The Stranger in Our Home

by Sophie Draper

  My fear and hatred of Elizabeth grew.

  CHAPTER 43

  I’d gone out to empty the bins that evening when I saw the jeep navigating the drive to the house. My heart leapt uncomfortably in my chest. It was late, the night broken by the small lights set into the low walls that surrounded the front drive, flaring out over the gravel to give the effect of miniature monastic cloisters. The car headlamps swept across. Patsy was on the front seat. She barked as the car came to a halt.

  I didn’t say a word. Craig stepped from the jeep and waited for the dog to jump out. I opened the front door, moving around to block them from coming in. Craig looked down at me, his eyes narrowing. He’d recently shaved and in the evening chill he smelt of soap, fresh pine and wood smoke. I wanted to reach up and touch his jaw, to kiss him, but I held back, blocking his further movement into the hall.

  ‘Caro, can I come in? We need to talk.’

  To my fragile mind, he sounded distant, business-like. The last time we’d met, we’d been lovers, and now we were strangers.

  ‘Where have you been? I haven’t seen or heard from you for almost a week!’

  It came out from nowhere, the last thing I wanted to say.

  ‘Caro … let me in. I’ve missed you. Please, I’m so sorry. I’ll try to explain.’ His voice was deep and husky.

  Was that supposed to convince me? Like hell. But I stepped aside and let him pass.

  ‘We need to talk, Caro.’ He took my hand. His touch sent a warm pulse firing up my arm. ‘Can we sit down?’

  I bit my lip. I’d been so wrapped up in my own thoughts all day with everything that I’d learned that I’d almost forgotten about Craig. And Angus. Craig was anxious, I could see it in his eyes. You have to learn to trust, a voice said in my head, to have any relationship you have to learn to trust …

  We went into the sitting room. I snapped on the lights and perched on the arm of the sofa whilst he sat down on a chair. I thought he looked tired, his face a little older and his skin a little grey.

  ‘I take it you know about my business with Angus McCready?’ he said.

  I nodded, not sure that I did but it seemed the right way to encourage him to talk.

  ‘Mary Beth told me she’d mentioned it to you. She’s already got a soft spot for you, Caro.’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come round after you found him at the quarry.’ Craig eyed me carefully. ‘Or ring. It must have been awful for you. It’s just … well, it’s been difficult. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He looked at me, his demeanour different.

  ‘How are you, Caro?’

  I was furious – he’d ignored me. What was going on? This was crap and he knew it. What could have stopped him? Weren’t we together? Didn’t I matter to him? He’d come to me after Carsington. Why not now? God knows I’d needed him over these last few days.

  He sighed.

  ‘Angus and I worked together. He took over his father’s building firm when he retired. The business did well. I ended up working for Angus several times, as I did for his father, we became friends. Then he bought some land on the edge of Derby. He had this plan for a small estate of high-end new builds. They needed a quality finish. But he’d overstretched himself financially. He asked me to do the kitchens and I agreed. I should have known better but I hadn’t realised how far in debt he was. I did three kitchens for him then stopped because he wouldn’t pay me for any of them, not even my materials. He wasn’t happy after I refused to do another. One minute he was Mr Nice Guy, the next, Mr Nasty. It wasn’t like him and I knew he was under a whole heap of pressure. We argued on the night of the Wassail. He’d been trying to persuade me to work for him again and I said no, not until I was paid. That’s why I kept you waiting in the car, he rang me and insisted we have it out.’

  This bit I knew. It wasn’t a conversation to have in public.

  ‘He got physical and hit me.’ There was a pause. Craig’s hand lifted up to his nose, touching the top as if he was remembering. ‘Someone must have seen us, or maybe Angus told a friend afterwards that I’d punched him, but anyway, after his body was found, the police called me in. They’re not convinced his fall was an accident. They’ve had me in for questioning several times.’

  He raked his hand through his hair. I watched the way it sprang up again, longing to reach out and smooth it.

