She’s hit upon the one thing that I’ve been trying to stop myself from focusing upon. Someone harmed Alice – and, if she was with Richard, who’s to say he wasn’t hurt at the same time?
Zoe takes the turn from the road onto her gravelly drive. Although her place is a cottage in the sense that it’s a single storey, it is as wide as two of the houses from down in the village.
As soon as I get out of the car, I’m hit by the jangling symphony that echoes from the side of the house. I stop to take in the collection of ornaments and wind chimes that are massed in a mini patch close to the corner of the property.
‘How do you sleep with all that?’ I ask.
Zoe has rounded the car. ‘It’s to ward off the spirits,’ she says. A smirk creeps across her face and I’m not sure if that means she’s joking.
I follow her around the side of the house as she unlatches a gate and continues until we’re at the back. There’s a sprawling allotment that’s hidden from the road and Zoe points towards a patch close to the house.
‘I’ve got onions and peas in there,’ she says. ‘I’m going to be putting in some kale, spinach and carrots when the weather starts to turn. If you ever want anything fresh, just come and knock. There’s way too much here for just me and Frankie.’
‘I never realised any of this was here.’
‘It was used as farmland for years before the owner died and all the kids fell out. I had to clear some rocks from the surface but the soil is good. I always wanted my own allotment. I think I might get some chickens when the winter’s over. Frankie would like that. I’ve been trying to teach him about the seasons and how things grow – but he’s a kid and I think everyone hates vegetables at that age.’
Zoe pauses for a moment and we stare out across her patch of land before she remembers why we’re here.
‘This way,’ she says, as she heads off along the side of the allotment.
I follow and she keeps walking towards a copse of trees that is perhaps fifty or sixty metres from the end of the vegetable patch. It’s colder here and the soil is stony hard with a frost that hasn’t cleared.
‘Is this still your land?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure.’ She points back up towards the allotment. ‘I think it ends somewhere between there and here but there’s no fence. The cottage was sold with a certain amount of acres included. I think the farmer’s children just wanted rid of it in the end.’
Zoe steps past the treeline, where there seems to be a semi-natural trail. The thickness of the evergreens cloaks the light and there’s an instant dusk as we continue to where the shack appears almost from nowhere. It’s less than thirty seconds from the entrance to the copse but hidden by the dark, even when standing a short distance away.
It’s not the sort of fully formed mini house I pictured when Zoe first mentioned the place. It’s made from rusted corrugated metal and is probably only just about wide enough for a person to lie down inside. That’s about all that could be managed anyway, as the roof is too low for anyone to stand inside. I wouldn’t be surprised if a good gust of wind would send the entire thing to the ground.
Zoe stops a few steps away from the structure and points to the ground. Despite the hard soil, there is a pattern of criss-crossed footsteps. I don’t need to crouch to see that the size of the feet are bigger than mine. Zoe takes me around to the side of the shack, where there is a small, neat pile of browning apple cores that have been left at the base of a tree.
We check the hut itself – but there’s nobody inside, nor any sign that there has been someone. It’s a small, dank space with wood chippings around the edges that would provide protection from the wind and rain – but little else. I’m not sure if I can picture Richard hiding here. He’s a bit like me in the sense that we like a good bed at night.
I suppose needs must – and all that. It’s possible that he’s been hiding out here, although I’m not sure how he would have known about the place.
‘When did you last see someone?’ I ask.
‘This morning. It was just a shape in between the trees.’
The wind whistles around the clearing on which the shack sits. It swoops up and around the branches until it feels as if it’s coming from all directions.
‘I can call you if I see someone again,’ Zoe adds. ‘It could be kids turning it into a den. I think I’d have liked a space like this when I was young.’
Her final line makes me wonder why she brought me out here but I let it go as we take a few more moments to eye the space. Zoe then clasps her jacket tighter around her front.
‘C’mon,’ she says, ‘let’s get inside.’
I follow her away from the trees and can’t work out if I’m disappointed that Richard isn’t here. The moment we step out from the copse, daylight floods down, leaving me squinting up towards the house.
Zoe takes me through the unlocked back door into a small porch area, where she kicks off her wellies. There’s a rack, although the area around it is covered with a mound of adult and child shoes.
I follow her lead and take off my own boots, before trailing Zoe into the kitchen.
She’s right about the view. From the kitchen window, I can see the allotment and the trees at the back – and then, beyond that, there’s green everywhere I look.
There’s also that sense of walking into a new person’s house, when there’s a smell that the owner has long since become accustomed to. Here, the house smells of adventure and outdoors. Of mud and trees and damp. I can imagine Frankie and his friends on the other side of the allotment, with the fields and the trees as their playground. It reeks of opportunity, perhaps of life itself.
I’m so envious.
‘Do you want tea?’ Zoe asks. ‘Something to eat?’ She sweeps a hand towards the kitchen table and the cupboards beyond. ‘You can make yourself at home, unless you need to get back…?’
I sense that she’s searching for someone to talk to. A friend, perhaps. Maybe this whole thing was concocted to get me out here – although there’s a fair bit of self-aggrandising in that I don’t know why I’d be so special.
