The Secrets Between Us (46 page)

So many times I had felt angry with Genevieve, jealous, bitter and frustrated.

That evening, all I felt was sympathy.

In my half-sleep I whispered: ‘Genevieve, what should I do?’

And in the next breath, I half-dreamed she whispered back to me: ‘Don’t close the gates.’

Then I drifted away.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

FOR A SECOND
time, I caught the train south and alighted at Bristol Temple Meads, but this time there was nobody there to meet me.

It was a dark day; the first day of the new year, but the rain was relentless. The station was deserted; almost empty. Only a handful of hungover or desperate people had turned up for the limited-service trains that would run that day.

My boots clicked along the wet platform. I went under the tunnel then out through the barrier. I didn’t even have to queue for the taxi outside and it took me all the way to Burrington Stoke. A tiny Christmas tree stood on the dashboard, its lights plugged into the cigarette lighter.

The driver was full of the story of Genevieve’s murder. It was all anyone in that part of the country was talking about, he told me. He asked if I was anything to do with the Churchill family, and I answered honestly that I was not, and he said it was the poor little lad he felt sorry for. What had that kid done to deserve to have a mother who went and got herself killed by his father? I was on the point of correcting him – Alexander had
not
killed Genevieve – but I remembered the truth about Jamie’s parentage and realized the taxi driver was possibly right. So I kept quiet and, eventually, the taxi driver turned the stereo to Radio Two and we listened
to New Year songs interspersed with news bulletins that all led with the Genevieve Churchill story. Her husband, Alexander, was due in court the very next day.

The taxi dropped me off at the Burrington Stoke Spar and I stood there, for a moment, looking around me. I hadn’t been gone very long but nothing was familiar any more. The village was so quiet compared with Manchester. A few dim Christmas lights glowed in the windows of the line of council houses and the hotel, but beyond was a gloomy darkness; the January countryside bleak as midwinter, the fallen leaves now blackened and slippery, the stone wet, the gardens empty and the hills lonely, their dull greenness broken only by the mud of footpaths and farm-tracks, a spattering of heavy young cattle up to their hocks in water and slush.

Inside my coat pocket, my mobile phone beeped. There was a text from Neil. It read:

Can’t get hold of Twyford. Be careful what you say.

I switched the phone off to save the battery and put it back in my pocket, and I turned and began the long walk to the lane that led uphill past the old quarry, and to Eleonora House.

This would almost certainly be the last time I ever came to Burrington Stoke. I could not imagine returning voluntarily again. I’d stay in touch with Betsy, of course, and a couple of other people, but if we were to meet, it would have to be somewhere neutral. Maybe we could all go out for a celebratory lunch, with the children, when Alexander was freed. Except we couldn’t really celebrate, could we, not when we remembered what had happened to poor Genevieve.

My feet followed one another up the hill. I grew warm and my breath was cloudy.

At the top of the lane, the news crews were gone – I supposed they would all be camped outside the court now – but they had left a terrible mess. The turf had been churned up and ruined, there were dents and ridges left by heavy vehicles everywhere and the lane was slippery with half-frozen mud. Discarded cardboard coffee beakers and fast-food wrappers littered the hedgerows like cynical Christmas-tree decorations. Police crime-scene tape fluttered at the quarry entrance, industrial black and orange plastic ribbon tied around the huge gates. The old sign that said
DANGER KEEP OUT
still leaned crookedly to one side of the track. It had not stopped Genevieve entering the quarry on the morning of her death. Why had she agreed to go there? Had her lover forced her? Or was she already dead when he brought her to the quarry?

I turned into the drive of Claudia’s house and was disappointed to see that the Volvo wasn’t there. Obviously, she hadn’t picked up my message. The gates were closed. I pressed the button on the post at the side of the gates.

‘Yes?’

‘Bill, it’s me, Sarah.’

There was a buzz and the gates swung open.

I hesitated.

Once I was through the gates, they would shut automatically behind me.

Don’t close the gates
. Why were those words in my head? What did they mean? These gates? I stepped forward. The gates were open, the sensor that controlled them waiting for me to pass through.

I went through the gap. There was a few seconds’ delay, long enough for a car to pass through, and then the gates would begin to close.

