The Attic Room: A psychological thriller

by Linda Huber

  They sat at the table, Paul numbering the photos and providing the names and Nina writing the list. Halfway down her page she squinted at him uneasily. He wasn’t happy doing this, so much was clear. His earlier good humour was gone and his answers to her questions were getting shorter all the time. At last they came to the end of the first pile; Paul numbered the final black and white ‘people’ photo and Nina wrote down the names, Emily and her sister Ruth, Paul’s grandmother. Family photos, and dear God, what had gone on behind the scenes in the Moore family?

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. ‘I can see it isn’t easy for you, revisiting the past like this. I’ll take the ones you don’t know to Emily tomorrow and see if she can add anything. Or – would you be able to come too? I’d be going in the morning, before we fly home.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m due another visit. But tomorrow’s impossible, I’m afraid. Give her my love.’

  Nina hesitated, uneasiness creeping over her. She couldn’t put a finger on it but her previous rapport with Paul had vanished, and something about what he’d just said didn’t ring true. According to Emily, Paul hadn’t visited her for years. Maybe he was too ashamed to admit it, but why would he cut all ties with his great-aunt? Confusion spread through Nina. There was something he wasn’t telling her here and it was important, she could see that. Looking at those photos had stirred something up in his head… oh dear God… was this something to do with John Moore and the nasty photos… oh fuck… had Paul been on any of those photos? Could that be? The crying in the attic memory crashed back into Nina’s brain. Screaming, she remembered the sound now, even – but had she screamed – or Paul? What had happened back then? But before she could say anything Paul flung his pen down on the table.

  ‘God! Emily was the only one of them who was nice to me,’ he burst out. ‘My grandparents were all ‘children should be seen and not heard’. But Emily was cool.’

  ‘What about your parents, and mine? Were they strict too?’ said Nina carefully.

  He was in a strange mood now, looking at her with over-bright eyes and pouring them both a generous second glass of wine. Nina sipped, then put her glass on the table. She didn’t want to get plastered and she’d already had a big glass. Hopefully the pizza would mop it up.

  Paul flung himself down on the sofa and buried his head in his hands. Nina’s heart began to race. What was he going to tell her?

  ‘Your mother had the right idea,’ he said at last, lifting his head and staring at her.

  The brightness in his eyes was unshed tears, and she passed him a tissue without speaking.

  He blew his nose and went on. ‘Your mam got you out. Mine disappeared into a bottle.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ whispered Nina. Her stomach started to heave. ‘Paul? What happened?’

  He reached for another tissue and started ripping it into shreds. ‘They hired – us – out,’ he said, spitting the words at her. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Hired – how?’ Nina’s voice came out in a croak and her hands holding the tissue packet began to shake. For a few seconds the world around her hummed and it was as if the colours in the drab living room were turning silver. Quickly, she put her head between her knees. When the faintness passed she leaned back again. Paul was staring at nothing and twirling his empty wine glass. He wouldn’t meet her eye.

  ‘Our fathers?’ said Nina.

  He nodded, still not looking at her. Nina raised her hands to her face. Dear God, what the shit had she been through in this house?

  ‘Are you saying we were abused here in this house and our fathers collected money for it?’

  Paul gave a loud moan and jumped to his feet, pacing up and down in front of the disused fireplace. ‘Oh yes. Money, that’s all we were worth. They took photos, too. My dad was great with a camera, you know.’ His voice broke on the last word.

  Nina clapped her hands to her mouth, feeling her eyes widen in horror. Dear Christ in heaven, this was worse than anything she’d ever imagined. His eyes held hers, and she could see the horror and the loathing he had felt back then; she could see how it was affecting his life today, how he could never get away from it.

  ‘You mean we were – raped?’ It was difficult to get the words out.

  Paul laughed mirthlessly. ‘I was. I don’t know if you were. Maybe not. You were so young, and there was the necessity to give you back to your mother more or less in one piece, you see. Mine was usually too smashed to notice. It was all so fucking sordid and it hurt, Nina, it hurt like hell.’

