Ralph’s Children (28 page)

‘Hardly surprising,’ Marie said. ‘And if you can stand having me around for a while longer—’

‘It’s not that at all,’ Kate jumped in. ‘You’re a pleasure to have around.’

‘In that case,’ Marie said, ‘I would like to be here for you through to the end of that dreadfulness, whatever the outcome.’

No one else, except Martin Blake, had been honest enough to raise with Kate the possibility of a negative outcome to the case.

After so much time having passed since the crime, the
Flies
trial (the name bestowed by the media) seemed suddenly to be closing in with alarming rapidity. The eleventh of February, the
scheduled date, was just inside the custody time limit appertaining to the charging of Edward Booth – Pig – the last of the trio to have been arrested; the prosecution having managed to
circumvent the rules to a degree because all three defendants were to come to Crown Court in one trial.

CPS approval notwithstanding, Kate and Blake were still aware of the prosecution’s continuing misgivings over the burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that the three accused, together
with the late Carol Marsh – allegedly directed by an unseen leader – were guilty. Kate’s identifications and statement having been enough to result in charges, certainly, but
still potentially shakeable by sharp cross-examination.

‘I didn’t go through all that,’ she told Blake, ‘to let them unnerve me in court.’

‘I don’t doubt that,’ the solicitor said.

Fine words, they both knew, cloaking her ever-rising nervousness.

There was still too little conclusive evidence for their liking. A few copies of a famous book owned by each of the accused was not irrefutable proof of anything. Nor even their time together at
the same children’s home.

The Summertown newsagent’s robbery, though helpful, was no huge booster either, with Mitcham dead.

Only one of the gang could be proven conclusively to have been at Caisleán, and that only because she had died there.

Kate’s parents, Blake and Marie all strove to buoy up her spirits.

‘They wouldn’t be continuing with the prosecution,’ Michael maintained, ‘if they weren’t fairly certain of a good outcome.’

Fairly.

‘For myself,’ Kate said to Marie one evening in the first week of January, ‘I still sometimes wish there didn’t have to be a trial at all.’

‘Let them get off scot-free, you mean?’ Marie shook her greying head. ‘I don’t think I could be as generous in your place.’

‘Nothing to do with generosity,’ Kate told her. ‘More to do with cowardice. Having to see them, go through it all again.’

‘But you are an exceptionally forgiving person,’ Marie said. ‘Having me here.’

This
was one of the reasons Kate thought she wouldn’t mind when Marie left.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Stop.’

She had told her repeatedly that she did not blame her for Rob’s death, but that talking about it was almost unbearably painful and draining, which troubled her for the baby’s sake
more than her own.

‘I do worry,’ she said now, ‘about not being able to get justice for Laurie.’

‘So is that the real crux of the trial for you?’ Marie asked. ‘What happened to Laurie Moon, rather than to you?’

Kate felt a surge of irritation, the question seeming to her intensely stupid. ‘It’s both, obviously. But Laurie is dead, and her son has no mother.’

‘Though it seems he never did have much of one.’

‘Please don’t.’ Kate was sharp. ‘I suspect Laurie may have suffered more than enough of that while she was alive, poor girl.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Marie said. ‘I seem to be upsetting you tonight.’

‘It’s upsetting stuff,’ Kate said.

‘I know how much you hate me nagging,’ Bel said next day, after she’d turned up at the cottage bearing lunch, ‘but you’re not eating properly,
whatever you say, and you don’t look very well, and I’m frankly worried about you.’

Kate didn’t answer, an attack of bleakness threatening to engulf her.

‘Do you think, perhaps,’ Bel said, after a moment, ‘it might be time for you to ask Marie to move out, especially since her place seems almost ready?’ She paused.
‘You know you could stay with me for a little while – I promise I’d leave you in peace. Or I could come back here, give you a little TLC.’

‘I’m sure I’ll manage perfectly well on my own when Marie does go.’ Kate sighed. ‘I just don’t want to seem ungrateful to her, especially since she seems so
keen to keep me company till after the trial.’

‘Even so,’ Bel said, ‘it does occur to me that you might not be doing Marie the greatest of favours by letting her become too dependent.’

