The Hidden Girl (33 page)

Hannah leant against a rafter and began her search to see if Mabel Vyne had ever been listed as a householder.

She nearly missed it.

Twenty minutes later her eyes were starting to skim over the cost of butcher’s sausages, candles and vinegar, when two letters caught her eye:
Hat, M.V. – 2s.

‘Yes!’ she hissed. Mabel Vyne.

Now she knew that the name was definitely listed, she double-checked the entries she’d already skimmed.

In 1945 there was another one she’d missed:
Dress, M.V. – 5s
.

Five shillings? That was a lot less than the fifty-five shillings that Olive had spent on her dresses.

Hannah searched and found some more.

In total there were one or two entries each year, all through the 1940s. Whoever Mabel had been, she either had her own income or had only lived in Tornley Hall from time to time. On a whim, Hannah carried on into the 1950s:
Hat, M.V. – 1s
. Mabel continued to appear a few times a year in the 1950s, and then in the 1960s and 1970s.

The last entry Hannah found was in 1986:
Shoes, M.V. – £4.

This was interesting. Someone called Mabel Vyne had visited or lived in Tornley Hall, at least off and on, for around forty years.

So what had happened to her child?

There was one more place to look. Downstairs, in the kitchen cupboard, Hannah found the photo album that Elvie had flung on the floor the other night.

Eagerly she flicked through it. The photos were again black-and-white ones. The fashions worn by Olive and Peter’s friends suggested that it was now the 1960s. Peter certainly had more hair than he did in the images from the 1970s.

Once again the photos were located around Tornley Hall, and at what she now recognized as Graysea Bay, increasing her new suspicions that Peter and Olive rarely left home. There was one shot of a grinning Olive in the lane on a bike, the sun glinting on her plaits.

The photos were only four-by-four inches, and there were six on each page. She searched carefully. Finally, halfway through, she saw it.

In one set of images Olive, Peter and their friends were eating a picnic on the shingle beach, sitting on rugs. Behind them a dark-haired woman leant over a basket, in profile.

Hannah peered. Was that Mabel? She would be older now, of course, maybe in her mid-thirties, but the colouring was definitely familiar.

She flicked over to the next page, then the next – and stopped.

The dark-haired woman was standing up now, still in the distance, but closer and face-on to the camera, behind Olive and her friends. While they were laughing, she was not. Hannah was almost certain it was the sulky teenager of the earlier photo, twenty years on. She had the same dark eyes and hair, and the long, narrow jaw. There was that same dull gaze in her eyes. With other people to give perspective, Hannah now realized that Mabel Vyne – if it was indeed her – was very tall.

She held the book under the lamp to see better. Her breathing felt shallow. Goosepimples covered her arms.

She knew that sullen face. That’s why it was so familiar in its teenage form.

‘I am
not
seeing ghosts!’ she whispered.

This photo was taken fifty years ago, yet she was looking straight at Elvie.

Despite being exhausted from the day’s events, that night Hannah tossed and turned in bed. The curtains were once again closed against the black night. Disturbing images came at her from all angles. Every creak made her glance at the door.

Before she’d turned out the light she’d rung Will for the twentieth time, to find that his voicemail was now full. If he didn’t call her tomorrow, then she was going to London.

Eventually she fell into an uneasy sleep, only to be jerked awake by images of Dax and Madeleine in the garage, towering above her. Twice she got up and double-checked the locks downstairs, put on another lamp and then re-jammed the wooden wedge underneath her locked bedroom door. To chase away the memory of the garage encounter, Hannah summoned the image of the little red-haired girl. Hard as she tried, however, she couldn’t picture the two of them and Will at Tornley Hall. She tried to imagine a trampoline on the lawn, and swings, but could only see scrubby grass and piles of rotten leaves and the dead pheasant, its rotten stink back in her nostrils.

So, instead, she turned on the bedside light at 3 a.m. and, to distract herself, picked up the old letters from the floor and thought more about the mystery of Mabel Vyne, and her physical similarity to Elvie. How could they be related? Apart from the fact that Elvie might be Frank and Tiggy’s daughter, the baby in the teenage Mabel’s arms in 1945 would be almost seventy years old now. Elvie was forty at most.

