Ella
As we sit under the ugly painting, I try to explain to her about how a sheltered childhood doesn’t do you any favors.
“Everyone has to grow up,” I tell her. “The more that’s hidden from you, the harder it is.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.” She looks a bit sad. “I prefer to think of a carefree childhood as a gift. In an ideal world, children should feel safe—and free—at the same time.”
“Yeah. Right.” It comes out automatically.
She looks surprised. “I think it’s instinct. To protect your child—well, for most people.”
“Even from the truth?”
She frowns. “This isn’t really about childhood, is it? We’re talking about Theo, right?”
I nod.
“I don’t believe in lies, Ella. But don’t you think there has to be a reason to hide the truth?”
Maybe she’s right. But what about the bigger picture? Because when honesty and trust have gone, they’re gone for good.
I sigh. “Well, imagine you’re me. You get to twelve years old, and out of the blue, you discover a brother no one ever talks about.”
She shakes her head. “Maybe his mother cut ties with your father for a reason. I know it’s sad, but it happens. Or maybe your father is in touch with him—in secret—only the longer it goes on, the harder it is to explain to you—and your mother. . . . But I don’t know any more than you, Ella. I’m guessing. The only way to find out would be to try to talk to your father.”
“No way.” I blurt it out, then put my hand over my mouth, while I think. “It just doesn’t make sense. I know I have a nice home and everything. So why isn’t he part of it, too?”
“I know it’s hard,” she says quietly. “When you discover your parents are not perfect. They get things wrong.” Then she frowns. “You’ve known since you were twelve?”
I nod.
“You’ve told no one?”
I stare at the floor. “There wasn’t any point.”
“It’s a long time to keep a secret.” She pauses and I’m thinking WTF because I’ve done it again. She’s going to squeeze out of me more than I want to tell her.
“I have a question,” she says carefully as I feel my eyes roll all on their own. “When you’ve kept it to yourself all this time, why are you telling me now?”
Oh. She has no freaking idea, because I don’t even want to think about the rest. The overheard phone calls, the dreams. The skeleton leaf memories that don’t belong to me. It’s already a huge deal that she’s the first person I actually trust enough to share just a tiny part of this.
Even if it would help, I can’t tell her. I can’t tell anyone. That when I went back and found the desk unlocked again, there was more.
31
As Lara talks about April’s gift, my head is reeling again as I remember my dream.
“Noah? Are you all right?”
Around me, the room starts to spin as Lara’s disembodied voice comes to me. I lean forward, resting my head in my hands, because it’s a day of crumbling bricks and steel girders that melt like butter. I’m remembering the dream I had, the night before I left home, of the burning woman, holding something out to me; her words, This is my gift.
For a brief moment, I stare into the glittering eyes of madness, before somehow pulling back. Telling myself firmly that wherever it is they come from, dreams are just that. Dreams. Flimsy creations of the imagination—not real.
“Noah?” Dimly I register Lara’s concern.
“I remembered something, that’s all.” I rest my head in my hands, silent. Eventually I look up at her.
“I’m reading too much into things. It’s been one of those days.” I try to remember what she was saying. “You were about to tell me about April having a gift.”
“Yes.” Lara gets up and walks over to the window. “She’s an incredible counselor. But also, she’s a healer.”
A wave of disappointment washes over me, because I was hoping for proof of April’s innocence rather than the revelation that she’s some kind of crackpot.
Sensing my response, Lara closes up. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.” She turns her back on me and gazes outside. “Not everyone understands.”
Suddenly I’m light-headed again, to my embarrassment overcome by nausea.
“Sorry, need to use your bathroom,” I mumble, getting up.
“Through there, on the right.” Turning to point the way, Lara watches me sharply.
* * *
When I come back in a while later, Lara throws the kitchen window open, then lets me drink the sweet tea she’s made, while she watches me.
“Have you thought maybe you should see a doctor?”
It’s a statement rather than a suggestion, one that takes me aback.
I look at her, startled. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m fine.”
“Can I be honest?” Her eyes are unblinking. “You really don’t look well.”
“I’m all right, really,” I say feebly, aware of my clammy skin and the nausea, more distant but still there. “It’s been a long day.”
Knowing as well as Lara does, that’s not why I’m ill.
“My father was an alcoholic.” She says it quietly, without looking at me.
My hands are shaking and my throat is parched. But she’s got this wrong. “I like a drink as much as anyone, but I’m not an alcoholic.”
She doesn’t reply, but her silence, the slump of her shoulders, send a ripple of alarm through me.
“Can I ask you something?” Deflecting the conversation away from myself; both of us aware of my classic denial.
“Of course.”
“Have you been feeding April’s cat?”
“Yes.” She looks cautious.
“Great. I was there and I was quite sure that when I left, there was more food in the cat’s bowl than when I’d arrived.”
“That was you? I’m so sorry. I wasn’t sure who it was. I thought I’d forgotten to lock the door when I came in the last time. Then I heard footsteps, so I just left some food and ran. If I’d known . . .” A frown flickers across her face. “Why were you there?”
