by Mairi Wilson
“There was a madness in him that night. That madness I’d always feared, known, was there. But I’d never seen in full flow before. It frightened me. Truly frightened me. But at least I had the gun.”
“Oh Helen.” Evie reached for her friend, but Helen shrank back, her eyes unfocused, staring straight ahead, one hand rubbing the wrist of the other where Evie could see yellowed marks, old bruises where Cameron’s fingers had grabbed her.
“No. No sympathy. I don’t deserve it.”
“But of course you do.”
“The storm was already fierce. The servants said the river had burst its banks north of the town. There was real danger of flooding. I’d told them to pack bags for us, had sent the children to pick out a few toys and books, gone up to my room to pack a few things myself. Just in case. I didn’t hear Cameron come in, didn’t even know he was in the house. Then I heard my bedroom door close and there he was leaning against it and grinning.
“ ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘We should spend more time together, you and I.’ His timing was always incredible. ‘We have our children to think of,’ he said. ‘My son, yours, Izzie. But we need our son, to bring us all closer together.’
“ ‘To secure your stake in Buchanan’s you mean,’ I’d snapped before I could stop myself, but really, I was … dumbfounded. There was a storm raging, a flood threatening … But nothing gets in the way of Cameron’s ambition, his greed … And he didn’t deny it, just leered at me.
“ ‘I’ve told you,’ I said, ‘you even try to touch me again, and I’ll kill you.’ But he laughed. Laughed.
“And do you know what he said? He said I might enjoy it. Said he could teach me a thing or two his boring old brother wouldn’t even have … Kept saying how women adored him, how Ursula … It was disgusting, Evie, unbelievably disgusting. He was ranting, mad, bragging like a … a … but I wasn’t listening, I was thinking how to get out. I edged over to the dressing table, leant against it, pulled open the drawer behind me, just a little.
“The storm was wild now. Wind and rain lashing at the windows, thunder rumbling overhead so loudly the house shook. There wasn’t much time. We had to leave or the roads would be impassable, the lake too rough for the boats.
“I told him we needed to get the children and leave, but he wouldn’t listen. He came over, tried to grab me. And that’s when I pulled out the gun, pushed it into his chest. For a second I thought I would pull the trigger, and I think he thought I would too because he stumbled backwards, fell into the armchair.
“That’s when … Oh dear God. That’s when Ross … Ross …
“I heard him screaming for me, turned as the door swung open and his little figure ran into the room, arms outstretched, calling for me. Cameron sprang up – I’d no idea he could move so fast, the state he was in. He pushed me away, grabbed Ross, picked him up off the floor so swiftly his little legs were still pumping and he was still running, running through the air. The shock seemed to wind him, but then he yelled, howled, louder, and he was more frightened, more panicked, than I’d ever seen him. Calling me over and over. But Cameron had him locked tight against him, one thick forearm around his neck, the other crushing the tiny chest. He was using him as a shield, for God’s sake, Evie. A child as a shield. And he was laughing, dancing around me, taunting me. ‘Still going to do it Helen? Still going to shoot me?’ ”
Helen was sobbing now, her words barely coherent. “My boy, Evie. He had my boy.”
Evie couldn’t bear it, moved across to the sofa and put her arm around Helen’s thin shoulders, but couldn’t think what to say that would help.
“He was terrified, Evie. My boy was terrified, and all the time Cameron was laughing, imitating him, his squeals of panic, until … until he put his hand over Ross’s mouth, his nose. Ross couldn’t breath. I tried, Evie, I tried to line the gun up to Cameron’s head, and I would have killed him if I could. But Ross … Cameron was lifting him up and down, waving him at me, so I couldn’t shoot in case … in case … It happened so fast. I … I was lowering the gun, but Cameron lurched forward, threw Ross at me and the gun kicked and his little body was falling … thudded on the floor and he didn’t scream, but there was blood, blood streaming from his head, covering his face. Blood everywhere, and I was screaming. I dropped the gun and screamed; Cameron pushed me away, kicked the gun across the floor. And then there was a noise … the most almighty groan I’ve ever heard and I knew, we both knew, the slip had started. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t think, I … Ross … on the floor … but Izzie, David …
“Cameron shouted at me to get David, get to the car. But I couldn’t. I just wanted Ross to move, wanted to touch his little crumpled body, but Cameron wouldn’t let me, held me back as he felt Ross’s neck, his wrist, put his ear to his tiny chest.
