There’s a gentle rumbling undercurrent of murmurs and whispers from the crowd. It’s not just celebrities and newsreaders across the road; the village has come out, too. That’s not to mention everyone else who could be bothered to drive out to the sticks. It’s a wall of black over there, like an elderly goth convention. Some just want to get on the telly or wallow in other people’s grief.
Not that I’m innocent in all this, of course. We’ve all got bills to pay.
‘We love you, Martha!’
The call comes anonymously from the crowd, but Martha doesn’t acknowledge it. She reaches back into the car and helps her sister onto the road. There’s a gasp from the assembled mass that’s so deep it creates a moment as if it has forged its own gust of wind.
This is what everyone’s been waiting for.
Nobody has seen little Charlotte in the twelve days since everything happened. There was one photo released to the press: Charlotte with her parents from three years ago. They’d done a magazine article for one of the Saturday pull-outs and she is sitting in the middle, hair in pigtails, looking tiny. A happy family of three.
She’s in a knee-length black dress now, her golden blonde hair loose around her shoulders. The sisters look nothing like each other. Charlotte is prim and correct, while Martha arches forward, as if ready to snarl for the cameras. The elder sister whispers something to the younger and then they step away into the open, hand in hand.
Charlotte stares past us, up towards the church, blinking towards the sun. This will be the photo that everyone wants for tomorrow.
The girl who lived.
There’s nothing quite like a bloodbath survivor to sell a few papers or get the ratings up.
The sisters have already taken half a dozen steps towards the church when the final sibling emerges from the car.
Liam Willis is the eldest, two years older than Martha and eleven years above Charlotte. He’s completely different again; taller than Martha without the looks with which both girls have been blessed. One of his eyes is narrower than the other, his nose is squat like a boxer’s and there’s something not quite right with his mouth. It hangs lower on one side than the other and he’s chipped a front tooth. He gives a small wave towards the elderly goths, nods and then jogs to catch up to his sisters.
Nobody knows an awful lot about him. He was born at the height of his parents’ fame and is in few of the cuttings from the various magazine shoots his parents have done.
A pair of police officers quickly follow behind the trio. They all make their way along the crumbling paved path towards the church. Everyone turns to watch, but it’s only Liam who glances back over his shoulder to acknowledge those who’ve turned out. A few moments later and they’re gone.
There were no tears in the end. I think that’s what people were hoping for, especially from Charlotte. If it cries, it flies, and all that. The picture editors that haven’t yet been made redundant will be annoyed. That’s what happens when you become public property: you’re not allowed to be upset on the inside, it’s got to be open and in front of the country.
Still, there’s time yet. Thirteen is a little young. There are a few flimsy barely enforced laws about this type of thing. Someone will throw half a million at Charlotte in a few years’ time to make a documentary or sell her story. Perhaps they’ll get her to write a book? More hardbacks to clutter up the shelves at Christmas. Everyone likes a good bit of misery on Boxing Day.
And Martha? Glamour shoot by the end of the summer, I reckon. That’ll be stage one, followed by ‘my shame’ a couple of weeks later when the toilet drug pictures finally sell. Build ’em up and then batter them down.
These kids might think this is the end. Get the funeral over with and then start to rebuild. They don’t know the half of it. They belong to the nation now. Those people across the road haven’t driven halfway across the country and holed up in a B&B overnight for nothing. Some of them were here at three in the morning to get a prime spot.
No.
They want their pound of flesh. They want sordid details. Blood, gore and melancholy. This is our massacre, don’t you know.
This is the beginning.
I hope those poor kids are ready for it.
Nine
Now
Seth
It isn’t Charley at the front door. It’s hard to hide my disappointment as Alice smiles weakly at me.
‘No news?’ she asks.
Alice is already stepping into the house even though I’ve not technically invited her in. It’s fine… or it would be at any other time. She’s usually here for Charley – either for shop talk or friend talk. It feels odd with it being just us.
‘Nothing,’ I reply.
Alice is carrying Charley’s bags from the hotel. There is one with the clothes she was wearing on Friday, as well as the empty flattened oversized bag that contained her wedding dress.
Everything is suddenly beginning to feel very final. All the bags and clothes we took to the hotel are back at the house. It’s all here except for Charley herself.
Alice closes the door behind her and follows me along the hall into the living room. She places the bags at the back of the room and waves away the offer of tea. I didn’t want one myself, but it’s what you do, isn’t it? Guest comes over, you offer tea. That’s what separates us from the animals.
‘I’ve been calling her all morning,’ Alice says, plopping onto the recliner. ‘It doesn’t even ring.’
I hold up my phone. ‘Ninety-one unconnected calls.’
She looks at hers. ‘Thirty-seven.’
I win.
Charley says that some customers think she and Alice are sisters and it’s not hard to see why. They share the same style of loose dresses and sandals, that floaty hippyish look that only some women can pull off successfully. When it doesn’t work, it’s more overdose-in-a-bush chic. Alice is wearing a one-piece long blue dress, her legs curled under herself. There is still the hint of wave to her hair from the ceremony.
