You were always mine, p.10
You Were Always Mine, page 10
‘We’ve got an over-18 policy,’ she informed Freya. ‘You got any ID on you?’
‘I’m not here to drink,’ Freya said. ‘I’m looking for Lloyd. Is he around?’
She’d worn her new dress, a fitted yellow dress from Urban Outfitters with a sunflower print on it. When she’d put it on earlier, she thought it was perfect. Now, she felt overdressed. Especially compared to the other girl, in her distressed denims and faded black Nirvana T-shirt. Grace had loved Nirvana, used to play their music all the time. Freya’s breath caught in her throat as Kurt Cobain’s voice filled every corner of her brain and Grace’s ghost danced around her. Hello, hello, hello.
‘Hey,’ the girl was looking at her, frowning. ‘Are you okay?’
Freya had never liked Nirvana. Their sound was all wrong, loud and raw and difficult. Freya preferred softer sounds like Lana del Rey and Mitski and Billie Eilish. Music that made sense and didn’t make you want to rip your clothes off and howl at the moon before running naked into the freezing cold sea.
‘I’m fine.’
The girl shrugged, like she didn’t believe her but didn’t care enough to argue about it either. ‘Lloyd’s out back,’ she said, ‘in the garden.’
Freya walked past her, through the door that led outside to the walled garden that had always been her favourite part of the wine bar. With its rustic tables, pots of colourful flowers and a canopy of vines, you could almost imagine you were in France out here.
Lloyd was sitting at a table in the far corner. He wasn’t alone, as she’d expected. He was talking to a woman Freya had never seen before. There was something about the way they were sitting, their chairs close together, heads tilted towards each other, that made them look like a couple. Which couldn’t be true, because the last time Freya had spoken to Lloyd, he’d been bereft.
She paused, unsure whether to walk across and say hi, or make a quick exit. In the end, the choice was taken out of her hands because Lloyd looked up and saw her. Something dark passed across his face, fear or guilt or anger, it was difficult to tell. He said something to the woman he was with, before standing up and walking across to Freya.
‘Freya, what a surprise. Everything okay?’
‘Fine,’ she said, although the opposite was so clearly true she wondered why he’d bothered asking. ‘I was just passing and thought I’d drop in and say hi.’
‘Well, I’m glad you did.’
He was smiling, but it looked forced, like he’d fixed the smile onto his face and was working hard to keep it in place.
Lloyd’s not the nice guy you think he is.
Grace’s voice in her head, telling Freya something she hadn’t wanted to hear then and didn’t want to hear now.
Across the garden, the woman he’d been talking to was watching them, the scrutiny of her stare making Freya uncomfortable. She was older than Freya had first realised. Twenty-five, or maybe even a few years older, with glossy blonde hair and golden skin.
‘That’s Zoe,’ Lloyd said. ‘The DJ? She does all those wild club nights in Brighton.’
Freya shook her head. Wild club nights weren’t exactly her scene.
‘We’re sort of in the middle of something actually,’ Lloyd said. ‘Normally, I’d suggest you hang around until we’re finished, but I promised Zoe I’d drop her back home later. Her car’s being serviced. Maybe we could catch up another time?’
‘Sure.’ Freya gave him a smile every bit as fake as the one plastered on his own face. ‘No worries, Lloyd. See you later.’
He gave her a quick peck on the cheek, told her how great she was looking and then he was gone.
As Freya walked back through the bar, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, the Nirvana girl called out to her.
‘Hey!’
Freya stopped walking and looked at her.
‘Maybe you should call ahead the next time, so you don’t get caught out like that again.’
‘Drop dead,’ she hissed, before pulling open the door and stepping outside into the blinding brightness of the day.
‘Freya?’
She had walked straight into Patrick Keenan, who, for some bizarre reason, was standing right outside the entrance to the wine bar.
‘Patrick, what are you playing at?’
‘You’re the one who practically ran me over,’ Patrick said. ‘I was just standing here minding my own business when you stormed out of there like you were being chased.’
