The English Boys (19 page)

“It's nice to see you again, sir,” he said.

“You too, and you're very welcome,” Carey's father replied. “We'd better get back.”

Daniel picked up his bag and they walked to the car. The wind whipped in from the Irish Sea, making him glad he'd worn a jacket. A storm was in the offing. Carey got in the front seat next to her father, and he folded his tall frame into the back. It was such a tight fit he thought of getting out and taking a taxi to the house, but instead, he adjusted his knees as well as he could and leaned sideways into his bag, which he'd placed next to him on the seat.

Burke took a sharp right and then a left into Somerset Street, going north. They drove for a while until they came to Llewelyn Avenue. There was a church at the corner and rows of comfortable houses in every direction. Most were whitewashed, as he had expected so close to the sea, but a few had brick fronts. Cars were parked in tidy rows up and down the road. Chimneys bristled from every rooftop and it was easy to imagine them covered in snow. Even the lines on the roads seemed to have been freshly painted. Before Daniel even set foot in the house, he knew Tamsyn and Carey had had a good childhood, full of hot soups and wet, furry dogs and parties at Christmas. It made it easier to understand Carey, the dutiful daughter, but harder to understand Tamsyn.

Carey hurried ahead of them and opened the large green front door. The garden in the front of the house was small, and he could see that the next street beyond cut the size of the back gardens considerably, particularly the Burkes', which was on the corner. There were small trees and clumps of tulips in front of the house, along with a short iron fence designed, no doubt, to keep out neighboring dogs.

“We're home,” he heard Carey call out as she headed toward the kitchen. Owen Burke led him into the house, and he went through the door and shut it behind him.

“They're back there,” Burke said, pointing ahead of him.

Miranda Burke came into the hall, an apron tied around her waist. “Daniel, it's nice to see you. I have lunch ready if you're hungry.”

“That's very kind of you, Mrs. Burke. May I wash my hands, please?”

“Of course. Through that door and to your left.” She came forward, took his bag, and set it on the floor by the entry table, an indication, he knew, that he wouldn't be asked to stay.

Of course, it was presumptuous coming with Carey, but after talking to Inspector Murray, there was nothing he could do in London. He didn't know why, but he couldn't stay there while Carey went to Wales, though he already doubted there were any answers for him here. Tamsyn didn't seem to fit into this house and her family any more than she did anywhere else. What was it about people who never seemed to belong anywhere?

More than ever, he wished she were alive again, to help him unlock the mysteries of her enigmatic life. Without that as an option, he had no idea how to discover even the smallest thing about her.

He washed his hands, peering out the door to make sure no one was about. Then he stepped into the next closest room, a smaller sitting room than the one at the front of the house. He glanced around, noting nothing out of the ordinary. A pair of armchairs sat in front of the window across from a sofa, which looked fairly worn. This was where they spent most of their time, he decided, in front of the telly. A knitting basket had been tucked under a table next to one of the chairs, and an open book was balanced on the footrest. Shelves ran along the back wall, holding a few small framed photos and books and a collection of teapots.

He went over to look at the photos. There was one of Tamsyn at six or seven with a missing front tooth, standing in the back garden holding a pup. He was surprised to see that her hair had been blonde then. In fact, she looked more like Carey than he'd realized. Another frame held a photo of Carey as a teenager, her head tucked down shyly, her hands crossed on her lap. Another of Carey with Nick Oliver, who, he recalled, lived next door. He noticed that one of the silver frames, no larger than the palm of his hand and in need of polish, had had the photograph removed.

This house, while worn in spots and comfortably lived in, was not neglected. The empty photo frame felt out of place. He put it down and left the room. Carey was walking toward him, clearly coming to get him.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Yes, quite.”

She led him into the dining room, where the table had already been laid. A large tureen sat in the center with smaller ones about, a real luncheon of roast and potatoes. There were cloth napkins and a vase with three roses, which had obviously been sitting there for a couple of days already, the buds open, just before the bloom goes. He got the feeling they ate like this every day. Miranda Burke ran her household in a proper, traditional manner, every meal an observance of the life they lived together. With some anticipation, he took his seat next to Carey, across from her father, and watched Mrs. Burke lift the lid of the tureen, steam rising above the roast. He could have asked for nothing more.

“This is very kind, Mrs. Burke. I don't often have a home-cooked meal.”

“Miranda, please,” she said, smiling.

“Mum loves to cook,” Carey said, taking the lid from a bowl of roasted potatoes. “She could have done it professionally.”

“Don't be silly,” Miranda replied as she handed Daniel a bowl of Brussels sprouts dripping in butter. “How was the trip?”

“Fine,” they both replied at the same time.

