She gave him her best selfie pout and Marcus’s gaze followed the predictable route from her mouth, down her neck, settling on her breasts. The bra she wore hitched up her Cs into Ds. Some of her friends were seriously considering implants, but there was no way she needed them, especially as she was still developing.
‘How long are you staying?’ Marcus took a bite of his toast, forcing his gaze back up.
‘A week. But it’s going to feel like a year around here.’ She squeezed past, retrieving her bag off the hall table.
‘It’s not so bad. I’ll introduce you to my mates. There are some decent clubs in Newquay. You got your ID?’
‘Of course.’ She patted her bag.
‘We could head down there tonight if you like. Plans are already afoot.’
Afoot, she thought incredulously. A geek, after all. But if nothing else, she could brag about him to the girls, big him up a bit, use some filters on Instagram. She couldn’t let Katie down.
‘Cool,’ she said, sliding between him and the wall as she headed back to the kitchen. She made sure her body brushed against his.
Chapter Fifteen
Shona was waiting for Claire to bring Maggie and Rain down to the farm. She wanted to settle them into their rooms but was feeling agitated. She hadn’t wanted to have the conversation with Patrick today of all days, but he’d brought it up out of nowhere and he wouldn’t let it drop. And on top of that, he’d completely forgotten about the reunion, refusing to join everyone up at Claire’s for breakfast.
‘You’re being more stubborn than usual, Pat,’ Shona said, instantly regretting it. She didn’t think he looked at all well, so she’d ended up making him breakfast at home. ‘And don’t put so much butter on your toast. You know what Dr Jenkins would say.’
‘And you know what I’d say to Dr Jenkins.’
Shona sat down next to him. He wasn’t going to get any better, she knew that, let alone change his ways. She also knew there was one thing and one thing only preventing him from agreeing to sell up – and that’s what had been on his mind this morning.
‘You know, it’s OK for us to move house now, Pat. She’s not coming back.’ She hated herself for wishing that this was one thing he’d actually forget, but his brain stubbornly refused to let go.
Patrick put down his knife, staring at Shona through eyes she’d never seen look quite so sad. ‘We made a promise, Shona…’ He looked away, as if he couldn’t recall what the promise was. Just that there was one.
Shona felt tears building. Each day he seemed to get a little worse.
‘We promised her. And we promised each other,’ he added.
Shona went to the window, squinting up the drive to see if Claire and the others were coming. Behind her she heard Patrick clear his plate, gather his stick and hat and leave the house without another word, shrugging away as she tried to catch his arm. Then she heard the Land Rover’s engine start up and she knew it was too late to stop him.
She sighed, staring up the long drive. As long as he stayed local or on farm tracks, she wouldn’t worry too much. He was still a good driver, but she wished he’d just cool off with a walk around the farm like he usually did. Suddenly, the back door opened, followed by chattering. She closed her eyes briefly.
‘Mum, we’re here.’ Claire kissed her cheek. ‘Where’s Dad off to in such a hurry?’
Shona avoided answering. ‘Oh, Maggie, how lovely to see you.’ She gave her a hug. ‘And you must be Rain?’ Her welcoming nature kicked in. She was adept at making people feel as though they’d lived at Trevellin all their lives, a skill developed from bed and breakfast guests constantly coming and going as well as a houseful of children – hers and their friends. She hugged them both, finally giving her daughter a fond squeeze.
‘Shona was like a second mother to me when I was a kid. I virtually lived at Trevellin,’ Maggie explained to Rain.
‘Thank you for having us, Mrs Lucas,’ Rain said politely. ‘You have a beautiful home.’
Shona was warmed by the girl’s slightly old-fashioned manner, which her looks belied. ‘It’s my pleasure,’ she replied, though the comment prompted another pang of regret about selling.
When she’d first walked through the front door of the derelict old farm nearly half a century ago, she’d fallen in love with the place immediately. A slate and stone farmhouse, Trevellin Farm was a failing old dairy business back then. Patrick worked it back to profitability while Shona took in bed and breakfast guests. One thing was for certain – when they first set eyes on the place, they knew it was their forever home where they would raise happy, healthy children on the Cornish coast just like they’d always dreamt.
