The Invisible Ones

by Stef Penney

  I fold Lulu’s address and tuck it in my breast pocket, careful not to crumple it.

  “Are you close, then, you and Ivo? Do you think he’ll be in touch?” She gapes at me before deciding that I probably mean close in a cousinly sense.

  “I expect so, yes.”

  But she looks down, miserable, her arms folded protectively over her body.

  “Are you the only cousins?”

  She frowns; I am pushing a little too hard now.

  “We’ve got cousins in Ireland . . . Why?”

  I shrug.

  “I’m half Gypsy myself. There are usually a lot of cousins.”

  She stares at me; I could kick myself. Hen is right—I should go and sit quietly at home until my wits have returned to me.

  “Not in our family, Mr. Lovell.”

  The sound of Hen’s engine fills me with gratitude. I stumble outside, apologizing and thanking her. She shuts the door with a brief nod, without saying good-bye.

  44.

  JJ

  I don’t recognize her at all—the short, thin, done-up woman with a crappy car who’s just hammered on our door.

  She says, “You must be JJ.”

  “Yeah . . . ?”

  She looks me up and down.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  “Cut it on some glass.”

  “You look like your great-grandfather. Does anyone ever tell you that? I’m Lulu, your great-aunt. You don’t remember me.”

  A statement. But she smiles as she says it.

  “Sort of . . .”

  So this is my auntie Lulu. It’s been years since I’ve seen her. Since I don’t know when. She has black hair and pale skin and red lipstick; her clothes are smart and tight. She looks like she belongs in the town, with clean pavements to step on in those high, shiny heels, not out here, in the country mud.

  “You don’t have to pretend. I won’t mind. I barely know you—but you must have been only about eight or so last time we met. I haven’t changed as much—well, then, maybe I have.”

  She shrugs and smiles. When she smiles, it’s hard not to smile, too. It’s hard, too, to think that she is Gran and Great-uncle’s sister—she doesn’t seem old the way they do. She’s the youngest sister, of course, but even so.

  “Do you want to see Great-uncle? That’s his trailer.”

  I point to the one with the ramp going up to the door.

  She heaves a sigh.

  “I want to see all of you. I don’t suppose you know where your uncle Ivo is?”

  The name still sends a shiver through me.

  “No. We thought he was in London.”

  “Yeah. We need to talk.”

  It turns out that the hospital keeps ringing her because they want her to take Christo away again. Apparently, there’s nothing more they can do for him at the moment, and he’s not ill enough to stay. I suppose that’s the good news. Of course, the hospital would rather Ivo took Christo away, but they can’t find him, either. The bad news is that if the family doesn’t go and get him, they’ll put Christo into care. So we have to decide who’s going to do what.

  Lulu looks around at all of us—at Mum and Gran, anyway, and me, because I refused to be excluded, for once. Granddad is out somewhere (a pub, perhaps, possibly, maybe?), and Great-uncle isn’t feeling too well.

  It seems perfectly obvious to me what we should do.

  “He should come and live with us, shouldn’t he, Mum?”

  I stare at her, willing her to agree. I read somewhere that this works, if you will hard enough.

  “I don’t know, JJ . . .”

  Mum looks tired. Somehow she looks colorless next to Auntie Lulu, like she’s been washed too many times.

  “We’ve got to take him!”

  It seems to me that it’s the only thing that makes sense, because Gran is really too old, and Great-uncle can’t, and Auntie Lulu doesn’t do children. I don’t feel I should say all this out loud, but it’s obvious.

  “He’s like my brother, anyway. And it’s what he would want.”

  “I know, sweetheart, but . . . you don’t know what you’re saying . . . what it involves. He’s a disabled child . . .”

  “So?”

  “Looking after him is a lot of work, and I’ve got my work, and you’ve got school, so who would be around during the day . . . And he’d have to go to the hospital, what, every week?”

  She looks at Lulu.

  “I think so. Yeah.”

  “And . . . I don’t know. Ivo’s bound to come back—he could come back at any minute. And what will he think?”

