Skeletons (11 page)

She had dialled the number before she had really thought about what it was she was doing. She had no idea what she was going to say, no plan beyond making the call, maybe setting up an appointment she could cancel, or not, later on. She had spent
some time back in the internet cafe browsing the Masterson Property website, checking out the high-end houses in the Brighton area, making a note of the ones that had Cass Richards listed as the agent. She wondered what the other people in there were researching. Who, these days,
didn’t have a laptop or at least a phone they could get internet access on? They must all be looking up something they wanted to keep secret, something that couldn’t be traced back to them.

Great, now she was choosing to spend her free time with would-be suicide bombers and people who got off on dodgy porn.

She almost hung up when the woman answered the phone. This was ridiculous. She had practised her cover story several times, but she overcompensated by rambling on to the receptionist about having to relocate for work and needing to be somewhere
where there were good schools for her kids and she could ride a horse. She had never ridden a horse in her life, but it sounded like the kind of thing someone who was interested in the house she was enquiring about might like to do.

The receptionist interrupted her in the end, obviously bored to tears. ‘I’ll ask Cass Richards to call you back, and you can sort out a time with her. She’s the agent for this
property.’

‘Perfect,’ Jen said, thankful to have been derailed.

‘What’s your name?’

She had agonized about how to deal with this question when it arose. Her surname would be a dead giveaway, and ring alarm bells with Cass before they’d even met. She knew that once Cass clapped eyes on her, she would probably remember her
face. And the truth was that she fully intended to tell her exactly who she was, even if she didn’t. But she didn’t want to give away too much in advance. In truth, she didn’t want Cass to be ready for her; she wanted to take her by surprise.

‘Jennifer Blaine,’ she said, with as much confidence as she could muster. She could always claim that she still used her maiden name, as so many women did these days. As she would have done herself, if she didn’t hate it so
much. Or if her desire to officially be a Masterson hadn’t superseded everything else.

She gave the woman her number, made an excuse that her landline wasn’t working at the moment, hung up and waited. It was out of her hands now.

Half an hour later, her mobile rang while she was checking in a couple from Canterbury. She felt it buzz in her pocket – ringtones were strictly forbidden for hotel staff on duty – and it took all her willpower not to at least see who was
calling. Once she had handed the couple over to Graham Roper the Doorman Groper, who was hovering
with their luggage, she fished it out of her pocket. A number beginning with 01273 was listed as a missed call. A Brighton number.

‘Back in a sec,’ she said to Judy. She walked through the foyer and out on to the pavement. Cass hadn’t left a message, so there was nothing to do but to call the number back. She heard it ring twice.

‘Cass Richards.’

Jen heard a voice on the other end, and nearly dropped her phone. She suddenly couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘Hello?’ Cass said, an impatient tone creeping into her voice.

‘Hi!’

‘Hello, who is this?’

‘Hi, sorry, my name is Jennifer Blaine, I think you just called me. About the house in Roedean Crescent –’

‘Jennifer, hello. So you’d like to have a look around?’

Jen noticed Cass sounded more perky, now she had the sniff of a sale. ‘Yes. Please. If that’s possible.’

‘Of course. Today?’

‘No! Maybe on Thursday? I have to come down from London.’

She had tentatively arranged to have a day’s holiday on Thursday. She could get the train down, meet up with Cass and be back before anyone really noticed she was gone.

They agreed a time, and Cass gave her the full address.

‘How are you fixed?’ she asked, just as Jen thought she was home and dry. ‘Do you have an offer on your place?’

‘Second home,’ Jen said confidently. That seemed like
the least complicated scenario to posit. She heard Cass’s interest in her go up a notch.

‘So … are you a cash buyer?’

Why not? It was almost fun to play the carefree rich card for a few moments.

‘Yes. No chain, no complications.’

‘Well, that will be very attractive to my vendor. Let’s hope you like the place.’

Jen ended the call, walked back in and bypassed reception, going straight to the Ladies where she promptly threw up.

By Wednesday evening, she was seriously thinking of cancelling her appointment. What was the best that could come of it? That Cass would realize she’d been rumbled and would be furious that Jen had wasted her valuable time? That
she’d tell Charles what had happened, and then Jen’s relationship with him could never be the same? Not that she was sure it could be now, anyway.

