“When are you leaving?” Sally asks him.
“Tomorrow.”
The more time he spends in London, the more opportunity there is for old acquaintances to sight him and report him to the police. The next time he comes, he’ll stay in different lodgings; never the same place twice. We won’t know when or where until he notifies us via unsigned letters posted from a distant neighborhood.
Sally’s eyes shine with tears. “I can’t bear seeing you only once in a while.” Because of our jobs, Sally and I have little time to visit him in Brighton, four hours away by train.
He clasps our hands. “Nor I you.” His voice trembles.
“We can’t go on like this!” Sally says. “There’s so much of each other’s lives that we’re missing, so much from the past that’s still unfinished.”
I know she’s thinking of her mother, who hasn’t seen Benjamin Bain in the eleven years since he deserted her, prefers not to believe he’s alive, and doesn’t know we’re in touch with him. With my own mother gone, I don’t have that extra complication, but I feel a heaviness, as if drops of liquid iron in my blood have solidified. The time for reckoning with the past is here.
I say to my father, “We have to clear your name.”
His expression says that some of the sins attached to his name can never be cleared. But Sally brightens and exclaims, “Yes! Then you won’t have to hide anymore.”
“But how?” my father asks me. “Your mother is dead. So is Lucas. Even if they’d ever wanted to confess and exonerate me, they can’t now.”
This is the man who when I was a child seemed so strong and capable, the man I counted on to protect me. Now it’s up to me to protect him from the law.
“We have to prove that my mother and Lucas are guilty,” I say, and Sally nods.
Trepidation clouds my father’s eyes. “If you succeed, will people have to know that your mother was a murderess?”
“I don’t think it can be kept a secret.” Owing to my own notoriety, the story of Ellen Casey’s rape and murder and my father the fugitive suspect has been splashed all over the newspapers. The press would have a field day with the news that my mother and her illegitimate son were the actual culprits.
“Sarah, I can’t do that to your mother.”
“Why not? It can’t hurt her.”
“I don’t want her reputation ruined.”
Vexed by his scruples, I say, “She ruined your reputation by letting you take the blame for the murder.”
“Because of her, you’ve spent twenty-four years as a fugitive,” Sally reminds him.
He bows his head. “I loved her. That’s why I never told the police what she and Lucas did. I still love her.”
My animosity toward her verges on hatred. “How can you?” My mother was cold and unloving toward me. Only recently did I discover that it wasn’t my fault; it was because Lucas was her firstborn, her favorite, and no other child could compensate her for his absence.
“She was my wife.” My father’s gaze pleads for understanding. “She was your mother.”
“A wife and mother shouldn’t have done to her husband and daughter what she did.” Because of her lies, and her wish to protect herself and Lucas, my father was unjustly accused and I lost him for all those years.
Sally, indignant on my behalf, says, “She doesn’t deserve your protection.” Her own situation with regard to my mother is more complicated. If my father hadn’t become a fugitive, he wouldn’t have met and married Sally’s mother and Sally wouldn’t have been born.
“She was a sad, broken woman,” my father says. “She needed me. I needed to be needed.” He says to Sally, “I don’t know if Sarah has told you this, but I was an orphan. My parents died when I was a baby. I grew up in a children’s home. No one there had any use for me. I was just a burden on charity. When I left, I worked at odd jobs. One was at a photographer’s studio. The man was kind enough to give me a camera.”
My skin prickles as though in a cold breeze. His experience echoes my own with Charles Firth.
“I traveled around the country, taking photographs. I stopped in different towns to work when I needed money. That’s how I met Mary. She worked at the hotel where I was staying. She’d had Lucas when she was fourteen. He’d been adopted by her married sister. Mary was an outcast, a burden on her family, without friends. She was almost as alone as I was. It seemed as if we were kindred spirits.” My father smiles, remembering his happiness. “When I married her, I promised to protect her. I always have.” His manner turns defiant. “How can I stop now?”
His loyalty to my mother humbles me despite my ill will toward her. Only a few hours ago, Barrett and I promised to protect each other. The gravity of the marriage vows strikes me harder now than ever. Will we abide by the vows as literally as my father has? But I can’t let his misguided loyalty stand in my way.
“Sally and I have no obligation to protect my mother,” I say. “Our concern is for you. We won’t let you sacrifice your life for her.” Exonerating him isn’t my only objective. I crave revenge on my mother; I want her to pay, albeit posthumously, for what she did to him and me. But he doesn’t need to know that.
“Father, we’re going ahead with or without your permission.” Sally sits up straight, as if armored for battle. I smile at her, thankful that I needn’t shoulder the whole, challenging responsibility for his exoneration by myself.
“But even if I told the police what she and Lucas did, they would think I was lying to save myself,” my father says.
That’s a big problem I can’t deny. “We’ll treat this as if it’s any murder investigation. We’ll gather information and look for evidence.”
“How can we?” Despite her faith in me, Sally notes the weaknesses of my plan. “The murder happened twenty-four years ago. What evidence could be left?”
“The witness.” I look to my father. “Meaning, you. We need you to tell us everything that happened the day of Ellen’s murder.”
Now Sally sparkles with inspiration. “Father, I’ll interview you. I’ll write down all the details, no matter how small. You might remember something important.”
He frowns as he nods. I can tell that he feels as if he’s betraying his wife. I love him because he’s not a vindictive man who would hurry to punish her for her sins when given the opportunity to benefit himself. I love him all the more because he’s cooperating with my plan because of his love for Sally and me.
“What will you do, Sarah?” Sally says.
I dread the task I’ve been avoiding. Beneath my anger toward my mother, some vestige of a child’s love and loyalty remains. “I’m going to investigate my mother’s life. Maybe some evidence against her will turn up.”
CHAPTER 5
I leave Sally with our father. She’s eager to begin interviewing him, and he’s agreed to stay in London until they’re finished. I take the train to Victoria station and transfer to the underground train, heading home to change my clothes. I can’t traipse around town, hunting secrets from my mother’s past, in my bridal dress. But I stop at Blackfriars station and walk to Fleet Street, thinking I should see if Mick has developed the photographs from the crime scene.