You were always mine, p.17
You Were Always Mine, page 17
The Lycra women disappeared through a door at the back of the bar that seemed to lead to an outside area. Intrigued, Dee stood up to follow them and found herself in a pretty walled garden. As she settled herself at one of the tables out here, Lloyd came out and made a beeline for the women. They all clearly knew each other, because he greeted the women by their names and asked about their families before taking their drinks order.
On his way back inside, he stopped at Dee’s table to ask if her coffee was okay.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘So is this place, actually.’
‘I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,’ Lloyd said. ‘Are you visiting Eastbourne or do you live locally?’
‘I’m a local,’ Dee replied. ‘I’ve heard of Albertine’s, but never had the chance to drop in before this morning.’
‘I hope it doesn’t disappoint,’ Lloyd said, ‘and that this won’t be the last time you visit.’
He gave her another one of his smiles before turning to go.
‘Actually,’ Dee said, ‘there’s something I wanted to ask you.’
His shoulders visibly tensed, but he was still smiling when he turned back to her. ‘Sure, what can I do for you?’
‘I know Cassie,’ Dee said, speaking fast so she could tell him why she was here before he kicked her out. ‘I know she and Grace had been meeting up. Cassie told me Grace was looking into her father’s murder. Cassie thinks maybe that’s why Grace was killed.’
The smile had vanished from his face while Dee was speaking. He looked like he was angry, but doing his best to hide it.
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘You were her boyfriend,’ Dee said, ‘she must have spoken to you about what she was doing.’
There was no hiding the anger now. He leaned down, so his face was close to Dee’s. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Nothing.’ Dee pulled her chair back, putting some space between them.
‘Yes you are. You’re saying I knew Grace was putting herself into a dangerous situation, but I did nothing to protect her. You’re wrong, lady. Grace didn’t tell me about her secret meetings with her birth mother. Or about her father and what had happened. Turns out there was a whole side to that girl I knew nothing about. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other customers to serve.’
He straightened up, ready to go again.
‘Is that why you two split up?’ Dee said. ‘Because you found out she’d been keeping secrets from you?’
‘We didn’t split up.’
‘Grace told Cassie she’d broken up with you.’
It wasn’t exactly what Cassie had said, but it was close enough. In fact, she’d told Dee that Lloyd and Grace had split up, but she hadn’t said who had ended things between them.
‘Cassie said that?’ He snorted. ‘You’re a fool if you believe anything that crazy bitch tells you. She killed her husband, you know. She’s lying to you about me and Grace. We were solid. I loved her and now she’s gone and my heart is broken. You have no right to come into my bar making allegations about our relationship. I think you should finish up your coffee and get the hell out of here before I call the police. Because this is harassment, plain and simple.’
‘Sorry.’ Dee put her cup down and stood up. ‘I only came here today, because I’m trying to help my friend. I didn’t mean to cause any upset.’
‘You need to choose better friends,’ Lloyd said. ‘You can’t go around telling lies about me. That’s not right. If people think Grace finished things with me, then they’ll start to assume all sorts of stuff about me. This is hard enough, without me having to cope with that shit too.’
‘But if Grace was looking into her father’s murder and that’s why she was killed,’ Dee said, ‘don’t you want to know about it?’
‘I want her not to be dead,’ Lloyd replied. ‘Unless you can do that for me, there’s no point talking.’
This time, when he turned to go, Dee didn’t call him back. She’d got as much as she was going to from Lloyd Armstrong.
Thirty-nine
‘That’s where I’d like to be.’ Freya pointed at the sailing boat moving across the surface of the water. ‘Out on the ocean, putting as much distance between myself and this place as possible.’
She imagined what it would feel like, the tension lifting from her body as she breathed in the clean sea air and held her face up to the warm sunshine. The freedom that would come from knowing she didn’t have to keep track of every word that came out of her mouth for fear of saying the wrong thing and upsetting Mum or Joey.
‘My dad had a boat,’ Patrick said. ‘We sold it after he died. Mum said we needed the money.’
