Текст книги "The Betrayal: A gripping novel of psychological suspense"

Автор книги: Laura Elliot

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Chapter 74

Jake

Ali returned to London. Until she boarded the plane with Sara, he feared she would change her mind. Ali’s role in the fantasy series was minor but her agent believed it would create a new sci-fi fanbase. When she told Jake the series was based around a race of superwomen with incredible telepathic abilities he immediately thought of body stockings. Men leering. Ali ordered him to get over himself. Some men would leer at a piano leg, she said, and that was their problem. She said it kindly and nodded, as if she understood when he told her that, as her father, he was programmed to worry about her. It was an incurable condition.

He was alone now but he had no time to be lonely. Nadine hoped to be home for Christmas when all the family would be together again. The attic must be finished by then. Once it was floored and rewired, two skylight windows would be installed in the roof. Light would illuminate the shadows beneath the eaves. The walls also needed insulation and plastering. The settlement from the insurance company for the fire would help but the budget was growing alarmingly. The bank managers Daryl approached with his business plan were not interested. Their attitude, once he mentioned monitors, mixing consoles and multi-track recorders, suggested they were dealing with a regressed teenager.

Undaunted, Jake set up a crowd-funding campaign called Attic Action and invited Shard fans to donate small amounts of money to the establishment of Tõnality Recording Studios. To his amazement there was an immediate response. This was linked to the Shard website. A Facebook page with photographs showed the various stages of progress in the attic. He posted the Before photographs when the crates, boxes and bags still had to be removed and captioned it, How is it possible to lose everything in your life except clutter?

The After photograph was captioned, De-clutter is the new Xanax. Feel much calmer. Finally believe it’s possible to make a fresh start.

The number of Likes and Comments increased, as did the hits on the Shard website. His tweets on Twitter were read and retweeted. He was in the whirl of social media, feeding information on forthcoming gigs, relaying messages to fans, encouraging comments on Collapsing the Stone, releasing sound bites of new songs, retro photographs and posters of the young Shard. He rescued an old electric guitar from one of the crates, restrung it and played it for a YouTube video. This was posted under the caption, Two old friends reunited. Rosanna had bought it for him for his fourteenth birthday. This present had led to the formation of the original Shard and Jake blogged about it being his favourite guitar.

Before leaving for Berlin he took a final look around the attic and nodded, satisfied. An electrician had already inspected the attic and the rewiring would begin as soon as he returned. He drove to Mount Veronica. Nadine was sleepy by the time he left, exhausted from the rigorous therapies she endured every day.

The band were staying in an apartment owned by the promotor. They played aboard a boat on the Spree and in beer halls, nightclubs and at a Christmas market. Jake searched for a flash of blue among the revellers, an upraised arm. He would recognise that slender curve from a forest of heaving limbs. He thought he glimpsed her once but the women in the shimmery blue top had spiky blonde hair and a sinewy physique that was at variance with Karin’s sensuous form.

It was after two in the morning when he went to bed after the last gig. His mobile rang as he was drifting asleep. He banked down his panic when he realised the caller was not phoning from Mount Veronica. He thought of Eleanor. A relapse? Sara, still so tiny? He lived at a constant level of high anxiety.

‘I know my bitch fiancée is with you.’ Liam Brett was loudly aggressive. ‘Tell her to answer her phone so that I can inform her in person that our sham of an engagement is off.’

‘Tell her yourself,’ Jake replied. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Don’t mess with me, Saunders. Put her on the phone.’

‘You heard me. She’s not here.’

‘How’s that then?’ Liam demanded. ‘She’s been to every fucking gig you ever played. Why should this one be any different?’

‘Because you’ve moved to Brisbane.’

‘Brisbane? What the hell – ’

‘Gold Coast… beach wedding. Fresh start. Don’t tell me Karin was lying.’

‘Put her on now and I’ll talk to her about lying.’ The slurred words were followed by a clatter, as if Liam had dropped his phone.

Jake felt an unexpected sympathy for the other man, drunk and at the mercy of his own imagination. They had each experienced that same high octane passion and were now hollowed out. Karin Moylan was like a moth that flew too close to the flame, seeking its heat, not just for her own searing but for those she chose to fly with her.

‘Listen, Liam, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Karin but it’s nothing to do with me. I’m in Germany and it’s two in the morning – ’

‘I know where you are. She’s not the only one who reads your Facebook page. You’ve done everything you can to break us up and you’ve succeeded. You’re welcome to her, you pathetic fuck.’

Jake ended the call and stepped outside to the balcony. The city still rocked, the sky flared ruby-red. No sign of blue anywhere.

Chapter 75

Outside Dublin airport the queue for taxis moved briskly.

‘Mallard Cove?’ The taxi driver sighed heavily when he heard Jake’s address. ‘You could walk there in the time it’ll take me to drive you. Have you any idea how long I’ve been queuing for a decent fare?’

‘I haven’t a clue.’ The man’s obvious displeasure provoked an angry response from Jake. ‘And I’m too tired to work out the maths.’

