Nemesis (16 page)

24

Natalie staggered. Grey slabs of pavement loomed, then another arm slid beneath hers, hauling her up.

“I’ve got you,” said Bryn.

There was a moment of awkwardness, and then he let her go.

“Would you like to sit down?” he asked politely, indicating the kerb behind them.

“No.” Aware tiredness was making her
snappy,
she made a joke out of it.
“On the pavement?
Not quite my thing.”

“You should have taken that lift!”

“I only live five minutes’ walk away. I shall be fine.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

She was too tired to argue.

The police barrier tape was still in evidence. The officer on duty lifted it for them to pass beneath. There were less people standing on the other side. Judging from the haphazard way they were dressed, and that some were clutching small, sleepy children, they were residents. At the end of the road was the junction with the roundabout and the war memorial. The air was fresher here; the breeze whipped straight up the hill from the river.

She took a deep breath. It was like a long drink of cold water. She felt her self-assurance returning.

“Why are you in Calahurst?” she asked bluntly. “
Are
you stalking me?”

There was a glimmer of a smile. “My company has been contracted to restore the gardens at Hurst Castle.”

A few more pieces of the puzzle slotted into place.

“That’s quite an achievement,” she said.

The smile turned into a grin. “I seriously undercut the competition.”

At least he was honest. “Do you really believe Geraint is innocent?”

The smile disappeared in an instant. “We haven’t heard from him in fifteen years. He wouldn’t do that to his family.”

“He could be dead,” she ventured.

“I’m sure he is. I still want to know what happened to him.”

Was Bryn’s obsession with finding his cousin any different to the one she had with her sister?

She risked a sideways glance in his direction. Although the words ‘pact with the devil’ slid into her sub-conscious, she had to admit he didn’t look like a murderer. But what did they look like anyway?

“I’m sorry about your Dad,” he said. “It must have been a real shock. Are you going to be OK on your own?”

He knew she lived alone.

“Of course I will.”

It was a lie. She was still trying to get her head around the idea that she’d never see her father again. They’d spoken only a few hours ago. How could someone be there one moment and not the next?

The wind blew her hair across her face and, as she pushed it back behind her ear, she took the opportunity to wipe her hand across her eyes to eradicate the threatened tears. She had probably smeared what remained of her mascara across her cheeks but by now she was past caring. Her father was dead, leaving no hope of reconciliation - or payback.

The moonlight glittered on the river. Where all had been hectic, now it was deserted. The clubs and bars along the quayside were closing. A few stragglers loitered beneath the streetlights chatting, sitting on the railings, some even singing - reluctant to end their evening. The bitter scent of smoke still hung around but she had no idea whether it was in the air, or lingering on her clothes - or only inside her head.

At the foot of the hill Bryn took a left turn and stopped outside her apartment block.

He really did know where she lived.

The building was mostly in darkness but there was a light on in the ground floor gym. A solitary figure, neatly framed by one of the windows, was pounding on the treadmill. Further along, the great glass doors revealed the reception area was deserted.

She placed her hand against the door and pushed. It was locked, with no sign of Phil in reception. She could see Bryn standing behind her, reflected in the glass. Like the DCI earlier, he scrutinised her every move - which was not only disturbing, but reminded her of what little she knew about him.

He knew everything about her.

Catching sight of her own image, pale and hollow-eyed, beside his, she forced a friendly smile to her lips before turning back to face him. “Goodbye, Bryn,” she said, with all the pleasantness and sincerity she could muster. “Thank you once again for your help.”

A slight inclination of his head.
“I’ll wait to see you inside.”

She raised her hand to key the security code into the panel beside the door, but he was still watching. She made a circular motion with her finger and he got the message, turning his back so she could enter the code. A faint click; the array of lights on the control panel switched from red to green and the entrance door slid open.

“Bye then,” she said. Perhaps this time he’d take the hint?

She heard the door swish shut as she headed for the lift; the sound of her heels echoed back to her as she crossed the marble tiles. The reception desk was deserted, which was not usual, but presumably Phil was doing his rounds. She pressed the call button for the lift. Reception and the street beyond the entrance were all reflected in the glass tiles.

A familiar figure in jeans and leather jacket waited outside.

The lift slid open and she stepped straight in. A few moments later she was standing outside her apartment. She was about to fumble in her bag for her keys when her door swung open.

What the hell
?

Certain she had locked the door before she’d left, she slowly pushed it open. The door swung back against the wall with a dull thud. Beyond, the apartment was clearly in darkness; there were no strips of light showing beneath any of the doors.

She had left the hall light on, she would swear to it.

“Simon?” She really couldn’t face him again. “Is that you?”

There was no response. Of course, there wouldn’t be. She needed to get a grip. Simon would be sulking back in his own apartment and a burglar would hardly announce himself.

