The Secrets Between Us (42 page)

‘Don’t we have his name?’

‘Romeo Delta.’

I smiled. It seemed a sad little joke. I felt sorry for Genevieve, sorry for Alexander. He must have had some inkling that he was being cuckolded while Genevieve was away with her horses and he was at home looking after Jamie. He must have known and yet he never said anything. Was it pride, or shame, that kept him quiet? Or simply hope that the relationship would blow over and the Alexander–Genevieve–Jamie family unit would remain intact?

I wondered if Genevieve had mentioned ‘Romeo’ in her last letter to Alexander and if that was the real reason why he had destroyed it.

‘Do
you
have any idea who he might be?’ Neil asked.

‘Genevieve used to go out with someone called Luke Innes. An old friend. The police have been looking for him but haven’t found him.’

‘She knew Luke before she knew Alexander?’

‘Yes. They were boyfriend and girlfriend in Burrington Stoke before she went to university and for a while afterwards.’

Neil ate a chip pensively.

Then he said: ‘These are the facts we know. Someone – let’s assume it was Genevieve – pushed the “farewell” letter to her parents into the letterbox at the end of their drive the morning of the day she left. She wanted to be certain they opened it that morning, which is why she hadn’t risked posting it. Philip had an appointment at the hospital, and Virginia had gone with him. Genevieve must have known they’d be out. You’d know the geography better than I do, but the police think she walked up the hill, probably to say goodbye to her horses before she left.’

That would be about right.

Neil took a drink and then continued: ‘According to Alexander, he left for work that morning as usual and
dropped Jamie off at school. It was the end of term, the last day before the holidays. Normally, Genevieve would have taken Jamie to school, but she’d decided to take a bath – probably didn’t want to have to look Alexander in the face. He says he found his letter propped up on the kitchen table when he came home from work that afternoon. He was earlier than usual because the school had called him when Genevieve didn’t turn up to meet Jamie.’

‘But that letter doesn’t exist any more.’

‘No. Alexander says he burned it.’ Neil drained his glass. ‘And then there’s the matter of Genevieve’s letter to Jamie, which has also gone missing but which, logically, should not have existed.’

‘It didn’t,’ I said. ‘Alexander wrote it.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘To put Jamie’s mind at ease because Genevieve hadn’t thought to say goodbye to her son.’

Neil rubbed his chin. ‘That’s because she didn’t think she had to.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she always intended to take him with her. You found the bag she’d packed for herself, but there was another one, full of Jamie’s things. Jamie’s passport was kept in Alexander’s office. Genevieve wouldn’t have wanted to move it until she was ready to go in case Alexander got wind of what she was up to. It’s likely she planned to wait until she was sure he was at Castle Cary, then she’d get everything ready, deliver her letter to her parents and pick Jamie up from school on her way out.’

‘Neil, how on earth do you know all this?’

He smiled.

‘Excellent contacts in the police. Expensive ones.’

‘Do you know that Alexander isn’t Jamie’s genetic father?’

‘I do. And, this is assumption, but if Genevieve
was
seeing someone she’d known for some time – let’s say it was this
Luke Innes – there’s a definite possibility that
he
was Jamie’s real father, especially if she was seeing him before she met Alexander. If they
were
planning to take Jamie abroad, Alexander wouldn’t have had a proverbial cat’s chance of getting him back.’

‘It’s a pretty strong motive for Alexander stopping Genevieve leaving,’ I said. ‘It makes him more likely to be guilty.’

‘Agreed. But if Alexander is the guilty party, why hasn’t the lover come forward?’

‘Because he feels guilty. Because he was indirectly responsible for Genevieve’s death. Because maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know he was involved with her. Because he’s too distressed. Because he’s married.’

‘Or maybe it’s because he was the one who killed her,’ Neil said.

I exhaled shakily.

‘There’s one more thing,’ Neil said. ‘Genevieve’s inheritance. It’s substantial.’

‘Alexander wouldn’t have cared about that,’ I said. ‘He’s not interested in money.’

