by Alex Bell
‘Huh,’ Ben grunted and I could tell he’d already lost interest in the topic. He stood up and you would never have known from his movements that he was drunk as he picked up the bottle and replaced it neatly where he’d found it in the cupboard before glancing at me and saying, ‘This is where it goes, isn’t it, Jasmyn?’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘It’s in the right place?’
‘Yes,’ I said again.
‘Good, I’m glad about that,’ he said, sounding a little churlish as he turned back around to Liam. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said, ‘about a business proposition.’
‘Business proposition?’ Liam repeated, instantly sounding wary. ‘Ben, I don’t have a lot of money. You know that.’
‘You’ll hear me out, though.’ It sounded more like an order than a request. ‘Besides, I need you to give me a ride home. I got a lift over here. My car’s in the garage.’
He wouldn’t be able to drive in his state anyway, I thought, a little resentfully. Who did he think he was, turning up like this and ordering Liam about in his own house? I even wondered if he was in some kind of trouble. After all, I had known Ben for a long time and I had never seen him like this before.
But Liam took him home and was gone for several hours. And when he got back he seemed to be in a cheerful enough mood and tried to brush over Ben’s drunkenness, saying he was only a little put out because he couldn’t find anyone to invest in a certain German business with him. Although that was the last time I ever saw the two of them in the same room together, I found it hard to believe that was what they’d fallen out about so irrevocably. Liam had seemed in a perfectly good mood when he got home and had told me that Ben wasn’t overly upset about his refusal to get involved in the business venture, for he hadn’t really expected anything else anyway. I thought that their argument must have occurred shortly afterwards but I couldn’t be sure. The only time Liam had spoken to me about it was when I’d tried to talk him into inviting Ben to the family Christmas party last year.
‘Can’t you even tell me what the argument was about?’ I’d asked. ‘I can’t believe it was really as bad as all that. I know he’s quiet but he never seemed the malicious type to me and he is your brother—’
‘Don’t let him fool you!’ Liam interrupted in an uncharacteristically sharp voice. ‘He’s clever, I’ll give him that, but Ben’s problem is that he’s never cared about anyone but Ben!’
‘What did he do?’ I asked again.
But Liam just shrugged and said, ‘Do me a favour, Jaz, and stop all this Ben talk. You know what he’s like at parties, he’d only stand in the corner by himself looking miserable anyway.’
I giggled despite myself as Liam did a very accurate impression of the aloof, rather superior expression that Ben always seemed to wear whenever there were large numbers of people around. I dropped the subject, intending to work on him again later. I hadn’t known then that my time with Liam was almost over.
I didn’t have any contact details for Ben so I had to phone his parents to get his mobile number. His mother sounded surprised and asked why I wanted to get in touch with him, so I simply told her that I had been clearing out Liam’s things and thought Ben might like to have some of them. She seemed oddly reluctant to give me his number but I got it from her in the end.
Throughout the day I left five messages asking him to call me back. On the sixth message I said I needed to talk to him about a man named Jaxon Thorpe.
He called me back within five minutes.
‘Where did you hear that name?’ Ben snapped without preamble as soon as I answered the phone.
‘He came to my house this morning,’ I replied, instantly feeling irritated by his tone.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked in a dangerously low voice, as if I had just said something disgusting.
‘He came to the house,’ I repeated. ‘He wanted to see Liam. When I told him he was dead he assumed he’d been murdered. He even asked me if you were the one who’d done it! So can you please tell me what the hell is going on? How do you know that man?’
‘He’s . . . he’s an old friend of Liam’s.’
‘Old friend?’ I repeated, somewhat shrilly. ‘Old friend ? Liam would never have been friends with someone like that. What about Adrian and Lukas?’
I heard Ben take a deep breath on the other end of the line. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard those names before. Liam didn’t seek my approval for every one of his many acquaintances.
He was a popular man. I don’t know why you expect me to know who all his friends were.’
‘But why did Jaxon Thorpe think that you might have—?’ The words stuck in my throat and I found I was unable to finish the sentence.
‘I’m sure he wasn’t being serious when he said that,’ Ben said impatiently. ‘He was just referring to the argument we had. What else did he say?’
‘When I told him Liam was dead he didn’t believe me and forced his way into the house!’ I said.
There was silence for a moment, but if I was expecting Ben to be loudly indignant and furious on my behalf I was sadly disappointed.
‘And?’ he prompted impatiently. ‘What then?’
I sighed. ‘He realised I was telling the truth and left. If you don’t tell me what’s going on I’m going to call the police.’
‘And tell them what?’
I hesitated for, of course, this was the problem. What could I say?
‘Do what you want, Jasmyn, but Jaxon doesn’t even live in England. He’s probably on his way back to America by now already.’
‘How did he know Liam?’
‘They met whilst Liam was in Munich researching the Swan King.’
‘Munich? But what—’
‘I have to go. I’m extremely busy. Don’t worry about Jaxon Thorpe. The man’s an idiot. I’m sure he won’t bother you again.’
