Our Dark Secret Read online

  For Derick, with love

  Contents

  THE BEGINNING

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgements

  THE BEGINNING

  1978

  I met Rachel in the summer of 1978, the year before they found the first body.

  I was cycling home from Spar when my front wheel hit a stone. Flying over the handlebars, I landed on my back. Spilled milk and broken eggs. Dazed, I thought I was dead. I closed my eyes and then, when I opened them again, first one and then the other, seriously wondering if the next creature I saw would be an angel or a devil, there was a girl, staring down at me, red hair haloed by August light.

  Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Despite my almost fourteen years of sins and misdemeanours and the fact that most of my teachers thought I was stupid and my own mother said I was obtuse, I’d made it up to heaven.

  The girl blinked down at me, chewing gum. ‘You all right?’

  I grinned and then, I suppose since I was smiling, she shrugged and walked away, leaving me with a daydream.

  That summer, the girl remained the girl. Occasionally I glimpsed her mooching along by the river, chewing her nails, bored and beautiful; walking about town, hands in the pockets of her grass-green dress, staring at shopfronts, or drinking from cans through a straw.

  Alone, yet not lonely, she intrigued me. At the same time, I was certain she’d never be interested in someone like me.

  I had no idea that one day we’d connect, like planets spinning and colliding in a starry constellation. That one day our fates would entwine.

  1

  1999

  The news comes in the morning.

  I’m on the bus, driving through the villages, queuing on the toll bridge, speeding alongside the fields and crawling into Oxford.

  It’s early, but still … that August heat.

  A few more minutes; I concentrate on my novel. I’m reading a paperback: a 1950s detective story I picked out from Oxfam. Dog-eared with a lurid cover, it’s not the kind of book I used to choose, but it’s light and stops me thinking.

  I scratch my head, turn a page and then my mobile rings.

  People around me narrow their eyes as though I’ve done something terribly wrong. Usually it’s my size that affronts them. Sometimes it’s my clothes: mid-calf skirts and buttoned-up blouses. (I’ve never known how to dress.) Now it’s the way my phone cuts through their silence, disturbing their crosswords and their naps.

  I flip open the phone.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ a voice says.

  It’s Mrs Joseph, my former next-door neighbour, keeping me posted with local news. Normally she calls at the start of the month, on the first or maybe on the second, and always in the evening. Calling now, mid-month, early morning, knocks me out of kilter.

  ‘They’ve found a body.’

  Pause. Blink. Take a breath.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ she repeats in my ear. Her voice is strange, oddly excited, and I know it’s because of all the stories she’s ever told me, that this, she believes, will shock me the most. ‘Did you hear me? A body – a skeleton actually, I think – at the back of the orchard. Imagine that? Do you remember that strip of wasteland?’

  Another breath and yes, of course I remember the wasteland. My den was there – a hidden dip surrounded by bushes and trees that blocked out the light. It was like a tomb and even now I can picture Rachel that first time she came, head tilted as she listened, as fragments of light slid through the leaves and brightened her long, red hair. She had an aura, I used to think – a halo of holy light.

  It was a tomb and yet, she felt safe, she said, cocooned amongst the leaves and the soft, damp soil. No one would find us unless they were searching. It would be like digging up a grave. And I remember how I’d wanted to protect her from the demons and devils that hid in the trees and beneath the earth and inside the hearts of people. Sometimes you found them in the most unlikely of places. And sometimes they didn’t even bother to hide.

  ‘A skeleton,’ Mrs Joseph repeats. ‘Can you imagine? The builders found it.’

  My heart thuds.

  ‘Elizabeth? Are you there?’

  I grip the phone, force myself to speak. ‘I thought they’d stopped trying.’ My voice sounds far away, like a forgotten echo. Around me, the light has faded, people’s faces blanking over. ‘The construction company, I mean. I thought they’d decided not to buy the wasteland.’

  ‘No. They never stopped trying. And we never gave up fighting either, but there was only so much we could do.’

  Mouth dry, I moisten my lips. At the end of the line, I can imagine Mrs Joseph, gesticulating as she speaks, bangles jangling, bright scarves flying. She’s wearing orange or purple, and she’s pacing, multi-tasking – dishing out Trill to the birds, or sardines to her brother, or taking a tray of muffins from the oven.

  Always doing something for somebody else. That’s Mrs Joseph. Volunteering, campaigning, and in those days, back when I was young, it was all about stopping the houses from creeping across the countryside, preventing the construction company from buying more land. So much wrangling about who that stretch of wasteland had belonged to. A sentimental rich woman who had moved to Australia, it turned out, and a son who’d wanted to sell but had been forbidden. Well, I suppose his mother must have died.

  ‘Sold at last,’ Mrs Joseph confirms. ‘And when they flattened the wasteland, they bulldozed the hollow and hey presto.’ She pauses dramatically.

  The hollow. The dip, she means. My den.

