I stared into the space, expecting to see a ghost, but the only spirits in the room were the ones I was thinking about drinking as soon as I left. My mother was clearly hallucinating, but I didn’t feel better about her false memories of me.

  I stood to go. ‘Thank you for your time, Mrs Flowers.’

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ She inched off the bed and moved towards me. ‘You think I’m making it all up?’

  Something manic lurked in her eyes and it was as if I was thirteen again, waiting for her to scream and shout as she swung the whisky bottle over her head. There was no worry she’d ever drop it – no matter what terrible state she was in, she’d never waste alcohol. I pushed the image into the shadows and wished for the woman who’d brought me here to return and rescue me.

  ‘I believe you, Mrs Flowers.’ I assumed she thought it was the truth.

  She wagged her finger at me and the memories flooded back in waves, so fast I had to slump into the chair. Whenever she told me off, that was what she did: wag her finger so close to my face that one wrong move would have taken my eye out. This was before the drinking started and she pushed me aside as an inconvenience. The finger kept on moving as the spit drooled over her lips.

  ‘No, you don’t. I can see it in your empty eyes. A girl in red snatched from us our Jenny. There was a witness. He told the police. And we never found either of them.’

  Her face glazed over as she returned to the bed. I didn’t know whether or not to humour her. Could I make her condition worse if I said something to encourage this fantasy? Would it make her worse? Was that even possible?

  ‘Are you telling me you don’t have a daughter, Mrs Flowers?’

  She’d hardly acted as if I was her child when I was there, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the dementia had erased me from her life; my disappearance from her thoughts had happened a long time before that.

  Her confusion switched to irritation in an instant.

  ‘We got another Jennifer from the adoption agency. But she wasn’t the same as our Jenny. She was terrible.’ She peered straight at me, recognition and distress mixed in her face.

  My heart was ready to give up, vibrating at a thousand beats per second. I was about to speak when a bell rang outside. My mother sprang from her bed as my guide returned.

  ‘Time for tea and biscuits, Ruthie.’

  She didn’t need telling again, moving past me. She was gone before I could say anything. The nurse, or whatever she was, must have seen my startled expression.

  ‘Your mother can move when she wants, can’t she?’

  I stopped her before she left. ‘Does she have any visitors?’

  She shook her head. ‘Ruthie? No, only you. I’ve been here as long as she has, and you’re the first. It’s a shame because, on her good days, she can be very spirited. Was this one of her good days?’

  I ignored the question. ‘Does she hallucinate as well as having memory problems?’

  She furrowed her brow. ‘No, not really. If they have an infection, sometimes, residents will hallucinate, but I’ve never known that with your mother.’

  ‘She told me she saw a red-haired girl standing next to me.’

  ‘Oh. No, that’s new. Perhaps seeing you after such a long time triggered a memory.’

  It had triggered something. Someone screamed at the other end of the corridor, and a trickle ran down my spine. I’d visited the worst examples of humanity inside prison cells. Yet now, in this idyllic setting, I felt as if I was trapped in a Thomas Harris novel. I expected the staff member to sprint off in the howl’s direction, but she continued to gaze at me.

  ‘I suppose that’s possible.’ Then, against my better judgement, I asked her something I thought I’d never hear myself say. ‘Can I revisit her?’

  She put her hand on my arm and led me to the reception.

  ‘Of course, Mrs Flowers. If you give me your phone number, I’ll get one of the admin team to call you about visiting hours.’

  I wrote my mobile details on the back of my police card, hoping the Met name and address might provide some influence later if I needed it. Then I left with my mother’s words ringing in my ears.

  Jenny disappeared years ago.

  9 PANDORA: THE REDEMPTION

  Getting into the house was always going to be the hardest part. But Darren had whispered a little nugget to me before I’d abandoned him – his ex-wife Betty was a born-again Christian. So all I needed was a few Jesus pamphlets in my hand and I assumed there would be no problem; once I sorted out the dark glasses and wig. I’d checked out the estate where Betty lived online enough to know there were no CCTV cameras, but I wouldn’t run the risk of anyone seeing me and giving the police a description once I’d finished.

