by Lucy Dawson
‘OK, OK!’ He disappears and I head to the front door.
As I emerge onto the forecourt, the driver’s door to Adam’s van is open. He’s obviously sitting in it, because I can see his leg and the fingers of one hand drumming restlessly on his knee.
I walk up to the door. ‘You all done, too?’ I say purposefully. ‘We’re off now as well. Could you?—’
But I don’t get any further. I’ve surprised him and although he quickly tries to hide the picture on his phone that I’ve caught him looking at – it’s too late. I’ve seen it.
‘That’s Tim and Isobel!’ I reach across and grab his wrist, forcing him to turn the screen back up, as he swears under his breath and closes his eyes briefly.
It is them – embracing. Her kissing his cheek.
‘When was this taken?’ I say slowly, my heart thumping, letting go of him.
‘Thursday night,’ he says quietly. ‘Tim came over to see her at Eve’s. I’m really sorry. Just because I’ve been torturing myself looking at it over and over again, you shouldn’t have to. I didn’t mean you to see it, I’m—’
‘Ready?’ Tim appears next to me, clutching a key, and glances at the mobile, too, before doing a double take. ‘Er, what’s that? And why are you showing it to Claire?’ He stares at Adam, bewildered.
‘I wasn’t!’ Adam climbs out of the van quickly and we both step back. ‘I promise you. I was just looking at the picture and Claire saw. I’m so sorry, I’ve been in pieces.’ He shrugs miserably. ‘This last few days has been like stepping back twenty years and having you come home from sixth form all over again. I know it’s shit, I can hear myself saying it – but I can’t help it. It’s how I feel.’
‘But it’s nothing like that time,’ Tim says and gestures towards me. ‘I’ve got—’
‘I know, I know you have,’ Adam interrupts. ‘But it’s what you being here does to Izzie. She – wait. ’ He pauses, sniffing the air suddenly. ‘Can you smell something?’
Tim frowns but obediently breathes deeply, then looks surprised. ‘Yes, I can actually. Where’s that coming from?’
Adam steps backwards onto the forecourt and looks up at the house. ‘There!’ he says urgently.
We turn to face Fox Cottage and see what he’s pointing at. A silent plume of smoke is rising above the roof, virtually invisible against the night sky.
‘Shit!’ Adam exclaims. ‘It’s coming from the barn.’
He breaks left and runs around the front of the house to the white wooden gate, which Isobel was stood behind only yesterday. He yanks it open and pelts into the back garden, with Tim and me closely behind him.
The back of the house tells a very different story to the façade of the front. Flames are leaping around the dining room windows in the middle section of the house. The barn is fully ablaze and I have to step back because the heat is already intense. As I do, I think I see the light turning on and off in Rosie’s dark room.
‘Wait – is someone there?’ I say sharply.
‘What? Where?’ Tim spins round.
I shake my head. ‘Ignore me. I thought I saw the light flickering like some sort of bloody Morse code in Rosie’s room,’ I point at it, ‘but it’s just the flames reflecting on the glass… or the fire reaching the room itself.’ I try to exhale and calm down.
‘Morse code? Like someone’s stuck? Oh Jesus!’ He puts his hands on his head in panic. ‘I have to go back!’ He is about to run back towards the house when Adam grabs him.
‘‘Are you insane? Leave it! It’s just stuff!’ I see him look desperately at the barn, full of his paintings.
Tim turns and stares at the house again, abject horror on his face as we hear someone else shouting.
‘Tim? Claire?’
Antony comes running into the garden. ‘Oh thank God!’ he says. ‘I got out of the car and I could see flames licking over the edge of the ridgepole – and the smoke! Thank God you’re safe!’
He pulls Tim into a hug as more people start to arrive, neighbours I’ve yet to meet. Adam starts talking to one of them and pointing to the barn as he speaks, but my attention returns to Tim who has grabbed Tony’s arm.
‘I have to go back in, Dad!’ he says. ‘I think Isobel is in there!’
‘What?’ Tony freezes and looks at the house. ‘Quickly! Tell me Tim. Which room?’
