‘Who are you?’
The guy put his drink and his iPad down and twisted his neck to look at Henry. His eyes were as sure as his tone. They were unblinking, and coloured in the palest blue. ‘You don’t know me,’ he said.
‘How did you know I’d be here tonight?’
‘Because I sent the messages, Henry. All of them – through Lorie’s account. We’ve been communicating for some time now.’ His expression didn’t change.
‘Does Lorie know?’ Henry mumbled. ‘Did you have something to do with my cars?’
The guy turned his whole body round now and leant forward. ‘Slow down, Henry. One question at a time. Does Lorie know? No, as it happens. Your cars? Ex-cars. I think you’ll find they’re mine now.’
Henry felt a flush of temper. ‘I’m going to call the police.’
His mouth twitched in the direction of a smile. ‘No you’re not.’
That certainty again, unnerving and unsettling. There were a few moments of silence. The tension was almost tangible. Henry was glad his phone was recording, but he had a mind to leave even so. How dare this guy – who only looked in his twenties – command him to stay?
‘How do you know me?’
‘I thought you’d never ask. You used to work for my father, Henry. Jimmy Solomon?’ He paused and Henry felt all the warmth and colour drain from his head to his shoes. ‘I see you remember him very well. He was a very memorable person, my father, wasn’t he?’
For all the wrong reasons, Henry wanted to say, but he couldn’t speak. His tongue had thickened and his throat had closed.
‘And you’re responsible for his death, Henry.’
A woman appeared in the archway. In the time it took for Henry to identify her, she’d slid onto the sofa beside him and he was pinned. She was wearing a short pinafore over a red blouse, and long suede boots beyond her knees. Above her boots was a couple of inches of long knitted socks which folded at the top, and then a portion of silky legs before the pinafore covered her thighs. All he could do was watch as she moved to within an inch of his side, crossed her legs in slow motion, and ran a hand against his thigh.
‘No,’ he said, finding his voice and brushing her hand away. ‘Please don’t. I don’t know why you’re doing that or what you’re doing here.’
She smiled and weaved her fingers together and rested them on her legs.
The guy said, ‘How rude of me, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Vincent Solomon. And this is –’
‘I know who she is. She lives next door. It’s Amber.’
Solomon looked amused. ‘She wasn’t altogether truthful, Henry, you’ll have to be forgiving. Amber Bridges isn’t her name any more than Lorie is her friend. And she doesn’t own the house next door. I do.’ A pause. ‘Her name is Charlotte Solomon. Friends call her Charlie. You’re not her friend. You’re the reason why we no longer have a father. Now what do you make of that?’
38
‘It still feels like home, doesn’t it?’ Annabel said to Naomi as they pulled up outside the house in Alderley Edge and looked down the length of the lawn, the shape of every bush and tree familiar even in darkness. The car headlights splashed the grass in light. The lawn wasn’t scalped as it used to be, but needed cutting. Daffodils and tulips lined the borders.
Annabel switched the headlights off and pulled the keys from the ignition. The car fell silent.
‘I’m disappointed Dad isn’t here,’ Annabel said.
‘Where did he say he was going tonight?’
‘He didn’t,’ Annabel said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Naomi folded her arms. ‘Do you think there’s any possibility that something’s going on with the woman next door?’
‘No. That’s disgusting. He’s old enough to be her dad.’
‘Maybe she’s attracted to his money.’
‘Nah,’ Annabel shook her head. ‘If she’s bought the house next door, she must have enough money of her own. I’ve been watching her the last few days. She doesn’t seem to have a job. She just goes out at random times, mainly to the gym by the looks of things.’
‘So weird that she moved in next door when Dad already knew her from the gym. Why did he pretend he didn’t know her?’
Annabel shrugged.
Naomi added, ‘I reckon it was because he fancied her, so he was embarrassed. And don’t we all have to lie to Mum sometimes to spare her feelings? It’s ridiculous.’
‘I’ve never spared her feelings, so I’ve never had to lie,’ Annabel said, unbuckling her seatbelt. Naomi did the same. They opened the car doors simultaneously.
