by Louise Voss
Meredith had a feeling that the ripples of yesterday’s events had only just begun to spread.
‘Meredith, love, are you all right? You look terrible.’ Ceri stared into her face, concern furrowing her brow.
‘I’m OK,’ Meredith said, turning away and clipping Dexter’s lead on. ‘Insomnia, that’s all. It’s my hormones. See you in a bit.’
Their daily circuit always took them past the bell house, up to the main gate to say hello to George, then round through the rough parkland, back into the orchard, through the trees and back up the stairs to the office, where Dexter would climb into his basket under Ceri’s desk and sleep for most of the rest of the day.
‘Looking a bit peaky this morning, Meredith, if you don’t mind my saying,’ George commented, leaning out of his sentry box as he greeted her. He was a large man, much too large for his box. When he was in there, Meredith always thought it looked like a cameraman had zoomed in on him – he filled the frame.
She hadn’t wanted to see him, or anybody but Ralph, that morning, but she wanted to stick to her routine.
Just in case.
There was a splodge of something unidentifiable but disgusting-looking on the front of George’s uniform. She normally would have pointed it out, peeled a wet wipe from the pack she kept in her bag and gone over to scrub it off for him, but all she could manage today was another weak protestation that she was fine.
‘Late night, was it?’
‘My brother came over and we drank too much wine. And I’ve got terrible insomnia,’ she croaked.
George opened his mouth to sympathise, but his attention was taken by a coach arriving, full of Japanese tourists. George made a conspiratorial face at her, baring his small, brownish teeth.
‘Shall I be nice, or shall I tell them the car park doesn’t open till nine? It’s only just gone eight! Reckon they’re on a different time zone.’
‘Be nice,’ Meredith instructed, managing to make her voice sound normal – at least to her own ears. ‘Just make sure they know the shop opens at ten. I don’t want that lot hammering the door down in five minutes’ time.’
He raised the barrier for the coach as Meredith pulled Dexter away from something by the side of the sentry box the dog was sniffing at with great interest, and they set off, back up the narrow driveway through the parkland.
It curved in a graceful arc for half a mile from the gatehouse and public car park until it reached the house itself. It was a view that still took her breath away every morning – the grandeur of the honey-coloured façade with its towers and carvings.
It often occurred to Meredith that Minstead House, somehow more so than anywhere else, was made up of millions of tiny items, not just the quotidian bricks and tiles, but great mounds of minuscule, random things, like novelty pencil-tops and ornamental gravel. She imagined the sum of its parts deconstructed into haystacks sitting on the drive where the house had once sat: separate piles of gilt picture frames, blocks of parquet flooring, individual pats of butter from the restaurant, computer keyboards from the offices, lily pads from the lake, like some kind of giant build-your-own-stately-home kit that would take two hundred years to construct.
If she was able to take the whole house apart and put it back together, would Ralph be there again, sitting in his office, tucking a cigarette behind his ear to smoke as soon as he got out the door?
No he wouldn’t. He was dead.
As Meredith rounded the corner behind the house, she braced herself for a phalanx of flashing lights, police vehicles, ambulances and CSI in paper suits – although of course George would’ve mentioned it had they actually arrived.
She dropped Dexter back with Ceri then went back downstairs, out across the courtyard to the stable block that housed the shop, with her cubbyhole of an office at the back. Swiping herself in, she checked that nothing was broken or moved.
All was normal – she had cleared up the broken china and shelf the previous day after the policeman left, and Ralph had fixed the shelf himself. She shut the door of her cubbyhole office and made herself a coffee with soya milk, which immediately curdled into cheesy clots.
As she stirred it, she thought back to what Pete had suggested the previous night. Could Ralph really have been strangled? His face had been purple, but the light in the ice house had been almost nonexistent. She had been so busy trying to restart his heart that she hadn’t really been looking that closely at the exact hue of his skin. He’d have had marks on his neck if someone had throttled him – but, again, she hadn’t been looking for them.
