The Invisible Ones (33 page)

“What are you going to do?”

“Maybe we should go back.”

We stare at each other.

“I’ll find out what happened. That’s what I’m going to do. It may not be what it seems. Try not to worry about it.”

My mind fills with millions of questions until it’s a hopeless jam. I feel terror, a sort of dizziness, and a terrible feeling of guilt, all at once.

“I don’t know . . .”

Mr. Lovell looks at me.

“You haven’t told me anything I wouldn’t have found out in the next day or two, anyway. I appreciate what you’ve said. It’s not always easy.”

“But what about Christo? What will happen to him if . . . ?”

I’m ashamed to say that tears spill down my face; hot saltwater runs into my mouth before I can swipe it away.

“Don’t start worrying yet. Let’s just see what happens.”

We walk in silence back to the hospital. I can feel his eyes on me most of the way. He seems like a nice man, decent; I think he’s a good person, but even though he’s an adult, I can tell that he doesn’t know what to say any more than I do.

43.

Ray

Hen didn’t find Ivo. Not at the site, where the family claimed he was up in London with Christo, and not at the hospital, where staff thought it strange that the boy’s father hadn’t been to see him since the beginning of the week. He went to see Lulu, suspecting that she might be sheltering him. After his visit, he was convinced she wasn’t. He told the police his suspicions, knowing there was little chance of their taking an interest on the basis of so little evidence. After three days of fruitless inquiries, it seemed that Ivo Janko, just like his wife before him, had performed a remarkably successful vanishing act.

I wonder if the whole site will be empty, and the Jankos melted away, in his wake. I wonder whether, that being the case, I could prove they were ever there. But the paddock, when Hen drives me down the day after I am released from the hospital, looks much as it ever did. All the trailers are still here, parked at their old, odd angles, including Ivo’s.

“Wouldn’t you rather I waited?”

Hen agreed to be my chauffeur only after I threatened to drive myself, which, considering my right hand is still useless, is just as well.

“No, come back in an hour or so.”

A few days ago, Tene told Hen that Ivo was up in London. Apparently, he was all innocence and charm. Since then, his confidence is gone.

“Mr. Janko?”

“Mr. Lovell. How are you?”

“I know you heard about my spell in hospital.”

“I was sorry to hear that, Mr. Lovell. I hope you are fully recovered.” “Well, nearly. It was a nasty form of food poisoning. It seems I must have picked it up while I was here last Sunday gone. I wanted to check if anyone else had suffered as well. Particularly . . . if Ivo is okay.”

“Ivo’s up in London. We haven’t seen him for a while. I think he’s all right.”

“And you were all right, then?”

“I didn’t eat with you, Mr. Lovell.”

He keeps looking just past my face—apparently, unwilling to meet my eyes.

“When was the last time you saw Ivo?”

“He went up on . . . Monday or Tuesday, I think. To be near the boy.” He sucks the last drop out of his cigarette and squashes it into the pile of butts in the ashtray. The whole place has a slightly grubby, unkempt air, the windows no longer as sparkling, the Crown Derby not quite as bright.

“But he hasn’t. My partner checked with the hospital. They haven’t seen him for days. Ivo hasn’t been in to see Christo at all.”

“That can’t be. They’re making a mistake.”

Tene speaks to the table. His hands are clasped on his knees, but he keeps locking and interlocking his fingers.

“He would never leave the boy.”

“Hen thought the same thing. So he kept going back. In the unit that Christo is in, you can’t sneak in and out—someone on the staff is always there. There’s only one entrance. They would’ve seen him. He hasn’t been there.”

“Then something must have happened. He’ll be back.”

“Bit odd, isn’t it? I thought his world revolved around Christo.”

Tene Janko looks at me now, his face drawn.

“I know my son. He would never leave him.”

“But he has left him, Mr. Janko. For nearly a week.”

His eyes search the corners of the ceiling, then the corners of the floor.

“Then something must have happened to him. Maybe something bad.” “Like with Rose?”

Tene sucks in a breath and glares. “You are taking my words and twisting them. I am talking about Ivo!”

“Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? First Rose disappears without trace. Now Ivo.”

“No! You’re wrong. He never hurt Rose! One day you will realize that.” “I hope so, I really do. The thing is . . . at the Black Patch, at Watley . . .” I say this very softly. He closes his eyes in pain—or is it just a slow blink?

