My Sister's Child, page 19
‘Yet she chose not to.’
I couldn’t argue with that. I watched Noah in the kitchen area, reaching for a glass of liquid on the counter. ‘Rachel died,’ I said. ‘Obviously, you know that.’
‘There was a piece on the local news.’ Vanessa’s anger died as quickly as it had flared. ‘When I heard that name …’ She gave a dramatic shudder and I realized it wasn’t possible for us to ever see the past from the same side. For her, Rachel was the reason her son no longer spoke to her; for us, Lucian had been the one to take Rachel away.
‘I decided to take things further,’ Vanessa said. ‘I found out where the funeral was being held and thought I might speak to one of you, see if you had any information about the child.’
My mind swam with confusion. ‘You came to the service?’
She shook her head, a coil of hair springing loose. ‘I watched you turn up with your little family. As soon as I saw the boy, I knew.’ She clicked her fingers, miming something falling into place. ‘Her sensible big sister took on the baby.’
Noah was walking towards the doors now, taking tiny steps, the glass of juice clasped between both hands. My heart squeezed with love. I would rather die than let Vanessa anywhere near him.
‘I know what you believe, but you’re wrong. He is not your grandson.’ My voice cracked. ‘Please, leave us alone.’
‘I want access.’ She tilted her chin. ‘I want him to come and stay with me. I have a lot to offer. I could pay for private—’
‘He is not your grandchild,’ I repeated, stronger this time. ‘Noah isn’t related to you. Speak to Lucian. He’ll tell you.’
She was shaking her head again. ‘He won’t talk to me. And I don’t need his permission. He might have forfeited his rights, but I know mine.’
‘I’ll call him.’ I scrabbled my phone out, brought up the webpage I’d found only two days ago. ‘Wait there, Noah,’ I said as he reached the door. He froze, poised with the glass like a statue. I found the Serenity number and pressed call. ‘Lucian West, please,’ I said to the woman who answered, cutting her introduction short. ‘It’s urgent.’
I tried to smile at Noah, as though we were playing a game.
‘Mummy, can I put my drink down?’
I nodded and he placed it carefully on the floor.
‘Hello?’ Lucian sounded cautious.
‘It’s Jess Sanderson. I have your mother here. She took my son from his school today. She believes he’s her grandchild and is demanding access.’
‘What?’ Shock resonated down the line. ‘Jess, I—’
‘Can you talk to her?’ I handed my phone to Vanessa, who took it and, without moving her eyes from mine, cut the call, and handed it back.
‘He won’t be truthful,’ she said sadly. ‘He never wanted to be a father. He made that abundantly clear. He’s lost to me, but I have my grandson now.’ My phone started ringing, but Vanessa had turned to look through the glass at Noah. ‘I won’t leave without him.’
‘No!’ As she moved forward, I pushed myself between her and the door, arms spreadeagled. ‘Stay away from him.’
‘Mummy?’ Noah’s voice was querulous.
‘It’s OK, sweetheart, we’re playing hide and seek.’ A surge of hatred rose. How dare she invade his innocent world and bring him here, telling him lies?
‘I’m going to find a hidey-place,’ he said cautiously.
‘Good idea!’ I infused my voice with enthusiasm, shifting to the side so Vanessa couldn’t get past me. ‘I’ll count to twenty.’ My phone stopped ringing and started again. ‘Lucian will call the police,’ I said to Vanessa.
‘They’ll understand once I’ve had time to explain.’
‘You can’t have him because you want a second chance at being a mother.’
Her arm shot out and she struck me across the face. ‘You little bitch.’
I gasped, hand flying to my cheek. ‘Get away from me.’ I ground the words through gritted teeth, tears spilling down my burning face. ‘Noah is not your grandson.’
Her hand reached past me for the door. ‘We’ll let the courts prove that.’
‘You won’t have to.’ A familiar voice cut through the air. ‘Get away from my daughter or I’ll call the police right now.’
My heart slammed against my chest. ‘Dad!’ He’d come around the side of the house and was standing on the patio, waving a sheet of paper. ‘This is all the proof you need,’ he said. ‘Your son isn’t Noah’s father.’
