Chapter 46
Emma rushed to telephone Tony with the news. He was waiting at the station for her the next morning, and his beaming smile when he saw her coming off the train made her heart race. Nobody had looked at her like that before.
“So you’re sure this is the correct Rose Byrne?” he asked. “They didn’t find a birth certificate for the approximate date she was born?”
“It does begin to make sense,” Tony agreed.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to say any of this to Iris.
” Emma chewed on her lip. “She may hate me for finding out the truth, if it is the truth. I suppose it’s possible that everything she has told us is true after all.
Rose Byrne is quite a common name, isn’t it?
Perhaps she really was born in the outback and never had a proper birth certificate registered. But it all fits together so well.”
“I’d tread carefully if I were you,” Tony said as he ushered her into the car.
“Are you coming with me?”
“I think I’ll stay well clear.”
“Coward.” She grinned at him.
“No, being expedient. She won’t want to think that her solicitor was going behind her back. I don’t think we’ll even mention that I went up to Scotland to you, and definitely not that you and I . . .”
“Have you spoken to Isobel yet?” she asked tentatively.
“No. I’m still working out what to say, but don’t worry, I will. When this business is all sorted out and we know where we are.”
“All right.” A small sliver of doubt crept in. He’d decide that Isobel made more sense after all. So suitable. Just like Simon.
He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I don’t want to lose you, you know. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Me too.”
He took her hand, squeezing it before he had to let go and negotiate the next bend in the road.
It was a rare sunny autumn day and the leaves glowed in russets and gold.
Slanting sunlight made the sky look like a blue arc.
They drove mainly in silence until they reached Iris’s expansive grounds.
As they pulled up outside Cynthia Morton appeared, just as she had done the first time.
“You’re back quickly,” she said, not looking pleased. “I expected you to be away for weeks.”
“I have some news and updates for Iris,” Emma said. “May we come in?”
“She’s out in the walled garden,” Cynthia said. “Come on, I’ll take you there.”
“I’ll be waiting in the car,” Tony said. “Come and get me after you’ve spoken to Iris.”
Emma followed Cynthia across the grounds to the walled garden. Rose petals lay on the ground and the creeper on the wall had turned blood red. The air still hummed with bees. Iris was sitting on the marble bench by the fountain, a rug over her knees. She looked up in surprise when she saw Emma.
“But you’re supposed to be in Scotland,” she said.
“I came down because I’ve found out some interesting facts,” Emma replied.
“Well, come and sit down then. Cynthia, love, bring us some coffee, I’m still a bit chilly.”
Cynthia shot a look of dislike at Emma then left.
“Now, what was so important that it made you leave a nice holiday in Scotland,” Iris said as Emma sat beside her.
“Did you get my postcards yet? The one in which I found out that the story you had written was all true?”
“I did see that one, yes. You found the details in the newspaper, did you?”
“Some of them. Others I put together for myself.”
“And what was your conclusion?” Iris’s face was bright and alert, and she looked like a much younger woman.
“You may be very angry with me, but I have to know,” Emma said. “Iris, are you the Wild Girl?”
Iris did not look either astonished or angry.
If anything she looked amused. “An interesting conclusion, but no, I am not she.” She studied the disappointment on Emma’s face, then she said, “You seem to be on the right track, and you’ve worked out a lot.
Good for you. I can’t leave you hanging, not when you’ve come so far.
But if you want to know who I am, you should think of my name. And the name I went by . . .”
She had a challenging little smile on her face. Iris Blackburn. Rose Byrne. “So many flowers,” she had said to Tony. Emma frowned, shaking her head. “The only other person was Lily Patterson.”
“Precisely.” Iris beamed. “Well done.”
“But you can’t be Lily. Lily died in the boating accident.” Emma stammered out the words.
“No, dear. It was Catriona who died. We always did look alike. She was wearing my clothes, as usual, and by the time they found her the fish had nibbled at her face, so they assumed . . .”
“Catriona ran off with Mr Blaine?”
“She did, and I’ve found it hard to forgive her. She ruined everything.”
When Emma looked surprised at this outburst, Iris went on. “We had done everything for her. I had done everything. Given her everything. Treated her like my sister. And then I found she was going to slip away and desert me. Leave me behind.”
