Beneath the Shadows (26 page)

‘Mum, what are you doing here?' Ben demanded.

‘We need to talk,' she replied, glaring at Grace.

Grace held Millie tighter. ‘I have nothing to say to you. Now get out.'

‘Grace, I would like to speak to you alone.'

Grace gave a loud bark of derisive laughter. ‘Are you serious? Ben, I want you to stay right here.'

Ben didn't reply, but went across and sat down on the sofa, looking rebelliously at his mother.

Meredith took a small step closer to Grace. ‘I know you're frightened of me,' she said softly. ‘And it is ridiculous. I have been on your side, you know. I haven't done anything wrong. In fact, I'm the reason your daughter is safe –'

Grace froze. Ben got up again from the chair and came to stand next to her. ‘Mum, get on with whatever it is you want to say.' There was a warning note in his voice.

Meredith held his gaze. ‘I don't even understand it all myself … but I will tell you what I know.'

She waited for a moment, eyes turned fixedly towards the window as though steeling her nerves, and then she began.

‘The first I knew that Adam existed was when he came here after Rachel died. I had my suspicions about his true paternity as soon as I realised how old he was. However, Bill and Connie thought that Jonny was his father – the timely move to Australia had made him a convenient scapegoat. I've always been unsure why Rachel kept up the pretence when she knew she was dying. I'm surprised she let them bring Adam back here.'

‘I don't think he was meant to live with his grand parents,' Grace said. ‘Rachel asked her boyfriend to take care of Adam financially – but when Adam found out the man had a second family, he wouldn't take his money. He chose to come and stay with Bill and Connie instead.'

Meredith grimaced. ‘Well, in that case I understand now.' She glanced at them, and Grace finally saw flashes of anxiety in her eyes. ‘I had confronted Rachel about her affair with Ted before she left – but the last I'd heard from her was a letter containing a brief apology, and an assurance that she was gone for good, which was passed on to me by her father. I'm not sure whether Ted knew of Adam either until he arrived …' The corner of Meredith's lip had begun to twitch, and she brushed at it absent-mindedly. ‘However, I only had to tell Ted that his youngest daughter was in love with Adam to be sure my fears were well-founded.

‘When Ted felt threatened, his first response was always attack. I know he warned Adam to stay away from Jenny. I
wasn't privy to the conversation, so I don't know what was said. However, Adam left for university soon afterwards, and he never contacted the girls again. We were both hugely relieved.'

‘So tell me what happened last year?' Grace insisted.

Meredith closed her eyes, but her eyelids quivered as though wild activity were going on beneath the surface. Her hand came up as if she might hide behind it, but instead she rubbed repeatedly at her face.

‘We didn't foresee what would happen to Jenny after Adam left. Her heart was broken. She had always been Ted's baby, and I think it destroyed him to see her like that and know it was his fault. She became a wraith, little more than skin and bone; she didn't care about anything, and nothing we did could rouse her spirits. We were very worried for a long time, we truly thought she might never recover. And even though, in the end, slowly, she came back to life … she was never the same carefree girl we'd known before. And she's had such rotten luck with men since. I think perhaps she made Adam into a god, and no one else could measure up. And then a couple of years ago she had an operation – went in thinking they were removing a growth, but things got more complicated, and as a result she had to have a hysterectomy.'

Grace had no intention of cultivating compassion for the Blakeneys. ‘I don't need to hear all this, Meredith. Just tell me about last year.'

Meredith met Grace's frosty stare. ‘Again, I had no idea you had even moved here until Ted rushed through our kitchen door. He was out of his mind. He told me that he had met Adam walking on the Leap. Ted just kept repeating,
“He's gone over, he's gone over …” It took a while to get him coherent enough to talk to me. He never admitted any part in Adam falling, just said they'd had words and Adam had fallen over the edge. And he'd left her there,' Meredith said, indicating Millie, who was now asleep in Grace's arms. ‘At the Leap – in her pram, all by herself. When he told me, I ran to find her, and there she was, crying her eyes out. I wheeled the pram back, unsure what to do, and in the meantime she wore herself out and fell asleep. So I kept on going, up here.' She gestured outside. ‘I opened the gate, half-expecting you to come out and find us, and I had no idea what I was going to say. I was still in shock myself. When you didn't come outside, it occurred to me that I could leave her and you could discover her that way, without me needing to be involved. She was wrapped up nice and warm, and I could come back later and check that you had taken her inside. So I walked away. And we didn't have to wait long till we knew she'd been found, as we saw the police cars go by.

