Hide and Seek (17 page)

I’m pretty pleased with myself for getting here. For finding it. Turns out they have this ancestry site on-line where you can access historic phone books. Didn’t even need to phone any estate agents at all. Just looked up 1984 Reigates in Dartington, got an address, and now here I am. Where they used to live. To quiz the current occupants.

It’s a sweet little housing estate. I can imagine Will running around here as a toddler, tottering up and down the paths. That’s the house there. Number 11. I pay the cab driver and lever myself out of the cab. It speeds off, leaving me standing on the red brick path facing the white front door. I take a photo on my phone, for the little ‘This is your mum’ photobook I’m going to make for Will. I can see it now. I will present the book with all the field trip snaps, then in a great choreographed move, the doorbell will ring. ‘Who can that be?’ I will say. And of course – da da dah! – it’s Will’s Mum! The real one. Sophie Travers! And we’ll all embrace. Will, he’ll look at me again with that look of wonder. Like back when I first told him I was pregnant. Like after the twenty-week scan. Not since.

It’s a good job it won’t be this door. The doorbell has an ‘out of order’ sign taped to it. So I lift the gilt doorknocker and slam it up and down a few times. No response. I should have phoned ahead, I guess. But I had the opportunity and needed to seize it; not delay with phone calls, not give people the chance to fob me off with reasons why I can’t visit for another three weeks. How can you explain the urgency? How can you say: in another three weeks my husband might forget I live with him at all. Because that’s what I’m faced with. The silence in the bedroom replicated throughout the house. Apart, of course, from the sounds of Max Reigate.

I leave the doorway and peer in at the bay windows. I see a face peering back at me. I dart back and so does the face. I’d feel like a baby seeing its reflection for the first time, were it not for the fact that I’m a brunette and the reflection has red hair. I bang on the window slightly, then go back and hammer on the front door. It would be very rude not to answer it now.

The redhead evidently realises this too, because she opens the door. But she keeps it on the chain.

“Hello?” she asks. She is about forty-five, I guess. Freckly.

“I guess you didn’t hear the door first time?” I ask, sweetly.

“It’s not a great time,” she says. She looks over my shoulder into the distance, as if she is expecting someone. “Could you come back later?”

“Well, seeing as I’ve schlepped here all the way from London and I’m six months pregnant, I don’t think so, do you?”

The woman’s eyes widen and she looks at my belly. She closes the door and I hear the chain being slid across. She opens the door again.

“Sorry, I didn’t know…” she says, which is odd, because why would she know? “What do you want?” she continues. Arms crossed. Not exactly inviting.

“It’s a bit of a long story. Do you mind if I come in? Sit down?” I ask, stroking my belly for emphasis.

Again, there is the look over my shoulder. I turn round to look where she is looking but I don’t see anything. I turn to face her again.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” she says.

“Fine.” Maybe she’ll be more inviting once she knows the full story. “Well, it’s like this. My husband, he recently discovered he was adopted.” I pause to allow her to gasp but there is nothing. Maybe they adopt a lot in this part of the world. “And that his birth father died about thirty years ago.” I pause. Again, nothing. The woman just hugs her arms closer to her chest. “While he lived in this house. Maybe he was even attacked while he was in this house.” Still nothing. You would expect her to at least raise her eyebrows. Shiver, or something. “He was, like, this world-renowned pianist. Super-talented. Anyway, my husband’s really sad right now and I want to cheer him up by finding his birth mother. So I thought I’d come here, to her last known address, see if you had any intel about where she might be now?”

I wait. But I don’t have to wait long. Because almost immediately she is shaking her head and starting to close the door. Her eyes are darting from left to right, fixating on the middle distance. There’s a car, a little way away, on the other side of the estate, but apart from that, I can’t see anything else. Maybe the woman is just agoraphobic. Or a bit mentally or emotionally lacking. Fine. I’ve got a trick for that.

“You don’t know anything at – ” I interrupt myself, do a sudden intake of breath, put one hand under my bump and lean the other hand on the doorframe. Immediately the woman’s static demeanour changes. She unfolds her arms and puts them out to support me.

“Are you OK?” she asks.

