Nemesis

by Marley, Louise

  She couldn’t bring herself to bother with polite preliminaries. “It’s very quiet. Where are the children?”

  James turned the page he was reading, deliberately keeping her waiting. “Drama club.”

  Damn, she’d forgotten all about that. He would have had to get up early and drive them around to the school. No wonder he was in a mood.

  “I’m going to have a shower,” she said, careful to keep her voice on the level. “Then we need to talk.”

  “We need to talk now,” he said, finally taking his attention from the newspaper. “There’s something I have to tell you. Charles is dead.”

  She had been expecting a declaration of love for Natalie and could only stare at him stupidly. Charles? Dead? He was forty-two! He was a doctor - fit and healthy. Of course he enjoyed a glass of wine as much as anyone - but he played squash and ran marathons. How could he possibly be dead?

  “Was it a car accident?”

  James made no effort to hide his disdain. “He died in the fire.”

  So much had happened over the last few hours that, combined with the lack of sleep, her mind went blank. Then she remembered the blackened shell that had once been Rose Court.

  “The fire was Thursday night … ”

  “It’s taken the authorities this long to identify the body. The position he was in, the place he was found - apparently he was confused with one of the patients, although I suspect their own inefficiency was at fault. Once they were certain, they contacted the family. My mother took the call late yesterday afternoon.”

  “How terrible. Your poor mother - and poor Katherine too.” At least Charles did not have children. “How’s Katherine taking it?”

  “Her husband is dead. How do you think she’s taking it?”

  Did he have to be so scathing? “Perhaps someone should drive over to be with her?”

  “I’ve already done that. She’s sleeping now, drugged up to the eyeballs. When my mother couldn’t reach you, she contacted me and I came back from London. The entire family rallied round.”

  She flinched. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know - ”

  “You could try answering the phone. Wait, I forgot. We can’t have anything as trivial as a death in the family interfering with your precious research.”

  Sometimes he could be truly evil. “Don’t throw it in my face, James. I’m trying to be kind.”

  “Here’s the thing. You shouldn’t have to try.”

  Was he deliberately picking a fight, to make him feel better about falling for Natalie? And what about Summer? Just how many women were there?

  “Where were you?” he asked. “What were you doing that was so important? My mother spent ages trying to reach you on the phone. I suppose you were in the County Archives again?”

  “No, I was at the police station. We had a bit of a crises at the castle and - ”

  “I had to interrupt my conference and drive all the way back from London, only to arrive at an empty house - ”

  “But Natalie was here,” she protested, “and so was I by midnight.”

  “By which time I was asleep!”

  Liar …

  “You’d lost your mobile,” she said. “I couldn’t get in contact with you.”

  “You could have phoned the hotel. My mother managed it perfectly well and she’s seventy-six. I expect you forgot, as usual. You forget to take the children to drama club and you forget to pick them up from school. You care more about your dead ancestors than you do about us. It can’t go on like this, Alicia.”

  “That’s unfair; you know how important my family is to me.”

  “You’re at home all day, yet the house is a mess and we’ve been eating takeaways every night. It’s not healthy. Will and Lexi need a proper mother and I need a proper wife. One who can support me and my role in the community. Why don’t you hire a housekeeper and have done with it? It’s not as though you can’t afford it.”

  And here they were at the crux of the matter. James felt emasculated because she owned a castle.

  “If you think I’m that useless,” she retorted, “why did you ask me to marry you? Was it just for my money?”

  “You were pregnant at the time,” he said bluntly. “It was the decent thing to do. Now here we are, fifteen years down the line, older and wiser and forced to make the best of it.”

  His condescension was infuriating.

  “Why do we need to make the best of it? You don’t want a wife, James, you want a housekeeper. I’ve got to the point where I have no intention of being either. You’re not happy married to me and I’m certainly not happy being married to you. Why not keep it amicable between us and get a divorce?”

  Now it was his turn to be shocked. “People like us don’t get divorced.”

  People like us?

  “When I arrived home last night, I saw you kissing Natalie,” she told him.

  The silence stretched out.

  “It was only a kiss,” he said.

  At least he had not denied it.

  “Do you love her?” she asked calmly, and then realised she had no interest in his answer. Any love she still felt for him had died the moment she’d seen him kiss Natalie.

  “It was a moment of weakness. I saw her lying there; asleep, vulnerable … It reminded me of the girl she used to be, before … before - ”

  Alicia felt her heart harden. “Before you slept with her?”

  “It was a mistake, you know that. I was only eighteen - ”

  “And she was barely sixteen!”

  “Don’t you think I’m sorry? But Natalie was as much to blame as I was. She seduced me and I’ve been paying for it ever since.”

  His arrogance was astounding. She still had nightmares about finding him beaten to a bloodied pulp in their old flat. She had honestly thought he was going to die. The shock had brought on a miscarriage, she’d almost had a breakdown and then, a few months later, when she was finally married to the man she loved and all set to enjoy her happy ever after, she’d received the worst news possible.

  That another woman was having her husband’s baby.

