Beautiful

by Anita Waller

  ‘He would have come here to live, Mum.’ The boy was crying.

  David stood. ‘I’ll get you a drink, Dawn.’

  She nodded, still holding Josh. ‘And one for Josh, I think he needs it.’ She bent to kiss his head. ‘Come on, love, come into the lounge. We need time to make sense of this.’

  ‘Sense,’ his bottom lip quivered. ‘How can it make sense? My dad’s dead. That’ll never make sense.’

  BOOK THREE

  1989 – 1992 North Cornwall

  49

  ‘You can’t go to the funeral.’ David’s voice was low and distraught.

  In the two days since John’s death, he had only been in contact with her by telephone. Delivering this news had to be done face to face.

  She smiled gently and touched his hand. ‘Stop worrying, David. I realise I can’t go. It would upset too many people. There isn’t only Amy to think about.’

  ‘Can I sit down?’

  ‘Of course you can. Come through to the lounge. I need to talk to you.’

  He took off his jacket and sunk into a large armchair. She handed him a glass of brandy and he smiled gratefully at her.

  ‘Right, David. Tell me about it now. I need to know he didn’t suffer.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘He didn’t suffer – physically he didn’t suffer. Mentally he must have suffered – because of what he saw.’

  ‘What he saw? I don’t follow…’

  ‘He walked into Amy’s bedroom and found Amy having sex with Mark.’

  ‘Mark? And Amy?’ She found it hard to believe what she was hearing.

  ‘And don’t jump to any conclusions. Talk to Mark. He came in to see me this morning at the office. If Mark’s telling the truth – and I have no reason on earth to doubt him – Amy set up the whole thing. Oh, not to kill John, of course. She wanted him to catch them. Apparently she’d found out about you.’

  Dawn rubbed a hand wearily across her forehead. ‘We’d no idea…’

  ‘I know. Mark said that as John walked into the bedroom he started to ask her why. Amy then said something about Dawn Lynch and Thornton junior. Then John collapsed. It was over in seconds. We had no chance of reviving him. Freda and Brenda were halfway up the stairs when they heard the noise. Freda was first on the scene. She sent Brenda to phone for an ambulance and then tried to help John but it was all over. Mark said she hit Amy hard across the face – the bruise backs up his story.’

  Tears filled Dawn’s eyes as she looked at David. ‘What a bloody mess. Not only is John dead but his name’s going to be dragged through the mud because of me.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Only Mark, Amy and I know what happened. As far as the police are concerned, it’s death by natural causes, brought on by finding his wife in bed with another man. We can’t hide that part but we can hide you.’

  ‘And Lauren? How is she? I’ve never met her but I regret that.’

  ‘She moved out straight away. She’s living with us at the moment. It’s only a matter of time before she and Pilot find a home and move in together. She’s in a terrible state, crying all the time.’

  Dawn stood and moved across to the window. ‘I could kill her. I could kill Amy Thornton. She’s taken away my reason for living, David. I gave her John for all these years – he would have moved here at the drop of a hat, you know.’ She continued to stare out of the window at the raindrops trickling down the windowpane. ‘I wouldn’t let him. I lied for twenty years. I told him I didn’t want a man permanently in my life. That wasn’t true, David. I would have taken him in a heartbeat if I hadn’t known that he still cared for Amy and loved Lauren to pieces. And now she’s taken him from me. I don’t know how to carry on.’

  She dropped her head and leaned against the window. It felt cold against her skin.

  David moved behind her and put his arms around her.

  ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘I think you need a hug.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said and folded herself against his body.

  ‘Me too,’ David said. ‘Me too.’

  The following day David took Dawn to the Chapel of Rest. Josh hadn’t wanted to go. He wanted to remember his father as he had always been, full of life.

  She said her goodbyes quietly and with dignity.

  Amy wanted to bury herself in bed and never surface again. It wasn’t only John she had lost, it seemed to be everybody.

  She had never given much thought to death. Even after his first heart attack, it had never occurred to her that his death might be premature. She had taken it for granted that he would always be there.

  Now she couldn’t stand the loneliness. Only five minutes ago she had rung Brenda who had been curt to the point of rudeness.

  ‘I can’t talk to you, not yet,’ she said and replaced the receiver.

  She sat at John’s desk and ran her hand along the surface. In this room she felt closer to him. After Friday he would be gone forever and all she would have left would be this room.

  It seemed even emptier without Mark. He had showed up briefly to empty his desk and hadn’t spoken to her until he was leaving through the front door.

  ‘I’m going to see David now,’ he had said. ‘Someone has to know the truth. My key is on the desk.’

  With a finality that jarred her, he had closed the door.

  She sank her head on to her arms, smelling the lavender in the polish that Carol always used.

  ‘Hi.’

  She lifted her head and blinked her eyes to clear the tears.

  ‘Brian.’ The word sounded flat on her lips and she tried to smile.

  He crossed the room, pulled her gently to her feet and held her close. ‘Had enough?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Everybody against you?’

  Again she nodded.

  ‘Is that because you’re a bit of a cow?’

  This time she had to smile.

