The Silent Girls (18 page)

‘Who told you that?’

Edie had to think about it, she didn’t know exactly, it was just something that she’d always believed and never questioned. ‘I don’t know, he just did.’

‘Well if he did, there’s no record of it. No passenger manifests, no ticket records, nothing. I’ve been looking into this for a lot of years Edie, if there was something to find I’d have found it, believe me.’

She did; by the sound of it he’d left no stone unturned in his mission to prove his own father’s innocence. ‘So was that the purpose of inveigling yourself in here, so that you could root around and prove your theory?’

He had the good grace to look sheepish, but she got no satisfaction from his guilt. ‘Knock yourself out Matt, search away, if you can find a trace of my father here I’d be glad to know.’ She said, her tone sour and weary. ‘So, other than lockets and dresses, what else did you two find that was so compelling?’ she addressed this to Sophie, who had been sitting quietly, taking it all in whilst nursing a cold mug of tea.

Sophie glanced at Matt as if seeking his permission to speak, a gesture which Edie found irritating, as if the whole thing had become the Matthew Bastin show.

‘Well, there was the stuff in Beattie’s room, hidden under the floorboards. I threw it out at first, I didn’t know what it was, but I did some digging about her at the library and it turns out she went to prison for doing illegal abortions.’

Edie stared at the girl, mouth open. Sophie looked like a young deer, her eyes wide with apprehension as if she had just realised she was caught in the sights of a marksman’s rifle. Edie had no idea what the girl was so scared of – this whole thing was a massive joke, it had to be. She laughed, it bubbled up like a little spring, but erupted like a waterfall, causing both Matt and Sophie to startle and shift back a little in their respective chairs. Edie was laughing so much she found herself choking for breath and flapping a hand at them while she fought for control. Eventually, tears staining her now flushed cheeks, she spoke. ‘So long lost Papa is a latter day Ripper and Grandmamma turns out to be Winfield’s very own Vera Drake?’ The incongruity of it made her bellow with laughter once again, and she stood up, flapped her hand again and walked out of the room. She needed space from those two for a minute, and a few moments to gather her thoughts and figure out what to make of all this. She wandered into the front room, the one she and Sam had cleared on the first day, and perched herself on the end of the faded couch. From the kitchen she could hear Sophie’s bemused voice ask ‘Who the fuck is Vera Drake?’

Edie needed answers, and from people who weren’t so invested in conspiracy theories and whodunnits that they couldn’t think straight. She walked into the hallway, grabbed her jacket from the coat stand and called out, ‘I’m going out, feel free to poke around Sherlock, if you find Lord Lucan hiding in the cupboard be sure to let me know.’ With that she opened the front door and slammed it behind her.

Lena sat mindlessly staring at the screen, paying no attention whatsoever to the moving figures or what drama might be unfolding. Sam had gone, thank God, she had no time for the boy when he was in that kind of mood. Lord knows what was wrong with him, he hadn’t been right since Edie had arrived and that could spell nothing but trouble. She was going to have to do something and fast, before things got out of hand there. Since Dolly had gone it was all getting out of hand. People needn’t think she hadn’t noticed Matthew Bastin hanging around, she’d had her eye on him since he’d arrived back in the square, not that she’d realised who he was then, but she always kept her eye on strangers. She’d often wondered what had happened to him, but now he was back she had some nostalgia for the question. While he was away the comfort of wondering had been far better than the worry of what he might find out now that he was prowling around poking his nose in.

Number 17’s door slamming snapped her out of her musings, the almost immediate knock on her own made her frown and lurch to her feet, the remote control tumbling from her lap as she stood, losing its battery cover in the process. ‘Sod it!’ Lena muttered, she bent to pick it up, yelling ‘All right, all right, I’m coming!’ to whoever was banging on the door.

She had been expecting Edie. She had been expecting Edie for some time, pretty much since the first box of junk had made its way through the front door and onto the pavement. She already had her answers square in her mind, and they hinged on the fact that in the past times had been hard, people had done what they needed to do to get by. Everyone had, and though it wasn’t an excuse, it was a reason. As she made her way to the front door, she hoped she’d be able to make Edie understand that.