  Nina leapt up and ran to the narrow downstairs toilet, her hands over her mouth. Her gut cramped tightly as she vomited pizza and red wine into the bowl. Dear God. Why, why, didn’t she remember any of this? How old had she been? Two, three?

  And shit, shit – but Claire couldn’t have known about that. Quite definitely not.

  Could she?

  The spasm over, she rinsed her face and drank from her cupped hands. Paul was waiting in the passageway, his eyes dull. He hugged her, saying nothing, and Nina held on tightly, breathing deeply and feeling the tension in her gut slacken. She knew the worst now, and she would have to learn to cope with it. She would get over this, because if she didn’t, John Moore would have won. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Back in the living room, she took a cautious sip of wine.

  ‘My mother can’t have known,’ she said, leaning back in the sofa.

  Paul glared at the floor. ‘Mine did. I told her after you left. I don’t know if she did anything, but nothing changed over the next couple of years. Except it happened to me more often because you weren’t there anymore. And then there was all the stuff with the business going down the pan. Mam and me moved away and the abuse stopped. I’ve never told anyone else.’

  Nina felt physically drained, as if she’d run a marathon. Her muscles hurt. The thought of what had happened to her made her feel soiled, wasted, but she knew this was the feeling she would have to change. She had been an innocent child, she had not been made dirty by these people. Tomorrow she would tell all this to the police and then she would start the rest of her life.

  Paul leaned towards her, and she saw how his hands were shaking.

  ‘I wanted to kill him for a long time,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘Both of them, Dad and Uncle John. When I was older I even bought a gun, but they were enemies by that time and I never got the two of them in the same place at the same time and that was what I wanted. I wanted to pull the trigger on your father and watch the fear in Dad’s eyes while I did it. And then I wanted to kill him too. But it didn’t work out.’

  Nina grasped his hand and squeezed it. The anger was understandable; she felt it too. Maybe she always would.

  ‘You should get counselling, Paul,’ she said, feeling his hand shake in hers. ‘That’s what I’ll do, I think. We need help to get over this. Dear God. My own father.’ She had seen him in his coffin and she had never known. Shit, she had looked at him and felt pity.

  There was nothing left to say that evening. Nina went to bed and dozed fitfully for a while, waking every time the house creaked or a car drove by outside. At three in the morning she found herself wide awake, and shivered. This was no good, she’d be dead on her feet in the morning if she didn’t get some proper sleep. She would make hot chocolate and take a headache pill, heaven knows her head felt the size of an over-ripe water-melon. She’d had too much wine and she’d lost the pizza.

  There was silence in the little room beside the kitchen. Nina put a mug of milk into the microwave and when the drink was made she wandered through the dark hallway to the study and sat down at the desk.

  More than anything else she wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Bethany, but she couldn’t possibly ring up at this time of night about something that happened when she was two years old. She would phone tomorrow. And she would phone Sam and – yes, she would go and stay with Cassie. There would be more interviews with the police now; she and Naomi wouldn
’t get back to Scotland tomorrow. Nina sobbed silently for a few minutes, bent over shiny mahogany. Why, why had she come here? The legacy had brought her nothing but grief.

  The headache slackened its hold, and Nina rose to her feet, only then noticing the blue plastic folder Sam had brought before he left. Heavens, she’d forgotten all about this. There might be something important in here.

  She sat down again and switched on the desk light. There was a small family tree, rather like the one Emily had drawn, except this one had dates and full names. Paul’s mother had been seven years older than his father, she saw, unusual in those days. And beside George Wright’s name Sam had scribbled ‘last known residence 2011 in Thailand’.

  Well. Abusing more children, perhaps. Disgusting old man. Nina paused. Paul had mentioned that his father spent time abroad, but of course it was possible that George Moore was back in the UK now. Was he on the sex offenders register? More questions for David Mallony.

