Hidden Hours

by Sara Foster

  ‘In that case, I’m coming up. I’ll grab my stuff, then I’ll come to see you.’

  ‘All right then, see you soon.’

  She heads inside and doesn’t bother to sign in, taking the stairs to the first floor. In the main office she quickly walks to her little pod, and pulls open the desk drawer, retrieving two Paulo Coelho books, a packet of pencils, an empty sketchpad and a Mars Bar. She thinks of all the movies she’s seen in which people bring in cardboard boxes to empty their desks. She has barely had time to make her presence felt here, so she doesn’t even need an extra bag for these items, just slips them all into her handbag and she’s done.

  However, she isn’t quite ready to leave yet. She sits at the computer, and brings up the work email account that Nathan shares with his assistants. It doesn’t take her long to find his home address. She checks on Google Maps and sees he resides only a few blocks away from Harborne Grove. She had no idea the Lanes lived so close to the Mortimers – it must have made it easy for Ian and Arabella to meet.

  It also means that Nathan has never been far away from them all.

  She taps the details into her phone, and logs off again. She gets up to leave, and then stops.

  Nathan’s office door is right next to her, open and inviting. She hesitates for only a moment, then moves cautiously inside and surveys the scene. Everything is stacked neatly in piles or in trays on the desk. She knows from three weeks of working with Nathan that he can’t abide disorder. She goes over to his desk and skims through the files and papers, and then looks around. She’s not sure why she’s here, or what she’s hoping to find; all she knows is that she will never get another chance like this.

  Then she hears a pair of heels tapping quickly along the corridor, getting closer. Eleanor looks around desperately, and sprints over to the leather couch, throwing herself behind it.

  The person is talking on the phone in a whisper as they shut the office door. ‘Okay, okay,’ a woman’s voice says, and Eleanor hears the grating of metal on metal as a filing-cabinet drawer is pulled open. ‘Yes, got it.’

  The office door opens again, and Eleanor dares to look over the back of the sofa as she hears the footsteps move away. She sees Caroline Cressman’s smart-suited form moving briskly down the corridor.

  An indignant rage overtakes her. She thinks of Susan, without even the energy to come out of her room, and Ian’s tired, wan face. Her family is breaking down and Caroline is swanning around here like nothing is wrong, when she was probably the reason Arabella had slapped Nathan and run away in the first place. Caroline was as culpable as any of them. In fact, Eleanor thinks, pushing herself up quickly and charging after Caroline, she is probably taking away evidence right now, to help Nathan conceal his crimes.

  ‘Hey!’ she shouts to Caroline, who turns around and stares at Eleanor in surprise.

  ‘Eleanor? I thought you’d been fi— I didn’t think you worked here anymore. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Just collecting my things.’ Eleanor fixes on the envelope in Caroline’s hand. ‘What have you got there?’

  Caroline looks down at the envelope and back up in surprise. ‘I’m collecting some things for Nathan – and it’s actually none of your business,’ she adds. She frowns as she walks forward. ‘Can I have your key card, please, you shouldn’t have it any more.’

  Eleanor walks towards her, but instead of passing over the key card, she snatches the envelope out of Caroline’s hand. She pulls out the contents, eagerly scanning them, sure she will find something incriminating. But her hopes begin to fall as she sees page after page of figures and the titles of the Super Kid books written across the top of each one.

  Eleanor looks up wordlessly, to see Caroline’s mouth has dropped open in surprise. Her face darkens as she snatches the sheaf of papers back. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re playing at,’ Caroline says, ‘but you are never to come back here again, do you understand?’

  ‘Caroline? Eleanor?’

  Eleanor turns around to see Will standing behind them, looking from one to the other in confusion. She reddens, but she cannot stop herself now.

  ‘How the hell can you be Nathan’s alibi?’ Eleanor hisses at Caroline. ‘You know what he’s like. Do you really want to end up like Arabella?’

  ‘Eleanor!’ Will cautions.

  ‘Just what are you implying?’ Caroline cries out, and steps back as though Eleanor might be about to hurt her.

