Keep You Close

by Lucie Whitehouse

  At the end, where it turned away from the Thames, a steep wooden bridge led to the university boathouses. The bank was deserted here, too, the boathouses locked and dark between the strip of grey river and the fringe of leafless trees behind. When she reached one with tiered balconies, she took the concrete stairs on the outside wall and found a sheltered spot on the first floor. Huddled into the corner, she hugged her knees so hard she felt her pulse in her arms. Cory knew. While she’d been running, it was all she could think, the magnitude of it drowning out any other thought or interpretation. He knew – he knew.

  And Marianne had told him, more or less. Into Rowan’s head came a picture of Jacqueline’s face at the crematorium and rage surged through her again. Typical Marianne – so preoccupied with how she felt, her apparently unbearable guilt, that she hadn’t thought about how it might affect anyone else.

  Is that why you needed to talk to me, Marianne? To tell me you couldn’t hack it any more? You couldn’t live with it? For Christ’s sake! Did you even think about what it would do to your mother?

  But what exactly had Marianne told him? How much did Cory have to go on? Rowan took a breath and tried to think clearly. If he still only thought she’d done it, it couldn’t be much. The small comfort of that idea was erased at once, however, by a memory of his older woman in New York, the relentlessness with which she said he’d gone after the secrets of her psyche. Deeper and deeper, like Theseus in the labyrinth.

  Was that why Marianne had jumped? Perhaps she hadn’t meant to say anything – why would she, suddenly, after so many years? – but he’d got to her. Was that why she’d sent the card? Was that why she’d been frightened, needed Rowan’s help? With a sick feeling, she thought of the five days it had taken to reach her.

  A pattering sound pulled her out of her thoughts. The snow had turned to slush, and the clumps falling beyond the shelter of the upper balcony, inches from her feet, were so wet they melted on contact. The cold of the concrete reached through her jeans and woollen coat into her bones.

  Why was Cory doing this, really? His portrait, some spurious rubbish about the ‘truth’ of a person? Rowan felt another surge of anger. What crap. It was about publicity, fame – his fame. The Hanna Ferrara story wasn’t an unfortunate turn of events – you didn’t need many operational brain cells to know that painting one of the world’s most famous women complete with an eight-inch penis would get you media attention. No, what would take brainwork was devising a way to top that, up the stakes, keep yourself newsworthy. Unveiling a high-profile young artist as a killer, though – that might do it.

  —

  She stayed too long by the river and when she reached the gate out of the meadow, it was locked for the night. Nine in summer, said the sign, dusk in winter. The railings by Christ Church and the gate between Corpus Christi and Merton were both too high to climb so she had no choice but to stumble all the way back to the river in the dark to see if she could still get out behind the Head of the River pub. As students, she and three or four others from Brasenose – Theo was there – had found a way through when they’d crashed Corpus Ball but the sky had been lighter then, a summer’s night, and the back of the pub had been much better lit. They’d been laughing, already slightly drunk, on an adventure, but now she was on her own, wet and shaking with cold. In the intervening decade, the thicket of elder and bramble in which the railings were embedded had grown very nearly impenetrable, and she cut her hands and left cheek as she fought her way through.

  The slush had become rain and, finally, drizzle, and hazy orange clouds hung below the streetlights on Folly Bridge. The pavement was black. As she trudged back up St Aldate’s past the police station, she was overtaken by exhaustion. Walking to Fyfield Road would take at least half an hour.

  She turned to look over her shoulder and as if she had willed it into existence, a cab with its light on came around the corner. Her hips ached as she lowered herself into the back seat and gave the address.

  Head against the rain-speckled window, she watched the city pass, shops closing, the pubs coming to life. Her worst fear had been realised but at least, she tried to console herself, the situation had come into clearer focus. At least she had an idea of what she was facing now.

  She lit a fire as soon as she arrived back but even after a bath and a large glass of wine, she couldn’t warm up. Her hands shook so badly as she buttered a slice of toast that she dropped the knife and sent it skittering across the kitchen floor.

