by Emma Rous
“Headingley Golf Club,” Alex says.
Martin’s lips twitch, and his colleague jots something down in her notebook.
I pull the note from my pocket then—the note that Laura dropped—and I hand it to Martin.
“Laura dropped this yesterday. It’s not Edwin’s signature. He didn’t write it.”
Martin studies it and then frowns at me. He waits for his colleague to produce a clear plastic evidence bag and drops the note into it before he says, “And you didn’t give this to me yesterday because . . . ?”
I blink down at the rug and shuffle my feet. “I’m sorry,” I mumble.
Martin murmurs to his colleague, and she leaves the room, taking the note in its bag with her. Then he tells us that Laura is recovering well, but didn’t see who attacked her.
“It appears the attacker used a sizable stone from the parapet wall at the top of the tower,” he tells us. “Some of the stones up there are quite loose. We believe the attacker dropped the stone onto Ms. Silveira from above. It caught the side of her head. Another inch to the center and the result could have been much worse.”
“When can she leave the hospital?” Edwin asks.
“This morning,” Martin says. “They’re discharging her as we speak. She was rather hoping to see some of you again before she goes home, so I wondered whether a couple of you might be happy to go and collect her?”
Edwin and I exchange glances.
“So you don’t think any of us are a risk to her, then?” Edwin asks.
“Our information points elsewhere,” Martin says evenly.
“Seraphine and I will pick her up then,” Edwin says. He doesn’t so much as glance at Alex.
Once Martin and his colleague have left, Kiara and Alex argue over whether to leave immediately or to stay and see Laura.
“She was there when I was born, Dad,” Kiara says. “If Edwin doesn’t mind bringing her here first, I’d really like to meet her.”
Edwin makes no comment to this, but when he and I arrive at the hospital, he puts a hand on my arm before I climb out of the car.
“Wait. I’m not sure about this.”
I frown at him. “She’s expecting us now. We can’t just leave her here.”
“No, I mean I’m not sure about asking her . . . questions. We could just . . . I just think we need to be certain we want to hear it before we ask her.”
I think about the lipstick message on my mirror, and the blood trickling down Laura’s face and neck. The dead bird on my doorstep. The anonymous letter in the trash bin.
“Because we might not like the answers?” I shake Edwin’s hand off and rub my temples. “Or because whoever attacked Laura might do the same to us?”
Edwin’s forehead is furrowed. “I don’t know. I’m just—I have a bad feeling about all this.”
“You think we’re in danger?”
He holds his palms up. “I don’t know. It sounds crazy. But maybe I should just take her straight back to London, and you get a taxi home. And I’ll tell her I don’t want to hear anything in the car.”
I watch him. “Or we could both drive her back to London.”
He gives me a small smile. “Yes. Of course. Or you drive her back, Seraphine, and I’ll get a taxi home. I’m not hiding anything here, you know. I just want to . . .” He pinches the bridge of his nose suddenly, squeezing his eyes shut. “That note wasn’t from me. I swear. I just want to protect you. Protect all of us.”
We sit in silence while a couple unlock their car in the space next to ours and climb in, adjusting their sun visors and fussing over seat belts before they eventually reverse away. I lean over and press my forehead against Edwin’s shoulder.
“I know,” I say. Another car begins to maneuver into the vacated space, exhaust fumes billowing behind it. My hands feel damp, and I glance at them with a sudden fear that they’re covered in blood. “Stop asking questions.” We should stop. I should stop. Edwin’s right. We should walk away from all of this, before it’s too late. Before more damage is done, that we might never recover from. I straighten and look at him.
“But I think we have to ask her, Edwin. Don’t you? How else are we ever going to put this behind us?”
Laura waits for us on a bench outside the accident and emergency department, looking vastly better than yesterday, with a neat bandage around her head and a sharp glint in her eyes.
“Are we stopping off at Summerbourne first?” she asks as Edwin holds the rear car door open for her.
