I Trust You (10 page)

Chapter 18

S
hanklin struck Marisa as a lovely place, far more attractive than the old-fashioned, slightly run-down grandeur of Ryde. She felt guilty admiring the thatched cottages that lined the main street and the stunning strip of golden sands that stretched down to the sea.

              Lee hadn’t said much since they got off the train. Marisa had claimed the ignorance of the tourist at the ticket booth and paid for their return tickets there, without any fuss or recrimination. They paused outside a stone-built thatched pub. Marisa suggested they go inside for a drink.

              She deposited Lee in a window seat and fetched a couple of brandies at the bar, booking a room for the night at the same time. It felt safe here amongst all these people, many of them locals.

              Lee sipped the drink slowly. He was having a struggle swallowing against the huge lump in his throat. ‘What if I caused this to happen? I went to your house in White Bay. If Eliot had a recording of me showing the photo to you on his computer then it alerted him to the fact it was Dad who was providing you with information. Like a fool, I led Gerry Coleman straight to him.’

              ‘I think we both probably led Gerald to your dad, but I still don’t see why that photo was reason enough to have him killed. Gerald will have to murder a lot of people if he wants to keep his past life hidden. The details are easy enough to find if somebody sets their mind to it.’

              Lee gazed off into the distance. ‘I’ve been considering this carefully. Maybe it was more than that. My Dad led a very shady life in those days. He wasn’t exactly squeaky clean himself. Perhaps Dad knew other things about Gerry Coleman’s activities back then. When he discovered Dad was talking, Coleman realised it was time to shut him up, before he revealed worse revelations to the world than the corkers in Gerry’s fictional CV.’

              Marisa felt the brandy lying heavy on her stomach. ‘That actually makes a lot of sense. God, what kind of can of worms have I opened?’

              Lee rested his hand on hers. ‘I know Dad’s dead, but would you really have wanted to remain in your marriage, the devoted daughter-in-law of one-time criminal Gerry Coleman without ever discovering the truth about him and his family?’

              Marisa knew she was pathetic and weak, but there was a small part of her that really did wish she’d never found out. She didn’t want to admit to this. Instead, she said, ‘how did they get here so quickly?’

              Lee looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

              ‘Well, Eliot must only have checked his cameras in the last twenty four hours. We only had our confrontation yesterday morning. How did someone get here to the island so quickly to silence your father and perform such a thorough clean-up job? The ferries don’t run at night, do they?’

              Lee shook his head. ‘No, they don’t. But maybe Gerry’s still got some associates out this way.’

              ‘On the island itself?’

              He shrugged his shoulders.

              Marisa glanced about them at the other drinkers, chatting carelessly, elderly couples and groups of middle-aged men taking no notice of anyone else. She lifted Lee’s hand and kissed it. ‘I certainly don’t regret meeting you.’ That much was the absolute truth.

*

It wasn’t even nine o’clock when they retired to their beamed room and went to bed. Exhaustion had overcome them both. But Marisa woke early, when the sky outside was not yet completely light.

              She slipped out of the four-poster bed and got swiftly dressed, leaving the pub through a side door, which was clearly the exit for guests and took a walk down to the beach.

The water was very still and calm. When she was standing directly in front of the gentle breakers, Marisa pulled the phone out of her pocket and switched it on. It began bleeping insistently with unread messages just as soon as it buzzed into life.

              Most were from Eliot, but a few had been left the previous evening by her mother. She took a deep breath and dialled her parents’ home in Bristol. It rang for a long time before anyone answered.

              ‘Marisa? Is that you?’ Her mother’s voice was croaky, as if she’d just woken up.

              ‘Yes.’

              ‘Oh, sweetheart, are you okay? Eliot told us you were missing! Your dad nearly called the police last night. Eliot said we needed to wait a bit longer. Where on earth are you?’

              ‘I’m perfectly safe, Mum. Please don’t worry.’ Marisa wasn’t sure this was entirely true, but she didn’t want to alarm her parents.

              ‘Why did you run off like that? Eliot is worried you’ve had some kind of breakdown. He found out you cancelled your counselling this week. You must keep going to the sessions, darling, they’re designed to help you.’

              ‘There’s nothing wrong with my mental health Mum. Eliot and I had a disagreement, that’s all. I needed a few days away to be by myself.’

              ‘That’s what I said it would be. I told Roger you’d probably had a row and Eliot wasn’t admitting to it. But we thought you’d always come to us in those circumstances.’ Her words were full of hurt.

              ‘This is something I have to work through by myself. It’s about time I stood on my own two feet. I don’t want you and Dad to worry if you don’t hear from me for a while.’ Marisa caught the sound of a voice in the background. Her mother had placed her hand over the receiver so the conversation she was having with this other person remained muffled.