She had thought through, carefully, exactly what she was hoping for. In the most perfect version of the plan, Cass would turn out to be a woman of scruples who would be shocked and horrified to discover that her lover was still happily living
with his wife. She had only entered into the relationship because she had been sure he was separated, she would never intentionally steal another woman’s man, devastate his family. Jen realized that Charles wasn’t coming out of her wished-for scenario in a particularly flattering
light. She could worry about that later. What mattered was that Cass would tell her she was
going to break it off immediately. She would let Charles know in no uncertain terms that what they had been doing, for however long, was wrong.

Of course, inevitably, it didn’t turn out like that.

On the way to the station, Jen remembered she hadn’t called Poppy since baby Violet’s birth a few days before. While she was still nervous about talking to her sister-in-law, she knew that she had to try to carry on as though
everything was normal. They rarely, if ever, went more than two days without speaking.

‘I found a grey pube,’ she said, as soon as Poppy answered. Her plan was that if she launched into a random topic, then Poppy would be wrong-footed and wouldn’t ask her how anything else in her life was going. For the record,
she had not discovered a grey pubic hair. Not yet. Although she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be long.

‘Jesus. No hello?’

‘This is an emergency, can’t you tell?’ she said.

Poppy laughed. ‘I assume you pulled it out?’

‘Of course, but now what? It’s only a matter of time before they all turn, and then … well, God knows.’

‘Hollywood wax?’

‘Please! I’m not going to lie around while some poor woman gets paid seven pounds an hour to poke about down there. I feel bad enough when I just get it tidied up.’

‘So what are you suggesting? Dyeing it?’

‘Maybe I could use that stuff men have for touching up their beards.’

Poppy squealed. ‘Or ask your hairdresser to do it when she does your roots.’

‘God, I really do not want to get old. This is the kind of stuff no one warns you about.’

‘What else is new, or have you just been examining yourself for signs of ageing?’

‘Shit, I have to go, my stop’s coming up.’

It wasn’t. In actuality, she was still standing at the side of the road, waiting for a bus to take her to Victoria.

By the time the train pulled into Brighton station, she had almost forgotten her mission. She had done such a good job of blanking out the impending horror. Just having a nice day out at the seaside. Ice cream, donkey rides and kiss-me-quick hats.
It came back to her with a sickening thud when she was in the taxi, driving down towards the coast road. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a holiday.

She arrived in Roedean Crescent a few minutes early, paid the driver, and hovered about outside the house for a few moments, unsure what to do.

The street was a stunner, with majestic views over the sea at the front, and rolling countryside at the back. The boats in the marina twinkled white down below, like so many rows of pearly false teeth. Jen paced up and down, trying to get
straight in her head what exactly she was going to say, why exactly she was there.

Cass was being ambushed, she almost certainly wouldn’t appreciate that. For all Jen knew, she could be a psycho. A real, live Bea from
Prisoner: Cell Block H
, prone to stabbing and gouging, rather than having a nice middle-class
chat about how sorry she was for anything she might inadvertently have done. Jen thought about chickening out, leaving before Cass arrived, hot-footing it back to London and pretending it had all been a dream.

Too late. A chic little red Fiat 500 pulled up, and there
she was. Jen was able to get a better look at her before Cass really looked up and registered who it was that was waiting for her. She had
slightly sticky-out front teeth, something Jen hadn’t notice the first time she had met her – she wasn’t talking Goofy, just a hint of an overbite – and a nose that was small, and cute. The combination gave her an approachable look, a cartoon girl next door. She didn’t look
like a home-wrecker. The shiny brown hair was looking, well, brown and shiny. Jen patted down her blow-dried and flat-ironed locks that always smelled faintly of burning, these days. They were starting to frizz in the drizzle.

Cass was wearing a dark grey skirt and a jacket – estate agent uniform – but this one was stylishly cut, nipped in at the waist and with a hint of a pinstripe. Underneath she had a magenta T-shirt that stopped the whole look from becoming too
masculine. Jen watched as she reached for a black pea coat from the back of the car and pulled it on over the top, and felt suddenly inadequate in her own jeans, Ugg rip-offs and parka-style jacket.

She could hear herself breathing in and out. She steadied herself for the moment when Cass would recognize her, would want to know what the hell she was doing there. She waited, as Cass started to walk towards her, her heels clicking on the
pavement. And there it was, an almost imperceptible flicker, a brief frown.

‘Hi,’ Jen said nervously. She felt sick.

Cass looked at her quizzically. ‘Hello. Are you Jennifer Blaine?’

‘Yes. Sort of.’

‘Didn’t we meet before?’ It took a moment for Cass to
put all the pieces together. ‘In London, wasn’t it? Aren’t you Charles Masterson’s
daughter-in-law?’

