by A J McDine
Telling Eddie and Rhona I was popping out for some fresh air, I headed through the main doors onto the circular driveway at the front of the building. I was about to call Eloise to tell her I would be home earlier than expected when I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. My breath caught in my throat as I spun on my heels.
‘Get your hands off me,’ I cried.
Roy Matthews backed away, his palms raised in surrender.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘Then what did you mean to do?’
He rotated his hands slowly and stared at them as if he’d never seen them before. ‘I wanted to apologise,’ he said. ‘I was wrong to blame you for what happened.’
‘Too right you were. It was Rhona who took India’s call, not me.’
‘I realise that now. But that day in the car park, I saw you go into the Sisterline offices. I thought you must be the one who turned India against me.’
‘No one turned India against you, Mr Matthews. Rhona was there when she needed support. She helped her.’
‘I know.’ His body started to convulse, and for one awkward moment I feared he was about to have a seizure and I might actually have to help him, but then a tear slid down his face, and another, and he broke into noisy sobs.
‘I’m sorry,’ he blurted. ‘I was hurting so bad inside that I lashed out.’
‘It was one thing slashing my tyre and threatening me in the car park but sending lilies to my house was something else. My cat died because of you.’
His faced creased with confusion. ‘Your cat?’
‘She was poisoned by the lilies you left on my doorstep.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t leave any lilies. I don’t even know where you live.’
‘That’s not what your note said.’
‘I just said that to frighten you.’
‘I know you’re lying. You trashed my house.’
His eyebrows shot up to his non-existent hair line. ‘I didn’t!’
‘My goddaughter saw you,’ I said, trying to think. Eloise heard our intruder as he’d wreaked havoc downstairs, but had she actually seen him? I couldn’t remember.
‘Honestly, it wasn’t me. I don’t know where you live.’
‘Either you were lying then or you’re lying now. Whichever way you look at it, I can’t trust a word you say. You deserve to have India’s death on your conscience, you unpleasant excuse for a man.’
I left him gaping at me like a fish out of water and marched back inside.
I was still shaking with anger as I retook my seat in the courtroom. I didn’t feel a shred of sympathy for Roy Matthews. Men like him used their anger issues as an excuse for frankly diabolical behaviour. They were pathetic. And how dare he deny killing Dinah? He made me sick.
Josephine Berisford’s eyes roved the room until she had everyone’s attention.
‘India Matthews did not appear to be suicidal when she phoned Sisterline on the morning of her death, and I would like to pay tribute to the charity and its staff and volunteers who do such sterling work in helping people when they are at their most vulnerable.’ She smiled at Rhona and I groaned inwardly. The bloody woman would be insufferable.
‘However, this was before India’s final conversation with her father, in which harsh words were exchanged,’ the coroner continued.
‘The train driver took all action possible by applying the brakes. There was absolutely nothing he could have done to avoid striking India and my sympathies are with him.
‘Based on the evidence, I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that this was a deliberate act on India’s part and so I am recording a verdict of suicide. My deepest condolences to India’s family and my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has given evidence today.’
The Matthews contingent came together and embraced, tears running down their cheeks. All except Roy Matthews, who was sidling towards the door with a woebegone look on his face. Keen to avoid another confrontation with him, I said goodbye to Eddie and Rhona and hurried from the room. We could have a de-brief in the morning. Right now, I just wanted to get home.
I needed all my powers of concentration to navigate Maidstone’s complicated one-way system, but once I was on the motorway, I replayed the conversation with Matthews in my head. He’d admitted he left the note in which he professed to know where I lived, yet he’d also claimed that was a lie designed to intimidate me and he’d seemed genuinely baffled when I’d blamed him for leaving the lilies and trashing the house.
Could I trust the words of a liar and a bully?
One thing was sure: either he was lying then, or he was lying now. The flip side of that, of course, was that one of his assertions was true.
But which one?
And if he hadn’t left the lilies and trashed the house, who had?
