The Invitation

by A. M. Castle

  Rachel loved to cause a ripple. Well, she’s got a tidal wave now. Marooning the incestuous pair, these star-crossed lovers, here on her island must have tickled her to death.

  Quite literally, as it may have turned out.

  Chapter 53

  Tom

  Mount Tregowan, 1st November

  I’ve come down to the office again, mainly to get away from Vicky. She’s drunk. On the verge of hysteria. I don’t much want to be sitting with Gita and my daughters when she finally blows.

  Down here I’m trying to avoid looking out of the window. Will Raf make it? If anyone can, he will. Suddenly a memory comes to me, a swimming gala with Tasha and Nessie ages ago. Raf was there, and beat everyone in his year hollow. I was impressed. Maybe that should have told me. Another winner. Chip off the old block. Vicky has given me some weird glances over the years, but I never cottoned on. Maybe she’s right: I didn’t want to. It’ll be an irony if I lose my only son, the day I found him.

  I’m almost glad when there’s a tap at the door. It’s Ross Tregowan, of all people. I see his head first, poking round with his tongue flicking out nervously. I start back. Hope I’ve got my game face back on by the time he sits down in front of me, but the resemblance to a lizard hasn’t gone away. Up close, the sagging neck and downward-drooping eyes don’t improve matters. What’s he after? I thought he’d pretty much become a living statue in the library with the others. But maybe he wants access to one of the rooms he asked me to seal?

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ I say formally.

  ‘And yours,’ he barks.

  ‘Sorry?’ Is this about Raf? Has he heard something I haven’t?

  ‘Well, you’d known Rachel longer than I had. All of you. I imagine you’re feeling it too.’

  Oh, Rachel. Right. I adjust my notebook. ‘Ah, yes. I suppose I was also thinking of, erm, your daughter …’ It seems almost bad manners to draw her to his attention.

  ‘Poor dear Penny. Yes. A double blow.’ He bows his head. But I think we both now know where his daughter was in Ross Tregowan’s own personal pecking order.

  ‘Were you surprised? About Penny, I mean.’ I don’t want any more misunderstandings. ‘Was it … in character?’

  Tregowan swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs and I think about tennis balls stuck in drinking straws. I look away. ‘Put it this way. Between us, she’d been … fragile for a long time.’

  Fragile is said in those inverted commas which means, pretty much, insane. Looks like Tregowan is of that generation that sees mental health issues as moral failings.

  ‘I understand it was after her mother’s death …?’ I let the sentence hang delicately, so Tregowan will fill me in. But it’s uphill work. And I’m still none the wiser about why he’s really here. It’s his castle, though. He has every right to pop up where he pleases. Suddenly he becomes a little more expansive.

  ‘Such a difficult time. My first wife, Penny’s mother, she was quite a free spirit, you know.’

  As opposed to rules-are-for-the-little-people Rachel? Looks like Tregowan has a type.

  ‘Evelyn loved nothing better than careering around the cliffs, here or on the mainland.’

  ‘But you can’t drive on the Mount?’

  ‘Oh, not now.’ Tregowan looks out of the window, plucking absently at the loose, mottled skin on the backs of his hands. I focus on my notebook. ‘I changed everything after she died. Evelyn, I mean.’

  ‘The crash was here?’

  Tregowan nods. There’s a pause. ‘Penny felt such a terrible burden of guilt. But it wasn’t her fault. Not really. She was a novice driver, you see. Evelyn encouraged her to take chances. She loved risk.’

  ‘I thought your wife was driving?’ I frown. But we both know the truth.

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Tregowan dismisses it. ‘Now, was there anything else?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to ask me something?’ I shrug at him, wondering if the weekend has caused him to lose his own marbles, or whether he was like this before. ‘But wait a minute, you’re confirming that Penny’s guilt about being in the driving seat finally caused her to kill herself?’

  ‘Well. I’m not saying anything, dear boy. But Rachel did drop that little hint last night. She had a sense of mischief …’ His voice peters out, as he realises what he’s said. We’ve all had a taste of Rachel’s idea of fun. It was expensive, like everything else about her. This weekend it’s cost her own life, and her stepdaughter’s.

