The Tormented

by Sarah Sheridan

  ‘You utter bitch,’ she said quietly. With one swift movement she threw the contents of her steaming mug of hot chocolate into Cecily’s face, then turned and walked out of the room.

  27

  ‘Did you know about this, Daddy?’ Araminta rushed over to give him a hug, ignoring her mother’s anguished screams. The drink had still been very hot, Sister Veronica thought. No doubt Cecily’s face was scalded. Not that anyone particularly cared. Although she did really, she couldn’t pretend otherwise – dash her compassionate disposition. She would go and tend to Cecily later, make sure she wasn’t actually burnt. Lucie let out a string of expletives in her mother’s direction, and went to join her sister.

  ‘Oh yes, darling, I’ve known for years.’ Barnaby patted Araminta’s back, not looking at his wife. ‘Giles did me a favour, in fact. Took your mother off my hands for a good while. She’s always been such hard work, always so demanding, never satisfied with her life. When she and him were at it I actually got some peace. You don’t need to feel sorry for me.’

  Sister Veronica shook her head and stood up. Just when she thought no other dramas could possibly occur that evening. She placed her mug down on the coffee table and went in search of her cousin.

  Florence turned out to be slumped over the kitchen counter.

  ‘I’m so stupid, V,’ she whispered, when Sister Veronica put her arm round her. ‘Now I think about it, it all makes sense. There were so many little things that perhaps I chose to ignore. Like Giles offering to drive Cecily home when she’d been to stay. He never did that with anyone else. Maybe I’ve subconsciously known all the time, but just ignored it.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Sister Veronica said with a sigh. ‘But it doesn’t change the good times you and Giles had together. Always remember that. It seems he was just a weak man in one respect.’

  ‘He was a weak man in many ways, V,’ Florence said. ‘But my way of dealing with my lot in life was to think highly of him. It was a choice I made. Either be unhappy, and constantly be irritated and frustrated with his shortcomings, or live in blind and blissful ignorance.’

  ‘And that was an understandable coping mechanism.’ Sister Veronica rubbed her cousin’s back. ‘But you don’t need to do that anymore, Flo. You have a chance to concentrate on yourself now. When all this awful stress and horror that’s going on at the moment has finally finished, you can take time to do the things that make you happy, without worrying about anyone else for a while.’

  ‘I’ve just had a thought, V,’ Florence said, standing up straight. ‘Cecily said that the relationship between her and Giles finished four years ago, didn’t she? That he was the one who ended it?’

  Sister Veronica nodded.

  ‘Well, what if she was bitter about it being over?’ Florence said. ‘She’s an incredibly bitter woman at the best of times, always hinting that she would do better at running Chalfield Hall than me. Oh yes, I notice all her little comments, I’ve just been choosing to ignore most of them. What if she was hoping Giles would chuck me out, so she could move in and take my place? Maybe it was her who poisoned Giles as revenge?’ Her hands went to her mouth, as the awfulness of this motive and scenario hit her.

  ‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions, Flo,’ Sister Veronica said, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘If I’m honest with you, I’ve noticed that several people may have had problems with Giles. Not just Cecily. We have to be very careful before we go around accusing anyone to their face.’

  ‘Several people?’ Florence said. ‘Like who?’

  Sister Veronica explained about the argument she’d overheard between Giles and Rufus the night of his death. How they’d come out to talk just after dinner, and she’d overheard them from her place in the hall. She admitted she’d also listened to Cecily’s remarks about Giles and Florence being house-hoggers, and had wondered about her apparent obsession with Chalfield Hall – all explained since her admission about her affair with Giles. She described what Romilly had said to her about Magnus being signed off with stress after working for his father, about Romilly’s brother Steven being fired by Giles for apparently being too late for work in the mornings, and what Wilfred had said about overhearing his mother, father and uncle talking about going to a lawyer with the hope of bringing some sort of charges against him. Florence listened, open-mouthed.

