FORGIVE ME
Susan Lewis

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Susan Lewis 2020

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (petals and scissors)

Susan Lewis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008286880

Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008286903

Version: 2020-10-08

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Acknowledgements

Extract

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Susan Lewis

About the Publisher

You know how it goes, some people you like and some you just don’t. I can tell you this much, you’re not going to like me. No one does. I don’t even like myself, especially not after what I did. Not even before it, really.

My name is Archie (you might already know that), I’m nineteen and before all this I lived with my weirdo mother in the kind of house someone like you wouldn’t want to put a foot inside of. She’s not into housework, see, or decorating, or stuff to make the place smell and look good. She doesn’t really get any of that. Everyone laughs at her like she’s mental and doesn’t understand what’s going on. OK, she’s different, but it don’t mean she’s not a good person inside, despite all the stuff that goes on with her. I know she is, and that makes me feel even worse about being ashamed of her sometimes. Trouble is, it’s not easy having a mum like her, and I hate myself for minding – really, really hate myself. I want her to be normal like everyone else so she won’t get poked fun at and have stuff thrown at her when she walks down the street. Kids do that to make her chase them and she nearly always does.

When BJ came to take me away to work for him he beat her up to make her let me go, and I didn’t stop him because I wanted to go.

BJ’s another story, don’t let’s get into him here.

We haven’t ever met, you and me. I don’t know if we ever will, but I’m laying all this out for you because Dan talked me into it. I know you know him, although he doesn’t talk about you much, but we both know you’re the reason he comes to see me. I find him to be a regular bloke who looks a lot like Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, with his black-framed glasses and chiselled features. OK, he’s got Prince Harry hair, but catch one of his smiles and they light him up like a proper movie star, don’t you reckon? He’s a decent type, you can tell by looking at him, with the right sort of manners and a way of listening that makes you talk even when you don’t want to.

He does that to me a lot. If he didn’t, I don’t suppose I’d be writing this, it would never have occurred to me. I guess Dan’s super-powers are of a particular sort.

No one would feel worried about letting him into their front room, the way they would me; and I have to be honest, I’m getting to like the time we spend together. I don’t know anything about him personally like if he’s married or has kids or anything; I’ve never asked and I don’t think he’d tell me if I did.

He’s probably afraid I might send someone to find his family and hurt them.

I wouldn’t, but I don’t blame him for thinking I would.

The first time I met him I didn’t bother speaking to him. To me he was just another tosser wanting to get inside my head. I’m only doing this now because over time I’ve found it’s easier to go along with him than to fight him. He’s got something about him that makes you want to shut him up, not in a rough way, I’ve never felt like smacking him, but in a way that if you do what he’s asking you’re both happy. I could say he has some serious personable shit going on that everyone warms to, even someone like me.

I can hear him in my head telling me to stop writing about him and get back to the point of why I’m doing this.

I can’t see the point myself, because it’s not going to get me anywhere, but now I’m visualizing one of his looks that usually ends up with me thinking he knows more than I do – and frankly that wouldn’t be hard. He’s a smart bloke. Do I wish I was like him? Sure, I’d have to be crazy not to when he seems to have everything going for him. I wonder how rich he is, he gives off the scent of it and I should know, I’ve sniffed enough of it.

So, what can I tell you about me that you’d be interested to know?

I’m not as tall as Dan – he’s about six foot and I’m five ten – and he’s probably twice my age.

What a crack if he turned out to be my long-lost dad.

If he was I wouldn’t have done what I did to you. That’s a fact.

I asked him before I started this letter if I had to spell out what I did.

‘We already know what you did,’ he reminded me.

He’s right, and it was a dumb-ass question. I guess you want to know why I did it?

Well, that’s not something I can tell you without bringing a whole heap of trouble down on us all, and I think you’ve already had enough of that, thanks to me.

So, where do we go from here?

Dan’s advice was to keep writing anything that comes into my head, and he’ll look it over the next time he’s here. He has to do this because of all the swearing and street slang that comes out of me. He says you won’t want to read all that and I can see he’s probably right.

It’s weird, me sitting here thinking about you and how our paths crossed. It shouldn’t have happened, but it’s no good saying that now because it did, and in our different ways we’re both paying the price. It’s a high one for me, I’m coming to terms with that, but for you … I don’t know how you’re going to live with what happened to you.

CHAPTER ONE

Marcus Huxley-Browne looked up from the warning call he’d just received on his mobile phone. His handsome face was taut, pale, showing none of its usual boredom or arrogance – or the self-satisfaction that came from having so much. He’d been born into an established family; he had all the right contacts and was as famed for his City successes as he was for the celebrations he threw when deals came off.

‘They’re coming for me,’ he muttered, the paleness of his skin turning to grey. He wasn’t looking at his wife, maybe he wasn’t even speaking to her.

‘Who?’ she asked, unnerved by the fear in his deep grey eyes.

He stared at her, seeing her past the commotion in his head. ‘You know nothing,’ he instructed her tightly. ‘You’ve seen nothing. You’ve heard nothing. Have you got that?’ His fists clenched, and she wondered if he was going to hit her, blame her, or something worse.

Who was coming?

She knew better than to ask a second time and stepped aside as he headed out of the room, across the hall and into his study.

‘Come here!’ he shouted.

Obediently she hastened after him and stopped on the threshold of the room she was rarely invited into. He was standing behind his desk, a Huxley-Browne heirloom, one of many that cluttered the house with stately gloom. He looked haunted now, agitated – hunted – as if not knowing where to turn or what to do. Had things been different, she might have felt sorry for him.

‘You don’t speak to anyone,’ he told her gruffly.

She nodded. She’d had this instruction before, but usually he didn’t take any chances; he’d whisk her upstairs and lock her in one of the top-floor rooms.

She used to fight it, but she’d learned not to.

She often heard things from up there, but she never saw the comings and goings outside – cars pulling up, people entering or leaving the house – the windows were too high. However, voices carried even if she couldn’t make out who they belonged to, or what was being said.

She knew what kind of people came. They were his set: the all-male network that he and others of his ilk had created at university, in the City, in private clubs, in various capitals, to trade information; or to start rumours; or to import and export insider knowledge. Girls came too, for the after-parties, lots of them, paid well she imagined – and the dealers in mood- or sexual-performance enhancers came too. Shady, sinister characters from an underworld she could barely imagine.

On the nights Marcus didn’t come home she guessed someone else was hosting proceedings at their luxury apartment or town house. She never asked, and he never told her, but she’d come to recognize a descent from the drug-fuelled highs when it was in front of her.

There were other nights – lots of them – when he behaved like a regular family man, sober, a little tired, but happy and feeling generous at the end of a long, productive day. She could easily mistake him then for the man who’d comforted and befriended her after the tragedy of her first husband’s death. She still felt strangely attached to that man and the way he’d spoken so softly to her during that terrible time, and had smiled into her eyes as if he couldn’t believe how fortunate he was to have found her. He’d never been frightening then, just loving, attentive, interested. She’d married him believing he loved her, and feeling certain it was the right thing to do for her – and for her eleven-year-old daughter who’d been devastated by the loss of her father.

Now here they were, or here she was, watching him frantically snatching files from his desk and stuffing them into an old-fashioned attaché case. She hadn’t seen it before.

‘For Christ’s sake, don’t just stand there,’ he raged, ‘get that cabinet away from the wall.’

Quickly she moved to do as she was told, but the cabinet was too heavy.

He shoved her aside and did it himself, grunting, sweating, swearing … Was he crying? Or were those beads of sweat? How much did she care? How afraid was she?

She wasn’t surprised to see the safe behind the cabinet. She’d known it was there, but this was the first time he’d opened it in front of her, pressing the numbers in slowly, deliberately, not wanting to waste time on mistakes.

She couldn’t calculate how much cash was stacked on the five shelves inside, but it surely ran into hundreds of thousands, all neatly bundled until it was chaotically rammed into the case along with the files. Too much to fit in, but he was going to make it happen …

Someone knocked at the front door. Three heavy raps.

‘Shit!’ He turned to the window. Beyond was the back garden, and she wondered if he was about to throw himself out on to the lawn and make a run for it.

With lightning speed he rammed the case into the safe, spun the combination lock and heaved the cabinet back into place.

Their visitor – or visitors – tried the bell.

Police? Drug dealers? Who else would he be so afraid of?

She gasped as he grabbed her by the neck with one hand and pressed her against the wall. ‘Remember, you know nothing,’ he hissed into her face, ‘you’ve seen nothing and you’ve heard nothing.’

She nodded, gasping for breath, clawing at his hand.

He let her go and pointed along the hall to the door. ‘Answer it, but if you even think about betraying me …’ His eyes bored into hers; he didn’t have to tell her that it wouldn’t end well, she already knew.

She started to move, hardly knowing who or what to expect when she opened the door.

‘Stop!’ he seethed under his breath.

She turned around. ‘I don’t know where this is going to end,’ he growled, ‘but just in case you get any ideas about leaving me, you’ll be watched; you won’t get away and if you try, I’ll find you and by then you’ll wish I hadn’t.’

She didn’t doubt him; she never had. She knew what he was capable of, and as he turned to the door she found herself hoping with all her heart and soul that he was about to be taken out, not merely taken away.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Are you sure you’re OK to drive?’

Claudia Winters glanced at her sixteen-year-old daughter, the one who was sounding like the parent right now, and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. ‘Sure,’ she confirmed, and fixing her eyes on the road ahead she pressed down on the accelerator to pull away from the kerb. It was a jerky start, but it was a new car – bought with cash from a South London dealer who’d asked no questions – and at least she didn’t stall the engine.

‘Don’t look back,’ she advised Jasmine.

‘Would it make a difference if I did?’

‘Do you want to?’

‘No! Let’s just go.’

The place they were leaving was a smart red-brick town house in the heart of Kensington, where they’d lived for the past five years. Their departure – escape, to give it the correct term – had been carefully planned during the last few months.They’d removed their most precious belongings in bags and suitcases as if they were just off for long weekends, or perhaps to make generous donations to a charity shop. Where they’d actually been taking their cargo was to Claudia’s mother’s house in Somerset, in order to store it in a weatherproof garage. Yesterday, under her mother’s supervision, everything had been transported from the garage to the place Claudia and Jasmine were travelling to now.

Nauseous with nerves, Claudia drove along the leafy street careful to avoid the parked cars either side of her, aware of a hundred or more windows bearing witness to their departure.

Was anyone actually watching? He’d said someone would be, but they’d never spotted anyone, nor had the private investigator they’d hired to check for them.

There were the neighbours, of course, but it surely wouldn’t occur to any of them that the mother and daughter from number forty-six were about to disappear without trace.

Claudia hoped it would be that way, but a lot could happen between now and the day they finally felt safe. The past could reach for them in any number of ways; traps they hadn’t yet been able to imagine might already be set by their own oversights and unwitting mistakes, or even by fate.

Pushing the dread of it all aside, she drove on past the homes that backed on to the school her daughter had attended since they’d moved here. It was private, expensive and should have been where she’d complete sixth form before going to uni. Now she was set to continue her education at a school close to their new home, using the name she’d chosen for herself – Jasmine – and sporting a totally new look.

Once as dark-haired as her beloved father, Jasmine was now blonde, with a cute pixie cut that had been executed by her mother’s inexpert hand only last night. Jasmine loved it, thank goodness. Up to the age of eleven, she’d been a bright girl with a warm personality, and her dad’s sparkling enthusiasm for life. However, these past years in her stepfather’s home, subjected to his erratic moods and overbearing personality, she’d lost the buoyancy of her spirit and had even withdrawn from friendships and activities that should have been normal for a girl her age. So, she was as ready to escape and start again as her mother was – as relieved to be making this journey as she’d ever been about anything in her young life.

At the end of the road Claudia indicated to turn left and headed towards the Hammersmith flyover. As they passed the shop that used to be hers, Dream Interiors (secretly sold as a going concern over a month ago and soon to be renamed All About Home by the new owners) she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the empty window and it made her feel oddly light-headed. Until yesterday her hair had been fair, shoulder-length and wavy – now it was a rich chestnut colour styled in a messy sort of bob that she actually quite liked. It gave her features more definition, she thought, and seemed to warm her pale complexion. She was nothing like the woman who’d started the shop fifteen years ago, although her eyes were still sky blue and the delicate bone structure that Jasmine’s father, Joel, had captured in so many paintings and sketches remained the same. She’d been tall and curvaceous back then; confident, ambitious and quick to make friends. She was still tall, of course, but so slender now, even gaunt, that it was like watching the ghost of herself passing from the windows of her old life on her way to the new.

She was going to miss her business, and her workers and the clients, but when the time was right she’d start creating the same all over again.

As they circled under the flyover and joined the A4 she was still regularly checking the rear-view mirror, not so much for moving traffic as for anyone who might be following. It wasn’t possible to tell, nor was it possible, surely, for Marcus to have set someone on their tail so soon.

She glanced anxiously at Jasmine, and felt a momentary relief when she received an ironic smile in return.

‘Will you please stop stressing?’ Jasmine scolded with teenage exasperation. ‘You have to let it go, Mum. We’re on our way to a new life and that’s all we should think about. We’re actually pulling it off.’

Claudia followed the traffic and contemplated the truth of those words – we’re pulling it off – although they were hardly ten minutes from what used to be their home, so such optimism was perhaps a little premature. However, everything was going to plan so far. The BMW they were in had been delivered on time late last night; they’d picked up their new phones from a ‘dealer’ a week ago – and most crucially of all, the money from the sale of her business had been successfully transferred from an escrow account into the one she’d opened just after her new passport had come through. Dealing with the bank had been the trickiest part of the operation – did she really look like a money launderer? – but it was done now, thank God, and she’d already managed to draw cash using one of her new cards.

‘So,’ she said, as they finally approached the M4, ‘shall I call you Jas or Jasmine from now on?’

A tilt of a platinum-blonde head, followed by ‘Mm,’ preceded ‘either’s fine. It’s a cool name, don’t you think?’

They’d had this conversation before, several times, so Claudia dutifully said, ‘I do, and it suits you. I wish I’d thought of it when you were born.’

Jasmine glanced over at her mother, her big blue eyes sparkling with mischief. God, she was like her father. ‘Are you OK with Claud?’ she asked cheekily.

Claudia wrinkled her nose. ‘Mum’s better, coming from you.’

Jasmine laughed and pointed to the red light they were approaching too fast.