‘That must have been hard,’ Freya said.
‘Everything’s hard when someone dies.’
They were at Falling Sands, a stretch of moss-covered rocks and golden sand nestled into a quiet cove beneath the cliffs. Hidden away from the main beach, few people ever came to this quiet little haven. Freya used to come here with Grace. For years, they would celebrate each of their birthdays with an early-morning skinny dip in the clear water. Until this summer when Grace had changed so much it was difficult to remember what she’d been like before she’d discovered the truth about her parents and her world was ripped apart.
‘My mother isn’t coping too well,’ Freya said. An understatement, but she didn’t know how to explain what it felt like to see your own mother falling apart.
‘Losing a child is the worst thing,’ Patrick said. ‘My mum says it’s worse than when a parent or a friend dies.’
‘She wasn’t the easiest person, even before this,’ Freya admitted. ‘My uncle Joey says that Mum never really recovered from my dad walking out on us.’
‘Do you still see him?’ Patrick asked.
‘My dad?’ Freya shook her head. ‘He’s living in Australia now. He doesn’t have anything to do with us. I’m not even sure if he knows about Grace.’
‘Your mum would have told him, surely?’
‘Maybe.’
The truth was, Freya was too scared to mention her father in any conversation with her mother, who was so unpredictable at the moment. There had been times over the last few days when Freya felt as if she was going to snap in two from the pressure of dealing with her own grief while also trying to stop her mother from going off the rails.
Her mum had properly lost it last night after dinner. Freya still didn’t know what had started it, but she knew how it had ended. Broken plates in the kitchen and Mum storming out of the house in a haze of alcohol and fury. Freya had spent the next few hours in a suspended state of impending doom, worrying Mum wouldn’t come home and it would be like Grace all over again. It was after three in the morning when she finally heard the front door opening and the unsteady shuffle of her mother’s feet as she crossed the hall into the sitting room, where she’d fallen asleep. She’d still been there when Freya left earlier, her mouth open and a trickle of saliva running down her chin.
‘I thought it would help after Cassie was charged,’ Freya said, ‘but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference.’
‘Maybe it’ll get easier after the trial,’ Patrick said.
‘Except that’s ages away.’
According to the police, they might have to wait nine months or longer. Freya’s mind couldn’t process that concept. Nine months, or more, of living at home watching her mother’s mental health get worse as each day passed.
‘Look at that,’ Patrick whispered suddenly, grabbing Freya’s arm and pointing at the grey heron that had landed on one of the rocks near to where they were sitting. ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’
Freya hadn’t ever looked at a bird in any detail before, but now he said it, she saw he was right. The heron was, indeed, a thing of beauty. Long, slender neck, orange beak and yellow eyes that seemed to be observing Freya every bit as intently as she was observing it.
‘He’s looking for food,’ Patrick said. ‘That’s why his neck is out like that. When they’re resting, they hunch down much lower. See how still he is, waiting for his next snack to swim past.’
‘I think it might be my fault Grace died.’
There. She’d said it. Finally let it out. She held her breath, waiting for Patrick to look at her differently, to see her for what she really was.
‘You know it’s only natural to feel guilty when someone dies?’ he said.
‘This is more than that.’
‘So tell me.’
‘Before she went out, she asked if she could call me later for a lift. I told her I had plans that night so I wouldn’t be able to. It wasn’t true. I lied because I was angry with her about something.’
She stopped there, scared to look at him and see the expression of loathing she was sure would be on his face.
‘Oh Freya, you poor thing,’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault. The person who killed her is responsible for her death. Not you.’
It was kind of him to say so, but Freya knew he was wrong. She had let her sister down at the exact moment she’d needed her most.
‘Why were you angry with her?’ Patrick asked.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
She couldn’t tell him that the real reason she’d left her sister to die that night was down to selfish jealousy, caused by a lifetime of watching Grace get whatever she wanted without having to work at it. Unlike Freya, who had to work so hard for everything. It wasn’t fair and the thing she’d hated most was how Grace never even noticed.
