‘In here?’ Helen protested. ‘But there’s nothing to do, not even a magazine to read!’
‘You can tidy up.’
‘No way!’
‘Or you can go home for the day.’
Jutting out her chin, Helen weighed up the humiliation of cleaning the staff room or having to leave and miss something important. In the end she settled for the staff room.
‘Thought not,’ he said smugly. ‘Tidying up it is.’
Helen mouthed an expletive behind his retreating back.
By the door he turned. ‘Here’s what I think. Everyone’s got something to lose.’
Helen began clearing up, wrinkling her nose at the overflowing bin, the dregs of tea and curdled milk left at the bottom of mugs, and a table top which surely hadn’t seen a wet cloth in years.
She thought of what Bill had said, that everyone had something to lose. Of course they did, but there were degrees of loss. Losing her mother and her whole world at the age of five and never having had a real substitute, his words didn’t have much impact. Unless he meant her losing her life.
Her mother was concerned about something suspicious going on twenty years ago. If she was killed because of it, that would exonerate Fay, wouldn’t it? Or had Fay, as Aggie suggested, played into someone else’s hands?
Grimly she began washing the dirty mugs.
Bill was just a cranky old coot. She’d met plenty like him over the years. People who liked things just so because the slightest change in their usual routine made them feel unsettled. Fair enough, he was cross with her for breaking a vase, because she didn’t doubt Letitia would hold him partly responsible for that, telling him to supervise his staff better.
She picked up Charlie’s jacket, which had fallen off the back of the chair where she’d flung it earlier, and hung it on a coat hanger. Something hard fell out of one of the pockets and clattered to the floor. She bent down and saw that it was a knife.
And not just any old knife.
Stunned, she stared at the blue-handled paper knife. It was one of Arseni’s Fabergé knives, and how it had ended up in Charlie’s pocket was an easy guess. A laugh escaped her. Charlie was too much sometimes, but her quick fingers could work to Helen’s advantage. Ever since she’d spotted the knives in his display cabinet, she’d been itching to examine them.
The chunky lapis lazuli handle had a good weight to it, and the leaf detail on the end was worn thin from the many hands which must have held the knife in the last century. The blade, made from white gold she guessed, was unexpectedly sharp.
Curiously, it wasn’t a particularly good stabbing weapon, something she discovered when she tested it on the sponge scourer in the washing up bowl. Her hand slid down the handle towards the sharp knife edge, and it was clear that the force one would need to drive the knife into the throat of a person might be enough for the murderer to do themselves a minor injury.
You’d have to wear gloves, another indication that her mother’s murder had been premeditated, even carefully planned. Fay, her brain addled by drugs at the time, didn’t strike her as a meticulous planner, more likely she was so unhinged that she simply grabbed the nearest thing she could find.
To her surprise, the act of stabbing the sponge brought home to her that even though she wanted to know the truth about her mother’s death, she was now able to step back from the personal loss and regard it from a more investigative perspective. This had to be a good thing, surely?
The paper knives puzzled her. There had been four in total, two belonging to her uncle, and the other two to her mother. Mimi had given one to Fay. Aggie was adamant Mimi wouldn’t have sold her own, and it wasn’t on Sweetman’s inventory list. One had been at the crime scene, then disappeared, and the fact that Fay’s husband could confirm Fay’s knife was missing from their home had, combined with Helen’s testimony, been enough to convict her.
She weighed it in her hand. If Fay had been set up, it would have to have been by someone close enough to both Mimi and Fay to know that Fay had a knife like this. Arseni might have, if Mimi had told him that she was breaking up the family set, and Fay’s husband certainly did. Who else? Letitia and Mimi worked together and must have seen each other socially despite their mutual dislike. Perhaps Letitia knew. Ruth might have known too. Then there was Bill and Mrs Deakin, although they’d said nothing but nice things about her mother.
And there was Aggie.
