The Invisible Ones

  “Mrs. Hart?”

  “Well, he . . . I didn’t understand. I thought we had got married, you know? That we were man and wife, but if I . . . if I tried to . . . he acted like I was completely stupid and ugly. Wouldn’t touch me. Wouldn’t let me touch him. Wouldn’t . . . undress in front of me.”

  She is speaking to the plate in front of her.

  “Did he ever hit you?”

  She traces the outline of a flower on the tablecloth but shakes her head vigorously.

  “No. Just . . . said things.”

  She takes out a tissue and carefully wipes the corners of her eyes, so as not to smear the blue shadow.

  “So, forgive me, are you saying that . . . there was never any . . .”

  I search for the polite term.

  She smiles up at the fluorescent tube above us, blinking back tears.

  “What do they call it? Unconsummated? That was it. So if he’s had a kid, it was . . . with someone else.”

  She says this with a tight little smile.

  “It might have been after you left. Christo was born in October of ’79. The twenty-fifth, I think.”

  She thinks back, counting.

  “I left during the winter—February, I think. End of February, yeah . . . Bloody hell—he must have been off with some slut while I was still there!”

  Her voice quavers. I give her a bit of time to digest this. It seems to leave a bad taste in her mouth.

  “I think I’d like some more tea, please.”

  “Of course . . .”

  Hen is on his feet in an instant. It’s strange—the girl opposite me seems to have shed years, and with them, her brittle confidence. She curls into herself like a hedgehog; underneath the suit, I realize, she is brutally thin. Hen sits down again, and three more teas are placed on the table, along with some more of the neon cakes.

  “Did you suspect your husband of having a girlfriend on the side, Mrs. Hart?”

  She grimaces.

  “Well, now that you ask . . . I think I did wonder. But not a girlfriend, no—if you know what I mean . . .”

  She looks at me significantly.

  “I didn’t know anything then, did I? I thought maybe he didn’t like girls, you know?” A quick and brittle smile. “But he just didn’t like me.”

  “So after—what?—four months of this . . . what was it that made you finally leave?”

  “I’d have gone sooner, if I’d had anywhere to go. I started going to tent church meetings somewhere outside Lincoln—it was a place to escape, you know, once a week at least. Peter was one of the preachers there. An assistant. But . . . it was funny. I couldn’t have gone at all if old Mr. Janko hadn’t lent me his car. He could be nice, sometimes. Then I found out that the church was moving on, and I was really upset. It was the only good thing I had. I didn’t know what I would do without it. And I told old Mr. Janko one day . . . I couldn’t help it: I started crying and crying, and he said I should tell someone—at the church, I mean— how much it meant to me. It was funny, because it was almost like . . . he was telling me to ask them to help me . . . Get away, I mean. You know? D’ you see what I mean? Like he felt sorry for me, in a way. So . . . that’s what I did.”

  She shrugs again.

  “I told Peter I was trapped in this awful marriage . . . and going off my head. And right away he offered me a job with the church. So I could go with them. I mean, there was nothing”—she blushes deeply—“funny going on. Nothing like that. He’s a reverend. He just wanted to help me. I worked for the church. That’s all it was—to start with.”

  “You didn’t feel you could go back to your own family then?”

  She shakes her head vehemently, clicks her tongue on her teeth.

  “Not after what they spent on the wedding. I mean, I’ve got two sisters, and we all had to be got rid of—Dad never stopped moaning about it. No. They were only too glad to get rid of me.”

  “I know that’s not the case,” I say softly, but she just shakes her head again and tuts.

  I glance at Hen. He seems to be concentrating on the virulent green thing on his plate, his face registering polite horror.

  “So Ivo and you—it wasn’t a real marriage at all?”

  She shakes her head, her eyes briefly wide. I find it almost inconceivable that she isn’t telling the truth.

  “The thing I thought was that he was, you know . . . queer.”

  She lowers her voice until the last word comes out less than a whisper. She mouths it.