Naomi stood up and stood still. ‘Is that a piano playing?’
They listened, confused. There wasn’t a piano in the house.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s Rachmaninoff. Elegie.’
Annabel gently closed her door. ‘Who’s playing?’
Naomi shook her head. ‘Don’t know.’
They walked in silence to the door, the music oozing gently from the house. It seemed to summon faraway memories which were locked in unused rooms in her mind. The feeling was strange and familiar at the same time.
‘Haven’t I heard you playing this piece?’ Annabel said.
‘Yeah. It used to come into my mind when I was traumatized after the wedding. I had to find out what it was.’
They’d arrived at the front door. Annabel went to insert a key, but Naomi held her arm.
‘Just wait.’
Every note was clear now. They stood and listened and Naomi closed her eyes and tried to tune in to her feelings. Every bar was bringing an acute sense of déjà vu.
Eventually, Annabel said, ‘It’s making me feel really weird.’
‘Me too. It’s Mum playing, you know.’
‘Mum?’ Annabel asked. ‘She never plays the piano.’
‘Obviously, she does.’
‘She doesn’t even have a piano.’
‘She does now.’
Annabel turned to Naomi. ‘She plays like you.’
Naomi smiled. ‘She plays really well. The irony is, I probably play like her.’
The piece had concluded so Annabel tried her key in the door and found it wouldn’t work, so she rang the bell.
Within five minutes they were sitting in their old lounge on a new beige sofa. The room wasn’t fully furnished, but Camilla had cobbled together a few bits from around the house and the room was full enough. Camilla brought a tray of steaming drinks in from the kitchen and set it down on a coffee table.
‘Haven’t you girls got something better to be doing on a Saturday evening?’
Both girls said, ‘No,’ in unison.
But Naomi’s thoughts shifted straight to Dan. She’d be meeting him later. He had something for her. She resisted a smile and added two teaspoons of sugar to the nearest drink and stirred.
‘So what’s this about, Mum? Really?’ Annabel said. ‘Dad’s not functioning well without you. We need you at home. What are you doing here?’
Camilla smoothed her hair. ‘Your father seems to function magnificently well behind my back.’
Annabel put her drink down a little carelessly. Coffee sloshed over the rim onto the tray which drew Camilla’s eye. But she didn’t react. ‘Don’t you think you’re being a bit hard on him?’
‘Don’t get involved in our relationship, Annabel. It’s none of your business.’
Naomi chipped in, ‘Of course it is. We’re all adults here, Mum. We’ve all had relationships. We know what it’s like –’
‘I hardly think you’re in a position to be counselling me.’
‘Mum!’ Annabel cut in. ‘We’re here because we want to help. There’s no need to have a go at Naomi.’
Camilla’s lips twitched in the direction of an apology, but the only thing that came out was, ‘Fine.’
There were a few tense moments of slurping and fiddling with cups. ‘Look,’ Annabel said, crossing her legs, ‘Dad hasn’t actually done anything –�
�
‘Did you see the way that woman draped herself all over him in front of me?’
‘Why are you taking it out on Dad?’
‘He told me he didn’t know her.’ Camilla yelled. ‘He lied to me.’
‘Let’s be honest, Mum. She’s attractive. He knew her from the gym.’
‘He’s been ogling her at the gym, more like.’
‘OK, OK,’ Annabel said. ‘So he’s noticed her and she’s paid him a bit of attention. Who wouldn’t be flattered?’
Flares of red licked at Camilla’s neck. ‘He kept me away from her with some mock sincerity about protecting us as a family. Lies, all of them. Any way you look at this, your dad has been dishonest with me.’
‘There are reasons, Mum. Always reasons. Dad loves you. He’s always stood by you. He won’t have a wrong word said about you, not to anyone.’
Camilla crossed her arms. ‘He’s made a fool of me.’
Naomi said, ‘Judge him by his intentions. He’s been dishonest because he wanted to protect your feelings. We all do stupid things from time to time. We’ve had a difficult few months, all of us. We need to pull together before we fall apart.’
