Diana could see the relief on her sister’s face. They both knew their mother was unlikely to welcome Rachel with open arms. Sylvia Miller had always been a world-class grudge-bearer; she had refused to mention their father’s name from the day he had walked out, had even refused to go to his funeral after his death from cancer. There was little chance she would welcome her younger daughter with open arms, especially as Diana had defied her by going to Thailand to fetch Rachel. They would have to meet at some point, of course, but Diana was content to avoid that moment for the next couple of days at least.
‘I bought something for Charlie,’ said Rachel, rooting in her tote bag and pulling out a large teddy bear dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words I Thailand. ‘I picked this up at Samui airport when you went to the ladies’. What do you think?’
‘He’s a bit old for that,’ Diana replied, trying not to smile. ‘If you’d got him the new iPod I think it’d be more his style.’
‘Well, it’s the thought that counts,’ Rachel said, looking a touch put out. ‘Perhaps we can all do something together at the weekend?’ she asked more hopefully.
‘I told you. He’s at school.’
‘Doesn’t he come home on Fridays?’
Diana shook her head. She could see her sister’s disappointment. Charlie and Rachel had always got on like a house on fire. A closet tomboy, Auntie Rachel had taught her son how to ride a bike and do all the rough-and-tumble boy things like climbing trees and building dams.
‘Well, I’ll send it to him,’ she said. ‘Maybe he can tell his mates he went to Thailand for a full-moon party.’
They turned off a country lane and through a set of gates on to a long driveway. To the left was the lake, and set on a low hill overlooking it was Somerfold. Diana sighed with relief at seeing her home.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Rachel, sitting forward. ‘Is this it? It’s massive!’
Diana realised that her sister would never have seen or possibly even heard of their country home.
‘How big is it?’ gasped Rachel, her face practically squashed against the window.
‘Probably a bit too big,’ said Diana modestly, although she was pleased at her sister’s reaction.
‘How many staff do you need in a place like this?’
‘The minimum, although it’s nice to have people around, to be honest.’
‘I bet you’ve got a live-in gardener and everything.’
‘Phil and his wife Sue live in a cottage near the stables.’
‘Stables!’ laughed Rachel. ‘Do you have a sexy groom in tight jodhpurs?’
‘Depends on your point of view, and anyway, Jessica only works part-time.’
They almost giggled, a trace of their old good-humoured banter poking its head above the parapet. As the car pulled up at the front door, Mrs Bills stepped out. A formal dresser, she was wearing her usual pale grey skirt and blouse.
‘A female butler?’ whispered Rachel as they got out, crunching on to the gravel.
‘Mrs Bills is the housekeeper,’ said Diana. ‘Her husband David has been kind enough to drive us from the airport,’ she said, smiling towards the front seat.
‘It’s like bloody Downton Abbey.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Rachel,’ said the woman, taking their bags. ‘I’ve put you in the Lake House. Would you like me to show you the way?’
‘The Lake House?’ said Rachel, turning to Diana. ‘Aren’t I staying here?’ There was disappointment on her face, not just because she was being sidelined to an outbuilding, but because of what it really meant: she was back, but she wasn’t being welcomed back.
‘I thought it would be a better place for you to work,’ said Diana, feeling suddenly guilty. She found herself wanting to justify her very deliberate decision to keep Rachel away from the main house. ‘It’s much quieter and tucked away. Julian used to go out there when he needed a clear head.’
Rachel nodded, but was clearly unconvinced. ‘That sounds good.’
‘Let’s go inside first,’ said Diana. ‘I’ll show you around quickly.’
Diana would have been lying if she’d said she wasn’t enjoying the open-mouthed wonder on her sister’s face as they walked into the grand entrance hall, through the drawing rooms and around the gallery and library on the ground floor. Much of the Georgian grandeur was still in evidence in the tall windows and roof mouldings – Diana was particularly fond of the plaster eagles swooping from the ceiling rose in the ballroom – but she had worked hard with an interior designer to make the place feel softer, more welcoming, by adding more modern furniture and deep cream carpets underfoot.
‘It’s mental,’ smiled Rachel, flopping down on to a leather chesterfield in the living room. ‘It’s a long way from Charleville Street,’ she said, referring to their old Ilfracombe home. ‘It’s like the Queen has just left the room.’ There was no sense that she was mocking; just delight and excitement at the size and luxuriousness of the surroundings. Perhaps people really can change, thought Diana, reaching over to the walnut coffee table, where Mrs Bills had left a steaming cafetière, two porcelain mugs and a plate stacked high with home-made biscuits. ‘Seriously, Di, this house is beautiful. I prefer it to Julian’s parents’ place. It’s grand but still a home. How the hell did you find it?’
Diana paused before answering. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get into all this right now, but she supposed the time had come for complete honesty.
‘An agent found it for us. We bought it after the scandal, because we couldn’t stay in London. We needed to get away from that social scene, partly because the party invitations dried up overnight – people in our circle really don’t want your misfortune rubbing off on them. And partly because, well, I wanted Julian out of temptation’s way.’
She watched her sister lower her head in shame. She wasn’t sorry that she was making her feel awkward.
