Hidden Hours

by Sara Foster

  Eleanor isn’t sure how to respond. In truth, she wants to ask if he knows for sure when Susan discovered his affair. Because if Susan has been aware of it for a while, and if her rage has been building, might she have had a good motive to go after Arabella too?

  She stares at her uncle, wondering how to broach this subject, then realises that over his shoulder, beyond the window, she can see strobing red and blue lights.

  ‘The police are here,’ she tells him.

  ‘What?’ Ian turns to follow her gaze. ‘Oh fuck, fuck,’ he barks, keeping his voice low. ‘What the hell are they doing here?’

  ‘It’s Lilian, she’s waiting outside. She said she’d called them.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Ian snaps again. ‘I totally forgot we’d asked her to come today, to get the house ready for the holidays. I was in a daze after Susan left. When Lilian came in and said she was going to get help, I didn’t realise . . .’ Ian wobbles a little, and Eleanor puts a hand on his arm.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  He grimaces. ‘Fierce headache, but I’ll live. Let’s get this over with.’

  Finally, Eleanor remembers what she had to tell her uncle about Nathan, but there is barely any time. There are voices heading closer to them as they both move slowly towards the door.

  ‘I need to talk to you about Nathan,’ she says, clutching her uncle’s arm so that he turns to her with a frown. ‘I think he might be trying to set you up – because of you and Arabella. What if that’s why I have the ring? What if it’s some kind of message, or meant to get one of us in trouble?’

  But as she says it she realises it doesn’t make sense. When would Nathan have had the opportunity to plant the ring on her after Arabella had died? And even if, somehow, he had, he wouldn’t be able to simply accuse her of having his wife’s ring. That would be far too convenient, and it would cast suspicion back on him. There must be something else, something she hasn’t thought of. She just has to figure out his plan.

  Ian’s eyes are wide, but there is no time for further discussion, because there are people in the doorway, and Eleanor finds herself face to face again with Kirby and Prashad.

  ‘What on earth happened here?’ Priya Prashad says, glancing around in amazement.

  Eleanor looks at Ian, who grimaces. ‘Domestic problems, I’m afraid. The stress of Arabella’s death is getting to us all.’

  ‘That’s a nasty cut,’ Steve Kirby interjects, his gaze fixed on Ian’s forehead.

  ‘I know.’ Ian grimaces.

  ‘If someone did that to you – no matter who it is – that’s assault,’ Kirby continues. ‘You do know you could press charges against that person.’

  Ian gives a bitter laugh. ‘I won’t be pressing charges. It hasn’t happened before and I’m sure it won’t happen again. I may well have deserved it. All I want is to get this room sorted and go and lie down.’

  ‘Are your children here?’ Prashad asks.

  Ian’s jaw tightens. ‘No, they have been at school and now they are with a friend. This will all be gone by the time they get home, I can assure you.’

  Prashad nods. She takes another few moments to look around the place and then asks, ‘And where is your wife at the moment, Mr Mortimer?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ian replies quietly. ‘Cooling off somewhere, I should imagine.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Prashad says, fixing him with that knowing stare of hers. ‘Could you give us a call when she comes home, please, just so we know she’s safe?’

  Ian opens his mouth but no words come out. Eleanor watches him struggle with himself – for a moment she thinks he is going to get angry, but the shadow across his face is gone almost as quickly as it comes. ‘I can do that,’ he replies with a resolute nod.

  As they talk there’s a knock on the door. Lilian opens it to find an ambulance officer outside. ‘Head injury here?’ he asks.

  ‘Bloody hell, this is completely unnecessary,’ Ian sighs.

  The ambulance officer comes in anyway, sizing Ian up. ‘Looks like a nasty cut, sir. Why don’t I just check it out while I’m here?’

  Ian, sits on the stairs and lets the paramedic get to work. ‘Now,’ Prashad turns to Eleanor, making Eleanor wish she were still a bystander in this situation, ‘we have had some new evidence come in within the last few hours, Eleanor, and we’d really like to talk to you again at the station, if we could? Would you be able to come with us now?’

