Incarnate (33 page)

“Strange or not, it bothers you.”

“I suppose it does, a little. All these coincidences at once, and I keep feeling there’s someone else I haven’t noticed. I did last night in Trafalgar Square. Of course there might have been for all we know.”

“You know what I think? I think that guy’s letter has got you on edge.”

“You could be right, the way it came just like that for no reason after eleven years.”

“If you need me to find out what he wants, just say the word.”

“I don’t think I want to go back to Oxford.”

“That’s what I meant. I could go and question him for you.”

“You could, couldn’t you?” It would keep him out of the way while she tried to trap Rankin, otherwise he might well go after Rankin himself to keep her out of danger. All the same, she felt uncomfortable lying to him, saying, “I really need to stay in town and look for another job.”

“Maybe I can investigate your friend in Oxford.” His grin looked wistful. “We’ll see what I think of him. I’ll go tomorrow.”

She disguised her misgivings by picking up the percolator. “No need to go so soon.”

“The sooner the better. You’re anxious enough.” The most he would compromise was to delay his visit until the following week. Molly went to the bathroom and turned on the shower, then she perched on the edge of the bath, to think. The mirror and the frosted glass began to turn gray as she realized how much she was attempting. She knew who she wanted to film the evidence, but persuading him might be another matter. On top of that was the problem of access. If she broke into the flat, the police would say she had planted the evidence. She would need to persuade Rankin to let her in, and that might be the least of her problems.

31

T
HE JOURNEY
to Liverpool took less than three hours, but to Susan it seemed they would never arrive. Every time the train slowed she was afraid Mummy would change her mind. She went to the buffet car for a drink and to get away from Mummy’s indifferent stare, and struggled not to change her own mind: she couldn’t plan how to save Mummy until it was safe for her to think. Passengers were saying some of the lines were flooded, and she spent the rest of the journey listening for the sound of water. She had never thought she could hate snow.

But here was the bridge at Runcorn, the Mersey sandbanks with their bad complexions, the Stanlow oil flares like matches on the horizon. The suburbs of Liverpool sped by, melting snow spilled down the overgrown walls of the cutting, and then Mummy was holding her arm as they climbed down at Lime Street Station, where pigeons murmured among the echoes beneath the glass and metal roof. The escalators were switched off for Sunday, there wasn’t a New Brighton train for half an hour, but at last the train clattered out of its tunnel and Susan saw Wallasey climbing the hill to the church. When she caught sight of the waves on the bay, she felt at last she was home.

Mummy kept hold of her arm as they went down Victoria Road, along the promenade and up the forty steps to Laura’s house. Laura’s mummy hugged Susan and said “We’ll take care of her” before Laura raced Susan to show her where she would be sleeping, in a bunk in Laura’s room that overlooked the river. “I can’t thank you enough for taking her,” Mummy was saying along the hall. “If she gets to be too much for you, just let me know. Or maybe it’s only me she’s taken a dislike to. One thing I won’t put up with is a child telling me who I can look after.

Susan wanted to run to her. to cling to her and not let go until she had convinced Mummy she was wrong. She had no chance; Mummy wouldn’t hear a word said against Eve. “Say good-bye to her for me. I’d rather not see her. I’ve just time to catch my train.” Mummy said, and Susan didn’t want to run to her after all. She gazed out at the river and waited for Mummy to go, and wondered how the waves that were breaking above the promenade could freeze in the air like that, how they could take so long to fall back.

It didn’t matter, they looked even prettier that way. They looked as if they were turning into flowers of ice. If she watched them she wouldn’t even notice when Mummy went away. Something about that made her turn away, feeling she’d been tricked. She mustn’t let Mummy go. She had to, she realized instinctively, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to stay here herself. That wasn’t important, she mustn’t let herself be made to feel that it was, not when she had to save Mummy. She heard the waves behind her, or something huge and soft and angry reaching for her. and woke.

She was lying tucked up in the blankets on the couch. At first she felt reassured that she had been able to wake, then she made out the folding bed beside her in the greenish dimness, close enough to touch. The vague pinkish oval was Eve’s face. At once she was sure not only that Eve was watching her but that Eve had made her have the dream.

