The Secrets Between Us

by Louise Douglas

  ‘What don’t I understand?’

  ‘I think if we don’t go now, something really awful’s going to happen,’ I said.

  He laughed. Then he stopped laughing and took hold of my hands.

  ‘What do you mean? Has somebody said something to you? Have you been threatened?’

  ‘No, not exactly. I don’t know, I’ve just got a feeling.’

  ‘Oh, Sarah, come on,’ he said. ‘It’s been a tough week, that’s all.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. I mean it, Alexander. We have to get away.’

  He took me seriously enough to go upstairs and do some internet searches, and after a while he came back downstairs with the laptop tucked under his elbow.

  He was smiling, looking pleased with himself.

  ‘There’s a yard up for rent in Fowey. It was being used by a memorial mason but he’s retired. It’s got the space and the kit I’d need. We could move the business down there. What do you think?’

  ‘Fowey in Cornwall?’

  ‘Didn’t you say you liked Cornwall?’

  I did like Cornwall, and Fowey in particular was beautiful. Laurie took me there for a long weekend once. I remembered the church tucked away in a hollow at the bottom of the hill; sea water splashing against the wall beneath the restaurant where we ate scampi and chips; a boat trip along the green estuary that took us all the way along to Daphne du Maurier’s house: we saw its gardens rolling down to the water, cold and clear like glass. I had thought it one of the loveliest places I’d ever been. I’d always thought of Cornwall as somewhere to visit, not somewhere to live. How small-minded I used to be. I thought the civilized world began and ended in Lancashire.

  ‘It sounds perfect,’ I said.

  ‘Then we’ll do it. We’ll go.’

  ‘What about your work here?’

  Alex shrugged. ‘I’ll have to give a month’s notice on the yard. Everything else we can take with us.’

  I leaned back and breathed. It seemed as if, at last, everything was being made easy for us. Everything was going our way.

  ‘How quickly can we leave?’ I asked.

  ‘As quickly as we like.’

  He put his hand on my shoulder, leaned down and kissed my head. He wound his hand in my hair and the vegetables I was stirring in the pan sizzled and the rain tapped and spattered against the window panes.

  ‘What about this place?’

  ‘We’ll send Philip a letter. With Genevieve gone the house belongs to him.’

  ‘The Churchills won’t want Jamie to leave Burrington Stoke. Do you think they’ll try to stop us?’

  ‘Probably. It’d be best if you didn’t say anything to anyone, not even Jamie. We’ll leave quietly and after a couple of weeks we’ll let them know where we are and that we’re OK.’

  I felt a frisson run through me. Wasn’t that almost exactly what Genevieve had said in the letter to her parents? Had she had this exact same conversation with somebody?

  ‘It seems a bit cruel on Philip and Virginia,’ I said. ‘First Genevieve, then Jamie.’

  ‘If you want a quick getaway without any fuss,’ said Alexander, ‘that’s how it’s going to have to be.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  ALEXANDER SPOKE TO the agent on the phone the next day and arranged an appointment in Fowey. He was going to stay overnight and come back the following evening. When Jamie was asleep, we sat at the door to his room and looked at properties for rent there on the internet and saw a couple of cottages just a stone’s throw from the sea. In the gloom of the mid-winter, I imagined summers to come, sitting bare-legged in a tiny courtyard garden, surrounded by pots of lavender, and drawing. I thought of Jamie, tanned and healthy, growing his hair, turning into a surfer-boy, and the three of us on the beach, barefoot, cooking fish over a driftwood fire and watching the sun set over the green and white waves. The picture was so appealing I wanted to leave there and then. I felt as if I could hardly bear another moment in Avalon. I wanted to feel the sand beneath my feet.

  I cooked a full English breakfast the morning before Alexander left. We had told Jamie his father was going to price some work a long way away; still, Jamie was whiney and anxious. I hoped fried bread, sausage and beans would help, but they didn’t. None of the usual distraction techniques had any effect.

