Lexie felt the weird chill shiver down her spine and reached out to grab his hand. ‘So what did you learn?’
As she spoke, Hunter appeared from the woods, heading along the line of trees towards the hotel rather than cutting through the stone circles. Nathan waved at him. For a second, it appeared that Hunter was going to pretend he hadn’t seen them, but then he changed direction towards them.
‘Hey, this is a great place. I’ve just been wandering around.’
‘On your own?’ asked Lexie. She didn’t think it was possible for Eden to have finished her chat with Spike and made it into the woods; besides the snippet of conversation she’d heard didn’t make sense if Hunter was talking to Eden, but it didn’t hurt to check.
‘Yes, Eden’s with Spike. He values her input on some of his script ideas. I’ve met him a few times with Eden and he’s always pleasant, but I get the impression when he wants to talk through stuff it’s easier for him if I’m not around.’
Lexie faced Hunter, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed Renelle wander out from the shade of the trees. Interesting. Nathan asked Hunter about the projects he’d worked on before meeting Eden. As they talked, Laurence’s girlfriend, Xena, also sauntered out from the direction of the village shops. She’d changed from the outfit she wore earlier, and now sported a pair of shorts with a polo-neck sleeveless top. Lexie could never figure out the reason for combining a high neck with no sleeves.
Lexie caught Nathan’s glance and gestured first to the carrier bag and then in the direction of the hotel to let him know she was going back there. He nodded in understanding. She didn’t hurry but timed her pace and angle to meet up with Xena.
‘Hi, Lexie. Been doing some shopping?’
‘A gift for my mother. Don’t tell me Laurence has left you on your own already?’
‘He’s making some work phone calls.’
‘At the weekend?’
‘In his defence they’re overseas calls.’
‘What’s his line of work? You said he was a bit of a techie.’
‘He works for a software company based in Asia and does large deals with governments and companies worldwide.’ Xena shrugged as if that was all she knew or was interested in knowing.
As they reached the hotel Xena said she was going to have a shower and strode off to the room she shared with Laurence on the ground floor. Lexie left the fancy grey carrier bag next to her weekend bag in the corner of the room. It was a beautiful day, and far too nice to stay inside.
In the hotel gardens, Renelle and Mitch sat on a bench next to a group of chairs. Lexie sauntered over to join them.
‘It’s lovely here. First time I’ve visited Little Stillford. I’ve been out exploring and must have walked further than I thought.’ Lexie hoped Renelle might mention her excursion in the woods, but no such luck.
‘Mitch said you’re friends of Helen and Gareth in Nettleford. I must admit we haven’t been to visit them since they moved there. Helen enjoys the theatre so we get tickets and they come and stay with us. Our excuse is that we both travel a lot for work and like our weekends at home.’
‘Helen mentioned you work in film and stage make-up. That sounds so exciting.’
‘It’s harder work than people think and there are some big egos involved, but mostly it’s amazing. Some days I still can’t believe that I get paid to do something I love.’
‘What type of productions have you worked on?’
‘At first I took everything I was offered: commercials, theatre, film, historical, romantic comedy.’ Renelle fingered her rose gold necklace. ‘A couple of years ago I did some specialised training on facial prosthetics and since then I’ve worked on some exciting projects. We created aliens for the film I’ve just finished and there’s one coming out later this year, A Failure of Possibilities, where we had to age the main characters forty years during the storyline.’
Renelle talked easily about her work and Lexie wondered why Eden disliked her so much. She thought the stories she’d heard about Renelle being aloof and her penchant for snapping at people who annoyed her were the attributes of a person who’d erected a shield to avoid people being able to hurt her. Given what had happened at Bristol University, Lexie could understand that.
Over the next hour most of the group returned and joined them in the garden. The afternoon was hot, but as the cloud gathered it became humid. Lexie felt lethargic and for once enjoyed the lazy afternoon. Her only concern was where Gareth and Helen had gone. She had lost sight of them when the group split up to look around the village, and she noticed their car wasn’t in the car park when she arrived back at the hotel. Helen needed a little less stress in her life at the moment and this weekend was probably not the solution.
When Spike and Eden joined the group, Renelle reached out to hold Mitch’s hand. If Eden noticed she gave no sign of it and sat next to Hunter on the lawn, pulling her legs close to her chest. He kissed her and put his arm across her shoulders.
‘It feels weird being here again,’ said Mitch.
Renelle glanced around, checking who was within earshot. ‘Hard on Gareth.’
A pained expression crossed Eden’s face. ‘Not just Gareth. Madelaine and I were as close as sisters. I still miss her.’ It was difficult to answer a statement like that without it sounding like a platitude and no one broke the silence until Eden spoke again. ‘But this isn’t about Madelaine. It’s been so long since we all met up, I thought it would be great for us to spend some time together. An evening is never long enough and all of us at someone’s house for a weekend would be a bit of an imposition and so I thought of here.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ said Laurence. ‘Madelaine loved this place. I came down for a day while she was filming and she was so excited to show me around the stone circles and the village.’
