The Secrets Between Us

by Louise Douglas

  I stepped carefully across the paperwork on the floor but, as I did so, my foot slipped. I reached out to steady myself and knocked over a sheaf of papers heaped on the table. I went down on my hands and knees to pick them up. They were pictures printed from the computer. I sat back on my heels and turned one over.

  It was a picture of Genevieve, just her head and shoulders and a hand holding the hair out of her eyes. Alexander must have zoomed in from a bigger picture, because the image was grainy. Even in black and white, even in poor resolution, Genevieve looked so alive.

  I turned another sheet of paper. It was the same image but zoomed in even further so that Genevieve’s face covered the paper. Her eyes were distorted so far as to be almost abstract, but they stared out, dark and clear, with the window of light in the pupil magnified until it was almost large enough to see into her soul.

  I looked at the next image. And the next. And the next. I spread the images around me until the floor was carpeted in them. It became a kind of compulsion to look at Genevieve and examine her in such close detail. She had the kind of face and eyes that held your attention. She was so lovely. But the images, so many pictures, were deeply unsettling. I knew Alexander’s heart and mind were still full of Genevieve, but he must have spent hours looking at her face on the screen, zooming into her eyes, looking at her, making new images from existing ones, printing them out, all those scores of pictures.

  I thought I knew why he’d done it. It was because he wanted to see her face again, like he used to see it. She wasn’t there, but he needed to see her in detail, as he did when she lay beside him in bed, as she was in the mornings, in the evenings, when she was at Avalon, when he was hers and she was his wife. Yes, I understood what had driven Alexander: still the images struck me as sinister. They made me angry; they scared me.

  And I was jealous. Alex would never want to look at me in close-up. He had never taken a picture of me, not even on his mobile phone. If I were to go out of his life, there would be nothing at all to prove I’d ever been in it.

  Furiously, I put the photographs back, face down in a pile, left the spills where they were so Alexander wouldn’t know that I’d been there, retreated out of the room, and locked the door.

  By the time Alexander came in my fingertips were burned and there was a pile of matches, charred and curled like the lashes of some mythical creature, on the lino on the floor. The chicken was inedible, the potatoes, carrots and parsnips uncooked and greasy.

  I had been almost sobbing with frustration but when he stood in the kitchen I composed myself. He looked terrible. I had never seen him so drained. He was crumpled, messed up, and the fronts of his jeans were soaked and mud-spattered.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘What happened? What did the police say?’

  ‘Just more of the same,’ he said. ‘Is there anything to eat?’

  I looked towards the Rayburn.

  ‘The pilot light went out,’ I said.

  Alexander shrugged.

  ‘Where’s Jamie?’

  ‘At Christopher’s. I thought he’d be safer there. Are there photographers outside?’

  He nodded. ‘I left the Land Rover at the bottom of the lane and came in on foot through the orchard.’

  He went to the fridge and took out a beer.

  ‘I’m going up for a shower.’

  ‘Do you want a sandwich or something?’

  ‘Not now.’

  He went upstairs, and I heard footsteps on the landing and the creaking of the boards in the bathroom. I rubbed my elbows with the opposite hands and waited. From upstairs, he called me, as I had known he would.

  He stood in my bedroom. His clothes were heaped in a pile by the door and I could smell the sweat and heat of him.

  My room was lit by candles. Not in a romantic, cosy way but darkly, so the flickering light seemed threatening. I looked at Alexander naked and it was obvious that he wanted sex, but I wasn’t sure if he wanted me or just the comfort of another person.

  Despite the pictures I’d found in his office, despite everything, even then, I was drawn to him irresistibly like the tide to the shore. I stepped forward and touched him and there it was again, that heat between us, a compulsion that seemed to be growing in intensity, something that frightened and obsessed me and that could not be denied, not then; not ever.

  Afterwards we lay side by side amongst bed linen twisted and churned, and the cooling room smelled of candle smoke. Alexander held me very close. I was exhausted; I had been shameless – a harlot, a hussy, a whore – and I didn’t care. I would do anything to please him, to ease him, to make him forget.

