‘Oh, come. We don’t know anyone … safety in numbers?’
‘OK,’ I say, feeling I owe him. ‘I guess I could go for a little while. I’ll see you there.’
*
The house is full of people supporting each other, and every surface seems to have a photograph of Elise displayed on it.
Finn is with Neil and Neil’s parents, wrestling a canapé into his mouth, and I find myself alone with Julia.
Despite her apology, I’m still uneasy around her, though I’m not sure why. She’s giving me no reason to be.
We’re sitting by the window in two armchairs. And however hard I try to avoid it, my eyes are drawn to the oak coffee table in the centre, surrounded by sofas where yet more guests sit. Was that where Rosamund fell? Where she lost her precious baby?
‘I feel a bit intrusive being here,’ Julia says, and I turn to face her. ‘I never met Elise, and barely know Neil. I’m here to support Finn really.’
‘I didn’t know Elise very well myself,’ I say. ‘But I’m sure Neil appreciates our support.’
She nods, and pulls her plait over her shoulder, runs a finger over the intertwined strands. ‘You like Finn, don’t you?’ she says.
I instinctively glance towards him, and he catches my eye and smiles. ‘Yes,’ I say, looking back at Julia. ‘He’s a good man. But you know that.’
She smiles. ‘He is. I guess we’re kindred spirits.’
‘Did you play together when you were little?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, Finn is older than me. But we have Kyla in common; she’s the reason we bonded.’
I recall how she told me Kyla was her half-sister too.
‘Kyla cast a shadow over both our lives when she died. We spent our childhoods in different decades, but both suffered the same gloomy darkness.’
I take a sip of my wine, hoping if I stay silent, she’ll go on.
‘My father, Michael Collis, fell in love with Ruth when they were seventeen. I guess their relationship was a bit like Romeo and Juliet – rivalling families. Ruth’s father had won part of the Drummondale estate in a poker game with my grandfather. My grandmother, an awful woman by all accounts, bore a grudge against Ruth’s parents. She certainly didn’t think Ruth was good enough for my father.
‘My dad got Ruth pregnant, but by the time Ruth realised, Dad had gone off to university.’
‘And Ruth’s baby was Kyla?’ I ask, swallowing down more wine.
She nods. ‘My grandmother found out Ruth was having Dad’s baby, and told Ruth that my dad had got engaged to someone else while at university, that he didn’t love her and didn’t want a child.’
‘That’s so cruel. Ruth must have been broken-hearted.’
Julia nods. ‘She was. As I say, my gran was cruel. Anyway, Ruth’s mother forced her to marry a man who’d been giving Ruth the eye. She didn’t care too much who he was, just that Ruth was married.
‘The truth was, my father wasn’t engaged, but when he discovered Ruth was married with a child, he married my mother.
‘It was some years later that Finn was born. And then Ruth’s husband left her.’
‘And then Kyla died?’
Julia tosses her plait back over her shoulder, and nods. ‘That was three years later on Vine Hill. It was after her death that Ruth told my father that Kyla was his daughter. Dad went to pieces. Mourning a child he didn’t know he had. He couldn’t believe Ruth had never told him.
‘He put the bench in the grounds, and spent most of his time there. Even when I was born, his mind was always on Kyla, and what might have been. In the end my mother left him … and me.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Neither Finn nor I could escape our lost half-sister – though the irony is, I would have loved an older sister. In fact, I often spend time just sitting on the bench, just like my dad and Finn do. It’s as though I can reach her there. It’s as though I almost know her. I wish I had.’
You were sitting on Kyla’s bench the night of the ghost walk.
She turns and meets my eye. ‘Do you believe there’s something else?’ She looks about her, then upwards, and it’s as though she can see right through the ceiling and into the heavens. ‘You know, after this?’
‘I hope so,’ I say, and I take hold of her hand and squeeze.
*
We’ve been at Neil’s house for over an hour, and now, as often happens at funerals, family and friends are sharing memories, laughing, their tongues loosened by alcohol. I’ve overstayed.
