‘Hunter, have you got any plans for your next project?’ said Nathan.
Hunter looked startled, his thoughts clearly miles away. Lexie guessed he’d been keeping out of the conversation between the ex-lovers. It wasn’t an easy situation for him and one he couldn’t have foreseen when they first came to Nettleford.
‘There are plenty of trouble spots to choose from. We don’t have any firm dates for flying out, but there are growing problems in two places we’ve filmed before.’ He named two camps that were unpronounceable to Lexie. He must have noticed the confused expressions and explained where they were in central Africa. ‘They have large populations of mixed tribes and that often leads to trouble in the camps. Fighting has also broken out in the wider area, meaning the existing camps are stretched beyond their capabilities.’
The conversation stuttered along. Mitch said nothing more and Helen was silent, keeping her attention firmly on her plate, although she ate next to nothing. Nathan asked Spike if he’d made any headway with the script, which reminded Lexie of the weekend at the stone circles. Spike talked a little more about the script and while it didn’t sound as if he’d finished it, he had obviously worked through some of the problems.
‘What did you get up to today, Gareth?’ asked Eden.
Gareth looked up at the mention of his name, and Lexie thought he’d zoned out of the conversation. There was a momentary gap until he replied.
‘Nothing as exciting as you do, but I did gain a new client today with a web-based project. It sounds as though it might be interesting.’ However, his slumped posture and tone didn’t suggest any enthusiasm.
Another awkward silence descended on the group until Nathan spoke.
‘I had a really tough client today. We’ve just bought Tilly a new bicycle and helmet as she’s outgrown her old bike.’ He glanced at Hunter and Eden and added that Tilly was their oldest daughter. ‘She’s thrilled with them but announced they were boring and needed new stickers to get them to the standard of her previous stuff.’
‘I took her to the shops and let her choose some, but I wasn’t deemed competent enough to help her put them on,’ said Lexie.
‘What kind of stickers did she buy?’ asked Eden.
Lexie was surprised at the question as Eden hadn’t shown any interest in children other than talking about the young girl in the camp, but since going on about the police hassling Mitch, she appeared to be trying harder.
‘Anything bright and shiny. Her name, Disney princesses, that sort of thing.’
‘Do they shine at night? I remember seeing something like that once. Glowing stars, that’s it. On a helmet and bicycle. D’you remember, Spike? They were kind of freaky, shimmering in the dark.’
Spike pushed his plate to one side, mumbling something. He picked up the empty bottle of wine. ‘Eden, have you got any more of the red?’ He shook the empty bottle. ‘Or are you trying to cut back on our consumption.’
He followed Eden into the kitchen, returning with a new bottle. Mitch placed his hand over his glass as Spike gave everyone a refill. Eden tried to include Mitch more in the conversation, but other than answering direct questions, he was silent. He looked listless and pale despite his natural tanned colouring.
After Spike took a sip of his wine, he spoke in a more serious tone than usual. ‘Even without Laurence here, I think this is all a bit much at the moment. We’re all a bit much.’
Lexie glanced surreptitiously at Mitch. Spike hadn’t mentioned names but his meaning was clear.
Mitch looked relieved and replied immediately. ‘I’m really grateful to you all for your support, but yes, I’d be better with some time on my own. We all do these things differently.’
‘That’s okay. We just want what’s best for you.’
‘I appreciate you wanting a bit of peace,’ said Eden. ‘But I don’t think going back to your flat just yet is a good idea.’
Mitch looked more ready for days of sleep than an argument with Eden, but Hunter spoke up before either of them.
‘We could go to London for a few days and Mitch could stay here. It’s peaceful, but there are friends around if you need some company. How does that sound?’
Eden looked surprised at Hunter’s offer, but when she saw Mitch noticeably relaxing she smiled and squeezed Hunter’s arm.
‘Thanks,’ said Mitch. ‘That would be good. I think I’d like to stay, at least for a few more days if that’s alright with Helen and Gareth.’
They both said it was fine and the atmosphere lightened a little, but Lexie was still glad that their babysitter had told them she couldn’t stay late and was relieved when they made their excuses and left.
When Lexie took Max for his morning walk up the hill behind their house, she found Mitch sitting on the dry-stone wall. He looked as if he hadn’t slept much, although his damp hair told her that he’d showered before leaving the house.
After their initial greetings, Lexie sat on the wall, leaving a comfortable gap between them. Max chased through the long grass, stopping every now and then to sniff at a tree or bush. Bees hummed around the wild roses, and Lexie leaned back, watching sky larks above them. When the silence became uncomfortable, she asked Mitch when the others were leaving for London.
‘Spike’s already gone. Eden and Hunter are going tomorrow. Eden’s setting up some meetings, but from what I overheard they’re not happening for a few days. Hunter obviously intervened on my behalf, or possibly his own as well as he said something about going off to see a friend for a day or so while they’re there. It’ll be good to have a few days on my own, but knowing there’s people nearby. I’m not sure I can handle the apartment yet. Everything’s still too raw. It was awful wandering around there when I first got back from Bath and having to identify Renelle.’
