Dead of Winter (32 page)

‘Yes, well I
really
didn’t get on with them,’ she laughed, turning the whole thing into a joke but she could feel Lulu’s eyes on her and her cheeks coloured.

The afternoon drew to a close with the usual vote of thanks and finally Nightingale could escape. She didn’t know whether she wanted to talk to Lulu or not. Part of her was consumed with the need to reveal everything but something held her back. It was the same caution that had prevented her from trying to find Lulu after discovering that she was her father’s love child and cuckoo in his matrimonial nest.

Telling Lulu would be admitting the truth, that her past life was a lie. Was she ready to do that and deal with the consequences? They were walking back to the little box room where they had left their coats. The other women were chatting easily, exchanging compliments about each other’s talks.

‘I think you two were the stars,’ Helen said generously, smiling at Lulu and Nightingale. ‘Like mother like daughter, eh?’ The look on their faces must have alerted her to a faux pas. ‘Sorry, I thought
I heard earlier someone say that you were related and, well, looking at you both I assumed …I didn’t mean to cause offence.’

‘None taken,’ Lulu recovered first.

They lingered as the other women gathered their belongings and left. Finally they were on their own.

‘It is strange,’ Lulu remarked, ‘we do look similar, though you have your father’s eyes.’

‘Yes I do.’ If she was meant to be surprised by the comment, of course she was not. ‘You know that he – that they are both, ah – that there was a car accident?’

‘I read about that; I was truly sorry for you and your brother. It must have been terrible.’

‘Yes it was; in fact it contributed to me taking leave of absence from work and I went to stay at Mill Farm. While I was there I saw the statue you did for my aunt’s grave. It’s beautiful; so is the font.’

‘So you knew about me?’ Lulu looked concerned.

‘Not until I went to the farm but there were letters you’d sent my father and a photograph that my aunt had kept.’ It was now or never, if she didn’t tell her it would always lie between them. ‘Look, would you like a drink? I have a police driver because I’m standing in for my boss and I could give you a lift back?’

‘I have my car but why don’t you follow me and we can have a drink at my place?’

That’s what they did. For Nightingale it was a long drive.

At St Anne’s she followed Lulu up the stairs to the top of the old house while her driver went to beg a cup of tea somewhere. Nightingale sat on the sofa where Fenwick had rested the night before. Lulu lit the fire and offered coffee.

‘Actually, do you have anything stronger? I think we’re going to need it.’

Lulu frowned.

‘It wasn’t that bad! I thought we both did quite well.’

‘Please?’

‘I can add a splash of brandy if you like but I’m out of wine; I had an unexpected visitor last night and haven’t been able to go
replenish my little rack.’ An unconscious smile played across her face.

‘That’s fine, thank you.’

Lulu was relaxed in her own home. Nightingale felt slightly sick. She drank half the coffee quickly and looked so longingly at the brandy bottle that Lulu topped it up.

‘I suppose it’s not every day that you meet your father’s mistress,’ Lulu said with a sad smile. ‘You are so like him in your ways that I’m finding the familiarity a bit difficult to deal with, if I’m honest.’

Nightingale couldn’t look at her. She put down her mug and started talking at the fire.

‘In the year after my parents were married, in the August, you gave birth to a baby girl while staying with a family friend, Angela, who acted as midwife. She told you your baby died.’

She glanced up to see Lulu staring at her aghast and looked away quickly.

‘What the … how do you know that? Angela, of course; she told you?’

‘I met her when I was staying at Mill Farm; she decided that I needed care and attention. When I discovered the photos and letters my aunt had kept I confronted Angela with them and she told me.’

‘Damn the woman! She promised me she would never tell a soul. So now as a policewoman you’re going to tell me I broke the law by burying my baby on the hillside.’ Lulu’s anger at Angela’s betrayal spilt into her reaction to Nightingale. ‘Well it’s none of your business. That baby was buried with love’ – she was crying but seemed unaware of it – ‘and if anyone wants to prosecute me now, let them!’