  Gran says, “He hasn’t got any right to think anything. Going off like that.” She sniffs.

  Lulu says, “I don’t think Ivo will be coming back.”

  There’s something so cold and definite about the way she says it that we all look at her. She inhales on her fag, so that little lines appear around her mouth. I wonder if she knows something. Because I don’t think Ivo will be coming back, either.

  Mum shakes her head. “I don’t know. It just seems wrong. Ivo dotes on Christo . . .”

  “So where is he?”

  Gran and Lulu exchange looks. They seem to be in agreement about Ivo.

  “Mum, I’ll help! We’ll all help. Like we always did.”

  “It’s not just the work. It’s . . . other things, isn’t it?”

  “Like what?”

  Mum sighs and rubs her hand over her face.

  “What your mum means,” says Auntie Lulu, “is that they’re probably going to assess any of us who offers to take him, since we’re not his immediate family. And they’re . . . well, they’re unlikely to approve anyone who lives in a trailer.”

  “But he’s lived in one all his life!”

  “Yeah, but . . . he’s on their radar now, JJ. They’ve started asking questions. And since . . . Like San says, he’s disabled, so they’re being extra, well, nosy.”

  “Bloody gorjios. How do they have the right?”

  Great-uncle would be proud of me.

  “They don’t think a trailer is a suitable environment,” says Mum. “The social . . . you know.”

  Gran taps her ash off her fag.

  “There won’t be much we can do about it. But you know we’ll help out as much as we can—money and that . . .”

  She means her and Granddad. This is when I realize that this isn’t the first time they’ve talked about the problem of what to do with Christo. Mum doesn’t normally go around saying things like “suitable environment.”

  For the first time I get the feeling—a strong, scary feeling—that things are going to change a lot. I suppose they already started to change when Ivo went off, but now I realize that things cannot continue as they are. And suddenly I want them to. I don’t want to have to move and go to a different school where I don’t know anyone; I don’t want us all to split up. We’re the last of the Jankos—there’s no one else. If we don’t stick together, what will happen to us?

  “But why is it up to them now? He’s family. One of us!”

  “Because Ivo’s buggered off! And God knows what else . . . And he’s left us in the shit, frankly.” Mum looks really upset.

  I look at Auntie Lulu. She lives in the city; she must know how to cope with Them. She’s not smiling now.

  “Would you be prepared to live in bricks, JJ?”

  My head starts buzzing with a nameless fear. I force myself to think about Christo, stuck in the hospital. On his own.

  “Course, if that’s what we’d have to do.”

  Even as I say it, the memory of the stifling hospital air seems to fill my lungs and throat like cotton wool.

  “But I don’t understand how they can say where we have to live. We are who we are. And Christo is who he is. How can it be up to people who don’t know anything about us?”

  “It just can, lovey.”

  This from Mum, sounding weary. Gran leans forward.

  “Ivo got away with murder. Tene helped ou
t more than you know, with money and the like—otherwise, he’d’ve got into trouble before now. And now we’ve got to pick up the pieces.”

  “Christo’s not a ‘piece,’ ” I say.

  “You know what she means, JJ.”

  Lulu is the only one of us still sounding fairly calm. She turns to Gran, who’s sucking on her Rothmans like a baby at the bottle.

  “What do you think, Kath?”

  Gran sends twin plumes of smoke out of her nostrils.

  “I don’t see why you can’t take him, Lu. You’re the one with the house.” Auntie Lulu is lighting up her own cigarette. Lucky Mum doesn’t smoke, too, or we wouldn’t be able to breathe. She speaks without looking up.

  “I don’t know if that would be the best thing for him, Kath. He doesn’t know me like he does you. I mean . . .”

  “Mum, we have to take him! I love him—and so do you. And he’d be happy with us. I’ll live anywhere—we can always open the windows, and if we were on the edge of a town, it wouldn’t be so bad . . . You have to say yes, Mum, don’t you see that?”

