The Silence Before Thunder

by Kathy Shuker

  ‘I’m putting Sidney’s smell around so it feels like home. The rescue staff recommend it. You rub the cloth over his coat first.’

  ‘Well, when you’ve finished desecrating Eleanor’s house, you’ll find your meal in the kitchen. I assumed you’d use the same bedroom as when you used to come here.’ There was just the faintest hint of emphasis on the ‘used to come’ and he paused, allowing the negative tone to hang in the air. ‘I’ll put your case there.’

  He left and she heard him climbing the stairs.

  Jo picked up the carrier and took it to the conservatory where she put it down and opened the door. Sidney hesitated and slowly emerged. He stretched, then stalked deliberately around the room before sniffing at the litter tray and relieving himself in it.

  It was a start. She put down food and water for him and left him washing himself while she went in search of her salad. Charlotte, Eleanor’s housekeeper, was a force to be reckoned with; it was wise not to offend her.

  *

  Jo sat on the plastic chair by the side of her aunt’s bed, holding Eleanor’s limp fingers. The ventilator made a rhythmic click and pumping sound and the cardiac monitor beeped with comforting regularity. Even so, the place was intimidating. The Intensive Therapy Unit felt like an operating theatre with beds: it was alien and sterile and inhuman. The smell of antiseptic hung in the air. Eleanor’s head had been shaved and a soft dressing had been taped over her craniotomy. She looked achingly exposed and vulnerable, her usually animated body flaccid and, but for the profuse cuts and bruises that were visible, frighteningly pale. The ventilator was attached to a thick tube which had been put down her throat and other wires and tubes dangled from her body like so many marionette strings. Jo struggled to keep looking but couldn’t bear not to keep watching her aunt’s face, just in case she opened her eyes, just in case anything happened. Anything at all.

  The surgeons had done the craniotomy to relieve the pressure on her brain, she had been told. The fall from the terrace had fractured a couple of her ribs and caused massive bruising. It had also fractured her skull and caused some bleeding and swelling on the brain.

  ‘Will she recover?’ Jo had asked, aware that she simply craved reassurance, certain they would tell her nothing.

  ‘I’m afraid it really is too soon to say what the prognosis is. We won’t know for a while. We’ll take her off the ventilator as soon as she can breathe for herself.’ There had been an unvoiced ‘if’ in the surgeon’s explanation and a second’s hesitation before he’d added, gently, ‘You do need to be prepared for the worst, I’m afraid. Her condition could still go either way.’

  ‘Do you think she’s ill? Is that why she fell?’

  ‘We’re running tests and we’ll do more. It’s early days.’

  Jo sat and watched and waited. Her eyes stung from staring, first at the road to get here, now at Eleanor’s pallid face. From unshed tears too.

  Click, sigh.

  ‘Who suggested she might have jumped?’ she had asked Lawrence before leaving.

  ‘The police - from their preliminary enquiries, they said.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘So you said, but I suppose they must have their reasons. They said there was no sign of an intruder or a burglary gone wrong. Nothing appeared to have been taken. They want to interview you too. I told them you were arriving today and gave them your number.’

  An interview. What could she tell them? She knew nothing about it. And she didn’t want Eleanor to be ill, but better that, surely, than that she had tried to kill herself. If she was ill, maybe it could be treated, maybe… There were too many maybes.

  Click, sigh.

  Jo’s eyes stayed fixed on Eleanor’s face. It was hard to see the person she knew under all these tubes and wires but she seemed to have aged since their last meeting. Guilt gnawed at her. She should have been there, in her aunt’s life. The phone call from the Friday night kept circulating in her mind. Eleanor hadn’t sounded herself. Was that from illness or because of something else, something that was bothering her?

  ‘You should have told me,’ she leaned forward and hissed to Eleanor’s blank face. ‘This is me, remember? Jo. I mean I know I’ve let you down lately, but why didn’t you tell me, Eleanor?’