  But I needn’t have worried about that as darkness engulfed me as I arrived. Most of the streetlights were broken, while others flickered in and out in the rain. Everywhere smelt of dog shit. It didn’t take long to reach her house, the building separated by gaps on either side. I fixed my best false smile and knocked, the damp staining my fingers.

  ‘Hello, can I help you?’

  Her voice drifted through the wood before she opened the door. My teeth ached as I smiled.

  ‘Have you invited Jesus into your life?’

  Betty’s grin was as big as her eyes, making her resemble a demented toad. She grabbed my arm before I could stop her.

  ‘Please come in and tell me all about it, dear.’ If I’d wanted to protest, which I didn’t, she didn’t let me. Instead, she pushed me into the living room and the first available seat. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I shook my head. ‘How about something stronger, then?’ She moved towards a cabinet next to the TV.

  ‘No alcohol has ever passed my lips, Mrs…?’

  She sat opposite me. ‘Call me Betty. And you’re right about the booze. God forbids it, I know, but sometimes I fall into temptation.’ She peered up as if looking for the Almighty above her. ‘I guess we all need something to help with our redemption.’

  I watched her clutch at the cross around her neck, glancing over the room for any other religious iconography, but surprised to find none. She held a hand out to me. I thought she wanted me to shake it until realising she wanted to look at the leaflets I’d picked up outside King’s Cross.

  ‘You probably know what’s in here by heart, Betty.’

  She took them from me.

  ‘You never know, dear; there’s always something new to learn.’ She buried her face in the pages and scanned through them. ‘Fundamental to the message of the New Testament is the announcement that Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfilment of Israel’s messianic hope and that, in him, the long-awaited redemption has arrived. Deliverance of humankind from its state of alienation from God has been accomplished through the death and resurrection of Christ. In the New Testament, redemption requires a price paid, but the plight that demands such a ransom is moral, not material. Humankind is held in the captivity of sin from which only the atoning death of Jesus Christ can liberate.’

  ‘And what do you need redeeming from, Betty?’

  She dropped the leaflets at her feet. I bent my knees to pick them up.

  ‘That’s a difficult question, dear. First, I’ll have to get to know you better.’ She smiled at me through yellowing teeth. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I am Pandora, newly released from my box.’

  She laughed at me like an adult listening to a child say something stupid.

  ‘Pandora wasn’t in the box, dear. She had the box and opened it to let Evil into the world.’

  She pronounced evil with a capital E.

  ‘Is that what you believe?’ I said.

  ‘Well, some Bible scholars identify Pandora with Eve and claim all the world’s problems stem from her.’

  ‘So you think women are to blame for everything bad in the world?’

  Her laugh swept dust from the arm of the chair. ‘Perhaps not all of them, but we have to know our place in this world according to God’s law and never sway from it.’

  ‘Pandora never had a box, Betty. It was a jar she held, much like this one.’

  I removed the container from my coat and showed it to her. Her confusion was a joy to behold.

  ‘What’s that? It smells funny.’

  I unscrewed the top. ‘Some would say it’s the elixir of life.’

  She pulled back from me, her face screwed up into a parody of The Scream.

  ‘Why have you got petrol in there?’

  I smiled as I glanced at her sparse belongings.

  ‘This isn’t the first time someone has sat before you like this, is it, Betty?’

  She placed one hand on her chest and I hoped she wasn’t having a heart attack.

  ‘What… what do you mean?’

  ‘You live frugally on this terrible estate, but I suppose you have to since you took early retirement without a pension. Your benefits will only go so far.’

  I reached for the coffee table between us and lifted the photo album towards me. Betty’s fingers flickered against her dirty blouse, and for one second, I assumed she’d try to stop me before she thought better of it.