  Finally, just after ten, she filled both the hot-water bottles in the airing cupboard, put an extra blanket on the bed and got in. She turned the light off but, almost immediately, her head filled with the kind of thoughts that morphed into horrifying nightmares so she switched the lamp back on and reached for her book.

  She was still reading two hours later when, outside the window, there was a scraping sound – a scratch. At once, her body went rigid. Seconds passed, pressure building in her ears from the intensity of the listening. A tick from the floorboards as the house cooled, a clank from the radiator but, otherwise, silence. She’d imagined it or misheard – the day had been so extreme, she was so tired. She listened a few seconds longer then forced herself to relax her shoulders.

  Not a scratch this time but a squeak – rubber on wet stone. A shoe. A trainer.

  The hairs on her arms stood up. What should she do? The light was on, she couldn’t look out of the window without risking being seen, but turning it off might draw attention, too.

  As quietly as possible, she pushed off the blankets. Marianne’s dressing gown was on the back of the door; she put it on and slipped her phone into the pocket. The door handle screeched. On the landing, she took one of the heavy brass candlesticks from the table outside Seb’s office and crept downstairs.

  Hand flat against the wall, she made her way to the kitchen. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, a faint glow came in from outside, making it easier to see. Keeping close to the shadow around the cabinets, she edged to the back of the room and leaned forward until she had a view through the window over the sink.

  Nothing. The lawn was empty and so – she craned, looking right – was the patio. She peered into the shadows around the shed and down at the far end by the wall beyond the birches. Nothing. In the time it had taken her to get down, had he gone?

  She let go of the breath she’d been holding then almost immediately froze again. There was something. There, behind the rhododendron at the end of the bed above the patio, just visible, a – shape, a black absence of light. As she stared, it began to take on form: an elbow, a knee. A hood.

  She gripped the candlestick. The police – she reached for her phone then stopped. Cory knew.

  The shape took on greater definition. He was facing away from the house, she realised, not towards it: she was looking at the tip of a shoulder, a back. He wasn’t crouched but sitting on the stones at the edge of the flowerbed, just a few feet from where Marianne had fallen.

  For a few seconds, neither of them moved. Did he know she was watching? Did he think he was hidden there, behind the bush? Then she realised something else. Cory was big – tall and broad. The darkness, the palimpsest of shadow around the bush, made it hard to be sure, but the figure looked slighter than he was.

  Silently, she stepped away from the window and crept back to the stairs. At the little window at the turn, she paused and looked out. He was still there.

  On the first floor she opened the door to Seb’s study and slipped inside, tensing at every creak of the old boards. The spines of his books gleamed in the half-light. She moved towards the window.

  Still there. Reaching up, she felt the catch on top of the sash. She expected a shriek, brass on brass, but the movement was smooth, as if the window had been opened recently. Bending, she got hold of the handles then shoved the window as hard as she could. Without resistance, it slipped up the runners and slammed against the top.

  She saw him start and scramble sideways, almost falling as he
got to his feet. A flash of white inside the hood, white hands, but he dipped his head, hiding his face, and darted into the shadow of the garden shed.

  ‘Hey!’ she shouted, leaning out, but all she heard was the soft sound of trainers on flagstones and then the crunch of the gravel path. She ran across the landing to Seb and Jacqueline’s bedroom but their window was stiff and it took three attempts and all her upper-body strength to force the lower pane. There – it screeched upwards just as the hooded figure rounded the end of the front wall and was lost from sight. She listened to the footfalls on the pavement until they faded from hearing, sure she was right: Cory was too big – too heavy – to be so light on his feet.

  Nineteen

  ‘What happened to your face?’

  And good morning to you. Still half-asleep, Rowan put up a hand and felt the raised line across her cheek. ‘It’s just a scratch.’ He waited but she declined to elaborate. Why should she?