‘I know she was laid to rest with love; I found the grave by the spring and the carving you put over her. I cleaned it up and ever since I go there once a year, on the anniversary of her death, with flowers. She was my half-sister after all.’

Lulu stared at her with brimming eyes, shocked but still angry. She poured them both more brandy and swallowed hers in one gulp.

‘So you know.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘I’m sorry, that must have
come as a terrible shock. Your father knew that I was carrying his child but I had no expectations that he would help me look after her; and when the baby died …well that resolved the problem.’

‘Your baby didn’t die,’ Nightingale whispered.

‘Oh she did, I held her and she was quite cold. She did die.’ Lulu could barely speak.

‘A baby died, yes, but she wasn’t yours. My father’s wife had twins the day before you were delivered of your child …’

‘I know; I read the announcement that Angela kindly sent to me. So sweet of her.’

‘Wait, let me finish.’ Nightingale took a deep breath. ‘It was a boy and a girl. The little girl died shortly before you gave birth; a cot death probably. Mary, her mother, was asleep and completely unaware and my father didn’t know what to do. He carried the baby through the night to Angela – perhaps hoping that he was mistaken and that the baby was alive after all, but sadly she wasn’t.

Lulu put a hand to her mouth as she shook her head in denial.

‘Please listen. Angela persuaded my father that it would be best for everybody if he took your daughter as his own and left his dead child behind. It was that baby she carried into the bedroom where you lay waiting, while your daughter was taken back to the farm and slipped into the empty cot. Your baby never died. It was Mary’s daughter you buried, not your own.’

Lulu was staring at her with a look of incomprehension.

‘No, that can’t be right. I held my baby; she was white and cold. There was blood on the blanket she was wrapped in, my blood. She was dead. I saw her.’

‘You saw Mary’s child, wrapped in the bloody delivery sheet.’

‘No, that can’t be! That means Angela lied to me. Why would she do that? Why put me through so much pain? She never liked me, I know, and only looked after me because she was besotted with your father, but to deceive me like that …? It’s inhuman.’

‘She did, Lulu. You’re right, she was obsessed with my father and would have done anything for him, but she was also eaten up
with jealousy towards you – so much so that I think she hated you. This was her chance to please him, hurt you and injure Mary.’

‘Injure Mary; how?’

‘Don’t you think my mother realised at some point when that little girl was growing up that it wasn’t her child – as she grew older and became the splitting image of you, a constant reminder of her husband’s mistress? Oh, believe me; she was injured that night, with a deep invisible wound that festered.’

Lulu rubbed her forehead.

‘I can’t think straight. This is crazy; it makes no sense. I’d have known if my baby were alive …what sort of mother do you think I was? If my daughter had been alive I would have gone anywhere to find her!’

‘You can’t blame yourself for the conspiracy. You thought her dead so you didn’t look for her …’ Nightingale paused and smiled for the first time. ‘But she has found you.’

The sound of a toilet flushing woke her. She tried to stretch to ease the ache in her shoulders but the restraints were too tight. Issie struggled to remember where she was. The room was familiar but somehow from the wrong perspective; and her thinking was fuzzy. It looked like Nana’s bedroom, but how? Slowly her mind cleared. The long journey the previous day; her attempt to alert a passing motorist with the horn while Steve shovelled; Steve’s attack on her later … her mind sheered away from recollection but thoughts ambushed her anyway.

She was still captive, in a comfortable bed, with her wrist bandaged and she had been fed but she was a prisoner. And she needed the bathroom.

‘Hello?’

Her voice sounded weak and scratchy and she couldn’t reach the water glass by the bed.

‘Hello!’ Louder, more insistent. ‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

There was a noise of somebody knocking over a chair and then footsteps in the hall. As always, his imminent presence made her shudder but she forced herself to look calm. The door banged open and she saw him silhouetted against the light.

‘Steve, please can I go to the toilet?’

