An Ordinary Girl

by Barabara Elsborg

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Noah was relieved not to see Ilya’s car in the courtyard when he parked at Floriton Hall. It was going to be difficult enough explaining this to his father, let alone his brother. He handed his jacket to the butler.

  “Drawing room?” Noah asked.

  “Yes sir.”

  His father looked up from his book and smiled when Noah walked in. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

  No, it isn’t.

  “How are you?” Noah asked.

  “Who are you again?”

  Noah gaped and then released a choked laugh. He dropped down into the chair opposite his father. “I’ve got a problem.”

  His father put his book down.

  “There’s this girl,” Noah blurted.

  He wasn’t surprised by the raised eyebrows. Noah couldn’t think when he’d ever started off a conversation like this with his father.

  “She’s kind and funny and beautiful and…happy.” Well, she had been happy. “Just right for me.”

  “This is the woman you took to Paris?”

  Noah should have known. He wondered what his brother had said.

  “Ilya didn’t say much. Merely that she was unsuitable.” His father answered his unasked question.

  Noah bristled. “Since when is my brother responsible for deciding who’s suitable for me? He can’t even find a woman who’s prepared to put up with him, so I don’t see why he has to bloody well interfere in my life.”

  “You haven’t exactly made good choices in the past. Ilya wants what’s best for you. As I do.”

  Noah sucked in a breath.

  “So what’s your problem?” his father asked. “Sophia?”

  “Not really. Maybe a bit. I might have led her to believe there could be something between us, but that was before I went out to Afghanistan. She sent me a ‘get well soon’ card, and kept calling. I haven’t spoken to her.” He sighed. “To be honest, I don’t think she’s any more interested than I am. Ilya should marry her if he likes her so much.”

  “Ilya’s thinking of the family name.”

  “Well, the woman I want has a name you won’t like. When I met her, she told me her name was Ash. Not the name her parents gave her.” Oh God, this is hard.

  His father sat up in his chair and gave him a puzzled look.

  Noah took a deep breath. He’d just have to blurt it out. “Her name’s Jane North.”

  He watched the color drain from his father’s face and gulped.

  “Oh my God, Noah.”

  “I love her,” Noah whispered, his heart aching at the distress he’d caused his father.

  The door opened and Ilya strolled in. Noah sagged. Fuck. That’s all I need. The guy had a radar for trouble.

  “What’s wrong?” Ilya glanced between them.

  “Noah’s given me some disturbing news.”

  Ilya glared at Noah. “What have you done now?”

  “Ash is really Jane North.”

  For once in his life, he managed to shock Ilya into silence. His brother looked like a statue, still and marble-white.

  “Ash had a phone call when we were in Paris to say her mother was gravely ill. She flew back. I assume the deathbed confession was her telling Ash about Natalia.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Ilya snapped. “You’re not in love. You haven’t known her five minutes. This is just part of your…illness. You’re clinging to someone who showed you affection.”

  “I love her,” Noah said. He did, and it felt right saying it. Soothing, comforting.

  Ilya began to pace. “Don’t be a bloody idiot. She was paid to go out with you. She was supposed to be a distraction, a quick fling to cheer you up.”

  “Paid?” asked their father.

  “Dalton didn’t pay her,” Noah said. “He paid her housemate to make sure we were in the same place at the same time and then to make sure we weren’t. I know all about the business with the missing passport. Neither Ash nor I were aware you were behind the scenes pulling strings.”

  “I’m confused,” their father said to Ilya. “What do you and Dalton have to do with this?”

  “Ilya’s been paying Dalton to babysit. Only my brother pressured him to take his duties a little too far.”

  Ilya’s wide shoulders slumped and he dropped into an armchair. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? You can’t possibly have a relationship with the daughter of a murderess, let alone one linked to our family. What the hell would people say if they knew?”

  “I love her.” I love her, I love her, I love her.

