Risking It All (25 page)

An elderly woman with greying hair regimented into permed waves, and blue plastic-framed spectacles, advanced to meet me. She eyed me up and down. I eyed her back and guessed she was rather older than she looked and was the type who stood no nonsense from infant or adult.

She had age on her mind, too. ‘You’re not the baby I looked after for Eva,’ she snapped. ‘You’re too old.’

‘No, I’m Eva’s elder child. Mrs Marks, I really appreciate you seeing me.’

She looked round her at the infant-sized chairs and then back at me, comparing my dimensions with the available seating. ‘We’d better go in the back room. Lucille, keep an eye on things.’

‘No problem,’ said Lucille comfortably.

The back room was a tiny sitting room claustrophobically overfurnished and overprovided with ornaments. A caged budgie squawked at us as we came in. Mrs Marks indicated I should take a seat in an armchair protected by embroidered antimacassars, and plumped herself down in a matching chair opposite. Her spectacles glinted at me.

‘Now I don’t know what you want to know,’ she began aggressively, before I’d had a chance to say anything. ‘It was nearly thirteen years ago, must be, that Eva came to me with that baby. All of that. I told the police so.’

‘Did you ever doubt the baby was Eva’s own child?’ I asked straight away, because we might as well get that one out of the way first.

‘Of course not. She’d been breast-feeding but had to put the baby on to formula when she brought her here. It gave her some problems with her own milk. I recommended her Epsom salts. Usually dries it up pretty quick.’

Did I want to know this?

She was frowning at me. ‘Is that what all this is about? The police wouldn’t tell me why they were asking. Do they think Eva took a baby away from somewhere?’ For the first time she sounded anxious.

‘No. No, that’s not it at all,’ I hastened to assure her, and she relaxed. I went on to give her the carefully edited version I’d worked out on my way over there. ‘As you might remember, my mother had to give the baby up for adoption. Now she’d like to trace her.’

Mrs Marks sat back and pursed her lips in thought. ‘Is that why the private detective wrote to me? A Mr Duke, he was. I phoned him and asked what he wanted. He was cagey, didn’t want to say over the phone. So he arranged to come and see me. But he didn’t turn up and I didn’t hear from him again. The police said they’d got my name from his computer. I don’t hold with the things. My son-in-law is always on at me to get one. I ask you, what would I do with it? Seems to me if anyone can get hold of a computer and read all your private correspondence on it, it’s a good thing to keep away from them. And what were the police doing with Mr Duke’s computer in the first place? I asked the policewoman who came here. Pert little madam. Got nothing from her. They won’t tell you what’s going on. They never do. Is this Duke fellow in some sort of trouble?’

‘Not now,’ I told her. I’d been afraid that Mrs Marks would refuse to talk. Now I was worried she wouldn’t stop long enough for me to get in my questions. ‘He’s well out of it now. Eva’s – Eva’s not got long. She’s in a hospice for the terminally ill. She’s got leukaemia.’

She tut-tutted. ‘I’m really sorry about that. She was a nice girl, Eva. Got her life in a bit of a mess, I could tell that, but well, it’s not unusual, is it? She could have gone on the social and not worked, just stayed home with the baby, but she had a little job on the till at the supermarket and she stuck to it. To me, that means she was made of the right stuff. I’ve always worked. Keep active and you keep young, that’s what I say.’

All this was fine, but it didn’t help me. There had to be something I could ask her, something that would point me in the direction of Rennie Duke’s killer. So far I had a prime suspect in Jerry Wilde but that was all I had – suspicions. I had to find a connection between this lady and Jerry Wilde. In theory, Mrs Marks knew only that my mother had given the baby up for adoption. Yet Rennie Duke had apparently been working on the idea that she could tell him something which would lead him to the whereabouts of my younger sister.

She was getting impatient, glancing at the door, straining to hear sounds from the front room. ‘Was there anything else?’ She put her hands on the chair arms, ready to push herself up.

I struck out at random. ‘Mrs Marks, do you know a Mr Wilde? A Jerry Wilde, or his wife, Flora? Have they been in touch?’

She flushed and I knew I’d hit a target. She shook her head vigorously. ‘I haven’t heard from anyone called Wilde. I don’t know anyone of that name.’

‘You’re sure? Mrs Marks, it really matters.’

She didn’t reply and stood up. I thought with dismay that she was about to show me out, but instead she went to check the scene in the playroom. When she came back, she closed the door with care and resumed her seat.

‘You’re really Eva’s girl? You’re not a policewoman? You know, plain clothes?’

‘Have a heart,’ I begged. ‘No, I’m not a policewoman. Mrs Marks, the baby we’re talking about is my sister, my half-sister. If you know anything, please tell me.’

‘I’m not saying I know anything. But I will tell you, I wasn’t ever really satisfied that Eva had given Miranda over to social services. Still, she said she had and I’d no real reason to doubt her, only that she loved that baby. I could tell. She was everything to her.’ She stopped and looked at me. ‘What’s the matter, dear?’

I wasn’t aware my feelings showed on my face so clearly. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

‘It’s because I know she loved Miranda that I’m telling you this. Eva dying and everything, I understand she’d want to see that child again. You can turn your back on family all your life, but at the end of it, that’s where you want to be, with your own. Now then, my daughter, Linda, she lives in Kew.’

There was no way I could control my reaction to that. I nearly jumped off my chair.

‘That means something to you, does it?’ said Mrs Marks drily. ‘Then I’d better tell you the rest. I haven’t told the police, mind you, and I’m not going to. I’d be obliged if you’d keep it to yourself, but I fancy you will. If you’re looking for that child, you’re doing it on the quiet, aren’t you? I can tell.’

I admitted it.