‘The fallout from the story was difficult. Photographers following us for months, sly gossip in the press, the fact that Julian’s name became synonymous with sleazy businessmen.’
‘You’ve made your point,’ said Rachel with quiet defiance. ‘But it wasn’t all down to me. Julian had the affair. With an eighteen-year-old girl. You can’t do things like that and expect there not to be consequences.’
Diana looked away, conceding the truth in what Rachel had just said. She had imagined this confrontation over the years, imagined making her sister feel sorry, really desperately sorry and ashamed for what she had done, but she felt no victory now the moment was here. Both Rachel and Julian, the two people she had loved most in the world, had been wrong. It didn’t make her triumphant to dredge it all up – it just made her sad.
‘Are we ever going to get over this, or am I just wasting my time being here?’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ replied Diana. ‘To make amends? To make yourself feel better?’
‘Partly,’ she admitted.
‘I should show you to the Lake House,’ she said, wanting to change the subject.
Rachel picked up her rucksack and they went out of the main door of the house, Diana leading her left down a gravel path, past the swimming pool, gleaming like polished tanzanite in the darkening day.
They turned a corner and the lake was in front of them. When a land agent had been commissioned to find the Denvers the perfect country house within commuting distance of London, they had been inundated with dozens of beautiful properties, but Somerfold had stood out from the start. A contrite Julian had allowed Diana to choose the property, and it was the lake that had swung it for her. Diana had always loved the water. Not in the way that Rachel did – Rachel the water baby, the superb swimmer – but she found it soothing. After her parents’ divorce, when they had moved to Ilfracombe to be near her mother’s sister, she had taken long walks along the cliffs and it had helped her deal with her new
life, just as she knew that the lake would help her adjust to life in the countryside.
A building on stilts jutted out into the water.
‘Wow,’ whispered Rachel, pausing to admire the view.
Diana had to admit it was impressive. Built out of slate and cedarwood in sleek architectural lines, it had been a labour of love for Julian bringing it to life.
‘It used to be the old boathouse. It was falling down when we bought the place, so Jules wanted to renovate it. He demolished it and rebuilt it from scratch. He loved it, although the truth was, he wasn’t around enough to use it.’
‘I thought you said you bought Somerfold to get Julian away from London. To keep him here.’
‘That was the plan. But he worked so hard, so late, that it just wasn’t practical for him to come home every night.’
She didn’t miss her sister’s fleeting distrustful expression.
Pulling a key out of her trouser pocket, Diana pushed it into the lock and opened the door. She hadn’t been in here for weeks, and there was a slight smell of dust and damp.
‘It’s been a bit neglected, I’m afraid,’ she said, opening a window to let in warm, sweet-smelling evening air.
‘That’s what happens when people work too hard,’ replied Rachel. She said it absently, but Diana got her meaning.
The door opened on to a wide living space. It had a grey modular sofa, a television, and a beautiful oak desk overlooking the lake, and they could see the sun setting over the water through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
‘The balcony runs around the perimeter of the house. It’s lovely to sit out and watch the kingfishers and herons,’ said Diana, pointing to two Adirondack chairs outside.
‘I bet you can dive straight off into the water,’ said Rachel, her eyes wide in pleasure.
‘I think it’s deep enough,’ confirmed Diana, knowing that she was too timid to try it herself but imagining her sister jumping in and cooling off.
‘Where do I sleep?’ asked Rachel.
Diana pointed to the left.
‘There’s a bed through here. There’s cooking equipment and a fridge over there,’ she said, pointing to the opposite end of the house.
She watched Rachel running her hand over the bookshelves and realised, quite bitterly, that she had inadvertently put her sister in her perfect home.
‘So how do we start this?’ she asked finally.
Rachel flopped on the sofa and crossed her legs.
‘It’s a bit like police work, I suppose,’ she said, flinging her head back with tiredness. ‘You’ve seen it on the TV, haven’t you? They get a big board on the wall with photos and lines linking people and events. That’s pretty much how you start an investigation, although without the board.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Journalists are more into scrawled notes on the back of receipts, but it’s the same principle. We want to build up the fullest picture of Julian’s life we can.’
‘Of course,’ said Diana, feeling uncomfortable. She knew she would have to be open and honest with her sister, but she hadn’t appreciated how awkward it would make her feel.
‘Tell me we’ve got coffee in this place?’ said Rachel, standing up and walking to the tiny galley kitchen.
Diana had thought that Thailand might have calmed her sister down, but she was still like an alley cat – constantly restless, constantly on edge, as she had always been as a child.
‘This is a great place to start,’ Rachel shouted. ‘You say he used to work here? What sort of work?’
Diana shook her head. ‘I don’t really know. He didn’t discuss business with me. But there’s a couple of filing cabinets in the other room. They’re locked; I tried, but I’ve no idea where the keys are.’
‘We can get your driver to break them open. He looks brawny enough.’
Rachel walked through with two mugs of coffee. Mrs Bills must have stocked the fridge, thought Diana, noticing that her sister had a Kit Kat sticking out of her pocket.
