by Jane Casey
‘Did you ever get the impression that the relationship was abusive?’ I asked baldly, and she looked affronted.
‘No way. Never. Not in a million years.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. She’d have told me.’ She sounded certain and Rob shifted in his seat in a way that I interpreted to mean move on.
‘Did you know Rebecca had left Ventnor Chase?’
She looked troubled. ‘Yes, but I wasn’t supposed to. I only found out by chance. I was at a job interview two months ago, just down the road from Rebecca’s office, and it finished around lunchtime. I thought I’d pop in – see if she wanted to grab lunch somewhere. I really wanted to see her, just to catch up. And the receptionist told me she’d left. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Did you talk to her about it?’
A nod. ‘I mean, I tried. I rang her as soon as I walked out of there. But she wouldn’t tell me what had happened, really – she just kept saying it didn’t matter, and she was fine, and it wasn’t a big deal.’ She looked at me earnestly. ‘It really bothered me. Because I’m always unemployed. I just can’t seem to find a job that I want to do for longer than a month or two, even if I think it’s interesting at the start. Rebecca wasn’t like that. She’d found her niche. She really, really loved her job. I don’t think she could have been OK about not working there when she didn’t say anything about it, do you?’
‘Someone helped her to clear out her things. Do you know who?’
Tilly’s lips tightened. ‘I bet I can guess. Rebecca’s slave.’
‘By which you mean …’ I was fairly sure I knew what name she was going to say.
‘Louise North. Now there’s someone you should talk to about being jealous. Talk about obsessed.’
‘What do you mean?’ I was interested in Tilly’s views on Louise.
‘She’s not my favourite person. Rebecca was far too loyal to her. She wouldn’t listen to any criticism of her, so I never bothered saying anything to her about it, but I just couldn’t get on with Louise.’
‘Why not?’ I was interested.
‘You know how in a group of people there can be three or four conversations going on at once? Well, Louise would always listen to Rebecca’s. Even if you were supposed to be talking to her, she would just ignore you and concentrate on what Rebecca was saying. It was rude.’ Tilly blushed. ‘You probably think that sounds stupid. It’s just an example. Mainly, I didn’t get on with Louise because she made it clear that she wanted to get rid of me. She’s one of those people – you know, you can’t be friends with anyone but me. She wanted to keep Rebecca to herself. It would have driven me mad, but Rebecca never minded. She just used to say that they had more in common than you’d think, and then she’d change the subject.’
I felt a little bit sorry for Rebecca. It must have been hard work trying to keep the peace between her two competing friends. I couldn’t think of two more different people than Tilly and Louise and I wouldn’t have wanted to argue with either of them, or be around when they were fighting among themselves.
Tilly didn’t have much more to say that was of any interest, and as we drove away I sighed deeply.
‘Didn’t find out as much as you’d hoped?’ Rob asked.
‘Actually, I found out a little bit more than I wanted to. Why couldn’t she just make my life simple and tell me that Gil Maddick was a violent thug who’d threatened Rebecca’s life when they split up? Mind you, it does sound to me like he was the controlling type.’
‘What do you think of Rebecca’s premonition?’
‘I think that if she could really see into the future, she should have done a better job of not being murdered.’
‘But it was her destiny. You can’t fight your destiny,’ Rob quoted.
‘Oh yeah. And what’s your destiny?’
‘A pint, a pie and an early night.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you’ve got to aim high, haven’t you?’
‘Live the dream, Rob. Live the dream.’
LOUISE
I stayed in a B&B in Salisbury the night before Rebecca’s memorial service so I could visit the Haworths on my own, without the distraction of other people around. If speaking to them on the phone was hard, the thought of seeing them was much worse. I spent the train journey staring out of the window, too tense to read or work. I had taken a few days off on compassionate leave, and I was glad of the time to myself; I would have been useless in the office in any case. When I got off the train I made myself go straight to the Haworths’ house, knowing that if I put it off I would find an excuse not to go.