  ‘Did you know about the baby?’ I lean forward. ‘Your baby?’ I hadn’t intended to ask, none of my business, but the man seems so … bloodless. Rachel and his daughter are both gone and he’s somehow blaming everything on his first wife. Does he bear no responsibility for the way things have turned out?

  ‘The baby?’ He blinks slowly, his expression cold. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a third eyelid flick across. ‘I’m sorry, I must, er, get on. Duties …’ he says. His upper lip is so stiff it’s got rigor mortis. But perhaps he considers my questions inappropriate in an underling. He pushes his chair back, but doesn’t get up. ‘If that’s all?’

  Again, I shrug. I’m not sure what to make of him. He’s at the age when dementia starts … I feel another prickle of disgust at Rachel. I suppose it’s not completely impossible that she actually loved the guy. I run an absent hand over my torso as I look at him. But if she didn’t, then she was shunning younger, fitter men to pleasure a desiccated ruin. And, from what I’ve seen just now, she must have been willing to watch his mind slip away too. I hope the title and the island were worth it.

  Well, I’m still a policeman at heart. I want justice. It sounds lofty. It isn’t; it’s the business I’ve been in, all these years. All right, this situation is complicated. By Rachel, by all our relationships with her. With everything that’s gone on this weekend. And the stuff that happened twenty years ago. Stuff that leached out into our lives, like battery acid corrupting everything it touched. Like poison. But I’ve still got my eye on the prize, despite everything. I want to see this wrapped up, and quickly, with an outcome that does the least damage possible to the living.

  Ross Tregowan is still sitting there, a blank expression on that face. ‘I just want to get one or two things clear in my mind,’ I say to him, leaning forward across the desk. ‘To sort things out – beyond any reasonable doubt.’

  He sighs, just once, and we get down to it.

  Chapter 54

  Gita

  Mount Tregowan, 1st November

  It had to happen. My reckoning with Vicky. To have her betrayal heaped on top of Rachel’s death is almost more than I can stand.

  We’ve been through so much together, over the years. Her rotten marriage, to Bob, for instance. And now of course I’m beginning to see why that fell apart. All this time, I’ve assumed he was the bad guy, the unreasonable one. Even though I know Vicky herself can be impossible, I’ve made endless allowances for her. But a secret this big, at the centre of their relationship? It’s clear they never stood a chance. No man could put up with the suspicion that his son was not even his.

  But the thing is, it was never obvious. Did Vicky pick Bob on purpose, because he was just a watered-down version of my Tom? Slightly shorter, a little more brash, definitely less charismatic. He is Tom Lite – I see that now.

  And I can admit it, I feel a fool. All the time we’ve spent with Raf, marvelling at the way he fitted so easily into our family, the way he cleaved to us and not to Vicky. He loved it at our house, with Tom and me. He was part of the family. Literally.

  Tom’s told me he knew nothing about the situation with Vicky. Aside from the actual impregnation, for want of a better word. It still astounds me. They’ve never seen eye to eye, in all these years, he and Vicky. But something aligned, at least once. Below the belt.

  Antagonism often conceals a spark. Elizabeth Bennet versus Mr Darcy, and all that … God. Tom was sheepish, earlier. ‘It was twenty years ago. I was a dick then,’ he said, literal
ly hanging his head. No one’s disputing that. The question is whether he’s changed.

  Now, after all the years of silence, he suddenly can’t shut up about it. ‘She was available … she made that plain. It was a shag. It meant nothing. Less than nothing. Not that it excuses my behaviour, not that it makes it any better …’

  But of course it does make it better. The more he runs her down, the more likely I am to forgive him. At the moment. While it’s all at this raw level. At some point, intellect will kick in and I’ll have to take a long, hard look at Tom. For now, he can’t slag her off enough for me. Why does it work this way? Why am I willing to blame another woman for my own husband’s failure?

  I can answer that in seconds flat. Because I want to keep my family intact.

