The Company She Kept (23 page)

Kitty was seated at her desk in the red room, dressed in one of her old blue kaftans. She was half-turned from the french window, reading, her spectacles half way down her nose and, for a moment, Sophie thought: She hasn't changed. She's exactly the same. And then something, a current of air perhaps, must have made her aware of the open window and she turned, one hand flew to her breast and she gave a small choking gasp. In the moment before Kitty recognized her, Sophie saw how the years had laid their burden on her, how the skin bore a fine network of wrinkles, like antique porcelain, how swollen and dreadfully knotted and misshapen her hands had become, and that her former stoutness had now given way to shapelessness only partly hidden by the loose kaftan. Kitty began to make the effort, slowly and painfully, to rise from her high-seated chair, but before she could do so, Sophie was across the room.

It was as if she'd never been away.

The spate of questions tumbled out, willy-nilly. ‘Why did you go away like that? Why did you let me think you were dead? Why wouldn't you let me come and see you when you came back? Kitty, how
could
you?'

Kitty let them run on, then waved her to stop. ‘My dearest Sophie, how could I not? I had no choice.'

‘No choice?'

If the house still exerted its old spell, so could Kitty, the old enchantress, weave the same magic. Though physically old even when Sophie had first known her, she had always seemed ageless and, after those first few moments of shock, was so now. Sophie knelt by the chair and took one of the malformed hands in hers, as gently as she could, so as not to hurt, and lifted it to her cheek. ‘Tell me,' she said.

And with a sigh, Kitty, at last, willingly gave in. For fourteen years she had kept her own vow of silence, telling herself that Felix was well able to cope with his guilt: it wasn't something that would worry someone of his arrogance or penetrate his armour of self-assurance. But keeping silent over anything had never come naturally or lightly to her, and now that she was so ancient, she was glad at long last to ease herself of the burden.

‘You're going to tell me, aren't you, what happened when Irena was killed?' Sophie prompted.

‘Go and sit down where I can look at you.'

Once begun, it was easier than she'd thought it would be ...

She'd been restless and couldn't sleep after leaving them all downstairs. There were too many worries on her mind, too many memories ... and then the noise had started. ‘Such a racket you were making! People shouting and rushing about ... eventually I got up to go downstairs and see what it was all about. I was standing at the top of the stairs and I saw. Everything,' she said, ‘that happened in the hall below.'

Their eyes met. Unspoken messages passed between them. Sophie, seeing how calm Kitty was, despised herself for beginning to shake. ‘Why didn't you say anything to the police? No, don't tell me, I can guess! Partly, anyway. It was because you didn't want the police here, poking around among your things? Irena knew about
them
...' Sophie's gaze went round the room, her eyes resting on one after another of the hated, familiar objects. Her flesh crawled. ‘I've always thought she did, that it had something to do with her deciding to go away.'

Kitty nodded slowly. ‘And you knew, too.'

‘I only guessed, but I was sure I must be right. Irena kept throwing out hints. She'd picked up enough knowledge from her father to be able to tell what was genuine from what was fake. And there were other things that made me think, when you were dictating your memoirs ...' Sophie looked miserable. ‘I just put two and two together.'

‘Clever Sophie, I used to wonder if you might. Yes, Irena told me she knew they were genuine. Not that the ethics of it bothered her, not in the least. She promised she'd never say a word, on condition that I made her a regular allowance, so that she didn't need to stay here, could go away and pursue her own life as she chose. I thought it was a small price to pay, but in any case, what else could I have done?'

‘You couldn't have given them back without bringing Alfred into it and destroying his reputation, I see that. Someone as highly respected as he was, “collecting” them and getting them out of the country.'

Kitty responded sharply to the implicit accusation. ‘That was the only reason why I kept them after he died! Well, that and the fact that I would never have been allowed back on any site to work if it had been made known I'd shut my eyes to what he was doing – and what good would that have done anyone? I still had years of valuable work in front of me and –'

‘Why?' Sophie interrupted. ‘Why did he do it? I can't believe he intended to sell them, though they must be worth a mint.'

