Poison Heart (31 page)

It didn’t seem especially weird to be in a cemetery in the freezing snow miles from home, at least no weirder than everything else that had happened recently. I carefully picked my way among the graves, trying to follow Genevieve’s footsteps. Starlings were swooping, their wings beating together in preparation for nightfall. They looked like tiny black crosses.

Genevieve came to a standstill and I looked down. Even covered by snow, this grave looked neglected, with weeds pushing through. Genevieve bent down, brushed the snow from a posy of artificial flowers and then carefully rearranged them, her face animated but obscure. Usually her feelings were so sharp that I could read her like a book.
Mum’s lips were moving silently, as if in prayer, and I realized she must have known this person. I was still the only one here who didn’t have a part to play. I read the name on the headstone, looking for clues –

J
ESSICA MYERS.

‘Who’s this?’ I asked gently.

Genevieve’s eyes were focused on something far away. ‘Jessica Myers never had a chance in life. No parents to tuck her in at night and stick her lame drawings on the wall. She was in and out of care, shunted about like a stray dog that nobody wanted until she found herself pregnant, still just a teenager, living in a squalid flat …’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She might have had a hope of turning her life around. She finally had someone to love and be loved by in return … but it wasn’t enough to save her.’

‘Who was she, Genevieve?’

‘She was just a lonely person, shunned when she was alive and made out to be a monster after her death. Now she was of interest to
everyone
… that one fateful day …’

Silent tears ran down Mum’s cheeks and glistened like ice.

‘What day?’ I questioned.

‘The day she died and her baby disappeared. You see, there was no break-in. The pram was inside her flat, and the only person who could have got in was someone
who knew their way around. But this possibility was never pursued because everyone assumed the worst. They said she’d taken her own life to cover up her neglect.’

I turned to Mum for an answer but she was frozen like one of the statues. Genevieve’s voice continued as if she was reading from a script.

‘She was never allowed to escape her past, judged and condemned by everyone … and the person who knew the truth never came forward.’

‘Who was she? Who was her child?’ I cried with frustration.

‘I was,’ Genevieve replied at last, her voice thick with emotion.

I missed my footing and almost tumbled on to the grave. ‘But … how can you be? We’re sisters … twins.’

‘I know.’

She took off one of her gloves and pushed away the snow to expose more of the headstone. I read three words – ‘Mother of Grace’.

I looked at Genevieve, who stared at me with the face of a conjurer who isn’t sure if the trick is going to work. Her fingers moved again and my eyes followed them as the snow disintegrated to reveal more letters. I read the final words – ‘and Hope. Rest in peace for all eternity’.

‘Mother of Grace and Hope?’ I said aloud. ‘Who’s Hope?’

‘You are,’ Genevieve whispered.

The cold had penetrated my entire body and I wriggled my toes to try to return some feeling to them. I was empty inside, as if all the life had been squeezed from me and all that was left was a shell. Genevieve was telling the truth. I was certain of that. I looked at the woman who had pretended to be my mother for sixteen years.

‘You … kidnapped me?’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ she whispered. ‘I only wanted to comfort you.’

‘How did you get away with it?’ I cried. ‘How could you just … keep me like that?’

‘No one suspected,’ she replied with surprising honesty. ‘I’d brought my own baby home from hospital, and a midwife had visited to check us over … why should anyone think I was involved?’

‘You were so
respectable
,’ Genevieve said contemptuously. ‘Unlike
our
mum, who was known to social services. She was a problem, a bad example, someone
to be spied on and written about.’

‘And you took me far away,’ I added.

She closed her eyes. ‘I couldn’t have stayed.’

This had all the elements of a dream. I was stunned. ‘And what should I call you now?’

‘I’m still your—’

‘You’re not my mum,’ I cut in vehemently and noticed Genevieve’s smile. ‘I don’t think I could call you that again.’

She nodded with difficulty. ‘You’re right, I deserve that. Maybe … you could call me by my Christian name … Rebecca.’

I gazed at her in terrible confusion and tried to recognize something familiar, but in an instant she’d turned into a stranger. She cowered under my scrutiny as though my eyes threw out darts that pierced her flesh.

‘Please don’t look at me like that,’ she said at last. ‘I’m not what you think.’