‘Everyone’s interested in money,’ said Neil, ‘if there’s enough of it at stake.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

WHEN WE WERE
back in the flat, for the first time since I’d returned to Manchester I didn’t want to go straight to bed. My head was fizzing with thoughts and ideas. I would have liked to start researching Alexander and Genevieve’s history right there and then. Neil had a laptop, and I thought perhaps I could spend an hour or so on the internet, but May was using it to chat with her Facebook friends and she’d been so patient and put up with so much from me that I couldn’t ask her to move. Instead I went into the kitchen and made hot chocolate for the three of us, and then I sat on the sofa snuggled up next to May and watched television beside her. She moved the laptop, put her arm round me and squeezed me tight.

‘Better?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Thanks to you and your lovely husband.’

May smiled.

I reached up to my sister and kissed her cheek. She was warm and smelled of shampoo.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For everything.’

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ she said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

BY SEVEN THIRTY
the next morning I had showered, washed and dried my hair, dressed in a tweed skirt, oyster-silk blouse and green coat that May was, one day, hoping to slim into and was walking with Neil towards the staff entrance of the NWM building. It was good to be back in the city with its wide streets and lights and buses. I felt optimistic. I felt positive. I was proud to be doing something to try to prove that Alexander was an innocent man, even if it turned out to be wasted time. I wished I had some way of letting him know I was back on track, fighting for us all.

Neil signed me into the building as a visitor and we took the lift to the massive newsroom, where he found me a spare computer. It was hushed in there: people worked quietly, TV monitors were turned to silent, even the phones were muted. About half the desks were empty. Neil said there’d been some redundancies before Christmas and, of those staff who remained, several were on holiday. I wasn’t going to be in anyone’s way. I hung my coat and scarf over the back of the chair and ramped the seat up to a comfortable position. Neil perched on the edge of the desk and scratched his head.

‘I think we should start with Matt Bryant,’ he said. ‘He’s the chap Alexander embezzled from. Do you know the story?’

I nodded. ‘I read a newspaper report of the trial.’

‘It’s the furthest back we can go right now. Alexander and Genevieve married as soon as he’d finished his gaol sentence, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘So they must have been close before he went into prison. All the reports suggest he and Bryant were good friends before then, so Bryant can probably tell us more about his relationship with Genevieve.’

‘Right.’

‘If Bryant’s business is still going, you might be able to find it on the internet,’ Neil said. ‘Are you OK with that?’

I nodded. I felt like a child on her first day at school. I was literally itching to get started.

‘While you’re doing that, I’ll see what I can find out about Genevieve. Is there anything important I don’t know about? Do you have any leads for me?’

‘Only Luke Innes,’ I said.

‘OK. I’ll get on to him. I’ll be over there by the news desk. You’ll be all right?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. I wanted him to go away and let me get on with the job.

In the event, it took about two minutes to find what I was looking for. By eight o’clock I was already familiar with Bryant’s Reclamation and Restoration, having found the business website and looked at all the pages. It wasn’t a particularly fancy site, but it was clear that, far from folding, the business was thriving and had expanded into selling garden furniture and stoneware. I showed Neil and asked him what I should do next, and he looked at me as if I was a complete idiot and told me to call the contact number and ask to speak to Matt Bryant.

‘What should I say?’

‘Ask him about Alexander.’

‘But he must hate Alex, after what he did. Why should he help me?’

‘You’re not asking for help, you’re asking for information.’

‘What should I do if he doesn’t want to talk to me?’

Neil pulled a face. ‘Be charming. Flirt. I don’t know, you’ll think of something.’

It took me several minutes to compose myself enough to dial the contact number. It wasn’t even half past eight and I thought it was unlikely there would be anyone there. I expected to be put through to an answerphone and was planning the message I’d leave when a gruff voice at the end of the line said: ‘Hello, Bryant’s Reclamation.’

As it turned out, I had got straight through to the right person. Matt Bryant was not exactly unfriendly, but he was suspicious. He’d heard the news about Alexander and Genevieve and had already been contacted by several national publications wanting to sign him up for an exclusive story about how he knew the murderer when he was only a thief. They wouldn’t be able to publish any of this before the trial because it was
sub judice
, but they’d be able to run a bumper supplement when …
if
Alexander was found guilty.

