The Bones of You

by Debbie Howells

  “I don’t know, Grace. I hope they do, because whoever it was deserves what’s coming to them.”

  But it’s more than that. It’s too easy to forget as time passes, as the initial horror fades. Neal and Jo, all of us, our entire village in fact, still bearing the burden of Rosie’s death, we all deserve to know the truth.

  We’re approaching the clearing where Rosie’s body was found, when at the top of the slope, I see the back of a man. I frown, trying to make out who it is. He’s too tall to be Neal. Then, as we get nearer, I see he’s younger and clearly distressed, his arms tightly folded, his shoulders heaving.

  “What is it?” Grace follows my gaze. “Who’s that?”

  “Shh. Come on. Don’t stare.”

  We walk past, but as I glance over my shoulder, he turns enough for me to see his face, red from crying, and I draw a breath, not because he’s a man who’s inconsolably, unbearably in pain, but because I know him.

  “That was Jo’s gardener,” I tell Grace when we’re out of earshot. “Ex-gardener. His name’s Alex.”

  “So what d’you think he’s doing there?”

  I shrug. “Probably just paying his respects.”

  Even though from what I saw, it was far more than that.

  “Mum, it’s been ages. People do that stuff in the first days, not over two months later.”

  “Not always.” I hesitate, wondering whether to tell her what I’m thinking. “Unless . . . Do you think that maybe there was something between them?”

  “Rosie wouldn’t go for someone like him. Anyway, he’s too old.” Grace dismisses it with the air of someone who knows.

  “There aren’t rules, Grace. They could have been friends. And it might not be the first time he’s been here. Or maybe he wanted to be sure he’d be alone.”

  When Grace goes this time, it’s a bruise, as opposed to a ripped muscle, in part because it isn’t long until Christmas, but also my mind is elsewhere.

  The next day, I go to look for Alex. It’s already raining when I reach Dan’s nursery, icy needles rather than cats and dogs, but with a cold that’s no less penetrating.

  “You just can’t stay away, can you, Kate?” Dan quips.

  “Hi, Dan! I’ve come back for more of those tulip bulbs—if there are any left?”

  “Because it’s you, I’ll go and have a look.”

  Dan strides off, and I wander up and down the rows of plants, somewhat depleted since I was last here, searching for hidden gems I missed the first time round. It’s not long before I see Alex.

  “Hello again.”

  He glances at me, then looks away. “Hi.”

  And then I realize I haven’t really thought this through. How to say I saw him in the woods, or to ask about Rosie, without it sounding like I’m a nosy middle-aged woman with good intentions but who’s essentially prying? In the end, I decide it is what it is.

  “I thought you should know, I knew Rosie, too,” I tell him. “She used to like being with my horses.”

  He’s very still as he works out what I’m saying. That I’m a friend. Straightening up, he turns to face me. “She told me you were always kind to her. She felt safe with you.”

  Safe. A strange choice of word.

  He goes on, his eyes full of his pain. “You should have said the other day, when you were in.”

  “I know. I should have. But I hadn’t realized you were more than their gardener.” Feeling my way, watching his face, how his jaw tightens. “I saw you in the woods. I was riding there the other day with my daughter.”

  He shifts uncomfortably.

  “You and Rosie . . .” I hesitate, choose my words carefully, gently. “Was there something?”

  I see him clench his fists at his sides as he raises his eyes heavenward. When he looks at me again, they’re full of tears. “Yes. We were together. For a long time, no one knew. Then Joanna got suspicious, and, well, let’s just say she wasn’t taking any chances. Just the idea of her daughter with the hired help . . . Well, you can imagine, can’t you?”

  He speaks with so much bitterness, and while I don’t agree with her, I get it about Jo’s order of things. We’re all different, and it’s how her world is, with her cleaner, her gardener, even the teachers at school—all, quite firmly, good people she needs in her life, but on her terms.

  I’m also stunned that she didn’t tell me about Rosie and Alex. But confronted with his obvious distress, I forget that.

  “I’m so sorry.” I touch his arm very gently. “Sorry you’ve lost her. Sorry they treated you like that, too.”