They remained silent on the short journey, apart from a low expletive from the driver when the taxi juddered over a pothole on Mallard Cove.

‘What happened there?’ His truculence was replaced by curiosity when he saw the blackened walls of the barn.

‘Arson,’ Jake replied. His hands, he realised, were clenched into fists.

He paid the driver and removed his luggage from the boot. At the front door he stopped. Something was wrong. He could not name it or, even, define what he was experiencing but it trembled through him. He seldom used the back entrance since Sea Aster had been made whole again but he quickened his pace and hurried around to the side of the house. His feet crunched on pebbles as he walked towards the parking bay. She had parked her car where she always left it when she came to see him.

He leaned against the wall, his legs weakening, and imagined sliding slowly, spine against stone, to the ground. To coil into a shell of nothingness. He remained upright, breathing deeply as he inserted his key and unlocked the back door. The first thing he saw when he entered the breakfast room was her blue pashmina, neatly folded and draped over the back of a chair. He lifted it to his face. The scent of her perfume still clung to the cashmere. She had made coffee. The cup was cold, scum on the surface. The purple imprint of her lips against the white rim. She had curled on the sofa, as she had done so often in the past, her arms clutching a cushion to her chest or luring him downwards to lie beside her. One of the cushions had been thrown to the ground, the other still bore the indent of her body. Nadine said her comatose state had been like a disjointed dream, like music played off-key, like words that tangled together and made no sense. In her confused recollections she believed her father and Karin had been together in the ward. It was an uncertain memory, one of many that made no sense to her. But, now, it made sense to Jake. That was the only way Karin could have acquired a key, made a copy. How many times had she come here with Eoin? She would have flattered him, stroked his ego… and what else? Jake closed his eyes against the sudden image of them together. But, no, she would have kept him at bay, expressed her reservations about married men. A breed conditioned to lie and cheat.

In his bedroom he straightened the ruffled duvet cover, aligned a pillow that was slightly askew. His legs finally buckled under him and he sank to the bed, unable to move. One of his shirts lay across the bed, the one she had worn on the night she revealed the truth to Nadine. She had left a bottle of perfume on the bedside locker. He opened the top and sniffed, remembering the bed linen he had stripped from his bed, the tantalising scent of her body on the pillow cases.

She had climbed the stairs to what was once Nadine’s apartment. Even though nothing was disturbed in the bedroom he knew she had been there. She had opened empty drawers that were once filled with Nadine’s clothes, trailed her fingers over shelves that had held her hats and shoes, left fingerprints on the dusty dressing table.

His thoughts slowed as he walked across the landing, his heart lurching painfully with each step he took. The sun shone through the narrow landing window, as if the winter solstice had come early to illuminate a new beginning. Dust mites danced in the glare, a translucent swirl that moved with an even more frenetic energy when he coughed, his throat so dry he found it difficult to swallow.

The folding stairs descended from the open maw of the attic. He set his foot on the first step and listened for a sound from beyond the trapdoor. The air seemed thicker, suspended in the viscid fear seeping from him. Only his harsh breathing broke the stillness. The slats were steep and the frame of the folding stairs shook as he climbed. He hesitated when his hand touched the trapdoor. For an instant longer he could believe his imagination was running amuck. He could believe that everything would be exactly the same as he had left it four days previously when he locked the door to Sea Aster and drove away.

The truth forced him forward. He climbed the final steps and entered the attic. When he called her name his voice had a detached fierceness, as if it belonged to someone else. Only echoes answered him. His eyes, drawn towards the wall on his right side, closed instinctively as the shadows separated. They formed a tableau, frozen, delineated, eternal. He fell to his knees. It was no longer possible to pretend. To imagine another scenario, a love story with a different ending, a tangled thread realigned into a perfect skein. He could mark the pathway of their journey towards this moment in all its fervour and its flaws. Unintended circumstances, inevitable consequences.

She could have been sleeping except for the twist of her body, the rigid tendons on her hand, her grip still on the microphone. He pressed his hands over his eyes but sightlessness would allow no mercy. He must bear witness to what lay before him.

His old electric guitar had been pulled from its stand and lay face downwards beside her. He reached out but drew his hand back before he touched the marbled slab of her cheek. He stepped backwards until the rim of the trapdoor edged his foot. He slipped once on the slats and grazed his shin as he climbed down. The pain hardly registered.

A squad of garda cars arrived quickly. Two guards climbed before him into the attic. The younger of the two, obviously new to the job, put his hand over his mouth. The older guard’s voice was clipped with authority when she demanded to know where the fuse box was located. The fuse was removed and the inaudible but deadly hum of live electricity was silenced.

When the investigation was completed and Karin’s body had been removed, he stumbled outside. Night had fallen. The gates slid open without a squeak. He hunkered down beside Cora’s cross. Tomorrow he would lay fresh flowers beside it. Stars glimmered coldly on the water. Karin’s fingernails had been mauve-tipped, a chilling colour that suggested time had passed since her heart became a conduit between two electrical charges. A bruise marbled her forehead, blue and waxen as the feathers of a kingfisher in flight.