  ‘God, it’s been awful. You feel like you’re guilty even when you’re not! I didn’t kill him, Caro. I have no reason to. Now he’s dead, his creditors will all be clamouring. I won’t see a penny of that money he owed me. It was over twenty thousand pounds.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘That’s a big dent in my finances. But I don’t have an alibi and the police won’t let it go. I’m sorry, Caro, that’s why I didn’t come to you, or ring you. I was worried they might think I was trying to influence you or that we were connected in some way. Since it was you who found the body, they might even have thought that you were somehow involved. I was trying to protect you. But I couldn’t stay away from you any longer.’

  He was apologising – for not staying away from me. I slid off the sofa arm and sat properly on the cushions, facing him.

  ‘But that’s crazy. And if you didn’t do it, they won’t be able to prove a thing.’

  ‘No, but they’ll try. They want answers.’

  ‘Why do they even think his death was suspicious? How can they be sure it wasn’t an accident, or suicide?’ I swallowed.

  ‘Well, firstly, they found bruising on his face. I did punch him, you see, that night. After he hit me. And secondly, they found evidence of Elizabeth’s car in the car park.’

  ‘What!’

  Craig had lowered his head, pulling his long legs in towards his chair.

  ‘There are time-lapse cameras by the wind turbines apparently and one of them caught pictures of her car parked up by the fence. They must have tracked the ownership down via the number plate.’

  ‘How can Elizabeth’s car have been there?’ I said. ‘I mean, I haven’t seen her car since I got here.’

  But I’d found paperwork for it, service receipts. It had been on my list to ring the garage, but I hadn’t got around to it yet. You couldn’t live out in the country without a car and there was nothing parked up in the outbuildings; the car had to be somewhere, stranded perhaps.

  ‘What’s the car got to do with you?’ I said.

  ‘Elizabeth asked me to take a look at it for her, the day before she died. It wasn’t starting right and I said I’d charge up the battery. It was in my garage for a while, after the funeral. I didn’t know what to do with it. Then it got stolen.’

  ‘Stolen?’ I asked, my voice rising.

  ‘Yeah, it went missing one night.’

  ‘You never once mentioned a car to me. Why? And how do you expect the police to believe a story like that? Is that what you told them?’

  ‘Yes, no. Not exactly. They were more interested in my business with Angus. What else could I do? It wasn’t me! And I know I should have told you about the car, after we met, but I’ve been so distracted by what was going on with Angus that it just wasn’t on my radar.’

  And now the car had turned up at the hilltop car park where McCready’s body had been found. And someone had reported Craig for hitting Angus. You could hardly blame the police for asking questions.

  I searched his eyes, looking for some sense of the truth. I thought it was evident in the lines across his forehead, his eyes hungrily chasing after mine. Our eyes met. This time I couldn’t resist. I didn’t want to wait any longer. I stood up and stepped towards him. He met me half way, his hands dropping around my waist.

  ‘Caro …’ He nuzzled my cheek. ‘Your si—’

  I moved my head and kissed him. I wasn’t listening. Whatever he was about to say was no longer important.

  CHAPTER 44

  The morning was shrouded in mist, a cold wall of white whisp
ering against the windows. The world beyond was hidden except for the one tree that stood closest to the house. Its branches rubbed up against the glass, the individual twigs twisted back upon themselves like arthritic hands curled in pain. My fingers itched to paint.

  Silence brooded upon the valley, no birds or cars nor any sign of life beyond our walls, just us, bewitched within the mist. I looked at Craig, still asleep in my bed, his breathing slow and even.

  My life had been incomplete, until now. Paul had been a massive mistake. The jibes, the arguments, the slow erosion of what little confidence I had; he’d played me with such expertise until I’d almost believed him. That I was a failure, that his world was everything.

  The sex had become an act of submission, not love.

  ‘Give it up, Caro,’ he’d growled that last evening. ‘You’ll never make it as an artist. Haven’t you realised that by now?’