  ‘Why are you only telling me all this now, V?’ she said, her eyes wide.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get things straight in my own mind, Flo,’ Sister Veronica said, her brow crinkling. ‘And you’ve had enough to deal with. Your husband has just died – probably murdered. I didn’t want to add to your worries until I had thought things through and maybe discovered a little more.’ No point telling Flo I had to consider whether she herself had a hand in Giles’ death, she thought. No, that wouldn’t be helpful to anyone at this stage, and would probably drive a terrible wedge between us.

  Florence nodded, seeming to accept this is a viable explanation.

  ‘Mrs Hardman said something strange to me earlier, actually,’ Florence said, looking thoughtful. ‘You just reminded me about it, when you said about Giles upsetting people. I forgot about it, what with all that happened with Digby…’

  ‘What was it?’ Sister Veronica said.

  ‘Well,’ Florence said. ‘It was when you were upstairs checking the rooms, and I’d come downstairs to do the same. I didn’t really want to talk to Mrs Hardman, but she was insistent, and there was a look in her eyes that made me stop and listen. She said that a week or two before you all arrived here for Christmas, she went to the study to clean it, and found Giles there, staring at some sort of online banking page. She said he was tearing at his hair, and making some sort of awful groaning sound, that he was obviously upset about something. As he hadn’t realised she was there, Mrs Hardman said she decided to tiptoe away, wanting to mind her own business, and hadn’t thought anything more about it. That’s until he died, that is.’

  ‘I see.’ Sister Veronica straightened up. ‘Gosh, that puts an interesting new slant on things, Flo. I mean, if there was something terribly wrong in Giles’ business, let’s say, would he have been stressed enough to take his own life? Poison himself? We’ve been thinking there’s a murderer among us all this time – not including Ophelia – but what if Giles did it to himself?’

  Florence shook her head.

  ‘I just can’t see him doing that, V,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I’m being delusional or anything, not wanting him to have committed suicide. If I genuinely thought he had it in him to do it, I’d say so. But my husband was almost stubbornly alive, if you know what I mean. He had such a drive and will to live, it shone out of him. Admittedly, I’ve recently found out that his idea of ‘living’ was much more immoral than mine, but even so. And he very rarely took responsibility for anything. He couldn’t, he had a pathological need to blame others if things went wrong. If something awful had happened at work, I think he would have blamed someone else, not himself, for whatever it was.’

  Sister Veronica nodded.

  ‘I think you might be right,’ she said. ‘Did he ever give you any impression that something was wrong? That he might be worrying about money or anything else?’

  ‘No,’ Florence said. ‘Never. In fact, he kept saying business was booming, that the profits from Beresford’s Breaded Wonders were flowing in. I really never had any reason to suspect this wasn’t true, what with Giles telling me to pick out a new kitchen, and new colours for the dining room. He acted as though his business was raking profits in, and he was being extremely free with his money. Always was, in fact. Looking back, now that I know what I do, maybe there were some signs I should have picked up on. Or perhaps I should have shown a greater interest in his work, and checked the books sometimes. But I’d never been involved in it like that before, do you know what I mean? Beresford’s Breaded Wonders was always his territory.’

  ‘I think,’ Sister Veronica said, ‘that we need to have a look at his bank accounts, Flo
. If Mrs Hardman specifically mentioned an online banking page, then that’s where we need to look next. We are very likely to discover things from that, by the sounds of it, that may be painful for you to know but necessary to absorb in order to understand what on earth is going on in this house. Do you know his password for his laptop?’

  ‘Not officially,’ Florence said, standing up. ‘But I have a good idea what it might be. Come with me.’

  28

  ‘Ah there you are, Auntie Florence.’ Lucie was coming down the corridor as they exited the kitchen. She gave a big, almost forced smile. ‘I, um, don’t suppose you have a minute for a quick chat? I know it’s been an awful day, and I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t urgent, but there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but I’m afraid that whatever it is going to have to wait.’ Florence gave her niece’s shoulder a quick pat as she circumnavigated her. ‘Something’s come up that’s critically important, and V and I are going to have to shut ourselves in the study for a while. We’ll make time to talk tomorrow, Lucie, if we don’t get a chance tonight, I promise.’ Sister Veronica watched Lucie’s face drop into a mask of worry and disappointment. What can the girl want to talk to Flo about that’s so important? she wondered. Well, it will unfortunately have to be put on hold for a little bit longer, whatever it is.