  “If anyone paid for your mistake,” she said slowly, “I rather think it was me.”

  “It was your idea to adopt Lexi after you lost our baby - ”

  “I love Lexi. She’s beautiful and talented and I consider her to be as much my child as Will.” Although, if she’d known at the time that she would be able to conceive for a second time, despite all the ‘expert’ opinions, would she had gone ahead and raised another woman’s child? It was something she’d never dared to consider.

  James ran his fingers through his dark hair, ruffling it all on end. “Perhaps you’d better take that shower,” he said. “We can discuss this further when you’ve calmed down.”

  She pulled out one of the wooden chairs at the table and sat down. “Be assured,” she said, “this is me, calm.”

  He regarded her warily.

  “We agree our marriage is not working,” she said. “We want different things from life, we always have. Why not end it amicably? That way we can stay friends.”

  For a moment he remained silent and then, begrudgingly, “I was wrong to criticise you, I see that now, but I was upset about my brother and I lashed out.”

  “Apology accepted.” Had it been an apology? “I still want a divorce.”

  James had turned his attention back to his newspaper. “Well ‘want’ away - because you’re not getting one.”

  “Two words,” she said. “Summer Cameron.”

  “How did you - Natalie! That bitch!” He slammed down the newspaper. “She won’t be happy until she’s ruined everyone’s lives.”

  Alicia felt suddenly cold. Natalie had known about Summer - and yet not said a thing?

  Her attention was taken back to James as he stood up and swept everything off the table - newspapers, cafetière, a full mug of coffee - all smashed onto the flagstone floor.

  For the first time she began to feel nervous. James, althoug
h he had never been violent towards her, was a lot taller than she was and had a short temper. She rose up out of her chair, intending to leave him to it, but there was no way to get past him. So she backed up against the worktop, with the chair in front of her like a shield, and regarded him warily.

  “There is no relationship with Summer!” he said, and she could see he was struggling to keep his temper. “I admit I was with her at Remedy, but so was her brother. Natalie saw us together and instantly thought the worst. I could lose my job over her accusations but she never bloody thinks, does she? First she gives all those interviews about her sister’s diary, and now this? I can’t understand why she hates me so much. What a complete and utter bitch!”

  He was the one sleeping with one of his students - yet Natalie was to blame? Alicia really couldn’t get her head around his twisted logic.

  “She’s deliberately trying to ruin me, for something that happened years ago,” James was saying. “It’s like an obsession with her.”

  While Alicia could agree Natalie did have an unhealthy preoccupation with the past, she doubted it had anything much to do with James.

  “You are Summer’s teacher,” she felt obliged to point out. “You’re supposed to be in a position of trust.”

  “I’m not having sex with a student. Why won’t you believe me?”

  Your track record? thought Alicia, but kept that comment to herself. She remembered the photograph Summer had texted to James, but thought it best to keep quiet about that too.

  James was staring at the mess on the floor, as though unable to believe what he’d done. “Perhaps I’d better go away for a few days,” he said quietly. “I’ll stay with my mother. She needs me. Perhaps the time apart will do us good.”

  “I think that would be for the best.”

  He left the room and she heard him walk slowly upstairs.

  Alicia leant back against the worktop, relaxing her grip on the chair. Without her realising, her heart was crashing against her ribcage and her breathing had become laboured. All these years she had been married to James, and now she’d seen a completely different side to him. Thank God the children were out.

  Her limbs were still trembling, so she sank back into her seat, acutely aware of every movement overhead - the floorboards creaking as James moved around the bedroom and the wardrobe doors opening and slamming. There was a brief pause, and then his heavy footsteps returned down the stairs.

  James reappeared in the doorway, carrying an overnight bag. “If you need to contact me, I’ll be at my mother’s house,” he said. “God, that’s going to feel peculiar after all this time. Once I get another mobile phone, I’ll let you have the number.”

  Alicia remembered where his old phone was and hoped the guilt didn’t show on her face.

  “Tell the kids about their Uncle Charles,” he added, “and that I’ve gone to look after Grandma for a few days.” He lifted his coat from the newel post behind him, his fingers tightening over the fabric as he turned to face her. “I am sorry, Alicia. Truly I am. I suppose, to be brutally honest, if anyone has been obsessive over the last fifteen years it’s me. Did you know, I once told Sarah I loved her? She laughed in my face … ”

  And then he was gone.

  All those years of marriage, over in only a few moments. Alicia wanted to cry.

  Instead she tidied the kitchen; carefully picking up the broken glass and china, wrapping it in newspaper and tipping it all into the bin. She had finally got everything straight when there was a loud hammering at the front door. Now what?

  To be on the safe side she took the telephone with her. When she opened the door, instead of a furious James, there was a man she’d never seen before.

  “Hello,” he said, eyeing the telephone in her hand and perhaps assuming he was interrupting a conversation. “Is this a bad time?”

  Only decades of inherent politeness stopped her from closing the door in his face. “For what?”

  He took an ID card from his pocket and handed it over. “I’m here to repair your computer.”

