The Betrayal of Trust (43 page)

‘Not necessarily. She might. Hopefully she will.’

‘But someone with Alzheimer’s
won’t remember anything?’

‘Depends. It’s short-term memory that’s affected – so people might remember a whole poem they learned when they were eight or nine, not what they had for lunch an hour ago or even if they had lunch at all. That sort of thing. Eventually, the long-term memory goes too of course.’

‘Someone with dementia now – say they’ve had it for five or six years? Would they remember
something from ten years before?’

‘I can’t answer that. It’s like Molly. They might, they might not. It’s random.’

‘Would it depend on what it was? Say it was the memory of being attacked? Or of being in a car crash? Something that sears itself on the mind.’

‘I can look up some articles. But I think the answer is likely to be yes, a dramatic incident – one full of emotion – that could well
be remembered longer than a mundane event. There’s no guarantee though.’

‘Can you get me that list of care homes?’

‘Come back to the surgery now, I’ll find it in two minutes.’

‘I’ll follow you.’

‘You can start with Maytree.’

‘I thought you said it was new.’

‘Opened last month.’

‘Then she won’t be there – she’s been in a home for several years.’

‘Right. I’ll get the list. See you there.’

Twenty minutes later, Simon sat in his sister’s office, telephoning his way down the names of care homes which accepted dementia patients. There were seven of them. It didn’t take long to track the sad trajectory of Miss Olive Mills.

Molly woke and lay for a moment looking at the white blind drawn down over the window. Puzzled. Uncertain where she was.
What
the blind was. Why it was there. Her
head ached. She had a drip attached to her left arm. Why? The door opened.

‘Ah, you’re awake? How do you feel now?’

The nurse looked at the drip. Adjusted it. Checked her temperature. Pulse. Looked at her head wound. Hand.

‘My head aches.’

‘I’ll give you some painkillers in a few minutes. You’re doing fine.’

‘What happened? I don’t know why I’m here.’

‘You had a nasty fall. Hit your head
and knocked yourself out.’

‘Where?’

‘The care home … don’t you work there?’

‘No. What care home? I’m a medical student.’ She remembered that quite clearly.

‘What, here in BG?’

‘Yes. Finals in a few weeks.’

‘Right. Good for you. Have you had anything to eat?’

‘No … I had lunch.’

‘What did you have?’

‘A salad.’

‘So you’ll be ready for the delights of hospital shepherd’s pie.’

She straightened
the bedcovers. Went out.

Salad. Was that right? Had she eaten salad for lunch? Where had she? ‘You had a nasty fall.’ Where? She tried to think. To picture anywhere she might have been when she had a nasty fall. Off her bike? No. ‘The care home,’ the nurse had said. Care home.

She had no memory at all of anything. ‘A salad.’ Why had she said that?

Her head ached ferociously. Trying to think
made it worse and in any case it was pointless. Nothing happened, nothing came. She remembered riding her bike up a long residential road on a sunny day. But that could have been weeks ago. Nothing else.

Molly closed her eyes again.

Simon parked in the lane beyond the gates of Bransby churchyard. As he did so, his phone beeped a message.

‘
You are the love of my life. I don’t know what this
means
.’

His hand shook.

Should he believe it? He could not believe it. Would not. What had happened between them was too rare. It mattered too much. Her husband mattered too. And, for now, Simon knew he had to be without her.

To wait.

He wondered how he was going to do that.

Leo Fison walked between the trees in the darkness, away from the brick building. The grass was slightly damp, the
sky pricked over with stars. He had locked the door behind him, bolted it, secured the windows.

Would the girl remember? Who knew? It was a worry and he could do nothing. Wait. Hope.

The woman Jocelyn Forbes had sent an email saying that she would not visit after all. She had changed her mind. She would be consulting Dr Deerbon. Her daughter was moving in to look after her. She felt sure she
had made the right decision.

He was not worried about Jocelyn Forbes. She would say nothing. Hazel would say nothing. And nothing was written down, there was no trail that could conceivably be followed to his door.

Had the way he had grabbed Molly caused her to fall over the step? No. It was the sudden way Olive had come crashing into her like a bull. Olive was known to be violent. And strong.
It was amazing that she had come round so quickly from the injection he’d given her.