  ‘Leave that alone; it’s private property.’

  I ignored her and flicked it open. ‘You’ve got some lovely holiday photos here, Betty. Australia, Jamaica, Barbados, Florida, Hawaii. And that’s only from the last eighteen months. I bet you have older ones in the house somewhere, don’t you?’

  Her face was one long, tortured shadow. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I told you. My name is Pandora.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Information, that’s all.’ I removed the lighter from my pocket and placed it next to the jar of petrol on the coffee table. ‘There’ll be no trouble if you give me what I want.’

  She sank further into the chair. ‘What could you possibly want from me? I’m a sixty-year-old woman with no job, no family, and no friends.’ She peered behind her. ‘There’s fifty quid in the top drawer. You can have that.’

  It was my turn to laugh. ‘No, Betty, I don’t need your money.’ I pointed at her face. ‘I have to pick your brain about your former job.’

  ‘My job? I worked for social services all my life.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ I lifted the lighter and ran my fingers over the cracked metal. ‘You were a social worker for forty years.’ I shook my head. ‘You must have seen some terrible things.’

  She relaxed a little in her seat. ‘It was a difficult career, but a rewarding one.’

  ‘I bet it was.’ The flame sprang from the lighter as I flicked the switch. ‘So what was it that made you stop protecting children? Was it the money or the threats against you?’ The yellow light flickered warmth over my skin. ‘I suppose it was a mixture of both, wasn’t it?’

  Betty’s fear had vanished, her eyes flickering red with defiance.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get out of my house before I call the police.’

  She grabbed a mobile phone from the pocket of her tattered cardigan. There were soup stains down the front of it, and I wondered how old they were.

  ‘You stopped protecting the children, Betty. I know you did, so don’t lie to me. Give me his name, the one who led the abusers; the man who bought you off and threatened to set you on fire.’ I unscrewed the top of the jar. The gasoline smell was intoxicating and reminded me of a drug den I’d frequented in Glasgow. ‘You’ve got many secrets, Betty, but I only want that one. Just his name. Then I’ll leave, and you’ll never see me again, I promise.’ It was a lie. ‘It will be your redemption.’

  She shrank into herself before my eyes, a pathetic, shrivelled creature old before her time.

  ‘Is this a test? Did he send you here to test me?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ I stood over her, ready to empty the container. ‘Will you give me his name?’

  She wiped the sweat from her forehead. ‘I don’t know who he is. I only told one person what happened, I promise.’

  As a single tear dripped from Betty’s eye, I believed her. But I needed that name, and it looked like she wouldn’t provide it without some persuasion. So I administered some.

  The petrol aroma bounced up to my nose as I emptied the jar. I thought Betty would scream, shout, or at least move, but she didn’t. And then I remembered she’d experienced this before, ten years ago. She’d walked away from it then.

  But she wouldn’t now.

  I set the Jesus pamphlets alight. Then she blurted out what I needed to know.

  But it was too late then, both for her and me.

  10 JEN: THE FIRE

  ‘You told me Grandma was dead.’

  I was still cleaning the water from my ears after the shower, but Abbey’s words were like a thunderstorm in my head.

  ‘Good morning to you as well.’

  She pointed at the answering machine. ‘You should listen to that.’

  I did as instructed.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Flowers. This is Rosewood Nursing Home regarding your mother, Ruth. After your visit yesterday, her memory appears to have improved, and she hopes you’ll return to see her again. Ruth says she has something important to tell you. Thank you.’

  ‘Well?’ Abbey stood opposite me with hands planted on her hips, looking a lot older than fifteen.

  ‘Let me grab a cup of coffee, and then I’ll tell you all about it.’

