Precious Thing (30 page)

‘You agreed to do her bidding,’ I said, finishing her sentence.

‘I’d always kept in touch with Simon and seen Clara the odd time as she was growing up. So when she was a bit older I asked if we could spend some time together. She’d come here one Sunday a month and I would give her Niamh’s letters. She never once told Simon, she knew it was to be our secret. All the poor girl wanted to know was that her mother still cared for her. You should have seen her face when she read them, Rachel, she devoured them. Her eyes would light up. Every girl wants a relationship with their mother.’ Laura carried on, the irony of her words lost on her.

Every girl wants a relationship with their mother.

‘She was fourteen when I gave her the first letter.’

‘A real coming of age,’ I said, doing the calculations in my head. ‘And your little introductions must have gone well because we moved down to Brighton the following year.’

‘Niamh didn’t expect you to become friends. Clara was older after all, we had no idea you’d end up in the same class. I didn’t want to be involved after that. I didn’t want Clara to find out that I was your aunt and make the connection. It was all so tangled.’

Tangled. The word didn’t even come close to encapsulating the twisted mess Niamh had created.

‘Do you know what it was like for me?’ I spat. ‘While you were passing fucking letters to Clara, have you any idea? Niamh didn’t give a fuck about me; Jesus Christ, you must have seen that. Every day she’d tell me how I was fat, or ugly, or stupid, how she wished she’d never had me. She was inventive, I’ll give her that, she always found a different way of telling me I was a piece of shit. You must have known, and yet you believed her when she said she’d changed? How could you have been sucked in by her promises, how could you have believed she was truly sorry when you saw how she treated me?’

Laura was sobbing, polite little stifled sobs that sounded like hiccups.

‘Rachel, please, please don’t do this, I never wanted you to find out like this.’ I watched her get up from the armchair and come over to me, her tanned, leathery arms outstretched.

‘Oh Rachel, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’ She was very close to me, kneeling next to me so I could smell the same lavender smell that was once comforting. But today it was heavy and sweet and made me gag. I felt her cold, clammy hand reach out to me, trying to clutch at forgiveness. I pushed her out of the way and watched her fall back. Then after grabbing my bag I ran out of the room, through the hallway. She was calling my name: ‘RACHEL, RACHEL, PLEASE.’ Again and again. As I glanced back I saw her pathetic figure pulling itself up from the floor, following me to the door.

‘You disgust me,’ I said and turned and left.

Halfway down the street I heard the sound of the waves, and her words reached me, carried on the wind.

‘I was only trying to help her, Rachel. She was my sister.’

And you are mine, Clara.

O
N THE BEACH,
the only place to go to clear my head. It was February-freezing, no warmth in the sun, but I didn’t mind, I couldn’t feel anything anyway. Sitting close to the water the waves rolled up towards me, stopping just short of my feet. I imagined a huge one taking me by surprise and dragging me in. Would I put up a fight? This person, this successful, polished creature I had created with her magazine-perfect life – she was slipping away. I wasn’t sure I cared enough any more to save her.

That feeling again of being on the outside, separate, the way I had felt most of my life, the way I had felt when you and Niamh ridiculed me the day before she died. It was rolling over me. Jonny had gone, you were against me. No one was left who cared. I was alone again.

In my head the tick-tick-ticking of a clock. You were out there planning and plotting, creeping closer and closer.

Coming to get you ready or not
.

What else did you have in store for me, Clara? Or would you wait to see if I was charged with your murder before you stuck the knife in again?

Then the phone rang and Jake’s voice came at me through the wind.

‘I have something for you,’ he said. ‘A name.’

‘Surprise me.’

I grabbed a handful of pebbles from the beach and threw them one by one into the sea.

‘The
Crimewatch
caller, the one who called twice. Does the name James Redfern mean anything to you?

James Redfern, Lucy Redfern.

My stomach twisted, a shimmer of nausea. I thought I might be sick.

Names from the past I’d never forgotten. Names that made everything slot into place.

Amber’s description of your boyfriend came shooting back to me –
he’s called Jim or something, I think she knew him from years back.