  “I thought maybe I was like a smoke screen or something. But maybe he did have someone else, a woman he wasn’t allowed to marry or something . . . I don’t know.” She shrugs again. “If he has got a kid, I pity the poor bastard.”

  We all sit in silence for a minute.

  “Did you have any idea what Ivo and his father were arguing about?”

  “No. It was never in front of me. I didn’t understand anything. I had no one to talk to—until Peter. It was the loneliest time of my life.”

  She says it matter-of-factly. But I feel the first real sympathy I’ve felt for her.

  “Thank you for telling us all this, Mrs. Hart. It’s . . . very helpful.” Hen has reduced the green cake to a small pile of crumbs. Good work, I think. Now he looks up.

  “Did you ever meet Ivo’s cousin, Sandra Smith?”

  “Sandra . . .”

  She wrinkles her forehead in concentration.

  “I might have met her at the wedding. I only met anyone at the wedding. They kept themselves to themselves after that. Why . . . Was it her?”

  A feral look sweeps across her face but is gone as quickly as it came.

  “I can’t believe he cheated on me! I should’ve realized, shouldn’t I? I’m so stupid!”

  I shake my head.

  “No, you’re not. You’re a better person for not realizing.”

  That’s what I say to my clients. Hen looks at the table.

  Our cups are empty, and our plates—except for mine, that is. Rena Hart, composure regained, looks disappointed.

  “Didn’t you like yours?”

  “Oh, I’m not much of a cake . . . person.”

  “Mr. Lovell is sweet enough,” says Hen gravely.

  Rena looks at him, then lets out a high, girlish laugh. It sounds rather strained.

  We walk down the street with her, back to the church and the car. She tells us not to bother coming in to say good-bye to her husband, and disappears into the concrete bunker. From behind, she gives the disconcerting impression of a middle-aged woman.

  “Well, congratulations to us.”

  I look at Hen incredulously.

  “Come on, Ray. We’ve just successfully concluded a case. We should be celebrating.”

  I shrug. The photos of the young Rose are in my breast pocket. We may have found Rose . . . No, we found Rena. I think Rose is gone for good.

  Hen fiddles with the radio before switching it off.

  “You’re disappointed, aren’t you? You can’t feel sorry for her anymore.”

  “No, no!”

  But it’s true. My character flaw—one of many, I realize—is that I tend to like people more when I haven’t met them.

  “We haven’t finished, though, have we?”

  I feel an overwhelming tiredness drop over me like a cloak. I mutter, almost to myself, “Do we believe her?”

  “About the marriage—and the child? We’ll have to check. But for what it’s worth, yes, I did believe her.”

  “So why do the Jankos tell people that Rose is Christo’s mother?”

  “To hide the fact that someone else is his mother.”

  We both think about that, as we drive past the sprawl of Monopoly houses and head for the bypass. Hen glances at me.

  “But it may not matter much who Christo’s real mother is. Some local girl who didn’t want to know . . . It may be as simple as that.”

  “Then again, it may not.”

  “The important thing is to find ou
t who is in the Black Patch. And then, hopefully, we’ll know if they have any relation to Ivo Janko— or not.”

  Hen falls silent, but I know he’s thinking what I’m thinking. We have to resist the temptation to assume that the answers to those two questions are one and the same. But my investigator’s instinct tells me that they are the same. Christo’s mother is in the Black Patch. It all fits. I let my head loll back against the headrest, the drone of tires sending me to sleep. We’re getting nearer: all we need is a name.

  48.

  Ray

  It’s not that I wanted her to be dead. I can’t explain it. Well, that’s not strictly true; I don’t like being wrong, any more than anyone else. I’m not disappointed that she’s alive and well and happily married (we must suppose) to the scrubbed Welsh pastor. That she paints her nails frosted pink and has a laugh as unconvincing as her highlights.

  Leon Wood sounds shocked, almost speechless.

  “Alive? Are you sure?”

