The Secrets Between Us

by Louise Douglas

  In the evenings Neil came into my room and he sat beside me and read me articles from his collection of film magazines. Neil’s visits became the only thing I looked forward to. I listened to him and I became interested in what he had to say.

  He never tried to persuade me out of the room or the bed or even out of my head. He never passed any comment on the situation. May, of course, was the opposite, it was her nature, but Neil’s complete acceptance of how things were was good for me. Then, one evening, he came in as usual but he didn’t sit down. He stood at the door and said: ‘Sarah, this isn’t doing any good, you know. It’s not helping Jamie or Alexander.’

  ‘How can I help either of them?’

  ‘You could find out the truth about what happened to Genevieve.’

  I propped myself up on one elbow.

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s been quiet at work lately,’ said Neil. ‘It always is this time of year. I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about your man and his wife and the family. I think there’s more to this than meets the eye.’

  ‘What have you found out?’

  Neil smiled. ‘Sarah, I can’t take you seriously while you’re lying in bed looking like a child. Get up, get dressed and we’ll go out somewhere grown-up and I’ll tell you.’

  I went into the bathroom and splashed my face with hot water. I cleaned my teeth with May’s electric toothbrush. Then I dried myself with a towel and smoothed May’s moisturizing cream into my damaged, uncared-for skin. It made me smell a bit better. I went back into the bedroom.

  ‘What day is it?’ I asked Neil.

  ‘December the twenty-ninth.’

  May and Neil had completely foregone Christmas to protect me from myself. Their selflessness moved me. I had not felt anything for days, but I felt something then. It was a combination of gratitude and sorrow.

  ‘Are the pubs open?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Let’s go for a drink then,’ I said.

  So we went to the Lion, which was a big old Manchester estate pub. Lately it had been done over by a chain and now it had old-fashioned prints on the walls and catered for people looking for good-value food and widescreen-TV sport.

  While Neil ordered the drinks I picked at a beer mat and remembered that the last time I’d been in a pub had been in a life about three times removed, with DI Twyford. I recalled the kindness of the inspector as he’d ushered me into Neil’s car outside the Barn, how he’d coaxed me into reassuring Jamie that everything would be all right. That thought led me to how I had failed the child, and I couldn’t bear that. I felt the shutters in my mind beginning to slide together and, just as they were about to lock, Neil returned with a pint of beer and a large glass of Merlot and a small pink raffle ticket.

  ‘Chips and curry sauce,’ he said, putting the ticket in the centre of the table, and my dry, withered-up stomach uncurled itself and stretched with pleasure at the prospect of its favourite Lancashire supper.

  For a while, Neil asked questions about Alexander and me, filling in the gaps in what he knew about our relationship. The food came and I realized I was ravenously hungry and the wine was making me relax.

  My top lip was still a bit sore, but I ate through the pain. The scab was gone and, when I pressed the scar with the tip of my finger, I could feel it was healing.

  ‘When you met Alexander, was there anything about him that made you feel uncomfortable?’ asked Neil. ‘Did your instincts tell you anything was wrong? Did you have any inkling that he might be capable of violence?’

  I tried to think back to how it had been in Sicily. It was so hard to remember, but I did recall the pull there had been between Alexander and me, and I didn’t think I would have felt so strongly if his feelings for me had not been completely open.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘And in all the time I’ve known him he’s always been gentle with Jamie and me.’

  ‘He started a fight in the local pub.’

  ‘Oh that … God!’ I put my head in my hands. ‘I was there. It wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘That’s not what the locals are saying.’

  ‘They’re wrong. They’re just talking everything up to make it dramatic.’ I ate another chip. ‘Anyway, how do you even know about that?’

  ‘It’s been in all the papers, Sarah. They’re not so interested in you, but Alexander and Genevieve are big, big news. At this time of year, when there’s nothing much going on, the broadsheets love a nice, juicy scandal to fill up the feature pages, especially if it involves proto-aristocracy.’