She thought back to their conversation, when her grandmother talked about Mimi’s yellow curtains. Had she mentioned knowing back then about Mimi giving one of the knives away? Or was that something Aggie had learned during the court case? Helen couldn’t remember now. But if Aggie had known, as an antiques dealer she’d probably have hated the idea of the set being broken up. Why did her mother give away something so precious? And who might Aggie have told? Even if it had only been a chance remark to the wrong person, it could account for Aggie’s bad conscience. Now that Helen had come to know her better, she hated the idea, but had to accept it was possible.
It still didn’t explain what happened to the last of the knives.
Another problem was what to do with Charlie. If she confronted her about stealing the knife, she’d only be defensive, and she might go back on her promise and mention Helen’s connection with Letitia and Arseni.
She decided to leave it. A secret for a secret. Besides, she didn’t care that her uncle had lost his revolutionary loot. He could go to Hell.
She hid the paper knife in her own rucksack. When Charlie found it missing, she might think she’d lost it on the ride back to the auction house. And if Charlie chose to confront her, she’d just say her uncle wasn’t someone you messed with, and that it was probably best if she simply put it back next time she visited him.
That she had no intention of returning it, she’d keep to herself.
No one was in when she got home. She paced around in the kitchen for a bit, then eventually cooked some pasta which she didn’t finish eating and tried unsuccessfully to follow a comedy quiz show on TV.
She had to speak to Fay. Not to say anything in particular, but just talk, get to know her. Find out if she knew more about that morning, but without giving the game away.
But before she spoke to Fay, she wanted to speak to Jason, to tell him that even if Fay was the murderer, Helen wanted to be able to forgive her. If anyone could understand just how complex those feelings were, it would be Jason. She may be one of his projects – and it hurt her vanity to think so – but she still wanted him to know how far she had come from having a massive chip on her shoulder to the person she was now. She wanted to tell him that his kindness towards her had changed something fundamental in her, even if she was far from his favourite person at the moment.
That wasn’t the only reason she wanted to see him. Her face went hot when she thought of the way he’d pressed her against the wall in the hall, almost knocking the air out of her. That short display of passion had both frightened and excited her. Did he have any idea how he affected her?
‘Argh!’ Talking to him and explaining herself, yes, but anything beyond that … she groaned and pressed her face into her hands to block out the thought.
Early evening turned to late evening, and still no one turned up. She gave up on the telly and sat for a while in the deepening quiet, listening to the muted sounds of family life next door. Nearby a cat meowed, and through the open door to the garden she could hear something rustling in the undergrowth, a frog perhaps. She went outside to investigate. Sure enough a frog was hopping around in the flower bed.
Kneeling down, she gently prodded its moist body with her finger, then watched, amused, as it scampered away from her as fast as it could. A sudden furious barking from the dog next door made her jump, and as she scrambled to her feet again, she caught a movement at the back of the garden and went still.
Beyond the fence ran a little-used right-of-way, gated at either end to deter drug-pushers and tramps from hanging out behind the ho
uses and to stop the alleyway from being used for fly-tipping. It was meant for people to bring their garden waste or bicycles out to the road without traipsing through the house, but Jason’s gate hadn’t been used in that way for a while, and ivy had grown across it, blocking the access.
At the same time the gate was only a glorified metal grate, and where the ivy didn’t cover it you could see through it.
What Helen saw now was a shadowy figure, tall and bulky, probably male, and the glow of a cigarette. Remembering the dark saloon, she jumped up and ran back into the house. Her hands shook wildly as she pulled at the door handle and nearly whimpered with relief when she managed to lock it. Then she yanked the curtains shut.
Stepping back, she put her hands to her chest to still her racing heart, to stop the hot flow of adrenaline in her veins. Black spots danced before her eyes, her skin went from sweaty to cold and clammy.
Not now.