‘She hardly lets me do anything for her,’ Kate said. ‘On the contrary.’

‘I meant dependent on your company.’

Kate managed a smile. ‘You mustn’t worry about me.’

‘Comes with the job,’ Bel said.

‘How often do you think about the fifth gang member?’

Marie’s question, that same evening, startled Kate, jangling her nerves.

‘As seldom as possible,’ she answered.

‘I can imagine,’ Marie said. ‘Because it could, of course, be anyone.’

‘One of my reasons for not thinking about it,’ Kate said pointedly.

‘It’s all a bit of a mystery, isn’t it?’ the other woman persisted. ‘Why their leader wasn’t there with them?’

Kate bit down her irritation. ‘Rob’s theory was that he might be a coward.’

‘He?’ Marie queried.

‘Rob thought so.’

‘And you?’

‘I don’t want to think about it at all,’ Kate said. ‘As I’ve told you, repeatedly.’

‘You’d like me to shut up now.’ Marie was good-humoured.

‘On this subject, yes,’ Kate said. ‘Definitely.’

‘Of course,’ Marie said. ‘No problem.’

The time really was coming, Kate knew, for her to ask her to go.

Those questions about the fifth member had felt almost deliberately provocative, which seemed strange given the nature of their friendship till recently; a calm, restful kind of companionship,
just what Kate had needed in the early weeks after losing Rob.

Something else, too, had been nagging at her.

An incident a couple of weeks ago that she’d neglected to mention to Bel or Michael – that she had, in fact, been trying hard not to dwell on.

She’d gone to the cemetery with a pot of budding white Christmas roses, and been startled to find Marie there, sitting in her wheelchair on the gravel path close to Rob’s grave.

Tears in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry.’ Marie had brushed them swiftly away. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not,’ Kate had said, not quite truthfully, for she had found, perhaps oddly, that she did mind.

‘I just feel so guilty,’ Marie had explained.

Which Kate had certainly believed. Yet finding her there, so visibly upset, had made her wonder suddenly if perhaps Marie might have been a little in love with Rob. Which was, despite the age
difference, not so improbable, since Rob had been an attractive man, and plainly fond of Marie.

Admiration on his part, Kate had no doubt, but on hers . . .

Which would make Marie’s drawing close to Rob’s widow quite sad.

And a little disturbing.

* * *

M
artin Blake telephoned on the eighth of January with news of a breakthrough.

‘They found Laurie’s car,’ he said, ‘some time ago.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Kate asked.

‘Because no one told me,’ Blake said. ‘There’s more.’

Anticipation sent a prickling down Kate’s spine.

‘Whoever drove her car and hid it was not quite as meticulous as they were, later, at Caisleán.’ Blake paused. ‘Kate, they have a DNA match for Carol Marsh.’ He
noted her silence. ‘Which proves, at least, that “Simon” was party to Laurie’s kidnap.’

‘But doesn’t necessarily help convict the others,’ Kate said.

‘Patience,’ Blake said, gently.

* * *

A
n unwelcome visitor arrived, without warning, three days later.

Sandi West, coming to call on Kate.

Just what she needed, after a night of crazy dreams that had seemed, so far as Kate could recall, to have included everything from being tied up in the bath at Caisleán to breastfeeding
an unnaturally large baby.

‘I’ve come now,’ Sandi said, ‘because I know it’s a school morning for Mary.’

Having no real alternative, Kate invited her in and offered her coffee.

‘I don’t want you to put yourself out,’ Sandi said.

‘It’s no problem,’ Kate said.

‘All the same,’ Sandi said. ‘No, thank you.’

Her disability was plainly causing her more pain than ever, Kate saw, as her mother’s friend made her way into the living room. She was using two sticks now, manoeuvring herself with
difficulty towards one of the armchairs.

‘I’ve come,’ she said, settling down at last, ‘because I have something to tell you.’

‘All right.’ Kate sat on the sofa in the centre of the jacquard throw she and Rob had bought together in the brief golden months of their reconciliation.

‘I’ve tried talking to Bel about this,’ Sandi said, ‘but she doesn’t really listen to me these days, and I accept that’s out of loyalty to you, which is fair
enough. But I’ve decided this is something you really do have to know.’

