by Jane Casey
‘I’ve got to. See you around.’ I didn’t wait for him to reply, dodging through the crowd to where Darcy was standing. ‘Let’s go.’
She grabbed my arm as we walked away. ‘Oh my God. That was amazing.’
‘What was?’
‘You weren’t even remotely scared of Natasha.’
‘I’ve met people like her before. Besides, what’s to be scared of? She’s ninety per cent hairspray and fake tan. The other ten is pure venom.’
Darcy giggled, but with her hand over her mouth, as if she was afraid of being caught laughing at her. ‘Ryan totally likes you.’
‘I doubt that. He likes playing games with Natasha. I was just convenient.’
‘Yeah . . .’ Darcy said slowly, not sounding convinced. ‘But you don’t know that he was obsessed with Freya.’
‘Oh.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Which explains Natasha’s attitude.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘How did Freya feel about Ryan? Did she like him?’
‘Everyone likes Ryan. But she wasn’t interested in him in that way.’
‘Natasha must have been relieved.’
‘Not really. It made it worse. Ryan likes to win. He doesn’t like being second-best to anyone.’
‘I can imagine,’ I said soberly, and when Darcy started to chatter about fashion again, I went along with it, without even thinking to ask who Freya had preferred.
It wasn’t until much later, when I was lying in bed, that I had time to consider it – along with about a million questions I had about Freya. It really bothered me that no one could tell me what had happened. If I hadn’t looked like her, maybe I wouldn’t have cared so much. But the reactions I’d had from just about everyone – that mixture of guilt and fear – made me think that there was more to the story than the tragic-accident line Mum had taken. I tried to imagine myself in her place. If I was gone, and no one knew why, I’d have wanted someone to find out the truth. I’d have expected it. And if no one else wanted to do it, that left the field clear for me.
Which was fine. But if Freya hadn’t killed herself, and it hadn’t been an accident, that left one thing: murder. And if it turned out to be murder, whoever killed her would be extremely keen for me to keep my nose out of it. I flipped my pillow over and tried to get comfortable. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I was scared. And I would stay scared, I thought, until I knew the truth of what had happened, which made it even more important to keep going, no matter who I upset or what I found out.
So far, all I’d discovered was that just about everyone I’d met in Port Sentinel had something to hide.
4
‘WELCOME TO SANDHAYES. I’d offer to show you around, but I’m sure you still remember where everything is.’
As greetings went it was on the half-hearted side, all the more so because it was delivered in Hugo’s mocking drawl. He was leaning on the gatepost on one side of the drive, his arms folded. I recognized Tom from the photograph. He sat on top of the other gatepost, kicking his heels against it. His knees were filthy and his shoes were falling apart. His fringe was long, hanging into his eyes, and he was looking sulky, which seemed to be his default expression.
‘Mum, this is Hugo. Hugo, this is my mother.’
‘It’s uncanny. You’re the living image of my mother.’ He grinned at her. ‘But you know that too.’
‘It’s been a while.’ Mum looked up at the house, shading her eyes. ‘The place looks the same. Maybe a touch more ivy and a few more slates missing off the roof.’
‘Nothing changes here.’ Hugo detached himself from the gatepost and grabbed his brother’s shirt, pulling him off the other one without any warning so he went sprawling across the drive. ‘Come on. Everyone’s waiting.’
I followed them across the sparse gravel, still looking at the house. It was the family home, a rambling Victorian villa where Mum had grown up, and a place I’d always wanted to visit. The name suggested the seaside, but you had to stand in a particular place in one bedroom at the top of the house to have any chance of seeing the sea, Mum had warned me, especially since Port Sentinel had been developed for holiday homes. The house was tucked away in a residential street halfway up the hill, and if it wasn’t the smartest house on the road it had the most character, in spite of the overgrown garden and peeling paintwork.
