It might never have happened. Just because he had done it at Horizons it didn’t necessarily mean he was doing it to women at The Whitworth Centre. But if (and it was a big if) he had assaulted Miriam then it gave him a very good reason to lie to me about seeing her that afternoon.
Bryony Walker, who was more of an expert than me, was convinced he would be abusing wherever he worked. There were people like that - serial offenders: rapists, paedophiles. If Harry came up with any more information on Eddie Cliff’s previous places of work, there may well be victims there. Perhaps even someone willing to point the finger, a little less in fear of him with the passage of time?
My in-box held a solitary email. From Piatt, Henderson and Cockfoot - the solicitors’ firm whose freelancer was checking the electoral rolls for me. It confirmed what I now knew; Address: 21 Blandford Drive, York. Registered occupants: Mr Kenneth Reeve and Mrs Denise Reeve.
The man who had done the job for me added that the couple had been registered at the same address for the last ten years.
I found it hard to imagine the mindset of someone who could sustain a double life for so long. This wasn’t just a short-lived affair but the man had two fully fledged families. Children being born, starting school, mouths to feed, relatives to visit. What drove someone to do that? And was he the same person in each household? Did he have identical clothes in both places? How did he manage holidays? Christmas? What on earth did he do at Christmas?
I printed a copy of the message out and put it in my file. I planned to see Susan Reeve early afternoon, before her children were due back from school. Enough time to break the news and stay with her as she tried to take it in. I rang to check it was convenient. She sounded subdued but thanked me for bringing Adam back. She had seen my car from the house. I was dreading having to tell her what was really going on.
I needed to find out what the score was for the offence of bigamy. Rebecca Henderson was in court but a colleague gave me a resume. Basically, it was a case for prosecution and the police would go ahead even if none of the wronged individuals chose to press charges. Sentences varied widely; prison was an option but not a matter of course. It would all depend on the circumstances. I put the file in my bag.
I thought about Bryony Walker’s advice. Find allies in social services, and a decent police officer. Who did I know in social services? No one. But I did have a social worker friend, Rachel, who might know who to try. I dug out her number and left her a message to call me.
As for the police, my dealings with them had often been messy and a little tense due to the nature of my work. I had no tame contact. A very nice PC had attended our last attempted break-in but he would be way down the pecking order. I needed someone with a bit of seniority. I wasn’t even sure whether there was a sexual crimes unit in the city. I mulled it over for a few minutes but rather than go off half-cocked trying to identify someone, I thought it would be better to discuss it with social services first who would be up to speed on who did what and how.
I didn’t know anything about the Management Committee at the Whitworth Centre apart from the fact that Sharon had been on it before she’d gone for the job. If I asked her for a list of members, without explaining why, could I trust her to keep it to herself? Would she be allowed to give out that sort of information? Was it in the public domain somewhere? It should be, if the centre was a charitable body. I was a bit hazy on the details but I was pretty sure the names of the committee would be published with reports and accounts. I could only try. Maybe ask her to fax me an annual report? If she wanted to know more I’d just have to bang on about discretion and confidentiality and apologise a lot.
I dialled the number.
But Eddie Cliff answered my call.
“Is Sharon there, please?”
“No. Is that Sal?”
Shit. “Yes, erm ...” I thought rapidly. “She talked to me about the fair ...”
“Volunteers. Can you help?”
I was taken aback. Why would he want me around, unless it was to keep an eye on me. Work out whether I still suspected him.
“Yes,” I said before thinking it through. Anxious only that I made the right noises. “Just for an hour or so.”
“Excellent. We’ve a couple gone down with the flu so we are really pushed. If you could come midday? Help set up and with the initial rush? And then I think we’ll manage. We usually do one way or another.”
“Fine,” I managed.
“See you then. I’ll let Sharon know.”
“Thanks.”
My mouth was dry and my hand shaking as I replaced the receiver. He doesn’t know you’ve met Bryony Walker, I told myself. He can’t possibly know that. He probably just wants to suss out the lie of the land. A devious bastard, she’d called him.
I sat back, a blizzard of images and questions in my mind.
Had he assaulted Miriam? She arrived at the centre well and happy. No one saw her leave, but by the time she reached her church she was in a state. The whole weight of the world on her shoulders. The Craft Club members had noticed nothing but it had been a chaotic morning. Jane burning her arm with the batik wax, Melody upset. Why? A row at home; Eddie had said that. Another lie? Hiding something worse? Melody and Miriam had to clear up. Had Miriam told Melody? Had Melody seen something? She no longer went to the club. She was suicidal. Melody upset. If not her then he’s found someone else ... Bryony Walker’s words.
I searched through my notes. Found the jottings I’d made at the sewing circle. Melody Gervase. Unusual name. I looked it up in the phone book. Just one. It had to be it. And the address in Barlow Moor. A few minutes away.
Mrs Gervase didn’t want me to talk to Melody. At first she thought I was a journalist wanting to do a follow-up on the dramatic suicide rescue story that all the local papers had covered.
I showed her my card and explained who I was working for and what the Johnstones had asked me to do.
