Nemesis (24 page)

38

Natalie headed back along the woodland path and through the churchyard to the Old Vicarage. She didn’t even wait for the police cars to leave first, in case DCI Bloom changed his mind and wanted to drag her along for interview too. She needed to gather her thoughts. It was horrible to think of Geraint dying alone and in pain at the bottom of that well. She’d thought he’d been on the run, enjoying life to the full, yet all these years he’d been dead too. Why had no one found him before? And how the hell had he even got down there, when there had been a gate locked over the top?

Of one thing she was certain - Geraint’s death must be connected with her sister’s. Either he had tried to prevent Sarah’s death, and been thrown down the well for his trouble, or he was the murderer and had fallen down it as he fled from the scene. But that would mean he had been running
towards
the castle.

And that didn’t make sense.

The front door of the Old Vicarage was not locked. Lexi and Will were in the sitting room, lolling on the sofa and eating pizza straight out of the carton. No tables, no cutlery, no napkins - Will even had one foot draped over the arm of the sofa, with a muddy trainer still attached to it. The huge wall-mounted TV - James’s pride and joy - was set to one decibel below deafening and showing a gleefully tacky reality show. Natalie grinned. Alicia would have had a fit!

“Hi, kids,” she shouted over the din. “I came to check you were all right. Any pizza left?”

Lexi barely glanced up.
“Loads.”

Natalie headed for the kitchen, which was littered with more discarded food cartons. She stuck some pizza and garlic bread into the oven to reheat, and then set about tidying up, putting the leftovers into plastic containers and storing them in the fridge. Alicia should be impressed. She didn’t even do this kind of thing in her own home, preferring to let her cleaner take care of it. But keeping herself occupied meant she didn’t have the time to think about Geraint or her father.

Simon had said John’s death in the fire had been on the news, but presumably Alicia had not seen it or she would have mentioned it. Once the media found out her father had come back from the dead, only to die in a shoot-out with the police, every morsel of gossip about her family would be everywhere. She’d wanted to stir things up with her talk about Sarah’s ‘diary’, to rattle memories in the hope someone would remember
something
about the night her sister had died. She hadn’t wanted
this
at all.

There were some secrets she didn’t want to come out.

The kitchen had a small TV and she switched it on to check the local news, but there was nothing about either the skeleton being found down the well, or of her father being shot, so she switched over to an old movie. By ten o’clock she’d eaten the pizza and was about to return to the sitting room and assert her authority, when Will wandered in, looking disgruntled.

“Lexi kicked me out of the sitting room. She wants to watch her vampire thing. Mum spilt coffee over the computer, so I can’t go on the Internet. I’m bored.”

“You could go to bed,” Natalie suggested.

Will
considered
it. “I suppose so. But Mum always reads me a bedtime story.”

“OK, we’ll do a deal. You put your pyjamas on in five minutes and I’ll be right up to read to you. Better hurry!”

He shot off upstairs.

She gave him a fifteen minute head start before following him.

Will’s room was crammed full of the latest, most expensive toys, most of which were scattered carelessly across the floor. He was hunched over a pile of Lego but glanced up when she came in, his curly ginger hair flopping over his forehead. For a split second he looked exactly like Alicia.

“Today was the best day ever,” he said and, when he was sure Natalie understood the joke, he grinned mischievously.

She tried to appear a responsible adult. “I think the skeleton gave your mother a bit of a shock. Weren’t you scared?”

“No, it was brilliant! Do you think she’d let me go down the well tomorrow and have a look?”

Natalie didn’t like to tell him the police had already brought the skeleton to the surface. “I think that might be a bit dangerous.”

“Mum did it!”

“God knows how
… ”

“There’s no water in it and it’s not deep. There are rungs to hold onto and everything.
Just like in my book.”

Had she missed something? “What book?”

Will dived beneath the bed and emerged, covered in dust, triumphantly brandishing a tattered hardcover book. It had lost its dust jacket and the spine had been inexpertly repaired with sticky tape, which was already peeling off.

Natalie was tempted to chuck it into the bin but blew the dust off and pretended to look impressed. She thought it would be a book about medieval Britain, or even a guide to Hurst Castle. Instead, she found herself holding an old children’s book.

