‘Time to explain why I asked you here.’
He goes over to the corner of the room. ‘Now, Natasha, I have something to give you, and that’s why I wanted to meet up. To – explain.’ He opens a cupboard door and turns back towards me.
He is holding a smal , flat thing in his hand, and I stare down at it, not real y thinking.
‘Here,’ he says, holding his hand out to me. ‘Cecily’s diary.’ There’s a thud and a squeal from Thomasina the cat. I have dropped my cup of tea, boiling water is everywhere.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It takes a few minutes to clean up, and I am very sorry. There is a painting that is probably ruined, as hot tea and water-colours don’t mix, and I keep apologising as I help Guy wipe down various cases and books and random antiques, but he is completely relaxed about it. As I am on the floor, mopping up the tea with a cloth, I say, ‘Where the hel did you get this?’
‘Wel —’ Guy is immersed in a stain on the wal , and has his back to me. ‘It’s – it’s complicated.’
I stare at the innocuous red exercise book, the white pages yel ow with age. On the front is written, in the scrawling handwriting I know so wel :
‘No, I did not,’ he says firmly. ‘Your mother sent it to me. She took it.’
‘What?’
I am stil holding a soggy bal of kitchen paper; my head snaps up.
‘She posted it to me a few days ago. Said I should read it.’
‘But—’ My anger is rising. ‘Why you? She can’t stand you.’ I catch the tip of my tongue between my lips. ‘Sorry. She – she’s just not your biggest fan, maybe.’
‘Yes,’ Guy says. ‘Right. I’d gathered that. I don’t know why, to be honest. But I don’t know why she sent me the diary either, I’m afraid. Wel – I do know why. You ought to read it and find out.’
I’m blushing, with embarrassment and anger. ‘Stil . Where the hel did she get it in the first place?’
‘It was in your grandmother’s studio. She’d found it after Cecily died and kept it in there, al these years.’ He stops. ‘I did wonder, a few months after Cecily died – what happened to the diary? But I assumed they’d just put it away with al her things. I didn’t think about it, real y.’ His head sags.
‘I was too – I was thinking about other things.’
‘So Mum just took it.’ My head is spinning. ‘After the funeral? So she’s had it ever since? Why did she take it? Why hasn’t she said anything?’
‘I haven’t spoken to her. I think she just saw it and snapped,’ Guy says careful y. ‘She was in the studio with Arvind, and she spotted it. The pages you have must have become separated, somehow, just fal en out.’
‘Have you got the note?’
He pauses. ‘I didn’t keep it. I’m sorry. I don’t think she planned it out. I’m rather concerned about her, you know, Natasha. It’s a lot to cope with, what she’s been through. And she’s completely disappeared now. I rang her after I’d – I’d read it, to talk to her. I’ve rung her several times, but she never answers.’
‘Typical,’ I say. My head is spinning. ‘She – I accused her of al these things, last week, and she just stood there. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t mention she had the diary, didn’t say anything. And then she just sends it off to you – of al people, when she’s told me you’re the worst of the lot of them. She’s—’ I don’t know what to say. ‘She is mad.’
‘You haven’t read what’s in here,’ Guy says. The lines on his face deepen, and a spasm of pain flashes in his eyes. ‘If she’s mad – I can see why.’
I don’t say anything. ‘Natasha, you don’t know what it’s like to lose a sibling,’ he says.
‘I’m an only child,’ I snap at him. ‘Of course I don’t.’ Guy jangles some change in his pocket. ‘Yes . . . yes, I know. Wel , you have to understand.
It’s always been with her, this. It changed us al . I don’t think—’ He clears his throat, staring into the distance. ‘I don’t think I ever real y got over her death.’
‘Cecily’s death? Real y?’
‘Yes,’ he says, and he looks at me now, his kind grey eyes ful of pain. ‘There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of her. It’s strange. It was so long ago.’
‘Why? Cecily? But you didn’t know her that wel , did you?’ I say. ‘You hadn’t met her before that summer, had you?’
‘No.’ Guy stands up, and he crosses over to the other side of the room, his back to me. He takes a deep breath, and then he turns around and stands up straight. He says, ‘You’l see. But – I saw her dead by the rocks . . . broken and battered.’ He passes his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes. ‘I brought her up from the sea myself, you know, that evening. I carried her in my arms.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘We put her in the sitting room.
Awful.’ He blinks and looks at me. ‘You know, until the funeral, I hadn’t been back to Summercove since the summer she was kil ed. Died.’ He corrects himself. ‘Died.’
My mouth is dry. ‘You think someone kil ed her. You think – Mum kil ed her?’
The silence is long, broken only by the sound of Thomasina’s purring, her claws piercing the worn fabric she lies on. ‘No,’ he says flatly. ‘That’s not what this is about, Natasha. It’s not a whodunnit. It was an accident. Your mother was there, I saw it. But believe me, it was an accident.’
‘So why does everyone seem to think she did it?’ I said. ‘There were people at the funeral, pointing at my mother, whispering about her.
Octavia does, Louisa does, the rest of them.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what to think any more.’
