Living in the Shadows (36 page)

‘It’s about Vicky.’

‘Oh?’ Well, that was unexpected; Linda felt the tension ease in her jaw. ‘Has she been found? A moment of anxiety. ‘Is she okay?’

‘No, and yes as far as anyone knows,’ Jackie said. ‘It’s not that.’ She picked imaginary bits of fluff off her jeans. ‘Uncle Peter’s got it into his head that she’s here in Ashford.’ She cleared her throat. ‘In particular, in the old mill. In the Granville. And he wants me to go with him to look for her in the morning.’

The muscles clenched in Linda’s throat. She put her drink carefully down on the glass-topped table in front of her. ‘Why there?’ She cursed the quiver in her voice, hating the evident sign of her fear.

‘Some hippie types moved in a few months ago,’ Jackie said. ‘With all the news being full of the hassle between police forces and squatters, he thinks there’s a chance she’s there. Although I’ve told him we’ve already looked all over the Granville.’

‘Does Auntie Mary think the same?’

‘She doesn’t know about it. She wasn’t in when he saw some news programme on it. And then when Uncle Ted told him about the commune at the Granville…’

‘Uncle Peter put two and two together?’

‘Yep. And made five.’ Jackie moved her shoulders again in a dismissive action. ‘I think he’s clutching at straws.’

Nicki ground her cigarette out in the ashtray on her lap. ‘But let’s face it, in the last few days they’ve been all over Manchester looking for her and putting up those notices with no luck. I suppose he thinks it worth a try.’

They both spoke with such nonchalance but Linda wasn’t fooled. They were watching for her reaction. She sat as still as she could, even though the pulse in her temple was pounding and her heart was keeping time with the short breaths she took in through her nose. She closed her eyes, opened them instantly as the memory of darkness closed in on her.

‘I need some fresh air.’ She bolted for the balcony doors and pulled at them. They were locked. She scrabbled at the key.

‘Here, let me.’ Nicki’s calm voice broke through Linda’s anxiety.

‘Thanks.’ Linda let the woman reach past her to turn the Yale. Once outside she grabbed the iron rail surrounding the small balcony, comforted by the sturdiness of the metal beneath her hands and breathing in the coolness of the evening.

‘I’m sorry, Lin.’ Jackie stood alongside her. ‘I thought you should know.’ She clasped Linda’s hand, nodding towards some fields just visible over the tops of the houses opposite. A bank of thin cloud blurred the misty lines of the pink and lemon sunset. ‘Remember the hours we spent up there?’

Linda managed a tremulous smile. ‘You mean the hours you spent running round them?’ She nudged Jackie. ‘And insisting I time you on my watch.’

‘Which you never did, because you always had your head in a book.’

Their shared low laughter faded.

‘It’ll all be all right, you know,’ Jackie said.

‘Perhaps.’ Linda couldn’t check the ripple of fear that puckered the skin on her arms again. Neither could she block out the knowledge that there was so much that her cousin didn’t know. ‘But I’ll be coming with you.’ She held her hand up as Jackie opened her mouth to protest. ‘No argument.’

Chapter 79: Peter Schormann, Jacqueline Howarth & Linda Booth

Ashford, early morning: Wednesday, October 22nd

Peter knew this might be his last day of freedom. And he was content; this way, when the whole truth came out, George Shuttleworth would have no hold over his family. He would not be able to harm them.

And, perhaps, even after all these years, there would be a chance for Tom’s death to be reinvestigated. Shuttleworth might yet be found guilty of his murder.

Except for the soft monotonous call of ring-collar doves there was little sound so early in the morning. Beyond the sycamores the allotments were empty; water dripped silently from the guttering of the greenhouses into barrels. Glass glinted in the glow of the sun, slowly rising over the north country moors in the distance. Inside the nearest greenhouse Peter saw pots of orange and gold chrysanthemums, Mary’s favourite flower.

His heart thudded. In the long sleepless night he’d prepared himself for this moment. There would be no such reasoned planning for his wife. She’d wake up to find him gone. Gone for good from the life they’d shared for almost twenty years. Would she hate him for that? Or would she understand it had to be the one last secret he’d kept from her?

