She hesitates. “I don’t expect you to understand, but when you’ve seen that darkness, that vulnerable side of him, you want to help him. It’s not right, but I’ve made excuses for him. He can do such good things, too. You know that. Look at the orphanage.... And I always believed he needed me. I know he did. Only . . . I never dreamed he was capable of this.”
By “this” she means killing Rosie. I try my hardest to understand how the amazing man is so suddenly an evil monster. How the truth can be so twisted. So invisible. How all this time Jo has deceived herself and everyone else, and only now, presented with unmistakable evidence, has forced herself to face up to what he is.
Then she leaps up, agitated. “Oh God. What if he knows I’ve got it? If he comes here?”
My heart misses a beat; then I remember. “He won’t, Jo. He doesn’t know where you are.”
I notice her hands shaking.
“Where is it? The laptop?”
“I brought it with me in my bag.”
She lifts it onto the table and opens it.
Then what she shows me, I’ll never forget.
“What do I do? What do I do?” Her voice drops to a whisper again as I look at the screen, appalled.
“Jo, I really don’t know.”
I say it because the cogs of my brain have seized up as I try to imagine the truth as anything, anything at all, other than the awful, shocking reality she’s painting. But however I turn it round, whichever angle I look at it from, double-checking, just in case, the answer’s the same.
ROSIE
My father is an actor with many faces. Otherwise known as a liar. Everyone who meets him sees the charm, the looks. The handsome, famous news reporter looking back at them out of their TV as he risks his own safety in war zones; the same face now ashen, after being shot at while trying to get at the truth; grim as he talks about what happens out there; earnest as he describes the orphanage; angry as he details how little help there is for too many children; softening when he’s asked about his wife and family.
He’s his own one-man show, my father. Imagine Neal Anderson: The Life Story, always with the right face, no matter what’s underneath, however many flirtations or tawdry affairs happen invisibly behind doors that always stay closed. Whatever violence he inflicts on his wife or anyone else for his own kicks. Whatever abuse his children suffer as he controls and manipulates and destroys.
It isn’t love that turns him on. It’s the chase. The catching of eyes, manufacturing excuses to be together. The risk. The realization that this woman, too, like all the others, finds him irresistible.
And then he’ll walk back into our house, unreadable. See a dirty coffee cup and hurl it across the room. Speak quietly, then, seconds later, be consumed with rage and fury because his shirts haven’t been ironed or the lawn hasn’t been mowed. And the picture doesn’t fall off the wall and smash on its own. He wrenches it off, hurls it onto the floor. Makes spiteful comments about the family next door because he’s so much better than they are; then, when he sees them next, he’s their friend.
After a lifetime of acting, the real Neal Anderson is unknown. Is there a person behind the faces? Or underneath, is he so less than perfect, so despicable, so damaged, been hidden so long that he’s vanished?
But it doesn’t matter, does it, as long as the women keep chasing him? As long as the face is there? The one people expect to see. Which never slips.
Like my mother always says, he’s an amazing man.
20
After Jo’s call to the police, I hear, don’t see, how it happens from different sources, but the village comes to life, whispering with rumors that Neal Anderson has been arrested and questioned, then held for further questioning. That the Andersons’ house has been searched again, and the laptop taken and fingers are pointed.
“There was always something about him. . . .”
“Poor Jo . . . To think all this time, she didn’t know. . . .”
“How could she not know . . . ?”
“She must have guessed, surely. . . .”
Idle talk that only makes it worse, while understandably, Jo goes away for a few days, and yet again, Rosie’s murder is everyone’s business. In the middle of it all, my thoughts turn to Delphine. I assume Jo takes her with her, but she doesn’t answer my calls, and I worry about both of them. How much more can they go through?
Angus is speechless when I tell him, relieved that this isn’t a weekend I spend alone, that he’s here. “Jesus.” He shakes his head. “The guy was in our house. I liked him.”
Both of us questioning our judgment.
“I know. It doesn’t seem possible that someone could do that. And poor Jo . . .”
Angus sighs. “How do you ever come to terms with that? I mean, her husband . . .”
I curl my arms round his neck, leaning close against him, feel the thump of his heart against mine.
“It makes everything else seem so small.”
He nods into my hair. Not knowing what I’m not saying. How I’m trying to cast out the memory of cooking for this man, of his company, his touch, his lips. I pull away; I can’t help it.
“I’ll open some wine.”
Laura can’t take it in, either.
“Bloody unbelievable, isn’t it?” She puts down two mugs of tea in front of us. She is in boyfriend jeans and a huge sweatshirt, her hair twisted up under a cerise hair slide, and looks more like a student than the glamorous reporter from New York.
She hunts around for a pen, then comes and sits back down. “Some of it I already know, but I’d really like to hear your version of what happened.”
“I had this cryptic call from Jo about some mythical software I hadn’t ordered. It was a smoke screen, because she didn’t want Neal following her. Anyway, she came round and said she was using an old laptop of his when she found these files. Horrible, violent sexual images, links to Web sites . . . She didn’t say much more. She was too upset.”
Laura stops scribbling for a moment. “I can’t imagine how she must feel. And she thinks he killed Rosie.”
