The Secrets Between Us (34 page)

I had to get away.

I couldn’t leave Jamie.

‘Genevieve, help me,’ I pleaded. ‘Tell me what’s going to happen.’

I must have fallen asleep because I dreamed that she came home.

It didn’t begin as a nightmare; no, to start with it was a calm, surreal dream, like watching a sequence in a film that appealed to me but in which I had no emotional involvement.

In the dream, I woke in my bed and slipped out of the covers, went through the door on to the landing and drew back the curtains at the window. Outside, everywhere was covered in virgin snow. The garden and the fields, the walls and trees all glowed white in the moonlight. I leaned closer to the glass and my breath clouded the window. I felt very tired. It was difficult to keep my eyes open but the scene was so beautiful. Walking up the drive was a young woman, and I knew at once she was Genevieve. She was barefoot in the snow, wearing a dress that seemed to be made of water. The dress flowed around her and her hair was wet; it stuck to her cheeks and her skull. She stopped to stroke the faces of the horses in the stables. Then she looked up to the window, and saw me and waved, and, tired as I was, I held up my hand and waved back.

In my dream, I wanted to go back to bed but I knew if I took my eyes off Genevieve she would disappear and I’d lose her for ever. Her feet must be cold, I thought. She had to step high through the deep snow. She was smiling. She beckoned me down, but when I went out into the garden, she was gone. Her footprints stopped halfway up the drive and the woman was no longer there; only an oval of ice, like a mirror, lay in the snow. I leaned down to look into the ice, and I saw not my face reflected back but Genevieve’s, and
then as I looked she reached out to me, through the ice, and grabbed hold of my shoulders and pulled me towards her. I screamed as I fell, gasped for breath as I plunged into the ice, and once again I had the sensation of falling into an abyss. That was what woke me.

After that, I could not get back to sleep.

The next morning, after I’d dropped Jamie at school, I tried to divert myself from my worries by clearing out and packing up some of the stuff at Avalon. Alexander had told me to get rid of as much as I could, but to do it surreptitiously so as not to raise any suspicions about our plans. If I bagged and boxed everything that could be given away, he’d drive it to charity shops somewhere where people didn’t know us. We’d burn what we couldn’t recycle or take it to the tip. I found the disposal exercise surprisingly cathartic. Alexander and Genevieve’s history was tied up with the things in the house. It would be better when they were gone.

I started with Genevieve’s dressing room, reasoning that Jamie wouldn’t notice anything that disappeared from there. I folded and packed the clothes carefully and neatly. The wind was gusting around the eaves of Avalon, little sneaky draughts blowing icy through the gaps in the window frames, rattling at the glass like something demanding to be let in. I tried to keep calm and worked as quickly as I could, singing to myself for reassurance. I thought we should leave the clothes behind for Claudia or Virginia to find and look after. Then if Genevieve ever did come back, she’d have plenty of nice things to wear and, if she didn’t, Allegra and Petra would probably find a use for them.

The excess bed linen, towels and other bits and pieces I bagged for recycling. After that I went down to the kitchen and set to clearing out the cupboards. I started with the cutlery drawer. It needed a good clean; there were crumbs in the plastic tray and the knives, forks and spoons were
muddled together. Under the tray, face down, was a photograph. I peeled it from the bottom of the drawer. It was a faded picture of the statue at the entrance to the drive at Eleonora. The stone statue of the poor dead girl was standing as it always stood, one hand touching its breast, the other outstretched and inclined towards the entrance. I could not work out, at first, what was wrong with the image.

Then I remembered.

Last time I saw it, Genevieve had been in the picture too. She’d been standing beside the statue, imitating its pose.

No, she couldn’t have been.

But she was: I remembered how, at the time, I had found the picture disturbing.

I screwed it up and threw it into the rubbish bag.

It must have got damp, face down as it was in the drawer. The damp must have erased Genevieve out of the picture. That was all.

It was important to me that we left Avalon in order, but sorting out the house was a mammoth task. I didn’t want to leave a mess. I could imagine Virginia complaining about our slovenliness. So I stacked dusty old crockery and pans and utensils on the floor, washed them, and then everything that didn’t look as if it could possibly be useful to us in our Cornish cottage I put into boxes. As much again went into bags to be thrown away.

