by Ruth Dugdall
‘It’s okay, there’s nothing to discuss. I just thought you should know it won’t be going ahead. The farm is being sold to create a lorry depot for the Port Authority.’
‘I’m sorry?’ There’s a pause, a rustling of paper.
‘The farm estate belongs to my mother, Maya Hawke, and she’s agreed to sell it to the Port Authority.’ I wonder how I can sound so calm, saying these words aloud, when this is the end of my dream.
‘I’m afraid there must be a mistake. Mr Salmon has authorised us to proceed and even paid a significant deposit. We’ve already instructed builders that work on the barn will commence later this month.’
‘That must have been before last Friday, when everything changed.’
I can hear him taking a sharp breath in surprise. ‘Mr Salmon didn’t mention anything changing when I saw him on Saturday.’
‘Saturday?’
‘Yes, he came in to finalise the plans and to pay the retainer on 1 November. Is Mr Salmon there – perhaps I should speak with him?’
‘I’m sure it’s my mistake. Please forget I called.’
I disconnect the phone and see something clearly, for the first time. A realisation, something that’s been festering inside me, but I can finally articulate: I’ve struggled to believe Dad’s story that he shot you in his sleep. Even the timing of his confession looks like he’s protecting someone else – I’d assumed it was Ash and Janet. What if I’m wrong? What if the person Dad is protecting is Daniel?
The phone rings again, and I stare at the handset, startled. It’s as though someone has heard my thoughts, and is calling to chastise me. The ringing continues, then stops. Then I hear Janet’s voice, a distant murmur, and realise she has picked up the extension downstairs.
There’s a cry, my name is being called. Quick feet on the stairs, coming up, and I know that whatever she’s going to tell me, I don’t want to hear. A premonition, a correct one.
Janet stands there in the study doorway, her hands still gripping the handset. Her eyes are wet, and her mouth is agape.
‘It’s Daniel,’ she says, before I can silence her. ‘He’s at the hospital. Oh God, Cass. Your mum is dead.’
DAY 8
SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER
26
Holly
Since dawn, Holly’s shift had been taken over by one case: a seven-year-old with asthma.
She and Jon had arrived in the ambulance to find the boy puffing on his blue inhaler, anxious grandparents bickering nearby over whether or not to call his parents, who were enjoying a weekend break to the Lake District – their first trip away without their son.
‘The cat got in the bedroom last night and slept on the bed,’ said the grandmother, clearly blaming herself. ‘We gave Ethan a Piriton as soon as he woke up wheezing. Oh God, what will his mum say? She warned me about his allergy.’
‘I wouldn’t call them yet, if I was you,’ Jon said, clipping the mask of a nebuliser to Ethan’s face. ‘Wait until things are calm, which they will be very shortly.’ The grandparents looked visibly relieved, and their smiles returned as the asthma attack ebbed. But Holly knew that the paperwork generated by a case took as long as the medical process, and she’d only just finished writing up the notes when it was time to clock off.
She was still logged on to the main hospital computer. The search box blinked at her invitingly. It was a sackable offence to use the computer to search for information you had no right to access – there could be serious problems if staff chose to look up neighbours and relatives at whim. But, she told herself, I’m just checking on Maya’s progress. I’m already involved: I was on the initial call-out. I have a right to know.
It was a lie – she knew it even as she sent the name MAYA HAWKE into the depths of the computer system, and especially when she opened the returning file from the oncology department. There was the scan picture, and the radiographer’s report: stage-three cancer. And the opinion of the specialist: Cancer has now spread to the lymph glands. Prognosis is not favourable.
Holly closed down the computer, feeling ashamed of herself, but still her interest was unsated. So much for The Samphire Master and his miracles. No wonder Maya had changed her mind about the Spa.
She decided to stop by Maya’s room, but when she arrived on the ward, the door was shut, the blind discreetly down, and Lauren approached quickly.
‘Oh, Holly, sad news. I’m afraid we’ve lost her.’
Holly hadn’t expected this – it hit her in the gut. ‘I thought Maya was off the critical list?’