‘Rosie’s,’ Tim says frantically. ‘The one we were painting. Dad, no! Wait – you can’t!’
Tony is already running towards the burning building, to shouts from Adam and the neighbours to stop, as they realise what he’s doing.
‘No, Dad! The door to the room is locked!’ Tim shouts but it’s too late. His father has already disappeared around the corner, heading for the back door.
Tim turns to me, distraught. ‘I phoned Isobel. I told her to come to the house and find me in Rosie’s room. I told her I knew about the passageway – and I waited. I was so angry. I thought I heard something, so I locked the wardrobe door in the bubblegum bedroom, then I ran round and locked Rosie’s bedroom.’
He unfolds his palm to reveal the key to the big lock I asked Tony to remove and then clean forgot about.
‘I deliberately trapped her,’ Tim says frantically, as my mouth falls open in horror. ‘There are no windows in that room, apart from the skylights, and the pole is in our room. She’s got no way out. Dad won’t be able to do anything, even if he gets to her.’ He looks at the key in his hands and shouts out loud, as if psyching himself up, before he turns and runs after his father, to rescue Isobel Parkes for the second time.
My shriek of ‘NO!’ echoes redundantly around the empty garden.
He does not stop.
Twenty-Four
Claire
A&E wards at night unnerve me: disorientated patients trying to doze under artificial lights, as the poor staff deal with numerous dramas around them. The bloke in the curtained bay next to us throws up so violently – several times – I’m convinced he’s on the verge of death… only for us to hear him slurrily insist, moments later, that he’s only had ‘one drink tonight, doc, honest’. On the other side is a confused old lady who seems to have fallen over at home and wants very much to go back there, becoming increasingly distressed and starting to swear like a trooper when she’s not allowed to. Tim has suffered some smoke inhalation and, mercifully, they come and move us to a more private room to treat him with oxygen. He never made it past the kitchen before being forced back. We still have no news about Antony. Adam has kindly insisted on waiting with us, because I came in the ambulance with Tim and he’s worried we will need driving to The Rectory at some point.
The only difficulty is, I know Tim desperately wants Adam to leave, and of course I understand why. Neither of us has said a word about Isobel, but any second now, surely the police are going to tell us that they’ve found a body in Rosie’s bedroom? I can almost hear Tim wondering – is it murder if you lock someone in a building that then burns down through no fault of your own… or perhaps manslaughter? I don’t think I should be able to consider that dilemma as rationally as I am. Probably the paramedics are right – I’m in shock. Tim is also becoming increasingly agitated by the lack of news about his dad.
‘They should have found him by now,’ he keeps repeating, pulling the mask away from his mouth before clamping it back on again.
At half past ten we all jump as Adam’s mobile rings. He looks at the screen in surprise. ‘It’s Isobel’s mum. I’m sorry – do you mind if I get this. Hello?’ he says, as Tim and I look at each other nervously.
‘Why were you at the hospital?’ he says, frowning. ‘That’s where I am now. What? Oh My God! She can’t be.’
I close my eyes. They’ve found her and they’ve told Eve first as her next of kin. Of course they have. Oh, Christ.
Tim pulls the mask away from his mouth and retches. I grab the bowl the nurse gave him and thrust it under his chin. They told us he might expect to feel nauseous but I know that this is a reaction to the news
Adam is getting. I put my hand on Tim’s back as Adam hangs up and blurts in shock: ‘Isobel’s died.’
Tim retches again as there’s a knock on the door and two uniformed policemen, accompanied by a nurse, walk in – followed by a porter with a wheelchair waiting in the doorway.
‘I didn’t know this was going to happen!’ Tim blurts and starts coughing violently.
‘It’s OK,’ I say quickly, leaping in to cover his tracks. ‘It’s a normal reaction to smoke inhalation. It’s nothing to be frightened of. Try not to talk, darling.’
Don’t say anything. Not a word.
The two officers look at Tim sympathetically and one of them clears his throat. ‘Mr Vaughan, I’m very sorry to have to tell you that a body has been recovered from your house, in what appears to be a child’s bedroom at the front of the building.’