I’d been working for hours when I heard car tyres scrunching on the drive. I glanced out of the window. Through the wild swaying of the empty branches of the apple trees, I saw a police car and remembered I still hadn’t spoken to DI Twyford in response to his message the day before. I looked round the kitchen hopelessly and pushed a couple of the boxes under the table, but there wasn’t the time to tidy up. Somehow, I would have to front it out.

I forced myself to breathe slowly, went through the
kitchen door and opened the rosette-room door. A gust of wind caught it and slammed it wide open against the wall beyond, cracking the glass in its window.

‘Seven years’ bad luck,’ said the inspector.

‘That only applies to mirrors,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Still not a good omen.’

He almost pushed past me to go into the kitchen, followed this time by another middle-aged male officer in plain clothes. DI Twyford looked around and raised an eyebrow at the mess.

‘I’m having a clear-out before Christmas,’ I said briskly, dusting my hands on the thighs of my jeans.

‘Looks to me like you’re planning on going away,’ he replied in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Immediately, my neck and cheeks burned hot.

‘You wouldn’t even think of leaving without talking to me first, would you?’ he asked.

‘I’m just sorting out this junk,’ I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie.

‘Right. Why didn’t you call me back yesterday?’ he asked.

‘I did. You were busy. If it was that urgent I thought you’d find a way to reach me.’

‘We came round to the house twice yesterday. You weren’t in.’

‘I was Christmas shopping in Bristol.’

‘Oh, right.’

He let his eyes wander, very obviously, over the boxes and the bags, the old plates wrapped in newspaper.

‘What is it you want?’ I asked briskly.

‘Where’s Mr Westwood? We called at the yard yesterday, and they told us he’s taken a couple of days off to look after you. Apparently, you had suspected appendicitis. I’m glad to see you’ve made such an excellent recovery. Now I know you were shopping, but where’s Alexander gone? And why did he lie to his colleagues?’

‘I’m not sure exactly.’

DI Twyford picked up a blue ceramic jug decorated with daisies and turned it over in his hands. There was a chip in the rim. I had not decided whether to take it or box it.

‘Where is he, Sarah? What’s he doing?’

I pulled the sleeve of my jumper down over my hands and stood with my back against the Rayburn.

‘He’s gone to quote for a business opportunity.’

‘What does that mean?’

I looked up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s helpful.’

There was a silence. The inspector put the jug back on the table and stared at me.

‘If that’s all he’s doing, why didn’t he just say as much at work?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know much, do you, Sarah?’

‘He’ll be back tonight,’ I said. ‘Is there a message? Should I get him to call you?’

‘No, no. We’ll find him.’

‘Has something else happened?’ I asked.

‘No, nothing has happened. But we’re going to start searching the Burrington Stoke area tomorrow. That includes this house and its grounds. It’ll take a few days but we’ll be as thorough as possible.’

‘Why?’ I whispered. My stomach had turned to liquid; my head felt light and dizzy.

‘Oh, come on, Sarah, why do you think?’ he replied. All the friendliness, all the flirtatiousness was gone from his voice. He’d been playing with me all along.

‘It’s nearly Christmas,’ I whispered.

He gave me a withering look.

‘We’ll be as quick as we can. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t throw anything away.’

I chewed at a hangnail.

‘While I’m here,’ said DI Twyford, ‘I’d like to take the letter that Genevieve left for Jamie.’

‘Don’t you need a search warrant or something?’

He shrugged. I did not like or trust this new, hard-faced man.

‘They’re preparing a handful of warrants back at the station. We can come back in an hour or so and start our search with this house, or you could run upstairs and fetch me the letter now. We’ll give you a receipt.’

I hesitated. To take the precious letter from Jamie’s room and give it to a police officer seemed like a terribly disloyal thing to do.

‘I don’t think I …’

‘The letter’s important. If it is genuine, it might help exonerate Alexander if it turns out some harm has come to Genevieve. And if it’s not, we’ll know that somebody round here has been lying.’

