by Susan Lewis
‘No, it’s Hanna I’m upset about, and the fact that she’s just had a bust-up with one of her friends over something you did, and now she’s terrified we’re going to break up over it …’
‘So you told her we were? Great.’
‘I did no such thing, but we’ve got to face the fact, Joe, that it’s on the cards. We can’t go on like this, or I can’t, and after the way you behaved with Simon yesterday …’
‘He had it coming, the supercilious bastard.’
‘You see, you just don’t get it, do you? He’s a decent man who was showing some concern …’
‘About my wife …’
‘Stop, stop, stop,’ she shouted, clapping her hands over her ears. ‘All I want to hear you say now is that you’re ready to go and apologise …’
‘To him? No way is that going to happen.’
‘Joe, please. They’re my friends …’
‘Anyway, I thought you said he was leaving today.’
Remembering that Simon had probably already gone, Lucy turned away. ‘I’ve got too much to do here to go on with this,’ she said shakily, ‘and Sarah’s over in the barn. I don’t want her walking in on yet another row between us.’
‘There wouldn’t have to be a row if you …’
‘Please go and talk to Hanna. I don’t know what to say to her myself, and as you’re the one who’s betrayed her trust you should be the one to deal with it.’
As she tried to refocus on the letter she’d been writing when Hanna came in, she could feel him watching her from the door.
‘Look, I can understand that finding that stuff about the kid dying in a fire and what have you has thrown you a curve ball,’ he said, ‘so it’s no wonder you’re getting everything out of proportion …’
Finding herself on the brink of exploding again, or asking him how the hell he’d feel if he were in her shoes, she quickly pulled herself back. She didn’t want to discuss anything with him any more. They just kept going round and round in circles, and any conversation would only continue to come back to the same crushing reality: he was a cheating bastard who wasn’t prepared to help her sort out something that meant so much to her.
‘Oh right, it’s the Coventry tactic now, is it?’ he challenged.
‘Actually, no, it’s the I’ve-found-another-way-of-dealing-with-it tactic,’ she told him bitterly. ‘I’ve left a message on Michael Givens’ machine asking if I can see him tomorrow, and after that I’m going to drive down to Exmoor.’
Having heard Lucy’s and Joe’s raised voices coming from the office, Sarah had discreetly taken herself back to the barn, not wanting to eavesdrop on what was appearing to be an ongoing battle between them. She had no idea what it was about, since apart from apologising on Joe’s behalf for the way he’d punched Simon, Lucy hadn’t mentioned the altercation they’d stumbled into yesterday. It had struck Sarah that Lucy was being uncharacteristically withdrawn at the moment, which suggested that whatever the problem was between her and Joe she wanted to deal with it in her own way. Sarah completely understood that, which was why she’d decided not to burden Lucy with what the rest of the village now knew about John, or what else she’d found out from her mother. In fact, she hadn’t even told Simon yet that their mother and John had once been married and had had three children together, because her mother had asked her not to until she was able to explain everything herself.
‘I’m coming on Wednesday,’ she’d promised when she’d rung Sarah back after speaking to John. ‘John’s going to pick me up, and as soon as we can get Simon and Becky to Cromstone we’ll tell you everything about Alexandra, and what really happened to her.’
‘Just answer me this,’ Sarah had said before she could ring off, ‘was Daddy my … is he …?’
‘Yes, he’s your father,’ Rose told her softly. ‘But Simon and Becky are John’s.’
Still stunned by it all, Sarah pushed a stray tear from her cheek as she thought of her father and how very much she’d loved him. He’d loved her the same way, she’d never been in any doubt about that, and she knew he’d loved Simon and Becky too, because he’d never done anything to betray the fact that she was his only child. So for now she was left to wonder how Simon and Becky had come to bear his name, and if either of them had any memory of John.
And if they did …
How were they going to feel when they discovered that Douglas, whom they’d always adored, wasn’t their real father? If it were her she knew she’d be devastated. How she wished he was here now. She wanted to put her arms around him and make sure he knew how wonderfully special he was, as special as he’d never failed to make every one of them feel.
