Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (3 page)

Neville heaped his plate with sticky ribs and added a few fried wontons, banishing a momentary mental vision of Triona. ‘Then you don’t have any choice.’

‘I know. I know.’ Mark went back to the table and for a moment he picked at the seaweed with his chopsticks, looking thoughtful.

‘I don’t know how you can eat that bloody grass,’ said Neville, picking up a rib with his fingers.

‘It’s good. Just a bit hard to eat, is all.’

Neville, chewing on a rib, was incapable of speech for a moment.

Mark thought out loud. ‘My sister,’ he said. ‘Maybe I could talk to my sister. She might be sympathetic. She might have ideas about how to tell Mum.
Nostra mamma
.’

Around the rib, Neville asked, ‘Is your sister married?’

‘Oh, yes. She’s been married for years. She’s older than me,’ he added. ‘Eight years older. Nearly nine.’

‘And she did what your parents wanted her to?’ Neville lifted an ironic eyebrow. ‘Married an Italian and had lots of bambinos?’

‘
Bambini
,’ Mark corrected him automatically. ‘Only two, as it happens. Serena’s had a lot of problems with her
pregnancies
— just like my mum. She’s had several miscarriages and that sort of thing.’

Neville made a face. ‘Too much information.’

‘Sorry. You did ask.’

He put down the chewed bone and picked up another rib. ‘These things are almost more trouble than they’re worth,’ he grumbled. Like women, he was about to add. That, though, might lead him down a path where he definitely did not want to go. It was all very well for Mark—those Mediterranean types always wore their hearts on their sleeves anyway—but he didn’t want to talk about his romantic woes to anyone. Not even Mark. And he wasn’t going to talk to Triona. Not tonight. Maybe never.

It was several days before Callie found the time to pay a call on Morag Hamilton. Afterwards she wasn’t quite sure what had impelled her to juggle her schedule, find out Morag’s address, and turn up unannounced on her doorstep. Whatever it was, though, she was glad that she did.

The corners of Morag’s eyes crinkled with pleasure at the sight of her. ‘What a nice surprise,’ she said, opening the door wide. ‘Come in and have a cup of tea, my dear. I’ve just put the kettle on.’

‘That would be lovely.’ Callie followed her into the flat.

The parish of All Saints’, Bayswater, was full of very elegant old houses which had been converted into flats. This, however, was not one of them. It was part of a purpose-built block, stuck incongruously between two Georgian mansions, and had been put up in the 1960s—one of the low points of British
architecture
. At that time it must have been the height of modernity, but now it was tiredly dated, stark and ugly. Morag had
seemingly
done her best with it, filling it with homely furniture and covering the walls with soft watercolours of what Callie assumed were Scottish scenes. There was a realistic gas fire burning in the blocky modern fireplace, and an assortment of framed
photographs
ranged on top of an old upright piano against one wall. A tall bookcase held a varied collection of recent paperback novels mixed with leatherbound classics: Dickens, Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson. Callie followed her usual procedure when visiting a
parishioner for the first time: she looked at the books, then at the photographs, for clues about the owner’s interests, history and family.

There were clues aplenty here, but Morag was back quickly with the tea.

‘Sorry,’ said Callie, caught in the act of examining the photos. ‘I was just being nosy.’

Morag didn’t seem to mind. ‘Not at all. There’s nothing secret about them.’

‘Your family?’ Callie said encouragingly.

‘Aye.’

‘And you have a dog!’ Callie picked up a photo of a sturdy tan-coloured Cairn terrier, standing against a background of mountains and heather, staring beady-eyed into the camera.

‘
Had
a dog.’ Morag’s voice was matter-of-fact, but Callie detected strong emotion behind the words. ‘Macduff. Best dog there ever was.’

‘Oh. He’s…’

‘Gone. Over six months now. Sixteen, he was. A good age for a dog. But…’

There was nothing perfunctory about Callie’s response; her rush of empathy was immediate and sincere. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. You must miss him dreadfully.’

‘I do.’

‘I have a dog,’ Callie confided on impulse. ‘A cocker
spaniel
— black and white. Bella. I haven’t had her for very long, but I just can’t imagine losing her.’

