Stillwater (16 page)

Chapter Thirty

Later she sat at the sink in the kitchen, bathing the wounds to her arms, slathering on antiseptic cream, and binding them with bandages. She felt wretched. The body of Teddy still lay on the floor where it had landed, and she couldn't bring herself to dispose of it.

Tying the last of the bandages tightly around her arm, she rolled down the sleeves of her shirt, and moved away from the sink. Through the kitchen window she saw another car pull to a halt. She didn't recognize it, but moved to the door, ready to welcome yet another unwelcome visitor. It was probably the police with another round of questions she couldn't answer.

She waited for the doorbell to ring, her hand on the door latch. When the bell finally sounded she tugged open the door, her mouth open to greet, but the words died in her throat as she saw who was standing there.

“Hello, Ms. Alvarini,” Dolores Franklin said, as the door opened. “Is this a bad time?”

For a moment Beth nearly screamed, but she suppressed it, staring into the beautiful face of the woman she had presumed to be dead at the hands of her husband.

It took her a moment to gather herself. Finally she said, “Won't you come in?”

Dolores Franklin looked beyond her, into the house. “I'd rather not, if you don't mind. Could we talk out here?”

“Yes, of course,” Beth said, and wheeled herself out onto the veranda.

“May I?” Dolores said, and sat down on the swing seat. “Forgive me for not coming in. I have some unpleasant memories of this house.”

“I understand,” Beth said, though in truth she didn't understand anything anymore. “Why are you here?” she said bluntly.

Dolores smiled. “I spoke to Bernard yesterday. I thought I'd better come to reassure that I'm still alive. Bernie said you'd made some strange allegations.”

“I was mistaken,” Beth said, staring down at the floorboards of the veranda, wishing that a hole would open in them and swallow her.

Dolores took a packet of cigarettes from her bag and offered one to Beth.

Beth took one and waited for Dolores to light it.

“Dolores…”

“Margaret, or better still, Maggie, Maggie O'Donnell. I stopped using Dolores years ago. Once I left here I reverted to my maiden name. Dolores was Bernie's idea, his pet name for me. Said it made me sound more exotic. I always thought it made me sound like some kind of aging film star.”

“Sorry,” Beth said. “Maggie, I apologize for all the misunderstandings.”

The older woman waved it away. “I didn't come here for an apology,” she said. “I just came to put you straight on a few things. I understand you've been seeing ghosts.”

Beth nodded.

“Specifically the ghost of Jessica, my stepdaughter.”

“And you,” Beth said.

“And me…and yet, here I am, in the flesh, very much alive.” She drew on her cigarette.

“But Jessica died. The accident at the lake.”

“Yes, she did. And it comes as no surprise to me that her spirit is rattling around Stillwater, playing with your mind and creating havoc.”

“You believe in ghosts?” Beth said.

Maggie O'Donnell chuckled. “My family is Romany, Beth. I was brought up to believe in all manner of supernatural phenomena—ghosts being one of them. Some spirits can't move on, for myriad reasons we can only guess at. That Jessica falls into that category is only to be expected. She was unhappy in life and made life for those of us around her a living hell. Her death, tragic though it was, has changed nothing. She's still spreading her poison. Disrupting people's lives, playing on their emotions, making their lives a misery. You're just her latest target. And it appears she's succeeding on all counts.”

“Would you like a drink?” Beth said.

“Coffee would be great,” Maggie said. “It was a long drive up from Devon. Apart from some liquid mud at the service station I've had nothing. I'm parched.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Jessica,” Beth said, when she returned with the coffee.

Maggie sipped at the drink with an appreciative nod of thanks. “Well, to be quite honest with you, Beth, we didn't really have one. But it wasn't through lack of trying on my part.” She sat back in the swing seat and crossed her legs. “I met Bernie a few months after his first wife Sheila died. At that time I was a part-time lecturer at University of Exeter. Bernie had shown up there to give a talk on various business practices. We went for a drink after his talk, and just hit it off. We were married a year later. I knew he had a daughter but she was a quiet, reserved little thing. The death of her mother had obviously affected her. She was devoted to her father, and when they were alone together she was lively, gregarious almost. Then I showed up, and it was obvious she resented me.

