‘If you’re going to stay, at least have a drink. It’s not the Maldives, I’m afraid, but then . . .’
He stops short of saying, ‘But then you’re not Evie.’
‘I asked my solicitor about getting access to her medical records.’ Richard emerges from the patio doors onto the veranda holding a couple of beers in one hand and a blanket in the other. He throws the blanket at me and switches on the patio heater for good measure.
I’d managed to convince him to hold off on his drinking until he’d eaten some lunch – if I couldn’t stop him getting tanked the least I could do was line his stomach first. As I washed salad and grilled chicken, I checked my phone every few minutes but there were no more friend requests or messages. When Richard went to use the bathroom I had a few minutes to get into his computer, but Facebook doesn’t figure in Richard’s life for the last four weeks. Unless he’s wiped his history, he’s not responsible for the messages I received this morning.
‘What did he say?’ I ask, trying to sound casual.
‘He asked if I’d spoken to Dominic,’ Richard scowls. ‘Despite the fact that Evie was . . .’ he looks pained, ‘is a grown woman. But what I did get out of him was that once a person is deceased their records are no longer covered under the Data Protection Act. Without a . . . a body, Evie isn’t legally deceased but he’s going to look into it. He’s not sure we have justifiable cause to ask to view her records.’
‘That sucks.’
‘Well, Dominic doesn’t pay him a fortune for no reason. Evie said once that he has ways of getting information that others might not, so we’ll just have to wait and see if he comes up with anything.’
I know he won’t. Evie didn’t have cancer, she wasn’t dying. But for now Richard is holding onto whatever he can, and I’m happy to let him. Besides, Richard’s solicitor is also Dominic Rousseau’s solicitor; it’s unlikely he’d tell Richard anything without her father’s say-so anyway.
From the little she told me about her parents, and from overhearing the odd conversation, I’d built a picture of what life was like for her at home. I’d see her get excited over the smallest thing her father would send her – like some clip for her camera that I never really understood the purpose of – and I’d watch her discard designer dresses and jewellery that cost more than my tuition with a look of disgust. Most of the time these items fell to me, and I wasn’t too proud to accept them, but the thoughtful ones, however little they cost, she always kept.
Dominic Rousseau, I came to understand, was a formidable businessman who was adored by all of the women in his life. Originally from France, the Rousseaus had moved to the English countryside when Evie was young. She grew up in one of the most magnificent houses I’d laid my eyes on, although I only ever saw it in photos – she stalwartly refused to take me anywhere near her childhood home. At the age of eleven she had been sent to an all-girls boarding school with some of the country’s richest offspring. Her mother, Monique Rousseau, née White, was an absolute beauty and – from what little I could glean – suffered from severe bipolar disorder. Evie would check in with Yasmin every evening to see how her mother was coping while she was away and I could usually tell what mood she was in by the look on Evie’s face after she’d taken the call. More than once I’d heard Evie follow up with a call to her father; these would be louder, a chorus of ‘how could you’ and ‘you promised no more, Papa!’ followed by a furious diatribe in French of which I could usually only make out very English words like ‘whore’ and ‘bastard’.
It wasn’t a stretch to imagine the handsome Frenchman I had seen in the photographs in Evie’s apartment stepping out on his adoring wife, knowing she would remain by his side for official engagements while dying quietly inside. I could never push Evie too much on the subject but I often wondered what it must have been like for her growing up in that environment, spoiled, adored and ignored; a mother who locked herself away for days at a time and a father who showered them with love and gifts only to cruelly rip his attention away and shine his gaze on other women. And for Monique, the humiliation of all their high society friends knowing exactly what he was like, wanting to believe the promises that it would never happen again but knowing that it was still going on, even as he said the words. It was a far cry from my council estate upbringing, a world I could only dream about inhabiting, and as out of reach to me as Narnia.
I glance down at the phone in my lap. No more messages from ‘Evie’ or anyone else.
‘Do you remember when she bought you that Mr Frosty?’ Richard asks, smiling. He leans forwards and takes a sip of his beer.
Of course I remember. As obsessed as I became with learning more about Evie White, trying to unpick her past and use it to fit her neatly into boxes created by Freud and Jung, she was similarly intrigued by me. I would never have imagined that someone who had led such a glamorous lifestyle, surrounded by people ripped from glossy magazines, would be so eager to hear about my life growing up as one of four children in a three-bed mid-terrace in Yorkshire, but she devoured my stories as though they were heroin and she needed a fix. She would listen delighted as I recounted the afternoon I spent digging up the garden after my brothers told me the lost treasure of Captain Ditio was buried under Mum’s favourite plants, or how they convinced me my favourite sweets were really made of poo so they could have my share, and how the only thing I ever wanted in life was a Mr Frosty and when I finally got one my eldest brother stole it to make vodka slushies for his friends.
Life with Evie alongside me wasn’t all falling in and out of parties in the West End – although most of my memories are of watching her through a haze of smoke tinged with the smell of incense and weed. We would peruse charity shops and independent ornament or jewellery shops for hours, tasked with finding the most perfect present to send back to Yasmin, or wander Portobello Market – the traders seemed to know Evie by name and we would always leave with perfectly wrapped gifts that they had put aside because they knew she would love them. Wherever we went people were happy to see us – to see her – and she would treat everyone she met as though they were the most important person she would see that day.