Jen hesitated for a moment. Nodded. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘Ah. You’re not really looking for a second home by the sea?’

‘Sorry.’

Cass folded her arms. ‘Care to explain?’

‘If you’ve got a couple of minutes.’

‘What I’ve got is a homeowner expecting someone to be looking over her house at midday. I need to go and tell her the appointment’s been cancelled.’

‘Can I wait for you? We could get a coffee or something, I don’t know.’

Cass didn’t answer, just turned in the direction of the front door and marched up the path. Jen had no idea what to make of her cool demeanour. She hadn’t exactly been friendly – but then, who could blame her? She had been sideswiped,
jumped from behind; she was probably trying to gather her thoughts and work out exactly what was going on. Or else she had a machete stashed in her client’s front garden for emergencies, and she had decided this was one.

Jen waited while Cass spoke to a woman on the doorstep for a minute or so, and then came back down.

‘So,’ Cass said. ‘What’s all this about?’

‘Do you want to get a drink? Go to a cafe, or a pub, or something.’

‘I don’t really have time. Just tell me what’s going on, Jennifer –’

‘Jen,’ she interrupted. She couldn’t help herself.
Whenever anyone called her Jennifer, she felt as if she was being told off. Actually, in this case, maybe she was.

‘Why would you come all the way down here, pretending you were interested in buying a house? I assume because you know who I am.’

Jen nodded. Said nothing.

‘Did Dad tell you?’

Jen opened her mouth to speak. Shut it again. Tried to compute what she had just heard. Couldn’t. It felt as if everything went into slow motion. Cass was looking at her expectantly, waiting for an answer, but Jen couldn’t think of
what to say for the white noise in her head. She wondered if she’d heard correctly.

‘Dad?’

‘Charles. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

‘You’re …?’ She couldn’t say it. She took in Cass’s wide brown eyes, so like Charles’s and Jason’s. And Jessie’s, come to that. The hair. Poppy and Jessie both had shiny dark tresses that Jen
had always envied. She remembered Amelia showing her a photo of Charles from the beginning of the seventies, laughing at his long silky hair, falling past his shoulders like a girl in a Timotei advert, showing her that that was where the two girls had inherited it from. Make that three,
maybe. Three girls. How had she not seen it?

The cute nose and the overbite must be courtesy of her mother. Whoever she was.

Cass interrupted her thought process. ‘I’m getting really confused now, and I don’t have time for this, to be honest.’

‘You’re his daughter?’

‘Who did you think I was?’

‘I … actually, this is pretty grim … I thought he was having an affair with you.’

Thankfully, Cass actually smiled. ‘Jesus, that
is
grim.’

‘I had no idea.’ Jen was aware that she was standing there with her mouth open again. She couldn’t seem to close it, as if she wanted there to be a physical manifestation of her shock. She simply couldn’t take it in. This
woman was Charles’s daughter. A sister Jason, Poppy and Jessie knew nothing about. A million questions rushed into her head at the same time. She had no chance of saying anything even halfway intelligible.

The day had suddenly turned black and windy. Jen let out an involuntary shiver and pulled her coat more tightly around her.

Cass seemed to take pity on her. ‘Do you want to sit in my car and talk? It’ll be warmer.’

‘Definitely.’

‘So,’ Cass said, as she turned the engine on and the heating up, ‘I can tell this is a shock.’

‘You can say that again. I thought … I could barely believe he might have a girlfriend, but a daughter …’

Cass was silent for a moment. Jen tried to work out what that signified, couldn’t.

‘What do you want me to tell you?’

‘I don’t know. Everything. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘So Jason – that’s my husband, by the way – would have been eighteen. God, Jessie was only thirteen. She’s the youngest.’

‘I know.’

‘So you knew you had a brother and two sisters?’

‘I did. Not that I really think of them like that.’

‘And that Charles is still with their mother. Amelia.’

Cass nodded. ‘I’ve always wondered what she was like, actually.’

‘She’s lovely. Motherly. Kind. Sweet. She adores him, adores her family. I always thought they were so happy.’

‘Lucky them.’

Jen didn’t have to be Miss Marple to detect the hint of sarcasm in Cass’s voice.

‘You think otherwise?’

‘Who knows? There must have been something wrong.’

It annoyed Jen that Cass was speaking as though she was an authority on Charles and Amelia’s relationship. She felt as if Cass was overstepping a line. ‘Well, maybe twenty-five years ago, they had a blip. To me they’ve always
seemed like one of the happiest couples I’ve ever known.’