‘Don’t forget, she died in her apartment, not here,’ added Spike. ‘Laurence is right. Madelaine had a great time making the film. We both knew it was something special and she was proud of her work. It was her idea to use the horizontal stone for the death scene. The film and this place helped make her a star even though she wasn’t able to enjoy that part of it.’
It was quite a speech. The mood broke as Gareth and Helen drove into the car park. Lexie went to meet them and most of the others disappeared back to their rooms.
They met again later at the White Rose restaurant in the village. Everyone was careful in their conversation as if they’d taken a vow of good behaviour. It was a pleasant and uneventful evening.
9
Lexie Wyatt
Doomhill and Little Stillford, Wiltshire
2018
At breakfast the following morning, Nathan said he was going to Doomhill to have a look at the long barrow he’d read about in his research of the stone circles.
‘Not the cheeriest of names,’ said Laurence.
‘Originally the whole area was called Dawnbrook Down, but sometime after the long barrow was built that part became known as Doomhill.’
‘What’s a long barrow?’ asked Xena.
‘A Neolithic tomb. I suppose that’s the reason the name changed. Doomhill long barrow was built around 3000 BC so it’s roughly the same age as the stone circles. As it’s not far away, I guess it was built by the same tribe.’
‘Does this long barrow still have bodies in it?’ Xena gave a shudder.
‘No. I’m not sure where the remains were taken, but in the village museum there’s a display of photos and information about Doomhill. The place looks pretty amazing given the enormous stones they used and the time period it was built. It’s only twenty minutes or so drive from here, but no one has to come, I just mentioned that I’m going.’
Most of them wanted to do something rather than sit around talking, but no one had any other ideas. After breakfast they had a break to collect what they needed and then met in the car park.
As Nathan had promised, it was a short drive and as they crested the brow of the final
hill, Dawnbrook Down stretched out before them, miles of flat land divided into fields separated by hedges and dry-stone walls, looking like a collage of greens, yellows and gold. Doomhill long barrow and a hill standing close by were the only two landmarks for miles.
The walk from the car park took them over several fields and stiles, with the scent of damp grass still in the air. The temperature was gradually warming and Lexie was glad of the exercise and happy to be outside. Several massive sarsen stones appeared to guard the entrance to the long barrow.
‘What are they?’ asked Lexie.
‘Probably the ones used to block the entrance once the main passage of the long barrow was filled with smaller stones and rubble.’
‘A way to stop people getting in?’
‘Yes, but not the only one, apparently the builders of the long barrow also created a false entrance using two other sarsen stones.’
‘Not things you could lug around easily.’ Once again, Lexie was impressed with the amount of research Nathan had done before their visit.
‘Definitely not.’
Lexie wasn’t usually claustrophobic, and while this wasn’t deep like a cave, the size and weight of the stones used to build the barrow felt as if they were closing in, or might tumble and trap her. To concentrate her mind on something else, Lexie counted her paces as she walked around. Assuming that her normal stride was around a yard, she worked out that the barrow was around thirty yards in length and about half that in width. There were some side chambers but she merely stood at the entrance and looked in. Despite the counting and her deliberate slow breathing, she could feel her chest tightening. She caught up with Nathan and reached out to hold his hand.
‘They found the remains of thirty-two people in here,’ he said, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘Are you feeling okay?’
‘For the moment. The stones and lack of light make it a bit oppressive.’ Lexie wandered around with him for as long as she could cope and then said she needed some air.
Outside, she walked the length of the long barrow. Nearby were some upright stones that could easily be companions of the ones at Little Stillford, looking as though some giant hand had tossed them around haphazardly. Lexie had assumed that all the others were still in the long barrow, although the dim light made it difficult to tell. However, as she swung round, she noticed Eden climbing the nearby hill. Good. It was time to have a private conversation with her.
When Lexie reached the top of the hill, she found Eden sitting in a shallow dip under an oak tree.
‘Another escapee from the long barrow.’ Lexie tried to sound as casual as possible.
‘I didn’t know it existed,’ said Eden. ‘And I enjoyed looking around, but there’s only so much of it I can take. I had the start of a headache so I came up here and took a couple of pain killers.’
Lexie stretched out on the grass next to Eden, enjoying the feel of the sun on her skin while Eden kept to the shade under the tree.
‘The stone circles and the long barrow have really grabbed Nathan’s interest. Little Stillford’s a lovely place.’
‘I’m glad you’re enjoying the weekend. With some of the comments from the others, I wondered if coming here was a good idea.’
In Lexie’s mind, liking Little Stillford was a totally different thing to enjoying the weekend, but she didn’t voice her thoughts. She wanted to question Eden about Madelaine, but given the strong probability of annoying Eden with that topic, she’d get the interview for the magazine out of the way first.
‘Other than that brief chat in the park, we haven’t had time to talk about your work for the magazine article, and as we talked about using the interview as the reason for me being here how about I ask you a few questions now?’ Lexie took her work seriously and had developed a set of questions for Eden, and although the list was back in the hotel, she didn’t need it.
‘Sure, fire away.’
‘Do you mind if I use the voice recorder on my phone? I don’t have a notebook with me.’