Lucy was watching Michael’s face as he absorbed the details of the two small cuttings she’d brought with her. When his eyes finally came up to hers she could see how baffled he was, and a horrible sort of shame started to come over her. She’d experienced it that morning while staring at the mirror. It was as though she had no right to be where she was – she was an intruder, or a ghost cut adrift in a world that wasn’t hers.
What was Michael thinking? Was he wishing he could distance himself from her? Or was he, by some miracle, about to offer an explanation she hadn’t thought of? Maybe her parents had confided in him, though why in him and not her made no more sense than anything else – apart from the fact that what they told him wouldn’t strip him of his identity the way it was stripping her of hers.
‘I can quite understand how difficult this must be for you,’ he said, his eyes gazing intently into hers. ‘And you say you haven’t been able to get hold of your parents?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘They’re not answering any of my calls, or my texts.’
‘But they know that you’ve found these?’
‘I’m not sure. I left a message on Friday night, but I haven’t had a response.’
He looked down at the articles again. ‘I guess there’s always a chance,’ he said, ‘that you’re their second child, and after the tragedy they decided to name you Lucy too.’
Lucy swallowed. ‘I thought of that, but look at the date – that Lucy would be thirty-seven now, the same age as me.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Except,’ he said, ‘if you aren’t this Lucy we can’t actually be sure of how old you are.’
Feeling herself falling apart inside, she tried to laugh as she said, ‘Then let’s hope I’m younger and not older.’
His eyes showed a welcome tenderness as he replied, ‘Whichever way, you’ll still be beautiful.’
Touched by the compliment, her voice caught on a breath as she said, ‘Thank you.’ Then, because he was being so understanding, she felt tears starting to well in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, searching for a tissue, ‘self-pity’s not a very good thing, is it?’
‘I’m not going to pretend to know what you’re going through,’ he said honestly, ‘but I do know that if I was facing something like this I’d be finding it pretty difficult too.’
Lucy’s eyes went down. His kindness might be making her emotional, but at least it was reassuring her that she wasn’t going mad after all.
‘If it turns out that I’m not …’ She swallowed as she gestured to the cuttings. ‘Will there … Do you think it would be possible to find out who I really am?’
Sitting back in his chair, he kept his eyes on hers as he said, ‘The obvious answer, of course, is to ask your parents.’
‘But what if they won’t tell me?’
He took a breath. ‘I think we’ll have to cross that bridge when, if, we come to it. What’s important now is to confront them with this.’
Lucy’s throat was too dry to form the thank-you for his use of ‘we’ – it made her feel less alone.
‘We need to contact the records office,’ he continued, ‘to find out if a death fitting these dates was registered at that time. I’ll get my assistant on to it right away. Hopefully it won’t take long, but in the meantime I think we should take a trip down to Exmoor.’
Hearing the ‘we’ again, Lucy almost sobbed with relief. ‘Does that mean you’ll come with me?’ she asked, needing to be sure.
‘Of course, unless you’d rather I didn’t.’
‘No, no, please, I want you to.’ She thought of Joe’s response, and how different he was in every way from Michael. He was like a stranger now, someone who’d never really been right for her, while Michael was … He was everything she’d ever wanted, but she couldn’t allow herself to think of that now because she was far too close to the edge as it was, and so in danger of blurting something she shouldn’t. Then, suddenly not wanting to burden him further, she rose to her feet. ‘I should be going,’ she told him. ‘Thanks for fitting me in today and for … OK, I’m going to cry, so time to go.’
‘Lucy,’ he said, as she started for the door.
She turned back, and seeing the tenderness in his eyes, she almost couldn’t bear it. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go,’ she said shakily. ‘I’ll call later to set up a time for tomorrow. I’ll fit in with you.’ Before he could stop her again she escaped through his secretary’s office, wishing she was able to be more polite. Unfortunately, though, her emotions had got the better of her again.