  My head was clearer by the time we were sitting in the living room, but her expression was still dark. I wondered if the pain in my skull was because I hadn’t had a drink last night. In the last month, I’d found I couldn’t get to sleep without one or two glasses of wine. Abbey had made the odd joke about me turning into an alchie, but I’d laughed it off. But I wasn’t laughing now as she scowled at me.

  ‘I’m waiting, Mother.’

  It wasn’t even Mum anymore.

  ‘I was on my way to see your grandmother yesterday when the nursing home informed me she’d had a fall and was in the hospital. So I visited her while you were celebrating with pizza.’

  I sipped at my coffee and waited for her volcano to explode.

  ‘You told me my grandparents died in a plane crash before I was born.’

  The drink curdled in my stomach. ‘I don’t think that’s right, Abbey.’

  She shook her head. ‘It is.’

  I put the mug on the table. ‘You were only young when they left, two or three years old. They went to live abroad.’

  The glare in her eyes told me she didn’t believe that.

  ‘And you never kept in touch?’

  Was now the time to tell her how unloving my parents were, at least towards me? Or about my pregnancy and abortion at sixteen? Or my mother’s descent into alcoholism before that? Or even how I now believed her early onset of dementia might have caused the drinking?

  No, it wasn’t.

  ‘Parents and their kids sometimes grow apart, love.’

  ‘And they never wanted to see me?’

  How to answer that question? I moved over to take her hand, but she pulled away.

  ‘That’s just the way it was, Abbey.’

  ‘I don’t even know their names, my grandparents.’

  I snapped back into the sofa. ‘Ruth and Mark.’

  ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Sixty and sixty-three.’ If he was still alive.

  Confusion covered her face. ‘Why is she in a nursing home at sixty?’

  ‘She has dementia.’

  ‘Isn’t that young for someone to have dementia?’

  ‘It can affect all ages, Abbey.’

  And it was possible it could have been passed to both of us. I’d spent weeks researching the prospect, uneased by what I’d found. Studies of family history said if you have a close relative diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia in older adults, your risk increased by about thirty per cent. I didn’t know what type of dementia my mother had, but I’d discovered that Frontotemporal dementia was more likely to run in families and have a genetic link than other more common causes of dementia.

  ‘That’s terrible, Mum.’ She got up, came around the table, and sat next to me. ‘We have to visit her, both of us.’

  She wasn’t wrong. I had no right to keep Abbey from forming a bond with her grandmother, but I needed to speak to my mother alone before that.

  ‘We will, love, but I need to see her on my own first. She was quite confused yesterday.’

  Confused enough to see an imaginary girl in red standing next to me and claim she stole her baby from the hospital, and I was, well, what? Was I adopted to replace her stolen Jenny?

  ‘Confused how?’

  ‘She was just very absent-minded, forgetting who I was.’

  Abbey narrowed her eyes. ‘Maybe that’s because she hasn’t seen you for years.’

  The bitterness in her voice slithered into my heart and stuck a knife there.

  ‘You’re right, love, but in her condition, I guess it will be a bit of a shock seeing us after all this time.’

  My words appeared to soften her stance and she grabbed my hand.

  ‘Of course, Mum.’ She gripped my fingers. ‘What happened to my grandfather?’

  Well, apart from thinking he’d left a message on our answering machine a few months ago, I didn’t know where he was. Not that I could tell her that.

  ‘I don’t know, Abbey. As soon as he put your grandmother into the home, he was off.’

  I hadn’t thought about him until my mind started playing tricks on me.

  ‘But you’re a police inspector; you could find him, couldn’t you?’

  As I struggled to answer that, I was saved by my mobile ringing. I glanced at the screen and stood.

  ‘I’ll have to take this, love; it’s Jack.’

  She pulled away from me, got up, and left the living room as I answered the phone.

  ‘I’m running a bit late, Jack, but I’ll be there soon enough.’

  ‘Late night?’

  Was it? I couldn’t remember.

  ‘No, just a difficult conversation with Abbey.’

  ‘Is everything okay?’

 

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