‘The people who come through that door . . .’ She pointed towards the front of the house. ‘The problems some of them have, you wouldn’t credit it. I’ve seen it all. Still, it’s a good little business if you like children. Linda wanted some job she could do from home and so she started up a crèche of her own, over there in Kew. She knew how to run one. She’d helped me out here. Just a couple of weeks after Eva took the baby away, I found myself with a free day, no children. So I took myself over to Kew to see how Linda was getting on with her little establishment. Only just starting up as she was, she’d got just one toddler and a small baby to mind. Well, when I saw that baby, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I felt in my bones it was Eva’s. I asked Linda whose baby it was. She said someone called Wilde. She was looking after it just two mornings a week because the Wildes were busy doing up an old house they’d just bought. I told her it was the spitting image of a baby I’d been caring for. But Linda laughed and said that at that age, all babies looked the same.’

Mrs Marks paused. ‘Well, she might think that but I never have. Still, I was in a bit of a pickle, as you might say. I didn’t want to make any trouble for Linda, not with her just starting out. As a child-minder, your reputation matters. Any sort of bother and people don’t come near you. I had nothing but my own fancies to go on. Suppose I’d spoken up, told the authorities, they’d investigated and found everything kosher? What then? I’ve have ruined Linda’s business and then where would she be? Besides, when I thought about it, I decided that if the baby had been given by Eva to someone else, it was probably a family matter.’

I was puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’

She gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘It’s how it was always done in the old days, dear, when I was young. You know, a girl would have a baby out of wedlock and it would be passed off as belonging to a married sister or even the girl’s own mother. You’d be surprised how many women produced a baby suddenly, late in life, in those days! Nobody asked questions. We all understood. Believe me,’ Mrs Marks gave me another dry smile and waved a hand in the general direction of the street, ‘there are a lot of people walking round out there, probably most of them middle-aged now, who’ve called their grandmother “Mummy” and thought of their real mother as a sister or an auntie.’

‘Someone must always know,’ I argued. ‘The rest of the family. The neighbours.’

‘Probably. But they didn’t say anything, that was the point. The family wanted to protect its own good name. The neighbours didn’t want to damage a girl’s reputation, spoil her chance of marriage to a decent boy some day. Who knows, perhaps some of them had a baby like that in their own family. Why open up a can of worms?’

‘Why indeed?’ I said dully. That was what I’d done, following up my mother’s request.

Mrs Marks was saying, ‘I dare say it’s different now. Society is more tolerant. Girls keep their babies and no one thinks it odd. But I thought that maybe that was what Eva had done, given the baby to a married sister. So in the end, I said nothing.’

During the previous few minutes there had been noises from the front part of the house, strange adult voices, childish babble and movement, all suggesting the infants were being collected. Car doors slammed distantly. I could hear Lucille, the helper, organising things. Mrs Marks had been glancing from time to time at the window, where the light would soon be fading. She showed signs of restlessness.

‘If you don’t mind, dear,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to go now. Lucille will be clearing up for me and I’ve got other things to do.’

I had forgotten it was Friday. I thanked her for giving me her time and telling me all she could. I advised her not to have anything to do with Wilde if he got in touch. ‘And perhaps you ought to have a word with your daughter, warn her. If the police got to you, they may get to her, even if you don’t tell them.’

I left, heavy-hearted. She ought to go to the police with her story for her own protection, if for nothing else. The weight of circumstantial evidence against Jerry Wilde was growing. If he’d killed Duke, it was because the detective was asking questions about Nicola. If he ever found out about Mrs Marks, then he’d see both of us as a threat to him and Flora. At the same time, the last thing I wanted was to lead the police to Linda Marks – I didn’t know her married name, but that wouldn’t hold the police up – and through Linda to the Wildes. This wasn’t what Mum wanted and it wasn’t what I wanted.

I cursed myself for ever agreeing to do as Mum had asked. Like Pandora, I’d opened a box and couldn’t now get the lid back on again. Sooner or later, so it seemed to me, the police must join up all the dots and the outline would be of Nicola Wilde. They’d do it quicker if Mrs Marks told them her story. Even without her, eventually.

I felt I’d somehow let Mum down, that this was all my fault. I could’ve handled it all differently. I should’ve realised straight away that Rennie Duke was a loose cannon. It was all going pear-shaped and I couldn’t make amends. But one thing I could do, must do. I had to arrange to see Jerry Wilde again, dangerous though it might prove. I had to tell him the police were looking for the baby he and Flora had taken on as theirs, though naturally I’d leave Mrs Marks out of it. I wasn’t going to warn the Wildes for their sakes, but for Nicola’s. The hunt was on officially now and threatening to blow my sister’s world apart.

The problem was getting in touch with Wilde again. I knew where he lived but couldn’t call at the house for fear of meeting up with Flora again. I couldn’t write to him in case Flora opened the mail. I supposed he was in the directory but couldn’t telephone because Flora or Nicola might pick up the phone. The only thing I could do was stake out his house and wait for him to come home, then dash out and waylay him.

Later in the year this would have been almost impossible. Anyone hanging around, circling the block endlessly, lurking in doorways, waiting at bus stops without ever boarding a bus, would warrant a suspicious neighbour’s call to the police. But at this time of year darkness fell early and would provide a welcome cloak for my stake-out. I recalled that a little further down the road from the house was a patch of grass and a wooden seat. If I sat there, hopefully no one would notice me, and I’d see Jerry arrive.

I dot-and-carry-one’d my way in my loose boot back to Kew.

The rush hour had already begun and the Tube was packed. Commuters streamed off it. I wondered if Jerry Wilde was among them and if waiting at the Tube station exit might be the best thing. But in such a crowd and in the poor light he could walk by me. Even if I stationed myself at the foot of the stairs to the over-track bridge, I’d miss him. I decided to stick to my original idea.