‘She was: we’d classified her as stable. But with head injuries, the prognosis can change quickly. She went into cardiac arrest and we couldn’t save her . . .’ The nurse tailed off and looked back towards the nurses’ station. If an asthma attack caused a mound of paperwork, Lauren must be facing a mountain.
‘Was anyone with her?’
‘Just Daniel. He’s been so good. I heard him on the phone to Cassandra, telling her, and I’ve never heard a man be so comforting. I wish I had that knack. I dreaded phoning the prison to tell Maya’s husband, but he had to be told.’
‘How did Hector take it?’
‘No idea, they wouldn’t let me speak to him directly. They said they’d pass on the message. Can you imagine anything more cold?’
‘Well, this is now a murder case, which changes everything,’ Alfie said.
The newsroom was quieter today, with just a few reporters finishing off features for the Saturday-evening edition of the Daily Post. Alfie was perched on the corner of his desk in his cubicle, his sleeves rolled up to show his tattoos, munching a sausage roll and spraying crumbs all over the table. He grinned, showing where food had caught in his teeth.
‘I don’t think you should be celebrating. A woman has died,’ she said softly. When does a woman’s death cease to be tragic? How many wrinkles, how many years does she need to live before her passing no longer garners any sympathy?
Alfie had the decency to look abashed. ‘I know, it’s tragic. But the public have a right to know what’s going on in their backyard, and if I’m quick I can get this on this evening’s front page. The police have Hawke’s confession, but things could change now Maya’s dead. The stakes are higher.’
‘Alfie, you’ve covered a lot of crime, are you certain Hector isn’t telling the truth?’ Holly asked, genuinely curious. ‘The psychiatrist at the hospital says it is possible for him to have shot her in his sleep. And the police believe it, or he wouldn’t be locked up.’
‘Ah well, now, that’s not exactly true. The police will be waiting to see if the CPS are happy to proceed to trial. Given they have a bang-to-rights confession, they’ll be hoping to close this case – neater stats, less heat from the press, cheaper budget. And he’s got a bail hearing on Monday so he may not be locked up for long. You want my personal opinion? I don’t think it’s the old man. I think The Samphire Man stinks to high heaven, and I’m sick of the way no one else can see it.’
He dusted crumbs from his trousers, a gesture that said he was done. But Holly wasn’t.
‘Alfie, I’m beginning to think you could be right. I’ve found something . . .’
‘Evidence?’
‘Not exactly. And I can’t go to the police with it: I’ve broken my code of ethics to get it.’ What she was doing now was her act of karma, a desire to do the right thing. This was her curse – her senses would forever stop her from doing an uncomplicated job. She would forever feel layers and implications that would at best distract and at worst derail her. And that was why she couldn’t go to the police with this. She needed Alfie to take the information she had no right to have, and do something with it. ‘Alfie, I looked up Maya’s hospital medical records. If I was found out, I’d lose my training position for certain.’
‘Tut tut,’ he said. ‘Naughty girl. Okay, so what did you find?’
‘You were right, Daniel hadn’t cured Maya. A recent scan confirmed her cancer was level three. She’d only just been t
old.’
‘Level three, in her lymph nodes,’ said Alfie, no longer with any glee. ‘His career would be down the pan with a revelation like that. I owe you one, Holly – you’ve just given me a scoop.’
‘And it’s a perfect motive, isn’t it,’ she said, ‘for murder.’
27
Cassandra
Can I still talk to you, now you’re gone?
Oh, Mum. Can you hear?
You didn’t always hear me when we were in the same room – it was always your voice that dominated. Now you’re dead, mine is the only voice. I imagine you listening and feel closer to you than ever.
Daniel’s back at the hospital, organising everything that needs to be done, whatever that means. Undertakers, I assume, though this is a criminal case so maybe he’s speaking with the police too. I don’t want to be there, with your lifeless body. Your spirit has left its shell, it’s with me now. Dear Mum.
I need to be where there is life and warm love.
I need my child and she needs to be home.