‘You’re not stalking me, are you?’
‘In your dreams.’ Patrick grinned. ‘I need a job and I heard this place is hiring at the moment.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘Course not. Oh, I get it. You’re here for the same reason, right?’
‘Wrong. I’m here because this is the bar where my sister worked before she was murdered.’
Freya drew out the last word as much as possible, wanting him to realise what an idiot he’d been.
‘Shit.’ He put his hand over his mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, Freya. I had no clue, I swear.’
‘How could you not know? It’s in every single story that’s been written about her since she disappeared. Missing bar girl. Like that’s the sum total of who she was. It’s disgusting.’
‘The press can be awful,’ Patrick said. ‘It’s why I’ve avoided reading too much about your sister’s murder. It feels a little salacious, you know?’
‘I’m not sure I even know what salacious means.’
‘Sure you do. Four A-stars predicted, one of them in English Lit? Of course you know what it means. Anyway, I didn’t want to work there. I’ve heard the owner’s a bit of a dick.’
‘That’s racist bullshit.’
‘There’s nothing racist about calling someone a dick if that’s what they are.’
‘Well, he’s not a dick. He’s lovely and kind and funny and I hate the way people think they can talk shit about him for no reason.’
‘Sorry.’ Patrick held his hands up. ‘I didn’t know you two were friends. Is he the reason you never want to see me anymore?’
‘Who said I don’t want to see you?’
‘Me. Any time I ask if you want to do something, you always have some excuse. We used to hang out all the time, Freya. What happened?’
She’d lost interest in boys her own age, that’s what had happened. She was on the verge of telling him this, but something in his face made her stop. The way he was looking at her, like a dog who’d just been kicked. He was pathetic, but she didn’t have the heart to make him feel any worse than he clearly already did.
‘I was focusing on my studies,’ she said. ‘I need those A-stars to get into Cambridge. There wasn’t much time for anything else.’
She didn’t say the whole idea of university seemed pointless now. She wouldn’t know which university she had got into until she got her A-level results next month. A few weeks ago, those results seemed like the most important thing in the world. Now, she didn’t care what she got. She didn’t care about university or A-levels or any of the stuff that had once seemed so important.
‘How are you doing?’ he asked.
‘How do you think?’
He winced. ‘Stupid question. Sorry.’
‘It’s not stupid,’ she said, relenting. ‘You’re talking to me about it, which is more than anyone else has tried to do. More, too, than I tried to do for you after your dad died.’
‘That was a while ago now.’
‘I know, but I should have got in touch. The truth is, even though I should have known what it was like for you, I didn’t know what to say. So I stayed away and said nothing.’
‘You weren’t the only one,’ Patrick replied. ‘Most people didn’t know how to talk to me about it.’ He paused. ‘Listen, I’m heading up to the beach for a few hours if you want to come along?’
She should get back home. Her mother would start worrying if she stayed out for too long. But there was something about the way Patrick was looking at her, his goofy grin and his blue eyes, that was making Freya feel a tiny bit less shit about herself. Before she knew it, she was smiling at him and saying that would be lovely.
As they walked away from the wine bar, Patrick reached out and took her hand in his. Normally, she would have pulled her hand away immediately. But today, she didn’t do that. For the first time since Grace had disappeared, Freya felt that Joey might be right after all and she would find a way through this.
Twenty-two
That evening, Dee made pasta for herself and Nessa. Dee’s go-to pasta sauce was normally carbonara, but Nessa was vegan, so Dee had gone with a tomato and chilli sauce tonight. Although when they sat down to eat, Nessa only ate a few mouthfuls before pushing the plate away.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s delicious, but I don’t have much appetite.’
They were sitting outside, on the deck. The sun had set and a fat white moon hovered over the black sea.
‘It’s really beautiful here,’ Nessa said. ‘Ed’s told me about your home, but I wasn’t prepared for the wow factor. You must love living here.’