No one else had been there. Olive would not remember anything. Molly might not. And if she did?

There was no evidence. Nothing.

He went towards the house. But he felt no relief. No sense of luck, no triumph at having had any sort of escape.

His mind was uneasy as he went inside, and closed and bolted the door.

Wait. That was all anyone could do. Wait.

At first, Tadpole Cottage seemed to be in darkness, but when he walked round the back, past the parked van and the quiet
hen
run, Serrailler saw a low light shining through the drawn curtains of the kitchen. He could hear the sound of a piano being played inside the house.

It took a long time before she came to the door. When she saw him, she merely
held it wider and walked away.

‘I need to talk to you again,’ he said.

Lenny shrugged. Her back to him.

‘May I sit down?’

Silence.

He did so.

‘Sit here, please,’ he said.

‘I’d rather stand.’

‘Fine. Your partner, Olive Mills, was here that day, wasn’t she? The day Harriet Lowther came for her piano lesson.’

Silence.

‘Where is Olive now?’

‘I told you. She has dementia. She’s in a home.
She’ll never come back here.’

‘Maytree House care home.’

She looked at him. ‘She won’t be able to tell you anything at all. She’s way past remembering.’

‘Not quite.’

‘Have you been up there? Have you been pestering her? Pestering her with questions when you’ve been told what happened? You’d no right.’

‘She remembers Agneta. She says her name quite often. The staff had thought it was Agatha
but when I said “Agneta” Olive knew. Her eyes told me she knew the name perfectly well. She said it once or twice while I was there.’

‘Doesn’t she have enough without you pestering her, upsetting her?’

‘Yes, she was upset. She became very agitated. They had to calm her down. She was actually quite angry. When I said the name. She has fits of rage apparently. Was that always the case?’

Silence.

‘Did she fly into a rage that afternoon?’

‘She wasn’t demented then, she was herself, it was years ago.’

‘Sixteen years. Yes.’

‘Olive was perfectly well.’

‘But she had a temper. She was liable to throw a fit of anger sometimes – when you said or did something that made her feel threatened, or annoyed. What really happened that afternoon, Lenny? You should tell me. You’ve told me half a story.
I know that Harriet was here. That there was an incident. It involved Agneta too, didn’t it?’

Silence.

‘Tell me, Lenny. It won’t make any difference.’

‘What do you mean? You didn’t arrest me earlier. Are you going to do it now?’

‘I don’t know. I have to decide that after you’ve told me the truth.’

‘You ought to. I ought to rot in hell for what I did.’

‘What exactly did you do?’

‘I …’

‘I know what you told me, but that wasn’t the full story, or even some of it. I wonder if any of it bears an approximation to the truth.’

‘Of course it does.’

Simon looked at her steadily. ‘Tell me. Olive can’t. That was very obvious. She knew the name Agneta and it sent her into a rage but she doesn’t really remember the girl, and when I said “Harriet” she blanked it completely. Her eyes didn’t
flicker. I said it several times. Nothing. There was no point in continuing to ask her questions. There won’t ever be any point and you know that. So you’re the only one who can help me get all this right. Tell me the truth, Lenny.’

The bulb in the lamp was a dim one and the shade was thick, a waxy yellow, so that the kitchen was in the half-dark. The sky outside was ink blue. He could see a
couple of stars. Nothing moved.

After several minutes, Lenny Wilcox sighed. Then sat heavily down, as if she was suddenly exhausted. He knew the signs. She had had enough. She would tell him now.

