The nostalgia, the painful yearning, was gone now, replaced by frustration and anger again: it had all been so unnecessary – such a waste. Carefully, Rowan reached into the basin and lifted the drawing out by its edges. It was damp in places and the water had caused the orange and yellow of the flames to run here and there but to destroy it would have been a mistake. If the nightmare happened and the whole thing came out, Cory reaching back through Marianne to Lorna, she would need this. Whatever Mazz said, killing her father’s lover had been her idea; here was the proof.
She took the last one of Marianne’s Ambien tablets but as she’d feared, she lay awake for a long time. She could almost feel it, the hypnotic drift of the pill battling the frantic activity of her brain. Up and dressed, doing what she could to make everything water-tight, she’d managed to control the anxiety but lying in the dark, she thought of all the things she was powerless to influence, any one of which might be the thread that brought the police to her door. Down by the river, with so much else to think about, she’d managed to contain her alarm at J Spelman’s text but now the thought of it made her almost sick with fear. She hadn’t been able to look him or her up – if the police ever suspected her, they would almost certainly take her computer – but she’d remembered the American friend at Imperial whom Cory had mentioned. Was she J Spelman, and if so, what else had he told her? When the police got hold of Cory’s phone records, that text would be sure to raise eyebrows.
But J Spelman was just one person – whom else had he spoken to? With another access of alarm, Rowan remembered his research at the library, the woman who’d shown him how to use the microfiche. She would remember him, the sophisticated American, the hours he’d spent there. What if he’d made notes? When the police searched his room at the Old Parsonage, would they find a notebook with his ideas and suspicions? He hadn’t had one on him; when she’d gone through his pockets, she’d found just his phone, his wallet and the car key.
Eyes wide in the darkness, she remembered the sketch he’d made of her books. He hadn’t given her that one but it wasn’t here – while she’d been getting ready to go round to Benson Place, he must have folded it up and slipped it into his pocket. Where was it? Had he had suspicions about her studies? Was that why he’d asked J Spelman about her? It wasn’t really a lie, her doctorate: she was applying – she’d even applied to Queen Mary. Anyway, she didn’t need to worry about that: if and when Jacqueline or Adam found out, she’d just tell them the truth: that she’d been too embarrassed to admit she was between jobs.
So many little threads but there were bigger ones, too. Was it credible that Cory could have given himself that head wound by slipping and falling? It seemed unlikely that frogmen would find the stone but then, she had no idea what the riverbed there was like. If it was just mud, a single large sharp-edged stone would be immediately apparent. Perhaps she should have left it on the bank – perhaps by throwing it away, she’d made it look suspicious when it needn’t have been.
Lorna’s accident had been neat, self-contained, but this felt sprawling, messy. Rowan pushed away the idea that she’d worked better with Marianne; that without her – like Seb without Jacqueline – she just wasn’t as good. And the police hadn’t given up easily last time; they’d had their suspicions. As Turk had said that day in his kitchen, they weren’t idiots.
And on top of it all, she thought, the sheets tightening round her chest as she turned in the bed again, the question of how and why Marianne had died was still unanswered. With Cory’s death, the immediate urgency had gone, but without him, her chances of finding out what had happened had withered almost to nothing. Her own ideas were exhausted. As the clock by the bed ticked on, she clung to the idea that Mazz had jumped because, having thought better of telling Cory about Lorna, she’d realised she’d told him too much to be able to backtrack. Much as she wanted that to be true, however, Rowan knew it was a fragile straw at which to clutch. Time and again as she writhed beneath the blankets, she had to shut down the voice that whispered in her ear that nothing Cory ever said had given her reason to believe it, either.
Thirty-two
Adam had barely stepped through the door before things escalated. He’d kissed Rowan hello and she’d pressed against him without thinking, wanting the reassurance of his solidity, his weight and warmth.