Her mobile buzzed on her desk, and when she saw who it was, her heart plummeted.
‘Hi Paula,’ she said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice as she answered. ‘What’s up?’
10
Meredith
Paula didn’t sound overly worried – not then, as she was telling Meredith that Ralph hadn’t come home the previous night. Meredith had a sudden urge to yell at her that she bloody well should be worried.
‘Has he ever done it before?’ she asked instead, fiddling with a loose thread on her top.
‘No, never. And his phone’s switched off.’
Meredith gave the thread a yank.
‘But, you know, I’m guessing that he just ended up on some kind of bender and has been sleeping in a hedge all night. He’ll probably limp home with a massive hangover and minus a shoe, any minute now. He might have left his phone at work. I just wondered if he’d crashed at your place last night. I know you had your monthly staff lunch, and he often has to get a cab home after that. I’m always asking him if the Earl knows how much of Minstead House’s budgets go on Ralph’s alcohol habit.’ She laughed mirthlessly.
‘I am a bit worried about his drinking,’ Meredith said, feeling like the hypocrite she knew she was. ‘He didn’t stay at mine last night, but he was drinking in his office after lunch. He texted me about five-ish to ask if I wanted to come up and have a drink with him then, but I’m really busy at the moment, getting ready for the stocktake, so I didn’t.’
She felt as if there was something obstructing her throat and swallowed hard.
‘It’s weird, Paula. His car’s still here. I saw it this morning on my way in. If he hasn’t come home, I think you should ring the hospitals. Maybe he couldn’t get a cab and decided to walk into the village, and had some sort of accident on the way. Or perhaps he’s collapsed somewhere. You hear these stories. Ceri hasn’t mentioned him leaving his phone in the office.’
‘I’m worried about his drinking too,’ Paula said in a small voice. ‘It’s got worse lately. You could be right. I’ve been thinking the same – but I was just waiting for him to come rolling in, in the early hours. I’ve been lying awake all night, planning the bollocking I was going to give him.’
‘Are you seeing clients today?’
‘No, I only had two booked in and I’ve cancelled them both.’
Paula was a psychotherapist, practising from a big studio in their garden. Meredith had often thought that was an unsafe thing to do, but Paula always brushed off her concerns with a blithe wave of the hand and pointed out that where Meredith lived was far riskier, being so isolated. ‘Yeah, but I don’t invite mentally unstable people to my house,’ Meredith would counter.
‘I’ve got to go upstairs for our heads of department meeting in a minute,’ she said now. ‘If he’s not there, I’ll check with Ceri to see if he’s rung in sick. She didn’t say he had this morning when I took Dexter out for his walk, though … Keep me posted, won’t you? And try not to worry…’ To her horror, her voice cracked.
She covered it up with a cough and said a hasty goodbye to Paula. Then she lowered her head to the desk and banged it, gently and repeatedly, on a catalogue of cashmere cushions and picnic blankets.
Unsurprisingly, Ralph’s seat was unoccupied at the start of the meeting. Ceri announced rather crossly that she hadn’t heard from him.
The Earl frowned. ‘What’s his car doing here then? Parke
d the Rolls next to him this morning, thought the lazy bugger was in early for once!’
Meredith forced her mind not to flash back to yesterday and looked around the table at her colleagues. Both the Earl and his son, Sebastian, looked a bit the worse for wear, and she wondered if they had also continued drinking yesterday after the staff lunch. Could they have had anything to do with Ralph’s disappearance?
Neither of them lived in the house any longer, although Sebastian had grown up here. When he’d gone off to uni, to study whatever young aristocrats study at Cambridge, the Earl and his wife had moved to a stunning eight-bedroomed Georgian vicarage in Minstead Village. ‘Downsizing’, they’d called it, which Pete and Meredith thought was hilarious.