  But perhaps she should be grateful. He’d woken her from a dream in which smoke had been filling a small low-ceilinged room with wooden walls, the air rapidly growing acrid, more and more difficult to breathe. A fire alarm had started ringing and she’d woken, breathing hard, only understanding when it rang again that it was the doorbell. A moment later, she remembered that Savills were coming to do the valuation, and she got up quickly and threw on some clothes. Instead of the agent, though, here was Cory, take-away coffees and a white paper bag in hand. The light in the sky behind him was weak, the sun still low.

  ‘What time is it?’ She suppressed a yawn.

  ‘A few minutes before nine. I woke you.’

  ‘No, I was up.’

  He nodded, Sure, and handed her one of the paper cups. ‘Can I come in?’

  On the stairs to the kitchen, Rowan remembered the same spot at midnight, looking out of the little window. She’d lain awake until after three, despite having taken more of Marianne’s Ambien. Her mind had been spinning, a whirl of progressively more alarming possibilities.

  ‘Plain croissant or chocolate?’ He pulled out a chair at the table and opened the bag. He seemed somehow to have concluded that they were in this together, she realised; this was morning conference.

  She weighed her options before deciding on the element of surprise. ‘Was that you in the garden last night?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Were you in the garden last night? About midnight – just after.’ She was watching him carefully but if his puzzled expression was put on, it was very good.

  ‘Someone was here?’

  ‘Someone working for you – a researcher? An assistant?’

  Cory looked at her as if she were gibbering. ‘Researcher? What are you talking about?’

  ‘You really don’t know? You’re telling me the truth?’

  ‘You think I’m sneaking into the garden at night? Or sending someone. Seriously? To do what?’

  ‘Watch the house.’

  For a moment Cory looked as if he were going to laugh but as fast as the humour lit up his face, it died absolutely. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it wasn’t me – nothing to do with me. Here – sit down.’

  Reluctantly she took the seat opposite and he put a pain au chocolat on a napkin and slid it across. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  She did, watching his face. His eyes narrowed as he concentrated, shutting out distraction, and he leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingertips pressed against his lips. When she finished, he was silent for several seconds and she imagined his brain flushing with colour, electrical impulses humming as he processed it all.

  ‘What if someone else knows?’ he said.

  Nausea washed over her. It was her own thought, one of the three a.m. horrors, but spoken aloud, it had an authority, a reality, that she had managed to deny until now. ‘Knows what?’

  Cory gave her a look: Come on.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. What you said yesterday – it’s … ludicrous.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. And you don’t think so, either.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I think.’ A surge of anger. ‘It’s crazy talk – dangerous. What evidence have you got? I mean, for Christ’s sake – you can’t go around making those kinds of allegations. People loved Marianne – they still love her. Her family – James Greenwood. Do you have any idea how much hurt you could cause them? Or do you just not care?’

  ‘I don’t have any evidence,’ he said, apparently unfazed. ‘Apart from the fact that she’s dead in circumstances that make no sense to either of us,’ he waved his hand across the table between them, ‘she was talking cross-wise about something that was evidently troubling her on a deep level, and now you’re telling me that someone is hanging round her house at night.’

  ‘There are any number of reasons someone might hang round.’

  Cory raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Burglars – she thought someone was getting in here anyway. And everyone knows she’s dead, it’s been splashed across the front page of all the papers. The Mail even had a picture of the house so it would hardly be difficult to find it. It could be ghoulish teenagers, thrill-seekers, freaking themselves out by coming to sit where she died. A dare. He was right there,’ she jabbed a finger towards the window, ‘feet from where she fell.’ In the small hours, the idea had afforded her a brief match-flare of hope but now, in the frank light of day, it burned and died in a second.

  Cory wasn’t buying it.

  ‘It might also be a nutty fan,’ Rowan said. ‘Someone who saw her in the papers when the story about her relationship with Greenwood came out, got obsessed. That happened to Seb once. Or a hanger-on.’ She eyeballed him. ‘Marianne had a lot of hangers-on.’