She fumbled her way backwards through the kitchen, knocking into the edge of the table and narrowly missing the ironing board which some genius had left out. Steadying herself against the wall, she tried to even her breathing, to pull her mind back from the abyss it was threatening to fall into. The prospect of having a seizure alone, at night, terrified her.
Calmer now, she listened out for unusual sounds. A squeak of metal, as if someone had climbed the rickety gate, then a scuffing noise, footsteps perhaps? She even thought she heard nails clawing on the window, until she got a hold of herself. She was safe in here, and no one was trying to get in. It was all in her silly head.
Relieved that she’d been spared a seizure this time, she switched off the lights and left the kitchen.
In the unlit hall she collided with a body – and screamed.
Chapter Nineteen
It was Lee.
‘Sorry, d-didn’t mean to f-frighten you.’ He flicked the switch in the hall, but nothing happened, and the only light came from the window above the front door.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Helen exploded before her head did. ‘I’ve told you not to sneak up on people like that.’
‘I wasn’t sn-sn-sneaking. I thought I was alone.’
‘Yeah, well …’ She wiped a hand across her eyes. If he’d been standing just outside the kitchen, he must have seen light from underneath the door and then noticed it being switched off, but he probably had his own peculiar reasons for creeping about. Maybe the habit went with mugging old ladies for a living.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said again.
She sighed. Lee was sort of a guardian angel, and it was a relief not to be alone any more. Perhaps he could also help her with something. It was the bark from next door which had made her think of it. ‘It’s okay, I overreacted. What do you know about dogs?’ she asked.
‘D-dogs?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, you know, woof-woof, wagging their tails, humping your leg.’
‘Ev-verything.’
‘You know everything about dogs?’ Was he for real? ‘So, if I described a dog to you, would you be able to tell me what kind it is?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay,’ she said, safe in the knowledge that he didn’t talk to anyone much. ‘I came across this dog once, and it’s been bugging me that I don’t know what it is.’ She described the dog – size, colour, curly fur – frustrated by the way you always remembered things bigger as a child than they really were.
‘S-sounds like a terrier,’ he said. ‘A b-big one. Maybe an Airedale.’
‘An Airedale Terrier? Where can I find out for sure?’
He shrugged. ‘The library? Or the Intern-net?’
So this was where her great detective skills were taking her, the library or the Internet, and probably another dead end.
‘Thanks, Lee, I appreciate your help.’
Getting ready for bed, she started at a knock on her door. Charlie, she thought, and quickly covered the paper knife on the desk with a letter she’d received from Joe recently.
But it was Fay, not Charlie.
‘I missed you earlier, so I brought you a cup of tea to say hello.’
‘Thanks.’ Helen accepted the mug.
‘May I come in?’
‘Sure.’
‘Lee said he gave you a fright. Are you okay?’
So Lee did talk to the others, or maybe just Fay, but she supposed Fay had that effect on people.
‘I didn’t see him. The bulb in the hall’s still out.’
‘Jason sorted it out just now.’
Helen’s heart skipped a beat. ‘He’s back?’
‘He went out again.’
‘Oh.’
Fay sat down on the bed and looked around Helen’s room. ‘You’ve made it look really nice in here. Have you changed something?’
Helen blew on her tea, a surprisingly fragrant brew, maybe from Fay’s private stash. ‘Just a few ornaments and knick-knacks I got from the market. I like Indian stuff.’
‘So I see.’ She seemed to have nothing more to say but made no move to leave, so Helen took the opportunity to learn more about her.
‘How long were you in prison for?’ she said as an opener.
‘Twenty years.’
‘That’s a long time.’
Fay shrugged. ‘In some ways, but you just have to get on with your life as well as you can. For me it was a wake-up call. I needed to change if I was going to have a future.’
‘What was prison like for you?’ An odd question for the one who possibly murdered your mother, but it just flew out of her mouth.
‘You’re the first person to ask me that. When you’ve been inside, people always think you deserve everything you get. They don’t ask you what it’s like.’
