You Can Trust Me

by Emma Rowley

  “No,” he says, slightly puzzled. “Miss Vane. Olivia Vane.”

  “But . . . wouldn’t Olivia’s mother, Elsa Vane, have handled the rebuild?”

  He looks at me appraisingly. “Ah. Well, now. The house was tied up, you see, so it went to the firstborn, not the widow. But confidentially, I understand she simply couldn’t face it—moved away soon after. Never came back.

  “So there was a long period where no one quite took responsibility,” he adds, a little disapproving, as I stay silent. “Vane was an only son: he had inherited after his father died, and his own mother was elderly and based in London. There was no one else.”

  “I suppose I just assumed . . .”

  I just assumed, somehow, that Olivia’s contribution to the house began at the point when she started charting it on her Instagram, a dream project, painting walls and buying knickknacks. Not putting a wreck back together from the ground up.

  “Well,” says Rafferton cheerfully, “now you know what it does to assume: makes an ASS out of you and me. You as in the letter ‘u.’ But I do agree,” he adds kindly, “not many young women would have the drive to see a project like that through to the end.”

  At that the bell rings, and a customer enters, a well-upholstered woman closing her umbrella noisily for attention.

  I bend down to give the dog a good-bye pat. “Thanks so much.”

  And promising that if I need any more details about the cornicing or wainscots, whatever they are, I will certainly be in touch, I push my way out of the shop, my mood more somber than when I went in.

  It doesn’t matter—not really—that I was under the impression that other people had fixed the house up for Olivia. The grown-ups.

  But it is a warning to me, a reminder of something I already know. If I don’t ask the right questions, I won’t get the right answers.

  And I can’t help but wonder: why didn’t Elsa stay, step up?

  She just left the place to rot.

  Chapter 24

  As always, the journey back home seems to be shorter than the way there, and either Olivia’s driving is a little more restrained or I have gotten used to it. Bea is tired now, getting restless in her seat, so we have her music playing all the way back.

  When I recognize the approach to the village, just before Olivia turns off for her driveway, I speak up. “You know what—why don’t you drop me here? I’ll do a bit of work in the village and get out of your hair.”

  She glances at me. “You sure? I’m tied up the rest of the day, I’m afraid, but you’re fine to work at the house.”

  “No, I quite like a change of scene when I work. I’ve brought my laptop in my bag.”

  “But how will you get back?” She’s not coming out to pick me up.

  “I’ll walk,” I say. I want a break from Olivia and her house.

  * * *

  There is no coffee shop, and the bakery only has one rickety table, for customers waiting for their orders to be wrapped up, so I end up walking along the grass shoulder to the pub, the Bleeding Wolf.

  Inside, my eyes take a second to adjust from the brightness outside. Behind the bar, a man in a checked shirt eyes me warily. “No hot food till one.”

  “That’s OK. I’ll just have a sandwich.”

  “Knock yourself out.” He hands me a menu. I pay for my sandwich and a coffee, then pick a table by the window—the place is empty—and open up my computer.

  The Wi-Fi is slow, but I have gotten on it by the time a teenage girl in black skirt and white shirt appears with my coffee and puts it down carefully, concentrating. It spills anyway, slopping onto the table.

  “I’m so sorry!” she says.

  It’s the same girl who served me and Joey on Monday night. I recognize her now: little red curls escaping from her ponytail. She must only be about thirteen.

  “I tipped a whole plate into someone’s lap when I was a waitress,” I say, helping her clean up with a paper napkin. “This is nothing.”

  She laughs and checks over her shoulder, to make sure the boss isn’t about.

  “This is my first week helping out,” she says confidingly. “The real test will be Sunday lunch, Dad says, so he’s letting me do some shifts before school starts.”

  “I see,” I say, realizing the man behind the bar must be her dad: her vibrant red hair has faded to strawberry blond on him. “I’m sure you’ll be great,” I add, automatically.

