With an empty black plastic bag in one hand, Cupidi led the woman up to the bathroom and gradually stripped the clothes from her body while the bath ran.
The woman stood there, acquiescent, unembarrassed by her nakedness and the state of her body. The skin on her neck and hands was thick with grime. Blackness sat under fingernails, in the whorls of her fingertips, in the wrinkles and cracks. It would take more than one bath for her to get completely clean, but at least she wouldn’t smell as badly as she did now.
‘Arms,’ she said, lifting Hilary’s vest off, as she had her own daughter’s when she was a child. It was stained with sweat. She dropped it into the rubbish bag. ‘You can have some of mine to wear. They might be a bit big.’
Hilary didn’t react. Years of homelessness and addiction left her passive. Cupidi tested the bathwater, adding shampoo to make bubbles.
Hilary was naked now from the waist up. Cupidi paused. ‘What happened at the campsite, the night of the fire? Did you find out about that?’
‘I was in Spain by then.’
‘But you heard?’
Hilary sat down on the toilet and started rolling her tights down her thin legs. ‘Through the grapevine. There was this alternative circus I hung out with. You know, fire-eating, chainsaws…’
‘Very nineties.’
She laughed. ‘Yes. They had an old finca outside Lleida in Catalonia. I used to sing in bands, so I told them I was working up some kind of act with my singing. Maybe I was, I don’t know. I was a mess. I used to have a good voice once. But they put me up for a couple of years, and during that time other travellers would come through the town. So I learned bits and pieces of what had gone on at the site. People said there had been this fire. That children had been killed. I heard that Daniel was badly disfigured.’
She trod on one half of her woollen tights and lifted the other to pull them off. On her calf, hidden till now, there was a single tattoo, not particularly well done: Ju-Ju.
‘The poor children. I kept thinking, that would have been Jules, if I was still there.’
Freya was completely naked now: bony, scabbed on her knees and on her shoulder. Abscesses had left red scars on her arms and legs. The paleness of the skin on her body contrasted with the burnt brown of her head and limbs.
Gingerly she lowered herself into the water.
‘It’s hot,’ she complained.
Cupidi added more cold.
‘Did you know the children who died?’
‘No. They were innocent bystanders, I think. The poor mother.’
‘These travellers who came through, did they ever tell you who set the fire?’
‘Oh yes. Everyone knew. It was just one of those stories that went around. But it was Daniel’s fault at the start of it. Apparently he was clucking.’
Cupidi had been around addicts enough to know their language. ‘Clucking’ was that skin-scratching, nervy-eyed behaviour of someone who needed the next fix. ‘Daniel set the fire? I thought—’
‘No. Not Daniel. He wanted some heroin, but I can’t judge. I’ve done bad things, too. I’ve robbed people because I needed the stuff more than they did. So people say he stole Freya’s stash. But, like, all of it. Not just enough for himself. All of it. When she found out, she went ape.’
The obscured glass window darkened. The rain cloud was over them now.
‘So you think she tried to kill him?’
‘Definitely. Everyone knew it. Or scare him. I don’t know. Some people think she was psycho all along. Whatever it was, it just got out of hand. There was a lot of substance abuse. People were nuts. And then Daniel was in hospital and she was never heard of again.’
She picked up a handful of the bubbles that the shampoo had made.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Cupidi.
‘I’ve been using. I’m not feeling great,’ she said.
‘You need sleep. I’ve a bed made up, ready for you when you’re clean. I’ll give you some food and then you can rest.’
‘Is Julian going back to London?’
‘He’s staying tonight. He’s called his wife and told her.’
‘He’s lovely, isn’t he, my son?’
‘He’s going to need a lot of help working it all out with you,’ Cupidi said. ‘And with his wife.’
She snorted. ‘Don’t look at me. I’m no good at any of that.’
‘Well, you’re going to bloody have to be,’ Cupidi said.
‘I can’t.’
‘If you can’t, then there was no point tracking him down, was there?’
Rain spattered suddenly onto the window. Cupidi could hear a door somewhere downstairs banging in the wind. She wondered if Zoë was back yet.
‘So as far as you know, Freya just disappeared?’
‘She used to be my friend. She was in the ward with me, when I had Julian. Nicking the gas and air, mind. Then, after the fire, I never heard anything of her ever again. I asked, but nobody knew anything. I thought she would have died after all this time. Every few years I’d come back to England. I had this dream of finding my son again, of making it up to Julian. I came back last year, and thought I’d try and make a go of it, try and find my feet. I was looking for Julian, and I started asking after her again too, but I didn’t really know anybody. Everyone I knew was dead, or they’d moved on. But when I tried signing on, I was accused of having false papers. “That’s not you,” they said. “It can’t be. That’s somebody else’s identity you’ve stolen,” they said. It was like a nightmare. I couldn’t even get straight again because of her. She ruined my life.’
‘I think she was living around here for years,’ said Cupidi. ‘She had cleaned up, but she was hiding. She knew the moment she used her own name she’d be arrested for what she did to those kids. She knew you were gone. And so she pretended to be you.’
‘What a hell of a life. All that on our shoulders, all three of us. Me, Freya, Daniel. I suppose she thought I was genuinely dead, too. I was, really.’
‘Want me to wash your back?’
‘I died a few times, for real. Heart stopped, everything. Overdosed. They brought me back with adrenalin. I didn’t care. I just went and did it all again. Wouldn’t bloody die.’
Cupidi took a sponge and started rubbing Hilary’s shoulders. Hilary was only a little older than Cupidi, but her skin was an old woman’s, puckered and wrinkled.
