Finally she prised him off the phone and went up to bed. She put Grace in Vicky’s room, lent her a nightie and found her a fresh towel in the airing cupboard, then shut her bedroom door and stood there, not knowing quite what to do.
She didn’t dare undress. Crazy, probably, but she didn’t feel safe enough. Instead she unpacked her case, hanging up the dress she’d worn last night in Cardiff—so long ago. Lifetimes. She couldn’t bear to think about it. He’d even toasted her, his eyes shining with sincerity.
‘To you—for being the most special woman I’ve ever met. One of the bravest, kindest, least selfish people it’s ever been my privilege to know. And to us.’
What us? Her and who, exactly? Some tough, ruthless undercover agent with a pretty line in lies? So much for his sincerity. She wrapped the pashmina around her shoulders and curled onto the chair by the window, wide, restless eyes watching the market square for signs of life.
There were none, but at about four in the morning she saw Tigger slinking nervously through the undergrowth in the front garden, and she went down and let him in. He was unscathed, and for once seemed pleased to see her.
‘You have no idea what you’ve done,’ she told him unsteadily, but the cat just rubbed himself against her legs and purred and then settled himself on the windowsill and washed.
She made a pot of tea, thinking as she drained it that so much caffeine on top of all the drama probably wasn’t good for her but not caring one way or the other. She had to do something, and sleep wasn’t an option.
She checked the plastic over the window in the study, and it was fine, but her moving around disturbed Grace who came down and kept her company.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, and Annie shrugged.
‘I don’t know. I want to run away, but how can I? I’ve got the girls to think about as well as Stephen, and the tearoom, and this house—I don’t know where to start.’
‘You could start by talking to Michael—in front of the police, if necessary, if that makes you feel safe? Or me. I’d come with you, if you want. Tim? Ruth? Maybe all of us.’
‘And who can I trust, apart from you? I don’t even know for sure about Tim. How do I really know he’s a policeman?’
Grace sighed and sat back, hugging her knee to her chest. ‘You have to start somewhere, Annie. You have to trust someone. I’ve seen his ID, but if you want proof phone the police—ask about him.’
She nodded, and reached for the phone book. ‘I’ll do it now.’
She did, and it seemed Tim was, indeed, a policeman. A detective inspector in the CID. A trawl on the internet revealed that DI Warren was very highly thought of. He had commendations for bravery, and he’d worked with victim support groups and on numerous rape cases.
And he thought Michael was a good man. Thought she should give him a chance.
She felt the threat recede a little, but the hurt and suspicion remained. She had to talk to Michael, she knew that, if only to thank him for saving Stephen’s life.
Just not yet.
* * *
He had to see Michael. He knew there was something his mum wasn’t telling him. She never lied, but she didn’t always tell him everything. She hadn’t when his dad was dying, and she had that same something odd in her voice, and he didn’t know why.
He just knew he had to see Michael, to know he was alive and not badly hurt, because it had all been his fault and there was a sick lump in his chest that wouldn’t go away.
So on Tuesday, when everyone went to lunch, he told Ed he was going to the loo and slipped out of the gate when the dinner lady wasn’t looking and ran down the road.
He knew the way to the barn. Down the hill, over the bridge and through the wiggly bends, up the hill and then along the track to the right. But it was further than he’d thought, and it was raining, and he was cold and his legs were aching by the time he arrived.
He reached up and rang the doorbell, and nothing happened for ages. He must be dead, he was thinking, but then the door opened slowly and Michael stood there, staring down at him, and all he could do was cry.
* * *
He couldn’t believe it. The kid was standing in the freezing rain, tears coursing down his cheeks, and fear ripped through him. He stooped and gathered the boy into his arms, and he burrowed into the space between Michael’s neck and shoulder and whimpered, and the fear grew tenfold.
His arms tightened. ‘What’s wrong, Stephen? What’s happened?’
‘N-nothing,’ he hiccuped. ‘I thought you were dead. Mummy wouldn’t let me see you, and I thought you must be dead—’
He felt tears in his own eyes, and blinked them savagely away, his hand finding and cradling the cold, wet head burrowing into him. ‘It’s all right, son. I’m fine. I just had a headache for a bit. Come on, let’s get inside and tell your mum where you are.’
‘She’ll kill me,’ he sobbed.
‘No, she won’t. She’ll be worried, though. We don’t want her to worry. Why don’t you go and dry off and I’ll ring her? There’s some towels in the wet room by the pool.’
He put the boy down, squeezed his shoulder for reassurance, and then as Stephen headed for the door, he picked up the phone and dialled her number.
She answered on the first ring. ‘Stephen?’ she said frantically, just as the sirens sounded outside his house.
‘I’ve got him here,’ he told her. ‘He’s—’
‘What do you want with him?’ she cried, her voice panic-stricken, pleading. ‘You can have anything—I’ll do anything, but please don’t take him—’
He was stunned. ‘Annie, I’m not taking him anywhere. What kind of a monster do you think I am? He just turned up, wringing wet and miserable—’
He glanced over his shoulder as the police burst in, and closed his eyes.