‘I’m going to make a move for home,’ I say, and Finn and Julia nod enthusiastically, seeming desperate to leave themselves. In fact, they leave before me as I need the loo, and as I watch them go, Julia calls out that we must stay in touch. ‘No reason not to,’ she says, with a flourish. ‘We live so close, and now Finn’s feeling so much better he can travel down anytime.’
*
As I leave the bathroom, and head onto the landing, I hear voices. One of them is Neil, and it’s coming from the master bedroom.
‘Perhaps it was all my fault,’ he’s saying through tears, his voice sounding broken.
I move across the landing, and peer through the gap in the door. The white-haired man who stepped up when Neil crumbled at the funeral, who I now know is his father, sits with him on the edge of a king-sized bed.
‘No, Neil,’ he says. ‘You mustn’t think like that.’
‘But if I’d been here more, done more to prevent the brewing anger in Elise about me replacing her mum, maybe Rosamund would never have lost the baby, and Elise would still be here.’
The man puts his hand over Neil’s. ‘I’m so sorry about the baby, son. But I can’t see how you being here would have changed that.’
‘But it might have.’ A beat. ‘I knew my Elise hated Rosamund. How full of anger she was, and I did nothing.’ He breaks off sobbing, his head in his hands, and I cover my mouth, tears springing to my eyes.
It’s a while before Neil is calm enough to say, ‘She confessed to having an affair with Jackson.’
His father shakes his head. ‘Oh, Neil, I’m so sorry.’
‘Me too, I was a fool, knew what she was like when I met her, but kidded myself we had something special. She used to sleep with him in his caravan in Laurel Wood. Can you believe that?’
‘Can I help you?’
I startle, step away from the door. I recognise the woman staring at me from the top of the stairs as Neil’s mother. ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Just a bit lost – it’s such a big house.’ I zip past her, and once downstairs, almost fall through the front door. The cold air tingles my cheeks and darkness swallows me as I head for the car.
And as I sit in the driver’s seat, gripping the steering wheel, deep breathing in an effort to calm down, I realise the first domino fell long ago.
*
I’d borrowed Dad’s car to go to Elise’s funeral, and now, as I drive home through the darkness, my mind whirs. Rosamund mentioned Jackson’s caravan in Laurel Wood. And then there was that day at Drummondale House when we played Truth and Lie, and Jackson told us he grew up in a caravan. And now Neil has mentioned it.
I pull over into a lay-by, and leave the engine running. My heart thuds as I get Google Maps up on my phone. With shaking hands, I key in the address of the apartment Jackson and my mum shared in Tweedmouth, and see as I expand the map, there’s a wooded area nearby called Laurel Wood. It looks to be about a mile across.
Rain splatters the windscreen. I flick on the wipers.
Within seconds, I’m on the road once more.
Chapter 51
Present Day
Me
I haven’t always been the best person I could have been. I’ve let people down. I let my mum down. I should have been there for her. I regret that now, and I’m so sorry for the things I’ve done. But it’s too late for apologies. You have chosen to punish me, and there’s nothing I can do.
Rain splatters the window behind me, and I hear your
car approaching. The snapping and cracking of sticks under slow-moving tyres as you drive through Laurel Wood. You will be here soon. You said you would be – that it’s almost time.
And I know, even if I beg and scream and cry, it will do no good: my life will soon be over.
But I’m not afraid. I can’t take any more of this misery. I’m ready. I want to die.
I hear the key turn in the lock, and the door open. I try to lift my head, but the room spins and I can barely move.
Why are you doing this? But you’ve told me so many times it’s almost a mantra. I know the answer – it’s because you love me.
Chapter 52
Present Day
Amelia
Wipers thrash across my windscreen – thud, thud, thud, and I can barely see through the hammering rain, but I know I’m close. I have to keep going.
After trawling country roads for another ten minutes, I slow to an almost stop. I’ve found the entrance to Laurel Wood. I indicate, and take a left turn down a narrow track.
Overhanging trees block the night sky, as I weave my way deeper and deeper. Have I made a terrible mistake? But it’s too late. There’s no way of turning back.
