The Day She Can’t Forget: Psychological suspense you’ll just have to keep reading

by Meg Carter

  What was I thinking? I’m not in my twenties any more – I’ve important stuff to deal with; responsibilities. Dad’s affairs to sort out. Matty, for Christ’s sake.

  But as she turns towards the man beside her, her pulse quickens. At his tousled hair and the kiss-curl at the nape of his neck. Scrutinising the outline of him, she marvels at the symmetrical muscularity of his back, his lean physique; wonders how old he is. Younger than me, she thinks, though not by much. She resists the urge to kiss the smooth skin at the base of his spine, remembering with a blush that she had kissed him there earlier.

  Christ! Zeb thinks, though now she is thrilled; overwhelmed, too, by a sense of release. Maybe this isn’t a mistake. He has freed her from the events of these past few weeks. Made her feel truly alive, happy even, for the very first time since Dad—

  ‘Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to stare?’

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaims.

  Fraser rolls over to face her. ‘Been awake long?’

  ‘No, you?’

  ‘A while. I was watching you, actually,’ he admits, ruefully. ‘Until I realised how early it was. Then I was trying my hardest to get back to sleep.’

  Zeb resists the temptation to cover herself. Daring him to drop his gaze from her face.

  ‘So here we are, then,’ Fraser smiles. ‘Both awake.’ He reaches out and strokes the side of her thigh then runs his forefinger up and onto her hip bone, which makes her shiver. ‘Come back to bed.’

  Slipping back beneath the covers, Zeb rolls into his embrace. But as his hand slips onto her breast, she gently halts it. Can I trust him? she wonders. Though as she lies in his arms, naked and exposed, she knows this question has landed too late.

  * * *

  ‘Mummy!’

  ‘Are you OK, darling?’ Zeb exclaims, her heart surging at the sound of her son’s voice. While Fraser showers, she has called Sam to check on Matty. But there’s been some kind of a rush at work – an unexpected deadline from an important sponsor that the team are struggling to hit without Zeb’s help. And before she can call her ex, Matty has rung her from Richard’s parents’ number. It’s almost eleven. Why is he there and not at school?

  ‘I’m a Jedi,’ he declares, proudly.

  ‘Good for you,’ she laughs. ‘But why aren’t you at West Heath, you’re not poorly, are you?’

  ‘Nah, it’s an upset day. That’s why I’m at Grandad and Nana’s until Sam’s finished work,’ her son replies. ‘So we’ve been to the park and after lunch Daddy’s taking me to the cinema. I just cycled without putting my feet down, Mummy. Helene says I won’t need trainer wheels at all very soon.’

  A teacher training day, how stupid of her to forget. Zeb grimaces. ‘Clever you.’

  ‘Like Action Man, Grandad said. We ate squid, too – did I tell you? In Portugal. When are you coming, Mummy – today?’

  ‘Oh darling, I’d love to – really – but I’m in Scotland—’

  ‘Scotland?’

  ‘I’ll be back the day after tomorrow, though, so not long.’

  ‘I want to be back in my own room.’

  ‘I know, champ, I want you back there too. But there’s something important I’ve got to do first,’ Zeb answers. ‘I’m taking some time off work soon, though, so when you come home we can do a bunch of stuff together, you and me,’ she presses on, brightly. ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘Lots—’

  ‘Now wait a minute, Zeb,’ Richard unexpectedly cuts in. ‘Best not to promise what you might not be able to deliver.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she asks, trying to remain polite though the realisation he has been eavesdropping on their conversation makes her tone chill.

  ‘Well you need to make sure you can get the holiday, first, don’t you? What are you doing in Scotland? I thought you said you’d used up this year’s allocation with the leave of absence you took before your father’s funeral.’

  Ever the accountant – always keeping track, she thinks, bitterly. Of course he is right. Though he doesn’t know that since then she has walked out of her job, of course. ‘It will be fine, Matty,’ she says, emphatically. ‘It’s all sorted out.’

  ‘What’s in Scotland?’ her son echoes.