‘Do you think we should call Liam?’ she asks.
‘Her brother…?’
I know who he is, of course… it’s just he’s never mentioned.
Alice shrugs. ‘Has she talked about him much to you?’
‘You’ve known her longer than me.’
‘True, but she’s only mentioned his name once or twice – and that’s because she said you guys were visiting him.’
I nod. ‘It was a few months ago. I don’t think they’d spoken in ten years or so. Something ridiculous. He contacted her out of the blue, saying his wife had given birth to twins a few months before. She didn’t even know he was married. They live thirty miles or so away, down the M3 and off at Basingstoke.’
‘Did you go?’
‘On a Sunday just after Easter. They’ve got this big four-bedroom detached new-build.’
Alice is nodding along and I wonder how much of this she knows, if anything. Everyone knows a person who shares too much. That walking disaster who dumps everything that ever happens to them on Facebook, or with a friend, oftentimes both. The one who lurches from one drama to the next, oblivious to the fact that divulging every morsel of their life to the viewing public is probably why their existence is perpetual chaos.
Charley is not one of those people. She’s the opposite, internalising almost everything and revealing little. It’s no surprise given what happened to her. Alice is her best friend and yet I doubt they share too much.
Alice shakes her head, more puzzled than annoyed. ‘She never said anything about twins.’
‘She loves Daisy and Dillon so much that I think the idea of having two more nieces out there trumped anything that might have happened before.’
A pause. We’re both thinking it. Alice says it.
‘What did happen between her and Liam?’
‘I have no idea. I assumed they fell out in the way families do. She didn’t want to talk and I never asked. No point in bringing it all back up again, not aft
er what they went through.’
This is the problem with knowing someone in the public eye. Even when you really know them. When you live together, sleep together, when you get married, there’s always that tiny seed of doubt that festers because of what you’ve seen or read. Who is the real person and who’s the media concoction?
Alice nods. She knows this, too. ‘What happened at Liam’s?’
‘Not much, I guess. We went in and there are these two gorgeous little girls. I know they’re twins, obviously; I know it sounds stupid, but they’re identical. They were even smiling at the same time. These two babbling little girls, Skye and Jasmine. I thought Charley was going to cry. She and Liam’s wife, Helen, had a good long chat in the living room about giving birth and that sort of thing. You know what Charley’s like around new people, but she wasn’t fazed at all. It was like they were old friends.’
‘What about Liam?’
‘He hardly said a word. They barely acknowledged each other. It’s not like I was adding much to the conversation; we were both letting our other halves talk.’
Alice offers her hands up. ‘So perhaps Helen knows something about all this?’
‘I’m not even sure how to contact her… or Liam.’
Her brow ripples and Alice sits silently, waiting for the explanation.
‘We’ve not been back,’ I add. ‘After about half an hour in the living room, Liam asked if he could have a word with Charley. They disappeared out of the room for ten minutes or so. When she came back, Charley said we were going. She said goodbye to Helen and the girls and that was that. She was really quiet on the drive home. I asked a week or so later if we should add Liam and his family to the wedding guest list, but she said no.’
Alice stares at me, then blinks. She doesn’t need to say it because I already know. It does sound odd – but only because neither of us know the context of why Charley and her brother didn’t speak for so long.
Her attention flickers to the window and then she stands. I follow her gaze to the police car that has just pulled up outside.
Ten
15 Years Ago
Grant Westlake: Wills and probate solicitor
It’s only a matter of time, I suppose. David Willis has been striding back and forth close to the windows for fifteen minutes now. His wife is statuesque in the corner chair, watching her husband and not the rest of what’s going on in the office. It’s hard to know which of the two might blow first.
David’s the obvious one, of course. All that pent-up rage on show as he bounds across the same patch of carpet. I find myself hoping his shoes are clean. Christina has enough work to do as it is.
Sometimes, it’s the silent types that go first. Minutes of saying nothing, hours, and then boom, the volcano erupts.
Paul Willis has been in the news for weeks now and I’d seen him on television before that, of course. He was my client and a familiar face. This is the first time I’ve met his brother. The thinning grey hair is the same, the height and composure is there… it’s just David is like a dodgy waxwork version. Not quite the real thing. A pound-shop imitation.
I glance in David’s direction once more and then finish my little speech. ‘…All I’m here to do is to read the will and then ensure the wishes are adhered to. That’s it. I’m not here to make any actual decisions.’
I’ve finished my bit and now it’s their turn to chip in. The gasps and small interruptions were one thing, but now the truth is known. At least I’ve got a big desk in front of me for protection. My office feels uncomfortably full. David and his wife at the back, Liam leaning on a bookcase off to one side, Martha resting on the door and little Charlotte sitting cross-legged on the floor in the far corner. She’s peeping around the chair she’s chosen not to use.
‘So that’s it, then?’ Liam says. He claps his hands together and turns to the rest of the family. ‘I get a little over a million quid?’