And then he hung up on me. I stared at the receiver still clutched in my hand, scarcely able to believe his rudeness. Ben had never been particularly chatty but at least he had always been polite to me before. I shook my head and replaced the receiver, Ben’s words still echoing loudly in my mind . . .
‘They met whilst Liam was in Munich researching the Swan King . . .’
It was true that just over a year ago Liam had toyed with the idea of writing a book about the legends and myths surrounding the Bavarian King Ludwig II - also known as the Swan King, the Fairy Tale King or the Mad King depending on which stories you chose to believe. But after some preliminary research he gave the idea up as he didn’t feel there was enough material to write an entire book on it. But he had done all this research from home over the Internet. Liam and I had gone to Munich for a long weekend two years ago. We had loved the city and talked about going back one day. But as far as I knew Liam had not been back to Germany at all since then.
I picked up the phone and rang Ben straight back but all I got was the machine. So I turned on the computer in the living room and looked for Jaxon Thorpe. After a little searching, I found an American website for a photographer by that name and - after a brief hesitation - I called the mobile number that was listed, but it just rang out. I hung up feeling frustrated by the dead end but at the same time relieved that I hadn’t had to talk to him again.
I made one last attempt to phone Ben about an hour later. This time the phone was answered straight away, but by a German woman whose voice I didn’t recognise.
‘Oh,’ I said, wondering if I could have got the wrong number. ‘Do you speak English?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m looking for Ben Gracey?’
‘May I ask who is calling?’
I could tell that she was young, and she spoke with only a very slight accent.
‘It’s Jasmyn. Jasmyn Gracey.’
‘Wait a moment, please,’ she said. ‘I will go and find him.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’
She was obviously on a wireless phone for I heard her go in
to another room and say, ‘There’s a woman called Jasmyn on the phone for you.’
Ben’s muffled response made my blood boil. ‘Tell her I’m not in.’
He spoke carelessly, as if it didn’t matter at all to him whether I heard him speak or not.
‘But, Ben—’
‘I don’t want to speak to her, Heidi!’
When the German woman came back onto the phone she at least had the grace to sound a little embarrassed as she said, ‘I’m sorry but he is very busy right now. Shall I ask him to call you back?’
‘Yes. Could you tell him it’s important, please?’ I said, trying not to sound too irritated for it was hardly her fault.
I hung up the phone feeling frustrated. I couldn’t get hold of Ben, I couldn’t get hold of Jaxon and they both lived far away in different countries. There was nothing for it - if turning up on his doorstep was what it would take to make Ben talk to me then so be it. I had no address for him so I phoned his mother once again to ask her for it.
‘Why do you want it?’ she demanded.
I started to make up some excuse about wanting to stay in contact but she cut me off dead. ‘Look, Jasmyn,’ she said coldly, ‘I hate to say anything but . . . I really don’t want you staying in touch with Ben. In fact I’d rather you didn’t speak to him at all.’
‘Why?’ I asked in surprise. ‘Has something happened?’
There was silence for a moment before she said with an air of only barely concealed impatience, ‘Surely you must realise that things have changed now. None of us can go back to how things were. I want you to leave Ben alone. He’s been through enough already.’
I gripped the phone numbly, hardly able to believe what I was hearing. I would have expected to slowly drift away a little from Liam’s family now, but I had thought it would happen gradually over time. Liam had often told me that I was just imagining that his family disapproved of our marriage and I had tried desperately to believe him, but now it seemed that I had been right all along. I had never dreamed that they would cut me out in this way though. It was like being kicked in the stomach and new hurt blossomed painfully all the way through me.
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry I bothered you,’ I stammered and then hung up before she had the chance to reply.
My hand shook a little on the phone and I cursed myself for being so meek. I should have said something - I should not have made it so easy for her. The hurt was suddenly replaced with anger and I seized the phone again, intending to call back and have a really vicious go at her. It would feel good to have an argument with someone, to vent some of the hurt and frustration . . . But I paused in the act of dialling. I longed to shout at the woman for being so cruel but . . . after all, she was Liam’s mother. She had just lost one of her sons, so I supposed I couldn’t blame her for lashing out at me. I did it myself all the time - lashing out blindly at my own family when all they were trying to do was help. I took a deep breath and forced myself to put down the phone. Screaming at her wouldn’t do any good anyway.
I turned away from the desk and my eye fell on the wedding album I had moved to the coffee table last night. With everything else that had happened that morning I had forgotten all about it. I walked over, knelt down by the table and flipped the front cover open - doing it quickly, like pulling off a plaster, hoping against hope that last night had been . . . last night . . . and that everything was now back to normal.
But my heart sank as soon as I looked at the first photo for it was exactly the same, and when I flipped through the rest of the album I found that all the others were as well. Something had clearly been done to them. Someone had changed them, ruined them. In the light of day I could be calmer about it and see clearly that this was a trick. Suddenly I thought of Jaxon. He was a professional photographer and it occurred to me that he must be the one responsible. It was the only possible explanation. He had doctored these photos for some ungodly reason. He must have picked the lock, or found the spare key, and got into the house when I had been out food shopping, found the album, taken it away and then brought it back. It would have been difficult, of course, for he would have had a very small window of opportunity seeing as I rarely left the house and even then not for very long. But he must have waited patiently for his chance and that had to explain why I had had that sense of being watched in the months since Liam died. It had been Jaxon. He had probably been the man in the rain I had seen last night as well.
