Poison Heart (16 page)

He was pressured into buying a fruit loaf and some apricot jam for his mum while I settled for a limp houseplant that was supposed to need very little attention. Luke seemed to be the only male under sixty in the room and rushed to help as one of the tables collapsed. Before long he’d been roped into lifting several boxes of books and manning the tombola. I stood by drinking awful instant coffee in a plastic cup and listening to an old lady complaining about her bunions.

The man wearing a dog collar and dark suit was noticeable as soon as he entered the church hall because everyone immediately rushed to greet him. I tried to signal to Luke, but he was obscured from view by five or more blue-rinsed perms. The vicar looked about fifty, with grey hair, a beard and gold-rimmed glasses. His frame was tall and spare.

So much for blending in with the crowd. Luke stood out like a beacon and the vicar made a beeline for him. I watched them shake hands and stood up, right in the middle of a story about gall-bladder removal, to go over in case he needed me for support.

‘I’m just here for the day,’ I heard him say, ‘with a friend.’

‘We need more young people to get involved in our community. What a shame you’re only visiting.’

Luke paused. ‘Actually, another friend of mine used to live around here … I wonder if you’d remember her?’

The vicar smiled encouragingly. ‘Her name?’

Luke’s resolve seemed to waver, but he cleared his throat and said confidently, ‘It’s Grace … Grace Morton.’

The reaction was brutal. The vicar tensed up and his features became hard and ugly. The change was so swift that it was scary, like seeing your favourite Disney character turn into Freddy Krueger. ‘Sorry, I’ve no recollection of anyone by that name.’

I flinched with discomfort and then held out my hands to indicate there was nothing we could do, but Luke wasn’t deterred so easily. He followed the fast-moving figure outside, with me trying to keep pace.

‘Excuse me, but I think you must remember her. It’d be difficult to forget a member of your family.’

The vicar swivelled around, eyes on fire. ‘She is
not
a member of my family.’

Luke couldn’t help but smile. ‘So you do remember
her. We need to ask you some questions. It’s very important.’

The vicar would not be swayed. ‘I have no wish to answer your questions and I would be grateful if you would leave me alone and not contact me or anyone close to me again.’

We watched him go back into the hall. I sat down on a small brick wall nearby, playing with the zip on my jacket and rubbing my arms. Nervousness or the biting cold had chilled me to the bone. I tried to make light of it. ‘That seemed to go well.’

Luke was obviously angry but hid it well. ‘Pompous, wasn’t he? But I could hardly twist his arm.’

I sighed. ‘There’s nothing else we can do. But one thing is odd … no one wants to talk about Genevieve … Grace. It’s like she never existed.’

He sat beside me, kicking his heels against the bricks. ‘You mean they
wish
she never existed.’

‘I guess that’s it then? I mean there’s nowhere else to go with this.’

Luke pushed his tongue to one side of his mouth and gave a hollow laugh. ‘Call yourself a journalist? This is just the start …’

‘But he’ll only get angrier.’

‘
He
might … but what about the others?’

‘What others?’

Luke’s eyes were as hard as steel as he stared straight ahead. ‘“Don’t contact anyone close to me,” he
said … so … that’s just what we will do. He isn’t the only one who knew her, and if he doesn’t want to talk about her, then we’ll wait until we find someone who will talk.’

‘How long should we wait?’

‘As long as it takes,’ he replied with determination.

‘I’m freezing.’

‘If I put the heater on without running the engine, it will flatten the battery.’

My breath condensed in front of me. ‘Could we get out of the car? Move around a bit?’

‘We have to watch the vicarage,’ Luke reminded me for the third time, ‘and not draw attention to ourselves.’

‘Are there any more sandwiches left?’

‘No.’

‘Water?’

‘No.’

Luke was only here to help me, and I was acting like a spoilt brat, but I thought that journalists led exciting lives, not sitting in a cold car for three hours watching the same house.

He looked at his watch. ‘I know you’re fed up. I am too. We’ll give it another thirty minutes and call it a day.’

‘Sorry for moaning,’ I said sheepishly, but then moaned
some more. ‘Why isn’t life like it is on the TV? Everything solved in a day, all the loose ends tied up and the good guys coming out on top.’

