It was half an hour until the train was due in to Charing Cross. Her mouth dried up. She had no desire to go back, except to collect her son. But it would not be for long. This time next month, they would be far away, living with her sister, and she would never have to see her husband again.

  The train rolled on, clanking and rumbling its way down the tracks. Her gloved hands were folded in her lap. The cardboard box rested on the seat next to her. She could kill for a cup of tea. Or something stronger.

  Even now, she couldn’t believe what she had done. Father Michael would be horrified, and she daren’t contemplate what the others would make of it, all that finger-pointing and gossiping. Well, let them talk. She would not be around to hear what they said.

  The motion of the train brought to mind the rocking of a baby in its crib. It was peculiar the way one’s brain worked, but the imagery did not upset her. She had long accepted there would be no more children. This was a truth she held tightly to her chest. Despite her insistence on a nursery, it was all a pretence. She wanted nothing more to bind her to him. She was looking for escape.

  Her son loved watching the trains. He often stood on the bridge, his mouth open to catch the steam, laughing as it billowed in his face. It made her laugh too, to see him happy.

  He didn’t laugh as much as he ought to. Ten-year-old boys should be roaming the fields and paddling in streams, not studying anatomical drawings and whispering in corners with their fathers. She drew in a breath to steady herself. Two weeks. That was all. And then they’d be gone.

  She glanced at the bundle of fur in the box. She hoped it would make their leaving a little easier on her son.

  The woman let her mind drift. A light sheen of sweat decorated her top lip. Her breath deepened, head nodding. The train swayed gently. The sun glinted on the tracks. A perfect summer’s day, as ripe and as sweet as the berries growing in the fields of a nearby farm.

  It happened without warning.

  A horrific sound of rupturing metal.

  Her eyes flew open.

  Spinning light and shadow. Flashes of cornfields and the vast sky, an inappropriate swathe of cheery blue.

  The world capsized.

  And then it was raining suitcases, and the contents of her bag were spilling across the floor and a man was shouting and everything was upside down.

  She hit the floor of the train, which was actually the roof, and landed heavily on her shoulder, something soft and yielding breaking her fall.

  She recoiled when she realized it was the prone body of an elderly man, especially as, in the confusing aftermath of the crash, her own hands had pushed into the cushion of the man’s belly as she struggled to find her balance and heave herself to her feet.

  The carriage was in disarray.

  Passengers and luggage and hat-boxes strewn across the place.

  And blood. Lots and lots of blood.

  Oh, heavens, she thought, the carriage has flipped over. The train has come clean off the tracks.

  She bent over the man whose body she’d landed on. His eyes were closed, his chest as still as the air outside.

  As they had waited to board the train that morning, the same chap, with his Brylcreemed hair and smart jacket, had confided he was on the way to London to visit his son, returning home from overseas for the first time in three years. His eyes had been alight with the promise of their reunion.

  She had told him about her own son. ‘His name’s Brian and he’s ten.’

  The old man had smiled at her, indulgent. ‘That’s a terrific age.’ He had fumbled in his pocket and handed her half a crown. ‘Here, give this to him from a happy old fella to a young ’un.’

  She had flushed, embarrassed. ‘No, no, I couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘I insist,’ he said, and placed the coin in her gloved hand, folding over her fingers and patting them. ‘Today is a special day for me, seeing my son. I want to share it.’

  She stroked the man’s dry hand, her sorrow spilling over at the knowledge that no such reunion would take place now.

  A silence settled over the carriage, inserting itself into that eerie bracket of time immediately after impact but before the realization that something truly awful had happened.

  It didn’t last long.

  Sobs began to compress the gaps of quiet, constricting them with pain and shock and disbelief. Barely able to comprehend the horror, she lifted her hands to her ears. She was still wearing her gloves, but the pale fabric was now rusted with something dark.

  The shouting fellow took her elbow and guided her to the disfigured mess of the door. A dripping cut by the inner sweep of his eyebrow made him look like he was weeping blood. She felt in her pocket for a handkerchief, but he brushed it away impatiently.