  Ilya sat forward and glared at him. “Forget her. Have you no respect for Natalia? Christ, every time you look at this woman, you’ll remember what her mother did. Our sister is dead. Our beautiful, sweet sister had her life snatched from her by this woman’s mother, a fucking vicious monster. You cannot do this, Noah.”

  “I love her.” What else could he say?

  Ilya jumped to his feet. “Stop fucking saying that. You have no fucking idea what love is. You’re still suffering from PTSD. You’ve stopped seeing the psychiatrist and you’re using this woman as a crutch. Have you even tried to come to terms with the mess in your head?”

  Noah’s blood boiled in his veins. He pushed himself up. He’d never wanted so much to smash his fist into Ilya’s face.

  “And what about Sophia?” Ilya spat the words into his face. “She’s coming here with her parents expecting you to propose to her.”

  “Then she’s going to be disappointed,” Noah barked, staring his brother right in the eyes.

  “Oh no she’s not,” Ilya snapped back.

  Noah glared at him. “What the fuck have you done?”

  “It’s all arranged.” Ilya glared back.

  Noah glanced at his father, but he looked just as puzzled as Noah felt.

  “I’ve spoken to Sophia’s parents,” Ilya said. “Her father had a fabulous diamond that’s been in the family for two hundred years set into a ring so you could present it to his daughter on bended knee. It was meant to be a wonderful surprise for Father, for the two of you, for everyone, and now you’ve fucked it all up.”

  Noah couldn’t believe his ears. “Have you gone mad?” He wanted Ilya to tell him it was all a joke, but he could see from the look on his brother’s face that it wasn’t.

  “No, that’s you.”

  “You fucking…” Noah swung at Ilya’s jaw, but his brother knocked his fist away. Ilya didn’t block the thump in the gut.

  “Boys, stop it,” said their father.

  They pulled apart and Ilya turned to face their father. “Father, tell him. He can’t possibly love this common woman.”

  “What does Ash think about all this?” his father asked. “It must be as disturbing to her as it is to us.”

  “Hardly,” Ilya scoffed.

  “Stop it, Ilya. She hardly targeted your brother, did she? Ash must be very upset. How is she, Noah?”

  “I haven’t been able to talk to her,” Noah muttered, grateful his father worried about Ash.

  “Why not?” his father asked.

  “She’s disappeared.”

  His brother snorted, and Noah stuffed his clenched fists in his pockets.

  Ilya took Noah’s elbow and propelled him to a corner of the room. “So what the hell was all this about? If she’s gone, you’ve come here and upset Father for nothing.”

  Noah looked at his father’s white face and sagged. “I’m sorry.” He stumbled toward the door and flung it open. He shouldn’t have come. Why had he thought he could make his family understand?

  * * * * *

  One press of a button in a hotel room pushed Ash straight into a nightmare—Kay being interviewed on a chatty breakfast show by a smartly dressed female presenter and the Welsh guy Ash had always fancied. Kay was perfectly made up and wearing a dress she’d bought a month ago that cost her a week’s wages. She still owed Ash her share of the gas bill.

  “Yeah, that’s right. I lived with h
er for nearly a year. Though the three of us knew her as Ash not Jane.”

  Oh shit.

  “Were there never any hints she was pretending to be someone else?” asked the good-looking, dark-haired Welsh presenter.

  “She never wanted her photo taken, and I can see why now. I thought it was because she was insecure about her looks, what with me being a model and an actress.” Kay smiled.

  I was such an idiot to ever think Kay was my friend. Ash quivered with rage. A photo came up on the screen. A shot of Ash drinking a pint of beer when they’d had a barbeque in the garden. Bloody hell.

  “What did she do for a living?” asked the female presenter.

  “She works a few jobs, but one of them is for a company called Green Piece.They tidy up scruffy bits of land. One of the sites they worked on was on Leopold Road, where the murders had been carried out. Obviously it was where she used to live. Maybe Ash suggested it as a site. I suppose she might have been looking for something.”

  Ash’s jaw dropped. Kay was unbelievable.

  “Such as?” asked the guy.

