The Island

by Mary Grand

  Juliet shook her head decisively. ‘No, none of these are mine. I don’t recognise them. Do you, Mira?’

  Mira shook her head.

  ‘Good, thank you. I will feed that back to the team,’ said Adam and he was smiling now, looked excited. ‘This travel card may not have a name on it, but it has been used and we can trace the journeys it was used for. The theatre tickets should be even more helpful. The lighter, which we found close by and we believe was used to start the fire, had clearly been discarded carelessly.’

  ‘And what about the wallet?’

  ‘That was empty, but there were initials on it, so that will help with tracing our suspects too.’ He looked around at them all. ‘Well, I just wanted to bring you up to date. Obviously, there is a lot of work to do, but these could be very helpful leads, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  Juliet glanced at Mira to check she was following, and Mira nodded quickly.

  ‘So, do you think the person who did this was someone who didn’t live on the island?’

  ‘That is a possibility, yes,’ said Adam.

  ‘Did you ever find my husband’s crucifix?’ asked Mira.

  ‘No, and there is no evidence of a chain being removed, although we do know the body was rolled over. It may have been removed carefully, even fallen off at one point, or, of course, it may never have been worn. It’s so easy to add things into a memory, it’s not done deliberately. If it was something he normally wore, it’s easy to imagine he had it on that night too.’

  Mira looked sceptical but didn’t reply.

  ‘Now, do any of you have any other questions?’

  ‘Do you know when we will be able to hold the funeral?’ asked Mira.

  ‘I’m so sorry, these things take time, but I promise you as soon as the coroner is prepared to release the body, I will get in touch. It shouldn’t be long now.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be back soon, please phone me if you need to know anything at all.’

  After Adam had left, they all headed for the kitchen.

  ‘That all sounded like good news,’ said Cassie. ‘It certainly sounds like they are going to find the person who did this.’

  Mira nodded but didn’t speak.

  ‘Don’t forget, everyone, meet here at three this afternoon,’ continued Cassie. ‘I’m sorry if this is a lot to take on, but once you see this place, you’ll see why we are so excited. It will be good to plan something new, look ahead.’

  Juliet went outside to the garden. So, could the answer to all the mysteries just be the easy one – a stranger stole her car, got drunk in the car park and the killing of Rhys was accidental? And yet, she had her doubts – her missing set of car keys, the missing crucifix, they raised questions that had not been answered.

  Juliet reluctantly went to the kitchen at three.

  Cassie smiled nervously at them all. ‘Look, I know this is not ideal timing, but I want to show you this, and it’s important to me to have your thoughts before we go any further.’

  ‘With what? What’s the big mystery?’ asked their mother.

  ‘I need everyone to come to the old café on the military road, meet us there will you.’

  Without any further explanation, Cassie left with Anwen. The rest of them travelled with Juliet’s mother.

  The drive was short, and they parked alongside Cassie’s car. The site had been a few single-storey shops and a café, but they were all shut down now. They followed Cassie behind the buildings, where there was a large grassy field that led to a fence and cliff. Today the sea twinkled in the distance.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ asked Juliet.

  ‘Well,’ said Cassie nervously, ‘Anwen and I are thinking of putting an offer in on this site.’

  ‘You are going to buy it? Why?’

  Juliet looked around, speechless.

  ‘I know it seems mad, particularly with all that has happened, and it’s still just the seed of an idea. When I came home to be with Dad, what I hadn’t told any of you was that I had been working out my notice with the orchestra.’

  ‘You’ve actually left orchestra?’ Her mother stepped forward. ‘You can’t have—’

  ‘It’s complicated, Mum. I’m sorry, but I knew if I’d talked to you about it, I’d never have had the nerve to leave. But for lots of reasons it wasn’t the right place to be any more. I knew I had to find a new direction in my life. Since I met Anwen at Mira and Rhys’s wedding, we have got together a few times for a drink and we shared our dreams for the future. She told me about her dream of starting her own restaurant here on the island, but she was worried about doing it on her own. Anyway, as I say, I was looking for a new direction and so when I came home, I suggested we go into business together.’ She paused. ‘Anwen has explained where she was the evening Rhys died. I understand why she’d lied to me, and that is all cleared up now.’