Cass smiled, but not in a good way. Not in a way that said, ‘Let’s be friends.’ More, ‘I’d like to cut you up and eat your kidneys.’

‘I’ll ignore the suggestion that I’m a “blip”. I don’t think a man being with a woman who wasn’t his wife for fifteen years points to a happy marriage.’

Jen felt the blood rush from her head. Actually felt it, like when you stand up too quickly and have to hold on to the arm of the sofa to stop yourself from falling over. Outside, people were battling against the wind, leaning into it to fight
their way down the street. She wondered if she had really just heard what she thought she’d heard.

‘What do you mean? Fifteen years?’

Cass looked at her. Blinked. ‘My mum and dad. They were together till I was fifteen. Actually, that makes it sixteen years, I guess. OK, so he could hardly ever stay over, and he never came to parents’ evenings, but we had the house,
the dog, the three-piece suite. He was there whenever he could be.’

Jen thought about Charles and Amelia’s beautiful family home. The way they had always made it feel like the most loving, safe, welcoming place she had ever been.

‘Charles doesn’t even like dogs,’ was her genius retort.

‘Well, he definitely seemed to like Buster. He got him for me for my eighth birthday.’

‘Are you saying he was around for your whole childhood? He was like your proper dad?’

‘Apart from the fact we never went on holiday together, and I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to use his surname, yes.’

‘So they split up, what … ten years ago?’ Jason and Jen had been together for twenty-two years in total so, for the first twelve she had known Charles, he had been sneaking off to be with Cass’s mum. It didn’t
seem possible.

‘They’re still in touch, actually. They’ve somehow managed to stay friends, which is more than I’ve ever been capable of with any of my exes.’

Jen tried to get it straight in her head. ‘They were together for sixteen years?’

Cass nodded. ‘Yep. She had the ring and everything. Not that they were ever married, obviously, but he always told her that, in his eyes, they were.’

‘This is … I don’t know what to say. It’s insane.’

‘Well, it doesn’t make much sense, that’s true.’

‘And there’s just you. Please tell me there aren’t any others?’

‘Just me. I think Mum would have loved a few more, but Dad … you know. So it was just me and her most of the time.’

It struck Jen that, devastated as Jason and his sisters would be if they ever discovered Charles had a secret family, Cass was pretty hard done by herself. She couldn’t imagine having a brother and two sisters and never being allowed to
even meet them. She would have killed for one sibling, let alone three.

‘I know how that feels.’

‘You’re an only child?’

Jen nodded. ‘And my dad basically disappeared out of our lives when I was eight.’

Cass nodded sympathetically. ‘That sucks.’

‘And your mum – how did she … I mean, was she OK with it all?’

‘Of course not, although she tried to pretend it was all fine. I think she always believed he’d leave Amelia one day and they’d be together properly. It was pathetic, really.’

‘How did you end up working with him? If, well, you sound like you have a lot of anger towards him. Which is understandable, obviously.’

‘It was his idea. He said it would be a way for us to spend time together, and that he wanted to feel he had been able to help me get started on a career. I was just out of college, no idea what to do with my life. Of course, I hadn’t
really thought through that I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone there who I actually was. After a while, though,
I was glad no one knew, because I didn’t want it to look like I was being given any special favours. And then, after a year
or so, I moved down here and I’ve been here ever since. Dad never really had much interaction with the regional branches – beyond popping down a few times a year to congratulate us all, or tell us to work harder. And I’m good at it. Really good. I’m going to set up on my
own, eventually.’

‘He never worried that it would all blow up in his face? That he’d get caught out?’

Cass shrugged. ‘He made it pretty clear that if we ever said anything, he’d have to disappear from our lives altogether. It was always plain that his legitimate family came first. Or the kids did, at least. And then his new career
came along …’

‘I’m sorry. What a mess.’

‘It’s just how it was. We were hard done by, but so were Amelia and the others, I suppose. At least we knew where we stood. I sometimes think that’s better than your whole life having been a lie.’

‘And you’ve never been curious … to meet your brother and sisters?’

‘My half-brother and half-sisters? Honestly, no. They’re not really my siblings. They’re just random people who are Dad’s kids by someone I’ve never met. It’s not the same.’

‘They’re related to you. That must count.’

‘You know what? When I was young, I sometimes wanted a brother or a sister. It never even occurred to me that Dad’s other family could fill that role. When I was ten, Jessie was … what? Twenty-three? We were hardly going to
start having sleepovers.’