  ‘She didn’t mean it like that,’ Will says, coming to stand closer to them. ‘Everyone is aware of Nathan’s temper, that’s all she’s saying.’

  Caroline’s eyes narrow. ‘What are you playing at, Will?’ Then she glowers at Eleanor. ‘Nathan thinks you know something,’ she snaps. ‘And he’s not a man to stop until he has answers. I’d be very careful, if I were you.’

  And she turns on her heel and storms away.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Eleanor?’ Will blurts as soon as she’s gone.

  ‘Looking out for my family,’ she retorts, annoyed at his tone. ‘I have to go, I’ll call you later.’ And she hurries down the corridor. Caroline has disappeared, and Eleanor doesn’t try to find her. Instead she pockets her key card and heads out of the building, past the security gates, not looking back. At the road she waits impatiently for a free taxi, and when she hails it and climbs inside she double checks the address she’d written down at the computer. She tells the driver where to go, and then settles back in her seat.

  39

  clandestine visits

  June 2005

  Solomon’s key has been hidden in a zip pocket of Eleanor’s wash bag for weeks. There has been no sign of him here; and no opportunity to head down to his house to see him again, thanks to rainy days and too much homework. The time she spent inside Lily’s art room seems unreal now – and yet her thoughts repeatedly flit to that beautiful space full of light, and those paintings in the corner. She desperately wants to see them again. But now she has left that little house, the suggestion of wandering down there, alone, makes her feel shy and nervous. She really wants to go back to study those paintings more, but can she? Should she?

  These questions become an ongoing internal refrain. She debates telling her mother about Solomon’s offer, but every time she starts to, she stalls at the last moment. If her mother decides that it isn’t a good idea, then it’s game over. Solomon doesn’t come to see them any more – she remembers her father sighing the last time he’d seen the old man arrive. Perhaps Solomon’s help isn’t appreciated as much now her mother has the use of her arm again. Perhaps her parents don’t like him, even after all he’s tried to do for them. It doesn’t seem very generous of them, but then she is so unsure of her parents nowadays.

  In late June the flooring arrives – an expensive treated pine that needs to be laid by hand – and everyone is called on to help. Aiden does a couple of days grudgingly, before beginning to disappear even before breakfast. As a result, dinners are tense and stilted affairs, resentments burning as steadily as the eucalyptus candles in the centre of the table.

  Eleanor tries to help too, but the beams are heavy, and it doesn’t take long before she drops one on her toes. The next day, still hobbling, she gets a painful splinter in the palm of her hand. ‘You have your schoolwork and your drawing to keep you busy, don’t you?’ her mum suggests apologetically as she uses the tweezers to remove it, wiping her brow with the dirty sleeve of her arm, dressed in combat trousers that seem far too big for her, and one of Eleanor’s dad’s baggy old shirts.

  Eleanor nods of course, because that is what is expected of her, and because she really doesn’t want to say anything that might make her have to lay more flooring.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll go for a walk with my sketchpad, see if I can find something to draw,’ she ventures, half-expecting her mother to say no. But her mother isn’t really listening, and the snake incident is all but forgotten now.

  ‘Sounds good,’ her mum agrees, as she replaces the
tweezers in her medical kit and begins to wash her hands.

  Eleanor knows this is her chance.

  She doesn’t tell her parents where she’s going. Although she has a suspicion that if she announced there were wild elephants walking down the track next to the house, they wouldn’t bat an eyelid. They’d just say ‘that’s nice’ and ‘be safe’ and ‘drink lots of water’ and ‘watch out for snakes’. All they are interested in is getting as much done as they can in case the weather turns and the rain comes in earnest.

  Besides, her life seems to be so much in their pockets that it is nice to keep something to herself.

  As she trudges across the grass clutching her bag, she looks over to where her parents are trying to carry one of the recently varnished internal doors into the new house. Her mother is struggling to lift it by one heavy edge, trying to blow her fringe out of her eyes as she concentrates, hunched and red-faced. Her father yells instructions from the other side. Eleanor turns away and quickens her step.