The sound of my tyres breaking twigs and branches as I crawl along is as loud as the pulse in my ears. My eyes flick to my rear-view at the swirling shadows folding around the car. Why didn’t I wait, come tomorrow in the daylight? Why didn’t I contact DI Beynon? A chill prickles my neck, as I imagine someone watching from the dense trees. I was a wreck before this, so I’m pretty sure this will finish me off.
I stop the car, and pick up my phone from the driver’s seat. I’ll call Inspector Beynon now. Tell her where I am.
I get through to DS McKay, and explain in a garbled, panicked fashion where I am and where I’m heading, and he promises to inform DI Beynon immediately. ‘Wait for us,’ he says, before ending the call.
I notice a dim light burning through the trees, and my heart thuds a warning as I take a deep breath and open the car door. I flick on my phone torch and climb out into the hammering rain. With the quietest of footsteps, I move to where the track widens. It’s as I take a bend I see the caravan. Its grubby, hanging baskets by the door hold nothing more than twigs. My torchlight picks out a wet cat climbing up the rusty metal steps. It leaps through a cat flap into the caravan.
Is this really where Rosamund came with Jackson to have sex behind Neil and Mum’s back? But then women found him irresistible. I think back to how Maddie swooned over him when we were at Drummondale House. How Mum fell for him so quickly. How the media painted him as a heart-breaking womaniser.
Mizzling rain stings my cheeks as I move closer. An old Clio Campus is parked up, and another car by the caravan is covered with old blankets. I drag up my hood and make my way over to it, looking about me before lifting the cover and shining the torch on the number plate. It’s Jackson’s car.
I drop the blanket, frozen, unable to move. Fighting back fear, I look about me, spotting a branch, thick and sturdy, on the wet ground. I pick it up and approach the caravan.
I push open the door, surprised to find it unlocked, and step inside. In the lounge area there’s a folded duvet and a pillow at the end of a sofa, and a closed laptop. A wheelchair is collapsed in the corner – Mum’s wheelchair. The whole place smells awful, the pungent hum of pee overpowering.
I grip the branch in my fist, so hard my knuckles turn white. As I head through a narrow kitchen, the rain hammering on the roof sounds unsettling. The cat walks with precision over a sink loaded with dirty plates and cups, meowing urgently, trying to get my attention. I run my hand over its wet fur. It’s thin, but seems healthy.
I hear crying, and every hair on my body lifts as I turn. Hanging ominously on the curtain pole is a mask.
Chapter 53
Present Day
Me
Tears spill down Lark’s cheeks. I hate seeing her cry. That I’ve brought her to this. If I hadn’t treated her the way I did, told her I loved her, it would never have come to this.
I recall how my mum used to cry when Dad slept with other women – when he knocked her about. Everyone thought they were such a happy couple – Indigo and Phoenix united in their traveller ways. But I felt her pain. Saw her cry. She told me once – I could only have been six – to never hurt a woman. But maybe I’m more like my father than I realise.
‘Why, Jackson?’ Lark says, not for the first time. But this time she’s clenching a needle, and I know she will kill me soon. And I’ve accepted my fate. Living like this – trapped in a tiny world, one arm clamped to the metal headboard by a chain and padlock for over a year, has taken away my fight.
I hear movement, and although I can barely lift my head from the pillow, I see her standing in the doorway, her eyes wide with shock. ‘Amelia,’ I whisper. ‘Thank God.’
Chapter 54
Present Day
Amelia
Lark wheels around to face me, clenching a needle, tears rolling down her face. ‘Amelia?’ she says, hands shaking. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Christ, Lark, what’s going on?’ I cry, taking in the sight in front of me: Jackson, looking horribly thin, Lark beside him, her cheekbones prominent, skin pallid, eyes cradled with dark cushions of flesh, her blonde hair cut short and uneven. Gone are her long tendrils. I barely recognise her.
‘What have you done?’ I cry, racing towards her. ‘Oh God, what have you done, Lark?’
‘It’s heroin.’ Jackson’s voice is raspy, defeated, as though he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. His once trendy hair touches his shoulders, messy and greasy, and a straggly beard covers his chin. His eyes are washed out and sallow, his pupils dilated.
Lark points the needle towards me. ‘Stay away, Amelia. This has nothing to do with you.’
