The Last Witness

the space of less than fifteen minutes, told her that nothing in her life so far had been quite what it seemed.

But there was only one possible silver lining she could see now, one way to repay how she’d unknowingly betrayed her father’s memory and left her mother to grieve alone these years past. ‘One good thing, mom… partly why I was phoning now. I think I might have found him: one of the nuns ended up giving me the details of the family that took George in. I’m seeing them tomorrow.’ She didn’t add that the one quirk of fate to stab Sister Bernadine’s conscience to finally give her the address had been her father sat in the same spot six years ago, head in hands. If he hadn’t have visited, she probably would never have got the address. It was as if an invisible hand was reaching out: ‘I tried to make good while I was alive… but at least you might now be able to succeed where I failed.’ ‘…When I catch up with George, I’ll try and convince him to come to England sometime, and we can all have a big reunion.’

‘That would be nice, Elena. But you know you don’t need to make promises just to make me feel good. I’d be happy enough just to see more of you when you get back. But you need to find him for yourself, Elena. To fill that gap in your heart and soul that your father was never able to fill.’

TWENTY-SIX

‘You know, you’re quite a little girl for your age.’ Alphonse beamed and reached across the bar, playfully pinching Lorena’s cheek. He looked towards Elena perched at the bar stool next to Lorena, seeking confirmation.

‘She certainly is.’ Elena nodded with a rueful smile and took another sip of her champagne. ‘Particularly on holiday. You get twice the questions — so of course you need twice the energy just to keep up.’ She hardly looked at Lorena as she spoke; she found it hard to meet her gaze directly knowing what was coming — very likely packing her back to England in the morning, or at the latest soon after she’d seen the Donatiens.

They’d grabbed a quick pizza on the outskirts of Montreal, then headed back to the hotel. Alphonse was all smiles, asking how their day had been. Elena didn’t want to get into the rollercoaster dramas of the day, just said that they’d finally tracked down this long-lost relative and were seeing them tomorrow — ‘So maybe a celebratory drink is in order.’ She ordered a bottle of Moet and mixed Lorena’s with orange juice. Lorena wasn’t sure she liked it at first, only warming to it after a few sips; then at the start of her second glass, she became more talkative.

Alphonse was originally from northern Yugoslavia, ‘The part that is now Slovenia,’ and had been in Montreal fourteen years. But rather than him swap notes with Lorena on the one area they had in common — hardships of life in the Eastern Bloc — Lorena wanted to know all about Canada. How deep does the snow get in winter? How cold does it get? Do you go hunting? Are there a lot of bears? ‘We get some too in the mountains in Romania.’

As Lorena deftly shifted to what to do if you were out in the forest and got surprised by a bear and didn’t have a gun, and she suggested to Alphonse that because he was big, ‘Maybe you could wrestle with it,’ he reached over and playfully pinched Lorena’s cheek. Though short with his six-pack long ago sagged to a barrel, Alphonse was extremely broad with forearms like tree boughs.

‘I remember a dancing bear once in Bucharest,’ Lorena commented thoughtfully. ‘He looked so sad. His owner was getting him to dance and hit a tambourine and act like he was happy — but all the time his eyes were so sad.’

So sad. She should have been pleased seeing Lorena come out of her shell, become more lively, animated. Except for the sessions with Lowndes when the reminder of her problems would weigh heavy again, Lorena had been better each day since leaving England. But Elena’s first worry with her talking so openly, excitedly, was that Lorena would suddenly say the wrong thing and give the game away. Elena herself sometimes forgot who they were meant to be each time: Elena Waldren and daughter Elena for Lowndes; daughter Katine for customs and the police, and now Alphonse as well because she’d had to show her passport on registration.

Perhaps Lorena’s liveliness and change of spirit confirmed Lowndes’ finding that it was all a ruse just to get her attention: Lorena had got almost nothing but attention these past days, no wonder she was happy. But what if she was wrong? What if the smiles were coming back to Lorena’s face purely because she was free of Ryall’s clutches, and tomorrow she’d be sending her back to England to…

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, fine… bit tired, that’s all.’ She gripped her champagne glass firmer to mask her hand shaking. She was still far from wound down from the day’s slings and arrows, and this final nagging doubt with Lorena wasn’t helping.

Alphonse repeated the bit of conversation Elena had faded out: ‘What Lorena says is true — you do share the same first name with Ceaucescu’s wife.’

‘I know.’ Elena grimaced tautly. The ex-Romanian Dictator and his wife were blamed for most of the country’s orphan problems by encouraging couples to have large families. Elena reached across and lightly pulled Lorena to her for a second, but still she avoided direct eye contact. ‘One Elena to cause the problems, another as saviour. Hopefully she’s forgiven me by now.’ Her driver Nick used to joke about it whenever they got a difficult border guard or policeman. ‘Just tell them your name, and they’ll quickly do the sign of the cross and wave us on.’ But she was careful not to add that: right now she was Elena the mother, not the aid worker.

She decided in the end to delay her decision about Lorena till 1 am that morning and her call to Gordon — her main reason for bar-sitting now, to kill the time — by when, 8 pm in England, Gordon thought he’d be back from seeing Mikaya Ryall in Durham.

Making the call finally at 1.03 am — having put Lorena to bed just after 11.30 pm and ambled along St Catherine until she found a cocktail bar to kill the remaining hour — she spent the first ten minutes with the day’s ups and downs and the final elation of getting an address. She didn’t go into the whole messy drama of her father visiting the orphanage or her phoning her mother — that was going to take another heart to heart, her secret life part-two, when she returned — she just said that one of the nuns had a sudden change of heart about passing on the address. Gordon was full of bonhomie and well wishes for her meeting with the Donatiens the next day, then finally they got to how it went with Mikaya Ryall. No great revelations — except that Gordon was almost sure Mikaya was hiding something.

‘…Something which made her very uncomfortable, very quickly. She practically ran from the cafe halfway through.’

Elena agreed that it was suspicious, but she’d practically reached the end of the rope with sessions. ‘There’s nowhere left for me to go with this, and it’s just not enough for me to be able to hang on to Lorena. I can hardly walk back into Lowndes and say that he’s got to probe deeper because Lorena’s sister too is now having panic attacks at the mention of possible interference from her stepfather.’

‘I know. I know you need something more concrete, and I’m already one step ahead of you.’ Gordon had been uncomfortable after the meeting, so on the way back he’d put through a call to an old contact, an investigator who worked for the banks and insurance companies. ‘I thought — if Ryall can dish the dirt on you, then maybe we should try turning the tables on him. I gave him everything I knew, and told him to dig particularly deep around the time of Mikaya Ryall’s pregnancy.’

‘When’s he coming back to you?’

‘I told him it was urgent, and he’s already been on it half a day. He said he’d try and get back with as much as he can by midday tomorrow.’

5 pm by then in Montreal. Four hours after seeing the Donatiens. But then if they gave her an address and he didn’t live far away — she might well be going on to see him later. Elena liked the idea of reversing the tables on Ryall, giving him a run for his money — but overall she couldn’t help feeling that they were stretching, clutching at straws. On one hand the delay made her nervous, having to keep running the gauntlet with the police; yet on the other she felt relieved at putting off breaking the bad news to Lorena.

‘Okay — let’s wait till then to decide what to do.’ And having said it, she felt as if a weight had been lifted: it was no longer inevitable, a foregone conclusion that Lorena was going back to Ryall. There was still some hope