  ‘Why on earth haven’t you talked to me about it?’ said her mother.

  ‘Because you’d try to change my mind. Mum, this is the end of my music. I always said if I felt my music wasn’t at the highest possible standard, I would stop. I know I am not playing as well as I used to. I don’t want to teach; I want to start something completely new.’

  ‘But your playing is still wonderful. Not so long ago you made that recording, it did so well.’

  ‘I know, and I’m grateful for the money that has made me. But my playing is slipping, I know it is.’

  ‘You mentioned something about some aches and pains, has it got worse? Oh God, is this all my fault, did I make you practise too hard?’ cried her mother.

  ‘No Mum, you didn’t do anything wrong. The point is it’s time to move on.’

  Her mother threw her hands up, and her words were laced with pain and frustration. ‘You can’t. You have to use your gift; you could be passing on your passion for music to students. You can’t give it all up to run a restaurant, it’s such a waste, and anyway, you know nothing about hospitality, you’ll hate it.’

  ‘No, Mum, this is my decision. You won’t change my mind.’

  ‘I can’t believe you are saying this, and now of all times. How could you, Cassie? After everything I have done, sacrificed. You have no idea.’ Her mother burst into desperate tears.

  Juliet went over to her mother, put her arm around and looked at her sister accusingly. ‘Cassie, you really should have broken this to Mum more gently; this is unfair, putting her on the spot like this.’

  Anwen spoke now. ‘But there was no gentle way to do this. You have to respect Cassie’s choice. She has every right to make changes in her life.’

  Rosalind pointed over to the buildings. ‘But all this must be very expensive, how can you both afford it? And what if it goes wrong? Restaurants fail all the time; you would lose everything.’

  ‘Between us, my inheritance, Cassie’s money from her flat, and with loans, we can do this, and failure, as they say, is not an option,’ said Anwen confidently.

  ‘It’s a huge gamble,’ said Juliet.

  ‘I wish someone could say something positive,’ said Cassie, beginning to sound angry now.

  ‘It’s such a shock,’ Juliet replied, ‘that’s all. It’s too much to take in out of the blue, and we all know how much Mum sacrificed for your music.’

  ‘I thought you of all people would understand how much I want to do something for me.’

  Juliet bristled. ‘Something for you?’

  ‘Yes, for me.’

  ‘But your whole life, our whole lives, have been about you. All Mum’s time and money went into you and your music. Everything else took second place.’

  ‘That’s not fair and you know it,’ said Cassie. ‘You have all achieved things you wanted, just without the pressure of having to be the best. I know what you think, Juliet. You stayed here like some Cinderella, while I spent my days being given cups and awards and being showered with applause. But in reality, every minute of my life was timetabled. I couldn’t play picnics in the garden when I was little or hang about on the beach
on a Saturday night smoking, no, I was always practising, rehearsing. Over and over again, alone, in the music room, in empty halls.’

  The picture was bleak, and Juliet felt sure she had to be exaggerating, but Cassie’s voice held a pain that was real.

  ‘You see what you’ve done to Cassie?’ said Anwen. ‘And not one of you can be pleased for her now.’

  ‘Anwen, you have no idea of Cassie’s talent. Her life might have been hard, but she has lived a life you could only dream about.’ Juliet could hear the bubbles of fury rising in her mother’s voice now.

  ‘It was your dream,’ said Anwen. ‘Cassie has her own dreams now and so do I. We don’t care what you lot think, we will succeed. We can achieve this and there is nothing you can do to stop us.’

  Juliet gasped at the rage Anwen was spitting at them all, a frustration that had clearly been building up for years before she’d met them.

