THAT AFTERNOON I WENT TO CAMBRIDGE, to visit Alicia’s cousin, Paul Rose.
As the train approached the station, the landscape flattened out and the fields let in an expanse of cold blue light. I felt glad to be out of London—the sky was less oppressive, and I could breathe more easily.
I left the train along with a trickle of students and tourists, using the map on my phone to guide me. The streets were quiet; I could hear my footsteps on the pavement echoing. Abruptly the road stopped. A wasteland lay ahead, muddy earth and grass leading to the river.
Only one house stood alone by the river. Obstinate and imposing, like a large red brick thrust into the mud. It was ugly, a Victorian monster. The walls were overgrown with ivy, and the garden had been overtaken by plants, weeds mostly. I got the sense of nature encroaching, reclaiming territory that had once been hers. This was the house where Alicia had been born. It was where she spent the first eighteen years of her life. Within these walls her personality had been formed: the roots of her adult life, all causes and subsequent choices, were buried here. Sometimes it’s hard to grasp why the answers to the present lie in the past. A simple analogy might be helpful: a leading psychiatrist in the field of sexual abuse once told me she had, in thirty years of extensive work with pedophiles, never met one who hadn’t himself been abused as a child. This doesn’t mean that all abused children go on to become abusers, but it is impossible for someone who was not abused to become an abuser. No one is born evil. As Winnicott put it, “A baby cannot hate the mother, without the mother first hating the baby.” As babies, we are innocent sponges, blank slates, with only the most basic needs present: to eat, shit, love, and be loved. But something goes wrong, depending on the circumstances into which we are born, and the house in which we grow up. A tormented, abused child can never take revenge in reality, as she is powerless and defenseless, but she can—and must—harbor vengeful fantasies in her imagination. Rage, like fear, is reactive. Something bad happened to Alicia, probably early in her childhood, to provoke the murderous impulses that emerged all those years later. Whatever the provocation, not everyone in this world would have picked up the gun and fired it point-blank into Gabriel’s face—most people could not. That Alicia did so points to something disordered in her internal world. That’s why it was crucial for me to understand what life had been like for her in this house, to find out what happened to shape her, make her into the person she became—a person capable of murder.
I wandered farther into the overgrown garden, through the weeds and waving wildflowers, and made my way along the side of the house. At the back was a large willow tree—a beautiful tree, majestic, with long bare branches sweeping to the ground. I pictured Alicia as a child playing around it and in the secret, magical world beneath its branches. I smiled.
Then I felt uneasy suddenly. I could sense someone’s eyes on me.
I looked up at the house. A face appeared at an upstairs window. An ugly face, an old woman’s face, pressed against the glass—staring straight at me. I felt a strange, inexplicable shiver of fear.
I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me until too late. There was a bang—a heavy thud—and a stab of pain at the back of my head.
Everything went black.
I WOKE UP ON THE HARD, cold ground, on my back. My first sensation was pain. My head was throbbing, stabbing, as if my skull had been cracked open. I reached up and gingerly touched the back of my head.
“No blood,” said a voice. “But you’ll have a nasty bruise tomorrow. Not to mention a cracking headache.”
I looked up and saw Paul Rose for the first time. He was standing above me, holding a baseball bat. He was about my age, but taller, and broad with it. He had a boyish face and a shock of red hair, the same color as Alicia’s. He reeked of whiskey.
I tried to sit up but couldn’t quite manage it.
“Better stay there. Recover for a sec.”
“I think I’ve got concussion.”
“Possibly.”
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
“What did you expect, mate? I thought you were a burglar.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“I know that now. I went through your wallet. You’re a psychotherapist.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out my wallet. He tossed it at me. It landed on my chest. I reached for it.
“I saw your ID. You’re at that hospital—the Grove?”
I nodded and the movement made my head throb. “Yes.”
“Then you know who I am.”
“Alicia’s cousin?”
“Paul Rose.” He held out his hand. “Here. Let me help you up.”
He pulled me to my feet with surprising ease. He was strong. I was unsteady on my feet. “You could have killed me,” I muttered.
