The Beauty of the End (13 page)

* * *

It didn't help that I knew my parents wouldn't let this go. But I'd no idea how serious their reaction was until it turned into a full-blown family summit at the dining table, my father, stern, at the head, my mother opposite me.

I sat down, my heart heavy as lead, as my father started, stark disapproval in his voice.

“Noah, your mother's been telling me what happened. How well do you know this . . . April?”

Instantly I felt myself tense. Her name on his lips was wrong. “She started school when I did. I don't know her that well, really, I mean, I like her, a lot as it happens, but we don't talk that much.”

Even though I didn't want to be there, talking about her, with
them
, I prided myself on the honesty of my reply, regretful that I couldn't tell them differently and that actually we'd become really,
really
close friends. I missed the glances they gave each other.

“We've been to see Mrs. Jones.”

Suddenly I was crippled with embarrassment. Mrs. Jones was my class teacher.

“Why?” I cried out. “It's got nothing to do with her.”

“That's enough.” My father's voice was sharp.

“So you'd been to her house before?” My mother's face was unfamiliarly horrified.

“No! I'd no idea where she lived, not till a few days ago. Emily . . . Someone at school told me.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” said my father slowly, “why you've been visiting her in hospital. And if you were friends, as you say, why you didn't tell us.”

I didn't like the accusing note in his voice. I'd done nothing wrong. What was he getting at?

“She'd been absent from school. I was worried she'd mess up her exams. She's really smart, only she'd missed too many classes. I was taking her some study notes when I found her, that was all. Then I called an ambulance.”

For reasons I didn't understand, this was turning into some kind of a moral inquisition. Instead of telling me “well done,” and how I'd done exactly the right thing, they exchanged anxious, uncertain looks.

“I don't understand why you're being like this,” I cried, sliding my chair back, about to get up. “She was hurt, I tried to help her, only I couldn't. It's obvious you don't trust me, either.” I glanced at my mother. “I asked you to stay in the car.”

My father frowned. “Don't speak to your mother like that.”

“This is ridiculous. I can't tell you what actually happened, because I don't know. I just know April's better—and that's all that matters,” I told them angrily.

“She didn't tell you?” My mother seemed relieved. “I was talking to one of the nurses. Apparently a man hit her.” She hesitated. “In the stomach.”

“
He hit her?
” I felt horrified, sick at the thought of anyone intentionally hurting her, and thought of that horrible, ugly man who'd followed me. Could it have been him? I remembered how he'd watched me about to go inside.

“The nurse said she'll be fine.... But I don't think she'll be going back to school, Noah. In fact, I don't think you'll be seeing April again.”

I already knew that, from April, but the relief in my mother's words and the worry smoothed from her rippled brow made it all the more real. As I sat there, trapped between them, I felt the bottom fall out of my world, leaving a whirling, empty void from which I couldn't escape.

But somehow I pulled myself away. Running from the room, I slammed the door behind me, ignored the roar of my father's voice demanding I come back,
right now
. What was wrong with them? This was so utterly unfair. Not only did they not understand, but my parents sucked. My life sucked. This shouldn't happen. Everything was going wrong. I was the person who'd gone to rescue April and now she'd left me.

24

 

W
hat disturbs me most about the photo in the paper is that I hadn't known—and I should have—that the man who attacked April all that time ago was her stepfather. Not even when we were about to be married, when I should have been the person she most trusted. Perhaps fear had prevented her from naming him, or she just wanted to forget. But if that was the case, how come, after all this time, she had arranged to meet him?

As I wrestle with the facts, I'm thinking of a teenaged girl, terrified into silence; how it might be not to be able to share the horror and the pain, in doing so unloading some of it, but not knowing if others would believe you. How it might be easier to always keep it to yourself.

I can see, too, how an outsider would view his murder as revenge for what Norton did to her all those years ago. But there's another question, too, an important one. Apart from me, does anyone else even know what happened?

If someone does, if April is charged with Norton's murder, it gives her a motive. But it still doesn't make her guilty, I remind myself. There could be any number of people who wished him dead.