  Because I am itching to get on now. I want to look into Sam Gibbons’s theory about Alex Vane running out of money.... I know Alex worked in London before moving up here, but I have a vague sense that his type always keep a finger in some pie.

  * * *

  And bingo. After a quick search on the Companies House website, I find Alex listed as a director of a company called Vanguard.

  “Company status,” I read, “Liquidation.”

  There is another name also listed as a former director, a Neil Stone who resigned on October 11, 1997—a couple of months after the fire. There is an address for him, too, in Yorkshire, and it doesn’t take me long to find a phone number.

  I call it on my cell—noting as I do that I have a missed call from Joey—and listen as the phone goes to voice mail. I leave a message, mentioning Olivia Vane, daughter of Alexander Vane, that I am working on a book . . . and hang up to see the waitress hovering over me again.

  “Here you go.” She has my sandwich on a tray, tuna salad between two thick white slabs of bread. “So you’re working for Olivia Vane?”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t listening,” she says, as she sets the food down in front of me. “I just heard. Are you staying with her? What’s she like? Is she nice?”

  “Yes, I am. She’s very nice.” What else can I say? “So you don’t see her in here much?”

  She shakes her head, her freckles blurring. “I suppose she must be busy going to fancy parties and things.”

  “I suppose,” I say.

  She sits herself down in the chair opposite me: someone’s clearly a fan. “It must be so exciting. I’ve got a YouTube channel myself. I only have twelve followers so far, but you have to start somewhere. Has she told you about the fire?”

  She brings it up so casually. “I’d have thought you were too young to remember that . . .”

  “Oh, I wasn’t born. But Dad’s the one who saw the car,” she says proudly.

  “The car?”

  “The one that her mother was driving that day, when they were leaving for their vacation. Dad had to talk to the police!” she says. “He was only my age, and his dad—my granddad—had the pub then. But my dad was the one who saw them. He—”

  “How are you getting on with laying those tables, Emily?”

  She stiffens at the hand on her shoulder: he’s light on his feet for such a big man.

  “I was just chatting. This lady’s staying at Annersley House. She’s a writer.”

  “A writer—a journalist, you mean?” He has white lines by his eyes, like he’s spent too much time smiling in the sunshine. He’s not smiling now.

  I shake my head. “A ghostwriter.”

  “Well, you mustn’t distract the customers, Em.”

  She hurries off with an air of innocence.

  “I’m working with Olivia,” I volunteer, “she’s writing a book.” Working with, not against, her, is the unspoken message.

  “Oh.” He nods and turns back to the bar. I follow him over, collecting cutlery from the rack at the end—Emily has forgotten to give me any.

  “Your daughter was telling me about the fire, at Annersley House.” He tosses me a paper napkin, reading me correctly. “Thanks. She says you saw the car that day.”

  “Whose car?”

  “Olivia’s mother’s. Elsa’s.” He knows whose car.

  “Yes, I saw the car.” He starts putting glasses away.

  “I don’t mean to sound nosy. It’s such a sensitive subject for Olivia, I don’t like to ask her all the details. And nobody wants to di
scuss it, as you might imagine.”

  He thinks for a second. “All right. It’s not a secret—yes, I saw the car go past. About midday. Big blue Range Rover, before everyone had one. You have to go this way to get to the highway, and I recognized it.”

  He rattles off the details: they are practiced and familiar.

  “When did you find out about the fire?”

  “The morning after, when I woke up, it was noisy—we lived above the pub then. Money was tight. Mum and Dad had opened up early: they gave cold drinks to the fire crews, the police. And half the village turned up, too. People want to get together when something like that happens. Though no one realized how bad it was, then.”

  “Why not?”

  He puts down the glass he’s holding. “Well. Everyone was already talking about the family being away. They would have told people, or their staff would have known—been given time off. But when I told, uh, a police officer what I’d seen, he said it was useful. It could help them confirm that the family were absent. Thank God.”

  “Except for the dad. If they had known that Alex was still in there . . . ?” I trail off, realizing it sounds like I might be blaming him.