  Nina yawned as the warm milk and paracetamol took hold. Good, maybe she would get some sleep after all. Upstairs again, she curled up in the warmth of her bed, feeling her muscles relax. There wasn’t long to wait now. Another few hours and she’d be out of this house forever.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Claire’s story – The Isle of Arran

  Claire pulled two lettuces from the farmhouse vegetable garden, but her thoughts were far away from the guests’ evening meal. It was time to write another letter to Robert, and this time she would send it. Lily’s death, six years after Bill’s, had forced her hand. If Claire was knocked over by a bus tomorrow, Robert was the one the authorities would get in touch with. The thought made her feel ill.

  Claire pressed her lips together hard. Poor old Mum. Lily had never come to terms with being widowed; the loss of her husband somehow brought about the loss of her – gumption. Ever-worsening arthritis left her almost a prisoner in the house until eventually a stroke took her in her sleep. And how very alone and vulnerable Claire felt now. She knew how irrational it was, but the fear of death accompanied her through each and every day – the thought of Nina having to leave their island home to live with a bad-tempered father in England was horrifying. Nina loved Arran, and so did Claire. The farmhouse B&B was thriving, they had decorated and added new B&B rooms, and now that Nina was old enough to be a real help the place almost ran itself.

  Tears stung in Claire’s eyes, and she brushed them away impatiently. She was being stupid – there was no reason to think she would die any time soon. But Nina was only thirteen, and the letter should be sent.

  She checked directory enquiries to make sure Robert was still at the Bedford house. It wasn’t a hard letter to write because all she did was describe the situation. She was careful to say that money wasn’t a problem and she didn’t want anything else from him. But he should know. And oh, God, she really should tell Nina that Robert was alive. The poor girl ought to have the chance to forge some kind of bond with her father. But would Nina ever forgive her?

  She would wait and see what Robert’s answer was before she did anything.

  It wasn’t a long wait. Less than a week later a typewritten envelope with a Bedford postmark plopped through the front door. The letter inside was typewritten too, and very short. As far as Robert was concerned, the situation hadn’t changed. He had no interest in meeting Nina; he would, however, undertake to get in touch with her on Claire’s death, and she should take steps to make sure he would be contacted when this happened. The letter was signed R. Moore.

  Claire stared at it blankly. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been this. So that was that. Robert was refusing to meet his daughter until she, Claire, was dead, so there was absolutely no point in endangering her own relationship with Nina by telling her about Robert. It was as well, maybe – she knew she couldn’t trust Robert with her child. On the other hand, there was the rest of the family – Nina had aunts, an uncle, a cousin – and Emily and Paul at least were nice people.

  ‘Mum – there’s a disco down the Bay on Friday, can I go?’ Nina and Bethany stormed into the kitchen, and Claire managed a smile.

  ‘Dad’s collecting me, he’ll bring Nina home too,’ said Beth, her arm linked through Nina’s.

  Claire nodded, struggling to get the words out. Imagine if Nina had to leave Beth on the island. Chalk and cheese, they were, and closer than most sisters. Dear God – another five years – if she lived that long Nina would be grown up in both Scottish and English law. Robert would be powerless then. You’re worrying about nothing, Claire, said the sensible part of her head. But her heart didn’t believe it.

  ‘Oh, on you go then. I suppose this is the start of the sleepless nights while you’re out gadding,’ she said to Nina, who rushed to hug her.

  Claire hugged back hard. Forget the family in Bedford. Nina’s home was here, on the island, and she had a mum with enough love in her heart to last her daughter a lifetime. Of course she did.

  Chapter Twenty

  Tuesday 25th July

  It was well after eight the next time Nina awoke. For a split second everything seemed normal, but then she saw Naomi’s empty bed, and the memory of what Paul had told her the night before catapulted into her mind. She curled up into a tight ball, the pain taking her breath away.