‘Because they squeeze months of filming into half an hour and make it all look so easy, which …’

I gripped his arm as the front door opened. ‘Someone’s coming out. It’s him … and he’s alone.’

We watched the lean figure stride down the path and then disappear out of sight as the road curved away. I knew what Luke was planning next and my heart missed a beat. ‘He … He could come back at any minute.’

Luke took his keys out of the ignition and opened the car door. ‘I think he’ll be out for a while, Kat. He was muffled up this time – overcoat, scarf and hat.’

I stayed in the passenger seat, looking down, my hands clamped between my knees. ‘Don’t think I can do this …’

Luke came around to my side and gently pulled me out, feet first. ‘What’s the worst that could happen? We get the door shut in our faces or the vicar returns and has a hissy fit. We’re not doing anything illegal, and you’ll kick yourself if you give up now.’

He was right, as always. I’d hate myself if I went away without knowing what we might have discovered. ‘You’re right … of course you are … I’ll come.’

A comforting hand tucked itself under my arm. ‘Coping with Genevieve takes a lot more courage than this.’

I smiled gratefully because Luke always managed to say the right thing. Taking a deep breath, I made it past the
gate, but the path to the vicarage seemed to have doubled in length and my shoes crunched loudly on the gravel. I gazed up at the sky for distraction. Night was approaching, a purple and black bruise moving in to obliterate the pink, white and touches of powder blue. Now we were at the red front door, with its peeling paintwork and coloured glass, and we couldn’t turn back. There was a choice between a brass door knocker and an old-fashioned bell with a rope pull. Luke hesitated and I knew this would be the scariest part, those few moments on the doorstep not knowing who would answer and what we would say. But we didn’t have to do either because the door suddenly flew open.

‘I-I kn-know why you’re here,’ a woman stammered. ‘M-my husband described you and I saw you from the window.’

The woman was small and birdlike with untidy mouse-coloured hair and scared eyes that darted from Luke to me and back again.

Luke took one step forward. ‘We’ve come a long way. I’m sorry to be so insistent, but it’s important.’

The woman retreated further into the porch, holding on to the door frame. ‘I can’t tell you anything … please leave me … leave us alone.’

‘Let me try,’ I whispered. I wasn’t frightened any more. Luke was right, the only thing to fear was having no idea why Genevieve hated me and wanted to destroy my life. I looked the woman in the eye and tried to keep my voice
steady. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done, but since … Grace came to our town she’s gone out of her way to make my life miserable. I can’t carry on like this without knowing why. Please help me.’

The vicar’s wife interlaced her hands as if in prayer, and conflicting emotions crossed her face. Finally she peered out into the garden and said quickly, ‘Follow me. If my husband comes back, you must leave through the kitchen … immediately. The back gate is locked but there’s a hole in the fence; it’s easy to slip through.’

She led the way through the large hall tiled in geometric blue and terracotta. A grandfather clock stood opposite the porch door. To the left were a set of winding oak stairs with a gnarled wooden banister and scrolled spindles. Everywhere smelt damp and musty, mixed with beeswax. My flesh felt cold and prickly and I rubbed my arms.

‘What’s wrong?’ Luke asked.

‘Nothing. Just a creepy feeling … like I’ve been here before.’

‘Don’t mention I’m a journalist,’ he whispered.

We stood in a large country kitchen with a freestanding dresser, butcher’s trolley and shelving unit filled with pots and pans, jars and dishes. The vicar’s wife motioned us to sit down at an old table with deep grooves in its worn surface. With quivering lips she took a sip of water from a glass. ‘How did you trace Grace to us? We haven’t heard her name for a long time.’

‘Luke’s great with computers,’ I explained, hoping that she wasn’t. ‘I told him about Grace and he managed to track you down.’

She twisted a handkerchief between her fingers. ‘What do you need to know?’

After coming so far my mind suddenly went blank and Luke had to step in.

‘What about Grace’s life when she left here? What can you tell us?’

‘Not that much,’ the woman replied flatly. ‘She was taken to a children’s home nearby. I tried to keep in touch and would have visited, but she didn’t want to see me. She was very hostile … to both of us.’

‘How old was she then?’

‘Probably eight.’

