Secrets of the Tower

by Debbie Rix

  Secrets of the Tower

  A historical novel of mystery, passion and intrigue

  Debbie Rix

  Published by Bookouture

  An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.

  23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN, United Kingdom

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  www.bookouture.com

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  copyright © Debbie Rix 2015

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  Debbie Rix has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-909490-82-6

  Created with Vellum

  In loving memory of my father Norman Rix DFC, FRIBA

  an architect, artist, writer and war hero

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks:

  To Professor Piero Pierotti for so generously sharing his knowledge about the Tower and medieval Pisa.

  * * *

  Claire Bord

  Charlotte Campbell Edwards

  Joe Edwards

  Victoria Hislop

  Rowan Lawton

  Vanessa Nicolson

  Margaret Rix

  Caroline Taylor

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  My husband Tony

  for his constant support; without him this story would simply never have been written.

  Prologue

  It seemed to the man that he was floating. His hands, he noticed, caught the sunlight, and the almost imperceptible webs between his widely spread fingers glowed bright red shot through by the sun, revealing the complex pattern of veins moving blood around his body. Keeping him alive. The blood pumped harder now, pressing into his skull, restricting the brain until it hurt. Then nothing. A thud. And the birds, free-wheeling high in the sky, looked down on the body spread-eagled and lifeless in the shadow of the tower.

  Chapter One

  May 1999

  Kent

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  It had been a wonderful spring. The sun shone brightly each day, and the rain fell gently overnight, leaving the lawns vivid green, sparkling in the early morning sun, and the flower beds, freshly washed, bursting with new growth. Each morning, sunlight glinted on the pools of water collecting in the newly unfurled leaves of the alchemilla that lined the path to the front door.

  Sam woke early; which was odd, because usually she clung to sleep until the last minute. Most days she was woken by the sensation of a little body climbing into the bed with her. It was a ritual.

  ‘Come on Mummy – I want my brepuss.’ The boy could not yet pronounce hard sounds like ‘k’s’ and ‘t’s’’

  ‘In a minute,’ she would say, hardly opening her mouth, her eyes still closed, hoping every morning, that he might take pity on her adult longing for sleep and go off to play somewhere quietly by himself. A vain wish. Freddie was not that kind of child.

  ‘Open your eyes, Mummy.’

  His hands, clammy, would prod her eyelids. Not painfully, but persistently.

  ‘Now.’

  At other times the twins, her darling girls, would arrive with a stereophonic burst of energy, coiling themselves around her like tiny blonde angels, filling the air with chatter and the sweet smell of those newly emerged from babyhood.

  But this morning she woke alone.

  Early morning light filtered through the closed curtains. She peered at the clock on the bedside table. 6.40 am. She hauled herself out of bed, anxious suddenly for a sight of her children. She padded along the corridor and quietly opened the girls’ door. They lay in uncanny symmetry; each one facing the other in almost identical positions, with one arm draped languidly across the bed, the other tucked into their bodies, thumb firmly ensconced in their rose-bud mouths. Blonde curls trailed over matching pillows decorated with pink and purple angels and stars. Their sleigh beds stood on either side of the window that looked out over the garden. Newly, and proudly, acquired as their first ‘proper beds.’

  Automatically, she bent and scooped up the cast-off clothes that lay on the floor and, closing the girls’ door quietly behind her, pushed the grubby tights and T-shirts into the laundry basket that stood on the landing between the children’s two rooms.

  Quietly, she opened Freddie’s door. Toys and clothes were strewn around the floor and the bed. He had been difficult to get off to sleep the night before and she had fallen into her own bed exhausted, without her usual evening sort out. Guiltily, she surveyed the mess. Surrounded by a halo of toy trains and cars with coloured dinosaurs wedged improbably into the driver’s seat, the child’s angelic face lay upturned, the dark lashes fluttering, mid-dream. His perfect scarlet lips slightly apart. Out of habit, she leant over him, listening for the little wheezing breaths, something she had felt compelled to do since the day she brought him home from hospital. She felt guilty sometimes that she never listened so intently for the girls’ breathing. There was something about her first-born child that seemed so vulnerable.

  She pulled back from kissing him, grateful for his breathing and intent suddenly on a silent retreat to bed for an unaccustomed listen to the radio.

  Desperate now for a cup of tea, she decided to risk the noise of a visit to the kitchen and crept, as silently as possible, downstairs. The kitchen was warm from the Aga and, once the kettle was on, she leant against its comforting girth. The room, painted a pale shade of green that she and Michael had first seen in the restaurant of the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, had a large table in the centre, strewn with the paraphernalia of the previous day’s biscuit making – one of the children’s favourite activities. Bowls stood unwashed, smeared with butter and raisins. Cookie cutters in all manner of shapes and sizes lay abandoned, squished into the endlessly reshaped dough, that she had finally persuaded the twins was no longer edible. Freddy’s dinosaur cutter was making a particularly alarming nose-dive into the leftovers of chocolate mixture. The finished biscuits stood, half-eaten, on a rack to one side. A pang of guilt overwhelmed her as she recalled their unhealthy supper. Biscuits and juice were not really a well-balanced meal, even if they were home-made. She tipped the leftover biscuits into a tin, scooped the remains of the dough into the bin, piled the cutters and spoons into the bowls and put them into the large stone sink, sloshing hot water onto them. The pipes rattled noisily, as the elderly plumbing grumbled its way back to life. Anxious not to wake the children, she hurriedly turned the water off, just as the kettle on the Aga began its early morning salutation – a thin, wheezy whistle that penetrated the silence. Shoving the kettle off the heat, she took a mug off the dresser. Turning the lights off, she retreated once more upstairs, tea in hand, the house still uncharacteristically silent.