“I saw Melody at the sewing circle,” I said, “and I realised later she’d spent Thursday morning with Miriam at the Whitworth Centre.”
“She’s not up to talking about all of this.”
“Five minutes,” I asked her. “Please. It could be a real help. I promise I’ll be as careful as I can be.”
I was aware that I was being less than honest with her but I sensed that any mention of my suspicions would earn me a swift exit from the house.
She hesitated.
“Please. The family are desperate to learn anything they can. They lost their mother. You understand. Even the smallest things become important.”
She hesitated.
“Please, Mrs Gervase.”
“She may not talk.”
I gestured ‘so be it’.
We went into the back room where Melody was watching television. A lunchtime confessional show. Pain and betrayal writ large. Just the job. I could never work out the appeal in shows like that; did people like the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God aspect or was it sheer voyeurism, a load of sad losers to gawp at?
Melody had bandages round her wrists, just visible beneath her baggy sweatshirt. She looked younger than I remembered. She wore sports pants and sheepskin slippers. There was a crossword puzzle book on her lap.
Mrs Gervase used the remote control to turn off the television and asked me to sit down.
“Melody, this lady would like to have a word with you about Miriam; Miriam Johnstone.”
Melody gave me a guarded look, bent to pick at her nails.
“Melody, I met you at the sewing circle. Do you remember?”
Brief nod.
“I’m trying to find out everything I can about that Thursday, back in October when you were all doing batik at the Craft Club. I think someone or something upset Miriam, something that happened at the centre. If you can tell me what you remember it would be a real help.”
Melody continued to pick at her nails.
Her mother shook her head at me.
“Did you like Miriam?”
<
br /> A nod. “She died.” She spoke quietly and began to rock backwards and forwards.
“Melody,” her mother said anxiously.
“Yes,” I said. “Was Miriam upset?”
“You better go,” Mrs Gervase said.
“It’s a sign,” Melody said, her breathing speeded up, she looked at me her dark eyes wide with panic.
“A sign?”
“That’s enough.” Her mother stood. “I can’t let her get upset like this.”
“Melody?” I made a last attempt.
“She promised to help. She died. Don’t say anything.” She implored but whether she was talking to me or to Miriam I couldn’t say. “Don’t say anything, please. Please don’t. You mustn’t tell.” She was becoming frantic. Her mother moved to hold her, shushing at her till the ‘please’ quietened and the rocking slowed. I slipped into the hall and waited there.
Her mother came out, lips tight and marched to the door.
“Mrs Gervase, there have been rumours about one of the workers at the Whitworth centre. About abuse. I think that’s what Melody was saying in there ...”
“She’s ill.”
“This man,” I began, “I’ve found out ...”
“You better go. I need to see to my daughter.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She stared at me, unspeaking. Silence is consent.
“Has Melody told you?”
“No, nothing,” she said quickly.
“And you don’t want to find out what really went on?”
She shook her head impatiently, her face creased with distaste.
“Why? Because he threatened her?”
“She has to recover. She has a life ahead. This ...” she had no word for it, “dwelling on it can only damage her more. I will not have that,” she said fiercely.
“So you pretend it never happened?”
“I will not sacrifice her.”
She opened the door. The message was clear. Her look implacable.
I walked slowly to the car, breathing in the cold, misty air, fiddling with my gloves, feeling angry and sad about the whole bloody mess.
I unlocked the car and got in. Closed my eyes and thought. The new version: Eddie Cliff had been abusing Melody, Miriam had found out. I didn’t know whether Melody had said something or she’d found out some other way. She’d been upset. Gone to church then home. Rung Hattie, panicking and talking about punishment and whether to say anything. A moral dilemma, fearful of her own safety. At what point had Eddie Cliff realised that Miriam knew? He comes to the house and she gets in his car. Why? If she knew what he was up to why on earth go anywhere near him? I didn’t understand. And then what? Where did he take her? What did he do to her? Miriam at the car park. Had she been alone. I shuddered. Told myself not to be ridiculous. Was it that ridiculous?
I had information but none of it was any practical use in prosecuting Eddie Cliff. Melody wouldn’t testify. Even if her health improved, her mother would never give her the support to stand up and bear witness. Would she heal? If there was no acknowledgement of the violence that had been done to her?
What would I do, if it was Maddie? Force her to give evidence? Make her speak out and so prevent others suffering? Or would I protect her? Spare her the pain of reliving the ordeal, the trauma of going over the abuse? Allow her the refuge of silence knowing that it gave space for others’ cries to go unheard?
Chapter Forty Four
The day had turned out overcast, the light bleak. No wind or rain, a thin mist suspended still and grey. A briny smell hung in the air. The world was littered with broken twigs and branches, torn fences, stray rubbish; the legacy of the previous night’s storm.
At home I ate a bowl of soup and began a shopping list for Ray. If I left it to him he always forgot essentials like sunflower oil or soap. I sometimes forgot to take the list but still remembered most of the stuff. Something to do with women’s brain architecture. We also needed things like Crackers for Christmas and it was nice to have traditional snacks about, like dates and nuts. I finally ran out of steam.
