The Unburied Past (7 page)

‘We've put it off quite long enough,' Harry said firmly. ‘Whether he goes or not, it's high time he knew the truth.' He stood up. ‘I'm going to email Roy and arrange a time when we can discuss it.'

Roy opened the email the following evening on his return from work and sat staring at it blankly, his mouth dry.

Adam has just announced he's taking a year's sabbatical at Westbourne College from September
, Harry had written, after his opening pleasantries.
Also – though I had the impression this was an afterthought – while there he intends to research the family. It seems the time we've been postponing for so long has come at last, and as agreed we need to discuss how and when to proceed. I'm sure you agree this is best done verbally, and the easiest way would be to Skype. Could you let me know your Skype name and add mine, which is Fernbank, to your list of contacts? I suggest we give ourselves a day or two to consider the implications, and I'll call you at 9 p.m. your time, 4 p.m. ours, this coming Thursday, the twenty-first. If by any chance you're
not
on Skype, please email me to make other arrangements.

Roy pushed back his chair and went into the hall. ‘Jan!' he called. ‘Come here a minute.'

She appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on her apron. ‘What?'

‘I've just had an email from Harry.'

Her eyes widened and she started towards the open laptop, but Roy forestalled her.

‘Adam's coming over on a year's sabbatical, and he wants to research the family. Obviously the time has come to tell them.'

‘
Adam?
Oh, God!'

‘I suppose one benefit of having left it so long is that it should have less impact.'

‘But does she really
hav
e to know?'

She
, not
they
. Clearly Adam's feelings didn't come into it.

‘If he's going to embark on family history, he'll be applying for death certificates,' Roy said baldly. ‘And when he learns the truth, he's sure to contact Kirsty, if he hasn't already.'

‘But why is he coming at all?' Janice broke out. ‘Last time we saw him, he hadn't a good word to say for the UK, the arrogant little brat!'

‘That
was
about fifteen years ago,' Roy said mildly.

She thought for a moment. ‘Well, I doubt if he'll come anywhere near us. The dislike appeared to be mutual.'

‘Jan, the sabbatical's at Westbourne College.'

She stared at him aghast. ‘He's coming
here
, not just to the UK? And for a
year
?'

Roy nodded.

‘Oh,
God
!' she said again, her hand going to her throat.

‘We always knew the time would come,' he said gently. ‘Just as well to get it over.'

‘It's too bad having to upset her, just when her career's really taking off.'

‘She'll cope,' Roy said with confidence.

‘I hope you're right,' Janice said shakily. ‘I'm not sure
I
can go through it all again. And we'll have to warn Mum,' she added, her voice rising. ‘It'll bring it all back for her, and she won't have Dad to help her through it.' Clive Grenville had died two years previously.

‘It's history now, love. It won't be as bad for any of us this time round.'

‘It would at least help if we could say the killers were behind bars. The idea that they're still walking around somewhere, having got off scot-free …'

‘I know.'

She felt for a handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘So you and Harry are going to talk it over?'

Roy nodded. ‘Luckily they're on Skype.' He and Janice had installed it as a means of keeping in touch with his mother, who lived in Scotland. ‘He suggests this Thursday, at 9 p.m. When are we seeing Kirsty again?'

‘Sunday lunch,' Janice said tonelessly. ‘And you do remember why we fixed that date?'

Roy stared at her, then understanding dawned. ‘God, of course – it's the twenty-fourth! With all this going on it had slipped my mind.' He reached for her hand. ‘Don't worry, sweetheart, it'll be all right. I promise.'

The Skype connection was as clear as if they were in adjoining rooms, but neither man had activated the video link, unwilling to face each other. ‘I don't suppose you relish this prospect any more than we do,' Harry began. ‘I still feel we should have come clean before it was forced on us.'

‘You're probably right,' Roy acknowledged heavily. ‘At the time I was just anxious that the children, as they then were, shouldn't be remotely traceable should anyone be looking for them. I dare say I went too far.'

