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Chapter 19

When Kate opened her eyes the next morning, her first fleeting emotion was faint disappointment that Paul wasn’t in bed with her. But then, as the click and beep of Billy the robot being switched on announced the awakening of her son, she realised that that would have been impossible. Or, at least, extremely inadvisable. To her shame, she found herself wondering how on earth she was ever going to get any time alone with Paul. She dismissed the selfish thought immediately. Jack absolutely had to come first.

Although, now that she thought about it, perhaps it was time for Jack to go and spend a few days with his British cousins? Selfish reasons aside, it really couldn’t be much fun for him, getting dragged around with her and Paul in their quest for answers. Her sister lived in the Cotswolds. Surely she’d be happy to have him to stay for a while? Miranda didn’t even know that they were over here.

Kate decided that she would ring her today . . . and not just so that she could sleep with Paul, either. She probably needed to reassure Miranda that they were OK. They had never been close sisters, and Kate had held off calling her so far, knowing that this would be the first place Vernon would try to track her down. She didn’t want Miranda to have to get involved. Better that she knew nothing. At least Vernon wouldn’t be aware of Miranda’s new address – their family had moved house a few months before.

‘Hello Billy, hello Mummy, I love you both,’ Jack said sleepily, stumbling out of his bed and into hers – the one he’d started out in last night. They cuddled, Kate pressing the top of Jack’s head against her lips, kissing his soft hair, and Jack wrapping one of his little legs around hers. He smelled delicious.

‘We love you too, Jacket,’ she said, using his old nickname.

‘Mum-mee, don’t call me that, it’s silly.’

‘Alright, Potatohead.’

‘That’s even more silly!’

‘Sorry, Mr Smellypants.’

Jack punched her in the ribs, surprisingly hard.

‘Ow! That hurt!’

‘Then stop calling me silly things,’ he said, on the verge of sudden tears.

Kate had forgotten how sensitive he was sometimes. She supposed it was unsurprising, under the current circumstances.

‘Sorry, Jack,’ she said, hugging him closer. ‘Hey, listen, how would you like to go and see Amelia and George?’

‘Who?’

‘Your cousins, you remember them? They came to Boston once. They’ve got blond hair and big green eyes. George is a year younger than you, and Amelia’s a year older.’

‘And their parents is Auntie Miranda and Uncle Pete?’

‘That’s right. You haven’t seen them for a while.’

Miranda, Pete and the kids had flown out to visit them in Boston about eighteen months earlier. Vernon had made the visit as uncomfortable as he could. He may as well have placed a ‘Piss Off’ mat on the front porch.

Jack shrugged. ‘OK. I don’t mind. I might let George play with Billy, but only for a few minutes.’

‘Good boy. Now go and have a wee, and we’ll find Paul and go for breakfast.’

‘Today’s task,’ Paul said, as the two of them attacked greasy scrambled eggs and rubbery toast in the hotel dining room, ‘is to track down Sarah. Can you remember where she lived?’

Kate, who was watching Jack playing with the curtain pulls – he appeared to be trying to lynch Billy – racked her brains again. She glanced up at Paul, who was chasing a clump of egg around his plate. He caught her looking, and gave her a little, but very meaningful smile, and her stomach did a small flip. She thought of the silky smoothness of his skin from the previous night, and how she couldn’t wait to spend some more time kissing him.

She forced herself to concentrate and pointed towards Paul’s laptop. ‘You know, I’m sure she lived locally. I have this feeling that she told me she could see her house from the Unit. Can’t we trace her on the net? Evergreen shouldn’t be too difficult; it’s not a terribly common name, is it?’

‘No, but I can’t get an internet connection here, so let’s go and see if the receptionist’s got a telephone directory, if you’ve finished.’

Kate took a final swig of tepid tea, and made a face. ‘Yeah. It’s not the best breakfast I’ve ever had.’

Paul smiled at her again. ‘Perhaps I can take you to a hotel sometime where they do fantastic breakfasts. In the Lake District. Views to die for, and four poster beds.’

‘Sounds good,’ she said, trying to keep her voice level. ‘I do love a good breakfast.’

There was one Evergreen listed in the Salisbury phone directory. The initials were wrong, but after all this time Sarah was probably married and living somewhere else. It was almost certainly a relative though – hopefully her parents.

‘Assuming they’re the right Evergreens, of course,’ Paul said.

‘Should we call first?’ Kate asked doubtfully. ‘Jack, don’t do that, honey, you might get your fingers trapped.’ Jack, bored, had been playing with the heavy fire door leading up to the hotel bedrooms, as Kate and Paul leafed through the directory beside the payphone in Reception.

‘No. We’ve got plenty of time. Let’s just drive over there and see if they’re in. And if it’s them, of course. You can just say you’re an old friend of Sarah’s.’

‘What about Jack? Jack – stop it!’

Paul looked over at Jack, who was now kicking the door disconsolately.

‘Yeah. A bit boring for him, really,’ Paul said. ‘I don’t think he should come in with us. I’ll buy a ball and take him for a kick around in their garden, if they’ve got one, while you’re chatting.’

