Sister: A Novel Part 26

He must have seen it in the paper. I was right about that photo of me, my arm around Kasia, being in all the newspapers.

'Yes. The next morning I played her the lullaby on the answerphone. But she just a.s.sumed it was a friend who'd been unknowingly horribly tactless.'

'Did you tell her what you thought?'

'No, I didn't want to upset her for no reason. She'd already told me, when I first met her, that she didn't even know Tess was frightened, let alone who may have been frightening her. It was stupid of me to play her the lullaby.'

But if I'd seen her as fully my equal would I have told her what I thought? Would I have wanted company in this, someone to share it with? But by the time I'd spent that night listening to her snore, by the time I'd woken her with a cup of tea and cooked her a decent breakfast, I'd decided my role was to look after her. Protect her.

'And then the answerphone tape ran on,' I continue. 'There was a message from a woman called Hattie, who I didn't know, and hadn't thought important. But Kasia recognised her, and told me she was at the "Mummies with disasters" clinic with her and Tess. She a.s.sumed that Hattie had had her baby but didn't expect her to call. She's never been close to Hattie; it was Tess who always organised their get-togethers. She didn't have a phone number for Hattie but she did have her address.'

I went to the address that Kasia had given me, which makes it sound easy but without a car and a rudimentary knowledge of public transport, I found getting anywhere stressful and time-consuming. Kasia had stayed behind, too self-conscious about her bruised face to go out. She thought I was going to see one of your old friends out of sentiment and I didn't correct her.

I arrived at a pretty house in Chiswick and felt a little awkward as I rang the bell. I hadn't been able to phone ahead and wasn't even sure if Hattie would be there. A Filipino nanny, with a blond toddler in her arms, answered the door. She seemed very shy, not meeting my eye.

'Beatrice?' she asked.

I was perplexed about how she could know who I was.

She must have seen my confusion. 'I'm Hattie, a friend of Tess's. We met at her funeral, very briefly, shook hands.'

There had been a long line of people queuing to see me and Mum, a cruel parody of a wedding reception receiving line, all waiting their turn to say sorry - so many sorries as if it was all their faults that you had died. I had just wanted it to be over with, not to be the cause of the queue, and didn't have the emotional capacity to take in new names or faces.

Kasia hadn't told me that Hattie was Filipino; there was no reason why she should I suppose. But it wasn't just Hattie's nationality that surprised me, it was also her age. While you and Kasia are young, one foot still in girlhood, Hattie is a woman nearing forty. And she was wearing a wedding ring.

Hattie held the door open for me. Her manner demure, deferential even. 'Please, come in.'

I followed her into the house and strained to hear the sound of a baby, but could only hear a children's TV programme from the sitting room. I watched her as she settled the blond toddler in front of Thomas the Tank Engine, and remembered that you had told me about a Filipino friend of yours who worked as a nanny, but I hadn't listened to her name, irritated by another of your trendy liberal friends.h.i.+ps (a Filipino nanny for heaven's sake!).

'I've got a few questions I'd like to ask you, is that OK?'

'Yes, but I have to pick up his brother at twelve. Do you mind if I . . .' She gestured to the ironing board and laundry basket in the kitchen.

'Of course not.'

She seemed so pa.s.sively accepting of me just appearing on her doorstep and asking her questions. I followed her into the kitchen and noticed her flimsy cheap dress. It was cold out but her shoes were old plastic flip-flops.

'Kasia Lewski told me that your baby was on the cystic fibrosis trial?' I asked.

'Yes.'

'Do you and your husband both carry the gene for cystic fibrosis?'

'Clearly.'

The tone was sharp edged from behind her meek facade. She didn't meet my eye and I thought I must have misheard.

'Have you been tested for the cystic fibrosis gene in the past?' I asked.

'I have a child with CF.'

'I'm sorry.'

'He lives with his grandmother and father. My daughter is also with them. But she doesn't have cystic fibrosis.'

Both Hattie and her husband were clearly CF carriers so my theory about Gene-Med treating healthy babies wasn't going to be backed up by her. Unless, 'Your husband, he's still in the Philippines?'

'Yes.'

I started to imagine various scenarios as to how a very poor, very shy Filipino woman may become pregnant when her husband is back in the Philippines.

'Are you a live-in nanny?' I asked and I still don't know if it was a cra.s.s attempt at small talk or if I was hinting that the dad of the house was the father of her baby.

'Yes. I live here. Georgina likes having me here when Mr Bevan is away.'

I noticed that the mum was 'Georgina' but the father 'Mr Bevan'.

'It would be nicer for you to live out?' I asked, back on my Mr Bevan-as-dad scenario. I'm not quite sure what I imagined, a sudden confession along the lines of 'Oh yes, and then the master of the house won't be able to have his wicked way with me at nights.'

'I am happy here. Georgina's a very kind-hearted person. She's my friend.'

