Sworn Secret

by Amanda Jennings

  Amanda Jennings lives just outside Henley-on-Thames with her husband and three daughters. Sworn Secret is her first novel, and she is currently writing her second.

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Canvas,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

  Copyright © Amanda Jennings, 2012

  The right of Amanda Jennings to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

  Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-84901-969-9

  eISBN: 978-1-8490-1970-5

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  For my three graces: Ella, Beth and Lexi

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks go to Krystyna Green, Becca Allen and the rest of the talented team at Constable & Robinson for turning this book into a reality. To my wonderful agent, now friend, Broo Doherty, whose unfailing encouragement and belief is only outshone by her humour and enthusiasm. To those friends and family who read various drafts of this book and sustained me with their generous comments. To Rebecca Dixon for helping me text like a teen. To Charlotte Moore, Janet Howard and my darling Sian Johnson whose input and suggestions were invaluable. To my sister and parents who have been a constant source of love and support. To my patient, beautiful daughters who never complained when it was sandwiches for supper again. And, finally, to Chris: husband, best friend, soul mate. Without your unerring love and faith this book could never have happened.

  Almost a Year Before

  The stuff coming out of his mouth was lies.

  She stared at him. A gust of wind whipped her hair across her face. She tucked it back behind her ear. Then, not knowing what else to do she grabbed hold of his shirt, raking her fingers against his chest through the soft laundered cotton. The smell of it, the washing powder, the sweet musty sweat, a hint of his deodorant, sent a shiver through her. His smell, them together, him inside her.

  She looked up at him but he turned his face away from her. Why wouldn’t he look at her?

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.

  But he didn’t move a muscle, his eyes stayed fixed away from her, and she wondered whether she’d said the words loud enough or if they’d been carried away by the wind unheard. She snatched at his hand and thrust it against her breast, holding it hard against her until she felt him stop resisting. He looked down at her then and she saw his eyes had that strange glazed look they always had before they did it. His fingers closed around her. Relieved, she smiled and lifted her other hand, ran the tips of her fingers down his cheek.

  ‘No.’ The word was sudden and harsh and hit her like a sack of lead. He pushed himself away from her. ‘I can’t do this.’

  But she could see the lie in his lusting eyes and suddenly felt angry. Angry that he wouldn’t kiss her, that he was wasting his breath on words he didn’t mean, playing some stupid game. She needed him to take her seriously; to know the games were over. She looked around her, at the flat roof bare of anything but those shabby old cushions and the empty bottle of vodka. Then she knew what to do. She went to the edge, climbed up onto the ledge, wobbling a little as her drunken head spun. She faced him.

  ‘If you don’t kiss me I’ll jump,’ she said, thrusting her hands hard against her hips. ‘I will. I’ll jump because without . . .’ Her voice trailed off then. She was surprised to find a lump in her throat, and her eyes welled. ‘Because without you,’ she whispered, ‘I don’t want to live.’

  ‘Get down,’ he said.

  She shook her head and a handful of tears tumbled down her cheeks.

  ‘Get down off the wall.’

  She shifted, feeling the rough brick beneath her bare feet, the edge pressing into her heels. She glanced down at the playground below, cast a deep blue in the moonlight, and wondered at the picnic tables and benches, how small they seemed, small enough to be from a dolls’ house. The tables blurred in fresh tears and she looked back at him. Why hadn’t he stopped her? Why was he standing so still, like a stupid, impotent statue? This wasn’t what she’d planned. This was the opposite of what she’d planned.

  ‘Say you love me!’ she suddenly screamed so loud it hurt her throat. ‘Say you’ll be with me for ever! Or I’ll do it. I will . . . I’ll jump!’

  ‘No. I can’t. It’s over.’

  ‘But I love you!’

  As she screamed the words she felt a pain, as if a fist with broken glass for nails had torn into her body and ripped out her heart, and she began to sob, proper, wrenching sobs, because at that very moment she knew it was true.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

  She saw his hesitation and for a second she thought it might be all right, that at last he was going to walk over to her, lift her off the ledge, kiss her, and hold her tightly against him. But he didn’t; he turned and began to walk away from her.

  ‘If you don’t,’ she said then, ‘I’ll tell them. I’ll tell everyone your secret. They’ll all know about you and they’ll all hate you.’

  Then something happened, maybe a strong gust of wind, or perhaps she just stumbled. Had she imagined the thump to her chest that took her breath? All she really knew was that she was falling, hurtling through the hot summer darkness towards the ground, and then, before she could think of what to do next, there was nothing.

  Superdad: A Present-Day Hero

  As always she heard the buzzing first and, as always, an instant panic froze her. Only her eyes moved, flicking from side to side, desperate to find it. When she finally did her fists clenched and she gasped. It was enormous. Not a bee but a hornet. A wasp on blinking steroids.