  He tilted her head and looked at her. ‘That’s better. And for what it’s worth, I do understand. You found out about John and his lady friend, didn’t you?’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Guessed. It was only because you tied yourself to that shop and your work that you missed it. So how did you find out?’

  ‘I saw his car at her house and when I found out her name it all fell together.’ She paused for a moment. ‘And then I saw his son. He’s John’s double.’

  ‘And so you took your revenge?’

  ‘I took my revenge. Back-fired a bit, didn’t it? Now everybody thinks I’m the wicked witch of the west for seducing Mark. But Mark could have said no.’

  ‘Nobody in their right mind would have said no, sweet one. Especially Mark – you chose well when you picked him to help, however unwittingly he did it. He’s been in love with you for years.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that – I’ve enough on my conscience.’ She moved away from him and sat down at the desk again.

  ‘There is something puzzling me though – why didn’t you give John his tablets? I’m not saying they would have saved him, I think it was over much too quick for them to have any effect… I just wondered why you didn’t try.’

  ‘I couldn’t find them. I searched his pockets –‘

  ‘They were in his pocket, Amy.’

  ‘No – ‘

  ‘Yes, my lovely Amy. I found them in the bathroom ten minutes or so before you went to your bedroom. I took them to him and he put them in his jacket pocket. I know the tablets were in his pocket, Amy. I didn’t see them when we all piled in to try and help. Wonder what happened to them?’ He turned and walked out of the study, gently closing the door behind him.

  Friday was cold, bleak and rainy. It brought with it a peculiar clinging grey mist and by the time Amy climbed into the first funeral car she was soaked.

  Lauren, dressed in black, had barely spoken to her mother and insisted that Pilot sat between them in the car.

  David had aged. He couldn’t believe that just a few days ago his closest friend was alive and well. He wa
s struggling with coming to terms with the reality of the situation. Pat wasn’t a great deal of help. She was sure that Amy had killed and got away with it. Again. And Amy was like a sister.

  The church was filled with mourners and Amy stared around in disbelief. She hadn’t thought beyond immediate family and friends and was shocked at the numbers standing in the pews. Their eyes followed the coffin down the aisle.

  Press and television cameras huddled around in the church grounds.

  The vicar spoke of the great loss to the literary world, the great loss to his family, the great loss to his friends; she heard it all and registered nothing.

  She couldn’t cry. Lauren wept during the whole service. Ken, in his role of supporting the widow, could do little other than give Brenda a shoulder to lean against.

  Brenda was unable to cry. She had shed all her tears at Stonebrook. The funeral was a goodbye to the public face of John.

  It was only when David read a piece from one of John’s books that Amy allowed tears to trickle down her cheeks. It was a short paragraph, just a few sentences. It showed a perception of death.

  David looked around at the congregation.

  ‘When John brought The Son into my office, almost apologetically, he said it was different. He was right. It had much more depth to it than his previous novels and I considered it to be a superb piece of fiction. It was shortlisted for the Booker prize and although it didn’t win, it did more to establish John as a writer of importance than any of his other books.’ He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘The paragraph I have just read stood out. John and I discussed it, not as a literary piece of work but as a concept. I know John believed wholeheartedly in what he had written.’ He paused again, his eyes sweeping the faces in front of him. ‘I’m sure that wherever he is, it is a place made all the better by his presence.’

  He moved back to his seat beside Pat, gently touching the coffin as he passed it. Pat squeezed his hand and smiled at him through tears.

  ‘Beautiful,’ she whispered.

  It was three days after the funeral when Ken told Brenda about the cottage in Delabole. He ached for Brenda; her suffering was too much.

  She hadn’t only lost John; she had lost Amy too. Ken couldn’t help but think there was more to it than Amy taking Mark to bed. Nobody in their right mind would go to bed with someone in the middle of a party. Especially when that party was to celebrate the engagement of the daughter…no, he knew there was more to it. Amy must have engineered her own discovery.

  Ken had gone to David, told him what he knew. David had cried like a baby.

  Ken waited twenty-four hours before deciding to tell Brenda that John had had a double life and Brenda had listened dry-eyed. When he had finished speaking, he sat back and waited for something to happen. Her reaction surprised him.

  ‘Poor Amy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Poor Amy. She didn’t know how to handle it. Have I let her down so much that she couldn’t come and talk to me? She found out that John had someone else and all she could think of was revenge. Which brings us back to Treverick again, doesn’t it? I’m sure she never thought for a minute that it would cause a second heart attack… she just probably wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine.’

  ‘Does it change your feelings towards John?’ Ken reached out for his wife’s hands.

  ‘Not in the slightest. I don’t think we know the half of it. I should imagine John had precious little in the way of love from Amy. That is why he turned to the other woman. I’m surprised he managed to cover it up for so long. I always used to worry that he had a soft spot for Linda Chambers… seems silly now in view of this, doesn’t it?’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Now I go and make my peace with Amy. John Thornton was my son, not my son-in-law. Tell you what, Ken; I’m glad his family has gone back up to Scotland not knowing any of this.’

  ‘Good thing he didn’t leave anything in his will to Dawn and Joshua. That would have blown it wide open!’

