No. He wasn’t. His battered and bruised body also ached and stung with equal intensity. The throbbing in his arm almost overrode the pain in his head. Please God it wasn’t getting infected. He would look at it later.
He sat down, his back against a tree, and reached inside the canvas bag for the pot of honey and half-eaten loaf of bread. Dipping the last crust of bread into the dregs of the honey, he hoped it would give him energy for the day ahead. He was trying to conserve supplies, but knew he would have to find more soon. And he was running low on water.
Goddamnit his arm hurt.
He pulled up the sleeve of his jumper. The duct tape was loose. He tore it off quickly, gasping as he pulled the skin.
Fuck.
His arm was swollen and the wound was still open. He could see pus deep down. Worse, the skin around the cut was red, an infection was setting in. He needed antibiotics. He laughed harshly. Yeah, right. And where was he going to get those? Even if he could break into a pharmacy, there probably wasn’t one within fifty miles or something.
Leeches. That might help. Were there any rivers near and did they have leeches?
Leeches. His mind must be more muddled than he realized.
He opened the last bottle of water and began to pour it over the wound. Shame he hadn’t looked for a bottle of vodka in that house. Alcohol would have cleaned it better. And helped his head. No, wouldn’t have helped his head, but give him some warmth. Vodka. He should have taken some. There again, he’d taken so much. He leaned his head back and wondered if they’d discovered they were missing supplies, food, medicines, clothes. He wondered if they knew someone had been in the house, taken a shower, used a towel. He wondered what the woman was saying to her husband. He wondered whether the children walked the dogs. Nice dogs. I heart Labradors.
Shut up. Shut up.
His mind was wandering.
The water was all gone. He hadn’t noticed. He’d carried on pouring it over his arm. He hadn’t noticed it all going. Fuck fuck fuck.
No good worrying. It was done now.
He dabbed his skin dry with the bottom of his tee-shirt. Very hygienic. But at least the cut was cleaner. Too big to leave open. The infection would get worse. He bit off a strip of duct tape. Wrapped it around his arm making sure he pulled the edges of the skin together. Bite duct tape. Repeat. Bite duct tape. Repeat.
Then a memory hit him, wham. He’d been sitting, bound to a chair in an empty room, brought there by the guys who’d bundled him into that white van. But – he shook his head – he’d wanted to be there. Had engineered it. Really? Why? And where? He tried to concentrate, willing the memories to come back. Something to do with his family? His sister? And if he’d wanted to be there, why had he tried to escape? Because they’d been coming for him, that’s why. They had known who he was all along; they had seen him collecting evidence – evidence he’d had to leave behind.
He sat quietly, trying to ignore the pain in his body, trying to breathe deeply and let thoughts pass by. Trying to remember. There was nothing more.
He had to get some food. More clothes.
He ate the last of his bread and honey.
He walked on.
He looked around.
Fuck.
He had been this way earlier.
He was walking round in circles.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAY THREE: EVENING
‘So, Ms Devlin, you’re a journalist I believe?’ Marianne Rider took a delicate bite of her confit duck leg, quite a feat in itself.
Alex smiled to herself. So much for Jamie’s assertion that his mother would like a signed copy of her book about couponing – she had obviously never heard of it. Just another chat-up line from the man. She had to admire his front.
‘Yes, I am. I freelance for The Post, which is based in London.’
‘And what do you do for the – ah – Post?’ The diamonds in her ears glinted in the candlelight.
‘I write articles about people, people who have something to say. I also write investigative pieces—’
‘Such as?’ Marianne watched her closely.
‘Ma, don’t interrogate her. She has only known us five minutes.’ This came from the eldest brother, Lewis, who was helping himself to more of the creamy potato dauphinoise.
Alex flashed him a smile. ‘We have met before,’ she felt bold enough to say to him.
Lewis turned his gaze on her. His face was so wrinkle-free that Alex thought he must have had work done, and a good deal of it.