Oh, it was stupid, it was just a random phrase, the precursor to a dream.

Don’t close the gates
.

The words wouldn’t go away.
You next. Don’t close the gates
.

I knew I was being superstitious and silly, but still I picked up one of Claudia’s small lavender pots and put it close to the left gatepost. I watched as the gates swung together again, and the hinged edge of the left gate became stuck against the pot. There was a gap hardly big enough for a person to squeeze through between the tall closing edges of the gates. I could not, for the life of me, see any relevance or point to the exercise, but still I felt an immense sense of relief, a release almost. That was what I had been supposed to do.

I walked slowly up to the house. A large, ornate wreath of holly leaves and berries and ribbons was nailed to the wooden door. It must have been there before but I hadn’t noticed. As I admired it, a gust of wind caught me from the north; it was icy cold, like a punch against my face. I steadied myself, reached out my hand and pressed the bell, and that set the dogs off barking inside the house.

After a moment or two, Bill opened the door. Blue jumped up at me, but I was ready for him – I caught his huge front paws and set them back on the ground. Bonnie came more slowly from around Bill’s legs. She was stiff with arthritis. I stroked her head.

Somewhere inside the house, I heard the strains of operatic music – a woman was singing something terribly sad in a faltering soprano.

Bill looked terrible. He had aged a decade in the handful of days since I’d seen him. There were bags under his eyes, and jowls beneath his stubbled cheeks. His hair stuck up and he was wearing a baggy old pair of jeans beneath a striped shirt. He smelled faintly sour.

‘Come in,’ he said, and I stepped through the door. He closed it so that the dogs stayed outside.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

He looked at me.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Of course you aren’t.’

He took my coat and gestured with his hand that I should go into the living room.

‘Did Claudia get my message?’

Bill ignored the question.

‘Isn’t she here?

‘No.’ Bill shook his head. ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’

I opened my mouth and closed it again.

‘Where is she?’ I asked quietly.

‘It doesn’t matter where she is. She won’t see you, Sarah.’

He followed me into the living room. The milky-coloured carpet was grubby, so many feet had passed through the house in the last days. I perched on one of the sofas, on its edge. The Christmas decorations were tired and rather pathetic in the empty house. Nut shells were scattered in the fireplace.

Bill cleared his throat. He said: ‘Claudia asked me to give you a message.’

I brightened a little. ‘Oh?’

‘She wants you to leave the family alone. She wants you to go away and never come back. She wants you to forget about us. OK?’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t do that. I can’t forget about Jamie.’

‘You have to.’

‘I won’t.’

Bill paced over to the window. He scratched his head.

‘The thing you have to understand, Sarah, is that I am prepared to do anything it takes to make my wife happy. If she doesn’t want you here, I’ll make sure you aren’t here.’

‘I didn’t come about Jamie today,’ I said. ‘I came to tell Claudia that Alexander didn’t kill Genevieve.’

Bill laughed. ‘Nobody cares what you think.’

‘There’s proof.’

Bill came back over and stood in front of me, leaning over me. I shrank away from him.

‘You aren’t listening to me,’ he said. ‘Claudia doesn’t care what you have to say. I don’t care. Nobody does. We don’t want to know about your little fantasies, your games.’

‘No, it’s not like that. I …’

Bill spoke slowly and calmly.

‘We
know
that you’re – how can I put it? – fragile, Sarah. Everyone knows you’ve had problems, and even you would probably agree that you’re somewhat obsessed with Genevieve.’

‘No, I …’

‘Your own sister told us that you’re still being treated for postnatal depression. Your mind’s addled. We know you tried to abduct Jamie. We have absolutely irrefutable evidence.’

I felt myself go cold inside. My mouth was dry as dust, and the old feeling of terror rushed through my bloodstream.

‘You wanted him to be your son, didn’t you?’ Bill asked. ‘You wanted to
be
Genevieve.’

‘No.’ I shook my head, still afraid to say anything that might incriminate me, because I didn’t know what Bill knew. Had May mentioned something to him, or to Claudia? Surely she wouldn’t have.

Bill must have seen the confusion written on my face.