“As she grew up little changed. Love and affection for her father, the cold shoulder for me. When she hit her teens, things only got worse.

“She started running wild and getting into all kinds of scrapes, usually concerning boys. She was a pretty little thing as a child. Once puberty set in she became beautiful and precociously sexy. And she quickly found a way to turn that to her advantage. She had all the boys wrapped around her finger. She could get them to do her bidding with just a flutter of her eyelashes, and that's just what she did. She'd have them stealing—shoplifting for her. She'd cause fights, playing one off against another—Christ, I knew how clever she was at doing that. She often had Bernie and me at each other's throats.”

“It sounds like pretty average teenage behavior,” Beth said. “I knew girls at school who were just like that.”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “So did I. But Jessica was different. She took manipulation to another level. I hesitate to use the word, Beth, but I started to believe that Jessica was
evil
. Pure evil. She had a streak of cruelty running through her a mile wide. The older she got the wider it became until, in the end, she started to frighten me. I didn't like being alone with her. She could scare with just a look. Such malice, such malevolence I'd never seen before…and never encountered since.”

Beth sat there trying to balance what Dolores Franklin/Maggie O'Donnell was telling her, with what Jessica had shown her. She didn't know whom to believe. “I saw photos,” she said. “On my computer. You, sitting in a large wicker chair surrounded by some seminaked young men.” She dropped it into the conversation just to see what her reaction would be. The reaction, when it came, surprised her. Maggie got to her feet and walked to the door.

“I wasn't going to, but do you mind if I go inside, upstairs? There's something I think you need to see.”

Beth said, “No, not at all,” and wheeled round as if to accompany her.

“No,” Maggie said. “You wait here. I think I know where they are. It should only take a second. The less time I spend inside there the happier I'll be.” She stepped into the house.

Beth wheeled herself back to wait, and lit another cigarette. Her thoughts were in turmoil. So far the day had thrown so much her way she wasn't sure what she was feeling, and how she should react. The arrival of Dolores Franklin had capped everything that had happened so far, and the story she was telling was compelling, but totally confusing. Beth had reached her own conclusions about what had happened there at Stillwater, but now she was being asked to rethink it. Rethink it totally. She needed evidence to prove to her that her basic instincts, her gut feelings, were wrong, and that she had never been on the right track. That thought, the undermining of her previous certainties, and the reevaluation that entailed, scared her more than anything that had gone before. To do that would make her question her sanity. That was a land she had been to before, and had no desire to revisit.

Maggie returned within five minutes, and settled back into the swing seat. She was clutching a small pile of photographs. “These weren't where I thought they were. I'd left them in a drawer in my bedroom, but someone had taken them out, and scattered them all over the floor. Never mind. Take a look.” She handed them to Beth who took them dumbly, and started flicking through the 8 x 10 glossies.

Immediately she realized her fear of rethinking past certainties was no longer hypothetical.

They were prints taken at the same session as the photograph she had seen on the screen of her computer. All the details were the same: the same wicker chair, the adoring, fawning, leather-clad boys, the shimmering white silk dress revealing swathes of naked flesh. The details were the same except one. In these glossy prints it wasn't the seductive, smoldering Dolores Franklin sitting in the wicker chair, it was Jessica, just as beautiful as her stepmother, just as sexy, just as corrupt.

“Bernard was furious when he found those.”

Beth continued to leaf through them. “I don't understand,” she said. “When I saw the photograph on the computer, it was
you
sitting in the chair, surrounded by the boys.”

“Because that's what Jessica wanted you to believe. When she was at school she spread all manner of rumors about me, and a lot of them gained credence, especially with some of the women in the village. I was always seen as an outsider, probably because of the way I dressed—twinset and pearls were never my style—and I'd always been something of a hippie at university—sad now, I know, but true nonetheless. I didn't really gel with the other mothers…or their after-school societies and such like. Jessica spotted a weakness there, and exploited it. A rumor went around that I was interested in witchcraft, which I was in a purely academic way, but not in the way it was interpreted. It didn't win me many friends. They even kicked me out of the Women's Institute for daring to suggest a talk on holistic medicine and herbal remedies. If I'd been born a few centuries earlier they would have taken me out and burnt me at the stake.”

