Читать книгу Just Before I Died: The gripping new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Ice Twins - S. Tremayne K. - Страница 15

Thursday morning

Adam is getting Lyla ready for school. He’s said nothing more since last night, nothing to explain his cryptic words. He’s told me I need to meet someone, and she will explain. Later yesterday evening, I heard him make a series of muffled phone calls, outside in the freezing yard, where there is sometimes better reception. It sounded as if he was arranging something.

Now he stands here in the kitchen, helping Lyla into her winter coat. We all turn to the sound of a car, squelching through frost and mud, into the farmyard. Adam goes to the door.

And there she is. Tessa. My brother’s wife. My thirty-eight-year-old sister-in-law. The woman we once sought out, for advice on Lyla’s suspected Asperger’s: because she is a psychologist, teaching psychology at Plymouth University.

Tessa walks into the kitchen and stands next to my fridge, with its magnets spelling Love You Mummy from Felix, a joke by my daughter, who likes to pretend Felix and Randal can read and write, as if they are real friends who can talk with her, and understand her.

‘Hello, Kath,’ says Tessa.

I don’t say anything in return. I glare at my husband. He looks back at me carefully, yet rather coldly.

Why has he brought Tessa Kinnersley to Huckerby? If he has something to say, why can’t he say it himself? Why involve Tessa, a psychologist?

As if I am mad.

In the distance I can hear the dogs barking happily. The normality makes me angry.

I am not mad. My memory is fragmented and I have odd panics but this was all anticipated. Mild to moderate brain injury, they said. Expect mood swings, sudden anxieties or depressions, difficulty with daily tasks, insomnia, nerves, prickliness, but you should also expect a slow and steady recovery.

Tessa comes a little closer. ‘Kath, I know this must be weird, and I’m really sorry, but I’m here to talk. That’s all. Adam thought it might be better if you heard things from me.’

‘What things?’

She flashes a glance at my husband. He responds with a subtle nod as he chats quietly with Lyla. Making sure she has everything in her schoolbag. He is ushering her away from the scene, telling her to wait in the car. I gaze at Lyla but she’s not even looking at me, as she exits. What is going on? The hag stones, the symbols made of birds, the objects in the forest, maybe it is all imagination and coincidence sending me to the edge. Perhaps Tessa really is the kind of person I need to see. A trained psychologist, who used to work at the prison, and for the police.

‘Kath.’

My husband’s voice rouses me. How long have I been stood here, lost in pointless thought? ‘Sorry,’ I say, and immediately regret it. Now I’ve apologized, I’m on the defensive. I feel a need to protect myself. This feels like a hostile situation. I am the woman who gets panicked in woods. How can she be allowed to drive?

‘Kath,’ says Adam. ‘This is difficult for everyone, but Tessa is a friend and a professional. You know that. So we thought it was the right way to do this. Cos it’s really important. There are questions you need to be asked. There’s stuff about your accident that you need to hear.’

He comes over and puts a protective arm around my shoulders. And I feel an urge to sink into those arms, forever. My big husband, the National Park Ranger, the guy who rescues drowning tourists from quarries.

But no. Stiffening myself, I ease out of the hug. I mustn’t admit to my stirring feelings of disintegration, my fear of stones and brushes and dead animals. I’ve got to stay sane and sensible. Because, if they take my driving licence away it could permanently fracture my marriage, and really drive me over the edge. A few weeks of reliance on Adam, for transport, left us bickering. What would a year do? We can’t move back to Princetown, we all hate it. And park rangers are obliged to live within the Park. And Lyla has to live in the wilds, she loves it here, she hated it in town.

Without a car each, we’d be screwed.

‘All right,’ I say, forcing a smile. The way my daughter forces a smile, because sometimes she doesn’t know how to smile. ‘I’ll answer questions. I’ve got some of my own, I think.’

‘Good,’ says Adam, backing away. ‘I’ll take Lyla to school.’

The door opens and closes. I hear the rumble of the Land Rover, fading away.

Recalling my manners, I offer Tessa some tea. She nods and says sorry, again, and I feel my hostility melt, somewhat. She is a good friend, or at least one of my few remaining friends, of any kind. She gave us good advice on Lyla. When I was wondering if we should have her assessed, but Adam was more reluctant.

The fat brown teapot is placed on the kitchen table. ‘Can I ask you some general questions first, Kath?’

‘I suppose so. OK.’

‘Would you say you are happy, or were happy, before the … accident? Happy in your life, that kind of thing?’

I look her in the eyes. Startled. ‘You really think that’s a general question?’