Gerald saw the taxi pulling into the drive and came out before I had got out of the car, his wallet in his hand.
‘I can pay for my own taxi,’ I said, pawing through my handbag in search of cash, but he had already done it. He brushed off my thanks.
‘Don’t worry. My pleasure. I’d have picked you up if you’d told me you were coming by train. Is there something wrong with your car?’
‘Something pretty fundamental. I’ve scrapped it. I decided I needed a new one.’
‘About time too. The Peugeot was a breakdown waiting to happen.’ He drew me into his arms for a quick hug. ‘Thank you for coming to see us, Louise. Avril and I appreciate it.’
‘How are you?’ I scanned his face. ‘You look tired.’
‘I was just going to say the same to you.’ His arm was heavy on my shoulders as he wheeled around and guided me into the house, to the big warm kitchen where Avril was sitting in a wicker chair near the Aga, her hands in her lap, gazing into space. She looked up when I said her name and her face lit up.
‘Oh, Louise! You’re here already. How are you?’
‘Fine,’ I said automatically, although I wasn’t and she could see that I wasn’t. It was acutely painful to be in those familiar surroundings without Rebecca, to know that she wasn’t going to breeze through the door and sit down at the table. I had eaten countless meals there with her over the years, talked, laughed, drunk tea and baked cakes. Her shadow was everywhere around me and I couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t see her there ever again. It was awful for me; it must have been unbearable for her parents. This was the house where Rebecca had grown up, where she had taken her first steps, said her first words, learned about the world. This was the place where she became the person I’d met as a teenager, and these were the people who had loved and encouraged her every inch of the way. She had grown up surrounded by love, but in the end, love hadn’t been enough to keep her from harm, and the knowledge of what the Haworths were experiencing brought tears to my eyes.
‘Don’t.’ Avril stood up and came over to me to hug me. ‘If you start crying, I’ll start, and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.’
I swallowed and nodded, trying to smile. Without really thinking first, I found myself saying, ‘I wanted you to know, I always wished you were my parents. I know no one could ever replace Rebecca, but if you could think of me as another daughter, I’d be so happy …’
I trailed off, seeing the shock on Avril’s face before it was replaced with a polite smile. I had chosen the wrong time and used the wrong words. Avril was far too kind to say it, but I knew rejection when I saw it.
‘Before we forget,’ Gerald said from behind me, where he was putting loose tea into the teapot, ‘we wanted you to choose something of Rebecca’s. I don’t think she’d made a will, but I’m sure she’d have wanted you to take something that’s special to you as a keepsake. We thought you could choose first, before anyone else, since you’re here tonight.’
‘I don’t need anything––’ I began, but he held up a hand to forestall me.
‘Just run up to her room and make your choice. We’ve left out everything on her bed. It doesn’t matter to us what you take. Anything you like.’
‘Really, we mean it,’ Avril said, smiling again – but it was a real smile this time. ‘We don’t want to throw them away, but we don’t have any use for them ourselves. And we have plenty of thi
ngs around us that remind us of her.’
It was easier to go along with it than to argue with them, though I wanted less than anything to go into Rebecca’s room. I felt as if I was wading through knee-high water as I left the room and dragged myself up the stairs. I stood on the landing for a moment with my eyes closed but in the end I pushed open the familiar door, painted somewhat inexpertly with pink roses by the fourteen-year-old Tilly, and stood in the doorway. Someone – Avril? – had spread a linen sheet over the bed, and on the sheet there were little piles of clothes, jewellery, knickknacks of various kinds. The rest of the room was the same as ever. Pale blue curtains at the high windows, walls papered in a pretty floral print, a thick-piled grey carpet on the floor with a stain by the dressing table where a bottle of nail varnish had spilt, once upon a time. A tall Georgian chest of drawers against one wall, the top covered with the silver-lidded cut-glass perfume bottles that Rebecca had loved to collect. An armchair in the corner with her beloved toy rabbit on it. He had been too precious to take to university, or to London, she had once explained to me. He lived in her room, where it was safe.