I swallowed. ‘But …’

‘We’ve been keeping an eye on both you and Mr Westwood over the last couple of weeks,’ the inspector said calmly. ‘Alexander, probably assisted by you, has been disposing of certain personal items belonging to his wife, items that could be construed as evidence.’

Had they been going through our bins?

I thought of the green dress. And the make-up bag, the contraceptive pills that I’d shoved into a bag full of rubbish; the myriad, printed images of Genevieve’s face that had gone in the bottom of the recycling box. Inwardly, I groaned. I felt my stomach slide to my feet. I held out my hand to steady myself against the kitchen table. DI Twyford was watching me. He knew I knew what he meant.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the letter.’

All three of us went up to Jamie’s room. The curtains were still drawn and the room was as untidy as usual. The hamster rattled in its cage. I crossed the floor to draw
back the curtains and the room filled with a milky light. Outside, the trees were swaying madly in the wind and the flock of rooks cawed in the sky.

‘Where is it?’

‘Over there,’ I said. ‘On the desk.’

The desk was strewn with toys, clothes and books. The inspector moved them carefully, respectfully.

‘Was it in a special place?’ he asked.

‘Inside the pages of the atlas.’

The inspector had put on gloves. He leafed through the pages of the book. Then he held it up by its spine and shook it. Nothing fell out.

I pulled the duvet up to the top of Jamie’s bed and went to the corner to help search. The letter wasn’t in the atlas, or on the desk, nor was it underneath it.

‘It’s been there every time I’ve tidied the room,’ I said.

‘He could have moved it somewhere.’

‘Under the bed?’ I kneeled down to look, but the letter was not amongst the jumble of toys there either.

Over the next thirty minutes or so we searched every inch of the room and, with every second that went by, I felt more frantic. What had Jamie done with the letter? He never moved it. Surely he wouldn’t have taken it out of the bedroom.

‘Maybe he took it to school,’ DI Twyford said.

‘No, he didn’t, he wouldn’t have. And I always check his bag to make sure he’s got everything he needs each morning. It wasn’t in there.’

‘Could it be anywhere else in the house?’

‘It could be,’ I said, but I knew it wasn’t.

‘OK,’ said the inspector. ‘It’s gone.’ He put his hands in his pockets and jingled his change.

‘This isn’t a coincidence,’ he said. ‘Somebody has taken that letter because they didn’t want us looking at it too closely.’

I laughed. It was a false, brittle laugh.

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Because it wasn’t written by Genevieve.’

‘Why would anyone forge a letter to Jamie?’ I asked.

‘To reassure the kid. To put his mind at rest. So that he could tell everyone Mummy had left him a note, because everybody knows Genevieve wouldn’t have left without saying anything to him.’ He paused. ‘When did you last see it?’

It had been in the atlas on the desk, with the blue teddy sitting on top of it, a few days earlier.

I glanced around the room. Where was the teddy?

‘Sarah?’

I lifted the edge of the duvet, pretended to straighten it: the teddy wasn’t beneath it. Had Jamie brought it downstairs the previous evening? I tried to remember.

‘A couple of days ago,’ I said.

DI Twyford rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hands.

‘Something’s wrong here,’ he said. ‘This whole thing stinks.’

‘It’s a letter,’ I said. ‘It’s not as if anything of value has gone missing.’

He gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Only Genevieve,’ he said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

I WAS WAITING
outside the school gate when Jamie came out that afternoon. I stood towards the back of the crowd of women, my hair wrapped in a scarf that also covered my face, but it was all right. The political scandal was still in full swing and no journalists were there. Jamie was amongst a tumble of boys who came noisily out of the classrooms and down the path at 3.15, their shirts hanging out and their coats and scarves flying behind them, skidding on the icy path. When Jamie saw me standing apart from the other parents and carers, he came running over, threw his rucksack at me and carried on with the game. I waited until there was a pause and then beckoned him over.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘I thought we’d go to the shop and get you a hot pasty as a treat.’

Jamie beamed and swung on my arm, scuffing his shoes on the pavement. The wind was blowing up and the naked, black branches of the trees were bending and dipping.

‘Is Dad coming home tonight?’

‘Yes, he is.’