  Paul’s hand moved around my neck, his thumb pressing against my throat, his hips crushing into mine. With each thrust of his body I felt his will defeating mine.

  ‘Say it, Caro!’

  I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘No more painting, no more commissions.’ His voice was thick with hate.

  My head began to spin. His body ground into mine and his eyes rolled back as if he was no longer aware of what he did. Then he snapped back to himself and his hand eased its grip, enough for me to speak.

  ‘Say it, Caro,’ he hissed. His eyes bored into mine.

  ‘Please …’ I gasped.

  His grip tightened.

  ‘Yes!’ I cried.

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll give it up. No more painting. I promise!’

  Oh God, what had I said?

  I’d rung Harriet the next day, after Paul had gone to work. She heard it in my voice. She came round straight away and saw the state of me, the tears upon my face, the bruises on my neck.

  ‘You have to leave, Caro. Do you really want this?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then let me help.’

  For the first time I did. I let someone help. We packed up all my stuff there and then and she bundled me into a cab. Paul didn’t know where she lived. He screamed down the phone at me but I just cut him off. There was nothing he could do. But I lived in fear of him discovering me, tracking me down to one of the galleries, following me back to Harriet’s home, forcing me …

  Larkstone Farm, the inheritance, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

  I turned to look at Craig, his face relaxed in sleep. I wanted this so much – Craig. The way he was with me, it was so different from Paul; I felt it with a conviction I’d never had before. At some point, I had to forgive and forget. Paul, my family, myself.

  Watching Craig over my shoulder, I slid from under the sheets, catching up a blanket that had fallen to the floor and dragging it around my body. I crept from the room, barefoot down the stairs, to stand upon the stairwell half way down and look out from the tall window that faced the garden. The mist pressed against the glass and I felt a chill breeze pushing through the gaps in the old wooden frame. It tugged at the tendrils of my hair about my face. I felt my eyes dry from sleep, my lips full from kissing. I yearned for acceptance, for belief, like the ghost of Cathy Earnshaw scratching at the window.

  The tears seeped out from beneath my eyelids, unbidden and fast. It was different from before, a release I hadn’t allowed myself. For so many years this house had been Elizabeth’s home, her space, her refuge. Had she stood in this very spot, looking out of the window, beyond which the roof of the summerhouse lay brooding in the mist? Always reminded of her loss? She could have had it razed to the ground, to destroy the memory of Danny’s death. But it was his monument too, a wound she could never let heal because it meant so much to her – the place he last breathed. She was the mother who could not love me, who did not see or value the love I had to give, who’d never given me a chance. Who could blame her?

  I thought of Steph, the sister – no, half-sister – who’d stayed away from me all those years. I had longed for her affection, her friendship, to make some sense of our sisterhood. Her distance was explained now. She and Elizabeth both had made their choices. These had been opportunities for love that had been lost, gifts that had been rejected, for I knew then that I could have loved them both, if they’d let me, and my love would have been worth having.

  The pointlessness of it all sank into my mind. I’d always craved an understanding, reasons I could accept. Steph’s words, firmly placing the blame for my mother’s death on me, repeated in my head. I was a grown woman now, I knew there was no fault. Nature had taken my mother from me, not I. Steph had said that deliberately to hurt me. Her story about Elizabeth too had been to hurt me. Or was it to hurt Elizabeth, both of us, to plant a seed that would foul our relationship even further? Why would she do that? Elizabeth was Steph’s mother, as I now knew. What had gone on between them?

  As I stood there at the window, my father’s love meant more to me than anything else. Not in the amount of the inheritance, but the fact that he’d given me his name, had provided for me and recognised me with an equal share. Perhaps he’d loved my mother too and this had been his way of making it up to her, to us, for her lost life. I’d never known my parents, but I knew they’d loved me. That gave me faith.

  And what of Danny?

