Veil of Darkness (11 page)

‘It has been very hard for you, I know, Mrs Stott.’

‘You can see his bedroom if you like, although, of course, it’s been given a thorough clean-out since he went away. I found all sorts of vile magazines and photographs.’ Avril’s mother shook her head and wrinkled her lips like the edge of a pasty. ‘I can honestly say I never knew such horrible things existed.’

‘It has been very hard for you, I know, Mrs Stott.’

Mrs Stott picked up Fluffy, laid her on her knee and stroked her, to the social worker’s abhorrence.

‘And no, we won’t have him back. I know that might sound hard, as if we’ve abandoned our son to his plight, but you’ll never know what Richard and I have been through over the last few years, what with police coming round at all hours, terrible people calling for Graham, the bad behaviour, the swearing—such a bad influence on Avril. He used his father and I like a couple of old doormats. No, we’ve given this matter a great deal of thought and we will not have Graham back. Let the authorities find him somewhere. I don’t even want to know where he is and that’s flat.’

With a surprising small show of violence, Mrs Stott got up and threw Fluffy out in the garden.

Graham Stott hops off the bus outside 2 Maple Terrace, Huyton. Soon he will have wheels of his own, no more travelling about with losers. Here it is, home sweet home, no change, even the symmetrical rows of brown and orange chrysanths are probably in the exact same order with the exact same slugs inside. Dad, he knows, will be at work and Mum will be doing whatever she does during her long and tedious housewifely day. There are always signs of work lying round in a pointed, angry fashion: a duster hung over a banister, clothes in a basket on top of a washing machine that is never still, wet dishcloths hanging on hooks by the door, peas to be shelled on the kitchen table, neat piles of bedding left on the landing.

The doorbell peals the Westminster chimes.

‘Whatcha, Ma.’

‘
What on earth are you doing here
?’

‘They told you I was getting out, didn’t they?’

‘No, they did not, thank goodness.’

‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

Mrs Stott casts anxious glances up and down the terrace before retreating backwards into her neat little hallway followed by her skinny son. He looks as if a train has hit him. He looks worse than he ever did, with the pallid, acned skin of a heavy potato-eater and those filthy, skin-tight jeans. His boots look like something worn by the Nazis.

‘You’re not stopping here, Graham.’

‘I see Fluffy’s still going strong.’

‘I said, you’re not stopping here, Graham,
so don’t think you are
.’

‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’

‘Make it yourself. And then just go. I don’t want your father coming home, seeing you here and being upset again.’

Graham mooches around in the kitchen as he waits for the kettle to boil, picking up bits and pieces as if to connect himself with the house in which he grew up. She doesn’t ask, How are you, son? Or, How did they treat you in there? She shows no interest at all in the child who has been away for three years.

‘How’s Avril?’

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

‘She must be what, eighteen now? Still living at home, I guess?’

‘Avril has her own life now, and a very successful one, I might add.’

‘Unlike me.’

‘You said it, not me.’

Mrs Stott sits stiffly at her kitchen table playing nervously with the salt.

‘I thought I might kip down here for a while…’

‘You haven’t heard one word I’ve said.’

‘You’re not going to kick me out?’

‘Graham,’ says his mother firmly. ‘If you stay here one minute longer after you have finished that tea I shall ring up your parole officer and tell him you are causing a nuisance.’

Graham gives a quick, appraising look. ‘You would, too. You hard bitch.’

‘You drove me to it.’

Ten minutes later Graham leaves the house in Huyton with Avril’s address printed on his mind. It was on an envelope on the sideboard in his mother’s handwriting, and although, at the moment, he has no plans to visit his long-lost sister—let’s face it, they never got on, that drip with her fluffy-toy collection—you can’t miss a trick when you’re likely to be down and out for the foreseeable future.

Something very serious has happened.

The staff at the Burleston, gathered to order in the recreation room, can tell this because of the weaselly expression on Mrs Stokes’s face. She stands before them grimly, with her arms down by her sides, hard fists clenched at the ends of her cardigan sleeves.

‘I am sorry to have to say this, but the Miss Lewises have reported that an expensive item of jewellery has gone missing from their dressing-table drawer.’

There is silence and then a shuffling from the audience gathered before her.