“ ‘Forget this one,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’
“But he couldn’t be. Not my Ross, my son, Gregory’s boy.
“But then he was pushing me towards the door, shouting at me that Ross was dead, telling me to get David.
“I tried to get to Ross. We had to take him, too, couldn’t leave him there alone … But Cameron kept shouting at me, saying did I want to be charged with murder, that no one would win, just as if I’d tried to kill Cameron himself, only this was worse, I’d be a baby killer. He said he’d help me, that I had to do as he said … I couldn’t think straight, Evie, I didn’t know how … and all the time, Ross was lying there not moving.
“Then there was another groan and this time a cracking, ripping sound and the house quivered and then juddered as the roof at the back caved in.
“Cameron pushed me out of the room, telling me to run, to get David and to run, and suddenly I was shouting David’s name, Izzie’s, running towards Izzie’s room and there she was. I picked her up still shouting for David, but he wasn’t there, in his room or … I ran down the stairs still calling him, Izzie crying in my arms. The servants were in panic and I yelled to them to get out, to leave everything, just go, and then I was at the car, and David was there with Cameron. ‘Get in,’ he said, pushing me round to the car door, but before I opened it I looked up to my bedroom window, to Ross, and there were flames leaping at the curtains. Then Cameron had the back doors open and was pushing the children in and shouting at me to get in, too. Then he was gunning the engine and we were moving forward and Izzie and David were crying, calling for me, shouting for their brother.
“ ‘Want Ross,’ Izzie was sobbing, her heels drumming against the seat, little fists clenched, and David looked at me as if … as if … he knew. But how could he? I looked back, at the window, shattered now, black smoke billowing out from the room where … where … and all I could see was the little body I’d left on the floor behind me.
“God forgive me, Evie, I shot him. I killed my son.”
Evie closed her eyes. Lexy sat in stunned silence, questions, for once, stilled as the full horror of Helen’s tale wiped out all other thoughts. That meant … that meant …
“Your grandmother shot her son, your uncle.” Evie was watching her again now. “I was shocked to the core. Not that she’d shot him; I don’t believe she really did. Oh, she was holding the gun, but it was Cameron who orchestrated it. And whatever I felt, I knew it was nothing, nothing, compared with what Helen must have been feeling.”
“But why didn’t she … I don’t know … tell the truth? Surely everyone knew what he was like, what she was like. No one would believe she ever meant to shoot her own son—”
“Helen took the loaded gun out of a drawer and aimed it. She’d been close to firing it at Cameron. So there’d been murderous intent, and there was a body. Not the body Helen had intended, but a body nonetheless. All too risky. Courtrooms are not predictable places. Trusting in truth, innocence, reputation is a dangerous game, my dear, particularly when the enemy have friends in so many high places. No. Helen wanted to stay dead, to stay free and spare her children more pain. If Cameron believed her dead, he wouldn�
��t denounce her as a murderess. She was devastated that she couldn’t think of a way to get David away from Cameron. She said her only consolation was that I was close by. I could take care of him. But I don’t think I did a very good job of that. I let her down. Cameron wouldn’t let me get close to him, did everything he could to keep me away. And, in time, it worked. David didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“I still don’t understand. Surely …”
Evie shook her head. “Believe me, Lexy, we tried between us to think of a way and there wasn’t one. Helen was convinced that if she reappeared she would go to prison and she believed that would be worse for the children. David would no sooner have got her back than he’d lose her again to prison, or a noose. And there was Izzie, too, of course. Your mother. Helen couldn’t bear the thought of her with Cameron. Nor could I. No. Izzie was safer with Helen.”
