by Susan Lewis
‘No, of course not. I don’t suppose there’s any news?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m still waiting to hear from Andee. However, on a more positive note I think Matt’s got himself a girlfriend.’
Rowzee’s eyes brightened with interest. ‘Anyone we know?’
‘I can’t tell you that, because he hasn’t actually admitted there’s someone, but I heard him on the phone to one of his friends last night saying he couldn’t make some event or other because he was seeing Ellie.’
Impressed, Rowzee said, ‘If it’s Ellie Sandworth then I’d say they’re very well suited, because she’s as excellent a guitar player as he is, and if you’ve heard her sing . . .’ Realising what she was saying, she came to a sorry stop.
Blake gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I wasn’t sure a time would ever come,’ he confessed, ‘when I’d want to hear Matt playing without Jess, but I think I could, if only to reassure myself that he was getting over it.’
Understanding that, Rowzee squeezed his hand in a vain gesture of comfort. She wondered if she should start talking to him about the collaborative art project they’d been discussing before Jessica had disappeared. It might help to distract him – or it might just remind him that his life had come to a standstill, and that wouldn’t be good. ‘He who would search for pearls must dive below,’ she recited softly.
He regarded her curiously. ‘What makes you say that?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, it just came to me. It’s from the prologue of John Dryden’s All for Love.’ It was strange the things she remembered, how they came floating up from places she’d long forgotten. She hadn’t read Dryden since she was a student.
After a while, Blake said, ‘Do you think she’s dead?’
Keeping her hand on his, Rowzee said, ‘I wish I knew how to answer that. Better still, I wish I could tell you where she is, but at least you’re doing everything you can to find her.’
His smile was weak. ‘It doesn’t feel like much when I’m sitting here, day after day, repairing treasures from down the years, bringing them back to life in a way that makes them seem to breathe again, and yet I can’t do the same for my wife or my daughter. I keep thinking if only Jess was as easy to find as a missing chair from a pair, or the lost bow to a precious violin.’ His eyes drifted around the watchful clocks and cabinets, the silent dolls and damaged paintings. ‘Some missing parts can take years to trace,’ he said, ‘but they’re usually found in the end, and the odd thing is how often they turn out to be not so very far from home.’
Another letter had arrived. This one was postmarked from a town in Cornwall; the previous one, which he’d received only days ago, had come from somewhere in Berkshire. It was as though his persecutor was getting greedy, couldn’t wait to get his – or her – hands on even more money, in cash, unmarked, so untraceable and ready to be spent.
Send £40,000 in cash to the PO Box below. If you don’t you know what will happen.
It was much shorter than previous notes; the sender didn’t need to go into detail any more, he or she had convinced him in the first note that they knew enough.
At least this time he hadn’t been asked how he was living with himself.
He read the two short lines again and felt a vacuum of horror opening up inside him, one so black and powerful it could have swallowed him completely, and he almost wished it would.
Did this person have any idea how complicated the situation was, how impossible it was for him to do the right thing and tell what he knew? His and his family’s lives would be completely destroyed if the truth were to get out, especially now.
He wanted desperately to talk to Andee again, to ask for her help in any way she could give it, but she’d confirmed his fears the last time she was here: unless he told her everything there was nothing she could do. And would finding the blackmailer really put an end to it?
He’d started seeing the face again – the woman’s face, stark as a moon, circled by a fiery halo in a forest of night-blackened leaves. It kept coming to him like a warning, a threat, a terrible damnation. The first and only real time he’d seen her she’d appeared out of nowhere, suddenly she was there, and it had happened so fast, quicker than the blink of an eye or the gasp of a breath. He had no idea who she was, or how she’d come to be there. Was she the blackmailer? If so, how had she found out who he was? Who had told her, when there was no one to tell?
There was no doubt in his mind that he’d send the money. He was ready to, and could do so without raising questions at the bank. A long time ago his father had advised him always to keep large sums of cash in the safes of both houses, Burlingford Hall and Bede Lodge in London. ‘If someone breaks in and holds you or your family to ransom, you must have something to give them,’ he’d cautioned.