“Did you sleep on the train?” her mother asked. Without waiting for a reply, she said to Daniel, “She always does. She has ever since she was a girl.”

“What were you reading?” Carey asked Daniel. He couldn't tell whether she was interested or just making conversation.

“A Graham Greene. It has that snappy 1940s dialogue.”

“I wonder why you're not a writer, then. You're snappy yourself.”

He looked up over the roast beef to see if she was teasing, but she was concentrating on moving her vegetables around the plate with her fork. Taking advantage of the momentary lull, he looked up at the wall behind her, where Miranda had hung a number of frames on the wall. Some were photographs of the family and others were prints of ivy and blackberry leaves and roses, probably cut from the pages of an old book of nineteenth-century English naturalists. He studied them surreptitiously between bites, knowing he would never be in this house again. With Carey beside him, he realized that he was sitting in Tamsyn's chair, and she must have looked at those same photos and prints hundreds of times. The conversation picked up around him, a general discussion of who had done what in the village and people Carey knew who'd asked after her, when suddenly Daniel realized that something was wrong.

He couldn't quite put his finger on it. The Burkes were polite, but of course their manner was somewhat forced. That in itself was not unusual, so soon after losing their oldest daughter and having to entertain unexpected company. The photos behind Carey were ordinary, just as the ones in the sitting room had been, a tableau of the Burke family through the years: a photo of them all together in front of a church when the girls were small; one of Tamsyn with a couple of friends at the beach; another of Carey as a toddler, asleep on her mother's shoulder. The photos were interesting but normal, and his brow furrowed as he looked from photo to photo, trying to figure out what was bothering him.

“Would you like some more potatoes?” Miranda Burke asked. She caught his eye, and he knew she was trying to distract him from whatever it was she thought he was doing.

“I'm fine, thanks,” he murmured. He kept his eyes on his plate for another few minutes before he looked up again. This time he knew exactly what was wrong.

Two of the prints had just been put there, as recently as that very morning, he was certain. Something else had hung in their place until the Burkes had learned of his imminent arrival. The sun had faded the wallpaper around each of the frames, and the new prints weren't quite large enough to conceal the darker section of wallpaper that had been covered with something else only hours before.

He was mystified. First, the empty photo frame in the sitting room, and now, two photos taken from the wall. What was it the Burkes didn't want him to see? What could possibly be so inflammatory that it had to be removed because he was coming? He felt Carey's eyes on him and turned toward her.

She knew exactly what he was thinking, he realized, looking into her unblinking eyes. All he had to do now was get her alone.

Twenty-Five

Once Daniel had noticed
the two pictures on the wall, the meal seemed interminable. Every sound became annoying: the clank of cutlery scraping against plates, the glasses clinking on the mahogany table, the muffled flap of serviettes brought to lips and down to laps over and over. The food lost its taste and the conversation became something of an inquisition: “Tell us about your parents.” “How long have you been in films?” “What plans do you have for summer?”
as though he could think a couple of months ahead when the girl he loved was dead. How could they make pointless conversation, he wondered, just days after seeing their child put into the ground and dirt shoveled over her, wrenching her from them forever?

After the meal, Carey stood. “I'll take care of the dishes, Mum,” she said.

Miranda Burke folded her napkin and set it on the table. “I could do with a lie-down,” she admitted. “I've got a bit of a headache, I'm afraid.”

“I've an errand to run, myself,” Owen Burke said, looking at his daughter. “Will you be all right with the dishes?”

Daniel knew he wasn't talking about the dishes. “I'll give her a hand. I always help my mum in the kitchen.”

To prove his point, he stood and began stacking plates. The elder Burkes left the room and Carey began clearing the table with a laser-like concentration she probably reserved for medical school. Daniel assessed the tasks, tucked a towel into the waistband of his trousers, and began to wash dishes while Carey put Brussels sprouts and potatoes into small plastic bowls. He needed time to think. He was glad he hadn't raised his suspicions in front of the Burkes. Regardless of the talk at the table, they were brittle. He had seen it at Westminster Abbey, and it lurked just beneath the surface now. But had they removed the photos to protect someone? And if so, who? Ciaran Monaghan? If he and Tamsyn had been in some of the photographs together, it might cause them some distress, particularly if they suspected him of her murder. Or was there something from the past that they wanted to hide. A twin, perhaps? As shocking as that would be, he failed to see how it would be something to hide. He shut off the tap and scrubbed a plate.

Carey brushed crumbs from the tablecloth and then ran a cloth over the Aga, something he was certain she would normally never do. She was avoiding him, three feet away, and as he began to dry the old Grindley transferware, he tried to work out how best to approach it. He took a guess at which cupboard held cups, correctly, and was arrested by the assortment of mugs with sayings like
Happy 50th
and
Princess
and the logo from one of the CSI programs. Which, if any, had been Tamsyn's?

