The Last Witness

FIFTEEN

Five days since baring her soul to Gordon: five days of searching with nothing but fruitless dead ends, and now practically Elena’s last hope lay with these two old steamers trunks, raking through her father’s memorabilia and keepsakes. All that remained: sixty-two years of life neatly packed away. She was so absorbed with their contents that she barely registered the footsteps behind her.

‘Come on… enough, Elena. You can go through the rest later. If we don’t get ready, we’re going to be late for the restaurant.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Elena was kneeling down, her breath short from raking and sifting through. She lifted her head and half turned towards Uncle Christos. ‘Just five minutes more, and then I’ll jump into the shower. Get some of this dust off. Okay?’

After a second a reluctant ‘Okay’ from Uncle Christos. ‘I’ll make us another coffee meanwhile.’ Then the sound of his footsteps shuffling back down the stairs.

The first three days had been spent searching through UK credit reference agencies for the Stevens, previously Stephanou family, mostly at Gordon’s instigation: she’d all but given up, felt that she had no fight left in her to continue searching. But Gordon insisted it wasn’t the sort of thing she could give up on lightly, it would only come back later to haunt her. He offered to help with his knowledge of credit reference tracking, and the next forty-eight hours they burnt up the phone loans between Terry, Megan’s trace man, and seven reference agencies from Gordon’s card file. But they found nothing linking back to their previous Canterbury address with either Stevens or Stephanou. They concluded that either the Stevens had miraculously survived without any credit for three years after moving, had lied about their previous address or, more likely, that they’d left the country.

They were stuck at first as to how to find out where they might have gone — then Gordon hit on the possibility of her father’s old passport providing clues. If her father had a hand in spiriting the Stevens away, then he might well have visited their destination around the time of them moving. Elena thought it worth pursuing, but the only problem was that her father’s belongings were still stored at her mother’s, and Elena didn’t want to visit her: especially not for this purpose. She’d had little or no contact with her mother while her father was alive, and with Elena not turning up for her father’s funeral five years ago, things had become even more strained between them: they’d only spoken briefly once on the phone since, when Uncle Christos informed Elena that she was ill.

So it was Uncle Christos to the rescue again, phoning her mother with an excuse about trying to find some old business papers. ‘I’ll pick the trunks up and have them back to you within a few days.’ Then straight after he phoned Elena back and she jumped on a train to London to start her search.

She received a call from Barbara Edelston the day after her heart to heart with Gordon, and halfway through a predictable dressing down about her being desperately out of order to still be interfering, ‘Especially given your background,’ she finally blew and gave Edelston a piece of her mind. ‘One day you’ll wake up the fact that Ryall is a control freak, and a dangerous one at that. He’s been controlling young Lorena for years. He controlled Nadine’s enquiry by taping our meeting, me by getting a secret report done, and you by sending you both the tape and the report. And just like the mug he hoped you’d be, you fell for it all and responded strictly by the rule book. If all of that doesn’t look the tiniest bit suspicious to you — then I’m afraid I can’t help you.’ She slammed down the phone before Edelston could respond, and dialled straight out to Shelley McGurran. Shelley too would no doubt have received Ryall’s poisonous file, and she didn’t want Shelley to have to phone first to get an explanation.

After a strained half-hour on line with a condensed version of her soul-baring to Gordon, and Shelley voicing her sore disappointment that Elena hadn’t felt they were close enough to be able to share this earlier — Shelley finally rallied behind her. ‘I agree. You have to find him, Elena. And try and help young Lorena, if you can. That is, if you’ve got either the time or inclination to handle both.’ Elena wondered if that was Shelley’s polite way of saying that she no longer had a job with the aid agency, but Shelley was quick to re-assure: ‘God, no. Devoted workers like you are hard to find. I’m disappointed, and I only half accept your reasoning — but not enough to boot you out. And especially not at the bidding of that prick, Ryall. Take a month off, or whatever it takes to sort out your life, then give me a call. Your place will still be here. And give that Ryall’s ass an extra kick for me. Promise?’

Elena was close to tears when she came off the phone from Shelley: her ready understanding made it all the harder. Another who’d so loved and trusted her, and her repayment to them had been so poor over the years; so lacking in trust.

And it was those close to her, like Gordon and Shelley, that were now firing her up into action: after twelve days of searching with Megan and Terry that ended nowhere, and Ryall rallying half of Chelborne against her and sending his damning report, she’d all but given up, felt she had nothing left to give. Until her father’s two trunks were in front of her. Then suddenly she was on overdrive again, frantically sifting through: dusty plans for their old house, GCE results for her and Andreos, her communion prayer book, her first school photo, Andreos at nineteen standing proudly by a new Suzuki bike he’d just bought, the family all together raising glasses in a Cyprus beach bar when she was just nine.

