‘You think it’s Joe,’ Duncan said.
It was a statement, not a question.
Martin gave a sigh. ‘What I’m telling you now, you understand, Duncan, is unconfirmed. But all the indications are that it probably is; and the clothing fits the description you gave us at the time. But it’s been more than six, seven weeks and nature has taken its course, so … This all needs to be verified.’
Duncan was a vet; he knew what happened after death.
‘Duncan …’ Martin leaned forwards, frustrated that he couldn’t sit alongside his friend and put an arm around his shoulder. ‘I … I don’t know what to say. Except to say how very sorry I am. We all are. I wish this was different. No parent ever wishes to hear these words.’
‘Thank you.’ Duncan shifted on his seat. His face was impenetrable. ‘I just don’t understand how … Why has it taken so long to find him? That’s not a criticism, you understand. I just need to get it in my head.’
Martin nodded.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘The body was lodged in the mud along the shore. But we don’t think it was there long, or it would have been found earlier. We’ve been using sonar, as you know, to sweep the whole reservoir, but nothing turned up. Then the flooding happened, along the far bank. One of the engineers suggested diverting water through the old works tunnels and our theory – it’s only a theory at the moment – is that’s where he was, stuck in one of the tunnels behind a wall of concrete, until the water washed him out. I don’t know how he got in the tunnels in the first place. Maybe he got dragged down into the main spillway. We’ll find out more over the next few days.’
Martin looked as if he thought he’d said enough. Duncan dropped his gaze, once again distracted by his thoughts.
‘There’s something I need to ask you, Duncan.’
Martin looked reluctant to speak further.
‘What?’
‘Do you know a Ray Turner?’
‘Never heard of him. Why?’
‘Not sure yet, but I’ve been told he’s been seen hanging around your property. He has a reputation shall we say, for taking more of an interest in archaeological sites than he should. It’s probably nothing, but do me a favour – if you see him, give us a bell?’
‘Okay.’ Duncan nodded. He wasn’t listening.
‘We’ll leave you now, but as soon as I have any further news for you, I will of course let you know.
‘Thank you,’ said Duncan and he stood up.
Martin and the policewoman stood too.
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she said, holding out her hand.
Duncan acknowledged her words, feeling the warmth of her grip against his but not responding. They left.
Duncan returned to the sitting room, moving to the window that faced the shore. Outside, the bottom of the hillside was a hive of activity. He’d known this was going to happen, sooner or later. But he still felt numb, a void where there should have been something else. What – grief, pain, relief?
Denial? Or guilt.
CHAPTER 56
CLAIRE – BEFORE
I watch Duncan leave the house. I can’t go with him. All my nerves are screaming at me to go with him, but I can’t. Of all the things that I have had to do to protect my son, this is the one thing I can’t face. Besides, I tell myself, what if I’ve got this all wrong and he’s not gone into the tunnels and he turns up at home again? I need to be here, that’s what I tell myself. Duncan agreed. He didn’t want me to go with him.
Coward, Claire.
Duncan has gone, the car grinding slowly over the gravel.
It’s like Groundhog Day. As if it’s just another day with Duncan at work and me at home and Joe out metal detecting. Except it’s not. I clear the kitchen and faff about in the house. Another plate slips between my hands and goes crashing to the floor. Two broken plates in one week. I look at it with tears in my eyes, but I can’t cry because there are no tears left to cry. I gather up the bits and hoover the floor and keep looking at the phone, hoping Duncan will ring. Even, praise be, Joe. I try both of their phones again, but there’s no answer.
Arthur butts against my knee, slowly wagging his tail. He wants a walk.
‘No,’ I say.
He looks at me in a puzzled, hurt sort of way. I reach down and give him a brief hug then push him away. I haven’t got the patience to be nice to him, not today. I ignore his soft moans, the whining and then the determined thumping of his tail.
‘No, Arthur,’ I say again, too loud, too forceful. And then, more kindly, ‘We can’t go out, I’m sorry, mate. Maybe later, hmm?’