They were still getting dressed when the taxi driver texted to say he was outside. Earlier she’d had the idea that she should cook – it would take concentration, she’d be forced to focus on something other than the constantly looping anxiety – but when she’d suggested it to Adam, he’d texted back to say he’d booked a table at Chiang Mai. ‘It was a nice idea, cooking dinner,’ he said now as he bent to pick up the wallet that had fallen from his jacket pocket in their rush to bed, ‘but to be honest, I don’t want to spend any more time here than I have to – at the house, I mean. Every time I’m here, I imagine her lying out in the garden and …’ He shook his head. Rowan crossed the room and pulled him into a tight hug. ‘While the pictures are still here,’ he said, his words warm in her hair, ‘it makes sense for me to come to you but as soon as they’re moved, I can stop.’
She felt a jolt of alarm. ‘Do you know when that’ll be?’
‘I wanted to ask you. I spoke to James today and he’s been able to free up space for them in storage until they need to be shipped to New York. When we give him the word, he’ll come and pack them.’
She jumped as his phone rang but it was the driver again, calling to make sure they’d got his text. She ran her hand over the bed until she found the earring she’d mislaid and they went downstairs but as they came on to Banbury Road, the cab taking the turn so sharply they slid against each other on the shiny back seat, Adam returned to the subject.
‘How have you been getting on with your work?’ he asked. ‘How much longer do you think you’ll need with the archives?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she hedged. ‘There’s one more collection of papers I want to see but until I get a proper look at them, it’ll be hard to say.’
He reached over and rested his hand on her thigh. ‘It’ll be much better when you’re back in London,’ he said. ‘Easier. It means I’ll be able to see you without having to face this place. And the journey – people commute from Cambridge to London every day.’
Every day. Rowan smiled then remembered her shoddy, down-at-heel flat. She would have to move, find a way to afford something better. She couldn’t let him see her there.
‘You could come and see me in Cambridge,’ he said, as if he’d read her mind.
Chiang Mai Kitchen was located in three little wood-panelled rooms in a centuries-old building in Wheatsheaf Passage, a narrow, overhung cut between the High and Blue Boar Street that had always reminded Rowan of Pudding Lane before the Great Fire. Once, in her first year at college, she remembered, she’d been brought here for dinner by a man she hadn’t liked at all and she’d spent the evening imagining it was Adam across the table instead. As they climbed the sloping spiral staircase, she wondered if Cory had ever eaten here. He would have liked it, too: the old wood and odd angles, the lingering shades of other lives.
Cory. By the time she’d fallen asleep last night, it had been four o’clock and she’d woken at ten-thirty to find incongruous sunlight cutting into the room. For a few seconds, her mind had been gloriously empty but then it had all come streaming back. She’d got up at once, gone down to the kitchen and turned on Jacqueline’s radio. If a body had been found in the river, it would certainly be reported on the local news. Then, with a nauseating twist in her gut, she’d remembered that while a body in the river would be local news, Michael Cory’s body in the river would be national news. International.
The waitress took their menus and Rowan ran the chain of her necklace between thumb and forefinger. ‘Did you manage to catch up with Michael Cory?’
Adam frowned and shook his head. ‘I’ve called him twice, left a message, but he hasn’t called me back.’
‘Hmm.’ Relief flooded her. Among her nocturnal terrors had been the possibility that Cory might have reached him yesterday morning, before they’d gone down to the river. ‘I called him as well,’ she said, ‘we were supposed to have a cup of coffee this afternoon, but I got voicemail, too. He hasn’t rung me back, either.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘Yes. I mean, as far as I know. I’ve only met him a few times but he’s never stood me up before.’ Her heart was beating so hard she was afraid Adam would hear it in her voice but as far as she could tell, she sounded steady enough, and if he noticed the flush in her face, she hoped he’d put it down to the room’s over-zealous heating.
‘Artists,’ he said. ‘Mazz used to go AWOL for days on end – weeks, sometimes – when she was in the thick of something.’
Rowan took a small sip of wine and cautioned herself: under no circumstances could she afford to get drunk tonight. ‘Ad, I’ve been meaning to ask,’ she said. ‘Is the house on the market now? Will people be coming to see it?’
