Strange Allure

by Susan Lewis

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Carla Craig is passionately in love with Richard Mere – he has a hold over her she can’t resist.

  Even when her world is blown apart, Carla still can’t put the affair behind her. And Avril Hayden, Carla’s flamboyant friend, finds herself increasingly intrigued by this mysterious connection – a connection that won’t go away.

  But as hidden truths are finally revealed, intrigue turns to fear, and risk to terrible danger…

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of twenty-seven novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. Having resided in France for many years she now lives in Gloucestershire. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com

  Susan is a supporter of the childhood bereavement charity, Winston’s Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk and of the breast cancer charity, BUST: www.bustbristol.co.uk

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Fiction

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  Cruel Venus

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten

  Stolen

  No Turning Back

  Losing You

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  For Gary and Jill

  Acknowledgements

  My gratitude goes to all those who helped with the research on the island of Zanzibar: Raymond Chemah, the management and staff of Fisherman’s Resort and of the Mapenzi Beach Hotel.

  Most of all my thanks go to Paola Sibilia of the Sultan’s Palace Hotel, (00255 811 335828) which is truly exquisite and where the service and exclusivity is second to none. I highly recommend it for a honeymoon, romantic getaway, or pure relaxation after that gruelling safari.

  Chapter 1

  SHE SAT VERY still in the aftermath of shock. Seconds passed. Then, like silvery needles of rain descending on a street lamp, adrenalin came rushing in, so fast it made her dizzy. Her heart was thudding in thick, powerful beats of excitement, then outrage, then relief, then fury. Thank you God. Oh, thank you, thank you, God.

  Was she insane? There was nothing to be thankful for here.

  So many emotions, it was hard to know how she was feeling, as they all seemed to shout the truth, and they all were the truth.

  Shock returned, rescuing her from the chaos.

  She stared at the computer screen for a moment longer.

  Then she shouted, ‘Sonya! Sonya!’

  Eddie, the dog, leapt out of a dream, stumbled into the wall, then came bundling across the room in a flurry of toast-coloured fur. He was in charge around here, so he needed to find out what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Are you on fire?’ Sonya asked, coming in the door.

  ‘Look at this.’ Carla pushed her chair back from the desk, allowing her sister-in-law room to read the email that was emblazoned in all its stupefying glory across the screen.

  Eddie, from his less advantageous viewpoint, awaited Sonya’s response. As the email consisted of a mere four lines, it wasn’t long in coming.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she murmured. ‘I don’t believe it! Shit! Of all the …’

  Detecting anger, Eddie growled and moved in closer to Carla.

  Carla looked at Sonya.

  Sonya looked at Carla, whose normally glowing complexion was, at that moment, starkly white. Her warm, verdant eyes had become vivid lights of confusion; her wide, generous lips were moist, and trembling on the brink of laughter – and horror. The only thing that hadn’t changed about her, since Sonya had last seen her, three minutes ago, was her shiny, mahogany hair that waved and curled in its own vain way, refusing ever to look anything but gorgeous, even when tumbling out of a tartan scrunchy as it was now. She even seemed to have lost weight, though Sonya had to concede that probably hadn’t happened in the last three minutes.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Sonya asked.

  Carla looked at the screen again, and stroked Eddie’s ears.

  ‘You’re not going to do it?’ Sonya cried. ‘That man …’

  ‘No. No! What, do you think I’m insane? Why would I do it?’

  Sonya’s answer to that was that people did strange things at times, and when confronted by an invitation like this …! Well, Sonya knew exactly what she, personally, would do with it, but to her astonishment, and dismay, it seemed that Carla was still making up her mind.

  The situation called for a cup of tea.

  Ten minutes later Sonya was back with two large glasses of wine. She’d had to run down to the Spar to get it, which was at the other end of the village, and this revolting vintage was all they’d had in the fridge. Teddy Best, who owned the shop, made regular trips across the Channel to get his supplies, and was frequently heard to boast that he’d never yet paid more than eighteen francs a bottle, and Sonya believed him.

  When she carried the drinks into the cluttered front room that was Carla’s office, it was to find Eddie in his usual position, flat on his back, legs in the air as he honked and snuffled through an apparently erotic dream, while Carla spoke earnestly and rapidly into the phone.

  Business as usual.

  Putting Carla’s wine down on the desk, Sonya sneaked a quick peek at the computer screen. The astounding email had been replaced by a sea of figures – figures that Sonya knew had about as much chance of balancing as a tightrope-walker with no rope. But Carla was known for her optimism, or she had been, once. She’d been known for her easy laughter too, and a quickness of mind that left others reeling. Everyone had loved being around Carla, and those who still knew her, like her family, still did, though she was different now …

  The other line rang.

