“Diary?” Unexpectedly he laughed. It transformed his sallow, sunken features, revealing a brief glimpse of the handsome man he had once been. “You got all this from a diary? Then you’re twice the fool I thought you to be. This ain’t about Sarah. It never was.”
It was as though she had something stuck in her throat, making it hard to breathe …
“What is it about?”
“I never wanted to get married,” he said. Again, the abrupt change of subject almost sent her head spinning. “It wasn’t my idea. Your mum said she was up the duff and, fool that I was, I believed her and offered to do the right thing. I didn’t know she was carrying on with him, that devil up at the castle. Now he was never going to do the right thing.”
“Sir Henry was Sarah’s father?” Natalie was surprised she sounded so calm.
“Oh, no,” he grinned. “I reckon she told him Sarah was his kid. The silly bitch thought she could marry him and live at the castle - happy ever after, like a bloody fairy story. But I had the last laugh. You’re both my kids all right. You’re both the spitting image of me.”
Natalie waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. No more explanations, no excuses, no regrets. She waited - but John broke eye contact and she knew she waited in vain.
“Look,” he said, shifting slightly in the wheelchair, “We’ve said what we had to say. You’ve got it off your chest. You don’t need to come again.”
Was that what he thought this was all about?
“You don’t want to visit me,” he continued. “I know that. I understand. You hate me - but what I don’t understand is why you keep coming back. Revenge? You’ve got to let it go, girl.” He prodded the soil in the pot that held his citrus plant, to test whether it needed watering. “Save yourself the bother, all right? Or you’ll end up like your mother. Bitter and twisted, and wallowing in your own bile.”
Resolution was slipping through her fingers. “You had a visitor, do you remember?”
“No.”
“They bought you this plant.”
He wiped the soil from his fingers onto his trousers. “It was a present.”
“From whom?”
“What does it matter?” He waved a dismissive hand.
“It matters to me.”
“It’s irrelevant.” He wheeled himself back to his favourite position in the bay window. “What if you did find out who killed Sarah? You reckon it’s going to change anything? You reckon your life is going to be any better? Take it from me; you’ve got to let it go. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. You’d do well to keep that in mind.”
“I can’t. I can’t just let it go! I’ve got to find out who did this!”
“Then you’re a bloody fool - because it ain’t about you and Sarah, it never was.”
As he drew level with the window, the wheelchair ceased all motion. It was as though a switch had been flicked and whatever electrical impulses had been coursing through his brain now crashed. His eyes slipped out of focus, the angle of his head seemed to slip forward and to the side. His lips parted and a dribble of saliva emerged from the corner of his mouth.
If she had not felt so infuriated, she would have been impressed by his performance.
She grabbed his shoulder and tried to shake some sense into him. “Cut it out!”
There was a movement behind her. Jason, the handsome careworker she’d met on her previous visit, had come into the room carrying a tray with a jug of water and a plastic beaker.
“What the hell are you doing?” he exclaimed.
“Two minutes before you walked through the door, my father and I were having a perfectly lucid conversation,” Natalie told him, “and then he heard your footsteps in the corridor and returns to being this. He’s faking, why can’t any of you see that?”
“John was talking? What about?”
“He had a visitor - ”
“If you don’t want people to visit your father, you should have told us.” Jason transferred the jug and beaker onto the dresser. “I’ll give you a few moments, but then you really must leave.”
She waited until she heard his plimsolls padding away down the corridor, before turning her attention back to John.
“Who came to see you, Dad?”
She had not expected an answer but was hoping for a reaction.
She got nothing.
In frustration she kicked the wheel of his chair. “Bastard! I expect you think I won’t be coming back, but I will. You know something about Sarah’s death, something that could help - why won’t you tell me?” Already she could hear voices in the distance, then more footsteps. Jason’s rubber-soled plimsolls had been joined by the tap of Charles Fitzpatrick’s leather shoes. By concentrating on that, she missed what her father said.
“What?”
“You said you wanted to know who came to see me?” he sneered. “You think it’s so significant?”
She waited impatiently, not wanting to speak in case he withdrew into himself once more, hating that she was so dependent on his answer, and that he knew that.
“It was my nemesis,” he said. For a moment he appeared serious, and then he smirked. “You ain’t the only one out for revenge, girl. You’ve got competition.”
17
Alicia’s study was at the front of the house and had a window overlooking the garden. Facing the window was a sofa and, directly behind that, was an old-fashioned record player on which she played classical music to drown out the sound of family life. The walls were lined with shelves of books, mostly about the castle and the history of the village, some of which she’d borrowed from her father’s library.
The study had originally been the dining room but, as they always ate in the kitchen, she had claimed it for her own. James had to make do with a tiny box room at the back of the house for his office, although he had the better view - of the woods and the castle on the hill behind. All Alicia could see from her window was the jungle that was their front garden.