At some point Hannah did fall asleep, jerking awake when the telephone engineer rang the doorbell at nine o’clock. She dressed and waited impatiently for him to install the phone, Internet and television channels, checking out the window for Gemma.

As soon as the broadband was up, Hannah flung open her laptop and, joyful at being connected back to the outside world, checked a long list of new emails in her in-box. One in particular stood out. It was from Laurie and had arrived yesterday morning, a few hours before Laurie’s talk with Jonathan and her visit to Tornley Hal. The tone was friendly and supportive – clearly written before Jonathan told Laurie off for sending him on a wild goose chase:

Hannah read it again, confused. If Will had been six or seven on his visit here with Nan Riley and Laurie, it would have been around the early 1980s. Who was the young woman in Tornley Hall at that time? It couldn’t have been Mabel Vyne – she would have been in her fifties. Olive would have been sixty-plus.

Intrigued, she waved off the engineer and sat back at her computer. She might be isolated geographically out here, but the screen gave her a renewed sense of empowerment. Dax, and everyone else round here, said that Elvie didn’t exist. Well, she could now find proof by herself.

First she inserted ‘Elvie Mortren’ into a search engine. Nothing appeared. She tried possible variations and combinations of Elvie’s name, as well as the location and Frank and Tiggy’s names, but nothing came up. That was strange.

Next she tried ‘Elvie Vyne’, in case the strange young woman was related to Mabel. When nothing materialized for that name, either, Hannah tried ‘Mabel Vyne, Suffolk’.

This time there was a hit. She peered at the screen.

It was just one link, and a modern one at that. An Ipswich newspaper cutting about a planning application refused in 2012 for a new hall. The photograph of a group of cross-looking parishioners accompanied the photograph. Mabel Vyne, a plump woman with glasses and short grey hair, was their spokesperson. From here, Hannah could see no similarity between her and the teenage Mabel in Peter’s black-and-white photographs, or indeed to Elvie. But surely there was some link? Mabel Vyne could not be a very common name in Suffolk.

She stood up and walked to the window. Maybe the two Mabel Vynes were related, even distantly. It was certainly worth finding out, in case it explained why Frank and Tiggy were hiding Elvie from the authorities.

Outside there was a crunch of tyres on gravel.

Hannah ran to the door.

Gemma
.

Will woke that Tuesday morning and stretched out on Clare’s sofa, his back muscles even tighter than yesterday. He surveyed the whisky glasses and ashtray from last night. His watch said half-nine. Sitting up, he squinted at Clare’s and Jamie’s bedroom doors. Both were open. They’d left quietly again, without waking him.

He eased his legs round off the sofa, and groaned with pain. He sat for a second, one hand on his back, the other on his forehead.

Last night he and Clare had talked for hours again, well into the middle of the night. He hadn’t meant to tell her so much, these past few days, but she had a way of making him talk. She was easy to be around. Jamie was like her, a nice lad who had invited him outside on Sunday to watch him and his mates from Arndale Road skateboarding and jumping over ramps on their bikes. Clare had brought Will out a coffee and they’d sat on the wall, watching the group show off, the shock of what had just happened with Hannah hitting him in waves.

He’d only been at Clare’s a few days, but a pattern had formed. Each evening Jamie went to bed at nine. Clare made food, then brought out the whisky and weed, and put on quiet music, and they talked. He’d told her everything. About his childhood, about meeting Hannah, about how much last summer’s incident had changed her, and about that tosser she’d slept with in Suffolk. (He didn’t tell her, however, that the image made him feel sick and full of rage every time he thought about it.) He’d told her about the little girl, and how he purposely hadn’t looked at the photo Barbara had brought, because he knew that would complicate what he was going to do.

Clare was sympathetic. She told him not to feel bad. The little girl wasn’t his child yet. They’d never met each other. And, anyway, she needed a stable home. From what Will was saying, he and Hannah would be no good to her – not any more.

She reminded him that there would be other people out there desperate to adopt her. He had to look after himself right now, after what Hannah had done to him. The child would find another family, and would be fine. In the meantime, Clare would be here for him, as a friend.

