Core of Evil

by Nigel McCrery

  Leaving the relative anonymity of the A12 dual carriageway she drove cautiously through the outskirts of town, looking for the nearest station. She had a pretty good idea that the trains to Leyston-by-Naze stopped at Colchester on their way, although she wasn’t entirely sure how she knew. The problem was, Colchester seemed to have three different stations, and she didn’t want to end up too far away from the right one. Eventually, after driving past Colchester Station and North Station, and having detoured around the plain architecture of the Dutch Quarter and the contrasting ornate Gothic monstrosity that was the Abbeygate arch, she ended up at Colchester Town, chosen by the simple expedient that it was the closest station to the road signs that pointed to Leyston-by-Naze.

  She left her car parked in a disabled spot outside a quiet row of shops with two storeys of flats above them, taking with her only a small suitcase and her handbag. She had a disabled badge for the car, although she wasn’t actually disabled, and she left it on the dashboard before wiping over the places she had touched with a damp cloth soaked in sugar soap and locking the car up. She glanced around, as if looking for a particular shop front: florists, secondhand bookshop, laundrette, bookmakers, small supermarket. Nobody was watching. Nobody would be able to describe her later. Despite its closeness to the station it was a quiet location, out of the main flow of traffic. The car should be safe there for a few days before anyone became suspicious, and she fully intended to be back to collect it before then.

  Daisy patted the roof of the car absently with a gloved hand. An F-registration Volvo 740 in a dull shade of bronze – ‘Champagne’, she believed it was called – she had obtained it at some stage in her travels and kept it because it was so completely undistinguished. Nobody would give it a second glance. And nobody was likely to steal it. For a start, it didn’t even have a working radio, let along anything more modern.

  Then again, if someone did steal the car it might actually help. Loath as she was to find a new one, Daisy was becoming increasingly aware that the Volvo was a link to Violet Chambers – a link she really should consider breaking. It wasn’t as if she was emotionally attached to the car – Daisy knew, without any great upheaval of the heart – that she wasn’t emotionally attached to anything in the way that she supposed other people to be. It was more that the car was the perfect blend of blandness and reliability. It was also an automatic, which made her feel a lot more comfortable when she drove.

  Locking the car, she walked briskly away towards the station, suitcase swinging from her left hand. Time and tide waited for no woman, and she was impatient to see the sea.

  According to the notice boards in an anonymously modern station – all girders and columns and glass – she had a half-hour wait before the next train, so she bought her ticket with cash and had a bland, milky cup of tea in the station café. The place smelled of strong coffee and hot pastry. Nobody gave her a second glance: a small woman in a tweedy jacket and hat sitting by herself, sipping at her cup. She was well aware of the impression she gave – or failed to give. It was something she consciously cultivated.

  For some reason Daisy had expected an old 1950s vintage British Rail diesel pulling four dusty blue coaches, but the train she boarded was a bland, white, modern train with electric doors covered in graffiti. Regardless, the sight of the train pulling into the curve of the station filled Daisy with nostalgic longing, although she was disturbed to realise that she wasn’t sure exactly what she was being nostalgic about. Perhaps it was just for the past itself.

  Daisy settled herself down into an empty second-class compartment. A small mist of dust and stuffing rose from the upholstery as she sat, the strangely familiar smell suddenly provoking a memory of … of what? Her, sitting on a train, looking out at an ocean of red poppies. How old was she? Where was she?

  She shook her head. No time for memories now.

  The train started with a jerk, and Daisy felt her breath quicken with anticipation as her carriage pulled out of the shadow of the station and coasted gently through the outskirts of the town before accelerating into the countryside. For the next half hour or so she gazed raptly out at rolling fields and hills, haystacks and barns, and at small towns with evocative, perfectly British names like Wivenhoe, Alresford, Great Bentley, Weely and Kirby Cross.

