Familiar Strangers Page 21

  ‘Becca Wall?’ I recognize the voice, the deep considerate tone. ‘Becca, it’s Barry from Oakridge.’

  ‘Hi, Barry.’ I’m about to tell him I’m fine now, and that he’s very good for checking up on me, when he says,

  ‘I shouldn’t be doing this, but I got your number out of the client contacts book and, well…’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Becca, I found something, you need to get down here.’

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  I didn’t think I’d ever be back at Oakridge but here I am, parking my car in its usual spot, heading for the door. A chilly breeze is brewing up into the storm that’s forecast. Barry asked me to wait until after eight, said there’d be fewer eyes watching him. It felt like I was waiting for days, mind racing, wondering what Barry had discovered that was so important he wanted me to see it for myself. Something on the tapes, maybe? Or something in Dr. Reilly’s room? All I’m hoping is that I haven’t come all the way out here to find out something I already know.

  I see Barry behind the reception desk as I approach. Seeing me coming, he stands and walks to the door.

  ‘Becca,’ he says, pulling the door open. Is it still Becca?’

  ‘Becca’s fine.’

  I walk with him to the reception area where I expect the big reveal to unfold but I’ve forgotten how Barry works. Forgotten his motto. The slower you go, the quicker you get there.

  ‘How are you doing, Becca?’ he says, walking through reception and on towards the corridors where Dr. Reilly’s office is. He continues to make small talk, asking about the traffic, commenting on the cold night. But reading my stress levels, which must be clearly on display, he changes his tone to tell me why he called me here.

  ‘When the body was taken away this afternoon,’ he says, ‘I was called in to supervise the clearing out of Nancy’s room. It’s part of the job, making sure everything goes back to the rightful owners.’

  We’re arriving at the entrance to the corridor that leads to Dr. Reilly’s room, but he passes by, taking me further on down the corridor instead, stopping to push open a door with a ‘Staff Only’ sign. He ushers me inside.

  ‘I often lend a hand, packing things or wrapping stuff while the rest of the staff are disinfecting everything,’ he says.

  I look around the room. There are boxes and boxes on wooden shelves covering the walls on both sides of the room. Every box has a name, ward location and a date scribbled on the side of it.

  ‘Sometimes they never come back to collect their loved one’s bits and pieces,’ he says, pushing a small ladder out of his way. ‘But we hold them here, just in case, for five years, then they’re removed,’

  I want to tell him to hurry, that I can’t stand being in a room full of dead people’s things. But I don’t want to sound ungrateful, so I keep my mouth shut and listen.

  ‘There’s some good stuff in here,’ he says, bending over to pull out a box from the lowest shelf. ‘Here it is.’

  He plonks a cardboard box marked ‘Nancy Wall, Room 26’ on to a countertop. Then, taking his keys out of his pocket, he chooses what looks like a small knife and slices open the lid.

  ‘What is it?’ I say.

  ‘I’ll let you see for yourself,’ he says, standing back from the counter so I can move in closer. I look at him, nervous, before lifting the cardboard flap and glancing inside.

  At first I don’t notice anything out of the ordinary, just a bundle of folded nightgowns. The smell is familiar when I pull them out and place them on the table. It’s the smell of Mom. Not the fresh flowery scent that used to radiate from her when she lived at home, but the sanitized version I’ve become accustomed to since she entered this place. While lifting a second pile of clothes out of the box, something catches my eye. It’s small and black, lying on top of a bunch of towels.

  ‘I thought you should know,’ Barry says, as I turn to look at him.

  I’m afraid to touch it.

  ‘It’s one of those untraceable ones. When you told me earlier that’s what was used to contact the dead girl, I thought you should know. After all, Nancy Wall had no need for a cell phone.’

  He’s right. Mom never owned a cell phone even when she was capable of using one. ‘If someone needs to talk to me they can use the house phone,’ she’d say when we tried to coax her into getting one. This cell phone did not belong to her. Someone left it here – no, hid it here. But who would do that? I think I know, but I’m afraid to accept the obvious answer.

  ‘I don’t think I should touch it, Barry.’