“Then why on earth did you move up here?” Beth said. “You must have realized you were never going to fit in.”

“I did, within a fortnight. But we didn't have much choice. We had to move away from Putney. Jessica saw to that.”

“What happened?”

Maggie sat back in her seat, and swallowed the last of her coffee. “Jessica was an excellent swimmer. It was the only thing in her early years that seemed to give her any kind of satisfaction. She was always being entered for galas, and won most of them. The house was littered with trophies, and she seemed to bask in the achievement of winning them. But as time went on problems developed. Well, one problem in particular. A girl called Lauren, Lauren Massey. She was an excellent swimmer as well. She was a year younger than Jessica, but just as good. Lauren started winning trophies—prizes that should have been a shoo-in for Jess. Both girls were entered for the county championship, competing against each other. I thought at the time it was a bad idea, but Jessica's swimming coach decided that having someone snapping at her heels would be just the encouragement Jess needed to raise her game.” Maggie paused, remembering, staring out at the surrounding woodland.

“So what happened?” Beth said. “Who won?”

Maggie gave a sardonic smile. “The competition never took place. Walking home a few days before the event, Lauren was set upon by a gang of girls. The attack was brutal. They broke her wrist and two ribs, leaving her in need of hospital treatment. She was too injured to enter the county championship, and the school withdrew all its swimmers, Jessica included. So no one won.”

“And you think Jessica was behind the attack on the other girl?”

Maggie laughed, a short, brittle sound. “I
know
she was behind it. She told me. Gloating. It didn't matter to her that she was withdrawn from the championship. The fact that Lauren couldn't compete was victory enough. The school launched an enquiry into the attack, and I got it on good authority that Jessica was in the frame for it. It was too much for Bernard. His precious daughter was going to be accused, and probably convicted for masterminding the attack. He withdrew her from school at the end of the summer term. By the time the autumn term started we'd moved here, and she was signed in to a new school, here in rural bloody Suffolk.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Beth was still looking through the photographs. “These boys, someone said to me that these were your
acolytes
.”

“Acolytes? What, they'd have me as some kind of goddess now. I didn't realize I was held in such high regard.”

“Well, they
were
your followers, weren't they?”

“No,” Maggie said. “Beth, what do you take me for? They're
kids
. They were the gang Jessica used to hang around with. I only ever met one of them.” She pointed to Carl Page. “He and Jessica had some kind of thing going. I didn't approve, and Bernie approved even less. Carl Page was a little thug. He used to make my skin crawl. Which of course delighted Jessica, and made her even more determined to carry on the liaison.”

“But I thought Jessica was having a relationship with James.”

Maggie looked at her blankly. “Who's James?”

“James Bartlett. She had a picture of him on her bedside cabinet.”

Maggie thought for a moment. “James, James. Oh. You mean
Jimmy
.”

“Yes, Jimmy! James Bartlett. She had a photo.”

Maggie was shaking her head. “No, you're wrong again, Beth. There was never anything between those two. Jimmy was a sweet kid. I think he really cared about Jessica. I would have been delighted if they'd started seeing each other properly. But Jimmy was much too straight for Jess's tastes. Too nice and too safe. The only reason she kept a photo of him was to torment Carl, to keep him on his toes. As I said she knew how to manipulate people.”

“When Arthur Latham gave you a lift to the station he said you were met by a couple of young men.”

“And so I was. My boys,” Maggie said.

“Your
boys
?”

“It's not what you're thinking. The boys I bumped into at the station were Benedykt and Czeslaw, students of mine. There were four of them in total. Benny and Czes were two. The others were Krzys and Jacek. They'd come here from Poland, to find work. I was running an English evening class in town. The boys used to come along, hoping to improve their conversational skills. Benny and Czes just happened to be at the station the day I left.” She paused, thinking for a moment. “Is this where you've been getting your information about me? From the Lathams?”