Chapter 76

Nadine

Canoeists cut through the Broadmeadow estuary, paddles zipping towards shore. Their brightly coloured safety jackets remind me of exotic birds sighting land. A swan takes to the air in an ungainly rush, wings spread. Suspended against the sky, its body is as sharp as a woodcut. The main bevy cluster close to shore. I’ve also heard them called a lamentation. A lamentation of swans seems appropriate.

Three months have passed since Karin Moylan’s body was discovered in the attic of Sea Aster. I didn’t go to her funeral. Even if I’d been able to walk unaided, it would have been unfitting to bring my hatred to the graveside. Death has not lessened its force or softened her memory. Jake stayed with me in Mount Veronica while the ceremony took place. He looked older, his cheeks caved in, his eyes still reflecting the shock of his discovery and the questioning he underwent from the police about his relationship with ‘the deceased.’

Death due to misadventure was the coroner’s verdict. Faulty wiring. Case closed.

Did Jake suspect what he would find when he returned from Berlin? This question haunts me in the small hours. I want to shake him awake and ask him. Not only did he know the intimacy of her body but, also, the obsessive nature of her personality, her unbounded desire for revenge. Did this understanding make him culpable? Or did free will determine the course of action open to her? Perhaps, someday, we’ll be able to talk about such things… but for now I’m content to hold him when he moans and awakens from his own dreams. I comfort him then, as he comforted me when I was helpless and locked into my own terrors.

Can I forgive her? I hope so. Otherwise, what is the difference between us? If I am to heal fully I must not harbour a festering wound.

Twilight hangs over the estuary. A pewter stillness, the water so smooth it reminds me of ice. Alaska is a dream I lost. I let it go willingly. Daveth still phones every week. He mentions someone occasionally, hesitantly. He will tell me more, I feel, in the months to come. And I’ll be happy for him.

The heron stands motionless at the water’s edge. Nothing disturbs its concentration, neither the traffic pounding across the motorway bridge, nor the shrill voices of the canoeists as they pull their canoes over the pebbled waterline. Is it the same one I drove past on the night I fled from Jake, trying to banish the image of her as I drove recklessly along this pitted road?

I’m stiff when I rise from the jetty. My feet are still weak. I’ll need a walking frame for some time yet. But this evening I ventured out without it. Each week I grow stronger in body. I defy medical predictions, thumb my nose at weighty opinions that decreed my mind would be a broken thing. Hart says all my memories will return if I’m patient and respect the energy of my chakras. He touches the base of my spine and travels upwards, pausing at each chakra until he reaches the crown of my head. Can I feel the energy of his belief, he asks and I nod. Positive energy pulling me away from the negative. I visualise my memories as a patchwork quilt, ragged edges that I must carefully sew back into place.

Sea Aster is for sale. The new owner will be unafraid of ghosts. Where will we live? A mews or a country cottage? A town house or an apartment overlooking the sea? A shipping container? We’ll decide in time. The only decision that matters has already been made.

Jake comes towards me, anxious in case I slip on the uneven surface. He holds me steady when I stumble. I recover my balance and my step is steady as we make our way back to the old house. We close the door behind us. Brian was right. A perfect divorce is an illusion. So, too, is a perfect marriage. It’s love that makes it worth the struggle.

Letter from Laura Elliot

Dear Reader

Thank you so much for reading The Betrayal. I hope you enjoyed the story. Writing The Betrayal was an all-consuming experience. It took longer than I anticipated and, as I worked on the plot, built up my characters, teased out their personalities and issues, it seemed, at times, as if I would never bring all the strands to a conclusion. It’s a work of fiction but some of the locations exist. Like the Broadmeadow Estuary, for instance, although Mallard Cove and Sea Aster are figments of my imagination.

I live close to the Broadmeadow Estuary and love walking along its shoreline. I paced it over many hours as I contemplated the lives and loves of my characters and always came home refreshed, ready to sit down at the computer to begin working again.

I have a passion for writing. This passion overcomes the necessity of working in isolation, of turning my back on a sunny day when I have a deadline to meet, of tearing out the heart of a story when it’s not working and beginning again.

Writing the words ‘The End’ and letting a book go on to its next stage is an exhilarating yet difficult experience. Once that happens the book belongs to the reading public. It can be liked or disliked, praised or criticised, discussed or ignored – that is part of its journey – and when some of that reader reaction comes back to me it is always valued. I know then that someone has read my work and I appreciate that they have taken the time to contact me.

I’d love to hear your opinion of The Betrayal and hope you will read my other books: Fragile Lies, Stolen Child and The Prodigal Sister. You can contact me at the links below and if you’d like to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up here:

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Thank you so much for your support – until next time.

Laura

@elliot_laura

lauraelliotauthor

www.lauraelliotauthor.com

Also by Laura Elliot

Fragile Lies

Stolen Child

The Prodigal Sister

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