  But he replies evenly: “They couldn’t have done anything. It was far too late when the fire crews arrived.”

  I want to change the subject. “Would you see the family around? Before, I mean.”

  “I was just a kid, I didn’t really pay attention.”

  “What about Olivia—did you know her?”

  He shakes his head. “Then they all moved away. She didn’t come back for a good few years, to fix up the house. Everyone was glad—it was an eyesore.”

  He looks up as the door swings open, walkers arriving for lunch, and I sense my time is up. “I’m Nicky by the way. Nicky Wilson.”

  “Paul Bryant.”

  * * *

  I spend a couple of hours there in the end. I pick out a few phrases that catch my eye from the transcripts I’ve got back so far, pasting them into a new document. Olivia is keen to see something, but it’s too early to do much more, really.

  Outside again, I wonder if I could cut across the fields, but I don’t fancy trying to clamber through hedgerows. I stick to the side of the road, my thoughts starting to wander, as they always do when I walk.

  So Paul in the pub didn’t tell me anything that interesting, really. But he was still more helpful than Marie, Joey’s grandmother.

  What was she doing, anyway, telling me her old neighbor, Sam Gibbons, was dead?

  Maybe she had heard about Sam’s wife dying and got mixed up. You might, if you had lost touch.

  But she could have just told me, if she didn’t want me to bother him.

  Chapter 25

  Sabrina’s car is still in the driveway when I get back, and from the hall I can hear voices in the kitchen. I hesitate, then go straight upstairs.

  It is not long before there is a knock on my bedroom door. I grab my notepad and voice recorder: Olivia must have found half an hour to squeeze me in again.

  When I open it, Josh is standing there, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. “Tennis?”

  “Tennis?” I look up at him, confused.

  “Do you play?” he asks, a little impatiently. “Leo couldn’t make it, so we need an extra body.”

  “I did a bit at school. Not really.” Leo . . . Sabrina’s husband?

  “It’s just a knockabout, before it gets too dark. We can lend you a racket.”

  “Uh . . . will Olivia mind?” I say, thinking of her reaction when she found Bea in my room; thinking about her careful protection of her boundaries. “I don’t want . . .”

  But he brushes away my protestations—“We always play on Wednesdays! See you down there in five.”

  And so I fall into line.

  * * *

  “Run for it,” barks Sabrina, as I find myself way behind the bright yellow ball, legging it to the back of the court. With supreme effort, I hit it—right into the net

  “Sorry,” I say. Sabrina has already told me to stop apologizing.

  “Game,” says Josh.

  Bending down to pick up a stray ball, I blow my slick bangs out of my eyes. Just a knockabout, he said. I could almost laugh. Why did I say yes to this?

  When I came down, in the comfy sweatsuit I write in at home, the three of them—Josh, Sabrina and Olivia—were already hitting around. Without discussion, I was somehow paired with Sabrina, who clearly plays a lot. They all must.

  Josh is managing not to lob the ball too hard in my direction, and keeps rallying with Sabrina, lean and brown in her pleated white tennis skirt. But Olivia has no qualms about hitting to me—low, fast balls that I struggle to touch with my borrowed racket, let alone return. My ankles are sore from sliding about on the artificial grass.

  It gets worse when it’s my turn to serve, the late afternoon sun shining in my eyes. I am so rusty I either hit the ball way out, sending it bouncing back against the green wire fencing, or straight into the net.

  “You can serve underhand if you want,” calls Olivia, sounding bored, after I double-fault again. Across the net from me, she is a sleek figure in a black tank and leggings.

  Gritting my teeth, I serve overhand but with extra care, and just about manage to get the ball into the serving box before it is slammed back to me.

  “Out,” calls Olivia, as my final attempt to return the ball fails. “Game.”

  * * *

  Now Olivia and Josh have won four games, Sabrina fighting them valiantly over every point, I am hoping it is all over. But—

  “Round-robin?” says Josh. “We can swap partners every time we’ve all served, see who gets the most wins overall.”

  “Good idea,” says Sabrina. She must be itching to be paired with a better partner.