As Charles went to the safe, sensing the strange woman’s face lurking behind him, he was wondering if Andee believed in the friend he’d told her about. There was a friend, though he wasn’t a victim, as Charles had made it seem. In fact, for all Charles knew he was the blackmailer, for he was the person who’d invited Charles to the gathering the night it had all begun. Apart from the ghostly woman this man was, as far as Charles was aware, the only other possible suspect in this unending nightmare. Yet it made no sense at all, for he was an ex-Cabinet minister with a wife who had her own aspirations in that direction and a son who was rising fast through the ranks of the Party. Why on earth would someone like that resort to blackmail? He had no need of the money, and if he suspected for one minute that his friend and colleague, Charles Stamfield, knew anything at all about the disappearance of Jessica Leonard he’d surely have gone straight to the police.
Chapter Ten
Andee was driving behind Graeme through Kesterly’s affluent suburb of Westleigh Heights, across Moorland Park where hikers and tourists set out on their explorations, down through the Valley of Streams and finally up Lidditon Hill to the Burlingford Estate. It was a gloriously sunny day, with endless views of the estuary stretching out like dreams to the west and the dramatically rugged rise of Exmoor to the south.
She had heard this morning that Jason Griffiths did indeed live in Totnes with his grandmother and father, that he’d never been in trouble with the authorities, and was currently working as a groundsman for the local council. His father, on the other hand, had been arrested a number of times for drunk and disorderly offences and had also, several years ago, received a suspended sentence for attempted robbery. All she’d been told about the grandmother was that she worked part-time at a local arts and crafts boutique, which she part-owned.
After relaying all this to Graeme, Andee had agreed to visit Rowzee with him, taking two cars in case Rowzee decided she wanted to meet Jason, at which point one of them could drive back into town to get him. He was staying at one of the caravan parks, apparently, with an old schoolfriend who was doing a summer stint as a security guard.
As Graeme pulled into the hamlet where Rowzee and Pamela’s coach house dominated the smaller cottages like a dowager duchess with a loyal band of attendees, Andee came to a stop behind him and checked to find out who was calling her. Seeing it was Martin she decided to let it go through to messages, and turned to the texts from Alayna.
Why did you have to be so mean to Dad when you saw him? He just told me about it and he was really upset.
She was clearly referring to the incident in the street outside Graeme’s house. No doubt Martin hadn’t mentioned anything about manhandling her, or about the embarrassment he’d caused at the restaurant earlier in the day.
The next text said, Are you avoiding me too? Really grown-up of you.
And the next, Has Luke told you he’s going to Cornwall with some of his mates? Lucky him. Wish I could get out of here too.
Andee did know that Luke was heading south for a couple of weeks, it had always been in his plans for the summer, and besides he’d rung last night to remind her.
‘Can I see you before you go?’ she’d aske
d.
‘Oh Mum, I don’t really have time. Everyone’s going to the Mermaid tonight to watch Ellie Sandworth.’
‘Paul and Lucy Sandworth’s daughter? The singer?’
‘That’s right, and apparently Matt Leonard might play keyboard. If he does, it’ll be the first time he’s done anything since his sister disappeared.’
Moved by that, Andee said, ‘Then of course you must go, and I hope he does play.’
Whether Matt had she still didn’t know, because Luke hadn’t replied to her texts yet today, probably because he was still in bed or too busy getting on with the journey to Cornwall. She could ask Blake, of course, and probably would when she spoke to him later.
‘Everything OK?’ Graeme asked, as she got out of her car.
‘Just fine,’ she assured him. ‘Is Pamela at home?’
‘Her car’s not here, so I’d say not, which is a good thing, because if neither she nor Rowzee know anything about this we’ll have a job getting a word in once Pamela finds out.’
With a smile, Andee said, ‘But Rowzee is expecting us?’
Graeme nodded for her to turn around and Andee found Rowzee at the front door, beaming with pleasure to see them.