Because he needed the truth to be told about Frank Shuttleworth’s death. It would be a release; he’d lived with the guilt for many years. He’d tried so hard to be accepted by the people of Llamroth, relying on his reputation as a good GP, but underneath, always, he felt a fraud. However many lives he’d saved with his knowledge as a doctor, he had still taken a life in anger.

And soon his son would know his secret. Whatever Richard said, he would not feel the same about his father, would not respect him for not speaking out before now – for not living within the moral code he’d taught his children. Peter hated the thought that Richard might think him also a coward. But that was how he thought of himself.

Standing outside the padlocked gates he dragged his gaze towards what was standing of the ruined mill, his old prison. In the steely light the broken windows that were left were jagged flashes of reflection. His eyes were drawn to the second level, remembering his old friend Pensch who’d slept in the top of the shared bunk. Wolfgang Pensch! Peter hadn’t thought of him for years. He’d heard that the man had died of stomach cancer – the reason for his early release from the Granville.

Nausea rose up in his throat and he suppressed it. There had been many times when he’d thought
he
would never leave the place alive.

So far the two young women at his side had been silent, their closeness comforting him as he hunched under his coat, but now Jackie spoke. ‘Are you all right? You can change your mind, you know, Uncle Peter. I can go in on my own.’

‘No.’ For a moment he thought he was going to pass out. He steadied himself. ‘No, it is not that. It is—’

‘Don’t worry, Uncle Petey,’ Linda interrupted, squeezing his arm, her voice unsteady.

Peter’s face softened into a semblance of a smile at the childish nickname.

‘You okay as well, Linda?’ Jackie was smiling but only with her mouth; her eyes were sharp with worry. ‘I don’t know why you want to put yourself through this, either. This place holds bad memories for you too.’

‘You don’t need to tell me that.’

Peter heard the fear under Linda’s words. ‘She is right,
Liebling.
Neither of us should have to go in there. But especially you—’

‘But I … we will.’ Linda linked him, staring towards the old hospital. ‘Lay old ghosts and all that,’ she said, borrowing one of her gran’s expressions.

No one knew better than Peter what she meant. He switched his gaze. The compound was crammed with shadowy grey figures moving restlessly in aimless circles.

He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed. ‘There is something I have to tell you, Jacqueline. I asked for us to come here … not only because there is a chance that Victoria is amongst these people … but because it is the right place for me to tell you something. Tell you, because you are a policewoman.’

‘No.’ Linda shook his arm. It was as though she knew what he was going to say. ‘No, Uncle Peter.’ No childish nickname now. His niece was pleading with him. ‘There is no need—’

It suddenly struck him. ‘You know don’t you?’

‘Yes.’ The understanding passed between them.

Peter was grateful in a way. Whenever she had learned the truth about what he had done, it hadn’t altered her fondness for him. ‘Then you know there is every need,
Liebling.
Every need.’

‘Know what?’ Jackie demanded.

Peter smiled at her as she looked from one to the other. He was right; it felt correct for him to tell the truth here, at this godforsaken place. Even though it meant waiting to find out if his daughter was in there. If she was, he would be able to reunite her with her mother before he was taken from her. Again. As he had been taken from her so many years ago back to Germany. If not – well, if not, he would trust Mary’s family to help her to carry on looking for Victoria.

‘What do you mean, Uncle?’ Jackie moved to stand in front of him, arms folded.

Peter forced out the words that had been hidden for so many years. ‘Once I killed a man.’

‘No!’ Jackie’s voice betrayed her disbelief and then her tone changed. ‘You mean in the war?’ Her arms dropped to her sides. ‘No one blames you for that, Uncle Peter. It’s all in the past. Men – and women – did things they wished they hadn’t had to do. People were killed. It was horrible, but please don’t get het up about it now. Not here. You’ve not been well.’

‘No, you don’t understand. I don’t mean in the war. The man I killed was not the enemy. Not of this country I mean. He was my enemy. The enemy of myself and Mary.’

The sudden tears were hot on his face. He fished into his coat pocket for his handkerchief. ‘It is necessary that I hand myself in to the police … to you. It is time.’

Jackie studied him for a moment, her forehead crinkled. ‘Whatever it is you think you’ve done, Uncle Peter, please don’t get upset. Let’s just find Vicky – if she’s in there. We can talk about this after.’

