Lucy Philippa Appleyard was unlike the others even in the way Angel chose her. It was only afterwards, of course, that Eddie began to suspect that Angel had a particular reason for wanting Lucy. Yet again he had been manipulated. The questions were: how much, how far back did it go and why?
At the time everything seemed to happen by chance. Eddie often bought the Evening Standard, though he did not always read it. (Angel rarely read newspapers, partly because she had little interest in news for its own sake, and partly because they made her hands dirty.) Frank Howells feature on St Georges, Kensal Vale, appeared on a Friday. Angel chanced if that was the appropriate word to see it the following Tuesday. They had eaten their supper and Eddie was clearing up. Angel wanted to clean her shoes, a job which like anything to do with her appearance was too important to be delegated to Eddie.
She spread the newspaper over the kitchen table and fetched the shoes and the cleaning materials. There were two pairs of court shoes, one navy and the other black, and a pair of tan leather sandals. She smeared the first shoe with polish. Then she stopped. Eddie, always aware of her movements, watched as she pushed the shoes off the newspaper and sat down at the table. He put the cutlery away, a manoeuvre which allowed him to glance at the paper. He glimpsed a photograph of a fair-haired man in dog collar and denim jacket, holding a black baby in the crook of his left arm.
Wouldnt like to meet him on a dark night, Eddie said. Looks like a ferret. Imagine having him running up your trousers, he thought; but he did not say this aloud for fear of offending Angel.
She looked up. A curate and a policeman.
Hes a policeman, too?
Not him. Theres a woman deacon in the parish. And shes married to a policeman.
Angel bent her shining head over the newspaper. Eddie pottered about the kitchen, wiping the cooker and the work surfaces. Angels stillness made him uneasy.
To break the silence, he said, Theyre not really like vicars any more, are they? I mean that jacket. Its pathetic.
Angel stared at him. It says they have a little girl.
His attention sharpened. The ferret?
Not him. The curate and the policeman. Look, theres a picture of the woman.
Her name was Sally Appleyard, and she had short dark hair and a thin face with large eyes.
These women priests. If you ask me, its not natural. Eddie hesitated. If Jesus had wanted women to be priests, hed have chosen women apostles. Well, wouldnt he? It makes sense.
Do you think shes pretty?
No. He frowned, wanting to find words which Angel might want to hear. She looks drab, doesnt she? Mousy.
Youre right. Shes let herself go, too. One of those people who just wont make the effort.
The little girl. How old is she? Does it say?
Four. Her names Lucy.
Angel went back to her shoes. Later that evening, Eddie heard her moving around the basement as he watched television in the sitting room above. It was over a year since he had been down there. The memories made him feel restless. He returned to the kitchen to make some tea. While he was there he reread the article about St Georges, Kensal Vale. He was not surprised when Angel announced her decision the following morning over breakfast.
Wont it be dangerous? Eddie stabbed his spoon at the photograph of Sally Appleyard. If her husbands in the CID, theyll pull out all the stops.
It wont be more dangerous if we plan it carefully. Youve never really understood that, have you? Thats why you came a cropper before you met me. A plans like a clock. If its properly made it has to work. All you should need to do is wind it up and off it goes. Tick tock, tick tock.
Are we all right for money?
She smiled, a teacher rewarding an apt pupil. I shall have to do a certain amount extra to build up the contingency fund. But its important not to break the routine in any way. I think I might warn Mrs Hawley-Minton that I may have some time off around Christmas.
During the next two months, from mid-September to mid-November, Angel worked on average four days a week. Sometimes these included evenings and nights. Mrs Hawley-Mintons agency was small and expensive. Word of mouth was all the advertising it needed. Most of the clients were either foreign business people or expatriates paying brief visits home. They were prepared to pay good money for reliable and fully qualified freelance nannies with excellent references and the knack of controlling spoiled children. The tips were good, in some cases extravagantly generous.
Its a sort of blood money, Angel explained to Eddie. Its not that the parents feel grateful. They feel guilty. Thats because theyre not doing their duty theyre leaving their children to be brought up by strangers. Its not right, is it? Money cant buy love.
