I WAKE EARLY, lying still while my eyes adjust to the light in the room. The room is bright, in spite of the early hour, but it’s a cold light, chilly and diffuse, and looking out over the Reach I see that a sea mist has drifted in up the estuary to wrap the Mill and its surroundings in a fine grey gauze. There is a cobweb across part of the window, jewelled with microscopic droplets, and I watch it for a while, reminded unsettlingly of the clinging nets in Salten village.
The air is cold on my arms, and I pull up the blankets and roll over to check on Freya, uncharacteristically quiet in the cradle beside me.
What I see makes my heart seem to stop in my chest, and then restart, thumping at a hundred miles an hour.
Freya is not there.
Freya is not there.
Before I can think I have stumbled out of bed, shaking as if I’ve been given an electric shock. I’m searching in the covers of the bed – stupidly, for I know I put her down in the wooden cradle last night and she’s not even crawling yet, let alone able to climb out and crawl into bed.
Freya. Oh Jesus.
I am making little whimpering noises in my throat, unable to believe she’s not here, and then I burst out of the room and down the corridor.
‘Kate!’ It’s meant to be a shout, but panic makes the word stick and choke in my throat, and it sounds like a strangled cry of fear. ‘Kate!’
‘Down here!’ she calls, and I stumble down the wooden stairs, barking my heels, missing the last step and staggering into the kitchen so that Kate looks up from where she’s standing at the sink, her surprise turning to concern as she sees me standing there, wild-eyed and empty-armed.
‘Kate,’ I manage. ‘Freya – she – she’s gone!’
Kate puts down the coffee maker she has been rinsing and I see, as I say the words, her expression turning to a look of … can it be guilt?
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, and she points to the rug behind me. I whirl round – and she’s there. Freya is there. Sitting on the rug with a piece of bread in her fist, and she looks up at me and gives a shriek of happiness, throwing the mushed-up toast onto the rug and holding out her arms to be picked up.
I snatch her up, my heart thrumming in my chest as I press her to me. I can’t speak. I don’t know what to say.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kate repeats guiltily. ‘I – it didn’t occur to me you’d worry. I must have woken her up when I used the bathroom, because I heard her when I came out – you were still asleep and I just thought –’ She twists her fingers. ‘You always look so tired. I thought you’d like a lie-in.’
I say nothing, letting my racing heartbeat subside, feeling Freya’s small pink fingers tangle in my hair, smelling the baby-smell of her head and feeling her weight in my arms … oh God. It’s OK. Everything is OK.
My legs are suddenly weak with relief and I sit on the sofa.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kate says again. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes. ‘I should have realised you’d wonder where she was.
‘It’s OK,’ I manage at last. Freya pats my cheek, trying to make me look at her. She knows something is wrong, she just can’t tell what. I force a smile as I look down at her, wondering what’s happened to me, what kind of person I am becoming, if my first reaction on finding my child gone is to imagine she’s been snatched. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to Kate. My voice trembles a little, and I take a deep breath, trying to calm my breathing. ‘I don’t know why I panicked so much. I’m just … I’m kind of on edge at the moment.’
Her eyes meet mine in rueful acknowledgement.
‘Me too.’
She turns back to the sink.
‘Want a coffee?’
‘Sure.’
Kate puts the machine on the hob, and as we both sit there, listening to the silence before it begins to wheeze and hiss, she says, ‘Thanks.’
I look up, surprised.
‘Thanks for what? Shouldn’t I be saying that?’
‘For coming down at such short notice. I know it’s a lot to ask.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I say, although that’s not true. Choosing Kate may have been the last straw between Owen and me, and that’s frightening. ‘Tell me … tell me about the police,’ I say instead, trying not to think about what I may have done.
Kate doesn’t answer straight away; instead she turns back to where the moka pot is hissing and takes it off the heat, pours out two small cups, and brings one across to me. I put Freya back down on the rug, as I take it, careful not to put it anywhere her soft chubby hands can reach.
‘That fucking Mark Wren,’ Kate says at last, as she curls onto the armchair opposite. ‘He came to see me. Full of this must be a difficult time for you, but he knows. I don’t know what Mary’s told him, but he knows something’s not right.’
‘So the body … it’s definitely been identified?’ I ask, even though I know it has, I’ve seen the newspaper reports. But somehow I need to hear it from Kate’s lips, see her reaction as she tells me.
There is nothing I can glean from her expression, though, as she nods in weary confirmation.
‘Yes, I think so. They took a DNA swab from me, but they know it’s pretty much a certainty. They said something about dental records, and they showed me his ring.’
‘Did they ask you to identify it?’
‘Yes, I said it was his. It seemed … well, it seemed foolish not to.’
I nod. Kate’s right of course. Part of the Lying Game was always to know when the game was up, when to bail out. Rule Five – know when to stop lying. Throw in your hand before the shit hits the fan, as Thee used to put it. The trick was to know when you’d got to that point. But I’m not sure if we’ve succeeded this time. It feels like the trouble is coming no matter what we do.
‘So what next?’
