by Casey, Jane
‘It’s the only good thing about being stuck in traffic. You can be properly nosy about other people’s lives.’
‘That’s your job, isn’t it?’
I looked at her, surprised. ‘I suppose so. That and trying to make sure people who have done bad things get punished.’
She looked out of the window, away from me. ‘What would happen to the person who killed Laura and Mum if you caught them?’
‘Prison.’
‘For long?’
‘For ever, potentially.’ I hesitated. ‘It would depend on the circumstances.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How old they were. Why they did it.’
‘If they had a good reason?’ She sounded uncertain.
‘No. More if they were ill, and that was what made them do it, they might end up in hospital instead of prison.’
She nodded and went back to looking out. She had washed her hair that morning and it blew in the breeze as we got clear of the traffic and picked up some speed. It was whipping around her face so I couldn’t see her.
‘Lydia, do you know who killed Laura and your mum?’
‘No.’ The answer was immediate.
‘What about Laura’s boyfriend?’
‘What about him?’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘I told you I didn’t.’
‘Yes, but that was a few days ago. I thought maybe you might have remembered.’
‘How could I remember if I didn’t know about him?’
‘I suppose you couldn’t.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
I shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if you knew more than you let on to us. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you were trying to protect Laura. It’s just frustrating for us because we really need to talk to him, to rule him out.’
‘You think he might have killed them?’
‘I don’t know, but I know better than to discount the possibility before we’ve talked to him. People do strange things for love. We know Laura was supposed to be meeting someone the night she died, but whoever it was, she kept it a secret from her friends. Maybe it was him.’
‘Maybe.’
‘If we had Laura’s phone we might be able to trace him.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘We still haven’t found it, Lydia. We’re still trying to get access to Laura’s emails too. At the moment we don’t know anything about her, really.’
‘I don’t know what you want me to do.’ I had to strain to hear her over the engine.
‘Just talk to us, Lydia. Trust us. You can’t do anything to hurt Laura or her memory. The best thing you can do is help us to find her killer.’
‘I would if I could.’ Her hands were knotted in her lap and I felt terrible; I was basically bullying her.
‘Just give it some thought.’
She didn’t answer and I settled down to concentrate on making time, pushing the car as fast as I reasonably could. When she spoke, it was so soft that I almost missed it. ‘Laura was angry with Mum about something.’
‘What?’
‘She was upset about something Mum had done last week.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I heard her talking to someone on her phone last Thursday. I was in the bathroom between our bedrooms, brushing my teeth. I don’t think she knew I was there.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I don’t remember exactly. Something like, “It’s typical of Mum. I can’t believe she won’t even let you talk to him.”’
‘Anything else?’
‘She said it was none of Mum’s business anyway and she’d try to sort it out. And then she said “Sunday night.”’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. Because then when she said she was going out, I assumed it was connected.’
‘Do you think she might have been talking to her boyfriend?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lydia picked at a bit of dry skin beside her thumbnail. ‘Maybe. She said, “I really want to see you.” It could have been him.’
‘What if Laura wanted to introduce him to your parents and mentioned him to your mother first to see what kind of reaction she might get? Is that likely?’
‘Maybe. Laura found it easier to talk to Mum, even though it often ended up with them shouting at one another.’
‘So it wasn’t unusual for her to be angry with her.’
Lydia shook her head. ‘Not like this. She basically didn’t speak to Mum after that call. Until the night she died, I mean. Laura was more the kind of person who would scream and throw things, so it was weird.’
‘What did your mum think?’
‘She tried to talk to her. She asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t know.’
‘Did you ask Laura?’
‘No. I knew she wouldn’t tell me. She liked having secrets. She was always the leader and I just followed her. Or not.’
‘People always say twins are so close.’
‘We weren’t, really. We didn’t have a lot in common. But I loved her and she loved me.’ Lydia swallowed. ‘I think she was trying to protect me, you know. I don’t think she wanted me to know what was upsetting her so I wouldn’t get involved. She was always trying to look after me. Like she was two years older than me, not two minutes.’
‘Was she more grown-up than you generally?’
‘I suppose.’ Lydia was looking out of her window again, her head turned away. ‘She was in a hurry to grow up, Mum used to say. She couldn’t wait to leave home. She thought Dad was deluded about keeping us under control.’
‘Which explains her rebellion. Having a boyfriend, I mean.’
‘That and everything else she could think of.’ Lydia sounded far older than her years sometimes, austere and disapproving like a maiden aunt. ‘She was always pushing them. She liked to find some way of getting at them – some way of challenging them. It didn’t matter what it was. She loved getting them to be angry with her.’
‘Sounds like fun.’
Lydia shivered. ‘I hated it. Every meal out, every car journey, it was always the same. She’d start a fight to see what would happen. Mum said she’d inherited it from Dad, but he said he wasn’t going to take the blame for it.’
‘And you just wanted to be left alone.’
‘Exactly.’ Lydia looked at me in surprise. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Just the impression I had.’
‘Well, that’s how it was.’
