“I’ll put the kettle on,” he said. “Or did you want a beer?”
As the Baileys she’d drunk earlier was playing catch up, Natalie thought she’d rather not. “Could I have a coffee, please?”
“Sure, take a seat.” He squeezed between the furniture and into what was presumably the kitchen - an area divided off by the grubby-looking counter, with a small sink, microwave and a two-ringed hob.
Natalie sat on the bench, crashing her knee against the table as she did so. You’d have to be a munchkin to live in such a place. How could he bear the mess?
While the kettle boiled he told her his name was Geraint, and then proceeded to make small talk about the fair. She nodded to be polite but her insides were churning. What was she doing? Her father would kill her if he knew where she was.
On the other hand, so might this guy.
He returned to the table with two mugs but sat opposite her. Natalie relaxed the grip on her cardigan and took one of the mugs from his hand, inadvertently revealing the curve of her breast and a lot of goosepimples. Fortunately he didn’t notice. The coffee was too hot, so she placed the mug back on the table and searched around for something to say.
“Do you share this caravan with your girlfriend?”
“I live with my cousin.”
“Your female cousin?”
His mouth stretched into a smile. “No, Bryn’s definitely a guy.”
“He works here too?”
“We all do. It’s a family business.”
She began to relax. “That is so cool. I’d love to work at a funfair.”
His smile promptly vanished. “It’s not all rides and candyfloss.”
“You don’t enjoy it?”
“It’s not the sort of job you choose. It’s my uncle’s business and - ” he shrugged and took a long drink from his mug.
“What would you do,” she asked him, “if you could do anything?”
“I’ve never thought about it. You have to take what life chucks at you and make the best of it. There’s no point dreaming for something different.”
Abashed, she reached for her mug, taking it in both hands, deliberately mirroring his position. It was one of Sarah’s tricks. She could feel the heat of the coffee warm her fingertips. His hands, tanned and slightly oil-stained, were only inches from her own.
She shuffled in her seat. The cardigan slipped from one shoulder. This time it was deliberate. She watched for a reaction but, although those beautiful peridot eyes never left hers, his expression wasn’t right; the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, even though she’d not said anything funny. Where had she gone wrong?
The door behind them opened. There was hardly time to turn her head to see who it was when she heard a furious, “What the hell is going on?”
Natalie slopped her coffee across the table in fright. Jumping up to avoid getting it on her clothes, she stumbled over one of the radios and fell against the girl standing in the doorway. A girl with distinctive white-blonde hair. It was impressive timing to say the least.
“Sarah … ” she said, unsure whether to be pleased or put out.
Sarah Grove had the same blonde hair but had styled it with straightening irons. Her eyes were the deep dark blue of a Mediterranean sky, instead of a ghost-like grey. Her nose was straight, rather than tilted towards the heavens, and her lips were full. Sarah didn’t need to pad her bra or wear layer upon layer of carefully applied make-up to look sexy. She just was.
She’s the original, Natalie thought sadly. I’m only the copy.
Sarah scooped up the radio Natalie had tripped over and thrust it into Geraint’s hands.
“Sorry to spoil the moment,” she told him, “but you do know she’s only fifteen?”
“Fifteen?” Even in the gloom of the caravan there was no mistaking his horror. “I knew she was young but - ” He looked at Natalie. “Fifteen?”
“Nearly sixteen,” Natalie said, aware there was a note of pleading in her voice. “It’s my birthday in less than a week. Why is that such a big deal?”
“Because I would never have - ” He broke off, looking from Natalie to Sarah and back again, visibly confused. “This is your sister, right?” he asked Natalie. “The one you were searching for?”
“Not searching particularly hard, obviously,” said her sister.
“Sarah!”
Her sister’s gaze softened, but only for a moment. “I’ll deal with you later.”
“We were only drinking coffee,” he said, his expression serious. “I had no idea of her age. Besides, I’m not that kind of guy.”
Sarah glared at him. He held her gaze so that she was forced to look away first.
“I suppose you followed me?” she said to Natalie.
Natalie nodded miserably. This had to be the most humiliating night of her life. Finally she’d met a boy who hadn’t been dazzled by her sister first, and now he was about to be snatched away from her? It was beyond unfair.
“What the hell were you thinking? Do you know what Dad will do if he catches you out at night? If he catches you here, with him?”
The stale air in the caravan seemed to be making it difficult to breathe.
Natalie shook her head, unable to form a reply.
“I’ll take her home,” Geraint said calmly.
Sarah did not even look at him. “Sweet, but completely unnecessary. Alicia can do that.”
For the first time, Natalie noticed another girl standing halfway up the caravan steps. She had distinctive red curls, the effect ruined by a black sequinned beanie jammed over her head. In contrast to the tight clothes favoured by Sarah and Natalie, Alicia’s attire could only be described as ‘comfy’ - jeans, and a sweater which stretched to her knees. She was staring round the scruffy caravan with an air of faint disbelief, as though she’d fallen down a rabbit hole into Wonderland. Or possibly Hell.
