The Last Thing She Told Me Read online

  I’m the one who got you pregnant and I’m going to take full responsibility for this. I will come with you to Leeds to tell your parents and I will make it very clear to them that I am not going anywhere. Maybe they won’t react as badly as you think. I’ll ask your father for permission to marry you and then they’ll understand that this is serious. We can be married in a few weeks, Betty. How about that? I know the others all laugh at me for being an optimist but I don’t see any other way to be.

  Those guys who didn’t come back last month, Betty, mostly from Goose but Thunderbird too. Their lives are over but mine is not. How can I feel anything other than grateful for that? So dry your tears. We have nothing to cry about and plenty to celebrate. This time next year we will be married with a baby and living in Canada. I know you might think this is crazy but I’m excited. I can’t wait for our baby to be born. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. This is the beginning, Betty. It is not the end.

  Yours always,

  William

  18

  As soon as DI Freeman had left, I popped my head around the kitchen door. ‘Have you got a minute?’ I asked James, gesturing towards the hallway and trying to ignore the quizzical look on Ruby’s face.

  He came out and shut the door behind him.

  ‘The police say the baby was Mum’s,’ I whispered.

  He stared at me, his face screwing up in bewilderment. ‘How could it be? That makes no sense.’

  ‘I need to go and see her. The police want her to give a DNA sample and they might arrest her if she doesn’t do it voluntarily.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said James, running his fingers through his hair. ‘This goes from bad to worse.’

  ‘She obviously hasn’t been telling me the truth but I’m going to get it out of her. Can you hold the fort here? I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘Fine. Go easy on her, mind. We don’t know what’s gone on here.’

  I drove to Mum’s on automatic pilot, still trying to process what I’d been told. One part of me was still in denial, convinced they’d made a mistake, got the results mixed up. But another part was starting to see that it made sense. It certainly went a long way to explaining why Mum had reacted in the way she did when I first called the police.

  I still didn’t understand why a baby had ended up buried in next door’s garden, though.

  I turned off the main road into the small terraced street that used to be my home. I started to do my usual thing of regressing into a teenager, then reminded myself that this time I was the one who had questions to ask of my parent and that she was the one with explaining to do.

  Mum’s car was parked outside her house. I pulled up right behind it. My way of saying that I knew she was at home and there was no point trying to pretend otherwise. I got out and approached the front door, trying to look more composed than I felt inside. I knocked: two single raps rather than a rat-a-tat-tat. The occasion appeared to call for some degree of solemnity. I waited. I wasn’t sure whether Mum had looked out of the window and seen my car or adopted the policy of not opening the door to anyone.

  I opened the letterbox and crouched to call through. ‘It’s me. Please let me in. I need to speak to you urgently.’

  There was a brief pause before I heard footsteps coming towards the door and someone fumbling with the handle. The one thing I hadn’t been prepared for was the sight that greeted me. Mum’s face was gaunt and drawn and she appeared to have lost weight. There were grey shadows under her eyes and her face was devoid of make-up, even the usual slick of plum-coloured lipstick.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Are you all right? You’re not ill?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Can I come in?’ I asked.

  She opened the door just wide enough for me to squeeze inside. We stood awkwardly in the hallway. It was hard to know how to start and I didn’t want to scare her off straight away in case she threw me out.

  ‘Are the girls all right?’ she asked.

  ‘A bit unsettled with everything that’s going on, Ruby especially. We’ve accepted an offer on our house, so we’ll be moving up to Grandma’s in a few months.’

  Mum stared at me. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘We haven’t got much choice. I’m being made redundant at Christmas. We can’t afford to have two houses.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘About your job.’

  ‘Least of my worries at the moment. What with everything that’s happened.’

  ‘I tried to warn you. You wouldn’t listen. Not even when I—’ She stopped abruptly, a mixture of guilt and frustration in her eyes.

  ‘Was it you?’ I asked. ‘The notes?’

  She fiddled with a button on her cardigan. ‘I left a note on your windscreen, when your car was outside Mum’s.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘That scared the life out of me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘I was just trying to make you stop.’

  ‘What about the others? My car being vandalised? The bones?’

  She frowned. ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t do anything else. What bones are you talking about?’

  ‘Pig bones, left on our doorstep. The girls were completely freaked out by them.’

  ‘That’s horrible. I would never do that.’

  ‘Well, maybe you know who might have, then. Because you clearly know more about this whole thing than you’ve been letting on.’

  Mum was wringing her hands. Her body was contorted, as if some fierce battle was going on inside her. ‘I’ve had photographers outside here, you know. I haven’t been able to go to work for the past two days.’

  ‘You should have told me. I could have asked the police to help.’

  ‘They can’t stop this, Nicola. Once you take the lid off something, you can’t put it back on again.’

