Stillwater (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Beth made herself a coffee and took it out to the veranda. Sitting in her wheelchair she lit a cigarette, drawing in the smoke hungrily, and exhaling through her nose. She felt numb. The thought that Miranda had gone and would no longer be there for her was an alien concept. Mirri was her best friend, her confidante, her moral compass. Life without her was going to be unbearable, but at the moment she was finding it impossible to absorb the depth of her loss. All she felt was an anger that was cancelling out every other feeling.

Coming there to Stillwater had been a huge mistake. Initially it was Miranda's idea, but one that Beth had embraced with a passion. Moving away from London, the life she experienced there, the people she knew there, and all the negative feelings that enwrapped her on a daily basis, seemed so appealing she hadn't thought deeply about it. Carried away on a wave of optimism, and the buzzing excitement of a new, different life, she let herself run with the tide of change. Now she was paying the price.

She flicked the ash from the end of her cigarette, blew on the tip until it started glowing red, and then ground the cigarette into the back of her hand.

As the skin charred, tears sprang to her eyes, and pain surged through her, banishing the numbness and making her cry out. She dropped the cigarette to the floor, and held the burn to her mouth, sucking the raw, blistering skin. The pain was excruciating. It was no less than she deserved.

A few moments later she was aware of the purr of a car's engine, gradually growing louder, and watched as a black Bentley appeared at the head of the lane and trundled slowly toward the house. The car reached Stillwater and stopped. The driver's door opened. A chauffeur wearing a gray livery stepped out, and went around to the rear door, pulling it open, allowing the passenger to climb out.

Bernard Franklin climbed out of the car, and stood there in the late morning sun, peering up at the house. His gaze swept over her with barely a pause of acknowledgement before he stared at the upstairs windows, a look of rapt concentration in his eyes.

The pain from the burn had settled to a steady throb. “Can I help you?” she called.

The sound of her voice seemed to break his reverie. He blinked, and then turned his attention on her.

He was dressed in a light brown sports jacket and cream chinos, and looked as if he'd just driven in from the golf links.

“Ms. Alvarini,” he said, and approached the house. After two paces he glanced back at the chauffeur. “Wait here,” he said.

Beth wheeled herself to the top of the ramp, and sat waiting for him.

He looked up at her, his face neutral. “I think we need to talk,” he said.

She looked at him steadily for a moment or two, before nodding sharply, and pulling back from the top of the ramp.

He looked down at the ramp disdainfully, and climbed the steps running at the side of it. Once he reached the veranda Beth spun around, and led the way into the house.

“There's something going on in the lane,” he said. “Police everywhere.”

“Car accident,” Beth said flatly, not wishing to elaborate, hoping he didn't ask her to.

“Can't say I'm surprised,” Franklin said. “People use the lane like a racetrack. It was only a matter of time before somebody paid the price.”

Beth felt her hackles rise. “Why are you here, Mr. Franklin?” she said, once they were inside.

He walked past her and looked around. “I want to know why you came to my house yesterday and made such an outrageous statement. It wounded me deeply. I was this close to phoning my lawyer.” He described an inch between his thumb and forefinger.

“And yet you didn't. Instead you've come here to see me.”

“Yes,” he said. “To try to understand what led you to such a mistaken conclusion.”

She held his gaze, but said nothing.

“No explanation?” he said, went across to one of the chesterfields and sat, leaning forward in the seat and resting his elbows on his knees. His hands were clasped together, and he stared down at his thumbs. “The people who rented Stillwater before you left early, you know. Before the tenancy expired.”

“I know,” Beth said.

“They weren't happy here.”

“So I understand.”

“He was okay, but she…well she was the hysterical type. Living in the countryside—the isolation, the quietness—doesn't suit everybody, you know? Dolores, my wife, never settled here; could never get on with village life, even though she was from a semirural background herself. I think there's something about the Suffolk villages that some people find oppressive. Dolores certainly did.”

“So that was the reason she left you,” Beth said, the words weighted with skepticism.

“Partly that,” he said, still staring at his thumbs. “There
were
other factors.”

Beth waited for him to elaborate. Instead he lapsed into silence.

Finally she said, “Mr. Franklin, I don't know what you hoped to achieve by coming here, but I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.”

He looked up at her suddenly, his gaze penetrating. “You said you'd seen Jessica, my daughter. What did you mean by that?”

“Just that,” Beth said. “I've seen her. She's spoken to me. She's shown me things.”

“And the things she's said, the things she's shown you, have led you to believe that I killed my wife?”

Beth nodded.

Franklin let out a long sigh, and sagged back into the chesterfield. “I see,” he said quietly—almost a whisper. “I see.”

He seemed to wither under her gaze, aging in front of her eyes. He finally unclasped his hands, and rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands.

