The Girl Who Came Back (7 page)

As she gazed at her reflection she found herself blinking several times, trying to work out why there seemed to be two of her, one in front of the other.

‘Jules! Where are you?’ Kian shouted along the landing. ‘You’ve got to come and see these computers. Bob’s brought the lot, monitors, towers, keyboards, there’s even a printer. We are so bang up to the minute, or we will be when we know how to use them.’

SOMETHING WAS TAPPING
the window, and had been for some time. A gentle, lacklustre rhythm that took a while to make Jules lift her head. For several moments she watched the guilty branch drifting back and forth like a useless limb in the wind.

She couldn’t think where she was, though she knew it wasn’t the pub, as real as it had seemed a moment ago with crazy matadors, mafia thugs and dear Em …

Her heart emptied as the present pushed aside the past to bring her into the spare room of her new home at number fourteen, the Risings. Andee Lawrence had left a while ago, though Jules couldn’t be sure how long it had been since she wasn’t wearing a watch and there was no clock in the room.

It didn’t matter. She had no pressing engagements today.

The branch continued to tap, making her think of Ruby, the ghost at the Mermaid. She willed the girl’s face to materialise in the sky beyond the tree, but the clouds simply carried on sailing by like purposeful boats on a steady sea.

Taking one last lingering look at the picture of Kian, she put aside the box of photo albums and other precious mementos and went downstairs.

Andee Lawrence’s card was still on the table where she’d left it. ‘Call any time,’ she’d said as she’d handed it over, and Jules had felt sure she’d meant it.

Slipping the card into a drawer, she checked the time on her mobile phone and wondered how long it might be before Em rang back. She was so busy with all her teaching and committees and after-school coaching that she often said she’d call and ended up being unable to.

Jules jumped and almost dropped her mobile as it suddenly started to ring.

She looked at the caller ID, half expecting it to be someone from Greensleeves needing to talk about her mother, but it wasn’t a number she recognised.

Perhaps it was Andee, checking to make sure she was OK.

She clicked on, wondering how she’d answer the question if she turned out to be right.

It was a reporter from the
Kesterly Gazette
.

Jules ended the call and turned off the phone.

A moment later she turned it on again. If the press had been tipped off about Amelia Quentin’s release there were people she needed to warn before reporters started harassing them too.

Her first call was to Aileen, in Ireland. Aileen’s sister answered, explaining that Aileen had just popped out, but would be sure to want to speak to Jules when she got back. Jules left a message, knowing there was no doubt about it being passed on.

Realising she didn’t want to speak to anyone else yet, she composed a text to a dozen or more family members that read,
She is being allowed out. No date yet. Will let you know as soon as I hear
.

Knowing she’d be inundated with calls as soon as the message was received, she turned her phone off again and opened her laptop.

Dear Joe,

I know I’ve already told you how happy I am that you and your friend have decided to start your European trip here in Kesterly, it will be lovely to see you again and catch up with all your news. That hasn’t changed, but I’m afraid I have some news of my own that I think I should tell you before you come in case it changes things for you. Amelia Quentin is being released from prison, and will very probably be back at Crofton Park by the time you get here …

The mere thought of that caused her breathing to stop and her heart to beat viciously.

She envisaged the girl in the big house on the moor, moving about it like an evil force, spinning her lies and treachery, maybe even reliving what she’d done and enjoying it …

She looked at the email.

There was more she wanted to say, much more, but for the moment she couldn’t think how to phrase it. Her thoughts were tangled in the traps they were laying for revenge and memories, mixing them up, colouring them with prejudice and grief, drawing her into a terrible confusion.

Getting to her feet she put her hands to her head and closed her eyes as she focused on sweeter memories, forcing herself to let go of all thoughts of revenge, at least for now.

Though the shallow depths of the past were torturous, the deeper in she went the softer her heart became and the wetter her eyes. She could smile, even laugh at those early days at the Mermaid, the exhilarating success of the grand opening; their first glowing reviews in local papers and even the local news. It might have been before the days of the Internet, but word had still spread like wildfire, so that party bookings had come flooding in and the takings had surpassed all expectations.