She lowers her gaze, apologetically. ‘OK, but this is tricky. Let’s do it the other way round. Let me build a picture first, for both of us.’ She reaches for her fashionable handbag and pulls out a black notebook.

‘You’re taking notes.’ I can’t help bristling. ‘Really? You’re not my doctor, Tessa, you’re my friend. I saw loads of psychiatrists after the accident. What is the point of this? Who are you taking notes for, the police?’

She opens the notebook. Pen in hand. ‘No,’ she says calmly, and pauses. I can hear the moorland rain rattling on the windows. ‘No, not yet, Kath. We all really want to avoid anything like that.’

Again, I am put on the defensive, and simultaneously alarmed. Avoid the police? Why should the police be anywhere near this? That has all been dealt with. Adam handled all that. I was still in hospital. So why has he asked Tessa here to talk about the police?

I don’t know. But I have to believe my husband is doing this for a good reason, acting in my best interests. He must be. Adam has always done what’s best for me, and Lyla.

‘You met Adam when you were very young, isn’t that right?’

I shrug, bemused. Tessa surely knows this backstory almost as well as her own.

‘Tessa, you’re married to my bloody brother. Why do you even need to hear this stuff?’

‘I know some of it, Kath, yes, but—’ she sighs apologetically. ‘I really want to hear it from you. Please let me run with this?’

More mystery. Things are being hidden. In the back of the kitchen cupboard.

Taking a gulp of tea, I sigh. ‘I was seventeen, at a private girls’ school in Totnes.’

‘OK. Go on.’

‘Dan must have told you the story. We bunked off to the pub one day. I was underage, of course, so I was frightened to buy a drink, to break the rules, but then this very good-looking guy came up. It was Adam, he was eighteen. We went on a date the next day, started going steady the day after. He already had a job at the Park, as a trainee, and I went off to uni.’

‘Exeter. Yes.’

Her brisk smile is meant to be reassuring, I am not reassured.

‘I did archaeology, as you know.’

‘You enjoyed it?’

‘Sure. Yes. I really liked it.’

‘And you stuck with Adam?’

‘Yep.’ I smile, faintly, at the memory. ‘Everyone at university was sceptical, everyone scoffed and said Oh it won’t last, you’ll break up by Christmas, but I knew they were wrong, and they were wrong, and it did last, we stayed loyal, we had fun. Adam would come over to my halls of residence.’ I look her in the eyes. ‘Some days we never got up, just stayed in bed. After a few terms we got engaged. And when I graduated we got married. A year after you and Dan.’

Tessa takes more notes. Meanwhile, the January weather is at the windows, listening in, rattling panes. I wonder if the weather can hear my deeper thoughts, the occasional recurring doubts about my marriage, that trouble me from time to time: did I ever really deserve a handsome guy like Adam Redway? I know I brought the education to the marriage, and the faded poshness of the Kinnersleys: that was my side of the marital contract, but I’ve always thought I definitely got the best of the deal. Adam Redway: loyal, rugged, sexy – look at him, 100 per cent man. What did he see in her? I’ve watched women openly ogling my husband all the way through our marriage.

Has he stayed loyal? Does something like infidelity lie underneath this oddness? No. No. I do not believe that. Adam is loyal, and honest, and he loves me.

‘It’s around this time,’ Tessa says, scribbling away, ‘when you went off to uni, that your mother died?’

This is a change of tack. Now I feel vaguely affronted, again. ‘Look. I’m sorry, Tessa, and I don’t want to be rude, you’re always so kind to us, but … Can you please tell me why you’re here?’ I look at the clock on the cooker. ‘I’ve got work to do, too.’

‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry, Kath. I totally understand your confusion and irritation. But …’ She sets down her pen, and meets my gaze. ‘I need to colour in the blanks, and then I’ll tell you. It’s best we do it this way round. So that, you know—’

‘What? What do you have to tell me?’ I’m trying not to freak out. What can be so bad that Adam calls in my sister-in-law who happens to be a psychologist? Why does it need this long preamble, as if I am being prepared for the worst?

Tessa ignores the flush in my cheeks, and puts a pen to her notebook, ready to write. ‘Please, Kath, it’s best this way. Honestly.’

I look at her: the nice shoes from London, the cashmere cardigan. And I yield, wearily. ‘It was my second year at uni. Mum died in an ashram, when she was in India, which was typical of her.’

‘How do you mean, “typical”?’

‘Because Mum was always, like, alternative. Give her a crazy religion, Mum went for it. Reiki, Buddhism, wicca, astrology, shamanism, putting crystals up your bottom. She didn’t believe in things, she believed in everything. I think at one point she was simultaneously vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, breatharian, and oddly fond of ribeye steak. And red wine. She always loved wine.’