Paul shrugged. “You could have been armed. You were trespassing. What did you expect? Why are you here?”
“I came to see you.” I grimaced in pain. “I wish I hadn’t.”
“Come in, sit down for a second.”
I was in too much pain to do anything other than go where he led me. My head was throbbing with every step. We went inside the back door.
The inside of the house was just as dilapidated as the outside. The kitchen walls were covered with an orange geometric design that looked forty years out-of-date. The wallpaper was coming away from the wall in patches, curling, twisting, and blackening as if it were catching fire. Mummified insects were hanging suspended from cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. The dust was so thick on the floor, it looked like a dirty carpet. And an underlying odor of cat piss made me feel sick. I counted at least five cats around the kitchen, sleeping on chairs and surfaces. On the floor, open plastic bags overflowed with stinking tins of cat food.
“Sit down. I’ll make some tea.” Paul leaned the baseball bat against the wall, by the door. I kept my eye on it. I didn’t feel safe around him.
Paul handed me a cracked mug full of tea. “Drink this.”
“You have any painkillers?”
“I’ve got some aspirin somewhere, I’ll have a look. Here.” He showed me a bottle of whiskey. “This’ll help.”
He poured some of the whiskey into the mug. I sipped it. It was hot, sweet, and strong. There was a pause as Paul drank his tea, staring at me—I was reminded of Alicia and that piercing gaze of hers.
“How is she?” he asked eventually. He continued before I could reply, “I’ve not been to see her. It’s not easy getting away.… Mum’s not well—I don’t like to leave her alone.”
“I see. When was the last time you saw Alicia?”
“Oh, years. Not for a long while. We lost touch. I was at their wedding, and I saw her a couple of times after that, but … Gabriel was quite possessive, I think. She stopped calling, anyway, once they got married. Stopped visiting. Mum was pretty hurt, to be honest.”
I didn’t speak. I could hardly think, with the throbbing in my head. I could feel him watching me.
“So what did you want to see me for?”
“Just some questions … I wanted to ask you about Alicia. About … her childhood.”
Paul nodded and poured some whiskey into his mug. He seemed to be relaxing now; the whiskey was having an effect on me too, taking the edge off my pain, and I was thinking better. Stay on track, I told myself. Get some facts. Then get the hell out of here.
“You grew up together?”
Paul nodded. “Mum and I moved in when my dad died. I was about eight or nine. It was only meant to be temporary, I think—but then Alicia’s mother was killed in the accident. So Mum stayed on—to take care of Alicia and Uncle Vernon.”
“Vernon Rose—Alicia’s father?”
“Right.”
“And Vernon died here a few years ago?”
“Yes. Several years ago.” Paul frowned. “He killed himself. Hanged himself. Upstairs, in the attic. I found the body.”
“That must have been terrible.”
“Yeah, it was tough—on Alicia mostly. Come to think of it, that’s the last time I saw her. Uncle Vernon’s funeral. She was in a bad way.” Paul stood up. “You want another drink?”
I tried to refuse but he kept talking as he poured more whiskey. “I never believed it, you know. That she killed Gabriel—it didn’t make any sense to me.”
“Why not?”
“Well, she wasn’t like that at all. She wasn’t a violent person.”
She is now, I thought. But I didn’t say anything. Paul sipped his whiskey. “She’s still not talking?”
“No. She’s still not talking.”
“It doesn’t make sense. None of it. You know, I think she was—”
We were interrupted by a thumping, a banging on the floor above. There was a muffled voice, a woman’s voice; her words were unintelligible.
Paul leapt to his feet. “Just a sec.” He walked out. He hurried to the foot of the stairs. He raised his voice. “Everything all right, Mum?”
A mumbled response that I couldn’t understand came from upstairs.
“What? Oh, all right. Just—just a minute.” He sounded uneasy.
Paul glanced at me across the hallway, frowning. He nodded at me. “She wants you to go up.”
STEADIER ON MY FEET, but still feeling faint, I followed Paul as he thudded up the dusty staircase.