  ‘We’ll go and choose a Christmas tree when I get back,’ Alexander said. ‘Father Christmas won’t come if we don’t have a tree.’

  Jamie put on his challenging face. ‘Father Christmas isn’t real,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Allegra told me. She said he’s just a made-up person to make children go to bed early so the adults can put the presents out.’

  Alexander raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  Jamie looked at his father.

  ‘That’s what Allegra said.’

  ‘Did she also tell you that he only comes to children who believe in him?’

  Jamie looked from Alexander’s face to mine.

  ‘How does he know the difference if you’re asleep?’ he asked carefully.

  ‘He just does.’

  Jamie swung his legs. ‘All right, but I’m going to ask for a dog for Christmas and, if I don’t get one, I won’t believe in Father Christmas any more.’

  I laughed. Alexander wagged his fork at Jamie. ‘Don’t push your luck, son.’

  ‘Sarah, do you think we should have a dog?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I do. But not for Christmas. Wait and see what happens in the New Year, eh?’

  Alexander hurried Jamie along and soon had him strapped in the Land Rover ready to drop off at school on his way down to the motorway. It was so cold outside that our breath steamed. A thick frost had lain down on the garden and the roofs of the old barn and the loose boxes, the trees were white and freezing mist swirled picturesquely above the course of the stream. The countryside did look particularly beautiful that morning, but already my heart was in Cornwall.

  I passed Jamie his lunchbox and stood shivering at the side of the vehicle, waiting to wave them off. Alexander wound down his window. Close up, in the bright sunlight, I could see how tired he was, how much the past months had taken from him.

  He reached out and touched my cheek with his hand.

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  That morning, I caught the bus into Castle Cary and then the train into Bristol. I planned to do as much Christmas shopping as possible. We were going to be so busy over the next few days, packing and clearing out, that there simply wouldn’t be time if I left it any later. Jamie was going for tea at Karen’s after school, so it didn’t matter if I was late back. I had been looking forward to this day, a day to myself, shopping in the city, for a while.

  Bristol didn’t disappoint. I felt like a child in a sweetshop. Everything delighted me: I didn’t know what to look at first, which shop to go into. After the quiet of Burrington Stoke and those few, same, suspicious faces, I felt at home amongst all the thousands of people. I was a city girl. I belonged.

  I was queuing up to try on an armful of clothes in Debenhams when my phone beeped. A text message had come through. I took the phone out of my pocket and checked. It was from DI Twyford.

  My finger hovered over the button. I could just switch the phone off and read the message later. Or I could put the phone back in my pocket and ignore it. Or I could delete it without reading it, and deny I ever received it.

  Only, in my heart, I would know it was there. Not knowing what it said would eat away at me. It would spoil my day.

  The day was tainted already.

  The woman in front of me stepped forward. I opened the message. It said: Need to talk asap.

  ‘How many items?’ asked the young girl who was looking after the changing rooms.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I have to go.’

  I went back outside the shop and called the detective’s mobile phone. It was switched off. I rummaged in my bag until I found his card and
called the landline, but the man who answered said the DI was in a meeting, and asked if I wanted to leave a message. I said I didn’t, switched the phone off and put it back in my bag.

  There was still plenty of time for shopping but, now, the crowds no longer seemed jolly and exciting, they seemed overwhelming. I had to get out, away from all the people.

  I went past a newsagent’s. The board outside said: MISSING HEIRESS LATEST. I went inside and read the front page of the Bristol Evening Post.

  There was a photograph of Damian, with a police officer on either side of him. One of the arms of his coat hung loose at his side. The headline read: SECRET LIFE OF GEN’S HALF-BRO.

  Damian had been arrested for some crane-climbing stunt and it turned out his fingerprints matched those found at the Tenby flat. What were they intimating? That Genevieve and Damian were in a relationship? Or that he was stalking her? I put down the paper and saw the girl at the counter watching me. I bought a packet of mints.