  He nods his head like I’ve just answered a tough question correctly.

  ‘Do you want to take it with you?’ he says.

  I think about this for a moment. Should I call the cops? But what will they do? Send it to be fingerprinted and waste another few weeks waiting for the results. No, I can’t wait that long for an answer. I need to know who hid this phone in Mom’s room.

  ‘I’ll take it with me, try to find out what I can before taking it to the cops.’

  Barry goes to a nearby sink and removes two plastic gloves from a box hanging on the wall. Then he places the cell phone in a plastic bag and hands it to me. He knows, and I know, that there are only two people who could have put this here. Dad or Danny. Mom never had any other visitors except me.

  ‘Did you open it?’

  ‘No. I tried, but the battery’s dead.’

  When we pack up the box, I take it in my arms and leave the room. This is all that’s left of Nancy Wall now. Just things. Things she couldn’t take with her.

  ‘I’ll tell the cops I found it when I searched the box at home, Barry. I won’t tell them you had anything to do with this.’ He nods like he’s not particularly bothered whether I do or not, then takes me back out to the reception area.

  The thought of driving back to the city scares me. Everything scares me now. I should have let Jeff drive me out here when he offered, but my newly acquired independence decided it would be best to go on my own, for Barry’s sake. Arriving with someone else in tow might have unnerved him, made him less willing to reveal his discovery. Fuck independence. Now I’d give anything not to be alone.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  The cold wind seems to have disappeared. Or else I can’t feel anymore. My hands are busy carrying the box so I bite my lip to make sure I can feel. Blood seeps into my mouth. It tastes of steel. Am I made of steel now? I hope so.

  Driving home in the darkness the black cell phone cripples my mind. It’s as if I’ve found the murder weapon. I know I should bring it to Turner, but I want to see what I can find out myself first, and I want to be sure it’s the phone that made the fateful call to Katie Collins. If it is, it means Danny or Dad arranged to meet her in Treehill Park that night. The night she was killed.

  * * *

  Jeff rushes to meet me when I come through the door. Taking the box from my hands, he sets it down on the coffee table.

  ‘What is it?’ he says. Flopping down on the couch, I watch his face while taking the cell phone from my pocket.

  ‘This.’

  ‘A cell phone?’ he says, looking disappointed. Then he realizes what the cell phone represents. ‘You mean…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Christ, Becca, what are you doing with it?’

  ‘It was found in Mom’s room, at the back of her bedside locker, when they were cleaning it out.’

  ‘Take it to the cops, Becca.’ Stomping away from me, he says, ‘You know what this means, this is too fucking serious, you’ve got to protect yourself.’

  ‘Do you have a charger that fits this?’ I say, walking towards the kitchen cupboards.

  ‘Becca, don’t you hear what I’m saying to you? You can’t play games. You need to do the right thing.’

  Anger starts to boil up inside me. This is my life, Louise Johnson’s life. Doing the right thing was for Becca, for the pushover. I’m taking charge now.

  ‘I’m going to find out if this is the cell
that contacted Katie Collins and if so, who sent the text.’

  Jeff places his hand on my arm.

  ‘Don’t touch me.’ I shout, pulling away from him.

  ‘But Becca…’

  ‘And stop calling me Becca!’

  Everything stops. With his mouth open, Jeff stands frozen to the spot. In my hand the cell sits like a grenade ready to be dropped into the dugout where I’m hiding. Hiding from the truth. My mother is not my mother, my father is not my father, Danny is not my brother. One of them is a killer. My sister is dead. Becca Wall is dead. All this and more, and Jeff wants me to go to the cops.

  After a moment of silence, I look up at him.

  ‘I will go to the cops, Jeff, but give me a day, just a day. Turner won’t know how long I’ve had the phone, and with the funeral and everything… Please Jeff, I promise I’ll go then. Just one day.’

  He turns to look directly into my eyes.

  ‘I think you’re mad,’ he says. ‘Completely mad.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘So how are you going to find out who sent the text?’

