37
37
The long-closed-down Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital – the very name sent an icy cascade of goosebumps across my flesh – was located in Essex, on the outskirts of Epping Forest. Again, as the crow flies it wasn’t too far, but with London traffic it would take about an hour to get there, less if I broke the speed limit – which I intended to do, as aggressively as possible, as getting points on my licence was the least of my concerns.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked Dylan as we headed back into the traffic.
‘Yeah.’
His voice and the paleness of his face betrayed how he really felt. He looked so sick with fear that I wished I didn’t have to bring him with me, but what choice did I have? He was in no fit state to be dropped at a train station and told to go home. Besides, two members of my family were missing; I didn’t want to risk losing another one.
Again, I wrestled with the idea of going to the police and handing everything over to them. But Lucy’s words about Rose getting into trouble rang in my ears. Besides, I knew I would have to persuade the police to act – that they’d want to talk to me at length, and that it would take ages for them to mobilise.
There was no time for that.
‘Fiona Woodfield,’ I said. ‘Can you look her up on your phone? See if there are any news stories about her?’
I thought there must be, if she had been in prison with Lucy – and I was right.
‘Oh my days,’ Dylan said. He had found something immediately. A news story from four years ago.
‘She was done for will fraud,’ he said, quickly scanning the article and summarising it for me. ‘The prosecution said she formed a fake friendship with this wealthy elderly lady, moved in with her and persuaded her to change her will. She was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty.’
I was actually slightly relieved. Will fraud was a long way from murder. Sure, it was a despicable crime and it was exactly the kind of thing I could imagine a psychopath – who saw other people as inferior and who had no conscience, no feelings of guilt – doing. But it was a financial crime, not a violent one. I wondered briefly if Fiona was planning to try to con me and Emma, though we would be unusual targets. We were far from rich. We were just a normal family living in suburbia. Why on earth was I on the list Lucy had mentioned? Or maybe Lucy, being a solid-gold psychopath herself – manipulative and cold-blooded, famous for her cruelty – had been lying. I found it reassuring to think this.
‘Dad? Hello? Are you listening?’
‘Sorry. I was deep in thought.’
‘Okay, well, please concentrate. Listen to this. Woodfield’s partner in crime, Maisie Smith— ’
‘Smith. That’s where she borrowed the surname from.’
‘ Maisie Smith died by suicide in her cell shortly after her arrest, leaving a full written confession for the attempted murder of Dinah Uxbridge. In the letter, she said she had acted alone and that Woodfield was not involved in giving Mrs Uxbridge thallium and attempting to poison her. Despite the protestations of Mrs Uxbridge’s remaining family, who believe Woodfield was a full and active participant in the scheme, the Crown Prosecution Service decided only to charge her for the lesser crime of will fraud in light of Smith’s confession. ’
Dylan looked up from his phone. ‘There’s a quote from Dinah Uxbridge’s niece here. I understand the CPS doesn’t want to spend money on a trial, but as far as I’m concerned this is a gross miscarriage of justice. I believe Fiona Woodfield and Maisie Smith worked together to attempt to poison my aunt because, even when she’d changed her will, they couldn’t wait for her to die of natural causes. Also, Aunt Dinah was so strong she might even have outlived Maisie Smith. ’
‘Why would she say that?’ I asked. Fiona would only have been in her mid-thirties then, and I assumed her partner would’ve been about the same.
We were stopped at a traffic light, in a queue of cars, so Dylan held his screen up for me to see. There was a woman on the screen in late middle age. Short, grey hair, probably in her mid-sixties. Quite attractive, with charisma shining out of the photo. The female equivalent of a silver fox. Silver vixen?
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, expecting him to say it was Dinah Uxbridge, the victim.
‘That’s Maisie Smith.’
I did a double take. ‘What? Are you sure?’ She must have been at least thirty years older than Fiona.
‘Hold on. There’s another piece here about Fiona and Maisie,’ Dylan said. ‘At the time they were arrested, Fiona was thirty-five and Maisie was sixty-four. It says here that the couple met when Maisie lived in Australia when she was in her mid-forties.’
‘Wait. So twenty years before? That means—’
‘Fiona would have been a teenager. If it was twenty years earlier, she would have been fifteen.’
But it could have been even earlier. She could have been thirteen or fourteen. Barely older than Rose. And an older woman had come along ...
‘She groomed her,’ I said.
I thought I might actually be sick.
‘Have you ever seen ... anything like that between them?’ I asked.
‘What? Like Fiona touching Rose?’ He grimaced. ‘No. Whatever she is, I’m sure she’s not a paedo. This isn’t about that, is it? It’s about training her, like I said. Like Lucy said.’
Lucy’s exact words came back to me.
Fiona told me she was going to take Rose under her wing, that she recognised the same thing in her that we have.
‘But the article you read out, it describes Fiona and Maisie as a couple. And Fiona told your mum that her girlfriend had died.’
‘I guess they must have got together once Fiona was grown-up.’
‘But that’s still grooming, isn’t it?’
Teenagers today were taught all about this stuff. When I was a kid I was warned about strangers in cars with puppies and candy. Now, they were told to be careful of online predators and catfish and strangers who lurked not in playgrounds and near schools but in multiplayer games and on social media.
Was Fiona something more old-fashioned than what we warned our digital-native children about? Not a stranger on the internet, but the stranger next door. Who we had allowed into our lives; trusted. And we had let her groom our daughter – in the same way it appeared Fiona had been groomed.
‘Is there any more?’ I asked, afraid of what Dylan might find next.
‘No. Just a final statement from this niece. She says if it were up to her, Fiona would be locked up for the rest of her life. Oh God, listen. This is a quote from her.’
My knuckles were white on the wheel.
‘ She looks like a human being. She smiles and talks and laughs like one. But she isn’t. She’s like an alien in a human suit. A devil. I hope people will remember her name and the mask she wears so she can never fool anyone again. ’
As we approached the spot the satnav had sent us to, the site of the former psychiatric hospital, the sky darkened rapidly and the heavens opened, fat raindrops bouncing off the windscreen, so hard the wipers couldn’t cope.
Into the forest, along a dark path, a dirt track that ended suddenly on the edge of some trees. There was Emma’s car, pulled over on the side of the road.
I parked behind it and told Dylan to stay in the car while I checked it. It was empty.
I returned to our car and gestured for Dylan to wind down the window.
‘I want you to stay here while I go and find the hospital.’
‘No way.’
‘I’m not going to argue. Lock the doors, stay in the car, don’t even open the windows for anyone you’re not related to. You’ve got your phone. If I’m not back in thirty minutes, dial 999. Okay?’
He stared at me.
‘Okay?’
A slow nod. I moved to get out of the car.
‘Dad, wait.’
I turned back.
‘Please, let’s call the police now. It’s not safe. I don’t want anything to happen to you.’
‘I’ll be careful. I promise. Stay here, do not move. And close this window.’
I headed into the trees before he could try to persuade me to let him come. Maybe it was too little too late, but I was determined not to put any more of my children in danger.
Beyond the trees, I found a fence. I felt along it, looking for a way in, wondering if I’d need to scale it, and found a section that had been cut away. I slipped through and climbed up the steep bank beyond.
There it was, the silhouette of a huge house beneath the darkening sky.
Ravenhill.