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But I’ve been worried about it ever since, and I’ve decided to move to a bedroom in a different wing of the house. It’s not as large, but I don’t need anything fancy. I could ask Olly and Sasha to move, but it seems silly since there are two of them and only one of me. It’s a relief to have made the decision.
Tonight, all feels well, though. It’s been a good day and I’ve been able to forget some of this stuff and concentrate on working to make everything run smoothly. We have a group of guests here for a weekend retreat. They’re camping at the end of the drive and Olly has lit a bonfire on the front lawn so we can gather around it. It’s my favourite part of the retreats. Sasha is happy for me to join the guests and help serve food.
Kitty isn’t with us. It’s another day off for her, and although I could have used her help I don’t like to ask. It’s easier to do it myself.
When I’d finished helping, I sat on one of the logs around the bonfire. I kept myself to myself the way Sasha prefers me to, notpestering the guests with conversation, but I felt free and loose, able to forget the things that had been plaguing me and to enjoy the sight of everyone talking and meditating in little groups on the lawn.
Olly came to sit by me, which was a nice surprise. He told me he was on the verge of a breakthrough with his book. He was so excited about it; he almost seemed a little feverish, or drunk. ‘Do you realise that without you, this couldn’t have happened?’ he said. ‘Do we tell you enough how special you are to us?’ He hugged me, which shocked me. It was the first time we’d touched, and it felt a little bit like electricity.
‘It’s my pleasure,’ I told him. I hoped he wasn’t drunk, that this was genuine.
‘Anna,’ he said, ‘do you want to help me with something later?’
‘With what?’ I asked. From the look of him, it was something exciting.
He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Don’t move from here,’ he said. ‘All will be revealed in good time.’
‘Okay,’ I said. His excitement was infectious. No part of us was in contact now the hug was over, but I wanted to feel his touch again. It was confusing. And inappropriate. But someone else’s passion for something is a powerful aphrodisiac.
‘Can you tell me more?’ I asked.
He leaned over towards me, until I could feel his breath on my neck. He whispered in my ear and my stomach flipped.
29
THURSDAY
Sasha
Sasha tests the water temperature in the bath. It’s perfect. She pulls the window open wider. A honeysuckle-scented breeze cools the skin on her arms. Wispy clouds idle in the sky. It’s not often she starts the day with a soak in the tub, but she woke with tight muscles, and she could do with some time for herself. The last few days have taken their toll. She feels as if she’s spinning a lot of plates.
She turns off the taps and gets into the bath, submerging herself completely. She holds her breath and floats underwater for a few moments, enjoying the dense silence, but a vision of Tom appears, his face nose-to-nose with hers, as if he was floating above her, a waking nightmare. She sits up quickly, pulling in air, letting out a cry, rakes back the damp curtains of her hair and wipes water from her eyes and face. Her breathing is laboured. The breeze is still circulating, but now it feels toocool on her wet skin and the scent of her bath oil no longer seems pretty or invigorating. It’s sickly, too strong.
She tries to calm herself down, to count her blessings. She wants to enjoy her bath.
Olly is her first blessing. It all starts with him, her complicated, beautiful man. If he hurts her emotionally sometimes, the little twists of pain he inflicts are quickly numbed by how much she loves him. It’s been that way since she first met him.
When they met, it was a classic meet-cute and she loves to remember it. She was trying to complain about something at the reception desk of the university gym – what it was exactly has been lost in time and retelling – but she was inarticulate and flustered about it, faced with an unsympathetic receptionist, and struggling to find the right word to describe how she was feeling when, from over her shoulder, she heard it: the exact word she’d been searching for. She turned to see Olly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing. It’s really none of my business.’
It would be an exaggeration to say that she melted when their eyes met, but the instant attraction between her and Olly that day was undeniable. The receptionist she’d been arguing with stared and said, ‘You two should get a room.’
They got a coffee and talked. She found Olly to be clever, sweet, and very attractive. She fell hard for his rumpled, academic look, and fell harder for his attentiveness and confidence, his thoughtful focus, and his certainty. He was clearly an achiever, too; he hadn’t dated much during uni, he told her, because he was totally dedicated to his studies and was hoping to graduate with a first-class degree.
The physical attraction between them was strong – she could tell he felt it, too – but he behaved like a gentleman, giving her his number, asking her to message him if she wanted to meet up again. We could see a film, he said, or go for a walk. She’d been teaching yoga at the gym for six months and been hit on plenty of times by students, but this felt different. Olly seemed more mature and interesting than the other young men she’d met.
Only four hours passed before she cracked and messaged him to ask him out for a drink. She had to wait overnight, until she came out of class at eleven the next morning, before he replied. Her stomach lurched when she saw he’d said yes. She felt as if she was fifteen again.
The memory brings a smile to her face, as it always does, but it fades fast. It will be nice when the police leave them alone. Their presence isn’t entirely unhelpful, because it seems to ramp up Nicole’s vulnerability, but it’s a lot to manage. Sasha shudders involuntarily and another image of Tom’s body in the pool, this time with Olly sitting beside it, comes to her. She feels uneasy. In another effort to relax, she applies a thick face mask and tries not to think about anything apart from the sensation of it tightening her skin, but her mind keeps whirring.
She thinks, we’ve been so focused on the practicalities since Tom’s body was found, and on supporting Nicole and trying to figure out what Patrick’s presence means, that we haven’t dealt with the trauma of the morning. Olly would never mention if he was feeling troubled by it because he pushes away anything difficult, but this was a truly horrible event. He can’tbe unaffected. Nicole’s wails are still ringing in her ears. The shock on Kitty’s face when Sasha told her what had happened is still fresh in her mind. Though come to think of it, was it shock?
Sasha replays that moment. She recalls running through the Manor, towards the laundry room. The sound of her own breathing comes back to her: sharp, panicky intakes and out-takes. She opened the door. The radio was on. Kitty always listens to Radio 4, nothing cheerful. She was standing at the ironing board, pressing one of Olly’s shirts, or it could have been some bedlinen. Sasha recalls that it was a pale fabric. Steam was rising from the iron, and it hissed as she began to blurt out the story about Nicole. She tries to recall how Kitty looked.Think. Was there something off about it? Why does she suddenly feel so certain of it?
She remembers Kitty looking up and meeting her eye and replays that instant again, and again. Kitty’s expression was as slack as usual, but in her eyes there was a hint of, what? Knowledge? Sasha tenses. Knowledge of what?
Her thoughts are interrupted by the door inching open. It startles her. She thought she’d locked it. Olly peers in. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Mind if I join you?’
She’s self-conscious about the face mask she’s wearing. Sasha hates Olly to see her looking less than perfect. She often gets up before him to put on make-up and brush her hair. It’s not that he’s ever said anything, but he’s such a perfectionist in every other way that she feels it’s necessary.
