Stage Fright (29 page)

Because it was Stephen who stepped forward and sent Jake sprawling.

Chapter Twenty

T
HE
blood in the bathroom turned out to be Melissa's. After a tussle between Maire and the social services, Agnes was released into the care of Maire and Geoff, who had been named as joint guardians in Melissa's will. Kevin had died intestate.

‘Kevin killed Melissa. I'm sure of that,' Maire told me. ‘And that's what the police think, too. They're not looking for anyone else. Of course that's not enough for the bloody social services. I want to take Agnes home and raise her with my own kids. But they won't let me take her out of the county until Melissa's been declared legally dead. Geoff and his wife'll take care of her until then.'

We were sitting in my kitchen on an autumnal day in late September. A blustery wind was lashing the trees and now and again a handful of raindrops splattered on the window. Maire's hair was untidy and she had lost weight. In that respect she looked more like Melissa, and yet now that I'd got to know her better, the resemblance didn't seem so strong. She was a coarser, but stronger character. Where Melissa had been vague, even a little fey, Maire was blunt and decisive.

‘The lying, manipulating bastard,' she said. ‘They'd have got to him sooner if it hadn't been for bloody Belinda. What was it with Kevin? He could make even the smartest of women think that the sun shone out of his arse. Not that Belinda is the smartest of women, mind you. You know what, I'm glad he's dead – prison would have been too good for him. Except now they'll probably never find Melissa's body.' Her eyes filled with tears.

‘It's awful…' I reached over and rested my hand on Maire's arm. There was nothing more I could say. Melissa had to be dead. She couldn't have missed all the media coverage of Kevin's death in the papers and on the TV; if she was alive, why hadn't she returned to claim her child? And she hadn't drawn any money out of her account or used her credit cards.

‘He buried her somewhere and she'll probably never be found,' Maire said. ‘I won't be able to lay her to rest, to say goodbye properly. That's hard.'

It
was
hard. How long did I go on hoping even against my rational judgement for news of Melissa – or even that it might
be
Melissa – every time the phone rang? It's difficult to say now. In spite of everything life went on in the way that it does. My maternity leave ended and I began teaching again at the beginning of October.
East Lynne
finished its run with another actor taking the part of Captain Levison. Jake's black eye recovered, but his reputation didn't. His documentary was never broadcast and the plug was pulled on the rest of the series. Stan moved on to other productions and other theatres. She sent me a postcard from a theatre in the Midlands, where she was stage-managing
The Wizard of Oz.
All it said was:
This isn't Kansas, Dorothy.
Some days do stand out: Grace's first Christmas, of course, and my fortieth birthday in December, which was also the day Stephen and I got married at the register office in Cambridge. There can't be many people who have their first husband as a witness at their third wedding. As Joe remarked, perhaps I should have called on my second husband, too, and made it a hat-trick.

It was about six months after my conversation with Maire that I drove up the track to Geoff's smallholding in North Wales. It was a cold March day and I was on my way home after giving a lecture at Bangor University. It was spring now in Cambridge, but here there was snow on the tops of the mountains and little drifts clung to the tussocky grass lower down. The farm was in a sheltered spot in a fertile little valley. I stopped by the side of the track and got out of the car. I took some deep breaths. The air was intoxicatingly fresh and cold. A stream swollen with melt-water ran down the valley, providing a constant background murmur.

I shivered. It was time to get back in the car and drive on to the farm.

At first sight the place seemed deserted and I wondered if I were going to be unlucky. As I walked across the yard, I glimpsed a car through the open door of one of the stables. Geoff's Jeep was nowhere to be seen. But that was all right. It wasn't Geoff I'd come to see.

The house was small, built of grey stone with a slate roof, a sturdy four-square building. I rang the doorbell. No one came. I wandered over to the wall by the side of the slope into the valley. A woman was emerging from a sheep-pen with a bucket in her hand. She saw me and stood still for a moment or two. I waved. She waved back and set off up the hill. When she got close enough for me to make out her expression, I saw the polite wariness that one adopts when a stranger arrives at one's door.