  ‘The train’s derailed,’ he said. ‘We need to get out as quickly as possible.’

  He crouched amongst the debris and yanked on the window sash, but it wouldn’t give so he took off his shoe and hit it, hard, against the glass. Once. Twice. The sound made her flinch.

  He shrugged off his sports jacket and wrapped it around his hand, feeling blindly through the teeth of broken glass for the door handle to the carriage.

  The floor shifted suddenly, and she screamed.

  The man’s eyes lifted heavenwards, and he stilled for a moment, watching and waiting.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s just the wreckage settling.’ He eyed her. ‘Is your hand all right?’

  She peeled off the sticky glove. A deep gash bisected her palm.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  She threw a glance behind at the old fellow. He hadn’t moved, but something dark and red was trickling from his ear. Nausea forced her to press herself towards the broken window. A light breeze cooled her hot skin, and brought with it the cry of sirens.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said the man, and pushed violently against the door. Taking him by surprise, it lurched open and he half fell through it, onto the fields below.

  ‘Sir, are you OK?’ she called.

  He scrambled to his feet.

  ‘I’ll live.’ He extended his hand towards her. ‘Down you come, Mrs . . . ?’

  ‘Howley. I’m Sylvie Howley.’

  His warm fingers closed around her wrist, the second time in twenty-four hours she had been touched by a man who wasn’t her husband. She blushed at the unfamiliar feel of him, and pulled away as soon as she was safely on the ground.

  The train was a mangled snake of metal, spilling across the cutting and into the farmers’ fields beyond. A body was face down on the tracks. A cow was chewing grass, unmoved by the tableau of death unfolding before it. The scent of manure and burning filled the summer skies.

  She turned away from her rescuer and bent over, her thin frame wracked by dry heaves.

  He patted her awkwardly on the back.

  ‘It’s a shock,’ he murmured. ‘A terrible shock.’

  And so how could she tell him that it wasn’t the crash, but her husband’s reaction to the certainty of her lateness that was making her sick with fear.

  Joyce Manning from number 30 waddled down the road as quickly as she could manage, which wasn’t very fast for a woman of her ample girth.

  She hammered on the door of number 17. ‘Mr Howley, come quickly.’

  Mrs Manning waited for a fraction of a second before she knocked again, several loud raps which echoed down the quiet street and made the curtains twitch. She hoiked up her girdle, and tried to quieten her wheezing. Droplets of sweat rolled down her flushed cheeks. She was unused to this amount of physical effort.

  The door opened a slit.

  ‘What is it, woman?’ said Marshall Howley. He was wearing a white vest and dabbing at his lips with a napkin.

  Mrs Manning’s mouth dried up. She swallowed audibly, and then the words tumbled out in a rush.

  ‘My Sandra, she works at the Big House up on Lindemanns Lane, the one with the stone lions, and they’ve got one of those televisions, and there’s been a dreadful train crash, one of those big old express engines, the Folkestone to London train.’

  She drew in another lungful of air, exhaling words in her haste to speak.

  ‘And my Sandra, well, she saw Mrs Howley, sir. Near the wreckage. She had a blanket around her and she was drinking something, hot tea, I expect, but she was standing up, and she didn’t look too badly hurt. It must have been an awful shock for her, poor love, but I thought you’d like to know. I didn’t want you and the young lad to worry when she wasn’t home on time. Fear the worst, you know. It’s probably on the wireless by now.’

  She smiled, wallowing in the satisfaction of delivering Important News.

  ‘My wife is in Teddington with her sister. She took the trolleybus there two days ago. I dropped her off at the stop myself. She’s due back’ – he checked his wristwatch, his voice slow and deliberate – ‘in ten minutes.’

  Mrs Manning, never one for reading signals, shook her head in disagreement, as stubborn as a mule.

