The Perfect Guests

by Emma Rous

  “Leonora loved Markus,” Beth said to Sadie afterward. “He meant everything to her. He was the love of her life.”

  “Was he?” Sadie replied. “Or did he always come second to Raven Hall?”

  Beth had frowned. “Well, there’s no way she could have known he’d fall through, anyway . . . No. Much as I’m happy to believe a lot of bad things about Leonora, I can’t believe she’d stoop that low.”

  Sadie wants to believe her mum is right, but she still finds the very suggestion unsettling. While Nina awaits her trial in a cell, Leonora is out on bail for the historic poisoning of her daughter; she’s still, as far as Sadie’s aware, holed up in her little seaside cottage, brooding on the loss of her ancestral home. And in an ironic twist, Leonora is providing evidence for the other major development in the far-reaching investigation.

  When the police collected the game cards that the dinner guests had been given, they noticed that the comments on them were uniquely personal. Sadie can still remember the gist of hers: You must have been a great disappointment to your mother, unable to hold down a job . . .

  But in among the other sly, mean-spirited jibes, one guest’s card—its gravy-stained quarters carefully pieced back together—stood out for the specific and serious nature of its accusations. Nina’s attempt to unsettle her guests and prick their consciences has resulted in a fierce spotlight being turned onto Roy Everett.

  At the same time that the police began investigating the thinly veiled accusations on Roy Everett’s card, several women who’d seen him on news footage of the incident at Raven Hall came forward to put on record that he’d behaved inappropriately toward them. Some of the allegations are worse, but Sadie and Beth aren’t privy to the details. However, Roy Everett will be facing his own trial in due course, and Sadie trusts that justice will be served.

  “Okay,” Wendy says, dabbing crumbs from around her mouth. “I can see your mind’s on other things. Have a brilliant time in America, won’t you? Give me a ring when you get back.”

  Sadie gives her a quick hug good-bye. Hendrik has bought tickets for Sadie and Beth to fly out tomorrow, to visit him for a couple of weeks. Beth nearly declined the offer—not least, Sadie suspects, because she doesn’t like the idea of being away from Joe for that long. But Sadie talked her into accepting it; the timing is perfect—they’ll be back just before Sadie starts her new job. And she’s looking forward to seeing her great-grandfather again in person. They Skype every few days, but it isn’t the same.

  But before they fly out, there’s one more invitation that Sadie has talked Beth into accepting. The new owner of Raven Hall—a Mr. El Daly, former investment banker and inventor of an encryption process that made him a fortune—has offered to show them around the newly repaired and refurbished Raven Hall. Beth was hesitant at first, but she surprised Sadie by warming to the idea.

  “I think it might help, actually,” Beth had said, once she’d thought about it. “I’m done with trying to block out the past. This might make it easier to move on.”

  Sadie knows that Joe—or Jonas, as Beth still insists on calling him—has played a large role in Beth’s newfound positivity. Beth has been staying with Sadie in Sadie’s flat for the last few months, but the arrangement will come to an end soon, because Beth and Jonas are going traveling. They’ve planned a six-month round-the-world trip together, making up for the years they lost. It makes Sadie smile every time she thinks of it.

  As Sadie climbs into her car, her mind drifts back to Wendy’s other question: “Have you seen any of the other guests?”

  She did, in fact, meet up with Nazleen and her wife for drinks a couple of months ago. They skirted around the subject of Raven Hall, and they made vague promises to meet again, but she’s not convinced they’ll follow through.

  Genevieve, she saw in the distance at the police station a few weeks ago, when she and Beth went in to discuss their statements. Sadie pointed Genevieve out to Beth, but the young woman was too far away for them to attract her attention and say hello.

  Zach, Sadie hasn’t seen at all. Even Jonas commented that the doctor’s son has been lying low since the accusations against his father began to rumble around the village.