“Only she wasn’t, was she? With Helen? Helen gave her to Ursula. Gave her away, like a … like a toy a child grows out of, or a pet that gets tiresome. How was that better? And why just Izzie? What about David? She just left him?”
Evie’s face was grey. “It wasn’t like that. I’m not sure I can make you understand. Forgive me, my dear. I’m so very, very tired. I think I … need to rest a little now …”
“No! Don’t you dare sleep, not yet. How did Helen survive the accident, the boat?”
“She wasn’t on it.”
“What? Well, the mudslide or whatever?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I’m so very tired, now. I need—”
‘But you must know! Surely she told you?”
“Lexy, I’m too tired … I …”
“Tell me!”
“She was so … traumatised … Her housekeeper … Please, Lexy …” Evie sighed and closed her eyes again, shutting out Lexy’s questions.
“No, wait. Don’t sleep. You have to—”
Lexy felt the strong hand grasp her arm, pull her up from the chair, knew it was Robert even before he spoke. “Get out of here.” He bundled her out into the corridor, not relinquishing his grip until he’d closed the door behind them and pushed her roughly down onto one of the hard plastic seats that lined the corridor.
“How dare you interrogate her like that.”
“I wasn’t interrogating her! There was just one last thing, one more question.”
“There always is with someone like you. Always something more.”
“Someone like me?” Lexy was stung. “You mean someone you’ve all lied to and spied on and tried to scare off and … and …You know, if you’d been honest with me when I brought you that letter, we wouldn’t be here now. You could have told me everything Evie has and saved her the trouble. So if you’re looking for someone to blame here, you don’t have to look very far.” She stood up and glared at him, a little less impressively than she would have liked given the difference in their heights, but she held her ground. Robert turned away first.
“Fine,” he said as he sat in one of the seats, and gestured for her to sit too. She glared at him again, stayed where she was. He shrugged. “So what is it, this one last thing you’re so desperate to know?”
“Helen and Izzie. How did they survive? How did they get away that night?”
Robert frowned up at her. “I don’t know what—”
“Do you want me to go back in there? Wake her up?”
“All right. I’ll tell you. But then you leave her alone, okay?”
Lexy nodded, perched on the edge of the seat beside him, her body turned to face him.
“They’d got to the lake, to their private launch, but it was all pretty chaotic apparently. As I told you, one of the company steamers, the Blantyre, was in and there were hundreds of people trying to get on board. No way it would have been able to take them all. Helen wanted to let some of them on to their launch but Cameron refused, tried to send her and the children below. But Helen wouldn’t go, and Izzie wouldn’t leave Helen. Helen saw their housekeeper and tried to call her over, determined that Cameron would let her on board at least. But Adela didn’t hear her, so Helen, with Izzie in her arms, ran down the gangplank to get her. Cameron pulled it up behind her and took off, taking David with him.”
“My God. The utter bastard.”
“Yes, that’s about the measure of the man. Anyway, Helen and Izzie got to Adela, but it was clear the steamer was already dangerously overloaded so they weren’t going to get out on that, and then Adela’s brother appeared and pulled them away. They couldn’t hear what he was shouting, but they followed him. They didn’t really have much choice. He’d got the keys to one of the company’s trucks and bundled them all into it and drove away just seconds before the deluge struck the shore. They didn’t get far – trees were down and the road was impassable – but they’d got away from the shore. Miraculously, they’d survived. They waited out the storm in the truck. It blew most of the night so Helen had plenty of time to think. By the time it was over, she knew she wasn’t going back. Adela and Joseph took her to their parents, hid her and Izzie and then after a few days—”
“Took her to Evie.”
“Yes.”
“Adela and Joseph. They’re the housekeeper and gardener in Ursula’s will. I assumed they’d been hers.”
“No. Helen’s. But between us all we’ve made sure they’ve been looked after. They couldn’t go back to work for Cameron, and it was little enough really to set them up with some land and a farm of their own after what they’d done.”