I let out a gasp. ‘So she didn’t live with you for long? I mean she was only seven when the fire …’

I stopped abruptly and in a small voice she commented, ‘You know about that then.’

We both nodded. There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘No, she didn’t stay for long.’

She trailed off without further explanation as I pondered on the missing years of Genevieve’s/Grace’s life. I still had trouble switching between her two names.

‘It wasn’t a happy time?’ Luke asked sympathetically, and for a moment her eyes looked glassy, but she collected herself and pulled her grey cardigan tightly around her small frame.

‘No, it wasn’t. We didn’t know there were … problems before Grace came, but afterwards …’

The rest was left unsaid. She jumped at a noise in the garden and I could see how tense she was in case her husband came back.

‘Have you any photographs of her?’ I asked.

‘No. They were all destroyed in the fire, and my own were … mislaid.’

‘Did you tell anyone about these …
problems
?’ Luke asked tentatively.

‘I-I can’t go into details. Grace was placed under supervision and it was taken out of my hands. It wasn’t an
ordinary
children’s home, you see …’

Both Luke and I digested this fact for a minute. ‘What did Grace do when she was here?’ I asked.

It looked as if she wasn’t going to answer but eventually she did in a voice that was barely audible. ‘She sat upstairs … gazing into the mirror on the dressing table. Day after day … those eyes of hers, just watching. Sometimes she would say the strangest things …’

‘Like what?’

‘That they’d taken away her reflection … and cut her heart in two.’

The wind blew down the fireplace and a chill ran through me – like someone walking over your grave, Mum would say. ‘Did she have any interests?’

The vicar’s wife nodded in remembrance. ‘She loved the sea. Always on at us to take her there, and whenever
we went she’d collect shells, pebbles, bits of glass, and make them into trinkets. My husband didn’t approve – he thought they were too pagan.’

Luke tried not to show it, but I could tell from his expression that he was seething inside. ‘It must have been hard to lose touch with your niece,’ he commented. ‘Your sister’s child?’

The reaction was as extreme as her husband’s had been. ‘Grace wasn’t my sister’s child! She took my sister’s married name to have a fresh start.’

My foot accidentally kicked Luke under the table. ‘Sorry? She wasn’t your sister’s child?’

‘Not flesh and blood,’ was the defensive answer. ‘My sister adopted Grace when she was a small baby.’

I looked at Luke, stunned, but he stayed quietly controlled. ‘Do you know anything about her real mother?’

‘Not really … only that she wasn’t very stable. My sister never wanted to talk about what had happened to Grace, although the adoption agency might have told her.’

Was she from this area?’ I asked, still trying to get my head around this latest piece of information.

The vicar’s wife nodded. There was a moment’s silence and she burst out, ‘One thing I do know, adopting Grace was the worst thing my sister could have done.’

‘She was just a child,’ Luke commented.

‘No ordinary child.’ There was a self-conscious cough. ‘My husband believes that no one is born wicked. He believes we learn to be wicked from the evil in the world …’

‘But you’re not so sure,’ I finished.

She stared into space. ‘I still feel her presence here … I know that’s impossible but it’s as if … something of her remains.’ She glanced at the clock on the fireplace and stood up hastily. ‘You have to go, through the back door.’

I stood my ground. ‘You still haven’t told us the real reason why Grace had to leave.’

‘I’ve told you everything I can.’

I gripped her tiny wrist and it felt brittle as though it would snap in two. ‘She blames me for something. Says she’s going to ruin my life.’

She put one hand across her heart as though checking that it still had a beat. ‘Then you should be wary. She’s capable of things most of us couldn’t dream of.’

‘You can’t just say that,’ I pleaded, ‘and not tell me what you mean.’

The vicar’s wife was so white I was convinced she was going to faint and stood close by just in case. From the rise and fall of her chest she was struggling with something and I was sick with anticipation. Her mouth opened and closed until she rasped, ‘If you repeat this to anyone, I shall only deny it. Grace told me she killed my sister because she was to blame – for everything – and she said she wouldn’t stop there.’

Luke kept his voice level. ‘She was angry and probably hurt. They’re just words. Children lash out.’

‘She was seven years old with a face like an angel, but
she burned them alive because she believed they told lies about her real mother and … she wasn’t alone – she had help.’