‘No. We can’t put it on the market until her estate’s settled; we needed a valuation for probate as well. Marianne left me her share – but I don’t know. Even though I find it so hard being there, when we got the valuation, I just felt …’ He shook his head again. ‘I can’t live there, not now, maybe not ever, but the idea of selling it, letting it go out of the family … Even though we’d decided that Mazz would live there and I only had a third, I somehow always thought I’d bring up my kids there.’
The night air was sharp as they left the restaurant, the sky over the High Street cloudless. The city lights put paid to any stars but a huge moon hung overhead, the grey lacework of craters like a veil over its face.
At Fyfield Road, the front garden was full of silver light, the steps clearly visible without help from the carriage lamp, and even in the hallway, the glow of the moon through the panels in the front door was enough to show the edge of the telephone table and the lamp, the shapes of the coats on the pegs. They kissed in the semi-darkness then went downstairs to get some water to take up to bed.
Adam went ahead of her but three steps into the kitchen, he stopped so abruptly Rowan almost trod on his heel. When she reached out to switch on the light, he grabbed her wrist.
‘What’s … ?’
In the dim light, she saw him hold a finger against his lips then point towards the window. ‘There’s someone in the garden,’ he murmured.
Rowan went cold.
He put up his hand, indicating that she should stay still, then stepped into the shadow of the units. Out of direct sight of the window, he began to move towards the back of the room.
Sweat broke out across her body; she felt it on her forehead and under her arms, between her breasts. No thoughts at first, just fear, but then they came spilling, one after another: this was it; Cory had been right that someone else knew, and now, in front of Adam, it was all going to come out. Everything was ruined, and all of it – trying to discover what happened to Marianne; dealing with Cory – had been for nothing. She hadn’t even been given a chance.
Adam reached the back of the kitchen and, stooping to stay hidden, manoeuvred his way to the door. He held up his hand again, Stay there, and for a second she considered running forward, creating a diversion so that whoever it was could get away. But before she could move, Adam reached for the key in the dish, shoved it into the lock and yanked the door open.
In the same second he sprang out on to the patio, Rowan saw a figure start up from behind the rhododendron at the end of the raised bed but, moving too fast, he slipped on the frosty grass and in the moment it took him to get both feet planted again, Adam was up the steps to the lawn. ‘You – get back here!’
He was fast but the other man was smaller and nimble, and he managed to get far enough ahead of Adam to be out of arm’s reach until, with a sharp cry, he tripped on the edge of the flagstone path and went sprawling.
With a guttural sound, Adam threw himself down on top of the man but then, across the freezing garden, she heard him say, ‘Oh, Christ.’
Between the navy beanie and the black Puffa jacket, Bryony’s face was milk-white. Despite the cold, her hands were bare and as she came into the kitchen, Rowan saw that her palms were bleeding. The knees of her jeans were muddy, too, and the left one was ripped.
‘I’m so sorry, Bryony,’ Adam said. ‘If I’d had any idea it was you …’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll just have some bruises.’ She gave him a pale smile. ‘I’m sure there are plenty of people who’d like to be rugby-tackled by you.’
Had she looked in her direction as she’d said it? Rowan wasn’t sure. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said.
‘Here, let me see.’ Adam took the chair next to Bryony and gestured that she should hold out her hands. He grimaced. ‘There’s a lot of mud in there. You should probably have a tetanus jab tomorrow.’
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘No, it’s not worth risking. I’ll take you to Casualty myself if you don’t want your dad to know.’
‘Thanks but I can do it on my own. Easy to explain to Dad, anyway. I’ll just say I fell over.’
Adam stood and went to the cabinet that housed the fuse box and the family’s first-aid supplies. At the bottom of the old ice-cream container where Jacqueline had kept them, he found three antiseptic wipes and a pair of tweezers. ‘Come and run them under the tap, get the worst off, then I’ll see what I can do.’
He directed a gentle stream of water over Bryony’s palms then brought her back to the table where he put a clean towel on his knees and bent over her left hand.
