A Dark Dividing (40 page)

A child for a child. JDF/2841/M. J was probably for John, or James. But it was better not to wonder about a name; it was better not to personalize the child in her mind in any way.

She got through the rest of her shift, and then waited until mid-evening—the hour when shifts were changing over and people were too taken up with coming off day-duty or going on night-duty to notice much else. She carried a little pile of clean pillowcases, and she consulted her watch anxiously as she went. I’m in a tearing hurry and I can’t stop for anyone—if I don’t get this laundry back to the ward in the next five minutes Sister will go into orbit.

Here was the door leading to the morgue itself. It had been nerve-racking enough to come down here on those other occasions but it was a hundred times worse now that she was going inside. But do it as if you’ve got official business in there, Roz. Walk inside confidently and firmly. That was Rosie saying that, of course. Rosie was encouraging Roz every step of the way.

It was cool and quiet inside the morgue and no one was around. Roz had counted on that; at this time of day the place was hardly likely to be a hive of activity. The big autopsy room was closed and locked, and the small administration area was deserted, with covers on all the typewriters and the phones put through to the main switchboard. There was supposed to be someone on duty here all the time, but at this hour whoever it was would most likely be in the hospital canteen. It was a lonely, rather eerie place, the morgue. That was all right by Roz; she wanted it lonely, at least for the next ten minutes. She advanced warily into the room.

A dim light burned from overhead, but it was enough to read the name-labels on each of the metal shelves. Roz’s heart was pounding with nervous dread by now, but she went steadily along the rows, checking each one. Had JDF/2841/M been moved out already? It had said the funeral was next week, but—Ah, no, here he was, a little way along on the left. She made a mental note of the setting on the little thermostat at the side, so as to set her own fridge at home in exact accordance. It was quite a lot colder than a normal fridge temperature, but it was not freezer-level.

Even so, the metal handle of the drawer was very cold, and when she pulled the drawer out it made a screech of sound that sent her already-taut nerves jangling like bells on wires. She waited, holding her breath, expecting someone to come marching in to demand to know what she was doing, but no one appeared and the place remained quiet and still. She looked at what lay in the metal coffin-shaped compartment. JDF/2841/M. Not in the least frightening or grisly; only rather sad. Three months old. Still, that’s the way life goes, JDF, and we can’t all live to be a hundred. Roz did what had to be done, then closed the drawer, which was now empty. Five minutes later she was walking back through the hospital, still carrying the little stack of pillow-cases.

She caught her normal bus home that evening. The bus conductor was quite often on this route; he exchanged a joke with Roz, and commented on the heavy shopping bag she was carrying. All work, wasn’t it?

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Roz, getting out at her usual stop. ‘Goodnight.’

She remembered to turn up the setting on the fridge, but it was necessary to take the wire shelves out of the fridge, and to store the cheese and butter and last night’s cold chicken in the old-fashioned walk-in larder. Fortunately the original marble slab was still in there so everything should stay fresh. A pity if all that good food had to be thrown out. The milk would be all right; it could stay in the fridge’s door compartment.

At first she thought JDF was not going to fit in, even with all the shelves removed. But at length, by dint of propping him into a sitting position, she managed it. She had to beat down a little stab of sadness at the flicking off of the fridge’s inner light when the door closed on him.

After this she made a pot of tea, and sat drinking it. Tea was very reviving; her aunt had held strongly by the virtues of a properly made pot of tea.

It had been an unpleasant thing to do, and what she would be doing tomorrow would be even more unpleasant, but it was all necessary if Roz was to have what was rightfully hers.

A child for a child.

The next day was a Saturday, which might be an advantage, or then again, might not. Before ten o’clock Roz went out to the nearby shopping centre, and bought two or three sets of baby clothes in one of the big department stores. These were suitable for a six-month-old baby, were they? It was a present for a friend’s little girl—she did not want to get the size wrong. She paid cash for the clothes, and bought two packs of disposable nappies in a busy branch of Boots.

Back at home she made sandwiches from the cold chicken, which she wrapped in greaseproof paper, and also put coffee in a vacuum flask. It was a bit disconcerting to open the fridge for the milk, and see what was in there, sitting hunched up. For a heart-snatching second or two she thought it had moved, but it was just her imagination.

She caught the bus to Isobel’s house just after lunch, being careful with the large wicker cat-basket she carried. Two tins of cat-food were prominently on display in a separate shopping basket, and anyone looking her way would think she was travelling to a vet’s surgery to collect a sick pet.

She would have preferred not to be doing this on a Saturday, but the day had been chosen for her by finding JDF yesterday. Still, Saturdays were often shopping days for people. She could watch the house from the semi-concealment of the trees on the other side of the road. If the upstairs flat stayed stubbornly and permanently occupied she would simply wait until it was dark, and then slink inside very quietly. But luck favoured her, and when she reached the house there was no car parked in the drive.

She let herself into the main hall with the duplicate key. There was a faint scent of polish as if someone had been cleaning, and there was a scattering of letters on the hall table. Roz looked at the addresses in case there was anything worth noting but they were only circulars. She visualized Isobel picking them up from the mat, and putting them down again to be thrown out.

The empty flat did not smell of polish; it smelt of unaired rooms and stale dust. Roz flicked down the security latch on the door, because there was a small possibility that the agents might send or bring someone to view the flat, especially on a Saturday afternoon. If that happened they would not be able to get in, and they would most likely assume that whoever had been here last had bungled the mechanism, and a locksmith would probably have to be called out. That would all take time.

