The Winter Secret

by Lulu Taylor

  ‘No one knows. We’re all worried sick. Please ring at once if you hear anything – and the police might be in touch as well.’

  Buttercup finished the call. She turned anxious eyes to Ingrid, who was making strong coffee.

  ‘That’s not a good sign,’ Ingrid said. They both knew that Elaine was the walking encyclopaedia of information about Charles. What she didn’t know, only Charles himself would know. The two women exchanged sorrowful looks.

  ‘Whatever he did to us,’ Buttercup said quietly, ‘I would never wish harm on him.’

  ‘Nor me.’ Ingrid shook her head sadly.

  They stared at each other, reading in one another’s eyes what they were both thinking.

  ‘He destroyed the house and . . . killed himself?’ Buttercup hadn’t considered this before. She’d assumed he must have got out, gone somewhere – or else been caught inadvertently in the flames. Horror washed over her. ‘No!’

  ‘It looks like the only possible answer if he doesn’t turn up soon. If he were going to destroy Charcombe, then I think he would have destroyed himself too. It was like some kind of final act – wrecking the Redmain room, then razing the house. He loves it so much, I don’t think he could stand destroying it and carrying on.’

  Buttercup stared, numb with shock. It seemed the only answer and yet it was still impossible to accept it. Yesterday, Charles had been full of energy, anger, spite and a seemingly implacable desire either to force Buttercup to stay with him, or to punish her for going. How could he have moved to the decision to kill himself? She had a flash of memory: Charles’s face, frozen, his eyes blank and glassy. Listening to that voice. What if it told him to make that final, extraordinary statement of rejection? If it said, better dead than disgraced? ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said in a small voice. ‘He was losing me, he’d lost the hero he revered. Maybe there’s more to it we don’t even know about, things that contributed to pushing him over the edge.’

  Ingrid nodded, solemn. ‘But at least he saved you rather than let you burn too. That’s something.’

  Buttercup looked at the window. It was still dark outside but there was a grey quality to it, as though full daylight was not too far off.

  ‘I don’t know if it’s worth going to bed,’ Ingrid said, gazing outside. ‘I’ll need to phone the children soon and let them know. Lots of their things were in the house. They’ll all be gone. I just wish I knew what to tell them about Charles. I’m afraid I’m going to have to prepare them for the worst.’

  Buttercup sighed, overwhelmed and utterly exhausted. ‘I still feel so bewildered. I’m expecting my phone to ring at any moment, and Charles to be on the other end, saying, “Don’t be so stupid, darling, I’m fine.” But I also know realistically it’s not going to happen.’ She turned anguished eyes to Ingrid. ‘Do you think we’ll ever know the truth?’

  Ingrid said thoughtfully, ‘If we find Charles, maybe. If not . . . I don’t believe we’ll ever find out what happened. It’s where we go from here that counts.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Ingrid managed to persuade Buttercup to lie down, and as soon as she started climbing the stairs, she was bleary with tiredness. She stayed awake only long enough to take off her smoky clothes and climb under the covers, then she was fast asleep in one of those absolute and dreamless slumbers which pass in what seems like an instant.

  She woke in the early afternoon, still groggy and wondering where she was, until the memory of everything that had happened came flooding back to her. She picked up her phone and switched it on.

  A text sat in front of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, hardly able to take it in. It was from Charles.

  Come up here. I need you. Please, darling, come now. Cx

  Buttercup leapt out bed, grabbing a bathrobe from the bedroom door hook, and pulled it on, panting with shock as she ran downstairs. Ingrid was in the kitchen as Buttercup came racing in. ‘Look!’ she shouted. ‘A text from Charles! I have to get to him right now.’

  ‘What?’ Ingrid grabbed the phone from her, and read the message. ‘Good God! You’re right.’

  Buttercup was turning in a confused circle, trying to decide what to do, whether to get dressed or simply pull on a coat as she was, and go.

