Chapter Five - Verity Louise Clarke #2
‘Do I know you?’ It wasn’t only the confidence with which he’d used her name, but also his manner, clear voice and earnest expression that pulled her in.
‘My name is Chen.’
‘Hello, Chen.’ She swallowed, looking from the road to the surgery door, still undecided which way to walk should the need arise.
‘Please don’t be alarmed.’ He spoke the words that were almost guaranteed to alarm her. ‘I’m here to give you a message, if you will.’
‘I see. Well, as I said—’
‘Verity,’ again he used her name, and leaned forward, as if trying physically to put himself in the driving seat of their conversation.
It was as bizarre as it was infuriating, the fact he had a message at all, a weird statement in itself.
His whole manner was a little off. ‘I spoke to your mother once, a long time ago now, Rosemary.’
Verity took a beat and studied his face.
‘You spoke to her how, when?’ It was jarring, hearing the name of her beloved mum who had passed away a decade ago, but mentally had more or less checked out when Gracie died. Her dad had picked up the mantel, tried his best, and how Verity loved him for it.
‘We’ll muddle though, won’t we, hen?’ And muddle through they had.
‘I visited her,’ Chen stated.
‘When she was sick?’ She was interested, certainly.
‘Not exactly.’ His lack of specifics was beyond irritating. ‘She wanted to talk to me about Grace.’
Verity shook her head and her stomach bunched.
It was nonsense, of course, yet no less upsetting.
And almost convincing. There was, however, a fatal flaw in Chen’s ruse, in that her mother never went by the name Rosemary, her given name, which the press had printed.
She was always, and only, ever known to her family, as Kiki.
A childhood nickname that had stuck.
‘Look, I have no interest in what you have to say. I’ve had a very long day, and I need to get home, please,’ her patience now edged with suspicion and irritation.
It wasn’t hard for anyone to look up the details of her life online, to learn that her mother had passed away, to read of her sister’s murder.
To study the horrific detail of their family tragedy laid bare for all to see.
Terrible, intimate details that every mother, father and sister would prefer not to have digitally captured for eternity, not that there was a damn thing she could do about that.
It was still of interest to people, her sister’s killer never caught.
There’d been a party in a field, drink was taken, a fire built, the music was loud, and the next morning Gracie’s naked body was discovered, discarded by the side of the road.
A local boy, a cocky, rabble rouser named Dale McCurdy, had been the prime suspect, but there’d been very little to link him to the crime, other than a tidal wave of gossip.
Plus, he had a solid alibi that put him fifty miles away for the whole night, which meant no one had ever had to answer for the crime.
It was one of the main reasons her parents had moved away. Not only to give Verity a fresh start away from the whispers, but also, and something she now understood, the prospect of bumping into McCurdy in the store or in the village was more than either of them could cope with.
Every so often, usually on the anniversary of Gracie’s death, five years…
ten years… a keen reporter would stumble across the file and rehash the story.
Writing fresh, salacious copy to sit alongside the ghastly photo they always used: a stern-faced Gracie in black and white, looking nothing like the girl Verity remembered. Nothing like her wonderful big sister.
She had, in recent years, toyed with the idea of giving better photos to the newspapers, but Patrick helped her understand there was value not only in the fact that the girl in the image looked nothing like her sister, making the picture easier to face, but also the precious and private photographs that the family held were just that, precious and private. He was right, of course.
The world might think they knew Gracie’s story, her name synonymous with a grisly end, gossip and spicy supposition, but the girl who lived in Verity’s mind, who played the cello, sang like an angel, laughed like a drain, and had the most beautiful, beautiful mane of long red hair, well, that girl was hers alone.
Gracie’s broken head had broken her parents’ hearts.
It was that simple.
‘Please excuse me, I need to,’ she made to walk past Chen, who took a step to the side, clearing the path.
‘Your mother told me to call her Kiki. I didn’t ask her why.’
Verity stopped walking. And with her back to the man, she now listened with a growing sense of ease and curiosity.