As they came to a stop, Claudia’s breath caught on another rush of nerves as the reality of their flight descended over her again. To those travelling in the cars around them they must look so ordinary, so unremarkable in their blue estate with nothing on its roof, or sides or anywhere else to alert anyone to what this two-year-old 3 series was actually involved in.

‘How come you’re so relaxed?’ she asked as Jasmine continued downloading apps to her new phone.

Jasmine frowned as she considered the question. ‘Well, I thought one of us ought to be, and as you’re the responsible adult in the car I decided to leave all the negative stuff to you.’

‘So kind.’

They both started as someone blasted a horn behind, urging them on, and at the same instant Jasmine’s new phone rang. Only one person had the number and to their relief they saw it was her.

‘Hey Nana,’ Jasmine sang out as she clicked on, ‘we’re on our way. Hang on, I’m going to put you on speaker so Mum can hear.’

‘Have you left London yet?’ Marcy, her grandmother, asked.

‘We’re just about to join the M4. How’s everything your end?’

‘So far, so good. I’m at the flat and it’s even lovelier than the first time we saw it, probably because the sun’s shining and the shutters are open. Actually, we had some mail delivered this morning. A letter from EDF confirming our new account, and another from the local authority about the council tax.’

‘I’m guessing both were in your name?’ Claudia asked.

‘They were.’

Her mother didn’t have a new identity as such, she’d simply reverted to her maiden name – Kavanagh – which had been a straightforward enough process to arrange, enabling her to rent the flat with references provided by a non-existent ex-employer. Luckily the new landlord hadn’t checked – why would he, when Marcy presented as the world’s most trustworthy individual – so all had gone through quite smoothly.

‘Is our stuff there yet?’ Jasmine wanted to know.

‘It is, and the new furniture is due in about an hour, so the delivery chaps should have been and gone by the time you arrive. I don’t know how we’re going to put it all together, I’m sure, but I suppose we’ll work it out somehow. Oh, and before you ask, yes, I remembered to bring a tool kit.’

‘Super-nan,’ Jasmine cheered.

Surprised again by her daughter’s high spirits, and relieved, Claudia said to her mother, ‘Shall we pick up some groceries on the way?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it, and if I run out of time we can always get pizza delivered.’

And here was another concern, how matter-of-fact her mother was sounding when there was absolutely nothing matter-of-fact about what they were doing.

Was she the only one who was scared out of her mind?

She needed to do as Jasmine said and stop stressing.

‘Have you checked if you’re being followed?’ her mother asked, setting Claudia’s nerves off again.

‘She’s doing it every thirty seconds,’ Jasmine chimed in, ‘but I scoped the whole neighbourhood before we left and I promise you no one was there, so no one watched us leave.’

‘Good girl,’ her grandmother praised. ‘What have you done with your old phones?’

‘We left them at the house,’ Claudia replied, ‘along with our laptops, tablets, and keys. Obviously we made sure there was nothing left on them to give anything away. Do you think it was the right thing to do? Should we have brought them with us?’

‘We discussed it,’ her mother reminded her, ‘and we decided they needed to stay there.’

This was true, but now Claudia wasn’t so sure it had been such a good idea. Great escape-planners they were, but since they’d never done anything remotely like it before they’d had no experience to draw on, only Internet advice which didn’t seem to have let them down yet.

‘I have the replacement iPads and computers here,’ her mother was saying, ‘so we can set them up later.’

‘Did you abandon your old stuff too?’ Jasmine asked.

‘Of course. Actually, I tossed them in the lake – and very freeing it was too.’

Claudia didn’t know whether to be shocked or impressed.The image of her respectable mother, owner of a contacts book to rival a royal’s, driving up to the lake near her home – or rather, old home since she’d left it yesterday – and ending her previous life with a random fling of Apple devices into a wildlife reservoir was hard to get her head around.

Suddenly it was making her laugh. It was hysteria, of course, for there was nothing funny about it, but now she’d started she was finding it difficult to stop.

‘OK, she’s losing it,’ Jasmine declared. ‘I’ll calm her down and we’ll call when we’re about an hour away.’

As the connection ended so did Claudia’s mirth, although the outburst did seem to have soothed her slightly.

‘Are you all right?’ Jasmine asked.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘No one behind?’

Claudia’s heart clenched.

‘Sorry, bad joke. No, don’t check.’

‘I’m driving, I have to.’

Accepting that, Jasmine opened her phone again, and as she began setting up her new social media accounts, Claudia said, ‘No photos.’

‘I know that, but I can look at other people’s, right?’

‘You mean your old friends?’

Jasmine shrugged. ‘I didn’t have so many, and I’m not much interested in what they’re doing. I’m trying to find some students who’re at my new school.’

Since the information about that had been on her old laptop before they’d deleted it, Claudia wondered how much she minded searching for it all over again. Their Internet escape-planner had warned against forwarding anything: if they did it wouldn’t take long to trace it to their replacement devices, and in no time at all their new lives would be over.

They should have done the same as her mother and thrown everything into a lake, but it was too late now.

Had her mother remembered to turn off the tracking feature?

She was bound to have done so. They’d discussed it enough times, and Marcy was anything but stupid. In fact, she was the joint mastermind of this operation, had even come up with the original plan, having no idea at that time how complicated it would be to pull off. But step by step they were getting through it and now, here they were, five months on with some of the most difficult challenges already behind them.

At Reading services Jasmine ran in for coffee while Claudia locked herself in the car and checked her own new phone to make sure there were no messages. Fortunately, there were none – and why would there be when she hadn’t set up any accounts yet? No one apart from Vodafone, Jasmine and her mother had the number. Using Bluetooth, she connected to the car’s hands-free system so that she and Jasmine could listen to one of the audio books or podcasts they’d downloaded in preparation for this journey. Chances were they’d be unable to focus, but the option was there if they wanted it, and setting it up was giving her something to do as she waited.

She didn’t look around to check if she was being watched, she simply told herself that she had no chilling sense of it, which could mean either that she was in denial or that her instincts were working.

No one knocked on the window or parked too close.

At last Jasmine returned with two skinny lattes and a flapjack to share. As soon as the passenger door was closed Claudia hit the locks again and after taking a sip of her coffee she started back to the motorway.

It was shortly before eleven o’clock, when they were passing the turn-off for Cirencester and Chippenham, that Jasmine said, ‘Should we try the radio now?’

Experiencing yet another sickening jolt of nerves, Claudia simply nodded.

As they listened to the headlines she was aware of how tightly she was gripping the wheel. Not that she was expecting to hear anything about their disappearance – it was still far too early for that – or about her failure to appear in court this morning – that might not have been noticed either. It was his name she was listening out for, and when it came with the information that a verdict was expected at any minute, she felt the blood pounding too fast in her heart.

Jasmine turned the radio off and said, ‘We’ll try again at midday.’

They were both subdued now – simply hearing his name was enough to do that to them. Jasmine seemed to revert back to the withdrawn and anxious teenager she’d been before her mother and grandmother had plotted the escape. Claudia was internalizing her fears, doing all sorts of bargains with God and the universe if they would just make sure the jury did the right thing.

Maybe she shouldn’t have brought the attaché case.

‘And so we reach the end of the line,’ Jasmine murmured, coming awake as Claudia finally brought the car to a stop outside the freshly whitewashed Victorian villa that was to be their home for the next few months – possibly longer. It was at the end of a seafront terrace on the busy Promenade, and the apartment they’d leased comprised the entire first floor with three good-sized bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a spacious sitting-cum-dining area with an open-plan kitchen. Its tall sash windows at the front overlooked the windy bay of Kesterly-on-Sea, where a mile-long stretch of sandy beach was hugged by two grassy headlands, and the restless waves provided a playground for surfers, sailors and skiers.

Jasmine was right about it being the end of the line, for the train could go no further than the station at the far end of the Promenade – and access from the motorway was as arduous in parts as it was spectacular in others, as it passed through ever-changing countryside. They’d chosen to come here quite randomly, for their internet search had thrown up many remote towns and hidden villages that could have provided equally good cover, if not better. However, when Marcy had mentioned that she’d come here on holiday a few times as a child, Claudia had allowed that to be the decider. It was the only link they had to the place, which was no link at all really, but Claudia had seen right away how pleased her mother was to agree.

Since their first visit just over six weeks ago, when the three of them had come to check it out, they’d found that it really did have everything they were looking for. They’d wasted no time in contacting an estate agent and by the following day they’d not only managed to secure this flat, they’d also registered with the local authority, and even enrolled Jasmine in the local school to sit her GCSE exams. No references from her previous school had been asked for yet, but Claudia already had a plan for how to handle that when it came up. (Honesty was usually the best policy – and the story she’d concocted was a fair version of it.)

It was as they’d driven back to her mother’s house in the Chew Valley, south of Bristol, that they’d received a call informing them that a completion date for the sale of Claudia’s childhood home had now been set. As requested. it would happen during the week of their planned departure.

Claudia felt more guilt over the loss of that house than she did over anything else, for it was the first and only home her parents had lived in until her father had died.

‘If he were here,’ her mother had argued when Claudia had protested at the suggestion the house should be sold, ‘he’d be doing the exact same thing as I am. You were what mattered to him, and your daughter, and if he knew that selling this place would make you safe he’d have it on the market quicker than you could choose an estate agent.’

Now most of Marcy’s eclectic assortment of furniture, along with much else that had been collected over the years, had been sold with the house, and like Claudia and Jasmine she’d brought only her most precious possessions to Kesterley. However, she had almost three million pounds in her new bank account after cashing in all her other investments, so she could consider herself a wealthy woman by anyone’s standards. And if her small fortune was combined with the profits from the sale of Claudia’s business and the cash in the attaché case in the back of the car – presuming it wasn’t counterfeit – it was fair to say that right now money was the least of their problems.

As Claudia climbed out of the BMW and stretched her too-thin limbs after the long drive, her eyes closed as she found herself assailed by the warm, pungent scent of salty sea air mixing with the sweetness of candyfloss and the metallic taste of traffic fumes. She could hear the hum of the tide surging along with the sound of engines, a musical merry-go-round somewhere close by and the laughter of holidaymakers enjoying the beach. It reminded her of how calming and welcoming she’d found this place the last time they were here – and it was working its magic again.

It was her mother’s voice that broke the spell and, turning to see her coming down the front steps of the villa, Claudia’s heart swelled with love and relief. When had she ever needed her mother more? And when had her mother ever let her down?

‘Nana,’ Jasmine cried and ran straight into her grandmother’s outstretched arms. Marcy was a picture of sixty-four-year-old elegance with short fair hair, warm brown eyes and a smile that was so like Claudia’s there could never be any doubting their relationship. And dressed as she was now in blue-striped Capri pants and baggy white t-shirt, she looked almost as young and sprightly as her teenage self must have been.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, coming to embrace Claudia. ‘You look tired.’

‘A bit,’ Claudia admitted, hugging her hard.

‘It’s stressful,’ Jasmine put in, ‘when you’re afraid you’ve got someone after you.’

Through a smile Marcy reminded her to keep her voice down, and following Claudia to the boot of the car she reached for the brown leather attaché case. ‘I presume this is it?’ she said quietly.

Claudia nodded. She should have left it behind.

‘OK, I’ll take it in,’ Marcy said, and winced as she discovered how heavy it was. ‘You two bring the rest of your things.’

‘Did my new music stand arrive yet?’ Jasmine asked, shouldering a holdall and picking up another.

‘DHL tried to deliver while I was at the supermarket, but we can pick it up tomorrow.’ Marcy’s eyes sparkled again as she said, ‘Come and see the furniture. Some of it’s already assembled thanks to Rog, the very handy man the delivery chaps put me in touch with. He’s coming back to finish off in the morning.’

As she started to turn away Claudia asked, because she had to, ‘How did you feel leaving the house yesterday?’

‘It was OK,’ her mother assured her, although the light in her eyes dimmed, ‘but we can talk about it later.’

Claudia’s mouth was dry. If that wasn’t bad enough, she knew what else she needed to ask, so forcing herself, she said, ‘Have you seen the news?’

Marcy’s expression turned to dismay. ‘You didn’t listen to the radio?’

Claudia hadn’t heard the latest bulletin because Jasmine had been sleeping – and because she was hiding behind a wall of dread.

‘We can get it on my laptop,’ Marcy told her, and led the way inside.

Once past the large blue front door with its sculpted box trees either side and bold brass numbers, they had only one flight of stairs to climb to their flat where the hall was an obstacle course of unopened boxes, and the sitting room, equally chaotic, was flooded with sunlight. A gentle sea breeze was wafting about the place adding its scent to the earthiness of cardboard and newness of three mint-green sofas that were half in and half out of their protective covers. A wooden dining table with six upholstered chairs were already assembled and positioned in front of the kitchen where a kettle looked, for the moment, to be the only appliance on duty.

Marcy carried the attaché case through to the far ensuite bedroom that they’d already agreed would be hers, and after sliding it inside a closet she returned to the sitting room to turn on her laptop. When she’d found the news item she was looking for, she hit pause and rested the computer on the boxes stacked against one wall before hitting play.

As she listened and watched Claudia was aware of bile rising in her throat and Jasmine’s hand searching for hers. She linked their fingers and held on tightly.

Guilty.

She wanted to sob with relief, leap for joy, bury herself away so he could never find her again.

‘He hasn’t been sentenced yet,’ her mother told her, ‘but they’re keeping him in custody; he’s still deemed a flight risk.’

Oh yes, he was certainly that. With all those contacts, all that missing money, give him half a chance and he’d never be seen again.

The screen changed and a reporter began talking to camera.

‘So, as widely predicted, financier, Marcus Huxley-Browne, son of the former trade minister Sir Robert Huxley-Browne, has been found guilty on multiple counts of fraud and insider trading. Sir Robert, who’s believed to be suffering with dementia, was not in court to hear the verdict, but we’re expecting a statement from the family lawyer in the next few minutes.’

As the reporter continued to speak, a still shot of Marcus filled the screen, and Claudia felt so sickened and afraid that it was almost as if he was right there in the room with them. He was a strikingly handsome man, she’d never deny that, with his unruly fair hair, flirtatious smile and chiselled features, but even in this shot where he was supposed to appear nothing but friendly she could see the arrogance, the underlying cruelty that governed him.

‘… although other arrests have been expected since Huxley-Browne was first taken from his home in West London,’ the reporter was saying, as they cut back to him, ‘none have so far materialized. However, a spokesperson for the Serious Fraud Office has made it clear that their investigation does not end here. As we know, all sorts of rumours have dogged Huxley-Browne and many of his colleagues in the City for several years, but perhaps the most sinister are those concerning gangland connections. If – I stress if – any of these are true, it’s not likely Huxley-Browne will be helping police with their inquiries any time soon.’