She unlatched the gate into the yard. ‘Véronique?' I asked.

‘Yes?' Her eyes flicked over to my car, as if to check whether I was alone.

‘I'm Cassandra.'

‘But yes! How delightful.' She was close to me now. She put down her bucket, wiped her hand on her overall and shook my hand.

‘I've been milking the ewes. It's very good with coffee, ewe's milk. You'll have some, yes?' The French accent wasn't strong, but I was very conscious of the caressing cadence. ‘You've come to see Agnes, of course.'

I felt a sudden qualm. ‘She
is
here?'

‘Yes, yes, she is here. She's asleep. She sleeps always after lunch. I take the chance to do some little jobs. Come, you can see her now.'

We went up the narrow stairs through the centre of the house and turned left into a bedroom. Like all the rooms in the house it was small and the windows didn't let in much light. But someone had worked hard to make it bright and welcoming. There was a sheepskin rug on the floor and yellow plastic crates of toys. The walls were white with a frieze of characters from
The Wind in the Willows.
I went over to the white-painted wooden cot. The child asleep inside looked less like Grace than she used to do. Her hair was still fair, while Grace's had darkened. The shape of her face was different. She wasn't a baby any more.

Véronique stood next to me looking down into the cot. She leaned in and brushed back the hair from the forehead of the sleeping child.

‘And your own little girl?' she asked. ‘You didn't bring her with you?'

‘No, she's at home with my husband.'

‘Ah, yes, your husband; Geoff told me. I have to congratulate you.' Her tone was warm. Her formality was only that of someone for whom English is not the first language.

We went down to the kitchen. There was an Aga, a dresser with willow-pattern plates and a big scrubbed kitchen table. The room was deliciously warm.

Véronique made coffee with deft and economical movements.

‘I'm sorry you've missed Geoff,' she said. ‘This is the first time he's been away on a job for more than a couple of days.'

‘Yes…'

She turned from the Aga. ‘You know – I think you are not sorry at all. I think you came on purpose. You wanted to check up on me, no?' She was smiling.

I found myself blushing. She was right. I'd chosen a time when Geoff wouldn't be there.

‘No, no,' she said. ‘I understand.' She put the coffee-pot on the table and sat down opposite me. ‘It's good that you are looking out for her. And of course you don't know me. In your position I would feel the same. But, you know, I love her,
la pauvre petite.
How could one not?'

I felt almost drowsy in the warmth from the Aga. Véronique pushed her sleeves up her arms.

I roused myself.

‘How long will Agnes go on living here with you?' I asked.

‘For a while longer. It takes time, you know, for someone to be declared dead. But it will happen, I think. Melissa will not return.'

‘No, I don't think she will.'

‘You think it was Kevin who murdered her?'

‘I suppose I could play with words and say that in a sense I think it was. But in the generally accepted meaning of the word, I have to say, no, he didn't kill her.'

‘She killed herself?' Véronique's eyes were wide.

‘Melissa is dead. The Melissa I knew, that is. But there was another Melissa, one I knew nothing about. Oh, don't worry,' I said, responding to the alarm in her face, ‘That Melissa won't come back either.'

‘She won't? But why not?'

‘I think you know why.'

The air was electric. For a moment I wondered if I'd made a mistake coming here alone. Then Melissa sighed. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. When she looked at me again, her whole face seemed different.

‘I thought if anyone managed to work it out, it would be you,' she said. ‘How did you do it?'

‘I asked myself what I might have done in your position and who in the end was left holding the baby. I did wonder about Maire. Whether she was really you, if you see what I mean. But funnily enough, she was actually too similar to you in some ways. The mannerisms, that way she had of glancing sideways. No, you would have tried to bury that resemblance, if you were acting the role of your own sister. And then there was Geoff. He had to have known about Jake dressing up and scaring Belinda. Jake said as much, even implied that Geoff had put the idea into his head. That seemed so unlike him. Once I'd taken on board the idea that Geoff might not be quite what he seemed, everything started to unravel. There was nothing really that couldn't have been set up by you and Geoff, from the anonymous letter to the bloodstains in the bath.'

