Girl Number One: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by Jane Holland

  ‘Tomorrow should be better weather,’ his father promised her, his tone distracted. ‘Now, where did I park the Land Rover?’

  They were outside in the dark terminal car park, all concrete blocks and swaying lamp posts. The storm seemed to gain in intensity, lashing them with rain, the wind howling and tearing at their coats. ‘You should never have come out in this,’ Lawrence told his father as they forced the cases into the back of his Land Rover. ‘We could have got a taxi.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  Eventually they were on their way, following the rear lights of other cars disappearing into the rain-mist. Then came the hour-long drive south, their car buffeted by gusting winds, his father rambling on about arrangements for the week, gloved hands gripping the wheel. And Manannán and his rain clouds doing their best to prevent Lawrence from hearing a word anyone said.

  Crossing the narrow Fairy Bridge on their way south, Juliet sat forward to stare at the sign. ‘They have fairies here?’

  ‘The Mooinjer Veggey,’ his father agreed. ‘The Little People. If you believe in such things.’

  Lawrence grinned, remembering an old superstition. ‘You have to say hello to the fairies as you cross the bridge,’ he told his wife. ‘Or it’s considered unlucky.’

  Juliet hesitated. ‘Hello, fairies!’

  ‘Good evening, fairies,’ Lawrence said dutifully, though he noticed his father said nothing.

  They reached Port St Mary in the early hours of the morning. The small seaside town, more of a village really, lay asleep under the rain. There were no windows lit in the houses they passed, only the glow of streetlights along the quiet curve of the Promenade, each lamp surrounded by a thousand blades of rain.

  Gil’s house stood on the hill above the village, overlooking the bay, nothing out there tonight but whipped darkness, the air itself trembling.

  ‘Here we are.’ His father swung in through the green-barred entrance gate and juddered to a halt outside the arched front door. The wipers stopped their furious to-and-fro, reducing the world outside to a rain-streaked blur. ‘You two go inside, the door’s always open. I’ll bring the luggage.’

  Now it was Lawrence’s turn to say, ‘Nonsense.’ He nodded to Juliet in the back of the Land Rover, who was tidying her hair. ‘You and Dad put the kettle on while I bring in the bags. No, I insist. Leave me the keys, I’ll lock the car.’

  ‘No need,’ his father said, though he headed for the front door without any argument. ‘No one steals cars here,’ he called back. ‘This is the Isle of Man.’

  Juliet looked at Lawrence through narrowed eyes, as though blaming him for the weather, then turned and followed his father into the house without a word.

  So this was to be his fault too, he thought, bending to retrieve the suitcases. She had not wanted to come, hating the idea of a long sea journey. But he had worn her down. ‘You’re always at work these days. Take some time off, look on it as a holiday. You love the beach, don’t you?’ He had hoped they could find some peace here in the island, just the two of them. But then it had started raining …

  At first, in that sodden darkness, he thought the big house unchanged since the day of his mother’s funeral, still a mess of white-washed wings and annexes added long after the original build and now linked by archways and steps. But then Lawrence noticed new flower beds where lawn used to be, and a swing hanging from the old sycamore tree, its wooden seat twisting in the wind. Feminine touches to a very masculine house.

  He thought of Cathy, his father’s housekeeper, prosaic and unsmiling, and could not imagine her on a swing. Someone else, then? Had his father fallen in love again? It was a disturbing idea, although he could not articulate why.

  Lawrence wrestled with the slippery luggage in the rain. Not an easy thing to do on his own but he did not want his father getting soaked too. Then a diffuse light came on in the house, illuminating a small rectangular patch of grass to his left.

  He glanced up, surprised, and a face appeared at one of the top windows, staring down at him, back-lit.

  Lawrence wiped his face, near-horizontal rain dashing into his eyes, then peered up again. But already the window was in darkness again. Who on earth … ?

  Cathy and her mother had a small place down in the village, or used to. He recalled a narrow room with pale green walls, and an uncomfortable sofa that served as a bed sometimes. An old fisherman’s cottage, strange objects decorating the mantel and walls, carved driftwood and feathers.