  He paused a moment and swirled his pint around his glass. Then he said: ‘The thing is, the thing that struck me, is that everyone, even the police, are assuming that Alexander is guilty. Everything is clear-cut. He has a criminal record and a strong motive, he’s clearly taken steps to cover up the truth and he’s made well-documented threats to kill his wife. He’s admitted they had violent rows. He hasn’t acted like a man whose beloved has left him; he moved in his new girlfriend, you, barely a month later; he’s destroyed evidence and has done nothing to co-operate with attempts to trace Genevieve. He also made you complicit in his plans to do a bunk.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s almost too …’ Neil paused. ‘It’s too neat. Life is messier than this.’

  ‘Isn’t the most obvious answer usually the right one?’

  ‘That’s what they say. But just because everything points to Alexander being guilty, it doesn’t make him a murderer.’

  I felt a flicker of excitement in my belly. I put down my glass and waited for Neil to carry on.

  ‘What if he isn’t guilty?’ he asked me, and this time my heart missed a beat and then it began to beat strong and fast.

  ‘What if,’ said Neil, ‘Alexander has been telling the truth all along? What if he had nothing at all to do with Genevieve’s death?’

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. So many questions and ideas were crowding together in my mind I couldn’t pick them apart.

  ‘What if,’ said Neil, ‘everyone is so busy building up the case against him that the truth never has a chance to come out?’

  The implications of what he was saying were so immense my mind could hardly process them. After so many days of complete despair, now it seemed as if a ray of light so bright I could barely look at it was piercing the darkness. I was overwhelmed with joy and relief. At last, something positive was happening.

  Neil took my hand and squeezed.

  ‘Sarah, don’t get your hopes up. As it stands, it’s looking pretty bad for Alexander. I don’t know if he’s innocent or guilty. I don’t know anything. I just thought you and I could maybe do a little research and see if we can find some new information that might help.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But we’ll give it our best shot, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Neil told me what he already knew about Alexander. He hadn’t had the best start in life. His mother was a chronic alcoholic with severe mental-health problems and he never knew his father. When he was a child, he was in foster care on and off, and he was often in trouble.

  ‘Basically,’ said Neil, ‘he gave out all the usual signals that he’d turn out a bad’un.’

  I thought of Jamie and how Alexander tried so hard to be a good father to the boy, and my eyes grew hot.

  ‘He’s not bad,’ I said.

  Neil shook his head. ‘Sarah, if we’re going to get to the bottom of this, you’re going to have to behave as if you’re not involved. You must not let your feelings or your perspective on things influence what we’re doing. From now on, your opinion isn’t relevant. We’re looking at the facts here. Try to be objective.’

  ‘OK. Sorry.’

  ‘Alexander may or may not have suffered abuse as a child. He was certainly neglected. His relationship, or lack of relationship, with his mother may have affected his ability to connect with other women.’

>   I winced.

  Neil pretended not to notice.

  ‘Genevieve had told her mother that she was afraid of Alexander, that he’d already come close to killing her and she thought that, next time, he might go through with it.’

  ‘No, that’s not true,’ I said. ‘She was the one who hurt him! He didn’t lay a finger on her.’

  ‘Genevieve told other people she thought her life was in danger. That’s all that’s important right now. That’s a fact. She reiterated her concerns and Alexander’s threat in the “goodbye” letter to her parents. That’s another fact. She was spelling out her reasons for leaving him. As it’s the last documented communication from Genevieve, it makes pretty compelling evidence.’

  ‘It also proves she definitely was planning to leave that morning.’

  ‘Yep. If it weren’t for the letter, her parents would have reported her missing much sooner. She was quite specific that she wouldn’t be in touch for a few weeks and that they shouldn’t worry.’

  ‘She didn’t mention anyone else in the letter, did she?’

  Neil shook his head.

  ‘Only’ – I paused for a moment – ‘her mother let on to me that she might have had a lover.’