‘Molly!’ The exclamation came from inside the house. Mum hurled herself through the front door in response and I picked up speed to be in time to see the sisters wrapping their arms around each other in the middle of the hall. The house was cool and gloomy, piled high with clutter and probably not quite clean if you could see the details – there were curls of blue dust under the bench at one side of the hall, and a really handsome cobweb hung off the ceiling light – but it was grand all the same. I tried not to think like my father, who was a fan of contemporary style. His attitude to houses was: the cleaner and newer the better. No wonder he hadn’t exactly fitted in with Mum’s family. Instead, I concentrated on the touching reunion in front of me. It was beyond strange to see a version of my mother in a long velvet skirt and embroidered blouse, considering Mum was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. Tilly’s hair was longer than Mum’s too, and threaded with silver. She wasn’t wearing make-up and her skin was rather weathered, but her smile was lovely.
The next minute she opened her eyes and saw me standing behind Mum, and the smile slid off her face, to be replaced by something much more grim. It must have been a shock for her to see me, even though she was forewarned, and I experienced a moment of complete and total embarrassment before Tilly’s good humour reasserted itself.
‘Jess, I’m staring at you. I’m sorry.’ It was my turn for a big hug, one that smelled of roses and squeezed all the breath out of my lungs. ‘You have to forgive me. I’d seen pictures but the reality is different.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said feebly. ‘I don’t mind. It must be weird.’
‘Weird is the word.’ She laughed, but she held onto my shoulders for a second, scanning my face. ‘You know, there’s plenty of your father in you now that I come to look at you. It’s just the initial impression that’s . . . interesting.’
‘If you say so.’ I decided not to tell her about literally turning heads all the way down Fore Street, or the reaction I’d got from Natasha and her coven.
‘Mum, I’m hungry.’ Tom came to the rescue in a particularly whiny way. ‘Can we have cake now?’
‘Of course we can. Sorry, Jess. Sorry, Molly. I’m forgetting my manners. Come in, come in.’
Mum didn’t make it two steps before she’d ground to a halt to exclaim over the new stair carpet. There was going to be a lot of that, I thought, given that she hadn’t been in the house for almost twenty years. I followed Hugo and Tom through a door at the back of the hall on the basis that they were at least likely to lead me in the general direction of food, and found myself in a low-ceilinged kitchen with a table laid in the middle of it.
‘I hope you ate before you came,’ Hugo said, scanning the table without enthusiasm. ‘I did warn you.’
‘Shut up, Hugo,’ came from behind him, where a red-faced Petra was struggling to carry a giant teapot. Her tongue was poking out as she concentrated on not spilling any tea and I was almost as relieved as she was when she set it down with a crash on the table. ‘You haven’t done anything for today, so you don’t get to criticize.’
‘It’s women’s work,’ Hugo said gravely. ‘And you volunteered to do it. Never volunteer.’
‘I wanted things to be nice for Jess and Aunt Molly.’
‘Define nice. They’ll be lucky if they make it out of here without food poisoning.’
‘It all looks lovely.’ I smiled at Petra.
‘She’s being polite. It looks chaotic.’
Hugo was hard on Petra as only an older brother could be, but there was a certain truth in what he said. The kitchen was warm but ramshackle, with peach walls and bright yellow w
oodwork that had chipped badly. A sagging dresser in one corner was almost invisible under the weight of clutter on it: plates and cups, opened letters, a dog brush bristling with white hairs. There was an Aga, but it was ancient and streaked with unidentifiable ooze in places. I wouldn’t have known what to do if someone had told me to cook on it. It looked as if it might be seconds from exploding.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘Lots of character.’ If I said it firmly enough it might drown out my dad’s voice, which was murmuring horror in my ear.
A vase in the middle of the table had a straggle of garden flowers wedged in it, and Petra gave it an uncertain half-turn. ‘Does this look OK?’
‘Perfect,’ I said quickly. ‘Did you arrange them?’
She nodded. ‘To welcome your mum.’
‘She’ll appreciate it.’ I made a mental note to try to tip Mum off about them. She would say something nice to Petra if she knew. ‘Everything looks fantastic.’
