The Secret Keeper (36 page)

Chatter from the restaurants faded behind them as they crossed King’s College quad on their way to meet the Cam. It was quiet by the river and Laurel could hear the punts rocking gently on the moon-silvered surface. A bell sounded in the distance, stark and stoic, and in a college room somewhere someone was practising the violin. The beautiful sad music plucked at Laurel’s heart and she knew, suddenly, that she’d made a mistake in coming here.

Gerry hadn’t said much since they’d left the restaurant and was walking silently beside her now, pushing his bike with one hand. His head was bowed, his gaze trained on the ground before him. She’d let the burden of the past trick her into sharing it; she’d convinced herself that Gerry ought to know, that he too was bound to the monstrous thing she’d witnessed. But he’d been little more than a baby back then, a tiny person, and now he was a sweet man, his mother’s favourite, incapable of considering that she might have once done something dreadful. Laurel was about to say as much, to apologise and somehow make light of her own obsessive interest, when Gerry said:

‘What’s next then? Have we got any leads?’

Laurel glanced at him.

He’d stopped beneath the yellow glow of a streetlamp and was prodding his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. ‘What? You weren’t going to let it go, were you? Obviously we need to find out what happened. It’s part of our story, Lol.’

Laurel couldn’t think that she’d ever loved him quite so much as that moment. ‘There is something,’ she said, her breath catching, ‘Now you mention it. I went to visit Ma this morning and she came over all hazy and asked the nurse to send in Dr Rufus when she saw him.’

‘Not so strange in a hospital, is it?’

‘Not in itself, except her doctor’s name is Cotter not Rufus.’

‘A slip of the tongue?’

‘I don’t think so. There was a certainty in the way she said it. Besides …’. The shadowy image of a young man named Jimmy, loved once by her mother, lamented now, came to Laurel’s mind. ‘It’s not the first time she’d spoken of someone she used to know. I think the past is going round and round in her head; I think she almost wants us to know the answers.’

‘Did you ask her about it?’

‘Not about Dr Rufus, but I did about a few other things. She answered openly enough, but the conversation upset her. I’ll talk to her again, of course, but if there’s another way, I’m eager to try that too.’

‘Agreed.’

‘I went to the library earlier to see if there was any way of finding out details of a doctor who was operating in Coventry and maybe London, too, in the nineteen thirties and forties. I only had his surname and had no idea what sort of doctor he was, so the librarian suggested we start by checking the data-base for the Lancet.’

‘And?’

‘I found a Dr Lionel Rufus, Gerry—I’m almost certain it’s him, he lived in Coventry at the right time and published papers in the field of personality psychology.’

‘You think she was his patient? That Ma might’ve suffered from some sort of condition back then?’

‘I’ve no idea, but I intend to find out.’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Gerry suddenly. ‘There are people I could ask.’

‘Really?’

He was nodding, and his words tumbled together excitedly as he said, ‘You go back to Suffolk. I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything.’

It was more than Laurel had dared hope for—no it wasn’t, it was exactly what she’d dared hope for. Gerry was going to help her; together they were going to find out what really happened. ‘You realise—’ she didn’t want to scare him off, but she had to warn him—‘you might find something terrible. Something that makes a lie of everything we thought we knew about her.’

Gerry smiled. ‘Aren’t you the actress? Isn’t this the bit where you’re supposed to tell me that people aren’t a science—that characters are multi-faceted, and one new variable doesn’t dis-prove the whole theorem?’

‘I’m just saying. Be prepared, little brother.’

‘I’m always prepared,’ he said, with a grin, ‘And I’m still backing our mum.’

Laurel raised her eyebrows, wishing she had his faith. But she had seen what happened that day at Greenacres, she knew what their mother was capable of. ‘Not very scientific of you,’ she said sternly, ‘Not when everything points towards the one conclusion.’

Gerry took her hand. ‘Did the hungry teenage galaxies teach you nothing, Lol?’ he said softly, and Laurel felt a surge of worry and protective love because she saw in his eyes how much he needed to believe things would all work out, and she knew in her own heart how unlikely it was. ‘Never discount the possibility of turning up an answer none of the current theories predict.’