  Her mother stood tall now, her face red and angry. ‘Your dream may be to run a scrubby little café on the seafront, but that is not worthy of Cassie. You are trying to use her, but I won’t let you.’

  Anwen walked over to their mother and spoke right into her face. ‘You won’t stop me, no one will.’ The words shot out individually like bullets.

  Juliet saw her mother step back in horror and felt the fear spread around the group.

  Cassie stood, clearly shocked at Anwen’s outburst too. She went over to her, pulled her away, her voice shaking as she spoke. ‘Leave it, Anwen.’

  Anwen turned around, her fist clenched, but Cassie stood her ground. Slowly Anwen’s arms relaxed and, still breathing heavily, she walked away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Cassie. ‘It was never meant to get nasty like this. Mum, me and you will talk later. Anwen and I need to give you time to catch up.’

  Juliet was both impressed with Cassie’s handling of the situation but also very anxious about her plans, particularly the fact she would be working with Anwen. Cassie had obviously completely accepted Anwen’s explanation of where she was the night her brother died, but how could she be sure Anwen was telling her the truth? Rhys had insinuated there was a lot in Anwen’s past and Juliet was not at all convinced Anwen had told Cassie the whole story. Listening to her now, it seemed to Juliet that Anwen was a very volatile woman, with frustration and rage simmering away inside her.

  ‘It’s not just about me and Anwen,’ Cassie continued, her voice calm, conciliatory now. ‘The premises here are huge, we would like to use part of it to extend the purpose of the building. We were thinking, Rosalind, a nail bar or beauticians, we weren’t sure. It would mean people could come and have their nails done, then come into the restaurant for a meal.’

  Rosalind blinked, clearly shocked at the mention of her name. ‘You want me to be involved?’

  ‘We do,’ said Cassie, smiling.

  ‘Good God! Wow!’ Rosalind looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. ‘It would be exciting in some ways but like the restaurant, starting up anything in nails is a huge gamble. There are a lot of nail bars, beauticians and spas on the island now, if you want to stand out you have to provide something special. To do that would be very expensive, I don’t know how long it would take you to start making money.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cassie, ‘but it could work, and if you came on board, you could run it.’

  ‘But the money?’ repeated Rosalind.

  ‘Well yes, we would have to look into that, think about a loan or a franchise, I’m not sure. But we would find a way.’

  Rosalind shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I was going to travel, or at least get away. Life is getting so complicated; I just can’t make any big decisions at the moment.’

  ‘But you could think about it?’ Cassie was pleading now.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  Juliet saw the desperation in Cassie’s face, and surprised herself by feeling sorry for her sister. ‘I think you have run ahead of everyone on this Cassie. It’s not that we are all trying to be negative, we just need time to take it all in.’

  ‘I’d hoped you’d all be pleased for me,’ said Cassie mournfully.

  ‘How can we be?’ said her mother. ‘You have such a special gift and you’re just throwing it all away, and why? For what reason? I don’t understand.’

  Juliet could see tears in her mother’s eyes; her face was lined with pain in a rare display of vulnerability.

  Mira went over to her, spoke and signed gently, ‘I have that appointment with the archdeacon. You don’t need to come; you’ve had enough for one day.’

  ‘No, no, of course I’ll come. I’m sorry, I’d forgotten. Let’s go and do that.’

  Mira, Juliet and her mother left, leaving Rosalind to stay behind with Anwen and Cassie.

  When they arrived at the car, her mother asked Juliet if she was okay to walk back home.

  ‘Of course, if you can give me the front door key. I’ll see you later.’

  Truth be told, Juliet was glad to get away from everyone. What had got into Cassie? Dad had said she was vulnerable, and Juliet had seen that today. Along with excitement, there was stress in Cassie’s eyes. It wasn’t like her to be this impetuous. And that violent anger she’d seen in Anwen frightened her.

  Juliet stopped and looked out to sea, saw the white tips on the waves as they rolled over the shore. What was happening to them all? She felt her life and the people in it had become completely unpredictable.