At the Shell garage just before the Orwell Bridge, I pump the car with petrol, then settle into the journey to Norfolk, not to the prison this time but to the coast, though my hands are slick on the steering wheel. My palms are sweating, my heart is palpitating – grief is getting to me. I try to fill myself with your strength. You were always so sure of yourself, and I’d love a dose of your resilience now.
I’m dressed in what’s become my daily uniform: a denim skirt from Fat Face and a thin jumper – comfortable clothes for a vigil beside a hospital bed in an overly warm room, but not suitable for Oakfield. I should go home and change into a dress and heels. I know you’d do this in my place, but I don’t have the energy.
Warm air spews from the vents, the only sound the ticking of the indicator as I overtake the car in front. Clouds scud low over orange fields, puffy as cotton wool, wet at the edges – like the dampened balls I used when Victoria was a baby, piled into an igloo by the side of the top-and-tail bowl as I washed her. The clouds hold weight, I can see that, dark with rain that will surely come.
I drive on in the warm silence of my own company. I can’t cope with the inane chatter of local radio: I usually have it tuned ready for Daniel’s show, but I switch it off and listen to the rumble of tyres on tarmac as the clouds close in. Norfolk has never seemed so far away. I sweat in my jumper, unable to turn the heating down or take my eyes from the road for fear that Daniel is right and I’m not capable of driving because medication is dulling my senses, or grief is.
Time drags, even as the miles pass. The same speed, second by second, minute by minute. I’m headed for Victoria. I know now, more than I’ve ever known anything, that she needs to come home. You understand that, don’t you, Mum?
Finally, I’m standing at the base of Oakfield’s stone steps, extravagantly wide, with the domed school building looming above me, as impossible and unavoidable as a boulder in the road. What if they don’t let me take her? But one advantage of private schools is that you can do things like this: you can take your child out of school for a day of tennis at Wimbledon or for a family holiday in Capri. Or for her grandmother’s funeral.
Daniel usually leads the way here. I simply can’t stand to return, and he’s good at smooth talk and handshakes and they all know him. But today I’m on my own.
I ring the bell and wait, then speak into the intercom when asked. ‘It’s Victoria Salmon’s mum.’ Finally, the door is released, and I can enter. The entrance is like no school reception anywhere: it’s like a five-star hotel, all polished oak and red carpet. I can hear the whisper and giggle of girlish voices as feet scamper along the first-floor landings, heading for the prep room or library – grand spaces where ladies once took morning tea and received callers. The dormitories are in an ugly modern extension, but in the main building are the dining hall and the long ballroom they use for assemblies and prize-giving at the end of each term.
I feel small and nip the back of my hand to remind myself that I paid for this polished floor, the red carpet beneath my feet, at least a tiny piece of it. I long to stand on the stairs and yell, ‘Victoria!’ or even ‘Tori!’ until she comes to me. I want to grab her hand and run.
Behind the wooden door, marked SECRETARY in gold paint, is a startled spinster. Not the same one who worked here when I was a pupil, but of the same type. I ask, politely, if I can see the headmistress, who’s seated in the adjacent office. The headmistress, Mrs Hollingsworth, is not a replacement. She saw me through four years of secondary school, and she welcomes me stiffly, offers tea.
‘Cassandra, how lovely! Earl Grey or Darjeeling?’
The secretary shuffles off to make it and Mrs H, as we always called her, takes her seat behind her massive mahogany desk, smooths the velvet lapels of her dogtooth jacket and flashes me a glimmer of overbite.
‘So nice to see you, Cassandra, though next time perhaps you could inform us in advance, so we can be better prepared. This weekend is always busy, with the pupils returning from exeats.’
The secretary makes a trundling return, head lowered as she hands me a bone china cup half-full of milky tea.
‘Thank you.’
It clatters in the saucer as I take it.
Mrs H peers at me, like she did the day I first arrived, and I feel fourteen again. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope?’
Courage sweats out of me, leaves me with a dry throat and no voice to say the terrible words, My mum died. As if saying it aloud will finally make it real.
