by Ruth Dugdall
‘Um – he did say I should take a message if you called.’ I want to reach through the phone wires and slap her.
‘I mean it, Katie. It’s urgent. Get him to call me.’
I slam the phone down. The tofu has shrunk from puffy white to hollow black when it finally rings.
‘Katie said that you shouted at her and then hung up. Are you okay, love?’
I can’t remember shouting. ‘I’m fine, just making a tofu scramble.’ As if that proves I must be.
‘Good, that’ll give you energy. Make sure you have a samphire shot too. Look, Cassandra, I’m sorry I had to leave you, but I couldn’t cancel my client: she’s in crisis. The hospital is pushing her towards chemo and I’m helping her stay fit and well enough to avoid that poison. I just need to write up her case notes and I’ll be home, then we’ll drive to see your mum. How’s Hector?’
I feel tears well up inside me. ‘Please come home now. I don’t want to be alone with him.’
‘Cass, he’s your dad and you need to support each other through this. I know you don’t always see eye to eye, he doesn’t always understand us or what we’re trying to achieve, but he’s your father and he loves you.’
‘He’s so difficult to talk to.’
I can hear Daniel breathing down the line, as if trying to send me relaxing vibes. ‘He’s a different generation to us – no one helped him to open up. Why don’t you go back to bed for an hour? You were tossing and turning all night. Did you have a bad dream?’
‘I don’t remember sleeping at all.’
‘I’ll ask Clive to pop round. Maybe he needs to adjust your medication?’
I know that for Daniel to suggest drugs therapy, he must think I’m bad. My hands tighten on the phone and I feel like tossing it on the floor. I don’t want Clive to come. I know what will make me feel happier: my daughter.
‘Please can Victoria come home?’ I add quickly, ‘She should see Mum in case . . . in case it’s the last time she can.’
There’s a pause then he says, so gently I want to scream, ‘The doctors haven’t said that, Cass. If they do, of course I’ll go and fetch her. If you call Tori while you’re feeling like this, you’ll only upset her and we don’t want that, do we, love? We agreed on this, remember? You just try to rest.’
I can hear someone speaking in the background, a woman. I don’t think it’s Katie.
‘Will you come home now, Daniel? Please.’ I hate myself for begging, but I need him.
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise. It’s okay, don’t panic. Try meditating. If you let me crack on here, I should only be a couple of hours writing up my case notes. Look, why don’t you go and collect Jet from Mr Godwin’s house? The walk would be good exercise.’
He hangs up on me, leaving me with this task that I know is beyond me. I can’t bear to see that man. I’ll ask Holly to do it. I text her, and she replies straight away:
I’ll go after I finish my shift. See you later, H.
I stare at the phone for a long time before dialling the number for Victoria’s dorm. I picture the communal phone on the wall ringing insistently to an empty hallway. Oakfield has strict rules about the pupils having only limited access to mobile phones, so this is the system we must use. It hasn’t changed since I was a pupil. That perpetual ringing used to drive me crazy but to pick up the phone meant running to fetch whoever the call was for, so we all ignored it.
I didn’t turn the gas off, so the tofu is now charcoal.
Still with the phone wedged under my chin, I make toast instead, and have time to butter and eat it before the damn phone is finally answered by a student whose grasp of English is poor.
‘Victoria Salmon. Can you get her, please?’
She keeps telling me to slow down and repeat myself so it takes a lot of explaining to make her understand. Finally, she goes to fetch Victoria, but when a girl’s voice comes on the line it isn’t her.
‘Hi, it’s Dawn. How are you, Cassandra?’
I’ve never told her she can call me by my first name, she just assumed, and I never corrected her. Whenever we meet, she kisses me on both cheeks, takes the initiative. That confidence is the private school cultural capital people pay for.
‘Hi, Dawn, is Victoria there?’
‘Tori’s still playing tennis but we’re going into town to see a film this afternoon. She should be here.’
Dawn is wrong: Victoria should be here, at home, not playing tennis, not going to the cinema. This was supposed to be our week. ‘Is she okay?’