I nod. “If she hadn’t been in that IT course, she’d never have found any of it. She was useless with computers. And he’d still be walking around, and none of us would be any the wiser.”
It really did come down to that. To Jo’s course and some lost files she stumbled upon on a computer she shouldn’t have been using. Coincidences, flimsily strung together by twists of fate, a conclusion that’s somehow startling.
“Well, for five whole months, no one has known,” Laura says. “But we do now. Did she say anything else?”
Just for a moment, it crosses my mind to mention Neal’s advances, but I decide not to. I shrug. “I don’t think so. Do you know he abused her?”
Laura nods. Not for the first time, I wonder where her information comes from. “I had heard. You’d never have guessed, would you? I mean, he really has something, doesn’t he? Like George Clooney. Women the world over are besotted with him. If only they knew.”
“And then there’s the orphanage,” I remind her. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know, but look at it this way. It was the perfect cover,” she says. “Everything about him, the public face of Neal Anderson he’s so painstakingly constructed, completely hides what he really is.” She frowns slightly. “My contact happened to get talking to his lawyer—a bloody expensive one, I might add. And not discreet at all. Kate, do you know where the Andersons’ money comes from?”
I frown. “No idea. They obviously have plenty, though, if you look at the cars, the house.... And Jo doesn’t work. Yet the girls were at the same school as Grace.... I just assumed it was his salary.”
Laura shrugs. “Maybe.”
A shiver runs down my spine. “I still can’t believe it.”
“I know. He’s a talented liar, as we know. It’s a pity the police didn’t find the murder weapon. Still, when they examine the laptop, hopefully things will be clearer.”
Since Rosie’s body was found, the worst moment is yet to come. Another shock, piled on shock, when Laura calls to tell me that Neal has been released on bail—in spite of Jo’s testimony and the files she found on his computer.
“I don’t understand.” I can’t believe he can be free.
“The police have charged him with assault, but there isn’t enough evidence to charge him with murder,” Laura explains. “They can’t hold him indefinitely.”
“God, what about Jo?”
“There are post-bail conditions. He’ll have to stay away from her, Kate. If he has any sense, he’ll keep to it. It’s a serious charge. We just have to hope the police find more evidence.”
Suddenly, no matter the conditions attached to Neal’s bail, I’m frightened for Jo.
With Jo still away, her phone apparently switched off, I watch her house for signs of life. A week passes before I drive past and notice lights back on and her car parked outside. As I’m in a hurry, I don’t stop, just text her quickly, wondering how it is being in the house, knowing Neal has been released, before hurrying home to feed the horses before it’s dark.
Then, that evening, as I’m washing up in the kitchen, something flutters through my letter box. Seeing an envelope lying on the floor, I guess a neighbor’s put it through, but when I open the door, no one’s there.
And it gets more curious still when I open the note.
ROSIE
The final scene of the movie brings fear, an ocean of it, coursing through me, its sulfurous presence pervading the air.
It’s the night I’m leaving Alex’s house, where there are no mirrors, no disapproving eyes, where his arms hold me close and the air shimmers with love. Poppy’s covered for me. Her heavy make-up and harsh tongue, the too-tight clothes my mother detests, the brassy hair hide a kindness not many people know about.
There’s a reason I’m walking away from him, alone. As I quickly move through that night, I feel the weight of knowledge of something, and of where I’m going. A feeling of dread.
It’s a warm night, starlit above the soft cloak of darkness wrapped around me. I’m thinking of Alex, filling my head with thoughts of him, twisting my fingers through the necklace he gave me, feeling his love, because even when he’s not here, even when we argue, I can do that. Feel his love.
I’m not expecting the car to pull over, then stop beside me. I’m surprised, not expecting this. Not wanting to get in, but swayed with clever, persuasive words. We need to talk. To start again. We should walk. It’s a beautiful night under the trees, the moon so bright, it casts shadows.
Feel uncertainty ripple like the surface of a pond. Then we walk, and as words unspool, mostly about the past, I realize that all I’m to do is listen.
Such a beautiful night to walk in the woods . . .
As we turn up the path beneath the trees, I hear of desperation, longing, a willingness to do anything to make amends for something bad that’s happened. How some mistakes are too big, and sometimes you have to do what’s hardest, because however much it hurts, it’s for the best.
We’re deep in the woods, where the ground is soft from fallen leaves, a circle of trees around us like an ancient chapel, dappling the moonlight, looking up at that deep, tranquil sky.
Until an unseen force hurls me backward. Cracking my head, the air knocked out of me, the roughness of bark under my skin.
I struggle. Blink to clear the mist around me. Feel myself pulled, thrown backward again, hear a voice scream. Pull away, but the sky is spinning.
A million thoughts fill my head at lightning speed. Then more, as I realize that it’s this person whom I trusted, with whom I’ve walked willingly to this place, who is doing this.
No! This can’t be happening. It’s wrong. There’s been a mistake. The trees recoil as my silent cry hits them. I can’t let this happen. I have to stop it.
But I can’t.
In shock, in slow motion, I feel my legs crumple. Work out I’m hurt, that I’m falling. Hear my voice scream out, a sound I’ve never heard.