They were very busy. On the agency days, Angel took the tube down from Belsize Park and made her way to Westminster, Belgravia, Knightsbridge and Kensington. She looked very smart in her navy-blue outfit, her blonde hair tied back, the hem of her skirt swinging just below the knee. Mrs Hawley-Mintons girls did not have a uniform after all, they were ladies, not servants but they were encouraged to conform to a discreetly professional house style. Meanwhile, Eddie saw to the cooking, the cleaning and most of the shopping.
In their spare time they made their preparations. For one thing, Angel insisted on repainting the basement, a refinement which Eddie thought unnecessary.
Whats the point? We only did it eighteen months ago.
I want everything to be nice and fresh.
They shared the outside research. Angel liked to say there was no such thing as useless knowledge. If you gathered all the information that could possibly be relevant, and tried to predict every contingency, then your plan could not fail. Working separately, they quartered the broad crescent of north London between Kentish Town in the east and Willesden Junction in the west. They went in the van, on foot and by public transport. Afterwards Angel would set little tests.
Suppose youre travelling from Kensal Vale: its rush hour, and there are roadworks on Kilburn High Road, and you want to cut down to Maida Vale: whats your best route?
The riskier part of the research involved the surveillance of Lucy and her parents. Angel insisted that they be even more cautious than they had been on other occasions because of Michael Appleyards job. It was easier once they had worked out the geography of the Appleyards routine. Like the majority of Londoners, the Appleyards spent most of their lives at a handful of locations or travelling to and from them; their city was really an invisible village.
Angel spread out the map on the kitchen table. Four main possibilities. St Georges, the flat in Hercules Road, the child minders house, Kensal Vale library.
What about shops? Eddie put in. She and her mother often go down West End Lane. And theyve driven up to Brent Cross at least twice since we started.
Angel shook her head. I dont like it. Too many video cameras around, especially at Brent Cross. Remember that boy Jamie. Jamie Bulger.
That year a dank autumn slid imperceptibly into a winter characterized by cutting winds and relentless rain; pedestrians wrapped up warmly and hurried half-disguised along the pavements. On research trips Angel usually wore her long, hooded raincoat, often with the black wig and glasses.
It makes you look like a monk, Eddie said with a chuckle as she checked her appearance in the hall mirror one evening. Or rather, a nun.
She slapped him. Dont ever say that again, Eddie.
He rubbed his tingling cheek and apologized, desperate as always for her forgiveness. However hard he tried, he sometimes managed to upset her. He hated himself for his clumsiness. It made everything so uncomfortable when Angel was upset.
Eddie worried about Angel going out alone in the evening. These days no one was safe on the streets of London, and beautiful women were more vulnerable than anyone. One night in October she returned home towards midnight with a torn coat, her colour high and the glasses missing. She told Eddie that a drunk had pawed her in Quex Road.
It was disgusting. Its made me feel physically sick.
But what happened? Eddie drew her towards the sitting room. For once the roles were reversed. He felt fiercely protective towards her. How did you get away?
Oh, that wasnt a problem. She drew her right hand out of her pocket. Silver flashed before his eyes.
What is it? He looked more closely and frowned. A scalpel?
I cut open his hand and then his face. Then I ran. If people behave like animals, they have to be treated like animals.
On another occasion they went together to St Georges and stared at the grubby red brick church with its sturdy spire and rain-washed slate roofs. Angel tried the door but it was locked. Eddie was surprised how angry this made her.
Its terrible. They never used to lock churches when I was young. Not in the daytime.
Did you go to church? Eddie asked, suddenly curious. We didnt.
Didnt you? Angel raised her eyebrows. Shall we go?
By the middle of November, Angel had decided that it would be best to take Lucy while she was in the care of the child minder. According to the Voters List, her name was Carla Vaughan. Angel summed up the woman with three adjectives: fat and vulgar and black.
You think itll be easier if we take her from there? Eddie asked.
Of course. The Vaughan woman takes far too many children. Theres no way she can keep track of them all the time.
She was giving them sweets when they were at the library. I bet she doesnt make them clean their teeth afterwards. And they were making a dreadful racket in there. She was almost encouraging it.
Shes a disgrace, Angel said. When shes at home with them, she probably sits them in front of the television and feeds them chocolate to keep them quiet. Im sure she hasnt any professional qualifications.
Lucyll be better off with us, Eddie said.
