This summer was dragging more than ever, and it was only the third week of the holidays. She thought back to the time two weeks ago – as she had every day since – to the day on the beach, and her heart quickened. She’d been desperate to go back, but Harriet had been in such a sulk over Evie’s encounter with James Addlington that she had declared the beach ‘one of the most boring places ever’ and there was no way Evie was going back alone.
Now all her friends had gone away, travelling to exotic locations, it seemed, as a collective. Despite her family’s money, Evie barely left England. She would look at travel magazines with a feeling of intense longing for the white beaches of Thailand and the landscapes of Botswana, and her stomach would ache with a yearning to get away from that small-town mentality where everyone knew who they were and she would never be anything more – or less – than the daughter of Dominic Rousseau. And she wanted to be less, much less. She wanted to be no one, to be anonymous, to be unseen and free to act out and make mistakes as normal teenagers were wont to do. At sixteen she often felt like a prisoner in her own life and she hated it. If ever she left Wareham she would make sure she went somewhere no one knew her face, or even her father’s name. For the Rousseau name was a well-known one in their own county – how could it not be with the cars they drove and the house they lived in, the parties they threw? But they were not celebrities and their fame did not extend beyond the limits of England, perhaps not even beyond Dorset.
All sans rapport really, as her mother point blank refused to travel further than the county border, feigning one of her heads at the thought of getting on a plane. They had managed to convince her to holiday in Scotland once, but the journey left her in such a depression that the trip was cut short to get home to Dr Anderson. When Evie had questioned this with her father, screaming at him that it was bullshit – they had flown here from France, hadn’t they? – he had threatened to ground her for the rest of the summer if she ever disrespected her mother or her illness again. Which was why, by the third week of the summer, Evie was alone in her garden, trying to keep from dying of sweat-related illnesses and reliving every moment of what was little more than a three-second kiss.
The swimming pool stretched out invitingly. Sunlight glistened off the still surface of the vivid blue water, just calling out for someone to jump in and break the surface, like freshly fallen snow that yearns to be stepped in. Evie looked up at the house; it would take her at least fifteen hot, sweaty minutes to go up to her room, find a bikini, change and get back down to the pool. In all honesty it was possible she might have passed out from heat exhaustion by then, or perhaps melted. There was no one around and this was her pool. There would be no harm in going in in her underwear. There wasn’t any difference between her bra and pants and her bikini anyway.
She peeled off her shirt, grimacing a little at how ripe it smelt. It felt so good to be free of the confines of the material clinging to her body under the dampness of her skin. She gave another quick glance around to check there was no one watching before unbuttoning her denim shorts and wriggling them to the ground over hips that were now beginning to resemble a young woman’s rather than a twelve-year-old boy’s. Now there was no one here to impress, and Evie dived into the pool with her typical lazy grace. She had been swimming since she was tiny and loved the water, doing ten laps of the vast pool in ten minutes easily. She loved the resistance against her arms, the way the blood pumped in her veins as she cut through the water. Reaching the end of the pool, she turned expertly to begin again.
After half an hour of laps, however, she grew tired of the monotony of endless straight-line swimming and pulled herself out with ease. Water glistened down her lithe, tanned limbs and she realised with a groan that there was no towel here for her to dry herself on. Her underwear, once white, was now almost completely transparent and clung to her skin most obscenely in a way that she was certain her swimsuit did not do – even so she resolved to check before she wore it to jump from rocks again. She would not run to the house for a towel – if her mother saw her like this she would likely pitch a fit and thank goodness Papa was at work. No, she would simply lie here by the pool until she was dry enough to put her clothes back on and go in search of something else to relieve the boredom. Maybe she would get the bus into town and wander around the shops – you never knew who might be around.
She had barely closed her eyes on the warm grass by the side of the pool when she heard her father’s voice booming through the air.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Evie sat up quickly, thinking his angry words had been directed at her. Instead, her eyes landed on the target of his fury, a young man standing at the entrance of the courtyard. His dark hair and wide blue eyes were unmistakable; James Addlington.
Evie scrambled to her feet and grabbed at her white linen shirt, pulling it to her chest to cover her bare skin. James looked as though he had been hit with a thousand volts as Papa strode towards him and grabbed him roughly by the arm.
‘Take your eyes off my daughter!’
‘Papa, no!’ Evie pulled on her shirt and shorts, almost tripping over her feet to get around the swimming pool to where the two men stood. James was red-faced now and Evie felt the heat burning in her own cheeks as she remembered the softness of his lips against hers. Papa continued to shout into his face.
‘I want you off my property this instant!’
‘Sir, I was just, I didn’t know she was . . .’ James tried to avoid looking at Evie as she stormed over to her father’s side and pulled at his arm.
‘Papa! Stop! You’re hurting him!’
Her father turned his dark angry eyes to his only daughter. ‘Evelyn Grace Rousseau, you will get back to the house this instant and go to your room. I will deal with you later.’
Angry, humiliated tears sprang to Evie’s eyes but she didn’t dare argue. Her shirt still hanging open, she clasped it together over her chest, and turned to run across the garden, into the house and up to her room without looking back.