  Alerted by her manner, a nurse came and stood nearby, glancing over the bed and her patient, incorporating Jo in her cool assessment. Jo straightened up, silent again. Apparently satisfied, the nurse moved away.

  Click, sigh.

  The lead weight of guilt swelled and grew a little more. She wasn’t likely to tell you, said the voice in her head. You hadn’t bothered with her for ages. You can’t claim back the relationship you used to have with her, just because of one phone call.

  ‘You should go home and get some rest.’

  Jo jumped. The ward sister had come to stand just behind her.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m fine,’ said Jo.

  ‘Your aunt’s stable. And we need to see to her anyway. I understand you’ve had a long day. You can wait outside if you want but if you give me your number, I’ll make sure the night staff let you know if there’s any change. You’re staying at your aunt’s house aren’t you?’ She began to move away. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. A police officer’s just arrived to see you. She said she’d wait outside.’

  ‘Right. Thanks.’

  She had been given permission to escape and was shamefully relieved. She made for the exit to the corridor.

  The officer - a tall woman with a quick smile - drew a notebook out of her pocket as soon as Jo introduced herself. After a polite expression of sympathy, she got straight to the point.

  ‘Miss Lambe, when did you last speak to your aunt?’

  ‘Last night…on the phone. I rang her.’

  ‘Did you ring for any particular reason?’

  ‘No-o. Yes. I hadn’t been in touch for a while so I wanted to, you know, catch up.’ A half-truth.

  The officer nodded, scribbling in her notebook. ‘How did she sound, your aunt?’ She looked up. ‘I mean, was she her usual self or was she agitated in any way?’

  ‘She was…’ What was she? Jo was an editor so she lived and breathed words. It felt important to choose the right one so there could be no misunderstanding and ‘agitated’ didn’t fit the bill. ‘…I’d say she was preoccupied. She said she had a lot on her mind. The workshops, I imagine.’

  ‘She didn’t mention anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We understand that someone she used to be in a relationship with has recently become engaged to someone else. Do you think that would have troubled her?’

  Jo frowned yet half smiled at the absurdity of it. ‘You don’t mean Frank?’

  The officer flicked back through her notepad. ‘Yes, Frank Marwell.’ She fixed her penetrating gaze back on Jo. ‘That surprises you?’

  Jo paused, the smile gone, taking a second to gather her thoughts, keeping her expression as neutral as possible. She hadn’t heard about this engagement. Soon after her last visit to Devon, Eleanor had told her in a phone conversation that she and Frank were ‘having a rest’. The euphemism had been used a couple of times before and Jo had given it little thought. Their relationship had always been stormy. But then, after a succession of ever more sporadic emails and calls when Frank hadn’t been mentioned again, she and Eleanor had had that row and lost touch completely. Clearly the ‘rest’ had been permanent this time. That was hard to take on board.

  ‘It’s a while since Eleanor and Frank Marwell were a couple,’ she told the officer. ‘Apart from the workshops, I don’t think they see much of each other.’

  ‘And her work? Someone suggested that she was having problems with her current book. Did she mention it?’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Did she mention it?’

  ‘Not specifically, I don’t think.’ Jo tried to remember what Eleanor had said exactly but, put on the spot, couldn’t
recall. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Did she suffer from depression?’

  ‘No.’ Jo almost laughed at the suggestion.

  ‘She had consumed a lot of alcohol.’

  ‘So it could have been an accident?’

  ‘It’s one possibility.’

  ‘She’s not the sort of person to let things get her down. You don’t know her. She’s not like that.’

  A non-committal nod. ‘No, well we haven’t found any evidence to suggest that anyone else was involved.’

  The police officer finished writing notes, thanked Jo and left. A couple of minutes later, Jo followed her out and drove away.

  Back at the house, Sidney gave her a rapturous greeting, curling round her and purring loudly. She picked him up, rubbing his head.

  ‘That’s a nice welcome, Sidney. You’re not so bad, are you?’