Lydia Rose was waiting at the top. I recognized her scowling face from the window. She had long white hair, spreading across her shoulders like a spider’s web. She was enormously overweight—a swollen neck, fleshy forearms, massive legs like tree trunks. She was leaning heavily on her walking stick, which was buckling under her weight and looked like it might give way at any moment.
“Who is he? Who is he?”
Her shrill question was directed to Paul, even though she was staring at me. She didn’t take her eyes off me. Again, the same intense gaze I recognized from Alicia.
Paul spoke in a low voice. “Mum. Don’t get upset. He’s Alicia’s therapist, that’s all. From the hospital. He’s here to talk to me.”
“You? What does he want to talk to you for? What have you done?”
“He just wants to find out a bit about Alicia.”
“He’s a journalist, you fucking idiot.” Her voice approached a shriek. “Get him out!”
“He’s not a journalist. I’ve seen his ID, all right? Now, come on, Mum, please. Let’s get you back to bed.”
Grumbling, she allowed herself to be guided back into her bedroom. Paul nodded at me to follow.
Lydia flopped back with a deep thud. The bed quivered as it absorbed her weight. Paul adjusted her pillows. An ancient cat lay asleep by her feet, the ugliest cat I’d ever seen—battle scarred, bald in places, one ear bitten off. It was growling in its sleep.
I glanced around the room. It was full of junk—stacks of old magazines and yellowing newspapers, piles of old clothes. An oxygen canister stood by the wall, and a cake tin full of medications was on the bedside table.
I could feel Lydia’s hostile eyes on me the whole time. There was madness in her gaze; I felt quite sure of that.
“What does he want?” Her eyes darted up and down feverishly as she sized me up. “Who is he?”
“I just told you, Mum. He wants to know some background on Alicia, to help him treat her. He’s her psychotherapist.”
Lydia left no doubt about her opinion of psychotherapists. She turned her head, cleared her throat—and spat onto the floor in front of me.
Paul groaned. “Mum, please—”
“Shut up.” Lydia glared at me. “Alicia doesn’t deserve to be in hospital.”
“No?” I said. “Where should she be?”
“Where do you think? Prison.” Lydia eyed me scornfully. “You want to hear about Alicia? I’ll tell you about her. She’s a little bitch. She always was, even as a child.”
I listened, my head throbbing, as Lydia went on, with mounting anger:
“My poor brother, Vernon. He never recovered from Eva’s death. I took care of him. I took care of Alicia. And was she grateful?”
Obviously, no response was no required. Not that Lydia waited for one.
“You know how Alicia repaid me? All my kindness? Do you know what she did to me?”
“Mum, please—”
“Shut up, Paul!’ Lydia turned to me. I was surprised how much anger was in her voice. “The bitch painted me. She painted me, without my knowledge or permission. I went to her exhibition—and there it was, hanging there. Vile, disgusting—an obscene mockery.”
Lydia was trembling with anger, and Paul looked concerned. He gave me an unhappy glance. “Maybe it’s better if you go now, mate. It’s not good for Mum to get upset.”
I nodded. Lydia Rose was not well, no doubt about that. I was more than happy to escape.
I left the house and made my way back to the train station, with a swollen head and a splitting headache. What a fucking waste of time. I’d found out nothing—except it was obvious why Alicia had gotten out of that house as soon as she could. It reminded me of my own escape from home at the age of eighteen, fleeing my father. It was all too obvious who Alicia was running away from—Lydia Rose.
I thought about the painting Alicia had done of Lydia. “An obscene mockery,” she called it. Well, time to pay a visit to Alicia’s gallery and find out why the picture had upset her aunt so much.
As I left Cambridge, my last thoughts were of Paul. I felt sorry for him, having to live with that monstrous woman—be her unpaid slave. It was a lonely life—I didn’t imagine he had many friends. Or a girlfriend. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still a virgin. Something about him remained stunted, despite his size; something thwarted.
I had taken an instant and violent dislike to Lydia—probably because she reminded me of my father. I would have ended up like Paul if I had stayed in that house, if I had stayed with my parents in Surrey, at the beck and call of a madman.
I felt depressed all the way back to London. Sad, tired, close to tears. I couldn’t tell if I was feeling Paul’s sadness—or my own.