‘And … what should I think?’

‘It was a moment of madness, completely out of character. I was distraught because of … and after finding Jessica like that, and afterwards … I was ashamed and frightened of what I’d done …’

She trailed off as I tried to make sense of her words. She’d convinced herself it was just one moment when she lost control, but I couldn’t forget the fact that she’d had sixteen years to make things right. But I also couldn’t ignore that she’d loved me for the same amount of time. I didn’t know what to feel any more and my head hurt – badly.

‘You only thought about yourself,’ Genevieve said in accusation.

Rebecca’s voice trembled. ‘No, that’s not true. I thought I could give one of you a good home but I never stopped regretting that you’d been split up. I’ve lived that nightmare every day … consumed with guilt …’

Genevieve scowled and tugged at my arm. We took shelter inside the arched recess of the church, where there were deep stone benches and an ancient flagstone floor. She sat next to me, and Rebecca remained standing, sipping from the flask. I touched her shoulder.

‘What really happened that day?’

She searched in her pocket for a tissue and it was a few moments before she could speak. ‘It was as I told you, except for one thing. I used the spare key to get into Jessica’s flat. I knew where it was hidden and thought she might be ill … the sound of crying was unbearable.’

I felt Genevieve stiffen beside me, but she didn’t interrupt.

‘Jessica was still warm, but her eyes were lifeless … so completely lifeless, and yet … they seemed to be pleading with me to do something. The pram was there, but there was only one infant. The other one must have been lying in the bed. I picked her up and told myself it was only to comfort her. Her nappy was soiled so I took her upstairs–’

‘Where was your own baby?’ Genevieve hissed. ‘Where was she?’

Rebecca leaned her head out of the recess to gaze at the
falling snow. When she turned around her face was shiny and her hair plastered to her head. ‘My own dear Katy was cold and floppy,’ she managed to whisper. ‘When I fell asleep she was warm with milk, but … somehow … in the night … she just stopped breathing.’

It was hard to reconcile the fact that the Katy she was talking about wasn’t me. I’d lost my identity and felt as if I didn’t really exist any more. Even my birthday wasn’t on the day it had been celebrated for the last sixteen years.

‘Maybe it was a cot death,’ I suggested, compelled to make things easier for her.

Rebecca nodded and swallowed hard, her nose beginning to run. ‘I think so, and I hope it wasn’t anything I did or failed to do.’

‘No one will ever know the answer to that,’ Genevieve growled.

Her eyes misted over. ‘But I’ve never forgotten about my own dear Katy for a second. I carry the memory of her with me always.’

Now I understood where her grief came from – this woman who had stolen me to replace her own child had never managed to escape from this.

‘You thought it was OK to help yourself to someone else’s baby,’ Genevieve said bitterly.

‘I’ll have to answer for what I did,’ Rebecca replied with as much dignity as she could, and I wondered what she intended to do now. Give herself up to the police? But that wouldn’t make up for Genevieve’s lost childhood.

‘I was told by my adoptive parents that we were separated because I was wicked,’ Genevieve began fiercely. ‘And when I was older I discovered that everyone thought my mother had been …
responsible
for the death of my sister, my twin.’

Rebecca sniffed and Genevieve shot her a furious look before continuing.

‘And then I saw you, Katy, that day on the bus and I just knew who you were … It didn’t take long to work out what must have really happened.’

Rebecca broke down and turned her face away from us, leaning against the thick wooden doors of the church. Part of me wanted to go over and comfort her, but I couldn’t bring myself to.

‘You’re right to hate me,’ she sobbed. ‘What I did was utterly wrong and nothing justifies it … nothing at all. I’ll try to make it right.’

Genevieve got to her feet, her face contorted with anger. ‘Nothing you could do would ever make it right.’

I watched Rebecca bite her lips hard and squeeze them together as if she was scared what else she might say. I looked outside and felt a growing fear. The snowflakes were now as large as fifty-pence pieces and settling with incredible speed. Our footprints on the pathway were already covered.

‘We should go,’ I urged. ‘Get back to the car and decide what to do.’