  It could not have been her at the window.

  Dumping the bags in the hall at the foot of the stairs, Lawrence stooped to unlock one of the cases, deciding to liberate the book he had brought his father as a present: a leather-bound edition of Frazer’s The Golden Bough. But when he turned round with it in his hand, his father was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Dad?’

  Perhaps he had gone upstairs to dry off.

  He slipped the book back inside the suitcase, then straightened to see Cathy standing in the open archway that led to the kitchen.

  He did not recognise the housekeeper at first, it had been so long since his last visit. He remembered a shy local girl with a thick fringe hanging over her eyes like a moorland pony. Manx as the hills, his father had described her once, but good at her job. Cathy had never been curvaceous, not in those days, besides being a good head shorter than Juliet. But she’d been young and had a way of walking that turned heads. Turned his, anyway.

  He wondered if she still had that walk, noting a thickened waist that had blurred into solid hips and thighs under her corn-yellow blouse and flared jeans.

  ‘Hello,’ he said awkwardly.

  Cathy met his eyes, a hard look that spoke of neglect and long years of resentment. Then she turned and disappeared back towards the kitchen.

  He slicked back wet hair, his heart thumping. Fuck.

  ‘Hello, darling. Is that all the luggage in now?’

  He turned, startled. Juliet was standing in the doorway to the living-room, damp blonde hair curling attractively about her face, her clothes dishevelled yet somehow sexy. Her mascara was smudged and she was wearing what he thought of as her ‘brittle smile,’ the one that meant trouble. Had she witnessed his encounter with Cathy? He no longer knew how to read her face. Was it too late for them? He refused to believe it was too late.

  She held out a steaming mug, her voice breathy and over-loud. As if she wanted Cathy to hear. ‘Has your dad gone up to bed? I’m not surprised; he looked shattered, poor thing. But his housekeeper waited up for us. She made cocoa too. Wasn’t that thoughtful of her?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said automatically, and took the mug of cocoa. It smelt rich and chocolatey. ‘Very thoughtful.’

  He followed her into the living-room. Floor-length red velvet curtains had been drawn against the storm; he recalled a sweeping vista over the tiered gardens and the wide blue bay below. Rain battered noisily against the windows, unseen. The place looked essentially unchanged, though his father’s high-backed armchair was a little scruffier, and his mother’s old chaise longue had gone, replaced by a modern sofa with brown leather seats.

  Lawrence stared at himself in the large gilt mirror hanging over the mantelpiece, and saw his wife come to join him, her familiar reflection meeting his eyes.

  Juliet lowered her voice. ‘I think she lives in,’ she whispered, still smiling her brittle smile. ‘His housekeeper. What do you make of that?’

  Chapter Two

  Lawrence stirred, vaguely aware that it was morning and Juliet had moved from his side. He turned his head, still drowsy, adjusting to his new surroundings.

  The bedroom curtains had been partially opened to let in light. Outside he could hear birdsong in the unseen garden, and recalled the flat green stretches of lawn tumbling down in carefully constructed terraces towards the sea, hemmed in on one side by spindly trees, dark with rooks’ nests, and luxuriously over-grown hydrangeas on the other. He remembered flights of steps running down the centre of those terraces,
headed by squat stone lions ruined by lichen and decades of bird droppings, ending in a gate at the far end and a rough path beyond it which led directly to the beach.

  His mother had loved this rambling old house, thinking it would be a wonderful place to spend her retirement. And the garden too, its endless hiding places and surprises. He thought of the new flower beds he had seen last night, planted up with lupins, red-hot pokers and delphiniums. Cathy’s handiwork, for sure. These yellow roses too, arranged tidily in a vase on the mantelpiece. She had always loved flowers.

  He turned over in bed, pushing that troublesome thought away. The island had seemed such a magical place when he first came to stay here, steeped in grief at his mother’s death and open to anything which suggested that life went on, that nature always found a way. Now he knew that for a comforting illusion. Some things went on; others shrivelled and died. Not everything was magical, not everything found a way.

