The Burning (20 page)

‘Yeah. She said she didn’t like going there. The place was weird.’

‘The place or him?’

‘I don’t know. The whole thing with what happened to Susie and that. She didn’t want to be there. She said it was creepy. I don’t blame her.’

Jenny thought about raising the issue of Layla’s allegedly having touched him, but decided against it. Ashton had a right to have his reputation safeguarded, and she had no illusions that
anything she said to Nicky would remain private for long.

She switched back to Layla’s relations with her stepfather. ‘Tell me some more about Ed.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘What was he like? How did he behave around you when you were at their house?’

‘Normal. He always seemed pretty happy. You could have a laugh with him. He never got cross or nothing, even when Layla was answering him back.’

‘Did they get on?’

‘Fine. She could be a bit, you know, selfish sometimes.’

‘How did things seem between him and Layla’s mum? Did they get along?’

‘Seemed to.’

‘You didn’t see them argue?’

‘She was always pretty quiet, kept to herself. Layla wound her up now and then, but that’s all.’

‘It sounds like a happy family.’

Nicky glanced guiltily at her mother. ‘Pretty much.’

Jenny sensed an atmosphere between them. She waited for one of them to respond. The tension grew thicker. Sandra sucked hard on the stub of her cigarette, yanked open the stove and tossed it
into the fire.

‘Is there something else?’ Jenny prompted.

‘Can I go now?’ Nicky said, darting up from her chair.

Before Jenny could stop her, she hurried out of the room and ran upstairs with heavy, emotional footsteps.

Sandra, belligerently silent, snatched out another cigarette.

Jenny probed gently. ‘Is this about Darren?’

Sandra looked back at her with eyes that wanted to cry but had learned not to.

‘I was aware he had a history with Kelly,’ Jenny said. ‘They were together for a while—’

‘Before she saw sense,’ Sandra answered bitterly.

Jenny waited for her anger to fade. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘I wanted to move from here when we got back together. He wouldn’t. It was because of her. He wouldn’t admit it, but it was. We argued over Christmas. I told him I was going to
leave. I was meant to be gone by now, but then all this happened.’

‘I hope you don’t my asking, but do you think anything might have reignited between them recently?’

‘No chance. Look at her – she could have anyone. It’s not her fault. I’ve got nothing against Kelly – she’s always been perfectly kind to me. Would have been
far easier if she was a bitch. No, she wasn’t interested in him.’ Her face contorted in anger. ‘And before you say it, that fire was nothing to do with me. The only person I was
angry at was Darren.’

‘Did Ed and Kelly know what was going on between the two of you?’

‘Everyone knew Darren fancied Kelly. It’s a running bloody joke. All I’ve ever had round here is pitying looks from people. I should have got out years ago, should never have
let him come back to me. Don’t know why I didn’t leave. It’s like there’s something about this place that holds you . . . It’s like a black bloody hole. A black hole
of despair.’

Jenny hated having to cause her any more pain, but had to ask the question: ‘Where was your husband when the fire broke out?’

‘Here. In this room, working his way through a bottle of whiskey while I was shoving my clothes in a bag.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘I was the one who saw it first – from the upstairs window. I called out to Nicky. She went and told him and he was straight out of the door. Anyway, he wanted to screw her, not kill
her.’

‘Was Ed jealous of him?’

‘Not that he let on. But to be honest, he didn’t give away much. He was one of those blokes – you wouldn’t think twice about him, but looking back I suppose you could
believe anything of him.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘They say he hanged his own dog, when he was a kid. If you can do that, you can do anything.’

Jenny went from the Brookses’ house into the fading light, with Sandra’s unhappiness and Nicky’s petulant grief trailing her like ghosts. She looked out over
the tops of the orchards, whose centuries-old trees cast twisted, grotesque shadows in the gloom, and noticed that had Kelly’s house still been standing, she would have been able to see it
clearly from this spot. In fact, Darren Brooks could have stood at any window this side of his house and caught glimpses of her. And if Kelly had thought to raise her eyes, she might even have seen
him looking down at her.