‘Of course, Victoria’s trip home for half-term was cancelled and Mr Salmon did call to explain. I was sorry to hear you’ve been unwell. Are you recovered?’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’ I shuffle in the warm leather chair, hemmed in by its steep sides, and wonder what he told her about me.
She places her hands into a bridge and peers at me, waiting. She’s an important woman and her time is precious. ‘So, how can I help you?’
‘I want to take Victoria home.’
Mrs H crinkles her brow in a way that is disapproving and makes me quake. ‘You mean for the night? Lessons start in earnest on Monday, and Victoria is now on the GCSE syllabus. She’ll have to be back tomorrow.’
Time to be strong. ‘I’m taking her home for good.’
The bridge of her hands collapses. ‘This is rather sudden. Victoria is doing so well here. She’s an exceptionally bright pupil, a real asset.’ She pauses, smiles silkily. ‘Just like her mother was. I do understand that you are in the process of opening a health spa, so if it’s a question of extending the holiday on the fees . . . ?’
‘No,’ I say, trying to hide the fact that this is news to me. I wonder how long we’ve not been paying. Money must be tighter than I thought – no wonder you were worried about the farm, Mum. ‘It’s not related to that. But if we can’t afford Victoria’s fees, then that’s even more reason for me to remove her.’
She looks affronted. ‘As I told Mr Salmon when we spoke last week, we’re happy to make concessions for our alumni. We can give you leeway on both girls’ outstanding fees for this term.’
‘Both girls? What are you talking about?’
Mrs H flushes pink, recovers. ‘I’m sorry, I must be getting muddled with another family. But please, don’t remove Victoria from the school without due consideration. Why not take her home for one night and reconsider?’
‘There’s nothing to reconsider, I want her home.’ My voice sounds small.
Her face pinches thin. ‘Victoria is very happy here – she’s quite inseparable from Dawn. Have you actually talked this through with your daughter? As you know, teenagers get very attached to friends and those girls are more like sisters.’
I’m sick of hearing about people being like family when they aren’t. As if family were a sign of closeness, given the secrets and lies that have been kept from me. ‘But they aren’t sisters, and Victoria should be with her family. I’m taking her home today.’
She stares at me in the s
ame way she did when I’d failed to hand in my homework. Pushing away her cup and saucer, she sighs. ‘I’m afraid that you can’t simply remove Victoria from the school. You aren’t the guardian named on her records: your mother is. She would have to be informed.’
Rage fills me. I can feel it running in my blood, rising to my face. I want to slap her smug expression.
‘I’m taking Victoria home, she’s my daughter and you can’t stop me. Or are you going to say you need my mother’s permission? Which would be rather difficult, given that she’s dead.’
Mrs H’s hand hovers up to her chest. ‘Oh my,’ she says.
‘She was shot last Friday and died yesterday. That’s why I need to take Victoria home, to attend her funeral. Any problem with that?’
I know I’m being cruel, that none of this is her fault, but I’m glad to see her face mottle.
She picks up the phone to speak to her secretary. ‘Lucy, could you fetch Victoria Salmon, please? Straight away.’
The phone is replaced with both hands and we wait. After a few minutes of awkward silence, she begins to flick through the papers on her desk and I sit on my shaking hands, for fear they will betray me.
‘Mum!’
And there she is, the light of my heart: Victoria. My little girl looks all grown up, in skinny jeans and a cold-shoulder jumper that bags around her wrists. Her maple-coloured hair, so very much like yours, has grown long. In the seven weeks since the summer holidays, she’s changed from pretty to beautiful. It pains me that I haven’t seen this transition.
‘What are you doing here?’ Her face is full of emotion and glowing with health, her cheeks are pink and her eyes have that lively lustre. She’s never looked more like her grandmother than at this moment, as if the genes skipped a generation and here you are, as a fourteen-year-old.
‘Where’s Dad?’
Maybe it’s the way her eyes narrow as she waits for my answer, or maybe that slick of red gloss on her lips, but she’s no longer a child.
