Deep Blue Sea Page 17
Ross gave a cynical laugh. ‘He’d had enough practice, Rach. And anyway, if this Madison was his secret lover, who could he tell? For two days he would have had to carry all that grief, all that sorrow around on his own, keeping it locked inside.’
He bent to pull a file from his briefcase and handed it to Rachel. It contained all the information he had managed to gather on Madison Kopek. At the front were three different glossy photos, clearly professionally taken, perhaps for a modelling portfolio. She looked exactly as Rachel had imagined: wholesome, squeaky-clean beauty queen. Greg’s story of Julian picking up hookers in hotel bars hadn’t quite rung true for Rachel; he liked the nice things in life, shiny and new – there was nothing gritty or street-corner, even hotel-bar escort girl, about her brother-in-law. No, Madison was much more his style. And as she read, it confirmed her image of the girl. Madison Kopek was an honours student at the University of Maryland; smart and beautiful, easy to fall in love with. What a terrible loss, thought Rachel, terrible for everyone involved.
‘Still, we don’t know that Madison was Julian’s lover,’ she said, snapping the file shut.
‘No, we don’t,’ agreed Ross. ‘For all we know, Jamaica was some innocent business trip.’
‘So why do it on the sly?’ she said cynically. She could feel her frustration growing. Ross had always been uncanny in his ability to winkle out information; she had become accustomed to him knowing the answers to almost everything. ‘Where now? We can’t exactly quiz Madison Kopek about it.’
‘At least show her photo to Greg Willets. Get him to confirm she was the girl he saw with Julian outside the hotel.’
Rachel made a mental note to do that first thing in the morning.
‘And if it is her, then here’s the town where her mother lives. I hear Maryland is lovely this time of year.’
19
Diana watched from the window as the car pulled away down the drive from the direction of the Lake House. Folding her arms tightly across her chest, she wondered who had been visiting her sister – in an ancient-looking Fiesta at that – on a Saturday night. She mulled over the possibilities in her mind. It was the same car she had seen arriving at the Lake House when Adam had dropped her off a little while earlier. Most likely it was an old friend or a colleague, although Somerfold seemed an awfully long way to come for just an hour – to stay such a short time suggested that it had been somebody come to deliver something. A piece of information? she wondered, feeling suddenly keyed up that Rachel was making progress with the job at hand. Curious, she pulled on a pair of wellington boots from beside the door and crunched down the gravel drive towards the lake, passing the aviary and sending up a flurry of wings and cheeping.
Usually she felt nervous wandering around the grounds in the dark. Somerfold was a lonely place without Julian and Charlie around, so much so that she had almost instantly regretted putting Rachel in the Lake House. But tonight, as a squirrel darted across the lawn, and the boathouse appeared through a gap in the trees, she felt as if she had been dropped in the middle of a fairy tale. Like many things that day, Diana suddenly saw the house in a new light. It looked magical, like a Hansel and Gretel cottage hidden in the woods. She was surprised to find herself smiling as she walked on. She did not usually look forward to her meetings with Rachel, but this evening she felt more relaxed and mellow, which she thought momentarily might be Adam’s doing.
As she approached the house, she could see Rachel’s silhouette on the window seat in the bedroom. Her head was bent over a book, her long legs stretched out in front of her, and Diana was struck by how serene and clever her sister looked.
She knocked gently. The door creaked open, just an inch at first, and she was met by Rachel’s anxious smile.
‘Hello, can I come in?’
‘Of course. It’s your house.’ Rachel beckoned her in.
Diana frowned at the gloom inside the house. Her first thought was for her sister’s eyesight, but standing here in the dark, she was also reminded of how spooky this part of the estate was at night. She wondered guiltily if Rachel was scared, if she should invite her up to stay in the main house, but then she remembered that Rachel Miller never got scared. Growing up, her courage and pluckiness was legendary among their little group of friends – Rachel was always the one to be pushed forward to do a dare, to retrieve a ball from an irate neighbour’s garden. She had always been the first kid to jump off the top diving board, the first one to explore a derelict garage, pretending that she was Nancy Drew or George from the Famous Five in the midst of some intrepid adventure.
‘It’s dark in here,’ said Diana finally. ‘Can’t we switch some lights on?’
‘Habit.’ Rachel grinned sheepishly. ‘In Ko Tao, our office just has a little diesel generator. We’re always trying to save electricity.’
‘Do you remember at home, you’d leave every light on?’ laughed Diana. ‘Mum used to go mad.’
Rachel smiled. ‘It’s good to see you laugh, Di.’
Diana turned away. She nearly blurted out that it had been Adam who had put that smile on her face, but . . . well, she wasn’t ready to think about that right now. Wasn’t sure what sort of message it sent.
‘Why don’t you sit down and I’ll go and make some tea.’
‘Just hot water and lemon if you have it,’ called Diana as Rachel moved out of sight. She looked around at the chaos of the cottage. Rachel had only been here a week, and already the Lake House looked like it had been sucked up by the tornado in The Wizard of Oz. There were socks on the floor, papers piled high on the desk and stuff hanging out of drawers. How was it possible to make such a small place so messy in such a short space of time? She resisted the urge to start tidying, instead resolving to send Mrs Bills down first thing in the morning for a swift clean.
