The exes, p.19
The Exes, page 19
He gives a huge yawn. ‘Maybe the washer’s gone.’
‘And the light. Who put the light on?’ She hears the tremor in her voice. It doesn’t make any sense.
‘I don’t know. I’m tired. Can I go back to bed now?’
He turns to head up the stairs but she’s far from feeling reassured or safe, and she follows him.
‘We need to check Spencer’s floor,’ she says.
‘Why would we do that?’
‘In case whoever was in the bathroom is hiding there now.’
He stops and looks at her with incredulity.
‘Are you serious? There was no one in the bathroom! There’s no one in the house except you and me and Ray tucked away in the basement. What’s got into you, Holly?’
‘Taps and lights don’t just turn themselves on in the middle of the night.’
He puts his hands up in mock defeat. ‘OK. OK. We’ll check Spencer’s floor.’
The two rooms of Spencer’s studio are empty. They cross to the other side and look into Lillian’s bedroom, which is bare of furniture and newly plastered. The light from the street lamp glimmers on the floorboards.
‘Nowhere for anyone to hide. This is a good room and it’s wasted,’ he says.
‘We’d better check the lumber room too, just in case.’
James checks the lumber room where Holly has got round to sorting Lillian’s manuscripts chronologically into four piles, one for each decade. ‘Nowhere to hide here either. You want me to look under your bed now?’
‘Shut up, James.’
‘Don’t bother thanking me for getting up in the middle of the night!’
He stomps up to his floor and she stomps downstairs, goes into her kitchen, and puts the kettle on. If she had called on Ray, he would have stayed for a cup of tea. So would Spencer.
The incident has disturbed her. The washer may have gone, but the tap was on full blast. And it doesn’t explain the light being on. James is sure she left it on. But she hadn’t, she knows she hadn’t. And those footsteps she thought she heard in the hall?
Chapter Thirty-Three
JUNE
PENUMBRA HOUSE
* * *
Holly’s bedroom is finished at last, and her furniture has been moved back into place. She is glad to be back in there, away from the huge window of the sitting room. Max arrives promptly every morning to paint the hall on the ground floor. James is about to qualify and will start his practice on a professional footing any day. Spencer is still in Turin.
Another anonymous delivery waits for her on the mat. As she sees the white pages glimmering, she catches her breath and swallows hard while dread, but also a fierce curiosity, envelops her. What more is there to come? Snatching the pages up she makes herself wait until she is back in her bedroom, sitting on the floor with her back pressed against the door before she starts to read.
BRITTANY 1996
A lovely young woman in my village, Clemence, has been murdered. She was strangled. I am shaken to my core and heart sick.
I have known Clemence since she was a child, an intelligent girl who liked to read. Her family were farm labourers and had no funds to send her to college and she was destined for a dreary job and one well beneath her capabilities.
I went to see her parents and offered to coach Clemence for a scholarship. They were initially reluctant, but I explained that Clemence was gifted, and it would be my pleasure to teach her. Her mother was able to persuade her father that this would be a good thing for Clemence.
I have been working with her for the last year and she responded well to my teaching. We talked about books and ideas in many a long session and we had grown close. I looked forward to her visits and was confident she would get into college and achieve much. Now her short life is over. What did she have to endure in her last hours? It must have been so dreadful an ending.
Her body was found in the copse which lies beyond the field bordering my house. She had been buried in a shallow grave and was discovered by a man out hunting with his dog.
We have all been questioned by the Officiers de la Police Judiciaire about our whereabouts on the night she was murdered. To date, no one has been arrested. A profound gloom and cloud of suspicion has settled over our village. People fear the killer is living amongst us.
Her parents are broken. Her mother is religious, and I saw her standing on the porch of the church. I wanted to talk to her, but she slipped inside, and I did not feel it would be right to follow her in there.
I have a terrible fear, more an instinct, that Emmanuel is the killer. He lives with Jacques, but my village is not far away.