How time had flown, she thought, catching her breath as she showed them up the creaky old staircase. She watched the trail of women in the big gilt mirror on the half landing, each one a different generation. She felt both proud and desperately sad.
‘I thought you and Rain might like the attic bedrooms,’ Shona said, leading them up the second staircase. ‘It’s cosy up here.’
When they’d moved in, the top floor had been nothing more than a draughty storage space crawling with birds and spiders. When they’d turned their first year’s profit on the farm, Patrick had instructed an architect to plan the conversion, although he’d done most of the actual work himself. He was good with his hands. It became extra guest accommodation during busy summers but was hardly used nowadays.
‘I thought you could have the lilac room, Maggie, and Rain, you’re in here.’ Shona was a little breathless as they reached the top floor. She swept back an errant strand of grey hair as it escaped the clip she always wore. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in.’
Back on the landing, Shona saw Claire slipping her phone back into her pocket. ‘That was work,’ she said. ‘They need me to do a quick viewing.’ She glanced at her watch.
‘Really? Can’t you say no?’ Shona felt she should go out and look for Patrick, but it would be rude to leave Maggie and Rain alone.
Claire shook her head, pulling a face. ‘Not really, though I’m not happy about it. One of the agents was meant to cover for me, but she’s called in sick and Jeff’s doing another viewing. He’s desperate, but did say it won’t take long.’
Shona sighed. There was no point arguing with her daughter any more than there was with Patrick. She went back downstairs, leaving Claire to explain to Maggie. She stood at the kitchen window again, watching out for her husband just as she used to for Lenni in the early days. When there was still hope.
Chapter Sixteen
Claire drove as fast as she dared along the narrow lanes. She knew all the passing places, the sharp bends, the blind corners and junctions, and was able to dash to the office in town to collect the keys and still make it to the property before the client arrived.
Whatever happened, she’d be back home within the hour.
‘It’s a man viewing on his own, Claire.’ Even over the phone, she’d heard the guilt in Jeff’s voice – partly because he knew she was on annual leave, and partly because he never usually sent female agents to view with male clients they didn’t already know. He was old-fashioned like that. But he’d sounded desperate.
‘He’s a cash buyer,’ Jeff had added, offering to swap viewings with her, though the alternative was much further to drive. Claire opted for the quick job close to home.
Galen Cottage was as derelict as they came and had been on their books for over a year. She’d be glad to see the back of it, but with only two bedrooms and a roof that had more holes than slates, the remote cottage wasn’t getting any bites. She hoped this man wanted a project.
Claire parked up and unlocked the front door. Inside it smelt musty and damp, but that was to be expected; it hadn’t been lived in for years. As she waited for the client, she wrestled with a couple of warped windows to let in some air, but they wouldn’t budge. Years of paint and the salty sea air had made them stick fast.
‘Oh, come on,’ she said, glancing at her
watch, pacing the small living room. ‘Don’t be late today of all days.’
She went upstairs and looked around. While she was up there, she thought she heard the crunch of gravel on the drive. She peered out of the tiny panes but saw nothing. She managed to force open the bathroom window, feeling slightly sick from the stench. The toilet wasn’t exactly going to help the sale, even if it was obvious that the whole place needed gutting.
She heard a noise downstairs.
Finally, she thought. If it wasn’t him, she’d call Jeff and ask for Mr Barrett’s number. She’d been in such a rush that she’d forgotten to make a note of it, but when she felt in her pocket she realised that she’d left her phone in the car.
‘Hello?’ she called out, wondering if he’d let himself in. She’d left the door wide open. She trod carefully on the steep stairs, going down to greet the client.
The narrow hallway was dark and gloomy – the electricity had been cut off years ago – and she kicked aside all the old mail and flyers lying on the grimy tiles. But there was no sign of anyone.