  He stroked my head.

  ‘Oh, Sarah,’ he said. It was all he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  AFTER ALEXANDER’S VISIT to the police station, media activity in Burrington Stoke increased incrementally. Betsy reported that there was a kind of war mentality gripping the village. Everyone, even the journalist-haters, was excited and unified by the drama and the shared desire to find Genevieve and ‘bring her home’. That’s what they all said. They were committed to bringing their girl home. I think most people knew, in their hearts, by then that the odds of her being brought home alive were diminishing, but the phrase was rousing and ambiguous enough to cover any eventuality. There were rumours that the police were going to start searching the surrounding countryside.

  The newspapers were having a field day. The Daily Mail paid Dale Vowles a five-figure sum to give them an exclusive on the tragedy of Robbie Innes. Betsy told me somebody had told her that he’d been offered the same again to talk about the day he fought Alexander Westwood and won, should it transpire that Alexander had had anything to do with Genevieve’s disappearance. As well as the story, Dale gave them a photograph taken at a Young Farmers’ fund-raising event the autumn before Robbie died. I stared at the face in the newspaper. Robbie was an attractive, fair-haired, ruddy-faced young man, not at all like Alexander. There was an accompanying image of Genevieve, aged seventeen, sitting on a gate, holding tight to the top bar with her hands. She had long hair and was wearing jeans and wellingtons, and she was laughing. I’d hardly seen a photograph of Genevieve where she wasn’t laughing.

  Somebody had seen a woman who looked a lot like Genevieve Churchill-Westwood in a travel agency in Axbridge a couple of weeks before she disappeared. ‘Confirmed’ sightings were reported from the South Welsh seaside resort of Tenby, where Genevieve had, apparently, bought a ‘love nest’ or a ‘bolt hole’, depending on which paper you read, under the name of Juliet Bravo, ‘her favourite horse’. The words ‘Missing’, ‘Beauty’ and ‘Heiress’ featured predominantly in the headlines and those in the accompanying write-ups were full of poignancy and implied that whoever was responsible for her disappearance may have had some financial motivation. A national television news crew did a piece to camera from outside the entrance to Eleonora House. I didn’t see it, but Betsy told me the presenter banged on about how wealthy the family was. Alexander told me that when he was at the station, the police had asked him about Genevieve’s life insurance. He did not tell me what his answers had been.

  I called my family to reassure them that I was OK and that things weren’t as bad as they possibly thought they were, but they’d seen the news coverage and read the papers. Neil hadn’t let on how serious the situation was, although he knew how big the story might become. Still, they knew what was going on. My mother wept and said I was breaking my father’s heart. My father told me that my mother was going mad with worry. May pleaded with me to get away while I still could.

  ‘I can’t leave Alexander now,’ I said. ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Come back for a while,’ May begged. ‘For a few weeks, until all this is over. Neil thinks – we think – things are going to be difficult for a while, but it won’t last for ever and, once Genevieve’s turned up, we’ll stand by you whatever you decide to do, I promise. Only come home now, please.’

  Jamie was holding my hand, swi
nging on my arm as we walked home from school. He was kicking a pebble and singing under his breath. Genevieve’s face, sun-faded and rain-damaged, looked down from the posters. They were curling at the edges.

  ‘I’m needed here,’ I told May.

  The wheedling went out of May’s voice and was replaced with frustration.

  ‘Sarah, that man doesn’t need you. He could manage perfectly well without you. He’s got you exactly where he wants you, with no thought of what’s best for you. If he cared for you even the tiniest bit he’d tell you to get out.’

  In the distance the siren call of the quarry rose up. Jamie looked up at me, wide-eyed with mock horror. We had made up a game that whenever we heard the sirens it meant that the dinosaurs who lived in the quarry were on the loose and we had to run home as fast as possible.

  ‘May, I have to go,’ I said as Jamie tugged at my arm. ‘I have to get Jamie his tea.’