  He stiffens, wrestling with himself. “I loved her. I can’t bear what happened. What kind of monster would do that? To someone like her . . .”

  “Have you talked to the police?” I ask.

  “They came to see me just after she was found. Asked me how long I’d worked there. Stuff like that.”

  “So they do know? About you and Rosie?”

  Alex stiffens. “I didn’t do anything wrong. There was no reason for them to know. Anyway, it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He hesitates; then, when he speaks, his face is flushed, and his words resonate with anger. “You really want to know? It’s people like those bloody Andersons. They love to blame other people, people like me, if they have the chance, because they’re better than I am. That’s what they think. . . .” He shakes his head. “The truth is, Neal’s a nasty piece of work. Rosie hated him. Had as long as she could remember. He’s the worst kind of control freak, Kate. You wouldn’t believe the stories she told. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with this.”

  His words shock me. Then it comes back to me, what Jo said, that he and Neal didn’t get on. “God, Alex . . . that’s some accusation. How can you even think that?”

  “Rosie argued with her father. The day before she disappeared. He wanted to stop her from going out—from seeing anyone. She told him that she’d had enough of him treating her like this, and that if he didn’t stop, she’d leave home and never speak to him again. He totally flipped.”

  “You need to tell the police, Alex. All of this. They will get to the bottom of it. But all parents row with their teenage children,” I say, thinking of my own overprotective instincts, Grace’s proclamations of independence and hotheaded acts of rebellion. “It’s normal. Things get said in the heat of the moment—”

  He interrupts me. “But Rosie didn’t lose her cool. Not ever. She told me she’d never won an argument with him, unless he wanted her to, for perverted reasons of his own. That’s the kind of guy he is. Pulls their strings like they’re bloody puppets.”

  His eyes are menacing, his stance is almost threatening, and I take a step back, glancing over my shoulder for Dan, but he’s nowhere to be seen, as Alex continues.

  “He controls that family, Kate. Each one of them, even his wife, from their every move down to the ground they walk on. Even the air they breathe. The man’s a psycho.”

  But I don’t see it. “Arguing’s one thing, Alex, but Neal a murderer. . . ?”

  I’m filled with unease at both the strength of his outburst and what he’s suggesting, because he’s wrong about the Andersons. All the time I’ve spent there, I haven’t seen a hint of what he’s describing. I imagine Grace bringing a boyfriend home, and Angus taking a dislike to him, because that’s clearly what’s happened. Telling myself that Alex’s emotions are raw because he’s lost the girl he loved—anyone can see that. And, like the Andersons, he desperately needs someone to blame.

  “Watch out for him,” Alex mutters. “I mean it.”

  “Are you sure you’re right about Neal? He’s an amazing man.” As I say it, I realize what I’m doing and that they’re Jo’s words, rolling off my tongue as if they’re my own. “He’s really worried about her. He’d do anything for his family.”

  “Yeah,” says Alex darkly. “Exactly. Anything.”

  ROSIE

  Florida is big. Big beaches that
stretch for miles, like the sky, which is big, too. And close enough that you can almost reach up and touch the clouds.

  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime holiday, Mummy tells us. One we’ll always remember, because it’s so much better than ordinary holidays. Not everyone travels first class, she tells us, as we walk onto the plane and turn left instead of right. I smile at the stewardesses and say, “Thank you,” not seeing how behind my back, they glance at each other when my father boards. Whisper about that arsehole TV reporter who demanded a free upgrade and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I don’t see any of that. All I remember is the flight being magical, like a dream, cocooning us in luxury, gently devouring the miles until we soar down, a huge Disney bird, into the adventure awaiting us.

  The room Della and I share has two big beds and views of Cocoa Beach. We visit the Kennedy Space Center, Disney World, go shopping in malls, eat out at buzzing, neon-lit diners. Della and I rent bodyboards, and I remember the waves, like horses, racing me to the shore.

  And while the sun tans my skin and lightens my hair, I lighten inside. My mother is beautiful, my father handsome, my sister happy, and for this handful of days, removed from our ordinary lives, we can just be.

