Whispers (48 page)

Laura nodded. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure all right. I’ve traced right back to the child that Leonard and Melody adopted as their own after Grace died, and if you recall he was actually conceived when Jake Fenton raped Grace. The old man who died here before you bought the place was the last of the Fentons – or so I thought, apart from the distant American relatives who inherited the place.’ She began to run her finger down a list of names as Jess looked on.

‘There you are,’ she said, stabbing a finger at Simon’s name. ‘There’s no doubt about it. And I just wonder now if that’s why Martha came back here – to try and warn you that Simon had bad blood in his veins?’

‘I suppose it would explain things,’ Jess said musingly. ‘But how could she have known that a descendant of the Fentons would come back here one day?’

‘Who is to say?’ Laura shrugged. ‘There’s a lot more goes on between heaven and earth than we’ll ever know.’

‘Funnily enough, now that I come to think of it, I haven’t heard her whispering since all this happened,’ Jess said now.

‘Perhaps she has no need to any more. If she was here to get her revenge on Simon, her job is done now, isn’t it?’ Laura pointed out. ‘It’s a terrible tragedy that Jo, too, became a casualty of that revenge.’

‘You could be right,’ Jess agreed, trying not to cry. Changing the subject she asked, in a shaky voice, ‘How is Beth?’

Laura’s face clouded. ‘Not good, to be honest. I think the baby could come any time now.’

‘It’s all so sad, poor lamb,’ Jess said dully.

‘It’s not something for you to worry about,’ Laura assured her firmly. ‘As far as Den and I are concerned, it’s Beth’s baby and we are responsible for it. He or she will be our grandchild. We’ll have
“father
unknown” entered on the birth certificate and that will be an end to it.’

‘But if there’s anything I can do to help . . .’

‘You just concentrate on getting through the next couple of weeks, eh?’ Laura said kindly.

Jess nodded miserably as her eyes welled with tears again.

It was now four weeks since Simon and Jo had died, and each day had been sheer torture for Jess to get through, full of pain and regrets. Karen had been a tower of strength, calling in daily, and Jess wondered how she would have coped without her.

Jo had been laid to rest in the small churchyard of St Theobald and St Chad’s Church in Caldecote following the inquest, which had recorded a verdict of accidental death by drowning. Jess felt as if part of her had been buried with her. Sometimes the pain she felt was so harsh that she wished she had died too, but she knew that she had to be strong for Mel, and that was all that kept her going. That and the terrible guilt she felt because she hadn’t realised that Mel was going through her own private hell. Now she had to somehow make it up to her.

Simon had been buried in an unmarked grave the day before Jo, but Jess had not been able to bring herself to attend the ceremony. Perhaps one day she would be able to think back to a time when she had loved him, but for now all she felt for him was hatred after what he had done to her daughters.

This morning was a particularly overcast day which matched her mood. She had got up early as usual after yet another restless night, and had then spent the next half an hour wandering from room to room. It was funny, but for the life of her she could no longer see what had ever attracted her to the house now. It was nothing more than a mausoleum, full of bad memories. But at least, she consoled herself, things couldn’t get any worse. She was proved wrong, however, when Mel came down for breakfast with her eyes red-rimmed from weeping. But then that was nothing new. She had barely stopped crying since the day they had buried Jo.

‘Toast, love? Or perhaps some cereal?’ Jess asked, attempting to sound cheerful and failing dismally.

‘No thanks, Mum. I’m not hungry.’

Jess sighed. Mel was scarcely eating enough to keep a bird alive but then neither was she; they had both lost their appetites.

‘Mum . . .’

As Jess glanced across at her after fetching a jug of fresh orange juice from the fridge, she saw that Mel had something to say and so she sat down opposite to her and asked gently, ‘What is it, love?’

‘There’s something else I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

‘Then go on,’ Jess encouraged although she was dreading what she might hear next.

‘Well, the thing is – you know all those accidents that you had before Christmas? I don’t think they
were
accidents. In fact, I
know
they weren’t. The day you fell down the stairs and lost the baby, I saw Dad go up to the attic just before you did, and I think it was him that pushed you.’