  I saw the little boy that had teased and tormented me, gloating in my submission. But he’d been a child, too young to understand the damage he did, too young to have died like that, to lose the life that stretched out in front of him. I had carried the guilt for his death locked inside since I was six years old. It had been an accident. A terrible, heart-rending tragic accident. Whatever had happened in that split second as the glass shattered around us, as he fell towards me and the spike in my hand, whatever I did, whatever I had felt in that moment, I’d been a child, a very young child who couldn’t understand.

  I cried for Danny then. For Elizabeth and Steph too. And for me. Pity, self-pity, warm and comforting, held me standing naked in my blanket.

  CHAPTER 45

  Craig stayed with me that day and overnight again. Early on the Monday morning, once the mist had lifted, the two of us took Patsy for a walk. It was as we were heading back up the drive to the house that we heard a car pulling in behind us. We both stopped by the front door. It was a police car.

  Patsy barked and Craig called to her, reaching down to hold her collar as he hooked on the lead. I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t happy with our visitors. Patsy sat down on the gravel, tongue hanging from her mouth, her tail wagging in pleasure, quite indifferent to the antagonism in Craig’s face. We both watched as two policemen and a policewoman got out of the vehicle.

  ‘Mr Atherton, we were due to visit you next, so I’m glad you’re here. And you would be Miss Crowther?’

  The first of the policemen held out a hand to me, his voice level and appeasing. I nodded and took his hand reluctantly.

  ‘My name is DI Oliver Harding. This is Sergeant Mansfield and Constable Jones.’

  I didn’t recall a DI Harding, but I recognised the sergeant as the officer who’d interviewed me at Chester Green. He smiled at me reassuringly and I saw DI Harding look from me to Craig before reaching down to pet the dog. Patsy snuffled obligingly forward, earning a quick tug on the lead from Craig.

  DI Harding stood up.

  ‘Do you think we could come in for a chat?’

  I nodded and led them inside, gesturing to the front room.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Miss Crowther, that you had to see what you saw. Finding a dead body is always very distressing, even for those of us who have seen them before. If you would like to speak to anyone about it, I can refer you to our support services?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘But thank you. How can we help?’

  DI Harding turned towards Craig first.

  ‘Mr Atherton, I know you’ve already been helping us down at the station, and
we do appreciate your assistance. I hate to keep taking up your time, but we have to get to the truth, to gather as much information as we can and track things from every perspective. I hope you understand?’ There was a veiled hint of steely instruction to the detective’s words.

  ‘Our enquiries have expanded a little and I’m currently trying to trace Elizabeth Crowther’s car. Miss Crowther, I’m here to ask if you have any idea where it might be?’

  I realised then that the policewoman hadn’t come into the house with us. I looked out of the window and there she was, heading in the direction of the barns. The detective followed my gaze.

  ‘My colleague has gone to check the buildings on your property, I hope you don’t mind?’

  If I did mind, it was already too late, I thought. The police weren’t supposed to do that without a warrant, were they? But hadn’t I just given them my tacit permission? I felt myself stiffen, wariness creeping into my back. But there was no car in the barns, I knew that, so why should I worry?

  ‘I’m aware that Elizabeth did have a car,’ I said. ‘I found the service record amongst her papers. But the car hasn’t been on the property since I got here.’

  ‘And how long have you been here, Miss Crowther?’

  ‘Since early December.’

  ‘It was parked up at my house for a while,’ Craig said.

  I looked at him in surprise. I hadn’t thought he would have wanted to disclose this. He shrugged at me.

  ‘Elizabeth was my neighbour. She’d asked me to look at the battery the day before she died last October. So it was in my garage at that point.’

  ‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’ Harding leaned in closer.

  ‘I wasn’t asked.’

  DI Harding looked annoyed at this, flashing a glance at Sergeant Mansfield, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘And have you driven it since then?’

  ‘No. I charged up the battery and then I heard Elizabeth had died. There seemed no point in doing anything with it whilst the house was empty, waiting to be cleared, so it stayed in my garage, until it went missing.’