Eighteen

London, January 1941

DOLLY WAS QUITE SURE she’d never been so humiliated in all her life as she had been the other afternoon at number 25. If she lived to be a hundred years old, she knew she wouldn’t forget the way Henry and Vivien Jenkins had stared at her as she went, those bemused mocking expressions distorting their horrid lovely faces. They’d almost succeeded in making Dolly feel as if she were nothing more than a neighbour’s maid, come calling in an old dress borrowed from her mistress’s wardrobe. Almost. Dolly was made of sterner stuff than that, though; as Dr Rufus was always telling her: ‘You’re one in a million, Dorothy, you really are.’

At their most recent lunch, two days after what had happened, he’d leaned back in his seat at the Savoy and eyed her over his cigar. ‘Tell me, Dorothy,’ he’d said, ‘why do you think this woman, this Vivien Jenkins, was so dismissive of you?’ Dolly had shaken her head thoughtfully, before telling him what she now believed. ‘I think when she came across the two of us, Mr Jenkins and I, together like that in the sitting room …’ Dolly glanced away, slightly embarrassed as she remembered the way Henry Jenkins had looked at her, ‘ … well, I’d taken rather special care with my appearance that day, you see, and I suspect it was just more than Vivien could stand.’ He’d nodded appreciatively and then his eyes had narrowed as he stroked his chin: ‘And how did you feel, Dorothy, when she slighted you that way?’ Dolly had thought she might cry when Dr Rufus asked that. She didn’t, though; she smiled bravely, driving her fingernails into her palms and priding herself on the way she managed to keep her self-control as she said, ‘I felt mortified, Dr Rufus, and very, very hurt. I don’t think I’ve ever been treated so shabbily, and by someone I used to call a friend. I really felt—’

‘Stop it—stop it now!’ In the bright sunlit room at 7 Campden Grove, Dolly started as Lady Gwendolyn kicked a small foot free and shouted, ‘You’ll take my toe off if you’re not careful, silly girl.’

Dolly noticed with contrition the tiny, white triangle where the old woman’s pinky toenail had been. It was thoughts of Vivien that had done it. Dolly had gone much harder and faster with the file than she ought to have. ‘I’m so sorry, Lady Gwendolyn,’ she said. ‘I’ll be more gentle—’

‘I’ve had enough of that. Fetch me my sweets, Dorothy. I passed a bilious night—wretched ration recipes—veal knuckle with stewed red cabbage for dinner; little wonder I tossed and turned and dreamed of ghastly things.’

Dolly did what she was told, waiting patiently as the old woman sorted through the bag to find the largest bull’s eye.

Mortification had passed quickly through indignity and shame to arrive at full-blown anger. Why, Vivien and Henry Jenkins had all but called her a thief and a liar, when all she’d wanted was to return Vivien’s precious necklace. The irony was almost too great to bear, that Vivien—she who was sneaking about behind her husband’s back, telling lies to everyone who cared about her, entreating those who didn’t not to give away her secrets—should be the one to cast her cold darkeyed judgement on Dolly; the very person who’d leapt to her defence time and again when others spoke ill of her.

Well—Dolly frowned determinedly as she sheathed the nail file and tidied up the dressing-table top—not any more. Dolly had made a plan. She hadn’t spoken to Lady Gwendolyn, not yet, but when the old woman learned what had happened—that her young friend had been betrayed, just as she had—Dolly was sure she’d give her blessing. They were going to throw a huge party when the war ended, a stupendous affair, a grand masquerade with costumes and lanterns and fire-eaters. All the most fabulous people would come, and there’d be photographs in The Lady, and it would be talked about for years to come. Dolly could just picture the guests arriving in Campden Grove, dressed to the nines and parading right past number 25 where Vivien Jenkins sat watching from the window, uninvited.