  Mum shrugs; she really does look tired. I suddenly see that she’s been thinking this over night and day—for a while, probably.

  I find myself jumping up and throwing my arms around her. “Christo deserves a mum like you, Mum. He always did.”

  “Oh, sweetie pie.” Mum buries her face in my shoulder. Her ribs jerk under my hands—she lets out a shuddery sob. I can’t believe I ever shouted at her.

  “I never thought I’d live in bricks again . . .”

  “It really would be the best thing if you could, San,” says Auntie Lulu, her voice all warm and enthusiastic. “I’ll help any way I can. Housing and stuff.”

  What with all that, Mum seems to be on the verge of giving in. They discuss it some more—circling nearer and nearer the certainty that Christo will come to us. Then Lulu offers to drive the three of them to the pub for a drink, “Because we deserve it.”

  I think Mum deserves it. I say I’ll stay and keep an eye on Great-uncle. Mum smiles at me. Lulu kisses me on the cheek and says I’m a credit to her. It’s only much later, when I glance in the mirror, that I see the stupid red smudge of lipstick on my cheek, and scrub it off.

  45.

  Ray

  The forensics team is back—and in their white plastic suits and over-shoes they look like bargain-basement astronauts crawling over a desolate moonscape. The receding waters have left their mark on the site in odd ways: some creaturelike current has left a twisting trail that slithers up to kiss the tent’s wall before veering away; detritus has been carried here and dumped: a tractor tire, plastic feed sacks, a twisted pram, broken boughs. The soil is studded with featureless small mounds; the one nearest to us is covered in fur. And everything is rendered drab and dun by the enveloping mud.

  This is Hen’s first visit to the Black Patch. We’re not going to find anything useful, but I can’t stay away. As I said, in my defense, at least we’ll know whether the police know more than they say they do—and they say that work has only just begun again, that after the flood it’s like starting from scratch. Even finding the exact spot where the bones were located is proving difficult. Looking at it now, I believe it. No way to keep the floodwaters out of that makeshift grave.

  Considine isn’t here, and the mud-smeared forensics woman sent to talk to us doesn’t want us setting foot inside the gate. We’ll be informed, apparently.

  Then a thought strikes her.

  “Your missing person . . .”

  We nod.

  “Got a medical history?”

  “We can ask. Have you got something?”

  “One of the arm bones . . . seems to show a historical break—I mean a greenstick fracture, from early childhood. Not particularly well mended. Ask about childhood accidents.”

  “Which arm?”

  “Right. Radius. About here.” She places thumb and forefinger, calliperlike, on her own wrist. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  When we get back to the office there is a message from Andrea—the mystery Rose caller has rung again. She told him to ring back, and at four o’clock he does so.

  By then I have spoken to Leon. He told me he didn’t think Rose had broken her arm. Then, half an hour after I called him, he rings back.

  “Just spoke to her sister,” he says gruffly, warily.

  I didn’t explain why I was asking, but he’s not stupid.

  “She said . . . She said Rose fell and hurt her right arm when she was about five. We didn’t take her to hospital; thought it was just a sprain . . . I’d forgotten—”

  His voice breaks off abruptly.

  “Well, maybe it was,” I say carefully, but with my heart knocking against my Adam’s apple.

  “You’re asking ’cause you’ve found something, haven’t you? You’ve found a . . .”

  He can’t bring himself to say the word “body.”

  “Mr. Wood, we don’t know anything for sure yet. Some . . . remains have been found. But we don’t know yet whether it’s the right age . . . It may not be. There’s not much to go on at the moment. But there is damage to the right forearm: a greenstick fracture, they called it . . .”

  “Oh, God—” He breaks off. Squeaks and wheezes come down the telephone line.

  “I’m sorry, but you have to remember that the search isn’t over . . . They can’t identify the remains yet. It may just be a coincidence. Please don’t assume the worst.”

  I say the words I’m supposed to say, but my heart isn’t in it, and I think he can tell.