“I haven’t explained. April and I were friends a long time ago. More than friends. Actually . . .” Then, because the entire day has felt off track, and because it can’t become any stranger, I decide to tell her. “April and I were going to be married.”
I know from Lara’s silence, April hasn’t told her. “Anyway, like I said, it was a long time ago. I was—am—a lawyer. Like you, I think she’s innocent. But I also think she may have been framed.”
Lara’s face is grave. “And you’re trying to find proof.”
I nod. “At the moment, I’m just trying to talk to people who know her. So far, I’ve drawn a blank, but I’m working on the assumption that someone, somewhere must know something.”
Which is why I’m here. “I suppose I’m wondering why you called.”
By the window, Lara hesitates, as if undecided, then comes back over and sits down again.
“Before I tell you,” she says, “I’m not someone who thinks that they can talk flowers into blooming early or that vegetables scream when you pick them. Okay?” She says it fiercely, needing me to understand.
“About a year ago, we’d been trying to start a family, but nothing had happened. It had got to the point where we were considering IVF. Anyway, then I became pregnant. At last we were going to be the family we wanted. We were making plans. Imagining holidays, birthdays, Christmases—all those times that have so much more meaning when there are children.... We were over the moon.” She sounds anything but, as she pauses, remembering.
“I went for a twelve-week scan. I’ll never forget. . . .” She pauses again. “Do you have children, Noah?”
I shake my head.
“Well, the scan is a big deal. You see your baby for the first time. I’ll never forget it—only for all the wrong reasons.” There’s pain in her eyes. “In
stead of telling us to listen to the heart or to look at our baby kicking, the nurse said nothing. Then she asked us to wait while she went to fetch someone. That was when we knew.”
Lara clasps her hands on the table. “I won’t bore you with all the details, but what followed was every parent’s worst nightmare. There were more scans, while they established there was a problem with the baby’s heart. Then we were sent to a consultant. He told us there was nothing he could do. He offered us a choice, he called it. Shall I tell you what our choice was?” She pauses, then continues more slowly. “We could terminate, or go to term with the knowledge that our baby, if it wasn’t stillborn, would die within days.”
She takes a breath. “We saw a different consultant, who said the same. That was in May last year. My baby was due in October. We’d wanted this baby so much, we couldn’t terminate. Then I met April.
“I would go into her study and she would let me talk or cry, whatever I needed. You see, I was already grieving. For the baby I was carrying; the future Mark and I had planned for us all. Then one evening, she called me out of the blue. If I wasn’t doing anything, would I like to come over. Mark wasn’t back from work. I went.”
She pauses. “That time, we sat outside. There’s a corner of her garden where if you sit for long enough you can see the movement of the moon behind the trees. I didn’t know you could do that—watch the moon move. The air was incredibly still. And so peaceful. In between, we talked a little, and then I realized I was crying. I couldn’t work out why, but I felt her touch my arm. Then she told me none of this was my fault. She told me life can be cruel, but extraordinary things can happen. That I shouldn’t give up.”
The expression in Lara’s eyes changes. “It was all she said. But something changed, and suddenly, inside, I felt calm. So calm—and warm. Hours had passed without me noticing. It was dark and I knew Mark would be wondering where I was. As I walked home, I remember looking up and thinking I’d never seen so many stars. You’ll probably think it’s silly”—she glances at me—“but it was as though April had taken my memories, and my pain for safekeeping. I’ve always wondered what it cost her to do that.”
I wait for her to continue.
“We became close. I’d bared my soul, I suppose you could say, but I felt safe with her.” Lara frowned slightly. “Once I asked her how she was able to listen to so many clients, day in, day out, in so much pain. I remember exactly what she said.” Lara looks at me. “She said she thought of them as being in freefall, only somehow, through no fault of their own, their parachutes had got tangled. She was their safety net.” She looks puzzled. “After that, I sensed she was about to tell me something else, only she stopped herself.”
Lara swallows. Then her eyes glitter with tears. “Our baby was stillborn. It was—is—so very hard. I would see other mothers and I couldn’t help thinking, why me? Why us? But extraordinary things do happen. I’m pregnant again.”
As she holds her hands protectively over her belly, I see a barely perceptible roundness.
“We tried for years before,” she says softly. “I’m not a religious person, but sometimes I wonder if our baby has found his way back.”
As she talks, her honesty, her portrayal of naked emotion, cracks a layer of ice on my frozen heart. Reminds me that after heartbreak and pain, it is still possible to be generous. To love.
Then she looks straight at me. “Remind me, why am I opening my heart to you?”
I manage a glimmer of a smile, just as she says, “April. What can I say? She’s extraordinary.”
Then she frowns. “You know, something might not have been right. Just lately. She didn’t say, but I felt it. She wasn’t as present, I think you could say. Normally, with April, she was so focused. I think there was something on her mind.”
“You’ve no idea what?”
Lara shakes her head.
The day has been exhausting, extraordinary. Thanking Lara for her time, as I leave her, I’m deeply tired but calm, taking something with me from what she’s shared.
But the day isn’t over; the feeling doesn’t last.
32
When I pull up and park outside the B&B, I’m barely out of my car when Ryder shatters my calm.
“I don’t have all day,” he says nastily.