He knew how much I cared about Clemence. He hates what I love. I am haunted by the thought it was my interest in and involvement with Clemence which has led to her murder.
Emmanuel was questioned, as we all were who knew Clemence. There has been no follow-up by the investigating team. I have read about psychopaths and one of their features is a surface charm which deceives most people. And he would be cunning in covering his tracks.
All my life I have never been afraid of anything, but I am afraid of Emmanuel. I bolt the doors at night and check the window locks.
After two weeks of unquiet days and fitful sleep I finally voiced my suspicions to Jacques, first in a letter and later face to face. Jacques was the angriest he has ever been. He said I had always thought the worst of our son but had surpassed myself in accusing him of murder.
Jacques is still convinced I suffered severe postnatal depression after Emmanuel’s birth. He went on to say that in most things I am rational and objective, but my illness clouded my judgement, and I am not to be trusted on the subject of our son. His Manu.
Jacques is wrong. I was never ill with postnatal depression. I am full of fear and dread these days, but I am rational.
Nevertheless, Jacques has a plan to use his academic contacts to arrange for Emmanuel to study in England, at the University of Portsmouth. He is twenty-two years old, and Jacques said we must continue to support him financially and give him a chance to build a good life for himself. I supported the plan and offered to pay half the costs. It will get Emmanuel out of the country, and it is my fervent wish he never comes back.
These are the most terrifying revelations yet and one sentence stands out for Holly:
I have a terrible fear, more an instinct, that Emmanuel is the killer.
The man Lillian feared of being a killer is their son Emmanuel Pichois. Holly reads the pages again, feverishly scanning the sentences. Surely Clemence is the little girl in an earlier journal entry? Holly gets up and retrieves the plastic folder from her desk. Yes, it was little Clemence who feared for her cat when the Cat Stabbing poster was up. And a few years later she is murdered. Strangled. A dreadful end.
Holly paces her bedroom from one end to the other and back again. Severe postnatal depression – this is Jacques’s explanation of Lillian’s suspicions their son could be Clemence’s killer. But Lillian has roundly rejected this diagnosis. Who is right here – is it Jacques or is it Lillian? The date 1996 tugs at her mind. She flicks through the journal pages until she finds Lillian’s draft letter tucked at the back. This draft letter was Holly’s first discovery that something was badly wrong in Lillian’s life.
Sure enough, it’s dated September 1996. Holly shudders. This is what Lillian was writing to Jacques about: I have hardly slept since so deep is my dread. I am consumed with the thought I have not done the right thing and should have reported my suspicions. He was in the area, and I know he is capable of killing. Remember Rabbit.
Holly’s left arm breaks out in a fiendish itch, and she feels it spread to her torso for the first time. It takes all her willpower to stop herself scratching savagely at her skin.
It is also a shock to learn Emmanuel was sent England, to study in Portsmouth. That jolts her. All this time Holly thought he was living in France. Is it possible he’s still living in Portsmouth and is making the journey to Brighton to post these pages through her letter box? She picks up her phone and googles the distance. A mere 49.5 miles. An easy car drive or a train journey.
The pages have been left days, sometimes weeks apart. Is Emmanuel Pichois travelling to Brighton to terrorise her because she inherited Penumbra House? He has to be the prime suspect. Yet why does he want her to read these dreadful suspicions about him? Why does he want her to know Lillian believed him capable of murder? To terrify her?
Holly adds the latest pages to the other sheets wishing she had never set eyes on any of them. Her feelings about Penumbra House are the most tangled mix of revulsion, fear, and attraction. She loves the large rooms, the high ceilings, the elegant windows. But her sense of being involved in a sinister drama, in the slipstream of Lillian’s tormented relationship with Emmanuel, makes her feel she is falling into a deep dark spiral, losing her bearings. A dead rabbit and a dead young woman. He hates what I love. But was Lillian right?