  She saw her first seagulls just as the line split, the right-hand arc heading off towards Clacton, the left-hand arc towards Frinton-on-Sea, Walton and Leyston-by-Naze. They sat in groups on the roofs of houses and wheeled slowly above the Essex marshes, great grey and white birds with tiny black pearls for eyes, and beaks hooked cruelly, like fish-knives.

  By the time the train stopped at Frinton she could smell the sea itself prickling her nostrils, salty and cool, a smell like nothing else on earth. A smell that hadn’t changed since a time before houses, farms and people, before cars and tractors and trains. Perhaps the only original smell left on the face of the planet.

  The door to the carriage slid open and an elderly woman stepped in. Despite the thinness of her arms her skin sagged beneath the bones, and the veins on the backs of her hands were knotted and twisted like the roots of a storm-weathered tree. Beneath the hand-knitted hat that covered her hair, her eyes and face seemed carved into a perpetual smile.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. ‘May I join you?’

  ‘Please do,’ Daisy said automatically, although she could feel disappointment seeping through her body and souring her mood. ‘I was feeling quite lonely, sitting here.’

  The woman smiled and sat down opposite Daisy. Without thinking, Daisy arranged her hands in her lap in the same way as her new travelling companion.

  A whistle blew somewhere down the platform, and the train began to pull away.

  ‘On holiday?’ the woman asked, glancing at Daisy’s suitcase.

  ‘My cousin has been taken ill,’ Daisy replied. It was her standard cover story. She tapped her chest vaguely. ‘It’s her … you know. She’s in and out of hospital, and I thought I’d pop down and make sure she was all right.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Terrible,’ she said, nodding. ‘Still, it’s amazing what the doctors can do these days.’ She leaned forward, extending one of her gnarled hands. ‘My name is Eve,’ she said. ‘Eve Baker.’

  ‘Daisy Wilson – pleased to meet you.’ Daisy shook the offered hand, feeling the way the papery skin moved against the bones. She could take Eve’s wrist in her left hand and push those fingers back until they snapped, one by one, leaving Eve breathless with pain and shock. If she wanted. The feeling excited her.

  ‘And what about you?’ she asked instead. ‘Are you on holiday as well?’

  If she was, Daisy had no use for her. Although she usually waited until she had got her bearings and somewhere to stay before she started looking around for her next victim, there was no point in passing up a perfectly good opportunity if it presented itself. All is fish that comes to the net, as they said.

  ‘Oh my, no,’ Eve laughed. ‘I live in Leyston. I’ve lived there since I was a child.’

  ‘Really?’ Daisy allowed her face to adopt an encouraging expression.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Eve leant forward confidingly. ‘I was evacuated here during the war, you see, and while I was here my home in London was bombed during the blitz. My family was killed, so I stayed with the family I had been placed with.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Oh, it was all such a long time ago, now. I was educated here, I married here and I brought up three children here.’

  The little spark of interest that had begun to flicker in Daisy’s breast guttered in a discouraging wind.

  ‘You have three children?’

  ‘Oh yes. They’ve all moved away, of course, but they still visit every week or so. One of them works in a bank, one works in computers and one is a school secretary. And they’ve given me so many lovely grandchildren.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Daisy murmured, letting her gaze slide away from her travelling companion and aligh
t again on the flat, green countryside that was rolling past the window. Children and grandchildren. Family. People who would notice if she vanished. People who would care.

  ‘Where does your cousin live?’ Eve asked brightly.

  Daisy paused for a moment before replying, just long enough to give the impression that she had thought the conversation was over. ‘Near the church,’ she replied vaguely. There was bound to be a church in Leyston.

  ‘Which church?’

  ‘The Methodist one, I believe.’ That should still be safe. How many Methodist churches were there likely to be?

  ‘Ah. I see.’ Eve subsided back into her seat, looking disappointed that her new friend didn’t want to continue their conversation.

