Daughters of Darkness

by Sally Spencer

  There was no sign of Jane.

  Grace clutched the baby tighter to her, and started running again.

  THIRTY-TWO

  ‘How do you know it wasn’t Jane’s baby who died?’ Derek Stockton asks, his voice carrying a hint of desperation which says – more accurately than the actual words ever could – that he is hoping for a miracle that will reverse what he secretly knows to be true. ‘Why couldn’t that be the baby that Grace pushed out into the river?’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ I say bluntly – because it would be cruel to sugar the truth.

  ‘You can’t know that,’ he persists.

  ‘But I can,’ I tell him. ‘Annie Tobin was standing out on the landing outside Grace’s flat that night …’

  ‘Who is Annie Tobin?’

  ‘She was Grace’s babysitter. She was also, according to a teacher who was there at the time, Grace’s favourite pupil, perhaps because Grace could see that she was very vulnerable and really needed a friend. Am I making sense here?’

  Derek Stockton nods solemnly. ‘Grace was always attracted to waifs and strays.’

  ‘So she was on the landing, and she heard the baby crying,’ I recap. ‘She’d never heard her cry so loudly before, and she thought that must mean she was in real distress. But it wasn’t that at all – the baby she heard was just stronger and older than Grace’s baby – because that baby was Jane’s.’

  ‘As you said, this Annie Tobin heard all this through a door. It could just have been …’

  ‘Grace liked Annie very much,’ I say. ‘She trusted her. So why did she turn on her? Why did Grace, who was positively spilling over with the milk of human kindness, viciously attack a vulnerable teenager?’

  It was as if … as if she really didn’t want to be nasty to me, but she had no choice, Annie had told me.

  ‘She had to force herself to have an argument with Annie, because otherwise she would have had no excuse for refusing to let Annie see the baby for one last time,’ I continue.

  ‘Yes, yes, that makes sense,’ Stockton says, lowering his head.

  It’s as if I’ve suddenly placed a great weight on his shoulders, and I wonder what I could have said to have caused such a reaction.

  Then I understand! It’s because I’ve closed off the avenue for miracles – because I’ve set free the truth he was trying to suppress.

  ‘Grace told you that Julia wasn’t yours, but you hoped she’d been lying to you for some strange, twisted reason of her own,’ I say. ‘Now you see that she wasn’t lying at all.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he admits.

  ‘I think we both need that drink now,’ I say, and when he makes a half-hearted attempt to rise from his slumped position, I add, ‘don’t go troubling yourself, I’ll make them.’

  I walk over to the drinks cabinet, which is rosewood, and so beautiful and delicate that I am almost envious.

  ‘What can I get you, Dr Stockton?’ I ask. ‘A glass of whisky?’

  ‘Brandy,’ he mumbles.

  THIRTY-THREE

  13th April, 1972

  Grace was drafting the article she had promised the Anthropologist when she heard the doorbell ring. She frowned, as she wondered who might be responsible for this interruption. The manor’s location ensured that there were very few casual visitors – indeed, she couldn’t remember the last one.

  The doorbell rang again. It was clear that whoever was calling wasn’t going to simply give up and go away.

  With a sigh, Grace stood up and walked to the front door. When she opened the door, she was surprised to find herself looking at a woman with wild eyes who was wearing a red duffle coat.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘Where’s Ellen?’ the woman demanded. ‘I want to see my Ellen.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Grace confessed, ‘but I have no idea what you’re …’

  ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ the woman demanded.

  She did look vaguely familiar, Grace thought. In fact, if she were much skinnier and thirty years younger, she might …

  It couldn’t be!

  It simply couldn’t be!

  ‘You’re not … you’re not Jane, are you?’ Grace gasped.

  ‘Where’s my Ellen?’ Jane said. ‘Where’s my baby?’

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Grace said. ‘Where have you been since 1944?’

  ‘In a lunatic asylum,’ Jane told her bitterly. ‘Until the day before yesterday, I didn’t even know who I was, but I know now, right enough.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Grace said.

  She sounded just like the old Grace, the good kind Grace who had taken pity on her as she stood outside the King’s Head, Jane thought, and she discovered that the hatred which had been building up inside was draining away.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Grace repeated. ‘Well, don’t just stand there – come inside.’

  Grace led Jane to the kitchen, and sat her down at the big wooden table.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’ she asked. ‘A glass of wine, perhaps, or a whisky and lemonade?’

  ‘I don’t drink,’ said Jane, who was experiencing such a jumble of emotions that it almost paralysed her.

  ‘Would you like a glass of water, then?’ Grace asked, solicitously.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Grace fetched the water, and Jane took a sip of it.

  ‘I’m wearing my hair bracelet,’ she said. ‘I’ve always felt I had to wear it, but I didn’t know why. Then I saw your picture in the paper, and I understood what it was supposed to mean.’ She shook her head, almost in disbelief. ‘I don’t know why I’m still wearing it now that I remember what happened. It must be because, in spite of everything, I still love you.’