‘I do,’ Dee said. ‘Although if you’d told me ten years ago that I’d end up living back here, I’d have laughed and said over my dead body.’
‘So what happened?’ Nessa asked.
‘I got divorced and lost my job. The two things happened pretty close together. After years in London, I found myself wondering what to do with myself. Then my dad got ill, my mum soon after that. I moved home to be close to them, thinking I’d go back to London one day, but it never happened.’
‘If you’d told me ten years ago I’d be happily settled in rural Norfolk with a man I love, two kids and a load of rescue animals, I’d have laughed in your face,’ Nessa said. ‘It’s funny how we think we’re in control of our lives when really we’re not.’
‘You don’t think we’re in control of what happens to us?’
‘We like to think we are,’ Nessa said. ‘But things happen that are completely out of our control. Like you and Ed. I bet after you got divorced you didn’t think you’d end up being in a serious relationship again.’
‘I suppose not.’
Dee thought this probably wasn’t the right time to tell Nessa that she and Ed were not, in fact, in a serious relationship.
‘I’m so glad he’s got you,’ Nessa said. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of him coming out of hospital and trying to cope by himself.’
She reached across the table and squeezed Dee’s hand.
‘You won’t let that happen, Dee, will you?’
‘Of course not.’
Dee didn’t know if Nessa was asking or telling. Either way, she wanted to put an end to this conversation before it got even more difficult. She stood up and started clearing the plates away.
*
An hour later, Nessa had gone to bed and Dee was sitting in front of her laptop reading everything she could find on the internet about Paul Cavellini’s murder. She was tired to her bones, but knew if she went to bed now she wouldn’t sleep. The truth was, she’d barely slept at all since Ed’s stroke. Anxiety keeping her awake, night after endless night, as she worried about Ed’s health and what their new future might look like.
So she spent her evenings like this, instead. Sitting at her laptop, working on her book or trying to build a narrative around the weeks leading up to Paul’s murder. She made notes as she went along, but, without input from Cassie, it was a slow process. A frustrating one too, because if Dee could only speak with Cassie, she would get most of this information in a quarter the time it was taking her to collate it now. When her brain decided it had had enough for the evening, Dee shut down the internet and read back over the notes she’d made so far.
Eighteen years ago, Cassie McNamara got married and became Cassie Cavellini. Cassie and her new husband, Paul, rented a flat together in Croydon, south London, where they’d both grown up. Four months after the wedding, their daughter Grace was born. Paul was murdered a month before Grace’s second birthday. Stabbed to death in the kitchen of the house he lived in with Cassie and Grace. It was Cassie who found his body and reported the murder to the police.
From everything Dee read, it seemed Cassie was the main suspect right from the start. A woman called Lizzie Collier came forward early in the police investigation, claiming that Cassie hated her husband and had spoken several times about wishing he was dead. Dee had already searched online for anyone called Lizzie Collier who had lived in Croydon at the time of Paul’s murder. There were plenty of Lizzie Colliers out there but none of them were the one she was looking for.
Frustrated, Dee pushed her chair back and stood up. She slid open the bifold door and stepped onto the deck. She leaned against the wooden railings, taking deep breaths of sea air as she tried to think how else she could track down Lizzie Collier. But without Cassie, everything was so difficult. Dee was starting to think it was pointless going any further.
Down on the beach, a family of foxes ran along the edge of the water, silvery silhouettes captured in the light of the pale moon. Dee thought she saw something else out of the corner of her eye, another movement near the mobile home. But when she looked in that direction, the place was as dark and empty as it always was.
She remembered Nessa’s comment earlier, about how none of us are really in control of our lives. Dee wondered if that was true and, if so, why she tried so bloody hard at everything all the time. Because if she couldn’t control any of it, wasn’t it better to simply sit back and wait to see what life threw at her?