20
Rebecca
Richard was more anxious than ever when the police left, so I made my excuses and left him to it, coming home to my single-bedroom rented apartment – all I could afford in Kensington without the financial backing of a rich father. It’s homely enough, not as small as some I’d been to look at when we’d all finished our final year at university and Evie and Richard had announced they were moving to Kensington to be close to Richard’s new offices.
At the time it hadn’t felt like I was following them, more like we were all embarking on a new chapter together. The online PA service I’d been working for was flexible in its very nature and there had seemed little sense in staying put when everyone I knew was flying the nest, so to speak.
I’m curled up on my second-hand navy-blue sofa, my body melding comfortably into the worn cushions where I’ve been for the last hour, staring at the Facebook messages I received last week and ignoring the spreadsheet I’d opened with the full intention of catching up on the mountain of work that’s been building up in my inbox. Since I blocked the Evelyn Bradley profile I can’t see the picture any more – thank goodness. There is just a blank face where it should be, but I can still access the messages.
YOU SHOULD HAVE SAVED ME.
Other than confronting Richard, I can’t see how I can find out if he’s behind the Facebook profile and the text messages, and sitting here now in the safety of my own front room, the idea of him creating a profile for his dead wife and using it to try and freak me out seems a bit ridiculous. If it hadn’t been for the text messages I’d still be convincing myself it was a particularly macabre troll. Part of me still feels like it could be the wife – Camille – only I can’t figure out what she’d want from me. Other than asking them there doesn’t seem any real way of finding out who they are or what they want.
Unless . . .
I pull out my phone and scroll through to the number that Evie gave me for emergenci
es – someone I should only ever phone if things went drastically wrong. But they haven’t gone wrong – not really – and I shouldn’t be using it. Still, even as I tell myself it is a bad idea, I find my thumb hitting ‘call’.
For a horrible moment I think it might tell me the number is out of service, and all of the implications of that hit me like a truck. Then it rings, once, twice, three times, and a voice answers.
‘Hello?’ the man says. I hang up.
21
Rebecca
Richard is up and about when I get there, and he answers the door looking more alive and upbeat than I’ve seen him look in weeks.
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘What’s got into you? It’s barely midday and you’re dressed.’
He looks embarrassed. ‘Yeah,’ he runs a hand through his unfashionable light brown curls – a little shorter than when I first met him but no less outdated. ‘I thought you’d probably had enough of turning up and having to cattle prod me into clothes. And when the postman expresses surprise at you wearing trousers you know it’s probably gone too far.’
He goes through into the living room and I follow, where I’m greeted with a table full of paper, coloured pens and scribbled notes. I try not to sigh, my joy at seeing him up and dressed dissipating.
‘What’s this?’ I gesture at the mess all around.
‘Oh, I was just making a list of everyone who came to the wedding,’ he says. ‘Thought it might help.’
‘Might help what?’
He looks at me as though it should be obvious. ‘Help find out who Evie was arguing with. Look, I’ve written down every man who was invited.’
‘And what they were wearing, their hair colour, their build – do you have mug shots of everyone so you can do Chris an identity parade?’
His eyes widen and I know he’s considering the possibility.
‘Richard, I’m joking. Don’t you think this is all a bit over the top? Do you really think finding this guy will bring Evie back? It could have been a waiter who spilt wine on her dress for all we know.’
He points a finger at me. ‘I hadn’t even thought of the staff! This is why I need you around, Becky, you’re an angel.’
It takes everything I have not to tell him who the man on the cliff was. Maybe I should, maybe it would help him move on if he knew the truth. But the time for telling the truth was four weeks ago, now is too late. Because if he finds out I knew all along he’ll never forgive me. I have to stay strong, stick to the plan.
‘Richard, you know this argument doesn’t change anything.’
He half looks up from his notes, barely listening. ‘What?’
‘Well,’ I hesitate before saying the words. ‘Evie, whyever she did what she did, she’s still gone.’
He looks up properly this time, and I see pain shining in his eyes.
‘Remember when your tutor told you that you wouldn’t pass your exam, because you’d missed too many classes?’
It’s so off topic that I have to repeat his words in my mind.
‘Of course I do. What’s that got to do with any of this?’
‘Evie felt terrible,’ he says. ‘She felt responsible.’
It was kind of her fault, but I don’t say that. She had felt awful. I’d never failed at anything in my life and there I was, first year of university and told I might not pass three of my ten modules. I’d been stunned. I’d obviously been aware that I’d missed a class or two since meeting Evie – they were nine am tutorials so I sure as hell wasn’t the only one not to make it. Evie had practically been in tears when I’d recounted the conversation, too shocked and numb at the idea of flunking my first year to produce much emotion myself.