‘I’m interested in you.’
‘I adapted. I had to. I was stuck with these people, and could either make it easy or difficult for myself. Mind you, I didn’t have too hard a time of it. I enjoyed a certain respect.’
‘How come?’
‘Because of what I’d done. I stabbed another woman over a man. Most women can relate to that. It’s the child-killers they don’t like.’
‘What do they do to them?’ Helen asked, suspecting she already knew.
‘Usually they’re ostracised, but sometimes it’s violent. There was a woman on my ward who’d killed her baby. When the guards weren’t watching, they’d hold her down, pull up her sleeve and scald her with boiling water.’
‘That’s horrible.’ Helen glanced at the mug in her hand, then put it on the desk. ‘What did you do?’
‘Me? I boiled the kettle. I had a reputation to uphold, for my own survival. I’m not proud of it.’
Helen swallowed hard. For years she’d thought of prison as the end station for Fay. It hadn’t occurred to her that life carried on inside, with all its politics and social pitfalls. ‘What happened to her? The woman?’
‘Got let off. Miscarriage of justice, apparently. Something to do with a flawed expert witness. It was quite a relief, because there wasn’t so much anger simmering under the surface all the time.’
‘Do you have children?’ Helen asked, remembering the photos in Fay’s room.
‘Two. A boy and a girl.’ A shadow passed across Fay’s face. ‘I haven’t seen them in nearly twenty years.’
‘Why not?’
Fay smiled sadly. ‘I was declared unfit, and my husband took them away.’
‘Do you know where to?’
‘Up north somewhere. I lost contact when I went inside. I tried to write, but the replies were sporadic. Then they stopped. I think they just wanted to forget about me and start a new life. I don’t blame them, really.’ She looked at Helen. ‘My daughter would be about your age by now. In some ways you remind me of her.’ Stopping abruptly, she looked down at her hands. ‘That’s why when my friend’s little girl … It was horrible. That poor child.’
I am that poor child, Helen thought.
‘I don’t remember much, except I do remember the child. She had this c
ondition and went into convulsions, from shock probably. I thought she was going to die.’
She did die, Helen wanted to say. Or at least a part of her. The rest struggled to make sense of the world. But Fay wasn’t to blame for that part.
‘Where’s your friend’s daughter now?’
‘I think her family adopted her. She had some aunts and uncles on both sides.’ Fay grimaced. ‘Sometimes I dream she’ll come looking for me. It’s not a nice dream.’
‘Why? What d’you think she’d do to you?’
‘As far as she’s concerned I killed her mother. What would you do if you were her?’
‘Wouldn’t that depend on whether you were guilty or not?’
‘Spoken like a truly young person. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when you get to my age, you begin to understand that guilt is often on a sliding scale.’ Fay smiled one of her rare, sunny smiles. ‘Now, if you’ve finished with the mug, I’ll take it with me. I appreciate the chat.’
‘Me too.’
She meant it, she realised. As a teenager she’d fantasised how it would be to have a mother you could share everything with, the sort her girlfriends would have envied. Except she didn’t have any friends. This conversation with Fay was the next best thing.
As Fay rose to take the mug from the desk, a gust of wind from the half-open window tossed Joe’s letter aside. Before Helen could put it back, Fay reached for the paper knife, her hand closing over the blade.
‘Don’t touch that!’ Helen dived for the knife, yanking it out of Fay’s grip.
Fay shrieked as the blade cut through the palm of her hand. ‘Where did you get that?’ she croaked, her face contorted with shock and pain. ‘It’s mine!’
Helen opened her mouth to speak, but her lips couldn’t form the words. Pictures flashed before her eyes, the blood on Fay’s hand, her mother slumped in her seat, the horror and knowledge that something bad, bad, bad had happened, was happening.
And over it an image of the tsar’s daughters, beautiful and alive, played in her head like an old newsreel.
They’re all dead, everyone’s dead.
The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) Page 22
