The Bones of You (9 page)

12

G
race comes home, just briefly, a whirlwind of lightness and laughter. We go out riding, me on Zappa, her on Oz, in spite of the drizzle, which stubbornly refuses to let up. After a canter through the woods that leaves her cheeks pink and her eyes glowing, conversation inevitably turns to Rosie.

“Mum? Do you think they’ll ever find who did it?”

“I don’t know, Grace. I hope they do, because whoever it was deserves what’s coming to them.”

But it’s more than that. It’s too easy to forget as time passes, as the initial horror fades. Neal and Jo, all of us, our entire village in fact, still bearing the burden of Rosie’s death, we all deserve to know the truth.

We’re approaching the clearing where Rosie’s body was found, when at the top of the slope, I see the back of a man. I frown, trying to make out who it is. He’s too tall to be Neal. Then, as we get nearer, I see he’s younger and clearly distressed, his arms tightly folded, his shoulders heaving.

“What is it?” Grace follows my gaze. “Who’s that?”

“
Shh.
Come on. Don’t stare.”

We walk past, but as I glance over my shoulder, he turns enough for me to see his face, red from crying, and I draw a breath, not because he’s a man who’s inconsolably, unbearably in pain, but because I know him.

“That was Jo’s gardener,” I tell Grace when we’re out of earshot. “Ex-gardener. His name’s Alex.”

“So what d’you think he’s doing there?”

I shrug. “Probably just paying his respects.”

Even though from what I saw, it was far more than that.

“Mum, it’s been ages. People do that stuff in the first days, not over two months later.”

“Not always.” I hesitate, wondering whether to tell her what I’m thinking. “Unless . . . Do you think that maybe there was something between them?”

“Rosie wouldn’t go for someone like him. Anyway, he’s too old.” Grace dismisses it with the air of someone who knows.

“There aren’t rules, Grace. They could have been friends. And it might not be the first time he’s been here. Or maybe he wanted to be sure he’d be alone.”

 

When Grace goes this time, it’s a bruise, as opposed to a ripped muscle, in part because it isn’t long until Christmas, but also my mind is elsewhere.

The next day, I go to look for Alex. It’s already raining when I reach Dan’s nursery, icy needles rather than cats and dogs, but with a cold that’s no less penetrating.

“You just can’t stay away, can you, Kate?” Dan quips.

“Hi, Dan! I’ve come back for more of those tulip bulbs—if there are any left?”

“Because it’s you, I’ll go and have a look.”

Dan strides off, and I wander up and down the rows of plants, somewhat depleted since I was last here, searching for hidden gems I missed the first time round. It’s not long before I see Alex.

“Hello again.”

He glances at me, then looks away. “Hi.”

And then I realize I haven’t really thought this through. How to say I saw him in the woods, or to ask about Rosie, without it sounding like I’m a nosy middle-aged woman with good intentions but who’s essentially prying? In the end, I decide it is what it is.

“I thought you should know, I knew Rosie, too,” I tell him. “She used to like being with my horses.”

He’s very still as he works out what I’m saying. That I’m a friend. Straightening up, he turns to face me. “She told me you were always kind to her. She felt safe with you.”

Safe.
A strange choice of word.

He goes on, his eyes full of his pain. “You should have said the other day, when you were in.”

“I know. I should have. But I hadn’t realized you were more than their gardener.” Feeling my way, watching his face, how his jaw tightens. “I saw you in the woods. I was riding there the other day with my daughter.”

He shifts uncomfortably.

“You and Rosie . . .” I hesitate, choose my words carefully, gently. “Was there something?”

I see him clench his fists at his sides as he raises his eyes heavenward. When he looks at me again, they’re full of tears. “Yes. We were together. For a long time, no one knew. Then Joanna got suspicious, and, well, let’s just say she wasn’t taking any chances. Just the idea of her daughter with the hired help . . . Well, you can imagine, can’t you?”