  I wait for the sobs to subside, embarrassed but also strangely happy. It’s not often I get to deliver such good news.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Lovell. ’Scuse me.”

  “No, no, quite all right. But you have to understand—it was a shock for her as well. Finding out her mother has passed away. She’ll need some time to adjust.”

  “So when can I see her?”

  “That has to be up to her.”

  “But where is she?”

  “She has asked me not to pass on any details for the time being, while she gets used to the idea. She will get in touch with you when she’s ready.”

  “Why?” he says, growing aggrieved. “I just want to know where she is. What’s she got to get used to?”

  “Please don’t worry . . .”

  “I’m not worried, Mr. Lovell. I’m not worried! I just want to see my dear daughter after seven years, and you are hindering me!”

  There is much more of this sort of thing. I have to grit my teeth to keep my voice from rising, and, when tempted just to pass over name and address—what is the matter with people, for God’s sake?—and let them sort it out between them, remember Georgia.

  Hen raises his eyebrows in sympathy when I finally put the phone down. “He will be delighted. Now, Andrea and I haven’t been entirely idle in your absence: we’ve got some new cases. Want to take a look?”

  I stare at him.

  “What about the case of who poisoned your partner—and why?” “Remind me who’s paying for that one.”

  “What I want to know is, who is Christo’s mother? And what happened to the sister?”

  Hen leans back; his chair gives a protesting squeak.

  “So you think the sister gave birth to Christo, and they killed her . . . incest or something . . . and she’s in the Black Patch?”

  “Well, it’s a possibility.”

  “A lot easier to just fake a father, surely?”

  “Well . . . what about the Janko name? And why did Ivo take off? It’s something to do with the Black Patch. I . . . know.”

  He peers at me over his glasses. This is an affectation—he can’t see a thing without them.

  “You don’t know that—because you still don’t know that he knows anything about the body. And there may be a simple explanation.”

  “Well, when we have the simple explanation I will . . . leave it. Until then . . .”

  I have kept the piece of paper with Lulu’s address written in Sandra’s childlike handwriting—I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I look at it often. I thought—I hoped—she might ring once I got out of the hospital. Then I think of what Hen told me. How they’d discussed me. Perhaps I should have more pride than to pin my hopes on her. Then again, perhaps I should have less pride. She held my hand, after all. But I find reasons to wait until I am home before I ring her. I have plenty of other phone calls to make, and one fax I want to receive—to be sure.

  To my surprise, she answers almost immediately. Somehow I thought she would be at work, and I was preparing to leave a message.

  “You’re not at work?”

  “No. How are you?”

  “Good. Yeah. I wondered if we could meet?”

  A pause.

  “For what?”

  “For what? Well, I, um, there are some more questions I’d like to ask you.” “Oh.”

  Is she disappointed? She doesn’t say anything else.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Ivo?”

  “No.”

  “And Christo? Any news about him?”

  She sighs, unmistakeably this time.

  “It’s complicated. I mean, he’s all right . . . He’s fine. Just, well. I can tell you when we meet.”

  “Okay.”

  My heart, afterward, is beating like a sprinter’s. I have to make an effort not to pour myself a drink. Don’t fall apart, I admonish myself. Not now.

  Those boats, the rowing boats at the lake, they’ve stuck in my mind ever since. I so wanted to get in one and row away. The color of the varnish, the sound and suck of water. And the names: amy—to carry two. isobel—to carry four. So capable. So generous.

  Ray—to carry one. And barely, at that.

  . . .

  Since I still can’t drive, she comes to the pub at the end of my road. From the window—I am early, of course—you can see the trains trundling over the bridge with their work-worn cargo. The light has started to fail again; even as summer has finally, tardily, arrived, the light is fading.

  Lulu arrives silently and slips into the chair beside me.

  “I have some news for you,” I say.

  Her eyes widen in alarm.

  “It’s good news. We’ve found Rose.”

