Tell Tale (30 page)

‘Who are they all?’ I ask.

Adam shrugs. ‘The chap in this portrait built Roecliffe Hall. The Earl of somewhere.’ He drags his fingers through his stubble, thinking. ‘He died young and his widow couldn’t stand to live here without him so she killed herself.’

‘That’s horrible.’

‘But rumour has it that she isn’t really dead. That she faked her own death and the ghost that’s meant to be her isn’t really a ghost at all, but rather her still living secretly in the corridors of Roecliffe Hall.’

My mouth opens but nothing comes out.

‘Of course she’d be dead now anyway but—’

‘And the others?’ I blurt out. I wish I’d not come to see the wretched paintings. Huge faces glower down at us.

‘Haven’t a clue. Mostly nineteenth century. All except this one.’

Adam points to the picture I’d been staring at. The pale face of a young girl is half turned away. I can’t tell if she’s smiling or crying. She is wearing a nightdress and standing at the end of a long corridor. ‘It’s modern, of course. You can tell by the colours, for a start.’

‘I like it,’ I say. It resonates with me; makes me want to take the hand of the little girl and lead her out of the darkness that spills around her. I shrug and gather up several hockey shirts that have been left on a chair. ‘But what do I know? I must get these put away before my evening off. Bliss,’ I say, forcing a laugh to hide everything else.

Adam halts me with a hand on my shoulder. ‘Shall we meet at half past seven then?’

‘Half past seven?’ I’d forgotten he wanted me to go with him to the village. I’d been planning a quiet night alone, but I don’t want to disappoint him. Adam is the only ally I have.

‘To talk to the woman from the village, remember? The one who worked here when it was a children’s home. She gave evidence at the court case.’

‘Evidence?’ I’m paralysed. He didn’t say that she worked at the home.

‘That’s what I’m going to find out about. She must know something about my sister. Perhaps she even knew her.’

Suddenly I’m dizzy and it feels as if I’m falling. The wind pushes up my nostrils and balloons my lungs. My skin
draws up my body and my arms and legs burn from the effort of control. Impact never comes.

‘I . . . I don’t think I can make it.’

Adam scowls and frowns. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Frankie, make your mind up.’ He turns away briefly, hands balled, shoulders hunched. ‘Why do you have to be such a bloody mystery?’ He’s angry. I’ve not heard him speak like this before. ‘I like you, OK?’ He falters, wondering if he should justify the admission. ‘You seem to . . . to understand about my research.’ Then he surprises me by drawing me close by the shoulders. ‘Please come with me tonight?’ His tone has changed back again, winning me over. ‘You promised you would.’

I nod reluctantly. This goes against everything I know is right. I am agreeing only because I know how much it means to him.

‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘See you later then.’ He gives me a little shake on the shoulders and strides off, laptop tucked under his arm.

It’s half past seven exactly – I know this from the staff computer terminal I’ve just shut down. I am still shaking from what happened online, but somehow this meeting now seems right.

I wait by the big oak door with my coat slung over my arm. I trace a finger around the heavy iron latch ring, remembering.

‘Bang on time.’ Adam comes up beside me. ‘Thanks for coming.’ He brandishes a clipboard and the Dictaphone. ‘It should be interesting.’

‘Indeed,’ I reply, pulling on a knitted beret. I’ve applied heavy eye make-up and altered my cheekbones with some blusher. I found some weak glasses in lost property. Adam does a double take as I shrug into my coat, but says nothing about my eyewear. I pull up the collar, thankful that the cold wind allows me to shrink beneath my clothes.

‘Let’s go then,’ I say before I change my mind. I wrap my fingers round the latch and Adam’s hand is suddenly over mine, freezing time for just a moment.

There’s no hiding our journey to the village in his ancient car. We leave behind a trail of black smoke as the engine struggles. ‘I don’t take her on long journeys,’ he yells and cranks down his window to let out the fumes that have seeped inside. It jams halfway.

‘Good job,’ I shout above the noise. The short drive is illuminated by crooked and dim headlights. The left verge and the trees high up to our right are visible, while the road ahead is virtually unlit, as if it’s not even there. It makes me think of the rest of my life.

A few minutes later, we chug into Roecliffe. In the street light, I see several couples walking towards the pub, wrapped up against the autumn chill. Adam slows down as we pass the pond and small patch of village green. He pushes his foot to the rust-lined footwell and the old Fiat halts abruptly. The engine immediately stalls.