* * *
Philippa was sitting at the kitchen table when John came in, looking, she remarked fondly to herself, quite dapper with his new haircut and spruced-up complexion. It was in Rose’s honour, of course, which was touching, she thought, in a man his age.
And no doubt he was secretly counting the hours till her plane landed on Wednesday. In spite of the turmoil they were facing, Philippa was unable to be anything but happy for him, but would she ever forgive him for the decisions he’d taken all those years ago? Well, she guessed she must have at some point along the way, or they’d never have survived it.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked, looking both concerned and wary as he tried to read her expression.
Glancing down at the small object on the table in front of her, she waited for him to register it too, and tried not to smile as he grimaced awkwardly.
‘Och, woman, you’ve been going through my desk,’ he protested, pretending to be angry.
‘I was looking for a pen,’ she admitted, ‘and what should I find instead but this little chap here, bless his Tibetan cotton socks – and now comes the story of how he found his way to our house when I was sure he’d gone by courier to Lincoln.’
With a sigh, he pulled out a chair to sit down. ‘He did go,’ he told her, ‘but then he got sent back again.’
She waited.
‘OK, I did it for Sarah,’ he confessed. ‘And for Douglas, I suppose, but mainly for Sarah, so I could help her to do what she wants to the house. That place meant a lot to her father, and after everything he did for my children, I thought this was the least I could do for his.’
Having already guessed this would be the answer, Philippa’s watchful eye was showing as much affection as exasperation as she said, ‘What am I going to do with you, John Mckenzie?’
‘You’d have done the same, if you’d thought of it,’ he informed her.
She blinked rapidly. ‘Fifty thousand pounds for a piece of junk? I think not,’ she argued.
With a smile he said, ‘We’ve got more than enough, and I couldn’t offer it as a gift, she’d think I’d lost my mind, so I decided this was the best way.’
Shaking her head as she continued to look at him, she said, ‘Well, you certainly had me fooled. How on earth did you come up with the idea, and who was I speaking to on the phone?’
Fetching himself a glass of water, he said, ‘The idea came from the same chap who told me about the Ring. He was someone I shared a cell with for a couple of years, and he was always full of stories about the antiques trade. One of them concerned an Arabic chess piece that someone he knew had picked up at a provincial auction for ten thousand quid and managed to sell on for a quarter of a million.’
Philippa’s jaw dropped. ‘Well, I suppose I have to feel relieved that we got off so lightly. Now, who was on the phone – and who is Mr Everett?’
John’s eyes twinkled roguishly as he said, ‘Craig Duncan was on the phone, who you might remember from …’
‘… our Glasgow factory, indeed I do. The best managing director we ever had. Just wait till the next time I see him. And Mr Everett?’
‘Is Craig’s brother-in-law who happens to be in the antiques business. I had a chat with him, he told us how to go about it, and, well, a flurry of bids and couple of bank transfers later, Bob’s your uncle – or Charlie’s your chess piece.’
With a delighted chuckle, she tucked the worthless chunk of wood into her pocket. ‘If Douglas isn’t looking down on you now saying what a flipping idiot you are, then I’ll say it for him. You’re an idiot, John Mckenzie.’
Coming to give her a kiss, he said, ‘I just dropped in to make sure you’re all right, so if you are I’d better be on my way. I’ve a van full of deliveries outside that need to be in their rightful homes by the end of the day.’
‘Before you go,’ she said, as he turned to the door, ‘the antiques chappie you shared a cell with? What was he in for?’
He shrugged. ‘No idea. Not something you ever asked.’
After he’d gone, Philippa went to stand at the window to watch him backing carefully down the drive and wondered, as she had many times over the years, how bad it had been for him in prison. He’d never discussed it, wouldn’t even allow her to ask when she came to visit, but she knew what sort of treatment a prisoner who had harmed children could expect. The fact that he’d never harmed anyone in his life, much less his own precious daughter, would have meant nothing to the other inmates. They’d have meted out their own form of justice, with only the odd officer who didn’t turn a blind eye to stop them.
