The Edge

by Jessie Keane

  Chloe seemed to shrink a couple of inches. Her arm fell to her side. She glared at Ruby.

  ‘You don’t love him like I do,’ she said

  Not for the first time, Ruby wondered what she was doing, starting it all up with Thomas again. Looking at the woman standing there, desperation in her eyes, Ruby almost felt sorry for the poor cow. It was pretty certain that Chloe did love Thomas far more than she did.

  Fats was knocking at the door. Chloe slipped her knife back into her coat pocket as he opened the door and looked in.

  ‘Where’d she spring from?’ he asked, looking in alarm at the gun in Ruby’s hand. ‘Everything OK in here?’

  ‘She’s got a knife. Left-hand pocket,’ Ruby told him. Fats took the knife off Chloe.

  ‘I’m warning you,’ yelled Chloe, as Fats shoved her out the door.

  82

  That evening, Ruby was back at the club, Fats playing bodyguard, and Kit was out and about somewhere. So was Leon. Daniel – and he was pretty pissed off about it – had been left to babysit Daisy again. It wasn’t a job he felt equal to, not any more. Not after the drugs and the near-drowning. They were putting a lot on his shoulders and he wasn’t sure he could cope. Because he liked her. He’d always liked her – a lot. And he felt sorry for her over losing Rob. And he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. His mind kept replaying that image of her naked by the pool, and it was pervy and disgusting. She was his dead brother’s wife.

  He was sitting in the hall chair reading the day’s paper and here she was again, coming down the stairs in her raincoat and boots and now he was thinking, Déjà vu, isn’t that what they call this?

  Daniel stood up as she approached. She looked pale but seemed to be holding it together.

  ‘Where you going?’ he asked, putting the paper on the seat. His guts were clenched with dread. She would want to score again. He knew it. Now what the fuck was he going to do?

  ‘Brayfield,’ she said, sweeping past him and out the door.

  Then she turned and tossed him her car keys. ‘You can drive.’

  Daniel caught the keys. She was going – at last – to see her kids. Maybe she was finally pulling out of the nosedive she’d been in since Rob’s death.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But I’m phoning Kit first. Tell him what’s going on. And I’m leaving a note for Ruby.’

  83

  You couldn’t really appreciate the sheer size or beauty of Brayfield House at night. Set off an unlit lane in the depths of Hampshire, anyone approaching it got a tantalizing glimpse of the gates, and the gatehouse, and then there was the big sweep of the driveway which took you up to a turning circle around an impressive round fountain. Behind the fountain was the bulk of the main house, lights shining out of a few of the rooms like beacons in the country darkness.

  Daniel parked Daisy’s Mini beside the steps up to the house, which were well lit by a glimmering ancient porch light. They got out, walked up. Daisy knocked at the door.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Are they expecting you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I phoned Vanessa earlier. It’s a big house.’ Daisy started scrabbling in her bag for her key. ‘It takes a while to reach the door.’

  Before Daisy could get the key in the lock, the door opened. Standing there was a thin, middle-aged woman, scruffily dressed in ripped jeans and a baggy powder-blue jumper. She had pale, watery blue eyes and long, aristocratic, greyhound features. She smiled when she saw Daisy.

  ‘Darling, how lovely.’ She opened her arms and Daisy moved in and hugged her, hard. ‘The twins will be so delighted, but of course they’re asleep now. You’ll see them at breakfast.’ Her eyes landed on Daniel. ‘And this is . . . I think I know the face . . .?’

  ‘Daniel, this is Lady Bray.’

  ‘Vanessa, please,’ said Lady Bray, staring at him.

  ‘Daniel is Rob’s younger brother. He was . . .’ Daisy hesitated. Couldn’t say it. Her face crumpled.

  ‘He was at the wedding,’ said Vanessa briskly, patting her arm. ‘An usher. I know. There were two of you. A taller one, thinner, blonder . . .’

  ‘That’s my youngest brother, Leon.’ Yeah, Leon was the eye-catching one; he always had been.

  ‘Daniel. Hello. You’re more solid, I think,’ said Vanessa, her eyes holding his. ‘You poor boy. Such a shock. Come in, both of you. I’ve had your rooms made up.’