Kate hoped the Evergreens would be accommodating. It seemed a bit cheeky to turn up invited and then ask that Jack could go and play football in their back garden. ‘Or in a local park.’

‘Whatever. Let’s go.’ Paul called to Jack: ‘Come on mate, we’re going to buy a football!’

Football duly purchased from a newsagent’s near the hotel, the three of them set off in the car, heading for a village on the other side of Salisbury called Quidhampton. According to their map, the Evergreens lived on the main road through the village.

‘Although I wouldn’t really call this a main road,’ Kate said, as Paul drove slowly down what was more like a narrow country lane.

‘There! Primrose Cottage,’ Paul cried, pointing at a low, Thirties-style bungalow.

‘Wouldn’t really call that a cottage, either,’ she said, trying to swallow down the nerves in her belly at what she was about to have to do.

‘Where are we going? Can we play football now?’ Jack had undone his seatbelt before the car had pulled to a halt.

‘Hang on, mate. We just have to go and see if these people are the mum and dad of someone your Mummy used to know, a lady called Sarah.’

‘Why?’

Paul and Kate looked at one another. ‘Bit tricky to explain,’ said Paul. ‘It’s a long story.’ He turned back to Kate. ‘She might even still live at home. That would be handy, wouldn’t it? Save a bit of time.’

‘Mmm,’ Kate said, not at all sure if she was ready for this. Jack opened his mouth to demand more explanations, so she added hastily: ‘You’re being a very good boy, Jack. Promise you’ll be good a little while longer, while I talk to them, OK?’

‘OK. As long as I can have an ice-cream afterwards,’ Jack said moodily.

Kate had imagined that Sarah’s parents would be an elderly couple, and so when a very attractive, youthful woman in her fifties opened the door, Kate initially assumed that they had the wrong Evergreens.

‘Um – hello,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Sarah Evergreen’s parents? I’m an old friend of hers.’

The woman was silent for a moment, and the look on her face told Kate that she hadn’t come to the wrong place after all. She wondered if Sarah and her family might be estranged – Sarah had been a stroppy madam when Kate knew her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am Sarah’s mother.’ She smiled then, and stuck out her hand. ‘Any friends of Sarah’s are welcome here. I don’t recognise you, do I? Have we met before? I’m Angela.’

‘Kate.’ Kate shook Angela’s hand, and smiled back. ‘I knew Sarah from the Cold Research Unit. This is my friend Paul, and my son, Jack.’

Angela flinched at the mention of the CRU. Both Kate and Paul noticed, and Paul raised his eyebrows at Kate when Angela wasn’t looking.

‘Come in, come in, I’ll put the kettle on. Hello, Jack, I like your robot, he’s rather super, isn’t he?’

‘He’s called Billy,’ Jack said, hiding behind Kate’s legs.

They processed into the small house, taking up too much room in the cramped living room. There was a huge painting of Sarah, a photograph which had been rendered in oil on canvas, hanging over the fireplace, and Kate recognised her immediately.

‘How is Sarah?’ Kate asked, thinking how attractive she looked in that picture. ‘It’s been ages since I saw her. We meant to keep in touch, but . . .’ Her voice petered out at Angela’s expression.

‘You don’t know? I thought you said you were at the CRU with her?’

Kate glanced at Paul. ‘I was. We were room-mates. What . . .?’

‘So you were there the night of the fire?’

‘Yes.’ Kate had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. She reached out and took hold of Paul’s hand. Even Jack was quiet, sensing the atmosphere. He’d retreated to an armchair, where he was tinkering with Billy.

Angela swallowed hard, and her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. I assumed you’d already know. But Sarah – she died in the fire.’

‘No she didn’t!’ Kate blurted, without thinking.

‘Kate!’ Paul squeezed her hand.

‘I know this must come as a shock to you, but I’m afraid it’s true. She became trapped in the burning building and . . . didn’t manage to escape.’

Kate shook her head. ‘No. No.’

Angela thought she was upset at the news, and ushered her over to the sofa, pressing her shoulder gently to make her sit down. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t read about it in the papers afterwards?’

Paul sidled over to Jack, and began chatting quietly to him about Billy’s myriad functions.

‘I’m not from Salisbury. Anyway, I was in hospital for some time after the fire, and then I went away to the States. That’s why I didn’t know.’

‘Were you and Sarah very good friends?’

Kate blushed. ‘Um. Well. We hadn’t known each other long. We had a few laughs together.’ She avoided Paul’s eye.

‘Let me make some tea, and we can have a proper chat,’ said Angela. ‘Jack, would you like some juice and biscuits?’

Jack nodded. ‘And please may I play soccer in your garden with Paul?’

Angela laughed, in a strained sort of way. ‘Of course. I’ll show you out there.’

