I didn’t know how to reply to this, so I said nothing.
We were west of Cambridge, further west than the sumptuous gardens and greens of Barton, with its multi-million-pound houses. This was a poor, lonely little pocket of council housing, forested in regular rows of planted trees, a desert island before the Fens begin again, spreading flat and green-grey as an ocean under a massive gunmetal sky, which was ramping up its threat of unseasonal snow.
Beneath these clouds the village itself huddled unprepossessingly, as though cold in a cheap coat too thin for the weather. There was a drab single-storey prefab community centre, a GP’s office, a late-night Co-Op whose outer bin was filled with empty bottles and crisp packets. The streets and drives wound in around themselves in mathematically correct curves, giving the impression the place had grown organically rather than been dreamed up whole by a council architect.
Greta had not called back yet.
The buildings themselves were mostly maisonettes – flats pretending to be houses, stacked in long terraces and made of pale brick and brown-painted timber. Brass numbers adorned some of the glass doors, but many had been replaced, or fallen off, leaving just the shadow numerals behind.
‘So, this is her street, is it?’
I was starting to get angry again. After my failure to recognize Flora Bellamy, I was now about to fail to recognize yet another putative childhood home. This was happening because this was not my childhood home. This Bethan Avery stuff was madness. Yes, writing the letters was clearly wrong, and likely to ruin me, even though I had no idea I was doing it. And Martin was no doubt on to something when he identified my personal blindness as being borne of a personal darkness. But this was just wasting time. More to the point, it was humiliating me.
I bit my lip.
I had promised him a leap of faith.
‘Yes,’ he said, determined to remain blithe and neutral. He pointed to a house on the corner, with a scrawny garden. ‘You lived there.’
‘Did I now?’
‘Yes,’ he said, unmoved by my obvious, restless anger. ‘You did.’
I had promised.
‘Do you want to get nearer?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Margot…’
‘Fine, let’s do it.’ I stalked off towards the house, with the rolling, determined gait of someone about to put a Molotov cocktail through the bay window at the front. What the hell was the matter with me? I’d agreed to this. I…
‘I’m not trying to be a bitch, you know,’ I told him.
‘I know.’
‘I’m… I’m frightened.’
‘I know.’
‘I mean, if it’s true, it turns out that everything I have told people about myself, everything I have told myself about myself, is a lie.’ I thought about this for a moment longer. ‘In fact, even if it isn’t true, it’s all lies anyway, isn’t it?’
He didn’t reply, but waited for me to speak as we mounted the pavement and paused before the shrivelled lawn.
‘I have no idea who I am any more.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s not a state of mind that encourages relaxed positivity.’
‘I can see how that would be.’
We stood there, side-by-side, like patient ghosts. There was no movement from within the house.
‘Do you want to try and get in?’ I asked.
‘What?’ He looked shocked.
‘I don’t mean break in. I meant knock, ask to look around. Perhaps it will help. If we’re going to do this…’
‘They won’t let us. When I started researching the case I called by and was given my marching orders. I think the same people live there.’
I frowned. ‘What people?’
‘The Gallaghers, they were called. They thought I was a ghoul. Fat angry man, skinny angry wife, three angry kids – mind you, the kids are probably old enough now for their own houses. They got this place after Peggy, Bethan’s grandmother, was killed here – well, attacked here. She died in hospital. Can’t blame the new family really. They had all sorts calling on them in the early days. Everyone wants to see the murder house.’
‘Peggy,’ I said, as though trying out the name. Nothing answers me from within.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk to the top of the road and back. At least we’ll get a chance to stretch our legs.’
I nodded. In silence we ambled up the winding street to the nearby sounds of traffic.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked me.
I shook my head.
‘You’re shivering.’
He was right, I was. ‘It won’t kill me.’
We reached the junction, and the pair of us gazed disconsolately around ourselves. I was tired, so I perched my bottom on the low road sign and crossed my legs.
When I glanced up, Martin had an odd expression on his face.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Do you often do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Sit on a sign like that.’
I opened my mouth, closed it. Because I didn’t. It’s something kids do when they hang around after school.
‘When was the last time you did that?’ he asked me.
I didn’t know. And now I was self-conscious, confused. I could trust none of my feelings or memories.
But I had promised him a leap of faith.
I tried to recall when I had done this in the past and realized that I couldn’t. In fact, I now felt faintly ridiculous. At my age, it’s the sort of thing you would do if you were walking home drunk and needed a little rest.
Indeed, as I sat there, I could see a balding man in a dark blue car on the main road slowing down to stare at me. I glared back in challenge and he instantly sped off.
The edge of the sign was damp and probably crawling with mites, the old wood behind the plastic facing decaying and likely to leave dark stains on my trousers. If one of the kids from school were to see me, I would be an object of derision.
And yet…
And yet…
It felt right.
‘What are you thinking?’
I was thinking that the ancient Greeks believed madness was sent to a person by the gods. Madness leads to prophecy. To be sane is merely human, says Plato in his ‘Phaedrus’, but to be mad is to be touched by the divine.
Martin had been wrong. He should be interested in Greek philosophers.
I will stop second-guessing myself. I will let my madness lead me.
‘I’ve been here before,’ I said.
‘You’re sure?’
I nodded, rose to my feet. ‘Yes. Very.’
Martin’s phone rang suddenly.
24
Chris can’t breathe.
He can’t breathe and he can’t think, and as he tears along the little country lane to the Grove he nearly hits an oncoming van, whose young driver honks furiously at him, his tattooed neck leaning out of the window to scream at him. The accompanying words, however, are ripped away by the wind.
On any other day, Chris would have turned around, followed him, bellowed his own insults, tailgated him – nobody treats me that way, no fucker! – but right now it’s like something that happened to somebody else, in a foreign country.
And besides, the wench is dead.
Where had he heard that before?
Well, it didn’t matter where he had heard it before, because the wench was not dead, despite his best efforts last night. She was still very much alive, thanks very fucking much, and walking around – those vast dark eyes; that abundant hair he’d seized in his fist so many times, now cut short around her shoulders; that full, cheeky fucking mouth.
Just sat there like the little girl she’d been, talking to some twat in a leather jacket. As if she knew he’d be passing. As if she knew…
Now calm down, Chris my old mate. If she is here to get you, then the place would be swarming with coppers by now, wouldn’t it? She’d have straight up handed them the cellar years ago, and Katie, and you’d be in the cells waiting to go to prison for practically fucking forever. She could have sent them round this morning.