  Eleanor glances at her uncle, but he won’t meet her eye. There is nothing to do except turn back to the detective and say, ‘Yes, of course I can.’

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ Prashad says, and Eleanor moves off with them, but not before casting another desperate look towards her uncle. Is she imagining it or is he refusing to look at her? Instead he motions to Lilian, who is still waiting nervously by the door, and Eleanor hears him say quietly, ‘Could you help me fix this, please?’ He points towards the front room. ‘I’ll pay you double to stay as long as you need to.’

  When Lilian nods and hurries inside the room, Ian leans back against the stairs, allowing the paramedic to continue to dress the gash on his head. Before she knows it, Eleanor is on the steps again with Kirby and Prashad, caught up in an unwanted deja vu as they lead her to their car.

  43

  completion

  July 2005

  Eleanor pushes her pasta around her plate, her stomach contracting painfully. She has hardly eaten all day, and the few bites she has managed so far have felt sticky and dry in her mouth.

  ‘What’s the matter, Eleanor?’ her mother asks, finally discerning her lack of interest in the food.

  Eleanor shrugs. ‘Not hungry.’ How can she be, when her ears are ringing with that piteous whining noise Charlie was making; an echo stuck on replay. She has never heard anything like it before. It wasn’t the noise of a dog in pain. It was something worse.

  She swallows another urge to retch. Fights the desire to run back to Solomon’s house, because she has to know what’s happened. In truth, she thinks she wouldn’t make it anyway. Her fear would stall her before she reached the bottom fence. She’s better off not knowing.

  But, she thinks desperately, she left her books behind. And if she wants to visit Lily’s room again, she will have to find out sometime.

  ‘Eleanor?’ Her mother is still watching her.

  ‘Sorry. What?’

  ‘I was just asking what you got up to today.’

  ‘Yes, Eleanor,’ Aiden says with a smirk, ‘what did you get up to today?’

  ‘Shut up!’ she yells at him, jumping to her feet. Her reaction has both her parents laying down their cutlery, seemingly lost for words at their mild-mannered daughter losing her temper.

  ‘Only asking,’ Aiden singsongs back, continuing to shovel his food rapidly into his mouth. A few moments later he pushes his plate away and rocks back on his chair, continuing to give Eleanor that infuriating grin.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Eleanor’s father asks, looking between them.

  Eleanor is having a hard time standing still. She wants to go over to her brother and pound that smirk off his face, but even more infuriating is the knowledge that he’s stronger than she is, and she would lose. When had Aiden become such an idiot?

  However, there is other weaponry at her disposal, and she doesn’t hesitate to aim and fire. ‘Aiden was smoking with his friends in the cubby today,’ she announces.

  Aiden’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open. Then he snarls, ‘You little sneak.’

  ‘Hey now,’ their father says, but then Aiden adds, ‘Meanwhile, Elly the Elephant here was climbing over Solomon’s fence post. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen her either. Ask her why she’s spending her spare time with a grubby old man. Go on, ask her.’

  ‘Both of you, stop it. Stop it now.’ There are tears in Eleanor’s mother’s eyes. ‘I feel like I don’t know either of you. What the hell is happening here?’

  ‘Eleanor?’ her father presses.

  Three pairs of ey
es watch her, waiting for more.

  ‘What about Aiden’s smoking?’ she bites back.

  ‘We’ll deal with Aiden’s smoking too,’ her dad says in a low voice. ‘Now tell us why you were on Solomon’s property.’

  ‘He’s – he’s been letting me use his wife’s art room, to sit in or draw and paint,’ she blurts out.

  No one says anything, so she begins to find her stride. ‘It’s such a beautiful room. And Lily’s paintings are amazing. I’ve copied a lot of them into my sketchbook. Here, I’ll show you.’

  She runs to her room and grabs her tattered sketchbook, sprints back and throws it into her mother’s lap.

  Her mother opens the book and flicks though the pages slowly. Eleanor watches, wondering why she isn’t saying anything. Eventually, her mother exhales, leans back in her chair and closes her eyes. Her dad rubs his hands over his face. Eleanor stares at them in puzzlement. Why are they acting like this? What’s wrong now?

