An Ordinary Girl

by Barabara Elsborg

  Oh God. Ilya was like a dog with a bone.

  “I want to know why Noah was in such a pissy mood. Has he broken up with this woman or not? I do not want him in that frame of mind on Saturday. I do not want him to bring anyone on Saturday.”

  Dalton took a deep breath. “I won’t do your dirty work for you anymore. Let this thing with Ash rise or fall without interference. At least she’s brought Noah back to life. Be grateful for that.”

  Ilya scowled. “What does she want? More money?”

  “I’ve never given her any money. I paid her housemate, that’s all.”

  Ilya leaned forward. “Then give her the money now. I put it in your account. I presume you’ve not spent it.”

  “She wouldn’t take it.”

  “How do you know unless you’ve offered it? Take it out in cash and put it in her room.”

  Dalton shook his head. “So you can throw that snippet in Noah’s face? No, I won’t do it.” He stood up, put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a check and laid it on the coffee table. “I’ve had enough. I’m going to tell Noah everything when he gets back.”

  Ilya moved so fast, Dalton had no time to flee. A hand around his throat and he was on tiptoe. Fuck. Can’t breathe.

  “You say nothing. He thinks you’re his friend. Leave it that way. You can make your excuses and move out—after the ball.”

  Ilya thrust him away and Dalton hit the wall. He put his hand to his throat and rubbed.

  “You want to be responsible for Noah sliding back?” Ilya asked. “How do you think he’ll feel if he learns I’ve paid you to be his babysitter for the last seven months? You’ve more to lose by telling him than me. You’re his friend. I’m just his interfering older brother.”

  “He deserves better from both of us.”

  Ilya glared. “Everything that’s been done has been in his best interests.”

  “You mean your interests,” Dalton snapped, and walked out.

  * * * * *

  Noah braked so sharply on the drive outside Floriton Hall that he left long gouges in the gravel. He slammed his car door and walked back to kick the stones into place. The moment he arrived at the flat, he’d checked the phone for messages. None from Ash. One from his father. He might have ignored Ilya, but his father made it clear Noah had to come straight here.

  When he walked into the drawing room, his father and Ilya sat on chairs opposite each other. They were grim-faced and drinking. What have I done now? But when they looked at him, Noah guessed for once this wasn’t about him. Ilya poured him a drink. It definitely wasn’t about him.

  “We’ve had the police here,” his father said.

  Noah’s legs hit the back of the couch and he sat.

  “They believe…” His father broke off, and let out a shuddering breath.

  “They think they’ve found Natalia’s body,” Ilya said.

  Noah had to repeat Ilya’s words in his head until he took in what he’d said.

  “Natalia?” he whispered. After all this time, hearing his sister’s name still made his chest hurt. None of them still believed Natalia was alive, despite recent cases where abductees had survived years and years of incarceration, but…

  “The clothing with the…body matches the description of what Natalia was wearing. And then there’s this.” Ilya pushed something across the coffee table.

  “Oh Christ.” Noah recognized the butterfly necklace his sister had loved so much. “Don’t the police want to test that? W-where was she? W-what happened? Do they know?” Noah glanced between his father and brother.

  “I told the police not to bother testing it,” his father said. “It wasn’t found with Natalia, but in soil nearby. Someone has confessed to killing her.” He tightened his mouth and breathed through his nose for a moment. “It happened the day she went missing. She was buried under a shed on an allotment in Lewisham.”

  Noah put his drink down before he spilled it. It had taken a long while to stop thinking about Natalia. Not that he ever had completely, but one day he realized he’d gone an entire day without thinking about her. Then it was a week and gradually he’d learned to live with the loss, to not well up when he was reminded of something she’d said or done. A sweet and trusting child, she’d wandered away from their mother while she visited a friend in Lewisham hospital. Eventually, their mother had killed herself, convinced Natalia was dead and because Ilya had been supposed to be looking after Natalia that day, their mother blamed him as well as herself.