‘Oh no!’ I don’t say that for effect – it’s genuine fear. Tim shut her in the room, the house burnt down and now she’s dead.
Everyone looks at me and for a horrible moment, I have no idea if I’ve just said that out loud.
‘We believe it’s your father,’ the officer continues. ‘Would you be willing to identify the body?’
‘My what? But… there has to be a mistake,’ Tim blurts. ‘It can’t be Dad!’ His voice wavers, and I reach for his hand, to steady both of us.
Antony? Oh dear God.
Tim clasps me so tightly, as he starts to fall through space, that it hurts. ‘He was there, in the garden with us. Not my dad.’ His voice breaks completely and he gulps, putting his other hand up to his mouth.
Adam looks away; the police officer looks at the floor. We are all respectfully silent as Tim struggles to make sense of what he’s just been told.
‘The door was locked. I had the only key – Dad couldn’t have got in there.’
‘It appears he used the other entry point,’ the police officer explains. ‘Via the other bedroom. The false door through the wardrobes was open when we found him collapsed on the floor.’
‘But that was closed too. I know it was, and how would Dad know to?…’ Tim looks at me in shock before trailing off.
I shake my head, imploring him to stop talking. ‘Tim, just do as the officers ask,’ I tell him. ‘Everything else can wait. I’ll be here.’
Tim looks stunned as his eyes fill with tears. ‘OK. I’d be willing to do the ID, yes.’
The nurse takes the mask that Tim is holding. ‘You’ll be fine to stop that now in any case. Ron’s going to help you over there, though, all right?’ she says, as the porter steps forward. ‘Just so you don’t take a turn on the way.’
They wheel him off, leaving Adam and me alongside each other. ‘Do you mind if I call Eve back?’ he says quietly. ‘I pretty much hung up on her.’
‘Of course, please do.’ I sit back on my plastic chair as he starts to talk to Isobel’s mother, and it begins to sink in that Tony knew that the secret door was in the wardrobe. He knew there was an access point to Rosie’s bedroom there and that he could get into the room, despite the main door being locked. My breath has become very shallow.
‘I cannot believe this is happening,’ Adam says suddenly and I realise he’s off the phone again. ‘Isobel died in her sleep last night. Eve went to wake her up this morning and she couldn’t. How can that happen to someone who is thirty-four? That’s just not possible! People don’t just die like that when they’re not old? This doesn’t make any sense!’
I try to focus and take his hand. I have so many questions I want to ask him – he’s sure she was at home, being one – but I can’t say a thing. He’s understandably devastated. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t know what to say, Adam. I really am so sorry.’
‘I’d say the same to you, but I’m glad Antony Vaughan is dead.’
I let go and shrink back from him.
‘You know what the police just said – about the wardrobe with the false back?’ He’s angry. ‘Do you understand what they’re talking about? Had you found it?’
‘I discovered it today. I didn’t know Tim’s father knew about it.’
‘Knew about it?’ Adam laughs and looks up at the ceiling. ‘He fucking made it! All those times he was over there “helping” Eve to fix things, here and there. He was quite the handyman. Isobel told me what he’d done to her, but I didn’t know until recently that she fell pregnant. She told Susannah it was Tim’s baby. Susannah even made her have a DNA test before she helped her get rid of it. Imagine that, Claire? Imagine what Isobel went through? She made me promise not to tell anyone what he did to her, and I haven’t. All this time… I know he’s Tim’s dad but I hope he rots in Hell. I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry at all.’
I can’t take this in. ‘But Tony was having an affair with Isobel’s mother.’
‘Yes, he was, but he used Eve as an excuse to get access to the house. He visited her at night. He told Izzie he loved her – because that’s how you treat someone you love, of course. When she told me, and this was ten years ago now, I tried to convince her to go to the police, but she wouldn’t. I don’t think she didn’t wanted the truth to come out and annihilate Eve. I paid him a visit, and she told me it stopped, but… then you all moved here. She was terrified when she saw Rosie. She was so frightened he was going to use the door in the wardrobe again and that it was why he bought Fox Cottage in the first place. She wanted you out of there. She wanted to keep Rosie safe.’
My head is swimming. Adam’s words don’t feel real, yet I know I believe him. ‘How old was Isobel when this began?’
‘She said sixteen. I always believed that, because I couldn’t see Antony Vaughan doing anything obviously illegal that he would never be able to argue his way out of, if he was caught. But because of her reaction to Rosie, I can’t be sure now…’
‘Are you going to tell Eve all of this?’
‘I don’t know.’ He blinks in confusion. ‘I don’t know what to think. She didn’t tell Eve herself, so do I respect her decision? And how can I tell Eve something like that when Isobel isn’t here for her to discuss it with? What does she do with that information then? On the other hand, why should Antony Vaughan get away with it by dying? His wife shouldn’t waste her time mourning him. And how can Izzie be dead?’ His voice wavers.
‘I would never recover from discovering something like that about my child who has just died – knowing I could never talk to them about it. I think I would rather not be told, on balance.’ To say that’s an understatement doesn’t even come close. ‘If that helps?’
There’s another knock at the door and a doctor peers in ‘Mrs Bradbury?’ He looks at me hopefully.
‘No. I’m not. Excuse me though,’ I ask quickly, as he’s retreating. ‘Paternity tests. If two alleged fathers are biologically related – as in, father and son – can it give you a false positive result?’
The doctor looks completely thrown, as well he might. ‘Er, yes. Fifty per cent of the son’s DNA comes from his father, so unless both men are tested, there’s a high possibility of a false positive result.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, and he glances at both of us as if we’re mad.
‘Happy to help?’ he ventures and disappears quickly in case I ask him anything else.
‘I’m telling you the truth, I swear,’ says Adam.
I turn to face him. ‘I believe you. Tim told me from the start that he’s never had a sexual relationship with Isobel. I believe him too.’ I pause. ‘May I tell him what you’ve told me? I would feel uncomfortable knowing this about his father, and not saying anything, as he starts to work it out for himself and wonders if he’s right. As for telling Eve and Susannah, you’ve made a good point, just because Antony has died doesn’t mean people shouldn’t know what kind of person he really was. But there are other lives this will devastate if we do something now that we might regret later. Eve doesn’t know how Antony was found. Neither does Susannah.’
Adam doesn’t say anything.
�
��Most of all though – Isobel.’ I swallow. ‘I can’t believe how strong she was.’
‘I’m sorry for all of the things she did, that frightened you – but that was her intention,’ Adam says. ‘Rightly or wrongly, she didn’t want you leaving Rosie on her own for one second. She wanted you out of that house; she wanted you to go home. She really believed that she was able to protect you.’ He pauses, miserably. ‘Claire, the fire…’
‘Don’t,’ I say quickly. ‘Don’t ask me anything; don’t tell me anything.’ I take his hand again, and briefly squeeze it. ‘Some secrets are better left untold.’
Two Weeks Later
Twenty-Five
Eve
‘I know this is a lot to take in, Eve,’ says the GP sympathetically. He’s a young man – not a dissimilar age to Isobel, I imagine. I glance up at the wall to see a picture of him with his arms round a smiling wife and two small children. ‘But there was nothing that you could have done to stop this from happening. The post-mortem found that Isobel’s death in her sleep was caused by sudden adult death syndrome, or SADS. They couldn’t find anything wrong with the structure of her heart, but she might have had a disease which affected its electrical functioning – that’s unfortunately something you can’t determine at post-mortem, only when someone is alive. The very difficult thing about SADS is that these apparently healthy young people are walking around completely unaware that something is wrong, because there are no symptoms. Some people occasionally have blackouts, but…’ he trails off.
‘Isobel did faint from time to time. I put it down to her stress and anxiety issues. My daughter did not have an easy life. Things were often difficult for her.’
He nods and I wonder if he has a clue what I’m talking about, if he’s read her copious notes.
‘Isobel experienced a traumatic event when she was a young girl that triggered a lot of issues,’ I explain, in case he hasn’t. ‘She was puberphonic—’