It was the truth, though there was a definite hap hazard quality to the table. A vast sponge cake oozed jam over the edge of its plate, and none of the cups seemed to match. Two platters of sandwiches teetered at either end of the table; Tilly believed in catering in bulk. A basket of scones sat near the middle, flanked with jam and cream. They were scorched black around the edges and lopsided, but I would have to eat at least one, I realized, because they were clearly Petra’s handiwork.
‘We just wanted everything to be perfect.’ Petra went round the table lifting up the back of each chair in turn. I had no idea why she was tilting the chairs until there were two thumps, one after the other, and a pair of furious tabbies oozed out from under the tablecloth. They glowered at me and made for the back door.
‘Warming the chairs?’
‘Waiting for a chance to get at the cream. The fat one’s Aristotle. The thin one is Diogenes. Don’t worry about remembering their names, because they don’t.’ Hugo strolled over and opened the door so they could make their escape into the garden. ‘Go on. Scram.’
The sound of voices behind me made me turn round, and there was Mum talking at the same time as Tilly, both of them in fits of giggles, and my uncle Jack behind them. He was very like Dad in appearance, more so in person than in his photograph, but his features were gentler, his face long and kind. He gave me a smile of genuine welcome and urged me to sit down on one of the chairs that I knew had been occupied by the cats. I refused to even think about the cat hair on the cushion, or how it would look once transferred to my jeans. No one in this family would mind about that kind of thing.
Tom appeared out of nowhere to take his place at the table, and suddenly everyone was sitting down, all talking at once. I caught Mum’s eye and found myself laughing with her. There were only seven of us but it sounded like thirty magpies squabbling. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat down to eat with six other people. I let the noise wash around me and helped myself to one of Petra’s scones, conscious of her sitting beside me and watching every mouthful I took. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. The burned bits definitely added something.
Hugo lounged with an elbow on the back of an empty chair beside him, grinning at something that amused him and wolfing down the sandwiches two at a time. There was a plate and a cup and saucer in front of the empty chair, ready to be used. I looked around, wondering who was missing. I wasn’t the only one.
‘Should we have started? Who else is coming?’ Mum’s question fell into a rare silence and none of the Leonards rushed to answer it. I suddenly thought of Freya, who would never be home again, who might have a place at the table even so.
‘It’s there for anyone who needs it,’ Tilly said at last. ‘I always have room for anyone who might want to join us.’
‘It’s usually Will,’ Tom said around a mouthful of cake.
‘Will?’ Mum looked at Tilly with raised eyebrows.
‘Henderson. He lives in the house over the back wall.’ She pointed in the general direction.
‘Henderson. As in—’
‘Yes.’ I wasn’t imagining it – Tilly cut Mum off before she could say anything more. And I definitely wasn’t imagining the wave of colour that swept into my mother’s face.
‘Oh. That’s nice,’ she managed.
‘He hasn’t been here for a while,’ Jack said, frowning. ‘Have you seen him, Hugo?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Everything all right at home? How’s his mum?’
‘I didn’t ask.’ Hugo folded another sandwich into his mouth and chewed it slowly.
‘Hugo, you’re useless,’ his mother scolded. To Jack, she said, ‘I should go round. I could make a lasagne or something.’
‘Is there . . . a problem?’
It was the question I had wanted to ask, but Mum did it for me.
‘Not really. Who needs tea?’ Tilly said it brightly, in a tone that didn’t allow for any further discussion from anyone. She interrupted whatever Petra was trying to say with a brisk, ‘Jess, you aren’t eating.’
‘I am,’ I protested.
‘Tilly, don’t change the subject.’ The two sisters glared at each other across the table and I hadn’t the least idea why. From the nonplussed expression Hugo and Petra wore, they didn’t know either. Jack concentrated on cutting large slices of cake, one eye half closed as he measured them out. Tom was eating as if someone was about to call time and take his plate away, and I doubted he was aware of any tension at all in the room.
‘There’s nothing to tell you.’
‘Really?’ Mum picked up her teacup and paused to ask, ‘How is Dan these days?’ before she buried her face in it. It was a useful way to hide what she was feeling.
‘Working hard.’ Tilly looked down the table. ‘Jack, can you put more water in the teapot? It’s nearly empty.’