  Noah was so angry with her for that.

  “Who did it?” Noah asked.

  “It was a woman,” Ilya said. “Denise North.”

  “A woman?” Noah gaped at him. “Do we know her? Did she work for us?”

  Ilya shook his head. “She and her husband were convicted of the murder of seven children. All but Natalia were buried under the Norths’ house or in their garden on Leopold Road in Lewisham.”

  Noah remembered the name. One of the sites the company Ash worked for had transformed into a garden.

  He swallowed hard. “I take it the woman’s already in prison. What made her confess?”

  Ilya gave a bitter laugh. “She talked before she died this afternoon. I suppose she was trying to atone. That’s really going to get her into heaven. By the way, God, there’s just one more they didn’t know about. The fucking, fucking bitch.” Ilya jumped up and strode over to the window, his shoulders shuddering.

  Noah clenched his teeth. How could a woman do that? She was a fucking monster. My sister, my sister. Oh Christ. Memories of that terrible day flooded back and Noah shuddered.

  He turned as his father came to sit at his side and put his hand on his back. “It’s a terrible shock. At least we know what happened now.”

  “We should cancel the ball,” Ilya blurted.

  “There’s no reason to do that,” his father said in a tired voice. “Life goes on, at least for a while.”

  Noah stiffened. “What does that mean?”

  Ilya spun round and Noah saw the look exchanged between his brother and father, and he groaned. “What are you keeping from me?”

  “I have early onset nonfamilial Alzheimer’s,” said his father.

  Oh Christ. “Meaning?” Noah croaked.

  “It’s not an inherited condition, which is good news for you.” His father smiled and gave him a hug. “I’m going to forget things and get confused.”

  “You already forget things and get confused. So do I,” Noah said.

  “More forgetful. More confused. But not yet.”

  “Are you going to…die of it?” Noah asked.

  “If I live long enough. It takes between three and twenty years to run its course.”

  “Three years?” Noah gasped.

  “Or twenty,” Ilya snapped. “There are new drugs coming on the market all the time. There’s a doctor in Switzerland who’s—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Noah asked, feeling hurt and betrayed.

  “We thought you had enough to cope with.” His father patted Noah’s knee. “Sounds like things are improving though. Ilya tells me you’ve been working in Paris?”

  Noah turned to Ilya. “How did you know?”

  “Valentina called me.”

  Bloody woman.

  “What were you photographing?” his father asked.

  “An American movie star and the six-month-old she’s adopted.”

  “Did it go well?”

  Noah started to bristle at the questions, and then recognized this was probably the most he’d said to his father in months, that none of them wanted to dwell on Natalia. But Noah’s head buzzed. His sister found, his father sick, Ash angry with him.

  “How do you feel?” his father asked.

  “I’m okay.” How could he say anything else?

  “Good,” said his father. “Because Sophia and her parents will be at the ball on Saturday. She’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

  Oh God.

  “She’ll make a
good wife,” Ilya said.

  “You marry her then,” Noah snapped.

  “She thinks you want to marry her,” his brother snapped back.

  Noah glowered. “And whose fault is that?”

  “Boys,” said their father. “This is not the time.”

  “Sorry,” Noah muttered.

  “I apologize,” Ilya muttered.

  Noah wanted to tell his father about Ash, but it wasn’t the right time for that either.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ronan handed Ash a glass of wine. “You sure you’re all right? You look upset.”

  “I’m fine.” She made herself smile and sat at the kitchen table while the guys worked. Could she do this? Behave as though everything was normal? The lies would get more and more complicated.

  “Did you see anything of Paris?” Mike asked. “Or were you otherwise engaged?” He laughed and Ash rolled her eyes.

  “We did a bus tour. That was fun. Last night we danced the salsa by the Seine and picnicked under the stars. That was fantastic.”

  “And now from fantasy to reality,” Mike said. “Go to bed, get up, go to work, go to bed.”

