‘Yes,’ Juliet said. ‘Of course we’re fine.’ Because she’d been well brought up and really, what else was there to say? The idea of Vera, who’d been single all her life, offering relationship counselling, made her grin, and when she went back into the house to continue wrapping presents, the dogs following behind, she felt lighter, almost cheerful.
Later that evening, Harriet announced that she was going out. There was a charity carol concert in the church in Kirkhill. She’d been invited to open it, to say a few words of welcome, and they couldn’t keep running away from their duty. The last thing they needed was for the people in the village to think they had something to hide. Dorothy had given them an early supper in the kitchen and after Harriet went, she sat at the table with Juliet drinking coffee. The silence was companionable, easy, and Juliet was tempted to break it, to tell her about Vera’s crazy ideas. But just as the thought appeared Dorothy started speaking:
‘Do you mind if I go back to the cottage? I’ve hardly seen Duncan for days and Karan is going stir-crazy. He usually plays squash in Kimmerston with his mates on a Tuesday. You could come too, though, if you don’t want to be here on your own.’
‘Of course you must! And I’ll be glad of a little time to myself.’
‘Make sure you lock up behind me.’
For the first time, Juliet had a sense of danger, the notion that there might be a killer lurking in the forest, watching for somebody else to prey on. She imagined a shadow, sliding between the trees, peering into the house. Before that moment, the events of the last few days had seemed unreal, a fiction. ‘You shouldn’t walk up to the cottage on your own.’
‘I won’t. Karan’s coming down to get me.’
At that, as if he’d been summoned, there was a tap on the door and Karan came into the kitchen. He was wearing a waxed jacket, a hat and gloves, and Duncan was in a rucksack on his back, only his eyes visible because the hood of his snow suit was pulled low over his face and a scarf was wound round his chin.
Karan gave his wonderful smile. ‘It’s freezing out there now. Sorry to drag Dorothy away, but I need to get her back before the wood-burner dies.’
By the time Juliet could answer, Dorothy had already pulled on her boots and her jacket.
‘Lock the door behind me,’ she said again, and Juliet felt the same panic. It seemed to scramble her brain, so she could hardly put together the words to say goodbye.
When Dorothy and her family left, the house was silent. It felt as dark and imposing as the forest surrounding it. Juliet’s mobile rang. It was Mark, calling she thought from the theatre bar. There was conversation and laughter in the background.
‘How are you?’
But she could tell that he didn’t really want to know. It was a form of greeting; he could just as well have said hello. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Will you be back tomorrow?’ She thought now how unfair and thoughtless it was to leave her alone when there was a murderer on the loose, how unlike Karan her husband was.
‘Yeah, I hope so. Should be back in time for dinner.’ Then he started talking about the school matinee they’d had on that afternoon. ‘It was bloody brilliant. The actors really got it, you know. So physical. And the kids responded big style. Then the writer led a discussion afterwards. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back tomorrow. It’s just the sort of performance I’d hope to do at Brockburn.’
‘Great,’ she said, but she could tell he’d already stopped listening, that his attention had shifted to someone more important, a reviewer, or one of the pretty young women he always seemed to employ. She switched off the phone and the house became silent again.
If the call hadn’t made her so angry, she would have sat by the fire in the small drawing room, drinking tea and watching the television programmes that Harriet and Mark despised: soap operas and old murder mysteries. Instead she made her way upstairs to her mother’s room. Towards the end of her parents’ marriage, this had just been her mother’s. Her father had slept in a smaller room on the other side of the corridor. Growing up, she’d thought the separate sleeping arrangements were an affectation, an aping of royalty; now she thought her parents had probably disliked each other intensely and couldn’t bear to be in the same bed. She’d stood outside the day before, while Harriet was in Newcastle, trying to conjure the courage to go in. Now, she pushed open the heavy door.
The room was large, with two long windows covered with heavy curtains to keep out the draughts. The radiators seemed to work here and Harriet had left on an electric fan heater too. No wonder she was unmoved whenever Juliet tried to bring up the subject of a new boiler. The bed was large with a carved bedhead and a quilt in reds and golds. Regal. Juliet went to a desk standing against one wall. One of the drawers was locked, but Juliet had been a watchful, curious child and she’d known for years where her mother kept the key. It was in a little music box, which stood on Harriet’s dressing table. The tune played ‘Bobby Shafto’, which seemed inappropriate for such a delicate object. The key was still there and Juliet opened the drawer, the tune tinkling in the background, becoming slower until it stopped and the deep silence returned.
She found what she was looking for almost immediately: an envelope in the heavy cream paper her father had favoured. The name on the