  ‘And I still love you,’ Grace said. ‘You have to believe me, Jane, if I’d known where you were, I’d have got you out years ago.’ She reached across the table and took the other woman’s hands. Jane did not resist. ‘But now you are out, everything will be wonderful. I’ve got a lot of money, and I’ll look after you. I could buy you a little house in Spain, almost on the beach. Would you like that?’

  ‘I want to see my daughter,’ Jane said.

  ‘But what would be the point of that, after all these years? She doesn’t even know you exist.’

  Jane pulled her hands away.

  ‘I want to see Ellen,’ she told Grace. ‘I’m going to see her, whatever you say.’

  ‘Have you thought of the damage it might do to her to learn that I’m not her mother?’ Grace asked, and an icy edge was creeping into her voice. ‘Have you considered how it would destroy my husband if he discovered he’s not really her father?’

  ‘I’m sorry for your husband – honestly I am,’ Jane said. ‘And I realize it will come as a bit of a shock to Ellen—’

  ‘Julia,’ Grace interrupted her. ‘Her name’s Julia.’

  ‘But I’m the one who gave birth to her, and she’s entitled to know that I’m her mother.’

  Jane had been looking down at the table, as if she were ashamed, but hearing the words she had spoken herself, she felt a growing conviction that she was – beyond question – right.

  She raised her head and looked Grace straight in the eye – and what she read there terrified her.

  It was like looking into two dark pits of evil – two swirling whirlpools of malevolence.

  She’s mad! Jane thought, as fear settled icily in the pit of her stomach. I’m supposed to be the lunatic, but it’s her! It’s her!

  Despite this chill in her gut, her hands were sweating.

  And her heart?

  That was pounding out a frenzied drum solo!

  ‘Is something the matter, dear, dear Jane?’ Grace asked, in a voice that hardly seemed human.

  ‘It’s … it’s very hot in here. I have to go outside for a minute or two,’ Jane croaked.

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ the monster sitting opposite her agreed. ‘A little fresh air will help you to see things much more clearly.
Would you like me to come with you, dear?’

  Jane shook her head violently. ‘No, no, I’d be much better on my own.’

  She rose from the table and stepped into the corridor. And all the time she was listening – more intently than she had ever listened before, it seemed to her – for the sound of Grace getting up to follow her. But there was not even the slightest creak of Grace’s chair – not even a hint of it scraping along the floor – and when she reached the front door she was sure that the other woman had not moved.

  She opened the front door and stepped out onto the forecourt. Looking around her, first to the left and then to the right, she saw – as she’d known she would – nothing but open fields.

  It was at least half a mile to the nearest farm, and though there was nothing to stop her making a run for it, she knew she would never make it all the way.

  She walked with an unsteady gait over to the ornamental fountain, and looked up at the three dolphins spouting water into the basin below. They seemed so serene – so at one with the world. It was hard to believe that anything could go wrong with these gentle creatures guarding her.

  She trailed her hand in the water. It was cool and it was soothing, and the falling jets created a breeze which caressed her feverish forehead. It was probably because of the sound of the water that she did not hear the door open again, or the footsteps as Grace stealthily approached her.

  It was all over in the blink of an eye. One moment, the back of Jane’s neck was as white as a swan’s, the next a deep red gash ran along it, and the next … the next, her head lurched forward, and – realizing there was no longer anything to restrain it – fell like a tossed coin into the fountain.

  The trunk, sans head, stayed where it was for a second – the victim of inertia – and then the assassin’s hands pushed it, and it, too, fell into the fountain.

  The bright red blood became somewhat diluted as it spread through the basin, but it was still dark enough to be recognized for what it was when – recycled – it started to gush from the dolphins’ mouths.

  There were tears in Grace’s eyes. She had not wanted to kill Jane. She’d loved Jane. But she had loved Julia more – had denied her affection only in order to protect her, just as she was protecting her now.

  And Derek? She owed him everything, and if she had had to sacrifice her own life for him, rather than Jane’s, she would have done it willingly.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I pour a brandy for Stockton in a large balloon glass, and make myself a strong gin and tonic. I like my G&Ts with lemon and ice, but I don’t want to break the spell by going into the kitchen, and so I decide to put up with drinking it warm and citrus-less for once.

  I take him his drink, and sit down myself.

  ‘Your turn,’ I say.

  I am not more specific. I don’t need to be.

  ‘I lied when I said that I expected Grace to be there at the airport to pick me up,’ he says. ‘I knew she wouldn’t, because I was deliberately arriving one day earlier than I’d told her I would be.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ I ask.

  ‘I wanted to catch her unawares.’

  ‘Again, why?’

  ‘Just before I left for the United States, I began to notice that Grace was behaving very oddly with Roger Quinn,’ he says. ‘He’s the Professor of Ethics at St Luke’s,’ he amplifies.

  ‘I know,’ I tell him.

  ‘Of course you do. What made it even worse was that Roger was my best friend, so it was a double betrayal.’

  ‘You thought they were having an affair?’ I say.

  ‘Yes, I did. I’d catch them just looking at each other – exchanging secret glances. And once, I found them talking very conspiratorially in a corner. They stopped doing it the moment they saw me, but I knew what was going on, all right.’