  Juliet was sitting up nude on the edge of their bed, her back towards him, plaiting her hair in the dusty sunlight. She was humming softly under her breath. The long fingers danced in their mesmerizing rhythm, up and over, between and above, weaving both halves of neatly gathered blonde strands together into the plait.

  Lawrence lay still, admiring how the muscles in her back and shoulders moved delicately under the skin as she worked. She was still a beautiful woman at thirty-nine, her waist almost as neat as when they had first met, hips curving in that slim boyish way. Following the taut fishbone of her spine with his eyes, he felt the weight of his failure pull him inexorably towards depression.

  It was years now since he had persuaded Juliet to try for a baby. She had been reluctant at first, saying they could not afford to lose her income from the small accountancy firm where she worked. Then finally she had agreed, perhaps worn down by his insistence, and Lawrence had been overjoyed, promising to take on extra teaching work at the college if she fell pregnant. Yet each month she bled lightly as a young girl, shaking her head whenever he asked that familiar tentative question, her belly flat and smooth as ever. Somebody up there must be laughing at them, he thought, watching her rise gracefully from the bed and cross the room. His only true desire in life had been for a child of his own, and yet it seemed the one thing impossible to achieve. He longed to hold his wife’s thickening waist in his hands and feel the baby inside kick at the thin surface of her abdomen, gripping her hand as she strained to push his child out into the world, tiny and red-faced.

  She was dressing in silence now, turned away from him as she fastened her gold silk top and reached for her jeans. He had been taking wedding photos and teaching adult evening classes in North London when they met, scraping a living while he worked towards his first photographic exhibition. Juliet had signed up for his basic photography course, so vibrant and attractive that Lawrence found himself unable to take his eyes off the sensuous young woman in the bright blue kaftan.

  They had shared a few drinks in the pub with the rest of the class before he finally gathered the courage to ask her out to dinner, stumbling over the words like an idiot, convinced she would refuse him. But she hadn’t.

  He was lost within seconds of their first kiss. Lawrence had known what he wanted as a compass knows to point north. It had kept him awake at night, his unswerving desire to marry Juliet and give her children. To fill her with them, until they were spilling uncontrollably out of her body. It had seemed such a small thing to ask at first, to become a father and watch his child grow inside her, and yet the only thing of any real significance in his life. All over the world, babies were born every day with apparent effortlessness, handed to their fathers like fruit plucked from a tree. Yet for him the days had dragged into years and still the branch was bare.

  ‘You look beautiful in that. Ethereal.’

  He had slipped out of bed and now came up behind her, putting his arms clumsily about her waist. She said nothing but leant back against him, her skin warm under the thin gold silk. They hung there in the sunlight for a few moments without speaking. He could hear her heart beating, light and rapid, as if she already knew what was on his mind.

  ‘I want to make love to you.’

  ‘I’m dressed now.’

  ‘You could get undressed.’

  She sighed. ‘Not like this, Lawrence. Not here.’

  ‘Why not here?’

  ‘Your father’s house. He might hear us.’

  Lawrence slid his hands up to her breasts over the diaphanous fabric, unable to resist a smile at her prudish attitude, though he knew she couldn’t see him.

  ‘So what if he does? It’s not against the law. We’re a married couple in the privacy of our own bedroom.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  His hands dropped at her abrupt change of tone. Chastened, he let her move away. He immediately wanted to say something in return, protect himself from the sting she had driven into his flesh, but everything that came into his mind was worthless and beneath him, so he said nothing.

  Lawrence picked up his shaving bag from the dressing-table and made for the door. She said his name quietly but he ignored her.

  Part of him knew he was being ridiculous and unfair. It wasn’t the first time she had rejected him, and it wouldn’t be the last. He ought to be inured to it by now, relaxed about the fact that they made love so infrequently, yet at the back of his mind there was always the agonising knowledge that she was nearly forty. Time was running out.