‘They’re true,’ Claudia muttered.

‘Was his wife in court today?’ a voice from the studio asked.

Claudia’s heart turned over and she’d have stopped the video there if she hadn’t felt masochistically compelled to know what was said.

‘No, she wasn’t,’ the reporter replied. ‘She hasn’t been seen since the start of the trial, and all attempts to reach her today have so far failed.’

Up came a shot of the Kensington house surrounded by media, and Claudia could only feel thankful that she and Jasmine had managed to get out when they had. Please don’t let them mention anything else about me, she prayed inwardly. Please, please.

To her relief they didn’t, so for this report at least there were no shots of her.

A rangy, stooped man with sharp features and thinning grey hair was now ready to give a statement: the family lawyer.

‘Today has shown us what a travesty of justice looks like,’ he declared, raising his lawyerly voice to be heard. It was hard to tell how many cameras and microphones were trained on him, but his piercing eyes found Sky News as though he somehow knew it was the channel she’d be watching. ‘We will not rest,’ he said, looking straight at her, ‘until this verdict is overturned and my client is once again free to resume his family life.’

The threat was thinly veiled and sent a shiver through Claudia that felt as sharp and cold as ice. She’d never met this man, but she knew instinctively that he was as untrustworthy and dangerous as Marcus. He had probably even benefited from the crimes his client had committed. However, he surely wouldn’t have known when making his statement that the house in West London had already been abandoned, or that the shop on Kensington High Street had been sold. But he’d find out soon enough, perhaps as early as today, and then there was every chance that the hunt for his client’s wife and stepdaughter would begin.

CHAPTER THREE

‘Dan! How are you? Come in, come in.’

Andee Lawrence stood aside for her very welcome visitor to enter the stylish Georgian house she shared with her partner Graeme Ogilvy at the heart of Kesterly’s exclusive Garden District. She was a tall, dark-haired woman in her mid-forties, with such arresting aquamarine eyes that some, when meeting her for the first time, became momentarily dazzled.

This didn’t happen to Dan Collier as he embraced her warmly, for several months had passed since he’d first been introduced to her, when he had actually momentarily lost his words. His old uni friend Graeme had clearly been as amused by the double take as Dan had been embarrassed, while Andee had politely pretended not to notice. Now Dan paid little more attention to her looks than he did to his own, which he considered far less remarkable than his late wife, Ellen, had. Although she’d been biased because, as she’d put it, she’d been clever enough to see in him what others hadn’t.

‘I never thought I’d end up with a ginger,’ she used to tease, ‘but that’s because I didn’t know they came with sleepy eyes trying to hide behind sexy specs, and serious muscles.’

‘They also come with broken noses, oafish hands and loads of brains,’ he’d inform her, and while saucily admiring the first two she’d usually scoff at the third.

He wished Andee had met Ellen, for he knew they’d have got along like the proverbial house on fire, but two years before he’d moved his legal practice to Kesterly Ellen had been killed in a car crash. Sadness was his companion now, and although he never gave it a public airing, when he was at home he spent much of his time grieving her loss and wishing they’d had children. At least then she would continue to exist in other human beings whom he’d love perhaps even more than he’d loved her, although that was hard to imagine.

‘Graeme’s cooking,’ Andee informed him, pointing him across the hall towards the kitchen, ‘and don’t worry, we haven’t fixed you up with a blind date.’

‘Thank God for that,’ he responded with feeling. ‘I’m too much of a gentleman to tell you about some of the potentials that have been thrust my way since I got here. Just suffice it to say I wasn’t so much put off by their charms as scared to death of them.’

Andee had to laugh. ‘Well, hopefully Graeme has told you that we’re not into matchmaking unless it’s specifically requested.’

‘That was her decision,’ Graeme informed him as Dan entered the large kitchen, where his host was concocting something that smelled so delicious it made Dan’s stomach growl with unseemly impatience.

‘Don’t worry, we have canapés to be going on with,’ Andee chuckled. ‘I’ve set them up outside in the garden, but let me get you a drink first. Wine? Gin? Vodka?’

‘A white wine would be great,’ Dan responded, dropping his battered leather briefcase on to one of the sofas that flanked a magnificent fireplace before going to shake hands with Graeme. ‘You’re looking good,’ he told his old friend, who indeed always did, and always had, although there was plenty of silver in the thick dark hair these days, and the increasing intensity of his expression might have intimidated those who didn’t know him. It only took a smile to transform his features completely; the trick was getting the smile.

It wasn’t slow in coming amongst friends. ‘You’re not looking too bad yourself,’ Graeme responded, ‘and we’re one short for the cricket team this summer, so I’ve signed you up.’

‘Another attempt to get me to go out more?’ Dan replied, pleased to be asked.

‘Unless you’ve lost that unerring eye for the boundary,’ Graeme replied, ‘we need you,’ and reaching for the TV remote he was about to turn off the news when Andee said, ‘Hang on. Let’s just listen to this.’

The large screen over the fireplace was showing a five-storey house in a well-heeled London street that had featured in several bulletins over the past week, so it was generally known to be the home of the recently convicted financier Marcus Huxley-Browne. However, during the past few days the focus had switched from the man himself to his wife, Rebecca, and stepdaughter Cara, who apparently hadn’t been seen since the end of the trial.

At that moment a smartly dressed detective captioned as DI Carl Phillips was ending a statement to the press.

‘… I’m afraid there’s no more we can tell you at this stage, but if anyone has information regarding Mrs Huxley-Browne’s whereabouts, or that of her daughter’s, we’d ask them to please get in touch.’

‘Do you suspect foul play?’ a female voice called out.

The detective didn’t answer; he was already merging into a small group of officers standing in front of the house.

‘Have you asked Huxley-Browne where they are?’ someone shouted after him. ‘Is it true their personal devices have been found inside the house?’

The police team walked away and a dark-haired young man appeared on the screen, fiddling with his earpiece as he said, ‘So, the mystery of Mrs Huxley-Browne and her daughter’s disappearance continues to grow. As you know, Paula, it was thought at first that they’d probably gone to stay with friends or relatives to escape the press. Then came suggestions that Mrs Huxley-Browne had cooperated with investigators to secure her husband’s conviction, so was that the reason for going into hiding? Now that the police are asking for information on their whereabouts, we can more or less rule out the possibility that she’s been working with them.’

‘What about the rumours concerning further arrests?’ he was asked. ‘Can you tell us anything about them?’

‘Not at this stage, I’m afraid. The police are playing this very close to the chest. So, a lot of questions, and as yet no answers. Back to you in the studio.’

‘Thanks Damon, and if anyone does have any information regarding Mrs Huxley-Browne and her daughter you can call the number at the bottom of the screen.’

As a shot of the missing pair flashed up Andee said, reflectively, ‘That picture is so blurred the police have to know they won’t get much of a response to it. I wonder if they chose it deliberately or is it all they could find?’

To Dan, Graeme remarked dryly, ‘It doesn’t take much to get the ex-detective mind up and running. Me, I’m guessing the missing pair have taken off to deposit a tidy sum into an offshore bank somewhere. A nice little nest egg for when he comes out?’

‘I could go for that,’ Dan agreed. ‘They’re in it together and he’s decided a stretch at Her Majesty’s pleasure is a price worth paying for the millions they’ve managed to stash in some tax haven.’

Andee wrinkled her nose. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘I suppose we’ll find out at some point – or not. But what I do know, my darling, is that smoke is billowing out of the oven behind you.’

Graeme swung around quickly, before remembering gazpacho didn’t even go in the oven, much less burn. Andee laughed and led Dan out of the wide-open French doors to the small, lavishly planted walled garden where a table had already been set for dinner.

‘I’m embarrassed,’ Dan confessed as she offered him a plate of freshly made canapés, ‘when I said I wanted to pop round for a chat I wasn’t expecting anything like this. I’d have at least brought some wine if I’d known.’

‘We have plenty,’ she assured him, ‘and Graeme loves to show off his culinary skills.’

‘I heard that,’ he shouted from inside.

‘And you know it’s true. Anyway,’ she said to Dan, ‘we don’t see enough of you, so I was glad when you called. I’ve been wondering how the new junior partner’s working out.’

‘Maxim? He’s great. Sleep deprived – his girlfriend’s just given birth to their first – but he knows his stuff and he’s keen. Actually, I’m pretty impressed with all five of my staff.’

‘So, taking over Henry Matthews’s practice is turning out to be a good move?’

‘Given how much existing business it came with, I’d have to be a pretty poor sort not to say yes.’

His smile showed a dimple in one cheek that she always found endearing. ‘I’m reliably informed,’ he added, helping himself to another canapé, ‘that you haven’t exactly broken with the law yourself.’

Her eyes showed surprise, but he could see that she’d picked up the segue and was intrigued by it. ‘Why? Do you need help with something?’ she asked carefully.

‘Not in the sense you’re meaning it,’ he replied, and pulling out a chair he sat down at the table. ‘I’ve been thinking about something you told me the last time I was here, and it prompted me to go and have a chat with an old friend, ex-colleague, of yours.’

Regarding him knowingly, she said, ‘Are we talking about Detective Chief Inspector Terence Gould, by any chance?’

‘We are. I met with him last week to discuss something I’d like to set up here in Kesterly, and I wasn’t surprised when he suggested I should talk to you.’

‘This is sounding interesting,’ Graeme commented, coming to set a tureen of perfectly chilled gazpacho on the table.

‘Isn’t it?’ Andee commented dryly. ‘No disrespect, Dan, but Gould usually sends people to me when he wants to get them out of his office.’

Dan laughed. ‘He told me you’d say something like that, but yours wasn’t the only name he mentioned – we’ll come on to the others, most of whom you’ll know. For now, Gould confirmed my own thoughts that there are few better placed than you to help get the project launched.’

Andee’s eyes widened. ‘OKaaay,’ she responded, glancing at Graeme and clocking his clear amusement. ‘Are you in on this?’ she asked suspiciously.

He held up his hands. ‘I’m as in the dark as you are,’ he assured her.

She turned back to Dan.

Coming to the point, he said, ‘You know about restorative justice, right?’

She nodded slowly. ‘Weren’t you running a team in your previous life?’

Graeme said, ‘You might have to enlighten me.’

Dan explained, ‘Restorative justice is basically about putting victims of crimes together with offenders to try and come to a resolution that will help both parties to move on.’

Graeme arched an eyebrow. ‘So, someone vandalizes my car, is charged with the crime, then I get to meet him so he can say he’s sorry? Do I get to thump him?’

Dan laughed. ‘Yes, apart from the thumping bit, but it can be about much more serious offences.’

Graeme waved for everyone to help themselves to soup, and began refreshing the wine.

Turning back to Andee, Dan warmed to his theme as he said, ‘I’m sure you’d agree that this community is crying out for an RJ service, but in order to get funding we have to impress the Ministry of Justice with a cracking business plan and a board of experts. These need to be police and probation officers, local authority officials, magistrates, councillors … we can draw up a list of who we think would be interested and influential, and as you’re so well connected in the area I’m hoping you’ll come on board to approach them with me.’

Andee was so taken aback that she wasn’t sure what to say.

‘You’d also make a brilliant practitioner,’ Dan continued, ‘someone who deals with victims – or offenders – on a personal level.’

Andee blinked.

‘You’d be perfect for it,’ Graeme chipped in. ‘Whatever the qualifications are for practitioners, people skills have to come into it and I don’t know anyone who’s better at people than you.’

‘Exactly,’ Dan agreed. ‘Empathy is what’s needed for the task, patience as well, obviously, in fact a whole slew of good qualities, but empathy is the most important. You have that; you also have a good knowledge of the community and unless you tell me differently you have a stronger belief in rehabilitation than you do in punishment.’

Andee couldn’t deny it, although she did say, ‘Some crimes have to be punished. Murder, rape, GBH …’

Dan’s hand went up. ‘No one will argue with that, although there are cases where even murderers and rapists have met their victims or the victim’s family and believe it or not there have been some positive results.’

Graeme regarded him sceptically. ‘Why the heck would anyone want to meet their rapist?’

‘Or their son’s or daughter’s killer?’ Dan added. ‘Most certainly don’t – and don’t have to. But there are some victims who find themselves wanting to ask why. Why me? Why my mother, son, grandfather? If it’s a burglary, they ask, what did you do with the photos or the jewellery? Are you coming back to take more of what’s mine? And sometimes it helps to have answers.’

‘But the perpetrators still go to prison?’ Graeme prompted.

‘If someone is found guilty of a serious crime then yes, they do, and often the restorative process can begin during the sentence. In fact, I’d say more than seventy per cent of the cases I’ve worked on have happened in the run-up to parole, when victims are approached to find out how they feel about an offender returning to society. The RJ programme can work well at that time, if we can get them together. Or it can happen while someone is awaiting trial. It basically depends on when they’re referred to us.’

Graeme’s eyes returned to Andee as she began to ladle gazpacho into her bowl.

‘In principle,’ she said as she set the ladle down again, ‘of course I’m interested, but before we start drawing up a list of potential board members – I’ve got about half a dozen names already in mind – I’d like to read some case histories, if you have any.’

Clearly delighted, Dan said, ‘No problem. I’ve a mountain of stuff you can look at, so I’ll email you the links and passwords as soon as I get home. Oh, and I don’t want you to worry about your interior design business, I know you’re busy with it. This is something that can be made to work around it.’

‘Unless there are prison visits involved?’

‘Yes, we’d have no say on timings there, but I’m happy to take on those cases as we get started – and further down the line I hope we’ll have a number of practitioners to call on.’

‘And who’ll be running your legal practice while you’re doing all this?’ Graeme wanted to know.

‘I will for the most part, but having Maxim on board will free up some time for me to start pulling together an impressive board, appointing a chief exec, applying for MOJ accreditation and funding …’

‘Wouldn’t you be the chief exec?’ Graeme asked.

‘Probably, unless we felt someone else might be more suitable.’

‘Unlikely,’ Andee retorted, ‘given we have no experience of the service in this area. I’m assuming case referrals will come from the police, lawyers, prison staff, victim support groups …?’

‘All of the above, and of course we’ll need to be out there talking to them too, making sure they fully understand the programme by the time we’re ready to launch it.’

When he stopped Andee felt herself drawn to the warmth in his eyes, the depth of the passion he clearly felt for the project. As its leader, he would be inspirational.