‘He’s through there,’ he told them heavily, just as Stephen wandered back into the kitchen, rubbing his hair with a towel. ‘Stephen, come and talk to your mother.’
He held out the phone, and the WPC took it and handed it to the boy, as if he couldn’t be trusted to give him the receiver himself. She couldn’t stop him looking at his son, though, and Stephen kept his eyes on Michael as he spoke, as if for moral support, and his lip started to wobble again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you, Mummy, but I thought Michael was dead, like Dad and my father, and I didn’t want him to die too—’
Michael closed his eyes, squeezing them tight to hold back the tears. Poor little bastard. God, he loved him so much it hurt—
A hand landed on his shoulder.
‘We’d like you to come down to the station with us, sir,’ a voice said, and he turned and stared at the man in disbelief.
‘I have done nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘Ask him. Ask the boy.’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Ask DI Warren, then. He’ll vouch for me.’
‘We’ll talk to him at the station.’
He resisted the urge to swear in front of the child, but there were some choice words running through his mind as he picked up his wallet and his keys.
‘What about Stephen?’
‘You let us worry about the boy, sir.’
‘I’m not leaving him here with strangers. He’s scared enough. When that tree fell—’
He looked across at his son, identical blue eyes meeting across the chaos, and Stephen ran to him.
He caught him in his arms, cradling him against his chest. ‘I have to go, son,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’ll be OK. Your mum’ll be here in a minute.’
He heard the skid of tyres on gravel, and Annie ran through the door and stopped dead, staring at him.
For a long moment he met her eyes, reading distrust and fear and
the soul-deep pain of betrayal, and knew he’d done this to her. He’d gambled, and he’d lost. When he allowed himself to think about it, the pain would kill him, but for now he had to go along with this farce.
He unwound Stephen’s arms from his neck and handed him to his mother without a word, then turned back to the policeman who was waiting less than patiently.
‘OK. Let’s get this over with.’
* * *
‘Why did the police want to talk to Michael, Mummy?’
Annie shook her head. ‘I didn’t know where you’d gone. I thought you might have gone there.’ That he might have taken you, the most precious thing in my life—
‘But why the police? Why didn’t you just come and get me?’
She couldn’t give him a proper answer, not without going into things she couldn’t even begin to discuss with him, so she just hugged him again and said, ‘I’m sorry. I overreacted. I was just frightened for you.’
‘But Michael wouldn’t hurt me,’ he said, puzzled. ‘He likes me, I know he does.’
Such innocence. ‘Just promise me you won’t do it again,’ she said, holding him at arm’s length and looking searchingly at him. ‘Promise.’
‘I promise,’ he mumbled. ‘But I want to see him. He said I could swim and stuff.’
‘He said that today?’ Bribing him? She’d kill him—
‘No. Last week. I told you.’
She relaxed a fraction. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, the stock parental response to anything too difficult to deal with immediately. ‘But you must promise me you won’t leave school like that and run off ever again.’
‘I already promised,’ Stephen said, his bottom lip sticking out.
‘And if he comes to the school to see you, you aren’t to go with him.’
‘Why would he do that?’ he asked, clearly puzzled.
‘I don’t know. But you mustn’t go anywhere with anyone unless I know about it, OK?’
‘OK. Am I in trouble at school?’
She shook her head. ‘No. You’re not in trouble, darling. We were just all worried about you.’ And they won’t let you out of sight ever again if I have anything to do with it, because I’d die if anything happened to you, but only after I’d killed anyone who would harm so much as a single hair on your precious head—
‘Mummy, what did Michael do wrong? Why are you so frightened of him? I thought you were friends.’
Oh, Lord. The perception of the child.
‘He lied to me,’ she said.
‘But he wouldn’t hurt me,’ he said again.
What kind of a monster do you think I am?
‘I’ll talk to him,’ she promised.
‘Today?’
‘Maybe. Do you think Ed’s mum would let you stay again tonight, so I can go and talk to him?’
He nodded. ‘She said I could stay there till our house was mended, if I like.’
‘I’ll do it tonight then.’
If I can find the courage…
* * *
‘Michael?’
He opened his eyes and stared at her, wondering if she was really there or if he’d conjured her up out of his desperate imagination.
No. She was real—and she looked scared to death. He sat up slowly, dried his hands and reached for the remote, turning off the music that was threatening to blow the barn apart.
The silence was shattering, broken only by the bubbling of the Jacuzzi, and right on cue even that fell silent.
‘I rang the bell. I couldn’t make you hear,’ she said, her hands twisting together.
‘Sorry. I had the music on.’ Idiot. She knows you had the music on. Oh, Annie, don’t look at me like that—
‘I’ll get out,’ he said and, reaching for the towel, he stood up, turning his back so she didn’t start accusing him of anything else.
He heard the sound of her indrawn breath.
The scars. Damn. He hadn’t even thought of it, but no doubt seeing them in the oblique lighting of the barn would just enhance the horror of the livid ridges and corrugated flesh. That was why he’d kept his robe on at the hotel.
