The Beauty of the End

by Debbie Howells

  “It was curious.” I watch him closely. “She told me there was always so much I didn’t know.”

  “What did she mean by that?” From the sharpness of his response, I know I have his full attention.

  “That’s just it. She wouldn’t elaborate. She said it wouldn’t help anything. I had the feeling she didn’t want to get involved. She’s got enough to worry about, with her divorce.”

  Will’s silent. Then, when he speaks, his voice is disarmingly smooth. “Good old Beatrice. You know, I’ve completely forgotten where she lives.”

  “She didn’t say.” Lying. “We met at a motorway service station. She said her husband would love to catch her with another man and it wasn’t worth risking it.”

  “Pity,” Will says lightly. “So she knows about April?”

  I nod. “Actually, I saw April as well. She has an infection.”

  “Unfortunately, when someone’s in a coma, on a ventilator, it’s not uncommon. They’ll put her on antibiotics. It should clear up. It’s a good hospital.” The speech is rehearsed, pat, spoken a million times before like the doctor he is.

  “That’s reassuring to know, coming from you.”

  “She still has a way to go, Noah. There were bottles of diazepam and paracetamol in her house; the police picked them up. The side effects aren’t good—we’re talking organ damage. Liver, kidneys, brain—it depends on what she took and how much of it.” He leans back, his eyes not leaving my face, as he continues.

  “I knew she was on antidepressants at one point, but that was years ago. Maybe she had some kind of breakdown.”

  Presented with facts that don’t match the April I knew, my brain fumbles, trying to take it all in.

  “You know, I’d always thought you and April had married. I never knew you hadn’t until Bea told me.”

  I’m trying to remember Will’s charm, the easy way he used to draw girls, which must have been what April had seen, charm the years had worn to a veneer of arrogance.

  Will shrugs. “Just one of those things. It didn’t work out.” Looking uncomfortable, he changes the subject.

  “So. What about you? Are you in Devon for good?”

  “Hard to say. I thought I was.... But it’s quiet.” As I speak, realizing how quiet. Maybe too quiet.

  “What do you write?”

  “It started with a research project that ran away and turned into a series of novels.”

  Will’s eyebrows rise. “You’re published?”

  “Yes.” I pause. “Well, the first two are. I’m working on the third. Or rather, I was, until I came here.... I’m not exactly a household name—unlike you. . . .” I’m not entirely serious as a ghost of a smile flickers across his face.

  “You watch too much TV. The medical profession isn’t glamorous, Noah.” Will leans back. “If you want to know, it’s nonstop—we try to go away when we can. If Rebecca’s on tour, I usually try to catch up with her, even for a weekend.”

  For the first time, I look straight at him. “You did it, you know.”

  My sentiment is honest. Uncharacteristically, he looks taken aback. “Did what?”

  “Everything you planned. Look at you, Will. You have the perfect life.”

  I wait for him to laugh, to make some joke about how I could have had it all, too, but then I was never cut out to be a lawyer; instead, a dark look crosses his face.

  “Easy to say,” he says quietly. “But as you know, there are always sacrifices.”

  I’m about to push him on what he means by that, ask him what he’s surrendered to get where he is, but he closes up. Then the look clears. He picks up our glasses. “Another pint? My shout.”

  “Yes. Why not? You do owe me a few.” It’s intended as a joke, a reference to days before our friendship went sour, when my lawyer’s wages paid for our meals out. A glimmer of a smile plays on his lips.

  “I suppose I do, don’t I?”

  He turns abruptly and I watch him walk over to the bar, curious about the sacrifices he wouldn’t elaborate on; not at all sure that even without April coming between us, we could have stayed friends.

  * * *

  I have missed something. I’m walking along the street when I work out what it is, thinking of April’s London attic flat—and the antique box inlaid with mother of pearl. I used to joke that it wasn’t a box at all, that it was actually her heart, where she kept her innermost secrets; if she’d dared to open it and show me, I’d at last have been able to understand her.