Feel a splintering, agonizing pain as my head explodes into a million pieces of light. As time stretches out to infinity. And then snaps backs. As my own warm, sticky blood coats my hands, an invisible stain in the darkness.
Then the pain is gone and I’m floating.
And that’s how it ends. Watching the last vicious, brutal, stabbing, slicing motions that twist and rip my insides, as the last gossamer threads holding me to my body are broken, setting me free to move toward the light I hadn’t seen, which is coming nearer. I feel its warmth soaking into me, its brightness comforting me, so there can be no shadows ever again.
But before it reaches me, it pauses, hovering just out of reach. Then it moves again, cruelly, away from me, even though I reach out my hands, call out, begging it to come back. “Please, come back....
“Don’t leave me here. . . .”
21
In my hand, there’s a small white piece of paper with frayed edges where it’s been ripped from a larger sheet, the words on it printed clearly.
If you only knew the truth.
Even though it’s late, I call Angus, but it goes to voice mail. On impulse, I call Laura.
“You need to show the police, Kate. It might be linked.”
“Why send it to me, though?”
“It might just be rubbish. Some local nut who knows you’re friends with Jo, stirring up trouble.”
“Do people do that? Really?”
“Yes. They really do. You shouldn’t worry about it.”
The next day, I call Sergeant Beauman, who sends someone round to pick up the note, then go to see Jo, expecting her still to be reeling from hearing about Neal. Instead, I find her having a massive clear-out. What’s more, she’s taking delivery of a new carved oak bed.
“I’m redecorating,” she tells me after welcoming me with open arms. With her hair tied messily back, and wearing a checked shirt that swamps her, she looks about Grace’s age. And scared, but energized. “You understand, don’t you, Kate? About the bed?”
“God, yes, of course I do. Can I do anything to help?”
“You could take one of those downstairs.” She points to a row of smart matching suitcases. “They’re Neal’s clothes. I can’t bear to have them in here. They can go in the garage—at least for now.” Barely pausing for breath before she starts again. “I’ve been thinking about moving, and I still might, only we’ve moved so many times, Kate. I’m sick of it. Every time Neal fell out of favor with people. It was his answer to everything. New house, new people . . . Anyway, I can have the house how I want it now. How I want it!”
She’s elated, unable to stand still, her thoughts running too fast for me to keep up.
“Are you all right with him being released?”
“Not really.” Jo’s too quick, her eyes darting frantically, and I see then, she’s on a knife-edge. “But I have to believe he won’t come here. If he does, the police told me they’ll arrest him. He would hate that.”
“I wish I’d known how bad it was,” I tell her. “You should have said, Jo.”
She shrugs, pulling up her sleeves. “What I should have done was leave him. Years ago. I’ve wasted so much time. And once he’s in court, everyone will know what he’s really like. That he killed his own daughter.” Her voice wobbles as she deposits an armful of bed linens into a garbage bag. “I want nothing on my skin that’s touched him.”
“Over here, please,” she says as the men carrying her new bed survey the scene with an amusement that’s out of place, because nothing about this is remotely funny. It’s horribly, desperately sad. “By the window. Thank you. That’s perfect. Oh God. The curtains.”
She rips them down and stuffs them in the bag with the bed linens.
Holding the bag open, I try to help her. “I tried to call you . . . several times. Where were you?”
“I’m sorry, Kate. I was in such a state, I forgot my phone charger. I just drove until we found
a B and B. I had to get away.”
As I carry the suitcases downstairs, I notice here, too, evidence of her catharsis. Already, there are new cushions, coordinated perfectly with the sofas. Therapeutic brochures on the coffee table, next to liberating pages of paint charts and fabric swatches.
“You wouldn’t believe how this helps,” she says, coming down the stairs behind me, empowered by what she’s doing, clearly relishing cutting Neal out of her life, as well as putting her own stamp on the house, not for one moment seeming to miss him. Too much so for me not to worry.
“Come on. I’ll put the kettle on. Actually, it’s nearly six. I’ll open a bottle.”
It’s five thirty, but if a glass of wine is what it takes to wind her down, I decide I’ll share one with her, because the manic way she’s behaving, I’m convinced she’s heading for a breakdown.
“It’s like she feels nothing for him,” I tell Angus when he calls me later that evening. I’d left Jo making inroads into the rest of the wine, getting her to promise also to eat supper. “Even though they’ve been together all this time, she’s simply cut him out of her life, just like that. I don’t believe anyone can do that—not without it catching up with them at some point.”
“She’s probably relieved,” he says. “You can understand why. Once the court hearing’s out of the way, it’ll be easier for her.” He pauses. “Just please don’t do anything to our house while I’m away. Are you still coming up here in a couple of weeks?”
“I hope so,” I tell him. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. I’d suggest you come earlier,” Angus says, sounding regretful, “only I really have to work this weekend.”
“It’s fine. I should probably work, too.” And I would if I wasn’t so preoccupied with Jo.
“How’s Rachael?” he asks, picking up on my restlessness. “Why don’t you plan a girls’ night?”
The Bones of You Page 15
