Inside the court, Jessie's friends and relatives who had braved the inquest, some because they still could not accept that she was gone, others because they were secretly enjoying being part of the biggest thing that had happened to Dere Hampton since the 1996 pet-shop fire, murmured among themselves, or wept silently into handkerchiefs, cowed by the occasion. Suzanna shifted in her seat, trying to look from the edge of the public gallery to the other door. She had to fight the suspicion that he was, at this moment, sitting outside on the bench, with Cath Carter's chain-smoking sisters. It would be disrespectful to keep leaving the courtroom to check.
He hadn't been there when she arrived; he had not been there when she had left the court twenty minutes previously to visit the ladies' room. But as the sole witness to the event, he would have to give evidence.
He would have to come.
Suzanna smoothed back her hair, feeling the familiar clench of her stomach, the winding coil of excitement and fear that had possessed her for more than twenty-four hours. Twice, to comfort herself, she had stared into her bag at her trove of peculiar treasures. There was the label from the plant that had arrived that first day; then, addressed to her at her parents' house, a paper butterfly sent in an unmarked envelope, which Ben, an amateur enthusiast in his teens, had identified only as Inachis io. She had written the name on the back. Yesterday, when she had gone to the shop to complete her final task before handing over the keys, she had found an oversized feather pinned to the door frame. It now stuck incongruously from the lip of her shoulder-bag. There had been no messages. But she had known they had to be something to do with him. That there must be some meaning.
She tried not to think too hard of the possibility that they might have come from Neil.
The coroner had finished with the post-mortem report. He leant solicitously over his bench and asked Cath Carter if there was anything she would like clarified. Cath, sandwiched tightly between Father Lenny and an unidentified middle-aged woman, shook her head. The coroner returned to the witness list in front of him.
It would be her turn next. Suzanna gazed down at the bespectacled reporter in the corner, faithfully scribbling shorthand in his notebook. Suzanna had spoken to Father Lenny beforehand of her fears that if she told the coroner everything she knew, everything, that Jessie would be painted in the newspapers as a domestic-abuse victim. She hadn't wanted to be seen as a victim, Suzanna had told him. Didn't they owe her that small dignity at least? He had told her that Cath had similar concerns. 'But there is a bottom line here, Suzanna,' he had said, 'and that is where you'd rather see Emma growing up. Because although there won't be a criminal verdict in this court, you can bet that what gets said here will go on to be used in any criminal case. I think even Jessie wouldn't mind sacrificing her privacy a little for the sake of her daughter's . . . stability.' He had chosen the word carefully.
Which had made it a pretty straightforward decision. Suzanna heard her name called and stood up. Under the surprisingly gentle prompting of the coroner, she told him in measured tones of Jessie's injuries during the time she had worked for the Peacock Emporium, of the sequence of events that had led to the evening on which she died, and of the gregarious, generous personality that had inadvertently led to her death. She had been unable to look at Cath as she spoke, feeling still as if she were betraying the family's trust, but as she stepped down she had caught the older woman's eye, and Cath had nodded. An acknowledgement of sorts.
He had not come in.
She sat down in her seat, feeling herself deflate, as if she had spoken while holding her breath.
'You okay?' Father Lenny mouthed, turning in his seat. She nodded, trying not to let her eyes drift again to the wood-panelled door. Which, any minute now, threatened to open. And smoothed, for the fortieth time, her too-short hair.
Three other people gave evidence; Jessie's doctor, who confirmed that in his opinion Jess had not suffered from depression but had intended to leave her partner; Father Lenny, who, as a close friend of the family, told of his own attempt to remedy what he called her 'situation', and of her fierce determination to sort it out herself; and a cousin whom Suzanna had not met. The latter had burst into tears and pointed an accusatory finger at Jason Burden's mother: she had known what was going on and should have stopped it, stopped him, the bastard. The coroner suggested that she might like to take a break to compose herself. Suzanna listened with half an ear, straining to place every muffled voice outside, wondering at what point she could legitimately leave the court again.
