The Unburied Past (8 page)

She could only hope he'd abide by that.

Leaving the outskirts of Westbourne behind her, Kirsty Marriott settled down for the half-hour drive home.

The twenty-fourth of June, she thought glumly, the anniversary of her parents' death. She wasn't looking forward to the visit, which would entail a trip to the cemetery where her aunt unfailingly succumbed to floods of tears. Though not unsympathetic, Kirsty would have expected, after all this time, that she'd have come to terms with the loss of her sister. For her part, never having really known her parents, she felt sadness at the shortening of their lives rather than a sense of personal loss. It was tragic that Emma was only twenty-nine when she died, but sadly such tragedies happened every day, and wasn't time supposed to be a healer? Still, since her aunt's grief was obviously still raw, the least she could do was spend the day with them both, knowing that at the end of it she could escape the gloom and return to the house she shared with Angie.

And that in itself had been a battle, she reflected; Aunt Jan had done her best to persuade her to live at home and commute daily, but fond though Kirsty was of her adoptive parents, Jan's clinging love could be stifling and, having made the break, she firmly resisted the plea to return each week for Sunday lunch.

‘Don't worry,' she'd assured them, ‘I'll be popping back all the time, but let's not make any hard and fast rules.'

Thankfully, her uncle had backed her and Jan, used, as head of the local primary, to her wishes being obeyed, had been forced to give way.

Thank God for Angie! Kirsty thought now. They'd met five years ago on a Cordon Bleu course and, finding they had similar ambitions, decided to go into partnership supplying handmade cakes to patisseries and coffee shops around Westbourne. They'd invested in a house near the main shopping area and converted the ground floor to business premises – office, packing room and a kitchen conforming to Environmental Health standards – and made their home on the floors above, thereby avoiding overheads. Though they'd become fairly well known and received enquiries from around the country, they were determined to remain a local company, restricting their customer base to a ten-mile radius and keeping their output to a manageable level for the two of them.

Before she'd set off that morning, Angie had asked if she was curious about the parents she couldn't remember. ‘Not really,' she'd replied. ‘There are photos all over the house, and with Mum being Aunt Jan's sister and Dad the brother of my aunt in Canada, I feel I know them quite well.'

Angie, with a large and close family of her own, hadn't seemed convinced. Nor could she understand how Kirsty could have no feelings for her brother, adopted by the other side of the family and immediately whisked off to Canada. Kirsty had met him a couple of times when the family came over to visit her grandparents, and had thought him obnoxious.

And now she was approaching Spellsbury, the market town where she'd grown up. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she spared a quick glance to check that the flowers hadn't slipped to the floor and the cake box remained upright. Oh, God, she thought, I wish it was this evening!

Arranging a suitably sombre smile on her face, she turned into her relatives' driveway.

It was immediately apparent that her aunt was even more tense than usual. Her welcoming hug was more prolonged, her smile tighter, and Kirsty felt a flicker of alarm. Hoping to ease the problem, she handed her the cake box. ‘Your favourite,' she said with a smile. ‘Chocolate and orange, with pieces of pineapple.'

‘Lovely, darling, thank you.' But she sounded preoccupied, and Kirsty's worst fears seemed confirmed when, instead of immediately setting off for the cemetery as usual, her uncle took her arm and led her into the sitting room.

‘Come and sit down, sweetie,' he said quietly. ‘We need to speak to you.'

‘Is something wrong?' she asked anxiously.

He didn't answer, simply motioning for her to sit down and seating himself next to his wife on the sofa. They exchanged a look, and Janice gave a minute nod.

‘Although we've always spent this anniversary together,' Roy began, ‘there's something we've never told you, and that is how your parents died.'

Kirsty frowned. ‘But surely, the car crash …?' Her voice tailed off as he shook his head.

He leant forward, clasping his hands between his knees. ‘Please believe me, sweetheart, we thought we were acting for the best in keeping this from you. In the early days, of course, we were, but—'

‘Uncle!' Kirsty broke in and he nodded, lifting a hand in acknowledgement of her impatience.