Arthur looks at me like he’s very disappointed. In that headteacher, ‘we don’t like it when you make bad choices’ kind of way. He goes back to his bed, spiralling around restlessly until he finds the exact preferred spot and lowers himself onto the cushion with his head and body facing away from me. Very eloquent.
Outside, it snows. It stopped for a while and then set up again. Not very seriously at first, like a child playing with bubbles. But as the time wears on, the snowflakes have got bigger and fatter, wetter, until they stick to the glass window and thick snow accumulates on the ground outside. When I was little, I used to tell Joe it was the snow monster, snuggling her young. He’d look back at me with his big round eyes, waiting for the story.
‘She has to find somewhere to rest, to lay her great body down and give her little ones a drink. Sometimes, she’s so tired, she can’t move for days. But she never means any harm. Eventually she goes, taking her babies with her.’
Babies – I couldn’t say that word very well. Joe is my only child – there was no way Duncan had ever intended to let me have another. I was the monster here, crushing the love from those around me. Wasn’t that what Duncan meant? I’d brought this all on myself, by loving Joe too much and not loving Duncan enough, by carrying my – no, our – guilt too long. There’s a pain in my stomach, as if my innards are twisting round and around … I need Joe to come back, to not know what’s in those tunnels. I need to leave Duncan because I can’t do this anymore.
‘See?’ I say. ‘It’s not a great day for a walk, is it, Arthur?’
He doesn’t even prick up one ear.
I distract myself with packing Joe’s stuff. I’ve given up on the plan I had to let Joe do it for himself. I don’t even care if Duncan comes back and sees me. The weather is agitating me further. We could get snowed in; it wouldn’t be the first time. We could get trapped. When he gets back, I could lose vital hours waiting for Joe to get his stuff together. I’m not staying here another night. As soon as Duncan returns with Joe, we’re gone. So I do the packing for Joe, after all. To distract me.
I lug suitcases and boxes down from the space over the garage, filling them with Joe’s clothes and books and equipment, even his laptop; he’d be lost without his laptop. Arthur eventually trots up the stairs to see what I’m up to. He sits on the carpet, unhelpfully blocking the doorway, his head alternating between resting on his feet and looking towards the stairs and the back door visible at the end of the utility room. The time grinds slowly on.
I hear horse’s hooves from the other side of the house. Someone riding on the lane. I perk up. That’s odd, I think, at this time of day, when it’s almost dark. At any time of the day, in fact, since we’re isolated up here. Not many people come riding or walking past our house.
I peer through the window. The landscape is transformed, white snow covering the fields and hills and hedgerows. But I can’t see anyone on the lane. Instead, I see a group of three magpies. They stand bright and eager in the middle of the drive as if revelling in the snow. Their blue and black feathers shimmer like peacocks and their heads bob up and down, twisting dead leaves pointlessly from under the growing snow.
One for sorrow, two for joy,
Three for a girl …
There’s a horse. I see it now in the distance further down the lane. It’s riding away from me. The animal’s speed has picked up, a fast, rising trot.
It’s almost dusk. The light has taken on an eerie glow, the kind of light when it’s hard to know exactly what you’re seeing. Perhaps the rider had taken a wrong turn, caught out by the weather and the fast-advancing night. Judging from that speed, he or she must be eager to get home.
Except now the pace has slowed again, almost to a stop.
I see him or her swinging the horse round, getting their bearings, peering through the gloom and holding the reins tight. Then the arms relax. The rider turns his head first one way and then the next before once more spurring on the horse.
The sound of ironclad hooves is dull against the snowy tarmac, quieter as it fades into the distance.
The magpies are still there, determined to find something under the snow.
… four for a boy.
I feel the knot at the pit of my stomach tighten again.
Where are they? Why hasn’t Duncan rung me? What’s happened?