“Partly…well, mostly.”

“Arthur Latham was a teacher at Jessica's school. His wife, Gwen, was a leading light in the WI. Gwen took against me almost as soon as I arrived here—don't know why. I don't think I conformed enough for her. Arthur was always pleasant to me. He was just a bit wet. A perennial fence-sitter. If he ever held a definite opinion about anything it was one given to him by Gwen. She wore the trousers in that marriage. If you've been getting information from her, it's no wonder it's twisted. I think she hated me.”

“Not just from them,” Beth said. “I know James Bartlett quite well. He was the agent who let Stillwater.”

“But I think I only met him once or twice. Jessica obviously did a number on him. She never missed an opportunity to bad-mouth me, to try and turn people against me. It was her hobby.” Maggie lit another cigarette, and puffed on it furiously. “Little bitch,” she said. She turned to Beth. “Did you know you have a dead cat in the middle of your lounge?”

“Yes,” Beth said. “I know,” and went on to tell Maggie what had happened to Teddy.

“You poor thing,” Maggie said when she'd finished. “Jessica's really put you through the wringer. I said she had a cruel streak. Killing your cat is typical.” She paused and drew on her cigarette. She let the smoke dribble from her nose. “I had a cat, Poppy. Jessica couldn't stand that I had something in my life that showed me unconditional love. She didn't take it to the extremes she did with your cat, but I was never comfortable when she showed Poppy any kind of attention. In the end I had to rehome it. I was leaving, and I couldn't take Poppy with me. I found someone in Bury St Edmunds to take her in. It broke my heart, but it was safer for Poppy.”

“Did Jessica love anyone or anything?” Beth asked.

“Only her father. She adored Bernard, sometimes I think, unhealthily so.”

“And your husband?”

“In his eyes she could do no wrong. When the facts of her antisocial, and I think psychotic, tendencies were presented to him, he'd always find an excuse for her behavior. It did her no favors. She grew to believe she was fireproof, that she could do no wrong, which, in her father's eyes, was true.”

“So why did you finally leave?” Beth said. “Obviously life here was no picnic. What finally pushed you over the edge?”

“Jessica attacked me,” Maggie said flatly.

“How?”

“With a cane: a thin, whippy thing. I think she used it in some of the sex games she played with Carl Page. I can't even remember now what prompted it. We were arguing over something, probably trivial. It didn't take much to set her off, to make her lose her temper. This time was different though. Instead of storming out, as she usually did, she followed me upstairs, and cornered me in my bedroom. She had the cane in her hand and she started slashing at me with it. I made it onto the landing, but the attack was so shocking and so vicious I lost my footing and fell. But even that didn't stop her. Look.”

Maggie pulled up the sleeve of her shirt. Her arms were crisscrossed with livid scars. The wounds had obviously been deep, and they'd healed badly. “There are more,” Maggie said. “All over my body. I was in a hell of state. I actually blacked out from the pain. When I came to Jessica had gone and Poppy was there, licking my wounds.”

“You should have called the police,” Beth said.

Maggie nodded. “Yes, I probably should have. But Bernard begged me not to take it further, and I, like a fool, agreed not to. But I knew I couldn't share a house with the bitch any longer. And when Bernard refused to even reprimand her I knew my marriage was over. I made arrangements with a cousin in Devon to stay with her for a while. I left the next day.” Maggie glanced at her watch. “Anyway, there you have it in all its gory details. And now I'd better go. I just thought it was only right that you should know what exactly took place here. Maybe it will help you. I don't know. But you realize you can't stay here. Jessica won't stop until she drives you mad…or worse.”

“Yes, I'm beginning to realize that.”

The sun was starting to drop in the sky, casting an orange glow over the tops of the trees. “You're not driving back home tonight, are you?”

“Not tonight. I've booked a room at a pub in town. I'll travel back down there tomorrow.” She got to her feet. “Thanks for listening. I've had that bottled up for years, with no one to tell it to, or rather no one who would really believe what an evil bitch Jessica actually was. People would see her beautiful face and believe that beauty continued below the surface. It didn't. Goodbye, Beth…and if you happen to see Bernard, I'd rather you didn't tell him I've been to see you. It will open too many old wounds.”