‘‘It’s good to hear you’re interested,’ he told her, ‘but you don’t have to give me a final answer now. Especially as you’d likely find yourself back dealing with some of society’s least desirables, who you gave up some time ago …’

‘Aren’t we supposed to believe that redemption is possible even for them?’ she countered wryly.

‘Of course,’ he smiled, and lifting his glass he clinked it to hers, while Graeme looked on with undisguised amusement.

CHAPTER FOUR

Dan’s been on my case again to tell you something real about my background so you’ll get an insight into who I am and where I come from but do you know what, I can’t really be arsed. I mean, why would you care? It’s not the kind of story you’re used to, not someone like you. There’s nothing here to make you feel good or happy like you were reading some romance book. All you’re going to feel is sick that my words have even reached you, sicker still that I ever came into your life.

But I guess I can give you the bare facts about my family.

My dad’s never been around – getting it on with my ma was the only part he played in my life before effing off to God knows where. I’ve never tried to track him down and can’t imagine I ever will. I’d have to find out his name for a start, and who can be bothered with that when you’re talking about someone who clearly has no interest in you? My granddad, Brookie, used to live with us before he died. I’ve had a couple of foster brothers and sisters over the years, my mum took them in to get more benefits – when you need the money you do what you have to – but then she was deemed unfit, so the kids stopped coming, along with the extras.

You’d have thought they’d have taken me into care, given all the parental neglect and stuff. I suppose if I’d stopped going to school they might have, but school was somewhere I could get warm and fed, provided we had some cash for meals. So, I learned to read and write, and I was always on the football team right from an early age. Being a good goal-scorer saved me from getting picked on, although going after me would have been a waste of some sad-ass bully’s time because even when I was a kid I could take care of myself – not that I went out looking for trouble. I mostly wanted to get on with my own shit, but if provoked I can get the blood flowing pretty quick, and that seems to scare most kids, so that’s what I did. Oh, I wasn’t bad at drawing, my teachers used to say, and I have a bit of a head for maths. Stephen Hawking me!

I was really into music as well. Still am, I guess. I was always plugged in to stuff you’d never imagine someone like me listening to. I don’t care what it is; it just has this way of transporting me out of whatever bad situation I’m in. I can sing too. I mean it, I really can. All I have to do is listen to a number a couple of times and I’ve got the lyrics down. It was my party piece. Bought me lots of cred, it did, and it was always a good crack watching people’s faces like they couldn’t believe what they’re hearing. I’ve been in quite a few bands, mostly house or garage, but once I started with BJ on a more permanent basis I was always getting kicked out for not showing up.

So that’s my sob story. Tbh I don’t even know if you can read after what I did to you, maybe someone has to read to you. Am I sorry about that? Course I am, I’m not a total assw***. I seriously wish it hadn’t happened, but I can’t do anything about it now and I don’t see how hearing from me will make anything better for you.

So, Dan – I know you’ll be the first to read this – nice try, but that’s it I’m not up for any more. And yeah, OK, I’m probably depressed, that’s what you’ll say, isn’t it? But hey, if you can come up with something for me to feel good about, I’ll take it, ’cept it’s too late for that now, and it’s not me who needs to feel good really, is it? Not after what I did.

CHAPTER FIVE

Marcy was sitting at the dining table in their sunny seafront apartment, staring down at the mobile phone in her hand. She wasn’t actually seeing it; she was focused instead on the call she’d just ended and how she was going to explain it to Rebecca – Claudia.

Almost a month had passed since they’d left their old lives, but it was going to take a lot longer than that to get used to calling her thirty-six-year-old daughter by another name. It was likely to take even longer to stop missing her old friends, she was coming to realize, not to mention her beloved home.

Best not to dwell on it, it wouldn’t make anything feel better, only worse, and that wasn’t going to help any of them.

Curiously, she wasn’t having a problem with her granddaughter’s name, for Jasmine seemed to suit her better than Cara. Just like the flower, she was sweet and pretty and appeared far more delicate than she actually was. She’d always had plenty of spirit, had known her own mind and been filled with optimism until the horrors at home had effectively crushed her. Since they’d arrived here it had taken almost no time for her to come back to life, to blossom into the lively teenager who’d been subdued for so long. It was like giving water to a parched plant. She was settling in well at school, had almost finished her exams and had made several friends already. Moreover, only yesterday she’d passed an audition to play with the school orchestra in the new school year. This was the first time for several years that she’d put herself forward to be part of a musical ensemble; her violin performances, private lessons and even practice had stopped when she’d realized what her talent, her limelight, was costing her mother.

Marcus Huxley-Browne, that brutal, conniving egotist who’d tricked them all at the start into believing he was a decent and caring human being. How far from the truth that had turned out to be.

Taking an unsteady breath, Marcy looked around the room full of sunlight and soft, natural colours. She took in the mint-green sofas with pale blue cushions, the coral-coloured rugs covering pale oak floorboards, the coffee table that was a refashioned door, the artfully distressed vintage sideboard and all the small touches Claudia had added to reflect a nautical theme. Her daughter’s design skills were exceptional, and turning this place into a home with all her sewing and sanding, painting and crafting had done much to help her through this difficult time.

Glancing down at her phone again, Marcy felt her heartbeat quicken with concern. What had she done?

She escaped the question by tuning in to the sounds of the waves sweeping gently through the open windows. Diaphanous drapes fluttered in the breeze and in a fanciful part of her mind she could hear Jasmine’s bow gliding over the strings of her precious violin, haunting and ephemeral, proud and sweet. She loved to listen to her play, to marvel at the gift she’d been blessed with that was all her own. No one in the family that Marcy knew of had passed on this artistic gene, but as soon as they’d recognized it they’d nurtured it. Her father, Joel, had bought Jasmine her first instrument when she was only three, and for her ninth birthday he’d presented her with a copy of an Il Cessol Stradivarius. He’d known by then that he wasn’t going to make it to her tenth birthday, and so had given her the magnificent piece for her to play when she was older, maybe for her first professional engagement. It had always been her most prized possession, nothing else had ever come close, but for the past few years Marcy had looked after it at her home where it was safe.

Now it was here, carefully stored beneath Jasmine’s bed, as exquisite and treasured as ever, and it wouldn’t be long, Marcy felt, before Jasmine was ready to play it in public.

Getting up from her chair, Marcy went to put on the kettle. She wasn’t sure she wanted tea, but it was giving her something to do as she tried to decide how to tell Claudia what she’d done. Her daughter and granddaughter had always come first for her, they still did, otherwise she wouldn’t be here – and she truly didn’t regret coming, in spite of the hankering for her old routines. She’d find new ones, immerse herself in charity work, maybe even find a part-time job. However, none of it could happen if the news reports about them didn’t abate.

The search for Marcus Huxley-Browne’s missing wife and stepdaughter, and now his mother-in-law, had begun to stir up so many lurid and outlandish theories that Marcy was losing sleep over them. She’d known for a while that something had to be done, but Claudia wouldn’t discuss it. For her, immersed in her world of decorative pillows and hand-painted shell accessories, it was as though it wasn’t happening. Marcy had no such distraction, and the latest report that the police were preparing to dig up the back garden of the house in Kensington meant that she’d had to act.

‘Hey Nana,’ Jasmine trilled cheerfully as she came in the door, making Marcy jump.

‘Hello darling,’ Marcy responded, turning to watch her granddaughter dump a heavy school bag and battered violin case on the table. ‘You’re early. I wasn’t expecting you until six.’

‘I’ve just popped in to change out of my uniform,’ Jasmine explained, giving her a hug. ‘Are you OK? You looked miles away when I came in.’

Marcy forced a smile. ‘I was, but I’m fine. Do you want anything to eat?’

‘No, I’m cool, thanks. Where’s Mum?’

‘She went to buy some wiring for a lamp she’s making, but she texted just now to say she was popping into the post office to pick up a form for your provisional driver’s licence.’

Jasmine’s eyes lit up. ‘Awesomazing,’ she cheered joyfully. ‘Not only about the licence, but that she’s actually gone somewhere apart from the beach.’ Sobering slightly, she added, ‘Poor Mum. It’s all been so hard for her, hasn’t it, and not even knowing he’s gone to prison for two years seems to have cheered her up.’

‘Because he could be out in as little as eighteen months,’ Marcy reminded her. ‘Two years really isn’t enough. In my opinion he should have got life. But don’t let’s talk about him. Have you booked your first driving lesson yet? You know I’m paying for a course of six as your birthday present.’

‘You are the best, and I will, but it’s not for another three months so what’s the hurry? Oh, I know, you guys want me to be the chauffeur so you can have a drink when you go out.’

‘Rumbled,’ Marcy replied wryly. In truth they were so close to everything that they could walk, unless they were after a major supermarket shop or a browse around the factory outlets over in Somerset. ‘The instructors get pretty booked up,’ she cautioned, ‘so you should look into it soon. Did you ask your friends for some recommendations?’

‘Actually, I did, and apparently there’s a woman who lives out in one of the villages who gets everyone through first time, so I’ll give her a try. Now I need to get changed fast. I don’t want to be late for my lesson.’

Remembering she was seeing Anton, her violin coach, today, Marcy watched her bound off to her room and all over again she felt glad, happy, to see how well she was settling into this comparatively parochial world. That alone made the change, the sacrifice, worthwhile.

A few minutes later Jasmine was gone, violin case in one hand, mobile phone in the other as she chatted to her new BFF, Abby. Her contacts list must be growing by the day, Marcy reflected, and it was certainly about time she was able to live a normal life, if this was indeed what they were living. It didn’t always feel that way, but of course it would take time, and she had to admit that her own contacts list had accumulated a few numbers too. Dentist, doctor, estate agent, landlord, and a few new friends she’d made at the community centre. There was even quite an interesting man amongst them, Henry Matthews. He was a recently retired solicitor, about her age, whose cheery and somewhat dry demeanour seemed to incite goodwill in everyone. She hadn’t mentioned anything about him to Claudia, why would she when there was nothing to tell? He was just someone Marcy had got talking to the last time she was at the centre.

Hearing the front door open and close she experienced a sharp pang of nerves. She would have to explain what she’d done now, and she had no idea how her daughter was going to react.

As Claudia came in from the hall, looking too thin, but now tanned and almost as lovely as she used to be, she put down a shopping bag, a few brochures from an estate agent and the driving licence application form.

‘Everything OK?’ Marcy asked breezily.

Claudia turned to gaze at her, her eyes soft with affection, and yet still shadowed by the fear that continued to haunt her. ‘You don’t have to look like that,’ she said, ‘I already know.’

Marcy frowned. She couldn’t know. It wouldn’t be possible. ‘Know what?’ she countered, feigning surprise.

Claudia smiled wryly. ‘That you’ve spoken to the police in London to tell them we’re alive and well.’

Marcy’s heart skipped a beat. ‘How … But …’

‘I called too,’ Claudia interrupted. ‘I spoke to a Detective Inspector Phillips and he told me he’d already heard from you.’ Uneasy amusement showed in her eyes. ‘God knows what he must think of us, and I’ve no idea yet if we’re going to face charges for wasting police time, but apparently he’s coming to talk to us to verify that we are who we say we are.’

Moving past her astonishment, Marcy said dryly, ‘Well good luck with that.’

Claudia had to smile. ‘So, what exactly did you tell him?’ she asked, pulling out a chair to sit down.

Knowing there was no point trying to pretend she’d held anything back, Marcy sat down too and said, ‘I explained what a monster Marcus turned into after your marriage; about the abuse that’s been going on, and how much worse it became once the investigation into his business affairs started.’

Claudia nodded slowly, trying to imagine what the detective must have thought as he’d listened to the tale of domestic terror that would have been so much easier to describe than it had been to endure. The belittling, the intimidation, the insane jealousy of her dead husband, Joel. It had reached a point where Marcus couldn’t even bear to hear Joel’s name; just thank God he’d never turned his rage on Jasmine – only threatened to. However, Jasmine had somehow found out that he punished her mother for her musical talents, as if she was encouraging them just to spite him.

So Jasmine – Cara as she’d been then – had stopped playing the violin and had gradually broken with her friends to avoid having to invite anyone home.

Why had she, Claudia, allowed it to go on as long as it had? Why hadn’t she found the courage to leave sooner? People only asked those questions when they’d never been in such a situation themselves, trapped, smothered by a bully, bereft of confidence and terrified he’d carry out his threats to harm her daughter if she ever tried to leave.

‘All I need to know,’ he’d said the last time she’d visited him in prison – yes, she’d visited him while he was on remand, she’d had to or he’d have sent someone to the house to check on them – ‘Is that you’ll stand by me if this doesn’t end well. Tell me you’ll still be there when I come out.’

She hadn’t answered, had been unable to find any words.

‘Swear to me that you will,’ he growled urgently. ‘If I know I can trust you no one will come after you.’

No one will come after you.

Her silence made him draw back suddenly, grey eyes darkening with fury. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he hissed. ‘Tell me what I’m thinking is wrong.’

‘I don’t know what you’re thinking,’ she replied helplessly.

‘You fucking helped them, didn’t you?’ he spat. ‘That’s what I’m seeing … Bitch! You’ve been working with the police …’

She shook her head desperately.

‘If I find out you have you’ll pay, I hope you know that.’

She’d wondered who would make her pay, the foreign investors – launderers – he was protecting, no doubt because he knew his life wouldn’t be a long one if he didn’t stay silent? Or, more likely, one of his even more dubious connections.

He’d never mentioned the case he’d stuffed into the safe the day the police had come for him, so she hadn’t either, and no one had pulled aside the filing cabinet during a search of the house. For a long time she’d expected someone – his lawyer, maybe his sister (a raging sociopath if ever there was one) – to come for it, but no one had. It had remained where it was until the night before Claudia had left, when she’d used the code she’d watched him tap in the day of his arrest and discovered she’d memorized it correctly. She’d thought then that it might prove a kind of insurance policy, a way of protecting herself and Jasmine if anyone found them; she wasn’t sure what she thought now. In fact, for the most part, she tried to forget they had it.

‘When you made your call to the inspector,’ Marcy said carefully, ‘did you ask if it was possible to keep our whereabouts a secret?’

Claudia swallowed dryly as she shook her head. Neither of them knew for certain what would happen if Marcus found out where they were, but there was no doubt in either of their minds that he wouldn’t be in prison for nearly long enough and when he got out he’d feel the need to punish Claudia for trying to escape him.

It was just after eleven the next morning when Claudia showed DI Phillips and another detective into the flat. Both men wore sombre expressions, though they were polite and even friendly in the way they greeted and thanked her for seeing them. Phillips was just above average height with thick grey hair and shrewd brown eyes, while his colleague, clearly a decade or more younger, was a fiery redhead with a face full of freckles.

