The Last Witness (44 page)

‘I understand.’ Lowndes got up to open the door, but kept one hand flat against it for a second. ‘In a nutshell what I’m trying to say is that this Eileen has been there to help Lorena with all the main dramas of her life. And through all of that they’ve formed an attachment. Probably closer than we appreciate. Then Lorena is with you and your husband and everything’s hunky-dory and suddenly there’s no dramas any more… and therefore also no Eileen. Lorena craves that attention again and the close bond she had with Eileen as a result – so she creates her own new drama.’

‘Yes, I… I suppose it makes some sense.’ Lowndes’ words touched a raw, uneasy chord deep inside her. Her world had already been tilted ninety degrees with Sotiris that morning, now it was being turned completely on end. Nothing was what it seemed any more. Or was it just the valerian pills and the lack of sleep making her feel so adrift, detached from reality? Her pulse stabbed at her temples and a grey film washed behind her eyes. She feared that if Lowndes didn’t hurry and open the door she was going to black out right there and then.

‘Oh, one word of warning: some parts of the tape are probably best not played in Lorena’s presence… she gets quite distressed at points. And as before – certainly don’t play my notes at the end while she’s listening.’

‘Right, right.’  All Elena could focus on was the door ahead. The trembling reached her legs, she felt them weakening, threatening to crumple… then suddenly the door was open and she was walking into the reception area. She hoped that she wasn’t swaying or looked unsteady. Small smile from Lorena as she stood up. Elena gave her a light embrace with one arm – something to steady her at least – as she turned to Lowndes, ‘I’ll call you later,’ and swiftly led Lorena out.

Elena was still trembling slightly 20 miles north of Montreal on the open highway heading for Baie du Febvre.

On the outskirts of Montreal she’d stopped at a Radio Shack and picked up a set of headphones to plug into the car’s cassette player. She was going to be with Lorena all day, and she couldn’t bear waiting till that night to hear what was on tape. The salesman had at first offered her an impressive, studio-quality set with bulbous cushioned earpieces. But in the end she’d gone for the most discreet set with thin black wire and small black earpieces that would be mostly hidden by her hair. It would be an ironic slap of fate to be stopped by the police for wearing headphones while driving. But still she was careful not to put them on and start listening to the tape until she was well clear of Montreal and driving with open fields each side, not a police car in sight.

Lorena had said that she was ‘sorry’ as soon as they’d jumped in the car. ‘He asked a lot of questions about this Eileen… well,
you.
And I just didn’t know what to say half the time.’ Lorena looked disconsolate, close to tears, perhaps partly in sympathy with how shaken Elena appeared.

‘That’s alright. It wasn’t your fault. I should have been there.’ She was sure Lowndes hadn’t given away his suspicions to Lorena, and there wasn’t much more she could say herself until she’d listened to the tape, gauged the extent of damage.

It was getting worse by the minute: Lorena lying to Lowndes, Lowndes lying to Lorena, and her in the middle – half-zonked with valerian, whisky and sleep-depravation – pathetically trying to juggle it all when she already had a full set of balls in the air from her own lies of the past twenty-nine years… and this was proving to be the day when the balls were finally starting to slip from her grasp, hit the ground with a thud of reality.

Still she felt awkward playing the tape with Lorena looking over at intervals, so after the first eight minutes she stopped it and didn’t press ‘play’ again until Lorena dozed off thirty-odd miles into the drive.

‘…He was standing by the bedside, saying that it was okay… I was very tired, couldn’t remember.’

‘And you’re sure you were asleep at that point… that you were only dreaming?’

‘Yes, yes… I’m pretty sure. And he was saying some numbers… seven… eight.’

  The first event of any significance – the first minutes on tape had been mostly re-establishing the ground built up in the last session – probably what had ‘troubled’ Lowndes at one point. She could see where Lowndes was coming from: it was the sort of conversation that happened when you were awake, it wasn’t particularly dreamlike.