              ‘Marisa, sweetheart. I need you to tell me exactly where you are.’

              ‘Who’s there with you?’

              ‘Only your dad. Now, I can make out a rushing sound in the background – is it the
sea,
are you on a beach?’

              Just then, Marisa could have sworn she heard Eliot, muttering some kind of urgent instruction to Trudy.

              ‘If you can describe a landmark, even, then Roger can look at his maps and come and fetch you.’

              Marisa abruptly disconnected the call. She glanced at the screen, which was crammed full with an endless stream of urgent notifications. She swung her arm backwards and hurled the device into the water, where it sank like a stone.

              The tide was gradually coming in. The tiny construction of metal and circuits would very soon be subsumed within the gathering swell.

The phone was gone, and it felt to Marisa as if a big part of her own life had disappeared along with it.

Chapter 19

M
arisa shook Lee awake. It took a while to rouse him. She decided it was the effect of the shock.

              When he first opened his eyes, his expression was contented. Then the events of the previous day played itself out across his features and his brow furrowed into deep ridges. ‘What time is it?’

              ‘Nine o’clock. I wanted to let you rest for a bit.’

              Lee shifted up. ‘We should get going.’

              Marisa laid her hand on his thigh. ‘I spoke to my mother this morning?’

              ‘You did
what
?’

              ‘I didn’t tell her where we were and I’ve ditched the phone.’

              He looked puzzled.

              ‘I could hear a person in the background. I’m sure it was Eliot. He was getting my mum to find out where I was. She denied he was there.’

              ‘Why would she do that?’

              ‘I don’t know. But Dad has a connection to the Colemans. He did all the legal work for the company before he retired. I asked him about South Sea Holdings Ltd. He may have told Eliot that I was taking an interest.’

              Lee ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. ‘Would your parents really take the Colemans’ side over yours? I thought they were good people. They saved you from the foster home.’

              Marisa realised that to his boyhood self, this was the greatest thing anyone could do for a child. It had grown to mythical proportions in his mind because nobody ever did it for him. ‘My mum and dad
are
good people but they’re a bit awestruck by Gerald. Plus they’ve had Eliot drip-feeding them the story that I’m a certifiable nutcase who needs to be found before she’s tries to top herself again.’

             
‘Again?’
Lee narrowed his eyes and looked at her intently.

              ‘I’ll explain another time. You need to get in that shower. We might just make breakfast.’

*

The train back to Ryde was as slow as it had been the previous day. It gave Marisa the opportunity to describe the incident with the Carter children on the clifftop in White Bay.

              Lee scratched his chin. ‘The boy who you imagined you saw - that was the child you asked me about when you first turned up on my doorstep. A little boy with blond hair?’

              She nodded. ‘I thought the visions might be a returning memory of the foster home. But then I decided it could just have been the effects of the stress.’

              ‘What stress?’

              ‘The pressure we’d been under trying to have a baby. Eliot and I underwent three courses of IVF. I finally got pregnant a couple of years ago but lost the baby after two months. I reckoned this mystery boy was a manifestation of my desire to have a child of my own.’

              Lee considered this. ‘Because if you did have a little boy, he’d probably look like that – he’d have really fair hair and blue eyes.’

              ‘Since meeting up with you again and speaking with Erin Doran, I’m wondering if my desire to give birth to my own child is just selfish. There are so many children out there already who need a home.’               He grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t be without my boys, but Lin and I haven’t given them the best start. Children need a strong person in their life who loves them and sets them on the right path. It doesn’t have to be their blood relative.’

              They travelled in silence for a while. As they got closer to Ryde, the train bumped along past a tall embankment before emerging into the suburban outskirts of the town.

              Marisa leant forward, she could see police tape running around the back of one of the houses. ‘Is that your dad’s place?’

              Lee pulled down the window and leaned out. ‘Yeah, looks like the local police have sealed it off. They must be treating it as a crime scene.’

              ‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’

              ‘At least Dad isn’t still lying there in his own shit.’

              ‘I just hope they investigate it properly.’

              Lee dropped back down in the springy seat. ‘If they do assume foul play I’ll be the first suspect on their list.’

              ‘Why would the police think it was you?’

‘There was no sign of a break-in, was there? And I’m the only other bugger who’s got a key to the place.’

*

If the police were treating Bill Powell’s death as murder, they’d not got to the stage of putting out an all-ports warning. Marisa and Lee were able to return to Portsmouth on the ferry and pick up the car from where they left it.

Marisa drove them through heavy traffic back to Southampton. There was no possibility of returning to Lee’s house just yet. It would have been exactly where Eliot was expecting his wife to go.