  ‘No, no. It was definitely Mrs Howley. Sandra recognized her. Clear as day, she said. Ran all the way home to tell us.’ She gave a chuckle. ‘Wants her father to buy her a television now. I told her what’s what, I did. I said, “The radio’s plenty good enough for the likes of us, young lady.”’

  She would have gabbled on, oblivious to the implications of what she was suggesting, but Marshall’s expression was hardening, his dark eyes watching her with something approaching disdain.

  She caught the change, and it made her stumble, change tack.

  ‘Perhaps they were having a nice day out.’ She faltered. ‘Before she came home.’

  He continued to stare at her.

  Mrs Manning lowered her gaze, feeling a coldness penetrate her bones, despite the heavy heat of the day.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Sandra made a mistake, after all. I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’

  She could feel his unforgiving eyes upon her as she hurried back up the street, past Mr Hope, who was watering his rhododendrons and Mrs Driver, who called out at her to stop for a cuppa.

  Even when she was back inside the safety of number 30 with its familiar wallpaper and three flying ducks, the exertion making her pant like an overheated animal, she couldn’t shake off the sense that in doing a good turn for Mr Howley, she’d done a serious wrong to his wife.

  42

  9.14 p.m.

  The house was in darkness when Amy turned in to Pagoda Drive. Twelve hours ago, it would have seemed ridiculous, wasteful even, to switch on the carriage lamps that bracketed her front door, the pale morning skies offering plenty of protection against the distant night.

  But now she was facing those shadows on her own, Amy wished she’d had the foresight to light her way.

  Even at this late hour, the street was busier than usual, cars lining the quiet residential enclave. A van had parked across her driveway, forcing her to find a space halfway down the road.

  Head down, Amy hurried through her gates and up the garden path, fingers closing around her keys. No lights, no warmth, no welcome.

  With Eleanor staying over at Miles’ flat, and Clara gone, the house was exactly that. A house. Home was people. Never before had this simple truth been so apparent. This was bricks and mortar, nothing more, the sucked-out shell of her former life.

  ‘Mrs Foyle,’ someone shouted, and she turned on the doorstep, stupidly surprised. Then car doors were opening, and late-shift journalists, who had been waiting for her return, were sliding from the relative warmth of their vehicles into the cold, fresh night. Photographers were running towards her. A cameraman was filming.

  Flash.

  ‘Have you heard?’

  Flash.

  ‘Heard what?’

  Flash.

  The journalist looked awkward, embarrassed even. ‘That Howley may have killed again?’

  Flash.

  Another voice. Brusque. Crass. ‘Have you got a message for Sunday Cranston’s mother?’

  Flash.

  ‘What would you say to Howley, if he’s watching?’ A third voice from the back of the crowd.

  Amy froze on the step, unprepared for the ambush. The day after tomorrow, those same newspapers and TV bulletins would be full of that image of her. A startled expression on her face, artificial light accentuating every pencil line of grief and loss. But not for the reason that she – or the headline writers – could have predicted. But Amy, alone and lonely, had no inkling of that now.

  She fumbled with the lock and slammed the door behind her.

  Amy did not stop to take off her coat or remove her shoes. She headed straight for the kitchen, pulling open cupboard doors in an unconscious echo of Gloria Anguish. Except Amy did not have to scrabble around for relief. Expensive wine was easy to find in the Foyle household.

  With a careless hand, she poured Ribera del Duero into a glass. The liquid sloshed over the rim, staining the tablecloth, seeping into the cotton fibres, spreading until it had covered a large part of the fabric.

  Where once she would have leapt into action, blotting the stain, pouring salt or white wine in a frantic rescue mission, Amy made no move to clean it up.

  She pulled out a chair, sat down and stared at the brimming glass.

  She imagined her fingers closing around its stem, lifting it to her lips, drinking it down in one fluid motion, the firm tannin, the complex notes of mulberry and blackberry filling her nose and her mouth. Refilling her glass and repeating. Refill, repeat. Until the world blurred into oblivion.

  The look on Lilith Frith’s face.