  Considering his question, I walk to the sofa and sit down. Whoever made contact with Katie Collins had to have had her number. The number was on the note, the note she left at Dad’s house. If Dad had it, it’s long gone by now, I’ve searched that house from top to bottom. But if Danny was the one who found the note, then there’s only one thing for it. I have to search Danny’s house. But how will I do that without them knowing?

  ‘I have to find that note, Jeff.’

  ‘And how will you do that?

  ‘I’ll just keep looking. It has to be somewhere.’

  Exhaling like he’s trying to blow the situation away, Jeff stares at the wall. ‘I guess,’ he says, in a defeated tone, like he’s fed up with me, fed up with all this.

  ‘Look, Jeff, if you want me to move out I will. I don’t want to drag you any further into this.’

  Shaking his head, he walks towards his bedroom door.

  ‘No, it’s okay, Becca. Or Louise, whatever. I’m just exhausted. I need to get some sleep. Stay, go, do what you want.’

  * * *

  Outside the window, grey clouds rush across the sky creating shadows and shapes. A man in a cloak, a wolf, a devil, a… a Danny.

  The room feels empty again, just me and my secrets. I can hear Jeff’s bed creak as he crawls beneath the duvet. On the wall behind my head, a clock tick-tocks, reminding me I’m running out of time. In the middle of the coffee table the cell phone sits, the grenade, the pin still in place. It’s hard to ignore the damage it will do when I pull that pin.

  How will I even get into Danny’ house without him knowing? Has Dad a key? I don’t think so, and I doubt I’d be able to find it, or even recognize it if he did. Think, think.

  The wake. They’ll all be at my Dad’s tomorrow night for Mom’s wake. With Joanna’s parents living in Florida, Joanna’s grandma is coming to babysit Liam, to enable both Joanna and Danny to attend.

  That’s it. That’s when I’ll get in to Danny’s house. During the wake.

  Now, how do I get past doddery old Mrs. Cooper?

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  It takes a few minutes for Mrs. Cooper to answer the door. At one point I think she isn’t going to, that I’m going to have to come up with a new plan to get into Danny’s, but then the light from the back room streams out into the hallway. She’s on her way.

  Earlier, I decided to show up at the wake for a little while, not that I wanted to but the less attention I draw to myself the better. Joanna was serving tea and drinks, keeping the show on the road. I stood in the corner of the room, feigning heartbreak, shaking the hands of a few relatives when Danny approached.

  ‘Thanks for showing up, Becca,’ he said. ‘I know it must be hard for you.’

  ‘I’m doing it for Dad,’ I replied, wondering how the hell he’d know if it was hard for me or not.

  When the room got crowded I snuck out the back door and walked the short distance to Danny’s house.

  * * *

  Mrs. Cooper pushes her face up against the glass pane. Her grey hair is standing on her head like a bird’s nest, her skin covered in face powder like a loaf ready to go into the oven. Wrinkles circle her squinting, blue eyes as she strains to see who’s there.

  ‘It’s me, Mrs. Cooper.’ I wave, smiling.

  Her feeble hand struggles to unlock the door but eventually she succeeds.

  ‘Becca,’ she says. ‘Come in.’

  Mrs. Cooper is Joanna’s closest relative living in Boston. I’ve met her at a few family events since Joanna married Danny. She likes me because I always spend time talking to her.

  ‘How’s Liam?’ I say, walking past her into the hallway. The door on my right is where Danny’s office is. If the note is anywhere, it’s there. He’s not going to leave it lying around for Joanna to find.

  ‘Were you sent here to check up on me?’ Mrs. Cooper says with a short chuckle.

  ‘No, not at all, I’m just here to collect something for Danny.’ Walking into the room she came out of, I wait for her to follow. I want to be sure she’s out of the way while I search. ‘He wants me to find a photo of Mom that he thinks is in his office. It’s for the top of the coffin.’ Gosh, twenty-five years living with professional liars has rubbed off on me.

  ‘I was very sorry to hear about your Mom passing, Becca, she was a lovely woman.’

  So she fooled you too, I think. The sound of Liam’s baby snores echo from the monitor on the table. They must have it on full volume.