  ‘Were you ever going to tell us about this?’ her father asks eventually.

  Eleanor tries to ignore Aiden, who is smirking again.

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased that I’ve been doing something useful with my time,’ she replies. ‘It’s better than smoking with a bunch of losers in a field.’

  ‘You’re right about that,’ her mother cuts in, snapping to attention and leaning forward. ‘Aiden, can you not think of anything better to do?’

  ‘Perhaps I would, if you hadn’t brought me to the middle of bloody nowhere,’ Aiden replies, and Eleanor gets up, collects her plate and takes it to the kitchen while the others begin a familiar argument. She sneaks off to her room as their voices get louder, until Aiden screams, ‘Just leave me alone!’ and the front door bangs and she knows he is gone.

  When her mum knocks on the door a short time later, she is still flicking through the sketchbook. She comes in and sits next to Eleanor on the bed, holding the book out to her. ‘These are great, Eleanor – amazing – when did you get so good?’

  The question makes Eleanor want to cry and smile at the same time. Instead, she shrugs.

  ‘So, you’ve been spending time at Solomon’s house, have you?’ Gillian begins carefully.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what does Solomon do while you’re drawing?’

  ‘Watches TV, I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘He lets me use Lily’s room but he never comes in. He says he misses her too much to go in there. But he seems to like me being there. I think he’s a bit lonely, Mum.’

  Her mum doesn’t say anything, but a new kind of quiet falls over the room. In the uncertain space between them, Eleanor thinks about Charlie again. Tears come to her eyes. ‘Oh Mum, something horrible happened today. Solomon was carrying Charlie, and Charlie was yowling. Something seemed horribly wrong. Then Solomon shouted at me and told me to go home. And now I can’t stop thinking about it.’

  ‘He shouted at you?’

  ‘Yes. And I left so fast that I’ve left my bag and my reading books there. Now I don’t know what to do. And I’m scared – the noise that Charlie was making – it was awful.’

  ‘Has Solomon ever shouted at you before?’

  Eleanor frowns. Isn’t she listening? This is about Charlie, not Solomon. ‘No,’ she says grumpily, ‘he hasn’t.’

  Her mum puts an arm around Eleanor’s shoulders. ‘Would you like it if we went down there together tomorrow to get your things and check everything is okay?’

  It’s such a relief to have her mother’s support that Eleanor begins to cry harder. ‘Yes, please,’ she nods through gulped breaths.

  Her mum holds her close. ‘What’s the matter, honey, tell me?’

  ‘I don’t think everything is okay,’ she says into her mother’s chest, and at first she is thinking of Charlie, but then Aiden’s twisted face comes to mind, and her lack of friends at school, and her dad’s disinterest in her, and then she is crying harder than ever, because she can’t remember how long it has been since her mother gave her a proper hug, a real hug like this one.

  It is strange heading to Solomon’s house with her mother the next afternoon, climbing the fence together, watching her mother glance uncertainly around at the decaying farm sheds and equipment, leading her over the crest of the hill until they can both see the farmhouse a short distance away.

  They stop at the top of the incline, but her mother rallies first. ‘Come on then, let’s go and see how he is.’ They head down together towards the little house and Gillian knocks smartly on the door.

  Eleanor waits, saying nothing, but since they left the ridge of the hill the pit of fear inside her has deepened, because not once has she heard the sound she’s been hoping for. There is no barking from Charlie today.

  They have to knock again before they hear a shuffling from inside, and then the door opens and Solomon peers out at them. His craggy face looks greyer than usual, the loose skin hangs in jowls beneath his chin, and his whiskers are scraggy and unkempt.

  ‘Hello Solomon,’ Gillian says, ‘we’ve just come to see how you’re going. Eleanor has been telling me how worried she’s been about you and Charlie.’

  To Eleanor’s horror, as soon as her mother says these words, two great tears well up inside Solomon’s red-rimmed eyes and fall unabashed down his cheeks.