‘Sell? What can you be thinking of? The reasons were more complicated than that. He was not a well man, in fact he was dying. He'd made plans to end his days at Flowerdew and would have done so if it hadn't been for the accident that killed him. These things had already been despatched. He only wanted to keep a few memories of a lifetime's devotion … Was that so very bad?'

Stolen memories, thought Sophie. What were they worth?

‘I never quite believed Irena's promise to say nothing. She was not someone you could rely on. But don't think I haven't questioned my part that night, though at the time there was only one thing I could think of – that now, Alfred's reputation would be safe. So I simply turned my back, left you all to it and went back to my room. I heard you all moving about downstairs for a long time and I waited for the police to arrive, for one of you to come and tell me what had happened. But none of you did. So then I knew you'd thought of some sort of cover-up among you. All the same, I couldn't imagine life going on as though nothing had happened ... knowing what those you trusted are capable of ... I couldn't face any of you, knowing you were lying to me, knowing that murder had been committed and you were all a party to hiding it from me.' The tremulous self-pitying tears of old age sprang to her eyes. ‘I decided to go away, immediately, until I could think what to do. The answer's never been vouchsafed to me, until now.'

‘So in the end you stayed away for fourteen years. But you're going to tell the truth now, aren't you, Kitty? To the police?' Sophie spoke to her as if she were a child. ‘You'll have to, you know, though I think they know you're involved by now, anyway.'

‘Yes, I've accepted that now. When it seemed that Felix was going to get away with it, there seemed no point in letting the truth be known, ruining several lives for the sake of what is called justice. I was prepared to stay silent as long as Irena's death remained unsuspected, but not now. I can't go on letting Felix take the blame for a murder he didn't commit.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Felix did not murder Irena Bron.'

Silence. ‘Kitty,' Sophie said, ‘Kitty dear, Felix
did
kill her – he didn't mean to, perhaps, but he lost his temper and strangled her. He killed her, there was no question about it, she was
dead!
'

She gave a great shudder, her eyes enormous. ‘We helped, all of us, to – to get rid of her body.' She was almost faint for a moment at the memory of what they'd had to do, and another recollection, perhaps worse, of Angie's little, scrabbling hands, pulling off Irena's earrings and stuffing them into her pocket. Angie, who could have bought them a thousand times over!

‘Yes, Sophie, I know she was dead,' Kitty said, ‘but Felix didn't kill her – though I dare say it was only by pure chance that he didn't!'

‘Then how was it,' Sophie said, her voice rising in spite of herself, ‘that when I came into the hall, her body was lying there, dead. Tommo saw her as well – he came back with Felix from the car as I came into the hall – and I tell you she was
dead
!'

‘While he was out, fetching Madeleine's bag from her car, I saw Irena stir, heard her groan. And I saw what happened next.' Kitty's eyes strayed to the tape-recorder on her desk. ‘It's all there, Sophie. All of it. Jessie guessed there was something troubling me, years ago, and she bullied me until I put it all on tape. It's just as well to prepare for any eventuality when you get to my age. I shall see that it's given to the police.'

Madeleine Freeman, driving her Volvo up Hill Street, saw the lights shining from the windows of the old chapel some time before she noticed the phalanx of cars parked alongside the pavement and inside the forecourt.

She peered along the dimly-lit road, puzzled at first. It wasn't one of the nights when any of the campaigners should have been working there; it was Tuesday, the same night of the week that Angie had died. Then she saw the cars were police cars and her heart began to hammer against her ribcage with a painful, irregular rhythm.

The police, what are the police doing
there?
Not to worry, they won't find anything. The mac. Oh God, the plastic mac! Don't panic, they won't look in every single cupboard – and if they do, what will a plastic mac mean to them? All the same, I should have got rid of it – what in heaven's name made me forget?