She put a hand on the front door, tugging on the handle, convinced she’d left it open. Perhaps he’d come in and had a quick look, seen the state of the place and left immediately. She pulled harder on the handle, but it wouldn’t move. ‘Damn this stupid house,’ she said, giving the door a kick.
‘Hello,’ she called out, her face close to the wood. ‘Anyone out there? Can you give the door a shove?’ She tried again, but when she bent down and peered through the gap, she could see it was more than stuck. It was locked.
‘What the hell…?’ She felt in her back pocket for the large, old-fashioned door key, but it wasn’t there. She dashed back upstairs to see if she’d left it in the bathroom, but she hadn’t. She froze in the bathroom doorway, staring at the window she’d opened only a couple of minutes before. It was now shut. The stench of drains was already building up again.
‘Christ,’ she whispered, hand over her mouth, slowly checking behind the door. She didn’t believe in ghosts but was willing to if it meant she wasn’t locked inside the cottage with a psycho.
Halfway down the stairs she stopped, suddenly remembering where the key was. She’d left it in the lock. On the outside. Back in the hallway, she glanced about nervously, wondering what to do. Habit made her reach into her pocket for her phone again – it was time to call Jeff – but of course, she’d left it in the car.
Then another noise. She couldn’t be certain if it had come from inside or outside.
‘You’re being silly,’ she tried to convince herself. The noise was most likely from a passer-by who had seen the door open and decided they should lock it. The locals looked out for one another around here, and she’d noticed the public footpath sign cutting across the driveway. No doubt loads of walkers came through. Claire almost burst with relief.
Then she heard a different noise – something that sounded too much like a floorboard creaking upstairs. Her skin prickled.
‘Hello? Who’s there?’ She reached for an old poker lying beside the fireplace and approached the bottom of the stairs. Jeff would be ecstatic if she bludgeoned a potential buyer. ‘Anyone up there?’ Her voice was croaky, loaded with fear.
The floor creaked again, as if someone was on the landing. She trod on the first step, her throat pulsing in time with her racing heart. She’d heard of estate agents getting into trouble on remote viewings. As she rounded the narrow dogleg bend on the stairs, she swore she saw a shadow pass across the grimy wall. She choked on whatever it was that was constricting her throat. Bile, fear… she didn’t know. Instinct told her to get out.
Darting back down into the living room, she ran to the stuck window and raised the poker above her head. She screwed up her eyes and brought it down on the glass over and over, smashing hard at the old panes. Adrenalin and fear fuelled her need to escape as shards of thin glass showered onto the quarry tiles. The brittle glazing bars didn’t take much force from the poker before there was a space big enough to climb through.
Shaking, she clambered up onto the ledge and coiled her legs out of the small gap. Remnants of glass cut into her shoulder, but she didn’t care. Whoever she’d heard up there was nearly down the stairs. She could hear slow, plodding footsteps on the wooden boards as if they didn’t have much urgency, as if they knew she was already terrified.
Claire jumped down off the windowsill onto the soil below. Her heel became trapped between two rocks, so she kicked off her shoes and ran, stumbling, panting, to the safety of her car. Her body didn’t feel like her own.
‘Oh God, oh God…’ She yanked the car door open and leapt inside, reaching for the ignition where she knew she’d left the keys. But they were gone.
‘No, no…!’ she cried, covering her face. She searched around frantically – in the ignition again, then on the floor and under the seat. She twisted around to check the back seat, the passenger side footwell…
The keys were gone. And so were her mobile phone and handbag.
Chapter Seventeen
It was Maggie who drove to pick her up from the village, with Jason beside her in the camper. She pulled up alongside the kerb and got out, Claire virtually falling into Maggie’s arms outside the village shop.
‘I’m so sorry, Mags. This is such a lousy start to the week.’ She’d charged down to the village store fifteen minutes ago, begging to use the shop owner’s phone so someone could fetch her. She’d tried Callum’s number first, but there’d been no reply.
‘What on earth happened, Claire?’ Jason said, prising his sister from Maggie’s arms. ‘Get in the van and tell us.’