As Jenny descended into the dark channel between the tall hedgerows, it seemed impossible to her that Kelly would have been able to exist so close to her former lover without feeling the
constant pressure of his unrequited desire. Ed, too, must have felt it. And however confident he had been of Kelly’s loyalty, his former rival’s persistent presence must have acted like
the slow drip of poison. In low moments, when he and Kelly had exchanged cross words and her affection seemed to dim, there must always have been the lurking thought that the way was open for her
to leave him for a man who loved her even more than he did. And from what she knew of Ed, he would have kept his slowly simmering jealousy to himself. If that was how it had happened, his road to
madness would not have been a calculated or a malicious one, but rather a gradual and inexorable surrender to malignant imagination.

Troubled by these thoughts, Jenny picked up her pace, and for reasons every bit as irrational as those which might have afflicted Ed Morgan, she cast several anxious glances over her shoulder
and made her way as quickly as she could to her car.

She was slotting the key into the ignition when Michael’s phone, which was still on the console between the seats, gave two short buzzes. The screen sprang into life with a message
announcing that there were three voicemails. Fighting the temptation to check them, Jenny proceeded to start the engine, but as she reached for the gear lever she found herself giving in yet again.
She snatched up the phone and called the answering service. The first of the three messages was from a fellow pilot named Greg, who wanted some advice on a minor technical glitch with a plane
Michael had been flying directly before him. The second was an instruction from his company’s Bristol office about the collection of an airfreight container from Geneva. Jenny was wondering
whether she ought to arrange to courier the phone to Michael overnight when the third message began. The voice belonged to a young woman and Jenny had heard it before. It was the receptionist from
the Gasthoff Sonne in Menzingen.

‘
Michael? Where are you?
’ she said in heavily accented English. ‘
Pascale said you were in Zurich this week, staying at the Ibis, but you don’t tell
me
.’ Her voice stuttered with emotion. ‘
You are avoiding me? Why? You could at least call
.’ She stifled a sob. ‘
Call me, you bastard. Call me
.’

Jenny barely noticed the three sets of headlights approaching along the lane behind her, only becoming aware of the vehicles’ presence as a police van and car drove past and pulled up a
short distance ahead of her. She watched blankly as several uniformed officers unloaded three excited Labradors – sniffer dogs trained to detect cadavers – from the van. The unleashed
dogs bounded in the snow before their handlers brought them to heel. A female officer who had climbed out of the following car carried a clear plastic evidence bag to the dog handlers. It appeared
to contain an item of clothing made from red fabric. The handlers introduced each of the dogs in turn to its scent.

A car horn sounded. Jenny turned with a jerk of surprise and saw Ryan’s car pulling up alongside. He jumped out and knocked on her window. Jenny lowered it in a daze.

‘Back again, huh?’ Ryan said.

‘I’ve been talking to Sandra Brooks and her daughter.’ Jenny struggled to maintain a pretence of normality. ‘It was very helpful.’

‘Someone found a kid’s coat half buried under the snow. Kelly says it looks like Robbie’s. It was at the edge of one of those Forestry tracks further down the lane
there.’ He nodded past the church, towards the turning to the lane that led eventually to the Forestry Commission depot. ‘It’s a long shot, but we’ll see if the dogs can
pick up a scent.’ Ryan looked at her, detecting that something was amiss. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Just preoccupied. I’ve a lot to get through this week.’

Ryan’s gaze dipped to her fist which was clenched tight around Michael’s phone, then rose again to her eyes. ‘Are you all right? You look like you’re shaking.’

‘Just cold.’ Her fingers released their grip without her asking them to, and the phone clattered into the footwell. She scrambled for it, but in her haste struck her head on the rim
of the steering wheel. ‘Shit! Bloody thing!’ She fished it out from between the pedals and slammed it into the glove-box. She turned to Ryan. ‘I’d better go.’

‘You’re upset. Maybe you should wait a moment before driving.’

One of the dog-handlers called over that they were ready to set off.

Ryan answered that he would be right with them. He looked at Jenny with concern. ‘If you don’t mind my asking – is this a professional or a personal thing?’

