Who Was Angela Zendalic (36 page)

I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug into my palms and I let out a gasp. ‘Angela! It must be her. It must be.'

‘It
is
her,' Howie said. ‘That body. That beautiful body is yours. Believe me. That's her.'

My head felt light and I began to waver on my feet so I clutched Howie's arm to steady myself. ‘But she's, she's ...She's mixed race.'

‘Oh, aye,' he said. ‘Stunning. Just stunning. No wonder your father fell in love with her.'

‘But I'm not ...You know ...At all ...' He hung the picture back on the wall and I scrutinised it, frowning and shaking my head. I then went into the hall to look into a mirror, and he stood behind me while I ran my fingers over my face, staring as if I'd never seen myself before. ‘There's nothing, is there,' I said. ‘Not the slightest hint in my features. I've got blue eyes, and white skin. Whiter than yours.'

‘You look a lot like your father, actually, but in subtle ways you look like her as well. And you're every bit as beautiful.' He kissed the back of my neck, and I drew his hand around my waist.

‘Oh, Howie,' I shuddered out. ‘It's all such a tangled web, but in a weird way it's all fitting into place. A few days ago I found out that Pa had left the painting to me in his Will. I wondered, “Why me” at the time, but it's obvious now.'

‘Is there any provenance?'

‘Supposed to be. With the Solicitors.'

‘Where's their office?'

‘Henley.'

‘Then ring them and tell them you want to see it. Now.'

He turned me round, and looked into my eyes. ‘And then if we can trace the artist he can tell us everything he knows.'

February 1972
Jericho

8
.00am.
Ted leapt to answer the phone on his bedside table. Maybe he'd slept. Maybe he hadn't. ‘Ted Rawlings.'
     ‘It's desk sergeant Harris, sir. I'm really sorry to hear about the death of your niece. It looks as if the driver will have to be charged after all ...'

‘She hasn't died. She's up at the new John Radcliffe. We're waiting for news.'

‘Oh. Oh, bloody hell. I didn't realise. I had no idea you hadn't been informed.'

‘Informed of what?'

The sergeant coughed, nervously. ‘Look, I wouldn't have rung if I didn't think …'

‘For God's sake come out with it.'

‘The baby was born by caesarean section. A fit and healthy little girl. Miss Zendalic was taken straight back to the Radcliffe Infirmary to the intensive care unit, but they had to conclude she had no hope of survival. A huge subdural haemorrhage. Her fiancé gave permission for the heart/lung machine to be disconnected and she ...she was allowed to pass peacefully away. He was with her. There'll be a PM later today.'

The baby lay sleeping in a plastic domed incubator; a routine precaution for all premature babies. There was no anxiety, but she just needed routine observation. A perfect little girl. Smooth alabaster skin and silky skeins of dark wavy hair. Her features refined to an Anglo-Saxon template, but with the long arms and legs, and fingers and feet of Africa. What was there of himself, Piers wondered? He asked a nurse. She looked at him intently and then at the baby.

‘She's beautiful,' she said. ‘She's got your chin and brow. And your ears. Definitely'

‘Are her eyes blue?'

‘It's too soon to say.'

‘Her mother had blue eyes. So rare for an Anglo-African.'

‘Have you named her?'

‘Oh, yes. Ceraphina Raven Evangeline Penney. But she'll be known as Sarah – her mother's choice.'

‘Would you like to hold her?'

‘Yes. Yes, please.'

The nurse carefully wrapped the sleeping child in a shawl and placed her in Piers' arms. He gathered her to his face, and kissed her. ‘Is she your first?' she asked.

‘Actually she's my fourth child, but my first with Angela.'

‘How will you manage?'

‘I'll manage very well. Very well indeed.'

Ted, standing alone in his tiny garden was still absorbing the horror. It had been two hours since the news, and there was so much to say. So much to defend himself. So much hatred to heap on Piers.

He'd been unable to raise Peggy by banging on her door knocker, so he'd entered her house with his spare key for emergencies. ‘Coo-ee, Peg. It's only Ted.' She was sitting upright in a chair in the back room, the curtains still closed, and staring into space. He pulled the curtains back, knelt down beside her, and took her hand. She smelt of drink, and seemed only half awake. ‘Peg,' he said slowly. ‘It's really bad news, love. She passed peacefully away last night. The baby was born. A little girl, and she's fine. She's just fine. You've got a granddaughter.' Peggy continued to stare, her face a blankness of incomprehension. Her eyes unseeing, her mouth slack and gaping, ‘I'm here to look after you,'
he continued, ‘but we'll have to tell Stan and Edie. It's our duty, not that I really care after how they've behaved. I think it's time to tell them
your
story as well. Why don't you come back home with me? So I can keep an eye on you.'

‘No thanks,' she said, with a faint, gravelly voice. ‘I want to stay here. In my own home.' She got up and removed her diamond ring from the eggcup. ‘Take this to him. To Piers. Tell him it's a present for the baby. And don't you be saying a word about our secret. I don't want him or anyone else to know. I want to keep all my lovely memories to myself.' She turned away and looked at the wall. ‘Go away Ted. Leave me alone.'

Tired and dazed, Piers left the hospital and returned to college. So much to do, and too much strain in his brain to co-ordinate it all. He lifted a pen to make a list; the academic's life training to ensure a busy life was managed. So much to do, when all he wanted was to go home to their tiny cottage. To hide away, to sit by a warm fire, and be given time to manage his grief. But another part of him boiled with the ludicrous allegations thrown at him, echoed by the cruel denunciation of her brainless, judgemental parents.