  Fraser emerges from the bathroom with a bright red bath towel knotted round his waist. ‘Men in kilts,’ she smiles, trying not to laugh as he raises his arms and performs a surprisingly dainty pirouette that seems more Lord of the Dance than Highland jig. She looks away, coyly. ‘The Loch Ness monster. And an old friend of Granddad Pete’s.’

  ‘Say hello from me.’

  ‘To a man in a kilt or the old friend?’ she teases.

  ‘Of course not! To the monster, silly.’

  ‘I’ll do my very best,’ she laughs. ‘If the monster doesn’t get me first.’

  ‘No!’ Matty shouts, excitedly. ‘If it tries to get you you must run away and find a place to hide. But if the monster turns out to be nice will you invite him to stay?’

  ‘I’ll see,’ she promises, troubled by the inadvertent echo in his words. ‘And Matty?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I love you lots and miss you madly.’

  ‘Miss you madly Mummy, too!’

  ‘Keep us posted, Zeb,’ Richard urges. ‘And see you—’

  ‘Tomorrow, I hope. If not, definitely the day after,’ Zeb replies, firmly. ‘As I said. There’s just one last thing I need to sort before I can come back to London. It’s to do with Dad.’

  Outplayed – for now, at least, her ex grunts.

  Keep us posted, she thinks as she hangs up the phone. Us. Does that mean Richard and Matty? Matty, Richard and his parents, more like. Why, then, does she suspect he also meant Helene? Though younger than her, her ex’s fiancée is desperate for a child – any child – having recently been diagnosed with unspecified infertility.

  My child, even. Catching sight of last night’s minibar detritus, Zeb winces. Well she can’t have him. Because I’m his mum and more than capable, they’ll see.

  * * *

  How far up is the cafe? Zeb asks, squinting up towards the summit, where the trees are at their thinnest.

  The car park she stands in is a barren expanse of quartz-like stone chips, neatly corralled on each side by lines of rough-hewn logs. In its furthest corner a Forestry Commission information board displays a map and a detailed list of safety restrictions. Beside the sign is a painted post marking the official start of the public footpath and a sign for the cafe. The arrow points along the track which stretches away in a straight line for fifty metres or so before disappearing into a wall of trees that fringes the hill like a receding hairline. The footpath comes into sight again as it winds across heather-scored terrain to the top, where there are picnic tables and a small viewing platform.

  Not all the way up there, surely, she thinks. Can this really be the right place?

  Leaning her arm on the car’s roof, Zeb dips her head to speak to Fraser through the passenger window. ‘What time is it?’ she asks.

  ‘Quarter to,’ he replies, reaching forward to turn on the car’s stereo, which punctures the silence with a shrill burst of rap. He tweaks the dial with the concentration of a safe-cracker, sifting through the static until he finds something more appropriate. On a local news station, two men are discussing some disagreement or other with the Norwegians about territorial fishing rights.

  ‘I should probably head on up…’ The statement of intent ends up sounding more like a question as Zeb’s free hand hovers over the car door handle.

  ‘You’d better – it’s at least a ten minute walk to the cafe. Don’t worry, it’s not as far as it looks,’ he smiles, reassuringly. ‘The views up top are stunning, by the way. And I’ll be waiting for you here.’

  Zeb crosses the empty car park, then goes through the gate, between two densely planted plots of young conifers which mark where the footpath begins. The rain has held off but the temperature has fallen further – a sure sign, according to Fraser, tha
t snow is not far behind. Adjusting her scarf across her mouth and nose, she hurries on.

  Zeb briskly follows the track. Not far, he’d said. And for at least half of her ascent, she calculates, she will be in full view. The thought sustains her as after cutting through open land the path traverses a sudden and sheer ravine.

  The trees are packed so tightly that within just a few metres the space between their trunks is filled by darkness. Every sound she makes now seems muffled. Unnerved by the gloom, Zeb fixes her sights instead on the sullen strip of sky above her head. Only a few minutes, she tells herself mechanically. Not long now before you’ll see the cafe. She imagines an alpine cabin made with rough-hewn logs – its windows fogged with steam, its interior bright and warm. By the time she gets there she’ll have more than earned a steaming hot coffee.