‘She also said you put something very specific in your sister’s coffin, something of yours that meant a great deal to you, something that brought you comfort when you were a child, and that you hoped might do the same for Gracie.
I only mention it not to be insensitive or to break a confidence, but to give you proof that I am who I say I am, and that I will only ever tell you the truth. ’
My, my penguin. My stuffy, a soft-bellied little fella with stitched eyes and flat orange feet. He’d lived on my bed for the longest time. I’d hold him when I fell asleep…
‘It was a penguin,’ Chen almost whispered.
What the actual…
There were to her knowledge only four people in the whole wide world who knew about that, and two of them were dead. She turned now to face the man who had her full attention.
‘How, how did you…’
‘It’s okay to be a little bit scared, Verity. I see this a lot, a natural reaction. Especially in this mistrustful world of ours, I understand. But I promise you that I have never and will never tell you a lie.’
‘What is it you want exactly?’ she gripped the brolly, doing her best to steady the tremble to her hands.
‘I want you to listen to what I have to say. Five minutes of your time – that’s all – and then I will go, and you’ll never see me again. Can you do that?’
‘Right here.’ She stood her ground, banging the tip of the brolly onto the path, happy that James was inside the building and would make an appearance soon enough. ‘You can talk to me right here.’
‘Thank you,’ Chen smiled, ‘thank you.’
The bus wended its usual route. Verity sat by the steamed-up window, a little lost to her thoughts.
The man, Chen, was mad, no doubt, but even she, a woman of science, could see how easy it would be to fall for such a story.
There was seduction in it, no denying. It was deeply attractive, the thought of having fifteen minutes with someone she’d lost. Of course she would choose Gracie, of course she would.
Her sister had been just three years older than her when she died, yet the difference in life experience between fourteen years of age and seventeen was a gulf.
It would forever be hard to reconcile that Gracie was now nearly twenty years younger than Verity, her baby sister.
An age gap that would only grow as one of them grew older and the other did not.
Verity would love just a glimpse of the girl she was, carefree, funny and clever, before she was made famous by that ugly black and white picture.
‘Shit!’ The bus stopped, and it was only the sight of her local coffee shop through the open door that made her realise it was her stop.
Standing on the pavement, she took a minute, breathing deeply, trying and failing to make sense of it all.
How had he known about her penguin? How had he known about any of it? That was the question.
***
Saturday night, and Patrick pulled his waxed jacket over his scrubs, before bending down to kiss her, ‘ships that pass in the night!’
‘See you in the morning.’ Reaching up, she ran her palm over the side of his handsome face, thankful for this man of hers.
‘See you in the morning, my love.’
‘Be safe, rest if you can.’
‘Huh, fat chance of any rest, but I’ll certainly keep safe.’ He kissed her again and headed out.
Dottie whined her disapproval.
‘I know, Dots, but your dad’s got to go to work. He needs to make all those people better who turn up pished and injured in the A&E! But next week – I promise you – it will be fun. We’re off to the beach, in the rain, we’ll get chips.’
Megan had called earlier, suggesting they meet for a drink or slump on a sofa and eat greasy noodles. Verity had politely made her excuses.
‘I’m just not feeling it, Megs. It’s been quite the week. I need ma bed! Please don’t hate me.’
‘Too late for that, I’ve hated you for years!’
They’d both laughed, theirs the kind of friendship that went far beyond feeling aggrieved by a declined invitation.
With Dottie snoring loudly in her basket in the kitchen, Verity switched off the lamp in the sitting room and went to grab her Kindle. It was almost impossible for her to sleep without reading something.
The screen glowed. Her eyes were drawn to the clock in the corner. It was nearly eleven. Standing in front of the window with the pretty view of honey glow streetlamps and chimney pots, she threw her head back and closed her eyes.
‘What are you doing, Verity?’ She shook her head, allowing a small burst of laughter to escape her lips at the utter absurdity of the situation.
‘I will never tell a living soul about this!’ she chuckled, as she slumped down on the rug by the window and, with her legs folded beneath her, closed her eyes.
Doing her best to relax, it was hard not to blush with sheer embarrassment that she was giving this any credence at all!