I instantly discounted that; friends.h.i.+p means some kind of parity between two people.

'And Mr Bevan?'

'I don't know him very well. He's away a lot on business.'

No further info from going down that track. I watched her as she carried on ironing, meticulous and perfect, and thought how Georgina's friends must envy her.

'You're sure that the father of your baby carries the cystic fibrosis gene?'

'I told you. My son has cystic fibrosis.' The sharp tone I'd heard earlier was back and unmistakable. 'I see you because you are Tess's sister,' she continued. 'A courtesy. Not for you to question me like this. What business is it of yours?'

I realised my impression of her had been completely false. I'd thought her eyes didn't meet mine out of shyness, but she had been carefully guarding the territory of herself. She wasn't pa.s.sively shy but fiercely private.

'I'm sorry. But the thing is, I'm not sure if the cystic fibrosis trial is legitimate, which is why I want to know if both you and your baby's father carry the CF gene.'

'You think I can understand a long English word like "legitimate"?'

'Yes. I think I've patronised you enough, actually.'

She turned, almost smiling, and it was like looking at a completely different woman. I could imagine now that Georgina, whoever she was, really was friends with her.

'The trial is legitimate. It cured the baby. But my child in the Philippines cannot be cured. It's too late for him.'

She still wasn't telling me who the dad was. I'd have to revisit it, when hopefully she'd trust me with the answer.

'Can I ask you another question?' She nodded. 'Were you paid to take part in the trial?'

'Yes. Three hundred pounds. I need to collect Barnaby from nursery school now.'

There were so many questions I still hadn't asked and I felt panicked that I wouldn't have another opportunity. She went into the sitting room and coaxed the toddler away from the television.

'Can I see you again?' I asked.

'I'm babysitting next Tuesday. They'll be out from eight. You can come then if you like.'

'Thank you, I-'

She motioned at me to be quiet, the toddler in her arms, protecting him from a possibly unsuitable conversation.

'When I first met Hattie I thought she wasn't anything like Tess or Kasia,' I say. 'She was a different age, different nationality, had a different occupation. But her clothes were cheap, like Tess's and Kasia's, and I realised that one thing they had in common, as well as being on the cystic fibrosis trial at St Anne's, was that they were all poor.'

'You found that significant?' asks Mr Wright.

'I thought they were more likely to be seen as financially persuadable or open to bribery. I also realised that with Hattie's husband in the Philippines all three were effectively single.'

'What about Kasia's boyfriend, Michael Flanagan?'

'At the time Kasia was put on the trial he had already left her. When he did come back they were only together for a few weeks. I thought that whoever was behind this was deliberately choosing women on their own because there would be no one who would look too hard, care too much. He was exploiting what he thought was an isolated vulnerability.'

Mr Wright is about to say something kind, but I don't want to go off on a guilt/rea.s.surance tangent so I briskly keep going.

'I'd seen footage on TV and at Gene-Med of babies who had been on the trial, and there were fathers as well as mothers very much in the picture. I wondered if it was only at St Anne's Hospital that the women were single. If it was only at St Anne's that something terrible was happening.'

Hattie had carefully settled the blond toddler into the pushchair with drink and teddy. She set the alarm and picked up her keys. I had been looking for signs of a young baby but there had been nothing - no sound of crying, no baby monitor, no basket of nappies. She herself had said nothing. Now she was leaving the house and it was clear that there could be no baby upstairs somewhere. I was on the doorstep, halfway out, before I could muster the nerve or the callousness to ask the question, 'Your baby . . . ?'

Her voice was quiet so that the toddler couldn't hear.

'He died.'

Mr Wright has had to go to a lunch meeting, so I've come outside. The park is rain-washed after yesterday, the gra.s.s s.h.i.+ny green and the crocuses jewel-coloured. I'd rather talk to you out here, where colours can be bright even without suns.h.i.+ne. Hattie told you that her baby had died, after an emergency caesarean. But did she also tell you that she had to have a hysterectomy, her womb taken out? I'm not sure what the people out here think of my weeping, probably that I'm a little mad. But when she told me I didn't even pause for a thought about her baby, let alone weep, totally focused instead on the implications.

I get back to the CPS offices and continue with my statement to Mr Wright, giving bald facts stripped of their emotional resonance.

'Hattie told me her baby died of a heart condition. Xavier had died of some type of kidney failure. I was sure that the deaths of the two babies were linked and that they must be related to the trial at St Anne's.'

'Did you have any idea what the link may be?'

'No. I didn't understand what was going on. Previously, I'd had a neat theory that well babies were being put on a fake trial; that it was a huge fraud for profit. But now two of the babies had died, it didn't make any sense.'