‘He’s failed to protect our family. He’s been in touch with Lorie, can you believe it? He’s let us down really badly.’
‘No, Mum,’ Naomi said. ‘He’s misunderstood the situation, that’s all.’
‘And why is that?’ she yelled.
‘Because we don’t talk enough. We don’t sit down and thrash things out. No one was allowed to mention Lorie’s name so she was never spoken about. When the money came back from Lorie, Dad thought she was innocent. She contacted him and he was soft enough to reply.’
‘Gullible enough you mean.’
‘Maybe. And maybe he’s been stupid, but his heart’s in the right place, always. There are things you don’t know about me, Mum, that Dad does know.’
Camilla’s forehead creased. ‘Like what?’
‘That day when you had an intruder in the garden? That was Nathan. I kept it from you because I couldn’t be open about it. He had a knife to my throat. He took me into the treehouse and demanded money.’
Camilla’s face tightened.
‘Yes, Mum,’ Naomi went on. ‘You were fast asleep at the time. Dad was on the alert. He came out to check on me, but he thought Nathan and I were discussing our problems. For my own reasons, I kept the truth from both of you. See how wires get crossed and then mistakes are made? Point is, Dad was there protecting me like he always has. He’s always been there for me.’
Her eyes filled. ‘And I haven’t?’
Naomi sighed and looked inside her cup. ‘You have your own stuff to deal with. I understand that.’
Camilla didn’t respond except to stir her drink vigorously. Eventually she said, ‘I found an axe in the treehouse door?’
‘That would be Nathan,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s not Dad’s fault.’
‘What kind of a lunatic is that man you married?’
‘What kind of a question is that?’ Naomi said, losing her cool for the first time. She drew a deep breath and let it go. ‘Don’t you think I know that Nathan is a lunatic?’
Camilla sighed and clapped her hands on her thighs. ‘I don’t understand what the hell the police are playing at,’ she said. ‘The world’s gone mad.’
‘Don’t try to understand, Mum. I’m going to get my marriage annulled, and then he can ruin his life or do what he wants and it won’t have anything to do with us. Just forget about him.’
‘Do not go anywhere near that man,’ she warned, forefinger raised.
Best not to mention the solicitor’s meeting the following Wednesday. ‘Mum, trust me. I know what I’m doing,’ Naomi said, trying to believe her own words, while visions of Nathan pinning her to the floor while Camilla showered in the next room ran through her mind.
Annabel reached out and touched Camilla’s arm. ‘Mum, we need you home. Naomi’s going back to uni on Monday, and Dad and I need you.’
‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘No doubt your dad can ogle that woman’s generous chest all he wants with me out of the way. I’m not moving back to that house.’
‘We’ll move back here then. How’s that? Then we can all escape from her.’
Camilla slumped in her seat, as if all the energy had been sucked out of her. Her breathing steadied. Even her blinking seemed to happen in slow motion. ‘If only it was that simple.’
Annabel lunged forward to rub Camilla’s arm again. ‘It can be, Mum.’
‘It’s going to take time, Annabel. I don’t heal easily.’
Naomi glanced at Annabel. Any sort of an admission was a big deal.
‘Give him a chance, Mum,’ Annabel urged. ‘He deserves it. Forgiving Dad will help you heal too. That woman isn’t going to know where we’ve gone. We’ll just move out and make a fresh start again here.’
‘I can’t even look at your father at the moment.’
‘You never will if you shut him out. Let him sleep in one of the spare rooms for a bit. One step at a time, Mum, but let’s do something positive. Please?’
After a lot of sighing and looking at her fingers, Camilla said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Think about it.’
‘Did he send you here tonight?’
Annabel tilted her head to one side. ‘No, Mum. We’ve spent today cleaning up the house. We sent Dad out for some food and we came here because we wanted to and because we miss you and because this is all wrong.’
Camilla nodded and examined her hands.
Naomi looked at Annabel, then said, ‘When did you get a piano, Mum?’