  As she heads down to the bottom of the paddock, not far away she sees the neglected cubby. A pile of leaves has built up over the laminate, and she wonders if the snake is still there. Perhaps it has made the cubby its permanent home now. It crosses her mind to tell Aiden about it, but then, Aiden never comes down here anymore – he’s too busy doing ‘god knows what’, as her mother always says, with his new unfriendly friends.

  Eleanor has been around these boys a few times now. She’s watched them greet each other with handslaps and backslaps, and has been largely ignored, except sometimes Timmo looks her up and down in a way that makes her feel like an exhibit at the museum – his big lolling gaze travelling over places that leave her feeling exposed and uncomfortable. Originally she wanted to join in with their games, but she soon realised that she would never be invited along, and it is probably a good thing. She cannot understand what Aiden sees in them. Perhaps he is just trying to fit in the best he can in this strange new life they are all living.

  At the property boundary she climbs over the fence onto Solomon’s side with ease, jumping down and heading past all the old farming detritus scattered over his land, until she’s on the crest of the hill and can see the little cottage again, not far off.

  As soon as she begins to head down, Charlie starts to bark. She has a moment of nerves, and takes a quick longing look back the way she has just come, but it is too late for that, because Solomon is standing on his doorstep now, watching her approach. The little tabby cat mills around his legs, leaning in to rub its neck against his trousers.

  She makes her way across to them, self-conscious and shy. ‘Hello,’ she says.

  ‘Good to see you, Miss Eleanor,’ Solomon replies. ‘Charlie here has been hoping you would come by again. Still got yer key?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He gestures towards the back of the house. ‘Well, like I said, you’re welcome to use it – don’t let old Charlie’s barking put you off. You know the way.’

  He ambles behind Eleanor, and she pauses at the outer door. ‘Go on, then,’ he says gruffly, gesturing to the key in her hand. He stays to watch her unlock the door and enter the little sunlit room. Then he murmurs, ‘I’ll leave you in peace, then,’ and closes the door behind her.

  Once alone, Eleanor looks around. At first she is disappointed – it’s not quite how she remembered it, because the intervening weeks have built up its glory in her mind, so the colours seem muted, and the area is smaller than she’d thought. But when she kneels before the stack of canvases, everything else is forgotten.

  She sets the first one on her knee and examines it: the sweeping brush strokes, the different shades of blues and browns and greens. Then she puts it down and steps backwards, watching the way each mark of colour merges with its neighbour, coalescing into a pastoral scene, the silhouettes of horses in distant fields across a long valley. She glances out of the window and sees a similar view, minus the horses and the sunshine.

  Looking back at the painting, she longs to try to replicate this. She heads over to a table where paints are laid out – a mishmash row of half-used bottles that won’t have been opened for years. She unscrews a lid and finds that although the rim is flaky and dry, there is still usable blue paint inside. But the easel is empty and there are no blank canvases here, so she looks around, and her gaze alights on a sketchbook that sits on a table in the corner. She goes across, somewhat furtively, and picks it up, tentatively opening the first page and beginning to flick through.

  There are landscapes here as well, but mostly people. All in pencil, simple black and white, and yet all the more stunning for that. She recognises Solomon as a younger man, and there’s a girl of about Eleanor’s age, who turns slowly to a woman as the book progresses. Their faces are constructed in series of lines and shading, in such richly textured detail that they seem to come out of the page as though in 3D. The ones drawn with their eyes trained towards the artist seem to study Eleanor as carefully as she studies them. A thrill runs through her as she holds this book. There’s so much here she can work with; so much she can learn from one pad.

  She props the book on the easel and moves the table closer to it. She pulls her own sketchpad out and begins to copy one of the pictures of the young girl sitting on a tree stump, her face drawn in side profile. Eleanor works slowly and carefully, noticing the discrepancies between the two and checking where her careful pencil strokes may have gone awry.