  The train began to slow, and Daisy’s heart began to beat faster. It was always like this, coming into a new town, a new home, for the first time, but there was something else as well, a feeling that this time she really was coming home. It was something to do with the briny smell of the sea, the plaintive cries of the seagulls, the feeling of almost infinite space just beyond the bushes that lined the track. And then they were pulling into the tiny station, just two tracks separated by a platform between them.

  The train lurched to a halt, and Daisy was surprised, looking away from the window, to see the little old lady still sitting opposite her. She had almost dismissed her from her mind.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.

  ‘And you. I hope your cousin … you know.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Daisy allowed the old woman to disembark first, then, as the woman scurried towards the metal and glass ticket barrier, so different from the solid redbrick one she had expected, she busied herself for a few moments with her suitcase, allowing some distance to grow between them before she moved off.

  Daisy walked out into the sunshine, and stopped to drink in the view. To her left, a row of three-storey houses with tall windows curved leisurely out of sight. To her right, a public house named, of course, The Station Hotel. And ahead of her, across a triangular green fringed with bushes, lay the North Sea, heaving and billowing like a grey-blue sheet that had been fastened between the buildings on either side and allowed to ripple in the wind. She walked towards the seafront, entranced. How long had it been since she had seen the sea? She couldn’t even remember. All the places, all the names and the faces were blended together in her mind. She knew she must have been to the seaside at some stage in her life, but she couldn’t remember when.

  Daisy took a look over her shoulder, a valedictory farewell to the life she was leaving behind, and found her vision filled with a block of flats in Victorian design: red brick, tall windows and a massive front door. She had walked around it to get from the modern glass ticket office to the green, but it looked so much like the older ticket office she had been expecting that she had to blink and look again, just to check she wasn’t imagining things. And then, noting the location of the flats in relation to the building, she realised what must have happened. The building had once actually been the ticket office, but it had been closed up and converted into flats. Presumably it was worth more that way. Now the way into the station was through an anonymous building built from a kit, and the people who lived in the old ticket office now had no idea about the history they were walking amongst.

  The short walk from the station brought her out on the esplanade. Directly ahead of her was the pier: a long wooden road leading out into the sea, supported on an elaborate trusswork of poles and struts. To her left was a row of hotels and guest houses, receding into the distance. To her right was what looked at first glance like a whole pile of children’s building blocks in bright colours, piled higgledy-piggledy, one on top of the other. It took Daisy a few moments before she realised that they were beach huts: simple wooden sheds painted in reds and greens and yellows, set into a sloping hillside and separated from one another by concrete walkways.

  But it was the sea that kept pulling at her attention. The restless sea, a thousand shades of blue and grey, all blurring together as the waves crashed onto the sand and ebbed back again, only to gather their strength for another assault. She could feel the sea-spray in the air, pricking at her skin. So chaotic, so relentless and so endlessly fascinating. She could watch it for hours.

  But she still had to find somewhere to stay. The drive from the London suburbs to Colchester followed by the train journey had taken it out of her, and she craved nothing more than a long, hot bath and a long, dreamless sleep.

  The best thing she could do, she decided, was to find a nice hotel for a few nights. That would allow her to take her time looking for something more permanent – a flat, perhaps, on the ground floor of an old house somewhere within walking distance of the beach. As long as she had a kitchen where she could cook and a bed where she could sleep, she would be happy. A lair, from which she could emerge to hunt. First, as the old proverb had it, catch your hare.

  A garden would be nice, but not essential. After all, the trunk of her car, still back in Colchester, was filled with various twigs, leaves, flowers and roots that she had picked from her real garden, her proper garden. That should be enough to keep her going.

  Slowly, and with increasing tiredness, Daisy turned and wandered along the line of hotels and guest houses. The first few looked as if they were designed to catch the first people off the train: bland, plastic affairs with no character and nothing to recommend them apart from their proximity to the station and the beach. The next one was a large public house with rooms above the bar: too noisy, she decided. And then, a little way on, she discovered a small Edwardian frontage, four storeys high, which advertised itself as The Leyston Arms Hotel. She stood for a few moments, looking it over. The windows were clean, and the front steps were spotless.