‘This is such a lovely surprise,’ she enthused, wrapping Andee into a fond embrace. ‘When Graeme called to say you were both coming for coffee – well, I wondered what I’d done to deserve such an honour, and in the middle of the working week too.’ There was a roguish twinkle in her eyes as she peeked up at Andee. ‘Do you have something to tell me, maybe?’
‘We do,’ Graeme interrupted, ‘but it isn’t what you’re thinking. Shall we go inside?’
Taking Andee’s hand Rowzee led her through to the kitchen, where coffee was already made and the heady aroma of summer grass and honeysuckle and something a little riper from a nearby farm was wafting in through the open doors.
‘I should have told you,’ Rowzee said to Graeme, ‘to bring some of those lovely shortbread biscuits from the bakery next door to you. They’re to die for,’ she informed Andee. ‘If you haven’t already tried them . . . Oh, you brought some,’ she laughed as Graeme held up a greaseproof bag. ‘You’re such a mind-reader, I could feel quite exposed if you weren’t my brother. Now, shall we sit on the terrace? It could be a little hot while the sun’s still on it . . .’
They decided on the dining table, and once the coffee had been poured and the biscuits duly praised, Graeme fixed his sister with tender eyes.
To Andee’s surprise Rowzee seemed to pale and become nervous, as though expecting bad news. ‘If this is about what I think it is,’ she began.
Curious, Graeme said, ‘What do you think it’s about?’
Rowzee shook her head. ‘Nothing. I mean, go on. You tell me. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’
With a glance at Andee, Graeme took a breath and said, haltingly, ‘I’ve recently learned . . . Well, it came as a bit of surprise to me to find out that . . . I’m not sure if it’ll be a surprise to you too.’
Rowzee frowned.
Though Andee wanted to offer some help, this really had to come from him.
‘Is it a nice surprise?’ Rowzee prompted. ‘You look so worried that I’m beginning to think it isn’t.’
‘Did you know,’ Graeme said, ‘that Victor had a son?’
Rowzee’s eyes flew wide with astonishment, though her next words belied Andee’s understanding of the shock. ‘How on earth did you find out?’ she exclaimed. ‘Have you seen him? Oh dear, please don’t say he’s treated you the way he treated poor Victor.’
Astonished in his turn, Graeme said, ‘So you’ve met him?’
Rowzee shook her head, and twisted her fingers. ‘No, never, but I keep wondering . . .’ She put a hand to her head, clearly trying to establish the order she needed to follow. ‘I didn’t find out about him until Victor did,’ she began, ‘which was about ten years ago, maybe less, I’m not sure. He turned up out of the blue. It was a complete shock, no one had ever told Victor he had a son. He was born before Victor and I met.’ She shook her head regretfully. ‘What that boy did to Victor – he wasn’t a boy of course, he was a grown man. I shall never forget it.’
As her eyes closed Graeme reached for her hands and held them. ‘Rowzee?’ he prompted after a moment or two. ‘What did he do?’
She seemed not to hear the question, or if she did, she apparently wasn’t ready to answer it.
Andee said quietly to Graeme, ‘Perhaps I should leave you two alone.’
‘No, don’t go,’ Rowzee said hurriedly. ‘If he’s been in touch again . . . He might have changed, of course, but if he hasn’t . . .’
‘It’s not him who’s been in touch,’ Graeme told her gently. ‘It’s his son, in other words, Victor’s grandson.’
‘Victor has a grandson?’ she gasped, seeming amazed, even entranced by the idea. ‘How old is he?’
‘I’d say early twenties.’
Her gaze drifted towards the garden and Andee found herself imagining the faces, dreams, past scenes, that only Rowzee could see. ‘The same age as Edward would be,’ she murmured, ‘if he were still with us.’
Still holding her hands, Graeme said, ‘He wants to see you, but obviously if you’d rather not . . .’
She didn’t answer, simply continued staring into her memories.
In the end, Graeme asked, ‘Do you want to tell us what happened between Victor and his son?’
Rowzee slowly started to nod, and continued to do so until finally she was ready to put her long-held secret into words.
‘I got home from school at my usual time that day,’ she began distantly. ‘I remember being excited because I’d managed to track down a translation of a play we’d been to during our recent trip to Argentina. I couldn’t wait to tell Victor, but his car wasn’t there when I pulled up, and there was no note inside to tell me where he was.
‘I made a cup of tea, intending to start on some marking, but I couldn’t settle to it. I felt worried without knowing why. I rang his mobile and went straight through to messages. After half an hour of the same thing I rang Charles at the Hall to find out if Victor was there, but Charles hadn’t seen him that day. I rang you next,’ she said to Graeme, ‘but you hadn’t seen him either. So I called his agent and publicist, in case he had an engagement he’d forgotten to tell me about. They could throw no light on his whereabouts, but as I hung up the phone I finally heard his car pulling up outside.’
She took a breath and her eyes seemed to glaze as though she was waiting for a wave of discomfort, even pain, to pass.
‘I went to the door having no idea what I would find, but I knew instinctively that something wasn’t right. When I saw him . . .’ She sobbed on a breath. ‘It was terrible. If it hadn’t been for his dear, shaggy thatch of hair – matted in blood though it was – and his dark-rimmed spectacles, smashed as they were, I’d have thought it was a stranger. His poor face was a mass of cuts and swellings and he could barely walk.
‘I helped him inside, trying to stay calm. I kept asking what had happened, if he’d had an accident, but he didn’t answer. He couldn’t, his mouth was too swollen. We got as far as the hall when he collapsed. I rang 999 straight away and he was rushed to A & E.
‘He turned out to have three broken ribs and a punctured lung, there was damage to his pancreas and kidneys, and he was also concussed. These were the injuries we couldn’t see; there were so many visible ones that it was hard to look at him without wanting to cry.’
Andee glanced at Graeme’s grim expression, wondering if he remembered the incident, but had believed it to be about something else at the time.
‘They kept him under close observation for five days,’ Rowzee continued. ‘I stayed with him, of course, but he was so dazed by pain and shock and the drugs they were feeding him that it was hard for him to speak and make much sense. The police came, wanting to know who had beaten him so severely, but he would only mumble that he didn’t know, it must have been a case of m
istaken identity or a random mugger.
‘It wasn’t until I got him home at the weekend that he finally told me the truth. Apparently the call had come out of the blue during the afternoon of the attack, from someone claiming to be his son. His first thought was for Edward, naturally, but that was nonsense. It couldn’t possibly be him, so he told the caller that he must have a wrong number. The caller insisted he didn’t. He said that his mother was Norma Griffiths, and that she’d told him all about his father, the famous Victor Cayne.
‘Victor remembered having a girlfriend by that name, but their relationship hadn’t been serious and they’d had no contact at all from the day they’d broken up. Naturally this didn’t mean that he couldn’t have fathered a child with her, but it begged the question why had she never told him, if he had? In the end, because the caller sounded so urgent and needy Victor agreed to go and see him. You remember how kind-hearted he was,’ she said to Graeme. ‘He said he kept thinking, “If he is my son then the very least I owe him is a chance to talk to me, maybe there’s even something I can do for him, and his mother.” It turned out that Sean – it was only later that we learned his name – didn’t have much talking in mind. He wanted money. They weren’t even inside the pub, they were still in the car park. He said he wanted a hundred thousand pounds and that was just for starters. Victor asked if he had any proof that they were related, and that was when the attack began. Victor tried to defend himself, but Sean was a large man and he didn’t seem to care how much injury he caused. He was full of anger and hatred, Victor said. He only managed to get away when Sean staggered and fell against a bollard, hitting his head. Victor stumbled to his car and just managed to drive off before Sean tore open the door.’
Tense and horrified, Andee watched Rowzee’s face, the twitching blink of her eyes, the clear distress of reliving that time.
Graeme said, very gently, ‘Why did you never tell me any of this? I remember the incident, of course, when Victor was in hospital, but I thought it was a mugging.’
