Naomi's Room (22 page)

‘Can you give me yout sister’s address in Northampton, Dr Hillenbrand?’

I gave it to him and watched him leave. I knew he would come again and again to question me, but I was confident that he would find nothing. When he had left, I telephoned my parents to say that Laura and Carol had gone missing and to ask if they had seen them or heard from them. When I replaced the receiver my hand was shaking like a leaf. Blood was pounding in my head. The house was silent. It has never been so silent since.

I have been unable to stray from this house in twenty years. There have been no holidays, no weekend breaks, not even evenings in London or Cambridge. I go out to teach, or shop, or to attend church. Sometimes I attend college or faculty meetings. That is all. My colleagues think of me as a little strange, as a recluse. They stopped inviting me to dinner parties many years ago. I never eat at high table, not even on Founder’s Day. I am not shunned, but I am not welcome. Of course, they put it down to Naomi’s death and Laura’s disappearance. They know no better; why should they?

The police found the car at the airport as they had been intended to. When asked, I told them that Laura’s passport was missing. There was an official record of a ten-year passport in Carol’s name, but no sign of it in her house. Of course, they checked all flights for that period and found no trace of two women and a child.

The fingerprints puzzled them, as I had expected them to. The recently-purchased foodstuffs, the till receipt from Sainsbury’s, the washing-up, the details on the parking ticket (which I had left in the glove compartment of the car), all testified to a timing that ruled me out as a suspect.

Despite that, Allison hounded me for a long time. He persisted in his belief that Liddley and I were one, that I had picked on De la Mere for reasons of my own and seduced or paid him to kill my daughter, Lewis, and Ruthven. But he had no proof. De la Mere was dead and could not testify. I had been in Cambridge when Laura, Carol and Jessica disappeared in Birmingham. My character references were impeccable.

I do not know how long Allison’s persecution of me would have gone on had he been free to pursue it at his pleasure, but it came to an abrupt end when he was taken ill six months after his first visit to the house. He died in hospital nine months later. The diagnosis was cancer. His successor closed the files on Naomi, Lewis, and Ruthven, ascribing the killings to De la Mere, who had, after all, confessed. The disappearances were kept open, of course, but with time they ceased to exercise anyone’s imagination.

At first I tried to return to a normal life, or one as normal as was possible under the circumstances. I began teaching again that autumn. I embarked on a piece of major research, a comparative study of Grail romances in Middle English, Middle High German, and Middle French. It has never been completed. For twenty years I have written almost nothing. I have, as one senior colleague once ruefully remarked not quite out of my hearing, ‘not fulfilled my potential’. They pay me a salary that is more than adequate for my modest expenses, they let me teach a handful of undergraduates, they steer research students away from me, they pass me politely in the street. I am not offended by them, nor they more than a little disgraced by me.

I have returned the photographs to their tin box. If this record is ever found, they will be germane to its testimony. Some have faded badly over the years, but for the most part they are accurate portrayals of what we saw. If Lewis were to return with his Leica, I daresay he could create another portfolio out of what he might find here now. But better not, better not.

Of course, they have not changed, not aged by a moment, while I have become white-haired. I do not know how much longer I can keep going. It would be pleasant to think that death might come as a release, but I know better than that.

I have instead devised a strategy. It is not much of a strategy, God knows, but I believe it may accomplish something. I have decided to sell the house. It is really too big for me. A much smaller place will suit me much better. Laura, Carol and Jessica will not take up much room, of course. I opened the attic again yesterday, just to see how they were. They will fit into my old trunk, the one I bought when I was an undergraduate. I never thought then that I would have such a use for it.

I have already found prospective purchasers, a local family who need a larger house. The father is a medical man, a consultant at Papworth Hospital. He has two little girls, one aged seven and one aged nine. They are charming little girls, very like their mother. The younger daughter reminds me of Naomi.

The family’s name is Galsworthy. They are an old Cambridge family, I believe. There have been members in the church for generations.

John tells me he is satisfied with the arrangement. He and Dr Galsworthy will have a great deal to talk about.