They’d received no more visits from chancing thugs trying their hands at extortion. The Rafia, as Kian liked to call them, had been seen off by a hard-core group of local businessmen and traders working with the Dean Valley police, and a handful of undercover officers from the Met. What a thrilling time that had been for the blokes of Kesterly, getting involved in such a dangerous operation, and of course the Bright family men were amongst the first to volunteer.

After a crash course in computer studies Jules and Kian had soon begun to wonder how on earth they’d ever managed without their new machines (this was when they weren’t threatening to chuck the bloody things out of the window). Jules then followed up with a six-week course in bookkeeping, while the new bar manager, Misty Walsh, whom they’d enticed from a very la-di-da hostelry in Berkshire, had set about teaching Kian everything she knew about running pubs, which was a lot.

Em and her entire family had come for the first Christmas at the Mermaid, and though Em’s upright and slightly stuffy parents-in-law had seemed awkward, even perplexed by the unruly Brights for the first few days, by the time they’d left they were inviting everyone to Chicago any time they wanted, they’d always be welcome to stay.

Jules and Kian had crossed the Atlantic the following Easter, leaving the eminently capable Misty in charge of the Mermaid and its loyal workforce: two cooks, four full-time bar staff and four part-timers. While they were in Chicago Em had gently broken the news to Jules that she was expecting her second child. Jules had felt terrible on every level, not least for the way Em had seemed so apologetic, when she should have been rejoicing. Of course, Jules couldn’t deny she was jealous, she was insanely so, but it didn’t mean she wished Em anything but happiness and as many beautifully healthy children as she desired.

She just wished she was capable of producing the same, but by then she and Kian had experienced two more failures with IVF, and were being told, mainly because of the emotional stress, that they should maybe start considering adoption.
‘I’m sure you’ve heard about couples who’ve adopted and then suddenly found themselves pregnant,’ lovely Dr Moore had pointed out. ‘That’s not to say I can guarantee it happening for you, but it’s amazing what can happen when you take off some of the pressure.’

Jules hadn’t doubted it; it was just that she hadn’t felt right about using an innocent child that way.

Em and her family didn’t come for the second Christmas at the Mermaid, not because their adorable new baby son, Oscar, was too young to travel. It was because a week before they were due to leave Em’s mother-in-law died quite suddenly from a heart attack.

Em’s parents flew straight to Chicago; Jules and Kian would have followed were it not for the fact that they had an appointment they simply had to keep, and Em had refused to let them change it.

‘Jules! Jules!’ Kian shouted. ‘Will you hurry up or we’re going to be late.’

Jules ran out of the pub, tugging a white bobble hat on to her head, and trying to wrest the toggles of her duffle coat from a tearing wind so she could fasten them. The estuary was kicking up a right royal storm this morning; what a mood the heavens must be in to be bearing down on the world with such a thuggish display.

Kian was already behind the wheel of their Range Rover – it was no weather for the plucky little Sprite – and as Jules jumped in he began pulling away.

‘Will you wait for me to close the door?’ she cried, struggling to grab it from the wind.

He hit the brakes. ‘Sorry, I’m getting myself in a bit of a state. Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine. Just don’t go too fast, we need to get there in one piece.’

Fifteen minutes later they turned on to Kesterly seafront to find awnings being ripped from their frames and an upturned carriage from the white tourist train blocking the road. Police were redirecting traffic into North Road, but Kian took a quicker route through the old town, not officially open to non-residents, and brought them out on the ring road just as it was being closed due to an accident.

‘What the hell!’ Kian cried, thumping the steering wheel.

Blinking back tears of frustration, Jules looked away as he reached for her hand. She felt angry with him, even though it wasn’t his fault.

‘We might still make it,’ he said lamely.

After months of indecision and then waiting for an appointment … These hold-ups were already making their next attempt at IVF feel doomed, as though someone up there was trying to stop her putting herself through it again.

Taking out his new mobile phone, Kian called the clinic to warn them they’d be late. As he listened to the reply he turned to Jules. ‘That’s great,’ he responded, raising his eyebrows. ‘Yep, we can do that. Thanks very much. We’ll definitely be there.’ Ringing off he said, ‘They’ve had a cancellation next Monday, so they’re going to slot us in at eleven.’