  I followed my feet. I didn’t know where I was going. I left the centre and the shops, crossed a busy road and found myself walking beside the cathedral. It was much quieter there, and the old stone of the building calmed me. I walked beside it and past it and found myself at the door to Bristol’s Central Library.

  I had not intended to seek out the library, I had not even known where it was, but now I stood outside it, looking in through the window in the door.

  I realized I was at a crossroads. If I went in, if I searched for the records of Alexander’s trial and read them, then I would never be able to undo the knowledge. It would be inside me, part of me, always.

  If I walked away, I might never know what Alexander had done. I would go with him, wherever it was we ended up going, and I would be innocent, but the not knowing would constantly be between us, like a wall. I did not really have a choice. I pushed open the door and went in.

  I went to the help desk and asked if I could go through back copies of the Western Daily Press. I didn’t know where Alexander’s trial had been held but figured that, even if it was London, the paper would have covered the story of a local man.

  The librarian was very helpful. She asked when Alexander had been convicted. I worked it out to within a few months by counting backwards from the date of Jamie’s birth. When I’d given her the information she requested, she disappeared for five minutes and returned with a stack of boxes of microfiche coils.

  ‘These are copies of the papers covering that three-month period. We haven’t had the time to put all these online yet,’ she said apologetically. ‘This way: I’ll show you where the machines are.’

  It took an age to go through the records. The film, which was inches wide, springy and hard to manage, had to be fed through spools at either side of the projector and then wound on manually until the pages showed up on the screen in front of me, and I had to adjust the focus constantly. After a while, I learned where, in each paper, to look for the court reports, each time half-hoping that I would see Alexander’s name and half-hoping I wouldn’t.

  It took a couple of hours-but eventually I found it. Not in the court report section towards the back of the papers, but on the front page.

  The headline was: GUILTY! And the strapline said: SHAME OF MAN WHO STOLE FROM FRIEND.

  There was a photograph of Alexander – a younger, desperately handsome Alexander – wearing a dark suit, shielding his face with a newspaper as he went into court. A few steps behind him was an older, suited man – his lawyer? And a short-haired pixie-like girl in a chic dark-coloured dress with a wide, white belt: Genevieve. Inset was a smaller picture of another young man, his face haggard and hard set. A dark-haired, plump young woman wearing sunglasses had her arm around the man: the friend and his wife, I assumed.

  The headline and the images disturbed me and my eyes were burning from looking at the screen for so long. I switched off the machine and sat for a few moments rubbing my temples with my forefingers. Perhaps I should leave it there. Perhaps that was enough. So Alexander was a thief. At least he hadn’t murdered anyone.

  I rummaged in my bag and found the mints. I prised one loose with my thumbnail and put it in my mouth. Its sweetness made me feel slightly less nauseous.

  Shame of man who stole from friend. There was little space for misinterpretation of those words.

  I felt terribly tired.

  I had come this far. I might as well know the whole truth.

  I flicked the switch to power up the projector and, as the screen came into focus, took a deep breath and began to read:

  A man who pleaded guilty to stealing more than £100,000 from his best friend and business partner has been sentenced to 18 months in prison.

  Alexander Westwood, aged 29, of Wells, Somerset, dramatically changed his plea after just one day in court, admitting to taking money from the reclamation and masonry recycling company established by Matt Bryant. Westwood had also been accused of tampering with the accounts to hide the theft.

  Judge Hilary Enright described Westwood’s actions as ‘despicable’. ‘What you did to Mr Bryant and his family goes beyond theft. You sacrificed a lifelong friendship to satisfy your greed,’ she said. ‘You deceived and lied to a good man, a man who had worked hard to build up his business and who believed it was in safe hands; a man who trusted you. Because of your actions, Mr Bryant’s company is on the brink of bankruptcy. His health and relationships have suffered. He is facing repossession of his home. I have no qualms about sentencing you to the maximum gaol term possible in these circumstances.’