  Sadie finds it sad that, after those intense few hours they spent together at Raven Hall, Nina’s seven intended victims have been scattered apart. Of course, Sadie and Jonas are connected now, by Beth, so they have each other to talk to when they need to off-load about the events of that night. But Sadie worries about the other innocent guests—Nazleen, Genevieve, and Zach. The police told her about Nina’s daisy notebook, filled with observations Nina had made when she was spying on Beth’s house and, it transpires, on the homes of Sadie, Everett, and Jonas too. Is it worse to be a targeted victim, like they were, or to be collateral damage, like the others?

  Sadie puts all such questions out of her mind as she arrives at her flat to pick up Beth. It’s time to return to Raven Hall.

  Leonora

  She follows the same routine every morning. Takes a brisk walk to the beach and back. Makes a black coffee. Fires up the laptop she bought at great expense from the soft-spoken man in the computer shop. Checks the day’s news headlines. Then she types in her usual search term: “Raven Hall.”

  After weeks of pulling up the same old news reports and photos, today she sees a new article at the top of the list. Her heart beats faster as she clicks on the link and waits for her feeble broadband to respond to her command. She’s only sixty-four, but her joints are aching today, despite all the ginger tea she’s been drinking and her frequent dips in the sea.

  Finally, the article loads.

  “Take an exclusive peek at the magnificent interior of newly refurbished Raven Hall,” it says. “Mr. El Daly, thirty-seven, shows us the grand new staircase and the luxuriously refitted reception rooms, all completed with carefully sourced materials and ethically produced furniture to delight any guest.”

  She winces as she scrolls down.

  “Following the devastating fire and near loss of life at Raven Hall a mere six months ago, many locals feared the house would once again fall into disrepair. But under the meticulous guidance of its proud new owner, the transformation is truly remarkable.”

  Leonora’s smile is sour as she scrolls through the photos. How has it come to this? Nina, her only daughter, is languishing in a prison cell. And this stranger is now the legal owner of Raven Hall.

  Leonora knows how hard Nina will be finding her loss of freedom. After Markus died, Nina never did settle at the seaside cottage. She moved out as soon as she turned sixteen, and she led an itinerant lifestyle for years: traveling with a loose group of friends, picking up temporary work, visiting Leonora only when it happened to suit her.

  Sometimes, on those unannounced visits, Nina would bring gifts that hinted at where she might have been living—punnets of strawberries, baskets of apples, trugs of parsnips with the soil still clinging to them. Occasionally, she brought people with her, and Leonora would feed them all a hearty meal while sneaking glances at their matted hair and unwashed clothes. On one memorable occasion, Nina set down an apple basket in the hall as she came in, and it took Leonora twenty minutes to realize there was a baby inside it. Leonora dashed to the shop for formula milk, and the infant guzzled it as if it hadn’t been fed for days.

  Hoping to encourage Nina to settle down, Leonora transferred a hefty chunk of her inheritance into Nina’s bank account. But if Nina ever spent more than a bare minimum of it on herself, Leonora saw no evidence of it, and Nina continued to disappear for months at a time.

  Until last year.

  Perhaps it was Leonora’s relief at seeing Nina on her doorstep that made her drop her guard, last summer. She had no one else to share her secrets with, after all, but this time she went too far. She mentioned her ongoing desperate hope that Nina would one day inherit Raven Hall, and Nina’s face had instantly harden
ed. Leonora kicked herself; Nina had accused her more than once of loving the house more than she loved Nina—Raven Hall was always a sensitive subject between them.

  So Leonora had resigned herself to not seeing Nina for another few months after that. But to her surprise, Nina returned a few days later, and she carried on visiting weekly. She began to ask Leonora endless questions about her childhood, scrawling notes in her old daisy notebook, until Leonora felt decidedly uneasy.

  “I’ve decided how I want to spend my Averell inheritance money,” Nina announced one afternoon. “And you’re going to help me, Mother—don’t look at me like that. By the end of it, Raven Hall will belong to us again . . .”

  Leonora should never have trusted her. But Nina was her daughter; what else could she do?

  She still doesn’t understand where she went wrong with Nina. Despite all the terrible things that happened to Leonora when she was younger, she never sought revenge—not on Roy Everett, not on Hendrik, not on anyone. All she wanted was to see Raven Hall returned to the Averell family. She’s not even sure which caused her more pain—Nina’s attempt to kill her, or Nina’s attempt to destroy Raven Hall.