‘Losing Grace is hard enough,’ Patrick said. ‘Don’t start blaming yourself for what happened. You don’t deserve that.’
Before she could answer, her phone pinged with an incoming message. It was from Lloyd, asking how she was and if they could meet up soon. Her cheeks flushed with pleasure as she typed a quick message back, telling him that would be lovely.
‘Everything okay?’ Patrick asked.
‘Fine.’
The heron lifted away from the water, grey wings beating silently as it skimmed the surface of the sea without once touching it.
Forty
After Albertine’s, Dee drove out to Polegate to see Jennifer Trevorrow. She hadn’t spoken to Cassie’s boss in a while, and she wanted to know what Jennifer thought about Cassie being arrested. But when she arrived at the salon half an hour later, there was no sign of Jennifer.
‘Dee!’ The young woman who’d asked Dee for her autograph practically skipped across the salon to greet her. ‘Jennifer’s not in today, I’m afraid. Is there anything I can help with? I don’t have a client for another half-hour, so I’m free and I’d be happy to answer any questions you have. I’ve heard that Cassie’s been arrested. I can’t believe it. None of us can. I mean, it’s just awful to think that all this time we’ve been working with a murderer. I’ve barely been able to sleep the last few nights, thinking about it.’
The whole time she was talking, Dee was wracking her brains to remember the girl’s name. Finally, it came to her.
‘Tell you what, Sonia,’ she said, when the girl paused for breath. ‘Why don’t we go in the back and have a cup of tea? We can have a proper chat then.’
‘Great.’ Sonia beamed at Dee before turning to one of the other young women working here.
‘Char, I’m taking a break. I’ve got Mrs Simons in half an hour. Call me when she comes in, would you?’
Without waiting for a reply, Sonia strutted off to the small kitchen at the back and gestured for Dee to follow her.
‘Are you writing about Cassie?’ Sonia asked, while she prepared a cup of tea for herself and Dee. ‘Is that why you’re here?’
‘I’m trying to build up a profile of the sort of person she is,’ Dee said. ‘You must know her quite well, I imagine?’
‘Not really,’ Sonia said. ‘Cassie keeps herself to herself, you know? We normally go out on a Friday night. Head to Brighton or Hastings for a bit of a night. She never comes with us, even though we used to invite her. She’s a bit older than the rest of us, but that shouldn’t stop her having a night out every now and then. Especially as she hasn’t got kids. I mean, if you’re married with kids it’s different, right? But she hasn’t any… Or so we thought.’
‘You didn’t know she had a daughter?’ Dee asked.
‘We knew she had a kid she’d given up for adoption,’ Sonia said. ‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Milk, no sugar,’ Dee said. ‘Thanks.’
‘But we didn’t know any of the details. We sure didn’t know that Cassie was an ex-con who’d killed her own husband.’
Sonia shivered dramatically before continuing.
‘I always thought she didn’t want to come out with us, because she thought she was better than the rest of us. Didn’t help that she’s always been Jen’s favourite. The two of them are like this.’ Sonia linked the index and middle fingers of her right hand together. Then, before Dee had a chance to ask her next question, ‘What’s it like being on TV? Is it really cool? I bet you know loads of famous people. I love Daisy and Dan. What are they like? Do you guys all hang out together?’
Daisy and Dan were the regular presenters of The Big Chat, the TV programme Dee appeared on every fortnight.
‘They’re lovely,’ she said, after she’d managed to catch up with the barrage of questions being fired at her. ‘But no, we don’t hang out much. For starters, I’m old enough to be their mother. I’m sure the last thing they want to do is spend time with an old fogie like me.’
‘Yeah, probably.’ Sonia looked at Dee sympathetically, before perking up again. ‘Still, at least you get to see them when you’re making the show.’
‘Indeed. Sonia, what did you mean when you said Cassie was Jennifer’s favourite?’ Dee asked, keen to move the conversation away from the show and back to Cassie.