‘So what’s with the night manoeuvres?’ he asked, eyes trained on the tweezers. Bryony winced as he pulled out a piece of grit.
‘I’ve seen you out there before,’ said Rowan, ‘haven’t I?’
‘Yeah.’ Bryony’s expression was a mixture of sheepishness and irritation.
‘So … ?’ coaxed Adam.
‘I just miss her, that’s all.’ Her voice was belligerent, as if she resented being put on the spot. ‘I feel close to her here.’
‘You can knock on the door any time,’ said Rowan.
Bryony shot her a look that said she couldn’t possibly understand. ‘It’s not like that. It’s … private. I don’t want to talk.’ She bit her lower lip as Adam extracted another chip of gravel. ‘Marianne was my friend,’ she said, fixing her eyes on the floor.
Adam nodded but said nothing, leaving a vacuum for her to fill. Rowan remembered what Turk had told her about Marianne and Bryony, how close they were. Best buds, he’d called them; they’d shared clothes and shopped together, gone to gigs and shows.
‘Marianne knew what it was like,’ Bryony said after a while, ‘when your parents split up. Everything turning upside down.’
Rowan frowned. ‘But wasn’t she …’ Adam glanced up and she gave him a look of apology, ‘… sort of … involved?’
Bryony shook her head. ‘Not really. Not so it made a difference. The papers loved all that, didn’t they, the scandal?’ She pronounced the word with heavy irony, and for a second, Rowan had the impression she was hearing not Bryony’s voice but Marianne’s.
‘Mum and Dad were on the rocks anyway,’ she said. ‘They’d been talking about divorce for months before Mazz came on the scene, whatever Grandpa likes to think.’
It was nearly midnight by the time the first aid was finished and, standing up from the table, Adam told Bryony they would take her home. ‘I can walk,’ she said. ‘It’s ten minutes.’
‘No way, José.’
‘I’ve only had a glass, Ad,’ Rowan said. ‘I can drive.’
The Greenwoods lived in Southmoor Road, it turned out. As they crossed north Oxford, Bryony, simultaneously irritated at being treated like a child and patently glad that she hadn’t had to walk, answered Adam’s questions about what she was going to do when she left school. She wasn’t going to take a gap year, apparently; she was goin
g straight to Edinburgh in the autumn to do English. ‘I’m ready to get away from Oxford,’ she said. ‘I don’t love it. Especially now.’
The houses in Walton Manor were significantly smaller than those in Park Town, though still large by most standards. Years ago, when they’d been growing up, the area had had the lovely academic shabbiness of so much of Oxford then but even in the dark, it was obvious from the up-lights and potted trees that money and interior designers had landed here, too.
They waited while Bryony found her keys and let herself into the house. Outlined by the light in the hall, she gave them a brief wave then shut the door.
As they cruised carefully away between the cars parked nose to tail along both kerbs, Adam reached over the gearstick and let his hand rest on Rowan’s knee.
‘Apart from nearly having crushed her,’ he said, ‘I’m relieved.’
She glanced at him. ‘How so?’
A pause. ‘I promised Mazz I wouldn’t say anything to anyone but a few days before she died, she told me she’d been thinking about her relationship with James.’
Rowan’s antennae went up. ‘Really?’
‘She loved Bryony, too, and that complicated things even more, but she was beginning to feel like the age gap was just too big. She wanted to have children and James’ daughter was about to leave home – Mazz worried that he was finished with that stage of his life while she hadn’t even started. That was part of it.’
He turned to look out of the window, deliberately, Rowan thought. The seconds stretched. ‘Part?’ she said.
He hesitated. ‘She didn’t say anything but knowing her so well … She’d started to talk a lot about Michael Cory. I think she liked him. No, more than liked: she was falling in love with him.’
Rowan’s mind started to whirr, the potential implications running like lines of code. ‘Why are you relieved?’ she asked.
‘Because the only microscopically small good thing in all this – apart from this, you and me – is that the Greenwoods never had to know.’
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