‘Is he still a policeman?’ Mum asked, sounding ultra-casual and not convincing in the slightest.
‘He’s an inspector,’ Hugo said. ‘The most senior officer around here.’
Mum put her cup down again. ‘He’s done well.’
‘And you’ve been gone a long time,’ Tilly snapped. I stared at her, then at my mother. It had seemed like such a neutral remark. I was, of course, too curious to let it go at that. More curious than wise, as usual.
‘Who is Dan?’
‘Will’s dad,’ Petra said.
‘Did you know him, Mum? Before?’
She smiled at me vaguely and gave a little shrug. ‘I knew everyone in Port Sentinel, Jess. It was that sort of place. It’s probably not like that any more.’
‘Changed a lot,’ Jack said from his position by the kettle. ‘Too many blow-ins.’
I wasn’t going to be diverted. ‘So why are you asking about him in particular?’
‘I’m not. Just catching up on other people’s news.’ She met Tilly’s eyes across the table. ‘As your aunt said, I’ve been away a long time.’
I’d have thought that was a safe bet for most awkward conversational moment of the day, but Petra managed to surpass it about ten minutes later.
‘Jess, do you want to see Freya’s bedroom?’
I choked on my cake, spewing crumbs.
‘Why would you ask her that?’ Tilly was regarding her younger daughter with interest rather than outrage.
‘Jess wanted to know about Freya – what she was like. I thought she might like to see her room.’ To me, she said, ‘It hasn’t changed at all. It’s just as she left it.’
It was my turn to go red. ‘I’m sorry, Tilly. I wasn’t prying. I was just curious about Freya, that’s all.’
‘Of course you were curious. It’s only natural.’ She sighed. ‘Such a shame you never got a chance to meet her. But having a look at her room will give you some idea of how she was. I hadn’t the heart to change anything.’
‘I’d have done the same – left it all as she had it.’ Mum reached across the table and took her hand, their previous spat forgotten.
Tilly looked sheepish. ‘Well, I sa
y I left everything. I did tidy up a bit.’
‘Mouldy cereal bowls under the bed didn’t go with her image as perfect dead daughter.’ Hugo took a huge bite of cake, ignoring the glare from his mother and Mum’s gasp of shock.
I grinned at him, knowing he was pleased to have got a reaction.
‘Shall we go?’ Petra pushed her chair back, suddenly keen to leave.
I nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
‘Don’t make a mess of the place.’ It was a knee-jerk maternal nag but I gave it the eye-roll it deserved. What she thought I was going to do, I didn’t know. Jump on the bed, maybe. Draw on the walls. It seemed to me parents’ perception of their children froze at about two or three years old, and they never grew out of the ‘put your coat on it’s cold’ warnings after that. Mum probably couldn’t help it, but that didn’t mean I had to be gracious about it.
Freya’s room was on the top floor, in the attic, and Petra took the stairs three at a time. I panted behind her, not even attempting to keep up. She kept up a running commentary on the rooms we were passing (‘. . . and that’s Tom’s but I wouldn’t go in because it always stinks of feet and farts. He really is filthy. This is Hugo’s room but I’m not allowed to open the door so you’ll have to get him to show you. It’s very boring. All books. Mum and Dad are in that one. They’ve got the biggest room but it’s the coldest too, so no one minds.’)
We stopped off at Petra’s own room on the floor below Freya’s and I toured it solemnly, admiring the collection of dolls that she’d had for years. She was too old for them now, she admitted, and had customized most of them with new haircuts, different outfits and some fairly savage make-up. It was a Leonard habit, I was starting to realize. Why settle for the default option when you can make a thing your own?
Another flight of stairs, this time complete with dust, as if to prove no one came up here any more. Freya’s quest for originality had led her to paint her door dark blue and stencil stars in gold leaf all over it.
‘She used the wrong kind of paint,’ Petra said dismissively, sliding a nail under a loose flake and flicking it away. ‘It looked OK just after she did it, but I told her it wouldn’t last. And the gold leaf started to come off about a day later, even though she sprayed it.’