  We watch my father water-ski. He’s good at it. After, he chats with the boat driver, this guy called Ed, who winks at me, then gives him a card, which my father looks at and puts away in a pocket.

  Imagine a monitor in a hospital showing a heart attack–sized blip, followed by a flat line. It comes at the end of the first week, though now I see it building up. My father’s drinking, his restlessness, his boredom with his family, his need for danger. The dream is over.

  Mercifully, then the monitor was turned away from me. I saw only my parents dressed up to go out, my mother in a new black evening dress, her hair put up in the hotel salon, her skin the color of soft toffee, my father in his bow tie and dinner jacket.

  Della and I wave them away, filled with our own excitement at the movie channels and room service we can choose from, taking an hour to decide exactly what we want to order.

  And while we sit there, eating huge pizzas, overlooking the Atlantic and watching the same waves we played in earlier, I see the expensive restaurant my parents go into. The bottles of wine, the best, chosen not because he loves good wine but for effect. Then, after, more whiskey. The casino upstairs, my father’s reckless way with his family’s holiday money and his extraordinary belief that the only way to recover his losses is to gamble more. Even if it empties his bank accounts.

  I see my mother try to persuade him to leave, then give up and climb into a cab she can’t pay for, which the hotel charges to their account. The sick, anxious look as she wonders how the hotel bill, the rest of the holiday, or any of this will be paid for in one week’s time, when we leave.

  I’m sleeping when my father comes back at dawn, his shirt crumpled and smudged with a stranger’s lipstick, reeking of whiskey, then falls into the bed where my mother tossed and turned but hasn’t slept, where he sleeps the guiltless sleep of the dead.

  Della and I awake to our mother, freshly showered, her make-up perfect, opening our curtains.

  “Let’s have breakfast, girls. Then we’ll go to the beach! We’ll leave Daddy to have a lie-in.”

  “Can we bodyboard?” Della asks.

  “Of course.” Her eyes rest on each of us, as with stellar strength she forces her lips to smile and her eyes to warm, even though her husband is unfaithful and worry is crippling her.

  “The sun’s out, girls. It’s another perfect day.”

  It is a perfect day, just the three of us. We don’t see the hair of the dog, the pills my father takes to assuage his hangover, the agitated phone calls he makes, one after another, until shares are sold and his account is once again solvent, before joining us late in the afternoon, resting a firm hand on my mother’s shoulder, saying we should all go out for dinner.

  Nor do we see her ask in their room when they’re alone, her face stricken with anxiety, the sick feeling that hasn’t left her, “Neal, how are we going to pay for everything?”

  He doesn’t tell her, just shakes his head and laughs, a horrible, cruel sound.

  She asks again later, after dinner, which she wasn’t able to eat, because she’s so worried.

  This time, he doesn’t laugh, just raises a hand and slaps her hard, then stands there, drinking more whiskey, as she staggers against the bathroom door and hits her head.

  The next day, it’s my father who opens our curtains.

  “You can order room service,” he tells us. “Then we’ll go down to the pool.”

  Della and I fight over the menu and order strawberries and croissants and hot chocolate, then pull on swimsuits, ready to go.

  In the lift, my father talks to another family in a fake American accent, which makes Della giggle. Then the doors open, and we’re back out under that huge sky again, in that air that smells so different, in this world that’s so different from our own.

  I don’t see upstairs. Mummy wincing as she painfully layers makeup over the marks on her face. The carefully arranged clothes, flimsy, loose-fitting, with long sleeves, which could be hiding sunburn rather than bruises. The sunglasses that hide the tears filling her eyes.

  13

  Alex preys on my mind. When I’ve thought about Rosie with a boyfriend, I’ve imagined warmth, strong arms, and kind eyes. Not unashamed hostility and bitterness.

  “I’m sorry, but I didn’t like him.” Laura and I have gone to Rachael’s, where I’ve filled them in on how I met him. Given the high male occupancy of her household, lunch at Rachael’s is never guaranteed, but to my relief, she produces homemade soup and crusty bread, with a large wedge of cheese.