‘Oh?’
Of course he wouldn’t remember. He was in a hurry. He was a busy person. She was not worth noticing. And it had been a fleeting encounter.
‘Outside the offices for Fight for the Homeless. In Norwich,’ she added, in case for some reason he had forgotten. ‘Yesterday.’
‘I don’t think so.’ He flashed her a too-bright smile. ‘I would remember you I’m sure.’
‘Yes. I was going in and you were coming out. You pushed the door very hard. Almost knocked me over.’ She chuckled to show she had found it amusing.
He stared at her. Something dark flashed behind his eyes. ‘Ah, right. Of course.’
Alex had the sense the admission had cost him. Why was he being so cagey?
‘What were you doing there, Lewis?’ Marianne asked. Her tone was mild but her body language was stiff and unforgiving.
‘Sorting out some funding, Ma, that’s all.’
‘I thought—’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
But the tension still shimmered in the room.
‘I understand you live in Woodbridge?’ This came from Lewis’s wife, Louisa, who Alex knew from her research had been married to Lewis for twenty years. They had three sulky teenagers.
Alex smiled and they chatted for a few minutes about the town and its lovely shops and how super it must be living right by the water.
‘You haven’t told us about your investigative pieces,’ said Marianne before taking a sip of her wine.
Alex noticed bright red lipstick marks on the wine glass. She was not going to be intimidated by Marianne Rider.
‘To answer your question, Marianne, one very successful feature I wrote was on the dangers of suicide forums on the Internet. It came about when I was reporting on the death of two people on the Broads. You may have seen the press about it?’
‘Really? How depressing.’ She sipped her wine, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.
‘I’ve also written a book about extreme couponing – Jamie mentioned you would like a signed copy?’ Alex smiled innocently.
There was a gratifying break out of coughing from Jamie on her right as something obviously went down the wrong way.
Marianne arched a well-plucked eyebrow. ‘Extreme couponing. Hmm. I haven’t heard of your book, but I will certainly have a look. Thank you.’ Marianne put her knife and fork together neatly. Her fingernails were painted a deep red to match her lipstick.
Somehow the dismissal stung.
‘Well I think the book sounds jolly interesting. I might get it.’ Claudia, the third wife of the youngest son, Simon, looked as though she was about to burst into tears. Though it seemed to be her default expression – she had looked like that all evening.
‘Sweetie, you don’t need to cut out coupons from the rags,’ drawled her husband, whose expression gave the impression he was chewing on something Ethel might leave in the middle of the carpet.
‘I don’t care. I think it sounds like a really interesting idea.’ Claudia rubbed two fingers up and down the stem of her wineglass.
‘Did you find your scarf?’ Marianne gazed at Alex.
‘Scarf?’
‘Jamie said he asked you to supper when he found you stuck in the mud after looking for your scarf.’
Damn. She had forgotten about that excuse. ‘Yes. That’s right. No. I didn’t find it.’
‘Really? No. I don’t suppose you did.’ Marianne carried on chewing.
Alex tri
ed not to squirm under her gaze.
This ‘quiet family supper’ promised by Jamie was not turning out at all how she expected.
She had turned away the car that arrived outside the apartment – she wanted to drive so she could decide for herself when it was time to leave. She had learned that lesson. When she arrived at Riders’ Farm she was greeted by a silent and unsmiling maid who took her coat and showed her into the enormous and warm kitchen. It was the sort of kitchen Alex would have expected a family like the Riders to have: a cream Aga at one end. Doors out onto a patio and the garden beyond. Gleaming work surfaces with minimal clutter. Plenty of storage space. Pots bubbling on another range cooker. Flowers in jugs. White tiles, wood, stainless steel, granite. All shouting money, and not in the least cosy.
Though she’d had to admit the smell coming from whatever was cooking was delicious.
‘Alex.’