  I open my mouth. I’ve been expecting this moment for most of my life, but now it’s here, the words don’t come.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ she says. ‘Can you imagine? A skeleton. Hardly covered in leaves and dirt; it’s a miracle it wasn’t found before. You’d think it would have been, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I manage. ‘Wasn’t it cordoned off as private property?’

  ‘Yes, it was, but still, children don’t take notice of that kind of thing, or dogs for that matter.’

  True. It’s sheer luck no one has found the body until now, or maybe it’s coincidence. People turning away at the very last moment, taking a different path, ignoring their dog rummaging in the bushes – small decisions, huge effects.

  ‘Do they know what happened?’ I say at last.

  ‘They’re talking about murder.’

  ‘Murder.’ I whisper the word and listen to how it sounds.

  ‘Do you think it might be connected, you know, with the other one?’ She drops her voice. ‘Think about it, Elizabeth, think about it. This skeleton – this body – it might have been there when you children were playing, when us adults were picking apples, when those people were walking their dogs. Do you remember Mr Evans?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was my other next-door neighbour, had a dog called Nip.

  ‘Well, you know he died not long ago. Hea
rt attack. I told you, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you did.’ I was sorry when I heard that. I really was. I can see him still, hunched, crooked and old, commenting on my weight. In the end, though, he was my champion. My saint. Nip too.

  ‘When did they get the go-ahead?’

  ‘The builders? Last week. That’s all. And then this morning when I heard about the skeleton on the local news, I thought I must phone Elizabeth. I must tell you.’

  Hot off Mrs Joseph’s press. She always was the first to know the news, always keen to share with anyone who would listen. And still she can’t resist phoning, keeping me abreast, which of course I’ve encouraged over all these years because I knew that one day she’d say something like this. Besides, once upon a time, Mrs Joseph was my champion too, and I haven’t forgotten that.

  Now, though, I need time to think.

  I make my excuses, saying I’m sorry, but it’s my stop and I must get off. Reluctantly she says goodbye, asks if she can call me later, and when she’s gone, I shut my phone and picture her pausing, staring down at her own phone momentarily and then dialling a different number, speaking to another person and starting the spiel again. They’ve found a body …

  The bus stops near the train station. Crowds emerge, groups of people flustered by the heat; more appear from buses and side roads, on foot or by bike.

  I take off my gabardine, fold it neatly over my arm, hitch my bag more firmly onto my shoulder and walk, thighs chafing, along with the commuters, through the dry streets and towards the canal with its motionless water, slick with slime, and wine bottles from some late-night party or other littering its banks.

  There’s a smell coming from the canal – raw and acrid, made worse by the heat. What is it? It reminds me of something. Metal rusting? I can’t recall. Crossing the bridge, I glance down and see a dead gull spread-eagled on the bank, guts spilling. Poor bird, savaged by some creature. What? A cat, an urban fox, one of those devils I used to imagine amongst the trees?

  Dizzy, I lean against the rail. People continue, dashing past me, eyes fixed on their goal of being on time. No one speaks to me or asks if I’m all right. I’m invisible. I always have been. Glances slide across me like warm butter, or chocolate melting in the midday sun.

  Sugar. I need sugar. It’s a habit of mine when I’m not quite right. In my bag, I find a half-melted Twix. I eat fast and root around for the currant bun I know is in there. The bun is stale, but I force it down. The world stops spinning, but the past comes back.

  Automatically I think of the beginning, calming myself, ordering my thoughts. Rachel. That day when I fell off my bike and was entranced by her beauty. Or Melissa. I smile vaguely at the memory of her. Melissa always did exaggerate. She was petulant and whining. Nothing like her sister. Nothing like Rachel.

  But perhaps it’s not with a person at all, where this story begins. Perhaps it’s with a place. The dip in the wasteland at the back of the orchard. Yes, perhaps the story starts there: where the trees dance a circle, where brambles and branches block out the sun. It’s dusk. We’re talking, voices hushed, faces turned up to the glittery light. And she lays her head on my lap and she closes her glorious eyes and her skin is damp and stained with salty tears and her hair is a twine weaving amongst the leaves.

  Two friends – or so I liked to think: Rachel and Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Rachel. The crazy girls. The abandoned girls. The lost girls. We had so many connections, although really there was only one that made a difference.

  That day when the world changed forever. When I became somebody else. When I metamorphosed from weak Elizabeth, ignored Elizabeth, inconsequential Elizabeth whom nobody wanted; when I became loyal, required, depended on, loved even. That, I suppose, is what I can’t let go.

  But I cannot predict what will happen now they have a skeleton in the morgue. Now they know where else to search. I have no idea how long they will take to identify the who and the how, to trace it back. But they will. There’s no doubt about that, is there?

  A war-scarred pigeon with scraggy feathers and missing claws drops in front of me, struts and pecks at the crumbs of my bun. I throw it some more and then suddenly, I remember the stench of the canal. Thick. Acrid. The smell of rusting iron. Or blood.

  I look at my watch. It’s half past eight.

  I need to come up with a plan. I should have thought of one years ago.

