The Unseen (51 page)

‘Well, you did it.’ He patted Cat Morley’s stone. ‘You found out who the dead soldier was,
and
solved a murder along the way. And you managed to get me out of the house. Thank you, Leah,’ he said seriously.

‘Don’t thank me – thank you for all your help! I couldn’t have done it without you,’ Leah said, embarrassed.

‘Yes, you could.’

‘Well. Thank goodness you decided to go for a pint at The
Swing Bridge that first evening. I’m not sure I’d have had the guts to knock on your door again, after the reception I got the first time.’

‘And I probably wouldn’t have answered it if you had. Which would have been a huge mistake,’ he said. Leah smiled briefly and looked down at the grave between them. His steady grey gaze was disconcerting, made it hard to think. There was a heavy pause, the wind rustling quietly through the cheery flowers.

‘So, when is this meeting with your CWGC … contact, then? Where the grand reveal of the soldier’s name will be made?’ Mark asked, with a note of fake drama, fake lack of interest in his tone. Leah watched him across Cat’s grave for a moment, until he looked away across the cemetery and into the black depths of the yew tree.

‘Tomorrow. There’s a party at his parents’ house. I said I’d drop it in then.’ She searched around for something else to add, but found nothing.

‘A party. Sounds nice. Do you want me drive you? Surrey, you said before, didn’t you? It’s not far. Then you could have a drink,’ he offered casually.

‘Oh, that’s kind of you, but there’s really no need to bother—’

‘It’s no bother,’ he said, quickly.

‘It just might be … a bit … You know,’ she said, uncomfortably. She did not want him anywhere near Ryan, she realised. As if Mark might get tainted somehow, stained by her toxic feelings, the poisonous shreds of her past life.

‘Awkward?’ he suggested. Leah shrugged, unable to meet his eye. She suddenly felt horribly guilty, as though she’d been caught cheating.

‘Maybe.’

‘Look, I won’t come in or anything. I’ll just chauffeur you. By the sounds of it, you’ll need a drink when you get there. OK?’

Leah glanced up at him and smiled. ‘OK. Thanks.’

*

‘So, what will you do now?’ Mark asked, as they headed east along the M4 the next day. The journey had been odd and uncomfortable; Leah’s excitement at showing Ryan what she’d found clashing with the strained silences in the car.

‘Go home, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Back to London to start work on my book. I need to speak to my agent – and start touting for a publisher.’ She glanced over at him. Mark nodded, smiled, said nothing. ‘What about you?’ Leah asked.

‘I should think about starting over, I suppose. Get job hunting, stop festering away at Dad’s place. Put it on the market, perhaps.’ His voice betrayed no real enthusiasm at the prospect.

‘Mind if I come back and take some pictures before you do? For my book?’

‘You can come back any time you want, Leah,’ he said gently, and Leah shifted in her seat, fiddling awkwardly with the file of papers in her lap.

‘I hope it won’t affect the asking price – me revealing to the world that a murderer, his adulterous accomplice and a theosophical hoaxer once lived there!’

‘All publicity is good publicity, right?’ Mark laughed. ‘I don’t think it’s very fair to call Hester his adulterous accomplice, mind you.’

‘No, it’s not. Don’t worry – I’ll make sure readers know how much she struggled with it,’ Leah assured him. They drove on in silence, and Leah thought of five different conversations to start, abandoning each one in turn.

‘Here – this is the one,’ she said, leaning forward in her seat with a sudden storm of nerves cramping her stomach. Mark pulled into a smart, wide tarmac driveway flanked by twin five-bar gates. The house was an immaculate neo-Georgian pile, three storeys high, with a long rank of garages topped by a brass weathercock that gleamed in the sunshine.

‘Nice,’ Mark remarked. ‘Not short of a bob or two, then?’

‘Or three, or four,’ Leah agreed, neutrally. She unclipped her seat belt, flicked her hair back behind her shoulders and licked her lips nervously. She drew breath to thank Mark for the lift, but he cut her off.

‘If you want me to pick you up again later …’

‘No, no. It’s fine. It’s a five-minute cab ride to the station, and I’ll head back to The Swing Bridge from there. Thanks so much for bringing me, and for … all your help, Mark. You’ve been fantastic.’

‘Perhaps not quite fantastic enough,’ he said quietly.

Leah swallowed, pretended not to hear the remark, not to understand what he was asking. Her heart was high in her throat.