  ‘Shortly before she was murdered, Grace and Roger Quinn, Derek’s best friend, spent days and days organizing a surprise 55th birthday for Derek – a party which, sadly, never happened,’ Charlie had told me in the Eagle and Child.

  ‘You were wrong,’ I tell him.

  ‘I know that now. But the longer I was in America, the more I became convinced it was true. So I flew home earlier, to see if I could catch them at it. I don’t know what I’d have done if I had – I’d certainly never have been able to bring myself to hurt either of them – but by then I really wasn’t thinking straight at all.’

  ‘What did you find when you got home?’

  ‘Grace was in the kitchen, working on something on the table, and from where I was standing, by the back door, it looked to me like a Halloween mask. Then she saw me there. “What are you doing here?” she said, but I didn’t reply – I couldn’t reply because now I understood what exactly it was, and there were simply no words to express the horror I was experiencing.’

  I feel for him.

  I really do.

  I feel for all of them.

  ‘Tell me the rest,’ I say gently.

  He does. The words pour out of his mouth in a torrent of passion. His eyes, swollen with sorrow, become a screen on which I can almost see the whole tragic scene being played out.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Grace asks.

  And then, before he can collect himself enough to answer, she rushes across to him, and grabs him tightly by the lapels of his jacket.

  ‘I killed her and buried her body in the bluebell wood,’ she says – and she is sobbing now. ‘I had to kill her. She left me no choice.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he gasps.

  She is still holding on to him tightly, and he doesn’t know if it is begging or threatening.

  Maybe it is both.

  ‘If I’d let her live, she would have told Julia the truth,’ she moans.

  ‘What truth?’ he asks. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  She releases her grip on him, and takes a few steps backwards.

  ‘I’m so very, very sorry,’ she says.

  ‘That’s a start,’ he says, clutching at the first straw to float his way.

  ‘What is?’ she asks.

  ‘That you’re sorry that you killed her.’

  ‘Oh that,’ she says dismissively. ‘That doesn’t matter. I’m sorry that I failed you as a wife.’

  And insanely – with the shrunken head lying on the table only feet away from him – he wants to reassure her that she hasn’t failed him at all, that she’s what’s given meaning to his life.

  But before he can say this, she speaks again. ‘Julia isn’t our child’ – she points to the shrunken head – ‘she’s hers.’

  He can’t comprehend what she’s saying. He … just … can’t … comprehend.

  ‘But you were pregnant,’ he says. ‘You gave birth. I know you did. I’ve seen the birth certificate.’

  ‘Our child died,’ she tells him. ‘I woke up one morning, and she was gone.’

  ‘But where is she … where is she buried?’

  ‘She isn’t buried at all – I pushed her out onto the river on a burning boat.’

  ‘I think that’s when I lost it,’ Derek Stockton says to me. ‘The other Julia – the dead Julia – had been my child, and Grace had denied her a Christian burial. How could she?’

  ‘What happened next?’ I ask.

  ‘I told her I was leaving her,’ he says.

  He exits the kitchen, crosses the living room, and heads towards the bedroom they have shared for thirty years.

  She scuttles behind him. ‘Why are you going to the bedroom?’

  ‘To pack some clothes.’

  ‘But I don’t see why …’

  ‘I’m leaving you, Grace.’

  ‘You can’t leave me!’ she screams.

  But he is already laying out shirts on the bed.

  ‘I won’t tell the police what you’ve done, but you have to,’ he says.

  ‘Why are you leaving?’ she asks, as if she hasn’t heard him.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ he says, but he c
an tell from the puzzled look on her face that she probably doesn’t, so he adds, ‘You killed a woman,’

  ‘But I’ve explained to you why I had to do that.’

  ‘And you denied my poor dead baby the blessing of Almighty God.’

  ‘Why should it matter if she joined the Trinka spirits instead of going to a Christian heaven?’

  He says nothing, because he can’t trust himself to reply.

  ‘You can’t leave me,’ she sobs. ‘I won’t let you leave me! My life is nothing if you’re gone. It’s better that we both die.’

  ‘I’m going,’ he says firmly.

  And that’s when he sees the knife in her hand.

  Neither of them had handled it well, I think, but that was because they both held deep-seated beliefs, and – not for the first time – I thank God I’m an atheist.

  ‘I only meant to disarm her,’ Derek Stockton tells me, ‘but I was a commando in the war, and we were trained to never give our opponents a second chance.’

  ‘So your instincts took over, and before you knew what was happening, she was lying dead on the floor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You quickly worked out that if your wife went missing, the police would immediately suspect you,’ I say.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But if she’d been murdered while you were in America, you couldn’t be held responsible for it. Your biggest problem was that if the police learned you’d come back unexpectedly early, they’d start wondering why you hadn’t informed your wife. And that would lead them to suspect that the reason you hadn’t rung was that it would have been pointless – because you knew she was already dead. And it’s only a small step from that to deducing that you’d hired the killer. In other words, they’d have reached the right conclusion – that you’d killed your wife – but by using the totally wrong logic.’

  ‘No tragedy is ever without its irony,’ he says sadly.

  ‘So what you needed to do was to leave a message on the answerphone which told your wife of your change of plans. Where did you make that call from, by the way?’