‘All right.’
We reached the lobby. ‘Oh, she’ll be so disappointed, though,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any way of just saying a quick hello to her on my way out?’
He stopped and something seemed to occur to him. ‘Past visiting time now. Shouldn’t, really.’
‘Yes, of course. It’s a trouble for you. Perhaps I could pay you for your time.’ I reached into my handbag and took a pound note from my purse. The orderly stared at it, then at the security guard, who was watching us. I added another note, and clipped my purse closed to show him that there would be no more forthcoming. The guard went back to filling in his forms.
‘Just for a minute, no more,’ Tibbot said, cajoling him.
The orderly swiftly stuffed the money in his pocket. He would buy the guard a drink later, no doubt. He unlocked the door to the corridor and took us to what I suspected was the room we had seen from outside the house, with the faces staring out on to the lawn. ‘Be quick,’ he said, as we stood on the threshold. ‘A minute tops.’
‘Thank you so much.’ I was trying to appear calm and not too excited.
It was a linoleum-floored lounge with many small tables and hard seats. An unpleasant odour, like distant rotting fields, hung over the scene, emanating from a mass of dirty tin plates and wooden cutlery on the tables. The meagre remains of a meal were festering while twenty or thirty people, men and women, murmured or read battered magazines and paperbacks. Some of them had copies of Blunt’s The Compass – doing so probably curried favour with the hospital authorities. A few posters of his image, emblazoned with quotations from his book, formed the room’s only decoration, and below one such bill a heavyset nurse sat listening to gentle music drifting from a speaker.
She looked up as Tibbot and I entered, confused by our presence, but the orderly lifted his palm to say it was all right and I rapidly glanced through the room for any sign of the handsome young woman from the photograph in Nick’s study. I must have stood stock still for a while, because the orderly spoke again. ‘Go on, then, hurry up,’ he said tetchily.
Unable to see her, but desperate to find her, I had to throw caution to the wind. ‘Rachel Burton?’ I called out, hoping she was there somewhere. The orderly looked startled, confused by what I was doing. ‘Is Rachel Burton here?’ The murmuring fell away and everyone turned to look. The orderly realized something was wrong and tried to take hold of my arm, but I rushed into the centre of the room, hoping someone would reply. ‘Rachel!’ There was silence as all those faces looked blankly at me. The nurse shook herself into action and jumped up. ‘Rachel Burton!’
Then, in a blur, the orderly was making for me, but Tibbot got in his way and they smacked against one of the seats, struggling. The nurse ran towards them too, sending a tray of food crashing to the floor, until Tibbot drew out his warrant card. ‘Police,’ he shouted. ‘Let go.’ The man did as Tibbot commanded, and there was an eerie sort of calm as we all stood facing each other.
The silence was punctuated by a quiet voice, timid as a shrew’s, almost too timid to be heard. ‘Over there,’ it said. It was an old woman with straggling, near-transparent hair, thinning on the top. ‘She’s over there. Rachel.’
19
We followed the woman’s thin finger to a figure in the corner of the room with her hands clasped together and her back hunched over so we couldn’t see her face.
‘Rachel?’ I said.
She lifted her head and I caught sight of the features I had seen in the photograph from a few years earlier, but they were changed almost beyond recognition. Where the printed image had been of an attractive young woman, her dark hair tied back, here I saw her as if she had aged by a decade, her hair now matted and greying. And yet her eyes were keen as they locked on to mine.
‘Rachel Burton?’ I asked, as we edged towards her.
She made no reply but stared at the doorway. We spun around to find Larren looking furious. Another orderly appeared behind him.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Get out!’
‘You said there was no Rachel Burton here,’ I replied. His jaw worked as if he were trying to speak, yet no words came from his mouth.
‘That car’s stolen,’ Tibbot added. ‘Should we take a look in your garage? Now, we need to talk to her.’
Larren wiped his brow on his sleeve. ‘Bring her to the visiting room,’ he muttered to the orderlies. ‘They’re police.’ I felt a thrum of nerves. So long as he kept thinking we were there on official business, we would be safe. But if he began to doubt us, there was no guessing what the outcome could be.
The two orderlies led Rachel along the corridor with Larren and me walking behind her. ‘Could she have got out of here a couple of days ago?’ I asked. ‘Got to London?’
‘Of course not,’ he replied angrily. I pondered how true that was. Certainly security was tight, but it wasn’t a prison. And people sometimes broke out of those too.
The visiting room was a plain, windowless hole with a single iron-caged electric light, a smell of carbolic soap, and a table and four chairs bolted to the floor. I pitied anyone forced to meet a loved one in such a place. As we entered, Tibbot told Larren to wait outside and we would speak to him later. We sat at the table as Rachel took the chair opposite, with her face down. Tibbot placed a notebook and pencil in front of himself. Habit, I suppose.
‘Hello, Rachel,’ I said. She made no reply. ‘How are you feeling?’
She looked up. ‘Who are you?’ her voice rasped, as if it hadn’t been used for a long time.
‘My name is Jane. Jane Cawson.’
‘Cawson!’ she spat, jumping up and clenching her hands into fists. ‘That bitch!’
‘She doesn’t mean you,’ Tibbot muttered to me, placing his hand on my arm to reassure me that we were safe. ‘She means Lorelei.’
‘Bitch.’ She unclenched her hands, but remained standing over us, bristling with an anger that was all the stronger for having been repressed for years.
‘Why do you say that?’ I asked her, trying to adopt a soothing tone.
‘Why?’
‘Yes.’
She glared at me and pulled back her hair to reveal pale skin, wrinkling and lifeless; and from her left eyebrow up to her hairline, where it disappeared, a thin line of white scar tissue. ‘This. I’ll serve her back.’
‘She’s dead,’ I said.
There was silence, then she sat back down. ‘Dead.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I’m glad.’
‘You’re happy about that?’
‘Yes.’
It was an ugly reaction, but I only needed her to tell me what had happened; her personal feelings weren’t important right then. I checked the door was shut and lowered my voice. ‘Rachel, I’m married to Nick Cawson.’ She narrowed her eyes – it obviously made me untrustworthy, like Lorelei before me. ‘We know you were involved in what she did. We have to know what it was.’ If they really had been involved with a dissident group and crimes of subversion, then he was never coming home; but if it was something else, we might find a way. Rachel just watched us, still wary. ‘We need to know.’
Tibbot spoke in a calm, relaxed voice. He must have been used to these situations. ‘Rachel? Do you understand?’ She nodded carefully. ‘You and Lorelei Addington. Who was directing you?’
‘Directing us.’
‘That’s right. Who did you deal with?’ She winced, as if the memories were painful; as if she hadn’t brought them to mind for a long time and now had to fight through a fog for them.
‘Did you know? Did Lorelei say?’
‘“My uncle has been in touch.”’