The Last Thing She Told Me Read online

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  I had just finished greenifying Maisie’s face, ready for trick-or-treating, when the call came. As soon as I saw the name on the screen I jumped up and went into the front room, shutting the door behind me.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Miss Hallstead, it’s DI Freeman. I sent my scenes of crime officers up to the property next door to your grandmother’s. After an initial investigation, I’m sorry to inform you they have found what appear to be bones belonging to a human infant under the statue.’

  I screwed up my eyes, hoping the image in my head of the baby’s skull I’d found would go away. It didn’t: it grew even clearer.

  ‘Right,’ I said, in a barely audible whisper.

  ‘I’m on my way up there now. Obviously, at this stage, we can’t say whether there is any link with the other babies but we’ll be testing the remains found and will keep you informed of the results.’

  ‘Right,’ I said again. It was all I could say. I was numb inside. I was too busy desperately trying to make sense of it all to be able to string sentences together.

  ‘I appreciate this must have come as a shock, but if you have any questions later, please do let me know.’

  ‘Thanks. Bye.’

  I put the phone down. There were so many questions that I didn’t know where to start. What the hell had happened up there? Why would another of Grandma’s babies be buried next door? And if it wasn’t Grandma’s baby, whose was it?

  I opened the door. Maisie was still admiring her witch’s costume and green make-up in the hallway mirror. She turned around to face me. ‘Pretend to throw water over me,’ she said.

  ‘Not now, Maisie.’

  ‘Go on! I want to do my melting witch.’

  ‘Maisie, I said not now.’ The sharpness in my voice caught me by surprise, as much as it did her. She looked down at the floor forlornly. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, mustering a smile. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind. Here you go, take that, you wicked witch.’

  I threw a pretend bucket of water over Maisie, who dutifully melted onto the floor in a heap, just as James arrived home from work.

  ‘You see,’ he said, looking at Maisie, ‘if I’d known, I could have rung the bell and come in singing, “Ding, dong, the witch it dead.”’

  ‘You’re funny, Daddy,’ said Maisie, jumping up and running to hug him.

  ‘Hey, watch the green,’ he said. ‘These are my best plumbing clothes.’

  Maisie laughed and threw herself at him regardless. James, aware that I wasn’t laughing, looked at me.

  I shook my head and gestured towards Maisie.

  ‘Right, Witchy,’ said James, taking hold of Maisie. ‘Why don’t you go and show off your outfit to that sister of yours and tell her it’s time to get ready for trick-or-treating.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, ‘Ruby’s had all her hair cut off so she doesn’t look like Ruby at all.’

  James turned back to me. ‘Has she really?’

  ‘It’s a long bob. She asked for it at the hairdresser’s. I wasn’t up to arguing with her about it.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked. ‘Have you had another note?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Worse than that. They’ve found another baby’s bones in Andrea’s garden, next door to Grandma’s.’

  James stared at me. ‘What? How? I don’t understand.’

  ‘We went to Grandma’s house this morning. Maisie wanted to have a look around. Only her flying fairy thing flew into next door’s garden, and when we went to get it, there was a fairy statue, very similar to Grandma’s. I had a bad feeling about it so I told Andrea and persuaded her to let me call the police. They just rang me back to say they’d found another set of baby bones under it.’

  ‘Fucking hell. Do you think it was hers?’

  ‘Maybe, although I’ve no idea why it was next door. They’re going to do DNA tests.’

  ‘It’ll be on the news again. I bet the media will be crawling all over the place. God knows what they’ll make of this.’

  ‘Ruby’s already had one meltdown today, saying she never wants to live there, and I haven’t even told her they’ve found more bones.’

  Maisie came back downstairs. ‘Ruby says she’s not going and no one can make her because she’s thirteen and she can do what she wants.’

  I groaned.

  ‘Right,’ said James. ‘Go back to your room and I’ll be up in a minute to sort it out.’

  Maisie did as she was told.

  ‘I’ve got to go and warn Andrea before the media arrive. And I’m not leaving Ruby at home on her own, not with everything that’s been going on.’

  ‘I’ll sort the girls and take them out. You go now.’

  ‘But Ruby—’

  ‘She’ll be fine. I’ll deal with it. Go.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I picked up my bag, took my coat from the peg in the hall and left before I changed my mind.

  It was dark and drizzly as I drove up to Pecket Well. Every now and then my headlights picked out a little cluster of children walking along the pavement in an assortment of ghost, witch or zombie costumes. One or two were carrying pumpkin lanterns, another swirling a torch beam up into the night sky.

  I pulled up outside Andrea’s. There didn’t appear to be any TV cameras or photographers, although I suspected it was just a matter of time before they arrived. I got out of the car. The familiar figure of PC Hyde was stationed outside Andrea’s front door. The equally familiar police tape ran across her side entrance. Beyond it, I could see a white tent at the bottom of the garden. As I got out, two police officers emerged from the tent in hooded white overalls and walked up towards the tape. For a moment I pictured them knocking on the door and calling, ‘Trick or treat!’ But as much as I wished they were Halloween pranksters, there was nothing funny about this. Nothing funny at all.