  Someone in there knew about soda crystals, she thought.

  Decision made, she walked purposefully up the steps and into the foyer. The carpet had been freshly vacuumed, and she could smell furniture polish in the air. These were all good signs. The man behind the front desk was impeccably dressed in dark trousers, white shirt and maroon tie. The twin folds down the front of his shirt indicated that either this was the first time he had worn it or he had his cleaning and ironing done professionally, but she could forgive him that by the way he smiled at her.

  ‘Good afternoon, madam. Can I help you?’

  ‘Do you, by any chance, have a room?’ she said, smiling back.

  ‘We do,’ he said. ‘How many nights will you be staying?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘It might be up to a week. Would that be all right?’

  ‘Let me check.’ He looked down and consulted what Daisy suspected was a computer screen hidden below the level of the desk. Computers were everywhere, these days. How had the world managed to function without them?

  ‘We have a room overlooking the beach, or one at the back of the hotel,’ he said eventually. ‘They’re both the same price.’ His eyes flickered to a velvet-covered pegboard, the same colour as his tie, which hung to one side. On it were displayed the prices for single rooms, twin rooms, double rooms, family rooms and for breakfast. Daisy took the information in for a moment, suspecting that the man was already wondering, based on her age and her clothes, whether she had enough money to pay for the room.

  ‘Is there any difference between them?’ she asked.

  ‘The one at the back of the hotel gets less traffic noise, especially in the mornings, but it doesn’t have quite the same view,’ he said, smiling again.

  ‘Then I’ll take the room at the front.’

  He nodded. ‘May I take a credit card?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I don’t have a credit card.’ Forestalling his surprised reaction, she quickly added, ‘I don’t like them. I’ve never needed one, and I don’t see why I should start now.’

  He was momentarily nonplussed. ‘We normally require some form of … surety,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Could I pay for two days in advance?’
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  He thought for a moment. ‘That will be fine,’ he said. ‘If you could fill out this form for us …’ He reached down under the counter and retrieved a clipboard with several pre-printed forms attached to it. Sliding it around so that she could see it properly, he added, ‘Just put down your name and address – I’ll do the rest.’

  A pen was attached to the top of the clipboard by a length of chain. Taking it gingerly, Daisy placed the tip of the pen against the paper and started to write her name.

  And realised with horror that she couldn’t remember what it was.

  Who was this woman, standing in the hotel foyer? Daisy Wilson? Violet Chambers? Jane Winterbottom? Alice Connell? How did she sign her name: simply, ornately or in copperplate handwriting? Her mind whirled with the flotsam and jetsam of too many abandoned lives. She was paralysed with indecision. Her hand trembled, making small patterns on the form.

  ‘Is everything all right, madam?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry – it’s been a long day.’

  Work backwards. Where had she driven from? What did the house look like? What did the street look like? Who was she?

  ‘Daisy Wilson,’ she said firmly, grasping onto the nearest, the most recent memory as it floated past. ‘My name is Daisy Wilson.’ Quickly she filled out her name and, with some misgivings, Daisy’s address. It was a trail, of sorts, but it couldn’t be helped. After all, she was going to be playing Daisy for a while yet.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said as she slid the form back and delved into her handbag for her purse. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of putting you in room 241. The bar is to your left, the dining room is to your right. Will you be requiring dinner tonight?’

  She thought for a moment. It had been a long drive, and she didn’t particularly want to wander out looking for a civilised restaurant. ‘Yes, that would be lovely. About half an hour?’

  ‘I’ll make sure a table is available,’ he said. ‘I hope you enjoy your stay.’

  Daisy took her suitcase up to her room. It contained a bed, a desk and chair and a small armchair, all arranged in the smallest possible space without actually looking cramped.