“That’s it,” spurts Vicky-Louise, relieved. “Exactly. He’d written it for me, hadn’t he? Eve had her letter and that was up to her but he’d always been so fastidious and such a nice old boy and it made sense to me that I should still try and do my best by him. So after I read it, and found the box, I sort of thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie. I mean, it was clear it was suicide. Nobody suggested anything else. And he wouldn’t have thanked me for suddenly telling the world he had all these reams of gobbledygook stashed away – page after page of ticks and swirls and gibberish.”
“Can I see?” asks Rowan, sitting forward.
She nods, energised now. Reaches into the case and pulls out a handful of faded, folded pages. On top, in barely legible script, is a short note.
“Dear V,” reads Vicky, sniffing. “You’ve always been a good friend to me and you have kept me going through some horrible times. I want you to know how sorry I am it has come to this. I think one day people will start to say bad things about me, and the people I’ve helped, but I want you to know that I did everything with the best of intentions. In the morning, they’ll find me dead. I don’t know whether I’ll swing or bleed or drop from something high but I know I’ll be dead. That’s OK, love. I’m ready for what comes next. Judgement. The veil. Whatever they’d have had us believe. I’ve had enough, if I’m honest, and if I can do this last thing well then maybe Eve will have a chance to get through until it doesn’t matter any more. I can’t bring myself to put her in harm’s way, not even now. There’s a few years left in the old girl and I want her to have them in peace. There’s a box in the cupboard beneath my old boots. There are some papers in there. It’s going to sound odd, love, but I want them in the casket with me. Don’t be frightened, I’m not off my rocker. It’s important to me. I want them deep. They’re in a plastic wallet and you can just slip them into the silk. I’ve arranged it all in advance – chose the casket at the same time I took the plot at St Olaf’s. There’s space for it. Just visit me at the Chapel of Rest and slip it in. Don’t let Eve see. I want her to die a grand old dame before that happens. It won’t matter to her after that, and when they sink her into the ground on top of me, I reckon our secrets will come up by the shovelful. I don’t know how old you’ll be by then, but I know you’re a good person and I want to make sure you know I always appreciated you – and this kindness. If you feel obliged to show Eve, or if you think the authorities should be told, I will understand. I simply ask that you do not. I’m putting my faith in you, alongside …,” she stops reading, her throat dry.
“Alongside?”
She clears her throat. “Alongside this 12,000-quid,” she finishes.
Rowan sits back. “Ah,” he says. “I’m with you.”
“What could I do?” asks Vicky, colour rising in her cheeks. “I mean, that was a new start for me. A better life. But to take it I had to do what I asked, didn’t I? If I wanted the money, I had to keep the letter away from Eve. And he knew I would do it, he knew.”
Rowan looks around for something to drink. “You looked where he said?”
Vicky nods. “It was like he said it would be. An envelope full of papers.”
“You opened it?”
“He’d sealed it shut but I had to!” she wails. “How could I not look? I had to know what I was sticking in the coffin with him that was so important.”
Rowan raises his chin a fraction. He’s not going to speak again.
“They were police reports! Witness statements, maps, aerial shots, names. Things he shouldn’t have, should he? He shouldn’t have had them? And he wanted me to pretty much see that they were buried. That would be like destroying evidence or something, wouldn’t it? I could have got into real trouble.”
Rowan chews his lip. Nods.
“I’m a bad person,” says Vicky. “I took his money but I didn’t do the thing he asked. I never told Eve about the letter but I didn’t put the folder in the coffin. I was too scared to go through with it and there was always somebody else there saying their goodbyes. I nearly plucked up the courage at one moment but then that cranky arsehole who ran the hippy school barged right through me, sobbing like a baby … and so I’ve just kept it. I haven’t had the guts to throw it away and Derrick had been so clear he wanted it found, but not until long after Eve was dead and gone. I mean it was very ghoulish, wasn’t it? I thought it was just like him – very Edgar Allan Poe. He said they used to call him Corvus, after the raven, because he had this slicked black hair when he was young. I could see him getting a kick out of this, in a weird way. But what was he doing it for? I mean, I’ve read the pages and it’s dry really - and there’s nothing earth shattering in there. The missing girls you were asking about – statements, background stuff, social services and childcare reports. Like I say, stuff he shouldn’t have.”
Rowan looks at the sheaf of pages, trying not to lick his lips. “Can I see?” he asks.
Vicky cocks her head slightly. Sniffs. There’s a fraction of a smile playing at her mouth. “I did wonder, given that this may be quite important to your book, whether there might be a fee payable,” she says, in a way Rowan immediately dislikes. “I mean, I’m probably going to end up looking very bad and that might need some element of compensation, don’t you think? I mean, I haven’t solicited this. I’d have kept the files under the potting shed like before, but then you start asking questions and suddenly it kind of makes sense. Maybe this is what he would have wanted. Eve’s not long for this world, I reckon. You should see the pills in her bedside table, and don’t get me started on the homeopathic shite she brews up, stinking out the kitchen like she’s steaming her smalls.”
Rowan stands, Crosses to the fireplace and makes a show of gazing out the window at the gathering dark.
“So you’d leave the burden of guilt to me, would you?”
“I’d imagine you’re used to it.”
Rowan closes one eye. “How much? Just to look?”
“I need ten,” she says, almost apologetically. “Look, it’s like you were saying after you nutted Shipley, this isn’t who I am. I don’t do this. Derrick made me an offer and I took it and I couldn’t do what he wanted, but now I can honour his wishes, and make enough money to buy Tyson the quad-bike he’s after and pay off a couple of bailiffs. What would you do if you were me?”
Rowan gives a small bow. He can’t dispute the logic and he actually admires her pragmatic approach. He can feel himself almost salivating at the thought of poring over the pages held out on her lap. He turns back to the window, looking through the haunted revenant of his own reflection and seeing a thin beam of torchlight flicking through the near darkness.
“You can have a percentage…” he begins.
“Nope, I can’t wait for all that – I need it now.” Her voice has risen a notch. He realises that she all but threw herself at him when he visited Eve’s house and had gone along to his talk – obviously looking for a payday and a scapegoat from the off.
“I don’t have any money, Vicky,” he says. “Look at where I live. Look at the state of me. I owe the publishers money, not the other way around. I’m standing on the thinnest of thin ice and I’m taking a hot steaming piss on my shoes. I will see you right, I promise, but I can’t give you what I haven’t got, and without sounding too melodramatic, I’ve just come to the conclusion that there really is a story here, an important one, and that means some of my other suspicions might be true, such as what might have happened to Violet Rayner, so it’s really important you show me what’s in there.”