The wall of flesh that met her on the step was not Edie, neither was the effete looking man that stood beside the man mountain. The effete man stepped through the doorway without invitation, gesturing for the giant to follow. ‘Mrs Campion, how lovely to meet you at last. I’m looking for your son, is he in?’

Lena heard the words and looked at the mouth with its row of tiny, perfectly whitened teeth. She knew who the man was. Everyone knew who he was and even though she had never met him before and might have walked past him in the street without giving him a first glance, let alone a second, the fact that he was accompanied by six foot seven of solid muscle and bone all rolled up into something that resembled a man, acted like a calling card. Alan Pascoe had arrived.

Lena knew the type. They never did their own dirty work and the fact that Pascoe had left his ivory tower to come in search of Sam spelled trouble. As if Lena didn’t have enough of that to deal with already. The hired muscle was glowering at her, trying his best to maximise his intimidation tactics. It didn’t wash with Lena and she scowled back. ‘Sam left about half an hour ago, I assume he went home, I’m his mother not his keeper.’ It was time for a bit of levelling, she needed to let Pascoe know that he didn’t intimidate her. ‘Speaking of mothers, I remember yours – bit of a tart as I recall, never did let on who your father was. Always claimed she was attacked and that you were the result.’ She said it with a sneer designed to cut him to the quick.

Pascoe didn’t flinch. ‘Yes, she knew you too. I’m a bastard by name and bastard by nature Mrs Campion, much like your son. Do let him know I’m looking out for him, won’t you? There’s a matter of mutual interest which we need to discuss.’

Lena folded her arms over her chest and spread her feet wide in a gesture of both defiance and defence, she’d be damned if she was going to let this little man know that his words had stung. ‘Mutual interest? Hmmmm, that’s an interesting way of putting things. I’ll tell him when I see him.’

Pascoe smiled at her, his mouth pleasant and benign, his eyes gun metal grey and calculating. ‘Make sure you do Mrs Campion, time is running out and we do want to avoid any discord. We don’t relish discord, do we Stefan?’ he directed the question to his monolithic sidekick, who, like the walking cliché that he was, stared at Lena and said:

‘No Mr Pascoe, we do not.’

Lena would have laughed in the old days, told him to do his worst, but the air of quiet menace wasn’t lost on her and she didn’t have the energy to argue with this silly yet dangerous little man and his personal giant. ‘Then I’ll do my utmost to make sure there isn’t any, now if you don’t mind, I was about to lock up for the night.’

‘Of course Mrs Campion, don’t let us hold you up, and you can’t be too careful in a place like this. Make sure you double check those locks won’t you, I’d hate to get news that something untoward had happened…’

Pascoe’s insinuations had reached the boundary of Lena’s tolerance. ‘Oh I will, don’t you worry about me, I’ve been looking after myself and what’s mine for a very long time, most likely since before you were in short trousers young man.’

Pascoe raised his neat, thin eyebrows and with a twist of his mouth accepted her touché. ‘Indeed. I shall bear that in mind, but things change Mrs Campion – life isn’t what it once was, I’m afraid. Let’s take that girl of your niece’s, Georgia isn’t it? Runs around the square without a care in the world, I’d hate to see her fall in with the wrong crowd and find herself in trouble, it would be such a terrible shame.’

Lena grit her teeth and ground them before replying. ‘Your point had been taken Mr Pascoe, no need to repeat yourself. I may be old, but I’m not stupid.’

‘Glad to hear it Mrs Campion’ he said slowly, a smile of satisfaction sliding across his effeminate little mouth. ‘Stefan, the door? I have the impression that Mrs Campion would like to be left in peace.’

Lena looked away from him, he’d got that right, but peace seemed to be in short supply these days. Pascoe might think he had the upper hand, but she’d pull the plug on the lot of them if they kept pushing. As she saw it, she was of an age where there wasn’t much to lose, well, not for her anyway.

She stood in the open doorway, arms still folded across her chest, a look of stoic resignation tinged with resentment set on her face. She watched them get into their car and drive away, and she stayed watching until they were long gone. The square was always quiet when Pascoe turned up, all the vermin scuttled back to their boltholes when he was around – the man was like a human curfew. He traded on fear and intimidation as if they were social niceties and relished his little bit of power with the gleeful ebullience of a child. Lena resented it, you had to earn that kind of influence – not create it with bully boy tactics and revenge. She had spent a lifetime earning that kind of deference, when all she’d needed to do was pay a thug and demand it. Perhaps she’d got it wrong all these years, or maybe Pascoe had? He clearly had no idea of the lengths that she had been prepared to go to or the things that she’d done to secure her position. He had no idea at all.

