Creeping Ivy, page 23
‘I was fine.’
‘OK. But if it happens again – ever – call me at once. Anyway, this bombshell about the epilepsy puts a different complexion on Nicky’s possible responsibility for what happened.’
‘I still don’t see why.’
‘Don’t go cold on me, Trish,’ he said, watching her as though she were a dangerous and ill-maintained machine that might explode at any moment. ‘It’s stupid to ignore facts. First of all, she’s kept her condition secret from everyone.’
‘Except you. How did you get it out of her?’
‘It’s my job, Trish. It was obvious from the minute I saw her that she was terrified of something and longing to make a confession. I thought I’d better find out what it was before the police picked up on it. Even they usually get on to that sort of thing in the end. I made it clear I was completely on her side, whatever she’d done, and that anything she said was sacrosanct. I’m not sure she believed me, but she poured out everything about her fits, poor little devil,’ He paused for a moment and then added: ‘You were right, Trish – she is very much on her own.’
‘I know.’ She looked at him and saw how comforting he must have seemed to Nicky with his size and the warmth he could offer so freely when he chose. ‘But why does her epilepsy make you think she did something to Charlotte?’
‘I don’t think she did anything deliberately. But there could have been an accident. I don’t know enough about it yet but, as I understand it, when someone has a grand mal seizure, their whole body becomes rigid and they fall heavily to the ground. They often damage themselves – cut their scalps open, bruise themselves severely, that sort of thing – which means it must be possible for them to hurt someone they happen to hit.’
‘Ah. I see. And did Nicky have a fit on Saturday?’
‘She swears not. In fact, she says she hardly ever has them, hasn’t had any for more than five years. But she could be lying. She looked terrified enough for that.’
‘But could she have done serious damage even in a fit? She’s so tiny.’
‘I’d have thought so if Charlotte hit her head, broke her neck perhaps. Or she could have been suffocated. There must be lots of ways it could have happened.’
‘OK. Say she did have a fit and damaged Charlotte – killed her – what then?’ Trish remembered Nicky’s strange, greenish pallor on Sunday and began to wonder whether that was what people looked like twenty-four hours after a major seizure. ‘She would have had to get rid of the body somehow. Oh, Christ!’
‘What is it, Trish?’
‘The pram. The doll’s pram the police took away on Sunday. I’d forgotten it. Is that how they think she got the body out of the house?’
Trish stared at the wall, trying to remember the size of the pram and work out whether any child’s body would have fitted into it. Only by thinking about straightforward things like the pram’s dimensions could she stop herself seeing pictures of Charlotte dying, and imagining what she might have felt.
‘It’s what their questions suggested, yes,’ said George, unaware of what her imagination was doing to her. ‘They think Nicky put the body in the pram and wheeled it to the park, where she took an opportunity to make herself noticed by a large bunch of potential witnesses, before pretending to discover that Charlotte had disappeared. After that the police scenario meshes with everything Nicky’s always claimed. She rushed about the park like a mad thing, pushing the pram as she went.’
Trish thought of everything she had seen and heard of Nicky and tried to dredge up something – anything – that might make George’s suggestion seem as unreal as she wanted it to be.
‘What about surveillance cameras? There must be millions in that area of London. Haven’t the police looked at the films? There could easily be one that shows Nicky with Charlotte alive on the way to the park. That would knock this theory on the head straight off.’
‘It would. But unfortunately there are no cameras on the route Nicky and Charlotte always took from the house to the park. Although there is film of Nicky rushing about the park with the pram later, there’s no record of her arriving with or without Charlotte.’
‘Shit.’
‘As you say. It’s seriously inconvenient.’
‘But look, I can’t believe Nicky would have thought up something as clever – no, not clever – as devious as getting the body away like that. I don’t mean she’s stupid, but I think she’s too straight for that kind of pantomime.’
‘She could have been working to someone else’s script, Trish, and persuaded by … him that the risk was worth taking.’