He stumbled towards the bed and half fell onto it, lying there with no apparent intention of moving. The smell of alcohol was overpowering. He had discovered the wine store immediately and she suspected he would sniff out the spirit cupboard in due course. Her Nana liked a tipple so there would be plenty for him to enjoy. With luck he’d be half-cut or asleep most of the time they were here. Disgusting maybe but it was preferable to Steve Mariner sober because she had learnt that when under the influence he rarely consummated the sex he started. Instead he would fall into a heavy sleep, often lying across her on the chill kitchen floor of their previous hideout so that her legs slowly went numb.

She had never told him he passed out. It was far better that he thought they had had another night of ‘amazing love’ as he called it. He was living in a dream where he was Casanova and she his kept mistress. Issie encouraged the fantasy, aware that reality would overwhelm him eventually and then her life would become even more precarious.

It was now sixteen days since he had abducted her, over two weeks since he had killed his brother. Steve had adjusted to this bizarre reality by denying it and she had gone along. After the first week he had grown bored with sex, sometimes preferring to masturbate in front of her as he fantasised about what they would do next.

When this happened the first time, she had been disgusted and had bitten the sleeping bag as tears of shame soaked her cheeks. Then, when he had fallen asleep, she realised that she had been spared sex with him. Subsequently, when he started to feel himself as he stared at her or read from a small supply of pornography she encouraged him so that by the time he reached her it was over almost as soon as he touched her. Slowly as the days passed his attentions had reduced.

Her grandmother had a satellite dish so Steve would have all the TV he desired. The place was centrally heated, with a microwave and luxury bathrooms. She would have a chance to regain her
strength. Her malnourished fever was better already after a decent meal and good night’s sleep. Lying next to him last night under clean sheets with her head on a soft pillow, Issie had prayed and said a silent thank you for being alive.

Steve untied her and pushed her gently towards the shower, an internal room with no windows where she was allowed to use the toilet unsupervised. After she’d been to the loo, Issie did her exercises: sit-ups, push-ups, jumps – until her muscles burned. She took a long time showering and washing her hair, noticing that she was skin and bone but that the cut on her wrist was no longer as inflamed. She had to grow strong again, like her old self, although that was ridiculous of course. Her old self had vanished the second she had stepped into Steve Mariner’s Mondeo. Nevertheless, it was time to start thinking again. She needed a plan.

The previous day, when he hit her after the incident with the horn, she had realised that he was only just in control. She had almost choked on her own blood and might have died. He was unstable and prone to losing his temper at any time. At some point the food in the freezer would run out. Worse, so would the alcohol and Steve Mariner sober was a more dangerous prospect than when under the influence.

He might treat her as he would a valuable, semi-domesticated animal but that was deceptive. Issie knew never to complain and was always grateful, that way Steve stayed calm. Otherwise he was as stable as an unexploded bomb. Now that she was on familiar territory she decided she needed to find a weapon to use against him if he finally snapped.

‘Oi, have you died in there or something?’

‘No, Steve, just enjoying a long shower. Sorry, I’ll be right out.’

She opened the door, her short hair wet and spiky, her skin flushed, her grin so impish her cheeks ached from the strain.

‘Shall I do lunch?’

Steve regarded her cautiously and then shook his head.

‘Do you think I’m daft? Let you loose near all those knives. Uh-huh.’

‘I just thought you might like a change – I can cook.’

‘My cooking not good enough for you?’ He scowled.

‘No, nothing like that, it’s just that it doesn’t seem right to let a man like you do all that domestic stuff and I’d like to help.’

He scratched his head with the hand that wasn’t holding a can of lager.

‘What’re you up to, young lady?’ He grinned and aimed a kiss at her lips.

Issie forced herself not to turn away and met his mouth with her own, kissing back; accepting but not enticing. She didn’t want to appear so willing that he would become excited, which seemed to happen more when she was subservient.

‘I’m not up to anything. It’s just that I’m feeling better thanks to all your care and it’s only right I play my part.’