She’d found her father’s passport covering 1970 near the bottom of the first trunk, but still she kept going. Poignant nostalgia of the years she was there, the family all together, plus filling the gaps on the years she wasn’t. She was totally absorbed, found it impossible to break away. It was strange: looking through photos of herself and Andreos as children and some old birthday cards, one from her to her father at the age of seven with a pressed flower inside, it was as if a softly nostalgic, vulnerable side to her father had been exposed which she’d never witnessed while he was alive. When she’d aired that thought to Uncle Christos, he mentioned that her mother too had packed away some old family memorabilia in the same trunks. So again her father remained an enigma: she couldn’t be sure of a chink in his emotional armour.

The agreement had been that as soon as she found her father’s passport, Uncle Christos would book a table for them at ‘Beotys’, his favourite Cypriot restaurant: a small celebration. There were five entry stamps in the few months either side of the Stevens disappearing; hopefully one of them would prove fruitful.

She made the excuse of continuing her search in case there were other papers which might give some clue, but when over an hour later Uncle Christos found her still on her knees busily raking through, now half covered in dust from the trunks’ contents, he became concerned. He reminded her that time could be tight for the restaurant, but she was sure his main worry was that she was getting too wrapped up in the trunks’ contents: some of it might be too emotionally painful for her.

So when he returned with coffee, she immediately stood up and dusted down, took a few rushed gulps before showering, knocked back the rest straight after — and within fifteen minutes they were in a taxi wending through the remnants of rush hour traffic between Queensway and the West End. Street-lamp light bars playing across one arm. The small face looking up at her, struggling to see. She closed her eyes for a second, shaking off a faint shudder. Perhaps going through her father’s things for so long hadn’t been such a good idea.

The face across for her now, thirty years on, wasn’t far different to her father’s: the resemblance was mainly around the eyes and nose and with the same thick hair which had turned from black to stone grey in their early fifties; but it was a slightly more rounded face, with a readier, easier smile, the edges softer. The clownish, compassionate foil to her father’s stern, all-business manner. It was no wonder that she’d warmed more to Uncle Christos as a child; and before she was old enough to discover if she might break the barrier of how she felt about her father, somewhere between cool remoteness and open fear, the rest had been written in abortion blood and sealed with court adoption papers. Never to be reversed.

‘You don’t rate Athens, Hamburg or Rome too highly, do you?’ Uncle Christos commented.

‘No, I don’t.’ Three of the five stamps in her father’s passport around the time of the Stephanou’s disappearance. ‘I think their names being anglicised and then them turning up somewhere where those names would stand out would be pointless. Whereas in Chicago the name Stevens would be commonplace, and almost half of Montreal’s population is anglophile.’

‘You’re working on the assumption that your father had it all planned out.’

‘Do you know of any time that he didn’t plan everything to the last?’

Uncle Christos shrugged a tame accord, and they sat silently for a second.

‘Anyway, we’ll know soon enough,’ she said. They’d used Terry to put in trace requests with both the American and Canadian embassies for visa or emigration applications in the name of Stevens or Stephanou around the time the family disappeared. Terry had been asked to call back the next day.

Uncle Christos merely nodded. She could tell that something else was on his mind, and finally he turned to her, his expression slightly drawn, concerned.

‘Elena. You really should see her some time. I know with picking up the trunks it could have been difficult — she might have asked too many questions. But before you leave London, you should make the effort. Maybe when I return the trunks tomorrow, you could come along at the same time.’

‘No, no… it would be too painful — for both of us. Too much has gone before.’ Uncle Christos’s pet beef: reconciliation with her mother. She watched his expression change from hopeful to questioning, and added. ‘Especially not now with everything else I’ve got on my plate.’

Uncle Christos grimaced with reluctant understanding and turned to stare blankly ahead again. Night-time London rolled by their taxi windows, the lights from an oncoming car making his profile shadow more pronounced for a second. She could practically read his mind: always an excuse. Whenever he broached the subject, she’d usually raise how her mother had always taken her father’s side, was practically a silent conspirator: she found that difficult to forgive. Or, last time, that it was too close to her not showing up at her father’s funeral: her mother wouldn’t have forgiven her yet. Now it was the search for her son.

‘You know, she’s not getting any younger, Elena.’

‘I know.’ Elena bit lightly at her lip, guilt worming deeper. Then after a second: ‘She’s not ill again is she?’

‘No, she’s not.’ Christos shot her a look of tired reproach. ‘But that shouldn’t be the only reason you feel you must make contact again — because you fear she might be on her deathbed. Besides…’ His eyes flickered down slightly; direct eye contact was suddenly difficult. ‘Has it ever struck you that she was equally as afraid of your father. That alone, apart from the fact that she’s your mother, is something you have in common: you were both on the same side of the fence more than you probably realized.’