“At the Black Patch, where you used to stop, they have found the remains of a young woman. They were buried over by the trees, to the right as you come from the road. About four feet down. It’s the right age . . . the right period. Police forensics are doing tests at the moment, to find out what killed her.”

This isn’t strictly true, but given time, it will be.

“Well, it’s not Rose! Mr. Lovell, what we told you was the truth . . . None of us hurt her. She ran away. And no one has stopped at Watley for more than ten years. She was never there, as far as I know, and she isn’t there now.”

He sounds sincere—and it just makes me angry.

“I was poisoned with henbane—on Sunday, while I ate with your son! How do you explain that? How, exactly, do you suggest that happened?” Tene is shaking his head, his eyes sorrowful.

“I don’t know, Mr. Lovell, I don’t know. He must have made a mistake.”

“I could have died!”

“Mr. Lovell. I am truly sorry, but if it happened here, it wasn’t deliberate.”

I stare at Tene in frustration. I have two problems—the first is that, almost against my will, I believe him. I was sure that I would see something in his face at the mention of the remains, but, although I’m sure that something about the Black Patch bothers him, I don’t think it’s anything to do with Rose. I have to think that if Ivo acted against me—or against Rose, all those years ago—then he did so alone. The second problem is that, despite myself, I like him. And I feel sorry for him. I know that can cloud your judgment.

“I know you’re angry, Mr. Lovell, and I don’t blame you, but that doesn’t mean we are bad people. We aren’t. We are the ones who get hurt, over and over again. Is it because we’re Gypsies? I don’t know. But we are cursed. What did we do to deserve this? You think I’m making myths? I have lost so many of mine I no longer care what anyone says. I lost my uncles, my brothers . . . my own little boys, my dear wife . . . I lost my only daughter, my daughter-in-law . . . And now, it seems, my last child, my one remaining child . . . is gone. What can I say? What can I care about now?”

His voice is low, but he could have been shouting. I feel disarmed. I grope around for my point, my argument, but it seems a blunt, cruel weapon.

“The Black Patch . . .”

“The Black Patch! People make mistakes, Mr. Lovell.” There is a trace of spittle at the corner of his mouth. “I made a mistake! I am sorry to have misled you, if that is what you think.”

“And Ivo disappears—when the remains of a young woman come to light, and I am poisoned? Are they all mistakes?”

“I don’t say that I understand everything in the world. I doubt you do. Do you understand why my family is cursed with this affliction?”

His eyes are glittering with unshed tears.

“Do you know where your son is, Mr. Janko?”

Tene blinks again, and this time the tear runs down his cheek, into his mustache. “No.”

I feel like a murderer.

. . .

Outside, I turn my face up to the sun. I feel exhausted. With a nagging hunch that I have missed something important. I knock on the door of the trailer where JJ lives. Sandra answers, sheltering her eyes against the sunlight. She doesn’t move from the doorway, but she smiles.

“Hello, Mr. Lovell. It’s good to see you up and about again. JJ told us you were in hospital.”

“Yes, thank you. I was just wondering how JJ is. How’s his arm now?” “He’s fine. Right as rain, really. He’s not here right now. Out with friends.”

“Oh. Good. He’s a bright boy, isn’t he? Thoughtful.”

“Got his head in the clouds, you mean.”

“You must be proud of him.”

She smiles but looks embarrassed. Praise draws the evil eye.

I study her face in sections: pale, grainy skin; dark brown eyes with slightly drooping eyelids; a way of tucking her fluffy, sandy hair impatiently behind one ear. I’m trying to trigger jolts of familiarity, memories of the other night . . . but I experience none. And she shows no signs of awkwardness or embarrassment at my presence.

“I don’t suppose you know where I could find Ivo?”

“He’s up in London; that’s all I know.” She doesn’t look as though she’s hiding anything. “You could try his aunt Lulu. I think he was going to stay with her again. I’ve got her address back here somewhere . . .”

I don’t tell her I already have it. She steps back and gestures for me to come in. I stand in the doorway, looking around. Her trailer is tidy and clean, and pleasantly old-fashioned. Dark oak-veneer walls. The windows are spotless; the chair covers are a plain bright green.

“This is nice,” I say, meaning it.

