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‘I can have a word with Olly if you like,’ Sasha told her, on his instructions. ‘Tell him to stop.’
‘No. Don’t do that. I’m happy. I don’t want him to think he’s done anything wrong.’
There it was. Her greatest fear was that she would upset them. She was willing to trade her name, her very identity, for a sense of belonging. It was extraordinary. Shortly afterwards, they stopped calling her Anna altogether and it’s been that way ever since.
Afraid of them and afraid of being without them, she was happy to agree to anything.
Anna’s been living here in the Coach House for so long now that for a while he’s thought of the Manor as truly belonging to him and Sasha. It was annoying to have to tell the police that they aren’t its real owners. He believes they would have some claim to it by now, as long-term residents, if Anna were to try to kick them out, and he wonders if she’s aware of that. But they’ve got no money to fight a legal battle, not until he’s sold his book. Sasha doesn’t earn enough.
He knows Anna doesn’t have much cash either. When they met her, they assumed she would. Mrs Anna Creed of Lancaut Manor surely had money! It was a mistake. She had very few assets other than the house. Hence, they made the decisiontogether to sell the land with the barns on it. It brought in some money, most of which got ploughed into much-needed maintenance at the Manor. Sasha’s right, he supposes; they’ve done very well out of Anna. Perhaps he shouldn’t be thinking of her as expendable just yet.
There’s no houseplant in the living and dining area. He wonders what he’ll do if Anna’s lying about this. Wait and watch? Follow her if she goes out again? Confront her?
He pushes open the bedroom door. Her bed is neatly made, as he expected. She has a hideous, old-fashioned doll with a heavy ceramic head and eyes as hard as shiny wet pebbles, and as usual it’s on the bed, leaning askew against her pillows, limbs splayed unnaturally, lips slightly parted. It’s monstrous. Who would keep that where they sleep? And there on the windowsill is a succulent, its price tag still on. Of course, Anna’s bought an ugly, meanly proportioned plant, but the sight of it relaxes him. She didn’t lie, she’s probably not capable of lying effectively.
Beside the plant, a notebook catches his eye. ‘Journal’ is written on the cover. Oh! he thinks. He picks it up and his heart rate quickens. ‘Anna’ is printed carefully on the top right-hand corner of the front cover in her small, pedantic handwriting, which he recognises from all the shopping and to-do lists she composes. Is this it? he thinks. Could this be the journal that he spent so long looking for after they dealt with the original Kitty? Sasha and he knew this journal existed because Anna told Sasha it did. When they asked about it after Kitty had gone, Anna was vague. ‘I think I wrote a few entries in it,’ she said, ‘but I got bored and threw it out.’
‘Are yousure?’ they’d asked her. They were afraid of what Anna might have written. They wanted to be sure that the journal would never be discovered.
‘I’m sure,’ she’d insisted, and Olly and Sasha had to believe her in the end.
He checks his watch. Lots of time. Sasha promised to keep Kitty busy cleaning the glass in the Orangery.
He sits on the bed with the journal and starts to read. After a couple of pages, he shuts it. He needs to show this to Sasha. Now.
36
THE DAY OF HIS DEATH: 03:36
Tom
‘Hey!’ Tom calls. ‘Hello!’
The person disappears into the moonlit grasses. Tom has the impression of them being swallowed up. The breeze picks up, pressing his T-shirt flat against his torso.
He feels unafraid. Mostly curious.
Should he follow them? Tour the property perimeter? No. He can’t be bothered. It’s probably one of the people who camp illegally on Lancaut occasionally, pitching tents on the riverbank or in woodland clearings. It doesn’t bother Tom so long as they leave no trace behind. Live and let live, he thinks. Why shouldn’t they enjoy this place, too, if that’s what floats their boat? You shouldn’t have to be a millionaire to have access to nature this beautiful. Sometimes, he enjoys chatting with them.
He eats the rest of the chocolate quickly, standing in the breeze, watching clouds scud across the moon. Nicole really would love this, he thinks, but she also loves her sleep. After a while, he goes back inside and eats more chocolate because he’s still hungry.
On his way back to bed he wonders if he should check the security cameras to see if he can get a better look at the man he saw outside. He could do it on his laptop, but he’d need to go back to his den. He can look on the security hub instead. He taps the screen and peers into it, and it grants him access. The menus are complicated. He feels good when he navigates them successfully to find the cameras and tries to replay the footage, but he hits the wrong button. ‘Whoops,’ he says. The footage seems to disappear. He tries something else to get it back. ‘Footage deleted,’ the hub tells him. ‘Shit,’ Tom says. He makes a last attempt to salvage things. ‘System disabled,’ the hub tells him. ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ he says. ‘I give up.’ He decides he’ll sort it out tomorrow. He can’t be bothered now. He yawns. Time to go back to bed.
He smiles when he thinks of re-joining Nicole there. He knew she was the one the first day he saw her, and he feels the same, still.
Walking past the kitchen he sees a phone screen light up on the island. It’s his phone, which he left here to charge. Who’s sending messages at this time of night? He picks it up and his heart sinks when he sees a message from Patrick, but he reads it, because it’s Patrick, and even though things are rocky between them, Patrick gets all the bad luck in life and always has done,and this is what his friends do for him. He makes Tom feel guilty. Even before the lottery win that was their dynamic, because even when Tom had very little, Patrick had less.
I’m not sure why this is so difficult for you. The shit has hit the fan for me, and you and Nicole are sitting like pigs on a pile of cash and you won’t even give me a scrap more. This is too embarrassing to ask someone who isn’t like family to me, but I guess I’m not like family to you? You’re no better than me so why should you get to decide to ruin my life? What do I need to do? Beg? Would that make you feel like a big man?
Look, we go way too far back to fall out over money, and I know you’ll do the right thing. When you do, these are my credit card details – the best way.
Tom shakes his head and puts the phone down. Patrick has crossed a line. He snatches his phone up again and types a devastating reply, unleashing feelings that have been building up for months, telling Patrick where he can go and what he can do with himself, advising him that they will never speak to or see each other again, but by the time he’s finished typing his heart isn’t in it because this is what always happens. The story of their friendship is that ultimately Tom forgives Patrick because he feels sorry for him, and because if you lose the mates who knew you when you were a kid, you can’t replace them.
He takes a deep breath, deletes his reply and Patrick’s message, puts the phone down and rubs his face hard with both hands. There. That’ll do. He feels exhausted now. Why does Patrickalways have to do this? But it’ll blow over. It always does. I’ll call him in the morning, Tom thinks. He won’t tell Nicole this, hasn’t told her about any of his difficulties with Patrick. If she knew what a menace Patrick has become, she would never forgive him.
The bedroom is pitch-dark. No lights come on when he enters. The system knows that Nicole is asleep. He gets into bed and relaxes instantly when he lies beside her. She’s like a drug to him, a happy drug. He falls asleep within moments.
37