He stared out at the view of the fields heading down towards Nettleford, his face frozen in an emotionless mask. Lexie let the silence drift again. There hadn’t been any opportunity at dinner for individual conversations and she wanted to talk to Mitch, Eden and Spike individually about the hit and run. With everyone in Nettleford she thought she had more time, but that had now changed. Just as she was about to open the conversation again, Mitch pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. Lexie sensed a change in his manner.
‘You know about Renelle leaving Bristol University and the circumstances?’
It was phrased as a statement, but his intonation suggested a question.
Lexie nodded. Eden had first told her about the incident, although most of the others had referred to it at some point.
‘This is it.’ He waved the sheet of paper in the air. ‘The famous letter that caused all the problems.’
‘Really?’ The letter had been mentioned so many times in so many different ways, it had reached almost mystic proportions in her mind, and here it was.
Mitch read it again, a pained expression on his face.
Lexie was dying to see it, to touch it, to make sure it was real, but she stayed still, looking at Max charging through the long grass, while all her attention stretched towards the man next to her, trying to gauge his reaction.
‘Where did you find it?’
‘I brought a box of her papers with me, school reports, old photos, certificates, that sort of thing. I wanted something of her close to me, as if I’d be able to know her better. Ridiculous really, I’d already seen most of it. She showed me the photos one night and we both got out our old school reports and laughed over them. She was smart. After all, she got that sponsorship to university, unfortunately not the course for her. She struggled and never felt she fitted in.’ He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘The letter was hidden among the school papers.’
Max came up, tail wagging, to check they weren’t leaving, licked at their shoes and then raced off again.
Mitch hunched over the letter, his whole body a line of misery. Lexie reached out tentatively and touched his shoulder. She wanted to tell him she understood but if she was honest, she co
uldn’t know how he felt. He remained still, but the twitch of his throat and the white knuckles of his fingers holding the paper indicated the depth of his emotion.
‘It’s not Renelle’s writing. The thing’s printed to disguise the handwriting, but it’s not her printing. Renelle had awful handwriting; I could barely read it, so when she wrote notes she always printed them. Her Es and Gs were similar, instead of a straight back she drew a half circle, and she did this funny loop thing at the end of an M. Renelle didn’t write this letter.’
He handed the sheet of paper to Lexie. For something that had caused so much grief, the letter was short.
You did the unbelievable – you made me fall in love with you. You captured me with your wit and charm and led me to do something I wouldn’t have believed possible.
I thought I was smart and modern, but you read me so easily.
The saddest part is that while I know what I should do, I’m not sure I can escape this beautiful web you’ve woven.
Lexie scanned the three paragraphs. It felt contrived. She understood why Renelle said it wasn’t the usual type of newsy letter people actually wrote and therefore believed that Spike, or someone, had written it purely to get her into trouble. In her mind the problem with that theory was that the writer couldn’t be sure it would trigger the fallout it did, or any trouble at all. It hadn’t seemed worthwhile mentioning it to the others as the incident was in the past.
She read it again, slowly. The first impression lingered, but the author could have written several drafts before this final one. Perhaps they had tried for effect, attempted to make it appear like something an aspiring writer might compose, or to impress Damien Featherstone. Lexie handed the letter back to Mitch.
‘Do you know what’s so insufferably wretched about this?’ He gestured with the sheet of paper but didn’t wait for Lexie to reply. ‘After all these years, all the time we’ve been together, she had this letter hidden away. She was still crushed by what happened, and despite being successful in her work, this still overwhelmed her. Whoever wrote this destroyed her.’
‘Mitch, that’s not necessarily true.’ Lexie turned to face him and waited until he looked at her before she spoke again. ‘She had you, she had her career and friends like Blaise, and parents who loved her. I didn’t know Renelle for long, but she didn’t strike me as a woman shattered by her past. Yes, she had this letter, and possibly at times she might have pulled it out, but I’d guess it wasn’t because it ruined her, it was to remind her that she was stronger than what happened and if she could overcome that then she could win at anything.’
‘Thank you, Lexie. I want to believe that very much.’
Mitch jumped off the wall and turned towards the track that ran alongside their property. Lexie called Max and they all walked down the track.
‘What are you going to do next?’
‘About the letter or in general?’
‘Both.’
‘I’m not sure. I don’t particularly want to go back to the apartment, but I need to sometime.’ Mitch patted his pocket absentmindedly as if reassuring himself he still had the letter.
‘How do you think Renelle got hold of it?’
Mitch looked surprised. ‘I never thought about that. I guess perhaps Featherstone’s wife gave it back to her with an upper class jibe about her leaving the university. She certainly never mentioned having it.’
‘D’you recognise the writing?’
‘No. I assume the person tried disguising their handwriting by printing the message. After Renelle and I got together, she wasn’t comfortable talking about it, but I’m sure she had tried to find out who it was. Initially she suspected Spike, but I think that was mostly because he belittled her.’
‘You said initially. Did she change her mind?’
