Sleeping Angel (Ravenwood Series) (24 page)

‘Dad, we don’t need to go into all this now. April came to see me, remember?’

‘But who can I tell if I can’t tell April?’ said Mr Osbourne. ‘Your mother? You? Neither of you want me to talk about him anymore.’

Mr Osbourne moved over to April and put his arm around her shoulders. She could smell the whisky on his breath and it took a conscious effort not to pull away from him.

‘He was so good-looking, April, they both were,’ he said, seemingly unaware of April’s discomfort. ‘And we were so happy, weren’t we, Barbara? We couldn’t have a family of our own, you see. Two perfect children sent to us who sprinkled fairy dust on everything: the Agropharm job, the house, this lifestyle, who could ask for more? But it was all built on quicksand, wasn’t it? And it’s sucked us all down, every one of us.’

Davina strode over and pulled April’s arm. ‘Come on, April, you don’t need to put up with this. I’m taking you up to my room.’

But Nicholas pulled back, gripping April’s shoulders tighter. ‘No, I think April wants to hear about this, don’t you, April? You’ve always shown an interest in our family, haven’t you? I remember you and your friend Caro asking about Agropharm at the Winter Ball; perhaps you’d like me to tell you a little more now?’

April felt Davina stop tugging.

‘Dad, I’m warning you,’ she said.

‘Warning me?’ he laughed. ‘What on earth do you imagine you could threaten me with? What more can you take away from me? I have nothing left.
Nothing
.’

He leant in close to April, his tone friendly, one pal to another. ‘You see, April, I’ve been fired. They’re calling it redundancy, the old “golden handshake”, but the upshot is: I’m surplus to requirements. I don’t fit in, not the right sort, can you believe that?’

‘Darling, please,’ said Barbara standing up, ‘I think you’ve said enough.’

‘Enough? Rubbish! April wants to hear about Agropharm, don’t you? She’s just like her father – she has that inquisitive mind. You may not trust me, April. I know your friend Caro doesn’t – she’s a smart girl, that one; I like her. But you can believe this much: I was only ever interested in all this –’ he swept his hand around the living room, spilling most of his drink onto an expensive looking sofa ‘– I was in it for the money, isn’t that right Barbara? We wanted all the nice things, the big cars and the first-class tickets and, God forgive me, we got it in spades. But them?’

He pointed towards the television which was playing on a news channel with the sound off.

‘They were only interested in control. That’s what drives them, not the cash or the trinkets – they just want complete power. And now they have it over us, don’t they, daughter dear?’

‘All right, that’s
enough
,’ hissed Davina. She picked up a bottle of Scotch from the coffee table and shoved it at her father. Mr Osbourne clutched at it in surprise.

‘There, you’ve got what you need,’ said Davina, ‘Now let go of my friend.’

Nicholas looked down at the half-empty bottle as Davina pulled April back towards the front door. ‘Just remember one thing, April,’ he shouted after her. ‘When you think you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s always further to fall. Always.’

Davina slammed the door and followed April out onto the driveway. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that, April,’ she said, crossing her arms. ‘Dad just hasn’t been the same since Ben died, you know?’

‘Really, there’s no need to explain,’ said April. ‘I completely understand, I imagine I’d feel the same way if I’d had a son, and he had ...’ She felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach, knowing that she had been – however unwillingly – responsible for Mr Osbourne’s pain.

‘It’s kind of you,’ said Davina, ‘But I’m not sure daddy’s one hundred per cent in control at the moment. So don’t listen to anything he says, okay? It was the booze talking.’

‘Has he really lost his job?’

‘Yes, that was another blow for him, but I can’t imagine he’ll find it too hard to get a new one, not with his connections. It’s all just getting a little bit on top of him at the moment. Both of them, actually. Mummy is using it as an excuse to drown herself in Pinot Noir.

April smiled. ‘You don’t need to tell me about that sort of thing, my mum isn’t exactly a stranger to the off-licence either.’