‘Builder’s tea,’ said Rachel, thrusting a mug into her hand. ‘Sorry, I’m all out of lemons. But it’s just how you used to like it.’
Diana narrowed her eyes, detecting a dig. Chill out, Diana, she reminded herself. Don’t ruin a lovely day over something silly.
‘I see Mum’s back,’ said Rachel, sipping her own tea. ‘Saw her doing something strange on the lawn this morning.’ She waved her free hand around in the air as if she were a wizard about to cast a spell.
Diana giggled, spraying a spot of tea on to her green cashmere top.
‘That will be her t’ai chi.’
‘Mum does t’ai chi?’ said Rachel in amazement.
‘She does a lot of things you might not recognise.’ Diana smiled complicitly, for a moment enjoying the banter between them.
‘Tell all.’
‘There are a lot of charity committees. She’s on the board of an inner-city youth ballet group, she’s planning a fund-raising ball for the Tories, and she’s taking a course in portraiture at an art college in Chelsea.’
‘Bloody hell,’ whistled Rachel. ‘You couldn’t even get her to join the PTA back in the day.’
‘You should talk to her.’
‘I’ve tried that.’
‘Look, I know she can be a bit . . . inflexible at times, but don’t you think we should all try and get along while we’re living together?’
She was surprised to hear the conciliatory words coming out of her mouth. The last thing she’d expected was to find herself as the mediator between Rachel and her mother.
‘Listen, there’s a few bits of housekeeping things we need to discuss.’
Diana’s eyes floated around the mess once more.
‘Yes, I was thinking that.’
‘Not that.’ Rachel smiled. ‘We need to talk about how expenses are going to work. I need to pay for a couple of flights. I’d do it myself, but booking at such late notice, we’re talking over two thousand pounds, and that might be a bit of a stretch . . . well, a lot of a stretch actually.’
‘Don’t worry about the money, I’ll book the flights. What are they for?’
Rachel handed over a piece of paper with some hastily scribbled details written on it.
‘Washington? Why do you need to go to Washington? And who’s Ross McKiney? The man who just left?’
Rachel nodded. ‘He’s an old friend of mine. A private investigator. I thought I’d get him to help with some things. He’s good, Di. Really good.’
‘But why Washington?’ she repeated, suddenly needing to know everything. ‘Has he found anything out? Got a lead?’
Rachel waved a hand. ‘We just need to go to the States to speak to some people about Julian.’ She was being blasé. Overly blasé, and vague, as if she was hiding something. Diana could feel her fretfulness returning, the good mood of the day evaporating immediately.
‘Who? Who do you need to speak to?’ she pressed.
‘I don’t exactly know yet,’ Rachel said haltingly. ‘Ross is finding the contacts.’
Diana could feel her pulse throbbing. Why was her sister lying? She was doing her damnedest to try and hide it, but there was definitely something she didn’t want to tell her.
‘But if you don’t know who you need to speak to, how do you know you need to go to Washington?’
Rachel gave a laugh. A nervous laugh she tried to disguise by sipping her tea.
‘Diana, this is the way it works. Don’t ask too many questions and I will tell you when I know stuff. I promise.’
‘You don’t have to shield me from anything, Rachel. The deal was I wanted to find out what had happened to Julian – that hasn’t changed.’
But Rachel was equally firm. ‘Just trust me, Di. Now, do you mind if I swim in the pool?’ she said, standing up and looking out of the back window towards Somerfold.
‘What? Now?’ replied Diana, feeling confused – had she missed a part of the conversation? Why was Rachel talking about swimming all of a sudden? She got the distinct feeling that her sister wanted to get rid of her, and she certainly didn’t want to talk about Washington.
‘You’ve got a beautiful pool. I saw it when I was taking a walk this morning. I was desperate for a dip, but I thought Mum might see me and have a go, so I thought I had better ask your permission . . .’
Diana knew it was an opportunity to take a different tack.
‘Okay,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you have a costume, or do you want to borrow one?’
‘I brought one on the off-chance.’
‘Well, go and get it. We can walk back up to the house together.’
As Rachel disappeared into the bedroom, Diana’s eyes darted around the room. The desk by the window was a mess, a leaning tower of books and papers that looked as if it might topple at any moment.
‘Do you have goggles?’ shouted Rachel.
‘Yes,’ replied Diana, walking towards the desk and rifling quickly through the papers. There was a blue file by the laptop, held shut by elastic ribbons. She opened it and read the first piece of paper that presented itself. It was a printout of a news report about a car crash.
‘What are you doing?’ asked a voice behind her. Rachel stood in the doorway holding a swimsuit and a carrier bag.
‘Who’s this Madison Kopek?’ asked Diana, wishing she’d had time to go through the whole file. She was sure that her sister had paled.
‘It’s just a news story, Di,’ Rachel said, stuffing the costume into the bag. ‘Come on, we should go before it gets totally dark.’
‘Why is it here?’
Rachel shrugged. ‘Ross left it.’
‘So this girl is part of the investigation. Is it someone Julian knew?’