‘Well, I’ll be back, anyway. Before too long – I’ll need to get into the Newbury police files again, and the newspaper archives …’

‘Sure.’ He looked away, rubbing one hand along his jaw. ‘Look, are you sure you don’t want me to wait for a while? I don’t mind. It might be … a bit difficult in there. With all the family around and everything …’

‘I’m sure it will be. But I’ll be fine, really – don’t wait. I don’t know how long this will take, and I hate to think of you just sitting around, waiting for me …’ Leah flushed, the words suddenly seeming to be about something far more important than a lift back to Berkshire. Mark watched her intently, but Leah could find nothing else to say.

‘If you’re sure,’ he said. Leah leant over and kissed him on the cheek. His skin was warm, slightly rough for want of a shave. The smell of him sent an odd pang into the pit of her stomach. Her pulse was speeding, thoughts confused.

‘Thanks, Mark. I’ll … see you soon.’ She got out of the car before he could speak again. Her chest felt odd, too tight, and the familiar excited dread at seeing Ryan washed through her. Behind her, she heard Mark turn the car around in the driveway and pull back out into the road. The sound made her pause, turn quickly to
catch a glimpse of him. With him gone she felt suddenly naked and vulnerable. She halted on the front step, frozen, uncertain.

Just then the door opened, and Ryan smiled down at her.

‘I thought I heard a car. You’re bang on time, as ever. Come in. Did you find out who our mystery man is? I’m dying to know,’ he said.

‘I … did,’ Leah said, suddenly breathless. Her eyes scoured his face, the familiar, wonderful lines of it. And something seemed different. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. He looked unreal, somehow. Counterfeit. His scruffy hair and playful, schoolboy smile too young for him; only skin-deep.

‘I’m so glad you’ve come, Leah,’ he said softly, as if sensing her hesitation. He tapped the file she carried with one finger. ‘Is this it? What you’ve found out? Come in, why don’t you – don’t hang about on the step.’ Leah took one heavy step over the threshold, but then stopped again.

‘Yes. Yes, it is. Ryan, I … I need to talk to you. About what happened in Belgium …’ she started to say, but suddenly a tumbling female laugh and a flash of chestnut hair further along the hallway stopped her. She saw Ryan’s face tighten, the smile grow slightly strained. Saw him watching her carefully.

‘Is that Anna?’

‘Leah, don’t start—’

‘Don’t start?
Don’t start?’
Anger flashed through her like a lightning strike. ‘You didn’t say she’d be here. I thought she was still in the US?’

‘She was – she is. But she was hardly going to miss her father’s birthday party, was she?’

‘Her
step
-father’s birthday party,’ Leah corrected. ‘Quite an important distinction, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Not in this instance. Look, Leah. My parents really want to see you. They’ve missed you – we all have. Won’t you just come in and … forget about the other stuff? Now is not the time to make a scene.’ He used the gently cajoling tone she would once have
found impossible to resist. That she had found impossible to resist in his room in Belgium. Now it sounded wheedling, pathetic. He took her hand and ran his thumb over her knuckles. She waited for the burning sensation of his touch, for the shivers it would send flooding out over her skin. They didn’t come.

‘You’re right,’ she said, calmly now. She pulled her hand away. ‘I’ve no more scenes to make. Not for you, anyway. You were sleeping with your step-sister behind my back the entire time we were together, and then you bullied me into keeping it secret for you. Into lying to your whole family – who, I might add, I’ve always liked and respected, and who certainly don’t deserve to have a son like you. What kind of arsehole are you, Ryan?’ She shook her head, incredulously. Behind them there was movement in the corridor, and the shocked silence of somebody who’s heard something they can hardly believe.

‘Leah, keep your voice down for fuck’s sake!’ Ryan hissed furiously.

‘Too late, by the looks of it,’ she said coldly. ‘Goodbye, Ryan. Don’t expect to hear from me, and really –
really
– don’t contact me again.’ She turned her back on him and his incredulous expression, walked down the steps and towards the gate. There she paused, and turned. ‘The soldier’s name is Robin Durrant. He was a convict. You can trace any remaining relatives from that information, but I doubt there’ll be any. And for the rest – you’ll have to wait until my book comes out!’ she shouted.