  ‘I didn’t think of that.’ Brenda bit her bottom lip pensively. ‘I wonder why? He obviously loved them very much.’

  She sighed. ‘It’s such a mess isn’t it? I’m going over to Amy’s. Would you mind if I went alone?’

  ‘Not at all, duck,’ he said, kissing the top of her head. ‘Go and do some fence mending.’

  He watched her walk down the lane, the arthritis pain now becoming noticeable.

  Going back into the lounge he picked up a photograph of Amy and stared at it for a while before replacing it on the shelf.

  ‘Bitch.’ he said and limped across the hallway and into the kitchen.

  Dawn heard the knock at the kitchen door and assumed it was Gary.

  ‘Josh,’ she called as she passed the bottom of the stairs. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘One minute, Mum.’

  Even his voice, now fully mature, was like John’s.

  She opened the door forcing a smile. Since that unforgettable night every smile was forced.

  The smile disappeared fast. ‘Oh.’

  Amy’s own smile was glacial. ‘I’ve brought you something. Actually it’s not for you; it’s for that son of yours.’ She handed the Tesco carrier bag to a stunned Dawn.

  It took her a moment or two to recover before she stepped back. ‘Please – come in.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She inclined her head as though she was bestowing a great favour. Dawn’s instinct was to smash her teeth into the back of her throat. Amy’s glance around the kitchen was full of scorn.

  ‘So this is where he spent his time, is it?’

  ‘Yes it is.’ Dawn didn’t have the energy to lose her temper. Besides she’d had more of John than his wife had – clinging to that would get her through.

  Amy walked through into the lounge. ‘Have you looked in the bag?’

  Dawn opened it and glanced inside. ‘Josh’s books.’

  ‘He left me a letter. His will didn’t mention either of you, so you missed out there. The letter asked me to make sure I handed these books over to Joshua Lynch.’

  ‘His name isn’t Joshua Lynch, Mrs Thornton. He said Joshua Thornton.’

  Amy shrugged. ‘Whatever. Anyway, I’m here to do what he wanted. I swept them off the shelf and put them in that bag. I want nothing more to do with them. Is he here?’

  ‘Josh? Yes, he’s getting ready to go out.’

  ‘Is he really John’s son? You went with my husband so I presume you put it about a bit.’

  ‘I don’t have to answer that. If you met Josh, then you’d know.’

  ‘I’ve already…’ Amy paused afraid of saying too much. Dawn let it slide but made a mental note; so Amy had seen Josh. No wonder she had been upset enough to stage that fiasco at the party.

  ‘And I certainly don’t put it about, as you so delicately put it. The way I understand it, that’s your way of handling things.’ Dawn’s voice now matched Amy’s coldness.

  ‘Unlike my husband I have never been to bed with any other partner – until the party. And I think that was justified.’

  Dawn found it hard to believe what she was hearing.

  ‘Justified? You killed John! How can you justify that? You took away our children’s father for the sake of an over-dramatic bit of play-acting. You didn’t want Mark, you just wanted to make John suffer.’

  ‘And it worked.’ Amy’s voice held a note of triumph. ‘You see, Ms Lynch, in spite of this dalliance, he still loved me.’

  ‘I know,’ Dawn saw the insecurity in Amy. ‘You and Lauren meant a lot to him and I couldn’t take him away from that.’ She paused gathering her defences. ‘Every time he asked to move in here, I said no.’

  Amy stared at her for a long time and then left the room.

  ‘Wish your son happy reading, won’t you?’

  50

  Things had changed. Treverick could hardly believe his luck.

  He hadn’t intended John to live past the age of fifty but to die by natural ca
uses before then was a bonus to be pounced upon.

  The whole family had been gutted by it. He was now so close within their circle that he shared their distress. On the surface.

  The only drawback had been the defection of Lauren. It would have been easier if she had remained at home, but so be it. She would keep for later.

  And so the die was finally cast. The culmination of his campaign could now begin.

  New clothes – he would buy some new clothes bought specially to impress. And get his hair looked at – it needed a cut and perhaps re-streaking.

  He switched on the television to watch a wildlife programme – he would make his starting point, her interests. She liked wildlife programmes; he would like wildlife programmes. And she would like him.

  He would make her like him.

  51

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Leaving?’ David smiled at her. Dawn hadn’t changed at all in the past twenty years – still the same smile, the same glint in her eyes. A touch of grey in her naturally brown hair but that added to the effect of maturity without aging her. It was good to see her back in his office.

  ‘Josh and I are selling up and going to live in the States.’

  ‘You’re running away.’ His tone was flat.

  ‘Maybe. But why not? Everywhere I go, everything I do – it all reminds me of John and it’s not getting any easier.’

  ‘But it’s been less than two years, Give it time.’

  ‘There’ll never be enough time. You won’t talk me out of this. We have a buyer for the cottage who’s willing to pay what I’ve asked for it. And you know John made sure we have more than enough money for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘You’ll always have the income from John’s Callum books –‘

  ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about. From now on I want that put into a special fund for Josh. He can have it when he’s twenty five, or earlier if I should die before then.’

  ‘Heaven forbid.’