  ‘She was right.’

  I felt another frisson.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘NWM has had someone on the case for weeks. Genevieve used to travel to different horse events all the time and, according to various sources, never socialized with the other competitors in the evenings. She’d always slip away. Somebody using the name Juliet Bravo – we’re certain it was her – booked into hotels all over the place. Nice hotels – quiet, expensive country places; discreet. She was always accompanied. Always a double room, always champagne on ice and dinner served in the room, so none of the staff ever clocked the lover.’

  ‘Don’t we have his name?’

  ‘Romeo Delta.’

  I smiled. It seemed a sad little joke. I felt sorry for Genevieve, sorry for Alexander. He must have had some inkling that he was being cuckolded while Genevieve was away with her horses and he was at home looking after Jamie. He must have known and yet he never said anything. Was it pride, or shame, that kept him quiet? Or simply hope that the relationship would blow over and the Alexander–Genevieve–Jamie family unit would remain intact?

  I wondered if Genevieve had mentioned ‘Romeo’ in her last letter to Alexander and if that was the real reason why he had destroyed it.

  ‘Do you have any idea who he might be?’ Neil asked.

  ‘Genevieve used to go out with someone called Luke Innes. An old friend. The police have been looking for him but haven’t found him.’

  ‘She knew Luke before she knew Alexander?’

  ‘Yes. They were boyfriend and girlfriend in Burrington Stoke before she went to university and for a while afterwards.’

  Neil ate a chip pensively.

  Then he said: ‘These are the facts we know. Someone – let’s assume it was Genevieve – pushed the “farewell” letter to her parents into the letterbox at the end of their drive the morning of the day she left. She wanted to be certain they opened it that morning, which is why she hadn’t risked posting it. Philip had an appointment at the hospital, and Virginia had gone with him. Genevieve must have known they’d be out. You’d know the geography better than I do, but the police think she walked up the hill, probably to say goodbye to her horses before she left.’

  That would be about right.

  Neil took a drink and then continued: ‘According to Alexander, he left for work that morning as usual and dropped Jamie off at school. It was the end of term, the last day before the holidays. Normally, Genevieve would have taken Jamie to school, but she’d decided to take a bath – probably didn’t want to have to look Alexander in the face. He says he found his letter propped up on the kitchen table when he came home from work that afternoon. He was earlier than usual because the school had called him when Genevieve didn’t turn up to meet Jamie.’

  ‘But that letter doesn’t exist any more.’

  ‘No. Alexander says he burned it.’ Neil drained his glass. ‘And then there’s the matter of Genevieve’s letter to Jamie, which has also gone missing but which, logically, should not have existed.’

  ‘It didn’t,’ I said. ‘Alexander wrote it.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘To put Jamie’s mind at ease because Genevieve hadn’t thought to say goodbye to her son.’

  Neil rubbed his chin. ‘That’s because she didn’t think she had to.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she always intended to take him with her. You found the bag she’d packed for herself, but there was another one, full of Jamie’s things. Jamie’s passport was kept in Alexander’s office. Genevieve wouldn’t have wanted to move it until she was ready to go in case Alexander got wind of what she was up to. It’s likely she planned to wait until she was sure he was at Castle Cary, then she’d get everything ready, deliver her letter to her parents and pick Jamie up from school on her way out.’

  ‘Neil, how on earth do you know all this?’

  He smiled.

  ‘Excellent contacts in the police. Expensive ones.’

  ‘Do you know that Alexander isn’t Jamie’s genetic father?’

  ‘I do. And, this is assumption, but if Genevieve was seeing someone she’d known for some time – let’s say it was this Luke Innes – there’s a definite possibility that he was Jamie’s real father, especially if she was seeing him before she met Alexander. If they were planning to take Jamie abroad, Alexander wouldn’t have had a proverbial cat’s chance of getting him back.’