Jules’s head fell back against the seat. It wasn’t only relief pushing tears to her eyes, but the fear of her own hope as the terrible waiting continued.

Half an hour later, having collected their mothers from a yoga class, Kian dropped his girls outside the Mermaid while he went to park the car.

‘Oh, look, a lovely log fire,’ Aileen cried, going to warm her hands in front of the lively flames. ‘Marsha, come and sit yourself here in the armchair and get yourself warm.’

‘I’m all right,’ Marsha insisted. ‘It’s you we want to be taking care of. You’re not properly over your cold yet.’

‘Ach, me, I’m as fit as a fiddle and never better. Me oh my, is that you over there, our Danny? What are you doing here at this hour? It’s not even the middle of the day yet. Shouldn’t you be running that club of yours?’

‘It doesn’t open until five on Tuesdays,’ Danny grinned, strolling over from the bar with a pint of best in one hand and a half-smoked cigarette in the other. ‘It’s good to see you, Auntie Aileen, so it is. And Marsha. Out doing the ladies-who-lunch thing, are we? Got some shopping lined up for after?’

‘Now there’s a good idea, Marsha,’ Aileen declared. ‘We should go and spoil ourselves this afternoon, why not? Now don’t be blowing that smoke in me face, Danny. And it’s time you gave up those filthy things.’

‘It’s what keeps me going,’ he informed her, stifling a cough. ‘So now, can I get you two gorgeous girls a drink? Pint of Guinness, Auntie Aileen? Put some hairs on your chest?’

‘Oh, you’re funny you are,’ she retorted. ‘I’ll have me usual lager shandy, and I expect Marsha’ll have the same.’

‘I will,’ Marsha confirmed. ‘And how’s your lovely wife, Danny? I don’t think I’ve seen her since Christmas.’

‘Cheryl? She’s all right, but with the baby due in a couple of weeks, she’s feeling too heavy to go out much. Kian, my man!’ he cried as his cousin came through the door. ‘Just the person. I’ve got myself some tickets you’re going to want, and they won’t cost you a penny more than I paid for them myself.’

‘Which means they’ll be double,’ Jules muttered to Misty, making her laugh.

‘That couple’s in the family room again,’ Misty told her, moving towards the pumps to start serving some newcomers.

Jules frowned.

‘You know, the posh ones I told you about last week, with the spoiled brat of a little girl. Apparently she wanted to play with the devil among the tailors again. The way she’s going at it it’ll be in pieces before she’s finished.’

Since Jules considered the game one of the pub’s prized possessions, she wandered through to the family room to find the couple sitting incongruously at a table close to the unlit fire, and the child standing at a table flinging the ball on a string at the tiny wooden skittles. Being so young, probably no more than three, it was unlikely she could cause much damage, although she seemed fairly intent on it considering the oomph she was putting behind her throws.

‘Hi,’ Jules said chattily. ‘If you like, I’ll get someone to come in and light the fire.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ the woman hastily answered, ‘we don’t want …’

‘That would be welcome,’ the man interrupted, turning in his chair to look at Jules in a way that immediately irked her. There was such a condescending air about him that she’d have liked nothing more than to turn on her heel and leave him in the cold.

‘We’ll stay for lunch if we may,’ he told her. ‘My daughter enjoyed the jacket potato she had before. It’s partly why we came back. She’s also taken rather a shine to your little table game, as you can see.’

Jules watched the child hurling the tiny ball with all her might, as though some deep-seated anger was making her want to destroy the harmless, deftly carved little skittles.

Apparently unaware she was being spoken about, or simply not caring, the girl carried on flinging the ball.

‘Hello,’ Jules said gently. ‘And what’s your name?’

The child simply ignored her.

‘Amelia,’ her mother admonished.

The father put up a hand to silence his wife. ‘Amelia, the lady’s talking to you.’

The child turned to look up at Jules and her eyes, round, direct and coldly assessing, almost caused Jules to blink. She’d never seen someone so young with such an adult expression, or with such translucent skin that she might never have seen the sun.