CHAPTER 57
DUNCAN – AFTER
The wind blowing off the water was cold despite the spring sunshine. Duncan sank onto his haunches, looking out across the reservoir. The ducks had taken shelter in the reeds and the breeze had whipped up waves so that curls of white chased across the surface.
He wanted to run. To feel the regular pounding of his feet against the path, the blood pumping through his veins, his brain in neutral – just him, his body and the wind. But he’d come without the right kit, using his lunchbreak to escape the confines of the surgery for a short while.
Frances was right. It had been too soon to go back to work. He’d gone back after barely three weeks, but it had been the only way Duncan could deal with it – the way he always dealt with things he didn’t want to face. Claire had her own way of dealing with things, but for Duncan it was by immersing himself in work. That and the booze and the one-night stands and the sex, anything to keep his mind from … Sally had put up with a lot. She’d been quite right to dump him.
Claire, too. He couldn’t deny that. He turned his head away as he remembered the contents of her letter.
He stood up, listening to the rasp of his own breath. The bending of his body must have pulled on the jacket collar so that he suddenly felt half strangled. He reached to tug it free, plucking loose the top button of his coat.
He’d been eighteen when he went to uni. What do you know when you’re eighteen, with your hormones raging through your body? There were all those girls everywhere, tall and round, long-haired, short-haired, clever and sporty, so many of them eager to experience life. Just like him. Oh God, those first few weeks of the new term, he’d been like a kid in a sweetshop, until he met Claire, and why not?
He pushed his hand over his head. There was a thin thermal cap tucked into his pocket and he put it on, a small defence against the cold. It wasn’t that cold. This spring had been inordinately mild and wet, but today, with the wind coming off the water, it felt cold.
After he met Claire, it all stopped. The girls, the dates, even to some extent the drinking. What student doesn’t go a bit mad at first, drinking? Claire had been special. He gave a sigh. The one. That’s what he’d thought then. It had been intoxicating.
He’d been the same age as Joe. Joe, who to his knowledge had never had a girlfriend; nor even perhaps a boyfriend, at least as far as Duncan knew. He was shy, painfully shy. And awkward.
Duncan had never known how to talk about these things to his son. When Joe had reached sixteen, Claire had talked Duncan into taking him to the supermarket. Joe had trailed behind his father as they picked up bread and milk and all the usual things, until Duncan steered him down the aisle with the medicines and personal care products, to the shelves lined up with discreet boxes of condoms.
‘You can pick one out,’ he told his son.
Joe had gone a fiery beetroot red. He didn’t reply. He seemed to take the line that if he ignored his father, the most painful of topics would go away.
It had the effect of making Duncan even more forceful.
‘Well, go on, lad! You might not need them now, but one day you’ll be grateful to have a few of those by your bed. Better with than without, eh?’
He was trying to make a joke of it. Joe still didn’t say anything, let alone choose a box. Duncan was starting to feel embarrassed himself now.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’
He plucked one off the shelf. The package was tastefully decorated with a falling blue feather. He dropped it in the basket and at the till, Joe studiously looked the other way.
‘There,’ Duncan said later, when they were back in the car.
He’d leaned over and ferreted around in the shopping bag, then tossed the pack onto Joe’s lap.
‘Don’t panic. Just because you’re sixteen now, doesn’t mean you have to rush out there and get laid. It’s just in case, hmm?’ He softened his voice. He didn’t want to sound harsh; he wanted his son to be safe.
Joe looked at him, holding the packet in his hands as if it were a pack of sanitary towels, not condoms. He rolled his eyes, like the very idea was disgusting, and Duncan frowned.
‘You do know what to do with it, Joe? They have shown you in school, haven’t they?’
He had an image of a rubber-clad banana. He almost gave a laugh, except Joe looked so serious. His son nodded reluctantly.
‘Good – you do need to use them, Joe. Otherwise … well, you know.’
Enough said. His parental duty to explain contraception and safe sex, done.
