The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) (12 page)

Another piece fell into place. He thought she was drunk. ‘I’m not …’ she protested but he’d already turned his attention to a customer wanting to buy a paper.

The temptation was there to blurt it all out, to seek comfort, to shock and horrify, anything so she didn’t have to be alone with this secret. She didn’t, of course, never had, never would.

A lot of people thought epileptics were freaks, that the condition was some kind of mental instability which could affect them if they got too close. The same way some people thought you could catch cancer. A stigma was attached to Helen’s condition as if this loss of brain control was voluntary, and that epileptics could stop the seizures happening if they just pulled themselves together.

Some shied away in horror, others wanted to show how tolerant and efficient they were by restraining the epileptic during the seizure or even put something in his mouth, the idea being to stop him biting his own tongue off. Too many myths and half-truths, too little general understanding of the illness drove sufferers underground.

Helen lived in that half-world, like so many others.

‘What business is it of yours?’ she snapped.

The man looked over his shoulder at Helen. ‘Steady on, love. Steady on. I was only concerned. If you can’t hold your drink, you shouldn’t be out and about like this. You should be at home sleeping it off.’

‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’

She didn’t wait for an answer but turned her back on him and headed for Green Park tube station.

‘I’ve got a daughter just like you,’ he called after her.

No, you don’t, she thought as her unsteady legs found the escalator.
No, you bloody don’t.

The kitchen rang with Charlie’s laughter when she got home. Ignoring the pull in her stomach at the delicious smells of cooking wafting up the stairs, she headed straight for her room, kicked off her boots and collapsed on top of the bed.

It was dark when a gentle knocking woke her. She ached all over as if she’d been in a boxing match. Before answering the door, she scooped up her packet of tablets which lay on the desk and shoved it in a drawer.

It was Fay holding a tray with a covered plate, a glass of juice and a knife and fork.

Knife.
Blood.

The memory was suddenly so vivid Helen swayed.

‘Did I wake you?’

Helen shook her head.

‘I did, didn’t I? Sorry, I just thought you might like something to eat. Charlie heard you come in earlier but we missed you at dinner. May I come in? This tray’s a bit heavy.’

Helen nodded, her tongue still tied in a thousand knots.

Fay put the tray on her desk. The food smelt inviting, and Helen realised she hadn’t eaten anything since … well, nothing all day.

‘You’ve made the room look nice,’ said Fay. ‘I like all the little statues.’

Helen’s eyes were on the tray. She was ravenous, but reluctant to eat in front of Fay in case the food tasted like it often did after a seizure. Fay had gone to the trouble to bring her a plate, and maybe even cooked the food herself. Spitting it out again would be rude, even if she was a murderess.

Fay’s shoulders slumped. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Enjoy. It’s veggie curry. I hope you like it.’

‘Stay a while.’

Fay must have interpreted Helen’s silence as a brush-off, but that hadn’t been her intention. Besides, she had to get to know Fay so she could find her weak points. That had been her plan all along, so why did it suddenly seem like the most underhand thing in the world?

‘I got the job,’ she said.

‘That’s wonderful! When do you start?’

‘Monday.’

‘And what will you be doing?’

‘Oh, this and that. Starting from the bottom, but I don’t mind.’

‘Everyone has to start somewhere. Who knows, it may be the first step to something bigger.’

Smiling her wary smile, Fay picked up a statue from the mantelpiece, uninvited. ‘What sort of company is it?’

‘It’s an auction house.’ Helen removed the top plate which was keeping the food warm and wolfed down a forkful of curry.

Fay’s smile disappeared as she weighed the little statue in her hand. It was Helen’s favourite. Carved from soapstone and about the size of a man’s fist, it was an Indian elephant with a smaller elephant inside it, and as a test of the artisan’s skill, with an even smaller elephant inside the second one. Like the traditional ship in a bottle scenario it was impossible to imagine how it was made, but you couldn’t dispute the evidence.

‘An auction house? How odd.’ Fay replaced the statue on the mantelpiece. ‘I had a friend who worked for an auction house. She liked elephants too. She used to say that elephants have long memories and would remember every little hurt and kindness that ever happened to them. She said that’s why she liked them so much. Because it made them very human.