  44

  A powerful beam of light illuminated the crypt.

  “Sorry,” said Bryn. “I thought you were the police.”

  If Natalie still had her phone, she would have thrown it at him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “The same as you,” he said. “I’m trying to find answers.”

  “You were following me!”

  “I was here first.”

  “You seriously need to get a life. Do you know that?”

  “Why?” One corner of his mouth lifted irrepressibly. “Yours is so much more interesting.”

  It was easier to ignore him. Natalie dropped to her knees to scrabble amongst the dirt and the debris for her phone, and found it lying against Humfreye’s tomb. She scooped it up, checking for damage. It seemed OK, although something had scratched the screen.

  “You won’t get a signal,” he said. “We must be twenty feet underground.”

  Did he think she was stupid? “I was using it as a torch.”

  “I’ve got a torch.” He held it up.

  “I noticed.”

  She also noticed he’d had the opportunity to change his clothes since last night and was now wearing a thick green sweater instead of his usual leather jacket and plaid shirt. It was a small comfort to see he was still as filthy as herself.

  “The police know we’re here,” she told him. “They’ve taken the rope away.”

  “I’m hoping there’s another way out.” He flicked the torch around the crypt. “Did you know this place was here?”

  She dropped her phone back into her bag. “No, did you?”

  “There was no other way my cousin’s body could have got down that shaft.”

  It was the same conclusion she had come to - unless the person who’d shoved him down there had the key to the gate, which would point the finger firmly at a member of Alicia’s family. Loyalty guaranteed her silence.

  “I suppose the tunnel provided a water supply to the castle during a siege,” he said.

  “We’re not under the castle, we’re in the crypt beneath the chapel.”

  “Really?” He ran the beam of the torch along the wall where he’d been standing. Glimpses of rough-hewn stone could be seen amongst the crumbling and flaking plaster. “I found some steps in the corner but they don’t lead anywhere.” The light paused on a flight of narrow stone steps, dark with damp, leading sharply upwards.

  “You’re looking in the wrong place.” She pushed his arm up a few inches and the torchlight flickered towards the vaulted ceiling. “See that upside down ‘v’ shape? I expect that was the entrance from the chapel.”

  “No use to us - it’s been bricked up.”

  “It’s also beneath several tons of soil.”

  “A cheering thought.” He dimmed the beam and turned back to face her. “Do you think the Vyne family know the crypt is here?”

  “Sir Henry was really into the history of the castle.” Natalie remembered the piles of yellowing manuscripts and the mustiness of the library, despite the warmth of the well-stoked fire. “He was writing a book about it.”

  “It’s not on any of the estate plans I’ve seen.”

  “Perhaps people thought it had been destroyed with the chapel during the civil war, and then they forgot about it?”

  Bryn sat on the corner of Humfreye’s tomb. “Why do I get the feeling I’m wasting my time? That this,” he gestured around at the crypt, “as beautiful and strange as it is, has nothing to do with anything.”

  “You found out what happened to Geraint. I thought it was important to you to know how he died?”

  “It was - is,” he said, running his fingers through his hair and dislodging a shower of dust and dirt. “I’ve come this far - ” He broke off, staring around the crypt. “Christ, who’d have thought it? What the hell was he even doing down here?”

  Natalie had to agree with him. She’d thought that finding the t
unnel would solve everything. Instead it had thrown up more questions.

  “Geraint and Sarah died on the same night,” she said. “That much is obvious. But what links the two?”

  “That fucking castle!” Bryn kicked out at a stack of wooden chairs in pure frustration. They collapsed, disintegrating into little more than sticks of firewood and sending up a choking cloud of dust. “And the fucking rich bastards who live there.”

  “I think everything will become clearer when we get out of here,” she said calmly. “Give me the torch.”

  He held it above his head, out of her reach. “I’ve checked everywhere. There’s no sign of another tunnel.”

  Exasperated, Natalie held out her hand. “Torch, now.”

  He slapped it into her open palm. “Knock yourself out.”

  “An interesting turn of phrase.”

  “I didn’t mean it literally.” He flipped open his satchel and took out a small bottle, which he offered to her. She took it dubiously, relieved to find it was only water. “You won’t find anything,” he added.

  She took a sip, returned his bottle of water and looked back at the tunnel. “If the well is that way, we’ve travelled west. The most direct route would therefore be in the north wall.” She pointed to the right side of the crypt.

  For a moment he said nothing. Then, begrudgingly, “That sounds logical.” He slid off the tomb, slung his satchel over his shoulder and helped her clear a path through the rubbish.

  The wall had not been plastered here. Instead, it was set with several large slabs of stone - monuments - all inscribed with the Vyne family name and crest. The dates were entirely from the early 17th century. Were there coffins behind them? And bodies? Natalie shuddered.

  He glanced down at her. “Did you bring a sledgehammer?”

  “Sorry, that’d be in my other handbag.”

  “Lucky I’ve got this.” He produced a small jemmy from the satchel and grinned.

  She stared at it incredulously. “I’m not even going to ask why you thought you were going to need that!”