The Other Child (54 page)

In view of the fact that her own life was collapsing right now, that was of no interest whatever.

Actually, she had guessed this would happen. She wondered if she had known from the start, the very start, that her relationship with Dave was on thin ice, was not going to last. There had been dozens of signs. She remembered the day when she had gone to his place and asked him to sleep with her. Was it two or three days ago? He had wriggled out of it, evaded her, had got her talking about all sorts of other things. Afterwards he had left for school with obvious relief, after constantly glancing at his watch as if he could not wait for his course to start. He needed an excuse to leave his room and his future wife for a couple of hours. He came back late, spent the whole night reading, and then set off in the early morning on a walk. He had said no when she asked to go with him.

‘I need to be on my own,' he had said. She had waited in his room for a while, feeling frustrated and humiliated. In the end she had left the house and wandered aimlessly around town for a few hours before she got a cab back to the farm. Without having slept with him. And she had known that she never would: they would never have sex.

Because Dave did not desire her. He felt not the slightest physical attraction to her. He would probably have rather got his rocks off with his landlady than with her. It was not just that he did not love her – he was repelled by her. There was nothing which drew him to her. Nothing – except that bit of land by the sea which she would one day own.

And now he had abandoned even that idea. She had seen that as soon as she and Jennifer had arrived back at the farm. They had spent ages with Ena Witty, who had dissolved into tears again and not wanted to let the two of them go without churning up the whole Stan Gibson affair once more. When they had finally prised themselves away, Jennifer had not wanted to get home immediately, so they had strolled around for a bit and then eaten lunch at the Italian restaurant in Huntriss Row. Then they had walked down to the harbour, had a cup of tea, and Jennifer had even allowed herself two shots. Jennifer was definitely different, thought Gwen. She could not stop talking about Stan Gibson; about Ena Witty, Amy Mills, herself and him. She kept coming back to the question of why Gibson might have found Amy Mills an ideal victim, and why some people seemed predestined to be victims, while others never got close to being one. It was not that Gwen had no interest in this theme, but she had other worries racing around her head. What was to become of her? What future would she have?

Dave had been sitting in the living room with Colin. The dogs were lying on the rug between the two of them and snoring. Someone had lit a fire in the grate. Gwen found it a nice welcome home, at least apparently so. But the situation was temporary, and so of considerably diminished value. The dogs jumping up, waving their tails and panting happily; the two men who came over to the two women; the warmth of the fire; the cosy moment – all of this was not going to last, just a short glimpse of what could have been. A loving husband, children who greeted their mother happily. Instead everything would remain as it had always been. The rare trips she took to Scarborough would always lead her back to a cold house, with no one waiting for her apart from her old father who knew little of her life and concerns. There would be no one else.

Colin and Jennifer had withdrawn, and as so often Chad was nowhere to be seen. After they had looked at each other in silence for a while, Dave had said quietly, ‘I have to tell you something, Gwen …'

He had not said much more than that, because Gwen had replied, ‘I know.'

And he: ‘Yes. Then there's not much more to be said.'

And she in reply: ‘No.'

And then they had sat again in silence, a silence in which much changed and happened. A silence in which a relationship between two people ends, a relationship which, as Gwen thought, had probably never been what it should have been, and yet which in a strange way had been a relationship. On his side there had been a calculation, on her side hope. Perhaps it could have worked somehow, if the two of them had made an effort.

Perhaps … but what that
perhaps
might have looked like, she would never know.

Neither of them had noticed that the fire had died down, but it had become unpleasantly cool in the room, rousing them from the private thoughts each had pursued.

‘It'll be half past five soon,' said Dave. ‘It won't be light much longer. And I've got quite a long walk back to the bus stop …'

‘You can stay here for the night if you'd like.'

‘I think I'd better be getting back to Scarborough,' he replied, standing up. ‘I don't even know when the last bus goes. If there is still one.'

‘And if there isn't, are you going to walk?'