  ‘It’s a pretty strong motive for Alexander stopping Genevieve leaving,’ I said. ‘It makes him more likely to be guilty.’

  ‘Agreed. But if Alexander is the guilty party, why hasn’t the lover come forward?’

  ‘Because he feels guilty. Because he was indirectly responsible for Genevieve’s death. Because maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know he was involved with her. Because he’s too distressed. Because he’s married.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s because he was the one who killed her,’ Neil said.

  I exhaled shakily.

  ‘There’s one more thing,’ Neil said. ‘Genevieve’s inheritance. It’s substantial.’

  ‘Alexander wouldn’t have cared about that,’ I said. ‘He’s not interested in money.’

  ‘Everyone’s interested in money,’ said Neil, ‘if there’s enough of it at stake.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  WHEN WE WERE back in the flat, for the first time since I’d returned to Manchester I didn’t want to go straight to bed. My head was fizzing with thoughts and ideas. I would have liked to start researching Alexander and Genevieve’s history right there and then. Neil had a laptop, and I thought perhaps I could spend an hour or so on the internet, but May was using it to chat with her Facebook friends and she’d been so patient and put up with so much from me that I couldn’t ask her to move. Instead I went into the kitchen and made hot chocolate for the three of us, and then I sat on the sofa snuggled up next to May and watched television beside her. She moved the laptop, put her arm round me and squeezed me tight.

  ‘Better?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. Thanks to you and your lovely husband.’

  May smiled.

  I reached up to my sister and kissed her cheek. She was warm and smelled of shampoo.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For everything.’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for,’ she said.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  BY SEVEN THIRTY the next morning I had showered, washed and dried my hair, dressed in a tweed skirt, oyster-silk blouse and green coat that May was, one day, hoping to slim into and was walking with Neil towards the staff entrance of the NWM building. It was good to be back in the city with its wide streets and lights and buses. I felt optimistic. I felt positive. I was proud to be doing something to try to prove that Alexander was an i
nnocent man, even if it turned out to be wasted time. I wished I had some way of letting him know I was back on track, fighting for us all.

  Neil signed me into the building as a visitor and we took the lift to the massive newsroom, where he found me a spare computer. It was hushed in there: people worked quietly, TV monitors were turned to silent, even the phones were muted. About half the desks were empty. Neil said there’d been some redundancies before Christmas and, of those staff who remained, several were on holiday. I wasn’t going to be in anyone’s way. I hung my coat and scarf over the back of the chair and ramped the seat up to a comfortable position. Neil perched on the edge of the desk and scratched his head.

  ‘I think we should start with Matt Bryant,’ he said. ‘He’s the chap Alexander embezzled from. Do you know the story?’

  I nodded. ‘I read a newspaper report of the trial.’

  ‘It’s the furthest back we can go right now. Alexander and Genevieve married as soon as he’d finished his gaol sentence, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So they must have been close before he went into prison. All the reports suggest he and Bryant were good friends before then, so Bryant can probably tell us more about his relationship with Genevieve.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘If Bryant’s business is still going, you might be able to find it on the internet,’ Neil said. ‘Are you OK with that?’

  I nodded. I felt like a child on her first day at school. I was literally itching to get started.

  ‘While you’re doing that, I’ll see what I can find out about Genevieve. Is there anything important I don’t know about? Do you have any leads for me?’

  ‘Only Luke Innes,’ I said.

  ‘OK. I’ll get on to him. I’ll be over there by the news desk. You’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. I wanted him to go away and let me get on with the job.

  In the event, it took about two minutes to find what I was looking for. By eight o’clock I was already familiar with Bryant’s Reclamation and Restoration, having found the business website and looked at all the pages. It wasn’t a particularly fancy site, but it was clear that, far from folding, the business was thriving and had expanded into selling garden furniture and stoneware. I showed Neil and asked him what I should do next, and he looked at me as if I was a complete idiot and told me to call the contact number and ask to speak to Matt Bryant.