‘Well, it was done with the best of intentions. Perhaps we should have discussed it again once they were older, but it's too late now to speculate. Quite a coincidence, this Sunday being the twenty-sixth anniversary of the murders, but I suppose that makes this week as good a time as any for explanations.'

‘Kirsty was coming over anyway on Sunday; we always go to the cemetery together.'

‘That's settled, then; we'll tell Adam tomorrow and you let Kirsty know on Sunday. It just remains to say hi to Jan, and … the best of luck.'

‘You too,' Roy said gruffly, ‘and our best to Lynne.'

The die was cast, Harry thought as he switched off the connection. And not before time.

Adam stood with his back to them, staring out of the window. He'd moved there after Harry's opening words, and though he'd now finished speaking, remained where he was.

Lynne exchanged an anxious glance with her husband. ‘Well, say
something
, darling!' she prompted.

Slowly he turned, his face hard. ‘What the hell do you expect me to say?'

‘Just that … you understand why we didn't tell you before.'

‘When I was a child, yes. But what conceivable right had you to keep it from me all these years? My God, if I hadn't been going to the UK, would you
ever
have told me?'

‘But you'd never talk about them!' Lynne burst out in their defence. ‘Every time I mentioned them, you just switched off. You never gave us an opening!'

‘We were working on a need-to-know basis,' Harry explained in mitigation.

Adam gave a derisory snort. ‘And how exactly could you gauge that?
God!
' he added explosively. ‘I'm having difficulty getting my head around this!' He returned to his chair and, sitting down, leant forward with his hands tightly clasped. ‘Right, now I want to know
everything
, every last detail. What
exactly
happened to them?'

Harry moistened his lips. ‘Well, as I said, you were all on holiday, and—'

‘Where, exactly?'

Harry hesitated, but surely the secrecy of the location no longer applied? ‘In the Lake District – a village called Penthwaite, near Hawkston.' He paused, but Adam made no comment and after a moment he continued.

‘All we really know, even after all this time, is that your father – Mark – was found lying in the drive early one morning, and—'

‘Found by whom?' Adam cut in.

‘A milkman. He tried unsuccessfully to revive him, then he … heard you crying inside the house. The door was on the latch so he went in and found you with Emma, who was lying at the foot of the stairs.'

‘Also dead?'

Harry nodded miserably.

‘And wouldn't elementary psychology, even then, have dictated that a two-year-old who'd been alone for God knows how long with his dead mother might need some counselling?'

‘But after the first day or two you were fine,' Lynne insisted tearfully. ‘Added to which we were within a couple of weeks of emigrating and, on top of everything else, trying to rush through arrangements for temporary custody prior to adoption. There was no way you could have seen anyone within that time frame, and once we were settled here you gave no sign of remembering anything about it. It seemed pointless to bring it all up again.'

‘How exactly were they killed? Adam asked after a moment.

Lynne shuddered, and it was Harry who replied.

‘According to the post mortems, death was caused in each case by a blow to the head with a rock of some kind, fragments of which were embedded …'

‘In their skulls?' Adam finished brutally.

‘Yes. It had been raining that day and there were two sets of shoe prints in the room, neither of which matched Mark's. They … wouldn't have had a chance.'

‘Was anything taken?' Adam asked after a pause. ‘Either from their bodies or the cottage?'

‘As far as we know, only your father's camera equipment, which seemed to indicate he'd filmed something suspicious. The police hoped that would narrow the search, but it never came to anything.'

Adam stared at him, his eyes narrowing. ‘You mean no one was ever caught?'

Lynne and Harry shook their heads.

‘Well,' he continued after a moment, his voice brittle, ‘this opens up a whole new area for my family research. Considering all the scientific advances since then, I should have better luck.'

‘God, Adam!' Harry stared at him in horror. ‘You're not thinking of taking it up yourself?'

‘Obviously someone needs to.'