On the beach, one of the foxes let out a shrill, high-pitched bark, the sound reverberating across the empty beach. Dee stayed outside, watching them, until they moved further along the beach and out of sight. When she went back inside, she checked the time. Five minutes to eleven. Late, but maybe not too late to send Joey Cavellini a text. He’d given Dee his number the other day, told her to call if she had any news about Cassie. Grabbing her phone now, she found his number and typed a quick message, asking him to call her back. A few seconds later, her phone started ringing and she saw Joey’s name on the screen.
‘It’s good of you to call me back so late,’ she said, once they’d got the greetings out of the way.
‘I’m not sleeping too well at the moment,’ he said. ‘Anything that distracts me from my own thoughts is welcome. Have you got some news about Cassie?’
‘Not yet, I’m afraid. I wanted to ask how well you knew her when she was married to Paul.’
‘Hardly at all, really. We grew up in the same part of Croydon, but Cassie’s eleven years younger than me. That’s a big age difference when you’re kids. Why do you want to know?’
‘I’m trying to get a picture of what sort of person she was back then,’ Dee said.
‘David warned me to be careful about what I share with you,’ Joey said. ‘He seems to think you’re hell-bent on proving someone else killed my brother.’
‘You didn’t have to call me back if you don’t want to talk to me.’
‘I know. The truth is, I was glad when I got your text. I enjoyed our chat the other day. If you’re writing a story about Paul’s murder, as long as it’s respectful to my family, then I don’t see the problem.’
‘There’s something you should know,’ Dee said. ‘The reason I know Cassie is because of Grace.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘A few months before she died, I got an email from Grace,’ Dee said. ‘She said she knew I was an investigative journalist and she had a story I might be interested in. We met, and she told me her mother had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. She asked me if I’d help prove this.’
‘I see.’ There was a pause as Joey seemed to process this new information. ‘I had no idea she’d been looking into her father’s murder. I know she was very angry with Trish when she discovered what had happened. She felt Trish should have told her the truth. She couldn’t see that all Trish was trying to do was protect her.’
‘What about Trish’s husband?’ Dee asked. ‘Where does he fit into all of this? You told me he walked out when the girls were little, but surely he stayed in touch with his daughters?’
‘He never considered Grace was his daughter,’ Joey said. ‘It’s one of the reasons the marriage broke up. Trish and I were determined that Grace wouldn’t be taken into foster care. I wasn’t in a position to adopt her myself, so it made sense for Trish and Conor to do it. Conor seemed okay about it, at first. But it didn’t take long for him to start to resent Trish for it.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He had an affair with a much younger woman, ended up leaving his family for her. Last I heard, he’s married for a second time and living in Australia with his new wife and their two kids.’
‘Sounds as if Trish is better off without him,’ Dee said.
‘She is,’ Joey agreed. ‘Problem is, she’s never seen it that way. She’s always blamed herself for the marriage breaking up. Thinks she should have taken Conor’s opinion into consideration a bit more. It’s all bullshit, of course. Grace was just a kid, and she’s family. We were never going to abandon her.’
‘So how did Trish feel when she found out Grace wasn’t Paul’s child?’
‘It’s never made a blind bit of difference to either of us,’ Joey said. ‘Trish loved Grace just as much as she loves Freya. And so did I.’
‘Did you or Trish ever have any ideas about who Grace’s real father might be?’
‘A girl like Cassie, I’m afraid there’s quite a lot of guys to choose from.’
‘I thought you barely knew her back then,’ Dee said, biting down on her lip to stop herself saying anything else. The throwaway sexist remark rankled and told her something about the sort of man Joey was beneath all that easy charm.
‘Well, enough to know she had a bit of a reputation.’
‘Did you ever sleep with her?’
‘Me? You’ve got to be kidding. No offence, Dee, but I’ve always gone for girls with a bit more class.’
Dee swallowed down a number of retorts that came to mind when he said that.
‘The reason I was asking about Grace’s father,’ she said, ‘is because I wonder if he might also be someone who had a motive for killing Paul. I’m guessing that, whoever he is, he was never a suspect because back then no one knew about him.’
