The Cradle in the Grave Read online

  Is this conversation going to get easier? She’s harder to talk to than Laurie.

  You’re not supposed to be thinking about him, remember?

  She stands back to let me in. ‘I’m less nervous than you are because I know for sure that you’re not a murderer. You don’t know that about me.’

  I don’t want to have to respond to that, so instead I look around. What I see takes my breath away: a large hall with a glossy pale stone floor and skirting boards made from the same polished stone, about three times the height of any I’ve seen before. Everywhere I look there’s something beautiful: the figure-of-eight newel-post, top and bottom circles hollowed out in the middle like something Henry Moore or Barbara Hepworth might have made; the chandelier, a falling shower of blue and pink glass tears, nearly as wide as the ceiling; two large oil paintings side by side, taking up an entire wall, both of women seemingly falling through the air, with small pinched black mouths and their hair flying out behind them; two chairs that look like thrones, with ornate wooden backs and seats covered in shimmery material the colour of moonlight; the water-feature sculpture in the corner – a human figure, the body made of rough-edged pink stone, the head a perpetually rolling white marble ball with water sliding off it as it moves, like a sheet of clear hair. I’m most impressed by what can only be described as a sunken glass rug, a rectangle of clear glass unevenly flecked with silver and gold, set into the stone in the centre of the hall, with light glowing through from beneath.

  For about two seconds, I try to kid myself that this tryingtoo-hard interior wouldn’t suit me at all, that I find it vulgar and over-the-top. Then I give up and face the fact that I’d chop off my right arm to live in a house like this, or to have a friend or relative who did that I could stay with. Tonight, on police advice, I’ve arranged to stay at Tamsin and Joe’s, on a hard futon in their cobwebby, rattly-windowed computer room. I hate myself for making the comparison. I am officially a horrible, shallow person.

  ‘You don’t know for sure that I’m not a murderer,’ I say, to prove that Rachel Hines isn’t the only one capable of unexpected pronouncements.

  ‘I know that I’m not,’ she says.

  ‘Wendy Whitehead.’ I hadn’t been planning to mention her name so soon. I’m not sure I’m ready to know. That’s how good a truth-hunter I am: please don’t tell me anything – I’m too scared. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I thought you might want a drink before—’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘A nurse. Well, she was. She’s not any more.’

  We stare at one another. Eventually I say, ‘I’ll have a drink, thanks.’ If I’m about to become the only person apart from Rachel Hines who knows the truth about her children’s deaths, I need to prepare myself.

  This can’t be happening.

  I follow her into a kitchen that’s more haphazard than the hall but still beautiful: oak floor, curved white work surfaces that look like a sort of spongy stone, a double Belfast sink, a stripe of pale green glass with water pulsing through it running all the way along the floor on one side, breaking up the wood. Against one wall there’s a cream-coloured Aga, except it’s three times longer than any I’ve seen before. It’s only slightly shorter than a minibus, come to think of it. In the centre of the room there’s a large battered pine table with eight chairs around it, and, behind that, one of those freestanding island things, shaped like a teardrop, its curved sides painted pink and green.

  Against the wall nearest to me, there’s a purple backless sofa with a matching footstool pushed up against it. Both have been designed to within an inch of their lives. Together, they look like a wiggly exclamation mark. I notice a calendar on the wall: twelve months at a glance, with a tiny rectangle of space assigned to each day of the year. At the top it says ‘Dairy Diary’. A Christmas present from the milkman? There’s handwriting on it, but I’m not close enough to read it. Above the purple sofa are three paintings of stripes that warp when you look at them. I try to read the pencil signature at the bottom of the nearest one: Bridget something.

  Above the minibus-Aga there’s a framed photograph of two young men punting down a river. They’re both good looking: one serious-faced and dark with a nice smile, the other blond and well aware of his sex appeal. A couple? Did they meet as students at Cambridge, hence the punt? If I was the sort of prejudiced person who leapt to conclusions about gay men and stunning interior design, I’d be concluding round about now that this might be their home.