  ‘Wait!’ Ingrid held up a hand. ‘Look – this text was sent last night, just after midnight. Was that before you went to the house?’

  ‘What?’ Buttercup took back the phone. The time the text was sent was clear: 12.17 a.m. ‘No, I was still here then. I didn’t leave until almost one.’ She gazed at Ingrid. ‘What does it mean?’

  Ingrid looked baffled. ‘He wanted you back at the house.’ She frowned at Buttercup. ‘You saw no sign of the fire when you went in?’

  ‘Nothing. I heard a noise from the cellar as I came downstairs later, at about two a.m. But the fire must have been burning before then, and the candles I saw much longer.’ She looked at Ingrid, frightened. ‘Does this mean he wanted me there after all, and it just so happened that I went up of my own accord? Was it to talk to me, or to lure me into the fire? But then why not show himself when I arrived? And if he wanted to kill me, why go to the effort of saving me, after all that?’

  Ingrid bit her lip. ‘I have absolutely no idea, but you’ll have to show this to the police. They need to know.’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt deflated, almost defeated. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’

  When she came downstairs later, fresher after a rapid shower, she found Ingrid putting on her coat in the hall.

  ‘What’s the news?’ she asked quickly.

  Ingrid looked up, her eyes sad. ‘Nothing. The fire is out but the house is a shell. No one will be able to assess it properly for days. Still no sign of Charles, either.’ Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘I’ve had to talk to the children. They’re both devastated. I’m going to pick up Charlotte from school now. James is on his way back from university.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘Charles might have been many things, but he was still their father and they loved him.’

  ‘This is terrible,’ Buttercup said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘We have to prepare for Charles being dead. Every hour that goes by when we don’t hear from him makes it more likely that he’s not coming back at all.’

  They stood in solemn silence for a moment, thinking of Charles.

  Ingrid shifted, picking up her car keys. ‘I have to get a move on if I’m going to collect Charlotte from school and get home at a decent hour.’

  ‘I’ll look after things here,’ offered Buttercup. ‘Shall I get some dinner on for you both when you get back?’

  ‘I can’t pretend that won’t be welcome. Just have a rootle round and see what you can come up with. I’ll let you know when we’re on the way home.’

  It was comforting to explore the fridge and cupboards and make plans to cook. Buttercup realised it had been a long time since she’d been allowed such freedom; Carol had always done the cooking. She was at the stove, stirring her creation, when the front doorbell went, and she strode down the hall to answer it, wondering if it might be the police with news about Charles, but Gawain stood on the front step, muffled against the cold by his dark overcoat and scarf.

  He smiled tentatively at her, his brown eyes warm. ‘I’ve come to see if you’re all right after last night.’

  ‘Thanks, that’s kind. Come in,’ she said, ‘it’s freezing out here.’

  Once they were in the warm sitting room, Gawain’s heavy coat hanging in the hall, they both sat down, Gawain’s expression concerned.

  ‘Have you managed to get some sleep?’

  She nodded. ‘A bit.’

  ‘Good. I wanted to say how sorry I am about all this. You’ve lost so much – your home, all your things . . .’ His face was full of sympathy.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through. Any news on your husband?’

  ‘Not yet. But I found a text from him.’

  ‘What
?’ Gawain exclaimed, astonished. ‘He’s texted you?’

  ‘It’s not what you think.’ She explained the timings. ‘So we still haven’t heard from him since last night. I’m trying to take it in – that maybe, after all, he wanted me to be there when the house burned.’ Anguish made her shoulders slump. ‘It’s just so hard to believe he would actually have wanted to go that far, maybe even kill us both.’

  ‘But in the end, he couldn’t go through with it. In the end, he saved you.’

  ‘No.’ Buttercup fixed him with a candid gaze, staring at his frank, open face with the clear brown eyes, the mess of thick coppery hair. He made her think of a red setter, or a soft bear – strokeable but strong. ‘You saved my life.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Gawain looked embarrassed, suddenly unable to meet her eyes. ‘I did what anyone would do in the circumstances. I can’t pretend it was particularly brave, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Buttercup said firmly. ‘Not everyone runs into a burning building. If you hadn’t come in to see what was happening, there’s no guarantee I would have made it out. So I mean it. Thank you.’ She smiled at him.