My scrambled thoughts began to untangle as the Land Rover ate up the miles. For too long, my mind had been a mess, a jumble of suspicions and paranoia, one feeding off the other. I hadn’t been able to sleep, I could barely eat, and the smell of death had followed me everywhere.
Sitting through India’s inquest, I’d been quietly impressed at how the coroner had listened to the evidence, analysed the facts and reached a logical conclusion. Her calm, reasoned approach had caused a shift in my thinking and, slowly, the rational, methodical side of my brain reasserted itself.
As my mind cleared, I realised I had been deluding myself for days.
I’d thought that where Theo was concerned, I had a choice.
But I was wrong. There had only ever been one course of action. And the sooner I set that course in motion, the better.
I stepped on the accelerator, and the Land Rover lurched towards home.
Chapter Forty-Three
SEPTEMBER 2007
* * *
Juliet was as good as her word and kept me at arm’s length. We spoke on the phone every few weeks and I dutifully sent my goddaughter a card with a ten-pound note tucked inside every year for her birthday. When I offered to go up to London for Eloise’s fourth birthday and deliver her card in person, Juliet politely but firmly declined.
‘If I open the door even a crack, you’ll push it open and then you’ll be here every weekend, making yourself at home. You always do. You can’t help yourself,’ she said.
‘I won’t,’ I promised. But she stood her ground, so I bought a stamp and put the card in the post.
I didn’t hold it against Juliet because I wanted her to be happy. And if that meant limiting my contact with her to a couple of phone calls a month, then so be it.
And she was. Happy, I mean. She seemed to find motherhood effortless, and her voice was filled with warmth when she relayed Eloise’s latest achievements, whether it was learning to tell the time or playing a solo at recorder club. Her boss at the gallery agreed she could cut her hours to three mornings a week when Eloise was born. It wasn’t enough to live on, but her parents helped financially, and when they died, six months after each other when Eloise was five, Juliet lived off her inheritance.
One time I phoned her I was surprised to hear a faint slur to her words, even though it was barely six o’clock on a Sunday evening.
‘Have you been drinking?’ I asked.
She giggled. ‘One of the mums was making margaritas at the party Eloise went to this afternoon. I may have had a couple.’
‘And the rest,’ I said archly, and Juliet laughed harder.
‘Oh, Rose, don’t ever change, will you? Keep saying it as it is. It’s so refreshing. The mums here can be a bit… oh, I don’t know. A bit two-faced, you know? Perfectly pleasant to your face and then bitching about you behind your back.’
A warm flush was spreading through my body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, as I savoured her words. Don’t ever change, Rose.
‘I can’t imagine anyone bitching about you,’ I said. I wasn’t trying to flatter her. I genuinely couldn’t think of a single reason anyone might have something nasty to say
.
‘Oh, it’s the whole single mum vibe. I’m an anomaly among the Smug Marrieds, their two point four children and their bloody labradors and four by fours. The women think I’m on my own, therefore I must be after their husbands. The husbands think I’m fair game.’ There was a pause, a chink of glass and the sound of swallowing. Juliet cleared her throat. ‘Sometimes I just wish Danny was here, you know?’
I gripped the handset tightly. ‘I know. But you’re doing so well. And you have Eloise. Any more head teacher awards?’
‘It’s the summer holidays, Rose.’
‘Oh yes, silly me. How’s ballet?’
‘She’s moved onto tap, now. Says she likes the noise it makes.’ Juliet’s voice was indulgent. ‘She reminds me so much of her father. She has the same single-mindedness, the same determination. If she sets herself a goal, she’ll do whatever it takes to reach it. Sometimes I look at her and it’s like I’m seeing him.’ She laughed. ‘Well, a small, female version of him, anyway. Does that sound weird?’
‘Not at all.’