  ‘No family resemblance whatsoever, is there? You wouldn’t believe three siblings could come out so different from one another.’ Rachel Hines nods at the photograph and hands me a glass of something dark pink. ‘Those two hogged all the good looks. And the charm.’

  Not a gay couple, then. Of course. The sons of Marchington House would have studied at Cambridge. No sexed-up polytechnics for them. Rachel Hines probably went to Cambridge too, or Oxford. Any parents who install a strip of whooshy green glass in their kitchen floor would want all their children to get the very best education possible.

  I wonder where those parents are. Out at work?

  ‘It wasn’t Wendy Whitehead’s fault that Marcella and Nathaniel died. I tried to tell you that on the phone, but you cut me off. Please, have a seat.’

  Not her fault? I realise how dry my mouth is, and take a sip of what turns out to be cranberry juice. ‘You said she killed them.’

  ‘She thought she was protecting them. So did I, which is why I let her do it.’

  I wait for her to explain, trying to ignore the chill that’s creeping up my back. For a second, as she stares at me, her poise seems to slip and she looks trapped, helpless. ‘Can’t you work it out? I’ve told you she’s a nurse.’

  ‘I’ve read Laurie’s notes. There was no nurse at your house when . . . You were alone with both babies when they died.’

  ‘Wendy gave Marcella and Nathaniel their first DTP jabs. You don’t have children, do you?’

  I shake my head. Vaccination. She’s talking about vaccination. I remember reading something in a newspaper a while ago about crazy hippies who refuse to immunise their children and rely instead on ginseng and patchouli oil to ward off disease.

  ‘They scream when you take them for their jabs. You have to hold them while the needle goes in, but you don’t feel as if you’re hurting them. You think you’re doing your duty as a good mother. You make no comparisons or analogies, you don’t think about the other circumstances in which people are injected against their will, all of them horrendous . . .’

  I push her out of my way, walk over to the kitchen table and slam down my glass. I’m glad I didn’t bother sitting. ‘I’m going. I never should have come here in the first place.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Isn’t it obvious?’ I can hardly contain my disappointment. ‘You’re making this up as you go along. Nothing was said at your trial about any DTP jabs.’

  ‘Well spotted. You could ask me why.’

  ‘Now you’re making out that what happened to Marcella and Nathaniel was down to routine childhood vaccinations, trying to compare them to lethal injections on death row.’

  ‘You don’t know what I’m trying to say, because you didn’t let me finish. Marcella was born two weeks early – did you know that?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘If you leave now, you’ll never find out.’

  I bend to pick up my bag. Now that I know I’m not going to be exec-ing a documentary about a murderer called Wendy Whitehead who nearly got away with it, I’ve no reason to stay. Rachel Hines must know that. What lie will she try next?

  ‘Why are you so angry with me?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t like being messed around. Don’t pretend you haven’t been toying with me from the first phone call – insisting on coming to my house in the middle of the night, then driving away. Ringing me and saying Wendy Whitehead killed your children, conveniently forgetting to mention anything about vaccinations
. . .’

  ‘You hung up on me.’

  ‘I lied to the police, thanks to you. They asked me if I had an address for you and I said no. I’m supposed to suspend all work on the film until they give me the all-clear. I shouldn’t be here.’ My bag slides off my shoulder. I try to catch it and fail. It drops to the floor. ‘You sent me those cards and the photograph, didn’t you? It was you.’

  She looks puzzled, but puzzled looks are easy to fake. ‘Cards?’ she says.

  ‘Sixteen numbers in a square. The police think whoever sent them might try to . . . attack me or something. They didn’t say so, but I can tell that’s what they think.’

  ‘Slow down, Fliss. Let’s talk about this calmly. I promise you I didn’t send you any—’

  ‘No! I don’t want to talk to you! I’m walking out of here now, and you’re not going to contact me again – I want your word on that. Whatever game you’ve been playing with me is over. Say it! Tell me you’ll leave me alone.’

  ‘You don’t trust me, do you?’