‘Personal.’

‘Well, if you need to call someone . . .’ He reached through the open window and touched her arm. ‘You take care.’

‘Thanks,’ Jenny said. ‘And you.’

J
ENNY TRIED AGAIN TO SWALLOW
a mouthful of wine, but it tasted as sour as vinegar. She threw the rest of the glass into the sink in disgust. Everything
had turned rotten in one afternoon, and now she couldn’t even drink to dull the pain. Alone, and with no more tears left to shed, she wandered listlessly from room to room, her emotions
veering wildly from fury to self-pity. How could he? How
could
he? It didn’t matter that the girl who had left Michael the message had clearly been let down by him as well. It almost
made it worse that he was as cowardly with the girls he picked up as he was with her. And if there had been one, she could be sure there had been more. Michael would insist they meant nothing to
him, and he would probably mean it sincerely – what, after all, could be more meaningless and ultimately repellent than empty sex with someone you barely know? – but she would never
again be able to trust him. And without trust, there was nothing. Jenny had become Michael’s middle-aged fantasy, that was all – a comfortable berth to return to after each new foray. A
woman to love and mother him but who could never excite him like the silky-skinned young girls who still came willingly to his hotel bed.

No wonder he had been behaving oddly. She suspected he had got out of his depth with this particular conquest and that she had fallen in love with him; made demands; pricked his conscience. He
wasn’t heartless – he could feel, all right; sometimes he could even cry like a child – he was just thoughtless. So ruled by a need to blot out all the pain of his past, with one
young body after another, that he couldn’t see the damage he was causing. Maybe there was a woman somewhere prepared to take him on occasional loan, but Jenny was now sure beyond doubt that
it wasn’t her.

No. She would rather see out her days alone than with a man who could never truly love her.

Along with this thought came a sudden sense of clarity. Over the course of the previous few days she had tried to convince herself that she could be part of a couple living under one roof again,
but if she were honest, she had never completely surrendered herself to the idea. And now she knew why: she must have sensed his infidelity. She decided to act, to reclaim her dignity and let him
know what she thought. She went through to her study, picked up the phone and dialled the number of Michael’s hotel. She got through to the same helpful receptionist she had spoken to before,
who put her through to his room. Jenny readied herself for the confrontation, but the phone went unanswered and connected to voicemail.

She kept it short, her voice steady and composed: ‘Michael, your girlfriend – I assume that’s what she is, or was – left a message on your phone. She was most upset to
hear from Pascale that you’re currently in Zurich and hadn’t called her. There we are. That was all.’

She dropped the phone back on the hook and felt a weight lifting from her shoulders. The sensation was as strange as it was unexpected. She felt almost elated and invincible, like a victorious
fighter. Holding onto the feeling, she went upstairs, stripped the sheets from her bed that had remained unchanged since Michael had left on New Year’s Day, and ran herself a deep bath to
wash his memory away.

Jenny had feared that her giddy feeling of indomitability was too good to last. It had sustained her through the night, but by the time she pulled up outside her office in
Jamaica Street the following morning, the nausea that had driven her away the previous afternoon was threatening to return. Meeting it with angry exasperation, she headed inside, determined not to
weaken.

Marching down the hallway and shouldering open the door, she found Alison with the workman who had been there the previous morning.

‘Mr Lafferty’s back to check everything’s in working order. That’s his story, anyway.’

The man indulged her with a smile.

‘Thank you, Mr Lafferty,’ Jenny said curtly and continued on into her office.

‘Don’t mind her,’ she heard Alison whisper. ‘She takes a little while to warm up in the mornings. Never had that trouble myself.’

Jenny closed the door on them, deciding that she really would have to do something about Alison’s behaviour. It would a mean a letter to her neurologist and all the emotional fallout and
recriminations, but the alternative was risking a major professional embarrassment that she could ill afford.

Checking her emails, she ran her eyes down the list of thirty or more messages, but registered only one. It was from Michael and had been sent at 3 a.m. For that reason alone it would have been
tempting to delete it unread, but after a moment’s indecision she clicked it open. It was thankfully short: