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The Chalet: the most exciting new debut crime thriller of 2020 to race through this Christmas

Page 15

by Catherine Cooper


  And then one day I came home from school, Dave had gone and Mama was on the kitchen floor crying. Then the next morning she wasn’t there. I rang Anna.

  Over the next few years, that was the pattern. Everything would be OK for a while, Mama acted like a mother should and held down part-time jobs cleaning or in local cafés and the like – something that fitted in with when I started and finished school. Then she’d meet a man – some of whom were better than others – and she’d become less interested in me. After a few weeks or months the man would leave, she’d break down entirely, and I’d be sent back to Rhonda’s until Mama was strong enough to have me back.

  Sometimes there would be a few weeks between the start of a breakdown and the time when I (or sometimes Anna) decided it was time for me to move out again, and that’s when I started to find out little bits about my dad and what had happened before I was born.

  I’d always asked about Dad. When I was little, Mama would tell me he lived on a mountain far, far away. I pictured him in a stone hut, young and good looking, maybe with a small beard, doing stuff like rounding up sheep with a dog who was also his best friend, driving a tractor around fields and perhaps even washing in a stream instead of in a bath or shower. When I asked why he never visited or why he couldn’t live with us she just said that he lived too far away. Sometimes she’d play me what she called ‘their’ song. It had a nice tune, but the words always sounded sad, with the man singing about how everybody hurts. I wondered why they didn’t choose a happier song, I think I would have done, but I didn’t say that to Mama in case it made her cry.

  By the time I was about eight or so, I started to believe that Mama didn’t know who my dad was, like some of my friends at school, or that she’d split up with him when I was a baby and didn’t want to tell me. I thought perhaps she’d made up the story about the man who lived on the mountain and about the song they listened to together just to make me feel like I had a nice dad somewhere who would like if he met me and who would want to get to know me if only he didn’t live so far away.

  It never occurred to me that he was dead, until her most recent breakdown.

  By then I was fifteen, and things hadn’t improved. That week Mama had still been in bed every day when I got home from school, either crying or asleep. I could tell she must have got up at some point during the day to eat by the mess she left in the kitchen, which I tidied away every night when I got home so that it didn’t smell too much and to try to give Mama one less thing to be upset about. But it didn’t work, of course – she was still always crying.

  I was getting back later and later from school because home was so depressing to deal with. Sometimes I went to friends’ houses for the night, but I didn’t want their parents to start asking too many questions because it got embarrassing. When I was younger I used to ask Anna and the various psychotherapists she used to send me to why Mama was the way she was. All they ever said was variations on the fact that it wasn’t my fault or her fault, that it was just the way her brain was wired that sometimes made it difficult for her to cope. Which was no answer at all really, and certainly no help to anyone, least of all me.

  As kids go, I was pretty good and not hard to deal with, I thought. I did OK at school, I didn’t smoke or drink, I didn’t bunk off school. Not that half the time Mama would have noticed if I did do any of those things. Sometimes when Mama had had a particularly bad episode and gone missing or done things like slashed her arms with the kitchen knife and I’d ended up at Rhonda’s yet again, I would ask Anna why they kept sending me back to Mama if she couldn’t cope. She’d say that it was natural that Mama wanted me home, but they only sent me back when they were sure she could manage and it was Mama’s right to have me with her where possible but that they always acted in my best interests.

  It was difficult to see how.

  By the time I got back from school via Callie’s and the park that night it was almost dark outside and there were no lights on in the house. I guessed Mama must still be in bed – I silently prayed that she’d be asleep rather than wailing and crying as sometimes she was when I got home. I was tired and not in the mood for her drama. Asleep, she was easier to deal with.

  I went into the kitchen; I was starving. There had been barely any food in the house that week. Mama hadn’t been turning up to her cleaning job and had likely been sacked, I thought, though she hadn’t told me so. There was only so far a free school meal could last you during the day, so I hoped there’d be something ancient in the freezer I could fish out and bung in the microwave. I flicked the light switch and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that Mama was sitting at the table in the dark. There was a glass and a half-empty bottle of vodka in front of her.