Dawn hesitates. Teenagers are like this, always cautious with parents in case they say something that’ll get their best mate in trouble. ‘She’s great, we’ve been having a real laugh. Most of the girls have gone home for exeats, so we’ve had the run of the place. It’s just us and the overseas students.’
Dawn’s mother is a single parent; she lives further up the Suffolk coast. I’ve never met her because Dawn comes to stay with us rather than Victoria going there, and Daniel always does the pickups. The set-up works. I want Victoria here for every day of the too-brief holidays, but she doesn’t know any kids locally, so it’s good for her to have Dawn to stay. Daniel’s always been keen on this – he’s a great believer in the power of friendship.
Dawn is polite and very pretty, but there’s something I can’t warm to about her. Maybe it’s that sense of entitlement she exudes that irritates me. I can’t recall what her mother does for a living, but she must be well paid, or her ex-husband is, to afford the school fees. We certainly can’t afford them. Victoria’s only there because you pay, Mum.
‘Hang on, Cassandra, I can see her coming across the yard.’ I hear the sound of iron on wood, the window in the hallway being opened, and then Dawn shouting down, ‘Tori! Telephone! It’s your mum.’
Tori. I wish I could call her that. Abbreviated names are so affectionate. But when your daughter hasn’t lived at home for two years, it’s inevitable the closeness goes. She’s had to face things alone: homesickness, bullying, her first period. I don’t blame her for the emotional distance between us – it’s what happens when a child is sent away.
I can hear Dawn closing the window with several bangs and then listen to silence. Finally, a breathless voice says, ‘Mum? Are you okay?’
‘Hi, love.’ I force cheeriness. ‘Dawn said you were playing tennis. Did you win?’
‘Nah. I’m shit at tennis.’
I bite back the temptation to scold her for swearing. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘So, what’s up?’
Everything. ‘Nothing. I just wanted to explain about half-term. I’m sorry you aren’t here . . .’
‘It’s okay, I understand.’
‘I was looking forward to seeing you, love. And Dawn, of course. I’d got you girls your favourite cereal.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum, really.’
‘And this lovely cake. Pink. Large, full of sugar, but I thought what the heck. And you could have taken some back to school. Shared it with your friends.’
‘I said it’s okay. Dad explained when he called.’
This stops me in my tracks. ‘When he called ?’
‘Yeah, on Saturday. He rang to say you were sick. Are you feeling any better?’
‘Me?’
‘Dad said you were having another . . . y’know, like before . . .’
‘What?’ I demand, suddenly feeling cold.
‘Jeez, Mum, I don’t want to upset you! But if you’re having another episode . . . Hang on.’
I wait as she says something to Dawn and then comes back on the line. ‘I’ve got to go, the minibus leaves for town in half an hour and I need to take a shower. We’re going to see the latest Fast and Furious. I don’t want to miss it.’
‘Of course. Victoria?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Did you see your dad on Saturday?’
‘How could I see him? He was with you, wasn’t he?’ Another pause, longer this time, and she lowers her voice
. ‘Mum, are you sure you’re okay?’
Daniel lied to me. He said he’d driven to Oakfield and taken the girls out. Where was he, when I was watching the paramedics save your life? When I was waiting for news at the hospital?
‘Mum?’
‘Sorry, love, it’s just . . .’ I miss you. I love you. Words I never say, left hanging in the air yet again. ‘Don’t miss the film.’
She’s already gone. Another failed connection.
I call Katie again, who is less friendly this time. She tells me in a terse voice that Daniel isn’t at the Studio, that I should call his mobile if I need him. I do, redialling every time I get his voicemail until he finally picks up.
‘Cassandra, I’m driving.’
‘Why did you tell Victoria I was sick?’
‘I’ll be home in twenty minutes. I need to concentrate on the road. This is dangerous and illegal.’
‘Don’t you dare hang up on me!’
I hear him sigh. ‘What would you have me tell her, love? That her grandma shot herself and could die?’
I freeze. ‘She didn’t shoot herself.’