  Funny how I’d forgotten it. Forgotten, too, how its contents had remained hidden from me and how I’d never once been tempted to look inside. I’m wondering if she still has it; if the box that hides April’s secrets is hidden away inside the cottage that’s hidden from the world.

  As I let myself into my B&B, I can feel the past, almost tangible, as though it’s gathering force and closing in, with its secrets and unresolved ambiguities, along with an echo of Bea’s words, Will’s reticence. I pour myself a drink; then, after closing the curtains and pulling on a hoody, I shiver.

  Ella

  “I’ve been thinking about the letter,” she says. It’s weird, but I kind of don’t think of her like the other therapists. “The one you told me about, that you weren’t supposed to read.”

  I hope she won’t make me tell her.

  She waits. “I know it’s to do with Theo, but you haven’t actually told me what it says.”

  All this time, she hasn’t actually asked. She must really want to know; I know I would.

  “I know.” I so nearly tell her then, because I’m so tired of secrets and not sleeping, how my head aches nearly all the time, but then I stop myself, because the problem is, once it’s out in the open, it will be a storm wave sweeping across the landscape of my family, completely obliterating it.

  Biting my lip. “And I know you’re trying to help me, but I don’t think there’s any way you can.”

  She waits, then says, “You know, like when you told me about Theo? Sometimes it’s better just to get it out there. You feel better.”

  She’s right. It helped, kind of, but she doesn’t know about the other stuff that I should have left alone, that’s just as shocking. Or even worse.

  “Yeah, but the thing is, once you’ve said it, there’s no going back.”

  “You’re the one who has to decide.” She sits back. “But you know you can trust me, don’t you, Ella?”

  I nod. It’s cool. I really believe her. But it’s not about trusting her; it’s about me. If I tell her, it’ll be real. At least this way, while it’s a secret, even for a bit longer, I can still pretend.

  She looks at me. “There’s another way of looking at this.”

  I look at her, surprised. “How?”

  “Well . . .” She pauses. “You’re the one who knows what it’s about, but maybe it would help if you could understand why the person who wrote it kept it secret.”

  Oh jeez. Why did I even start this?

  “I know I suggested this before, but maybe you really should talk to your father.” She sits back in her chair. “He might be glad to explain it to you.”

  Then I’m distracted, because how does she know the letter was from my father? Then I realize she doesn’t. I’ve only told her I think he’s Theo’s father.

  “You don’t know my father,” I tell her. “Absolutely no way would he be glad.”

  “Right . . .”

  “It’s not just about Theo.” I fold my arms and stare at the floor.

  “No?” She looks surprised, then realizes she’s really pissing me off.

  “I’m sorry, Ella. You know I only want to help you. Look . . . There’s no pressure here. Not from me. And I can see what this is doing to you. If it gets to be too much, if you ever need to talk to someone . . .” She goes over to her desk, where she picks up something and writes on the back of it. Then she hands it to me. “Call me.”

  I look at the business card, printed with her name and the address here, turn it ov
er to look at what she’s written.

  “My mobile number.” She says it gently. “Ella, I mean it. Any time.”

  36

  The call that wakes me the next morning jolts me into awareness.

  “It’s John—from the North Star.”

  “Hi. John.” Sitting up, I roll my feet out of bed, rub my eyes. “How are you?”

  “Thought you’d like to know I had a visit. From that copper.”

  “Ryder.” My head clears, thoughts sharpen as I say his name.

  “That’s him. Don’t much like the bloke.” John’s dislike is evident in his voice.

  “What did he want?”

  “He was asking questions—about that lass he thinks killed Norton. And about Mr. Farrington. He’d been going through the security camera footage. I don’t know, the picture wasn’t all that great. It was from that meddling git who lives across the road here. Always causing trouble, he is. Had his camera rigged up that night. Caught them going into the pub together, then, an hour later, coming out.”

  I’m frowning. “Was he sure?”

  “Well, he seems to think it was them. I wasn’t there.”

  “Sorry, which night was this?” It makes no sense that Will was in the North Star with April when Will himself just told me, yesterday, he hasn’t seen her.