Each night they’d ended up sitting on the same sofa, Clare’s soft rugs thrown over them. He knew the danger. Clare had given him clear enough signals about where her interests lay, but since that first time they’d kissed, she’d backed off and, right now, he didn’t have the energy to find somewhere else to stay.

No. He’d only known Clare a short time, but she was nice. Easy to be around. She wasn’t Hannah; but then again, neither was Hannah these days. There was no rush. No need to leave straight away.

Will thought about finding breakfast and having a shower, then going into work. Then he decided to lie back on the sofa for five more minutes. He pulled one of Clare’s throws over him. Matt would be all right on his own for another hour. He’d go in later.

He shut his eyes, and went back to sleep.

‘Gemma!’

Hannah chased out of the front door of Tornley Hall with the utilities letter that Gemma had just delivered, and caught the startled postwoman in the drive.

‘Sorry, Hannah – that’s it today,’ Gemma said. ‘You waiting on something?’

She had a jolly face, round and pleasant, with large, innocent blue eyes like a three-year-old, despite being in her forties. Crinkled blonde hair was crammed under a cap.

‘No,’ Hannah said. She was about to explain, then saw a tractor traversing Madeleine’s field. ‘Actually, Gemma, do you have a minute? Would you mind . . .’ She gestured into the house.

Gemma nodded and came with her.

‘Listen,’ Hannah said, shutting the front door. ‘I wanted to ask you something. It’s a bit sensitive, though.’

‘Oh, gosh – you’ve done well,’ said Gemma, examining the walls.

‘Thanks. Listen, it’s about Elvie, the woman who lives next door? The Mortrens’ daughter.’

Gemma looked as if she’d swallowed a hot chilli. ‘Frank and Tiggy have got a daughter?’ she yelped.

‘Oh,’ Hannah replied, disappointed. ‘You didn’t know.’ She lifted her hand above her head. ‘Tall, well-built, brown eyes, looks a little sulky.’

Gemma looked blank.

‘No? Honestly, Gemma, she’s been here since we moved in.’

‘Gosh, that’s odd,’ Gemma said. ‘I’ve done Frank and Tiggy’s post for twenty years and they’ve never mentioned her to me. Are you sure?’

Hannah sighed. ‘Maybe not. Listen, don’t worry . . .’ She went to open the door, defeated.

‘I tell you what, though – that girl sounds like the one who stayed here with Peter and Olive sometimes,’ Gemma said, behind her.

Hannah spun round. ‘In Tornley Hall?’

‘Yeah, a big girl, long face, very shy?’

‘Yes,’ Hannah whispered.

‘Oh, yeah, I know her. I used to see her in the hall or the kitchen, when Olive opened the door for a parcel. Always scooted away when she saw me. I don’t think she lived here, though. I only saw her a few times. Is that the one?’

Hannah clapped her hands. ‘Yes! Elvie. So you
do
know who she is?’

‘Well, no. I never worked it out, to be honest. She didn’t live here. I mean, there was no post for her or anything. I think Olive said she was family. Didn’t she visit in the holidays, or something?’

Hannah stared. ‘Family? Did Olive actually say that? Not “family friend”?’

‘Ooh, I don’t think so.’

This was becoming even odder, not clearer. Hannah tried again. ‘But, Gemma, Elvie was here last week. Why would she still come, if Olive and Peter are no longer here? Sorry, I’m just confused.’

Gemma went to speak, then stopped.

‘What?’

‘Well, I don’t know. You’ve got me thinking now. Actually, I have seen her a couple of times since they died. In the lane. I just thought she was here with the rest of the family, packing up the house?’

‘The rest of what family?’

Uncertainty entered Gemma’s voice. ‘Peter and Olive’s?’

Hannah took a breath. None of this made sense. ‘Gemma, we were told that Peter and Olive didn’t have any family. We thought it was why the Horseborrows’ solicitor accepted such a low offer on the house. They knew there was no one to inherit the money, so they decided to take our offer because it was the only one that was slightly more than the property developer’s offer. I mean, did you know Olive? Did she talk about family?’