He glances at me and back to her, his jaw tense. “Would you like to? A quick cup of tea, maybe, before we take you home?”
Laura nods decisively. “I’d like that.”
I join her on the back seat and turn to her as Edwin starts the engine. An image of her head wound hovers in my mind, and it’s an effort not to stare at her bandage.
“I feel responsible for dragging you into this,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was me who rang you at work last week, and—um—pretended to have a delivery for you.”
She looks at me calmly. “I guessed that, Seraphine, after you pounced on me outside my flat.”
“How did you recognize me that day? You said you knew who I was.”
She sighs. “I’ve looked you up, online, you know. Over the years.”
“Because you were there at my birth?”
“Yes.” Her gaze remains steady.
“You know the threatening letter you got that day was nothing to do with me? And Edwin didn’t write the note asking you to meet him at the folly,” I say.
Her eyes widen. “I realize someone tricked me to get me to the folly—I know Edwin would never hurt me. I didn’t mention the note to the police. I told Martin I’d heard about—” She hesitates, and gives me an anguished look. “I told him I’d heard the news about Dominic, and I just fancied a trip to the beach, to reminisce. To say good-bye.” She frowns. “But how—? Don’t tell me you fished that nasty letter out of the trash bin in the park?”
I nod, looking down. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you tell the police about that?” Edwin asks her from the front.
“No,” she says, and then she turns her head and watches the scenery out the window for a while.
“Do you have any idea who attacked you?” I ask, but she presses her lips together. She shakes her head, and her fingers creep up to the locket at her collarbone. I want to ask her about her daughter—the one mentioned in the anonymous letter. I want to tell her that I know Alex took Ruth’s baby, and ask her whether she knows that he never returned her—the original Seraphine, whom he renamed Kiara. Most of all I want to ask her whether she knows who I really am—who Danny and I really are. Where did we come from? But her closed expression makes me hesitate. Perhaps when we’re sitting with a cup of tea on the patio at Summerbourne.
“Alex and Kiara might still be at the house when we get back,” I say softly, and her eyes widen, but she passes the rest of the journey in silence.
As we leave the village behind us and make our way down the lane toward Summerbourne, Laura sits up taller.
“Are you okay?” I ask. She nods.
A police car is pulled over on the grass just before the cottages, and as we approach Michael’s home, we see Martin leaning on the gate, speaking into his phone. Inside the little front garden, Joel faces him. Martin raises a hand in casual greeting as we pass, but Edwin doesn’t slow the car. My eyes meet Joel’s for a split second through my window. He doesn’t smile.
Danny opens the front door as we pull up onto the drive. Edwin helps Laura out of the car, and she looks frailer here in the Summerbourne sunshine than she did back at the hospital, her bandage glaringly white against the waxy sheen of her skin.
“Gran’s here, and she’s furious,” Danny says in a hushed tone as he approaches.
“Why?” Edwin asks.
�
��Because of her.” Danny indicates Laura, and then flashes her a small apologetic grimace. “Sorry. But I think it’d be better if you just left now, Edwin. Take her home straightaway.”
Laura hasn’t taken her eyes off Danny.
“No,” I say. “She’s coming in. She’s welcome here. We need to sit down and talk.”
Danny looks from Edwin to me and back again, hesitating.
Then Vera appears in the doorway. Her lips are pulled back over her teeth, her shoulders are drawn up under her ears. For a moment I’m concerned that she’s ill in some way, and I glance at Edwin, expecting him to rush to her aid, but he’s rooted to the spot. She stalks toward us, one stiff step at a time, a quivering finger pointed toward Laura’s chest.
“Get away from my house,” she says. Her voice has the chill of the sea in it; the hiss of sand against rocks. “Get away from my family.”
Laura presses her back against the closed car door.
“Gran—” Edwin says.
In Vera’s other hand is a slim metal pipe. She swings it upward until it points at Laura’s chest. The other end curves like a shepherd’s crook with a small cylinder attached, but it’s not until a flame bursts from the tip, hissing toward Laura, that it dawns on me that this is a weed burner. Ralph’s stolen propane torch.