He lowered his head. Nodded. Satisfied. Whatever was going to happen would now happen. He took his eyes off Jackie and looked up. Ten feet above him in the sentry-box his old enemy leaned over the parapet, slowly waving the Bren gun from side to side. Grinning.

‘Shuttleworth,’ he murmured.

‘Uncle?’

‘It is nothing, Linda. I am fine.’

She drew in an uneven breath.

If Jackie noticed she didn’t show it. She spoke briskly as though already she had dismissed his confession. ‘I should have thought someone would have seen us by now.’ She studied the rows of windows on the building opposite the old mill. ‘But, like I said, I’ve been here before when this lot first squatted here. They took ages to come out then. I think they hope we’ll go away. They’re in there,’ she nodded towards the building. ‘Unbelievable how quickly they took it over, got it all set up. Wasn’t it the camp hospital?’

’
Ja
.’ Slipping back in time, the language easiest for him… ‘Yes,’ he corrected himself. The image of him and Mary standing outside the main doors, a careful few feet away from each other even while speaking words of love, was strong.

Linda was leaning against him. He could feel her shaking. ‘Courage,
Liebling.
’

‘I wish I’d got the keys.’ Jackie rattled the bars of the gates. ‘But my sergeant would have found out if I’d gone to the Council for them.’ She rattled the gate again. ‘Hey. Anybody about?’ After she shouted a second time, a man, dressed in jeans and a paisley shirt, appeared. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Open the gates.’ She kept a steady gaze on him.

‘I’ll have to go for the keys,’ he drawled.

‘Then get them. And be quick about it.’ She showed her identity card.

The man looked over her shoulder at Peter and Linda. ‘They’re not police.’

‘No. But I am.’

He scowled. ‘Like I said, I’ll have to get the keys.’

‘Like
I
said, get them and be quick about it.’ Jackie gave him a calm smile.

Peter watched the man saunter away, his hands in his pockets like one of the guards slouched against the sentry-box. His eyes flooded suddenly, remembering the note he’d given to another prisoner, Kurt Trept, to smuggle to Mary. He’d passed it to the man, right under the stare of a British soldier, before being taken back to Germany. He’d believed he and Mary would never be together again. In his mind he was sitting inside the back of the lorry, as they left the camp. Through the flaps of the canvas he saw the gates close as he held the cold dry fingers of his friend, Pensch, already skeletal.

He took short breaths, struggling against the memories crowding in.

Jackie noticed. Misunderstanding, she said, ‘It’s only an off-chance Vicky will be there, you do understand, Uncle Peter? She wasn’t here last time.’

‘I know.’ Peter fought against an overwhelming sense of unease.

Mary was crossing the yard towards the compound. Looking apprehensively over her shoulder towards the hospital, she stopped at the fence behind the sentry-box. Someone was there, a shadow. She reached out towards them. Peter saw the two hands clasp, felt the warmth of her skin.

He blinked. The man in the paisley shirt strolled towards them. There were faces at some of the windows of the hospital. Mary was at one of them. She was holding her arms out to him.

The pain started first in his chest and then his neck, his breath hurting in his throat.

He saw a door open, felt a cold blast of air coming into the cottage. Mary was clinging to the door-frame. Tom was smiling. She was in his arms. Finally. After five long years.

He became aware of a sensation of tightness travelling from his chest to his arms, of feeling sick, of a loud pulsation in his head.

He dropped to his knees; the rusty wire of the gates ripped into his cheek as he slid down it but he felt nothing, only heard the gurgling breaths from someone nearby.

He didn’t hear the rattle of the key in the lock of the gate. Nor the screams of the girls. He didn’t see his daughter running towards him.

Then he was sitting on the small wall that separated the road from the beach in Llamroth. The tide was in; the waves swirled closer, dragged at the pebbles as they fell back, bubbling and foaming. He turned to peer back towards the cottage. And then along towards the village. There was no one in sight. He was alone. It was dark.

Chapter 80: Linda Booth, Jacqueline Howarth, Victoria Schormann

Bradlow, late afternoon: Wednesday, October 22nd

It felt wrong to be leaving him. Without speaking, they got into the car. At first Jackie couldn’t find the headlight button and they sat in silence while she tried. Eventually she put the car into first gear and they drove slowly away from the bright entrance of Bradlow Hospital.