A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,129
message? Why didn't you come? I thought you were all right! I thought he left you alone! Why didn't you come?"
"Bobby died. Bobby died."
"Don't say that! You're alive. Don't let him kill you now!"
Roberta shrank back, freeing herself fiercely. "Papa never kill, Papa never kill, Papa never kill!" Her voice grew high with panic.
The psychiatrist leaned forward in his chair. "Kill what, Roberta?" he asked quickly, and pressed the advantage. "What did Papa never kill?"
"Baby. Papa didn't kill the baby."
"What did he do?"
"Found me in the barn. Cried and prayed and cried."
"Is that where you had the baby? In the barn?"
"No one knew. Fat and ugly. No one knew."
Gillian's eyes were transfixed in horror, not on her sister's face, but on the psychiatrist.
She rocked on her heels, a hand at her mouth, biting down on her fingers as if to keep from screaming. "You were pregnant? Bobby! He didn't know you were pregnant?"
"No one knew. Not like Gilly. Fat and ugly. No one knew."
"What happened to the baby?"
"Bobby died."
"What happened to the baby?"
"Bobby died."
"What happened to the baby!" Gillian's voice rose to a scream.
"Did you kill the baby, Roberta?" Dr. Samuels asked.
Nothing. She began to rock. It was a rapid movement, as if she were hurtling back into madness.
Gillian watched her, watched the panic that drove her and the unassailable armour of psychosis that protected her. And she knew. "Papa killed the baby," she asserted numbly. "He found you in the barn, he cried and prayed, read the Bible for guidance, and then he killed the baby." She touched her sister's hair. "What did he do with it?"
"Don't know."
"Did you ever see it?"
"Never saw the baby. Boy or girl. Don't know."
"Is that why you didn't come to Harrogate? Were you pregnant then?"
The rocking slowed to a stop. It was affirmation.
"Baby died. Bobby died. It didn't matter.
Papa sorry, pretty baby. Papa never hurt again.
Pretty baby march for Papa. Papa never hurt again."
"He didn't have intercourse with you again, Roberta?" Dr. Samuels asked. "But everything else stayed the same?"
"Pretty baby march for Papa."
"Did you march for Papa, Roberta?" the doctor continued. "After the baby, did you march for him?"
"Marched for Papa. Had to march."
"Why? Why did you have to?"
She looked about furtively, an odd smile of twisted satisfaction dancing on her face. And then began to rock. "Papa happy."
"It was important that Papa be happy," Dr. Samuels said reflectively.
"Yes, yes. Very happy. Happy Papa won't touch..." She cut the words off. The rocking increased in intensity.
"No, Bobby," Gillian said. "Don't you leave. You mustn't leave now. You marched for Papa to keep him happy so that he wouldn't touch someone. Who?"
In the darkened observation room, the terrible realisation cut like a sword's swath down Lynley's spine. The knowledge had been there before him all along. A nine-year-old girl being schooled in the Bible, being read the Old Testament, learning the lessons of Lot's daughters.
"Bridie! " he said savagely and understood everything at last. He could have told the rest of the story himself, but he listened instead to the purgation of a tortured soul.
"Papa wanted Gilly not a cow like Roberta."
"Your father wanted a child, didn't he?" Dr. Samuels asked. "He needed a child's body to arouse him. Like Gillian's. Like your mother's."
"Found a child."
"And what happened?"
Roberta pressed her cracked lips together as if to stop herself from speaking. The corners of her mouth were spotted with blood. She gave a ragged cry and a flurry of words escaped as if of their own volition. "The Pharaoh put a chain on his neck and dressed him in fine linen and he ruled over Egypt and Joseph's brothers came to see him and Joseph said I am supposed to save your lives by a great deliverance."
Gillian spoke through her tears. "The Bible told you what to do, just as it always told Papa."
"Dress in linens. Wear a chain."
"What happened?"
"Got him in the barn."
"How did you do that?" Dr. Samuels's voice was low.
Roberta's face quivered. Her eyes filled with tears. They began to spill down her acne-covered cheeks. "Tried twice. Didn't work. Then...Whiskers," she replied.
"You killed Whiskers to get your father to the barn?" the doctor asked.
"Whiskers didn't know. Gave him pills. Papa's pills. He was asleep. Cut...cut his throat.
Called for Papa. Papa ran. Knelt by Whiskers." She began to rock furiously, cradling her bloated body, accompanying the movement with low, tuneless humming. She was in retreat.
"And then, Roberta?" the psychiatrist asked. "You can take the last step, can't you? With Gillian here?"