“It was the manner of her passing,” he said. “A tragic accident; a young girl, a child, wrenched from life. It left a desperately sad spirit, who can't move on and find peace on a higher plane.”

“So you believe I've seen her?”

“Oh, yes, I believe you,” Franklin said. “I just think she's misled you.”

“But why? Why would she do that?”

He drew the back of his hand across his lips. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

She went across to the sink and came back with a tumbler filled with water. He took it from her and sipped it gratefully.

“Jessica was a troubled child,” he said. “She never really recovered from her mother's death.”

“I thought Dolores…”

“Dolores was my second wife. Sheila, Jessica's mother, died when Jess was five years old. It hit her badly. It was cancer, and Jess had to watch while her mother just faded away. I'm afraid Dolores could never fill the gap in her life, and Jess withdrew into herself.”

“So the relationship with Dolores was strained.”

“It was difficult. Dolores was a wonderful stepmother, who tried so hard to bond with Jess. Eventually she had to admit defeat, and I'm afraid it was then she left us.”

“Wonderful is not an adjective I associate with Dolores,” Beth said.

Franklin's eyes narrowed. “Really. What do you know about her?”

“Only what I've been told by people who knew her.”

“Then you'd do well to avoid listening to local gossip,” Franklin said, an edge to his voice. “Perhaps if you had done so we wouldn't be having this conversation now.”

“Now, hold on.”

“No, you hold on. Yesterday you asked me if I killed my wife. Well, the answer to that is no. Dolores left us for reasons I've just outlined. She left me, and went to live with her family in Devon, where she remains to this day. Alive and well and, I think, happy. I spoke with her yesterday.”

Beth sat stunned. “Yesterday?”

“Indeed. She left because of the intolerable situation at home, but we never divorced, and remain on good terms.”

Beth fell silent, trying to absorb what Franklin was telling her. Could she have got it
so
wrong? She realized Franklin was still talking.

“I'm sorry, what were you saying?”

“I was saying that Dolores never fitted in with village life. It was too parochial for her. Oh, she tried—joining this and signing up for that—but she was never accepted by the locals. Dolores was a free spirit, and I think some of her attitudes were deemed a little too radical for people around here, and they shunned her. It was very sad. But she
did
try.”

“So she wasn't a mystic,” Beth said.

“A mystic? How fanciful.”

“I was told she used to boast that she was. Some people have even said she used to curse them.”

Franklin got to his feet. “I can see I'm wasting my time here if you're prepared to give credence to garbage like that,” he said. “I believed I was discussing this with someone who had a modicum of common sense and intelligence. Now I see I was not.” He walked to the door.

“Wait,” Beth said.

“It's pointless,” Franklin said. “I see now that you're as small-minded, and as gullible, as the rest of the idiots around here. Worst thing I ever did, bringing Dolores to live here. She never stood a chance. A mystic!” He made a noise of disgust in his throat. At the door he paused. “Once you leave here I'm putting Stillwater on the market. I kept it on because of the memories it held for me. Now I see those memories were corrupt. This was never a happy family home, no matter how much I kid myself. I'll let the developers move in and pull the damned place down.” He opened the door and turned back to Beth. “A word of warning. If you ever repeat your spurious allegations to another soul, and I get to hear about it, I'll slap you with a writ for slander so quickly you'll regret opening your mouth. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” Beth said.

Outside, the chauffeur was leaning against the hood of the car. He straightened up as Franklin emerged, and hurried to open the back door. As he climbed into the car Franklin barked an order at him. He slipped in behind the wheel, and started the engine.

Franklin settled himself the rear of the car, and didn't look round at her as the Bentley turned and headed back along the lane.

Beth drew in a deep breath and let it out in a low whistle.

“That didn't seem very pleasant.”

Beth spun around to see Arthur Latham standing at the end of the veranda, arms folded, a frown on his face.

“Arthur! I didn't see you there,” she said.

“I dropped by, but I could see you had company,” he said. “I heard about that awful business by the lake and came to offer my condolences. She was a friend of yours, I understand.”

“Miranda? Yes, she was,” Beth said, and marveled at how rapidly news spread around there. She started to feel some sympathy for Dolores Franklin. “Would you like to come in for coffee?” she said.

“If I'm not intruding.”

“No,” she said. “That little run-in with Bernard Franklin has left a nasty taste in my mouth. I could use a coffee to wash it away.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“A tragic accident,” Latham said, seating himself at the kitchen table.

Beth made the coffee and said nothing.

“So what was Franklin bending your ear about?” he said.

“He told me that Dolores was still alive and living in Devon, and that she was second only to Mother Theresa in the morality stakes. Apparently it was you narrow-minded lot in the village that drove her away.”

Latham smiled. “Is that what he thinks?”