‘Robert Hithe, you mean?’
‘He seems the likeliest from everything I’ve read about the case and what I heard behind the questions the police were asking Nicky. You must know him quite well, Trish. D’you think he could have dreamed up a script like that?’
‘Easily. But would he? I have been wondering whether he and Nicky could be having an affair, but even if they are I’m not sure I can see him protecting her after she’d killed Charlotte, even accidentally during an epileptic fit.’
‘There are other reasons why he might be involved, nothing to do with Nicky’s epilepsy.’
‘Ah. All right – go on.’
‘The police have found a quantity of pornographic magazines under the floorboards of Nicky’s bedroom.’
‘What?’ Trish was so surprised that her voice came out in a kind of yelp, like a puppy whose paw has been crushed by a heavy shoe. ‘I find that very hard to believe. What sort of pornography?’
‘Pretty bad.’ George reached down for his mug and drank some more tea. ‘Mainly involving both adults and children. You know the sort of thing as well as I do. And to make it more damning, there were also a lot of photographs of Charlotte Weblock naked. Nicky says the photographs are the sort of thing everyone takes of little children in the bath and at the seaside, but that she never put them under the floorboards, and that she’s never seen the magazines before in her life – but then …’
‘That’s what she would say,’ said Trish, finishing his sentence without trouble.
‘Exactly. That’s why I was curious when you seemed to be saying that Nicky had talked to you about paedophilia.’
‘Ah. I see,’ said Trish vaguely as she remembered Robert’s wild suggestion that the police were trying to fake evidence of Nicky’s guilt. ‘Could the magazines have been planted on her?’
‘They could. But I’d have thought it was more likely that Robert persuaded her to hide them for him, or just conceivably that he hid them there without her knowledge because it was such an unlikely place for anyone to search.’
‘Which would mean that he is turned on by the thought of sex with children and could have tried something on with Charlotte.’
‘That’s right,’ said George, looking nearly as ill as Trish felt. ‘If they do belong to him. We don’t know that they do.’
She told him about the worms dream, adding sadly, ‘D’you think she was trying to tell me about it that evening?’
‘It’s beginning to sound as though it’s possible, isn’t it?’
‘And I jollied her along and told her she’d been imagining them and they were nothing to be afraid of. Oh God! If it’s true, I could’ve helped her, George. I could have, but I didn’t.’
‘Trish … I … If she was trying to tell you, it’s unlikely you were the only one. After all, you said you didn’t know her particularly well before that. And we may be wrong. It’s an ambiguous way of describing a penis, you must admit.’
‘Oh yes. But it could’ve been her only way, couldn’t it? She was only four, George. She probably didn’t have the vocabulary for anything more specific. It’s not as if she had a brother. I suppose she must know some boys at playgroup, but even if she’d seen them showing off their willies, they wouldn’t have been erect. She might not have made the connection. “Huge wiggly pink worms” could have been the only words she could think of to describe what frightened her.’
‘Maybe. And if she was telling people,’ George said, ‘then that could be why she’s been silenced.’
In spite of her determination to think rationally and not leap to hysterical, unwarranted conclusions, Trish couldn’t do it. Charlotte’s terror filled her mind.
‘It may not have happened, Trish. Don’t … don’t …’
‘Don’t worry?’ she asked sharply. ‘Don’t upset myself?’
‘Not more than you can take,’ he said reasonably. ‘That wouldn’t help Charlotte, or you, or anyone.’
‘True enough.’ Trish tried to get her brain working ahead of her emotions. She drank some of her cold coffee and grimaced. ‘Ugh. I need something else. Would you like more tea?’
‘No, thanks. It was great, but it was enough.’
‘I won’t be long.’
‘Can’t I come with you?’
‘OK.’ She led the way into the kitchen, saying, ‘Supposing Nicky did push Charlotte’s body through the park in the pram, what did she do with it then?’