Lexy swivelled round and sat back in the hard plastic chair, suddenly exhausted. How could someone do something like that? She closed her eyes, tried to imagine the scene at the lake that awful night, the screams, the noise, the rain. And Cameron calmly pulling up the gangplank behind his wife and Lexy’s own mother. How could someone do something like that? What kind of man could be that cold-blooded?
And then Helen. Helen had shot her child. No wonder she’d disappeared. Lexy doubted she would ever want to come back.
David was right. He’d told her she might not want to know this family she had been so desperate to find. She was beginning to understand what he meant.
24
Blantyre Hospital, June 16th
“She’s awake. She wants to see you.”
Lexy looked up, startled. She was still sitting in the same chair Robert had left her in, still struggling to process all that she had learned, to understand that she was a part of this horrifying family. That their blood was hers.
“Now, Lexy. Don’t keep her waiting. She’s exhausted.” Robert held the door back for her, glared at her as she squeezed past him. “Go easy.”
“Leave us, Robbie.”
“But Gran, I—”
“Go.”
Evie had never looked frailer and Lexy was torn between compassion and curiosity, guilt and anger. As soon as the door swung shut behind her grandson, Evie closed her eyes again.
“No, Evie. Please. Don’t sleep again.”
“I won’t. I just don’t want to see your face when I tell you … I’m so ashamed, you see. So very angry with myself for letting him manipulate me into giving him exactly what he wanted. Power. The power to harm those I loved. I’d no idea, of course, hadn’t meant … But I did make the mistake of underestimating him, letting him goad me. No one was ever safe from that man. No one.”
It had been nearly two weeks after Helen’s reappearance and Evie’s face ached from keeping it stretched into a polite smile as she pretended to listen attentively to the admiring conversation around her. If she closed her eyes, she might even believe the tale of heroism, love and loss. But her sharp, clear blue eyes were fixed, frozen, on the recipient of this cloying admiration. Cameron.
She had to admit he looked the part. His features held just the right combination of stoic endurance, devastating loss and handsome helplessness. No wonder it seemed the entire female contingent at the consulate soirée was entranced, almost scrambling over each other to stand alongside, place a comforti
ng hand on the muscular arm that had tried so hard to hold on to his wife as the crashing torrent of the storm-swollen water had dragged her from his loving grasp.
Evie felt sick. She knew only too well how those muscular arms had grasped at his petite wife, leaving livid fingerprints embedded in pale flesh for days afterwards. She’d seen her friend wince with pain as spiteful injuries this loving husband had inflicted took their toll.
“Oh my poor, dear Cameron!” Yet another of the young consulate wives joined the group, almost teetering over on her heels in her excitement to clasp the grieving widower’s hand and gaze sympathetically up into his amused, dry eyes.
Evie could take no more. Murmuring an excuse she knew no one would hear, she stepped back from Cameron’s charmed circle, the enthralled women closing ranks around him as if Evie had never been there.
She stood for a moment, undecided. Should she try to sneak away altogether or was there anyone here she needed to speak to? Her practised eyes scanned the room as if casually but in fact noting everyone who was present and rifling through her mental index to match faces and names to roles and responsibilities. Winston Stanley, chief of police, was entertaining a circle of guests with one of his stories, and judging by the burst of startled laughter, she imagined it was one of his more colourful tales. She wondered what he’d have to say if he knew the truth. His men had been so very quick to accept Cameron’s story and she had to wonder if money had changed hands.
Poor Winston. He tried so hard to stamp out bribery and corruption in his ranks, but she feared he was fighting a losing battle. He certainly was the only chief of police she’d known in all her time in Malawi who still lived in a modest bungalow and whose children went to Mission schools. The only one whose surname wasn’t Chakanaya, although he’d married one. He was a good man, though, and she was tempted to ask for his help. But it wasn’t her place. Helen had made it clear that no one, absolutely no one, was to know.
“Evelyn – how lovely!” Fredi appeared at her side, his appearance as precise and elegant as his command of the English language.