She flicked the switch for the hall light. Nothing happened. Now thoroughly out of patience, she flipped the switch on and off at speed.

“Perfect,” she muttered.
“Absolutely perfect.”
The bulb had gone and she probably didn’t have a spare. She entered the hall and checked the next light switch, which was over the telephone table and opposite the study door. The same result. OK, not the bulb. Had the fuse had tripped out?

The fuse box was located in the study, high on the wall behind the door. She took her mobile from her bag to use as a torch, but when she tried to open the study door it hit against something and stuck. Possibly one of her many books had fallen from a shelf and jammed against it, but by now she’d had enough. She gave the door a violent shove with her shoulder. It gave slightly - and then slammed back into her.

She fell against the wall, sliding to the floor, all the breath knocked out of her. A shadowy figure stepped from behind the door, pausing to look her up and down, before stepping over her and into the hall. By the time it occurred to her to scream, he had gone.

Her phone was a few feet away, glimmering in its own pool of light. She scooped it up, using it to illuminate the study. Reassuringly empty, her laptop was also still on her desk. She had not started work on her new novel, but there was plenty of material on the hard drive she would have hated to lose.

Feeling more confident, she got up and checked behind the door for the fuse box. The red power switch had been flipped to the ‘off’ setting. The intruder must have heard her arrive and hit the power to give himself time to escape. As soon as she flicked the switch the apartment was flooded with light, blinding her. She didn’t see someone was standing behind her, until she’d walked smack into him.

This time she did scream - but two large hands shot out to cradle her face and a familiar voice said,

“Thank God, you’re all right!”

Bryn
?
How the hell had he got in? Instinctively Natalie pushed him away, and then spotted the two policemen beside him, rigged out in full body armour.

Panic was replaced by fury. “What the
hell
is going on?” she demanded. Had it been some kind of set up? Bryn was to keep her talking outside while someone else broke into her apartment?

Then DCI Bloom appeared in the doorway, followed by two more officers in dark suits. “May we come in?” he asked, blithely stepping over the threshold and walking inside before she had the chance to reply.

“Why not?
I’ll put the kettle on.”

25

James arrived home the same time as the police were leaving, which involved a lot of explanations. Alicia had no desire to revisit the events of the past couple of hours, so she left them to it and went to check on the children. It was plain the police thought she was an idiot, but were too polite to tell her so. Her husband would have no such compunction.

Lexi was in the bathroom, singing along to Marilyn Manson. Will had fallen asleep, sprawled across the top of his bed and clutching one of his action figures, which was in danger of taking out his eye. Alicia removed it to a safe distance and tucked him in.

As she returned downstairs James was closing the front door, taking great care to shove each and every bolt home. Outside she could hear the scrunch of tyres on gravel as the patrol car finally drove away from the house, hopefully without the blue light flashing.

“Well,” said James, straightening after shooting the last bolt home. “You had an exciting night.”

Uncertainly she paused on the bottom step, one hand on the newel post. Was he serious? He had such an odd sense of humour, sometimes she couldn’t tell.

“Are you sorry you missed it?” she said.

He shrugged. “To the contrary, I’ve had plenty of excitement myself. The village was in chaos - packed with the police, fire brigade and gawpers wandering about in the middle of the road. The whole place was gridlocked. That’s why I was late.”

Why was she so certain he lied?

James broke eye contact and strode across the hall to the kitchen. Bemused, she followed and watched as he slid a bottle of wine from the fridge.

“Would you like a glass?” he asked, taking one from the cupboard.

She shook her head. “No thank you.”

I’ve got a lump on the back of my head the size of a walnut, matching the one on my forehead; I’m doped up to the eyeballs on painkillers and you want to give me alcohol?

“I was going to update my blog,” she said. “I didn’t have chance this morning and I’ve received some fascinating information about Daniel-the-Pirate. My father’s cousin has sent me a copy of a manuscript, dating from the late 16
^th
century, which could prove he really did sail with Sir Francis Drake.”

As usual, his eyes glazed over as soon as she mentioned the word ‘blog’.

“You’ve had a rough night,” he said. “Why don’t you go to bed instead?” He slid his arm around her waist, and his thumb into the waistband of her skirt, leaving her in no doubt exactly what he meant by ‘bed’.

Ordinarily she’d have been pleased by the unexpected attention, but part of her still felt resentful by his lack of empathy. So she slid out of his embrace to make her point and then felt even more peeved when he did not appear that bothered.

“It won’t take long,” she told him. “I’ve already drafted it.”

He filled the glass to the brim but instead of placing the bottle back in the fridge, he left it on the counter. “In that case, I’ll check my emails first. I’ve lost my phone and I’m still waiting for my hotel confirmation about that conference I’m attending.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “But I’m using the computer.”