So far, I don't have the answers. Turning to the back of April's diary, where a few phone numbers are listed, I search for familiar names, hoping to find Bea's, not even knowing if they're still in touch. But it isn't there.

I spend the rest of the morning trying to get a sense of April's life. Making another list, of her regular clients, the odd ones who stop by now and then, the clinic where she works one day a week, mapping as far as I can the last few months. By late afternoon, my floor is spread with pages from her folders and notes of my own.

Then as I get up, I manage to clumsily knock over the photo I took from her cottage, cursing that I've broken the frame. I remove the photo from the shattered glass and see the name written on the back.

Theo.

I feel myself frown as I stare at the name, but before I can give it more thought, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out, noting an unfamiliar number.

“Hello?”

Wishing I hadn't. Realizing as soon as he speaks, it's Will.

25

I
accept Will's invitation to lunch at his home the following day, because so far, all I've drawn is a blank about the murder, and because also I'm curious. About his family and about his home, too—Will's one of those rare people who seems to have it all.

I gather up more of April's notes and continue reading, learning more about territory that's unfamiliar to me. The stories of parents in emotional turmoil, families in crisis, facing the unimaginable as their baby hovers between life and death; all of them linked by the common thread of sadness.

And the more I read, the more I understand that for this most awful part of their lives, April was a lifeline, offering support, sharing the load of their pain. Though the notes are about her clients, what she writes indicates that she has more than just an idea of what they're suffering.

I pause at that point, wondering what's happened to her since we parted. Then in another sentence, she writes about miracles, about hope and how fragile life is. How there are no guarantees, but there is always now.

I stop reading at that point because it's how she used to make me feel.

In the moment.

* * *

The next morning I make a fleeting visit to the hospital, where I'm now a familiar enough face that the nurses don't question my presence as I take my usual place at the window into her room, silently projecting my thoughts.

“I hope you don't mind my being here. I won't stay long. I just wanted to say that I'll do everything I can to help you.”

Then I add, “Believe it or not, I'm having lunch with Will. Am I stupid or what?”

It's intended humorously and I try to imagine what she'd say, half waiting for a reply, straining my ears for a whispered word, my eyes for a butterfly flutter of lashes on her cheek.

“I sometimes question their reasons for keeping visitors away.” The voice comes from behind me.

“Sorry?” I turn to see one of the nurses.

“Well, when someone's been on life support as long as Ms. Rousseau has, you'd think the police would try anything and everything to bring her round.” Like me, she's gazing through the window at April.

“It's procedure.” I pause. “I might lean too close to her, she might whisper something no one else can hear. But I agree with you.”

I don't stay long. There seems no point in holding imaginary conversations with someone who isn't there. I walk out of the hospital, no more convinced that she'll wake up than I was yesterday, almost at my car when my mobile rings. This time I recognize the number.

“Will.”

“Hi. Sorry, Noah . . . There was an emergency and I got called in this morning, which means I won't be home after all. But we could still meet, if you like. There's this pub up the road from you—the White Horse, on the Edenbridge road—don't know if you know it?” Like me, he's brusque, businesslike; establishing ground rules.

“I'm sure I'll find it.”

“Good. I should be able to make it for one-thirty.”

* * *

I find the pub easily, so that I'm early enough to buy a pint and find a table next to a sash window that looks onto a neat, ordered garden.

Will is minutes behind me, and in the couple of seconds before he sees me, I watch him, confident and self-assured in an expensive suit and open-necked white shirt. With the same charisma he's always had, only honed and polished by years of professional acclaim.

He strides over, holding out his hand. “Good to see you, Noah. Sorry about the change of plan.”

“It's fine. Nice pub.”

“Another drink?”

I shake my head, picking up the glass I long to drink down but have barely touched, because I need a clear head, still watching as he walks over to the bar, chatting to the staff. It seems here, like everywhere else, Will is known.

“I was quite surprised to hear from you,” I say carefully when he comes back and sits down opposite me. “And I'm still curious, about why you called.”

Will raises his eyebrows, then, lifting his glass, briefly glances away. “You're a difficult man to track down, Noah. And Devon of all places . . . What is it you find to do down there?”