  She became aware of the presence of Lawrence at the end of the hallway. His annexe was accessed through an enclosed passage from a door near the kitchen. She wondered if it was possible to lock that door from this side. She wondered if she dared.

  ‘How is Eleanor?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s just the same. There’s no change. She doesn’t seem to be conscious of anything.’

  He nodded. ‘They won’t let me see her yet,’ he said coolly. ‘Only family at the moment.’

  ‘Oh.’ She felt a rare pang of sympathy for him. ‘I’m sorry. But she doesn’t know anyone’s there anyway.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Someone has to be here to keep everything running.’

  He was about to turn away.

  ‘Lawrence? I hadn’t heard that Frank had got engaged to someone else. Who is it?’

  He paused and held her gaze in that way he had, stonily, rarely blinking, like a lizard.

  ‘Louisa Dunnell. She’s one of the tutors here. Ran her first course last year.’

  ‘Is that when they met?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’

  She frowned. ‘Lawrence, was it you who told the police that Eleanor was having problems with her current book?’

  ‘They were asking questions about any issues that were troubling her.’

  ‘I see. And was she?’

  ‘You think I tell lies?’

  ‘I find it hard to imagine Eleanor being so distraught over her writing that she’d walk off the side of a cliff.’

  ‘That, of course, is an entirely different question.’ He wished her a brief ‘goodnight’, already walking away, and disappeared back to his own quarters.

  He hadn’t answered her. But Lawrence had always been a man of few words. She had once complained about it to Eleanor and her aunt had laughed.

  ‘There’s the pot calling the kettle black,’ she’d said.

  Jo made herself a mug of tea and went upstairs to her old room, Sidney close at her heels. The house was silent and empty and she sat on the bed, stroking Sidney, keeping him close. Tiredness and pent up emotion finally got the better of her and the tears flowed, dripping onto the cat’s fur faster than she could wipe them away. Drained and exhausted, she fell asleep in the end with the cat on the bed beside her, haunted by dreams of Eleanor in her hospital bed and the constant click, sigh of the ventilator.

  Chapter 3

  A road ran alongside the public beach at Petterton Mill Cove, a low stone wall and a narrow pavement separating it from the sandy shore. On the other side of the road stood a convenience store and a coffee shop called Millie’s. The café was double-fronted, bright and cheery and had tables outside in the summer, looking out to the bay. Matthew Croft had bought the café the previous autumn. Millie had been the wife of the previous owner who had kept her name over the door even after her death, unwilling to separate her from the place which had been such a big part of her life. Matthew hadn’t changed the name either, though he had no particular reason for not doing so; he simply hadn’t bothered.

  On the Sunday morning only a handful of tables were occupied, one of them on the pavement outside. Matthew was wiping the nozzles down on the espresso machine when he heard the door open and turned to see a couple approaching the counter. The man was wiry with a stubbled chin and a slightly curling thatch of white-grey hair. The woman looked younger; she was pretty and curvaceous with an open, smiley face and a toss of blonde hair. She walked with a short, bustling step.

  ‘I thought he was never going to let us leave,’ she was saying to her companion in the kind of voice that carried. ‘All those questions, Frank. I’ve never been interviewed by the police before. What was he trying to get at? I mean, why would any of us know anything about it?’

  ‘He was just doing his job,’ the man replied calmly. ‘Don’t fret over it. It’s done with now.’

  They reached the counter and paused, looking up at the list of available drinks written on the board on the wall. Matthew picked up the biro next to the pad by the till.

  ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘What can I get you?’

  The woman smiled and made eye contact. ‘A cappuccino.’

  ‘Regular or large?’ Matthew pointed to the cups behind him.

  ‘Definitely large.’ The smile broadened. ‘With lots of chocolate on the top.’

  ‘I’ll have a filter, please,’ said the man. ‘Large.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you new here?’

  Matthew’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Fairly. Does it show?’

  The man grinned. ‘I’m used to Gareth, that’s all. He always used to be here.’

  ‘He retired last year. I took the place over in the winter. I’m Matthew.’