It felt odd, she reflected as she followed them along the hall, to have men in this space that she’d made so essentially feminine, but for the moment at least they didn’t feel threatening.

Her mother was in the kitchen making coffee to accompany the pastries she’d picked up from the bakery earlier. Jasmine had an exam today, so she’d gone to school. She knew that the police were coming to talk to her mother and grandmother; they’d decided at the start of this that they must never hold anything back from each other. She’d been nervous when she left, even afraid that she’d come home to find they’d been arrested and taken away, but Claudia had assured her that wouldn’t happen.

She hoped she was right.

‘This is my mother, Marcy Kavanagh,’ Claudia announced as they entered the living area.

Phillips stepped forward to shake Marcy’s hand and introduce himself.

Claudia could sense her mother’s anxiety, but Marcy’s expression remained confident as she said, ‘It’s good of you to come all this way to see us.’

Without commenting on that, Phillips identified the younger man as Detective Constable Leo Johnson from the local CID and after Johnson had also shaken hands, they both accepted the offer of coffee.

Claudia directed them to the table and as she set down the croissants and pain au raisins her mother carried through a tray of mugs, and a cafetière.

Phillips was the first to speak in a tone that was gruff, but not aggressive, and Claudia thought she detected tiredness in his eyes. ‘Following on from the conversation I had with your mother yesterday,’ he said to her, ‘I must ask why, if you felt you needed protection, you didn’t contact the police?’

Having expected the question, Claudia watched Marcy pouring the coffee as she said, ‘I needed to get away from my husband completely, to make sure my daughter was safe and do everything I could to stop him from finding us again. All you would have offered me was protection during the trial – or maybe a few weeks after – but that wouldn’t have been enough.’

Marcy added, ‘As I explained on the phone, he’s violent and unpredictable. And it’s not only what he did to my daughter, he also made threats against my granddaughter. We have reason to believe that while he’s in prison others have been instructed to “keep an eye on us”. He’s very controlling, you see, frighteningly so.’

Phillips’s expression revealed little as he took his coffee and declined a pastry, while Johnson tucked hungrily into a croissant.

For the next few minutes, to the accompanying sounds of seagulls, traffic and tourists drifting in from outside, Phillips outlined the offences they had committed and how wasting police time could be punishable by a custodial sentence.

Claudia felt her insides clench. ‘You don’t understand,’ she told him, her voice thick with emotion. ‘We weren’t thinking about the trial. We just had to get away.’ She took a gulp of coffee to calm herself, before adding, earnestly, ‘I really didn’t mean for our disappearance to cause so much … concern. I am very sorry for the trouble we’ve caused.’

How naïve did that sound? Unbearably, she realized, but at least he wasn’t looking scornful, or angry.

Marcy said, ‘Why did you start looking for us? We hadn’t done anything wrong; it’s not a crime to change your name, or to move house, or to erase your profiles from social media.’

Phillips said, ‘You could have done all that and still let us know you were doing it. No one would have stopped you. But to answer your question, you were reported missing, so we were obliged to follow it up.’

Claudia’s eyes met her mother’s. She said quietly, ‘I’m guessing my sister-in-law, Eugena, contacted you?’

Phillips neither confirmed nor denied it, only regarded her in a way that caused colour to rise in her cheeks. ‘Why did you leave your phones and laptops in the house?’ he asked curiously. ‘Wouldn’t it have made more sense to dispose of them?’

Claudia accepted that it would have, but it was too late now. ‘I suppose it was my way of telling my husband, and his sister,’ she said, ‘that we’d gone for good and there was no point looking for us because we’d left our old lives behind.’ She didn’t mention anything about the internet advice on disappearing, it was a site that might work well for some and so needed to remain in place.

Phillips arched a single eyebrow as he said, ‘Didn’t it occur to you that your disappearance could be interpreted another way?’

‘Not until I saw it on the news,’ she replied, managing to hold his gaze in spite of the intimidation she was starting to feel. He’s not Marcus, she reminded herself forcefully. He doesn’t mean you any harm, at least not in the same way.

‘And you didn’t come forward then because?’ he prompted.

Marcy said, ‘Because we didn’t want to be found. I think that’s already been established.’

Phillips inhaled and glanced at Leo Johnson as he leaned back in his chair. ‘What I think,’ he said, addressing Claudia, ‘is that you assumed if your husband and sister-in-law came under investigation regarding your disappearance, which they did, it would delay them from trying to find you. In other words, you made your disappearance seem suspicious in order to buy yourselves some time.’

‘That’s not true,’ Claudia responded quickly, and heard the faint rasp in her voice that weakened her words. She never used to be so apprehensive or afraid to assert herself, but it would change, she determined, just not in time for this. ‘I had no idea Eugena would report us missing. If anything I expected her to try and find us herself, or employ someone to do it for her.’ Her eyes went briefly to her mother and she could see that their thoughts were the same – contacting the police to help find her brother’s missing wife had clearly backfired on Eugena in a way she should have foreseen, but apparently hadn’t. So perhaps she wasn’t quite so clever after all.

Marcy said, ‘My daughter has already apologized for the trouble we’ve caused, and I’d like to apologize, too. I should have contacted you sooner, I realize that, but the problem was – and remains – if the press finds out where we are, our attempts to start afresh will have been pointless.’

Phillips regarded her carefully apparently measuring his words before responding. ‘It’s going to be necessary to explain why the search has been called off, have you thought of that?’

Marcy nodded bleakly.

‘Do you have any answers?’

She said, ‘You wouldn’t have to give any details of where we are.’

After a moment he surprised her by saying, ‘No, we wouldn’t.’

Claudia wasn’t sure if she was understanding correctly. Was he really agreeing to keep their whereabouts a secret? Marcy was very still as she waited for him to continue.

Phillips stared at his empty mug and spoke almost as if he was only working this out now. ‘The press will bombard us with questions,’ he said, ‘but the only answer we need to give is that you’re alive and well and that we won’t be pursuing matters any further.’

Claudia and Marcy stared at him.

Johnson cleared his throat as Phillips went on, ‘Of course there’s nothing the police can do to stop a member of the press from launching a search of their own.’

Claudia’s eyes moved to him. ‘Do you think they will?’ she asked, certain they would. The press loved nothing more than exposés and exclusives. And then there was Eugena: on behalf of Marcus, she would certainly initiate a search, if she hadn’t already.

‘They won’t learn anything from us,’ Phillips assured them. ‘I haven’t shared anything with my team yet, and there’s no reason for anyone, either press or public, to be in touch with Leo here concerning yourselves. As long as you are able to keep your identities quiet, I see no reason why it can’t stay a secret.’

Claudia couldn’t think what to say. It was everything they’d hoped for, but there was more to it, she could sense it as solidly as if another presence had stolen into the room.

His head went down again, and he pressed his fingers to his eye sockets, digging in hard; the gesture of a fatigued and troubled man. ‘My daughter was the victim of a violent marriage,’ he confessed in a tone that belied the torment beneath it. ‘We – I – should have done more to protect her. There was a restraining order, but he got to her and … She was an only child and our lives have never been the same since we lost her.’

Tears instantly stung Claudia’s eyes to see how broken he was inside. A father who’d lost the most precious person in the world to him, and because of who he was, what he did for a living, he was unable to forgive himself. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said hoarsely.

He nodded briefly and his tone became crisp as he replied, ‘We don’t want the same happening to you.’ He stood and looked Claudia in the eye. ‘You have my number,’ he said, ‘but Leo is here, on the ground. Don’t be afraid to contact him if you feel the need to.’

Leo put his card on the table as he stood too. ‘Anything,’ he told them. ‘If you feel it needs checking out just call.’

Marcy thanked him, and Claudia could see that she was as dazed as her daughter was by the unexpected turn this had taken.

‘There’s just one other thing,’ Phillips said, before leaving. ‘According to your sister-in-law something is missing from the house. Can you throw any light on that?’

Heat spread all the way through Claudia as she pictured the attaché case, now hidden beneath her mother’s bed. ‘I don’t know what she means,’ she said, trying for confusion and hitting a note that was slightly too shrill. ‘Did she say what it was?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but she seemed keen to get it back.’

After the detectives had gone Claudia returned to the sitting room to find her mother gazing down at the street below, watching the two men getting into a car.

‘Do you think he believed me?’ Claudia asked, twisting her fingers anxiously.

Marcy turned back into the room. ‘About the attaché case? I don’t think it matters. He’s clearly not interested in pursuing it.’

Claudia stared at the empty mugs and cafetière on the table. ‘If we could work out a way of getting it to her do you think she’d stop trying to find us?’

Her mother replied without hesitation. ‘No, I don’t, and as far as I’m concerned the money at least belongs to you.’

Claudia didn’t argue with that, since she was only too aware that Marcus had taken the profit she’d made from the sale of her and Joel’s house to invest and she’d never seen as much as a single penny in return. Whether the cash in the briefcase covered the amount, she had no idea. She hadn’t counted it, but it was certainly a sizeable sum. ‘What about the documents?’ she said, certain they were of as much, if not more interest to Marcus and his sister.

Marcy shrugged. ‘Let’s hang on to them,’ she replied. ‘At least for now.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Andee apologized, sinking into a booth at the Seafront Café where one of her closest friends was waiting. ‘It’s been a crazy morning in the world of interior design. How are you? You look wonderful, as usual.’

Leanne Delaney twinkled happily. She was a striking woman in her mid-forties with a Pre-Raphaelite look about her that was at once romantic, earthy and fiery. ‘Right back at you,’ she smiled. ‘And don’t worry about being late, I’ve only just got here myself. I’ve ordered you a glass of white, tell me I did wrong.’

‘You did not. I need it after the showdown I’ve just had with a contractor.’

Curiously, Leanne asked, ‘Are we talking about the new builds up on Westleigh Heights?’

‘The very same. I’m supposed to be dressing the show home this week, but they’re so behind that the decorators can’t even start to wallpaper and half the furniture is about to be delivered.’

‘Mm, awkward. Anything I can do?’

‘If you know how to make curtains I’d worship at your feet for ever. The woman I normally use has just let me down, and everyone else on my list is up to their eyes.’

Leanne grimaced. ‘Not a part of my skills-set, I’m afraid, but I’ll definitely give it some thought and let you know if I come up with anyone. Aha, here’s Fliss, the goddess of grapes.’

They greeted the café’s owner affectionately, and for several minutes the three of them discussed how their various businesses were doing. The Seafront was always busy no matter the time of year given its status as the town’s go-to breakfast and lunch venue, while Leanne’s vintage emporium further along the Promenade had done exceptionally well over the summer. Andee, as always, was involved in so many projects besides her design business that there was too much to go into, so she mostly let the others talk.

‘So, who’s joining you?’ Fliss asked, nodding at the table’s third setting.

‘Dan Collier,’ Andee replied. ‘Don’t be surprised if he gets on both your cases to become practitioners in our restorative justice programme.’

‘Oh, yes, how’s that going?’ Fliss asked, waving goodbye to someone who was leaving. ‘I hear you’ve already got an executive board in place. Are you just waiting for funding to come through?’

‘Not anymore,’ Andee responded warmly. ‘Thanks to a very generous donation from a local businessman we’re already taking in referrals.’

Intrigued, Leanne said, ‘You mean actual cases? No more rehearsals?’

‘We have two genuine cases running at the moment,’ Andee told her. ‘One is a burglary and the other’s a hate crime, but there are others under consideration, so we need to start recruiting. I thought your mother would be a good candidate,’ she suggested to Leanne, ‘and I wondered about Klaudia,’ she added, referring to Leanne’s partner in the vintage shop she owned. ‘Speaking Polish will make her a tremendous asset.’

Leanne blinked. ‘Mum will definitely want to be involved,’ she assured her. ‘I’ll talk to Klaudia and let you know, but I’m sure she’ll say yes.’

‘If you need more men,’ Fliss said, glancing over her shoulder at the sound of a crash in the kitchen followed by angry voices, ‘I’ll put my thinking cap on. Now I’d better go and find out what’s up in the paradise of my workplace.’

Left to their wine and menus, Andee said, ‘OK. I’m opting for the spicy lentil soup. It seems right for this miserable weather.’

With a sigh Leanne replied, ‘Will it ever stop raining? But at least we had a lovely August and the forecast isn’t bad for the coming weekend, thank God. We’ve promised Abby a barbecue for her seventeenth birthday party, although at the moment she’s only invited her latest best friend, Jasmine. So not too much work there, but watch this space. Actually, there’s a thought, I’m sure Jasmine mentioned something about her mother being into soft furnishings. Maybe she’s someone you could talk to about curtains?’

Ready to grasp at any straw, Andee said, ‘Do you have a name or number for her?’

‘I know her name’s Claudia, but I’ll have to ask Abby or Jasmine for her details. I’ll text Abby now, if you like. She might get back to us by the end of lunch.’

After the message was sent, she put aside her phone and leaned in to Andee conspiratorially. ‘OK, to the real reason for this lunch – but you must promise not to breathe a word for now.’

Andee drew a cross over her heart.

‘Tom’s asked me to marry him and I’ve accepted.’

Andee’s eyes widened. ‘You accepted?’ she cried in mock horror. ‘I felt sure you’d turn him down when he finally got around to it.’

Leanne shot her a meaningful look and as they both laughed, Andee started to get up to hug her.

‘No, don’t make a fuss,’ Leanne cautioned, waving her back down. ‘I don’t want anyone to know yet, although the chances of my mother being able to hold it in are about as good as mine of fitting into the size ten wedding dress we have in the shop.’

Andee laughed. ‘So, when are you planning to do it?’

‘We’re still discussing that, but it’ll definitely be just close friends and family, so obviously that includes you, Graeme and your mother.’

‘On behalf of us all, I accept. Will it be at the Tramonto?’ She was referring to the exquisite Italianate villa on Kesterly Heights that Tom had inherited a couple of years back from an aunt and Graeme and Andee, with their joint skills as developer and designer, had helped turn into an exclusive twelve-suite hotel.

‘Probably,’ Leanne replied. ‘It’ll depend on bookings, but …’ She broke off as a furious-looking waif of a woman stomped out of the kitchen, banged against tables as she crossed the café and slammed noisily out of the door.

Andee said, ‘Wasn’t that Maria Colbrook?’ She watched the diminutive woman’s awkward gait as she marched off through the rain, trying to remember the last time she’d seen her, and decided it must have been years rather than months ago.