‘Grandpa!’ Hearing Dad’s voice, Noah charged out from wherever he’d been hiding and wriggled through the gap in the door. ‘I was playing hide and seek!’
‘Noah, wait!’ I called, wiping tears from my face, but Dad had dipped to his knee to catch him, his forearm gripped around Noah’s back.
Vanessa’s hands clenched at her sides. ‘I remember you coming to our home,’ she said slowly to Dad. ‘You ordered us to keep my son away from your daughter.’ Her face sagged. She looked years older. ‘It would have been like trying to stop the weather.’
‘You didn’t even try, didn’t care.’ Dad’s tone was measured, but his eyes were glacial. ‘You threatened to have me arrested that time, as I recall.’
He came home that day with a defeated slope to his shoulders, barely able to look Mum in the eye. I tried.
I crossed the patio and rested my hand on Noah’s hair, relishing the silky texture beneath my fingers. He turned, throwing himself at my legs. ‘I don’t like it here.’ I lifted him up and held him tight, felt the rapid beat of his heart, his hot breath on my neck. ‘I want to go home, Mummy.’
Blinking back fresh tears, I said, ‘We’re going very soon, I promise.’
Vanessa strode over and plucked the piece of paper from Dad’s outstretched fingers. Dismay filled her face as she scanned the document. ‘DNA test results.’
My arms stiffened around Noah. I looked at Dad, but his attention was focused on Vanessa.
‘How did you get this?’ She tossed the paper to the ground, where a gust of wind caught it and blew it along the path.
‘I had ways.’
‘Illegal, no doubt.’ Vanessa’s voice lacked emotion. ‘You’re the type, aren’t you, Mr Beresford?’
‘And what you’ve done is legal?’ Dad pulled himself to his full height, towering over Vanessa. ‘Go home, Mrs West.’
‘I’m divorced.’ Her eyes looked glassy. ‘I prefer the surname I was born with.’
‘Handy, when you’re pretending to be someone you’re not,’ I couldn’t help saying, but her gaze drifted past me as if I hadn’t spoken. Perhaps she was wondering how to explain all of this to Lucian. My phone was ringing once more. Keeping hold of Noah, I grabbed it off the table where I’d dropped it. ‘It’s OK,’ I said, before Lucian could speak. ‘She’s going home now.’ I hung up before he could reply. It was for them to sort out now.
‘And don’t come back,’ Dad said.
‘Why is Grandpa being mean to the lady?’ Noah lifted his head, his eyes shiny with tears.
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ I kissed his cheek. ‘Grandpa’s cross because the lady shouldn’t have picked you up from school. But it’s OK. She’s going back to her own house today and we won’t see her again.’
I threw her a pointed look and she backed away, sinking her knees as her fingers scrambled for her bag. Straightening, she smoothed her scarf with a trembling hand. ‘I would be grateful if this didn’t go any further.’
‘That’s up to you,’ Dad said grimly. Turning, he gave Noah a reassuring smile. ‘Say bye-bye to the lady.’
‘Bye.’ Noah gave her a little wave that broke my heart. ‘Thank you for the juice,’ he added politely.
Vanessa barely glanced up, as if wanting nothing to do with him now that she knew he wasn’t related to her. Or maybe she’d come to her senses and realized how close she was to being arrested.
We watched in silence as she picked her coat off the chair and looped it through the handles of her bag. She patted her hair and squared her shoulders before walking back the way she’d come, leaving, once more, without looking back.
Chapter 35
‘Is this genuine?’ Back at Dad’s, I waved the document I’d retrieved from the garden at Tarn Cottage. I had so many questions, I barely knew where to start. ‘I don’t understand how you got it.’
‘Let me make some tea and I’ll explain.’
When he’d gone through to the kitchen, I sat on the sofa then got up, needing to pace around to work off the stress. Noah had shot upstairs after Tiger, seeming none the worse for his ordeal, easily distracted by the cat and a promise of chocolate cake.
