Innocent

by Kinsley, Erin

  ‘I’ve no idea who he is,’ she says. ‘Tris never mentioned him.’

  She’s busy then looking for lip-balm to put on Tris’s dry lips, and doesn’t notice the look that passes between her parents-in-law.

  Twenty-seven

  Somehow, days and nights go by. One week on from the wedding, Tris has shown no change, not a movement of a finger or the squeeze of a hand, just steady, automated breathing, rise and fall, rise and fall. Izzy’s watched him, trapped within his coma, metamorphose from Tris indistinguishable from his normal sleeping self to Tris deep frozen yet not cold, waxen-faced and insensate, his mind alive but distant, maybe lost and drifting through the stars.

  She misses him so badly. Everywhere’s too quiet, even when she and Flora are at home together, as if the withdrawal of his crackling energy has put the house to sleep.

  But a spore of mould can spoil a feast. That sliver of doubt about his phone and his fidelity is beginning to fester, and her love lacks the unshakeable confidence she felt before.

  Please let him come home and make things right.

  On this seventh day, she’s forced to be away from his bedside.

  Not unreasonably, Bridget wants a day off. Steph and Eamon are sympathetic, and Steph seems even to relish the prospect of being carer-in-chief, though in truth there’s very little caring to be done. The major responsibility lies in the keeping of the vigil.

  Izzy throws back the curtains on brilliant sunshine and the bluest of skies. If Tris were here, there’d be plans for the day, croissants and cherry jam for breakfast, rugs and deckchairs on the lawn, a long, languorous day of relaxing shut away from the world. Tris protects his Saturdays the way others guard their Sundays. Sundays to him should be sociable days, long lunches with friends, excursions to the coast or family teas.

  What Flora would enjoy most would be to fill the paddling pool and have a morning splashing on the lawn. The thought of it is cheering, and while Flora’s enjoying her egg and soldiers, Izzy makes an effort with her own breakfast, whizzing a strawberry and kefir smoothie in the blender, spreading a piece of toast with almond butter to enjoy with a cup of good coffee, the French roast Tris buys from Selfridge’s. Bridget’s right, she is looking too thin. She needs to take better care of herself. This could be a long, long haul.

  As she clears away and loads the dishwasher, she suggests her plan to Flora, who squeals with delight. Upstairs they find Flora’s favourite swimsuit, and – at her insistence – a bikini for Izzy too. While they’re getting changed, the postman pulls up outside, and Izzy hears the letterbox clatter as the mail lands on the mat.

  She and Tris have a simple system with the mail: whichever of them picks it up, scans and sorts it, his pile here, hers there. This morning the delivery’s light, with nothing of much interest, except for a personal letter addressed to Tris, postmarked Oxford, franked by a firm of architects. Izzy studies it with a growing feeling of excitement. If Tris has business with architects, it can only mean one thing. They’ve talked many times of a place by the sea, just something small for weekends away, and even got to drawing little sketches and discussing where it should be, Anglesey or Dorset, or – if Izzy has her way – deep into Cornwall. This letter can only mean Tris has been planning a surprise, working on their coastal hideaway. Now she feels bad for doubting his commitment.

  The morning passes quickly, with Flora happily running in and out of the pool with her unicorn watering can sprinkling the buttercups on the lawn, and Izzy making daisy chains for Flora’s head and wrists before retiring to a deckchair, closing her eyes to enjoy the healing warmth of the sun. By lunchtime, Flora’s hungry enough to eat what she’s given without any fuss, then settles down for a nap.

  Izzy wanders into the kitchen to make iced tea. Tris’s letter is still on the counter, and it occurs to her some reply may be required. That seems a good enough reason to satisfy her curiosity, and though she realises she may be ruining the surprise, she opens it. Maybe she can impress him, by moving the project forward while he convalesces. Isn’t he always saying they’re a team? When one member’s down, the other must step up to the mark.

  She draws a single sheet of paper from the envelope. The subject line reads, Fairview, Upper Whiston, Oxon. Izzy frowns. As far as she knows, no part of Oxfordshire is by the sea.