‘But I was barely more than a child, Uncle Christos. Only fifteen! At least at her age she had a voice; she should have said something, she might have been able to-’ She stopped herself, realizing she was launching again into a diatribe about how much more her mother could have done. She didn’t want to spoil the mood for the restaurant, and she hated to see Uncle Christos’s face darken: the lighter, jovial side would suddenly be gone, he would remind her too much of her father. Despite her own feelings, she understood why Uncle Christos felt so deeply grieved by the split in the family: Andreos and her father long dead, her years apart from all of them, and now the thought that her mother might die after years of being alone without any reconciliation between them, was too much for Uncle Christos to take. She reached across and gripped his hand.

‘You’re right. I should make the effort some time. And perhaps when I’m through all this, will be that time. I can show up at her door with my son for a big re-union. She’ll know then that I have back what I want — there’d be no reason for me to still hold any resentment. I’m there at her door because I want to be there, not because I feel I have to be there.’

Uncle Christos smiled tightly and patted her hand. But as he looked away again, she could tell that he was only half re-assured: it could be just another excuse, pushed out of reach again by being tied to something that might never happen. She had so many hopes and desires riding aboard this, and now Uncle Christos’s hopes that one day their shattered family would be patched back, she’d strapped to the same possibly doomed ship.

At least they didn’t have to wait long to know. Two calls the next day could decide it: Montreal or Chicago.

But when the next morning Terry called with the good news that the Canadian embassy had confirmed they had a Stevens family listed in October, 1970 for immigration to Montreal, ‘Father, mother and a young baby,’ Elena had other problems: two calls late the night before from young Lorena.

Gordon phoned her about them not long after she’d called with the news from Terry. ‘They came through to your studio, so I didn’t even hear the phone ringing last night and didn’t play the answerphone back until just now.’

‘I see.’ She swallowed slightly, then asked Gordon to play them. ‘ I should hear them.’

‘Okay, one second.’ But Gordon sounded hesitant, as if worried the effect they might have on her. A rustling and clicking as Gordon set it up, then Lorena’s frail, uncertain voice.

‘Elena… Elena… I thought you were going to help me. Since you came to the house… I… I’ve heard nothing… and Mr Ryall is still coming to my room. Please, please… if you can hear me, pick up the phone…’ A moment’s silence, then the sound of soft whimpering before the line went dead. A short beep, then her voice again.

‘… He… he doesn’t touch me when he visits… maybe he’s frightened to since you visited. But he does touch me in the dreams… and they’re so real… sooo… I… I don’t know what to do.’ A pause, a sniffle as she battled to control her tears. ‘Please… if there’s anything you can do, Elena. I’m sorry to call you like this… but I don’t know who else to call. If you’re there…’ The tears had finally stopped; only shallow breathing as Lorena waited on expectantly for the phone to be picked up before finally she gave up.

Elena took a second to compose herself as Gordon lifted the receiver away from the dull dialling tone. She pictured again Lorena reaching out her hand to the back window of Nicola Ryall’s Range Rover; but nobody was there to grip on to that hand, to help her.

Elena took a fresh breath. ‘How did you get on with Mikaya?’

‘I finally found someone in the village ready and willing to speak up: Joe Hawley at the garage. He had a run in with Ryall over a bill last year. Apparently, Mikaya’s at Durham university — hardly anyone down here sees anything of her anymore. I’ve phoned the university twice now and left messages, but no return call as yet.’

Elena sighed. ‘Might still prove fruitful, but I’m not sure we’ve got the time now to wait.’ They’d agreed that the best way to help Lorena was through finding out more about what had happened with Mikaya. Gordon had offered to start digging while Elena was in London looking through her father’s things. But now with Lorena sounding so distressed, she began to reassess: Mikaya might well decide not to speak to them now or at any time, and they had to do something quickly. She outlined her new plan.

‘You’re crazy,’ Gordon said after a pause; as if unsure for a second that she was serious. ‘It’s far too risky.’

‘Maybe so. But look where I am now from not taking risks, not standing up to my father. Twenty-nine years without seeing my own son, and too afraid to admit that I’ve even got a son to anyone — just so that I don’t have to face it myself. Pathetic. If something is happening with Ryall and I do nothing, I’d never forgive myself. Lorena could end up in a few years time where I found myself — so screwed up that she empties a bottle of pills down her throat as the only way out. And Ryall’s just like my father: the only way is to make a stand, push back. Otherwise they’ll just steam-roller straight over you.’

‘I still don’t like it.’ Only a few ways Gordon could see it going right, and far too many of it all going horribly wrong. But he could tell that her mind was made up: he might as well start thinking of ways to help her, try and reduce the risk. Whichever way the chips fell, one thing looked certain: from this point on, their lives were going to be very different.