'We now turn to our sole witness,' said the coroner, 'a Mr Alejandro de Marenas, an Argentinian national, formerly resident at Dere Hampton hospital where he was working in the maternity ward . . .'
Suzanna's heart stopped.
'. . . who has provided a written statement. I will pass this to the court clerk to read aloud.'
The court clerk, a plump woman with enthusiastically dyed hair, stood and, in a flat, estuary accent, began to read.
A written statement. Suzanna slumped forward as if winded. She heard almost nothing of Alejandro's words, the words she had heard whispered into her ear on the night of Jessie's death, words uttered through tears and kisses, words she had stopped with her own lips.
Then she stared at this woman, who should have been Alejandro, and tried to stop the wail of exasperation that was building inside her.
She couldn't sit still. She fidgeted in her seat, feverish and despairing, and when the woman stopped reading, she slid rapidly along the bench and, with a nod of apology, fled to the hallway where two of Jessie's aunts, her cousin and a friend from school were already seated on the bench.
'That murdering bastard,' said one, lighting a cigarette. 'How can his mother show her face in here?'
'Lynn says the boys are going to have him if he tries to come back to Dere. Her eldest carries a baseball bat in his car, just in case he sees him out.'
'He's still inside. They're not going to let him out.'
'It's not Sylvia's fault,' said the other. 'You know she's devastated.'
'She still visits him, doesn't she? She still goes to see him every week.'
The older woman patted the girl's arm. 'Any mother would,' she said. 'He's blood, isn't he? Whatever he's done.' She called to Suzanna, 'You all right, love? Found it too hard to listen to, did you?'
Suzanna, leaning against the wall, could not reply. Of course he hadn't come. Why would he, after everything she had said? Perhaps he had been leaving as she had sat there, vainly checking her appearance. The arrogance of her certainty! She stood for a second, her face crumpling, her hands lifting to her head as if she could physically hold it together. She felt an unfamiliar female arm round her, smelt the acrid aroma of just-smoked cigarettes. 'Don't fret, love. She's with the angels now, isn't she? We've just been saying, she's with the angels. No point fretting now.'
Suzanna muttered something and left. She didn't need to know whether the death would be recorded as misadventure, manslaughter, or even as an open verdict. Jessie had gone. That had been the only relevant fact.
She could only pray that Alejandro hadn't gone too.
There had been several delays, ascribed variously to engine trouble, security matters and bad weather, and Heathrow airport was packed with people milling around, dragging suitcases on wheels, or stacked high in trolleys that swerved mutinously on the shining linoleum floor, floor which squeaked under the combined weight of endless pairs of soft-soled shoes. Exhausted travellers stretched out proprietorially on lengths of seating while babies wailed and small children did their best to get lost in brightly lit cafes, fraying their parents' already shredded tempers.
Jorge de Marenas, a little too full of airport coffee, looked up at the flight board, stood and picked up his suitcase. He patted his jacket pocket, checking that ticket and passport were in place, then gestured towards the departure gate, where a snaking line of fellow Argentinians were queuing patiently, tickets in hand. 'You sure you want to do this?' he said to his son. 'I do
n't want you to think about me. Or your mother. This should be about you. About what you want.'
Alejandro followed his father's gaze to the departure board. 'It's okay, Pa,' he said.
The nurses' accommodation block at Dere Hampton hospital was bigger than Suzanna had remembered. It had two entrances, both of which she thought she recalled, and a wide grassy area surrounding it, punctuated by straggly looking shrubs that she didn't remember at all. It all looked so different in the light, dotted with people, lightly frosted with autumnal leaves, hardly recognisable as the place that had been a backdrop of her dreams.
But, then, the last time she had come she hadn't been thinking about her surroundings. She stood for several minutes, trying frantically to work out which entrance to use, frustrated at her lack of visual memory, her failure to work out which had been Alejandro's flat. He had lived on the ground floor, she knew, so she walked over the grass and stared in at several windows, trying to see through the net curtains that appeared to be standard issue in the block.
The third flat she had peered into looked like it might be his. She could just make out the G-plan sofa, the white walls, the beech table. But the emptiness of the flat and the poor visibility caused by the net curtains made it impossible for her to tell if anyone was living there now.