‘That’s very nice of you,’ said Kate, in an equally strained way. She was alarmed to find herself shaking, and wished that Paul wasn’t just disappearing out into the back garden with Jack. She felt like she needed someone to hold on to. This was all too weird. Although her memory of the fire was extremely patchy, the two clearest recollections she had were, firstly, of Sarah and herself, collapsing on the grass outside; and secondly, seeing Stephen being carried out. How could they both have died in the fire? It wasn’t possible. Sarah was the one who’d helped her, Kate, get out. Sarah had been coughing and spluttering as much as she had – but she’d been OK. She’d got out of the building. Kate remembered it clearly, a patch in the fog that obscured so much of her memory.

After a couple of minutes, Angela came back with a tray of tea things, and a plate of chocolate biscuits.

‘I’m really sorry to turn up unannounced like this,’ Kate said, declining the offer of a biscuit.

‘Not at all. It’s actually rather nice to have some company. And to have a child in the house again.’ She spoke so wistfully.

‘Was Sarah your only child?’ Kate asked. ‘Tell me to mind my own business if you want.’

‘No, it’s perfectly all right. Yes, Sarah was our one and only. Now she’s gone, I won’t be having any grandchildren running around the place either.’

‘And your husband?’ Kate ventured, feeling awful.

Angela stared at Sarah’s portrait, and bit her lip. ‘We divorced three years after Sarah died. It just all got to be . . . too much, in the end.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

Angela nodded. ‘So I live here on my own now. I’m all right, I suppose. I have some good friends, and some good memories. But nothing’s turned out how I planned it. Things never do, do they?’

‘I guess not,’ said Kate slowly, thinking about her and Vernon. And her and Stephen. And now – her and Paul? How would that turn out?

‘What do you remember about Sarah?’ Angela asked.

Kate looked her squarely in the eye. ‘I don’t remember very much at all, about the fire – but I’m pretty sure that Sarah helped save my life. I was ill – we were both ill – we’d been given flu, or something. We both had temperatures, although I’m not sure which of us was worse. I was too unwell myself to really be aware of people around me. But she made me get out of bed when the fire alarm went off, and she helped me down the corridors. I couldn’t have walked on my own, I was too weak. I remember her red hair, and her voice, urging me to hurry up. Most of all, I remember seeing her outside, on the grass, with me.’

‘You can’t have done,’ Angela said, utterly bewildered.

‘I did. I know I did.’

‘Could she have gone back inside again, to try and save someone else?’

‘She must have done, I suppose, although I don’t know who she’d have gone back in for. How incredibly brave of her. I was in no fit state to do anything else except lie on the grass. I think someone gave me a shot of something. Did they – um – I mean, where was she eventually found?’

Angela’s voice trembled. ‘In her bedroom at the CRU. Apparently she had become locked in somehow, and couldn’t escape.’

‘That’s impossible. Why would she have gone back into the bedroom, and got locked in? The fire was raging by then. Nobody could have gone back down that corridor! There was so much urgency to get us out of there; the fire was right behind us. When I think of it, it was like it was chasing us down the corridor. The smoke was everywhere . . .’

They both reached for their cups of tea, and drank in silence for a moment. Kate wished hers was a large gin and tonic. A rattling sound made her look up again, and to her horror, she saw that Angela’s hand was trembling so violently that her cup shook in her saucer, and tea was slopping onto the cream carpet. Kate jumped up and gently took the cup and saucer from Angela, who was now doubled over with sobs, as if she had bad stomach ache.

‘I just can’t bear to think of my daughter suffering like that!’

Angela’s voice was a wail, more agonised than anything Kate had ever heard. Oh God, she thought, what have we done? We shouldn’t have come. Angela had seemed fine just a moment ago.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Kate repeated, trying to scrub at the tea stain on the floor with a napkin. She felt close to tears herself. Outside, Paul and Jack were kicking the football around, oblivious.

Angela took a deep, long breath and attempted to compose herself. ‘No, it’s me who ought to apologise,’ she said, still crying. ‘You’d think it would get easier, but it doesn’t. I’m the same with anyone who knew Sarah. When that man, Dr Bainbridge, came round, a few weeks after it happened, I got so distraught that I had to get a shot of tranquillisers – Sarah’s dad had to call my GP. I think he really regretted setting foot in here. I had quite a go at him, you see. I just felt I had to blame somebody. I know it wasn’t fair of me.’

Kate put the stained napkin back on the tea tray. ‘Leonard Bainbridge came to see you? What did he say?’

‘He just kept saying how sorry he was. He said that the Cold Research Unit had been set up to help people and now people were dying. He said something about it all getting out of hand. To be honest, he didn’t make much sense, and I was so angry and busy yelling at him that I wasn’t really listening. And then he said something that made me so mad that I threw him out. He said that I should be proud that my daughter had died doing something to help others – as if it was worth my daughter dying to stop a few people getting a sore throat and a runny nose! He said that one day he hoped I’d see that it was worth the sacrifice.’

Kate didn’t know what to say. Her head was spinning too fast. Sacrifice? What on earth had Leonard been talking about? She followed Angela’s gaze towards a picture of Sarah when she was a little girl, framed and fading on the mantelpiece. Like Sarah, Leonard was dead now. What secrets had he taken to the grave with him? Watching a tear roll down Angela’s cheek, Kate was more determined than ever to find out.