  “Oh my God . . . ! And she’s—all right . . . ? Really?”

  “Right as rain.”

  “Oh!” Lulu digests this. “So the body, at the Black Patch . . . That was nothing to do with Ivo?”

  There is a great ebbing of tension from her body.

  “Well, whoever it is, it isn’t Rose Wood.”

  “A happy ending . . .” She raises her glass with a smile. “Shouldn’t we be drinking a toast?”

  “Not yet.”

  Her face falters. “No. It’s not the end, is it? Because of what happened to you—and Ivo’s still gone.”

  “Yes. There’s that.”

  “Do you still think he hurt you on purpose? Why—if he had nothing to cover up? If he didn’t have anything to do with Rose?”

  She lights a cigarette and takes a sip of her Bacardi and Coke. She seems nervous again; she knocks the glass against her teeth, spills a little, dabs her fingers to her lips while looking at the table.

  “But it could be anybody. Someone completely unrelated. Don’t they know who?”

  “Not yet. Ivo was scared. If it was unrelated, why poison me?”

  “You’re . . . assuming he did it on purpose.”

  “If he didn’t, why disappear? Why abandon Christo?”

  She stares out the window and shakes her head; she looks worried.

  “What did you want to ask me?”

  Her voice is very low.

  “Ivo stayed with you the night we had dinner, didn’t he?”

  Lulu looks down but says nothing.

  “I just wondered . . .”

  “But you told him, anyway, didn’t you? You promised you would. That’s what you said . . . ?”

  So she did tell him.

  She goes on without looking up. “I was so angry. With him—and with you. It just came out. I’m sorry. I knew I shouldn’t have told him. I was so worried. I thought it was my fault—your being ill . . .”

  The hand that holds her glass is shaking. I want to put my arms around her. I imagine putting my arms around her.

  “None of it was your fault. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

  Ivo knew. I have proof.

  “How did he react when you told him?”

  “Oh, well, he . . .” She lets out a deep bre
ath. “Didn’t really. Didn’t look at me. I had to say, ‘Did you hear me?’ and he just went ‘Yeah, so?’ In that tone of voice he has. You know. But . . . why does it matter? She’s all right.”

  “The body at the Black Patch belongs to somebody.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Could it be Christina?”

  “Christina?” She almost smiles, looking at me in disbelief. “She died years ago. You’re not suggesting it’s her! That’s ridiculous.”

  “No one has told me when she died, exactly.”

  Lulu sighs and purses her lips. The frown is back between her eyebrows.

  “It was years ago. She was seventeen, so . . . twelve years ago. Twelve years! Besides, she died in France. It couldn’t possibly be her in the Black Patch.”

  “Where in France?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It was when they went to Lourdes.”

  “Did you go to the funeral?”

  “There wasn’t one.”

  “There wasn’t one? That’s a bit . . . odd, isn’t it?”

  “It was . . . abroad, wasn’t it?”

  She swallows. Shifts uneasily in her seat.

  “You know. They couldn’t bring her home themselves. And arranging for something like that . . . Maybe the expense . . . I don’t know. It didn’t seem odd. It wasn’t odd.”

  “So she died twelve years ago.”

  “Yes!”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “God . . .” She looks down. “A couple of years before it happened.”

  “It must have been terrible when she died—on top of everything else.” “Yeah.”

  “Do you know who was there when she died?”

  “Tene, I suppose. And Ivo must have been there. That was after Marta died. Are you accusing them of killing her, now?”

  “No. Just . . . trying to get things clear.”

  I sip my beer, left-handed. Lulu falls silent; she lights another cigarette, angry. A train rattles over the bridge, half empty now: diehards who have stayed late at work.

  Tene and Ivo. Ivo and Tene. The two of them, the only witnesses to a number of strange and tragic events. Any number of deaths, the specter trailing after them like a black dog, a wolf in the shadows. But Ivo was just a sickly boy . . . Cursed, perhaps, as Tene said.