Natalie closed her eyes. Nothing would change - nothing. What of those men who had professed to love Sarah so much? Where were they? Why was Natalie the only one who apparently gave a damn who killed her sister?
Somewhere in the far distance she heard the familiar theme music to Friends. It had been Sarah’s favourite TV show. Feeling goosebumps prickle her skin, Natalie opened her eyes and for a split second thought she saw Sarah standing right there in front of her; smiling, implying that everything would be all right -
Before she realised it was only her own reflection in the window.
Bitterly Natalie turned away - too quickly. Her hip knocked against the little table, the movement sending a potted plant skidding across the polished wood. She made a grab for it, but someone was there before her; an older man, very tall, with dark eyes beneath heavy brows. He neatly caught the plant and restored it to the table.
“Hello, Charles,” she said, smiling politely to disguise her unease.
How long had he been standing there, watching her?
“Natalie.” Charles Fitzpatrick dusted soil from his hands but did not wipe them on his clothes; evidently they were too expensive to spoil. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said carefully. She straightened the pot so it sat centrally on the table. The plant it contained was a citrus, complete with lemons so large they looked ready to drop. “This is beautiful. Where did it come from?”
There was only the slightest hesitation before Charles shrugged. “I believe a visitor brought it.”
She looked up sharply. “My father doesn’t have visitors.”
“Or perhaps a relative?”
Was he serious? “My father has no relatives, apart from myself.”
He didn’t contradict her. “Would you like me to make further enquiries?”
He spoke politely but she knew it was a pointless charade. Charles Fitzpatrick knew exactly who had given the plant to her father but for the moment he wasn’t sharing.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s only a plant.” And she was an idiot to attach so much significance to it. She turned away from him; moving towards the door, eager to leave.
Briefly his hand touched on her shoulder. “Wait,” he said. “There’s something we need to discuss.”
For one brief moment there was that familiar swirl of anxiety, starting deep in her belly. “What would that be?”
“I think you know. Why don’t we go to my office?”
“Why don’t we talk here?” she countered.
“Where anyone can overhear the conversation?”
In his office they would be alone - something she’d managed to avoid for several years.
“Natalie? It’s important.”
“Whatever,” she sighed, and had the satisfaction of seeing him wince. She was a woman of thirty, no longer a child to be intimidated and coerced. Hopefully he now realised that.
Charles led the way along the labyrinth of dimly-lit corridors, to the stout wooden door which had his name written on it, and a long list of letters after that. Reception was now only a few feet distant. She could even see the sun shining through the double glass doors, creating a perfect rectangle of light in the centre of the polished tiled floor.
Freedom, but a few steps away.
As though he’d read her mind he said, “I think I’m correct in saying that you would rather talk to me directly, than through my solicitor?”
Was he threatening her? Was he deluded enough to think she still held him in awe? He had absolutely no hold over her - and she was about to tell him so, when it occurred to her that it might be beneficial to hear what he had to say. So she kept her mouth shut and stepped through into his office, and tried not to shudder as the door swung shut behind her with an ominous clunk.
In the past the room had seemed smaller, darker; more oppressive. The dark-green wallpaper remained unchanged, along with the heavy Victorian furniture. In another part of the building there was a modern consulting room, where they had had long discussions about how she was coping with her sister’s death. In that room there had always been a nurse present. But here, in his private sanctuary, they had always been alone.
“Take a seat,” he said.
She moved further into the room, ticking off each memory as it came back. There were the shelves with the hundreds of books, which stretched from floor to ceiling; the squashy green chesterfield, with its leather almost worn away; the glass case containing WWII memorabilia, including a real gun; the paintings of gruesome hunting scenes that had always turned her stomach. There was only one thing she did not remember - the large window behind his desk, with its outlook onto an Italianate courtyard. Then she saw the curtains, tied back into heavy swags with thick green cords. In her day, those curtains had always been closed. And the cords …
She sat in the nearest chair, slightly quicker than she had intended. Too late, she realised it was closest to the door, something which was unlikely to pass unnoticed.
She thought Charles would sit behind his desk, to keep their meeting on this new formal footing. Instead he cleared a space amongst the paperwork cluttering his desk and sat on one corner. As he always used to do.
Fixing his dark-brown gaze directly upon her, he thankfully came right to the point.
“Over the past few days, I’ve had to field many calls from friends and colleagues, who are aware of my connections with your family,” he said. “Apparently you have written a book about your sister’s murder, in which you frequently refer to a character you call ‘the doctor’. They are understandably concerned that this character is based on myself.”
She hid a smile. Was that all he was concerned about? Who were these ‘friends and colleagues’, who apparently knew what she’d written before it had even been published?
“The character in my book is not a medical doctor,” she said. “And the book is fiction.”
“Based on a real case.”
“Not at all,” she told him firmly.
“The murder victim is a teenage girl?”
“She’s a married woman in her twenties.”