Rachel hesitated, as if she was taking a moment to construct a lie.
‘Possibly. Like I say, we aren’t entirely sure whether she’s involved yet . . .’
‘This accident happened in Maryland. Is that why you want to go to Washington?’
‘Yes,’ said Rachel finally.
‘Then you must think she’s significant,’ Diana pressed. She felt warm. The paper was trembling in her hand. She didn’t want her sister to say anything further, wanted to rewind the last two minutes and erase everything she had just learnt, and yet as she looked down at the picture on the printout, taking in the girl’s blonde prettiness, she knew that Rachel had made a breakthrough, and she wanted to know exactly what it was.
The words someone Julian knew echoed over and over in her head. Yes, Madison Kopek looked exactly like the sort of girl Julian might have known, she thought, forcing herself to read the story once more.
‘Diana, put it down,’ said Rachel, walking over and snatching the page from her hand.
Diana’s stomach clenched as she absorbed the date of the accident and acknowledged its relevance.
‘But this girl’s dead. She died two days before Julian.’
Rachel just nodded, her mouth pursed, as if she didn’t want to say any more.
‘Who is she, Rachel? What does she have to do with my husband?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ said Rachel, her voice wobbling. ‘There’s a chance she might have been working with Julian.’
Diana had smelled blood and was not going to let this go.
‘Working?’ she repeated. ‘And how closely do you think they were “working” together?’
‘Diana . . .’
‘Tell me what you think!’ she yelled. She was surprised by the level of her own anger. No, it wasn’t just anger, it was fury. Right at that moment she hated this Madison person, she hated her dead husband and she hated her sister and her horrible, sticky web of secrets and lies.
‘Diana, please,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ve only been working on this for three days, you can’t expect me to know everything. These things take time.’
‘Don’t give me that crap,’ said Diana, crumpling the paper in her hand. ‘You think he was having an affair with this girl, don’t you?’
‘Di . . .’
‘DON’T YOU?’
Rachel let out a long breath. ‘It’s a possibility, yes.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ said Diana, stepping towards her sister, holding up the crumpled sheet. ‘Julian was faithful. Ever since that time, he promised me. He said he’d never do it ever again, and I believed him.’
Rachel dropped the carrier bag to the floor with a thud.
‘Di, please. Why did you bring me here if it’s what you hadn’t already suspected? You knew that something was going on in Julian’s life that you didn’t know about, that he didn’t want you to know about.’
‘I didn’t think it would be another woman,’ Diana lied. She began to pace around the Lake House. She felt dizzy, as if her world was turning on its axis and she had nothing to hold on to. ‘Mum’s right. This is a witch-hunt,’ she said almost to herself.
‘Di, come on. I’m doing a job.’
She felt powerless, out of control, and the only thing that made any sense was to turn all the anger, frustration and blame on her sister, because it was wrong to speak ill of the dead, wrong to think such a thing about her husband who was barely cold in the ground.
‘Why did you hate him so much?’ she said, feeling white-hot rage explode in her belly. ‘Hmm? You never liked him, did you? Were you jealous, was that it?’
‘Diana, this isn’t helping . . .’ said Rachel, but Diana could see the concern in her sister’s eyes – the fear. And weirdly, it felt good, it felt powerful. She took another step forward, and even though she was almost four inches shorter than her sister and a much slighter physical presence, she forced Rachel to press back against the window.
‘You hated him, why?’
‘I didn’t hate him.’
&
nbsp; ‘Even now that he’s dead in the ground, you have to think the worst of him, don’t you?’
‘No, Di, honestly, I was happy for you. I cried at your wedding and they were real tears of joy; you were going to have the life we never had. Why wouldn’t I be happy?’
‘Exactly!’ cried Diana, pushing at her chest. ‘Why weren’t you happy? Why couldn’t you leave us alone?’
Rachel barged past her, her expression changing.
‘Because he wasn’t good enough for you, Di!’ she cried finally, her voice loud and clear as if it had been liberated from some place deep inside her.
‘Why?’ Diana’s own tone was more anxious. She felt as if she was walking over cracked ice, as if at any moment it would break and she would plunge into the unforgiving icy depths beneath.
‘Because he was a cheat, a womaniser. He always was. And men like that keep on cheating until they break you down. He wasn’t good enough for you, for Charlie. And that’s why I didn’t fight to stop the story about his infidelity. I knew it would hurt you, but I knew that in the long run you were better off without him.’
‘That wasn’t your choice to make,’ growled Diana, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. ‘It wasn’t any of your business.’
‘Well Julian made it my business,’ roared Rachel.
Diana looked at her and saw that she was crying. The sight of tears glistening like a clear, cold mountain stream down her sister’s cheeks made her stand quite still. Rachel never cried. But now Diana could see a deep sadness welling in her dark irises, and she knew that something was upsetting her a great deal.
‘What the hell does that mean?’ she whispered fearfully.
Rachel moved away, but Diana grabbed her arm.
‘Answer me, what does that mean?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Yes,’ hissed Diana, pushing her face close to Rachel’s, ‘I do want to know. I want to know why you think you’re such an expert on my family and why you clearly have such a low opinion of the man I loved.’