‘I need to know everything else. Home life, sex life, family life, social life. And I’ll need you to put me in touch with anyone who can fill in the rest, like someone who can tell me what projects he was working on at the company.’
‘Okay,’ said Diana. ‘I think I know who to ask.’
‘Good. I’ll need to speak to as many people who knew Julian as I can. His colleagues, his friends, particularly any close friends, the ones he’d tell his secrets to.’
Diana looked doubtful. ‘Men don’t have those sorts of friendships.’
‘People know more than they think they know,’ she said through slurps of coffee. ‘Besides, I need to start somewhere. I’ll have to go through his personal stuff too. Photographs, bank statements, receipts . . .’
‘I’ve already done that; it’s all in a box at the house. I went through his drawers, his pockets. I didn’t see anything suspicious, though.’
‘Good, but I’ll have to do it again. And I’ll need access to his computer.’
Diana blushed as she realised she didn’t know the password to her husband’s computer – in fact she couldn’t even have said for sure how many he had. Did he have a personal laptop as well as his company one? Would he have kept it at the London house? Did the police take it? Why didn’t she know this stuff?
‘I’ll try,’ she said haltingly. ‘But I really don’t know much about the company.’
‘I appreciate this all seems a bit weird to you,’ Rachel said soothingly. ‘But we need to look into everything, however small or irrelevant it seems to you. And most importantly, I need you to tell me everything. No secrets, no holding back because you think something is too personal or embarrassing.’ She looked at Diana. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’
Diana nodded, but in truth she wasn’t sure. Who would expose every last detail of their life to anyone, let alone to an unscrupulous sister? Whose marriage could stand up to that sort of scrutiny? And yet for the past few minutes she had felt a strange swell of relief. She had hoped that this was what Rachel would do – grasp the problem by the scruff of the neck and start shaking – because no one, not the police, not her family, not even the press, seemed interested in doing anything about her husband’s death. Taking it seriously; taking her seriously.
‘Yes, let’s do it,’ she said. ‘I have to do it, Rach. I won’t be able to rest until we do.’
Rachel took a deep breath and nodded towards the big desk. The setting sun was bright orange now, spilling deep golden light all around them, so that she felt as if they were floating in a summery equivalent of a snow globe.
‘Tonight we sleep and tomorrow we talk,’ she said. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise you.’
Diana forced a smile and turned to leave. That was exactly what she was afraid of. She had to get to the truth – she had to, or she would go mad – but she had the unsettling feeling that the truth was the last thing she wanted to hear.
11
Rachel looked out of the window of her black cab, craning her neck to see why the taxi had stopped: another red light. Bloody London. The streets outside were dark, the lights of the shops and restaurants shining off the rain that had suddenly hammered on to the roof of the cab five minutes earlier and had just as suddenly stopped. Just like being home, she thought. In Thailand, rain came without warning, pouring down so hard it left tiny footprints in the wet sand. But out in the tropics, after ten minutes everything would be dry, the whole storm forgotten. Here, despite it being the height of summer, they would be splashing through puddles until midday tomorrow. The thought of the beach inevitably made her think of Liam. What was he doing right now? She glanced at the digital clock next to the cab’s meter – she really should get a watch – 9.12 p.m. Liam would be fast asleep. Alone, hopefully, she thought, then wished she hadn’t, forcing herself to focus on the mee
ting instead.
Rachel had arranged to meet Julian’s PA, Anne-Marie Carr, in the hope of getting some background on Julian’s movements in the week prior to his death. The woman had been decidedly chilly on the telephone, and it was only when Diana had confirmed that Rachel was acting on her behalf that she had reluctantly agreed. I hope the old battleaxe gives me more than my sister has, she thought as the cab finally cleared the lights.
Rachel had tried to interview her sister that morning, but had come away with virtually nothing of any use. Despite her pep talk the night before about the importance of openness and co-operation, Diana had persisted in presenting a picture of a perfect marriage. According to her, both she and Julian had been blissfully happy in every department; not even the problems with her pregnancies had cast a shadow over their sunny lives. Rachel supposed that for now she had to go along with it – she couldn’t reasonably expect Diana to tell her the unvarnished truth straight away – but it was frustrating: she felt as if she hadn’t got off the launch pad.
Maybe I’m not as good at this as I thought I was, she reflected, watching a single raindrop make its way down the streaked window. One thing was for sure though: however much she had tried to tell herself otherwise, Liam had been right when he suggested that she missed this dirty, cluttered, unfriendly city. Thailand was beautiful, it was exotic, it was Paradise. And yes, right now it felt more like home than here. But there was something about London: it thrummed with energy, the sense that anything could happen on any street corner at any moment; it was vital, that was the word. That was why she had come here in the first place: London was where things happened. At sixth-form college, one of her teachers had taken Rachel aside and told her – to her utter surprise – that she stood a decent chance of getting into Oxford or Cambridge. She had gone through the motions and was even offered a place at Trinity Hall, but she had never had any real interest in riding round some half-dead jumped-up tourist trap on a bicycle. She wanted the bright lights, the sounds and smells of the big city. So she had gone to UCL to do an English degree, landing in the capital just as Cool Britannia and Britpop were making it the epicentre of everything.
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