The Secret by the Lake

by Louise Douglas

  ‘When we get back,’ said Mrs Botham, speaking awkwardly around the sweet in her mouth, ‘you wrap up warm and take that dog for a quick walk and I’ll make us some dinner. Would you fancy some chips?’

  It would be the third day running that I had eaten chips. I said that I would fancy them very much.

  ‘You’ll stay and eat them with me, won’t you?’ I asked.

  Mrs Botham said that she would.

  That evening, the two of us sat together and worked on a jigsaw puzzle that Mrs Botham had given my father as a Christmas present. I found myself so engrossed that it was gone eight o’clock by the time I remembered to call Reservoir Cottage. The phone rang out, but nobody answered.

  I pressed my fingers down on the cradle and redialled, but the same thing happened again.

  Mrs Botham looked up from the jigsaw. ‘Perhaps they’ve popped out for a breath of fresh air,’ she said. I didn’t want to burden her with my worries so I smiled and agreed that perhaps they had. Mrs Botham wasn’t to know that Julia never popped out for anything now.

  I didn’t sleep well that night. I was safe and warm in my lovely bed with the hot water bottle and the ironed sheets, but my heart couldn’t settle. It kept returning to Reservoir Cottage, rattling around those cold, dark rooms, searching for whatever it was that had kept Julia and Vivi from answering the telephone.

  The next day, at the hospital, my father seemed brighter. He was sitting up when we arrived, his hair had been combed and there was a little colour in his cheeks. Mrs Botham made her excuses and scurried off again, and I poured Dad a glass of lemon barley water. He asked for his cigarettes. I picked up the packet, and then put it down again. I said: ‘Really, Dad, you must stop. Smoking is no good for your heart.’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared about my heart,’ he said.

  I took hold of his hand and I raised it to my lips. I kissed the back of it, the dry skin, scarred by a thousand small burns.

  When Mrs Botham and I got back that evening, I called Reservoir Cottage every hour, on the hour, but nobody answered the telephone.

  I sat at the table in the kitchen while Mrs Botham worked on the jigsaw in the front room and I wondered if I should call Daniel and ask him to drive up to the cottage to check that everything was all right. Each time I was on the point of telephoning, I talked myself out of it. What could he do? Julia would be alarmed if he turned up on the doorstep out of the blue – she hadn’t been at all happy when I’d invited him in to look in the loft. Most likely, there was nothing wrong. If I sent him to investigate, it would look as if I didn’t trust Julia, and she might end up being rude to him. Perhaps my absence had forced her to leave the cottage. Maybe she’d snapped out of her inertia and taken Vivi into Weston-super-Mare to the pictures. Maybe they’d gone down to the village club or for a walk, or perhaps they were eating with Mrs Croucher. The fact that they weren’t answering the phone didn’t mean that anything was wrong.

  I was up early the next morning. At eight o’clock, the time when Viviane should have been getting ready to leave for school, I telephoned Reservoir Cottage again, and again there was no answer. I called the operator and asked her to see if there was a fault on the line. She checked and said there wasn’t. I put my coat on over my father’s dressing gown and paced up and down the scrubland at the end of the road while Bess sniffed at the feet of the privet hedges and the night’s darkness faded over the moors, bleached away by a cold dawn. The key to the empty bedroom was in my coat pocket. I turned it over between my fingers. My mind spun the different threads of my anxiety together; I couldn’t think logically.

  When Mrs Botham came, I tried to explain but it was difficult because she didn’t know all that had happened before; she had no understanding of the context of my fear.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry, pet,’ she said. ‘If anything bad had happened, you’d have heard by now. Somebody would have contacted you.’

  But would they? What if something really awful had happened and Viviane and Julia were in the cottage and nobody realized they were there? Mrs Croucher might notice if something was wrong, but she might not. She was used to not seeing Julia. Not seeing Julia was normal to Mrs Croucher.

  ‘I have to go back to Somerset,’ I said.

  Mrs Botham looked up from the frying pan.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Really I am. But I daren’t leave it any longer. I have to go back. Viviane needs me and Julia doesn’t have anyone else.’