‘Meanwhile, I started running through everything in my head. Ted wasn't admitting to anything but an accident, and all I could think of was what it would do to our girls – to Jenny in particular – if he was accused of anything more sinister. I had an idea, and I talked it through with him. Gradually, as he saw that there might be a way out, he began to come round …'

Horror flooded through Grace. Less than two hours ago, she'd stood in roughly the same spot that Adam had fallen. She had been so close to going over the edge herself, into the abyss. She stumbled over to a chair and sank down in it,
cuddling Millie close, trying not to think about her baby all alone on the wild, empty moor top, next to the Leap.

‘What happened next, Mum?' Ben persisted.

Meredith looked towards the window. ‘While the police were out searching, we didn't dare return to the Leap. We were expecting them to discover Adam down there and rule it as a suicide. We thought if we moved him it would look more suspicious.'

Grace frowned. ‘Why didn't they find him?'

Meredith couldn't meet their eyes. ‘Well, they didn't go to the bottom of the Leap. It's difficult to get back up, so they relied on the helicopter … but they should have seen him … However, later we discovered that Adam must have moved, after he'd fallen … When Ted went back, he was under a ledge – hard to see from the air.'

‘You mean you left him down there and he wasn't even dead?' Ben cried, horrified.

Meredith looked at him. ‘I didn't leave him anywhere,' she snapped, her tone sliding closer to panic. ‘I didn't even look over when I went and got the baby – I couldn't bear to – and I didn't hear anything while I was there. It was your father who did the rest. He tagged on to the search party that went to the top of the Leap, tramping his boots through the mud so that when they found Adam it wouldn't look odd that he'd been there. Then after the search was called off, Ted went back to find out what had happened. Two things had changed when he came home that day. First, he was clearly heartbroken – so perhaps Adam really did fall by accident, as Ted never once said he pushed him –'

‘Stop …
stop
…' Grace jumped up, Millie startling in
her arms. She fought the urge to run from the room, wanting to hear everything that Meredith had to say, however terrible. After so long, she needed the truth. A sob rose up and threatened to engulf her. ‘How can you talk about
his
heart breaking …?' Her voice cracked on the words.

‘What else had changed, Mum?' Ben asked. ‘You said there were two things.'

‘His face was haunted for the rest of his days.' Meredith spoke in a soft, shivering whisper. ‘Whatever he saw down there, it never left him. Even after the stroke had robbed him of his faculties, right to the end, he still had that same terrible look in his eyes.'

Ben came over and put his arm around Grace. ‘So where is Adam now?'

‘Ted buried him where he found him. We stayed up all night deciding what to do for the best. He was talking about going to the police, but I persuaded him not to. What would be the point of more lives falling apart? I kept reminding him of what it would do to the girls. So at dawn the next morning he took everything he needed and drove the car towards Skeldale, parked up on the roadside and walked over the moors to the Leap. You can get to the bottom of it that way, but it's a long hike. He didn't come home till after dark. And the next morning we carried on as normal. Neither of us ever spoke about it again.'

‘Adam's still at the bottom of the Leap?' Ben sounded incredulous.

‘Yes.'

Grace was overtaken by a sudden vile rush of nausea. She remembered Annabel talking about the Leap. Sitting nearby
on Christmas Day, looking towards the spot. Standing on the precipice tonight. And all that time, Adam was down there, in the ground.