Once Sebastian had left uni – after the first two terms – he’d bought a round-the-world ticket and set off travelling – probably with his own Sherpas – for a couple of years. On his return he’d promptly been employed by his dad as Minstead House’s PR person. He was pleasant enough and well meaning, but absolutely rubbish at his job.
Meredith imagined the scandal that would ensue if yesterday’s events were made public, and cringed. It would affect everybody, quite apart from the devastating impact it would have on Paula.
Please come back, Ralph, she exhorted mentally. If she tried hard, she was able to believe that he might just walk in now, clutching his head.
The Earl rotated a finger in his bristly ear and Sebastian gazed out of the window while Ceri poured cups of coffee from a large cafetière. The head of HR, Maureen – a willowy redhead nicknamed Mumblin’ Mo because she spoke so low, so fast and in such a thick Scottish accent that nobody could understand her – was reading through the agenda with a look of barely concealed boredom.
The Earl called the meeting to order, and Ceri sat in Ralph’s empty chair to take minutes, pen poised over a new page in her notebook and an expression of ferocious concentration on her lined face. Whatever her failings as an executive PA were, she was a whiz at shorthand and tended to write down absolutely everything, which meant that the minutes always ran to dozens of pages.
Halfway through a drone by Valerie, head of volunteers, about the recent volunteers’ training day, Meredith’s phone rang in her bag. Everyone turned to glare as she fished it out, apologising, and went to kill the call. But then she saw that it was Paula again. She stood up and excused herself, mouthing, I have to take this, sorry. The Earl frowned at her – mobile phones turned on during meetings were one of his many bête-noires – but she barely noticed. Why would Paula ring again, half an hour after they last spoke, unless there was bad news?
What was she thinking? She knew there was bad news. It was Paula who didn’t … yet.
‘Paula! Is he home?’
Paula was crying so much she couldn’t speak.
‘What’s happened? Is he hurt?’
Meredith thought she was going to throw up. She walked to the top of the stairs and forced herself to stare out of the window at the sunlit treetops, trying to ground herself. The morning sun felt warm on her face through the glass.
So this was how lives unravelled.
‘Nothing,’ Paula said eventually, and Meredith managed to breathe again.
‘Nothing?’
‘No news. I’ve reported it to the police, and they’re sending someone over. But I know something terrible’s happened. He’s never done this before; he just wouldn’t. Even if he was mad at me for something, he’d let Jackson know he was OK – and he hasn’t. Meredith…’
‘Yes?’
‘Will you come round later? I really don’t want to be on my own.’
Meredith closed her eyes, sunlight laser-dappling her eyelids, a dozen fabricated excuses flitting through her mind. The thought of witnessing Paula’s agony was intolerable.
‘I’ll see if I can get away a bit early. We’re still in the meeting at the moment, and Hester has a dentist’s appointment this afternoon, so I’ll have to cover the till until she gets back. But I’ll come after that, at about fourish, OK? Hang in there and let me know if there’s any news.’
She went back into the meeting, not realising how much her stricken expression was giving away until Valerie stopped talking and everyone swivelled to face her.
‘Meredith?’ Ceri said with alarm. ‘What’s the matter?’
Meredith sat heavily back in her seat. ‘Hopefully nothing … but that was Paula. She’s really worried because Ralph didn’t come home last night. She’s already told the police. It’s so out of character for him.’
The Earl peered over his smeary half-moon glasses, worn on a chain round his neck. He had quite a soft spot for Paula, and Meredith and her used to giggle that if she, Paula, played her cards right, she could one day be the second Countess Winnet.
It didn’t seem so amusing now.
‘Good heavens. And his car’s here. Do you think I should get the garden lads to do a search of the grounds? Did anybody see him leave last night?’
They all shook their heads. Meredith couldn’t meet anybody’s eye.
‘He’s walked into the village before, hasn’t he? When he’s…’ Mo tailed off, not wanting to drop Ralph in it by saying ‘been too pissed to drive’, but they all knew what she meant.
‘Has Paula rung round the hospitals?’ the Earl asked Meredith.