Eden nodded her agreement and Lexie set the phone between them. She went through her questions and Eden elaborated some of her answers with incidents from her work, not all as harrowing as previous conversations with her.
When Lexie asked a question about children in the refugee camps, Eden pulled a photo from her wallet.
‘This little girl is Soo. She became ill in the camp with diarrhoea, unfortunately it’s not unusual. There were no spare beds in the makeshift hospital. The best they could do was a blanket on the floor. She stayed there with her mother. They were the only members of their family that had escaped their village and they arrived at the camp with nothing. Soo was running a temperature and her hair was sticking to her forehead and neck. A nurse tied it up with one of those coloured elastic bands you can buy in a pack at any chemists. Soo thought it was wonderful and kept patting it to make sure it didn’t come out. Neither she nor her mother ever complained and they were so grateful for everything the doctors and nurses did. We managed to find some bits of cloth from old clothes, and we made Soo a rag doll as she didn’t have any possessions, let alone toys. Believe me this was no fancy doll you’d buy in a shop. We hand-sewed it and drew the face, but I’ll never forget Soo’s expression as she cuddled it.’ Eden rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand.
Lexie averted her gaze and gave Eden some time to compose herself. Eden hadn’t shown any interest in Helen and Gareth’s two children or in Tilly and the twins. She wasn’t surprised about the lack of attention paid to her three, but she thought Eden might be more interested in Gareth’s family or at least have pretended some curiosity.
‘Are Soo and her mother still in the camp?’
‘No, Soo died. Her mother melted into the thousands of people there and I couldn’t find her.’
Eden stood and strode to the side of the hill overlooking the long barrow. Lexie turned off the recorder and put away her phone. She gave Eden another minute and then joined her.
‘Have you spoken to anyone else yet for the article apart from me and the firefighter?’
‘On Monday, I’m interviewing a female private investigator, and later in the week I have a telephone interview with a police inspector.’ Now for her other questions. ‘Why did you decide to visit Gareth and Helen now?’
As Eden stared beyond the long barrow at the patchwork miles stretching towards the horizon, her expression was unreadable. ‘I told you. I’m here to find out about Madelaine’s death. Her murder.’
‘It would be difficult to forget that, especially as you asked me to help. Perhaps I didn’t emphasise that last word enough. Why now? You’ve obviously had doubts for a long time. Why choose now?’ As a teenager, Lexie’s natural inclination had been to fill a silence and rattle on about something else, but since managing teams in her London job and more lately interviewing people for the magazine articles, she had learned to enjoy the silent gaps and to let the other person rush to fill the stillness. If Eden didn’t want to answer her questions then why ask her to help?
A range of expressions crossed Eden’s face without her trying to hide them. Despite her forceful exterior, and the passage of time, this was obviously still an emotional subject for her. ‘From the very beginning, I couldn’t believe that Madelaine had killed herself, but I was too devastated at losing her to think clearly or do anything. I couldn’t even bear to be with the others. I suppose some people might be comforted by mourning together, but it wasn’t for me. It took me a long time to think coherently about what might have happened. I guess you already know that Mitch and I dated while we were at university and for a time afterwards. The end came quite suddenly, and yet, when I looked back on it, I saw the warning signs months before. Ironically, I wanted to talk to Madelaine about it the last weekend we were here.’ She stopped, her eyes losing focus as her mind wandered to the past. ‘Anyway, other events intervened and I never raised the subject. Mitch and I had run our course.’
The words were personal and Eden appeared to have o
pened up to her, but she had subtly changed the conversation. From what Helen had said and her own observation, Lexie understood that Eden had a mercurial nature, but she persisted. It would be interesting to see what happened.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
Eden studied Lexie from under half-closed lids. ‘With a skill like that, I could do well as a politician.’
Although the tone was softer, once more Lexie had the impression Eden was trying to score points, to beat her in the conversation.
Eden’s expression turned serious. ‘Has Helen told you about the period surrounding Madelaine’s death?’
‘Briefly. It sounds like it’s still very much a taboo topic for them.’
‘It was a bad time and that’s putting things mildly. None of us had any experience with sudden death. We were so young. I wouldn’t have said so at the time, but looking back we were inexperienced in those ways of the world. The investigation took over and while the officials were polite and tried to be kind, it was just another job. Ultimately, there were so many questions that weren’t answered for us, for me. It all became too hard. That sounds awful, but I guess that’s why I didn’t do more at the time. I told the police over and over that Madelaine wouldn’t kill herself. If something was wrong we would have talked about it. We could have put it right. She wouldn’t have left without telling me why. Without saying goodbye.’
Eden’s lip quivered and for once Lexie was certain this was a true emotion. She wanted to put her hand on the other woman’s shoulder, give her a light, solidarity squeeze, but she didn’t think Eden would appreciate the sentiment.
Eventually, Eden spoke, her voice once again strong and sure. ‘For me the verdict was no verdict. They gave up. I think it was an easy way to close the case and the police didn’t discover everything. I can no longer live with myself for not doing more. I need to know why Madelaine had to die and who was involved. Why she was murdered.’
The Worst Lie Page 11