“Apparently.” She placed a mug of coffee in front of him. “It doesn't correspond with what Jessica's been showing me. It doesn't mesh at all.” She shook her head. “Oh, I don't know, Arthur. I'm beginning to think it was the worst decision of my life coming to live here. I've asked James to find me somewhere else to live.”

“Not too far away, I hope. You'd be sorely missed.”

“The photos you saw on the computer,” Beth said. “Did the woman in those strike you as some kind of misunderstood innocent?”

“In the photos, no, but that was a side of Dolores Franklin I never witnessed firsthand. Whenever I met her she always seemed polite, friendly. As I say I drove her to the station, and she seemed genuinely regretful about leaving. Sad.”

“Oh, Christ, not you as well,” Beth spat. “Did that woman fool everyone?”

“Well, you know what Gwen thought about her.”

“And the members of the Women's Institute. They had no time for her,” Beth said.

Latham reached out, and covered her hand with his. “Beth, don't get so upset about it. You've been through a lot.”

She snatched her hand away. “No, Arthur. Spare me the platitudes. Franklin's lying. I'm sure of it. Jessica's spirit still inhabits this house, and a desperately sad spirit it is too. Trapped here by the memories of a life lived in torment, and a death I'm starting to think was no accident.”

“Well, I thought that at the time,” Latham said.

“But no one bloody said anything. You may have tried, but not the inquest. It's been left to Jessica to show me what actually happened. To lift the lid on the whole sorry mess.”

“You really believe that, don't you?”

“Yes, Arthur, I do. I don't know exactly what happened here fifteen years ago, but I do believe that eventually Jessica's going to tell me.”

“And Dolores? You believe you've seen her too. And yet Franklin insists she's still alive.”

“Franklin's lying,” Beth said. “I'm convinced of it. Think of it: two conflicting spirits occupying the same house. Dolores and Jessica, each with their story to tell. Each with their own version of the truth of what actually happened here.”

Latham swallowed the last of his coffee, and shook his head. “I don't know Beth, I'm a simple soul. Give me a hoe and a flowerbed that needs weeding, and I'm a happy man. All this talk of conflicting spirits and Machiavellian intrigue confuses me and shunts me right out of my comfort zone. It's too rich for my blood. Thanks for the coffee.” He got to his feet. “I'm sorry again about your friend.”

Beth watched him go, shaking her head. “Oh, what's the point?” she said to herself, and then turned to face the room. “Jessica!” she called. “Show yourself. Show me what you want me to do!”

Silence filled the house.

She slammed her hands down on the arms of her chair. Sometimes the frustration of her condition was almost too much to bear. She wheeled herself across to the stairs, and sat staring up.
Up there
, she thought. It was all up there. Rooms filled with secrets and lies.

She pushed herself to the bottom of the stairs, and eased herself onto the third step up.

She could do this, she thought and, reaching behind her, lifted herself up onto the next step.

By the time she had negotiated eight steps, the muscles in her arms were burning and she was starting to feel light-headed. But she could just see over the top step onto the landing. It was encouragement enough.

She reached the landing, and hauled herself onto the final step, sitting there trying to get her breath back, rubbing her arms to ease the aches. “Come on,” she said to herself. “You can do this.”

She looked along the landing. There were six doors, all closed. She edged along to the first one. By leaning her back against it, and reaching up, she could just touch the handle. She twisted it sharply, and threw her weight against the door. It refused to budge.

Locked.

She tried the second with the same result, but the third opened, and swung inward.

It was a bedroom, decorated in chintz, a single divan bed with a floral counterpane, a double wardrobe, bland and modern, and a dressing table littered with half-used tubes and jars of cosmetics, a hairbrush and a can of hair spray. She dragged herself across to it, and pulled herself onto the chintz-covered stool. Once she was sitting, she opened the top drawer of the dressing table.

Judging from the underwear filling the drawer the dressing table belonged to a young woman. Jessica's underwear—Jessica's room. Apart from the underwear, there was little to suggest that a young woman occupied the room. The walls were bare, no pop music posters. Apart from a pine-framed mirror, and a calendar from fifteen years ago, the only other thing that suggested the room was once used was a black and white photograph in a silver frame that occupied space on the bedside cabinet, next to a clock radio, its digital display blank. Craning her neck she could see the clock's white cable curled at the base of the cabinet, its plug disconnected from the socket.

She pulled open the second drawer down, and was about to rummage through its contents when she looked back at the silver-framed photograph. There was something familiar about the single headshot of a young man, smiling out from the photograph.

It was James, a much younger and less groomed James, who smiled at her. His hair was longer, curling and very blond; the eyes were warm, sparkling, and the lips were slightly open, revealing a row of perfect white teeth.

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

He'd lied to her. He had sworn there was nothing but a platonic friendship between him and Jessica. The photograph gave lie to that.

Anger started to simmer in her mind. She'd let him in, shared herself both mentally and physically. And, all the while, he'd been deceiving her. How could she have been so naïve? How could she have been so
stupid
?