‘No idea,’ Leanne replied, ‘I’ve never seen her before, but it’s looking like she’s just lost her job.’ She checked her phone as a text arrived. ‘Great, it’s from Abby with Jasmine’s mother’s number. I’ll forward it to you.’ After doing so, she said, ‘They’re a sweet family, grandmother, mother and daughter, much like we were at Ash Morley before Tom changed our dynamic. To fill you in a bit, they haven’t been in the area for long, only a few months, and according to Jasmine her mother hasn’t made many friends yet.’

Picking up on that, Andee said, ‘So we need to come to the rescue?’

‘Maybe, if she wants it. Although she almost never comes in when she drops Jasmine at ours, so it could be she’d rather keep herself to herself.’

‘What about the grandmother?’

‘A different story. My mother’s got to know her a little through the community centre, and apparently she’s just become a trustee of the theatre. And wait for this, she’s offered to sponsor a concert next spring.’

Andee was impressed. ‘That’s very generous of her.’

‘Isn’t it, but I suspect she’s doing it mainly so Jasmine can show off what a brilliant violinist she is. She’s incredibly talented, can play just about anything you throw at her, and not just classical. Abby, who has no such skills, is planning to be her manager or producer, maybe agent, I forget which.’ With a maternal sigh, she added, ‘Actually, it’s wonderful to see the two of them together. Abby was quite lost after her best friend Tanya moved away, but she and Jasmine have been inseparable over the school holidays.’

Andee said, ‘Aha, here comes our soup. I don’t remember ordering it, do you?’

‘You didn’t,’ Fliss informed her. ‘This is just to keep you going while we sort things out in the kitchen. It’s on the house.’

As she set the bowls down, Andee said, ‘Was that Maria Colbrook who stormed out just now?’

With a sigh Fliss said, ‘It was. Honestly, you can’t help someone for trying. This is the third time I’ve given her a job and she either burns the food, clouts one of the other staff, or offends the customers. Today she threw a cast-iron pot at Kevin, the cook. Missed thank God, but I had to fire her, or Kevin would have walked. I’ll put money on her being on the doorstep again before long begging for more work. If she doesn’t get hiked off to prison again first. Anyway, I’d better get back to it, the orders are piling up and I’m trying to do the till as well.’

‘I’ll finish this and come and take over the front of house,’ Leanne promised. ‘It’ll leave you free to chat with Dan when he comes,’ she said to Andee. ‘But first, I’ve been thinking, should we try to find a partner for him? He’s highly eligible, and he must be very lonely rattling around that lovely duplex over his office.’

‘I think he prefers it that way,’ Andee told her, ‘He’s been incredibly busy with the RJ project lately as well as his law firm, but don’t worry, Graeme and I are keeping an eye on him.’

By the time Dan arrived Andee and Leanne had finished their lunch. After a warm greeting, Andee hopped up from the table, saying, ‘I’m going to make a call. I’ll be right back.’

In the café’s cloakroom which was full of wet coats and umbrellas, she moved further along to the rose-scented area outside the bathrooms and connected to the number Leanne had given her for Claudia. Disappointingly she was bumped through to voicemail, so she left a message. ‘Hi, my name’s Andee Lawrence. Leanne Delaney gave me your number. I was hoping to talk to you about some drapes that I need making in a hurry. It’s quite a big order, for a show home. If you’re interested and would like to talk more you can get me on this number. I’m really hoping to hear from you. Thanks.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Claudia watched her mother’s face as she replayed the message from Andee Lawrence, knowing very well what Marcy was thinking. It was probably much the same as she’d thought herself when she’d first heard it, although her mother would have far more optimistic hope going on than she’d had.

At last something that might persuade Claudia to emerge from her shell.

‘Are you going to call her back?’ Marcy asked, returning the phone and carrying on brushing her hair in the mirror. She was clearly trying not to make a big deal of it, continuing to get ready for a meeting at the community centre, and given how carefully she’d applied her make-up Claudia wondered, not for the first time lately, if there was someone special on her mother’s horizon.

‘I think if I don’t call back you’ll leave me,’ Claudia quipped.

Marcy smiled, her blue eyes softening in a way that made her seem younger and happier than she’d looked in a while. ‘It’s a great opportunity to start building your business again,’ she said, ‘and to meet someone new.’

Claudia wasn’t going to deny that, for it was what she’d thought herself, and turning to look at the dining table laden with dishes of coloured beads and charms, special threads and wire, her pliers, glue and needles, she gave a small sigh. She’d made jewellery several years ago and sold it online, and now she was in the process of doing more, rebranding her designs as Simply Baubles. It wasn’t going to make her a fortune, but it wasn’t a fortune that she needed.

It was a life.

‘You shouldn’t waste any time,’ Marcy urged. ‘If you don’t get back to her right away, she’ll find someone else. You can do this.’

In spite of the anxiety tightening her heart, Claudia said, ‘OK, I’ll call her now,’ and tapping Andee Lawrence’s number on the phone screen, she looked at her mother again as she waited for the connection.

Marcy’s face was full of hope, eyes bright with encouragement and Claudia knew she was doing this as much for her as she was for herself.

‘Hi, Andee Lawrence speaking.’

Claudia’s eyes drifted to the rain on the windows. ‘It’s Claudia Winters,’ she said, feeling oddly as though she was stepping into another world, with no knowledge of where she might land. ‘I got your message. I– it’s possible I could help you, but I need to know more about …’

‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Andee replied in a rush. ‘Maybe we could meet at the property so you can see exactly what’s required – and I’ll have to pray you won’t go screaming off into the night when you see what I’m asking for.’

With a smile, Claudia said, ‘We only arrived in the area a few months ago so I haven’t really set myself up yet, so I don’t have any workers or suppliers, at least not locally.’ Could she contact the team she’d used before? No, of course not. Was she out of her mind? ‘If you’re in a hurry …’

‘Don’t worry, we can work it out together,’ Andee assured her. ‘I have plenty of contacts, and if you need help sourcing fabrics I can make several suggestions, although I’m sure you’re much better connected in that field than I am.’

Since she wouldn’t have to use her old name when placing orders, Claudia said more confidently, ‘OK. If you text me the address and a time I’ll be there. I have no other commitments so I can fit in with you.’

‘Music to my ears. I’ll do it right away.’

Clicking off the line, Claudia wondered where her mother had gone but didn’t go to look. Instead she walked to the window and rearranged the folds of a gauzy drape. She really didn’t think Andee Lawrence’s call was a trick, something set up by her sister-in-law, but she could no more stop the thought than she could the traffic outside. She scanned the Promenade for familiar faces, but saw only raincoated tourists braving the late September weather and locals going about their business.

‘No one’s out there,’ Marcy said gently as she came back into the room. ‘You don’t need to be scared.’

Claudia turned around. ‘I know,’ she replied, and drew a hand down her slender neck as though to relieve the tension, ‘and one of these days I might stop thinking there is.’ She smiled. ‘It’s not happening as often now.’

It was true, the sense of being followed or watched was no longer as consuming, and she’d even stopped seeing Eugena in the supermarket, coming out of the station, in the café, walking towards her on the beach … Women who actually looked nothing like her could morph into her for brief, horrifying moments, but thankfully she was getting this under better control.

It wasn’t quite the same with Marcus, for she still had nightmares about him and his cruelty; awful, terrible scenes of violence and anger that stayed with her after waking up, that even revisited her during the day. Eugena had known what he was like, and some sadistic part of the woman had actually seemed to enjoy all the terror and misery her brother inflicted. ‘That’ll be the address,’ Marcy said, as a text arrived on Claudia’s phone.

Claudia read the message twice and turned shining eyes to her mother. ‘She wants to meet later this afternoon,’ she declared, surprised by a pleasing rush of eagerness. ‘She says to bring wellies, an umbrella and a portfolio of my work.’

With a cry of joy Marcy came to embrace her. ‘This is going to be your first commission as Claudia,’ she stated determinedly. ‘We should celebrate when you get back. Jasmine’s going to be over the moon.’

Knowing how true that was, Claudia felt another burst of happiness, while thinking of the interior magazines she’d had to leave behind that contained lavish colour spreads of her designs. It wasn’t possible to use them for they connected her to the past. However, she had an impressive PowerPoint presentation on her iPad that didn’t identify her at all. ‘I should text Leanne Delaney to thank her for suggesting me,’ she said, starting to clear the table. ‘Even if I don’t get the job, it was lovely of her to do that.’

‘We could always,’ Marcy suggested carefully, ‘invite her to celebrate with us, if she’s free, and if it happens.’

Claudia tried to picture it, someone else here in the flat, raising a glass with them as if they were friends. It was an exhilarating thought, and she’d certainly warmed to Leanne on the few occasions their paths had crossed.

I can do this, I really can, she told herself as she began collecting together everything she was going to need. And by the time she’d lugged it all down to the car her imagination was so busy conjuring a dynamic and fruitful meeting that she didn’t even think to check if anyone was watching her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dan’s been here today and surprise, surprise, he’s ‘very disappointed’ by the last letter I wrote. ‘Archie,’ he said, ‘you and I both know you can do better than this, so come on, lad. Step up to it.’

What he doesn’t seem to understand is that I never really care too much about disappointing people; I’ve been doing it for so long I might even be better at it than memorizing songs.

Anyway, he said he wouldn’t come back if I didn’t start playing the game (he didn’t use that phrase, because none of it’s a game to him), what he actually said was, ‘You’ve seen the last of me if this is how you’re going to behave.’

I said, ‘Bye mate. Nice knowing you.’

He looked at me with those laser eyes of his and kept on looking at me until I chucked up my hands and said, ‘What’s going on, man? What do you want from me?’

‘You know what I want.’

I did. He thinks you have a right to know about the person who hurt you, and he reckons that deep down I want to tell you.

I don’t know what kind of planet he lives on – can’t remember where Superman comes from now – but hey, like I’ve said before he’s not an easy bloke to argue with, so in the end I gave it up. I don’t want him to stop coming (wouldn’t tell him that) and he could be right that I do want to tell you, though it beats me why I would. Or why you’d want to hear it.

Let me warn you right off that mine is not a good story, and I’ve got no skill as a writer, but I guess you’ve got that picture already.

So here goes: I already told you my mother’s a nutjob and that we lived with my grandparents until one croaked and the other got carted off to the whacky shack. Before that happened it was their job to keep me out of the hands of social services when my ma was away. Everyone knew Ma would go mental if she came back and found I was gone, and I promise you really don’t want my ma going mental. Where did she go when she was gone? Depends. Sometimes she was in nick for not paying her council tax, or shoplifting, disturbing the peace, that sort of thing. Other times she was taken away to places I didn’t know anything about until I was older. BJ would turn up when he felt like it, give her a beating then stuff her in his car and drive off. Sometimes we didn’t see her for weeks and when she came back she’d be in a right state, shaking and crying and needing a fix so bad we had to give it to her. (Shit is never difficult to get hold of on our estate.)

When she wasn’t in nick or off doing stuff for BJ – what I really mean is when she was sober and not feeling shit-scared of the world or mouthing off at it the way she sometimes did (complex woman my ma) – she’d have a go at taking care of me. She’d buy me clothes, cook my food (terrible cook) and tell me to get on with my homework like she even knew what it was. My mates all thought she was weird, but they kind of respected her because she never got in my face about stuff, and would let them treat our house like it was theirs.

I never told any of them about the clearing up me and my gran had to do after one of her bad days. Gross it was, and I didn’t talk about the low-grade smack I used to get for her from Leroy two doors down to stop her tearing herself to bits. No one needed to know about any of that, although they probably did anyway, just never mentioned it. Most of the kids had one parent or both who got rolling stoned every day – and there was none of the good stuff in our neck of the woods, I can tell you that.

Did I ever try it myself?

Course I did. I’ve done it all, collie-weed (that’s some dank-ass marijuana that is, you can get really toked on that, know what I mean); crack, meth, black tar, all the trippy shit, you name it. First time I had some I was about six, I guess, and I remember how much it made the grown-ups laugh. I expect it was a hilarious sight watching a kid get high, although I think mostly it sent me to sleep.

My big connection to the recreationals started when I was about ten and BJ decided it was time to get me initiated into the real world, meaning his world. So next time he turned up at our gaff, instead of taking my ma after he’d roughed her up and helped himself to what dough she had, he took me instead.

Was I scared? You bet, but he made me feel kind of grown up, so I soon got over it, especially when he explained what I had to do.

‘It’s simple,’ he said. ‘I get the gear from the dudes I know – you don’t ever want to upset them, Archie, not if you got an urge to stay alive – and then I drive you around to make the deliveries. A kind of newspaper round, if you like, but these days we’ve moved on a bit.’

‘What are we delivering?’ I asked him (talk about green, but remember I was only ten).

‘Stuff. You don’t need to know what it is, but it’s serious quality and it’s our job to get it to the PCs who pay top dollar for it.’

‘PCs?’

‘Posh C***s. They buy big, I mean seriously big, for their carousels – orgies, pimp fests – but you don’t need to know about that, cos you’re too young for it all, and it don’t involve you. You just have to make the delivery while I wait on double yellows like we’re DPD or Yodel, then I take you to the next drop-off, and same thing happens. Never, never hand anything over to the client until you’ve got the cash in your hot little hand. Understood? Whatever excuse they give for not having any on them, we’re not NatWest with the telephone banking, so you do not part with the goods until they’ve paid. If they start kicking off, you just leg it back to me, bringing the stuff, and I’ll sort it out. Got it?’

‘Got it.’

‘You’ll be expected to keep your mouth shut about this, so don’t go bragging to your fuckwit mates and playing the big man when you get home. If you do I’ll know and I won’t be happy. And you know what happens if I’m not happy. Your old lady gets it, that’s what’ll happen and you don’t want that now, do you?’

I began earning some decent cash almost from the get-go, and you should have seen some of the places we delivered to. These PCs lived in some serious gaffs all over the West End, down by the river, around the City … I never knew where we were half the time, or what the areas were called, I only got to know that later when I was older and able to get the Tube on my own if BJ wasn’t available. I understood by then that the dudes he worked for were based in North London – sorry no names or exact places, info classified – and that what I was delivering was mostly chem-sex drugs which can be crystal meth, GHB, miaow miaow, that sort of thing. Sometimes though it was cash or phones – that was more inter-gang stuff – and later, when I got myself a reputation as someone reliable, it was shivvies and even toolies. (That’s knives and guns to you.)

