The Vanishing Woman Read online

  Gabriel arrived at the Whiteheads’ house to find Agnes in the guest room, hurriedly packing her things. “Leaving so soon?” enquired Gabriel, causing Agnes to jump out of her skin. “It’s quite all right. Mrs Gilbert told me you were leaving, and I thought I would catch you before you went.”

  “I’m sorry, Father, this really is not a convenient moment,” she said breathlessly, throwing open the wardrobe with an air of near panic. “If it’s about the funeral—”

  “Yes, I was informed that the coroner had released the body. I was going to ask you about the arrangements.”

  “Not now, Father. Come and see me tomorrow at home.”

  “You are going home then? You’ve been back here only a day, surely?”

  Agnes shook her head impatiently. “I’ve no business imposing any further. They’ve all been very kind, but I really should go home.”

  Gabriel closed the door softly. Agnes understood the gesture and threw down the armful of clothes she had been about to stuff into her suitcase. He was aware of just how young she looked; she might easily be a girl caught in the act of running away from school. “Agnes, it really is a little remiss of you to slip away when no one is around.”

  “I can’t help that,” she said, glancing anxiously at the closed door. “Dr Whitehead is out on his rounds, Mrs Whitehead is in the surgery, Therese—”

  “Therese is doing a passable job of keeping herself and her baby away from you. But it’s still not quite working, is it?”

  Agnes looked at Gabriel in what might have been desperation. “I don’t know what you mean, Father,” she tried. “The baby’s cries do rather get on my nerves, but I’m not used to it. That’s all.”

  “Is that why they sent you to that clinic?” he asked gently. “You were in no fit state to go home then, but you couldn’t bear being in the same house as a baby. And Therese knew perfectly well why.”

  Agnes hesitated as though weighing up how much he knew, then abruptly turned her back and continued the mad scramble to squeeze her personal possessions into her case. “Please go, Father. This is hardly the time.”

  Gabriel watched Agnes’ hunched back as she worked, moving in short, nervous movements that reminded him of a small bird constantly searching for predators. “I am not sure there has ever been a better time, since your baby is at the heart of all of this.” Agnes spun round as though she had been slapped in the face. “Come now, Agnes, I realised when I saw you in church contemplating the Madonna and Child. You were not grieving for your lost mother at all, were you? You were grieving for your baby. Then I’m afraid a couple of people were rather indiscreet.”

  The colour drained from Agnes’ already pale face, so dramatically that Gabriel dashed forward to grab her arm in case she fell. “Don’t!” she snapped, with unexpected strength, brushing him off and pressing her hand against the wall to steady herself. Nevertheless, her knees buckled, and she slid slowly to the floor, sitting with her back to the wall as though she were in disgrace. “Virtually no one knew,” she said quietly. “I told Pamela, and I think my mother told Douglas. No one was ever supposed to know.”

  Gabriel contemplated sitting down beside her, but she had made it perfectly clear she did not appreciate his presence, so he stood where he was. “You know you have nothing to be ashamed of, don’t you?” he said.

  Agnes stared glassily ahead of her. “My mother said I was a dirty little tart, bringing a bastard child into the world like that. But I don’t remember a thing about it.” She glanced up at Gabriel in what looked like anger. “I was blind drunk, Father! I don’t remember having anything strong to drink at all that night—not a drop! But I must have, for a dare or something. I can’t remember. All I know is that I woke up next morning in pain, with my clothing all over the place, and I had the most frightful headache.”

  “Agnes, this was not your fault. If some idiot got you drunk, laced your cordial with something you wouldn’t recognise, it was his fault, not yours.”

  Agnes appeared not to hear. “Well, the baby died. I suppose you know that too, but my mother said it was better that way. I would have had to give her up in the end.”

  “Her?”

  “I wasn’t allowed to look. They took the baby away, but I asked afterwards and the doctor said it was a girl.”