  Jakey’s mother had been waiting on the pavement outside the Frith house when Amy had pushed the boy’s wheelchair around the corner and into the home straight. Underneath the street lamp, in its unforgiving orange glow, her face had looked – there was no kinder word for it – old.

  Mrs Frith had been wearing slippers, and as she ran up the street towards them, one slid from her foot, but she made no effort to retrieve it, and kept on running. Amy could empathize with that.

  That desire to keep on running.

  But lately she had been wondering how long one could do that with no prospect of a finishing line?

  ‘Where have you been?’ Lilith’s cry had been the sound of fear and hurt.

  ‘I’m sorry, we got distracted and I didn’t realize –’ Amy had lifted a hand to indicate the falling night. ‘I’m sorry,’ she’d said again, knowing it was not enough.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you leave me a message? A note?’

  Amy had no answer to that. Or rather, not one she could share.

  ‘I didn’t know where you were,’ Lilith had said then, calmer, but only just. ‘I’ve been everywhere, looking for you. The park. The beach. I even tried the library. I’ve only just got back.’ Amy could read what she was not saying in the button-down of her lips, the flint in her eyes. You, of all people, should have known better.

  ‘It’s OK, Mummy,’ said Jakey. ‘Amy did a good job of looking after me.’

  Lilith’s jaw, clenched and tight, had loosened.

  ‘I’m sure she did.’ She had sounded more controlled then, softening her voice for her son. To Amy: ‘Thank you. I appreciate you taking care of my son whilst my husband was at work.’ She had turned her attention back to the boy. ‘Right, it’s getting late, Jakey. You need something to eat, and then bed.’ She helped him out of his wheelchair, guided him inside.

  ‘Bye,’ he had called.

  Lilith had begun to collapse the wheelchair. Briefly, their eyes had met, and it seemed to Amy as if she wanted to say something else, but then her gaze had slid away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Frith. Truly.’

  Lilith had nodded in mute acceptance of her apology. Amy had wanted to say something more, to fill up the silence with her sudden, guilty sorrow. But there had been a stiltedness between them, these two mothers with so much in common, that couldn’t be smoothed away.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ Amy had said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lilith. ‘I hope . . .’

  But she never did say what she hoped.

  And Amy had left.

  The part of her that had wanted to shake Lilith for her clipped voice, her brutal dismissal, to shout ‘At least you have your son’, was silenced by the knowledge that some sadistic streak in her had wanted Lilith to worry, that she had been oh-so-aware of the passing hours, that she had heard the click in her own behaviour, sliding from appropriate to inappropriate.

  That she had wanted to mother this young boy who had been the last to speak to her daughter.

  That he had felt like a connection to Clara, however tenuous.

  And then she had checked her phone. Seen the news that Brian Howley had likely struck again.

  And here she was, inside this moment.

  Just her.

  The glass.

  The strength of her will.

  And for all her privilege, her wealth, underneath the veneer that money can bring, Amy wasn’t so different from Gloria at all.

  She picked up the glass and drank deeply, all her heartache, all her mistakes, all her dark nameless fears.

  Then she picked up the empty glass and threw it against the wall.

  43

  10.27 p.m.

  Saul could smell earth, rich and deep and meaty. There were worms beneath, turning the soil. Armies of beetles and ants and grubs. He could imagine them all, each committed to their tasks, conditioned by nature. The freshening wind carried with it the promise of snow.

  Mr Silver had parked the car by a stile leading into The Field. But this time, he did not instruct Saul to stay inside. Instead, he opened the passenger door and stood back. Saul accepted the invitation.

  His head swam as he leaned to unbuckle his seat belt, the throbbing at the base of his skull roaring into life. He gripped the headrest for support, and Mr Silver offered his arm. A courtly stroll across a field. As if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

  Two or three flakes began to fall, captured in the sudden blaze of torchlight.

  Up close, the caravan looked the same as last time. The same patch of rust on its bottom left flank. The same crooked step. The sinewy muscles in Mr Silver’s arm tensed as he fumbled with the torch. The key found its way into the lock.

 

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