  Settled once more in her bed, she turned on the radio to hear the familiar tones of James Naughtie. His voice took her back, as it always did, to a time when she was young, before the children, before Michael. She had been a reporter on the Today programme, newly promoted from researcher. She had been in awe of Naughtie and his ilk – the grand old men of radio, as she thought of them then. Bashing stories out on their keyboards at four in the morning, shouting across the newsroom at producers and editors. Demanding, clever. She’d rather liked him.

  As she sipped her tea, she listened to a
piece on the radio about pollution and environmental damage. It was the kind of story she would have been sent to cover in the old days. Standing in a freezing field at dawn, waiting for a cue in her earpiece from the London producer. The interviewee was a man with a wonderful Norfolk burr who was warning of the absence of bird-song that spring. Naughtie spun the interview out brilliantly: interested, gently chiding, filling the space until he could throw, gratefully, to the weathergirl.

  As she described the perfect late spring weather they could all look forward to that day, Sam crawled to the end of her bed and opened the curtains. The sky was a beautiful opalescent shade of palest blue and pink. She could see the sun winking at her through the woods that ran the length of their garden. She looked down onto the newly created flower bed. The early morning light cast sharp shadows and the plants made crisp, clean shapes, their zingy green growth emerging from the freshly dug soil. She and Michael had planned the bed together – he had even helped dig some of the plants in, which had surprised her. His customary attitude to any gardening had always been that it was a nice hobby for her, but not something he needed to bother with. She thought back to that weekend, just a fortnight before. ‘Come on,’ he’d said suddenly, on Saturday morning, when the children were fractious and squabbling. ‘Let’s all go outside and put some of those plants Mummy’s been collecting at the back door… before they die.’ He’d headed off, leaving Sam to find the children’s wellies, toy spades and garden implements; to tussle with gloves and little sticky fingers. It had taken her a good half-hour to get them all assembled, by which time Michael had already planted half a dozen new plants, mostly in the wrong place. But she had kept her counsel for once and had surreptitiously moved them to the correct positions when he went in for a coffee.

  The sound of little feet padding along the corridor brought an end to her quiet adult thoughts.

  ‘Mummy,’ the voice was indignant.

  ‘I was ’sleep and dreaming… ’bout a dragon.’

  ‘Were you darling, how nice.’ She was preoccupied.

  ‘Wasn’t nice, was nasty.’

  ‘Oh that's lovely, darling.’

  ‘Mummy!’ The child shouted, jolting her into alertness.

  There was a ringing sound. The phone. Odd, so early in the day.

  The child wailed.

  She picked up.

  ‘Hello?’ her voice uncertain, questioning.

  ‘Mrs Campbell?’

  There was an accent. Rather pretty. French, Spanish, Italian.

  Michael was in Italy.

  ‘Yes…? Yes, I am Mrs Campbell. What is it?’

  The child, her child, began to cry. His ruby lips giving voice to his indignation. His eyes, intelligent, dark, the colour of chestnuts, observed his mother’s sharp green eyes. He saw the frown. He knew. It was not going to be a good day.

  The phone call was peremptory, brief, curt even.

  ‘It’s Michael.’

  ‘Yes?’

  At the mention of his name, she felt herself stiffen, tense.

  ‘I’m afraid something’s happened.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s been taken ill – we’re not quite sure what’s wrong, but you ought to come out straight away. I’m so sorry…’

  Eight hours later, she sat in the business-class lounge at Gatwick. She felt numb, tears etching their way silently down her pale cheeks. She flicked through an album of photos she had grabbed from the kitchen dresser before she left. There were pictures of the children playing in the garden the previous summer: on the slide, pushing each other on the swing, playing in the paddling pool. There was a picture of her, the sun in her hair, as she raised a glass of wine to the anonymous photographer. She was smiling in that picture, wearing her favourite linen dress. Happy. And there were two pictures of Michael. In one he was attempting to slither down the slide, face first, his large frame threatening to overwhelm the flimsy metal chute, as the children lay on the ground helpless with laughter. The final image in the album showed the two of them: Michael’s arm around her shoulders, his head resting on top of hers, his lips grazing her hair.

  Only the evening before, she had toyed with taking those pictures out of the album; of consigning them to the bin. With the children finally in bed, she had abandoned the messy kitchen and instead retreated to the sitting room where she opened a bottle of wine and brooded on his betrayal. She thought back to their final conversation, before he left for Italy.

  ‘Who is she, Michael?’ she had asked, holding up the little photo of the young dark-haired girl that she had found in his jacket pocket earlier that day. ‘Who is this girl?’