Holly now fears Emmanuel Pichois as much as her aunt did. She has no idea what he looks like, and it is somehow worse to fear a man you have never set eyes on. It leaves everything to the imagination. But she must fight this campaign to drive her away from her house. If Emmanuel Pichois believes he has been disinherited, then let him stake his claim. Let him bring it out into the light of day and she’ll fight him in court. His mother hated him and did not want him to have Penumbra House.
Holly’s mood has not lightened all day. The murder of Clemence has been on her mind. As has Lillian’s torment. How heartbreaking to be a mother who suspects her son of committing murder. Holly watches the ten o’clock news and the weather forecast predicts a storm. As she gets ready for bed her window flashes with lightning followed seconds later by the deep rumble of thunder. It has felt all day as if a storm was coming.
It is the banging of the door at 3am which wakes her. Not one bang, but a repeated squeak followed by a thump; a disturbing sound to hear in the dark. She doesn’t want to get out of bed. It is her warm haven, the one place where she almost feels safe. But the repeated squeak and thump cannot be ignored. She reaches out and switches on her reading light and sees raindrops are splattering the window. At least the roof tiles should stay secure this time.
Wearily she pulls on her kimono and feels for her slippers. She peers out at a dark sky, no moon, turbulence in the garden and the fig tree thrashing back and forth. She follows the thumping noise to the kitchen. A strong draught is blowing in and the kitchen door is wide open. The door, caught by the wind, slams against the frame and swings open again. Wet leaves have blown in and there are puddles on the steps leading down to the garden.
She heaves the door shut against the force of the wind and finds the key from the hook where she keeps it. Yet she is sure she locked it last night because it is part of her nightly ritual to check and lock the front door and kitchen door. Yes, she remembers turning the key in the door last night after putting a glass jar in the recycle box at the bottom of the kitchen steps.
She stands looking at the door, at the key in her hand, at the wet leaves strewn over the floor and shivers violently. How did the door come to be unlocked? Something is moving. She spots it and swings round. A frog crouches under the table. It is lying still, playing dead.
‘I see you,’ she says.
No choice but to catch the poor thing and put it out. Finding a plastic measuring jug under the sink and a piece of card she creeps towards the frog. As she bends down with the jug, the frog leaps away and wedges itself into the corner. She moves nearer, having to crawl under the table on her hands and knees and sees the frog’s heart pulsing under its wet mottled skin. Poor terrified creature. She is spooked. Her heart beating fast too.
‘Come on, I won’t hurt you. I’m trying to save you.’
She catches the frog at her third attempt. Brings the jug down and levers the piece of card under the opening so the frog is trapped. Crawling out and getting to her feet carefully, she fumbles to unlock the back door before letting the frog out onto the wet steps. He crouches there for a moment, before hopping down the steps and disappearing into the wet grass. The fig tree is groaning as it thrashes back and forth.
She locks the kitchen door again, checking it twice before she hangs up the key. Another unsettled night. Don’t ever come to Penumbra House if you want a good night’s sleep, she thinks.
The next morning Holly weighs herself on the scales in the bathroom and sees she has lost another pound. She isn’t dieting yet her weight is dropping. She feels so listless and wanders into the kitchen. Maybe the weight loss is because she has little interest in eating. It’s the regular bouts of nausea which are putting her off her food.
And she’s gone back to snacks instead of cooking a proper meal for herself. Even the simple pleasure she’d discovered in cooking has gone, wiped out by her mysterious symptoms. When did she last cook a Sunday roast dinner for the men?
She unlocks the back door and hears Ray talking to Barry in the garden, a little surprising as they usually rub each other up the wrong way. The garden is fresh after its overnight soaking, giving off the rich smell of wet earth. She goes down to join them.
‘It rained a ton last night,’ she says.
‘Garden needed it,’ Barry says.
‘A frog got into the kitchen, and I had to catch it and put it out at three in the morning!’