  She is so lost in what she’s doing that the knock on the door makes her jump. Solomon pokes his head in. ‘Want some tea and biscuits?’ he asks. ‘You must be getting hungry, you’ve been in here for hours.’

  Eleanor comes back to her surroundings in an instant. ‘No, that’s fine,’ she says, jumping up and quickly gathering her things. ‘I’d better get back.’

  ‘I’m not shooing you out, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  He comes forward and notices the drawing she has been copying. ‘Ah, that’s our Philippa,’ he says. ‘Lives way up north now with her fella. Only see her at Christmas, and that’s if I’m lucky.’

  Eleanor doesn’t know what to say. She looks back at the portrait of the little girl, notices the wistful expression in her profile, and tries to imagine growing up here on your own all that time ago. Had she been as lonely as Eleanor felt now, she wonders. Had Philippa’s parents understood her, or had she felt as disconnected from them as Eleanor does from hers?

  ‘Well, go out the way you came and lock the door behind you,’ Solomon says, interrupting her thoughts, ‘then you’ll get used to how it works.’

  She nods as she grabs her bag and looks longingly at the book on the table. It’s school tomorrow; she can’t do this again for at least six days. But there’s nothing to be done about that. She heads to the door and once outside is glad the key turns easily in the lock. Then she runs back over the paddocks until she sees her own half-finished house waiting for her in the distance. She is disorientated, as though she can’t tell whether she is entering a dream or leaving one.

  40

  the townhouse

  Jenni Madaki sees the BROKEN HEARTS headline online while taking a break from calling real-estate clients. The inset picture of Arabella Lane gives her a jolt. She Googles the name and has her hand clapped over her mouth by the time her colleague comes into the office. ‘I think I saw this woman,’ she says, shaking her finger repeatedly at the screen. ‘You remember that crazy girl I told you about, the one who tried to jump off the Hungerford footbridge? It took half a dozen of us to pull her back, and I’m sure this woman was one of them.’ She turns around wonderingly to stare at her colleague. ‘It’s so bloody sad, isn’t it? You know what that means, yeah? On the night she died, Arabella Lane helped save a life.’

  The taxi takes Eleanor a familiar route, heading towards Harborne Grove, only diverting away at the last moment. What are you doing? demands a looping, worried voice in her head. The memory of Will’s stunned expression as she confronted Caroline keeps recur
ring. Ignore it, she insists to herself. You are taking control. You are not unravelling.

  A few moments later they turn into a quiet street, and the driver pulls up outside a row of tall townhouses. Number fifty-three is written clearly on a whitewashed pole, but the windows are lined with thick curtains, which are all closed. Eleanor rummages in her bag for money. In her haste to get here she hadn’t considered the cost of this trip, but it leaves her with less than ten pounds in her pocket. Good job she’s close to Harborne Grove, because she’ll be walking back.

  As the taxi pulls away, she looks up and down the road. The whole street is much the same as Harborne Grove, a few trees spaced evenly along the pavement, but there’s nowhere she might hide at short notice without trespassing onto someone’s property. Initially she had been so fired up she would have just knocked on Nathan’s door, but now she’s here, in this eerily quiet part of suburban London, her nerve begins to falter.

  She swallows hard and grips the phone in her pocket. In the taxi she had practised starting the recording device on it, while keeping it hidden. She will set it going as soon as he answers the door. Then she just has to get him angry enough to tell her the truth.

  The phone buzzes in her hand and she quickly pulls it out, walking away from the house in case she is overheard.

  ‘Hey,’ says Will when she answers in a whisper. ‘You ran out on me there. I didn’t mean to come across as judgemental, I was just a bit shocked, that’s all. By the time I’d grabbed my stuff you’d gone. Where are you – do you want me to meet you?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she says, ‘but . . . but if I don’t call you back within the hour, then maybe call the police and tell them my last known address was fifty-three Whitworth Avenue.’ As she says it she’s relieved to have some kind of surety. Although Nathan won’t dare hurt her, will he, if he’s trying so hard to avoid arrest?