  ‘That’s an understatement!’ In my whole life, I have never spoken to anyone so viciously.

  ‘My word’s worthless, then.’

  ‘Good point,’ I say, heading for the front door. My lie to the police won’t matter if I correct it as soon as I can. I’ll ring DC Simon Waterhouse and tell him Rachel Hines is at Marchington House in Twickenham and that I’m sure she’s the person who sent me those numbers. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before. I got the first card in Wednesday morning’s post. It was on Wednesday that she phoned me for the first time. Did she sit down on Tuesday and make a list? Item one: abandon all other projects and devote all time henceforth to messing with Fliss Benson’s head?

  ‘Fliss!’ She grabs my arm, pulling me back towards her.

  ‘Let go of me!’ I feel dizzy, unsteady on my feet, as if by touching me she’s injected pure, undiluted panic into my bloodstream. I think of DC Waterhouse telling me not to go anywhere alone.

  ‘Do you think I killed them?’ she asks. ‘Do you think I murdered Marcella and Nathaniel? Tell me the truth.’

  ‘Maybe you did. I don’t know. I’ll never know—neither will anyone, apart from you. If I had to guess, based on what little I know of you, I’d say yes, I think you probably did it.’ There, I’ve said it, and fuck you, Laurie, if you’re telepathic and heard me say it and you’re shaking your head in disgust. You never bothered to ask me what I thought about your protégées, did you? Helen and Sarah and Rachel. My opinion doesn’t matter. It matters as little as the sex we had yesterday.

  Without warning, I burst into tears. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I try to regain control, but it’s useless. I feel like someone who can’t swim, powerless in the face of a gushing waterfall. It doesn’t even feel as if the tears are coming from me and, for a few minutes, I’m too shocked by what my body is doing without permission to notice that someone is holding me tight, or to realise, because no one else is here, that that someone must be Rachel Hines.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you. You probably don’t want to talk about it.’

  I shake my head. I’m sitting on the wiggly purple sofa in the kitchen, concentrating on drinking my cranberry juice, sip by sip. Perhaps by the time I finish it, I won’t feel so horrendously embarrassed. Rachel’s sitting at the table at the far end of the room, trying to keep a tactful distance. As if either of us is likely to forget that she’s just spent the last half hour mopping me up.

  ‘I didn’t send you a card with numbers on it,’ she says. ‘Or any photographs. Did you ask the police why they thought the sender might attack you? If you’re in danger, you’ve a right to know what’s going on. Why don’t you—?’

  ‘I don’t need a life coach,’ I mutter ungraciously.

  ‘And if you did, you wouldn’t recruit me,’ she says, neatly summarising my views on the matter. ‘I can explain why I drove away on Wednesday night, but it might offend you.’

  I shrug. I’m already feeling unloveable, humiliated and terrified – offended might as well join the club.

  ‘I didn’t like your house.’

  I look up, to check I’ve heard right. ‘What?’

  ‘It looks dirty. The paint’s flaking off the window frames . . .’

  ‘I don’t own it. I rent the basement flat, that’s all.’

  ‘Is it nice?’

  I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. ‘My flat? No, it’s not nice. It’s about—ooh, let’s see—five million times less nice than this house. It’s small and damp and all I can afford.’ I wonder if I ought to qualify this: all I could afford, until recently. Why bother? As soon as Maya hears Rachel Hines’ revised opinion of me, not to mention Laurie’s, I’ll be unemployed and probably homeless. Even mouldy flats in Kilburn cost money.

  ‘I looked at the outside of your house and I knew I wouldn’t like the inside. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter, that I’d be okay, but I knew I wouldn’t. I pictured us sitting and talking in a dingy lounge, with posters stuck to the plasterboard walls with drawing pins, and a throw over the sofa to hide the stains, and . . .’ She sighs. ‘I know how awful this sounds, but I want to be honest with you.’

  ‘I can’t complain, can I? I accused you of being a childkiller.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You said you didn’t know. There’s a big difference.’

  I look away, wishing I hadn’t let her provoke me into expressing an opinion.