  If he heard the insult, he ignored it. ‘You know, I’ve been wondering if someone was threatening her,’ he said. ‘Maybe they came here to try and scare her.’ He frowned. ‘But as you say, unless they’ve been hiding under a rock, they must know she’s dead. So why would they still be coming?’

  Before they could get any further, they were interrupted by the doorbell and the arrival of the man from Savills. Rowan saw the flicker of interest in Cory’s eyes when she told him the Glasses were going to put the house on the market but he stayed in the kitchen while she let the estate agent in and took him upstairs.

  As she showed Cory out a few minutes later, he stepped close to her and murmured, ‘Look, you have doubts: that’s fine.’ He stopped, hearing the man moving around in Seb and Jacqueline’s bedroom overhead. ‘She was your friend, it makes sense you don’t want to believe it. But the fact is, something happened and I need to find out what.’

  ‘Why?’ she challenged, her voice as low as his.

  Again he looked at her as if she were completely alien. ‘Because she was my friend, too,’ he said. ‘Because it seems wrong that no one knows the truth about how she died.’

  ‘Have you considered that they might not want to know? That Jacqueline might prefer to believe it was an accident?’

  He shook his head. ‘Whatever Marianne did, the truth deserves to be known. And if she did kill someone, clearly it was an accident. Maybe she hit someone in the car. Perhaps it was self-defence – maybe someone broke in here. Something like that – an accident, plain bad luck or one bad decision. For God’s sake, I’m not saying she was a murderer.’

  When the estate agent had gone, too, Rowan lay down on Jacqueline’s reading sofa and covered herself with the old tartan blanket. Pulling it close around her shoulders, she allowed herself to imagine for a moment that it was Jacqueline’s arms, a tight hug, supportive, protective. She felt destabilised, unsure of her judgement. Was Cory genuine or was he playing with her? He’d seemed to be telling the truth about the garden but perhaps she’d got that wrong. Did he really think Marianne had killed someone in self-defence or was he backtracking, sensing that he’d gone too far and risked alienating her? When he’d said ‘killed’ yesterday, she’d been sure he meant deliberately, but today he’d seemed to suggest that was preposterous. She’d even hear
d a silent question, What kind of a person are you, to entertain the idea? when, in fact, she’d never given him any sign that she had. Everything he did felt like that, designed subtly to unsettle her, put her on the back foot.

  But what if he’d been telling the truth about the garden? If it really wasn’t him or someone sent by him, then who the hell was it? No one obvious: if the figure had been too small to be Cory, he was also too small to be Peter Turk come to grieve where Marianne had fallen, running away to avoid embarrassment. She didn’t think it was Greenwood, either. Granted, he was slighter than the other two, especially now, but she couldn’t imagine he was so fast on his feet, so – lithe. He wasn’t fifty but nonetheless there was something definitely adult about the way he moved, dignified. Could it be Adam?

  Oh, really? said a sardonic voice. Trespassing in his own garden after bumping off his sister? Having installed you here to make it a bit more of a challenge?

  Well, who then? she asked it. Who?

  Twenty

  When Rowan got the call to say she’d been given a place at the university – it was a so-called unconditional offer: two E grades at A-level – her father was in Chile. She tried three times to call him then gave up, relieved. The news was a golden, precious thing: she didn’t want to tarnish it by telling him. It was a week or so before Christmas and when she hung up the phone for the final time, she put on her coat and set off for Fyfield Road. She could still remember how she’d felt, the way in which the world seemed subtly to have remodelled itself. As she’d come over Folly Bridge, the old university part of the city had loomed on the hill, the ogee dome of Tom Tower rising above the leafless winter chestnuts, and she’d felt as if she were walking towards her future.

  Jacqueline had opened the door, her green-rimmed reading glasses perched on top of her head whence the springs of her hair threatened imminently to catapult them.

  ‘I got in,’ were the first words Rowan said.