‘I just meant that was her first reaction. My guess is she always thought Spike wrote it. She did consider Eden, but this type of thing isn’t really Eden’s style. If she didn’t like something or someone she’d tell you straight.’
‘Although she wasn’t happy with Renelle as a flatmate.’ Lexie wasn’t sure if she’d taken the conversation a bit far with that comment.
‘Oh, she let Renelle know she wasn’t happy with the situation, but Madelaine always smoothed things over and wouldn’t let Eden get rid of Renelle from the flat.’
‘Who do you think wrote the letter?’
Mitch looked uncomfortable at the question, but Lexie waited silently until he answered. ‘My first instinct was Spike, although I didn’t understand why.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s the type of spiteful thing he would have done then; I don’t know about now. But he only does things to get a specific result. Nothing pointless. The letter is a stupid thing to do as no one could have anticipated the results, or indeed that anything would happen. I think it’s too random for Spike.’
‘What about the content?’
‘I never saw it at the time. Renelle was so upset she couldn’t remember exactly what it said, but my gut feel when I first read it last night was that it didn’t seem…’
‘Real? More like something made up.’
He nodded slowly. ‘A piece of writing for effect, something from a script or essay. I guess that’s why Renelle thought it was Spike, and of course they didn’t get on.’
‘I believe the authorities leapt to the conclusion it was from Renelle because of a sticker on the envelope.’
‘Yes, I think it was stuck on the inside of the envelope or something like that. Either it was an accident or done to make it look like one.’
‘And everyone from the group had the opportunity to go into her room at some point?’
Mitch nodded. ‘We talked through it all at the time. Renelle was away for a weekend and we got drunk and wasted and all crashed at the flat.’
‘And the inference was that it could have happened then?’
‘I guess, although we spent a lot of time at the girls’ flat. It was tidier than ours.’
Blaise recalled Renelle muttering about the possibility the letter wasn’t written purely to get her into trouble. If that was true then it put a different perspective on the incident.
18
Lexie Wyatt
London
2018
The idea to interview Damien Featherstone had come to Lexie through his involvement with some of the group at Bristol University. However, she was meticulous in her preparation for the appointment, researching the man as well as his writing.
Much to her surprise, the book was fiction. When Laurence first mentioned Damien Featherstone, she had assumed he’d written a dry, academic tome. Instead, the novel was a crime drama, set in Shakespeare’s England and using the Globe theatre as the backdrop to murder.
In her research, Lexie found plenty about the novel, the bidding war for the publication rights, and a few early reviews, but there was little personal information on Damien Featherstone and nothing about his time at Bristol University, other than it being listed in his professional biography.
The interviews were taking place at a hotel in London. Lexie was familiar with its location, and the interview time meant she could drop the girls at school and get there easily. It was tighter coming back, but Nathan said he could pick up the girls. She hadn’t mentioned the interview to any of the others, telling herself it was purely work for the magazine.
The morning traffic was better than she anticipated and even with parking at a station further out and getting the train into central London, Lexie arrived with time for a hot drink before the interview. In the café, she checked through her questions again so she wouldn’t need to rely on the printed sheet during the interview. As she walked to the hotel she ran through a few variations of how she might run the interview. A lot depended on the man himself.
At the hotel reception, she introduced herself and asked for Damien Featherstone. The receptionist told Lexie to take a seat and that his publicist would be with her shortly. Lexie
chose an upholstered chair that looked comfortable but firm, to ensure she didn’t have to scrabble out of a low-slung couch when the publicist arrived, and then stared out of the wide glass doors to the street beyond, where people strolled along carrying the ubiquitous take-out coffee cups. The day was cooler, with more cloud cover than they’d had for weeks. This would no doubt go down as a good summer in meteorological terms.
The publicist barely came up to Lexie’s shoulder. Her ash blonde hair cut in a sleek bob brightened the effect of the charcoal skirt and long jacket. As she showed Lexie to where they were holding the interviews, she stressed the necessity of keeping to the timeframe originally outlined.
‘Damien has a number of interviews still to do and the ones after you are filming so they need time to set up lights and camera angles.’
‘That’s fine, I won’t overrun my time. Talking of photos…’
‘I emailed a selection to the office. There are three to choose from, or you can use them all.’
The publicist opened the door and gestured for Lexie to go in. Damien glanced up from his papers on a low coffee table and stood to greet her as she walked across the room. His practised smile showed even white teeth. The tan looked natural and emphasised his dark blue eyes. He oozed charm as Lexie introduced herself and she summed him up as a natural smooth talker, someone who couldn’t help but flatter and flirt. While recognising this, Lexie wasn’t totally immune to charm and a good-looking man, and was pleased she’d chosen one of her Armani outfits. In her days of working full time in London she wore her designer suits most of the time, but now they were relegated to the back of the wardrobe. However, they still came in useful.
She settled down and pulled out her notebook, although she also asked Damien if he minded her turning on the voice recorder on her phone.
‘Do you have any interesting writing quirks?’
The Worst Lie Page 21