‘Yeah. Nothing. I said I’d go over and see her after work. I’ll work through lunch and leave early, if that’s OK?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Well, this is all most concerning. I do hope he hasn’t come to any harm.’
Meredith thought of herself scattering Ralph’s popped shirt buttons in her flowerbed like incriminating seeds. Seeds that, if they were to sprout roots, would only produce terrible seedlings of guilt and remorse.
‘So do I,’ she said fervently.
The meeting dragged on for another half an hour or so, but it was clear nobody was really paying attention. Ceri’s eyes kept going glassy and she had to stop doing her shorthand squiggles to press a tissue against her lower lids and sigh heavily, before half-heartedly resuming.
Eventually all thirteen items on the agenda had been raced through, and they were released back to their respective offices. The rest of the day passed without incident for Meredith, apart from a young woman with learning disabilities who tried to steal a packet of Minstead House fudge. She didn’t even have the heart to tell the shoplifter off. The girl started to cry as soon as Meredith pointed out she’d spotted her dropping the fudge into the open top of her backpack, and gave her back the fudge.
Hester returned at around half past three, a hand pressed to her rapidly-swelling cheek and her lip drooping slightly, and Meredith found herself wishing that Hester wasn’t quite so stoic. She had no option now but to go to Paula’s and face the music.
11
Meredith
Paula opened her front door, clinging onto it as if it was the only thing holding her up. Meredith had to prise her fingers off the frame and steer her by the elbow through to the kitchen.
The kitchen was a mess, the counters covered with a random selection of seemingly unconnected items: a heap of tarnished spoons in an untidy pile; flies buzzing around a huge pile of half-chopped tomatoes; a baking tray lined with silver foil next to some brown fluffy wool; a purple ukulele on one of the stools at the breakfast bar; some shrivelled-up leaves and a small pair of knitting needles.
It reminded Meredith again of her image of Minstead House in kit form. Perhaps this was the personification of what a mental breakdown looked like: foil, cutlery, tomatoes, knitting…
‘Thanks for coming,’ Paula managed eventually, pouring Meredith a huge glass of wine without asking. She looked terrible, grey as putty, dark circles under her eyes and a blotchy complexion. Meredith wanted to hug her but felt too guilty, so she merely nodded and held out her hand for the wine.
It was stiflingly hot in there, despite a fan listlessly rotating on the kitchen island.
‘What’s all this?’ Meredith
gestured towards the mess on the counter, then moved the ukulele so she could sit down.
Paula gave a strangled hysterical bark of laughter. ‘I can’t settle to anything,’ she said. ‘I keep starting things and not finishing them. I was going to make gazpacho. Then I thought I’d clean the spoons. Then I remembered I’d started knitting a fledgling for my niece. And I need to practise the ukulele.’
‘Knitting a fledgling?’
Meredith wasn’t really surprised, though. Paula’s house was littered with the corpses of half-finished craft projects and the evidence of short-lived hobbies. Ralph had frequently complained about it at work.
Paula ran her hand through her usually-sleek black straight hair, making it even more dishevelled. ‘My sister’s been rearing this baby bird. Put photos of it all over Facebook, but it died and she was so upset. So I thought I’d knit her one, you know, to sympathise.’
‘Mmm,’ Meredith said, tempted to add, ‘…as you do,’ but it seemed insensitive under the circumstances. ‘Tell you what, let me finish chopping the tomatoes. You sit down for a minute and talk to me.’
She gestured towards one of the stools at the breakfast bar and Paula obeyed, pouring herself an even bigger glass of wine first, half of which she gulped straight down.
‘Have you eaten?’
Paula shook her head.
‘Don’t go crazy on the wine…’
Tears sprang into her eyes. ‘Why? In case it looks bad that I’m pissed when the police show up to tell me my husband’s dead?’
‘Oh Paul, don’t think the worst, please. It’s not even twenty-four hours yet. Let me make this gazpacho and we’ll have some. I haven’t eaten either.’
