Forgive Me

  Gregor and Grace both wore slightly bemused expressions when the young couple arrived at their house looking ‘loved up’, no doubt remembering Eva’s claim before Phil arrived in Scotland that he was just a friend.

  Grace teased them a little as they all shared a pot of tea, asking about the places they’d stayed at and if it was the Highland air that had given them a certain glow. Eva and Phil hadn’t dared look at each other at that point for fear of laughing, because they’d pulled off the road earlier in the day and made love in a wood. They had only just got back on their feet when a man walking his dog had appeared close by, which had sent them into spasms of helpless laughter.

  ‘You’re welcome to stay here for a couple of days,’ Gregor said. ‘Grace and I would love that.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Eva said. ‘But we’re running out of days and there’s still so much more we want to see before we go home.’

  ‘You just make sure you keep in touch,’ Gregor said as they got up to leave. ‘We want to be the first to hear if you find a body in Carlisle. And there will always be room for you here, if you fancy coming up here again.’

  Eva bent over his wheelchair to hug him. ‘It’s been such a pleasure meeting you. Shame you didn’t turn out to be my dad, but a girl can’t have everything.’

  Grace laughed. ‘Well, you’ve got your ox now, and I think you’ll find that is a great deal more exciting than gaining a dad.’

  She took Eva to one side. ‘Phil’s a keeper,’ she whispered, ‘a lovely man. You hold on to him, and live happily ever after. Take Dena’s advice and don’t try to wake the sleeping serpent. Let the past go.’

  Eva grinned. ‘You know, I think you really believe she has “powers”.’

  Grace frowned. ‘Sort of. It might just be coincidence, but she’s told me and several friends some rather uncanny things. A year before Gregor’s accident she warned him about it. Some would say that there was a fair chance any man who took such risks would eventually come a cropper, but there are many people in this town who pay her a visit whenever they have a problem.’

  ‘Maybe we can go back to Pitlochry next summer?’ Phil said as they drove south. ‘I’d like to see Gregor and Grace again. You just don’t meet people like that in London.’

  Eva agreed with that. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Londoners, but a big city made people harder, more wary and materialistic. Gregor was very open, he was in touch with nature, the elements and the seasons. Grace was more sophisticated than her elder brother, but she too was warm and generous. They both cared about people and valued friendship.

  ‘Whatever Mum got up to in the past, or however devious she was, I’m really glad I’ve met Gregor and Patrick,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘They feel almost like family.’

  As they’d decided they wanted to spend the rest of their holiday exploring the Lake District, their plan was to reach Carlisle by mid-afternoon, stay overnight, then push on the next day.

  They found a guest house within walking distance of the town centre, left the car there and set off to have a look around. Phil picked up a city map at a Tourist Information kiosk, and after they’d had a look at the castle, they got an outside table in the market square and ordered coffee and cake. Phil got out the map which also listed places of interest.

  ‘We should visit Hadrian’s Wall tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ve always wanted to see that. There’s also a covered market close to here.’

  ‘Oh, goody,’ she replied. ‘Markets in strange towns are always more exciting than the ones back home. Is the street in Mum’s picture on that map?’

  ‘Yes, it’s here,’ he said, pointing to it. ‘Botchergate. It’s a horrible name. I wonder what it means? Do you think all the city botchers lived there at one time?’

  Eva giggled. ‘Plumbers who leave leaks, bricklayers whose walls fall down!’

  ‘I didn’t imagine it being a main road, but it seems to be,’ Phil said. ‘We can go down that way on our way back to the guest house, take a look and then cut across through the backstreets to where we are staying. I don’t think it’s very far.’

  ‘Is there really any point?’ she said doubtfully. ‘After all, it’s not as if we’re likely to find out what that place meant to Mum.’

  ‘True. But if you don’t bother to go, you’ll always wonder about it,’ he said.

  ‘You are an amazingly reasonable man,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you sick of me banging on about all this stuff with Mum?’

