Chapter 61
LENA
I run as fast as I can along the landing, almost tripping over my feet in my hurry to get away.
I hear Henry shout something. I take the stairs two at a time.
I can hear Henry’s footsteps behind me, sense him making a grab for me.
If he gets close enough to inject me, that’s it.
Game over. I jump down the remainder of the stairs and hit the tiles hard.
I wince with pain, but I get up and grapple with the front door, just as Henry is behind me.
I’m all fingers and thumbs. Why won’t it open?
He reaches out, his fingernails sharp against my bare shoulder and I scream.
I pull at the door with all my strength, relieved when it opens and I collide with someone. A man who is blocking my escape. Oh, God.
‘What’s going on?’
I look up into the man’s face. It’s Kit, Rufus’s guitar teacher. What is he doing here? I remember the newspaper article he stole from their house.
He glances past me to Henry and then back to me again, his features contorted in confusion.
‘Kit. Thank God. You have to help me, please,’ I gasp.
‘It’s okay, it’s okay, Lena,’ he says, putting an arm protectively around my shoulders. ‘What are you doing to her?’ he demands, glaring at Henry, who is hiding the syringe behind his back. ‘What the hell is going on here?’
I sag against Kit in relief. He backs out of the door, his arm still around me, guiding me to safety.
‘I can explain,’ begins Henry.
‘I’m taking her home,’ says Kit, and I’m impressed by his authoritarian tone.
I throw the key to Henry, where it clatters onto the tiles at his feet. ‘Your wife is locked in the attic. She might need medical attention, but then, you are a doctor.’
Henry just stands there, gawping at us. Kit closes the door on him and leads me down the path towards my house. ‘Are you okay? What just happened? Shall I call the police?’
‘I just want to go home.’ My whole body is trembling and I have to hand Kit my front-door key so he can let us in. ‘Thank God you showed up. Kit, they’re fucking psychos, both of them.’
‘What did they do?’ he asks, as he helps me into the kitchen and onto a chair before fetching me a glass of water.
I put my hand to my head. I feel shivery, like I’ve caught the flu. ‘They … oh God, where to start?’
‘I’m going to call Charlie.’
‘No! It’s okay, I …’
But he’s firm and before I can stop him he’s got out his mobile and is dialling my ex-husband’s number, asking him to come over urgently.
When he ends the call he flashes me a concerned look.
‘You can’t be on your own, Lena. I don’t know what’s going on with the people next door, but you look as white as a ghost and you’re shaking. You’re obviously in shock.’
I sip my water, my mind swimming.
He takes a seat next to me. ‘What happened?’ he probes gently.
I want to ask him about the article and why he went to the Morgans’, but I dismiss it for now. I can ask him about that later.
‘Oh, God, Kit. It’s so much worse than I even thought.
’ I recount everything that happened and his eyes get bigger and rounder as my story progresses.
‘And then I managed to escape by sticking the nail into the side of Marielle’s neck and locking her in the attic.
Henry would have jabbed me with God knows what if you hadn’t shown up.
You saved my life, Kit. I can’t thank you enough. ’
Ten minutes later Charlie arrives with Rufus. We’re all in my living room and someone, I’m assuming Kit, has draped a throw over my shoulders. I can’t stop trembling even though I’m trying to play it down in front of Rufus, who is wide-eyed with terror.
‘It’s the shock,’ says Charlie, handing me a can of Coke from the fridge. ‘Drink this. The sugar will be good.’ Rufus is sitting so close to me he’s almost on my lap, reminding me of when he was little and nervous if we were somewhere unfamiliar.
Kit is hovering by the window. He keeps glancing down the street. ‘I’m going around there,’ he says, turning to us with a look of determination. ‘I’ll call the police and make sure they don’t abscond or anything. Henry’s Jag is still outside.’
‘It’s my word against theirs,’ I say, my teeth chattering. ‘Marielle is the one with the wound. They’ll blame me.’
‘I’ll make sure to tell the police what I witnessed, don’t worry,’ Kit assures me, but I notice something like doubt pass across his face. Does he believe me? He saw how scared I was.
‘Thanks, Kit,’ says Charlie. And then he turns to me. ‘Do you mind if I stay here tonight? I don’t want to leave you on your own.’
‘I can look after her,’ says Rufus, putting his arm protectively around me.
‘I know, son,’ says Charlie, ‘but I’d like to be here too, if that’s okay.’
I’m not sure how I feel about that after finding footage of Charlie sneaking around my garden late at night. But I don’t want to say anything in front of Rufus.
‘Of course.’
Kit walks towards the living-room door. ‘Right, I’m going to call the police.
It will be fine, Lena. But before I go there’s something you should know.
’ He looks down at his hands. ‘The reason I was at their door in the first place.’ His expression is hard to read in the glow of the corner lamp.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a newspaper cutting, which he passes to me.
Rufus must have given it back to him. ‘The baby … it’s me. ’
I stare at him as I try to reconcile this strapping lad with the tiny newborn Simone had found on those hospital steps all those years ago. Of course. Why hadn’t I realized? Why else would he have been so interested in that newspaper story?
Rufus doesn’t look surprised – Kit must already have told him. Charlie just appears confused, and I hand him the cutting so he can read it for himself.
‘So you were the one in the Morgans’ house that night?’ I ask.
He looks shocked. ‘Which night?’
‘Last Friday. I was there too, and I saw someone rooting around.’
He flushes with guilt but doesn’t ask why I was there.
I suspect it was Kit who stole Joan’s key from my kitchen drawer a few days later, then discovered they’d changed the locks.
‘Yep. I didn’t mean any harm. I was just trying to find out what I could about them.
I already knew I was adopted and found on the steps of St Calvert’s Hospital.
When my adoptive mother died I decided to look into it and that was when I discovered through my records that I was abandoned and found by a midwife, Simone Harvey. ’
I remember what Oliver had told me about a call from a ‘journalist’. ‘Did you contact her brother, Oliver?’
‘I did. I’ve been searching for my real parents for over a year, and I’ve discovered … well, I’ve discovered a lot.’ He glances from Charlie to Rufus. ‘I’m sorry I used you guys to find out more from Lena.’
‘What? Why?’ Charlie looks up in surprise.
Rufus doesn’t say anything but moves even closer to me.
‘It’s almost impossible to find out about your real parents when you’ve been abandoned,’ Kit says, in a small voice.
I glance at him with his floppy hair, and I can see the lost little boy who lurks beneath this handsome young man.
‘After a lot of digging I found someone who showed me old hospital records from the time I was found. Simone’s name was there, of course, because she’d been the one to find me, but also your name came up, Lena. ’
‘Because I was with Simone when she reported the abandoned baby.’
He nods. ‘They’d recorded your name too.
When I couldn’t find Simone I found you, hoping you’d know something about my parents.
I befriended Charlie and Rufus, hoping to get close enough to confide in you and ask you questions.
It was a long shot. I certainly didn’t expect you to lead me right to them. ’
I remember the Barnardo’s sticker on his guitar case.
It all clicks into place. The date: 22 February 1999.
That was the day after Marielle said she’d given birth to her baby.
She had been right. Her baby never died.
But who faked the baby’s death? Simone? Hugh?
Simone must have pretended to find him on the steps of the hospital after she and Hugh had taken him from Marielle. He hadn’t been abandoned, but stolen.
‘And … your birth parents?’
He throws me a knowing look. ‘You’ve already guessed, haven’t you?’