  The fat in the pan spat. Mrs Botham moved two rashers of bacon around with her fork. There were two rosy circles in the middle of her cheeks.

  ‘What about your dad?’ she asked.

  I went over to her and put my arms about her waist. ‘Eileen,’ I said, ‘he’s the lucky one. He has you.’

  In the end, I left the dog with Mrs Botham. They both seemed pleased with that part of the arrangement at least. Mrs Botham said she’d be glad of the company and that Bess would give her a reason to get out of the house. Bess herself was already becoming accustomed to the superior quality of the food she was being fed here, and was in no hurry to go back to vegetable scraps.

  I didn’t want to leave her though. I didn’t want to go back to Reservoir Cottage on my own, without her.

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ Mrs Botham said. ‘And you’ll be back before you know it, won’t you, to pick her up?’

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  AND SOON ENOUGH there I was again, outside Reservoir Cottage, more fearful about what I would find than I had been the first time. I put my bag down and pushed the front door. It swung open. The inside of the cottage was in darkness. The air was cold – no fire had been lit, and there was a strange, rotten, damp-hair smell. It was too quiet – I couldn’t hear a thing. I stepped inside and switched on the hall light, wishing Bess was with me. I wished it more than anything.

  ‘Hello!’ I called, but the word seemed to disappear the moment it left my lips. Nobody answered. I left the door open behind me as I moved forward, looking into the downstairs rooms, turning on the lights as I went. All the rooms were empty. I hesitated at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the wooden acorn at the end of the banister as I looked up into the darkness above me. ‘Hello!’ I called again. ‘Julia! Vivi!’

  Again, nobody answered.

  The silence was unbearable. In the back room the clock ticked. Outside, somewhere, a fox screamed.

  I put one foot on the first step of the stairs, took hold of the banister, tried to summon the courage to move up. My heart was beating so hard that it hurt. I wished I was not alone. I was terrified of what I might find at the top of the stairs but I was compelled to go and look.

  Slowly, one step after another, I ascended. When the board creaked on the third step from the top, I cried out in fear.

  Stupid, I said under my breath, you’re being really stupid, but I couldn’t contain my fear or pretend that it was not real.

  I finally reached the top of the stairs. I switched on the landing light, leaned forward and pushed open the door to the master bedroom. It squeaked on its hinges. The light from the landing fell into the room and there was Julia, lying on top of the bed, her arms and legs and hair spread all about her and Alain’s notebook beside her, flattened open. I could not tell if she was alive or dead.

  I was hardly breathing myself.

  I stepped forward, the boards giving beneath my feet. I reached out tentatively, lifted Julia’s wrist, Oh God, let her be OK. Her skin was icy cold, but I could feel a pulse.

  I laid Julia’s arm down and sat on the edge of the bed. I shook her shoulders gently.

  ‘Julia? Wake up!’

  She groaned.

  ‘Julia, darling, it’s me, Amy. Did you take a pill, dear? Did you take a sleeping tablet?’

  Julia sighed and turned her head. ‘So tired,’ she whispered. Her breath was sour and it smelled of gin.

  ‘What about Vivi? Where is she? Is she all right?’

  But Julia wouldn’t say anything else; she was deep
ly asleep, unconscious.

  I looked around for Julia’s pill bottle, but couldn’t see it. I tried to calm myself. I needed to be calm; panicking wouldn’t help. I had to find Vivi. I covered Julia over with her blankets and left the room. I pushed open the door to Viviane’s room; it swung back slowly. The room was empty.

  I had known it would be.

  I knew where she was.

  I put my hand down into my coat pocket. The key was still there. Slowly, fearfully, I went towards the empty bedroom. The door was ajar. I pushed and it creaked as it swung open. The room was in darkness but moonlight came through the window and I could see that someone had been tearing at the wallpaper.

  I stepped forward. In the eerie blue half-light, I made out words scrawled down the side of the wall.

  I hate Jean Aldridge. I wish she was dead.