On the top shelf, he saw what had to be Miranda's special porcelain collection: stiff royal portraits painted on ceramics of QEII, Prince William and Kate Middleton's engagement photo, and even one of Diana and Charles. He'd once asked Tamsyn her opinion of the royals, not because he cared but because he found her opinions so amusing.

Tamsyn had shrugged. “Dunno, especially,” she'd said, “but Princess Di was an angel.” His mum, though not particularly religious, had set up a photo of the late princess, ringed round with small candles for vigils of her own unmitigated grief. It hadn't moved since 1997. He found it rather absurd.

“She was a man-stalking, colon-cleansing addict with a fetish for designer clothes and shoes,” he had answered.

“You're a man. You couldn't possibly understand.”

“How old were you when she died?”

“Too young to remember her properly, but everyone knew she was heartbroken in spite of the riches.”

He hadn't argued, for that, of course, was indisputable.

“And what do you think of the Prime Minister?”

“What's his name again?”

He hadn't met a woman yet who could remember the name of anyone who'd held the office since Tony Blair. He supposed it was because they kept making movies about Blair standing up to the queen and trying to handle the looming threat of weapons of mass destruction or utter lack thereof. He'd been considered to play a young Tony Blair himself.

“Don't trouble that pretty head of yours,” he'd said. “The kingdom will survive, whether or not you care about politics.”

“Most of the politics I care about are a little closer to home.”

“Such as?”

“Well, I protested at a rally in Wiltshire once when a field was going to be turned into a parking lot.”

“And a very good cause it was, I'm sure,” he'd said.

They'd bickered endlessly then, happy as otters on a sun-streaked beach. Now, he suddenly realized he was standing in front of the Burkes' cupboard, cup in hand, staring into space like a complete idiot. He turned to see Carey watching him.

“You're doing it too,” she murmured.

He set the cup on the shelf and closed the door. “It's hard not to, isn't it? Everything reminds me of her.”

“I know.”

She turned, placing the towel on a table, and walked out of the room. He had no choice but to follow. She grabbed her jacket from the coat rack in the hall and put it on, pocketing the keys that lay upon a side table. Without a word, she opened the door and stepped outside. He threw on his own coat and followed her, peeved about being ordered about, albeit in silence. She got into her parents' Ford, which she started, and unlocked the passenger door for him to get in beside her.

“Where are we going?” he asked. He was half afraid she was going to deposit him at the train station and send him packing, his bag still parked in the Burkes' front hall.

“To see the sights,” she replied.

Llandudno had not been a place with which he had been at all familiar, and yet from the moment he'd arrived, he was surprised by its beauty. The sky, thick with vapor, held a menacing gloom. Carey drove north of town and settled on Marine Drive, heading toward the north shore. They were parallel with Liverpool on the east and Dublin on the west, he figured, south of the Isle of Man. One had to have a particular reason to venture from a place like this, and he wondered how Tamsyn had ever wanted to leave it.

Carey pulled around a bend closer to the edge of the road than he would have liked, and the tall outline of a lighthouse came into view. They came to a stop by the side of the road a distance away and she got out of the car, walking toward it rapidly.

“Slow down,” he called, to no avail. He wasn't certain she could hear him.

He watched as she ran ahead, her boots clicking on the stones underfoot. She stopped short of going into the building, leaning against the battlements of the stone wall. Daniel hated gothic-looking buildings, imagining torture chambers and oubliettes where prisoners were left to rot and die until all that was left of them were rat-gnawed bones. As he approached, he looked over the side of the wall. The lighthouse was perched on a cliff, and sea waves slapped against the rocks below.

“What are we doing here?” he asked. It certainly wasn't a place she would turn to for comfort.

The mist had stopped, but the stones were slick and wet, and he had the feeling that if she were to lean over the battlements, they would both be pulled over. The morning deluge had left the sand clumpy and hard around the rocks, and the promontory jutting out broke the waves as they rushed onto shore. Gulls shrieked in the distance, swooping low over the shallow beach. It was no warmer than it had been that morning, and he zipped his jacket against the wind.

Carey turned and looked at him, strands of hair blowing across her face. She brushed them back. “Daniel, how well did you really know Tamsyn?”

He was taken aback by the question. “What do you mean?”

“Did she ever talk about her past?”

“She was too young for a past,” he said, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “And obviously, you came from a good home. I've been wondering why she wanted to leave a place like this at all.”