‘But you weren't sure at first, were you? When you got here, I mean?'

‘You're right. I did have a moment or two of wondering if I was about to make an almighty fool of myself. You're good, Melissa. Bloody good. The hair, the glasses – contact lenses too, to change the colour?' She nodded. ‘But it was the acting, really. You didn't let up for a moment. And that accent…' I shook my head. ‘Just brilliant.'

She shrugged. ‘Not difficult when you've got a French mother. And it's the best possible way to disguise a voice.'

‘That's why the photos disappeared from your dressing-room. That one of your parents…'

‘Yes, standing outside the pâtisserie they used to run in Carcassonne.'

‘I was virtually sure, and when you pushed up your sleeve, that clinched it…'

‘The burn on my arm.' She looked at it and grimaced. ‘Ah, yes, one of the mementoes of my past life. Kevin did that, of course. Among other things.'

‘You know, Geoff was good, too. Of course, I was blind with lack of sleep and mother-love, but all the same I have to hand it to you. The pair of you played me like a fish. And of course, Maire was in on it, too, wasn't she?'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Are you? Are you really?'

She thought for a moment.

‘No,' she admitted. ‘I'd do it all again. You found out what Kevin was like, didn't you? When we first met he was so charming, so clever, so sexy – I'd never known anything like it. He was a bit possessive even then, but I was flattered. He swept me off my feet. After we got married, it grew worse. He was suspicious of my male friends. Wanted me to account for every moment I wasn't with him. There were rows, he started to hit me. Oh, you can write the script yourself. Things improved a bit after Agnes was born. And then the worst thing of all happened. He tried to control me through her.'

‘Couldn't you have left him?' As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt how inadequate they were.

‘He said he would hunt me down and kill me. I believed him. I knew I'd never really be safe. Not unless he thought I was already dead.'

I thought of something I'd heard on the news a few months ago. A woman and her children had fled from a violent husband and gone into hiding. Her address was kept secret but the name of her social worker was given in court. That clue was enough. He'd tracked his wife down and murdered her.

‘When did you actually leave the house?' I asked. ‘I've often wondered about that.'

‘I left it as long as I dared. Geoff cycled over and he arrived about an hour after you'd left. He helped me set the scene, then he took the car and dumped it in London. I waited until I knew people would miss me. I was actually still in the cottage when the phone started ringing. That was my cue. I cycled over to Ely station. I was wearing a wig, padding, the works, my own mother wouldn't have recognized me. I went straight to Wales and took up my new identity.'

‘But weren't you afraid for Agnes? How could you leave her behind, knowing what he was like?'

‘That was the worst part, but it was the only thing I could think of that would convince him. I knew he wouldn't dare to hurt her with the police and social workers swarming around. And you'd be there, too. And he wasn't interested in her except as a counter in the game with me. I thought he'd soon get sick of looking after her and surrender her to Maire.'

‘It didn't work though, did it? He didn't believe that you were dead. That TV broadcast did for him, didn't it? So then it was plan B. Was it you or Geoff who went round to Journey's End, planted the biscuits, removed the adrenaline…?'

‘Geoff didn't know until afterwards.'

‘That's what I guessed.'

‘And I didn't really think Kevin would die. It was more of a warning than anything else. I wanted to give him a scare. I mean, I thought there'd be another kit in the car.'

‘And there was. If Kevin hadn't taken Grace, and I hadn't taken his car keys … I suppose you could argue that Kevin was hoist by his own petard.'

We sat in silence for a bit.

‘Would you have let me go on thinking that you were dead?' I asked.

‘I'm not sure. Maybe one day, when I felt it was safe…'

‘An enigmatic postcard from some big anonymous city? Or perhaps a phone call that couldn't be traced?'