  ‘Just think about what I said about coming home …’

  ‘This is my home now.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’

  The only good news was a call from the owner of the art gallery in Wells. My pictures had sold and she wanted more. It was pin money, hardly anything, but still I was profoundly proud. Betsy said I should start selling pictures over the internet, because there was always a demand for original art, but I didn’t know how to do that. I mentioned it to Alexander and he said that we should set up an eBay account.

  We didn’t, though. We never got round to it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  AND THEN, WHILE all this was going on, while the village was in mayhem and the police were searching an area around Tenby, having found forensic evidence linking Genevieve to the love nest/bolt hole, we received, through the post, an invitation in an envelope addressed to both Alexander and me. We were invited to Eleonora House to a party to celebrate Philip’s eightieth birthday.

  I had known the invitation was coming; Claudia had told me. She had been round to Avalon several times seeking refuge because she was finding the situation in the village as difficult as I was. The journalists hadn’t bothered her and Bill, but they had been hanging around the entrance to Eleonora House, alarming Philip when he’d spotted them as Virginia drove him to the hospital to have his leg looked at. He’d become very agitated and Claudia realized what Virginia hadn’t: the last time journalists had been clamouring to speak to him had been when his first wife killed herself. Virginia had been confined inside the big house with baby Genevieve. From there, she wouldn’t have been able to see the entrance to the drive and Philip must have done his best to protect her, as well as the children from his first marriage, from the mayhem. Now all those awful, conflicting memories had come back to trouble him. Only Claudia was able to comfort the old man. She told me that, ironically, it was because she reminded him of her mother. She had to keep telling him that he was not to blame, that none of this was his fault. The situation was so terribly difficult for her and, like me, every time she went out she had to bear the staring and the whispering. When she came round to see me, she offloaded, talking for thirty minutes or more at a time, hardly pausing for breath, sometimes dropping her head into her hands and saying: ‘I wish it were all over. I wish it would just stop. I wish I could go away!’ Then she’d apologize for talking too much. She couldn’t do this with her ‘circle’. With them, she had to maintain the decorous façade, she had to be brave; she couldn’t let them see how much it was getting to her. I sympathized, made tea, put biscuits on a plate and understood.

  Now Philip’s milestone birthday was imminent, the whole family agreed that the right thing to do was to proceed with the celebrations that had been in the planning since well before Genevieve went away. It wasn’t just because she would have wanted the party to go ahead, no matter where she was, but also because not to hold the event would send out the wrong messages to their friends, relatives, acquaintances and neighbours. It would imply that they were assuming the worst. The caterers had been booked in April, the entertainment in May, and Genevieve herself had commissioned the decorations in June. Besides which, it would take Philip’s mind off everything and give him at least a few hours of pleasure.

  When Claudia told me that Alexander and a ‘plus one’ were to be invited, I was surprised, but not shocked. She’d kept talking about the event and I knew the family’s primary aim was that it should be exactly the kind of party that everybody was expecting, and to give nobody any further reason to worry, gossip or speculate.

  Claudia had told me many times that Philip regarded Alexander with affection – he was more of a son than a son-in-law to him – and that he always stuck up for Alexander, no matter how Virginia criticized and blamed. She said Philip admired his skill and craftsmanship. He had always respected that kind of talent and had been pleased to encourage it. He believed Alexander had been a good influence on Genevieve, and he loved him for that too. It was Philip’s birthday and he would want Alexander to be there, and because Virginia would do anything to make her husband happy, Alexander was invited. She knew he wouldn’t go without me, so I had been grudgingly asked along as his ‘guest’.

  It felt more than a little humiliating.

  ‘Philip’s muddled,’ Claudia said. ‘He keeps confusing the past and the present, and the strangest things upset him. He’s told me we should all be grateful to Alexander, but when we ask why he can’t tell us. Or he won’t. Half the time I have absolutely no idea what he’s rambling on about! Poor soul.’