  ‘No, I’m intrigued.’ He grinned. ‘Especially as there don’t seem to be any secrets to uncover in my family.’

  ‘It could be they are just better at hiding them.’

  They had fish and chips in a cafe later, wandered around a little more, then made their way back down Botchergate, intending to find a pub near the guest house afterwards.

  Botchergate was a bit rough and dreary; the streets running off it were all terraces of run-down little houses without a tree or plant in sight.

  ‘So that’s it,’ Eva said as they stood outside The Crane-makers Arms and looked from the pub across the street at the row of shops. It didn’t look all that different to the old photograph – except the shops had changed hands since then. There was a fireplace shop on the corner, a newsagent’s, a charity shop and what appeared to be a printer’s. A man they had spoken to by the new Lanes Shopping Centre in the middle of town had said this area of Carlisle was due for redevelopment too. It badly needed it, especially the houses.

  ‘The fireplace shop is where Huggetts was, and that charity place is the old betting shop,’ Phil said. He got out his camera and took a picture. ‘Just something for you to tuck away for the next generation to puzzle over,’ he added.

  ‘Let’s go and have a drink in here?’ Eva suggested, looking at the big pub behind them. ‘You never know, some old codger might be sitting at the bar ready to tell us about the racy red-haired artist who once called in.’

  It was a traditional workingman’s pub which had probably changed very little over the years, still with a separate saloon and public bar. They went into the public bar, as there was more likelihood of being able to get into conversation with someone who had lived here twenty-odd years ago. A group of six men wearing navy-blue overalls sat at a table in the corner, a few old men nursing a pint were dotted around, and up at the bar there were two middle-aged men on stools talking to the landlord. He was short but burly, with an impressive moustache.

  Phil ordered the drinks and then asked the landlord how many years he’d had the pub.

  ‘Only five as landlord,’ he said in a rich Cumbrian accent. ‘It was me da’s place afore that. It took a lot of effort to lick it back into shape. I was away in the army and he let things slide after me mam died.’

  ‘So you grew up here then?’ Eva said eagerly.

  The man smiled. ‘I certainly did. Got my training in the licensing trade as young as six when I used to fill up crates with empty bottles.’

  ‘You must have seen a lot of changes in Carlisle then over the years?’ Phil said. ‘Show him the picture, Eva.’

  ‘My mother took this photo, we think in 1970,’ Eva said as she took it out of her bag. ‘She also did an oil painting of it.’

  The landlord took the picture and showed it to the other two men. All three spoke about it eagerly – about who owned the shops at the time of the picture, and before.

  ‘I wonder if you’d remember my mother? She was red-haired, small, slender, called Flora Foyle.’ She took one of the pictures of Flora that Gregor had given her out of her bag. ‘I think she must’ve stayed here for a while.’

  The landlord looked at the picture and shook his head. ‘I’d remember a good-looking lassie like that if I’d seen her, but I was in the army then and only came back occasionally to see the folks.’

  The other two men didn’t recognize her either. ‘Sorry, pet,’ one said, ‘never seen her. But she looks classy. It were rough around here twenty-odd years ago, can’t imagine
she’d have lived here.’

  ‘Well, she was an artist, so she might have,’ Eva said. ‘I can’t see why she would want to photograph that row of shops unless she had some connection with it.’

  ‘Back in 1970 there were a lot of people coming around here taking pictures.’ The older of the two customers spoke up. ‘Remember! That was when Sue Carling’s baby was snatched.’

  The three men had a little argument between themselves, the older man insisting it was June 1970 because his own bairn was born around the same time. The younger man said it was 1971, but the landlord said it couldn’t have been, as his mother had written to him at Aldershot about it and he’d left there by the summer of 1970. He thought it happened earlier in 1970.

  ‘Did they find the baby?’ Eva asked. She felt a tiny pin prick of anxiety at this news.

  ‘No, never,’ the landlord said. ‘Most think the mother did away with it. Whether she murdered it and buried the body out on the fells, or sold it to someone rich, we’ll never know for sure. The police could never prove anything. All we really know is that she left the bairn outside the bookies in its pram. What decent mother leaves a newborn bairn out in the rain while she puts a bet on?’

