What You Left Behind (39 page)

“Did he say who by?”

“No. I thought it was just Gil piling the guilt onto himself, as usual. Things have been so unsettled these last few days.” She sighed. “Let’s keep looking, shall we?”

Slowly they walked away from Gil’s house across the courtyard and toward the barn.

Lana sprinted ahead suddenly, stopped, and picked something else off the gravel. “Mum, this is Freddie’s too.” She held up a small metal key ring in the shape of a peace symbol. There was one key attached to it. “I bet if you try this in Jo’s back door, it’ll fit.”

Sonia stared at it thoughtfully and nodded. “OK, this changes things,” she said, looking around.

Lana felt her trepidation; it was almost as if they were being watched. She stared up at the big house behind her. She’d lived there half her life, but suddenly it seemed cold and foreboding.

“Mum, are you and Dad going to split—”

“Not now, Lana,” Sonia interrupted. “If you’re right about these things and Freddie left some kind of trail, then it leads from Gil’s house right across to the barn. Frank was due to come round earlier and swap some charity bags. He took the wrong ones the other day. I wonder if he’s been or if he saw anything.”

Sonia told Lana to wait there and strode back across the yard before disappearing behind the tack room. A few moments later she was back, slightly breathless. “That’s odd. His truck’s parked there but I haven’t seen him about.” She put her hands on her hips and stared down into the paddocks in case he’d gone to see the horses. He’d recently shown an interest in buying their foal.

“You could try phoning him,” Lana suggested, not really caring about Frank. She just wanted to find Freddie, and know what was going to happen to her mum and dad. She’d never seen him lash out that hard before.

She didn’t know whether to tell her mum about the photographs she and Freddie had found.

Lana sighed. “I’m going to check the barn,” she said, making her way toward the red-brick building. She couldn’t ignore the things Freddie had dropped.

The sun slipped behind another cloud, and a crow flew from the old cedar tree to sit on the gable end of the barn roof. The screeching noise it made sounded sinister in the still afternoon air.

“Can you see anything?” Sonia said, coming up beside her.

“It’s hard to tell,” Lana whispered, looking in through the window. She thought she’d spotted some kind of movement but it could have been a reflection. The big door was on the opposite end and
seemed to be closed, making it hard to see. “Did you move all the bales, Mum?”

“No, why?” Sonia came closer.

“They’re dumped all over the place …”

Lana looked again and gasped. She pushed her mother back against the rough brick. “Get back.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Mum … Oh my God …” Lana broke down into tears.

“What’s going
on
?” Sonia said, trying to look through the window again, but her daughter wouldn’t let her. This time she pulled her down to the ground.

“You’re shaking, sweetheart. What on earth is it?”

“It’s Gil, Mum, and he’s got a knife at Freddie’s throat.”

38

Lana was breathless, crouching beneath the window.

“
What?
” Sonia said.

Lana tried to keep her mum hidden down low but she forced her way up, staring in and gasping. She clapped both hands over her mouth. “Oh my
God
,” she said as she dropped back down next to Lana again. “We have to do something.”

“I’ll call the police,” Lana said shakily.

“No, wait.
We
have to handle this.” Her mum took hold of her shoulders. “I want you to go to your dad’s gun cabinet. Bring the short-barreled shotgun. You know the one?”

Lana nodded, terrified about what she had to do.

“And, love,” Sonia said, catching Lana’s wrist as she scrambled up, “be careful.”

Lana ran off toward the house. She knew her dad kept the keys to the cabinet under some old clay pots in the boot room, remembering how he’d always warned her off touching them. Her fingers fumbled as she swept them up. She went straight to her dad’s study, where the gun cabinet was built into the wall, hidden behind carved wooden doors, and unlocked both sets, swinging open the heavy metal inner doors to reveal the rack of guns.

Lana’s heart clenched. She’d never held one before.

This little beauty is always loaded and ready to go
.

She took a deep breath before grabbing the short-barreled gun, pulling it from its rack. Briefly, she spotted the phone on her dad’s desk, wondered whether to dial 999, but she had to do as her mother had told her so she ran back to the barn, keeping the gun pointing upward.

She’d only been gone a few minutes yet it felt like a lifetime. Lana’s arms trembled as she held the gun, crossing the courtyard.

“Mum?” she called out when she couldn’t see her.

She looked around, panicking, praying it wasn’t too late.

“Mum, where are you?” she said as loudly as she dared. “I’ve got it.”

There was no reply, so she ventured round to the big doors at the other end of the barn. She hovered outside, swallowing down her fear, before pushing against the wood and going in.

She kept the gun pointing up, moving forward slowly, and crept around the stack of bales she’d seen Freddie standing on. She hardly dared look up, but when she did she saw that his face was purple, his feet unstable on the straw, and his hands were tied behind his back. He was gasping for breath. Then she heard voices and her parents came into view.

“Mum?” she said, not believing her eyes.