“Enid Blyton?” She would have thought Will would be reading the latest Anthony Horowitz. “Haven’t you got anything a bit more 21
^st
century?”

Will was disapproving. “It belonged to Mum.”

“Why am I not surprised?” She examined the cover again. The book was called
The Ring O’Bells Mystery
and showed an illustration of four children peering into a wishing well. “I would have thought you’d had enough of wells, William Vyne Fitzpatrick!”

“No way!
Are you going to read it to me?
Please
?” Sensing weakness, Will hopped into bed.

He had marked his place in the book with an old leather bookmark. It was blue and had the logo of Hurst Castle printed on it in gold. Something else which had belonged to his mother?

She sat on the edge of the bed, opened the book and began to read, but before she could finish the chapter, Will had fallen asleep. She tucked him in and tiptoed out, closing the door softly behind her.

Lexi was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Her silver eye make-up had streaked across her cheeks.

“I tried watching
True Blood
but I kept nodding off,” she grumbled. “So you can tell my dear mother,
if
she ever comes back, that I’ve gone to bed, OK?”

“OK,” Natalie said, hiding a smile. “I’ll do that. Goodnight.”

Lexi grunted a response. As she entered her bedroom, there was a brief glimpse of black walls and purple fairy lights, and then the door closed.

Natalie remembered her own bedroom back at the Lodge, with its stark white walls, creaking floorboards and ever-present atmosphere of fear. She and Sarah had never been allowed to wear make-up, or revealing clothes - which of course they did the moment they left the house - or even date boys. Perhaps this was why they had both gone so spectacularly off the rails? Did Lexi realise how lucky she was, to have that freedom of choice, to be part of a loving family, when her life could have been so different?

Probably not.

39

Alicia was taken to Calahurst Police Station, shown into the CID office and given a pile of fashion magazines to read while she waited for someone to deign to interview her. An hour later and she was about to leave, when the door opened and in walked the officer she’d met earlier.

He sat down behind the desk, introduced himself as DCI Douglas Bloom and, without giving her a chance to speak, added, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I had a few things I needed to clarify.” He took a notebook from his pocket and opened it. “You are the legal owner of Hurst Castle?” he asked, pen poised for her reply.

She forced herself to concentrate. “Yes, I inherited it because my father didn’t have a son. A distant relative inherited the title.”

“Why not the castle?”

“My father owned several properties all over the country, most of which were entailed onto the head of the Vyne family. Hurst Castle was not entailed. It’s not old, it’s not special - it’s basically an overgrown folly, built by someone with more money than sense or taste. My father could leave the castle, as well as all of its contents, to whomever he chose. I suspect that if he’d had a son, he would have left it to him. My father was very traditional.”

“When the time comes, will you leave the castle to your
son,
or to both your children equally?”

Alicia shifted in her seat, uncomfortable at the way the questioning was going. “It’s a bit difficult to divide a castle in two. My son will inherit. My daughter will receive the financial equivalent and probably the house we live in now.”

“Is this something you promised your father you would do?”

“My father died before Will was born. Why is this relevant?”

“You haven’t answered the question.”

“My father explained that if an estate such as ours was divided, it would be to diminish it. It’s common sense. I fail to see what any of this has to do with the skeleton I found down the well.”

“Consider it background information,” he shrugged. “Now, your father was still alive when Sarah was killed?”

Alicia stared at him. Why on earth had he said that? Surely he wasn’t suggesting -

“Mrs Fitzpatrick?”

“Yes, my father was alive. Sarah did part-time work at the castle. She helped to catalogue his books and, when she died, he went to her funeral. I thought you knew that?”

“Were you living at the castle at the time?”

“I was a year older than Sarah and had already left home. I was sharing a flat in Norchester with James. We were supposed to be going to university together but I became pregnant and couldn’t go. We were struggling financially so my father gave us the Old Vicarage. It meant I could stay at home with the baby.”

She trailed off, wondering if she was talking too much - although the DCI was writing everything down in his notebook, so presumably he thought it was relevant.

When he realised she was watching him, he smiled. Like a shark, she thought, and began to feel nervous all over again.