“But she’s blonde, pretty and young - ”
“Well, she’s a brunette, pretty and youngish.”
Perversely, Natalie found she was enjoying herself.
“Please don’t be flippant,” Charles said. “In your book, does the girl have her throat cut?”
“Yes, but - ”
“And she’s found in a lily pond?”
“No, in a bluebell wood.”
“Bluebells?” For a moment he just looked at her, uncertain as to whether she was taunting him.
She raised an eyebrow.
“They’re still flowers,” he muttered.
“Honestly, Charles! Do you really think my publishers want to risk being sued? I’m a crime writer. I write books about fictional characters being fictionally murdered. By a horrible coincidence my own sister was murdered, which means whenever I give a promotional interview I’m forced to answer stupid questions about how it ruined my life. If I’m lucky, I can get away with explaining how I use my emotions to identify with the characters in my book. But they are still only characters. I’m afraid your well-meaning friends are confusing fiction with reality.”
Before he could respond, there was a knock on the door and in walked the same blonde receptionist she’d met earlier, carrying a tray. As the receptionist leaned over the table to put the tray down, Natalie had a clear view of her face and realised the girl was much younger than she had first thought.
Blonde, pretty and young.
Her skin rose into goosebumps again.
“Thank you, Summer,” Charles said. He waited for the girl to leave and close the door behind her, before he turned his attention back to Natalie. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Not really.” She watched him pour out the tea and add a squeeze of lemon.
“I need you to send me two copies of your book,” he said. “One for me, and one for my solicit
or.”
Again with the solicitor. Had he even been listening?
“If that’s what you want,” she sighed. Anything to bring this awkward meeting to an end. “I’ll put them in the post tomorrow morning. Would you like them to be sent here, or to your home address?”
Or does your wife open your post?
His fingers knocked against his cup, slopping the liquid into the saucer. “Here would be fine, thank you.”
It was hard not to smile.
Unfortunately Charles noticed.
“Natalie, I’m sure you find this all very amusing, but try to look at it from my point of view. I have a hard enough time trying to keep this place afloat, without juicy rumours hitting the press about how I seduce my teenage patients.”
“Even if you do?” she asked bluntly.
“Once,” he said coldly.
“I think you’ll find it was more than once.”
He frowned. “I meant there was only ever one patient I sedu - Oh, for Christ’s sake!” he slammed the tea down on the desk, regardless of the way it spilled over his paperwork. “I thought we’d put this behind us? I exploited you, I apologised; I even offered you financial compensation, which you turned down. I thought we’d moved on? What are you trying to achieve by raking everything up again?”
Did he really not understand? “I’m trying to find out who killed my sister. I can’t write about it properly, using the names and locations that appear in her diary, because no publisher would touch it. Instead I have to give interviews, endlessly talking about how she died, how she looked when I found her, how it wrecked my family and affected my entire life - how the hell do they think it affected me!”
“Natalie,” he made a movement as though to come forward and comfort her but she held her hand up.
“Uh-uh, no way. I’m not going through that again.”
“I could arrange for you to see one of my colleagues - ”
“No,” she said firmly. “I think I’ve had enough bloody therapy to last me a lifetime.”
“Perhaps a prescription for - ”
“No! Do you think I want to end up like one of those zombies outside? Unable to think, unable to feel? I’ve been there once and I have no intention of ever going there again.”
“There are many effective medications and therapies available for your kind of stress and depression, none of which will result in you ‘ending up like a zombie’.”
Medication …
She saw an image of her father - the way he had looked at her when he’d grabbed hold of her wrist, the way he’d looked at her with perfect intelligence.
“If you like,” Charles was saying, “I can make an appointment for you to see one of our counsellors, in the strictest confidence - ”
“Have you changed my father’s medication?” she asked him.
“What? Why would you ask that?”
“Because I’ve noticed that for someone suffering from supposedly incurable brain damage, he occasionally seems remarkably lucid.”
Charles appeared to be struggling with the abrupt change in conversation. “What does that have to do with - ”
“Could my father be pretending?”
“He sustained head injuries in a car accident and he’s paralysed from the waist down. You can’t fake something like that!”
“I know he has feeling in his legs and there was talk at one time that he might get better - ”
“From the spinal injury, certainly. He’s got something called a cauda equine lesion but I’m afraid that if there has not been any improvement over the last fifteen years, he’s unlikely to start walking now. Why are you asking me this?”
Did he have to sound quite so patronising? “What about the head injury?”
Charles sighed and picked up a spiral bound notebook from his desk, using a pencil to scribble a quick diagram. He held it up, so she could see he had drawn a cartoon of a man’s head, divided up into sections like a patchwork quilt.
“The brain is made of many parts,” he said, jabbing at the diagram with the end of his pen. “It can be divided into four areas, the largest of which is the cerebrum. The front section of the cerebrum is called the frontal lobe and is involved in speech, thought, emotion, memory and skilled movement. Because of its position and size, the frontal lobe is vulnerable to injury. Are you with me so far?”
