Deep Water, Thin Ice (30 page)

He rolled over to peer at the luminous fingers of the clock on the bedside cabinet. Ten past one. He wriggled himself into a more comfortable position and was slowly drifting to sleep again when he heard something. He was sure of it this time. It sounded like the gate at the end of the front path. Wide awake now, he slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Alex, and walked to the window, shivering a little as the cold air hit his naked body. He pulled the curtain aside a fraction and stuck his head into the gap. The sky was banked with cloud, the garden and parkland a series of black shapes on darkest grey. Then a shift in the cloud allowed a little moonlight to filter through and he spotted a dark figure moving away in the parkland beyond the garden wall, indistinct and head down, the occasional sweep of a torch beam visible by its feet.

He quickly slipped on his fleece and jeans, crept silently out of the room and ran barefoot down the nearest stairs, adrenaline pumping his heart. He’d obviously been woken by something that person had been doing at the house and he had to know what it was. Down in the hall he paused; there was no sign of anything: no damage, no fire, not the slightest spark. Then he saw the note, still sticking in the letter box. He eased it out, holding the spring with his other hand to stop the flap banging.

The envelope was addressed to
A. M
. He walked quietly through the drawing room to the kitchen, put the light on and stared at the letter. His lip curled and he turned it over, inserted a finger in the end, ripped it open and pulled out the single sheet of A4 paper. It read:

I think you should be aware Alex that the man you have agreed to marry is not everything he seems. You are not the only woman he has been seeing these last few months. I know for a fact that Theo Hellyon has been having an affair with a married woman in the village. I don’t wish to disclose the woman’s name for fear of what might happen to her but please believe that what I say is true. If you doubt me, think back to these nights.
There followed a list of dates.
Theo wasn’t with you on any of these nights because he was with her.

Please pay attention to this letter – for your own sake. Believe me, Theo may seem gentle and kind to you now but really he is a cruel man. You should get away from him as soon as you can.

A friend.

Theo shook his head, gave a brief laugh and then glanced up at the ceiling and hastily quelled it. He looked down again. The letter was typed and printed but the initials had been handwritten on the envelope. What a foolish oversight. He had recognised Helen’s handwriting immediately. He shook his head; she clearly wasn’t to be trusted after all. It was a shame really; she’d given him a lot of pleasure.

He walked back through into the snug where the dying embers in the wood-burning stove still glowed red. He flicked open the vent, opened the door, and threw the letter and envelope inside. He nudged them with the poker then closed the door and watched them both burn, small flames licking slowly across them until the paper was thin, crisp and black.

‘Is that you Theo? Is there anything wrong?’ Alex’s voice from the landing brought him into the hallway.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ he replied, as he started back up the stairs. ‘Nothing wrong. I just came down to clear my head. I couldn’t sleep.’

Over the days leading up to the party, Alex was busy and content. She found herself humming snatches of music while she touched up the décor in the new bathroom; she picked over CDs to play and accepted Theo’s offerings of pop and rock with a generous, if doubtful, smile; she oversaw the catering plans and happily left Theo to sort out the drinks. One day, she even stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom and did some vocal exercises, stretching her facial muscles and vocal chords, filling the echoing space with reverberating sound. She’d been uncertain how she’d react after all this time but her rusty voice made her more appalled than emotional and she resolved to do some practice. She went to Plymouth with Theo to choose her engagement ring, arranged to have it resized, and Theo collected it and made an occasion of presenting it to her. He helped her move furniture, and then she changed her mind and they moved it again, amid a lot of laughter. He continually teased her and, after a mock battle one afternoon, they made love on the rug in front of the stove in the snug. They were good days and she was convinced she was happy.

But the party didn’t turn out the way she’d intended and afterwards she wondered if that had been the start of everything changing. Or had the party been blighted? Two days beforehand, the woman who ran the gallery in the village had been found dead at the bottom of the stairs which led up to the flat. Her neck had been broken in the fall it was said; a tragic accident but she’d probably died instantly.

‘Perhaps we should cancel the party?’ Alex had said to Theo when she heard the news.