Morag sighed, and her eyes were misty. ‘It comes with the territory, I’m afraid. Their lives are cruelly short.’ She picked up another photo, of a sandy-haired man with wire-rimmed spectacles. ‘Donald, my husband. We were married for nearly forty years. He died a few months before Macduff. And I’m ashamed to say that of the two, I probably miss Macduff a bit more. But then, I spent more time with Macduff than I did with Donald. He was a doctor—worked all the hours God gave, and then some.’

‘So you’re on your own now?’

‘Yes, I’m on my own.’ Morag replaced the photo on top of the piano and moved to the tea tray. ‘Do you take sugar, my dear?’

‘No sugar.’ Callie sat down across from Morag in a shabby but comfortable chair as Morag poured the tea. She was more curious than ever: why had Morag Hamilton moved to London? ‘You said you haven’t lived here long?’ she probed.

‘Not long at all.’ She handed Callie a cup. ‘I scarcely know a soul. It isn’t…well, it isn’t like Scotland. People aren’t all that friendly, are they? They don’t go out of their way.’

‘We try to be friendly at All Saints’,’ Callie said defensively.

Morag picked up a plate of shortbread biscuits and extended it towards Callie. ‘Aye. And I appreciate it. Quite a few people have spoken to me after services and so on. But you’re the first person who’s come to call.’

Callie felt ashamed on behalf of her congregation, not to mention her vicar. When she’d mentioned Morag Hamilton to Brian, at their weekly staff meeting, he’d looked vague. ‘I think I know who you mean,’ he’d said. ‘Small woman? Grey hair? Go and see her, by all means, when you have a chance.’

At least, she told herself wryly, she had Brian’s blessing. He didn’t like it when he felt she was doing things behind his back.

‘I have a confession to make,’ Morag said as Callie crunched into the shortbread.

Oh, dear, Callie thought, automatically assigning the word an upper-case C in her mind. She’d never heard anyone’s Confession, and as a deacon, not yet priested, she wasn’t authorised to do so. ‘If you want the Sacrament of Confession, you’ll have to see Father Brian, I’m afraid,’ she apologised. ‘I’m just a deacon.’

Morag laughed. ‘Not that sort of confession!’

Flustered, Callie said, ‘Oh, well, then.’

‘I’ve never been much of a church-goer,’ Morag went on. ‘I’ve tried to be a good person, but I never really had the time or the inclination to spend all of my time in church.’

‘Mm,’ Callie said, not sure what else was required of her.

‘But when I moved to London, and ended up with All Saints’ just round the corner, it seemed to me that it would be a good way to meet people.’

Callie could contain her curiosity no longer. ‘Why
did
you move to London?’ she blurted. ‘If you didn’t know anyone here?’

‘Oh, I didn’t say I didn’t know anyone,’ Morag said, lifting her eyebrows as her mouth twisted in an ironic smile. ‘I said that I was on my own. And I am. But my son and his family live not far from here. St. John’s Wood, just up the road.’

‘Your son!’ Callie sprayed biscuit crumbs in her lap.

‘Angus.’ Morag put down her tea cup and went to the piano, selecting a photo which she placed on the table in front of Callie. ‘And that’s my granddaughter Alex, and his wife, Jilly.’

Callie picked up the photo and studied it. No casual
snapshot
: it was a studio portrait, and a very expensive one at that. The man—Angus—stood in the centre, a detail which Callie found interesting. He didn’t look very tall, and had dark hair which receded sharply from his forehead, though he seemed surprisingly young in spite of that. He was wearing a well-cut suit, almost certainly bespoke, and a colourful silk tie of the sort currently favoured by newsreaders. His heavy-lidded eyes stared straight at the camera, almost in challenge.

Jilly, the woman, was on his right. If you looked up ‘trophy wife’ in the dictionary, thought Callie, her picture would be there. She was blonde, she was young. She was beautiful, in a sleek, well-maintained way. Her dress wasn’t exactly revealing, but it didn’t conceal a great deal either: a body which was no stranger to the gym and the tanning bed. Her gaze at the camera was coy, with half a glance directed at her husband.

The child, Alex, on the left, was a different matter entirely. Even though she was looking at the camera, no doubt at the photographer’s command, it was an unwilling eye contact, almost detached from it and the other people in the frame. Her eyes were saying, as clearly as if she were speaking the words, ‘I don’t want to be here, and none of this has anything to do with me.’

No one would have called her a beautiful child, but she was certainly arresting, in spite of her efforts to fade into the background. Her hair was frizzy rather than curly, and she had a wide mouth, stretched into a pro-forma smile and revealing a brace on her teeth. Those expressive eyes, though, were large and fringed with luxuriant lashes.