“Thank you . . . Here we are.”

She opens an address book and copies down an address in careful capitals.

“He might be staying with her.”

She passes me a piece of paper that appears to be torn from one of her son’s exercise books.

“Thank you. Or maybe he’s at his girlfriend’s?”

I say it as casually as I can manage, but I don’t think the way I say it makes any difference. Her pale lips blanch; her eyes shrink: black holes in ash. Her lips work soundlessly for a second.

“Ivo hasn’t got a girlfriend.”

“Oh? I thought . . . Someone said something . . .”

“No, I . . . No. We would have known. I would know.”

She tries to smile but looks stricken.

Oh, I think. Oh . . .

“Oh, well . . . Must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, I suppose.”

I fold Lulu’s address and tuck it in my breast pocket, careful not to crumple it.

“Are you close, then, you and Ivo? Do you think he’ll be in touch?” She gapes at me before deciding that I probably mean close in a cousinly sense.

“I expect so, yes.”

But she looks down, miserable, her arms folded protectively over her body.

“Are you the only cousins?”

She frowns; I am pushing a little too hard now.

“We’ve got cousins in Ireland . . . Why?”

I shrug.

“I’m half Gypsy myself. There are usually a lot of cousins.”

She stares at me; I could kick myself. Hen is right—I should go and sit quietly at home until my wits have returned to me.

“Not in our family, Mr. Lovell.”

The sound of Hen’s engine fills me with gratitude. I stumble outside, apologizing and thanking her. She shuts the door with a brief nod, without saying good-bye.

44.

JJ

I don’t recognize her at all—the short, thin, done-up woman with a crappy car who’s just hammered on our door.

She says, “You must be JJ.”

“Yeah . . . ?”

She looks me up and down.

“What happened to your arm?”

“Cut it on some glass.”

“You look like your great-grandfather. Does anyone ever tell you that? I’m Lulu, your great-aunt. You don’t remember me.”

A statement. But she smiles as she says it.

“Sort of . . .”

So this is my auntie Lulu. It’s been years since I’ve seen her. Since I don’t know when. She has black hair and pale skin and red lipstick; her clothes are smart and tight. She looks like she belongs in the town, with clean pavements to step on in those high, shiny heels, not out here, in the country mud.

“You don’t have to pretend. I won’t mind. I barely know you—but you must have been only about eight or so last time we met. I haven’t changed as much—well, then, maybe I have.”

She shrugs and smiles. When she smiles, it’s hard not to smile, too. It’s
hard, too, to think that she is Gran and Great-uncle’s sister—she doesn’t seem old the way they do. She’s the youngest sister, of course, but even so.

“Do you want to see Great-uncle? That’s his trailer.”

I point to the one with the ramp going up to the door.

She heaves a sigh.

“I want to see all of you. I don’t suppose you know where your uncle Ivo is?”

The name still sends a shiver through me.

“No. We thought he was in London.”

“Yeah. We need to talk.”

It turns out that the hospital keeps ringing her because they want her to take Christo away again. Apparently, there’s nothing more they can do for him at the moment, and he’s not ill enough to stay. I suppose that’s the good news. Of course, the hospital would rather Ivo took Christo away, but they can’t find him, either. The bad news is that if the family doesn’t go and get him, they’ll put Christo into care. So we have to decide who’s going to do what.

Lulu looks around at all of us—at Mum and Gran, anyway, and me, because I refused to be excluded, for once. Granddad is out somewhere (a pub, perhaps, possibly, maybe?), and Great-uncle isn’t feeling too well.

It seems perfectly obvious to me what we should do.

“He should come and live with us, shouldn’t he, Mum?”

I stare at her, willing her to agree. I read somewhere that this works, if you will hard enough.

“I don’t know, JJ . . .”

Mum looks tired. Somehow she looks colorless next to Auntie Lulu, like she’s been washed too many times.

“We’ve got to take him!”

It seems to me that it’s the only thing that makes sense, because Gran is really too old, and Great-uncle can’t, and Auntie Lulu doesn’t do children. I don’t feel I should say all this out loud, but it’s obvious.

“He’s like my brother, anyway. And it’s what he would want.”

“I know, sweetheart, but . . . you don’t know what you’re saying . . . what it involves. He’s a disabled child . . .”