She went on, up the hill. Although she was accustomed to driving in the dark, she had never liked it. The last time she'd been forced to do it, Angie had been sitting beside her. Now she drove erratically, grinding the gears and braking too sharply at traffic lights and zebra crossings.

Don't panic.
There's nothing to have told them Angie was at the chapel that night – there was very little struggle, she went like a lamb to the slaughter. Until the very last moment, when she realized what was happening and her eyes bulged with terror and she went frantic and tried to pull my hands away. But she had no chance. It was almost too easy:
‘Angie, darling, life's too short to keep up this sort of silly quarrel. My marrying Edward needn't make any difference to us. Make up and be friends again?'
Arms held out for a hug, Angie walking into them. Dead, two minutes later. No more trouble, get on with my life, the millstone that's been round my neck gone for ever. It was a choice, my life or hers, and whose is of the most value to the community?

They had found the plastic mac, complete with a tear in the sleeve. It had been stuffed where hymn books had once been stored, inside the lift-up seat of one of the varnished pew-benches set round the walls of the small meeting-room off the main vestibule, a room once used for Sunday school classes and now the main campaign office. The walls were adorned with familiar posters. Piles of leaflets stood about on the floor and on the trestle-tables serving as desks. A first-generation word processor and printer occupied another and an ancient photocopier stood in the corner. The white-overalled SOCO team had almost finished; Dexter was labelling the contents of a small plastic envelope and a young woman was sticky-taping the doorframe for latent fingerprints. Dexter said laconically, ‘This might be of interest to you,' and held out the envelope, inside which were two fragments of red-varnished fingernail.

All in all, precious little.

Madeleine drove home, or the place she was still forced to call home for the moment, the hated house on Kilbracken Road – strangely, even more hateful now that it was empty of Angie. She was still there, in every room, round every corner. I miss you, Angie, it hurts like a phantom limb that's been amputated, in spite of all those years of hating you and wishing you dead a thousand times. But even death, it seems, hasn't been able to break the bond between us, that love/hate relationship going right back to when we were at school.

I was always conscious of you there, on the edges of the group of girls who were my set. I was their leader, popular, pretty and clever, a favourite with the teachers. None of them guessed how poor I really was, and what untold misery my life at home held. I was too proud to tell anyone about my father beating me, I hid the bruises along with the determination that I was going to get out from under, come what may. You had no need for such subterfuges, but you were never liked. You were always ready to take offence at imagined slights ... You had a malicious tongue and the other girls were a little bit afraid of you. And yet I used to pretend I was you, a rich little girl with a doting father. Sometimes I almost believed it was true. Perhaps that was why I let you hang around, though I came to hate your scarred face and your spiteful nature. You had your uses, though: the other girls admired me because they thought I was being kind to you – and you were willing to share your oodles of pocket money and your new bicycle.

There were other things you later forced me to share ... this house – and even the one thing I could truly call my own: my work to keep the Women's Hospital open. But you'd been growing tiresome long before that. I was already looking round for ways to rid myself of you when it happened ...

You never said a word about what you'd seen, but we both knew. From then on there was no escape for me. I was bound to you. You were my shadow, my Nemesis ...

Why were the police at Hill Street chapel? They must suspect something. Where have I made my mistakes? So far, everything's gone my way, even things I couldn't have planned for or foreseen ... though I have planned. All those years I was conscious that Felix Darbell was the unpredictable factor. I couldn't know which way he might jump. It cost me money to have him watched, to keep myself up to date with his life and circumstances, but it was worth it in the end. I was able to find out where he was when I needed him. And it wasn't simply luck that he kept that rendezvous in Bulstrode Street ... I would have staked my life that he would go there after seeing that manuscript I had written, though I couldn't have known he would speak to Mrs Kitchener. That was a piece of luck I couldn't have anticipated.

The doorbell.