Jim, James. The same person. A man who wanted revenge as much as you did.

‘It rings a bell,’ I told Jake, as I lay back on the pebbles and looked up to the sky, wondering when it was going to swoop down and swallow me up.

You might have been acting out of spite and jealousy and misplaced blame, but you weren’t acting alone, Clara. My instincts were right. James was on your side, the man in the locksmith’s I presumed, the same person who broke into my flat twice. I was whizzing back through our conversations, our meetings, the rare fun times and laughter we’d shared since you came back, dizzied by the thought that everything had been a lie.

And who else had you recruited into your coven? How far and wide and deep did your plot reach?

Who else was smiling and talking to me one minute and planning my downfall the next?

Sarah.

Suddenly I heard her voice echoing in my head: the too-chirpy calls, the chats peppered with questions as to my whereabouts and plans. I thought she was showing an interest in my life because hers was so boring; I’d fallen for her line,
‘Oh my life is so dull, I won’t bore you with it, tell me what you’ve been doing.’
Jesus, I’d even come to look forward to her calls in a strange masochistic way.

I’d allowed myself to slip into the trap; I thought she liked me and I was flattered. Even after all these years, after all I had achieved when
she
had achieved so little, I still wanted her to like me, and you’d known that hadn’t you, Clara? You had ruthlessly exploited my schoolgirl insecurities.

Anger pulsed through me. Even in the cold my skin began to bubble with sweat.

You knew me too well.

And then I laughed, a hideous crazy person’s laugh that was carried away on the waves.

You know my weaknesses. But I know yours too.

I left the beach, walking quickly up Queen’s Road, the outline of a plan taking shape in my head. I dipped into a Starbucks, ordered a hot chocolate and a muffin and found myself a table at the back of the café. Sitting down, I pulled my phone out and scrolled through to find her number.

It rang twice before she answered.

‘Oh hi doll,’ she said – babe and doll were interchangeable in Sarah’s lexicon. ‘How you coping?’

Not very well actually, I’ve just found out my whole fucking life is a lie.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘It was Jonny’s funeral the other day and that was hard. And everything is still hanging over me with Clara and the police.’ I paused for a moment and then decided to go ahead. ‘Oh, and to top it off lots of weird stuff keeps happening.’

‘Like what?’

‘Just texts and letters, you know, threatening kind of stuff, and then the other night I woke up to the sound of someone laughing in the house.’

‘Fucking hell—’

‘Turned out someone had got into my house and stuck a CD in the stereo with someone’s laughter on it, how fucking spooky is that?’

‘Do the police have any idea who it is?’

‘They think I’m crazy, no sign of anyone breaking in, and then I told them I recognised the laugh; you should have seen the way they looked at me. But I’d know it anywhere.’

She hesitated before saying: ‘Tossers, they should take you seriously.’ I heard a doorbell ring in the background. ‘Oh babe, sorry, that’s a delivery at the door, I need to go. I’ll call you later OK, this afternoon, take care.’ And she rang off.

I sat and finished my hot chocolate, wincing as I drank a mouthful of sugary residue at the bottom of the mug. Then, picking up my coat and bag, I headed back out into the cold.

Sarah hadn’t once asked whose laugh I thought it was.

She hadn’t asked because she already knew.

A shopping list in my head: food supplies – chocolate, sandwiches, biscuits, more than I thought I would need but you could never be too sure. Flask, sleeping bag, torch, tick, tick, tick. Then back to Starbucks for coffee to fill the flask.

Packing the car when I had finished, I called Jake at work.

‘Can you do an electoral roll search on James Redfern?’ I asked him.

‘You worked out if you know him yet?’

‘No, but I figure if I see him it might jog my memory,’ I lied.

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘I have a surprise for you when you get home.’

But I was too focused on finding James to ask him what it was.

James lived in Applesham Avenue in Hove, a wide tree-lined street of 1950s semis. His house was a few doors down from a parade of shops. I parked up outside a motor supplies store giving me a clear view of his garden without looking too conspicuous. The afternoon light was fast disappearing into an early-evening gloom. I turned the engine and my lights off and covered my legs with the sleeping bag. The car thermometer read two degrees, but I couldn’t afford to keep the engine running; I knew I had to stay there for as long as it took.