  “But why?” says Olivia to Josh, resentment in her tone. “Just because we’re winning?”

  I suppose no one wants to be so rude as to state the obvious: because it’s only fair they all take a turn with the bad player: me.

  I feel the familiar urge to smooth things over. “That’s OK,” I say brightly. “I’m happy to swap, the sun’s in my eyes this side anyway.” Too late, I realize that it sounds like I am making excuses for my poor performance.

  “Fine,” says Olivia. “You go with Josh,” she says to me.

  I head round to the other side of the net, bristling at her high-handedness, as we swap places.

  But something shifts as we start to play again.

  I am still confused by their scoring system—“No advantage, to sudden death,” Sabrina had announced, bafflingly—but I am starting to get the odd ball back. Now I can actually see, no longer blinded by the low sun, it really is much easier. And some old muscle memory is kicking in, despite the years it has been since I picked up a racket.

  Josh serves first, then Sabrina for the other side. Josh and I win the first two games.

  Now it’s my turn to serve, to Olivia first.

  At the back of the court, I bounce the ball a few times.

  “Do you want to get a move on?” calls Olivia sharply. “We haven’t got all day.”

  “Jesus, Liv,” says Josh with a rueful chuckle.

  “Well, I need to check on Bea. She may have woken up.”

  I ignore her. I throw the ball up in the air, against the sky, my racket swinging back and up. For a second, everything is quiet. Then I connect with the ball, remembering to finish through, the momentum propelling me forward over the line.

  And, thank the stars, the ball rockets down over the net and into the serving box, bouncing up low and fast right by Olivia. Primed for yet another of my weak, nervous serves, she is in completely the wrong place, as the ball shoots straight past her.

  “Ace,” says Sabrina. “Wake up, Sticky!”

  Josh is coming to my side of the court and I don’t understand why until he palms my hand. “Well played.”

  “Thanks.” I am laughing, and even Sabrina has a smirk on her face.
<
br />   And then I see Olivia, marching up to the net.

  “Fault! I saw her foot. She was inside the line.”

  “Oh c’mon,” says Sabrina. “Does that really matter? It’s just a knockabout.”

  “Nicky was over the line when she served. That’s a foot fault. Are we playing by the rules or not?”

  No one answers, so I just go back to the baseline and, in silence, get ready to serve again.

  Of course I don’t repeat my ace.

  Still, Sabrina and Olivia just can’t seem to get in sync; both chasing the ball at the same time, or neither of them attempting to go for it. Josh seems to have realized this, as he keeps sending the ball right down between them.

  “Mine,” shouts Sabrina, dashing forward from way at the back of the court. Instead there is a clash of rackets, the noise shockingly loud, as she and Olivia almost run into each other. The ball hits the ground just inside the line at the back of the court.

  “In,” I say, pettily.

  “I said, that was mine,” says Sabrina, squaring up to Olivia.

  “Didn’t hear you,” says Olivia, her face a blank.

  I think Sabrina is going to say something more, but she just turns on her heel to position herself on her side of the court. They don’t gel anymore as we keep playing.

  After this latest round, I do a mental tally. Of course, Josh is leading, having won each of the eight games, but due to his skill I, like Olivia, have four wins. Sabrina—yet to be paired with Josh—has yet to win any, to her evident annoyance.

  “Time to swap,” says Sabrina. She’s already heading round to Josh’s side, and I’m walking over to pair with Olivia, who is collecting the balls on her racket. She has that teenager’s trick of scooping them up with a bounce.

  “Can’t,” she says in a carrying voice, not looking up. “I have a conference call scheduled—I’m going to have to call it a night.”

  “Oh, come on, Liv . . .” says Josh.

  “Sorry,” she says briskly. She won’t meet any of our eyes. “You’re all welcome to keep playing.” The invitation is clearly not there. “I’m just going to check on Bea first, she’s been waking up a lot, and she wanders about now.”

  It’s the explanation that makes it so clear she wants this over. She is already walking off the court.