I feel myself tense, because a confrontation with him is the last thing I need tonight. “Excuse me, Detective Sergeant, but it’s been a long day. Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?”
His face reddens. “You should try answering your phone.”
“Usually I would,” I tell him. “Only it just so happens it needs charging.” I fish in my pocket, holding it up so that he can see the screen is dead. “See? I’m not lying.”
Usually I’d bite my tongue, hide my irritation behind polite blankness, but after the day I’ve had, his vulgarity incenses me.
“Can we get on with this? I’d really like to go inside.”
He glowers. “A question.” The formality of “sir” dropped along with any pretense of courtesy. “We tracked down your neighbor—a Mrs. Clara Hayward, is that right?”
Anxiety curls inside me at the tone in his voice, because he thinks he’s found something.
“Here’s the thing.” He shuffles through the papers on the table in front of him. As he looks up at me, his eyes narrow. “One of the local chaps went round to talk to her. PC Taylor, his name is. He found her in the garden, round the back.” He smirks. “Next time you pick an alibi, I’d think twice, if I were you. Mrs. Hayward . . . Well, let’s put it this way. She’s not your biggest fan. Shall I tell you what she said?” He carries on without pausing. “She says you’re a useless drunk. You’ve let your house go to rack and ruin and she despairs of you.”
He goes on. “Your Mrs. Hayward’s got your measure. Says you’re a waste of space. She’s no idea where you were that night.”
I’m reeling, fielding everything he tells me like blows to my head, because suddenly, nothing is certain. For five years I’ve known Clara. She’s abrasive. Speaks her mind. We might not be friends, exactly, but we get on well enough. She doesn’t really think so badly of me. I imagine her giving her uncensored opinion in the way I’m used to, the way she talks about everything. Wishing just for once, for PC Taylor’s ears, she could have moderated it. “There are the calls, too. Made by Ms. Rousseau to your home, phone calls you deny all knowledge of. Is there no one who might have seen you that day?”
“I live in the middle of nowhere.” My voice steely. “Sometimes I don’t see anyone for an entire week.”
Ryder’s grin is a rictus smile. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, make no mistake. We’ve been on to the local station and they’ll be sending someone round to talk to other neighbors. Sir.”
I stare at him. “Like I said, I don’t see many people.” Then I remember. “Actually, there is someone who saw me. I took my car to be serviced.”
“How convenient.” Ryder stares at me. “You have the name and number of the garage, I take it.”
“The mechanic’s a chap called Sam. He rents an old barn at Lower Holdsworthy. That’s about all I can tell you.”
“So you’ll have a number for him.” Getting out a notepad and pen.
“All in here.” Waving my dead phone at him. “Sorry.”
* * *
Eventually Ryder leaves and I let myself into the house, where the landlady looks at me suspiciously.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes. Thank you.” I’m too bone weary to care that she’s been watching from behind twitching curtains.
“That man you were talking to . . .” She pauses. “Was he police?”
“Detective Sergeant Ryder.” Starting up the stairs.
“There hasn’t been any trouble, has there?”
“No. No trouble.”
Aware of her eyes following me, her obvious anxiety. Walking until I reach my room, where I lock the door and throw the window open, pour myself a drink, which I down in one, before
I pour another, then plug in my phone and delete three messages without listening to them, all from Ryder. Then lying back on my bed, stare at the ceiling as the familiar warmth circulates in my veins.
Whatever he’s thinking, I can prove to Ryder I’ve no part in this. There’ll be evidence, somewhere. I just have to find it. Then the chilling thought strikes me, because I’m starting to suspect that April’s been framed. What if I’m being set up, too?
I pour another drink, then read for a couple of hours, doze off before I go to bed, so that I’m half asleep when my mobile rings.
“Noah Calaway.”
“Hello? Noah? I’m sorry it’s so late. It’s Beatrice.”
33
Through its whisky haze, my brain is slow to focus. “Bea! You got my message!”
“I did. I almost didn’t call you, Noah. I’m not sure I can help—I haven’t seen April for such a long time. Only when I saw Norton’s photo in the paper . . . Well, when your message said April was in trouble, I put two and two together. You’d better fill me in.”
“You won’t believe it,” I tell her. “Her phone and glove were found in Norton’s car, with the murder weapon. The police picked them up and went straight to her home to arrest her. She’d taken an overdose. She didn’t intend anyone to find her, Bea.”
“God.” Bea sounds shocked. “I can’t believe April would do that.”
“Did you know what Norton did to her?”
Bea sighs. “I knew he abused her. She spared me the details, just said he was a complete bastard. He probably deserved what was coming to him.”
“Look, I should tell you, I’m here as her lawyer rather than a friend. The police think she’s guilty and I’m equally sure she’s not. I don’t know how busy you are, but could we meet up? Talk about this properly? Maybe for lunch?”
She hesitates. “I’m not sure. Noah, I’m in the middle of a pretty hideous divorce. I’m lying low.” She laughs hollowly. “God, James would love to catch me with someone.”
I try to reassure her. “I don’t mind where we meet. And I can assure you, no one knows me here, Bea—apart from my landlady and Will.”
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