  ‘Frank. This is my fiancée, Louisa. Anyway, best of luck with it. It gets a bit crazy here in the season.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’ Matthew heard the back door bang followed by voices in the kitchen. He listened for a second then forced himself to concentrate. ‘Do you want milk with your filter?’

  ‘Please. Cold.’

  ‘Anything to eat?’

  Louisa shook her head. ‘No thanks.’ She squeezed a smile sideways at Frank. ‘Do we darling? Though after that ordeal, maybe I do need something. Yes, I’ll have one of those caramel slices.’

  Matthew wrote it down.

  ‘We’re staying up at Skymeet,’ Louisa added. ‘Frank’s a poet and I write romance novels.’ She paused as if expecting a response but Matthew didn’t give one. ‘We’re going to be running the writing workshops…’ She glanced across at her companion. ‘…or we were. But who knows now?’ She looked enquiringly at Matthew. ‘I suppose you’ve heard about the accident?’

  ‘No-o. What accident?’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s common knowledge yet, darling,’ Frank said quickly.

  ‘No, but we weren’t told not to say anything and it’s bound to come out.’

  She turned back to Matthew who hesitated, unsure if he should back off from this conversation or not. He still wasn’t good at the sort of easy-going chat expected by most of his customers. In any case, he got the impression that this woman wasn’t interested in conversation so much as simply having an audience. To prove the point, she paused and glanced round the room; there were only six people there.

  ‘Do you know the writer who lives up at Skymeet?’ she asked. ‘Eleanor Lambe? She’s had a fall. She’s very poorly.’

  Matthew did know Eleanor Lambe, the novelist who lived up on the headland. She had been into the shop for coffee and had made a point of consulting him about a couple of matters. He had seen her at meetings in the village hall too. She was approachable, not at all stand-offish, and direct to a fault. In his experience, too many people said one thing, smiling, while meaning something else completely. He rather liked her.

  ‘What sort of fall?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, awful. She went over the cliff. The police have been asking all sorts of questions and the press are hanging around too. We decided to escape.’ She glanced round the room again. ‘I’m glad they haven’t got here yet. Well, you know what they’re like,
’ she protested to Frank as if he had disagreed with her.

  The couple settled at a table near the window and Matthew prepared their drinks, took a caramel slice from the glazed cabinet and carried the order over on a tray. Returning to the counter, he walked straight through into the kitchen. Gail was there, making sandwiches for lunch-time. He had inherited Gail with the shop and she was worth her weight in gold. All the courses in the world couldn’t prepare you for what it was really like to run a place like this. Gail, late twenties, calm, matter-of-fact and more experienced than her age suggested, had stopped him from making a lot of mistakes already. But it wasn’t Gail he had come to see. His son, Harry, had come in through the back door from the yard. He was wearing sloppy jeans and a sweatshirt and a baseball cap with the peak at the back and Gail had just handed him a plate of hot buttered toast.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you make toast at home?’ Matthew demanded, his voice pitched low enough to avoid it carrying into the shop. ‘We’ve got bread. Gail has better things to do than make your breakfast. I assume you’ve only just got up?’

  ‘It’s no problem,’ Gail said quickly. ‘I’ve nearly finished the sandwiches.’

  Matthew glared at his son but let it drop, reluctant to involve the girl. He turned back into the shop and began aggressively wiping down the nozzles on the machines again and emptying out the coffee grounds into the plastic bin beneath. He watched Gail take the tray of sandwiches out to the chiller cabinet and start to unload them just as two young women got up from their table and left.

  He returned to the kitchen. Harry was leaning against the units, shovelling the last piece of toast into his mouth.

  ‘I thought we agreed you were going to work weekends to earn some money?’ Matthew said tersely. ‘You get through enough of the stuff. That was the bargain we made when we came here.’

  ‘It was your idea to come here,’ Harry said sullenly. ‘I didn’t ask to come.’ He turned to put the empty plate down on the side. ‘Anyway, I’ve arranged to go out today.’