‘She was using my name?’
‘Yes.’
‘And clean? I can’t imagine her clean,’ said Hilary. ‘She was always on drugs. What was she living off?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s one thing I can’t work out. She had money, I know that, but I don’t know where she was getting it from. If I did, I might be able to figure out why she died. I was wondering. Did she ever work on farms, like you?’
‘Freya? No. She was too good for that. And she had no need. She made plenty of cash. Why? Do you think that’s what she was doing?’
Cupidi didn’t answer. She thought of the simple caravan, hidden away behind Eason’s house.
‘In spite of everything she did, I would have liked to have seen her again. Just once.’
‘I didn’t get the impression that Daniel was so keen. If I read his reaction right, I think he was glad she was dead. He didn’t say as much, in as many words.’
‘Daniel was always a hypocrite,’ she said. ‘He loved her once. I think he still feels bad that it was him who set the ball rolling. If he hadn’t nicked the stuff, the boys would still be alive.’
‘I think it was you he really loved.’
She laughed. ‘No. That’s not right at all.’
‘My impression was, he felt guilty about not looking after you when you needed it.’
‘We could barely look after ourselves, back then, any of us.’
The white bubbles had faded; the water around her was dark already. Cupidi took down the shower head, turned the tap back on and tested the temperature.
‘Is he married, Daniel?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Is he well?’
‘He runs a kind of posh New Age health farm north of London. He’s quite well known in those circles. He looks very well.’
‘I heard he had been badly disfigured.’
‘Not really. You can see the burns, but they’re not bad.’
‘That’s good.’ She leaned forward and let Cupidi spray water through her filthy hair. The grease was so thick it would take three or four washes to get it clean.
‘Is he Julian’s father?’
She took her time answering. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually.
‘Are you going to tell him?’
‘In time. Why are you laughing?’
It was true: an inescapable giggle rising up. ‘You know what? I think his wife, Lulu, might find it easier to accept you as a mother-in-law if she knew her husband’s dad was a wealthy spa owner with his own mansion.’
‘He’s rich?’
‘Richer than you or me, that’s for sure. You should get in touch with him. I think he’d like to see you.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Give it time. Your sister never asked for child support from him?’
‘Because I never told her who the father was. She asked. I refused to say. As far as I knew, he was just another smack addict. I didn’t want Julian to know anything about it.’
‘Now you’re laughing too. What’s so funny?’
Hilary was shaking, sending ripples through the water. Even with her head down, eyes closed to keep the soap out, Cupidi could see her face was all wrinkles now, showing grey teeth; the biggest smile Cupidi had seen her make so far. ‘He always liked money more than he pretended. As I said, he was always a hypocrite.’
Cupidi rinsed her hair until the water ran clean.
When Hilary leaned back and opened her eyes again, she said, ‘I shouldn’t be so hard on him. I have nothing else to lose. Nothing at all. He has a reputation. He would be afraid of losing it.’
‘You have your son back.’
‘Maybe,’ she said, and slid back underwater. ‘I don’t know yet.’
Sorting through her wardrobe, Cupidi found some old clothes that might fit a thinner woman and left them outside the door. Downstairs Helen was cooking pasta, something she could be relied on not to cook too badly. ‘Is she OK?’
‘She’s coming off heroin.’
Her mother blew out air. She had given Julian a glass of wine and was drinking one herself.
‘I spoke to Lulu,’ he said. ‘She’s worried, of course.’
‘Your choice. You can stay, or I’ll drive you to the station.’
‘I’ll stay with her. Tonight, at least.’
‘Good. That cottage. It belongs to a man I know. He’s away. I’m going to put your mother up in it for a few days. I know he’d approve of it being used like this. There’s a second bedroom for you, if you like. And then you need to work out what you’re doing. She’ll be down in a minute.’ She peered out of the kitchen window. ‘No sign of Zoë yet?’
‘It’s pouring down,’ her mother said. ‘She’ll be soaked.’ The storm clouds were directly over them now; it was as if night had fallen. Rain was sweeping in waves across the wet stones.
‘My daughter,’ explained Cupidi.
‘What an amazing place for her to grow up,’ said Julian.
That was when the landline rang.
‘Where were you? I’ve been calling your mobile and radioing the police car.’
DI McAdam. Shit.
‘I should explain. Something really big came up. I was fetching a witness from London. The real Hilary Keen.’
‘You found her?’
‘Whitechapel Police did.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Right now, at my house. She’s in a bit of a mess. I’ll explain. I was just… interviewing her.’ She didn’t say: naked, in the bath.
‘Don’t worry about that now. It’s not relevant. This is more important. We’ve had reports of another body. In the water. By Jury’s Gut. Apparently about a quarter of a mile away from Salt Lane, where the last woman was found. And naked too. I’ve been trying to track you down for the last thirty bloody minutes.’
‘Right. Sorry.’
‘Get there now. Constable Ferriter is on the way out there now. I want you to get a good assessment of the site.’
‘Who’s the victim?’
‘Unidentified. All I know is it’s a young one. Female.’
In that second the panic started. Chest-constricting, limb-chilling horror. Zoë had not come home yet.
‘What’s wrong?’ said her mother, wooden spoon at her lips.
Cupidi looked at her mother, at Julian and, behind them, at Hilary Keen, standing in the doorway, transformed.
‘I have to go. Look after them, Mum.’
‘Alex? What’s wrong?’
But she was sprinting out of the back door through the rain to the police car, fumbling for the keys.