His response is so urgent it makes me jump. ‘Cass! Your mum attempted suicide – why can’t you just accept that? I’m really starting to worry about you . . .’
‘Don’t talk to me like I’m crazy, Daniel!’ I can hear the noise of a motorway in the background, the distance in his voice. ‘Answer me! Why did you tell her I was sick?’
‘I didn’t want to worry her. It was the first thing I could think of.’
‘Why couldn’t you have told her it was you who was ill?’
‘For pity’s sakes, Cassandra!’ I can hear him muttering and cars are beeping. ‘I’m never ill. If I said I was, she’d be really worried.’
He wasn’t with me on Saturday morning – he lied to me about going to Oakfield. And he’s refusing to believe that you didn’t shoot yourself.
If I’m going to discover the truth, I need help. But it’s clear I can’t ask Daniel.
15
Holly
Philip Godwin’s home was easy to find. The lights were ablaze in the flat at the top of the school building and Holly could see him moving around up there. The doorbell was next to the main entrance to the school with a gold sign importantly announcing HEADMASTER’S RESIDENCE.
She rang and waited, and soon the door was opened. If asked to envisage a headmaster from the nineteenth century, this is the man she’d think of. He looked exactly the same as he had when he’d taught her, twenty years ago now, with his narrow squirrel-like face, brown beady eyes and orange-tinged bushy hair. He was dressed eccentrically in a long-collared burgundy shirt paired with a red cravat and formal trousers.
‘Mr Godwin? Cassandra asked me to come and collect Jet. You may not remember me, but I used to be one of your pupils: Holly Redwood.’
He scrutinised her, then his eyes gained intensity. ‘You were the girl from the base. You speak much more clearly now you’ve lost that American drawl. Come on up! Mind the stairs, they’re steep.’
Steep and narrow, so she followed him carefully up to what must have once been the school’s attic, but had been boarded over to provide bijou living quarters for the head teacher. The ceiling was low, and the windows looked down onto the school playground and the road beyond. She understood now why the lights were on even in daytime, as any light they provided would be scant.
Hearing activity, a black spaniel bounded forward, pushing his nose between Holly’s legs.
‘Hi, Jet, I’m here to take you home.’ She ruffled his fur, trying to push him back as she did, and surveyed the flat. It was open plan, a kitchen area with a small table and chair that led directly to an area with a sofa, and as they walked, their feet clomped on the wooden boards. It was a bit like being in a treehouse, although instead of nuts, he had piles of books against the wall, and on a low coffee table a stack of glossy A4 posters, all bearing the logo HANDS OFF OUR COUNTRYSIDE!
‘Drink?’ he asked, a congenial host. ‘I have a pot of filter coffee already brewed.’
Holly wasn’t thirsty, and she had no wish to spend time with this odious man, but he had been at the farm on Friday and might know something valuable. ‘Lovely, thanks.’
The dog still twirling at her feet, Holly bent to read one of the posters, noting with her senses the pervasive feeling of being up high, the whiff of loftiness and arrogance.
‘This,’ he said, returning with the drinks, ‘is my passion. Protecting our land from the fat cats at the Port who would turn our countryside into a car park.’
Holly took the cup from him, and without wishing to alert him to the real subjects she wanted to discuss, asked, ‘The disagreement over the farmland has been going on a while, hasn’t it?’
‘Since your lot abandoned the base, it’s been derelict. No one wants to move to the empty houses – it’s like a ghost town. No one knows what to do with it,’ he said, sitting on the sofa. There was no armchair and she imagined he had few guests. ‘Things have heated up recently with the Port Authority upping their offer, but they can’t do anything without the farmland surrounding the base. And Hector would rather cut off his arm than sell, so he’s always been our first line of defence.’
‘The farm isn’t his though,’ Holly said slowly, sipping her drink so Godwin couldn’t see just how much she needed to say this. ‘It’s Maya’s. I heard that on Friday she’d decided to sell.’