‘Cancel it?’ Theo said with surprise. ‘Why would we do that? We didn’t know her very well did we? Or did you?’ he added, eyebrows raised.

‘No, hardly at all. I’d just exchanged the odd word with her when I was in the gallery. But it seems frivolous to have a party after such a tragedy.’

‘Nonsense. People are looking forward to it. They’ll be glad to have something else to think about.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

Alex quelled her disquiet, unsure if it was born of some sort of foolish superstition, or the product of her concern that the ‘small celebration’ appeared to have grown out of all proportion. Originally Alex had invited her sister, three old friends from her music college days and their partners, and a number of people she’d got to know in the village; Theo had invited his mother - ‘she
loves
parties’ - and ‘a few friends’. Then, on the last minute he told her that he’d invited some extra people.

‘Who?’ she’d asked, trying not to sound as irritated as she felt. ‘How many?’

‘I’m not sure. Just some more people from the village and some sailing friends. It came up in conversation and I didn’t want them to think I’d excluded them. It’s OK isn’t it?’

‘But it’s very short notice to inform the caterers.’

‘That doesn’t matter. They won’t be bothered about eating. I’m sure there’ll be enough anyway. I’ll get in some extra drink.’

Come the night, her fears were realised. Though Erica had been forced to cry off at the last minute because Ben got tonsillitis and only Catherine, one of her old music friends, could come, Hillen Hall seemed to be full of people, many of them people she barely knew or not at all. Alex forced herself to tour the rooms, smiling, exchanging a few words here and there, fingering the diamond cluster engagement ring on her finger occasionally as though surprised to find it there. She marvelled at all these people Theo knew and, for the first time, wondered a little what he did when he wasn’t with her. Saturday nights he had often kept to ‘have a night with the boys’, he said; sometimes other nights too. Quite honestly happy to have the time to herself, she’d never quibbled. She’d realised he was more gregarious than her; she just hadn’t realised how much.

As she circulated now she could hear local people exchanging their amazement and disgust about the revelations regarding ‘the Birdman’. He’d been banned from the Stores, they said. Word had travelled quickly it seemed. They spoke of Helen Geaton’s death too, still speculating on how it had happened. ‘Probably been drinking,’ she heard someone say to Liz Franklin. ‘Apparently she smelt of alcohol. They found an empty bottle of champagne in the flat.’ Far from distracting local attention, the party only seemed to have allowed the story to be discussed and spread with more relish. She thought some of the conversations had a ghoulish quality.

Sarah had come, wearing a dress of grey silk, set off by a necklace of pink diamonds and matching drop earrings. She’d had her hair done, freshly highlighted, looking almost pearly in the artificial light. She was still striking, Alex had to admit, but she watched her arrival with some misgiving and then found herself constantly checking to see what she was doing. She caught a fleeting sight of her at intervals, glass in hand, nodding to people as she drifted regally from room to room.

There was constant music; some people danced. Then the food was served and there was a brief lull before the dancing started again. Alex saw little of Theo. Wasn’t that always the way at parties, she thought: you arrange them to celebrate something of significance and are then too busy to spend any time together? By eleven thirty, all the people Alex had invited had gone. Even Catherine, though offered a bed for the night, had left too, claiming the need to be back in Winchester for early the next day. The caterers had cleared up, sorted out the food residue and dishes, and gone.

Alex wandered into the hall, away from the increasingly rowdy conversation and the drunken laughter, and then made for the refuge of the snug, expecting it to be empty. But Sarah was in there, a glass of neat whisky in her hand, standing studying a painting on the wall. Alex stopped short.

‘Mrs Hellyon,’ she said, rather stupidly she thought.

Sarah started and turned to look at Alex, seeming to take a moment to remember who she was.

‘Ah Alex. Hello. Lovely party dear.’ The words ran together a little and she paused as if vaguely aware that they hadn’t come out the way she’d intended. She turned back to the painting. It was a bold, impasto oil painting of Kellaford harbour with the tide in, the view out across an assembly of colourful boats towards the Dancing Bears and the sea, done perhaps from one of the jetties. ‘Charming picture,’ she added, speaking more slowly. ‘I don’t remember it.’