  How many other people have lived like this? Knowing a terrible truth, waiting for someone to find out. The blue light flashing outside their window. The heavy fist pounding on their door. They wait, ready with their story. Yet no one comes to demand they speak. The hours turn into days and then weeks. Months. Years. No one comes. No one asks. No one knows.

  I’ll give myself a day to think things through, to get my story straight, to remember the details, write it all down, at least inside my head. A kind of confession. Or a justification. One more day of normality, and then I’ll be ready.

  2

  1969

  I was trouble from the start.

  According to the story, I made my mother groan and writhe and gasp in agony until they had to split her open to get me out. Even then I lay in the cradle, a limp lump of flesh, while my parents prepared for the worst.

  But I survived.

  Elizabeth Constance Valentine.

  I sometimes think my mother gave me the longest name to prolong my life with letters.

  Mum made a living from looking after other people’s children, which meant there was a daily horde that invaded our terraced home. She called them her charges and complained so often I was mystified as to why she had chosen the job.

  In the end, I decided that she liked the idea of losing me in a crowd. A bit like diluting squash.

  Every morning, she came down to breakfast clipped and groomed. She wore cigarette trousers – gingham or black – a white shirt and clip-on earrings. Her hair was curly dark brown, secured by an Alice band, or a scarf when she was going out.

  The charges burst through the door any time after half past eight. Mum spent most of the day feeding them, cleaning them, scrubbing their sticky fingers. The rest of the time, she spent devising quiet activities and shushing them when they made too much noise. Dad worked as a bouncer in a nightclub so he slept during the day. And me? I was left sitting on the edges watching and waiting, drawing pictures of empty houses.

  Lesson one: I didn’t belong in a crowd.

  The children who came regularly were my age, which in 1969 was four or five. They were a ramshackle lot of boys and one girl nicknamed Lovely Amanda who had shiny blonde hair and big blue eyes and a pointed face like an elf.

  I wanted to be friends and so I invented games: tea parties with our dolls, mums and dads, sisters. But every time I settled down to play she would wrinkle her perfect nose and walk off, preferring the boys.

  ‘Here she comes,’ people said when Mum was marching us to the park. ‘Lovely Amanda!’

  I hoped they’d call me lovely as well, but they never did. Instead, Mum would draw herself up, straighten her back and say, ‘This is Elizabeth. Isn’t she pretty too?’ And I was happy with that because Mum was defending me, complimenting me. (The rest of the time I was foolish or nosey. Maladroit when she took evening classes in French.)

  I put Mum’s loyalty down to the fact that blood was thicker than water, which, along with always be prepared, was one of Dad’s favourite sayings.

  Dad had a maxim for every aspect of life and whenever he heard about the people who slighted me, his face darkened and he roamed the house spouting his sayings and berating bloody small towns and bloody small-town attitudes.

  Eventually, for the sake of peace, Mum avoided telling him, but I could never keep quiet, and then he would whisk me off to Maggie’s Cafe for chocolate eclairs and lemonade, which I drank through a crazy straw. There I would relate the details and by the time Dad had finished raging, gone outside to calm down and have a smoke, Maggie would be ready to keep me company.

&nb
sp; Maggie was young, early twenties, a newcomer. One day, she had appeared from nowhere with a rucksack on her back and a set of rusty keys and had taken over the cafe which had been boarded up for years. According to my parents, with her honey-coloured hair, long, colourful dresses and feminist views, she had caused quite a stir.

  People said she was a mystic, a white witch, an activist who had once been arrested in some London demonstration or other and kept in a cell overnight. So many stories which seemed like a mass of contradictions – I didn’t care about any of them. Maggie gave me crazy straws and free cakes and entertained me with folklore and fairy tales, devils and demons. It was Maggie who first told the tale of the Devil hiding in the heart of the orchard – a story which, in a way, turned out to be true.

  We lived in a small part of Chelmsford, more like a village in those days than a suburb.

  The main street sliced through the middle.

  On one side was Maggie’s Cafe with the orchard nestling beyond and a couple of fields which sometimes had cows and sometimes had sheep; sometimes sprouted wheat and then sprouted patches of new-build houses. The other side was built-up. There was an estate of identical homes with dormer windows and pocket-sized gardens, a Spar, a newsagent’s and a park.

  The rest of the houses and shops, The Dog and Duck, the schools, the police station and the church were scattered along the network of roads that radiated out from the main street. Our house stood at the end of a lane amongst a cluster of homes that looked like alms houses and backed onto fields.

  Locals prided themselves on the fact that the area was safe.

  There was the odd dispute about the size of a neighbour’s hedge, of course; the occasional disappearance of tools from a shed or chickens from their coop; the more frequent incidents of a husband slapping his wife (although generally people said that didn’t count, so long as it happened behind closed doors) and once the theft of a corset from a washing line.

  So, when the body turned up at the back of the barn in the orchard, it was no surprise that the foundations of the neighbourhood shook for quite some time.