“Alicia?” repeated Sarah testily.
Alicia turned her head. Her curls took a moment to catch up. “What?”
“Remember how you were saying you were feeling sick and wanted to go home?”
“Oh, I feel fine, thank you. I expect it was that last ride on the Afterburner.”
Sarah must have pulled a face because the next moment Alicia had a visible light bulb moment and nodded, curls bouncing. “Oh yes, very sick, possibly food poisoning. I’m on my way home right now. Would you like to come with me, Natalie?”
Natalie hesitated.
“Off you go, sweetheart,” Sarah said cheerfully.
Natalie found herself propelled down the caravan steps before she quite realised what was happening. While Alicia set off in long strides across the field, towards the lights of the fair, Natalie glanced back to say goodbye to Geraint, only to find Sarah was hanging behind.
“Aren’t you coming too?” she asked her sister.
“Not yet. I have a proposition I’d like to discuss with your friend.”
It was no consolation to Natalie that Geraint, overhearing every word of this exchange, did not appear pleased about the prospect either.
“If you’re staying, why should I go home?” she protested, resisting the temptation to childishly snap: ‘He’s mine - I saw him first!’
Sarah put her arm around her shoulders, drawing her away from the light spilling through the caravan door and said, in a low voice that only she could hear, “Please, Nat, do it for me?”
Geraint was still leaning against the door of the caravan, his arms folded, watching them.
“But I like him,” she whispered back. “He’s really nice.”
“Oh, sweetheart … He must be in his twenties - far too old for you!”
“But perfect for you?” She pulled herself out of Sarah’s embrace. “You want him for yourself!”
“God no, he’s not my type at all! Please go home, before you get us both into trouble.”
“Couldn’t you at least give him our phone number?”
“Natalie! Go home!”
“Not
until you tell me what this is about. What’s this ‘proposition’?”
Sarah sighed. “I can’t explain right now, but trust me when I say I’m in real trouble, OK? The very worst.”
“You’re not pregnant?”
“Thankfully not!” Sarah gently turned her away from the caravan. “Go home with Alicia, she’ll look after you. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Because I suspect your new friend is exactly the sort of person who can help me.”
13
Present
Alicia’s father had given her the Old Rectory on her marriage to James Fitzpatrick - a bit of a shotgun affair, as she had been three months pregnant at the time. No one had much faith in the longevity of their marriage, least of all Sir Henry Vyne, because he arranged that the house should be in her name only. On her death it would revert to whichever child (or children) did not inherit the castle. “A consolation prize,” he had joked at the time.
Predictably James had not thought this funny. “Another bloody entail,” had been his only comment, but then he was the second youngest of five, with no prospect of inheriting anything.
Whatever his feelings on the gift, they couldn’t afford to turn it down. The Old Rectory was a beautiful, six-bedroomed Georgian manor house, set in a large, sprawling garden. The alternative would have been the tiny flat they had been renting in Norchester.
They had been eighteen when they married and both still at college. Now James could continue his teacher training and not have to worry about rent or mortgage payments. Once Lexi came into their lives, Alicia stayed home to look after her and began continuing her father’s research on the castle and their family’s history.
She was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. Every morning she would get up early, sneak downstairs and write up the previous day’s research before the rest of her family was awake. Once the children were safely at school, she’d continue working either in the castle library, or the local archives, until it was time to collect them.
Hearing James coming down the stairs in the morning was usually her signal to switch off her computer and start cooking breakfast, but today it was the sound of the doorbell.
Ensuring her dressing gown was securely belted, Alicia opened the front door. On the other side was a delivery man, and on the ground by his feet was a large cardboard box with a picture of a floral arrangement on it.
“Sign here,” said the delivery man.
Alicia dutifully signed and took the box from him, closing the door with her foot. Attached to the box was a small envelope with a card inside. It was hard to read the card in the murkiness of the hall, but then James switched on the overhead light.
“‘Sorry, love Nat’,” he read over her shoulder. “What’s she got to be sorry about?”
“I dread to think.” Alicia placed the card back on top of the box. “Are you leaving now? You haven’t had your breakfast.”
James, unable to pass a mirror without checking his reflection, was straightening his tie. He looked more like a wealthy banker than the headteacher of a comprehensive school. She felt her stomach melt into a familiar pool of desire but, before she could act on it, he’d moved away to tug the newspaper from the letter box.
He held it up. “I came to see what had happened to my newspaper.”
She took the flowers into the kitchen and left them on the counter until she had the time to unpack them. Lexi and Will had helped themselves to breakfast. For once they weren’t arguing, but that was because they were watching TV. As James returned to his seat he picked up the remote and began flicking through the channels.
Will glanced up, his freckled face scowling. “We were watching that!”
“My house, my TV,” grunted James. Opening the newspaper, he turned automatically to the sports pages.
“You’re not even looking at it,” said Will.
Lexi surreptitiously picked up the remote and tried to flick back to the channel they had been watching. In error, she ended up on one of the lifestyle programmes. Before she could try again, James had confiscated the remote.