  I didn’t want to look at the wall but I was drawn to it as if somebody was holding my hand and leading me towards it.

  I hate Jean Aldridge I hate Jean Aldridge I hate Jean Aldridge I hate Jean Aldridge, repeated a hundred times perhaps, filling up the whole side of the wall. It was weird and frightening, and because the four words had been written so many times it was as if they had lost their individual meaning and become something else: a curse.

  ‘Amy?’

  I turned and I saw Viviane. Swollen-eyed, limp-haired, in creased and soiled clothes, she was like an urchin in a storybook, a filthy sprite. She came out of the darkness of the room towards me, slowly, stiffly, and I took her in my arms; she held on to me, like the frightened child she was. She was so very small. The top of her head smelled of salt and sweat and dirt; it smelled of misery. I cradled her, rocked her, stroked her hair. She was limp in my arms and I was gripped by a sudden fear that the door would shut and the two of us would be trapped inside with God knows what else. I could not let that happen.

  I pulled Vivi towards the door. ‘Let’s go and get you warm.’

  ‘No,’ she said, resisting, ‘I must stay here. I have to finish.’

  ‘Finish what, darling?’

  ‘Taking the paper off the wall. Caroline said I had to.’

  ‘But you’re allowed a break. Caroline won’t mind if you have a little rest.’

  ‘No, I have to stay here, where she can find me!’ The child’s voice was desperate, tearful. ‘She said that I must!’

  ‘Caroline doesn’t want you to make yourself ill, Vivi, really she doesn’t. Come with me.’ I moved her towards the door, slowly, slowly. The child was a deadweight in my arms. At the threshold, Viviane turned back.

  ‘She wants you to see what she wrote.’

  ‘I’ve seen it.’

  ‘She hated Jean Aldridge.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She wanted Jean Aldridge to die.’

  ‘Come on, Viviane, come downstairs.’

  ‘She deserved to die.’

  I closed my eyes. I thought: I can’t deal with this. I don’t know how to. I don’t know what to do.

  I kissed Vivi’s forehead. ‘Sweetheart, you mustn’t talk like that. What would Papa say if he heard you saying such things?’

  The mention of her father seemed to bring Viviane back to her senses. She allowed me to help her out of the room. I pulled the door shut behind us and took her down the stairs and into the kitchen. I closed the front door, drew the curtains in the front room then put on the kettle. I turned my back to Viviane, so the child should not see the tiredness and shock in my eyes. I waited until the immediate wave of despair had passed, found some strength from somewhere, sat down at the table, took hold of Viviane’s hands and turned them over. The nails were torn and filthy and there were bruises on the ends of her fingers and scratches on her palms.

  ‘Vivi, why? Why did you do this to yourself?’

  ‘Caroline said I had to get the paper off the wall before he covered it up for good,’ Vivi said. She sounded exhausted, close to tears.

  ‘He?’

  ‘Yes! He’s going to have it covered up and then nobody will know.’

  I didn’t know how Vivi could have heard about the doctor’s offer to organize the redecoration of the room. Had I mentioned it inadvertently? Had I let something slip?

  I laid her hands down on the table and fetched a bowl of warm water and a clean cloth. I began to wash her fingers, as gently as I could.

  ‘Your poor hands are so sore. Has your mummy seen that writing?’

  Viviane shook her head. She blinked rapidly, fighting back tears, and then she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  ‘Mummy’s been sleeping.’

  ‘All this time?’

  ‘I gave her some pills.’

  ‘You gave Mummy sleeping pills? Oh Vivi, why did you do that?’

  ‘She wouldn’t let me go into Caroline’s room. She said I mustn’t but I had to.’

  ‘How many pills did you give her?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘You’re sure? It’s important, Vivi. You’re certain you gave her three pills, no more than that?’

  ‘Three yesterday and three today.’

  ‘Did you put them in a drink?’

  Viviane looked up towards the ceiling.

  ‘Listen,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t hear anything.’

  ‘Listen.’

  And there it was, the faintest sound from upstairs, a scratching sound, like something sharp being scored into plaster.