  ‘You know what more there is to come out, don’t you?’

  It was a moment or two before she replied. ‘I know that people have secrets and that sometimes it’s better that those things remain a secret.’

  ‘Did you know about Grandma’s babies?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you suspected?’

  There was a long pause before she answered. ‘She told me once that she lived there before she got married.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The house belonged to her great-aunt Aggie.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Aggie left it to Grandma in her will.’

  ‘Well, Mum lived there for a while with her. Towards the end of the war.’

  I stared at her. The puzzle had finally started to take shape. ‘I thought she was a Land Girl.’

  ‘She was. This was after that,’ Mum continued. ‘She never said why. She never spoke about what happened. But I do remember the way she talked to the fairy statues. She used to tell them everything.’

  She’d had the babies there. She must have. She did have a wartime sweetheart after all. One who was the father of her babies. Babies that had brought so much shame on her family, she had been sent away. I needed to go back to Grandma’s house. There would be something there, I was sure of it. Something to lead me to who he was. It would still be only one piece of the jigsaw, though. And having got Mum to open up this much, I now needed to ask her the most difficult thing. The reason I had come.

  I walked to the end of the hall, so I wasn’t facing her. ‘The police came to see me earlier,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t know anything more. I don’t want anything to do with it.’

  ‘No, not about that. About the other baby.’

  I turned.

  Mum immediately averted her eyes and thrust one hand deep into her cardigan pocket. ‘It’s next door. It’s nothing to do with your grandma.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t Grandma’s baby. They’ve done DNA test
s. It had a different mother and father from the other babies.’

  Mum’s entire face had turned a shade of grey. I could see her chest heaving under her cardigan. I had to go on, though. I had to get to the truth. ‘They said it had the same mother as me.’

  I saw Mum swallow. She grasped the banister with one hand. I took a few steps towards her and lowered my voice, not that anyone else could hear. ‘They need you to give a DNA sample,’ I said.

  Mum shut her eyes and shook her head.

  ‘If you don’t do it voluntarily, they’ll arrest you.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They’ve got it wrong. It’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Whatever happened,’ I said, ‘it’s going to come out. It’s better that you’re honest about it.’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ she shouted. Her hands were shaking. Even the one inside her cardigan pocket.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I whispered. ‘Whatever it is, you can tell me. We need to get this sorted.’

  ‘You wouldn’t listen, would you?’ she said. ‘So bloody headstrong. Just like I was.’

  ‘If it was an accident, you need to say.’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident. I think you’d better go now.’

  She started walking towards the door.

  ‘Come on, Mum,’ I said. ‘Please help us out here. Ruby’s getting grief at school about this. People are saying horrible stuff on social media. Poor Andrea’s got the media camped outside her house.’

  ‘How dare you?’ she said. ‘Trying to make out I’ve brought this on everyone. It’s your fault. All of this is your fault. You’re the one who had to stick your oar in.’ She opened the door and stood there waiting.

  ‘As horrible as all this is, I did the right thing,’ I said, walking slowly towards her. ‘And I think you know that.’

  ‘Get out,’ she screamed. ‘And you can tell the police they’re not welcome here and I will not be giving a DNA sample to anyone.’

  I stepped down onto the pavement and she slammed the door behind me. All that anger. It scared me. Where had it come from?

  *

  I drove straight home, aware that James had to get to work. I wanted answers, though. And I needed someone to help me find them. James was loading his van as I pulled up outside.

  ‘I’m sorry I took so long,’ I said, as I clambered out of the car. ‘Mum was hard work.’

  ‘She’s still not playing ball?’

  ‘No. Told me to get out and leave her alone. She looked awful, though. She’s lost weight. Said she hasn’t been able to go to work because she’s had photographers outside. Whatever it is she’s hiding, it’s eating away at her. She did tell me one thing, though. She said Grandma lived in the house with her great-aunt Aggie towards the end of the war. I think that was when she had the babies. She must have been sent away because she was pregnant.’

  ‘How the hell are you going to prove that, though?’

  ‘I’m going to call John. See if Olive can shed any light on it. And I’m going back to Grandma’s house to have another dig around.’

  ‘Ruby won’t want to go.’

  ‘Well, she’ll have to. She can keep Maisie company in the garden.’

  ‘But Maisie’s got a play date with Emily this morning. She’s been talking about it since you left.’

  ‘Oh, shit, I forgot about that. Well, I’ll sort something out, don’t worry.’

  ‘Are you going to be OK?’ asked James.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘You go. It’s not as if things can get any worse.’

  *

  The house was quiet. Maisie was in the front room watching TV and Ruby must have gone back up to her room. I wasn’t going to leave Ruby on her own. What if whoever had left the bones came back? They might even be watching the house. I needed to know she would be safe. I went into the kitchen and shut the door before I got my phone out. It rang just once before he answered.