‘No idea,' he said. She knew: he just wanted to get away. He does not care what comes next. If he has to hitch a lift, so be it. As long as he gets away from me.

She got up and thought: it can't end like this! With him just getting up and going. And never coming back.

‘I … please, don't go yet. I can't bear to be alone yet.'

His reluctance was easy to see, as were his feelings of guilt. ‘You're not alone. Jennifer and Colin are here. Your father—'

‘My father!' She made a dismissive gesture. Lord, he knew her father! ‘And I don't want to talk about all of this with Jennifer right now. Later. But not now.'

‘All right,' said Dave. ‘OK.'

He looked out the window. He remembered his Spanish course, but it was too late in any case. And he doubted that he had the energy for it today.

‘I'll drive you in later,' said Gwen. ‘But please stay for a little while.'

It was terrible to think that he would give in to her plea out of pity, but at the moment she did not have the energy to be proud and do without his sympathy.

The alternative was a deeply painful loneliness. However much she had to humiliate herself, it still seemed like the lesser of the two evils.

12

‘Yes,' said Semira. ‘And of course it caused an almighty scandal which the press pounced on. I had found a man who was almost forty, was mentally disabled and kept in a shed, a man who had almost died from the abuse dished out to him, and had just scraped through alive – and no one knew who he was. The police had assumed at first that he was McBright's son, and that his existence had been kept a secret because of his disability. Gordon McBright would not say anything at all, and Mrs McBright needed weeks of psychological support before she could be questioned. She explained that she had never had children. One day shortly after the war her husband had come home with a boy of about fourteen and said he had arranged a farmhand. They had called the boy Nobody. That was the name her husband had introduced him by.'

Leslie remembered how this name had appeared over and over in her grandmother's letters. She and Chad had baptised the boy Nobody in their childhood cruelty. But it was hard to imagine that Chad Beckett had also handed Brian over to his torturer with that name.
Here's our Nobody. You can have him
.

And yet that is how it must have been.

‘Gradually the whole situation became dearer,' continued Semira. ‘Nobody's trail could be followed back to the Beckett farm. I still don't know today how Chad Beckett managed it, but in the eyes of the public the responsibility for the whole tragedy remained largely with his dead father. I don't think Beckett would have talked much to the police or the media, he's not exactly Mr Eloquent, but from the little he did say the story could be filled in. Arvid and Emma Beckett had decided to take the boy in without telling any of the authorities. And they didn't try to find any special needs help -admittedly, there wasn't much help available back in the forties. The final report stated that Beckett had returned traumatised from the war, and had not been able to deal with Brian, who was now older and more difficult. He apparently had thought nothing of the fact that his father was sending the boy to a farm where no other children lived. None of that is of importance now, but then, in 1970, someone like Chad Beckett who had taken part in the Normandy landings was highly respected. Much time had passed, but people still credited their courage against Hitler. By some completely twisted logic, the fact that he had voluntarily enlisted to go and fight while still practically a child in some way absolved him of possible later mistakes. The press did not really dare to attack him, so everyone ranted about the father for a while, and then nothing more was heard about it.'

‘And my grandmother?' asked Leslie. ‘She pretty much got away scot-free too, didn't she?'

‘They did establish, of course, that Brian Somerville had left London by her hand, as it were. But she was eleven at the time! Not even sixteen when the war ended – and by then she'd been back in London for ages. Who would seriously have criticised her?'

‘How is it then that you obviously saw things differently, right from the start?' asked Leslie. ‘You certainly hold Chad Beckett and Fiona Barnes responsible!'

Semira's hand flitted around the table. She was a very nervous woman, Leslie realised. It just took a while to notice. She had been tortured for decades by a body which caused her pain and continual problems. She had obviously learnt self-control, but when she was too exhausted it started to crumble. It was clear that Semira Newton was exhausted now. From sitting on the wooden chair for so long, from reconstructing her trauma in such detail. Her fingers trembled.

