Still Waters

by Linda Kavanagh

  Your books often include plots which have their roots in the childhoods of the characters or even more specifically in their schooldays. Why is that?

  I believe that the legacy of our childhood, whether good or bad, shapes the rest of our lives. It is also a time when we are powerless and vulnerable, and some children may suffer at the hands of people meant to protect them. Schooldays can be fraught with fear, as children can become victims not only of cruel teachers, but also of their fellow pupils. In my novels, I have used some of my characters’ childhoods to explain their subsequent behaviour in adulthood. As a story progresses, the reader gradually learns about the events of the past that have made the character who they have become in adulthood. Perhaps my own happy and uneventful childhood has led me to be fascinated and appalled in equal measure by those who haven’t been so fortunate.

  If you loved Still Waters

  read on for an exclusive extract of

  THE SECRET WIFE

  by Linda Kavanagh

  Available now

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘I’m getting married!’

  Laura Thornton looked the picture of happiness as she held out her left hand so that her friend Kerry could admire her engagement ring.

  ‘Congratulations!’ Kerry said, hugging her, and trying to appear happy for her. But she was worried. She didn’t like the man Laura was planning to marry. Okay, so he was charming and handsome, a stockbroker who seemed to have a knack for making money. Yet there was something profoundly needy about him. Not that being needy was wrong – it just wasn’t what you expected to find in a mature, successful man. Nevertheless, Laura seemed convinced that she’d found a man who genuinely cared about her.

  ‘So when is the wedding?’

  ‘Next month – we saw no reason to wait, since we want so much to be together!’

  So soon! Kerry experienced a frisson of fear. It looked as though Laura was being her usual impulsive self.

  ‘It’s going to be a very small wedding – I mean, since neither Jeff nor I have any family. But I’d really like you to be my bridesmaid.’

  Kerry nodded. ‘Of course. I’d be delighted.’

  Nevertheless, she was disturbed at the haste with which Laura was marrying this man, whom she hardly knew. Although aware that her friend was impulsive, Kerry suspected that Jeff was the one pushing for this rush into marriage.

  Kerry and Laura had met Jeff one evening in a pub. The bar had been crowded, and Laura had been trying desperately to catch the barman’s eye. Jeff had witnessed her attempts and, being tall, he’d gallantly ordered the drinks for her, then insisted on paying for them. Laura had been impressed by the good-looking, blond-haired man, and they’d spent the rest of the evening chatting to each other.

  Kerry had disliked him on sight. She’d recognised a smooth-talking chancer, but Laura had quickly fallen for his superficial charms. Before long, Laura could hardly frame a sentence without bringing Jeff’s name into it, and Kerry knew that it was pointless to urge caution. Laura was already head over heels in love with him. Instinctively Kerry knew that, if she raised any objections to Jeff, Laura would interpret it as sour grapes on her part, and she’d be the one to lose Laura’s friendship. Already she could sense that Jeff was keen to loosen the bonds between the two women. He’d demand total loyalty, and that loyalty would require him to be the centre of Laura’s universe. Would Laura allow that to happen?

  ‘Oh, Kerry, I’m so excited!’ Laura said, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘I never thought I’d meet anyone like Jeff – and that he’d want to be with me, too! He’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever met and I just feel soooo lucky to be marrying him!’

  Kerry smiled, although she felt that her face was in danger of cracking from the effort, and quickly steered the conversation away from any further discussion of Jeff’s merits. ‘So what are you going to wear? Have you picked a dress yet?’

  ‘No, so you’ll have to come shopping with me!’ Laura said, grinning. ‘We can find a dress for you, too. How about something in burgundy? It would look wonderful with your dark hair …’

  Kerry nodded. She didn’t really care what colour she wore. It was Laura’s day, so she’d wear whatever dress Laura chose for her. But there was something she urgently needed to find out. She’d need to raise the subject as delicately as possible with Laura, and sooner rather than later …

  Kerry made a special effort to share Laura’s enthusiasm for her approaching big day. Together, they trawled the dress shops during their lunch hour and, with Kerry’s approval, Laura blew a month’s salary on a gorgeous cream taffeta dress with a detail of tiny pearls.