‘Now then,’ Mrs Stokes goes on, ‘Mr Derek is reluctant to report this matter to the police for very obvious reasons. The last thing any of us want is for the reputation of the hotel to be besmirched in the slightest way. Therefore he has decided, with the kind permission of the Miss Lewises, to wait for twenty-four hours before reluctantly taking the appropriate action. If anyone here knows anything about this distressing matter, could they please, first, come to me, or simply leave the bracelet in my office which, as you all know, is always open.’

‘Why us?’ asks one of the Burleston waiters, incensed by the injustice. ‘Why the hell do they immediately assume that if there’s something nicked it’s one of us?’

‘Typical, the sods.’

‘More likely the slapheads have gone and lost it.’

‘They’ve got one hell of a nerve to stand there and accuse us lot.’

‘We should tell them that this is right out of order,’ says another outraged employee.

‘We ought to make them call in the law. After all, who gives a toss about this doss-hole’s reputation.’

Avril, in her corner, goes red. She feels her cheeks puff up around her and there’s nothing she can do to fend off these guilty feelings. Of course she knows nothing about the bracelet—she never visits the guests’ bedrooms—but she is keeper of the keys and it is entirely possible that Avril slyly picked her time before going up to a room which she knew to be empty and stole the bracelet as simply as that.

This guilty reaction has dogged poor Avril since early childhood, when her mother would try to catch her out, probably concerned that Avril might follow in her brother’s wicked footsteps.

She blames the whole thing on Graham, and Kirsty and Bernie agree that her brother has been her undoing.

For instance:

‘Have you made your bed yet, Avril?’

And if Avril said yes her mother would fly to check on her daughter’s truthfulness.

‘Did you brush your teeth this morning?’

She would check the wetness of the toothbrush.

‘Have you posted those letters I gave you?’

She would rush to Avril’s blazer pocket.

On the few occasions when Avril was found to be lying, as all sane children do in order to get out of trouble, she was severely punished with a hard smack on the leg, or an evening shut in her bedroom, no supper, or having her favourite toy confiscated in a kind of religious ceremony with her mother as lord high cardinal and herself as grievous sinner. And various other unpleasant consequences.

By the time she went to school Avril was not only secretive but had guilt in gold-leaf lettering printed upon her soul. And because she was plump and gormless and looked so obviously guilty, she was the one singled out and questioned, and hence she discovered confession to be the simplest way out. If she put her hand up and took the blame the awful tension that made her breathless would be over all the sooner. Compared to her mother’s punishments, the school’s were reliably tame—lines or detention, nothing to fear. But by owning up to so much she created her own vicious circle. School reports were worryingly bad and provoked Mrs Stott to chastise again. Although her school work was always pleasing: ‘Avril tries hard.’

‘Do you know anything about this, Avril?’ asks Moira Stokes, on spying a perfect victim, puce and quivering in a corner. ‘I must say I would be most surprised.’

‘No,’ says Avril firmly, determined never again to volunteer for self-sacrifice. She has grown up since those days. She has friends. She has a job. She no longer misses her mother. ‘Of course I don’t know anything about it. Why are you asking me anyway?’

‘Because you look so upset.’

Avril is not at school now. Nor is she a child in her mother’s house. She is an independent young lady with a job and a future, fast and accurate. And what is more, she has just played an essential part in producing an almost perfect manuscript for Kirsty’s wonderful book, something she can be duly proud of. If Magdalene had been hounded in this kind of way, she would have put her inquisitors firmly in their place and she would have sliced their balls off.

‘Right,’ says the beady-eyed Moira Stokes, twenty-four hours later. ‘On your heads be it. Unfortunately nobody has, as yet, come forward with any information regarding the Miss Lewises’ bracelet, and so Mr Derek would like to see you one by one in his office before he informs the local police.’

‘Shame!’ shouts out Jimmy Smithers from the kitchens.

‘No way,’ adds Jacky Butcher.

‘Get stuffed.’

‘What’s your problem? Call the cops. Nobody here gives a damn.’

Moira Stokes looks shocked and her pointed chin turns up at the end like the striking tail of a scorpion. ‘Are you saying you refuse to help Mr Derek to deal with this matter sensitively?’

‘Too right.’