And yet it was almost always as though Evie’s life was one big act. Like her entire existence was a stage play and she was having the time of her life playing the main character. And when the curtain was down, when the effort of being dazzling became too much, we would gate-crash another party in another run-down Victorian terrace and she would sink into the background – still shining slightly brighter than those around her, but for the most part just being. It was then that I realised that this was the way she had always been – she knew no different. Put on a face for the important people, Evie, smile and show them how charming the daughter of Dominic Rousseau is – isn’t she beautiful! Yet the only time I ever saw her relax was when she was no one in particular.
Christmas Day, our first one as friends, I received a package. It had turned up the day before – even expensive couriers take Christmas Day off – but my mother had kept it hidden from me, as per the very polite instructions that had accompanied it. There was no name, but I didn’t need one – I only really had Evie. Please, don’t get out the violins – I had other friends, they just weren’t present-giving close. My other friends were more ‘buy you a drink when I see you’ passing acquaintances.
I ripped off the paper, closely watched by my family who were all keen to see what Becky-no-mates (their endearing nickname for me) had been sent by DPD. The look on their faces when I pulled out a child’s toy from the nineties was classic. My very own Mr Frosty, complete with bottle of vodka.
‘I can’t believe she remembered.’
‘She’s like that though, isn’t she?’ Richard is sitting opposite me on the cushioned garden furniture his wife made from old pallets. Although the afternoon is a warm one – warm enough for him to suggest we take our drinks outside – I’m freezing cold and pull the blanket he brought me up over my knees. Was, I think. She was so like t
hat.
‘She listened to everything – I’d say she knows more about us than we’ll ever know about her.’
‘Do you want another drink?’ he asks, and I look down to realise I’ve drunk my beer in just a few gulps.
There seems little point in pacing myself now so I just nod.
‘Why don’t you just bring the pack out?’
Richard goes back inside to retrieve the rest of the beers and I pull out my phone. I’ve had it on silent since the supermarket, although I’ve been checking it constantly. When I look down there’s a message received just seconds ago.
Don’t you want to be my friend?
It’s a text message, not through Facebook this time. The calls this morning had come through Messenger and I’d convinced myself it could have been any old troll – Evie’s death had been in all the local papers after all and I’d heard of people doing this sort of thing all the time. Bored teenagers cooped up in their bedrooms with nothing better to do than taunt people who had lost loved ones. But then my mind goes to the profile picture, the one of Evie on the clifftop, a fact I’d ignored, or rather buried because it didn’t fit with my random troll theory, but I can’t ignore it any longer, can I? Because not only does this person have a picture of Evie the night she died, they have my phone number.
Who is this? I type quickly, looking up at the door Richard will be coming through any minute.
The reply comes quickly.
The wife.
I run through all of the wedding guests in my head, discounting all of the men and single women, along with Evie’s Great Aunt Beth, just because. The wedding party was small, something I’m now certain Evie planned. Her closest friends from home, Harriet and Jessica, had been there as bridesmaids of course, and although neither of them were married I can’t discount the fact that the person sending me the texts might just be lying. We’d had a WhatsApp group for the bridesmaids and although I’d barely spoken to either of them, let alone exchanged numbers, my phone number would show on the group, so feasibly it could be one of them sending these messages, or both. But why?
And then it comes to me. There was one wife, not a guest at the wedding, of course, but if he was there then it stood to reason she might have been as well. His wife. Camille.
Had Camille stood and watched Evie throw herself into the sea? Had Evie known she was there? And if it was Camille, what did she want from me now?
I’m unsure, now, whether I should let her know I’m on to her, or whether to continue to play dumb. If I tell her I know who she is, it’s possible she will just give up on me – which is what I want, don’t I? Yet she obviously has a reason for this little game she’s playing, and I want to know what it is. Has her husband come clean? Told her everything? In which case, why is she taunting me?
There is another possibility, one that is much worse. I’ve only ever been contacted by this ‘Evelyn Bradley’ when I’ve been on my own, never when I’ve been in a room with Richard. Even now he is taking longer to get our drinks than he needs to – they are on the kitchen counter no more than a minute away. And if ‘Evelyn Bradley’ is Richard? That means he knows about Camille, and possibly everything else and he’s been playing me all along.
10
Evie
‘Come along, Evie, your father’s guests have arrived.’
Evie looked up from her book and scowled.
‘Do I really have to go and meet them? Can’t you tell him I’m sick? I do feel a little off-colour today.’
‘You’re too late. Your mother has played the sick card today so your father needs you. They have their son with them and you are to show him around the gardens while the men talk business.’
When Evie pulled a face and returned to her book, Yasmin walked over and plucked it from her hands. Groaning in amiable defeat the young girl jumped from her window seat and made to follow her nanny through the door. Yasmin turned on her.
‘Where do you think you are going?’
Evie frowned. ‘To show some boy around the gardens, like you just said.’
