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The two girls reached the end of the drive. A winding country lane snaked in front of them, bordered by tall hedgerows and overhung with ancient oaks, giving it the feel of a tunnel.
“Left or right?” asked Roxie.
“What’s the difference?”
“Left is the village, right is the farm.”
“Left then,” said Summer. “Your father said he wanted a newspaper, and I’ve never seen the bright lights of downtown Kingsmere.”
Roxie was pleased Summer had agreed to spend the night. The two girls had been close as children, although, of course, they had both changed so much since those innocent, carefree days. The Summer that Roxie remembered from holidays on Martha’s Vineyard had been fat and withdrawn and painfully, agonizingly shy. Back then she, Roxie, had been the confident one, not to mention the great beauty. But now it was Summer Meyer who had the world at her feet. How strange life was.
“You must think I’m awfully heartless,” Roxie blurted out. “Not going to visit Michael.”
“I don’t think any such thing,” Summer assured her.
“The truth is, I simply can’t cope with it. Hospitals still give me dreadful panic attacks. That hospital in particular.”
Summer had forgotten that Roxie had recuperated at the John Radcliffe after her suicide attempt. No wonder she couldn’t face the place.
“I totally understand. And so would Michael.”
“Daddy’s been twice, but he hates it too. He says he feels like a spare part. He doesn’t know what to say or do.”
“I’m not sure it matters what you say. And he’s doing something just by being there.”
“Spoken like a true woman. But you know men, especially British men. They want to ‘fix’ things. I don’t think Daddy can stand the fact that he can’t fix this for Michael. Just like he couldn’t fix things for me. He thinks it’s history repeating itself.”
“The curse of the De Veres,” Summer mumbled under her breath.
“The only curse on this family is my bitch of a mother,” Roxie said bitterly. Pushing the wheelchair from behind, Summer couldn’t see the cloud of hatred contorting Roxie’s face.
They walked on in silence. Eventually the village hove into view, a pretty cluster of wisteria-clad, stone cottages huddled around a triangular green, in the shadow of a squat Saxon church. A sleepier, more idyllic spot than Kingsmere would have been hard to imagine. Summer half expected Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle to emerge from one of the cottages, or to discover that Jemima Puddle-Duck was the proprietress of the village store.
This isn’t a place where bad things are supposed to happen.
In reality, the village store was owned by a grumpy old woman with prodigious facial warts called Rose Hudgens. Rose nodded a curt acknowledgment to Roxie when they walked in, but blanked Summer completely when she bought Teddy’s paper, returning her smile with a sullen scowl.
“Is she always like that?” Summer asked Roxie after they left the store.
“I’m afraid so. Rose isn’t too keen on newcomers. Especially Americans.”
They’d been walking for an hour and Summer still hadn’t broached the subject of Michael’s list, or of the mysterious secret he’d alluded to the night before his accident. Now seemed as good a time as any.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, did Michael say anything to you, anything unusual, in the run-up to your father’s summer party?”
Roxie looked up sharply. “ ‘Unusual’ in what way?”
“In any way.”
“No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“It’s probably nothing. But the night before his accident, when I came to Oxford to see him, he said something to me about a secret. He said he was talking hypothetically, but I got the feeling that he wasn’t. That he’d found something out and that it was worrying him deeply. I thought he might have mentioned it to you.”
“No. He never said anything like that. All he talked about was the party, to be honest. He was consumed by it in those last few weeks, especially building this ridiculous folly for Dad. That was stressing him out, because it was all going wrong and he didn’t want Dad to worry. Do you think that could have been it? Although I can’t see why it would have been a secret.”
“Like I say, it was probably nothing.” Summer smiled reassuringly. It wasn’t fair to burden Roxie with her fears and suspicions. Not unless she had hard evidence to back them up. Whatever Michael’s dark secret was, clearly he had not confided in his sister.
Back at the house, Roxie delivered Teddy his Times while Summer went upstairs to make her bed and pack. She’d just zipped up her overnight bag when a voice behind her made her jump.
