‘It’s Isobel. She died.’
‘Oh, Nick, I’m so very, very sorry.’ Claire clasped his hand in hers, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Hardly able to believe he hadn’t told her before now. All the things she felt she ought to say wouldn’t come out. ‘When?’
‘A year and a half ago.’
Claire had assumed that Jess and Isobel were simply unable to make the trip to Cornwall and, for some reason, she hadn’t wanted to ask why, perhaps sensing Nick’s reticence to talk about his family. ‘I can’t even begin to contemplate what you’ve been going through.’ She released his hand, allowing him to sip his tea. He looked exhausted, still in yesterday’s clothes.
‘I may as well be honest, Claire.’ He stared at her, as if looking for something of the past, something familiar and safe. ‘The coroner’s findings were inconclusive, though an accident was stated as a possible cause of death.’
Claire nodded, waiting for him to continue.
‘Initially, the police weren’t satisfied, especially as some of the injuries didn’t quite fit the accident theory. She fell down the stairs, hit her head and suffered a massive intracranial haemorrhage. It was the bruise marks on her upper arms that made them suspect me. I was questioned but never charged.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said, knowing Nick would never hurt anyone, let alone his daughter. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You don’t have to say anything. Just believe me.’
‘Of course I believe you, Nick.’
‘My theory is that she ran downstairs to answer the front door, but tripped at the top.’ He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. ‘A delivery driver had put a card through the letterbox. They’d written down the time of the visit, which pretty much tallied with the estimated time of her death. Isobel was alone at the time. While Jess could prove where she was, I couldn’t. It didn’t help that a neighbour made a statement saying that I was home, that he’d heard shouting, although he later retracted it as he was uncertain.’ Nick took a deep breath, drinking more tea.
‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.’
Nick shrugged. ‘Isobel was home alone most afternoons because Jess and I were too damned busy to be there for her after school. I was working all hours at the restaurant, and then I discovered Jess’s affair.’ He dragged his hands down his face, sucking in a deep breath. For the first time, Claire noticed the empty space where a ring used to be. ‘The same neighbour also told the police he’d heard me yelling a few days before Isobel died, that he saw her running out of the house in tears and that I’d chased after her, grabbing her in a threatening way. True, I did chase after her, but I didn’t want to hurt her. She’d fled the house because she heard me yelling at her mother. I’d just found out about the affair. It was her mother she was angry at, not me. Losing Isobel finished Jess and me off.’
‘You should have called me, Nick,’ she said. Her words echoed between them.
‘I’m doing OK. I have the business to focus on and the divorce will be finalised soon. It’s all about piecing back together some kind of life.’
Claire didn’t think he sounded OK at all.
‘I considered calling you for a long time,’ he said. Claire’s hand itched to take hold of his again, but she didn’t. ‘In fact, you were the first person I thought of phoning after it had happened. I knew you’d have listened, let me come and stay, given me space to grieve.’
‘Of course I would, Nick.’ Claire realised how close they were sitting to each other.
‘But you have your own life,’ he went on, looking around the kitchen. ‘And I know it’s up to me to make a new one for myself now. Fill the hole that Isobel left with something else.’
Claire took Nick’s hand again, despite the nagging voice in her head.
‘Or someone else,’ he added, just as Maggie came through the back door.
Chapter Forty-Four
By 9 a.m. everyone except Jason regrouped at the farm after an early search. There was no news to report. Maggie was outside smoking when PC Wyndham telephoned. Shona took the message and hung up, her long fingers still resting on the handset.
‘They’re going to send some officers up here,’ she said quietly, looking worried. ‘And she said something about us maybe having to go to the police station too. I don’t know how I’m going to convince your father this is normal.’
‘Convince me about what?’ Patrick was scowling in the doorway.
‘Dad, it’s Rain. She’s still not been found. The police might need some of us to go down to the station,’ Claire said.
He went to the window and stared out. ‘They want to know which one of us killed her.’
‘No, Pat, it’s not like that,’ Angus said. ‘It’s just routine. Probably for elimination prints or to take statements.’
Claire was grateful her uncle and aunt were there. They’d moved to Devon a few years ago but had always been a big part of their lives as children. She’d spent some of her school holidays helping Jenny with the boarding kennels she owned behind their bungalow in Trevellin, or working the petrol pumps in Angus’s garage if there weren’t many dogs to look after. Sometimes Lenni would come and help her feed the dogs. At the end of a long day, they’d go home with the smell of engine oil in their noses and the sound of barking ringing in their ears.
‘No, it’s not like that at all, Dad,’ she added, staring out of the window with him.
* * *
When Claire arrived at the police station, she was taken to an interview room located down a grey, lino-clad corridor. She was shown into an equally grey and sparsely furnished room where the two officers from the night before were sitting on one side of a small table. They glanced up from the thick file that sat between them, PC Wyndham beckoning for her to sit down. But Claire’s limbs were suddenly heavy and unmovable, her eyes fixed on the stack of papers on the table. The name Eleanor Lucas was printed in an old-fashioned font on a peeling sticky label. Claire swallowed. Her mouth was dry. She looked at the officer, unable to speak.
‘Please, sit down.’
Finally, she managed to pull out the chair and lower herself onto it. ‘That’s my sister’s file,’ she whispered, hardly daring to hope they’d had news after all these years. Seeing the papers, it was as if Lenni herself was on the table.
‘My boss worked on this,’ PC Wyndham explained, patting the files. ‘I was discussing your friend’s daughter with her when I came on shift. I told her where Rain was staying and she remembered the farm and your sister’s case.’
Claire tried to recall the many officers and detectives who were in and out that summer. Their faces had melted into a puddle now, just one formless memory who were called the police, rather than individual names.
‘I don’t understand,’ Claire said.
‘My boss made us aware of some similarities between the cases.’
Claire held her breath, but her lungs gave way and she made a hiccupping sound instead.
‘We wanted to talk to you about your sister, given what’s happened,’ PC Holt said, sipping from a polystyrene cup. They each had one.
‘If you think it will help,’ Claire said, unable to ask outright if they thought there was a link to Rain going missing. ‘Are you reopening the case?’
‘Eleanor went missing from Trevellin Beach aged thirteen,’ PC Wyndham said, her finger lightly tracking details in the papers. Neither officer answered Claire’s question. ‘It says she’d gone off alone to buy an ice cream?’
Claire nodded, feeling the familiar knot of guilt on hearing the words “gone off alone”. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘You and your brother Jason were looking after Eleanor?’