  Kerry’s dress proved to be a simple and straightforward purchase. She readily agreed to a deep burgundy chiffon dress that Laura discovered in a small boutique, thinking how contrasting the two of them would look at the wedding – Laura’s blonde hair and cream dress versus her own dark dress and dark brown hair. Kerry also opted to wear a simple matching flower in her hair, whereas Laura was thrilled to find a glamorous pearl and feathered fascinator that was an exact match for her dress.

  As they relaxed over a coffee in a city-centre café after their shopping expedition, Laura was still giddy with excitement. Kerry looked at her – it was time to ask Laura the question that had been preying on her mind. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Laura, have you told Jeff about the money?’

  Laura looked up from the cream doughnut she was slicing. ‘Not yet – there’s never been the right time, what with all the preparations for the wedding. But I’ll tell him as soon as we’re married.’

  Inside, Kerry sighed with relief. Thank goodness. But how on earth could she delicately point out to Laura that she needed to protect her huge inheritance?

  ‘Look, love, I think you should wait a while before telling him,’ Kerry ventured. ‘You can’t be sure how things will go – none of us can – but what if you ended up divorcing Jeff? He could probably claim a lot of your money.’

  Laura bridled. ‘You seem to be implying that there’s something devious about Jeff! That’s a horrible thing to say about a woman’s fiancé just before she gets married!’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘He’s the best! Poor Jeff’s survived a violent childhood, with dysfunctional parents – yet despite such an awful start in life, he’s become hugely successful. I’m so proud of him.’

  Kerry nodded, as though to agree with Laura’s estimation of Jeff’s abilities, but to her it was yet another red flag. Jeff was looking dodgier by the minute.

  She reached across the table and took her friend’s hand. ‘Love, I’m only looking out for you! By all means tell him when you’ve been together for a year or two – but wait a while, just to be sure. Please?’

  Laura looked sullen and offended.

  ‘Look, Jeff has a comfortable home and both of you have jobs you love,’ Kerry pleaded. ‘You can live happily as you are for the time being. Then when you eventually tell him, you’ll have proved that he’s the man for you.’

  Laura’s expression became angry. ‘I know now that Jeff’s the man for me! Are you implying that I don’t know my own mind?’

  Kerry raised her hands in appeasement. ‘Of course not! I’m just concerned for you. I’m sure you’ll be perfectly happy with Jeff. I just don’t want you losing any of your fortune.’

  Laura nibbled a piece of her doughnut, then looked at her friend and sighed. ‘Sorry, Kerry – I know you mean well. I really do appreciate your concern, but Jeff and I … well, we’re in for the long haul. But I don’t want you and me to fall out, so I’ll hold off telling him for a while.’ She looked at Kerry with a triumphant look on her face. ‘Then you’ll realise that Jeff truly is the man for me – I know he loves me, no matter what my financial situation is.’

  Kerry nodded, relieved that the fortune Laura had inherited on the death of her parents and brother was safe from Jeff. She was convinced that if he knew what was in Laura’s bank account, there would be little money left by the time she
discovered what he was truly like.

  She shivered, wondering briefly if Jeff could already know about the trust fund that had been set up for Laura, and which she’d received several years earlier, on reaching the age of twenty-five. Maybe their meeting in the pub hadn’t been accidental after all?

  Putting on a smile, Kerry turned to her friend. ‘How many guests are you having altogether?’

  ‘At the last count, about twenty.’

  Laura had invited around a dozen colleagues from the Sociology Department of the university where she was a lecturer, a few of Kerry’s colleagues from the engineering company where she was a partner, and a few friends of Jeff’s from his badminton club. Kerry wondered uneasily why no one from other areas of Jeff’s life would be attending – even though he’d no family, surely he had work colleagues who were friends? In her opinion, there was definitely something odd about him, but she was not about to start pointing out his deficiencies, since Laura was clearly annoyed with her at the idea of keeping Jeff in the dark about the money she’d inherited.