After Vanessa had left, I’d checked the house while Dad gave Noah a push on the swing in an effort to restore normality, before securing the door and returning to the car. Dad’s Aston Martin had been parked haphazardly, the driver’s door still open, and Noah had insisted he wanted to go in Grandpa’s car. There had been no opportunity to talk. I’d followed them back to Rosside, mind buzzing, calling Moira on the way to tell her something had cropped up and I wouldn’t be coming back to the office. To her credit, she took it in her stride, explaining that Kristin had returned after her appointment, which turned out to be a small filling, and everything was fine. I went hot with guilt at how easily I’d suspected Kristin of taking Noah. I debated calling Adam but couldn’t face the barrage of questions and accusations he was bound to unleash, especially as I hadn’t got everything straight in my mind. The main thing was that Noah was safe, Vanessa no longer a threat, and no one would ever walk out of school with Noah again once I’d spoken to the head teacher.
I looked again at the document in my hand, crinkled around the edges from being blown around the garden at Tarn Cottage. My eyes strayed to the box at the bottom of the page.
Lucian West is excluded as the biological father of Noah Sanderson. This conclusion is based on the non-matching alleles observed at the STR loci listed above with a DI equal to 0. The probability of paternity is 0%.
There were columns of numbers and letters above, none of which made sense, but the result was irrefutable. Tears of relief sprang to my eyes. It was so good to know for certain.
I heard Dad run upstairs and say, ‘Cake for Sir Noah,’ in a theatrical voice and knew he was playing for time.
‘What would you make of this, Mum?’ I looked at the photograph on top of the piano, where she smiled out at me from our living room in Barnes. ‘I wish I could talk you properly.’
Finally, Dad came through with two mugs of tea and placed them on the windowsill. Digging his hands in his trouser pockets he peered out at the garden. ‘I’m definitely going to make a start out there tomorrow.’
‘Dad.’ He glanced at me sideways, a hunted look on his face. ‘The paternity test. How did you get it?’
‘Do you really need to know?’
‘You must have broken the law if Lucian doesn’t know about it.’
‘How do you know he doesn’t?’
‘Did you break the law?’ I persisted.
He turned so I couldn’t read his face and was quiet for so long, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. ‘Only by proxy.’
‘What does that mean?’
He paused, as if weighing up what to say next, and briefly met my eyes. ‘Denny.’
Of course it was Denny. Hadn’t I turned to him myself?
‘Right.’ I couldn’t work out how I felt.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Dad said. ‘When Rachel gave Noah to you, I wanted to know for sure that waster wasn’t the father, that he wasn’t going to cause trouble.’
‘So you got an illegal paternity test.’
‘There are ways if you know what you’re doing,’ he said.
I didn’t want details but had to know one thing. ‘Noah. How did you—?’
‘A cheek swab.’ His words came quickly, a hand waving them away. ‘He was only a few months old. You were taking a nap, I was babysitting. Adam was at work. It was fast, didn’t hurt, and he won’t remember it.’
I was speechless. This had happened without me knowing, never guessing for one second my father – always on hand to babysit his precious grandson – was capable of such deception. You saw what you wanted to see, like you always did where your dad was concerned. Caroline’s words rang loud in my ears.
‘I’m sorry, Jess. I thought it was for the best.’ He looked contrite. ‘Insurance, if you like, in case that waste of space somehow found out and came asking questions.’ He ran a hand across his face. ‘I wanted to protect my family.’
Hating to see him vulnerable, I tried to reframe his words. He’d broken the law, yes, but he’d done it for me, for Noah. ‘You should have told me. I wondered about Lucian too and all this time, you had this.’ I thrust the printout at him.
‘You never asked.’ He took a step back, knocking his mug with his elbow. ‘If you had, I would have told you.’
Really? ‘I spoke to Lucian this morning.’ I might as well tell him. ‘I got it into my head he had something to do with Rachel’s death,’ I said. ‘He came to see her.’ Dad didn’t react. ‘I worked out that it was Lucian and tracked him down.’
‘Sounds like you’ve been going behind my back too.’
‘I didn’t want to worry you.’ When he gave me a pointed look, I said, ‘OK, I get it.’