‘The truth is that you were all on a self-catering holiday in the Lakes, and at the beginning of the second week we received the most terrible news.'

Bracing herself, she waited as he swallowed nervously.

‘Early that Monday, a milkman on his rounds noticed Mark lying in the driveway of the cottage. He hurried to his assistance, but to his horror found that he was dead.'

Kirsty gasped, her hands involuntarily clenching. ‘But—'

‘He could hear a child crying inside,' Roy continued doggedly, ‘so he pushed the door open and went in to find Emma lying dead at the foot of the stairs with Adam bending over her, and you yelling your head off in your cot upstairs.'

Kirsty forced herself to speak, though the words came out as a croak. ‘What … had happened to them?'

Janice gave a strangled sob. ‘They'd been murdered, darling! Hit over the head with a rock of some sort, and to this day we don't know why!'

Kirsty felt blindly for the arms of the chair, trying to anchor herself in the familiar. ‘But who …?'

‘We don't know that, either.'

‘
You don't know?
' she echoed unbelievingly. ‘After all this time …?'

‘Officially the case is still open,' Roy said, ‘but since despite intensive enquiries at the time the police got precisely nowhere, there seems little chance now of finding the culprits.'

‘Culprits? There was more than one?'

‘It seems so; there were two sets of muddy footprints at the scene.'

Kirsty's mind whirled, trying to find some explanation. ‘Could the milkman …?'

Roy shook his head. ‘He was thoroughly investigated, of course, but the timing was all wrong. He was just being a Good Samaritan.'

‘Each year when we visit the graves,' Janice whispered, ‘I make a promise that their killers will be caught. And each year we have to let them down.'

Which, Kirsty realized, accounted for the tears. Her eyes raked their strained faces. ‘Why are you telling me now?'

Roy said flatly, ‘Adam's coming to the UK on a year's sabbatical.'

She looked from one to the other. ‘I … don't see the connection.'

‘While he's here, he's intending to research the family, which will involve obtaining death certificates and so on.'

‘You mean he doesn't know the truth either?'

‘He didn't, until Friday. It was agreed at the outset that you should be told at the same time, so when Lynne and Harry knew he was coming over they contacted us and we discussed it on Skype. It was decided that we would tell you both straight away.'

‘I'm having difficulty taking all this in,' Kirsty said slowly. ‘My parents were murdered and my brother, whom I've not seen for fifteen years, is going to spend a whole year in the UK.'

‘Not only in the UK,' Janice said grimly. ‘He's coming to Westbourne College, no less.'

Kirsty's eyes widened. ‘Why here? He doesn't even like us!'

‘The college is highly rated,' Roy replied. ‘It will look good on his CV. Harry thinks the family research idea was an afterthought. He could never have imagined what alarm bells it would set off.'

But Kirsty, following her own train of thought, had stopped listening. ‘There must have been
some
clue as to motive. Were they robbed, for instance? And why was my father outside and my mother in the house?'

‘We don't know,' Roy said, ‘and as regards robbery, the only thing missing was Mark's camera and its case.'

‘His
camera
?'

‘He was a keen photographer – we told you that – and according to his friend, Graham Yates, he was about to enter a competition.' He paused. ‘All we could think was that someone didn't like being photographed, and took the bag with the camera containing the last film.'

‘It's a bit extreme to
kill
him!' Kirsty objected. ‘And why Mum?'

‘Perhaps she saw something too.'

After a moment's reflective silence, Kirsty mused, ‘I wonder what Adam's reaction will be to all this.' She stood up and, walking to the piano, picked up her parents' wedding photograph, studying it more closely than she had in years. And as her eyes lingered on her mother's face, young and radiant, she experienced for the first time an agonizing sense of loss.

Behind her, Roy said quietly, ‘Ready for the cemetery?'

Kirsty traced a gentle finger over the happy young faces. ‘I suppose so,' she said.