I made myself go over to the bed, passing a wall of cream-framed photographs without looking at them, knowing that I would see myself, among others, and Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca … I looked down at the collection of things on the sheet, stirring a tangle of necklaces and bracelets with one tentative finger, picking up and putting down a small china vase that had stood on the dressing table. She had cut flowers from the garden for it, I remembered – whatever was in season. Holly at Christmas, for want of anything else, and the heavy green smell of it had scented the whole room.
I took her college sweatshirt. No one else was likely to want it. No one else would remember her lying on the floor wearing it over her pyjamas, eating dry cereal from the box and trying to memorise Tudor religious martyrs before Mods. It had faded on the cuffs from much washing, the material soft and slightly limp. I hugged it to myself for a moment, then looked at what was left on the bed. The Haworths had said to take something special. In among the jewellery, there was a pair of earrings that I had always loved, square peridots, the acid green of sour wine gums, that hung from fine gold loops. I picked them out of the pile and slipped them into the pocket of my jeans, just as I heard footsteps approaching the doorway.
‘Did you find something, Louise?’ I showed Avril the sweatshirt with a smile and she nodded. ‘Perfect. It goes all the way back to when you first met, doesn’t it? We bought it for her on her first day at Latimer College, in Shepherd and Woodward on the High.’
‘I remember,’ I said softly.
‘That’s just what I would have wanted you to pick.’ She patted my arm. ‘Come downstairs and have some tea. Are you sure you won’t stay here tonight? We’d be happy to have you.’
I explained again that I had booked a room elsewhere and followed her down the stairs, carrying the sweatshirt like the sacred relic it was, with the earrings tucked away at the bottom of my pocket, a secret between Rebecca and me.
Chapter Seven
MAEVE
Rebecca’s parents didn’t invite the police to her memorial service, but they had been kind enough to allow me to come anyway. I lurked at the back of the pocket-sized parish church in my least scruffy suit, then followed the mourners back up the lane to the Haworths’ substantial house on the outskirts of Salisbury. I had left London on an iron-grey December day and gone to Wiltshire to eavesdrop at the service with the barest approval from DI Judd, who had sneered that he didn’t see how it would be useful but I might as well go as do anything else. Nettled, I was determined to bring back something worth knowing.
The house where Rebecca Haworth grew up was Georgian and stood foursquare in its own grounds. I had left my car at the church, at the tail end of the line of mourners’ cars, most of which were far nicer than mine. As I walked up the lane towards the house, a big black Mercedes with tinted windows oozed past me and turned into the drive, gravel crunching under its wheels. The driver got out smartly and opened one of the back doors and I wasn’t surprised when the passenger proved to be a small man with sandy hair so thick it looked like a wig, and a beaky nose. I had spotted him in the church, where he had been surrounded by people I recognised from my visit to Ventnor Chase. It didn’t take a great deal of intuition to work out that this was the famous Anton Ventnor himself, too important to walk the few hundred yards to the house. I followed him down the side of the house towards the back garden, pausing only to examine the building and its view. Big sash windows stared blankly at a vista of fields and bare hedges that unrolled like barbed wire across the hills. I wondered if the teenage Rebecca had been very bored.
The Haworths had decided to keep their visitors out of the house, probably wisely, and had erected a marquee in the garden, complete with fan heaters. It lent the scene an oddly festive air, like a wedding, except in place of the bride and groom I found a drawn and tired couple who were going through the motions of being good hosts. Years of practice, and what I recognised as deeply felt pride, gave them composure, but Rebecca’s mother looked through me rather than at me and held on to my hand for a moment too long when I introduced myself.
‘Thank you so much for coming. It’s so very kind of you,’ she said in a voice that was deeper and warmer than I had expected, and I mumbled something about wanting to represent the investigating team, though I had the impression that she wasn’t actually listening.