‘Oh, now come on, love. I know he was a swine but even
he
wouldn’t be capable of that.’ But even as she said it Jess’s mind was working overtime as she thought of the enormous life-insurance policy he had taken out on her, and the way he had pressurised her to make a will.

‘Yes, he would.’ Mel looked back at her steadily. ‘The day your brakes failed, I saw him tampering under the bonnet of your car just before you left. And what about the day you got the electric shock from the hairdryer? I saw him messing around with that too, and when I asked him what he was doing, he told me to mind my own business.’

‘I think you’re letting your imagination run away with you now, love,’ Jess objected. ‘Your dad couldn’t have fiddled with it. He was on a stag do in London at the time.’

Mel shook her head. ‘Oh no, he wasn’t. He just wanted you to
think
he was away. He was actually staying with this woman who lives near the town centre. He’s been seeing her for years. And what about how he rushed you into making a will? If anything had happened to you, he would have got everything – and he needed to because his business was in trouble. That’s why he’d started dealing in drugs.’

As yet another piece of the jigsaw fell into place, Jess gasped with shock.

‘Who was this woman your dad stayed with?’ she asked, as she relived the day she had bumped into Abigail in the town. No wonder she had looked puzzled when Jess had mentioned the men in London.

‘Her name is Wendy and Dad kept all his drugs hidden there,’ Mel said wretchedly.

‘Would you be prepared to tell the police all this?’ Jess asked now, and Mel agreed. So all the time she had been battling like a fool to
keep
their marriage going, Simon had actually wanted her dead. Shakily, she dialled Inspector Flynn’s number.

The next day, following a police raid on the address Mel had given them, a number of people were arrested for drug-trafficking, including the woman with whom Simon had been having an affair.

Surprisingly, Mel seemed a little more like her old self after that and Jess hoped that now she had unburdened herself of all the terrible secrets she had been forced to keep, she might start to recover.

Mel even went back to school on a part-time basis the following week, and she seemed to be coping well with it, although the same could not be said for Jess as she rattled around the house all alone, counting the hours until her daughter would be home again.

‘You should get yourself an interest outside of this place,’ Karen and Laura urged her, but she was becoming reclusive as she tried to come to terms with all that had happened. The newspapers had been full of the story for the first two weeks following Simon and Jo’s deaths, and it took Jess all her time to venture further than the end of the drive because she was convinced that everyone was talking about her.

It was one morning whilst Mel was at school that she took every single thing of Simon’s that she could find, and dragged them out onto the field next to the copse, where she burned them to ashes on a giant bonfire. But Jo’s room remained untouched. She had only ventured in there once to get the new jeans and the new top she had bought for her the week before she died. Jo had never got to wear them and Jess wanted her to be buried in them. And now the room remained shut up. It was just too painful to venture in there and see all the girl’s treasures scattered about the place. She had, however, gone up into Martha’s room in the attic, but the scent of roses was gone now, as were the whispers that had shortly before been her constant companion. Jess hoped that, if the girl had moved on, she was finally at peace.

And so one long day ran into another as Jess sank further and further into a depression. She was sitting in the chair one morning absently fondling Alfie’s ears when she heard a car pull into the drive.

‘I wonder who that can be?’ she muttered as she hauled herself out of her seat and went to open the door. She wasn’t expecting Karen until the next day. When she dragged it open she gasped with shock when she saw Emile Lefavre standing on the step.

‘Now please do not shout at me,’ he implored, holding his hands
out
in front of him as if to ward off a blow. ‘I do not know what I did to upset you so when we were in Paris, but I saw what had happened in the newspapers and felt that I should come and check that you and Mel are all right. I would not come straight away as I realised you had a lot to cope with, but if you are still angry with me I shall leave immediately.’

‘Oh Emile, I’m so sorry for the awful things I said to you,’ Jess told him. ‘The thing is, I thought it was you that had . . .’ She began to cry, and before she knew it, he was in the room holding her comfortingly.