  “Couple of weeks back. It was my night off. That April, he said her name was—she came in with Mr. Farrington. Ryder showed me a photo. It was her all right. Same lass who came in with Norton . . .”

  Suddenly my mind is racing, because why didn’t Will mention this?

  “Thing is, after he’d gone, I remembered. Wasn’t until he told me what her name was, I knew who she was. But I looked it up to check.” He pauses. “You see, the next morning—after the footage was taken—when I was opening up, I took a phone call. Young lady had lost her phone and thought she’d left it here, in the pub. Left me her name, too. April Rousseau.” He says it triumphantly.

  “John, you’re sure about this?” I’m elated, my head reeling with this newest piece of information, trying to make it fit. This is the proof I’ve been looking for, that April didn’t leave her phone in Norton’s car. She couldn’t have. Someone else had it all along.

  “Got it right here in black and white,” he says. “Happens all the time. We keep this lost and found book.”

  “This is really important, John. Can you keep the book somewhere safe? Does Ryder know?”

  “Not yet. I was about to call him.”

  But there’s a new question, because how did her phone end up in Norton’s car? It’s looking increasingly likely that she was framed. But then my elation subsides, because there’s another possibility, too—that she could have found it again.

  “Anyway, thought I’d better tell you,” he says cheerfully.

  “Thanks, John.” Then I almost forget to ask. “Before you go, did the phone turn up?”

  “No sign of it.”

  * * *

  When I call the hospital, they tell me that April’s condition hasn’t changed, that it will take at least twenty-four hours for the antibiotics to start to work. Then I try calling Bea. When it goes to voicemail, I leave a message.

  Hi. Bea, it’s Noah. Look, I really need your help. Please call me back.

  Then fired up by John’s call, I pull out the folders and notes on April’s clients and start painstakingly working through them, looking for something else I might have missed.

  Only this time, because I’ve met Daisy and Lara and heard firsthand about the agony they’ve been through, the stories resonate far more deeply. I sense the scale of suffering, the impact on real lives, of losses so devastating that the fallout never leaves, but remains hidden where no one can see.

  Then as I leaf through the pages of the old law book I found in April’s house, more pieces of paper flutter out, ones I haven’t seen before. As I start reading, slowly the mist clears.

  Several stories leap off the pages at me. They’re all about mothers carrying babies diagnosed with the same heart defect, yet only some of whom have been offered treatment. Because it’s a subject I know nothing about, I google the condition. Check several sources, finding they all say the same. Previously considered untreatable, now, if caught early enough, new surgical procedures offer a cure.

  Puzzled, I look up more websites, none of which explain why some babies would be treated and others wouldn’t. It leaves me with a question. Why?

  Other factors aren’t clear. For example, whether there were other medical problems. From April’s notes, I can’t tell. But it looks as though she’d thought the same. There are simplified statistics about mortality rates from several hospitals around the country. I’m no mathematician, but as I scan the tables she’s crudely put together, two hospitals stand out for all the wrong reasons.

  In both of them, the mortality rate of newborns with heart defects is four times that of any of the others. That much is clear enough. One hospital is in North London, the other the Princess Royal, where April is, here in Tonbridge.

  I check again through the client notes, my heart quickening as I find that with the exception of one, all of April’s clients with heart-defect babies had been treated here, in the Princess Royal.

  * * *

  That afternoon, I go to the hospital. But this time, instead of the familiar corridors and stairs to ICU, I follow signs to the north wing of the hospital, at the far end of which is the neonatal unit.

  It’s a contemporary wing, unlike ICU, full of light, a resource clearly considered better spent on those arriving in this world than those leaving it. I pass a window through which I glimpse a row of incubators, hear a fragile, high-pitched cry from behind a closed door, imagine again the anguish of April’s clients, as I reach a large desk behind which a nurse sits.

  “You look lost, sir,” she says. “Can I help you?”

  “Maybe.” Hesitating, clutching at the ghost of an idea that comes to me just in time. “A friend of mine had her baby here. Lara Collins.”