“So you slashed the sail. Did you also damage the rudder?”
It was Iris’s turn to look surprised. “Rudder? I never knew anything about the rudder.”
“It says so in the newspaper. The sail was slashed but the rudder was deliberately sabotaged. The police said it had been partially sawn through.”
“Oh,” Iris said. Emma could see she was processing this.
“That’s what left the boat at the mercy of the waves,” Emma said. “Not the sail. Who do you think did it? Was it Alistair Graham?”
“No, it couldn’t have been him,” Iris said. There was a long pause, then she added, “He was already dead.”
Emma looked startled, and Iris said in a calm voice, “We killed him, Catriona and I.”
Emma stared at her.
“Not deliberately, although he deserved it,” Iris went on.
“He was a vile, repulsive man. I hated him from the beginning. I didn’t want to marry at all, and my parents were throwing me at him.
He took me for a walk in the woods . . .
‘So you two can get to know each other better,’ my mother said.
And once we were out in the forest he tried to kiss me and fondle me.
I pushed him away and told him I didn’t want him and I wasn’t going to marry him.
He was laughing. He said I’d soon come to appreciate the delights of the flesh and he couldn’t wait to teach me.
I said not with him. Never. Then he got angry.
He threw me down to the ground, lifted my skirt, and he raped me, quite brutally.
Then he was smiling again and he said I’d have to marry him now because nobody else would touch me.
I was spoiled goods. He’d let the world know. ”
“Oh Iris. How awful,” Emma said. She was about to take Iris’s hand when she reminded herself that this was the famous Iris Blackburn.
Iris nodded. “I was still lying there, battered and terrified, when Catriona stepped out behind him. She saw what he’d done.
She hit him over the head with a rock and screamed, ‘You leave her alone, you monster.’” Iris paused again.
She had been staring out, watching the water splash into the basin of the fountain, but then she turned back to Emma.
“She killed him. He fell forward, across me, dead. We didn’t know what to do.
There was no way I’d go to my parents and tell them what he had done to me and say it was an accident.
So we dragged him further into the woods, away from the path, and we buried him.
Cat went to find spades from the gardener’s shed and we dug the hole.
It was hard work, but in the end he was buried, and we piled branches and leaves over the grave.
We sneaked back to his cottage and took some of his clothes to make it seem that he’d left in a hurry, and we buried them, too. ”
She paused, reflecting on what she had just said.
“But we both felt it was only a matter of time before someone found him and we’d be arrested and hanged.
So we planned to get away. We had big ideas, Cat and I.
We’d already talked about running away. We decided to disguise ourselves from the dress-up box.
Two old women with grey hair. We’d make our way down to London, where Cat would be a dancer and I’d be a writer.
We had no idea what we’d do for money, but it was a lovely dream.
“We packed bags and hid them and waited for the right moment. Cat pretended to visit her father and hid out. Then I found out she was escaping with Blaine, without me. I overheard them. She’d been seeing him behind my back.
They were going off together. It was the ultimate betrayal.
I crept down to the harbour and slashed the sail.
That would teach them, they wouldn’t get anywhere. They’d be trapped there.
“But that was when I got the courage to escape, on my own. If anyone was stuck and caught for the murder it wouldn’t be me.
Remember I was only eighteen. I wasn’t thinking clearly.
I was in a rage and a panic. So I sneaked down to the boathouse and rowed myself across to the mainland.
Nobody would notice one of the old rowing boats missing.
With the grey wig, the shawl around my head and dirt on my face, I didn’t think anyone would look at me twice.
As I made my way to the train at Mallaig I learned that they had both drowned.
Then I knew I had to get away. I was a murderess. ”
“But you didn’t kill anyone, Iris,” Emma said. “The damaged sail didn’t capsize the boat. It was out in the sea with no rudder. That’s what made the boat capsize. Also one of the ropes, the sheets that held the sail, was cut. You didn’t mean to harm them,” Emma said.
“No, I didn’t.” Iris squeezed her eyes shut as if trying to shut out the memory. “I loved her. My darling Cat. I didn’t want her to leave me alone. And when I heard . . . Well, I was desperate.”
Emma nodded with understanding. “If I’d been in your shoes I’d have been desperate, too.”