  She watched Mike and Ronan clatter round, getting in each other’s way as they concocted a stir-fry. She wished her reality was a fantasy.

  “What happened with Kay?” she asked.

  “She’s gone to stay with her sister in Fulham,” Ronan said. “We packed most of her stuff into a taxi. She’ll have to come back for the rest.” He turned to look at her. “I don’t know how you put up with her for so long.”

  “She was having a hard time.” Ash twirled her glass, letting the wine swirl higher and higher. “It’s not easy being continually disappointed.”

  Ronan frowned. “It’s her own fault. She set her expectations too high. She’s pretty, but too short to make the big-time as a model. No amount of dieting can change that. Kay took advantage of us all, avoiding her share of the chores, eating our food, but she was actively unpleasant to you.”

  “And she moaned all the time,” Mike said. “Can we pick the new one?”

  Ash snorted. “I seem to remember, you were the one who persuaded us to choose Kay.”

  “Ash should choose. It’s her house,” Ronan said.

  The sound of chopping stopped and Ash stared into her glass, sensing the guys were staring at her.

  “What?” Mike gasped.

  “That’s what you almost told Kay, isn’t it?” Ronan asked.

  “Yes.”

  Ronan nodded. “I stopped you because I didn’t want you to give her any ammunition.”

  Ash looked up and Mike gaped at her. “You own this house?”

  “Yes.”

  “How the hell did you get a mortgage?” Mike asked.

  “I don’t have one. I used an inheritance.”

  Mike slid his arm around her shoulder. “I’ve suddenly realized you’re the most alluring female I’ve ever seen.”

  Ash wriggled free, her giggle genuine.

  “She’s taken,” Ronan said.

  Her subsequent smile wasn’t genuine at all.

  “How did you find out I owned the house?” she asked.

  “I checked with the Land Registry,” Ronan said. “I was suspicious that everything seemed so secretive.”

  “Serves me right,” Ash muttered.

  She forced herself to eat the stir-fry, and when the guys settled in front of the TV to watch a gory horror film, she escaped upstairs. There’d been no calls to her phone. No messages left. She paced her room in an agony of indecision.

  What should she say when Noah did call? Would he call?If the police had told his family about Natalia, had he made the leap and joined the dots? If not, she’d have to join them for him. But if the police hadn’t yet said anything because they were waiting for the autopsy report, she’d have to lie to Noah about the visit to her mother. Ash had intended to tell him the truth about her past, but that was before the truth had grown into something so devastating. Ash didn’t want to be the person who told him about his sister. It would be easier not to say anything, never to see him again, but the pain of that closed her throat.

  She had to face facts. There could be no future for her and Noah. If his family didn’t think she was good enough before, pretty soon their disapproval would turn to outright hatred. It would all unravel. Dalton would tell Noah he’d been spying on him for his brother, and if he added Ash had known, she’d be further damned.

  Once the news of her mother’s death and the discovery of Natalia’s body hit the press, it could only be a matter of time before the newshound jackals came here. Ash’s hopes of happiness would never come to fruition. Even worse, Noah had been getting better and now she’d probably pushed him back into that dark depression.

  Ash leaned against her bedroom wall, resting her head against the cool plaster. She wasn’t a coward. She didn’t run from trouble, but somehow that seemed the best thing for her to do for everyone’s sake. She could reinvent herself in another city. Change her name again. A phoenix had yet to rise out of the ashes of her past. Maybe it never would, but she’d keep trying.

  She emptied her small purse onto the bed, transferred the contents to a larger handbag and added a few toiletries and a couple pairs of pants. At some point she’d come back to get all her things, but she didn’t want the guys to know she’d taken off. Once she found a place to stay, she’d call and tell them she’d be back in a few weeks.

  Ash burned her bridges.

  A phone call to Phil Smith, her boss at the Citizens Advice Bureau to tell him she was sorry, but due to personal problems she could no longer volunteer. Did she want to talk to him? No thank you.