Jamie had smiled with pleasure, uncurled himself from an armchair by the Aga and padded across the warm tiled floor to greet her with a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thank you for coming. I had hoped I would be able to chase everyone away for tonight, but the brothers and their wives have come along. They’ll be here shortly. Drink?’
Her heart had sunk. It was not going to be quite the evening she had hoped for. She said yes to the drink.
‘You don’t mind do you? About the family, I mean.’ He’d opened the American-style fridge and taken out a bottle of wine, pushing the door shut with his foot. ‘Only we had a family meeting and so they were all here and before I knew it …’ He shrugged, charmingly. ‘Which is a bit of a bore from my point of view when I wanted to see you on your own. But there we have it.’
‘I didn’t think you were much involved in the family business?’
‘No. But I like to dispense advice. Have you been stalking me on Google, then?’
Alex had tried not to blush. ‘A little. That’s what we journalists like to do. It saves going through dusty files or back copies of newspapers.’ Though, curiously, information on the Rider family had been thin on the ground with only the bare bones in Wikipedia and various articles about the success of their expansion and diversification. There was little personal stuff, apart from the basics – who they were married to, who they’d divorced, how many children they had. The family had managed to keep their personal lives pretty much under wraps. Which meant someone like Alex could draw the conclusion there must be parts of their lives they wanted to keep covered. And she wanted to uncover it. Natural curiosity, of course.
‘And meeting the family, are you sure you’re okay with that?’
‘Of course.’ She’d hoped she succeeded in sounding upbeat. Besides, it could provide some interesting material.
Now she was trapped at this scrubbed pine table with the silver cutlery and cut-glass wine goblets and linen napkins and all the Rider family giving her the once-over as if Jamie was presenting her as some sort of girlfriend exhibit. It made her feel uncomfortable.
No. Marianne Rider made her feel uncomfortable. She wondered if she did it to all her guests, or maybe only to journalists? Or, and Alex enjoyed this thought more, she was worried about someone unsuitable getting their claws into her beloved son.
‘And what are you working on at the moment?’ asked Lewis.
His smile, decided Alex, was distinctly Blairite. Friendly and insincere. There was something about him she didn’t quite trust. And she trusted her instincts.
What to say? ‘I’m looking into homelessness in East Anglia. I want to write some of the stories of the people on the streets. The rough sleepers.’
‘Really? How interesting,’ said Marianne, not sounding interested at all.
‘Yes. You’d be surprised how some people got there – a missed mortgage payment, death of a spouse, a business collapse—’
‘Drugs, alcohol—’ piped up Claudia, who immediately shrank into herself when given a glare by her husband.
Alex nodded. ‘That too. And sometimes people turn to drugs and alcohol to help them cope, to get them through the day.’
‘Really?’ Marianne arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow.
‘Yes really. But more worryingly, some of them are disappearing.’
‘Disappearing?’ This from Lewis, who had arched both his also perfectly plucked eyebrows.
Idly, Alex wondered if they went to the same beauty salon.
She opened her mouth to tell them about Rick and Lindy and how Martin had left Ethel behind, then realized that these particular people with their yurts and lodges and island probably wouldn’t want to hear about it. Or maybe she was imposing a stereotype. However, this was supposed to be a family supper and she must not spoil it. It wouldn’t be fair on Jamie. And she wanted to keep him onside. So she shrugged. ‘I don’t expect it’s anything. Probably moved on.’ She smiled.
‘Ah, pudding,’ exclaimed Joe, the Rider patriarch, sniffing deeply and puncturing the tension in the air.
The same unsmiling woman who had shown Alex to the kitchen put down a large bowl of what looked and smelled like sticky toffee pudding.
Joe rubbed his hands with glee. ‘My favourite. I love the sauce that comes with the sticky date sponge, don’t you my dear?’ He beamed at Alex.
Alex couldn’t help but smile back. He was an old buffer, but quite endearing. He hadn’t lost that Suffolk accent either. ‘Indeed I do, Joe.’
‘Especially with a splash of thick double cream?’