  There was a long pause, which under any other circumstances Gabriel would have taken as the cue to leave, but he knew Agnes had more to say, whether she wished to or not. He watched as she stared past him, trying hard not to blink in case tears came. Finally, without turning to look at him, she said: “Leave my baby alone; she had nothing to do with this. She was the only one who was truly innocent.”

  “She certainly was. An innocent victim.”

  At the word “victim” Agnes looked up at Gabriel in alarm. “What on earth are you saying? The baby was never going to survive, Father. She was born far too early.”

  “You were very frightened of your mother, weren’t you, Agnes?” Gabriel said gently. “Fear and hate so often go together, but you have misdirected me from the start.”

  “I wasn’t lying, Father! I couldn’t remember a thing about the bunker. I only remembered when I took that funny turn the next day.”

  “No, Agnes,” said Gabriel, “You knew as soon as you ran out into the darkness searching for your mother that there was only one place she could possibly have gone. I’ll wager that you went a little further and covered up any evidence that the entrance to the bunker had been disturbed. You are the only person who would have noticed the telltale signs because you spotted them years before.”

  Agnes had clutched her head and begun rocking to and fro, her back hitting the wall over and over again as though she were deliberately trying to knock the breath out of her body. “I kept telling myself it wasn’t real!” she shouted. “It felt like something out of a mediaeval poem. As though she had been dragged down to hell or the earth had swallowed her up. One minute she was there, and then she was gone, but I knew she’d been there. I could smell the lavender water she always wore.”

  Gabriel bent down and placed a hand on Agnes’ shoulder to stop her from moving. “Agnes, why did you not tell the truth about what you knew?”

  Agnes pushed him away, but she remained stock still, pressing herself back against the wall. “Do you really need me to tell you? Because I knew I was going to die! I knew I’d be shot if I told the inspector about the bunker and hanged if I didn’t because everyone would think I had killed her.”

  “You were less afraid to hang?”

  “Yes!” Agnes faltered, suddenly aware that she was shouting. “It sounds mad, but it was the thought of that man creeping up on me in the middle of the night . . . If I were condemned to death by a judge, at least I would know it was coming.”

  Gabriel smiled at the chilling logic of what she had said. “I suppose it is preferable to know the time and place, though most people would find that terrifying.” He stepped quietly towards the door, opened it and looked out onto the landing before stepping back inside and closing it again. He had not heard the front door open downstairs, but he needed to be sure Applegate was not skulking about again. “You’ve been very brave, Agnes. I’m sure you regretted blurting out in your panic that you had seen your mother vanish, but once you had told the truth, you were not prepared to lie and retract the story. It’s a pity you have not chosen to be more honest about the identity of the person responsible.”

  “I have no idea who did it!” protested Agnes, looking fixedly at the floor. “I didn’t see anyone else! I saw that the ground had been disturbed, that much is true, but I didn’t see anyone else!”

  Gabriel sat down on the floor opposite Agnes, but she refused to look at him. “I know how much she provoked you, Agnes. It wasn’t just those terrible moments of violence—and there were very few of those. It was the daily grind of living under the authority of a woman like that. All those little humiliations and privations; never being allowed to be a normal child. Never being able to in
vite a friend for tea, never even having the freedom to choose which frock to wear in the morning. She took control of every tiny detail of your life. And you have always known who took it upon himself to rescue you, haven’t you?”

  Gabriel was aware of the door opening softly behind them and the firm, confident tread of Dr Whitehead entering the room. “Why don’t you leave her alone, Father?” he asked softly. “Please. She has done nothing wrong.”

  “Protecting the guilty might be considered wrong, Doctor.”

  “Keeping her mouth shut hardly makes her an accomplice. I think you know that. Now why don’t you leave the poor girl alone and come downstairs?”

  Gabriel stood up slowly, hampered by the unpleasant sensation of pins and needles in his feet. He was getting too old to sit cross-legged on bare floorboards. “Let’s have a nice cup of tea,” he suggested, turning back to nod at Agnes. “I must apologise for distressing you, my dear. Let me leave you to pack.”

