’m afraid she didn’t tell me and I didn’t think ... Silly of me, but this is the first I’ve heard of her myself in almost thirty years, so I was quite taken aback.’
Easily able to believe that, Alex said, ‘Is she ... Is she all right?’
Sounding surprised, Helen Drake replied, ‘I imagine so. She sounded it. I’m afraid I can’t remember if I asked.’
Alex was trying to think what to say next. There was so much going round in her mind, questions, images, fears, hopes, that she couldn’t seem to pluck any words from the chaos. ‘When will you speak to her again?’ she finally managed.
‘Well, I expect it’ll be soon, because she sounded quite keen to know if you’ll see her.’
Her mother wanted to make contact, to see her, even. Not only that, she was giving her the option to say no if she wanted to. Alex wasn’t going to do that, no matter what the consequences might be. ‘Maybe I could call her,’ she said. ‘Do you have a number?’
Helen Drake made a tutting sound. ‘I know I’ve written it down somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it. I’m sure she’ll ring again though. If she does, am I to tell her that you’d like to hear from her?’
‘Yes, yes please,’ Alex replied, hoping, praying that Helen Drake’s loss of the number wouldn’t lead her mother to think she didn’t want to see her. ‘If you find it before she rings will you call me back?’
‘Of course. I’m sure it’s here somewhere – unless I wrote it on an envelope that found its way into the bin.’
Imagining the old lady’s house full of clutter and randomly jotted numbers with no names attached, Alex felt her heart sinking. ‘Thanks for ringing,’ she said bleakly, ‘and if you do speak to her again will you tell her ...’ Tell her what? She didn’t know what she wanted to say, so she simply added, ‘I guess ... I hope I’ll get the chance to tell her myself.’
Chapter Seventeen
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, unable to let Millie leave without saying goodbye to her, Alex changed the message on her answering machine to include her mobile number, just in case her great-aunt, or her mother rang, and drove off to the care home. She was so preoccupied by the possibility of receiving a call and how wonderful it might be if she did connect with her mother, that she hadn’t yet allowed the dread of not hearing anything to exert its grip.
During the night she’d been riddled with vivid, nonsensical dreams about people she didn’t know and places she’d never been. Some of them were alarming, waking her with a start, but whatever her subconscious had conjured managed to dart away before she could grasp it. At one point she’d seen the woman with a child under her arm dashing down a staircase in panic, but if it was a hidden memory rising to the surface she couldn’t connect it to reality or to anything she’d been told. Her mother hadn’t returned for her after the killings, she knew that, so maybe it was a flashback to something that had happened before that time. Perhaps it had nothing to do with her mother at all.
She could hardly believe that she might soon find out.
Her mother wanted to be in touch.
Please, Helen Drake, find that number.
The worst of her dreams had been of Ottilie screaming and sobbing as she was violated in the worst imaginable way. She’d had similar nightmares about other children in her care and woken up in a state, wanting to run to them right away. Last night the dreams had felt so disturbingly, horrifyingly real that she’d been too afraid to try and go back to sleep in case they returned, so she’d lain awake, tossing and turning, until it was time to get up.
Now, having finally managed to push those dreadful images from her mind, she was so full of questions for herself, and her mother, that one had barely formed before another was taking its place. She’d get to ask them all, she felt sure of it, because God, fate, the Universe, wouldn’t be so cruel as to let nothing come of this, it just wouldn’t. She was going to see her mother, talk to her, find out who she was now, and maybe even become a part of her life. She might actually have a family of her own. Though she knew she could be setting herself up for the most crushing of falls, what else was she to do? Think the worst? No, she wasn’t going to allow herself to do that. Something had to go right for her at last, and she had to believe it would be this if only because right now there seemed little else to hope for.
On arriving at Millie’s care home, she was just pulling into a parking space when her mobile rang, and almost gasping at the giant leap in her heart she clicked on her Bluetooth with a tentative ‘Hello?’
‘Hey, it’s me,’ Gabby cried. ‘Are you OK? I thought you’d have rung me back by now. Did you get my message last night, about the house?’
Swallowing a mix of guilt, disappointment and relief, Alex said, ‘Yes, I did, but something happened ... I had a call ... Oh God, Gabby, you’re not going to believe this, but you remember my Great-aunt Helen who lives in Wales?’
Sounding baffled, Gabby said, ‘Sort of. I mean, we never met her, did we? Why? Is she dead, or something? Is that why you didn’t ring?’
‘No, she’s not dead, she’s very much alive and apparently – wait for this – she’s only heard from my mother and my mother wants to be in touch with me. Isn’t that fantastic? I can hardly get my head around it, comi
ng out of the blue like this. Remember how we used to make up stories about who and where she might be? Well, it seems I could be about to find out.’
Gabby didn’t respond.
‘Are you still there?’ Alex asked, unprepared for Gabby to be anything but thrilled for her.
‘Yeah, I’m here, and I’m a bit ... Well, I guess a bit shocked and kind of ... sad, I suppose.’
Alex was even more taken aback. ‘What do you mean, sad?’ she demanded, hardly able to cope with her own misgivings without trying to deal with Gabby’s too.
‘Well, I’ve always thought of us as having the same mother really ... I mean, obviously I knew you were adopted, but all those stories we made up about your other mother, I never imagined any of them ever coming true.’
‘I don’t know if they will,’ Alex told her, ‘because I’ve still got no idea who or where she is, and I won’t have until I’ve spoken to her. Helen Drake has lost the number, so I’m counting on my mother ringing her again.’
‘And you’re going to see her if she does?’
Trying to swallow her irritation while hardly able to believe the question, Alex said, ‘Of course. Why on earth would you think I wouldn’t?’
‘I don’t know, out of loyalty to Mum and Dad, I suppose.’
Alex’s head spun. ‘But she’s my mother, Gabby.’
‘I know, I know, or at least you’re presuming she is, but what if it’s all a hoax? Have you thought about how you are going to feel then?’