  ‘I would do it a hundred times out of a hundred,’ he said sincerely.

  Something in his brown eyes made her feel awkward and she dropped her gaze. She spoke quickly to cover her awkwardness. ‘So . . . you’re going back home?’

  ‘That’s right. Back to London. I’ve got a little flat in Bloomsbury, and a very small cottage on the coast in Hastings. The two places balance me out and keep me sane. But it’s back to the city for now. I’ve got work to do.’ He fixed her with a solemn gaze. ‘I know it’s early days, but do you have any idea what you’re going to do?’

  Buttercup shook her head. ‘I’ll stay here for now, I suppose. But I don’t want to impose on Ingrid for too long. It all depends what happens with . . . everything here.’

  He nodded, understanding.

  ‘I could probably go to our London flat for a while.’

  Gawain pulled out his wallet and fished out a business card. ‘Here are my details. If you need me at any time, just call or email. I mean it.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  He smiled at her, then stood up. ‘Right, I’m off. Goodbye. And I hope to hear good news about your husband.’

  Buttercup was expecting Ingrid home with Charlotte when the police arrived to go back over her statements with her. She went carefully back through everything she had said to the two officers, a man and a woman.

  ‘That’s all correct,’ she said when they’d been through it all. ‘The only thing to add is that my husband texted me last night – I only found it today.’

  The officers examined the text with interest, noting down the new details. ‘You say you didn’t see this? It’s coincidence that you decided to go up to the house at almost the same time as he asked you to go?’

  ‘That’s right. I wanted to get my things, like I said. I didn’t see the text as my phone was switched off.’

  The police officer nodded, his expression blank. After a moment, he said, ‘And you requested to have your horses moved away from the house last night?’

  ‘Yes, but I often did that,’ Buttercup said quickly. ‘I had them moved on Bonfire Night too, it’s not unusual.’

  The policeman nodded slowly. ‘Right. What do you know about all the alarm systems, sprinklers and cameras being disabled?’

  ‘Nothing at all. I guessed they had been switched off.’ Buttercup began to feel anxious. ‘What are you trying to say? That I did it?’

  ‘Elaine Richards, your husband’s PA, says you’ve disabled the systems before. In fact, she says you switched off the entire wireless network, including the cameras, earlier this month.’

  Buttercup blinked, remembering the day she had turned off the cameras, the day Gawain appeared for the first time. ‘Yes, but I can explain that. And I switched it all back on again.’

  ‘Except the cameras.’ The policeman consulted his notes. ‘You didn’t switch them back on.’

  ‘They were on, though, I’m sure of it. They can’t have been off all that time. Someone must have put them back on again before they were switched off last night.’

  ‘Very well.’ The officers exchanged glances. ‘We’ll be examining all the available footage. You’d fallen out badly with your husband, hadn’t you? We’ve had a few accounts of what went on between you, and the extremely bad terms you were on. You were going to leave him, in fact?’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘And he was angry about that. His assistant says he intended to cut you out of his life, restricting your access to your home and his money. You relied entirely on your husband, didn’t you?’

  Buttercup felt anger rising to the surface. ‘This is ridiculous, I didn’t set the house on fire and try to murder my husband!’

  They stared at her, implacably calm. The policewoman said, ‘You’re the one suggesting that, Mrs Redmain. Not us.’

  ‘You are suggesting it!’ she protested. ‘I went back to the house to get my personal items because my husband is a very vengeful man and might destroy them. But I certainly wouldn’t have hurt him or the house, not even his horrible Redmain room.’ She gazed at them, beseeching. ‘You have to believe me. What about the text?’