‘Now then, why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me everything that has happened,’ he prompted, and for the next hour that is exactly what Jess did. When she had finally sobbed out the whole sorry story, Emile whistled through his teeth.

‘My God,’ he exclaimed. ‘You
have
been to hell and back.’ He sensed that it was a relief for Jess to talk and so he was still there when Mel returned from school at lunch-time, with the rest of the day off.

‘Emile!’ she cried when she saw him, and Jess saw her smile –
really
smile – for the first time in a very long while. ‘It’s great to see you. Are you staying for dinner?
Can
he, Mum?’

Jess realised with a little jolt that she hadn’t even thought of dinner. She had been too busy pouring her heart out to Emile.

‘Of course he can,’ she said uncertainly. ‘But I’ve no idea what we’re going to eat. Karen was going to do some more shopping for us tomorrow.’

‘Then I shall cook if I am permitted,’ he told her with a grin. ‘I am known for being able to make a meal from nothing. Now, where is the fridge?’

In no time at all they were tucking into ham omelettes which Mel polished off with relish. Jess smiled. It was nice to see her looking happy again.

When they were done, Emile cleared away and told Jess, ‘Now you make me a list of the things you need, and Mel and I shall go shopping for you, shan’t we,
ma petite
? Just enough to tide you over until your friend comes tomorrow. I don’t have to go back to school, and neither does Mel, so allow us to make ourselves useful,
n’est-ce pas
?’

Jess knew that she shouldn’t really put the responsibility of shopping onto someone she barely knew, but anything was preferable to having to go out and face people and do it herself.

Emile and Mel were back within the hour loaded down with shopping bags after a quick trip to the local Asda.

‘But there’s far more here than I put on the list,’ Jess objected as Emile began to efficiently unpack.

‘You must eat and keep your strength up,’ he scolded, and so she sat back and watched. It was nice to feel cared for again.

When he finally left, much later in the afternoon, Mel pleaded with him to come back soon. After glancing at Jess for her permission, which she gave with a slight nod of her head, he smiled.

‘I shall be back on Sunday to cook you a good British roast dinner,’ he told them, holding his hand up to stay Jess’s objections. ‘And do not worry. I shall bring all the ingredients with me.’

It was gone eight o’clock that evening when Jess realised with a little jolt that Laura hadn’t called in. She had been so taken with Emile’s visit that she hadn’t given it a thought until now. She frowned. It wasn’t like Laura not to call to see how they were, and she wondered if everything was all right with Beth. She was just contemplating whether or not she should walk down the lane to Blue Brick Cottage to find out, when Laura appeared, as if thoughts of her had conjured her out of thin air.

Jess saw at a glance that Laura had been crying but before she could ask her what was wrong, her friend burst out: ‘I’ve just come back from the hospital. Beth has had a little boy.’

‘Oh.’ As she thought of the baby she had recently lost, a shudder ran up Jess’s spine but now wasn’t the time to think of herself and her feelings. ‘Congratulations! Are they both all right?’

Laura nodded, looking frighteningly old and pale. ‘Yes, they are now, but it was awful. Beth screamed the place down, poor love. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. Still, it’s over now, and all being well they’ll be home in a day or two. But how has your day been?’ She felt uncomfortable saying too much about the baby under the circumstances, and was keen to change the subject.

Before Jess could answer, Mel began to tell her all about Emile’s visit, and Laura smiled to see her looking more like her old self again. ‘It sounds like you both enjoyed seeing him,’ she said when Mel had finished.

‘Let’s just say he was a welcome distraction and we need all the distractions we can get right now,’ Jess told her as she fetched a bottle of whisky from the drinks cabinet. Laura looked like she could do with a good stiff drink and Jess knew that, loving Beth as she did, the
birth
must have been as traumatic for her as it had been for her daughter. It was never easy to see someone you loved in pain.

Laura gulped at the spirit gratefully, wincing as it burned its way down her throat.

‘Cor, that was just what the doctor ordered,’ she grinned when she had drained the glass. ‘But I’d better be getting back now. Den is a positive nervous wreck. I only called in to check that you were both OK and to tell you about the new addition.’