“I don’t want to go, Digger.” The dog pricked up his ears at the mention of his name and slid his eyes my way. I procrastinated for another ten minutes, shoved a load in the washing machine and left.
“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news,” I told Susan Reeve.
“Oh, no,” she put her mug down, clasped her hands together. “What’s wrong? What’s he done? What’s happened?”
“It’s not about Adam.”
“But ...” She stopped, her face slack with incomprehension.
“It’s about your husband.”
“Ken?”
There was no easy way to tell her. No helpful euphemism. I plunged on.
“The address in York, your husband lives there.”
“What?” she said crossly, as though I’d got it all wrong. Trying to slow down the impending blow.
“He’s married to someone else, Susan, he’s a bigamist.”
“No,” she said sharply. “No.” She half rose from her seat.
“No,” she flung her arms wide, shoving the cup beside her which smashed against the cabinet and broke splashing coffee on the floor and the cabinet door.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I waited for some sign that she was ready for me to continue but she spoke next, her hands grabbing the table’s edge, her face mottled with emotion.
“You said there were children?”
“Two.”
“No ... no ... no,” her yells rose in pitch and volume and she pulled at the table. I moved back quickly, my drink spilt on my legs. She heaved it onto its side, the papers and tray of bits and bobs scattered across the floor. She flung her chair aside too. Then she began to cry, her hands over her large glasses. I left her for a minute then went and righted the chair, put it behind her. Placed my hands on her shoulders. “Sit down.”
I set the table upright. I looked around for a kitchen towel roll but couldn’t see anything. She was crying almost soundlessly, her face wet with tears and mucus.
“Have you any tissues?”
“Toilet roll - upstairs.”
I brought it for her. I found a small dustpan and brush under the sink and cleared the shards of pottery. Wiped the cabinet and floor down and made fresh drinks. She wept all the while.
“Thank you,” she blew her nose. “I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve been in an accident or something. I was in a car crash once and it felt just like this.”
“The shock.”
“There’s no chance ... it couldn’t be a mistake?”
“No. I’ve checked the electoral roll. It’s him.”
“You’re sure, absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
“How on earth did Adam know?”
“It was a complete fluke. He went to York with his friend Colin in the summer.”
“Colin’s birthday!”
“Adam saw Ken and his ... wife. They were giving delivery details in a shop. He overheard the address.”
“Oh, Adam.”
“He asked me not to tell you. Last night when I brought him home. I realised then, you see. The car, it was the same car I’d seen in York. I told Adam then that I’d worked out why he was in York. He begged me not to say anything. I told him it had to come out in the open. That I’d see you today. He was in quite a state last night,” shivering at the edge of the platform, “he was worried about you.”
“Oh,” she stifled her cry with one hand, rubbed at her face. “You never imagine ... How could he do that to us? Working away, staying in B&Bs and all the time he’s there. All this time poor Adam ... And the house? We’re going to lose this house ... I can’t take this in. The bastard, the rotten, bloody bastard.” She wiped her face again. “Do you think she knows, the other one?”
“I doubt it.”
“How long?” Her face was hard, prepared for another slap.
“The couple have been living ther
e for ten years.”
Her face fell apart. “Oh, God,” she covered her nose and mouth with her hand; her eyes were wounded. “Since Penny was born, before the twins. I won’t have him back in this house. How could he? And the children ...”
Daddy one day, Judas the next. Would they share her sense of betrayal?
“I just feel so angry,” she said. “I want to get all his things and tear them up and throw them in the street and smash the car up and humiliate him ... but the children ... I can’t do those things because I care so much about ...” she broke down. “That’s the difference, isn’t it?” she said eventually. “That’s how he can do this and live with himself, because he doesn’t really care?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know.
“I feel such a fool,” she said. “It all makes sense now. Times when he had special sales exhibitions on, nights when the traffic was bad. Things he missed, Penny in the concert at the Royal Northern College, “her eyes shone with a harsh conviction, “and the time Rachel was knocked down. I was in MRI with her and he was working, or so he said. He’d probably got his feet up ... I blamed the job. I never once thought ... not even an affair.”
She thought for a moment. “We’ve been struggling; the bills, I can’t keep Adam in shoes and trousers, everything has to be the cheapest, discounts, second hand. We haven’t had a holiday in years. No bloody wonder is it? He’d be paying out for two families ...” She choked on the thought.
“How can you be so wrong about someone? When I met Ken he’d just been promoted. I thought he was Mr Wonderful. He had a great sense of humour ...”
She talked on recalling their courtship and marriage, the ups and downs, what had attracted her to him, how he was with the children when they were babies. The sort of reminiscence people do when someone has died, trying to capture a sense of the person as they were. Or in this case as they were before they were unmasked. Her account was coloured by a bitter irony that bled into everything. As she talked, the past was being rewritten in the light of his betrayal. Memories tainted; the picture skewing like water bleaching old photographs. Every so often she’d interrupt herself, taken aback anew by the magnitude of his wrongdoing and its implications. “What do I tell the children?” she’d say, and “all those lies,” but most of all, “how could he?” and “the bastard.”
Towers of Silence Page 18