Mr Wright's secretary interrupts with antihistamine tablets for Mr Wright. She asks me if I'd like one too, misinterpreting the reason for my red-rimmed eyes. I realise that I've misjudged her, not so much for her attempted thoughtfulness towards me but for her initiative at trying to reprieve her daffodils. She leaves the room and we continue.

'I phoned Professor Rosen, who was still on his lecture tour in the States. I left a message on his mobile asking him what the h.e.l.l was going on.'

I wondered if his pride in being invited to all those Ivy League universities was to distract from his real purpose. Was he running away, worried that something would be unearthed?

'You didn't talk to the police again?' asks Mr Wright. The log he has of my calls with the police clearly shows a gap at this point.

'No. DI Haines already thought me irrational and ridiculous, which had been pretty much my own fault. I needed to get some "heavier counter-balancing facts" before I went back to the police.'

Poor Christina, I don't suppose that when she ended her condolence letter with the statutory 'if there's anything I can do please don't hesitate to ask' that I would take her up on it, twice. I phoned her on her mobile and told her about Hattie's baby. She was at work and sounded briskly efficient.

'Was there a post-mortem?' she asked.

'No. Hattie told me that she didn't want one.'

I heard the sound of a bleep in the background and Christina talking to someone. Sounding hara.s.sed, she said she'd have to call me back that evening, when she wasn't on duty.

In the meantime I decided to go and see Mum. It was the twelfth of March and I knew it would be hard for her.

20.

I'd always sent flowers to Mum on Leo's birthday and phoned her; thoughtfulness at a distance. And I'd always made sure there would be an end to the phone call - a meeting I had to get to, a conference call that had to be taken - creating a barrier against any potential emotional outpouring. But there had never been any outpouring, just a little awkwardness as emotions were bitten back and pa.s.sed off as the judder of a transatlantic phone call.

I'd already bought Leo a card, but at Liverpool Street Station I bought a bunch of cornflowers for you, wild and vividly blue. As the florist wrapped them, I remembered Kasia telling me that I should lay flowers at the toilets building for you, which she'd done weeks before. She was uncharacteristically insistent, and thought that Mum would find it 'healing' too. But I knew Mum found this modern expression of grief - all those floral shrines by zebra crossings and up lamp-posts and on roadside verges - unsettling and bizarre. Flowers should be laid where you were buried, not where you died. Besides I would do my d.a.m.nedest to make sure Mum never saw the toilets building. Me too for that matter. I never wanted to go near that building again. So I'd told Kasia that I'd rather plant something beautiful in your garden; look after it; watch it as it grew and flourished. And, like Mum, lay flowers on your grave.

I walked the half-mile from Little Hadston station to the church, and saw Mum in the graveyard. I told you about my lunch with her just a few days ago, jumping ahead in the chronology of the story so I could rea.s.sure you and be fair to her. So you already know how she changed after you died; how she became again the mum of babyhood in the rustling dressing gown, smelling of face cream and rea.s.surance in the dark. Warm and loving, she's also become worryingly vulnerable. It was at your funeral that she changed. It wasn't a gradual process but horrifyingly fast, her silent scream as you were lowered into the wet mud shattering all of her character artifices, leaving the core of her exposed. And in that shattering moment, her fiction around your death disintegrated. She knew, as I did, that you would never have killed yourself. And that violent knowledge leached the strength from her spine and stripped the colour from her hair.

But every time I saw her, so old and grey now, it was newly shocking.

'Mum?'

She turned and I saw tears on her face. She hugged me tightly and pressed her face against my shoulder. I felt her tears through my s.h.i.+rt. She pulled away, trying to laugh. 'Shouldn't use you as a hanky, should I?'

'That's fine, any time.'

She stroked my hair. 'All that hair. It needs a cut.'

'I know.'

I put my arm around her.

Dad had gone back to France, with no promises of phone calls or visits; honest enough now not to make promises he couldn't keep. I know that I am loved by him but that he won't be present in my everyday life. So, practically, Mum and I only have each other now. It makes the other one more precious and also not enough. We have to try to fill not only our own boots but other people's too - yours, Leo's, Dad's. We have to expand at the moment we feel the most shrunk.

I put my cornflowers on your grave, which I hadn't seen since the day of your burial. And as I looked at the earth heaped above you and Xavier, I thought that this is what it all meant - the visits to the police, the hospital, the internet searches, the questioning and querying and suspicions and accusations - this is what it came down to: you covered with suffocating mud away from light, air, life, love.

I turned to Leo's grave, and put down my card, an Action Man one, that I think an eight-year-old would like. I've never added years to him. Mum had already put on a wrapped-up present, which she'd told me was a remote-control helicopter.

'How did you know he had cystic fibrosis?' I asked.

She told me once that she knew he had it before he showed any signs of illness, but neither she nor Dad knew they were carriers, so how did she know to get him tested? My mind had become accustomed to asking questions, even at Leo's graveside, even on what should have been his birthday.