‘Can’t stand the vultures,’ Matt said. ‘I had quite enough of them last time round, but they won’t bloody leave me alone. I told them to piss off, I’m not speaking to anyone.’

‘But I’m not a journalist,’ I said quickly.

I told him who I was and explained my relationship with Alexander. I did my best to convince him that my intentions were honourable but he said he’d been ‘stitched up’ too often in the past and refused to speak to me over the phone.

‘If you want to talk, we’ll do it face to face,’ he said. ‘But I’m not promising anything.’

He put the phone down. I sat for a moment, trying to work out what to do. I crossed to Neil’s desk.

‘What now?’ he asked.

‘He won’t talk to me on the phone.’

‘Well, go and see him then.’

‘He’s in Worcester.’

‘It’s not that far.’

Neil put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.

‘You know which car it is,’ he said. ‘Go on. Off you go.’

I listened to Radio 4 as I drove back down the M5, and by lunchtime I was sitting in the café that faced the reclamation yard, eating a cheese and tomato toastie. Matt Bryant sat opposite tucking into a hot meat pie and chips. When I’d arrived, he had recognized me from a newspaper photograph taken the day I left Burrington Stoke. He’d put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed and said: ‘It
is
you. I had to be sure. Might have been somebody pretending to be you. It’s a terrible bloody business. Let’s get something to eat.’

I liked him. He was a chatty, friendly man with a strong chin and an even stronger country accent. He was proud of his business, his family and his success. He wore an expensive watch and overalls. His boots had steel toecaps yet he smelled of Calvin Klein and his car had a personalized plate. I could imagine him being Alexander’s friend, but in a different world from the one in which I knew Alexander. The café was busy, hot and steamy, decorated with tinsel and battery-operated Santas who tinkled and chimed in competition with the end-of-year songs playing on the radio.

Matt shook his head as I told him my version of the story.

‘I knew it would end in disaster,’ he said. ‘I bloody knew it.’

‘What would end in disaster?’ I asked.

‘Alex and Genevieve. We all warned him, but he wouldn’t listen.’

‘It wasn’t exactly her fault how it ended,’ I said quietly.

‘Listen,’ Matt said, waving his fork at me. ‘She sucked Alex up and we knew she’d spit him out when she’d had enough.’

‘How did they meet?’ I asked.

‘She was a friend of my sister’s. They’d been at university together.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘We all used to hang around in a crowd. All the girls liked Alex but he only had eyes for Gen. He thought they were fated to be together. He was one of those people who was always trying to make things right. I expect you know what he’s like.’

I felt a pang of missing Alexander. Up to that point, I hadn’t met anyone who knew him before Genevieve. If things had been different, I thought, if I had known him then, when we were younger, before any of these bad things happened … But he wouldn’t have been interested in me. He would still have chosen Genevieve, of course.

Matt took a drink of tea and swallowed.

‘No matter what the mess was, he’d try to clean it up. It was the way he was, probably because of his useless bloody mother. And Genevieve, for all her fancy education and her horses and her looks, she was a mess.’

I had never heard her described like that before. It contradicted everything I knew about her.

‘How was she a mess?’ I asked.

Matt rolled his eyes.

‘She was involved with an older man. He was married but had promised to leave his wife – usual story – then the wife went and fell pregnant and so he had to stay with her for the sake of the kid, and that’s why Genevieve came to live with us for a while. She was in a right old state, crying all the time, threatening to do all sorts. One minute she was going to front it out with the wife, the next she was going to kill herself. She said she couldn’t bear to be at home trying to put a brave face on it with her mother asking questions all the time.’

The man couldn’t have been Luke Innes, because Luke
wasn’t older and he hadn’t been married. I felt a twinge of frustration. I could imagine Virginia interrogating Genevieve, trying to get to the bottom of her daughter’s unhappiness, and Genevieve being unable to tell her mother anything for fear of the repercussions. I could understand why she needed to get away.