  ‘Ever since prison, I’ve . . . I can’t stand to be anywhere that isn’t . . .’

  ‘A stunning mansion?’ I say sarcastically.

  ‘The wrong physical environment, any kind of ugly surroundings – it makes me feel physically sick,’ she says. ‘It never used to. Prison changed me in lots of ways, but that was the first thing I noticed, the first night I was out. Angus and I had split up. I had no home to go to, so I went to a hotel.’ She takes a deep breath, drawing in her chin.

  Only three stars, was it? I don’t say it. It’s too easy to be cruel to her, and I know I’d enjoy it too much. It’s not her fault I started blubbing and made an exhibition of myself.

  ‘I didn’t like the room they put me in, but I told myself it didn’t matter – I’d only be there a few nights while I sorted out somewhere more permanent to live. I had this nauseous feeling that wouldn’t go away, a bit like car sickness, but I tried to ignore it.’

  ‘What was wrong with the room?’ I asked. ‘Was it dirty?’

  ‘Probably. I don’t know.’ I hear impatience in her voice, as if she’s been asked the same question countless times and still can’t come up with an answer. ‘It was mainly the curtains that bothered me.’

  ‘Dirty?’ I try again.

  ‘I didn’t get close enough to find out. They were too thin and too short. They stopped at the bottom of the window instead of going down to the floor. It was as if someone had pinned two handkerchiefs to the wall. And they were attached to one of those horrible plastic tracks with no pelmet or anything to cover it. You could see bits of string poking out behind the material at the top.’ She shudders. ‘They were disgusting. I wanted to run from the room screaming. I know it sounds crazy.’

  Just a bit.

  ‘There was a picture on the wall of a stone urn, with flowers strewn around its base. I didn’t like that either. It was sort of washed-out looking. No proper colours.’ She rubs her neck, plucks at the skin with her fingers. ‘I wondered at first if it was because it was an urn—you know, the death connection—but I decided it couldn’t be. Marcella and Nathaniel weren’t cremated, they were buried.’ Her matter-of-fact tone makes my skin prickle. You know, the death connection. How can someone whose two babies have died say that so casually?

  ‘Anyway, there was nothing I could do,’ she goes on, unaware of my reaction. ‘I couldn’t ask to change rooms without a good reason, and I didn’t have one, not until I turned on the taps in the bathroom and nothing came out. No water. I was so pleased, I burst into tears, ran to th
e phone – I had my legitimate reason, and I knew they’d have to move me. Silly thing was, I didn’t really care about having no water – I could have got a bottle from the mini-bar and used it to brush my teeth and wash my face. I just wanted to get away from those damn curtains.’ She looks at me with a weak grin. ‘The ones in my new room were better. They were still too short, but at least there was a pelmet, and the material was thicker. But . . .’ She closes her eyes. I wait for her to tell me that there was something even more appalling in the new room: the previous occupant’s toenail clippings in a pile on the bedside table. The thought makes me feel sick; I try to erase it from my mind. The jury will disregard the image of hard, yellow slivers of toenail.

  ‘The picture of the urn was there, up on the wall – the same wall as in the previous room, directly opposite the bed.’ From her haunted expression and her shaky voice, anyone would think she was recalling a scene of carnage. Perhaps she’s about to. I realise I’m holding my breath.

  It’s a while before she speaks again. When she does, she says, ‘Not the exact same picture, obviously. An identical copy. They must have put one in each room – clones masquerading as art. Hideous, mass-produced . . . crap!’

  So? Is that it?

  ‘I was sick then – properly, physically sick. I packed my things and got the hell out of there, didn’t have a clue where I was going. I flagged down a taxi in the street and heard myself reciting my old Notting Hill address to the driver.’

  ‘You went to your ex-husband?’ Why not here, to Marchington House?

  ‘Angus. Yes.’ There’s a faraway look in her eyes. ‘I told him I couldn’t stay in the hotel, but I didn’t tell him why. He wouldn’t have understood if I’d said there was no difference between a hotel room and a cell at Geddham Hall.’