‘Tea would be great,’ I reply.
Zoe fills a saucepan with water and carries it across to the stove. Everything here is old-fashioned, with nothing like a kettle, microwave or toaster in sight.
‘Have a look around,’ she says, waving me towards the hall beyond the kitchen. ‘Whenever I go into someone’s house for the first time, I know I want to explore. Feel free.’
It’s an invitation that seems too good to be true. I think everyone has that instinct when entering a person’s house for the first time. We want to nose about the cupboards and check the rooms. We wonder why the coats are kept in one place when they’d surely be better off in another. We query the colour choices for the wallpaper, or don’t understand how someone can live with no clock in the living room. Something which is perfectly normal for one person is an aberration for another.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask.
‘Go for it.’
Zoe turns on the stove and then crosses to the cupboard, from where she retrieves two mugs.
It feels odd but irresistible as I creep along the hall. I expect it to lead towards the front door – like my house – but it doesn’t. One corridor leads into another – and then there are three doors from which to choose. The first is a cupboard with a vacuum cleaner and ironing board on the inside. The second contains a toilet and sink. The third door hides a musty room that contains a piano, plus walls of books.
‘Do you take sugar?’
Zoe’s question echoes through the house and I call back ‘No’ before we go through the same ritual about milk. I follow the warren of interconnecting passages back the other way until I come to three more doors. I’m about to try the first when I see the framed certificate on the wall. I almost move past it without thinking – but then the significance dawns.
Zoe completed a degree in English from the same place where Richard teaches. She finished four years before I
went there, and about the same time that Frankie would have been born.
And, suddenly, I can’t forget what Keith told me about my husband.
Dickie always had an eye for his students…
*
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
I’m braced for the telling-off as I let myself into Auntie Kath’s house. It will be the same as it always is: Where have you been? School is only half an hour away, so how come it’s taken so long to walk home? Who have you been with? It’s not that Julius, is it? He’s a bad influence.
I’ve heard it all before.
I close the front door and edge along the hall, waiting for my name to be shouted from the kitchen. When it isn’t, the thought does occur that I’ve finally broken my aunt. She’ll give up on asking me these same questions day after day and I… well, I don’t know what that makes me.
My aunt is sitting at the kitchen table when I get in, cradling a cup of tea between her fingers. She glances up to the clock but says nothing about the time. There’s something in her face that I can’t read… like she’s happy about something, except… not.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
‘I think you should sit.’
‘Why?’
She doesn’t react to this. Something tingles along the back of my neck and there’s an imposing sense that whatever’s about to happen is going to impact my life forever.
‘I don’t want to sit.’
Auntie Kath continues to watch me and, without words, it is as if she forces me into the seat through will alone. When I’m down, she opens her mouth again.
‘I’m not sure of the best way to explain this,’ she says. ‘I’m still trying to get my head around it myself.’ She must see something in me because she instantly reaches ahead and grips my hand. ‘Oh, love, it’s nothing like that. Your dad is fine.’
‘What is it?’
‘A woman was killed a few nights ago. I’m not sure of the details but it sounds like some sort of domestic that got out of hand.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Maybe a husband and wife, or a boyfriend and girlfriend. After the woman died, the police arrested the woman’s boyfriend. I don’t know how they figured it out – maybe his blood, or something, but they’re now saying this is the man who killed that hitchhiker.’
I don’t think it sinks in at first. ‘The hitchhiker’ can only mean one thing, except that I’ve spent so long trying to remember the specifics of what happened that afternoon that I’m no longer sure of what’s true and what isn’t. Sometimes, I wonder whether Dad ever got out of the car; other times, I can see the hitchhiker’s face so clearly that I can picture the spots around his mouth. Then I remember that I never saw him at all.
Something soars in my chest. ‘They’re saying that Dad’s innocent…?’
Auntie Kath holds up a hand. ‘It’s early days,’ she says. ‘Things can move slowly in the legal system. I only heard this from your dad’s solicitor today. Nothing is going to happen immediately.’ She pauses to sip her tea and then adds: ‘It’s going to be in the papers tomorrow, so I wanted you to know before that happens.’
I can barely get my head around what she’s saying. ‘So he’ll be free…?’
‘I’m not sure. I don’t want you to get your hopes up all the way. I’ll know more tomorrow. Your dad’s solicitor is going to come over and he said he’ll answer any questions you have.’
I don’t need to hear any more. This is what I’ve been waiting for all this time. Dad’s coming home.
Twenty-Nine
There’s a scuffing from the hall and then Zoe appears with a mug looped between her fingers. She looks from me to the certificate and back again.
‘He wasn’t my lecturer,’ she says softly. ‘The course was split in two and I was on the other half of the class.’
‘I took that class, too.’
Zoe blinks at me and passes across the mug. I loop a finger through the handle and then try to hold it in the same warming way that she was. The heat means I can only manage that for a few seconds. She must have asbestos fingers.
‘Is that where you met?’ she asks.