  Later, when Alexander and I were alone together, watching television, he rubbing my feet, which were on his lap, I turned the invitation over in my hands. It was good-quality card, printed in gold ink with a gold ribbon running along the edge. ‘This feels all wrong,’ I said.

  ‘Philip’s very ill,’ said Alexander. ‘It’s his swan song.’

  ‘I don’t think we should go.’

  Alexander shrugged. ‘I owe it to Philip to be there. The old man’s been good to me.’

  ‘Claudia said he keeps saying something about him being grateful to you.’

  Alexander didn’t flinch. He massaged the ball of my left foot.

  ‘What does he mean?’ I persisted. ‘What did you do for him?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘So why did he lend you the money to set up your own business?’

  Alexander pushed my feet off his lap, stood up and walked out of the room.

  ‘I was married to his daughter. Why wouldn’t he?’

  A couple of days later, Claudia called to take me shopping at the Christmas market in Wells. I was amazed to see that nobody was waiting at the bottom of the drive to try to grab a photograph through the car window.

  ‘Where has the press gone?’ I asked Claudia.

  ‘Don’t you watch the news? The local MP’s been caught in flagrante with his brother-in-law. Your fan club is sitting outside his house right now.’

  ‘Thank God for political scandal,’ I sighed.

  Claudia and I were giddy with freedom in Wells, where nobody knew us. We picked our way amongst the stalls, shouldering through the crowds of cold shoppers, trying to avoid the freezing rain and filling our bags with candles, satsumas and intricate Christmas decorations.

  ‘You are coming to Philip’s party, aren’t you?’ Claudia asked as we queued at a stall selling exquisite ceramic candle-burners shaped like trees.

  ‘Yes.’ I picked up one of the burners and weighed it in my hand. ‘Alex said he’d never let your father down.’

  ‘Alex is good like that,’ she said.

  We stacked our purchases in the back of her Volvo and went for lunch in a crowded little café. I ate a cheese and onion pasty and chips while Claudia picked at a green salad and a miserable piece of cold chicken. She wanted to lose weight before the party because Virginia, despite being racked with worry about Genevieve and Philip, still found the time to make derogatory comments about her stepdaughter’s size. I made an effort to look as if I wasn’t enjoying my deliciousl
y hot salty food as much as I was.

  ‘I ought to get a present for your father while I’m here,’ I said. ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  Claudia shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know, anything – a Dick Francis, a bottle of port.’ Her voice was catching.

  ‘Claudia?’ I reached my hand out across the table and covered hers. It was hot and clammy.

  She shook her head and her eyes glistened. ‘Poor Philip,’ she whispered. ‘Poor old man. He ought to be enjoying a peaceful retirement but this whole Genevieve thing is killing him. God, I wish she would come back!’

  I had no idea what somebody like me was supposed to wear to a black-tie event at a place like Eleonora House and, even if I had known, I certainly didn’t have anything remotely right with me. I asked Betsy for her advice and she told me to choose something simple and classy.

  ‘You won’t go wrong with black,’ she said. ‘Only go for the best black you can afford.’

  The next time Alexander was out pricing a job, I asked if I could borrow the laptop. I took it upstairs, into Jamie’s bedroom, which was the only room in the house where, by some architectural inconsistency, an internet connection was achievable. It also meant I could hear, and see, anyone who came to the house, because the window overlooked the drive.

  I sat with my back against the door with the laptop balanced against my legs. Although the connection was painfully slow, I found the websites Betsy had recommended and ordered a couple of demure black dresses, a lovely velvet trouser suit and an expensive but very pretty pair of shoes.

  Sunlight moved across the room. Jamie’s hamster stirred in its cage. I went over to the window and crouched down to watch it. The hamster with its dear little black-bead eyes picked a sunflower seed between its tiny paws and gnawed at it. I smelled the hamster smell, and it reminded me of my own childhood; sawdust and must.

  I put my finger through the bars and stroked the hamster’s back, but it didn’t like the intrusion. It scuffled away and hid in its tube.