‘CCTV,’ he said. ‘We installed CCTV over the gates when we knew Damian was back in Burrington Stoke. Just to be on the safe side. When we played the tapes back, we saw you, Sarah. I saw you, Claudia saw you, the police saw you. We have digital recordings. Several of them.’

I shook my head in despair.

‘I wasn’t thinking straight that night,’ I said.

‘You haven’t been thinking straight for months,’ said Bill.

I was trying to keep calm and at the same time think through the implications of what he was saying. Had I done
anything to jeopardize Alex’s chances of gaining custody of Jamie? What if the Churchills made a case that he’d employed somebody mentally unfit to care for Jamie? Wouldn’t that make him a bad father?

Bill said: ‘We’ve spoken to the police and taken legal advice. You’ll never be allowed access to Jamie, Sarah. Not while you’re considered a threat to him.’

‘I’ll never do anything to hurt Jamie!’ I cried.

‘No,’ Bill agreed, ‘you won’t. We’re arranging an injunction so that you can’t go anywhere near him.’

‘Please let me talk to Claudia,’ I said. ‘Please let me explain …’

Bill shook his head. ‘Stop it, Sarah. Give it up. It’s over.’

He said: ‘I’m going to straighten up, then I’ll drive you back to the train station. I want you out of here before Claudia returns.’

I was feeling so panicked and upset I could hardly think. I knew the family was powerful and wealthy, and my position could hardly be more tenuous, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because Alex would soon be free and he’d let nothing stop him from getting Jamie back.

‘You can keep me away, but you can’t stop Alex from being with his son,’ I said. My voice was brittle. I knew I sounded desperate.

Bill sighed, as if he were bored now.

‘Alex is going to be in prison for a long, long time.’

‘He went to Sicily looking for Genevieve. He was preparing to fight her for Jamie’s custody. Why would he have done that if he knew she was dead?’

‘It was a way to cover his tracks. He’s not stupid.’

Bill turned and went to leave the room.

I took a breath. ‘And we know that Genevieve had a lover and that she believed he was going away with her that day. We know his name.’

Bill hesitated.

‘Well, part of his name,’ I said.

He held up a hand to stop me.

‘I’ll be two minutes,’ he said. ‘Stay there.’

He left the room. I sat where I was for a moment or two, my head falling forward. I twisted a piece of hair around my finger like I used to when I was a child; it used to calm me. I thought I’d let Bill take me back to Temple Meads then I’d get a taxi to the prison. I doubted I’d be allowed to see Alex, but it was possible. At least I’d be close to him and perhaps I could get a message to him. The very thought of being near to Alex made me feel a little better. Only bricks and mortar would be between us. We had been apart so long. I felt almost faint at the memory of Alex’s body, his presence, his face.

I stood up and wandered over to the window. A stack of post had been left on the sill. I leaned over to look out at the dogs in the garden and, as I did so, I must have disturbed the pile, because the mail fell to the carpet. I picked up the letters. There were a couple of handwritten envelopes that I could tell were condolence cards by the gravitas of the writing and the colour of the envelopes. They were addressed either to the Lefarge Family or to Bill, Claudia and the Girls. There was a circular, a brown envelope addressed to Claudia, and a white one addressed to Mr William Lefarge.

I put the letters back where they had been, on the window ledge, and straightened the pile again. I heard Bill’s footsteps on the stairs.

I went back to the settee, and sat down where I had been, in the same position.

Something was bugging me, but I couldn’t chase it down.

Something was wrong.

I fiddled with my bracelet.

Bill came back into the room. He looked neater. He was fastening the cuffs on his shirtsleeves. I shrank back from him.

He had washed and shaved and changed. He looked better now, presentable. I stood up, and went behind the settee, keeping an arm’s length between us.

‘Shall we go?’ he asked.

I nodded. He walked towards me. I moved away again, towards the door into the hall. Bill picked up the post from the window ledge, and that’s when I realized.

I felt as if I were an upturned bottle full of icy water and somebody had just unscrewed the lid. I felt everything – all my emotions, my optimism, my conviction that we would be all right in the end – drain out of me, and I could almost feel the future puddling about my feet, disappearing.