So Laura had found something – or someone – to use to torment her parents. And Lydia hadn’t wanted to know what it was. I gritted my teeth, trying not to show my frustration. There was no point for one thing; that opportunity had been lost. Besides, there was a good chance that if she’d been a bit more curious about it, we might have found ourselves investigating her death too.
The two of us relapsed into silence, a silence that was only broken by gentle snores from the back seat until we turned off the motorway and on to some winding country lanes. Derwent woke up with a snort.
‘Where are we?’
‘Good question.’ I slowed to negotiate a humpbacked bridge. ‘If you hadn’t broken your satnav, we might have a clue.’
‘You don’t need satnav if you’ve got a map.’ Derwent scrabbled for the road atlas he kept on the back window.
‘I seriously doubt this road is marked on your map. I haven’t seen a name. Besides, you need to know where you are in the first place. And we’re lost.’
‘Didn’t Savannah give you directions?’ Lydia asked.
‘They don’t seem to make a lot of sense.’ I handed her the sheet of paper with scribbled instructions on it.
‘Turn right at the white gate,’ she read. ‘Take the second left after that, beside the brown cow.’
Derwent brightened. ‘Is that a pub? They’re always good landmarks. We can ask some local yokels to di
rect us.’
‘I think she means an actual cow,’ I said.
‘What? That’s ridiculous.’
‘Well, it’s what we’ve got.’
‘Have you got a phone number for her?’
I had my phone tucked between my head and my shoulder as I drove. ‘I’ve got her voicemail.’
‘Well, tell her she’s a mad bitch.’
‘Shut up,’ I snapped just before the recording kicked in. I left a terse message asking to be called back.
‘Why didn’t you tell her we’re lost?’
‘Because we shouldn’t be. If you hadn’t broken your satnav––’
‘You shouldn’t have to rely on satnav. There was a time before it, you know.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have needed satnav if my navigator hadn’t been asleep in the back seat.’ I pulled into a gateway and stopped. ‘Look, show me the map. I’ll see if I can recognise any landmarks.’
It whirled between the two front seats and slammed into the dashboard like an injured bird. I had opened my mouth to snarl at Derwent when I heard a tiny whimper from the seat beside me.
‘Lydia? Are you all right?’
‘I don’t know why you have to be so horrible to one another.’ It came out as a wail.
‘We’re not really being horrible.’
‘Yeah.’ Derwent plunged forward between us like an overly enthusiastic Labrador. ‘It’s a sign of affection, really.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ I tilted my head so I could see past him. ‘But really, it’s not because we’re properly angry with one another. Just a bit fed up about being lost.’
Lydia nodded, wiping away tears. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No need to apologise, darling.’ Derwent ruffled her hair and then slid back to his seat. ‘Any ideas, Kerrigan?’
I flicked pages, finding where we’d left the motorway but almost immediately losing the trail. ‘Not a clue. We could just keep driving.’
‘Your phone’s got reception, though, hasn’t it?’ Lydia said. ‘Because if it does, you could use it to check where we are.’
‘Genius,’ I exclaimed, poking at it. ‘But actually no signal.’
‘I’ll see if I’ve got anything.’ She burrowed in her bag and produced a phone, switching it on. It took a minute to connect to the network while I sat and stared at it, and her, and debated whether to say anything. A look at a serious Derwent in the rear-view mirror decided me.
‘Lydia … I thought you didn’t have a phone.’
She looked up at me guiltily. ‘I don’t use it.’
‘That phone belongs to you, though?’
A mute nod.
‘You said you didn’t like them.’
‘I don’t call anyone. Ever. I just have it for emergencies.’ She was bright red. ‘I don’t even know the number. It’s just for dialling 999 and finding where I am if I get lost. Mum made me have it. There isn’t anything in the contacts, even. Look.’ She turned it round so I could see it was empty.
‘That’s a nice phone to use for emergencies,’ I observed. It was a Samsung, top of the line.
‘What do you call this if not an emergency, Kerrigan? Give the girl a break.’ Derwent had stretched his arms across the back seat, his posture exceedingly relaxed.
‘How right you are. I’ll shut up and wait for directions.’ I sounded too cheerful. I looked into the mirror again and saw the same expression in Derwent’s eyes that I knew was in my own.
Suspicion.
Chapter Eighteen
IT WAS ZOE who came to meet us when we finally arrived, Zoe with a wide smile on her face and a warm welcome for her girlfriend’s half sister. A forbidding five-bar gate stopped the car from going any further than where we were idling on the pitted track that led to the house, but through it I had a vague impression of old, huddled buildings made of worn red brick, the paintwork peeling, the roof uneven and spilling tiles with gay abandon. Above all, my main feeling was that I was somewhere homely. There were pink flowers in the window boxes and red geraniums spilling out of an old milk churn by the door, and Zoe stepped over a fat cat snoozing on the doorstep on her way to unlock the gate. She came round to look through the car window.
‘Sav’s asleep, believe it or not. Come in and I’ll wake her up.’
‘It’s nearly midday.’ Derwent had the disapproval cranked up to eleven.
‘So?’ She shrugged. ‘No reason for her to get up. She’s got the day off and she had early starts the rest of the week.’
‘Nice work if you can get it.’