He speaks with so much bitterness, and while I don’t agree with her, I get it about Jo’s order of things. We’re all different, and it’s how her world is, with her cleaner, her gardener, even the teachers at school—all, quite firmly, good people she needs in her life, but on her terms.

I’m also stunned that she didn’t tell me about Rosie and Alex. But confronted with his obvious distress, I forget that.

“I’m so sorry.” I touch his arm very gently. “Sorry you’ve lost her. Sorry they treated you like that, too.”

He stiffens, wrestling with himself. “I loved her. I can’t bear what happened. What kind of monster would do that?
To someone like her
. . .”

“Have you talked to the police?” I ask.

“They came to see me just after she was found. Asked me how long I’d worked there. Stuff like that.”

“So they do know? About you and Rosie?”

Alex stiffens. “I didn’t do anything wrong. There was no reason for them to know. Anyway, it wouldn’t do any good.”

“What do you mean?”

He hesitates; then, when he speaks, his face is flushed, and his words resonate with anger. “You really want to know? It’s people like those bloody Andersons. They love to blame other people, people like me, if they have the chance, because they’re better than I am. That’s what they think. . . .” He shakes his head. “The truth is, Neal’s a nasty piece of work. Rosie hated him. Had as long as she could remember. He’s the worst kind of control freak, Kate. You wouldn’t believe the stories she told. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with this.”

His words shock me. Then it comes back to me, what Jo said, that he and Neal didn’t get on. “God, Alex . . . that’s some accusation. How can you even think that?”

“Rosie argued with her father. The day before she disappeared. He wanted to stop her from going out—from seeing anyone. She told him that she’d had enough of him treating her like this, and that if he didn’t stop, she’d leave home and never speak to him again. He totally flipped.”

“You need to tell the police, Alex. All of this. They
will
get to the bottom of it. But all parents row with their teenage children,” I say, thinking of my own overprotective instincts, Grace’s proclamations of independence and hotheaded acts of rebellion. “It’s normal. Things get said in the heat of the moment—”

He interrupts me. “But Rosie didn’t lose her cool. Not ever. She told me she’d never won an argument with him, unless he wanted her to, for perverted reasons of his own. That’s the kind of guy he is. Pulls their strings like they’re bloody puppets.”

His eyes are menacing, his stance is almost threatening, and I take a step back, glancing over my shoulder for Dan, but he’s nowhere to be seen, as Alex continues.

“He controls that family, Kate. Each one of them, even his wife, from their every move down to the ground they walk on. Even the air they breathe. The man’s a psycho.”

But I don’t see it. “Arguing’s one thing, Alex, but Neal a murderer. . . ?”

I’m filled with unease at both the strength of his outburst and what he’s suggesting, because he’s wrong about the Andersons. All the time I’ve spent there, I haven’t seen a hint of what he’s describing. I imagine Grace bringing a boyfriend home, and Angus taking a dislike to him, because that’s clearly what’s happened. Telling myself that Alex’s emotions are raw because he’s lost the girl he loved—anyone can see that. And, like the Andersons, he desperately needs someone to blame.

“Watch out for him,” Alex mutters. “I mean it.”

“Are you sure you’re right about Neal? He’s an amazing man.” As I say it, I realize what I’m doing and that they’re Jo’s words, rolling off my tongue as if they’re my own. “He’s really worried about her. He’d do anything for his family.”

“Yeah,” says Alex darkly. “Exactly. Anything.”

13

A
lex preys on my mind. When I’ve thought about Rosie with a boyfriend, I’ve imagined warmth, strong arms, and kind eyes. Not unashamed hostility and bitterness.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t like him.” Laura and I have gone to Rachael’s, where I’ve filled them in on how I met him. Given the high male occupancy of her household, lunch at Rachael’s is never guaranteed, but to my relief, she produces homemade soup and crusty bread, with a large wedge of cheese.

“Why ever not?” Rachael’s spooning the soup into bowls.

“Yes. Why, Kate?” Laura’s curious.

