‘Was there anything else?’ she says. ‘Apart from the suicide note?’
Mr Royle shakes his head. ‘Well, nothing official. But there was one thing. When you were found. Something in your cot with you. I believe it’s still here. In your nursery. Shall we …?’
She follows Mr Royle into a big room on the first floor. Here there are two large sash windows overlooking the river; the air is stagnant and dense, the high corners of the room filled with thick curtains of cobweb and dust. There is an opening at the other end of the room and they turn the corner into a small room. It’s fitted as a dressing room, three walls of wardrobes and drawers decorated with ornate beading and painted white. In the centre of the room is a cot.
‘Is that …?’
‘Yes. That’s where you were found. Gurgling and chirruping by all accounts, happy as Larry.’
The cot is a rocking design with metal levers for pushing back and forth. It is painted a thick buttermilk cream with a scattering of pale blue roses. There is a small metal badge on the front with the Harrods logo on it.
Mr Royle reaches for a shelf on the back wall and picks up a small box. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘this was tucked away inside your blankets. We assumed, we all assumed, us and the police, that it was meant for you. The police held it as evidence for years then sent it back to us when the case ran dry.’
‘What is it?’
‘Open it and see.’
She takes the little cardboard box from him and pulls the flaps apart. It is filled with shreds of torn newspaper. Her fingers find something solid and silky. She brings it from the box and lets it dangle from between her fingertips. It’s a rabbit’s foot hanging from a gold chain. Libby recoils slightly and the chain slithers from her grasp and on to the wooden floor. She reaches down to pick it up.
Her fingers draw over the rabbit’s foot, feeling the cold deathliness of its sleek fur, the sharp nibs of its claws. She runs the chain through her other hand. Her head, which a week ago had been filled with new sandals, a hen night, her split ends, the houseplants that needed watering, was now filled with people sleeping on mattresses and dead rabbits and a big, scary house, empty but for a large rocking crib from Harrods with strangely sinister pale blue roses painted on the sides. She puts the rabbit’s foot back into the box and holds it, awkwardly. Then slowly she lowers her hand on to the mattress at the base of the crib, feels for the echo of her small, sleeping body, for the ghost of the person who last laid her down there, tucked her in safe with a blanket and a rabbit’s foot. But there is nothing there of course. Just an empty bed, the smell of must.
‘What was my name?’ she says. ‘Did anyone know?’
‘Yes,’ says Mr Royle. ‘Your name was written on the note that your parents left behind. It was Serenity.’
‘Serenity?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Pretty name. I think. If a little … bohemian?’
Suddenly she feels claustrophobic. She wants to run dramatically from the room, but it is not her way to be dramatic.
Instead she says, ‘Can we see the garden now, please? I could do with some fresh air.’
5
Lucy turns off her phone. She needs to keep the charge in case Samia tries to get in touch. She turns to Marco, who is looking at her curiously.
‘What?’ she says.
‘What was that message? On your phone?’
‘What message?’
‘I saw it. Just now. It said The baby is twenty-five. What does that mean?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘It must mean something.’
‘It doesn’t. It’s just a friend’s baby. Just a reminder that they turned twenty-five. I must send a card.’
‘What friend?’
‘A friend in England.’
‘But you haven’t got any friends in England.’
‘Of course I have friends in England. I was brought up in England.’
‘Well, what’s her name?’
‘Whose name?’
Marco roars with frustration. ‘Your friend’s name, of course.’
‘What does it matter?’ she replies sharply.
‘It matters because you’re my mum and I want to know stuff about you. I like, literally, don’t know anything about you.’
‘That’s ridiculous. You know loads about me.’
He gazes at her wide-eyed and stupefied. ‘Like what? I mean, I know your parents died when you were a baby. I know you grew up in London with your aunt and that she brought you to France and taught you to play the fiddle and died when you were eighteen. So I know, like, the story of you. But I don’t know the details. Like where you went to school or who your friends were and what you did at the weekends or funny things that happened or anything normal.’
‘It’s complicated,’ she says.
‘I know it’s complicated,’ he says. ‘But I’m twelve years old now and you can’t treat me like a little baby any more. You have to tell me things.’
Lucy stares at her son. He’s right. He’s twelve and he is not interested in fairy stories any more. He knows there’s more to life than five major events, that life is made up of all the moments in between.
She sighs. ‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘Not yet.’
‘Then when?’
‘Soon,’ she says. ‘If we ever get to London, I’ll tell you everything.’
‘Are we going?’
She sighs and pulls her hair away from her hairline. ‘I just don’t know. I’ve got no money. You and Stella don’t have passports. The dog. It’s all just …’
‘Dad,’ says Marco, cutting her off. ‘Call Dad.’
‘No way.’
‘We can meet somewhere public. He wouldn’t try anything then.’
‘Marco. We don’t even know where your father is.’
There is a strange silence. She can sense her son fidgeting edgily, burying his face into the dog’s fur again.
‘I do.’
She turns again, sharply, to look at him.
He closes his eyes, then opens them again. ‘He collected me from school.’
‘When!’
Marco shrugs. ‘A couple of times. Towards the end of term.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘He told me not to.’
‘Fuck, Marco. Fuck.’ She punches the ground with her fists. ‘What happened? Where did he take you?’
‘Nowhere. Just sort of walked with me.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘What did he say? What is he doing?’
‘Nothing. Just on holiday. With his wife.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘Still here. He’s here for the whole summer. In the house.’
‘The house?’
‘Yes.’
‘God, Marco! Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Because I knew you’d go mental.’
‘I’m not going mental. Look at me. Totally not mental. Totally just sitting here on the hard, wet ground under a flyover with nowhere to sleep while your father is a mile up the road living in the lap of luxury. Why would I go mental?’