Philip’s eyes darkened and he webbed his hands together in a gesture that looked as though he was planning something clever. ‘The thing with women wanting equal rights over property and wages when they’re married to the breadwinner, is that it cuts both ways. Hector has rights, even if his name isn’t on the deed. He’s married to Maya, and he works the land. We’ve instructed a solicitor to clarify the legalities, given she wasn’t of sound mind, and to challenge any contract she might have signed.’
‘You’ve done this since Friday,’ Holly asked, ‘even though Maya’s in a coma?’
Philip’s head moved to one side, as if quizzical. ‘Of course, that’s unfortunate, but the big picture is the land. Individual feelings are really neither here nor there to me.’ His voice gained resonance, bouncing around the tiny flat like he was speaking to a class, spinning Holly back so she felt like a ten-year-old again. He was the teacher with all the answers, and she had a question. ‘Did Maya not seem of sound mind then, when you saw her on Friday?’
Philip sighed now, lifting his laced hands behind his head, affecting weariness. ‘Well, she’s always been an odd creature, rather rude I always thought. Traditionally after a shoot one eats at the host’s table, but Maya made us eat in the barn. The housekeeper had put on a good enough spread, a sort of afternoon tea, but the environment was hardly conducive for a pleasant meal. Cassandra had arrived, and my impression was that there was some trouble. Maya declared the house was out of bounds. We ended up sitting on hay bales, with plates on our knees. Most embarrassing, especially given Dave Feakes from the Port Authority was our guest. And then Maya topped it all by declaring she’d sell to him, and with Alfie Avon listening. It was complete sabotage!’
‘But did she seem suicidal?’ Holly asked, irritated by his condescending tone, his lack of compassion.
‘Not at all!’ he said, his small sharp teeth showing. Jet, as if sensing the change in atmosphere, gave a yelp and moved behind the sofa. ‘She seemed to me like a woman very much determined to live as she saw fit, and the rest of us could go to hell.’
Holly left the Headmaster’s Residence with the spaniel and a strong sense of Godwin’s anger at Maya. There was no question that all he cared about was the land, and it gave him a motive for wanting her dead.
16
Cassandra
I’m glad to see Holly, and she’s got Jet, which means Godwin has no further reason to call on us. But the dog’s full of energy. I can tell Godwin hasn’t walked him today, though he promised he would.
‘Shall we take him out?�
�� Holly says, as the spaniel jumps up at me, then her. ‘A walk might do you good. Plus, I want to talk to you about what he said.’
I’m glad of the suggestion. Glad of her company. Glad that I’m not alone in trying to find out who shot you.
And it is good to get out of the house, out of the smoky kitchen and away from the dark thoughts about why Daniel is lying to me. Why everyone wants me to think you shot yourself. Why no one, except Holly and me, is prepared to see the truth. I need fresh air to snap me out of it so I can think clearly. I pull on my winter coat and shout into the empty hall that I’m going out, but no one answers. Dad is either still asleep in the spare room or unwilling to come out. Cold air catches in my throat and I see from the low sun that it’s going to be a gloomy day. We pass houses and cars I know so well, though I feel lost.
Jet pushes through my legs to sniff the ground with his black snout, yanks on his lead. He doesn’t know this area. He’s an energetic spaniel used to roaming free through farmland and I let him pull me to the end of the road, Holly by my side, the two of us breathing in the November air. Jet finds a long stick that drags on the ground, and he dances at my feet, twisting around his lead, barking at me to throw it. I free him, throw the stick into scrubland and he barks madly when the hedge stops him getting at it.
‘Cass, you’re not alone in thinking Maya didn’t shoot herself. Godwin agrees that she wasn’t depressed on Friday.’
How ironic, that the only other supporter for my theory should be him.
‘But he’s angry with your mum for agreeing to sell the farm. He’s seeking legal advice, to see if her decision to sell can be challenged. It’s also clear that there’s no love lost between him and your mum.’
This makes me feel sick. ‘You think he could have shot her?’ I ask.
Holly pauses, then sighs. ‘I think he’s a very unpleasant man, but to shoot a woman in cold blood would take someone evil, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t rule him out, but I don’t think him having a motive and being a horrible person makes him a potential killer. We should consider other people. Who do you think it might be?’