‘She made up for it,’ I smile as I remember what she’d done. She’d sent me into town for supplies, and when I came back to her flat she’d set up a complete revision area in her living room, my notes tacked to pure white walls, mnemonics scrawled across the back of rolls of wallpaper, a list of the syllabus highlighted with all the classes I’d missed. While I protested that it was too late, that I’d never catch up in time, she’d brewed me pots of coffee and made sandwiches like she was feeding the army. An hour later a private tutor had arrived. All the time Evie was taking photographs, my identity hidden, for a project on stress in the student population. We’d both passed our first year with points to spare.
‘She didn’t give up,’ Richard reminds me. ‘And she didn’t let you give up. The least I can do is not give up on her. Not until I find out that the person she was arguing with had nothing to do with her death.’
Feeling like shit, I agree to help him call wedding guests, all the time knowing that none of them had said so much as a sharp word to Evie the entire day. I take the task of calling the hotel, mainly so I can pretend to make the call and speak to the catering manager and wedding planner who both fictionally agree to speak to the staff. After an hour of hearing the same condolences over and over, and assuring people there really wasn’t anything to be concerned about, and no, there was no news about Evie, I offer to go and make us something to drink. Richard nods and makes a sweeping gesture, phone stuck to his ear, so I take the chance to escape. From the kitchen I hear him go silent and wonder if he’s as fed up with speaking to people as I am.
Carrying the steaming mugs into the dining room where Richard has set up his makeshift call centre, I’m surprised to see he’s not furiously making notes any more, or drawing arrows from one person to another, or sighing as he strikes through another name on the list. He’s staring, in silence, at a phone on the table. My heart thuds as I realise it’s my phone. Shit.
‘What’s this?’ he asks, pointing down to where my internet browser is open to a page on Facebook.
‘What are you doing with my phone?’
‘I was making a call but they weren’t answering. I picked up your phone to Google something and this was open on your browser. What is it? Some kind of joke?’
I lean forward and look. There’s no point getting annoyed at him for using my phone, or at myself for being too lazy to have a lock code on it. He’s seen it now and any wrongdoing on his part is eclipsed by his wife’s name on the list of people I’ve blocked.
‘It’s my block list. I was being trolled. I didn’t want to upset you.’
‘When did you get it?’
I know what he’s thinking, the same thing I thought straight away, what our brains are conditioned to believe – that the simplest explanation is true. This profile says Evelyn Bradley – therefore it is Evelyn’s profile, therefore Evie is alive.
‘A few days ago – look, it’s obviously not her but . . .’
‘What makes you think it’s not? It might be her. Why did you block them?’
I sigh, but not unkindly. ‘Richard, don’t you think that if Evie had survived the fall, she’d have gone to hospital, or a police station? She wouldn’t have set up a new Facebook profile and just contacted me.’
‘Maybe she’s lost her memory,’ he says, then frowns as it dawns on him how stupid that suggestion is. ‘I don’t know then – who is it?’
I shrug. ‘No idea. They sent me some weird messages about me looking like I’d seen a ghost and I blocked them. I, um, I take it they haven’t contacted you?’
I don’t mention that for a while I thought it was him. Given his reaction that seems ridiculous now – Richard has never been the world’s greatest liar. Unless he is literally the world’s greatest liar, and so good that he’s never been caught.
‘I deleted the app from my phone,’ he says, crossing the room to his computer. ‘Notifications were doing my head in. I haven’t checked it since.’
He boots up the computer and logs into Facebook. There are dozens of notifications, but no new friend requests. He looks almost disappointed. I pick my phone up off the table – if he hasn’t seen the texts I’m not going to show them to him. In fact, I’m going to delete them the minute I get the chance.
‘I’ve found it though,’ Richard says, clickin
g around on the screen. ‘Here, I can see the profile. God – is that her?’
You couldn’t see the picture properly on my phone, but Richard has it on the screen now, a full-screen image of Evie on the clifftop. Only . . .
‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s just a woman in a wedding dress. See? That’s not her. And it’s been Photoshopped onto those cliffs – you can see the outlines. Bloody hell, some people really are sick.’
In the absence of any other photographs he clicks on ‘friends’. She only has one, and it’s one that wasn’t there the last time I looked.
Camille Addlington.
‘Yes,’ I mutter. ‘Some people really are.’
22
Evie
Evie preferred the clifftop when the weather was bad, when the wind sent furious water hammering against the rocks below. On days like that she would lean into the wind, certain she could feel the salty spray from the angry tide in her face – although she knew she was too high up for the wind to carry the mist this far.
Today though, the water was serene, undulating gently, dissipating against the rock rather than colliding. Today the sea seemed as solemn and sober as Evie herself. As she sat on the grass, her knees pulled up to her chest, her mind slowed down like a clock at the end of its wind. She closed her eyes and let every single thought drop away – which was not as easy as one might think – until she heard someone shout her name.
For someone so athletically inclined, James Addlington looked as though he had hiked two miles uphill. His face was blotchy and his breathing heavy.
‘What do you want?’ Evie asked, as he practically collapsed on the grass next to her. He lay on his back, rubbing his face. Her heart pumped faster just at the sight of him, and all thoughts of the empty bottles she’d found under the sink in her mother’s bathroom evaporated.
The Night She Died Page 8