‘I met Olive nearly thirty years ago. It was instant. Instant. I knew there would never be anybody else, from those first days with her. Her. She was everything. It was the same for us both.
But
Olive
never believed me, not really. She was a terribly insecure person. And it became worse. Everyone I glanced at was a threat. Everyone I knew – if I went to a concert with a colleague, if I was friendly with someone, that was a threat. I couldn’t have stopped it. I came to believe she
had
to be jealous. It seemed to satisfy something in her. She
needed
to be jealous. She was jealous of the girls
I taught, other women I worked with, there was row after row about it, but in the end I gave up bothering. Nothing I could do. When Harriet came here, Olive was very angry. School was one thing but pupils didn’t come here, she wouldn’t have it. Harriet was special though. Talented. And a very sweet girl. A pretty girl. I was sitting next to her on the piano stool, showing her some difficult fingering
in the Schubert piece and Olive came in. Just banged in through the door. That was what she did. She was suspicious. No reason to be but she was and there I sat with Harriet, next to Harriet, at the piano. She went berserk, absolutely flew into a rage. Olive’s rages were frightening. Harriet looked at me in terror. Who was this woman, what was happening? I put my hand round her shoulder to reassure
her that it would be all right, I‘d deal with it, and then Olive lunged forward, grabbed her by the arm and shoved her very hard at the same time. I had no chance to stop her, you see. No chance, it was all in a few seconds, and Harriet hit the kerb of the hearth, the stone kerb, right beside the piano. I heard her head crack against it. I’ve heard it every day since. And the next minute, I
realised that Agneta was in the room.

‘She’d come very early that morning, around eight o’clock, saying she wasn’t needed any more at the other house, they’d thrown her out. She walked straight in and started clearing up the kitchen, getting out the mop for the floor, just working, working all that day. I suppose I just accepted it. I should have rung them there and then. I mean, why didn’t it
occur to me that it was odd they’d dismissed her at such an hour? But I didn’t. I was glad to have her. Olive hated housework, I hated housework. Agneta did it, and everything else. She cooked, she shopped, she just worked. Just worked. I let her stay without a question. I suppose I didn’t want to know anything.

‘I’m not sure exactly when she’d come in. I was in a panic, Olive was raging at me.
Agneta must have heard the commotion, probably saw Olive knock Harriet onto the floor. And she saw Harriet lying there. I knew she was dead. You do know, don’t you? There’s a terrible stillness. She wasn’t breathing. Blood was pouring from her head. Agneta just stared. I can see her face. Stared at Olive. At Harriet. She put her hand to her mouth. And I looked at Olive and somehow, without either
of us saying anything, we knew what had to happen. I was screaming at Olive that she’d killed Harriet, Agneta was looking at us and she knew everything and we panicked. Olive picked up a heavy brass bell that was on the table. Agneta turned towards her and she … hit her. She hit her on the temple, very hard. She was still shouting, shouting at me in a rage about Harriet – it propelled her. It made
her hit out. But I could have stopped her. I know that. I didn’t.’ She was completely still, hands on the table in front of her, face in shadow, eyes oddly bright. ‘That’s what happened.’

‘You had to get rid of two bodies,’ Simon said. ‘That won’t have been easy.’

‘It was terrifying. Don’t let anyone tell you that sort of thing can be done calmly. In cold blood? We were raging with fear, both
of us. Only a mad person could have done it without being in fear and dread, trembling with it. We did it and it took a long time. That’s not easy either, carrying dead bodies, lifting them, burying them. They kept on about the shallow graves. Why is that surprising? We didn’t have strength left to dig down six feet, for God’s sake.

‘When we got home that night – in the middle of the night –
we drank a bottle of brandy between us and still didn’t sleep. The next day I remember thinking we had no right to be alive. I felt so ill. I didn’t leave the house for almost a week. I couldn’t. Every time I took a step beyond that door I almost passed out. Don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s easy. Don’t believe a word of it. It almost killed us as well. Cold blood? I don’t know what that means.
But when nothing happened, no one came to the door, when it was clear no one knew, it gradually got easier. We started to learn to live with it. With the secret. And so that
went
on, for years and years. And then Olive began to forget. We never mentioned it, never referred to it at all from that day. It just lay there between us but we never spoke of it once. So it was a long time before it dawned
on me that Olive actually didn’t remember. She didn’t remember that, and then, she didn’t remember anything.’

They sat on in the half-dark and in silence for a long time.

In the end, Serrailler said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this afternoon?’

Lenny said with infinite weariness, ‘She’s helpless.’

‘Yes.’

‘She has no chance to defend herself.’

‘Nor does she have any need.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Lenny, I’ve seen her. I’ve spoken to her. She is totally unfit to plead. What purpose would it serve?’