  ‘Bloody hell, Mama!’ I yelped. ‘You terrified me! What are you doing there?’

  She looked at me, bleary-eyed and patted the chair beside her. ‘Siddown,’ she said.

  In spite of her failings, Mama was not usually a drinker and so I was wary. I sat down next to her, holding my breath against the waft of staleness emanating from her. She couldn’t have had a shower all week.

  ‘You know how you’re always asking about your Dad?’ she slurred.

  ‘Um …’ I’d never seen her in this state before and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to provoke her. I didn’t ask about my dad that much any more because it always seemed to set her off, but it seemed like now she had decided she wanted to talk about him after all. I figured the best solution would be simply to say as little as possible.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said, her voice low and serious. ‘DEAD!’ she shouted suddenly, banging the table and making me jump.

  ‘Oh.’ Tears pricked at my eyes unexpectedly for a man I’d never known. Why was she telling me this now after all these years? Should I even believe her? ‘What … what happened to him?’

  ‘That BASTARD,’ she shouted. ‘He … he …’

  ‘Dad, you mean?’

  She banged the table again. ‘NO! His CUNT of a brother.’

  I flinched. I’d barely ever heard her swear, and certainly never use that word.

  ‘His brother? Whose brother?’ For a moment I wondered if she was just drunk and rambling, talking total nonsense. When she’d been in the hospital, some of the stuff she’d said made no sense at all. Anna always said it was the drugs they gave her that made her that way, but this time it didn’t seem like that. In spite of her drunkenness, she seemed strangely lucid. My skin prickled.

  ‘Will,’ she continued. ‘Your dad was called Will. His brother … his brother made him go out that day. On the mountain. And then he died. His fault. His brother’s fault. Adam’s fault.’

  ‘What mountain? You said he lived on a mountain before … where? I thought you made it up.’

  She grabbed my wrist and tried to look at me, but her eyes were all over the place and I could tell she couldn’t focus properly. She laughed demonically. ‘He DIED on the mountain! DIED! Not lived! We were on holiday. Skiing. He was skiing. His fault. All Adam’s fault. And before that … before … before they went out … do you know? Do you know what he did to me?’ she hisses. Suddenly she is more lucid. ‘I was bright. Clever. At Oxford. Whole life ahead of me. And then Adam ruined it all because he killed Will. And before that, he—’

  ‘He killed my dad?’ I interrupted hoarsely.

  She slumped in her chair. ‘They didn’t say that. They said it was an accident. But I KNOW!’ She was shouting again. ‘I KNOW! They both went out and Adam came back and Will didn’t. He died. It’s all his fault. Adam’s. THAT’S WHY I’M THE WAY I AM NOW! THAT’S WHY I’M LIKE THIS! And before that he, he, he …’

  ‘What?’

  She waved her hand. ‘I can’t tell you. ’S too awful. You shouldn’t know.’ She stood up and immediately fell down. I put my hands under her armpits and hauled her upright again.

  ‘C’mon. Let’s get you to bed.’

  ‘Will Cassiobury,’ she was muttering. ‘Will Cassiobury. Only man I
ever loved. All the others have been utter bastards. Stay single, my darlin’ baby girl,’ she slurred, twisting round and waving her finger in my face. ‘Stay single. Don’t let any men into your life. Waste of time. They ruin everything.’

  I hauled her into bed and pulled the covers over her. ‘Will Cassiobury? That’s my dad’s name?’

  But she was already asleep.

  37

  January 2020, Haute Savoie, France

  Adam

  I’m ashamed to admit that, when I hear the road to La Madière is closed, my first reaction is one of relief. Maybe I won’t have to go to the resort after all. Maybe I won’t have to go through the gruesome task of identifying my brother’s body which has been lying in the snow for more than twenty years.