They picked their way through the puddles and out to the gate.

‘So were you coming for something in particular?’ said Davina as they walked.

Yes, I was going to ask you to use your father to get me in to see the top brass at Agropharm in the hope that one of them was the King Vampire
, thought April.
There goes another brilliant plan.

‘No, just wanted to bitch about boys.’

‘Not heard from Gabriel?’ asked Davina.

April raised her eyebrows. How did Davina know he had pulled his disappearing act again?

Davina smiled. ‘Just because I wasn’t invited to Ling’s party doesn’t mean I didn’t hear all about it. Not all of those little clones following Chessy about are
hers
, if you take my meaning. I haven’t completely lost my touch.’

April smiled ruefully. ‘Yes, Gabriel has fallen off the map and no, I haven’t heard from him. If I’m honest, I have no idea where to start looking.’

Davina looked awkward. ‘It’s probably not what you want to hear,’ she said, ‘but if it were me, I would try the cemetery.’

‘The cemetery?’ said April. ‘Why there?’

‘Well, you do know that Gabriel used to have another girlfriend.’

April swallowed. ‘Chessy?’

Davina tipped her head back and laughed. ‘She wishes. No, the one who died.’

April was taken aback. ‘You mean Lily?’

Davina nodded. ‘Like I said, no girl wants her boyfriend to run off to another girl, even if she’s dead. But I do know that he used to visit her grave quite often. Maybe he’s been there again, and maybe people around the cemetery have seen him. At least that way you might find out if he’s okay.’

April could have explained that she wasn’t exactly the most popular person at Highgate Cemetery right now; she certainly couldn’t imagine Miss Leicester giving her a rundown of the comings and goings at the graveyard, not that Gabriel would have used the main entrance anyway. But Davina’s mention of Lily had given her an idea.
Damn!
– why hadn’t she thought of it before? April leant over and kissed Davina on the cheek.

‘Thanks ’Vina,’ she said, heading for the gate. ‘You’re a genius.’

‘What?’ called Davina after her. ‘What did I say?’

But April was already through the gate and halfway up the hill.

Just for a moment, as she slotted her key into the yellow front door at Pond Square, April had an uncomfortable feeling that perhaps she wasn’t welcome at the place she had once called home. What if she turned the key and discovered that her mother had changed the locks? What if Silvia was in there with a man? What if she found Dr Tame lounging in the kitchen again? Steeling herself, she twisted and the door clicked open.

‘Mum?’ she called. ‘Mum, are you there?’

She closed the door and stood in the silent rather narrow passageway, sniffing the air as she had that first time, a lifetime ago, when they had all piled out of the family car to inspect their new home.

‘Mum?’ she tried again, popping her head around the living room door. There was always the chance that Silvia would be sprawled face down on the sofa, one shoe hanging off, house keys still clutched in her hand. April had seen her mother in that undignified position far too often.

April racked her brains, trying to remember if Silvia had told her where she would be tonight. She had, of course, been on the phone on and off all day yesterday, checking on April’s “emotional state” after Grandpa Thomas had refused to let her come to the house. ‘She’s upset enough, Silvie,’ he had said. Good old Gramps.

Hooking her bag on the banister – force of habit – April sprinted up the stairs to check her mum’s bedroom. No, the bed was empty – unmade of course, but at least that meant Silvia had been there; the house was starting to feel a little lonely, even abandoned. April looked up the dark stairwell towards her room – or what
had
been her room. For all she knew, Silvia could have let it out to a lodger. But April knew she was only making excuses – she had to go up, however much she was dreading it.

‘Come on, April,’ she urged. ‘What are you scared of? Vampires?’

Breathing out, she climbed the narrow staircase and opened the door, starting when it creaked.
Why didn’t I ever get that oiled?
she wondered.
Like I needed to make my life any more like a teen slasher movie.