Tessa smiles. ‘You miss her?’

I smile wistfully, in return. Oh yes. I miss Mum, even now. As I gaze across the kitchen I can see, on the shelf, one of the many souvenirs of her solo travels, when she would hare off to far corners of the world, dumping us kids with bemused but tolerant relatives; this particular souvenir is a garish, ancient doll from Greenland, an Inuit spirit-doll, I think, made of feathers and bird bones, with a leering face. Walrus teeth carved very crudely into human teeth. Yellow and awkward.

Adam hates this doll, I like it, because it’s Mum’s. She always loved eccentric things, quirky, broken, eerie things, stuff no one else liked. And I miss that artiness, that curiosity, and I miss her generous, scatterbrained foolishness, and I miss her wild and waspish wit. I also think I disappointed her. I was so normal, so conservative, wanting to fit in; yet in myself I loved her, revered her, despite her egotism, her partying.

I wished I could have showed it to her, more.

Looking back at Tessa I realize I have been lost in silence. For too long.

‘Yes,’ I say, sighing deeply, ‘I miss Mum. I miss her daily, even now. She was great fun, most of the time.’ I pause, and look at the smirking Inuit spirit-doll with its yellow teeth, like an old smoker. ‘Mum was Mum. Always herself. She grew up rich, I mean – you know we were an old family, the Kinnersleys. She used to talk about a big house in Dorset, long ago sold, but by the time it got to her, or at least me and Daniel, most of the money had gone and she was determined to spend the rest on experiences. She wanted to try everything, go everywhere, Greenland to Zambia, and she did. She used to say no one ever died wishing they’d bought a bigger TV: they died regretting things they didn’t do. Which is true, I think. I often wish I could live by those words, but I haven’t got the guts. Or the money.’

I take a breath. This is possibly the most I’ve spoken in one go since the accident. Which in itself is striking.

Tessa nods. Pen poised. ‘You never knew your father?’

‘Nope. Dan did a bit, but not me. No. He was American, based in London, and he wasn’t in her life that long, and never lived with us, never even lived in Devon, and he died when I was barely two, Daniel five. You should ask Dan about the funeral; by all accounts it was mad. Sitars and pentangles – and a Cornish harp. And Dad was pretty soon replaced.’ I chuckle, a little sadly, a little bitterly. ‘Mum was, you know, never into domesticity, never wanted to be bossed around, with a man around the house. But she certainly loved male attention, and men loved her back.’

Tessa looks at me. I can guess what she is thinking.

‘Of course Mum was a beauty, so I am told, but she bequeathed her looks to Dan. I got her intellectual curiosity, I think.’

‘I see. I see.’

Tessa squints at her notebook, and then looks at me, and I wonder if I can see embarrassment in her eyes. I sense an awkward question coming.

‘Let’s talk about your mother some more. The bequests. Does it hurt you that she left the Salcombe house entirely to Daniel?’

I flinch. Because, yes, this does hurt. It hurt a lot, and it sometimes still hurts, now. I look at Tessa’s expectant face. ‘Yes, that was pretty difficult. Emotionally.’ I am surprised at my own honesty; surprised by my vehemence. ‘The house was the last major asset Mum owned and she gave it all to my brother, supposedly because he’ – I do sarcastic air quotes with my fingers – ‘“always loved Salcombe so much more than me”, and Mum allegedly balanced it by giving me shares and antiques.’ I stare at the Dartmoor calendar on the kitchen wall, the picture of Kitty Jay’s grave, pretty and sad in the snow. ‘The shares and antiques turned out to be virtually worthless. Stuff my mum bought when she was stoned. God, she loved weed.’ I roll my eyes. ‘She used to buy it in Totnes from druids. I hate drugs. Hate them.’

Tessa writes brisk, efficient notes. Like a proper detective. I wonder if it is displacement activity, to hide her own discomfort. She glances at me.

‘So you still feel a certain resentment? Towards Dan, and your mother? About our Salcombe house?’

‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know. Yes, a little. But not really – I know there’s always that bit of friction between me and Dan, because of the house and all that, but I also love my brother. He’s an extrovert – not like me. He’s funny. And most of all we both endured Mum, together: that’s a profound bond, and of course it’s not his fault Mum was so scatty.’ Our eyes meet; I go on. ‘And of course I like you, Tessa, and I totally love your two little boys, and so, yes, sure, Dan has the big house, and yes, you guys get the money and the life, and we have to rent this place – but he’s loaned us cash when we’ve been hard up, you’ve bought holidays for me and Lyla, and that’s helped, Dan’s been a big, big help.’