  ‘Hi, John,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Not so bad, pet.’

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you but I wondered if you’d be able to ask your mum another question for me.’

  He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘She’s been a bit chesty but she took a turn for the worst yesterday. She’s in bed. They think she might have pneumonia.’

  ‘Oh, John, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘No, thanks. Hopefully she’ll pull through. She’s a tough old bird, you know. I’m afraid she won’t be up to answering any questions at the moment, mind.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘What were you going to ask?’

  ‘It’s just that I’ve found out Grandma lived at the house with her great-aunt Aggie for a while, towards the end of the war. I was going to ask your mum if she remembered her talking about it.’

  ‘She’s never said owt to me about it but I’ll ask her – when she gets better, that is.’

  ‘That would be great. But, really, don’t worry about it right now.’

  ‘You sound a bit stressed, pet. Has there been any more news from police? About the latest one, I mean.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell him about Mum. That wouldn’t be fair to her. But I did want to talk to him. He was family, after all.

  ‘It wasn’t Grandma’s baby, this one,’ I said. ‘Makes it all a bit more complicated than we thought.’

  ‘And they don’t know whose it were?’

  ‘No. Although they do think it was buried more recently. Maybe forty or fifty years ago.’

  There was silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘I still think Grandma might have known about it. That would explain the statue. I reckon the answers are somewhere in the pile of stuff at Grandma’s house. I’m desperate to get up there to have a rummage but Ruby’s had a bit of a meltdown about moving there. You know what teenagers can be like.’

  ‘Well, if you need a break she’s always welcome to come here. They both are.’

  ‘Oh, John, that’s lovely of you but I couldn’t, not at the moment. Not with your mum poorly.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. It’d give me summat to take my mind off it. Nowt I can do here except sit and twiddle my thumbs. She’s sleeping most of the time, see. No point me sitting there all day when she’s asleep.’

  I hadn’t wanted to ask, but as he was offering, maybe having Ruby around would help him.

  ‘If you’re sure, John. It would just be Ruby today. Maisie’s got a play date with a friend.’

  ‘That’d be fine. She’ll perk me up a bit.’

  ‘Thank you so much. I’ll pop her up to you in about an hour.’

  ‘Right you are, then.’

  *

  Maisie was singing in the back of the car. I hadn’t told her I was taking Ruby to John’s in case she complained about missing out, and I hadn’t told Ruby where she was going in case she refused to go. That was how things had to be at the moment.

  Maisie bounded out of the car and into Emily’s house, like an excited puppy, without a backward glance.

  I turned the car around and drove back in the direction I’d come, then up to Heptonstall.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘You’re going to Uncle John’s for the morning.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got stuff to do at Grandma’s house.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘So why did the police come this morning?’

  ‘They were updating me about the investigation.’

  ‘Have they found out more about Grandma’s babies?’

  ‘No. This was about the bones in Andrea’s garden.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with us?’

  I eyed her in the rear-view mirror. She wasn’t going to let m
e get away with saying nothing. I had to give her some morsel to chew on.

  ‘They were telling me the baby wasn’t Grandma’s but it might still be connected to our family.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It could be a distant relative. They’re going to do some more tests. Don’t say anything to Uncle John, though.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘His mum’s been taken ill. He’s got enough on his plate to worry about. Anyway, it’s all supposed to be secret at the moment.’

  ‘So why did you tell me?’

  ‘Because you’re my daughter and you have a right to know what’s going on.’

  Ruby said nothing but I could see the slightest upturn to her mouth in the rear-view mirror.

  *

  When John opened the door he looked anxious. The worry about Olive was clearly taking its toll.

  ‘Special delivery,’ I said. ‘She’s come to cheer you up and take your mind off things.’

  ‘Eh-up, Ruby,’ he said.

  Ruby gave a little smile. I knew she was only being polite and I was grateful to her for not complaining about being dumped like this.

  ‘Be good,’ I said. ‘See you later.’

  She nodded and walked into the house.

  ‘Thanks again, John,’ I said. ‘And if you get a call from the home and have to go, ring me straight away and I’ll come and get her.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  ‘I’ll see you about one.’

  ‘I’ll have her all day if you want. She’s no trouble.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sure we can find summat to do. Is there owt on at the picture house?’

  There was, although I suspected she might balk at the idea of going with John, in case other kids from school were there. But there again, it would be a long day for her otherwise.

  ‘She wants to see Murder on the Orient Express. She’s read the book, you see. Bit of an Agatha Christie fan.’

  ‘I’ll take her then. It’ll make a change. Been years since I went to the pictures.’

  ‘Here,’ I said, fishing a twenty-pound note out of my purse and offering it to him.