‘And a third of the house,’ I add.
‘What’s that worth?’
‘I have no idea. You’ll have to decide among yourselves what you want to do.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘One of you might choose to live in it. If that’s the case, perhaps the other two will want to have their share bought out? Perhaps you can come to a private arrangement about who lives there and if any money changes hands? I’m only here to execute your parents’ wishes – and that says the house is divided equally among the three of you. What you do next is up to you.’
Liam is nodding along. I don’t know what his financial state was before, but if his shabby jeans give any indication, then he certainly wasn’t rolling in it. He’s now a rich young man.
Neither of the daughters have said a word. Charlotte is hugging her knees to her chest. Her stare hasn’t left me since I started speaking. I wondered if there was a glimmer of disbelief when I said that the three children were to share everything equally. It’s no surprise, of course. How can a thirteen-year-old comprehend that amount of money? I can’t fathom that she’ll ever go back to that house, not after what everyone’s saying about it. The house of death; the Willis bloodbath. Who’d want to live there? Let alone if you’d been hiding upstairs as everything happened below.
David Willis has finally stopped striding. He spins and jabs a finger in my direction. ‘Now, look here,’ he begins, theatrically, voice raised. There’s a vein close to his ear that’s been throbbing for a couple of minutes and I wonder if it might actually burst. Poor old Christina. Can’t expect her to clean it up if it does. ‘I don’t care what it says,’ David shouts. ‘I don’t care. You hear me? I had a verbal agreement with my brother that goes back years. Years! Paul said he’d look after my kids if anything were ever to happen to him. There were witnesses.’
His wife is nodding along in agreement.
‘Not only that, I GAVE him the deposit for that house. They’d never own it in the first place if I hadn’t put up half the money. He never paid it back and I never asked because he said he’d look after my kids if and when it came to it.’
David is snorting through his nose, a bull ready to charge. Typically, it is me who has to wave the red flag.
‘I’m not sure what you’d like me to say. It isn’t down to me to make judgement about the content of the will. The will says the money, estate and house is to be split in three equal parts between Liam Willis, Martha Willis and Charlotte Willis. The only mention of you is that you should be given access to the video library to pick and choose whatever you want. If you so desire, the entire thing is yours.’
That’s definitely done it. There’s practically steam hooting out of David’s ears. His cheeks have flared red and there are flecks of saliva on his bottom lip. ‘Videos?’ he shouts. ‘Videos? Do you know what videos are worth? Nothing. You can’t give them away. Even the tips won’t take them nowadays. Who wants videos?’ He flashes an arm in Charlotte’s direction. ‘She’s thirteen. Thirteen! What’s a thirteen-year-old going to do with that sort of money? Waste it all on Barbies while my kids are denied what’s rightfully theirs?’
I open my mouth to explain everything once again, but I don’t get a word out before the older sister turns. They say she’s the wild child, not that she appears to care what anyone thinks of her. She’s wearing a vest even though it’s cool today, showing off that full arm of tattoos. Not my thing and, personally, I couldn’t care less, but it riles some. There are men with cameras outside and I wonder if she’s done it for their benefit. Not for the attention as such, more to annoy people.
She steps towards him, stone-cold. Although she’s shorter than her uncle, for all the world, I’d swear she was taller. She’s somehow looking down on him, even though she’s actually looking up.
‘If you ever point at my sister like that again, I will rip your finger off.’
Her uncle takes a small step backwards.
‘If your kids want money,’ she adds frostily, ‘how about they get a job?’
I’d be cowering
away under that stare, but David is too far in now. No point in blowing a gasket if you’re going to wilt under the first challenge, especially when your wife is watching on. He doesn’t dare wag a finger, though.
The uncle pushes himself higher onto the tips of his toes. ‘Oh, you’re one to talk,’ he sneers. ‘Slumming it in some London hole, shagging your way round Camden, from what I hear.’
Martha smiles, eyes narrow. She sticks out the tip of her tongue and bites it. ‘Go on,’ she starts. ‘Say that again.’
There’s a part of me that wants to let it play out. The little corner of consciousness that makes a person slow down when there’s an accident on the other side of the road.
‘Now, now,’ I say, and I hear my father talking. Bloody hell, we’re so British. ‘I do not want this in my office. This ends now.’
This is nothing new, of course. After a death, everyone is all lovey-dovey until the money has to be split, then it’s like the storming of the trenches.
Martha moves first, not exactly backing down but at least motioning away from her uncle. Nobody else has shifted throughout the confrontation.
‘Look,’ David says with a modicum of conciliation about him, ‘even if the will splits everything in the way it does, there is no way I’m letting the house sale go through on top. I gave my brother part of the deposit. I’ve got paperwork for it all. I’ve got lawyers, too. You can keep your money and I’ll tie everything up in so much red tape that the house will never be sold. Either that, or we can come to some sort of arrangement…’
The Wife’s Secret: A gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist Page 6