“He was angry, and I understand that. It was something else. He seemed really aggressive. I just couldn’t see him with Rosie. It was like there was all this rage bottled up inside him. I got the feeling that if he was pushed, he could get quite nasty. Obviously, I don’t know,” I hedge. “It’s just a hunch.”

I backtrack then, not wanting my own subjective, biased impression of him to color cold, hard facts. “I mean, I would have liked to ask him about her necklace, but I didn’t dare.”

“Maybe next time,” Rachael says cheerfully, placing bowls in front of us.

“I kind of hope there won’t be one, if I’m honest. He warned me off Neal, too.”

“Really?” Rachael’s voice is sharp, as both pairs of eyes swing round toward me.

“He said Rosie hated him. You should have heard him. He can’t stand Neal.”

“The police do know, don’t they? About him and Rosie?” Laura sounds alarmed.

“I think so. I tried to persuade him that it would be better if they heard it from him than from someone else.” But I can’t be sure. Alex hadn’t looked convinced, and shortly after, I’d left.

Laura speaks. “It’s really hard to tell, isn’t it, just from one meeting, whose story to believe? The nicest people can have the darkest secrets.”

Rachael and I look at her.

“Don’t look so shocked! You both know it’s true. We all judge based on first impressions, but in actual fact, a lot of the time they’re wrong.”

 

But no matter how often I play them back, Alex’s comments unsettle me. Of course, there are always two sides to every story. Always. A few days later, I see Laura again. As the investigation continues to be drawn out, she’s moved into one of Rachael and Alan’s empty holiday cottages, just down the road from their farm.

“This is gorgeous.” I’ve admired this cottage for years. It’s the smallest, with flint walls and far-reaching views, too often sitting empty for long spells.

“I love it, but I’m a bit worried about the garden,” she tells me. “If it grows, I won’t be able to open the door.”

“You’re safe until spring. This has to be resolved by then, surely? And you’ll be home.”

“You’d think so. Come on. I’ll show you round. It’s very cute.”

After giving me a guided tour of its five small rooms, she makes us tea, which we take through to the sitting room, hot from the log fire.

“I have to ask you something.” She looks troubled.

I hear Angus’s voice.
For God’s sake, Kate. Don’t get so sucked in.

Think of Alex’s raw anger.

Then Rosie’s voice, screaming my name in the storm.

“The thing is, after you spoke to Alex and heard everything he suggested about Neal, I went to see the Andersons. Neal already knows why I’m here, and I explained that I wanted to help them get to the bottom of what happened to Rosie. I wasn’t sure what they’d say, but they asked me in and we talked . . . about how isolating it was for them as a family, how frustrating that there are no leads. She was sad. He was sad, too, but still charming. They seem like a normal, quite close-knit family. Aren’t they? Or am I missing something?”

“No. I don’t think so. I think Alex is emotional and angry because the Andersons didn’t treat him well. And because he’s lost Rosie, obviously.”

“I spoke to Joanna alone. She obviously thinks the world of her husband. She told me Neal’s an amazing man. What is it?”

I’m shaking my head. “It’s what she always says about him.”

“Oh. Right. Well, he isn’t your run-of-the-mill bloke, is he? And I spoke to Delphine. Strange girl, isn’t she? I couldn’t read her. But I asked her, in several different ways, about her family, and she kept saying how lucky she is to have such loving parents.”

“She’s hardly even spoken to me,” I say.

“It was about the only thing she did say. So . . .” She takes a large glug of her tea. “The thing is, Kate, Joanna said that a week before she disappeared, Rosie told her it was over with Alex. There’d been a bit of a thing between them, nothing serious, but he’d got a touch obsessed. Alex came round, apparently. Joanna refused to let him in, because Rosie didn’t want to see him again, only he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He got angry, threatened her—that sort of thing. But then he left, and that was it. Over.”

I frown. “I wish she’d told me. Having met him, it certainly sounds believable. Only it’s not what he said to me. He told me Rosie had a row with Neal and threatened to move out.”