‘OK. I see.’ Tessa is nearly expressionless. ‘And that brings us round to Lyla.’ She takes another sip of tea, which must be nearly cold. Mine is. ‘Let’s talk about that. And after that we’re nearly there, Kath.’

Nearly there? Nearly where? The tension builds like snow on snow – that snow which piles up and up, until the roof collapses.

‘You only had one child. Or have, I should say.’

‘Yes. We wanted more, but remember, Adam got Hodgkins, a few years back, and he needed chemo. And so he can’t have kids any more. So, as you know, Lyla is it. But it’s fine, he’s better. And I adore her, I love her, and Adam’s illness made us stronger.’ I push my mug away, defiantly. ‘It set us back financially, it was horrible – but we saw it through. It united us even more, and here we are. A family. A unit. This is who we are, and I like it.’

‘OK. This is my last question, Kath.’

‘Good.’

‘How are you coping with Lyla’s, ah, quirks?’

‘Her Asperger’s?’

‘She’s still not been officially diagnosed,’ Tessa says quickly, ‘As far as I am aware?’

‘No, but I reckon that’s what it is. Anyway, it means our lives are different; she still hates bustle and towns and loud noises, and new people, they make her panic, and she loves animals. So we live here, in the wilds, in the quiet, where we can have dogs, and there are horses. It’s fine, it’s all fine. Or it was until the bloody accident.’

Tessa nods and puts down her pen. My session, it seems, is over.

‘All right, taking all this into consideration, would you say that, on the whole, you were happy – or at least content – at the time of the accident at Burrator?’

‘Yes,’ I say, with some force: because it is true, and the truth is easy to say. ‘Tessa, that’s what makes it so awful! What gives me flashbacks, the horrors: I nearly lost it all. I have a husband I love, a daughter I love, a home I love, and I nearly lost it all, because of some stupid ice on a stupid Dartmoor road. I am very lucky. I’ve been given a second chance. I was actually technically dead for a few seconds!’ I shake my head, marvelling at my own luck. ‘Yes, life could be better: we need more money, Lyla needs help, it’s far from perfect, but what is money compared to life? No one ever died wishing they’d bought a bigger TV.’

Tessa smiles politely, yet I think I detect a faint, sad blush on her face. For a moment we both listen to the wind, knocking things over in the farmyard outside, like a drunk returning home from the pub. I wonder what Lyla is doing now. At school. Sitting alone in assembly, perhaps. Not talking to anyone. Ignored and friendless. Her mind wandering on to the moor, thinking of her newest bird feathers, and that piece of antler-felt her father found.

‘Kath, you clearly know you have retrograde amnesia? Because of the brain trauma?’

‘Yes. Of course! I know I’ve forgotten some stuff from before the crash, a week or so, but there are fragments, and the psychiatrists at the hospital say it will all come back. But, Jesus, I wish I could forget the actual crash! I still see the ice, the skid, the water – ugh—’

I close my eyes to dull the mental pain. When I open them, Tessa is frowning.

‘Well, the thing is, Kath: what the doctors at Derriford Hospital might not have properly explained about this amnesia is that you can forget that you’ve forgotten. That is to say, there are holes in your memory that you don’t even realize are there, and the mind tries to fill them.’

The wind has stopped abruptly. The whole house is quiet. I realize that the dogs must have gone with Adam and Lyla. All I can hear is Dartmoor rain on the window. A tinkly-tankly sound. I feel a sense of congealing fear. Some kind of horror is approaching. Like a moorland witch, creeping along the hedgerow. And we don’t have any hag stones. We have nothing to keep the witches away.

I can’t stand this any longer.

‘OK, this really is enough, Tessa. Tell me why you are here, in my kitchen?’ I am close to shouting. ‘I’ve told you everything. You know most of it already. So now it’s my turn to ask. Why are you here?’

‘Because,’ she says, looking deep, deep into my eyes, ‘you didn’t have an accident, Kath.’

‘What?’

‘Your mind has invented this. Invented the ice, invented it all.’

‘What?’ The panic rises in my throat, an acrid, metallic taste. ‘What? What do you mean? I had the bruises, I’ve seen the doctors. The bloody car is at the bottom of Burrator Reservoir. I had to buy a new one!’

‘Yes, it is. The car is down there. But that’s because you drove it in there, deliberately.’

I sense my life pivot around this moment. A ritual dance. ‘You mean – you mean – you can’t possibly—’

Tessa Kinnersley shakes her head, and I see the most enormous pity in her eyes. ‘Kath, there was no accident. You tried to leave your husband and daughter behind, to destroy yourself, to destroy everything. You tried to commit suicide. We just don’t know why.’