  The world is small now. It never takes long to get anywhere, does it? So even though I was on the other side of the world when they contacted me, one day later, here I am in France. I don’t know how the police got hold of me so quickly – I guess it’s easy to trace anyone these days. And with only my rudimentary French, I didn’t entirely understand what they were saying. Other than that I am Will’s only family, so I should come.

  After the accident, I took the coward’s way out – I left. Couldn’t bear the pain in my parents’ eyes as they desperately tried not to blame me. Couldn’t bear to be inside my own head. I’d like to say I spent my time trying to live the good life Will no doubt would have lived, but I didn’t. I’ve bummed around, taken casual jobs here and there and, for the last five years, since my parents died, lived off my inheritance, as well as what should have been Will’s. Which is the only reason I had the money to fly back so quickly when the police asked me to.

  I booked a first-class ticket. I could say it’s because I was honouring Will by travelling in style. Toasting his memory with my free champagne.

  But that would be a lie. I did it because I could.

  In spite of my luxurious seat, Michelin chef-designed food and all the alcohol I can drink (which I take advantage of fully) the journey is hellish. We are diverted because of the snow, the likes of which they haven’t seen since, ironically, the winter Will died. We eventually land at an airport miles away from the one we were headed to, and it seems that paying thousands of pounds for a posh seat doesn’t get you on a coach any faster. Nor does it help when the roads become so blocked that you have to sleep in a school sports hall with dozens of other people, being served hot soup by kindly French ladies from the Croix Rouge.

  I feel sorry for the couples and families around me – grumbling about losing time out of their precious holidays, griping about the conditions in the hall and about the lack of information while young exhausted-looking reps in colourful jackets force smiles and say again and again platitudes along the lines of: ‘I’m sorry, sir, the roads are blocked and there’s nothing more we can do. As soon as we have any more information, we’ll let you know.’ I feel a wave of nausea as I see that some of the reps are from Powder Puff, the company we travelled with on my last ski trip, the one I took with Will.

  So while these families are desperate to get to their planned destinations, I’d rather be going anywhere else except the mountains. If travel wasn’t already so tricky, I’d be tempted to turn straight round and go back to the airport, back to my beach. Pretend I couldn’t get through. Say I tried, but it simply wasn’t to be.

  Why am I even here? There seems very little doubt that the body they’ve found is Will. Coming here isn’t going to bring him back.

  Perhaps it will help me.

  Then again, perhaps it won’t.

  38

  January 2020, La Madière, France

  Hugo

  ‘God, this is so BORING,’ Ria whines, yet again. We’ve already played Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, poker and blackjack today. The snow has knocked out the internet and satellite TV. We had sex at least, so that’s something, but Ria is now pacing about like a caged animal.

  ‘I’ve had enough of being here,’ she snaps. ‘When do you think we can leave? I really want to go home.’

  ‘Darling, you know what Millie said. The roads are closed today. Even if they weren’t, there have been loads of flight cancellations and so it’s very unlikely we’d be able to get ourselves onto a plane. The weather’s due to get better in a couple of days, so we should be able to get our flight as planned and until then—’

  ‘A couple of days!’ Ria shrieks. ‘There must be something you can do, Hugo.’

  I pull a face. ‘Um, no. I’m flattered that you think I’m so powerful, but I can’t compete with the worst snowstorm they’ve seen in twenty-odd years.’

  I try to take her hand. ‘There are worse places to be stuck, my love,’ I say. ‘It’s very comfortable here, everyone is safe and warm, and we have Millie cooking us some great food.’

  ‘And the wine’s good,’ Simon adds, lifting his glass in a ‘cheers’ motion. It’s only about four o’clock and he’s already a good way through a bottle.

  Ria pulls away from me and leans her head against the huge window. I can hear Inigo crying upstairs again. ‘It’s so claustrophobic though,’ Ria complains. ‘I just want to go home.’

