Silence on the phone made Alex wonder if she’d been forgotten by the woman at the Child Protection Services who had asked her to wait. She glanced at her watch. Almost lunchtime already. Too late to get to London today.
Lily held Kyle Gammage’s gray tabby over her shoulder. She nuzzled the cat’s head absently with her chin and gazed into space as if she hadn’t heard Alex’s phone conversation. They were in Doc James’s study at his house, where Alex had finally caught up with her mother.
‘Yes, I’m still here,’ Alex said into the phone. At Doc’s insistence, she’d taken over the chair behind his desk and held a pen over an empty pad of paper, hoping this wouldn’t be as unproductive as she expected it to be.
‘It’s a busy place there,’ Lily murmured, jiggling Naruto as if she were a baby. The cat purred loudly enough for Alex to hear. ‘Do you think we should call back later?’ her mum added.
Alex shook her head, no. She understood her mother’s reluctance to follow up on the phone call she had received from Beverly, but they had already waited longer than they should, given the inference that had been made.
Doc James was seeing patients in his surgery and Tony had gone to his clinic. It had been Doc’s idea for Alex to come to his house where Lily seemed more comfortable than anywhere else. The closeness between Lily and Doc was ever more obvious.
‘Yes, hello,’ Alex said. ‘Thank you very much. Didn’t I tell … I thought I’d explained why I was calling.’ After explaining – again – that she wanted to find Beverly Irving, an old friend of her mother’s, she listened to what the abrupt woman at the other end of the line had to say for some minutes, making a few notes as she did so. ‘Very well, thanks,’ she said finally and hung up.
Holding the cat even closer, Lily watched Alex’s face.
‘Do you remember signing for Beverly to be responsible for any correspondence that came in for you?’ Alex asked.
Lily frowned and thought about it. ‘Yes, but that was before you were born. It was when Beverly was a saint to me – she wanted to save me, or I thought she did.’
Clearing her throat, Alex thought about how to ask the next question. ‘Did you ever cancel that order, Mum?’
Too long passed before Lily said, ‘No. I never thought about it. I assumed they would get in touch with me once I was a certain age if there was anything they needed me for.’
‘So, you made sure the agency had your address?’
Her mother put Naruto down slowly. ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t want Beverly to have a way to find me.’ She stood still, looking into the fire. ‘The letter I got about Angela dying was forwarded.’
‘From where? I didn’t see the envelope.’
‘There wasn’t a return address – at least I don’t think so. It was typed. Beverly must have sent it to me. She would have been afraid of questions if the agency made a concerted effort to find me. And they might have asked her things she wouldn’t want to talk about. She knows my address. She probably knows everything about me.’
‘Now do you see why I’m going to London to push for information about Beverly?’
‘No.’ Lily closed her mouth firmly.
‘We could just tell the police what we think and—’
‘No!’ Lily cut her off. She planted her hands on the edge of the desk, across from Alex and looked down at her. ‘This is my life. I want it to stay the way it is.’
Alex stood up. ‘And I don’t have a right to my life, Mum?’ she asked quietly. ‘Don’t you see what I’ve been trying to explain since I got here? Your Beverly is psychotic. She’s spent more than thirty years spying on you – and me. There’s nothing else to call it. And now she’s really lost it and she’s openly threatening us.’
‘She’s threatening me,’ Lily said. ‘If she’s really threatening anyone at all.’
Alex came from behind the desk. She took her mother gently by the arms. ‘Mum, she told you she would hurt someone you love. She didn’t have to mean me but she may have. I think I know what you’ve suffered but we’ve got to be sensible.’ Sensible? Did that mean she should go to the police now, regardless of what Lily wanted?
‘I’ll go and find out myself,’ Lily said, one hand hovering in front of her mouth. ‘I’ll go tomorrow morning. I’m sorry I’ve done this to you but I didn’t let myself think what it could all mean, not really. When I have Beverly’s address, I’ll go and see her and make her stop. She’s not a bad person.’
No, just crazy.