  Oh, it’s all too much to deal with. I envy Vicky, taking refuge in her beloved booze. I wish I could drink all this away. Rachel, gone. Penny, too – not that I care an awful lot about her. Is that terrible? No, under the circumstances I can let myself off. I didn’t know her until forty-eight hours ago and it turns out she was a murderer. I can’t mourn that kind of person. But Raf. I don’t want to include him in the same breath as them, the dead … but he’s been gone too long now, surely? I’m beginning to believe he can’t have survived. That wave must have taken him.

  The last time he was at our house, he gave me a bunch of flowers. ‘What’s that for?’ I asked, trying to conceal a leap of pleasure. He was so good-looking, such a delight to have around. ‘Just … for having me here,’ he said, with that smile. Tom’s smile, I now see. It was shouting at me all the time, the truth. But I was blind.

  I suppose he saw me as his mother-in-law, in all but name. He and Tasha clicked at some deep level, and no wonder – they were like calling to like. It turns my stomach. My poor girl. How will she be able to look at herself in the mirror? How can Vicky? How could she do this to us all?

  I look across at her. ‘Gita …’ she starts, but I turn my head away.

  This is horrible, but maybe Raf going missing is actually the best thing that could have happened to Tasha. For just a second, I even think to myself: if only Vicky could disappear the same way. What is happening to me? This place is making me into a monster. God, I regret giving in to that invitation. Why did I bring us here?

  ‘Gita,’ says Vicky again. I force myself to glance over. It’s as good a time as any. The girls have gone to the loo, together in a posse. Roderick is lying down upstairs. Ross is having a walk. I don’t know how he can, in this weather, but I suppose he’s used to it. If I were him I’d worry about being blown away, but in the circumstances … Jane and Geoff have gone off together, no doubt to their own room. So it just leaves me, and my erstwhile friend.

  She’s a mess. Her features have that blurry look drunks get, lumpy underneath, like porridge. Usually, I’d have some compassion. Now I wonder if we were ever really close at all.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me.’

  To give her credit, she doesn’t pretend she has no idea what I’m talking about. ‘How could I? You were in love. You wouldn’t have listened. It was a mistake. Yes, a drunken one. But it was once and never again. And anyway, you knew full well the kind of shit Tom was. Is.’

  ‘Shut up, shut up,’ I say. My hands are over my ears. I don’t want what she’s saying inside my head.

  ‘Come on, Gita. It’s not like he hasn’t kept it up. Do you think he’s been faithful to you, for one second, throughout your relationship? Your marriage?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Him and me, that was a one-night thing. On my side. But he carried on giving me the eye. For years. Why do you think I avoided him?’

  ‘Um, maybe because you were ashamed?’ My eyebrows are virtually on the ceiling. But she hasn’t finished.

  ‘He liked to have someone on the back burner. Come on, you must have known, Gita. I always assumed you did. And what about Rachel?’

  Goose bumps stand up on my arms. ‘What do you mean, Rachel?’

  ‘Surely you were aware? When your girls were tiny … And he spent so much time with her, in the last few months.’

  ‘Wait. How do you even know that? Unless you were still carrying on with hi—’

  Vicky cuts me off. ‘Raf said. You know he was always round at your place.’ She swallows. It rankles, does it? Good. ‘He said sometimes Rachel was there. Didn’t you know? Tom never said a word to you?’

  My head is spinning, now. Surely not both Vicky and Rachel? What is going on? No, no. I take a breath, get centred. ‘It was probably a work thing.’

  ‘Work!’ Vicky snorts. ‘If that’s what you want to call it.’

  ‘For your information, Tom’s involved in investigating art fraud. Money laundering, that stuff. And Rachel has … had, her art foundation. It would have been about that.’

  ‘Whatever. What can I say, if you’re determined not to hear? I suppose you’ve had to practise selective deafness a lot over the years. Blindness, too. Heaven forfend you should make a clean break, like I did. You would have lost the huge house in the suburbs, I suppose, and the girls’ schooling. I hope it’s all been worth it.’

  The words are bubbling up in me but I clamp down. Vicky carries on. ‘I thought that was why you spent so much time at work. Dumping the girls with nannies or whatever. And look how that’s worked out.’