  ‘We’ll be looking carefully at all the evidence,’ the officer said, as unreadable as ever. ‘But this is very serious. Your husband has been missing for almost twenty-four hours, with no contact and no evidence of travel or spending. It’s looking very grave indeed.’

  ‘I know that,’ Buttercup said, her voice rising in a mixture of grief and outrage. ‘But I had nothing to do with it. I swear that!’

  Oh my God – did Charles set me up? Was that his final revenge – to get me punished for what he did?

  The police officers had left and it was dark outside when Buttercup checked her emails. There was one from Carol Croft, a long outpouring of sadness and sympathy at the loss of the house and the disappearance of Charles.

  We just can’t believe it. We must have been the last people to see the boss after the party. We stayed to clear up and see the caterers and staff off the premises, then we told him about handing in our notice. He took it very well, said he’d been expecting it and it was fine. He seemed completely calm. The only thing was that he said he’d like us to go that evening. We had holiday booked for Christmas in any case, and he said he wanted us to go immediately and we could come back for the rest of our things after the break. So that’s what we did. Steve was glad to get away while the boss got used to the idea of us leaving. That’s all we know. I just can’t believe the whole house is gone, and the boss missing too . . . let me know if I can do anything at all. We’ve given the police our statements but we’re due back for more interviews tomorrow. Maybe see you then.

  Carol x

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Ingrid returned late with a white-faced and teary Charlotte, and James arrived even later. Buttercup went to bed early to leave them together and not impose her presence on the family. In the morning she went out early for a long walk. The smell of smoke and ash still hung heavy in the cold air, with no rain to wash them away, and plumes of grey cloud still made their way upwards from the last of the embers inside the burned, sodden mess that was once Charcombe Park. Buttercup turned away from it and walked out over the hills, Tippi trotting beside her, not looking at the terrible mess behind the gates. She felt Charles’s absence almost like a presence in itself: she was constantly aware of him, thinking about him, wondering about where he was and what had gone through his mind that last night.

  What was likely was that he had set fire to the house. Whether he intended to kill himself and hurt or kill Buttercup too, or ever frame her – that was unknowable, unless Charles appeared to explain. But each hour with no contact, no trace of him, and it became more likely that he was dead, by accident or design.

  She took a circular route around the village, skirting it across the fields, up th
e hill and along the woods, then back down to return from the other side. She had reached the pub and had decided to go in for a coffee before going back to Ingrid’s when she saw a familiar beaten up car. As she noticed it, the door opened and Phil got out. He waved to her as he walked towards her, and she nodded back, as she snapped on Tippi’s lead.

  ‘Hi, BC. I came down to look for you.’ He was his usual gruff self, his jaw thick with gingery stubble, his small blue eyes staring out from under beetling brows. ‘I wanted to say how bloody sorry I am for all this. Are you okay?’

  ‘Thanks, Phil.’ To her surprise, he put out his arms and pulled her into a tight hug, before releasing her and scanning her face carefully.

  ‘It’s a bloody bad state of affairs, that’s all,’ he said.

  Buttercup nodded. ‘I’m going in for a coffee. Want to join me?’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  Inside, the fires were blazing and there was the comforting smell of breakfast: toast, bacon and coffee. Guests were eating over their newspapers or chatting as Buttercup and Phil found a table and ordered their drinks.

  Phil stirred three sachets of sugar into his coffee and said, ‘I wanted to let you know that Milky and the others are fine at the Herberts’ yard. They can stay as long as you want.’

  ‘That’s good. I should think the stables are gone.’

  ‘I’d be very surprised if they weren’t, but I can’t go near them right now with the police around.’

  ‘Thank God I thought to move the horses. I can’t bear to imagine what might have happened if I hadn’t.’ Buttercup became aware of people looking over and murmuring. ‘What is everyone saying about it?’

  Phil shrugged and sipped his coffee. ‘The usual mad gossip and rumour after something like this. There’s talk that Charles was seen in town the day of the party, and he was buying petrol in a jerry can.’