Hendrik’s eyes widen. “Nina? Is that you? But the police said . . .”
Beth shakes her head. “I’m not Nina. I never was. They found me in a children’s home, and they brought me here to act the part of Nina, to try to fool you. I suppose it was because she didn’t look like Markus . . . Oh, Hendrik, I’m so, so sorry.”
Sadie looks in shock from her mother back to Hendrik. He screws up his eyes, and Beth reaches out and touches him tentatively on the shoulder. For an awful moment, Sadie thinks he’s about to cry, but when he opens his eyes again, she realizes he’s laughing—bewildered, strained laughter, but laughter, nonetheless.
“Let me show you something,” he says. “Joe, help me up . . .”
Joe eases Hendrik to his feet, and Hendrik fumbles around in his pockets, eventually pulling out a battered leather wallet.
“Here it is.” Hendrik sits back down with a huff, and then he slides a photo from the wallet. It’s in color but faded. He passes it to Sadie.
Sadie frowns. “When was this taken?” She peers at it more closely, her heart knocking strangely. I don’t remember sitting for this. It looks so old-fashioned—was it for an audition? No, there’s nothing familiar about it—not the garden setting, not the blue checked dress, not the plaits . . .
She passes the photo to Beth and frowns at Hendrik. “It’s not me. Who is it?”
“She was my wife,” Hendrik says. “Anneliese, Markus’s mother. This was taken when she was sixteen, when I first met her. And you’re her spitting image, my dear. You look even more like her than your mother did.” He eases back in the chair and switches his gaze to Beth. “Now, tell me again about this so-called game.”
With every minute that Hendrik is in the house, Leonora feels Raven Hall slipping more from her grasp. The way he looks at her with those piercing blue eyes. The way he looks at Beth . . .
“I’m Nina, sir,” Beth told him, when he arrived. And now she’s playing her violin for him. But Leonora can barely breathe; she’s waiting for Hendrik to leap up, to declare the whole performance a sham, to banish them all from this place forever.
She curls her fingers tightly in her lap so Hendrik won’t see them shaking. Why did she let Markus talk her into trying this? But then again . . . what other option did they have?
Beth lowers her violin, and—is it possible?—Hendrik is crying. He’s genuinely crying.
“That was beautiful, my child,” he says. “You remind me so much of your grandmother, Anneliese.”
Slowly, slowly, Leonora uncurls her fingers. Against all the odds, it seems their little game might just have worked.
Beth
Ican’t tear my eyes from the photo of Anneliese. The blue checked dress . . . the ribbons at the ends of her plaits . . . and her face—so eerily similar to Sadie’s. But how can this be? What does it mean?
I’m barely aware of Hendrik rising from his chair again. It’s not until he grasps my hand that I finally let the photo fall.
“Look at me,” he says, his voice raspy. “You remember the first time we met?”
I expect to see anger or disgust in his eyes, but it’s something else entirely—a mixture of confusion and concern. I can’t find my voice, but I nod.
“I recognized your outfit,” he says. “Markus had a copy of this photo, so Leonora would have seen it. I thought she must be trying to unsettle me, by dressing you up to look like Anneliese. It felt like a cruel trick.”
I shake my head. “That wasn’t the trick.”
“But you want me to believe—what? That you were a stranger? That she picked you at random from a children’s home? A blond musical child who might just pass as Anneliese’s granddaughter?”
“Yes, so you wouldn’t kick them out,” I say. “And sell Raven Hall. And it worked, didn’t it?”
He stares at me, and then we both drop our gaze to the hearth, where the photo of Anneliese lies surrounded by splinters of glass. I can feel my whole history trembling.
“What does it mean?” I say.
Hendrik shakes his head, frowning. “I don’t know. We must be missing something.”
“Well, come on, then.” Sadie steps forward and picks up the photo. “There’s only one person who might be able to explain this. And the way I see it, her daughter nearly killed me a few hours ago, and she, at best, took advantage of you when you were a child, Mum.” She looks from me to Hendrik, and her eyes glow with determination. “Leonora owes us some answers.”
* * *
* * *
“Why should I tell you anything?” Leonora snaps.
She sits with her arm touching one of the dining room curtains, in an unsettling mirror image of my earlier position at the drawing room window, and my heart contracts with unexpected sympathy as I follow her gaze through the glass to the ambulance that still hasn’t moved from the driveway. Despite everything Nina’s done, Leonora still loves her. I’m not convinced Nina loves her back, but my own feelings about the pair of them are too complicated for me to analyze their relationship right now.
“I’m sure if Nina wasn’t okay,” I say gently, “they’d have taken her to hospital by now.”
Leonora gives a tiny nod of acknowledgment.
“It’s just . . . ,” I say. “I know about Nina’s biological father now. But still—I’d really like to understand my part in the—in the game. Why you asked me to pretend to be Nina.” I study her closed expression. “You gave me a very happy home here, Leonora.” I cross my fingers behind my back before I realize what I’m doing. It’s as if asking a favor of Leonora has made me revert to being a child again.
To my surprise, tears well up in her eyes. “I did try . . .”
“Oh, you did.” Hurriedly, I drag across one of the heavy dining chairs, and I seat myself next to her. “You were always extremely kind to me.”
She searches my gaze. “I never meant to hurt you, Beth. We were desperate, that’s all. When Stephanie told us Hendrik was coming back . . .”
“Stephanie, Jonas’s mum?” I manage not to glance toward the half-open door, behind which Sadie, Jonas, and Hendrik are hiding, listening to every word. Thankfully, the police were still questioning Leonora in the study when Hendrik arrived, so she has no idea he’s even in the house.
“Stephanie was the only other person who knew about Nina,” Leonora says. “She saw me get into Roy Everett’s car once, and that was the evening he . . .” She shakes her head as if it were something she cannot bear to remember. “And she was the one who helped Markus and me get back together, a couple of months later. So when Nina was born only seven months after that, and what with her looks and everything . . .”