  Her phone rang – it was Gabriel.

  18

  Gabriel told Juliet he was out running so they arranged to meet at the car park. When she got there, she saw there were a number of cars and vans parked up, full of families and surfers. It was busy, the last fling of the holidays before schools went back next week.

  She could see Gabriel heading her way and was impressed at his speed. Heaven knew when she last did any proper exercise… One day she would. But she allowed the thought to snuggle in the back of her mind, like a hedgehog hibernating for the winter.

  Gabriel ran up to her, stopped and did a few stretches, then grinned.

  ‘I should be running a lot further than this, but I’d rather talk to you.’ He caught his breath with his hands on his hips and his head to one side. ‘Let’s go over on the grass and talk.’

  They went into the field where her car had been parked, and she grimaced as she saw the empty space where her car had been.

  They sat together, taking in the view and the cool breeze.

  ‘So, how are things? What a terrible time it’s been,’ he said sympathetically.

  ‘It’s been a nightmare to be honest. First Dad’s accident, and then for Rhys to die in such a horrible way. I keep getting waves of guilt that I’m not properly grieving for Dad… Everything keeps changing, things keep happening. And yet I miss him so much.’

  ‘Of course you do. I’d be devastated if anything happened to Maddie.’

  ‘How is she by the way?’

  ‘She’s fine now thanks, completely over the sickness, obviously very upset about Rhys though. How is Mira coping? She has lost her father and her husband in such a short time.’

  Juliet shook her head. ‘In shock, stunned… We found Rhys, you know.’

  ‘That must have been really traumatic. The whole village is very upset. Things like that don’t happen here, do they.’

  ‘No, although of course you lost Harry in a hit-and-run, so you know something about how it feels.’

  ‘That was twenty-one years ago, a freak accident. It was dark, raining. I suppose there were some dangers inherent in what he was doing. But Rhys was up at the church. It’s not like he was even on a road or anything. Rumour has it that it was visitors from London, taking drugs or something?’

  ‘Wow, word gets round! The police have hinted at that, but they are checking everyone out. We all had to give statements about what we were doing on Saturday evening.’

  ‘They can’t suspect any of you. That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Of cours
e, but they said they have to check on everyone.’

  ‘I suppose so. They came and asked me about meeting up with you and whether I’d seen your set of car keys, and they checked about the video calls too.’

  ‘It’s so frustrating. I can’t find the keys anywhere and now my car has been used in a hit-and-run. I am so upset about it all.’

  ‘So, do they think someone found your set of car keys and then used them to steal your car? Where might you have dropped them?’

  ‘That’s the problem, I don’t think I did. I was sure they were in my bag. I came back from the beach from seeing you and then my bag was on the dresser all night. When I said that to the police, of course they then asked who in the house could have got hold of them. That’s ridiculous of course, but I don’t understand what has happened.’

  ‘Have you asked if anyone in the house touched them?’

  ‘I did, but no one has owned up to going in my bag. The police are asking loads of questions about everything. Anwen is angry because I told them I thought she’d been out all night, but it turns out I was right, but I’ve no idea what she was doing. There is so much I can’t explain. Someone left the house, but they won’t own up, and where the hell are my car keys?’ She was close to tears now.

  Gabriel put his arm around her. ‘Hey. It’ll be all right.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, everything is so messed up and of course now there’s all this business with Cassie.’

  ‘Oh, what’s wrong with Cassie?’

  Juliet told him all about Cassie leaving the orchestra and setting up the restaurant.

  ‘So that is what the text was about,’ he said, grinning, and then explained, ‘Cassie sent me a mysterious text this morning saying she wanted some business advice.’

  Juliet frowned at him, frustrated at the grin on his face. ‘Mum is devastated.’

  He quickly put on a more serious expression. ‘Of course, she has always been so involved with Cassie and her music and this would be a completely new life for Cassie, that’s for sure. I always thought she’d meet some rich type up in London, stay in the music scene forever.’