Theres no question of that. Shes just not a fit person to have charge of children.
By the afternoon of Friday the twenty-ninth of November their preparations were almost complete. That was when Eddie acted on the spur of the moment; as so often, it seemed to him that he had no choice in the matter. The sense of his own helplessness outweighed even his fear of what Angel might say and do when she discovered what had happened.
Circumstances played into his hands forced him to act. Rain, a cold dense blanket like animated fog, had been falling from a dark sky for most of the afternoon, persuading people to stay inside if they had any choice in the matter. At Angels suggestion, Eddie set out to explore the geography of Carla Vaughans neighbourhood.
The prospect of plodding through a dreary network of back streets between Kilburn and Kensal Vale would have been boring if it had not scared him so much. In his imagination, this part of London was populated almost exclusively by drug addicts, dark-skinned muggers, gangs of uncontrollable teenagers and drunken Irishmen with violent Republican sympathies.
Shivering at his own daring, he parked the van in the forecourt of a pub called the Rose of Connemara. With the help of a map he navigated his way through the streets around Carlas house. Much of the housing consisted of late-Victorian terraces, with windows on or near the pavement. Lights were on in many of the windows. He glimpsed snug interiors, a series of vignettes illustrating lives which had nothing to do with him: a woman ironing, children watching television, an old man asleep in an armchair, a black couple dancing together, pelvis to pelvis, oblivious of spectators. He met few other pedestrians and none of them tried to mug him.
The way he found Lucy no, the way Lucy came to him seemed in retrospect little short of miraculous; if he believed in God he could have taken it as evidence of a divine providence hovering benignly over his affairs. He had been exploring an alley which ran between the back gardens of two terraces. One of the houses on his right was Carlas, and he had carefully counted the gardens in order to establish which belonged to her. He saw no one, though at one point an Alsatian flung itself snarling against a gate as he passed.
He identified Carlas house without trouble. The windows were of the same type as those at the front UPVC frames with the glass patterned to imitate diamond panes; wholly out of period with the house but typical of the area and the sort of person who lived in it.
The little miracle, his present from Father Christmas, was waiting for him, her dark hair gleaming with pearl-like drops of rainwater.
It was Lucys fault, Eddie told Angel later. Shes such a tease. She was asking for it.
Angel was furious when they reached Rosington Road. She didnt say much, not with Lucy there, but she suggested in an icy voice that Eddie might like to go to his room and wait there until she called him. Angel took Lucy to the basement. By that time Lucy had started to cry, which increased Eddies misery. It made him so sad when children were unhappy.
Im too soft for my own good, he murmured to himself. Thats my trouble.
Eddie sat on his bed, hands clasped over his plump stomach, as though trying to restrain the sour ache inside from bursting out. On the wall opposite him was a picture, a brightly coloured reproduction in a yellowing plastic frame. It showed a small girl in a frothy pink dress; she had a pink bow in her dark hair, a mouth like a puckered cherry and huge eyes fringed with dark lashes. The picture had been a Christmas present to Eddies mother in 1969.
The girl, now seen through water, blurred and buckled. Oh God. Why dont you help me? Stop this. There was no God, Eddie knew: and therefore no chance of help. He thought briefly of Lucys parents, the policeman and the deacon. Let the womans God console them. That was his job. In any case, Eddie was not responsible for the Appleyards pain. It had been Angels decision to take Lucy. So it was her fault, really, her fault and Lucys. Eddie had been no more than the agent, the dupe, the victim.
Time passed. Eddie would have liked to go down to the kitchen and make himself a drink. Better not there was no point in upsetting Angel any further. He heard cars passing up and down Rosington Road and snatches of conversation from the pavement. The house itself was silent. The basement was soundproofed and Angel had not switched on the intercom.
Lucy, he said softly. Lucy Philippa Appleyard.
Eddie stared at the picture of the girl and stroked his soft little beard. He had been five that Christmas. Had the artist been lucky enough to have a real model, someone like Lucy? He remembered how his mother slowly unwrapped the picture and stared at it; how she picked a shred of tobacco from her lips and flicked it into the ashtray; how she stared across the hearthrug at his father, who had given her the picture. What he could not remember was whether she had spoken her verdict aloud, or whether he had merely imagined it.