‘Especially with that.’
‘Thank you for putting up with my rather awkward family,’ said Jamie as he threw another log into the wood burner, making the fire crackle and spit. The flames danced, casting shadows that weaved around the room. Alex nursed a brandy and Jamie a whisky as they sat by candlelight in one of the ‘backwoodsmen’ lodges. It was where he stayed when he came up to Suffolk, Jamie told her. Especially in the winter when they had few guests. Not many people wanted to play at being ‘backwoodsmen’ in the cold and the wet and the mud.
Alex had to admit, the lodge was comfortable. Set in the middle of the wood, it had large windows, and thankfully there were also thick curtains. She imagined that during the day the view would be of the trees and the wildlife. There were sumptuous rugs over polished floorboards, fat settees to sink into, the wood burner of course, and a huge television on the wall. There was also, Jamie said, excellent Wi-Fi. Even backwoodsmen liked connection to the outside world these days.
Alex thought that was rather missing the point.
‘Your family,’ she said, rubbing a finger around the rim of her glass. ‘I’m not sure they liked me.’
Jamie laughed. ‘They’re a strange bunch, I’ll give you that. Lewis is mainly in charge of the family business, something little Simon feels resentful about. He thinks he should have a bigger share of the fat pie.’ He refilled her glass. She didn’t stop him. ‘Mum is the brains behind it all. She saw we had to diversify or die and as the farm has been in the family for aeons, we diversified.’
She noticed he didn’t reassure her that yes, her family really had liked her.
‘You have these lodges?’
He nodded. ‘About half a dozen.’
‘And the yurts.’
Jamie smiled. ‘That was Louisa’s idea. She’s very much into all that flat-sandalled stuff.’
She nudged him with her foot. ‘All that flat-sandalled stuff? That’s a bit patronizing.’
He grimaced. ‘I don’t go in for Indian head massages and holistic therapies and all that.’
‘Chakras.’ She grinned.
‘Indeed. Mind you, they balance all the mumbo jumbo with hunting, shooting and fishing. You see, the farm caters for all. I’m sure we could find something you would like to do.’ He looked meaningfully at her over the rim of his glass.
‘And the island,’ she said, ignoring the heat of his gaze. ‘Your family owns that island off the coast.’
Jamie nodded. ‘Gisford Ness.’
‘And what goes on there? I’ve heard a
ll sorts.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well.’ She settled herself even more comfortably on the cushions, tucking her feet underneath her. ‘That aliens have landed there and the government and you are keeping it under wraps.’
His mouth twitched. ‘Aliens? Really?’
‘Aliens. Or it’s some sort of prison for those who’ve been put away for life – no tariff – and again, the government is in cahoots with your family. Or it’s haunted. Ghosts abound. Or medical experiments go on there. You should see the stuff on Google. Apparently you can hear crying and screaming sometimes over the water if the wind is in the right direction.’ She looked at him. He was laughing. ‘So which is it? I’ll bet it’s aliens.’
‘I wish.’ He refilled their glasses again. Alex hadn’t realized she’d drunk all hers. ‘Not aliens. Far more prosaic.’ He tilted his head on one side. ‘No, not prosaic. But not aliens.’
‘Go on then.’
‘Many, many years ago my grandfather apparently allowed the government—’
Alex raised her glass. ‘Told you. The government.’ Did her words sound slurred there? Careful, Alex.
‘Allowed the government to dump stuff on the island.’
‘Stuff?’
‘Stuff. That turned out to be dangerous chemicals. Anthrax was mentioned.’
She sat up at that one. ‘Anthrax? Bloody hell.’
‘Exactly. The story goes that scientists exploded a series of bombs during the Second World War. They were tested on sheep – about fifty of them – and they all died within a few days. It was kept very hush-hush. Anyway, the land was officially declared decontaminated twenty or so years ago, but as a family we don’t want people going there just in case. Now we are trying to return it to nature.’
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