I fight away the shiver. It feels embarrassing to admit that I ended up marrying my lecturer – even if I was a mature student. It sounds seedy, even though it wasn’t. I nod because I can’t bring myself to say it.
Zoe doesn’t reply immediately – which is something for which I can only be grateful.
‘I was only half telling the truth earlier,’ she says. ‘I do know your husband from around the village – but I knew of him before that. I was taught by a guy named Geoff who loved himself more than Harriet Branch loves attention. Some of my friends were in Richard’s class, though.’
We wait for a second, at a stand-off, and then she opens the door next to the frame, which leads into a long but narrow living room. There’s a TV at one end and then two sofas that face each other with a table in the centre. Zoe picks up a framed photograph of Frankie that was sitting on top of the rack of vinyl records at the back. Judging by his appearance, it would have been taken in the past year or so.
‘I was in my final year,’ she says, as if she knows what I’m thinking. ‘It happened at Christmas when I’d gone home for the break. An old boyfriend that I used to have at school. One thing led to another, and…’ She shrugs as she returns the photo to the cabinet and then turns to take me in. ‘We talked about getting together – but “because I’m pregnant” is hardly a bedrock for a stable relationship. I was almost six months in when I took the final exams.’ She pauses for a moment and then adds: ‘He lives in Australia now. Married, kids, the lot. Frankie Skypes him once a week.’
I’m not sure if the wild conclusions to which I jumped says more about me or Richard. Probably me.
‘There was a song,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When we were in the car park outside the hall on Monday. Frankie was humming an old song… one of Richard’s favourites.’
Zoe’s features crease in confusion. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s called “Why Do Fools Fall In Love?”’
Zoe eyes me for a second and then tugs her phone out from a back pocket. She fiddles with the device before holding it up. A second later and the song’s opening oooh-wahs erupt tinnily from the device.
‘Spotify,’ she says. ‘My dad used to be a doo-wop fan. He played this and other songs like it over and over when I was a girl. I guess some of it stuck with me – and then Frankie.’ She stops and then adds: ‘Did you think…?’ Zoe leaves the question unfinished.
I can’t answer her because it’s another piece of crushing embarrassment. I’m so quick to see the worst in people. It’s as if I learned nothing from what happened to my dad.
She doesn’t make me answer, which is one thing. Instead, she says we should go back to the kitchen. I follow her through the burrow to the back of the house, where the sun beams bright through the window. She sits at the table and I follow her lead – and, though we say nothing at first, there’s something comforting about it. We barely know each other and yet feeling contented when sitting together and saying nothing is surely a sign of friendship.
It’s Zoe who speaks first. ‘I read your blog,’ she says.
‘Really?’
‘You shouldn’t sound so surprised. I’ve tried a few of your recipes. Frankie loves the vegan, gluten-free chocolate pudding. He says it’s much better than the ones I used to buy.’
The smile creeps through me before I even know it’s there. I get emails about my work but it’s rare that anyone tells me face to face that they’ve used my recipes. I’m not sure what to say.
‘I’m working on a follow-up,’ I reply. ‘A treacle pudding.’
‘If you ever need a keen taster, I know a little boy that will be happy to eat anything you cook…’
I laugh – and it’s strange and wonderful. Something I’d forgotten. The laugh quickly turns into a yawn and I find myself
apologising while trying to force it away. I’d so love to sleep this all away. To wake up and find that everything’s back to how it was.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I say.
‘Sure.’
I hold a hand up, indicating the house – and then I don’t need to say the words.
‘Scratch card,’ Zoe says. ‘It wasn’t a massive amount but it was enough. I had a mortgage on a proper house not far from Mum and Dad. That had gone up enough in value that I made a profit by accident. It’s not like I never have to work again – but I can get by for a few years while Frankie’s growing up. I got an accountant who put me onto a financial advisor. I’ve got investments and savings accounts all over the place.’ Zoe stops and laughs, before adding: ‘It’s like I’m a proper grown-up!’
I join in. I think every adult has a moment in which they realise that they’re suddenly grown up. It might be getting a mortgage, or a loan. It could be marrying, or having children, or moving into a flat. There’s a point at which a person has to admit the glory days of youth are over.
‘Why here?’ I ask. ‘Why Leavensfield?’
‘I always wanted to live in the countryside. I wanted the isolation and figured Frankie would do better with a smaller class size.’ She pauses a beat and then adds: ‘I didn’t realise moving here would be such a social minefield.’
She laughs again and I so wish we could have had a chat like this months ago. There’s little quite like finding a person who sees the world in the same way.
‘I’ve tried to steer clear,’ Zoe says.
‘It’s difficult. There’s always the next thing: the summer socials, the garden parties, the Britain in Bloom committee, the St George’s Day bash, the harvest festival, the fundraisers, the winter ball… it never ends.’
I’m out of breath having simply listed them all – and I know I’ve missed a few things.
‘I heard tomorrow’s ball is still on,’ Zoe says.
‘Harriet’s turned it into a fundraiser for Gemma.’
What My Husband Did: A gripping psychological thriller with an amazing twist Page 21