  I walked up the path. The pumpkin we had seen earlier on the doorstep was still there but it hadn’t been lit. PC Hyde nodded at me.

  ‘Is it possible for me to speak to Andrea?’ I asked.

  ‘Knock and see,’ he said.

  I heard footsteps coming towards the door, though they were more timid than they had been earlier. The door opened a fraction and Andrea’s head appeared. Her face was pale and drawn.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I feel awful about this. I had no idea, not until I saw the statue. I wish . . .’ I trailed off. I didn’t know what I wished, other than that none of this had ever happened.

  ‘I’d better go,’ said Andrea. ‘I don’t want the kids—’

  ‘No, of course. I understand. I’m so sorry.’

  She shut the door. I turned away and saw several neighbours standing in their gardens or on the street, watching – the elderly man across the road, a couple of kids on bikes, who were in front of Grandma’s house. I wanted to tell them all to piss off. That it was none of their bloody business. But it was: it was everybody’s business. The whole village was involved.

  ‘You’d better get going,’ said PC Hyde, nodding across the road to where a Calendar TV van had just pulled up.

  I hurried to my car, trying hard to ignore the staring faces. I got in, struggling to fasten the seatbelt because my hands were shaking so much. A group of little girls in Halloween costumes came around the corner. One of them screamed as she saw the men in white overalls. I started the engine as the mum with them took one look at the police van and shepherded them back in the direction they’d come from. I glanced across at Grandma’s house, shrouded in the darkness. I had no idea who she was any more. Maybe she wasn’t the person I’d thought I knew. Perhaps it was all an elaborate façade to cover up some horrible thing she’d been involved with.

  ‘What happened, Grandma?’ I whispered, as I pulled away. ‘What the h
ell went on here?’

  11 August 1944

  Dear Betty,

  Why didn’t you come this morning? I waited for more than an hour and afterwards I went to look for you but I couldn’t see you anywhere. I am hoping it was because of the King’s visit, because you were too busy with the preparations. I didn’t take my eyes off you during the parade, not even when the King and Queen walked right past me. I couldn’t tell you what the Queen or Princess Elizabeth were wearing because I was too busy looking at you.

  But you didn’t look at me, Betty. Not once. It was as if you couldn’t bear to lay eyes on me. If I’ve said or done something wrong, please tell me. You know how I feel about you. You’re the one person who has kept me going through this war. I couldn’t bear it if I’ve done something to upset you.

  If someone’s found out about us and you’re in trouble, you must tell me. I don’t want you to have to deal with anything on your own. And if they have found out, well, there’s no law against doing what we’ve been doing, Betty. I love you and that’s all there is to it.

  Whatever has happened, I want to face it with you. I know I’ve told you this a thousand times but you must understand that this is a big deal for me too and I didn’t enter into it lightly. I know you’re only seventeen and, under different circumstances, maybe we would have dated for a couple of years and got married before anything happened between us. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Every time I fly off on a raid, I don’t know if I’ll be coming back. So many guys haven’t. I can’t even remember all their names, there have been that many lost. So, yes, maybe we jumped the gun a little but, hell, when you don’t know if you’ll see the love of your life tomorrow, what’s a guy supposed to do?

  And that’s what you are, Betty. The love of my life. As soon as this damn war is over, I’m going to tell the whole world about you and me.

  But right now I need to see you. I need to know that you’re OK and that everything’s fine between us. Already, I can’t bear the thought of flying off tonight not knowing. Meet me tomorrow morning Betty, the usual place and time. And if you can’t make it please get a note to me and let me know what’s going on.

  I miss you so much. I miss stroking your soft skin, hearing your laughter, like a little tinkle of sunshine. I felt like shouting out to the King today as he walked past. I wanted to say, ‘Look at my Betty! Isn’t she beautiful?’ I have seen a queen and a princess today and neither of them compares to you, my English rose. Please come to me tomorrow, Betty. I’ll be waiting for you.

  Yours always,

  William

  16

  I lay in bed, waiting for it to get light and dreading what a new day would bring. I should have listened to my mum. As much as it pained me to think it, let alone utter it out loud, that was the only conclusion I could come to. I had meddled in something I didn’t understand, something I understood less and less as time went on. I shouldn’t have stuck my oar in. I should have let Maisie keep her bit of fairy bone and left it at that.

  But then I would have been going against Grandma’s wishes. And I was still sure she’d wanted this to come out. She wouldn’t have said anything otherwise, wouldn’t have wasted her last breath on something she could have kept to herself. Although whether she would have wanted her family to pay so heavy a price for it was another matter.

  I swung my legs out of bed and sat on the edge. James was still asleep. He looked peaceful, and I envied him that. I couldn’t imagine ever being able to sleep peacefully again. I padded silently across the floorboards, took my dressing-gown from the back of the door and left the room.

  The bathroom was even colder than normal, the heating not on yet. I turned the radio on, aware that it was two minutes to seven but feeling the need to listen to the news. To know what everyone else would be waking up to. It was the lead item on BBC Radio Leeds. ‘Police have discovered what are believed to be the remains of an infant in a back garden in Pecket Well, next door to the property where the remains of two babies were discovered three weeks ago. It is not known at this stage whether the two discoveries are linked.’

