Porches, car ports and new front doors had sprouted rampantly with no regard to any of their neighbours, each excrescence an indicator of private ownership, like a dog pissing on its own gatepost. Jan and Mary were among the more restrained; their porch was a simple redbrick and glass affair that actually looked as if it were part of the house rather than bolted on as a sad afterthought. I rang the bell and waited.
The woman who answered the door had an unruly mop of flaming red hair. It matched perfectly the small girl wrestling for freedom on her hip. I went through the familiar routine. When I got to the part where I revealed the doctor’s real identity, Jan Parrish looked appalled. ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed. ‘Oh my God.’
It was the first time I’d struck anything other than cracked plastic with that line. And that was even before I’d told her Sarah Blackstone was dead. ‘It doesn’t get any better,’ I said, not sure quite how to capitalize on her state. ‘I’m afraid she’s dead. Murdered, in fact.’
I thought she was going to drop the baby. The child took the opportunity to abseil down her mother’s body and stumble uncertainly towards me. I moved in front of her, legs together and bent at the knees like a hockey goalkeeper and blocked her escape route. Jan picked her up without seeming to be aware of it and stepped back. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.
The living room was chaos. If I’d ever considered motherhood for more than the duration of a movie, that living room would have put me off for life. It made Richard’s mess look structured. And this woman was a qualified librarian, according to her medical record. Worrying. I shoved a pile of unironed washing to one end of a sofa and perched gingerly, carefully avoiding a damp patch that I didn’t want to think too closely about. Jan deposited the child on the carpet and sat down heavily on a dining chair with a towel thrown over it. I was confused; I couldn’t work out what Jan Parrish’s excessive reaction to my exposure of her doctor’s real identity meant. It didn’t fit my expectation of how a killer would react. I couldn’t see Jan Parrish as a killer, either. She didn’t seem nearly organized enough. But she had been horrified and panicked by what I’d said and I needed to find out why. Playing for time, I gave her the rigmarole about lesbian history. She was too distracted to pay much attention. ‘I’m sorry it’s been such a shock,’ I said finally, trying to get the conversation back on track.
‘What? Oh yes, her being murdered. Yes, that’s a shock, but it’s the other thing that’s thrown me. Her not being who she said she was. Oh my God, what have I done?’
That’s exactly what I was wondering too. It wasn’t that I was too polite to say so, only too cautious. ‘Whatever it was, I’m sure it had nothing to do with her death,’ I said soothingly.
Jan looked at me as if I was from the planet Out To Lunch. ‘Of course it didn’t,’ she said, frowning in puzzlement. ‘I’m talking about blowing her cover with the letter.’
I knew the meaning of every word, but the sentence failed to send messages from my ears to my brain. ‘I’m sorry…?’
Jan Parrish shook her head as if it had just dawned on her that she had done something so stupid that even a drunken child of two and a half would have held fire. ‘We were all paranoid about security, for obvious reasons. Dr Maitland always impressed on us the importance of that. She told us never to write to her at the clinic, because she was afraid someone might open the letter by mistake. She said if we needed to contact her again, we should make an appointment through the clinic. But we were so thrilled about Siobhan. When she had her first birthday, we both decided we wanted Dr Maitland to know how successful she’d been. I’m a librarian, I’m back at work part time, so I looked her up in Black’s. The Medical Directory, you know? And it said she was a consultant at St Hilda’s in Leeds, so we sent her a letter with a photograph of Siobhan with the two of us and a lock of her hair, just as a sort of keepsake. But now you’re telling me she wasn’t Dr Maitland at all? That means I’ve exposed us all to a terrible risk!’ Her voice rose in a wail and I thought she was going to burst into tears.
‘When was this?’ I asked.
‘About three months ago,’ she said, momentarily distracted by Siobhan’s sudden desire to commune with the mains electricity supply via a plug socket. She leapt to her feet and scooped up her daughter, returning her to the carpet but facing in the opposite direction. Showing all the stubbornness of toddlers everywhere, Siobhan immediately did a five-point turn and crawled back towards the skirting board. This time, I took a better look at her face. The hair might be Jan Parrish’s but the shape of her face was unmistakable. I wondered whether Helen Maitland had also noticed.
‘Well, if you haven’t heard anything by now, I’d think you’re all safe,’ I reassured her. ‘What did the letter actually say?’
She frowned. ‘I can’t remember the exact wording, but something like, “We’ll never be able to thank you enough for Siobhan. You made a dream come true for us, that we could really share our own child.” Something along those lines.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘That could mean anything. It certainly wouldn’t make anyone jump to the conclusion that something so revolutionary was going on. And it doesn’t give any clue as to who was actually treating you, does it? Unless the real Helen Maitland knew Sarah Blackstone was using her name, she’s got no way of guessing. And if she did know, then presumably she was in on the secret too. I really don’t think you should worry about it, honestly,’ I lied. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her for her stupidity. With a secret that held so much threat for her and her daughter, she should never have taken such an outrageous risk. Given that her mother faced a lifetime of discretion, I didn’t rate little Siobhan’s chances of making it to adulthood without being taken into care and treated like an experimental animal in a lab. Instead, I made my excuses and left.
I hadn’t found a serious suspect yet among the women who had been Sarah Blackstone’s patients. I hoped I’d still be able to say that when I’d finished interviewing them. I cared far too much for Alexis and Chris to want to take responsibility for the hurricane of official and media attention that would sweep through their lives if I had to open that particular corner of Sarah Blackstone’s life to public scrutiny.
Sometimes I think Alexis is psychic. I’d driven home thinking about her, and there she was on my doorstep. But it only took one glimpse of her face to realize she hadn’t popped round to say how gratified she was at my concern for her. If looks could kill, I’d have been hanging in some psychopath’s dungeon praying for the merciful end that death would bring.
Chapter 18
Ask people what they think of when they hear the name ‘Liverpool’ and they’ll tell you first about the Scouse sense of humour, then about the city’s violent image. Tonight, Alexis definitely wasn’t seeing the funny side. I’d barely got out of my car before she was in my face, the three inches she has on me suddenly seeming a lot more. Her tempestuous bush of black hair rose round her head like Medusa on a bad hair day and her dark eyes stared angrily at me from under the lowering ledges of her brows. ‘What in the name of God are you playing at?’ she demanded.
‘Alexis, please stop shouting at me,’ I said quietly but firmly. ‘You know how it winds me up.’