  Lizzie took a couple of deep, slow breaths, and then as calmly as she could, with her eyes locked on the hornet, she reached for her bag. Her heart stopped. It wasn’t there. Her hands patted up and down her chest and over her shoulders in a frantic search. It never left her; it was always looped over her head and one shoulder, ready and waiting. Just not today, the day she needed it, the day she found herself sharing their tiny bathroom with a hornet the size of a spaniel. She tried to remember where it was, but as her mind raced faster and faster towards blind terror, her thoughts blurred to an indecipherable mess.

  Focus, she told herself firmly. Focus on the bag.

  She closed her eyes and pictured it, hoping this would trigger her memory. The patchwork squares in a rainbow of Indian silks, some of their edges beginning to fray, a black cotton strap, her name stitched inside, a folded piece of paper with instructions on what to do with its precious contents if the hornet turned nasty. But there was nothing. Blank. She could only hear the humming.

  Then the noise stopped. Lizzie’s heart leapt again. No noise was way worse. Without the damn noise how did she know where the stupid thing was? She was aware then of a thick dampness creeping over her body. Sweat. She wanted to cry. Bees could smell sweat, couldn’t they? No, she told herself, you made that up. It was
sharks that smelt sweat. No, that wasn’t it; you didn’t sweat in the ocean! She shook her head to keep her thoughts clear. It was definitely wee. Sharks went for wee. And blood. So did that mean it was bees that went for sweat? And if they did, did hornets too? A white fug fell over her, muddying her vision and clamping her lungs.

  ‘Come on, Lizzie, be brave,’ she whispered aloud. ‘Don’t be such a wimp.’ It wasn’t unusual for her to speak to herself. She did it a lot. Especially when she was nervous. She’d always done it, though perhaps more so in the last year.

  She forced herself to move. ‘You’ve got to,’ she whispered. ‘Just walk.’ She began to edge towards the door. One tiny step. Then another. One more. ‘You’re nearly there. Keep going.’

  But as she crept, images as clear as day began to play in her head like an old slasher flick. She saw the hornet, still and waiting; an ominous silence hung about it. Without warning it dropped its head and fixed a ghastly eye on Lizzie. Its feelers stroked its thorax as if rubbing evil hands. It licked whatever stood for lips. And then it fell. Direct as a dart. Straight for her.

  ‘Mum!’ Lizzie screamed. ‘Mum!’ She screamed again and again. ‘Mum! Mum, quick! Please!’

  The door to the bathroom flew open and Lizzie fell into her mother’s arms and buried her face in her chest, breathing her in: Persil, Dove, white spirit.

  ‘Where is it?’ her mum said urgently, knowing immediately what was wrong.

  Lizzie could feel her mother searching over her shoulder as she backed them out of the bathroom to the relative safety of the upstairs landing. Her dad appeared at their side, his face tight with concern as he pushed past them. He paused for a moment or two at the bathroom door. Don’t go in there! Lizzie wanted to cry. Don’t take another step! But no noise came out of her mouth. She closed her eyes as he went in.

  ‘It’s a hornet,’ he called back. ‘It’s on the shower curtain.’

  ‘Can you get it?’ her mum asked.

  ‘Yes, it seems quite sleepy.’

  Lizzie kept her eyes tightly closed and listened to the noises of the execution: some grappling, muttered cursing, a bang, then another, one more. Then silence. She pictured her father breathing heavily, beads of sweat on his brow, adrenalin surging through him.

  ‘It’s over,’ her mum whispered, kissing her forehead. ‘It’s dead.’

  Lizzie exhaled. Despite shivering like a little match girl she felt a sharp stab of sympathy for the squashed hornet.

  Her dad appeared and scruffed her hair. ‘That was quite a biggie.’

  Lizzie tried to smile. ‘I didn’t have my bag,’ she said weakly.

  ‘The hall table,’ her mum said. She took her arms away from Lizzie. ‘You put it there because the strap was coming loose. I was going to fix it for you. I forgot.’ She made a sucking noise as if to say how lax she’d been.

  ‘Are you OK now?’ her dad asked. His brow was crinkled with deep anxious furrows, and his hair, a thick and soupy mix of brown and grey, was messed up from his tussle. She wished he didn’t look so worried.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she nodded. ‘Sorry. I’m so pathetic.’

  ‘You are not pathetic, you daft thing. That was the biggest hornet I’ve ever seen. But,’ he paused and grinned at her, ‘luckily, no match for Superdad!’ He stretched a balled fist in front of him and sang his superhero jingle: ‘The dad all stingers dread to meet!’

  Then he laughed.

  Lizzie laughed too, albeit with less enthusiasm, but she stopped when she felt her mum’s thorny quiet beside her. She glanced at her dad and caught the last ray of his smile before it set behind his eyes. He cleared his throat and her mother sniffed loudly.

  Lizzie couldn’t read minds, but she was ninety-nine-point-nine per cent certain that theirs were soaked in her sister, memories of a few years back, when laughing was OK and smiles held on. Lizzie knew that Superdad popped out by accident. She also knew her dad would be beating himself stupid for the slip, desperate at the thought of upsetting her mum, of flaring her heartache. He just didn’t get it; her mum’s heartache was flared to the max already. She couldn’t be any sadder. None of them could. Tiptoeing through this crazy minefield of spoken words was pointless. What happened had happened, and no amount of pretending there wasn’t a before would help. She didn’t understand them. If it were up to her they’d talk about Anna teasing her dad every day. She closed her eyes and saw her immediately.