A great wound deep inside her began to claw at itself, tearing her open and digging deeper and deeper, hollowing her, until she was empty from the inside out. Up to this moment she had sometimes allowed herself to imagine him coming through the front door, throwing his arms around her, making it all right. But now he was lost forever. She could picture his easy smile, could well remember the deep vibration his voice made if she pressed her ear to his chest, and the concave space where her hand nestled between the muscles there. She still knew the solidity of him, his warmth, his breath, the place where his cheek merged from softness to sandpaper as his stubble grew. Now, as horror flooded her, she imagined that same body beneath layers of earth, the leeched lifelessness of it, the decay. Numbing shock began to edge its way along her limbs.

She closed her eyes and gripped Millie tighter. Hold on, she told herself. Just hold on to Millie. Yet she felt her body begin to sway until Ben's strong hands reached out and caught her, guiding her back to a chair.

‘Tell me the rest,' Grace said, her eyes still closed.

‘I've told you all I know.'

‘No.' Grace opened her eyes and glowered at Meredith. ‘I want to know about the book I found open on my bed. The damn clock stopping and starting. The word written on my car … You obviously still have a key to this place.'

Meredith paused, which told Grace all she needed to know. ‘That clock has been known to stop at three a.m. on
occasion. Connie and Bill talked about it for years – Bill always found it a great joke, it was his heirloom. Connie hated it … As for the rest, they were only minor things. I didn't know what else to do. From the moment you got here I was terrified that this would all come out eventually, unless I could get you to leave … and you seemed unnerved by the ghost stories.'

Grace was going over everything else that had happened. She realised how close she had been to abandoning the cottage without putting all this together. Would she have been better off that way? It didn't matter now.

‘Grace,' Meredith said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘I know I've played a part, but I don't know what else I could have done. I was desperate to protect my family. All I've ever wanted was to try to shield my children from having to bear the consequences of such horrific mistakes.'

At this, Ben made a strange sound and threw his hands in the air.

‘You too, Ben,' Meredith said defiantly. ‘Perhaps now you know what Ted did, you might understand …' Then she turned to Grace. ‘All I ask is that you don't call the police until the morning. I would like the time to speak to my daughters tonight; to explain. I would appreciate it if you could grant me that much. Because I brought your child back, Grace. I didn't know anything about Adam's birth or his death until things were set in stone – there was nothing I could have done to change either. And I told Ben straight away where he could find Jenny and Millie tonight. I didn't deliberately set out to cause you any harm. So I'm asking you to allow me a little bit of time.'

As Grace sat in stunned silence, Ben said, ‘This is unbelievable.'

‘I know you're angry with me, Ben,' Meredith said. ‘But life is not always simple – surely you know that by now.'

Ben looked stony-faced at this, but said nothing.

Grace glared at her. ‘I'll give you until dawn. And then it's over, Meredith.' She tried to look into the depths of Meredith's fixed stare, to see if there was more to uncover, but her eyes were black marbles. Grace had been sure she'd spotted cracks forming, but they had closed over now, and she was banished from whatever else lay beneath.

Meredith turned swiftly and headed towards the hallway. In the doorway, she paused, listening. ‘Your clock appears to have stopped, Grace.'

And then she was gone.

Ben let them into his house, with Bess running ahead of them.

‘You can both sleep in my room if you like. Will she be okay in the double bed?' He nodded at Millie, who was semi-slumbering on Grace's shoulder, occasionally shifting her head from side to side.

‘Thank you,' Grace replied, weariness overtaking her. It was only early evening, but it felt like the dead of night – it had been dark for hours, and so much had happened.

Ben showed her up to his room and flicked on a bedside light. He paused at the door. ‘Can I get you anything?'

Grace just wanted to sleep. ‘We'll be fine. Thank you.'

He left them alone. Grace put Millie on the double bed, rearranged pillows so she wouldn't fall out, and lay down next to her fully clothed. And then, although it was painful beyond measure, she let herself remember Adam. Tears
streamed down her face and soaked the pillow.

After a while she was exhausted, but sleep wouldn't come. She did nothing but toss and turn, until finally, defeated, she headed downstairs for some water.

It was after midnight, and she was surprised to hear music coming from the lounge. The door was wide open, light shining beyond it, and she peered inside.