  Climbing the stairs to their bathroom on the upper landing, Lawrence stopped dead at the sight of a girl curled up in a shadowy alcove, a paperback book spread open in front of her. She was silently mouthing the words to herself as she read, head bent to the page. He thought at first she was a teenager, then realised she was younger, maybe eleven or twelve years old.

  He wasn’t entirely sure if she was real, there was something so still and other-worldly about that dark passageway; there was only one window, its long dusty curtains drawn, shutting out most of the sunlight. But then the girl glanced up as he approached and hurriedly closed her book, keeping one finger inside as though to mark the page.

  ‘Hello,’ he said rather self-consciously, aware that he was wearing nothing but pyjama bottoms.

  ‘You’re Lawrence Cardrew,’ she replied, unsmiling.

  ‘That’s right. And you must be ...’ He hesitated, suddenly unsure.

  ‘Miranda.’

  He waited, still not understanding.

  ‘My mother’s the housekeeper,’ she explained, and there was something awkward about the way she paused afterwards, as though expecting a question that never came.

  My mother’s the housekeeper. He was too busy unknotting that statement to focus on her anxious air. ‘Cathy? You’re Cathy’s daughter?’

  The girl kept the book tightly closed on her finger, like a bookmark. She had her chin up, her look inexplicably confrontational. ‘You were watching me last night,’ she said.

  He frowned, then remembered how he had looked up into darkness as the car pulled up outside the house. One window lit up, a face staring down at him through the rain.

  ‘Only because you were watching me.’

  She raised thin brows, her voice oddly precise for someone so young. ‘That’s no excuse. I was in bed.’

  ‘Sorry, did we disturb you?’ He managed an apologetic tone, deciding she must be angry about their intrusion. She was probably used to being here alone much of the time. ‘The last ferry was the only crossing we could get at short notice. I did tell Dad we should stay in a hotel last night and drive over this morning, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I hope it didn’t take you too long to fall asleep again.’

  When she said nothing in response, he added, curious and uncertain, ‘So you live here? You and Cathy? Not in the village?’

  ‘Not in the village,’ she agreed.

  He wanted to ask about her father too, but something in her expression stopped him.

  ‘I suppose it’s a big house just for one person.’


  She still did not smile.

  So his father’s housekeeper had a daughter now, and she lived here with her mother. A strange arrangement. And a very strange little girl, he thought, with short dark hair and huge expressive eyes that watched him implacably across the landing. Her clothes seemed mismatched, a faded green dress that fell almost to her ankles coupled with a scarf tied bandana-style around her head, and what appeared to be hefty brown hiking boots on her feet. If the child hadn’t seemed quite so at home in the outfit, it might have looked as though she had been delving into some theatrical costume box.

  ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ he asked.

  ‘A book.’

  He smiled, then tried a different approach. ‘I used to do something similar when I was your age, you know. Find some dark corner of the house to hide in, so I could read in peace.’

  ‘I’m not hiding.’

  Lawrence tilted his head and slowly deciphered the title of her book.

  ‘I Capture the Castle,’ he read out. ‘Any good?’

  ‘It’s about a girl with no money whose father’s a failure.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The girl checked her page number, then snapped the book shut. He had the distinct impression that he was being dismissed.

  ‘We’re going out walking in Dhoon Glen today,’ she said coolly, and for the first time he heard her mother’s accent in the lilting way she pronounced the Manx place name. ‘I hope you brought boots. The glen can be very muddy after a rainstorm.’

  ‘Right.’

  She glanced at his shaving bag, then pointed along the landing. ‘The bathroom’s the third door along.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been here before.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looked surprised at last. ‘Well, the bathroom lock sticks.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, thanks.’

  Miranda turned and went downstairs with the book tucked under her arm, her back very straight. Her disembodied voice floated up to him from below as he headed for the bathroom. ‘Don’t worry if you forgot to pack boots. Gil keeps tons of spare wellies in the garage. They’ll be full of spiders though, I expect.’ Her voice seemed to mock him. ‘Not afraid of spiders, are you?’