Part 12 (1/2)

CHAPTER 21.

The St Magdalena Nursing Home made Vernon Maddox feel nauseous. Old people gave him the heebie-jeebies and he wasn't afraid to admit it. He was frightened of being like them. It only seemed like yesterday when he was young and virile with a thick thatch of brown hair on his head and chest. Now the hair on his head was falling out and his chest hair was grey. At least s.h.i.+rl still liked him. He felt a wave of sentiment, then returned to concentrating on the matter in hand. Finding his wife and son.

He'd only met Kate's Aunt Lil once before back before she was loony tunes and it wasn't a visit he'd ever planned to repeat. If anyone had told him that one day he'd be visiting the old bat in an old folks' home he would have told them to stop smoking crack, but here he was, clutching a droopy bunch of flowers.

He'd only just recovered from the flight. Flying scared him even more than old people, especially since 9/11. This was the first time he'd been on a plane since that terrible day, even though Kate had pestered him ever since to visit the old country. She'd argued that you shouldn't give in to terrorists, that you had to live your life as normally as possible. Yeah, right... He remembered watching footage from London after the bombings last year, with Londoners getting back on the subway or the tube, whatever it was called and those ridiculous red buses the very day after the bombs went off. Brave? It was crazy, as far as he was concerned.

It hadn't been difficult at all to find the nursing home where Aunt Lil was waiting for her flight out of here. After discovering his wife's monstrous betrayal, Vernon had rushed home in a cab and scoured the house. Who would Kate visit in England? She only had two living relatives, Lil, and her mousey sister, Miranda. Although Kate had taken her address book with her she hadn't deleted the contacts on her computer. There, under L and this p.i.s.sed him off, the way she filed people by their first name instead of their surname was the name and address of Aunt Lil's home. He moved on to M and found Miranda's address. Easy.

On his way back to the airport he had considered calling the police, getting Interpol on the case, or whoever dealt with such crimes. But how long would it take to persuade the authorities that Jack had been abducted, especially as it was by his own mother? It would be far too slow. He wanted his son back now. And another thing he wanted to do it himself. He wanted to see Kate's face when he caught up with her. That would be well worth the trauma of the flight and having to spend a few nights apart from s.h.i.+rl.

The nursing home was in London, so that was where he headed first, after booking into a hotel near Paddington, the first one he saw after getting off the Heathrow Express. He vaguely remembered Kate telling him some tale about how Lil had moved from Bath (p.r.o.nounced with an ah) to London when she was in her late sixties to be near her old friends. Lil had actually grown up in London.

It was a grand Victorian detached building with ivy scaling the walls. Vernon's feet crunched on gravel as he walked up to the front door and pressed the buzzer. A woman in a crisp white uniform and a b.u.t.t to die for beckoned him in, and he explained who he was and who he'd come to see, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the smell that drifted through the building, breaking through the wall of air freshener.

'Hi.' He turned on his most charming smile, the one that he liked to practice on female freshmen. He explained who he was and who he'd come to see. 'My wife visited the other day,' he guessed. 'Kate Maddox. She would have had my son, Jack, with her.'

The nurse beamed. 'Ah, yes, the American boy. What a little angel. Such good manners.'

'Yes, he's been well disciplined.'

The nurse raised an eyebrow, then said, 'Shall I show you up to Miss Johnson's room?'

He followed the nurse up the stairs, enjoying the view of her a.s.s in her tight uniform s.h.i.+rl's a.s.s had pa.s.sed its 'best before' date and was shown along a corridor with a carpet the colour of a blended roast dinner. The nurse knocked on a door but didn't wait for a response. 'Lil, darling, you've got a visitor,' she said, ushering him in.

Aunt Lil was sitting in a chair by the window. When she turned her head towards him Vernon was reminded of a skeleton in a horror flick. He could almost hear the creak. Vernon clutched his head, as if proximity to such evident senility would cause him to contract it like it was an infectious disease.

'I'll leave you alone,' said the nurse, closing the door.