‘Bummer. I’ve had no frog visits recently,’ Ray says.
‘Yes, there were all those dead frogs in the basement weren’t there,’ Holly recalls.
‘I’m off. Too wet to garden today,’ Barry says.
They watch him trudge up to the shed. Its door is swollen by the rain, and he has to wrench it open.
‘You could do with a new shed,’ Ray says.
‘I know, but it will have to wait. I’ve been thinking, Ray, anyone can get into the garden down the side alley at the moment.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I think we should put up a gate.’
‘We can do that.’
‘I noticed we’re the only house on the street without one. And a locking gate would make me feel, well, safer at night.’
He looks at her. ‘Has something spooked you, Hol?’
She shrugs and gives a weak laugh. ‘I was sure I’d locked the kitchen door last night, but it was open and banging. Everything’s spooking me at the moment. Do you want a cup of tea?’
She’s glad he agrees and follows her up the steps to the kitchen. She makes a pot of tea and sits opposite him.
‘I’ll look into garden gates for you. You buy them readymade, and I’ll put up the posts.’
‘Thanks. Sooner rather than later if you don’t mind.’
He nods. ‘Do you want a mortice lock or just a bolt?’
‘A mortice lock please. The house stood mostly empty for all those years, yet Lillian never put up a gate. I think that’s odd.’
‘I think the odd thing is how seldom she used the house. Your aunt Lillian sounds a bit um…’
‘A bit what?’
‘Eccentric. By the way, the washer in your bathroom tap looked fine. I put a new one in anyway.’
‘I don’t understand why the water poured out. It was really gushing.’
He shrugs. ‘Don’t know.’
‘Another mystery to add to the list,’ she says darkly.
He is watching her warily, and she feels that, like James, he thinks she is indulging in neurotic fantasies. Maybe he thinks she’s becoming eccentric. Like Aunt Lillian.
Max packs up at six and Holly hears him talking to James, planning a run in Preston Park. They leave together and she watches from her sitting room as they walk up the road chatting. Buddies. It makes her want to talk to Laura. Holly’s mobile isn’t in her bag, and she looks in the kitchen but can’t find it. She searches her bedroom and the sitting room and still can’t find it.
With rising frustration, she thinks back to the places she’s been during the day. Food shopping in the morning up the road, but she used her phone when she got home. She had sat in the garden for a while, and she retraces her steps and searches the ground under the loungers. No sign of her phone.
Back in the kitchen she gets out the footstool and searches the upper kitchen shelves, recalling her laptop lead had ended up with the tea bags. Nothing. A second more thorough search of the other rooms, looking under her bed, pulling up the cushions on the sofa, emptying the bathroom cabinet. All proves fruitless.
There’s no landline in the house and she doesn’t want to borrow James or Ray’s mobile. She’d have to explain she’s lost hers. After an hour of exhaustive searching, she gives up. She feels like weeping.
Chapter Thirty-Four
PENUMBRA HOUSE
* * *
How Holly wishes Spencer were back. The atmosphere in the house is tense. James living on the top floor has laid bare the old fissures in their relationship; his egotism and his need to always have the last word. She recalls his comment about Lillian’s bedroom being wasted, and concedes he made a valid point.
Holly walks up to the room and stands on the threshold. Why did Lillian choose to sleep in a room which overlooked the street? It’s quieter to sleep at the back of the house as Holly does. The new plaster is dry, but she hasn’t had the room painted because she doesn’t know what to do with it.
Several ideas occurred to her. One was to make it a study and move up her books, desk, and laptop. Yet she isn’t an intellectual like Lillian and does not need a separate study. She briefly thought about letting it be a gallery space for Spencer’s paintings. That would mean more people trooping into the house at all hours, and she dismissed the idea quickly.
Now she wonders if she could make use of it as a teaching room. It’s over six months since she left the college, and she misses her students. Perhaps she’ll advertise her services locally and take on individual students who need tutoring.