  Now my intake of breath is harsh, involuntary. I can’t believe she’s bringing my daughters into it. ‘You’re saying I’m a bad mother? You? You’re saying that, with that cup of vodka in your hand? And if you really want to look at things, look at Raf. He couldn’t wait to get out of that door. Risking his life, to get away from you.’

  Oh God! What a thing to say. I’ve gone too far, and I know it. Lashing out at my old friend, who’s almost certainly just lost her son. Even if she is a sozzled psycho-bitch. I clam up, just shake my head. Luckily she’s too drunk to focus properly on what I’ve said.

  ‘Listen, Gita,’ she goes on, her words running into each other. ‘I’ve never had him tested. The DNA. Bob might be his dad … There’s every chance.’

  But both of us know. ‘Why didn’t you say something to me? Over all these years? I could have forgiven you.’

  ‘Could you?’ she asks me. Our eyes meet. She’s right. This runs too deep. The betrayal has been bad enough, but the ramifications of it … OK, she never wanted Raf and Tasha to fall in love, but the irresponsibility. The damage inflicted on my beautiful daughter. An innocent young girl.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything, when you knew where things were going, between the two of them?’

  ‘You forget.’ Her voice is full of sorrow. ‘I didn’t know. I had no idea. I’ve scarcely seen Raf, these past two years. I blamed Bob. Now I wonder if it was Tom …’

  ‘Don’t blame Tom for this! If he’d had the least idea, don’t you think he’d have stopped them?’

  ‘I suppose he would. But I honestly didn’t know they were becoming close – Raf and Tasha. Let alone … you know. Really. I couldn’t have stood by. I would have had to say something, risk our friendship. But Raf said nothing to me. Maybe he was embarrassed,’ she stumbles on hurriedly before I can erupt again. ‘You know, they’re so coy about first love, teenagers, well, young adults. I knew he was at your place a lot. It hurt. I couldn’t bring myself to raise it with you. I preferred to hope. That he’d come back. That he’d get tired of playing happy families with you all. That we’d be the unit we’d once been.’

  ‘Weren’t you worried Tom would say something to him?’

  Vicky couldn’t sound more incredulous if she tried. ‘Are you kidding? Mr Avoidant? Not in a million years. And we never discussed the possibility. That Raf … Not once. You’ve got to believe me, Gita.’

  My shoulders sag. I realise, finally, that Vicky had no intention of causing this mess. She’s just been doing what all drunks do. Drowning her guilt and her responsibilities.

  ‘Have you
spoken to Bob?’ I ask quietly. ‘Not about the father business … Today. About Raf going for help.’

  ‘Of course not!’ Vicky’s eyes are wide. ‘We’ve been stuck here. In Rachel’s bubble. I haven’t given Bob a thought. And the phones are down anyway. Why would I try?’

  I stumble over my words, continue slowly. ‘Well … um. In case he doesn’t make it back?’

  ‘What do you mean? Why wouldn’t he make it?’ There must be something more in my face this time, because Vicky lurches to the window. She looks out as though she’s going to see Raf right there, larger than life, but of course there’s nothing but wind and waves and bleak, bleak sky as far as the eye can see. She turns back to me, her face a picture of anguish. ‘Gita? He’s going to make it, isn’t he?’

  Despite myself, my anger shrivels and dies. It was only yesterday that I thought Ruby was gone, lost forever. Now Vicky is starting to feel that same winnowing pain. Whatever she’s done, however flawed she may be as a friend and a mother, she needs a hug. As usual, it’s like embracing a plank, but we both endure it. It’s better than being alone in, what did she call it? Rachel’s bubble.

  Yes, we’ve all been trapped in that. Until yesterday, it seemed iridescent, weightless, beautiful, like the pretty soap spheres my girls would blow long ago with little plastic wands.

  Now all that gilded insubstantial nonsense, so quintessentially Rachel, has somehow become something horribly different.

  Our prison.

  Chapter 55

  Geoff

  Mount Tregowan, 1st November

  I suppose I was expecting Jane to go to pieces at some point. She leads a very sheltered life and, knowing how fragile she is, I’ve always protected her as best I can. I can’t say I’m not angry about, well, matters that have come to light this weekend. But, when I look at the rackety lot around us, I’m still glad she and I have each other.