Kate had been tired before Sandi came, the baby’s kicking wearing her out.

‘It’s about Mary,’ Sandi said.

‘Her name is Marie.’ Kate hadn’t bothered to correct her the first time, but now it irritated her. ‘What about her?’

‘I know she’s been living here,’ Sandi said, ‘which is not my business, of course, except I feel you should know what a great interest she’s always shown in
you.’

‘And isn’t that a good thing?’ Kate asked.

‘It’s a peculiar thing, I’d say,’ Sandi answered. ‘I’m talking about long before you met her, Kate. When Bel was still coming with me to the group, and Mary
always used to pick out people to be especially interested in. When it came to you, I can tell you she often used to pump me for information.’

For just a moment or two, Kate had found herself starting to listen with a degree of real curiosity, but then she remembered Sandi’s appalling insensitivity at the group meeting
she’d attended, and recalled, too, Marie’s intervention – and Sandi West was most definitely the type of woman to bear a grudge, of that she was certain.

‘I think, perhaps, you’re overreacting,’ Kate said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Sandi disagreed. ‘I’ve thought about this long and hard, Kate, and I know we’ve never got along, so I expect you think this is sour
grapes. But don’t you think, given what those terrible people were saying to you about your poor dead baby before they killed Laurie Moon—’

‘Sandi, I’m not allowed to speak about the case.’

‘I’m not asking you to,’ Sandi said. ‘Just to listen when I tell you that what Mary Coates seemed most interested in about you was your
miscarriage
.’

‘For God’s sake.’ Kate stood up, trembling with anger, one hand covering her abdomen. ‘I’d like you to go, please, Sandi.’

‘Mary kept her questions low-key, but there was no mistaking her curiosity.’ Sandi had always been tenacious. ‘The fact is, your mum used to bring her problems to the group,
and in those days, let’s face it, you were often one of her biggest problems.’

‘I want you to go
now
,’ said Kate.

‘All right,’ Sandi said, ‘but—’

‘
Now
.’

‘Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Sandi said.

Of what, exactly, Kate wondered afterwards, had Sandi been warning her? If any of that rambling unpleasantness had been true, what had she been suggesting it meant?

That Marie was a much nosier creature than one might believe.

Which might be cause for annoyance, but hardly constituted a capital offence. Especially considering that disability might, for some, lead to an unhealthy interest in other people’s
lives.

Except that Marie Coates was an active woman, and even though she hadn’t wanted to return to the disabled children’s riding group since Rob’s accident, she still worked at the
school three days each week. Hardly the personality to sit and feed off the misfortunes or joys of others.

There was one other possibility, too ludicrous even to consider, and it had only flashed up in Kate’s mind because of Sandi’s melodramatic ‘warning’.

Could she, by any insane chance, have been implying something else altogether? That Marie – or Mary, as Sandi persisted in calling her – might have been somehow connected to the
gang?

Had perhaps even
been
the fifth member? The Chief?

That was laughable. Truly mad. Although not much more so, Kate reminded herself, than the time after that meeting when she had briefly entertained a wild suspicion that Sandi West herself might
have been involved.

‘Too many chiefs.’ The remark Sandi had made then that had sparked the suspicion. Looking right at Kate as she’d said it.

And that had happened, now she thought about it again, immediately after Marie had stopped Sandi from harassing her.

Which only meant that, as Kate already knew, Sandi was a mixer, nothing more sinister than that. And that Marie was an occasionally irritating, but wholly innocent, bystander.

Who might have been in love with Rob, Kate reflected again. Who was now living with her because of her friendship with Rob.

Because of Rob’s death.

Who had been with him when he had died. The only person with him.

Their tiny daughter kicked inside her, coinciding with another entirely new possibility.

Was it remotely possible that Marie might have made some kind of overture to Rob that day on Lambsmoor Hill, and that he might have rejected her?

Kate thought again about those tears at the cemetery.

If there was anything at all
wrong
about Marie, then it had nothing whatever to do with Caisleán. And if she was going to consider this rationally, Kate knew suddenly that she
needed to forget, for the time being, about everything except Rob.

His accidental death.

The only account of it Marie’s.

* * *

S
andi turned up again two days later, while Marie was at work.