She inclined her head.
“You father had a series of neuropsychological tests following his accident and also at regular intervals since.”
As she already knew this, she made no comment.
“John can remember events from his past but not the accident itself - although it is not unusual for patients to block traumatic events from their memories. We have noticed that John sometimes becomes confused, particularly if stressed. This could be because he has problems organising his thoughts and then communicating them to others. He also has trouble concentrating, which means he loses interest in keeping a conversation going, as it takes so much effort for him.”
Charles dropped the notebook back onto the desk. “Patients with frontal lobe damage show little spontaneous facial expression and can have trouble reacting to their environment. I can understand why you are confused. If John is having a good day, his concentration improves. He understands more and can therefore communicate more. On bad days - and to be fair, John does suffer from very severe headaches that would make anyone feel down - he isn’t interested in making what we would call ‘small talk’. Combined with his lack of facial expression, this can make him appear worse than he actually is. Does that answer your question?”
“These tests, are they foolproof?”
“I should think so, yes. Your father has his moods and whims in the same way we all do. If he is feeling frustrated his symptoms may appear worse. If he is not in any pain and is feeling relaxed, his symptoms would be vastly improved. I have to tell you that most improvements in this kind of traumatic brain injury usually appear in the first few years. After fifteen years - well, I’m sorry, but this is as good as he’s going to get.”
“He’s definitely not faking?”
“Why do you keep suggesting that? It’s ridiculous. What would the man gain from this kind of deception - and over such a long period of time?”
It was exactly the same question she had asked herself.
7
The most expensive properties in Calahurst were the apartment blocks overlooking the quay. Some were converted boathouses, others had once been beautiful Georgian town houses built for the wealthy ship owners. Natalie had deliberately chosen to live in the most expensive and exclusive of these - an attractive building of pale stone and tinted glass, built on the site of one of the original boatyards. It was to one side of the quay, rather than overlooking it directly, and away from the noise of the bars and cafés. There was a car park in the basement, a fully-equipped gym on the ground floor and even a swimming pool. As Natalie lived in the penthouse, she also had a roof garden, where evergreen shrubs grew in raised beds beside a party-sized hot tub.
The entrance hall - all marble, glass and exotic plants - was patrolled by a uniformed porter named Phil Huggins. He was a short and practically bald bundle of enthusiasm, who always produced the latest Natalie Grove thriller for her to sign the same day it hit the shops. He claimed to have read every book she’d written - she’d certainly signed them all for him - and told her each time she did so that he was her greatest fan.
She was never quite sure whether to believe him.
As much as she liked Phil - or rather, thought him fairly harmless – Natalie’s visit to her father had left her so shaken she was hoping to avoid meeting anyone. She had left her car in its usual spot in the basement car park, and used the lift to ascend rather than the stairs. Unfortunately, instead of whisking her straight up to the penthouse, the lift stopped at ground level, opening onto an empty lobby. She jammed her finger on the button but, as the doors finally slid together, a size eight boot wedged itself between them.
“Hi, Miss Grove!” Phil squeezed his bulk through the narrow gap. “Look what turned up.” He tapped his thumb against the side of the cardboard box he carried. “I reckon it’s your new book.”
As the top of the box had been sealed with tape printed with the name of her publishers, it was not a difficult deduction to make.
“Thank you, Phil.” She pushed her bag onto her shoulder and held out her arms. “I can take it from here.”
He grinned, revealing large tombstone teeth. “It’s no trouble.”
The doors, unhindered by his boot, slid shut. Natalie began to wish she’d taken the stairs. As the lift began its slow ascent, she felt her stress levels rising, not helped by the sight of her dishevelled reflection in the mirrored doors. There was no way she’d have the time to shower and change before Simon turned up to take her out.
When the lift stopped, she turned sideways to slip through the doors before they’d finished opening. She turned to take the box from Phil but, instead of handing it over, he breezed straight past her and into her apartment.
“Where do you want them?” Without waiting for a reply, he indicated the nearest door, which was her study. “In here?”
It was too late to disagree. “That would be perfect, thank you.”
He pushed open the door with his elbow, walked through and dumped the box on her desk. The window stretched from floor to ceiling, along the whole of the wall, giving a dizzying outlook to the quayside. He paused to watch a yacht heading out onto the river.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Grove?”
“I don’t think so, Phil, but thanks for the offer.”
“You’re welcome.” He paused then, to look once around the room before he left, and his attention was caught by the Impressionist prints she’d displayed on the wall between the framed covers of her books.
“You’re a fan of Monet?” he said, admiring a print of Nympheas that she had hung up near the door.
“Yes.” She had other similar paintings scattered about the apartment. Most people were too polite to comment, but this was Phil. Even he had heard of Monet. And even he knew Monet was famous for his paintings of -
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