Her dad had his hands outstretched, cajoling Sonia into giving up the knife she was threatening him with.

“What are you doing?” Lana screamed. “Stop it!”

“Your mum’s not well, love,” her dad said, glancing quickly at her.
He took another step toward Sonia. “I was trying to rescue Freddie but your mother turned on me.” He was shaking, sweating, as scared as she was. “She’s gone mad. Keep away from her.”

Lana nodded, wide-eyed, and glanced up at Freddie again, the gun swinging round in her hands.

“Mum?” she said. “Why are you doing this? Just give Dad the knife. Please, Mum.”

Sonia turned to face her. Her eyes were crazy and spit foamed on her lips. Her father was right.

“He’s lying, Lana,” she said, jabbing the knife in her dad’s direction. “
He’s
the crazy one. For Christ’s sake, Lana, you have to believe me!”

Then Lana heard sniffling and crying coming from the corner. Her head whipped round and she saw Gil curled up beside some old crates, his hands over his face, his head bowed.

“Lana, listen to me,” her dad said. “I need you to give me the gun. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

He reached out his hands to her, shuffling forward a couple of steps, glancing at her mum, then looking back at her earnestly. For a second, the images on the laptop flashed into Lana’s mind; but this was different now, this was her dad trying to help.

“OK, OK, Dad,” she said quietly, her voice barely working.

She stole one last glance up at Freddie before stepping toward her dad. His eyes were huge and staring and his face had swollen to the color of ripe plums.

Sonia rushed to get between them, brandishing the knife at Tony. “Lana, no! Don’t be stupid. You’ve
got
to listen to me. Do
not
give him the gun. Pass it to me, then take Gil and get out of here. Lock yourselves in the house.”

Lana was in tears again, switching her gaze between her parents. “Mum, I can’t. You’re not well.”

The gun was almost in Tony’s hands when Sonia suddenly lashed
out at him with the knife, slicing his forearm. The wound seeped blood as he recoiled, shrieking.

“You stupid woman!” he yelled, doubling up, before reaching out for the gun again. He got his fingers around the barrel.

“Lana, no! Your father killed Simon and he’s going to kill Freddie too! You
have
to listen to me!”

Lana froze, then with a scream yanked the gun away.

For a moment everything was quiet. Then Tony went mad, kicking and swiping at the bales and destroying the stack beneath Freddie. Sonia leaped onto his back, trying to stop him, plunging the knife into his shoulder, but the tower swayed and collapsed.

Lana screamed, watching helplessly as Freddie suddenly dropped and hung above them all by his neck.

39

Lorraine was sitting with Jo in the garden while Adam took Malc to the Old Dog and Fox for an hour. “It’ll take his mind off things,” he’d said. Lorraine had urged him to find out about the card, as well as where Malc had been on the night of Lenny’s death, even though she felt treacherous doing so.

“I’ve been thinking about you and Malc,” she said.

“That’s nice,” Jo responded sourly, taking a slug from her wine glass. “What did you conclude?”

“That he loves you,” Lorraine said honestly, hoping against hope that it was pure coincidence that Malc’s writing seemed identical to Lenny’s suicide note.

“And how did you work that out,
Detective
?”

Lorraine sighed. “I wasn’t snooping, I promise, but …” She saw
the look on Jo’s face and decided not to mention the poem. “Don’t you think there’s any chance you could work things out with him? When Freddie comes home, it’ll be good for him too.”

Jo closed her eyes. “
If
he comes home,” she said quietly.

“He will.”

Lorraine moved closer to her sister.

“To be honest, I want to work things out with Malc. I miss him, you know.” She laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s natural,” Lorraine said kindly, hoping to God she’d got this all wrong.

“I tried to end it recently,” Jo said. “With Tony, I mean. But …” Her face crumpled with worry. “He got really possessive. He told me no one ever left him. That he owned me.”

“That’s scary,” Lorraine said.

“When I said our affair had to stop, he kept phoning me, hanging around outside the house, following me whenever I went out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have done something.”

Jo shook her head. “Why do you think?” She sipped more wine. “He kept sending me texts, emails; he wrote me notes and poems. He said things like ‘you flow in my veins’ and ‘you make my heart beat.’ ”

Lorraine sat up. “He said
what
?”

L
ORRAINE GLANCED AT
Gil’s cottage as they approached, having run all the way with Jo. The door was locked, so she peered through the window. She couldn’t see anyone in the single room downstairs, and they’d already tried banging on the Manor’s front and back doors with no reply. She glanced at her phone. Adam hadn’t replied to her text.

“How did the affair kick off?” she asked her sister as they walked briskly toward the courtyard.

“Malc and I were in the pub having a quiet dinner a few months ago. Sonia and Tony were at another table. I knew Sonia, but we didn’t socialize as couples. That came about after Tony and I started seeing each other. He thought it would be good cover if Sonia and I became good frien—”