“Your mother is currently in residence at the castle?
With her personal assistant, Robert McKenzie?”

Did he have to make the word ‘assistant’ sound like ‘gigolo’?

“My mother has the use of the castle during her lifetime, but she also has to pay for its upkeep.”

DCI Bloom did not appear to care for specifics. “Tell me about the well.”

“There’s not much to say. It’s only a well.”

“How old is it?”

“I have no idea. We have several plans of the estate, going back to the 1400s, although those ones are kept at the County Archives. I think it’s medieval. I’m certain I remember my father telling me that.”

“It seems a strange place to sink a well -
outside
a castle?”

“The present building is only two hundred and fifty years old. It is built on the site of a much older building, of which some still remains - the library, the old watch tower and the cellars. The original castle was built on top of the hill, for maximum viewpoint, with a wall which enclosed the entire area.”

“The ruined chapel and the well were originally inside the castle wall?”

“Yes, but only the foundation of the wall remains and that’s hidden beneath the garden. Like the rest of the original castle, it was destroyed during the Civil War. For many years it lay in ruins; much of the stonework was taken to reconstruct the houses in the village, which had also been destroyed. Then an ancestor of mine married an heiress and a new, grander castle was built.”

“How long has the gate been fitted over the top of the well?”

“Since before I was born, although I’m not certain that it is the same one. It would be in the archives. I’ll ask the Estate Manager to look it up for you.”

“Not to worry; I’ll arrange for one of my DCs to check the records.”

“The Estate Manager is a very straight, honest kind of person. If the information is there, he’ll find it for you.”

“It was not my intention to imply otherwise.”

Of course it wasn’t.

“Is that everything?” she asked coldly.

“Almost.
I wanted to clarify that the gate, as you call it, has been in place for over thirty years?”

“Yes - but not necessarily the same gate.”

“I understand that, Mrs Fitzpatrick. I’m not trying to catch you out. Has the gate always been padlocked?”

“Yes. It’s level with the ground, as you’ve seen. Anyone could fall in. It was always kept locked - else what would be the point of having a gate?”

“You were able to break the lock quite easily.”

“The stone it was bolted to came loose from the rest of the well. The padlock is still in place. You can check.”

“We already have.”

How many pointless questions would he ask, when he already knew the answers?

“Was there anything else? I’d really like to get back to my family.”

“One last thing.”
DCI Bloom opened up a folder and took out two large black and white photographs. He
lay
them on the desk, one at a time. “Do you recognise either of these men?”

The overhead light reflected on the glossy surface of the photographs and Alicia had to lean over them to get a better view. They were police mugshots, not the most flattering of photographs, of two men who were perhaps in their late teens or early twenties. Both had too-long hair and handsome faces, which were marred by defiant expressions. Something stirred in her memory.

She jabbed her finger at the photograph of the younger man. “I remember him,” she said. “That’s Geraint Llewellyn. He’s the fairground boy everyone said killed Sarah but he disappeared around the same time.”

“You’re quite right.
How about the other one?”

“Can I pick it up?”

He nodded. “Take your time. This is important.”

Finally she was doing something worthwhile. “There is a slight resemblance between them,” she said. “Are they brothers? They have the same shaped forehead and high cheekbones, but this man is older, harder - as though he’s seen too much of life.”

The DCI’s lips twitched. “Yes … but have you seen him before?”

“Never,” she said confidently, handing him back the photograph. “And I would remember. I’m good with faces.”

The DCI placed the photographs back into the file. “That is most illuminating.”

Alicia realised she’d made a mistake. “Why?”

The DCI stood up. “Thank you for coming in, Mrs Fitzpatrick. I’ll get someone to drive you home.”

“Oh, no.
You can’t leave me hanging like that! Who is the man in the picture? Is he Sarah’s killer?”

“I don’t know - and that’s the honest truth.”

“You must know who he is though? That’s a police mugshot!”

“I’m sorry, I misunderstood your question. Of course I know who the man is. His name is Bryn Llewellyn - he and Geraint were cousins.”

“That’s
Bryn
? You
mean,
the new head gardener? Natalie’s new - er, friend?”

“Yes.”

“But it can’t be him! It looks nothing like him!”