Ben was lounging on the sofa, staring into the distance with a glass of golden liquid in his hand. At his feet, Bess gave a gentle woof but then put her head back onto her paws. Ben glanced up. ‘Can't sleep?'

Grace barely heard him, for she was taking in the contents of the room. In addition to the furniture, there were half a dozen large canvasses stacked against one wall, and an easel stood by the front window. A photograph was clipped to the top of it, and on a canvas beneath, the face had been replicated in charcoal outline.

Without a word, she moved closer. It was a little girl, not much older than Millie, with blonde ringlets and blue eyes that shone with merriment.

‘Who is this?'

‘My daughter.' Ben sat forward, his incisive eyes searching Grace's for her reaction.

‘Oh!' Grace couldn't hide her astonishment.

‘She's two, and she lives in Australia with her mum.' Ben's voice was tender, his eyes fixed on the easel. ‘Catherine and I were married for five years – happily, I thought – but when Sophie was six months old, she left me for someone else.' He caught Grace's eye before his gaze fell towards the floor. ‘I still find it very difficult to talk about. I was completely taken
by surprise, and it blew my world apart – made me question everything I thought I knew. I hadn't even known that Cath was unhappy …'

Grace went across and sat next to him. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘I'm not very good at sympathy,' he said, swirling his drink and watching it spin. ‘When my walls start to crumble, I'm so damn frightened of what's behind them that I fix them straight back up again. Basically, I'm a mess …'

Grace's laugh was ironic. ‘Well, I understand
that
feeling.' She gestured around them. ‘But you certainly have a hidden talent.' She indicated the canvases, most portraying the moors at varying times of day.

‘I needed something to keep me busy – before your cottage came along, of course. I find painting very therapeutic.' He watched her studying the pictures. ‘Since I've been back I've noticed just how different the tones of daylight can be – in Australia it's all yellows, here it's much more about blues and greys.'

At the mention of his other life, Grace was reminded of all the questions she still wanted to ask. ‘So why are you here? Did you think it would help you to come to terms with your divorce if you sorted out your relationship with your mother?'

‘Not really,' Ben said. ‘There's far too much unspoken between me and Mum. We're both pretty fixed in our beliefs. To change to the extent that we could even have a rational discussion would require a degree of strength that I'm not sure either of us possesses.' He hesitated. ‘I'm pretty sure she knows I lied about starting the fire – but it was convenient for all of us if I were the guilty one. I wanted an excuse to get
out of there; and they needed to believe that their little girl wasn't capable of it …'

‘Oh my god. Jenny started it?'

‘Yes – although I don't think she meant to burn down half the house. I'm not sure what she was doing. The first I knew was when she shook me awake. She was beside herself in the chaos that followed, but I persuaded her that I should take the blame.' He noticed Grace's expression. ‘Don't feel too sorry for me, Grace. I wasn't particularly easy to be around back then. I'm sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when I went, my sisters included.'

‘But I don't get it – if you've always known that you and Meredith were unlikely to work things out, then why did you decide to live here again?'

‘I came back for my dad.'

Grace looked at him in confusion.

‘Jack is my dad, Grace, not Ted.'

In the ensuing silence, Grace willed herself to open her mouth and say something, but she couldn't find the words.

‘Are you beginning to see just how tightly the Blakeneys have wound their very tangled web?' Ben's voice grew darker as he added, ‘After tonight I think that Claire and I are probably the result of my mother's revenge affair.'

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Because I went into our house one day when I wasn't meant to be there, and heard my parents screaming at each other – Mum and Ted, that is … In fact, now that things are clicking into place, it might have been around the time that Adam was staying with his grandparents – that could have been the reason for their fight. But the bit I overheard was
Ted saying that he was bringing up his brother's bastards, so what more did she want?' He took a large swig of his drink. ‘… I went off the rails a bit after that. I planned to tell Claire, but Dad was always really good to my sisters, and I didn't want to break her heart – so I never have.'

‘She doesn't even know now?'