Duncan shifted on his feet, letting the sound of the water lapping in the reservoir soothe him. He knew he was no good at talking. To Joe or his wife. The knowledge of his failure only served to frustrate him even more. It was different for Martin – he’d always been close to his kids. Their small house had hosted big family gatherings – Sally often spoke of them with a warmth lighting up her face. Her dad, her mum, her older brothers and sister, the babies that had already arrived, cousins … Duncan envied her all that and yet he’d never wanted it for himself or Claire.
Had he?
He thought of the Barn. It had been his gift to Claire, a way of reaching out. Something tangible, the envy of all their friends. It had cost a fortune, after all. Let alone all the work that had gone into it. He’d got that wrong too. There had been times when he’d caught an expression on her face or thought he’d heard a sneer beneath her words – she’d hated it, hadn’t she? Joe too had seemed happier elsewhere than in the house. Always going AWOL. He pulled the woollen hat from his head, suddenly irritated by the thing, one hand rubbing the bare skin at the top of his skull that always made him feel self-conscious. Joe had loved the valley. Claire too. He’d got that right at least, surely.
He couldn’t face going back to work. Or the Barn. His brain ached from a morning of complicated surgery and his emotions were strung out. He’d been working so hard at not letting himself think of these things. Joe and Claire and the past. His failures and regrets. He knew it made him appear cold and unfeeling. He was anything but.
His mind veered to all those police vehicles on his drive. Martin and his crew digging on his land in earnest now and investigating the tunnels. It was only a matter of time before they found her. Evangeline. No, he didn’t want to remember.
Animals were so much easier to understand. To manage. Though really not much different to humans. Each animal that passed under his care was unique, as filled with emotion, appetite and the potential for violence as any human. If their buttons were pressed the wrong way.
He looked out across the water, tracking a movement beneath the surface, the ripples in the current catching in the sunlight. If humans had a soul, then so did animals, birds and fish – even the insects that thrummed above the water – that was his belief. Humans were no different to any other living thing. No better or worse. Maybe a good deal worse. We all have the same plumbing, he thought, it was just a question of scale.
He would go back to work in a bit. He had to. Carry on. Then later he’d go to a bar, drink, dance, ch
at up whichever girls were there, staying out as long as he could. Long enough to forget again. He pushed the hat into his pocket. He was good at his job and if he was good at only one thing, then he would do his very best to make it count. Whilst he could.
It wasn’t the money, or the respect. Or even the satisfaction of being in charge. He folded his fingers into his palms – no, it was more than any of that. He loved the animals he cared for. Sally was right. Perhaps he had lost sight of that. He’d loved Joe too. Claire had seemed to think he didn’t. That wasn’t true. Joe had been different for sure, not what either of them had hoped, but he was clever, passionate, intense, difficult – oh God, so difficult … Duncan felt his hands clench into two fists. Every day had been filled with so much anger.
A buzzard swooped overhead, its shrieking cry loud against the hills.
He wasn’t going to brood about Joe. Or Claire. It would only drag him down. What’s done was done. Mistakes were to be learned from, not wallowed in. He was paying the price now.
He walked again, along the path that led away from the lake. His fingers found a stick of unused chewing gum tucked deep into his trouser pocket. He flicked the paper wrapping open with his thumb and unfolded the silver foil with one smooth movement. He pushed the gum under his tongue, tucking the rubbish back into his pocket.
The air was ripe with pine and cedar. He could hear the buzzard still, the sound like bees in summer, or the cars on the street outside the surgery, an ever-present background noise to which he no longer listened. Memories were like that. Yet even with the bird out of sight, he could see the small shadow that skipped across the waves of the reservoir, a dancing glimpse of black and silver flashing through the trees. It reminded him of the larger shadow that followed him in the skies above.
Another sound stirred his consciousness. Between the lake and him. He stopped walking and searched the foliage. There was a shifting pattern of shade, something dark against a tree, branches swinging the wrong way. A deer.
The House of Secrets Page 23