In the meantime, she was doing her best to shun the pair of them. There were some people, Dolly was learning, whom it was better not to know. Henry Jenkins wasn’t difficult to avoid—Dolly didn’t see much of him at the best of times; and she’d managed to keep clear of Vivien by withdrawing from the WVS. It had been a relief, actually—in one fell swoop she’d freed herself from Mrs Waddingham’s jurisdiction and gained the time to devote herself more fully to keeping Lady Gwendolyn happy. Just as well, too, as things turned out. The other morning, at an hour when ordinarily she’d have been off working at the canteen, Dolly had been massaging Lady Gwendolyn’s cramping legs when the doorbell rang downstairs. The old woman had rolled her wrist towards the window and told Dolly to take a peek and see who’d come to bother them this time.

Dolly had been worried at first it would be Jimmy—he’d called a few times now, during the day thank God when no one else was home and she’d been able to avoid a scene—but it hadn’t been him. As Dolly peered through Lady Gwendolyn’s window, the glass pane crisscrossed with tape against bomb blasts, she’d seen Vivien Jenkins below, glancing over her shoulder as though it was beneath her to be calling at number 7 and she was embarrassed even to be seen on the doorstep. Dolly’s skin had flushed hot because she knew, instantly, why Vivien had come—it was just the sort of petty unkindness Dolly was coming to expect from her—she planned to report to Lady Gwendolyn the thieving habits of her ‘servant’. Dolly could just picture Vivien, posed sleekly on the dusty chintz armchair by the old woman’s bedside, crossing her long slender legs, and leaning forward in a conspiratorial way to deplore the quality of servants these days, ‘It’s so difficult to find somebody trustworthy, isn’t it Lady Gwendolyn? Why, we’ve had our own spot of bother lately …’

As Dolly had watched Vivien on the doorstep, still checking the street behind her, the grande dame had barked from her bed: ‘Well, Dorothy—I’m not going to live forever. Who is it?’ Dolly had suppressed the tremor of panic and reported, as blithely as she could, that it was just a mean-looking woman collecting clothes for charity. When Lady Gwendolyn gave a snort and said, ‘Don’t let her in! She’s not getting her grubby fingers on my dressing room,’ Dolly had been only too happy to comply.

Thwump. Dolly jumped. Quite without realising it, she’d gravitated to the window and had been gazing down blankly at number 25. Thwump, thwump. She turned to see Lady Gwendolyn staring at her. The old woman’s cheeks were puffed out full to accommodate the enormous bull’s eye and she was dashing her cane across the mattress to gain attention.

‘Yes, Lady Gwendolyn?’

The old lady wrapped her arms across her body and mimed freezing.

‘You’re a little cold?’

Nod, nod.

Dolly disguised her sigh with an acquiescent smile—she’d only just removed the covers after complaints of over-heating—and went to the bedside. ‘Let’s see if we can’t fix you up then, shall we?’

Lady Gwendolyn closed her eyes and Dolly started drawing up the blankets, but the task was easier said than done. The old woman’s twisting and turning with the cane had made a mess of the bedclothes and the blanket was caught, pinned beneath her other leg. Dolly scooted round to the far side of the bed and tugged as hard as she could to bring it loose.

Later, she would look back and blame the dust for what happened next. At the time, though, she was far too busy heaving and hauling to notice. Finally, the blanket came free and Dolly shook it, dragging it as high as she could to tuck the top beneath the old woman’s chin. It was while she was folding over the hemmed edge that Dolly sneezed with unusually dramatic force. Ahh-choooooo!

The shock gave Lady Gwendolyn a jolt and her eyes flew wide open. Dolly excused herself, rubbing her tickling nose. She blinked to clear her eyes and through the glaze noticed that the grande dame had started flailing her arms; her hands were flapping like a pair of frightened birds.

‘Lady Gwendolyn?’ she said, leaning closer. The old woman’s face had turned beetroot red. ‘Dear Lady Gwendolyn, what is it?’

A rasping sound came from Lady Gwendolyn’s throat and her skin darkened to aubergine. She was gesturing wildly now towards her throat. Something was stopping her from speaking—

The bull’s eye, Dolly realised with a gasp; it was stuck like a plug in the old woman’s throat. Dolly didn’t know what to do. She was frantic. Without thinking, she thrust her fingers into Lady Gwendolyn’s mouth, trying to fish the sweet out.