  ‘You’d better stay with me the night before the wedding,’ Kerry said, smiling, as they gathered up their booty and left the café. ‘It’s supposed to bring bad luck if the groom sees you before you get to the registry office.’

  Laura nodded, her eyes now sparkling again with excitement. She’d already given up her own rented flat and moved in with Jeff, since they’d decided to make their home in his sumptuous Islington apartment. ‘Well then, we’ll also have to make that our hen night!’ she said, smiling. ‘Since Jeff and I wanted to get married as quickly as possible, there hasn’t been time to do a lot of the normal stuff.’

  Kerry shook her head sternly. ‘There’ll be no hen night for you on the eve of the wedding, madam – I don’t want you nursing a hangover on your big day!’

  Kerry suspected that Jeff probably wouldn’t want Laura having a hen night anyway, since it would mean she wouldn’t be focusing all her attention on him, and he’d see danger in the combination of alcohol and male strippers that was usually on the menu. In essence, Jeff wouldn’t want Laura having any fun if he wasn’t there to share it. Or control it.

  The day of the wedding dawned bright and sunny, and Laura was already up and in the kitchen when Kerry padded out of her bedroom in dressing gown and slippers.

  ‘Oh, Kerry, I’m so excited!’ Laura squealed, jumping up and down, then hugging her friend as Kerry tried to switch on the kettle. ‘Here, let me get you some breakfast – I’m far too nervous to eat anything myself!’

  ‘You’ve got to eat something,’ Kerry warned her, managing to put two slices of bread in the toaster. ‘Otherwise, you might faint during the service, and that wouldn’t look great on your wedding day!’

  Laura nodded. Her friend was right, as usual. But there were butterflies in her stomach, and she couldn’t sit still. Before leaving her room she’d checked and checked again that her shoes, bouquet and fascinator were all lined up and ready. Thrilled, she’d touched the hem of her wedding gown that was hanging on the back of the bedroom door, wrapped in tissue paper. She couldn’t wait to be Jeff’s wife.

  ‘Here – eat this,’ Kerry said, pushing a slice of buttered toast across the table towards her. ‘I’m not letting you leave this apartment until there’s something in your stomach!’

  Nodding, Laura took the slice of toast and began chewing obediently. She couldn’t even taste it because she was so nervous and so excited, but she knew Kerry was right, and was only looking out for her. She had to eat something. Otherwise, she might keel over just as she was taking her vows. And nothing was going to stop her from saying ‘I do’ to her beloved Jeff.

  Swallowing the toast, she smiled at Kerry. ‘Can I ask you one more favour? Just in case I get a bit tipsy today, will you make sure Jeff doesn’t eat any wedding cake? I’m just worried in case he’ll forget, after having a few drinks himself. The hotel people know to prepare his meal separately, but I didn’t have time to organise a peanut-free cake.’

  Kerry raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’

  Laura grimaced. ‘Jeff has a severe allergy to peanuts. Even a whiff of a peanut in his food could be enough to kill him.’ Kerry looked sceptical.

  ‘It’s true – if he accidentally ingested any, he’d immediately go into anaphylactic shock. That’s why he has to carry an adrenaline pen with him at all times, so that he can inject himself if he has a bad reaction, or someone else can inject him if he collapses.’ Laura took a deep breath. ‘So you can see why I worry.’

  Kerry smiled warmly at her friend. ‘Of course I’ll keep an eye on him! But if his problem is so severe, I’m sure he’s well aware of it himself.’ Smiling, she patted her friend’s arm. ‘So the only nuts at your wedding will be your friends!’

  Laughing, Laura led the way into the bedroom. At last it was time to get dressed.

  As Kerry helped her into her cream taffeta dress, Laura’s expression abruptly changed to one of sadness. ‘I really wish I had my parents and my brother here with me today,’ she said wistfully. ‘I’m missing them so much right now!’