How unspeakably cruel life was to have put such a worthy and decent man through the ordeals her dear brother had suffered. A lesser man would never have survived them, she was in no doubt about that, and would never have managed to keep intact his generosity and tenderness.
Lucy was gazing out of the car window, watching the wind whipping the moor as Michael drove them along the winding road that led to the small hamlet where she’d spent so many lonely holidays as a child. Thinking now of what her parent’s reasons might have been for always staying so remote from other people and communities, she felt a burning tightness inside that wouldn’t go away.
Over the last forty-eight hours she’d found herself wondering if there really had been an insurance company who could only rely on Brian Fisher, their ‘top man’, as he occasionally boasted, to set up their new offices. Perhaps the crystal decanter marking twenty-five years of service was something her parents had had engraved in order to perpetuate the myth. Except they had never seemed short of money, so her father must have worked somewhere for all those years. Perhaps the insurance company had been real.
So much doubt, so many suspicions, lies and a depth of deceit she couldn’t even begin to comprehend, if it were true.
‘Is that it?’ Michael asked as they drove over the crest of a hill to see a small sprawl of cottages in a shallow valley below.
Lucy’s heart churned with nerves. What was going to happen when they got there? How would her parents – her parents? – react to the questions she was almost too afraid to ask? Realising that by the time she came away the very core of her life, her belief in who she was, along with her trust in the people she loved, could have been shattered, she had to force herself not to tell Michael to turn back. ‘It’s the last house on the right,’ she said, ‘the one that’s set slightly apart.’
Glancing over at her, he gave her a reassuring smile before easing the car carefully over the potholes that littered the road, down to where the ruins of an old farm sat forlornly in the rain, and threads of a low-lying mist clung to the hillsides. A few metres further on they passed a set of smart black gates that fronted the drive to the hamlet’s largest property. It belonged to a Devonshire businessman
and was, like the rest of the dozen or so houses, only used for weekends and holidays, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that there were no signs of life anywhere. Nevertheless it was unnerving Lucy to find everything so silent and still, particularly as the last time she’d received any sort of communication from her mother was almost a week ago.
‘Are you OK?’ Michael asked.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she assured him. Then, ‘I’m glad you came. Thank you.’
Bringing the car to a stop outside the quaint, double-fronted cottage surrounded by a rambling garden that was part vegetables, part shrubs and part wilderness, Michael followed the direction of Lucy’s eyes as she took it in. There was a wheelbarrow next to the garage with a rake leaning against it and a pair of old gloves draped over a handle, giving the impression that someone had just popped indoors for a drink or to answer the phone.
‘They can’t have heard us pull up,’ Lucy said. ‘Why don’t you sound the horn, let them know we’re here.’
As the double beep rolled around the low-lying hills it roused a few linnets from the gorse, but provoked no further sign of life.
‘Perhaps they’re taking a nap,’ Michael suggested, and pushing his door open he got out of the car. ‘Come on, let’s go and find out.’
Following him along the randomly paved path, Lucy kept hold of her mobile as though it were some sort of lifeline. Why had no one come out yet? They must surely be in there.
Finding the front door locked, Michael rapped the knocker and stood back to look up at the first-floor windows. ‘Hello?’ he shouted. ‘Daphne! Brian! Are you at home?’
When there was no response Lucy went to peer in through the kitchen window. There was no one inside, but a couple of cups were on the table, along with a notepad and pen that gave the sense of having recently been left. ‘Mum!’ she called out. ‘Are you in there? It’s me, Lucy.’
The silence that followed seemed to be full of echoes. She turned to Michael, and finding him no longer there she had a fleeting panic. He’d vanished to wherever her parents were and she was left here, abandoned. She thought of the woman who shouted in her dream with her arms outstretched … She could hear the screams …