  Minutes later, she was shutting the study door, as Florence settled herself in the comfortable, leather-bound swivel chair in front of Giles’ still open laptop. It smelt of Giles in the room, Sister Veronica noticed. Perhaps it was a lingering smell of aftershave, or the amount of expensive leather products in there – she always associated a leathery smell with him for some reason. He was definitely around, an imprint of him still present at Chalfield Hall. She wondered if her cousin had noticed. Florence wasn’t showing any signs of being upset by it, if indeed she had noticed. Perhaps finding out about Cecily and her husband’s affair had changed her feelings for him. Sister Veronica watched as her cousin plugged in the charging lead, and waited for the machine to whir into life.

  While she was waiting for Flo to get the whole thing up and running, she busied herself looking at the family photos arrayed all over the wall. There were plenty of Florence, Giles and Magnus, some of Wilfred and Coco as young tots, and a couple when they were older. Only one of Cecily and Barnaby looking very stiff and regal, and a couple of Lucie and Araminta that must have been taken when they were teenagers. Ah, she thought. There’s good old Tarquin, Florence’s youngest brother, and his wife Marina. Such a shame that awful cancer got hold of him so quickly a few years ago. Marina, she suspected, had died of a broken heart very soon afterwards. It happened sometimes – in her experience – when two people were very close; they sometimes departed the earth almost at the same time, but for very different reasons, almost as though their life purposes had been intertwined, and would be in heaven as on earth. Poor Ophelia, she thought, losing both her parents in such a short space of time. That must have been hard. She stopped, a photo of a young, serious girl catching her eye.

  ‘Is that Ophelia?’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Florence said, turning round. ‘Oh yes, it is. She must have been about seven in that one. Such a solemn child. I always worried about her, wondered if she was a bit bored growing up in that big house with just Tarquin and Marina for company. They were so pleased when they adopted her, I remember. They were older then, had been trying for a child for years but with no luck. It was affecting them both quite badly, getting them down. Then suddenly, one day, Marina phoned me to say they’d been given the chance to have a beautiful baby girl come to live with them. It must have been through an adoption agency or something, they never said, but it must have been, mustn’t it? And I never knew who Ophelia’s parents were, they never told me and I never asked. They were private people, weren’t they, who liked to keep themselves to themselves?’

  Sister Veronica nodded.

  ‘Anyway.’ Florence turned back round to face the screen. ‘They loved Ophelia very much in their own way, and always did the best for her that they could. I just worried a bit that they were sort of old-fashioned, not really the huggy types, if you know what I mean? A bit stuffy. Tarquin was never like that as a boy, he changed when he hit thirty, became all serious and conservative for some reason. It would have been wonderful if Ophelia had had a brother or a sister to run around with, but, of course, that was never possible. She was always an only child.’

  ‘Quite,’ Sister Veronica agreed, looking at the girl in the photo’s deep-set eyes. ‘I hardly want to mention it, but it seems more than a coincidence that Digby fell over the railing and died shortly after Ophelia went upstairs. I don’t think any of us will blame her if she did do it, the man was evil, an abuser who used her mistake to keep her in a life of constant punishment and misery. But still, the police will conduct their investigations. I do hope they go easy on her. It’s so strange, with her looking increasingly radiant since his death, but knowing she may well have pushed him. I hardly know what to say to her anymore. But we all saw how he treated her, and we’ll all speak up if need be.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Florence said, a firmness in her voice. ‘It was a hideous thing that happened, I mean a death like that is tragic and awful, whoever the person is. But I noticed how much calmer she seems already, this evening, and like you said – almost radiant. She’s been set free, and I’ll protect her from any comeuppance with every bone in my body. The poor girl has been through enough. She and Sam both deserve to have a shot at a new life now.’