  Her eyes filled with tears, and Kerry hugged her.

  ‘You’re the only family I have left,’ Laura added. ‘I mean, you’re all alone too, since your mum died, so we only have each other.’ She brightened. ‘But Jeff and I will have kids eventually, so we’ll create our own family over time. And I’m sure you’ll have kids some day, too. I hope they’ll be good friends like us.’

  Laura brushed away her tears and concentrated on putting on her fascinator and matching pearl earrings. She’d never got over the death of her parents and brother in a tragic car accident when she was almost twelve. All she had left of them now was a few precious photographs, which she kept in her bedside cupboard. She regularly took them out and looked at them – it enabled her to remember that she’d once been part of a happy family. And she blamed herself for what happened. She’d gone to check on an injured bird that morning, so she’d missed the planned trip to get new school uniforms for her and her brother Pete. After waiting in vain for her daughter to appear, her mother had finally decided to set off with Pete, and at the last minute her father had chosen to take a lift in her mother’s car. Laura was well aware that if she hadn’t delayed her mother, they might never have crashed, and her father would never have taken a lift because they’d have left for town already. Ever since then, Laura had carried around the guilt like a huge weight on her back.

  Laura wiped away another tear. As Laura’s close friend since childhood, Kerry, too, had been devastated by what had happened, and, sadly, Kerry’s mother had died of a suspected heart attack while both young women were still at university. Without a doubt, the early loss of both their families had brought her and Kerry even closer.

  ‘Come on, dry those tears – you’ll ruin your mascara,’ Kerry said briskly. ‘There’s no time for sad memories today. This is a happy day, and I want to see you smiling.’

  Laura obliged, giving Kerry a winning smile. Then she picked up her bouquet of freesias and roses, surveyed herself in the mirror, and gave a contented nod. She was pleased with what she saw. Looking back at her was a woman who had the clear eyes of someone in love, who was just about to marry the man she adored.

  ‘I’m ready,’ said Laura, taking a deep breath.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ellie Beckworth rode her bicycle home from work, sensing that there was something definitely wrong with the front wheel. It was wobbling too freely, and she decided that at the earliest opportunity she’d take it to the village bicycle shop. Perhaps it needed a new tyre, or possibly the wheel frame had become slightly bent. There were so many stones on this stretch of the road, all of them waiting to snare unwary cyclists …

  Widowed a year earlier, Ellie was employed as a chemist in the laboratory of the local canning factory. Her job had proved a lifeline after John’s sudden death, since the small pension from his job didn’t come near to covering her mortgage payments. Besides
, returning to work had occupied her mind and distracted her from the loneliness that had enveloped her since John had passed away.

  She and her husband had moved to London only a year before his death, when he’d been offered a partnership in a small accountancy firm in the city. They’d left the north of England behind, intent on making a new life, and hoped to raise a family in the London suburbs. They’d even found the house of their dreams, near a village on the outskirts of London but within commuting distance of the city – a small house called Treetops, with a huge three-acre woodland garden, just made for half a dozen kids. But no children were forthcoming, and now there never would be.

  Deep in thought, she didn’t hear the car approaching until it was almost level with her. It gave her such a fright as it swept past that she and the bicycle wobbled dangerously, teetering for a few seconds before veering sideways and crashing into a ditch.

  ‘Aaagh!’ Covered in debris, and with her bicycle clearly beyond repair, Ellie surveyed the mess. Her clothes were dishevelled, and she was having difficulty extracting the twigs that had become knotted in her curly hair.

  ‘Are you okay?’ said a voice, and Ellie found herself looking up into a pair of dark brown eyes.

  ‘Does it look as though I’m okay?’ she retorted. ‘I don’t usually choose to dress in muddy clothes, and wear half a tree in my hair!’

  As she struggled to extricate herself from the muddy ditch, a hand gripped hers firmly and pulled her up. Ellie recognised the owner of the factory where she worked – Alan Thornton, or ‘Mr Alan’ as the employees called him.