  ‘Hello, Carla Craig’s office,’ Sonya said, taking first the call, then a generous slug of wine. ‘Oh, yuk! It’s you,’ she said, meaning the wine, then her husband. ‘Did you pick the kids up from school OK?’

  ‘What?’

  Sonya’s glass hit the desk. ‘Mark!’ she cried, looking at her watch. ‘Don’t tell me you forgot. My God, you should have been there an hour ago. They’ve probably been taken into care by now …’

  ‘Calm down!’ he said, laughing. ‘We’re all here at home and wanting to know what time to expect you.’

  Sonya looked at her watch again, then debated whether or not to t
ell Mark about the email, and that because of it she would be late back. She glanced over at Carla. Would Carla want her brother to know about the email? Maybe not. Of course, Sonya would tell him anyway, they never had secrets, but she might have to make him swear he didn’t know, in the event Carla ended up telling him herself.

  ‘Sonya?’

  Remembering the question, she said, ‘We’re a bit busy here, so I might work on …’

  Carla was hanging up her call. ‘You don’t need to do that,’ she interrupted. ‘There’s nothing that can’t wait.’

  ‘But what about …?’ Sonya nodded towards the computer.

  Carla smiled. ‘Go home, your family needs you,’ she said, in a darkly dramatic voice.

  Sonya started to protest again, until she remembered Mark could hear every word. But what about the email? Surely Carla wanted to discuss it. Sonya definitely did.

  In the event, Sonya didn’t even get to finish her wine – which was no great hardship – for Carla insisted she had to drive over to Trowbridge to see the accountant, and then she was taking Eddie to the vet for his annual injections.

  Carla and Eddie stood on the doorstep of their two-up, two-down cottage watching Sonya drive away, inching reluctantly along the village high street whose cobbles ran raggedly between the dozen or so cottages, all of which had been built in the mid- to late nineteenth century, and created a perfect picture postcard of rural England. Most of the houses were bigger than Carla’s, because, over the years, two had been knocked into one, which had inevitably extended the gardens too, and now there were some extremely desirable residences in Cannock Martin, of which hers was not one. Not that she’d have sold, no matter how dire the straits, but nor could she buy either, which was a shame when the cottage attached to hers was for sale. Gilbert Marne, who’d lived there ever since Carla could remember, was now in a nice spick and span nursing home that his daughter had found in Frome, and Carla didn’t really expect to get such a gentle and unassuming neighbour again. However, the estate agent wasn’t predicting a sale any time soon, for the place was too small, and no-one wanted properties that size any more, no matter how quaint, or great the potential. And Gilbert’s didn’t have much of that, not with Carla on one side and Maudie Taylor’s precious rose garden on the other. And the horse chestnuts at the back were protected, so there was no building out that way either. Of course there was the other reason the house wouldn’t sell, but as far as Carla was concerned that was all a lot of superstitious nonsense, for she lived right next door and she’d never heard anyone wailing or singing, nor had she ever spotted anyone coming or going in the dead of night. Eddie hadn’t either, because being the alert and sensitive chap he was, he’d have been sure to let the world know if he had.

  When Sonya reached the Coach and Horses, which was no more than a stone’s throw from Carla’s, on the other side of the road, she slowed to wave to Sylvia, the landlady, whose artfully piled curls, and single colour right up to the roots, suggested she’d just got back from Kate’s in Radstock, where she went every month to get her hair done.

  Sonya’s red Fiesta pressed on, around the jutting edge of the duck pond where a fine weeping ash drooped its thin leaves into the weeds; past Teddy’s shop, then the smartly clipped privet hedges of the seventeenth-century rectory where Graham Foster the crime writer lived, until she finally disappeared from view behind the old Norman church where the locals claimed King Charles the Second had secretly married Nell Gwyn. Carla didn’t know about that, but it was certainly where her grandparents, and her parents had married, and where she and both her brothers had been christened.

  Suddenly, the email was right there, at the front of her mind, blocking everything else, and causing her heart to contract with fear. It was drawing her back to a place she just couldn’t go, yet there was nowhere else in the world she wanted to be. Oh dear God, what was this really about? What did it mean?

  She looked up at the sky. It was the colour of stone, seeming to have no depth, or movement, just a stark empty expanse that stretched on and on for ever in a neutral, impenetrable swathe of nothing. Was there actually anything beyond it? The heaven she’d believed in as a child? The place where everyone went, in the end? Fairy tales maybe, but she wanted to know if the dead were there, somewhere, and could see you. What kind of entity were they, after they’d gone? Did they feel anything? Did they know things? Who did they become?

  She inhaled sharply, then looked down as a ball bounced softly at her feet. Eddie was gazing up at her. Stooping, she embraced him hard, loving the smell of his shiny coat, and the irregular buttery patches around his chocolatey eyes. His devotion, and curious understanding of her moods, were as soothing as any human embrace and much easier to trust.