He turned slowly to face her, the towel wrapped firmly round his waist. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not a pretty sight.’
‘That tree could have killed you,’ she said, and he realised she wasn’t talking about the scars at all, but about the bruises that he hadn’t even looked at.
‘I’m fine, Annie.’
‘It could have killed all of us if it wasn’t for you. I wanted to thank you.’
He shrugged into a robe, walked through into the kitchen, took a glass and filled it with iced water, drained it. ‘For what?’ he asked bitterly. ‘Saving my son’s life?’
There. It was said, and it vibrated in the air between them like some kind of emotional gauntlet. Would she have the courage to pick it up?
* * *
Annie swallowed. ‘Ruth said I should listen to you—hear what you had to say. Tim said I should give you a chance. But I’m scared, Michael. Or Etienne. You see, I don’t even know who you are—’
‘My name’s Michael Armstrong,’ he said, his voice flat and expressionless. ‘I’m thirty-eight, I left school at eighteen and joined the army. My mother died when I was twenty, my father a year later. I was recruited into military intelligence. My mother was French—the wine we drank the other night came from my uncle’s vineyard. That’s how I knew so much about wine, from staying with Antoine in the summers when I was growing up. I was raised bilingual. My godmother’s name is Peggy, my godfather’s Malcolm. They’re the nearest thing I have to parents, and until three weeks ago, they thought I was dead. They now know I’m alive.’
She stared at him, taking it all in slowly, wondering how his poor godparents must have felt all that time. No. She knew how they’d felt. ‘Do you still work for the military?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I was invalided out. They gave me a new identity—a new start.’
‘And you came here. Why?’
He sighed and rammed a hand through his hair, wincing when he caught the bump with his fingertips. ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right. You’d told me where you were going, what you were going to do. It made it easy to find you.’
She shivered. Even then, all that time ago, he had been following her—
‘Did you use me, as part of your cover? In France. Did you use me to give yourself more credibility?’
He shook his head, but his answer wasn’t what she’d expected. It was far more chilling. ‘No—although it wouldn’t have hurt my cover at all. I kept close to you because I didn’t like the way Gaultier was looking at you. I knew what the bastard was capable of, and I wanted to make sure you were safe. Falling in love with you was a complication I could have done without, though.’
She flinched at the brutal honesty of that remark, but he was obviously done with lies. He went on.
‘I came to find you once I was out of hospital, and discovered you were married and you had a child. But the register of births didn’t show a father’s name, so I didn’t think it could be Roger, or you would have put him down. And besides, you called him Stephen. Etienne is French for Stephen, and I was vain enough to imagine you might have called him after me.’
He looked away. ‘I bought this barn and started converting it. It helped my mind work, helped the writing. Gave me some kind of physical outlet. And I could watch over you. I had a motorbike, and I used to ride through the market square and try and catch a glimpse of you. And then the Ancient House came up for sale, just after I sold my first book, and so I bought it with the advance, and moved Ruth in there.
‘She needed somewhere to live, she’d been through hell and was still not right, but she wanted to liv
e alone again. She’d been here with me until then, roughing it on a building site but preferring it to being vulnerable. Did she tell you what happened?’
‘She said she was raped.’
He snorted. ‘She had a system—when it all got too tight for comfort, when it looked as if the punters were going to get serious and she needed to get out, she’d press her pager and an officer in a car would cruise round the corner and pick her up, pretending to be a customer. Then one night the car didn’t come. It was held up in traffic, some stupid shunt. He came running on foot, just in time to see her being dragged into a car.’
A muscle worked in his jaw. ‘I saw the forensics. There were twelve men, at least. She nearly died. They had to do a hysterectomy to save her. She’ll never have children, but I think it’s a miracle she can have a relationship with a man at all. It says a lot about Tim and the kind of man he is.’
She felt her eyes fill with tears. Talk about above and beyond the call of duty. So much sacrifice. She began to get a feel for what they’d all been through, but still, she couldn’t understand why he hadn’t come clean as soon as he could.
She searched his face, looking for clues. For the elusive truth. ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were? I mean, I know you couldn’t before, but when you could? Why didn’t you say something then? Why carry on the lie?’
He sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair again, wincing again as he forgot the bruise. ‘Because I wanted to know if you could love me. Me, Michael—not Etienne, not the father of your child, but me, the man I am now, the real man, not the man I was pretending to be, the man you thought you loved. And I wanted to know if I loved you still, loved the woman you’d become. The wife, the mother, the businesswoman. You were just a girl. You might have changed—but you hadn’t.’
His voice softened. ‘You were still Annie, and I knew the moment I spoke to you that nothing felt any different. I still loved you. I still do. More now than ever. And I’m sorry I blew it. I was going to tell you on Sunday night, but the tree got in the way.’
She wasn’t going to give in. Not yet, not when there were still things she needed to have answered. She wrapped her arms round her, hugging herself. ‘You spied on me for nine years, Michael. Do you have any idea what that makes me feel like? To have been stalked, all that time?’
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