*

Eventually, she swung the little hatchback into the multi-storey of the West Quay Shopping Centre. Her companion had said very little since they’d decided upon this course of action. Lee trailed along behind Marisa as she approached the warden of the sheltered housing. He remembered her and led them straight up to the second floor flat.

              Erin looked surprised to see Marisa again so soon. When she spotted the tall, dark man loitering just behind, the old lady crumpled into tears of joy.

              ‘Lee! My boy! Why, you’ve hardly changed at all.’ Before he could do anything about it, Lee had been scooped up into a vice-like embrace.

              Marisa slipped past, heading for the kitchenette to begin preparing a pot of tea. She didn’t feel envious of this outpouring of emotion. Her time with Erin had been very short. For Lee, she was the only real mother he’d ever had.

              She found some biscuits in a cupboard and carried them into the sitting room on a tray.

              Erin and Lee had taken the sofa and were snuggled up close. Marisa sat down in the armchair. ‘We wanted to tell you that we’d found each other, Mrs Doran. We’ve become friends.’

              ‘Thank you so much for bringing him to see me. I know what boys are like. Out of sight, out of mind.’

              Lee put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come back and visit. I met a girl and got married. We had two little boys and it took up most of my time.’

              She patted his knee. ‘As it should. Think no more about it. You must show me pictures of these lovely boys.’

              Lee brought out his mobile and swiped through various shots of his sons.

              Marisa sipped her tea patiently. They couldn’t stay long.

              Erin abruptly looked up. ‘Since you were last here, Marisa, I dug out a few more photos from your time at Blackstone Road.’

              ‘Oh yes?’

              Erin nodded her head towards the dresser behind the armchair. Marisa reached over and picked up the photo album sitting on it. She flicked through the pages whilst the others chattered away about people who were completely unfamiliar to her.

              Finally, Marisa recognised her younger self amongst the boys and girls playing in the concreted back yard of the Victorian house on Blackstone Road. It immediately struck her how different she appeared next to them, she was so plump and well-fed. A few of the other poor mites appeared to be recovering from a neglect that stretched back to their birth; they had thin, spindly legs and closely cropped, institutional haircuts. Her three year old self wore a succession of pretty, floral dresses.

              Marisa lifted her head from the pages. ‘I don’t seem to have been dressed like the other children. My outfits looked very nice. Did Mum and Dad buy them for me before the adoption?’

              Erin furrowed her brow. ‘Oh no, that wasn’t allowed. When the social worker brought you to us, you had a little case with you. Some of the children did have their own belongings. They might bring a small bag containing a few favourite clothes and perhaps the odd toy. Most of them came with nothing, mind you. Your case was full of the most gorgeous little summer and winter dresses. They were from one of the big Department Stores in Southampton. I was able to dress you in them right up until the Lawsons adopted you. The weather was so fair that year. I bet your mum has kept them somewhere – I certainly gave Trudy the case, with everything washed and ironed.’

              ‘Didn’t you find that strange? When I looked into the identities of my birth parents, the records showed my mother was only seventeen when I was born and my father was an out of work drunk. How did they manage to buy me such lovely things? I should have been one of the children with nothing at all. But look,’ she prodded each of the photos in turn. ‘I was well-nourished and groomed from the first day I arrived at your place to the day I left.’

              ‘Bryan and I took great care of you, that’s why. We did for all of our kids. Three meals a day and at least one of them hot. A bath and hair wash before bed. You should have seen the state some of them arrived in. It would break your heart.’ A glistening sheen of tears formed in her pale green eyes.

              Marisa decided to drop the topic. There wasn’t much Erin could tell her anyway. She focussed on the album again. There were several shots of her with a very youthful Roger and Trudy. It made her smile. Her dad was in a dark suit, as if he was heading for a day at the office. She flicked over, the pictures lining this next page marked the end of the album. They were of the day that Marisa left Blackstone Road with her adoptive parents and were obviously taken by Erin from the front door. In the very last shot, Trudy was settling her into the backseat of their dark blue Ford Sierra. Roger was climbing into the driving seat. But there was another man beside him. As Erin took the picture, he’d turned, so that you could just about make out his face. Marisa felt her heart pounding in her chest. She recognised him.

Fighting to keep her voice calm, she said, ‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but could I take this last photograph? The one of me leaving Blackstone Road with Roger and Trudy? It would mean a great deal to me.’

              Erin leant forward and gently squeezed her knee. ‘Of course you can darling. I’ve got dozens of the things, Bryan always complained that I took far too many. But I said to him, ‘how will we remember them all otherwise?’ The truth is we held pictures of every single one of you in our hearts. Perhaps Bryan was right, there really was no need.’

              ‘Oh, but I’m glad you did, Erin. Very glad indeed.’