‘I bought it in the gallery in the village last month.’

Sarah nodded, staring at the picture mistily. ‘The gallery,’ she murmured and then took a mouthful of whisky. ‘Where that woman died last week.’

‘Yes. It’s very sad, isn’t it?’

Sarah turned, glancing round the room regretfully.

‘You’ve done a lovely job here. But there’s nothing much left that I recognise now.’ She looked at Alex and smiled wanly. ‘There’s the grandfather clock in the drawing room of course. I’d hoped to take that with me when I moved to the Lodge but I couldn’t fit it in anywhere. In any case it hasn’t worked for years.’

‘I’ve managed to get it to work,’ Alex said, sounding more defiant than she’d intended. ‘I had a man out to look at it. He suggested moving it to get it more balanced.’

‘Oh?’ Sarah’s expression and tone suggested disbelief. ‘But it’s stopped now, isn’t it?’ She hesitated again and then nodded. ‘If I remember correctly it was Julian who broke it; he was always playing with the thing. Fascinated by it he was.’ She took another mouthful of whisky, her eyes increasingly hazy.

‘What was Julian like?’ Alex asked suddenly. He’d been on her mind a lot lately.

‘Julian?’ Sarah thought for a moment before speaking. ‘He was a strange mixture, really. He was quiet sometimes, studious, like his father; he shared his father’s interest in old things too. But then he was a stronger character than Richard. Richard could be high-handed but it was born of weakness, you see. Yes.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Julian was a stronger character; stubborn at times. Whereas Theo, you see, Theo always knows when to give in gracefully.’ Sarah finished the last of her whisky, licked a dry tongue over her lips and looked regretfully into the glass before looking back up at Alex. ‘Still, he was a good boy, Julian.’

Alex left a respectful silence, her mind drifting to Bill Franklin’s notebooks.

‘It must have been terrible for Theo and Simon,’ she said. ‘I gather the boys were all playing together on the stones when it happened.’

‘Playing? Who told you that?’

‘I read it…in someone’s local history notes. Why, isn’t it true?’

Sarah fingered her empty glass and appeared to be thinking it over.

‘Well, yes, I suppose it must be,’ she said slowly. ‘Of course I wasn’t there.’

‘But Theo was, wasn’t he? He said so. Not that he ever talks about it. It was me who brought it up.’ Alex paused but couldn’t stop herself adding: ‘Simon never talked about it either.’

‘No, well he wouldn’t would he?’ Sarah rejoined quickly. ‘After what happened. I mean, he was an intense boy, difficult sometimes, but I wouldn’t have thought he’d…’ She frowned and stopped quite suddenly, looking uncomfortable as if she’d spoken out of turn. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she added. ‘He was very young when it happened.’

‘Yes…I suppose... ’ Alex hesitated, wondering what Sarah had stopped herself from saying and why.

‘I think I’m going to get another drink,’ said Sarah, already treading a careful path to the door. She turned on an afterthought with her hand on the handle and put on a smile. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No, I’m fine…thanks.’

Alex walked to her favourite chair by the fire though the stove wasn’t lit – she hadn’t expected the snug to be used that evening. She sat down, her eyes resting on the avocet carving by the hearth which she’d thought several times she ought to get rid of but couldn’t bring herself to move. She pulled her eyes away. Mick came into her mind often enough anyway, unasked and unwanted; she certainly didn’t want to think about him now. She changed her position in the chair and found herself glancing up at the painting Sarah had commented on.

Unable to settle, she got up again and went back out into the hall. Someone had left the front door open and she walked across to close it and then changed her mind, grabbed a jacket from the rack behind the door and stepped outside. She slung the jacket over her shoulders and walked down the front garden path. With March still several days away there was a brisk chill in the air. A quarter moon occasionally masked by thin, wispy clouds, threw a pearly light on the ground. In the distance, she could hear the faint roar of the waves breaking against the cliffs and the call of a tawny owl, hunting in the valley.