  Raven Hall will always belong to the Averells, whatever the lawyers say. It seems unlikely, now, that Nina will ever set foot in it again, but Leonora hasn’t lost all hope—quite the opposite. Her dreams about Raven Hall are stronger now than they’ve ever been.

  She reaches out a trembling finger and touches the image of the house on the screen.

  “Hold on a little longer,” she whispers. “You will be ours again soon. I promise.”

  Beth

  Raven Hall’s gray facade gleams, untarnished, in the gentle Fenland sunlight. As Sadie brings her car to a halt on the gravel, I can’t help thinking of Caroline: the way she drove me here on that first day, fully aware I was her daughter, unmoved by the fact that neither Markus nor I had the faintest idea we were related.

  A stocky man with a broad smile bounds down the stone steps—Mr. El Daly, the new owner. And suddenly this visit feels absolutely right.

  “You go and look around inside,” I say to Sadie, “but I want to stay out here.” I glance at the lake, thinking of Markus. “I’d like to be by myself, to say good-bye.”

  So Sadie and Mr. El Daly head into the house, and I stroll down the grassy decline, remembering all the times I ran down here with Nina and Jonas. I smile when I think of Jonas; after a lifetime of masking my feelings, I’ve discovered the power of talking, and Jonas is a patient listener. Only this morning, I rang him about an odd phrase of Nina’s that was niggling at me: I’m not obsessed with Raven Hall like them.

  “Why did she say them?” I asked Jonas. “Why not her? As in, Leonora.”

  Jonas had given it some thought. “She must have meant Markus, I guess—who else could have been as obsessed with Raven Hall as Leonora?”

  I’m not convinced, but perhaps that’s because I like to think better of Markus. As I approach the dock, sunlight dazzles on the water, and my eyes sting at the injustice of not knowing Markus was my father while he was alive. But I remind myself that the future is bright.

  A noise up by the house makes me turn, and I see a dark-haired young woman slipping out through the front door. She trots down the steps, and when she notices me watching her, she presses a hand over her heart and gives a startled laugh. I hurry up the grass toward her.

  “Sorry!” I call out. “I didn’t mean to make you jump.”

  She frowns as I come closer. “Are you from the hot tub company? Only we weren’t expecting you ’til three . . .”

  “No, I was just . . .” A glint of jewelry catches my attention, and, without intending to, I reach out. “Do you mind—can I see—?”

  Her guarded expression gives way to delight, and she springs forward with her hand outstretched to show off a glittering diamond ring. “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? We’re getting married next week. Just a small wedding—my grandmother on my side, and his parents on his . . . And then I’ll be Mrs. El Daly of Raven Hall.”

  But it’s not her ring I’m gazing at. “No, where did you get your bracelet from?”

  “Oh, this?” She hooks up the delicate gold chain. “From my mum—it’s the only thing she ever gave me. We’re not close. I mean, she left me with my gran when I was a baby—in an apple basket, of all things. Gran brought me up. But my mum did show that she cares about me, in her own way, a few months ago. She dragged me into some crazy plan she’d dreamed up, but then she warned me to leave before it got too dangerous . . .”

  She twists the bracelet around to show me the charms.

  “Flag iris,” I murmur, trying to hide my astonishment while my mind races to understand the implication of her words. “Greylag goose. Reed warbler.” Jonas’s question resounds in my ears—Who else could have been as obsessed with Raven Hall as Leonora?—and my heart pounds with the suspicion that the answer is standing right here in front of me.

  “Do you know what I really like about it?” The young woman is still twisting the bracelet, gazing down at it, oblivious to my unease. Her faraway tone is so familiar, I feel I might have stepped thirty-one years into the past, to when I stood talking to Leonora in this very spot.

  I shake my head, speechless.

  “My gran loves the thought of me wearing this here. She always says this is where we both belong.” She lifts her gaze to my face and blinks a few times, as if she’s emerging from a trance. “Anyway, it’s lovely to meet you . . .”

  As her hand reaches for mine, I finally find my voice again. “Beth.”