Juliet mellowed towards me after that, and our phone calls were longer, more intimate. I didn’t suggest visiting her in London, not just because I was busy with my charity work, but because I knew I would have to share her with Eloise, and I didn’t want to. So, we kept it to late-night phone calls when we drank wine and put the world to rights, and it was almost like old times.
And then my father died, and everything changed again.
‘I’m coming to the funeral,’ Juliet announced.
I protested weakly, but she cut across me.
‘It’s the least I can do. I know how close you were to him. I’ll have to bring El, but that’s all right, isn’t it? We can share a bed. Where is it you live again? Eastchurch?’
‘Eastling, just outside Faversham. Don’t go to Eastchurch, it’s on the Isle of Sheppey.’ It was dispiriting that I knew every detail about Juliet’s life, yet she didn’t even know where I lived.
She turned up at the house an hour before the service was due to begin with a small, solemn-faced girl in tow. Wrapping me in her arms and holding me tightly, she whispered, ‘I’m so sorry,’ in my ear.
I nodded and pulled away. Sniffed and dabbed my eyes with the corner of my sleeve.
She placed her hands on her hips. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’
‘Oh, sorry, yes, of course. Hello Eloise, I’m Rose, your godmother. The last time I saw you, you were in nappies. Remarkable where the time goes.’
Juliet laughed, pushing her daughter towards me. ‘I was talking to Eloise,’ she said. ‘El, say hello to your Auntie Rose. There’s a good girl.’
The child murmured a greeting, her gaze firmly on the ground at our feet.
‘Don’t I get a curtsy?’ I asked, arching an eyebrow.
Eloise’s mouth fell open, and she shot a worried look at her mother. Juliet laughed again.
‘Your Auntie Rose is teasing you, Eloise. She has a strange sense of humour. You’ll soon learn not to take everything she says at face value.’
I picked up Juliet’s overnight bag. ‘I’ve put you both in the spare room. I hope that’s all right.’
‘It’ll be perfect, I’m sure.’ Juliet gazed at the cottage, at the flaky paintwork and the rotten windows, the crumbling pointing and the Virginia creeper that encased the brickwork like a verdant coat of armour. It was a world apart from her pretty mews house in Marylebone.
‘Sorry about the state of the place,’ I said, marching towards the back door. ‘I’m afraid it’s not been a priority these last few years, what with my mother’s illness and everything.’
‘Don’t apologise. It’s charming,’ she said, following me into the kitchen and dropping her handbag on the table.
‘That’s one word for it,’ I said. ‘Ramshackle is another, and it’s rather more accurate. If you’ll follow me.’
Once I’d settled Juliet and Eloise in the spare bedroom, I headed for my room, wrenched open my wardrobe door and reached for my black funeral dress. The rayon fabric felt coarse against my mottled skin. I hugged myself, rubbing warmth into my arms, and paced over to the window. The sky was a sullen grey apart from a single ray of light as the sun tried heroically to pierce the thick rain clouds.
A sob caught the back of my throat, and I pressed my forehead against the glass. A black limousine was nosing its way up the drive towards the house. I wiped my clammy hands on my dress, slipped on a pair of plain black court shoes, and stepped onto the landing.
The funeral passed in a blur of readings and hymns. I sat with my head bowed, Juliet to my right, Eloise one along. She was a serious little girl with dark-blonde hair and hazel eyes a couple of shades darker than her mother’s. I’d tried to engage her in conversation as we’d waited for the service to begin but had little joy.
‘She’s a bit shy,’ Juliet had mouthed over the top of Eloise’s head. ‘Just leave her - she’ll soon come around.’
Back at the house, Juliet walked round with the trays of sandwiches I’d ordered from the pub and charmed the incontinence pants off the old boys my father used to work with at the Post Office while I made endless cups of tea and smiled politely through anecdotes I’d heard a dozen times before. When the last mourner had left and Juliet had put Eloise to bed, I fetched a bottle from the sideboard and placed it on the coffee table with two tumblers.