I answer her in my best shaky voice. “I just, you know, sometimes get these pains.” Which is true. I’m just not getting one now. “I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t come in and – ”

Before I’ve even mentioned sitting down or having a glass of water, I’m being ushered in to early Willsville, the land of my husband’s childhood. We go through an entrance hall, the floor lined with all these pretty black and white tiles, in a diamond formation. As we go into the kitchen, I see they are there, too. Must be one of the house’s ‘features’. It can’t have been built much before 1970. I wonder if Sophie and Max bought it off plan, requested the floors to be like that.

“Here we are, sit down,” says the woman, pulling out a chair. “I’ll get you a glass of water.” She goes over to the sink. I want to ask if it’s filtered water, but I guess maybe their water is better in the countryside anyway. While her back is turned, I take a couple of quick photos of the kitchen to add to my collection. Might help Will get some happy memories of his old childhood home. I guess he’d be content with any memories, though.

“Thanks so much,” I say, as the woman hands the water to me. I take two big sips and put it down again.

“I’m Ellie,” I tell her.

She nods, like she knows.

“Janet,” she says.

“Well, thanks, Janet,” I say. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll start feeling better. Goes just as quickly as it sets off, this pain.”

“You should see your midwife,” says Janet.

“Oh, you know, pregnancy’s an uncomfortable business. Pretty sure it’s normal,” I say. Because that’s what I’ve told myself, often enough. “Probably just trapped wind or something.”

This time, the woman does raise her eyebrows at me.

“Sorry, sorry. Too much information. You spend enough time on Mumsnet, you start thinking it’s fit conversation fodder.”

The woman smiles and shakes her head. “Don’t worry. I’ve been there. Just tell your midwife.”

“Must have been a great place to bring up children, this house?” I ask her, thinking of Will, but wanting her to think of her own offspring.

She nods, and I’m sure she’s about to expand on the answer. But then the phone rings. Her landline. Immediately, the closed body language is back. Her shoulders tense and she twists round to look at the phone. She just stares at it, and I think she isn’t going to answer it. Then she gets up.

“I’d better…” she says, and I nod in encouragement. Not that she looks like she wants encouragement. She looks scared.

She goes over to the handset, one of those old-fashioned ones that are attached to the wall, with a little umbilical cord linking to the dialling mechanism.

“Hello?” she says.

As soon as the burbling sound of the caller starts, Janet clutches the phone closer to herself. She cups the mouthpiece and turns away from me.

“Yes. Yes she is,” I hear her say. “Not long.” Then there’s a silence from Janet, and lots of burbling on the other end. Then Janet speaks again. “No, I believe you! Yes, OK. OK.” Then I hear the sound of a dial tone. The caller has hung up. Janet replaces the handset too. I see her hand is shaking.

She doesn’t sit down again. Instead, she stays standing over me.

“How are you doing with that water?” she asks me. Her voice is shaking too. The arms are folded across the chest again.

“Is everything OK?” I ask.

“Fine,” she says. “But as I said, it’s not a great time.”

“Do you not know anything about the previous occupants? About what happened?”

“I only bought this house a couple of years ago,” she says.

“But you said…” I start, wanting to challenge her that she said it was a great place to bring up children. But she just repeats herself.

“I only bought this house a couple of years ago.” There’s a steeliness in her eyes which tells me not to push the point.

Reluctantly, I pull myself up from the chair. I’ve clearly outstayed my welcome.

“Thanks for the water,” I say, as our feet clatter back along the tiles to the door.

“You’re welcome,” she says. But I’m plainly not. Because a moment later I’m out on the street and the door closes behind me. On a whim, I press the doorbell. Even from outside I can hear it ring. It’s working perfectly. Unsurprisingly, the door doesn’t open again.

What was she so frightened of, this Janet woman? It can’t have been me. I’m not intimidating, am I? Pretty much anyone is less vulnerable than me in my current condition. It was like she was frightened to be seen with me. And I’m sure she did know more than she said. Much more. Still, there are plenty more houses in the development. Plenty of curtains that twitched, thirty years ago, I’ll bet.

I go next door, to number 9. Rather try that first than 13. This time, there is no sign on the doorbell, so I ring it. It sounds loud and clear. Yet no response. I clatter the letterbox a bit, then stoop down to look through it. Feet. I straighten up again and wait for the door to open.

It does, but again the chain stays on. Like I’m some kind of threat. A loony on the doorstep. Although to this woman, maybe I am a threat. She looks kind of old. About seventy, I’d guess, although she could be younger. White hair always makes people seem older.