  Mrs. Cooper sits down and I chat to her for a few minutes before saying, ‘I better have a look for this photo.’

  ‘Do you want me to help you?’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine, thanks. It’s probably best you stay with the monitor.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she says, as if just remembering why she’s there.

  Out in the hallway I approach Danny’s office, hoping he’s not one of those men who keep their personal spaces locked in case the little wife messes up what she doesn’t understand. Thankfully, he’s not. The door opens first try. The smell of fresh paint hits me when I step inside. It’s dark, the curtains drawn, so I switch on the light to reveal a desk, a chair and a cabinet. Well, this shouldn’t take long. Starting with the desk, I rummage through its drawers but find nothing that resembles a note from Katie Collins. The cabinet takes longer, reams of paper clog every drawer. I flick through everything as quickly as I can but again this yields nothing. With my butt resting on the cabinet, I put my hands behind me on the top and look around to see where else he could have hidden it. My fingers are gripping the edge of cabinet when one of them bumps against something and I hear a click. Turning to investigate, I see that the top of the cabinet lifts up, revealing a secret drawer. My eyes widen, my mouth opens, my heart speeds up.

  ‘Did you find it?’

  Shit. Mrs. Cooper is outside, about to come in. Pushing the lid closed, I rush to the door and turn the key, calling out to her that I’m almost done. Her feet shuffle away, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Back at the cabinet I pull on the lid but it’s locked and won’t budge. Fuck it. What did I do first time? I place my fingers under the edge, tapping every inch like I’m playing a piano upside down, but nothing. What the hell? I get down on my knees and scrutinize every inch but I can’t see anything standing out. Back to where I was when it opened, resting my butt on the top, my fingers gripping the underneath, I hear a click. Bingo.

  I see a rabbit. Not a real rabbit or even a toy rabbit. It’s a picture of a cardboard cut out with a naked girl sitting on it. Playboy. October 1971. One dollar. Jesus, Danny. Pushing the magazine to the side, I lift some cards in my hand. Birthday cards, all from the one person with the one message written inside. ‘All my love, Hannah.’ Oh my God. If Joanna gets her fingers on that elusive secret button, Danny is dead. Hannah Boyd was the girl Danny went out with for years before he met Joanna. I’m not sure who finished with who
. At seventeen you don’t really care about your brother’s love life, but I do remember tears.

  Placing the cards back where I found them, I shuffle through the rest of Danny’s memorabilia and notice a small plastic bag stuffed in the corner. The soft wool itches my hand as I pull out the contents. Baby socks. White knitted socks covered in old dirt and soil. They can’t be, can they? Blood rushes to my head, my stomach lurches. These are Becca’s socks. He must have taken them off her little feet while she lay in the ground. But he couldn’t have done that when he was three years old. Danny must have returned to the scene of the crime at some point as an adult.

  I stare at the socks with the lacy top, gently running my fingers over the pattern. Funny, I never did like socks with lace trimmings. The noise of Mrs. Cooper once again shuffling down the hallway breaks in on my trance and reminds me of why I’m here. The note, Louise, the note. But I can’t find it. It’s nowhere in this, Danny’s secret world.

  I say my goodbyes and walk out of the house to where the cold night encircles me. I think about Danny, his secrets, his pretending, and I wonder what else he is hiding. The fact that the note is not in his secret drawer, which I’ve no doubt is where he’d keep it if he did have it, does not mean he didn’t destroy it. Having secrets is a way of life for him. The question is, how far would he go to keep them?

  Chapter Sixty

  ‘I can’t go today, Jeff. I’m going to the funeral.’

  ‘What about afterwards?’

  Jeff is not letting go of the promise I made him. He thinks I should be down at the police station now, cell in hand. I didn’t tell him about Danny’s secret drawer because I know he’ll jump to conclusions and he already thinks Danny is the killer.

  Asking for help with the zip on my dress, I walk into his bedroom. Jeff is dousing his clear skin with some sort of shaving lotion. It’s smells a bit strong for my liking but I say nothing, presuming the overbearing poison will die down after a while.