Free The Sixth Soul by Mark Roberts Page A

they were so good to those children, so good that the council used to send them short-term emergency cases, so many I couldn’t possibly keep count. Taxis used
to roll up at all hours with social workers carrying little bundles of life to Isobel’s door. You know, if a single mum got ill and had to go to hospital or a parent was arrested, it was
always the children who suffered.’
    Mrs Nicholas took a couple of puffs on an inhaler. Rosen guessed her days, like her weeks, were largely silent and so talking was akin to vigorous exercise.
    ‘But their suffering was alleviated by Isobel.’ The old lady fell silent, long enough to warrant a question in spite of the retired teacher’s terms and conditions.
    ‘All those foster-children, Mrs Nicholas, and yet no one ever visited her? Why did she lie undisturbed all that time?’ Rosen asked, as if speaking a thought out loud.
    ‘It was 1973 or 1974. Everything changed then. Gwen was murdered just before Christmas, on her way home from school in the dark, a dreadful, dreadful time. December, it was 1973, yes.
Harold never got over it, of course. He ended up, you know, in a hospital.’ She indicated her left temple. ‘As for Isobel, she changed overnight. The big light inside her went out. She
had three foster-children with her at the time, one long term, two short termers. The last time I was over there, January 1974, just after New Year it was, three foster-children were lined up in
the kitchen and she was screaming at them,
Why couldn’t it have been you? Why are you still alive? Why aren’t you in the ground?
The children were crying, hysterical. I tried
to calm things down but she turned on me then, and slapped me in the face, called me an interfering – well, I can’t repeat it. They were lovely children. They were forever in and out of
here, passing a message for Isobel or seeing if they could earn a little pocket money by doing jobs for me. I even helped the ones that, you know, were a bit slow; I gave them help with their
reading.’
    Mrs Nicholas leaned forward, staring at a point in space as if eyeballing the past. She came back to Bellwood. ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,’ she said.
    ‘The truth, however unpleasant, is the truth and must be told.’
    ‘She sent the children packing back to Social Services. She stopped speaking to all the neighbours. You want to know what happened to all the other foster-children, the ones that had grown
up and used to knock on her door with flowers? She wouldn’t answer the door to them. One girl, Susie Armitage, she was eighteen or thereabouts, came over the road to me with some flowers,
asked me to mind them, to hand them over to Isobel. Susie broke down on the doorstep. I brought her inside and she showed me this letter that Isobel had sent to her. Poor Susie.’
    Mrs Nicholas produced a piece of folded white paper from the pocket of her cardigan and offered it to Bellwood.
    ‘What is this, Mrs Nicholas?’
    ‘Susie asked me to throw it away as she left. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t do it. It’s the letter Isobel sent to Susie.’
    Bellwood took the paper and unfolded it.
    You are not to visit, telephone, write or communicate with me in any way, shape or form. I wash my hands of you.
    Mrs I. Swift
    ‘Can I hang on to this?’
    Mrs Nicholas nodded. ‘That’s why no one called, not even Susie, who was the favourite of them all. The police never caught Gwen’s killer; they seemed to think at the time it
was a schoolboy who did it. Some schoolboys were questioned by the police but no one was ever charged with Gwen’s murder. I think that just drove Isobel deeper underground.’
    Mrs Nicholas fell silent.
    ‘Did Gwen have a middle name?’ asked Bellwood.
    ‘Just Gwen Swift.’
    ‘You’ve been an enormous help, Mrs Nicholas. Thank you.’ Bellwood handed Mrs Nicholas her card. ‘If anything else occurs to you, please call me straight away on this
number.’
    ‘Make sure you shut