Lynne's voice shook. ‘Is this your way of punishing us for not telling you sooner?'

‘No, it's a son's natural desire to avenge his parents, and nothing you say will stop me.' He stood up suddenly. ‘Right, I've enough facts to begin my research.'

He started towards the door, then stopped and turned. ‘I presume my sister's also been kept in ignorance?'

‘Yes.'

‘And on learning I'm off to the UK, you panicked and alerted the Marriotts?'

Harry nodded. ‘It was agreed you should both be told this week.'

‘Well, it will be interesting to hear her reaction,' he said and, turning on his heel, left the room. Minutes later they heard his car start up and drive swiftly through the gates.

Lynne and Harry, who'd also stood up, looked at each other in despair. He put his arms round her, feeling her tremble.

‘He's in shock, hon,' he said gently. ‘Give him time.'

‘He might never speak to us again,' she said.

I
t was the twenty-fourth of June, a date whose aura of loss and tragedy hadn't lessened over the years, and since it was also a Sunday – and therefore an especially poignant anniversary – Marilyn had been to church after visiting the cemetery, thus providing Dean, a non-churchgoer, with an excuse not to accompany her.

Not that he ever did. Though he'd often promised to come, at the last minute something always prevented him. Possibly he was embarrassed to visit the grave of his predecessor; perhaps jealousy came into it, but whatever the reason she no longer expected it.

Although it was wet he'd gone to golf as usual, and she returned to an empty house. The rain was driving hard against it and she hurried to close the drawing-room window, pausing to gaze at the mountains above the town, now partially shrouded in cloud.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills
,
they had sung earlier. The cemetery had been particularly bleak this morning, its gravestones dark with rain, its floral tributes drooping with the weight of it.

Twenty-six years, she thought in wonder. Impossible to believe Tony had been dead that long. The date was necessarily approximate, commemorating the day she'd last seen him, though if he'd been alive at the end of it he'd have surely come home. He'd had something to work out, and hoped a day's fishing would help him resolve it. And to compensate for her lonely Sunday he'd promised dinner at the George that evening. Little had she dreamed it would be but the first of many lonely days.

Six agonizing weeks had passed before his body was retrieved from the lake, and by then, battered by rocks and shudderingly mauled by the fish he'd hoped to catch, there'd been no way to establish how he'd died. His boat had been found weeks before, floating some way down the lake, and the consensus was that he'd overbalanced while reeling in a fish. If, in doing so, he'd somehow banged his head, it might explain why, although a strong swimmer, he had apparently drowned.

Dean had been his business colleague, and had proved to be her rock during those first traumatic months. At the time he'd been divorced for two years and, with no family of her own, she'd come to lean on him. Perhaps it wasn't surprising that as the months passed they grew closer and, lonely and vulnerable, she'd accepted his proposal within the year.

Sometimes she wondered if he regretted his precipitous courtship; if, perhaps, it had been motivated by pity. She wasn't clever like his brother's wife, Vivien, who was a chartered accountant and sometimes helped in the family business. She'd never discussed work with Tony and nor did she with Dean, but then it wasn't for her brains that they'd married her; it was, as she well knew, because she was pretty and vivacious and she made them laugh.

This second marriage hadn't been a love-match but it was happy enough, despite the non-arrival of children. Dean himself had two sons, and during the early years the visits of the little boys had been a highlight in Marilyn's life, as if Fate, relenting, were allowing her motherhood at one remove. Though they were now partners in the family firm, the closeness had thankfully endured.

She turned from the window with a sigh. Dean would be home for lunch soon, and she felt a stab of sympathy, knowing that even though spared the cemetery, he dreaded this day almost as much as she did, in particular dinner at the George, during which Tony's memory would be toasted. But this was a tradition she clung to and had no intention of relinquishing. In some obscure way it seemed an honouring of his last wishes.

‘You come first all the rest of the year,' she'd told Dean. ‘Don't begrudge Tony his day of remembrance.'