It was an emotionally draining day; knowing what she now did, she had felt genuine grief when laying her flowers on the grave, and her heart ached for her aunt's anguished tears. The lunch that followed was subdued, with Kirsty repeatedly asking questions as they occurred to her, though few of them could be answered. Though ashamed of the fact, she was counting the minutes until she could leave.

‘Has Lance been in touch?' Jan enquired at one point, attempting to steer their thoughts away from the tragedy.

‘No, and he won't be. It's over, Auntie.'

Kirsty had recently broken off a two-year relationship, but the question called to mind the mysterious email she'd received the day before. It had been sent to her business address – [email protected] – and read simply,
Have you any idea how lovely you are?
Unsigned, the sender's name was given as [email protected] – not much help. Briefly, she'd wondered if Lance had sent it – though surely he'd have used her private address and anonymous emails were hardly his style, especially, in his present mood, flattering ones. She'd concluded it was spam, but though she'd deleted it from her screen, it still lingered in her head.

Tea was served, the chocolate orange cake in pride of place. But no one had any appetite and when, soon after it was cleared away, Kirsty said she should be going, neither of them tried to detain her.

‘I know it's been a difficult day, sweetie, and I'm sorry,' Roy said, ‘but at least Adam won't be here for a couple of months, so you'll have time to get used to the idea. Harry says he's taking the opportunity to tour Europe before term starts.' He hesitated. ‘As to the rest, you do forgive us, don't you? For keeping the secret so long?'

She smiled wryly. ‘I just wish you could have kept it a bit longer,' she said.

She had driven only a few yards down the road when her mobile shrilled and, glad of the diversion, she pulled in to the kerb. The number on the screen was unfamiliar, as was the man's voice that greeted her.

‘Kirsty?'

‘Yes?'

‘It's Nick. Nick Shepherd. We met at Johnnie and Lois's wedding a couple of weeks ago.'

‘Oh, yes.' Vaguely she recalled a tall, attractive man in his thirties with whom she'd chatted at the reception.

‘If you remember, we had an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of Shakespeare in modern dress. I see
Hamlet
's coming to the Criterion next week and I wondered if you'd care to see it?'

Kirsty raised an eyebrow at herself in the rear-view mirror. Her first date since the break-up! Well, as far as she remembered he was personable and good company, so why not? A spot of light relief would be more than welcome.

‘It's in modern dress,' he added, when she didn't immediately reply.

‘That sounds very interesting. Thank you, I should like to.'

‘Great. It starts quite early – about seven, I think – so I suggest we have a meal afterwards to round off the evening, if that's agreeable?'

‘Sounds lovely,' she said a little cautiously.

‘Right; I'll be in touch when I've sorted things out, and we can arrange a time to meet. Speak to you soon.' And he rang off.

She restarted the car, almost immediately regretting having accepted the invitation. The call had caught her off-balance while her mind was churning with the ramifications of the day's disclosures, but on reflection she knew she wasn't ready to start a new relationship, if that was Nick Shepherd's intention. The break-up with Lance had been bruising, but there was a certain freedom in being ‘single' again. Added to which, she realized belatedly, she knew nothing of this man she'd committed herself to spending an evening with. He could even – a disturbing thought – be the sender of that email.

She frowned, thinking back to their meeting, sure she'd not given him her mobile number. Why hadn't she at least prevaricated, told him she'd have to check her diary? That way she could have thought more clearly about the implications, while any attempt to back down now would be an all too obvious excuse.

Oh, God, as if she'd not enough on her mind without having to worry about this new complication! At least Angie would be home by the time she got back. It would be a relief to talk over the enormity of what she'd learned with someone not personally involved.

Thirty minutes later Kirsty turned into the driveway of the tall Edwardian house and drew up alongside Angie's car, grateful as always for the off-street parking that was at such a premium in central Westbourne.

Closing the front door behind her, she dropped her keys on the hall table and bent over it briefly, her hands resting on its surface as a wave of exhaustion, aftermath of the shock and traumas of the day, swept over her.