'Why the hell are there so many bloody net curtains?' she muttered.
'To stop people looking through the windows,' said a voice behind her.
Suzanna blushed. Two nurses, one red-headed, one West Indian, were beside her.
'You'd be surprised how excited some people get at the idea of a building full of nurses,' said the black woman.
'I'm not a peeping--'
'Are you lost?' she said.
'I'm looking for someone. A man.'
She caught their amused response, saw that she was a nanosecond away from a bad joke. 'A specific man. He works here.'
'This is a female block.'
'But you had one man here. A midwife. Alejandro de Marenas. Argentinian?'
The nurses exchanged glances. 'Oh . . . him.'
Suzanna could feel herself being assessed, as if her association with Alejandro had put her in a new light.
'That's his flat, all right, but I don't think he's there. He's not been around for a while, has he?'
'Are you sure?'
'The foreign ones don't last long,' said the West Indian woman. 'They get all the crappy shifts.'
'And they get lonely,' said the Irish girl. 'Yeah.' She looked at Suzanna, her expression unreadable. 'I'm not sure if he was lonely.'
Suzanna blinked furiously, daring herself to collapse in front of these women. 'Is there anyone who would know? Whether he'd gone, I mean.'
'Try Admin,' said the Irish girl.
'Or Personnel. Fourth floor of the main block.'
'Thank you,' said Suzanna, hating the girls for their knowing looks. 'Thank you very much.' She fled.
The woman in Personnel had been courteous but wary, as if it was not unusual for her to be confronted by people demanding to know where her staff had disappeared to. 'We've had a few cases where foreign nurses have run up considerable debts while they were here,' she said, in explanation. 'Sometimes the ones that come from third-world countries get a bit carried away with the lifestyle.'
'He doesn't owe me any money,' said Suzanna. 'He doesn't owe anyone money. I just - I just really need to know where he is.'
'I'm afraid we're not able to give out personal staff details.' 'I have his details. I just need to know if he's still around.'
'And that would be a hospital employment matter.'
Suzanna tried to regulate her breathing. 'Look, he was meant to give evidence at an inquest this morning into The death of a local girl at my shop. I need to know why he wasn't there.'
'Then you'd have to speak to the police,' she said.
'He's a friend.'
'They always are.'
'Look,' Suzanna said, 'please. If you want me to humiliate myself, I will--'
'No one's asking you to humiliate yourself--'
'I love him, okay? I didn't tell him when I should have told him, and I'm afraid it's too late, and I need to tell him before he leaves. Because I'll never find him in Argentina. Ever. I wouldn't even know where to find it on a map.'
The woman was staring at her now.
'I don't even know if it's near Patagonia, or Puerto Rico or what. I just know it's got lots of cows, and drinks that taste like twigs and water, and horrible mean fish and that it's really, really big, and if he leaves here I haven't got a hope of finding him. I don't know if I'd be brave enough to try. Please. Please just let me know if he's still here.'
The woman gazed at Suzanna for a minute, then moved to the back of her office and pulled a file from a bulging drawer. She stood over it, reading carefully, too far away for Suzanna to see its pages. 'We're not allowed by law to reveal the personal details of staff files. What I can tell you is that he's no longer an employee of the hospital,' she said.
'So he no longer works for you?'
'That's what I said.'
'So you can tell me where he is. If he no longer works for you, he's no longer staff.'
'Nice try,' said the woman. 'Look, you could try his agency. They're the people who brought him over and placed him with us in the first place.' She scribbled a number on a piece of paper and handed it to Suzanna.
'Thanks,' said Suzanna. It was a London number. There was a chance that he had another job there.
'And it's next to Uruguay.' 'What?'
'Argentina. It's next to Brazil and Uruguay.'
The woman, smiling to herself, turned away from the counter and headed back towards her filing.