‘They’ve asked me to come in and make a statement, about the night he disappeared. But that’s the thing, we need to decide – do I tell them you were all here?’ She rubs her hands over her face, the shadows beneath her eyes brown against her olive skin. ‘I don’t know what to say for the best. I could tell them I called you, when I found Dad was missing – asked you to come over. We could back up each other’s stories – just say we were all here, but there was no sign of Dad and you left early. But then they’ll ask you all for statements too. It all comes down to what the school knows.’
‘What the school knows?’ I echo stupidly.
‘About that night. Did anyone see you leave? If I say you weren’t here and people find out you were, it could all backfire.’
I understand. I try to think back. We were in our rooms when she came to find us, but Miss Weatherby, she saw our clothes, the mud on my sandals. And she said something, in her office, something about us breaking out of bounds, about a witness …
‘I think we were seen,’ I say reluctantly. ‘Or at least, Miss Weatherby said we were. She didn’t say who. We didn’t admit anything – well, I didn’t, I don’t know about Fatima and Thea.’
‘Fuck. So I’ll have to tell them I was here that night, and you were too. And that means you’ll all be dragged in for questioning, probably.’ Her face is white, and I know what she is thinking – it’s not just the worry about the distress this will cause to the rest of us, there’s a more practical, more selfish element to it too. Whether four sets of stories can hold together under questioning. Whether someone might crack …
I think about Thea, about her drinking, about the marks on her arms, about the toll that this is taking on her. And I think about Fatima, and her new-found faith. Sincere repentance, she said. What if that includes confession, as part of making things right? Surely Allah can’t forgive someone who continues to lie and cover up?
And I think too about the pictures. Those bloody pictures in the mail. About the fact that there is someone else out there who knows something.
‘Kate,’ I say, and I swallow, and then stop. She turns to look at me, and I force myself on. ‘There’s something I have to tell you. Fatima and Thea and I, we got … we got some pictures. In the mail. Copies. Of drawings.’
Kate’s face changes, and I realise she knows already what I am going to say. I am not sure whether that makes it easier, or harder, but I force myself onwards, bringing the words out in a rush so I can’t lose my nerve.
‘Did you really destroy all the pictures your dad did of us?’
‘Yes,’ Kate says. Her face is wretched. ‘I swear it. But not –’ She stops, and suddenly I don’t want to hear what she’s about to say, but it’s too late. She presses her lips together in a white, bloodless line. ‘But not straight away.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I couldn’t bring myself to burn them right after he died, I meant to, but I just – I don’t know, I could never find the right time. But one day I went up to his studio and someone had been there.’
‘What?’ I don’t try to hide my shock. ‘When was this?’
‘Years ago. Not long after it all happened. There were paintings missing, and drawings, and I knew someone had been in there looking. I burned them all after that, I swear it, but then the letters started.’
I feel coldness drip through me like poison.
‘Letters?’
‘It was just one at first,’ Kate’s voice is low. ‘I sold a painting of Dad’s. The auction was reported in the local press along with what it sold for, and a few weeks later I got a letter, asking for money. It didn’t make any threats, just asked for a hundred pounds to be left in an envelope behind a loose panel in the Salten Arms. I did nothing, and few weeks later the letter came again, only this time it was asking for two hundred and there was a drawing enclosed.’
‘A drawing of us.’ My voice is flat, sick. Kate nods.
‘I paid up. The letters came again, every now and again, maybe one every six months, and I paid and paid, but at last I wrote a letter saying that was it, I couldn’t pay any more – that the Mill was sinking and Dad’s paintings were gone, and they could ask all they wanted but the money just wasn’t there. And the letters stopped.’
‘When was that?’
‘About two or three years ago. I didn’t hear anything after that, and I thought it had stopped, but then a few weeks ago they started again. First it was the sheep and then …’ She swallows. ‘Then after you left, I got a letter saying Why don’t you ask your friends? But I never dreamt –’
‘Jesus Christ, Kate!’ I stand up, too full of nerves to keep still, but there is nowhere to go and I sit again, picking restlessly at the frayed material of the sofa. I want to say, why didn’t you tell us? But I know why. Because Kate has been trying to protect us, all these years. I want to ask, why didn’t you go to the police? But I know that too. I want to say, they’re only pictures. But we know – we both know – that’s not true. The pictures don’t matter. It’s the note with the sheep that tells the whole story.
‘I keep wondering …’ Kate says in a low voice, and then stops.
‘Go on,’ I prompt her. She twists her fingers together, and then gets up and goes across to the dresser. In one of the drawers is a sheaf of papers, bound together with a piece of red string, and right in the middle of the sheaf is a letter in an envelope, very old and creased. It’s a letter that makes my heart stutter in my chest.
‘Is that –?’ I manage, and Kate nods.
‘I kept it. I didn’t know what else to do.’