‘I know what part I’d like you to play right now,’ he reached out and squeezed her left buttock hard. Issie forced a bigger smile.

‘Aren’t you hungry? Better to eat first. Everything will last longer that way.’

‘You saying I don’t last long enough?’

His fingers tightened on her flesh and it was all she could do not to cry out in pain.

‘Of course not. I just
want
you to last a long time that’s all. Come on, Steve; let’s have a plate of bacon and eggs, or a pizza, if you like.’

At the mention of pizza Steve turned away, a look of real pain on his face.

‘Not pizza; not yet.’

‘OK, sure.’ His changes of mood worried her but he hadn’t tied her up again – the first time ever that she had been left unrestrained. ‘I know where the eggs are and if you open the bacon packet I won’t need to touch a knife.’

Issie walked confidently towards the stairs, her back tensed for his hand on her shoulder. It didn’t happen.

She took the eggs, bacon and tomatoes out of the fridge and asked him to pass her the frying pan and cut some bread for toast. He did as he was told but watched her like a hawk.

‘Can we eat it together here in the kitchen?’

He said nothing so she carried on, little Miss Domesticity. She found two large red wine goblets and placed them on the table.

‘Look at these!’ she said triumphantly, ‘we need a decent wine to do them justice. What have you got there, Steve?’

He showed her two bottles that he had taken from the rack.

‘The Médoc, I think.’ She apologised silently to her nana. ‘The corkscrew’s—’

‘I know where the sodding corkscrew is.’

‘Of course.’

As he turned his back to find it Issie managed to slip a paring knife up her sleeve.

‘Put it back,’ he said without turning around. ‘The knife, put it back. Now.’

Steve swung at her without warning, his fist hitting her shoulder and almost knocking her to the ground.

‘Ungrateful bitch! Do you think I’m stupid or something?’

He loomed over her, the red wine bottle gripped in his hand like a club. She remembered what had happened to his brother and cowered against the fridge, her arms raised protectively.

‘Sorry, Steve. I was tempted to be independent, to cut up the tomatoes myself. It was a stupid thing to do, I know that.’

‘Going to try and run away from me were you?’ His fist came down onto her arms but he had put the bottle down somewhere so only his knuckles connected. Issie bit back a cry of pain and pleaded.

‘No, Steve! Please don’t. I was only trying to help; I wouldn’t do anything, honestly.’

‘Anything like sticking me with that poxy blade, you mean?’ He hit her again.

Issie rolled away and stumbled out of the kitchen in a half crouch. She made it as far as the shower room and was trying to bolt the door as he slammed it open.

‘Don’t try to hide in here.’

He pulled her up by an arm, wrenching her shoulder, and aimed
a kick at her backside. The tip of his boot caught her coccyx and she moaned as the pain spread up her spine.

‘Enough, Steve, please, you’ve done enough.’ She tried to keep her tone reasonable, to reach through his rage.

He shoved her back against the landing wall and let go of her arm.

‘Don’t you ever do that again or I’ll kill you; got it?’ His face was inches from hers. She could smell his breath, thick with lager and onion crisps.

‘I won’t, Steve.’ Issie could feel tears of capitulation in her eyes and blinked. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why should I believe you? You stuck up little piece of shit? Every time I think I can trust you off you go, trying it on. You pretend to like me but behind it all you’re just as bad as the rest of them: looking down on me, hating me, laughing at me behind my back because you think you’re so much better. Well, you’re not, you hear!’

He leant back and slapped her face, forcing the brimming tears on to her cheeks.

‘And don’t you fucking cry at me.’

Issie tried to swallow a sob but couldn’t. Now that the tears had started she couldn’t control them. They drove Steve wild.

‘Shut up! I can’t stand poxy crying; shut it!’

But she couldn’t. The dam had burst. The effect of days of fear, loneliness and the pain of abuse had accumulated inside her, kept under control by her determination not to give up hope. Mariner kicked her as she crumpled to the floor. Before Issie blacked out she finally realised that maybe she was going to die.