  ‘Here he comes! Like a flash of light. It’s the one, it’s the only . . . family drum roll . . . iiiiiiiiitttttttsssss Superdad!’ Anna cried, her smile wide across her face, as she held their dad’s arm aloft like a boxing champ.

  Looming Tuesday

  Jon seemed about to speak to her, so Kate dropped her eyes and turned away from him.

  ‘Are you coming down for breakfast, Mum?’

  Kate briefly looked up at Lizzie and forced a smile. ‘In a minute,’ she whispered, still trembling from the aftershocks of Lizzie’s scream. Though the frantic fear that filled her had begun to ebb, she was still finding it terribly hard to breathe.

  ‘Come on you,’ Jon said to Lizzie. He walked over to their daughter and took her hand. ‘Let’s get some toast on.’

  Kate waited until they’d gone down the stairs and then covered her face with her hands. She felt queasy. Unnerved and shaken. How on earth would she cope with meeting Stephen now? And she had to; this was her last chance to stop Tuesday. She’d been over the words again and again. She thought she’d mustered the strength to tell him she just couldn’t go through with it. That he’d have to cancel. She was sorry. Really sorry. She appreciated everything he’d done, but there was no way. But now, standing shivery and faint on the upstairs landing, she knew she wouldn’t get those words out. She should have told Jon how she was feeling. Stopped trying to be brave. She should have told him as soon as the doubts had begun to darken and gather. Jon would have understood, and he would have had no problem telling Stephen. Maybe she could even have painted while he did it, her thoughts safely tucked a million miles away, and when she emerged the threat of Tuesday would be gone. But instead of confiding in her husband, instead of being honest, she’d tried to be strong, pretended she was, and now, because of it, she was struck dumb with sick fear.

  Kate was halfway down the stairs when the phone rang. Her immediate thought was that it was Stephen calling to cancel the meeting.

  ‘Oh, God, please, please, please,’ she muttered, running the remaining stairs two at a time.

  Between a Rock and a Sad Face

  Jon was buttering the toast when the telephone rang. He balanced the knife against the pot of butter and went to answer it just as Kate appeared at the door and grabbed for the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ she said urgently. Then a muted: ‘Oh.’

  He guessed who it was. Kate bowed her head and held the receiver out towards him.

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ he said.

  ‘Jonathan . . .’

  Her voice was weak and unsteady. His stomach turned over.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he said.

  She didn’t reply. He could hear she was crying. He asked her again what was wrong, but she still couldn’t speak as quiet sobs stifled her words.

  ‘Mother? Speak to me. What’s wrong? Is it Dad?’

  ‘I’d like . . . to see you,’ she managed. ‘Can . . . you come now?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  No words, just soft gasps of breath.

  ‘Mother,’ he said, as calmly as he could. ‘Sit down and wait for me. I’ll be with you as quickly as I can.’

  His knees gave a little as he replaced the phone. ‘That was my mother,’ he said to Kate, who was leafing through the pile of post, her eyes locked on the middle distance, her mouth set. Ignoring her lack of response he began to rifle through the collection of keys in the wooden bowl on the side. ‘She, um, needs to see me. Shit!’ He emptied the contents of the bowl in frustration. ‘Where are the car keys?’

/>   ‘What’s wrong with her, Dad?’

  At last he found his keys. He turned to Lizzie and tried to smile. ‘I don’t know yet, sweetheart. She couldn’t really tell me.’

  ‘Poor Granny.’ Lizzie stood up from the kitchen table. ‘Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. He smiled another tight smile. ‘Thank you. I’m sure she’s fine.’

  ‘You can’t go.’

  He reached for his jacket, which hung on the back of a kitchen chair and made for the door.

  ‘Jon,’ Kate said, stepping into his path. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ She paused and shook her head. ‘You can’t go.’

  ‘I have to. You heard the conversation.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear the conversation, I only heard you say you’d be there as quick as you can.’

  ‘What if it’s my father?’ Jon said, more to himself than to her.

  He rubbed a hand across his mouth as his question echoed over Kate’s silence.

  ‘You didn’t hear her,’ he said. ‘If you had, you’d tell me to go. She was so upset, distraught even.’ As he spoke, the dread in his stomach thickened. ‘When is she ever distraught?’

  ‘Maybe if it was more often she’d be more understanding of it in other people,’ Kate said with stale apathy. She went back to the post and picked up an unopened envelope.

  ‘I know you’re angry with her—’

  Kate snorted and shook her head. He saw her eyes well. She pinched the bridge of her nose: her tried and tested way of stemming tears.

  ‘Something’s wrong and I need to go over there.’ He put an arm through his jacket. ‘She never cries,’ he said under his breath.

  Kate walked over to the swing bin on the other side of the room and deposited the mess of junk mail and torn envelopes. ‘Stephen’s coming.’