  Westwood, wearing a black suit, a white shirt and a dark tie, remained expressionless throughout.

  The court had earlier heard how Westwood and Bryant had been friends since school.

  Westwood had served an apprenticeship as a mason and spotted the potential in restoring damaged stoneware for Bryant’s reclamation business, which had been set up with the help of a loan from Bryant’s father. The Worcester-based business recently won a national sustainability award and was attracting major contracts.

  Until today, Westwood had denied any involvement in the theft, despite records proving that the money was moved through a number of private accounts to which only he had access. He has consistently refused to say what he did with the cash.

  There were a couple more paragraphs, but I stopped reading there.

  It was pretty conclusive. I could see no mitigation, no possible vindication or excuse for what Alexander had done.

  He was a thief and a cheat and he’d deceived his best friend. Morally, Alexander’s actions were unjustifiable. And if he were capable of such disloyalty to his best friend, somebody who had, as I understood from the report, helped Alexander, then could anyone truly trust him again?

  Yet still … I found it difficult to believe what I had read.

  I’d only known him a few months, but Alexander seemed to be one of the least materialistic people I had ever come across. He had no interest in cars or holidays, designer labels or investments. He worked hard, but that was because he was a hard worker, not because he wanted to be wealthy. Or, at least, he’d never expressed that ambition to me. He was not a gambler; he did not use drugs, or drink excessively. And I had always believed him; he had told me some unpalatable truths but I had been utterly convinced he was not a liar.

  But he had lied. I’d heard him lie to Virginia about him and me. And first he said he hadn’t and then he admitted that he had stolen the money from Matt Bryant. He stood up in court and said he was guilty. He had accepted the humiliation of prison without protest; he hadn’t gone down arguing his innocence, like innocent people generally do.

  Even if I accepted Alexander’s guilt, there were more questions than answers. Where had the money gone? If Alexander was penniless when he came out of prison and married Genevieve, if he had to borrow more money from Philip to set himself up in business, then what had he done with all that cash?

  I had been tired before. Now, I was exhausted and I felt terribly lonely.
There was nobody I could talk to about this; not a single person. My friends and family would be outraged and horrified to find out yet another damning chapter in Alexander’s history, and to raise the subject in Burrington Stoke, given the current mood against Alexander and myself, would be stupid and perhaps even dangerous.

  And what about Jamie? Alexander had a criminal record. I was almost certain that people who’d been in prison weren’t allowed to look after small children. If he’d been Jamie’s biological father then it would be nothing to worry about, but he wasn’t, and that made his position – our position – even more tenuous.

  We had to get away.

  I switched off the machine and wound the microfiche back into its coil. I put the coil in the box and carried it, with the others I’d collected, back to the desk. I thanked the librarian. I was wondering if there was anywhere in the library I could lie down and sleep for a couple of hours, some dark corner where nobody would notice me. It was so nice and quiet in there with just the books and the readers, the soothing rustle of paper, the warm air pumping from the radiators and the occasional hum of the photocopier. Even the phone bells were muted.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, my love?’ asked the librarian.

  ‘Yes, I’m just a bit tired.’

  ‘Did you find what you wanted?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, although the truth was the exact opposite.

  I went back outside. The cold air was shocking.

  Already the morning was over and the short, winter afternoon had begun. I had no appetite for shopping. I walked through cobbled streets to the waterfront, ordered a coffee and sat at a bench-table that looked out over the river. The sun was low in the sky and there was a bitter chill in the air. The narrowboats and houseboats moored in the harbour were strung with fairy lights that reflected in the black water. It was a lovely view but I was not in the mood.

  Trust, I thought. With Alexander, everything always seemed to come down to trust.

  I had broken his trust by looking up the history he wanted to keep secret from me; but my betrayal was nothing compared to what he had done to Matt Bryant.