Grateful to be sitting, Claire hugged herself, rocking gently, telling them how scared she’d been without actually explaining what had happened. Her words were muddled and didn’t make much sense.
Jason touched her shoulder. There was blood on her blouse.
‘Someone was in the house, I swear, though I didn’t see them. They locked me inside and stole my keys, bag and phone.’
‘God, that’s terrible,’ Maggie said, gripping her hands. ‘We should call the police.’
‘No, please… don’t,’ Claire said. ‘Jeff won’t be happy if there’s a story in the local papers about a viewing gone wrong. It’ll be bad for our reputation.’
‘But someone stole your stuff,’ Maggie said, eyeing Jason. ‘You need to report it.’
‘I can cancel my cards and my phone’s insured. Really, I just want to forget it.’
‘We should go back to the cottage,’ Jason said. ‘At least see about your car.’
Claire nodded tentatively. ‘Fine, but I’m not going inside.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Jason replied. ‘I will.’
* * *
‘It’s in a bad state,’ Maggie said, steering the van onto the overgrown driveway.
‘We’ve had it on our books ages,’ Claire replied. ‘It reminds me of the old cottage on the farm.’ She stopped herself from saying more, though she’d already seen the hurt look on Jason’s face, knowing it was a trigger for him. She still wasn’t thinking clearly.
‘It’s similar indeed,’ Jason said. ‘We spent hours playing up at the farm cottage as kids, do you remember?’ Claire knew he was trying to sound light about it.
‘I remember!’ Maggie chipped in, wrapping a cardigan around Claire. She was shivering. ‘We used to make up murder mysteries, scaring ourselves witless.’
The little cottage was built on Trevellin’s eastern boundary during the late eighteen hundreds. It was a typical workers’ dwelling, common to the area. Surrounded by a thicket of trees, they’d believed their father when he once told them Hansel and Gretel lived there, and it remained their playhouse until he banned them from it when half the roof caved in. It was way beyond any repairs Patrick could tackle. Like the barns on the farm, it had since just sat there, unloved and unneeded, for years.
Claire reckoned it would fetch a good price if sold separately to the farm with an acre or so
of land. It was ripe for development. But no one would ever forget that it was the source of Jason’s resentment, the catalyst for the argument that drove a wedge between him and their father.
‘I thought you said you’d been locked in?’ Maggie said, pointing at the front door. It was wide open.
Claire leant forward on the dashboard. ‘But… I don’t understand.’ She saw the look that Jason shot Maggie. ‘I promise you, it was locked when I was inside. That’s why I smashed the window.’
Jason reached forward and touched his sister’s arm. ‘We believe you,’ he said. ‘Wait here while I go and check the place over.’ They all got out of the van, though Claire refused to take a single step away from it.
‘Be careful,’ she called out as Maggie and Jason walked off together. The sight of the cottage made her feel sick and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to do another viewing there, not alone anyway.
Claire shielded her eyes from the sun, squinting as Jason showed something to Maggie by the front door. Then they both looked back at Claire. She watched as they went around the side of the cottage where she’d parked her car. It was something Jeff had taught her long ago – not to detract from a property’s frontage with an agency vehicle, maximising its kerb appeal. And Galen Cottage needed all the help it could get.
A few minutes later, Jason and Maggie came back into sight. Maggie returned to the camper while Jason went into the cottage. ‘Why don’t you sit back in the van again? You look pale.’
‘I don’t need to sit down,’ Claire said. ‘Sorry, Mags. I didn’t mean to snap. The day hasn’t got off to a great start.’
Maggie took her by the shoulders. ‘It’s fine. I’m your oldest friend.’
As kids, they’d trusted each other implicitly, looking out for each other. But as they’d hit their teens, Claire wondered if she’d sensed a tinge of jealousy from Maggie. So when a few of her things had gone missing – a couple of CDs, some money, bits of cheap jewellery – she decided not to say anything. Even though she was convinced Maggie was responsible.
The Reunion: An utterly gripping psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Page 7