“Hi, my name’s Ellie,” I begin. “I’m not from round here, but – ”

“You came about Max Reigate.”

I stare at her. How does she know?

“Um, yes, actually, or rather Sophie Travers – ”

“Nasty business,” she says.

“Yes, right, well, what I was actually after was to find out where Sophie Travers might be now. You see, I’m the wife of the son she put up for adoption and he’s just found out about it all, and that his father – ”

“Died,” supplies the old woman.

“Died,” I nod. This is brilliant. She knows everything. “And I wanted to reunite him with his birth mother.” I stop, waiting for her to invite me in while she finds the address or, better yet, phone number.

Instead, she shakes her head.

“Can’t help you,” she says.

“But I thought you knew…” I begin, disappointed.

“Oh, I know some things,” she says. “Unfortunately. Nasty business, like I said. But I can’t help you. I hope you do get help though, dear. From the doctors.” What? Of course I’m going to get help from the doctors, when I give birth, but that’s nothing to do with this. Maybe she is senile. And then she starts the looking over my shoulder routine. I see her shrink back into the doorway. I look over my shoulder again. There’s that same car, in the distance. Although, it seems to be coming closer.

“I really can’t help you, my dear,” says the woman, drawing my attention back to her. She starts closing the door.

“Please,” I say. “Will, he’s – ”

At the mention of Will, the closing motion of the door stops slightly. Then it carries on again. But there’s a small whisper from the old woman as it closes. “You might try the school. Where Sophie used to teach. But I didn’t tell you that.”

And then the door is shut. The school? Which school? Sophie, a teacher, who abandons children?

I turn away from the door to ponder it further.

And I see that car, the car that has been on the other side of the estate while I’ve been door-stopping the locals. It’s much closer this time, and I see it properly, before it speeds away. I gasp. Because I know that car. It belongs to Gillian and John. And Gillian is driving.

Chapter Fourteen

-Ellie-

Oh my God.

What the hell are Gillian and her Audi doing here?

I run to the side of the road as quickly as a woman in my state can run. But she is gone. In a puff of witch’s smoke, or exhaust fumes.

What is she doing? Is she, like, properly stalking me?

Or…yes. Yes, that’s it. She has been going from door to door putting the frighteners on people. Threatening to kneecap them or worse, I bet, if they tell me anything. That’s how that old lady knew what I was here about. And what else did she say – that I was cuckoo? A mad, dangerous mental person, hence the old woman’s comment about doctors? But why? Is Gillian really so desperate to deprive Will of his real mother that she’ll go round defaming her (adoptive) family and threatening physical violence? Murder, even? Maybe she read in a book that good mothers will do anything to protect their children, and thought that included being a gangster?

Or is she scared of something else? Exposure? I mean, I was kind of joking before when I told myself she might have killed Max and forced Sophie to put Will up for adoption. But what if it’s true? What if she did? What if
that’s
what happened that day? And maybe Sophie Travers is dead too, buried at night in the middle of Dartmoor. Maybe Gillian has killed for Will once, twice. What’s a bit of kneecapping to that?

But then, why wouldn’t all these people just call the police? Unless Gillian has acquired a gun, she’s just not all that threatening, is she? I guess she can be a bit intimidating, if you let her in. I just never have. Maybe I should. Maybe I should let her frighten me. See what it reveals. Maybe she has a mad jealous rage burning inside her, that was first lit when her lover Max Reigate went with Sophie Travers and had a son. Maybe she couldn’t face not having Max and the boy, so she killed Max and took the child. But wouldn’t you kill Sophie, make it look like an accident, then win Max and Will? Maybe she is stupid as well as mad.

All sounds a bit melodramatic. People don’t really go around murdering each other, do they? Perhaps it’s just possessiveness of Will got out of hand. Perhaps she worked herself up into such a frenzied fear over the years that Will would run away from her when (or rather, if) he found out he was adopted that she is trying everything to stop him running now. Even when he is already doing it. I’d feel sorry for her, if she weren’t such a bitch. Such a bad mother. I stroke my tummy. Don’t worry, Leo, I think-speak to my little boy. I will be such a good mother, when you come along in three months’ time. I will keep you close but let you be free, too. I won’t restrain you. I’ll know what’s best for you, just like I know what’s best for Will. And you’ll just willingly accept that, because it will be so obvious. A nice, smiling happy little boy, and a nice smiling happy young man. That’s what I’m going to raise.