  I’m bluffing. I don’t know where Lara’s baby was born and died, but then I doubt the nurses remember everyone by name. “The baby didn’t make it. I was away at the time. I hope you don’t mind—I just wanted to see what it was like here.”

  “I’m sorry. It must be difficult.” Her sympathy is genuine. Then she reaches into a drawer under her desk. “Why don’t you take these?”

  I take the leaflets she hands me. “Thank you.”

  Then suddenly awkward in this place of sick babies and grieving parents in which I don’t belong, I turn to leave, and as I walk, glancing at the leaflets, I’m shocked at the irony of seeing listed on the first one April’s name.

  * * *

  As I reach ICU, a trolley is wheeled toward me, the figure in the bed inert, long dark hair the most recognizable feature, and I miss a heartbeat, only realizing as it passes that it’s not April and that she’s still there, in the same room, a policeman with her. The only difference is more flowers, pale pink roses this time.

  “Who was her visitor?” I ask the nurse about to enter April’s room.

  “You saw the flowers! Family, probably—she was here for quite a while.”

  I don’t correct her, tell her that for all intents and purposes there is no family, only the most distant blood relatives who don’t care and wouldn’t have thought to bring flowers. Then I frown.

  “I didn’t think flowers were allowed these days.”

  “To be honest with you, they’re not—as a rule. But one or two of the more senior staff have what you might call a healthy disregard for the rules.”

  She doesn’t say who and I wonder if Will is one of them.

  “A fair-haired lady called earlier. She was here for quite a while. I don’t think anyone else has been.” It must have been Bea. If she was here for a while, was she waiting for someone? Then it’s as if the nurse reads my mind.

  “Mr. Farrington came in, too.”

  “Oh?” My ears prick up. “Yo
u don’t happen to remember if they were here at the same time, do you?”

  “Oh yes,” she tells me. “In fact, they left together—about five minutes before you arrived.”

  Which in itself is enough to make me uneasy. I already don’t trust Will. He’s told me too many lies, but where is Bea in this? Are they friends? Can I trust her?

  I’m of two minds, torn two ways, but as I leave the hospital, Bea texts me.

  * * *

  We meet in a café in the middle of Tonbridge.

  “Were you at the hospital earlier?” I’m relieved that she’s alone, that there’s no sign of Will. But I’m wary, too; conscious that too much is not as it seems.

  She nods. “I’m sorry, Noah—about how I left the other day. It was too much to take in—on top of everything else.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Usually a light dances in her eyes, but today it’s dimmed. “Oh, I will be. I’ve found a flat, which is the first step. I just need to move—and then sort out the rest of my life.”

  “I know how tough it is.” Grimacing, because even scars have a memory; however Bea’s wounds are new, her hurt still raw.

  “Yes.” Her clear eyes are troubled. “You do, don’t you?”

  “There’s a question I have to ask you, Bea.”

  She already knows. “You mean Will and April.”

  I nod. “What happened between them?”

  She sighs. “I never understood why they got together in the first place. There was chemistry between them. But it was more like he was obsessed with her. She does that to people. Even me—for a while.” Bea looks slightly embarrassed.

  “You and April?” There’s incredulity in my voice that I can’t help.

  But as her cheeks flush, she’s already shaking her head. “Nothing happened. For a while, if I’m honest, I wished it had.... But anyway, with Will, it was more than that. I think he saw you as a rival. And he couldn’t bear for you to win.”

  I’m astonished. “So when I was out of the way and he had her to himself, what was the problem?”

  Bea’s silent. “He was obsessed with her, but he couldn’t forget about her background. Yet he couldn’t change it, either—and he couldn’t bear for her to be with anyone else. Just after they got engaged, April discovered she was pregnant. After that . . . I’m not really sure what happened. Maybe she saw Will’s true colors, but it was April who left him. It was quite brave, I thought. She could have married Will and brought up their child. But instead, she went away. I didn’t see her for about two or three years. I tried to stay in touch, but it was as though she’d disappeared. Then I bumped into her at a party, and after that, well, ever since, we don’t see each other often but we’ve kept in touch.”