For a long, breathless moment, the rest of us stand motionless. I can’t tear my eyes from the flame. Then Edwin reaches out a hand slowly.
“Put it down, Gran. Give it to me.”
Vera waves the jet of fire closer to Laura, and the blue flame reaches for the buttons on her cardigan. Laura flattens herself against the car, twisting her face away.
“How dare you?” Vera spits the words at Laura. “How dare you come anywhere near my family after all this time? We don’t want anything to do with you.”
Edwin eases in front of Laura, flinching at the heat, forcing Vera to take a step back. A rasping sound comes from my throat, and Danny grabs my arm as I sway toward Edwin.
“I’ll take her home now,” Edwin says. “Gran. We’ll go right now. She never needs to come back.”
But Vera shakes her head, glaring at him and Laura in turn. “She’ll try to tell you something in the car. Something not true. I’m not having it.”
Alex and Kiara appear in the doorway behind her, and the movement breaks my focus. But Alex pulls Kiara back indoors immediately, reaching into his pocket as he slams the front door shut.
“Gran, stop it,” I say, as Danny tugs on my elbow. “Let her go home.”
Vera blinks, and then slowly turns to me. The propane torch sinks, and the flame now points toward my shins.
“This is all your fault, Seraphine,” she says.
My throat constricts. “Don’t say that.”
“Everything was fine until you tracked this woman down.”
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t. Dad died. It wasn’t fine.”
Vera lifts her chin. “We’re a happy family, aren’t we? We’re successful. Look at the three of you. You make me proud every day. But that isn’t enough for you, is it? Everything I’ve done, I did it for you three. But you, Seraphine—you just can’t see that, can you?”
“But if the truth—” I say.
She gives a tight laugh. “I was the one who looked after you, remember, all those long nights after Ruth died. The truth never came into it—you were so young and helpless—why would it make any difference where you came from?”
A shiver runs down my spine. This is the first time my grandmother has acknowledged the possibility of something being amiss, of our identities not being certain. I try to embrace her meaning: that it doesn’t matter to her, that she loves us anyway. But it’s not enough. Her love for us doesn’t give her the right to hide the truth from us.
“You were ours,” she continues. “Our children. Oh, I know they said things in the village, I know that, but they missed the point. It doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know. I don’t want to know.”
The torch and its flame rise as she talks, but my resentment overrides my fear.
“You always thought it was me who didn’t belong, didn’t you?” I sway toward her, and she dips the torch away, startled. “All these years, you thought Danny was your real grandchild, and I wasn’t.”
She blinks. “No. It wasn’t like that.”
I stare at her. She has no idea about Kiara. But I want to understand where her suspicions about Danny and me came from, in case it gives a clue to our true origins.
“But you’re giving Summerbourne to Danny. You’re scared of what Laura might tell me.”
The flame dips farther. Vera’s tone is almost reasonable, almost convincing.
“I’m giving Summerbourne to Danny,” she says, “because I want him to settle down. You know I don’t like him being away, overseas all the time. I told you I’ll buy you your own house, Seraphine. Somewhere nearby. I never knew which of you . . .” She glances at Danny and back to me, starts again. “This way you’ll both be here. Close. Safe.”
I stare at her. “But—” I don’t know which aspect frustrates me the most: that she doesn’t care that my attachment to Summerbourne is so much stronger than Danny’s; that she thinks she has the right to manipulate Danny’s life choices; that she didn’t foresee that Danny would hand the house over to me anyway. She’s devoted so much of her life to keeping us safe, and yet so little to actually understanding us.
I grasp at the sentence she failed to finish.
“What do you mean, you never knew which of us . . . ?” I ask her. “You mean you doubted both of us?”
Vera flinches but holds my gaze.