‘Yeah, well, the reason she can get it is because she’s unique.’ Zoe was still looking at Lydia. ‘Do you want the tour first or do you want to get settled in?’
‘Tour, please.’
She glowered at the back seat. ‘I wasn’t actually talking to you.’
‘I know.’ Derwent wasn’t wasting any charm on her, not that he had much to spare, but I could read his thinking quite easily, and I doubted Zoe was having any trouble. No point being nice to a dyke, is there? ‘But since you’re offering.’
‘Yes, but I wasn’t.’ Without getting flustered she was holding her ground.
‘Look, we have to check the place out. Make sure it’s a safe environment for Lydia.’
‘You don’t look like any social workers I’ve ever seen.’
‘Oh yeah? Seen many?’
‘A few.’ Her eyelids flickered and I had the strong sense that she regretted going down that conversational path. ‘Okay. It can’t do any harm to show you around. Maybe you can tell Lydia’s dad that this isn’t a den of iniquity, or whatever he seems to think it is.’
‘Oh, you heard about that, did you?’ I grinned. ‘We got in a bit of unexpected bother.’
‘I know. We’re grateful.’ She went back and held the gate open and I drove carefully into the yard, pulling up by the front door, close to where a very nice silver Audi was parked. The yard was a cobbled square that was sprouting weeds in places. It was lined with stables but all the doors were closed and there was no smell of horses.
‘This used to be a stud farm,’ Zoe explained. ‘It hasn’t been used for that in a decade.’
Derwent had unfolded himself from the back seat of the car and was stretching. ‘Typical. No use for males of any kind.’
‘Did you say something?’ There was a real edge to Zoe’s voice and I smothered a smile, amused to see Lydia doing the same.
‘Carry on.’ Derwent waved a lordly hand. ‘Where’s this studio of yours?’
She pointed to the opposite side of the yard from the house. ‘It used to be a pigeon loft. Savannah had it fitted out for me as a surprise.’
‘Where’s the door?’
‘In the corner. That green one. But you can’t go up there,’ she added quickly.
Derwent was already halfway across the yard. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s private. Besides, there’s nothing to see. It’s just a room with a drawing table and some boxes in it.’
‘I’m not interested in what’s in the room. I’m interested in the view.’
‘Savannah’s alibi?’ She pressed her lips together tightly. ‘Fine. Help yourself.’
Derwent didn’t need any further encouragement. He shot through the door and rattled up the stairs.
I turned to Zoe. ‘Don’t you make your own stuff?’
‘Sometimes. I can do the simple things. But I generally design things and get other people to make them. I’m good at drawing and concepts. Not so great as a silversmith.’ She shrugged. ‘Knowing your limitations is always a help.’
‘It must help that you and Savannah are in a relationship. I bet it’s easy to get free advertising.’
‘Savannah wears some of my things, but she wears lots of other stuff too.’ She smiled brilliantly at Lydia. ‘Do you wear jewellery?’
‘Not much.’
‘You should wear pink tourmaline. It would be stunning on you.’
Lydia looked down, embarrassed,
as Derwent came back towards us. He shrugged at me. Inconclusive.
‘Are there any other outbuildings or is this it?’ I asked.
‘There’s a garage on the other side of the house. And a barn. We don’t use them much.’
‘Do you always leave your car here?’
‘Usually.’ She looked at it as if she’d forgotten it was there. ‘I suppose. It’s easiest.’
‘Show me the garage,’ Derwent demanded.
‘Why?’
‘Because I asked you to. And I asked nicely, for me.’ He rubbed the sweat off his hairline. ‘Look, don’t make this into a big deal. It’s too fucking hot for that.’
‘Fine.’ Zoe walked towards the side of the house with long angry strides. For the first time I noticed a black sheepdog lurking in the shadows near us.
‘Doesn’t he mind the cat?’
‘Who? Beckett? No. They ignore each other. The cat regularly produces kittens and she’s cranky when she’s in heat, and when she’s pregnant, and when she’s got a litter on the go. So that’s all the time, really. She’s taught him to leave her alone.’
The dog drifted along behind us with all the mass and weight of a flake of soot, licking his nose occasionally with a long pink tongue. I held out my hand to him and clicked my fingers but he ignored me.
‘Does he like people?’
‘Not a lot. I got him from a shelter. He didn’t have the best start in life.’
‘Is he your dog?’
‘Yeah. Savannah doesn’t really like dogs, but she likes me to have the company when she’s off travelling.’
‘He looks like Mollie.’ It was practically the first time Lydia had spoken. ‘Dad’s dog.’
‘She’s black and white, isn’t she?’ I said.
‘Yes. But her head’s the same shape.’
‘You must be an artist,’ Zoe said. ‘To notice that, I mean.’
‘She does fantastic drawings.’ I sounded like a proud mother, I realised, and dialled it back a bit. ‘I think they’re good, anyway.’
‘It’s just a hobby,’ Lydia muttered.
‘That’s how I started out. And now I make a living from my hobby.’
‘That and shagging a multi-millionaire supermodel.’ Derwent was straight to the point. I glanced at Lydia to see if she was embarrassed, but her expression was studiedly neutral. ‘Don’t tell me you could afford a place like this on your own.’