  Gabriel followed Dr Whitehead downstairs in absolute silence, noticing only how slowly the doctor was walking and how unlike him it was to have drooped shoulders. It was only when they stepped into the kitchen, where Mrs Whitehead and Therese were sitting and waiting for him, that he noticed how pale and tired they all looked. The kettle whistled suddenly, causing the three of them to flinch, but Mrs Whitehead turned to the stove in what was almost relief, occupying herself with the task of pouring the boiling water into a large old teapot. The kitchen did not look quite so homely and safe this morning, but Gabriel put it down to the dismal day outside, which was making the room unusually dark.

  “You knew it was me all along, didn’t you?” asked Dr Whitehead, sitting down wearily at the table. He did not invite Gabriel to join them, but Gabriel preferred it that way.

  “Not all along, no,” Gabriel admitted, “though Agnes inadvertently gave me a clue quite early without realising it. She said that with a pair of binoculars it would be possible to see everything around. It put me in mind of a birdwatcher, a hobby I somehow associated with a man of a certain age. The floods would have receded unevenly in that area, making it easier to spot even a small undulation. That was when you noticed the bunker, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I have a boyish curiosity about such things. I never intended to misuse it to begin with. I’m not quite sure where the idea came from.”

  “But when you told me about little Archie’s disappearance, you were unwittingly confessing. As, of course, you were when you drew my attention to the fact that Enid did not drown.”

  Dr Whitehead looked miserably in the direction of his wife and daughter, who were both in tears. “Why don’t you go?” he almost pleaded. “I should find it easier to talk to the priest without an audience, if you can bear it.”

  Therese placed a hand on his arm. “This is all my fault,” she whispered. “You leave. Let me confess everything.”

  Gabriel watched as the doctor drew Therese into his arms. He was so much bigger than she that he was able to lift her into his lap as though she were still a child. For a moment, that was exactly what she looked like. She had tied her hair back with a blue ribbon that would not have looked out of place accompanying a gymslip. Gabriel felt the queasiness in the pit of his stomach again. Applegate would never have worked it out. He would never have brought such misery to a family. “I will not leave this house without hearing your confession,” said Gabriel, though he was not sure how much Therese could hear, “though I am sure at the time you thought it a harmless prank to lace Agnes’ drink with alcohol. It was you who got her drunk, wasn’t it?”

  Therese nodded without looking at him. “I can’t even remember whose idea it was to mess around with her drink and set her up with a soldier, but I was the one who did it. I didn’t stop and think how it would end, we were just larking about.”

  “And I dare say you left long before things turned nasty.”

  Therese whimpered into her father’s shoulder, but it was Dr Whitehead who answered. “Therese has been tortured by the events of that night for years. I know that what she did was very, very wrong, but they were little more than children. It would never have occurred to her that the man would, well, do what he did.”

  Therese turned her streaming face in Gabriel’s direction. “Agnes stopped speaking to me after that—she hardly spoke to anyone—but then—then when I found out months later that she was very ill, I knew what I’d done.”

  Dr Whitehead held Therese a little tighter, more to silence her, Gabriel suspected, than to offer comfort. “Therese told me everything. I knew Agnes would never have chosen to do anything that disgraceful. She was a complete innocent, never had a stiff drink in her life. Never had a boyfriend.” He looked across the table at his wife. “Darling, please take Therese out of the room.” The two women began to protest, but the doctor rose to his feet, forcing Therese to stand up and move away. She looked at him as though he were abandoning her. “There are some details I am not free to share. Please.”

  Gabriel watched with ever-growing despair as Dr Whitehead walked with his family to the door as though seeing them off at a railway station. He reached out and squeezed his wife’s hand for a moment, saying quietly, “It’s all right. It’s all going to be all right.”

  “You told them about Agnes’ baby then,” commented Gabriel, when they were alone.

  “I had no choice, Father. I don’t bandy patients’ details about easily, I assure you.”