She’d spent the day in the County Archives, transcribing records from the surrounding villages. Now she was entering the information onto her database. The ancestor she particularly wanted to know more about had been nicknamed Daniel-the-Pirate by her family. He had stolen 20,000 ducats from the Spanish while privateering for Elizabeth I, and then promptly disappeared with it. James had pointed out that the money had probably been used to turn a draughty medieval castle into a luxurious Elizabethan home, but Alicia was not convinced. She thought she could quite easily find a use for 20,000 ducats.
Alicia was so engrossed in her work she didn’t hear the sound of a car pull up on the gravel drive outside the house, until James walked up behind her, dropped a casual kiss on top of her head and said,
“Have you found evidence of your pirate yet?”
“Just because I haven’t found him, it doesn’t mean he’s not there,” she muttered, hitting ‘save’. “Why are you home so early? I’ve not even started cooking dinner.”
“It’s not a problem,” he said, and dropped two bulky carrier bags onto her desk, one of which clunked. “I picked up a takeaway from the Indian Prince. I’ve even bought a couple of bottles of wine.”
“Why?” She swung round in the chair and regarded him dubiously. “What have you done?”
He was immaculate in the suit he’d worn all day, with only the faintest grazing of dark stubble across his chin. It would have made any other man look a slob but only served to make him more handsome. Alicia was suddenly conscious of the musty eau d’Archives pervading her clothes; that she had no make-up on and her long red hair, which she’d always considered her best feature, was scraped back into an unflattering ponytail.
He laughed. “Why would anything be wrong? I thought you deserved a treat.”
As he usually came home from work sour-faced and grumpy, Alicia felt she had a right to feel suspicious.
“OK, I have a meeting with Gabrielle about next year’s budget,” he admitted. Gabrielle Cameron, a svelte blo
nde divorcée, was chairman of the school governors. “And if we end up talking about Natalie, and that bloody TV interview, it could go on forever. Why not think of this as a peace offering?”
Or a bribe, she thought darkly.
As he rested his hands on her shoulders and began to massage them, she caught a waft of the expensive aftershave he liked. He wasn’t usually this attentive. Lately he hadn’t been attentive at all.
“You’re tense,” he said. “I thought you’d be happy with the takeaway. It means you won’t have to cook.”
He might think he was saving her time, but she’d still have to dish it up and wash up afterwards.
She tried to be nice but it was difficult to stop the note of resentment creeping into her voice. “You’ve worked late every night this week.”
“I’ll make it up to you at the weekend.”
No, he’d disappear off to the gym like he usually did.
“Where’s your meeting?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as though she was interrogating him. “Is it at the school? Will you order food to be delivered there?”
“We thought we’d eat at Jacob’s, in Port Rell,” he said, after only the briefest hesitation.
Jacob’s was the most expensive restaurant in the area.
“You won’t be able to claim that back on expenses.”
“I didn’t intend to.”
So, she was effectively paying for her husband to take another woman out for dinner?
As though realising his error, James said, “I ought to be going or I shall be late. I’ll put your food in the oven to reheat.”
“Thank you,” she said, but she wasn’t really listening.
As he moved away, taking the carrier bags with him, she turned back to the computer and was soon absorbed in her work. So much so, that when he stuck his head round the door to say ‘goodbye’, she didn’t even hear him. In fact she didn’t look up from the screen until several hours later, when the sound of the children arguing, someway above her head, awoke her from her trance.
She almost shrieked when she checked her watch. Ten o’clock? It was hours past Will’s bedtime - and she’d completely forgotten about dinner. What kind of mother was she?
When she headed into the kitchen it was littered with empty plastic containers and the scent of coriander pervaded the air. Apparently Lexi had rescued the food and shared it with her brother. Now she was trying to get him to go to bed - hence all the yelling.
Alicia went upstairs to break it up. The two of them were squared up on the landing. Will, with ginger curls and freckles, so like her own, had got as far as putting on his pyjamas and cleaning his teeth. Lexi, dark-haired and pale-skinned, like a gothic Snow White, stood with her hands on her non-existent hips, glaring at him.
“You’re not my mother!” Will yelled.
“No, but I am,” Alicia interrupted smoothly, bundling him into his room. “And it’s well past your bedtime. Thanks, Lexi,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll take it from here.”
“About bloody time!” muttered Lexi as she turned away. “Can I watch True Blood?”
“Of course you can, darling.” It was an 18 certificate but at that moment all Alicia wanted was a quiet life.
“I want to watch True Blood!” protested Will, as she tucked him into bed.
Alicia smiled and ruffled his hair. “That is far too gruesome for you, darling.” She picked up the book on his nightstand and opened it at the page he’d bookmarked. “So, Enid Blyton it is!”
Will groaned theatrically and pulled the duvet over his head.
*
By the time Alicia had read another chapter from The Ring O’ Bells Mystery it was half past ten. She kissed Will goodnight and went downstairs. There were loud screams emanating from the sitting room, where presumably Lexi was engrossed in True Blood, so she entered the kitchen, picked up the kettle and headed for the sink. She had just turned on the tap when someone walked past the window.