Rebecca nodded in agreement and we both looked to Genevieve to show us the way. For a minute an amused
expression appeared on her face and I wondered what she was thinking, but she pulled down her hat and adjusted her gloves before summoning us with one movement of her head. It took us twice as long to get back, and Genevieve must have had a good sense of direction because all the empty streets now looked the same. There were very few fresh footprints, which meant that people had heeded the advice to stay inside. By the time we reached the car we were all bedraggled and weary with red noses and pinched faces.

Rebecca sank into the driver’s seat.

‘We should listen to the radio,’ I said. ‘The motorway might be closed or something.’

Rebecca swept aside my concerns with a wave of her hand and I was again puzzled by her sudden bravado. It was already dusk, and since we’d set out another few centimetres of snow had fallen, yet she was prepared to battle against snow, black ice and poor visibility in a car that was fifteen years old. I had a horrible clenching pain in my stomach at the thought of the journey ahead. I wondered if Genevieve had it as well, but she had lapsed into silence, staring impassively out of the window.

‘Let’s find a B. & B. somewhere close,’ I suggested, but my voice came out weirdly shrill.

A hand reached into the back seat and patted my leg reassuringly. ‘I’ll take it slow all the way back and no overtaking. It’ll be fine – trust me.’

I tried to sit back and relax, but the feeling of
apprehension was growing by the minute. I couldn’t believe that Genevieve could stay so calm. The scene outside reminded me of a strange apocalyptic movie, with cars abandoned at strange angles and the town empty of inhabitants. None of the side roads had been gritted, and our car felt completely vulnerable. It was making a strange squeaky clunk, and every so often the tyres spun as they got caught in drifts or if we veered too close to the kerb.

‘The motorway will be clear,’ Rebecca announced brightly. The speedometer hadn’t moved above ten miles per hour and we were getting nowhere fast. I noticed a signpost for the local library and worried that we’d already passed it five minutes earlier.

‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ I said, but it was under my breath. My throat felt tight as if I was being slowly strangled. There was an inevitability about events that I didn’t understand.

‘I think this was the way we came in, girls. It should lead to the dual carriageway and then the motorway slip road.’

‘I don’t remember this bridge,’ I whispered as the car began to climb.

Rebecca’s laugh sounded forced. ‘Me neither, but we’ll see where it goes.’

Genevieve hadn’t moved or spoken since we set off, and I had an urge to scream and shake her out of this inertia. It was as if she’d completely shut down and withdrawn from us. I turned my attention back to the road. There was
no escaping the knowledge that we were somewhere away from the town and getting deeper into the countryside. There were no street lights and it felt like driving into hell. Something was badly wrong. I knew this for certain but couldn’t do anything about it. Even when Rebecca finally admitted this had been a mistake, the feeling didn’t subside. She tried to turn the car around, but the road was narrow and the snow made it impossible. She rested her head on the wheel.

‘Maybe if you reverse?’ I suggested.

‘That’s not possible. We’ll have to keep going and try to reach a farm or house of some sort.’

She pressed the accelerator several times and the car rocked a little but refused to move. She rolled it backwards and forwards and the tyres made a horrible grinding sound. I was worried the car might shoot forward into a ditch, but it stayed in the one spot, diagonally blocking the road.

‘Girls … we’re stuck.’

I tried to focus. ‘We can stay in the car and wait until first light. You did bring food and blankets.’

Rebecca rubbed her chin and peered outside. ‘We can’t stay here. Without our headlights we’ll be a complete hazard.’

I remembered what Luke had told me when we staked out the vicarage. ‘We have to switch off the lights and heater or they’ll flatten the car battery … right?’

‘Right,’ she answered.

‘So … what can we do?’

‘We’ll dig ourselves out,’ she declared in a no-nonsense voice. ‘I brought a spade with us because they advised it on the radio. “For any essential journeys, take a torch, food, water, blankets, a phone and finally a spade.”’

We didn’t
have
to come here today, I wanted to point out, but I sensed that she had been unable to stop this from happening. She had denied Genevieve so much, she couldn’t refuse her this journey. I looked again at Genevieve. She appeared to be dozing, although I wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t faking it. Rebecca and I got out of the car together. She wouldn’t let me dig, but I held the powerful torch for her so she could see properly. The only sounds around were her laboured breath and my efforts to keep warm. There should have been so much to say but I think we were both beyond explanation.