  Another call to London Then And Now, a groveling apology for letting them down with so little noticeand she no longer had a paying job.

  The last call was to Martin to tell him she wouldn’t be around for a while, but her uncle would increase his wages to make up for her absence. When he’d pushed, Ash told him she was going on holiday and she’d send him a postcard.

  She left her mobile in the wardrobe. There’d be no temptation then to speak to Noah. She felt as if something had died inside her.

  Ash went downstairs with her bag and tucked it under her coat in the hall. Mike and Ronan were still in the living room.

  She popped her head around the door. “Is it okay if I use your laptop?” she asked Ronan.

  “Go ahead.”

  Ash took it into the kitchen and sat at the table. While she was lying low, she might as well try to do something useful. Noah would have neither the time nor the inclination to follow up on his promise to go and see Dave, but Ash had plenty of time and still wanted to do what little she could to make things better for Noah. When she’d finished on the computer, she deleted the history of the sites she’d visited. She wished she’d replaced the laptop that had died on her a month ago. Maybe now was the time to buy a new one.

  She hesitated in the hall, mouthed a silent “goodbye” to the guys then picked up her jacket and bag and slipped out of the house. Ash walked into Greenwich and caught the train to London Bridge. She went into the station hotel and ten minutes later unlocked a door on the third floor.

  Her bag fell from her hand as she looked at the huge bed. It was hard to think when she’d been more miserable. Her unhappy childhood seemed so far away. Despite telling Noah a bit about it, she didn’t dwell on it. There was no point. Ash had thought she could rise above her background and be the person she wanted to be, but she should have known that her past would merely wait until she was at her most happy to bring her down.

  Noah’s flat was less than a mile away.

  Oh God, Noah.

  Before she dissolved into tears, Ash picked up the phone, dialed 141 to block the number and called Ronan.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hello, unknown caller. What’s happened to your mobile?”

  “I’m just calling to let you know I’ve gone away for a few days on family busine
ss.”

  “You’re not upstairs?” Ronan’s voice was sharp. “You snuck out?”

  “Yes. I’ll explain when I get back.”

  “Explain now,” Ronan said. “What family business? You don’t have a family. What’s wrong?”

  This was exactly why she’d gone without saying goodbye. Ronan would have wormed the truth out of her.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she said, doing her best to sound normal.

  “It doesn’t sound like nothing. Ash, what is it really? Noah? Paris? Tell me. Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

  Ash took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I’ll call you. I promise.” She put the receiver down before he could say anything else.

  Her head felt like it might explode, as though her brain were trying to push out everything it didn’t want to know, couldn’t stand to know. She curled up on the bed and closed her eyes.

  * * * * *

  Dalton paced across the living room of the flat, trying to decide on the right thing to do. He’d gone to a bar after he’d left Ilya’s, but alcohol, as usual, hadn’t solved his problems, only made him more confused. Much as he might like to, he couldn’t avoid Noah forever. Dalton had promised Ash he’d tell him Ilya had paid him to babysit.

  Except Ilya’s words echoed in his head. Dalton didn’t want to be responsible for Noah sliding back into a black hole. He’d had a reprieve when he’d arrived at the flat to find Noah’s bags and no Noah. Along with Noah’s photographic equipment and suitcase, there was a large box emblazoned with the name of a Parisian department store. Dalton lifted the edge to peek inside and saw what he presumed was a dress for Ash. Was that where Noah had gone?

  When he heard the door open, Dalton had to fight the urge to rush to the bathroom. No point delaying this, but when he saw Noah’s white face, Dalton swallowed the groveling apology he was about to make and came up with, “What the fuck’s the matter?”

  “I feel like a nuclear bomb just went off. The initial blast didn’t kill me but what’s following might.”

  “Do you need a drink?”

  Noah sighed. “No.”

  “Where’ve you been?”