  “That’s why you never told a soul how close you came to losing two innocent lives that night.”

  Dr Whitehead looked up sharply at Gabriel. “I had no idea what I was going to find when I entered that house. Enid had told me only that Agnes was unwell and in pain. Agnes had concealed her pregnancy from everyone, including her mother. Heaven knows how much longer she would have tried to hide it, but she went into premature labour and her mother heard her moaning.”

  “How far along was she?”

  “Agnes was able to tell me that she was about twenty weeks. Her waters had broken, I knew there was no chance that the baby could survive.” Dr Whitehead shook his head. “You have no idea how terrible it is when a patient pleads like that: ‘Save my baby, Doctor! Please. Please save my baby! I’ll do anything . . .’ I’m afraid that there are some processes that cannot be stopped. I did all that I could do. I attended Agnes as she laboured and then delivered her baby, I cut the cord, wrapped the baby up in a towel and performed an emergency baptism. She died in my arms with poor Agnes still screaming at me to save her . . . All the while, Enid did nothing to help her daughter.”

  Gabriel regarded Dr Whitehead’s bowed grey head. These moments of intense emotion always heightened his awareness, but all Gabriel noticed was the absolute, unnatural silence all around them. Therese’s baby was asleep or had been taken out, and wherever the other women of the house were, they were deliberately keeping their distance. He could hear neither footsteps nor muffled voices in other rooms. “Doctor, however heartless Enid Jennings was that night, you were never her judge.”

  “Father, she very nearly had her daughter’s life on her conscience.” Dr Whitehead looked almost pleadingly at Gabriel. “You were right to guess that I nearly lost Agnes that night; I assume you worked it out based on her poor health now. Haemorrhage is a common complication following miscarriage or childbirth, but we doctors dread the sight of it more than anything else. There was no telephone at the house at the time, so I begged Enid to run for help. She was a fit woman and could have reached the nearest kiosk in good time.”

  “She refused?”

  “Of course. I told her that Aggie would bleed to death if she didn’t call an ambulance, but she wouldn’t budge. I started shouting at her; I became desperate. She stood there, looking on as her daughter bled, without any concern at all that she might lose her.”

  “But you saved her.”

  “Yes. I did not dare leave Agnes alone, so I pushed Enid aside and carried Agnes all the way to my car, then drove her to the ho
spital myself. We only just made it in time, and Agnes has been in poor health ever since.”

  “I’m getting stronger, thanks to you,” said a surprisingly bright voice from the doorway. Agnes was standing with her arms folded, leaning against the wooden doorframe in an almost casual manner. “I won’t let him hang, Father. She didn’t care about anyone’s life after my father died. Why should hers matter now?”

  Gabriel extended a hand to Agnes by way of invitation; she took the hint and joined them at the table, though the air of weary insolence hung about her like an odour. “I think you know what my answer to that would be, Aggie. But you should also know that no one will hang for this. There was no murder, was there, doctor? You hesitated when it came to it.”

  The doctor looked almost embarrassed. “It’s no easy business ending a life, Father, especially for a doctor; murder was never my intention. I overheard Enid threatening Pamela after that lecture. I had seen how vindictive she was capable of being, and I knew she was capable of destroying Pamela if she chose to, perhaps Scottie too. They’d been through so much, I couldn’t bear the thought of her hurting anyone else. I wanted to threaten her, threaten to expose her as the heartless monster she was if she wouldn’t back down once and for all. I knew she was the sort of person who would only listen to reason if someone frightened the life out of her.”

  “Well, you certainly did that,” Gabriel responded, a little more tersely than he had intended. “I’m not sure I know you well enough to be certain that you did not intend murder, Doctor, but if you did, you were spared the sin.”

  Doctor Whitehead nodded. “I did not mean to kill her, though I understand that you might find that difficult to believe under the circumstances. But without knowing it, Enid was dying as she walked towards her house. That was why she walked so slowly and paused to catch her breath.”