  ‘Did she have any other children?’ Phil asked.

  ‘She had two or three, all taken off her afore that. She ought to have been sterilized years ago, instead of letting her breed like a rabbit with every drunken bum in town. I heard she had another one a few years later, and I think they left that one with her. God knows why, poor kid. She lived in Flower Street then, but she’s long gone now. I haven’t seen or heard owt else about her for years.’

  The sudden arrival of a group of men ended the landlord’s diatribe, and he went to serve them.

  Phil picked up their drinks and took them over to a table. ‘Whew!’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose we wanted a bit of local colour.’

  When Eva didn’t respond, he patted her knee. ‘What’s up? Did that upset you?’

  ‘It was like a goose ran over my grave,’ she admitted. ‘That snatched baby couldn’t have been me, could it?’

  Phil laughed. ‘Come on, Eva, of course not. You’re letting your imagination run away with you. I bet your mum was told that story while she was here, and being pregnant it played on her mind and that’s why she took the picture. Mystery solved!’

  In the early hours of the morning Eva lay beside Phil, unable to sleep for the thoughts running around in her head. They had gone on to another pub and drunk far too much. Once back at the guest house they had made love, but Phil fell asleep quickly afterwards.

  Phil’s explanation of why Flora took the picture was completely logical. Eva could almost see Flora walking along that street, perhaps stopping to ask why the press were there, and being told the sad story. Or she could have read about it in the newspaper, and curiosity made her look for the place where it had happened.

  Yet however logical that explanation was, she couldn’t help but weigh other facts against it. No one in Pitlochry had known Flora was pregnant, and in the early summer of 1969, when she must have conceived, there appeared to have been no man in her life. It was odd enough that she didn’t confide in anyone about her pregnancy, but even more puzzling was the fact that she didn’t mention it in her diary. She’d made comments about far more trivial things.

  The diary stopped in Carlisle too. If she had been affected so badly by the story of a baby being snatched that she had to photograph the scene and later paint it too, surely she would have written about it?

  Eva couldn’t believe Flora was capable of stealing a baby, but she had lost her own baby and she was depressed – and it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to take a child under those circumstances.

  But over and above everything that may or may not add up to a case against Flora, Dena’s warning words about sleeping serpents kept ringing in Eva’s mind.

  What should she do?

  Just walk away from Carlisle and try to forget that row of shops and the story behind it?

  Or should she dig further and try to find something that would exonerate her mother, for her own peace of mind?

  The next morning Phil began talking about going to see Hadrian’s Wall almost as soon as he woke.

  ‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ he said, pulling open the curtains. ‘If we go early, we can be in The Lakes by late afternoon with plenty of time to find somewhere nice to stay.’

  Eva didn’t want to disappoint him, but she’d already made up her mind what she must do.

  ‘I’m sorry, Phil, but I’ve got to go to the library first and look in their archives to get details of the baby-snatching,’ she said.

  His face fell. ‘No, Eva! That baby can’t be you. We don’t even know if it was a little girl.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘I’m hoping it will turn out to be a boy. But if it was a girl, then I’m hoping she’ll be much older than me, and that Flora arrived here long after she had been taken. But I need certainty. I can’t go off trekking around the countryside and dwelling on this.’

  Phil went to the window and looked out. He didn’t say anything for what seemed ages. Eva was afraid he was cross with her. But then he turned back to her with a resigned expression on his face.

  ‘OK. We’ll go to the library and look it up, just to give you peace of mind. Then we’re going to Hadrian’s Wall, because I know you are going to be laughing again by then and feeling daft that it even crossed your mind that your mother stole you.’

  ‘I do hope so,’ she sighed.

  As Phil took a shower he felt very concerned about Eva. In the last few months she’d had a lot to deal with, and he thought she was now getting dangerously close to becoming obsessed with her mother’s past. He wished that when they arrived in Carlisle he hadn’t agreed to find the street, and they hadn’t gone into that pub. He doubted the landlord could be certain about the year the baby was taken. Who remembered such details so long after the event?