  “Maybe more bodies?”

  Ash wanted to stuff Kay in a hole and bury her.

  “She might have known about this last victim and thought she was still somewhere in the grounds,” Kay said.

  “How the fuck could I know that, you moron?” Ash shouted at the TV.

  “The really creepy thing is that Ash and I worked together at a wedding at Floriton Hall. I wonder if she wanted to meet Natalia’s father.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Ash yanked at her hair. “Isn’t someone going to tell her she’s an imbecile?”

  The woman cleared her throat. “But Natalia’s body hadn’t been found then, had it? Ash was the one who told the police what her parents were doing. If she hadn’t come forward, there would certainly have been more murders.”

  Ash shivered, goose bumps racing down her arms.

  “If she’d come forward sooner, there might have been less,” Kay retorted.

  I didn’t know before then. I didn’t know.

  “She shouldn’t have gotten that reward the newspaper offered,” Kay said. “That doesn’t seem right. She shouldn’t benefit from others’ misery.”

  Kay leapt from one subject to another, slinging shit wherever she went. All the things that had lain buried for nearly twenty years were back in the public eye. Ash had given away every penny of the reward once it came under her control. It all went to the families of the victims.

  “What’s she like?” the man asked.

  Ash didn’t want to listen but couldn’t bring herself to switch off the TV.

  “Average really. Just ordinary. Except she isn’t, is she? I wouldn’t have gone to live there if I’d known who she was.” Kay shuddered. “Like mother like daughter, right? And her dad too. How could she be normal? It’s in her genes. I never felt completely comfortable in that house.”

  Ash clenched her teeth. She’d been nothing but kind to Kay.

  “How did you discover her real identity?”

  Yeah, how did she?

  “There was a pile of letters in her room signed by Jane North. Ronan, another housemate and Ash’s boyfriend Noah—well, former boyfriend probably—were looking through her stuff. And that’s the other amazing thing about all this. Noah is Natalia’s brother. He’s been going out with the daughter of the woman who murdered his sister.”

  Ash mustered enough energy to press the remote’s off button and then fell back on the bed. Oh my God. Noah and Ronan nosing through her personal belongings? How could they? They were the two men she trusted more than anyone. Now she felt as though they’d ripped her sordid past bare for all the world to see. And in front of Kay? How could they do this to her? How could Noah? Is this how he repaid her for loving him?

  Well, it was out now. Her dirty little secret. She’d been nine years old when one morning she’d walked to the police station instead of school. A late-night raid on the fridge and she’d seen the cellar door ajar for the first time ever. She’d crept over and heard a whimpering cry that didn’t come from her mother or father. Ash had raced back to her room. A little while later, she watched through the window as they carried something wrapped in black plastic down to the shed.

  When her parents went to bed, she put a glass to the wall and listened. Amplification of sound waves was something they’d been talking about at school. Ash heard the name Julie Beard and a few other things that made her bite her lip in case she made a noise. It was the name of a teenage girl who’d gone missing. Julie’s sister was at their school. A year older than Ash.

  The police hadn’t believed her, and looking back, Ash could see how crazy it must have sounded, but she told them what her parents had done to her over the years and the way she had to look after herself. She said she couldn’t go back home because they’d kill her, and that if the police didn’t check the shed, they’d look very bad when her parents were eventually caught. Now, she could see she was lucky the policeman she spoke to decided to check her story. Otherwise, she’d have been another victim.

  Ash never returned to school. She never went home again, but the policewoman who looked after her for a while made sure she got her things. Teddy, her book and the box of letters. Her parents’ faces were on the TV for weeks, though someone always switched it off if Ash was in the room. Ash wished she’d understood what they’d been doing and said something sooner. She might have saved Noah’s sister.

  She curled up on the bed and buried her face in her arms. Had she been wrong to hide who she was for all this time? Why should she have to tell people what her parents had done? They’d judge her for something that happened when she was a child.