  She watched him sail over the wall onto the patch of land next to the cottage, in pursuit of the ball. Dumbbell, the cocker spaniel who lived four doors along, suddenly skimmed past the gate and hurtled after Eddie, landing on him as he grabbed the ball, rolling them both over in a riot of leaves and coquettish growls. Dumbbell had a big crush on Eddie, and Eddie, being the male he was, knew it and abused it.

  Leaving them to their peculiarly human-style courtship, Carla returned to her desk. One of the windows in the office, that had once been her gran’s best room, overlooked the patch of land, so she could keep an eye on Eddie; the other was partly obscured by a lilac bush, the pride of the small garden that separated the cottage from the street.

  Putting on the answering machine in case Sonya checked up on her, she returned to the project she’d been working on for the past several months. She couldn’t look at the email again yet. It was too demanding of emotions she was unable to control. For now, she needed to reconnect with the reality of her life, to carry on as though nothing was about to change. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Did that mean she was already accepting that change was inevitable?

  She picked up the wine Sonya had poured and took a mouthful. It was foul beyond words, but as it was all there was, she braced herself and tried again.

  After a while Eddie came trotting back inside and slumped at her feet. She went on with her work, sometimes stopping to feed information into the computer, occasionally checking the reference books she kept at her side. The light faded. She reached out for the desk lamp, which pooled over her papers, and cast the rest of the room, with all its books and files, and the other small desk which Sonya used, into darkness.

  Around seven thirty she and Eddie walked over to the pub, where Graham Foster, the writer, already had a lager and black lined up for Carla, and a packet of salt and vinegar for Eddie. There were a few strangers in tonight, tourists as Graham called them, who’d probably driven over from Bath or Bristol. Jack and Sylvia, who ran the pub, were both behind the bar, gossiping with Teddy Best, and occasionally glancing at the TV where someone from EastEnders was either working herself up to suicide, or marriage, it was hard to tell.

  Though Carla had very few secrets from Graham, whose ruddy, bearded face and steel grey hair had become as dear to her over the years as the features of any member of her family, tonight she didn’t trouble his ready paternal concern and patient ear with news of the email. Though there was very little that fazed Graham, there was a good chance this would, and she didn’t want his reaction to influence the decision she had to make. Maybe she’d tell him tomorrow, after she’d read it again; by then, if she hadn’t already come to a conclusion, she might welcome some advice.

  At twenty past eight Graham left to go home, where his wife was cooking dinner. Betty never came to the pub, nor did she ever speak to any of her neighbours. She was painfully shy, and not at all the kind of wife one would imagine for Graham, considering the quiet flamboyance of his character, and the rather dismaying introversion of hers. Even their physical appearances were a surprising contrast, for he was a tall and handsome man, whereas she was small, plump and unyieldingly plain. However, they’d been together for over two decades, and Carla had never once heard Graham utter a word of
criticism or disaffection. If he spoke of her at all, it was always with fondness, and the profoundest respect for her ability to bring out the best in him as a writer. That he had been deeply in love with another woman for several years was well known by all, including Betty, though he had never even suggested leaving his wife, nor had the other woman wanted him to. It was an arrangement that had always worked well, until one day the world had started turning the other way, and everything that was right had suddenly become horribly and frighteningly wrong …

  Carla was home in time to catch the late news. She and Eddie curled up on the sofa in the cosy little sitting room at the back of the cottage, the only light coming from the flickering images on the TV screen. Another devastating earthquake; another small war; another political scandal; another round of peace-talks. Life went on. Locations changed, languages differed, but the tragedies and stories all stayed the same. So did those who reported them.

  Her thumb pressed sharply down on the remote, killing the TV. The room was plunged into darkness. She remained where she was, thinking and trying not to. Feeling and trying not to. Remembering and wishing she couldn’t.

  Her eyes began adjusting to the darkness, until she could see the old armchair next to the fireplace; the clock on the mantelpiece; the old-fashioned brass-wire fireguard.

  She wasn’t sure she could stand this. She looked out of the window at the moonlit trees. There was no breeze. Nothing moved. Everything was still. Mother, where are you?

  She didn’t want to go back. If she did, it would mean going through it all again. She’d worked so hard to put it all behind her; to forget and move on. But it seemed the pull of the past was too strong, there was nothing she could do to stop her mind slipping back through time.

  She turned to look over her shoulder. Her dark eyes were soft and curious, her breath was shallow. She was no longer at the cottage. She was at home, in London, on a dark, wintry night – one of those nights that made home seem as warm and safe as a womb. A key was going into the front door lock, telling her he was here. She imagined the faint creak of the hinges, then the familiar click of the latch as the door closed. She knew his footsteps. They were coming down the hall of the flat, across the sitting room, towards the bedroom …