  It was bedlam at breakfast next morning. The kids were screaming with excitement at the arrival of their mother, and Daisy was hugging them so hard that Daniel thought she’d break them. After that, Nanny Jody took them off to the nursery, and Daisy and Vanessa went out for a walk in the grounds. It was damp and chilly but bright, the overnight moisture from the nearby river twinkling like fairy lights on cobwebs strung among the shrubs.

  ‘You don’t have to come too,’ said Daisy when Daniel followed them out.

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ said Daniel, and kept twenty paces back from the two women, giving them space enough for privacy but secure in the knowledge that he could move in if need be.

  They passed the circular fountain in front of the house. It wasn’t working.

  ‘That’s Neptune,’ Daisy called back to him as they veered off the path.

  ‘We only switch it on now for public visits,’ Vanessa told him.

  Daniel paused and looked at the thing. The statue at the centre of the fountain was huge, of a bronze man-fish wearing a crown, trident in hand, surrounded by leaping dolphins.

  Seeing the house in daylight for the first time ever, Daniel began to understand the depth of Rob’s misgivings over his relationship with Daisy. This was where she had grown up, in this multi-gabled, rose-red mansion house with cream-coloured corners and a nearby bell tower, which was disused these days, Daisy had told him, and needing refurbishment. The grounds of the place were massive and there was even a pale stone, single-storey mausoleum crouched beside a man-made lake thickly fringed with willows and gunnera and shaded by vast cedars of Lebanon, where all the Brays were buried.

  It was toward the lake and the grim little building on its edge that the two women walked, Daniel silently following. Daisy stopped walking a few yards from the building and was looking at the inscription over the door.

  Hodie mihi, cras tibi

  It always made her shiver. It was Latin for Today me, tomorrow you. Meaning that one day, they would all die. They would all come to the same end.

  ‘How are you, darling?’ Vanessa asked Daisy.

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know. Shattered, I suppose. I still can’t believe it happened.’

  ‘Ruby is very concerned about you.’

  Daisy glanced at Vanessa. Once, long ago, Vanessa had hated Ruby – and she did have cause. Daisy’s father Cornelius had conducted a secret affair with Ruby. Vanessa, as his wife, was barren. So when his mistress Ruby became pregnant with twins – Kit and Daisy – it was agreed between Cornelius, Ruby and Vanessa that Cornelius and Vanessa would have Daisy, and they’d paid Ruby off. Only in later years had Ruby been reunited with both her children. And it was only very recently that the icy nature of Ruby and Vanessa’s relationship had begun to thaw.

  ‘I know she’s concerned,’ said Daisy.

  ‘We all are. Of course.’

  Daisy’s eyes were still fixed on the mausoleum. Her father was buried there.

  And her grandparents. And all the Brays who had lived here throughout the generations.

  ‘That’s how it ends up, isn’t it,’ said Daisy bleakly. ‘In death and disaster.’

  Vanessa reached out and took Daisy’s hand. ‘That’s why it’s so important to enjoy your life,’ she said. ‘And to appreciate what you have. Those beautiful boys.’

  ‘Do you enjoy yours?’ asked Daisy. ‘I mean, with Pa, wasn’t it hard . . .?’

  ‘It was.’ Vanessa gave a slight smile. ‘But now? I’m content. Horribly upset at all this happening to you, though.’ She glanced back. Daniel was twenty paces away, looking around. ‘It’s always
fascinated me how children in the same family can be so varied in their personalities. Rob was quite dominant, quite forceful, wasn’t he? This one – Daniel – he’s different. Calmer. Quieter.’

  ‘And Leon’s full of himself,’ said Daisy. ‘The one with the loud mouth, Ruby says. What’s that?’

  Daisy was looking through a screen of ferns and ivy toward the door of the mausoleum. There was something white there on the step. She walked closer, and Vanessa walked with her.

  ‘Oh – that.’ Vanessa shrugged. ‘Someone leaves them every year on your father’s birthday. The twenty-fourth of February. It’s the twenty-eighth now, they’re starting to look a bit tired.’

  Daisy moved closer. The object on the step of the mausoleum was a bouquet of white roses with ferns and foliage, still in a plastic wrapper and tied with a big ivory silk bow.

  She bent down and touched the stalks, looked at the flowers. The white was starting to fade to brown. Soon, they’d be dead. ‘You don’t know who leaves them?’