Eve wanted to get rid of her so that she could finish doing to Mummy whatever she had started before Susan had come to the London flat. The folding bed made it clear that Eve was staying. Susan was suddenly afraid for Mummy, afraid what Eve might have done to her while Susan was trapped in the dream.

The pinkish oval never moved as Susan crept between it and the couch. Perhaps because she couldn’t see its eyes, she felt all the more that she was being watched. She picked her way around dim wavering shapes that were chairs and potted plants, and was almost at the hall before she realized that she couldn’t pass through the streamers without making a noise. But there was no need. Beyond the open bedroom door she could hear Mummy’s regular peaceful breathing.

At first she didn’t know why she was straining her ears. She looked back at the folding bed, at Eve’s vague face. She listened to the breathing in the lightless bedroom, and then she began to shiver. The more she listened, the more it sounded as if there were two sets of breathing in the bedroom, so regular as almost to. merge. She was looking at Eve in the folding bed, yet she thought that somehow Eve was in the dark with Mummy too.

Susan shivered in the dimness and wondered how she would ever be able to move. She wanted to wake Mummy, except that she was afraid of the dark in there; she wanted to climb back under the warm blankets and hide there, but she was terrified of going near the face whose eyes she couldn’t see. For a moment she felt she was still dreaming, that the face on the pillow was hers and not Eve’s, her own dreaming face. That made her feel even more at the mercy of the dark. Nevertheless she was creeping back there, shuffling as if she couldn’t stop her feet from moving. At last she slid under the blankets, holding her breath, vowing not to sleep. The next she knew, the curtains were open, sunlight had made the room bright green as summer, and Eve was smiling at her while she folded up her bed. “You did have a long sleep. You were asleep before I was and now you’re only just awake.”

Susan knew that she had to behave as if nothing were wrong. She was sure that Eve wanted her to believe that everything last night had been a dream. She managed to smile as if she did, and Eve called. “She’s awake. Mummy.”

“I thought smelling breakfast would do the trick.” Mummy brought Susan a mug of orange juice. “Come on, slowcoach, or I’ll never get anything done.” To Eve she said. “We’ll eat up all the breakfast, won’t we, and leave none for sleepyheads.”

Susan hurried to the bathroom, slipped her housecoat on, and reached the table just as Eve and Mummy brought in plates of bacon and fried bread. “We’ll have to get you a housecoat. Eve,” Mummy said, and Susan wondered how many more presents she meant to buy. She felt jealous and helpless and most of all childish, because that was what Mummy would call her if she tried to convince her that anything was wrong.

At least during breakfast she didn’t need to talk. She kept filling her mouth to make sure she couldn’t, even when Mummy said, “Don’t do that, Susan. Eve doesn’t, does she?” Snow was melting on the roofs, but not as’ much as it had been in the dream. Had the dream meant that Susan could go home to Wallasey so long as she left Mummy with Eve? She would never do that, and she hoped Eve could hear her thinking. When Eve stared at her as if she could, Susan looked away.

Eve followed her to the bathroom. “Let’s go somewhere today, shall we?” she said.

“I’m going out. but not with you.” She didn’t like leaving Mummy alone with Eve, but there was no alternative when she had to go for help. “You can’t make me,” she said to Eve’s look.

“I’m telling Mummy. She told you to be friends with me.”

“Go on then, baby, telltale,” Susan said, and sneered as Eve slunk out. Was Eve really no more dangerous than this? Perhaps she just needed someone to stand up to her, and Susan knew who would. But when Susan was dressed and went into the main room, Mummy was waiting grim-faced for her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Susan had her lie ready. “I want to get some new pencils for school.”

“Why can’t Eve come with you?”

She had no lie to cover that. “Because I don’t want her to.”

“We’ll find something better to do if Susan’s being like that, won’t we, Eve. And we won’t tell her what it is.”

Susan was so taken aback by having succeeded after all that she couldn’t resist asking, “Where will Eve be going to school?”

“Why should you care? Not with you, miss, and I expect she’s glad of that.” Mummy’s glare was warning her not to ask further. “Go and buy your pencils and make sure you’re nicer to know when you come back.”