“No you’re
not,
you’re standing here, chatting to me.” He bent to kiss her cheek but she pulled away. Laughing, he ruffled her curls. “Don’t get into a strop. I won’t be long. If it’s that urgent, why not use the laptop? You do have this draft backed up onto your flash drive?”

“Yes, I always back everything up, but
- ”

“There you go, problem solved,” he said and, raising his glass to her, he walked out - effectively leaving her talking to herself.

“The laptop doesn’t have an internet connection
… ”

Sorely tempted to throw the bottle after him, Alicia went instead into the sitting room and switched on the TV. She sat down, berating herself for being such a doormat, whereupon something sharp dug into her hip. She dug it out of her pocket. It was James’s phone.

It took her a while for her to remember how it had got there. Of course, she had taken it into the garden and it had rung, right at the most inconvenient moment. He must have left it on the telephone table and she’d mistaken it for the landline.

She was about to take it through to the study and give it to him, when she spotted little square envelope on the home page. Someone had sent James a picture message - which was the reason it had launched into Kanye West in the first place.

If she hadn’t felt so cross with him, she would have ignored it - but spite made her open the message. There was no caption, only a photograph of a woman lying on a bed naked, except for a tiny thong - which, of course, made all the difference.

Perversely, her first thought was that Gabrielle Cameron had rather good breasts for a woman on the wrong side of forty. But, as she examined the photo more closely, she realised it wasn’t of Gabrielle at all, but someone much younger. She clicked on the sender details.

Summer Cameron.

Gabrielle’s daughter?
Oh God, was James sleeping with one of his students?

Nausea flooded through her and she only just made it to the cloakroom toilet before throwing up.

James and
Summer
.

The daughter, not the mother.

The proof was there in that vile photo. Who else would
Summer
send a picture like that to, but a lover?

Alicia allowed her legs to buckle beneath her until she was knelt on the floor. Surreally she could hear the television in the sitting room as it launched into the weather forecast for tomorrow; and Lexi upstairs in the bathroom as she pulled out the plug on her bath and the water cascaded down through the waste pipe. More background noise to drown out her life. Would her family notice if she ceased to exist?

There was a bang on the door. “Alicia, are you in there?”

It would be pointless to remain silent. “Yes, I’m
- ”

Whatever she was doing, James was not interested. “I’m off to bed,” he said, his voice fading into the distance. “See you in the morning.”

She got up and leaned over the washbasin, rinsing her mouth and splashing cold water onto her face. Her pale, freckly visage loomed back at her from the mirror, framed by hanks of limp auburn hair. Her skin had a grey tinge, and her eyes were bloodshot, but she could put that down to tiredness. She’d had a hell of an evening.

James’s phone remained on top of the cistern. He thought he’d lost it.

Like all his ‘toys’ it had been expensive. Since he’d bought it, he had become more addicted than any teenager. Now she knew why.

Bastard.

Aware she was torturing herself, she opened the message again. You could tell a lot from a photograph, even a tiny one like this. For instance,
Summer
(bloody stupid name) had taken the photograph herself, possibly that very evening. Her right arm was stretched into the air and her hand was out of shot (holding the phone). Her beautiful breasts poked straight up.
Obviously not a woman of forty.
Alicia’s own breasts disappeared beneath her armpits when she lay down and the only part of her which stuck up in the air was her belly, unsubtly rounded by pregnancy and too many cakes.

Summer had long blonde hair.

James’s indiscretions were always blonde.

Summer lay on a single bed with a pink duvet and fairy lights threaded through the bedstead. There was part of a poster just visible on the wall behind her, promoting a cult paranormal movie. It was a teenager’s bedroom. Apart from the overdose of pink, it could have belonged to Lexi.

How old was this girl? To be fair to James, she appeared rather older than fourteen. Was she still at school? Could he lose his job - would he really risk everything - over a stupid little fuck?

She slammed the phone onto the floor. “God, James! You are such a fool!”

As though conjuring him up, the floorboards above her head creaked. He wasn’t joking when he said he was going to bed. Never mind that she was down here, puking her guts out.

Bastard.

She glared at the phone. Miraculously it was in one piece. It was tempting to chuck the thing down the toilet and flush - but she didn’t. She was too pragmatic for that. What if it caused a blockage? Instead she deleted the message, switched the phone off and slipped it behind the pedestal of the wash basin, between the wall and a bottle of bleach. If he did ever find it, he would assume it had fallen there by accident.

She left the cloakroom, feeling pleased with her ingenuity.

Typically James had shut down the computer but Alicia was past caring. She was in no mood to be light-heartedly blogging about pirates. She switched off the television, checked everything was locked up and headed up the stairs to bed.

Kanye West was right. What didn’t kill you did make you stronger.