  39

  BEFORE

  When I woke up, Mama was gone. Again. I went to school because I had had enough of dealing with her stuff and now that I was old enough to look after myself I didn’t feel I needed to call Anna straight away every time. Mama would probably be back by the time I got home and there would have been a whole lot of fuss and disruption for nothing – as usual.

  But later that day when I was in maths there was a message that I was to go and see the head teacher.

  Instantly I felt sick. Oh God. What had Mama done now? Had she been sectioned again? The worst time was when they found her in Tesco in her nightie pulling stuff off the shelves and some of the kids from school saw her and knew who she was. I hoped it was nothing like that.

  I wasn’t surprised to see Anna in the head teacher’s office as she always came along when this kind of thing happened but the two police officers – a man and a woman – took me by surprise. I guessed their presence must mean that she’d been arrested.

  ‘Ah, there you are. Thank you for coming. Would you sit down, please?’

  I’d never heard Mrs Hardcastle, the head teacher, speak so softly. ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.’

  ‘Is it Mama?’ I asked, pointlessly, because of course it was. What else could it have been?

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is,’ Anna answered. Her voice sounded strained, almost as if she was trying to stop herself from crying. This was far from the first time Anna had come to school to give me bad news about Mama, but she was never usually emotional about it.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. My voice cracked. ‘What’s happened this time?’

  Anna came over to me and took my hand. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this, but I’m afraid your mother was found dead earlier today.’

  I looked at Anna and saw that her eyes were filled with tears. But I must have misheard. ‘I’m sorry? You said she’s dead? But I saw her last night … Dead?’ I shook my head. ‘You must have got it wrong. I saw her. She was at home. With me.’

  Anna looked at the policewoman and then back at me. ‘There will be an investigation, of course, but I’m afraid it looks like she may have killed herself deliberately.’ She paused. ‘She fell from the top of a car park in town. She would have died instantly and wouldn’t have suffered.’

  I snatched my hand away from Anna and put both hands over my ears. ‘No, no, no!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t say that! You’re wrong!’

  I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. I hadn’t noticed I was crying.

  Anna pulled my hands gently away from my ears and took me in her arms as I sobbed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Anna said softly. ‘I’ve arranged temporary foster care for you for the time being and we’ll talk about all the other … arrangements later. Would you like to go now?’

  I looked up at her and
wiped my eyes but the tears wouldn’t stop coming. ‘To Rhonda’s?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m afraid Rhonda can’t take you this time. It’s another family, but you’ll be very well looked after.’

  And so began the worst few years of my life. It turned out Rhonda had breast cancer and that taking on foster children had become too much for her along with the chemo. And while living with Mama had been unstable and unpredictable, underneath it all, I felt like somewhere deep inside, she loved me. And I loved her. Home was home and she was my mama. With her gone, and without Rhonda, I felt like I had nothing.

  My new foster parents were kind enough but they preferred to take in older children, like me. And many older children in the care system have been through some grim things in their lives and are, like me, fairly damaged. Sandra and Terry seemed like good people and did their best to create the family atmosphere I’d grown to love at Rhonda’s but when there was so much violence, hatred, and noise from some of my transient foster brothers and sisters, it was often quite frightening to be at home. It was only when one of the boys sexually assaulted me that I managed to get moved to a different foster home. Rhonda was still too ill to take me, though we kept in touch. I moved often, from place to place. Some of my placements were better than others, but I felt permanently dislocated and longed for a home of my own.

  I followed Mama’s lead and started cutting myself. It was the only way I could make myself feel something. That, or letting men and boys I hardly knew touch me in ways they shouldn’t have been doing when I was still basically a child. I enjoyed the power I held over them, even if I felt dirty afterwards. I had weird dreams about hurting people and would wake up strangely excited. I never told my therapists about that. I wasn’t sure if it was normal, and I didn’t want to be put away like Mama sometimes had been.

  Occasionally I felt angry at Mama for what she had done. Why had she abandoned me yet again? Did she give any thought at all to what might happen to me when she left me all alone in the world, aged just fifteen?

 

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