“It can’t be coincidental that she looks so like Aurelia,” I said.
She took a long drag on her cigarette and looked past me out the window. “Who knows?” she said. Her pale eyes slid to mine, and my mind raced. Maren could have put the diary in my room in order to make me suspect Tom of killing Aurelia, or driving her to suicide. But Ingrid’s likeness to Aurelia could be no coincidence. Did Maren want to distract me from something by putting the diary in my room?
I stood up quickly in my seat to leave, and she stood up just as fast.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she said.
I sank back down into my seat, my heart pounding. Derry’s words rang in my ears. Maren’s devious . . . I’d say Maren locked you in that basement.
“Did you kill Aurelia?” I whispered.
31
an impossible task
NOW
Maren’s face darkened. I thought she might actually lift the marble ashtray on the table next to her and hit me. After all, I’d just asked her if she’d murdered Aurelia. And as the silence stretched out in her cold, locked bedroom, I felt I already knew the answer: Maren’s beloved sister Ingrid had been raped and murdered. Maren had discovered a look-alike in the form of Aurelia. Perhaps she was jealous that Aurelia was alive and her sister wasn’t. Or perhaps her obsession spilled over into an ugly craving, and when it couldn’t be satisfied—she snapped.
“Open the door or I’ll scream,” I said when she didn’t answer.
“How dare you,” she said then. “How dare you come in here and ask me such things! Of course I didn’t kill Aurelia!”
She seemed genuinely wounded. “What about the diary?” I asked. “Why did you put it in my room?”
“What diary?” she said, lifting her hands in the air. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
We stared at each other. I was trying to work out whether she was telling the truth and she was looking at me as if I’d sprouted a second head.
“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying while studying the shape of my knees. “It’s just . . . I found all the newspaper clippings about Ingrid. And Aurelia’s things that you’d been keeping in the attic. Derry said you’d been an artist.”
She nodded tearfully. “I was.”
“Then . . . how come you’re working as a cleaner?”
She plucked a hankie from the shelf next to her and dabbed her eyes. “Many years after Ingy died, after the murder trial, I had a nervous breakdown. My marriage broke down. I had to give up my studio. I couldn’t paint. I couldn’t even stay in Norway. So I moved to London.”
“Is that where you met Aurelia?”
She blew her nose. “Yes. I was stunned by the likeness. Completely stunned. And then when I found out her father was from Norway—ha! I was beside myself. It was uncanny. I kind of . . . stalked her for a while. When I found out she required a housekeeper I jumped at the chance.” She tapped her cigarette ash into the ashtray and sighed. “I suppose I thought that by serving Aurelia, I was somehow continuing Ingrid’s life. The life she should have had.”
A tear rolled down her face. I suddenly felt rotten for accusing her of murdering Aurelia. She seemed to be telling the truth.
“And did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Continue Ingrid’s life.”
She looked at me in shock. “No,” she said eventually. “No, I didn’t. Couldn’t. It was an impossible task.”
“Then . . . why did you stay on as Aurelia’s housekeeper?”
She thought about this for such a long time I thought she’d gone into some kind of trance. “I suppose . . . that was for selfish reasons. At first I could pretend, in a way, that Aurelia was Ingrid. It felt good to be close to her. And then, after a while, it was simply good to be needed. It filled a hole, you see. But now you’re here, I’m not needed . . .”
“Of course you’re needed,” I said. “Who would teach Gaia Norwegian? Who would keep the house together?” I probably sounded unconvincing when I mentioned this last bit, but Maren took the point.
She gave another long sigh and stubbed out her cigarette. “I’ve nowhere else to go. That’s the other thing. I’ve drifted for so long now that I’ve no choice but to go where life’s current takes me.”
“You must know that’s not true,” I said. “You could start painting again.”