It was a bit late for callers …
Alicia tensed, waiting for the doorbell, but all she could hear was the TV.
She switched off the tap. She had seen someone, hadn’t she? She had not been imagining it?
She plugged in the kettle, leaving it to boil, and headed into the utility room. In the old days it had been the scullery. There was a short flight of stone steps leading to a modern back door, which had a large frosted glass panel in it. The security light had come on but she could not see the silhouette which would indicate there was someone outside. She waited at the top of the steps, willing a shadow to appear on the other side of the glass, so she would know she wasn’t crazy. But the security light flicked off, leaving her in darkness.
Feeling uneasy, she returned to the kitchen and leaned over the sink, so she could see out through the window and into the garden. Anyone coming to the house would have to walk down a brick pathway, which led to the small portico enclosing the front door. If it was dark, another security light would flick on to help them find their way. Once outside the front door, the visitor would have the choice of an enormous brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head, a discreet 21st century doorbell and a letterbox to rattle. Why would anyone ignore all this to walk past the kitchen window and head for the back door, which you couldn’t even see from the road because of the foliage? It wasn’t rational.
She picked up the kitchen phone with the intention of dialling treble nine, but what would she say? ‘I thought I saw a prowler’. Well, that was impressive. The police were sure to drop the serial killers and drug dealers and come right round.
Alicia returned the kitchen phone to its base unit and, going into the hall, unlocked the front door, stepping into the portico. There was no one there. She had not expected there to be. She pressed the doorbell. Instantly a cacophony of sound echoed through the house.
“Mum!” came a distant shout. It was Lexi. “There’s someone at the door.”
Alicia stuck her head back into the hall. “It’s all right, I’m testing the doorbell.”
Will’s head appeared over the banister. “Mum, what’s going on?”
“I’m testing the doorbell, Will.”
“Why have you got a saucepan in your hand?”
Alicia looked down at her hand and saw that she did indeed have a saucepan in her hand. She must have picked it up instinctively.
“Will, go back to bed. It’s a school night.”
She waited until he’d gone back up the stairs (taking four times as long to go back, as he had to come down) before she turned her attention to the door. Five minutes had passed since she’d seen (or thought she’d seen) someone outside the kitchen window. Surely if it had been a prowler, all the shouting, ringing of doorbells and waving of saucepans would have frightened them off? Equally certainly, if it had been a visitor they would have presented themselves by now. So, what should she do?
The sensible thing would be to deadbolt the door, risk salmonella poisoning by heating up the takeaway again and open the wine. But it was outrageous that someone could walk around her house in the dark and spy on her through the window. So she slipped on a jacket and picked up the saucepan again as an extra precaution, along with the mobile phone that lay on the hall table.
As soon as she stepped outside, the security light came on, dazzling her. She blinked and put her hand up to shield her eyes, looking first left, then right. The garden was completely silent. The house was set back from the road but, although they lived on one of the main routes into Calahurst, at this time of night there was never much traffic.
Alicia took the path past the window of the study as the security light flicked off. Between the drive and the road was a large expanse of lawn, where Will and his friends played football. The path led around the house, past flower beds and shrubs, which were somewhat overgrown. Alicia had not inherited her father’s passion for gardening. This suited Will, who had made various dens amongst the overgrown bushes, but Alicia was starting to think it was not such a great i
dea. There were too many places for a person to hide.
She rounded the corner of the house and passed by the kitchen window. With the light on, anyone could see into the house. Right now, Lexi was making herself a mug of hot chocolate, pouring almost an entire bag of mini marshmallows over the top.
Tomorrow, Alicia told herself, she would buy curtains and then no one would be able to spy.
She did a one-eighty, with the intention of returning inside.
Someone was standing in front of her.
Until now, Alicia had almost convinced herself she’d imagined the whole thing. She took a step back, wondering whether to run. He was wearing one of those nondescript hooded tops that all teenagers seemed to like, and in the dark she could not see much of him - even his eyes were in shadow. He wasn’t much taller than herself, although of much slighter build, but despite his pale, smooth skin, there was something about him that made her think he was a lot older than a teenager.
Alicia tilted her head in an attempt to make eye contact, all the while expecting him to make a move. He seemed to be regarding her uncertainly, as though he’d been expecting someone else. James, perhaps? Was he one of her husband’s ex-students?
“I’ve got a saucepan,” said Alicia, holding it up.
And then felt stupid.
He didn’t move.
She was vaguely aware of something vibrating in her hand, when the peace was shattered by Kanye West singing about stuff that didn’t kill him would only make him stronger. By the time she realised the sound was coming from James’s phone, which she must have picked up instead of her own, she’d dropped the saucepan. When it hit the stone path it made as much noise as you would expect.
The kitchen window flew open, something hot and wet hit the back of her neck, luckily protected in the main part by her ponytail, and she heard Lexi scream, “Bugger off, you pervert!”
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