‘I want to show you something,’ he says. He leans across me and opens the glove compartment, rummaging through the mess. He pulls out his cigarette tin and a packet of mints. ‘Want one?’

I take a mint, peeling off the silver wrapper. I hold the sweet between my lips, hoping it will prevent me saying something I might regret. We get out of the car and Adam leads me on to the little village green. A couple of street lights illuminate our way. The grass is damp and doesn’t look as if it’s been cut since summer – a straggly reminder of better days. There are rows of dead snapdragons and geraniums lining the perimeter of the triangular-shaped communal space. Everything appears the wrong colour in the orange light.

Several paths lead to the centre of the green where there’s some kind of memorial. A couple of benches face the pond beyond. Last time I was in the village there were ducks sculling across the water. ‘What is it?’ I look around. There’s nothing unusual here.

‘This way,’ Adam replies. I hear him crunching his mint. He follows the path and stands beside the memorial, rolling a cigarette while I take a look around. ‘Go on.’ He urges me up to the stone structure.

On each side of the obelisk’s broad base, there are plaques with lists of names engraved in the metal. ‘Locals who died in the two world wars,’ I say, squinting at the inscriptions in the dim light. I remove my glasses, imagining the poppy wreaths laid out in November. With their surnames first, inhabitants of the parish who were killed in action are listed alphabetically. The year of death is inscribed above each batch of names. ‘So many lives lost from this village.’

‘Sadly, yes,’ Adam says. ‘But look over here.’ He steps
over the low chain-link fence to the rear-facing side of the stone quadrant. ‘There was a massive wrangle with the parish council about getting these extra names added to the memorial.’ Adam’s cheeks flush as he waits for me to cross the fence. ‘It makes me so angry.’ His jaw clenches. ‘That there was so much fuss to remember them properly.’

When I scan the list of names, I feel dizzy, unreal. I am standing beside Adam, trying to focus on the few names chipped into an added-on plaque as if it was an afterthought. I am sinking in the soft earth, dead summer flowers brushing my ankles, the musty scent of the pond and the remains of car exhaust threading through the cold air.

‘Why are you showing me this?’ I swallow. I blink. I swallow again.

‘They are the dead children,’ he says softly.

I hardly hear him. My eyes soak up the names again, just to make sure. As each one weaves a dance through my mind, I hear their tears and laughter, feel their pain, watch the thinness of their lives evaporate while everyone else’s continues as if nothing bad ever happened, as if they never even existed.

Tilly Broady, Abigail Nicholls, Oliver and Ken, Owen Fisher, Jane Dockerill, Samuel Seabright, Megan Seabright, Jonathan, James McVey, Alaister Peters, Dawn Coates, Andy JR., Michael Price, Craig Knott
. . . The list goes on but I can’t read any more.

‘How . . . how did they . . . ?’ My mouth’s so dry that my tongue sticks to my lips. ‘Who . . . What happened?’ I’m
stopping because I know the answer to each of my questions.

‘They were all murdered, Frankie.’ Adam is solemn. ‘They were abused and killed at Roecliffe Hall when it was a children’s home.’ He steps off the flower bed and walks over to the pond. I follow him.

We sit on the lichen-covered bench, imagining ducks, imagining children playing, imagining the past, the future. An unlit cigarette droops from Adam’s mouth. ‘It’s all going to be in my book.’

I’m not listening –
can’t listen.
I see myself running away, fleeing to another town, another country, another continent, looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

‘Police uncovered a paedophile ring at Roecliffe Children’s Home during the nineteen eighties,’ Adam continues. ‘All the children named on the memorial were systematically abused and murdered over many years. For ages, no one knew what was going on. After the home was closed down, children’s remains were found in the grounds of the hall. Some were never recovered. Apparently the police worked for years to locate the missing children, unsure if they’d been murdered or had somehow escaped. Record-keeping at the home was poor. Some of the kids didn’t even have last names or dates of birth registered.’

Adam takes the cigarette from his mouth and rolls it between his fingers. ‘I don’t believe the list of dead is complete by a long way. Since I’ve been in England, I’ve spoken to the local force, even interviewed retired officers who were involved in the investigation. But doors have
slammed in my face. It makes me wonder who I can trust.’