I reconsidered phoning the police but quickly abandoned the idea for I had no proof that Jaxon was the one responsible. I put my head in my hands and tried to think about what to do. I felt sure Jaxon must have been in the house whilst I’d been out, even though I didn’t know how he’d done it or why. I hated the thought of a stranger rummaging around in my bedroom, going through my personal things. And if he’d done it before, who was to say that he might not do it again? I should never have thrown that stone at his car . . .
I would have to get some sort of security system installed. But, in the meantime, I no longer felt safe and the thought of being in the house alone again at night frightened me. It was a horrible feeling because I wanted to be at home, in familiar surroundings, with all my own things . . . but I was too scared to stay by myself and knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night if I did.
Then I thought of Laura and her offer for me to go and stay with her in California and suddenly it was appealing. I could go far away from here and arrange for a new security system to be put in place whilst I was gone. My mother could oversee it and, by the time I got back, the house would be properly secured. I hadn’t bothered to cancel the non-refundable plane ticket and Laura had made it quite clear that I could still come if I changed my mind. So I picked up the phone and called her.
5
Luke
As there was still a week to go until the California trip, I called my grandparents as soon as I got off the phone with Laura and asked if I could come and stay with them for a few days. I knew they would welcome me and I found I was suddenly desperate to get out of the house.
This was partly because of Jaxon and the fact that I no longer felt safe but it wasn’t the only reason. I had simply had enough. It was too painful being at home without Liam - sitting on the couch where we had sat, eating alone in the dining room where we had eaten, sleeping in our double bed by myself, constantly reminded of him in every single room that we had decorated together.
What had at first seemed like a haven now felt like a terrible prison. I couldn’t even begin to think what I would do with the room that had been his study. How could I possibly turn it into anything else now? I thought seriously about selling the house - buying something new, something smaller, and making a fresh start. In some ways the idea appealed to me but . . . at the same time I revolted at the very thought. Partly because - although they tormented me - I couldn’t bear to lose all the memories inside the house. To simply sell it to strangers and know other people were now living there, filling those rooms with their own things. To know that I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to. Besides which, moving just seemed like too much effort. When I remembered how difficult it had been packing away Liam’s clothes, the thought of having to go through every other item in the house, even the things still left in the attic - and then unpack them at the other end - was just too hard.
The post was a particular torment to me too for, of course, so many letters still came for him, even if most of them were nothing more than junk mail. I realised that I’d been opening my own letters and leaving Liam’s on the table in the hall as I always used to do when he was away on one of his trips. Once I realised what I’d been doing I hated sorting through the post and would regularly leave it to pile up in an untidy heap on the doormat, too disheartened to go through it all.
The junk mail I threw away unopened, but when a letter arrived from a travel agency I opened it, thinking that it must be something to do with the California trip we had booked. But, to my surprise, the envelope contained one plane
ticket to Munich for Liam on a flight leaving Gatwick at the end of December. And when I looked more closely at the letterhead, I realised that this was not even our usual travel agency but a different one. I phoned the number listed, thinking there must be some mistake, but the agent I spoke to was quite adamant. A plane ticket to Munich had been booked and paid for by Mr Liam Gracey just a week before his death. If there had been two tickets I would have assumed that Liam must have booked a surprise trip for us. But there was only one ticket and he had said nothing at all to me about booking it, said nothing about the fact that he would be away over New Year. And it was to Munich . . . the city Ben had mentioned on the phone earlier . . . Not booked through our normal travel agency . . . The whole thing was extremely odd and made me feel a little uneasy. But I would never know, now, why Liam had bought the plane ticket, so I put it to one side and tried to forget about it as I drove to my grandparents’.
They lived in the country in a beautiful, large house and they had stables on their land. Although they were too old to do much riding themselves now, my grandfather adored horses and still showed them on occasion. I had gone there often whilst growing up and he had taught me to ride. He’d taught Liam too when we’d come here as children in the school holidays. Liam had been just as enthusiastic about riding as I was and would spend several hours a day on horseback - but without my grandfather he would never have been able to learn for it was simply too expensive and his family had never had much money.
I arrived mid-afternoon with my luggage and my violin case, feeling a little nervous. I’d been avoiding people for so long that I wasn’t sure if I could handle being around them again even though - at the same time - I was sick of being alone. My grandmother tried to persuade me to have coffee and cake in the living room but, thankfully, my grandfather intervened and said that I must go down and get reacquainted with the horses first.
‘Do you still have Mr Ed?’ I asked, biting my lip in anxiety. If he told me they’d sold my favourite horse I was afraid I might start weeping like a child, but he just smiled and nodded.