  “Oh, God,” he says again. “At least . . . At least her mother isn’t here to hear this.”

  I wish I had spoken to him face-to-face now, but he insisted I tell him over the phone. And really, as I tell him again, it’s just a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle, not enough to assume the worst, not nearly enough to tell for sure.

  Hen is talking to the anonymous caller now. I told him Leon’s news, and he is treating the caller to his politely bored voice.

  “Wales?”

  He rolls his eyes.

  “I think we could come down tomorrow . . .”

  He looks at me—a question. I shrug acquiescence—we can wait there as well as here, I reckon.

  “Fine, then. All right . . . You’ll be . . . ? Okay. We’ll see you then.” “Might be worth the trip, from the sound of him.”

  I smile, feeling the butterflies jumping in my stomach. Case-end butterflies.

  “Course, you don’t have to come, too.”

  I just look at him in response.

  46.

  JJ

  Mum was really quiet when they came back from the pub. She barely spoke all evening. Later that night, I woke up, and I was pretty sure she was crying, very quietly. I didn’t know what to say, or whether to say anything at all. The next day, I try my hardest to cheer her up, but she almost seems not to see me, like she’s in a trance. I know she doesn’t hate Christo, so I’m pretty sure it’s not that. Eventually, I go over to Gran’s.

  “I know your mum’s upset, love. It’s not fair on her, all this. She was really fond of Ivo, too, probably more than any of us.”

  I let that one pass.

  “She seems so . . . depressed.”

  “We all are. We’ve all been thinking about it.”

  There’s something odd about this, and Gran sort of stops what she’s doing, and then starts again, tutting to herself.

  “Gran . . . thinking about what?”

  She pretends there isn’t anything at first, but eventually she tells me. I can tell she wants to, really. She tells me that in the pub, Lulu told her and Mum something awful—she told them about the skeleton the police have found in the Fens, a skeleton they think is Rose.

  . . .

  I haven’t been near his trailer since that night. I haven’t wanted to go near it. The window I broke has only been patched up with a bit of board tacked to the door. Strange that no one ever said anything about it. I force
it out and open the door, only breaking off one more bit of glass in the process.

  The trailer’s been empty for well over a week. It smells inside—stuffy and airless, with a faint whiff of something bitter. I have a sudden fear— what if he has booby-trapped the place? . . . Herbs that can kill if you only smell them . . . Is there such a thing? I open the door wide, just in case.

  To be honest, it doesn’t look that different from the way it did the last time I was in here. In the kitchenette, everything has been cleaned and put away. The fridge is empty, and only a packet of biscuits and some instant mash remain in the cupboard. I force myself to check the back of the cupboards, but there’s nothing strange there this time—the poly bag behind the cleaning stuff is gone—he didn’t put it outside with the rest of our rubbish, so he must’ve taken it straight to the dump. I can’t see anything suspicious.

  I pull out drawers and open the cupboards. The only things that seem to be gone are clothes. I can’t remember exactly what was here before, but all the pictures, the knickknacks, even some of Christo’s toys and kids’ books, they’re all still here. It’s like when someone has gone away for a few days and could walk back in at any minute. The thought gives me the shivers. All in all, I can’t find anything out of the ordinary. The women’s things have gone. And despite the strange smell—which I can’t smell anymore, so maybe it’s been blown away; either that or I’m used to it—I can’t find any traces of plants or twigs. Nothing funny like that. None of the stuff I saw during the casting out, not even candles. Nothing that obviously belongs to a murderer.

  But in a locker under one of the seats, I do find a plastic jerry can. It clearly hasn’t been touched for months. It’s one of the ones I filled with holy water at Lourdes, but it’s still almost full, still with my homemade label on it, and the pencil drawing of Mary (or was it meant to be Bernadette?—I can’t remember), complete with halo and childish exclamation marks. I didn’t see it last time, or maybe I just didn’t notice. I feel hot just looking at it. Ivo must have stuffed it in here soon after we came back, and left it to gather dust.

  He must have laughed at me.