‘I gave her a bag with an elephant on it once. A big blingie shopper type bag.’ Fay smiled. ‘She was just like that, a real magpie. Anything that glittered, and she’d be all over it.’

Helen felt a sliver of ice run down her back. A memory sliced through her aching head, ripping open an underbelly of memories and spilling the contents into her brain.

The car, the elephant bag on the back seat, Mimi telling her sternly not to touch anything because it had important stuff in it. Herself disobeying and looking in the bag for the medicine, then the agony that Mummy died because Helen didn’t do what she was told, it was all Helen’s fault, and she was a naughty girl.

She remembered not understanding what had happened, remembered the immense loss. Emotion pressed at the back of her throat, but she quelled it before Fay noticed. She wondered what had happened to that bag and the rest of her mother’s things. It had never seemed important, not until now. She saw herself as a blank sheet with virtually no history, but Fay had reminded her that she had a history, even if she had no memories of it.

Maybe Sweetman knew where her mother’s things were. But she’d deal with that soon enough. Right now she wanted to get some answers out of Fay without revealing herself.

‘Where’s your friend now?’ she asked.

‘She died a long time ago. She was murdered.’

‘God, how awful,’ she said on autopilot.
Awful
didn’t begin to cover it, but hearing those words from Fay shocked her.

Her hands tightened around the cutlery. What would happen if she stabbed Fay right now? You could do a lot of damage if you stuck a fork in someone’s eye. And then what? Back to not knowing what really happened? It wasn’t worth it.

‘They say I did it. That’s why they locked me up.’ Fay’s eyes took on a glazed look.

‘And did you?
Did
you kill her?’

Fay took a long time before answering. ‘Yes, I believe I did.’

Chapter Eight

‘You
believe
you did? How can you not know for sure? If you’d killed someone, you’d know about it, wouldn’t you? I know I would.’

‘It’s complicated.’ Fay wrung her hands. ‘Would you mind if I sit down?’

It was at the tip of Helen’s tongue to say, yes, I would mind, but politeness forced her to swallow that retort, and she pointed to the bed, which was the only other place in the room you could sit.

Did she really need to hear this? Life was a lot simpler when she was convinced of Fay’s guilt. Now she wasn’t sure of anything. Fay’s kindness had punctured her old certainties, and the air was slowly going out of her metaphorical hate-filled balloon.

‘We fell out,’ Fay explained. ‘Over a man, would you believe it.’

‘A man?’

Fay sighed. ‘My husband. They had an affair. I felt betrayed, as you would. Began stalking her. I saw her as more guilty than him because she was supposed to be my friend. It’s hard to explain, really, when it was just as much his fault.’

Helen nodded because she sensed agreement was required, even if she didn’t agree. Her mother, stealing someone else’s husband? She hadn’t considered that Fay might have had her reasons, however wrong they were, and she’d never thought of her mother as anything other than a mother either. Then again, maybe it was all a lie.

‘The police got involved,’ said Fay. ‘My husband found out what I was doing and wanted a divorce. I was too immersed in the whole thing to get legal representation, so he more or less walked off with everything. I continued to follow her, hung around outside her house despite a restraining order. Made obscene phone calls, wrote letters … I was mad, quite literally. She’d ruined my life, and I was going to ruin hers.’

Helen’s hand tightened around the fork, and she put her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. She’d been waiting for years for this moment, for Fay to confess, except it didn’t feel like a proper confession. It wasn’t satisfying enough.

‘I was doing drugs, booze and God knows what. High as a kite half the time. The next thing I know she’s dead, murdered in her car, and they say I did it, except I don’t remember anything at all.’

Her appetite gone, replaced by a sudden queasiness, Helen put the fork on the tray and swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. She’d heard enough.

But Fay hadn’t finished.

‘My friend’s daughter, who was on the back seat at the time, pointed the finger at me. There was other evidence as well, but if the child had seen it, I must’ve done it. I just don’t …’ She sighed.

‘Did you ever find out what happened to the child?’

‘No.’

‘Did you even try?’ Helen’s voice rose a notch, and Fay sent her a curious look. ‘I mean, if you weren’t sure what happened, perhaps the child was the key.’