Yeah, I moved weapons around the country, sometimes going as far north as Manchester or even Glasgow. I slipped between the cracks like a shadow, they said, meaning no one ever really noticed me. It seemed I had a knack for keeping my head down, or looking harmless, or just plain dumb. The other kids didn’t have it so easy and a few got caught. If that happened and the PCs heard about it all hell would break loose with the dudes because business would have to shut down for a while. But everyone knew to keep their mouths shut; if they didn’t someone close to them would pay and they’d never grass anyone up again.

Anyways, when I wasn’t working believe it or not I was at school, turning up randomly after being away for a week or two and the teachers would say, ‘Where you been Archie?’ ‘Did you bring a note from your mother?’ Once or twice the head called me in for a chat, but it never really came to anything. You see, I never acted up or caused trouble like some of the others; I wasn’t violent, or disruptive, or a threat to their points system. When I was there I just kept my shit together and did the work. Otherwise I think they’d have excluded me for all my absences, but that only happened a couple of times and they always took me back.

I’m going to stop this letter now because I have to be somewhere, but I’ll give it to Dan the next time he comes so he can ‘clean it up’ as he puts it.

Before he leaves I’ll ask him how you are, and I expect he’ll tell me, and then I’ll wish I hadn’t brought it up. It always goes like that, but I can’t just say nothing can I, not when I’m doing this for you even if it never ends up getting to you.

CHAPTER NINE

As Claudia drove up to Westleigh Heights, following the directions Andee had texted her, she was doing her best to spot any ‘for sale’ signs outside the properties she passed. This was one of the areas where she, her mother and Jasmine had agreed they’d like to settle, on the edge of town, close to the moor and overlooking the bay. However, homes here didn’t come up often and there didn’t seem to be anything new to the market today.

Finally reaching the board she’d been told to look out for announcing an exclusive development of eight detached residences each with half an acre of land, she indicated to turn in. Fifty metres or so along a wide dirt track pitted with puddles and potholes she arrived at what she presumed to be the unfinished show home. Its style was mock Tudor, not exactly to her taste, but it was certainly striking and would probably turn out to be quite impressive on completion.

As she parked alongside a sleek black Mercedes, a tall, dark-haired woman in a padded raincoat and welly boots appeared from around the side of the house and waved a greeting.

Waving back, Claudia ran to the boot of her car, gathered up her heavy fabric-sample books and the holdall containing the tools of her trade, and ran through the wind and drizzle to where the woman was now waiting at the unvarnished front door.

‘Hi, you must be Claudia,’ she smiled warmly. ‘I’m Andee. Lovely to meet you.’

Immediately arrested by the unusual blue eyes, Claudia felt a swell of gratitude towards the woman as she shook her hand. ‘I hope you haven’t been waiting long,’ she grimaced. ‘I got caught up on the coast road, I’m afraid.’

‘Roadworks, I know, but don’t worry, I have plenty to do here to keep me occupied. Let’s go in out of this gale. It’s still pretty much a shell, as you’ll see, but at least the main structure is complete and the windows are in. Kitchen not finished, I’m afraid, so I can’t offer you tea or coffee, and plumbing not connected either so if you need to spend a penny you’ll have to go behind a hedge, or along the lane to the Portaloos.’

‘Where are the builders?’ Claudia asked, taking in the spacious entrance hall with black and white chequered floor tiles, ungrouted, freshly plastered walls and large oak staircase. ‘Everywhere seems so quiet and didn’t I read on the sign that completion is due by Christmas?’

Andee groaned as she went through an open set of double doors into a substantial room with a granite fireplace at its centre, built-in bookshelves, two large smeary windows at one end and double French doors at the other. ‘They’ve just been fired,’ she explained. ‘They only got the job because the firm the developer normally uses was tied up elsewhere. Fortunately, the builder of choice has unexpectedly come free, so he and his team are starting tomorrow, which gives us a fighting chance of completing by early spring.’ She held up two fingers, firmly crossed. ‘Late, but not as bad as it might have been.’

Claudia smiled and stooped to set down her bag and books. ‘Are they all sold?’ she asked, not sure whether she was interested, but there was no harm in finding out.

‘I know that six have deposits on them,’ Andee replied, ‘but there are two left on the south side, closest to the moor, and frankly they’re going to be dark.’

Claudia wrinkled her nose. They certainly didn’t want a dark house.

‘Are you looking?’ Andee asked. ‘Because if you are there’s a gorgeous old Georgian coach house that’s just come on the market. It belongs to the original Haylesbury estate. We’re on the Haylesbury estate here, by the way. It’s in serious need of renovation, but the structure seems pretty sound. Would that sort of thing interest you?’

Claudia’s heart had already tripped with excitement. ‘Absolutely,’ she confirmed. ‘It’s a dream of mine, bringing an old Georgian property back to life.’

‘Then I think you’re going to love this one. It’s mostly single-storey, for the carriages to drive in and out of once upon a time, with a clock tower at the centre and beautiful arched windows along the front of each wing. We can take a look at it after, if you like. It’s not accessible from this plot, we’ll have to go back to the main road and in through the old estate gates about a hundred yards further on. The manor burned down about ten years ago and was never rebuilt, so there are just open fields behind it that lead on to the moor.’ Picking up a laptop from the small trestle table she was using as a desk, Andee said, ‘I’ve got some photographs of it here somewhere, but before we get to it we probably ought to focus on this place. I can show you the sort of thing I have in mind because the developer wants it to be similar to another show home we did together last year. Which isn’t to say I’m not open to new ideas, if you have any.’

‘Is the developer someone you work with often?’ Claudia asked, taking out her iPad ready to present her own portfolio.

‘And also live with.’ Andee’s smile was so infectious it made Claudia break into one of her own.

As they swapped devices Claudia said chattily, ‘Are you from this area?’

‘Indeed I am. Graeme, my partner, isn’t, but he’s been here so long he might as well be. And you?’

Claudia felt herself flush. Although she’d expected to be asked about her life before Kesterly-on-Sea, she already didn’t want to deceive this woman. ‘Oh, I–I’m from London,’ she said awkwardly, and opening up Andee’s show-home file on the laptop she began to scrutinize what had been done before.

Minutes later she was feeling almost childishly proud as Andee swiped through the shots of her work on the iPad, murmuring words like, ‘wow’, ‘amazing’, ‘stunning’, and ‘so original’.

Realizing she might be appearing too interested in her own designs, Claudia continued scrolling through Andee’s photographs, but she hadn’t got far before Andee said, ‘Put that down. What you have here is so much more … sophisticated, different, but please don’t ever tell Cassie I said that. She’s who usually does the drapes and soft furnishings for me. She’s gone to take care of her invalided father, by the way, and isn’t expecting to be back any time soon. Did you do all the cushions and throws in these shots?’

Claudia nodded.

‘And the bedspreads?’

Claudia nodded again. ‘Making things is my passion,’ she said, trying to sound modest, but not sure she’d succeeded.

Andee swiped through the presentation again. ‘You have an incredible eye for colour and detail,’ she commented admiringly, ‘and presumably a thriving business – unless all these pictures were taken in your own home.’

Claudia laughed as a flutter of nerves went through her. ‘No, they’re from clients’ homes,’ she replied, ‘or past clients.’ She couldn’t think what to add to that apart from, ‘I’m glad you like what you’ve seen.’

‘I love it, and if you’re interested in the commission we need to start talking dates, styles, fabrics, pricing … You mentioned on the phone that you haven’t built up a team of workers yet, but there’s a good chance you can take over Cassie’s. Do you have someone to do the installations?’

‘I don’t,’ Claudia admitted, ‘but if …’

‘Not to worry, I can help with that. Now, if you take a look at the show home on my laptop you’ll see the furniture that we’ll be bringing here. The colours have come out reasonably well, but it’s probably best if we visit it in storage so you can be certain of shade. Before that though, we should discuss style. So, over to you. Can you talk me through how you see these windows and French doors being dressed?’

In her element now, Claudia began to describe her ideas, illustrating them with examples of drapes she’d made before, suggesting modifications here and there, varying lengths and swags, pleats, tucks, linings and waterfalls, always careful to gauge Andee’s responses before continuing.

Two hours later, having been into every one of the six downstairs rooms and all five upstairs with Claudia taking photographs, making sketches and explaining her vision, they were back in the hall and laughing at how fast the time had flown.

‘I think we’re going to work very well together,’ Andee announced, clearly as pleased with their new partnership as Claudia was, ‘especially if you can pull most of it off inside a month. Obviously you’ll need plenty of backup for that, so I’ll make some calls from the car on my way home to pave the way for you.’

Claudia said, ‘Thank you, and I’ll try to email over estimates of cost by tomorrow. If I think I’m going to have any problems sourcing the fabrics we’ve discussed I’ll let you know right away.’

‘Excellent. And thanks so much for coming today. I finally feel as though everything’s going to be possible again.’

Thrilled, Claudia tucked away her measuring tapes and camera and heard herself saying rashly, ‘I’d really like to see the coach house before we go?’

‘Of course, I’m glad you reminded me. If I’d known I’d have brought the keys with me, but you’ll get a pretty good idea of it from the exterior and if you don’t fall in love with it on sight I’ll have to review my already high opinion of you.’

It took all of three minutes to drive back down the lane and along the road to where a set of dilapidated gates was wide open and partially unhinged. Claudia drove in behind Andee and followed the Mercedes along a short track with one simple curve, and although the rain was coming down heavily now nothing, absolutely nothing could detract from the charm of the house they saw before them, as they pulled up. It was just as Andee had described it, with a central clock tower, and two single-storey wings either side of it, each with three huge arched windows that had clearly once been carriage doors. Apart from its perfect symmetry and the exquisite limestone façade (badly stained and cracked, but repairable), its character seemed so alive and welcoming that Claudia was ready to believe it was waking up just for her.

Her passenger door opened and Andee jumped in, quickly closing it behind her. ‘What do you think?’ she asked eagerly.

Claudia couldn’t tear her eyes away. ‘I already love it,’ she murmured, gazing at the weather-beaten front door with a broken transom above it and crumbling pillars holding up a storm-damaged porch. ‘I’m going to take a closer look, if that’s OK?’

‘Be my guest. In fact, I’ll come with you.’

Pulling up their hoods they picked a path through what must have once been a carriage turning space, now cracked and weed-strewn, and went to peer in through the arched windows to the left of the front door. Claudia’s heart instantly swelled at the sight of a huge, old-fashioned kitchen swathed in grime and cobwebs, with a boarded-up window on the far side above a grimy butler’s sink, and barred French doors leading to the back yard. It had so much potential that she simply couldn’t stop her imagination from flying.

‘Something else, isn’t it?’ Andee commented.

‘It certainly is,’ Claudia agreed.

Through the arched windows to the right of the main door was a large rectangular room with a high corniced ceiling, an eyesore of a tiled fireplace, an upturned chair and rags on the dusty floorboards and a staircase in one corner.

Not caring about getting wet any more, Claudia stood back to look up at the tower. ‘Are their rooms up there?’ she asked.

‘Two quite big ones,’ Andee replied. ‘And there are more either side of these main wings – you see the smaller windows? I’m guessing the old coach master lived at one end and probably other staff were housed at the opposite end. More recently they’ve been converted into bedrooms, but they can be anything you want them to be.’

Rain was running down Claudia’s face as she shook her head in wonder, taking in the sheer elegance of the place in its secluded setting of old trees and ragged bushes. ‘I don’t have to go inside or around the back to know that this is perfect for us,’ she declared.

Andee quickly took out her phone. ‘I should have done this before,’ she muttered. ‘I need to check with Graeme that it’s still available.’

Claudia stiffened with horror. It hadn’t occurred to her that it might not be, but moments later Andee was smiling again as she gave the thumbs up and Claudia unravelled with relief.

‘I expect you’d like to know the price?’ Andee suggested as she rang off.

Claudia was ready to pay anything.

‘They want five hundred and fifty thousand, but I reckon you could probably get it for five. And being realistic, you’ll probably need about the same to fix it up.’

‘It’s not a problem,’ Claudia assured her. ‘We can make an offer right away, although I probably ought to let my mother and daughter see it first.’

Clearly delighted, Andee said. ‘Let me know when they can make it and we’ll come again with the keys.’

As they returned to their cars Claudia said, rashly, ‘We’re thinking of having a little celebration later, to mark my first commission since arriving here – I mean, if I get it …’

‘You’ve got it …’

‘… so I was wondering if you might like to join us?’

Andee’s eyes lit up. ‘I’d love to,’ she said warmly. ‘Just tell me where and when.’

Surprised and thrilled, Claudia said, ‘Does seven work for you? We’re in an apartment at the station end of the Promenade. I’ll text the address. I thought I’d ask Leanne if she can make it too. After all, it’s thanks to her that this has come about.’

‘I’m sure she’d love to if she’s free.’

After thanking Andee again Claudia got into her car, but didn’t immediately drive away. She wanted to look at the house a while longer and continue to feel the sense of connection that had come over her the minute she’d laid eyes on it. She couldn’t remember the last time anything had felt so right in her life, and because the draw was so powerful she wanted to hold on to it for as long as she could.

In the end, after feeling certain that Joel had been watching it with her, she said a silent au revoir and turned the car around to begin the drive home. She needed to call her mother to let her know that their little celebration was on, and she should text Leanne to invite her to join them. Already she was imagining champagne glasses sparkling, corks popping, friends toasting one another, and realizing how widely she was smiling she broke into a happy laugh.

CHAPTER TEN

‘I thought we were going to the cinema,’ Graeme protested when Andee informed him of the evening’s change of plan.

‘We can go tomorrow,’ she promised, planting a kiss on his cheek as she passed him to get to the fridge with the groceries she’d brought in. ‘She’s a godsend, she really is. So talented and available and definitely very keen to buy the coach house. She’s interesting too, because I Googled her after I left the Heights and the only Claudia Winters that came up were definitely not her.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why on earth did you Google her?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s the kind of thing I do, you know that.’

Of course he did. ‘And what are you deducing from your lack of findings?’ he enquired with mock-seriousness, taking the avocados she was passing and putting them in the fruit bowl.

Rolling her eyes at him, she said, ‘She’s definitely a professional, I saw her sketching and the way she articulated her ideas could only be done by an expert. So, what I’m deducing is that for some reason she’s changed her name – maybe to break with her old life.’ She turned to face him and wasn’t surprised to find him regarding her with the expression he usually adopted when attempting to keep up with the way her mind worked.

‘So now you’re thinking what?’ he asked, amused. ‘That she’s in witness protection or something?’