She looked around her room. Just a normal everyday bedroom at the top of a little Victorian terrace. Nothing special, a little cramped and dusty. But still, it felt strange being here, like revisiting something she had left behind.

April walked over to her old desk and ran a finger along it, coming back with a smudge of grey dust. April snorted. She really shouldn’t have worried; Silvia clearly hadn’t set foot in here in weeks. But, truthfully, April couldn’t ever remember seeing her mother with a can of Pledge in her hand.

All right, enough moping
, she thought,
time to do what you came to do.
She crossed to her bed, knelt down and felt around underneath, hoping not to disturb any spiders. Her fingers caught the handle and April slid the suitcase out and heaved it onto the bed with a bump.

‘Sorry, spiders,’ she said, popping it open. The suitcase was crammed with papers, newspaper cuttings and books – her Ravenwood treasure trove – all the notes and material she had been able to find about her father’s investigation after sorting through his things in the cellar.

‘All right, where is it?’ she mumbled, beginning to rummage through the case. Her fingers stopped as she came across familiar items: a packet of family photos, her mother’s birth certificate, her dad’s diary and notebook. April cast an eye over each, then carefully put them all to one side.

‘There,’ she said finally. An envelope containing a handful of slightly faded post-it notes. These little square notes had been tacked up all over her dad’s study the day he had died. The police had originally taken them away for examination, presumably to use in evidence when they found the killer.
Not that they’d ever been needed, had they?
thought April bitterly. Still, at least they’d returned them - presumably there were copies of everything here in some police file somewhere, an idea that made her feel like someone was looking over her shoulder.

She flipped through the notes, looking for one in particular. And then there it was, scrawled in her dad’s handwriting: ‘23.11.88 – 14.02.93’

That particular note had stuck in her mind because the second date was her birthday – but now it was the other one she was interested in. Reaching over to her bedside table, she tore the corner off a page of a magazine and scribbled the date down.

Putting everything back into the suitcase, April pushed it back under her bed and ran back downstairs clutching the paper. In the kitchen – a mess, obviously, the sink piled high with unwashed dishes – she picked up the local directory from by the telephone and quickly leafed to the right page, running her finger down the black print , then picking up the receiver.

‘Mr Gordon?’ she said breathlessly as the call connected.

‘Speaking?’

‘It’s April, April Dunne.’

‘Ah, April, how are you?’ he began, but April hadn’t rung for small talk.

‘Mr Gordon, you know how you said you were friendly with Isabelle Davis – she was in choir at the church and stuff?’

‘Yes, that’s true ... why do you ask?’

‘I wondered if you had been asked to do the funeral?’

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ he said, his voice wary. ‘Her family are from the area, but I think seeing as she ... well, considering the manner of her passing, they weren’t too keen to have her buried in the same location. I believe she was cremated up at Golders Green. I know Reverend Brice up there, if that’s any help?’

‘No, that’s okay,’ said April, disappointed.

‘What was it you wanted to know?’

‘Oh, I thought you might have a record of her date of birth. You know, because you’d have to put it on the headstone, that sort of thing.’

There was a pause. ‘Just hold the line a moment ...’ said the vicar. April was just about to give up when Mr Gordon came back on.

‘Twenty third of November, 1988,’ he said.

April looked down at her scrap of paper, her heart pounding. It was same as the date on her dad’s note!

‘How do you know?’ she asked, ‘I mean, how did you find that out so quickly?’

The vicar chuckled. ‘Computers, April, marvellous things aren’t they? We have everything on a digital database these days.’

‘But why do you have Isabelle’s date of birth on your computer?’

‘A few years ago, the diocese put the parish records online. Partly because the Bishop is something of a progressive sort, partly because of that annoying TV show, you know the one where celebrities trace their family trees? We were getting swamped with requests to go through the records and it was taking up far too much of our time to have people poring over the ledgers and records, so we had the lot transferred online.’