  The letter is an invoice, for professional fees of almost £4,000.

  Tris has been a very dark horse indeed. This project appears some way advanced, but she’s confused. They have no plans to move – don’t they both adore Foxcote Lodge? – and Oxfordshire has never been discussed. What on earth is going on?

  Izzy immediately thinks of Rightmove; when they were looking for this house, she was on it daily. She pulls up the website on her iPad and puts in the postcode from the invoice, no restrictions on house price, no restrictions on when a property was sold. Nothing comes up, so she switches to Zoopla, thinking she can find out when Fairview changed hands. A couple of minutes, and there’s an entry for it: sold just over a year ago for £124,000.

  None of this makes any sense at all. She and Tris and Flora were living in this house then. There’s no way Tris would spend that kind of money without talking to her.

  Is there?

  She thinks of the secret phone.

  In Google Maps, the house’s postcode shows her a remote rural area, and when she switches to Street View, a narrow country lane. Tracking along it with her cursor, she finds an isolated bungalow in considerable disrepair, standing among a tangle of overgrown shrubs and in the shadow of tall trees. On the dilapidated gate is a sign – Fairview.

  This is no house for them, not somewhere she’d trade Foxcote Lodge for, not in a million years.

  Maybe someone’s sent Tris the wrong invoice? But that’s hard to argue when his name’s printed at the top.

  There’s one more place she can investigate – the Land Registry website, which she’s visited to download the deeds to Foxcote Lodge. She opens the site in a new window and keys in the details from the invoice. Records are available for a fee of £3. She makes the payment, and up comes the result.

  Fairview is registered in joint ownership, between Tristan Savage and Martina Stokes.

  Her heart feels heavy as realisation dawns. Who else can Martina possibly be, but Tina from the contacts on his hidden phone?

  Twenty-eight

  On Sunday morning, eight days after the wedding, the pool area at the Sterndale Hall Hotel is busy.

  Ten-year-old Danny has new goggles, a birthday present to replace the leaky ones he’s had the last two years. Danny’s a total water-baby, taught to swim by his mum at three years old, and a member of his local swimming club from age seven. When he grows up, he wants to be a professional diver.

  Most of those here are adults, relaxing on sunbeds and enjoying coffee and pastries in the sun, or – in the case of the school reunion party from Bury St Edmunds – sleeping off hangovers in the shade. Danny’s alone in the pool, and he’s entertaining himself by dropping a pound coin his dad’s given him into the water, watching it settle on the bottom before diving down to retrieve it.

  The new goggles are brilliant, and his underwater view is crystal clear. He’s quickly graduated to the deep end, treading water for a minute or two between dives to catch his breath. The water’s beautiful, azure blue with crazy white patterns on the bottom where the sun reflects the ripples, and as he rests, Danny watches the honeycomb lattice as it twists and shifts.

  Down near the filter, something’s glittering as it catches the light.

  Danny’s heart lifts. This could be treasure, gold or silver, a dropped bracelet or ring. If it’s something valuable, there might be a reward.

  Tucking his pound coin in the net pocket of his waistband, he makes his dive, pulling down against the water’s pressure. Close to the white tiled pool floor, he sees why what he’s after can’t be spotted from above; th
eir transparency makes them all but invisible. They’re not the prize he was hoping, but they’re a discovery nonetheless: a discarded pair of champagne flutes, rolling back and forth in the filter vacuum’s tug.

  Danny’s dad works in logistics at the most senior level, but despite his Hilfiger shorts, his ironic Hawaiian shirt and his Rick Owens sandals, he can’t get past that stocky, bald, confrontational-looking exterior which makes him look like a Friday night bouncer. It doesn’t help that, when he asks to see the manager, his accent is pure Walsall.

  As he approaches the reception desk, Craig Dalton’s smile is polite, as always. He introduces himself, and asks what he can do to help.

  Danny’s dad holds up the champagne flutes.

  ‘Health and safety, mate,’ he says, ‘that’s what that is. Glass in the pool? It’s not on, is it? You want to be more careful. If someone had trod on one of them, you’d be getting yourself sued. Anyway, you can have them for nothing.’

  Dalton puts his hand out to take the glasses.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr . . .’

  ‘Needham.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Needham, but I’m not with you. Where did you find these?’

  ‘My boy found ’em, in your swimming pool. Dived down and picked ’em up, right where it’s deepest. In fairness to you, you couldn’t spot ’em from above. It was only when he got down there he saw ’em. He was a bit cut up, actually. Reckoned he’d found some pirate’s treasure or something, you know what kids are like. Anyway, like I say. I don’t want to make a fuss. Only you want to be more careful. If they were in the shallow end, you’d have a problem, understand what I’m saying?’

  Dalton takes the glasses by their stems and places them on the reception desk.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough, Mr Needham. As a thank you, may I offer you and your family something on the house? A drink from the bar? Does your son like ice cream?’

  ‘That’s very decent of you,’ smiles Danny’s dad. ‘I’ll have a pint of Oracle.’

  Craig Dalton has seen on TV how the police bag up evidence, so he fetches a Ziploc bag from the kitchen and puts the glasses in it, being careful to touch them as little as possible. When he’s sealed the bag, he searches his desk for the card Weld gave him, and dials the number for West Mercia CID. The phone goes to answer machine, so he leaves a message, that he’s found something which may be of interest at the Sterndale Hall Hotel.

  Twenty-nine

  Izzy has slept poorly again, partly because of the sultry night temperatures, mainly because of the questions running through her head. But as her mind’s been racing, she’s come up with a plan.

  She phones Bridget and tells her she won’t be needed, then calls Steph to say she won’t be coming to the hospital because Bridget isn’t free to care for Flora. Bridget is pleased to have Sunday free, and Steph accepts Izzy’s excuse without question, but as Izzy’s about to hang up, Steph says, ‘You haven’t asked how he is.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ asks Izzy. ‘Of course I meant to. I didn’t sleep well last night, and my brain’s all full of fog. Is there any news?’

  She hears Steph take a breath and thinks maybe there is, but Steph lets the breath go in a sigh.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she says. ‘Eamon’s been reading to him – he’s started on Game of Thrones, which will keep him going for a while. It’s a bit graphic for me, but I think Tris will be enjoying it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do. That’s a great idea. He’s been meaning to read it.’

  ‘I’ve been massaging his hands, trying to get them warm. I don’t know why they feel so cold. And I trimmed his fingernails yesterday. I know he’s very particular about his hands, and I don’t want him to wake up and think we haven’t been taking care of him.’ There’s a short silence, and Izzy hears a catch in Steph’s voice as she says, ‘There seems so little we can do for him. Do you think he knows we’re here?’

  ‘I’m sure he does,’ says Izzy, even though she isn’t sure at all. ‘He’ll be loving every minute of the attention.’

  ‘You’ll be here tomorrow, won’t you? I expect he misses you.’

  ‘Yes, of course I will. Bridget said she’ll come early, so I’ll be there by breakfast time.’

  ‘I’ll ring you if there’s news in the meantime.’

  ‘Give him a kiss from me.’

  ‘Of course, dear. See you in the morning.’

  Izzy’s mental fog was no lie. Tiredness slows her down, and she dresses Flora and makes her breakfast in a daze, barely speaking so Flora, sensing emotional withdrawal, becomes fractious. She wants another day in the paddling pool and becomes tearful when that’s denied, and as Izzy straps her in the back of the Range Rover, she’s still grizzling. Nerves on edge, with a long drive ahead, Izzy sets up a video on the iPad and hands it to Flora, who becomes quiet.

  Izzy has researched the route, and promised gold at the end of the rainbow for Flora: a petting zoo just five miles from the address where they’re heading.

  As they draw close to the postcode, Izzy’s more and more bemused. This area’s no beauty spot; it’s working countryside, with industrial-sized farms of featureless fields.

  The satnav directs her to turn off the B-road on to a lane. At the junction, there’s an old farmhouse renovated into an attractive private residence. Beyond that, she sees nothing but a derelict barn, and straw bales blocking entry to the meadows, no doubt to deter travellers from setting up camp or grazing horses.

  Alongside a field entrance, she stops.

  She needs to be sure – absolutely sure – she wants to carry on. Her visit to this place could be life-changing, an irrevocable, no-going-back moment. If she finds Tina at this house and confronts her, at best the foundations of her marriage will be shaken. At worst, the future she imagined with Tris could be dust in the wind.

  It isn’t too late to turn back.

  And yet, in truth, it is. If he wants to be with someone else, let her come and be his nurse. Izzy will take the money, bear the scandal and start a new life.

  She drives on. As the satnav shows her closing on the chequered flag of her destination, behind her shoulder Flora is giggling at Hey Duggee. Izzy’s looking for trees and the overgrown, dilapidated bungalow she’s seen on Street View, but as she reaches the bend in the road where Fairview should be, she sees changes have been made.

  The gate with the name, the trees and the bungalow are all gone. In their place is a building site of sun-baked clay, where a new house is rising, complete to the height of the ground-floor walls.

  No one is here. Izzy feels immense relief that there’ll be no confrontation, but the tension she lets go is replaced by anger at how he’s fooled and deceived her. What other conclusion can be drawn, when she can see with her own eyes the tens of thousands of pounds that have already been spent on this site?

  She parks the car, and opening the doors to let in air, leaves Flora in her seat. Flora asks if this is the zoo, clearly hoping from her dubious tone that it isn’t.

  ‘Just wait here a moment, munchkin,’ says Izzy. ‘The zoo isn’t far away, but I have to look at something before we go there.’

  She’s glad the ground is dry. Anticipating a meeting with her husband’s mistress, she dressed all in summery white, including open-toed sandals totally unsuitable for wandering among ditches where drains and cables will be laid, between piles of discarded part-bricks and the trip-hazard spills of dried concrete.

  She finds a good vantage point and takes photos on her phone.

  The step up to the threshold is high, with the path not yet built. Gripping the wall which will hold the front door, she pulls herself up, and stands in what will become the hallway of the resurgent Fairview. Skeleton walls of timber struts mark the layout of the rooms, and she wants to enter every one, get the measure of this house owned by her husband and another woman. Beyond doubt, Fairview will be
bigger than Foxcote Lodge. While it’s too early to say whether it will have beauty, what it will certainly lack are the history and character Tris insisted were important to him in a home.

  What were his words? I want a place where generations have been happy before us.

  And Izzy believed him, the same way she believed everything else he said: that she’s the soulmate he’d searched for all his life; that he’s never felt so happy as he is with her and Flora.

  Words, it seems, are cheap.

  When he wakes up, she swears she’ll kill him.

  Thirty

  On Monday morning, Muir’s running late, and passes by the team already at their desks with only the most cursory of greetings.

  Weld calls out to him.

  ‘Can I have a quick word, Boss?’

  Muir comes over, nodding a good morning to Golding as he does so. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Yeah, good. Hope you don’t mind me jumping in, but I sent Gooch back out to Sterndale. We had a call from the hotel over the weekend. They’ve found something they think might be of interest in the Tristan Savage case.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘A lad diving in the swimming pool found a couple of champagne flutes, from what I gather lying on the bottom.’

  ‘Champagne flutes? Like the kind which might go with a champagne bottle?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Muir looks like he finds the news vaguely cheering. ‘Now that is interesting. What do you make of it?’

  ‘It’s hard not to jump to a conclusion which might be entirely false,’ says Weld, ‘but I’m thinking firstly, there could be a connection to our case, and secondly, two glasses and a bottle of bubbly smack to me of a romantic assignation.’

  ‘Could he have arranged to meet a woman?’

  ‘If he did, it wasn’t his wife. She never said anything to me about any poolside rendezvous. And remember she told me he’s teetotal.’