  She had been abused. Worse still, her father had organised it. It was the ultimate betrayal, and the only thing in the world to be glad about was she hadn’t known him. She’d never loved him. If Claire had known about this, she’d definitely have gone to the police. Or – Nina rolled ever closer into her ball as the pain became torture, searing through her mind – maybe that wasn’t as definite as she needed to think. John Moore might have been violent towards Claire too; that sounded quite possible now. If little Nina wasn’t physically injured, her mother might have thought that ‘least said, soonest mended, cut the ties’ was the best approach to take once they were back in Edinburgh with Grandma Lily.

  Nina sobbed aloud. There was a dreadful logic about it all, but the odds were she would never know the answers. If Claire hadn’t known about the paedophilia, there would be no reason for her not to demand the financial help that John Moore, who had all that money, by rights owed them. But she hadn’t asked him. And didn’t that mean that she must have known, and was protecting them both by keeping well away?

  A wave of longing swept through Nina. How she wished she could turn back the clock, back to those days of carefree childhood, running wild on Arran, knowing she was loved, knowing she was safe. All she felt now was hurt.

  Balling one hand to a fist, she thumped the duvet. She was Nina Moore and she was strong. This was not the time to throw a wobbly, she could do that later when everything was settled here. She would get up and phone Beth – moral support from her oldest friend would be the best possible start to this first day of the rest of her life. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and then in spite of her good resolutions she slumped, her head on her knees. In a macabre way this felt like the day Claire died. Nina had spent terrible moments sitting exactly like this in the hospital waiting room, cold coffee in front of her, while Claire’s poor ravaged body was cooling in the hospital mortuary. The world had changed that day too. And today it was different again.

  Forcing her mind back to the present, Nina pushed herself to her feet. She’d wallowed in self-pity long enough. It was Superwoman time and the first three things on the agenda were a shower, breakfast, and a phone call to Beth.

  Paul was up already; she could hear the radio blaring out an old Beatles song downstairs. The routine of having a shower brought some normality back to the day, and so did the smell of coffee that greeted her when she went into the kitchen. She would get through this. Paul’s face was pale and apprehensive. He didn’t look as if he’d slept much last night either.

  ‘Morning. Are you okay? I saw you were up in the night.’ He waved towards her chocolate mug in the sink.

  Nina took a yoghurt from the fridge and s
at down opposite him. ‘Took me ages to get to sleep, but I’m fine now.’ A lie if ever she’d told one, but this wasn’t the time to start another soul-searching session.

  He rose to pour coffee for them both, then leaned against the sink. ‘I’m sorry about what I told you last night,’ he said, fiddling with a teaspoon and not looking at her. ‘I should have left it. You didn’t remember, you didn’t need to know.’

  Nina waved her spoon at him. ‘Truth’s always better. But I can’t stay here any longer, Paul. I’ll go to Cassie’s tonight, and head back up north as soon as I can, after this. Thanks so much for all your help with the photos, and for staying here last night.’

  He smiled, but his eyes didn’t quite meet her own. It was clear he was unhappy. ‘Right. Well, I’d better be off. Work waits for no man. I’ll give you a ring later and see how you’re doing.’

  He was halfway out the kitchen door before he’d finished speaking. Nina listened as he packed his bag and rolled up his sleeping bag, clearly in a hurry to leave. Was it work pressure – what did he do, actually? – or guilt at what he’d told her? He hadn’t asked what she was going to do with the information that their fathers had allowed others to abuse them, but he must realise she would go to the police. He could have done that himself, years ago. After all, he could remember what happened. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Yet there was the story about the gun… but that could just have been bravado. He would hardly shoot his own father.

  Thinking about George Wright reminded Nina of Sam’s file.

  ‘Paul!’ she called. ‘I found something yesterday that said your father spent some time in Thailand a couple of years ago, do you know about that?’

  He stood in the hallway, bag in hand, unhappiness all over his face. ‘He used to go regularly, but he never stayed longer than a few months. I don’t know if he still goes. I imagine it was for the sex tourism. They’re a lot stricter about it now, thank God. I’ll talk to you later, Nina.’