  “Why ever not?” Rachael’s spooning the soup into bowls.

  “Yes. Why, Kate?” Laura’s curious.

  “He was angry, and I understand that. It was something else. He seemed really aggressive. I just couldn’t see him with Rosie. It was like there was all this rage bottled up inside him. I got the feeling that if he was pushed, he could get quite nasty. Obviously, I don’t know,” I hedge. “It’s just a hunch.”

  I backtrack then, not wanting my own subjective, biased impression of him to color cold, hard facts. “I mean, I would have liked to ask him about her necklace, but I didn’t dare.”

  “Maybe next time,” Rachael says cheerfully, placing bowls in front of us.

  “I kind of hope there won’t be one, if I’m honest. He warned me off Neal, too.”

  “Really?” Rachael’s voice is sharp, as both pairs of eyes swing round toward me.

  “He said Rosie hated him. You should have heard him. He can’t stand Neal.”

  “The police do know, don’t they? About him and Rosie?” Laura sounds alarmed.

  “I think so. I tried to persuade him that it would be better if they heard it from him than from someone else.” But I can’t be sure. Alex hadn’t looked convinced, and shortly after, I’d left.

  Laura speaks. “It’s really hard to tell, isn’t it, just from one meeting, whose story to believe? The nicest people can have the darkest secrets.”

  Rachael and I look at her.

  “Don’t look so shocked! You both know it’s true. We all judge based on first impressions, but in actual fact, a lot of the time they’re wrong.”

  But no matter how often I play them back, Alex’s comments unsettle me. Of course, there are always two sides to every story. Always. A few days later, I see Laura again. As the investigation continues to be drawn out, she’s moved into one of Rachael and Alan’s empty holiday cottages, just down the road from their farm.

  “This is gorgeous.” I’ve admired this cottage for years. It’s the smallest, with flint walls and far-reaching views, too often sitting empty for long spells.

  “I love it, but I’m a bit worried about the garden,” she tells me. “If it grows, I won’t be able to open the door.”

  “You’re safe until spring. This
has to be resolved by then, surely? And you’ll be home.”

  “You’d think so. Come on. I’ll show you round. It’s very cute.”

  After giving me a guided tour of its five small rooms, she makes us tea, which we take through to the sitting room, hot from the log fire.

  “I have to ask you something.” She looks troubled.

  I hear Angus’s voice. For God’s sake, Kate. Don’t get so sucked in.

  Think of Alex’s raw anger.

  Then Rosie’s voice, screaming my name in the storm.

  “The thing is, after you spoke to Alex and heard everything he suggested about Neal, I went to see the Andersons. Neal already knows why I’m here, and I explained that I wanted to help them get to the bottom of what happened to Rosie. I wasn’t sure what they’d say, but they asked me in and we talked . . . about how isolating it was for them as a family, how frustrating that there are no leads. She was sad. He was sad, too, but still charming. They seem like a normal, quite close-knit family. Aren’t they? Or am I missing something?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I think Alex is emotional and angry because the Andersons didn’t treat him well. And because he’s lost Rosie, obviously.”

  “I spoke to Joanna alone. She obviously thinks the world of her husband. She told me Neal’s an amazing man. What is it?”

  I’m shaking my head. “It’s what she always says about him.”

  “Oh. Right. Well, he isn’t your run-of-the-mill bloke, is he? And I spoke to Delphine. Strange girl, isn’t she? I couldn’t read her. But I asked her, in several different ways, about her family, and she kept saying how lucky she is to have such loving parents.”

  “She’s hardly even spoken to me,” I say.

  “It was about the only thing she did say. So . . .” She takes a large glug of her tea. “The thing is, Kate, Joanna said that a week before she disappeared, Rosie told her it was over with Alex. There’d been a bit of a thing between them, nothing serious, but he’d got a touch obsessed. Alex came round, apparently. Joanna refused to let him in, because Rosie didn’t want to see him again, only he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He got angry, threatened her—that sort of thing. But then he left, and that was it. Over.”