  Aside from Ben – who he thought sounded like a good sort – Eva’s whole family left a lot to be desired. Flora appeared to have been a highly strung femme fatale who chewed men up and then spat them out, and finally became a complete self-pitying doormat. Andrew was a louse – Phil didn’t know how any man who had brought up a child as his own could suddenly turn on her – and Sophie sounded like she was a totally spoiled brat.

  Considering what Eva had been through before he met her, she was remarkably well adjusted, yet even so there were many pointers to her having a very poor self-image. She had told him once that she became a goth because she preferred being considered weird to being pitied for being plain and fat.

  He couldn’t imagine why she thought that about herself. That first day he saw her, when her bag was snatched, he’d been bowled over by her pretty face, those lovely blue eyes, shiny hair and clear skin. She certainly wasn’t fat either. She had a gorgeous body, and if her damned mother hadn’t been so wrapped up in herself perhaps she would have noticed that Eva needed encouragement and praise.

  It was weeks ago that he realized he had fallen in love with Eva. It began with him just feeling he wanted to help her because she seemed so vulnerable and scared, but once he discovered that she was plucky, fun and caring, love took over. She was definitely the one he’d been waiting for all these years, yet he’d begun to think such a girl didn’t exist.

  The reason he didn’t try to push her beyond mere friendship was because he felt she needed to get over her mother’s death. But he had suggested he join her in Scotland in the hope that something would come of it. And it had, and it was like a dream come true. He had been as intrigued as she was by the mysteries of her mother’s past, but it was all getting a bit much now.

  He really hoped that digging out the facts on this baby-snatching story today would end all this nonsense and they could get back to where they had been in the Highlands.

  Eva sat at a table in the library archives with the folder containing newspapers from 1970 open in front of her. Phil
was standing behind her, reading the story of the disappearance of baby Melanie Jane Carling, over Eva’s shoulder.

  ‘Only three days old!’ he exclaimed. ‘But as appalling and heart-breaking as that is, she can’t be you. Look, she was born on the 29th of March, 1970.’

  When Eva didn’t respond he sat down beside her so that he could see her face. She looked stricken. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Surely you weren’t hoping it was you?’

  ‘Mum killed herself on the 29th of March,’ she said, and her voice shook with emotion.

  A cold chill ran down Phil’s spine. He wanted to say that it was just coincidence, but he couldn’t. ‘Come on, Eva, get a grip. Your birthday is in April.’

  ‘That’s what it says on my birth certificate, but how do we know if that’s correct?’

  ‘The hospital would. And mums keep stuff like wrist tags.’

  ‘She could’ve told the registrar that I was born at home. Does anyone check that kind of thing?’

  Phil had no idea of the drill for registering a birth; all he knew was that he had been registered about three weeks after he was born. ‘They must do,’ he said, ‘or what would stop people registering babies that don’t exist and then claiming family allowance and stuff?’

  She seemed to rally a bit at that. ‘I’m going to ask to photocopy some of these articles about the case,’ she said. ‘I’ll read them more carefully when I get home.’

  Phil thought they’d both already read them quite carefully enough. They knew that the mother had left the pram, which was described as a green carrycot on a wheeled collapsible frame, outside the bookmaker’s at approximately 1.45 p.m. The mother claimed she had only been in the shop long enough to put a bet on, no more than five minutes, and she’d come out to find the pram and baby gone.

  But a few days after the snatching, the staff in the bookmaker’s were reported as having said that Sue Carling was a regular customer with a gambling habit, and right up till the baby was born she was in and out of the shop almost every afternoon, often staying to watch the race she’d bet on. The manager couldn’t say with any certainty how long she’d stayed that particular day, because there were a lot of people in and out, and he hadn’t even known she’d had her baby and certainly didn’t know she’d left it outside. The first he knew of it was when she burst back into the shop screaming that the baby had been taken.