Laura shakes her head. “How do you know who to believe? Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean Alex is the killer. Anyway, he has an alibi. He was with friends. There’s no way he did it. So then I went to see their neighbors.”

“I’ve never even met them,” I tell her.

“Well, it was interesting. They said they hardly know the Andersons—other than to say hello, that sort of thing. But one morning, a few days before Rosie died, they heard an awful noise going on. Voices yelling. A man’s voice and a woman. They think it was Joanna. The man shouted several times about how he wanted to see ‘her.’ He didn’t say a name. Apparently, the woman was screaming back at him. They couldn’t make out her words.”

Was it Neal’s voice? Or Alex’s? Is it even relevant?

“Neal was away.” Laura reads my thoughts. “Which rather begs the question, was it Alex, which seems likely, or someone else? And I agree. It’s strange how Joanna says nothing to you.”

But knowing Jo as well as I do, I realize it isn’t that strange at all. “I know the way she thinks. She hated the thought of her daughter and the gardener together. Alex told me that, too. Jo thought he was beneath her. And, anyway, as far as she was concerned, she didn’t lie to me. By the time I spoke to her, it was over.”

I remember the necklace. “There is one thing, though. If it was Alex who gave her the necklace, if he and Rosie had fallen out, or if he didn’t matter to her, she’d hardly wear it all the time.”

Laura’s thoughtful. “The one she was wearing the night she died. It’s never been found.”

“The murder weapon hasn’t been found, either, has it?” It’s impossible to believe, after the detailed police searches and given the ongoing vigilance of the villagers.

Her eyes meet mine. “Curious, wouldn’t you say?”

 

And while all this goes on, the fact remains. That ever since she exploded at me, I haven’t actually seen Jo, more than to raise my hand across the street. Not that I hold it against her, but it was what Angus said that made me think.

I know I can’t. I don’t want to be a constant reminder to her, either, of the daughter I still have and the one she’s lost, though if she wants my friendship, I’ll welcome her with open arms.

And as if reading my mind, that evening she calls me, full of remorse.

“Kate? I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch. I was awful to you before. It was a really bad day. Actually, it’s been a bad few weeks. Can you forgive me?”

“Oh, Jo . . . really, there’s nothing to forgive.” And whatever she said to me, there isn’t, because just getting through each day must take all the strength she can muster.

“But there is, Kate. I threw your kindness back at you. I’m truly sorry,” she says humbly.

It comes back to me what Neal said about guilt. And such is my own guilt, however illogical, that I haven’t shared her suffering, I can forgive her anything.

 

It’s Jo’s idea to meet on neutral ground at the Green Man, a pub that’s just outside the village.

“It’s so good to see you, Kate. You look so well.” With a beaming smile, she hugs me, degrees more warmly than she usually does, which was never a reflection of our friendship, just her reserve.

“Hi! You too!”

I’m taken aback by the warmth of her greeting, as well as how incredible she looks. Younger, very thin, and her hair’s longer, too. After plummeting to the depths, she’s on the upside of the roller coaster. Looking at her, you’d never guess in a million years what she’s been through.

“Listen. What I really want to say is
thank you,
Kate. From the bottom of my heart, for your friendship. Because without you . . .”

“It’s fine, Jo. Really. You’re more than welcome.” Embarrassed, because this isn’t why I came here, I steer her toward the bar, where we order lunch, which Jo insists on paying for, then take a table by the window. But Jo hasn’t finished and clearly feels the need to explain herself.

“Last time you came round, Kate, the day I yelled at you, I think it all caught up with me. I’m so sorry you were on the receiving end.”

“It’s okay,” I say to her. “I understand.” Then I take a breath. “I heard about Alex causing trouble. It must have been the last thing you needed.”

Her eyes widen; then she shakes her head. “I was trying not to think about it. I suppose it’s round the whole village by now?”

When I don’t reply, she carries on. “I know people love gossip, but it really wasn’t anything. Just a crush. You know what teenagers are like—here today, gone tomorrow. Rosanna was over it and was thinking about university. . . .”