“I don’t want bloody cartoons playing while I’m trying to read.”
“You could read in the study?” suggested Lexi. At fourteen, she’d recently developed a tendency to argue with everything her parents said.
“No, I couldn’t,” said James. “It is important for us to sit together at mealtimes. Sometimes it’s the only chance we have to catch up on any news, talk about our achievements - ”
“But we don’t talk!” said Lexi. “You read the paper, we watch the TV, and no one talks about anything.”
“All right, so let’s talk.” James brought the remote back to table level and hit the off button. As Will was sat between the remote and TV, nothing happened. He was about to try again when Will let out an excited shriek.
“It’s Natalie! On TV!”
The kitchen TV was small, the screen needed dusting and Will’s ginger head obstructed a lot of the view, but after his sister had shoved him out of the way, sure enough there was Natalie, her usual insouciant self.
“You didn’t tell me Natalie was going to be on TV,” James said to Alicia.
“I didn’t know!”
“Which programme is this?”
“Camilla Hoffman. Every morning she reviews new books, music and films released during the week.”
“Natalie’s got a new book out?”
“Yes - that is, I knew she was working on something but she never tells me - ”
Alicia was interrupted by a horrific screech as Will scraped his chair closer to the TV. “I can’t hear!” he protested.
James racked the volume up as the camera flipped to the TV presenter, who was holding a book up at the camera.
Four heads craned forward to read the title.
Like all of Natalie’s books, the cover was black and had her name and the title - Obsession - picked out in silver. Beneath was a simple etching of a flower.
Alicia had a sense of foreboding.
The TV presenter was still talking, although she’d now put the book down on a small coffee table beside the lurid pink sofa she and Natalie were sitting on.
“You must get tired of people asking you this question, but do you ever base the plots of your books on what happened to your family? I’m speaking, of course, of the tragic death of your sister, who was murdered at the age of seventeen.”
Alicia held her breath.
She needn’t have worried; Natalie hardly paused before answering, “I never grow tired of talking about my sister. I adored her and I was devastated when she was killed. However, all my books are complete fiction.”
“Have you ever thought about writing a biography of your sister’s life?”
“My speciality is fiction,” Natalie repeated politely. “So I’d hardly know how to go about it.”
“You must have been only a child at the time of her death?”
“I was fifteen.”
“So much of what happened would have been kept from you?”
“Children understand a lot more than adults give them credit for. I was always aware of what was being said, what was going on. Adults would talk in front of me and think I wouldn’t understand what they were saying. But I did.”
“You were the one who found her body?”
“Yes.”
“How did that make you feel?”
Even beneath the TV make-up, Alicia could see Natalie’s skin blanch.
The silence stretched on. Camilla made no attempt to fill it, waiting patiently until Natalie had to either answer or tactfully evade the question.
“Everything I’ve done, the person I have become, has all been influenced by my sister’s death,” she said at last. “It’s tainted my entire life and I admit I’ve become obsessed with discovering the truth about what happened that night.”
“Sarah’s killer was never found?”
“No.”
“There was extensive press coverage at the time. The police issued a
warrant for a fairground worker named Geraint Llewellyn. Did you ever meet him?”
“No, he was Sarah’s friend, not mine.”
“You must really miss her.”
“She meant everything to me,” Natalie told her. “She was a typical big sister - one minute moaning at me for borrowing her clothes; the next, taking my side in an argument. That’s the very worst thing, having to live my life without her.”
“I can’t imagine what you went through, at such a young age too. How on earth did you cope?”
There was only the slightest hesitation before Natalie said, “I saw a bereavement counsellor for a time, but there comes a point when you just have to get on with it. I still have bad days but, when I become really down, I like to re-read her diary. It feels as though she’s talking directly to me.”
“What did Sarah write about in this diary?”
“The usual things - school, clothes, music, parties - ”
“Did she talk about her friends?”
“Yes, Sarah was very popular.”
“Did she have any boyfriends?”
“Of course,” said Natalie. “My sister was stunning.”
“Was Geraint Llewellyn her boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Did she ever mention him in the diary?”
“No.”
“Could one of these other boyfriends have killed your sister?”
“The police did interview everyone at the time, so I think it’s unlikely.”
“Does she mention the names of these boyfriends?”
“Not really. It’s typical teenage girl stuff. You know, ‘I saw ‘M’ at school today, he asked me out again’ - that kind of thing.”
“No names then?”
“Only initials, or silly nicknames, like ‘the doctor’ or ‘the teacher’ - ”
“Your sister dated a teacher?”
Alicia seized the remote and hit the off switch. “Time for school, kids!” she said brightly.
James stared at the blank screen as though in some kind of trance. “I can’t believe she said that.”
“Perhaps we could discuss it later?” Alicia nodded in the direction of the children. Will, bored, was drawing faces with his egg yolk but Lexi, like her father, had become completely absorbed in the interview. “Kids, could you please get ready for school?”
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