‘Looking like that? Mon Dieu! Your father would fire me on the spot! No, you must brush your hair, Evelyn, and if you can force yourself, perhaps put on something pretty, a dress maybe?’
Evie raised her eyebrows. ‘A pretty dress? I’m not seven any more, Yasmin.’
‘No,’ her nanny shook her head. ‘And my, don’t we know about it. Sometimes I know not if you are nine or nineteen! Fine, just change into something that is not stained with jam and come straight down to the veranda.’
When Evie arrived downstairs, Yasmin gave her a smile and an ‘okay’ sign as her father gave her an appraising once-over.
‘Evie, finally.’
‘Sorry, Papa,’ she replied, standing on her tiptoes for a kiss. ‘I wanted to make myself look nice.’
He smiled indulgently and turned to a tall man who stood and offered Evie a hand so stiffly it was as if it was painful. He gestured to the young boy standing next to him.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Evelyn,’ he said, barely looking at her. ‘I hope you won’t mind showing James your beautiful gardens?’
‘Of course not,’ Evie smiled pleasantly. She knew how she was expected to act around her father’s associates – even the rude ones – and she had no problem with being pleasant and courteous. Papa worked so hard to give them the nice things they had and the least she could do was be a good daughter. She glanced over to James, who was standing on ceremony, and felt a stab of recognition.
‘Pleased to meet you.’ James held out a hand and Evie shook it. ‘I’m James Preston—
‘Addlington,’ Evie finished. ‘I remember. I’m Evie.’
She hadn’t recognised him instantly, but now she had, the memory of her parents’ party just eighteen months ago resurfaced almost fully formed. Oh, how long she had spent seething with fury about this boy and his rudeness! She smiled to herself at the memory.
‘Do I know you?’ James asked as the two of them broke away from their fathers and wandered towards the path that led to the swimming pool. Evie motioned for James to follow her underneath the magnificent stone archway and ducked as the leaves from the trees overhead scraped at her ponytail, feeling a small victory as they sprung back from her head and hit him in the face.
‘We met ages ago. At a party here, in my house. I was in my pyjamas.’
Recognition dawned and his eyes widened in horror at the memory. He seemed to have aged at least five years in what had not even been two. His features were less rounded now, Evie remembered a boyish chubbiness to his face that no longer remained. He had grown taller too; at the time she had imagined him to be nine or ten but now he looked at least thirteen.
‘You never told me your father was Dominic Rousseau,’ he screwed up his nose trying to remember. ‘You told me your mum worked in the kitchens!’
‘Well she does, sometimes. If Yasmin is sick,’ Evie shrugged. If pressed she wouldn’t be able to remember a time she’d even seen Mama walk into the kitchens but that hardly seemed like the world’s biggest lie. It was possible, if not improbable.
‘You lied to me. And you called me a bastard.’
‘Well, you deserved it.’
James Preston-Addlington looked shocked, as though he had never been spoken to that way in his life, much less by a little girl. Then he let out a laugh and Evie saw that his blue eyes sparkled. He shrugged. ‘I probably did.’
Evie was a little surprised at this admission. It wasn’t very often that a boy would admit he deserved to be called a cuss word, especially one as insulting as a bastard. They walked along the lush flower beds in silence for a while, coming to stop at the water feature that fed into the pond.
‘What does your father do?’ Evie asked, trying to arrange herself on the edge of the wet wall. She felt the water soaking through the seat of her jeans and jumped up self-consciously. James smirked.
‘Same as yours. We are the second largest IT recruitment firm in the UK. Our parent
s were good friends years ago, apparently, but they haven’t spoken properly since not long after I was born. My father wants to reignite their friendship so they can work together again. He says that together they could become the richest men in England. My father says that one day he wants me to take over the business.’
‘He must not like you very much,’ Evie remarked.
James frowned. ‘Why would you say that?’
Evie shrugged and pulled a flower from the bush next to her, inspected it as she spoke. ‘Because I can’t think of anything more boring than taking on my father’s business. And if that was the future I had to look forward to I don’t think I’d be in any great hurry to grow up.’
‘You are impertinent and rude,’ James replied flatly. ‘What do you want to be when you are older then? Let me guess, a model.’
For a brief second Evie felt a small thrill that this boy thought her pretty enough to be a model. The idea was quickly replaced by disdain.
‘No, not a model.’
‘An actress then? Or a socialite living off your father’s boring money?’
‘I don’t want to be any of those things,’ Evie set her shoulders defiantly. The problem was, she hadn’t decided what she wanted to be. After all, there were so many occupations, so much she could do with her time. How could anyone just settle for one and expect to be happy the rest of their life? Papa’s words, the night she first met James Preston-Addlington Jr, came back to her now. She hadn’t even remembered them until this moment. You must find a way to make people see the world from behind your eyes.
‘I’m going to be a photographer.’
‘A photographer?’ Evie was waiting for him to make a derogatory remark, already formulating a comeback in her head, when he smiled and said, ‘That’s cool.’
Shouts broke through the air from the house beyond. James and Evie looked at one another quizzically.
The Night She Died Page 4