She was brittle, close-up, with a fretwork of lines around her eyes and a quiver in her jaw that she couldn’t quite control. But she was a beautiful woman nonetheless, with good bones and expensively coloured hair. Her black dress was tailored to her frame and she wore elegant heels that flattered her narrow ankles. Like the house itself, Avril Haworth was the beneficiary of years of care, money and attention, and she had not lost her polish in the days since Rebecca’s death, even if the light had dimmed in her eyes.
It was her husband who gently took her hand out of mine and guided me to one side, away from her. He was tall, an imposing presence in an impeccable suit and ink-black tie.
‘You’ll want to have a word with us, I imagine, and I would like to talk to you about the investigation. But now isn’t the right time. We have guests … responsibilities …’ He gestured vaguely.
‘I understand – I don’t want to intrude,’ I said, hating that I’d pushed my way into their private world. ‘I can come back another time, if you’d prefer.’
‘That won’t be necessary. You can speak to us today, once everyone has gone. They won’t stay long. Avril thought that we should invite Rebecca’s friends to join us here since so many of them travelled down from London for the service, and of course our friends are here too. It’s very simple, though. A buffet. Just sandwiches and tea or coffee. With the weather, we thought people would need warming up.’ He looked around, the dark eyes that I’d noticed in his photograph scanning the gathering, missing nothing. ‘We decided not to serve alcohol. It’s not a party, after all. And most of the guests are driving.’
I nodded, reflecting on the unmistakable steel in his voice. Rebecca’s father was not a pushover, grief-stricken though he was.
I left Gerald Haworth to his guests and slipped through to the far side of the marquee, picking up a glass of water from a bow-tied waiter on the way. I took up a position on the edge of the crowd, trying to fade into the background. There must have been sixty people there, mostly wearing sober colours and muttering quietly to one another. The noise level was not what might have been expected from such a large group, but as Gerald Haworth had said, this was not a party. I saw Anton Ventnor in the centre of the marquee, surrounded by his staff. I had imagined an imposing, powerful man from what I had heard from his employees, and was amused at my own assumptions. He spent most of the time looking around him, but he had an odd trick of holding his glass in front of his mouth on the rare occasions that he actually spoke. It was something I associated with habitual liars, and my interes
t sharpened. I might not have managed to speak to him so far, but Anton Ventnor was definitely still on my list. The others from Ventnor Chase were slightly too well dressed for the occasion, I thought – teetering in fashionable heels, expensively made-up, carrying the latest in designer bags. That was the pond Rebecca had been swimming in. That was how she had chosen to live her life. I could tell that status was all-important for them, and wondered if any of them had bothered to keep in touch with her after her dismissal, or if she had even wanted them to. Rebecca’s background was one of effortless success and accomplishment; I wondered how she had coped with disgrace.
The older guests had to be neighbours and friends of the Haworths, but there were plenty of younger people there too, including Tilly Shaw who was everywhere at once, hugging people tenderly, passing around plates, moving chairs from one end of the marquee to the other for the sake of the frailer guests. She had straightened her hair and added a black streak to the front. It went well with her short, tight dress. Not conventional mourning wear, but then nothing about Tilly was particularly conventional. I looked for her polar opposite and found her after a few seconds – Louise North, whom I had spotted in the church, though I didn’t think she’d seen me. Her head had been bent as she sat in the pew behind the Haworths, and I hadn’t noticed her looking around. At one point she had leaned forward to put her hand on Avril’s shoulder as Rebecca’s mother shook with sobs. I guessed she must have known the Haworths for a long time. She was standing on the other side of the marquee, holding a cup of tea but not actually drinking it, listening to an elderly man in a stripy tie who was waving his hands around wildly as he talked. To give her her due, she didn’t appear to flinch, even when he got pretty close with the disintegrating sandwich he was holding in his right hand. I would have laid money that he was also a spitter.