  ‘Charlie isn’t with us any more,’ Solomon announces, his hand trembling as he keeps tight hold of the door handle, as though he might fall over if he lets go. ‘He took a bait. You know, the poison meant for the foxes and cats. The bloody birds must have brought one into our field. Poor bugger was in agony.’ He waves a hand towards the garden. ‘I buried him out there last night, I put him in the sunshine, in his favourite spot.’

  ‘Oh no, Solomon, that’s terrible,’ her mother says gently, patting Solomon’s shoulder. Eleanor turns to look towards where Solomon is gesturing, and to her horror she sees a fresh mound of churned-up earth. She doesn’t want to picture Charlie’s lifeless body beneath it, but she can’t help it – his lolling tongue in that black hole, even the smell, it comes to her already packaged and makes her lean against her mother for support.

  ‘We got that dog as a pup, me and my Lily,’ he says, staring out into the garden. ‘When she was ill he sat on her bed all day, wouldn’t hardly leave her in the weeks before she died. Oh, I am sorry.’ He pulls out a tissue and blows his nose, then pushes it back into his pocket. ‘I’m not myself at all right now. Would you both like to come in?’

  ‘We don’t want to intrude on your grief, Solomon,’ Gillian says, so tenderly that Eleanor is grateful for her mother’s presence. She can’t imagine what words she might have found for Solomon if she had come here on her own.

  ‘You’re not intruding, as long as you don’t mind seeing an old man blubber. Would you like to show your mother Lily’s little room?’ he says to Eleanor. ‘I thought you might have come down here for an inspection, I’m surprised it’s taken you so long.’

  Gillian flicks a glance at Eleanor, who prays her mother won’t let on that she’s only just found out about her visits. ‘This way,’ she says quickly, and leads her mother around the side of the house. As she opens the door to the little sunroom, her mother steps inside. ‘Oh, Eleanor, I can see why you like it in here. It’s so lovely and light, and what a view!’

  They look down over the fields towards the woods in the distance.

  ‘And here are Lily’s paintings.’ Eleanor goes over to the pile in the corner.

  Her mother kneels before them and looks through. ‘Oh wow, these are great. I can see why you’re inspired, Eleanor. It’s a pity . . .’ She stops herself.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, I was just thinking it’s a pity we didn’t put a room like this onto our house.’ She tries to smile but it doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘Maybe one day, hey,’ she says, rubbing Eleanor’s shoulder.

  ‘Maybe,’ Eleanor agrees, wondering why they do this – pretend about things they know are never going to ha
ppen.

  Solomon hasn’t followed them. Once Eleanor has collected her bag, they walk back around the side of the house and pause at the open front door. Gillian pushes it back and calls, ‘Hello!’

  ‘Come in,’ replies a gravelly voice. As they walk through to the lounge, with Gillian glancing all around her, they find Solomon back in his armchair, the little tabby cat on his lap. ‘Thank you for letting Eleanor use Lily’s room,’ Gillian says. ‘It’s a beautiful space.’ Eleanor is just relaxing into this visit, when her mother adds, ‘But perhaps it might be better if she had a break for now, you know, to let you have some peace while you’re grieving for Charlie.’

  Solomon doesn’t turn around, but he waves a hand at them. ‘She can come whenever she likes,’ he says. ‘Charlie enjoyed having her here and so do I.’

  Eleanor turns to her mother, who bites her lip and doesn’t say anything. Then she realises that her mother’s gaze has travelled past her. She follows it to see it is trained on the television. On the screen there are pictures of the fluorescent stripes of ambulances, vehicles parked haphazardly across roads, people wandering dazed along the streets.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Gillian asks.

  ‘Bombs have gone off in London,’ Solomon says. ‘My old hometown. Still feel the pull when stuff like this happens, even though I haven’t visited in over forty years.’

  Eleanor’s mother inhales sharply. ‘My brother lives in London. He has a baby girl.’

  At her words, Solomon shuffles slowly round in his chair so that he can look up at her. The cat jumps down from his lap and disappears. ‘There are a lot of people in London. Chances are he’ll be fine.’