‘She wasn’t just a schoolgirl. Nobody knew what Alice was really like.’ Eleanor was talking to herself. ‘She could be so cruel.’
‘I don’t care about Alice.’ Chris stalked over to her mother, and coming up close like the boys in the playground, she jabbed her hard on the chest.
‘You were my Mum. Have you ever thought of that?’ She pushed her roughly. ‘You’ve taken my whole life away by pretending to be a girl you didn’t even like?’ Her speech was blurred with sobbing. ‘And you call that being a mother? You’re mental.’
Chris was breathing through her teeth, a gulping hissing.
‘Chrissie, I have nothing in my life other than you. You’re the point of it.’
‘I’m so grateful!’ Chris punctuated the exclamation with another push, rougher this time, even though she guessed her Mum was telling the truth. She saw her wince, then hide it. Her Mum would stand there taking it. Chris punched her hard on the shoulder, knocking her backwards.
‘Why?’ Her voice was low and grating.
‘What do you mean?’ Eleanor would not cry. She knew what Chris meant.
‘Why did you call yourself Alice?’
A small plane buzzed high overhead, and on the other side of the church a car engine purred into a rev as it drove up the lane; there was the bass boom of a snatch of ‘Baby One More Time’. The village was coming to life, but neither woman noticed.
‘I’ve done my best to make it up to Alice.’
‘Make up for what?’
Eleanor stepped away and with her back to Chris she gazed far into the distance at the point where the downs became the sky where she wished she could be:
‘For killing her.’
Twenty-Five
Kathleen was worn out. She had been astounded to find the Ramsay sisters on her doorstep. People said children were resilient and being young they didn’t feel things. Kathleen had always doubted this. Alice had been very sensitive.
Eleanor Ramsay had barely spoken and, with a shake of her head, had refused tea when her sister had just accepted, which made Gina change her mind. The girls had looked no more at ease with each other than they had when Kathleen had first met them that fateful summer. When Kathleen told them that a young lady who had said she was a reporter had turned out to be yet another sightseer, Gina had said she was appalled and wanted to call the police, while Eleanor had said nothing. Then just as Kathleen was reassuring Gina that she didn’t think the girl had meant any harm, Eleanor had announced she had to leave and fled the house before Gina could go with her. It was a long time since Kathleen had recalled the suspicion that the detective had confided to her in the garden where Steve couldn’t overhear. After the Ramsays had left it came back to her clearly.
She hadn’t cared for Detective Inspector Hall and for this reason made more effort with him. He was like a cat, drawn to her because he sensed her dislike. Most people took Steve to one side if they had something unpleasant to talk about, like the search of their cottage or of the Tide Mills and the day they dragged the river. They supposed Steve was the stronger one and could absorb bad news. But after a while Richard Hall realised this wasn’t the case, or maybe he preferred to talk to Kathleen.
He led her out into the little garden, guiding her with a cupped hand on her elbow, which she had resented for its suggestion that she had lost so much she couldn’t walk unaided. Over time Kathleen came to see that this insistent protection was more complicated. While Isabel Ramsay intrigued and disturbed him, Kathleen Howland was Richard Hall’s ideal woman. In the first few days after Alice’s disappearance, she too was bathed in an innocence that over time, as she failed to fit people’s expectations of a grieving mother, eroded. At the time her maternal mimings with her arms flailing in an empty embrace, made sense to him.
Like Jackie Masters, he said he had understood about the sandwiches and the freshly ironed nightie on the freshly washed pillow.
As their feet sank into the soft soil around Steve’s vegetable plot, Richard Hall’s proximity, so close she could sniff waves of minty breath, revolted Kathleen. She remembered noticing that one of the canes for the runner beans had snapped under the weight of the plant and thinking she must tell Steve. Then in the same thought she had known not to bother. Steve had lost his love for the garden and let his plants and flowers run wild or die. He too had broken under the weight.
‘I don’t know how to say this.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t like the attitude of the youngest Ramsay girl.’ He seemed to suppose Kathleen shared his contempt for the Ramsay family and their privilege. Once upon a time this privilege would have earned them automatic respect from men like Richard Hall.
‘Eleanor Ramsay?’
‘Her story doesn’t add up. She isn’t one bit bothered by any of this. I gather she’s a handful at the best of times, but now she’s too clever by halves. The idea beggars belief, but we have to keep our minds open.’
‘What idea?’
‘I’m giving mileage to the theory that this Eleanor had a bit of a run in with Alice and things got out of hand.’
‘For pity’s sake, don’t waste your time bothering Eleanor Ramsay. What you’re really saying is my Alice is dead.’ She had been frightened by her words.
‘I’m just trying to keep you up to date with the investigation. I wanted you to be the first to know.’ He had bent down and fiddled with the runner beans, using a nearby cane to lend support to the broken one and tying them together with a bit of loose twine that he found lying on the grass. Richard Hall was free to do this; he still had both his daughters.
‘Eleanor’s upset.’ She had tried to be nice. He was only doing his job; they had to leave no stone unturned.
‘I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else. I know reporters hang around you. If you want me to get rid of that young woman…’
‘They’re only trying to help. ‘At the time she had believed Jackie Masters really was a friend. ‘They’re no different to you, Inspector.’ Then, for he had looked hurt by this, she had let him lead her back into the house and make her a cup of tea.
So after the Ramsay girls had left as suddenly as they had arrived, Kathleen had sat motionless in Steve’s armchair raking up old memories. The dopamine had drained away and she had to wait for the tablet to give her some movement again. Her ‘off’ times, when along with the dopamine, her serotonin levels plummeted, were her bleakest. She was overcome by an eerie stillness that froze her features and all hope. As far as Kathleen knew, Richard Hall had dropped his suspicions of Eleanor. The main suspect had become the tramp whose body was found tangled in the river weeds under the bridge near Southease by the police divers.
Seeing her today, Kathleen wondered if Eleanor had known more then she had told the police.
So later that evening when someone knocked on her door, Kathleen only struggled to her feet to answer because she guessed it must be Eleanor returning.
But it wasn’t.
This time she didn’t offer refreshment. Jackie knew where to find the tea things.
They sat on either side of the fire, Jackie in Kathleen’s chair and Kathleen in Steve’s. Jackie gripped her notebook like an insurance salesman.
She was businesslike:
‘After all this time, I think we both know she’s not coming back.’