“I'll keep it to myself,” Beth said.

“You know what they say, least said, soonest mended. Jessica's death affected him badly. It broke him. He won't want all this dredged up again and he won't thank me for doing so. I suppose in my heart of hearts I still love him. And we've managed to build an accord. It's taken a few years but it kind of works now.”

“I won't say anything.”

Maggie squeezed her hand. “No,” she said. “You're a good person, I can see that. It's probably why Jessica hates you so much.”

Beth sat on the veranda, and closed her eyes. There was a chill to the evening air, but she had no desire to go inside. She pulled out her phone, and dialed a number.

The phone on the other end rang a dozen times before James answered it.

“Hello?”

“It's me,” she said.

“What do you want, Beth?” he said, his voice cold and dismissive.

“I owe you an apology.”

“Fine.” And then silence.

“No, James. Please don't hang up. I have to explain. Can I see you?”

“Half an hour.” The line went dead.

A sob broke in her throat.
What did you expect
? she thought.
That he'd just forget everything you said? That he'd welcome you back with open arms?

By the time his car pulled into the lane, the sun was dying in the sky, and she was shivering.

He climbed out of the car unsmiling, and approached the veranda, hands in pockets. “It's getting cold. Why aren't you inside?”

“I couldn't. Not by myself.”

“What's happened?”

She held her bandaged arms up for him to see. “Teddy attacked me.”

The unsmiling face deepened into a frown. “I thought your cat was dead.”

“So did I. He is now—in the middle of the lounge. James, I've been such a fool,” she said.

He came onto the veranda, and laid his hand over hers. “At least let me fetch you a blanket. You're risking hypothermia sitting out her without a coat.”

“In the wardrobe. In the bedroom.”

He returned quickly, and draped a brown fleece over her shoulders.

She gathered it around her and gave him a wan smile. “Thanks.”

He didn't smile back.

“About earlier, James. I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I know now you never had a relationship with Jessica.”

He sat down on the swing seat. “What brought you to that conclusion?”

“I had a visitor this afternoon. She opened my eyes to a lot of things, and what she told me made realize I'd been wrong. Misguided in just about everything concerning Stillwater.”

“And who was this mysterious visitor who lifted the blinkers from your eyes?”

“Dolores Franklin,” she said. “Although she goes by the name of Maggie O'Donnell these days.”

James rocked slightly in the seat, as if trying hard to take in this new piece of information. Finally he shook his head. “I won't ask why. I'm sure she has her reasons. What on earth prompted her to come and see you?”

“She spoke to Bernard Franklin. She came here to set the record straight.”

“And it sounds like she succeeded.”

“It's Jessica, James. It's been Jessica all along. She's out to destroy me, just as she destroyed everything good in her life. Maggie…Dolores, described her as pure evil. And I believe her.”

“It doesn't sound like the Jessica I knew,” he said.

“And she fooled you, just as she fooled everyone else. I'm sorry, I know you don't want to hear this, but she was using you as a stick with which to beat Carl Page. He was the one she was in a relationship with. Though from how it was described it seemed a fairly toxic one.” She shuddered.

“Isn't the blanket helping?”

“I'm warm now. It's not that. I think it's just a reaction to the day. What with Mirri, Teddy and everything else, I'm not sure I can take much more. I'm trembling inside, deep inside.”

“Then we'll have to get you away from here. You're not staying here the night. You can come back with me to my place and stay over.”

She shook her head. “I couldn't, James. Not after the way I treated you today.”

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “It's forgotten,” he said gently. “You've been to hell and back. You're not spending the night alone. Certainly not here.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I'll need to pack an overnight bag. Will you come inside with me and wait 'til I'm ready?”

“Of course. And we'll stop off for a Chinese on the way back, I haven't eaten and I'll bet you haven't either.”

“It never occurred to me, but now you mention it…”

“Come on. Lead the way.”