It was stiflingly hot in the room. Vernon could feel his s.h.i.+rt sticking to his back. He looked around. A stuffed rabbit lay on the bed, a sign of how Lil had returned to childhood. Jack had a stuffed rabbit that was quite similar. He'd left it behind in Boston. Vernon had felt sentimental when he saw Jack's rabbit on his bed, but was secretly pleased. He didn't believe in boys cuddling stuffed toys. He didn't want his son growing up soft. He bet that his idol, Hemingway, never owned a stuffed rabbit.

He moved as close as he dared towards the old woman. 'Hi, Lil, it's me. Vernon Maddox. Kate's husband.'

Aunt Lil looked up at him with watery eyes, half-obscured by large-framed gla.s.ses. 'Kate? Where's Kate?'

'She's not here. I'm her husband. I'm trying to find Kate and I was wondering if you might know where she is.'

Aunt Lil blinked at him. 'She's at the Unit. With Leonard. He's a lovely man, a good friend. He'll look after her.'

Vernon moved a little closer. 'At the Unit? What do you mean? What Centre?' What was she rambling on about? 'Where is the Unit, Lil?'

'Where is it? In Salisbury, of course.'

Salisbury? Kate had mentioned it once, he thought. He had no idea where it was, but it wouldn't be hard to find out.

'After that, she's going back to study. She's a clever girl, you know. She's going to be a scientist, just like her father.' She paused and frowned. 'That was such a shame.'

Vernon realised that Lil was talking about the past. Or at least, this part of her conversation was set in the past. It was impossible to sort the past from the present, or even tell if she was aware of the present at all.

'Do you know where Kate is now? Is she at this Centre place now?' he said.

'Pardon?'

He leaned in closer still and raised his voice. 'Where is she now?'

Lil studied him and then said, in a hushed, girlish voice, 'William? Is that you?'

'William?' What was she talking about now? 'No, it's Vernon. Kate's husband.'

Lil grabbed his hand. His impulse was to s.n.a.t.c.h it away, to stop her from touching him. But she held his fingers. 'I knew you'd come back, William. I knew I'd hear your voice again.'

'Listen, my name's Vernon. Who's William?'

'He was her boyfriend.'

Vernon swivelled round and saw another old lady standing in the doorway, wearing a long coat despite the blazing suns.h.i.+ne outside. From the look in her eye, though, this one appeared still to be compos mentis. She stepped into the room.

'William was an American GI who Lil was seeing during the war. Overs.e.xed, overpaid and over here. He was one of them.' She laughed. 'Awfully handsome, he was, but at the end of the War he went back to America. He promised to write but never did. Broke poor Lil's heart. She never married, you know. n.o.body could live up to her William. I expect Lil heard your accent and thought you were him. Poor thing. Who are you, anyway? I'm Maud.'

Her piercing gaze was unnerving. He explained who he was and asked if she'd seen Kate or knew where she was.

'I don't know,' Maud replied. 'Lil was talking about her the other day. But I wasn't sure if she'd really been here or if she had imagined it. She doesn't make much sense these days.'

'I noticed.'

'It comes to us all, dear.'

Vernon shuddered and thought, I'll shoot myself first.

'And you probably think you'd rather shoot yourself first, but you won't.'

Vernon felt his temper heating up. What did this old crone know about him? Suddenly, he had to get out.

He pushed past Maud and ran down the stairs, not stopping to say goodbye to the nurse who had shown him to Lil's room. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the hall mirror. His face was burning. Quick to temper, that's what his mother had said about him. It was true, but so what? He liked to think of it as pa.s.sionate.

He switched on the GPS in his hire car and punched in some digits. Salisbury wasn't too far away. Then he checked how to get to Miranda's. If Kate wasn't there, he would head to Salisbury and find out what this Centre was. He didn't have anything else to go on. But he felt hopeful, like he was getting warm. He was going to get his son back. And if Kate stood in his way, he'd really lose his temper. Kate underestimated him, but he knew her better than anyone else. He knew everything about her including exactly how to hurt her.

CHAPTER 22.

'I don't wanna stay at Auntie Miranda's,' Jack whined, halfway along the M40.

Kate twisted round in the pa.s.senger seat to see Jack's sulky red face and downturned mouth. She and Paul had decided there was no further reason to be in Salisbury, after the visit to Sarah's mother, and were instead heading north.