Hours went by, the shops closed, people in suits made their way home from work. Every man who walked past I sized up –
could that be him? –
until the sheer concentration of it made my eyes heavy with sleep. I opened my flask and poured some coffee to stay awake, careful to ration it in case I needed the loo.

Still, his house was in darkness. I toyed with the idea of phoning a pizza to be delivered to his door, just to check he was actually there, but I didn’t want to arouse any suspicions so I just sat in the car, drinking lukewarm coffee from the flask and eating an egg-and-cress sandwich, waiting, waiting.

Just after eight o’clock, a silver BMW pulled up outside his house and a figure emerged from the driver’s door into the glow of the streetlights. It was a man at least, dressed smartly in a suit, but more than that I couldn’t tell. He pointed his keys at the car and the lights flashed to lock it. Then he walked at a pace up the garden path and disappeared. A current of excitement flowed through me before passing as quickly as it came.

Now what?

I didn’t have to think for too long because ten minutes later he emerged again. He’d changed clothes, swapped the suit for jeans and trainers and a parka coat. He was carrying one of those supermarket ‘bags for life’. There was a click and his car lights flashed again. He was inside, the engine humming.

I flung my sandwich on to the passenger seat and cast the sleeping bag aside. Having been so tired I pinged awake. Blood pumped through me and pulsed in my head.

I turned the keys in the ignition and watched him drive away. He was halfway down the street when I pulled out and followed him up Old Shoreham Road, then out on to the A27 heading west. I had no way of knowing if the man in the car was James, let alone if he would lead me to you, but it was like a fairground ride: once you’re on, you’re on for the duration.

As every signpost or turning approached a rush of adrenalin flowed through me.
Is he taking me closer to you?
Worthing, Littlehampton, Bognor Regis, as we passed each one I ticked them off my list of possible destinations. It was like a game of elimination.

He was careful not to speed, hovering just above or below seventy the whole way. I kept my distance but never took my eyes off his car.

Fifty minutes later as we approached the turn-off for the Witterings I noticed him indicating. Five seconds later I did the same.

The road was dark and unlit and much quieter than the dual carriageway. I slowed right down and hung back in case he became suspicious. We weaved down towards the village and then through it, to West Strand. Ahead, the sea, a carpet of black.

Even at night the village seemed familiar, like a fading memory. And then it came to me; I had been here before with you and your dad on one of those English summer days where the air is filled with suntan lotion and fish and chips. When we were still smiling and joking. A lifetime ago.

The BMW pulled over and I decided to carry on past it, fighting the urge to snatch a glimpse of the driver as I went by. I was 100 metres ahead when I saw the figure in the parka get out of the car, Sainsbury’s bag in hand, and walk a few metres along the street before dipping down on to the beach.

I had rehearsed the finding-James part of my plan, imagined tailing him like a character in a film and in my head I’d gone over the moment when he would reveal you to me. But I hadn’t planned for this scenario: exposed on a dark beach with nowhere to hide. And yet any doubts it was actually him had now evaporated. I had no choice but to follow him.

I pulled on my hat, buttoned my coat, grabbed my new torch, my phone and headed out into the night.

The squally weather was a blessing and a hindrance – the noise of the wind drowned out my footsteps but made it impossible for me to hear anything else. I traced the same path as I’d seen James take five minutes earlier, turning down to the beach at the same point where he had faded into the night.

As I reached the beach my feet hit the soft sand, slowing my pace. I felt the burn in my legs, the exertion taking the breath out of me. Ahead white foam sprayed off the waves. I stopped to rest for a moment, breathing in the mineral-scented air, and looked up to see a blanket of dark sky pierced by pinholes of brilliant light.

I knew from the heavy thumps of my heart that I was terrified, and yet I’d never felt more alive than on that beach. The sense of danger, the promise of discovery, being exposed to the rawness of nature on the dark, desolate stretch of sand, it was as if suddenly I felt the force of life pumping through me. I wasn’t dead yet.