  At last, the path widens and the trees begin to thin. Zeb checks her watch. She slows as the path curves once more across open terrain carpeted with heather and gorse. She calculates the path must circumnavigate the mound twice more before she’ll reach the summit. She waves towards Fraser’s car.

  Which way will Anna come from, she wonders, surprised that his is still the only car in view. If not by car, would she come by foot? Zeb falters, at the thought – registered then quickly tossed aside – that maybe Dad’s friend won’t come. Or else Fraser has got the details for their rendezvous wrong. Her chest tightens. But then, gazing down the hill once more she experiences a jolt of relief as a grey four wheel drive pulls into the car park below.

  Emboldened, she strides on.

  Though the morning has grown windy and overcast the view from the top is indeed stunning, she decides. To her left runs a snow-scored backbone of rock, the incline of which gradually tapers down to the water-filled socket of a loch. A patchwork of low, undulating hills in the foreground to the right makes her think of a winter sea. It is a barren landscape, yet crouching beneath the February sky, it is beautiful, too.

  Zeb scans the terrain for the cafe but the only building she can see is the roof of a squat Portakabin, partially obscured by a clump of trees.

  Making her way towards the cabin, she can soon see its door is padlocked and the interior empty, with tables and chairs piled floor to ceiling in one corner. It’s five past, she sees, once more checking her watch. But Anna is surely just running a bit late, that’s all. The ragged picnic area is just wooden tables and benches beside a green plastic recycling bin in the shape of a smiling cartoon frog. This is the right place, just as Fraser described it, even down to the grey viewing platform a short distance beyond.

  Zeb heads towards the telescope mounted on a large concrete block. Squinting through the viewfinder, she swings the instrument across the horizon. Adjusts the focus. Pans in on closer points of interest. The steeple of the church where Anna was due to perform her recital, just visible through the trees. The winding ribbon of road from the village below. The car park, which is now home to two cars.

  Zooming in on the second vehicle now parked below, Zeb sees it is a silver BMW. The vehicle is empty. As is Fraser’s car, though the driver’s door stands wide open. She experiences a surge of panic.

  Anxiously, Zeb surveys the car park and its hinterland for any sign of where Fraser has gone but can find no evidence – aside from his car – that he was ever there. Uneasy now, she scans what’s visible of the road but again sees nothing. No vehicle, nor movement. Or any sign of life. Maybe the tank was running low so he’s walked to the petrol station back in the village, she thinks hopefully – though she knows this is unlikely and besides, why would he leave the car like that?

  A dull throb presses on Zeb’s temple. What should I do? Stay put or retrace my steps down the hill through the woods to the road below and somehow make my way back to the village? A nearby sound makes her jump and turn towards the furthest picnic table, where a figure now stands just a few paces away.

  Zeb takes a step back, keeping her eyes fixed on the stranger, every sense primed to detect even the merest hint of movement. The figure’s face is covered by a woollen scarf and the raised hood of a dark green canvas jacket. Yet it is watching her, intently. For an age they just stare at one another, until the person lowers their scarf to reveal a heart-shaped face framed with the ivory-coloured hair of a once-natural blonde.

  Though heavily lined, the woman’s face is lightened by the humorous slant of her light grey eyes. Her full lips and refined cheeks are devoid of any make-up. She is attractive, might once have been stunning, but the life she has led over intervening years has taken its toll.

  ‘Hello.’ Just a single word, but enough for Zeb to tell the woman’s voice is tentative. And her accent is English, not Scottish.

  ‘Anna?’

  The stranger nods. ‘I hope you’ve not been waiting long but I had trouble getting away.’

  Zeb takes a few steps forwards, uncertain what to say or where to put herself until, thankfully, the other woman takes the initiative and sits down on the far side of the wooden bench then motions for Zeb to join her. The unlikeliness of the setting for such parlour politeness makes both women smile.

  ‘You came,’ the woman says.