‘What’s that?’ Juliet asked.
‘Dad’s Laphroaig. I’d like to drink a toast to him.’ I poured two generous measures and handed Juliet a glass. I watched her face as she took a sip.
She grimaced. ‘Christ, it tastes like TCP.’
I laughed, some of the tension leaving my shoulders. ‘It’s one of Scotland’s finest single malts, I’ll have you know.’
‘You’re telling me people drink this stuff for pleasure?’
‘It’s Prince Charles’s favourite whisky,’ I told her. ‘Have another sip. It’ll grow on you, I promise.’
After we’d had a couple of glasses, Juliet decided she liked it after all. After another couple, the room’s edges had blurred and softened. By the time we were halfway through the bottle, we were both slurring our words, and when I stood to throw another log on the fire, the room span, and I had to grab the arm of the chair to steady myself.
‘Whoa!’ I said, sitting down with a thump.
Juliet’s giggle turned into a hiccough. ‘Haven’t been this pissed since university.’
I topped up her tumbler with exaggerated care. ‘To university!’ I slurred, clinking my glass against hers.
She nodded, her expression suddenly serious. ‘Yes, Rosie. And to absent friends.’ A tear trickled down her cheek.
‘Don’t get maudlin,’ I said. ‘You’ll set me off.’
We drank in silence for a while, lost in our thoughts. Then Juliet clutched her chest just below her breastbone.
‘Wha’s the matter?’
‘It hurts, right here,’ she said.
I nodded sagely. ‘Heartburn. It’ll be the whisky. That’s my official diagnosis.’
Juliet squinted at me myopically. ‘Do you have anything for it, Doctor Rose?’
‘There’s some Gaviscon in my room.’ I slapped my hands on the arms of the chair. ‘I’ll find it.’
But Juliet was already on her feet. ‘I’ll go. Tell me where it is.’
‘Bottom drawer, bedside table.’ I, too, could feel a burning sensation in the middle of my chest. ‘Bring the packet, will you?’
She saluted me and stumbled into the hallway. I pulled myself to my feet and walked unsteadily around the room, stacking the last few teacups and saucers on a tray and carrying it into the kitchen.
I’d reached the bottom of the stairs when Juliet shouted my name.
I stopped in my tracks. She was halfway down the stairs, her raised fist held in front of her as if she was about to show me a magic trick.
‘Did you find them?’
She shook her head. Kept shaking it. It was unner
ving, and I took an involuntary step backwards.
‘What’s the matter?’ My voice was thin, reedy.
‘This is the matter,’ she said. She sounded stone cold sober. I watched in horrified fascination as she turned her wrist and uncurled her fingers one by one. ‘I found it in your bedside drawer.’
A sharp intake of breath. Mine. And the tray slipped out of my fingers and crashed to the floor, the delicate porcelain cups and saucers shattering into a thousand pieces on the flagstones.
My hand crept to my throat, the heartburn forgotten.
‘Juliet -’
‘What the fuck is this doing in your bedroom?’ she demanded.
Chapter Forty-Four
It was almost six o’clock before I arrived home. I felt bone-tired. Disconnected. Numb to the core, as if an anaesthetic had been injected into my veins to stop my nerves from passing signals to my brain, to stop me feeling anything.
Wearily, I let myself in the back door and plonked my bag and keys on the kitchen table. I shuffled into the hallway and sniffed. The smell of death had gone.
‘Eloise?’ I called up the stairs, even though a sixth sense told me she wasn’t in. The house felt too still, the air so dense it was almost solid. I was alone. I closed my eyes briefly, then trudged back into the kitchen, filled the kettle, dropped a teabag into a mug and found a packet of bourbons in the cupboard. I carried the tea and biscuits into the front room and turned on the television, not because I wanted to watch a programme about a deeply tanned couple from Newcastle who were desperate to relocate to Spain’s Costa del Sol but because the soft buzz of their Geordie accents was soothing.