‘I tried, but obviously I wasn’t allowed anywhere near that little girl, and her family made sure I had no contact whatsoever. I don’t blame them. I’d have done the same, to protect my child.’

Family. Protection.

The words rang false, because the reality of the situation was so different.

‘That’s quite a story.’ Her voice cooled, certain that it was just that, a story for her benefit, and Fay was looking for sympathy.

Well, you picked the wrong person if you’re looking for pity, she thought.

Had Fay guessed who her new flatmate was? Helen didn’t look like her blonde, petite mother. She was just as slim, but with a taller and stronger build, and she tanned well like her father, Dmitri. But if Fay and Mimi had been friends, she may have seen a photo of him.

The thought unsettled her. She needed to be more careful, at least until she’d decided what she was going to do about Fay. Because someone had to pay.

Fay rose from the bed. ‘I didn’t mean to bore you.’

‘I wasn’t bored.’ Far from it. ‘Thanks for the curry. I’m not really hungry. I appreciate it, though. You must let me give you some money.’

‘Oh, yes, I forgot.’ Fay produced a tattered notebook, held together with an elastic band and a pencil tucked in between the pages. ‘Household stuff. Charlie said you wanted to give something towards food and things. There’s no fixed sum, just give me what you can afford.’

Helen set her mouth in a thin line. ‘I’ll pay what everyone else pays.’

‘All right. In that case, it’s forty quid a fortnight. Sounds like a lot, but it covers food, basic toiletries, and cleaning materials.’

Helen reached for her wallet in her rucksack and counted out forty pounds. Fay ticked her name in the notebook, pocketed the money and took the tray from Helen’s desk.

‘Why don’t you let me carry that downstairs?’ said Helen.

‘I’m fine.’

Fay shut the door behind her, and Helen listened to her soft footfall on the landing. She’d missed a golden opportunity to confront Fay.

She wasn’t ready.

Later as she went to bed, she sat for a moment in total darkness, hugging her knees to her chest. Although Fay said she couldn’t remember anything, that didn’t mean she wasn’t guilty, but it did make Helen question how much she actually remembered herself. She had a vague memory of some time afterwards – when, exactly, was still hazy – that Aggie drove her to Ealing police station …

… ‘Is Mummy going to be there?’ she asks eagerly.

‘No, darling, your mummy won’t be there.’

Disappointed, Helen sits back in her seat. She frowns. Aggie has never called her ‘darling’ before, and somehow this frightens her though she doesn’t know why.

At the police station Helen and Aggie are taken down a long corridor, past many closed doors with letters on them. People’s offices, Aggie explains. Finally they’re led into a room with a large window looking into another room, which is empty. A man and a woman are waiting for them. The man has light-coloured hair and wears a blue suit, and the lady is dressed in a baggy green jumper and red trousers. Fascinated, Helen stares at the lady’s trousers. They’re not the sort of clothes Mummy would wear, and from the horrified look on Aggie’s face when she sees the lady, she’s sure Aggie is thinking the same.

‘I didn’t know the handover was today,’ Aggie says and puts her hand on Helen’s shoulder, where she leaves it. Helen shifts uncomfortably; Aggie’s never done that before either.

The lady nods. ‘Your daughter Letitia called me. I told her this isn’t how we normally do things, but she insisted. Said you’d prefer it to be dealt with quickly. It’s not a problem, I hope. We don’t really want a scene in front of—’ She stops and bites her lip when she sees Helen staring at her.

The man looks at Helen too, then at Aggie, and his expression isn’t kind.

Aggie’s voice is small when she says, ‘The child is ill. Neither of my daughters are willing to take the responsibility, and I … well, I’m too old.’ She turns away, fiddling with the clasp of her handbag as if she can’t open it.

Helen has a feeling Aggie is upset about something, but she has no time to think about it because the man kneels down in front of her, smiling. Involuntarily she takes a step back. When grown-ups kneel down like that and smile in a certain way, it’s because they’ve got something to say that you don’t want to hear.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘My name’s Barry. I’m a detective. Do you know what a detective is?’

Helen shakes her head.
Why isn’t Mummy here?