Chapter Thirteen

Edie recognised the huge man at once, he was the same creature she had spied talking to Sam that day, but she had no idea who the skinny little guy was, or why they were paying Lena a visit at this time of night. She’d been about to do the same – knock on the old lady’s door and demand answers – but when she had slammed out of Number 17 the sound had broken her mood and made her stop in her tracks. If Lena knew anything the truth would have been common knowledge, Matt wouldn’t be skulking around playing sniffer dogs because there would have been no need. Lena Campion was a bastion of respectability, if she had ever suspected her neighbours of anything nefarious, she would have spoken out. Edie was sure of it.

Instead of badgering Lena for answers she was convinced the old lady didn’t have, Edie had walked into the garden in the middle of the square and had slowly paced the perimeter path, trying to make sense of all that she had found out that evening and wondering why Lena was being visited by the giant. It seemed that Sam had some rather dubious friends.

After two laps of the garden she found a bench, still structurally intact but one arm of it scorched by fire as a result of a particularly determined vandal. The bench had a small brass plaque attached in loving memory of somebody or other. Edie couldn’t tell who – not only was it getting too dark to see, the name had been gouged at with something sharp so that it could no longer be read. It seemed symbolic somehow, in this place the memories of what had gone before were being systematically obliterated by the unrelenting efforts of the square’s new residents.

‘Sad state of affairs isn’t it?’ The voice surprised but didn’t startle Edie. ‘Do you mind if I join you for a moment? I think this is the only intact bench left in the garden, all the rest are in a terminal state thanks to the efforts of our local youth.’

Edie nodded at the elderly, statuesque man and watched as he folded his length onto the bench. She recognised him as the man from Dolly’s funeral, the one who Lena had labelled a gossip. At this juncture Edie considered that a little local gossip might prove useful.

‘I’m Lionel, Lionel White, pleased to make your acquaintance Edie.’ He extended a thin hand, which out of instinctive politeness Edie took. The handshake was brief, warm and showed an unexpected grip for a man so old.

‘You know my name? I know we met briefly at the funeral, but we didn’t exchange names.’

He nodded and using both hands leaned his upper body weight on the bamboo walking stick that he carried. ‘I do, you are the subject of the local gossips I’m afraid. The ladies at the lunch club were full of Dolly’s funeral and the reappearance of the long lost niece, and you are too young to be Rose. There are worse things to be notorious for in this neck of the woods.’ He said it with a chuckle, pointing across the square to where a car had just slowed by the kerb so that a scantily clad, stick thin girl could ply her trade through its open window.

Edie followed his gaze. ‘When did it get so bad? I don’t remember the square being this… this… well, squalid.’

Lionel returned his hand to the top of the stick and gently rocked it back and forth in a silent rhythm that seemed to denote some internal symphony that was playing out for him beyond his consciousness. ‘Have you ever cut open an onion, only to find that though the outer layers feel firm and fresh, some of the inner layers have started to rot? I think this place is much like that – it started to decompose from the inside a long time ago. It only takes one bad apple to infect the barrel.’

Edie smiled, there was nothing like a good fruit and veg analogy to get a conversation flowing. ‘Have you lived here long, Lionel?’

It was Lionel’s turn to smile. ‘Longer than I care to remember, which is far too long for anyone to have to think about. I did spend a few years away, but home is always where the heart is.’

Edie was surprised that she didn’t remember him, she thought she knew all of the old neighbours. ‘You must have known my family then, and Mrs Campion from next door.’

‘Oh yes, I knew them well. Your uncle was a great friend of mine when we were young. And yes, I know Lena, but she chooses not to know me. We haven’t spoken for sixty years or more.’

‘Oh?’ Edie was surprised, she imagined that these two stalwarts of the square would have clung together, being creatures of increasing rarity. She was gratified to hear that he had known her uncle and that at least someone had been a friend to poor Dickie.