‘Took it somewhere she was sure she’d be alone, somewhere well away from her boss’s house, dumped the body and took the pram back home. In Robert’s place, I think I’d have told her to put the body in a skip, or in the river, or even in someone’s dustbin. In a way a dustbin’s the likeliest. After all, hardly anyone re-opens a black bag they’ve put out for the binmen, and they just sling them into the back of the lorry when they collect the rubbish. After that, the bags are crushed or dumped in a landfill site and buried under the next load. A small child’s body could easily disappear like that with no one any the wiser. It wouldn’t be that surprising if the police haven’t found it.’
‘It does make sense of a sort, but I still can’t make myself believe it,’ said Trish, unaware of the tightening of her forehead until George reached over and drew his thumb down the deep line between her eyebrows.
‘Don’t look so tormented, Trish.’
‘I am tormented,’ she said. ‘Charlotte was – is – a wonderful child.’
He moved closer to her and stroked the growing space between her eyebrows. She did not know how to comment on that or deal with what it made her feel. After a moment she turned away to make her coffee, saying into the kettle, ‘If your theory about Robert is true, Nicky’s epilepsy would be irrelevant.’
‘Yes. If it is true.’
‘So, what do we do next?’ she asked, leaning back against the kitchen worktop and holding her coffee mug tightly between her hands.
‘Wait until they charge Nicky or let her go. There’s no point even thinking about the future until we know that much.’
The telephone rang, chirruping like a hungry fledgling. Trish stared at it, wishing she had never asked George to help. If Nicky and Robert had done what George suggested, she did not want him orchestrating their defence. If Nicky were guilty, then Trish wanted her behind bars, not saved from a conviction by clever lawyers arguing technicalities.
‘Aren’t you going to answer?’ said George so gently that it seemed he must know what she was thinking. She shook her head.
‘The machine will pick it up; I can deal with it later, whatever it is.’
‘I ought to go soon, Trish, but I hate leaving you like this. You mustn’t tear yourself apart over something that may not have happened.’
‘No. But I am beginning to wish I hadn’t asked you to see Nicky. If she’s—’
‘I know,’ he said, stepping forwards to take her in his arms. ‘But you did and she may still be as innocent as you hope. Oh Trish, I’d do anything to save you from all the things you most dread. I’ve … You know, I’ve been trying to get up the courage to ring you here ever since we quarrelled that day, but I couldn’t. When Penny told me you were on the line this morning, I nearly sang.’
She leaned against him, amazed that in the middle of her anguish for Charlotte, she could feel such comfort.
‘Trish,’ he said as he kissed her hair.
‘George, I’m very bad at this sort of thing.’ She pulled herself out of his arms and felt him tensing up. She smiled, trying to show how muddled she felt and how much she had liked being hugged.
His face relaxed and the lines of anxiety – or anger – around his eyes and mouth turned briefly into laughter. ‘That makes two of us, then, Trish. Corny, isn’t it?’
‘Why?’
‘We can talk ourselves and everyone else into an early grave on almost any subject but this. Why are you bad at it?’
‘That’s corny, too,’ she said, not even smiling as she remembered Bella Weblock’s infuriating diagnosis of the state of her psyche and emotions. ‘My father walked out on my mother and me when I was eight. I’ve been bad at trusting people ever since. A bit loopy on the subject, I suppose. Whenever I’ve thought I was what you might call in love, I’ve positively looked for reasons to prove I wasn’t, and generally found them. I’ve more or less given up trying now; it seemed so unfair on the lovers – and on the wearing side for me, too.’
‘Ah, not so corny, then,’ he said, surprising her. He stroked the frown lines between her eyebrows again. ‘Worrying about being unfair in those circumstances is much more like you than being afraid of being hurt – which is the usual excuse, isn’t it?’