“I'm not surprised she didn't talk about her life much,” Carey said, turning her collar up against the wind, which was whipping her hair into her eyes. “She never did before.”

“
What's your point, exactly?” he asked. “Are you trying to say we weren't really friends? That she didn't really care about me if she didn't tell me every single detail of life in a sodding little village by the sea?”

She gave him a look so stinging he thought he'd go into anaphylactic shock.

“Tamsyn was raped when she was fifteen, just there.” She pointed toward the lighthouse. “Two young men dragged her into their car and drove her up here one night when she was walking home from the beach. She didn't know them. She didn't do anything wrong, but she was raped, all the same.”

He was stunned into silence. He could imagine the look of fear on Tamsyn's face, could almost hear her screams. The wind and the gulls, the waves of the Irish Sea beating against the rocks, would have muffled any cry. The thought of her innocence being wrenched from her made him feel as if he would be sick.

“What happened to the bastards?” he finally managed.

Carey turned away, staring out at the horizon. “I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

“They were English boys here on holiday.” She gave a sharp laugh. “This is a popular place, didn't you know? But they were never caught.”

“This is gruesome. It makes me want to kill someone.”

“Now you know how my parents feel.”

“Does that have something to do with the reason she moved to London?”

Carey didn't answer.

He sighed. “You'd almost think it would have made her afraid to get out on her own instead of embracing it. But then, she had a way of doing the unexpected.”

“She didn't leave home right away,” Carey said. “She was here for a while, and then went to an aunt's in Birmingham before going on to London later.”

“Did it change her, that you can recall?”

“Of course it did, but probably not in the way you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means she got pregnant that night, Daniel. She was carrying a child from one of those boys. Can you imagine? I can't even fathom coping with the rape, for one thing, but to get pregnant … It's a living nightmare.”

“A child?” Daniel asked, shocked. “What happened? Did she miscarry? Abort it?”

“Now you're being dense.”

He rubbed the stubble that was forming on his chin, shaking his head. “The photos.”

“That's right. Mum had photos of Emma around the house. I called her from the train and she went around taking them down.”

“She's raising the child, then?”

“Tamsyn didn't want her to, but Mum wouldn't let her give the baby away. It's why she left Wales. She rarely came back for visits and had little to do with Emma.”

“Does the child know Tamsyn was her mother?”

“No.”

“She wasn't at the funeral,” he said, after a moment.

“No. She wasn't going to be at the wedding either. After ten years, my parents were tired of trying to push that relationship onto Tamsyn. They had to accept her as she was: someone who could never bond with the child she'd conceived during a rape.”

“And what of the child?”

“She believed Tamsyn was her eldest sister, the rebel who never came home. She didn't even know about the wedding. A few days ago, Mum and Dad told her that Tamsyn has died. It didn't mean very much to her, since they were never close.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“I'm close to her, of course. I was twelve when she was born. The first five years of her life, she came to me as much as Mum. We both adore her.”

“Was it ever reported to the police? The rape, I mean?”

“Of course. The police were called round to the house that night, and Tam was taken to the hospital. They had few details to go on: that there were two of them, both older teens, and they were English. But it was summer, you see. Half of Llandudno is tourists in the summer.”

“What about the car they drove? Were there any identifying features about it?”

Carey eyed him. “She couldn't give any information about that either, apart from the fact that the vehicle was black. She was traumatized, and young. Not what you would call an expert witness.”

The last, he was certain, was not a criticism of her sister, but a mere rendering of facts. It had to have crippled the entire family to go through such an ordeal. He could picture Tamsyn's slim figure, some of which he had seen up close and intimate, but he had never suspected that she'd been pregnant. Had Hugh known? he wondered. Wouldn't there have been some sign, some remnant of physical evidence that he would have noticed?

“Did she ever talk about it?”

“Never. Not once after Emma was born.”

He felt in his pockets for cigarettes before remembering he'd decided to quit. “Fuck,” he said, irritated.

“Well, that's one way to put it.”

“You didn't hold it against her, did you? The way she rejected her own child?”

“I could always see it from her perspective, I suppose,” Carey admitted. “How was a sixteen-year-old to care for an infant? How could she be emotionally involved with a child, or separate it in her mind from what had happened to her?”

“You did, though, didn't you?”

She looked back toward the sea, where the waves were lashing higher every minute. “Emma was an innocent child. She wasn't anything to do with something so horrific. It's the hardest part of living in London, being away from her.”

“What about your parents?”

“They both wanted to keep her. Mum especially, I suppose, though I doubt Dad could have allowed her to give Emma away. That's what Tamsyn wanted, and that's why she left home. She couldn't be there if Emma was there to remind her day in and day out of the worst thing that had ever happened to her.”