  Vanessa shook her head. ‘No idea. Some woman he had a fling with, I expect. God knows there were plenty.’ She looked at Daisy. ‘That woman, at the wedding . . .’

  ‘Which woman?’

  Vanessa shrugged as if it barely mattered, but her face was troubled. ‘The blonde one. Rather common-looking. Big-busted. Heavily made-up. I assumed she was part of Rob’s family?’

  ‘You mean Eunice? I saw you staring at her on the day. What about her?’ Daisy had to raise a thin, weary smile at that. Vanessa didn’t approve of Rob’s family. She was painfully class-conscious. She hadn’t even approved of Rob, at first. But she had come to accept him.

  ‘Is that her name? Eunice?’

  ‘Yes, that’s Rob’s mother.’

  Vanessa looked startled. ‘His mother?’

  ‘Yes.’ Daisy looked at Vanessa more closely. ‘What about her?’

  Vanessa turned away. ‘I thought she looked familiar, that’s all, but no, I was mistaken.’

  Daisy nodded to where the flowers lay on the cold, green-tinged stone in front of the mausoleum. ‘Don’t you find that creepy? Someone walking around in the grounds, someone you don’t even know?’

  ‘It’s a long way from the house,’ Vanessa pointed out.

  ‘True, but . . .’

  ‘And I’m not here on my own. Look, there’s Ivan over there.’

  Daisy looked over to where Vanessa pointed. Ivan the gardener, lean and bearded, was digging away in the long border leading down from the main house. He paused, saw them there. Lifted a hand. Vanessa waved back.

  There was a commotion on the nearby path. They turned and there was Jody, the twins racing ahead of her. Matthew came up and flung himself on Daisy, who knelt down and kissed him. Luke followed on more slowly, stopping near to where Daniel stood on guard.

  ‘Sorry, Daisy, they’re a bit paranoid about you leaving,’ said Jody, breathless.

  Which was completely understandable. They’d seen Rob snatched away, so of course they were anxious about Daisy.

  ‘Listen.’ Daisy caught Matthew’s shoulder and gazed into his eyes. ‘Wherever I am, I am always with you.’

  Matthew eyed his mother gravely. ‘Is it true that Uncle Rob is in heaven with Jesus?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, darling. He is.’ Daisy’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked and swallowed. ‘I have to stay with Nanny Ruby for a while, and you have to stay here with Nanny Vanessa. I’ll still phone you every day. And you’ll be good, yes?’ Matthew nodded.

  Luke crept closer and slipped his hand into Daniel’s. It was unexpected, and Daniel looked down at the boy in surprise. He’d never had much to do with the kids. They’d been Rob’s concern, not his. He knew nothing about children and wasn’t keen to start finding out. But the poor little fucker! No kid should ever have had to live through what he had. He squeezed Luke’s hand.

  ‘I’m going back to Nanny Ruby’s tomorrow,’ Daisy was telling Matthew, glancing back at her other son, standing there close to Daniel. ‘But today, we can do anything we want. OK? You choose.’

  84

  Sometimes a girl had to do what a girl had to do. So on Thursday Romilly braced herself and paid her folks a visit. Her mother answered the door.

  ‘Romilly!’ she said, and spread her arms wide. ‘Come in, lovey.’

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ said Romilly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, you know. Fine as always.’ Mum kissed her cheek, ushered her inside and into the lounge. Through the French doors, Romilly could see her dad mowing the back lawn. ‘Yes, look at him,’ said Mum, coming up beside Romilly and staring out at her husband. ‘That flaming lawn gets more attention than I do. He’s forever aerating it, raking it, feeding it, the bloody thing. Cup of tea?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll just . . .’ said Romilly, and went out into the garden while Mum went into the kitchen. ‘Hi, Dad,’ she said over the roar of the Flymo.

  Her dad looked up and the Flymo fell silent. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said, and came forward for a quick peck on the cheek. Stanley Kane was a big man, bulky, and with the calm look of the ex-copper about him.

  ‘You’ve done something new,’ said Romilly, looking at the lawn. The Flymo was on the edge, but in the centre there were lines of open soil radiating out from a central point. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Drainage channels,’ said Dad. ‘You know how the water used to lie here in the winter, cos of the clay. Well, I’ve dug down, cleared it out, put in gravel for it to drain better, and now I’m cutting around the edges, but that bit I’ll reseed later today and it’ll be fine. Have to watch I haven’t done too good a job, though.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ asked Romilly, curious.