‘Mm?’ Camilla looked up.
‘We heard you playing. It was Rachmaninoff, wasn’t it.’ Not a question.
Camilla was silent and still for a few moments. She laced her fingers together. ‘The piano was delivered yesterday. The house is so silent when I’m alone. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘That piece gives me goose-bumps,’ Annabel said. ‘It seems to take me back somewhere. I can’t explain.’
Camilla tried to smile. ‘I used to play it when you were both small.’
‘You did?’ Naomi asked. ‘I don’t ever remember you playing the piano.’
‘I used to sit at the piano with both of you when you were little. Annabel wasn’t interested and you could just play. I never remember teaching you anything. It was effortless. You just put your right hand on the piano one day when you were four and started to play that melody because you’d heard me play it. That’s when I stopped playing the piano.’
‘I don’t understand. Why?’
Camilla shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I became self-conscious because I knew that you were listening. It was also clear within a short time that you were going to be very good. I lost confidence and put all my efforts into your learning instead.’
Naomi watched Camilla twisting her fingers and watching them intently. ‘I think you’re really good, Mum.’ Camilla didn’t look up. ‘There’s room for two pianists in our house.’
‘That piece is special to me,’ she said. ‘Your grandma bought it for me – just a single copy when I was about fifteen. It was so difficult to learn. Six flats. I worked on it until my hands hurt. Then one day your granddad came into the room in a rage because he was sick of hearing it, and tore it in half and threw it in the bin.’
‘That’s horrible,’ Annabel said.
Camilla nodded. ‘My mum retrieved it from the bin and taped it together and gave it to me. But I didn’t play it again until I got a house of my own. I stopped playing the piano for years after he ripped that music up. I was terrified of him seeing the taped copy, so I hid it in my room. It turned up in a box I sorted a few weeks ago, so I bought myself a piano so I could play it again.’ She paused, then looked up finally. Her eyes reflected the ghosts of the past.
39
‘Listen,’ Henry tried to reason urgently, ‘I never meant your father any harm, and I’m certainly not
responsible for what happened. I was just doing my job.’
Solomon continued to stare at Henry. His eyes were intense and unreadable and unblinking. ‘Your job was to manage my father’s accounts, not to bring the law crashing down on him. No one likes a grass.’
Henry could feel himself perspiring. His underarms felt damp; his forehead clammy. ‘It was serious tax evasion. I was his accountant. I couldn’t turn a blind eye.’
‘Of course you could. You chose not to and it meant that three people were stranded without a father, isn’t that right, Charlie?’
She nodded.
Henry said, ‘Three?’
‘Did I not mention there are three of us?’
‘Who’s the other one?’
‘I’ll come to that. Different mothers, same father. Our father was within a month of his release date when he was murdered in prison, Henry. Did you know about that?’
Henry thought about lying, but simultaneously, he was reliving the relief that coursed through him when he’d spotted a tiny segment in the Manchester Evening News, reporting James Solomon’s death. There was no mention of murder or children or grief – just an announcement of his passing in Strangeways Prison. Strangeways? Hide and seek is fun. Finding strange ways to greet old friends. Catch up with you soon. It hit him now. It was a cryptic message from Jimmy Solomon all those years ago. He’d used connections to find and reach him even in Johannesburg.
‘Did you know that he was murdered?’ Solomon repeated in the same gentle tone. There was no hint of anger in his voice.
Henry shook his head. ‘I read about his passing, yes, and that he’d have been out a lot sooner, but for being in possession of drugs. It said nothing about murder.’
‘Of course it didn’t. Someone lodged a piece of soap in his throat in the shower. I had to dig very hard to find that out. He choked on his own vomit and was left to die, naked and alone. According to a certificate I have at home, his death was the result of an accident. Lies, Henry – some lazy person who was protecting their own interests and didn’t want an enquiry and thought that my father meant nothing to anyone, got away with pronouncing his death as accidental. So, I found out who it was and guess what?’
The Darkness Visible Page 37