‘Lark, please. We used to be friends, didn’t we?’ Jackson whispers, his voice barely audible.
Lark turns back to him. ‘Never friends, Jackson. I love you. I’ve loved you since the first time you brought me here.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘Lark … please … give me the needle.’ I hold out my hand.
‘And then you said it had just been a bit of fun,’ she says, ignoring my request. ‘That we were both wrong, that we both let my mum down.’
‘Sorry.’ He tugs on the chain that’s holding him to the bed, his wrist raw, covered in scabs and sores.
‘Stop. Saying. Sorry,’ she yells. ‘Why the hell are you fucking sorry anyway? Because you led me on, left me consumed with so much love for you? Or sorry you lured me in and left me with so much guilt that I’d betrayed my mum? Guilt and love is a dangerous cocktail, Jackson.
‘Then my mum got ill,’ she continues. ‘And my guilt was like my very own cancer – killing me. But I kept it all inside, until that night I saw you with Rosamund in Scotland.’
‘I know sorry isn’t enough,’ he whispers.
‘No it fucking isn’t. This is your comeuppance, Jackson. Your punishment.’ She walks towards him. Strokes his hair, his cheek. ‘You’re not as handsome as you once were,’ she says. ‘Far too thin – your muscles wasted.’
She kisses his dry, cracked lips. ‘I love you, Jackson,’ she says, and biting down on her bottom lip so it bleeds, she plunges the needle into his flesh.
‘You’re right, it’s heroin,’ she says, as his eyes linger on hers. ‘It will kill you.’
I stare. Do nothing. My mind paralysed.
‘Lark!’ I finally scream, blaming shock for my delayed reaction, rather than a desire to see Jackson six foot under. I grab my phone from my pocket, but she bashes it from my hand. It crashes to the floor.
‘He must pay for what he’s done, Amelia.’ Her voice is calm and low, but tears roll down her face. ‘Can’t you see that?’
‘No, please, Lark. You can’t let him die.’
Her eyes are wide, vacant, I barely know her. This should have been the best moment of my life – finding my sister
alive after all this time – but as I look at Jackson, life draining from him, it’s one of the worst.
‘I attacked him that day at Drummondale House,’ Lark says – she’s still clenching the needle, pointing it my way. ‘I saw him with Rosamund; I couldn’t believe he would do that to me. I struck him with a branch across his head. A bit like the one you’re holding now. Put it down, Amelia. Please.’
I know I won’t use it, so prop it against the wall. ‘Lark, listen to me, we need to get Jackson help.’ I step closer. ‘Keep with us,’ I say to him, touching his arm. ‘You need to keep with us.’
‘I raced back to the cottage that night,’ Lark goes on. She clearly wants me to know everything. Wants me to understand. ‘Mum was crying in her room. She knew what he’d done – seen him too.
‘I grabbed Jackson’s car keys, some money and Mum’s wig, then took her wheelchair from the car.’
I make a dive for my phone, but she kicks it across the room.
‘When I got back to him he was woozy, confused. I crushed three of my Diazepam, and made him swallow them. In fact, I’ve been putting some of my old prescription in his food recently.
‘I grabbed a mask from one of the trees, as I wheeled Jackson to the car in the chair. It squeaked and I was so afraid I might be heard.’
I heard – it hadn’t been a dream.
‘But nobody came, so I heaved him into the back of the car. I knew where I was heading – and took mainly back roads here – avoiding cameras – and wearing the wig and mask if a road had CCTV. Easy really.’
I can’t believe my sister had been so calculating. All this time I’d feared she was the helpless one. ‘How have you survived?’ I whisper.
‘Working at a local farm, cash in hand.’
‘They never recognised you?’
She shakes her head. ‘Once I’d cropped off my hair, nobody would have thought I was the blonde-haired girl covered in make-up that they shared all over the media.’
Jackson’s breathing is shallow. ‘He’s going to die, Lark,’ I say. ‘Please don’t let him die. You’re not a killer.’
I Lie in Wait: A gripping new psychological crime thriller perfect for fans of Ruth Ware! Page 23
