The Couple at No. 9(93)

Then I go into the little bedroom at the back, the room that will belong to the baby. The room that used to be Mum’s when she was Lolly. Whoever rented it from Gran obviously never used it, except as a junk room. I go to the fireplace, remembering our mad dash around the house looking for the evidence that Davies was certain we had. I touch the warm wood. It’s like the surround in Mum’s room – pine and engraved with delicate flowers. It’s covered with dust. I’m surprised Mum didn’t come in here to clean. I go to move towards the window but as I do so I trip on a nail sticking out of the floorboards and grab hold of the corner of the mantelpiece to stop myself falling. I right myself, my hand still on the mantelpiece, when I notice it’s come away slightly at the wall. I peer closer. My heart quickening in excitement, I pull it. There’s something hidden beneath it. Like a hole where the fireplace meets the brick. It’s concealed by the mantelpiece but I can tell something’s there. Something hidden. ‘Tom!’ I yell. ‘Tom!’

I hear his feet thundering on the bare staircase and he darts into the room, breathless. ‘What is it? Are you okay? Is it the baby?’

‘I think I’ve found where Gran may have hidden the evidence,’ I say. ‘Quick, help me lift this up.’

He rushes to my side and together we lift the mantelpiece. It comes away from the rest of the fireplace to reveal a hole in the chimney breast. He carefully lowers it to the floor, coughing as the action dislodges dust. In the hole a brown envelope is covered with cobwebs. I reach in for it, not caring about spiders or bugs or any of the things I’d usually be worried about. ‘I can’t believe we’ve found it,’ I say, looking at Tom in shock, holding the A4 envelope as though it’s the Holy Grail. And then my vision blurs. ‘I wish Mum was here.’ I’m suddenly nervous of what this might reveal about either Gran or the real Rose.

I drop to my knees and Tom does the same so that we are both sitting on the rough floorboards. I take out the contents of the envelope. It’s a leatherbound folder, with clear sleeves. I tentatively open it and gasp. Naked women. Photos taken with what looks like a Polaroid camera. The women all look like they’re asleep. Some look like they have hospital gowns on, pulled up to reveal their naked bodies. My stomach heaves. ‘Oh, God,’ I say, handing it to Tom.

He recoils. ‘What the hell is this? It looks like each photo has a number.’ He snaps the folder shut. ‘Look, here, on the front of this folder. It has the name of a clinic.’

I lean over to see. In gold writing are the words Fernhill Fertility Clinic. ‘Do you think this is Victor’s clinic? Is this something to do with what Theo found in his father’s study? Remember all those women? Some were pregnant. Shit. Tom, do you think the real Rose went to this clinic?’

‘Artificial insemination?’

‘It makes sense, doesn’t it? Gran and the real Rose were lovers. Maybe Rose and Victor never were in a relationship …’ The implication of this suddenly hits me.

‘You need to call Theo,’ says Tom, gravely.

‘This must be the evidence that Davies was on about. It’s not about the murders after all. But about something else. Something to do with Victor’s clinic.’

‘How did the real Rose get hold of it?’

I shake my head. So much still doesn’t make sense. Why would someone take photos of these naked women? Are they consensual? Somehow I sense not. It looks too clinical, the women asleep … or anaesthetized, legs in stirrups as though mid-procedure.

I put my hand to my heart. It’s racing underneath my dressing-gown. And then I notice something else inside the envelope. A smaller one. White. Sealed. The type you’d send a letter in. I turn it over. On the front are just two words in flowery writing: For Lolly.





54


Rose



November 1980


And so, it seemed, he’d found us. I suppose it was inevitable. We couldn’t hide for ever, you and I, Lolly. It was only a matter of time.

Nobody messed with Victor Carmichael and got away with it.

But I was blissfully unaware, going into November. Things had settled down between Daphne and me. I still woke in the night sometimes, my pyjamas clinging to my sweaty body, my heart racing after dreaming of killing Neil. And when that happened Daphne was by my side, my angel, soothing and shushing me until I fell back to sleep. I had come to terms with the fact that the guilt would live beside me for ever, my shadow. And that was the price I had to pay.

I still had my doubts about Daphne, of course I did. But I loved her. And I wanted to believe in her. And, for the most part, I did. Since the Joel incident she never gave me any reason to doubt her. Even if she did lie sometimes, about silly things, like how she’d got things for ‘free’ from the farm – or more particularly, from Sean – nothing worth a lot of money, items like eggs and milk, but still it didn’t sit well with me.

One day, she rang me from the farm asking if I’d pick her up in my Morris Marina. She had been given a couple of leftover boxes of tiles, she said. She looked so joyful when she got to the car, carrying them. That weekend she knocked the ugly brown tiles from around the cooker and sink and I watched, in awe, as she fastened the new ones to the wall. ‘What?’ She’d laughed when she saw the amazement on my face. ‘You wouldn’t believe the skills I acquired in prison.’