I Spy. Claire Kendal

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СКАЧАТЬ them on a wrong scent, if they should attempt to trace me out by it.’

      Anne Brontë,

      The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,

      Chapter V, ‘The Studio’

       Prologue An Interview

      London, April 2013

      The clear glass table meant that I had to work extra hard to stop my knee from jerking up and down. It was not a time to show nervousness. Maxine was on one side of the table. I was on the other.

      ‘You are twenty-one, Holly. Correct?’ She started simply, but her use of my first name was a warning. She had only ever called me by my surname.

      ‘Correct.’

      ‘Do you have many friends?’

      ‘A few good ones.’

      She nodded. I had never seen her nod before. Nodding is a gesture that suggests interest, and that wasn’t something she normally allowed herself to show.

      ‘It’s good to be selective.’ She smiled. I hadn’t seen her do that before either.

      ‘I’m glad you think so.’

      ‘And your grandmother raised you?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘That’s sad about your parents. What a thing to happen.’

      ‘It was a long time ago.’

      ‘You were two?’

      She’d got it wrong on purpose. I was certain of it. ‘Three.’ Was I right to correct her? Should I have let it go? What was the best response? I needed to quit second-guessing what she wanted to hear and just say what was true.

      ‘It was a car crash?’ Maxine didn’t have any notes. She didn’t need any notes. She was in command of my ‘facts’ without having to write them down.

      ‘Yes.’ It was crucial to keep it brief.

      ‘I apologise for the personal nature of some of the questions I have to ask you.’ Had she really used the word ‘apologise’? Maxine?

      The lights in the room were unnaturally bright. The wall behind me was extremely white. But the wall behind Maxine, which I was facing, was a mirror of glass. It was a safe bet that it was one-way glass, and my performance was being assessed from the other side of it, in a darkened room. I imagined Maxine’s boss, Martin, behind the glass, enjoying the peep show but appearing bored.

      ‘You’ve known the Hargrave family for how long?’

      ‘Since I was four. Most of my life.’ I felt my lips trembling. My body was not under my control. I was losing it. Why did this woman scare me so much?

      ‘Tell me about them.’ Maxine settled in her chair, ready to be entertained.

      ‘Peggy is the mother, James is the father. They have a daughter.’

      There was that smile again. The indulgent kind you give to a difficult child. ‘And the daughter has a name, I presume?’

      ‘Sorry. Yes. Milly.’ Maxine knew this already, despite the pretence. I’d given permission for them to interview friends and family. I’d had to, though there weren’t many. Peggy, James, and Milly. My list of three, because my grandmother hardly knew what day of the week she was living any more.

      ‘You and Milly are very close, aren’t you? Best friends, as they say.’

      ‘I’d never tell her’ – I flapped around for the right phrase – ‘anything I shouldn’t.’

      ‘Of course you wouldn’t. Milly’s family moved next door when you were four?’

      ‘Yes.’ Elaboration was not my friend.

      I reminded myself that these were the easy questions. The seemingly innocuous warm-up questions to lull me into the false sense of security that would get me to mess up and reveal every vulnerability I’d ever had. My stomach knotted, and I tried not to let myself panic about what might be coming.

      ‘And you moved in when?’

      ‘I was born in that house. My grandmother moved in to look after me when my parents died. Milly’s family bought the house next door just before the two of us started school – she and I are the same age.’

      ‘Your grandmother was quite old when she became your guardian, wasn’t she?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Maxine smiled again, and I shivered so hard it must have been visible on the other side of the one-way glass. ‘That can’t have been much fun for a small child.’

      I tried to think of what to say to this, but I took too long, so Maxine went on. ‘You are close to Milly’s mother? Peggy, you said?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Peggy must have seen you as a poor little neglected orphan.’ Maxine was a combination of effortful glamour and mess. Her hair was bottle-blonde but lank. Pieces of different lengths hung in front of her face, as if she’d hacked at them herself.

      ‘I think she probably did, yes.’

      ‘Tell me more, Holly.’ That jagged curtain of hair was one of Maxine’s tactics for hiding, though I managed a glimpse of hooded eyes that were grey that day but could easily be changed with contact lenses.

      ‘I think Peggy wanted – she still wants – to protect me. To mother me, even.’ I was saying too much when I needed to be spare in my answers. Part of what Maxine was testing was that I could be reserved, even under pressure.

      ‘And Peggy’s husband is around – James Hargrave. What is he like?’ Maxine pushed her hair behind her ears. Not a Maxine gesture. Her mascara and eyeliner were heavy. She had gone for her usual indigo. No ordinary black for her. The foundation was caked on. Maxine was a woman of many faces.

      ‘He runs the town pharmacy.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘James is very kind, but he doesn’t say much.’

      I didn’t explain that it was as if Peggy had such a lot to say there was nothing left for James – and they both seemed to like it that way.

      ‘Very kind? That’s mild. You aren’t damning by faint praise?’

      ‘There is a lot to be said for real kindness.’ As soon as the words were out, I wanted to take them back – she was going to think I was judging her, that I was rebuking her.

      ‘I agree,’ she said, but this didn’t make me relax. ‘And your grandmother is fond of the Hargrave family? As fond as you clearly are?’

      ‘My grandmother hates СКАЧАТЬ