Around mid-day he found he'd been on the phone for most of the morning, and had achieved a lot. A discussion with the senior police officer in charge of the accident, and told that Angela had stepped off the pavement ‘in a dream'. No wonder, when she'd just been told, with authority, that he'd been cheating on her and was on her way to confront him. The paediatrician's verdict that Sarah would probably be discharged in three days' time, once a feeding routine had been established, and his assurance that he'd be up to the ward as often as possible to ensure he was part of the regime. The results of the post-mortem had come through, and it was exactly as he'd been told to expect: a fatal intra-axial subdural haematoma, caused by a sharp blow to her skull. Fullylove's, the funeral directors confirming a date in a week's time at the crematorium on Three Mile Hill. ‘I insist that I deal personally with any enquiries from other persons, and I wish her ashes to be given to me.' Then a long talk with Merryn, resulting in a most welcome and generous offer. ‘Let me come up and help you, darling. You can't manage this alone.'

‘Oh, Merryn. I'd be so pleased if you could. I'm just in a state of agony.'

‘Ring me later on when you've had a rest and we'll talk some more.'

He replaced the receiver and contemplated his utter loneliness. There was no-one else who knew, and no-one to tell. Since he'd been warned by the Master to keep his lovely girl ‘out of sight and mind' he'd been forced to treat her as a hidden object, far away from the critical eyes of petty minded academia. No joy of the coming baby had been shared with a single friend or colleague and thus, he would keep all knowledge to himself. His little daughter would stay as part of his other life, but his other life as ...as what? A single man, floundering in the deep, with no anchor or life jacket. In his time of grieving and panic, dear Merryn was coming up to help him, but in the long term, how, in the name of God Almighty
was
he going to manage? His life had been as near to perfect as he could make it. Now wrecked by fools.

He would now drive up to see his little girl again. No longer ‘the baby'. Already Sarah. His daughter. And like the words of the marriage service he committed himself. ‘Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?'

‘I will.'

The shrill ring of the telephone, and he visibly jumped. ‘Ron Hopper, Prof. There's a man called to see you. He's most insistent. A Mr Rawlings.' Piers sighed. The idiot policeman was the last person he wanted to see, but he would. To say his piece, once and for all. To make sure they all understood he was taking full charge of Sarah, and wanted nothing more to do with her family, ever again.

‘Can you bring him up, Ron?'

Piers remained seated in his old tapestry chair as the figure came in, indicating to him that he sit on the
chaise longue
. ‘I know she's passed away,' Ted said. ‘The station let me know.'

‘Well, I certainly don't want to hear how sorry you are, Inspector Rawlings. You've lost your right to any sort of united grief, but what I
do
want to know is why I've been turned on by a pit full of vipers.'

‘I saw you a couple of days ago,' Ted said, narrowing his eyes. ‘In the Bat and Ball. Canoodling. Another young bit of stuff. Holding hands and laughing. You can't deny it.'

Piers nodded. ‘I don't deny it. It most certainly was me, but you felt it was your public duty to inform Angela of my disgusting behaviour.' He breathed in deeply, pushed his shoulders back into his chair, and cleared his throat. ‘I'll tell you a story, shall I? A story I could have told you before, if you'd had the intelligence to come to me first. But you had to have your moment of pompous self-satisfaction, didn't you, and what a tragedy it caused. Call yourself a detective? Innocent until proven guilty, I think the law of the land says, but you were determined to put the knife in. Prove to yourself that I was a bastard of the first order, and you had to save her from me. So. Here's the story, and don't you dare interrupt.' Ted sat uncomfortably, his elbows on his knees, and his head lowered.

‘In 1970 I took a sabbatical year, and went off to Harvard with my wife and children, but after my year was up they offered me a head of department position. We loved Harvard life so much I took the post, Merryn became pregnant again, and life couldn't have been more perfect.

‘A month before she was due to give birth my father suddenly died, and I had to come back to England to sort his affairs. Whilst I was away she went in premature labour and was rushed into hospital, but the child was stillborn. I flew back to her immediately, but it was clear that all was far from well. She began to sink into a deep depression and was diagnosed with post-partum psychosis. She was kept in hospital for several weeks, and it was a dreadful time for us all, not least for her. But she was eventually discharged, and everyone involved was sure she'd made a full recovery.

‘But things went in a very strange direction. She found me repulsive. After having had so many years of a very close and happy marriage it was devastating for me. On the surface she appeared to be her normal lovely self, but she was actually forming a manic attachment to a young Brazilian pianist. Their affair became very public and obsessive, and I was distraught, but we continued to live together for the sake of the children. I still loved her, and I was hoping the affair would burn itself out, but it didn't. She eventually left me, and ran away with him to Rio, taking our daughters with her. It had to accept our relationship was over, but I was very worried for the welfare of my children.

‘It was then her parents got involved, and they flew out to try and monitor the situation. When they got there it was obvious she was showing signs of psychosis again, and the young man had no idea how to cope with her. To be honest, it was only a transient thing for him, and he packed his bags, but she still didn't want anything to do with me as a husband, as a friend, or in any way at all. All her thoughts were for the young man she'd lost, and it was then that we had to make the painful decision that we should live apart. Her parents offered her and the children a home, and I was forced to get on with life as best I could. I had two choices. Stay at Harvard, which meant putting thousands of miles between me and my children, or finding work in the UK. Then the miracle happened. I was offered the chair here, and I moved back to college in late April.'

Ted looked up with a face of cold censure. ‘And that's when you fell upon our Angie again. Not much more than a schoolgirl. How come she told her mum she'd been in love with you for years? Was Edie right, then?'

‘If you mean did I have an unhealthy relationship with her as a child, or took advantage of her in any way, the answer's emphatically no. I'm no paedophile, and there was never any impropriety. However, I'm a truthful man, and I must admit that I began to find her very attractive when she began to grow up.'