No one.

He pauses, frowns, maybe wondering if he can even trust me. ‘I came here to find out about my sister, Frankie. We were split up when she was a baby. I hardly knew her, but I’ve got her birth certificate, mapped some of the homes she was dumped in. She was in and out of care, like me, from the minute she was born.’ He draws breath. ‘Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have kids.’

Suddenly my hand is on Adam’s arm, preventing his nervous movements. ‘Don’t upset yourself,’ I tell him. ‘When you try to change the past, you can’t help but alter the present. That makes a very different future to the one you expected. Are you sure you want that?’

He stares at me. ‘What is it about you, Francesca Gerrard, that makes me think you’re a lot wiser than you make out?’ Tears collect in his eyes. I fight the urge to draw him close, to hold on to someone who cares about the very same past as I do. That single link spans the entire universe, not just the few inches between us.

‘Maybe it’s that I understand what it’s like to lose someone,’ I reply. My cryptic side kicks in automatically. ‘If you keep looking, you’ll find your sister,’ I tell him. ‘If not in real life, then you’ll find her in your heart.’ It’s the only comfort I have these days. Passing it on to Adam isn’t too revealing, I decide.

‘But I know exactly where she is,’ he says, reaching into his pocket for a lighter. The flame bends as he sucks. ‘She’s dead.’

My mouth opens ready to say the usual things, but nothing comes out. I lean forward and pluck the dried head of a weed between my fingers. It gives me another moment to think before I have to fill the gap between us. ‘I thought you didn’t smoke.’

‘I don’t,’ he says sourly. He blows out smoke and pulls a face. ‘Want to know something?’

I nod.

‘You’re the only person I’ve ever told about my sister. No one else even knows I had one. Not even Claudia.’ He sucks deeply on the cigarette. Ash falls from the end.

‘What was her name?’ I feel so desperately sad for Adam.

‘Elizabeth,’ he replies. He presses the unfinished cigarette into the wet grass. ‘But I always called her Betsy.’

No one was using the computer terminal. The staffroom was quiet except for the cleaner collecting dirty cups, emptying the bins, running the vacuum over the floor. She was old, moved slowly, and had thin white wires coming out of each ear. ‘Like my ear pods?’ she said too loudly, winking at me. I could hear the
tss-tss o
f the music even from across the room. ‘Granddaughter gave them to me.’ She smiled proudly.

I turned back to the computer, wondering about the passage of time, about technology, communication, how easy it’s all become, yet how the human race probably spends less time in actual conversation than ever – so close, yet light years apart. I thought about all the texts I used to
receive and send, missing them desperately.
Where are you? Can you get bread? What do you want for dinner? Love you x.

Just as Adam had instructed me, I signed in to the staff network. In a few more moments, I’d opened a web browser and was connected to the internet. Logging in to Afterlife was easy now, and as soon as I’d set foot inside the other world I saw that I had two alerts.

Josephine Kennedy has accepted your invite. You have one new message.

My heart slowed then accelerated. It meant she’d read my words, wondered who this primary school friend called
chimera_girl28
was. Two more clicks and I was reading a message from
dramaqueen-jojo.

‘Drama queen,’ I whispered, waiting for the page to appear. I heard her voice, imagined her soft lips curling around the words.

Hi chimera girl. Thx for adding me but do i know u? I cant see ur real name. jojo.

‘Jo-Jo,’ I said, then repeated it over and over. The cleaner pushed the vacuum head towards my feet. I shifted them to one side. When she’d moved away, mouthing the words to a song, I rolled the mouse pointer over various icons and buttons, trying to get my bearings in what was a complicated game. I didn’t care about playing it. I just wanted to be near Josephine Kennedy.

‘Friends list,’ I said, simultaneously clicking on the words. A list of one name appeared, with a small picture of
dramaqueen-jojo’s
character beside a few basic details. There. She had chosen to reveal her real name alongside
her nickname, whereas I, on checking, had selected to remain anonymous.

I thought back, thought of suitable names, of primary school children, of packed lunches and grazed knees, of long white socks and reading books. I reeled through the homework, the friendships and break-ups, the SATs tests and music lessons, the ballet shoes and the dressing-up clothes. I counted every one of the cuddly toys arranged on the window sill, and named each picture book on the shelf.