  ‘Just a friend,’ he answered irritably, ‘no one important. Stop making such a fuss. Where are my sunglasses?’

  ‘Fuss! I know she’s more than a friend, Michael. When did you start carrying pictures of friends around with you? Don’t insult my intelligence.’

  He had refused to acknowledge the problem – then. He had carried on searching for glasses and notebooks, filling his suitcase ahead of his trip.

  Finally, the wall of recalcitrant silence broke, as she knew it would if she pushed hard enough.

  ‘OK… you want to know who she is? Her name is Carrie. She’s an assistant producer. I like her. She has an… interesting line in conversation.’

  ‘Conversation!’ she spat back. ‘Is that what they call it now?’

  The conversation comment had stung. The idea of him enjoying another woman’s company, her mind, upset her more than the thought of him sleeping with her.

  ‘Am I so dull now, Michael? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, no of course not. Oh God, I don’t know. You’re just different that’s all.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘From when we first got together.’

  ‘Of course I’m different… I’ve got three children. I’m here all day making cakes and worrying about taking your bloody jackets to the dry-cleaners and clearing up after people. It’s quite hard to maintain an interest in the latest developments in reality television when the only television you actually watch is Postman Pat.’

  He smiled a little, impressed by her sarcasm. She was always good under fire. She saw the flicker of amusement at the corners of his mouth and she hated him for it. It was as if he was laughing at her. Patronising. She threw the picture of Carrie at him. It floated down onto the bedcover between them. He picked it up and laid it on his bedside table. There was a hooting of a horn; his taxi. He held her to him briefly before he left, murmuring into her hair, ‘I’m sorry. We’ll talk when I get back. I’ve got to go.’ And he had left, without a backwards look.

  Later, she took some small heart from the fact that he had left the picture of Carrie where he’d placed it. She tore it into tiny pieces.

  And now, here she was, in the departure lounge, waiting for a plane to take her to him. Her mind a blur of confused emotions and thoughts. Her fingers traced the picture of her and Michael smiling for the camera, as if by doing so she could absorb, and sense again, the happiness she had experienced that sunny day, eight months before. That woman in the linen dress, holding a glass of wine, had thought she was happy. She certainly looked happy. And now…? Had it all been an illusion? Had Carrie been in his life then? Had he been thinking of her small, wiry body as his lips grazed Sam’s brown hair? She closed the album and put it into her bag, as they called her flight.

  Shuffling forward in the queue, she noted her fellow passengers, mostly tourists getting away for an early summer break, alongside a few Italian businessmen returning to their families on a Friday night. Judging by the number of Gucci briefcases and in-flight suit bags amongst the men in the queue, this was a regular weekly commute for them. As the queue crawled towards the check-in desk, she tripped over a pair of elegant, tanned feet encased in navy suede loafers.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she blurted out. ‘I didn’t see you sitting there.’

  ‘Mi dispiace, it’s my fault,’ said the man, rising
to his feet. He was tall, around six feet, with dark blue eyes that almost matched his denim shirt. His skin was lightly tanned, his black hair sprinkled with grey.

  He smiled sympathetically at her, noticing the pale tear-stained face.

  ‘Are you ok?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, yes of course; I’m sorry.’

  She wiped her face self-consciously and attempted a smile, before rejoining the queue.

  The flight was without incident. Sam gratefully gulped down a large gin and tonic but she couldn’t eat the meal. It lay, unopened and congealing until she asked for it be removed.

  On arrival in Pisa she waited near the carousel for her suitcase. The man with the blue loafers stood a few metres away, chatting animatedly on his mobile phone, apparently unaware of her presence. Within minutes, her battered metal case, a remnant of her reporting days, clattered through the rubber doors and fell almost at her feet. Hauling it up, she swung her bag onto her shoulder, and, pulling her case behind her, strode past the customs officers who stood with their backs to the arrivals hall, their attention diverted by a beautiful Italian girl wearing tight white jeans and tiny crop top, her long, dark curls drifting luxuriously down her back.

  Smells of pizza and rosemary assailed Sam as she pushed through the gaggle of expectant locals waiting to greet their loved ones. She experienced an almost visceral shot of pain as she witnessed the loving embrace of one young couple newly reunited.

  There had been a time when she and Michael met each other at the airport; when one of them had travelled abroad for work. He as a producer of documentaries, she in her role as a news reporter – first for radio and then television. Both often had to be away for weeks at a time, but she always had a sneaking suspicion that he coped much better with her absences than she did. In the days before email he rarely rang when he was away, only occasionally sending a formal telex informing her when he would be returning to Heathrow. As she drove down the M4 towards the airport from the first flat they shared in west London, her heart began to race. She would park the car and take the lift to the arrivals hall, struggling to contain her excitement. She would then pace the floor waiting anxiously for signs that his flight had landed. If he did not appear within five or ten minutes she began to fret. And then he would be there… in jeans and an old sweater, his jacket thrown casually over his shoulders, as he pushed his trolley, tall, handsome, at ease with himself. It was more than she could do to stop herself ducking under the flimsy barrier, and rushing into his arms.