A single tear trickles down her cheek, and I reach out and touch her arm. She tries to smile, but her eyes are full of sadness.

“It’s no excuse for how I behaved toward you,” she says quietly. “The trouble is, I was frightened, Kate. I felt everything spiraling out of control.” She pauses. “I haven’t told you or anyone, but last year, I was quite ill. I suppose I’m not very good at coping with things. I started drinking too much, and then I ended up in rehab. I’m fine now. I mean, I don’t drink, not like then, but after Rosanna . . . Well, Neal told you, didn’t he? That I went away. I wasn’t seeing straight at all. I was on these pills just to get me through. Anyway, I’m off them—at least for now.”

I’d suspected as much, and in fact, it explains the flatness of her mood, the lack of emotion whenever she spoke about Delphine.

“It can’t be easy, Jo. But you must feel better, now that you’re off them, I mean.”

She sighs. “I do . . . kind of. Only they muffle everything, Kate. They take the edge off pain, make the unbearable more bearable, but when you stop them, that’s the really hard part. The pain’s still there. You have to confront it. It doesn’t go away.”

“You don’t have to hide it,” I tell her, wondering what triggered her breakdown the first time. “Or apologize, either. You’re allowed to feel angry or hurt or whatever else you feel. You can yell, too. Okay?”

She looks down at her smooth hands, shaking just slightly. “Being home is much harder. It was easier there, because everyone understands. They’ve all been through something traumatic. And now I have to stay off the pills on my own. . . .”

“You’re not on your own, Jo. You have me. And Neal.”

She nods. “I do know that.”

We eat—or rather I eat, while Jo professes that hers is not that good, but not to worry, as she wasn’t really hungry. Then I change the subject, because as well as Jo, someone else is on my mind.

“How’s Delphine? She must have missed you terribly.”

Jo’s expression changes. “She stayed with a school friend most of the time. But you know I told you before that she was strong? I’m not so sure. I need to talk to her, don’t I? I’ve been no help to her.”

I’m relieved to hear her say that, because if it had been Grace switching off her feelings and retreating into herself, even now it would worry me, let alone Delphine, at the age of twelve, bearing the full, unsupported burden of her grief.

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up about it, Jo, but you must be worried. It’s a lot for a young girl.”

“I know. And it is. But we’re all different, Kate. And Delphine does the same as I do. When it gets to be too much, she turns inward. You’ve probably noticed,”

It’s true. I’ve seen Jo many times locked away somewhere inside her head where no one can reach her.

“And Neal?”

Her face lights up. “He’s good. We’re really good. I didn’t tell you that his charity has been nominated for an award, and there’s a dinner on Friday! You won’t believe who’s going to be there, Kate. . . . So many stars—even royalty, if you believe the rumors. Anyway, we’re going to London for the weekend. Five-star luxury all the way. I can’t wait!”

“Wow! That’s exciting, Jo! I love London before Christmas! Think of the shopping! The lights will be on, too! What will you wear?”

She glances behind before leaning toward me conspiratorially. “I had this dress made,” she says in hushed tones. “Spent a fortune. But it’s worth it. It’s green, fitted, but not tight. And flowing.” Her eyes are dancing. This clearly is terribly important to her. “But it’s worth it. It has to be right. Rosie would be so proud of him,” she adds, suddenly slightly choked. “She’d want us to celebrate.”

Then I have an idea. “Why doesn’t Delphine come and stay with us?”

A strange look flickers over Jo’s face, as though she’s not really listening, before she says, “Thank you, but she’s staying with her friend.”

I’ve always believed friendship to be measured as much by shared confidences as by what stays unsaid, while reading between the lines or second-guessing, the way close friends do. It’s a belief that leaves me questioning the measure of my friendship with Jo—not my outward, vocal support of her, but those burning issues I keep quiet about, like Grace’s fleeting visit home, my encounters with Alex, the fact that Laura and I talk about Rosie over cups of tea. Things I can’t tell her. But then I remember, I haven’t even told Angus some of these.