‘Some numbers? Was that part of a story perhaps, something from school? Or was he saying that you couldn’t remember the numbers?

  ‘I… I don’t remember now. It wasn’t clear.’

  ‘And did you talk back at any point? Did you say anything in return to your stepfather?’

  ‘No, no… I didn’t. It was just him talking all the time.’

Which then was more dreamlike, Elena reflected: one voice talking, no two-way conversation. Lowndes asked if her stepfather touching her was part of the same dream.

‘Yes, but later.’

‘Later?’

‘…There seemed to be a gap in between, as if I’d slept a bit in the middle without dreaming… and it was a second dream.’ Lorena’s breathing was laboured and unsettled. ‘I… I didn’t like it.’

‘I know. That’s why you’re here.’ Calming tone from Lowndes. ‘But I don’t need to know about the specifics of him touching you in the dream – it’s just enough for you to say that it was where it shouldn’t have been… lower down?’

‘Yes, yes… it was.’ Even that simple admittance seemed difficult for Lorena to make, her breathing becoming more laboured, staccato.

‘… But what I’m more interested in is did you talk to your stepfather then… say or shout back anything in protest, ask him to stop?’

‘I wanted to… I tried. But it was as if my voice was trapped in my throat and I couldn’t make any noise, however much I tried. I felt stifled, somehow couldn’t breathe… and then I was back in the sewers again with the waters rising. It went up quickly above my head, started to fill my mouth and nose, and I was trying hard to scream out for help, but… I… I just couldn’t…I –’

‘It’s okay… it’s okay.’ Heavily placating with an edge of concern. ‘It’s just to get clear that you didn’t at any time speak to your stepfather while all this was happening.’

‘No, no… I didn’t’

Elena could tell that for Lowndes that practically sealed it: he saw it as hardly conceivable that Lorena would have said nothing if she’d been awake. He moved onto the subject of Eileen. The questions were relaxed and conversational at first, no edge: when did you first meet her? Did you see her a lot while you were at the orphanages? So, she helped you quite a bit through those days – you became quite close. ‘Then when you arrived in England – did you see her much then?

Lorena answered calmly, casually; she obviously felt she could talk freely, without worry about the period before her problem with Ryall. But Elena felt the tension building with each question because she knew already that a trap was looming.

Lowndes gradually circled in.

‘So with you not seeing much of Eileen once you were in England – you must have missed her.’

‘Yes… I suppose I did a little.’ The first hesitation from Lorena.

‘I mean, you’d become so close from before. She’d become one of your closest friends… and practically the only person you felt you could confide in.’

‘Yes, I… I suppose she had.’ The hesitation was marked now: probably Lorena didn’t see where Lowndes was heading yet, but she was obviously becoming unsettled at so many questions centred around Eileen.

‘Is that why you confided in Eileen with this problem now?’

‘Yes… but I told my mother first.’ Lorena was suddenly more alert, wary, starting to fight back. ‘I only told Eileen because my mother couldn’t be in the interviews with me, and I didn’t want to be on my own with someone I didn’t know from social services. I wanted someone there I knew.’

‘I appreciate that.’ Slow exhalation from Lowndes, as if he was slightly peeved at getting dragged from his target. ‘But without this new drama now with your stepfather – it’s unlikely you’d have even seen Eileen again. There would have been no reason for you to see her.’

‘I… I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.’ Lorena was on uncertain ground again.

‘And that would have made you very sad, wouldn’t it? Because you liked Eileen – in fact before your stepmother she was the person you felt closest to.’

Elena bit at her lip: what Lowndes didn’t know and made it all the more poignant was that in Lorena’s mind at that moment, Eileen and her stepmother were one and the same. Lorena paused for a moment, only the shallow fall of her breath coming over on tape. Finally:

‘Yes, that’s true. That would have made me sad.’