‘Look, my life's been marked by this thing,' she said to Leslie. ‘It changed me. When Gordon McBright almost killed me in his copse, on top of everything else I suffered shock. At least, that's what the psychologists have told me. Years later I spent a good bit of time in a clinic. Because of my continuing depression. That's where I learnt pottery, by the way. Creativity as therapy. I don't think it did anything for my psyche. But I can earn a little bit extra to add to my pension. That's not to be scoffed at. Afterwards I was never able to work again, and I divorced in 1977. As the victim of a crime I've been given some compensation. Not a lot, but I don't need a lot. But now and then the few extra pounds from these crooked bowls and cups comes in handy.'

‘Did your divorce—'

‘—have anything to do with the Somerville affair? Yes, it did. John had married a cheerful, energetic, self-confident woman. Someone in the thick of things. Now the woman beside him was a broken being, a woman who could not stop talking about her experience on 19th December 1970, who was always brooding about where evil came from and what to do about it. A woman who wanted to take care of Brian Somerville and could not get over the fact that nothing had been done to the culprits, that they could go on living as if nothing had happened. A woman who needed a number of operations, was in constant pain and often a little confused in the head because of all the medicines she was taking. I was not the same Semira he had fallen in love with. Today I don't hold it against him that another woman took my place in his heart and life. He fled from me. We've not been in contact since.'

That was understandable, Leslie thought. And yet horrific.

‘In any case, as I said, my life's been marked by this drama. Unlike the doctors and psychologists I've seen, I don't think the trauma was set off by the attack on me – but by the view of Brian chained up in the shed. I could never forget the story of the helpless boy (and later man). I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't close the chapter. So I went looking for the people who were connected to it: Fiona Barnes and Chad Beckett. Again and again. I wanted answers. I wanted to understand it – and be free of it. And for that I had to understand how it could have happened. And in talking to them I came to be completely convinced that the two of them were not at all innocent. Rather, they knew what they had done. They were responsible for what had happened to Brian Somerville. And indirectly for my destroyed life.'

‘Chad Beckett spoke to you personally?'

‘Rarely. And not much. A fish would talk more than him. But sometimes Fiona agreed to meet me. She told me quite a bit. I think she too was looking for a way to deal with it all. But then she found me a nuisance and at some point did not want to have anything more to do with me. Since 1979 she has hung up without a word whenever I have called her. We never saw each other again. But I already knew enough. And unlike the media and the police, I did judge Barnes and Beckett – from the depths of my heart. What they did cannot be forgiven.'

Ideas rattled round Leslie's head.

Semira had a motive. Of all the people Valerie Almond had as suspects, including Dave Tanner, Semira had the motive that was clearest and easiest to grasp: revenge. For two lives destroyed, Brian Somerviile's and her own.

Leslie looked at the small dark-skinned woman with her smooth black hair flecked with grey, and with her big brown eyes, which revealed a little of how pretty she must have once been. She did not look like someone who would let herself be eaten up inside by hate and a need for satisfaction. But was that something you could always recognise in someone? Was it not often surprising how harmless and even inconspicuous dangerous criminals and unpredictable psychopaths could appear in photos?

There was one burning question Leslie had to ask. She leant forward. ‘Semira, excuse me for asking, but I need to know something … Did you ever call my grandmother? Although she refused to have any contact with you? Did you call and just … not say anything?'

‘You mean, have I ever harassed her with anonymous calls?' asked Semira. ‘Yes, I have. But only in the last week or two. The last time I did was on Tuesday, before I read in the paper that she was dead. Sometimes I felt I was going to explode. The calls allowed me to let off steam. Sometimes when I'd seen Brian Somerville and his wretched life again, or my body was torturing me, or depression had me in its grip again, then I'd think, why should she have it good? Why should she be able to carry on cheerfully without a thought for what she's done? And yes, frankly, it did help to hear her voice asking again and again who was on the other end of the phone. With each question she sounded a little more frantic and shrill. Afterwards I felt a little better, and I'd think: Now I've got you worried, wondering whether the old affair you'd so like to forget has come back to haunt you. After that my day would brighten up.'