  “I’m Genevieve.” She smiles warmly at me. “Welcome to Raven Hall.”

  Acknowledgments

  This book wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for my two brilliant editors, Emma Beswetherick at Piatkus and Amanda Bergeron at Berkley. Thank you both for everything.

  I’m also enormously grateful to Eleanor Russell, Kate Hibbert, Andy Hine, Helena Doree, Sareer Khader, Jin Yu, Diana Franco, and Danielle Keir. Thank you for helping my books reach so many readers.

  Rebecca Ritchie of A.M. Heath is the best literary agent an author could wish for, and I’m ridiculously lucky to be represented by her. Thank you for believing in my writing, Becky.

  I’m grateful to everyone who shared their knowledge with me for this book, even though the changes I made to the manuscript meant that some details were no longer needed. Particular thanks to Danielle Feasby, Colin Issitt, Claire Daniel, Anita Faul, and Sam Foord for being so generous with your expertise.

  A special mention to the Mrs H. crew—Suzanne Harrison, Helen Richards, Susannah Jennings, Helen Harrison, Sylvie Martin, Val Watson, and Claire Thorne—who keep me sane on a near-daily basis.

  And thank you to all my family, especially Brian, Will, Ed, and Arthur, for your unconditional support, as ever.

  If you’d like to read about one family’s mission to set up a small nature reserve in the East Anglian Fens, please take a look at the Facebook page for Madeleine’s Patch: facebook.com/madeleinespatch.

  Behind the Book

  When I graduated from vet school back in 1997, I began working for a friendly veterinary practice in Huntingdon, in the east of England. It wasn’t long before they sent me to cover a shift at their smallest branch surgery, which they described as being “out in the Fens,” in a little town called Ramsey. The vet nurses had already discovered from accompanying me on home visits that I had no sense of direction, so they sketched me a map on the back of a lab-results fax and assured me the route was quite straightforward. I flung my stethoscope and drugs formulary onto the passenger seat of my battered old Volvo, and off I set.

  I soon found myself in distinctively wide-open countryside. Long straight roads. Flat fields of crops stretching to a featureless horizon. A huge dome of washed-out blue above. And on all sides—in ditches, in reed-lined channels, in silvery sheets on the fields themse
lves—the glint of water.

  I got lost, of course. In my defense, there aren’t many obvious landmarks when you’re a newcomer driving between endlessly similar fields. In any case, I’m perfectly used to being lost, so it didn’t trouble me; instead it gave me a chance to appreciate the striking sense of space and solitude offered by the rural Fens. I paused at signposted junctions and studied village names that hinted at a preoccupation with the contours of the land: Ramsey Heights, Ramsey Hollow, Ramsey Mereside, Ramsey Forty Foot (which I later learned took its name from the Forty Foot Drain).

  In the end, by approaching Ramsey from the “wrong” direction, I found myself driving in on the very road I was aiming for, which bore the rather intriguing name “Great Whyte.” Even with my new-graduate brain distracted by the imminent prospect of meeting new colleagues and clients, I was surprised by just how wide the Great Whyte was—a remarkably broad street in this otherwise small and unassuming market town—twice as wide as the roads I was used to back in Huntingdon and Cambridge.

  And I was startled when I discovered what lay beneath the Great Whyte. But to explain that, it helps to know a little of the history of the Fens.

  The term the Fens is used to indicate a low-lying region of around fifteen hundred square miles in the east of England, encompassing parts of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, with its easternmost boundary along the coast. Once covered by ancient forest, it was reduced to peat bogs and marshland when the sea began to encroach upon it, and for a long time these wetlands were deemed uninhabitable by all but the hardiest of folk. Those tough few inhabitants built their homes on scattered “islands” of slightly raised ground and traveled in boats through shifting marsh channels and across lakes, which they called “meres.” They lived primarily off the abundant fish and waterfowl—pike and eel, crane and heron, bittern and egret, and many more.

  Then came a profound discovery: that the peat-rich earth lying just beneath the shallow waters was impressively fertile. And so began a series of attempts to drain the Fens.