  ‘Of course I came,’ Zeb asserts, not noticing how Anna’s face has hardened. ‘You mentioned you have something to tell me about my… mother?’ Just one word, but enough to push a powerful heat through every fibre of Zeb’s being. ‘Mother’, ‘Mummy’, ‘Mum’ were all alien words which lodged stubbornly in her throat. ‘I’m Zeb – Elizabeth? Pete Hamilton’s daughter.’

  The woman says nothing for some seconds. Her fingers are long and delicately tapered, with unpolished nails that are rounded and buffed like shells. At close quarters the contrast with the coarser skin of her face seems stark: this woman has built a protective shield around herself, Zeb senses. At last, her face starts to move.

  Zeb can’t tell, but the woman’s eyes look glassy. Is she fighting back tears?

  ‘So,’ Anna begins, swallowing hard. Her voice is unsteady. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You got my letter.’

  ‘Letter?’ The only personal letter she got – or, rather didn’t get – was the one she found at her neighbours’. From Cynthia, the woman who’d come to Dad’s funeral.

  ‘The box, then.’

  Zeb nods.

  Then, without warning, the older woman’s hand reaches for Zeb’s. Skin brushes skin, then she gives it a squeeze. ‘I had to—’ Her voice falters. ‘—Get in touch, you know? After I heard about Pete’s death.’ She swallows and gathers her composure. But then, before she can continue, they are interrupted. Zeb’s is drawn immediately to movement, to the steady clenching and unclenching of a man’s fists.

  He is standing between where they are sitting and the mounted telescope. His grey-flecked hair is cut into a close crop, military-style. A black leather coat firmly belted at the waist reaches down to his knees. Beneath this are dark combat trousers and scuffed lace-up boots. He is appraising the scene, his arms loose by his sides.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ As Zeb makes the connection between this stranger and the burglar who broke into her flat, a shot of panic powers her to her feet. The man smiles. ‘It must be,’ he exclaims. ‘The elusive daughter.’

  Anna frowns. ‘Brian, wait—’ she begins. She holds out her hand as if to placate him, then, seeing Zeb stumble to her feet, grabs at her sleeve. ‘Wait a minute. Please,’ she adds. ‘It’s important we speak – about your mother. About me.’

  A distant whistle, high and shrill, makes all three of them turn in its direction. Down along the footpath leading back to the car park then away to its right, in a ragged field left fallow is the moving black cursor of a dog, running free. Its owner, a lone figure, waits by a gate in the furthest corner of the field. The creature turns on its heels and is heading excitedly back towards its master; in response to a second whistle, perhaps.

  ‘Please,’ Anna tries once more as Brian takes a step forward. Frightened – by the advancing
physicality of him, by the strangeness of this woman’s pleading – Zeb looks to the middle distance for a suitable escape route. The woman tries again. ‘Zeb’ she calls. ‘You’ve got to listen—’

  But Zeb is turning away. Whatever binds them to each other and this moment is their business, not hers. It was a mistake coming. She does not have to listen. And a moment later she is flying. Running, full pelt, as the voice behind her cries out, desperately. Cascading straight down the hillside – the shortest and most direct route, though the going is treacherous and the uneven ground makes her slip and stagger.

  ‘Elizabeth, please!’ she shouts. ‘It’s me. I’m—’

  But all it takes is a gust of wind to carry whatever Anna is saying away.

  24

  Baker Street, November 1975

  Staring across Marylebone Road towards The Globe pub, Alma tries to remember the directions he gave her. They have arranged to meet at eleven o’clock outside Abbey House. It’s on the left-hand side of the road, only a short distance away; heading in the direction they will be travelling together, north.

  Clutching the handles of her weekend bag, Alma steps out onto the pavement into a gauze of early winter rain. She makes her way past the newspaper stands and then across the uneven paving stones that line the busy junction, determined to fulfil her mission. But then, as she rounds the corner, she is startled by a pulse of nausea.

  Alma stops beneath a shallow awning, abandoning her bag to the gathering rain. Unbuttoning her coat, she runs her finger around the rim of her collar. As she feels the chain of the silver necklace, warm against her skin, her pulse starts to calm.

  It will be all right, he told her. We’ll get through this together. Everything will be OK, you’ll see.