She didn’t look back again. Her legs felt elastic, stretching into long, purposeful strides as she walked away. She felt desperate, impatient, but as she walked she realised it wasn’t Ryan she was desperate to get away from, but somebody else she could not wait to return to. Hoping it wasn’t too late, she got her phone out of her bag and started to dial, her fingers clumsy with nervous excitement. She hit the wrong key and had to start again, swearing under her breath. A car horn blared from across the street and startled her. She looked up to see a familiar muddy Renault, parked twenty
yards from the house. Mark waved to her from behind the wheel, his eyes anxious but a grin on his face. A wide smile of relief welled up and lit Leah’s face, and she waved back. With happiness making her footsteps light, she crossed the road and ran to where he was.

1911

The weather is turning, autumn stealing in with a noticeable chill to the morning air, and touches of bronze, gold and brown on the trees all around. Tess walks along the towpath into Thatcham with two letters of Mrs Canning’s to post. She rehearses the directions carefully in her mind, worried about losing her way, about not finding The Rectory again on the way back. She has only been in her new position for a fortnight, and everything is still strange. From the wide open spaces all around, to the quiet and the calm; and the good, hot food after months of the cruelty and deprivations of Holloway and Frosham House. She can’t help but eat everything that’s put in front of her, and already the hollow between her hip bones is filling out again, her stomach and arms growing rounder. Sophie Bell seems pleased at this. The cook says little, her moon face careworn, but she smiles at Tess, pats her on the shoulder from time to time, and treats her well. Most of the woman’s attention is showered on a little black and white cat, a scrawny stray that appeared at the kitchen door several weeks earlier, and which Sophie has adopted with an almost superstitious devotion. She feeds it cream from a saucer, and saves the kidney trimmings for it when she makes a pudding. But Sophie Bell hasn’t given it a name, simply calling it ‘cat’, so Tess secretly names it Tinker.

Hester Canning seems an odd woman, full of nerves and disquiet, but she is clearly trying to make Tess feel safe, and welcome. She is softly spoken, so different to The Gentleman, and to Mrs Heddingly. To the many and various wardens and masters Tess has suffered of late. Hester Canning speaks and moves as if there is
something sleeping in the corner of the room that she fears to wake. She often keeps one hand curled protectively around her midriff, and Tess wonders if she is expecting. She hopes so. A child is what the house needs to brighten it. The vicar is a vague and silent man. He hasn’t said two words to Tess; does not seem to have noticed her arrival. Tess doesn’t mind this. She has seen much in the past rough months of her life, and she no longer has much trust in men – even a man of the cloth. The household appears to run quite well without any input from him. And all around the house, unmentioned but unavoidable, Cat’s absence is felt. The police found her last letter to Tess, in the bag abandoned in the meadows. It found its way to her eventually, after her arrival in Cold Ash Holt and her first learning about her friend’s death. A message from beyond the grave – one that made her cry again, when the first storm of grief had scarcely passed. Tess is here because Cat is not. Everybody at The Rectory knows this, and Tess wonders if it will always be thus.

She takes a deep breath, stifles fresh tears at the thought of her murdered friend. She refuses to walk across the blameless meadows where it happened. She takes the longer route, along the lane and then onto the towpath beside the bridge. Nobody suggests that she should do otherwise. If Cat’s ghost is anywhere, it is haunting those meadows, angrily lamenting just how close she came to freedom, how close she came to starting her new life. Whatever the reason she met with the theosophist that morning, if she just had not, if she had gone straight to see George, she would be with him now, loving and laughing; radiating that bright strength that had drawn Tess to her like the moon pulling the tide. The injustice of it is so vast and bitter that Tess is too angry with God to say the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the church service. Her eyes stay open, her lips sealed. When she reached for the chamber pot one morning soon after her arrival, she found a small brass crucifix tossed underneath the bed. After careful consideration, she left it there. God will have to prove himself to Tess, after what has been done to Cat.

She keeps walking and at last buildings begin to appear further along the canal. She hears voices, laughter and splashing. Pausing nervously, she pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders and cautiously walks on. By the bridge where she is to take to the road and follow it to the centre of town, a group of boys are bathing, their blazers and straw hats scattering the grassy bank. It’s some kind of impromptu swimming gala, the boys let out from school, and a crowd has gathered – men and women and children, hanging from the bridge to watch. Tess joins them, smiling uncertainly, laughing at the boys’ antics as they swim a cigarette race – the winner being he who can make it to the far bank and back twice over with his fag still alight, in spite of the hearty splashing all around.