‘There’s been plenty of that, too,’ she said, not having noticed the compliment. ‘But, you see, I’m too much like my father for comfort. I look exactly like him; I’ve inherited his fiendish temper. And I’ve never yet managed to be in love with anyone without wanting to get free again quite soon.’ She shivered and then quickly added: ‘I couldn’t bear to do to anyone else what he did to us. Look, now it’s your turn. What’s your excuse?’
‘I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want to cling to and domesticate the Great Bear,’ he said, pretending to be serious. Then, as he saw a faint blush warming her cheeks, he laughed. ‘Come on, Trish, you must have known I’d have heard about that. I’ve always taken it as something of a compliment. It was you who invented it, wasn’t it?’
The blush deepened, but so did the laughter-lines around her mouth and eyes.
‘I suppose I did. I’m glad you didn’t misunderstand.’
‘I’m glad too. We’ve got lots to say to each other, Trish.’
‘I know,’ she said quickly. ‘But not yet. Not while Charlotte’s …’ He reached out to take her face between his hands. ‘I’m a bad-tempered sod, too, you know. Your fury won’t frighten me.’
The florid grandfather clock, the only antique piece she had in the whole flat, startled them both by striking four with all the sonorous solemnity of a passing bell.
‘Blast! I really must go now, Trish. Can I ring you?’
‘Whenever,’ she said. ‘You’ve been …’ She wanted to leave it to his imagination, but he wouldn’t let her.
‘Try, Trish,’ he urged. ‘It doesn’t commit you to anything, but it would be nice if you could say it. Or some of it anyway.’
‘You’ve been wonderful, and I’ve loved you hugging me like that. And I … I think I’d almost dare risk trying again – with you.’
He kissed her then, grabbed his briefcase and ran, leaving her standing in the kitchen, feeling the first intimations of happiness she had known for a long time. A very long time.
It came to her later, as she was pottering about, collecting their mugs and checking her face in the mirror, making sure that her bare feet had not been disgustingly dirty all along, that the afternoon’s revelation almost justified her sabbatical in itself. Perhaps she really had managed to look at herself and other people more clearly since she had stepped back from her work. Perhaps she was slowly recovering her strength.
Hugging herself, she began to remember too the pleasure of being touched, of letting down some of her defences. She also recognised an impatience to get on to the next day so that she could talk to him again.
At last she remembered that someone had left a message on the answering machine and went to listen. It turned out to have been Willow, telling her that Holland Park Helpers confirmed that Nicky had never been in any trouble, but that she had had a difficult background. Apparently she’d been taken into care at the age of three months when her unmarried mother proved incapable of looking after her. Since then she’d been fostered. Because it was an unusual background for one of their nannies, the owners of Holland Park Helpers had taken more than usual trouble to check all her references. In spite of the police suspicions over Charlotte’s disappearance, they were holding to their confidence in Nicky. Willow hoped that that would be of some use to Trish. If she wanted anything more, she was to ring Willow at once and she’d do her best to provide it.
Trish listened to the tape whirring back to its starting point, torn between sympathy for Nicky’s past and present solitude, and suspicion of what it might have made her do.
The telephone rang again while she was still standing there. It turned out to be Emma, answering the message Trish had left that morning. They agreed to have an early dinner in a tiny Italian restaurant Emma had discovered and then go to a film.
Back in Southwark, having admired Emma’s attempts to rationalise away the misery Hal’s desertion was drilling into her and tried to help, Trish saw that there was another message waiting for her. Turning on the black halogen lamp with one hand, she pressed the buttons on the machine with the other. After the usual whirrs, clicks and whistles, she heard George’s voice:
‘Trish, it’s me. I meant to say, but funked it this afternoon … can’t think why except that … Blast! Listen, Trish, I know you gave the police an alibi for Saturday, but it seems that they haven’t completely wiped you from their list of suspects. I know you weren’t involved, of course. But it’s possible they’ll come back to you – even likely. Will you promise to ring me when they do, whatever time it is? Day or night. I mean that, Trish. You’ve got my home number as well as the office one, I know.’