Susan pulled on her coat and boots and was afraid that Eve was letting her think she could get away so as to stop her at the last moment. Or didn’t she know what Susan was planning? Had Susan imagined everything about her after all? Susan said, “I’ll try not to be long,” and made to kiss Mummy, who turned her head away. Susan was opening the door when Eve said, “She’ll only be a few minutes. She just has to go to Smith’s on the main road.”

So that was why she was letting Susan go: because she knew that Susan wouldn’t have time to do what she planned. Or could she really not read Susan’s thoughts? Susan picked her way quickly over the lumpy snow, where last week’s footprints were bigger but icier than yesterday, and was already making up an excuse: Smith’s had sold out, she’d had to go further. Perhaps things would happen too fast for her to need the excuse. She climbed the hill to Molly’s. But Molly wasn’t there.

Then she must be at work. She was the only person who could help. She’d told Susan to come and see her again, Eve would have to leave them alone with Mummy if Molly told her to, Molly would see what that did to Mummy. At MTV, Susan went to the man in the braided uniform. “Is Molly Wolfe here?”

He’d begun to frown as soon as he saw her. “I told you once she isn’t, lass.”

“But that was last week.” Last year too, she thought desperately.

He leaned across his desk so abruptly that she shrank back. “Listen, lass, I’m not supposed to give this out, but I will so you’ll know. She isn’t working here at all just now, and if you ask me I don’t think she’ll be coming back.”

Susan felt as if she were still dreaming. Of course Molly worked here, or when had she stopped? For a moment Susan thought of asking if Mummy worked here, Helen Verney who had turned into Nell Verney, who wasn’t very much like Mummy anymore; if he said no she might wake up. But she wasn’t asleep. She went through the revolving doors, into the open where every breath felt like swallowing ice.

Suppose she went back to Wallasey? She could tell Mummy’s old friends how Mummy was. She kicked at the slush, splashing her legs and not caring. What use was it to pretend she could get away for so long? Besides, nobody would listen to her. Grown-ups never did.

She was nearly at the police station. If she went in there they would only take her home to Mummy, that was all that policemen ever did to children who hadn’t done anything wrong. If she made a scene they would probably lock her up. She made herself cross the road, and trudged along beside the park.

It was almost deserted. Red dogs chased over the snow, bare trees gleamed like new metal. Five hundred yards away someone sat on a bench behind a tree and watched the road with binoculars. Susan squinted to make sure that the woman wasn’t watching her, and then the woman waved to her.

At once Susan saw who she was. She almost fell before she reached a gate. She ran along the tinselly path, past ducks waddling toward an old lady with a greenish loaf, and had to detour when Molly waved her out of the way of the binoculars. Molly didn’t even take them away from her eyes when Susan joined her on the frosty bench. She didn’t sound particularly welcoming when she said, “Hello, Susan, how are things?”

Susan found that she couldn’t answer the question immediately; the answer was too long and too painful. “What are you doing?”

“My job. You’ll excuse me if I’m not very sociable.”

How could she be doing her job is she wasn’t working for MTV? Susan felt nervous, all the more so when she noticed that Molly was watching the police station. “Can I talk to you?” she pleaded. “You said we could talk.”

“About the situation at home, do you mean? To tell you the truth, Susan, I’d just as soon not right now.”

Susan felt as if she had been physically rebuffed. “But there’s nobody else I can talk to.”

“I’m sure there must be, Susan. A nice girl like you must have plenty of friends.” Molly adjusted the focus minutely. “We’ll talk soon, I promise. It’s just that I can’t now. This is very important. I need to concentrate, do you see?”

“But I don’t know what to do,” Susan said, and hated her own whining voice.

“Now I’m sure it can’t be as bad as that, Susan, can it?” Molly glanced at Susan, but frowned at what she saw. “Well, just try to bear up for a little while longer, and I’ll see what I can do just as soon as I can.”

She jammed the binoculars against her eyes. Susan could see that she was willing her to go. “Can I get in touch with you if I need to?” she pleaded.

“If it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t mean to put you off, it’s just that I may be difficult to find for a while.” She reached out as Susan stood up, and pushed her gently out of her field of vision. “I’ll see you again soon, I promise.”