She holds it out to me, and for a minute I’m reluctant to take it, thinking of forensics and fingerprints, but it’s too late. We handled that note seventeen years ago, all of us. I take it, very gently, as though using the tips of my fingers will make it harder to trace back to me, but I don’t open it. I don’t need to. Now that the letter is in my hands, the phrases float up through from the deep water of my memory – so sorry … don’t blame yourself, my sweet … the only thing I can do to make things right …
‘Should I give it to Mark Wren?’ Kate asks huskily. ‘I mean it might stop this whole thing. It answers so many questions …’
But it raises so many more. Like, why didn’t Kate go to the police with this note seventeen years ago?
‘What would you say?’ I ask at last. ‘About where you found it? How would you explain it?’
‘I don’t know. I could say I found it that night, but I didn’t tell anyone – I could say the truth, basically, that Dad was gone, that I was afraid of losing the house. But I don’t have to involve the rest of you – the burial, everything else, I could leave that out. Or I could say that I only found it later, months afterwards.’
‘God, Kate, I don’t know.’ I scrub my fists into my eyes, trying to chase away the remnants of bleary-eyed exhaustion that seem to be stopping me from thinking properly. Behind my lids, lights spark and dark flowers bloom. ‘All those stories, they seem to be asking more questions than they answer, and besides –’
And then I stop.
‘Besides what?’ Kate says, and there’s a note in her voice I can’t quite read. Defensiveness? Fear?
Shit. I did not mean to go down this route. But I can’t think what else to say. Rule Four of the Lying Game – we don’t lie to each other, right?
‘Besides … if you give them that note they’ll want to verify it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Kate, I have to ask this.’ I swallow, trying to think of a way to phrase it that doesn’t sound like I am thinking what I’m thinking. ‘Please understand, whatever you say, whatever happened, I won’t judge you. I just have to know – you owe us that, right?’
‘Isa, you’re scaring me,’ Kate says flatly, but there’s something in her eyes I don’t like, something worried and evasive.
‘That note. It – it doesn’t add up. You know it doesn’t. Ambrose committed suicide because of the drawings, that’s what we always thought, right?’
Kate nods, but slowly, like she’s wary of where I am going.
‘But the timings are all wrong – the drawings didn’t turn up at school until after he died.’ I swallow again. I think of Kate’s facility for forgery, for the paintings she faked for years after Ambrose’s death. I think of the blackmail demands she has been paying for more than fifteen years, rather than go to the police with this note – demands she has concealed from us, though we had a right to know. ‘Kate, I guess what I’m asking is … did Ambrose definitely write that note?’
‘He wrote that note,’ she says, and her face is hard.
‘But it doesn’t make sense. And look, he took a heroin overdose, right? That’s what we’ve always thought. But then why were his works all neatly packed up in the tin? Wouldn’t he have just shot up and dropped them beside his chair?’
‘He wrote that note,’ Kate repeats doggedly. ‘If anyone should know, I should.’
‘It’s just –’ I stop. I can’t think how to say this, say what I’m thinking. Kate squares her shoulders, pulls her dressing gown around herself.
‘What are you asking, Isa? Are you asking if I killed my own father?’
There is silence.
The words are shocking, spoken aloud like that – my vague, amorphous suspicions given concrete shape and edges hard enough to wound.
‘I don’t know,’ I say at last. My voice is croaky. ‘I’m asking … I’m asking if there’s something else we should know before we go into that police interview.’
‘There is nothing else you need to know.’ Her voice is stony.
‘There’s nothing else we need to know, or there’s nothing else full stop?’
‘There’s nothing else you need to know.’
‘So there is something else? You’re just not telling me what?’
‘For fuck’s sake, please stop asking me, Isa!’ Her face is anguished, and she paces to the window, Shadow feeling her distress and pacing with her. ‘There’s nothing else I can tell you – please, please believe me.’
‘Thea said –’ I start, and then feel my courage almost fail, but I have to ask it. I have to know. ‘Kate, Thea said Ambrose was sending you away. Is that true? Why? Why would he do that?’
For a minute Kate stares at me, frozen, her face white.
And then she makes a noise like a sob and turns away, snatching up her coat and slinging it on over her pyjamas, shoving her feet into the mud-spattered wellingtons that stand beside the doorway. She grabs Shadow’s lead, the dog anxiously following at her heels, its gaze turned up to Kate’s trying to understand her distress – and then she’s gone, the door slamming behind her.
The noise sounds like a gunshot, echoing in the rafters and making the cups on the dresser chink with indignation. Freya, playing happily on the rug at my feet, jumps at the noise, her small face crumpling with shock as she begins to wail.
I want to pursue Kate, pin her down for answers. But I can’t, I have to comfort my child.
I stand for a minute, irresolute, listening to the howling Freya, and the sound of Kate’s footsteps hurrying away across the bridge, and then with a growl of exasperation I pick Freya up and hurry to the window.
She is red-faced and kicking, full of a woe out of proportion to the sudden noise, and as I try to soothe her, I watch Kate’s retreating silhouette disappearing up the shoreline with Shadow. And I wonder.
I wonder about the words she chose.
There’s nothing else I can tell you.
Kate is a woman of few words – she always has been. So there must be a reason. A reason why she didn’t just say, There’s nothing else to tell.
And as I watch her, disappearing into the mist, I wonder what that reason is, and whether I’ve made a huge mistake by coming here.