With a smile she pulled a box of muesli from the bag to put aside for the pantry. ‘No, of course not,’ she replied, before adding – not able to help herself – ‘When the Protected Persons Service – that’s its official title, by the way – sets someone up with a new identity they provide social media profiles, pages on search engines leading to past history, all sorts of stuff to give them cover. And Claudia doesn’t have any of that.’ Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as a few scenarios played out in her mind, but they were cut short by her mobile jingling the arrival of a text. It was from Leanne.

See you at Claudia’s. So glad she’s able to help. Xx

Replying with I owe you, she put the phone down and turned back to Graeme. He was checking his own phone now, scrolling through emails, deleting as he went or thumbing off quick replies, and as she watched him, she found herself feeling sorry there was so little time before she had to go out.

Looking up as she removed the mobile from his grasp and slipped her arms around his neck, Graeme drew her in close and murmured, ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘It’s just for being you,’ she replied, gazing suggestively into his eyes.

‘So, I’m getting something right?’

‘You always do, or almost always. Did you see Tom today, by any chance?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Then he hasn’t told you that he’s asked Leanne to marry him?’

His eyebrows rose. ‘No, but I think we saw that coming, didn’t we?’

She nodded and after a moment said, ‘Can you do me a huge favour and not ask me? Just in case you were thinking of it, which you probably weren’t, but we’re OK as we are, aren’t we?’

His eyes moved curiously between hers. ‘If you say so,’ he replied carefully.

She frowned. ‘Not quite the answer I was expecting.’

He smiled and kissed her. ‘You know,’ he said, taking back his phone, ‘I think I’ll give Dan a call to see if he’s free for a bite, seeing as you’re now otherwise engaged.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘OK, so I need to give you a heads up on everyone who’s coming tonight,’ Jasmine declared as she slotted her neatly cased surfboard into a hall cupboard – this being one of several new hobbies she’d taken up during the five months since settling here. ‘You know that Abby’s mum, Leanne, has a partner called Tom who owns the Tramonto Hotel on Kesterly Heights. Abby’s grandma is called Wilkie and she’s a blast, completely eccentric and you’ll love her on sight, if she comes. Abby’s dad died, which is something else us two have in common besides all the other stuff, and the local theatre is named after him, the Delaney. Oh, and she has a half-sister who lives in the States called Kate.’ She frowned irritably. ‘Is anyone listening to me?’

‘Of course,’ Claudia and Marcy answered in unison. They were in the kitchen laying out the canapés Marcy had picked up from M&S on her way back from the community centre, while Claudia had rushed home to make sure there was champagne in the fridge and the flat was presentable.

‘Good, so who’s Leanne’s partner?’ Jasmine tested.

‘Tom,’ Claudia replied. ‘Now tell us what you know about Andee Lawrence.’

‘Absolutely nothing.’ Jasmine smiled sweetly, and taking the pile of hand-embroidered napkins she was being offered she began to fold them into the shapes her mother preferred.

‘Actually, I can tell you something,’ Marcy offered. ‘I mean besides the fact that she’s an interior designer. Apparently, she used to be a detective and is who everyone goes to if they’re in any kind of trouble.’

Slightly thrown by that, Claudia turned to look at her. ‘A detective?’ she echoed.

‘That’s right,’ Marcy replied distractedly. ‘Henry said she gave it up a few years ago and …’

‘Who’s Henry?’ Claudia interrupted.

‘Oh, just someone I know at the community centre.’

Jasmine said, ‘Have you still not told her about him, Nana? I thought you had.’

As Claudia’s eyes widened Marcy became defensive. ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she retorted. ‘He’s just a friend.’

‘But you’ve got a thing for him. You told me that yourself.’

‘I didn’t say a thing, I said he’s an interesting man, that’s all.’

As she listened to them squabble and tease Claudia realized that her suspicions earlier were correct: this was why her mother always made such an effort when she went out. ‘Well,’ she commented loudly, ‘I thought if any one of us was going to come home with a boyfriend it would have been Jasmine …’

‘He’s not a boyfriend,’ Marcy interrupted. ‘In fact, I’ve never been alone with him, apart from for a few minutes here and there. However, it seems that now might be as good a time as any to tell you that in the event he does get around to asking me out, I will probably say yes.’

Claudia watched Jasmine bounce into her grandmother’s arms, as thrilled as if she had a potential date lined up herself.

Marcy regarded her daughter curiously. ‘Would you rather I didn’t go?’ she asked over Jasmine’s shoulder.

Jasmine spun around. ‘Don’t you dare say no,’ she warned her mother.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ Claudia protested. ‘It’s not up to me, and actually I think it’s … wonderful. I’m just asking myself … I mean, are you going to be interested in this new house if you’ve got other plans?’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ Marcy exclaimed. ‘Talk about getting things out of perspective. I want to see the house and if it’s right for us, I want to live in it.’

‘Excuse me, what house?’ Jasmine demanded. ‘No one’s mentioned anything to me about a house.’

‘I saw it today,’ Claudia explained. ‘It’s on Westerleigh Heights: as far as I’m concerned it’s a dream home – or it will be – and I can hardly wait for you to see it.’ She turned back to her mother, determined to hide how crushed she’d feel if Marcy answered her next question with a no. ‘Are you sure you want to live with us? You’re used to your independence …’

‘And you’re going to rob me of it? Don’t be silly. Of course I want us to be together. It’s what we planned and it’s what we’ll do. Now, how many glasses are we going to need, and someone should fill up the ice bucket because our guests will be here any minute.’

Andee and Leanne arrived promptly at seven, bringing Abby with them, and in what seemed no time at all Claudia was opening a second bottle of Moët while the guests ate canapés and lounged on the sofas as if this was somewhere they came all the time. There was an easy flow of conversation right from the start and virtually no awkward moments, apart from Claudia’s embarrassment when Andee and Leanne lavished praise on her various handicrafts.

‘She makes everything,’ Jasmine stated proudly, ‘candles, diffusers, lamps, soap, photo frames. She even did some of the paintings …’

‘OK,’ Claudia said softly, ‘I think that’s enough.’

Look how pathetic you are, lapping it up as if the junk you make is something special. Get a grip, you’re embarrassing yourself.

Claudia shook Marcus’s vicious words off with a shiver and forced herself to reconnect with the real conversation.

‘You’ve transformed this place,’ Andee was commenting admiringly. ‘I came to view it for Dan, a friend of Graeme’s, about a year ago and it was nothing like this then. He decided it was too big for him, but it seems just right for you.’

‘It’s a great spot,’ Leanne agreed, ‘but isn’t the noise a problem?’

With a sigh, Marcy said, ‘It was worse during the summer when the windows were open, so many parties and concerts on the beach …’

‘Which were totally cool,’ Jasmine put in quickly, ‘you even came to some of them.’

‘It was a Beatles night,’ Marcy explained, ‘so we all went. And actually, it wasn’t the music that bothered us so much as all the shouting and swearing when the bars turned out. It still happens, but at least the windows are closed now.’

‘Do you get people parking in your space on the forecourt?’ Andee asked sympathetically.

‘All the time,’ Claudia groaned, ‘which is another reason we’ll be glad to move.’

‘Are you thinking of it?’ Leanne asked, helping herself to another canapé.

‘You should come and live nearer us,’ Abby informed Jasmine.

‘Actually, we might,’ Claudia told her, and aware of Abby’s and Leanne’s interest piquing, she felt a little thrill of excitement as she said to Andee, ‘we’d like to view the coach house as soon as possible.’

‘What coach house?’ Abby demanded, looking from her to Jasmine and back again.

‘It’s on Westleigh Heights,’ Jasmine replied, ‘so if we do move there we’ll be about ten minutes from you and I’m definitely going to need a car.’

‘Then you’d better work on passing your test,’ Marcy reminded her.

‘Give me a chance, I’ve only had three lessons.’

Accepting a top-up of champagne from Claudia, Andee said, ‘Let me know when the three of you are available and provided the others feel the same way you do, we’ll set everything in motion.’

‘Thank you,’ Claudia said warmly. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll be putting in orders for fabrics first thing tomorrow before I go to meet Cassie’s team. So, your commission remains my priority.’

‘I’m not worried,’ Andee assured her, and looking into Claudia’s eyes she added, ‘and you shouldn’t be either.’

It wasn’t until everyone had left that Claudia was able to say to her mother, ‘I think Andee knows something about us, or at least suspects it.’

Marcy frowned. ‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know, I’m not sure.’

‘You’re just paranoid,’ Jasmine told her, carrying dishes through to the kitchen. ‘If you ask me I think our little party went really well.’

‘I’d agree with that,’ Marcy responded, ‘although it seemed a bit odd that no one asked where we’re from, or what we were doing before we came here.’

‘They know what Mum was doing,’ Jasmine pointed out.

Marcy nodded pensively. ‘What do you tell Abby about your past?’ she asked.

Jasmine shrugged. ‘Just that I was at school in London, and that my dad died when I was nine. Oh, and that Mum had a design shop. Other than that, it never really comes up. We’re kind of into other things, like studying, surfing, hanging out with friends, and in my case violin lessons, practice and rehearsals.’

‘So busy,’ Claudia commented dryly.

‘Tell me about it, and now you’re going to be as well. This is just the best thing for you, Mum, a new commission, a new house by the looks of it, so please don’t start getting all suspicious about things. Andee seems really nice, so whatever she said, I’m sure she didn’t mean anything bad by it.’

Finding herself able to believe that, Claudia smiled as she let go of some tension. ‘I guess I’m out of practice when it comes to making friends,’ she sighed, and banishing the dark memories of Marcus that inevitably came to her mind, she added, ‘Time I learned to start trusting again.’

Outside on the Promenade Leanne and Andee were following Abby to the taxi rank, slowing their pace so as not to be overheard. ‘OK,’ Leanne said, keeping her voice down, ‘are you going to tell me now why you didn’t want me to ask about their lives before they came here?’

Judging Abby to be sufficiently engrossed in her phone, Andee said, ‘I’m pretty sure they’re not who they’re saying they are.’

Leanne came to a standstill, eyes wide with surprise. ‘What on earth makes you say that?’

‘You saw for yourself how talented Claudia is, and she wasn’t a bit fazed by the size of the order I’ve just put her way. This means she must have been in business before, and yet she doesn’t have an Internet presence or history, and nor does her mother.’

Leanne took a moment to process this. ‘So, who are they?’ she asked, trying to get her head around it all.

Though Andee had a theory she decided to keep it to herself for now, and said, ‘I’m still working on it, but rest assured I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.’

‘Well that’s good, because Abby’s pretty tight with Jasmine, and I found myself warming to Claudia tonight. And her mother’s a delight.’

‘Isn’t she?’

‘Actually,’ Leanne said as they started to walk on, ‘I’m thinking of inviting them to the little engagement party we’re throwing the Saturday after next. I take it you and Graeme are free?’

‘We’ll make sure of it, and yes, do invite them. I think it would mean a lot to them, especially Claudia. Who else is on the list?’

‘Family mostly, but I was wondering about asking Dan. Do you think he’ll come? He gets on very well with Tom.’

‘I’m sure he will. I’m seeing him tomorrow for one of our RJ meetings. Would you like me to ask him?’

‘No, I’ll do it myself, but perhaps you could assure him that we’re not trying to pair him off with Claudia, because that’s exactly what he’ll think when we introduce them.’

Andee frowned. ‘Aren’t we?’ she countered dryly.

Leanne laughed. ‘I could say yes, but do we really want him to get involved with someone who might not be who she says she is, and who, for all we know, could take off again at any minute?’

‘No,’ Andee replied seriously, ‘we definitely don’t want to do that. And please, please don’t let her take off before the show home is done.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

So, here’s a conversation I had today with Dan:

‘How are you doing Archie?’

‘How do you think?’

‘Tell me.’

‘I’m crap. How else would you expect me to be?’

‘I was hoping you might feel ready for more honesty about your mother.’

‘I haven’t told any lies about her.’

‘You haven’t told the entire truth either.’

It frigging gets me, the way he manages to know stuff he shouldn’t. ‘Why do you want to know more about her? She’s got nothing to do with any of this.’

‘She thinks she has.’

‘You’ve talked to her?’

‘Of course.’

‘I could get really mad about that, Dan.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I told you, she’s got nothing to do with this. No one has. It’s just me. I’m the one who did it, right? That’s why I’m in here.’

He doesn’t say anything after that, and it really starts getting to me, like he knows I want to speak, but I don’t. Or not about my ma, anyway, so I end up suggesting we change the subject, and he, predictably says, ‘To what?’

‘Anything you like. I know, let’s talk about you. What makes you do this stuff with people like me? I suppose you think you’re some sort of Samaritan or something.’

He laughs at that and I laugh too, though God knows why because it wasn’t funny. ‘Do you have a mother?’ I ask him.

‘No. She died a few years ago.’

‘What about your father?’

‘I lost him when I was sixteen.’

‘Mm, tough. Did you like him?’

‘Very much. Do you like yours?’

‘Give me a break. I don’t even know who he is.’

‘Then who’s BJ?’

Some of his questions set my teeth on edge and make my fists clench. ‘He was my handler, you know that, and he’s definitely not my old man.’

‘How did your mother come to know him?’

I go silent, and he’s the first to break it.

‘You know you could end up in prison for a very long time. Is that what you want?’

‘Makes no difference to me.’

‘Why do you say that when we both know it isn’t true?’

I just shrug.

‘What are you hiding, Archie? I know there’s something, so why don’t you tell me what it is?’

‘I’m protecting my ma, right?’ I nearly shout at him. ‘If I tell you anything they’ll go after her and it won’t be pretty. Is that what you want?’

He doesn’t say anything, but we both know it’s not what he wants. ‘Who are we talking about, Archie?’

I don’t answer, but I don’t think he expects me to.

‘Wouldn’t it be better for your mother if you told the truth?’ he asks.

‘I already have,’ I remind him. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.’

‘I mean the whole truth.’

‘You’ve got it.’

He shakes his head and I can see how disappointed he is in me. Join the club, Dan. Membership’s free.

In my head I’m thinking about you and what difference it would make to you if I said any more – and the answer is, it’s too late, it wouldn’t change anything, so what’s the point?

I committed the crime, so I do the time.

He left just after that and I was so mad and scared and all kinds of other shit that I decided to sit down and write you what happened, like as if you’re ever going to see this, or even care.

Don’t worry, I’m not seeing you as some kind of friend I can run off my mouth to, or anything like that. I get how sick it would make you feel if I did. I guess it’s just easier to write down how afraid I am that he won’t come back, than it is to tell him.

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