  ‘Hear hear,’ Sister Veronica said, her eyes going to the laptop as movement on the screen caught her attention. She watched, as a page appeared, asking for the username and password to be entered.

  ‘Giles was a fantastic businessman,’ Florence said. ‘Well, at least I thought he was – turns out the truth is a bit different. One thing he definitely wasn’t, though, was a technological whiz. I’ve heard him talking on the phone several times over the last few years, setting up different accounts for one thing and another. When it came time for whoever it was to ask him for a password, he always gave the same answer.’

  ‘And what was it?’ Sister Veronica said.

  ‘He always spelt out 28th April 1901,’ Florence said. ‘It was his mother’s date of birth.’

  She leant forward and tapped Giles’ email address into the username box, and his mother’s date of birth into the one that said password. Giles’ home screen immediately whooshed into life, sporting a colourful array of app icons.

  Sister Veronica bent down to have a good look at them.

  ‘Gracious, there are a lot of them,’ she said. ‘Is one of these connected with his bank?’

  ‘Probably.’ Florence scanned the screen. ‘I have access to our joint account, so we don’t need to look at that one. I know how much is in there, I check it fairly regularly. As far as I know, in terms of other accounts, Giles just had a business bank one with Royal Swan. Ah, look, there we go.’ She clicked on an image of a black-and-white swan and a few seconds later a banking page appeared in front of them. They both stared at it, trying to take in and make sense of the lists of numbers in front of them.

  ‘But, this can’t be right, V?’ Florence said, swivelling round to face her, her eyes wide. ‘I’m probably not reading it correctly, but to me it seems as though this is saying Giles’ business account has no money in it at all. In fact, it seems to be saying that Beresford’s Breaded Wonders is overdrawn by nearly a million pounds.’

  29

  Both women were too engrossed in the catastrophic information in front of them to notice soft footsteps padding away from the study door.

  Lucie, her mind racing and tears falling from her eyes, made her way blindly up to the bedroom she’d been sharing with Neil. She grabbed her phone and called him. He answered straight away.

  ‘Hi, Luce, sorry I was just about to text you. We’ve just arrived home,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Ne
il.’ Big sobs full of defeat overtook her. ‘You were right, I should have just come back with you and the boys.’

  ‘Why?’ Neil said, his voice suddenly concerned. ‘Are you all right, Luce? What’s happened?’

  ‘Auntie Florence doesn’t have any money,’ Lucie said through her tears. ‘She can’t lend me any. I’m going to have to resign from my PhD.’

  ‘How do you know, have you just been talking to her?’ Neil said.

  ‘I overheard her and Sister Veronica chatting. Auntie Florence was saying that there’s absolutely no money in Giles’ business anymore. In fact, it’s in debt for nearly a million pounds.’ Lucie was finding it hard to get the words out.

  ‘What?’ Neil’s tone was shocked. ‘But how can that be? Giles was always boasting about how well he was doing.’ He sighed. ‘Look, Luce, just come home and we can talk about everything. We’ll work something out.’

  ‘I really thought I’d be able to finish my studies, Neil.’ Lucie’s voice was rising. ‘I so wanted to make a difference in the world and do something that mattered, something I could use to help women and men who’ve been abused. But now I’m going to have to go back to doing a meaningless job that doesn’t help anyone.’

  ‘It helps us, Lucie,’ Neil said slowly. ‘If you can work and bring some money in each month, it will help Nathan and Ryan continue at rugby, and me and you pay the bills. Do you see that?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do,’ Lucie said, her tone changing from distraught to angry. ‘I was just trying to combine getting an even better job in the future with something I feel passionately about. I actually thought that would set a good example to the boys, teach them that they can do anything in life if they set their minds to it, do something they really care about. But it doesn’t matter anymore, Neil. I’ll come home first thing tomorrow and I’ll phone the university after Christmas and resign. I’ll get a stupid mind-numbing job just to bring some money in, and try and forget about the dream qualification I nearly gained. There. Happy now?’