‘How old is Alex?’ Callie asked. ‘Is this a recent photo?’

‘Aye, it’s quite recent. She’s twelve.’

That explained part of it: Callie remembered twelve as a particularly difficult age.

‘Poor wee bairn,’ Morag said, her voice soft. ‘She’s not grown into her face yet. You may not think it to look at her, but I do believe she’ll be a beauty one day. Like her mother. She’s a lot like her mother.’

Callie couldn’t imagine Alex ever looking anything like the glamorous woman in the photo. ‘Like Jilly?’ she blurted.

Morag made a noise in the back of her throat. ‘Surely you can’t think Jilly is her mother? And Jilly is a painted doll, not a real beauty.’

‘Jilly is her stepmother, then.’ That, too, explained a great deal.

‘Aye.’ It was as if she didn’t trust herself to say any more than that.

‘Why isn’t she with her mother?’ Callie knew it wasn’t her business, but there was something about this girl, merely glimpsed in a photo, which had touched her. Morag shrugged and looked at her watch. ‘That’s a long story, my dear. One I don’t have time to tell you today—I have an appointment in a wee while. But if you come back another day, I’ll tell you all about Alex.’

Callie finished her tea and rose to go, knowing that she would be back.

The high heels echoed in the hospital corridor, clip-clopping briskly away from the room. Frances Cherry, hospital chaplain,
listened to their retreat for a moment, her attention never
leaving
the elderly woman in the bed beside her. The woman was distressed, and not just because she knew she was dying. ‘I don’t want her having it,’ Irene Godfrey choked. ‘Not a penny.’

‘She’s your only relative?’

‘She’s a monster! I haven’t seen her for years. The only reason she came was to make sure she was getting my house and my money.’

Frances didn’t doubt that the woman was right: the niece’s demeanour had been anything but affectionate. She’d been called in very early in the morning because her aunt didn’t have long to live, but she’d been business-like, brisk. She had offered to ring her solicitor right away, to have him visit the hospital immediately and get everything in writing. A proper will. ‘It will all come to me anyway,’ she’d said, ‘but it would be much easier if we had it all tied up ahead of time.’

Irene Godfrey had refused, the niece had gone. Angry
footsteps
, clip-clopping down the corridor.

‘She hates cats! She always has done,’ the old woman sobbed. ‘When she was a child, and her mum brought her to visit, she kicked Snowball! I caught her doing it once. How could anyone be so cruel? Snowball was a defenceless animal.’

‘And now you think…’

‘I think that as soon as I’m gone, the first thing she’ll do is have Fluffy and George put down. I can’t let that happen.’ She squeezed Frances’ hand with surprising strength.

‘Then who…?’

‘My friend Maisie. She’d look after Fluffy and George,’ said the woman. ‘She loves them. I know I can trust her.’ She struggled to sit up. ‘I need to make a will,’ she said urgently. ‘Now, before it’s too late.’

Frances was inclined to believe she was right. She also felt that unless the will were done properly and with great care the niece would use every means in her power to overturn it, and could quite possibly succeed. ‘Do you have a solicitor?’ she asked.

‘No. I’ve never needed one before.’ Tears welled in the woman’s eyes. ‘Can’t you find one for me? Now?’

There was a clock on the bedside table, though Frances wasn’t sure why: time had ceased to mean anything to Irene Godfrey. An hour glass would have been more appropriate, she thought, with its sands rapidly running out. It was, Frances saw, the wee hours of the morning. Just gone six. Profoundly dark outside. No self-respecting solicitor would be out of his comfortable bed yet, let alone welcome a phone call from someone he’d never met.

But she didn’t know how much time they had. How long could she afford to wait?

She stroked Irene Godfrey’s hand and said a silent prayer. The answer came to her almost immediately. ‘Triona,’ Frances breathed with gratitude.

Triona might not be happy about it, but she would come.

Two hours later, the deed was done. Triona O’Neil, exuding
professional
competence, had drawn up a simple will and had called in a couple of nurses to witness Irene Godfrey’s signature. And a few minutes after that, her mind at rest, the old woman had closed her eyes and slipped away. Frances had said a prayer, then as the hospital mechanisms for reclaiming a bed for the next patient went into operation, she took Triona to the hospital cafe.