‘No.' Ben sighed. ‘It's complicated. Jack won't acknowledge that we're his. The one time I tried to broach the subject he got really angry and upset – so I've never brought it up again. Men around here don't discuss their deepest feelings – they're pretty much incapable of it. But I think he moved to the village to be nearer to Claire and me …'

‘But how did he get along with Ted?' Grace asked. ‘Surely they would hate one another after that?'

‘I've come to the conclusion that the most important thing for my family is appearances. As long as everyone else sees what they want them to, and they can avoid anything that makes them too uncomfortable, it doesn't matter what has really gone on, or who is getting hurt along the way. Jack was always invited for Christmas, and the rest of the time we just bumped into him now and again. He keeps himself to himself anyway, he loves his birds most of all … He was never any threat. I can't imagine what Mum saw in him – they've never done much more than be civil to one another while I've been around. As I said, perhaps it was just an opportunity to get even.'

‘So how have you been getting along with Jack since you got back?'

‘Oh, I go and see him every day, check he's all right, say hi to the birds, then we carry on with our lives.' Ben put his
glass down. ‘But I'm glad I've been here for a while to be able to do that. It's meant I've also had time and space for reflection – there's nothing worse than feeling lonely in a crowd of people. At least now when I head back to Sydney I might be able to pick myself up and begin enjoying life again.'

Grace knew immediately what he meant, but was still choosing the right words with which to respond when he added, ‘It's been great having you here, Grace … It's like you know me without me having to explain. Perhaps in another lifetime, in different circumstances …'

A brief ache ran through her. ‘Perhaps …'

Their eyes locked. Then the moment passed, and Ben glanced away.

‘I should go and try to get some more sleep,' Grace murmured.

Ben hesitated. ‘Actually, there's one thing I want to mention to you before I lose the chance. It's about Millie. I think something might be bothering her.'

 

When Grace got back into bed, sleep still eluded her. She studied Millie's peaceful face for a while, thinking about what Ben had said, wondering if he could be right. If so, how had she missed it?

In the early hours she finally drifted off, until Millie began crying shortly after seven. Grace woke with a start at the noise, disorientated by her surroundings until the events of the previous day came rushing back to her. She felt sick. She wanted to get on with calling the police, then get away from here.

But first she needed to be practical. She got Millie up and
dressed, and took her downstairs for something to eat, talking to her all the while, testing out Ben's theory. By the time Millie had finished her breakfast, she was sure Ben was right. It was another worry, but in some ways it was also a relief. If Millie had a hearing problem then it might explain a few things that had been troubling Grace. Millie could obviously hear some noises, so they just needed to get her tested, and they would take it from there.

Morning light began to infuse the night, creeping warily into the kitchen and casting insipid colours on every surface. Bess lay on her side, her gait tired but her eyes wide, watching the room changing. Millie crawled across and began patting Bess's fur a little too enthusiastically, then giggled when the dog licked her face. Grace picked her up, grabbed some plastic tubs from a drawer and set her down to play with them, hoping it might keep her amused for a few more minutes. She fingered her phone nervously. She wanted Ben to be here when she called the police, but she didn't want to wait too much longer.

Moments later she heard a faint ringing upstairs. There was a protracted silence, but then Ben's footsteps thundered along the landing. Grace had already jumped up from her seat in alarm, heading for the door, when she met him coming in the other direction. He was wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts. His face was drawn, his eyes fearful.

‘Claire just called me,' he said breathlessly. ‘I'm so sorry, Grace, but Mum's disappeared. Her car isn't there, and Pippa's gone too.'

Grace stared at him, disbelieving, as he added, ‘Claire's distraught, I'm going to have to get up there.'

He raced away, back up the stairs. Moments later he ran down again, pulling a jumper over his head and then doing up the belt buckle on his jeans. He sat on the floor by the front door and began lacing up his boots.

Grace had already snatched up her mobile and dialled 999. A few moments later a voice said calmly, ‘Emergency – which service do you require?'

‘Police,' she said. She was shaking with fury. How could she have been so naïve as to think that Meredith would stick to her word?