‘It’s a bloody nerve.’

‘Why don’t you search their room?’

All heads turn towards meek Avril, who has never spoken in public before, and now she looks racked, crucified, as if the bracelet in question is deep in her own pocket.

‘We are not about to start questioning the good faith of our guests,’ snaps Mrs Stokes, taken aback.

But everyone else supports Avril.

‘It’s not the good faith, it’s the sodding senility.’

‘They’re nasty-minded hags,’ says Bernie.

‘Nothing but trouble. Same every year.’

‘They’re stinking bitches, both of them,’ says Avril, swallowing. Something has control of her mouth… she has never used such words before, but the release she feels is exhilarating.

‘I have no further option than to inform Mr Derek,’ says Mrs Stokes, drawing herself up in tight disgust, the same way she tightens her pelvic muscles, ‘that you all refuse, point-blank, to assist him in this distressing matter. I know what his response will be. Mr Derek will now have no option but to go to the police with all the unpleasantness that will involve.’

‘You were ace in there, Avril.’

‘Well, you’d think they’d have searched the room before they came blaming us.’

A bubble of pleasure bursts inside her. Avril is thrilled by her little rebellion. Contrary to her normal melancholy she feels good and strong, and when the letter arrives the next day, typed and addressed to Kirsty Hoskins, she knows immediately who it’s from. The only other letters Kirsty gets are the bulky ones addressed in large, untidy writing, which always include notes from her children.

Avril sorts out the mail, separating that of the staff to take to the recreation room where there’s a box for the purpose. She can hardly contain her excitement. Could it be possible that their novel will interest someone from London? An agent?

‘
It is from them
,’ cries Kirsty, excitement replacing the strain on her face as she unfolds the precious document.

‘Read it out,’ gasps Avril, breathing heavily over her shoulder.

‘
Dear Kirsty, (may I?)
’

‘It must be good news if she wants to use first name terms.’

‘
I read the first five chapters of your novel with great pleasure and I am certain we can find somewhere for it
.’

‘I don’t believe it!’ Avril screams fatly as Kirsty looks up in surprise.

‘
Have you completed any more chapters? If so, perhaps I could see them, or, even better, would it be possible for us to meet next time you are in London
…?’ Hah! That’s a laugh.’ Kirsty pauses. ‘When would I be in London? Anyone would think I visited regularly. What for, d’you think. The theatre, a shopping spree, important meetings, or just passing through to the airport?’

‘Go on with it,’ Avril urges.

‘
I did try to telephone you on Monday afternoon but was unable to get through
…’

‘Typical,’ says Avril. ‘That must have been Mrs Danvers.’

‘…
so l wondered if you could phone or fax me; we should meet as soon as possible. All best wishes, Candice Love
.’

‘Wow!’ says Avril. ‘Ring now!’

‘Hang on.’ Kirsty’s reluctance is a surprise. ‘Let me think about this.’

‘What is there to think about? They like our book!’

‘But my name has to keep out of this.’

‘What do you mean?’

Kirsty pales and lowers her voice. ‘Trevor, of course! I’m a fool. Why did I use my own name?’

‘What you need is a
nom de plume
.’

Kirsty shakes her head and looks suddenly small and defeated. ‘I can’t go to London anyway, I don’t have that sort of money.’ These seem like excuses.

‘We’d find the money,’ Avril enthuses.

‘What the hell’s the matter with me? I could never have a book published under my name.’ How could she make such an obvious blunder? ‘Somehow Trevor would hear about it, he’d trace me, track me down… and anyway, Avril, what’s happened to you? Where are your strict moral values now? You seem quite happy to get started on this sordid deception.’

‘Sod the moral values,’ says Avril, quite unlike herself. And then her face lights up with hope. ‘Bernie would do it,’ she cries, pop-eyed.

Kirsty frowns and stares at Avril. Avril has a mad glint in her eye… a ferocious glint… a worrying glint. ‘Bernie could do what?’

‘Bernie could pretend to be you. Go up to London. Use her name. Bernie would kill to do something like that.’

‘But it’s all too late,’ says Kirsty, suddenly needing Avril’s new energy. ‘I’ve already sent the manuscript up under my own name. They’re going to think it’s peculiar if we start using another.’