  I stood up and pulled the door shut, slammed it. I leaned against it.

  ‘It’s her,’ Vivi said in a tired, sad voice. ‘It’s Caroline.’

  ‘No, it’s not. Maybe there’s a twig caught in the gutter or something.’

  Vivi sighed. ‘What must she do to make you believe in her?’

  I thought, I must be calm, I must be rational. I was dealing with a troubled little girl who had got everything out of proportion in her mind, that was all. There was nothing to fear. Panicking would make everything worse.

  I looked at Vivi, in front of me at the table, small, pale, filthy, her hair wild. Her chin was in her hand, her eyes were wide and dark, deeply shadowed, her lips pale and faintly blue against her skin.

  Vivi was gazing at me with such sincerity that it almost broke my heart. She truly believed that Caroline was real.

  I can’t let this go on any longer, I thought. I have to do something.

  But what? What can I do?

  I remembered the advert I’d torn from the paper: Violet-Anne Dando, the woman who quieted restless souls. At the time, I hadn’t thought I would ever really call her. I hadn’t actually believed that we might need a medium, or a spiritualist or whatever she was.

  Now, crazy as it seemed, I thought she might be the only person on earth who could help us.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  AS THAT AWFUL evening wore on, so the scratching noise in the empty bedroom grew louder, as if something inside was growing increasingly frustrated. The longer it went on, the harder it was for me to persuade myself that it was the wind, or a small animal, or some aberration in the plumbing of the cottage. The sound was under my skin, it ate into me. If it went on much longer, I was certain it would drive me mad. I couldn’t bear it, it was like a thought going round and round in my mind, a thought I couldn’t expel. The educated, sensible, logical part of me knew there must be a rational explanation for the noise; the scared, exhausted, emotional side insisted it was not caused by any natural phenomenon. I was so overwrought that even the simplest decision was difficult. Whatever I did to ameliorate the situation would also have an opposite effect that might make things even worse. I felt I ought to call for an emergency ambulance for Julia, but then I would have to explain how she had come to be drugged. If the authorities found out that her own daughter was responsible, wouldn’t they be likely to insist Vivi was taken to Borstal, or whatever it was they did with disturbed children? If that were to happen, it would be the end of the Laurents. Julia would never forgive me and Vivi would risk being traumatized for the re
st of her life. And any involvement of third parties, any unravelling of the events that had led us to this point would mean revealing the secrets of the empty bedroom. The cottage would never be sold. The whole village would know what had been going on. What harm would that do to Julia? To Viviane?

  I kept telling myself that I only had to get through the night. In the morning, God willing, Julia would wake up and the two of us could decide what to do for the best for Vivi. I had to find a way to get through the night.

  I didn’t want to be upstairs, but there was no way to bring Julia down so after I’d given her something to eat I took Viviane with me into the master bedroom. I pushed the chest of drawers up against the door and when Vivi asked why, I told her it was because of the wind.

  ‘I don’t want that door blowing open during the night,’ I said. I am certain Vivi did not believe me for a moment.

  The two of us squeezed into the bed with Julia, Vivi in the middle and me at the far edge. The sheets were damp and cold and smelled of sour milk. I lay on my back, wide awake, with my eyes open, praying that Vivi would fall asleep. She could hardly have slept at all in the last two days. Surely her body would give in soon?

  But Vivi would not sleep. She lay beside me, stiff and rigid, and her breathing was not rhythmic or slumbering and I could sense her tensing every time the scratching noise in the empty bedroom stopped, and then started again. The night was deeper, the hour was lonelier, but it seemed to me that the noise was angrier now, and more demanding. Julia’s gentle snoring did nothing to soothe either me or Viviane.

  ‘I need to go to Caroline,’ Viviane whispered.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re staying here with me.’

  ‘But she needs me!’

  ‘Caroline can manage without you for one night.’

  Vivi began to sob beside me.

  ‘What is it now?’ I asked, my temper as fractured as my nerves. I struggled to keep the frustration from my voice.