The gloves are surreptitiously slipped off, his voice light with an undercurrent of sarcasm. I feel myself stiffen. “I'm a writer.”

I don't tell him that I'm moderately successful but I've yet to write a bestseller.

“My turn to be surprised,” he says smoothly. “I had you down as a career lawyer.”

I know the kind he means, who spend their working lives in small offices dealing with equally small, menial, unexciting cases for moderate fees. Like my father.

“I still work now and then. I guess I got sidetracked,” I tell him by way of explanation, then stop, folding my arms and unfolding them again, aware of the specter of awkward silence that's settled between us.

“Look, I'm not going to apologize,” Will says eventually. “It was a mess. But it's history. We should clear the air. April was the screwed-up one. We both know that. Though, when you think about her background, it's hardly surprising.”

I'm silent, because that's not how I remember it, and whatever April did or didn't do, it was Will who was guilty as hell of fucking my life up. Sitting back, I look straight at him. “And you've kept in touch with her?”

Will shrugs. “For professional reasons. It just so happened that her name turned up on a register we use. She's quite a highly regarded bereavement counselor, and so it's useful if I need to refer anyone. It doesn't happen often, but sadly, not all my patients make it.”

His reference to death is matter of fact. By contrast, I think of April's notes, full of compassion; of her gentleness with wounded creatures when I first knew her, suddenly remembering the bird she rescued.

“Do you see her much?” Remembering how gently she'd picked it up and taken it to the woods.

“Hardly ever,” Will says. “Look, are you seriously considering representing her? Only, is that wise? I've already spoken to a chap I know—he says he'll fit her in. If you've any doubts . . .”

That he's curt, rather than kind and concerned, tells me how little he cares.

“I'm sure.”

“Even after what she did to you?”

He's mocking me. I fight an urge to get up and walk out, but I need information from Will. It takes every last shred of self-control to stay put. I manage to shrug.

“It's in the past. Like you said, earlier. It's history. I've moved on. But there's one thing I'm interested to know. And that's why.” Sitting back, I fix my gaze on him. “Why you're so sure she's guilty.”

“I'd say it's obvious.” For a moment, Will's eyes shift sideways. “Firstly, there's the evidence. The murder weapon. And her phone . . . And of course, there's what that bastard Norton did to her all those years ago. I mean, what sort of guy rapes his fifteen-year-old stepdaughter?”

As he speaks, I'm hiding my shock, my churning stomach, because this is the first I've heard of rape. I'd called the ambulance for April, visited her in the hospital—yet I still hadn't known. And she'd never told me, not in all the time we were together.

“But of course, you'd know all about that,” he says lightly, still watching me.

I'm completely thrown, yet in the midst of my turbulent emotions, I'm determined to give nothing away, because we're sparring partners, Will and I. In combat. Our relationship reduced to winning and losing.

I nod the lie.

“You've got to admit, it all points to her being guilty,” he says.

“You're forgetting one thing.” Holding myself together, I lean forward, meeting his eyes, clutching at the first thing that comes to me. “If it was revenge she wanted, why leave it so long?”

It's clear he isn't expecting that. I watch as his jaw clenches. “I don't know. Maybe she ran into him and just lost it. Shall we order?”

* * *

After that, I'm only half listening as Will tells me about his incredibly talented wife and beautiful daughter, about the house on the North Downs, my ears pricking up when he mentions tours and concert halls.

“You've probably heard of Rebecca Masters?” His face smug, enjoying my reaction, which makes it clear I have. It had been impossible to miss their wedding, splashed across the papers, a lavish affair between the world-famous singer and the dashing surgeon. “You really must come to the house—for dinner. We'll fix a date.”

I nod. “Great.”

It's not a world I'm familiar with, but even so, I've seen Rebecca perform on television, at the most prestigious venues round the world with the most famous orchestras. And suddenly I don't need to see the house to know it's spectacular, a mansion set among landscaped gardens, immaculately maintained. Then my thoughts turn to their daughter, wondering how it is to be the child of such legendary parents, if there's any corner in Will's life for the ordinary.