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The wider search of the peninsula is a long shot and an expensive one. There’s too much terrain here, too densely covered with vegetation for him to be very hopeful of finding anything. Any stranger who might have harmed Tom has had plenty of time to remove traces of him or herself and to get far away. But he doesn’t like to leave any stones unturned.
At the bottom of the path, they reach flatter ground. The river is just yards away, but silty banks discourage him from gettingclose to it. A half-rotted wooden pier overhangs the water. A new path stretches out to their left and right.
A uniformed officer is posted there. He indicates which way they should go: ‘Past the ruined chapel, and on a bit. It’s in the woods. Someone will show you.’
Hal turns to look at Jen. He won’t ask her how she’s doing because she’s clearly fitter than he is and he doesn’t want to insult her, but he would like to check on her.
‘Isn’t it stunning here,’ she says. ‘Feels like you’re cut off from the world. You could easily camp out here without anyone noticing you.’
The path runs along the edge of the riverbank. The intensity of the day’s heat is dissipating, which feels like a release, and the evening light is golden. One of the search team is waiting for them. He shows them the recently abandoned campsite, which is in a pretty glade just far enough from the public footpath to be out of sight, and on the other side of a wooden fence.
Hal tries to orient himself. He has a terrible sense of direction.
‘So, the Glass Barn is up on the hill above us?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ Jen says. ‘If you looked out of the living-area windows at the Barn, you’d be looking in this direction. This is the woodland that you see from there.’
‘This fence is the boundary of the land belonging to the Barn,’ the search team member confirms. ‘I’m not one hundred percent sure it was worth your time coming here.’
Hal says nothing. He likes to see things for himself; it’s that simple.
‘How do we know it’s recent?’ he asks.
‘They’ve cleared some nettles to make space for a small tent, you can see them there, beside the indentation where the tent was. The nettle roots look as if they haven’t been up long, and there’s a trace of a fire.’ He points to a small, darkened area of earth. Hal sees some ash around it.
‘In this heat?’
‘I know. Stupid behaviour.’
‘Anything else?’
‘We haven’t found anything, but I would say that it’s been very well cleared up. We nearly missed it. Whoever left it, pulled some of the undergrowth back across the site, which might suggest an attempt to hide the fact that they’d been here.’
Hal nods. ‘Thank you,’ he says.
He’s disappointed that there’s not more. It was too much to hope that they might find something that would allow them to trace an individual, but he had hoped, anyway.
But there was someone here. And recently. It potentially throws the number of suspects wide open. Unless someone Tom knew camped out here and waited and watched.
20
TUESDAY
Nicole
‘The detective phoned,’ Nicole says to the empty room. Patrick’s gone to bed, but she doesn’t want to go to her room and lie there, staring at the ceiling. Sleep has been patchy. Her dreams have become nightmares. She imagines Tom standing behind the kitchen island, fiddling with his coffee machine, debating whether it was too late to have an espresso, and imagines him replying, ‘Oh, really? What did they want?’ She misses the sound of his voice.
If Tom was murdered, she thinks, did I set it in motion somehow? Is it my fault? Would it have happened if we hadn’t cashed that lottery ticket or built this place? Patrick has told her not to let herself go down the rabbit hole of ‘What Ifs’.
‘Nothing was stolen,’ he said. ‘That’s a big thing that points to this being an accident. Hang in there. The police will confirm it soon, I’m sure.’
It’s dark outside and she can see her reflection in the glass. She imagines someone out there, looking in at her. ‘Blinds down,’ she tells the house, and she holds her breath, wondering if the house will obey or if she’ll have to try to get them down manually somehow, but the system works. She watches with relief as the blinds descend the way they should, rolling smoothly and in synchrony from hidden recesses in the ceiling until they touch the floor.
She sits on the couch and tries to distract herself from thinking about Tom and the police by scrolling through Pinterest, where she collects interiors images, but she can’t focus. It all seems pointless now. Her mind turns to Patrick and how amazing it is that he’s turned his life around. But she can’t stay focused on anything.
At first, she thinks she’s imagining the music. She hears opera playing, quietly, from somewhere else in the house. She assumes it’s coming from Patrick’s room, although if it is, he’s playing it loudly, because the room he’s staying in is in another wing. She’ll ask him to turn it off. It’s too painful to hear it. She walks out of the living area, through one of the glass corridors. Floor lights come on as she enters the corridor and illuminate the way dimly. The night sky is a dark, velvety blue, the stars pinpricks of light. She hurries, conscious once more of being visible to anyone outside – there are no blinds in the corridors – only realising when she reaches the bottom of the stairs that the music is quieter, not louder.
The back of her neck prickles, as if someone is standing behind her. She turns around. Now, the music sounds as if it’s coming from their cinema room, which she just walked past.She backtracks down the corridor and opens the door to the room. Wall and ceiling lights come on, and floor lighting shows her the way down a short, carpeted aisle between sets of velvet-covered reclining chairs. A curtained screen dominates the wall ahead. Picture lights illuminate posters of Tom’s favourite movies. There’s no music on. No sound in here at all.