She put the cat-basket down on the floor. It had been quite heavy to carry and her shoulders were aching. After consideration she took up a position behind the window at the side of the building where she could not be seen from the drive. She would hear the sound of a car turning in, and she would hear anyone coming in through the outer door.

As well as the chicken sandwiches and the flask of coffee, she had brought a couple of paperbacks, and a book of crossword puzzles. She still had no means of knowing if it would be Isobel or Melissa who would come back here, or even if it might be both of them. Melissa might be staying with Isobel. But Roz did not think that was very likely. The car she had seen had only one child-seat in the back. She thought they had split the twins up to fool people—to fool Roz herself, of course, but probably the press as well. It was a clever idea, but it was not quite clever enough.

Roz did not mind which of the twins was living here, and she did not mind how long she had to wait for the occupant of the top flat to return. It would not matter if she had to wait until tomorrow or the day after: there was no one either at home or at the hospital who would miss her before Monday morning.

And she would not be on her own while she waited because Rosie would be with her.

I
SOBEL GOT BACK to her flat shortly after four o’clock.

She had enjoyed the afternoon; the shopping centre had been crowded but it had been cheerful and colourful and Sonia had loved it. Isobel had enjoyed Sonia’s pleasure. She would not want a child permanently—too much of a career girl!—but she was liking having Sonia for these few weeks. Being a godmother would be fun.

She and Mel had been a bit worried that the girls might be confused or fractious after the separation, but once they were over the physical trauma they had seemed entirely untroubled. But Isobel had noticed that on several occasions, if they were in different rooms, one or the other of them seemed to be listening to something very intently, and she had wondered if they might turn out to be a bit telepathic. Twins often were. She was not sure if Mel had noticed this, but she had not mentioned it because Mel had enough on her plate without coping with telepathy or sixth sense complications.

At least Sonia seemed perfectly content in Isobel’s company, although both the babies were very used to Isobel, of course, and perhaps at this age babies’ priorities were simply to be fed and cuddled and kept warm and clean.

She parked at the side of the house, got out to unlock the main door, and went back for Sonia’s carry-cot, leaving the door open. She loved this house. She was hoping that whoever bought the ground floor flat would not be noisy or untidy or intrusive; the man who had just died had been a dear old boy, he and Isobel had got along very well. But it would take more than an untidy neighbour to make her leave; she loved living here, and she loved the high-ceilinged rooms, even though the stairs were a bit of a pain if you had heavy shopping to carry. They were a bit of a pain for carrying Sonia up as well, but it could not be helped.

She got the carry-cot upstairs and set it carefully down on the floor so that Sonia could not tip herself out. It was odd how different the house felt and sounded now that the ground floor was empty: she had not noticed it before but it seemed to be full of peculiar little rustlings and creakings. It was to be hoped mice had not got in.

She went back down to the car for her shopping. There were a couple of carrier bags of food for the weekend; she lifted these out and then reached on to the front seat for the two extravagant purchases she had made for herself: a moss-coloured, ankle-length woollen skirt, and a silk shirt the colour of autumn leaves to go with it. The shopping centre catered for the commuter population and both garments had designer labels. They had cost the earth, but they would be terrific for the winter. Isobel enjoyed giving small supper parties—her sitting-room was huge and she had made a dining area in the deep bay window that looked out over the gardens.

She thought she might invite Martin Brannan and Mel to a meal one evening; the three of them had got quite close during that bizarre journey across Europe. Isobel liked Martin, but she had a suspicion that Mel liked him even more. Good for Mel, it was time she had a bit of luck in her life. She thought Martin quite liked Mel as well, but it would not hurt to give him a bit of help. Yes, she would invite them to a meal—it was time she got back into circulation anyway—and she would add a couple of other people so that it would not look too blatantly like match-making.

She would have to wait until they had got Mel safely and unobtrusively established somewhere. Mel had gone back to Norfolk when they returned to England—in view of Joe’s death, Isobel had found that slightly peculiar, but Mel liked Norfolk. She liked the light and the loneliness. You could come to terms with things in a place like that, she said. She had found a small bungalow that could be rented for a couple of months until the house was sold and she could look for somewhere permanent. She thought she might move nearer to London again then.

Isobel had the feeling that Mel might move more than once in the next few years, and she thought Mel had been more unnerved than she had let on by that business with Roz—that was understandable, of course. It would be as well to keep a discreet eye on Mel, to make sure she did not lose money on buying and selling houses; Isobel felt a bit responsible for Mel, who was like the younger sister she had never had. It was a good friendship, although there were one or two no-go areas—one of these was money. The only reference Mel had ever made to money was when she had said, in an off-hand voice, that there was one good thing to be said for Joe: he had had a number of quite good insurance policies that had all paid up unhesitatingly when he died.

Isobel had not told Mel yet, but before they left for Switzerland she had made a new will, leaving her own bit of money and this flat to Mel. It was not a fortune, but if Isobel died suddenly Mel would get everything, and the twins would have an extra layer of financial security. If they had not worked out that last bit of subterfuge over Sonia, Isobel would have left everything to Sonia outright, godmother to god-daughter. But neither she nor Mel knew yet how that part of their plan would pan out, and Mel had still to sort out the legalities of changing her name. It was as well Martin had gone back to England before they had sent those carefully worded, deliberately contradictory announcements of Sonia’s death to the British press; it would probably have been wildly compromising for him as a doctor to even have known about it.