When his voice floated up from below she nearly cried out.

“Beth? Beth!”

“Up here,” she called back. “I'm up here.”

She listened to his heavy tread on the stairs. “Where?”

“In here.”

He appeared in the doorway. “How on earth did you get up here? And why?” he said, looking at her quizzically.

She glared at him. “Just good friends?” she said sarcastically. “That's what you said, wasn't it? You and Jess were
just good friends
?”

He looked nonplussed. “We were.”

“Bullshit!” she shouted at him, and pointed to the smiling photograph.

He walked across to it, and lifted it from the cabinet. He scratched his head. “I had no idea she had this. She never let on…”

“A picture like that, by her bedside? What did she do, kiss it goodnight every time she went to bed? Friends, my arse!”

He replaced the photograph. “Beth, let me help you downstairs. Let me explain.”

He approached her, and she held her hands out in front of her to ward him off. “No!” she said. “I'm trying to help Jess, help her find peace, and all the while I've been betraying her trust, her friendship.”

“Trust? Friendship? Beth what on earth are you on? Jessica's dead. She died fifteen years ago.”

“But her spirit lives on, James, here in this house. And I've…I've just made matters ten times worse for her. She loved you, James—that much is obvious from the photograph. And now I've taken that away from her. She probably hates me now.”

“Beth, do you know how this sounds? Perhaps Miranda was right to be worried about you.”

“Don't you dare bring Mirri into this. I loved Mirri. I trusted her. And she never betrayed that trust. Do you know how rare that is?” She paused. “God, why am I asking you? You don't know the meaning of the word.”

“Beth, you're overwrought.”

“Damned fucking right I'm overwrought. Get out of here, James. Get out and don't come back.”

“Beth, I…”

“Get out! I never want to see your face again.”

James hesitated for a second, and then shrugged, and moved to the door. “Beth, you have this all wrong,” he said.

She ignored him, staring blankly ahead of her, tears pricking at her eyes.

She heard him walk slowly down the stairs. “I'm sorry, Jessica,” she whispered. “So, so sorry.”

She gave the second drawer a desultory search, but her heart had gone out of it. The photograph of James and his reaction to it had drained her. She made her way back to the landing. More doors to try, probably more secrets, but if they were as unpalatable as the one in this room then they could wait. Slowly she dragged herself to the stairs and positioned herself for the descent, freezing at the top of the stairs as a cat meowed behind her.

She jerked around at the sound. Farther along the landing a door was now open, and as she watched, a ginger cat padded out of the room, and sat down on the carpet, staring at her.

“Teddy?” she said, incredulously. The cat got to its feet, arched its back and hissed at her, lips pulled back to reveal a row of sharp, yellowing teeth. She could see the jagged wound in its side, blackened now and oozing pus and blood. “Teddy,” she said again. “Here, boy.”

As if stung, the cat sprang forward. The orange ball of fur and teeth hit her square in the chest. She grabbed hold of it, her fingers plunging into the open wound, but even holding on with all her strength she was no match for the slashing claws and snapping jaws. She tried to throw the cat away from her, but even as she did she felt her precarious balance at the top of the stairs beginning to slip. With a final effort she hurled the cat , back along the landing, where it rolled, clawed feet tearing at the carpet until they found a grip, and the cat righted itself. With another hiss it launched itself at her again.

She raised her hands to protect her face, and threw herself backward. Her center of gravity shifted, and she slipped from the top stair. With her arms flailing to ward off the cat there was nothing she could do but to let herself fall, tumbling over and over, down the stairs, until she landed in a heap at the bottom, every bone in her body bruised, and with pain surging through her arms and chest.

With a groan she rolled onto her back, and tried to get her breath back. It was painful. She may have cracked a rib in the fall—even taking the shallowest of breaths felt like someone was plunging a hot knife into her chest. She felt, rather than saw, the cat as it sniffed around her. Then she felt a rough sandpaper tongue lick her bare arm.

It galvanized her into action.

“No!' she yelled, and sat up, grabbing the cat around the throat and starting to squeeze. The animal kicked and bucked in her grasp, but she held on, even when razor-sharp claws started to lacerate her arm. She squeezed with all her strength, feeling her fingers digging into flesh, crushing muscle and bone.

After what seemed an age, the cat stopped struggling, and fell limp. Letting out a huge breath, Beth threw the cat to one side, where it lay, facing away from her, a bloodied, orange heap of fur, not moving, not breathing.

With a sob she pushed herself to her wheelchair and, with an effort that made her muscles scream, she seated herself in it. She rolled across to the kitchen, pulled open a cupboard door, and grabbed the small bottle of brandy. She unscrewed the cap, and put the bottle to her lips, taking two long gulps, ignoring the burning in her throat.