  They went to a reporter outside Andrea’s house: he talked about how the village was in shock. How the discovery of a third set of bones had left everyone reeling and people were now dreading what would be dug up next. They cut to an interview with DCI Langsdale. He was obviously taking it very seriously too, saying that the original investigation had been reopened and asking anyone with information to come forward. It felt surreal, like some kind of out-of-body experience. How could they be talking about Grandma? Yet they were.

  I turned the radio off, crept downstairs, put the TV on and waited for the local news. I picked up my phone and went on to Twitter while I waited. I searched for Pecket Well: a stream of tweets came up. People were calling it the baby-killer village. Someone said Grandma must have been part of a cult, that something sinister had being going on and the babies must have been sacrificed.

  I threw the phone on to the sofa as the local TV news came on. They had a reporter outside Andrea’s house as well. I imagined her kids cowering in their bedrooms, afraid to open the curtains. Not only was our family’s dirty linen being washed in public, it was now taking place in somebody else’s back yard.

  The reporter interviewed two neighbours, an elderly man and a middle-aged woman, both of whom I recognised, although I didn’t know their names. They said the usual things: Grandma had seemed a lovely lady who had always smiled and said hello to them and they’d never thought anything like this would happen in their village. They clearly had her down as a mass-murderer now. It seemed wrong to hear Grandma spoken about like that when she wasn’t there to defend herself. I should be on TV telling people not to believe any of it, protecting her reputation. I was pathetic, cowering at home behind the curtains instead of being out there, telling everyone it was all some dreadful misunderstanding.

  My phone beeped with a text. I picked it up and saw straight away that it was from Mum. I told you not to meddle. I pressed the call button, hoping she’d be so annoyed that she would answer. She didn’t. It went to voicemail. I left a message in the shakiest of voices.

  ‘I didn’t know it was going to lead to this, did I? And if you did, then you should have told me. If you know what happened, please tell me. I need to get to the truth.’

  I waited for a few minutes in case she was composing a text. Nothing came through. She was a storm who had blown herself out.

  I went back upstairs and crept into our bedroom, grabbing some knickers and a bra out of the chest of drawers and slipping them on. I opened the wardrobe and reached for my jeans but knocked a wooden coat hanger, sending it clattering to the floor. James stirred and squinted at me in the dark as I struggled into my jeans.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going up to Grandma’s. It’s all over the news. They’re making out she’s some kind of serial killer.’

  James sat up in bed and looked at the alarm clock. ‘Jesus, Nic, it’s ten past seven.’

  ‘I don’t care. Someone needs to go and defend her.’

  ‘That’s crazy! You don’t want to go on TV.’

  ‘She’s being slagged off on social media. People are saying she was in a cult and all sorts of crap.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what they say. You know the truth.’

  ‘Do I? I don’t know what I do know any more. I’ve got no idea what went on up there. But someone needs to stick up for her.’

  I pulled on a jumper and headed for the door. I heard James scrambling out of bed behind me and following me down the stairs.

  ‘Nic, you can’t just go off like this. I’ve got to go to work at eight.’

  ‘I’ll be back by then.’

  I reached the bottom of the stairs and pulled on my boots.

  ‘You’ll make it worse – the girls don’t want this. All their friends at school will see
it. Ruby will have a meltdown.’

  ‘My family’s reputation is being trashed. I’m not having it.’

  ‘I’ll go, then.’

  ‘She’s not your family, is she? She’s got no one else to defend her. Mum’s hardly going to come riding to her rescue.’

  I yanked open the door, propelled by a combination of guilt and frustration. I couldn’t move, though. The legs that had been about to storm out of the house were rendered useless by the sight that greeted me.

  There was half a skull on the front doorstep. What looked like a pig’s skull with one of the ears still attached. Pig rib bones had been arranged underneath it, with larger bones laid out to look like limbs. I screamed. James reached out and grabbed my elbow.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s not fucking OK, is it?’

  I pulled away and sank to the floor, sobbing. James crouched down to comfort me. I was crying big, noisy tears. Which was probably why neither of us heard Maisie approach. The first thing we heard was her scream.

  ‘There’s a head! There’s a piggy head!’

  James leapt up and shut the door, then grabbed her. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, we didn’t want you to see that.’

  ‘Why is it there?’

  ‘It’s just some meat bones someone’s left,’ he said.

  ‘Why did they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably some silly trick-or-treat thing.’

  ‘But that’s not how you do it.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied.

  ‘So why is Mummy crying?’ she asked.

  Ruby appeared at the top of the stairs, her hair flattened against her head. ‘What’s happened?’ she said. ‘Why is everyone screaming?’

  James went to say something but I stopped him. This was my mess. I should be the one to clear it up. ‘Someone’s left some pig bones on our doorstep.’

  ‘There’s a skull,’ said Maisie, her voice still high and frantic, ‘half a piggy skull, and they’ve made the other bones look like a skeleton.’