‘Just that,’ Sonia said. ‘It’s not just me who thinks it, either. All the girls have noticed it. Drives us mad, if I’m honest. Cassie gets to pick and choose her shifts and never has to deal with some of our more difficult clients. And believe me, we’ve got a few of those. Cassie talks to Jen in a way she never does to the rest of us. It’s because they’ve got a common bond, see?’
‘They have?’
‘They both had kids that were given up for adoption.’
‘Jennifer had a child?’ Dee said, wondering if she’d misunderstood what Sonia was telling her.
‘She doesn’t talk about him much,’ Sonia said. ‘Only after she’s had a few drinks. It’s how I know about Cassie. Jen got pissed one night and started going on about how none of us realised how difficult Cassie’s life had been. She said being forced to give a child up for adoption is one of the worst things that can happen to a person.’
Dee remembered Jen mentioning she’d got pregnant and that was the reason her abusive relationship had ended. She hadn’t said a word about having to give the baby away. Then again, Dee reasoned, why would she want to share something that personal with someone she’d only just met? She wouldn’t.
‘Anyway,’ Sonia continued, ‘that’s why they had this special bond. Because they both lost their babies. Well, I assume that’s the reason. I wouldn’t know for sure, because Cassie never talks about stuff like that. Not to us, at least. She’ll talk to Jen but not anyone else. To be honest, Dee, the only time I really talk to Cassie is the nights Jen takes us all out.’
‘Does that happen often?’ Dee asked.
‘Every couple of months she books a restaurant and treats us all to a nice meal. Cassie comes along for those nights.’
‘When was the last time you all went out together?’
Dee didn’t know why she asked the question. Maybe she just wanted to know a bit more about Cassie’s friendship with her boss.
‘Well,’ Sonia said, ‘me and the girls have been talking about that. It was a few weeks ago. Jen booked Picasso’s because it’s her favourite place to eat. Cassie was meant to be coming and I know this for a fact, because she turned up to work that day wearing this black top that she only ever wears for going out. I suppose it’s her special top or something.
‘About halfway through the morning, Cassie got a phone call. I don’t know who called her, but afterwards I heard her telling Jen she needed to speak to her. They both came in here and were whispering away together. The next thing we knew, Cassie was heading off home. She didn’t even finish her shift and she didn’t join us for dinner.’
‘Is that really so weird?’ Dee asked. ‘There could be all sorts of reasons why she didn’t want to go out that night.’
‘Ah, but I haven’t told you the rest of it,’ Sonia said. ‘So we went out, right? All of us together. First to Bibendum’s, then on to Picasso’s. I’d had a few glasses of wine so I was a bit tipsy, but not so much I can’t remember what happened. We’d barely sat down to eat, when the next thing, Jennifer’s phone starts ringing and she goes outside to take the call. A few minutes later, she comes back inside and she’s, like, really flustered. We could all see something was wrong. She said she had to go, that something had turned up. She left her card details with the restaurant and told us to eat and drink whatever we liked.’
‘And you think the call came from Cassie,’ Dee guessed.
‘Exactly.’ Sonia beamed.
‘Okay,’ Dee said, trying to work out what this might mean, before she noticed Sonia was watching her carefully, as if there was something Dee should have worked out but hadn’t. ‘When was this exactly?’ Dee asked.
‘I was wondering when you’d ask that,’ Sonia said. ‘Because that’s the really weird part of this. Dee. That night, it was the same night Grace Parker disappeared.’
Forty-one
With the help of her car’s satnav, Dee spent two and a half hours the following morning driving to Bray in Berkshire. She had been to Bray only once before, on a boozy weekend with Billy. They’d stayed in a fancy inn with a Michelin-starred restaurant and sumptuous bedrooms. Billy had got so drunk during dinner he couldn’t remember what he’d eaten the following day. Something Dee had taken as perfectly acceptable behaviour at the time. It was only later, when her husband had reached a point of being unable to leave the house in the morning without ‘a quick snifter’, that Dee had realised the extent of his problem.