‘What did he have to say for himself?’
‘Rachel had him believing he was Noah’s father. She even stole a photo from our house. She was there, Dad.’ His face jolted with shock. ‘And all because she wanted Lucian back.’ My voice had risen, and I lowered it, mindful of Noah upstairs. ‘If I’d known about this’ – I crumpled the sheet of paper in my fist – ‘it would have saved a lot of heartache. I wouldn’t have got in touch with him and stirred things up.’ When Dad didn’t speak, continuing to stare out of the window, my anger grew. ‘Adam and I have fallen out about all this. Things are weird between us and all because …’ I trailed off. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
His head whipped round. ‘Knew?’
‘That I went to London and spoke to Will Taylor,’ I said. ‘You had Denny follow me, didn’t you?’
Turning, he gripped my shoulders, a fierce look in his eyes. ‘I was worried about you, Jess. When you asked me last week if I thought your sister’s death was really an accident … you had this look on your face. I had a feeling you weren’t going to let it lie. I dropped into your office last Friday morning. I’d been to the bakery and that girl you work with told me you were in London. She seemed … furtive, as though she didn’t want me to know.’
‘So, you asked Denny to keep an eye on me and report back. Is that it?’ I wrenched out of his grasp, remembering the feeling I’d had that he didn’t believe me when I told him about my trip. ‘You could have said. I thought whoever pushed Rachel into the canal was after me—’
‘Pushed her?’ He paled. ‘Is that what you think happened?’
‘I don’t know.’ I pulled my hands through my hair. ‘Maybe.’
‘This Will Taylor. What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘He’s a concerned friend, that’s all.’
‘And he put these doubts in your mind?’
I nodded, not liking Dad’s darkening expression. ‘He wanted to talk it through, but he knows now that Lucian had nothing to do with Rachel’s death. He wasn’t even in the country that night.’
‘But you still think she was killed?’
I didn’t like the way he was breathing, how his hand had covered his chest. Dad wasn’t fragile, but he wasn’t a young man either. He’d suffered unimaginable losses, been brought to his knees by grief. If I told him about the letters in the poetry book among Rachel’s things, how even as we spoke Will was trying to decipher them, convinced something didn’t add up … it might kill him. ‘There’s no evidence,’ I said, banishing the image of Sam that flew into my mind. ‘It must have been an accident.’
He nodded slowly, his colour returning. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Jess. I—’
‘Wait.’ I was struck by something. ‘Was Denny following Rachel?’ My thoughts lost themselves once more in a labyrinth of questions. ‘Did Denny … Did he see what happened that night, Dad?’
‘Did Uncle Denny get your sister drunk and push her in Regent’s Canal?’ Dad looked at me with horror etched on his face. ‘You think he’s capable of something like that, Jess?’
‘No, of course not.’ His expression brought me to my senses. But I thought how readily Denny had agreed to help me and keep it from Dad. How, at Dad’s bidding, he’d bolted to London to follow me when he was supposed to be watching Noah. ‘Of course he wouldn’t, I’m sorry. But he was following her, wasn’t he?’
Dad sank heavily into the armchair. ‘I can see you think less of me, but—’
‘I don’t.’ I dropped to my knees in front of him and took his hands in mine. They were cold and slightly clammy. ‘I’m having a hard time getting my head around it, that’s all. I’m trying to understand.’
His eyes were damp, his mouth working, and I wanted to tell him it didn’t matter, that I knew he’d had his reasons, but he started talking again. ‘I wanted to know why she was back, that’s all. I could pretend she was happy in Thailand or India, or wherever, having a great time. I tried to get on with my life, but then she came back to London.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I had Denny keep an eye on the databases. You know, she was in the system because of that shoplifting business, and the time she ran away from rehab.’ I nodded. ‘Her name came up at the beginning of the year. She was arrested and fined for drunken behaviour. Denny made it go away – he’s still got contacts in the force – then kept an eye out. She kept her head down after that, got a job. I couldn’t understand why she was back. I wanted to know …’ He broke off, looking at our joined hands as if saying the rest was too hard.