Arturro hadn't seen him. He asked the three young assistants, who shook their heads theatrically, then continued their graceful lobbing of large pieces of Stilton, jars of quince paste and pesto - having nominated her, in otherwise gratifying circumstances, as an eight point three. Arturro hadn't seen him for over a week. Neither had Mrs Creek, nor Liliane, nor Father Lenny, nor the woman who ran the antiques stall, nor the thin man who ran the Coffee Cup, nor the assistants at the cafe by the garage where he had once been known to get a newspaper.
'About six foot? Quite tanned? Dark-haired?' she said to a nurse outside the newsagent's, just on the off-chance.
'Shove him my way if you find him.' She smirked.
When it started to get dark, Suzanna went home.
'Are you all packed?' said Vivi, handing her a cup of tea. 'Lucy rang to say she'll be here at midday tomorrow. I was wondering whether you'd mind having a little sit with Rosemary before you left. It would mean a lot to her, you know.'
Suzanna was on the sofa, wondering whether it was madness to head to Heathrow now. The local airport didn't do flights to Argentina, and Heathrow wouldn't give out names on their passenger list. It was a matter of security, apparently. 'Sure,' she said.
'Oh, and you know you said you couldn't get any reply from that number earlier?' said Vivi. 'Well, they called back. A nursing agency, they said. Is that who you wanted? I didn't think it could be right.'
Suzanna leapt up and snatched the piece of paper from her mother's hand. 'It is right,' she said.
'A nursing agency?'
'Thank you,' she said. 'Thank you, thank you.' She threw herself along the sofa towards the telephone table, heedless of her mother's bemused look.
'I don't think I'll ever understand that girl,' said Vivi, in the kitchen, as she peeled potatoes for the shepherd's pie.
'What's she done now?' Rosemary was staring at an old gardening book. She had evidently forgotten the name of the plant she had planned to look up, but had become pleasurably lost in the pictures.
'I thought she was going to Australia. Now, apparently, she's thinking about being a nurse.'
'What?' Rosemary spluttered into her wine.
'A nurse.'
'She doesn't want to be a nurse!'
'That's what I thought. But she's
on the phone to an agency. Seems to be taking it all terribly seriously.' Vivi leant over and refilled Rosemary's glass. 'I don't know, things are changing so fast around here. I can hardly keep up.'
'She'll be a bloody awful one,' said Rosemary. 'Awful. First bedpan she has to deal with she'll be off like a rat up a drainpipe.'
The man at the agency was very nice. Almost too nice. But Alejandro de Marenas had signed off their books two weeks previously. Having paid their 'introduction fee', he was under no obligation to keep in touch. He was probably back in Argentina. The average stay in England was under a year for midwifery. The only ones who tended to stick around were from the poorer countries and, as far as he could remember, Mr de Marenas was relatively well off. 'I'll take your number, if you like,' he said. 'If he contacts us again I can keep it on file for him. Are you NHS?'
'No,' she said, staring at the feather in her hand. They were bad luck. She'd just remembered. You weren't meant to keep them in your house because they were bad luck. 'Thanks, but no,' she whispered. And then, finally, her head dropping gently on to the telephone, she wept.
It was almost nine thirty, and the slight increase in pedestrians that constituted Dere Hampton's rush hour was easing, as the last of the shops opened and the trailing mothers returned home from the school run.
Suzanna stood in the Peacock Emporium for the last time. The windows were in place, their frames freshly painted, a sign advertising next week's one-day closing-down sale. 'All stock half price or less,' it said in bold black letters. That was the left-hand side, though. The right-hand window would fulfil a different purpose.
She checked her watch, noting that Lucy would be here in two and a half hours. She had only invited a few people, Arturro and Liliane, Father Lenny, Mrs Creek, those who could be considered to have had daily contact with Jessie, those to whom the elements might mean something, might add to their memory of her.
She stood behind the window of her shop, looking out through the gauze curtain she had placed there that morning, an uncomfortable reminder of the net curtains of the days before, watching as they stood in a little huddle. She had wondered whether this was the right time to do it, but Father Lenny, the only one who had known her plan, had said it was exactly the right time for it. He had been at previous inquests. He had known that after a death there were images, words, that should be blocked out, painted over with something sweeter.