Elena glanced over at Lorena curled slightly away in sleep, and felt like suddenly swinging the car in and hugging her tight. One simple sentence that somehow made all the long years of her work in the orphanages worthwhile – however much it might have given them a dilemma now with Lowndes.

‘And so this problem with your stepfather at least gave you something you’d long missed and craved – seeing Eileen again. Being close to her again and sharing a problem with her… like the good old, bad old days in Romania.’

‘Yes, that’s so. I like Eileen a lot, and I –’ Lorena faltered with an uneven intake of breath, almost a gasp. She’d seen where Lowndes was heading. A suspended second, then as she let her breath free: ‘But I wouldn’t have done anything like that to Eileen. She took a very great risk taking me away and –’ She stopped herself again, suddenly realizing.

‘Taking you away?’

Oh God.
She should have been there. The pressure on Lorena must have been insufferable. Elena would have probably decided to throw in the towel and bare all to Lowndes, felt that it was all too much for Lorena to face alone. But once again she’d put her own quest first and left Lorena forgotten.

‘Yes, my… my mother asked Eileen to take me away one day to see her house and the nearby chine and beach – but in fact it was to talk about my problem with my stepfather. My stepfather found out and was very angry about it, told on Eileen to the social services.’

Elena couldn’t resist hissing ‘Yes’ under her breath: Lorena’s Bucharest street-wiliness obviously had its uses.

‘Right… I see.’ Lowndes had little choice but to accept it, but the lingering doubt was evident in his voice.

He went back for a moment to the dreams and her stepfather, as if seeking one last affirmation that she remembered absolutely nothing on that front while awake – then he closed the session.

Lowndes’ summary notes merely went through in more detail the concern he’d voiced earlier, now with the benefit of the tape for almost point-by-point illustration. But listening to Lowndes, Elena couldn’t help wondering as she looked across at Lorena – so innocent while asleep, but perhaps her life so far had made her wily and complex rather than just confused and vulnerable – whether Lowndes’ assessment might be right: after all, her bond with Lorena was far more acute than he even realized. Lorena’s bond with Nicola Ryall was almost non-existent, so even long before this makeshift role-play now, Elena had been filling both roles: mother
and
helper.
Saviour.
It was a powerful combination.

St Marguerita’s became progressively quieter, the atmosphere heavier as Elena started along the cloister-style corridor away from the main front building – a flat-fronted gothic stone edifice three-storeys high. Elena suspected the children’s dormitories took up the top two floors, with the classrooms and playrooms on the ground floor.

  Elena spotted a playground area to the side of the building as she’d parked, and at 4 pm it was quite active and noisy. Beyond the play area was farmland, with the warehouse units and sawmills on the edge of Baie du Febvre visible half a mile away. Elena had stood for a moment taking it all in: not too bad an environment and view, and possibly the warehouse units had only appeared in the last ten or twenty years. When little George had been here, probably the… She shook her head and turned abruptly to head in. No more mental compensating after the event.

  Flanking the left of the cloister corridor were four arched windows – interspersed one stained glass, one clear – looking onto a small courtyard with a statue of St Marguerite at its centre. Elena could see a Grey nun reading on a bench under St Marguerite’s outstretched palm.

  Elena and Lorena were led the way by Sister Bernadine, who two-thirds along the corridor indicated towards three upright chairs to the side. ‘If you’d like to wait there. I won’t be a moment.’

  Sister Bernadine walked to a door a few yards further along, and with a light knock and a small tight smile back at them, went inside.

  The silence was intense as they waited. The sound of the children in the playground outside was muted and distant, barely audible. This section wrapping around the courtyard was two-storeys on one side and single-storey the remaining three. Elena got the impression that this was the nun’s private quarters, cut away from the noise of children so that they could concentrate on administrative paperwork and prayer.

  Elena glanced back towards the door. Bernadine at least appeared helpful, keen to please and had a ready smile. Elena knew that orphanages could be strict about passing on information; hopefully Bernadine’s seeming compliance was an encouraging sign.