“It’s not important,” she says. “I’ve never known anything, not for sure. She knew something”—she shoots a look at Laura—“but it’s none of her business, or anyone else’s. You’re both my grandchildren. And even if you’re not—” She swings the torch back up, back toward Laura’s chest, but when she turns her face to me, her expression slides into something close to pleading. “I just didn’t know, Seraphine. Ruth told me—I mean, she was ill, of course, confused, but she told me—that she’d done something terrible.”
“What?” Edwin lurches toward her. “When? Gran? When did she say that?”
Vera grimaces. “When I was trying to talk her away from the cliff edge. She was talking nonsense, about someone coming to take her baby. I thought she’d become obsessed with the village tales—you know, those awful things they used to whisper. That twins never survived at Summerbourne—one or the other, yes, but never both.”
“No,” Edwin says, his voice hoarse.
“It wasn’t that,” I say, but I think only Danny hears me. He grips my arm tighter.
“She was confused,” Vera says. “Hysterical. I tried to persuade her, I tried to pull her away from the edge, but every time I reached out, she—” She shudders. “And she had a moment. Her foot, at the edge. She shoved me away. She said, ‘I’ve done something terrible, Mother.’ I couldn’t—I didn’t ask her. It was too late. She stepped back.”
Edwin groans and curls over. Danny’s grip on my arm is tighter than ever.
The torch sways, and for a moment I think she’s going to turn it off, that it’s all over. But when she speaks again, her voice is harsh.
“It didn’t matter after that, whether one of you had come from somewhere else. And it doesn’t matter now. We’re fine as we are. That’s why I have to get rid of this woman.” Vera raises the torch and swings it at Laura, and the flame roars louder. “She wants to break our family apart, and I won’t let her.”
Laura screams as the flame singes the fabric of her cardigan.
“Gran!” Edwin grabs for Vera’s arm, but Vera swings the torch toward him and he stumbles back. Laura lifts a flap of smoking fabric away from her body with trembling fingers.
A car door slams in the lane behind u
s.
Vera jabs the torch at Edwin to keep him back, and then swings it in a wild arc toward Laura’s face. As Laura raises her arm, a deep voice calls out from the lane behind us.
“Vera Blackwood.”
The torch sways, inches from Laura’s bandage and her hair. Vera’s focus jumps to a spot behind us. Danny and I hold on to each other, and I keep my gaze fixed on the flame.
“Martin?” Vera says.
The steady crunch of gravel comes closer, and Martin Larch brushes past me, stopping in front of Vera.
“Ah, Mrs. Blackwood,” he says. He looks around at the scene as if he has all the time in the world. “This is a funny old thing, eh?”
Vera lowers the torch slowly, and finally, I feel I can breathe again.
Martin beams at Vera benignly. “Well now. This reminds me a bit of that day you caught me and Billy Bradshaw fighting, out by the boat sheds, all those years ago, d’you remember?”
Vera’s pupils are enormous. She nods slowly.
“Sixteen, we were, me and Billy. Remember what you said to me? ‘Violence never solves anything, Martin Larch,’ you said.”
Vera stares at him. The flame droops to the gravel where the stones shimmer and crackle.
“And you found me that Saturday job, Mrs. Blackwood. And made me go back to school. I’ll never forget your kindness.” Martin reaches out slowly with his broad hand. “Now let me return the favor. Let me take that now, eh? And we can go and sit down and have a little chat.”
For a long moment, I’m not sure whether she’s heard him. Then she sighs. She flicks the switch to turn the flame off, and he takes the contraption from her.
Martin turns to look at someone behind us. “They on their way?”
Edwin, Danny, and I twist around, and Joel is there, walking calmly up the drive, his phone in his hand.
“Any minute,” Joel says.
Nothing is quite in focus. Next to me, Danny hunches over suddenly as if he might be sick, and then stays in that position, hands on knees. I try to step sideways, but stumble, and then Joel is right next to me, catching me by the elbow. Edwin has gone across to Laura, who still leans against the car door, her face a sickly greenish color.