  Kay was a bitch. And Ronan and Noah had no right to go through Ash’s things. But at least there was no more wondering if Noah knew. The whole of the UK knew. Probably the whole world. And Ash had found out something about Noah. He used to live in Floriton Hall. The older guy and the younger one she’d seen when she’d become lost at the wedding were his father and brother. If she’d read the newspapers properly yesterday, she’d have realized sooner, though it wouldn’t have changed anything. Life was still shit.

  Ash wanted to be hugged, but there was no one to hug her. How could Noah ever want to see her again? And after what he’d done, did she even want to see him?

  * * * * *

  Back at his flat, Noah couldn’t settle. He’d slept badly, his phone close by in case Ronan called to say Ash had come back. He alternated between despair and fury. If Ash really loved him, why had she disappeared without saying a fucking word? Why hadn’t she told him about her parents? He’d opened his heart and told her about Dave and Tommy, why couldn’t she do the same? Was Ilya right, that he should forget her? Was it something about him that was unlovable? Was this karma for what had happened in Afghanistan?

  Questions piled up in his head, building one on the other until everything became such a jumbled mess, Noah had to shut down to stay sane. He told Dalton to get rid of Ash’s dress and then slipped so fast into a morose silence that he frightened himself. The questions began again. Wasn’t she concerned about him at all? Didn’t she care? Why didn’t she call him? Was she okay? Was she hurt? Nothing went through his mind except for unanswered questions until he thought his head would explode.

  One day blended into another. He ate—sometimes. He washed—sometimes. He refused to speak to Ilya. He mumbled lies to his father about being fine. He was just waiting.

  Waiting.

  Waiting.

  He didn’t turn his head when he heard the knock at the door. Dalton came in.

  “It’s a call for you. Not Ash. Some guy called Dave. Want to speak to him?”

  Noah stiffened. Dave?

  “He says it’s important.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “He told me if you said that I was to remind you that you owed him one.”

  Noah pushed himself to a sitting position on his bed and took the phone
. He had to grip it hard because his hand shook so much. He didn’t speak until Dalton had gone.

  “Hello,” he muttered.

  “If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain. Not that I’m planning on climbing any mountains. Next year maybe.”

  Noah’s heart jerked. “How did you get my number?”

  “Well, that’s nice. How are you, Dave? Fine, thank you. How about you?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Let’s try again,” Dave said.

  Noah took a deep breath. “How are you?”

  “Alive. How about you?”

  “I feel like shit.”

  “Tough. Why haven’t you been to see me?”

  Noah screwed up his eyes and then opened them with a sigh. “I fucked up your life. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t fuck up anything. The Behnam are responsible for this shit, not you. They killed Tommy, not you. You fucking killed them though. I was impressed. Seriously impressed. You didn’t panic. You kept your head. You saved lives. Ever thought about joining up? Have to do something about your hair. That shaggy mess won’t cut it. Your attitude needs work as well.”

  “I’m sorry,” Noah blurted.

  “Shut the fuck up about being sorry. You made the right choice. Tommy had a kid. But the truth is that none of us would have walked out of there alive no matter what you want to tell yourself. They were fucking with your head. If you don’t let this go, then they won.”

  Noah swallowed hard.

  “I don’t blame you for anything,” Dave said in a quieter voice. “You saved my life. You listened to what the medics said when you arrived and under fire— You. Saved. My. Life. Not just mine, others too.”

  Noah opened his mouth and then closed it.

  “You still there?” Dave asked. “I’d have preferred to have this conversation face-to-face.”

  “Sor— I’ll come and see you.”

  “Next week. Wednesday. You know where I live?”

  “Yes.”

  “You fucker. You could have visited.”

  “Sor— I’ll bring fish and chips.”

  “Bring a six-pack or I won’t let you in. One last thing. There’s no shame in this, Noah. You were doing a job, just like we were. People need to see what we’re up against. Pictures work a lot better than words. We were unlucky, that’s all, and yet lucky at the same time. Don’t waste your life thinking of what might have been. Neither choice would have changed anything. See you on Wednesday.”