  ‘Meaning it might dry out too much now. You know what I’m like, always take a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If that happens, you’ll see the pattern of the channels, like herringbones.’ He looked at her over his glasses. ‘You all right, lovey?’

  ‘Yeah, great.’ She wasn’t, but she wasn’t about to burden him with all her woes. Too much work on her plate, and a feeling that she was on the edge of tumbling into something with a villain, something no sane copper would ever contemplate.

  He paused, staring at her. ‘This thing with Hugh, is it going to blow over, you reckon?’

  Romilly screwed up her face and shook her head.

  ‘Your mother said he cheated on you. That true?’

  Romilly nodded.

  ‘Ah, never mind.’ Her dad pulled her in for a brief hug. ‘Plenty more fish.’

  ‘What, herrings?’

  He laughed and dropped his voice. ‘Don’t take any notice of your mother. If you’re happy to be out of it, that’s good enough. She’s only got her arse in a crease because she can’t face her mates down the WI knowing her daughter’s a divorcee.’

  ‘Right,’ said Romilly, feeling choked all of a sudden. Her dad was always her staunch supporter. Whatever Mum had to say about it, Dad was always on his daughter’s side, and ridiculously proud at what she’d achieved in her career.

  ‘Hugh’s a bloody lefty milksop, anyway. Fuck him,’ said Dad. ‘You could do better, any day of the week. Get a real man. Tough as bullets.’

  ‘Job keeps me pretty busy,’ said Romilly, thinking – irritatingly – of Kit Miller.

  ‘So long as you’re happy, that’s fine by me. And remember,’ said Dad as Mum emerged from the house with a trayful of drinks and biscuits. ‘DLTBGYD, lovey.’

  Don’t Let The Bastards Grind You Down.

  ‘I won’t,’ she said.

  85

  Romilly had so far visited far too many of the London gun clubs on Harman’s list, and now she was at a big plush club in Barnes, which boasted a six-lane, twenty-five-metre range. She had been learning all about shooting as she passed through each club, listening patiently as various coaches explained short-barrelled carbines, .22 rimfire rifles, air rifles, air pistols, and the use of telescopic sights.

  At the Barnes club, people were coming in
and taking up their shooting positions in the lanes. Romilly talked to their coach at the far side of the lanes and showed him two bullets: the one that had embedded itself in the church door, and the one from the woods near Crystal’s grave site, just as she had at all the other clubs.

  ‘These are 7.62 millimetre,’ he said, turning them over in his hands. ‘Used in high-precision target rifles.’

  ‘Used to kill someone, in this instance,’ said Romilly.

  He handed both bullets back to her. He was thirtyish, calm-eyed, clean-shaven. ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘Successful?’

  ‘Three shots fired at one scene. Two fatal. One miss.’ And one spent shell missing from the crime scene.

  ‘Distance?’

  ‘About two hundred yards.’

  ‘Outside?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is this the shooting at the church? The wedding shooting? That one?’

  ‘You heard about it.’

  ‘Everyone has. Utterly tragic. On the news, you know. Really bad.’

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Romilly. ‘Can you draw any conclusions?’

  The coach sucked his lip. ‘Skilled shooter, I would say. There’s wind direction to consider, which makes a clean shot tricky at times.’

  Romilly thought back to the day of the wedding. The air had been mostly still; very calm. Made the bastard’s job easier for him.

  ‘In our inter-club matches,’ the coach went on, ‘we have wind coaches who sit beside the shooter judging the changing conditions and telling them when to make their shot.’

  ‘This is my shooter’s photo.’ Romilly took the bullet back and handed him the grainy image of ‘John’ from the club CCTV.

  All six lanes were occupied now, three men and three women setting up their rests, putting on ear defenders, chatting to each other briefly, then setting up their guns, lining up on the targets.

  The coach frowned at the photo. ‘It’s not very clear.’

  ‘It’s the best we could get. Do you know him? The only name we have for him – and it might not be his real name – is John. Have you ever seen him in here, or on any of your outdoor ranges, shooting?’